#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Sen Sinema Leaves Dems, MN J. Alexander Kueng Sentence, Brittney Griner In US, Project 21's Plan

Episode Date: December 10, 2022

12.9.2022 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Sen Sinema Leaves Dems, MN J. Alexander Kueng Sentence, Brittney Griner In US, Project 21's Plan  Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema is leaving the Democratic Party after years of giving Democrats political pushback.  We discuss how Sinema's split impacts the Democrats' True Senate Majority. In Minnesota, the St. Paul police department releases body camera footage of a fatal police shooting of a black man.  We break down the details, explain what happened, and examine how the system may have failed. The black conservative group Project 21 says they have a plan to build a better black America. One of the members will explain the Blueprint For A  Better Deal For Black America. Brittney Griner is finally on American soil.  Now she and her family have to deal with the trauma of being held in a Russian prison. I'll talk to a licensed professional counselor to discuss what lies ahead in Brittney's mental recovery. The former Minneapolis police officers who kneeled on George Floyd's back gets sentenced today.   In our Education Matters segment, we talk to the founder of Pensoles Academy, who gives opportunities to black creatives. +Roland's Jackson State Commencement Speech. 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. is here. Oh, no punching! I'm real revolutionary right now. Black media, he makes sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roller. 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 scape. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? We'll see you next time. Thank you. Roland, who was at Jackson State University to deliver his commencement speech. Here's what's coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered,

streaming live on the Black Star Network. Arizona Senator Kristen Sinema is leaving the Democratic Party after years of giving Democrats political pushback. We discuss how Sinema's split impacts Democrats' true Senate majority. In Minnesota, the St. Paul Police Department releases body camera footage of a fatal police shooting of a Black man. We break down the details, explain what happened, and examine how the system may have failed. The black conservative group Project 21 says they have a plan to build a better black America. One of the members will explain the blueprint

for a better deal for black America. Brittany Griner is finally on American soil. Now she and her family have to deal with the trauma of being held in a Russian prison. I'll talk to a licensed professional counselor to discuss what lies ahead in Brittany's mental recovery. The former Minneapolis police officers who kneeled on George Floyd's neck get sentenced today. In our Education Matters segment,

we talked to the founder of Pencils Academy, who gives opportunities to black creatives. And we will show Roland's Jackson State Commencement speech. It's time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. Let's go. Whatever the piss, he's on it Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine And when it breaks, he's right on time And it's rolling Best belief he's knowing

Putting it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling Yeah, yeah It's Uncle Roro, y'all Yeah, yeah It's Rolling Martin, yeah, it's Uncle Roro, yo. Yeah, yeah, it's Rollin' Marten. Yeah, yeah, rolling with rolling now. Yeah, he's broke, he's fresh, he's real the best.

You know he's Rollin' Marten now. Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema is leaving the Democratic Party. Kyrsten announced the switch this morning, saying her politics don't fit in either party. As an Arizona independent, I know some people might be a little bit surprised by this, but actually I think it makes a lot of sense. You know, a growing number of Arizonans and people like me just don't feel like we fit neatly into one party's box or the other. And so like many across the state and the nation,

I've decided to leave that partisan process and really just focus on the work that I think matters to Arizona and to our country, which is solving problems and getting things done. So your voting record is pretty capital-D Democratic. I mean, your views are generally that of a moderate centrist Democrat. How does leaving the party change how you do your job? Well, I don't think anything will change about how I do my job.

Arizonans sent me to the United States Senate to be an independent voice for our state, and I'll continue doing that. What I think is important about this decision and this move is that I'll be able to show up to work every day as an independent and not be, you know, stuck into one party's demands of following without thinking. And as we've seen in recent years, both parties have created this kind of requirement or a pull towards the edges that you just unthinkingly support all of one party's viewpoints. It's made it difficult to find folks who are willing to work together and solve problems.

Now, as you know, Jake, we've been able to do a lot of bipartisan work over the last couple of years, and I'm incredibly proud of that. And I think it's important for folks across my state and, frankly, across the country to say, yeah, there's someone that's kind of like me, doesn't fit neatly into one box or the other, but is standing up for their values, for what they believe in, and is doing it without trying to get one over on the other party or beat the other guy. The first term Arizona senators change to independent is unlikely

to change the power balance in the next Senate, other than giving more political power to herself and West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin. Democrats will still have a narrow 51-49 majority, including two independents, Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine. Sinema declined to say if she would caucus with Democrats. Sinema is up for reelection in 2024 and has not addressed if she will run for reelection. Joining me now to discuss how this could impact the Democratic Party,

we have Tamia D. Booker, the founder and managing director of T. Booker Strategies. Mrs. Booker, welcome to the show. First of all, I have to say, girl, bye, with Kristen Sinema. Everything she said was nothing more than grandstanding and ridiculous political just ridiculousness and her trying to get the spotlight back on her instead of giving us time to bask in the glory of Senator Warnock's reelection. What are your thoughts on what we just heard from Kristen Sinema? Yes, first of all, you made me laugh. Thank you for having me here. You know, she it's the timing. I, you know, a lot of people do not agree with. I've talked to many operatives today.

And the one thing I will say, though, is it's not quite surprising. Right. Like the party has been pretty frustrated with her from quite some time. You've seen major parties or party organizations pull their endorsements from her. You've seen a lot of her constituents who are left-leaning be very frustrated with her. So it's not quite surprising that she's doing this, but the timing is a little frustrating. And the fact that she says that she won't be, she said, she made a comment saying about the Democratic Party and not representing that, but she ran as a Democrat. And so there's a bit of

contradiction in her statement because she's keeping her committee assignments as a Democrat. And that's where the frustration is for a lot of people within the party right now, because it has felt like for some time that she's kind of danced between the two. And you see in her statement here, and then also what has been written, that same contradiction. So you can see why people are frustrated. But she's still going to caucus as a, you know, keep her committee assignments as a leader in the party, right? And then she's still not going to be a Democratic candidate.

It's just very interesting to me and to many of us. Right. You know, what I found interesting is this whole notion that she is in line, lockstep with a lot of Arizona voters as though Arizona voters are increasingly independent. When we just saw the Democrats sweep almost every single major statewide election in Arizona. Can you just talk about that disconnect in terms of the success we're seeing Democrats have increasingly in Arizona and the way she seems to characterize it as though Democrats and Republicans are on the outs equally

in her home state? Arizona has been trending blue for the last couple of election cycles. I was in the Senate when she ran in 18, and there was a lot of support behind her then. I think what she's doing at this time is really making an effort to do what's in her best interests. If you look at the tide of what's happening in Arizona, you would think that she would run as a Democrat again. But I think, dealing with the party consternation, there has been open conversations about other Democrats running against her, because she has wavered in her support. Even though she's voted heavily Democratic on many bills, she has wavered support on many critical bills. And so with that, I think also politically on the electoral side,

she decided maybe to remove herself from a future potential primary fight and run as an independent so she doesn't have to necessarily run for the Democratic Party seat. Speaking of primaries, I remember shortly after the midterms, people suddenly started circling the wagon around her, whereas before it was like, let's make Sinema and Manchin irrelevant. It became, well, you know, maybe we don't want to give up the advantage of incumbency and primary her. I think that she does have some stiff competition in terms of the primary with, for instance, Congressman Ruben Gallego, or if any of the other people that just recently won statewide decide to jump in the race. How does her status as an independent, do you think, impact the 2024 electoral politics? Is she obligated to, in some way, run as a Democrat

and deal with the primary challenge there, perhaps? Or does she have that ability in some way run as a Democrat and deal with the primary challenge there, perhaps? Or does she have that ability in Arizona to run as an independent and make this a three-way race? Yes. So she can run as an independent and make it a three-way race. And the Democratic Party can run a candidate. And that's why, like you mentioned, Congressman Gallego has been mentioned a lot. I've seen today in the press and some others as possible candidates, also in the Democratic primary. So she could do that. And I think that's why she may be doing this for her own, you know, her own goals is to be able to run in that sense. And I noticed that when she said, I'm running to represent all of Arizona and not one particular

party, it sounded to me a bit like a campaign, a future slogan. And I think that that may be the angle that she's going with at this time. But, you know, it almost seems like a kamikaze strategy, right? Because at the end of the day, Arizona is at most a 51-49 state when it comes to the way that people vote there. 51-49 can go either way, Republican or Democrat. So she has no path to a majority vote knocking off Republicans. The Republicans are going to get their 49 either way. And so how much do you think this really puts pressure on Democrats to kind of step aside

and either allow her to take the reins as a Democratic nominee, even though she calls herself an independent, or to try to discourage anybody from running as a Democrat while she runs as an independent? I think it really depends on seeing how, you know, when you are putting together campaigns, you have to have a lot of conversations.

You have to poll the people and see where they're at. And I think in this instance, you know, we do have... In other instances, excuse me, we do have members who are independent, like Bernie, Senator Sanders, Senator Angus King, who are independents, but caucus with Democrats. Right. And if that is the route she's trying to take, that's a different conversation. But I do think now in seeing that she has talked with Senator Schumer, I'm curious to see what the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee will do with this race. But she could go many different directions with it. Right. Well, you know, she's accomplished her mission, at least in the near term, because we're talking about her.

And she's making herself more relevant when we at least could have made her a non-factor, at least for the next two years. So mission accomplished. Kristen Sinema, Basile is girl bye. Thank you, Tamia Booker, for joining us on Roller Martin Filter tonight. Thank you for having me. Have a great evening. You too. Coming in and bringing the panel, we have Kelly Bathia, JD, communications strategist, Michael Imhotep, host of the African History Network show, and Matt Manning, civil rights attorney. Hey, y'all. Happy Friday.

Happy Friday. I like to say happy Friday, you know what I'm saying? Because it took a long time to get here. This has been a very busy week. We had the victory in Georgia, which now seems miles away. But what do you think? I'll start off with you, Kelly, with Chris's son trying to steal the spotlight today with this ridiculous announcement that she's made. I wasn't even thinking of it as a stealing spotlight moment. I thought of it more so as a slap in the face to every Democrat who voted for her in Arizona.

