#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Ozy Media founder arrested; TSU Comptroller's Report, Death in Custody Report,FL Student Walk Out

Episode Date: February 24, 2023

2.23.2023 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Ozy Media founder arrested; TSU Comptroller's Report, Death in Custody Report,FL Student Walk Out Black media mogul and Founder of Ozy Media Carlos Watson was arrested and charged with fraud. We will break down the federal court documents with Roland Martin about how this could impact other black media companies in the future. A new Tennessee comptroller's report claims Tennessee State University has fallen short regarding management, finances, and communication. We will show you what's in the news and why TSU students are the most impacted by the lack of access to capital. A new report called "A Matter of Life and Death: The Importance of the Death in Custody Reporting Act" was released and showed that the U.S. Government Accountability Office likely undercounted deaths in custody in 2021 by nearly 1,000. We will speak to Interim Senior Program Director at The Leadership Conference Education Fund and a Policy Analyst for Project on Government Oversight to tell us what we can do to hold law enforcement accountable. What is the economic impact of Black entrepreneurs? To answer that question, we will speak with the CEO of the Media to MILLIONS, Media Monetization Mentor, Political Commentator, and Award-Winning Author Dr. Avis Jones-Deweever to give us everything we need to know. The new workplace may feel hostile with an outright attack on diversity and inclusion in corporate America. We will speak with a professional to show how we can have executive presence and confidence when we show up in the workplace. 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. All right, everyone. It is Thursday, February 23rd, 2023. I am Erica Savage, the host of the Reframe Brain Podcast, filling in for Roland Martin. Here's what's coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. Black media mogul founder, Aussie Media, Carlos Watson, was arrested and charged with fraud. We'll break down the federal court documents with Roland and how this could impact other black media companies in the future. A new Tennessee comptroller special report claims that Tennessee State University has fallen short regarding fiscal management, finances, and communication.

We'll show you what's in the news and why TSU students are the most impacted by the lack of access to capital. A new report called A Matter of Life and Death, the Importance of Death in Custody Reporting Act, was released and shows that the U.S. Government Accountability Office likely undercounted the deaths in custody in 2021 by nearly 1,000 people. We'll speak with the Interim Senior Program Director at the Leadership Conference, Education Fund, and political analysts for Project on Government Oversight to tell us what we can do

to hold law enforcement accountable. What is the economic impact of black entrepreneurs? To answer that question, we will speak with the CEO of Media to Millions, political commentator, and business elevation strategist, award-winning author, Dr. Ava Jones-DeWeaver, to give us everything we know. The new workplace may feel hostile

with an outright attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion in America. We'll speak with a professional, Dr. Wendy Wilson, to show us how we can have executive presence and confidence when we show up in the workplace. Y'all already know what time it is. It is time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered streaming live

on the Black Star Network. Let's get it's rolling. Best belief he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks. He's rolling. It's Uncle Roro, y'all. It's rolling, Martin. Rolling with rolling now.

He's broke, he's fresh, he's real, the best you know. He's rolling, Martin. Martin. Martin. Today, a black media mogul was arrested by the FBI in New York on federal fraud charges. the chief executive officer of digital media company Ozzy and online magazine, was accused in federal indictment of engaging in the scheme to defraud Ozzy's investors, inquirers and lenders through material misrepresentations and omissions. Watson allegedly has misled potential investors since 2018 about how profitable the company was, business projections, and the identities of its investors. If convicted, Watson faces a mandatory minimum sentence of two years imprisonment

and a maximum sentence of 37 years. Here to discuss this case, we have none other than Roland Martin, award-winning journalist, host, and owner of Roland Martin Unfiltered. Joining us now, Roland, breaking news. Yeah, so here's the deal. I'm here in Huntsville, Alabama. I'm about to speak to the AKAs at the regional conference here. This story broke this morning, probably about 9.30, when the story went out in the Wall Street Journal. Actually, it broke the story. And I can tell you right now, it is unbelievable. I'm reading the 42-page indictment, and it is shocking.

It is stunning. It details how they actually falsified documents, forged signatures, impersonated executives, how they lied about their revenue, lied about anticipated revenue, lied about their expenses. They were losing lots of money. And the fraud goes on year after year. Literally, I am only 21 pages into this indictment. And it shows how they were out there trying to get investments, promising them various stock that had not even been approved by the board of directors. In one case, they closed the deal. They fraudulently got financing from a Middle Eastern investor. And in April of 2020, the board did not approve the issuing of those new shares until May 2021.

Now, you might remember when the New York Times, Ben Smith, broke this story. He interviewed me for the story. Carlos came out and said that it was his COO. Oh, well, he was under lots of stress and nervous breakdown. But the feds actually have text messages. So what happened was the COO was on a phone call and he was impersonating a YouTube executive when they were trying to get money from Goldman Sachs, a place that Carlos Watson used to work at. And so, so Carlos came out and said, well, this guy had a nervous breakdown. I'm not sure what happened, but the feds are saying while the call was taking place,

Carlos was texting the man what to say on the call. Now, here's the other deal. Here's what is crazy. So the SEC is also filing a $50 million civil suit against Watson and Ozzie. Now you have this federal issue. Yet just two weeks ago, Carlos Watson was at IPG's media upfronts. My people were there, said he was walking around like a proud peacock taking photos. He presented on the stage just two weeks ago. And so there is a quote here. If you want to understand how crazy, this is after this story ran. This is a quote from Kathy Boyle, who is an executive

with Magna. This is a major ad agency. IPG is under them. She literally said that they had lots of things to pitch. First of all, I got to read it. Let me just find it. First of all, let me read this first. This is what the U.S. attorney, he's African-American. His name is Breon Peace. This is what he said in the press release. As alleged, Carlos Watson is a con man whose business strategy was based on outright deceit and fraud. He ran Ozzie as a criminal organization rather than as a reputable media company. Michael Driscoll, the assistant director in charge of the FBI New York's field office,

said Watson, quote, repeatedly attempted to entice both investors and lenders through a series of deliberate deceptions and fabrications. Now, that was what they released today. Now, here's what's crazy. Kathy Doyle is the executive vice president of local investment at Magna. This is what she said two weeks ago about Ozzy presenting at IPG's Upfront. Quote, they have a lot to pitch. They have some bumps in the road. It's about giving people chances. Carlos has been really dedicated to getting it right. Wow. Wow. Now, here's the deal.

Okay? I met with IPG and Magda in November. Haven't heard back from them. So here we have a black-owned company, profitable, real revenue, no fraudulent numbers, yet they are propping this guy up. I'm told other ad

agencies were saying, let's do business with this guy. Other companies were still doing deals. The man was under federal investigation and they're still doing business? Here's what this is all about, okay? Harvard educated, Stanford educated, Carlos Watson was the safe black guy. He was the guy that white folks were comfortable with.

And so, no, no, Roland Martin, he's dangerous. But we really like Carlos. He was running a fraud. Anybody, we're going to upload this to the BlackstarNetwork.com website, also RolandMartinFootball.com. If y'all read this 42-page indictment, it is shocking. It is stunning. They were frauds from top to bottom. And here's how we knew they were frauds.

They were getting, when he launched his YouTube show, they were getting like a million views. But 15 to 20 comments. So I called Kenan. I said, Kenan, do you know what's going on here? There's no way you can do a million views and get 15, 20 comments. Right.

No, you get thousands of comments. Right. So they were scraping. Right. So the thing here is, to everybody who's watching and paying attention, understand how white ad agencies and these white companies

want to pick and choose what black folks to support. But what they're breaking down here, this was a fraud over a period of years from almost from the inception of when they started up until he was arrested today in Brooklyn. Wow. Roland, breaking news. Thank you for ensuring that our audience was apprised of this. The Roland Martin unfiltered audience, highly intelligent. As Roland said, the document will be uploaded to BlackstarNetwork.com so you can feel welcome to go and read at your

leisure. Thank you so much, Roland, for being on. All right, we'll break it down further when I'm back on the air tomorrow from Los Angeles. Absolutely. Be well in Huntsville. Appreciate it. All right, so we're going to go to break, pay some bills, and we'll be right back with our panel and to discuss some more stay close

hatred on the streets a horrific scene white nationalists rally that descended into deadly violence white people are losing their damn minds. There's an angry pro-Trump mob storm to the U.S. Capitol. We're about to see the rise of what I call white minority resistance. We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denial. This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson at Emory University calls white rage as a backlash. This is the rise of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America,

there's going to be more of this. There's all the Proud Boys. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people. The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. This is white fear. Pull up a chair, take your seat. The Black Tape with me, Dr. Greg Carr, here on the Black Star Network. Every week, we'll take a deeper dive into the world we're living in.

Join the conversation only on the Black Star Network app. And we're going to go ahead and bring in our panel for comments. Starting in the south is going to be Dr. Greg Carr, Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University. We then have Pastor Shannon Wright, CEO of Urban Engagement, Dr. Larry Walker. And then we also have... All right. Thank you so much.

