#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Roland Dismantles 'Stupid Black Purity Test' Used To Question Sen. Kamala Harris' 'Blackness'

Episode Date: July 10, 2019

On Monday, Roland dissected the foolish Black purity test some African Americans are using to question Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris' "Blackness". This insane argument revolves around Harris' heritage. Some believe that she does not have the ability to address to the issues of "American descendants of slaves" because her parents are from Jamaica and India which essentially, in their view, does not make her a "real" Black American. Roland called this attack on Harris "trifling" and "some of the dumbest sh*t you've ever seen" ... #PressPlay Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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There's only one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real. It's Roland Martin Unfiltered. By going to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com, you can make this possible. And let's deal with this when it comes to this whole issue of blackness. This is what I said in, oh, let's see, the third year of Obama's term as president. Then when he got reelected, I said, the next black person who runs for president of the United States is going to have a very difficult task.

I said, because you're going to have some black folks who are not going to give them the same runway they gave President Barack Obama. And what you have seen thus far, specifically, when it comes to Senator Kamala Harris, is you actually are seeing that. Yesterday, I was on MSNBC and we're talking about this whole idea of, they were talking about Donald Trump Jr. retweeting someone who said that, oh, did you know that Senator Kamala Harris, her father is Jamaican and her mother is Indian. And then, of course, he later deleted that particular tweet.

And I went on and I said that there is a significant problem when you talk about this whole issue of blackness because it is black hate cloaked in black love. And so what you've had, you've had all these folks who call themselves ADOS, American Descendants of Slaves. And so they've been out here talking about this particular agenda. And what I find to be interesting is that in which folks also don't want to deal with is there is a significant hate towards immigrants, even black immigrants, when it comes to ADOS. I can say that because I've had some of these damn fools literally hit me up saying, oh you're not really ADOS because your paternal great-grandparents migrated from Haiti, which is really stupid and asinine when you realize that I was born in Houston, Texas, my mama was born in

Houston, my daddy was born in Houston. And so I can actually trace lineage back. And the reason this thing is stupid and asinine, because these folks somehow believe that they somehow have cornered this idea of creating a black agenda for ADOS people. Okay? And the reason I have contempt for many of them, now there are some people who truly believe in terms of candidates should have a black agenda and speaking to the issue of African Americans. I've spent my whole life doing that.

Some of these fake-ass people all of a sudden decide to just wake up in the last two or three years where those of us like me, I've run three black newspapers. My first internship with a black newspaper in 1990. Due to math, 2019, 1990, you'll understand what I'm talking about. But the reason why this is stupid, because what you have is you do have people who are questioning her blackness. Now, first of all, if you deal with that phrase itself, who is black, you can actually have a daddy who's from Jamaica, mama Indian, and you still black African-American saying I'm from the United States. It's a whole

different deal. She also was born in the United States. So let's not act like that. Somehow that also doesn't exist. But this thing goes to in terms of what are your interest in issues and concerns well if you actually study uh senator kamala harris she hasn't look at her whole career she's never actually represented a quote black district if you're a member of congress and your district is 50 55 60, 60, 65 percent black. OK, that's a whole different deal. But when you be a district attorney, when you've been, oh, attorney general, when you've been, oh, United States senator, it's a whole different deal in terms of who you represent. Then you have the people who are saying, well, she's now she's claiming black when actually

that's not true. But let's break this thing down. So if you listen to the folks who's who on the 80s movement, they make the argument that, well, because she's not really from here, she doesn't have the interest of black people okay so please explain to me clarence thomas he's from here he doesn't have relatives who immigrated from elsewhere he's from rural georgia he can trace his lineage back to slavery so what do we say about See, the reason this is a dumb conversation, because I can show you somebody who is not from here, but who fought on behalf of black people. Y'all ever heard of Shirley Chisholm? Now, let me compare Shirley Chisholm, Clarence Thomas. Shirley Chisholm's people are where? Barbados? Not from here.

