#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Pickens, Co. Ala.: Micah Washington & Glenn Foster, Jr. Lawsuits, LA Congressional Map Extension

Episode Date: December 8, 2023

12.7.2023 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Pickens, Co. Ala.: Micah Washington & Glenn Foster, Jr. Lawsuits, LA Congressional Map Extension A huge lawsuit is coming against the Pickens County, Alabama, Sheriff's office and the officer who tased a handcuffed black man in the back. In an RMU exclusive, Micah Washington's attorney is here to tell what happened when Reform, Alabama, police officer Dana Elmore approached his client.  Pickens County, Alabama, is also where former Saints football player Glenn Foster, Jr. died in police custody nearly two years ago. His family just filed a wrongful death lawsuit, and they are here to give us details about the case as we approach the second anniversary of his death.  Louisiana gets an extension to redraw the state's congressional maps. I'll talk to a lawmaker about how they will redraw the maps if Governor John Bel Edwards does not plan on calling a special session to draw a new map. The Biden administration is trying to keep more money in our pockets. More folks are getting their student loan debt forgiven. And Biden has a new plan to lower prescription drug costs. I'll talk to a policy expert on how opening up drug patents can save us money.  And we'll discuss why the menthol cigarette ban is being postponed.   Download the Black Star Network app at http://www.blackstarnetwork.com! We're on iOS, AppleTV, Android, AndroidTV, Roku, FireTV, XBox and SamsungTV. The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. to, yeah, banana pudding. If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chastin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast.

Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. It really does.

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Să ne urmăm în următoarea mea rețetă. Today is 30 December 7th, 2023. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered streaming live on the Black Start Network. A huge lawsuit is coming against the Pickens County, Alabama Sheriff's Office and the officer who tased a handcuffed black man in the back. We'll talk with the attorney for Micah Washington to tell us what happened when reformed Alabama police officer Dana Elmore approached his client,

leading to him being tased. Pickens County, Alabama, is also where former Saints football player Glenn Foster Jr. died in police custody nearly two years ago. His family just filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the county, and they will join us to give us details about that case. Louisiana gets an extension to redraw the state's congressional maps. My goodness, how many more will they get? I'll talk to a lawmaker regarding this process and what happens there. Just more mess, folks. The Biden administration is trying to keep more money in our pockets. More folks are getting their student loan debt forgiven. A whole bunch of money, y'all.

A whole bunch. We'll tell you exactly how much. Also, we'll discuss why the FDA, the Biden administration, is postponing a ban on menthol cigarettes. Could it be because black civil rights groups being paid by big tobacco lean on the administration to do so? Also, last night was the world premiere of the Color Purple in Los Angeles. I was there and I will show you some of what took place. It is time to bring the funk.

Roller Mark unfiltered as Alpha Week continues on the Black Star Network. Let's go. From sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling It's Uncle Roro, y'all It's Roland Martin Rolling with Roland now He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best You know he's fresh, he's real, the best you know He's rolling, Martel Martel

The black man who was handcuffed and tased in the back by a West Alabama police officer plans to file a multi-illion dollar lawsuit against the department. The video of Micah Washington's arrest has gone viral on social media. Folks are calling for the firing of the officer in charges against reformed Alabama police officer Dana Elmore for what took place on December 2nd. That took place in Pickens County, about 40 miles west of Tuscaloosa. Joining us right now is Leroy Maxwell Jr., the attorney representing Michael Washington. Leroy, glad to have you here. So I want to do this here. I want to play the video,

but I want, I need you to explain to us what happened before this. Now, first and foremost, folks who haven't seen this, this is the video that has gone viral of this officer tasing Micah Washington after he's already handcuffed and he's compliant. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek.

I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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

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

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Right there in front of the car no i wanted the audio up stay still i don't got i ain't doing shit but i got good right there oh yeah i'm saying we can say oh yeah oh my Oh, my God. Fuck up. Okay, okay, okay. Oh, my fuck. Oh, my God.

Shut the fuck up. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. You want it again? No, baby. Shut the fuck up. You was big and bad.

Shut your bitch ass up. Wow. Leroy, first and foremost foremost who was shooting the video right uh thank you so much for having us that was uh micaiah's younger brother uh shaquem who was shooting the video uh there were three of them that were pulled over, or not pulled over, they were on the side of the road trying to repair a tire on a vehicle. And fortunately, his brother whipped out his camera and we saw what we saw. But leading up to that, it was just as bad. So they were changing a tire? Yeah, they were changing a tire.

And as far as I know, being black and changing the tire is not illegal, not yet anyway. But that's exactly what they were doing, changing the tire on the side of the road. Officer came up on them, asked what they were doing. Micaiah made it clear, we're obviously changing the tire here. There's nothing illegal that we're doing at all. Why do you want my ID? She demanded the ID without asking or articulating any sort of criminal activity. Eventually, Micaiah did comply with giving her his ID, but he decided he was going to take out his phone and record, as everyone should do,

film the police. As soon as she saw that and he hit the button to record, she immediately tased him the first time. So, um, I'm, I'm, I'm trying to, okay. And that was just the first time. And then you're right. What you're saying is the second tasing. And so, so he got tased twice. He got tased twice. Right. And so, uh, she tased him when he took out his phone to start recording, and he went to the ground. You see his phone beside him. She handcuffs him. And then you see his brother start fuming as he's being lifted up off the ground

after he's been handcuffed and being taken to the front of her hood. And that's when the sadistic just assault and battery occurred at that point. All right, so then you hear the language she uses against him, so we hear that. Then he gets arrested. Now, here's what I really find to be interesting. Walk us through, for people who don't know, walk us through what they charged him with. All right. So this is where it gets wild. All right.

So they charge him with a few things. They charge him with trafficking, cocaine laced with fentanyl, an ex-felon in possession of a firearm, possession of marijuana, resisting arrest, obstruction of government operation. All right. So let's walk through each. All right. Okay. So let's walk through each one of those. Yeah. So what was the first one again? Trafficking.

You know, what you see in the movies, all that other gas. So trafficking, Lacewood Fentanyl. Okay. Cocaine, Lacewood Fentanyl. Now, we're watching the video here. So where they claim this cocaine was. So according to what officers told him when he was over in booking in the jail, that the officer pulled cocaine, a bag of cocaine laced with fentanyl,

out of his pocket right before she pulled the gun out of his pocket. But we got a video right here. That's the problem. She wasn't aware of the video. So the gun, hold on, so she wasn't aware, so how close were they standing? She wasn't aware they were shooting? So he was a little bit further away, he was zoomed in. Got it.

The brother was zoomed in on the video, but she was not aware that the brother was filming. So I'm watching the video. We're playing the video right now. She pulls the gun out of his right pocket. At no point does she reach into his left pocket. At no point does she reach back into his pocket. She literally pulls nothing out of his pocket except the gun.

Exactly. Where do these drugs come from? That's what we want to know. And so, of course, he gets bonded in on a half a million dollar bond because he's in there for trafficking. No way he can make that bond. No way his family could get him out. It's absolutely absurd. But then the video comes out. His brother then lets the video out and it hits the airwaves hard. It streams. It goes viral. And then all of a sudden, conveniently, the state moves to dismiss the charges for trafficking the fentanyl.

They claim that, you know, there was a road test done, and it came back as positive as fentanyl. Further testing showed that it was not fentanyl. I've done this sort of work for over a decade in criminal defense and civil rights. I've never once seen a forensic test come back on toxicology that fast outside of a field test. But apparently they did more testing, came back it's not fentanyl, and they dropped that charge conveniently. In addition, the felon charge, ex-felon in possession of a firearm, that charge just disappeared. I didn't see a motion to dismiss it. I didn't see a judge or an order dismiss it.

That charge just up and vanished in smoke. Wow. Now, here's the deal. Is he an ex-felon? Absolutely not. Never been charged, arrested, convicted. How is a man charged as being an ex-felon when he's not an ex-felon? Absolutely not. Never been charged, arrested. How's a man charged as being an ex-felon when he's not an ex-felon? That's exactly our point. They, in a hustle and a bustle to try to

come up with charges, they just start throwing charges at them. How do you go through the process of deciding someone is a felon, enough to put felony possession of an ex-felon in possession of a firearm charge against someone, that's a process that you have to go through to ensure they're a felon. Clearly, they either didn't go through the process, didn't think through the process, or they just threw charges up against them, hoping it would stick. And of course, that charge is no longer there because he was not a felon whatsoever. And it's our expectation that the remaining charges will ultimately be dismissed as well.

So, I mean, what's astounding here is it's just just pile it on, pile it on. And we see this. We see this happen all the time to African Americans. And let's just be real. that this video does not

exist first of all now this officer does she wear a body cam uh a body camera now looking at the video that the brother took it looks like she i couldn't tell if she was wearing a body cam or if that was just uh a radio or a radio, right, exactly. I couldn't tell, but we do know from Micaiah when he was in the vehicle, he said the dash cam was completely unplugged. He saw wires hanging from it, but nothing was plugged in. And so we're not aware if she was wearing a body camera or not, but I imagine if she had been wearing a body cam, that function would have, you know, been turned off or just not available. Thank God his brother was filming or else he'd be still behind bars, from my calculation, on a half a million dollar bond rotting away.

So, okay. All right. So the police department charged him with these offenses. Then when it goes to the DA, they realize, uh, we got a problem. We're getting our timeline together. We know even when he was initially booked in the jail, we have charges come flooding in and then the video gets released. And now they're slowly backtracking and pulling away these charges once I believe the powers to be in the DA's office is realizing what's going on here. I think you got a situation where you got a rogue cop who's used to being a cowboy cowgirl out there getting away with whatever she wants to get away with. Unfortunately, the brother was uh and she ain't getting away from it this time i mean i i what was still stunning to me is when you look at those charges and i'm gonna go back to the drug one okay so she claimed their drugs okay Then there was a field test. Now, did the

brothers ever stop recording? How long were they out there? Were they present and were they shooting the entire time from the moment help arrived and he's put in the car and taken away? No, they didn't shoot the entire time, but

there were multiple officers that showed up. And we believe at least one of those officers is probably going to testify or speak truthfully as far as what happened, because Micaiah and his brother will tell you there was never any sort of field test done. There was no white substance or powdery substance or whatever phenol crystals or whatever. There was nothing that was being tested whatsoever in the field. There were no drugs on his person at all. We don't even know where the marijuana charge came from. And so while there was no video of the entire incident,

because at some point the brother put his phone down once he saw an officer coming towards his direction. We don't have a full recording of everything that happened. We do know from my witness account there was absolutely no field test that was done. And even in the state's motion to dismiss, it says that a field test was done prior to the arrest. And we know that the incident with him being on the ground and handcuffed, that all happened within a matter of minutes of the officer first arriving on the scene. So we don't know where there was time to do a field test. We don't see any drugs. We don't know about any drugs. And now, conveniently, the drug charges are gone. Even though the charges are gone, can you as his attorney, and maybe not within the context of the criminal case,

maybe you can do this in the context of the civil case, can you say, produce for me these so-called drugs? Man, we are licking our chops. We are licking our chops. I'm not going to lie. Not only do you have excessive force claims, not only do you have assault and battery claims, you have deliberate indifference. You have malicious prosecution. You have abusive process, abusive power claims here. And so we plan on filing our lawsuit within the next 30 days, and we're going to use that subpoena power to demand all the evidence.