We kind of had a bit of a guest shift there. So I want to go ahead and bring in the panel and talk very briefly about what Roland shared with us, breaking news out of Aussie media. I can remember some of the programming being on PBS. We're going to kick it off and start with you, Dr. Carr. What is your reaction to what we just heard, specifically around these indictments, the arrests, the charges, and that essentially the FBI has been looking at Mr. Watson for

several years now? Yeah, well, how quickly the mighty have fallen is good to see you, Erica. You're good in that chair. We wrote a control center there. But, yeah, we all saw Carlos Watson kind of emerge like a comet streaking across the sky. I remember one Sunday morning getting my New York Times off the stoop here and opening it, and there was a full-color magazine insert with Carlos Watson interviewing everyone. I think maybe Oprah. I mean, so many different people, and they were

calling him the next big thing. Television plans and media plans. Every copy of the Sunday New York Times had this magazine. It was a thick magazine announcing Ozzie. And thereafter, the thing began to implode. So I think Rowland, of course, has always nailed it on this. I mean, the guy was the safe Negro. And now that it has been determined that he's not that safe Negro, it looks like they're getting ready to run from him. And his COO, Rao, pled guilty already

to fraud. So God only knows they got him chapped in verse now because the man is already flipped. So I guess we'll see what happens. Absolutely, Dr. Carr. And, you know, to his point, Dr. Walker, we have definitely seen this really mediocre, like this real rise in Carlos's presence across mainstream media, as I mentioned, PBS. What are you seeing the impact of this as it relates to black media and black media's presence, trust and integrity? Well, I think this is a cautionary tale. Dr. Carr highlighted in terms of his rise and clearly his downfall. It also is clearly he was running a pyramid scheme. I think that's the best way to describe what's happened here with this indictment and obviously the federal government's involvement. But I think that,

obviously, Roland has talked about his work in Black media and running his own company. And I'm hoping that those investors that invested in his company, because once again, he was more safe or appealing to certain demographics, realize that Roman has a product here that is not only making money, but it's giving the opportunity to discuss really important issues that impact a number of Americans. But one of the problems we deal with when Black folks do something is that we're held to a different standard. So you see, obviously, him being

indicted. But also, I'm hoping that this doesn't have a negative impact on other Black media. They're trying to do the right thing in terms of, like I said, bring positive and important topics to the Black community. And obviously, Ronis talked a lot about the small numbers in terms of money that is dedicated to black media. So while this is a cautionary tale, I hope it doesn't signify that, you know, those who find mainstream brothers and sisters, they would prefer to give those individuals money. I hope it signifies that they're realizing that you have to put your money where the numbers actually add up. Oh, gosh, that's such an important point to really underscore that you put your money not only where the dollar's at, but where their eyes are at.

You know, when we're thinking about Roland Martin Unfiltered, this is a daily digital platform. And even going back and having a cursory look at the people, there is engaging commentary that's happening in the comments. To our next panelist, what are your thoughts around what we've been presented? You know, Dr. Walker and Dr. Carr have talked about this being a cautionary tale, but also saying that it is important to look to see where viewers are and then invest likewise. What say you? Yes. Good afternoon. I'm Dr. Hill, Safisha Hill. I think that first of all, it's a sad reality when we get into these positions

and we leave our blackness on the doorstep. We forget that we are held at a different standard to deceive people and think that we can't get caught. We need to understand that in history, whenever we do something, we always get caught. So we need to stop and just do what's right. And if we really embrace who we are, it will have a great impact because then it makes it bad for other people who are trying to come up. When they look at this one person who did this mess and got caught thinking that they would not and again deceiving the general public uh these other public relations folks and these media folks will begin or hopefully they will begin to say okay let's look at black media who's established who's making

positive contributions and who's doing something positive right and again right here roland martin has been doing it. Absolutely. Oh, I don't know why they're afraid. I guess again, you know, they're just afraid of the truth. Well, listen, truth is definitely something that is earned and built, and Roland Martin and Filter definitely does that. He has the numbers

to prove it. And when you see the panelists, the quality of experts that he has on, that also says a lot as well. Thank you for sharing you all's thoughts on this show. We're going to toss it to a break, pay some more bills, and we will be right back. Make sure you lock in to the Black

Star Network, Roland Martin and Filtered. Most people think that these television shows that tell stories about who we are as black men and then they paint these monolithic portraits of us. They think that they're being painted by white people. And I got to tell you, there are a whole bunch of black folk that are the creators, the head writers, the directors of all of these shows

and that are still painting us as monoliths. The people don't really want to have this conversation. No, they don't. Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr. An hour of living history with Dr. Richard Mariba Kelsey, thinker, builder, author, and one of the most important and impactful elders in the African-American community. He reflects on his full and rich life

and shares his incomparable wisdom about our past, present, and future. African genius is saying that my uncle was a genius, my brother was a genius, my neighbor was a genius. I think we ought to drill that in ourselves and move ahead rather than believing that I got it. That's next on The Black Table, here on the Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Gavin Houston.

Hey, what's up, y'all? It's your boy, Jacob Lattimore, and you're now watching Roland Martin right now. Eee! Tennessee's Comptroller Report claims the HBCU, Tennessee State University, has repeatedly fallen short regarding management, finances, and communication.

The 86-page report details some financial reporting irregularities. Comptroller Jason Mumpower's office focused on the campus housing crisis that started in 2017. It was only exacerbated in 2022 when TSU quadrupled the scholarship budget from $6.4 million to $28.3 million, with nowhere near the dorm space they needed for that influx of students. We're going to have a representative from TSU coming in to respond to us, but we want to go ahead and start talking to our panel right now. Now, I want to start again with Dr. Carr. You are an alumnus of Tennessee State, and one of the things that I found really interesting in reading this report was it did seem like the impetus for, well, that was formed around this special report was published is there were communication issues,

specifically parents and students with regard to scholarship, with regard to housing status. Those were some interesting things. And then there was just a lack of transparency. Before we get into some of the policies and some of the recommendations that came from the comptroller's office, that came from also TSAC, can you talk a little bit about what on the face of this report made you, what on the face of this report was alarming to you? And then do you believe that this was a politically motivated audit? Power is a Trump adjacent Klansman. Remember last spring, this is the same Tennessee Trump devilish devilment controller that tried

to take over Mason, Tennessee. Remember the story we talked about around this time last year? Jason Trumpower is the latest in a long line of clan adjacent white nationalists in Tennessee who have been trying to destroy Tennessee state for many years. This is a report that is absolutely a political hit. I was a student body president my senior year at Tennessee state. We took buses of students to Tennessee to protest against the appointment of Tom Garland to lead the Tennessee Board of Regents at the time. Tennessee State was under the Board of Regents at the time. Tennessee State got its own board of directors fairly recently. So if they went back under the board, that would be resuming

business as usual. The Board of Regents has been a Klan-adjacent group that has attempted to dismantle Tennessee State ever since integration was put in place. And the Guy versus Alexander case filed beginning in the late 1960s in the stipulation of settlement that was in place in the 1980s when I went there. We stand against them fully. They are white nationalists. We must break their backs. They are angry at Tennessee State for the same reason that all of the white nationalists in the entire country, all of whose backs must be broken, are angry at historically black colleges and universities as our children pour into them in unprecedented numbers. Tennessee State is being held hostage by a white nationalist supermajority in the Tennessee State legislature,

a white nationalist governor, and a group that is determined to try to break the will of Tennessee State. It's President Glenda Baskin-Gulver. There is nothing in that report that talks about embezzlement or some form of mismanagement. Lack of communications means you uppity Negroes are trying to let all these students in. And when they're determined not to give you the money to build new dorms, they had to threaten going to court to get a half of what Tennessee State has been owed in terms of hundreds of millions of dollars. And that money has now been designated to help construct new dorms. But the legislature is still trying to tell them to do it with the money. Don't get me started on these Klan-adjacent bastards who are attacking Tennessee state the same way the Mississippi legislature has attacked Jackson State,

the same way the Florida legislature has tried to attack Florida A&M, the same way that North Carolina A&T has been punished because they let too many out-of-state students in. This is straight white nationalism. And damn it, if we don't fight these crackers tooth and nail, if we don't fight them tooth and nail, we deserve what we get. Jason Trump, Jason Mumpower is a Klan adjacent racist. Let's dance, bastard. Listen, you heard it here straight out of Dr. Carr, an alumnus of Tennessee State University. And on that note, we're going to bring in Danny Glover. He is the public engagement manager at Apex Clean Energy.

He's joining us now to discuss this report. He's also a Tennessee State alum who served as the 70th SGA president. Thank you so much, Mr. Glover, for calling, for joining us today. You've heard Dr. Greg Carr, who is a proud alumnus, discuss his disdain specifically for the special reports out of the comptroller's office. I'll give you a moment before I get into some questions around what is your response to this report that has been published and has gone through the Board of Regents and has been essentially validated? Yeah, well, firstly, thank you to the show and everybody for having us on to be able to broadcast this message to the American public. But my response to the comptroller's report,

I thought it was extremely disrespectful. I thought it was condescending. And I thought it was a wagging your finger moment in terms of you black people don't know how to handle your finances. And this is evident. And he had the crack of handling black entities within the state like this. Brother Carr spoke on Mason, Tennessee, which is a project that I organized on once Jason's mom power started getting his teeth in on what was happening there. It seems as though any time a black entity or a town or city in the States is slated to have, you know, historic economic prosperity via, you know, large sums of money coming into it that wouldn't historically have been there, Jason Mom Power seems to be stepping in to make sure he tries to thwart

that progress as much as possible. So we've been vigilant with this situation. We've been proactive ever since we heard the initial findings. And we're going to fight this as we fought it in the late 70s. It's in our big blue blood to push back against the Tennessee legislature. And we're going to do it this time as we did in the late 70s, early 80s. All right. Thank you for that, Mr. Glover. And, you know, and to your point, when I was reading through the report, some of the things that I found interesting that you all refuted were around some of the very things that you mentioned, which is around financial mismanagement. And so I found it very interesting that specifically was lied out that

you all responded to say in quote, a hundred plus year old HBCU that has been historically underfunded that you all have not. And I want to quote this. TSU has never defaulted on any debt obligations, never been late on a debt payment, never had to have any state appropriations intercepted to have to pay for debt. And you all have had a healthy balance sheet and a strong reserve and endowment for $100 million. So this conversation that was having, and Mr. Glover said facts for the audience if you didn't hear that. So how does then this whole concept of you all not being fiscally responsible and mismanagement funds, how does that then tread with receipts that you all have to exactly what I read.

It doesn't tread well with it. And he was using just a typical trope when it comes to, again, black organizations of black schools is typically or the stereotype that most of our organizations have is we can't handle our finances. There always has to be some white overseer making sure that, you know, we're spending the money in the correct manner. Black politicians and mayors' experiences, black governors, the few we've had have experiences, and this is the exact same trope we're seeing with this. And you're absolutely right about that. There was no financial mismanagement, no misappropriations. Dr. Glover was not stealing money to buy a brand new Rolls Royce.

