#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Roland blasts Candace Owens; cops run over Black Miss. Man; FanBase raises $17M

Episode Date: April 4, 2024

4.3.2024 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Roland blasts Candace Owens; cops run over Black Miss. Man; FanBase raises $17M A black Mississippi family says their 17-year-old son died after being chased and run over by a police officer. The Family attorney, Ben Crump, will be here tonight to explain how the walk home for Kadarius Smith ended up in his death.  #BlackStarNetwork partners:Fanbase 👉🏾 https://www.startengine.com/offering/fanbaseAli Siddiq 👉🏾 https://www.moment.co/alisiddiq"Shirley" NOW available on Netflix 👉🏾 www.netflix.comBiden/Harris 👉🏾 https://joebiden.com/ Georgia Republican lawmakers passed a new bill that would allow the removal of people from the voting rolls through challenges to voter eligibility.  I have a few thoughts on Candace Owens and her views about black people and affirmative action. You don't want to miss how I break down the foolishness she's been saying for years.  A groundbreaking reparations case for Black veterans is moving forward after a judge dismissed the government's attempt to throw it out. We'll talk to a member of the Veterans Legal Services Clinic who is handling the case.  Isaac Hayes will be here for our Tech Talk Segment to discuss Fanbase's unprecedented $17 million Reg A raise on StartEngine. It's with a heavy heart that I announce Dr. Christopher Metzler's passing. https://www.startengine.com/offering/fanbase This Reg A+ offering is made available through StartEngine Primary, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC.  This investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. You should read the Offering Circular (link) and Risks (link) related to this offering before investing. Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox 👉🏾 http://www.blackstarnetwork.com #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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You'd never plan your life around their schedule. Never lick your thumb to clean their face. And you'd never let them leave the house looking like less than their best. You'd say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it. Never let them stay up too late. And never let them run wild through the grocery store. So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there, know it can happen.

One in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car and can't get out. Never happens. Before you leave the car, always stop, look, lock. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, folks, how you doing? Today is Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024.

Coming up, I'm Roland Martin on the book, streaming live on the Black Star Network. We're going to chat with Ben Crump by the case out of Mississippi where a 17 year old black man went over by a cop. His family is suing. Ben will tell us the latest. Also, black veterans are suing moving forward in the reparations case.

We'll be talking to their lawyers as well. Also on today's show, African-Americans sue the FDA when it comes to a ban on menthol we'll discuss that plus we'll talk about uh one of our favorites on the show chris metzler black conservative he passed away also i lost another friend jim washington who died yesterday he was a publisher of dallas weekly we'll pay tribute to both of them. And you know what? I try to get out. They pulled me back in. I got a few things to say about Candace Owens now trying to come to the cookout. Oh, y'all want to tune in

for that. It's time to bring the phone. I'm rolling my non-filter. Let's go. He's got whatever the piss he's on it Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine And when it breaks, he's right on time And it's rolling, best belief he's knowing Putting it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling, yeah It's on, go, go, go, y'all Yeah, yeah It's rolling, Martin, yeah, it's Uncle Roro, yo. Yeah, yeah, it's Rolling Marten, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, rolling with rolling now. Yeah, yeah, he's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know he's Rolling Marten now. How does a 17-year-old black man in Mississippi die by being run over by cops? That happened to Kadarius Smith. He died in the hospital on March 21st. His family is demanding answers as to what happened to him. Ben Crump is the family's attorney. He joins us right now. Ben, glad to have you.

This is crazy. How in the world, Ben, is he run over by cops? What happened? It's inexplicable, Roland. They can't justify this. A 17-year-old kid running away from you, and you run over him with your police cruiser so much, in fact, where his mother says that he had tire marks on his back from the cop running him over.

And we continue to demand transparency. We are under the belief that the dash cam on the automobile captured the horrible collision that had this young man lose his life. Far too soon had not broken any crime or anything. He was running, and as the Supreme Court has articulated, Roland Martin, it is not a crime to run from the police. Oftentimes, black people run from the police because when we interact with police officers, good things don't happen. And so for him to be killed like this, we need to see the video. We need transparency. And that's why we have to file a lawsuit to get simple answers. They know the answers.

All they have to do is release the video. Okay, first of all, so what happened? Why was he stopped? Why did the cops pull him over? Why did he take off? What was the scenario? Him and his friends were at the little girl's house, as kids often do. It was about 1 o'clock in the morning.

The police came, and the kids took off running. Okay, so, okay, we said a little girl. If that would have happened to me or you, Roland, we would have been run over, too, if that was justifiable. So you said little girl. So it was a high school classmate? Oh, yeah. So the kids were partying, and then were the cops called by somebody at the house, by a neighbor?

How did the cops just show up? That's what they assumed. You had three young black boys at the girls' house outside. The girls knew they were there. They were talking, flirting, doing what high school 17-year-old, 18-year-olds do. The police come. They take off running. And the police chase them.

And for some reason, Roland Martin, they run over this kid. And I just can't even bear to talk to his mother because she was at work, and she gets this call that your son has been run over and is in intensive care at the hospital. And then by the morning, he's dead. Okay, so walk us through this here. So do they have dad scan video? Do they have body cam video? Do they have body cam

video? You or the family? We've been told by city officials that they do have dash cam video. When I say city officials, a city council person told the family they have a dash cam video on

the police. So is there a police internal affairs investigation? Is the district attorney looking to this case? Have they sought and received the dash cam video? We're in Mississippi, Roland Martin, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigations is investigating. And of course they're stonewalling us,

telling us that until the investigation is complete, they can't release the video. Was it one officer in the vehicle? Were there two officers? How many officers were on the scene? We understand there were two officers on the scene. That's all we know. We don't know. And are these officers still on the street? Have they been suspended? Have they been placed on death's duty? They have been placed on death's duty. They have not been suspended.

Okay. So, again, what is just so confusing here is that this took place March 21st. Have you or your associates talked to the other two, all the other young men and the young women involved to get their perspective on what happened that night? Yes, they took off running, car chased, Kadarius Smith, car chased another one. They witnessed Kadarius running and then they heard a loud thump. And then they heard radio frequency and that's what they heard.

And apparently the other cop came to where the cop was at that ran over Kadarius and they saw Kadarius laying on the ground. And they, they were the one that called his family and told his family they had called their mother. Were any of those young folks, were they recording on their phones? And how far away was he from the house?

How far away was he? They were not recording on their phones. Don't know how far he got from the house rolling, but they said that they saw—they heard the thump, and then they saw Kadarius laying on the ground. And, you know, the police went back over there, and they saw a lot of people coming outside. And they also saw—they also saw the ambulance come, and then obviously the next day, everybody found out that Kadarius Smith was killed as a result of the car running over him, literally running over his body.

What town did this happen in? Leland, Mississippi. And so we have to keep pressure on Mississippi, Leland, Mississippi Police Department to release the video. That's the first thing we want. We want transparency. And then based on the transparency, then we want accountability. We want to see what happened. If the police did something against policy, did something wrong, they should be held accountable. Transparency plus accountability. That's how we can trust the police. If they won't show us the video, we can't trust anything they say, Roland Martin. Not one word.

All right. Ben Crump, we appreciate it, man. All right, man. You're looking smooth today. I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. All right, folks. We'll be right back on Roland Martin on the Filters on the Black Star Network.

As bad as Trump was, his economy was worse, and Black America felt it the most. He cut health insurance while giving tax breaks to the wealthy and big business. As bad as Trump was, his economy was worse, and Black America felt it the most. He cut health insurance while giving tax breaks to the wealthy and big business. He stoked racial violence, attacked voting rights, and if reelected, vowed to be a dictator and, quote, get revenge. We can't go back.

As president, I put money in pockets, creating millions of new jobs, and capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month. There's a lot more to do, but we can do it together. I'm Joe Biden, and I approve this message. Fanbase is pioneering a new era of social media for the creator economy. This next generation social media app with over 600,000 users is raising $17 million, and now is your chance to invest. For on how to invest visit start engine.com

slash fan base or scan the qr code another way we're giving you the freedom to be you without limits game on state of the union 2024 huge night for president jo Joe Biden. This was a CVS receipts type of night. Yes! He dragged the hell out of the Supreme Court. And he said, y'all gonna see the power women. Trump's brain is melting as we speak. We want to organize from a place of strength. There's no confusion whatsoever about what they've done

and what they plan to do. What Donald Trump is doing is presenting a fallacy. He is convincing them that he's all in it for them when in fact he's all in it for himself. We do not feel Joe Biden. In spite of the success that have taken place during this administration economically, there are too many things where we do not feel like he's had our backs. You should also be investing in the barbershops, and the beauty salons, and the hookah bars,

and the folks who are going to the club. And there's a way to actually get them registered, because we've done it before. But if you don't have folks who understand that dynamic, then you're missing a big opportunity. So we said we just celebrated. For what? Why don't you go to Selma to celebrate,

rather than recommit yourself to the fight if the bad thing we went to celebrate has been gutted? Republicans did not support a lot of the bills that were necessary to keep the country fluid. You can't only love your country when you win, right? Oh no, you guys don't want another $2 trillion tax cut? This was absolutely the knockdown drag out that we were really waiting for.

Black voters are the base. They're the most important base of the Democratic Party. There was very few language in this speech. At the time, we see an attack on black history, an attack on DEI. The end of the BLM racial reckoning thing has come to a complete end because there was nothing in this speech for that. Our movement has never been grounded in two-party politics in this country. All of our movements ultimately get co-opted by a state that is anti-Black.

They call the old because they knew the way, and they call the young because they were strong. And I believe there is a good combination of that. But we can have ideas, and we can have visions and dreams, but we have to have our young people also working beside us because they are strong and they will run that race and they will run it to the end. The activist organizers and young people have been pushing this administration to be on the right side of history and to do something about the issues that they care about. While the Ukraine and Palestine are critical issues, they are not the only global issues. Not a single black person who should ever let it come out their mouth that I'm tired. Because there is somebody else who came before us

who didn't stop fighting. Terry and I, we couldn't play in the white clubs in Minnesota. It felt like such a strength through adversity type moment that I think

black people just have to go through. We have to figure it out. We make lemons out of lemonade. But there's a reason we rented a ballroom, did our own show, promoted it, got like 1,500 people to come out. Clubs were sitting empty.

They were like, where's everybody at? And I said, they're down watching the band you wouldn't hire. So it taught us not only that we had the talent of musicians, but we also had the talent of entrepreneurship. It wasn't like a seat at the table. It's like, no, let's build the table. That's right. We've got to build the table. And that was the thing. And, of course, after that, we got all kinds of entrepreneurship. It wasn't like a seat at the table. It's like, no, let's build the table. That's right. We've got to build the table. And that was the thing.

And of course, after that, we got all kinds of offers. Of course. Right, to come play in the clubs. But we didn't do it. You're like, no, we're good. No, we're good. We're good. And that's what put us on a path of national.

And of course, when Prince made it, then it was like, OK, we see it can be done. creator and second producer of Fat Tuesdays, an air hip-hop comedy. But right now, I'm rolling with Roland Martin, unfiltered, uncut, unplugged, and undamn believable. You hear me? Thank you. All right, folks, introduce our panel. Rebecca Carruthers, VP for Election Center coming out of D.C. People Passion Politics host in 1380 W.A.O.K. out of Atlanta, Robert Petillo, who's also running for judge in Fulton County. Dr. Julian Malveaux,, President Emerita Bennett College,

economist, author as well out of DC. I'll start with you, Robert. You know, it is amazing to me how many of these stories happen that gets no attention. And if we don't talk about it, if other black owned platforms, literally you wouldn't even know these things exist. And for a lot of these black families, if you used for over a century and a half to subjugate African-American communities.

It is the fact that you can do these things in the darkness and never have to worry about them coming to light. For every George Floyd that becomes an international movement, there are dozens, hundreds, if not thousands of African-Americans who are experiencing very similar issues. This is why it's so important to support black press. This is why it's so important also to use black social media for something constructive. We have a great time sharing controversies and rappers and social media things and recitices and so on and so forth. But we have to also harness the power of black Twitter and black social media to build these

issues into movements. Remember, the Ahmaud Arbery situation would not have blown up the way that it did if we did not spread it on social media and through our black outlets. Many cases of that nature, once you get sunlight on it, that's the most powerful disinfectant. And it just shows why it's so important to have outlets such as yours and for us to use the platforms that we have to promote causes that support our communities.

And what's crazy here, Rebecca, is, you know, when you hear the folks whine about Black Lives Matter, the movement for black lives, when you hear them complain about, oh, what are you doing? This didn't involve a police shooting. This wasn't an unarmed young man. First of all, we don't know, but bottom line is this wasn't a shooting case. He was run over.

