#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Rights orgs ask big biz to fight GA voter suppression; Mentoring Black boys/girls; COVID bill battle

Episode Date: March 6, 2021

3.5.21 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Civil rights orgs call on big biz to fight Ga. voter suppression; Mentors need to help Black boys/girls; COVID relief bill battle heats up in the Senate; Morehouse College has launched a program to encourage black men to complete their unfinished degrees + St. Louis Prosecuting Attorney, Wesley Bell speaks to #RMUSupport #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered#RolandMartinUnfiltered is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication.

Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. Thank you. Today is Friday, March 5th, 2021. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, voting rights groups are calling on companies in Georgia to fight against the massive Republican voter suppression bill. We will talk with co-founders of Black Voters Matter, LaTosha Brown and Cliff Albright. Also, we'll talk with the head of the Big Brothers Big Sisters about the need for mentors for black boys.

The U.S. Senate began its debate over President Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package. Also, check this out, they voted on a minimum wage bill. Nine Democrats voted against. Wait until you see how arrogant one of them was in her vote. And Morehouse College has launched a program to encourage black men to complete their unfinished degrees. Plus, my one-hour interview with St. Louis prosecuting attorney Wesley Bell, who, of course, upset a longtime white incumbent DA that showed the power of young folks voting as well as the people who want police reform. And it's time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered.

Let's go. He's got it Whatever the biz, 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. He's rolling. It's Uncle Roro, y'all. It's rolling, Martin. Yeah. Rolling with rolling now. It's Rollin' Martin Rollin' with Rollin' now He's funky, he's fresh, he's real The best you know, he's Rollin' Martin Martin Folks, we've been covering the drama in Georgia when it comes to voter suppression being advanced by Republicans.

Voting rights groups are now calling on major companies in Georgia, like Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines, to oppose voter suppression efforts by Republican lawmakers. The various organizations, including Black Voters Matter, New Georgia Project, the Georgia NAACP, and others have launched a campaign on social media and local news outlets this week asking for corporations to take a stand against legislation being enacted to curb turnout by black voters. Earlier this week, the House voted for a massive voter suppression bill. The Senate also is taking up their own bill. Also in this effort, and we saw it today,

the NBA is speaking out, the NBA Players Association, and LeBron James Group as well. Georgia, folks, is ground zero this year because of voter suppression. What we're seeing is what has happened in North Carolina. And trust me, if Republicans in Georgia are successful, you're going to see the same thing happen in other states. Joining me right now, the co-founders of Black Voters Matter, Cliff Albright, Latasha Brown. Glad to have both of you back on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Here's the deal, Latasha.

In North Carolina, when they passed that transgender bathroom bill, all of these different companies said we're not bringing NBA All-Star game. We're not bringing businesses to North Carolina. I went to North Carolina when they were targeting HBCUs. I said the same people who were standing up against that bill should be standing up for HBCUs, but also against voter suppression. We don't seem to have the same corporate support for issues like voter suppression as we do issues supportive of LGBT. This, what I think y'all are doing, is critical because these are the people who are funding legislators and who are bringing billions into the state. Oh, without question. You know, the issue I think that was really interesting is just, as you said, in North Carolina, what you saw is you saw corporations and

some businesses stand up and say, no, we're not going to have our conferences here. We're pulling out. We saw the exact opposite, you know, in Georgia because Georgia had planned on doing business as usual. And many of the companies, what we know is oftentimes they're straddling the fence. You know, what I often like to say is that democracy is not the burden for black people to bear. That ultimately what we saw is a historic turnout for black voters in this state.

And now it seems to be this punitive effort. And we know that it's directed at marginalizing our vote. And what we're saying is that we expect those companies that we go in every single day as workers, as we sit on their boards, that we actually consume their products. We patronize them, that we expect that they will stand with us. That part of what we have to do is we actually have to put the pressure on literally as we're seeing companies, we know that it can make a difference. The fact that we are seeing that many bills to come out of over 91 bills be sponsored. Georgia says that there's not a lot of corporate pressure in this state. And what we do know is where we've seen corporate pressure over the years, particularly aligned with community pressure, that it has made a difference. And so that's the same expectation that we have for the state of Georgia. The thing here, Cliff, that's important here,

like, for instance, at Coca-Cola, their political action committee had already stopped funding various folks. We also saw what took place after January 6th. But that's only a small piece here. This is where the corporations got to use their voice. I go back to 1964 when Dr. King got the Nobel Peace Prize. And when white business leaders in Atlanta said, we're not going to attend a reception honoring Dr. King. It was the mayor of Atlanta went to the former CEO of Coca-Cola and met with him. He then called in the then CEO, and then they announced Coca-Cola doesn't need Atlanta. Atlanta needs Coca-Cola. If y'all do not show up and support Dr. King, we will move Coca-Cola out of Atlanta. They sold out that particular reception, and every single one of those

businesses showed up. That's the kind of power that Coca-Cola and Delta and others can use to this Coca-Cola has been absolutely silent. At the end of the day, what we know is that if these companies, Coca-Cola, Delta, UPS, if these companies wanted to shut down this voter suppression, it would be shut down. Heck, not even if all of them did it. If one of them did it, as you said, if Coca-Cola took a stance, if Delta took a stance,

it would be shut down. And you all have up the ad that we put out. That was the full-page ad that we ran in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, as well as in 20 other newspapers across the state. If these businesses, what we're asking them to do, and the same thing that they did in North Carolina, they actually did it in Georgia when Georgia was trying to do its version of the so-called religious freedom and anti-abortion, anti-LGBT, all these things. They came together and they took a stance. We're asking them to take the similar stance.

In fact, what we're really asking them to do is to do the same thing that they would do if these were bills that were attacking their industry. If this was a bill that was an anti-beverage bill, right, if this was a bill that said you can't sell any beverages in the schools, right, what would Coca-Cola do? They would use the full force of the political and economic influence in order to squash that bill. We're asking them to take at least as much of a stance, the same level of a stance and the same level of aggression and influence that they would use if this was an attack on their business. They need to do because it's an attack on our voters, on our community and on this very democracy.

We need to see that same type of energy that they show when they're trying to influence their industry legislation as on a piece of legislation like this that influences the consumers as well as the workers that support their company. And look, Latasha, we know what's going on here. This is a direct assault on black people. It is a direct result, assault on progressives. And if you're Republican, if you want to compete, fine, hey, put your ideas up, but don't try to all of a sudden change the rules because you lost the presidential race in Georgia and you lost two U.S. Senate races. Hey, put up or shut up. They want to cheat to win, to outlaw the handing out of water and food while folks are voting, making that a crime? Come on. You know, it's really interesting as we are, both Cliff and I are on our way this weekend to Selma, Alabama. This is this weekend, March the 56th anniversary

of Bloody Sunday, which led ultimately in Selma to Montgomery March, that led to the Voting Rights Act as part of a celebration and commemoration of the voting rights movement. Here we are, 56 years later, and we're still continuing to fight for the right to vote for Black people in this country to make sure that their rights are protected. What we're saying is that this will not be business as usual. Oftentimes when we see issues and legislation that impacts the black community around race, racial issues, we will see some of the companies have some soft support. They may provide a grant or two, but what we're saying is this is a fundamental issue that it's time has come that to continue that they have the

power as so do we, that literally we're going to leverage our powers as consumers, as an economic base in this country right now, that black folks, that literally if you took us and we were a nation, we would be the 12th highest income, largest nation in the world in terms of based on our buying power. So we have a tremendous amount of economic power. We no longer can continue down this road that every time actually that we show up and use and demonstrate our civic right, that in some way that we've got to be punished, that there has to be something punitive. Yet those people, those companies that we support and we stand with them, that they don't stand with us. No, this is a new time. This is a new era. What we know is that in order for us to

go forward, it is going to have to be some tremendous change. And that this is 56 years. It is a shame that we are at this place right now, but we will continue to be this place until the ecosystem, until we make sure that we're exerting enough pressure that folks really recognize how serious we are about this. There shall be no, we're going to go back to 1965 and we got to march across another bridge again. We fought that fight. So where we are right now is standing in this space

that we're calling all that say that they're standing with us, those that signed these pledges that say they were for racial equity, those that say that they're standing with the black community that actually are making millions of dollars off our hard earned dollars

and our work, that this is an issue that is not even just rooted in racism, but anti-democracy. And so that's why we're calling the question. We're calling the question. You know, Pete Seeger had a song in the 60s that they used to sing, and it used to say, which side are you on? Which side are you on? We're actually putting that question, which side are you on?

Because this isn't, to me, this isn't even a partisan issue. It should not be a partisan issue. This is a basic civil right and a democracy issue. And we expect those that say that they believe and support democracy to stand with us. Cliff, I always tell people, if you want to change anything in America, follow the money. Follow the money. And for all these white folks out there who are sitting here, want to be silent on this, guess what? We don't have to buy companies products. We can use other products and also put pressure on their suppliers and others. And so bottom line is this here. If Republicans want to play this game, okay, we can play it too. Because Dr. King on April 3rd, 1968, and I keep telling people this, y'all got to go listen to the whole speech.

Stop listening to the bottom of the speech when he said, I've been to the mountaintop. He talked about redistribute the pain. He talked about economic reciprocity. He talked about what needs to happen. In fact, it was interesting, he mentioned Coca-Cola in that particular speech. I got lots of friends at Coca-Cola, but here's the deal. This is where we need companies like Coke, like Delta, like every major company in Georgia to make it clear y'all messing with the money if y'all mess with the vote. That's right. And I want to point out, because I'm glad you raised the point

about following the money, because at the end of the day, it's not just that these companies have been silent on these issues. These companies are actually complicit in these issues because they've been giving donations. They've been giving political donations to some of these same legislators

that are pushing this anti-voting, this anti-democracy, this anti-Blackness, they've been giving them donations over the years. And so it's not just that they've been on the sidelines. They've actually already been in the game. They've actually been complicit in this process. And so what we're asking them to do, and it's a shame, really, that we even have to resort to this, because at the end of the day, we're people, you know, who aren't in favor of this role of money in politics, right? We're people that we would love to see campaign finance reform, right? We'd love to see things like public financing. We don't want to see, you know, these elected officials either at the city,

state, or federal level spending all their time on the phone making donation calls, right? So we don't want to see this corruptive influence of money in politics. But guess what? As long as they're playing in the game, then they need to be playing on the side of democracy. They need to be playing on the side of Black voters that have helped to save this democracy. They need to be playing on the side, like King said, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. That's the side that they need to be leaning towards. But right now they're leaning towards the side where they are funding the very people that are trying to take our votes away. And so we are following the money. We're putting the pressure on these companies. We've got actions on our Web site. You can go to our Web site.

You go to our social media, Black Voters MTR. That's Facebook, Twitter, IG. And you can follow our actions and go to our page. You can make the phone calls yourselves. We've got the phone numbers there for the CEO of Coke. MTR, that's Facebook, Twitter, IG, and you can follow our actions and go to our page. You can make the phone calls yourselves. We got the phone numbers there for the CEO of Coke. Everybody have a Coke and a smile. Let's make some phone calls to the CEO of Coke, to UPS, to Delta. We got all those phone numbers right there. I called up Coca-Cola today to try to talk to the CEO, and I got a staff member, an employee,

who no matter what I said, all she kept doing was reading their official statement. It was actually kind of insulting. And we believe that the more people get involved and make these phone calls and they engage, they bump heads up against this type of resistance and negligence, then that's going to make people be even more motivated and get people even more involved. And so we've got all that information on our website, on our social media. Everybody listening to this right now has a role to play. Everybody we touch, we want to turn into an organizer. Put the graphic back up. And so, first of all, you have on that Delta Airlines, Coca-Cola, Southern Company, Home Depot, UPS, Aflac, Georgia Chamber of Commerce, Metro Atlanta Team of Commerce, Georgia Black Chamber of Commerce.

Let's deal right there with Southern Company. They spend a lot of money at black events like Essence and others. All the companies on there, what companies have y'all gotten a response directly from? Let me say this. Let me say one word about the Southern Company. You know, what's interesting is that Southern Company, you know, actually is the largest funder of the GOP of Republican legislators in the state of Georgia. And so here it is, a company that we are literally giving our hardworking money to, and they're actually supporting this side that have been coming out with legislation centered around the big lie to actually disenfranchise us. That out of all of

those companies on there, what I do think is one of the most egregious is the Southern Company that literally provide the Southern Company, Georgia Power, Alabama Power, those power companies. Matter of fact, even if you're looking at this and you're not in the state of Georgia, a portion of your resources, Alabama Power is a part of the Southern Company. And so we've got to use and leverage our power that we hold these people accountable, that any of these companies, none of these companies personally, I know that there's been some phone calls that have been made. There's been a lot, there's a lot of activity I know going around and concern. We haven't heard directly from those companies. But the bottom line is, if you look at the ad, we're asking the

question. We're calling the question. We're saying, will you stand with the voters of Georgia? That should be a slam dunk. This is not an issue where we're trying to literally take the company down. What we're saying is, you have the opportunity in this moment to actually stand with the community that actually supports you, that literally works, that we have workers that work with you, that actually provide even management and even serve on your boards. So if you look at the ad, that should be a slam dunk. There should have been all kinds of, not only statements, but really powerful phone calls that said, we're standing with you. Maybe you didn't know it, but we're actually for voting rights. The silence in itself says a lot. Cliff, final comment. Yeah, we just want everybody to get involved. At the end of the day,

this is the deal. It seems daunting, but we know that we're going to win. It was daunting two years ago when they stole an election from us in Georgia and people said, oh, what are you going to do? How are you going to get black voters to come out? And two years later, what we do, we shock the country because black voters came out in big numbers. So what we've proven is we can out-organize them, y'all. There's no question. That's why they're so mad. That's why they're big mad is because at the end of the day, we out-organize them.