Because at the end of the day, they didn't vote for an independent. And I think it was real slick of her considering that she didn't just get reelected. Her next election isn't until 2024, I believe. So it just kind of feels like... It just feels like a slap in the face She didn't just get reelected. Her next election isn't until 2024, I believe. So it just kind of feels like... It just feels like a slap in the face to anyone who voted for her.

And it also feels like a way for her to maintain power, a modicum of power in the Senate. I think she got used to being catered to these past few years with the half-and-half Senate. And she liked the people holding court for her. And now she's trying to find another way to basically maintain a modicum of power.

Because once you taste it, you're going to want some more of it. And I feel like Manchin might do something similar. Maybe not the independent route, but I feel like he'll, you know, flip over backwards to find the modicum of power too. But I felt bad for the people who voted for her because they didn't vote for an independent. So I'm curious to see how she's going to conduct herself in this next Senate because again, she's an independent, but she's keeping her democratic assignments.

So I don't know. It's messy. She definitely wants to have her cake and eat it, too. Michael, you know, Kelly brought up Manchin and where he plays in all this. I think we've seen with this past election cycle that there is no way in hell somebody like Manchin

could win a Republican primary. So, my prediction would be that he kind of stays put. But what do you think about how Manchin and Sinema will play in this next term of Congress with this news that came about today of Chris and Sinema? Yeah, well, Manchin's not going to join the Republican Party because if you look at his voting record, he votes with Democrats more so than Republicans. He voted for the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. No Republicans voted for the American Rescue

Plan. He voted for the Inflation Reduction Act. No Republicans voted for the Inflation Reduction Act. So, when you look, he voted for most of Biden's federal bench nominations. He voted for Judge Katonji Brown Jackson, not even Senator Tim Scott, Black Tea Party Republican from South Carolina voted for Judge Katonji Brown Jackson. There's only three Republicans that voted for Judge Katonji Brown Jackson, not even Senator Tim Scott, Black Tea Party Republican from South Carolina voted for Judge Katonji Brown Jackson. There's only three Republicans that voted for her. So if you, even though some, even though Manchin tanked Build Back Better, which was really Democrats' fault in the House, because he already told, he already said he wasn't going to vote for the child tax credit.

He already said he wasn't going to vote for that. And they took it out of the bill, Democrats in the House took it out of the bill, put it in at the last minute, passed it, then sent it to the Senate, and he backed out. He did what he said he was going to do. So with Sinema, I think she is trying to reassert power after this historic win that took place yesterday with Senator Raphael Warnock. And a 51-49 Senate gives Democrats a much stronger position than a 50-50 Senate, because in the 50-50 Senate, Chuck Schumer and McConnell had to agree to terms in how to govern in the 50-50 Senate. And you also had an equal number of Republicans and Democrats on the committees.

And this allowed Republicans to block federal bench nominations, do a lot of damage. Now, with 5149, it gives Democrats much more power, and Republicans can't block bills and block federal bench nominations like they were. So here you have Sinema trying to reassert her power. But she's still going to conference with Democrats. And hopefully Ruben Gallego will run in 2024 and crush her. She needs to be crushed. She needs to be destroyed. OK. And also the same thing with the white Nassus party. They need to be defeated.

They need to be crushed and destroyed as well. I completely agree. Matt, you get the last word on this. Then we'll head to a break. Well, lucky for y'all, I'm not going to add too much. But I do think it was about self-preservation. I think it was a matter of her trying to preserve her own electoral chances going forward. I do think academically it opens up a good conversation about plurality and the idea of not being adherent to a two-party system forever, right, the idea that we can have other iterations of how people think. But I think in this instance, it was solely to benefit herself. And I agree with Michael's sentiments. She needs to be obliterated, to use a different word, because I think she's

just trying to hold them hostage, has held them hostage throughout this last couple of years. And I think that Rep. Gallegos and maybe others might be a good source of attack on her to have a check on her and her unbalanced power. Oh, I think that she might have been a little premature in where her leverage would be by announcing so soon. You know, we still have two years to get Gallego up there to where she would be absolutely crushed and obliterated. So we're going to see how this plays out. But it's still womp, womp, womp cinema.

We're still celebrating Raphael Warnock over here. But this is Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. We'll be right back. on the next get wealthy with me deborah owens america's wealth coach inflation is on the rise interest rates are high can you still thrive during these uncertain times on the next get wealthy you're gonna meet a woman who's done just that, living proof of what you need to do to flourish during these uncertain times. These are times where you take advantage of what's going on. This is how people get rich or richer. That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Blackstar Network.

My name is Charlie Wilson. Hi, I'm Sally Richardson-Whitfield. And I'm Dodger Whitfield. Hey, everybody, this is your man Fred Hammond, and you're watching Roland Martin, my man, Unfiltered. Black people have been, by and large, Democrat since the late 1960s. A recent Pew poll, a recent Pew research poll shows that only 4% of Black registered voters would vote for a Republican candidate. While Black Republicans are few, the study found they tend to be younger than black Democrats.

A black Republican group called Project 21 believes the sway of young black voters comes from the lack have identified 10 critical areas for reform and are offering 57 recommendations to remove barriers blocking blacks. I don't like the word blacks, but that's okay. Black people. Craig DeLuz, a Project 21 member and founder of Uncommon Sense Media Group, is joining us to explain their blueprint for a better deal for Black America plan. Hello, Mr. DeLuz. Welcome to the show. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for being here. I had a chance to look over this blueprint for a better deal for Black America, and I would be remiss if I didn't start off by saying that this is an extensive report of super anti-black, and I would even say white supremacist talking points that are filled with completely absurd notions that want to roll back

all of the racial progress that we've made in terms of civil rights and advancement. So what do you have to say for this plan and why you believe the suggestions that you've made, such as trying to ban critical race theory, get rid of all kinds of civil rights protections, is actually the right plan for black America? Okay, well, first of all, your mischaracterization of the plan is, and as well, by the way, of Project 21, just goes to demonstrate how little time you actually probably spent on it or on Project 21. First of all, Project 21 is not a Republican group. It's a group of people who have a different view than the left-wing paradigm. In other words, the Black community

is just like every other community in that not everyone thinks alike. We have different beliefs. We have a variety of beliefs. We have a variety of positions on issues, oftentimes depending on what that issue is. The challenge we have, in particular as a Black community, is monolithically, we only come at it from one perspective. And we've lost, unfortunately, and this is unfortunately an issue on both the right and the left, we've lost the idea of being able to talk about public policy nuance. And when we start talking about public policy nuance, we start to take a look at and look at all of the items or perspectives from both sides and look to see which ones are going to be best for the black community. What we've wound up with is our policymakers and our politicians only support those on the left. And so you wind up with a Democratic Party who says we don't have to do

anything or address any issues of the black community. And you wind up with a Republican Party that says, well, they're always going to vote Democrat. So we really don't have to address any issues within the Black community. I can agree with you about the Republican Party aspect, but I think that they're actually quite hostile to the Black community. They aren't just indifferent to our community.

I think it's interesting because... Hold on one second. One second. Well, I didn't cut you off. One second. Here's the point that I'll... Hold on one second. I didn't cut you off, sir. I didn't cut... I didn't cut you off, sir. I didn't cut you off, sir. Thank you. One thing I found interesting about the report is that the report talks about or asserts that there have been failures of the Biden-Harris administration in terms of their policies.

But the statistics that are outlined throughout the reports, like, for instance, statistics about homicide rates, statistics about a number of things, are 2019 and 2020. That's when President Trump was actually in office, and he had had four years of policies to make improvements for the Black community. So how do you explain how President Biden is responsible for the failures

of the Trump administration policies in 2020? Well, first of all, understand that the executive summary that was written as it came forward, you look at the number, put it this way, what the numbers were in 2020, which, by the way, were 2020 and 2019, the numbers have increased since then. And if you look at where those numbers, whether it's crime, whether it's poverty, where those numbers have gotten worse, in particular, are in areas that are run by Democrats in major urban inner cities like San Francisco, like Oakland, like Los Angeles, like Chicago, like New York. And these are areas that have been run by Democrats, not just for a few years, but for generations. You look across the country and you look at where liberal policies

are put in place, right? Crime is the highest. Unemployment is the highest. Economic opportunity is the lowest. Quality of education is the lowest. I'm not here saying the Republicans have all the answer, the conservatives have all the answers, but here's what I know. I know the Democrats have demonstrated that they simply do not. Well, that's not true that crime is highest in a number of things that you asserted were the highest in Democratic areas. Just because you say it's not true doesn't mean it's not true. Okay, just because you say it's true doesn't mean it's true. So where we go with that? But one second, let's talk about one of the assertions since a big part of this plan talks about crime. One of the most disturbing and the reason

why I characterize it as racist and white supremacist notions was it specifically says in this plan that black people are as criminal or more criminal and that's why we see the kind of disparities in the way that black people are treated in the disparities. Do you believe that

black people are more prone to criminal behavior? Do you agree with that people are more prone to criminal behavior? Do you agree with that assertion? Actually, I clearly did not read the report. I did read it. What it will tell you is this, is that, and this is, by the way, this is true of every ethnicity. People who generally commit crimes commit crimes against their own.

In other words, the number one committer of crimes against Black people are black people. And that's the same with whites. That's the same with Latinos, right? That's what that is pointing out. My question is, with all of these folks who are trying to be smart on crime by decriminalizing crime and putting criminals back on the streets, they're more worried about black criminals than they are about black crime victims. I mean, to be clear, there's this, that's a completely different point to say that there is higher interracial. There's, that's completely different to say that the number one, uh,

perpetrators of crime against, uh, black people are black people, as opposed to saying that black people are more criminal. If we look at, for instance... I agree with you, but what you're saying the report says is not what it says. That is what it says, but that's okay if you don't want to acknowledge that. Or if you don't believe that, then I'm glad that you repudiate that aspect of the report. But we do have situations like, for instance, how black people are disproportionately stopped for weed offenses, marijuana offenses, as opposed to white people when black people and white people have the same usage of drugs. One of the things that your plan calls for is for not decriminalizing marijuana. Can you explain that position?

