#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Symone Sanders Resigns, Shutdown Avoided?, Smollet & Potter trials, Crump Honored, IBD Awareness

Episode Date: December 2, 2021

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

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Get a 5G phone on us with select plans. Every customer, current, new, or business. Because everyone deserves better. And with plans starting at just $35, better costs less than you think. It's Thursday, December 2nd, 2021. I'm Monique Presley sitting in for Roland and here's what's coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered streaming live on the Black Star Network. Simone Sanders becomes the second high profile exit from the Biden administration. We'll talk about what is being said about her departure. There's talk from House and Senate leaders about a government funding deal

that will prevent another shutdown. A jury is close to being selected in the manslaughter trial of a former Minnesota police officer who fatally shot a black man during a traffic stop. Georgia Fort will have a live report from Brooklyn Center in Minnesota. It was a tense cross-examination of one of the key witnesses in the Jesse Smollett trial.

An arrest is made in the murder of the wife of legendary music executive Clarence Avant. R. Kelly is facing more legal troubles. Some of Kelly's victims are suing him and his manager. Police officers are being held accountable. An Ohio cop is charged for killing a black man. An Arizona officer is fired for killing a man in a wheelchair. And the city of Seattle is shelling millions in the wrongful death of a pregnant black woman. It's National Crohn's and Colitis Awareness Week. We'll talk to a gastroenterologist who will let us know what symptoms we need to look for and how to make sure we are not being ignored by our doctors.

And civil rights attorney Ben Crump was honored earlier today at a Florida school having a justice center named after him, which will honor and promote more black folks in the law biz. It's time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. Let's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks. He's rolling.

Yeah, yeah. With some go-go-royale. Yeah, yeah. It's rolling, Martin. Yeah, yeah. Rolling with rolling now. Yeah, yeah. He's broke, he's fresh, yeah Rollin' with Rollin' now Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah He's broke, he's fresh, he's real

The best you know he's Rollin' Martel Now Martel It's the second high-profile departure from Vice President Kamala Harris' administration. Chief Spokesperson and Senior Advisor Simone Sanders will be leaving her post at the end of the year. Sanders worked on the campaign trail to get President Biden and Vice President Harris elected. She previously worked with the Bernie Sanders campaign when he campaigned for president. Simone Sanders did not provide a reason for her leaving in her farewell note to staff. Some political observers find it ironic Sanders leaving came on the same

day Stacey Abrams launched her campaign for Georgia governor. Communications Director Ashley Etienne left last month to pursue other opportunities. I want to welcome my panel, who I know has plenty to say about this and other matters. First, ladies first, Recy Colbert. Welcome, founder of Black Women's Views. Hi there, Recy. Hey, Monique. Looking good. Dr. Greg Carr. Thank you, girl. Thank you. Dr. Greg Carr, Department of Afro-American Studies at the Howard University. H-U. Greetings, Dr. Greg.

You know, good to see you, Monique. You're holding it down well. Thank you. And Faraji Muhammad, the one and only radio and TV host. Welcome, welcome, bro. So what in the world is happening? Recy. Well, I think this is much ado about nothing. I think Simone Sanders is incredibly talented and certainly in high demand in whatever she decides that she wants to pursue. She's had a very long, grueling last couple of years.

The campaigns are relentless. They require a lot of travel, a lot of dedication, long nights. And then to turn around on the heels of a very hard-fought primary, the general election, and going to an even more grueling White House in which the vice president is under unprecedented scrutiny, I can understand why she's ready to move on. I think that Simone Sanders has a very positive and really collegial relationship with Vice President Kamala Harris. And so I just think that, you know, people come and people go. The White House is a very tough place to work. I don't think that there's any sense of it's too tough for her, but I just think that she's probably ready to move on

to the next chapter. And so I wish her well. Well, and here's the thing, Recy, before I hear from our gentlemen. The people in the White House make clear that they've known that she was going to be departing at the end of the year for over two months. So this was the plan, really, for her to stay through the first year of the administration. And then who knows what it is she's going to do next. I agree with you, whatever it is, she's going to be phenomenal in it. But I'm personally just sick of the any and everything that happens is a big deal if it is at all related to the vice president of the United States. Absolutely. I would like to remind people by this time during the Trump administration, we had gone through multiple secretary of states. We had gone through multiple cabinet officials at various levels. People had to resign over

corruption, over cronyism. And so, you know, we also had multiple press secretaries by this point that Trump had. And so this whole notion that a senior advisor to the vice president is somehow super newsworthy is really ridiculous. And I think it just they're trying to feed this narrative of there being drama and dysfunction when the drama and dysfunction is coming from the outside and trying to, you know, project a sense of of gossip and tawdryness on the vice president's office, which is very busy doing a lot of very substantive and important work. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know what, Dr. Gregg? In the same week that our vice president is spending her hard earned money on on some nice pots and some some some staffers who have served well at the highest level of government are deciding to move on. We

find out that our former president was knowingly putting others at risk of having COVID since he had tested positive and went on about his schedule and his life like it didn't matter at all. It's kind of like we're dealing with apples and electric sets. Indeed. Well, I mean, I think we should all attribute Donald Trump's degeneracy, putting us all at risk to his parents, who shortly after he acquired the ability to walk and speak, should have known that he was going to be a public menace for the rest of his life. So this is consistent with his behavior. I mean, we know there's only one person on the planet he cares about, and that's himself. I do think that what you raised at the onset is intriguing in terms of the Abrams campaign

being formally announced this week. I think that the vice president of the United States shouldn't be treated any differently than any other vice president in American history, except when she should. And of course, it's a paradigm-shattering vice presidency. And as Risi said, I mean, it's unprecedented. She's undergone an unprecedented level of scrutiny. And it's unfair. That being said, we all know that it was a forced marriage between Biden and Harris, that Biden was, you know, trolling for votes, and that the vice president has been put in a fairly impossible situation. Certainly, he's throwing her out there on everything from border security to going overseas and then making nice with foreign leaders.

And now that having been said, I think a great deal of this has to do with 2022 and 2024. This isn't the first departure from her staff. It probably won't be the last if what probably most of us are hearing is in fact true. And I think that, you know, the Biden administration and the Democratic Party generally finally have proven themselves to date ill-equipped and unable and unwilling to fight these white nationalists. And so, you know, folks like Simone is thinking, Simone Sanders is thinking, well, you know, where is the next battlefield and where can I take my talents? And maybe they end, maybe she ends up in Georgia, maybe she ends up somewhere else.

It seems that Joe Biden may think that Pete Buttigieg would be a better nominee for president, even though he said he's running for president again. But I think a lot of this has to do with people with one eye toward 2022 and 2024, regardless of who they are working for at the moment. So where, where, where, Dr. Gregg, are you getting that? It seems that Joe Biden may think Pete Buttigieg is a better nominee. What's the sourcing on that? Well, I mean, I just think if you look, I mean, I think basically it's the ability to read and write. I mean, and just observe. I mean, you see what the infrastructure deal, the-

I can read, I can write, I can observe. I'm not thinking that President Biden, I'm not inferring that. I don't see those signs except for the trolls and the newspaper organizations, the media, who are saying that the young white boy, the young white gay boy is going to leapfrog over the black girl. I mean, and that's the way they're couching it, as disrespectfully as that. So I know that they're trying to send those messages, but I don't see any real signs of that in terms of the things they're responsible for, because I see a vice president doing her job and I see a secretary doing his job. And I think they're both doing their jobs well. Well, there's reality and there's perception of reality. And we know that in American politics, the latter is what controls, not the former. So regardless of how they are performing, and I'm not one who spends a lot of time sifting through social media trolls.

Certainly what you have said is, in fact, what I have observed as well, which is that the commercial white-facing media has indeed been pushing Pete Buttigieg very hard. And given that perception is reality, at least in terms of American electoral politics, I think it's probably a safe conjecture to say that Buttigieg is at least neck and neck in conversations about who could be the presumptive nominee. And as far as we, any of us can tell, since the vice president, this current vice president, hasn't been able to, didn't win the primary last time, the idea that she would win or be the presumptive nominee this time may be more rhetorical, in fact, than anything else.

So, I mean, I think we're all engaged in his texture at this point, wouldn't you say? No. No, I mean, I can name quickly seven vice presidents who ran and did not win and then became the nominee. So I don't know. Seven black women? Well, no, we don't have another black woman to point to. So we obviously are in an uphill battle all the way, which is why anytime this comes up, I'm going to push back because she does deserve the distinction that goes with

the hardness of the, the gate that she's having to break through and push open. But Faraji, on any and all of these things, what's your thoughts, bro? Real quick, I mean, I think there are a couple of things. One is the big issue of whether Kamala Harris has what it takes to become the president. I mean, there's talk right now that President Biden is not going to be, you know, mentally fit to run another term to give another four years to the country. That's going to put Kamala Harris in a lot of back into the spotlight. And I think that this exit with no full explanation, Monique, is a big deal. I mean, from Simone Sanders, this is, if she were to say, you know, I'm leaving because there are new opportunities or I'm leaving because I want to spend time with my family or something like that.

That would be one thing. But with for her to leave without any explanation, it opens the door for a lot of speculation and opens the door for rumors and innuendos. It just opens the door for things that may not be true, but because of the optics of the situation, the timing of this departure, it just, it doesn't bode well for the Democratic Party. Simone Sanders is a very bright sister. She has, I mean, of course, you know, she's worked with Kamala Harris. She knows she worked with Bernie Sanders. And I mean, she has the know-how. She has the knowledge, the experience. She has the network, the resources to really make some inroads for the Democratic Party. And so right now, it looks it's not a good look. And especially when that conversation is like we're going to leave at the end of the year. We're going into a major election year for the midterm elections in 22. You got one of the stars of the Democratic Party saying, I'm calling it quits. You know, people are saying that the

vice president's office is in quote unquote disarray. I mean, you got all of these things happening. So, I mean, I think this is a big deal. I really believe this is a very big deal. And I understand that some people might want to try to diminish it and downplay it. Oh, no, this happens all the time, which it does. It really does. But the timing of everything is the thing that opens up the timing and the fact that she didn't say exactly why she decided to leave. I think that's one of the big things that people are trying to figure out, is she has to be in front of her own story, she has to shape her own narrative. Otherwise she's, she's going to find herself being, you know, at the brunt and, and, uh, of other people's thoughts and speculation.

Yep. I mean, and she's been around long enough to know that. So if she didn't say it's because maybe she can't say it's a job that's not public yet. I know there's all this, this, this, uh, hubbub going around about the disarray, but the article that was talking about the VP's office being in disarray had all these unnamed sources. So you know what? I'm not buying it. Kamala Harris was president for 90 minutes week before last. Nothing bad happened. I think she's the front runner. Next story. House and Senate lawmakers say they have agreed to avert. Oh, good news. A government shutdown until February 2022. Republican leaders in the Senate are still protesting President Biden's vaccine mandate. funding of federal enforcement of the vaccine and testing politicians in exchange for a quick passage of the spending bill.