We want to review, examine all physical evidence, where it came from, the chain of custody, everything we wanted. And, you know, we hate that there are criminal charges right now, but trust me, we're going to take advantage of that, too, because criminal charges provide subpoena power as well. And so while they're around, I don't know how much longer they're going to exist. I'm sure we'll be filing motions to dismiss. But while they do exist, we're going to take advantage of it and use every methodology we can under the law to make sure we get answers and that the right people are held accountable. It is just, I mean, the reason all of this is stunning, and I say all the time, praise God for this. Amen. Because one, again, if it's actually true that the dash cam stuff was unplugged, this is the problem we've seen in Chicago, where cops have destroyed dash cam videos, where cops turn their body cameras off because they don't want themselves being recorded. And so, absolutely, if his brother's not there shooting, I mean, their story, how they frame it, becomes the truth. And it's just, oh, that's simply another black man claiming he didn't do anything,

who just shut up and go to prison. Yep, shut up, go to prison. And I can't even imagine, you know, I talk to these, my clients every single day, once all throughout the state and the southeast, that are telling me these sort of things are happening, and we're fighting day in and day out trying to prove it. And so I just thank God and God's good timing that, you know, the video footage was there, that his brother was there because he'd just be another brother behind bars waiting two, three years for a trial to come around because there's no way his family is going to make a half a million dollar bond.

And so right now it's time to get him justice. We're going to turn this narrative around and get accountability. Where is Micah right now? So Micah is at home right now. And so he just he was in our office a couple hours ago. Thankfully, he's home and he's he's going right now. And so he just, he was in our office a couple hours ago. Thankfully he's home and he's going through it. He's naturally a positive, bright, optimistic, you know, you just, he feeds, gives energy to everyone.

And I told him, don't let this rob you of it. But right now he's dealing with the first time of his life, depression, dealing with this traumatic incident where he goes in dark rooms and he just wants to sleep and not come out. He's afraid. He's worried. He fears for his family that lives still in that county. Will there be some sort of retaliation? He's going through it right now mentally, but we're going to get him right. Is he, you talked about obviously depression, is he still suffering any physical ailments as a result of being tased? You know, when we got him out of jail, he was still in the t-shirt with the taser holes in the back of his shirt. Man. So yeah, he's bruised up. It's tender to the touch. It's a little swelling going on. We got him treated at a medical center. And so physically, he's still going through it.

Every time he turns, every time he sits in a chair, lays down, he can feel it. And that memory floods back to the moment where he thought he was going to die. You know, it was one thing the first time being tased. But when he was on the trunk of the car still saying, yes, ma'am, still saying no, ma'am, being the polite young man that he is. And she is getting off, telling him you want some more, calling him everything you could think of and continuing to tase him in the back. It might have lasted for 10 seconds, but for him, it felt like it was 30 days. He was there forever, and he felt every last jolt of energy. Absolutely unbelievable.

Leroy, anything else? No. Again, thank you all for covering this, bringing attention to it. We're out here in the trenches, often in the black belt here in Alabama. And this happens all too often in these small counties. Pickens County is a former sundown lynching style county where some of the most horrible atrocities still occur. And bringing attention to this, putting light on this, means the world to the citizens of Pickens County and to everyone here in Alabama. So we appreciate it. All right. Leroy Maxwell, Jr., we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you, sir. Folks, going to a break. We come back. We'll talk with the family of another black man, former NFL player who was shot and killed in this exact same county.

That's next. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms,

even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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, It's really, really, really bad. 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. I'm out. 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. hatred on the streets a horrific scene white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence white people are losing their damn lives there's an angry pro-trump mob storm to the u.s capital we're about to see the rise of what I call white minority resistance. We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denial. This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson at Emory University calls white rage as a backlash. This is the rise of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this.

There's all the Proud Boys, guys. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people. The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people. The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. This is white fear. Thank you. No experience is necessary. Learn at your own pace. Complete the online certificate program on your own terms. Stand out to employers. Get on a path to in-demand jobs and connect with top employers who are currently hiring.

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Ever feel as if your life is teetering and the weight and pressure of the world is consistently on your shoulders? Well, let me tell you, living a balanced life isn't easy. Join me each Tuesday on Blackstar Network for a balanced life with Dr. Jackie. We'll laugh together, cry together, pull ourselves together, and cheer each other on. So join me for new shows each Tuesday on Blackstar Network, a balanced life with Dr. Jackie. On the next Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, have you ever had a million dollar idea and wondered how to bring it to life? Well, it's all about turning problems into opportunities. On our next Get Wealthy, you'll learn of a woman who identified the overload bag syndrome, and now she's taking that money to the bank through global sales and major department stores. And I was just struggling with two or three bags on the train, and I looked around on the train and I said, you know what? There are a lot of women that are carrying two or three bags.

That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Blackstar Network. Farquhar, executive producer of Proud Family. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks, the Pickens County, Alabama Sheriff's Office faces another legal battle. A civil lawsuit has been filed by the family of Glenn Foster Jr. They claim the former Saints defensive end was lethally brutalized while in the custody of the Pickens County Sheriff's Office on December 6, 2021. According to past reports, reformed police arrested Foster for reckless endangerment and resisting arrest after he was pulled over, allegedly for speeding.

Court documents indicate that while in custody, Foster was charged with simple assault and third-degree robbery. A judge ordered a mental evaluation just hours before Foster's death. His family says those reports are not accurate. Glenn Foster Jr.'s family, his father, Glenn, his mother, Sabrina, join us right now, his wife, Pamela. Also joining us is one of the attorneys, Chris O'Neill, from the Ben Crump Law Firm. Glad to have all three of you here. Sorry that we have to talk to you under these circumstances. Unfortunately, we have to talk to too many families under these circumstances. Chris, I want to start with you. So we just talked about a previous case in terms of how they literally made up charges against Micah Washington.

How are we to believe that these charges were legitimate? I think you're on mute, Chris. It's an important topic. There we go. There we go. We appreciate having you, Brother Martin, in doing that. It's a challenging question that you pose because obviously Pickens County has got some issues. But the one thing I do want to state and point out from the very

beginning that the family does not want revenge in this case. That's not what they're looking for. Family wants justice for Glenn Foster Jr. and transparency to put an end to the conduct in Pickens County that affects the lives of so many black Americans, just like Glenn Foster Jr. We have examples of exactly what happened in this situation where Glenn was restrained, beaten, tased, and choked repeatedly while he was in their care. And what the family is looking for is a full stop and seeking an end to the use of all restraint chairs, tasers, and violent maneuvers to inflict pain in order to gain compliance in this situation. They were revised more than once, Roland, that Glenn needed medical attention. Officers and jailers ignored this, and they instead continued to torture Glenn Foster Jr.

When you say torture, do you have, do you know how that was done? Have y'all been able to secure any jailhouse video, any police body camera video, anything like that? Well, it takes us further down the rabbit hole in this situation because we've actually asked for the video evidence of the last known moments of Glenn Foster Jr.'s life. And guess what they've told us? The video recording that we're seeking was allegedly recorded over. So somebody dies and you record over the video? You heard it. You heard it. And, you know, the bottom line is law enforcement generally promises to give folks a fair chance.

But we are failing the foster family here by refusing to provide the essential evidence to answer questions about exactly what happened to their loved one. They're not seeking anything that's extra special that anybody else in America wouldn't want. They're just seeking the truth and some transparency in this situation. Speaking of that, I want to go to his parents. For folks who don't know, what was your son doing at the time? Well, Glenn was in

transit. He was on his way to Atlanta on a business meeting. He decided to drive. We have family in Alabama, so he had to make any stops. He wasn't able to stop there, but he decided to drive. We have family in Alabama, so he had to make any stops. He would have been able to stop there, but he decided to drive to Atlanta. Unfortunately, he was pulled over around 1130 at night due to a speeding violation. And everything that they have said about Glenn, we are now questioning.

Glenn Sr., when you hear them all of a sudden, mental issues, when you hear these things, what comes to your mind? Well, if what they say is true, that Glenn had some type of mental episode, all right, the correct procedure would be to get that person treatment immediately. and based upon what the investigators or the legal team have discovered is on multiple occasions, they had the opportunity to do the right thing, yet they decided not to do the right thing, and unfortunately, our son's life was lost as a result of their negligence. Pamela joins us right now.

So certainly glad to have you. She joins us from New Orleans. She's the wife of Glenn Foster Jr. Pamela, what do you make of, I mean, this is now two years that you and this family has had to deal with this tragic loss. I think that I mean two years is a lot even though some news from yesterday the public this dealing with for two. So I don't have any improvement in this. Give us one second because your audio is going in and out. So control room,

y'all can work on that and then let me know if we can get that fixed. Cause I want to hear all of Pamela has to say, Chris, you know, what, what has been the feedback that you've gotten from the police department? Was there an investigation from the Alabama Bureau of Investigation? Was there anything, was there any investigation into the death of Glenn? Well, Roland, the thing that happens once you initiate litigation is everybody turns to the lawyer. And so what we're trying to do is work through the legal system and require them to answer basic questions about what happened and what the truth is. There's so much in the way of legal maneuvering that frustrates the entire process. It allows the family to linger on, as you said,

for more than two years without any adequate answers and without any adequate closure in this situation. Do we now have Pamela? Let's see, Pamela, if you can go ahead. Okay, Pamela, go ahead. And what were you saying? I was saying that some news that they are in the public have been, so time for um unacceptable laws all right apparently if you can just talk louder uh that's gonna that would actually fix the problem okay for us to go without i think that's um personally that are trying to find clothes, it does not. But also, there's so much that you can cover up.

So much that gets changed around people to assist them the way that they work. So a lot of of evidence is now it's a big temper would be missing they're no longer that were there I know so I don't think it does not help to make Chris to that point that panel was was making, two years later, evidence is missing. Critical information, memories change. It's not as fresh in terms of those involved. Yeah, it's not only that, but once this sort of thing happens and they try to say that this is what occurred. We have some things in our arsenal, such as sanctions and other things,

that we ask the courts to levy to either require them to do or punish them for not doing. And so we'll have to take a look at that and see whether or not that's the route that we need to take. Or we're going to have to do a lot more digging and i like this family because they are the kind of family that's going to stick together they're exactly what the american dream is all about and they will not rest until they get the truth of this matter? It is always difficult for us to have to do these stories. We do them a lot. But the flip side is, unfortunately, mainstream media does not give the attention

to so many of these stories, and that's one of the reasons why we do what we do here at the Black Star Network. Final comments from Glean and Sabrina. Well, basically, we are praying that... A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding.

But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing.

So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them.

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and

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

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. The justice system is on our side. And that for what's going on in Pickens County, I hope the world is watching, the politicians are watching. I'm hoping that there will be some form of change.

They need to switch out the old and bring in the new, new ideals, new politicians, new rules, and new law. Because what happened to Glenn, what happened to those who died before Glenn and after Glenn in Pickens County is going to continue. I pray that some outside organization does an investigation because what's going on in Pickens County is hidden in Pickens County. We need someone from the outside to go inside that county and to talk to the people, talk to the community.