We out-organize them in the election, and we're going to out-organize them on this because at the end of the day, can't stop, won't stop. Can't stop, won't stop. All right. Folks, we appreciate it. Can't stop, won't stop. All right. Folks, we appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Thank you. Thank you, Roland. All right, let's go to our panel here to talk about this here.

Candace Kelly, legal analyst. Rob Richardson hosts Disruption Now podcast. Michael M. Hotep hosts the African History Network show. Rob, I want to start with you. This is the kind of action that has to happen. You've got to put that level of pressure on legislators. And again, you use the money. You use the money to get their attention. Yeah, absolutely. Use organization to get to put pressure on them.

Let me just say this. You know, the Republicans have now just gone all out and just not they're not even disguising what they're doing. They made an argument. I'm sure you talked about this earlier in the week, but they made an argument in front of the Supreme Court when, when, when Supreme Court Justice Barrett asked them, well, why are you suppressing minority voters? And they just said, yeah, we're doing it because that's how we're going to win politics. I mean, so racists aren't even pretending to talk about fraud or any of the other garbage that we knew was garbage, but now there's no filter in between it. They're very direct with what they're trying to do. So we know what they're doing and they're talking to the Supreme Court directly about what they're doing. And so we definitely have to put pressure on these actual

corporations, just like you mentioned earlier, when they were attacking LGBT rights, appropriately pressure was put on them. That same type of pressure and that same type of organization from us, I'm glad to see many of our black organizations Joining together to take out that ad. I think they got to go they got to do a lot I know we got we got the NAACP. They just got a hundred million dollars We got black lives matter to me some money and some resources some serious resources Should be put into organizing down here and stopping this and then putting pressure on these Democrats to make sure that they get off of their ass

and stop making excuses and pass the bill. Filibuster doesn't matter. This is about protecting democracy. And so we need to put the pressure on the people that we got elected, because without black people, there is no Democratic Party. I don't understand what Democrats don't understand about if we don't have a functioning democracy where we can have access to the ballot and black people aren't able to vote in an accessible manner, they also don't get elected. So I don't understand the hesitation in wanting to support. This is actually in their interest.

So we have to give them the courage that they don't have, and that comes through organization and pressure, period. Candace, go ahead. Companies can't have it both ways. I mean, on the one hand, they pledge money for support for Black Lives Matter and to fight racism, you know, throughout the beginning of 2020. But then on the other hand, they will not support this idea that getting more people to vote in order to put legislators in office to vote for issues like racism or to fight racism and to fight things that are affecting African-Americans in the worst way, they can't understand that, you know, those dots are to be connected.

It actually makes no sense, and it would serve in their best interest in order to step up and do this. You know, there's this saying that, you know, bad people who are elected into office are elected by good people who just can't vote or won't vote. And this is what they are doing by not showing their support. But we know that the organization is out there. We saw what Georgia can do. And as you said, this is ground zero so that people can understand what more Georgia can do and what more they are doing right now in order to make sure that this voter suppression doesn't happen.

We're really living in the era of Jim Crow at this point when we look at everything that's in place in order to prevent people from voting. Like what was just spoken, you know, the Republicans aren't shy about it. They're saying this is why we're doing it. We simply just want to win, and we want to win at all costs. But this is something that can't be tolerated. And I think that probably by next week we will see somebody step up and say that we're going to change and invest in something that we see just as important as, you know, maybe the hundred million that we invested last year during the times of Black Lives Matter. At the end of the day, Michael, again, pressure. You've got to pressure and you've got to use the money. You've got to use the money. You know, Roland, hey, brother, I agree with them 1,000 percent.

As one of my callers, John, says from Detroit, look, remember last Friday on this show, I said we have to leverage our economics to enforce our politics, and I talked about FEC.gov, Federal Elections Commission, and looking and see which corporations donate to members of the House of Representatives in U.S. Senate. Brother, this is right on time right here. And I think we may have to probably implement this strategy. This is redistributing the pain. We probably have to implement this strategy also to push H.R.1 through the Senate, because there's not 60 votes in the Senate for H.R.1, and also the George Floyd

Justice and Policing Act. Okay, now we know both those bills passed the House of Representatives Thursday night, but there's not 60 votes in the Senate for this. But if we connect all this together, some of these same corporations came out to donate money during the George Floyd protests and things like this. Okay, well, now where do you stand on the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act? Okay, where do you stand on H.R. 1? We spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year collectively with these various corporations. So it's time to leverage our economics to enforce our politics. And, you know, I want to find out from them what the next steps are, because it may take nationwide economic pressure on these various corporations. OK. And we saw this take place, you know, back in 1960,

the Nashville economic boycott in 1960, which was the economic boycott of the downtown business district, which broke the back of segregation. And African-Americans up north who could go to the Woolworths and Kresge's and things like this, they started boycotting the same corporations up north

that their brothers and sisters were boycotting down south. And it spread to 59 cities. And it broke the back of segregation in Nashville, Tennessee. So we have to take a page from history. We have to listen to the entire approximately 43 minutes of I've Been to the Mountaintop, April 3rd, 1968. I talked about redistributing the pain last week on your show last Friday. And lastly, Dr. King mentioned Coca-Cola, Wonder Bread, Hearts Bread, and Silt Test Milk in that speech. Those were corporations he was talking about economic withdrawal from. And he said, we have to always anchor our external direct action with the power of economic withdrawal. This is exactly what he was talking about. And again, folks, what has to happen is this is also why black media

matters, because we're going to stay focused on this consistently. We told you earlier this week, go to my iPad, this right here, this is what they have in the bill. Limit Sunday voting to one optional Sunday in each county. Reduce ballot drop boxes by requiring them to be located inside early voting locations, meaning you can only access them when the early voting location is open. And keep in mind, the Ohio Secretary of State, Rob, they want to do the exact same thing there. This is the Republican playbook across the country. Require a driver's license number, state ID number, or copy of photo ID to vote absentee. Set a deadline to request absentee ballots 11 days before election day,

disqualifies provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct, ban outside funding of elections from nonprofit organizations, prohibits governments from mailing unsolicited absentee ballot applications, creates instant runoff voting for military and overseas voters, schedule runoffs for four weeks after election day rather than the current nine weeks. Prevent free food and drinks for voters waiting in line to vote. Restricts early voting buses to emergencies. I mean, wow, they really went through everything to say, how can we take away anything that helps anybody that might be poor, might be marginalized, people that might move. Their goal is to make sure that only people that have lived poor, might be marginalized, people that might move.

Their goal is to make sure that only people that have lived at an address for a long time, that have voted, that are usually white probably, can vote. I mean, they're being very intentional to say you can't have fun. So I don't even see, I think a lot of it has to be unconstitutional. I don't see how you ban nonprofits from, that's like free speech to me. Because look, we have right now, we have a ruling from this conservative Supreme Court that says that money is speech.

So I don't know how in the world you can say people can't spend money to protect the right to vote. I mean, this is just insane. But so we gotta make sure that people understand that they are, you're right, Roland, they're going to do this, they're gonna replicate this, they're gonna try to push this through. Because unlike the Democratic Party who can't even agree on things that they say they agree on,'re right, Roland, they're going to do this, they're going to replicate this, they're going to try to push this through. Because unlike the Democratic Party, who can't

even agree on things that they say they agree on, like the minimum wage, Republicans can agree on the most horrible things because it protects their power. And we have to make sure that we give more strength, we give more courage to the Democratic Party. I think that's what we have to do, unfortunately. We shouldn't have to do that either. We have to put pressure on these corporations. We also have to put pressure on these Democrats who say they support all these things. And when they get there, they find every excuse. You and I, Roland, you know, we both pledge excuses are tools of incompetence. You know, I don't want to hear no excuse about why you can't pass voting rights. You have the majority. You have the presidency. Pass the damn bill.

Candace, when you look at, again, what they put out there, really? Water and food? Water and food? That's what I was going to say. You know, put the pressure on because we're not looking at just voting rights. We're looking at human rights. That's the one thing that stood out to me. I mean, water that you're not going to give somebody water in order to complete something that belongs to them, that that the Constitution has already given them in the name of democracy. There's nothing even hidden on this list that says nothing else besides we're just doing anything that we need to do in order to take away the rights of just the basic human being. This makes absolutely no sense. The pressure has to be put on for these companies in order to change their minds, change their tactics.

And I would imagine that this weekend they're going to be speaking on Zoom and they're going to be having conversations to figure out what to do because the pressure is being put on and they're going to have to make a decision or else it's going to hurt them financially. Absolutely that, folks. Greg Palast, our good friend, he picked up on this food and water deal. This is an ad his folks put together. Watch this. Georgia. Having a playback issue. And so we'll get that sorted out in just a second.

But, folks, again, we're going to stay on top of this, keep covering this, and letting you know exactly what is happening next with this. When we come back, we're going to talk with the president of the Boys and Girls Club about efforts that they are doing to impact the next generation of kids. Plus, we'll also talk about the drama in Capitol Hill. What the hell was Senator Kyrsten Sinema thinking when she arrogantly voted against the $15 an hour minimum wage bill. All that next on Roland Martin Unfiltered. by the GOP-controlled legislature that requires voters to include ID with mail-in ballots, a cheap Jim Crow trick, one among many that passed. Raffensperger objected to adding a prohibition on giving food and water

to people waiting hours in line to vote in the Georgia sun because he's already declared that giving water to voters is a crime after he made sure the lines would be hours long. Are you bribing voters? They're trying to feed the stomachs. Why are you out here? Trying to give the voters some food, man. Okay.

Why do they deserve food? Everybody deserves food. I witnessed this criminal behavior myself in Cobb County, Georgia, where Papa John's was criminally handing out slices of pizza and calzones. Hi, everybody. This is Jonathan Nelson. Hi, this is Cheryl Lee Ralph,

and you are watching Roland Martin, unfiltered. There are currently 30,000 children on the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America's waiting list who need mentors. Most of them are black boys. It's well known that black boys face unique challenges growing up, including the failure of systems that are supposed to help them. It's important that they have mentors who can relate to those experiences. Joining me now to talk about this is Artis Stevens.

He is the president and CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. Artis, glad to have you on Roland Martin Unfiltered. So exactly what is your plan to increase the number of mentors? Well, Roland, first of all, just thank you for having me on the show tonight. You know, one thing that I think is critically important, you know, we're an organization that's been around for 116 years. We understand the process of mentoring. We understand the impact that it makes on young people's lives. And I think one of the key and critical elements that are important for this is also understanding what it is in terms of the demand for kids in this country and the ability

to partnership. My role in my career and 25 years of youth development, one thing that I know for sure in my life and also in my work is that it certainly takes a village to really raise a child. And when it comes to young men, young boys, and particularly young boys of color, one thing that's critically important for recruiting volunteers is the ability to recruit volunteers and recruit volunteers in terms of in the communities with partnership and collaboration. So it's not one organization that I feel is going to be key to doing this, but it's going to be about how do we create those types of relationships and partnerships in the community with grassroots organizations, organizations that know communities incredibly well,

and then we can help support and provide the mentoring and the opportunities that help to develop young people, and most importantly, help to empower them to navigate some of the challenges that they see in their lives. How much time are you talking about? What are you looking for folks to actually give per week, per month? Yeah, so typically what our mentors do is about two times a month. They're connecting with a young person. We've made it very much effective, particularly even in the pandemic, where some of it is in person and it's safely done, but we also

have online supplements so that you can connect with a young person. It's safe. We have it monitored, but it's enabled through technology as well. It doesn't replace being in person, but we also know that it enables those types of relationships to happen. And what's critically important with that as well is that what we found through our research is that absolutely the young person is impacted. But for most of our bigs,

that's what we call our adults who volunteer, they're impacted just as much or even more through the relationship. And this is something that we know is really important for families because for all of our families, it's free. There's no charge for our families, but that's because we have great partners, donors, people like who's watching your show right now who invest in our cause

so that the family doesn't have to bear that cost, and it helps the young person to be involved and be engaged in the mentoring relationship. And so you've got 30,000 boys who need it. And so your goal is, first of all, how many mentors and how is it going in terms of adding them in 2021? Yeah, it is. So 30,000 boys, you're right. It's 30,000. I should say 30,000 are on our waiting list. Most of them are boys. Over 75 percent of them are boys. Now, when you look at our volunteer list, it's the exact opposite. 75 percent of our volunteers are women.