The bill has to be approved by the House and Senate Friday by midnight to prevent the shutdown. Y'all. Oh, my God. To say that they cannot walk and chew gum is is in it. And I don't even know if can't is appropriate. I think that the level of functioning that it would take to walk and chew gum is just not the messaging that they want out there right now, because for the Republicans, it's just delay, deny, obstruct, delay, deny, obstruct. Recy, what is it that you think could happen that the Dems can do? Because everybody blames the Dems because the Dems are in majority. What could the Dems be doing to prevent the GOP from being certified fools right now? Absolutely nothing. The only thing that they can do is try to negotiate with the terrorists, Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema, and try to get them on board with what needs to be done. The Republicans are fundamentally unserious. They're obstructionists.

And they have a mandate from their base to fight these culture wars, be anti-vax, be anti-mandates and things of that nature. And so that's what they're going to continue to do. They're going to continue to to to basically try to dismantle the government and its functionality as opposed to propping it up. And so the Democrats really cannot take this seriously. It's absolutely absurd the things that they're that they are that they're that they are proposing. But they're proposing it knowing that this just plays well to their base. They're not proposing it with any kind of expectation that these demands are going to be met. But if I can, I'm sorry, I can't let that stuff that just said about calm the slide. Let me go ahead and run back real quick, just two seconds on it. First of all, I just want to say that if President Biden wanted to anoint Pete Buttigieg as his successor,

he would not have put him in the 11th-ranking Cabinet position. He is 14th in the presidential line of succession. And as Monique pointed out, he did transfer his power temporarily to Vice President Kamala Harris while he underwent a colonoscopy. He did not have to do that. To me, that sent a shot across the bow to say, listen, she's my gal, and I'm sticking with her. So I don't think that it makes any sense for people to say that Biden himself is trying to prop up Pete Buttigieg by putting him in a cabinet ranked position that's lower than HUD and agriculture. I'm not buying that whatsoever. And as far as these reports, all they are is they're just an almanac, an encyclopedia of every unnamed source

throwing dirt on Vice President Kamala Harris's name. There is absolutely no reports of any policy substantive dysfunction. It's this person doesn't like that person allegedly, and this person isn't getting along. Where is the meat? Where is the substance behind any of the criticisms? I'm not talking about the pots. I'm not talking about how she says the. I'm not talking about who don't like each other in offices. I don't get along with all my coworkers either, but we deal with it. So I think that there is a lot of real reduction and marginalization going on. And she's not being afforded the stature of a vice president, in which Monique pointed out the last several of them. If they have run for the nomination, they have received the nomination.

Now, whether they won the presidency is a different story. But I think what we're seeing now is a years-long campaign to try to diminish the stature of the vice president by normalizing something like the secretary of transportation. I mean, nobody was saying Elaine Chao is going to run in 2020 for primary Trump. So this is really absurd. And I'm with you, Monique. I don't think that on a black platform, we should be regurgitating the kinds of attacks on the vice president. We're supposed to be better than that. I'm not criticizing y'all for y'all opinions. You're entitled to it. But I think we should be pushing back on the narrative. And we can have that debate. But we should be pushing back on a narrative that reduces the vice president, that all of a sudden, when the black

woman is in that role, the status quo is no longer the status quo. I don't think so. Come with some substantive policy disputes, which you can't, because the vice president don't actually dictate policy. She can only advocate for certain things, but she doesn't write executive actions. And she's not a senator to vote, aside from casting tie-breaking votes. So last thing I'll say is, this is not about Biden wanting to diminish Vice President Kamala Harris. It's about an entire industry now that is bored and needs clicks. And obviously, Vice President Kamala Harris's name is the one that keeps getting clicks because these stories are recycled and regurgitated and ain't no end there. So, she had a fantastic appearance today, pumping up the infrastructure, which was a huge accomplishment, which she was credited for.

I don't hear us talking about that. We talking about Simone Sanders, a press secretary, a press assistant, which I think she's fantastic. I'm not diminishing her, because I'm for a Black woman. However, she's not a household name. Nobody is going to the booth in 2022 and 2024 thinking about whether Simone Sanders left in December of 2020, whatever year we in at this point, 21, or if she made it the whole four years. Nobody is really pressed about that except for the fact that they want to make drama with Vice President Kamala Harris,

and that's all I got to say. Sorry. That was the longest two seconds. I know, but I had to get up and I just had to count. I don't know which part. I think we started counting the two seconds maybe at the end because you were going to give us that good ten minutes first. But you was talking so good until I wasn't going to cut you off. I wasn't going to cut you off.

I'm not going to let the comms and stuff fly. But I tried. I tried to handle it. But okay, okay, okay, okay. Dr. Greg, I have a question because I'm back to the GOP and I'm back to the budget. I don't think you've ever left the GOP, quite frankly. No, no, no, no. I get and agree with with the things Reese Reese said in the beginning, in the beginning, that were responsive. I agree with those things about the GOP

and them not being serious-minded and them having this one agenda that appeals to the base, et cetera. But do you think that they are overplaying their hand on that? Because even though people are not getting it now, pretty soon, this rollout on the infrastructure is going to be making millions of people's lives considerably better in many different areas. And I think even the slowest of the slow will figure out that the GOP was doing nothing but fighting it.

Well, I mean, never underestimate the stupidity of the American voter. They did elect Donald Trump after all. And quite frankly, and certainly we saw with the signing of the most recent legislation, we saw the white nationalist party taking credit for it when in fact they all voted against it. And so, I mean, I think now the focus goes to people like Roger Marshall, Senator Marshall out of Kansas, and Mike Lee out of Utah, who have said that they are willing to shut down the federal government right now, not in mid-February, which this proposed deal is supposed to extend the funding of the government until. But right now, if the Democrats don't take

out the vaccine mandates, these people have shown that they are willing to choose their whiteness over their lives. And, you know, not to relitigate what we just talked about, but I certainly didn't have one critical word to say about Vice President Harris. In fact, what I said was that she should be treated exactly like every other vice president, except when she shouldn't. And when she shouldn't is because of her achievements. That certainly is not a criticism, but I'm saying that she is the vice president of the United States in an administration and a party that has shown that it is unwilling to fight these white nationalists. They won't take credit for their accomplishments in a propaganda war, because that's what we're dealing with.

We're not dealing with people who are talking about policy in the way that we're talking about it. We're dealing with people that are dealing with images and dealing with gaslighting. And the white nationalist party has perfected their message, frankly. So it comes to this. They certainly will allow a House of Representatives to vote to extend the funding of the federal government, because they don't have the numbers to stop it in the House. And then they will do what they have done, as Rizzi just said, every other time, obstruct in the Senate. And Lee and Marshall have already said

take those mandate vaccines out. And with Omicron, shout out to the South African scientists who discovered it as it came into South Africa from Europe. But as that Omicron virus continues and we're in the holiday seasons, they have shown that they are willing to put us all at risk. And if they are going to extend, let's say they vote, and it does continue the funding of the government to mid-February, what does mid-February do?

It gets us past the holiday season and it allows the government to run out of money just as the primaries are ramping up. They know exactly what they're doing. And Joe Biden knows, too. As far as I'm concerned, Joe Biden has been cutting his own throat, which means all of our throats, and that would include the throat of the sitting vice president,

by not fighting these people on the grounds they're fighting with. I don't give a damn if you talk to Mitch McConnell. Did you talk to Lee? Did you talk to Marshall? Because I'll tell you who did. McConnell. This is all theater. They're going to do what they've done every other time. Yeah. Right. Right. No. And I understand. I think we're going to be betwixt in between budget and VP for a minute. I understand to the first part of what you said that you did not say anything negative about the vice president. I would just offer for your attention and for Brother Faragi's and for whoever else is watching right now, all y'all, it's more insidious than

that. The plan to undermine the leadership of the first black woman vice president is not a direct attack because they can't. They put out the they said and they think and disarray and shambles and uncertain and that it's a fait accompli that she's unelectable. They put all those things out there and then we, if we are not vigilant, do their work in spreading it. So the reason why I pushed back and asked for sourcing is because I will not be their stool. Now, Faraji, thoughts? Yes. Yeah, real quick. I mean, I think a couple of things. One is if you've got a GOP that's willing to go to war about, you know, funding the United States government, keeping the government running up and up and running over the next few months. And they're like, let's you like, let's go to war because

of this vaccine mandate. I mean, this is a very dangerous place for us to be in this country. You know, this GOP party, and I'm with Dr. Carl on this, is that they played this political theater before, but it's getting to be very, very old because people don't, I mean, we can have these conversations. They can have those conversations in Congress as well. But when it comes down to it, it is the constituency, it is the American people that is going to determine how this country is going to move forward. And a lot of times we have these discussions and we really don't talk about, we say it, the people, but I'm saying that there is a level of dissatisfaction in this country that is going to just boil over.

People are tired. And I think going to the conversation about Vice President Harris, people want to see more. You know, it's like there was, and I mean, y'all can fight me, y'all can debate me, but there was great disappointment with President Obama. Because, you know, it was under President Obama, as we had all of these police killings and shootings, that we didn't see enough, I mean, just strong bully pulpit style leadership. Where the president is saying, hey, this is not going to continue to happen on my watch. And I think that's part of what we're seeing with Vice President Harris. I don't know, that may be stirred up by the media,

but I think that just Black people in general, we're just tired. We're sick and tired of constantly having our people in these positions and then at the same time not using the power of their office, not using the power of their influence, not using the power of their word, I mean, to really just steamroll. And I'm with Dr. Carr on this piece, which is that if you don't fight white nationalism and stop playing games and saying we're going to work across the aisle and create this bipartisanship, if you don't just call it out for what it is without being so afraid

to tell the truth, without being so afraid that you're going to lose votes, without being so afraid that you're going to lose, quote unquote, friends across the aisle to get things done, this country is suffering because of lies. This country is suffering because the American people are being constantly, we just get all these delusions. The United, we hear from the government that all is well, things are progressing, we are making strides. But it's not that that situation is not being realized in the lives of people every day. This country is struggling. The wealth disparity is real. The education disparity is real. Health care is eroding each and every day because of these of these medical companies and big pharma.