They too will learn that other things have been happening and has been covered up. And we need to uncover that. Pamela, final comment. That justice is our fight, but on top of that, we have to continue pushing because this affects not just the whole country. You know, we're getting killed, so we need to continue being active and push for that to help ourselves. You know, I have children. Everybody has to do something about it now.

Last, real quick, Chris, have y'all called for the Department of Justice to come in? has been one of the strategies that we are looking at. But quite frankly, we have to time that properly because right now we're in the middle of the case. We've already done our first amended complaint. And we're looking to ensure that the discovery process is not interrupted or we don't give our colleagues on the other side an opportunity to say that there was some interference in this situation. So that's what our goal is on that. All right, then, folks, again, thank you so very much and good luck in your pursuit of justice. Thank you. very much, and good luck in your pursuit of justice. Thank you.

Going to break. Lots of my panel to speak on when we come back. I'm Roland Martin, unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Be sure to support us in what we do, folks. Your resources are critical for us to be able to cover these types of stories and for us to hear from lawyers and families. So please send your check and money order to peel box five seven one nine six washington dc two zeros it was three seven uh that zero one nine six cash out dollar

sat rm unfiltered paypal or martin unfiltered bimo is rm unfiltered zale rolling at roland s martin.com rolling that roland martin unfiltered.com, Roland at RolandMartin, on Filtered.com. We'll be right back. Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr. There's a lot of talk about the inevitability of another civil war in this country. But on our next show, we'll talk to a noted author and scholar who says we're actually in the middle of one right now. In fact, Steve Phillips says the first one that started back in 1861, well, it never ended. People carrying the Confederate flag, wearing sweatshirts saying MAGA Civil War, January 6, 2021, stormed U.S. Capitol,

hunted down the country's elected officials, built the gallows for the vice president of the United States, and to block the peaceful transfer of power within this country. On the next Black Tape, here on the Black Star Network. I'm Faraji Muhammad, live from L.A., and this is The Culture. The Culture is a two-way conversation. You and me, we talk about the stories, politics, the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. So join our community every day at 3 p.m. Eastern

and let your voice be heard. Hey, we're all in this together. So let's talk about it and see what kind of trouble we can get into. It's The Culture. Weekdays at 3, only on the Black Star Network. Me, Sherri Sheppard, and you know what you're watching. Roland Martin unfiltered. Lots to unpack.

La Victoria Burke, Black Press USA, Arlington, Virginia, Dr. Greg Carr, Department of Air Force American Studies at Howard University. Also, Recy Colbert, host of Sirius XM radio show out of D.C. Lauren, I want to start with you. You often talked about having a family in law enforcement. And when we see these two stories coming out of a sheriff's office, that tells you right there that there's a problem in that department, especially when you listen to what that cop had to say to Micah Washington, and then this BS from this brother dying after speeding.

Right. So it's called the Reform Alabama Police Department. I suspect that the standards for their hiring are extremely low, if I had to guess, because the level of stupid is really beyond what you typically see, even in a really bad story, which, of course, we all get these stories so frequently that, I mean, it is really sort of incredible to me that it would be disappointing if DOJ did not involve themselves in this particular case. But I would only say that with the cops that I know, certainly for federal police, the standards are extremely high, and they check all sorts of things, not just psychological or background or your—you know, they check all sorts of things before they hire people.

You know, when my father was on the job, he had just his GED—and this is, of course, back in the 1970s for New York. And, you know, my nephew was in the Army, was in the military before he became a police officer. It doesn't make anybody perfect. But when I see that type of video that we saw earlier, I just have the feeling and the sense that the standards for entry for that department are probably very low. And of course, we just have the history of the state of Alabama. So that looked like to me something out of the 1920s or before, maybe even the 1800s. And as you already said, Roland, if it wasn't for the camera phone, we wouldn't know anything about these things.

And I think about Eric Garner when I say that and Walter Scott. And I also think about the retaliation piece that comes with these stories. The man that recorded Eric Garner being choked to death, Ramsey Orta, the New York City police went after him systematically. But in this type of case, it's such a sad thing to watch. I would be really surprised if there wasn't some pretty dramatic action from somebody on the federal level. Reese, Reese. You know, I wonder if these cops even solve any kind of crimes, because the craziest part about these stories is the fact that these were people going on about their business, you know, okay, fine,

speeding, we all do it, changing a flat tire. Where is the danger that even warrants any kind of interaction with the police? This is why I believe we should abolish traffic stops, except in extreme circumstances, and I mean, very extreme. And just put cameras up. I don't give a damn about the surveillance. I'd rather deal with cameras and take my chances than dealing with these cops because they are, you know, paddle rollers. They're out there to get their rocks off, torturing people. I don't know if it's them, things getting out of hand and their inability to exercise self-control, or if getting out of hand is the entire point of it and seeing how much they can get away with for how long. But this is

appalling. And the fact that, you know, in the first situation, when you do manage to survive, you are hit with all kinds of bogus charges and the system fails you until some sort of inflammatory video comes out, even though the DA or whoever ended up dropping the charges. Too much time had to pass in order for that to happen. This should have never gone past even being booked when the charges were completely full of shit from the beginning. Greg?

Yeah. I mean, I just echo what Lauren and what Recy have said. Dana Elmore was hunting. She's used to hunting. She clearly likes it. She talks smack, not once but twice. Oh, yeah. Then she hits him, and then, you want it again?

That was what she said before she tased him again. This little 1,700-person town, which is ironically majority black now, about 51 percent black, has a black mayor, a sister who is the mayor there, although a white police chief, the police chief, ironically named Richard Black, is on trial, too. Hopefully, Kristen Clark sweeps in and takes care of business. But, you know, how many times do we have to see this to understand that this is not a rogue cop? The police are rogue. Police means rogue. They are doing their job.

Their job is to break your skull if they can. Alabama just passed a law about six months ago in June that says it gives the families the ability to ask for the footage from the police. But that same law does not require the police to give it to you. In fact, the police can refuse and don't have to give a reason. Now, in the case of Brother Foster, you know, he's been done crime even in death. His body was returned to Louisiana. And you can check, obviously, with your brother Ben Crump on this. Because from what I read, Crump has filed a lawsuit because the funeral home some kind of way mutilated the body again and did not preserve the brain. The family was saying it may be CTE.

Did they get a call from Alabama? What the hell is this? White supremacy colluding? What the hell? You can't even preserve the man's body long enough to find out whether he had some underlying concern. But I mean, at the end of the day, when are we going to finally say to ourselves, to this country and to the world that the police cannot be reformed? They have to be remade from the ground up. Dana Elmore is not an outlier.

She is enabled by that badge and that uniform to do exactly what she did. And she's doing it with impunity because we haven't stopped her and everybody else. That is precisely it. And again, you know, we do a lot of these stories. And thank goodness that there's an outlet because the reality is, and I can tell folks, there's so many of these stories, Lauren, that never see the light of day on mainstream media. It has to rise to some crazy, unbelievable level for MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS. We know Fox News ain't covering nothing dealing with black people getting killed by cops. But the light has to continue to stay

on these cases. And yeah, it's depressing. It's not, I mean, we don't always, I mean, it's not like this is what you want to lead with every single day, but this is the reality of black people in this country. Yeah, I mean, actually, it leaves me a little bit dazed, actually, just watching this craziness. You know, it's a history that follows, if you think about Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, that anniversary just passed where they effectively were assassinated by the Chicago police. The reason that you don't see this on MSNBC or CNN is because we are talking about African Americans. If we were talking about any other group in American society, white women, anybody in the LGBT categories, Hispanics, Asians, anybody, then we would be talking about this. But it's a part of American history. It's a part of the phrase Black Lives Matter, which has a profound meaning on so many

levels. Because in fact, we find when we watch these stories that in fact, we do not matter as much as everybody else. And the way that you know that is that these videos are common. They're extremely common. And when we got into the age of the cell phone and we were starting to see the details of conduct that had been complained about for years and years and years, I mean, if you go back and look at what Malcolm X was saying in the 1960s and what John Lewis said, I mean, this police brutality subject could come up many times. But to see it on video was a new aspect. And now we're just seeing it on video.

The thing that amazes me is that we get something like a Walter Scott, we see somebody get shot in the back six or seven times, and it's as if, you know, yeah, okay. I mean, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? If this was any other group, there would be a completely different reaction. So it is shocking to have to realize that you live in a country where you're in that group that is not cared about as much as the other groups are. It's just a reality for African

Americans. It's a fact. And when you see a video like this, it is unbelievable. It's sort of stunning. And I hate to be so discombobulated, but it just kind of leaves me thinking about a lot of things from a historic standpoint, not just a present day standpoint. Indeed, indeed. Folks, hold tight one second. We come back. We'll talk about President Biden providing more student loan debt relief. Oh, shocking. I know that's literally screwing up the talking points of a whole bunch of these ignorant folk out here who love running their mouths, claiming none of this stuff is actually being done.

Also, people who are saying, oh my goodness, this isn't impacting black people, even though we are disproportionately on student aid. We'll explain that when we come back on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. I'm Dee Barnes, and on the next Frequency, Professor Janelle Hopson joins us to talk about hip hop and its intersection with feminism and racial equality,

plus her enlightening work with Ms. Magazine and how the great Harriet Tubman connects with women in hip hop. So it was not hard for me to go from Harriet Tubman to hip hop, honestly, because it is a legacy of black women's resistance and black women supporting our communities. That's what Harriet Tubman did.

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Unfiltered. come to me let's go come to me. Let's go. All right. Student loan debt. Big issue. People claim Biden has done nothing. Really? They announced today they're forgiving an additional $4.8 billion in student loan debt for nearly 80,400 borrowers. That means to date, the administration has canceled nearly $132 billion in student loan debt for 3.6 million Americans. The debt was forgiven under changes to the department's income-driven repayment plans and the public service loan forgiveness program. Recy, I want to start with you. I mean, this right here is a perfect example, Recy, of, let me remind people,

Biden wanted to cancel all student loan debt, but the conservative Supreme Court said no, and if you set your ass at home in 2016 and did not vote for Hillary Clinton, and Trump won and got three appointees, guess what, you helped make this happen, so shut the hell up. So he made that attempt, but this idea, and I keep seeing this,

he's done nothing for student loan debt. And then, well, I had one person go, well, I ain't get my debt cut. Well, damn, let's not act like damn near 4 million folks didn't. Right. Well, I mean, you nailed it at the end. It's what is in it for me. You know, people can say student loan debt is some big, nebulous concept of unfairness and something that needs to be tackled. But the reality is people want their own student loan debt canceled.

They don't give a damn about 4 million people getting theirs canceled if they're not one of those people who have been affected. But the reality is I think this administration has tried to be creative in terms of lessening that burden. You've had them institute new repayment actions that have been really transformative if people actually took advantage of it. But it is an affirmative step that people have to take in order to apply these new rules to their own loans. They've done a lot around predatory colleges in terms of proactively, in that case, canceling the student loan debt of a lot of people, millions of people, hundreds of thousands of people in some cases. And so I think what it boils down to is as many good things has happened to as many people,

if it doesn't happen to everybody who is the one out there bumping their gums about it, then they don't care, you know? And so, but I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing if they can find a way to message it. Hell, they having 35 million holiday parties, invite some suit alone beneficiaries to the White House, have a ceremony or something, you know?