It was nothing of that sort. But the way that report made it seem like it was just so much financial malfeasance happening that, you know, it raised, it was to the point where he had to raise his red flag. But I don't think our financial record matched the level of detail that, in which he reported on and is putting us on the table for. Right. And before we head to a break, just want to say that there were 12 policy recommendations, two of them specifically that said that the Tennessee Board of Regents be activated in that TSU and act as TSU management, that also essentially all operations be submitted to the Tennessee Board of Regents. How can the viewing audience, with the information that we've been providing,

how can they be active in ensuring that these set of policy recommendations, and I would encourage anybody to read the report to look at all 12 of them, how can they be proactive in ensuring that this hostile takeover doesn't happen? Yeah, those folks can be proactive via work with the Equity Alliance, which is Tennessee's premier organization that's been a watchdog down in Nashville at the state legislature. We have a contact your rep tool, or they have a I'm a former employee, so I got to separate the lines a little bit, but they have a contact your rep tool that's available to anybody across the nation to send direct emails to if they wanted to make phone calls, they can make those. And once I hop off here today, I'll make sure I tweet it. So if

you can follow me at Danny D Glover, you know, I'll tweet that link. But I want to say when we started raising this flag, you know, weeks ago, you know, we saw, you know, folks step in to try to, you know, throw out to thwart our progress and to say that this is much ado about nothing. There is no takeover. There's this and that. And now we're seeing exactly what's happening. So I want folks to be very careful who they receive messages from because this whole movement could have been quelled had our alumni association and base listened to the sage leadership of some of our folks. Love that. Danny D. Glover on Twitter. Follow him, the Equity Alliance.

Thank you so much, Mr. Glover, for joining us. We appreciate you. And we'll definitely stay connected with this story. This is Roland Martin Unfiltered. We'll be right back after this break. You're tuned in to the Black Star Network. When you talk about blackness and what happens in black culture. We're about covering these things that matter to us, speaking to our issues and concerns. This is a genuine people powered movement. A lot of stuff that we're not getting. You get it and you spread the word.

We wish to plead our own cause to long have others spoken for us. We cannot tell our own story if we can't pay for it. This is about covering us. Invest in black-owned media. Your dollars matter. We don't have to keep asking them to cover our stuff. So please support us in what we do, folks. We want to hit 2,000 people, $50 this month,

raise $100,000. We're behind $100,000, so we want to hit that. Your money makes this possible. Checks and money orders go to P.O. Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. The Cash App is Dollar Sign RM Unfiltered. PayPal is R. Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com.

On a next A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie, a relationship that we have to have. We're often afraid of it and don't like to talk about it. That's right. We're talking about our relationship with money. And here's the thing. Our relationship with money oftentimes determines whether we have it or not. The truth is you cannot change what you will not acknowledge. Balancing your relationship with your pocketbook.

That's next on A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie, here at Black Star Network. We're all impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not. From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of our lives. And we're going to talk about it every day right here on The Culture with me, Faraji Muhammad, only on the Black Star Network. Hi, my name is Latoya Luckett. Yo, it's your man Deon Cole from Black-ish and you're watching... Roland Martin, Unfiltered. Stay woke.

At least once a week, we hear about people dying in police custody. These aren't any statistics on how many people die in custody yearly. A new report called A Matter of Life and Death, the importance of the Death in Custody Reporting Act was released. It analyzes past efforts to implement the Death in Custody Reporting Act and how essential requirements have changed with each reauthorization. Joining me now to talk about those studies is Mr. Janowski. We appreciate you coming in. David Janowski from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from the Leadership Conference,

a policy analyst on the project on government oversight from Berkeley, California. Thank you so much for coming on and connecting with us today. I found this report to be very interesting and quite sobering. On Roland Martin Unfiltered, we daily discuss different people, unfortunately, who die at the hands of law enforcement. And so I wanted for you to share with the audience, how long has the DCRA been in existence and the data collection space? I'll take the first stab at it if that's all right. And then David, just so thank you so much for having us on the show. It's such a pleasure to be here. I frequently check in at Roland Martin Unfiltered to see what Roland's saying about the topics of the day, and I'm really grateful to be here with you today.

So the Death in Custody Reporting Act, or DICRA is kind of the acronym for it that you mentioned, was passed into law in 2014. And so it's been on the books, a law in place, for eight years. And today it is still not fully implemented. And so that's why we wrote the report. That's why the Leadership Conference, which is the org I work for, and the Project on Government Oversight partnered together to really highlight how problematic this issue is. We don't even have the data to talk about everyone who's dying in custody right now. Yeah, I found that to be very sad and just mind-blowing that this data has been collected over a period of nine to ten years. And Bree, for us to kind of do further into that, I also found interesting when looking at the reporting that you all published,

that there was a compliance piece that you all placed in there that I was not aware about. And that compliance piece would essentially reduce funding by 10 percent for those agencies that did not comply with the DCRA if enacted. And that was the Edward Bynum Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program. I don't know if you or David would want to share with the audience what that is and how much money we're talking about. We talk about a 10% reduction. We're not talking about $200 and a mere $20 that they would be losing. So either one of you, Bree or David, would you like to share a

little bit more around specifically what that award program is and how much money they bring in annually? Sure. So the Burn JAG program is one of the largest federal grant programs that goes from the federal government to state and local law enforcement. We're talking, I don't have the exact number in front of me, but in the neighborhood of $100 million a year. programs that goes from the federal government to state and local law enforcement. We're talking, I don't have the exact number in front of me, but in the neighborhood of $100 million a year. So when that gets split out between 50 states and additional territories, you know, this is a non-negligible amount of money that, you know, we think if it's withheld from states, if they lose that 10 percent, that could really spur them to comply more fully with this law. Yeah, and I think I was reading you all's report and we're reading when I was further researching to it.

I think like last year they got seven point six billion dollars, which is not as you were talking about. One hundred billion is not a small amount to gnaw on, but definitely seven point billion is not either. I want to bring in my panel for questions. And so we'll start with Dr. Hill. Dr. Hill, what are your questions that you have for David and Brie? My first question is, why do you think these agencies are not reporting these numbers correctly? Yeah, I mean, I think we would probably come to similar conclusions about that. I think that the criminal legal system benefits mightily from being non-transparent about what's going on. There's also, I think there's something specific to the criminal legal system sector that has resulted in just an allowance of not providing information that like every other sector has to

provide. I was having a conversation, you know, Dick has been on our minds because we've been working on this report and I started, you know, I've just been talking to everyone about it. And I was talking to a friend of mine who's an accountant. He said, what do you mean, what do you mean jails and prisons don't report who died in their custody? It's a number. It's a fact of a matter. It's a one or a zero, right? Someone's alive or they're not, and that's a count.

What do you mean they don't have that? And so I think, you know, your question, I assume, is getting at, you know, how are people benefiting from this information not being available to the public, not being available to decision makers. We know that effective policy advocacy requires data. A lot of times when people bring their lived experience and they don't have data to back it up, decision makers will dismiss them out of hand at every level of government, local, state, or federal. And so I do think not providing this information gives the Justice Department and the rest of the criminal legal system a lot of

cover that is bad for the American public. Yeah. And before we go to Dr. Walker next, just want to say that you also noted in your reporting, Bree and David, that the requirements for the Department of Justice to collect this data and for also them to provide strategies to reduce harm. And we're talking about the numbers that you all share, 19,450 law enforcement agencies, 600, over 600 medical examiners and coroner's office. And then what we're talking about at a local level, 2,800 local adult jails and jurisdictions

over the United States and territories. So there is another component for them to cooperate in order for this framework to work. That's exactly right. I think, you know, we talk about the count and the count is a critical first step, but the law is very clear that the purpose behind this data collection effort is to study how to reduce deaths in custody. And I think, you know, lots of these deaths are preventable and should be prevented, but they're not going to be prevented until we take this first step of counting them. Absolutely. Dr. Walker, your question for Bree and David. Yeah, so thank you for this important study.

And I make the argument this is less about policy and more how people value individuals' humanity, particularly Black and brown communities. I wanted to say that first. Secondly, I wanted to just find out in terms of various constituencies, particularly the CBC Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in terms of if you reached out to them or gotten a response from anyone related to those two entities in terms of what you found in this study. So I would say I'm going to jump in. Sorry, David, I can't see you right now, so it's hard for me to figure out who's going to go. But we are – so the report was just made, like, live and was launched yesterday. We're hoping to do some briefings with decision makers on the Hill.

This report was really geared – it is for public education, but we're really trying to get it in the hands of decision makers and also advocates, because the more people know about the failure of the federal government to collect this information, I think the more effective the advocacy can be. So certainly meeting with the CBC is on our list, and I think it could be really powerful and really helpful to do that. Absolutely. Bree and David, thank you so much for your time and for sharing this information. It definitely will be published on Black Star Network. And we're going to go to a break. We'll be right back with more on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Next on Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach. Listen to this. Women of color are starting 90% of the businesses in this country.

That's the good news. The bad news? As a rule, we're not making nearly as much as everyone else. But joining us on the next Get Wealthy episode is Betty Hines. She's a business strategist and she's showing women how to elevate other women. I don't like to say this openly, but we're getting better at it.

Women struggle with collaborating with each other. And for that reason, one of the things that I demonstrate in the sessions that I have is that you can go further together if you collaborate. That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Black Star Network. Most people think that these television shows that tell stories about who we are as black men, and then they paint these monolithic portraits of us.

They think that they're being painted by white people. And I got to tell you, there are a whole bunch of black folk that are the creators, the head writers, the directors of all of these shows and that are still painting us as monoliths. The people don't really wanna have this conversation. No they don't. This is Deala Riddle. What's up y'all, I'm Will Packer.

