#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Peter Spencer's 2nd Autopsy, Senate Cmte. Deadlock SCOTUS Vote, Cameroon Civil War, Pandemic Report

Episode Date: April 5, 2022

4.4.2022 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Peter Spencer's 2nd Autopsy, Senate Cmte. Deadlock SCOTUS Vote, Cameroon Civil War, Pandemic Report  The family attorney of Peter Spencer, the Jamaican immigrant who was killed during a hunting trip with his white co-worker, says the Venango County district attorney got it wrong by not charging the men who killed Peter. Peter's family hired their own forensic pathologist to perform a second autopsy. We'll have the family attorney tell us what that second autopsy uncovered. The Senate Judiciary Committee deadlocked their vote to send the historic Supreme Court nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the full Senate. We'll explain what that means and look at what's next. I'm going to take a deeper dive into the Ginni Thomas text messages.   The Poor People's Campaign released a study called, Mapping the intersection of Poverty, Race, and Covid-19."  We'll have Did you know about the civil war that's happening in Cameroon? We'll talk about what's happening there and the renewed accusation of racial bias regarding African refugees being welcomed into the United States. Peace should be coming to South Sudan after political rivals agree to unify army command. Dawn Staley and the South Carolina Gamecocks are national champions for the second time. Coach Staley is keeping her promise about the net. We'll tell you who she plans to send the pieces to and why. In today's Fit, Live, Win segment. At her heaviest, she was 485 pounds. After losing nearly 200 pounds, she shares some painful lessons she learned as she shed pounds. Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered and #BlackStarNetwork via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered Venmo ☛https://venmo.com/rmunfiltered Zelle ☛ [e-mail] Annual or monthly recurring #BringTheFunk Fan Club membership via paypal ☛ https://rolandsmartin.com/rmu-paypal/ Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox 👉🏾 http://www.blackstarnetwork.com #RolandMartinUnfiltered and the #BlackStarNetwork are news reporting platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I always had to be so good no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars.

Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersceiling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war.

This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that in a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes

of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roller. Stay Black. I love y'all. All momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be Black-owned media and be scape.

It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? Today is Monday, April 4th, 2022. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on Black Star Network. Today is the 54th anniversary of the day the Reverend Arthur Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee.

It was at 7.01 p.m. Eastern when the shot rang out that struck him down. After our Today Show, we're going to air for you a special called April 4th, 1968. A variety of people who work with him share their thoughts and reflections on that particular day. Also on today's show, the family attorney

of Peter Spencer, the Jamaican immigrant who was killed during a hunting trip with his white coworkers, says the Vanango County District Attorney got it wrong by not charging the man, the men who killed him. He and his family have their own forensic pathologist to perform a second autopsy.

We will have the family attorney on to discuss what that second autopsy uncovered. The Senate Committee deadlocked on their vote to send the historic Supreme Court nomination of Judge Katonji Brown Jackson to the full US Senate to explain what that means and look at what is next. Also, I'm gonna take a deeper dive into the Jenny Thomas text messages.

America so focused on Will Smith smacking Chris Rock, but how are we ignoring the wife of a Supreme Court Justice being very much involved in a coup against the United States? The Poor People's Campaign released a study called Mapping the Intersection of Poverty, Race, and COVID-19. We'll take a look at that.

And also, folks, did you know about the Civil War that's happening in Cameroon? We'll talk about that and the renewed accusations of racial bias regarding African refugees being welcomed into the United States. Folks, also, South Sudan is still an issue. And rivals have agreed to unify the Army Command. We'll tell you more about that as well.

Also, Dawn Staley and the South Carolina Gamecocks win the national championship. She becomes the first black coach ever to win two national titles. We'll tell you what she had to say. Plus in today's Fit Live Win segment, at her heaviest, she was 485 pounds. After losing nearly 200 pounds, she shared some painful lessons

she learned as she shed those pounds. And also, I'm going to do she learned as she shed those pounds. And also, I'm gonna do a deconstruction, y'all, on the business of the media business and what people need to understand when they're like, why can't you cover this story? Well, I'm explaining to you what you don't realize, what actually happens,

and the cost of covering stores in our business. It's time to bring the funk. I'm Roland Martin, Unfiltered, with the Black Star Network. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the mess, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine.

And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's Roland. Best believe he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kids. And it's Roland. I'm Roland Martin, Unfiltered. The Black Star Network.

Let'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 funky, he's fresh, he's real The best you know, he's Rollin' Martel

Now Martel Martin! The family of the Jamaican immigrant who was shot nine times and killed by his co-workers during a cabin trip is pushing back on the district attorney's decision not to file charges against the white man who shot and killed him. Last month, Renango County District Attorney White said the investigation, first of all, this is in Pennsylvania, y'all, said the investigation concluded and Peter Spencer's death said it was self-defense. However, Spencer's family attorney, Paul Jubas, says an independent autopsy reveals there is more to the story.

Attorney Paul Jubas joins us now from Pennsylvania. Glad to have you on the show. So you did the second autopsy. When was it done? Who conducted it? And what did you discover? Rulon, thanks for having me. As a matter of fact, it was Dr. Cyril Wecht who also worked on Dr. Martin Luther King's autopsy. So Dr. Wecht conducted it, but what's really interesting is, you know, Dr. Wecht certainly had some differences of opinion when it comes to precisely what happened, but one of the strangest things about

the district attorney's news conference was that he misrepresented what their own autopsy said. So in public, he made this statement saying that there were actually seven shots to his front and only two to the back. That is not what his own coroner said. His own coroner said it was five to the back and four to the front. So, you know, the autopsy and really every aspect of this case thus far has just been extremely strange and doesn't really stand up

to any sort of intelligent inquiry. So you're saying that the D.A. says there were seven shots that hit Peter. Your autopsy says nine. His own autopsy says that as well. So, so his own autopsy says that there were five to the back and four to the front, but he went on news talking about how there were actually seven to the back.

He changed his own coroner's autopsy report. So the autopsy report lays out in terms of obviously how many shots. But what else? What are you hanging on when it comes to the second autopsy that you hope leads to a second look at this? Well, for one, we already know that the feds and the Pennsylvania attorney general are involved in an investigation into criminality

that was occurring at the time. And they had been. You know, that's one of the difficult things is that we aren't able to get into, you know, the nitty-gritty and the details like we would like to because this is an ongoing investigation and it has been for some time. And it's one that the family is completely

cooperating with and we have high hopes because there was so much criminality out there that was already under investigation. What does that mean? So much criminality out there that was under investigation. What does that mean? So much criminality out there that was under investigation. What does that mean?

So we, you know, just off of what the district attorney said and what the police put out initially, you know, you find the police came upon this scene with a body that had nine bullet holes in it, as well as illegal firearms and controlled substances, as well as alcohol. So, you know, there was just a lot of criminality involved in this situation, which forecloses the self-defense defense. If there is criminality involved, you can't assert that, which is another one of the very

strange things, because the district attorney is really basing his decision off of, you know, not the facts. He's making stuff up, essentially. He's placing the entirety of the blame on Peter to make it sound like, well, this guy was the only criminal there. How could, you know, that's why he was able to defend himself. And it doesn't make any sense. So you want, obviously, DOJ involved, but they only can get involved if Peter's civil rights were violated. What can the state do?

Can the state actually launch an investigation? So they've been involved. And they absolutely have jurisdiction over this thing. We anticipate an indictment. We believe that this is, you know, an investigation that may have some scope as well. So it's just the district attorney's position operates outside of the realm of reality. We are focused on what is actually going on, which is this federal investigation, which had been going on. And we're confident that there is enough criminality involving all of the individuals out there that night that Peter was with, that there's going to

be a forthcoming indictment. And that's why it's strange. You pretty much just have to disregard everything the district attorney said because none of it makes any sense. Obviously, the Jamaican authorities had initially reached out. Have you had any conversations with Jamaican embassy here in the United States or any Jamaican officials there in Pennsylvania? So the Jamaican diaspora is handling all of that. You know, they're in regular contact with us, with the family. They're extremely helpful, you know, extremely experienced, and they care very deeply about the situation and the family.

So, you know, we're very confident in dealing with the Jamaican authorities generally. And obviously you've had various civil rights groups and others who have been weighing in, and so what about that? Are any protests planned or anything along those lines? What sort of external pressure is being brought to bear on officials in the county as well as in the state? So there is a protest scheduled, I believe, on the 8th. I'm going to have to reach back out to the individuals that have organized that. But the idea here is to certainly apply as much pressure on the federal government,

who will be bringing this, what we expect to be an indictment, while it's a challenge, because we also have to maintain the integrity of the investigation, but still push without being able to make too many details public. So it's, you know, it's a difficult situation, but we're confident we'll be able to apply the necessary pressure and, you know, bring home some justice when we get the opportunity. All right, then we'll certainly keep us abreast of what happens in this case. It is still a very, as I keep telling people, a very weird, weird case, especially when the DA came out and sort of how he explained this. Attorney Paul Jubis for the Peter Spencer family, we appreciate it.

Thanks a lot. Thank you. All right, folks. On Capitol Hill today, the U.S. Judiciary Committee, they deadlocked. Really? Not one Republican voted to send the nomination of Judge Katonji Brown Jackson to the full United States Senate. But doesn't mean she dies in committee. Majority leader Chuck Schumer can still bring it on the floor where, of course, you already have Senator Susan Collins say she is going to vote for her.

So the reality is she has 51 votes. It was really interesting today when the committee was going back and forth on this, and you had the usual nonsense that was happening. And then, of course, you had Mr. Silly himself, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. He actually said Republicans wouldn't give, if Republicans were in control of the U.S. Senate, they would not have given Judge Brown Jackson even a hearing. said Republicans wouldn't give, if Republicans were in control of the U.S. Senate, they would not have given Judge Brown Jackson even a hearing. This is what he said. If we get back the Senate and we're in charge of this body,

and there's judicial openings, we will talk to our colleagues on the other side, but if we're in charge, she would not have been before this committee. You would have had somebody more moderate than this. So I want you to know right now, the process you started to go to a simple majority vote is going to rear its head here pretty soon. Where we're in charge, then we'll talk about judges differently. See, do y'all notice all the threats see I keep telling y'all and telling these damn democrats they ain't playing fair why you trying to play fair no you got to roll they asses when you got, you got to use power. That's how you have to roll. He's pissed off because President Biden did not pick the judge from South Carolina that Congressman Jim Clyburn was pushing.

That's why he mad. So Graham says if we get control back, that's precisely why they can't get control back. That's why I've been telling y'all we got to make sure Sherry Beasley wins in North Carolina. We got to make sure Val Deming wins in Florida. We got to make sure that Warnock is reelected in Georgia. And then once a Democratic nominee is chosen in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Ohio, we got to make sure they win. And we got to make sure they hold a seat in Arizona, Mark Kelly,

and a seat in Nevada, and a seat in New Hampshire. That way, Democrats will have a 53, 54, 47, 46 majority, and Senator Lindsey Graham's punk ass will never be in power. Y'all, these people, I'm telling y'all right now, if Republicans control the U.S. Senate and an opening comes before the Supreme Court, they will not hold a hearing for two years. Trust me on this. There's nothing

they will not do when it comes to holding on to power. Y'all better recognize what's going on. I don't trust any of these people. Any MAGA supporter

must lose their election on a federal, state, and local level. Malpalum, Dr. Julian Malvo, Dean, College of Ethics Studies, California State University, Los Angeles. Dr. Omokongo Dabinga, professorial lecturer, School of International Service, American University, Reverend Jeff Carr,

founder of the Infinity Fellowship in Nashville, Tennessee. Glad to have all three of you here. So, Julian, the point that I'm laying out, this ain't no games. That crap, that crap, crap, grandpa, now y'all talk about now a simple majority. You punk asses had a simple majority

when it came to Barrett, when it came to Gorsuch, when it came to Kavanaugh. Roland, you know what? First of all, these shenanigans around this supremely qualified woman are absurd,

absurd, and even more absurd. Somebody needs to take Ted Cruz outside and have a paperback party with him. And Reverend Carr knows what I mean when I say a paper bag party. Somebody needs to do something to this boy because he's out of order, out alive, out of control.