Do something, child. Hand out some free turkeys. I don't know, but whatever they need to do, they need to get this message across that they are doing everything they can in the face of Republican obstruction that's not going anywhere in terms of the courts. And what the Republicans have tried to do

is make sure that nobody benefits at all from any of these measures that the administration has taken. See, here's my whole deal, Greg. This is how I, Roland Martin, at all from any of these measures that the administration has taken. See, here's my whole deal, Greg. This is how I, Roland Martin, will be responding to my critics. I would not be waiting to develop campaign ads that are going to run, oh, let's say, in September. Right now, I would literally be having as, hi, I'm Chris Simpson,

graduate of Fayetteville State University, and $78,000 was forgiven in student loan debt. Or just the name or the number, and I would have students, students, students, students, students, students. I mean, I would sit here. Frankly, I'd be like dropping damn mixtapes. I have 20 people every week, and I'd be popping that,

or I'll sit here and say, you have to show them, and all they're saying is, thank you, President Biden. Thank you, President Biden. And below it, I'm showing their number. Thank you, President Biden. 38,000 forgiven. Thank you, President Biden. 42,000 forgiven.

Thank you, President Biden. 10,000 forgiven. Because what we do know is the Republicans, they don't want any of this money forgiven. Well, they don't want any money for student loans, but they, of course, want their PP loans. And in fact, as you were talking, it occurred, you know, you and Risi thinking it can't be. I doubt very seriously knowing the number of people that we all know, all four of us who are in and around that administration at all levels, it can't be that these things haven't been proposed. It seems to me that the senior leadership simply hasn't found the spine to execute them. So let's take the commercial that you just laid out and maybe make it a split screen

or make an iteration of it with the split screen, where you have the number forgiven. Thank you, President you have the number forgiven. Thank you, President. And on the other side, you see Matt Gaetz and the number that he got in PPP loans, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the number he got. So when you put 980,000 versus 20,000, 1.5 million versus 23,000, in other words, not enough just to take credit for it. You've got to punch these people in the mouth, as we've seen in the federal legislature over the last week. They crucify an Ivy League president. They're out there trying to censor people. They don't have any rules. You're acting like this isn't an open fight.

You're coming out here trying to talk to people, and they're not trying to talk to you. And the point you're making is very important. And it isn't just the loans. Sure, $132 billion. People say, wow, why are you doing that? No, no, no. Look at the money that they stole in COVID and put that number down. And at the same time, the largest increase in Pell Grants in over a decade. I mean, if your family makes less than $60,000 a year and you're trying to go to college, there's more Pell Grant money available. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, and they've created categories.

You've got people out there who have owed money for 20, 25 years. Under this new iteration, they're going to be able to get up to $10,000. You have people who owe more money now than they did when they took out the loan. They're going to get an expansion as a result of this. And finally, make that commercial and then maybe have a try screen, have the thank you, President Biden, with the number, have the thieves in Congress with the money they got in the middle. And on the right, put John Roberts. And say this would have been a whole lot easier if we'd had a few more judges on the Supreme Court and then go to dark with V.O.T.E. on. Now I know you're going to come for me. Come for me. Let's dance.

You must not have any student loans. And the point here, the why you have to make the contrast, Lauren, because it's simple. And that is if there is a change in administration, there's going to be a change in the policy towards student loans. And I would also, and that's what Greg laid out, it's a whole lot to put in one commercial, but I would create a separate commercial saying all $1 trillion of student loan debt has not been forgiven because our judges are not on the court. I keep saying Democrats have got to learn how to connect the dots between existing public policy and judges. So you don't have a bunch of these simple Simons running around talking about, ah, Katonji Brown Jackson, that was just performative.

Oh, I don't really care about these 150 judges that they've actually confirmed, and 50 of them are African-American. That don't mean nothing. Fool, it does. Yeah, well, anybody who would say that the judges don't mean anything would not really understand the basic civics of the situation at all anyway. I know the Biden administration would never do it, but frankly, I'd have a commercial that just said, look, we sent $75 billion to Ukraine. We spend $30 billion a year on farm subsidies.

We can spend a few billion on people being educated in our country. We have all these other investments to go overseas that happen on the regular. Ukraine may be an outlier in that sense, but still billions and billions of our tax money finds its way out of this country. And it would have happened again this week had it not been for the Republicans stopping it. And yet everybody in the United States, there are folks in the United States that need assistance, not just with student loans, with other issues. But student loans are a really important thing. To have an educated country, for us to compete around the world, particularly in math and science, is extremely important. And I've come to actually think that the Republican Party just doesn't want anybody to get their student loan relief, because they're just jealous and they don't want anybody to get

ahead of their kids. But from a more general, global, wider perspective, as a country, it's important to have people who are educated and to invest in that education into the billions. We sure as hell have no problem investing into the billions for other people around the world. So it's interesting to see the Republicans argue that we should close the border at the Mexican border and America first and all this other stuff. And then when somebody suggests that we should pay for people's education or their housing or such or things here in the United States, it's an America first issue, they're nowhere to be found. So there's a lot of odd and ironic policy around this, but student loan relief is an extremely important issue. Got it. Well, another issue we'll talk about next, folks, prescription drugs.

And again, you've got some Republicans who are saying, hey, let's just get rid of health insurance, make it all private. Well, we know how those prescription drugs have hurt those who can't afford it. We'll break it down next right here. Roland Martin on the filter on the Black Star Network. On the next Get Wealthy with me, Debra Owens, America's Wealth Coach, you're going to learn why so many black women are starting their own businesses. Black women's earnings have declined only 58 cents.

A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Business Week editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull

will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time,

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

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

Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives.

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

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

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for good plus on apple podcast to the dollar of what white men earn and that's why we're starting businesses our next guest dr avis is going to show you the first step toward reinvention and scaling your

business to seven figures and beyond what i teach my clients to do which has led to great revenue leaps with them is to really hone your focus on one primary high ticket offer that's right here on get wealthy only on blackstar network next on the black table with me g Kahn. We featured the brand new work of Professor Angie Porter, which simply put, is a revolutionary reframing of the African experience in this country. It's the one legal article everyone, and I mean everyone, should read. Professor Porter and Dr. Valencia Watkins, our legal roundtable team, join us to explore the paper

that I guarantee is going to prompt a major aha moment in our culture. You crystallize it by saying, who are we to other people? Who are African people to others? Governance is our thing. Who are we to each other? The structures we create for ourselves,

how we order the universe as African people. That's next on The Black Table, here on The Black Star Network. Me, Sherri Sheppard. I'm Tammy Roman. I'm Dr. Robin B., pharmacist and fitness coach, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Another plan to lower prescription drugs. You know, huge issue in this country. They unveiled a framework

outlining the factors federal agencies should consider in deciding whether to use a controversial policy known as March-in rights to take drug patents developed with taxpayer funds and share them with other pharmaceutical companies. Emily Gee, Senior Vice

President for Inclusive Growth from the Center for American Progress, joins us now. Emily, glad to have you here. This is what has always tripped me out, Emily, how taxpayers can pay in a significant way for drugs to be developed, and then the same companies go, you know what? We're going to charge y'all a hell of a lot of money. To try to make it as plain as possible, that's like me helping a family member with their business,

and I really help them build it, and then they turn around and say, yeah, I'm going to start charging you full price. Your ass ain't got a business without me. That's a great analogy because we as taxpayers do fund a lot of the basic science that's crucial to the development of new drugs through places like the National Institutes of Health or NIH. They're the ones that are doing a lot of the science that underpins new technologies that make up our medicines. The private companies own the patents, but many of those patents aren't actually for meaningful changes in the drugs. They're for tweaks that might change the packaging or slightly change the formulation to extend the life of being able to have a monopoly on that drug.

And when we talk about helping, have y'all come up with a number, if you will, how much taxpayers have put in to foot the bill for a lot of development of these drugs? I don't have a number for that, but I think there's, drug companies will claim that they do innovation, but again, a lot of the innovation has to do with tweaking existing drugs to try to extend the life of a patent. And a lot of that basic science is done, you know, is done by universities, is done by the government at places like NIH. And so, you know, a lot of drugs depend on investments in science that should belong to the public. And so walk us then, explain what this proposal will actually do. How will it benefit the person who's watching or listening? So as we all experience for ourselves, our families, prescription drugs can be incredibly expensive, often to the point where people can't afford to either take them as prescribed or have to forego their prescriptions.

And so what today's announcement by the Biden administration is, it's articulating how the administration will be coming up with a framework to exercise what's actually an older existing authority called marching rights under what's called the Bayh-Dole Act. And that says that if there is a drug that was developed thanks to the benefit of taxpayer funding, in a case, in certain cases, including where the drug, there's a need for health or safety for the public to access that drug, but they can't. The government can step in or march in and license that patent to another entity. And what we're talking about here, I mean, that will lower prescription drugs in a huge way. And frankly, these companies, look, they're sitting here going, oh, this is going to cost us billions. We're going to go out of business if you do this.

So the situation is you might use marcher rights or, you know, where there's an emergency or there's supply chain issues. What's new today is the government has articulated that the new framework will consider that high prices that keep people from accessing drugs is a reason to use margin rights. And so what they're doing is having the Department of Commerce lay out a framework for how you could actually do this. And this comes on top of other things the government has already done under the Biden administration to lower drug prices, including letting Medicare negotiate drug prices for the first time. They couldn't do that before at all. They didn't have the authority. Lower the cost of insulin to $35 for seniors with Medicare. And also having drug companies that hike prices above inflation pay rebates to the Medicare program. Questions from the panel. Recy, you're first.

Yeah, I'm wondering, I know that there's been quite a lengthy period in terms of developing this framework, and there's an additional period of public commenting. Is there any notion of when this would actually be implemented or if there is, beyond laying out this framework, if there is any indication of what it would be used on first from the administration? So I don't know the answer to that question, but I think this does probably widen the scope of things that it could be used for. So it's, you know, just into the, you know, the sort of theoretical what it could be used for in the past in the case of emergencies, for example, I think this would give the government, you know, a logic that would underpin using it in the case of high prices. Greg. Thank you, Roland. Vice President Gee, I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about how hard the big farmers are going to push back.

According to the reports I read, they made profits of around $110 billion last year and only paid $2 billion in taxes. I'm wondering if you also, if you have any thoughts also on how this, I'm not sure if it's ever been used, dimension of the Bayh-Dole Act will be challenged in court. So, I would expect that Big Pharma will push back very hard on any use of this rule. You know, it wouldn't be surprising because they have already, there are already multiple cases in the courts where pharmaceutical companies have sued over the Medicare negotiation, which was, again, a law passed by Congress that is wildly popular with the public, both Democrats and Republicans, as well as voters overall, because these are products that are incredibly profitable

and for which pharma is charging far above the value of the drugs. And so I expect them to fight for their profits. Thank you. Lauren. Yeah, Greg took my question. I wanted to know what big pharma was up to and what, you know, what was, have you seen anything? Obviously, they're going to sue with anything that, you know, takes any money away from them. But that was my question. Effectively, you were already asked that question. So, thank you. Very informative and very interesting. All right, Emily. Well, look, this, I fundamentally believe, will be a net positive for taxpayers. And as we say at the outset, we pay for a lot of this stuff. And so, therefore, we should be benefiting from these drugs.