And absolutely, we want more women as well. But we know that there's a critical need for men to really step up and engage into initiatives like this. You know, what I will say is that the pandemic has made it really hard and really challenging for our folks on the ground to recruit volunteers. We've had to be creative, like most organizations, pivoting, doing things to support families, doing wraparound services. A lot of our volunteers are not just doing mentoring, but they're delivering food to our families' houses. They're setting up Wi-Fi for some of our families as well and doing things that will help them in terms of our young people, educational development, their social, emotional health. But the sense of isolation is real, right? And we see that even more when it comes to communities like the Black community that

a lot of times, because of the systems that are set around the infrastructure, the lack of infrastructure, I should say, that they have the importance of these types of organizations on the ground where local Big Brothers, Big Sisters agencies are providing not just the mentoring service, but also the connections and the partnerships because they're able to see those child in a 360 kind of approach. All right, then. Well, Artis Stevens, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Where can people go if they want to sign up? Well, you can go to BBBS.org to find out more, to support, to volunteer,

also to donate. And Roland, I just want to say a special 1906 to you. And we need more men in our fraternities, like Alpha Phi Alpha, who is a great supporter of the Big Brothers Big Sisters. We want to get more men in other organizations to really come out and join us and support us.

All right, Frat. We're certainly glad to have you on here. I throw the ice up. I know that that causes much pain to two of my panelists, Rob, who's a Kappa, and Michael Imhotep. Michael, what little youth group are you in? Rolling, rolling. I keep forgetting. I just keep forgetting that little youth just keep i keep forgetting that little you

what's that little you group you're in our source zeta five beta sorority incorporated so i'm a member of five beta sigma fraternity incorporated oh okay yeah i knew it was something i knew it was something small i appreciate that we need all of them rolling we need the entire village bring them all along yeah i right cook sigmas y'all ain't got nothing to do y'all can join michael uh and cappers come on y'all y'all know them. Sigmas, y'all ain't got nothing to do. Y'all can join Michael and Kappas. Come on. Y'all know them little boys can mentor y'all as well. And so, Artis, I appreciate it.

Thanks a lot. We've been mentoring you for a while. No, no, no. Remember, I keep telling you, without Alpha, y'all Kappa Psi, son. Y'all need our name. All right. Artis, I appreciate it. Thanks a lot.

Take care now. All right, y'all. That's right. Candace got caught up in a D9 drive-by. Okay. So today, Capitol Hill, the last hurdle for President Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package

is passing the Senate. Republican and Democratic senators debated amendments during a marathon voting session that reached a stalemate over differing views on unemployment insurance. Here's why this is so hilarious, y'all. So, you know, Senator Rob Johnson, Senator Rob Johnson wanted them to read,

you know, he wanted them to read all that, read the whole bill. Well, guess what happened? They read the whole bill, and when they finished, there were no Republicans in the chamber. So Senator Chris Van Hollen got up and said, I move with unanimous consent that we actually cut debate from 20 hours to three hours.

See, Candace, that's what happens when you want to be an ass that that by having them read it all. And so Senator Johnson's whole strategy was to draw this out. Now, the Democrats were able to cut the debate from 20 hours to three hours because he didn't show up. Right. And like like Chuck Schumer said, he said, all right, go ahead, read the bill. We actually think it has great things in it. So go ahead and read it. We want everybody to know it. And it all worked out for the better when it comes to the Democrats. But this is just something that we're going to see a push and pull at least throughout the end of the weekend when we're trying to determine in live time right now what's going to be in this bill at the end of

the day. I mean, Republicans can say all they want. We know that there's going to be a lot that is going to be gained in the bill. But the one thing that we know is not going to be in the bill is going to be that $15 of minimum wage when so many people are working all day and living in poverty? It just doesn't make any sense. They're at an impasse right now because of unemployment insurance. They also, of course, there was a vote earlier on Senator Bernie Sanders' amendment for when it comes to the minimum wage being $15 an hour. This is what Sanders had to say earlier. legislation is the most consequential and significant legislation for working families that Congress has debated for many, many decades. Now, why is that?

And the answer is that, as I think all Americans know the last year last year that we have gone through has been in so many ways the very worst year in our lifetimes that's what it has been the working families of our country today are hurting in a way that they have not heard since the Great Depression. And they want their government to hear their pain and come to their aid. And that is not too much to ask. Now, a lot of folks in this country, there are estimates that maybe 30 to 40 percent of Americans have literally given up on democracy. They are moving toward authoritarianism. They are hurting. Their kids are hurting. Their parents are hurting.

And they look to Washington for help in their democratic society, and they don't see Washington responding. What they see year after year are policies which make the very, very rich richer, which enable large, profitable corporations to not pay a nickel in taxes. But for them, they face eviction, they face hunger. They don't have health care. They can't afford to send their kids to college. And they are asking, does anybody, anybody in Washington care about their lives? Well, nine Democrats voted no, but the most arrogant one was the Arizona Senator Christian Sinema. Look at this.

70% of their revenue compared to 2019. And these are people who are hustling to do stand-up, pop-up windows, and all sorts of things to keep the restaurants and restaurant employment working. This. Like, really? Okay. There was a, let me know. Do I have the tweet that she sent out? Pull this tweet up. This is what she posted in 2014.

A full time minimum wage earner makes less than 16 K a year. This one's a no brainer. Tell Congress to hashtag raise the wage. Rob, I got a feeling that that video is going to come back to haunt Christian cinema. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's an easy video to use. And then you can use that tweet you just showed when she was raising money from people probably that couldn't give a whole lot. She probably raised like millions of dollars from that tweet. Like, oh, she supports this. She wants to support ideas. And then when she gets there, she does what too many Democrats do. We need, you know, they flip when they get there and don't stand for conviction and wonder why we lose elections

that we shouldn't lose because we get these type of politicians that say that they're with us and they get there and they act cute and do something like that. It should be used against her. Like that's inexcusable. And it's, and it shows just that there, there's no moral conviction and there's no follow through on the, on the core issues that Democrats say that they care about. Yes, there are many that do. When you got nine that are willing to vote against you and just, and then when you got one is so arrogant about it, like, what does that say about the state of the democratic party? That just says we have a democratic party that is there just because we know how bad the Republican party is. So we need the Democratic Party to actually do some things

and stand up and not just say we're not Republicans. It's not enough. There were, again, nine senators. And then I'm going to show you who they are. And it's important to be able to know where folks stand. And so this is what, first of all, these are the number of senators who would not sponsor Sanders' standalone bill. It was Carper, Coons, Cortez, Masto, Hassan, Hickenlooper, Kelly, King, Manchin, Menendez, Shaheen, Sinema, and Tester. Of that particular group, nine of those senators actually voted against this particular bill. Michael, it says a whole lot. If you can't vote for 15 bucks an hour, how in the hell are you going to go back to your district and try to make plain to folks who are having issues making a living that you care about them? Yeah, you're right about that, Roland. And I really want to hear from them

what their reasoning was behind this, because raising the federal minimum wage, we talked about this last Friday on the show, federal minimum wage has not been raised in 12 years, okay? And to raise it to $15 an hour, and it's important for people to understand, it's not $15 an hour immediately. It's increasing by $1 a year up until the year 2025. That's the proposal from Bernie Sanders, a $1 increment increase each year until the year 2025. So I want to hear from them what their reasoning is behind this. But the other thing is I'm all for holding Democrats accountable. But we also have to hold – I'm not saying you're not doing this, but we also have to hold Republicans accountable as well.

Because raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour would help a whole lot of poor white Republicans. They keep voting for these Republicans in the office. They keep screwing them over. They don't pretend like they stand for that, though. That's the difference. They don't pretend like that. Republicans are about cutting taxes for the rich, and Democrats say they are standing for working poor, so

do what you say. I mean, that's all I'm saying. And Republicans do what they say. They got there, and they passed that tax bill with no problem, giving corporations all types of benefits. There was hardly any defection. And I'm saying, I expect the same thing when Democrats are in power. Right. Now, the other thing, the other thing I think is important to understand, and Roland was talking about this before, is that the Democratic Party, and I'm neither Democrat nor Republican, but at the same time, I ain't stupid. I'm looking at who keeps blocking these bills.

The Democratic Party is a bigger tent. There's more diversity in the Democratic Party than it is the Republican Party. But yeah, this is critical. Now, the other thing that's really important in the article from CBS News that deals with the $1.9 trillion economic relief package, the American Rescue Plan. Bernie Sanders on Thursday said he wants to propose an amendment during his voter-rama. He wants to propose an amendment to raise the tipped minimum wage, which is currently $2.12 an hour to $14.75 an hour over seven years. Now, we doubt that that passes, but a lot of people, I don't think, understand that tips are, the tip minimum wage is federal policy as well,

which once again ties into laws and policies and things like this. So, yeah, this is critical. Candace, Greg Sargent put this tweet out. He says, here are the numbers of people who make under $15 per hour in states and senators who voted no on the hike as of 2019. Sinema is number one, 839,000.

Far outdistancing, Manchin in West Virginia, 229,000. Carper, 106,000. Coons in Connecticut, 106,000. Hassan, 146,000. Shaheen, New Hampshire, 146,000. Wow, that says a whole lot right there. It does. It really shows a number of politicians who are probably out of touch with what it means, obviously, to live in poverty, especially when we're in the time of covid. And I think what's interesting to note is that, you know, come May, Joe Biden said that we are going to have almost all adults have the availability of having the COVID

test. So we're talking about people who are going to come out and try to get back to work at a time when they need these types of monies. Of course, it's going to be incremental, but at least the hope and knowing that you have people who are in office supporting you because you have voted them in, that makes a difference. And this is why voting is so important, right? So that we can change policies by changing the people who are in office who have no idea, who are not at the ground, who don't understand what's going on when it comes to making $30,000 a year and raising five children. That's what people are doing out there. $839,000 is something that people don't make over 10, 20 year periods at a time, depending upon how much, how, how much they make. So this

is a number of politicians who are out of touch and can't even understand, can't even sympathize or empathize with what exactly is going on at the ground. All right, folks, got to go to break. We come back. Let's talk about Morehouse, their program to encourage men to complete their degrees. All of that next on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Are you geolocating people through the FBI related to your investigation into the January 6th riot. Tell me what you know about this. So it was the FBI accessing cell phone tower metadata from telecommunications companies. Shortly after 2 p.m., as the siege was fully underway,

Senator Lee describes it, the phone rang, it was Donald Trump. I Lee describes it. Phone rang. It was Donald Trump. I hope you can understand my concern. Sure, you can appreciate my concern here. People in public service work hard every day in our communities, and we deserve respect for the work we do. That means a secure retirement with benefits you've earned through years of service and hard work. What's the best a secure retirement with benefits you've earned through years of service and hard work. What's the best way to ensure that when you retire, you'll be ready to

enjoy the years ahead? Join a union today. Union members negotiate our contracts, which is why we're more likely to have substantial retirement benefits. A secure retirement. That's the union difference. Your work keeps the community safe, but what keeps you safe at work? People in public service face unique dangers and we need the right training, resources, and staffing to stay safe. But how do we make sure we have what we need to stay safe on the job? We join a union. Union members negotiate for the resources we need to keep us safe at work and protections if we're injured on the job. Union members are better trained and better protected.

Job safety. That's the union difference. Hey, I'm Cupid, the maker of the Cupid Shuffle and the Wham Dance. What's going on? This is Tobias Trevelyan. And if you're ready, you are listening to and you are watching Roland Martin, Unfiltered. Morehouse College President David Thomas wants to help black men finish school. Starting this August, Morehouse will offer an online program for men looking to complete their college degrees. The tuition for the courses have been reduced in half, and the program's flexibility allows students to complete their degrees on their own schedule.

Thomas says he was inspired to start the new initiative after hearing from alumni of the university. Smart move here, Michael, because one of the issues that Morehouse also faces, and like a lot of the schools, that retention rates, and that is individuals who have gone through the university once they come, once they hit their junior and senior year, they can't afford to stay. And so this is actually a very smart move on their behalf to take advantage of where everyone is going to school online, frankly. Yeah, you know, I totally agree. And I remember junior, senior year at Wayne State University

in Detroit. And, you know, you start to lose friends. They have to drop out for various reasons. And if you look at the article here from NPR.org, it talks about how more than two million African-American men who pursued a higher education never finished their degree, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And there are various reasons behind this. So what they're doing, I think, is extremely important. And I also want to know, once they complete the degree, what services do they offer to also connect them to employment? I'm sure they have them, but I would like to hear about that as well. But this is something I think that's really, really important. I think you're going to see other HBCUs start to implement something like this as well. Bottom line of this here, Candace, look, folks, the issue when it comes to college degree, look, people are requiring it. It's as simple as that. They're requiring that degree.