And he's a bully. That's the worst of it is that he's a bully. But number two, as you say, Ms. Lindsay is out there clutching her pearls, talking about what they would do if they were in charge. Well, they already did it when they denied Merrick Garland his Supreme Court seat and then went to Amy Colby Barrett, who is not even afraid, not qualified to hold on to.

I will use my friend Carolyn Kirk Fitzpatrick, not afraid to carry Judge Kalonji's bra strap. That's what Carolyn said one time, and she was right on it. The bottom line here is this woman is eminently qualified, and I'm just telling people, just get your telephone up. Tomorrow is National Call Day. National Council of Negro Women and others are dealing with this, and you need to call. You need to call your senator.

You need to call your congressperson. You need to tell them a clown just like Ted Cruz did. I'm flipping here because I'm looking for enough phone numbers and I don't see them. But y'all know how to find them. I know you have them because you got everything. But basically, people, call tomorrow.

Tell them this is BS. Bull-flucking-doo-doo. And it's unacceptable. Hold on. We can't hear you. You on mute? First of all, just so you understand the silliness that we are seeing here, and I'm going to play a soundbite in a second,

you have folks like Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri. I'm going to play it in a second. Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri talking about, oh, yeah, I'm going to vote against her, but I'll be watching this historic moment. Yeah, and we're going to remember exactly where your ass was on the Congo, who you voted against. Just like when Senator John McCain had to feel that pain every year about MLK holiday and he had to apologize for it when he ran for president.

No, players, it's too late. It's too late. History is going to show all of the Republicans who voted against the first black woman in the history of the United States of the Supreme Court of Mocongo. Roland, before you get to the problem, can I give these phone numbers again, please? Go ahead.

It's 202-224-3121. That's a name-cited number. And then SEIU and NCNW have come together. And the other number is 833-304-6129. Y'all, let's shut this stuff down. Let's make sure they know we're watching them. Thank you, Roland.

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

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

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

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

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

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I always had to be so good, no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars.

Workers skilled through alternative routes, rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersilling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. You know, history will show it, but I would argue that history will show it only if the Democrats get out there and show it and capitalize on it. Because we're doing our part. We're exposing them every single day. But when these Democrats get out there and campaign, Lindsey Graham just gave them a perfect campaign ad. Everyone who you just talked to as well,

I'm not going to vote, but I'm going to watch it. They gave us campaign ads. But are Democrats going into this electoral cycle going to start to control the narrative and put that out on Front Street. And we as voters, we have to develop a certain level of sophistication, man, because when you go back to Hillary and Trump, yes, Hillary didn't run a great campaign,

but the Republicans knew that it was all about the Supreme Court. And we were so caught up in our feelings, we don't like how she did Obama and all this other type of stuff, that many of us stayed home. We have to be more sophisticated now, and they are giving us so much ammo right

now that we have to utilize and turn in their faces. I always get upset when people say, well, the party that lost the presidential election usually wins the midterm election. You're going to tell me after an insurrection, after a former president still trying to overthrow the government, after Republicans like Madison Carthorne talking

about cocaine and orgies and all of this other type of stuff, and Republicans blocking things like COVID relief and now trying to block the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court, that they're still guaranteed to win in the fall? That's nonsense, man. We got to get out there and stay active and not let these moments slip and capitalize on them every single day, because we know that the Republicans are going to do it, especially with Lindsey Graham super critical behind after voting for her twice in the last year or two. And the thing here, Jeff, I was I had a couple of conversations over the weekend and I I was dealing with some of these reparations folks, mad, upset, talking about, how you going to talk about it on your show?

They were like, you know, you call reparations a pipe dream. I said, I call reparations a pipe dream because I ain't got no confidence these white folks are going to vote for it. I ain't got none. I'm telling you right now, I don't have no confidence that these white folks are going to vote for it. I ain't got none. I'm telling you right now, I don't have any confidence at all that white politicians are going to vote for reparations.

I ain't got no problem saying that. That's why I said that. I don't. I ain't got no confidence. Now, does that mean that folks don't fight? No. But I'm just telling you right now, I don't trust white politicians to vote on that very issue.

Well, hell, they can't even vote for a black woman on the Supreme Court. But this is what I did tell the people who, uh, who, um, support reparations. The Congress gave several billion dollars to black farmers and other minority farmers. White folks immediately sued. All y'all running

reparations, no vote. Y'all, if it actually happens, it's going to the courts. Which means you're going to want federal judges on

your side. So, listen to me. All y'all folk who love tweeting and love commenting, who don't know a damn thing about politics, there is going to be a legal challenge, which means you're going to want federal judges who likely rule in your favor. We know for a fact that when Republicans control the Senate, they appointed federal judges who are between the ages of 35 and 45. Yes. Why? So they can be there for life.

For 30, 35, 40, 45 years. So, allow me to do the math. It's 2022. That means that if a federal judge serves for the next 40 years,

they will be there until 2062. Stop it. Listen to me, y'all. Everybody out there, all y'all folk out there, I'm giving y'all civics 101. And I'm speaking specifically to the people

who yell what you want. Listen to me while I can explain to you. 200 federal judges were appointed under Trump. I think it to you. 200 federal judges were appointed under Trump. I think it was 2016. There were 100 vacancies

left open from Obama. So they really should have only had 116. But because Republicans controlled the Senate, they screwed Obama. And so they control the Senate.

They got 260, I think it's 216 judges they got. Under Biden, more black judges have been appointed in one year than at any other time in American history. Let me repeat that. More in history. More of those black judges. I think eight of them have been black women. More than any other time in American history.

So why am I saying that, y'all? Don't think for a second that if you support reparations, that if you support reparations, that if you support civil rights, that if you support HBCUs, that if you support a black agenda, if they control the Senate,

everything you want, you ain't gonna get. One, can't pass. If the Dems got the House and the Republicans got the Senate, ain't nothing getting passed. But let me say it again. For all the people out

there who yell reparations, you're going to need democratically appointed federal judges because if there's not one Republican in Congress, democratically appointed federal judges. Yes. Because if there's not one Republican in Congress who supports reparations, I can guarantee you

they are not going to appoint a federal judge that does. Jeff, folk needs to understand this is absolutely connecting the dots. One impacts the other, even if you can't see it today. Sure. And if you're sitting in a city right now saying, well, I don't need to vote because I'm in a metropolitan statistical area

that has a million people, and I've got a few black representatives here, and I feel like the business environment is great, so I don't really need to participate and vote. Baby, you need to look at a state like Montana, where people who are six people per mile, a square foot mile, have more power than you do in your entire neighborhood in the Senate. So we have this system that's set up, and I'll give us three things for this. I'll give us prayer, I'll give us a steering wheel, and I'll give us positive thinking. When we talk about prayer, the highest form of prayer is action. It does no good for us to put our hands on our chest and in the air and roll out our carpet and pray and pray and pray and think that somehow we're going to

receive this Western concept of pie in the sky. We're just going to have people vote for people because they're good people, vote for people because they're qualified people. And we're going to pray, oh Lord, let these Republicans see the light. Let their hearts be changed. Put the spirit of Christ in them and let them see beyond their own racism. Let them see beyond their own interests and push this sister up because she is also a child of God. Listen, the highest form of prayer is action, taking action and putting people in office who are going to secure your rights for the long term.

As you said, Roland, we're talking about long game here, whether that's reparations, whether it's justice in the streets, whether it's justice in the streets, whether it's justice in the educational system, whether it's just us in law enforcement, the gains that we've gotten have come primarily from the judiciary, which is related directly and tied directly to who we put into the House and Senate, and yes, even into the White House.

As far as the steering wheel that I'll give you, listen, when you are driving, when you have the steering wheel in your control, you got to drive, baby. So right now, while the Democrats are in control, you got to drive. And we have to equip people with the skills to drive, because what Lindsey Graham is saying is that if Republicans get control of the steering wheel, we're driving. And we don't care if you're in the side seat, back seat, trunk, or in front of us, because we will run over you. So when you have an opportunity to be in the driver's seat, you have to drive home agenda. You have to drive home judicial appointments.

You have to drive home local elections. You have to make voting a part of a larger strategy. And you cannot trust that by pulling back and not voting, somebody's going to take care of you and listen to your demands. Last thing I'll give you this, because I'm a positive thinking guy. Positive thinking is positive doing. So you don't sit still and just say a bunch of affirmations and expect that the tide is going to turn. It's time to get out. It's time to flood those phone lines that Dr. Julianne gave us. It's time to study those stats that you not waiting on people like Joe Manchin. We're not waiting on the goodness of a Lindsey Graham to appear. We are securing our future by acting in the right now. And I need folk to understand. I ain't saying folk get a free pass.

I'm not saying, oh, vote, don't say nothing, don't ask for nothing. No, hell no, I ain't saying that. What I am saying is you had better understand that the Republican plan, y'all, they already showed it to you. The whole deal with critical race theory. As many times as I can. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. The whole thing with critical race theory. As many times as I can. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

The whole thing with critical race theory? Y'all, that ain't just it. Let me remind y'all when Trump was there, the attack on all things diversity, equity, and inclusion. Y'all, do understand what they are trying to do here. Do understand what is next for them. Do understand that they are going to attempt to block anything and everything that black folks would like to see. Y'all had better understand what's going on here. And see, don't even sit here and fall for these folks who

claim, oh, you know, they sit, oh, you know, like, that's a good guy. No, no, no. These people are going to stand with Donald Trump regardless. They are going to stand with the Republican Party

regardless. They are going to pay lip service, lip service to anything that involves us. And again, this is Roy Blunt. He's retiring as a senator in Missouri. Everybody listen to me carefully. The Republicans are scared to death right now. They're scared because Eric Greitens, the former governor, remember who was one who was cheating on his wife and then

took a picture of the woman, had a bound and everything? Well, they're scared. His negatives are so high that if he wins Republican primary, they can lose the Senate seat. Boom! Touchdown! Nobody, Democrats are not, they're like, you know what?

We can't win Missouri. If Gritens is a Republican nominee, oh yes you can, because y'all remember having before, remember that dude? Was it Kansas or Missouri? The guy who said, if it's rape, just say, just lay back and enjoy it. Republican nominee. They lost

that, I think he was running against Claire McCaskill. That's how she actually won. She was losing. That comment put over the top. What I'm trying to lay out to y'all, I'm telling you. This is blunt. He's leaving. His seat could be snatched.

That could be another win if black folks in Kansas City, St. Louis, and other places turn out massive numbers. Listen. Judge Katonji Brown, Jackson, have you made up your mind yet? Well, I have, George, and good to be with you this morning. Initially, my sense is that the president certainly had every good intention and every right in the campaign to talk about putting the first black woman on the court. I think it's time for that to happen. I was hoping that I could be part of that.

I had a great conversation with her. Really, there are two criteria, as I said immediately. One is, is the person qualified for the job? And two is, what's her judicial philosophy? She's certainly qualified. I think she's got a great personality. I think will be a good colleague on the court. But the judicial philosophy seems to be not the philosophy of looking at what the law says and the Constitution says and applying that, but going through some method

that allows you to try to look at the Constitution as a more flexible document. And even the law, and there are cases that show that that's her view. I think she's certainly going to be confirmed. I think it'll be a high point for the country to see her go on the court and take her unique perspective to the court. But I don't think she's the kind of judge that will really do the kind of work that I think needs to be done by the court. And I won't be supporting her, but I'll be joining others and understanding the importance of this moment. If it's a high point for the country, why not support her? Go back, go back, go back, go back.