I mean, we can go down the list. Hell, gas is even up. Gas is, and the president had to go off when the gas company is saying that illegal, there must be some illegal behavior happening behind the scenes that causing gas prices. The American people are tired. How long do you think that, I don't care whether you're talking about McConnell, Marshall, whoever, how long do the people that represent us, quote unquote, how long do you think they, do they really think about us to the point where they say, you know what, if we don't start doing something different, they may rise up against us. That's the thing. Okay. Well, you know what, I would, I would, I would invite anybody who wants

to know exactly what the current administration is doing to go to whitehouse.gov and to check there under the releases. And it starts with the very first day of the administration and says every single thing that's passed, every executive order, most of the major meetings, all the readouts, it's all there for you to see for yourself so you can know at least what's being attempted, what's being considered, and what's being done. I, me personally, though, Faraji, am not yet tired of having black folks in these offices. We've only had one black president, and now we have one black vice president. So, I mean, we ought to at least get a few more before we just go back to electing white folks. But we've got to take a break. So, coming coming up we will get the latest from

the Brookley Center Minnesota where former police officer Kimberly Potter is on trial for killing Daunte Wright during a traffic stop journalist Georgia Fort has been in court during jury selection and later he's synonymous with social justice that's why a Florida law school created the Ben Crump Social Justice Center. But first, we have some bills to pay. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. We'll be right back. ТРЕВОЖНАЯ МУЗЫКА Betty is saving big holiday shopping at Amazon. So now, she's free to become Bear Hug Betty. Betty is saving big holiday shopping at Amazon.

So now, she's free to become Bear Hug Betty. Settle in, kids. You'll be there a while. Ooh, where you going? Hey, I'm Antonique Smith. Hey, I'm Arnaz Jane. 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. A jury is close to being seated in the trial of Kim Potter,

the former police officer who killed Dante Wright during a traffic stop back in April. Georgia Fort has been in the courtroom throughout jury selection and she joins us now. Georgia, welcome. Good evening. Thanks so much for having me. How are you? I'm doing good. It's a little chilly here in Minneapolis and it's been pretty tense this week for jury selection, but I'm hanging in there. Okay, well what can you tell us? I know as of yesterday they had seated, what, nine? Where are we now? So the jury selection just wrapped up. I'm outside of the courthouse right now. About 12 jurors are seated. Nine of them are white jurors. We have two Asian women who are seated on this jury so far and one Black woman. So there's two more seats that need to be filled for alternate

seats in case anybody among those 12 ends up sick or can't make it, gets COVID. They want to make sure that they have 14 jurors seated. So were you able to be in court during the time when they were doing the voir dire and the jury selection? Yes, that's correct. I was inside of the courtroom for jury selection on Tuesday. Due to COVID, they don't allow all of the journalists to go inside the courtroom every day. They have us on a rotation. So every day there's a new two journalists who are in the courtroom. So I was in the courtroom on the first day of jury selection, and I will be back in the courtroom again on December 15th. The one thing I will say is Judge Regina Chu has said that she anticipates opening arguments will

begin on December 8th. She's really hoping that this trial will wrap up by Christmas Eve, and she's promised jurors that if it doesn't, she'll give them Christmas Day off at least. But because jury selection is moving along so quickly, they might be able to start this trial a little bit sooner. Some of the concerns that I had when I was observing inside of the courtroom was the defense attorney used the names of two of the jurors who are, in fact, seated on this jury. And so the concern of their identity being disclosed in such a high-profile case, you know, these individuals, at least one of them has already been bombarded by media, has already received phone calls, has already received trolls on his social media pages. And that's all because defense attorney Earl Gray not only used his last name, but asked him, where do you work at? Started asking him about the tour he was on with his rock band, asked him the name of his rock band, all of these specifics to be able to identify him. And so it just took a quick Google search for people who are watching the trial to find out who he was. And so what my biggest concern

is with that is, let's say, let's fast forward and Kimberly Potter is found guilty. Could the defense use that in terms of like leverage to get a mistrial, you know. But obviously, that was something that the defense attorney brought on. So it will be up to the judge on how they view that information. But it definitely is cause for concern. Well, I mean, if the defense attorney is who's doing it, then I don't know how they would use it for a mistrial. He was allowed to go further than it seems like you're saying was comfortable for many people. But as a defense attorney, I'm like, you got to do what you got to do for your client. I need the information. Got to climb under the rocks when I can.

But did you notice, were there other jurors of color who were eliminated for one reason or another? And were there any issues such as bats and challenges and things like that? Well, the prosecution so far has used all of their stripes. There was one African-American male who excused himself. He actually did not want to serve. He was concerned about his safety, said he worked inside of a jail. He was concerned about his wife's health. And so they allowed him to not serve. He was excused for cause. But, you know, what was really interesting as well is that Kimberly

Potter is going to be testifying in contrast to what we saw in the Derek Chauvin trial. He didn't testify. She has said that she's going to take the stand. So people are really curious about what she's going to say. Another thing that came up a lot, if you were following along with the jury selection, is just how polarized people's answers are. The jury questionnaire, there's 80 questions on there. It's several pages. But some of those questions include how favorable are you of Black Lives Matter? How favorable are you of Blue Lives Matter? And so you get people, jurors, potential jurors who are up there who are

attacking Daunte Wright's character. They're assassinating his character as though he's the one who is on trial. And so that was especially hard to listen to. You have individuals who get up there and they, well, I read this. I heard, you know, he was involved in a shooting, all of these negative comments. And they're saying that that causes them to be impartial and that they would have to consider that information while judging the criminal act that Kimberly Potter is charged with. So, you know, there's so many layers, but a lot of those racial undertones are already servicing, and the trial hasn't even started yet. This is just jury selection. So what is the climate like outside of the courthouse?

Are you seeing people who are making their voices heard? Oh, absolutely. We did on the first day. However, tonight is pretty quiet, and I think a lot of that has to do with what happened on the first day. As soon as I stepped outside of the courtroom, there was a pretty large protest out here, hundreds of straight into the crowd. As of now, we're not hearing of any injuries being reported, but the Minneapolis Police Department has responded because individuals got his driver's license plate number, passed it off to authorities, and police say that they're not even going to bother looking for him because the protest was not a permitted protest. And so when you think about this happening here in Minneapolis, which was the epicenter of a global uprising for police

accountability, and then this happening also two weeks after Rittenhouse was found not guilty, and everybody was saying that the not guilty verdict in the Rittenhouse trial was going to be a signal to all of these white supremacists and encourage them really to attack Black Lives Matter protests. And so, you know, to see that happen on the first day of jury selection was really frightening, to say the least. And so I'm kind of not shocked that not a lot of people are out here because they're concerned for their own safety. And I even believe if there is a clip, I would like to show the viewers today just how horrifying that experience was for protesters on Tuesday. Yep. And we're rolling it right now, so they're seeing it as you speak. Absolutely. Well, we really appreciate the work that you're doing and keeping us minute by minute up on everything that's going on in the trial.

Thanks so much for joining us with the update. Thank you. Thank you. It is time for a quick break. Roland Martin Unfiltered will be right back. You're watching the Black Star Network. Stay tuned. Alexa, play our favorite song again.

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Prime changed everything. Hey, everybody, it's your girl LuMail. So what's up? This is your boy, Earthquake. Hi, I'm Chaley Rose, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. 24-year-old Nikyla Williams disappeared from her Indianapolis, Indiana home on November 9th, 2021. She is approximately 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs about 150 pounds. She has shoulder-length red hair and brown eyes. She was last seen getting into a light gray or white-colored pickup truck wearing blue jeans and a dark-colored jacket. If you have any information about Nikyla's whereabouts, call the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department at 317-327-3811. An arrest has been made, thankfully, in the murder of the wife of legendary music executive

Clarence Avant. 29-year-old Ariel Maynor, a parolee with a long criminal history, has been arrested for Jacqueline Avant's killing. Avant was found shot in the home just before 2.30 a.m. yesterday amid reports of someone shot. She later died at a hospital. In Washington state, Seattle agrees will pay $3.5 million to a black woman's family who police officers shot to settle a wrongful death suit. Charlena Lyles, a mother of four, was fatally shot by two Seattle police officers in June 2017. Two Seattle police officers responded to Lyles' apartment after calling 911 to report a burglary. Evidence at the scene pointed to a staged burglary, and according to the officers, she suddenly attacked them with... She suddenly attacked them...

I can't find it. There we go. With one or two knives, and they fatally shot her in the cramped confines of her kitchen. The lawsuit, though, claims the officers did not act reasonably because they failed to use non-lethal force to disarm or subdue her. Under police policy, Seattle police officers are required to carry tasers, but one of the officers did not have his on the day of the incident. He left it in his locker because the battery died. Yeah, the old my battery died.

Going to the panel, we're going to keep seeing these over and over again, Dr. Carr, until there are direct consequences. I'm going to sound like Roland Martin now. Until there are direct consequences to these officers. If you don't have your body cam on and we can't see part of what happened in your officer-involved shooting, there has to be a consequence. If you're supposed to be carrying a taser and we're saying it's in the locker because of a dead battery and now there's a dead woman because of a dead battery, there has to be a consequence, doesn't there? Well, I mean, you tell the rest of us, since you know about this better than most of us having waged war in these courtrooms. At the end of the day, when we think about what a reasonableness standard is, reasonable use of force, reasonable action in the face of something like a traffic stop or you name the range, we can't be in each other's heads, but we should be able to establish a basic level of decent human contact.

So I mean, listening to you and Sister Georgia talk there, I was monitoring some of the jury selection through another attorney there from Minneapolis, Angie Porter, and she noted with Juror 55, who was the last of the 12 jurors to be seated today, a white man, a Navy vet, who said he has been tased before. I think that, and I'll use what Attorney Porter said, he might be a stealth juror on that bench, in the jury box, because he is a white man. He is a United States military veteran, but he has been tased. And he will understand that a police officer like Kim Porter, who reached and called, yelled, taser, taser, taser, and then discharged her weapon, he's not going to buy that she

mistakenly pulled the gun instead of the taser because she was a veteran. And so in Seattle, we see something similar. This guy is on paid, protected, cleared leave for basically hunting. As we heard from Shalina Lyles' cousin, Catherine Johnson, who thanked the people for being in the streets to protest, you know, this isn't enough. You've got to punish these people. Settlements aren't enough.

Her own son said the $3 million, okay, but that doesn't bring my mom back. We've got to attack this reasonableness standard. And you'd have to tell the rest of us quite frankly says how do you get into a jury box or the mind of a judge and extract out that notion that somehow it is uh reasonable to kill somebody i don't know i don't have a good answer right well i I mean, but Greg, you're not saying that there aren't any circumstances in which deadly force is necessary? I'm saying anytime we live in a country where you can strike jurors, and there was a Batson challenge today for a young Asian-American juror, potential juror, who was a law student. We both know that law students typically don't get on juries, but the Batson challenge was based on her race, and there are apparently two other Asian Americans who are on the jury,

so that first prong wasn't satisfied. But what I am saying is that you shouldn't answer a jury questionnaire and be struck from a jury for cause simply because you said that you attended a protest against police brutality, or you said something like, I think there are situations where the police are wrong. How does that become prejudicial, except in a society where the police cannot be wrong, as almost as a matter of law? And I think that is what we have to address.

