#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 'The Inheritance Of Slavery': House Committee Explores Reparations During Heated & Emotional Hearing

Episode Date: June 24, 2019

A House Judiciary subcommittee debated H.R. 40, a bill that would study how the United States would implement reparations to African Americans. Sen. Cory Booker, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Danny Glover and Dr. Julianne Malveaux were among those who testified at the hearing. On Wednesday, Roland Martin; A. Scott Bolden, Former Chair of the National Bar Association PAC; Monique Pressley, Legal Analyst and Crisis Manager; Mark Thompson, Host of Make It Plain and Shermichael Singleton, Contributing Host of Consider It dissected the debate over reparations and how the movement can move forward. Watch the 6.19.19 edition of #RolandMartinUnfiltered https://youtu.be/XC0GBOb7uoY - #RolandMartinUnfiltered partner: 420 Real Estate, LLC To invest in 420 Real Estate’s legal Hemp-CBD Crowdfunding Campaign go to http://marijuanastock.org - ✅ NOW AVAILABLE: #RolandMartinUnfiltered Merch - https://bit.ly/2VYdQok ✅ Subscribe to the #RolandMartin YouTube channel https://t.co/uzqJjYOukP ✅ Join the #RolandMartinUnfiltered #BringTheFunk Fan Club to support fact-based independent journalism http://ow.ly/VRyC30nKjpY ✅ Watch #RolandMartinUnfiltered daily at 6PM EST on YouTube https://t.co/uzqJjYOukP ✅ Join the Roland Martin and #RolandMartinUnfiltered mailing list http://ow.ly/LCvI30nKjuj Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. You can make this possible. All right, folks, let's now talk reparations. That was a congressional hearing today on this very issue. It was led by, of course, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. She is a sponsor of H.R. 40 for a long time. Congressman John Conyers sponsored H.R. 40. And so this was the first hearing on this issue in more than a decade, according to Ron Daniels. I talked to him this morning on the Tom Jonah Morning Show. There were a number of people who were speakers, including Ta-Nehisi Coates, Denny Glover, but also Dr. Julian Malveaux, who's often on our show.

Here is Denny Glover speaking today before Congress. A national reparations policy is a moral, democratic, and economic imperative. I sit here as the great grandson of a former slave, Mary Brown, who was freed by the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1st, 1863. I had the fortune of meeting her as a small child. Despite much progress over the centuries, this hearing is yet another important step in the long and heroic struggle of African Americans to secure reparations for the damages inflicted by enslavement and post-emancipation and racial exclusionary policies. Many of the organizations who are present today at this hearing are amongst the historical

contributors to the present national discourse, congressional deliberations, and Democratic Party presidential campaign policy discussions about reparations. We are also indebted to the work of Congressman John Conyers for shepherding this legislation. The adoption of H.R. 40 can be a signature legislative achievement, especially within the context of the United Nations International Decade of People of African Descent. Ta-Nehisi Coates, of course, who wrote about reparations in the Atlantic, was also one of those who spoke on today's panel. Yesterday, when asked about reparations, Senate Majority Leader

Mitch McConnell offered a familiar reply. America should not be held liable for something that happened a hundred and fifty years ago since none of us currently alive are responsible. This rebuttal proffers a strange theory of governance that American accounts are somehow bound by the lifetime of its generations. But well into this century, the United States was still paying out pensions to the heirs of Civil War soldiers. We honor treaties that date back some 200 years, despite no one being alive who signed those treaties. Many of us would love to be taxed for the things we are solely and individually responsible for. But we are American citizens and thus bound to a collective enterprise that extends beyond

our individual and personal reach. It would seem ridiculous to dispute invocations of the founders or the greatest generation on the basis of a lack of membership in either group. We recognize our lineage as a generational trust, as inheritance. And the real dilemma posed by reparations is just that, a dilemma of inheritance. It is impossible to imagine America without the inheritance of slavery. As historian Ed Baptist has written, enslavement, quote,

