#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Secret Service Jan. 6 Text Messages Lost? MD Primaries; In Good Conscience self-care products

Episode Date: July 20, 2022

7.19.2022 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Secret Service Jan. 6 Text Messages Lost? Maryland Primaries; Marketplace: In Good Conscience self-care products The United State Secret Service tells the Washington Post they can't recover deleted text messages from January 5th or 6th ahead of Thursday's primetime hearing. We're talking to  Representative Hank Johnson and Redditt Hudson to unpack all of this and its effect on the Jan. 6th investigation. Maryland voters head to the polls today. We'll tell you some key races to watch out of the state. In California, a black man running away from two cops is shot in the back. We'll show you the video and why police say the video doesn't tell the entire story.  In our marketplace segment, a black entrepreneur is trying to change the landscape of body care products for black people.   Support RolandMartinUnfiltered and #BlackStarNetwork via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered Venmo ☛https://venmo.com/rmunfiltered Zelle ☛ [e-mail] Annual or monthly recurring #BringTheFunk Fan Club membership via paypal ☛ https://rolandsmartin.com/rmu-paypal/ Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox 👉🏾 http://www.blackstarnetwork.com #RolandMartinUnfiltered and the #BlackStarNetwork are news reporting platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Thank you. ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത� Thank you. Thank you. ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത� Thank you. Folks, Black Star Network is here. Hold no punches. I'm real revolutionary right now. Back up. Support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roller. Hey, Black, I love y'all.

All momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be Black-owned media and be scape. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? He's got it. Whatever the piss, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got Roro, yo Yeah, yeah, yeah

It's Rollin' Marten, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah Rollin' with Rollin' now Yeah, yeah, yeah He's broke, he's fresh, he's real the best You know he's Rollin' Marten now Martell! Martell! Hey folks, today is Tuesday, July 19, 2022. Roland Martin unfiltered streaming live on the Black Star Network.

VNC Day on Capitol Hill. First of all, 17 members of Congress were arrested outside of the U.S. Capitol for protesting of the issue of abortion. And so 17 members. Now, I'm confused. I thought protesting was allowed. of the issue of abortion. And so 17 members. Now, I'm confused. I thought protesting was allowed.

But U.S. Capitol Police released their statement saying that they were obstructing, and that was the result. A number of those members, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Congresswoman Jackie Spire, and others were arrested today as a result of that. In addition, while that was happening in the House, they were debating the issue of codifying same-sex marriage into law.

Again, quite the busy day on Capitol Hill. I want to go to my panel right now to talk about this. You know, in terms of what is going on, Democrats obviously are responding to the Supreme Court's recent decision, first of all, invalidating Roe v. Wade. But they also are looking at the comments made by Justice Clarence Thomas that they want to target same-sex marriage next. Even Senator Ted Cruz has called that a wrong ruling. And so we want to talk about that with our panel. And so we'll talk about that with them. Also, folks, another huge story that we're looking at,

Secret Service has said they cannot find any of the texts sent January 5th or January 6th. Now, after the inspector general asked for them, Congressman Hank Johnson of Georgia is on the House Oversight Committee. He joined us right now. Congressman, the Secret Service is supposed to be the top of the line, non-biased law enforcement agency. This has to be a grave concern that they would delete text messages on a crucial day. And to me, this really speaks to this potential coup and how the Secret Service could have been in on it. Well, Roland Martin, thank you for having me on and good to be with you again. And I'll tell you, I lost confidence in the Secret Service when the first state dinner that President Obama had as president was invaded by a couple of people who were not on the guest list.

And the Secret Service is in charge of the White House. They should know who's coming and going at all times. And nobody paid a price. The only person that got fired was Michelle Obama's appointment secretary for that breach. And so here we go fast forward up to this point where we've got a guy who Donald Trump took out of the secret service and put him in charge of some political operation in the White House. At the same time, he was with the Secret Service. And so I'm not surprised that suddenly we can't find text messages from the day of the insurrection and the day before the insurrection. Something about those two days and Secret Service had already been warned that we're gonna need that. So don't destroy that information, secure it, and we're going to be needing it during a investigation to come.

And still that information ends up being deleted. It smells badly, has a bad smell about it. Well, not only that, we also trying to figure out how do the Secret Service overlook the pipe bombs from a place outside of the DNC when Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was in the DNC as well.

I mean, this is, and I think people who say, okay, this is not a big deal. No, this is major. You're talking about the law enforcement agency whose job is to protect the president and the vice president of the United States. Well, I think that that agency is in need of a makeover. The fact that Black agents who work for the Secret Service office have had a long-running lawsuit against that agency for racial discrimination.

I mean, systemic racism exists within the Secret Service. I have no doubt about that. It still exists. It has been systemic, and it's something that needs to be rooted out. And so there's a lot of change that needs to happen at Secret Service. I think President Biden should immediately suspend anybody who was in the chain of command on January 6th. Those people should not be in charge right now. If there were any people who were on that detail, they should be placed on death's duty.

We don't know who to trust. And what bothers me is that they were deleted after the Inspector General asked for them, which means that was a deliberate act. is now talking about launching an investigation because any government, anything that happens on government property must be maintained. There's a law. Congress has a law that says that. And so this should scare anybody that somebody said wipe all text messages that took place on the 5th and the 6th on one of the most crucial days in the history of this country. Well, I'll tell you, Roland, Donald Trump thumbed his nose at the law, at the rules, at regulations. He did things the way that he wanted to do them, and he did not

care what the consequences would be. And so so far he has not been held accountable for that recklessness. And so people who served under him have adopted that same method of dealing. They feel like they can get away with murder and nothing will happen to them. People like Steve Bannon, who today is on trial for thumbing his nose at Congress all the way up until last week when he decided, OK, I'll I'll submit to an interview. Well, it's too late to do that now. And hopefully he will be held accountable in a court of law, just like so many others who ran with Trump and supported him in his efforts to install fake electors to corrupt the electoral college system. I mean, everything that he did and those who supported him, they need to be held accountable for.

Absolutely. Look, I know that you have to vote. I appreciate you taking some time to chat with us. You know, I really hope the House Oversight Committee has its own hearings specific to the breakdowns in the Secret Service. And so that absolutely needs to happen. And so we look forward to that. And we look forward to January 6th committee hearing taking place on Thursday. Well, I tell you, Roland, that's why it's so important that even though people may be a little disappointed that we haven't passed the John Lewis Voting Rights Act or the Voting Rights Advancement Act or the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, we've done a lot with the infrastructure bill, Infrastructure investment and jobs act, and with the American rescue plan that saved this country from the depths of recession.

We have done so many things that if Republicans had been in charge, it would not have happened. And so it's important now that people realize that Democrats, although we haven't been able to advance the ball as far as we would like because we've dealt with two Democrats in the Senate who have obstructed us, we need to elect more Democrats in the Senate, and we need to retain our majority in the House of Representatives. So it's very important that people get out in November and vote for Democrats. And so when we do that, we'll be able to continue our efforts to get to the bottom of all of the corruption that almost deprived us of our democracy and our very liberties. Those are some things that are so very important that we need to not go and pout because we didn't get everything we want. We got to come back to the polls, do it again, do it bigger this time. And when we come back, we got two more years in this administration to do the things we need in order to make things work for the people of this country.

Indeed, Congressman Hank Johnson, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. All right, I want to bring right now folks at Reddit Hudson. He is the co-founder of the National Coalition of Law Enforcement for Justice, Reform, and Accountability. Reddit, glad to have you here. It looks like you're in the car like I am. Look, explain to people how serious this is. That the Secret Service

deletes text messages after the Inspector General requested them and now saying, oh, we can't find any text messages between anybody on those two days. It couldn't be more serious, Roland, because we have to connect the dots, right? It's not just the Secret Service.

You have Congress people actively aiding and abetting ongoing crimes. You have a former president who's committed a trove of crimes, first listed in the Mueller report, but never being held accountable for it. As the congressman previously said, he was spot on in his assessments. And when you see that this coup attempt is continuing to unfold, that was just a part of it, man.

What we saw on January 6th was a step in the process. You have Republican legislatures all over the country securing elections in advance of voting. We are going to decide whose votes count. We're going to decide who votes or not. When you connect those dots into the congressman's point, see the impunity with which these people are operating, man. The Secret Service could give a damn about a directive from anybody not to erase that evidence. We're going to erase it. And what are you going to do about it? Same thing with Donald Trump. I'm going to incite this violence. What are you going to do about it?

Now, what we've seen, and this is why it really is important to pay attention to that, what we've seen is a mediocre response at best from that hall of power that we would expect to respond to these kinds of things, the Department of Justice. And I hear the apologists for Merrick Garland saying, be patient. He's playing chess, not checkers. No, man, the statute of limitations is going to run out on many of the important investigations that are already underway, and the information that the Secret Service had here

could be critical to that. And what could happen, potentially, because of the lack of enthusiasm that the congressman tried to address in the previous segment, is that republicans could regain a majority and all these investigations go away you know go away man everything is at stake right now man the entire democratic experiment such as it is

is on the line if nobody can get to the bottom of this quickly. Remember, we've had testimony where the Secret Service agent, who then Donald Trump makes a deputy chief of staff, wanted the Secret Service to take Vice President Mike Pence to another location. And it was Pence. Pence was like, I am not getting in that car. See, I mean, people need to understand. We're talking about a secret service, potentially. And it says a huge red flag, what has happened here. You may have had agents who were directly involved in this coup d'etat. It's attempted coup.