I'm not saying it's never warranted. Of course not. But I'm saying that the presumption is when they shoot, that it's a good shoot. And the rebut to that presumption is so almost astronomically impossible a standard to meet that it creates the situation where the police are converted into hunters. And I don't know how we deal with that as a matter of the legal universe, not case by case examples, but the structural notion of policing in this country. Yeah. Well, I mean, there are going to have to be some codified changes in the law for us to get

any real progress on that. You are absolutely right. A settlement does not do anything to change what happens to the next person who's in line to be shot and killed by a police officer. It provides money for a mother who can't bring a child back. And that is the extent of what it does, because most times now the squeeze that it puts on the city does not make them make the types of changes. There have to be equitable remedies, not just financial remedies, in order for the city to understand that the way that they do business has to change. Faraji, your thoughts.

You know, it's interesting because I remember hearing Attorney Ben Crump say something that I think will forever stick out in my mind. He made the point that he said that the work that he does, which is making sure that the families are compensated when they have a loved one that is lost in the hands by police, he said that we want to make it so expensive for them to kill us that they will think twice. That's why he always go for the large settlements. That's why he's always trying to hit the cities where these incidents occur, hit them hard in

the pockets, because he's saying, if you're going to keep killing us, then we're going to keep killing your pockets. And I think that's an interesting strategy. But I think that also, though, you know, based upon the conversation you just had with Dr. Carr, I think that it's also important that in this case of Sister Charlene allows that we have a discussion about mental health, that we really do have something there where, you know, a mental health, you know, I can't think of the word, but there has to be some additional training of some sort where police are just take a quick moment and pause. And I know that the police say that in this particular case that she, that the sister

Charlena had one or two knives and all of those things. But you got to take a quick pause before you just jump into action and start shooting and killing people. But it does not erase the fact that, yes, okay, this family got $3.5 million, and it might hit the department a little bit, but we have to find the balance between hitting them, killing them in their pockets,

but also getting verifiable justice. And Monique, by you being the attorney that you are, you know it. Like if a police officer doesn't have their body cam on, if a police officer makes certain type of decisions, rash decisions in a short period of time, there has to be consequences for that. And I think that the larger conversation about making sure that police officers are held accountable, not just from a city or civil servant perspective, but also held accountable personally, then that conversation needs to move forward. Because then, okay, let's combine what Ben Trump said and what's happening right now. If we're going to hit the departments in their pockets, maybe we need to hit these officers and their personal assets. And then they'll think twice because they might lose their home.

They might lose their car. Their children may not be able to go to college. Something has to be disrupted on that end in order for us to start seeing some real justice. Because all we're getting is just disruption on our end. And the scales of justice are already in balance. You know what, Recy? There was this thing, because I hear Faraji, I hear Dr. Gregg, and Faraji's talking, without naming it, about qualified immunity and how we need to get rid of it so that there's some personal liability for the officers. I hear Dr. Gregg and Faraji saying that there needs to be consequences and accountability

for these officers that go beyond what we can do by hitting them in their pockets. And I'm saying that we need codified laws. You know, Recy, there was this piece of legislation. It was called the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. And amazingly, it had all of these provisions and more in it. Whatever happened to that? Well, you know, you're absolutely right, Monique. What happened? I hear more people talk about it now than when last year when people

were focused on the Kenton cloth and the Neal and making a mockery out of it when there was momentum or people out in the streets and we really probably could have pushed for what we were trying to get to. Maybe we wouldn't have gotten 100% of the provisions, but there was some momentum and a little bit of an appetite there, even from Trump. I'm not giving him credit, but even from Trump to get something done.

And that momentum was squandered. And now we see Black Lives Matter actually has lower approval ratings than it did before the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery protests, the so-called racial reckoning that we have now. We have a racial reversal back to where we were before the reckoning. And so unfortunately, you know, this is going to have to be fought at the local level, at the state level, because I don't think we're going to make any progress at the federal level for that. But the thing that just trips me on, we've talked about multiple stories of Black people being killed by the police. In the same week where we had a mass shooter

apprehended alive, he has a mugshot. He's not a hashtag. He doesn't have a body bag. His family's not planning a funeral. They at trial court looking for his arraignment. How is it that you can bring home apprehend mass shooters white men who are highly weaponed who have automatic rifles who have just killed and shot multiple people but a woman who calls for help because she charlotte allows called

for help for a burglary and she was the one who ended up dead. Was it one knife or was it two knives? You shooting at your own, you don't even know how many wives that you have, how many knives a person has. They expect, the police expect perfection from people seeking their help, the people they're supposed to preserve and protect. But they get all the latitude. The law gives them all the latitude to make mistakes. Oh, well, you know, he thought it was necessary, thought it was, it was reasonable. He thought he was, he was in fear.

There's no margin for the people on the other side of that police gun. And that is what we have to change because the police should be held to a higher standard than a person who maybe they have mental issues or whatever the situation they're going with. Even if they are in the commission of committing a crime, if they do not pose a lethal danger to you, you should have a higher standard than what the police are being held to. That is the biggest problem that we're having with the way that police are operating. They have all the latitude. The victims do not. And don't you also—

Can I just—I'm sorry. Go ahead. Can I just add something to that real quick? And I think Recy is absolutely on point about that higher standard, but you know what? I think that comes to bringing in people of higher caliber, people that want to serve. I mean, if you look at these departments across the cities of the United States, here in Baltimore, for example, only 40% of the police in Baltimore are actually from Baltimore.

60% are from out of state, you know? And so, when you have a police department that is, uh, you know, have all of these different people coming in, and you can... And I don't, you know, I don't know what the interview was like when somebody says, I want to become a police officer. I don't know what type of questions are being asked, but one thing's for sure. The main question is, do you have a, you know, have you ever worked in an environment like this before? You know, share with us some

of your concerns. And I mean, you can formulate questions to get to a person's implicit bias. You can formulate questions to understand their prejudices, to understand that if this person goes out into the street, they're going to either be a problem or they're going to be an asset for the department. I mean, look, you know that from the very beginning. This is the police department of the United States. If nothing else, America knows how to create an institution of law enforcement. This is what America does. So when we see police officers making these dumbass decisions, making these life-threatening decisions day in and day out,

and they have training, they have all of these resources, they get a lot of the money from these cities, they have all of these experts, yet you mean to tell me in a split, in these moments, that you are not able to think critically before pulling out your gun and just shooting? You need to tell me in these moments you don't know where the damn taser is

on your left or your right side? I mean, come on. You need to tell me moments you don't know what a damn taser is on your left or your right side i mean come on you need to tell me that you don't know that it's not your house that you're walking into and then you're gonna shoot somebody who's sitting on the couch of their own home i mean this is this is not rocket science yeah this is just yeah but this is this is a person problem you know i hear you well i, I mean, it's both. It can be both because poor training can make for more poor decisions. But when you talk about implicit bias, when you talk about sensitivity training, I'm not going to let it go. When you talk about officers' records where they can't go from one jurisdiction where they had a misconduct and go easily to another jurisdiction, when you talk about no-knock warrants like what happened with Breonna Taylor,

it was all in the bill. So my question, Dr. Carr, is this. Why is it that when this legislation was out there and we had Senator Booker on one side and we had Senator Scott and Senator Graham on the other side and we had Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee who was assisting and we had Schumer saying we're going to get it done. Why didn't we hear from us, the people who have to get the message to our folks so that we can stay out there on the street, so we can stay calling our Congress people and our senators? Because to me, I think that is what is lacking. I think that there's work that people are trying to get done on the Hill,

and then when the noise stops, the Republicans come in and tell lies, like there's going to be increased crime, the police unions don't want it. It was all lies, and it just disappears, and they move on to the next most pressing thing. Don't we have an obligation, Dr. Carwin, there are things that are good for our people to actually give them the information? We do, of course. And that, of course, is one of the reasons we have the Black Star Network and Union Rolling has built that and we're having this conversation. And we all know, we know that what you've posed is largely, in some ways, a rhetorical question. We know we have that obligation. Of course we do. But one of the most difficult things that we have to grapple with, or not, we probably

won't grapple with it because that requires a deeper understanding of history, is that this isn't a nation. I say that, and sometimes people have a visceral reaction to that. But by nation, a nation is a country where people have a common set of memories, not only a common language, but a common kind of cultural grounding. And that simply isn't the case. This is a settler state. And it has been at war with itself since the beginning. And when it comes to our people, the children of those who have been enslaved, we have a perspective that is very different. I was reading something this morning in New York

Times, a roundtable about the Mississippi abortion case that was argued yesterday before the Supreme Court. And one of the white women writers in the New York Times said, you know, this will be the first time in my life, if and when, and I think it is a matter of when, they overturn Roe versus Wade, that I, as a white woman, will have lost rights. I will have diminished rights. She said, this is in no way comparing, I can't compare myself to Black people in this country, but for the first time, I will experience something that Black people have always experienced in this country. And I think in her making that point, it reveals something that is part of the answer to your question. Until we understand that this is zero-sum warfare, we're not going to make much progress. The argument, the filibuster, every time I hear

somebody say the American people, I just start laughing. There is no such thing. The white nationalist party, and I include in that white nationalist adjacents like Tim Scott, have made a blood oath vow in the federal legislature. We don't give a damn. And instead of reacting to that, the Democratic Party, by saying we will now abandon

a rule that is a Senate rule, not in the Constitution, the filibuster, and make you pass this legislation, the Democratic Party in this country, which makes them, as far as I'm concerned, soft white nationalists as a party, have conceded this war. And guess who's going to be shot in the streets as the result of even an incremental bill like the George Floyd Justice Policing Act? We are. So the answer to your question is we can only continue to do what we're doing and continue to push and continue to push.

But I think we have to be a lot more clear and a lot more honest with our people to help them understand that there is no such thing as American people. And we are on our own in so many of these policy boards. And we need to stop supporting people who are going to pretend as if there are rules when there aren't any rules in this. This is a street fight and it's been one for 300 years. Right. And I don't disagree with you. I just don't know what the benefit would be to all of the black people who are members

of the Democratic Party to not push the Democratic Party from within to do the things that you just said need to be done. I don't, I mean, we can say that we are on our own, but to me, that is also like saying we are not going to get anything done because the things that need to get done cannot get done with us on our own. If we are warring just by ourselves, that is a losing proposition. So I don't know where our alliances are, I guess, because no, and I understand that the Democratic leadership, right, is largely white, with one huge exception in our vice president, but the people, those of us who are Democrats and then the larger population who go and vote as Democrats, to me, just really have to require a level of accountability that maybe we don't even know we are entitled to, that we

actually do have inalienable rights, that we are supposed to be able to place a demand based on. And that is what I don't see. You know, I don't think we can just say ditch it all because they're bad over here and they're bad over there. And we got to figure it out on our own. I don't know how that works. Well, let me be clear. That's certainly not what I'm saying. What I'm saying more specifically is, and I think you gave us part of the answer a minute ago, given the two-party system that we're in, the strategy, it seems to me, certainly at the state and local level, is to pursue the type of—what I'm saying is that

informed by this realization that we are on our own, We engage in coalition politics at every level. So I think the part of the answer is the state and local level. So you get this type of hard-hitting, different laws passed at the state and local level, whether it be the DA in Philadelphia, Larry Krasner, whether it be the emerging DAs around the country who are willing to take on the police and de-link prosecutors, whether it be Marilyn Mosby in Baltimore, state's attorney in Maryland. It has to be done through that way. And if we're going to use the party apparatus for the short term, we have to do that.

