#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Trump acquitted; Biden's policy priorities; McDonald's sued; LAPD cops' George Floyd 'Valentine'

Episode Date: February 16, 2021

2.15.21 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Trump acquitted; Biden pressed on policy priorities; McDonald's sued for racial discrimination; Family of Dijon Kizzee files $35M claim over fatal police-involved shooting; Phoenix Cops caught on their own body cameras wishing they brutalized protesters; LAPD cops' George Floyd 'Valentine'; Virginia High Court hears appeals over removing Robert E. Lee statue; Music icons produce independent film, 'Tasmanian Devil'; Author Heather McGhee talks "The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together" Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered #RolandMartinUnfiltered is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. Today is Monday, February 15th, 2021. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, 43 gutless Republicans vote to acquit Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial, but this still was the most bipartisan impeachment ever. Hmm, we'll talk about that. Also, I'll talk with Reverend Dr. William J. Barber the most bipartisan impeachment ever.

We'll talk about that. Also, I'll talk with Reverend Dr. William J. Barber about the Poor People's Campaign's fight for $15 an hour minimum wage. Also, the family of Dijon and Kizzy, who was shot and killed by police in LA, they have filed a $35 million claim against the LA County. Also, the LAPD is investigating its department after a photo of George Floyd with the words

you take my breath away in a Valentine's-like format was caught circulating. Also, Phoenix cops were caught on body cam footage saying they wish they'd brutalized Black Lives Matter protesters last year. In Virginia, Supreme Court has agreed to hear appeals in cases that are seeking

to block the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond. Plus I'll speak with rappers Birdman and Benny Boom. Actually, my frat brother was a director about the independent film, Tasmanian Devil. Birdman, of course, record label CEO. Benny Boom is of course a movie director. Also, we'll chat with author Heather McGee

about her latest book, The Sum of Us, What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, which highlights inequality. Plus, we'll show you video of fans lining up in Harlem to attend a public viewing. The late actress is Lou Tyson. It is time to bring the funk on Roller Mark Unfiltered. Let's go. He's got it, whatever the miss, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the find.

And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling, best belief he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks, he's rolling. It's Uncle Roro, y'all. It's rolling, Martin, yeah It's Uncle Roro, y'all Yeah, yeah, yeah It's Rollin' Marten Yeah, yeah, yeah Rollin' with Rollin' now

Yeah, yeah, yeah He's broke, he's fresh He's real the best You know he's Rollin' Marten Now Overwhelming evidence, laid out, video, tweets, direct quotes from rioters. House managers could not convince 43 gutless Republicans to vote to convict Donald Trump.

Folks, it was, of course, it took place on Saturday, the vote that took place. Now, it was also marked by some drama when Democrats actually led the vote to actually call witnesses. And then after a whole bunch of back and forth, they were like, yeah, we're good. We're not going to call witnesses. Still makes no sense. But seven Republicans did vote to convict Donald Trump. Richard Burr of North Carolina, Mitt Romney of Utah,

Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. They voted in addition to Susan Collins of Maine. You also had, of course, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Then of course you had the Senator from Louisiana. Boy, not sitting too well with folks there. They want to move to actually censure him. It just, it shows you, again, how utterly crazy it is, where they needed 67 votes to convict Donald Trump of insurrection

and citing the riot or the insurrection. Didn't get it. Now, after the acquittal, Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell spoke about what it meant what it meant for the country But you know what? I'm not gonna sit here and waste the damn video showing them because they just went back and forth and they really But the person who was really embarrassing was that fool McConnell's he stood in front of the camera show He stood in front of the cameras and and what is outlandish was oh how Donald Trump he did this and he did that, but he tried to hang it on process. he literally said that because Donald Trump was no longer president, that's why it was moot.

Then he said that it wasn't constitutional. But y'all keep in mind, the Senate actually voted. And they approved it by saying it was constitutional. So even after the Senate voted to say the impeachment trial was constitutional, McConnell stands there and then says that it wasn't, but they've already said it was.

Then do I need to remind y'all what happened? The House voted to impeach Trump. McConnell said he would not call the Senate back into session to consider the impeachment. But now you want to stand in front of the cameras on the Senate floor and say, we can't do it since he's no longer president,

when you were the one who could have changed that. But a little bit later in an interview with Politico, Mitch McConnell said the only thing that he cared about was electability. So he made it clear.

I don't give a damn about all that. I'm trying to get the Senate back. So I'm not going to vote to convict Donald Trump if that's going to keep me from getting the Senate back. And thank goodness, thank goodness, Collins, Murkowski, Sass of Nebraska, Toomey. Thank goodness they voted the right way.

Romney. Thank goodness that they had enough sense to say, you know what? Hey, the guy was guilty. Thank goodness. You actually had Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana who made it real clear that Trump was guilty. And then you have Burr as well. But then you have the folks like Senator Lindsey Graham, who goes on Fox News and says,

oh, because of this, I can guarantee you that when Kamala Harris is president, first of all, I'm glad that he's calling this thing forth, that she's going to be the next president of the United States after Joe Biden. I appreciate that, Mitch, Lindsey. He says, oh, I guarantee you that if she becomes president, Republicans, we get back the House. We're going to impeach her because she bailed out riders. Do y'all see how small and petty they are? Do y'all see how small and petty they are? Do y'all see how they operate here?

I keep telling y'all, you cannot trust the 43 Republicans who voted to acquit Donald Trump. They are gutless people. They are people who ran for their lives when these white domestic terrorists took over the Capitol, and they didn't even have the credibility to hold them accountable. Freaking down with our panel. Avis Jones, the Weaver Leadership Strategist,

joins us. Gary Chambers, who is running for Congress in Louisiana. Dr. Avis, of course, and Dr. Julian Mavo, economist, President Emerita Bennett College. Avis, it was just quite interesting to, and I knew it was going to happen. McConnell gives this grandstanding speech. Oh, and the folks in media, mainstream media,

they go, that powerful speech that Mitch gave on the floor, it was grossly hypocritical to sit there and just way lay down Trump when you just voted to acquit him by then saying, well, you know, he could really be held liable. He could, you know, in criminal proceedings. And then went on to talk about how that they didn't meet the criminal definition of incitement

when a Senate impeachment trial is specifically not a criminal proceeding. In fact, the Senate can write its own rules. They can determine high crowns and misdemeanors, whatever they want to call it. It doesn't have to actually fit a criminal statute or definition because it's not a criminal trial. 43 gutless Republicans cannot be trusted with the security of this country. Absolutely not. You know, if Mitch McConnell had a neck, I would say that he was talking out the side of his neck, but since he is neckless, I guess I can't say that. But what I will say is that they are spineless. They are cowardice.

They have made the decision that they will sell their souls, their party, their party, this democracy to the devil in the form of Donald Trump. They've also said, unfortunately, what has been quite consistent throughout American history, and that is that there is never any major consequence, and sometimes no consequence at all. In fact, arguably most of the time, no consequence at all when it relates to white violence and white pathology. This is one thing that has been consistent for centuries in this nation. And as far as many people like to claim we have come with regards to race. The reality is, when you see things like this happen in front of the world, for the entire world to see, it is quite clear that we haven't gotten

anywhere near as far as a lot of people claim that we have. It was an excuse. It was a way for him to be able to try to have it both ways and try to get some back into the good graces, into those donors that have dumped them. But the real deal is they are not standing up against white nationalism and white supremacy. And they're definitely not standing up for this democracy, which they claim to be leaders within. The thing here, Julianne, is, you know, a cop was killed. Two committed suicide. Another one had his eye gouged out. Another one lost three fingers.

Numerous cops have been dealing with concussions and other injuries. But the law and order crowd didn't give a damn. They basically said, those white folks were there for us. Yeah, we're good. We're past. We'll move along. This is so egregious, Roland, when you look at the loss of life, the loss

of limb, to lose your eyesight behind BS is just egregious. But what's even more egregious is that those folks were in that room. They were in that chamber. They know what happened. They experienced what happened.

And apparently they have such fealty to that man that they basically, it's like what are you going to look at? The truth or your lying eyes? And, you know, they denied having to get under desks. The person I really want to hear from, Roland, is Mike Pence. I would really love to be a fly on Mike Pence's wall when he's talking to his wife, because Trump basically called those people out on Mike Pence, his vice president, who had toted around him for four years. And he didn't even give him the courtesy. He tried to make him break the law, and he did not give him the courtesy of even when the riot was in full force,

say, don't hurt Pence. They're shouting, hang Pence, hang Pence. And he didn't even have the spine to say anything. These, as you say, is 43, let's not even call them spineless, people who have no integrity, no decency, no commitment to the Constitution. They just don't care. And just for the record, as they talked, they kept making false equivalencies with Black Lives Matter. But when has any protest with Black Lives Matter killed an officer of the law, blinded an officer of the law, maimed an officer of the law?