Lifetime appointments are a different criteria than other appointments. I've supported a significant number of President Biden's nominees to offices that will end, their time will end while he's still in office or when he leaves office. I think that's a different criteria than somebody putting somebody on the court for life. I don't think I've supported any district judges that he's appointed up till now, the court of appeals level justice judges. And she just doesn't meet the criteria that over and over again. I've said in the last decade that the advise and consent part of the of the Constitution gives the Senate more responsibility than just saying... All that mumble, y'all. Oh, I'm going to sit back and watch it. Yeah. But you ain't playing no role in it. I'm trying to walk people through. And see,

Julianne, I got all these old ignorant-ass people. Man, you ain't nothing but a shield for the Democrats. That's supposed to be a moderate Republican right there. Hold on, hold on, hold on. First of all, you mute. So Julianne, you're just talking and you're on mute. So you might want to unmute. But the thing here is, that's supposedly a quasi moderate Democrat. Folk need to understand, y'all, this is politics. This is power.

It's two choices in America, Democrat, Republican. So you got to decide who I got a shot at talking to and convincing to come my way versus somebody who ain't ever going to come my way. And that's right there, the GOP. Now, see, now she went away. But let me show you how this here. Hold up, hold up. This just in. This just in.

Go to my computer. After reviewing Judge Jackson's record and testimony, I have concluded that she is a well-qualified jurist and a person of honor. While I do not expect to agree with every decision she may make on the court, I believe that she more than meets the standard of excellence and integrity. I congratulate Judge Jackson on her expected confirmation. I look forward to her continued service to our nation. That means that Mitt Romney will be the second Republican to vote for her. So as of right now, she has 52 votes

to be confirmed as the next U.S. Supreme Court justice. Julianne, go. I am so excited. I am so excited. Mitt Romney has a little bit more sense than I thought he had, but we just go claim that, embrace that. The fact is that this sister is more qualified than anybody who is sitting on the Supreme Court

right this minute. Roland, I'm gonna ask people to please get a pen out. Please, please, please, please. Yeah, first of all, slow down, because my dad is sending me a text saying, damn it, we couldn't write the number down fast enough. So, uh, so slow down. So, so go, go, go.

Give the number. Okay, two numbers. 202-224-3121. Hold up. No, 202-224-3121. Got it. And that's the same number to the United States Senate. You can ask for the senator of your choice.

Daddy, call Ted Cruz. And I know if you're rolling daddy, you got something to say. Now, the other number, which is also sponsored by NCNW and the ACLU, is 833-304-1629. Again, 833-304-1629. And that's an SEIU-sponsored number I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time. Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them.

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad.

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

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

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

quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corps vet. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things.

Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two matter and it brings a face to it. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I always had to be so good no one could ignore me carve my path with data and drive but some people only see who I am on paper the paper ceiling the limitations from degree screens

to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersilling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. They tell me I cuss too much. So anyway, Maryland farmer is not a cuss word.

Let's close this Maryland farmer down so that we can make sure that people understand we are passionate about this system. Omicongo, are you laughing at me? Hold up, hold up, hold up. Hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up. Also, now, Omicongo, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska

will vote for Judge Jackson. So now, that's three Republican votes. So as it stands, we've heard from Manchin in West Virginia, have not heard from Sinema, but we haven't heard anything else. So if you take the 50 Democratic votes, you take now three Republicans, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, that means Judge Brown Jackson will have at least 53 votes confirming her to the U.S. Supreme Court. Bipartisan confirmation.

That's just beautiful. That's just beautiful, right? And that's all we've asked for, right? For an opportunity to have her sit down, have her views made. I mean, come on, we've had people who've been on Supreme Court who don't even have law degrees, man. And somehow I think you didn't even have undergraduate degrees. We wanted her to get a fair shot.

And all of the histrionics of all of these guys, people like Murkowski, like you said, and Romney, they're coming around to just have an honest take. And that's all we're asking. But these other guys, they are committed in every way, shape or form to turn this into some type of circus, to play to their QAnon basis, to play to their MAGA basis, and really to try to do this at her expense. And I'm just glad that some of these Republicans have enough sense to see beyond this and just vote for her based on her qualifications, which is all we've asked for in the first place.

And for all these people who are sitting here in the message board saying, no, Mitt Romney didn't actually say he was going to vote for it, this is his tweet, y'all. This is the tweet. I intend to vote in support of Judge Katonji Brown Jackson's confirmation

to be an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Y'all, pay attention. I know what I'm doing, okay? I wouldn't have said it if it wasn't true. Got it? I'm just saying. All right. Got to go to a break.

But again, folks, I need y'all to understand. Y'all going to hear me talk about this stuff this entire week. In fact, Wednesday you're going to hear from Michigan Senator Gary Peters who chairs the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. We're going to talk about, again, what their focus is when it comes to electing Democrats. I'm telling y'all, you've got to protect Georgia, New Hampshire, Nevada, Arizona to maintain the current numbers for Democrats. But critical races, Florida, North Carolina,

Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, Missouri, those are five, those potentially could be five pick-up seats. Y'all, don't play games and let Senator Lindsey Graham be chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He already told you what he gonna do. And it will not be good for black people. Coming up next, Jenny Thomas.

Clarence Thomas' wife. Mm-hmm. That Karen is crazy. And he should recuse himself or even step down from the Supreme Court. We'll talk about that next on Roland Martin Uncultured on the Black Star Network. On the next Get Wealthy, did you know that the majority of households headed by African-American women don't own a single share of stock? No wonder the wealth gap continues to widen. Next on Get Wealthy, you're going to hear from a woman who decided to change that. I've been blessed with good positions, good pay. But it wasn't until probably in the last couple of years that I really invested in myself to get knowledge

about what I should be doing with that money and how to productively use it. Right here on Get Wealthy on Blackstar Network. Pull up a chair, take your seat at the Black Tape with me, Dr. Greg Carr, here on the Blackstar Network. Every week, we'll take a deeper dive into the world we're living in. Join the conversation only on the Blackstar 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.

Hey, I'm Deon Cole from Blackest. Hey everybody, this your man Fred Hammond and you're watching Roland Martin, my man, Unfiltered. All right folks, 2020. Help this great president. Text messages. First of all, this is the text. Help this great president stand firm, Mark. You are the leader with him who is standing for America's

constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden. And the left is attempting the greatest heist of our history. These are text messages that are coming from the president. constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden, and the left is attempting the greatest heist of our history. These are text messages that Jenny Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, sent to the chief of staff to Donald Trump. Yeah, egging him on.

Even though he lost. Here's another one. Sounds like Sidney and her team are getting inundated with evidence of fraud. Make a plan. Release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down. November 19, 2020. Folks, text after text after text after text. Omicongo, the story, first of all, Sunday morning shows,

they want to talk about Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden don't sit. Hunter Biden is that boy over there in Malibu. This is somebody who has been involved in Republican politics. Her husband's Supreme Court, law of the land. When the Supreme Court voted eight to one, eight to one regarding the that Trump had no executive privilege. Who was the one person who said he can keep his papers private? Clarence Thomas, because he knew these text messages were going to get out.

That's right. Oh, absolutely. And to be quite honest. And then let's not let's not forget the fact that she pays for some buses for some of these guys who are part of the insurrection as well. She's been part of this whole plot the entire time, man. And to be quite honest, this is really frustrating because what it has exposed to me is how the Supreme Court can really just operate with impunity. We have other non-Supreme Court judges have to recuse themselves from cases. Clarence Thomas has recused himself from cases involving his son and a school a couple of years ago and the like. But when it comes to something like this, he has a choice as to whether he can stay on or not. This is corruption at the highest level. And we also know that she has a history

of referring to Clarence Thomas as her best friend in some of these texts. She's talking about her best friend as well in terms texts. She's talking about her best friend as well in terms of the influence that she has as it relates to that. This is corruption of the highest order. And it's really unfortunate that as I know that there are some lawmakers who are introducing legislation to force Supreme Court justices to have to recuse themselves. But the fact that as it stands now, Justice Clarence Thomas will not have to recuse himself for any cases relating to the attempt at an insurrection in the United States at this moment, it's shameful. And it shows once again how when you get to the top, the same rules just don't apply that apply to everybody else. And she needs to be pulled in front of the committee.

I don't hear all of this nonsense about, oh, people are sensitive about calling a Supreme Court justice's wife or spouse. That's nonsense, man. We're talking about an overthrow of the country. You shouldn't have any sensitivity towards that. Do your job and get it done. She needs to be called out and called on to answer to this. at the end of the day, what we're dealing with here, Jeff, is we're dealing with someone who is operating in lockstep with her husband. Republicans love talking about judicial activism. Clarence Thomas is operating as a member of the Republican Party, not as a Supreme Court justice who's looking at things fair and impartial. Absolutely. It's nonsense for us to think that a husband and wife

are not walking lockstep with one another. It's called, in biblical terms, being equally yoked. It doesn't have anything to do with income. It doesn't have anything to do with background. What it has to do with is philosophy, the way we see the world, the way we align on things like politics, on things like family, on things like family,

on things like economics. So it makes sense for us to say Clarence Thomas must step down. He must recuse himself. And I will go even further and say, not just from course cases that are related to the presidency or related to insurrection and more, but period, because he is in action. He is an actionist for a mentality that has proclaimed this current presidency as a fraud, that operates on conspiracy theories, that has taken words and phrases from popular movies like Clash of the Titans. That's where the phrase release the Kraken comes from. Release a beast so fierce that we never want to call it forward because it will destroy all of us. So what does that mean? When a lawyer, a noted lawyer, Virginia Thomas, says release the kraken, it means that we're willing to do anything. We're

willing to destroy even ourselves. We will do whatever it takes to preserve our way of life, our MAGA way of life. Now, when you're on a signal and a frequency and you're having communication, especially between husband and wife and communities, there is a signal, but that signal cannot be heard unless there is a receiver on the same exact frequency. So that means that when we're hearing Jenny Thomas talk, we're hearing Clarence Thomas's philosophy put out through his wife. We cannot say that these things are separate. There are people who make millions of dollars as lawyers and attorneys working with government officials, teaching them how to skirt the ethical line. For example, here in Nashville, there was a mayor that was elected during the COVID shutdowns.

It was pointed out that he had an interest in a liquor store during a time when liquor sales went up because of the shutdowns of the bars and restaurants, 800 percent. But the ethical line was skirted by the transference of the ownership into his wife's name. That's what people said. They said it's going to the same family. So we're saying the same thing here. This same philosophy that is happening, whatever philosophies are going on and being taught and reinforced in the Thomas household are, yes, actively showcasing themselves in the decisions that this man is making on the bench. So beyond just individual cases, the right, the moral, the ethical, the legal thing to do would be for him to recuse himself from the entire chamber. It makes no sense that the Supreme Court does not have rules governing

these things, Julianne. We've never been here before, Roland. We have never had such a COVID, just a putrid, venal couple. Jenny Thomas has been a conservative activist from the beginning. I don't want to speculate on how they hooked up or anything, that's none of my business. But she has been a judicial activist from the beginning and what Brother Carr has said is so important. This is a thing called pillow talk.

Don't tell me that husbands and their wives don't talk. You and Jackie talk. Babu and I, when he was here, we talked. We might say we're here, we're in different lanes, but the fact is that we talked. And what she's talking to him about is this insurrection and what needs to happen is he must be recused. If the Supreme Court clear justice can't make him do it,

other people need to. But just like we call people, and I'm going to get my numbers again because I just put this on the side of my phone, but when we call these people, tell them, number one, support Kalanji. Number two, come on, Clarence Thomas is going to sit up under the same rocky crowd out from under. 202-224-3121. 202-224-3121. Call your senator. 833-304-1629. Call your senator. But, Roland, this repels me. This woman was all up in the Kool-Aid and this man is acting like he wasn't there. Where did he sleep that night before?