shaped every crucial aspect of the economy and politics of America, so that by 1836, more than 600 million, almost half of the economic activity in the United States, derived directly or indirectly from the cotton produced by the million-odd slaves. By the time the enslaved were emancipated, they comprised the largest single asset in America, $3 billion in 1860, more than all the other assets in the country combined. Now, Ta-Nehisi, obviously an author, Danny Glover is an activist,

but where were the economic voices? And that did not sit really well with Dr. Julianne Malveaux, who is an economist. And she sort of shook the panel up. This is what she had to say. I am delighted to be here because this hearing is not on time. It's like overtime. It's more than time for us to deal with the injustices that African American people not only have experienced in history, but continue to experience. I'm an economist. So economics is a study of who gets what, when, where, and why. It's a study of the way the factors of production are paid, the elements on land, labor, capital, and the secret sauce. Some people call it entrepreneurial ability, some call it creativity.

Land gets rent, labor gets wages, capital gets interest, and the secret sauce gets profits. But the work of predatory capitalism is to figure out how to extract more from the factors of production toward capital and away from people. And we've seen that in the past three decades with our own economy. But more importantly, enslavement was about the devil's work of predatory capitalism. Indeed, enslaved people got no wages, and we represented capital for other people. And so after enslavement, first of all, enslavement was the foundation on which our country was built. So anybody who says, well, I didn't have any slaves, no, you didn't have to have any.

What you had to do was experience them, enjoy the fact that they were here, enjoy the fact that their labor made it possible for there to be a Wall Street, a bond market, and all of that. But beyond that, the post-enslavement case for reparations can be made by examining racially hostile public policy and government complicity to white supremacy. All right, folks. Now, what was real interesting about the panel is that you had folks like her and Ta-Nehisi and others who were there invited by Democrats to speak. Then the Republicans press play.

This is not exactly true. Mr. Glover mentioned all of the studies and books that have been written on the subject. I would argue, in fact, that in the 10,000-year history of slavery on every continent, there is not a single example of slavery that has been more studied than slavery in America from the 17th century to the 19th century. So it is actually not true that we have not told the truth, that we don't know our history. Moreover, in the past 50 years, if we're talking about what scholars in America, in the American social sciences, have directed their attention towards, it is hard to find a subject on which more books have been written that has been more studied

than racial inequality. Thank you. Thank you for that. Mr. Owens. Well, there's a difference between what somebody said was being studied and then what really was done. OK, so then, of course, you had this this dude, Burgess Owens. Okay, y'all, here are his credentials. Former NFL player, Fox News commentator. That's the best Republicans

could come up with? Press play. The greatest legacy from my dad, who served in war, World War II, came home, could not do his post-graduate down in Texas because of Jim Crow laws. So put out a lot of letters, ran across a box when he passed away of hundreds of rejection letters. He used that as motivation because he eventually got to Ohio State where he got his PhD and went on to be a very successful entrepreneur, college professor, researcher, and someone who was very proud of our race. He reached back to his very last days to the young people, giving them hope that this country, they can succeed and if they really wanted to, and if they pulled themselves up by the bootstraps, worked harder than the next guy. That's not a racist deal by guys.

That's the American way. We work harder than the next guy. Greatest legacy from him was my belief that I would do everything I could to make sure he was proud that I held his name. The greatest thing for my mom, my dad, I never ever even thought about disrespecting mom. Okay, I don't know what in the hell any of that got to do with what in the hell they were talking about. I just don't, whatever. All right, let's introduce my panel, folks. A. Scott Bolden, former chair of National Bar Association Political Action Committee,

Monique Presley, legal analyst, crisis manager, Mark Thompson, host of Make It Plain. Mark, of course, was also there in the hearing today. Mark, what was interesting, again, I don't even know who the hell these two are, okay? And so here you can just do Burgess Owens, his whole put yourself up by your bootstraps, as if 400 years did not exist as if you do not have undeniable data that shows redlining see they keep talking about obviously uh 150 years since slavery ended

well what took place in 150 years what took placeruction? What still takes place when you talk about the home for closure crisis and the subprime loans as well? Fifty three percent of black wealth wiped out because of homes. And so what planet would they really own? Well, there's a thank you. Happy, by the way, Roland. Good to see everyone. There's a reason why you haven't heard of them, because they were handpicked by the minority members of the committee. And in some of the other interactions, you saw them refer to these individuals by first name. Obviously, they have relationships.