Clarence Thomas is from here. There's an ideological difference. So if you are studying different people, there are people who have ideological differences. Now, why am I also calling these folks out? Because this black purity test, again, is dumb because we've seen it before. You know what we've seen before? When we questioned black people who grew up in the suburbs. See, again, if y'all want to have this discussion about, well, who's AD or S and whose people can trace their lineage back. Well, what happens then when we get somebody black who grew up in the suburbs and black people say, well, you're not really black.

Yeah, I know that it happens. Right. So what do we say then? What do we then say to somebody who's black, who's ADOS, who can trace their history back? But they went to all white schools and they don't necessarily have the same perspective as other folks who are down. See, I love these folks who hit me on Twitter and hit me on Facebook and hit me on Instagram and, oh, Roland, you don't really believe this. When I've been on the front lines while a bunch of y'all been playing video games. And now all of a sudden you woke because your ass been sleep. While those of us have been awake for a very long time. If you want to question a person's policies, that's fine. When you start playing this game of blackness and what do they claim, then you got dumbass Boyce Watkins who then says, how did Kamala Harris go to an HBCU and bury a white man?

As if you ain't never seen. But see, the real deal is that the only reason Boyce did that because he's an attention whore and he wants folks talking about him. That's why he did it. Yeah. I went ahead and said it. Okay. And so that's what you're dealing with there. The problem with all of this is it's a stupid conversation. Yes, it's stupid. Eric Holder, first black attorney general. Okay. Sitting here right now, working on a campaign dealing with Parson gerrymandering. Where his folks from Barbados, general Colin Powell, where his folks from? Yep. West Indies, Bella Fafonte. Where's folks from? Again, Malcolm X.

Mama from Grenada. Do y'all even understand we can go down the lines of a lot of black people who have been on the front lines in this country, fighting on behalf of black people who are not pure black people? That's what this thing is about. This literally is a black purity test. And it's stupid. It's really stupid. And some of y'all say,

well, no, we're not questioning your blackness. Yes, you are. Gang recognize gang. And we've seen this when people have questioned black folks who did, well, you're not really black because you didn't. See, we know the old deal. You didn't grow up in the hood. But what the hell is the hood? I grew up in a black neighborhood. Oh, we wasn't a project, but it was an all black

neighborhood. And in fact, it was the first master plan, one of the first master plan black communities by the Racist Department of Housing and Urban Development in the 1940s. Yeah, real black. That's what I grew up in, Clinton Park in Houston. Okay, so does that make me fully black? And what is fully black? Does it mean having a mama and daddy in the house or coming from a single parent home? Do you see how this is stupid? Do you see how this is a year return where you can go back for all y'all people who don't know a damn thing about what's happening in the world seven of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world right now are in Africa.

Seven out of 10. Now, black folks been saying forever, Haiti, Bermuda, African nations? Because we want to say, no, no, no, but you're not pure black. You're not from here. That's not really, really your interest. It doesn't make any sense to me and it should be no part of this damn debate now if you again if you want to challenge senator kamala harris on issues go right ahead if you want to challenge senator cory booker on issues go right ahead no problem but to literally be sitting here and having a dumb ass discussion about blackness, that to me is trifling.

It is trifling. And the last point before I go to my panel, if you one of those folks who are sitting here and you're tweeting, you're talking and you're saying, oh, if they don't do this, I'm not going to vote. You are dumb as hell. Donald Trump has already appointed more than 120 judges to the federal bench. More than likely, the Republicans will confirm another 40 to 50 before the election in 2020. That means if you sit your stupid ass at home and don't vote and literally give him another four years, that means that he will more than likely appoint another 250 to 300 federal judges to the bench. Right now, he's already appointed upwards of 20 percent of appellate judges. Now, what does that mean for all the issues y'all care about? That means when you file a lawsuit, you're likely going to have a Trump appointee

hear it in court, which means a right wing judge. You just heard us talk about the lawsuit they're filing against Florida in federal court. That means, and those judges will be anywhere from 35 to 45, which means they will be sitting on the bench for the next 30 to 40 to 50, possibly 60 years. That's right. That means that if you are a black kid today who's 18, there's going to be a federal judge appointed by Donald Trump who might be sitting on that bench when you are almost 70. But some of y'all are sitting here and you're saying, I'm not going to vote. It makes no sense. Now, what makes no sense. Now, what makes no sense is some of the rhetoric coming from you.