I'm Chrisette Michelle. Hi, I'm Chaley Rose and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming on the Black Star Network app. Hundreds of Florida students across the state walked out today in protest against Governor Ron DeSantis and his policies concerning higher education. Students walked out of their classrooms at the University of South Florida, the University of Florida, and Florida State University. Some high school students also joined in the statewide walkout. DeSantis recently announced plans to ban colleges and universities from having diversity Defenders, and from Florida A&M University,

Devon Filtrad, the co-founder of Youth Never Let Up Coalition. Thank you both for joining us here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. So if you can, talk to us a little bit about what went into and how were you all able to spread the word that this was an exercise that you all not only were going to participate in, but that you opened it up to all universities across Florida? Yes. Thank you so much for having us today. We had some of our sponsors and co-sponsors that we were partner with for Stand for Freedom also helped us plan these walkouts today. So we don't want to say that it was just us. And we, through with them, were able to partner and make sure that the walkouts throughout the state was something that

was happening. The tool, the thing that we said today was you can't ban us and we're not going to allow American history, which is a part of African-American history, to be silent. Absolutely. And so, I mean, you are in a hotbed state. Plenty of people come to party to kick it in Florida, thinking about Miami, thinking about the Keys, those areas. But there's a real, real battle that's happening and is hitting right at home with you all. And we've been covering what's been happening in Florida, specifically around the academia circle here in length on Roland Martin and Filter. So to hear about transgender bans, to hear about the extraction of AP African-American studies. What kind of conversations are you all having as students who are actually bearing the brunt

of these decisions that are being made by the executive of your state? Well, the students across the state, not just at Florida State or FAMU or FIU or what have you. Students across the state are organizing and discussing how we can make an impact towards making a difference, not just for ourselves, mainly for the youth that come after us, because we'll be here, we'll get our degrees, hopefully within, you know, four years. But then we're going to go on to the next stage in life, which may be, you know, grad school or law school or what have you across the nation, across the world. But at the end of the day, there's still going to be politics and racism persisting in Florida.

So we're trying to make sure that we pass the baton so our future youth that will be in our shoes will have the opportunity to have the opportunity we have now, but also make sure that they don't have to keep fighting the same fight because hopefully we would already, you know, want it by then. And to echo Devin, you know, this governor is going to try to be the next president of the United States of America. He is a fascist governor. He doesn't want his children and other white kids to learn about African-American history. I said this today and I say this, everybody is somebody. I think, you know, that comes from Reverend Jesse Jackson. And we have to really stand in there. No matter what color skin you are, I think we have

to remember what Dr. King's dream was and that we wouldn't judge folks by the color of their skin, but their integrity that they hold with inside. And when we live with a world and in a state that should be in a country that should be free opportunity for all, then why aren't we doing those things, right? And so, yeah, it's crazy. But we're here to echo what Devin said. I want to see my grandkids and great-grands be able to live in Florida or wherever I decide to live and not have to worry about what oppression really is. There's so many issues.

I don't think we have enough time to talk about them today, but keep us in your prayers and support in Florida, because we're not going to stop until the work gets completed. Roland Martin Unfiltered, they are doing an abundance of things. Dr. Greg Carr, you are a professor. This is the demographic that you work with. Your questions that you have for Devon and Malik. Thank you, Erica, and thank you, brothers. Devon and Malik, and FAMU, I'm glad to see FAM at the table. Your former president, the late Fred Humphries, was

my president at Tennessee State for two years. Then he went home to FAM, his alma mater. So we know all about punching white supremacists in the mouth and erasing all of their damn dentures, intellectually, that is. So my question is, how can we join the fight, brother? I did, brothers, I did go on to the Stand for Freedom QRC code. I signed the pledge. Is that still something that you want people to do

as we defeat DeSantis and his white nationalists and his racists and fascists down there in Florida? Is that something we can do directly to help? And then in what other ways can we help you? Yeah, something that was important for us as we continue in this journey. I think a lot of us are educated about what's going on, not just in Florida, but around the states. And so I would charge you and make a hard ask to do some teach-ins in your community. I'm pretty sure you're doing this in your classrooms, but we need more folks to do teach-ins. Today we talked about the 10-point program from the Black Panther Party, because I don't know if you know here, but he's been in our books.

So the opportunity to read a book and learn that history has been wiped away. And so now's the time that we actually talk about educating each other politically, mentally, and spiritually, all those things that we have to do them among ourselves. Wow. That's such a great question and a really good set of actions for everybody that's listening. Dr. Hill, your question for Devon and Malik. Yes. First of all, thank you. I also teach, and I'm in Texas. So, you question for Devon and Malik. Yes, first of all, thank you. I also teach, and I'm in Texas, so you know, in Texas they try to follow what everybody else does, so we're fighting the banned books and the issue with critical race theory, and

the governor just issued a letter saying that we can't use diversity in hiring practices. Thank you for being the generation of don't start, no, won't be none. My question to you is, have you reached out to students across other states to join in this battle? Because surely there are some other states that are going to be facing the same things. Texas is one of those.

And please let me know what I can do to assist you in that. And so actually, Dream Defenders, we're actually in a campaign of going national. And so one of the campaigns that we're also working on with some other college campuses and organizations like NAACP, Youth and College Division, CRL, and some of the, that's just a name drop, a couple of them. But we're also working on a student loan application process because we also believe that students should be able to go to campus or go to college for free. One of the first governors and presidents that we saw actually start taking some away of these rights that are given to us students was Ronald Reagan. And so I think we got to go back to also

the foundational issues that we're facing here. And that is just the beginning. I mean, right. And then that's led us to 2020 and 23. But yeah, we're starting to work on some campuses. We're actually been canvassing for the last two weeks on HU, which is Howard. And we're reaching out to our partners throughout the state of America, United States of America, excuse me. Because yeah, we know it's not just us in Florida. I'm so proud to hear that, you know, you're one of those professors that are stepping out because it's Abbott and DeSantis trying to be the next president. So thank you for that. And yes, we actually have some toolkits that I would love to share with you all after the call and be able to do those teachings and reach out with us and let's make a change really for our communities. Absolutely. And our third professor

on panel, we have about a minute and a half. Dr. Walker, your questions for Devon and Malik. Yeah. So gentlemen, congratulations on your advocacy. I can add that I'm right here with you. I'm a professor here in the state. So I understand and very familiar with the student walkout today and support you 110%. The thing I want to talk about is, can you familiar with the student walkout today and support you 110%. The thing I want to talk about is can you share with the audience ways in which people can fund some of the initiatives you talked about and some of the future initiatives? What's the best way for people to support your initiatives financially? I'll actually let Malik answer that one. I want to make sure that he has that amplified for not just Dream Defenders, but other coalitions and groups in the state.

So I'll let him answer. Yeah, you can go to dreamdefenders.org, and we have a donate page. We need all the support and help we can get. We've actually just finished our 10-year anniversary last year, which we started in 2012 after the killing of Trayvon Martin. And to stand your ground law, now and come in 2023, we're dealing with a permanent carry deal that he's trying to pass. So we need all the help we can. And I believe Devin can give you some information about his organization. Stand for Freedom, you can go to their website as well and help donate there. But yeah, we definitely need all the help we can get with our real grassroots doing the work and I'll pass it to Devin.

Yes, I know we're short on time, so I'll make it quick on what I have to say. I am the co-founder of Youth Never Let Up Coalition. You see Emmett Till on our shirt, or excuse me, my shirt. We work with the family of Emmett Till, the White House, we're international. We do work in Africa as well.

So we're only less than a year old. And I encourage everyone to, if they can't work with Dream Defenders, if they can't work with Youth Never Let Up Coalition, make your own. That's what we did. That's what Dream Defenders did. So if you don't have the individuals or groups or entities in your area to help make change, make the change yourself. And that's specifically for the youth because, you know, sometimes we don't have the answers, but we can create the answers ourselves. So I would say if you don't have the ability to join YNLU or Dream Defenders or, you know, other organizations, make your own and, you know,

make a change yourself because we need everybody we can get. Yeah, because we definitely want to be part of the good trouble, like John Lewis stated. And you all are. And we want to say thank you so much. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your energy. Again, when people say our youth aren't doing anything, they're doing plenty. They are organized and they are ready to go. Thank you so much for joining us, Devin and Malik.

You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. We'll be right back. Folks, Black Star Network is here. Hold no punches. I'm real revolutionary right now. back. 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're all impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not.

From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of our lives. And we're going to talk about it every day right here on The Culture with me, Faraji Muhammad, only on the Black Star Network. I'm Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, and my new show, Get Wealthy, focuses on the things that your financial advisor and bank isn't telling you, but you absolutely need to know. So watch Get Wealthy on the Black Star Network. Hi, my name is LaToya Luckett.

Yo, it's your man Deon Cole from Black-ish and you're watching... Roland Martin, unfiltered. Stay woke. Breaking news. Vice President Kamala Harris is not invisible, and she is booked and busy. advisor for public engagement, Keisha Lance Bottoms, hosted student journalists representing 47 historically black colleges and universities nationwide to the White House for a press briefing. The students asked Vice President Harris

and Bottoms about their issues in their respective communities. As we enter midway into the presidential election season, the VP expert, an encyclopedia of Vice President Harris and the host of the Recy Colbert Show that is on Sirius XM, Urban View Channel 126

every Saturday at 3 o'clock p.m. Eastern Standard Time joins us to share previous and upcoming VEEP events for voters to bookmark as the media continues to claim a lack of visibility of Harris. Thank you so much for joining us, VIP panelists. Risi Hub Colbert. Thank you, Erica. You're doing a fabulous job hosting. Oh, thank you, sis. I certainly appreciate you. So I know that you already had something planned, but I really appreciated you coming on today because I really wanted to address this continued reporting about absence of VP Harris and seeing,

you know, a cursory look at the White House, especially her readouts, will share with people that she's having and attending and very engaged in events every month throughout the year. I want to just talk about, and then we're going to talk about some other things, that she will be in Columbia, South Carolina, this Monday, the 27th of February, and she's going to be talking about Affordable Broadband Network. And so South Carolina is now number one, will go first in the primary presidential election. So Iowa, Nemrata, Marianne, your feelings might be hurt, but that's just what it is. Can you talk to us a little bit about

that visit that she has upcoming for Monday? Well, yeah, I think what South Carolina, her South Carolina visit is going to highlight is that she's actually getting shit done in her portfolio. Broadband access was one of the things that was tasked to her by President Biden. And that was a major part of the infrastructure package that was passed on a bipartisan basis. So not only has the administration already cut the cost of broadband,

I don't know if you remember, a million families were eligible for lower broadband access last year, several hundred thousand signed up, but they're actually expanding broadband access throughout the state of Southern South Carolina, throughout rural communities and throughout the country. And so this is one of those areas where Vice President Conley Harris doesn't get a lot of credit for. But if you remember back in when she was a senator during her campaign, this was one of the areas that she championed.