So, you know, they just need to go away. way. Gary, it is really comical, frankly, to listen to any Republican defend the madness of Donald Trump, to listen to them whine and complain, oh, we need to move along. But it's also frustrating to listen to Democrats. And i had a lot of people telling me i was wrong on saturday when i called out the democrats because i'm sorry what's the whole point of having a vote to call witnesses then you punk out and just say well we're going to issue the statement i would just really put it into the public record and then they say well this was going to drag along and it was never going to convince any Republicans.

I could have told your ass before the first impeachment last year that you were not going to get votes. In fact, let me remind people in the history of the United States, we've now had four impeachments. Three presidents have been impeached by the House. Three.

Donald Trump impeached twice. In the four impeachments in American history, there's never been a conviction. This impeachment, Sarity, drew the most votes of the opposing party. Seven. You've never gotten close to 67. So even if you didn't call witnesses to me, you still put them on the record. You still have them testify before the American people, and you still have them sit there and have that Republican congresswoman sit there,

and you force Kevin McCarthy to come and testify. You force Kelly, uh, Conway to say, talk about the phone call you made to Donald Trump to send in the National Guard. You force them to do that. That, folk, is why you do it. That's why you do it. Gary, go ahead. You know, I'd have to agree with

you 100%, Roland. You know, when we look at this country, it's not just Republicans that are failing us, but mediocre Democrats. Democrats who don't have the courage to stand up and speak truth to power. I'm blown away that a senator from Louisiana voted for

it, but glad that he did. But we need to remember that John Kennedy is up for reelection in two years, and we need to send him home with his homeboy Trump. Now, of course, Kennedy voted to acquit. He did. He did. He voted to acquit Trump, and we need to remember that vote and send him home in two years when he decides to run for reelection. It is never a shock to me that white men give white men a pass when they break the law. We all know that if the third president to be impeached had been Barack Obama, he would have been convicted by a Republican Senate. The truth is, you know, we have got to absolutely put people on the record. I have fought for issues like that on a local level

and had pushback, right? Because people feel like, well, it's not gonna matter. It matters to put it on the record so that it will remain in history forever. And there is no greater document than the documents that come from the halls of Congress. And bringing those people before the American people and allowing them to say out of their own mouth,

not read it in a news report, not read it, uh, or hear about it on CNN or Roland Martin, but to find out from the people, from the horse's mouth, as they say, what took place with Donald Trump. Because apparently, some people still don't believe it. And the way that you ensure that there's never a question about what happened is you put it on the record.

The thing here that people have to really begin to understand is that what Republicans have said here, Avis, is that, man, whatever Trump wants, we fine. It don't matter. He can say and do whatever he wants to do. We're good with it. And I need people to stop saying that they are scared of Donald Trump's base. No, they're not. They are embracing the racism. They are embracing the bigotry. They are embracing everything that has to do with these folks. That's what they're doing. Absolutely. This allows them to do what they have been doing, quite frankly, for years, but just now in a much more open and honest way, right? They've been playing this Southern strategy race card type of politics for decades. And so this is nothing new. What Trump has allowed them to do is to be very bold and overt about it.

And this is why you have a situation where, you know, you have people giving this crazy, wacko QAnon woman, Green, right, a standing ovation when, you know, when she's having the meeting just in front of her Republican caucus and sitting there trying to, and more people really trying to release Dick Cheney's daughter from her position in leadership among the Republicans. You know, it's like the whole Trump cancer has definitely provided a space for this party to finally be what apparently it's been wanting to be for decades. Think about, too, really quickly, that when they had their Republican National Convention, they had no platform. Let's remember, they had no platform. They have no policy planks. The only thing that they promised to do was to do whatever Donald Trump wanted them to do.

And it seems as if they are staying true to that creed, even though he has lost the White House, lost the Senate, and has done nothing but lost things, lost the House, actually, under his first administration, when he was in office. He's done nothing but been a loser to them the entire time, but they continue to follow him down that path because as you mentioned, he is singing the song out loud that for years they've been singing behind closed doors. The thing here moving forward,

Julianne is that, I just keep trying to explain to these people, Dems were like, hey, let's move on because if we don't, they're going to drag this out. Do I need to remind people? Republicans spent 37 days impeaching Donald Trump. Excuse me, impeaching Bill Clinton. 37 days. They spent eight days confirming Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court.

This little thing here didn't even last two weeks. So all of this, oh, they're going to drag it out. Let me just help all y'all people who were criticizing me. They're going to do it anyway. Julianne, the Republican Party is going to obstruct

the Biden agenda anyway. You wouldn't earn no goodwill with Republicans by ending it on Saturday. No, you didn't. They are going to obstruct anyway. Well, you know, my sole disappointment, I think that the Democrats did a really great job. And I adore Jamie Raskin. I think he's brilliant. But my sole disappointment was that they didn't call witnesses.

They could have called witnesses. Witnesses would have given texture to this whole thing. And so to sort of blink at the last minute, after having done such a great job of laying everything out, the tweets, the speeches, all of that, it's, you know, sort of like, where's your spine? But, you know, these Republicans have, as you said, they're going to give Trump whatever he wants. They've already started obscuring and blocking the Biden agenda. Nancy Pelosi has said that she's going to send the Raise the Pay Act. It's called, yeah, Raise the Wage Act of 2021. And they've already talking about they don't want to pass it. Most of those who say that come from southern states, that many states, about 26,

have a minimum wage that's higher than $7.25, which is a federal minimum wage. D.C. is 15. Seattle is 15. Washington state is 12 and change. So many states do have a higher minimum wage. But the southern states especially, and not only southern, there's some Midwestern too, they're still at $7.25. And these senators are saying they're going to block it. Now, remember, Biden said when he was running, he supported, you know, the fight for 15, he supported $15 an hour. So this gives these folks an opportunity to clown. But what, you know, I know you have Reverend Barber coming on and I know he's going to break it down. But as he puts it, the majority, almost half of all Americans are living in poverty.

Even when the minimum wage goes up, Roland, I mean, it goes up. If it passes, it goes from the $7.25 to $9.50 this year. And eventually it gets to 15. But if you look at it, people who are making $11 an hour in 2022, unless they have two earners working full-time, full year in the household, they're still living below the poverty line. Now, these Republican senators have constituents who are living below the poverty line. So what is wrong with them? And the answer is that that man, 45, has unleashed basically a racial rage with these white folks who are poor. And they seem to think that somehow Black folks have taken something from them, that the elites have taken something from them. Who's taken

something from them is that president and the United States Senate. The point here, Gary, the Republican Party has no plans to cooperate with Democrats. None. We are about to see massive obstruction. So if Democrats want to play ball,

you better start playing hardball, not beach ball. Hmm. It is absolutely laughable to me that every time a new election passes, that we have people who believe that Republicans are gonna start working together. The sister gave the facts as it is. You know, the worst states in this country

are ran by Republicans. Yet we continue to allow them to run around pretending that they have solutions to America's problems. Louisiana ranks 50 in the nation roll. We rank 45 in health care, 47 in education, 50 in opportunity. And we rank 50 in crime because we rank 50 in opportunity. And our state legislature is ran by Republicans. And we only have one black Democrat that represents us in Congress. So when you want to talk about failing policies, I'm telling you, as someone who lives in the worst state in America, that Republicans are failing the people that they represent.

The question is, when do poor white folks wake up the way that Fred Hampton got the white folks in the Appalachian Mountains to see, that they're screwing you too. They're not just screwing us. Don't think that when they decide to not give you a higher pay, that that's just impacting black folks. That's impacting poor white folks too. You know, and unless you recognize that these policies don't serve you, you'll continue to vote in a way that doesn't serve you. More importantly, though, when you look at that, you have to recognize that the reason the government takes care of so many people in social services is because Republicans refuse to do the things that help us build a just and equitable economy. Speaking of that, joining us right now is Reverend Dr. William J. Barber. Reverend Barber, to the point Gary just made, the point that Julianne has been talking about as well, what I've been laying

out by an agenda, you already see it right now. We're talking about $15 an hour. Here we are trying to have a conversation. You've got all of these Republicans who are saying, oh, the COVID relief bill is too high. We must do means testing. Well, one of the reasons

people are sitting here desperate for checks is because many people are broke and you're not paying at least $15 an hour. Yeah. Amen. But here's the depth of it as well. You know, we've not seen a minimum wage increase

for instance in 9 or 10 years. In 1963, the March on Washington, black and white people called for the minimum wage to be $2 an hour, which would be $15 today. You look at it through the prism of black people, it took us from zero to 400 years to get to 725. We know right now, Roland, that before COVID, there were 62 million people making less than a living wage. We know right now, if we raise the living wage immediately to 15, it would lift 50 million

people out of poverty and low wage and pump 300 and some odd billion dollars over 360 billion dollars into the economy. We know that corporations and banks got everything they wanted in COVID and some things they didn't over $6 trillion. One time they got over 1.5 trillion dollars overnight that didn't even go through the Congress. But we got a deeper problem. I do want to say to my brother, it's not poor white people. That's not what the data is.