That's absolutely right. And I think Big Pharma will continue to fight for its profits with the Biden administration through negotiation, you know, lower costs for insulin, putting an out-of-pocket maximum on drug costs and Medicare, and these new, you know, these new rules that would establish exactly how the government could exercise margin rights prove that they're willing to stand up to that power. All right. We appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Big Pharma hates that. Big Tobacco also put their money to use.

And the Biden administration is now delaying their plans to ban menthol cigarettes until March. We will unpack that and how Big Tobacco paid a lot of black civil rights people to stand with them. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Pastor. Jackie Hood Martin, and I have a question for you. Ever feel as if your life is teetering and the weight and pressure of the world is consistently on your shoulders? Well, let me tell you,

living a balanced life isn't easy. Join me each Tuesday on Blackstar Network for Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie. We'll laugh together, cry together, pull ourselves together, and cheer each other on. So join me for new shows each Tuesday on Black Star Network, A Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie. I'm Faraji Muhammad, live from LA.A. And this is The Culture. The Culture is a two-way conversation.

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This is Essence Atkins This is Love King of R.B. Raheem Duvall This is me, Sherri Shebron, and you know what you watch You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered Alright folks, many believe that the Biden administration, as a result, the FDA recommendation was going to ban menthol cigarettes. Folks have been waiting all year for that to happen. Now the administration has announced that they are going to delay this until March of 2024. What that now means is that many

people believe that they likely are not going to touch this issue at all in an election year. And in fact, that was one of the issues that was actually raised by civil rights groups as to why Biden should not act on this. This is a story here. This is from ABC News right here. Go to my iPad. Civil rights groups fought the ban saying it would target black smokers. Now, here's the deal. The ban would have actually targeted the manufacturing of menthol cigarettes. But what Big Tob big tobacco did there was an aggressive push by civil rights groups Again sponsored by big tobacco who said there was gonna unfairly target black people

You had the black farmers and John Boyd out there saying this is an awful idea This article here lays out that you had folks with Noble, the ACLU, even Reverend Alice Sharpton's National Action Network saying that this could harm black voters. And here's what the story says

right here. It says in private phone calls, civil rights groups, including the ACLU, the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, or NOBLE, and Reverend Alice Charter's National Action Network, warned the White House against the plan with some officials suggesting that a regulatory crackdown could harm Joe Biden's reelection chances with black voters. Okay, so that was the argument that was being made. Now, understand, folks, the same article says this right here, that the delay is a major defeat for health advocates who have been pushing for years to limit access to menthol cigarettes, which are aggressively marketed in black communities. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, menthol can enhance the addictive effects of cigarettes and make it harder to quit.

45,000 black people die annually as a result of cigarette smoking. 45,000. Let me just remind people there are more black people who die annually than smoking that represented the margin of Biden's victory in Georgia and Arizona. Hmm. Why am I framing it like that? Because frankly, I'm not buying any of this bullshit from any of these civil rights groups. Let me be perfectly clear. I work with the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. I hate cigarettes. I'm allergic to smoke. It gets in my system.

It literally shuts my throat down, and I've been off the air for a week. My mom has asthma. I can't stand it. So I don't care. I got no problem. But what I'm looking at, I also cannot as a black man have a mural in my damn office saying Black Lives Matter. And we're literally located on Black Lives Matter Plaza in D.C. But how hypocritical would I be going down to the White House two blocks away and say no no no no don't do this because this is gonna harm black people how about the damn big tobacco harming black people

here's what the article says in here give me me one second, right here, go to it, noble black law enforcement lists tobacco giant Altria among its sponsors. Another group, the National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice, which ran ads against the proposed ban, is sponsored by Reynolds American. Also, Big Tobacco increased their advertising to NNPA, the black newspapers, so it was no shock that Ben Chavis, who is the NNPA, came out against this. And what they also did was they held a news conference at the National Press Club

with Gwen Carr, yep, saying what happened to my son Eric Garner, this could happen to other black men if this happens. Y'all, they created this whole hysteria by saying there's going to be an underground market and black people are going to be killing it. We literally had a dude from Noble on the show last week saying, well, you know, you might see this increase in crime because, you know, if you're going to have these cigarettes on the black market. And I love this one.

Well, if you're going to ban menthol, you should ban all the rest of them. Do y'all know how many? Hold on. And these are the same folk who say Do for black folks with everybody else, but now the was set now. I love this one. They complain about all Rising time lifts all boats, but now no no no no window. Don't just target menthol now target everybody doing full well How addictive menthol cigarettes are.

Here's the reality, Greg. Big Tobacco has bought off black America for years. That was their strategy. They bought tables. They sponsored events. They sponsored concerts. They sponsored tournaments. They made smoking cool.

K-O-O-L. Well put, brother. I think about all those ads we saw and all of the black publications that made it cool indeed. K-O-O-L. I mean, you know, it's not the it's not the jazz festival in New England. It's the Newport Jazz Festival. And you've talked about this before. In fact, you've done dedicated segments on the show about this. It's certainly disheartening, but it's unsurprising. It's unsurprising. The idea that harming ourselves, being induced to harm ourselves isn't enough to make a stand is, that's the society we live in, brother.

I mean, right now, probably the biggest story in the world right now is the COPS meeting. And they're overseas in an oil producing company exactly because the Saudis and UAE and all them wanted to get these people trying to get climate change under control on their turf so they could kill anything. And they're literally dumping billions, as we speak right now, into this meeting to persuade the people of the world that you'll be dead, but at least we'll have the oil making it into gasoline for, I guess, the phantoms because the world is going to burn up. But the same principle is at work here. Money. What's the cost of our life, brother? What's the cost?

And as you read those names, as you read those organizations, I mean, Noble is sitting there with a lobbyist who was working with the tobacco industry. Does that mean we can't trust these folk who claim to represent or want to represent us in certain areas or in certain forms? Because they definitely don't represent us on that. I mean, does that just mean that we just need to get enough money to say, OK, well, since you are a free agent, what's your price to take this political stand? Because you clearly mortgage your morals. Here was an email blast that went out, Lauren, from John Boyd. Look, we've been standing with the National Black Farmers to get their money from the federal government.

But on this one, John Boyd is wrong. It says it here how this is going to hurt black farmers in rural communities. How? Show me the data. And then it says, beyond the economic impact, opponents of the ban on menthol tobacco products note that the Food and Drug Administration ban being considered would criminalize the sale, distribution, and possession of menthol cigarettes under federal, state, and local laws. This criminalization could result that literally, Lauren, is complete bullshit.

It is. What this would do, what this would do is end, again, here's what the manufacturing of the products, manufacturing distribution, that's all lies. Yeah, what you're seeing is the convergence of money in politics. And when you have a community like ours that doesn't have, you know, the history of having a lot of money around and the ability to sort of have capital in these organizations that make them independent from moneyed interest. These are the strange moments that you get.

Nobody talking about the 45,000 black people that die per year, making a decision that is the opposite of what healthcare experts would say. Obviously, any argument for cigarettes is bizarre right there on his face. I got to read this one. I got to read this one. And I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. Again, these are people who I talk to on other issues I respect. But on this? Bullshit. This is what this Black Farmers email says. Black farmers should not have to deal with the economic consequences of a biased government that always take into account a predominantly white led viewpoint on what should be done in the black community our community what we should smoke what we should eat and what we should grow

it is always under the guise that it is in the best interest of the black community and for our health and well-being even though there's been little done to address the disparities and inequities within our health care system there are black people who are fighting for this there are black people so there's no issue at all here come the white folks uh saying this stuff ain't good for y'all when let's be clear and here's the other deal and i read this and i'm sorry i I'm telling you right now, John, if you want to call me fine, but I'm reading this book and I'm going to keep saying this bullshit. I'm reading this here and not one, not one piece of data says in here how many black farmers are growing tobacco.

Yeah. Not one. I'm reading this whole deal. This is what I see. Few workers have been hit harder in recent years than black farmers, whose numbers continue to dwindle. In 1910, about 14% of the U.S. farmers were black, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And then according to the latest data, only one in 100 farmers is black, owning a total of less than 5 million acres. Not anywhere in here does it say how many of these black farmers actually are growing tobacco. Yeah, it's worse than that, though. Why the hell would we be arguing on the side of cigarettes under any circumstance? There's a line in there that said something about, you know, why are white people telling us what to smoke? Why are we smoking in the first place?

We know how. Everybody knows that smoking kills people and causes cancer. That's been known for decades. So the idea that anybody would be making that argument is patently ridiculous. The 45,000 dead people apparently per year is not persuading anybody. But this is an example of if you apply people with enough money, anything is possible. Yeah. And there were numerous meetings. There were numerous meetings at the White House, Recy, meeting directly with the administration.

And, again, sitting here. Now, let me also just show you. And, again, y'all, let me be perfectly clear. Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, they've been a sponsor of this show. You damn right. And let me real clear. I don't take money. Let me be real clear to everybody watching.

I don't take money from everybody. Come on now. When I launched this show, in my first two years, I did not have any advertising except one. That was

AFSCME. And my ad people came to me and Jewel, them vaping people, whatever the hell, whatever they do, they came to me. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action,

and that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on,

why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain.

I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them.

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

And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.

It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill.

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

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. And they want to advertise, did I need the money? Wow.

Absolutely. Yeah. Did I take the money? Hell no. Because that to me is absolutely blood money. Yes.

And for all y'all, and I just want y'all to understand, I named y'all the civil rights groups that put pressure on the White House. And hell, there was one black political consultant who they paid, who tried to get me to put the people on the White House. And hell, there was one black political consultant who they paid who tried to get me to put the people on the show.

He got mad as hell when I called his name out because I talked to somebody else. I'm like, man, I mentioned your name to him. He started cussing. Well, if your ass can't defend your clients, don't get mad at me because I called your name out. Come on. You're lucky I don't call your name out right now. Yikes. And trust me, I call your name out. Come on. You're lucky I don't call your name out right now.

Yikes. And trust me, if I see your ass, I advise you not to get attitude, because trust me, it's going to get real loud wherever we are. But I want everybody to know,

I want everybody to know, these are the black organizations that supported the ban on menthol cigarettes. The 100 Black Men of America. African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council. African American Wellness Project. Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated, the Association of Black Cardiologists, the Association of Black Women Physicians, the Black Men's Health Initiative, the Black Women's Health Imperative,

the Black Women's Roundtable, the Church of God in Christ Social Justice Ministry, Mocha Moms, Inc., the NAACP, the National Black Empowerment Council, the National Black Nurses Association, the National Caucus and Center on Black Aging, Inc., the National Council of Negro Women, the National Medical Association, that's the group of black doctors, Save a Girl, Save a World, the Arc of Justice, the a girl save a world the arc of justice the center for black health inequity the national coalition on black civic participation the national council of the churches of christ in the usa these to the people who who are down for this band i said listen y'all soft showing this thing they i think for fall you know what

this thing going well no no no no i believe in going hard till you get what you get. It's like in sports. I'm going to play hard till that clock says 0-0-0. Yes, sir. And what happened here? Big Tobacco played a lot of hardball and threw a whole money out and now they push it to March. And I don't think for a second

that the Biden administration is going to pull this trigger in March. They should and frankly the president and the vice president should be able to come out and say, we stand for black lives and they absolutely matter. And they should absolutely ban menthol cigarettes and sit here and say to any civil rights group that opposed it, how dare you be manipulated by big tobacco by saying, oh, black people are going to get arrested and going to get accosted by the cops because of menthol cigarettes. That's all nonsense. Yeah, and this is pretty fucking embarrassing for black people to be in it

in terms of a civil rights issue, for cigarettes as a civil rights issue, that is so, so deeply embarrassing that there are pretty esteemed organizations that are signing up to this, the gaslighting and propaganda. Don't we get enough of that already? Come on. We don't need to add to the gaslighting

in this country around our political issues. It's unserious. It's apparently profitable. I wonder how much the check is, though. Maybe I would have been on that list. I'm just joking. I would not have. I would not sell out our people for no cigarette money. But my whole point is, I hope the check cleared and it was pretty good for you to say that this is a reasonable objection to make when it's not. We saw on the show a person who ended up in jail when all he was doing was changing a tire. We've seen people who end up being beaten and harassed by police because they flagged the police down during a traffic stop. But police don't need

any additional pretexts to do what they were going to do all along, okay? Maybe they might say men thhol cigarettes, but it would have been something else. Okay. They would have found another reason to fuck with black people because that's what they do. So the whole notion that we are protecting black people by keeping deadly cigarettes, uh, more accessible to our community is the most backward ass ridiculous gaslighting logic I've ever heard. And I don't want no parts of it. Don't sign me up to be one of the blacks that is rooting for menthol cigarettes. Stop it.

