#RolandMartinUnfiltered - #RayshardBrooks police shooting; BLM activist killed; Black men hung in SoCal; SCOTUS LGBTQ ruling

Episode Date: June 18, 2020

6.15.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: #RayshardBrooks police shooting; Black Lives Matter activist murdered; Two Black men found hung in SoCal; SCOTUS delivers landmark LGBTQ ruling; Rev. William Barber talks church on Black Lives Matter Plaza in DC; ABC News investigates claims an executive spewed racist comments about Black staffers; More crazy a$$ folks caught on tape. Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered #RolandMartinUnfiltered Partner: Ceek Be the first to own the world's first 4D, 360 Audio Headphones and mobile VR Headset. Check it out on www.ceek.com and use the promo code RMVIP2020 - The Roland S. Martin YouTube channel is a news reporting site covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersilling.org brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two 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 starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at the recording studios.

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1 tbs. salami 1 tbs. salami 1 tbs. salami 1 tbs. salami 1 tbs. salami 1 tbs. salami 1 tbs. salami Să facem o pătrunjelă. Hey, folks, today is Thursday, June 11, 2020, coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Man, quite the busy weekend.

Three black men found hanging in different parts of the country. We'll talk about that story also. A black female protester found murdered along with a 75-year-old black woman yesterday in Tallahassee, Florida. What is going on? A man has been arrested in their murder. Also on today's show, we'll talk about, of course, the protest over the weekend that involved Black Trans Matter and talk with the president of the Human Rights Campaign about

today's Supreme Court decision affirming that LGBTQ folks cannot be fired. They are protected by federal law, the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Also, Spike Lee talks about his new film, The Five Bloods, on Netflix. Folks, we've got a jam-packed show. Remember, Dr. William Barber's also joining us talking poor people's campaign. Like I said, it's a jam-packed show.

It's time to bring the funk and roll the mic on a filter. Let's go. Whatever the piss, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling. Best belief he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics.

With entertainment just for kicks,'s rolling it's Uncle Roll Royale it's Rolling Martin rolling with rolling now he's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best, you know he's

Rolling Martin now He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best, you know he's rolling, Martin. Martin. Martin. As the nation continues to protest the murders of George Floyd, as well as Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, folks, stunning developments over the weekend when Rashad Brooks was shot dead by police officers in Atlanta. The officer who shot and killed him, the mayor announced he should be fired for excessive force.

Folks, this led to protests all across Atlanta. The Wendy's, where it took place, actually was set on fire on Sunday. So apparently what happened was Rashad Brooks was in his car. Apparently he was asleep in the drive-thru. Wendy's employee calls police. Police comes on and then they also confront him. Here's body cam footage that was shot that showed exactly what took place. Hello, Mr. Brooks.

Will you take a preliminary breath test for me? It's a yes or no. I don't want to refuse anything. It's yes or no. It's completely up to you. Yes, I will. Okay, just wait here while I grab it. What kind of drinks did you have? I'm not sure. It's something she ordered.

She said top shelf or whatever. Top shelf what? I'm not sure. Like I said, it was her birthday and you had about one and a half drinks. But you don't remember what kind of drinks they were. No, sir.

Alright, I really don't. Mr. All right, I think you've had too much to drink to be driving. Put your hands on your back for me. Put your hands on your butt. Hey hey stop stop fighting, stop fighting, stop fighting! Stop fighting! Stop fighting! You're gonna get tased!

You're gonna get tased! Stop! You're gonna get tased! Stop! Stop! You're gonna get tased! Hey, hands off the f***ing taser! Hands off the taser!

Hands off the taser! Stop fighting! Hands off the taser! Hands off the taser! Stop fighting! I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you.

I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. Yeah. Yeah.

Put your hands on your back. Come on, man. Folks, obviously shocking and stunning video. Joining us right now is the attorney for the Brooks family, Chris Stewart, out of Atlanta. Chris, Brooks, the autopsy shows he was shot, suffered two gunshots to the back that caused organ injuries and blood loss. The end of that, your news conference on Saturday as well as on Sunday, you talked about this whole deal, and that is, and the mayor laid it out,

the actions of the police officer were excessive. Critics say, well, wait a minute. Brooks grabbed the taser, He fires it back at them. Explain why you believe these officers were absolutely wrong for the action they took against Rashard Brooks. You know, what it is in policing is they do a full assessment of the entire situation. They weren't called there for a violent offense. They weren't even actually called there for a DUI. They were't even actually called there for a DUI. They were called there for somebody sleeping in a car.

They got there. The first officer was actually polite, told him to pull to the side and sleep it off or something to that effect. Mr. Brooks complied. Officer Roth arrived and began an excessive up to 30 minute field sobriety test, which was just ridiculous. But through all that, Ms. Brooks was still polite, still calm, still understanding, still compliant. They patted him down so they knew he didn't have a weapon. They took his license. So they have his ID. They have his vehicle. So they know he can't go anywhere. All that factors into what you see happen later. And when he did resist getting handcuffed and ran away and took the taser with him, that still didn't give Officer Rolfe the power to use deadly force. He had a non-lethal weapon,

uh, which is what a taser is defined as in Georgia. It's the same as having pepper spray or a baton. And that's what... That's what so many people are making the point. That is, um, the issue here, the actions of the police officer at the end. He did not have to fire. He didn't.

Let's just imagine that video, but he's running away with pepper spray. Everybody would be outraged. But it's the same thing as a taser, according to the law. Taser, pepper spray, baton. They are all the non-deadly weapons. So, you know, you're not going to have it both ways because there's cases where officers have used tasers

on African Americans or Caucasians and catch them. I mean, look, backup showed up in minutes. I mean, where was he going? You have his car, you have his ID. He asked them, could he just walk home?

And that's the thing, Roland, which I'm trying to get policing back to is the empathy, the care. You know, it's not like you pulled this guy over swerving on the highway where he was a danger to society. Yes, he was intoxicated, but he was already parked. Have him walk home. Say, buddy, call an Uber. You got 10 minutes. I mean, where is the care instead of putting somebody in cuffs when none of you saw him ever drive that car intoxicated? But even if, okay, so again, you perform the test, he goes through it, and then there's a scuffle.

Totally, I get it. Here you are, okay, because you were making an arrest. I get it. Here you are. OK, because you were making an arrest. I get that part. What I still don't understand is when you have these police departments, the guy's running away. We saw the video where he turns around with a taser, but he's running away. You have a weapon, a deadly weapon to kill. I guess for me is if you're an officer, it's like at some point you say, is this actually something where I need to kill someone because he resisted arrest because he was drinking? I think that's why the public is so outraged by this. And then we see videos of white

folks losing it. One guy had a hatchet and officers backing up, backing up, backing up, backing up, backing up, and that guy's still alive. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. That officer's life has to be in imminent danger

at that moment of death or serious bodily injury. And as he's running off, there was no moment where his life was in danger to that point. And if you watch the videotape precisely, the officer is already reaching for his weapon before he gets the taser pointed at him. So he was already processing, I'm moving to deadly force.

Right, right. And that deadly force. Right, right. And that's significant. Right, absolutely. So guys, roll that video back. I want you to roll that video back the last 15 seconds, and you'll see exactly what Chris is talking about. As Brooks is running away, you see the officer grab for his gun. He grabs for his gun. He grabs for his gun.

And so he's pulling that out to shoot a man who's running away. We have, of course, a similarity, Chris, and that is Michael Slager shot and killed Walter Scott. Same thing. Walter Scott was running away. Slager hung jury on the

murder charge in the state, pled guilty to civil rights violations, and that's sort of a similarity. You made a point at the press conference where... I made a point at the press conference where Slager

moved that taser gun. Yeah. I mean, when I first got the current case, that was the first thing that popped to mind. I told myself, I was like, oh, my God, another Walter Scott. Because you and I, we used to talk on the show about Walter Scott when I was handling that. And that one was so disturbing with what occurred.

And, you know, Slager put the taser closer to the body so he could justify it um and in this situation when it was first announced that uh mr brooks you know had the taser pointed at the officer or was you know aiming it at him we thought at least i thought he was charging at the officer with the taser. But when you see the video, he's just running, pointing it backwards. And at no point could it be justified to use lethal force and not just let him run and catch him down the block. You announced today that Tyler Peer is paying for the funeral expenses of Rashad Brooks. And so we certainly thank Tyler for that as well. Chris Stewart, thanks a lot.

Thanks, brother. Folks, let's now turn to Randall Ennis. He's a criminal defense attorney and former police officer. Randall, you've seen that video. You heard what Chris Stewart said. Do you agree with his analysis there that this was indeed excessive force exhibited by this police officer

to shoot Rashad Brooks as he's running away. Well, Roland, clearly the police officer had numerous options when Mr. Brooks was able to get his taser and take off. He could have retreated. They could have called for backup. They could have allowed him to go to his residence, and they could have picked him up a few hours later. There are several de-escalation-type options that could have occurred. Having said that, Roland, it's very clear how police officers within a moment's notice go from effecting an arrest and how that can escalate in a half a second to where they're in

what you would call a close body fight, where they're not only attempting to protect themselves, but they're attempting to protect the weapons that they're given. And in this case, they were unsuccessful. Largely, however, I will say, they certainly had more options at their disposal. And that's one of the things that we're seeing across the country, and that is the actions of police.

Now, what happens is there are people out here, they say, look, look, you've never been a police officer. You don't know what happens in that situation where your life is in danger. Truth be told, if you actually look at that video, where their life was really in danger was during the scuffle. During the actual scuffle,

where they're on the ground and they go back and forth. You don't know what happens. Someone could grab your gun or whatever the heck. So when the scuffle ends and he's fleeing, the reality is that the my life was in danger has actually ended because he's running away. Yes. And to dovetail on that, I mean, these officers, again, I'm an attorney in New York. These officers will be judged by Georgia law and in particular whether or not their actions were deemed reasonable. In other words, whether a reasonable police officer standing in their shoes would have

undertaken the same type of lethal force or whether a reasonable officer would have did another thing. What is the standard in that jurisdiction? That is largely what they will be judged by. But again, it highlights how things go awry in a second and training, you know, to, you know, the officer's adrenaline is clearly at a very high level. The training to de-escalate, to say, hey, let him go. That's where many police agencies may fall short in that additional training, that constant honing in that there are other options, particularly when someone is going away from you, running away from you. Right.