Right. And Roland here, what people don't think, I don't think a lot of people don't grasp is the scope and scale of the compromised nature of all of our governing apparatus and everything else, up to and including the Supreme Court,

who also appears to be operating as agents of the far-right radical folks who want to take us back 150 years, damn near to slavery, by law. And we have to see those people who are in position to hold folks accountable criminally do so. I want Mary Garland specifically to step on the gas, man. He just put that memo out reiterating a policy that William Barr, of all the damn people, William Barr, who aided and abetted all kinds of crime until his recent testimony, acknowledging the fact that reality exists and Donald Trump knew that, you know,

there was no fraud in the election. He was just trying to steal it. But to put out a memo that says, hey, now we're getting close to the election, well, of course we're close to the elections, because you've allowed your investigations to run that long. And be careful. Let's not appear to be partisan. Let's not appear to be on one side or the other. It's ultimately going to allow, inevitably, for those who are responsible for committing crimes openly to escape accountability and continue committing crimes to the point where we may not recognize this place in four years. Reddit, there have been countless movies done where there have been Secret Service agents

who were on the take, who did things to, I mean, whether you're talking about White House down, whether we're talking about, I mean, my goodness, the sentence, we can go on and on and on. When we talk about, explain to the public, from a law enforcement standpoint, where the Secret Service ranks in terms of hierarchy and respect? They're at the top. They're at the top, man. And what's different about it is when you have an individual agent culpable in some individual act of criminality, that's one thing. This appears to be part of a systemic challenge to democracy. And if you have compromised that agency, which is pretty much at the top of law enforcement, your responsibilities include the protection of the president and the vice president, foreign dignitaries as they arrive. I've worked with the Secret Service. When I was on the police department, we coordinated. I was in the intelligence unit for St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. We coordinated with the Secret Service to protect Bill Clinton. That's how far back I'm going. But they are at

the top, man, and they are licensed to kill. The Secret Service, man, you know, they drive around in that big-ass SUV you see following the presidential motorcade. And if they observe you to be a legitimate threat, they can raise up out of that vehicle, put you down and keep it moving. It's at the top, man. So to see someone appointed to the staff of Donald Trump and accept the position, which by definition is a partisan, I'm on this team position as a law enforcement agency that historically has been characterized as a neutral actor, is more than alarming, man. It requires a response.

It then goes back to the Secret Service. Hey, man, from what I understand, he's overtraining now. Overtraining in the Secret Service. It's the problem, man. It's I understand, he's overtraining now. Overtraining in the Secret Service. It's the problem, man. It's a serious, serious problem. How in the world can you go from a Secret Service to a deputy chief of staff for Trump and back to the Secret Service?

President Joe Biden should have bounced his ass day one. Hey, him, the guy over at the post office, DeJoy, all of these actors who clearly had a role in attempting to subvert my vote and yours and take democracy down the damn drain should have been responded to. And that is what is dismaying to so many people. And I hear people who are, quote, unquote, more sophisticated thinkers and with inside knowledge talk again about being patient with the process and you don't understand. I understand because it's happening in real time. This is a 50-year plan that the Republicans had to walk us back and they are, you know, on schedule. That intensity needs to be matched by those entities, especially the Department of Justice, who can respond to it.

Because me and you, short of revolution, can't respond in a meaningful and substantive way. They can and they must because the will of the people is being stepped on, man. The Supreme Court's ruling that you were talking about at the top of your show, those people were appointed by presidents who never touched a majority of the vote.

They represent a minority point of view and they are trying to exert minority rule on the rest of us. And it's crap, man. I need to see the Democrats fight a little harder. I understand the congressman and his point, but man, take some risks. Go after somebody. Make them pay. If the shoe was on the other foot, they would kick your... Yeah. If the shoe was on the other foot, they'd be frog marching some of these Democrats into the jail cells, man, in handcuffs and on camera. Indeed, indeed. Reddit Hudson, I certainly appreciate it, man.

Thanks for joining us. Yes, sir. Have a good one, man. Yes, sir. I want to bring my panel down to Dr. Mustafa Santiago Ali, former senior advisor for environmental justice EPA, Dr. Avis Jones DeWeaver, political analyst, leadership strategist, Dr. Larry J. Walker, assistant professor, University of Central Florida. Mustafa, you've worked in the federal government.

I don't, and again, I know there's somebody watching who's saying, all right, Ro, it's a lot of stuff that's happening in Black America. This really ain't today's lead story. I don't think folk understand when we're talking about this attempted coup to now find out that

the Secret Service purposely deleted all text messages from those two crucial days where we could have discovered what agents were saying to each other, what agents were saying to members of Congress, what agents were saying to Trump and others, and now they're gone. This was a deliberate attack. This would be obstruction of justice anywhere else. Without a doubt, it's interesting. So let's go with the law. There's something called the Federal Records Accountability Act or the Federal Records Act, which spells out for folks, both email and text messages, the things that you are triple redundancy programs that are put in place

to make sure that those folks who are in power can actually take a look at what people are sharing. Agents, whether you work for the FBI or the CIA or NSA or a number of other places, there are these redundancy programs that are used to make sure that that information does not disappear. Because you could have a rogue agent. You could have all these different types of things that are going on. So folks need to be able to know at the click of a keyboard what folks are saying and what they're doing. When folks say that emails have completely disappeared, it takes a lot of work to make sure that that actually happens. And I'll let those who work deeper into the security space actually unpack that for folks.

But trust me, it takes a lot of work to make those things disappear. Now, why does this matter to everyday folks? Because this literally goes to the highest levels of our government of things that folks are willing to do to, one, protect Donald Trump, and then, two, to dismantle democracy, which plays out in all kinds of ways in our own personal lives. So folks should really pay attention to what's going on. This is literally, when people watch the TV show The House of Cards or Scandal. It is both of those things all wrapped up into one with the amount of really shady stuff that is going on that could have ripples for, you know, years to come.

I mean, I literally, Avis, I literally cannot underestimate how major this is. Because if you're deleting after you get the request, that means you're deliberately hiding something. And so now we don't know who the Trumpers are. We don't know if they're still there.

We don't know if there's a man or a woman who is standing right next to President Joe Biden or standing right next to President Joe Biden or standing right next to Vice President Kamala Harris who wanted to see Donald Trump stay in there. That means that we now have to now question every Secret Service agent who's on the detail, every single supervisor, because what actions do they take? People don't understand the simple overlooking of a doorway could lead to someone coming in to harm the VP or the president. families, the first lady, the second gentleman, members of the cabinet members, they literally entrust their lives to the Secret Service agent assigned to them. This should scare the hell out of anybody in the Biden administration that there are Trump agents who are still in the Secret

Service right now. Well, that is absolutely the case. There are clearly Trump loyalists that are still there. That's why this breach occurred. And, you know, as was mentioned, this is not something that just somebody said, oops, I hit a button and they're all gone. I mean, it took effort for this to occur. And you rightly brought up the fact that on the day of this event,

even the vice president indicated that he did not trust the Secret Service. Trust and believe, he knows more about who's in there, what their alliances are than the rest of us do in the general public. And given the fact that this just happened, to me, it's not a question of if there are Trump loyalists in there. It's about rooting them out because they provide and they can have they can represent a huge threat to, as you mentioned, the president, the vice president, their families. But even beyond that, this very nation, because what they are looking to do right now with this action, as was mentioned, it is tantamount to obstruction of justice. What else are they hiding? Should we believe that, you know, they are going to ever be completely transparent with all that they know? And if there

are moles that are still in the secret surface, as you mentioned, where else are they throughout the government? We have talked about for years that there's been research that shows that there, for example, are white supremacists and police departments all across the country. Why wouldn't we think that there are Trump loyalists and white supremacists and all sorts of extreme ideologies infused in every institution in this nation, including the Secret Service. And, to me, this is hard proof of that fact. Heads need to roll. JOHN YANG, The Washington Post, And, Mustafa, it also jumps out,

Republicans not voting to deal with or look into the neo-Nazis who are in the United States military. What does that say? What does that say in terms of the kind of people in leadership who don't want to root up neo-Nazis? You've got these Trumpers in the Secret Service. I mean, we're talking about, we're talking about this is a national security threat. And so here we are, and people are like,

oh, this January 6th committee is really no big deal. No, what we are, and people are like, oh, Ms. Jenner, this committee is really no big deal. No, what we are discovering now of how much of a national security threat exists as we speak, right now, the lives of the people who work for the administration, but more importantly, democracy itself, these people want to be in power, and they will do whatever they can to stay in power. Republicans know that there are domestic terrorists, that there are these white nationalists that have infiltrated to the highest levels of our government. And since they know that, and since they refuse to move forward, then that means that they must be supportive of those types of beliefs and sets of actions. This is just one more reason why we have to vote in amazing numbers in November and then in 2024, because if we don't root this out, it will continue to mustachetize. It's just like a cancer. It will continue to

grow throughout our democracy and eventually choking the life out of that democracy. Larry, I'll say this here, Larry. There has to be a massive purge. If I'm President Biden, I'm talking about a massive purge of agents, of leaders. I'm literally moving people out. I'm bringing in people from other parts of the country with no ties to this. That's what should be happening right now because, again, this is a serious threat we're talking about. Yeah, Roland, this is like some bad Netflix movie because you can't possibly

imagine. And let me say it also, as someone who's worked for the federal government, anyone else worked for the federal government, this is unprecedented. You don't see anything like this in terms of just emails just obviously being deleted. But you're right. President Biden has to be concerned based on what we've seen so far. It just doesn't make any sense that emails could be deleted and certainly, like I said, not download to a server or backup to a backup somehow, particularly when we talk about emails of this importance. So and as you said, Roman, I would highly recommend that President Biden make sure that someone from his staff is making sure we find out what's going on in the Secret Service. Obviously, the January 6th committee is doing their work.

But the Department of Justice should look at this closely to kind of figure out what happened, who was involved, who, you know, where the gaps exist. And once again, we've got to root out all these people who may be behind the scenes, kind of like maybe sound like a shadow government, like I said, from a B movie, to ensure that the president, his family, the VP's family are safe. Because otherwise, we could continue to be dealing with these kind of issues over the last several months. And obviously, we have an election coming up soon. So we need to root these folks out, find out who they are, and they need to be removed from government. Indeed, indeed. All right, folks, got to go to break. We'll come back.