And let me be real clear. Y'all can sit here and tweet me. Y'all can sit here and cuss me out. I really don't give a damn. Y'all can sit here and try to question my blackness. And you know what? I just quote Della Reese from Hall of Night. Kiss my entire ass. This is dumb.

And there, because there are people who are not from this country who have fought along with besides folks who are from this country, because they said the African diaspora is important. And oh, by the way, if you sitting here want to talk all this smack, then you want to dog folks who are not from who are not purely black. Well, damn it. Stop quoting the slave uprising in Haiti.

The first successful slave revolt in the Western Hemisphere. Well, then stop quoting other individuals who are not from here because all you're doing is embarrassing yourselves and you really have no understanding of black history and when i say black history yeah black history history here and in other black countries. Cleo. Well, your entire ass? Okay. Yeah.

No. Entire ass. Okay. Okay. I'm going to leave that alone. I love some food. Rolling this shook. No.

I just wanted to go ahead and say it because I'm tired of stuck on stupid people. Such as you, Haywood Johnson. Rolling. So if you post a comment, trust me, I'm going to go ahead and say it because I'm tired of stuck on stupid people such as you, Haywood Johnson. So if you post a comment, trust me, I'm going to call you out. Go ahead, Cleo. I have not followed this 8OS track that you're referring to, so I don't know what that all entails. But, of course, I've heard conversations about Kamala being black enough, but it wasn't in the context of 8-0-S, 8-0-S. And I think that there's other issues here that people are reacting to. Again, I'm not coming from an 8-0-S perspective.

I don't know that perspective as well as you. But I think there's people who don't trust Kamala because she has a white husband. And I think they're questioning her commitment to black people and black issues. Which is stupid. Well, stupid is one way of looking at it. I'm going to call it stupid. But let me finish. Pat Belafonte has had two white wives.

We know he black, but go ahead. Okay, well, I think it's important, as I was telling the producer earlier, that we actually unpack and dialogue around why people have the perspective they have. Because we can call them names and call them stupid, but that's not going to transform them. From their perspective, their perspective has merit, and I think we should engage it. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, so don't make any assumptions about me, but when you live in a society where white men have killed, continue to kill as cops in any other ways

they can, have lynched, have castrated, have done damage to black men, there's a knee-jerk reaction among some black people about, wait a minute, how are you going to be, quote unquote, with somebody who looks like these people that have done harm to us? Now, that might be a quote unquote stupid reaction if you come from a place of intellectual analysis. But if you come from a place of trauma and emotional reaction to the assault on black people, you question it. Also, let me finish. Also, some of the reactions that people had to the debate, if I'm not mistaken, because I didn't watch the whole thing, but I think there was one section where a white woman named Joan Baez, what was her name? Marian Anderson? No, Marian

Williamson. I'm sorry, Marian Williamson brought up reparations for a split second, and I was quickly interrupted by Kamala, who talked about a childhood busing experience. And people interpreted that a certain way. That may be behind, I don't know, some of these Ados reactions that are coming off as being so-called black enough. I mean, Colin Kaepernick is half white. As far as I'm concerned, you can't get more black affirming than the behavior that he did. Colin Kaepernick is half white. We can go on.

Jesse Williams, half white. I mean, we can go down. We can name a lot of half white people. Barack Obama, half white. Hell, black people love Halle Berry, half white. Well, right. And let's look at all the black men who are married to or either having sex with white women.

Let's just be real. That's a whole other issue. Let's talk about it contextually. No, no, no. I'm not sure who she is married to and got a damn thing to do with policy. Because here's why. The same people who are critical of Harris for her policies, do they love Obama? He had a black wife.