And apparently does not have deadly physical force on him. I mean, they patted him to begin with. And so it's not as if he had a knife or they were able to identify early on. So, you know, those are the split second decisions and actions that they will be judged by. That's for sure. And you can see, lastly, with instances such as this, when someone's fleeing, they turn back and they take a shot. You can see, even after they were taken down, I heard some voices that were going on between the officer and what I presume to be Mr. Brooks at the time. Last one. Of course, the police chief is stepping down in Atlanta.

The mayor demanded her resignation. Also, I saw it where reporters said that 19 Atlanta police officers are resigning, complaining about how low morale is. You know, this is one of the things that I often say, that police officers are too damn sensitive, that there's this whole attitude of how dare you hold even one of us accountable for actions. We saw that with Marilyn Mosby in Baltimore. We saw that in the Laquan McDonald case. They're angry that the officers were fired for the snatching of the two kids out of the car from Morehouse and Spelman. And then now this right here. But how do they think the public feels? This man is dead. Okay, fine. Y'all are resigning because you're pissed off. But Rashad Brooks cannot be brought back to life. Yeah, I mean, and, you know, it bears stating, obviously, condolences to the family.

The notion of police officers resigning, it's a difficult job. It's made a lot more difficult with the actions that are going on right now with a few officers. I think the sensitivity, and I'm not saying I agree with it, but I think the sensitivity comes about because the officers, by and large, handle matters on a daily basis, thousands and thousands of matters, without any incidents, without anything occurring. And then when an incident occurs such as this and others, they're highlighted and they are oftentimes in their minds painted with the same brush as the officer that's involved in the incident. And that sensitivity tends to impact officers. In this particular case, perhaps, you know, they feel that the media focuses

a lot on the end and not what led up to it. That sort of sensitivity, I'm not saying that's justified, but that sort of sends, lends a little insight into an officer's mind. Well, I'll say this here. The reality is, again, you can be an officer, even if you're a police officer who gets fired, you're still living. Your family gets to see you. The daughter of Mr. Brooks was waiting for daddy to come home

because it was her birthday on Saturday. She'll never see him. And that's why I'm sorry. I think too often there's this belief from police officers, like, how dare you criticize us when if you have a gun

and you have the potential of killing people, yeah, you actually deserve greater scrutiny because that's totally different than somebody else who loses their job but who hasn't killed anyone. Randall Ennis, I certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Criminal defense attorney and former police officer for 22 years.

Thanks a lot. Thank you for having me. I want to bring in my pound, Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeaver. She's a political analyst, Michael Brown, former vice chair of the DNC. Avis, I'll start with you. I just got an alert from the New York Times an hour ago. The NYPD will disband a planes closed team with about 600 officers that has been involved in some of the city's most notorious police shootings. That was an alert from the New York Times.

I talked about, again, one reporter saying these 19 officers in Atlanta are resigning. There was a SWAT team in Florida. You know, they're upset because the chief took a knee as well. Again, I think too many of the... We keep hearing, oh, a few bad apples, but too often, significant amounts of police officers, they want protection for the actions and they don't want accountability, Avis.

For all of those people who are resigning or, you know, leaving their jobs because they're so outraged, good damn riddance. Bye. You need todance. Bye. You need to be gone. Because if you are that much of a punk that you cannot take verbal criticism, nobody's shooting you down,

nobody's attacking you physically. If you're that much of a punk that you cannot take justified criticism, then you are too weak for that badge. You don't need it. And I think that's part of the problem right here. You have a lot of small men who get off on having a lot of power. And when that power is in any way checked, they cannot handle it. So for those of you that are gone, bye. We're not going to miss you. Glad you're gone.

Please don't come back. Because clearly, you were not up to the task in the first place. Look, Michael, I get it. I totally get it. Police officers have extremely dangerous jobs. They are going into situations that are dangerous. But they also have massive amounts of protection as well. The law is how it's situated.

And what you hear people saying is, your actions have to be different. And again, the actions of a police officer can lead to the death of someone, Michael. That's the difference. It's absolutely the difference. And until behavior changes, this is going to continue.

Now, as a former legislator, I get it. You can move money around. You can certainly take some money out of the police force, put it in different social services programs, jobs programs. Yes, of course you can do that. Cities across America can do that.

But until you put behavior on the table and how you make sure that people think about their actions before they pull the trigger, you have to put their pensions on the table. You have to put their legal representation on the table. Then who's that's paid for, whether it's the tax dollar, taxpayer, or their families. You have to put things on the table that will make people think about their behavior, just like the Me Too movement. As men started to happen to change their behavior, before their behavior changed, as they were doing stupid stuff in the office, all of a sudden they were losing their jobs. All of a sudden they were ridiculed publicly. And then hopefully then behavior will change over time.

So until there's strong deterrence, it doesn't matter how much money you move around, doesn't matter what you do legislatively, it's going to be very difficult to change these patterns. It is. And at the end of the day, you have to have a change in police actions. And again, this is where I say, fine. You want to quit? Quit. Let's go find 19 more people

who know how to behave as being police officers. Let's actually begin to retrain officers where your first instinct is to not shoot and kill. And look, I get it. They're trained to shoot and kill. But a person running away from you is completely different than a person running towards you. Absolutely.

And again, the standard, I think, that is in the law, and keep in mind, police officers know that the standard is much different for them. So that's why they think, well, if this happens, it'll be okay. I'll be fine. Maybe I'll get reassigned. But nothing drastic will happen to me. Even the standards have to change because police are held to a higher standard. They're carrying a gun. They have a badge. So the whole process has to change. And again, I'm not saying that folks shouldn't legislatively try to change things relative to economics.

Very important. But until you put things on the table to make police officers think twice, these things are gonna continue. Well, let's go to this other story, which is quite stunning. A 19-year-old Oluwatoyin Salau, or Toyin, as she was known, who recently sought justice over police killings, has been found dead after going missing on June 6th. Her body was found in Tallahassee, Florida.

Also, the body of 75-year-old Victoria Sims was also found, and 49-year-old Aaron Glead Jr. has been, uh, taken into custody, even though authorities are not clear on whether the two deaths are related. Here's a video Towin posted on social media just days before she went missing.

Nah, can't nobody silence me. I just want... It's not that our lives don't matter, but right now, our lives matter. Black lives matter. Black trans lives matter. Trans lives matter. Because guess what

We are minorities but right now Like let's focus on the person Who got killed Tony McDade was a black trans man Okay We not doing this We doing this for him We doing this for our brothers and our sisters

Who got shot But we doing this for every black person Because at the end of the day i cannot take my skin color off i cannot mask this okay everywhere i go i'm profiled whether i like it or not that ain't right like i'm looked at whether i like it or not being first of all i want white people to realize they're fucking privileged. No one can look at you and tell anything about you unless you give them that information.

Wherever the fuck I go, I'm profiled. Look at my fucking hair, look at my skin, bruh. This shit, I can't take this shit off. So guess what, I'ma die about it. Yeah, I'ma die about my fucking skin. You cannot take my fucking blackness away from me. My blackness is not for your fucking consumption, nigga. It's not. It's not. Okay? It's not. And y'all need to listen. Like I said, it's okay to

be angry. Use wisdom. Don't move stupidly and get yourself hurt you already seen we are in this together I didn't mean to like divide anybody we are in this together my brother who got um he got ran over y'all need to know who the fucking enemy is I sometimes I get mad but I'm not trying to divide nobody I need to remember the fucking enemy is. It's racist Tallahassee. White racist Tallahassee. Because those are the niggas that ran our fucking brother over.

So y'all need to keep that in mind. The same energy that we had when we were walking the fucking streets, keep that with you at all fucking times. Don't let nobody take away your blackness from you. Your blackness is not supposed to be subdued at all. It's not. Oh, she was 19 years old. And one of the things that I think we, and again, we don't have all of the details from police in terms of what happened.

There've been some reports that say that she was sexually assaulted before she was killed. We don't know how she was killed. We don't know if she was shot, if she was strangled. We don't know any of that. All we do know is that her body and that of the 75-year-old AARP volunteer, both of those bodies were discovered last night. It is beyond a sad story. And one of the things that we have to remember, and a lot of Black Lives Matter protesters

have said this to me over the years, that we have to realize that when people are out there protesting, their faces are being seen and they're being noticed. Look at the number of Black Lives Matter activists in Ferguson who have died. Many say suspiciously,. We have King Seals who died in a car, a car burning. Others supposedly committed suicide. And so these things have been taking place consistently over a long period of time. And so we're waiting to get more information on exactly what happened to her to figure out.

But again, just a tragic, tragic story. A 19-year-old sister who, man, was out there protesting, who now is no longer with us. Folks, two black men. Let's go to another story. Two black men were found hanging from trees within the last two weeks. In Palmdale, California, 24-year-old Robert Fuller was found hanging from a tree outside City Hall last week. Officials initially suggested Fuller died by suicide,

but the circumstances resemble a recent death in nearby Victorville, about 45 miles away. Now, days earlier, the body of 38-year-old Malcolm Harsh was found in a tree outside the city's library. The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department says it does not currently suspect foul play, but both families are skeptical. In both cases, people who knew the men

suspect they were murdered. Malcolm Harsh's body was found on May 31st, and Robert Fuller's body was found on June 10th. Michael, the thing here is, these need to be obviously fully investigated. We don't know. Have folks obviously committed suicide? Yes, we told the story last week of a prominent television writer

who hung herself, 39 years old. But, you know, when you see two nearby, it certainly raises questions, Michael. It certainly does, and we have to wonder. I think a lot of, I was on listening to a group chat and folks were wondering if any of the white supremacist groups were going to literally come to some of the protest marches. And I'm not talking being secret squirrel, trying to, you know, pretending and burning things down. I'm talking standing up across the street

and voicing their opposition to Black Lives Matter and the other protesters. So I wonder if this is the way they have decided to manifest itself and to say this is the way we're going to speak up and start hanging people from trees. Because I've heard from a variety, clearly, suicide is a problem in all communities, clearly also in the African-American community. But I've heard of a lot of ways people kill themselves.

I haven't heard brothers hanging themselves from trees. So I'm not sure about that. So clearly it has to be fully investigated. Avis? This is so exhausting because we know that in 2006, so this was 14 years ago, the FBI issued a report that specifically said that police departments across the country were being infiltrated by white supremacists and skinheads all over the nation. And you know what was done about that? Not a damn thing. You know, I'm so angry about this.