We're going to talk about a number of things that have happened today. First of all, the House passing a bill codifying a same-sex marriage into law. 47 Republicans voted for the bill. We'll talk about that. We'll also talk about the protests in Capitol Hill over the issue of abortion. 17 members of Congress arrested there as well. Lots more to discuss. Roland Martin, I'm Phil Tripp, right here on the Black Start Network. I'll be right back. I'm Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach. And on the next Get Wealthy, have you heard that it's not how much you earn, but how much you keep that matters?

Well, the secret to building wealth could be hidden in our tax code. That's right. Joining me on the next Get Wealthy is someone who calls herself the gatekeeper to the IRS. And she's going to be sharing the secrets and strategies you need to know, whether you're a business owner or an individual, how you can get wealthy. That's right here, only on Blackstar Network. Sexy to me is the exact same feeling as running water. Ever flowing. Water always finds a way to get through. And so when you know that you're sexy,

there are no questions about it. It is an ever flowing emotion. It is an ever flowing feeling. When you question it, though, you stop the water. I actually, I struggle with this a lot, mainly because I've been told what sex you should look like, what it should feel like. As a model who did Sports Illustrated,

you're told that this is what sells sexy, but then you travel the world and what's sexy to one person is not sexy to another person. I'm more of a mind fuck kind of person. How can you stimulate the brain? To me, that's sexy. Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Cox, we connect the dots and reveal a big picture you absolutely need to see.

We'll explore how all the recent Supreme Court decisions fit together, like hand in glove, with the longstanding and very patient agenda of the GOP. As one of our guests tells us, conservatives are playing chess while the rest of us are playing checkers. And we're getting really close to checkmate. A Black Table you won't want to miss. That's next, only on the Black Star Network.

Folks, Black Star Network is here. Hold no punches! A real revolutionary right now. Back up! Support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. I thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roland. Be Black! I love y'all!

All momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be Black-owned media and be scary. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? Hi, I'm Dr. Jackie Hood Martin, and I have a question for you.

Ever feel as if your life is teetering and the weight and pressure of the world is consistently on your shoulders? Well, let me tell you, living a balanced life isn't easy. Join me each Tuesday on Black Star Network for Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie. We'll laugh together, cry together, pull ourselves together and cheer each other on. So join me for new shows each Tuesday on Black Star Network, A Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie. My name is Charlie Wilson. Hi, I'm Sally Richardson-Whitfield. And I'm Dodger Whitfield.

Hey everybody, this your man Fred Hammond and you're watching Roland Martin, my man, unfiltered. All right, breaking news from Capitol Hill. The House has passed the Respect for Marriage Act, which would codify same-sex marriage into law. It was passed 267 to 157. 157 Republicans voted against this particular bill. This is significant in that because when you think about most bills that have actually been passed in the House, nearly all Republicans voted against the fact that 47 Republicans voted for this.

If I look at those numbers, that also represents two-thirds. So therefore, that is a significant vote there. What does that say, Larry, that 47 Republicans would vote along with the Democrats on this? You have some conservatives like Senator Ted Cruz who say the Supreme Court was wrong when it came to same-sex marriage. That's a strong number. I wonder if you're going to get 60 votes in the Senate. It'll be interesting to see that happen. But, Roland, I think what's happening is

Republicans are looking at polling like everyone else. The majority of Americans, and this includes mostly Republicans, believe in the right for same-sex couples to marry and live their lives peacefully. So maybe, like I said, maybe they're looking at the poll numbers. But it'll be interesting to see what happens in the Senate side, particularly, as I said a few minutes ago, we have an election coming up. So it's incumbent on civil rights activists, et cetera, to put pressure on members of the Senate to ensure that we get that 60-person vote threshold. It'll be interesting to see that happens because you might even have some—I'll be interested to

see if there's some Democrats who vote against this proposal. But like I said, it's very interesting that this happened. And as you said, it just happened today. I think it says a positive signal to members of the LGBT community in terms of that their lives are valued and that they should have lived peacefully and loved who they love. But whether we get to 60 in the Senate side, I'll wait to see if that happens. about 157 voting against and 47 voted for it. You're talking about 20 plus percent of House Republicans. If you get 20 percent, if you get 20 percent of Republicans in the Senate, you're at 60 votes. Absolutely. And, you know, well, I'm happy that at least there is a, comparatively speaking, a significant representative of Republicans who want to act right when it comes to this bill.

It does make me, it does beg the question, why? I do think that's an interesting question, because the majority of Americans also favor choice, and they didn't support that. So I am wondering what is the difference here, and the only thing that I can come up with is that white men are impacted by this bill, and they aren't by choice. I mean, that is something that's clearly a woman's issue, and it specifically negatively impacts black women, who are four times more likely to die

in pregnancy and childbirth than white women. So to me, it's an issue of it may be something that some of them feel as if they can see themselves in that situation, or they empathize with people in their families that look like them who are members of the LGBTQ community. And I'm glad that they are supporting it. But I do think that there are some there's we need to unpack why. I think it's a similar reason why Clarence Thomas, for example, put that under scrutiny in his in his confirming opinion with with the overturning Roe, but did not put on the table any sort of challenge to interracial marriage, because guess what? He's in an interracial marriage.

Mustafa. The LGBTQIA family has a very strong lobbying presence. They vote, and they also hold people accountable. Um, so that, I believe, has a lot to do with it also. They utilize their dollars to make sure that folks are being held accountable and that they're standing up and doing the right thing. It's a 21st century.

But let's actually just further unpack that because Avis mentioned it when we were talking about that. It's a whole bunch of rich white gay men. Exactly. First of all, we ain't talking about gay black people. That's what I'm saying. What you're dealing with here is, yeah, you're dealing with Republicans

who are responding to a whole bunch of rich white gay men, individuals who are CEOs of corporations. We're talking about money here. Log cabin Republicans. Log cabin Republicans. Yep.

We talk about money here. Exactly. And that's what I said. They hold people accountable and they utilize their dollars to push the agenda to make sure that they're protected. So we just need to understand the dynamics that are going on on Capitol Hill and in corporate and, you know, corporate boardrooms. Can I ask something really quickly here on this point?

We're almost there, and this is an important topic, but I'm curious to see how this plays out in the Senate side. And then if it passes the Senate, what conferees work out, et cetera, if it gets to the president's desk. But we still have a long way to go. This is a great, it's a positive sign in terms of, like my colleague mentioned with, you know, what Justice Clarence Tomlin said

in his opinion, but we still have a long way to go. But hopefully this is something that passes the Senate and gets to the president's desk. But we still have a way to go. Something to look at here. So I got to throw this out there. So today, 17 House members were arrested for protesting outside of the Supreme Court. But I'm curious.

There were a lot of protests. And I get it. I get it. Today's protest was about abortion. A Supreme Court decision. And you see the video here. Come on, y'all, show it. Come on.

People getting arrested. Members of Congress. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She was one. There were others. I saw some posts. Ayanna Pressley was out there as well. But one of the things that Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, as I said, Congresswoman Jackie Spier, who I think I saw a tweet where she said she had never been arrested before, but she invoked Congressman John Lewis with good trouble. But I got to go back to this, Avis.

It was a whole lot of non-Black members of Congress we never saw out there when there were protests for the For the People Act and John Lewis Act. Well, that is true. You know, people have their specific issues that's going to get them riled up and they will completely ignore other issues. And the sad thing is that, honestly, it's related. If you want to be able to protect women's rights and everybody's rights that we care about, we need to be able to maximize black voting power in the midterm elections and beyond. And so people want to pull back and act like pushing through and making sure that we had voting rights protections is something that's quote unquote just a black thing.

The reality is it's a thing that impacts our ability to protect democracy, period. Because when the black vote is compromised, so is the ability of the Democratic Party to win. And right now, we do not have two parties. We have one party that is a party that's trying to govern, that's actually trying to pass policy, maybe not in the most beautiful way possible, but they are trying to act in a way that the system is supposed to work. And you have another amalgamation of people who basically want to turn our democracy into an autocratic system. This is not a comparison of two equal things, okay? And if we want to be able to have a democracy moving forward, particularly at a time when people of color are growing in numbers, because that's what really this is all about, as we've once again

talked about for years on this show, the minute that white people are seeing that they are losing their majority, and as a backlash to actually having a Black president, people have lost their damn minds, and this is the result. The other side, those who are on the left, need to wake up and understand that there is a special connection between black people being able to vote, being able to maximize our voting power and not have that infringed upon, and they having whatever their little pet project supported, because it's our vote that's going to make sure it happens. But here's the thing, Larry. Before the People Act and the John Lewis Act,

that wasn't about just black people. And that was the point that I kept saying. I kept saying, white progressives, where y'all at? White members of Congress, where y'all at? And so the problem that I had, I saw mostly black people having these protests and getting arrested. Now, the Poor People's Campaign, they had a multiracial coalition of people who were out there. But my whole deal was, don't y'all understand that if you look at the For the People Act and the John Lewis Act,

those things were directly related to ensuring that you do not have the kind of gerrymandering that's going on across the country, guaranteeing access to the ballot, not just for black folks, but for young voters, for Latinos, for Asians. I mean, we can go on and on and on. And that was the thing that was bothering me, that when it came to voting, oh, that's y'all black thing. Oh, it's abortion. Oh, well, that's all of us.

Yo, that and that are tied together. It's all connected, Roland. So I want to go back to something you say all the time. We try to tell you. So listen, you're right. You know, folks, when we had a conversation which was fighting for voting rights to make sure we have comprehensive election reform, there were a lot of people that racialized this conversation. And it's an issue for black folks. But the bottom line is this democracy is about everyone, regardless of racial, ethnic background, your religious affiliation. This issue is about everyone, all America.