Well, first of all, I think they'd understand that overall throughout history, I mean, until recently with marijuana, there has only been one drug that has been legalized for recreational use, and that drug has been alcohol. I don't think that we do our community any, we don't provide them any additional benefit by legalizing the use of marijuana. What we were promised in the state of California, for example, was when we legalized marijuana that we would see an end to crime. The exact opposite has happened. What we've seen is an underground black market of marijuana and cannabis

is actually taking over the market, right? In other words, people have not changed whether or not they're smoking it. What's happened is they also haven't changed where they've bought it. The only difference is that they're not going to jail for possessing it. That is good because black people

are disproportionately going to jail for possessing marijuana, despite the fact that they don't have a higher incidence of using marijuana. But let's talk about another major part of your plan, which is critical race theory. This is the boogeyman of conservatives. And I found a lot of really preposterous assertions in here as well. But let me just ask you, first and foremost, do you believe that racism against black people exists in this country?

And do you believe that systemic racism exists in this country? Well, first of all, let's talk about what critical race theory is. And I recognize and I understand that it started off as a... Mr. DeLuz, we can get to that. Hold on. But I asked you a specific question. Respectfully, can you answer my question? And then we can get to what your understanding of critical race theory is. Do I believe that racism exists? Yes, I do believe that racism exists. Do I believe that systemic racism exists? No, I do not believe that systemic racism exists. I believe that we need to take a look at, I mean, one of the challenges we have is that people who promote critical race theory want to act as if we are exactly where we were from the day that slavery ended. And that is just not the case. We are the freest,

most educated, and most prosperous peoples of African descent in the world. Now, is everything where it should be? Are we exactly where we should be striving to be? No, we're not there yet. But what we should do is recognize where we are, recognize the success that we have had, and recognize that staying on the path where we are is exactly what's going to get us to where we need to be. But teaching policies or teaching things in school that teach students that if you're white, you are an oppressor. If you are black, you are oppressed. And the only way you can be successful is if your oppressor lets you be successful. Where they talk about things like proximity to whiteness, saying that, well, if you are successful, if you are college educated, and if you've been married to one person and have children with that one person, well, that's because of your proximity to whiteness. This sort of stuff is utter madness.

And this is the sort of stuff that is not going to create racial unity. It's, in fact, going to create racial division. And that's exactly what it's doing. Well, first of all, we've had racial division in this country since the beginning of time. I mean, we did come here as kidnapped enslaved people. So this whole notion that critical race theory is creating something is really absurd. And it's actually creating a lot of hysteria by all the mischaracterizations of critical race theory.

It's not hysteria at all. I've sat on a school board for 18 years and I've seen them work to try and implement this stuff. And I'm telling you right now, this stuff is divisive. And as we're trying to bring people together, and, you know, we've worked in our school district to try and do diversity training, to try and do what we call resiliency training, cultural competency with our staff. And it wasn't until this racist anti-racism training started to come in that we started to have issues and divisions and concerns like this. Oh, anti-racism is the problem as opposed to racism. That's a very interesting assertion, but I'm going to bring in my panel to see if they have any questions for you, Mr. DeLuz. I'm going to start off with our professor, Mr. Michael Imhotep. Do you have any questions? Yeah. I've been going through looking

at some of this. And first of all, what you're saying about critical race theory is blatantly false. And then you want to reinstate Donald Trump's divisive, combating race and sexual stereotyping executive order. That's ridiculous. But the question I have is, if we look, for instance, at the article from Yahoo News, do Republicans or Democrats, Democratic states have more crime? And they talk about how eight of the 10 states with the highest murder rates per 100,000 are Republican states and states that voted for Donald Trump. Explain to me how Republican policies for fighting crime are going to be more beneficial for African-Americans than Democrats. And I'm neither Democrat nor Republican, but I sure as hell ain't stupid.

And I know when people are trying to snow job our people as well. But explain that to me. And then I got to follow up to deal with marijuana, because if you study the history of why marijuana was made illegal, it largely goes back to Harry J. Ansling in 1937, who was a white supremacist who targeted African-Americans and who lied in front of Congress about the effects of marijuana as well. But we can get to that later. Go ahead and answer the first question. Okay. I'll use the state of California as an example. In the early 90s,

in the state of California, we passed a number of laws which actually, which were included mandatory minimums for various different crimes. We started to institute things like going after people who were involved in violent crime, people who were involved in the drug trade. And what we found was for over 20 years, we saw a decrease. We saw a cut in crime, in violent crime and in property crime. about the time that we got our then Attorney General Kamala Harris, came in with this idea of, well, we're going to institute policies that are smart on crime. And as a part of smart on crime, what we're going to do is we're going to take things that are crimes, major crimes, felonies, and we're going to call them misdemeanors.

And then not only are we now going to then call them misdemeanors, we're going to take the people who committed those crimes, we're going to take them out of state prison, and we're going to put them into county jails. Now, as a result of that, we've seen a number of things happen. Number one, the people who went from state prison to county forced then people who were in the county jails out onto the streets. On top of that, in many cases, you had people who were in the county jails out onto the streets. On top of that, in many cases, you had people who were in county jails, which by the way, are built for up to a year stay. They're not built for long-term for more than a year. So you saw people who were going into county jails that didn't have rehabilitation programs, weren't set up for

long, weren't set up for long-term and weren't set up for the populations that they had. And so then they started releasing prisoners. So now let's see, we've decriminalized crime. Oh, we got rid of bail. So now that we've gotten rid of bail, when you arrest somebody for committing a crime, we're now just going to release them onto the streets. Where there are multiple stories. You're talking about bail reform. You're talking about bail reform. Because African Americans were disproportionately harmed when they couldn't afford bail and white people could.

Let me jump in because this is running a little long. But let me just... Let me just clarify. Let's just remember the war on drugs started in 1971 with Richard Nixon. Republicans don't want to talk about that. He was a Republican the last time I checked. The war on drugs started

June 17, 1971 when a Republican named Richard Nixon declared his war on drugs in front of Congress. So if we want to deal with that, we need to go back there and come forward. Go ahead. Okay. Pause.

Pause, fellas. Pause. Is my mic working? Is my mic on? Can y'all hear me? Okay. Thank you very much. All right. Let me just fact check one thing because Vice President Kamala Harris was mentioning y'all know I don't play about her. Actually, it wasn't her initiative. It was a public safety realignment that

brought about the difference between state prisons and local prisons and all that good stuff. But let's move on to another question because we got other people that want to get questions in. So, Kelly, you're up next. I didn't even ask. You you y'all have five minutes back and forth. Kelly, can you go ahead with your question, please? Sure. So we only covered two of these topics on on in this manifesto blueprint, what have you. And those were the crime and the and the CRT. I want to focus on CRT only because it delves into another area, which is specifically education, not just ideologies in general. I need to know why you think

learning about history is destructive. Because at the end of the day, critical race theory has been inflated to mean a whole bunch of things. Um, at the end of the day, it really is a legal concept. But what it has been incorporated into, as far as education is concerned, is really correcting the wrongs

that have been taught to myself and generations after me and setting the record straight, such as the enslaved were not just immigrants that came over to America from Africa. That is part of critical race theory in a lot of jurisdictions. Native Americans were not just giving people turkeys

in a cornucopia during the Mayflower. That's part of critical race theory. You understand what I'm saying? So I need to know what is woke, why is that even being demonized, why is it that when ever it comes to Black history or critical aspects

of Black history, that gets shut down for the sake of, frankly, white guilt. Okay. Before you answer that, is my mic on? I just, Mr. DeLuz, I want to be respectful to you, so I just want to give you a heads up. We have one more panelist ask you a question. So if you could keep it relatively brief so that we can get the last person in and then move on to

the next segment, I would really appreciate it. I don't want to have to cut you off, so I'm just telling you up front. Thank you. Okay. So first of all, let's understand that I think people on both sides are conflating what critical race theory is. I am not opposed to the idea of teaching our history, good and bad, in particular, and also when it comes to the issue of dealing with the teaching and talking about the history is not what critical race theory does, or at least it's not all that it does. And that's the problem is there's a lot of – there are a lot of things. By the way, critical race theory, at least I can only speak for California, has not been passed as a curriculum in any school district. Now, aspects of it have been put in place in various different places by various different instructors throughout the country. I'm just saying, my point is, is that those are the things that we need to be talking about and addressing. Talking about our history, not telling kids, well, if you're white, you're oppressed,

and you need to be ashamed of your whiteness. And, you know, that's the sort of stuff that's... Respectfully, sir, not one teacher on this earth has ever said that to a white baby. No one. And I am friends with plenty of teachers. I have sat on boards. Like, no black teacher has ever told a white baby,

you are the great-great-grandchild of my president. That does not happen. There are teachers who have done that. We're going to move on to the last panelist. Thank you. Please, with your question for Mr. DeLuz. I'll let him answer her question. I'll let him answer the question. I would ask her to interrupt it,

but the individual who's supposed to answer the questions gets interrupted. Let's rewind, because let's fact check. I asked you to keep it relatively brief. I gave you a chance to answer it. It was a couple of minutes last I checked, but we do have another segment. We have other people holding on.

I wish we could have an entire knockdown drag-out fight about this for two hours, but this is a news program with other segments. So Matt, please with your question. I would call it news, but okay. My question is, why do you want to end consent decrees when they're based upon evidence that these are cities and municipalities that have had, you know, disparate policing. It seems to me that if you are a supporter of the police, you should also be able to be someone who has a check on them, right? If you say we're going to hold the citizens accountable, we're going to hold the police accountable. Consent decrees are based on evidence.