Who kills themselves right across the street from City Hall. That powerful warrior sister that you just showed on that screen is not the type of spirit that takes her own life. Let's just be real about that. That's a warrior right there. She's not going to wave the white flag and take her own life. She was murdered. I am so tired of people trying to explain away the obvious. There are people who are hunting down black people all across this country, and some of them wear blue uniforms. So let's just be very, very real about that. It is. And if you how many how many protesters from Ferguson just ended up dead? Do we think that's a coincidence?

Several. A number of them. It is not. This is a pattern. And I'm tired of people acting like, oh, so for some reason, all these black, of course, people commit suicide. All sorts of people commit suicide. But this is a pattern that is specifically related to a movement. And until people stop trying to explain the way the obvious by all of these weak sorts of assertions, because they do not want to investigate, because they probably will know that when they investigate, they'll be turning in their own people. This thing will never stop.

This is a concerted attack against black people across this nation, and we need to wake up and call it exactly what it is. You also, of course, you have the story that took place this weekend out of Michigan, where you had another sister who was found dead. Her name is Priscilla Slater. In fact, let me pull this up

because Priscilla Slater was her name. And go to my iPad, please. It says the headline, six Harper Woods personnel placed on leave following the death of Priscilla Slater. Now, she died while in custody on June 10th. And folks are trying to figure out exactly what took place in that case. There's another case out of South Carolina where body cam footage was released.

This took place last year of an African-American who was shot and killed while in handcuffs in South Carolina. You know, when you begin, first of all, and I'm not saying it's the panacea, but this is also why you have to have

as much video as possible, Michael. I don't... Dash possible, Michael. I don't... Dash cam, mandatory. Body cameras, mandatory. To see what is happening, and you have to have it because we've seen too many cases.

We simply cannot trust the account of police officers because they will change their story and they will lie. And with the technology the way it is, you don't have to have an on and off switch on the camera. It's on all the time. So that way there's no confusion. There's no, oh, I just wanted to turn it off for a minute.

No, it has to be on all the time. Clearly, if you're taking a restroom break and things like that, that's a little different. But the technology can allow for that. There's only one way to have accountability. Those kind of cameras that you just described, as well as you have to take the investigation away from the investigators and the investigatees. You have to have an independent agency that does the investigations. You can't have folks investigating themselves.

It doesn't work, it doesn't work in sports, it doesn't work in business, so why should it work in law enforcement? In fact, Avis, I saw another story today where a 911 dispatcher was so shocked by what they were seeing with George Floyd, they immediately called a supervisor to be dispatched to the scene. Wow.

Wow. Well, you know, I'm glad that there was someone in the entire system that gave a damn, okay? Because what happened with Mr. Floyd was just absolutely atrocious. I know I just saw recently a new video that is of a separate person who apparently they came up after Mr. Floyd was dead,

and it showed how long his murderer still sat there on his neck with his hands in his pocket in fact i'm gonna read this here it says a 9 11 dispatcher go to my ipad please watching real-time footage of george floyd's arrest in south minneapolis was so alarmed by police officers actions that she called a supervisor who did not immediately respond to the scene, according to a newly released phone recording. The recordings of a phone conversation between the unidentified dispatcher and a Minneapolis police supervisor were released on this Monday on the city's website.

They raised more questions. This is what the quote said. I don't know. You can call me a snitch if you want to, but we have the cameras up for squad's three twenties call. And I don't know if they had to use force or not, but they got something out of the back of the squad and all of them sat on this man. So I don't know if they needed you or not, but they haven't said anything to me yet. Yeah, they haven't said anything yet. Just a takedown, which doesn't count, but I'll find out.

The supervisor responded, no problem. We don't ever get to see it. So when we see it, we're just like, well, that looks a little bit different. But the dispatcher said, sounds good. Bye. Wow. My goodness. They knew it was wrong.

And then it sounds like the supervisor was like, oh, well. You know, that whole department just needs to be cleaned out. Everybody needs to be fired and they just need to start all over. That's ridiculous. Everybody needs to go. Bye. It is, again,'s uh all um uh quite uh different when you talk about this reaction that we're seeing across the country how folks are responding um you also of course have

athletes who are getting involved and using their voice as well uh i want to bring up my next guest is reverend dr william j barber of course with the Poor People's Campaign, Black Lives Matter Plaza folks, actually, first of all, this weekend, the Poor People's Campaign, they're going to be very much involved in their digital gathering. And that's going to be taking place. Not only that, what's going to happen is...

I'm not near my computer. Black Lives Matter Plaza was transformed into a church on Sunday morning with thousands of mostly African-American worshipers praying, protesting, kneeling, and dancing near the White House after marching from the National Museum of African-American History and Culture. It was one of the largest faith-based events in the 17 days of protesting. Organizers said that was because of extra caution in the African-American community,

which is being, of course, hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic. Reverend Barber, of course, is the president of the Repairs of the Breach. Reverend Barber, of course, is the president of the repairs of the breach. Reverend Barber, before we talk about the Poor People's Campaign, I do want to ask you about this here. Folks, go to my iPad. The head football coach for the Oklahoma State Cowboys, Mike Gundy, he went fishing and he wore an OAN shirt. Now that's the very far right wing conservative news network that Donald Trump loves even more. And so this brother, who is a leading rusher in the nation, he tweeted, I will not stand for this. This is completely insensitive to everything going on in society and it's unacceptable. I will not be doing anything with Oklahoma State

until things change. Reverend Barber, when you have athletes saying no, when you've got Kyrie Irving urging NBA players not to resume play, we are living in a totally different period than we've ever seen, I dare say, since 1968? Well, I think so, Roland. And I think that part of what we're seeing is,

you know, there's a song that says, my Nina Simone was a tribute to Nina Simone, and it was talking about this, it's a rise, it's time for a rise. You know, it's one thing to be—it's another thing to get out of bed. So a lot of people have been made woke, as we say, over the past two years. But the more and more they have seen the blatant white supremacy come out of the White House, both in rhetoric and in policy.

And then you think about it, in less than a month, we've heard about four people being shot. You know, my brother Avery, our sister Louisville, I mean, killed. And then we saw Brother Floyd just lynched, choked to death by knee, and then the shooting in Atlanta. And we saw the cop, or I understand the cop said, I got him. I got him. And then we think about all these people that are dying from COVID that didn't have to die. So people are saying, we better get up. You know, it's one thing to be aware, but it's another thing to start acting on it. And with these athletes starting to say, uh-uh, we're not going to feed your money machine anymore. We're not going to have anything else to do with this. It is an important moment. It is an important moment in our history. It's a moment long overdue. It's a powerful moment. And it's a moment also

why we need to put an agenda around it and a clear one, which is one of the reasons why we're doing what we're doing this coming Saturday. When you talk about that, I mean, look, you wrote a book called The Third Reconstruction. I argue, I argue with all the things that we have seen in the last three weeks, with the protests continuing, with it just gathering, gathering, then you begin to see the actions of corporations. Then you begin to see, again, the disbanding of this undercover police unit in New York, some 600 officers.

When you begin to see these mayors now trying to move with executive authority, executive orders, the New York State Assembly passing their laws last week, all of a sudden, these things are moving. These things are moving. These things are all moving because of what took place on today, three weeks ago in Minneapolis to George Floyd, what took place to Breonna Taylor, what took place to Ahmaud Arbery. That's why I say this is the reckoning and this is truly, I think, the beginning of what is a third reconstruction. Explain to people what that means, what a third reconstruction looks like and entails. Well, you know, the third reconstruction, I think that language is right.

I think that it did happen because of all of those events, but also because of all the groundwork that's been laid. Just like with the first reconstruction, which came out of slavery right after the Civil War. You had Black people and white people, actually, who joined together and began to fight for political power and for fundamental change in this country. They rewrote state constitutions. They changed education laws. They changed criminal justice laws. They changed voting laws. And now in that reconstruction also, Roland, you had a backlash. And the backlash always started with rhetoric. It included tax cuts.

It included trying to undermine voting rights. And it included trying to rewrite criminal justice laws, many of the things that we see happening today. Then after that Reconstruction ended around the late 1980s, you had a second Reconstruction. Many people like to say it began with the Brown v. Board of Education decision and went all the way through 1968, the death of Dr. King and Robert Kennedy and others. Again, what you saw was a fundamental shifting in laws, civil rights laws, voting laws, addressing poverty and those issues, addressing the war. There was a demand from the people.

And in some ways, this modern civil rights movement started, you know, with the impetus of the death of Emmett Till. His grotesque picture and an open casket his mother allowed to happen pushed Rosa Parks and others to say, if you kill Emmett Till, we're going to take out the whole system of Jim Crow. And that's what Reconstruction is about, is a fundamental reordering of society, reconstructing it more toward the ideals that we often say a lot about, but we're not there yet in terms of more perfect union. I think when we look at all the activity, you know, Black Lives Matter has been organized for a long time. Four People's Campaign, long time.

Sunrise Movement, for a long time. All of these groups have been pushing a new consciousness. And then you have this COVID and the deaths and the fact that they were caught on camera. All of those things together have pushed folk to a moment to say, listen, there needs to be a major restructuring of our society, whether it's dealing with racism, whether it's dealing with poverty, whether it's dealing with voting rights. And I hope that politicians, particularly, will recognize what this is. This is not a time to tinker around the edges. This is not a time for just little tinker reform. This is a time for reconstruction, dealing with things that should have been dealt with a long time ago, and reordering of society.

And we're going to have to be very focused in this moment. And one of the things we have to make sure in this moment is that the ask is not too small and the focus is not too little. What I mean by that is the focus on George Floyd's death, the focus on Rashad's death, the focus on Breonna's death, the focus on Brother Avery's death, all of those are focused on death, death by police, i.e. death by the state. But we also have to broaden that and say that that's not the only death that's going on in society. That's not the only thing that's killing black people. So we're going to have to put a death measurement on how many black folk died from COVID that didn't have to die, how many people have died for the lack of health care, how many people are dying from poverty? How many people, black people, people of color, and even our white allies? Because that's where reconstruction happens, when people begin to see there's

something fundamentally wrong, you know, with the society. And by the way, Roland, you know, with all of this upheaval starts, you know that the Declaration of Independence says when there has been a long train of abuses, the people are supposed to alter the government. That's actually what the Declaration of Independence says. I want to read this, Reverend, because I think it applies to what you're doing this weekend and this whole conversation. This is the speech that Dr. King gave

on the Montgomery Steps after the Selma to Montgomery March. Everybody talks about Bloody Sunday. Everybody talks about the march from Selma to Montgomery. But this is what he said, and I've never forgotten this because the media plays a role in this.