This is about maintaining democracy. And so that urgency that we're seeing now should have been taking place months ago, and we wouldn't be in this place. But unfortunately, here we are. But you're right, Roland. And listen, this is not new for white progressives. This has been going on for decades, unfortunately. When there are issues that they perceive or issues that Black folks have to deal with,

far too often they've taken a step back. And then when they get criticized, then they step forward a little bit more inch by inch and then try to talk about it, have press conferences, et cetera, and what you see recently here. But the bottom line is we needed this sense of urgency, like I said, months ago. And a lot of these progressives that waited too long, and now, like I said, when there are issues that they feel like are impacting them, now they want to get involved. But we need this, like I said, a sense of urgency consistently, because the Republican Party is likely to take back the House at a minimum in November. And then it is going to, we're going to have a serious problem, not only in relation to democracy,

and you can forget all those voting rights issues, but it is time for members of the Democratic Party, particularly those white progressives, to not stand by the stand on the sidelines all the time, but be proactive in terms of addressing issues that are centered within protecting our democracy. And that was the point, Mustafa, that I was trying to raise months ago by saying, hey, y'all sitting on y'all asses and not coming out here. Y'all need to understand. In fact, the targeting wasn't just the black people. I mean, I have been detailing the voter suppression for the last two decades. The clerk in Wisconsin who deliberately moved an early voting location because too many young white

progressives were voting and moved it to a faraway place with a small parking lot to purposely bring the numbers down. She admitted it. We've seen this happen as well. So when we were talking about those two critical voting bills, that was a direct correlation to young white progressives, suburban white voters, not just black voters. I was just talking earlier with some climate environmental folks,

and I said, you know, if you're not protecting the vote, there's no way you're ever gonna get the pieces in place that are necessary to be able to protect people's health and protect us from the climate crisis. You know, James Baldwin once said that, you know, he talked about how we often, you know, sometimes don't see the impacts that are happening inside of our communities because we don't want to. Sometimes folks who want to call themselves our allies want to be part-time allies. They only

want to show up in certain situations and on certain issues. If you're truly going to be an authentic ally, then that means that we got to play this for y'all. This Republican, name is Matt Burke, used to be an NFL player. He said something, y'all, the other day that I, well, first of all, we know this is how a whole bunch of these white men think. But I want you to listen to what this fool had to say about the issue of abortion. Incredulous. He wants me to be the lieutenant governor of Minnesota. Check it out.

But obviously it's not over. Our culture loudly but also stealthily promotes abortion. You know, telling women they should look a certain way, they should have careers, all these things. It's real now. An abortion, again, rape is obviously a horrible thing. But an abortion is not going to heal the wounds of that. And two wrongs is not going to make it right. One of the arguments that I've probably saw 20 times online today was about rape. And obviously, they always want to go

to the rape cart, right? And which is, I say, great, if you want to agree on the other 99.8% of pregnancies, if we're right there, let's talk about the 0.2%. But rape is obviously a horrible thing. Shortly after we had won the Super Bowl, did I mention I won the Super Bowl? I'm not proud of it or anything. Is that they said, well, abortion is legal. And it was kind of an easy out for a lot of people that didn't really want to. Well, it's legal.

A lot of things have been legal before change, right? And we always hear about the, I'm sure you've heard, I know I'm talking to a bunch of pro-life warriors here, you know, slavery used to be legal, right? Which is an interesting comparison to make because really the way that the other side treats an unborn child is basically that that unborn child is the property of the mother. Other laws, you know, women. Women used to not be able to vote in our country. Now we let them drive. I mean, I don't know. I have three teenage daughters that drive. I don't know if that's a good law or not, but... I'm just kidding. Sorry. Kidding. Kidding to all the women out there.

And don't tell my wife I used that joke. She hates that joke. It's a good reason your wife hates that joke, dumbass. But y'all notice, oh, I'm joking about the driving part. Mustafa, I saw your reaction to the careers part. Some of y'all may have missed that. Let me just play just that piece again. Listen to this. See, it's not over.

Our culture loudly but also stealthily promotes abortion, telling women they should look a certain way, they should have careers. I don't even know where to begin with this one. Lord have mercy, Jesus Christ. Okay, Mary and Joseph. We need a whole crew on this one. Okay. So, listen, a couple of things, um, you know, I'm going to bring,

pack that into what he also followed that with, with slavery, because to me, the, the two of those are connected and equally offensive. Well, slavery, obviously that's even more offensive, but, but here's what I would say about that. First of all, black women didn't have a choice about working. Let's just put that out there, okay? We didn't need a woman's movement to be infused into America's labor market. We were America's labor market from the beginning. So that, it's offensive on so many levels. That's one of them, the erasure of us in our history and how we've always been here.

Secondly, this issue that apparently black, apparently women of all colors or sexual orientations and everything else apparently should have a man's permission to work, apparently, in his, I suppose, Leave it to Beaver style ideal, is offensive. And the reality is that being able to have control over your decision of when and where you're going to have children, even if you're going to have children, really is connected to women's ability to have economic control over her life, period. In case y'all haven't noticed, raising children is expensive, y'all. And so, you know, the ability to be able to plan and time and determine when and if you're going to be a mother and how many children that you want to have is central to your ability

to control your economic future, which does include work for a large number of women. We are at a point now we have about 50. I think we may even be, we're at least half of the workforce. We're huge. We're coming back into the workforce now from the pandemic. And so, you know, the bottom line is he is stuck in some time warp that does not exist anymore.

That's offensive. His issue around slavery is also offensive and back and upside down. Because in my mind, in terms of being able to say that you own somebody else and you have dominion over somebody else's body, that is more similar to me than with what the Supreme Court has said. The Supreme Court has told women that you no longer have dominion over your own body, we do. The Supreme Court has said that you can no longer decide whether or not you want to be able to save your own life in case you have an ectoptic pregnancy

or in case you get raped, which apparently he thinks is not such a bad thing, okay, no matter what he says, you know, you should be able to, you can't do that anymore. We're telling you what to do, what you can and can't do with your own body, even if you're a 10-year-old little girl, all right? So, you know, it is just offensive on so many levels, but I'm glad he said it because I think people really need to see what we're up against. We have slumbered and slept too long and taken these rights for granted. And now they are going to be tumbling. This is not the last. There's a lot to do to help to try to hopefully

repair this situation, but it's going to take time. And the bottom line is, and the sad thing is, in the interim, I guarantee you, women and girls will die because of the ignorance of people like that. And see, the reason I wanted to play the whole clip there, Larry, is because I need people to understand. I need them to be aware. And I would hope this man's wife and his daughters I need them to be aware.

And I would hope this man's wife and his daughters cuss his punk ass out when he get home. I hope they say, what the hell do you mean we get to have careers? You damn right. This is the 50th anniversary of Title IX. And part of the problem with Title IX conversations is that they're always about sports. Now, again, I want to link some things here because I don't think people really understand the history. Avis, when was the Roe v. Wade decision?

Oh, my goodness. Well, it was about 50 years ago. Right. But it was... Yeah. Okay. What, 73? Yeah, something like that.

Okay. Title IX was a year before. Mm-hmm. Now, for everybody who's watching, I just need y'all to understand. I need y'all to understand something. Prior to 1972, women, for the most part, only job they could be were homemakers and teachers.

That pretty much was it. All right, secretaries, but what I'm talking about, and what people don't understand about Title IX, Title IX prohibited discrimination in education. So what Title IX did, Title IX opened the professional schools to women. And I need y'all to stay with me, those of you who are watching and listening. That means, that means women all of a sudden started becoming lawyers, doctors, dentists, engineers, professors, architects, all of those professional schools. Roe v. Wade comes in in 73. So what this guy is really saying, damn, y'all asses start having careers.

And y'all start leaving the house And now y'all don't want to have children Now y'all get to make choices We as white men We were deciding for y'all what you could do That's really what he's saying And for those white women to sit in that room and laugh with that dumb ass, they don't even realize the fool was telling them, y'all need to keep your asses at home and birth our babies and fix our dinner because we want the mad men world to return. That's what these folks are saying, Larry.

Yeah, so Congressman, you know, I remember the Congressman when he played in the NFL and he missed a bunch of blocks with this statement. You know, the thing about this comments he made, Rowan, is that politicians use this trick. When they say something offensive, they think they know it might be offensive and they tell it as a joke. So later on, they can say, well, it was just a joke. But the bottom line is the congressman is looking for a time back when we talk about leave it to Beaver. And women have these, what he would define as, I guess, these kind of traditional roles. But I think you did a great job unpacking Title IX and Roe v. Wade and connecting it in terms of economic opportunities for women.

And so what we're seeing from Republicans is they're being honest. They're telling you up front when it comes to issues relating to women's reproductive rights or when it comes to voter suppression. They've been clear. So when it comes to not only the women that work in his office, but in terms of his district, the women he represents. You also talked about the women in his household in which he he's made some offensive comments about. The bottom line is we have to begin to hold people like this responsible. He shouldn't be able to get away with it by simply saying it was just a joke because this is offensive. And it's a you know, it's a 1930s, 1940s kind of mentality. And this is what a lot of these Republicans, this is what they want. Like you said, they want women at home. They don't want

them being professors or engineers or VPs, et cetera. And we can't allow this to happen. And so voters in his district and voters nationally need to hold Republicans that have this kind of mindset, hold them responsible. If they're trying to turn back the clock when it comes to women's reproductive rights and their ability to deal with various issues, obviously sexism in the workplace, etc., it's time to vote those folks out.

So I need people in this district who need their Black folks to watch and with other folks in this district to make sure that they're taking a stand and he doesn't get another two-year term. And Mustafa, remember, if they desire the Ozzie and Harriet days, and if they desire the Leave It to Beaver days, what were those days like for Black people?

Yeah, it definitely wasn't productive times, wasn't safe times. life for black people. Yeah. It definitely wasn't productive times. It wasn't safe times. It wasn't a time when our voice was heard. You know, when folks say, when someone shows you who they are, believe them. I don't know what more folks need. I know I had a visceral reaction to that.