It's middle class and high middle class white people that are voting Republican. The truth of the matter is from a study we did called Unleashing the Power of Poor and Low Wealth People, we found that poor white people, like many poor black people, don't vote. And the reason they don't vote is because, number one, they say they never hear their issues, and number two, transportation, they can't get off job, and number three, voter suppression. In this past election, 55 percent of poor and low wealth people, black and white, voted for Biden-Harris, 55%. Six million more poor and low wealth people voted this time than in 2016. That's 34 million, but it still means 29 million black people, poor and low wealth people, did not vote.

The Southern strategy was designed to keep black and poor white people at each other's throat, but what we see today from the data is that it was people who make above $60,000 a year that kept Trump in office, that continues to vote for people like McConnell and Kennedy and you mentioned. We actually have an opportunity now, because 70 percent of Americans want to see a raise in the minimum wage. You know, we have to agree like Fred Hampton and others and Dr. King was doing. We have to actually go to that community and organize. But here's the lick on this. Right now, and some people are not going to like what I got to say, Republicans aren't our problem right now

when it comes to 15. Democrats have the House. They have the Senate. In the COVID bill, it has... And the White House. Huh? And the White House. You got all three. Let's leave Republicans alone. Now, we already know they're going to block it. The question is, are Democrats going to push? And Democrats in the Senate...

We were just in West Virginia today challenging Joe Manchin. We had white folk from Fayette County, West Virginia, and black folk from Charleston. Because Manchin came out and said he wasn't for 15 being in the bill. He's from West Virginia, where 50% of the workers in West Virginia make less than a living wage. 352,000 people.

He's a Democrat. The two Democrats in Arizona are saying, well, we don't know if we're going to support it. The one in Montana, all the Democrats have to do is stay together now. Now they're saying, well, the parliamentarian may rule against it. Well, first of all, that hasn't happened, so stop saying that and put the case together to make sure the parliamentarian doesn't rule against you. But even if they do, guess what Republicans have done when the parliamentarian ruled against

them on tax cuts for the wealthy in reconciliation? They voted, they overturned the parliamentarian. All it takes is a simple majority vote to overturn the parliamentarian. It might, in some cases, it may only, we're checking this fact now, it may only take the vice president to do it. One vote. So the question in this moment is whether the Democrats, and we've said this to Schumer, we've said this to Manchin, do not talk to us about racial equity if you will not stay with keeping raising the minimum wage in this bill when it will affect 45 percent of black workers. Forty-five% of black workers make less than a living wage. Don't talk to us about racial equity

if you don't raise the minimum wage, which today is as big as the Civil Rights Act, as big as the Voting Rights Act, it's as big as the New Deal. And that's the thing we have to be talking about in this moment. The people who have suffered the most in COVID are poor and low-wealth workers who went to work first, who got infected first, who got sick first, who died first. We said it to the Black Caucus.

It ought to be number one. We're not voting for nothing if you don't keep 15 in this bill. It's 400 years too late. 400 years too late. 400 years too late. And right now, the issue is not what Republicans are going to do, because we know what they're going to do. The question is, is the Democratic caucus that ran in this past election

declaring that they were going to do three things if they didn't do anything else. They were going to raise the minimum wage to 15, they were going to address systemic racism, and they were going to expand health care. Now you have the power. And the question is whether you're going to pay hardball for justice or whether you're going to be more interested in compromising with Republicans who will never compromise with you,

or are you going to be more interested in doing what's right by the people? That's the question before us right now. And that's where, frankly, the challenge comes in when it comes to how do you mobilize and organize folks. And that's what y'all are doing there when you lay out right there. Mobilize, organize, register, educate. Yeah, that's exactly right. That's why today I would have been in West Virginia, bro. I told you I was going except for the

ice, but we're going back again. We had thousands of people on, black, white, brown, all together, putting pressure. I was told, well, you may not want to go down and put pressure on Manchin. Why? Why not? They said, well, he's not like McConnell. Well, prove it.

See, that's the thing that sort of just drives me crazy, this notion that, well, just don't say nothing. You know, I had some black people literally ask me, you know, when I was posting Where's Nancy? Because I sat there and I watched Speaker Pelosi. She on MSNBC three, four, five, six, seven times a week. I see her going on CNN. I was like,

she don't do no black media. So we sat here and we began to, you know, call her office. Not available. Not available. Not available. Not available. Not available. So finally I was like, was she available in the next week? The next two weeks. The next month. She available in the next two months. So I sent an email last week, uh, and, and, and the black girl, the sister who works in the office, you know, and she said,

well, she, I said, well, I said, well, give me a date. She available. I'm still waiting. When I called Joe Madison, he said, man, he said, I've been trying to get on for years. He said, I'll stay right here with you. So I put that on social media as well. And so he mentioned the next day. Well, I guess her folk were listening because they immediately called Joe. And she had had her on his show a couple of days later. And he said, Roland, she wouldn't she would never come on my show. It wasn't for you starting this whole deal. And so it's the same thing. Why in the hell am I going to be afraid to say, Nancy, you ain't the speaker without black votes. You don't get to benefit from the black caucus having the largest caucus on the Democratic side. And you only talk to white media. She don't

do no syndicated black radio shows. I can't tell you when last time she did Steve Harvey, Ricky Smiley. I can go down the whole line. So my deal is, yeah, I'm going to sit and call you out in demand. Folk have got to be willing to say just because there's a D at the end of your name don't mean I don't get to say anything. No. When you in power, we target who's say anything. No. When you in power, we target who's in power. We target who's in power. And you have to

and the Black Caucus has to say that to folk. We have to say for instance right now, it bothers me when people say we're going to address racial equities and we're going to deal with prison reform and police reform. Okay, yes, we have to do that. But that's not race equity. That's a part of race equity.

Part of it. That's right. That's exactly right. Because people are dying. If you want to deal with death, not only are people dying because cops are killing them, putting their knees on them, lynching them on the street by knee, people are dying from the lack of healthcare, dying from the lack of income. So let's deal with the issues, but don't put us in a look, we're going to just do this, and we're going to walk away from this. I said to members of the Black Caucus that 61 percent of Black people, Roland, are poor and low wealth today. That's 26 million Black people.

That has to be a number one issue. And so when it comes to this COVID bill, no African-American should say to Senator Schumer or any of them, well, okay, we'll take COVID if it doesn't have $15 in minimum wage, and we'll wait until we can do it a standalone. If you go to a standalone bill, it's going to take two-thirds. You're not going to get that, because then you need all

of those Republicans. We can't be fooled on this stuff. We've got an opportunity to do it now. It needs to be done now. And guess what? It's beneficial. The Economic Policy Institute says if we do it now. It needs to be done now. And guess what? It's beneficial. The Economic Policy Institute says if we do it, it will actually speed up how quick people are able to come out of poverty and out of this COVID recession. Somebody said it will cost a million jobs. You know what the truth is, Roland? It may cost a million dollars over 10 years, but if you

had Julianne on, she could tell you. But the measurement they don't talk about is how many jobs it will create, how many jobs it will create, how many families it will lift, how much money it will pump into the economy. But we have to stop capitulating and saying, well, you know, don't criticize certain people. Yes, we're going to criticize you. And yes, we're going to challenge you, whether you're black or you're white. And white and black people and brown people are going to do it because these are matters of life and death. And I don't know how in the world somebody can justify what, you know, billionaires have made almost a trillion dollars, a trillion dollars since May of last year in the midst of COVID. And yet here we are hedging over whether we can give poor and low wealth $15 and it's not even going to kick in immediately. In the Poor People's Campaign, we want it now.

But the bill they put in says a little bit now, a little bit now, a little bit, and it'll actually end up being there five years later. Come on. We cannot have that kind of capitulation. And I'll tell you something. You talk about who owes people, who they owe their rights.