Dr. King said, quote, toward the end of the Reconstruction era, something very significant happened. That is what was known as the Populist Movement. The leaders of this movement began awakening the poor white masses and the former Negro slaves to the fact that they were being fleeced

by the emerging bourbon interests. Not only that, but they began uniting the Negro and white masses into a voting block that threatened to drive the bourbon interest from the command post of political power in the South. To meet this threat, the Southern aristocracy began immediately to engineer this development of a segregated society. I want you to follow me through here

because this is very important to see the roots of racism and the denial of the right to vote. Through their control of mass media, they revised the doctrine of white supremacy. They saturated the thinking of the poor white masses with it, thus clouding their minds to the real issue involved in the populist movement. They then directed the placement of the books on the books of the South of laws that made it a crime for Negroes and whites to come together as equals at any level. And that did it. That crippled and eventually destroyed the populist movement of the 19th century. What you and others are doing with the Poor People's Campaign is trying to get to those poor white folks, those poor Latinos, poor African-Americans, poor Asians, poor Native Americans, and say it's a lot more of us

than the rich bourbon interests, the National Chamber of Commerce interests, the folks who Donald Trump allowed to get $600 billion of PPP money, and they won't tell us where the money went. But people have got to understand that

it's not going to happen if they sit on the sidelines. Dr. King said you're being fleeced by the same interests. He's talking about the media, well, what does Trump represent in the column that they have the media? He said the laws they put on the books will look at how they're doing with voter suppression. And it is because of what? The fear of a new voting bloc. We've done a study that shows that if 15 percent of black, white, brown, native and all the poor and low wealth people would register to vote around an agenda, they could fundamentally change the political calculus all over this country.

The empirical data is there. But what we have to have is the mobilization and organization. So where did Dr. King go after Mount Vernon? He started the Poor People's Campaign in 67. He went into the mountains of Appalachia. He went into the mountains of North Carolina. He went to the Delta of Mississippi. He understood that even when you deal with racism, you have to get it to where you have not just black folk dealing with racism, but white people and others. So he said three of them, racism, militarism, and poverty. We say today, racism, poverty, ecological devastation, the war economy, and the false bond that of a white evangelicalism. And we're beginning to see people coming together on June 20, 2020, at 10 o'clock a.m. on every MSNBC and ABC is not going

to run it on their online and many other platforms, you will see thousands and thousands of people are coming on, hundreds of thousands, actually. But on that day, you're going to see black people from Mississippi staying with coal miners from, who have found out they're being fleeced by the same interests, and they need to come together. And we have to have that kind of populist reconstruction movement in this moment. That is why it's so critical that one thing I've said to the media is stop saying we've never seen black and white folks come together like we're seeing today. It happened in reconstruction, not at not at the same level because we didn't have social media. It happened in the Civil Rights Movement.

It was happening in 68. That's why Dr. King was shot. But more importantly, we must look at not just that it's just folk in the streets together. And it is about police violence, but it's also about something bigger. It's about people being able to come together and form a new political bloc. And if they do that, they can change the laws that deal with the police violence. They can change the laws that deal with health care and living wages and the things that make people's lives better if we put them in place. And, Roland, this is the last thing. The forces like Trump and McConnell and Bannon and Steve Miller

and all of those folks would not be fighting so hard if they did not feel like this coalition would work. I never told you this on this show, Roland, I'm going to tell you tonight. When we started the mass march, we call it the We Must Do More Tour, mobilizing, organizing, registering, educating people for the movement who vote, headed toward June 2020 before COVID stopped us, because we had planned to have hundreds of thousands of people on Pennsylvania Avenue. Our first stop was El Paso.

They asked us to come there. We had black and white and brown and red in El Paso, and it was a powerful organization. When we planned to go there, I got a message, a crazy message that said, if you come here, we're going to make sure you choke on your own blood. But I actually knew that if somebody was that crazy to send that, they recognized the power of this block down. And Dr. King was shot and others were killed to stop this block. But today we have the possibility of building, and which is also why, and I shared this with you on occasion,

we did a little something different with the Poor People's Campaign this time. Instead of just trying to bring people to D.C. to stay forever until things happen, we formed state organizations, state committees. So we have permanent organized committees. So you could take out somebody, but you can't take out the whole movement. Do you see what I'm saying? Organizing. We focused on voting rights. We've done the data.

I mean, voter participation and the numbers. We put together a budget. We put together an agenda. And Saturday is about putting a face on it. So if people can see it's black and white, it's brown, it's native, all coming together, recognizing they've been fleeced by the same bourbon, economic, greedy interests. But as you said, there are more of us than there are of them. Now, if just 15% of the 140 million poor and low-wealth people will organize and come together around an agenda, it changes everything politically in this country, and especially in the South.

Poorpeoplescampaign.org. Folks, sign up 10 a.m. on Saturday. We'll be live streaming it as well. Reverend Barber, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Don. God bless. I want to go back to my panel here with Avis and Michael.

And, you know, you got some people sitting here running their mouths on YouTube saying, oh, the hell with poor whites. It needs to be all black. Let me be real clear, Avis, okay? And I'm not... I have no illusions. Corporate America and politicians

are responding this quickly to the protests in the street because they're seeing white people. We know. We heard it from SNCC leaders. That was one of the deals. Oh, y'all, don't be inviting these white kids down as freedom riders because if one of those white kids get killed, what's going to happen? Then, of course, critics say, well, all of a sudden,

a white kid dies in the South, and all the federal government is going to come flying in. Okay, yeah, because the reality is we understand this country. We understand whiteness and how whiteness is protected in America. But we better understand. Let me be real clear. I got no problem

with white allies in the streets saying defund the police. Change the funding structure. I don't have any problem inside of advertising agencies, Adidas, media companies, corporations all across the country where you got white allies who are challenging power

along with their black co-workers saying we got to change this corporate culture. And so if a white ally is going to roll with me, I'm like, let's roll. So I think some black people out there, Avis, need to check themselves because if you actually study the movement, you've had white folks who were there. John Brown was a man of his time, but hell, he was an ardent opponent of slavery. And Frederick Douglass had no problem with him as an ally. Absolutely. He was a gangster.

Listen, here's my point. Here's my thought on the matter. This deconstructing white institutionalized racism should not be the sole responsibility of Black people. Right. Why do we have to clean up their mess? Okay?

You know, for me, it requires, and white people, quite frankly, I believe, should take even more responsibility for changing it. Why am I expected to somehow fix a problem that I didn't create? And so I think it makes sense. It makes every sense in the world to make sure that white people

live up to their responsibility. And some of the people that you're referring to, for example, on the best end of the spectrum, you would like to see white people out in the streets and being fully anti-racist, not just not racist. Like a lot of people, I'm not racist. That's the least you can be. Anti-racist. Like, I want you to be right beside me. I want you to be my ride or die out here right with me. I need white folks checking white folks. Exactly. In rooms that we aren't in. That is exactly what it will take. It's not only our responsibility.

It should never be only our responsibility. And also for those spaces where we're not in, they need to be the ones checking their peers to say, what you're doing is not right. We need to change. Michael, Fred Hampton, Illinois Black Panther Party. Fred Hampton was organizing white people in West

Virginia. There were white Panther Party members. White, there's, folks, if y'all are watching right now, go to YouTube and I want you to type in Fred Hampton and White Panthers.

The video, the film, Michael, white men said you fighting against poverty, you fighting for resources, we're brothers. So, I mean, and so what I say to those white allies,

don't go out there ignoring black protesters and black organizers when it comes to how things are acting. But I just think that, again, people are walking around having no sense of history, and if white guys in West Virginia can align with Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party, some of y'all fake-ass conscious folks need to shut up. Michael, go ahead.

And keep in mind, you don't have to recreate the wheel because it's happened in history, as you just referred. But it also happened during the labor movement and the development of the labor movement. Several African-American organizations, including the National Urban League, were linked in partnership with labor movements,

which obviously were traditionally white, blue-collar workers and African-American blue-collar workers. So we've done it before. We don't need to start from scratch. It just takes the will to do it. That's all.

If that's all, gotta to go to a break. We come back, going to tell you about the Supreme Court decision saying that LGBT folks can't be fired because of their sexual orientation, but it was a law that black folks fought for. They made it happen. I'll talk with the head of the human rights campaign, a brother, first in their history,

who said black people, that the LGBT movement stands on the shoulders of black people. Y'all do not want to miss this conversation, plus my interview with Spike Lee. That's next on Roland Martin Unfiltered. You want to support Roland Martin Unfiltered? Be sure to join our Bring the Funk fan club.

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Go to Seek.com and use the promo code right there. You see it, RMVIP2020, RMVIP2020. And so we certainly want to thank Mary Spiel and the folks at Seek.com. Folks, the Supreme Court handed a huge victory to the LGBTQ community today in a 63 decision that an employer who fires a worker for being gay or transgender

violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which already protected people from employer sex discrimination as well as discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin. I talked with Alfonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the first African American to lead

the largest LGBTQ civil rights organization, about what this means. Alfonso, glad to have you here at Roller Martin Unfiltered. Thank you. Thank you for having me. This is obviously a huge decision by the Supreme Court. I need you all to fix that video, please. I want to go to my panel because we've got to play this video.

I want to go to my panel. Michael, your thoughts about the Supreme Court decision. Conservatives, they sure thought that they had this thing in the bag. Well, it's interesting. Anytime there are some of these close calls, it seems that Chief Justice Roberts seems to be taking the left side. I can't imagine anyone expected Gorsuch, though, to go with the majority. So clearly, sometimes right wins out, and that clearly that's the case in this decision. Abus.

Yeah, it's good to see that the Supreme Court has, I would argue, come down on the right side of history on this one. You know, it is good to see that. I'm hoping that we is good to see that. I'm hoping that, you know, we'll continue to see some surprising decisions in the future. But I don't want to bet my life on it, which is why I'm hoping that the next administration will bring in Biden so that this court isn't forever lost to conservatives. But for now, we can definitely be happy with this decision. Folks, do y'all have an interview ready?