Because when he started talking about rape and began to minimize rape, I've had... Oh, I mean, okay. I mean, okay, all right. Yeah, rape is bad. You know, but you know, if you have an abortion, man, that's not

gonna make the pain go away. Wow. Rape is about violence. Rape is about trauma. Rape is about power. Rape is about trauma. Rape is about power. And that reminds you also of many of these actions that we have seen to date from the Republican Party. You just have to unpack the decisions that have been made

on the federal level from the Supreme Court, decisions that have been made in these state houses across our nation, where folks continue to extract life and hope and possibility from everyone, but in particular from our most vulnerable. So we need to be very clear about this, that these folks are not playing. They are very serious about their agenda. They are willing to do anything to get the agenda to move forward. And once they have it, you will find yourself sliding backwards in time where your rights are gone, where your ability to be able to make money will

be limited because they will give opportunities to the folks who have traditionally been a part of the old boy network. So we need to wake up. We need to get engaged further. And we need to make sure that we are pushing and holding people accountable. And one of the ways we do that is to make sure that those who have voted vote and those who have not yet seen a reason to vote now have one. Well, I keep trying to explain to people, y'all, what these folk trying to do, you really, really, really do not want to see. So don't play games come election day.

I'm telling you right now. Because what these folks are doing, we don't want to see. And trust me, there are more folks like him and like those white women sitting in that room laughing and clapping right along with him. Got to go to a break, folks. When we come back, more of Roland Martin Unfiltered.

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Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered. Roland at Roland Martin unfiltered dot com. We'll be right back. Hi, I'm Dr. Jackie Hood Martin, and I have a question for you. Ever feel as if your life is teetering and the weight and pressure of the world is consistently on your shoulders? Well, let me tell you,

living a balanced life isn't easy. Join me each Tuesday on Black Star Network for Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie. We'll laugh together, cry together, pull ourselves together, and cheer each other on. So join me for new shows each Tuesday on Black Star Network, A Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie. We're all impacted by the culture,

whether we know it or not. From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of our lives. And we're going to talk about it every day right here on The Culture with me, Faraji Muhammad, only on the Black Star Network. Yo, what's up? This your boy Ice Cube. What's up? I'm Lance Gross and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Folks, a rather disturbing story out of Oxford, Mississippi. This young woman here, a student at Ole Miss, has been missing for more than 11 days. Jimmy J. Lee, folks, is 5 feet 7 inches tall. She weighs 120 pounds. Her hair is blonde. Her eyes are brown.

She was last seen Friday, July 8th, near some campus apartments. She was last seen wearing a silver robe or house coat, a gold sleeping cap, and gray slippers. Police found Lee's car the same day he went missing about two and a half miles off campus. Now, folks, again, this has been about 11 days now. Anyone with information about Jimmy J. Lee should call the Oxford, Mississippi Police Department at 662-232-2400, 662-232-2400. A San Bernardino, California family is demanding answers from police after their loved one was fatally shot in the back.

Saturday, two officers in an unmarked police car chased and shot 23-year-old Robert Adams in a parking lot. The video we're about to show you, folks, has no audio, but it is extremely disturbing to watch. Adams' family claims the officers did not identify themselves before the shooting. Thank you. Now, again, he was shot in the back. No explanation from police. This is the statement released by Chief Darren Goodman regarding the shooting.

He said on July 16th at approximately 8.05 p.m. two fully uniformed San Bernardino specialized investigations unit officers were conducting surveillance in an unmarked vehicle after receiving information that a black male armed with a gun was in the parking lot of an illegal online gambling business located in the 400 block of West Highland Street. Now, the family is disputing that he had a gun. This is another one of those examples, Mustafa, where the officers are saying one thing, but then something else happens.

They say that there were two gentlemen there. This is the chief here. He said that one of the males, later identified as 23-year-old Rob Marquis Adams, pulled a gun from his waistband and began walking. Excuse me. This is the video right here. I'm trying to figure out what happened.

Because you see him right here. And so is that a gun? Is that a gun? And you see the cops pull up and they jump out and he runs away. But it still goes to officers firing and shooting someone in the back. This is another example of shoot first and make excuses later. They come up with these false narratives to be able to cover themselves, and then when the video comes out, then in many instances they double down or sometimes they will then

begin to actually share with the country what the truth is in relationship to what went down. Now, my vision is not 2020 anymore. It's still close. But when I look at that video, I did not see a gun. And I also saw a young man who was actually running away. So I don't know how you justify shooting someone in the back. But here's what I'm just trying to understand.

This is just me. Larry, you're there in Florida. How many of these states were moving to concealed carry? Where you can have a concealed handgun and not have a permit. Now, again, if y'all roll a video,

it does look like, okay, that at some point, if you roll it back, it looks like at some point he did raise his waist. Somebody rolls up. You see the car roll up, unmarked. They're sort of just standing there. He lifts his shirt up. Looks like he shows someone something that looks like he drew something. He the way his arm was positioned. Now that now there's something on the side of him. But but you still are sitting here going, OK, so they jump out

and then all of a sudden he takes off and now he's in between he's in between the cars there. The chief's statement, Larry, says that there was a bullet that was still in the chamber and it was caught. And they say now there's still an ongoing investigation. Well, and this is like rinse and repeat when black folks get shot when it comes to law enforcement. We hear the same narrative. First of all, we the media has to, you know, mainstream media has to really scrutinize these press releases because what we find out is, my colleague said, they state one thing, then we find out 30 days a year, two years out that it wasn't the case. So yeah, we got to wait to find out what happens with the investigation. But the bottom line is this is another Black person being shot in the back. This shouldn't be happening in a just society.

When we talk, you know, you hear Republicans talk about all the time about, you know, they don't believe that, you know, all the challenges that Black folks talk about in terms of law enforcement is real. But this is just another example. Now, whether he was having to carry a gun or not, whether he had the permit, you know, et cetera, all that stuff will play out. But the bottom line is they shot him in the back. So even in the, you know, most black and white cowboy movies, you don't shoot a person in the back, but black folks see this. We see video like this consistently.

So it is, we got to do something about it. And this goes back to some of the policy issues we talk about on the show all the time, particularly police reform and the fact that it didn't happen. Because we have to begin to hold officers responsible for using Black folks as target practice. It happens too frequently. We're not doing anything about it, and we're losing our sons and daughters for unnecessary

reasons. Police officers seem to forget everything they're supposed to follow in the book when it comes to engaging Black folks. And we unfortunately end up dead or, or injured, you know, mortally injured. And as one, you know, as a, as a black man and as a father, I'm tired of seeing these videos and I demand justice. Well, we'll, and as usual, we have to see what's going to be the outcome of this investigation, but they typically in the way we normally see them. Yeah, I'm sure we will.

And here's the thing. You know, we are not too far removed from, you know, horrible examples of gun violence in this country, where you have an entire, what was it, 400 policemen scared to go in, going to confront one teenager with a gun. But God forbid that maybe there's a black guy in America with a gun, the same America that wants to talk all the smack about how everybody should be able to have a gun. But in that moment, whether or not he has one, which is in dispute, as was mentioned here, he was clearly in retreat. It's not like he was pointing it at anyone. Are black people not allowed to bear arms?

That's my question. You know, are we allowed to have guns? Because if you know where where is you know, where is the NRA when black people have guns? Where the fuck are they? Quiet. It's just annoys me. Quiet. They are sitting here, want to justify everything,

all of these mass shootings. The only thing that'll stop a gun is a good guy with a gun. Maybe he saw a strange car drive up in his neighborhood, and maybe it was not, he did not feel safe. Does he not have the right? I don't know if he had a gun, but I'm just carrying out the logic that the police are putting out there. If he did, okay, if he saw a strange car, it's not marked, as you mentioned, pull up in a place that may not have been the safest place, does he not have the right to protect his person if he is armed, I mean, I just want to know where are the rules? If we're supposed to, as America, supposed to fight like the NRA wants us to fight to make sure that every man, woman, and child can have a gun,

where do black people fit in that equation? Apparently, we don't. Man, you know doggone well they don't like us having guns. Let's just be real clear. So, no, we don't. That's why white folks get taken into custody and we get moved out when it comes to body bags. Let's talk about BALT San Francisco, y'all. After two weeks in office, San Francisco's new DA is cleaning house.

Brooke Jenkins reportedly laid off 15 staffers she inherited from her predecessor, Chase Boughton. Staff members were notified by phone of their termination days after Jenkins held a 20-minute introductory meeting with the staff that some described as uncomfortable and icy. Now, Jenkins says her decision for the changes is to create a strong team of staffers who want to reform public safety. Make sure that I have a very strong management team that is dedicated to balancing reform and public safety. And sometimes that takes some shifts, you know, as it does in any new administration.

But I'm very, you know, optimistic about what is going to happen with the management team in the office and how we are going to begin restoring some law and order to San Francisco. Yeah, but it's some different stuff here, folks. And Jenkins was appointed interim D.A. by Mayor London Breed after Boughton was ousted last month. Jenkins will serve in her role until November. She will then run in the special election to determine who will complete Boughton's term through 2023. Now, she's black and Latina. She used to work for Boughton's office, and then she left the office

and became one of his fiercest critics over the issue of public safety. But one of the things that she's done is the offices that she's eliminated. She's eliminated one of the offices that dealt with restorative justice. Larry, what's interesting is that I saw a thread yesterday from one of the women who she fired, and one of those women said, well, what about the cases that we have going on? We literally have family members who are coming in. And she said, oh, well, pass it on to your

supervisor. And she said, well, you fired her. And then she said, well, pass it on to your supervisor. And she said, well, you fired her. And then she said, well, pass it on to your chief. She said, you fired the chief too. So what you have here is this new DA responding to this recall, be tough on crime, but you're screwing the folks who are sitting in jail, some of them who are innocent? So, Roland, first, when I hear someone say law and order, I get nervous. Anytime I hear that phrase, it is a buzzword. We know that in politics. She's sending a message on television.