And so the first thing is, to the cops, if the call was about some noise folks were making and they just took off running, why the hell are you chasing them? Bottom line, when we saw the movement for black lives, one of the conversations around that period of time was, what is the role? What is the duty? What is the purpose of law enforcement in this country? And many folks said, oh, well, that's too far. We just need simple reform. I don't know how you reform a police department that thinks it's acceptable to roll over a kid, a 17-year-old high school kid, in the dark,

to run over him, leave tire marks, not properly alert the family, not properly let the public know exactly what happened, but still demand our tax dollars to continue to fund them. I think we have to revisit that conversation. What is the purpose of law enforcement? Is there a better way other than law enforcement in which the way it is carried out now? Because I'm telling you, it is not working when these are the outcomes that we're seeing repeatedly over and over. And so for all of you out there who thought it was too far, when people said, hey, maybe we need to defund the police, we need to have that real and serious conversation, because this is the difference between life and death for our communities.

JOHN YANG, The Cook Political Report, The New York Times. JULIANNE BROWN, The Cook Political Report, The New York Times. YAMICHE ALCINDOR, The Cook Political Report, The New York Times. JULIANNE BROWN, The Cook Political Report, The New York Times. YAMICHE ALCINDOR, The Cook Political Report, The New York Times. YAMICHE ALCINDOR, The Cook Political Report, The New York Times. JULIANNE BROWN, The Cook Political Report, The New York Times. YAMICHE ALCINDOR, The Cook Political Report, The New York Times. JULIANNE BROWN, The Cook Political Reportalled at this entire situation. And as Robert has said, how many of these cases are swallowed? We know about this when we know about others. There's so many that we don't know about. This police department is out of control, but this is not unusual for them. This is how they roll. And so we need to use every means necessary to defend our people, whether it's just one person or rolling in kudos to the

Tennessee State work, where it's a whole university, whether it's everywhere. We need to use every means necessary to defend our people and to make sure that people understand this is unacceptable BS, simply unacceptable. They don't—they're not even sharing the video. They don't even have an excuse. I mean, what they're saying is, oh, well, you know, sound like Netanyahu. Oh, well, stuff happens. This is wrong.

And the worst part of it is it could have been prevented. Why didn't they shine their lights? Why did they use their bullhorns? I know they have them to say something like, -"Stop. Police." -"No." They just run the brother over. Unacceptable. You know, um... I thought about something that you said. I mentioned, uh, Black... the movement for Black Lives.

And... Robin, this is a perfect example why it is frustrating that that organization went through all the drama that it did and um and really it has been rendered ineffective last week last week the foundation they had They had an event in Oakland and they honored one of the members of the Black Panthers. They sent us a press release talking about it. And it was a reception for, give me one second, it was a reception for Elaine Brown. Elaine Brown. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways.

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

even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution.

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. And then you have the grassroots movement still doing the work that they do, but there's nowhere near. And then when you talk about local chapters of the NAACP, the state conference, the national organization, when you talk about, again, having black organizations with scale, this is an example why those are valuable. And when organizations become fractured and lose their power, then folks like this are

stuck out in the coal. And luckily, Ben Crump is involved in this. But there are so many examples out here where you don't, they don't hire, they can't hire a Ben Crump or Harry Daniels or a Lee Merritt and then if you don't have black-owned media for them to go to frankly mainstream is not putting it on and so this is why we have to be very cognizant when people are attacking black organizations and then black folk start participating in the destruction of those organizations, we don't fully realize what their aim and goal is, and that is to nullify strong, vibrant black voices that can bring attention to cases like this. You're absolutely correct, Roland.

We also can't ignore the role that COINTELPRO is continuing to play in many of these situations, where you have outside forces that seek to infiltrate, particularly young organizations that are just getting off the ground and are able to destroy them from the inside out. But I have argued this for years for the black community. We have to look at the model that the Anti-Defamation League uses for the Jewish community, that if anything happens involving Jewish people, they are the go-to voice. There's no questions. There are other groups, but there's not much squabbling. And you know exactly authoritatively that that is the position of their entire community.

And eventually, whether it's Jon Stewart on the left or Mark Levin on the right, they get together behind that and push that forward. And I think we have to have that same unanimity in our communities, and we hope to really push many of these legislative issues across the finish line. When we're talking about the George Floyd Act, when we're talking about reparations, when we're talking about substantive criminal justice reform, this is going to take a concentrated power base within our community. And when we have an arguments between foundational black Americans and immigrant black Americans, when we're talking about people who believe

in voting and folks who don't believe in voting, when we're talking about hotels versus black Christians or the women versus the men, all we're doing is diluting ourselves and diverting our energies versus actually keeping our eyes on the prize and making the types of changes we need to make. I mean, here's the thing, Rebecca, again, we got a press release about the Black Lives Matter Foundation event for Elaine Brown in Oakland. And I'm like, well, we're not flying there for a tender reception. And we've been trying now for a year and a half to get the organizational leaders on, the people who are on this board of directors.

Shaloma Bowers is running the board. And so the response to us was, well, you know, I have y'all marked as a priority outlet to include once the board members go on their next press run. And they're talking April, May. And I'm like, stuff is going on right now, and y'all talking about April, May? Again, this is, and again, so the fact that you now have a splintered grassroots Black Lives Matter

and this Black Lives Matter board, this is, and there's real work to be done. This is no time for there to be a splinter, but this is what we're dealing with. You know, Roland, there is, I think there's a scripture from the Old Testament that says, my people perish for their lack of knowledge. You know, our communities are perishing because of the lack of planning, the lack of strategy. I understand wanting to have press runs, but bottom line is,

if this is about a movement for Black lives, that's 365. If you're not ready, get ready. Have the conversation with your community, regardless if it's not part of a specific press run. You don't need a press run to talk about black issues because black issues are happening every single day. Every day. When we see what has happened in Mississippi, that is an issue around a black life that was extrajudiciously taken by law enforcement who thought it was okay to do the things that they did that led to that 17-year-old kid's death.

It does not require a press run. It requires showing up. I've been doing a lot of reflecting on movement building, especially with Black Americans. And I hear what Robert is saying. There has been a lot of divide. Are you a foundational Black American? Me, personally, I am. Did you come in the last two, three generations? Did you come post-1965 because of all the work that a lot of Black Americans did to make sure that those from the African diaspora, from the Caribbean, or from the continent were able to come into the United States? Absolutely. But the bottom line is, for me, the most important thing is, what is your value system? Does your value system align with making sure that our

ethnic group, that Black Americans in this country are able to exist, are able to live without barriers, are able to live without the police just killing us, are able to live without being redlined and being told, oh, you can only live in this neighborhood, but not this neighborhood. But if you live in this Black neighborhood, we're going to devalue it up to 50 percent of the white neighborhood right across the street. So it's those things, it's those black values that we need people to stand up 365 days a year and not wait for a press run, because it's every single day that we are living this thing. And so we need every single organization that is either Black-targeted, Black-led, Black-started. But if Black is what you are about,

we need all of these organizations to stand up, and they also have to talk to Black media so Black communities have clear information with what's going on in this country. Also, I think it's vitally important, Julian, to have amplification. And so what I mean by that is that even if Ben Crump is the attorney, you should have other voices raising the issue.

I just did a search in my email of Kadarius Smith. And again, for people to understand, I get tons of emails from numerous organizations all the time. And if you go to my, so if you go right now, you'll see the only mention of Kadarius Smith is in scripts from my producer. Nothing. This town is 115 miles from Jackson, Mississippi.

Where's the Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP? Derrick Johnson is the president and CEO of the NAACP National. He lives in Jackson, Mississippi. How has this gone on and they've said nothing? No comment whatsoever? I mean, I get fundraising appeals all the time from the NAACP, but I'm just saying.

I mean, this is a perfect example. Like right here, I mean, I'm seeing NAACP weekly news update. And I see a story in CNN, a story in Politico, a story in Capital B, voting rights. I see South Carolina districts. I see that. There's nothing about Kadaria Smith. I see image awards and I see the mention of the convention. And so this is what I'm talking about. What's the point of having

black organizations if they're not going to be speaking to the interests of black people? This family needs the amplification and holding the police department accountable. I'm like, where you at? this family needs the amplification and holding the police department accountable, I'm like, where you at? You know, Roland, I guess if it were not for you,

the Black Star Network, Roland Martin Unfiltered, they would not be blown up, amplified, talked about. It's shame on the NAACP. And I'll say that, shame on the NAACP. Shame on these folks who were, what did you say, sister, making press runs? So they'll get back to you after they get finished making press runs. What is the purpose of their press run? They just went away from the truth. I'll tell you, I know a little bit about the BLM, Black Lives Matter, grassroots, the split. I know a little bit about it. Not enough

to really discuss authority, but you know me, I'll discuss it anyway. Malin Abdullah and Black Lives Matter grassroots are doing the work. She's my former faculty member when I was at Cal State LA. The two organizations are in lawsuits. It's stupid. It's this, what Reverend Jackson once called,-sign. Somebody give me the word right. Inter-sign. It means nobody wins in a conflict. Nobody wins in a conflict. And I remember Reverend talking about it a year ago,

and I kept the word, but I guess I didn't keep the pronunciation. But it really is about how we fight each other. So, so much stuff is going on, and we're sitting here like a bunch of sitting ducks allowing these anti-Black people to set us up. I mean, I'm a bit annoyed with my sisters after the treatment of Angel Reese. This little sister, little sister, she's 19, 20, something like that, was called a dirty debutante. What that? So I Googled it, and guess what came up?

Pornography. I was like, OMG, I had to turn my... I thought my computer was going to shut down from embarrassment, because I sure was. I was like, oh, my God. Dirty debutantes? Black women all over the place ought to be looking for that white boy's job.

The L.A. Times... Right. I mean, that's not... First of all, look, you got, she may, you know, you got people attacking her because she was asked a question in a news conference the other day, and she talked about death threats that she's received.

Things along those lines. Okay, you got a ton of black women's organizations. Silent. Look, listen, when Kathleen Parker wrote a column in the Washington Post talking about Vice President Kamala Harris needs to step down and question her intelligence,

I talked to a prominent black female who said she went off on a bunch of black women leaders saying, she said, why the hell is Roland Martin the only one speaking up, defending the Vice President, and y'all ain't saying nothing? And again, this ain't about, okay, me getting credit,

but my whole deal is if you see these folks attacking black women like Angela Reese, what the hell? And I'll say it, okay, AKs, Deltas, Sigma Gamma Rho, Zeta Phi Beta, Lynx. I mean, we can name a whole bunch of organizations. Again, where you at? Well, Roland, you know, when we had less, we did more. I cannot, I remember there was an organization called African American Women in Defense of Ourselves. It came out of the attacks that Anita Hill experienced when she did her Senate hearing. A couple of sisters got about 100 of us to pay to do a New York Times ad. And I'm proud to say

myself and my three siblings—and we got Obama's name on there, too. We each had $300 to basically sign up for this African-American Women in Defense of Ourselves. We had less. We didn't have any electronic media. We didn't have any of that. What we had was the drum, getting on the phone with people. We have more, and with that more, we're doing a whole lot less. There ought to have been some immediate response with that putrid punk from the L.A. Times who also called our sister a dirty debutante. I mean, just going down the list,

there ought to be more response to this Mississippi. Mississippi G.D. We know what Mississippi is about. Derek Johnson, where are you? This is your home turf. But he's not the only one. We have chapters of all of our divine nine, but not so divine when it comes to stepping up. Too many of our people, Roland, are scurred. Too many people want to check the boxes, deal with

the lies. A lot of us don't even want to say the word reparations. So like you were in Tennessee with TSU and thank you. That was powerful. But guess what? That same Tennessee legislature tomorrow is likely to pass legislation to outlaw even the use of the word reparations. People, where are we? We are smothering ourselves in comfort. We got the this and the that, and we're too full. I mean, I don't understand why our sisters who are calling out LaTosha and the others—I'm called names because we can be euphemistic. Euphemisms will not get you anywhere. You got money from the majority to basically get out to vote.

Talk about reparations, why don't you? Talk about reparations, why don't you? Talk about reparations, why don't you? The only way we get rid of the wealth gap is to deal with issues like that. Well, I'm going to say this here. So I'm just double checking. When, perfect example, when the Secretary of Education

and the Secretary of Agriculture sent out a letter to various states saying that land grant HBCUs were owed $13 billion. Letters went to governors of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. And you know what I haven't seen? I haven't seen coordinated news conferences from the state conferences of the NAACP in every single one of those states. I haven't seen coordinated news conferences from National Urban League chapters in every single one of those particular states. I haven't seen. Now, there are people who may be doing stuff.