So why would it be part of your policy platform that you want to repeal those? You know, I have to be honest. In particular, the section on consent decrees, I'm not particularly familiar with. I do believe in law enforcement accountability. Things like body cameras are vitally important and should be instituted for all law enforcement, in part because it not only helps keep police accountable, but in many cases it's actually helped exonerate them or show exactly what happened in many, many cases. It's not the

complete story, but it does tell part of the story. And I apologize that I don't know more about the consent decrees. Thank you, Mr. DeLuz, for acknowledging that instead of BSing your way through that segment. To be honest, you sound just slightly more reasonable than this document. And I listened to it and I was aghast at many of the assertions. But we do agree on body cameras because that has been instrumental in bringing justice to light.

And to your point, if the cop is innocent, then it will show that as well. So, Mr. DeLuz, thank you so much for your time coming into the lion's den and giving us your perspective on the Project group project 21 group

thank you so much all right take care all right you too roland martin will be right back after this break you're watching the black star network on the next of balanced life with me dr jackie tis the season tree trimming party going and gift giving and i don't know about you but for me sometimes it can be overwhelming and sometimes it's just downright exhausting surviving the holiday season we got tips for you for staying sane solvent striving and, and thriving, and sometimes keeping a little money in your pocket. Two things just out of the gate, set boundaries and set a budget.

On a next A Balanced Life right here on Black Star Network with me, 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. network. I am on screen and I am representing what a black man is to the entire world that's going to see this.

And this might be the only black man, a representation of a black man that they see. Right. So I am responsible for how they see black men. And it's my responsibility to, if I am not playing an upstanding, honorable, someone with a strong principle and moral core,

to make sure that this character is so specific. Right. That it is him, not black men. And I wish that more actors would realize how important their position is as an actor, as an actor of color playing people of color on screen. Because there are people that see us all over the world in these different images that we portray,

and not everyone knows black people to know. Yes. That's not all. Hey, I'm Antonique Smith. Hey, I'm Arnaz J. Hi, this is Cheryl Lee Ralph, and you are watching Roland Martin, unfiltered. I mean, could it be any other way? Really. It's Roland Martin. Brittany Griner is back on U.S. soil after 294 days of being imprisoned in Russia. Griner arrived early this morning in San Antonio, Texas, for a medical evaluation at the Brooke Army Medical Center.

The detailed examination will include a look at her physical health for malnutrition, muscle atrophy, and vitamin D deficiency. Greiner will also be given a mental health rehabilitation debrief with the Department of Defense and mental health rehabilitation debrief with the Department of Defense and Mental Health Counselors. Griner being forced to carry fabric in harsh weather conditions led to her cutting her hair. She's not the person she was before this whole ordeal began. So how does she begin to heal from this?

Robin May, a licensed professional counselor, is here to talk about Brittany's road to normalcy. Welcome, Ms. May. How are you? Is it doctor or miss? I just want to be clear. Ms. May is fine. Robin is fine as well. Okay, Robin. You know, we talked yesterday about Brittany Griner. We got into detail about the particulars, about the swap, but I'm so glad you're here today because I want to talk about the humanity and the ordeal of what she endured. And I first want to, again, mention that what we were dealing with here was the case of wrongful detention of a political prisoner. And a lot of people have said, well, them's the rules. She was over there with weed, yada, yada, yada, without recognizing that the actual amount of cannabis or whatever she was discovered with was so minuscule

that under normal circumstances, according to Russian law, she would have gotten away with just a ticket. And so the notion that she brought this upon herself or that the punishment justified the crime. I just want to put that to bed. But can you just talk a little bit about, let's start off, if you don't mind, with the cutting of her hair. Because I saw a report where her lawyer, who was a Russian woman,

who obviously doesn't understand the meaning of black hair to a black woman, said that she chose to cut her hair because of the conditions of the Russian prison. And to a black woman, said that she chose to cut her hair because of the conditions of the Russian prison. And she also flippantly said she should have just waited to January, which I thought was so insulting. What is your reaction to kind of seeing what she had to go through? And do you think that having to cut her hair, even if it was her physical cutting of her own hair, what kind of impact do you think

that might have had on her? Well, first of all, thank you for having me. And one of the... I'm gonna answer your question, but one of the first things that I want everybody connected to Brittany to tell her to do is to stay away from social media because the commentary will add to the trauma that I'm sure she's already experiencing. So that's number one.

But anyone who has even known a Black woman understands what our hair means to us. And so whether she literally did the cutting of her hair herself, that was an act very likely of one, maybe defiance, two, maybe self-protection. But it is ridiculous to think that her cutting of her hair was not significant and does not have a long-term impact.

I believe I heard you say, or it was in the package, that she is not the same person she was when she went in, when she came out. Physical is just one aspect of that. That had a deep, deep impact on who she is. Right, right, right. Talk a little bit more about kind of what the road to recovery would even start to look like.

You know, what's so interesting, as I have done this work for many, many years, I will tell you that I'm often concerned with what happened to someone, but I'm often concerned with what happened to someone, but I'm often even more concerned about how they perceive and how they process what happened. The event, what occurred, is bad enough. But often what we or what she goes through on the road of recovery

adds to the process. And so, number one, I know that it is part of the process for her to start to get psychological evaluations as soon as she comes out. But the reality is she needs time to just be. She needs space to just be, to be able to breathe, to be able to relax, to be able to do what she wants to do when she wants to do. There has to be a to relax, to be able to do what she wants to do when she wants to do.

There has to be a period where she's just able to recover alone or with the people that she loves. It's very difficult immediately to go into deep questions and processing deeply. She needs time to just be. So part of what this journey is going to be with her for her first is anticipating some of the complex emotions that are going to rise up for her. Now, again, I don't know her, so I can't speak exactly to what happens because recovering from trauma, which this was a trauma, recovering from trauma is a very personal experience. But some of the common things that comes up is, number one, this is very surprising when I say this to people,

but it doesn't matter how many people you have around you. When you've gone through a trauma, one of the main feelings is loneliness. You just feel lonely. You feel by yourself in it, even though everybody is around. So that's an emotion that comes up. Another thing that will more than light, that's why I want her to stay away from social media, is around. So that's an emotion that comes up. Another thing that will more than light, that's why I want her to stay away from social media, is guilt. Although it's not founded, although she has nothing to be guilty for,

the onslaught of opinions could cause some of that to arise for her. Also, confusion. What do I do now? What happens next? How do I even think about going back into my everyday life? Can I go back into my everyday life? So that confusion comes up. So one of the most important things that she is going to need right now is the space to feel all of those complex emotions that come up and have a place to dump them. That can be with a therapist. It can be with her partner.

It can be with a spiritual leader. She needs a place to get all of that stuff that's going on in her heart and her mind and dump it out, sort through it, so that she can begin to process through it. Right. You know, I'm glad you bring up the whole space aspect because I think with all that she's gone through and the society that we live in,

people are gonna want to hear from her. Not so much out of deep concern, but because of, I hate to put it this way, but the salaciousness of it. And people feel like they're entitled to hear her perspective. What would you say to anybody who feels like she owes us anything in terms of a press conference or anything. What would you say to those folks? And to her? You know, I'm a realist. And so I will say this. This is a particularly sensitive situation because my initial response to that for anybody would be,

I'm going to say it to you like I would say it to my clients. I would say, ma'am, you don't owe anybody anything, right? That's what I would say in a therapeutic environment. I will say this is a bit sensitive because of the international, the worldwide impact of it. So if she feels compelled to speak, I would do it in a very controlled environment, in a very limited environment. But the truth is that she needs time to prioritize her. And so I would say to everybody who will demand and ask of her, give her some grace and give her some space. And then when she is ready in a very controlled environment, by controlled, I would mean very limited time with someone that she trusts and with predetermined questions

that she is going to answer. Because again, here's the reality. Here's the reality. She doesn't even fully understand where she is and what she's experiencing. She doesn't fully understand it. She needs time to, I know it sounds like a broken record, but not just for her, to anybody who's gone through

or is going through a traumatic experience. If you don't give yourself time to feel, you are going to find yourself stuffing or responding in a way that you don't normally want to respond. Let me say this very quickly. Part of the journey towards healing, it's important that I'm in a series right now called Heal Well, because you and I both know you can heal, but not necessarily heal well. You can heal and have a limp. You can heal and be on the journey

of healing and end up with an infection. And so I want her to have the space and the grace to heal well. And really, that's just going to require time. She needs time, and they need to give her patience, give patience to her as she goes through this journey. You know, I love the word grace, and it's a very foreign

concept to be used in connection with a Black woman. And it's so interesting because whether she is, as people perceive, in my judgment, incorrectly, but people perceive an offender, or if a black woman is a victim, which she is also a victim, be clear,

of this political imprisonment, but let's take like Megan Thee Stallion, for example, who was a victim of violence against her, there is always a lack of grace in terms of giving them the space to heal and believing them and valuing their experiences. I want to go to the panel real quick. Matt, let's start with you. I'm sorry, I've been going to you third, so I'm going to put you up first this time. Do you have a question for Ms. May and Ms. Robin? I sure do, Ms. Robin. Thanks for joining us. I'm actually really interested in

kind of, it's a difficult question, but what I want to ask you is how do we as the community take some of the suggestions you might have for Brittany Griner's support system and extrapolate that to those in our community who are returning from prison? Because what I thought about with this is that we have a lot of people who are coming back into our community who have difficulty reintegrating. I hear that from my clients all the time. So what could we learn as a community from her suggestions that you're mentioning now, and particularly from her support system on how we can support someone so they can heal well from this PTSD? I am just so grateful that you asked that question because I believe everything is a learning opportunity for all of us.