That's all I want to know. Again, folks, we just need to understand what is going on here in mainstream media. They're not focusing on this. It was a one, two-day story. And I don't understand the January 6th committee. They should be subpoenaing, should be hitting,

Gene Thomas would have subpoenaed, forced her to come before the committee to actually speak to what she knows, what's going on. The committee needs to be far more aggressive. I think they're too quiet. They should be using public hearings. They're moving way too damn slow, and it just makes

no sense to me whatsoever. That's really what should be going on, but unfortunately, they're running at a speed, and so when you hear people say, well, I don't care about the committee, well, part of the reason you don't care is because they're not properly driving this issue home. That, to me,

is a problem. That's what we need to be dealing with. Put the heifer in some handcuffs. That'll fix it. Well, again, you need to have something more going on here. All right, folks, going to break. We come back. We're going to talk about the Poor People's Campaign and their

new report when it comes to COVID. We're going to talk about again, the business of the media business. Why it's important for you to understand really how this whole thing works. And lots more in our second hour of Roller Martin Unfiltered. Don't forget, folks, if you want to support us, we're trying to hit 50,000 downloads of the Black Star Network app by May 1st. And so download to your Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. Also, YouTube, y'all need to get going. Look, it's more than 2,100 of y'all on.

While we only got 300 likes, y'all need to move it and get it going, okay? Hit the like button if you're on YouTube. Hit the like button if you're on Facebook and the share button as well. Folks, if you want to support us in what we do, please join our Bring the Funk fan club. Your dollars make it possible for us to do what we do.

And so if you want to send your check or money order to P.O. Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037. Cash app is Dollar Sign RM Unfiltered. PayPal is R. Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at RolandisMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered. Venmo is RMUnfiltered. Zelle is Roland at RolandisMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. We'll be right back.

On the next A Balanced Life, April is Autism Awareness Month. We will be having a very special conversation on education, advocacy, and working in that space. Whether you have a child on the spectrum or not, this is a space for you. This is a conversation you don't want to miss. Join me, Dr. Jackie, on A Balanced Life on 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, I'm B.B. Winans. Hi, I'm Kim Burrell.

Hi, I'm Carl Painting. Hey, everybody, this is Sherri Shepherd. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. And while he's doing Unfiltered, I'm practicing the wobble. So in today's Black and Missing, this young woman has been missing for more than a month. Ruthie Smith, also known as Grayson or Winter, missing from Los Angeles, folks, since March 2nd. The 19-year-old is 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighs 120 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. Ruthie has several tattoos, Ezra on the side of her face below her temple. Lamarion on the other side of her face below her temple. A wave on her chest that says ocean

with details of her daughter's birth. She also has a nose piercing. Ruthie was last seen on camera folks wearing black flip-flops. Again, she's been missing a month, wearing black flip-flops, a light-colored jacket, and she had a black bag with her. Folks, for some reason, the Los Angeles authorities have not been aggressive with this. Jasmine Koenig sent us this, and she said that because they classified her as a sex worker. That's what they're saying. And so here's the deal.

If you have any information regarding her disappearance, the number to call for the LAPD is 877-527-3247. 877-527-3247. Again, she's been missing for a month. And so we appreciate Jasmine Koenig letting us know about this. And so we certainly are going to push this out and hopefully there's some information and she can be found. We've been frozen out. Facing an extinction level event. We don't fight this fight right now. You're not going to have Black Army. All right. Glad to have everybody back on the show.

So, tonight, on a local station, folks in Atlanta, there's going to be a report by Randy Travis. Randy Travis to be a report by Randy Travis. Randy Travis is doing a report tonight on the popular blogger Darius Cooks. And the story is going to be dealing with the issue of doxing.

And so Randy sent this tease out today. So I just want youall to watch this. I'm Fox 518 reporter Randy Travis. Coming up all new tonight at 10, what is the recipe for doxing? Well, a popular Atlanta food blogger is under fire for posting personal information of his critics who claim he's not being honest

with his customers or his followers. I'm scrolling, and the next thing I know, I see a picture of me. I see a picture of my children and my husband. And it was almost kind of like, literally, like an out-of-body experience. The story coming up all new tonight at 10. We'll see you then. Now, so Randy is an investigative reporter for the Fox affiliate there, okay? He's on the on the I team, which means that it's more than just him. And so he has a team there and the opportunity to do this.

Now, it's very interesting because this story has been circulating for some social media. And I've had some folks send me tweets and mad upset saying, like, we told you about this story and you didn't do anything on the story. Now, I had explained to the very same people that I'm one person. you literally are dedicating several days or several weeks to one story, chasing facts down, double-checking, and confirming stories. Y'all, that ain't what we do because you have to have people to do that. Give me a shout out to the control room. Y'all, this is our staff. Director, producer, producer, PA, AP. We don't have other reporters. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time.

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

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

And this is season two of the war on drugs podcast. We are back in a big way, in a very big way, real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star studded a little bit, man. We got a Ricky Williams,

NFL player, Heisman trophy winner. It's just the compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban. Benny the Butcher.

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

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I always had to be so good, no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive.

But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersceiling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. We don't have other anchors.

We don't have someone who is dedicated to actually focus on this every single day. Hey, one person who said, oh, now all of a sudden you care about this story. And why could you not dedicate all of your time and attention? Y'all, how could I dedicate all of my time and attention to one story? Because some folks say we think it's important. Now, is it important? Are the allegations that folks are making regarding Darius Cooks, are they important to investigate? Yeah, but you kind of got to have people to investigate it. In order to have people to investigate it, you got to have the additional resources to hire those people and to put them on that type of a story. Now, here's the deal. I've done investigative stories before. Y'all, it's not easy work.

You literally are going through paperwork, confirming things, chasing things down. And so I've walked people through that, yet I think a lot of people out there have absolutely no understanding about how our business works and how these things get done. See, just because you're sitting on Twitter and you post something on Twitter, that ain't investigative reporting.

Just because you post an item on Twitter or you post somebody else's stuff and go, see, they did it, why can't you? That ain't what it is. See, y'all, when somebody hits me up and they claim something, y'all got to understand, I get emails every single day from people who are in prison claiming that they didn't do it. I get people who hit me up. I'm a whistleblower. I got a story to tell. I need somebody to investigate my story.

It happens all the time. And I feel for these folks because literally one person can't do it. So I was trying to explain to some of these people. I said, let me explain to y'all what one person does. I host this show two hours a day. We have four other shows on the Black Star Network. We have four shows in pre-production being developed for the Black Star Network. I also am out pitching advertisers to bring in new money to keep the doors open. That's one person.

Now, please explain to me how I can just drop all of that stuff to focus on the one story you care about or you say is important. Please, by all all means tell me how that's possible. Then I had somebody tell me, well, you could just hire some HBCU students. No. No. You got to hire experienced people to do it. Oh, by the way, did I use the word hire? In order to hire the experienced person to do it, you have to pay the person to do it. It's not free.

I keep telling y'all, posting something on social media ain't reporting. Okay? It's not. And so when I'm walking people through this, when y'all hear me talking about why we fight for resources and what these things matter, I mean, I just

need y'all to understand. It's real. The studio is $15,500 a month times 12. Do the math, please. The internet. We have to have a dedicated internet line. Okay? Dedicated. Y'all, that's $2,000 a month. Not the $109 you paying at home. And we're paying an additional $600 a month for the highest security to make sure hackers don't tap into our system and then throw us offline. Do y'all understand that I get emails every single day about these attacks? Yeah. So when I'm trying to explain this stuff, you know, and then folks like, I don't understand why you so defensive, why you so mad. Well, when somebody tells me,

why ain't you covering this you acting like this is the only thing I got in my life to do hell we didn't even talk about I still got a wife and a family see when you're sitting at home and you think something is important when you think something is important, when you think something is important, well then, I get it. And in fact, the woman who's in the story, I've been texting her. And I told her it wasn't that I wasn't interested in the story, I literally, listen to the words, y'all,

don't have the capacity to do the story. So how many times have y'all talked heard me say that black-owned businesses have to grow our capacity, which means we've got to generate more revenue to grow our capacity. So now I see now I'm about to really blow y'all away with something. When you do investigative reporting, you are more likely to get sued. Oops. What does that now mean? You now have to pay legal fees, meaning you have to keep attorneys on retainer

to handle the lawsuits that come in. Do y'all know what the typical retainers are for law firms? $5,000 to $10,000 a month. That ain't, that's just a retainer. That means you pay that every single month, whether you get sued or not. Right now, see, I told y'all I'm going to be transparent. Right now, I'm being sued we're being sued By somebody Louisiana over story reported

He sued us in federal court. I had to pay the attorneys That got thrown out of federal court He then sued us in state court And so my attorney here Had to hire an attorney in Louisiana who has jurisdiction to fight the case. See, y'all don't even see that. Do y'all realize I have already spent more money on that legal case than what it cost me to pay one producer?

See, when you sitting at home trying to tell me how to run a media business and you don't run no business, that tells me you know nothing about business. And so why do I do these segments? Why do I do these where's our money segments? Why do I do these segments about advertising? Why do I do these segments talking about black-owned businesses only getting 1.67% of federal contracts that we did last week? In fact, I'm going to use that story as an example.

Normally, if you were CNN or any of the networks or these other large media outlets, you would assign a reporter to go through all that data that Ron Busby presented, and you would make other phone calls, and you would do

this big old story on the issue. We can't. So Ron comes on, and it's a one-on-one interview walking it through. So some folks got mad at me because I saw the Randy Travis text, and I sent a tweet to Darius Cook saying, are you going to respond to this? And some woman was like, oh oh now all of a sudden now you

care about the story and I said you know nothing about what we do here and so I just want everybody who's watching and who's listening to understand there is a business of the business. There are costs associated to do this level of work. So you think just doing an interview, oh, that's investigative reporting. No, it's not. If somebody comes to me with a stack of documents

and they say, Roland, I got proof they did me wrong. Y'all know what I got to do? I got to go through the documents to verify what they said is actually true. And if I find a discrepancy, then I got to correct, I got to chase it down. You start talking about going through documentation. When I worked at Fort Worth, I covered City Hall. When I busted the city of Fort Worth over housing contracts, y'all, I had to go through every single contract. I then had to call HUD.

I then had a whistleblower. I had to go through. Y'all, I focused on that story and nothing else for a whole week. So let me ask you this question. How would everybody, how would y'all feel if I said, hey, I can't do Roland Martin unfiltered for a whole week because I'm going to invest this amount of time in this one story? Y'all are going to be like, no. Ariel, bring me that gray iPad right there. Bring those two iPads. So I'm going to also help y'all because somebody, both of them right there,

the gray one and the brown one, brown one too. So somebody also hit me with this and they said to me, they said to me, well man, that trip, that trip you went on to Ghana, how much that costs? Now, see, let me help y'all out with something so y'all can understand business. Thank you very much. See, and I'm walking y'all through this because I need y'all to really,

really understand in terms of what actually happens in the business of media. So what you have to understand is we do this show and we re-air this show multiple times. Y'all got me? So you, because I hear some of y'all, especially my haters, haters man all you do is re-airing a show you do know CNN re-airs their shows you do know Fox News re-airs their shows yes it's called the cost per cost of production so let me just help y'all some of y'all out who are just kind of unclear on this stuff. Because I love it when somebody tells me how I should have done this, I should have done that, and they, well, why'd you spend this money on Ghana? I'm glad

you asked why I spent the money on the Ghana trip. So, y'all know we're doing a 10-part docuseries on Ghana, right? Okay. So, the 10-part docuseries on Ghana, each one of them averages an hour, all right? So, that's 10 hours, right? Go ahead and pull it up. That's 10 hours, right? Go ahead and pull it up. That's 10 hours. Okay? That means 10 hours.