So, listen, when you fire that many people from DA's office, you're going to have major gaps. So how are you going to get anything done? So you talk about restorative justice. This is, it's really important for, like you said, people who were wrongly convicted. We should also highlight that we know the people who were wrongly convicted are almost always black and brown. And we've seen too many shows about this, too many media reports almost on a weekly, if not daily basis about people, um, convictions being overturned because some police officer or someone else did something or had someone say something that wasn't true, sometimes decades later. So my question is, how are you going to maintain law and order when you fired so many people? Also in terms of, you know, the background information, knowledge,

basic things in terms of, you know, not, you know, who knows who, what, in terms of emailing individuals when they have various issues they have to deal with. When you fire that many people, like I said, you're going to have major gaps. And this is going to leave the residents of San Francisco in more trouble than they were prior to when she was brought in. So this idea of law and order makes no sense when, like I said, you fired so many people, many of them were good at their jobs. And now you have to kind of figure out how to solve to address many of those logistical issues and deal with many of these cases. And I'm not clear about how she's going to do that. But once again, she she said law and order.

So I guess this is what law and order looks like. Avis. You know, it is it is ridiculous that, you know, you just mentioned she doesn't even know who she fired. You know, if what you just mentioned is true, which I'm sure it is, it shows that basically this was in my mind, it was a political stunt. This was a political stunt to prove to those on the right, as was mentioned, that she is their law and order candidate. And she's going in there to clean house with these, you know, restorative justice people. And she wants to make sure she brings the hammer down. So she's just going to clean house. That was a political stunt. And unfortunately, real lives are going to be negatively impacted. And at the end of the day, as you mentioned, we know who are going to be the ones that are

most likely to be paying the price. And there are people that look like you and me. Now, we've seen these things happen, Mustafa, from other DAs. These things have happened numerous times before. But the point that Larry makes is critical. Remember, they threw Bouton out because they felt he was soft on crime. And they were talking about, oh, how there was a dramatic increase in crime in San Francisco. No, it was a mild increase in crime in San Francisco.

But he became the fall guy. And so now what you have is you have this blowback against individuals who many consider to be progressive leaders. Yeah, I mean, we know this politics, when you really unpack it, there's much else that could possibly be. You've got, what, three and a half months until the next election. Any smart leader would make sure that you keep folks in place until after the election so that you can make critical and substantive decisions about the individuals that you would want to have in those positions. We also know that it is incredibly difficult in this moment to find talented people. So for you to leave that type of a gap with all those other types of things that we know have to be a part of your decision-making process,

it leads one to believe that this is politically driven instead of being driven by the needs of the folks there in San Francisco. Well, one of the things that we have heard already is Chase Biden said he may very well run for re-election. So we'll see what happens there in San Francisco. All right, folks, gotta go to break. We'll be back right here on Rolling Mark Unfiltered.

YouTube, y'all hit the like button. Facebook, first of all, let me tell y'all about Facebook. Facebook, just so y'all understand, Facebook is clearly throttling our users. They're more than 1.3 million people. You thought of my Facebook page? Right now, if I pull up Facebook, y'all, you will see that, let's see here.

I'm gonna see if I can pull it up for y'all. Just y'all understand, there is no can pull it up for y'all, just y'all understand. There is no way in the world y'all, having 1.3 million people following me, that only 117 people are watching us on Facebook. Y'all should see it right now, you see that? In the upper left hand corner, go ahead to it. 117 people, now it's 122.

We used to actually have anywhere from two to000 to 3,000 to 4,000 folks watching at one time. So just so y'all understand what Facebook is doing, Facebook is throttling down and so people who have turned on their likes or who have turned on

notify me when I go live, what happens is Facebook is no longer seeing those notifications to them. Just the math ain't mathin'. You can't tell me that 1.3 million people who follow and then only 122 are watching. Just so y'all know exactly how these tech companies

are thriving because what Facebook is trying to do, they're trying to actually make us pay to boost to the folk who already said, we wanna see rolling. So they deliver, and I've gotten, and I'm gonna send another email, I've heard from them a couple of times by saying, oh, there's a glitch in our system. Just so y'all know, when we used

to go live on Facebook, we would end the day, sometimes we would have anywhere from 50 to 75,000 views per airing. Don't happen that way. So now y'all understand why i created the blackstar network app so the reason i created the blackstar network app is so we don't have to deal with this type of nonsense um and i see right here alvin richardson says yeah i don't get my notifications uh i got a number of people who are saying that right now um let's see darla broden, who is on here, says, anniversary follower, having gotten a notice in months. Sharon Cochran says, yeah, no notifications. I just

have to pull it up. Let me just grab a screenshot of this so I can't wait to sit here and see what the Facebook folk got to say about that one. Just so y'all just understand what's going on here. The reason we created the Black Star Network app, so we are not dependent upon these platforms.

That's why we want you to download the app. Because, see, if we can move our 1.3 million people over from Facebook to the Black Star Network app, and if those 1.3 million people who are following us the Black Star Network app. And if those 1.3 million people who are following us on Facebook download our app, trust me, it's a game changer. And so please go to your Apple phone, your Android phone, your Apple TV, Android TV, your Roku, your Amazon Fire TV, your Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. You can watch this show every single day by virtue of our Black Star Network app. And please support us in what we do. Joining our Bring the Funk fan club, P.O. Box, senior checks

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and very patient agenda of the GOP. As one of our guests tells us, conservatives are playing chess while the rest of us are playing checkers, and we're getting really close to checkmate. A Black Table you won't want to miss. That's next, only on the Black Star Network. Sexy to me is the exact same feeling as running water.

Ever flowing. Water always finds a way to get through. And so when you know that you're sexy, there are no questions about it. It is an ever flowing emotion. It is an ever-flowing emotion. It is an ever-flowing feeling. When you question it, though, you stop the water. I actually, I struggle with this a lot,

mainly because I've been told what sexy should look like, what it should feel like. As a model who did Sports Illustrated, you're told that this is what sells sexy, but then you travel the world and what's sexy to one person is not sexy to another person. I'm more of a mindfuck kind of person. How can you stimulate the brain?

To me, that's sexy. I'm Shante Moore. Hi, I'm B.B. Winans. Hey, I'm Dolly Simpson. What's up? I'm Lance Gross, and you're watching So, you have our Republicans in Congress who, they really hate electric vehicles. They really hate sustainability. They hate those different things. And so today there was a congressional hearing

and they were talking about transportation infrastructure. Well, this idiotic congressman from Pennsylvania, one of the MAGA folks, remember he was the one who was trying to find those electors. Yeah, Scott Perry. So he decided to be a smartass. And this is what happens when you prepare. So Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had a great response to this arrogant- congressman, Steve, excuse me, Scott Perry. Y'all, this is pretty cool

to watch. Just check this out. Have implied that they should buy an electric vehicle and absolve themselves of that 80% increase per gallon. Just looking at Kelly Blue Book, the price of an EV is about $55,000. Now, that doesn't include, so it's actually more than that because there's $7,500 per car subsidy paid for by about $48 billion in taxes on the same people on that car. So it's closer to about $60,000. There's about $20,000 more than a gas-driven passenger car. I want to be clear. Nobody I know, certainly not me, thinks that all or even most Americans can easily afford electric vehicles. That said, I'm struck by this $55,000 number that keeps going around. I knew this might come up,

so I just pulled a few of the latest prices. A Chevy Bolt, so an American-made 2022 EV is $26,595. If you want a pickup truck, like a Chevy Silverado EV or Ford F-150 Lightning, the starting prices of those are $39,900 and $39,974, respectively. Is that pre-subsidy or post-subsidy? You know, I think it depends on which automaker, because some of them have gone through the cap for the $7,500 and some of them have not. Does that include state subsidies as well? I don't think so, no. Okay. So, and look, that's, you know, the new car.

So the first time I got a plug-in car, for example, Chaston and I got one. It was $14,000, had about 15,000 miles on it. It was a C-Max. So it was a combo plug-in hybrid. But what we're seeing in terms of the dynamics now is we're close to the point to actually be there on certain models and under certain circumstances where the to which your car payment would go up is actually already outweighed by the extent to which your gas bill would go down even factoring in the cost of

electricity again that depends on what electricity you're saying the market's bringing it down and look i got my numbers from Kelly Blue Book, so... Are those this year's numbers? What's that? Would those be this year's numbers? Actually, last year. So... So... Mustafa, you saw Buttigieg

say, hmm, it's interesting. I keep hearing this $55,000 number go around. You would think, first of all, the Kelly Blue Book ain't a dealership. It's not. The Kelly Blue Book is used to determine what is the value of a particular vehicle. And so Buttigieg just smacked the hell out of them by going, here's this American-made Chevy boat that you can get for $29,000. And you saw the game there, trying to make it sound like, oh, my God, the electric vehicles are so high, so pricey. And it's so much cheaper to buy a gas vehicle.

And Buttigieg is kind of like, uh, pimp slap. These Republicans do not want to do anything about climate change. You know, it is interesting. You know, Secretary Boudinier, he knows his stuff. I've had a chance to meet him a few times. What they don't do, because I've testified on Capitol Hill before, you know, they try and create these gotchas, and they very rarely work for folks who actually know their stuff. So what he didn't say is that, you know, the fossil fuel industry gets about $20 billion in subsidies every year in America. It's $5.9 trillion across our planet.

And what he doesn't talk about also is the public health impacts, especially the black and brown communities, when you utilize fossil fuel vehicles. And we know that we've got 200,000 people who are dying prematurely. especially the black and brown communities, when you utilize fossil fuel vehicles. And we know that we've got 200,000 people who are dying prematurely. Some of that is coming from what's coming out of those tailpipes. So there are all kinds of costs that they never wanna talk about.