Stop it. You're embarrassing yourself. And to answer your point, Roland, don't get mad when you get called out by name behind it. You know, a lot of people get sensitive when you call them out on their shit. Stand in it, stand 10 toes down, but be real about it.

Don't say it's a civil rights issue because it's absolutely not. We're talking about life or death, not fake civil rights in play here. Absolutely. And so I just want to show you all these here. And again, I got no problem saying it. I have absolutely partnered with the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. I support this initiative 100% because I

hate damn cigarettes. So you damn right I stand with him. Go to my iPad. From the FDA, eliminating menthol cigarettes could save up to 654,000 lives,

including 255,000 black lives over the next 40 years. When black people die early because of cigarettes, there's less money in the black community. That impacts black children. That impacts black mothers, black fathers, nieces and nephews. And so, y'all, this is an economic issue for black people as well. Go back to my iPad. Why eliminate menthol cigarettes?

They are more addictive. They are easier for kids to start. And we have heard they are harder for smokers to quit. Fact of the matter is, Michael Coleman, former mayor of Columbus, Ohio, talked about that. And just so y'all know, if y'all think I'm just sitting here, oh man, you're making up this stuff about big tobacco and what they've done, go to my iPad. For decades, big tobacco targeted the black community with menthol cigarettes. And if you black and you grew up in the seventies, eighties, and 90s and you saw black newspapers

and black magazines, you saw all these ads. Oh, look how cool. Y'all see this here? Mystic, light, and sassy. Look at this here. I want y'all to understand this here. These assholes,

these big tobacco assholes use the natural hair of black people to do an ad to say it's only natural to smoke Salem's. Oh, look at this here. Wait, man, wait, before you go back over there, it's only natural. What words are bigger and where are they placed? Boom. I mean, the whole thing, man. It's like, come on, really? And then I'm going to go there. If y'all look at that, going to put extra long damn in his crotch.

Right. Come on. Y'all better understand the psychology of this stuff. Look at this here. Cool ain't cold. Newport is. Look at this here. Wouldn't have it any other way.

It's got to be cool. Look at this here. Look how I try to make smoking cool and sexy Look at this here Dizzy Gillespie The cool jazz festival in New York They sponsor cool concerts all over the place Look at this here

Cool filter kings Using DJs and rappers Look at this here Ooh, Kent Menthol The together smoke Showing a black couple how cool for them to smoke together DJs and rappers. Look at this here. Ooh, Kent Menthol, the Together Smoke. Showing a black couple how cool for them to smoke together. Oh, look at the cool brother, Benson and the Hedges 100s. Look at this here.

Oh, oh, if y'all think. Look at this ad. Players go places. Look at this here. Newport pleasure until your ass get lung cancer. Yes, sir. Look at this here. Brother on the phone getting his Mac on with his sister.

The ad says rap in Kent. Look at this here, Salem, fresh on the scene. Oh, look at this here, black man playing pool, smoke easy. Look at this here, brother with a trumpet, cool. So it's over here in the water. Y'all, this is what civil rights groups are defending by being against the ban of menthol cigarettes.

And so again, what did I tell y'all? My philosophy is simple. If you do good, I'm going to talk about you. And if you do good, I'm going to talk about you. And if you do bad, I'm going to talk about you. At the end of the day, I'm going to talk about you.

Shame on every civil rights group, every political analyst, every political strategist, anybody who is black who stands with big tobacco. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways.

Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action, and that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull

will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six 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. We are back.

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

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

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Damn that. Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. hatred on the streets, a horrific scene, a white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence. White people are losing their damn lives.

There's an angry pro-Trump mob storm to the U.S. Capitol. We're about to see the rise of what I call white minority resistance. We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denial. This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson at every university calls white rage as a backlash. This is the wrath of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this.

Here's all the Proud Boys, guys. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people. The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. This is white fear.

Bye-bye, Tombo. They're taking our resources. They're taking our women. This is white people. On the next Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach. You're going to learn why so many Black women are starting their own businesses. Black women's earnings have declined only 58 cents to the dollar of what white men earn. And that's why we're starting businesses. Our next guest, Dr. Avis, is going to show you the first step toward reinvention and scaling your business to seven figures and beyond. What I teach my clients to do, which has led to great revenue leaps with them, is to really hone your focus on one primary high ticket offer. That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Blackstar Network. I am Tommy Davidson. I play Oscar on Proud Family, Louder and Prouder.

Right now, I'm rolling with Roland Martin, unfiltered, uncut, unplugged, and undamned believable. You hear me? Well, Louisiana lawmakers now have until the end of January to draw and pass due congressional boundaries to replace a current map that a federal judge said violates the Voting Rights Act by diluting the power of the state's black voters. Now, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals is allowing this. Now, let me explain something to y'all what they did.

They passed this damn map, y'all, in 2022. Early 2022. They got sued. The federal judges ruled early enough in 2022 for them to redraw the maps in time for the primaries. Why? Because Louisiana primaries are in August, not, let's say, March or April. But the Supreme Court has this standard rule, no, let's freeze in place everything because it's too close to the election. 2022.

So we come through all. Here we are. December 7th. December 7, December 7, 2023. Give them more time. Now the end of January. And then punk ass Democrat Governor John Bel Edwards. He won't call a special session to draw the new maps. Do you know what I mean now? Louisiana State Representative C. Denise Marcel. You know, Representative Marcel, here's why this is frustrating.

Because we know what's going to happen. They're going to draw the maps in January. They're going to wait until the last day in January. They're going to get until the last day in January. They're going to get sued the same day. And the Fifth Circuit, hard right-wing Fifth Circuit federal judges, y'all, they could, oh, we could call another hearing. And guess where we at? Back to where we were in 2023, 2022, and they may say, oh, here we go. Nope, nope, it's too late to make changes.

This is a bunch of BS. Hello, how you doing, Roland? Thank you for inviting me to come on your show. I think you put it all in a nutshell. It's delay after delay after delay. This map could have been drawn some time ago. I know HB4 is a piece of legislation that I ran. There was some legislation run on the other side by the senators.

There were maps available. There continue to be maps available. I have no understanding of why they believe that we can come in on January the 15th. That's the earliest we can come in and have a map of them by January 30th, unless they've already drawn it. No, no, no. You're going to have a map, but it's going to be a hard right-wing map. Right. Okay, look what Georgia just did.

The judges ordered them to redraw it. What did they do? They came back with some screwed-up maps as well. They're trying to run the clock out so they can freeze everything in place and not create that black district for 2024. Oh, I agree with that 100 percent. But what I'm saying to you, though, Roland, is that whatever they're going to present, they already have a drone. They do. They have already drawn it. They know what it is and they're just going to be going through the motions.

This has got to be just frustrating because they're being aided by this right wing Fifth Circuit. It is very frustrating. What's frustrating for me is they know it's the right thing to do, but they're refusing to do what is right and what is the law. They want to abide by some of the laws, but they're refusing to do what is right and what is the law. They want to abide by some of the laws, but not all of the laws. They want to call people hardened criminals, but they don't want to admit that they are criminalizing things themselves by not doing what the law says and watering down black voters and not giving them an opportunity to have a

representative in Congress. And that's what it's all about. It's about control. You know, and again, what I want our people to understand, because I'm constantly trying to get our people to realize this whole thing, is that when we talk about, again, how the right wing uses these positions. I'm sitting here, let me see if I can pull it up right here. I'm trying to pull it up. Let's see here. I saw it came down a couple of hours ago

where the right wing, give me one second, where the same Fifth Circuit, what they did is, so judges ruled that Galveston County, they were in violation of the Voting Rights Act. And so go to my iPad. Breaking Fifth Circuit sitting in bank and over four dissenting votes stops redistricting remedy for Galveston, Texas

for Voting Rights Act violations. Argument not until May. four dissenting votes stops redistricting remedy for galveston texas for voting rights act violations argument not until may and so the republicans in louisiana know that there by them being in with that fifth circuit again largely right wing is

different than that federal court that was uh in the case of the alabama case and the Alabama case. And the Louisiana case is already gone to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has already said, lower court ruling in place. You're absolutely correct. And again, I think you've called it out, Roland. It's a delay tactic so that we won't ever get a congressional district. I mean,

I don't get it. And then again, I do. You called it out, right wing, and they want control. And so the longer they can keep us from getting this congressional district, the longer we do not have a voice to speak for our people. And so they're going to water it down and change it up and not bring us back a district that's actually African-American. And that's what they do. Why in the hell won't the governor call a special session? He is a Democratic governor, won by 30,000 votes in second term. He's outgoing. He could call a special session and not wait till the end of January. He barely campaigned for anybody in the last election. So what the hell is going on with

John Bel Edwards? Hey, I'm no longer going to be running, so damn, I'm not going to help black people or help Democrats? Well, I certainly can't answer that one. I would agree that he could have called a special session at any time, but he has not done so. And that leaves a question in my mind because we're going as a new body. So the question is which committee is going to hear it. Is it going to be the new sitting committee that's going to be heavily stacked, or is it going to be the old committee? Both of them were stacked,

but the question is, how stacked are they going to be? And so whose committee is going to even hear it when they call it? Because if we're waiting on the new governor, then that is an entirely new committee that we don't even know. Oh, hell, he's far right wing.

General Landry is a MAGA Republican. I agree. All right. Well, keep us abreast of what happens there. We're going to keep the fight up, Representative Marcel. Thanks a lot. Thank you. You know, this right here is what

I'm talking about. When we talk about voting and things along those lines, and I don't know what the hell it's going to take, Lauren, for the black folks there in Louisiana. But I'm like, listen, y'all getting played. But there's so much apathy in the state, folks not turning out, like right on this here, they should be

on John Bill Edwards' ass every day. He should be having to deal with pickets wherever he goes. They should be lighting his ass up every day. Well, will you have, I mean, Louisiana is one of the poorest states in the country. And will you have poverty and housing insecurity and food insecurity?