As I said, the exit polls tell us that one disaggregation we are not doing good enough on, and that is that 55% of poor and low wealth people were the determining factor for Biden and Harris and for the Senate returning to Democrat. 55% of poor and low-wealth voted.

And they voted because they heard, they didn't hear everything they wanted, but they at least heard if you say if you get elected, you're going to raise the wages, okay, we're going to vote for you. And if they go backwards on this, it will undermine the ability to call people out to vote in mass in

the years to come. Because what it boils down to is you are supposed to do what you say you were going to do. Trump does it. Trump did it. Lindsey Graham does it. McConnell does it. One thing we can say about Republicans, the great compliment you can give them is they do what they say they're going to do. That might be bad. It might hurt a lot of people, but they do what they say they're going to do. And that's always been the case.

Roland, let me mention one other thing. I heard you talk about Trump. Go ahead. Go ahead. On the impeachment thing. You know, people are like, well, they got to pass. You know, I just, I'm like you, a reed. Well, you know, after the Civil War, the national insurrectionists,

the people who committed treason against this country, the people who got hundreds of thousands of people killed on American soil, they got to pass. So this business of giving white people passes even on the most horrible thing is American. It's not all of America, but it certainly is a major part of the American reality. And that's why I agree with you. If, you know, my friend Jamie and our sister,

God knows they were powerful. But I'm understanding that it was some of the senators that said to them, if you all want these witnesses, we may not vote for them to come. See, because the process was they would have to bring the witnesses and then the Senate would have to vote on each witness. And that some of the folks said, no, we don't want to do that. And every time we don't tell the whole truth, we actually inhibit our ability to deal with these issues of justice and racism, because we keep going, keep just telling a little bit, and then backing up. And that's always been the case. That's the

sad reality. We always give folk a little, you know, you think about it, but it's, I mean, like I said, after the Civil War, the former planters, all they had to do was go somewhere to a justice of the peace, put their hand on the Bible, and swear that they wouldn't do what they did anymore. And they got all their land back and everything. They got a pass. And that's why we're still dealing with racism. The point that I

consistently make is this here. People keep talking about the next four years. The reality is there's no such thing as the next four years because Democrats only have a four vote majority in the House. That's right. They are tied in the Senate. This thing could all change in 2022. You get everything you can get right now. You use every you lose every lever of power to get what you want right now. Otherwise, if you sit here and wait,

and everybody got to remember, there were a lot of Democrats who said, let's not accept this criminal justice reform bill under Obama. We can get a better one when Hillary's president. That's what they said. Yep. That's exactly right.

They said that. And to keep getting a better one rather than getting the best while you have the vote. In politics, you only have today. You only have the votes you have today. People vote for you to go to work. They don't vote for you to say, well, let me see if I can get enough people to go along. The bipartisanism is in the people who voted. If you want bipartisanism, you want a mandate, it's the eight million people that voted for Biden-Harris and voted

to change the Senate. That's your mandate. It's bipartisanism is the black, white, brown, Republican, Democrat, independents who voted for the ticket. You won. Now that you've won, if we've seen four years of what mean, maniacal folk will do with power, we ought to at least be able to see two years of what good folk will do with power. But if you make the issue more about patting people on the back and being friends and whatnot than doing right by the people, I'm telling you, Doc, I don't even want to see 20... I don't know whether I want to see it or not. I don't want to be alive,

but I can't imagine what's going to happen in 2022 if Democrats fail on this COVID relief in full. Yep. Because a lot of people, Doc... You know it was hard enough, Roland, for us, you and I and others, to convince people this time. Yeah. Well, it... to convince people this time. Yeah. Well, it was hard enough to convince people this time.

Bottom line is, you got to deliver if you want people to return to the polls. It's as simple as that. And so, last point for you, what do you want our audience to do? We got more than 7,000 folks watching YouTube, Facebook, Periscope. What do you want them to do? I want, first of all, folk to go to the Poor People's Campaign website today, click on our action for the day, and send Joe Manchin every letter you can. You can do a question, you can do a call. He needs to understand that his vote is not only going to impact the 50

percent of West Virginians that make less than a living wage, but the 62 million folk in America, the 45 percent of Black folk. And he can either be the hero or the villain, but he can't straddle the fence. He cannot. And we cannot have him as a Democrat blocking, including living wage. And it's not COVID relief and a living wage. It's COVID relief with a living wage inside of it. Now, lastly, bro, and I need you to know this. There is some temp by people are saying, well, we're going to include a child tax credit. So that should offset where we don't need the 15.

And we're saying, no, you need the child tax credit and the 15. It's not either or. It's both and. So go to the Poor People's Campaign website. Join us in our actions. Follow us every Moral Monday. And let's put pressure on these senators. And also you should be putting pressure on the two senators in Arizona, the Democrats in Arizona and the Democrat in Montana. Those are the three pressure points that we need to be pushing hard on and pushing them to do the right thing. Reverend Dr. Wade J. Barber, we surely appreciate it, sir. Thank you so very much.

Take it up. Thank you. Julianne, we'll go to you. The point Dr. Barber was making there is a critical one because it is what I said consistently during the election, that voting is the end of one process and it's the beginning of another. That when the election is over, you now then take all of that energy that we use with social media and pushing people to register and to vote, to then say, now we must mobilize and organize you to drive folk to get the policy initiatives on the local, on the city, the county, the state, and the federal level? Absolutely, Roland. My line is always voting is not the most

you can do, it's the least you can do. After you vote, there's so much more work to do. And the points that Reverend Barber were making right on time in terms of certainly this minimum wage, it's a necessity. Even when we get to 15, it's going to be 2025 we'll get to 15, that will be $31,000 a year for a full-time, full-year worker. Now, what we're not paying attention to is the fact that many of these low-wage jobs are not full-time, full-year. People might get 30 hours. They might get 26 hours. There's no consistency in any of that, which is why there's another piece of legislation called the PRO Act, preserving the right to organize, that will allow people to join unions. There are lots of

exceptions to that right now. What's his name, who just left the presidency, weakened the National Labor Relations Board. So the PRO Act basically attempts to restrict... Go ahead. But in any case, the challenge here is that we're looking at folks who are indifferent to poor people. As Reverend Barber said, people made a trillion dollars off COVID. People in many, many ways. And so there are people who they don't care whether COVID is over with or not.

The child credit is a good idea, but it's a good idea that's separate and distinct from this legislation. It was a good idea all along. What COVID has taught us is how vulnerable our children are. When we look at young people who haven't been in school, young people depressed, young people who haven't had social interaction. But the child care credit does not fix all that, and the child care credit must be separate from COVID. But this is also why, Gary,

you got to have all these organizations who are sending out stuff, constant emails or whatever. They got to also be engaged. That means NAACP. What specifically are you telling people to do? Who should they be calling? What should they be advocating for? National Urban League, National Action Network.

I can go down the line. Organizational power. What are you doing? What are you telling people to do? We do it on this show right here. But we're saying this is the pressure point. Having Dr. Barbara on saying go here because that ain't happened on MSNBC. That's not happening on CNN. They're getting caught up in the whole process deal and you getting stuck on that. And that's actually not speaking to exactly what is going on.

Our people have got to understand that. Look, this is the moment now. We should be saying to the black caucus, y'all got fifty nine votes. This all a black caucus do. They got to do this right here. Unless this in the bill, we ain't voting for it. The same thing the Freedom Caucus did. 30-some-odd Freedom Caucus members shut everything down using their 30 votes. That's how you actually get it done. Okay, the squad.

Guess what, y'all? Democrats got a four-vote majority. If all Republicans vote against, the four members of the squad can see they didn't change everything. Like, literally. They can say, nah, we ain't moving on that unless it's in. See, this is about, again, using your power. I love what Reverend Barber said, that in politics you only have to date. And, Roland, one of the reasons I'm not a member of a bunch of these legacy organizations that you've mentioned is because every time I was showing up in my community to speak truth to power, typically they weren't there.

Or they would count and know who was on their donor list that they were going to piss off if they showed up. And so I don't care about those types of things. You have to do the work that serves the people, uh, while there is still day. Uh, too often we are spending our time, spending our wills instead of fighting for people, instead of making change. And then spending the time after that, blaming somebody else for why you didn't do the job the people elected you to do. The question for us as voters is, how long are we gonna be satisfied with mediocre leadership? How long are we gonna continue to elect people

who don't have the courage to lead? How long are we gonna continue to go down the same road? Uh, the definition of insanity is to, uh, do the same thing over and over and to expect different results. If we continue to elect the same type of people, we gonna continue to have this conversation. And so if you don't like what you see, we have less than two years now before there's another series of elections that give us the ability to grow power.