So it's a good thing to see that she's able to go back to these communities and say, these are the accomplishments that we have from the Biden-Harris administration. Tangible, so to speak. And as a person that is from a rural community, I know that access to broadband, no matter where a person lives, is highly important. So South Carolina, Georgia, being those states that are in the top five for the presidential primary and for Vice President Harris, who, as you well know, when it was announced she was going to be on the ticket, $48 million a race.

Some people feel big mad about that. But she has a draw. She has a presence. And she is active. And speaking of activity, she was just in the DMV, which, you know, she lives here in D.C., but she was just in Maryland with the newly elected governor, Wes Moore, aboard a historically black college, Bowie State University. accountability. Can you talk to us, walk to us, walk us through her being there and the importance of her being on an HBCU campus, talking about things, people go to higher education institutions to be able to afford nice homes after they graduate. So could you talk to us about that visit and the outcomes that she had? Yeah, this is another area where we're seeing the Biden-Harris

administration pick up the mantle of Vice President Kamala Harris's presidential platform. that she had. Yeah, this is another area where we're seeing the Biden-Harris administration pick up the mantle of Vice President Kamala Harris's presidential platform. One of the areas that she was focused on in her black agenda, which she did have one, was home ownership, affordability, and closing the wealth gap through home ownership. And so what she was at Bowie State yesterday for was to announce that the Biden-Harris administration is actually lowering the cost of mortgage insurance premiums for FHA loans. And that is something that disproportionately impacts Black borrowers, lower income borrowers, because we, and I include myself in it because I do have an FHA loan, but it was a two or three K loan, do disproportionately get

FHA loans. And so this is going to save families hundreds of dollars, in some case, even almost a thousand dollars a year. And that's especially helpful considering the fact that one of the Trump tax scam things that came into effect was phasing out the ability to write off your private mortgage insurance. So those lower premiums that no longer have a tax break on them are going to really make a difference for new homeowner borrowers. I wish it was for all of us and not just the new borrowers, but that is still a really good rollout from the administration. I'd also like to point out I covered last year at the White House where Vice President Kamala Harris made an announcement about a homeownership appraisal bias task force that she led up along with Secretary Marsha Fudge, HUD secretary, that was about tackling the racism in homeownership appraisals that robs Black families of wealth. So this is another tool in the toolkit of trying to close the wealth gap through homeownership

for Black families. Absolutely. And that her presence on a college campus, an institution for higher learners, that there may be some that, as you said, won't be able to benefit. But those that are newly going to be graduating, having decisions to make about home ownership, this will be something excellent for them. So while everyone may not be able to capture those that will be able to be captured in that, that's important. And it's important that she's doing it aboard an HBCU campus. And so these things that you're talking about and sharing with this receipt, these sound like kitchen table issues. These sounds like sound like things when affordability, that language.

Those are things that everyday Americans, everyday people are looking out for every day. Absolutely. I mean, this is just these are just a few of the things that have been in her portfolio. Another thing is medical debt. That's something that she was tackling last year. I was at the White House covering that as well. I wrote an article about it. And the fact that black people disproportionately have medical debt. And one of the initiatives that Vice President Kamala Harris has talked about for many years

is actually credit reporting and how your credit score is calculated. And so there have been a lot of changes to the credit reporting that make it more favorable for consumers and that help black people that were rolled out as part of that medical debt initiative and other initiatives working with their credit agencies to make credit scoring more fair for people like us. Absolutely. And so these are things, as you said, that do impact our community. So all I'm hearing are checklists, checklists, checklists. So as people start thinking about what they want, when people start asking, what have you done for me lately?

It sounds like VP Harris has definitely been checking those boxes in her office. I'm going to go to the panel for people to ask questions, and I want to start out with our fellow VIP Thursday member, Dr. Greg Carr. Dr. Carr, you have any questions for Recy around VP Harris's visibility and her activity here throughout the United States? No, I mean, this is wonderful, Lynn. Thank you, Recy, for updating us and for, you know, something you and Roland talked about last week and the week before as well, I think, you know, just this idea of making sure that we know what the vice president is doing and what this administration is doing and how it impacts us in the real world.

I'm very excited to see this meeting today with these HBCU journalists, with Xi and former Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. I'm wondering, you know, with all the information that's out there and all of the distractions and everything that's streaming everywhere all the time, you know, how do we punch through the noise? I mean, I know this is part of it, for sure. But those journalists, those young journalists who will be pouring their student newspapers, and, you know, that's important. But, you know, there's so many distractions out here. How do we continue to just ramp this up so people do know what Vice President Harris

is doing and what this administration is doing? Thank you, Dr. Carr. It's always good to be with you. And I absolutely agree with you. It was incredibly important to have these students here. And I will note that according from, per the White House Black African-American Media Director, all of the HBCUs were invited. 47 HBCUs actually sent students, but all of them were invited. And that's something that has been the way that Vice President Kamala Harris has championed and other HBCU alums like

Marilee Keisha Lance Bottoms have really championed HBCU students. I've actually been at the White House reporting with alongside Howard students who are very excited to be there reporting on homeownership biases or HBCU grants. So this isn't just a one-off type of thing. They're very much welcome very frequently to the White House. But I think what it goes to is one of my particular things that I've always encouraged Vice President Kamala Harris to do is to do more Black media more often. Credibility is something that is a cumulative effect. We have to hear from you. We have to see you more than once. And I think sometimes I would say her in particular, I think she relies a little bit too much on traditional

media, the mainstream media. And we saw, for instance, with her trip to Munich, she was almost entirely erased from some of the coverage around that major speech that she gave at the Munich Security Conference. So the traditional mainstream media is not going to amplify her. They're not going to educate on her record. And that's where I think, for instance, she had a conversation with Steve Harvey a couple weeks ago. She's inviting these student leaders, these student journalist leaders to the White House. That's all great. But I think she needs to be a lot more visible when it comes to platforms like this one and other Black platforms like my show, for instance. She can come on in and keep coming back to the well. So people like, you know, I will say Secretary Buttigieg, he gets that. He's out at a lot of these places very frequently.

He doesn't do one-off appearances. He goes back over and over again. And I think that's something that she has to do herself. Absolutely. That is a very good question. And I love the way Recy is definitely very fair in not only her support, but of a critique. And as Recy said, Roland Martin Unfiltered is definitely an open door. And so is the Recy Colbert show. Dr. Walker, your question for Recy.

Yeah, Recy, first of all, you do a fantastic job advocating on behalf of VP and have from day one. So let's give you a shout out for that. Also, congratulations on your new show. So my question really relates to, you know, you talk a lot about VP Harris has been visible since being sworn in. But can you talk a little bit about two things? First of all, I think there's a misconception of the understanding of the role of the VP. That's the first point I want to make. And second of all, can you talk about this and be clear about a Black woman in terms of some of the outsized expectations that go into her being the first Black woman who's being VP? Absolutely. I mean, I think you guys recall during the presidential election when it was time to select a VP, Chris Dodd and company came out and said that Vice President Kamala Harris was too ambitious.

And so there was this narrative that was already being spun that she was too ambitious and she was going to try to step all over President Biden. And so not only did she have the outsized expectations of being a Black woman, the first woman of any race in that role, but, you know, Black women are judged particularly harshly. But she also had the expectation of really playing a back supporting role for President Biden to not alienate people that are strong, staunch supporters of President Biden. I think he's done a great job of making her a partner. I think if you read White House press releases, they're always careful to credit Vice President Kamala Harris to reference how these particular initiatives relate back to some of the work that she's done as senator or as attorney general. So I think that

the White House, at least public facing, does a good job of making her a partner. But the reality is she is a partner and she's a supporting partner to President Biden. He is the star of the show. He's the one who has the nuclear codes, who signs the executive orders, et cetera. And so I think she's done an exceptional job of making it known that she is, you know, deferring to him. Sometimes it's to her detriment. I think she could probably lean in a little bit more in her own power and the fact that she is a historic vice president. But the reality is she's damned if she does, damned if she doesn't. Now, I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't.