And so having an opportunity to complete it is important. And again, of course, cutting in half also because the cost of a private school is a hell of a lot more than it used to be. Yeah. And they'll make almost twice as much money over a lifetime when they look at the numbers in terms of having a college degree and not having a college degree. I see this up close and personal with many students who, whether it's financial aid or somebody that got sick, it's a whole domino effect. And then they just don't find themselves in school anymore. I mean, have you ever filled out financial aid forms?

You do better in a corn maze in the pitch black of trying to get through it. They have classes on it. So there are so many things that are barriers. This is an amazing idea. But like Michael said, too, what's going to be the outcome after they are done and they have this degree? A lot of them are older. What does that mean and how that translates into the real world? Because if there's somebody that's 55 or 60, that's definitely someone that's different, you know, that's different than someone who's going to be 22 or 23 trying to get a job.

So there'll be a lot of things that they have to navigate through that certainly they have planned for in order to help people through. But this is a huge deal, a great idea. And let's just be honest, it's going to be a wonderful financial win for them and also for the students who finally complete their degrees. Oh, absolutely. Michael. I'm sorry, Rob. My bad, Rob. You're fine. You're fine. You're fine. Yeah, yeah. I've heard enough of, Rob. My bad, Rob. You're fine. You're fine. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard enough of the Sigma. Go ahead, Captain. It's no, this is a great idea. And I take one little contrary view in terms of, yes, it's a great idea. And I'm very, very glad they're doing this. And I think right now HBCUs are enjoying a prominence that they always should have had. But but but, you know, particularly with Georgia, the senator, your alpha brother who who won.

And then we have Vice President Kamala Harris. Both went to HBCUs. I would say this is an opportunity to do this and extend it. And we can also hopefully do other things that they can they can use their online courses to teach people relevant skills right now, because even if it's not about completing a college degree, because college degrees also are not as valuable as just having a degree doesn't matter as much unless you get relevant, translatable skills right now. Because it used to be if you got a college degree, no matter what, you were fine. That's not true anymore. Now it's you have a college degree. Can you use some – do you understand how to do some coding?

Do you understand how to navigate online? So making sure that we're applying skills that are relevant to a job in 2021, specifically a job in a post-COVID-19 economy. I think there's a whole lot of opportunities for Morehouse and other HBCUs to really have a large impact. Absolutely. But I will say this here. All the jobs out here ain't got nothing to do with coding. In fact, 60% of the Silicon Valley jobs have nothing to do with engineering. To be perfectly honest, that's a fallacy that people keep putting out.

Look, I get the importance of STEM. Here's the problem with that. There are millions of jobs that ain't got jack to do with STEM. Yeah, but you usually got to learn or have some understanding, basic understanding of how to navigate and learn technology. You don't have to be a technical expert, but you usually, in order to do work in some of those organizations, you still, if you're going to go work for Google, you at least got to have some understanding. Right. But no, actually, no, actually you don't. No, actually you don't. When Reverend Jackson, when Reverend Jackson went after Silicon Valley, they pull the numbers. Sixty percent of the jobs in Silicon Valley have nothing to do with science and engineering and math.

So but all I'm simply saying is this here. I get everybody that's this focus folks have had about STEM. What I'm saying is there are millions of jobs that they had nothing to do with STEM. And so I think, I think what needs to happen is here's what, actually I think what has to happen in colleges, if we really want to be honest, what has to happen in colleges is you have to have a, you have to have a narrowing of the gap between what is theoretical and what is practical. That part of the problem is what's

happening, no matter what the degree is, what's happening is you don't have professionals who are coming into college classrooms saying, no, this is really how it works in the real world. I go back to that scene from the movie Back to School when they they're in this business class, and the guy's like, our product is widgets. And Ryan Dagenfield's like, what the hell is a widget? And then the guy's sitting there talking about labor costs, and he's like, well, what about this and this and this and this and this? And the professor gets mad at him. It sort of reminds me, when I was in college, I jammed up many a professor who didn't know what the hell they were talking about was happening actually in television newsrooms. And I'm going, and I remember asking one professor, I'm sorry, did you work at TV?

She said, no. I said, so why in the hell are you teaching TV class? Yeah, but this is what I'm saying, Roland. Like, in order to be successful nowadays, in some ways, because there's only so many jobs, too, that you're going to get from corporations, a lot of jobs are going to come from jobs you create on your own as an entrepreneur. And I tell entrepreneurs, there are two things you got to know. At some point, you're a tech company. At some point, you're a media company. If you're a solo entrepreneur, if you're an entrepreneur that's trying to scale. And you don't have to be the technical expert, but you better know how to go out and find it and, like I said,

have those practical skills. And you got to know how to advertise yourself so you are a media company. I think you're a tech yourself so you are a media company. I think you're a tech company and you're a media company if you're an entrepreneur trying to grow. And so learning those practical skills, like you said, are very important. And I do think Morehouse and other people can really fill a gap that I don't think is really being met in a lot of ways, specifically for the black community. Well, the bottom line, too, is networking, too, because if you know the right person and you may have the minimal skills, once you get in there, you can learn a job on the job. I've seen many, many people do it who had the right, the access and the privilege and knew the right people in order to at least have the door open for them. So networking is just a huge,

important part of it too. I go back, I go back, Michael, to skill. It's a skill set. At the end of the day, it's skills. And unfortunately, in many ways, colleges teach theoretical. They don't teach skills. Yeah. You know, I used to help organize career fairs here in the Detroit area for a local community college. Community College. And one of the things we did was we brought in human resource professionals to help the people come to the career fairs. We did the career fairs over the course of two weekends, two Saturdays. And one of the things that we found in doing my research, and I also recruited 30 of the 35 companies at the career fair as well. But one of the things is that oftentimes people will have the credentials or the skills to do the job, but don't know how to market themselves to get the job.

Don't know how to market themselves as problem solvers. And this is why initially I said I want to know how they connect the, once people get their degrees, how do they connect them to employers and, you know, how do they actually get jobs that are related to the fields they have the degrees in? So, yeah, oftentimes colleges deal with theory, okay, and that happens in the business school. Luckily, at Wayne State's business school, we had a lot of professors who actually worked in the real business world. But half that BSU learned in business school don't work like that in the real world. And oftentimes in the business school is taught from the perspective of white businesses. So only 25% of that stuff works for black people okay so you have to understand the difference

between theory and real life practical application all i'm saying is skill set that's what uh that that's what has to happen and too and too often uh i see it in this business uh where i have people who come out of college and they go i have a college degree and i'm going but what can you do right can you edit can you write can you report can you do? Right. Can you edit? Can you write? Can you report? Can you do any of these things that are practical? Right. So it's skillset. All I'm saying is that again, the sheet of paper is not going to guarantee you a job. It's also what have you done? What have you accomplished? It used to. It doesn't anymore. Well, first of all, I don't know when it used to. When I came

out of college, all I know is, look, I actually had an assistant managing editor, Drew Marks. We were on a panel. He was the assistant managing editor for the Austin American-Statesman, and this is what he said. He said, if you give me a 4.0 student who has no experience and you give me a 2.5

student who has experience, the 4.0 has no experience and you give me a 2.5 student who has experience, the 4.0 has no shot at getting hired. That's why, and look, hey, I'm cool. Look, I got nieces and nephews in college. I got several of my nieces and nephews, they had 3.0s and 3.5s at

Baylor and Seton Hall and all that. Hey, that's all great and cute. Let me tell you something right now. I made a practical decision. Am I going to spend all this time trying to get an A in somebody's class or I'm going to be sitting here working on my skills in media when I was in college? In fact, this was a literal conversation with a professor of mine.

It was an English class, and it was summer science. And after the test, he asked me to stay after it. He was like, you know, you didn't perform well on my test. You come to my class late. He was going on and on. I said, man, I'll be honest with you. I don't give a damn about this class. I did.

I said, I don't give a damn about it. You're a student. I don't want to. No, no, no, no. Yes, you do. But let me explain to you. This is what I said. I said, man, I don't give a damn about this class. I don't want to. No, no, no, no. Yes, you do. But let me explain to you. This is what I said. I said, man, I don't give a damn about this class.

I said, you know why? I said, I'm working at a local newspaper. I have job offers. I haven't even graduated. I said, now, I can read your stuff anytime between now and the end of eternity. I said, but if I'm trying, I said, I'm here for a sheet of paper. I said, a sheet of paper. I'm not here for a class. I'm here for a sheet of paper to graduate, to get a job.

Now, if I have a choice between spending the bulk of my time at the newspaper, learning how to write and report and edit or read your 100 pages, your 100 pages will never win out. I said, so the reason I'm late to your class, because I work at the paper late. I said, so here's what to happen. I don't care about an A. I don't care about a B. I don't care about a C. All I got to do is pass your class. Ain't nobody going to ask me for a transcript when I get out of here. And guess what?

I graduated December 1991 from Texas A&M University. Ain't nobody, ain't nobody in 30 years asked me for a transcript, asked me how that English class went. Do you know what they asked me? Can you write?

Can you report? Can you edit? Can you break news? So looking at my bank account today, I can go back and read all them damn stories on my spare time. I made a smart decision. There are some students who say, look, C is for commencement, D is for diploma. Now, that's not something that I co-sign, but I understand your point exactly, that if you have the experience, you are

going to go far. And that's going to happen in internships. That's going to happen by students going out and getting real world experience. What I find with students is that they have a problem that once they get the job offers, that they can't leave for some of the same reasons that prevented them from getting the degree in the first place or making it longer. They have parents that they need to help. Some students that I teach right here in Jersey have never been to New York City. So you have to expand their horizons

and show them that there's more opportunities out there. But I certainly understand your point because if I'm hiring an editor, I want to know, can you edit? Just let me see your reel and I'm hired. That's it. I'm not interested in the transcript. And again, and again, that's not every field,

which is why you got to bring professionals into these schools to say, this is what you need to have to prepare for a career. The problem I think with college today, it's a whole lot of conversation. And first of all, y'all, y'all should have ran the, the education matters thing or y'all or y'all asleep at the wheel in the control room. It's a whole lot of people who are caught up, again, in the old school model of how things work. I keep arguing, bring professionals in who can bring real-world knowledge, pair that with theoretical to prepare a student.

And again, if your career requires transcripts, if your career requires you to have a 3.0 or 3.5, and you're trying to go to engineering school, or you're trying to go to law, you're trying to go to medical school, that's all fine. I knew in journalism. Why? Because I went to communications high school, and we actually had professionals who came to our high school, and I was preparing myself as a high school freshman for the career I'm doing now. So I'm saying, y'all, stop worrying about majors. Stop worrying about your major and focus on your career. Well, I'll say a couple things on that. I would say it's also important to get some experience.

Even if you don't have the opportunity to co-op and actually start an organization. Like I started the first college chapter of the NAACP at my university, and then I became student body president. That I learned more in terms of more knowledge that I applied from that experience, from running that organization, from learning the politics of being student body president than I did in class. And it is important. Your major is less important than getting skills and getting practical skills, no matter what they are. And like you said, also be intentional about networking. Every single relationship matters. I mean, and there's an opportunity that, you know, you didn't have in 1991 that I didn't even have in 1997. Actually, I graduated 2002,

but I started in 1997. But like, even, you have the ability to meet so many people, and people are more accessible than they ever have been, but you still have to be intentional about how you reach out. I mean, we didn't even know each other except for a few years ago, but it just comes if you're intentional about networking, then you can grow and really have a lot of opportunities. But people have to understand that basics still apply. So let me make this final point on this topic here.

And this is specifically for this idiot, Brian Martinez on YouTube. This is what he wrote. Do not listen to his bad advice, work hard, get A's, and have some self-respect. Brian, the reason you're an idiot is because which part of what I said did not include work hard? See, the problem is your focus was on

working hard in the classroom when I was actually working hard outside of the classroom. So let me give you this one story that might help you to understand, Brian, what happens, the difference between somebody like me who is thinking ahead and there's somebody like you who's caught up in some silly ass grade that only makes your mama and daddy and happy and you can walk around and say, hey, I made a. So let me have I'm in the journalism class. It's a 50 minute class and we had a test one day. And so what they would do is they would give you a sheet of paper with a set of facts and you had to write a story based upon the set of facts on a sheet of paper. I came to the class 15 minutes late. I left 15 minutes early. So when the paper came back, I got an 84. My professor said to me, Brian, well, Roland, if you had applied yourself, you could have made an A. And I said, to be perfectly

honest, I didn't care about your A. That was not my focus. She goes, what? What do you mean? I said, let me explain something to you, doc. So when I graduate, I'm going to be working at a place where I'm going to have to write a story on deadline. And I'm going to have 20 minutes to write that story. So if I do not practice now taking a set of facts and writing it in 20 minutes, then I'm not going to be able to do it when I graduate. And then if I can't do it, I won't be able to keep that job. So here's what you're going to do. You're going to explain to me how I made an 84 on this paper. And the next time we have a test, I'm going to come in here 15 minutes late.