But what I'm talking about is I'm talking about. And I haven't seen coordinated efforts from each member of the divine nine. I haven't seen coordinated efforts from Prince Hall Masons. I haven't seen coordinated efforts from the Eastern star demanding the legislatures of fund this missing $13 billion. And so for all of the black organizations out there, for all of them, for the black churches and the black preachers, and we could go on and on and on.

So let's just, okay, fine. Folks, let's just take reparations off the table. Julianne, fine. Don't even want to say that name. Okay. How about this $13 billion? How about this $13 billion? How about this $13 billion? I mean, they cited data from the National Center for Education Statistics and found that the gap in funding, quote,

could have supported infrastructure and student services and would have better positioned the university to compete for research grants. Now, we got together. I sent a text out to some folks. And we went to Tennessee. Said we're going to stay on Tennessee State. Reverend Barber said I'm in. Freddie Haynes, Raymond Bush said I'm in.

Latasha Brown, Black Voters Matter said I'm in. Tamika Mallory, Until Freedom said I'm in. And we all traveled there. But these are the other states. Where are all these organizations standing up fighting on behalf of the money? And I asked J'Nai Nelson of the LDF, and I'm going to send an email to Damon Hewitt.

I want to know, are our black civil rights legal organizations willing to file lawsuits if students and alumni of these institutions come forward. To me, the plaintiffs, will these black legal groups file lawsuits against every single one of these states to get a 13 billion? What I am saying here to everybody, what is the point of having black infrastructure if you don't use it.

And if you're using it, how are you using it? I would think that trying to secure $13 billion that they were cheated out of is something every black organization in America should be weighing in on. And especially every black organization in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma,

South Carolina, North Carolina, Texas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, North Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia. Every black organization, every black legislator, and even black council members and county commissioners and school board members and DAs and judges should be saying something to put pressure to deliver the money. What's the point?

And I'll ask again, if you are so-called representing black people, what black people are you representing? Coming up next, we're going to talk about a black veterans group that's suing on behalf of veterans. That's next. I'm Roland Martin Underfield, you're on the Black Star Network. Support us in what we do. Join the Marina Funk Fan Club, Senior Check and Money Order, PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. Cash App, Dollar Sign, RM Unfiltered, PayPal, R. Martin Unfiltered, Venmo is RM Unfiltered, Zale, Roland at RolandSMartin.com, Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com.

We'll be right back. invest. For details on how to invest, visit startengine.com slash fam. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing.

So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself

to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st

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

Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star studded a little bit man we got uh ricky williams nfl player hasman trophy winner it's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves music stars marcus king john osborne for brothers osborne we have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

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

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And you're tuning in to... Roland Martin Unfiltered. Also has been filed against the Department of Veterans Administration regarding discrimination against black vets. According to the lawsuit, the VA has systematically denied African American soldiers a variety of benefits, including housing, education and disability benefits since the adoption of the 1944 GI Bill. A federal judge has rejected the government's effort to dismiss this case. Joining us right now is a former U.S. Marine, Conley Monk Jr., the National Veterans Council

for Legal Redress. I'm sorry. First of all, the former U.S. Marine Conley Monk Jr. and the National Veterans Council for Legal Redress, they filed a lawsuit. He was exposed to Agent Orange and suffered PTSD resulting from his experiences in Vietnam. His suit claims that he was denied veterans unemployment insurance in 1971, education benefits in 76, disability in 81, and a home loan in 1983. The pattern of rejection continued in 2010 and 2012 when he was denied veterans disability benefits after suffering a stroke.

Olu Ogosage is a Yale Law student working with the Veterans Legal Services Clinic. He joins us now from New Haven, Connecticut. So first and foremost, Olu, give us an understanding of how expansive this is of the VA essentially discriminating against Black folks who put their lives on the line for this country. Yeah, so this is a very big deal. You know, stretching back, as you mentioned, as far as the 1944 GI Bill, the VA has been discriminating against Black veterans in giving them the benefits that they are due for their time spent serving this country. that we represent at the Yale Law School Veterans Legal Services Clinic. Conley Monk Jr. and his father, the late Conley Monk Sr., served in the Vietnam War and in World War II, respectively.

And they were both, like many other Black veterans, put through this discriminatory system. And for the first time, a federal court has recognized that these veterans deserve to have their day in court. So this is a monumentous development for black veterans in this country. Do you have the data that shows the number of black vets that have been discriminated against? Is this a class action lawsuit? Have others joined Monk in this suit? We definitely have data. And, you know, it's no secret at this point that there

have been significant discrepancies in terms of grant rates between, you know, Black veterans and white veterans. And in terms of, sorry, I forgot the second part of your question. Yeah, in terms of, I mean, again, if you're saying that this goes beyond him, have you established, are you seeking a class? Are you asking other black veterans who this has happened to, to be a part of this, or is this a singular lawsuit? So in this lawsuit, there are class, there are class claims that there is a class of similarly situated veterans that have experienced discrimination. And we're looking to ultimately get that class certified,

but that hasn't happened yet. So at the moment, we're only representing Conley Monk Jr., Conley Monk Sr. in the National Veterans Council for Legal Redress, which is an organization that Conley Monk co-founded to help advocate for veterans. We're hoping that that becomes broader ultimately, but that hasn't happened at this point. Are you soliciting others?

Are people sending you information? Are you compiling names and contact lists of other black veterans? So if class is certified, then you already collected the data. We have a number of black veterans that we already have data on who have filed similar claims. So we know that there are, in terms of the numbers, there are significant numbers out there. We do have that. Significant thousands?

Tens of thousands? I can't get into sort of the exact numbers right now, but we know that there are a significant number of black veterans out there. So the federal courts did not move to dismiss. So what's the next legal action? Yeah, so the next step essentially is we'll have to

go through the discovery process and go through the process of actually getting additional information from the VA to help substantiate the claims that we made in the complaint. And, you know, we're sort of hoping that through that process, you know, some of this information that has been sort of withheld from the public will be able to come out. And ultimately, as I mentioned, we hope that this becomes a fashion suit at some point down the line. And ultimately

there will be sort of discussion about that, but that hasn't occurred yet. All right then. Olu, we certainly appreciate it. Keep us abreast. What happens next? Yeah, thank you very much. Robert, I want to start with you. The thing here, when we talk about cases like this, see, this is where I love when these white conservatives

and these pseudo-Black people go, there is no systemic racism. Those things don't exist in the country. I mean, we love everybody equally. You know, this is part of the revisionist history that exists within America, because the reason they have to keep that lie going is that as long as they can continue it going, that means they don't have to do anything about it.

The moment that you admit that America is a systemically racist country, the moment that you admit that race, as Condoleezza Rice said, was the fundamental birth defect of this nation, well, then that means you also have a responsibility to take a military action that will be necessary to undo the damage done by such in the form of, as we've been saying, reparations. And that's what the big conversation is around this. The reason they have to keep financing these new black folks to go out here and say there's no such thing as racism is because they have to keep financing these new Black folks to go out here and say there's no such thing as racism is because they have to keep that fundamental fiction of American society going, that it's only Black folks who lazily just sat around not wanting to do anything, and that's why

their neighbors are in conditions that they are in. But they got where they were based on merit. This is the whole DEI conversation we're having currently, did and earned it, saying that any programs that are made that will actually benefit and uplift African-American communities are this atrocious affront to meritocracy. But if you just get a job because your dad owned the company or because you went to the same school as the president of the company or in the same fraternity, et cetera, well, that's being based on merit, and therefore you deserved it. Or if you're the beneficiary of several centuries of slavery and that's what your family's wealth is built on, well, that's, of on merit, and therefore you deserved it. Or if you're the beneficiary of several centuries of slavery,

and that's what your family's wealth is built on, well, that's, of course, built on merit also. This is the lie that they continue to tell, because if they don't continue telling it, then they know they will have to pay up. It's our job to break that cycle and understand that the way that we fix the problem isn't by ignoring it, by sticking our fingers in our ear,

by blinding ourselves. It's about actually fixing the problem and paying up to those communities that have been subjugated by America for centuries. So here's my question, Julian. Where are all of these people who say they love the vets and love the soldiers? Where are the veterans organizations?

Where are all of these people who are always talking about, oh, don't you dare take a knee, stand in support of our soldiers. Okay. Where y'all at supporting this brother? This brother and so many others,

when we go back and look at the history of the Veterans Administration, what we find is that it's foundationally racist. Foundationally. When brothers left World War II after the passage of the Veterans Act, in Mississippi, Roland, we are in Mississippi today, so let's just dismiss Mississippi a little more. Only 600—listen to me—only 600 black men were able to get the veterans' benefits that would take them to college.

They had to individually go to a veterans board to request educational assistance, which was, in the legislation, their right. And some brothers who want to go to college were told, well, no, you could go to barber school. You can do this. They were just denied those rights. And it wasn't just Mississippi, of course, but, you know, Mississippi stands out as our racial sore thumb in terms of the treatment of our people,

which is why it often baffles me that Mississippians are as quiet as they are about the systematic treatment. But the Veterans Administration, you're right, these veteran organizations, they call you on Veterans Day. Can you make a contribution? They call you. But they're not standing up for black veterans. But black veterans were never treated fairly. Let's not forget that veterans were lynched, some cases in uniform, that Vernon Woodward was blinded, blinded in his uniform because he asked the bus to stop so he could use the bathroom. That was considered impertinent. And so the sheriff in that town, coming down from D.C. down through the South, blinded him with his billy cord club, rather, and then poured liquor on him so that he could be arrested for being drunk and disorderly.

There has been no systematic respect for the uniform unless it was a white man in a uniform. A black man in a uniform could just as soon be lynched, killed, or anything else, because the uniform made some white people think that he was uppity. And so I applaud this brother for bringing the lawsuit and Yale for helping him. But let's be clear. This is just a tip of the iceberg. There is so much more. JOHN YANG, You know, June. Secretary of State for the Environment and the Environment Rebecca? REBECCA GARCIA- You know, June 14, 1952, my mom was literally born inside the

public housing projects in Omaha, Nebraska. Why? Because my grandfather was denied VA benefits. And it wasn't just him, but it was many black vets in Omaha, Nebraska, who weren't able to access benefits that some Black vets were able to, but largely Black vets across the country weren't able to access the GI Bill. So what I'm curious with this particular lawsuit, how far back, you know, is he going to go? Because I think that there is more than just tens of thousands. It's probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions, Black vets who ought to have reparations for serving this country and then not getting the promises that this country said that they would receive upon them serving and sometimes giving up their life for this country.

All right, folks, real quick. And, Roe, just to remember, the Black veterans of the American Revolutionary War were promised their freedom often by their generals to convince them to fight against the British who had offered to free the slaves. They didn't get that either. As old in this country as the disrepair for Black veterans is just as old. All right, folks, hold tight one second. We come back. You know what?

I had no intentions on talking about Candace Owens going on Joe Button's podcast with The Breakfast Club. But she made a comment that got my attention. And I'm going to deal with her ass next on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. As bad as Trump was, his economy was worse, and black America felt it the most. We'll be right back. a horrific scene, a white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence. You will not replace us. White people are losing their damn lives. There's an angry pro-Trump mob storm to the U.S. Capitol. We're about to see the rise of what I call white minority resistance. We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing

is the inevitable result of violent denial. This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson at Emory University calls white rage as a backlash. This is the wrath of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this. There's all the Proud Boys, guys. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people. The fear that they're taking our jobs,

they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. This is Whitefield. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin.

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

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

Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

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

of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams,

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

of what this quote unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working

and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week

early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Fanbase is pioneering a new era of social media for the creator economy. This next generation social media app with over 600,000 users is raising $17 million and now is your chance to invest. For details on how to invest,

visit startengine.com slash fanbase or scan the QR code. Another way we're giving you the freedom to be you without limits. Thank you. Monday before last, I posted on Instagram about getting a shocking phone call. It came from Linda McAllister out of Pittsburgh. He is black conservative. He's often been on my show and he called

to tell me that Doctor Chris Metzler, who often appeared on this show and my TV1 show going back 12 years had passed away. Suddenly when he was vacationing with his family in Grenada. He was 59 years old. Chris was often on our show talking about the issues. And Chris was one of somebody who I had great respect for.

It was a few weeks ago. He and I had talked because he has a book coming out. He had a book coming out in the fall dealing with DEI, and he wanted to hire a black publicist. And so I sent Chris. That's a photo of those two in the middle is Lenny and Chris. And you see on the end there, we also lost Joe Madison. So Chris and Joe were on that same show. And I gave Chris a name of some black publicist for him to reach out to.