Is the interview ready in the control room? Come on now, I need to get it together. The thing here, Michael, is that when you look at this particular court, obviously conservatives have the advantage here, but you're also seeing the impact of what happens when black folks change the laws of the country.

You'll hear me discuss this with Alphonso David, that the reality is the American with Disabilities Act, 1996, provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title IX, which opened the professional schools to women, 1964 Civil Rights Act. Same-sex marriage, that was Equal Protection Clause, 14th Amendment, one of the Reconstruction Acts. The reality is black sacrifice has helped numerous Americans when it comes to changing these laws. And the LGBTQ community has acknowledged that.

They've said, we are standing on the shoulders of some of those amendments in the 60s. And frankly, that's part of... Actually, some of the wording in those amendments have used, obviously, the word discrimination. Clearly, it doesn't necessarily lay out every level of discrimination. We're going to see this challenged again, whether it's with the handicapped and the physically challenged.

We're going to see this challenge all the time. And the court said, you know what? Discrimination means discrimination. And if that's the case, whether it's gay marriage, whether it's physically challenged, whether it's skin color, whatever it is, gender, we're going to side on the side of discrimination is wrong. We're going to fix it and make it right. Let's go to the interview with Alfonso David, president of HRC. Alfonso, glad to have you here. Roller Martin Unfiltered. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

This is obviously a huge decision by the Supreme Court. The 1964 Civil Rights Act, something black folks fought hard to make possible. I think if you are... I often say this here, folks with disabilities, that has been a provision of the law, women as well, now LGBTQ. Yes, absolutely.

So today's decision from the Supreme Court of the law, women as well, now LGBTQ. Yes, absolutely. So today's decision from the Supreme Court affirms what we have known for 20 years, that LGBTQ people are protected by federal anti-discrimination laws and specifically Title VII. And that is what the court affirmed today. And Roland, we all know this all too well. If you're LGBTQ and you're also a person of color,

you're hit twice. And so we wanted to make sure that we advanced and protect civil rights for marginalized communities. Here, the Supreme Court is saying you are indeed protected. Federal civil rights law does protect LGBTQ people from discrimination in the workplace. What is obviously was interesting here. It was a six to three decision, wasn't five to four, to have Neil Gorsuch as well as John Roberts both riding for the majority. That has obviously outraged many social conservative,

a lot of white conservative evangelicals because they felt by having Neil Gorsuch in that position, the seat that Obama should have gotten for Merrick Garland, and then having Brett Kavanaugh, that they were assured that they would be able to prevail in these type of cases. Yes, I think many people are surprised, but I think we should be heartened by this decision. You have the Chief Justice and Gorsuch that are advancing the rule of law, that are respecting the rule of law. The court decision is 172 pages long. But a part of the decision that I want to highlight for purposes of this discussion are certain provisions in the decision where the court says

the black letter law, it's clear that LGBTQ people should be protected under Title VII. But in addition to that, we have all of these court decisions. We have decades and decades of court decisions that have effectively said, you are protected from discrimination based on your sexual orientation or your gender identity pursuant to the definition of sex.

And they respect a stare decisis. They respect a judicial precedent. And we know from things that the chief justice has written that he wants to make sure the court is respected. He respects stare decisis and judicial precedent. And that is what we have today. Well, and it was interesting. I saw a tweet by Ari Fleischer who said it was boggling to his mind that folks would disagree that you can't fire somebody because they're gay. And I'm going, all right, what are you talking about? That's literally the argument of many

white conservative evangelicals and social conservatives. I mean, that's literally their argument. It's not only their argument, but that's what the defendants in this case, the appellants, argued in front of the Supreme Court. They said, we believe that employers should have the right to fire LGBTQ people from their jobs, and we as employers should have no liability under Title VII. That was their argument. And this is not unique, unfortunately. In 29 states in this country, there are no state law protections, none, that protects LGBTQ people, comprehensive protections that protect LGBTQ people from discrimination. So we need to do a lot of work culturally to educate people as to why it is important that LGBTQ people are protected. But there is also a very important point. 70 percent or more of people in this country believe that LGBTQ people should

be protected. We do have the remaining 25 or 30 percent that either have not opined on the question or feel differently. And so we have some work to do with those folks. But ultimately, the objective here is if I'm protected from discrimination as a gay man, it doesn't threaten you as a non-gay person in the workplace. One of the things that, again, I started off the top that way because, look, you're the first African-American leader of HRC. And we've done numerous discussions on this show where I've had brothers and sisters who are same-gender loving who have made the argument

that there needs to be much broader equality even within the LGBT movement. And this, again, in this particular law here, it's based upon that 64 Civil Rights Act. If you go back to same-sex marriage, it goes back to the Equal Protection Clause. And so all of those things African-Americans were fighting for, it's so many others are benefiting from. Are you also making the point within the movement that, look, listen to the concerns of what black folks out here are saying because they've been fighting for these issues that people are benefiting from. Oh, absolutely. The LGBTQ civil rights movement

stands on the shoulders of black civil rights leaders. Let's be crystal clear. And the LGBTQ civil rights movement, in fact, was created because of black and Latinx transgender members of our community who fought against police brutality. So it is not a zero sum game. You mean Stonewall? You mean Stonewall? Yeah, absolutely. The Compton's Cafeteria in California, those were black and brown folks who were fighting against police brutality. That's why we have the modern LGBTQ civil rights movement. It wasn't because of non-Black people or non-Latinx people, but in fact, Latinx and Black people fought against police brutality. That's why we have the modern civil rights movement for LGBTQ people.

We stand on those shoulders, and we also stand on the shoulders of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks and others that have been fighting against injustice. We are all operating under the same construct, the U.S. Constitution, equal protection under the law, liberty and justice for all. And those principles apply to me as a gay man. They apply to me as a black man. And the fight for justice and the fight for equality is one and of the same, but we have to remember that we stand on the shoulders of giants that came before us,

many of them black and brown. I have to ask you, we're seeing what's happening in the streets. I mean, where my office is, we literally, I mean, we can step out and 50 steps, we're standing on Black Lives Matter Plaza. And we're seeing what's happening all around the country. We saw this weekend massive protest in Brooklyn where they were saying that black trans lives matter as well. And do you believe that this,

what's happening in this country right now, do you believe that it is different? I saw a John Ridley article over the weekend in Dateline.com that one of the reasons you're seeing is differently is because the number of white faces, allies, who frankly, black folks have been educating on these issues, who now are coming around and realize, oh, this really is an issue. And corporations are going, oh my goodness, what the hell? Now you got black folks and white folks aligning. And you this this this reaction that I don't think we've ever witnessed this much movement in three weeks.

I completely agree with you. What we are experiencing is a transformative time in our country. And the reason why it's transformative is because Black people have said is enough is enough. We are not going to accept the status quo. We are going to push back against a system that was created to oppress us. And we are going to push for a system that is inclusive. And the second point that you made is, it's not only Black and brown people who are fighting for change. The folks that are marching also include a lot of white people that are pushing to make sure there is change. And importantly, young people who were not around for Rodney King. They were not alive. They don't remember that, but they do remember what's happening today with George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others.

And they're saying that's not acceptable. And so that is one of the reasons why this is so different than other movements in the past. But speaking of that, one of the things I have also said is that protests in the streets, that's one thing, but then mobilizing folks to begin to create the policy changes is another. And so, as someone who leads, uh, the largest LGBT organization in the country, what are you telling people who are watching what's happening, who may be speaking up in corporations to ensure that this thing doesn't peter out in three or four months or in six months, that really what we should be thinking about this as a moment, as if this is a third reconstruction, where you have the first reconstruction from 1865 to 1877, that second reconstruction from 1955 to 1968, and this is

the third reconstruction. Yeah, first, what I've been saying is, to your point, peaceful protesting is certainly essential for change, but we also need voting. We need to make sure our voices are heard at the ballot box. And what we're seeing in certain states, Georgia is one example, Wisconsin is another, the rights of marginalized communities and minority communities have been suppressed. So we have to fight back to make sure our voices are heard at the ballot box. We have to make sure that we have options that are available to us in addition to in-person voting. That's first. Second, we do have to make sure that we support policy changes. It's nice to see companies that are saying, we support Black Lives Matter,

but we want to make sure that they're also supporting policies that are supportive of minority communities and LGBTQ community. And just having a statement saying we support Black Lives Matter is certainly welcomed, but we want to make sure they're supporting policy. We want to make sure they are signing on to amicus briefs and many companies are doing this, but we want to make sure all of them are in fact doing this because it's not only going to make, we're not going to only have change because of peaceful protesting. Peaceful protesting, policy changes and voting equals change. And they all work hand in hand. So one is not more important than the other, but you need all pieces.

You need all pieces. Because otherwise, we will all be taken for granted. And I say to the young people who are still struggling, maybe this is the first time that they've ever voted. If you vote, and you vote for the mayor, and you vote for the city council, you actually get to influence who the police chief is going to be. You get to influence what the budgets are for the police department because the mayor in most cases appoints the police chief. The city council in most cases approves their budgets. So we have to really make sure our voices are heard in order for us to have significant and meaningful policy changes moving forward. Alfonso David, president, Human Rights Campaign.

We truly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you for having me. Folks, Spike Lee's new Netflix film, The Five Bloods, premiered Friday on Netflix. Of course, it tells the story of black soldiers and what they endured through the Vietnam era. It stars Delroy Lindo, Isaiah Whitlock, Clark Peters, and Norm Lewis. Here's my conversation with the great Spike Lee.

All right, let's see if we can... All right, folks, just gonna interrupt that deal. So, Jordan Charlton, just, Cheriton just tweeted this. Update, at press conference, Los Angeles County sheriffs retract the conclusion that Robert Fuller, a 21-year-old black man found hung by a tree in Palmdale on June 10th, killed himself. He writes, no answer for why they claim it a suicide in the first place.