If the four of us decided to be black conservatives and Uncle Tom's like they are, we'd be big fish in a small pond. And that's how you make a name for yourself. I even engaged the young man, Coleman Hughes, because we were on a panel together on another network. And because he keeps saying that we shouldn't get individual checks. And nobody was really making that argument at the hearing. In fact, when in Coburn, the National African American Reparations Commission,

they've been talking about some of the economic things that you alluded to. Maybe we'll get into that a bit later. And I said, Coleman, why don't you stop saying this thing about this individual check? But it's a red herring to inflame the right wing and fearmonger whites that we're coming for their individual money. And that's the only role they play. Their argument was completely... It looks and feels like a welfare check welfare check that's right that's the cold language right also not palance for Michael Singleton who is a contributing host to consider on the box media on more house this is why I tell people all the time you have to understand what the game is Scott right. Right. They want to reduce the conversation to you get a check, you get a check, who gets a check?

One of the points Julianne Malveaux made, I'm going to play it in a second, is that no, you must look at this thing from a system standpoint. And even when this guy Coleman says nothing has been studied more, no, no, no, there are people who are utterly clueless about the real story. It's how it has been framed. That to me is a fundamental issue. But that's the whole debate, though. That's what it all comes down to. Because the red herrings get you off the main view, the main issue. You know, I call it the tree of slavery. You started the base 400 years ago. You had slave for 200 years or however long, right? But the manifestations of it, the branches of slavery that lead us to 2019, the manifestations

are still there. And so if you say that my ancestors are no longer here, you say that white ancestors of others are no longer here, so why should they pay? Well, why not? It still occurred and the manifestations are still negatively affecting us. The Germans apologized to the Jews and paid reparations. America apologized to the Japanese who were put in internment camps and apologized. And yet for 200 years, or 400 years, we were in slavery and nobody wants to apologize to

us. It seems like we're the largest minority and so we got the greatest chance to overcome it but we still struggle with our history of slavery the thing for me monique again when when you hear this dude talk about okay history whatever is not actually understanding uh the link when we did the story two weeks ago free ago, African-Americans lost $3.2 billion in Chicago alone because of discrimination, housing discrimination. Anyone who saw Skip Gates' documentary on Reconstruction, black folks lost a billion and a half dollars that was put into the Freedmen's Bank, stolen and squandered by white folks. There was never a bailout.

Right. A billion five. Right. The equivalent of a billion five lost. And so those are things that folks in this country walking around on Capitol Hill have no idea about because that's the history, not his story. Right. But that wouldn't even matter, Roland, because and I'm going to get through this on June 19th without crying. OK, but I'm from Galveston, Texas. And so it means

something to me. Right. Because I've been the places where it was announced in my great grandfather was a slave when Gordon Granger showed up and said, today you're free. Two years after, right, the freedom actually happened. So today means something to me. But what it really means is there was a transfer of property that should have happened. And there was a transfer of economy that should have happened right then. Because if so, then we could have afforded to lose a billion dollars 100, 200 years later. And it wouldn't have mattered because wealth transfer starts originating in property. That's what this country is about. I'm talking about wealth. I'm not talking about being rich. I'm not talking about red bags, money bags. I'm talking about wealth. I'm not talking about being rich. I'm not talking about red bags, money bags.