And so that's what we did. And so it was shocking. We just talked a couple of weeks earlier. And on March 7th, he was a part of our State of the Union coverage on election night. Excuse me, on the State of the Union night. That was on March 7th when he was on the show. Y'all have the video rolling. And so he was talking about he was talking about, again, Biden's speech on the show. Y'all have the video, roll it. And so he was talking about, he was talking about, again, Biden's speech, the expectations. And one of the things that I appreciated about Chris because he was a black conservative

that actually loved black people. He wasn't one of these black conservatives that would come on the air and would trash black folks and call black folks victims and stupid and ignorant and all those different things. And so our thoughts and prayers certainly go out to Chris's family. Again, it was so stunning. He was just 59 years old when he passed.

He was just three weeks away from celebrating his 60th birthday. And so we wanted to certainly express our thoughts. We will miss him. He was always welcome on this show. We were looking forward to his book coming out, celebrating that book and what he was going to be focusing on. So just a really, really great guy. He was doing some work with the National Urban League and, you know, last year as well. And again, right there was his last appearance on our show just three weeks ago for our coverage of the State of the Union. So Chris Messler, dead at the age of 59. The reason I started that, not only would say about Emma Murrow for the end of the show, is because Chris and I often talked

about these new age of Republican conservative grifters, individuals who are not real conservatives, who don't care about policy, who don't care about the people. What they care about is denouncing black people in order to make white conservatives comfortable and then for them to be able to make money off of, such as Candace Owens. Chris couldn't stand Candace Owens. We often talked about her and talked about how awful she was and how she was frankly illiterate to the issues and doesn't really

give a damn about black folks. Now, she's recently, of course, you know, she got fired from the Daily Wire. She claimed parting of ways. No, you got fired. And, oh, she's been on various platforms. Oh, go on here. And she accepts the invitation from the Joe Button podcast. And then she goes on The Breakfast Club and she's talking to them. And then she's talking

about how, you know, oh, I mean, how, you know, this must be my second or third invitation and how I never got invited to these black platforms to talk about the things. Well, that's actually a lie. She was. And I'm going to get to that a little bit later. But the reason all of this is important, the reason this is important is because what you see is, you see Candace desperately trying to, let's just say, come back to the neighborhood. You know, that person who you grew up with, and then they leave, and then all of a sudden you never see them again, and then they leave and then all of a sudden you never see them again

and then they don't come back to any of the family events. They don't come back to the high school reunion. They don't come back to the church anniversary. Then all of a sudden they want to then pop on back into our lives and go, oh, no, no, no. I was loving y'all the entire time, even though the entire time what they were doing was trashing us and distancing themselves from us. And it's not like we actually care in terms of what she had to say. But the thing that was going on was Candace Owens was consistently and constantly denigrating

black folks for the amusement of white conservatives. I really didn't care about her interview on Joe Button's podcast or The Breakfast Club. Nothing against Joe, nothing against Envy or Charlamagne or Justice Hilarious. I just didn't give a damn about Candace because she's not bright. She's not the brightest bulb in the dark room. Until she posted this. A number of other people were ripping her to shreds. And again, I didn't care. But then I saw this and I said, I felt like that Al Pacino character in The Godfather 3. Every time I try to get out, they pull me back in.

And so Candace posted this. The most brutal smears I ever faced was the media's attempt to convince black people, my own community, that I hated them. Finally, black America is recognizing that they were intentionally misled. Hmm. That's interesting. That is thanks in large part

to the Breakfast Club interview and Joe Budden. Hmm. Interesting. It's the media. It's the media. They're the ones who did that. That wasn't me. That was the media. You know what? I heard that media thing before. Y'all remember this racism going on in the world right now who's more racist black people or white people black people you know why could we hate black people too black people really don't like about black people there's some shit going on with black people right now. There's like a civil war going on with black people, and there's two sides.

There's black people and there's niggas. The niggas have got to go. Every time black people want to have a good time, Indian-ass niggas fuck it up. Can't some shit. Shit. Fuck out of here, man. And they need your help.

Nah, man. And I see some black people looking at me. Man, why you gotta say that? Why you gotta say that? It ain't us, it's the media. It ain't us, it's the media. It ain't us, it's the media. See, that's what the thing for me now, first of all, Chris and the N-word and black folks,

bottom line is, that's just nonsense, but he's a comedian, so whatever. But see, it's that part right there. It's the media, it's the media. That was Candace Owens, the media. The media did all of that. The media was saying that I didn't like black people. It's the media's

fault that I was being portrayed this way and now if I could just go talk to black media, black targeted media, and black owned media, and then now people can have a whole different view. and some Negroes out there

I've seen some of the comments like oh my god me, you know, I kind of agree with her You know now I got a different view of her Hmm it was the media, okay, so Candace Was this the media when you appear before Congress and talked about white nationalism in my opening and I will say it again you know that white supremacy and white nationalism is nowhere near ranks nowhere near the top

of the issues that are facing black America and the reason that you are bringing them up in this room is because it is attempt to make the election all about race as the Democrats not in my case please do not characterize my Mr. Chairman it's my time because it is attempt to make the election all about race as the Democrats. Not in my case, Ms. Owens. Please don't cut me off. Please do not characterize my motive.

Mr. Chairman, it's my time. It's my time. You've got your time, Mr. Meadows. I'll give you three more seconds. Every four years you bring up race, and you knew exactly what I meant when I said hilarious, and you just tried to do live what the media does all the time to Republicans, to our president, and to conservatives,

which is you tried to manipulate what I said to fit your narrative, okay? I was not referring to the subject matter that is hilarious. I said it's hilarious that we are sitting in this room today, and I've got two doctors and a missus, and nobody can give us real numbers that we can respond to so we can assess how big of a threat this is, because you know that it is not as big of a threat as you are trying to make it out to be so you can manipulate. Y'all heard that again. It the media. OK. Was this the media? But the real truth of the reason why people hate the queen has nothing to do with the colonization, has nothing to do. Which, by the way, just to be clear, the Brits invading Africa actually represents, and this is going to And then horrible English, British descended upon and murdered everybody. And the French suddenly murdered everybody. And that just isn't the truth. Obviously, the African nations had slavery, just like the European nations had slavery.

So it's an evil that was not started, did not begin in Europe. Actually, it can actually be traced back to Muslim origins. Hmm. That's you talking. But it's the media. Was it the media when you talked at CPAC, that racist conference in 2019? First and foremost, stop selling us our own oppression. Stop taking away our self-confidence by telling us that we can't

because of racism, because of slavery. I've never been a slave in this country. Stop telling us that we need to be obsessing over our past and we should be obsessing over our future and the potential that we have. Hmm, hmm. That was Candace talking to that CPAC. Mm-hmm, that's right. That was her.

Huh. How about this? Is this the media? You blame it. It was the media's fault when you owned Dr. Phil. Policies are harmful also to the people that they purport to help. And we have all of the evidence there to look at.

When you artificially place a Black American into a school in which they do not belong based on their knowledge, it doesn't mean that they go on to get A's. In fact, there was a Black adjunct professor, you guys have definitely heard of him, Dr. Thomas Sowell, who was teaching at Cornell University, and he found that the majority of the Black American students that were there were on academic probation. Now, these students were some of the smartest in the nation, but because they were artificially placed amongst their peers at Cornell University,

they were failing on academic probation. These policies have never helped black Americans. It's just basically policies that are put in place to make people feel good, right? I feel like I'm doing something when, in fact, I'm actually creating harm. You either know the answers or you don't. Hmm. That coming from a college dropout.

More of her on Dr. Phil. You're saying, put me, I'm giving you actual facts. No, I'm giving you actual facts based on extensive research We can fantasize and you can say, well, maybe they just don't feel good. But that's not the case. I mean, I went to university. I did not feel good, right? I didn't pull the best grades in high school, probably got into a better university than I should have gotten into

based on my performance in high school. It wasn't because of my feelings. It's because I wasn't focused on it. And we're talking about a cultural problem, what's going on back at home, as was in my circumstance. None of that is because of institutionalized policy. It almost seems like you guys refuse to accept that black students aren't performing well.

You feel like you have to have this burden of responsibility when, in fact, if you actually wanted to help, you would look at the facts, reexamine the fact that it's not helping anybody. It's not helping black Americans to artificially place them into universities, and you'd make effective change. But you're making the assumption that black students are academically inferior, and they're not. No, you are, actually. There's some of our most brilliant students that we have. That's the basic. No, no, no. That you are making the assumption that they are inferior.

You just said that they don't belong there. It's why you want policies. I'm talking about the students that are based on the policies that you are defending right now, saying that we should have these policies that let them into these universities, not based on their skill set, but based on the color of their skin.

So you are assuming that they are inferior. Hmm. Again, she blames the media. It's the media's fault of all the things that I've said about black people that's actually pissed off black people and that's caused white conservatives to be her biggest cheerleaders. Next. That's not socialist. 100 years, doctor, doctor, come on. That's not socialist. 100 years after slavery, the black community was doing better. We were going up, up, up. Then suddenly they socialized our community via welfare policies, and the black community started going down, down, down.

And you're sitting here supporting a candidate that is advocating for making that on a larger scale. He's saying we're not just going to do it to the black community. We're going to do it to every community in America. You know his policies do not work. Again, it's all the media, the media. Here's Candace on the media. Fox News again. Well, I think it drew attention for a lot of reasons. I think in many ways, people on the right felt vindicated. I know that there are a lot of moderate people that came over and realized that what I was talking about were actually real issues in black America.

I touched upon the illiteracy rates. Seventy-five percent of black boys in California not being able to read is a problem in black America. White nationalism, when black-on-black crime, 90.1 percent of all homicides against black Americans are performed by other black Americans. The entire hearing, in my opinion, was a hoax. The continued hoax on black America, which comes to us from Democrats, who want us ultimately to fail by focusing on something that is not harming us

when you look at all of the other issues that we are facing. Oh, it's the media. That's why black folks were ticked off at me. Hmm. So when you sat down four years ago with the folks at Mike, that's the media, right? You often talk a lot about how liberals are quick to cry racism or oppression. How do you define racism? That's a that's a. or what's an example of something you find racist? That's a big question. I think Jim Crow laws were racist. That was racist.

And in the modern context? In the modern context, I, I can't think of a policy that is racist, but if, you know, if somebody walks into this room right now and calls me the N-word, that's a racist term. In modern times, I can't think of a policy that is racist. You mean like when you sued your school and you called upon the NAACP to help you and you got a settlement from your discrimination suit? Is that moderate enough? Please continue.

You pride yourself on being a free thinker. Correct. What's an area where you break from or differ from President Trump? Where are you a free thinker as it pertains to his agenda? There are tons of things that I've disagreed with President Trump on. I thought that he responded too quickly to Syria. What are some others? You can give me some policies and I can tell you.

Anything specifically on the areas that you speak about? Black America? No. Which is about race, about black Americans speak about? Black America? No. Which is about race, about black Americans, about social policy, social issues. No, I'm fully on board with him. Fully on board with him. Yeah, that's why I go around and I speak positively about him. And I want people to understand that we should be trying something different and Trump is

offering something different. I'm fully on board with everything Donald Trump has said or done about black people, including Charlottesville, including calling African nations shithole countries, including the denigration on a consistent basis of black women, even black women who work for him like Omarosa, the constant and the vicious attacks on black female reporters at the White House, the vicious attacks on black women in Congress.

So you agree with all of that, right, Candace? But it's the media. They're the reason why. Next. Right. You know, in many ways, she is a victim of the culture. And I've said this over and over a time, over and over again, ad nauseum, which is just that victimhood has become almost a mental plague upon black America in particular, because that word racism is being so overused that society is becoming desensitized to it. And we actually can't even

recognize it when it actually exists. We think everything is racist. Things that used to be normal conflicts between human beings, getting cut off while you're driving, having a bad correspondence in a grocery store, you should just brush it off, shrug it off and move on with your day. Now people are crying and making videos and pleading on Facebook to say, look what I experienced today. I mean, it's sad for her, but I think it also says, as you mentioned earlier, it's something bigger that's happening in culture that needs to be addressed before it goes too far. Brush it off, shrug it off. Black people have the cops called on them because they're barbecuing in the park.

Black people get accosted by Karens just trying to deliver packages. A little black girl just selling lemonade gets accosted. Black man who's in the street, car's barely in the walkway, gets viciously attacked saying she's going to call the cops. Candace says, those things are not racist. Just brush it off. Shrug it off hmm next can you insult a black person without being a racist that's just a question i think the minute that he went with lazy he was why are you

why are you saying black people are lazy no but that's why does the word lazy make you think about no it is not i've actually i've never been called lazy in my entire life. So the question is, why does the word lazy make you think? No, no, no, I'm asking a question. I asked you a question. You said that lazy makes you think of black people. That's what you're saying. That is a common racist trope.