I'm going to lean in. I'm not going to shrink back. So I think that that's an area where hopefully we'll see during this presidential campaign should, and I expect that they will run again, that she will get a chance to puff up her chest a little bit more and a little bit more safely. But, oh, can I say one more thing, too? I just want to be clear. This is not a matter of invisibility. It's a matter of erasure and it's a matter of marginalization because as Larry and Dr. Walker just pointed out, she is visible. We see her

by side by side with president Biden. We see her travel around the country. She's met with hundreds of groups and she does plenty of events. However, the media and a lot of times, even when you come to social media, she's intentionally erased and marginalized. So that's something that is a challenge for her and that's something she's going to have to overcome. Absolutely. Thank you so much. And just very quickly, we have about 45 seconds. Dr. Hill, your question or comment for Recy? Yes, thank you so very much. What do you think is the greatest legacy that she is building now? The legacy that she's building is actual substantive policy wins. When you look at what's happening around the Pell Grants,

or I should say HBCU funding, HBCU security, climate justice, environmental justice with lead pipes, broadband. She has her hands in a lot of pots. And I think if you are a student of Vice President Kamala Harris like I am, you will see that she is very much influencing very substantial policies that this administration is putting forward and pushing it in a more progressive lane. Wow. Recy Colbert, the host of the Re Reese Colbert Show on Sirius XM,

Urban View Channel 126 every Saturday at 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Thank you so much for your time today, sis. Thank you, sis. Absolutely. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on Black Star Network. We'll be right back after this break. Next on Get Wealthy with me, Deborahah owens america's wealth coach listen to this women of color are starting 90 of the businesses in this country that's the good news the bad news as a rule we're not making nearly as much as everyone else. But joining us on the next Get Wealthy episode is

Betty Hines. She's a business strategist and she's showing women how to elevate other women. I don't like to say this openly, but we're getting better at it. Women struggle with collaborating with each other. And for that reason, one of the things that I demonstrate in the sessions that I have is that you can go further together if you collaborate. That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Black Star Network. Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr. An hour of living history with Dr. Richard Mariba Kelsey,

thinker, builder, author, and one of the most important and impactful elders in the African-American community. He reflects on his full and rich life and shares his incomparable wisdom about our past, present, and future. African genius is saying that my uncle was a genius, my brother was a genius, my neighbor was a genius. I think we ought to drill that in ourselves and move ahead rather than believing that I got it. That's next on The Black Table, here on the Black Star Network. Hey, everybody, this your man Fred Hammond, and you're watching Roland Martin, my man, Unfiltered. Unfiltered. Miranda Conner left her Denver, Colorado home February 3rd, 2023 at 1 a.m. to meet someone.

Her family has not seen or heard from her since. The 30-year-old is 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighs 116 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. Miranda has the name Rodney tattoo please call the Denver, Colorado Police Department at area code 720-913-2000. All right, everybody. A Chick-fil-A video from Charlotte, North Carolina, went viral after store employees wrote an apparent racial slur on an order slip. April Jackson shared a photo of her daughter's Naisha's Chick-fil-A order with the racial slur B N-word on the order slip after placing her order through the drive-thru. A Chick-fil-A

representative said they believe that the incident was a misspelling of Naisha's name. Chick-fil-A released this statement following the incident. The operator, owner of Chick-fil-A, a mountain island, has thoroughly investigated and tried to connect with the customer to understand her experience better and apologize for the situation. Though we understand this to be a misspelling of the customer's name, that does not negate or impact her experience that she had. The operator has started additional training at his restaurant to ensure this doesn't happen again. We sincerely apologize for the harm caused by this incident. I'm just going to talk to our panel very quickly because we have seen this on repeat. Dr. Greg Carr, Nyesha, and what was written are two totally different things. What are you saying?

Because Chick-fil-A has been problematic for quite some time. What are your thoughts around this misspelling of Naisha's name? That's unfortunate. I feel bad for Naisha. I mean, I certainly can't relate because I would eat that slip of paper or any slip of paper really before I ever ate one piece of anything from Chick-fil-A, given its history. I would starve, in fact, before I ate Chick-fil-A. I shouldn't go that far. I suppose I would have to have had a choice between starving and eating Chick-fil-A. Perhaps I'd eat it then.

But that hasn't been said. And I'm having to take a little deep breath now. I don't know, Erica, why you teed up all these stories today. But at the end of the day, we have to draw a line, y'all. This thing is getting down serious. We got these hillbillies acting crazy in Florida, in Virginia, the governor of Virginia, in Texas. They are punching us. And what are we going to do?

You know, this is when we stop it. You know what? Support Roland Martin and the filter. Of course they were going to take Carlos out, but they're not going to give that money to Roland Martin. That is up to us until and if that never happens. So guess what? If you don't go to Chick-fil-A, they won't mess around and put the N-word on your slip. I think I'll stop with that.

I hear you. I mean, you know, to that point, Dr. Hill, I mean, we've seen this constantly, as Dr. Carr has said, like, when are we going to stop? We have seen this with not only Chick-fil-A. We've seen this at McDonald's where there was a black woman here about a month ago that was physically accosted by the employees there. So the employees are definitely feeling emboldened to do these, to execute these behaviors. So it doesn't really matter who it is. It seems that harming black bodies hardly comes with no consequence. But we understand the numbers. We know that we are trillionaires because of the money that we put in this economy continually,

annually. What are your thoughts behind what Naisha's experience has been? And to Dr. Carr's point, the decision that we have to make collectively about where we actually put our dollars. Right. I think the first thing is to, I wonder if the community is really responding. Are they shutting some stuff down? Because, you know, when you shut stuff down, when you attack people financially, when you go for their pocket, they begin to listen and make those changes. And I agree that, you know, maybe we should not be going to Chick-fil-A because I

know there's more chicken places somewhere to go to put your money. Because we understand that when we block off somebody's finances, when we block off their earnings, then we see the results. And there are simply no excuses. I'm trying to see where the B came from. I wonder what that is about. Exactly. I would have issues because, you know, I don't know how the young lady addressed it. I'm kind of old school. I would have to get out and go inside and have a conversation.

Demand. My people doesn't know where I am in case I don't show up. I'm just saying. We are always being nice. We're always people when they slap us. And so we have

to stop being so nice and just being very forward and making some demands. Otherwise, the consequences will be like we're just going to have to shut you down. Absolutely. And you said you're old school in your approach, meaning that you will make your presence known, Dr. Hill.

I ain't mad about that. And that the three of you all are professors. So Dr. Walker, you know, my son was at Morehouse and I know across HBCU campuses that Chick-fil-A's are almost a, it's something that you will see widespread across the campuses. You know, whether this was franchised, whether this was connected specifically

to like one of the Chick-fil-A actual companies, no matter, it carries the brand. So can you talk a little bit around what, you know, and Dr. Hill said this, you know, in sharing that it's really a docile approach that we've had, so to speak, employees, essentially, to disrespect black and brown people. So, Erica, you know, I'm reminded of a song by Public Enemy called Shut Them Down. So what language does corporate America understand?. So if you if you shut down that franchise, then they'll get the message, not only that franchisee, but also the corporate officer understand that we mean business. I think the other thing is that I was told, Erica, we're in a post-racial society.

I was told a couple of years ago, but I got to tell you, it feels like someone's boot is on my neck every time I walk outside my house. So I think we need to be, when it comes to protests and also the financial impact that we have to make sure these entities feel can't be short term. So once again, if we're going to protest, we have to tell folks in our community, don't buy from there. And then we need to make sure we're there every day to make sure they're not making a profit. And then they'll get the message. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so we're going to head to another story and get a little bit of feedback. Tennessee's largest county is following in the footsteps of other state and local governments considering reparations for descendants of enslaved people. Commissioners approved a resolution to study reparations for descendants of enslaved people. All eight black members of the 13-member board supported the message.

This study comes after outrage after the beating death of Tyree Nichols. Five Memphis police officers have been charged with his death. The resolution would allocate $5 million to research and find actionable items addressing five key areas, increased access to affordable housing and home ownership, health care, criminal justice reform, enhanced career opportunities, and financial literacy and generational wealth. Commissioners who voted against the resolution say the county does not have the funding to pay for the study or develop a framework to implement it. So I'm just going to pause here very briefly and then have Dr. Carr get his thoughts on it before we go to break. So we've been talking about Tennessee a lot.

Tennessee, with regard to this Board of Regents that's threatening essentially to overtake Tennessee State University and now this reparation study that you do have some commissioners that are pushing back on. What are your thoughts around that, Dr. Carr? Well, I mean, we're saying it all the time, Erica. You said there's a 13-member board of county commissioners and all eight black members voted. Let me see. Let me do the math here. Eight. Yeah. Voting matters. Eight.

We don't give a damn what y'all think. The reparation strategy is very important. There are a lot of debate. Myself, I'm a member of the board of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America and COBRA. You know, we don't have a full agreement on reparations, but I will say this. When you embrace reparations as a strategy, you stop backing up. The punk comptroller of Tennessee, Jason Mumpower, he's a punk. He doesn't understand trying to have dialogue.

He says it's a failure of communications. I got something for you, baby. Reparations. We pay taxes. I want my money back. Punk. And guess what? That means everybody needs to register to vote.

That means everybody needs to register to vote. That means everybody needs to organize. And when you talk about reparations, you are taking away the, as you say, Doc, you're taking away all of the man be, pan be kind of, oh, well, let's all figure out. No, no. You owe me. And whether you ever pay or not, I'm in the street now. Dr. Hill's got it. You got to be in these people's face. And I think regardless of what happens, this is something that is catching fire all over

this country, at least the study of what is owed. And once you start doing that, finally, those young brothers in Florida are showing them this as well. As you begin to study and begin to understand the depth and the magnitude of the implications of what has been done to us and what we can do about it, that empowers you then to act politically across the range, whether you ever get reparations or not. That is the important thing to understand about this reparation struggle. Amen and hallelujah. That is why abstaining and withholding your vote is not an option. We have to engage. Thank you so much, Dr. Carr. We're going to go

pay some bills. We'll be back. Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network app. We're all impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not. From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of our lives, and we're going to talk about it every day, right here on The Culture, with me, Faraji

Muhammad, only on the Black.S. Capitol. We're about to see the rise of what I call white minority resistance. We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denial. This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson at Emory University calls white rage as a backlash. This is the rise of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people.

The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. This is white fear. Hello, everyone. I'm Godfrey, and you're watching... Roland Martin Unfiltered. And while he's doing Unfiltered, I'm practicing the wobble. Thanks for staying connected to Roland Martin Unfiltered streaming on the Black Star Network. Let me ask you a question, RMU folks. Is your state a top performer in black entrepreneurship? What is the economic impact of black entrepreneurs

and how do we level up to the righteous abundance that our grandmothers and grandfathers sold but never reaped? Friend of the show, the CEO of Media to Millions, she's a political commentator, award-winning author, but most importantly, she is a business elevation strategist. Dr. Avis Jones, the Weaver, is here to help us answer those questions and share how you can get yours. Welcome, Dr. Avis. Well, thanks for having me. Good to see you.