I'm talking about wealth transfer where when you die, there's something that goes to your children, whether you had a dime in the bank or not. They automatically have a leg up. And the history that that brother was talking about, yeah, we studied it and we know it, but we don't apply it because right now in Galveston, Texas, I'm rich and I'm wealthy. Why? Because my grandfather who graduated from the Harry chose to be a postman instead of being a pharmacist so that he could own property. My grandmother worked in the home, but she was a nurse's assistant. My mother, who's still alive, was a teacher. My daddy worked at a manufacturing company instead of going to play basketball because they understood what it was about. So today I'm sitting here and I have real wealth.

I can't find no money. God knows I can't for these two. But see, but I don't need nothing, right? And there's a difference. There's a difference. So I agree with that gentleman. I don't know his name, the one they found. Don't nobody else know.

Whatever. So, but he was right. It's been studied, Roland. He's right. It's been more studied than anything else, but he's wrong in that I think what he was saying is because it's studied, we applied the lesson. Well, I dare say- And that's the problem.

I dare say it hasn't been fully studied. Before I go to Shermichael, this was after a series of questions from one of the Democrat members of Congress, and it was a brother who was a preacher. He basically pulled Dr. Julian Malveaux into the conversation. So I want you all to hear this exchange. But you'd have to go really quickly. I had one question for Mr. Coates. So if you wanted to add something real quick, I'm running out of time. No, I'm the economist on the panel. So it's a little bit. No, I know that. It's a little frustrating that economic questions are being directed to non-economists. Well, I think I have some things that I'd like to be able to say about some of this.

But thank you, my brother, for giving me, for passing the mic. I really do appreciate it. The questions about predatory lending really need to, that your sister congresswoman raised, really need to be dealt with because it's not just that it's something that's happening if you're going to talk about about predatory lending could you also add because what i was going to ask him you could probably answer also this whole history of the exclusion of blacks from some of the early programs like social security and oh yes because it all is about economic security so if you could blend your your answer that would be great because then i okay sure is it my time to get my both questions. I mean, we can go back and look at the minimum wage,

which exclude farm workers in the South, which were predominantly black people, excluded domestic workers who were black women. And so these folks were excluded not only from the minimum wage, but also from the social security system. So your comment about black women in nursing homes is very pointed given all of that. I mean, we have to look at this. The hearts and minds questions, I'm an economist, so I leave that to the reverend. But my thing is let's look at the economic underpinnings of the inequality that exists in this country, the wealth gap that exists in this country, and the differences that it makes.

Sister Congresswoman, when you talked about predatory lending, a third of the people who had predatory loans qualified for regular loans, a third of them. However, they did not get them because of the way that slavery, racism basically segregated people. So while it's lovely to sing Kumbaya, which I don't do very often, I think it's even better to talk about what's going on economically and the differences that exist because of the wealth gap. When a black woman, man, is arrested absent wealth, they lay up in the jail for I don't know how many days

because they don't have the home to mortgage to get the bail. And cash bail is discriminatory. And so we can just go down the list and talk about the very many ways that racism affects the quality of folks' lives. And with all due respect to these Kumbaya brothers over here who, you know, I'm proud of my family, too. I mean, we good black people, too. I have a Ph.D. and two MBAs in my family. But I'm not I'm proud of my family too. I mean, we good black people too. I have a PhD and two MBAs in my family. I'm not going to give you my family history. But, you know, it is irrelevant. It is irrelevant when you're dealing with structure. I want y'all Congress people to deal with issues of economic structure and economic structure has generated an inequality

that makes it difficult for people to live their lives. When zip code determines what kind of school that you go to, when zip code determines what kind of food you can eat, these are the vestiges of enslavement that a lot of people don't want to deal with. Forgive my, you know, I'm kind of over the top, but I usually am. Those in the audience who know me know, you know, tick, tick, boom. But the fact is that I'm gratified, Sheila, Congresswoman Jackson Lee, for these hearings, but I'm also frustrated for the tone that some of this has taken because it takes us away from the economic underpinnings of what needs to go on here. Thank you.