So that's within you, not within him. That is not a common racist trope towards black people. And it's incredible that you're defending a man who looks at a pregnant woman and decides to attack her. I think he's a jerk. I think he's an absolute jerk. That is so disgusting. You're trying to be insulting because you're trying to move the ball because you just accidentally called black people lazy.

That's what really happened. This is a typical racist trope. It's not a racist trope. Lazy is a word that means that you're not doing it all the time. Hmm. Interesting. First of all, here's what Candace Owens had to say about Ahmaud Arbery.

Ahmaud Arbery was caught on camera breaking into an unfinished property that was owned by Larry English. His mother has confirmed it is him in the video. Please stop with the just a jogger bullshit narrative. Avid joggers don't wear khaki shorts and stop the break into homes. Hmm. Black man gunned down by racists in Georgia. Those racists were actually convicted of that,

but she sides with the racists. Hmm. Here's her criticizing LeBron James when he spoke on the issue. Lastly, the King James, who would never be what Kobe and Jordan were off the court because he lacks intellect. That's interesting considering he owns numerous businesses

and actually, anyway. Bro, you have multiple homes, white personal chefs, gardeners, and housekeepers. If that's an example of literally being hunted by white people, then sign me up ASAP. That's what she said. Yep. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up.

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

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company

dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley

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

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

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

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

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Oh, she had it. Black America when nine-year-old Tyshawn Lee is lured from a basketball court down an alleyway and shot dead by a black gang member crickets, which is a lie.

Black America when a repeat burglar is shot dead after breaking into a home. Racism, injustice, protest, our culture is a joke. No, actually, the joke's on you, Candace. But I just want y'all to understand. See, I'm putting it in perspective because

these are all things that Candace Owens has said, either on television or on social media, about black people. But she wants us to now, you know, excuse all those things because you know, hey, it was the media.

They did those things. That wasn't me. It's the media that actually kept me from my people. It's the media that framed this and made it seem like I didn't like black people. It's the media who wasn't telling the truth about those things. It's the media, huh? Y'all know that. It's always the media.

Here's Candace Owens in her own words regarding Juneteenth. Juneteenth is so lame, Democrats really need to stop trying to repackage segregation. I'll be celebrating July 4 and July 4 only. I'm American. I'm a Texan. Juneteenth is the creation of black people, freed slaves of African descent.

They're the ones who created Juneteenth. For those of us in Texas, we understand Juneteenth. We understand what Juneteenth means. We understand the importance of Juneteenth. We understand that Juneteenth was about freedom. But you know, you're Candace Owens of the world. She also called Juneteenth ghetto. That's what she said. But she wants us now to excuse all these things that she has said.

It's the media. It's their fault why my black people, my black people, my black people, my dear, beloved black community doesn't like me because it's the media. Hmm. Check this out right here, y'all. One more video. Come on. Also, we have breaking news. Candace just gave us this news. Sorry, I forgot. You were blocked tonight.

Speaking of maybe AOC thought you disrespected her. You disrespected AOC? Yes, I got blocked. How do you dare do that? You can't do that. It's really sad. Yes, I called her an intellectual coward because she says a lot of things and she throws a lot of insults. And yet she will not debate anybody.

She doesn't want to debate people on the opposite side of the aisle. And I think that if you actually believe what you believe, you would be happy to sit down and have a discussion and a dialogue with somebody to get to the core of whose ideas are better. And I don't believe that she believes anything that she says beyond getting clicks and getting retweets. I believe so. I disagree. I think she believes it. I don't because why not just show up and have a debate? Why not debate someone? I find that last one right there to be very interesting. Because she said, why not show to debate? Now, she was expressing her viewpoints because AOC blocked her. And she was, how dare she?

Why not debate? Why block somebody who disagrees with you? I find that to be really interesting. Really interesting. Guess who has blocked me on Twitter? Candace Owens. So you're complaining about AOC blocking you, and you're saying, oh, why not have a debate?

And why run from it? But that's what you do. Let me tell you something that went down. But that's what you do. Let me tell y'all something that went down. 2018, they had their little Blexit conference. Little Blexit conference. And so they were meeting. And so we decided to say, you know what? We're going to attend your conference.

Here's the email. Media instructions for the Young Black Leadership Summit 2018. I'm on the email, my then booker Jackie. And so we get the email from them with the directions about going to the summit. We applied for media credentials. We did. You didn't think we did?

Check this out, y'all. Andrew Colvette, and the Attorney Point USA. Love this. Dear members of the media, on behalf of Attorney Point USA, I want to thank you all for applying for a press pass to cover the inaugural Young Black Leadership Summit in 2018, hosted by TPUSA Director of Communications, Candace Owens, Director of Urban Engagement, Brandon Tatum, and Founder and Executive Director, Charlie Kirk.

While we have communicated with most of you directly, if you're receiving this email, you have been approved to receive a press pass to cover the entirety of the events. We're looking forward to an amazing summit and are happy for all to be a part of it. You can pick up your media

badge tonight starting at 6 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Washington in front of Columbia Ballroom AB. We were like, wow, interesting. You see the schedule here. Donald Trump, he was going to speak and had the media check in and they had all this sort of stuff, special event.

OK, the White House. This is how you can register and all this sort of stuff and explaining to us the schedule and where things were taking place. And you see the guy, Andrew Colvett, Vice President of Strategic Communications. Oh, my goodness. But then we got this email. I have to apologize. This email was sent to you in error.

Unfortunately, your outlet's press pass request is not approved for this event. I apologize for the mistake. Completely my fault, Best Andrew. Andrew, it wasn't your fault. The reality is Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk

had the press pass canceled. They didn't want us to be there. But see, they couldn't control that White House event, you know, the one they were touting, the one taking place at the White House on October 26, 2018. Guess what happened, y'all? Rose showed up.

And so here's what happened outside. Outside, after they had the events inside and I was jousting with a whole bunch of the black folks, I was debating like 10 at one time. It was like talking to children. It was very easy. So we go outside and Candace is out there and she's got on this gray flannel outfit and coat hanging off her shoulders like she's Melania.

And she's speaking on a bullhorn. And so I'm standing off to the side and I'm just watching this whole spectacle, y'all. And then all of a sudden she comes to do an interview. So she's probably about 15, 20 feet from me. And when she finishes the interview, y'all, she turns around, and she sees me. And this is what happens. She was talking, and then she goes. Her eyes narrow, and she's like burning.

And she goes, what are you doing here? I said, really? I said, I cover black events. Is this not a black event? This isn't the first time I've covered a black event at the White House. How dare you? You don't need to be.

So then she starts just ranting and raving. I'm laughing. Then she tells me, that's right, you called me a coon. You called me an Uncle Tom, and that's why I blocked you. I said, Candace, you're a liar. I said, I don't even allow those terms to be used on my show or on my timeline. And I dare you to show me the tweet why I called you an Uncle Tom or called you a coon. And then one of the other little black minions, he comes by.

He's like, yeah, we're going to show you. We got it. I said, oh, please, I'll bet you $1,000 you can't find it. And then she storms off in a huff with her coat off her shoulders, and she runs and walks off. Then little Charlie Kirk, his little racist ass, he comes up to me. He goes, how you doing?

I was like, how you doing? He just looks at me. And I guess he was bothered, because I was like, who are you? He goes, really? I said, I was like, who are you? He goes, really? I said, yeah, dude. Who are you? Oh, I'm Charlie Kirk. Oh.

I said, you've been running from me too. You want to say it? Why won't y'all come on the show and do the debate? I'm going to have to check with Candace. I said, wait a minute. I'm sorry. Don't she work for you? Why you got to check with her?

It's supposed to be your organization. Neither one of them wanted to come to debate. Now why am I unpacking all of this? It's because Candace Owens has been fired from, she's no longer at Turning Point, no longer at PragerU, no longer at the Daily Wire, and so she's not out there weighing jacked up hairstyles with no proper edge up.

So she's sitting here now trying to reintroduce herself into black America. She now wants to have dialogue with black America. And let me be real clear. I'm not questioning her blackness. I'm not saying that she's not black. What I am saying is you're not welcome to the cookout. You're not welcome to any of our events. You're not welcome to any of our conferences. Because see, when you choose to be a self-hating black person. And then you want us to then listen to

you. No, no, no, no, no. That's not how these things work. Because see, what you are desperate for, you are now desperate for a platform and you think that, oh, I can just, let me just say, you know, the things that I want to say. Let me just say these. No, no, no want to say let me just say these no no no no that's not how these things work because see Candace you have trashed black people you have denigrated black people you have called us victims you have danced before white conservatives and you enjoyed your time on that stage, vilifying black people, trashing

black people left and right. And now you actually want to come back and have conversations with black people. And you want us to accept that. You want us to forget all of the things that you said. See, we can't do that, y'all. We can't forget all the stuff that you said. Sort of reminds me of that Elmer Fudd sounding fool Jesse Lee Peterson. He has said some of the most vile, despicable things about black people you've ever heard in your life.

So remember when I did that podcast, PBD, Patrick Bet David called himself an independent. He's a conservative. No. So it checks out. So we got this email here. Hello, Tony. I just left you a voicemail. My name's Tony Naimi, a talent booker for the PBD broadcast. They wanted me to they wanted to send an invite to me to be on their podcast with Jesse Lee Peterson. As you know from Roland's previous appearance on the show, PDB is a fair and balanced host who respects his guests' views and missions. He ain't fair and balanced, especially if you saw my post the first time I was on there. Please let me know what we can do

to get this arranged. I look forward to your reply. Oh, I replied. Because see, normally, you know, when you have these, you know, these things, people just sort of say, no, I'll pass. I couldn't do that. I said this. Tanya passed on your email to me. Let me be blunt as possible. I will never appear with Jesse Lee Peterson as the song by Bishop Bull Weeko, Hail to the No-No. He is one of the dumbest, ignorant, and uninformed individuals I've ever met.

I've encountered him before. He kills brain cells. He's even beneath Jason Whitlock, and that is hard to do. I've turned down doing his show directly. Jesse Lee Peterson is a grifting real Elmer Fudd. That means he is beneath me in every intellectual category, and I can't even believe PBD would even ask me to appear with that dumbass. So I had extended an invite six years ago when Candace was running her mouth, her and Charlie Kirk.

I have no desire to talk to Candace Owens. There will not be an invite extended to Candace Owens. Because Candace, you said all you need to say about black people. We heard you loud and clear. You can now try to blame the media. You can now try to say, well, my words were twisted. But the reality is, you said it. It came out of your mouth.

And so you can, by all means, you can keep your unseasoned chicken. By all means, you can keep your jacked up edges. By all means, Candace, you can have your potato salad with raisins in it. By all means, you can have your pumpkin pot instead of sweet potato pie. By all means, you can stay exactly where you are in Nashville with your husband and you can sit here and keep spouting off the nonsense that you always say. weak, tired, incoherent, nonsensical, trifling comments

that have dismissed, denigrated, and degraded black people the last several years. I hope you made a lot of money doing what you did. I hope that the show that you were engaged in was quite successful for you. But what will not happen is if you're gonna come on here and use this show, and use this audience as an effort to rehabilitate your trash image. Run along, Candace.

You made it clear you didn't care for black people. You made it clear who you were comfortable with. So by all means, stay with him because we have absolutely no use for you in our pursuit to end inequality and to fight for justice and for righteousness when it comes to people of African descent in this country. All skinfolk ain't kinfolk. And you absolutely will be rejected at any cookout. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one.

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

I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time. Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution, but not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

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

Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.