And we can even look at Brittany's situation or, as you said, anyone coming out of what is often a very unfair system and helping them reintegrate. So one of the first things that I think is very important is to create a safety plan. That's very important. And when I say safety plan, I don't mean necessarily when a therapist hears safety plan, they start to think about self-harm. I don't just mean that. I mean a safety plan as in we're going to sit down and just talk about right now in this moment, what do you believe you need? Invite them into the moment with you. Right now at this moment, and I'm saying that intentionally. I'm going to tell you why. Right now in this moment, what do you believe you need?

Right now in this moment, how can I support you as you reintegrate into the world? Let me tell you why that's important. Because we often make the assumption of what somebody needs. And we need to take a moment and to give them an opportunity to explain to us what they need. But did you hear me say right now and in this moment? Because that will change. So when you create a safety plan, what I encourage my clients to do, okay, let's sit down and identify a safety plan over the next 30 days. And we're going to just commit to this over the next 30 days. And so that safety plan may look like, listen, what I really need is for the next couple of days that you just kind of give me a moment to just do what I want to do.

I haven't had the opportunity to get up when I want to get up, go to sleep when I want to go to sleep. I know you love me. I know you've missed me. I just need some time to just be with me. And then after those couple of days when I would love, let's just go get some ice cream. I don't want to answer any questions. I just want to go sit somewhere. Whatever they need in that moment, that's what I would encourage. That would be number one, create a safety plan. And then number two, after you've created this safety plan, I want you to then be able to share with someone, listen, this is some of the things that have occurred since you haven't been here. And I want to bring you up to speed. How do I do that to make sure that you don't feel so isolated? Remember I said one of the things I'm very concerned about for Brittany is the isolation she will feel.

And so I would try to invite her into a space. Come on, let's talk through because I want to help you not feel so isolated. So those are two specific strategies. You create a safety plan and then you talk about what you want to make sure they understand since they have not been with us. Thank you. Hey, Robin, sitting up here preaching the whole word. I hope y'all taking notes out there because some of y'all unfortunately don't care about Brittany Griner, but she just preached something that everybody, regardless of their situation, can benefit from. That was so enlightening. Thank you, Matt, for that question.

Michael, you're up next. Question for Ms. Robin. OK, Ms. Robin, and this is an excellent topic. And, you know, you have a lot of Republicans attacking the prisoner swap and Donald Trump attacking it. And the reason why they're doing this is because they don't consider Brittany Griner an American. But that's a whole other conversation. When we talk about Brittany Griner's wife, Cheryl, can you talk about the type of trauma the spouse, whether it's a husband or wife, in situations like this, the type of trauma the spouse goes through and the type of therapy that the spouse may need. And is there a difference in the type of therapy the spouse may need than the primary victim would need?

You know, that's such a powerful question. One of the things that I spent a lot of time helping to educate people on, particularly during the pandemic and the heightened civil unrest we've experienced, the heightened civil unrest we've experienced, is that even, watch this, This is so important for anyone watching. Even seeing a trauma can create traumatic symptoms for the person who saw it. So her wife absolutely is dealing with her own feelings of trauma, her own experiences of trauma, but it's particularly difficult because the partner often feels selfish and self-centered to identify or to admit their own trauma. Because again, you want to cater to, you want to care for the person who has dealt with it directly. But when I tell you, if we could sign her up for therapy immediately, we need to. And I'm hoping she has been in therapy because it is definitely an impact that she's experiencing as well.

I don't even like to compare it. Whose trauma is higher than the other? It's just trauma. And so I believe they both need separate support. They need separate support because their journey has been different. And then they can get support together. And so part of what happens with the partner is, like I said, they feel guilty because I'm feeling some kind of way, like the young folks say, they're feeling some kind of way.

Their partner is different. And so they're trying to adjust to who their partner is now. They are different and they're hoping that their partner can adjust to who they are now. And so, absolutely, she will need individual support on her own so that they then can come together and have support. All right. Thank you. And, you know, we have to send our love and support to Mrs. Sherelle Griner because she was really tireless and relentless in this fight. You know, none of this was inevitable.

I will continue to repeat that. Even getting a meeting with the president and vice president was something that they really pushed heavily for, along with people who advocated with her. And so, you know, she was in this fight. She wasn't, you know, imprisoned in Russia, but out here, I mean, she was in the fight for her life to bring Brittney Griner home.

She might not have been imprisoned physically, but emotionally, she absolutely was. Absolutely. Kelly, you get the last question. Sure. So... when I saw the pictures of Brittney Griner initially, um, it was jarring because of her hair. And Recy brought up the point of, you know, like, her having to adjust to her hair

and the impact on Black women and Black hair and the like. All I could think about is the levels of things that Brittney Griner would have to grieve upon her arrival into the States. Um, because it's more than just a return. that Brittney Griner would have to grieve upon her arrival into the States. Um... Because it's more than just a return. It's more than just, you know, breaking down her traumas. Excuse me.

I feel like she has to grieve who she once was. And... her wife will have to grieve who she once was, because I can only imagine an experience like this will completely change you from the inside out. So my question to you is, what is outside of the five stages of grief, what is your recommendation for processing grief? It's so interesting that you asked that question because like I said earlier, I'm absolutely in the middle of a series called Heal Well,

and I'm talking about how messy grief is. I'm going to say that again. I'm talking about how messy grief is. We want to put grief in a nice little box, but grief is messy. It shows up. It doesn't sit down and mind its manners. It goes all over the place. It permeates all aspects of your life. And like you're articulating, grief is much more than just someone passing away. Grief is any significant loss. As you were speaking, however, a thought came up that I wanted to make sure that I mentioned. One of the things that I started thinking about with Brittany is that she also more than likely could find herself being protective of her family and friends, which could then make her feel even lonelier. Let me tell you what I mean by protective. Because she has experienced, I'm sure, things that we could never even imagine. Sometimes the person who has been through the

trauma feels a need to protect those that they love and not share all of that with them, which again continues to perpetuate the loneliness. But when you talk about the five stages of grief, people often believe that it is stage one, stage two, then I go to stage three. That's now how grief works. The stages of trauma are, I like to say that it's cyclical. You'll be at stage one, you'll be at stage four, you'll be back at stage two. But much beyond the stages of grief, I like to identify for people some of the experiences that show up on the path to grief or the path towards healing from grief. One of the things we have to identify is an understanding that she has to accept. She has to move.

I want to be careful with what she has to do. I would encourage her to understand that it is going to be a journey and it's not a destination. Let me say it again. It's a journey and it's not a destination. Let me say it again. It's a journey and it's not a destination. And the journey is on her own timing. So she cannot, I do not want her to allow anyone to say 30 days from now, girl, you should be good. A year from now, girl, you should be good. It is her timing, her path and her process. Then the next thing that's very important on this journey to understand is that many times grief manifests in ways that you may not even realize.

I lost someone significant a couple of weeks ago, and I'm not the type of person who naturally pops off on other people. I'm normally more reserved than that. I found myself going off like going off on a florist the other day, like flipped the script. But I realized that was a manifestation of grief. And so understanding that her grief will manifest in ways that she cannot anticipate. And that's the reason back to what I said earlier, I sound like a broken record, but space and grace, space and grace. And if she could hear this, I would encourage her to give herself space and grace, even if no one else does.

Well, I don't think you sound like a broken record. It bears repeating over and over again. You have been such a treat and such a gift and powerful and empowering to us all. How can people who want to be a part of your Heal Well series, follow your work. Tell us a little bit about how we can hear more from you. Yeah, let me tell you, this series I'm doing called Heal Well is really a very personal journey. I lost my virtual assistant a couple of weeks ago and I've just been shook ever since.

And that's even a process of healing well, particularly for black women. As black women, we have bought into, many of us have bought into this superwoman idea. And listen, we're bad. We're some bad chicks, but we need to be bad enough to be able to identify and articulate what we feel. So we want to be able to share it. And so I'm doing this Heal Well series. This is a three-part series that I'm posting on YouTube. You can find all about it. You can follow me on Instagram. I'm posting it over and over again on Instagram. And my Instagram

is RobinMayOnline. RobinMayOnline. This series is life-changing. Sounds like it. So thank you so much, Robin, for your presence here tonight, for all of the gems that you gifted us with. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. We'll be right back. When you talk about blackness and what happens in black culture, we're about covering these things that matter to us, speaking to our issues and concerns. This is a genuine people-powered movement. There's a lot of stuff that we're not getting. You get it and you spread the word. We wish to plead our own cause to long have others spoken for us. We cannot tell our own story if we can't pay for it. This is about covering us. Invest in Black-owned media. Your dollars matter. We don't have to keep asking them to cover our stuff.

So please support us in what we do, folks. We want to hit 2,000 people, $50 this month, raise $100,000. We're behind $100,000, so we want to hit that. Your money makes this possible. Checks and money orders go to P.O. Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. The Cash App is Dollar Sign RM Unfiltered. PayPal is RM Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. life with me, Dr. Jackie, tis the season, tree trimming, party going, and gift giving. And I don't know about you, but for me, sometimes it can be overwhelming and sometimes it's just

downright exhausting. Surviving the holiday season, we got tips for you for staying sane, solvent, striving, and thriving, and sometimes keeping a little money in your pocket. Two things just out of the gate. Set boundaries and set a budget. On a next A Balanced Life right here on Black Star Network with me, Dr. Jackie. 007 007 Hi, how's it going? It's your favorite funny girl, Amanda Seale.

Hi, I'm Anthony Brown from Anthony Brown and Group Therapy. What's up? Lana Wells. And you are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Jamona Pickett has not been seen since she left her Scottsville, Kentucky foster home on May 1st. The 15-year-old is 5 feet, 5 inches tall, weighs 140 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information about Jamona Pickett is urged to call the Allen County Kentucky Sheriff's Office at 270-237-3210. Let's go through the big stories of today, starting with in Minnesota, the St. Paul Police Department released body camera and squad car video showing

Monday evening's fatal police shooting of a black man. Sergeant Cody Blanchard shot Howard Johnson during a call about a domestic assault and a man with a gun. The video you are about to see is disturbing and triggering. Now is the time to turn away and get the kids out of the room. Here's the video showing the moments before and after Sergeant Blanchard fired his gun 10 times at Howard Johnson. Your incident has been updated. Your incident has been updated. Hey, he's right there. He's walking eastbound Hudson.