And the reason they don't wanna talk about is because many of them are actually being subsidized by fossil fuels for their campaigns. So we should really understand the full cost that's associated. We also know that electric vehicles cost you a whole lot less to charge up, literally pennies on the dollar, than folks who are now out there paying

four, five, six dollars for a gallon of gas. It's time for a just transition and it's time to make sure that electric vehicles in those charging stations are inside of our community so that our health can be improved and so that we can be a part of the 21st century economy. I mean, I just sit here and I laugh at this, but it's no laughing matter what's happening here, Avis. I mean, Britain is dealing with the highest temperatures they've ever faced. Wildfires are breaking out. You've now got massive floods in New York and New Jersey.

You look at the heat. I mean, you have these people who are saying over and over and over again, folks, we're reaching the point of no return. Do something. something and I swear these idiotic damn Republicans are just, no, we need more gas, more fossil fuels, more. They bitch about the Green Deal, okay, as if somehow it is something sent from the devil. Anybody who studies in this country and you look at the abundance of natural

gas. Oh, no, no, no, no. We can't use that. So, no, forget that. Oh, no, no. Wind at dumbass Trump. Oh, the wind turbines are causing cancer. They hate wind turbines. They hate solar turbines They hate solar

They hate electric vehicles Like I've never seen people Who are so damned Crazed About fucking gas I'm from Houston The petrochemical capital Of the world

I'm sorry I'm gonna listen to scientists going to listen to sign this. You were saying, yo, the planet is getting hotter. We don't even have four seasons anymore. You got like two. Summer,

winter. Well, you know, Mustafa hit the nail on the head. I mean, the reality is they don't care about facts or logic or anything like that. They care about the money that they're able to get from those oil interests that keeps them in office. Because at the end of the day, what they care most about is power holding on to their positions in Congress. Supposedly, they don't have the intelligence to have any other job, so they have to keep getting reelected there to stay gainfully employed, apparently. So what they want to do is to do anything that those oil interests want them to do in

order for them to keep their positions. And one other thing that he did not mention is just the cost of maintenance. I mean, I think a lot of us would like, or the lack of a cost of maintenance, for example, with electric vehicles. How many of us would like to have a car where you don't have to worry about oil changes, where you don't have to worry about your transmission dying? You know, if you want to be able to completely obliterate those maintenance costs in addition to the benefits that you provide to the climate. I think that's something that most Americans would be in favor of. But of course, he doesn't want to talk about that. I don't. I mean, it's literally as if these folks are like,

man, you know what, screw y'all. And then you got, you know, you got this arrogant idiot, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, OK, who's taking more coal money, more fossil fuel money than anybody else. He doesn't give a damn. He doesn't care. And they don't care about the climate. And I mean, and they were, oh, no, no, no. Everything is fine. And here's what gets me, Larry. All these fake-ass white conservative evangelicals who talk about how God made this all in seven days and how we must be stewards and all that God has provided. And I'm like, so damn the thing that y'all say he made? Damn the thing that we talk about? And that's the whole deal. So how can you sit and talk to me about what God created,

but then your God are fossil fuels. Your God is money. And then there's this whole deal, oh, my God, that's going to be too costly. But then when something catches on fire, then when they're in floods, and now you've got to have emergency relief from the billions, that's the same money. And so, it's as if in this country, let's just wait until this stuff

blows up, catches on fire, and then just gets destroyed. Then we go, yeah, I guess we're going to go ahead. You need to work on fixing that. So, Europe is burning, as you mentioned, as we speak, Roland. And overall, nationwide, every country is watching the average temperature go up year by year. You said earlier, researchers are saying we're almost reaching to a threshold where it's going to be too late,

and it's going to be like some post-apocalyptic movie you might see on a Friday or Saturday night. But I think the Republicans, because this whole issue with climate change and electric cars, Roland, I think it's tied to a real weird sense of masculinity. If you listen to the language they consistently use when they talk about climate change and electric cars, it's kind of like, yeah, I need to drive a car with gas, a guzzler with a cigarette in my mouth, and I just ate a steak, right? So it's like a weird sense of masculinity. Bottom line is it also kind of connects to this, you know, this idea of people being selfish. So, you know, I don't care about climate change, so would I care about everyone else? But the scientists have proven that, once again, temperatures throughout the world are going up. You can turn your TV on, visit, you know, the state next to you, go to another country,

and there are same issues regarding to, you know, talk about basically two seasons, summer and winter. So what are we going to do about it? We have to take, let's say, drastic steps. And so the secretary was prepared to answer this question. There were always gotcha questions in these congressional hearings. I've seen them more times than I can count. He was prepared. I was glad to see that.

But the bottom line is Republicans gotta shift them, like I said, from this strange sense of masculinity. They need to understand that climate change is real, electric cars are important, and also can create jobs and help the economy thrive. It just literally just makes just absolutely no sense whatsoever. All right, folks, gotta go to break.

We come back, Marketplace segment. We'll talk about sustainability and hygiene with a Black-owned company called Good Conscience. That's next on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Dr. Jackie Hood Martin, and I have a question for you. Ever feel as if your life is teetering and the weight and pressure of the world is consistently on your shoulders?

Well, let me tell you, living a balanced life isn't easy. Join me each Tuesday on Black Star Network for a balanced life with Dr. Jackie. We'll laugh together, cry together, pull ourselves together, and cheer each other on. So join me for new shows each Tuesday on Black Star Network, A Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie. We're all impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not. From politics to music and entertainment,

it's a huge part of our lives. And we're going to talk about it every day, right here on The Culture with me, Faraji Muhammad, only on the Black Star Network. Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr. We connect the dots and reveal a big picture you absolutely need to see. We'll explore how all the recent Supreme Court decisions fit together,

like hand in glove, with the longstanding and very patient agenda of the GOP. As one of our guests tells us, conservatives are playing chess while the rest of us are playing checkers. And we're getting really close to checkmate. A Black Table you won't want to miss. That's next, only on the Black Star Network. Sexy to me is the exact same feeling as running water, ever flowing. Water always finds a way to get through.

And so when you know that you're sexy, there are no questions about it. It is an ever-flowing emotion. It is an ever-flowing feeling. When you question it, though, you stop the water. I actually, I struggle with this a lot, mainly because I've been told what sexy should look like, what it should feel like.

As a model who did Sports Illustrated, you're told that this is what sells sexy, but then you travel the world and what's sexy to one person is not sexy to another person. I'm more of a mind fuck kind of person. How can you stimulate the brain? To me, that's sexy. Hey, everybody, it's your girl, Luenell.

So what's up? This is your boy, Earthquake. Hi, I'm Chaley Rose, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Good conscience company, folks, they have an essential line of naturally clean and sensorial body care products for the body. Pretty cool. And so the company prioritizes partnerships with black and minority owned businesses throughout its cultural sustainability business model. Jerome Clark is the founder and CEO of In Good Conscience Personal Care. He joins me from New York City, New York. Jerome, glad to have you here. So let's talk about this here. And so these products, okay, In Good Conscience, where did that come from?

So just to give you a little bit about my background, I am the founder of In Good Conscience, and it is a naturally clean line of bath and body wash products with a social conscience. As you were mentioning, Roland, what we've done with the everyday self-care routine of taking a shower or taking a bath is we've integrated a social impact through the use and the purchase of our products. So when we developed our products, we prioritized partnerships with Black-owned manufacturing companies, Black-owned fulfillment and warehouse companies, community banks. So as you are purchasing our product, you're really impacting not only In Good Conscience as a brand and as a business, but also our business partnerships that we work with along our value chain. And then on the back end, we're also partnering with a

nonprofit community partner in my hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma, Black Wall Street called the Tulsa Dream Center. And a portion of our proceeds go back to that nonprofit organization that is doing a lot of great work in the historic neighborhood of North Tulsa, Oklahoma. Gotcha. And so when did you start this company? Actually, I started this company during COVID. So I had a lot of time. I was making the shift out of corporate America, and I was working on a concept for my own personal care line, again, working with companies like L'Oreal, Revlon, over a 12-year career in those types of organizations.

I always wanted to do my own, and COVID afforded that right opportunity to create a product line, but also do so with, given the sensitivity to consumers wanting to make an impact outside of just their own personal care or personal consumption habits. All right. So I'm looking at the peppermint sage with hydrating babassu oil. This is the body wash. Correct, yeah. And so it says it's free of sulfates and a whole bunch of other stuff. So explain that. So for those of people who don't, you know, like just was natural. So explain that. So for those of people who don't, you know, like just was natural. So explain that. I'm sure Mustafa, Mr. Environmentalist over there, I'm sure he knows, I bet his whole house is full of natural, sustainable stuff.

Right, right. So I can definitely explain that. So from a product side, we're in the, what we call the natural clean product care space. That would consist of products that are highly natural and or clean, which is free of what are considered no-no ingredients or ingredients that could be perceived as detrimental. Some of those ingredients or some of the consumers in the space prefer not to use products with sulfates, parabens, phthalates. One of the other key features that we bring to the table with sulfates, parabens, phthalates. One of the other key features that we bring to the table with our products is that we don't use any synthetic fragrances either. So as a result of using what we call a naturally clean formulation,

what we're able to do is give a very authentic and transparent product to the consumer. That means that you know exactly the ingredients that are included, including the fragrance, and you know exactly what those ingredients bring to the table in terms of the performance that you know exactly the ingredients that are included, including the fragrance, and you know exactly what those ingredients bring to the table in terms of the performance that you get through your daily body wash routine. All right. Questions from our panel? So I'll go ahead and start with Mr. Clean Environment, Mustafa.