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

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

Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Rebecca, you get to go first. I mean, Roland, you said it all. And here's the thing. The issue is, I don't care if white media told me to hate Candace, whatever. But the issue is, like you said, is that Candace hates herself. And that's my problem with Candace Owens. It's because she hated herself so much, she happily decided to be a minstrel. And when I think about back to the 19th century, what actual minstrel shows were, it was white

people showing up in blackface to make fun of Black people to white audiences. So the level of self-hate to be a Black person, to volunteer to show up as a minstrel to white audiences, to make fun of Black community, and then now to try to come back into community, you know, that's a deep psychological issue. And that makes her unsafe to Black America. And I think that's what many people don't understand when we say she is dangerous to Black America. She is not safe. She has demonstrated that she will sell us out. And we don't need any more sellouts. We need people to step in and continue to build our communities, not show up to hostile environments

that don't like our communities, and stand with them to make fun of us in the situations that we're in. And she's right. We're not victims. But what's unfortunate is that Candace is a victim of her own making. There's a lot of people who think that what she says is very witty and she has a point. But something that I want to remind our audience is by it's simply being a contrarian does not equal intellectualism. Just because you say something counter to someone else doesn't make you right, doesn't make what you're saying factual. In fact, Candace argues and debates like a child. A child uses straw man tactics. For example, if you tell your child, hey, it's time to go to bed, and your child turns around and says, I hate you, that's what a child does, and that's what Candace

does. She's a one-trick pony when she's actually trying to debate issues, because she does not have the intellectual depth. She does not have the historical knowledge. She does not have the fortitude to actually have real conversations about issues concerning and of the Black community in this country. Instead, she employs strawman tactics, where she sets up a false or exaggerated argument, and then she tries to counter the false or exaggerated argument that she sets up. So she is not even honest when she's having debates. When you look at her constant framing, like that Fox News clip where she tried to tell that brother there, like, oh, no, you tried to call Black people lazy. I have never been called lazy. When all of us know that

the lazy trope has been a target towards Black folks by racist white people in this country by saying that we are lazy. We all know the historical context of that. So for her to set up that straw-pin argument to try to reframe, say, oh, no, well, you're the racist because you're calling Black people lazy because you're saying Black people are lazy, that's what you believe. That is a bunch of BS that should be beneath Candace, but it's not because she is a minstrel. She doesn't even require the paint on her face to actually do real blackface. And so one thing she needs to understand is that the very racists who put her on different platforms and wanted her to—wanted to use her as a tool of anti-blackness, they're tired of her. They are dismissing her because she is no longer of value to them.

And that is a very cold place to be in, Candace. And you know what? I don't feel for you. I actually have empathy for you because the level of hatred of yourself that allowed you to sink that low. Robert, as I said at the outset, the death of Chris Matchler, I know many black conservative black Republicans. Friends with them. Michael Steele,

of course, Alfonso Jackson, a former Secretary, my man Michael Williams, worked in the Reagan administration. I mean, I can go on. My man Bob Brown, of course, in the Nixon administration. I can go on and on and on. So I don't have any anger or resentment.

I don't attack black Republicans. I know individuals who are real black Republicans, K. Cole, James, and others, who actually do things for black people. But I know grifters like Candace Owens, like that fool Officer Tatum, whatever his name is. I know when I see them and what you're not going to do,

you're not going to use us as props in your redemptive tour after you attacked us mercilessly for the last eight years. A couple things. I think that we also can't lose the reason that Candace got

fired from her job in the first place, which is she started talking about the Jewish community the same way she has been talking about the Black community and forgot that they actually are the people who signed her paycheck. And she was summarily shown the back door. You came to talk about everybody else crazy the same way you talk about your own people, because you're only useful in talking about Black folks to them. You are not useful criticizing the Jewish community or Israel or anybody else. And therefore, she was given her walking papers. It's an important point to make on that. But when we talked earlier about COINTELPRO, for the people who are familiar, we're talking

about counterintelligence programs that the CIA and the FBI used throughout the civil rights movement to undermine Black movements. So they would take somebody, let's say somebody who was in college, but they were about to fail out. They filed a lawsuit against the school to try to get a settlement. They don't have a degree. They don't have any work experience. They really don't have any justifiable reason for anybody to listen to them. And then they prop them up. They turn them into a voice for that community. They put them in front of people. They put them on cable news. They put them on speaking tours. They bring them to the White House. They make them the spokesperson for the president when it comes to

black issues. That's what they would do if it was a COINTELPRO program. They would take an individual like that. Again, no education, no work experience, no justifiable reason to have a conversation with them on these issues at all, no level of expertise. And they will give them just directly those talking points for them to recite back in public as actors. Remember, Ronald Reagan was an actor. Nancy Reagan was an actor, well-known on the Hollywood lots back in the old days. And so, when someone like Candace Owens shows up, you have to understand how to specifically point out and understand COINTELPRO when you see it. That's just a voice that is created out of nowhere. That is a thing that young people, Gen Z now, they call them industry plants.

They just show up out of nowhere. Suddenly, they're put into the limelight, put into the forefront, given a voice. And the only thing they have to say or think to tear down and destroy the Black community. Candace Owens is no different than the sexy red or ice spice. This is a creation out of nowhere, no known talent, no known ability to actually produce anything positive for the Black community. Their only use is for the majority culture to destroy Black communities. And that's all they are, the modern version of COINTELPRO industry plants that are used to tear down black communities.

Julian, during the, when Mike Pence was there in the White House, there was an event at the White House, and at that particular event, he was meeting with some black Republicans, some black conservatives. And at the meeting,, he was meeting with some black Republicans and black conservatives. And at the meeting, Kay Cole James, who then was heading the Heritage Foundation, she was invited there. Also, Elroy Saylor, who was former chief of staff for Congressman J.C. Watts, was there.

There were some other people who were there as well. And at the insistence of somebody, Trump or somebody else, at their insistence, they insisted that Candace Owens be invited. She was not on Pence's list. He did not invite her. I was told Pence was not happy at all, that he had to entertain her. And I'm trying to find it.

But there was a photo that was taken and Candace's ass was cropped out of the photo. And Pence thanked those who were there, did not mention her at all. Well, something happened during the meeting and Candace, again, not a lightweight. I mean, not a featherweight, a flyweight. And so she descends. She starts, and I was told this by one of the participants. She starts, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack. And K. Cole James, who is well known

in black conservative circles, K. Cole James, again, who was the first black leader of the Heritage Foundation. K. Cole James, and if any of y'all want to see, I actually did an interview. So again, this is a perfect example when people say that I don't talk to black conservatives. Actually, I do. I sat down, did an interview with K. Cole James in her office, and we talked about her leadership there. And so what was interesting is Candace begins her little line trying to diss black people. And all of a sudden, the auntie in K. Cole James comes out, Julianne, in the meeting. The auntie comes out in the meeting. And I was told, she said,

little girl, you don't know what you're talking about. And then began to scold her. And then began to teach her. Began to break her down about the subject matter at hand and thoroughly embarrassed her in front of the Vice President of the United States. She had to teach her a little lesson. Because see, even the black conservatives knew, look girl, you ain't got no business being in this room because you have no credentials, no resume, no experience, no knowledge, no depth.

Because truth is, Candace Owens is as deep as mustard on a hot dog. Julianne. Well, you know, you have impeccably laid out your case with the clips. Rebecca has impeccably talked about the menstrually that is part of what this woman's DNA is. I just, frankly, Roland, loving you in this program as I do, wonder why we would waste so much time on such a nitwit. Because that's what she is. She's a nitwit. She's a lightweight. She has no credentials.

And she's a liar. I mean, beyond all that, she is a liar. I mean, we could completely debunk her if she's trying to have some comebacks to her. But I don't know where she could come back to. Look at that. I mean, seriously, look at that. First of all, comb your hair before you go on television. You know, that's number one.

Part of the Black Girl Code. But it, look at that. First of all, comb your hair before you go on television. You know, that's number one, part of the Black Girl Code. But it's more than that. I mean, she looks bad, but she talks bad. The particular clip that I was most incensed by is when she said, we have made more progress after slavery than we have now. She ignores the entirety of the history that I'm researching now for my book about lynching, the lynching culture, the wealth gap, and reparations. She ignores the fact that we might have had more had there not been laws put into place to prevent us from accumulating, laws put into place to prevent us from going to school. The laws that have allowed our HBCUs to be

underfunded for so long, laws deliberate. This is not like casual, oh, it's not our fault racism. These are laws that were deliberately passed. Only two people who—or two groups of people who were excluded from minimum wage laws were domestic workers, who was that? Black women and farmers. Domestic workers excluded, which meant that white women, white women, to give you whatever as your pay. Take some food home, why don't you? Here's some old clothes. Ignoring all of that humiliating history, not to mention the economic lynchings that took place. When we accumulated, many were lynched. I think of the story of Isidore Duncan, wealthy black man in Arkansas,

had money in his pocket to go pay his workers. He was so wealthy, he had share propers. They found his body chained to a tree and lit on fire. Found him three days later. And there's stories like this, like you hear me all the time. I can tell these stories. Ida B. Wells' three days later. And there's stories like this. You hear me all the time. I can tell these stories. Ida B. Wells' three friends started the war to compete with the white man. They were lynched. Economic lynching. This girl has no knowledge. She dropped out of college. But one would think she dropped out of high school, which, by the way, she earned

$37,000 for suing her high school district because she received racist phone calls. But there's no racism, girl. Please. What do they say? My Felicia, something like that? That just disappeared. Candace the friendly ghost. Go away.

So again, if any others out there, y'all in black-owned, black-targeted media, y'all can have all the conversations you want. But she will not be darkening this doorway and walking into this black owned media studio because I don't have time

to talk to flyweights we come back more on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network support our work. Join our Bring the Funk fan club. Our goal is to get 20,000 of our fans contributing on average 50 bucks each. That's $4.19 a month, 13 cents a day.

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and black America felt it the most. He cut health insurance while giving tax breaks to the wealthy and big business. As president, I put money in pockets and capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month. There's a lot more to do, but we can do it together. Fanbase is pioneering a new era of social media for the creator economy. This next generation social media app with over 600,000 users is raising $17 million and now is your chance to invest for details on how to invest visit startengine.com slash fanbase or scan the qr code

another way we're giving you the freedom to be you without limits i'm farraji muhammad.A., and this is The Culture. The Culture is a two-way conversation, you and me. We talk about the stories, politics, the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. So join our community every day at 3 p.m. Eastern and let your voice be heard. Hey, we're all in this together, so let's talk about it and see what kind of trouble we can get into. It's The Culture. Weekdays at 3, only

on the Blackstar Network. Hey, what's up, y'all? I'm Devon Franklin. It is always a pleasure to be in the house. You are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Stay right here. Folks, welcome back. You know, a lot of folks are really and truly confused when, first of all, y'all didn't run the Tech Talk.

Did y'all run it? Y'all forgot to run that. confused when it comes to social media, content creators, black content creators, how a lot of this stuff works. And they're running around going, oh, man, I got this huge following. That don't work the way you think it works. Isaac Hazen III is the founder of Fanbase, a content creator loving app. They're in the middle of a significant raise

to build this particular app. And before we get into that, Isaac, I really want people to understand, because so many people haven't seen that documentary on Netflix, Social Dilemma. They haven't seen other different stuff. And they don't really understand the game. They don't understand that what these companies have done is sucked people into the idea of delights, delights.

I remember you put out a video talking about reels. And I think I had put out one as well. And it was funny as hell. They were like, hey, you can earn a $1,500 bonus if you do 150 reels in a month. And I was like, say what? You think I'm about to sit here and folk me? Man, I know some people, Isaac, doc, they spend two, three hours putting together one reel.

And I'm going, you know your ass ain't getting paid for that. And that's what we see. And then we see all these companies announcing stuff, and they pull back. So TikTok pulled back the content creator stuff. Instagram pulled their stuff. Facebook pulled their stuff. I mean, the only real one that actually rewards content creators

in terms of the legacy folks is really YouTube. But people don't understand these... A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek.

I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

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

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

Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King,

John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette.

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

or wherever you get your podcast. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple podcast. ...psychology of the game and how the whole game is to get you churning stuff out to make them money and leaving your creative black ass broke. True. I think legacy platforms have built an enormous amount of wealth off of advertising. And for that, they need content. And they promise the visibility, the potential visibility,

or the potential stardom of going viral on a social network. And so that carrot and the stick thing that they've been doing the last seven or eight years has a lot of content creators that have actually gone through content creator burnout. You're posting a bunch of content. It's not getting seen by everybody because they want to cap how much money you can make, which kind of forces you into this little box of what should I be making, what can I make?