So having a black wife or a white husband ain't got jack to do it. She is running for president. And my deal is I'm not going to sit in a well, you know, you married a white man. Look, first of all, that's who she married. Ain't got nothing to do with me. I married a black woman. Like I said before, you can easily intellectually do an analysis like that. But people's reactions to this is based on people needing behavioral proof that people have their back as black people yeah but but you can't even but you can't but it's the behavioral issue right and my deal is look at policies go ahead abris then we'll go to brooke yeah you know it would be nice if people would form their opinions based on

logic and fact yeah that would be a refreshing change here. Your trauma interrupts that. Because I am, well, maybe they need to go to a therapist then. Maybe, let's suggest they all go to therapists. Because I've been following the ADOS group, as you've mentioned. And they are very, it's a very, they are completely detached from an understanding of the transatlantic slave trade let's first say that okay let's first say that that they seem to not understand that the difference between me and my brothers and sisters in jamaica and my brothers and sister in guyana and my brothers

and sisters in barbados or brazil or brazil who got dropped off off? The damn boat dropped us. Yeah, we are the same blood. I agree. We are the same blood. And you are showing your ignorance when you don't get that. And you keep making these dumb ass statements. OK, that's number one. Number two, the stuff about who Kamala married. Number one, she didn't get married until she was 50. And I can tell you, she dated a lot of black guys. So let's just say something right here. With all these black men, like a Dr. Boyce Watkins, who wants to conjecture around, how could she, what is the reason? How, why did she marry a black, a white man when his own damn daughter married a white man? Maybe it's the same reason his daughter married a white man, perhaps. It ain't none of your business.

That's the answer. Number one, that's the answer. And number two, the bottom line is, as you mentioned, this woman has gotten where she is on her own. A lot of times when people bring things like this up, it's because of the sexist notion that the only way an intelligent woman can get somewhere is if she got there from having a sex with a man or because of her proximity to white male power. This is this is the this is the sort of the innuendo that a lot of people are raising when they raise that issue. In fact, right. And other bullshit. Right. because first we had willie brown here and uh of course uh they dated and first of all if anybody wants to understand california politics brooke uh one of the most powerful people in

california politics for the last 40 plus years is willie brown a black man uh and and so like sort of amazes me this whole idea like oh oh, yeah, she had white folks who were taking care of her career, whatever. And again, here's the deal. I don't I don't for the people who and let me real clear, I haven't endorsed anybody. I've interviewed numerous candidates and and I'm looking at everybody. But the issue that I have here and then some of the people are saying, well, no, I've already seen some comments rolling. Some of us are looking at her policies. OK, good. That's fine. But, Brooke, the problem I have are people who literally are having this blackness conversation. When I know when I've heard people have the same discussion about black people who were born in Alabama or whatever, who are from here.

And they like, well, they didn't really grow up in the hood. Oh, let me break all of all of the uniqueness stuff. Well, so-and-so went to a private school. They ain't really black. So-and-so grew up in upper middle class neighborhood. They ain't really black. So-and-so grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood, they ain't really black. Uh-oh, you in Jack and Jill, you ain't really black. Uh-oh, you in a fraternity sorority, you ain't really black. All these people out here even holler, oh, you in the boule, you ain't really black. You have all these folks who want to start assigning who's not really black to determine whether or not you're really down with the cause.

And that's just asinine. Absolutely. It's absolutely ridiculous. It is internalized racism that I think just perpetuates white supremacy on a larger scale. That's absolutely just completely what this is. And there's a bit of sexism in it. And I'm glad you brought up, you know, the person, one of the main people complaining about this, their daughter married a white person. So it has nothing. It's performative. Part of it is performative. And I don't believe that people who are perpetuating this horrible conspiracy deserve any time.

We shouldn't listen to them. I don't think we should have those conversations because I don't think your trauma or what you believe is your trauma is an excuse to abuse someone else and create trauma on them. Now we are having national conversations debating her identity and her blackness. And it's horrible. And when it comes to wanting somebody to have your back, you know, how often do we have the perspective? Because we always say perspective matters. And I do believe it matters. And we sat there on the debate stage. And one of the most talked about moments came from a black woman with a lived experience of benefiting from busing, something that Joe Biden was against and kind of brought in this

states' rights narrative that harms the ability of Black people being able to maintain and achieve and hold on to their civil rights. And we had a person who experienced that personally, and that conversation was a conversation that needed to be had for America, but it put in the forefront right there black people black americans and our history and how is that not having our backs how from that is the takeaway well she's not black enough that is absurd well i got somebody here uh janine moran donald she's not black that she is black she's not not African American. But she's black. But here's the deal, though.