Got the gun in his right hand. He's pointing at a car. He's trying to carjack right now. No doing it. Take that. For sports info. But then folks. So seven. He's not hunting. He's wearing in small motion. He's got you on his right hand. He's still hussling, on the right hand. He's pointing at the car. He's trying to car-jack right now. He's hussling. He's on his right front right.

You're on the right. 373, show fire. Show fire. You are on the right. You are on the right. You are incident. Thank you. St. Paul's mayor and Howard's family say there's more to the story, and it's going to take time to get to what really happened. We're not satisfied with the videos that we've seen and that the videos that we've seen do not tell the whole story.

I don't think that I can imagine something that would be satisfying for anyone given this circumstance. circumstance and you know I think we have to know that many of the questions that we all have are aren't going to be answered today they aren't going to be answered this week that they can only be answered by taking the time and the deliberative process that the BCA is going through with us and on our behalf right now. And that, you know, I stand with them, too, in being very eager and looking forward to the answers that that investigation yields for us. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is handling the investigation. Blanchin, a 10-year veteran of St. Paul Police Department,

is on administrating leave. I wasn't going to go to the panel, but I just have to get your opinion on this just real quick. Matt, as a civil rights attorney, your reaction to what we just saw, the horrific footage, and what you think this means in terms of the investigation? Well, I'm glad that an outside agency is doing the investigation. I got hired on a police shooting about two weeks ago, and what the police ran with as the narrative is not the truth of what the evidence is showing because they investigated themselves

and are not going to hold themselves accountable. I say that to say that's a pervasive problem in these situations. I am glad that there is body cam footage here, and I was kind of struggling watching it because I'm also a former prosecutor, and I get from a police perspective how if you arrive on someone on a scene where someone has a handgun, you know, that's a completely different scenario than just the report of a gun that you don't see. But what I do think is particularly

telling in this instance is there's obviously snow on the ground. Mr. Johnson doesn't have shoes on. So I'm wondering if there's a mental health angle. And I think that will be the important part that comes out of this is really how much time did they go through to investigate it? What was the context of the underlying call? Because all of those things will really tell you whether, in fact, the option or the choice that he made to shoot him was one that was defensible under the law. Now, 10 shots is always excessive. This doesn't make any sense to me that he shot that much and that quickly. However, it is pretty clear that there is a handgun there, and that's a different scenario than if he did not have a handgun. So I think a robust investigation is important because that

will give both the family and the citizens at large an idea of what was actually going on, because this is a snapshot and it doesn't provide all the context. Right, absolutely. And I must say, it does seem like a relatively good sign that this footage has been released so quickly and that, as you pointed out, there is an outside investigation. So let's go over to the former Minneapolis police officer who kneeled on George Floyd's back in May 2020, was sentenced today. J. Alexander Quang, who pled guilty to a state court of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter in October, got three and a half years for his role in Floyd's death. Quang, already serving a federal sentence for violating Floyd's civil rights, said nothing during today's hearing. Floyd died on May 25, 2020, after former officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on Floyd's neck for nine and a half minutes.

As Floyd repeatedly said, he couldn't breathe and eventually went limp. A Michigan judge dismissed his criminal charges against former Governor Rick Snyder in the Flint water crisis. The dismissal comes months after the state Supreme Court said indictments returned by a one-person grand jury were invalid. Snyder is the eighth person to have a Flint water case thrown out after the Supreme Court's unanimous June opinion. Snyder, a Republican who left office in 2019, was charged with two misdemeanor counts of misconduct in office.

He was the first person in state history to be charged for alleged crimes related to service as governor. Flint's water became tainted after city officials agreed to switch to using the Flint River in 2014 to save money while a new pipeline to Lake Huron was built. The water did not get treated to reduce corrosive qualities, causing lead to break off from old pipes, contaminating the system for more than a year. Many women are suing Apple over its air tags. The women say Apple's air tags made it easier for them to be stalked and harassed. Apple hasn't put precautions to protect the product from being used illicitly. One plaintiff, Lauren Hughes, said after ending a three-month relationship with the man, he used the AirTag to stalk her repeatedly. The plaintiffs claimed domestic abuse, advocates, and technology specialists and warned Apple the product could easily be compromised.

Apple released this statement about AirTag earlier this year. AirTag was designed to help people locate their personal belongings, not to track people or another person's property. And we condemn, in the strongest possible terms, any malicious use of our products. The women are seeking a trial and a jury with unspecified monetary damages. The first Gen Z member of Congress was denied a D.C. apartment due to bad credit.

After months of campaigning, Congressman-elect Maxwell Frost's credit score dropped, preventing him from getting approval for a Washington, D.C., Navy Yard apartment. Frost tweeted this. I just applied to an apartment in DC where I told the guy that my credit was terrible he said I'd be fine got denied and lost the apartment and application fee this hasn't meant for people who don't

already have federal money frost said he posted his tweet in a moment of frustration but wanted to highlight the problem of affordability and accessibility in the political world for people who don't come from wealth. Roland Martin Unfiltered will be right back, right here on the Black Star Network. On the next Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, inflation is on the rise. Interest rates are high. Can you still thrive during these uncertain times? On the next Get Wealthy, you're going to meet a woman who's done just that, living proof of what you need to do

to flourish during these uncertain times. These are times when you take advantage of what's going on. This is how people get rich or richer. That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Blackstar Network. I'm Angie Stone. Hi, I'm Teresa Griffin.

Oh, Roland. Hey Roland, I am so disappointed that you are not here, first of all. Where's our dance? It's like we get a dance in every time I see you. And so now you're not here for me to dance with, sir. You and your ascot. I need it.

I need that in my life right now. Okay, I love you, Roland. What's up, I'm Lance Gross, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Finding fashion education that provides cultural relevance and opportunities for Black creatives is difficult. That is until Duane Edwards created a lane for show designers in Detroit. Edwards started in the shoe design industry without formal training and worked his way to Fortune 500 companies like LA Gear,

Skechers, Nike, and Jordan Brand. Edwards founded Pencil in 2010, holding classes at various venues, including the University of Oregon's Portland Center. Dwayne Edwards, the founder of Pencil Lewis College of Business and Design, is here to explain how Pencil University is helping creatives fulfill their dreams. Welcome, Duane, to the show. Thank you very much. I appreciate you having me. Of course. So tell us a little bit about your program. Sure. So Pencil Lewis College, we actually acquired a historically Black college by the name of Lewis College of Business that was based in Detroit, Michigan. So we acquired the HBCU that had closed.

We reopened the college this year with the focus on not just business but also design. There's less than 4% of African Americans in the design industry as a whole, not just footwear, not just apparel, but all things design has a severe deficit of African-American creatives. And so what we're doing with Pencil Lewis is we're actually providing now a college outlet

for these creatives and these Fortune 500 companies who are dying for this type of talent to better diversify the industry within the corporate sector. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about how this creates a pipeline? Because we know that a lot of times people want to go with a sure bet, whether that's students that come from a prominent institution or, you know, they just don't want to take chances on folks that are unknown. So how is Pencil helping create that pipeline of designers? Yeah, so what we do is we actually partner directly with those

companies. And what we do is we co-create curriculum with those companies. So that way, our students are actually being educated in the exact same process that these organizations work. What that does for the students and for the corporation, it reduces the break-in time when it's time for them to actually apply for internship opportunities or full-time employment opportunities. I think probably the most coveted and the best part

of the whole equation, the corporations actually cover their housing and tuition while they're with us. So it provides these students a free education when we have these types of master classes incorporated with us. So it provides these students a free education when we have these types of masterclasses incorporated with corporations. Wow, that is spectacular. Tell us a little bit about the length of the program. How many classes is it? How long does it take to complete? Yeah, so we have a different format. So what we do with our masterclasses, they're five

weeks long, but they're actually five days a week, about 12 to 14 hours every day straight through. And the reason why it's intensive that way is because when you work at a major corporation in the design departments, you're going to work extremely long hours. So what we want to do is put our students in the worst case position so they can understand what it feels like to really be a designer in crunch time. If we're training them and developing them to develop this muscle of being able to have better time management, being able to be resilient from what it pertains to meeting deadlines in these short, condensed, real projects, then once they get into the corporate sector, then they're used to that flow. They're used to that process of the way the business works. So is this a situation where people take multiple classes?

Okay, explain that a little bit more. Yeah, I'm sorry about that. They take multiple sessions, but they're actually certifications. They're certifications from that brand. So if we do a program with Nike, Nike is certifying what they're learning is what they actually should be learning in order to get a job at Nike. Same with Adidas, same with whether it's Carhartt, General Motors.

We work with all of our organizations the same exact way where we put them through the exact same process. Sometimes students actually complete one of these five-week sessions, which is in real time in traditional college languages is a full semester or a quarter. Sometimes they even get immediate opportunity five-week sessions, which is in real time in traditional college languages is a full semester or a quarter. Sometimes they even get immediate opportunity immediately after a five-week session.

Sometimes they take two or three tries, but we've had a lot of students complete our five-week courses directed by brands and they immediately go into internship opportunities. So talk a little bit about who the target student is. I understand you're targeting, you know, primarily people of color, black people, but is this something that's targeted towards college students, towards professionals? What is the educational background that people have to have in order to qualify for admission to this program? Talent and passion. We don't care if you had any college experience, if you graduated from high school. You know, hopefully you have graduated from high school. But, you know, the design industry is a talent based business.