I'm going to leave 15 minutes early to write the story in 20 minutes. I said, and then I'm going to get to A. Now, see, Brian, while you sitting here being a smart ass on YouTube, let me help you out, Brian. I graduated December 1991 from the Austin American Statesman. I was promoted three times in the first 18 months in my career. I was the breaking news reporter in every single place. When the Branch Davidian standoff went up in flames in Waco, I was one of the folks who they sent there. When Alfred P. Murrow Federal Building blew up in Oklahoma City, I was on the ground in three hours later and was on the lead reporting team on page one for the first five days in my first four years in the business.

Do you know why, Brian? Because I was smart in how I worked hard in college outside of the classroom and not inside of the classroom. And that's why, Brian, I was a news director, morning anchor at a radio station when I was 26 years old, managing editor of a newspaper when I was 28 years old and met all of my career goals by the time I was 30. Brian, that's called mic drop. Learn what somebody is teaching you. All right. Panel, I'm good. Michael, Rob, Candace, I appreciate it. Thanks for joining us today.

We're going to take a break. When we come back, I sat down with St. Louis prosecutor Wesley Bell, the first brother elected a county DA. He upset Bob McCullough, the man who would not prosecute the cops who killed Michael Brown. Y'all don't want to miss our conversation as he talks about how he envisions defund the police, as well as how he uses his power as DA to keep folks out of jail and have alternate prosecution. It's a conversation you don't want to miss. That's next on Roland Martin Unfiltered. And yes, I'm rocking my outfit, of course, for the folks coming to America. I'll be watching tonight. And so God look all clean.

And so we'll have the conversation next on Roland Martin Unfiltered. If people begin to believe that their democracy is fraudulent, if they conclude that voting is a charade, the system is rigged, then God knows what could happen. They rigged an election. They rigged it like they've never rigged an election before. Actually, we do know what could happen. It's happening right now. The US Capitol overrun under siege.

Pro-Trump extremists storming inside, flooding the halls, breaching the floor of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Millions of Americans sincerely believe the last election was fake. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it. We will not go quietly into the night. When thousands of your countrymen

storm the Capitol building, if you don't bother to pause and learn a single thing from it, then you're a fool. I know you're pained. I know you're hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. We got to this sad, chaotic day for a reason. It is not your fault.

It is their fault. I'm Chrisette Michelle. Hi, I'm Chaley Rose, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Folks, if you want to support Roland Martin Unfiltered, please do so by joining our Bring the Funk fan club. Every dollar you give goes to support what we do to provide you the kind of show that you're not going to get anywhere else. Support us via Cash App. Dial the sign RMUnfiltered.

PayPal.me forward slash rmartinunfiltered. Venmo.com forward slash rmunfiltered. Zelle, send us an email. Roland at rolandsmartin.com. Folks, we recently took the show to St. Louis. Well, we were there to support the Charler Jones who was running for mayor while there. I sat down with St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell. He, of course, defeated Bob McCullough. Of course, he was the man who would not prosecute the cops who killed Mike Brown. Wesley Bell upset him in that election.

And so I think you're going to really love this conversation. Here we go. Hi, my name is Wesley Bell, and I'm running for St. Louis County Prosecutor for a Safer St. Louis. So Wesley, I can't imagine you sitting around with the bros in college saying, you know what? I think I'm going to be a prosecutor. So what was it? What caused you to say, I'm doing this, I need to do this? For me, it was a culmination of events because in law school, I wanted to do defense work. Everyone I knew, if they had issues with the law, they were on the business end of the law.

And so my whole mindset was public defender defense work. And that's what I did. And when I came out of law school, I worked for the public defender's office for two years. I went out in private practice and I did defense work. And, you know, the whole idea was, and I'm kind of a child of the OJ Simpson trial. I was about 19, 20. So that was my, I saw that if you had money, you could have access to a good representation. And I wanted to make sure people who didn't, at least my clients, would have access to quality representation. And so as I started doing it, I started realizing that, yeah, I can help an individual client. But if you want to make broad change and help a lot of people, you got to do it on the other side.

And don't get me wrong, you need good people on all sides. But when you're a defense attorney, you're at the behest of a reasonable prosecutor and hope you get one. And if you don't, then the outcome probably won't be as good. So why not flip the script and get on the other side where we can implement the policies

that help so many more people. So it was a process that got me there, but I didn't start there. So that conversation that you're talking about with the bros, that didn't happen in college because I had no intention of being a prosecutor. But when you did get to the point where you say, hey, I'm going to think about doing this, what was the reaction of friends and family and colleagues? Did they say, man,

you know they don't make no money? You know, I think that by the time that I got to that point, you know, the criminal justice movement had started to kick in and people started recognizing the need for what we call now progressive prosecution and reimagining the criminal justice system. So by the time that I made that conscious decision, I was a Ferguson City Councilman. And so I didn't have as tough an argument to convince people that we needed to get people, you know, good people and particularly people of color on that side. But yeah, but you go back 15 years ago, oh yeah. It didn't even cross my mind to work as a prosecutor and be the DA.

See, I think, to your point about how Eric Garner, first of all, before that, Trayvon Martin even before that, but Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner and first of all, before that, Trayvon Martin, even before that, but Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner and John Crawford III and Michael Brown, and then you come Amon Arbery and Reonna Taylor. We can just go on and on and on. Far too many names we have to mention. I think what has happened is

so many people now have a much better understanding of this system and now realize that change is not driven by who's in Congress, not driven by necessarily who's the governor, who's the mayor, but realize that when you talk about criminal justice reform, for the longest also, we need new judges, but not realizing that the district attorneys sat in the most critical position. Do we go this direction? This direction? Do we go hard? Do we go deferred adjudication? Do we go drug prevention or do we go prison? And I have seen an increasing number of people who are saying we need to be DAs.

That is not a conversation folks, as you say, were having 15, 20 years ago. And let me add to that because I was in that scene. That was part of my process. I wanted to be a judge. And so I became a judge

of a small city because I'm thinking this is the way that I can really impact the system. And then I'm sitting on the bench and I'm realizing 80 to 90 to 95 percent of the cases, by the time they get to me, they're already worked out. By who? The prosecutor. And so I'm starting to realize, OK, yeah, I can be that benevolent judge. I can work with people. But the real change is coming from that prosecutor's office. And that's what really made the light switch click on for me is when I'm constantly seeing these people come where I think that I think they actually deserve a fair outcome,

but they already worked this out with the prosecutor, and I don't really have much I can do. Because part of the deal there is when those plea bargains are offered, there are people who, man, just take the deal. Just take the deal. And on full will, that it really is a bad

deal, but pay it over with. Right. And I don't have to worry about it. And I can be done with this. And I don't have to worry about it and I can be done with this and I don't have to worry about getting child care the next at the next court date. If I have to come back, I can just be done with it. And now you got this conviction on your record. And a lot of people don't recognize that. And sometimes you just don't have the resources to keep doing this and the uncertainty. So, OK, well, we'll just do it and be done with it. But on the prosecutor's side, we can get them on the front end. And that's some of the stuff that we've done.

You said, you talked about bailing the city council in Ferguson. Explain to folk the uniqueness of that situation. Because it was befuddling to so many people that you could have a city that was 67 percent black and have the lack of representation when people begin to hear about the number of households that had tickets that had fines and folks were going because what often happens is we say oh you know what happens when we have a you know majority black city oh and all of a sudden we can run the city council we can run the school we can run all those different things and and ferguson showed folks no it's not the case and a lot of people really did not understand the dynamics. What was happening there and what is still happening there?

You know, and I think what was going on, and just to give a little background, so I was elected in 2015, so nine months after Ferguson became Ferguson. But I was teaching at the college, so I lived in Ferguson because to me it's all about living close to work and that's why I moved back I'm from the North County area that Ferguson is in but I'm not from the city of Ferguson and so I moved there

because it was close to work and so when everything happened and Michael was killed you know now Ferguson is this center point. As a matter of fact, I lived across the street from the police station, so when you were on CNN and y'all filming from the area where a lot of the protests are going,

I could see that from my front door. And so being an attorney, being a judge in a different city, but being a judge, being a judge in a different city, but being a judge, being a criminal justice prosecutor, you know, I just felt my area of expertise aligned with what was needed. And one of the big things was community policing and change to community policing, I should say. And so, because what we see and what we saw in Ferguson and in many cities across Missouri, but across the country are even cities that are predominantly African-American.

They tend to be, unfortunately, poor communities, less affluent communities. So you have a lot of transient population, people moving in and out. And so they're not they're not registering to vote. And we kind of have a history where we're not always running to the voting booths because of that violent history of keeping us away and intimidating us. So a lot of that legacy is passed down from generations. And so you get people that move in and voting isn't the top priority. Their top priority is feeding their family, working two or three jobs, trying to get their degree. And so even in this city that's close to 70 percent African-American, the majority of people that are voting are not African-American. And so prior to the election that I was which is still strange with that large of a number, because you would still strange with that large of a number because you would

still think with that large of a number. Half of the people show up. Right. But you just didn't see it. Matter of fact, there have been, before my election, there have been two African Americans to ever serve. One had been years ago and then there was one,

my friend Dwayne, who was serving at the time and then myself in 2015 myself and ella were elected who's now the mayor so that was the first time you had two black council members at the same time the first time you had three that election wow was brought to council to half african-american and so that's why i say like we may criticize and say hey voting doesn't cure everything but i'm telling telling you, when you do decide, when people do decide to come out, that was instant, instantaneous change. You had half the council that was African-American after after that election. But but look what it took to get there. And so, yeah, we're seeing some changes.

We're seeing some progress. But, man, we've got a long way to go. Serving in that capacity with city council, one of the things that happened during that period, there were people who were saying, man, y'all keep talking about voting. Man, that's not going to change it. And I had to walk people through it and I always call this connecting the dots. I think a lot of times, one, I think people, most people have no idea, truly,

how civics works. Just no idea. And I said, folks, do y'all understand that the city, I said, Ferguson has, Ferguson was a mayor-councilman government, not city manager, correct? No, Ferguson was a city manager.

So, that's right, so city manager. So I explained to people, I said, folks, who do y'all think hired a city manager? Right. I said, the council does. Yep. I said, so if you don't vote, then you're not determining

who's gonna hire the city manager. The city manager has to work at the behest of the council pleasure i said now in another form of government where you have the strong mayor city council from the government the council hires the police chief i said so this idea that voting has no direct impact on police reform i said is wrong because that's who is deciding who is going to run the department, which means you're picking the kind of candidate you want to lead your city. I said all roads go back to who is in power. And let me add this, too.

Ferguson has had now three African-American police chiefs. The first one was hired after you had a city council that was half African-American police chiefs. The first one was hired after you had a city council that was half African-American. And it's because you had different people at the table bringing different perspectives that were looking at, not just looking at the same method that we recruit, you know, just doing the same thing over and over again. We finally have people there who are looking at things outside the box.

And so all three of those chiefs came after that 2015 election when you had a 50 percent African-American council. So, I mean, that's just just reemphasizing your point. Getting people at the table, you're going to, you have a say in the representation. But if you don't, which we hadn't had in so long in so many cities, you'll get the same thing. You'll keep getting the same thing. So you decide to say, I'm done with the city council. I'm now going to pursue this race for DA.

There was significant criticism about McCullough, his decision not to indict. There were many who believed that he acted more as if he was a defense attorney than officers involved. And again, I think that case, the DA in Cuyahoga County with Tamir Rice, and then we can go on and on and on. I think that's when more people started to also realize

how many DAs were running unopposed. How many of them were in office for 15, 20, 25, 30 years? Under the radar. Nobody even knew who they were. Those were not significant positions being talked about. But then all of a sudden because of these

cases, it gets elevated because that's who was in front of the cameras. That's who, people didn't realize wait a minute, hold up, oh, so that's who goes before the grand jury. When you were running, was that part of explaining to people who were saying,

man, look, why you not running for state rep, state senator, or mayor, or whatever? Why you trying to pursue that little job? That's not important. Was that how you also were trying to connect the dots and say, folks, I don't think you understand how vital that spot is.

And I think that my experience that I mentioned was part of that process. But then also working on the consent decree with the Department of Justice, some of the most experienced attorneys in the country. And that was President Obama's Department of Justice under Eric Holder. And so being locked in a room with them for eight, ten hours. And what happens is that, and I imagine this is in your field as well as my field, is that if you're local, you tend to see things from your local lens, if you will. And so when people say, well, why are you doing this? Well, this is what we've always done. And meeting with them and getting to know them and having those conversations and

negotiations, it opened up my eyes to, hey, you know what? Some of the things that we're doing, just because we've been doing it, I mean, it's right. Like, we can be doing, you know, it opened our eyes to different things that we should be bringing to this region. And so when we started bringing those ideas to Ferguson, community policing, some of the broadest reform, court reforms in the region, you know, then naturally your mind starts saying, OK, well, this is Missouri, maybe some of these changes need to go on the road to a big, you know, to a broader, to the broader region. And I think that's when the dots start connecting for me. What I found to be real interesting

is that Bob McCullough basically was winning every time and wasn't running against anybody. And I always get it. It always amazes me. I tell people all the time, I said, the guaranteed way to lose is not to run.