The only other thing I would say is I was speaking more directly of the way this federal system was constructed. And for that, you go back to the Federalist Papers. You go back to James Madison, for example. I mean, when you look at Madison's approach to governance, it was with the idea that these white men, I'm not even talking about white women, these white property men are too stupid to be allowed to govern this state. So they've set up a Republican form of government, a representative government. And then what ends up happening is you have a federal system where the power to obstruct anything has been farmed out to the states. So we're not saying different things

at all. We're saying we have to engage in a multilayered war. And at the state and local level, I think that is where we'll see the most effective work. In fact, the last thing I'll say is in the state of Georgia, you see Stacey Abrams. I don't think any of us have any doubts that even with this rigged system that these white nationalists are trying to put, first of all, it's not at all clear whether even Brian Kemp will be the nominee. He's going to be primaried by an even more Klan-adjacent guy in Georgia. But I don't think any of us have any illusion that Stacey Abrams not only won the last election, she'll win this upcoming election

as we continue to organize. Now, at the same time, they may turn around and send one of the most remarkably stupid human beings to ever sit in the Senate if he wins, right next to Tommy Tuberville, and he will be black, Herschel Walker. And I'm saying the federal legislature is set up in a way that is going to ultimately perhaps fracture this whole concept of United States of America. And what you are saying, what you said about state and local elections and the importance of organizing at the state and local level is only to become more important. So I'm saying, I'm saying don't disengage, engage, and it's got to be full spectrum engaging, beginning with the local level.

Well, I love it. I love it. I love it. I don't know about y'all who are watching, but the types of conversations that you can have on the Black Star Network, on Roland Martin Unfiltered, you can't find any place else. I don't know why anybody would be watching anything when you could get this. We're going to go to a break though. And coming up, the parents of the 15-year-old who shot up a Michigan high school could be facing charges themselves. And reports say his parents were at the school just hours before the shooting to discuss his disturbing behavior.

We'll talk about what, if anything more, could have been done to prevent this tragedy. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. We'll be right back here on the Black Star Network. Are the stars out to night? I'll deny it. Alexa, play our favorite song again. OK. I only have eyes for you. Субтитры создавал DimaTorzok НАПРЯЖЕННАЯ МУЗЫКА I'm going to go get some food. Maureen is saving big holiday shopping at Amazon. So now she's free to become Maureen the Marrier.

Food is her love language. And she really loves her grandson. Like, really loves. It's Kim Whitley. Yo, what's up? This your boy Ice Cube. Hey yo, peace world. What's going on? It's the love king of R&B, Raheem Devon.

And you're watching Roller Martin Unfiltered. Michigan officials are still trying to find out why 15-year-old Ethan Crumbly went on a violent rampage, killing four and injuring seven at Oxford High School Tuesday. Crumbly, charged as an adult, is facing several charges of terrorism, murder, assault, and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony. The school administrators met with Crumbly's parents about what his teachers described as disturbing behavior Monday and Tuesday, just hours before the shooting. Evidence from Ethan's journal, cell phone, and social media posts have investigators believing the shooting was a premeditated plan. Video taken the night before the attack shows Crumbly talking about shooting and killing his peers at school. He also boasted about the new gun his dad purchased, which he used during the shooting.

There are also reports of an alleged countdown to the shooting and references to the devil on his now-deleted media account. The question lies. Could this tragedy have been prevented? Recy, I'm going to let you answer that question, but I'm going to say what I think I have said on this show at least 13,000,

11,000 times. Until the U.S. government acknowledges that there is a real problem with white males between the ages of now 14, 15, and

33, it's not going to stop. Right. And, you know, I said this earlier today on Clay Cain Show, and I'll say it again, believe white men. When they tell you that they're going to shoot up a school, when they tell you that they devil worshiping or whatever demonic stuff that he was into, believe him. You know, it's crazy because if a troubled Black child is meeting with, you know, getting called into the principal's office, that child is getting suspended, then they're getting expelled, okay? There's consequences for them. We've seen 10-year-old and adolescent Black girls being tossed around like rag dolls by

school resource officers and police officers. And yet this killer has been treated with kid gloves. I mean, even the New York Post released a picture of him that was not his mugshot. It was a picture of him as like an eight-year-old choir boy or something. And so we need to stop treating white male rage with kid gloves.

We need to stop calling it economic anxiety. We need to stop calling it, you know, these different euphemisms where we to stop calling it, you know, these different euphemisms where we talk about they're under, you know, we play into their culture wars by having the conversations on their terms, on things like critical race theory, et cetera, et cetera. And we need to start taking seriously the threat. I mean, Janet, I forget how he said her last name, Janet something or another. She talked about this back, you know, before Bush was even in office, when Clinton was still there, about, you know,

the threat that, you know, white domestic extremism is posing. So I'm not saying this was racially motivated or anything, but we have to start taking these troubled white boys, men, whatever you want to call it, seriously. All that energy that people put into over-policing

and oppressing and, you know, putting Black kids and brown kids in this prison to school to prison pipeline. I'm not saying you do the same thing with white kids, but I'm saying don't let them off so easily because they're the ones out there shooting up these schools. Right. Absolutely agreed. And the thing is, Faraji, they're not they don't just drop in out of the sky at 14, 15, mad as hell. They are being raised something closer that looks like raised. They they were once babies and then toddlers before they worked their way into all of this rage. And they are being affected by outside influences. Not just, I'm not totally, I think parents probably do have a responsibility in this case.

But it's not just that. We're seeing how they are being indoctrinated and conditioned through the dark web and through all of these outside sources. What is it that needs to be done to run down these rabbit holes and stop it? I mean, I think there are a few things at play here, Monique. One is just the point that you were making. You know, when you see a child, 15 15 years old who decides to go up in the school and he's going to start shooting and killing people, the first thing I would look at as an investigator is looking at the parents. What's going on inside the home, right? Because the home serves as the base of a child's understanding about the world and themselves. So that's the first thing. So I think that conversation about parents and responsibility...

No, no parent. We can say, oh, no, we would never raise our children to be killers. But even in the Black community, we expose our children to too much grown-up stuff in terms of violence, in terms of not being able to properly resolve conflict, in terms of teaching black boys and black girls that you can't express yourself, you know, don't cry, and all of this garbage that we send, right? And I'm saying, and I'm using that as an example because we don't, he could have been exposed to the same thing. Now, does that mean that he should get a slap on the wrist? Hell no, he shouldn't. Because at 15 years old, a baby knows the difference

between right and wrong. So by the time you get to 15, you know what you're about to do is either right or wrong. Going up into a school and shooting people, that, unless you are a sociopath, then you, your brain should register and say, you know what, this may not be a great idea. So, so when we have those, that conversation, but I also want to have the discussion about the fact that this is not just about guns. Please, let's not make this about guns, because we know white media often says, you know, uses that excuse.

Well, access to guns, the gun policies, gun laws needs to be stricter. Don't they? That's not the... Don't they? Yeah. I mean, yes, but at the same time... I mean, are they wrong? I'm just checking, just checking.

No, I'm not saying it's wrong, but this kid didn't get the gun off the street. Uh-huh. He got it from his parents, who, for some reason, did not teach him certain things. Now, again, we don't know if this child is a sociopath or psychopath. What we can only speculate. But the point is, is that let's not move...

Let's not get away from the simple fact that he made a choice. This child, just like Rittenhouse, just like all of the other white males that go into... That's a... That's a mind thing. And, Dr. Carly, I'm sure you can... You can attest to the fact that we see this all the time. And-and what we're seeing right now

is that we're seeing white men and boys who are feeling threatened, who feel like they're losing power, are losing their minds right now. You can take it from President Trump all the way down to this joker. They'll feel like they're losing their minds right now. And so how do they handle that? They only handle that by, I'm going to shoot kill somebody. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And that's the part of the conversation that we don't want to really have because we don't really, really believe

that an individual can think like that. But guess what? It happens every day in the Black community, too. Mm-hmm. When you got Black people who say, man, I'm just gonna do me, and next thing you know, we shooting and killing each other. That's a mindset.

Something is inherently wrong when the human being is at a place or at a thinking where they feel like the only way they can resolve a problem, the only way they can relieve certain type of feelings within them is that they can play God and take somebody out like that. Yeah, I see. I hear you, I agree with you. The only pin, if I had to put a pin in it to make a point, that the separation for us where we got crazy and depraved and psychopathic and homicidal people here, the same way they are everywhere else in the world, the difference is that we are weaponized differently to be able to do something about it. So I don't think that we can ignore the gun conversation

while we're having the conversation about the state of our mental health. Dr. Gregg, I got to keep moving. I got a question for Dr. Gregg. I got to keep moving. I got a question for Dr. Gregg. There's a culture of violence in this country that we haven't fully embraced. I hear you. America loves violence. But I'm still going to Dr. Gregg.

I hear you and I'm going to Dr. Gregg. Go ahead. I need my senior scholar because I'm just asking you this question, frankly, Greg, because I want to know your answer. I just want to know what you think about it. And let me let me and I got I got my little introductory quick three sentences about it before I ask you the question. You have to be 18 to be able to vote. Right.

And you got to be 21 to be able to drink. Yep. You've got to be 18, sometimes 21, to be able to serve police officer, military, et cetera. You have to be 18 and over to be able to drive on your own. And the reason why they make these limits, these minimums on age, is because the brain in the adolescent is not fully developed for them to be able to make the mature decisions that are necessary to handle those types of responsibilities. So my question then is, do you agree or disagree with teens that are 14 and 15 being charged and tried as adults, such as in this case. I disagree, of course, for the reasons you said. And I think it's a senior.

I love you, Dr. Greg. Yes. Okay. I mean, you know, you laid it out. No, it's brave. It's brave and it's bold because sometimes we fight for the black boys and we don't want them to be tried. And then the white boys come and do this stuff and we're like, throw them under the jail, you know, give them the electric chair. And I'm like, come on, people. What's the policy and what do we believe in? Go ahead. I'm sorry. I'm excited.

No, no, no. Please don't apologize because I think this is this is the challenge we have. Again, there is no such thing as an abstract human being. And so that's why I think the conversation we're having, you know, Reese and Faraji and me and you, we are, it's all part of a seamless whole. And I agree, Faraji, what you said. There's a culture of violence. So this isn't happening worldwide. The United States is

a gunfighter nation. In other words, the things we worship are violent. Whether it be football, whether it be every movie, every television show, damn near everybody interviewed on Roland Martin Unfiltered with a new TV show. If you take 50 Cent out of the rotation, it stars all the violence. I mean, in other words, we worship it. We worship the gun.