She was black enough to get bused. If she wasn't black, she would have been in the white school. And the problem, and again, what you have, because here is this whole deal with Adolf's folks, is that the only people who should be benefiting from

policies are people who are descendants of slaves and nobody else which okay that's not gonna happen because the reality is if we when a law is passed it's not like you can literally say i'm just going to exclude all these people here. Now, there are examples where sectors or individual groups or whatever, depending upon whatever it was, have been impacted. But the thing that that still is tripping me out here is for all of this attention that is going towards Senator Harris. Are the same folks actually demanding in terms of from other candidates? And what are they speaking to? And the reason I'm also, and the reason this is a bigger issue for me, Cleo, is because black folks are going to have

to reconcile with this reality that as we continue further this could be more interracial marriage and so what we're also doing is we literally are saying to i'll say it black kids who may be the product of an interracial relationship and what some people are doing is you got a pick you got a pick it's like look people are people have been going crazy i mean tiger woods for example folks been going crazy tiger woods uh he calls himself combination okay why'd he call himself that because his dad is black his dad is also native american but his mama is Thai, and he also has white folks in his family. But he used to say he was black. Who?

Tiger. When? I have it on tape. Right. Because I've actually examined this phenomenon. Right. And there's tape with him about 13 years old where he's calling himself black. Got it.

And the assumption is that something occurred, which I'm going to talk about. And what did he talk about? And what did he talk about? He talked about racism that he experienced on various golf courses, things along those lines. He talked about that on tape. Well, later, not around the time he called himself black. No, no, actually he talked about it in interviews with Ives when he also was a kid. He talked about racism that him and his dad experienced when they couldn't play certain golf courses, things along those lines.

But here's the point I'm making. The point I'm making is when daddy black, mama Thai. You've got some black folks who are like, no, no, you black so basically forget your mama. I know some individuals personally who say that wait a minute, my mama's black, my dad is white

or my dad is white, mama's black or whatever and they said why can't I simply say I'm biracial? Why do I have to pick? I'm saying that because we are going to have more and more people who are like this here. You sure are. And what we are seeing here is a dynamic where you ain't really black. You ain't really black.

And that's to me, it's nonsensical. Let me say something and make something very clear here. First of all, I am with Ados, and Eidos is not my favorite reference. And one of my critiques of Eidos, which is why I'm not with Eidos, is what you broke down in terms of the fact that they're trying to be divisive and separate black people based on where the boat landed during the enslavement period. And I don't agree with separating us along those lines so i want to make that clear i also want to say that black people and let me finish because folks love first of all you're talking it's so tall yeah but that's not people always interrupt when i say things like this black folks live in a context where there's been intergenerational media and institutional

rejection of black people mistreatment of black people and black people who have passed and then all kinds of stuff that was anti-black, including marrying white folks, as an anti-black reaction. And when I was an undergraduate, I did a whole research project on interracial attitudes and why black people make the choices they make, and I won't get into that right now,

but a lot of the reasons why black people made those choices were anti-black. Mm-hmm. And the people who were white in my sample, their reasons for being a black but not anti-black it was based on fetish and all kinds of other kinds of things but there's lots of anti-black attitudes in this society what's going on with some of these people who are not good at articulating what's happening with them they're more immediate in terms of what's on the surface is they're concerned about people's behavior that looks like it might be rejecting of them as black people.

That is a legitimate perspective. It might be dysfunctionally acted out sometimes. And also, we're living in a time now where the media and corporate America is disproportionately pushing biracial families, biracial relationships, black man with white woman. If you watch TV right now and get your calculator, you'll find very few black-on-black it comes to black on black love and the affirmation of that capacity in the media landscape. So people reacting to that, there's people who are skeptical because of the attack on black and black love, which Ray Charles can see that's happening in the media and that's being pushed by corporate America. I went to a tire shop as I said on your show before, and I saw a tire advertising where there was a brother who looked like me with a child. It was just him and that child who was clearly half white.