And that was a deal. You just even deciding, you know what, you need to face some opposition. That was a major deal within itself. Because people just didn't run against the DA. It was like fait accompli i got the police union endorsement i got these endorsements i raised money folks like okay you got it and it's you know i mean it's in cities across this country da's run and kind of run unopposed and i'll take

it a step further politicians who have you know our system is designed for incumbents let's just put that out there and then you talk about a 28, 30-year incumbent. Oh, yeah, people were saying exactly what you're saying. Like, why don't you do something else? You can't beat him. I mean, we literally, part of our campaign platform is you don't have to believe we'll win. Just support us, and we'll do the rest.

You know, we already knew we couldn't win that argument that, oh, yeah, we thought we could win. Matter of fact, you know, some of the crew with us, we knew we were going to win big because we had done the work. You know, we knocked on the doors. We talked to people. And so we felt we were going to win. But we know nobody else believed it. And so, yeah, that's what people would say.

Like, yeah, why don't you just run for state rep? Run for a state senator. Or do this, do anything but that. You can't beat this. One of my good friends, I mean, dear friends, and I'm not even going to put him on blast and say his name. You better than me because I would. He meant well. He was looking out for me.

But he literally laughed at me. Like, laughed at me. And I'm like, okay, it's one thing to say don't run. But then the laugh that that just man you know yeah i had to have one of them moments with god reassess my life after that because this is a kind of influence influential guy but um but yeah but you know we we felt not only that we could win but just like you said we you got to make them work and you know one thing that and i'm gonna use a quick analogy with bernie sanders love bernie sanders to death even if bernie

doesn't win i like the direction that he's pushing the party and so my thoughts are i think we can win but if we don't maybe we can start building up enough support to make them start, make this, this, this, make, make the, these powers that be start at least listening to us. And so, like I said, we just, we just put boots to the ground and, and knocking on doors and talking to people. If there was an event, I don't care if it was two or 200 hundred, we were going to show up. And we got him. Now, have you been petty with that friend like, after you won? I know I would have been petty.

I don't operate like that. Now, you know Dog on well. You know Dog. You know he got called. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. He got it. He still gets it, yeah.

See, if I'm you, so when you see him every time, what do you say? I say, you know, I got to make a reference to it. Like, if he say, like, we should, you know, we should go out, let's go grab something to eat. I'm like, well, I mean, you sure? I mean, you sure we can do that? I mean, you know, just questioning everything. Like, just, yeah. Yeah, he hears it

every time. Let me tell you how petty I would have been. I would have probably got him a shirt. I'll tell you how petty I would have been. It's not too late. Okay, this is what you should do.

This is what you should do. You should get like a shirt made like a jersey. And on the front and on the back, you should put Wesley with the number 57. Okay.

Because you got 57 to send the vote, right? What'd you get? I mean, 56.8. Five. Put 56.8 on the jersey. That's what I would do. I would give him a shirt that says, Wesley, 56.8. That's what I would do. Ha, ha, ha. That's what I would do.

I wouldn't even do all that. Just the jersey. Because the number represents what you won percentage of your vote. That's me being petty. I'm just saying that's how petty rolling would be. And then tell him, you go out and wear that at least once a month that's how petty rolling would be. And then tell him you go out and wear it at least once a month. That's what I would do. I'm just saying

I would make him take a picture in it or just holding it up. I would be petty. I'm just saying. What if you got like 30 or 40 people like that? That might blow the budget. No, it's not. No, it's not. No, it's not. No, it's not. It's still worth it. It's still worth it. I'd be handing out shirts. Now I mean everybody wear one. it's not. No, no. It's still worth it. It's still worth it. I'd be handing out shirts.

Now, I mean, everybody wear one. That's how petty I would be. That's how petty I would be. You said, look, we knew we were going to win. But describe when it happened. But not just from your vantage point, what you saw in the eyes of the young people who helped make it happen. You know, I just saw just that determination that, you know,

I'm going to go back old school, that eye of the tiger. Like, people were just determined because, you know, this was four years later. And so, you know, we tend as a society to have short memories, especially with politics. Right. And so you wonder, is that same fire going to be burning four years later? And so we knew that was going to be a challenge. But, you know, you know, sometimes what you where you're supposed to be lines up with where you are and the timing. And we just felt like we had to do this. Like, it was never a question in my mind. And, yeah, you doubt yourself as you're going through it. Like, oh, man, we really can do this?

But, you know, but especially, like, the young people, too. And that's one of the advantages, the ace in the hole that we knew we had is that this demographic that often doesn't come out. When we reaching out to them, we're seeing that they're motivated and we're seeing that they're coming. And so they don't really show up when you do the polls ahead of time because they just look at likely voters. So we looked at that first poll. We were he was at forty five percent and we were at twenty eight percent. This is the first poll. Wow. And you would think like that would be cause for us to say, all right, pack it up. We're done. But we're like, hold up. This is a 28 year incumbent and it's not even polling at 50 percent. Right. So that means we got what, 10, 15 percent already undecided and we just going to claim that.

But then also, you know, we got this group of people, young people, but also voters and not only in North County, which is predominantly African-American, but even central and which is a lot of white progressives who were just motivated. And we even went out to the more affluent areas, West County and South County, which tend to definitely not support progressive, um, um, progressive agendas, but you know, we weren't conceding anything. So we just started working and, and he out raises because, you know, people not going to give money to the incumbent, but what we had was the people. We had people knocking on doors. So in money, he probably out-raised us seven to one. But with people power and volunteers and, listen, that more than made up the gap. So, yeah, it was inspiring, to say the least, when people would come to the office.

And let me use this one quick example before you get to your next question. There's an area, Barrington Downs, that we hadn't got to, and it was probably a couple months out from the election. We know this is a really nice neighborhood, predominantly African-American, but, you know, we're just limited in our resources. And we're like, man, we still haven't got out there,

but we got all these other places. It's a big county. And I swear to God, like a day or two later, this woman and this man came in. She said, to our campaign officer, she said, we live in Barrington Downs. You give us the materials, and we're going to hit that area for you. And we just like, look at God.

Wow. You know, and that happened in so many places. So when we driving out to areas that we hadn't hit, our team hadn't hit, and our signs are already up, like, we're going to win this. And so. See, that's interesting when you said our signs were up. I remember in 2016, I was ripping Robbie Mook, John Podesta, and Hillary Clinton's top people on it because they were so locked and loaded into this whole data algorithm.

And I said, man, y'all better listen to this. I mean, I was on air employing. I told Hillary Clinton directly 60 days out. I said, y'all been listening to the ground. And the thing, and people, it's amazing to me, the number of people who say, oh, no, no, this is the 21st century. It's all about technology, all about digital ads. I said, let me tell y'all something. I said, there's, I said, there's nothing like seeing a sea of signs because if you're one of undecided people and you're seeing this and you're seeing wave after wave that's what happened in 16. then you got to these rural parts of

pennsylvania other places it was trump trump trump trump trump trump trump trump and so inevitability sort of uh comes in when people man, what's going on? And that just very basic thing, people might just think it's a sign. Like, no, no, no. What it requires for somebody to go and get a sign, hammer it into their

front yard for everybody to know where they stand, that is a public declaration of their vote. It speaks volumes to other people who may be driving by. And I'm going to add, too, because that adage is yard signs don't win elections. But here's the thing that I've learned, and I think this reemphasizes your point, is that in historically low turnout areas, yard signs do win elections.

Because when you go into a community where, you know, and it tends to be poor communities, our communities where we come from, and we don't vote as much. And oftentimes we don't even know when elections come. And I remember growing up, all I knew was to vote on the election day, on presidential election day. Right. But when you see those signs everywhere, now you start, like, what's going on? And it's

momentum. You see it, like, okay, I want to find out more about this. And so we knew in those areas that generally don't come out, we knew we'd win them, but we knew we had to get, we had to start a movement, not just win them slightly, because that's what we saw with Hillary. She won in to start a movement not just win them slightly because

that's what we saw with hillary she won in the area she was supposed to win but has she hit those areas harder her campaigning love her to death god bless her right but has she hit those areas harder she would have won larger and that could have been the difference yeah and we learned from that we were like we're gonna focus on our base first we We're going to lock down the base and we'll start moving out because we want that. We want our people to see that we out here working. Over index with your base and then everybody else is gravy. There you go. That's what it is.

You win. You now all of a sudden walk into the office and it's like the boogeyman showed up. You got confronted real quick with the history of that office and the mentality were you expecting that and and when it confronted you that quickly what What's going through your mind?

So I'm a trial attorney. So trial attorneys, you, you, it's all, trials are all about preparation. So I was not expecting it to that, to that extent, but I was prepared for it. And so when I walked in and now you're hearing about unions and a union with the FOP, which I mean, prosecutors never before in a union. But now all of a sudden the black dudes show up and we want to. And oh, not only are we going to join a union, we are joined the police union.

And that's my point is that, hey, listen, I support unions. We have five day weeks and off weekends and eight hour days because of you. I get that. But like you said, now you want to do it. But then the nefarious part is you want to do it with the police union and the St. Louis City Police Union, which I can't speak for every other region in the country, but it has to be historically one of the most racist police unions. And that's who you

want to align yourself with. Because that was sending a signal. They were speaking volumes to you and everybody else. Oh, yeah. And my thoughts are, you want to get in and see how this is working out first you know we can't we can't at least try to see how it's gonna go you just before i even walk in the door we're

just gonna already do this okay all right so you know it is you filing for divorce and we ain't even went out on a date yet but here's the thing though like kind of like what we talked about earlier you know i realized that i was in a in a unique opportunity. I had a unique opportunity and I was occupying a unique space. And so that preparation was that I'm not on a council, so I don't have to get a majority. I'm the D.A. now. If I want to implement policies, I don't need to get approved. As long as it's legal, I don't need to get approval. So this is happening. These changes, these policy changes, they're going to happen. And so that's kind of where we,

that's what we did. We talked to them. We made sure that, and there were some people on board, but at the same time, I want to sit down and let people know, listen, you're on the roster now. You can stay on the roster. You can play yourself off the roster. But this is going to happen. See, that's why. Here's what I think is just so interesting. And I always get a kick out of it when I see these stories. The media was writing about your office and, oh, turnover. Same thing with Kim Gardner.

Same thing with Gascon in L.A. Same thing with Krasner in Philadelphia. Same thing with Marilyn Mosby in Baltimore, Kim Fox in Chicago. But to just use an analogy, you say y'all still on the roster. The reason I laugh is because the very same people say nothing when a new team president, general manager, and head coach comes in. They say nothing when a new CEO comes in. No, they say let's give them a chance. Right. I mean, so in every, in every other area, new person comes in on agenda, on team, on ideas, on game plan. All right. You're now in charge,

but in politics, how, how dare you move people out? When you ran on change, I'm running against somebody who was sitting there three decades. So y'all thought I'm coming in, new wine, and I'm sticking with old wine skins. Right. No, I don't think so. Right. No, I could not agree more. It's one of those situations where the only way that I know how to make change is change. And so, you know, and I had the benefit of practicing in this jurisdiction for at that time about 18 years. So I knew something. Right. I know a little something about something.

This is not like getting hired as a CEO for a company that you you never worked for and you coming in you don't know nobody i've been working against this office for 18 years at that point i know a lot of the people and if i don't know you i know somebody that knows you and your reputation you know in the legal community in your field your reputation speaks volumes and so we knew who we knew who what weren't wasn't gonna work and we're gonna go in a different direction we knew there were some people that we could give a chance to and then we knew who wasn't going to work and we're going to go in a different direction. We knew there were some people that we could give a chance to. And then we knew there were some people that were on board. And, you know, talking to people like Marilyn Mosby in Baltimore and Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, they gave me some good advice that it takes about a good year to start really seeing that culture change.

And you've got to do the education piece. You got to not just tell them what you're doing, but why you're doing it. And so we made a point to, we wanted to give them a fair chance to understand what we were doing and why we were doing it. And, you know, we've seen that change. We've seen it. We still got more to do, but we're trending in the right direction in that office. And in the meantime, like I said before, it's going to happen. So you can go down this pathway fussing and kicking and screaming, or you can give it a try and see how it works. You always got the opportunity to go somewhere else.