Now, you know, at the same time, but race plays a role. Remember, I'm sure we both remember this, sitting in our constitutional law class and we had to read Milliken versus Bradley. That was a 1974 case where they said the Detroit public schools are segregated, so we're going to loop in 85 surrounding school districts and allow busing into those districts. And Supreme Court struck down a sixth circuit called, what's the name of that place? Oh, I can't think of the name of the county right now. But it's the county where, remember this guy Terry Nichols? Lapeer. Lapeer, Michigan.

Terry Nichols was with the Oklahoma Bomber, Tim McVeigh. People talk about Timothy McVeigh, but Nichols was from a place in Michigan about 40 miles north of the place where this white boy shot up. Now, what does that have to do with what we're talking about right now in violence? Violence is, we're immersed in this violent culture in the United States. When it's around black people, they put metal detectors in the schools. I worked in the Philadelphia Public Schools one time. There's this Chinese young lady, a sophomore in high school.

We had a Philadelphia Freedom Schools meeting, 300-some students, Chinese students, students, Latinx students, Black students, white students. And this child got up. She went to girls' high. And she said, until they put metal detectors in girls' high school, one of the top public high schools in Philadelphia, you should take them out of all of the other high schools where my peers go to school, because you've racialized this violence as if we somehow won't be violent because we're a different race, a different class. Now, when you put that together, I agree with you, Faraji,

you've got people in rural places like near Michigan where the guy Nichols is from, always on the farm, think something's being taken away. You've got in Detroit, kids who are being, you know, assaulting each other, fighting each other, but they're not

bringing it to the schools in the same way. And then you got this white boy who feels like probably something's being taken away from him, but he's in an environment where they allow you to take a gun to school, not because they knew about it, but because they put nothing in place to prevent it. So if we're not going to charge him with the death penalty, we shouldn't charge anybody as an adult. We shouldn't charge anybody else as an adult. But we have to address the fact that in this country, which isn't a nation, people have retreated to their corners based in race stoked fear that has been further weaponized by allowing white children to get away literally with murder, while black children are treated as suspects when they've done nothing except be walking around.

The rules aren't the same. So I think that's the ambiguity where we can say no 14-year-old should be charged as an adult, but when you put race, culture, and reality in it, it isn't this abstract 14-year-old. It almost has to be applied differently depending on the circumstance. Right, well, and they have charged him as an adult in this case, but, you know, like I said, year old. It almost has to be applied differently depending on circumstances. They have

charged him as an adult in this case, but like I said, sometimes I hear an outcry behind that and sometimes I don't and I think it should be the same across the board. We could stay here all day, but we can't. I have to go to a break. There's more to come

obviously on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Millions of Americans live with Crohn's disease or colitis, and these incurable diseases impact even more family members, friends, coworkers, and others. Coming up, we'll talk to a gastroenterologist who will let us know what symptoms we need to look out for and how to make sure we are not being ignored by our doctors. But first, a quick break from our sponsors,

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And the prince? well, who cares? Prime changes everything. 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. This week is National Crohn's and Colitis Awareness Week. Affecting over 2.5 million Americans,

these incurable illnesses collectively are called inflammatory bowel disease. Symptoms include diarrhea, bloody or mucus-filled stool, stomach cramps, and tenderness, but every case is unique. Historically, people of color are underdiagnosed and suffer longer with fewer treatment options. That's a surprise to no one. Joining me now are gastroenterologist, Dr. Sophie Balzora and Melody Noreen Blackwell, the founder of Color of Crohn's and Chronic Illness. Melody was gravely ill and her symptoms were continuously ignored

until being diagnosed with a rare form of Crohn's disease. Now she's using her story to connect and educate other minorities on IBD. Ladies, thank you so much for joining us to talk about such an important and under-discussed topic. We appreciate you coming on the show. Of course. Thanks for having us. I want to start with Dr. Sophie Belzora. Are there reasons that this is underdiagnosed in the black community and the black and brown communities more so than all of the other areas where we have challenges that really relate to poor access or lack of quality access to medical care? So that's a great question. You know, I think that those, of course, are factors, but there's a lot of issues with a lack of awareness,

a lack of education that this can even happen in our community. And I think that that's where we falter. And so, you know, typically or historically, it's thought to be a disease affecting, you know, white populations. And we're seeing more and more that that's not the case. We're seeing a lot more black and brown patients who are going on and suffering, you know, in silence. And we need to bring awareness to the fact that it does affect these communities too. And I think that that, you know, plays a huge role in the fact that there's an underdiagnosis in this population, which is one of the reasons why Crohn's and colitis awareness week exists, right? It's to bring awareness to these diseases that unfortunately are becoming more common and becoming more common still in populations where historically it was thought to not be an issue. And so is it that you are going to have the same,

I know that every case is different, but how do you know the difference between when you're just having random stomach cramps or when you're having occasional diarrhea or feeling fatigue that it's something that you really need to pay attention to and go get checked out? Yeah, so, you know, it's important to know what alarm symptoms to look for. Things like blood in the stool, things like waking up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom to defecate is something that is atypical. Weight loss that accompanies the symptoms that you mentioned and a lot of other things like very severe abdominal pain and kind of moving, shifting gears a little bit. Family history. Right. So this there is a genetic component to this disease. So understanding that if there are other family members who have suffered, too, that might increase your likelihood of having inflammatory bowel disease. So what it all boils down to is if there's any doubt, if there's any question that there's these symptoms that are

kind of lingering longer than you would expect, or, you know, just don't seem right. And you just feel like your inner voice is saying, you know what, there's something that's just really off. And that's been going on for some time. I would not hesitate to see a physician. I think that that's the most important lesson and to really advocate for yourself because, you know, the sooner we can, you know, pinpoint why these symptoms are happening, the sooner we as physicians and other healthcare providers can actually help patients. Well, and what we are realizing, we're hearing more and more stories, turning to you, Melody, we hear more and more stories about black women not being believed. You know, we're seeing the black mom mortality rates. We're seeing

where we're going and complaining about things that are bothering us, that are affecting us physically. And we are not believed. And I understand that that is part of your story, not that you weren't going to the doctor, but that your symptoms were continuously ignored. How did this start for you? And what happened that you were able to finally be diagnosed? What's interesting is that my symptoms actually started when I was a child, probably around six years old. I had chronic stomach aches and we would always equate it to something that I ate or maybe too much sugar, which is naturally what family members or parents do with kids. What did you eat?

And also naturally, what's the next course of action? Ginger ale, Coke, bread, crackers, and that was how we managed it. I don't think it was alarming to my mom or my dad or my family members because we didn't know that stomach issues were actually related to some kind of disease. When I was 13, I started having rectal bleeding. And then I was told, hey, you have internal hemorrhoids. They didn't factor in the fact that I've been having stomach pain since I was six years old. And now I'm having this rectal bleeding. It was just, oh, we did this flexible sigmoidoscopy and we saw that there was some bleeding there. And now we're just going to attach hemorrhoids to it, not factoring anything else. And then I was told to

drink Metamucil. And as I got older, going to the doctor, it was still, oh, well, maybe you should eliminate this and you should stop eating this. Never a workup for anything that would relate to a digestive disease. It wasn't until I had my son in 2013 and I started presenting a lot of random swelling. I didn't know that I had an inflammatory disease, but I started presenting random swelling. A doctor told me to squeeze my lips because my lips would swell up down to my chin

when I was in conversation. Another physician told me that I should become vegan or just start to eliminate more dairy. And I actually did go vegan for a while and it helped, but then my symptoms came back. And this time they came back with a vengeance. I ended up having bloody stool for four months nonstop. And I was dealing with fatigue and nausea. And I felt like my insides were being scraped by scissors every time I used the bathroom. This time when I went to the doctor, I told him that I had abscesses that were reoccurring in my anus. I told him about the bleeding.

I told him about the fatigue. I told him I thought I had an infection. I really honestly thought I had cancer. That's what made me say, let me get myself to the doctor. And with all of that, he still said he didn't see anything. Until three weeks later, I was rushed into the hospital and I had a golf ball size abscess burst. And that led to several surgeries, eight fistula, deterioration of mobility. I stopped walking.

I lost my hair. I had urgency. I was having memory fatigue, night sweats, anxiety, everything you can think of that you would never equate to a digestive disease. And I was finally diagnosed. But after I was diagnosed, I still was subjected to step therapy. Even with my case being so severe, I still was taken through the run of, okay, let's try these pills. Let's try these pills. Let's try this. Let's try that. Okay, now let's introduce you to a biologic. I had suffered for that with digestive diseases for almost 30 years at that point, not knowing that I had this digestive disease. And

then I still had to suffer until they could get the right drug approved in my health insurance. Now, and how long ago was it when you actually were able to get diagnosed and start a course of treatment? So I was diagnosed when I was 36 years old in 2018. And throughout, I even remember just going through college and sleeping in the bathtub at times and having to explain this to my professors that I just really don't feel well. I couldn't give it a name because I didn't have one. I just said I have really bad stomach issues. That's just what I call them. I didn't want to tell the professors that I had internal hemorrhoids. Yes. Well, I was, and I was, I was really asking you more because I'm just thinking in my head, if the statute of limitations is run, because I really

need you to go back and sue every single doctor that failed you. If you haven't already done it, there's a really good civil rights attorney who's going to be on here later in the show. Stay tuned. I feel a hookup coming on, but I'm switching back to Dr. Balzora. What, what tests are there specific tests that should be run that we can empower people with? Like if they're having these symptoms and they want to say to the doctor, no, no, I need you to do this, or I need you to do that. So yeah, so the diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease is complex in that there's not one test that tells us, okay, you know, this test is positive and you have ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease, which are the two main subtypes of

inflammatory bowel disease. Oftentimes, you know, when I have a patient who comes to me with concerning symptoms like the ones that Melody described, we think about going through the history or going through a patient's story in a very detailed way, asking about if other family members have suffered from the disease, asking about other autoimmune diseases because inflammatory bowel disease is an autoimmune disease. And in addition to that, you get blood work to see if a patient may be anemic or have low blood counts, certain tests that tell us that there may be inflammation happening in the body. We oftentimes ask patients to collect their stool to look for any signs of infection that may have very similar symptoms to inflammatory bowel disease. And in addition to that, a procedure called a colonoscopy is warranted, where we're able to

take a direct look inside the intestines. Or sometimes a procedure called an upper endoscopy is warranted, where we take a direct look inside the stomach and the first half of the digestive tract. And in addition to that, oftentimes we'll ask patients to get a CAT scan or an MRI, which allows us to take a look at the entire intra-abdominal cavity and see if there's any signs of inflammatory bowel disease. Like Melody had mentioned, these abscesses, which are collections of infection and pus, the entire intra-abdominal cavity and see if there's any signs of inflammatory bowel disease. Like Melody had mentioned, these abscesses, which are collections of infection and pus, or narrowings in the intestine, or abnormal connections of different body parts, all of which are complications of the diseases. So it really takes a myriad of tests to come down with