People's priorities are not necessarily on these types of things, unfortunately. And I think that's a big challenge in Louisiana. And also, there's a lack of leadership in Louisiana, for whatever reason,, which is strange given that high black population. You would think that the National Democratic Party would figure out a way to involve itself more in Louisiana, knowing that they could leverage so many black votes, potentially and likely, obviously, because most black folks support the Democratic Party. So that lack of leadership combined with, I think, a lot of economic insecurities, why we see that Louisiana is where it is or where the Democratic Party. So, that lack of leadership combined with, I think, a lot of economic insecurities is why we see that Louisiana is where it is and where the Democratic Party is in Louisiana.

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REESE COUNTY COUNTY COUNTY COUNTY COUNTY COUNTY COUNTY COUNTY COUNTY COUNTY COUNTY COUNTY REESE COUNTY COUNTY COUNTY COUNTY COUNTY COUNTY COUNTY COUNTY COUNTY COUNTY COUNTY COUNTY COUNTY COUNTY capacity that's unexercised. And Republicans continue to do this because who's going to check them? I mean, certainly not the voters that are staying home. And I understand gerrymandering. I understand voter suppression. I understand a number of things, economic, historic, et cetera, et cetera. However, there's only so many, you know, justifications for inaction and abdicating your power to other people. I sounded the alarm about Ron DeSantis, who did this to me. He literally disenfranchised, I want to say, 800,000 Black residents in Florida. And he got reelected by even wider margins, despite what he did. Yeah, he shut out two Black districts.

He did. He did. He kept the Black district seats open in the state legislature as well, because the people had to resign in order to run. And then when Ron DeSantis decides he wants to run for president, then they change the damn rules so that you don't have to resign to run for a different office. But my point is that there is a very sinister relentlessness from Republicans to disenfranchise us. And then there are those of us who just lay down and let it happen. And I just can't, I can't empathize with, with that second part of it any longer. Greg, uh, here's the deal. I mean, we're talking about a black congressional district.

We're talking about power. We're talking about money. Uh, and, and listen, we saw in Ohio, the courts ruling, look, the Republicans say, man, we don't give a damn what the courts say. Yeah, we know these maps are illegal. We're going to move forward anyway. They are gangster when it comes to this stuff. And the bottom line is, John Bill Edwards should be ashamed of himself. He is still the governor until there's an inauguration. But this man ain't doing a damn thing.

He's just sitting, let them do whatever they want to. Absolutely. And like you said, there are no repercussions for Edwards. Who knows what he aspires to in the future? Perhaps he wants to run for another office. Perhaps lobbyists are in his bank account as well, and determining his political future as we sit here. But you know, it's a mixed bag.

I mean, we certainly don't have the type of coalition politics and clarity. Here we are on the 7th of December. We would be, if this was 1955, two days into the Montgomery bus boycott. We don't have the common sense of the civil rights days, the black power era, but we continue to fight. The courts, yeah, that Fifth Circuit is a whole mess. At the same time, John Roberts and the Supreme Court, at least Roberts and perhaps Beir Kavanaugh, have begun to understand perhaps that while they are hard right ideologues

as well, they're going to tear their little funky project to pieces. That was the Milligan case. I think what we see there is the Supreme Court saying there won't be anything to rule over if we continue down this path. The tripwire, of course, was the abortion case where they snatched their prize ring. And I know this just happened since we've been on the air, maybe just a little bit before. There's a Democrat Texas state judge that determined that this woman could actually terminate her pregnancy. I think she's 20 weeks in the state of Texas.

In other words, the courts have certainly been captured. However, rule of law is only as good as people's willingness to respect it. They are—and now I guess there's some rumbling in the last couple of hours where they're talking about maybe they're going to try to put Matt Gaetz out of the federal legislature. I mean, what are you doing? As you said the other day with George Santos, this would reduce you to even a closer of a razor-thin majority in the House. Well, you've got a hard right ideologue, an onward Christian soldier from Louisiana

in charge as the speaker of the House who's out there saying he's taking his cues from the Old Testament. You may have finally caught the car. Meaning what? You might have finally gotten everything in your wildest dreams. And now you realize that when people are involved, you can't predict there are unintended consequences. I'm saying all that to say this. We saw what happened with your brother in Georgia saying, OK, if y'all not going to draw it, I'll come back and appoint somebody to draw it. Here in Louisiana, they're absolutely playing up the strings. so sure that the courts will be the fail safe that these white masters in the Louisiana supermajority in the legislature think they will be? Because I think they finally understand that once you break it, you're not going to be able to put it back together.

And they may end up conceding some of these battles, albeit way down the road. Well, again, folks, I made the point. We can't. We can't just concede it. We must continue fighting. We must continue pushing. We must continue being aggressive. Our lawyers are battling these things out in the courts. We've got to be battling these things out in the streets.

And I'm going to say this over and over and over again until I'm blue in the face, red in the face or whatever. If you're sitting here right now and you're watching and listening to this and you still don't think judges matter, you are outside of your mind. Every time we talk about an issue, it's amazing how we're mentioning a federal judge, a federal judge, a federal judge. Hell, we've

talked about city laws, state laws that have been passed that have gone to federal judges. And if I hear one more Negro sit here and say, ah, man, you keep talking about these 150 judges, Biden appointed, and 50 of them black, they ain't done nothing for us.

You got to be one of the most dumbest-ass people I've ever seen in my life. Because, you know what? Let me try to just put it this way. Maybe you fools who sit here who talk all this trash about Biden, Harris, and these federal judges, about the vice president breaking the record of the racist John Calhoun for breaking the most ties. I know some of you simple Simons might say, eh, this stuff really don't mean anything. Well, tell that to the black families who they filed federal lawsuits

when the loved ones are shot and killed by the cops. Tell that to the black people who are fighting environmental justice who filed federal lawsuits to get their communities cleaned up, and then you have consent decrees. Tell that to the black people, not just voting cases, the black people who filed education lawsuits. Hell, in fact, tell that to the black athletes today who filed a lawsuit against the NCAA when it came to getting paid. Come on. See, all y'all sit here, and some of y'all act like

these judges don't mean anything until black folks rule. Louisiana, it was a white woman appointed by President Barack Obama who was the first female judge in eastern Louisiana who ruled and told Louisiana, get them young kids out of Angola prison and you got a week. That was a federal judge appointed by Obama. But this Fifth Circuit, all y'all got to do, and I did it, they had 25 judges there. 22 appointed by Republicans.

The Fifth Circuit. And if y'all want, and see, again, though, see, some of y'all act like, you know, you know, folk don't know how to read. I know Greg got that book somewhere over there. I know he do. If y'all want to understand, if y'all want to understand

the Fifth Circuit, if y'all want to understand history, if y'all want to understand where you are right now, all I want y'all to do is to go read,

go look up this book right here, Unlikely Heroes, a vivid account of the implementation of the Brown decision in the South by Southern federal judges committed to the rule of law.

Yes. That was the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Yes. Because you know what conservatives figured out? Conservatives said, see, again, some of y'all who don't know how to read, who don't appreciate history, ask yourself, why have conservatives targeted the Fifth Circuit? Because it was the Fifth Circuit that actually interpreted and made Brown v. Board of Education 1 and 2 real.

That's right. And that's why they want to harm us. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek.

I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Business Week editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Hardcore Fifth Circuit. Because the Fifth Circuit covers Texas. Louisiana. It covers several states. Mississippi. That's the Fifth Circuit. Y'all better not play around with these federal judges.

Go ahead and mess around next year in 2024 if they want to, Greg. But they better understand, I don't give a damn how you feel about Joe Biden. I don't give a damn if you think Joe Biden too old. I don't give a damn if you don't like the fact that Kamala Harris, the vice president is Jamaican, Indian. I don't give a damn what none

of y'all think. I'm going to tell you right now. If Donald Trump and the Republicans take control of the White House and the Senate, they are going to appoint some of the most right-wing federal judges. Oh, by the way, them 50 black judges that Biden-Harris has appointed, I think Trump only appointed four or five black people.

Come on. 88% of Trump's federal judges were white. 78% were white men. Right. Go ahead and play games if you want to. You right, bro. And they targeted, like you said, the fifth. They've got the fifth.

They flipped the 11th. That's Alabama, Florida, and Georgia. The fourth. That's where, you know, that's that's all them people down there. They damn they have overtaken the ninth. And that's California. The most liberal. That's bananas. That's right. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. So even the voters, even voter rights case in Georgia, you got your brother, an Obama appointee who stopped them with with the redistricting in Georgewell until they came up with this, we'll just replace two Democrat districts with two Negroes. But that could be appealed. And the Fourth Circuit,

they've eviscerated that one as well. I mean, the Eleventh Circuit, that is, Alabama, Florida, and Georgia. But people have to, if people can hear you. But again, we're dealing in an age where we couldn't even stop watching NFL football. And we're doing an age where people might act. And if you went to Louisiana and said, we're going to take out all the menthol cigarettes, the Negroes might actually get up and do something. I hate to sound like that, but it isn't a black problem in this country. It's an American problem. Ignorance is a strength of the Americans, because we would just rather not know. We would just rather not know until the pain

comes. And they are lining up real pain. I mean, this Johnson character in the legislature, man, in the Congress, this guy is like, you could—well, could you create more cartoonish villains than the ones who actually populate the courts and the elected offices in this country at this point? You could even make it up. Do you think King and them would have believed this? Do you think white dudes like Tuttle, Albert Tuttle, who was the judge, one of those judges you're mentioning there in Jack Bass's book, who the federal courthouse in Atlanta is named for Tuttle.

He was on the 11th Circuit. These are white people that said, yeah, you know, I may not sit down to dinner with black people. I might even have some racist views. But I do kind of believe in the federal Constitution. These people don't believe in the Constitution. They believe in rule or ruin. There's a very big difference between the racists of the 2020s and the racists of the 1950s and 60s, at least on the federal bench. I didn't mean to go here recently, but I saw Axios reporter story today, I believe, where Trump's loyalty cabinet, Melania, wants Tucker Carlson to be his vice president. And again, I want everybody to understand we're going to do a whole

show, I might have to do a whole damn week on Project 2025. But I really, really need our people to understand that these right-wingers, they have studied everything that Trump failed at. And right now in D.C., not far from here, they are planning their entire strategy when

they take back over. And it is going to be ugly and brutal. Yes, it is going to be ugly and brutal. Yes, it is. And I don't actually think it's terribly outrageous to, you know, predict a Tucker Carlson VP because Trump is going to need somebody who is loyal to him. Now, I don't know why he trusts Tucker Carlson, but I do think that loyalty is going to be the number one qualification for being Trump's VP, not any other kind of competency or anything like that. But I think that Trump or DeSantis or any of these Republicans all pose an existential threat. I just think it's a different kind of threat. I think that Trump is willing to say to hell with judges and laws and this, that, and the other, and just rogue agent

and rogue it. I think somebody like DeSantis, he's shown, he's demonstrated very unequivocally that he is going to entrench his authoritarianism in the law. And if he gets the kind of trifecta that he enjoys in Florida, we will see him do what he has done in a way that is going to be more so persistent beyond a dictator, you know, feeling president like Trump. It could be much more detrimental. So there is no silver lining in any of the Republicans that are up against, potentially up against Biden. They are all, in my view, equally dangerous,

just dangerous in different ways. Lauren, right here, behind the curtain, how Trump would build his loyalty first cabinet. You see that one right here? This white nationalist right here? I need everybody to understand, this is the white nationalist who sued to block the funding for black farmers. This is the white nationalist who's trying to block law firms from having programs that assist African Americans. Then of course you got this fool right here, who J.D. Vance, who's an absolute fraud Ohio senator. Then they are even talking about this fool,

Steve Bannon, who was indicted, who got a Trump pardon, coming back as Trump's chief of staff. Y'all better recognize, Lauren, these people can play games they want to. But I'm telling you, it's like, hey, they better realize this is serious business. They playing for keeps. Yes. Yeah, the timing, again, coincides with the largest black caucus in history. It coincides with gaining power from groups that had no power. They're talking openly about authoritarianism and fascism.