I get a kick out of it when that happens, because people really don't understand what change actually means uh i remember i remember when i i took over chicago defender and and same thing i don't my deal is like folks were upset and i remember we had this meeting and they introduced me and the person was the editor just really just started just like pressing hard. And I'm looking at like, boo, you're not reading a room. And so, and, and, and kept, and I'm being very diplomatic, you know, in answering questions. And so, and she kept pressing, you know, well, well,

what does this title really mean? I mean, it just kept going. Finally I said, what it means is I'm running this. I got tired of the diplomatic answer. And the funny part was she decides to go on vacation the next week and I'm going, that wasn't wise because there was no job when she got back. And I'm sitting here and people are like, man, what are you doing? I said, y'all have lost money for 20 straight years.

There's a reason I'm here. That's what change means. And that, I'm telling you, when I was reading the story and all this drama back and forth, and I'm sitting going, did they think he was going to win and not barely win? And then come in and say, everything's staying the same. We're going to keep running the same game plan. We're going to keep doing everything. Right.

The thing we talked about in the campaign. Just forget that. We just got to keep doing it. Yeah. All that stuff I ran on on y'all good just keep prosecuting the same cases that's what gascon's doing in la all these people are mad how is he not pursuing these felony cases he's saying because we're not gonna keep doing that okay absolutely and you and you know what and and and i think that there is a culture in many DA's offices of that sense of entitlement to those that type of prosecution.

What we've been doing. Why would we change it? Let's just keep doing it. I mean, you're here, you're the new leader, but we know that doesn't mean anything. And I think that is that sense of entitlement. So, yeah, we came in, we campaigned on these things. We set up a transition team, a former chief justice for the Missouri Supreme Court chair that transition. We got not only activists on our transition team, we even got members of law enforcement. We wanted everybody at the table because if we're going to vet new policies, we want to hear arguments on all sides. But once we come up with those policies, we're moving forward. And yeah, people,

they anticipate, they don't really believe you that you're going to do the things that you say you're going to do. And so I'm big on if I say, I don't overpromise. And so if I promise it, I'm going to do it. And if I can't do it, then I'm going to tell you why. And so when I, if I promise it, I'm going to do it. And if I can't do it, and I'm gonna tell you why.

And so when we expanded our diversion programs to, to start expanding the number of people that were not, instead of seeing a jail cell, they would be able to get treatment, get help. We weren't playing about that. So that office went from about 200 people lowest in the state of, of, of diversion treatment programs, to now we've treated over a couple thousand people.

And all those individuals, whatever that number is, 1,000, 2,000, those are people who didn't see it inside of a jail cell now. They didn't get anything on their record, which is going to hinder them from employment and housing and potentially education. But it also lowers the expenses of a county having to keep people in. And so you can all use those resources for something else. All those things, absolutely. It's on average, depending on the jurisdiction,

$30,000 a year to house an individual in a jail cell, a human being. Well, when you give them outpatient treatment or a treatment program, you're saving $10,000 to $15,000 or more per individual. And they also are not seeing inside of the jail cell, which we know

correlates with higher reoffending and recidivism rates. So yeah, it's a win-win across the board. Absolutely. Kim Gardner said that when she won, before she took over, the union basically told her, you ain't doing this, this, this.

I said, man, you got threatened. Did you have a similar encounter? Did you have to? Because when you talked about the St. Louis Police Union, and I've seen the stories. I've seen the attacks. I've seen all those different things.

How dare you? How dare you try to prosecute one of us for actions that are clear? I just finished seeing the $5 million settlement of the black officer who was beaten undercover

as well. It is very interesting the attacks on progressive DAs from police unions who have the posture that they run your office.

Not that they are their own entity, you're your own entity, but essentially we tell you what to do. Again, it's that same sense of entitlement. I got, when we started, on day one, we implemented new policies. Because one thing that I told people is that, yeah, we got

rid of some people as soon as we walked in the door. People that I knew weren't on board, that's going a different direction. Well, as we say, you moved into their own divine good. Indeed. I like that way of phrasing it. And the reason is because when I met with my staff, the entire office on the first day,

I didn't want to look at anybody and lie and say you're on the team. So let's people who aren't going to be here. Let's move on so I can let you know you're on the team. Right now, your your roster spot is not guaranteed. Right. But you got an opportunity to play to play your way and stay on this roster. And so, but yeah, when we implemented those policies,

got a letter saying that we can't do this and we can't do that. And yeah, we had a good laugh over that because again, you know, I didn't,

I may have, this may have been my first time being a DA. Yeah, but you just had a transition team that had all of these legal minds. We knew what we could do and what we couldn't do.

But they're telling you what you can't do. Exactly. Exactly. So we just ignored that, and we kept moving forward. And, you know, and again, these are policies that are helping people. You know, when we know that we've seen a large enough case study of the quote unquote tough on crime policies. Right. I don't even know if it is a real policy. It's more just rhetoric and language. But we've seen when we just lock people up, we've seen that it doesn't make us safer. It costs us more money. It destroys families and communities.

We've seen that that doesn't work. So now when the data shows us and common sense shows us that if you give people help and you give people support, they are less likely to see the inside of a jail, more likely to be taxpayers and have a job and help their families. Don't that just kind of make sense to you? So, you know, we made an announcement on the first day. If drug possession of less than 100 grams of marijuana, we're not prosecuting. Small amounts of drugs, we're going to divert them to our diversion program

so that they can get help. We're doing this. And so now, if you want to get some laws or some judges, Supreme Court judges, because that's what it's going to take to tell us that we're wrong. OK, then we'll listen to that. But until then, this is what we're doing, because not only can we do it, but it's the right thing. See, that is the thing that when I when I look at the attacks on progressive DAs. Really what you're saying is,

if you want to call someone a progressive DA, what you're actually doing, you're actually owning yourself to what the other DAs are. When I saw the attacks on progressive DAs by Attorney General Bill Barr, by Donald Trump, by other, crime is going up. It's all their fault, as if that they're not underlying issues that lead to that. And that's the thing for me that

drives me crazy when we're having these conversations, that when people want to talk about crime they want to talk about law and order criminal justice and and those things if you are ignoring the literacy rates of folk i mean you go you go to any prison in the country 90 of the people who are there are illiterate literate people are not filling up prisons. Okay? They're just not. You start dealing with hell. You start dealing with jobs or lack thereof, which is tied directly to

education as well. You start dealing with those things. So we can't examine the issue of crime and punishment as if we're knowing all the other things, because as John Hope Brown, founder of Operation Hope, he has this great slogan, he says,

you've never seen a riot in a neighborhood with a credit score of 700 or higher. It's the money. In America, it comes down to the economics. There's a direct link between that and crime and criminal justice. Well, we finally saw one at the Capitol, but that's neither here nor

there. But to your point, absolutely. There's a definite correlation between those certain factors. Education, job opportunities, health care. All of these things correlate to lower crime rates. And here's the thing was funny to me when people make those attacks, they tend to ignore what's been going on the last generation or generations, I should say, because as as we've seen these incarceration rates go up, we're not safer.

I mean, it's not that hasn't been working. It hasn't helped us. It's been, we've just been basically cycling people up from non-violent stuff, not giving them the help, and then they cycle up and graduate to the violent crime instead of giving them the help.

If you put somebody with a drug problem in jail for drug possession, guess what? When they come out, that drug problem didn't leave. It's still there, and you're putting them in an environment where they're surrounded with people with the same problems, and then you send them out on the streets and say, do good.

I mean, we assume that these soft skills that you just come out of the womb with them. No, they're taught. You learn them. And a lot of people are coming from places where they don't have that support system growing up. And so we got to give them those opportunities, especially when they're still in that low level stage so that they don't move up to the

violent stuff. And that's what we've seen. And I said that we've had about a thousand or so people come through our diversion program. And let's compare and contrast. Nationwide, our recidivism rates are in the 75% range. So 75% of people who come to the system are coming back. Of those thousands or so that we've given treatment instead of jail, our recidivism rate is under 5%. So the data speaks and tells us in which direction to go. But it doesn't sound as good because people are making money off the prison industrial complex. People are making money off of all of this, this carceral state that we have, as opposed to what actually helps people. What conversations do you have with your counterparts who are trying to do the same thing that you do?

Because y'all are under constant attack. A group of black female prosecutors, when they came to St. Louis to stand on the courthouse steps with Kim Gardner, they sent a powerful signal. You've had the Attorney General in Pennsylvania trying to undercut everything that Larry Crafton does as well. And so what is that fraternity slash sorority slash group of like minds like in terms of are y'all sharing information? Are you sharing data? Are you sharing best practices are you sharing hey we tried this it didn't work so be leery of that um i would say a very close

neck group um matter of fact that group when they came in town myself and captain farmer was here with me we picked him up from the airport and took him out to work. Marilyn took them out to eat. Marilyn Mosby, man, that's like a sister. Rachel Rollins, we came in a couple months from one another. Kim Fox, she's kind of the, and very young, talented, but I'm saying the OG of the group. So you need some advice. When I was doing my transition, I visited her office. She opened that office up to us

and just answered every question that we had. Larry Krasner, who is a St. Louis native, by the way, point that out. Same way, I can call Larry up anytime. Very close-knit group. We're all part of

several groups, but one group in particular, FJP, Fair and Just Prosecution, and we do share resources. We support one another. If somebody's getting attacked in their city, they're going to have to deal with all of us because we're going to come there. to write an op-ed. So that has been a very, that was a very welcoming sight to walking in when I got elected to trying to say, okay, now we got to do this. Right.

And then to know that you got these people to lean on. And then we got more coming in. Chessa Bowden, Chessa, and I can never pronounce his last name,

and San Francisco, who was just elected last year, knowing that I'm here for him and others are here for him as well. And, uh, George is going, as you talked about, who was in San Francisco and then now is in LA. Um, George was progressive before progressive was a thing. Um, and a lot of people don't know that. So yeah, we're a growing, it's a growing group. And especially in the large population centers, you're seeing people that, that, that, that narrative, that message is resonating with people that, because it makes

sense. And our campaign, we weren't doing the typical come up with a slogan and just run that slogan. We were educating people. We were telling them why we were explaining the data and what, and the why behind what we were doing. And we still continue to do that. We created a community engagement unit just so we can continue pushing that message out to let people know what we're doing. And being black, not good enough. I won't name the person, but let's just say this progressive prosecutor said,

wrote, we will be more than happy to see Jackie Lacey lose. I mean, Persia was like, we'd be more than happy. And then broke it down. And I say that

because there are a lot of folks who say, man, we need black district attorneys. Like, no, no, no. I had to remind some people. Krasner replaced a black district attorney in Philadelphia who got convicted on corruption. I said, so, no, it's some folks who might be black, but they're not doing what's right as DA. And I said, so you give me a Krasner over a Lacey? Don't matter if you're black.

What are you going to do with you in that position with that power? No question. And I think that we've seen some, you know, and when we talk about diversity, sometimes we get caught up in just black, white or what have you, as opposed to scratching beneath the surface to see, well, what is this individual about? Yeah. What you're going to do and what are they going to do and who are they? I mean, I know some black folks in corporate America who I want. They ask us to be fired because they believe in only the only one. A sister once said to me, she said black executive told her is lonely at the top.

She said, that's your fault because you didn't bring nobody with you. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I say that and I'm big on, you know, bringing along people and exposing them to different things. But I noticed, you know, as a young African-American here in North St. Louis County, and I didn't know an attorney until I was almost an attorney. I was exposed to running for office. That was not on my radar. I had no idea what that was about or just all the different types of industries out there that we're not exposed to. And so I think it's important.

It's one thing that we do. We go and talk to high schools and junior highs, even elementary schools. And we want to expose them to different things, you know, different opportunities that they may not even be aware of. And we see that so often. So, yes, I think it's important for us to use our bully pulpits to not only change the criminal justice system, but then also we can, you know, a lot of things happen upstream of the criminal justice system. And we need to use our voices for those things as well. Earlier, you talked about the money, the money that's in the criminal justice system.

And that is the piece that I often explain to people, that if we are having conversations about mass incarceration, criminal justice reform, but we're not specifically talking about the economic piece. They were losing it. Yeah. I say all the time, because Coretta Scott King said it. She said,

they killed my Martin when he started talking about the money. They had no problem. She's like, they had no problem with him talking about getting voting rights, no problem with public accommodations. But when he started talking about the money, that changed it. And so in this

city and county, from your vantage point, what are you saying to the business community that wants to have a huge say-so in public policy and criminal justice, talking about crime, things along those lines. What their responsibility is, because what often happens is,

the way the script is played out, all cities, whatever the business community wants, business community gets. So they're often dictating what they want from public policy, as opposed to what folks like you should be saying, no, no, no. This is stuff y'all need to be doing to change what's happening in this city and county. And I think from a historical perspective, you know, you put it in context that St. Louis was one of the most, one of the largest, most powerful cities in this country at the turn of the century.