You're kind of playing the game of the algorithm. And so Fanbase is definitely something that we don't plan on doing that at all. We don't do that now. We never want to really make the company function off of the way advertising manipulates the way that these platforms allow users, not even creators, just everybody on the platform to be seen and be heard. So it's unfortunate, but it's really a crossroads that we're at right now, which is the reason why, you know, a platform like Fanbase exists. And again, I think that

people, if you don't know the business of the business, and so many of these people, they're the show in the business. This ain't no different for a lot of these black content creators than the black content creators in the music business, than the black content

creators in television and Hollywood. Baby, you the show, they're the business. Yeah. And my design by that purpose and my reason for building a platform is to be the business. Is to actually make everybody

the business. Everybody on Fanbase is a business. There's not a person that doesn't download the app that doesn't have the ability to receive revenue and be monetized. So you can post content for free if you want to, or you can post content and put it behind paywalls and monetize. We have hundreds of thousands of users that have downloaded the app and used the app, and tens of thousands, if not more, who monetize significantly month over month month and I think that's important because I want to turn everybody that is on social media into a business if they so choose because you know people

are losing jobs it's getting a little tough out here and I want people to find other ways to make money and you can make a lot of money by simply just posting the same content you would post on a platform like Instagram or TikTok or Fanbase you can make some money. And so, again, I want to stay on the business of the business because with this raise that you're doing, you are providing a window. You're providing an opportunity for people, whether they're black or not, where ordinarily they would not get. A lot of folks don't realize that Jeff Bezos made a ton of his money, not from Amazon, but by giving $250,000 to the folks at Google and wanting in

early stage. That's where a lot of his money first came from, then the money later came from Amazon. And so very few people get access on the ground level or early stage for a lot of these platforms to be able to invest and so you see and even though any fool who's buying Donald Trump stock for true social got to be stupid because you just getting fleeced what you have here is an opportunity for us to actually on the front end early invest in a product and watch that thing grow and then as it goes and becomes half a billion dollar valuation a billion dollar two billion dollars then that initial investment grows 10 20 30 40 50 100 times whatever the multiple is going to be

absolutely let me let me put some numbers out here. Facebook has a market cap of $2.2 trillion. TikTok is about $180 billion application, an app. So these platforms, these social media apps that we use all the time become these enormous monsters, these titans of wealth. But typically, Black people or just people that are not accredited investors who are already rich never get a chance to own them. So the difference in being an investor in fan base is you're not a retail investor like post-IPO. So when you think of purchasing stock, like going on the stock market, buying shares in these companies that are publicly traded, that is not this. This is around, these are the opportunities that exist before the public, the general public ever really gets to

know about it. So these are these ground floor, ground level investments. And so Fanbase is raising $17 million. We're raising $17 million in a Reg A on a platform called StartEngine. I've been on the program quite a few times, but I want people to know that this is significant because it's going to allow us to scale Fanbase faster and quicker and build. So the opportunity that most people don't get to invest in early stage companies, so I said, if you ever thought you wanted to invest in Instagram or TikTok or Snapchat or Facebook or YouTube and had an opportunity to, then Fanbase is your opportunity to do that.

That's why I'm wearing this shirt right now. That's why I tell everybody to go to startengine.com slash fanbase to invest. The minimum to invest is $399. And what makes that significant is when you are typically an accredited investor, you enter these pre-seed rounds, the buy-ins are $10,000, $50,000, $100,000 minimum to get in. And so to be able to say, oh, I can purchase some shares in a thriving tech company, this is something that we've already raised $10 million up to this point, and the company's valued at $160 million. So this is the company on the way up that I tell people all the time. I see Fanbase as a $100 billion company eventually, and we're just valued at $160 million. And what's important about that is, is that when we exit this company, either through an IPO or an acquisition,

the people that got in early are going to be able to see a significant return on their investment. And I appreciate everybody, and especially our culture, because, like, I was talking about venture capital. Venture capital has always stalled out completely, and especially for the black community. It's, you know, almost a little under a half of a percent of all venture capital went to black startups last year. And this year, it's going to be less. And so there's no, really, opportunity

for people like myself who have great products to be able to scale our businesses except coming to the community and say, look, you guys can invest for $399, get 60 shares of stock and fan base at $665 a share, and hold on to that and take a ride with us all the way to the end of our journey. It's extremely important. This raise is probably the most critical raise that we've ever done because as fast as we raise this capital, the faster I can scale this company. We have some amazing partners that have come on board. Earn Your Leisure. I was just at

EYL yesterday. They're coming on Fanbase. We got Aaliyah Janelle. We got a couple other. Aaliyah Janelle is actually a choreographer that works with Beyonce and did the Renaissance tour making exclusive content. And there's a lot of other creators but aside from that the 600 000 plus people that are part of fan base they use it every day that are making money just using the platform normal people just like you that are monetizing getting love and having an opportunity to do that so um this is significant and i think um with regulation crowdfunding that we've been able to do you wouldn't be able to't be able to do this without the opportunity to raise on platforms like Starter. So I'm grateful to be on platforms like this and be able to raise capital this way. And that's one of the things that happened during the presidency of Barack Obama.

You mentioned market cap. And so the folks at Motley Fool, they put this out. I just want people to understand from a technology standpoint, we talk about how these social media tech companies dominate in this country. Next year will be the 50th anniversary of Microsoft. The folk who got stock in Microsoft in 1975, the market cap today is $3.13 trillion. That's a hell of a lot of money. If you, Apple,

Apple founded one year later, it's 48 years old. And remember, Apple, when Steve Jobs got fired, Apple stock dropped real low. It wasn't worth, I think it may have got down to a buck or even less. But guess what? It's now at $2.65 trillion. So, yeah, I'm sitting here right now with two iPhones, three iPads,

got a Mac mini in this control room, two Mac mini at home, a MacBook Pro. So help contribute that. Why am I saying all of that? So I've spent thousands of dollars on Apple product, but the question is, are we spending money on Apple stock? And so when the phones get upgraded, you go get a new one, but that stock just keeps going up and up. Go back to my iPad. NVIDIA, a new company founded in 1993,

processing units, $2.26 trillion. Saudi Arabian Oil, $1.98 trillion. Google, $1.89 trillion. They were founded in 1998. And then, of course, Amazon founded in 1994, market cap $1.87 trillion. Facebook, $1.24 trillion, founded in1.24 trillion founded in 2004. Berkshire Hathaway, when they were founded, Eli Lilly, we can go on and on and on. But the bottom line is this here, the reality is black people can actually help make Fanbase just as big as a lot of these

other tech companies out here. Because the reality is we also did it to Facebook, and to Google, and to Clubhouse, and to Microsoft, and to Apple. I mean, we could go on and on and on. We set trends, and we talk about creating content and dances and all that sort of stuff. Man, we are damn good at that. But again, we are

the show and somebody else is getting paid off the business. This is an opportunity where if you don't want to create content, you can still invest in fan base. And while the other folks are creating content and the membership is, I mean, the follow is going up.

Look, your stock, what you purchase goes up as the valuation increases as well. Look, your stock, what you purchase, goes up as the valuation increases as well. So you don't have to be on the app creating stuff. You could just invest. Yeah. Well, let me say this. And that was a question from my 77-year-old dad.

He turned 77 April 25th because he was like, look, I ain't trying to make no damn dance videos. So can a brother just invest and not have to make some content? So that was a question from my daddy who literally texted me during the show. Go ahead. Absolutely. Let me say this. We have to ask the question, and this is a question that was asked on EYL,

was will the next social media, billion-dollar social media platform be Black-owned? And we've never really had one, except we know the value that Black culture and youth culture bring to social media platforms. Also, if you look at Black spending power in 2023, I think it's $1.6 trillion of spending power. And a good portion of that goes to luxury items and non-essentials. So we're purchasing a lot of things. We have a lot of buying power, but are we investing and then actually helping build these companies to be these mega titans? Because these kids, grandkids, other people's grandkids, other people's children are going to college and having legacy and generational wealth off the fact that you're on a platform making viral videos and increasing the value of a company that then they can eventually go public and sell. And so we have to be deliberate about this.

This is a very critical time. I say this like we haven't been here before. You cannot name a social media platform that is black-founded, that's made for every single person on the planet, that's raised $10 million already, that's allowed the general public to invest, that has over 600,000 users, that has all the functionality of TikTok, Instagram, Clubhouse, YouTube combined, and you can monetize and make money on the front end and have equity on the back end. We've never been here before. I don't think people understand how serious, how groundbreaking this is. I know that raising capital through equity crowdfunding sometimes has looked easy.

This is extremely hard. The amount of due diligence and compliance that we've had to go through as a company for the SEC, even the fact that this is a harder race to do because I'm only limited to being able to do amazing programs like yours. But before, I could get on the radio, I could get on TV and talk about the race, and it's a little bit different. So these are the only mediums where we really have a chance to connect with people and give them the opportunity to invest. And so it's a little bit more difficult, but I don't doubt the fact that we'll raise what we need to raise is how fast and so the velocity

that we're able to raise the capital. And I tell everybody, go to startengine.com slash fanbase, tell your friends $399. If you don't have any more than that, that's fine. I'm not telling people to break the bank. But if you want to invest more, you can. There's no limit to the amount of money that you can invest. And I tell people that the sooner we invest, the sooner that we close this round, the faster we actually scale the company, which is the purpose of this race, because I've been able to build Fanbase over the last three, four years relatively well. But I'm ready. Now we're a scale business. We're not a startup anymore. Now we're in scale business. We're not a startup anymore. Now we're in scale mode. And so again, that venture capital is so dry that I want to give the opportunity for the general public to take

this ride along with us to a billion-dollar company. And so that's why I tell everybody, make sure they invest and become part of this journey. Pound got some questions. Rebecca? Hey, let's talk about the user experience. Isaac, I just saw that you listed that there's some new features. Can you talk about the ability to take content on other social media platforms and the ability to now upload it to Fanbase? Yeah, so part of the reason that we're even raising this capital, we filed eight patents. One of those is for a content migration program, right? And so basically on Fanbase,

you can actually take all the content that is on Instagram and import it over to Fanbase. All your captions, all your photos, all your videos, up to 2000 posts. So you're not starting from scratch. Starting a new social media platform was very, very hard. And so I didn't want people to feel like, oh my God, I gotta upload all this stuff

from one platform to another platform. So I wanted to give people the opportunity to have a fresh start and not feel like they got to start from the bottom. And so you can import your TikTok content or your Instagram content inside of Fanbase following a couple prompts inside of settings and then import your content over. And that's a patent that we actually filed. And, again, to file these patents and protect the IP that we created, that's one of the cool functionalities and features that Fanbase has. Robert. You know, I just signed up for my Fanbase account

while we were sitting here talking, so I'll be uploading more content. Robert's going to have a lot of gun videos, Isaac. Hey, that's after the election. He's going to have a lot of gun videos, Isaac. Hey, that's after the election. He's going to have a lot of gun videos. Okay. Later on, we'll get to that. I'll show people how to assemble a P80 kit real quick. But Wolf, one of the things I've noticed with TikTok is they are so easily discoverable

on search engines. If you type in pretty much anything, the first five or six video results are now, instead of being YouTube videos, now they're TikTok videos. Is there SEO features and other metadata features that will help have fan-based posts as easily discoverable as other social media sites? Yeah, so I think we're entering something called the engagement era. I know that the previous generation of social media was more about following, and now it's more about engagement. And so I think people want to be seen, which is not a problem. And actually, at Fanbase, we want people to be seen.

So I'm focusing less on following and more on engagement. So I want somebody to be able to have 100,000 followers and get a million views on a video rather than have a million followers and get 100,000 views on a video, which is happening on these other platforms like Instagram now. And so with this raise, we're able to actually beef up and build a better search engine and algorithm because, again, I want content discoverable. Everything is going to be engagement first. We're refactoring our feed. We're doing a lot of building for the future because all these other platforms have some functionality that a lot of young people, Black people contributed to the DMs and talking about retweets and all these things, all these inventions that come on these social media platforms, these companies don't build these things. They listen to the culture, and the culture says build that. So with us raising

this capital, we'll be able to build those types of things, those search engines. We already have one now. There's an algorithm that exists now for our functionality on the platform. But now we're moving into the era of AI and discoverability and a lot of other things. So, again, these raises, especially this raise, is super critical in how we're able to scale the business. And so I'm very proud of the company that we built. I'm extremely proud of the team that we have and the company that we built. I'm extremely proud of the team that we have and the success that we have. But now it's time for someone that is Black to actually build a social network that everybody on the planet can use, but the return on the investment, the return of the

wealth from a generational standpoint goes to the people that look like us, that contribute to social media like us. And so that's why this is important. I tell anybody to do your research. We've never been here before. The closest we've ever been is Black Planet, and that sold for $40 million a few years ago. And Fanbase is already valued at $160 million. And so even the founders of Black Planet were like, they didn't even get a lot of money from building that company up and selling it. My thing is that I want to build wealth for the people that are actually invested in the company you know bob johnson created the most millionaires ever when he sold et and at some point fanbase is going to exit through a liquidity event which is an ipo or an acquisition or a merger and i want

to shatter that record that bob Johnson had. I want to create multiple black millionaires. I'm tired of us not being able to really leverage technology and culture in a wealth-building manner, as opposed to the few people that get famous on social media. We have some amazing social media celebrities and stars. But the bottom line is, there's a vast, huge majority of people that contribute to social media, and they deserve an opportunity to own it and use it at the same time. And so Fanbase is the only platform where you can do that right now. We've been very successful at that. So I tell everybody again, on my shirt, I don't know if you can see it again, go to startengine.com slash Fanbase, and the minimum to invest is $399. And then make a profile if you want to. But if you just want to be an investor, please, you do not

have to use Fanbase to invest in Fanbase. It's not that. It's a free app to download and use, but I want people to invest in this platform and own it. This is like my call, especially in a program like this, to the black community to say,

look, invest, invest, invest. Invest in this app, get some equity, become part of this community, become part of everything that we're building and join us along this ride. Julianne. Oh, thank you, my brother. This is amazing.