Homicide now investigating. And so again, breaking news, Jordan Cheriton tweeted, Update. At press conference, L.A. County Sheriff's retract conclusion that Robert Fuller, 24-year-old black man found hung by a tree in Palmdale on June 10th, killed himself. No answer for why they claim it a suicide in the first

place. Homicide now investigating. We certainly will keep you abreast of those details tomorrow on Rolling Unfiltered. Let's go back to the spike lee interview always glad to have spike lee on roller martin unfiltered what's up my man how are you doing sir man i'm great uh let's i want to talk about we're gonna obviously be gonna talk about the movie but this moment that we are in is really as i'm looking at history well i'm looking at these companies responding police departments you've got andrew cuomo saying if y'all do reforms we gonna pull the money i mean

george floyd's death nearly murder nearly three weeks ago has moved folks i've never seen in my 51 years, Spike, stuff move this fast. I've never seen it move this fast. Never seen it. Is this the reconstruction? Is this the third reconstruction? Should we be approaching this like the reconstruction era? To be honest, I never thought about that

until you mentioned it today, and you're absolutely right. And I think that it speaks to the power of the image as the world saw the last eight-plus minutes of our brother's life, our brother King George Floyd. This horrific graphic imagery where he was saying, I can't breathe. And I know in my heart he saw that footage

with Eric Gardner. And I believe that in his last moments he saw that footage with Eric Gardner. And I believe that in his last moments, when he's calling out for his mama, he saw his mother. She was there. It was saying, come on, baby. It's going to be all right.

Be all right. And now they are laid. Now he's laid to rest next to her she had been deceased i think two years so his people know him his name all over the world and people all over the world have taken to the streets. People who aren't black or people aren't brown chanting, yelling his name. And we, on a very special moment, I'm a little older than you, my brother, so I was 10 years old in 67, 11 to 68.

So I saw the turmoil that was happening in this country. A lot of it having to do with the anti-war movement. So we're in a people, historians, we're writing this time we live in forever. We're dealing with two pandemics. The one pandemic that started in 1619, when the first James Town, Virginia, and the pandemic of present day as a corner hood, that 19. Yeah. present day as a corner hood, that 19, that ronin, and is back-to-back on top of each other, has in good ways and bad ways changed the world we live. B.C., before corona.

And the reason you have to link these is because what coronavirus showed, which we knew, but showed everybody else. We knew already. Yeah, we- They had not knew. Right, we knew the underlying conditions. We knew what caused it. We knew whether it was asthma, whether it was all the other diseases.

Then we knew about police reform, but the both pandemic all of a sudden now caused everybody else to go, oh, my God. And now they can't say we didn't know. It's so stark. It's no different than the fire hoses and the dogs in Selma in Birmingham. It's no difference than Bull Connor. It's no difference than today. Today being, of course, the anniversary of the commemoration of the assassination of Medgar Evers is no difference than 16th Street.

White folks have to see it, and they can't run from it. True. And thank you for reminding me about today being when our brother Mecca was killed, like many of our soldiers in the civil rights movement. I'm going to post something on my Instagram. Thank you for telling me that, sir. all of this in the film that you've done the five bloods what i really appreciate is that you didn't and again as i'm thinking about also how black clansmen how you connected past with present so many people i think when they watch this film will go i had no clue about these black soldiers but also you're telling this story of these brothers who are going to fight for a country

with a flag on their uniform while their fellow brothers and sisters are at home fighting to be free. So how in the hell can you be a black soldier trying to free the folks in Vietnam, but in the very place where you came from, you're not free. Black GI, in Memphis, Tennessee, a white man assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King.

Dr. King also opposed the U.S. war in Vietnam. Black GI, your government sent 600,000 troops to crush the rebellion. Your soul sister and soul brothers are enraged in over 122 cities. They killed them. Why you fight against us so far away from where you are needed. Well, that has been a dilemma that we have had from the beginning. My brother, as you know, the first person to die for this country was our brother, Christmas Addicts, who died at the Boston Massacre and the Revolutionary War. So we have died for this country from the beginning.

And I would say no one has been more patriotic than us. You take into account what we've gone through. Absolutely. Absolutely. And like you said, we fight for a country. We love our country and we fight for this country from day one. And our country does not love us back. where I think there's been a pivotal change. And I think this is very important, Roland, is that all momentum we have now, we have to keep this going to November 3rd.

November 3rd? But here's why I'm using Reconstruction. Okay, break it down, break it down. I'm using Reconstruction because the period of Reconstruction during the 1800s was 12 to 14 years, 1865 to 1877. The second Reconstruction, Manny Marable has it from 1945 to 2006.

But I'm gonna limit it to the Black Freedom Movement, 1955, King's assassination, 1968, the passing of the Fair Housing Act. That's 13 years. What I want to argue to our people, I don't want us to be thinking that this is a six-month thing or a year

thing. This is where we're like, no. We know right now, if you read W.E.B. DuBois' book on the Black and Reconstruction, he details where it failed. Eric Foner's book on Reconstruction details where it failed. Manny Marable, Reverend Dr. Barber

has his book called The Third Reconstruction. We must look at the first two and go, we have to complete where those two failed. And it has to be, if it's 12 years, 15 years, 20 years, we have to be thinking that way, not short term. What you're saying,

we got to think about the long game, baby. The long game, not the short game. Not taking no shorts. Because the short game is in the long game. No big... six months is a part of 20 years. So we're gonna be like the 49ers, gonna have the old 49ers under Bill Walsh. We're gonna have a...

We're gonna be a passing game and a running game. Absolutely. Absolutely. And the reason I think that's critical, because, look, you have been fighting, you've been fighting this thing in Hollywood your entire career. What I am saying right now, black employees at Adidas rose up in 48 hours,

they announced $100 million, the next 50, 30, 50% of new hires will be black and Latininx 600 black people in the advertising agency open letter black folks on broadway are hitting that whole deal other companies i keep saying because i got a call somebody's like well roland you vice president digital for the national association of black journalists nabj i said stop no we need black employees at abc at nbc at cbs at msnbc studios right we need black employees rising up rebellions internally holding saying to the companies this is what we've experienced what we've gone through lack of promotions the racism discrimination y'all gotta change and we're seeing what happened second city ceo quit because he didn't he admitted

i didn't handle racism philadelphia newspaper editor resigns after running that uh article all buildings uh new york times editorial page editor resigned with running senator tom cotton deal the refinery 29 co-founder resigned because of that. Anna Wintour apologizing for her behavior and saying we haven't done enough to increase blacks. Bon Appetit editor quits because of allegations of racism. All of that happened because black employees inside spoke up. So what I'm saying is if you black at one of these companies in the industry, and if you scared, this is the moment where you got to have some damn courage. Step up, baby.

Step up. Come on. Come on, man. Don't stop. Keep it going. No, no, no. I want to give you an opportunity. No, this is me interviewing you. I want to give you an opportunity to say something.

Just go with me,'m listening to being educated. I had not thought of this as a resurrection. I did not thought of that. Thank you. This is it. This is it. You got to send me, you got to email me those books I got to read to.

On my Instagram page. I posted them last night. I posted all four covers. I'll send them. No, I'm going to send it to you. I'm going to send it to you. If we think that way, then it's because reconstruction means we are reconstructing the nation. So I need us to reconstruct Hollywood, reconstruct news media, reconstruct athletic apparel companies, reconstruct corporate America. Man, I'm telling you, I said to the executive leadership council, hey, y'all, y'all, y'all,

the biggest, y'all, y'all, the black corporate organization, you should be saying to these companies, and I'm telling you right now, I'm going to put it out there, and I know I told my man with NABJ, YouTube just announced $ million dollar fund for black content creators. I said to our folks, no, we should be saying to the industry, we want a billion dollar fund for black, black media entrepreneurs. Verizon, contribute. AT&T, contribute. Comcast has already announced a hundred million. No, add 150. Because you don't, this is not to me, this is not charity, it's not a donation,

it is an investment. This is reconstruction. Unless you deal with that. I have a question for you, sir. Yep. If you see this, is there a difference between the two all words? Reconstruction and reparations?

Ah! No, no, no. Hold on, no, no. I would answer it, but I don't want them to know the answer. Start again, start again. You froze right there. I said I would answer it, but I don't want them to know the answer. All right, that's going to be offline discussion.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Because, again, I know how folk respond to one of the R words. But the other R word, we've actually done it twice. So you can't tell me we can't do it again because I can say the first one, we got 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment, 15th Amendment, two different civil rights acts in those periods.

We can show you the expansion, how many black schools were open. African-American, I was reading last night, 257 black schools were open in North Carolina alone. In one 10-year period, 1,200 black newspapers were launched in a decade period, and that was with a black illiteracy rate of 80-plus percent. So you have this period, the Freedmen's Bureau, all those things were created

during a period of reconstruction. I need us to be thinking 10, 12, 15, 20 years and say this is the moment because Spike, we've never seen, they're taking down King Leopold's statues in Belgium. And what about that slave owner in England? They took that statue down and threw it in the river. They said the statue stripped.

The statue tripped and just fell into the water. But again, what you're saying is. That's that British humor. So what you're saying is, and I'm going to send you the interview. I interviewed my man. I'm going to send you this book as well, Dr. Gerald Horn, whose book is on white supremacy,

anti-colonialism in Africa as well. And that's what we're seeing. What we're now seeing, Spike, is globally folks are saying, wait a minute, George Floyd's murder has now provoked a discussion on white supremacy. This ain't just police. This is now the system.

That to me, I think, is how we have to be seeing this and be laser-like focusing. This is the moment. There's any moment you black working for a company where you can say something and not get fired, it's right now. But you gotta have courage. Gotta have courage.

Let me ask you another question. Yes, sir. This is something I'm starting to get into. Post-slavery traumatic stress. Yes. Yes. What you laid out in the five bloods, no, that is real. I just saw a video today of a young black girl.

She was walking. A cop pulls up. A white female cop pulls up. The young black girl immediately starts shaking and crying. And all the cop wanted to do was to greet her and say, young lady, how you doing? It's good to see you. And then she started consoling her the issue there is that this girl when she saw a police car and it stopped

that little girl is thinking george floyd brianna taylor she's thinking um uh she's thinking John Crawford III. She's thinking Eric Garner. Yeah, all of that. All of that is tied to it. It's no different than we got to go in. Oh, hold up. We got to modulate. No, let me take the bass out of my voice. Let me turn the treble up.

All of that. We have to carry that stuff around every day. White folks get to be free. White folks get to cuss folks out do stuff do whatever tucker carlson gets to say what the hell he wants on fox and sean handy and laura ingram and i was told when i was at cnn by ken jowell's executive vice president when i used the word bruh to Barack Obama said, be careful, we don't wanna scare the white folks away.