The World's Fair was here because this was such, you know, the gateway to the West, and you think about that. And a lot of these very issues that we're talking about are the reason that St. Louis is now like the 25th largest city and the city and county are, are had a, what they call the great divorce, um, where the city is not in the county. And that's, that's stagnated growth,

which is still kind of weird. It's absolutely not in the county. One is actually in the county. It started in the civil war. You had the the, so Missouri was a state that was not a, not a slave state, but it, well it was a slave state, but it didn't join the Union. So you had a lot of slave or

people that were sympathetic to the Southern cause and so they were worried that the St. Louis Police Department and St. Louis Police Department and St. Louis would be used to fight against the Union. And so they took the police department, the state government took control of the police department because they didn't want that to be used against the South.

And then they started a bunch of policies that started going against the city of St. Louis in the sense of the interests of the St. Louis city of St. Louis, I should say. And so St. Louis said, OK, we're going to separate because it's not working for us. And but now fast forward to today when an industry wants to expand into the St. Louis region and they got to negotiate with the city and the county whose interests are not always in alignment. You know, if if if this was such a great model, other cities would be copying. Right. The nobody. And so so therein lies the problem with the money is that we're not growing.

We're losing our talent. People get out of college. What you're seeing is they're going down to Texas. They're going to North Carolina and Atlanta. My dad moved to Atlanta for it, for for opportunities and things of that nature. And so I was a police officer. Yeah, he's a police officer. Yeah. Retired now. Atlanta Metro. But he moved down there for a better opportunity. And we see so many people I taught at a local college here. And one of the things I see about my students when I talk to them, what are you going to do long term? Well, I get my degree. I'm moving here. I'm moving there. You know, you don't hear people saying we're moving to St. Louis. And so now. So we have a shortage on on on and workers um especially uh when you look at the

african-american community so you know so when we talk to businesses not only do these policies save us money but also that person who would have had a record now does not and can get a job and can be a taxpayer and can work in your industry. And then when crime rates don't go up because we don't give these people the opportunities they need. Well, now industries don't want to come to a place that has a reputation of having high crime rates. So across the board, these policies not only help, but they help the business community. And I think the business community has an obligation to get in the fight. And that's one of the things we talked to. We met with the regional business council and and talk to them about, hey, these are things that we're doing that not only helps you, but they help this region and they help individuals.

And I think it's important for them to bring that power that they have, because elected officials in government agencies tend to look, listen to the money. So you get them on board. And now we're having a different conversation. Ten years from now, what should your office and what should criminal justice in this county look like? I think that we... I think there's a couple things that I would start with, because we could do the whole interview on this question. A couple things that I would start.

Drug addiction and understanding that probably 80% of the cases that come through the criminal justice system have some connection to drugs. We've been using, stealing, to feed the drug habit, selling. And when we understand that drug addiction is a disease

and we move it to the public health department because it is a public health crisis as opposed to my office having to deal with that. I think that's one of the things that we want to show with our policies. We want to, in 10 years, we want to show the data that this actually works. Portugal, 20 years ago, when America was starting our war on drugs, Portugal went in a different direction. Same problem, they looked at it differently. They decriminalized drugs.

They said, you know what, if you're under this certain amount, we're not going to prosecute you. We're not going to legalize it, but we're not going to prosecute you. We're going to send you to the public health department, what are called dissuasion courts, and we're going to get you on a pathway to treatment. We got to meet with the architect of that model. He said, we put people on a path to treatment.

If they don't do it, that's their problem. But that's the direction we're going to send them. Us, on the other hand, we're saying, we're going to put you on a path to treatment. But if you mess up and relapse, which is a part of treatment, we're going to lock you up. And we're not doing that in our office. And many of the offices around the country now are starting to, especially with the progressive prosecutors, are going in that direction. Because you understand that people are more than likely to relapse. That's part of treatment.

You know what we listen to to determine whether somebody's successful? We listen to the health care experts. We created a diversion advisory committee. Athenia and other organizations are a part of it. And when we send them there, we're not saying, we're not saying, give us a report just to tell us that they messed up. Our report is telling them, are they trying?

What are y'all saying? And they tell us, no, this individual, yeah, he's had some problems, but he's had problems for 20 years. So it's not going to change in a week. Right. And that's who we listen to. When you hear the phrase defund the police, how do you define that?

Because it is so toxic for a lot of other people. I said this to Kim Gardner that when I hear defund the police,

I think of Kojima Powell. Been shot and killed 16 seconds after the cops showed up the need for mental health experts to deal with some of these cases. We see the increasing number of mental health

cases where there are problems with police brother being suffocated in Rochester New York. Nine-year-old girl being pepper sprayed, who, when they said, stop it, you're acting like a child, and she said, because I am a child. When I hear defund the police,

that doesn't mean we're about to sit here and just stop paying cops. No, it's a realignment of the city's resources to deal with what is still the same problem. How do you define it? When you hear it, how do you understand it?

I want to give it a little bit of context. President Obama, who made a really good point, let me just put this out there. That's my guy. So even if I slightly disagree with him on the issue, I still don't figure out a way where he's right. So let's just say I'm going to start out. Now, we disagree on that one because he's not been too happy when he was president.

When I had serious critiques of him, and I made it perfectly clear. I said, I ain't here to have a praise party. I said, I'm here to speak honestly about what's going on. And I was like, now, if you've got a problem, I remember it was something that one of these people, I wrote something, and one of the people called, and I said, the Oval Office and the president are mad. I was like, why is he upset? Well, what you wrote, I said, didn't I tell y'all before y'all won?

Did we leave with that? Before y'all won, that if this happened, we were going to have a problem? Yes, you did. Did I not tell you I was going to say something? Yes, you did. I said, so why he mad? Right.

Now he's former president. Right, right right giving his flowers but yeah nobody's perfect we know that and i say that in jest but you know he made a good point that you know we do have to work we do have to be aware of the labels that we put on things i do agree with that and that's probably not the best label i would rather call it reimagining law enforcement something to that effect but at the same time the argument is okay, when we just give it an innocent name like Black Lives Matter, well, that's still not good enough. And are we saying we just say black lives only matter or that's all that matters? We just said we matter. And that's the problem. The issue here ain't going to do with the name.

It don't have to do with the name. But I will say that one has led to some confusion, but I, I interpret it as, as, um, most people do, which is, it's a reallocation of resources. And let me say that it's nothing different than what we've done in our office. We didn't get budget. We didn't get any extra budget to create a conviction incident review unit where we'd look at, um, wrongful convictions, where we have a walled-off unit to investigate police malfeasance, be it shootings, be it anything, getting a ticket. We have it in that walled-off unit. We didn't get extra budget for that. We had to take money from other positions, repurpose them, so we lost them from here

and created this unit because it was that important. For the first time in the St. Louis County Proseis county prosecutor's office we have a social worker in there we didn't get that budget from our county government to say hey go get you a social worker we had to take a position that we needed but it was that important right so we're not doing anything different than than what we're asking other law enforcement and every other industry to do is that like there are certain extent that you need that social workers and mental health care workers need to deal with these individuals. And yeah, when we need to have them embedded in police departments, and I don't think it's too much to ask to say, hey, let's shoot some of that budget that you have and let's get some social workers in there because it helps people and it's proven to work. And so, you know, that's

how I interpret it. It's just simply, we're not, we're not ending police. Like we had our house broken in two years ago. We called the police and we understand that, you know, when, when crime is happening, somebody is robbing a store, police are best situated to handle that situation. So we need officers, but we do, we do want to have the, we want to look at the departments comprehensively and what they can provide. And also, on a different note, training is so important. And I think that goes with that reallocation of resources is the improved, increased training and comprehensive training. Does higher office offer any appeal to you? You know, I

look at this job, because you know a lot of people said I wasn't even supposed to get here going against a 28-year incumbent. Especially your good friend who laughed at you. And I was about to say his name. You're all going to start laughing now. I ain't going to do that to you.

But you know, to me, I let my, I believe that one's performance should guide where they go or don't go. And it's such an honor to serve in this capacity as the first African-American, first person that looks like us to serve in this capacity. I just want to do a good job. And I'm from this community. I want to make people proud and serve as an example for younger people. And if I do a good job here, then we can look at other stuff potentially. But I want to focus here first. If you did something else

I knew you wasn't going to let that go. If you did, no, no, no, not office. If you did something else, what really would be your dream job? And I know it's probably not the answer you're looking for, but I'm in a dream job now.

You know, we get to help people every single day. And I'm not beholden to a council where I got to get a majority to do to implement this policy or we want to work with St. Louis diaper organization and pass out diapers. And we want to be part of the urban leagues who was a part of our diversion program. And we work with them. I know you're going to meet with Mike McMillan. We can work with them. So we get our hands in so many pots that help people that, you know, that I'm doing a dream job. And honestly, my last job,

I left a dream job was teaching at a local college, working with young people. And so, you know, I left a dream job was teaching at a local college, working with young people. And so, you know, but I'll say this, though. Ten years ago, this wasn't a dream job. So ten years from now, five years from now, whatever, you know, maybe there will be other opportunities I'm looking at. But what I will say is there's got to be involved in helping people. Because that's one of the things that motivates me and gets me up in the morning.

You and Kim giving the same answer. It's true, man. It's true. You asked me, bro, what's your dream job? He's a PGA Tour professional. I said dream job. I ain't say what you actually doing. So you saying... The question was,

if that was something you could... I'm getting this PC. Let me ask you. I want to be able to help people. I'm just saying. I'm talking about you like, man... That's very disrespectful, by the way.

Let me say this. Not disrespectful? Your friend laughing at you. That was disrespectful. What about space? Could that be a professional? If you say a dream, I'm a card player. You want to be a professional space player? Listen, we like playing cards and dominoes. But can you actually

play space? Listen, you don't want that smoke. No, I think you want that smoke. Listen, you came in town. Oh, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, nothing't think you want that smoke. Listen, you came in town. Oh, trust me. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Ain't nothing like hashtag team whip that ass. He got deck cards in his backpack. That ain't a problem.

That ain't a problem. Okay, all right, sister. All right, which one is the actual big joker? The one with color. The one with color? Yeah. Any writing on it? It depends on the deck. All right. What do you take? What two cards do you take it? It depends on the day. All right. What do you take? What two cards do you take out?

The twos. The red twos. Come on, man. The red twos? Really? That's all you got? The red twos. All right.

Okay. All right. What's your go-to move when you set somebody? When you about to set somebody, what is your go-to move? I like to do the pose. I put one leg on the chair. You know, like those old school pictures that you took back in the day when you was a kid when you were sitting like this? See, that—

Just to embarrass them. No, that ain't the go-to move. What's your go-to move? The go-to move is when you hold that card and set them. You lick the back of that card. On your head. Put it on your forehead. And you just sit there.

Yo ass sick. But you know, you know rolling we got they got to look at it no you got because see you gotta break their heart but i've broken so many that i've just gotten bored doing that no no you know you you sitting there thinking you think you got the old sears and roebuck taking a photo uh with the little fur with the little fur. But it's demoralizing, man. That's what I'm trying. I'm just trying to make them feel bad. And you know, people used to the card on the forehead. They've seen it. But when we stand up and we give them that pose,

that's just disrespectful. Ah, you just think it's a camera around. That's all. You think it's about snapping a picture or something. You stand up and pose. I'll be like, man, put that leg down and sit in here. I'm telling you, I ain't got it. Look, I ain't got it. As much as we do, man. Look, I ain't got a problem playing.

I mean, I've heard many a feeling. And many feel. Look, let me tell you something. You don't understand. When we play, there are no professional titles. I play. When I say no titles, you ain't no DA. You ain't nothing. TV star. You just another dude sitting over there. You ain't no DA. You ain't nothing.

TV star. You just another dude sitting over there. You just another victim. I mean, that's all. I'm just trying to let you know. So it's going to be a cleanup on aisle five when I'm done. I'm letting you know. I'm like, hey, I'm telling you.

And then, and then, when I smack him, everybody on social media is going to know. There's a sister who worked on Elizabeth Warren's campaign, was talking trash in South Carolina. I was like, all right, let's go. Beat her down. Oh, I put it on Instagram. I tagged Elizabeth Warren. I said, you need to hire you some better staffers.

I said, because clearly you're not going to win votes of real spades players. Oh, yeah, the girl mama came on, and her mama said, baby, you done embarrassed our family. Her mama has prohibited her from playing Spades with a family because she said you went and talked trash to Roland Martin. Now, three million followers, no. So to the three million followers I have, I don't want to hurt his feelings. Okay.

Did you pledge anything? I did. I did. Oh, good, because see, I don't want to hurt his feelings, okay? Did you pledge anything? I did. I did. Oh, good. Because, see, I was about to say, because if you wasn't an alpha, it'd be worse. I'll just simply say it. In all honesty, I did consider, when I was considering, I was going to join the alpha grad chapter. See, that's smart.

Because if you had said the mother of the youth groups, it would have got worse. This interview would have got cut to about eight minutes. Well, it's LaBella. I appreciate it, man. Thanks a lot. My pleasure, man. Honored to be here with you. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. All right. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, season one taser incorporated on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts i'm clayton english i'm greg glad 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. Stories matter and it brings a face to it. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers. But we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else. But never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication.

Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. This is an iHeart Podcast.