And the reason Democrats don't grow power by leaps and bounds is because you don't make change by leaps and bounds. When you look at the Tea Party and what Republicans morphed out of the Tea Party, how many members of the Republican delegation now consider themselves to agree with the ideology of what was the Tea Party? That's how we ended up with a Donald Trump presidency to begin with, because the racist bigots that were elected through the Tea Party movement then opened the door that got us Donald Trump. If we begin to stick together along policy the same way that they did along policy, you're going to open up a windfall, I believe, of new, bold leadership. And we don't have to agree on everything, but there ought to be some

fundamental things that we do agree on that we can accomplish for the people. Avis? Uh, absolutely. You know, the thing is, the Democratic Party has a boldness problem. It has a, you know, a backbone problem. And, um, you know, the reality is that they need to be pushed. And so, similar to what Dr. Malveaux was saying, you know, I think that we need to know that really voting is just the starting gun. It's not the finish line of the race. And there are some key organizations that

are doing some work out there to help to mobilize people. Black Women's Roundtable, for example, does a great job with that, mobilizing people at the state level as well as nationally. But the bottom line is we need to make sure that our voices are heard, not just on Election Day, but pushing the agenda. And I love the idea of seeing the Congressional Black Caucus actually using their voting bloc in ways that put pressure on the Democratic Party to do more work in those areas that we know we need to see movement on. You know, what's the use of having power if you don't exert it?

So, you know, we need to be bold. We need to be unflinching. We need to be willing to put teeth into the actions that are necessary in order to get our agenda passed. Because the reality is, if we don't, it will not happen. It will not happen on its own.

We have to pull this country, kicking and screaming in the direction that it needs to go. We've not happen on its own. We have to pull this country, kicking and screaming, in the direction that it needs to go. We've always done it throughout the centuries, and we have to keep doing it now. Again, what I keep telling folks is, you've got to be able to stay engaged even after the election. Folks, let's go to a business story.

The largest Black-owned franchise operator, McDonald's, is suing for discrimination. Tomorrow, Herb Washington is going to bring a civil rights action to hold McDonald's accountable for racial discrimination and retaliation he says he experienced as a black franchisee. Washington ran 27 McDonald's restaurants in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio during his 40 years with the company. But he says McDonald's was trying to drive black franchisees from its system and pressured him to sell several of his stores to white franchisees.

Washington will bring his case against McDonald's tomorrow in a two-way video-based news conference. Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr. as well as Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, who chairs the Correctional Black Caucus, will be among the speakers who will be present during the video-based conference, which will take place at 1.30 p.m. Eastern,

and we'll be live-streaming that on roller martin unfiltered uh the family of design uh kizzy the 29 year old black man killed by two la sheriff's deputies last august has filed a claim with la county he was initially stopped for biking on the wrong side of the street before officers ultimately unloaded 15 bullets into him now the family is seeking 35 million, according to the claim, which alleges L.A. County failed to properly train the deputies that killed Kissy. Speaking of L.A., the L.A. Police Department has launched an internal investigation after an officer reported that a photo of George Floyd with the words, you take my breath away, in a Valentine-like format was circulated among officers. Police Chief Michael Moore said Saturday that investigators were trying to determine

how the image may have come into the workplace and who may have been involved. Moore says the officer who made the complaint will be interviewed. Moore said if the probe confirms LAPD officers were circulating the image, people will find my wrath. Mm, we'll see. And also, officers in Phoenix, Arizona

caught via their own body cameras discussing how they regret not committing any acts of police brutality on Black Lives Matter protesters during arrests in October. According to The Washington Post, three Arizona officers arrested 18 members of Black Lives Matter and stated they were disappointed if they hadn't trampled the group and doused them in pepper spray. Arizona Police Chief Jerry Williams responded to the matter and called the officers' behavior disrespectful, adding their behavior threatened the police department's relationship with the community. It swore to protect and serve. She plans to take swift action in order to discipline the officers as she sees fit. At this time, the chief has not revealed what that discipline may look like. According to the Post, just hours after the body camera footage was released, the Baracopa County Attorney's Office announced that it would dismiss charges against 15 protesters who were arrested on October 17th.

The protesters were facing a number of charges, including rioting, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and resisting arrest. Chief Williams says the department will undergo reform in order to prevent another incident like this one from taking place. So what do you make of all of that, Gary? You got the you got the lawsuit in L.A. County. You got the cops sitting here spreading around the image of George Floyd and take my breath away. Then here in Arizona. But I think don't they keep saying these are just a few bad apples?

It's amazing how you just keep having bad apple after bad apple just roll on out. You know, the part of the quote that we never finish is, a few bad apples spoil the bunch, right? That the whole bunch is probably bad because we never deal with the bad apples that are in there. And passively going along with racism and bigotry is the same as being an overt racist or a bigot. What did Dr. King say?

He said it is not the loud ones that he was concerned about, but the silence of his friends, right? The people who say that they support justice and equity and progress who sit there, receive a text message like that and don't say, this is unacceptable. It's the people who know that discrimination is happening when you're trying to force somebody to sell their business and sit in a room and not say something. It's all of the people along the way

that sit and do nothing that allow us to get to these inflection points that we end up discussing because we won't deal with something when it is a small problem or when it is something that could be checked in a way that just lets people know, you know what, this is unacceptable. I don't think it's funny. I don't think it's acceptable.

And I'm not going to associate myself with you if that's how you believe. We don't believe in personal accountability, and therefore we don't have government accountability or workforce accountability or any of these things, because at the end of the day, it's people that run these organizations. And if people allow these things to passively exist, then they will continue to exist and perpetuate racism. The core of all of what you just talked about, Roland, is racism is alive and well in America. Avis. Absolutely. The reality is, you know, what other proof do we have to see?

I mean, it's sad to say that this is not new. This is the type of racist behavior that we've seen out of these institutions forever. You know, what was the number of police officers, for example, that off-duty police officers that they believe participated in that insurrection? How many times have we mentioned on this show about the fact that police organizations have been infiltrated by white supremacists? That's kind of clear.

How many studies were done, I remember a couple of years ago, about the Facebook activity of police officers across the country who were doing, putting racist posts on their timelines, after which nothing, nothing substantially happened to most of these people who were engaged in these acts. The reality is that until these institutions start to take racism seriously and start eliminating these people, start firing these people, they are, in essence, condoning that behavior. And since they refuse to do it, the only logical, the only logical assumption is they refuse to do anything about it because that's who

they truly are. Julianne. You know, the interesting thing about the Phoenix case, Roland, is that the police chief is a woman. Um, Jerry Williams. And these guys were opi... They want to go back to the good old days, when they could F somebody up,

and there were no consequences. And they were going on and on about that. Their boss is a woman. In the good old days, you would not have had a woman police chief. So I'm wondering what she's thinking as she listens to this from her own employees. I'm wondering what she's thinking. But, you know, as Avis is right, the law enforcement has been out of control as long as there's been law enforcement. There have been people, especially black people, but brown people in the South, they lynched a couple of Jewish people. But there have been people who have been deemed unworthy of legal protection, more than unworthy of legal protection,

basically worthy of contempt. So you see cases where, as an example, people are lynched because they had too much money. In one case, a brother was lynched. Then he went, so he was lynched because what happened was he tried to sell his cotton, and the man told him he had to take a lower price than a white man did. He used profanity. All he said was damn. But there was a law in the books in Arkansas that you couldn't, a black person couldn't curse at a white person. So as soon as he left the store, they arrested him for cursing. Now the brother had it, he had it going on. He just went in his pocket and handed them the $15 that was bail. It was $15. A lot of money in 1919. He was at the sheriff's office. When he left the sheriff's office, they just, they strung him up.

And this is not an unusual story. This is a story of black folks in America. And you're right, Gary, they always want to say, well, you know, what bad apple? But what bad apple spoils the bushel? And we know that there are bad apples. Some of them are above ground, but many of them are underground. The FBI did a study a couple of years ago that showed the connection between these white supremacists and law enforcement. They released the study. But of course, this was during that man's administration, nobody did anything.

But that data that's in that particular report is very useful to talk about these connections. And we know back in the day, post-Reconstruction, Klan members were the sheriffs. Bottom line here is this here. We have a fundamental problem in this

country when it comes to police. As long as you have people who are living in gross denial, you're not going to see the changes. And anybody out there who continues to suggest that, oh, defund the police is bad, you do know where you have examples where shifting the resources has made a huge deal. And also, by the way, all the people out here who keep saying that, oh, my goodness, because of how cops are being treated, it's leading to massive retirements like in New York.