Well, thank you, brother, so much for creating this, and thank you for also not putting formaldehyde, which some folks don't realize is often in a lot of products that are out there. I'm curious, you know, because it is business. So how are you able to compete with those who will put, you know, junk into products and be able to have that superior product that you do? So that's a very, very good question, I think, because, you know, the natural ingredients are definitely more expensive, natural fragrances, and plus we give back through our partnerships. So you will find us that we're a bit probably higher than some of

your typical products like Dove or Dial or the Bar Soap segment. Our products are priced at $12.95, and we sell our products on our direct-to-consumer website, which allows us to take some free reign in terms of our margins, in terms of how we make a profit in that regard as well. So it's really having that direct-to-consumer model, really being able to leverage that to really keep the competitiveness of the brand. And as we scale, we'll look to go into other retailers that are also offering similar products like Whole Foods or Ulta, where they have a category of products that are also playing in the same territory in terms of the natural ingredients and the

clean formulations. But however, what we'll bring to that table is the socially conscious mission with how we're contributing and giving back to community. Avis? I love this because it just seems to be a win-win-win. As you mentioned in your final point about the social good aspect of your company, I also love the fact that this is something that is healthy for us. I think so often we forget that a lot of the stuff that we buy over the counter, put on our bodies, put on our face every day are filled with,

honestly, carcinogenics. It's killing us, in other words. You know, what could you share about how your product is literally a safer product for us to use, especially something that we do every day? We want to make sure that we are not only clean, but healthy. I don't want to ask every day. Let's just, but I hear you, but let's just go on here. I'm sorry. Go ahead. So yes, it starts with that for sure. Uh, Roland, uh, definitely starts with having the right hygiene habits, but, uh, we we've

intentionally tried to stay away or we stayed away from the ingredients that are known or often associated as carcinogens or things that may disrupt the natural, you know, system of how you process and putting things on your body and washing them off, making sure that there's no harmful chemicals that could be left behind. And also formulating to the point where, you know, our products don't cause any harmful effects to the environment as they're rinsed down the drain. Or also, if there happens to be a spill in the environment, there's no damage within that regard as well. So it's really just making sure that we are, you know, cognizant of how this landscape is changing in terms of clean beauty, understanding those ingredients that come up throughout time. But we know at this point that we've created a product

that is very well within that clean beauty standard. And we're happy to be able to bring a product like this, not only to our community, but also to a broader community as well. But again, with that greater impact coming back to our community. Larry. So I have two questions. The first one is I know your business is fairly new. What kind of growth have you seen? And then secondly, can you talk about the importance of being on a platform like Roland Martin,

Roland Show, Roland Martin Unfiltered, and how that kind of publicity that it's going to give and obviously could give you a bump in terms of selling your product? Yes, so I can answer those questions. So we are a new business. We have been out less than a year. So we are just really getting our footing with our online presence. We're prioritizing our distribution to really reach out to retailers who are culturally in line with our ethos and in the communities that we want to target first, which is our communities, such as the community that I'm in in Harlem and in Brooklyn, and also in the home of Black Wall Street, which is Tulsa, Oklahoma.

So we've started to expand into a lot of local retailers on that level, and it helps to grow their business as well as ours. And plus, we're aligned with that mission, so that also helps us as a growing business. Right now, being on this platform is huge because this platform is about our community. And the products are great. The products are designed to be healthy and to encourage healthy hygiene. But the fact that we do so much to give back to our community, we felt would be a natural marriage to this community of Roland Martin and

filtered. So we were very excited to be a part of this platform to, to start to break, to spread some awareness to this community as, as one of our priority communities within our, our overall growth growth plans going forward. All right then now. Okay.

So I have here a peppermint sage, I have mandarin rose, and I have rosemary. Is it bergamot, is that what it is? Good, yep, you got it, Rosemary. Okay, all right then. So these are body washes. So do you only have body washes, or do you also have for hair?

So we're starting with body washes. Our goal is to be universally essential. So we want it to be able to have an approachable product that can be used by the entire family, regardless of race, skin tone. So that's why we started with the body washes. So how many different body washes do you have? Right now we have a very tight line of three. So these three right here? Yes, you have? Right now we have a very tight line of three body washes. So these three right here? Yes, you have them. Got it. Okay. All right then. So, and these are, you said $12.95? $12.95. We are offering a special promotion for your listeners and viewers, Roland. If you use the code RMU for Roland Martin Unfiltered, RMU15. Your viewers will be able to receive a 15% discount on the purchase of the products on InGoodConscienceCare.com. All right, then.

So, again, folks, go to InGoodConscienceCare.com. Use the promo code RMU15. And so, look, this is precisely why we created the marketplace segment to feature black-owned businesses people who are doing phenomenal things and so we certainly appreciate it and to the staff I'd stop go buy your own don't be trying to sit here and trying no no no Brittany you take your ass go buy your. Don't be trying to sit here. I see that they try to, like, place dibs on stuff that comes through here. Y'all know I'm the boss. It's like daddy get a big piece of chicken.

What's wrong with y'all? All right. Jerome, we appreciate it. Good luck. Good luck with this. And it's great what y'all are doing. That's all of your social media. Again, folks, InGoodconsciencecare.com.

Instagram is In Good Conscience. Facebook is In Good Conscience. Y'all be sure to share that information as well. We appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much, Roland, and thank you to the panelists for your questions. All right, then. Thanks a bunch. All right. Let me thank Larry, Avis, and Mustafa for being here. Thank you so very much, folks. It was a grand day. Hey, tomorrow I'll be broadcasting from Birmingham. We're traveling there for the SWAC Media Day.

That's taking place on Thursday, but I'll be there a day early. So looking forward to being in Birmingham tomorrow to do Roland Martin Unfiltered. We've got a lot of fans there, and so can't wait to see them there as well. So and just so you know, Deshaun, our driver, we rent the SUV. I drove it down yesterday. All of our gear, we remember we left a lot of our gear there in Birmingham because that was about 15 minutes from where the accident took place with our Sprinter. And so my production guys are down there going over a lot of the gear that we left to get it back here. And so, again, everybody's safe and sound.

We, of course, I am having conversations right now. And so just so y'all know, again, y'all know how we do. This is a Marketplace segment. Y'all need to know what we're doing. And so I did not know this until after we had purchased our Sprinter in December 2020. But a homegirl of mine, Windsor Barbie, I knew Windsor in Dallas. And she actually is the only black upfitter company and the only female upfitter company in the country. And so the new Sprinter that we are actually having designed and built is going to be with the only black-owned upfitter

company in the country. See, I told y'all, this is why I don't care about our haters. What we try to do here is spend our resources, resources that you provide us with African-American businesses, because we believe in practicing circulating the dollar. That's what we do. And so she and I were talking last year and she said, Roland, you didn't know I had an up company. I was like, no, Windsor, out of all the conversations that we had, you never kind of mentioned that. And so we were actually having a conversation about some different stuff. And of course the accident took place.

And so I have been in conversations with her. She works closely with Mercedes Benz. And so just y'all need to understand when you are giving, a lot of y'all have been contributing for us, for our new Sprinter, which we use for our live productions. We are purchasing that. We are building that and purchasing it from the nation's only black-owned upfitter and the only women-owned upfitter in the country, and that's my girl, Windsor Barbie. And so, again, that's why your support is critical.

And so, y'all understand, when you are assisting us with these type of segments and we're helping black businesses that's what we're doing and that's exactly what's happening right here and so uh we can't wait uh by mid-september or late september uh to be in possession of our new sprinter and we'll let y'all know exactly how it is going uh don't forget to support us in what we do folks i told y'all what's happening it is going. Don't forget to support us in what we do, folks. I told y'all what's happening with Facebook. I already sent them an email like, yo, what the hell is going on? But our goal is this here, y'all. Our goal is not to be on Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, all platforms. We would rather drive everybody over to our platform that way we're driving all of the viewership right there and so please download we

haven't even hit 50,000 downloads I really want us to get a hundred thousand by the end of this year so I need you to share tell everybody about this here so again Apple phone Android phone Apple TV Android TV Roku Amazon fire TV Xbox one Samsung smart TV. And of course, if you want to contribute to our Bring the Funk Fan Club, hey, our goal is very simple. We want 20,000 of our fans contributing on average 50 bucks a year. That's $4.19 a month, 13 cents a day.

Nobody else is doing what we're doing. It's a whole bunch of people out here running their miles, calling themselves new black media. All they're doing is trashing other people. Nobody's delivering the kind of content that we're doing. But you're just not getting just this two-hour show. You're getting Faraji Muhammad's two-hour show. You're getting Greg Carr's weekly show. Deborah Owens' weekly show. Jackie Hood Martin's weekly show. Stephanie Humphrey's Weekly Show. You're getting our biweekly Rolling with Roland.

We're going to be featuring Damaris Lewis, dancer and actress. That debuts tomorrow. She was, of course, longtime dancer with Prince. She's a phenomenal conversation that we had with her. And so you're getting all of that. And so I'm purposely not charging a subscription fee because a lot of our people can't afford that so that's why we're making this thing uh what it is and again and i love the haters who are like yeah you begging black folks for money

but you know what i ain't never heard them say npr begging for money y'all know npr does donations every single year. I ain't never heard that. I've never heard them say the ESPN Plus, which charges people, Disney Plus, HBO Max, Hulu, Netflix, Peacock, Discovery Plus, BET Plus. All those folks are charging you a monthly fee for the content we're not doing that we're purposely leaving it open this particular way uh and so uh somebody said telethon y'all we don't need a telethon we do this every single day this is the telethon so if y'all want to support us in what we do uh please and and and

what i love about y'all i told y'all up front that if we had to see in hats and shirts and all kind of stuff all the kind of swag all that stuff costs money which is really money you're spending we said no every dollar you give goes back into the show and so you're actually seeing what we are doing. You're seeing how we are spending the resources. That's why I'm very open and honest with y'all. And so if you want to be one of our contributors, again, we asked for 50. I got some people who have given a lot more. I've got some people who have given a dollar. We appreciate every single contribution. Some people send us a check every single month. Some people say, hey, this is all I got. Y'all, we treat everybody the same. We appreciate every single dollar. So check or money

order. Go to, because a lot of y'all old school, PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. The Cash App, dollar sign RM, unfiltered. PayPal is RMartin, unfiltered. PayPal is RMartin unfiltered. Venmo is RM unfiltered. Zelle, Roland at RolandSMartin.com. That's it, I'll see y'all tomorrow from Birmingham, Alabama. Until then, holla! Thank you.