the diagnosis. And sometimes it can be tricky. Other times it can be a slam dunk, but ultimately, you know, we hear a melody story. It, you know, it's, it's really a, it's really a cautionary tale. And I'm, I'm, you know, I'm, it really just, it really takes you back because you see that there's so many things at play, some of which are very obvious and others much more subtle as to why the diagnosis is delayed in so many folks. And I think, you know, there were so many alarm signs there for her. And it's just, it's very perplexing, but it really speaks to the fact that we need to give people the ability to be their best advocate and really say, you know what, I need to see a gastroenterologist. I need these tests. I do not feel well. I'm not being productive in my day-to-day. And we really need to come up with an answer as to why this is happening. And so breaking that cycle of bias of thinking, oh, this is just a

disease of white populations is incredibly important because I think that that really does play a big role in why the diagnosis is delayed. Right. And even asking the right questions, I want to go to my panel because, you know, I wouldn't know that people may not know what a gastroenterologist is to ask to see one. I mean, it's all, we perish for a lack of knowledge. And so there's a big vacuum there, it seems to me. But Recy, Greg, Faraji, who has a question? I do. Dr. Balzara, thank you. And thank you, Melody, for sharing your story. That was quite harrowing what you had to go through. But Dr. Balzara, thank you. And thank you, Melody, for sharing your story. That was quite harrowing what you had to go through. But Dr. Balzara, I mean, you listed off, sounded to me like at least a dozen different tests. Can you clarify, are you saying that that's the battery of tests that people would have to go through? Or is there a particular one that you would kind of encourage people who have felt like they have this chronic condition to kind of target first? Because it sounds a little overwhelming to me from what you said. It is overwhelming. And I do, you know, prepare patients for that. And the type of tests that we choose is highly dependent upon what your, what we say kind of like the pre-test probability or

what you think the likelihood of a patient having this disease may be. If their symptoms are quite mild and they sound like they may be less likely secondary to inflammatory bowel disease, we may not have to run that battery of tests. Sometimes blood work and a stool test is sufficient, but in people who have, you know, we're very suspicious that the disease might be present. Like if they have blood in the stool, they're of the right age, they have a family history, you know, and other concerning symptoms and signs, then unfortunately, yes, they do have to go, you know, and other concerning symptoms and signs, then unfortunately, yes, they do have to go through all of that testing. And, you know, this is a marathon.

It's a long haul and it is a chronic disease. And I do prepare people for the fact that, unfortunately, especially when we're trying to come up with a diagnosis and especially when we're doing our best to try to get them well quickly, we are going to need all that information in order to make the right diagnosis. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Basura and Melody, very quickly, in addition to being a living commercial for getting more young Black people in the pipeline to become doctors, I know my second year of law school, I had some of those same symptoms of Melody. And I took that flexible sigmoid coxs, as you know. And I was misdiagnosed as having Crohn's disease. And, you know, thankfully that wasn't the case. But in addition to being a commercial for getting more of our young people in the pipeline,

because not a black doctor touched me at Ohio State Medical Center, and I wish that had been the case. Could you help us for those of us who may not have the resources to make it to a doctor to engage in it? What role does stress, diet, environment, any of those things intersect? Because I think that's what was killing my stomach when I was, and I didn't even know, and they misdiagnosed me. But could you help us understand, you know, what role does some of those things play as well as exacerbating for who do have IBD. So I'll say that, you know, for particularly for the pediatric population with inflammatory bowel disease, specifically Crohn's disease, you know, there is some evidence for patients with mild disease that certain types of diets

may be beneficial in helping with the inflammation or healing the inflammation. For adult patients with inflammatory bowel disease, unfortunately there's not good evidence in support of certain dietary regimens to help with the disease. Ultimately, it is a disease that is helped for the overwhelming majority of folks who suffer from it with medication. In terms of how people get inflammatory bowel disease, that's a much more complicated answer,

but it definitely does, in addition to genetics, you know, there is some environmental component because we are seeing that a lot more, a lot more populations that have become more westernized have a higher population of inflammatory bowel disease. And so there is that relationship there, but it's hard to say, you know, it's hard to point to one thing and say that's the culprit as to why someone has inflammatory bowel disease. But absolutely, when we think about stressful events, when we think about psychosocial stressors, like you were saying when you were going through law school, which can definitely be a very stressful time for many reasons, the gut is very sensitive to that type of stress. So I think whatever inflammation is already there, sometimes the symptoms can be exacerbated by feeling very

stressed. They always talk about this kind of brain kind of brain gut interaction and that's a very real thing, right? Think about a time when you're incredibly stressed in a very stressful situation. And you're, you know, your stomach is the first to react and you have to run to the bathroom. You know, you may feel like your stomach is gurgling. You know, there might be a lot of those reactions that in patients who already have, you know, inflammation in their gut, that just might be even more heightened.

Dr. Balzor, thank you so much. Melody, I have a question for you. What do you say to our watchers tonight about, you know, you mentioning your story of having this very early on in your childhood. How do folks, you know, take the proper steps to kind of get into a better place handling Crohn's disease, especially if, you know, people are not very trusting of, you know, medical professionals at this point? For us, what triggered me to start Cochi, Color of Crohn's and Chronic Illness, is I shared my story because I was trying to shift the narrative with black women entrepreneurs and health. I didn't even know that I had a disease when I had set on that path.

And once I shared that I did, it drew people to me. Like they were asking a lot of questions. They wanted to connect. They were looking for resources. And there literally was none. So I would encourage people to find a community. Find COCHI. Ask questions. Look for people that you trust to support you, get a second opinion.

You can have a second opinion. If a doctor feels some kind of way about you getting a second opinion, they're not the doctor for you anyway, because they should welcome wanting you to feel secure in what the next method is in your treatment and your care. So I encourage that. I do, while Dr. Balzora has said that there's no evidence with how diet plays, I still encourage managing your food because you'll learn what your triggers are. You'll know, hey, if I eat this or I eat that, it'll trigger immediately a challenge or it'll trigger it the next day because managing these digestive diseases is a full-time job too. It's not a one-off. It's chronic. It's a part of life now. And we have to do the best to be the best for ourselves. Thank you. Well, I certainly appreciate all of the information that you all have shared with us

here. And thank you so much, Melody, for sharing your story. Where, and either one of you feel free to answer, where's the best place that people can go to find accurate information? Melody, I'll give that to you as a patient perspective. Well, the challenge that I face with being black, being a diverse patient, is that there isn't a lot of information for us to find. So a lot of resources that we have to look to are generic. They're not culturally specific. One place that I tend to go to for information is Mayo Clinic. I use them as a source, as a resource. I look at the CDC as well because I know that I have to take it and put my spin on it because it doesn't specifically apply to me, but it does generally apply to the disease. So there's validity for me as a patient in that space.

Any? Yeah, I think it's really, oh, I'm so sorry. I was just saying anything to add. Go ahead. Oh, sure. Yeah. I think it's so crucial to find reputable resources, right? You know, if you look deep enough into the internet and you're reluctant about medication, you will find the answers that you want, but they're not always the right answers. So I do encourage patients to go online to, you know, national GI societies, like the American College of Gastroenterology, American Gastroenterological Association, Crohn's and Colitis Foundation. You know, a lot of those will have some nice resources for patients. And I think looking through the different ones and seeing which one is most patient-friendly for you and your needs is incredibly helpful. And of course,

that's a compliment to, you know, what the discussions that you have with your individual physician. Thank you both so much. We wish you well on your journey, Melody, and thank you for the information, Dr. Balzora. Both of you, have a good night. Good night. Thank you both so much. We wish you well on your journey, Melody, and thank you for the information, Dr. Balzora. Both of you, have a good night. Good night. Still to come on Roland Martin Unfiltered, Florida's State St. Thomas University College of Law wants to help train up the next generation of lawyers fighting for justice. Coming up, the man the school is honoring by creating the Benjamin L. Crump Center for Social Justice. But first, a quick break from our partners, Buick and Amazon. Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. We'll be right back. Alexa, play our favorite song again. Okay.

I only have eyes for you. ДИНАМИЧНАЯ МУЗЫКА Субтитры создогнал «Симон» Maureen is saving big holiday shopping at Amazon. So now she's free to become Maureen the Marrier. Food is her love language. And she really loves her grandson. Like, really loves. Hey, I'm Amber Stephens-West. Yo, what up, y'all? This is Jay Ellis, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. It was a dramatic start to the cross-examination of one of the two brothers

accusing Jesse Smollett of orchestrating phony hate crime. Smollett's attorneys questioned Abimdo, let me get his name right, Abimdola Osundario and whether he was secretly dating Smollett or at least used sexual tension to advance his career. Osundario denied that their relationship was romantic and said he did not believe Smollett had a crush on him. He testified Smollett instructed him and his brother to fake a hate crime attack on him in January 2019. Smollett is charged with felony disorderly conduct and faces up to three years in prison. In Ohio, a white police officer faces murder charges for killing a black man a year later.

Franklin County Sheriff's Deputy Jason Meade was indicted on Thursday on two charges of murder and one count of reckless homicide for shooting Casey Goodson Jr. last December. Goodson was walking into the house before he was shot six times by Meade in front of his grandmother and two toddlers. Meade claimed that Goodson was waving a gun around while driving his car and didn't comply with orders to put it away. Goodson had a license to carry a concealed weapon. Meade did not have a body camera at the time of the incident. We've already talked about that today. In Arizona, the cop who shot and killed a Walmart customer in a wheelchair is out of a job. We want to warn you, what you are about to see is disturbing and graphic. If you have any children in the room, this is the time to ask them to leave. Remington was working an off-duty job as a security officer Monday night at a Walmart

when 61-year-old Richard Lee did not obey his command not to enter the store. Top left is right in front of him. He pulled a knife on me. He's currently westbound in the parking lot. I need an additional unit to Bravo 1A at 1650 West Valencia Road. We're going to be 1039. Bravo 1A, copy. It's white male, flannel t-shirt, white hat. We're in front of the DD's discount. And Bravo 1A, we're currently northbound on Oak Tree going towards the lows. And Bravo 1A, 5-0-1 1U5, he's confronted by loss prevention.

He pulled the knife on loss prevention while I was right there. And Bravo 18, we're on the east side of Lowe's in the parking lot, so we're just west of Oak Tree. Still going southbound. Now, Stop now! You need to stop! Tucson Mayor Regina Romero said Remington's actions were unconscionable and indefensible. Remington's attorney said the department's overview of the case is only half the story. The Pima County Attorney's Office is now reviewing the incident. I think they probably mean the crime. Okay, going to the panel. Where do we even start? Where do we even start? Faraji, are you still regrouping from what we just saw? I'm trying to figure out where he was a threat. I mean, he said, first, he's 61 years old. Second, he's in a wheelchair. So how is this man a threat to two able-bodied police officers? I mean, he didn't just shoot one time only. He shot this man seven times. And that's the problem. That's what I'm

saying. This is not rocket science. I mean, you could just, you could say, sir, sir, you know, fire a warning shot or something or use your taser or something. But you just, I mean, the man is literally in a wheelchair and you shoot him that many times because he's rolling into a load with a knife. You couldn't, you mean to tell me as a police officer, you can't get a knife from a man in a wheelchair? You are a whole bitch. You are a coward. Yep. I mean, I got nothing. I don't know what to say about it, Recy.