The trip, you add everything up, it was about $50,000. That means that each hour costs $50,000. That means that each hour costs $5,000 per hour if you air it at one time. Well, when you shoot something, you air it more than one time. So that means that if we air those 10 hours once a month on Blackstar Network, that means that what was 10 hours now comes out to be 120 hours. Y'all see that? 120 hours.

That's 120 hours of content. You actually had 10. That's now 120 hours. Okay. Now remember I told y'all the 50,000. See now all of a sudden the cost per hour of the show now has gone down because if you only showed it one time and it cost $5,000 an hour. Now, all of a sudden, if I have this same show, if I have this same show, y'all, and now all of a sudden I've got $50,000

divided by 120 hours, that now means my cost per show is now $416. It costs $5,000 per show individual hour. But when you re-air it, you air it each month, it now costs $416 per hour. So when you make an investment in shooting something, so you take the interviews that we did, the one-hour interviews that we did for Rolling with Roland. What happened with those? We shot 28 episodes. It cost us, we shot that over a period of six or five or six weeks.

L.A., New York, Atlanta. 28 hours. Same thing. We own that content. We now can run that content multiple times, which now fills up airtime. And what it means when we launch our 24-hour streaming channel, we now have library content that can run when we're not covering news. See, so you're thinking, oh, well, you could have taken the 60 and hired one producer. But can that one producer produce me 28 hours of content that I can now show 10 times a year each,

which now 28 hours of content, now it's 280 hours of content. And guess what? 280 hours of content, doing the math again, what I tell y'all, it cost 60. That's 200. And now all of a sudden, numbers totally change. See, all I'm trying to tell y'all is, so again, 60,000. You can show it right here. Divide about 280.

My cost per show is $214. So y'all, I need you to understand that when you're at home on your couch, or you're watching us right now, and you are sitting here trying to say we should be covering this and covering that and doing this, you don't know what stuff costs. You don't know what the human cost is for hours being put in. So it's not as simple as how you think it is. So I'm walking you through this so you understand when we're talking about why we're fighting for dollars. If all of a sudden Roland Martin unfiltered, the Black Star Network gets five, seven, ten million dollars in revenue. I can hire 20 people.

You know what I just said? See, Jeff, you know this. Folk in church complain all day. Pastor, we need this, we need that. But if your tithes and offerings don't match what your mouth is saying, I keep saying this. You cannot go to the Palm Restaurant with Golden

Corral money. No, sir. No, sir. Look, I'm so glad I was sitting here, and I was sitting here listening to what you were saying. I was even taking some notes and some numbers. I don't have to take extensive notes and numbers because I know how this is,

but I'm so glad you gave this panel an opportunity to chime in on this. Twenty years ago, when I was walking the streets of Jefferson, publishing a newspaper called The Third Eye, and I was knocking on the door asking people to give me $25 a week just so that we could buy newsprint and do layout. Even at that time, I didn't even have a salary. So even then, getting the word out, there was always somebody who wanted to tell me what needed to go in the paper. And you could always know it was somebody who was not a subscriber

because the loudest people are the people who are putting in the smallest amount of money. The biggest critics are the people who are not putting in something on it. When you talk about this mentality, it came around in full circle when one of the businesses on the corner who refused to give me any money said, we got a lawsuit against a major oil corporation, and we need you to put it on the front page of the paper, which I did. They won a $600,000 lawsuit. Do you think they bought a $25 ad the next month? Absolutely not. Do you think people said, why didn't you cover that anymore? Because I don't have the time to continue to pour in and nothing's coming back. Let's be very real in this moment. I'm talking to

everybody who is watching this right now. When we talk about doxing and doxing, which is dropping dox, right? It's been put to doxing. I'm going to dox a little bit and say I sent Roland Martin a text the other day. And I'm sharing a little bit of our business, brother. I hope you don't mind. I said, we need to do a fund rate. We need to do a

telethon. We need to do a webathon. And we need to raise a million, two million, three million dollars for Roland Martin unfiltered. We need to do a webathon, and we need to raise a million, two million, three million dollars for Roland Martin unfiltered. We need to do this because we are the foundation of keeping Roland Martin a free man. Freedom is not free. Complete people complete people. Just like hurt people hurt people.

We have a unique opportunity right now that we have not had in this country since we've been here to truly control from the ground up an international global media enterprise. You want to talk about investment? Investment is like this cup. This cup, brother, is not just Wakanda forever. It's Roland Martin right now. It's the metaphor for Roland Martin. If Roland Martin keeps pouring out and pouring out and pouring out, eventually Roland Martin is going to be empty. If the Black Star Network keeps pouring out and pouring out and pouring out, it's going to eventually be empty. But when we begin to pour in and we say with our little $50, $100 here, whatever we can give, when we begin to pour out,

then guess what happens? There begins to be an overflow. And then we all get to benefit from the overflow. When you talk about investigative reporting, the root word of investigation is invest. So if you want investigation, then I suggest you invest. We invest, we get more investigation. We get an opportunity to build capacity in this network with a brother, with a team of producers, with a team of people who are doing everything from punching buttons to researching articles to driving vans to getting on this show and making commentary,

people who have our best interests at heart. So we have a vision with Black Star. And I'm going to take my personal privilege in these comments as I close to do something. The reason why I was fumbling with my phone is I was calling up Roland Martin unfiltered cash app. And my meager paycheck from being a spiritual leader hadn't even hit the bank yet, but I'm putting something on the cash app now. And I'm challenging everybody to pause in this moment and ask yourself how you're seeing and hearing me right now. It's because many of you are pausing in this moment to give, too.

We're going to blow this network up. We're going to give this network the freedom that it needs to tell our stories. We're going to give Roland Martin and his entire team the capacity to build a vision that is bigger than CNN, that's going to build a vision that is bigger than any network because we're not going to compare ourselves to anyone but our own ability to shine. And we are demonstrating. What you're seeing is fruit. You can't get good fruit from a bad tree. And a bad tree cannot provide good fruit.

You're seeing, you're hearing, you're learning, you're taking notes. Guess what? That means that the Black Star vision is real, and it is happening. I'm inviting you to be a part of it. Thank you, Roland, for being transparent. You've given people the 101.

There's no excuse now for us not saying we are going to get behind this vision. So Black Star is a vision. And I don't know. If you're having problems understanding the vision, I feel bad for you, son. We got 99 opportunities, but Black Vision ain't one son. We got 99 opportunities, but...

Especially when you make a plan. Black division ain't one. So I got a guest coming up next with the Poor People's Campaign, and they do stuff all around the country. The reality is I would love to cover them all the stuff that they're doing. Reverend Barber and I talk all the time. And what happens, y'all, we actually tag-team.

His crew is there some stuff. We'll piggyback on their live stream and we'll show it. Sometimes we're there. That's what happens. When Reverend Barber said they were doing the march in Austin, we were down in Austin. We live streamed the entire march all four days

and then the event on Saturday. Julian, I got one person here, some Cheryl Lee, said, dude is making the same mistake these megachurches make. Beg for money, spend lavish, then gaslight while we don't, while we ain't shit for not giving more. Here's what's so funny. I love the people who think we spending lavishly. Guess what?

The camera costs $5,000. But it's a robotic camera. So, again, for the person who think gaslighting, and trust me, we got three more minutes in this segment then we go to break, then we come to our Poor People's Campaign guest. Guess what? Why do I have the robotic camera?

Because I can't pay a person to stand there and shoot every day. Y'all, robotic, robotic, robotic, robotic, robotic. Why? Because we have multiple sets. If we had physical people, we would have to have six people behind each one of these cameras. That's what folk don't understand.

And so this notion that, oh, it's lavish. Let me tell you something. And you want to be real transparent? The office where we were, it's across the street, y'all. They were going to charge us $22, y'all. They were going to charge us $22,000 a month to take over the whole office. The problem was it didn't have enough space. Guess what? We're subleasing this place paying $15,500. If I'm correct, I think we're paying $39 a square foot. Do you know what the people who are actually leasing it paying? They're paying

59. So the reality is here, we're actually paying a lesser price for the office space. It probably would be costing us 25 to 27,000 a month in real dollars. But when COVID hit, we were able to get a good deal. But for Cheryl, since you think we're spending lavishly, see, this is what happens when you're sitting at home and you don't run a business. This is economics, Julianne. So speak to that, Julianne. Go ahead. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

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

Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back.

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

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

Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. care of ourselves or up away you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else but

never forget yourself self-love made me a better dad because i realized my worth never stop being a dad that's dedication find out more at fatherhood.gov brought to you by the u.s department of health and human services and the ad council i want to know who she is i want to know her skin is in this game i want to know she's even giving five want to know her skin is in this game. I want to know if she's even given $5 to Roland Martin and Filcher. The fact is that I've been around you. You know, we don't love each other every day. We love each other most days. But you run a very tight shop financially.

Your contributors don't get paid. Yet, yet. Because if you build it right, it can happen. But go ahead. So this Cheryl, what's her story? You know, she got a problem. Because there are haterators who need to be congratulators. In other words, what you have done is built something for us.

And what many have done is disused because they don't understand the business model, nor do they understand the intellectual model. And I would posit that the intellectual model, bringing on Congo and Jeff and my boys like Cleo, who I miss, and Scott, who I don't miss, and other folks, you brought together, and Scott, who I don't miss, and other folks. You brought together, and Avis, and, you know, Monique,

you brought together a posse of Black intellectuals who have the opportunity to talk. And this woman was talking about you living large. No, what you're doing is living. You have essentially created the space. So I'm trying not to use profanity. They keep telling me I use too much of it. Would that happen to you to help? Omicongo, help me out.

They happen to you to help. So, the thing is, again, the same little, Cheryl, why you got to have so much space, okay? And I know, I got a guest waiting, trust me. So, here's the whole deal. That's a news set, y'all, over there. That's a news set. Guess what?

You can only put four people in the news set. So what happens when you got to interview six, seven people? Also, see, Cheryl, let me give you an education on television. Guess what, Cheryl? When you having a fitness guest in here, you now have enough space to actually do a fitness segment with this segment over here. That's why you have it.

Oh, I'm sorry. What happens? We were doing an explanation last with Ron Busby. Guess what? I got an A-twin television here, so now I can stand at this television and then do a description of what's going on. You can't do that when you're at a sit-down set. And why do you have a green screen? You got a green screen because when you're doing a television shoot and you want to change your background, then that's why you have a green screen. In the old space, we couldn't do that because we didn't have space. See, if you don't know nothing about the business,

stay out my business. Oh, McCongo, final comment before I go to my next break. The great philosopher Jay-Z said, as for the critics, tell me, I don't get it. Everyone can tell you how to do it. They never did it. At the end of the day, Roland, what you are doing, the fact that people are comparing you and saying that you got to be what CNN and all of that, it's because they see you up there with them, which is a testimony to the great production you have already created with everything that they're doing. And I'm going to quote another philosopher as I close,

all of these people complaining about what you birthed, and they've never birthed anything. And that was the Reverend Jeff Carr. Bottom line, y'all, again, I do these segments so you can understand that what I'm describing is what black businesses are going through all across the country. You cannot have larger black businesses to employ more of our people if you do not build capacity. And you cannot build capacity if you don't build revenue. And if you can't build, you don't, you can't build revenue unless you have a quality product that people want to buy, that people can then see, because then guess what? Then advertisers see the exact same thing. So that's what we're doing. So I just want to walk folks through this so you understand why when we're fighting over money,

this is what it's all about. Poor People's Campaign is fighting for the very same thing. We're going to talk about how COVID impacted poor people nationally next on Rolling Mark Unfiltered. -♪ Now, did you ever want to do a soap opera? I did it before on Another World. I did it years ago. Uh-huh. With, uh, Joe Morton, Morgan Freeman, called Another World. It's the funk now.