I'm on your site right now and we'll join and we'll invest. It's very, very exciting. And it's especially exciting for me as an elder who is somewhat, Roland can tell you stories about what I cannot do, tech challenged. My nephew told me, stop saying that. Just learn how to do it. I'm like, shoot.

I tried to take a picture while I was on the phone and I dropped the phone. Hey, Roland, you know how bad I am about this stuff. But this is an answer to my prayers for a number of reasons. My young people keep saying to me, Doc, how come you're not doing this, this, this, or this? And I'm like, I don't have time. I'm not trying to create content. But I do have this book, 365 Days in Black Economic History. And one of my visions is to have a vignette for each day of Black economic history.

And this seems like the exact place where I would want to do it. But also, getting in on the ground floor, I don't know how many times I've looked at IPOs and said, shoot, I wish I could have gotten into that. By the time you get to it, if you have those people who hook you up, you could get in there early. And you put a few thousand in and you end up with a million or less, but you end up with a lot of money. And we've never really had that opportunity to get in on the ground floor. That's what this is all about. Predatory capitalism keeps us in silos. So content creators have not yet been able to monetize their content in ways that are longstanding. You know, I know some people that if you advertise, they give you so many dollars per click or

so many pennies per click or something like that. This seems to be so much more comprehensive than that. So what I'd like you to do for me is to make a pitch to my generation. You know, I'm a baby boomer, proudly so. We tend to, like, I didn't do, what to call it, Bitcoin. Ain't trusted, didn't do it. Bunch of my friends lost money. You know, I don't believe

that losing money are two words that do not belong in the same sentence. And it just seems to be a little risky to me. So make a pitch to my generation and tell us why we as elders need to support you. I'm already there, bro. I'm already there.

Actually, you're saving one thing, and I'm going to be of aid on the other. How much can I afford to invest? But anyway, give me the pitch for the old folks. Well, let me tell you this. The accredited investor rule was a rule that existed since 1933 until 2015. So basically, it meant no matter your color, no matter your age, race, whatever, you had to be a rich person to be able to invest in these early stage companies. So a lot of those companies that Roland showed earlier, the Microsofts, the Googles, the Apples of the world, those companies were started with

money from already rich people because there was a rule that said you had to have a million dollars worth of net worth minus your primary residence or make over $200,000 a year for two consecutive years. That goes back to 1933. So from 1933 to 2015, if you were not rich, you didn't get the call to say, hey, put a little bit of money into this company that's launching this building, because in the future, it's going to be a valuable company. So Obama, Barack Obama and Joe Biden signed this law called the Jobs Act into law, and basically it wiped out the accredited investor role. So it gave the ability for anybody, no matter their income, right, or their net worth, to be able to purchase and invest in early-stage companies like Fanbase. This is significant because equity crowdfunding has been around for a long time,

but I'm a tech company, so I'm building something and have built something that is like Facebook, that is like Google, that I'm in the tech sphere. And so tech is the fastest way to build wealth in this country. When you look at a platform, a company like NVIDIA, how they are such a trillion-dollar company and extremely, extremely fast at what they're doing with AI. These opportunities didn't exist before 2015.

So it's relatively new. And so I tell people that don't understand that, especially people that look like us, when we have this little bit of extra capital that we can invest and become part of these platforms, become part of those stories that you hear somebody exit, and they say, oh, yeah, my friend was part of this company, and they just went public, and he made $20 million or $100,000 or $400,000 or so, whatever. This is what fan base gives you the opportunity to do. And so I say,

look, we have a lot of wealth. We have a lot of money in the Black community that we just spend on a lot of stuff. And here's another thing that I think is extremely important. Before the accredited investor rule, nobody had a problem with anybody in your age group going to spend $5,000 on lottery tickets. Somebody's probably spending $5,000 on lottery tickets right now. It's going to lose tonight. And they could have put $5,000 in their fan base, right? Or you can go to Vegas and gamble $5,000 and lose all your money. It wasn't illegal to do that.

But oh my God, God forbid that you gamble on Apple. God forbid that you gamble on Facebook. No, we can't let you do that. I mean, that's the importance. Like one of the seed investors in Uber, Orrin Michaels, please research this. He put $5,000 into Uber in 2010 when the company went public in 2019. His $5,000 was worth $24 million. And you never heard about it, because it was illegal in 2010. And Orrin Michaels was already a rich guy. He was a millionaire. So imagine a millionaire being able to take five grand and put it into a company and then turn it into $24 million nine years later. That's the kind of opportunity that exists with equity crowdfunding combined with tech. And I think that's the important thing.

There's a lot of people that are raising different things for different types of stuff on equity crowdfunding platforms. But this is a tech company that you can actually own. And then the users of the platform, by using it, actually increase the value. So my pitch is, buy some shares for yourself, buy some shares for your children or your grandchildren, and then tell your grandkids to get on Fanbase because I built this platform to be around for the next 20, 25 years. And so when they're 25, 50 years old, they'll be like, oh, Fanbase is the old app, but it is as valuable as Facebook. So I won't mind being the old guy in the tech space with a platform that is worth $500 billion, $300 billion. And so I tell everyone, we have to take this opportunity to do this. It's extremely valuable that we go ahead and do this. So that's

my pitch to you. Tell a friend to tell a friend to invest. And this is something important, too. I know a lot of people watch your show, Roland, but I always do the math, right? And so $17 million is our target goal. And so $17 million is roughly about 28,000 people investing $600. So think about that. There's 40 million Black people in the United States of America, right? All I need just from the black community is 28,000 people investing $600, and we get $17 million. Can you send me a tutor, please?

I'm going to get on that, but I need a tutor. It's extremely important, though. I'm telling you, I don't, you know, Roland, I thank you because I think Roland understands this. What Roland is doing with Black Star Network, this is about media, Roland, I thank you because I think Roland, Roland understands this. Well, what, what Roland is doing with Blackstar Network, this is about media technology, like the value that's, that's contained within this network and the ability that Roland has to be able to speak to our community.

I'm, I'm doing this on the social media, on a social media scale with fan base and there's video on demand and stuff, things that we're building. And, and we're happy to have our, our guys over at earn your leisure, become part of the platform as well. And there'll be bringing content over there too. So we're going to scale this thing, but I just want to bring us along for the ride.

And for everybody to understand, I am an investor. I invested in the, in the, in the first, in the first round, understood it, saw it because again,

we spend a lot of money on a lot of stuff, but that's all we end up having is stuff, and that thing doesn't grow. People have heard me say all the time, hey, don't buy your kids the latest pair of Air Jordans or LeBron James Nike. Buy them Nike stock because guess what? Michael Jordan is now a billionaire, Not because he bought the NBA team. He a billionaire because a bunch of us bought a whole bunch of them shoes and he got 5% of that Jordan brand.

And that's how he became a billionaire. He got 5%. Nike got the other 95 and he still became a billionaire. And so that's why what I keep saying, I need us to focus on the business and not just the show. And when you talk about the platform, I mean, listen, we're able to generate money on YouTube. But let's just say, look, things happen, whatever the heck. I mean, the reality is we could move, again, people understand, but we have a platform. We could literally move this show solely to fan base.

Folks contribute on fan base to be able to generate revenue for the show. We have to understand that. Too many content creators. I'm tired of hearing y'all complain about how you're not getting respected, you're not getting paid. It's because you're giving away your stuff for free

and Facebook and TikTok and Instagram. Facebook owns Instagram. All these cats, they own you. Elon Musk is talking all this crap about Twitter, how it's just blowing up. That's to make him money. This is an opportunity for us again

to finally, and we can't say, man, I wish somebody told you. This is probably Isaac's sixth time on the show we've been telling y'all this is the opportunity for us let's teach our kids the same thing to understand the business of the business and so go to startengine.com forward slash fan base to get more details folks let's make this happen let's own own black people, O-W-N. And I ain't talking about Oprah's network,

which she don't own anymore. Warner Discovery owns it. Again, Isaac, I appreciate it, man. Thanks a bunch. Thank you, man. I really appreciate it, man. StarEngine.com slash fan base, guys. I appreciate it.

All right, folks. That is it for us um uh i want to thank you actually actually before i go let me do this here um i mentioned i mentioned uh at the outset uh first of all during the show uh about the passing of chris metzler who often appeared on our show right before I came on the show live last night. I also got a call of another brother who passed away yesterday. He was the president, general manager of the Atlanta Daily World, longtime publisher of the Dallas Weekly, Jim Washington, I'm trying for some reason, this is not going through.

I want to show, you know what, I'm just going to show a photo right here. Give me a second, y'all. And so Jim, he was in Dallas, he got later married to Janice Ware with the Atlanta, I'm sorry, Atlanta Voice, I keep saying Atlanta Daily World, the Atlanta Voice. And so Jim Atlanta Daily World. The Atlanta Voice. And so Jim Washington lost his battle with cancer.

Jim was 74. His brother, Frank Washington, was one of the top black automotive riders, one of the very few black automotive riders. I knew Frank as well. Frank passed away last year. And so we lost Jim last night. I knew for the last three weeks he organs were shutting down. He was in ICU, moved to a hospice, called a couple of weeks ago. Janice passed him the phone. He was able to say my name and just wanted to tell him that, you know, loved him, was praying for him.

He had two children, Lanny and Patrick. I knew them when they were very young. And look, that was one of the best jobs I had running the Dallas Weekly because he gave me full control to be able to do what we needed to do. Was a really, really good brother. And so just wanted to pay our respects. And so keep Janice in prayer. Keep his children in prayer. The folks with the Atlanta Voice, the folks with the Dallas Weekly, and all the other members of the black press, America who knew and loved Jim as well. So shout

out. Just want to just say that Jim Washington, very dear friend. And when I was at the Dallas Weekly, Jim and I would talk all the time. We have lots of different conversations about family, faith, all kinds of different stuff. And through our conversations, I led Jim to Christ. He often talked about that and wrote about it. And so he is now an ancestor. So we miss that brother, very dear friend. And so prayers for the family. Again, Julianne, Robert, Rebecca, thank you so very much.

I appreciate y'all being on today's show. We will do this thing again. Y'all take care, folks. Support us in what we do. Again, we want you to support Fanbase. Support us as well. I'm telling y'all. I mean, y'all, I deal with this every single day.

The stuff that we do, the opportunity for our panelists to be able to opine on these issues, you are not getting that anywhere else. We are the only black-owned media outlet with five hours of original news content every single day. Nobody else. Not Essence, not Revolt, not Black Enterprise, not Ebony, not Blavity, not Degrio. I mean, not The Source, not Rolling Out, not Urban One. You can name all of them. They ain't doing it and ain't nobody

black targeted doing what we're doing. We don't spend our time on gossip and mess and stuff like that. We're talking about the stuff that matters to our people. And so your dollars matter. And I'm telling you right now our fans have been amazing for the last five

and a half years. Our goal is to raise $1,000,000 each year. That money goes right back into the company. It pays for travel. It pays for rent. It pays for staff. It pays for cameras. It pays for our live you streaming stuff. And so please support us in what we do. You can send your checking money over to

PO Box 57196, Washington., 20037-0196. Cash app, dollar sign, RM Unfiltered. PayPal, RM Martin Unfiltered. Venmo's RM Unfiltered. Zelle, Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. You can also download the Black Stud Network app. We are approaching 100,000 downloads, y'all.

Let's get there. I think we're like 15,000 away. Keenan, let me know where we stand now. Again, Android phone, Apple phone, Android TV, Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. We got our 24 hour seven day

week news channel on four fast channels as for streaming services. Amazon News on Amazon Fire. You can also tell Alexa play news from the Black Star Network. Your waters on Plex TV, Amazon Freebie, and Amazon Prime Video. And don't forget

to get a copy of my book, White Fear, How the Browning of America is Making White Folks Lose Their Minds, available at bookstores nationwide. Get the audio version on Audible. Folks, I'll see y'all tomorrow. Ha! Black Star Network News.

Oh, no punch! A real revolutionary right now. Huh! media and something like cnn you can't be black on media and be scared it's time to be smart bring your eyeballs home you dig a lot of times big economic forces show up in our lives in small ways. Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. Small but important ways. From tech billionaires to the bond market to, yeah, banana pudding. If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it.

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