Well, shoplifting shouldn't result in an execution, a parking lot execution. This is basically the cop I'm going to still, Dr. Carr's word, hunting. It's ridiculous that something like this escalated to that level. But, you know, these cops know that they can get away with it or they believe that they can, but it's unconscionable. I understand that, you know, he said if you want to, if you're going to get this knife away from me, you have to shoot me. That's not a dare. You know, even if he was being a little bit belligerent, you don't get to, you're not supposed to in this country that we supposedly have laws, get to execute a man for shoplifting.

I mean, it's ridiculous. But this is the culture of the police that we have and the policing we have in this country. Yeah. I mean, and they claim furtive gestures. They claim, and I'm sure we're going to hear something about in defense of others. I mean, it's, Greg, go ahead. No, no. I agree.

And, Reese, you didn't steal that. I mean, that's what it is. They're hunting. They are hunters. And the police forces in this country want you if you have a hunting mentality. If you do not, they do not want you. There are many law enforcement officials in this country who don't have a hunting mentality, and they are under constant persecution. As we saw with your brother in Louisiana, who they ran out of his job because he wanted to be a human being and not a hunter. The 10th juror seated today in the Potter trial.

I was again listening to Professor Porter, who was narrating, this is a white man who said that he considered becoming a member of the police force, but then he said, I thought about it and I said, I was afraid that one day I might have to use my gun. So I decided not to. He also said in his questionnaire, his juror's questionnaire, that he didn't understand how a cop like the woman who shot Daunte Wright, Potter, could mistake a gun for a taser when in fact she should have the

muscle memory born from years of being on the force. What we saw right then was a premeditated murder by a hunter who set it up by saying into his little shoulder with all his courage, knife. So as you said, Monique, he's setting up the murder.

And then we watched him empty nine shots into a man in a chair who then slumped over and died. That is not going to stop in this country until we stop it. And then, frankly, whether it be Kyle Rittenhouse getting his car driving from one state to another and asking the police, can I be a deputy and shoot some people? And they say yes. Whether it be the McMichael brothers tracking down Ahmaud Arbery. And the only reason that they were convicted is because some stupid attorney on their side, and they say stupid as

far as they're concerned, let slip a video because the prosecutors had already set it up for them not to be charged. If this man is not only arrested and convicted, and Arizona won't do that because the county attorney has already said just because he had other options doesn't mean that the action he took wasn't inappropriate. This man not only needs to be convicted, you know, people say, well, if you're against the death penalty, you have to be against it in all cases. Right. Right. I'm like, I'm like Rosa Parks. You know what? Give them what they gave you. In fact, you know, Montgomery Busboy started this week in 1955.

Rosa Parks said one of her earliest memories was sitting at her grandfather's feet in their little house in Tuskegee, and he would go to sleep with a rifle over his lap. And she said, as a little girl, he slept there, and we all had to sleep with our clothes on. And she said, I wanted to see him kill a Ku Kluxer. That's Rosa Parks.

This gonna stop when we stop it. Yeah, y'all go look up Rosa Parks. Y'all think about that bus you be able to look at when she says, I want to see him kill a Ku Kluxer. Well, but looking at the prior case that was discussed, the Goodson case, I mean, I don't know how you call this anything other than an execution. And I'm glad, of course, that he's being indicted with two charges of murder and one count of reckless homicide. But it leads you to wonder how many more similarly situated, like-minded people there are who are committing state sanctioned murder and state sanctioned assault. And really, it's ego, right? Because even if all of the facts are true, as he claimed that the man was driving and waving around a gun at the time that he killed him, he was walking into his own self-house.

So we've got an officer who's angry, and it's, oh, no, you won't. And they used their guns to settle those scores. So it, to me, is, you know, we need something more than what we have now, but I'm at a loss for what that is. Reesa, you got any answers before we move on? I don't. I don't have the answers, but stop hunting. That's all I

can say. I mean, it's going to fall on deaf ears, but stop hunting. And just the one more thing about the Goodson. There was no, even exchange that they had. There was no traffic stop. There was no warrant. There was no nothing. It's a man walking into his house with Subway sandwiches. You cannot tell me a man who go to

Subway and decide he want to turn into a cowboy walking into his own house and have a shootout from the back, walking away. That's that. That doesn't even add up, but stop hunting us, please. I can't even say please because I don't like to be it. Stop doing it. Please. I can't even say please because I don't like to beg. Stop doing it.

Period. With a Winchester rifle, that's what I'd be well said. A Winchester rifle. Please goes a lot longer when you got one aimed at them. I'm not fooling with you, Greg. Okay. I'll be well. I'll just help you.

We were not providing you all suggestions. This is just Dr. Gregg philosophizing, leaving some food for thought. It wasn't a directive. Lynch Law and all its phases. Y'all look it up.

That's not me talking. Lynch Law and all its phases. Winchester Rifle. Look it up for yourselves. Okay. Raji, do you have something before we go to a quick break? Just real quick, I wanted to get your take on this because we're seeing more

and more of these incidents happen. As an attorney, you know, what can be done? Because it seems like they go into a grand jury trial and then the decision is made that there was a justifiable homicide or whatever the case may be. That may not be the case in this particular matter, but as an attorney, what recourse do victims and their families have

when police are continuing to shoot people, just, you know, rather hunting people like they're doing right now. Right. Well, I mean, it doesn't even have anything to do, frankly, with being an attorney more than what we've already talked about, because if you yourself are injured or a family member is injured, then the only recourse that you have is in the civil courts. It's up to the state, the prosecutors, the DAs, the attorney general's office to bring criminal charges so the attorneys can only go so far. We elect, in many instances, in many jurisdictions, the DAs. We elect the prosecutors that are in charge of these cases. So the vote is in your hand to determine whether

there's going to be a prosecutor of conscience that is going to let people out of jail who should not be in there, that is going to look at cases with integrity units and figure out whether people should still be in jail, that is not going to go for, you know, mandatory minimums or maximums, it's going to use their discretion, that is not going to try some cases, and then is going to have the courage to try police officers when police officers should be tried. So some of that is in our hands, but I'm going to say it again. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act was supposed to be our attempt at federal solutions

because right now you might be able to get some measure of justice in Oklahoma, but the system in Texas is a hell in a handbasket. Things might be going okay for you in Arkansas and in California, you might, you know, be smooth sailing, free to walk down the street, whatever the case may be. It's state by state, by state, by state until our federal system. That's why I said it's not attorneys, it's our legislature. And who determines whether we have enough people in there where it's not where the vice president has to break a tie, but where we can get control of the Senate and do some things? We control it.

It is up to us to determine our own future. With that, we're going to one maybe final break, and then we'll be right back on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Oh, that spin class was brutal. Well, you can try using the Buick's massaging seat. Oh, yeah, that's nice. Can I use Apple CarPlay to put some music on? Sure. It's wireless. Pick something we all like. Well, you can try using the Buick's massaging seat. Oh, yeah, that's nice. Can I use Apple CarPlay to

put some music on? Sure. It's wireless. Pick something we all like. Okay, hold on. What's your Buick's Wi-Fi password? Buick Envision 2021. Oh, you should pick something stronger. That's really predictable. That's a really tight spot. Don't worry. I used to hate parallel parking. Me too. Hey. Really outdid

yourself. Yes, we did. The all-new Buick Envision. An SUV built around you, all of you. Betty is saving big holiday shopping at Amazon. So now she's free to become Bear Hug Betty. Settle in, kids. You'll be there a while. Ooh, where you going? It's time to be smart.

When we control our institutions, we win. This is the most important news show on television of any racial background. Y'all put two, three, four, five, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty dollars on this and keep this going. What you've done Roland since this crisis

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going to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Our goal is to get 20,000 of our fans contributing 50 bucks each for the whole year. You can make this possible rollingmartinunfiltered.com. Betty is saving big holiday shopping at Amazon. So now, she's free to become Bear Hug Betty. Settle in, kids.

You'll be there a while. Ooh, where you going? Hi, how's it going? It's your favorite funny girl, Amanda Seals. Hi, I'm Anthony Brown from Anthony Brown and Group Therapy. What up, Lana Wells? And you are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. We are right now trying to get attorney Ben Crump on the phone.

He is on a plane from the ceremony that they had earlier today in Miami. I think he's just landed in Chicago and we were trying to get him on the phone to be able to talk to us. But the plane is just sitting there and taking a slow time letting people off. But I want to give you the information because I think we deserve to end this show with some back-to-back good news. St. Thomas University School of Law in Southern Florida honored Attorney Crump today with the Benjamin L. Crump Center for Social Justice. The center will train the next generation of civil rights attorneys and offer mentorship, scholarships, and support after graduation for new lawyers. The social justice center has a $1 million grant and is fundraising for $35 million. As a civil rights lawyer,

attorney Crump has represented the families of Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and many more. And we just want to encourage the work that they are trying to do because it is necessary. It can't be that there's just one Ben Crump out there or one Monique Presley for that matter. There should be scores and scores who are doing work in the public interest. So I'm very excited and thankful that this is happening and that there's money to back it up. It's not just an honor, but a true opportunity for our young people. Now, there's something also happening tonight. I think we're a little late, so maybe you can catch it in process, but Annie Live, I believe, is on right now, if it hasn't already started. And Annie will be played by 12-year-old Selena Smith. And joining Smith is Taraji P. Henson,

Esmus Hannigan, Titus Burgess is set to play con artist Rooster, and Harry Connick Jr. is Daddy Warbucks. I just love seeing us in all kinds of roles and seeing our talents being promoted in ways that have not been so before. So as soon as we finish, go and check out Please Annie. That is it for us for tonight. I want to thank my illustrious, esteemed expert panel, Recy Colbert, Dr. Greg Carr, and Faraji Mohammed. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I just love getting to talk to you all. And thanks to all of you

for joining us here on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming on the Black Star Network. If you haven't done it yet, download the Black Star Network, y'all. You can get it on all your devices. You could have the app. You could be looking right from your phone right now.

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and zell, roland at rolandsmartin.com. Support us, back the black. Thank you guys, I'm Monique Presley, and it's been a joy to sit in for the hardest working man in the business, Roland Martin. Tomorrow, Amisha Cross will be with you. Don't miss the program. Have a great night. CLOSED CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY WKNO-MEMPHIS. ТРЕВОЖНАЯ МУЗЫКА Folks, Black Star Network is here.

Hold no punches! I'm real revolutionary right now. Support this man, Black Star Network is here. Hold no punches! A real revolutionary right now. Black crowd. Support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roland. Stay 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? Thanks for watching.. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1,

Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at the recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family.

They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council.

This is an iHeart Podcast.