Oh, gosh, it's always excellent to see you, Dr. Avis, and really appreciate your time. I know, as I shared with Recy, your time is very precious. You're very busy. So thank you for giving us a few minutes to talk about something that you are very much so passionate about. I was reading something very interesting that was so interesting, and it was a published piece by SCORE. And SCORE, for those who may not know, is a nonprofit organization with a network of business mentors. And they also mentor other up and coming business folks. And so what they talked about is that black entrepreneurship essentially is thriving and that there has been a 23 percent uptick in revenue for black entrepreneurs. And that that number is pretty much double what folks are making as employees.

And so as a person, again, as I said, that is multi-hyphenated, extraordinarily successful. You are a millionaire coach and doing incredible work. Talk to us about what those numbers mean and why it is important for people, even if they are working what we say is a traditional nine to five, to explore entrepreneurship, because it's most likely they're probably doing it already. Absolutely. Well, here is my sort of spin on those numbers. It's really showing us that we are really understanding that when we take our genius out into the marketplace, we can make bank. And as you alluded to, for me, it's really about for those who are in the nine to five, I always believe that it makes sense to have additional sources of revenue that you can depend on coming into your home. Because quite frankly, we know that we're not paid fairly in the workplace. The wage gap is the wage

gap and it's a race and gendered wage gap. Black men face wage gaps and black women face wage gap. None of us are paid fairly in the workplace. And also, you know, we're in a situation right now where do you really want to leave your future up to somebody else's spreadsheet in terms of whether or not they can keep you or even want to keep you at their place of employment? I think not. I believe that this is the time when you need to figure out how can I monetize my genius? How can I take something that I'm really good at or that I really enjoy and turn that into a monetizable future for me and my family? Even if you're doing it alongside of your job, the bottom line, that provides a many way in which you can create your own economy. Whether or not you want to do that completely on your own or whether or not you want to do that as the quote unquote perennial side hustle. It's a smart thing to do any way you slice it.

Absolutely. And as you are leading hundreds, thousands of people into discovering those spaces in which they can monetize the things that they are already most likely doing, Dr. Avis. Then also, can you share with the audience around, so people may be seeing things that are online and really not knowing what's for them, but that, you know, we've just talked about stories where we're making, we're taking our money places and not being fully respected. So can you share with people that, you know, they're probably already spending that money elsewhere, but actually taking that money and actually concentrating that money into the space where they can actually see profits and revenue for them and their families? Absolutely. I mean, to me, it all comes back to the importance of supporting each other, supporting black businesses, having our dollars regenerate in our own communities. If people think that black people are poor, I have to tell you, I have to disabuse you of that notion, right? We have a well over $1 trillion buying power that circulates in this economy year after year after year. What we need to get better at,

though, is making sure that it circulates within our own communities by supporting our businesses. And when we do that, guess what? Black businesses are more likely than other businesses to employ black people. And so we're really helping each other all at the same time. So to the degree that we can be very intentional about our spend, on the one hand, when we are consuming, the degree to which we can target those dollars with black businesses, it really makes sense. And then when we can also sort of layer on that, this idea of thinking, what can I do to bring in some more dollars in my home that does not depend on the traditional nine to five route? It really creates an opportunity for you to be able to grow at a level where literally there are zero limits.

Absolutely, Dr. Avis. And before I have two things before I bring in my panel and have them ask questions of you. The first one being that that then allows us more time to spend at home, not kind of be in the grind and hustle culture, but actually be in spaces that we enjoy. So we'll have more time, you know, if we have children or people that we're in care for, to have more time for that, take care of our own health, our own wellness. Can you talk about the freedom that being in business for yourself actually does allow? Yeah, I think that ultimately that's a big draw for a lot of people in this life. Now, not to say that it doesn't involve hard work. Yes, yes, yes. It does involve hard work.

But depending upon what job you do and pretty much in terms of your business, what you choose to do, the bottom line is you largely have a lot of control over your schedule. Like when do you want to do it? Where do you want to do it? Do you want independence in terms of location freedom? Do you want geographic freedom? Do you want independence in terms of location freedom? Do you want geographic freedom? Do you want time freedom? Do you want to be able to not have to be in a certain place at a certain time every day, but still be able to make revenue? I think that's one of the reasons why people really enjoy entrepreneurship. And as your business grows, quite frankly, you're going to get to a point where it's going to be beyond the solopreneur stage. You'll be able to bring on a team. You'll have other people that are part of making your vision real. And so that also will increase the

level of freedom and flexibility that you have while your business continues to grow. And so before the panel comes in, that second question that I have for you is that you will actually be bringing this information to people, your next level Abundance Tour, which you are a shining receipt in that. Can you talk about that tour quickly here and then the cities that some of the people have asked you into to provide this information? Absolutely. So I'm so excited to be kicking off my Next Level Abundance Tour next month. We'll be starting it in Atlanta and then Charlotte. We'll also be going to Houston and L.A. Looks like we'll probably add in Sacramento, New York, Philadelphia, and of course, round it out right back in Washington, D.C.

I'm so excited about this tour. And the whole goal here is to really bring information, particularly to black women entrepreneurs around how they can take their businesses and level it up to the next level to be perfectly transparent. My goal is to make sure that we create more black women millionaires I think that as we get to a point where black women have greater economic power. We understand how to make sure that not only that we drive personally but make sure that our entire

communities thrive and that's really the goal of what we're doing here. That's real leveling up. And so how can people get more information on the tour, the city, and things of that nature, Dr. Avis? Absolutely. So they can go to nextlevelabundancetour.com. That's nextlevelabundancetour.com. Get on the wait list there. We'll be making some special announcement about that tour tomorrow, in fact. So you'll be getting the sneak peek on what's about to happen.

Love it. Fresh stuff indeed. Dr. Hill, your question for Dr. Avis. Yes. First of all, congratulations and thank you, sister, for being the strong sister that you are. You are inspiring me because I'm trying to get my little business on. I figure as much as I talk, I'm also get paid to do it. So yes, ma'am. Can you share some advice in terms of making sure that we get other people to know to support other black businesses? One thing that I try to do is that I urge people. I have a list of all the black-owned businesses that I know of in my town and I share with others. What are some things that we can do to make sure that we let each other

know besides each one teach one and tell one? That's an excellent question and before I answer your question I do have to give you a tip here. If you want to go ahead and monetize your speaking, please do, because I want you to understand that people are getting paid $10,000, $15,000, $20,000, $50,000 plus and up per speech. So that is a very lucrative space to go into. OK. So beyond that, I also want to say you're exactly right. To the degree at which we can go to resources, there is a Black Wall Street Web page that sort of lists those.

And there are other resources like that where you can specifically go to their apps that you can download that helps you find black owned businesses. So that's one thing that the consumer can do. But I also want to encourage business owners themselves to be very aggressive. And one of the challenges that I do see sometimes with business owners, particularly those that are new, they don't really, they're not very vocal about the fact that they even have a business. And one of the things that I always say is if nobody knows you're in business, you're not in business. So the last thing you need to do as an entrepreneur is try to be, you know, quiet about it. Be proud about what you do. If you are someone who is confident in the quality of what you have to offer the world, you should shout it from the rooftops.

That should not be a secret that you're in business. So I just really want to encourage the entrepreneurs themselves to be very aggressive about marketing their businesses online in every way that they can. Excellent question. Thank you so much, Dr. Hill. If you go to Dr. Avis's page or follow her on Twitter at Sister Scholar, you definitely do know Dr. Avis is in business, baby. Dr. Greg Carr, your question for Dr. Avis. Indeed, indeed. Thank you, Erica. It's good to see you, sis. Good to see you, Dr. Avis. Been too long. I left class this afternoon, my hip hop class, listening to these young people, and they were talking about the importance of brand.

They were walking me through the way from Lil Nas X to Cardi B and how it's not just about what you produce but literally the whole person and persona. And I admit to being way behind the curve on that. Any thoughts on how this question of brand figures in to entrepreneurship? So it isn't just what you make or what you produce, but literally who you are. Can you help us with that? Certainly help me with that, please. Well, let me first say, Dr. Cart, you have a brand. Your brand bespeaks brilliance. Your brand bespeaks proud, being proud of who you are. Your brand bespeaks warrior energy. And, you know, to me, that is part of your brand. And so to me, what brands are, it's what people think of you

before you even say a word. And that is something that is curated and put together by your actions and by how you show up in the world. So when you think of different celebrities, like what you've mentioned, I think what most people need to understand, particularly entrepreneurs, is they need to understand that everything that they think about these celebrities is not by accident. It's by design. It's a very calculated strategy to get you to think whatever they want you to think about them. And so as an entrepreneur, you need to think about that strategically with your business in terms of the brand that speaks your business, but also your personal brand. Because in this day and age, the two are very

much intertwined. And if you are someone who understands how to build a powerful brand, that goes a long way towards marketing, as I alluded to previously, without literally costing you a dime because it will attract the attention that otherwise you would have to pay thousands upon thousands of dollars for. Excellent question, Dr. Carr. Dr. Avis Jones, the Weaver, friend of the show, business elevation strategist, next level abundance tour.com to get on the wait list. Thank you so much, Dr. Avis, for joining us this evening. Thanks so much for having me. Great seeing you. Great seeing you as well.

Thank you. And you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. We'll be right back. We talk about blackness and what happens in black culture. We're about covering these things that matter to us, speaking to our issues and concerns. This is a genuine people powered movement. A lot of stuff that we're not getting. You get it and you spread the word. We wish to plead our own cause to long have others spoken for us. We cannot tell our own story if we can't pay for it.

This is about covering us. Invest in black-owned media. Your dollars matter. We don't have to keep asking them to cover our stuff. So please support us in what we do, folks. We want to hit 2,000 people. $50 this month. Waste $100,000.