Sure, Michael. The issue that, one, the discussion is critically important. And as far as I'm concerned, who the Republicans put up was a waste of time. There are conservative black economists. There are black conservatives who could talk about this issue, even if they oppose it. You put up a dude who's on fox news a contributor who played football i can't listen to him i mean who brings and literally his entire presentation was you know work hard like my grandfather told me my daddy told me that's how you get ahead it's like that's it well what's interesting about this so for our vox media, we actually have an episode next week coming out

on reparations. And we centered it on Georgetown University, which is the first U.S. institution that has attempted to sort of address repaying the descendants of slaves. So it's academic. It's still the very first, correct, in April. And that was a student decided the university hasn't made a decision yet. But in the research of doing this, we spoke with a Duke University economist, and what the economist was saying was, based upon his calculations, there's about 30 million individuals that he estimated would be able to receive some form of a reparation, whatever that would look like. But going through the history, we discovered President Obama didn't support reparations. And I'm going somewhere here. Joe Biden just announced he doesn't support

reparation. And so as we continue to look through this, what we found was not only are there white Republicans who don't necessarily support this, there's also a lot of white Democrats in Congress who don't support this. So looking at it legislatively speaking, we sort of came to the conclusion that even trying to set up a committee to explore this would almost nearly be impossible. But here's on that point. And so, look, somebody asked me

in Longerone to support reparations. I'm like, no. Here's why I said it. Because I'm looking at the reality of legislatively. And my whole deal is this is where they are. Unless you change who's there that's the key at the end of the day i can make the economic and moral argument

okay why it makes sense i can go through the history i can lay out all the facts it still gets to the question of will it pass we're not even at the point, as far as I'm concerned, of having a count to vote discussion. The problem here, Mark, is that we have folks who actually, with all the books and all the studies being done, don't want to contend with dealing with this very system and how it was actually create capitalism was created by slaves okay america had no economy read gerald horn's book on the american revolution uh read all these books to understand uh cotton understand these things the reality is you have this system and it wasn't just for 243 years of slavery it It was a 92 years of Jim Crow slavery by another name. And so when you start breaking all those things down, people in this country who don't want to even own up to the reality that white soldiers walked out of World War Two with the GI Bill.

This school, they want to bought homes in the suburbs, all kind of stuff like that. Well, black soldiers literally could not. That ain't slavery. That's 40s, 50s, 60s. Fair Housing Act wasn't passed until 68. Right. So if the Fair Housing Act was passed in April 68, and you know it takes really five to 10 years for law to jail, if you you will we're now in the 80s yeah well that's why this is a new and updated hr 40s hr 42.0 really because the original conyers bill was going to do a study of slavery this is a study of uh everyone stipulates slavery existed but this is a study of what form reparations would take, not only for slavery,

but for slavery's vestiges, which includes lynchings, Jim Crow, segregation, lack of access to capital, being left out of Social Security, Homestead Act, GI Bill, Fair Housing Act, Voting Rights Act, and the current criminal justice system, which includes modern day lynchings of police violence and mass incarceration. All of that is included in this. And what the two Republican Uncle Toms were not willing to say out loud. No need to call him Uncle Toms. I don't believe in name-calling.

Just say we disagree with it. That's just my thing. I don't believe in Uncle Toms, sellouts, coons, N-word. I can say they're black conservatives who are wrong. But I didn't call him coons, N-word. I can say they black conservatives who are wrong. But I didn't call them coons. I know that. Go ahead. Hold on, Monique.