And these are models. These aren't real families. These are contrived, put-together situations that somebody intended to put together. So some black people, including Cleo Monago, who's concerned about this biracial push that's implying that black people loving each other is not as valuable as black people loving white people. That's a real agenda that's happening. So there's people who are looking at whether they're wrong or right. Look at the likes of Kamala, who, from their perspective, interrupted the reparations conversation during the debate. Like, where is she coming from? And we don't want no we don't want no white man as the first lady with a black with a black president.

The first one is not going to be the first. Well, of course, I'm a figure of speech. You'll be the first man. Well, of course, I'm a figure of speech. He's going to be a man. He's going to be the first man. But you're being rational. I'm talking about what people are emotionally saying to themselves. But for the folks who are emotional, well, I... It's real, man. No, no, no. I understand it's real.

You've got to deal with it. I understand it's real, but as Ava said, some people need to go here and get some therapy. Here is the piece that I... People who are slaves need therapy. No, no, no. What I'm saying is... They do need therapy.

What I'm saying is... Appropriate therapy no what i'm saying is what i'm saying is that appropriate what i'm saying is that's why i'm getting what i say it is this is this is self hate cloaked in self-love and if you told me if you told all the time if you i say all the time but i'm saying this here if you told me roland you got to pick this ADOS person whose history and their concern ain't got a damn thing to do fighting for liberation of black people. But this cat who's from Haiti or Jamaica or from an African country and they are ready to stand side by side with you. Guess who I'm going to pick? The person who's fighting for freedom. Absolutely. And that's what I'm trying to get people to understand is

you might be an American descendant of a slave and you might not give a damn about black people. And so we've got to stop this whole... It's like, well, no, this is what I am. The government says you can't be sending around 80s. They are a... No, no, no, no, no, no, a no no no no no no no no no i'm only mentioning that because i'm also expanding it abis because what we are dealing with we are dealing

and i keep saying on the on the show why we have to have a uh a a retraining uh a reprogramming of black america because when you have a level of self-hate, all of a sudden it begins to, no, no, no, y'all ain't one of us, so you go over there when it's some folk on our side who ain't down with us. That's why you was

playing with Thomas. Absolutely. Absolutely. And as you mentioned, I think it makes sense and it's logical to critique every candidate on their record. But let's critique every candidate on their record. And what I am seeing is some interesting fixation on Kamala that I am not seeing on anyone else. Guess what? Newsflash is not the only prosecutor running. Oh, right. Number one. Klobuchar is a prosecutor.

Record. And you also don't have the same attacks on Senator Cory Booker that you have with Harris. Absolutely. Who authored the crime bill? It was Joe Biden. Okay. So, you know, I think, and what does a prosecutor do?

They actually, what? what enforce the darn laws. OK, so they enforce the laws that are on the book. So I think it's very interesting to me that she has been singularly fix fixated on by this group from day one. It's not just from this particular debate. It's from the moment that she announced and it has been very, very strategic. It has been coordinated and I believe that there are

really good... Brooke, final comment from you and again, I do believe I'm telling you, I believe some of this also has to do that there are black people who are upset who believe that black people didn't benefit from Obama. And I see it. The next black person who runs, they're going to catch hell because of Obama.

Now, ain't that something? That's true. But it's so bizarre because I think you're right. You're right. The next black person that runs is catching all of this, but Biden is just sailing through. That's wild. Kamala Harris is being judged harsher than Joe Biden. And I have a problem with that. I do think that there's a lot of racism in a lot of these conversations about her. I want to bring, I want to bring in right now, uh, Trabian shoulders, founder and CEO of BME. We were, of course, before even all this stuff came up, we were scheduled to talk to him about this whole narrative for black Americans. So, Travian, welcome to the show. Your thoughts on this conversation?