A piece of paper doesn't tell us how good you are. It's what you put on that paper tells us how good you are. And so what we want to do is we want to remove a lot of these barriers that sometimes eliminate, especially people of color, because nationally we're only averaging about a 7% African-American enrollment at traditional design schools and universities with about a 2% graduation rate. And so when you look at that,

you start to see that these kids who are talented but don't have the resources to attend traditional four-year universities, they never even see the possibilities of what could happen for them in these different design fields. And so we remove a lot of those barriers. The expectation of design and creativity is still there, and we hold them to a much higher standard. So not only are we teaching them the design skills they need to get into the industry, but we're also teaching them the professional skills that they need to survive in that industry as well.

Sounds like an amazing program. I'm going to go to the panel, starting with you, Kelly. Sure. Now, forgive me if I missed this part in you talking about this fantastic school, but can you explain the name Pencil and why it was chosen? This is a rebrand.

Yes, yes. So I started the college, sorry, I started a small academy called Pencil Footwear Design Academy in Portland. I was born with the gift of drawing thing I could see, and I've always used a simple number two pencil. And so as I'm looking at once I retired from the industry, I'm a 33 year veteran of the industry. I retired from the industry and I'm like,

what could I call this academy that we're creating? And so I randomly like to look up words in the dictionary and see what the definition is. And so when I looked up the word pencil, because that's the instrument I've been using for three decades, I saw the phonetic spelling was P-E-N-S-O-L. And because I'm in the sneaker side of the equation, soul was there. So I just added an E and ultimately pays tribute to the instrument and the industry that really guided my life. Thank you. Michael, your question. Hey, Dr. Edwards. Hey, I'm here in Detroit, and this sounds like a great program. I'm familiar with the previous Lewis College of Business and professors like Dr. Dialis Allen and Dr. Clarence Green, so I'm very familiar with that. is, what types, first of all, how many students do you have in general, on average, in the

masterclasses? And then also, what type of classes do people need to have maybe as prerequisites, or what type of classes should maybe high school seniors be looking at to take if they know that they want to go into design? Yeah, those are great questions. You know, what we're doing now is we're actually implementing design programming in high schools to actually better prepare high school graduates for our programs, primarily because you don't find design

in high schools, really. You find art occasionally, right? But art is usually cut because of budgets. And so what we want to do is really focus on those kids that either have zero to no knowledge and Photoshop, but mostly it's hand skills. We do everything by hand first because we want kids to graduate to a computer. The hand skills of doing things by hand, whether it's crafting or sketching, those skills are leaving these kids because they're growing up with the digital age. And so we have to take them backwards to better help them understand how to use their brain from a creative point of view so they can be more creative. And believe it or not, they don't realize they're more creative without the computer than with a piece

of paper and pencil than they are with an actual computer itself. Our master classes range in size from 15 to 40 plus. It really just depends on the partnership that we have with certain organizations. We craft product creation teams that you would find at a major corporation, meaning we put all of our students in these teams of either four or five where you'll have a product marketing person, you'll have a designer of footwear, you have a designer of apparel. You have a designer of color materials. And you may even have a 3D designer. So we put them in teams. They all are given a real project from the brand.

And we teach them how to work as a team and come together in the end to present this final capsule type project that presents them as a team because what you often don't get in college and traditional colleges is that teamwork aspect that you completely work in 100 percent of the time when you work in a major corporation all right thank you matt i'll be in touch with you i'll be in touch please do oh we love to make connections here on roller martin and filter matt you get the last question i just want to say man I think this is a fantastic project. I'm super impressed, particularly as collegiate education goes closer to the certification model as opposed to degrees. But I guess the question I have is I'm interested particularly in the entrepreneurial part of this or the business part of this. What do students get in the event that they want to not

work for a Fortune 500 but want to open their own design studio? How do the business classes help them facilitate that? It's actually structured the same way as the design side. So you can specifically register for programs that are not even sponsored by companies, but they're actually sponsored by what we call suppliers. Like a supplier would be an Apple or a Microsoft or an IBM where they're the suppliers of products and services that you would use in your business and or in those corporations where what we do is we create these programs

that are based on what their entrepreneurial journey looks like. So they decide if they want to take a business marketing class, if they want to take a brand marketing class. if they want to take a brand marketing class. We don't offer finance and those types of programs quite yet, but we will very soon. But for us it's really meeting the entrepreneurs where they are. And a lot of times what we try to ask them to think

about is maybe working for a small company before they start their own so they can really see how that looks and feels before they start spending their, so they can really see how that looks and feels before they start spending their own money to make some of these decisions. So it's better to learn, we tell them it's better to learn with someone else's money first before you start spending your own.

Yeah, I know that's right. I have a quick question for you though. Is there a residency requirement, meaning you have to be living in Michigan or in the area in order to be a part of this program? Or have you seen people travel from other states to be involved in these master classes? Yeah, we've had people come in from other countries to be a part of some of our programs. So they're both in person and we also have virtual programming as well. But most of the time, yes, they would have to physically be there.

We have housing set up for them as well. But obviously, if you live in the city, it's easy. You can commute if you're local. But yes, they are immersive programs. Okay. How many students in total are part of this at any given moment? Any given moment, up to about 40. Okay.

And we've already this year. So we opened in May, officially in May. By the end of, well, we just finished our last session with New Balance. And we completed the year servicing about 300 kids this year. And we're looking to double that, if not triple it, with online next year. So is it a rolling admission type of thing? Oh, it's rolling, yep. Okay.

All right. Sounds good. So before you go, let us know how people can learn more about you as well as Pencil College of Design. Well, it's best to focus on Pencil Lewis than me. I have a lot of time as a designer in this industry. And so for us, it's PencilLewis.com, our Instagram. That's really the best way to reach us. And what we're trying to do is really find and discover these hidden gems that may have given up on their aspirations of being creative. You know, all too often, sometimes, especially in Black households, we're persuaded to go away from a design or artistic career because it's, quote, unquote, not perceived

as stable. That's not true, right? And so what we're trying to do is first help better educate people on the differences between art fields and design fields, and then show them a roadmap and a pathway of how, you know, their child could be successful or them as future leaders could be successful. Yes. Thank you so much for the work that you do, because sometimes people do look like, look at this sort of career path as more of a pipe dream and sort of something tangible and that's feasible. So thank you so much, Dwayne.

Thank you very much. I appreciate the time. Of course. Well, that's going to do it for us here on Roland Martin and Filtered streaming live on the Black Star Network. I got to thank the panel, Kelly, Michael, Matt. It's always good to be in company with you.

Before we go. You're too recent. Oh, thank you. Before we go, I want to thank Roland for allowing me to keep his seat warm tonight. Be sure to download the Black Star Network app. Earlier today, in case you didn't know, Roland gave the commencement speech at Jackson State University.

Here it is. Have a great weekend. Holla! All right, how we doing? Glad to be here, glad to see all of you here. Appreciate the invitation. Mr. President, thanks a bunch, the faculty and staff and the board as well. So glad to be here, to be back.

Sorry my voice is not as strong. I'm allergic to smoke and the tailgate last week screwed me up. But it's all good, it's all good. So it's good to be here and good to chat with you. First of all, I hate this hat so I can't speak with this damn tassel. Hit me in my face so it's going to smack me in my eye. Before we get started, normally when you go to a church, normally they have like an A and B selection to the choir.

And I was walking in and I was like, okay, I was in the band playing bass, baritone, horn, cornet, all that stuff. And I appreciate symphonic band. But I came to a black school. So before I speak, I'm going to need y'all to make this thing funky. So I need y'all to do something because you can't keep talking about your band

as all of that, and we got to hear symphonic band. So this ain't a home going, so I'm going to need y'all to make this more like a homecoming. So I need y'all to do something, because I can't listen. I can't speak. I mean, I appreciate classical, but that pumping circumstance just got on my last black nerve. So can I get a black band, an HBCU sound before I speak?

Come on, Mr. Director, let's go. Hey, y'all, this is a graduation. Y'all can stand on y'all feet. Y'all can stand up. This side over here, y'all can stand up too. I don't know why the folks on stage sitting down. Hey, faculty, I don't know why y'all sitting down. Alonda, get on up.

There y'all go. All right. Come on. That's what I'm saying. All right, get it. Get it. Get it. Get it. Hey, I know there's some alphas in here. Oh, y'all know?

That's called graduation. Now we can get going. That's what I'm saying. All right. All right. I feel better. My voice is better. Your president was like I know he did not just

Gotta remember Mr. President My show is for black people That's why we use hashtag Bring the funk everyday Alright now we can talk. Anytime you stand in front of this many black folk, you got to tag your text. And if, okay, the person next to you has no idea what tag your text means, they clearly do not go to church. So for the graduates, any people who understands, do me a favor, look to your left and say,

you belong in every room you are about to enter. Now turn to your right and say, brother, sister, you belong in every room you are about to enter. Look at the person behind you. You may not like them, but it's all good. Tell them you belong in every room you are about to enter. Tap the person in front of you and say, baby, you belong in every room you are about to enter. One of my nine nieces is a junior at the University of North Texas, and when she was in kindergarten, first of all, Anna was a wonderful, free spirit. I mean, she was just smiling and joyous and all that good stuff. And

one day, we noticed that she began to ask us, is this okay? Is this okay? And it was weird because that was never Anna. And then we found out exactly what happened when she was in kindergarten. They had a drawing exercise and she drew something and her kindergarten teacher told her it wasn't good. And from that point on, Anna began to question herself and question what she did. Now, we were mad as hell when that happened. And y'all have to understand, I helped raise my nieces. I raised six of my nieces. And I'm the person in my family, they don't call for mediation. My wife was ordained minister, so if y'all need somebody to pray, to counsel, advise you, they call her. They call me, my nickname at TV1 is that you are the brother behind the glass case.