But that's how I started, in TV. You? My first job. You? My very first TV job. Joe Morton and Morgan Freeman were on a soap opera? Together. Yes. Wow. I know. Oh, I loved it. My first job. You? My very first TV job. Joe Morton and Morgan Freeman were on a soap opera? Together. Yes. I know.

Oh, I loved it. I played a prostitute. I was real raw. My name was Lily Mason. I was a hoe on Tuesday, and then I owned the town two weeks later. That's how they do you. Right, that's how soap opera. You know, you evolve.

Right. So now I'm on this, but I'm rich from Jump Street. So I'm loving it. I'm Bill Duke. This is DeOlla Riddle, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks, COVID had a tremendous impact on people all across this country, but it really had a dramatic impact on the working poor in America. The Poor People's Campaign released a report today that laid out exactly how devastating the pandemic has been to

poor folks across the country. These are the people who are on the front lines all across this country who were losing their lives. In fact, they even had one of their leaders, I think she was in Alabama or Mississippi, who passed away. It is called the Poor People's Pandemic Report, called Mapping the Intersection of Poverty, Race, and COVID-19. They found gaps in collecting national data on COVID deaths and the virus's impact on communities. They claim that millions who died from the virus were not counted. The data found that those living in poor counties died at nearly two times the rate of people who lived in wealthier counties.

The 300-plus counties with the highest death rates for a poverty rate of 45 percent nearly doubled in counties with lower death rates. Some of the counties with the highest death rates were West Virginia, New York, Arizona, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Texas, and North Carolina. Oh, by the way, y'all, West Virginia, you have a Republican senator, and you got Joe Manchin, who's a central Republican senator. You got New York, two Democratic senators. Arizona, two Democratic senators. Mississippi, two Republicans.

Wisconsin, one Democrat, one Republican. Texas, two Republican senators. North Carolina, two Republican senators. Why am I saying that? Because dealing with the poor is a bipartisan issue. Shaley Gupta-Bonds is policy director at the Cairo Center and the Poor People's Campaign. She joins me now near Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. Y'all are there in West Virginia because y'all have been putting pressure on Senator Joe Manchin because he blocked the

Build Back Better plan. He has not been advocating for the poor, even though his state is one of the poorest, one of the most illiterate states when it comes to dental, when it comes to health care, when it comes to education. The list goes on and on. Yet folks like him are standing in the way of helping the nation's poor. That's exactly right. I mean, we have been putting a lot of pressure on Senator Joe Manchin over the past several months because the people in West Virginia are putting pressure on Senator Joe Manchin. The West Virginia Poor People's Campaign and their allies and members here across West Virginia have been pushing hard saying we need higher wages. We need better systems that support our families. We needed the child tax credit, which you did not

support. And they are appealing both to their senator, but then also to the rest of the nation to focus, focus the attention, focus the political will on the conditions of poor people in West Virginia, but across the country. And so we are here for several days in Harpers Ferry, going to Martinsburg, where that's one of the three offices that Senator Joe Manchin has here in the state, and continuing on to other events to call attention to what the people in West Virginia are calling attention to. So, I mean, this report here, I mean, look, you had these frontline workers. You had the individuals who had to go to work, grocery store workers and others, while others were able to sit at home and collect their checks.

And these are the working poor, the people who are often forgotten. America loves to shout out first responders. But guess what? Ain't no America if you ain't got frontline workers at hospitals, at grocery stores, working public transportation. That's exactly right. I mean, what, you know, what Bishop Barber and others have been saying for months, right, is that for a short amount of time, we called all of these front line workers essential. But then our policies, our decisions, and how we allocated our resources and where those resources went very clearly showed that actually our society and our,

you know, our kind of, you know, our society really thinks of these workers as expendable because they did not have protections in place to guarantee their safety at work or at home or that, you know, very basic needs could be met. And that's not, you know, this is, that's not how you treat people who you actually believe are essential. And so there's, you know, something that we have to confront as a nation and what we've been calling out in this campaign alongside you and many others who've been lifting up this message. You know, so many people, first of all, y'all are gathering in the nation's capital on June 18th, and the reality is

you're picking up where Dr. King was. Today is April 4th, the 54th anniversary of the day Dr. King was assassinated. The shot rang out literally 31 minutes ago, striking him on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. He was talking about

the plight of the poor.. He was talking about the plight of the poor. He actually was talking about not just black poor people, but white poor people, Latino poor people. He said, no, this thing has to focus on Kentucky and West Virginia and Texas and Mississippi and Alabama and New York and Harlem and Los Angeles. And so this nation, here we're looking at President Biden proposing a budget for the Pentagon, $813 billion, $30 billion more than they're seeking. Yet if you said, hey, why don't we take that extra $30 billion and target the poor, oh, America will lose their damn mind.

Well, this is, you know, if we look back more than 50 years ago, before his assassination, Reverend King said that a country that spends more on the military than it does on programs of social uplift is facing a spiritual death. And to be honest, you know, 54 years you know, 54 years after after that, after, you know, the 1968 Poor People's Campaign, which he dedicated his last years to, were in these past five decades. We have seen things get worse in almost every dimension of the struggles that he and so many others were fighting for back then, if we talk about voting rights, if we talk about poverty, if we talk about health, if we talk about war and violence and incarceration, in every single dimension, things have gotten worse,

including the polarization of wealth and poverty and political influence that follows that polarization. Questions for the panel. Julianne, first. Shelley, first of all, great to see you. We work together and I adore your work and the work you're doing. We're going to come together,

the Poor People's Campaign, in June. What do you want to say to folks who don't see this as their issue? I mean, I think that that's one of the biggest things is that a lot of people don't see this as their issue? I mean, I think that that's one of the biggest things is that a lot of people don't see this as their issue. So incite people who don't see this as their issue. Well, I think there are two points I would say to this. One, you know, before the pandemic, over 40 percent of the country, so that's more than two in five people, were poor or one emergency away from being poor, right? And so some of us may not consider ourselves to be poor

because society has shamed people into thinking that poverty is their own fault when it's actually systemic, right? It's actually these systems and policy decisions. You know, poverty is a policy choice that's not made by poor people, but for people. And so there's a shame associated with being poor that that people don't necessarily want to associate themselves as poor. And so but if you think 40 percent of the country, two in every five people, then there's some some recognition that maybe the fact that I haven't, you know, I'm back on my rent. I owe a couple months in rent. I'm not sure how I'm going to make that happen. I'm not sure about my health care. I have to work more than one job. Somebody's got to work two or three jobs to make ends meet and keep, you know, food on the table for my family. If you look at all of these factors together, maybe we got to wake up and say, well, maybe I am actually poor.

So that's part of it. But on the other side of it is a recognition, I think we saw this in the pandemic, that unless we provide for and center and prioritize poor and low-income people in this country across race, then our entire nation suffers. As we show in our recent report, death rates in poor counties in this nation were two, three, four, five times higher than richer counties, depending on different phases of the pandemic. So this is not an issue that any one of us can ignore, regardless of where we stand socioeconomically, regardless of where we stand in the nation. In every county in this country, we have at least 9 percent, at least 8 to 10 percent of every county in this country is poor, and up to 94 percent of people in some counties are poor. So this is, poverty is actually the pandemic, which has been

widespread before COVID-19. And we have to face this together as a nation if we're ever going to change it. Omokongo? Appreciate you. First of all, Ms. Barnes, thank you for this incredible work and this incredible report. This is the type of reporting that we need to fully get a strong grasp of what actually happened during the pandemic. And so I look forward to sharing this widely. The question I have for you is, what do you say to people who say, okay, yeah, I understand this bad stuff happened during the report, but the pandemic's over. Cases are going down. We can get back to quote unquote normal now. So why do we need to pay attention to this going forward? Well, so we still have, we're approaching a million deaths in this country. One million

people have died and are dying from COVID-19 still, right? So we are, this pandemic is not over. And as we show in the Omicron phase, the latest phase of the pandemic, there have been three times as many deaths among poor and low-income people, or poor and low-income counties, excuse me, as wealthier counties. So no, we are not over. And two, I'm not sure we need to or should or should aspire to return to a normal where 40 percent of the country was poor, where 87 million people were uninsured or underinsured, where millions of people were on the edge of eviction and tens of millions of people were

earning less than $15 an hour. That is not the normal we need to return from in any case. So we are really just scraping the surface here and revealing what has not yet been seen at a national scale in terms of the impact of COVID on poverty and race and other factors. And it's a time for us to really see what has been unseen and then think together, act together, mourn together, so we can summon the strength to confront the injustices that are at the root of what's been happening. Let's go to Jeff. Thank you. First off, thank you, Sister Gupta Barnes, for the work that you're doing, for the work that Reverend Barber and everyone does.

It's a thankless job. But I want to say that there are many of us out here who are recognizing your work and support it. And yes, we're fans, which is short for fanatics. We know that it's going to take that kind of energy for us to make a difference with that 40 percent of the people who are suffering through poverty. We're talking about 140 million people. We're talking about half of renters, according to your report, that are struggling. Half the people who are renting can't afford their monthly rent. How do you get people to think beyond the political wall? Because people actually vote against their basic interest when they are focusing on political philosophy, and they don't realize that they're voting often against their interests?

How do you deal with getting people to think beyond the political wall and say, this is not just something that's happening to poor and brown people, but to everyone? Well, I think partially how Roland laid it out in the beginning, right? Showing that this is not a left issue or a right issue or a Republican issue or a Democratic issue solely, right? This isn't a question, as Bishop Barber says, of left or right, but right or wrong. As a nation, you know, the founding principles of this country and our Constitution are to establish justice, provide for the general welfare, right? Ensure domestic tranquility. And none of these things can be accomplished unless we're all

guaranteed fundamental basic rights. And we have not seen those. Millions and millions of people, whether it's for a few months in this pandemic or whether it's for generations, in the cases of some communities, right, have seen the realization of these basic fundamental rights to housing, to water, to health, to clean air, to vote and participate in this democracy, to save communities and public quality education. These are, if we want to thrive as a society, we have to, as we say in this campaign, lift from the bottom so that everybody can rise. We've got a final question for you, and that is this here. How many networks had y'all on the air today discussing this report?

That's a question. That's not a question for me. That's a question for our media team because, you know, we have, you know, a substantial this report, you know, and what we are doing here with you really is just the beginning, I hope, I believe, because what we've created with the U.N. Sustainable Development Network, SDSN, Sustainable Development Solutions Network, is a resource, is a tool where you can go in and look at your county. You could look at all the counties in your state. You could look at any county in this country,

over 3,200 counties, and see this information. Now, this is an initial preliminary analysis of what this data tells us, but we hope it inspires much more and that it becomes a way to change and shift the conversation we've had so far. You know, when you look at the disparities between low-income communities and counties and higher-income counties,

we can't explain this just by vaccination rates, not when uninsured, you know, the number, the percentage of uninsured people is twice as high in poorer counties than in wealthier counties. We can't explain, you know, any of this by one simple thing. We're talking about several years, decades of policies that have brought us to this point. And it's going to take, as you all have said, all of us coming together to change it. And I think that's what we are trying to do.

We've been building with you, Roland, and others on your program and in your audience. And we continue to do that for and with the 140 million poor people in this country so we can ensure that everybody, everybody has the right to live and to thrive. And so we can realize the nation we have yet to be. So the reason I asked that question is because, and I just hit Reverend Barbara's text, is because when we talk about news that matters, mainstream media will spend a ton of time talking about Hunter Biden's laptop. They'll spend a ton of time talking about inflation.