Good. That means that new jobs are being made available. Oh, what's your best self? Works for me. Got to go to a break. When we come back, we'll talk Confederate statues in Virginia, the Supreme Court, that and more right here on Roller Martin Unfiltered. I grew up wanting a lot of activities in my neighborhood.

That was in close proximity. Hi, everybody. This is Jonathan Nelson. Hi, this is Cheryl Lee Ralph, and you are watching Roland Martin, Unfiltered. Of 1955 is the first time in a very violent civilization, Western civilization, any sizable group of people started to work to change by insisting we can use non-violence power to create the change. Gandhi said that non-violent power, the power of life,

is the greatest and most creative force, power of the universe. And that if we human beings turn away from conventional wisdom towards using the gift of life, which is ours at birth, we would be surprised what the future of the human race will look like. Carl Payne pretended to be Roland Martin. Holla!

Hi, I'm Chaley Rose, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks, the removal of the last standing Confederate statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond will have to wait since the Supreme Court of Virginia has agreed to hear appeals from two groups who want the sculpture of Robert E. Lee to stay. After protesters demanded it be taken down last summer,

a circuit court ruled that Governor Ralph Northam could get rid of the mammoth Confederate general statue, but he'd have to wait to allow for an appeal to the higher court. A date has not been set for the hearings, though the governor and the attorney general appear to be committed to removing the symbol of Virginia's racist past. It's always amazing to me, Gary, to look at these people who fight to keep these monuments. But these are the same people. They'll fight like hell when it comes to reforming police. They'll fight like hell when it comes to deal with $15 in minimum wage. The reality is this is a desperate attempt to continue to have these symbols of white supremacy in this country. And in fact, I mean, yesterday I was driving back from a respite in the hills of Virginia,

and I'm coming in and they had they had the offices of Stonewall Jackson. I'm like, why in the hell would I want to go see the offices of a traitor to the country who was a Confederate general? But again, you're in Virginia, you're driving on Jefferson Davis Highway. All of these monuments to these folks who committed treason.

You know, it's like the people who just stormed the Capitol, right? People who believe that, you know, racism and bigotry is acceptable and anybody who's pushing against that is un-American. The truth is, what we know about Robert E. Lee is that he was a brutal man, that he was somebody who should never have been honored. And most of the monuments to honor Robert E. Lee actually appeared during the Civil Rights Movement as a way to intimidate Black people,

uh, and say that we're gonna honor our slave-bearing ancestors. Um, and it's just crazy to me. You know? And-and-and what's worse is, when you live in a community like I do in Baton Rouge, we don't have... We had a school named after Robert E. Lee for 50 years, and we still to this day don't have a single school

named after a Black person. And if we start talking about naming stuff after Black folks, the same racist white folks start saying, well, why do we have to name it for somebody Black? You know? And it's like, you know, you didn't have a problem with your loser grandfather having a building named after him. You didn't have a problem with your

losing uncle having a building named after him. You know, I didn't know that America was so fascinated with naming stuff after people who lost. You know? Like, they were literally losers. And hundreds of thousands of people died as a result of this.

And we stood here and act like these people were somehow honorable. They were disgusting human beings. And we should erase their names from anything of honor in this country. They were white supremacists, though. They were white supremacists. You know, the Robert E. Lee statue that was put up on Monument Avenue, I think it was a daughter's, I don't know, one of those women's groups. But anyway, they basically had the legislature pass something that said in perpetuity that statue would stay there.

What they're really doing is clinging to their racist ancestors and saying we want racism to be a permanent part of what exists in this country. Robert E. Lee, as you say, horrible human being. But I drove down Monument Avenue a couple of years ago, and I was stunned at the size of the statues, at how many they were, about who... You know, it's just... It's chilling. In the South, some people still think the South won the Civil War.

I kid you not. You mean the lost cause. That little theory. But, Roland, in schools, some people actually teach that. I mean, I had to fly down to Atlanta one time because my godchild got a little trouble with the teacher who basically said the South won the war. And I said, well, you know what? Let me go see this woman and see what's up. And she was able to retract herself. She was a 26-year-old who didn't know anything. But that's not the point.

The point is this mythology is repeated and repeated and repeated. And that's how you end up with Confederate flags at our Capitol. Our country has never said, look, the Confederates lost. They are, as Gary said, they're losers. You know? And they were brutal. And they were able to get away with all kind of crimes after Re-Reconstruction. So why are we honoring them?

Lots of these things, Roland, just... They weren't relics of the Civil War. They went up post-Reconstruction, like in the 1890s, and the Southern flags that have that Confederate symbol on them, they changed those flags in the 1950s and 60s as a civil rights movement gained momentum. Avis, it is just quite interesting to watch these people at work with their defense. And again, what they're so afraid of, they're so afraid as we become a more diverse nation that we'll just start making our own determination as to what goes on and say, you know what, your white symbols, they got to go. Yeah, and they should. You know, I spent some time in Germany a couple of years back,

and one of the things that I found particularly interesting about that nation was the degree to which they are fervently against any level of celebration of Nazism. You would not have a statue to Hitler, for example, in Germany. You can't even fly a swastika in Germany. You know, they have very strict laws against celebrating any of the atrocities that occurred in that nation around the Holocaust. Yet here in this country, we continue to have this romanticized notion of these people who were brutal, who were murderers,

who were traitors against this nation. I mean, there's no other way to interpret what that was. It would be analogous to having Hitler celebrated in Germany. This is what we do when we have a huge monument to a Robert E. Lee, someone who was the head of a revolting force against this nation. He was a traitor and as well as a loser. And so it's really quite interesting. It's really quite interesting that on the heels of having this failed coup attempt, where the Confederate flag for the first time in history was able to make its way into the Capitol Rotunda, here on the hills of that, we have people fighting to maintain this place of honor for this dishonorable man

when it comes to the history of this nation. You know, if the Confederacy would have won the war, then okay, have the darn statues. But you lost. But you didn't. So he needs to come down. Speaking of these relics of the past and, you know, this whole idea of losing things I could not help but think about poor little Nikki Haley

former governor of South Carolina she served as ambassador to the United Nations under Donald Trump and What I found to be really interesting is that Politico did this big piece on her where they were, you know, oh, my goodness, where she's disavowing of Donald Trump. She had all these things to say about Donald Trump. I'm going to read some of those things to you. But I need to remind you what poor little Nikki, what darling Nikki was saying just one month ago, really about three weeks ago, regarding the January 6th uprising. Watch this. The actions of the president post-January 6th, post-election day, were not great.

What happened on January 6th was not great. Does he deserve to be impeached? Absolutely not. So you'd vote against impeachment? Yeah, you'd vote against impeachment. Absolutely. They're trying to just kick him out the door. You would part ways with, for instance, Mitt Romney, who will be voting, it sounds like, for impeachment, for to convict.

At least it sounds that way. I don't even think there's a basis for impeachment. I mean, the idea that they're even bringing this up, they didn't even have a hearing in the House. Now they're going to turn around and bring about impeachment, yet they say they're for unity. I mean, they beat him up before he got into office. They're beating him up after he leaves office. I mean, at some point, I mean, give the man a break. I mean, move on. If you truly are about moving on, move on. The idea that they're going to do impeachment, that's not going to bring our country together.

That's only dividing our country. When will you make a decision? The actions of the president post-January 6th. I just want to play that one more time because I want everybody listening, I want you to hear exactly what she says, and then I want you to then read what I'm then going to read. The same Nikki Haley.

One more time, darling Nikki, talking to Laura Ingraham. The actions of the president post-January 6th, post-election day, were not great. What happened on January 6th was not great. Does he deserve to be impeached? Absolutely not. So you'd vote against impeachment? Yeah, you'd vote against impeachment. Absolutely. Absolutely. They're trying to just kick him out the door. You would part ways with, for instance, Mitt Romney, who will be voting, it sounds like, for impeachment, to convict. At least it sounds that way. I don't even think there's a basis for impeachment. I mean, the idea that they're even bringing this up, they didn't even have a hearing in the House. Now they're going to turn around and bring about impeachment, yet they say they're for unity. I mean, they beat him up before he got into office.

They're beating him up after he leaves office. I mean, at some point, I mean, give the man a break. I mean, move on. If you truly are about moving on, move on. The idea that they're going to do impeachment, that's not going to bring our country together. That's only dividing our country. When will you make a decision? The actions of the president post-January 6th weren't- That was Nikki Haley. Yet the folks at Politico, y'all, did this big story. Did this big story, big story. And this was the let me show you what the what the cover was. OK. Nikki Haley's time for choosing the 2024 hopeful can't decide who she wants to be.