Break in case of emergency. And so we had to go to the elementary school, have a few words with that kindergarten teacher. And we had Anna removed from that class because it offended us that a teacher would somehow stop this amazing, wonderful mind and then begin to say that her artwork wasn't good enough when she's a kindergartner, when she should have been teaching them to think far beyond what they were actually doing. And I think about that whenever I see somebody black and they say they have imposter syndrome. I've heard a number of brothers and sisters who are CEOs say that they have imposter syndrome where they feel as if they have not earned or they belong in certain places. And see, that's strange to me because I've never been one to believe that there are places

that I don't belong. And see, part of that is because as people of African descent in this country, from the inception we have been made to believe and think, and we passed it on to multiple generations, that we are second class. And we see this all the time. We literally say these things. When I was at TV One, I had some staffers and they would say, well, you know we are a black network.

And I said to them, if anybody says that again, you will not have a job. Because the statement alone implied that what we were doing was not as good as someone else. In fact, a brother walked up to me one day, and he said, Roland, when are you going to get you a show? I was confused because I was waking up every damn morning at four o'clock in the morning and was going live from seven to nine,

and I said, brother, I have a show. He said, no, no, no. I know you have your TV one show, but I mean a a show. He said, no, no, no. I know you have your TV one show, but I mean a real show. And I stopped and I said, this could go one or two ways. I could take the time to explain to him the difference. I can straight cuss him out. I chose the Christian route.

And I explained to the brother, I said, well, are you aware that when Brian Williams comes to Washington, D.C. to do the NBC nightly news, he literally sits in the same chair that I sit in? And then the brother was confused. He looked at me like I was crazy, and I said, you may not realize that we contract out with NBC News Channel to do News 1 now. I said, the same set, the same walls, the same cameras. We send the video down the same fiber optic lines in the same control room. I said, in fact, there's a glass table to the left.

And there's two shelves. And there's a bristle brush on the bottom shelf. I said, Brian, don't use a bristle brush. I said, brother, what you don't understand is we literally are in the exact same location that NBC News does the show from D.C., but we're simply on TV One. He thought because it was a black cable network we were not a real show. I've encountered that countless times. I've encountered that in my career where politicians will somehow ignore us and then not talk to us as black newspapers, but they will run to the daily newspaper and give them all the time necessary.

When Lee Brown was the first black mayor of Houston, he went to South Africa and he did a pre-media discussion with other media. And then he came back and he brought four security guards with him. And the media jumped on it because it cost about almost $100,000. So then one day, his chief of staff called me and he said, hey, we would love to bring the mayor by the newspaper. And we would love to sit down and talk with you about the trip and how important it was. And I let him finish. And then when he got done, I said, first of all, Lee Brown. I straight cussed him out. I said, y'all went to South Africa, but you couldn't call the black newspaper before you went. But now white media is kicking your behind. So now you want to call me to now save your behind

after the fact. I said, no, I'm going to kick your behind in the paper this week. I'm going to do it on TV on Sunday and y'all going to learn not to disrespect black media ever again. I've always had that posture because I have refused in my career, in my life, to believe that what we have is second class. I have refused to allow others around me to have that mindset because the reality is what we have always done has been first class in media. When I think about the North Star and Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells Barnett writing about lynchings, when I think about Robert Abbott founding the Chicago Defender, when I think about

the Afro-American, I think about the Atlanta Daily World, I think about Charlotte Abbas, I think about Claude Burnett's Associated Negro Press, I think about all of these institutions, Ebony and Jet, that actually told our story, that carried the weddings and the birthdays of black people when mainstream media would not even mention our names. I have refused to allow, even in the 21st century, for anybody to act as if we don't belong where we are. Because see, when we begin to pass that second class mindset down,

when we begin to somehow allow somebody else to define us to say we don't belong, then what then happens is it then repeats generation after generation after generation. And then it means that when we're in the workplace, we're not negotiating the way we should be. We're not asking for the promotion the way we should be. We're not demanding the same resources the way we should be. We're not demanding the same resources the way we should be. And I am simply unwilling and frankly unable to allow my blackness to have a black tax and for anyone to somehow limit who we are and what we can do and then say what we do is simply not good enough.

Now understand, when you're like that, that comes with some pushback. Because it's a whole lot of us who are intimidated by us. It's a whole lot of us who you would think would have our back, but in fact, will actually say things to hold us down. There are graduates sitting here, if y'all are real honest, there are some folk cheering cheering for you right now who were not cheering for you when you decided to come here. There are some teachers from elementary school and junior high school and high school who did not who were like that teacher with Anna who were not teaching and putting things into you to affirm you, they were

actually saying, you know you're not going to be able to make it, so why don't you just go to a junior college, or why don't you just go to a technical school? You really can't make it at that four-year school. I had a teacher at Jack Yates, when he heard I was going to A&M, he said, Roland, do you really think you're ready? First of all, he never even taught me. So the first thing I was like, why in the hell is he talking to me? And he's telling me, he said, well, and literally, y'all, he said, why don't you go to Prairie View first, then go to Texas A&M?

And I looked at him, I said, so what you're really telling me is the job that you and others did the last four years did not properly position me to go to any college in this country. You don't think I'm good enough to succeed at Texas A&M. Isn't that a reflection on your failure as a teacher?" And he looked at me like I was crazy and I walked the hell off. And four years later, when it was graduation time, I'm real petty, y'all, so let's just be real clear. Y'all know, if y'all follow me on social media, I will clap back on folk real quick. It don't matter. So if y'all want to tweet at me, tweet at your own peril.

Four years later, it was graduation time. I went and dropped some invitations off to some teachers that I liked. But I stopped by his classroom and dropped that sucker off just to let him know, yeah, you the same one who said I wasn't ready to succeed there. And I'm sure every time he sees me on TV, and when I was inducted into the Texas A&M Journalism Hall of Honor, and the NABJ Hall of Fame, and the Cyber Official Journalist Hall of Fame, he was thinking, I guess he was ready. See, folk like that, sometimes who look like us, don't want us walking into certain rooms, walking in our authority. And what they will do is they will say things to you that they think is helping you when in fact they're

hindering your future. I refuse to listen to any of those haters. I refuse to entertain anything that they say. In fact, I've walked away, cussed some out, told some exactly how I felt because I have seen too many people who look like us, who have been depressed and who have been despondent because somebody did not speak a positive word into their life. Somebody did not affirm them. Somebody did not speak power into their life. And do understand, when you walk out of here today, there's going to be a boss, there's going to be somebody at your church, there's going to be somebody you encounter who's going to say, you know what, you can't do that. They're going to look at the school you graduated from,

and they're going to begin to question your abilities. But do understand, it is your skill set and your knowledge that's going to prevail regardless of where you graduated, when you graduated, and also what rank you graduated. Look, I appreciate the folk who are magna cum laude and all them other cum laude's. I didn't none of them cum laude's mean nothing to me. I was just trying to get to that day to walk across to get a sheet of paper because I knew

when I got out of there, I was about to show up and show out. Because do understand all of that other stuff don't mean nothing when you walk out that door. It's now what you do. Now is the time to show folk who you really are. Now is the time to show them the kind of person that you are and the knowledge and the common sense and the dedication and the work ethic that you have. Never ever walk into any room and believe you don't belong. Never walk in and say I'm not quite sure I'm supposed to be here. I need y'all to learn to have some swagger. When you walk into a room, look I said that's why I'm like them skinny pants.

Your cuff need to hit the doorframe before you do. When you walk in, folks should know you in the room. Because there are some people who are present, but there are some folks who have presence. And I ain't never one to walk into a room and don't nobody know I've walked into the room. Now, see, that's a level of confidence. And some of our folk will say, you cocky. Well, you can call me cocky all you want to. But I don't see way too many mediocre white men walk into rooms and act like they belong and walk out with multimillion dollar contracts. You should never ever allow anybody, your mama or your daddy, your cousin or your brother

or your sister, to limit what your future possibilities are going to be. And do you understand? I don't care what has happened in your life before this point. I don't care how you grew up. I don't care what you went through to get to this day. All of that is now in the past. Today is the day when you begin to write a new chapter in your book. And when you begin to write a new chapter in your book. And when you begin to understand what is inside of you, when you begin to understand who came before you, then you realize that you have the ability to do whatever it is that you want. There's this wonderful scene in the movie Selma. Carmody Jogo is playing Coretta Sky King.

And Lorraine Toussaint is playing Amelia Boynton. She was the one who invited Dr. King to come to Selma. And when I saw the movie, I sent a text to Ava DuVernay and I said, I was giving a speech, I said, you got to send me that text. And it's a scene that I literally keep on my phone. And it's a scene that I post on social media all the time. And it's a 47 second clip that just says everything that needs to be said about who we are as a people and what we have endured to get to this point. This is what Toussaint, who plays Amelia, tells her. He says, I'll tell you what I know to be true. It helps me in times when I'm feeling unsure. I know we are descendants of mighty people who gave civilization

to the world. People who survived the holes of slave ships across the vast oceans. People who've innovated, create, and loved despite pressures and tortures unimaginable. They are in our bloodstream, pumping our hearts every second. They've prepared you. You are already prepared. Jackson State graduates, do understand you have been prepared for this day. You have been positioned by God to live in this moment in history to be able to create a new world that we've never seen before. Don't let anybody deny you your place in history to be able to redefine America in a new image. This is your moment to lead. This is your moment to create. This is your moment to stand up. This is your moment to be able to challenge and show the world exactly who you are and what we

are made of. And if anybody ever looks at you and asks you the question, who are you? Who are you with? Let them know I am my name. Say your name. I am, I am a graduate of Jackson State. I'm a child of God and I will not allow you, you, you, or you to redefine me and to limit who I am and what I am able to achieve. And if you repeat that every single day and you come back here 20 and 30 years from now, and when they are honoring distinguished graduates and they're talking about who represented Jackson State, then you will say that will be me one day because I never let somebody prevent me from living my best life and doing what God designed for me to do. Always remember there is no room in this world where you do not belong and then when they say well I'm gonna need you to leave all you gotta say is no baby I'm staying right here because we built this country

and we about to take advantage of what we built because that is how we were made. Thank you. ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത� This is an iHeart Podcast.