They'll spend a ton of time talking about gas prices. But they won't actually talk about, again, the people who are most impacted by it. And that's what I'm saying. So the reason why we do this and always providing an outlet is because if we're not getting your story out, then you're out there just trying to, you know, slam your head up against the window to get heard. And so we've got to have more media outlets do that. And unfortunately, mainstream media will spend a lot of time talking about the stock market and how it's going higher and higher and higher, but ignore the fact that

more than 50% of the country, not even in the stock market. And so that's why we report that. That's exactly right. That's exactly right, Roland. And we appreciate so much to have this conversation, to be able to talk about poverty so clearly, so frankly with you, and to break through the media blackout on some core issues that we need to confront. All right, then. Shaley Gupta-Barnes with the Cal Road Center, the Poor People's Campaign, we certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Thank you. All right. And again, folks, June 18th, the Poor People's Campaign are going to have their mass demonstration here in the nation's capital. We are going to be here covering that, June 18th, the Poor People's Campaign are going to have their mass demonstration here in the nation's capital. We are going to be here covering that on June 18th.

You can look for it on the Black Star Network. And this is why it's important. See, I keep saying this over and over and over again, y'all, and I'm telling you, the amount of time that we just gave to that, I can guarantee you the networks are not doing it. I guarantee you. And think about it. MSNBC's profit is $700 million a year. CNN's profit is a billion dollars a year. Fox News' profit is $1.5 billion a year.

They got huge sets and five and 600 and 1,000 and 2,000 and 3,000 and 5,000 staffers. Ask them how many found time today to talk about that report. So y'all going to understand what I'm saying, why having independent black-owned media matters. That's why I use the hashtag, black-owned media matters. And it's as simple as that. All right, y'all. We're going to go to a break. We come back.

We're going to talk in our Fit Live Win segment with a sister. She was 485 pounds. She dropped more than 200 and is still losing weight. She's going to talk about what she went through. It was not easy. But she's going to tell her story next. I'm Roland Martin. I'm Phil Trudeau of the Black Star Network. Download the app, Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV.

And of course, please support us at our Bring the Funk fan club. You can hit us up with a check or money order. PO Box 57196, Washington Washington D.C. 20037. The Cash App is Dollar Sign RM Unfiltered. PayPal is R Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zale is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com.

We'll be right back. On the next A Balanced Life, April is Autism Awareness Month. We will be having a very special conversation on education, advocacy, and working in that space. Whether you have a child on the spectrum or not, this is a space for you. This is a conversation you don't want to miss. Join me, Dr. Jackie, on A Balanced Life on Blackstar Network. On the next Get Wealthy, did you know that the majority of households headed by African-American women don't own a single share of stock? No wonder the wealth gap continues to widen. Next on Get Wealthy,

you're going to hear from a woman who decided to change that. I have been blessed with good positions, good pay, but it wasn't until probably in the last couple of years that I really invested in myself to get knowledge about what I should be doing with that money and how to productively use it. Right here on Get Wealthy on Blackstar Network. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future

where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st

and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way.

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

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

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content,

subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I always had to be so good no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skill through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersceiling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. All right, folks.

Every Monday, of course, we have our Fit, Live, Win segment. It's all about health. It's all about not just the physical, but it's also about the mental, and it's about the spiritual as well. And so that's what it's all about. And so we have a very unique story today. I saw this on social media, and I was like, yo, book this sister. We've got to be able to tell her story because trust me, many of you, you may not have been where her weight is, but look, you've been

struggling with the same thing. You probably have had family members who have been dealing with the same thing and you're sitting here going, I need to get motivated. I need to start somewhere. I need to just to get going. Well, hopefully her unique story is going to be able to encourage you to actually just start changing your diet, getting going. At her heaviest, at her heaviest, she was 485 pounds. Brand strategist and content creator Jay Stone couldn't walk long distances and had to use a motorized scooter to get around. In 2012, she appeared in Essence Magazine to talk about how she was being bullied online. In 2013, she sat down with Bishop T.D. Jakes to discuss her obesity journey. After dropping nearly 200 pounds, she's reflected

on what her nearly 500-pound self has taught her smaller self. Jay Stone joins me now from Atlanta to talk about her 500-pound life lessons. And so glad to have you on the show. So, Jay, because this is a segment, I ain't getting in trouble with this because if you ask this question to women, they get offended. If you ask them about their age or their weight, they lose their mind. So you were at 485. What are you at now?

I am at 293. You're at 293. I take it that's still not your goal. Do you still have a goal in mind where you want to get to? So I have a goal, not a weight, of being a size 14. Gotcha. And so when did you start the process,

and how long is it taking you to go from 485 to 293? Okay. So I started the process in 2019. So it's been three years. I just had my surgeryversary. So it's been three years. I just had my surgeryversary. So it's been three years. And I did have gastric bypass surgery. But I think that it's important for people to know that the surgery doesn't make you lose the weight.

There's a whole lot of information and education that you have to have to really drop this weight. So my biggest thing wasn't that I wasn't disciplined, right? It was that I wasn't educated on what my body needed to drop this weight. Once I got the education, the surgery gave me a kickstart, but it's been three years and I'm still losing. So this required lifestyle change and mindset change, more importantly. And actually, we got to start there because it really is a mindset because you can think about

losing weight. You can think about eating healthier, but thinking about it again, doing two totally separate things. Yeah, and so for me, it wasn't that I was eating unhealthy. I wasn't eating large proportions. Everybody asked me, you know, do you watch 500 Pound Life? And I said no because I lived it,'t that I was eating unhealthy. I wasn't eating large proportions. Everybody asked me, you know, do you watch 500-Priority Life?

And I said no because I lived it, right? I wasn't eating all of this large amounts of food. I wasn't, you know, eating all the time. It was just the fact that my body does not break down food the way everyone else's does. And I had no understanding and education. Everybody's doing the low-carb diet, right? Everybody's doing the keto diet, right? But I couldn't do low carbs. I had to understanding of education. Everybody's doing the low-carb diet, right? Everybody's doing the keto diet, right?

But I couldn't do low carbs. I had to do zero carbs, zero sugar. That was the only way to do it. And that's almost unsustainable for anybody, right? Can you imagine never eating pasta? Never, ever, ever eating? So for two and a half years, I didn't eat carbs or sugar at all.

So, but I'm going to deal with the mental thing. And that is how, because look, you can have folk calling you and texting you, but you got to be the one get up and actually do it. And so what were you telling yourself that you had to do? And even before you had the surgery and afterwards, you know, what are you saying to yourself every day? Because it's real easy to say, man, I'm busy. I ain't got time. Or let me just grab this quick, you know, snack, chips, cookies, or whatever, or pick up some fast food. What are you, are there affirmations? What are you saying to yourself? And so this really is part of the 500-pound life lessons that I had, okay? Your commitment to you has to be bigger than everyone else.

I think that most people can't fathom. They don't even know anybody that's almost 500 pounds. They can't fathom how grossly affected your quality of life is. Everything from just walking 10 feet or walking to the restroom or going to the grocery store, it's so grossly affected. So most people don't have the level of motivation I had. I needed to live. I was slowly dying, right? And I had just resolved myself to the fact that if I can't get this weight off,

I'm going to have a slow descent to the grave. And so quality of life was my motivation. Every day, I understood that not being able to walk myself to the restaurant without trouble or help was not living. I was very clear that it was not living. So the motivation was get rid of the pain, live life. I was totally dependent on my family to help me get around, to move around. And nobody knew this, by the way, right? Because I'm running a very, very highly visible

and highly successful brand. What they don't know behind the scenes is that my family is helping me take baths. What they don't know behind the scenes is that my family is helping me take baths. What they don't know is that my staff, when we travel, you know, my staff was helping me get dressed. What they didn't know is that I only was able to show up and smile. I couldn't do anything else.

So when your quality of life is that grossly affected, you have to do something. So my motivation wasn't I need to look a certain way or it was that I need to live and I was dying. Absolutely. I got questions. Let's see. Start with, say I got two Mr. Yogas.

So let me start with Mr. Hot Yoga, Omicongo. First of all, Jay, you're looking amazing. Congratulations on this journey. I've been following a lot of the things that you're talking about. And one of the things that really impressed me, and I think you just posted this on your LinkedIn recently, or I'm not sure when, but you said something to the effect of weight has many forms. And so could you talk about what you mean by that as it relates to,

I mean, just educate us, drop that knowledge and what we can take from that, because I just thought it was really powerful. Yeah. So weight comes in a lot of forms. A lot of people think the physical weight, but with that came emotional weight, right? With that came social weight. So when I say emotional weight, I was angry and depressed, okay, about my situation, and I was frustrated. So there was the emotional,

but there was also the guilt of what my family had to do to help me just make it through the days. OK, so shout out to my sisters who lived for me, helped me live and my friends who were very supportive. But the that was the emotional weight, the social weight. Right. Every time I stepped out the door, I knew I was being judged. I walked in the grocery store and people were judging me, even if I was in the healthy food section, right? And so there was the social responsibility. I had to put on the full armor of God every time I walked out the door because I knew I was going to get dogged out, talked out, dragged by black Twitter when I said something, you know what I'm

saying? I knew that that was coming. And so the social weight of, I became very rigid, right? And I was ready to fight. I was ready to throw hands every day, right? Because I knew they were coming for me and I had to put on the full armor of God to survive that. So there was the physical weight, the emotional weight. And then let's talk about the financial weight, right? It's expensive to be fat.

It's expensive to be fat, right? You gotta buy two plane tickets. You gotta get into hotel rooms that are bigger, right? Your clothes cost way more money, okay? Everything costs more. I had to buy a mobility scooter when I injured my knee. So, you know, it was expensive. So financially, it was costing me a lot of money.

So we got social, we got financial, we got physical, we got emotional, all of that weight. So when I dropped the weight physically, it manifested across all these other platforms, and I didn't even realize that it was gonna show up like that. Wow. Julianne. You know, obesity is an issue in the Black community.

Uh, we've all talked about it, we've seen it. It's challenging and problematic. What would you tell others who are in your situation? How do we deal? I'm not trying to shame nobody. In fact, my sister's all bigger than me, and they call me stuff like shrimp and skinny, which I hate. They just diss me. But anyway, that is what it is. But what do you tell folks and how do we deal with healthy eating

and overweight versus unhealthy eating and overweight? And what do you give people? So I think the first thing for me was education, right? I thought if I cut back on carbs, that was going to be enough. It wasn't for me. I had to completely cut them out. That was for me. That was for my body. I think that we have a lot of cookie cutter diets and eating plans. You have to figure out what works for your body and your body type. And that might take doctors and that might take education and that might take a whole lot of things.

So the first thing I'm going to say is don't give up on figuring out what works. Okay? The other thing is let's talk about emotional eating. Can you tell my sisters to stop shaming me because I'm kind of halfway skinny? I know. Right? Sisters, let's stop body shaming, period. Right?

Of course, a lot of people who are small follow me online. And they struggle with weight the opposite way. So we can talk about that in a little bit. But I think that it's important to not only be mindful of what we eat and drink, but also making sure you're getting the right nutrients. One of the things I was is I was malnourished even though I was overweight because I was eating food that my body was absorbing and using. So that was part of the problem in holding the weight, right? Not drinking enough water, right? So your body can release toxins.

And then, of course, we're going to really talk about exercise. And I think exercise and finding time to exercise is a really, really big deal. So here's what I'm going to say, because I'm really not the type to run up there and climb Stone Mountain, right? But I create more physical activity. So that means if I'm washing the dishes, I wash them a little faster. If I got to walk to the mailbox,

I'm walking a little faster. I park a little bit further from the grocery store than I used to. And so it's just creating movement in every way you can. And you'll be surprised in 30 days what creating faster, larger movements will do for you. That's why on the iWatch,

they have the exercise ring, but they also have the body movement. Because it's both. Go ahead. Yep. Yep. That's it. Jeff. Yes, indeed. Jay, thank you so much for appearing tonight.