That was in 2007, that actually happened. So imagine now I'm at CNN for two months. What now, I now gotta watch everything I say because you literally are saying to me, and they said to me, I also showed my wife the interview and she agreed, ooh, the white wife agreed. But that's what I'm talking about. We have to, this is the black person

in corporate America in America. I gotta, I gotta, no, cause we are- Sad but true. Right. This is white people in America. I can do my thing. I can do whatever. We are tight.

We're wound. That's that stress. That's that pressure. And it's on us. And that's why I don't think other people have any understanding. And you've seen it in Hollywood. You've had those conversations with brothers and sisters. They're like, Spike, I wish I could say what you say, man.

Yeah, I mean, corporate America is no joke. Yeah. It's real. It you say, man. Yeah, I mean, corporate America is no joke. Yeah, it's real. It's real, Doc. So here's what I absolutely love about Defy Bloods. I've said this to Clark Peters. I've said to Daryl Rolando. I've said to Norm Lewis.

I can't wait to interview Isaiah Whitlock. This is a movie that's about black brotherhood. That brotherhood really came through when I watched this movie. Is that what you wanted to achieve? To show black brotherhood that all of those elements

of brotherhood. I see ghosts, y'all. I see ghosts. What happens to all of us man? Have you seen them too? Yeah. They come to you at night.

Storm and Norm come to me damn near every night. Now he talk to y'all like he talk to me. Here, come on. Oh, thanks. Come on. Fist up. Get in there, David. Get in there. Put your fist up, David.

Come on. Go, you too, man. Go ahead. Fist up, man. Come on, Paul. Look! Two-stop, man. Come on, Paul. Love! Yes, I wanted to show the brotherhood, which we don't see a lot, like black men being open,

being vulnerable, and loving one in each other. And also, it's amplified when you have people, brothers, bloods, a term of endearment that the black Vietnam soldiers called each other, bloods. When you're in a war, when you're in a battle,

you gotta look to the left and look to the right. Those are people you're depending to keep you alive and they depend on you to keep them alive. A bond is formed, a foundation. So we wanted to, and I think we were very successful in just demonstrating that. I said something to Dale Roy, and he said,

man, I have never heard that in any of these interviews. I said to him, I love all the dapping, the hand signals, and how. In Vietnam, by the brothers. That dap, they brought it back to the States, but it was formed in Vietnam. What I loved about it, and again, I tell my audience, I might look at moves a little bit differently than other people. When the scene where...

The world different than other people. The scene where they all had to... And I love it. Yes, sir. They all had to put their hands in the center. Disagreement, whatever, you got to come back. I said they were forced to. And Delroy said, well, no, I don't say forced.

I said, no, no, no. Here's why I use the word forced. Because again, as somebody, as a life member of Alpha Phi Alpha, there's a brotherhood. I said, there is a force that is unseen that no matter what happens, brings them back to that point that we might disagree and yell holler scream cuss fight but you got to put that hand back and say don't ever lose this and he was like oh now i see what you're saying that that was And I think that's a great analogy talking about the bond and the love that one gets from black fraternities and black sororities, too.

Yeah. It's the collective. It is. It is. It is the collective. And I think for this, this was older black men. We've had movies like The Wood Brothers. We've had other movies where, you know,

Jews, younger black men, they're a group, they're a posse. But I was sitting here watching it and I'm seeing older black men who are connecting and afraid to share but then when they do share that brother's like yo dawg we here for you so the norm i don't want to give up but the norm character and then a delroy character and what he's going through and then like all those pieces i mean i was I mean, I was watching and I was like, yo, I said, you are, you do not see a lot of black male love and affection, even to the, and tell me if I'm wrong or not, even how they hugged each other in the movie. They didn't sit here and just the handshake and just, you know, the hand, the arm, no, no, no, full embracing. That's a different level of intimacy

than just that sort of hug. Wow. Finally. What you talked about is what we want to convey. Again, these men were teenagers. Went to Vietnam. Flown halfway around the world to fight in the moral war, the Vietnam War. They were lucky to come back.

But people come back from wars damaged, wars held. And what's specific about the Vietnam War versus World War I, World War II, and others, where people were greeted on their return, the Vietnam soldiers, black, white, brown, whoever, they were called baby killers. They were spat upon and just discarded. So that had not happened with other servicemen returning for World War I and World War II and the Korean War. What also I thought was really fascinating, because when you won the Oscarcar i remember you posted a photo the next day of flying out to shoot this movie yeah i went to i was on the next morning i was a flight to bangkok thailand the next morning and i remember you you telling me about it and then

i'm reading all this sort of stuff and so so I'm going, okay, so you got, you know, these brothers served in Vietnam. But I really thought it was amazing adding the son of the Delroy Lindo character. Because to me, that brother represented that generation who completely misunderstood and had no idea what the war did to their dad. And he need, and by him going back, he saw it and felt it and then understood

what all that pain was in the preceding, what, some 30 plus years. You on fire today, huh? No, I told you, I watched the movie. I watched, it was like three o'clock in the morning. And it was funny too, man, because I had to keep putting the code in. And it wasn't working. And I was emailing.

I was like, yo, I put the movie on pause. I had to come back. I couldn't pull it up. I was like, I'm finished watching. I think it's a two-hour and 35-minute movie. I think it took me four hours to watch because I was like, no, I i'm not coming back in the morning y'all and so it got fixed but i don't but they were like if he's saying one more email tonight about this code i'm like no because it was just i mean that's to me that that connection it just spoke volumes why that that young brother need to be in there

and it just spoke volumes. And another thing, though, I'd like to add is that this has been a current theme in my films, that father-son relationship. Go back to He Got Game. Mm. Mm. Jake, Jesus and Jake Sh He Got Game. Mm. Mm. Jesus and Jake Shuttlesworth. Mm.

And no disrespect to the mother-daughter relationship we touched upon a lot in Crooklyn. Yep. Yep. But that father-son thing, complex. Yeah.

And rarely seen when you look at a lot of these movies. Only, it's the only other issue that I had a problem with. Dog, I was sweating my ass off watching the movie. How hot was it? I'm watching. I'm in my living room with the movie. How hot was it? I'm in my living room with the AC on like, why am I sweating? Them brothers, they were glistening. First of all, I grew up in Houston, so I know heat.

So I'm watching like, oh hell, this is Houston in August. I'm born and raised in Houston. August, it hit 100. Houston ain't got nothing on that Thailand, Vietnam. Brother, when I, I told you already, when I, the morning after winning the Oscar, I was on my plane to Bangkok. When I got on that plane, that heat hit me upside the head.

And we were shooting the jungle. Yeah. There was no need for makeup people going around and spraying people with the water bottle. That was real, 100% funky, smelly sweat. Every day was over 100 degrees. Man. And y'all were

in the jungle. The Hollywood back lot. Y'all were in the jungle. It was hot AF. It's alright. This show, Roland Martin Unfiltered. Ain't no thing. You ain't got a censor.

Man, it was, okay. Now, when I first, okay. So when I see the first time I see the flashback scenes with Chadwick. And I don't see young actors playing the older actors. And at first I was like, what? I ain't never seen, I'm like, I ain't never seen this. But as the scene kept unfolding and I went, oh. Oh, so what Spike wanted to do was put the older brothers back in time. Their memory.

Right. Right. That's what I mean. I thought that was just a great, because rarely do you see that. Let me give you the reasons very pragmatic netflix was the last place i can go to get this film made all your faces dudes have turned it down and we had a budget this film had to be done for a budget and to add a hundred million dollars for special effects to-age our middle-aged actors was not going to make it. And what you just stated, I've rarely seen a film that works when they cast the younger versions of the stars in the film.

And also, as we were just talking about the heat any prosthetic makeup would have melted off their face with that 100 degree heat and i and i and the last thing is that i respect the intelligence of the audience, and they would get what I was trying to say. I know it might have been a lot of, maybe a little jarring at the beginning, but you got through it, and you explained exactly my thought process.

No, that was it, because I went, well, we're the young guys. Then as I kept watching the scene, and then I went, probably when we came back the second time, I went, oh. Because the trip was all about going back. And the trip was these. Having these middle-aged men who were like 56 years old, and then going back in a time where they were teenagers. Yeah.

Shipped across the world to kill people who they had nothing against. Yeah. Yeah. No, it was, and that was, it really stood out it really, it really stood out. And, but I'll tell you, man, I've, I've said this, uh, I always wanted to interview Delroy Lindo. I have said numerous times that the two actors who I absolutely believe should be beyond huge in terms of leading roles who are incredible. Delroy Lindo, Jeffrey Wright. And to see Delroy have this role and the intensity and what he brought out when it came to PTSD, it was just riveting to watch that emotional roller coaster.

And I'm glad you talked about Delroy because he's one of the greatest actors working. And I hope and pray that he gets the light, the shine, and the claim he so truly deserves because he's been putting in work for a year. Not like he just showed up. He's been putting work from the get. And we have a relationship.

Yeah. I played Wesley and Archie in Mount. Played my father, my real-life father in Crooklyn. Clockers. Played the drug kingpin in Clockers. So great, great performance. And the thing is that this is some, he's so tragic in this. I mean, you look at him and you're like,

this is an individual who has never got one break the entire life ever. But he wasn't happy that you made him wear a certain hat. I read the interview. He was like, Spike, you're going to do this to me. You're going to do this to me. I don't want to tell people. But it's out already.

All right. So you made Delroy wear a Make America Great Again hat. He was a Trump supporter. Why were you so insistent? He told the story. Why are you like, no, I got to do this. Why were you so insistent that that character had to serve that purpose, serve that role? My co-writer and I knew that despite the bond

that these guys have that was formed in the jungles of Vietnam, when they got back, everybody went their separate ways. So they had to come back 40-plus years later and be like what my mother warned me about at a very early age, that all black people, we are not one monolithic group. We don't all think alike, talk alike,

look alike, et cetera, et cetera. So Kevin and I, Kevin Womack, my co-writer, we said, what is the most extreme thing we could introduce to one of these characters? And it didn't take long. Well, yeah. So the great Delroy Lindo, his character Paul, is someone, is one of these small percentage of black men who have drunk the orange Kool-Aid. Mm-hmm. Let me ask you a question.

Yes, sir. Did you notice that all five bloods are the first name of the tempting temptations? No. That slipped by? I didn't see that one. See, you were bad 100. You were bad 1,000.