We're behind $100,000, so we want to hit that. Your money makes this possible. Checks and money orders go to P.O. Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. The Cash App is Dollar Sign RM Unfiltered. PayPal is R. Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr.

An hour of living history with Dr. Richard Mariba Kelsey, thinker, builder, author, and one of the most important and impactful elders in the African-American community. He reflects on his full and rich life and shares his incomparable wisdom about our past, present, and future. I'm a genius.

It's saying that my uncle was a genius, my brother was a genius, my neighbor was a genius. I think we ought to drill that in ourselves and move ahead rather than believing that I got it. That's next on The Black Table, here on the Black Star Network. Hey, I'm Deion Cole from Blackest. Hey, everybody, this is your man Fred Hammond, and you're watching Roland Martin, my man, unfiltered. Welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming on The Black Star Network. With the focus shifting from DEI efforts, one area that's gained spotlight in corporate and entrepreneurial spaces is executive presence and confidence. Dr. Wendy Wilson, who will explain to us how we show up in the workplace where the digital,

remote, or in-person impacts the environment and the money. Dr. Wendy Wilson, thank you so much, and welcome to Roland Martin Unfiltered. It is my pleasure. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. So in your background, you do have DEI training, you've been in corporate. And as someone who is a career strategist and has a specific presence around executive presence, talk to us a little bit about, even though, you know, we're seeing people, we just had Dr. Abison talking about the importance of entrepreneurship. Please talk to us a little bit about how executive presence, no matter which of those spaces that you're in, definitely impacts us and it impacts the money. Absolutely. Well, thank you again for having me. I share with my clients, and they range from those that are still matriculating

through high school, ready and preparing themselves to enter into the workspaces, all the way to the C-suite, that there are some behaviors and some actionable steps that you need to maintain and what I call normalize executive presence. And they include your emotional intelligence, how you engage, how you present, how you, the level of compassion that you demonstrate with those that you are leading and those colleagues that you will also have. There's also those two other important elements, which include effective communication and your aesthetic. Now, we want to walk in and to thrive and be successful in these spaces, being our true selves, not denying who we are

based upon our race and gender. But it is important that we also exemplify and represent the very best. And that comes with a very professional and what we work to achieve, a very polished presence. And so I tell young people all the time, it is not your role to enter into those spaces and modify a uniform. There is expectations of behaviors that you need to model. And if you see that they're not being modeled, then being vocal enough and having that effective voice to convey that so that you are represented and that you are contributing in the manner in which you have prepared yourself to do. Absolutely, Dr. Wilson. And I'm very glad that you touched upon EQ, because even as we look at a platform like Twitter, when it changed hands from Jack Dorsey to Elon Musk, there is a lack of EQ emotional intelligence around being able to understand the audience that he,

in essence, is serving. So could you talk a little bit about how EQ shows up no matter what your brand is? You know, Dr. Avis, we were in conversation and one of the things that Dr. Carr brought forward is with regard to brand, some of his students, he teaches at Howard University, some of the students brought up specifically Cardi and some other artists. And Dr. Avis spoke that those imageries, the things that we see are very much so curated, that they're a team of people that work specifically so that what we see is not something that is just kind of a myth, but it is something that is intentional. So can you talk about EQ and intentionality in the way that any one of us presents as it relates to either a corporate or entrepreneurial space? Sure. Well, certainly with that EQ piece, we want to have the level of understanding that certain environments call for certain actions and behaviors.

You mentioned Cardi B, and I do a training presentation, and she's one of the focus, individuals that I focus on. And what I say about her is that, and I'll present her, and she's in entertainment mode in terms of her attire. But there is also some evidence out there when she is there to conduct business, when she wants the audience or the listener to hear this particular message or a certain message, then she is donning a different uniform, if you will. And so that is important to keep in mind, to be aware of your audience, the setting that you're going in, and be able to make the necessary modifications still remaining true to who you are and your authentic self. It is absolutely achievable. Regarding the social media platforms, you mentioned Twitter a few moments ago and emotional

presence playing out on that. Understanding that that is a worldwide, an international stage. And civility is always in order. Respect is always in order. Proper decorum is always in order. And we have seen time and time again when folks epically fail, they are held accountable for that. And it is oftentimes very difficult to recover. So the goal, again, as I shared earlier, is to normalize those behaviors that will allow you to successfully navigate, achieve the level of success that you desire and you seek, and be representative of who you are and the organization that you're representing. Thank you so much, Dr. Wilson. We just have a few minutes remaining in the show, so I want to have my panel come in and ask you a few questions. We're going to go to Dr.

Walker first. Dr. Walker, your question for Dr. Wilson. Yeah, Dr. Wilson, I want you to talk about, it relates to the workplace, the importance of having a healthy culture for leaders. Absolutely, absolutely. And it starts with leaders. I share all the time with individuals that, again, it's the basics. It's the things that our parents taught us, that mother wit, the acts of civility, being kind, being respectful. And if you find an organization where there is low morale, people are just having difficulty delivering or providing the service that they are being tasked with or being paid to perform, you need to take an assessment of the culture and the climate. And it's more than just

doing a study. It is then taking those actionable steps and holding people accountable, whether they be in the C-suite or whether they just walk in the door at the entry level space. Great question. A leader's behavior is definitely important in any organization. Dr. Hill, your question for Dr. Wilson. Yes, thank you. So my question is, passionately Black may be seen as aggressively white. And so it sounds like we have to code switch, something that we've all been taught how to do. How do we negotiate our code switching methods in an environment to be our authentic selves when we have the backlash against us, regardless of how well we code switch, how well we show our true self, our passion, our kind selves, and we still get this pushback, what can we do?

I think when the pushback arrives, you need to face it head on. And again, as I started off, and I'm staying true to that, is to remain your authentic self. And then, you know, ask for evidence. And there needs to be some ongoing conversations in terms of what diversity looks like, what it's comprised of, and honoring and recognizing those differences and not making assumptions about an individual based upon their race, based upon their gender, and based upon what you may have been taught. And so, again, it goes back to leadership taking responsibility and those employees holding leadership accountable for that. Ask them, why am I being judged or why is that assumption being made? And you may have to branch out in those conversations and involve some other people in.

But don't, so many people struggle. They have very unfortunate experiences in the workplace, managing them by those experiences by themselves. So I always share with people, speak up, speak out. You are not alone. And hold those people accountable who are making those false decisions about you. I love that focus on authenticity. And Dr. Greg Carr, your question for Dr. Wendy Wilson.

Thank you, Erica. And thank you, Dr. Wilson. Again, thinking about young people, it was a nice day out here in D.C. And I looked out and I said, boy, if my mother or father had seen some of the clothes that I'm seeing on this campus walking around today. My question is, and I mentioned it to the students, it was an article in today's Financial Times. It talked about the fact that over three quarters of American teenagers spend some time on YouTube every day, followed by TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram. Any words to our young people who are aspiring to go into corporate America or to work in the business world as it relates to how they police themselves on social media? They may show up dressed a certain way and working a certain way in the space, but then when they get off work, I'm not sure that they

necessarily maintain some sense of awareness of how they present themselves, even in their leisure time or in their night work time. Any words of advice to our young people in that regard? Dr. Carr, that's an excellent question. And I work with young people, too, at a university here in southwest Georgia and see some of them. And that's all a part of them trying to express themselves. Unfortunately, and I don't mind sharing my age, I'm 56. And so when you and I were growing up, we didn't have access to all of these social media platforms. And so the point that I bring up is that you are then providing evidence for, again,

people to use something against you. And you don't want to do that. That is documented. I tell my young adult children all the time, they would say, mom, why I deleted it. And I said, but you don't know who took a screenshot of it. That's right. We know that companies and organizations, corporations have people that are actually in seats that are policing and vetting candidates based upon their social media profiles. Absolutely. Who you are linked up to and deciding if you are then a good fit. Yeah. And so, you know, unfortunate, but it is the reality.

So I tell students all the time to behave or act in a manner with consideration for your future and the business that you wish to have or the position that you wish to have within a company as well. I love that. Having the future in mind. Dr. Wilson, we have about 10 seconds. Let people know how they can follow you. Absolutely. So definitely reach out to my website, W2comms with an S-C-O-M-M-S. Thank you. Have everything up. And then you can reach out. I'm on Instagram, also on Twitter and then LinkedIn, Dr. Wendy Wilson, executive coach and career planning strategist. That's right. And keep up with all of her upcoming happenings. Thank you so much, Dr. Wendy Wilson for sharing us.

It has been my pleasure. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. And so thank you to the Roland Martin Unfiltered audience. Always. Also want to give big thank yous to our panel, Dr. Greg Carr, Dr. Walker, and Dr. Hill. Thank you so much for your time and for your brilliance and genius.

And to you, the RMU audience, thank you so, so very much. Make sure that you are absolutely contributing to this show. You know how you can make sure that you are donating and supporting it. All of that information is for you on the screen. And be looking out for the NAACP Image Awards coming up very soon.

Thank you again, and as Roland would say, holla! Thank you for being the voice of black america i love y'all all momentum we have now we have to keep this going the video looks phenomenal see this difference between black star network and black owned media and something like cnn you can't be black owned media and be skate it's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? Pull up a chair. Take your seat. The Black Tape. With me, Dr. Greg Carr, here on the Black Star Network. Every week, we'll take a deeper dive into the world we're living in. Join the conversation only on the Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Dr. Jackie Hood-Martin,

and I have a question for you. Ever feel as if your life is teetering and the weight and pressure of the world is consistently on your shoulders? Well, let me tell you, living a balanced life isn't easy. Join me each Tuesday on Black Star Network for a balanced life with Dr. Jackie.

We're all impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not. From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of our lives. And we're going to talk about it every day right here on The Culture with me, Faraji Muhammad, only on the Black Star Network. I'm Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, and my new show, Get Wealthy, focuses on the things that your financial advisor and bank isn't telling you, but you absolutely need to know. So watch Get Wealthy on the Blackstar Network.

This is an iHeart Podcast.