The leader of a post-Trump GOP or a friend of the president who tried to sabotage democracy, sabotage democracy. So all of a sudden she's being quoted, Ava, as, oh, Donald Trump was wrong and what he did wrong and we've got to move on. And like all these different things that she had to say about Trump. And I found all of that to be quite interesting. I just thought it was just kind of interesting that she decided to rip Trump. I just, she said, quote, never did I think he would spiral out like this, Avis.'" Never, never did she think that he would spiral out of control. Uh, that what he did was wrong, and she talked about how she reached out to him

and as a friend and all of these different things and so now all of a sudden Nikki Haley darling Nikki is on her redemption tour now she wants to say he should not run again in 2024. All of those things. Nah, boo. We will not forget when you defended every single one of his actions. Sorry, Nikki, that one's not gonna fly. No, not at all, Nimrata.

Oh, excuse me, Nikki. No, it is all, Nimrata. Oh, excuse me, Nikki. No, it is not going to fly. And, you know, but she is a chameleon, right? She changes her name to become more palatable for white folk. And here she is trying to put herself in a position where she can potentially be seen as a contender to run for president in 2024. Let's not recognize the obvious here. She's trying to run for president, and now she wants to set herself up now as someone who is respectable. Forget all the stuff that she did prior to this. Forget all the things that she looked over and looked past before this. Forget all that she didn't do when she was actually in his cabinet. You know, this is someone who was trying to be very opportunistic at this time. I guess she figures she's used Donald Trump as the best she can, you know, while he was in office. And perhaps she's she's rolling the dice that by the time we're at a position for primary season for the Republicans,

that by that time, perhaps she thinks that he would have done something to sort of undercut his ability to be the kingmaker that ostensibly he is right now. Because with that, she's basically said, I want to be the serious person that's thought of as being, once again, the traditional Republican. I am going to take up that mantle and trust and believe you're going to see her running for president four years from now. And see, see, Gary, I'm not going to be one of those folks who will be like these folks in mainstream media who somehow forget. I'm not going to be one to play this little game of Nikki Haley

acting as if she exhibited all of this courage to get Republicans to bring down the state flag when she should have been opposed to the Confederate flag from the beginning. But no, she didn't have any guts because all she cared about was winning. It took nine black people to be gunned down in a church for it to come down. So I'm sorry, Nikki. Darling Nikki, you don't get any credit from me for that. But I don't want to hear nothing she says about Donald Trump right now. Because do we need to remind Nikki Haley what she said about Donald Trump when she was running?

I mean, when she was actually, when other people were running. I guess she thinks we forgot those comments. Just like Lindsey Graham thinks we forgot what he had to say. Like Ted Cruz thinks we forgot what he had to say. No. The redemption tour is not going to work for me, Gary. Not going to work. It's alright.

Darla and Nikki, we got a problem. We got a problem. And frankly, I can imagine if I was sitting here chewing tobacco at this point I would just spit out the moment Nikki Haley's name come up

you know I certainly would have to agree with you, brother. She is high garbage. I don't have no better way to say it than that. And I'm probably not supposed to say that because I'm running for office, but I'm going to just tell the truth. Not just Nikki Haley, but anybody who worked for Donald Trump that's out here trying to pretend that they're so moral now or trying to distance themselves from him. You had no problem being

with your homeboy when he was trashing and calling African nation asshole countries. You had no problem with your homeboy when he was banning people from black nations or African nations from coming into this country. You had no problem when he had a Muslim ban while you were the, uh, the-the secretary to the U.N. You had no problem when he was locking little children in cages. And so since you had no problem with all of those things, just know that we ain't never gonna forget. We ain't never gonna forget you, nor Ben, nor Mike,

nor any of the trash folks who worked for Donald Trump and went along with him for the last four years because that same trash ideology that he had, you have too, because you gave permission for him to do it by running the agencies for this president. And so I don't give, I can't say what I was about to say. But I don't care what she does or what they do. I ain't never support none of them. And I hope that our memory is just as long as racism is in this country. Julian, what I need people to understand. I need people to understand.

I had some fool out here, Truth Seeker, whatever his name is on YouTube, saying enough with the Trump talk. First of all, we're talking about Nikki Haley. We ain't discussing Trump. See, what I need the people watching and listening to understand, Julian, is I need them to be aware of the game. See, the game, and listen to all y'all folk who are watching. Y'all need to understand how mainstream media works. I know how they work. I've seen the game.

I've been inside the game. I've watched them play the game. So what they're doing right now, y'all, they are shining up. They are polishing every potential person who is going to run in 2024. And I just need y'all to understand, just so y'all understand, Anthony, go to my iPad. This is the cover story, as in Politico, on Nikki Haley. Wow, this is a long piece. I'm not done. Ooh. Not done. Wow.

Wow. Not done. Oh, yeah. They trying to help sis. Not done. oh yeah they trying to help sis not done not done not done not done

he's scrubbing her up real good. Not done. Not done. This is the same political that had to hit piece after hit piece after hit piece on Kamala Harris, our current vice president. How many words is this piece rolling? Now, I just scrolled for y'all this whole piece on Nikki Haley. What I need everybody watching to understand,

you're gonna see another 15 of these. You're gonna see one of these for Ted Cruz.'re going to see one of these for Josh Hawley you're going to see one of these as they begin to you're going to see oh a number of these on Mike Pence and what you're going to see is you're going to see all these pieces on their ideology and their view and their career and how they've changed all of these different things because they

want you to actually, all that I scroll, they want you to go through all of that, the baby picture and her parents and all these things because they want you to the people out there who keep saying, why you keep talking about Trump? No, no, no, no, no. I'm discussing your opposition. I'm discussing how they're going to put a Donald Trump and package him as Nikki Haley. See, y'all gotta listen to what they are saying. Nikki now has courage. I played y'all the video of her on Laura Ingraham talking about why Trump shouldn't get impeached and if she was in the Senate, she wouldn't vote to impeach. Y'all know why?

Because he was still sitting in the Oval. But now that he's not, now they all of a sudden have courage. But I need you to look at the policies that they're advocating. Stop thinking this is about Donald Trump. No, this is about the agenda of Donald Trump. Julianne, go ahead. This is about those people who stormed the Capitol. They're fealty to them, not to Donald Trump. Trump has nothing to do with this. They're trying to humanize these people like Nikki Haley, despite the fact that she showed,

I mean, she was horrible in South Carolina, especially towards Haley, despite the fact that she showed, I mean, she was horrible in South Carolina, especially towards Black people, toward the end when she took the flag down. Now, she didn't take it all the way down, though. She took it off the top and put it on the bottom. So it's still on Capitol grounds. That was the great compromise after nine people were killed. But these pieces are going to come out, first of all, because, as you say, the mainstream

media has an agenda. And they also are all cozying up to whoever they think is going to be Trump-lite. And that's what they're looking for is Trump-lite. And the baby pictures, I'm sorry, I'm not that interested in your baby pictures or your parents, for that matter. I'm interested in what you stand for. Why did South Carolina refuse the Medicare extension? Why do they have one of the lowest minimum wages in the country? Why do they underfund our HBCUs in South Carolina?

Don't tell me anything about, you know, you are a cute little kid. So is everybody. And everybody's over that, too. So, you know, Roland, like you said, we're going to see a lot more of this. We're going to see wedges be open. And what we've seen with Nikki Haley over the years, though, which is really important, this woman has played it not both ways, but ten ways.

Got it. Since she went to the U.N. ambassador slot. Sucking up to Trump at one minute, talking about him, or distancing herself on the other. Anybody who forgets that, basically, ought to be shamed. I got you. Folks, again, just letting y'all know, be prepared.

It's going to be a whole bunch of that. All right, folks, there's a new movie that's coming out, and it, of course, is called The Tasmanian Devil. Birdman has teamed up with Benny Boom, my frat brother and executive director of the film, as well as a director on this film. It spotlights a Nigerian immigrant struggling

to find a balance between his desire to join a college frat and bonding with his estranged father, who is a strict pastor at a local church. Have y'all got the trailer for, go ahead and roll it, please. I've got a feeling I've got a feeling I've got a feeling

Bro, I've got a feeling, bro. Oh, I got a feeling somebody's trying to sneak in my friend. Hey, there ain't gonna be no shh like that. Be very careful of what you allow in your spirit, especially in America. Look at how I plan it. I have my hand in. your spirit, Dio, especially in America. Yeah. Look at how I plan it. I have my hand in. Look at how I got it.