Finish your point. Finish your point, Monique. Okay, so the point is what they refuse to acknowledge is that there are vestiges of slavery that still exist. Every form of racism and oppression that we continue to deal with is a vestige of slavery. He mentioned the tree, the term we've always used as vestige. That's the same thing. And so that's what this bill would address and what form reparations would take for all of this inclusive money. Right. And everything that he named is accurate, but everything that he named was related to a physical manifestation of slavery. And when Dr. Anita Phillips was on here, what she talked about is the way that slavery

has embedded itself into our DNA code as people of color and how we have suffered psychologically, how we have suffered mentally, how we have suffered socially as black people because of things that happen during slavery that now are a part of our psyche it makes it less possible for us to succeed even if we had certain things that were a grant and a given to people who were not black so for me if somebody

asked me if I support reparations I don't know how I say I don't. We have found our way to the moon, right? In this country, we have a way to the moon. What do you mean by that? We're smart. Oh, yes. I'm sorry. Go right ahead. So we can't figure out how much you get. I mean, it's not you get a car, you get a car, you get a car. I get it. My point is, no, but here's the thing. It's one thing to say we don't have a legislature to get it done. It's another thing to say we don't have a right president. We didn't have a black one. What, do we need a horse? It's one thing to say, come on now, that it's a hard thing. We in this country do hard things. It wouldn't matter if we got

it wrong, Sir Michael. It wouldn't. Because if we got it wrong and he received something and you did and I did, now I don't know about your ancestors, I'm just saying, and you got something. Listen, okay. What, just because I'm light skinned did I get less? I'm saying a little sketchy. Yeah. You and I both.

We are not. We are not. That's racist. That's racist. But my point is, hell, give me $1,000 and let's move forward and figure it out again. No, no, no. Because the argument, Roland, that people are trying to make is that we shouldn't get anything. Oh, no, no, I understand that.

That is garbage. And Scott, what bothers me again is when, and again, look, game recognize game. If you want to have this conversation and it stops at 1863. Mm-hmm. But I can't ignore what took place with the Great Compromise of 1876. Right. And it became the Great Compromise, actually the election of 1876 and the Great Compromise of 1877.

I can't ignore where literally black folks, and Julianne talked about it, I didn't play it, the black folks, she talked, who were run out of town. Black people who literally left land they owned. Black people who were so oppressed by racism and bigotry packed their stuff up

and left Mississippi and Alabama and Texas and Arkansas. Left land. I can't forget. I can't forget the black folks who also had the land stolen by racists. The history, see, where the study comes up, where I think Homeboy's wrong,

is that if you actually study black folks since actually 1619, what you will see is bootstraps pull down yeah pull bootstraps up right pull back down i can show you a line right from 1619 to present day where black folks pull bootstraps up right pull back down And the last big pull down was in 2007, 2008 with the home foreclosure crisis when 53% of black wealth was wiped out because of that. That was black folks bootstrapping up. That's actually been our history. When we have done that, got pulled back down. That's a good point. Calculate all the bootstraps coming down,

up and down. Monetize it, right? That's a number or a series of numbers, if you will. The other thing I want you to listen to us to understand is I heard Mitch McConnell and others talk about, I don't know whether we could do this constitutionally or not. Are you kidding me? This is an allocation. Well, hell, you just $28 billion to farmers who got screwed by the terror. And hell, that wasn't even a vote. So don't go for the, okay, it's a budget item. It is a budget item. Sure, Michael, again, that for me is why I disagree with Holm when he said we've studied.

Because, I don't know, we haven't really owned up to it. I'm going to tell you this story before I want you to speak. I spoke at a black construction conference that was at National Harbor a few years ago. So I meet this sister, and her job is to ensure that you don't have front construction groups in North Carolina. So she tells me she meets this, it's the largest construction company in North Carolina. She says tells me she meets this, the largest construction company in North Carolina.

She says, how did y'all get started? And the guy says, well, our daddy was in the army. And when World War II ended, our daddy said that, you know what, I wanna start my own construction company. So he went to the bosses who were white. Hey, we got this surplus pave equipment and stuff.

Can I just have some of it? And they said, yeah. Whatever. Homeboy leaves the army with a government handout. Yep. Starts a construction company. Builds it up.