And overall, thanks for your transparency and your honesty. I think that's what's radiating from you the most. And that is just that you're just keeping it 100 percent real. And when people are talking about changing their lifestyle, I found that the struggle is it's so easy with everything that happens online to go to extremes, you know, to do the keto, to just kind of lock things down. But the extremes aren't really sustainable for the long term. And when you talk about making that change in your life, what does a day look like for you now from the time you get up to go to bed versus what it used to look like when you didn't feel so good? Now, that is so big for me. That's so big for me, Jeff. Um,

I think that, you know, I'm up now at 5.00 AM where, you know, I, I used to traditionally need to sleep in a lot because I just didn't have the energy. So now I'm up at 5.00 AM. I do, you know, my morning affirmations or whatever I'm going to do. Um, I'm up doing a smoothie. And then I'm probably going to work out. I only work out about 15 minutes, right? I don't have a whole lot of time I put into it. And they're modified exercises. I do a lot of resistance training. Okay. I don't do a lot of cardio. And so, so that's one thing. The major thing that has changed is, you know, I work from

home. And so I take the time to stop and eat. I don't eat at my desk while I'm working. I take the time to stop and think and process what I'm eating to be mindful of the portion that I'm eating and to be mindful of the nutrients that I'm having. So I take a break to eat and I cook. So before I couldn't stand, right? So I'm eating fast food or order food and sometimes it's pre-prepared meals.

It's not necessarily like McDonald's, right? It might be one of the meal delivery companies. I had a lot of that going on. But now I cook because I can cook the things that I know that are going to work for my body, but physically before I wasn't able to. So the fact that I am now up earlier, I get rest. I go to bed at a certain time because you need rest to lose weight. Cooking for myself to make sure that my food is prepared in a way that works for me.

And also just squeezing in exercise and movement whenever possible. I don't, and this is important, right? I don't create my lifestyle, okay, around the weight loss, right? I create the weight loss around the lifestyle. Because I'm an entrepreneur, I have a lot of things. But I infuse in what I need as I need it. That's why it's not sustainable for people. They keep trying to say, I'm going to get up at 6 a.m. and exercise.

Well, if you're not normally up at 6 a.m., you're not going to get up and exercise for too long, right? Right. So what time are you normally excited? What time are you normally happy? Is that after lunch? Is that dinner? So guess what? On your lunch break, instead of sitting up talking on the phone on your lunch break, walk a couple of laps around the parking lot or around the yard.

You know what I mean? Do it. Squeeze it in. Interweave it into your life. All right, then. Well, John, look, good luck on your journey. It is important. And the bottom line is you got to start somewhere. And we look forward to your next report.

And as I always tell people, look, you got to take it a pound at a time because you can't lose 50, 100 at a time. So we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thanks. All right, folks. On Saturday, Colin Kaepernick participated in a throwing session at the University of Michigan during their halftime

Game his former head coach of the San Francisco 49ers Jim Harbaugh invited him to work out during Michigan's spring game Harbaugh also also cause Spike Lee was there They were also filming it for documentary on Colin Kaepernick and Colin Kaepernick also made it clear that he still wants to play in the NFL and can still play. Big game last night. Gina Ariema, the head coach of the University of Connecticut, was 11-0 in national title games. He's now

11-1 after Dawn Staley and her South Carolina Gamecocks beat them in for the national title in the women's national championship game. They defeated Connecticut 64-49, strong defense. As tradition dictates, Staley cut the net after securing the championship.

In 2015, Carolyn Peck, the first black coach to win a women's basketball national championship, shared a piece of her 1999 championship net with Staley and made Staley promise to do the same when she won. After winning the championship in 2017, Staley returned the gift by giving Peck a piece of her net. Staley said she will continue to uphold the promise she made to Peck

to pass it on. This year, Staley's adding another group to her list to receive a piece of the net. Black journalist. Just moving forward, like, the net's going to represent something. Something in our game. Something that will advance our game. I've been thinking some of our black male coaches,

they don't get opportunity. And I'm also going to take it a little bit a step further. Some of our black journalists don't get opportunity to elevate. So we're going gonna try to cut this net up give them a piece of it and just just hope that that it will be something that they can utilize to advance in the area that that heart desire to in their in their field so i'll do that it's gonna be hard trying to figure all y'all out. So if y'all can just email me or find my number

and text me and let me know. Send me your address so I can make it happen. All right. Congratulations. Don Staley becomes the first black coach to win two national titles in any sport. Also, speaking of last night, the biggest night in music, the 64th

annual Grammy Awards. Some of the biggest winners, Silk Sonic for Recorded Song of the Year. They nominated four categories, won all four. John Baptiste became the first black artist in 14 years to win Album of the Year. And Questlove, a week after winning an Oscar, he wins

Best Music Film for Summer of Soul. Here are some of last night's highlights. Um, wins best music film for Summer of Soul. Here are some of last night's highlights. What a journey for this film since Sundance all the way until last week. But it just hit me that we really haven't given much spotlight to what really matters in the film, which is also the beautiful artists

that perform there. Listen, listen, listen. We are really trying our hardest to remain humble at this point. Okay? But in the industry, we call that a clean sweep. I believe this to my core. There is no best musician, best artist, best dancer, best actor. The creative arts are subjective and they reach people at a point in their lives when

they need it most. It's like a song or an album is made and it almost has a radar to find the person when they need it the most. I just put my head down and I work on the craft every day. I love music. I've been playing since I was a little boy. It's more than entertainment for me. It's a spiritual practice. And thank you. But what it ended up being was a safe space for black women to tell their stories. for us to learn from each other, for us to learn from each other,

laugh with each other, and not be exploited at the same time. And that's what I'm most grateful for. So shout out to all black women who are just living their lives and being beautiful. I love you all. All right, then. So a big night there, folks.

So tomorrow we're going to focus on Cameroon and Sudan. We didn't have a guest book. I want to get a guest, and so that's why I didn't do the story today. So we're going to do that tomorrow's show. And then also I did text Reverend Dr. William Barber, and I asked him, did any of the cable networks have the appropriate campaign on to discuss their report? The answer was no, because the answer they got back was they were busy with the Supreme Court hearing as well as Ukraine.

So all that staff, all that money, all it can do is two stories? That's all it can focus on? Now y'all understand why, what happens if we can build this show where it's not just my show that's two hours a day. Imagine that we have a show after me and then a show after that and a show after that. Do y'all not understand how this thing works? And speaking of that, let me give a shout out, Sean Walters, thank you for your support. Also Samuel Thomas, thank you very much. Sharice, Teresa Clemon, Jackie Belcher, Joseph Reed, Jacqueline, Samado Dabney, Jeff Carr, I see you, Katina Moss, Jacqueline Thomas, Faith,

Karita or Karida Byers, Troy Boone, Dana White, Brenda Sterling, Debbie Tate, Felicia Johnson, Catrice Johnson, Evelyn Hill, Eula Milan, Kimberly, Catrice Johnson, Laverne King, Robert Cater, Vanessa Howard, Lucinda, Joanne Curry, Dorothy Bing, Keith, Taking Authority Consulting, Jennifer Silver, Leon Green, M. Sim, Andrea Rogers, A. Minton, 5810, Anthony, Marcus Goodner, also Monique Watts. Let's see here. Let's see here. This name is not showing up. It just simply says Aggie Pride.

I know, Sonya Self, I see it. Thanks a bunch. Let's see here. Sierra Dixon, Rhonda Griffin, Colin King, Maureen Brown, Janet Griffin, Jill Washington, Gwendolyn. Also, Darnell Williams. Let's see here. Jeremy Turner, Namisha Perry, Valdor Ross, Sansi Andrews, Desmond DeForest. Let's see here.

Erin Williams and Keisha Gordon and Atasha Quarles and Sammy Wright and Terry Block. Let's see here. I'm not done. Eldridge Hightower and Robin. All of those folks gave literally in the last hour. So I appreciate y'all supporting Roland Martin, Unfiltered, the Black Star Network. Don't forget, we've got

Deborah Owens' show, Wealthy You. We've got Jackie Hood Martin's show, Living a Balanced Life. We've got Dr. Greg Carr's show, The Black Table. We We got Jackie Hood Martin show, Living a Balanced Life. We got Dr. Greg Carr's show, The Black Table. We got Faraji Muhammad, his daily show for the culture. And don't forget Rolling with Roland Wednesday. We're going to be showing the interview with Jack Kay. Crazy hilarious

interview. You don't want to miss that. And so we appreciate that. And again, just so y'all understand this is the last thing I'm going to say on this. But again, I need y'all to understand what happens here. In 2017, we were working on MLK 50, which was the 50th anniversary of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And we did a couple of interviews in Atlanta,

and then in December, I think it was December 9th, when Alfred Liggins told me they were canceling News 1 Now. And so I still was under contract for eight more months, and I kept emailing them, well, we got the 50th anniversary of MLK's assassination coming up. What are we doing? What are we doing? Nobody was answering me. What are we doing? What are we doing? Nobody was answering me. What are we doing? No one's doing? Nobody was answering me. What are we doing? No one's answering me. I said, y'all, it's coming up. Also, his lieutenants, I knew they were getting older, and they were dying. They were getting older. So I took $30,000 of my own money and

went around the country doing interviews. Went to Memphis to talk to Bill Lucy. Went to Ithaca, New York to sit down and talk with Dorothy Cotton. It ended up being her last sit-down interview because she died three months later. We sat down with C.T. Vivian. We sat down, came to D.C., John Lewis, Eleanor Holmes Norton. We did numerous interviews. And when we did live stream the event, we had all that stuff. But y'all, TV One paid for none of that. It came out of my pocket. Because I knew their voices mattered. We flew to Stanford to sit down with Clarence Jones, MLK's attorney.

Sit down with Claiborne Carson. Went to the American Black Film Festival, it was on the red carpet. And we got sound bites from Charlie Wilson, Billy Dee Williams, Angela Bassett, Ernie Hudson. I paid for all of that. Why am I saying that? Because y'all, coming after this show,

we took those comments and put them together for a special called April 4th, 1968. Had I not done that, we would have never had Dorothy Cotton talk about her experiences in SCLC. Her last words to me is, Roland, I'll see you in Memphis. She never made it to Memphis. She died a month after the anniversary. She was too ill to attend.

And so when we're talking to these elders, we want to get their stories down before they become ancestors. And so what you're about to see next, you're about to see and thanks Rendell Chambly for your gift. What you're about to see

next, y'all, you're about to see the following people talk about April 4th, 1968, and they're going to talk about what they went through. You're going to hear from Bernice King, Martin Luther King III, Ambassador Andrew Young, the late Congressman John Lewis, Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr., Charlie Wilson, Dorothy Cotton, Bill D. Williams, Reverend Dr. James Lawson, Angela Bassett, Gernona Clayton, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Smokey Robinson, Bill Lucy, Ernie Hudson, the late Juanita Abernathy, the late Reverend Dr. C.T. Vivian,

Clarence Jones, who just turned 90, and Claiborne Carson. The special is called April 4, 1968. There is no other, and let me say this right now, on the 54th anniversary of Dr. King's death, you see none of this on any mainstream network. And you don't see any of these interviews on any black-owned media outlet. So if y'all want to understand why this platform matters, this show and what you're about to see matters. And so, again, thanks to everybody contributing. I appreciate it.

We're going to keep doing what we're doing. And as long as there's breath in my body, we're going to make it clear that black-owned media matters. I'm going to see y'all tomorrow. Holler! I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.

But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers.

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

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

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

This is an iHeart podcast.