And I just slipped a big, fat, 100-mile-per-hour Nolan Ryan fastball right down the middle of the plate, and you didn't get it. I did not. Wow. No, I did not pick up on that one did not pick up on that one let me tell you something the other day otis williams is trying to call me Thank me for that. Wow. Wow.

I did not pick up on that one. This is the only living. Yes, he's the last temptation. He's the last temptation. As soon as I hang with you, I'm calling my brother. Because he reached out to me to say, thank you for the love. Wow. Oh, another thing we left out One of the greatest albums ever made

Marvin Gaye's What's Going On Now hold up I missed that one Because that was one of my next questions No no no Here's the deal Because all throughout the movie You're hearing Marvin Most movies No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, voice in the movie there were other there were other artists who were doing songs that

match the time why did you say no no only marvin marvin gaye is one of the greatest artists of all time and marvin had a brother an older brother named Franklin, who did three tours in Vietnam. Wow. He was a raid operator. And Franklin would write his brother Marvin, and in those letters, he was describing the horrors of Vietnam. And also, Marvin was seeing the brothers come back from Vietnam to Motown, to Detroit, and the terrible shape they were in.

I mean, the song Inner City Blues, you know, that makes me want to holler. That's told from the perspective of a black being a vet coming home. And I feel those two things really gave with the impetus, the inspiration for one of the greatest albums ever. So I knew right away I wanted to have Marvin Gaye's songs. The one that was haunting. And also, the album came out in 71.

So this album that the brothers listened to in Vietnam anyway. Right, right, right. What was haunting was to hear that acapella version at the end. You never heard that before, right? No music. Like that. Nope, no music. No no no music no version of of what's going on just his voice that's it that beautiful voice yeah that was that was i mean

because and it was just like hold up and then of course because you know first of all my going back mary waits was my uh i went to school of communications high school. She made us, when we watched movies, she made us watch the credits because she said that's who actually makes the movie. And so ever since then, that was 10th grade. Your teacher told you that? Yeah. Mary Waits was my television instructor, 10th, 11th grade. And whenever we watched movies in our television class, she said, you have to, she said, y'all would, we would have a turn, she said, no, no,

you have to watch till the credits end, she said, because that's who made the movie. So I always watch credits. I never leave a movie theater. In fact, I tweeted one day, I was sort of mad at Netflix and they actually changed it, where they used to quickly, like when a movie's over, like eight, like five seconds, they would go like, hey, hey,

hey, we need the option to see the, and that was always my deal, so watching it, and your deal was like, music by Marvin Gaye. Normally with a movie, you see all these names, the rioter, all this, you were like, music by Marvin Gaye. That's it. Had to give it up. That's it. That's it.

No pun intended. Black Klansman, again, you connected past to present. Malcolm X, past to present, to have Nelson Mandela and the children. I am Malcolm X. The connection to Black Lives Matter was also powerful because that chat with character, solid, and then connecting to today's movement

also spoke volumes. Well, a lot of, not a lot, but some people said, Spike, that Black Lives Matter scene, did you just shoot that and then slip it in? The truth is, that was the very first scene we shot. Mm. At my mother's grave, that was the very first scene we shot.

It mattered, because I think, and the reason, and again, as watching it, because I'm seeing, and how you use film and how you use King's speech at Riverside Church on April 3rd, 1967, and you emphasize, which is one of the things I've always done, to the day,

a year later to the day after that speech, and I make a distinction all the time, I make it clear. There is no coincidence that he was assassinated on April 4th, 1968, after the speech he gave on April 4th, 1967. But again... And can I just... Yeah, yeah.

And I want to say something to your audience, but you know this. As long as Dr. King was just talking about, can we all live together? I have a dream. We should all sit down and eat the same counters. You know, that was all right. But when he came out against the war. Boom. He talking about money.

Precisely. Money and power. Yep. Money and power. And then another thing where we have to recognize LBJ thought he had a friend with Dr. King with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. LBJ,

when Dr. King stepped out, felt like he had been betrayed. Black people, Dr. King. Talking about how immoral the war is. That's when they said he gotta go.

Black people. Roy Wilkins, NAACP, Whitney Young, National Urban League, Carl Rowan. I mean, King was vilified and attacked. And so seeing that, I just thought was so important because when you watch these films,

when you watch these Vietnam films, when you watch Apocalypse Now, when you watch all films, when you watch these Vietnam films, we watch Apocalypse Now, when you watch all these other different films, you're watching a Vietnam film, you're seeing the jungle, you're seeing the fighting, but again, for these black soldiers, there were two wars that were going on.

And folks today have to, they had to be hit between the eyes to say no we ain't just talking about them going back to vietnam no the war was at home and so seeing those clips and seeing the uh the the news reels and linking muhammad ali and putting all those things you know weaving all of this in tells a story that and then of course with the black lives matter pulling all together by saying if you think that war ended this war for black people continues and black lives matter those are the new soldiers in the war where they say you know wars never end. They don't. And I was struggling.

I was just looking at a Juneteenth shirt, and somebody said, I was looking at a Juneteenth shirt, and I saw this design, and it said, Breaking Chains Since 1865. Let me ask you a question. Yes, sir. About this guy, Agent Orange, having all this stuff on Juneteenth and in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Does he really think that that's going to get him black votes? Oh, no, no. That's not the purpose. Tell me what the purpose is. Donald Trump wants black people to respond angrily on Juneteenth. Donald Trump has to move his base racially. He has to touch their anger and their fears so his pronouncement this week we're not renaming army bases named after confederate generals that will never happen

the bill moved through the senate committee now let's's see if Mitch McConnell puts it on the floor. Then it passes the House. Then will he veto it? Well, it's all by design. See, Donald Trump doesn't want, Donald Trump does not want to actually get a massive number of black votes. He wants to pick off, and he specifically, Spike, he's specifically trying to find a bunch of black votes. He wants to pick off, and he specifically, Spike, he's specifically trying to find a bunch of Pauls.

He got, there was a 13-point gap between black men and black women who voted for Trump versus Clinton in 2016. It was a nine-point gap between black men and black women with Romney and Obama. So Democrats have had an issue how that black men have been voting more for Republicans than black women. White House told me point blank. They believe that they could get they I'm talking about directly.

They believe they can get 15 as high as 18 or even 20 percent of black men to vote for them so donald trump's whole spike listen to me how much kool-aid they've been drinking no no no no no no no but remember now follow me let me go remember I just told you. There was a 13-point gap between 96% of black women voted for Hillary. Subtract 13. 83% of black men voted for Hillary. See the gap? percent of black men voted 84 voted for hillary see the gift gap so here's what they're doing on the money side that's why his whole deal is first step act criminal justice and money so they're appealing to black men who are barbers who own their own businesses it's all by design this literally is their strategy.

I've talked to them. Democrats, I'm going to go back to 16, I'm going to tell you, I had the conversation directly with her and her staff, Huma, and as well as Marlon Marshall, the brother, on the night of the Congressional Black Caucus Phoenix Awards, we were backstage. I said to her, Senator, I'm having a hard time getting your black surrogates, especially black men, on my show.

What's your staff doing? She tells Huma and Marlon, what's going on? And then Huma, she said, Roe, I need you to go talk to them. She was taking pictures. I go talk to them. I said, y'all got black men supporting Hillary Clinton, John Legend, Magic Johnson, and others. Why can't I get them on the show? Hillary comes over.

She's like, I don't understand what's going on. Huma says, Secretary, we're going to get it fixed. She says, well, get it done. Because if he's having problems, I'm sure other people are. And she walked off. The next day, I told them, I said, I want Alvin Brown, who was the mayor of Jacksonville Florida on who was working on the campaign on my show 12 hours go

by never confirm I finally had to call down Brazil to come on my time join a segment Hillary Clinton had a blackmail problem Democrats be blackmail problem they are not connecting with black men and the Republicans are looking at them economically so that's why you hear. So that's why you hear Empowerment zones. That's why you hear them talking economics That's why he's gonna go to Tulsa because he wants to say my economic policies black people Really black men are similar to black Wall Street. That's why he's doing it You broke it down my man, that's why he's doing it. You broke it down, my man.

That's why he's doing it, man. That's why he's doing it. So I've said to Tom Perez and Democrats, y'all better figure out how to talk to black men. You better go where black men are and have real conversation. They have substantive policies that appeal to black men. But I've also said to black men,

stop just voting for your pocketbook, because while you may say the tax breaks for Trump were great for you, his right wing judges are not great for you and your sons. Rolling back civil rights protections are not great for you and your sons and daughters. And so I said, you better stop thinking, again, just about I got a few extra dollars in my pocket,

because he has no housing plan. He's actually doesn't believe in police accountability. I said, so he might, you might think he's great for your pocketbook, but he's screwing you and your community. And facts don't lie. And that's why when that fool Raynard Jackson had the nerve to call me, Don Lemon and Joanne Readout.

And I'm saying, fine, bring your ass on my show. Cause me and you gonna have that conversation. You want heat come on we gonna have some heat because that's the game that they're playing and I and so Dr. you know Dr. Conrad Worrell he's passed away he gave me and Mark Thompson his last interview he had barely any breath in his body he died a week he died eight days later and this is what he said this is a radical revolutionary mo malcolm x believer black united front he said black people bury the hatchet deal with all of our stuff but our number one goal is to get trump out he died eight days after the interview he knew he was not going to be around for November and he wanted it on the record and me and Mark Thompson got the

interview and I aired it a week later on a Monday and he died the next day he said don't play around with this one y'all what they are trying to do to black people in this nation if he gets four more years it's going to be hell to pay and he said i've never believed spike he said i've never believed that voting can really change a lot i am telling you old black people and young black people put that nonsense aside and everybody vote. He said, I don't care. He said, in fact, you want a black agenda?

He said, you figure that out behind closed doors, but get Trump out. That's what he said. I got you. I believe, I think the world will be in, not only will the United States be in peril, the whole world will be if this guy,

Agent Orange, is elected again. 100% true. Spike, it's always a pleasure, man. We had so much fun in Dallas. We got to take that sucker on the road. We got to take it on the road once we get this thing turned around. I'm ready, because, man, we had a ball, and it was just us shooting the shit. And we just let several thousand watch.

All right. My man. My brother. The Five Bloods. Phenomenal. I appreciate it. Y'all watch it. Netflix.

Check it out. Thanks, Spike. Thank you. Peace. I always had to be so good, no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars.

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

Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of 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. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two 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 One. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to 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. This is an iHeart Podcast.