And to this day, his sons and their sons and daughters are now the beneficiaries of a government handout. You can't show me a black soldier who left with a shovel. But his business was started with army surplus equipment and making millions of dollars so that only to hear free equipment he could apply for the contracts so even if a black soldier was given free equipment they couldn't even apply for the contracts so when I hear McConnell and others talk about oh it was so long ago no I can show you black people who are living today the vestiges who could not even be it for a contract if they had equipment could apply for the jobs couldn't buy a home in a certain place so as a result black person over

here bought a house in the neighborhood house may have been twelve thousand dollars the white person's house was thirty five thousand dollars they couldn't even sell the house for twelve thousand when they tried to sell it they sold sold it for like $12,100. So they made $100 on the house. Yet a person over here resold a house for $40,000. They got $5,000 from it. Guess what? That ain't slavery.

That's still the American story. That, to me, is why you have to have a real conversation that brings it up to present day of how black folks have been economically denied in this nation. Well, what's interesting about this is not only was the nation's wealth built off of free slave labor, you talk about many American businesses, Wells Fargo, for example, Brooks Brothers, for example, you talk about all the insurance companies that you talk about, the Ivy League universities, the Georgetown's, the Harvard's, the Yale's, all essentially off of the selling of slaves in order to stay open. Correct.

So I think this is a very nuanced situation that I don't think a lot of politicians, just to be honest, and Frank, aren't really interested in learning more about, which is why I do agree that we need to have some type of of a committee to explore this further, because I think there's this sort of mis, I guess, understanding that, oh, it's just going to be free checks, free checks. We don't want to do that. Well, this is a far more complex issue that we need to address. And I don't know any black person who's saying I want anything free. I think what people are saying is we want to make sure that we have the same playing field as everyone else. And that currently does not exist because of systemic racism

that can be traced back to slavery. Which is the same. But we don't need another study. It's a waste of time. The McConnell's of the world. And I and I and I respect Schumacher's position on this. But sure, they'll say they don't get it. They'll say they don't get it. And we'll be three more administrations past getting it with a study about how we can figure out just how much we are really owed. No. So how do you start? How do you put a metric on it? Tell me your metric on everything that Roland just said. And this is why maybe you can't. You go back to what we all agree on. Slavery bad, right? Yeah. Is anybody disagreeing? OK, no. So well, hello. So we were glad to be there. You know what? And even still, because, Scott, you and I as lawyers, we know that if you keep people against their will and you force them to do labor for however much time, there is a very easy system, a calculus for what they are owed for that.

And then we from there figure out, oh, OK, you kept them from that. And then when they were freed, they didn't get property. Oh, OK. And they didn't get property. And when they got money, they couldn't get a bank loan no no no would you we have to start we have to start go go right well would you take 40 acres in a mule which is another broken promise america made to people of color black people rather here's what i am would you take it today hell yes give me my 40 acres right now i'm not saying I'm finished because I still, we have a constitution, right?

So I can still sue. I can still ask for more. I can still re-legislate. I can still elect people like you. Give me my 40 acres and then let's talk. Give me my one mule for my land and then let's have conversation, because what I can do with 40 acres right now, 40 acres where? New York? 40 acres in New York City. You're going off today. I just want to hear it, not to be stuck in politics or the legislative process, but that's

what I love. And I'm just trying to figure out, even if we are able to assign some type of a numerical value to this, how do you get it through Congress? Even if we ignore the McConnells, let's say we don't set up a committee. Let's say it's a trillion dollars. We all agree to it. How do you get it? Here's and to that point. And that's why when somebody asked me this about 10 years ago, I was like, look, if you want to spend.