No, no, brother. Thanks for having me. It's actually a really poignant and enlightened conversation. But at the heart of it is, and you've all said it over and over again, the question of blackness is a distraction from our actual black agenda while we're running around spending all this time and energy trying to figure out who's brown enough and who's not and who should be married to whom we're not spending any energy talking about what is our actual agenda how do we build black health black wealth black know-how black networks black love black like that part don't

get to spend any bandwidth on because we're spending all our time on these things that like i said and trading when you say and when you say black agenda also folks having a real black agenda that's outside of reparations because here's the piece a candidate can stand on stage and say i support reparations got it is it going to pass the house or the senate and get signed into law about trump okay so fine can he say it i believe reparations all right what's next see i mean and that's the piece so the people i hear yelling reparations i'm like okay gotcha i heard you uh what else is on your agenda this is uh go ahead i'm gonna go to brooke go ahead yeah hold on brooke hold on brooke brooke trade me and then brooke go ahead

oh okay yeah i was gonna say if i may here here's here's what's on my mind when you get right down to this question whether it's the question about you know who's black enough or who's not or it's the question about our actual black agenda the main thing that we have to answer is who do we think that we are because i have worked with thousands of black leaders now and i've worked with thousands of white leaders now and when you ask them the question about black america and how they define black america both white liberals and black liberals for lack of a better word blackives, they all define us according to some type of dysfunction, some moment in our past, like slavery, some nonsense about whether we're at risk, high crime, ass and black folks from a wealthy nation that had educated women leading and dedicated black men committed to the community and the country. And they were all tech savvy, and they were cool, and they were brilliant. And by the way, everything that I just named about that mythical place called Wakanda is true of black people in America.

We're a $1.2 trillion economy. Our women are among the most educated in the country. The black men are the most dedicated fathers, according to the CDC. You know black folks love tech because we do it all the time. You know we're the arbiters of cool and fashion. So everything that we loved about this mythical place, we actually have. We just don't act like we have it. We don't talk about ourselves, and we don't define ourselves in the truth that is us, that we are beautiful, that we are accomplished, that we are capable. I was talking to a brother who's an activist two days ago, who when I mentioned to him that most black people are not poor, he paused and said,

well, that can't be right. Most black people in America are not poor. Yes, there's more than we want. And yes, black on black crime is a real thing. But you know, 99 point something odd percent of black folks do not actually commit black on black crime according to the bureau of justice statistics so when we look at our reality all my thought is all this energy we spend denigrating ourselves and then figuring out how to box us you know climb out of this hole that we dug in terms of what we think about ourselves in the world think about things about us we can fix all that just by telling the truth about who we are and defining our people by our aspirations. And then once we've made that clear who we are and who we aspire to be, then we can talk about any kind of challenges that we face. But if you don't do it that way, if you don't

acknowledge our aspirations, our contributions first, then people start to think that all we are is a bag of problems and dysfunction. And that is so far from the truth that we get in the sick conversation. Brooke, Travian makes a great point there. I love that he brought up Black Panther. I remember when the movie came out the first weekend, I think he did about $240-plus million in opening weekend, and I had posted something on my Instagram page, and I said, what if we gave the equivalent of the cost of two tickets to our favorite HBCU?

And, Brooke, I had people who were coming at me saying, why can't you just let us enjoy the moment? And then other people said, that's not going to make a difference. And I went, fool, how do you think it made it made 240 million if people didn't buy tickets and i'm going you do know it made 240 million because folk bought one ticket two tickets three tickets four tickets and they literally could not put two and two together and say, hmm, if we were so hyped about a movie, which I loved, why can't we get hyped about

an HBCU? And they literally said we couldn't do it. I'm like, but we just did it with Black Panther. Go ahead, Brooke. I think that you can do both. It's a great point. No, no, no. But Brooke, what was amazing, though, is they actually said we couldn't do it with the HBCU,

and I'm like, we just did it with the movie! Right. That's just people who didn't want to. That's why we're in the situation that we are, right? I just think people didn't want to. Scott, Scott. I'm sorry, sis. Go ahead. No, you're okay.