They're talking openly about punishing enemies and using the Justice Department and the other levels of government to do it. Today, the fact that they censured Jamal Bowman is, to me, after they did, this is coming after they did the same to Rashida Tlaib. These are the types of things where these people are not, they're not really sort of pretending anymore. The thing is out in the open, what they plan to do. They're not serious, and they're going to continue to do that. This is the sort of slow build that they had right before Charlottesville in 2017 and the slow build that they had before the Capitol was attacked. There's always like a slow little buildup and a set of signs that happens before the big thing,

and this is what we're seeing right now. Indeed. All right, Lauren, Greg, Recy, I appreciate y'all being on today's show. Folks, go into a quick break. We come back. Color Purple. World premiere was last night. I was there. I'm going to share some of that with you. You're watching Roland Martin on the Black Star Network. When you talk about blackness and what happens in black culture, you're about covering these things that matter to us, speaking to our issues and concerns. This is a genuine people-powered movement.

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And you're watching Roland Martin. Last night at the Academy Museum, the world premiere of the movie The Color Purple. The reimagining of The Color Purple. Now, remember, the movie came out in 1985, adapted from the novel by Alice Walker. She was there last night with her daughter, Rebecca. And Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, and others addressed the audience before the screening. It was a star-studded house. We were happy to be there, along with Divine Nine and others as well. And so here is Oprah addressing the folks there and talking about this movie and how it got made. Good evening. Thank you for being here for this full circle moment, really for all of us.

I often say that I've wanted nothing in my life more than I wanted to be a part of the color purple and so in 1985 when I was discovered by Quincy Jones who was in Chicago for a lawsuit that was being filed against Michael Jackson saw me on this little show called AM Chicago and then called Steven Spielberg and said, I think that's Sophia. My life changed forever after that for so many reasons, mainly being able to see people at work

doing their art in an atmosphere that felt creative and inspired and putting together something that was going to be so meaningful for the world. I have to say it changed my life forever, literally. Seeing Steven Spielberg coming here to audition and seeing that Steven Spielberg had his own studio called Amblin put the idea in my head that one day I could have a studio called Harpo. So I'm telling you, it just grounded me in incredible ways. And this film tonight that you're about to see

could not have happened without the original, and it couldn't have happened without Steven Spielberg's allowing it to happen. I had to call Steven, Scott said, you call him, call Steven and ask for permission We've been asking for several years like we would like to think about doing this as a feature film and Steven was like not sure And then you said yes in 2018. What made you say yes? Well, I think what made me say yes was your production of color purple the musical on Broadway

Which I thought was extraordinary. And I didn't see the original production. I saw the production you were involved in, which was the revival. And I didn't really know if Color Purple had another movie in it until you and the songwriters and that cast proved that there was another

iteration that actually stood on its own without with the color purple 85 version being its context but not defining it. This had its own definition and this was relevant for our time, for now, for audiences today. And I entrusted Scott and Oprah, and of course, then they pulled me along for the ride. So I'm glad to come and join them. You had to be a part of it. And Quincy Jones, also one of our producers who could not be here tonight, is the founding part of it, because it was Quincy Jones who first went to you to say he wanted you to do it, even when you were reluctant to do it in 1985. Yes, he sent me the book through Kathy Kennedy, my associate, and I just I

loved the book but I said you need a black director for this and that was in 1984 when I said that to Quincy. And Quincy insisted that it be you. He says, well, I'm not doing it without you. Yeah, he said that. And he said, did you have to be an alien to direct E.T.? And I said, well, actually, I am an alien. But, you know, Quincy was very persuasive. And the book really was, I saw Alice just a few minutes ago.

I hadn't seen Alice in many, many years. Alice was on the set every day. And Alice was very quiet on the set, but after every take, I just turned to look at her, and her deeply quiet confidence and those

warm eyes told me, because this is my first grown-up movie, told me after every take is my first grown-up movie, told me after every take that, you did a good job. Keep going. So she gave me all the confidence. The assurance. The assurance, yes.

Well, there certainly wouldn't have been a musical. I have to tell you that when I heard that there was going to be a musical, Gayle King, my bestie, called and said, you should see. They were rehearsing. And this guy named Scott Sanders, they're doing the Color Purple as a musical. I said, how are you going to do Color Purple as a musical? What's Celie going to be doing? Singing and sweeping in the kitchen? What's she doing? And actually, she is singing and sweeping in the kitchen.

So Scott... She's singing Hell No. She's singing Hell No. Sophia, too. So tell me this. What, from 2005, the first, on Broadway, and then 2005, the first on Broadway, and then 2015, winning a Tony, all of that, and then tonight,

were you levitating on the carpet tonight? No question. I'm pinching myself every single second. I mean, the idea that Alice Walker gave the world that beautiful novel and that beautiful story based on her family and her ancestors. Where's Alice? Alice stand up. Alice Walker, where are you? The mother of the color purple for real. Thank you.

That story of characters that persevere, that sing, that dance, that find joy in life, that move forward one foot in front of the other day after day, and at the end find their voices and find who they are themselves and bring this amazing family together that you portrayed the first time and we had the privilege of bringing it to Broadway twice and now it's played around the world South Africa Africa Europe all over the world and then to be able to be here tonight with our fabulous

director's vision of how to do it in a fresh new way is remarkable. Our fabulous director, let's bring him out, Blitz Badzawole. Let's clap. Let's clap. Let's clap. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. Listen, from the time we all saw your storyboards and vision for this film on a Zoom call, we were all texting each other saying he's the one,

he's the one. And now this is the night. This is the night. And you're feeling what? Wow. Wow. Look what God has done. I know that you have all these other people you have to introduce. I have several. But before I do, I just really want to say a deep, deep, profound gratitude to the three of you on this stage. None of what I was able to do would be possible without your generosity

in allowing me to make my movie. That I am deeply thankful for. It's Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Scott Sanders, Quincy Jones, who is in the audience. So thank you all. As we all know, the color purple is a cornerstone of culture. Not just black culture, not just American culture, of global culture. Of course, starting with Alice Walker's

brilliant Pulitzer Prize winning book, it's where it all begins, Steven Spielberg's cinematic classic, and of course, the Tony Award winning Broadway play. I am truly blessed and honored to contribute to this canon. and of course the Tony Award-winning Broadway play. I am truly blessed and honored to contribute to this canon, this masterful canon that has really sprawled into a multiverse that is The Color Purple. I wouldn't be able to do it without, of course,

the Warner Brothers family. We're kind enough. kind enough please applause thank you of course David Zaslav, Pam Abdi, Mike DeLuca, Josh Goldstein, Jeff Goldstein, Andrew Cripps, Jesse Ehrman, Sheila Walcott, Paul Brusek. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Now, my incredible cast, I love you all. And when I say this, I mean it deeply. We know that!

You guys gave your heart, your soul to every frame. And as a filmmaker, there's nothing I could ever ask for. So thank you all. Of course, Dion Cole, who plays Alfonso. You can make some noise. Benjamin Ellis Taylor, who plays Lyle. Ciara, who plays adult Nettie. David Allen Weir, who plays Reverend Avery. Alicia Perlin Posse, who plays young Celie.

Patti Bailey, who plays young Nettie. Gabriella Wilson, you know her as Her. Street. Corey Hawkins, my harpo. Colman Domingo, my mister. Come on, y'all. The incomparable Daniel Brooks. The way she feels. The fabulous Taraji P. Henson,

my friend, my sister, my dearest sister, who we're calling the Phoenix, who rises out of the ashes, the fire, come on y'all, Fantasia. Thank you all for your love and trust. Thank you all for your love and trust. Of course, there are the incredible people behind the camera who make this possible.

Fatima Robinson. Fatima Robinson. You were on my pitch deck from day one you were the first hired I love you dearly thank you for going on this journey with me I appreciate you Dan Lawson the Danish assassin

thank you for everything you did. You came in and submitted to the color purple like everyone else, and I'm deeply grateful for you. Paul Astaberry, my production designer. Chris Bowers, my composer. John Cole, my editor. Francine Jameson-Tunchuk, my costumer. The brilliant, brilliant Marcus Gardley,

who wrote our script, thank you. Bernie, Telsie, Tiffany, Destiny, our casting crew. Telsie casting, thank you. Carol Rashid, the brilliant. Lawrence Davis, the brilliant. My hair and makeup team. And I want to also give a shout out, there are too many to name,

but everybody who lifted a finger to help us, transportation, catering, I mean, you know, the teamsters, the, you know, everyone, every single person, our grip department, the best boys. The best boys. The best boys. Everybody who showed up and gave their heart and soul to this picture.

We are truly grateful. Without further ado. The color purple. Ladies and gentlemen, enjoy. Enjoy. Thank you. I, I, I Ooh, ooh, hey No reason to care about you

No soul, no reason to think you're wrong Baby, baby, baby, baby I'm so in love with the reason I'm laying alone Every time, every day, every ounce of my heart The reason I'm keeping it alive I'm going to keep on alive I'm going to keep on living Oh, I love it I'm going to keep on living I'm going to keep on living

I'm going to keep on living I'm not scared I'm not trying to hide I'm not here to be ashamed I'm not here to be ashamed I'm the one who's going I'm the one who's going I'm the one who's going I'm the one who's going I'm the one who's going

I'm the one who's going I'm the one who's going I'm the one who's going I'm your love, my love for me I want to see you close your eyes I want you to hold me CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Folks, the color purple opens Christmas Day. That is it for us. Certainly glad that you could join us today on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Don't forget, support us in what we do, folks.

Your dollars. I can't stress enough how critical it is. We are $220,000 under our goal for 2023. So please contribute by sending your checking money over to PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. Cash app is dollar sign RM Unfiltered, PayPal, R. Martin Unfiltered, Venmo is RM Unfiltered, Zelle, Roland at RolandSMartin.com, Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. And, of course, be sure to download the Black Star Network app, Apple Phone, Android Phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. Be sure to get a copy of my book, White Fear, How the Browning of America is Making White Folks Lose Their Minds. Available at bookstores nationwide.

Download the audio version, which I read, on Audible. Folks, that's it. I'll see y'all tomorrow. Hold up! Folks, Black Star Network is here. Hold no punches! I'm real revolutionary right now. Black power.

Support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roller. 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 and be scared it's time to be smart

bring your eyeballs home you dig A lot of times, big economic forces show up in our lives in small ways. Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. Small but important ways. From tech billionaires to the bond market to, yeah, banana pudding. If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chastin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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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.