I said, Roland, why don't you spend more time on reparations? I was like, I said, I'm looking at votes. I said, I'm pregnant if I count votes. I said, that's where I stand. I said, the people who support it, I said, who are fighting for it, I said, you know what, I'll put them on the air. I said, and I haven't told the story, but I look at finite time. The reality is this. Why the study, why the breakdown, everything that you said, why does it all matter because like anything else that has passed in this country you have to create resonance you have to create momentum to where you where you frame that look how many people literally said ain't no way in hell we're gonna be able to get the right to vote right after candy gets killed

look everybody forgets the original civil rights bill that dr king and others supported had all of it in one lbj was like i can't get all of it in one the original civil the first part was a 1960 civil rights act after kennedy dies lbj goes okay i can't get all that in one it was broken up into three pieces 64 civil rights act which was public accommodations 65 was voting 68 was housing he said i'm gonna it, but I can't get all of it at once. You have to create that, which is where voting comes in. So when I hear people say, unless this happens, I ain't voting. If you don't vote, it's not going to happen. No, you because here's the deal.

You have to you have to elect a Congress that is going to be amenable to your argument. Okay. To your argument. Your argument. But health care is a much more timely and relevant example to me. So we need... That took 50 years. No, no, no. But okay.

Actually, I'm sorry. But we're right here. Actually, 150 years. But we're here. But we're here. No, but what I'm saying is how long it took for everybody to get passed. And I support no candidate. But what I will say is right now,

every front runner. But Biden says yes to reparations. So we need a reparations Democratic candidate because Trump is a nonstarter. So we need a Democratic candidate and then we need a Democratic House because that's how we got health care, right? So, and we need whatever version of a bill we can get where something is passed. Actually, hold on one second. I said what we need. Actually, you have Democratic, President, House, and Senate. That's how guys are.

And 2020 is viable for that if we're about our business. I'm not certain, though. Final comment on this. Even if realistically we were able to get a magic wand and grant what you're asking for. No magic wand, just votes. Or votes. I'm just not even convinced that if Democrats control the House or the Senate that you would have enough votes because you have to look at some of the districts that some of those members even represent but i'm not convinced some of those white members but here's the deal

but here's the piece you don't need 435 or 100 mark thank god what you need is you need 218 in the house well that's true we don't never need it you need a simple majority or six in the senate and then what you actually and i dare say you actually need more than that because assume it's going to be a veto even if it's a democratic president so the bottom line but but again to the people who are watching mark i'm going to speak to this this is the final comment if you got 60 people who sign on now right and the next session you got 90 you picked up 30 that's right the problem i have is with folks who don't understand that, look, it is not going to happen in a year. But if you decide to not vote, you have absolute guarantee it will never happen. You know, there were some people there today that have been propagandized that way.

But I was watching people today and afterwards i talked some of those people and they couldn't come up with an argument against anything that was said yeah so just like all of our struggles they've taken time we didn't know we'd be here today on this juneteenth 2019 and i'm very moved by the story you told by the way about your great grandfather we didn't know right now that we'd be having a hearing on reparations right now we didn't know all this enthusiasm would come forward. We can't time it. But our generation has to continue to struggle. And sometime, if not in our lifetime, the next generation will see this to fruition.

But you're absolutely right. I think this can get done. It won't be tomorrow. And it is wrong to say to people if it's not resolved by 2020, they're not going to vote. It is an ongoing struggle and on this juneteenth i'll simply close by saying in the words of frederick douglas the price of freedom is eternal vigilance so we can't stop and for the folks who understand voting you can talk about 15th amendment all day but then you had the 65 civil uh the 65 uh voting rights act okay and

you're dealing with that that's right that's our's our history. All right, folks. Back to that Rolamark unfiltered video in just one moment. All right, folks, they're back. Marijuana stocked out over. It's another great investment opportunity. Now, if you were lucky enough to invest in their last crowdfunding campaign, you know, they raised a bunch of money in just a few months investing in legal marijuana farms. Those initial investors now own shares of a publicly traded company. Folks, now again, a lot of y'all missed it, but now you have a second chance. They have a new investment opportunity that is as good, if not even better than the last. I'm talking about industrial hemp CBD. Now, for those who don't know, the hemp plant is the cousin to marijuana with a much higher

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