Go ahead, Travian. I was going to say, it is literally time for the next narrative for Black America. We have, you know, if you're a civil rights generation person, that means you're in the baby boom generation. And the baby boom generation is, you know, getting into the late 60s, 70s, and so on. So literally, they're celebrating the 50th anniversary or everything. It's because they were around 50 years ago. And we're at a point now where so much has changed in our context that we have to update our narrative and i think the right

way to update it is to start off by telling the truth about black people as actually aspiring and accomplished beings because we've been that we've been assets in this country literally since the day we got here and the only question is who owns this asset i'll interject with this here and i want cleo to speak to this because we've talked about this a lot. And I'm going to schedule this because I think we need to do it. I'm telling you, if you read Dorothy Cotton's book, Dorothy Cotton was the only woman in Dr. King's inner circle. And she was responsible for the SClc's citizenship education training plan if you want to join sclc you will come in to their group you would then get assessed cleo they would assess

you and they would go okay this person needs to be reprogrammed. And so they would take you through this program to say you need to be reprogrammed before they will allow you to even join the SCLC. I absolutely believe that what is is missing is a massive reprogramming of black America. Not only you talk about trauma, you talk about the power of white supremacy i was playing golf today and this brother was this brother goes uh he said man nigga please then he stopped he was like you know what i need to stop saying nigga he said because there's somebody who's suing a coach right now who who to these basketball players, the AAU players, you niggas need to start playing better. And one of the parents is suing him. And the brother supports the lawsuit.

But he used the N-word in our conversation. And I'm sitting there going, and it's like I blocked somebody the other day who called me a coon. I said, oh, but you're conscious. I said, hold up. How can you be a conscious brother, but you're using the exact same language that white oppressors used against us? I said, no, you want to criticize me? Fine. I said, but why don't you use some language that white oppressors don't use? And I'm telling you, the level of self-hate that exists, and we also think a lot of that is self-love. Whew.

But I'm all for that. Hold on, Trayvon. Hold on one second. Hold on. Cleo, then you. Self-hate is not black people's fault. Right. Self-hate is not an intellectual choice that someone made on a thursday

because i hate myself on friday right self-hate is a consequence of environment in white supremacist culture called the united states of america which is what which is why i mentioned the media and all those influences it's important what you just said is so key and it's more important than getting mad at black people for being confused which they did not choose to be because they don't even know they're confused is creating that model that deprogramming what i call trance breaking strategy my work is built around trance breaking because we're in a trance when somebody is grown and call somebody the n-word and then has to step back and go why did i do that and going through all these psychological dynamics is because they're in a white supremacy trauma trance.

So it's not helpful if somebody's in a trance to re-traumatize them with name-calling, with assaults, with getting mad at them for being, see that? Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. That ain't helpful. That's not helpful, Roland. We need to do

things that might break up from their trance no it doesn't we need to do stuff that's going to deflect trauma and that's going to create a space to actually critically critically self-evaluate okay i'm not going to call you stupid i'm going to say you sick as hell well is that better when your neck was still doing the other what what what what, what, what? I can't, I can't even add to it. You have to come off as if you give a damn. I do give a damn. I know you give a damn. You sick as hell.

I know you care. That's what's ironic about your approach. I know you're rolling. I know you care. I don't care what nobody call you, whatever. I know for a fact that you are in love with black people and you about the affirmation and the advancement of black people. But I'm asking you to consider, and we should do a show on this as strategies to do trans breaking work all right so we can come out so we can deprogram like you say because we do need to do right trey being then brooke and avis and then i'm gonna close this out and go to a break and then come back and finish the rest of the show go all right so all i'm going to say is our whole organization is dedicated to the next narrative for black america we have 300 fellows across the country. They're all black, all different walks of life. Some of them in finances, some of them on the street,

but everybody's committed themselves to our people. And how do we tell a story of our people from an asset perspective? And then set an agenda that is about building our health, our wealth, our know how, our network and our communities. We're holding a conference in October. You can come check us out at nextnarrative.net and I will stop there.

Brooke, go ahead. I just want everybody, you know, to not cause pain in order to help soothe their own. Yeah. Well, that was short and sweet. All right. Trayvon, I appreciate it, man. Thanks a lot. Give us the website again, Trayvon.

Nextnarrative.net. All right. Where is he? In the country. Ask him. Brother, where are you in the country? Where are you based? We're headquartered in Miami, but we work around the whole nation.

You're in Miami. Okay. All right. Trayvon, I appreciate it, man. Thanks a lot. All right, folks. Back to that Roller Mark unfiltered video in just one moment. Hey, guys, they're back.

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