Like enough. Dio got accepted into university. He wants to come and live with you. I'm Nigeria, right? What's your GPA? He's got a 4.0. What? Are you serious?

Dayo, right? Nice to meet you. Pastor son. It is your mission to serve God. This, I just want to strut and get. Riding through Atlanta when I got a Vanez. I just take the 85 to Africa. Why are you listening to this vulgar music?

Are you a garage boy? Ali in the morning, in the morning, I will rise and praise the Lord in the morning. Open your mouth. Ali in the morning. You weak, bro. Same cool to me, bro. Nah, bro.

He's not. You trying to get down, bro? I'm not sure. You not sure? You are filled with a rebellious spirit. Are you for real? Some crazy ass devils just been released. Well, you need to be more careful.

You can't be playing rough with the Americans. You're basically paying these to whoop our ass. For real, I'm starting to forget the point in this. I am still your father. I'll beat your back to Africa. Oh, really? Y'all both can get out of my house with that. Kunt!

In my house! You went to join the devil? Don't give me that nonsense. That is on you, not on God. I reject every devilish covenant over your life! I'm calling to tell you I'm sure. All right, joining us right now is Benny Boom, executive producer of the film,

as well as Solomon Onida, who is the director of the film. Gentlemen, glad to have both of you. Benny, I know you are alpha. Solomon, you in the frat? Yeah, alpha, fly alpha. All right, smart man. Thank goodness you're not one of those junior groups, one of those little youth groups.

And so this is obviously an interesting angle in terms of the African influence and that perspective. And was it that, the cultural piece for this film, as opposed to his father being a strict preacher that also gave this a different twist, if you will? Yeah, I mean, I think so. For me, you know, when Solomon, when I got the script from Solomon, it was it was very important to me that if I tell a film, I tell a story or part of a story that talks about fraternity and pledging and hazing, that it take a different perspective.

And this film and the script just hit me so hard because it not only dealt with pledging, but it dealt with that father-son relationship, and I think that's the core of the film that everybody can connect with. So whether you went to an HBCU or you pledged a fraternity or sorority, you can connect to Dayo's journey in this film. Solomon?

Yeah, I pretty much wanted to show what it was like for an immigrant culture to, like, infuse themselves within an African-American fraternity. So I guess the whole point of this was to kind of blend Africa and African-Americans and kind of blend that culture. And what was the base of the story? The story came from, I guess, my experience as a first-generation American and then my experience also pledging.

It's not my exact story, but as a first-generation American, I've seen many immigrants come to this country and try to assimilate. So I just came up with the idea of like, what if an immigrant went through this process and how would that be? And you're from where? Nigeria. I was born in Houston, but I'm first generation American. And actually, Houston has a huge Nigerian population.

I'm born and raised there, so quite familiar with that. Did your family quite understand the history of black fraternities and sororities, or was it a foreign concept to them? It was a foreign concept to them. I was, I'm the youngest in my family, as far as my siblings, and so all three of my sisters pledged, a.k.a.,

and so when I got to college and I said I want to pledge Alpha, it was kind of old news in my household. So it wasn't a big deal as it's shown in the movie. But I remember when my oldest sister said that she wanted to pledge, it caused some problems within our household because my parents didn't understand it. And they thought it was a cult. That's that's interesting it's interesting because i had a conversation the other day with someone they were asking me about uh when i when i played my brother plays before

i did spring 87 i was spring 89 and i told him i said i said look my brother was first generation we we did not have a a lot of family members who were in fraternities and sororities. I said, so I didn't grow up where that was the culture. That wasn't, you know, everyday living. And so it is, that is not how you grew up. You didn't have aunts and uncles and cousins and others. You really don't know about that whole world. And so, and I'm quite sure it is an experience for people watching this film

who may not realize what that's all about. Yeah, I mean, you know, Roland, I'm kind of the same way as you. I didn't, I learned about Alpha at 16 years old in a program back in Philadelphia called Fill a Job. You know, the person who ran the program was Frat. He had just pledged, I think, in fall of 86 or 87. And, um, and so when I got to college,

I already knew what I wanted to do, but had I not, you know, it depen... You know, had I not been introduced to that at that young age, I'm not sure, you know, what I would have done in terms of pledging or not, but I went to school already knowing that I wanted to be an alpha and all that, but I didn't have anybody in my family that was frat,

so it was all very new to me. Obviously, this film is coming out still in the midst of COVID, and so, Solomon, how do you hope folks will be able to access it? Will it be streaming? Will it be in movie theaters? It's currently streaming on demand. You can get it on pretty much any platform, Amazon, Google Play, iTunes.

It's everywhere. Just search Tasmanian Devil and you'll find it. And, of course, Benny Birdman came together for this movie as well. So I'm sure you all are bringing the music prowess to the marketing of this film. Yeah, yeah. I mean, Birdman came through, man. You know, the crazy thing is he was really delighted in the fact that I was taking an interest in a young filmmaker. And aside from him wanting to work with me, we've been friends over 20 years. And he saw the interest that I took in Solomon

and his career and in the movie. It just really, really ignited him and made him get behind this movie 100%. So, you know, he was as passionate about this as he is about a Lil Wayne project or anything else that he does, you know? So we got the music in there, and, you know, you'll feel it. You'll feel it.

It'll feel like they were involved, like Cash Money was involved. All right, then. Well, I certainly appreciate both of you, Solomon and Benny. Thank you so very much. Good luck with the film. Thank you. All right. 06, gentlemen.

Yeah, just in case y'all may not be able to see that. Just in case. Solomon, how long you been in the Alpha, Solomon? Ten years. I played ball ten. All right. Well, Anthony, hit me on camera four. that just in case uh solomon how long you been now for solomon 10 years all right all right well this uh anthony hit me on a camera four so this this is what happened when you when you decided to get your own 30th anniversary uh uh gift uh and so uh anthony's gonna zoom in uh uh which camera anthony which one we on oh four yeah go ahead so yeah you know last year was about 30th year, so I don't believe in waiting on any folks to give you gifts,

so I just went ahead and said, let me just go ahead and get that myself. So put that line number and the chapter over there. So that's how we do it, Pyle McCrown, Texas A&M. So, Roland, check it. This is my 30th right now, so, you know, if you want to give me a gift, you know I was a solo, so you know,

number one, high road, you know, people sick. Well, again, so I got my own gift, so I didn't wait for somebody to hook me up. I went in here and got my own gift, so that's how we do it.

So let me shout out Henry Cooper out of Houston. He's an Omega, but Henry has – he's a brother. He owns his own company. And so I've been at the Alpha Convention, so I had to go in and hook him up there. So Solomon, Benny, I appreciate it, gentlemen. Thanks a lot. Yes, sir.

Thank you so much. All right, y'all take care. Okay, peace. All right. I'm going to go back to my panel here. I'm going to start Gary here. You know, Gary, the thing, y'all pull Gary up for me, please. The thing that I think was great is, look, with COVID,

obviously one night in Miami, Regina King directed. The other night I saw Judas and the Black Messiah. This film as well. I saw the FBI MLK documentary. And one of the things, I talk all the time about gatekeepers and how what has happened. What has happened now is that the walls have come tumbling down. And so the ability to be able to get direct access to the consumer, I think, is hugely important.

Because I think back, I was last night, the equalizer. Deborah Martin Chase is executive producer starring Queen Latifah. that, again, no longer having to solely go through a Hollywood studio system, where you can now be independent, where you have, there was a brother, he did a film, and it was on Netflix. And for him, it was blown away because because it was on Netflix, it was now seen worldwide. You see what is happening with not just Netflix, but Quayle TV and other outlets, giving Black creatives an opportunity to show their wares, to reach their audience, but also to still own and control the product. It is so important. It is so critically important. As someone who's produced a documentary in the past and struggled to get that seen by people, you know, the capacity to be able to get directly to consumers in mass form is like completely game changing.

For the industry is completely game changing for so many entrepreneurs out there, whether you are a filmmaker, whether you're somebody who is, you know, just benefited from so many people shopping online right now, right? The growth that companies are experiencing, the growth that artists are able to experience through this pandemic is important, but it's also a window into the fact that we have got to figure out how to diversify our businesses, make ourselves as nimble as possible, and be able to touch people directly, right?

Get in their pockets, get in their email addresses, get in their text threads, and that's how you touch people, because you don't have to check off the boxes of these boards of directors of these organizations that we know don't want to see our talent get shown, don't want to see our artistry or our gifts go and flourish. And so, Godspeed to those brothers and all of the people right now who are getting the opportunity to shine.

We know that the brilliance of black people has always existed. Now, because of the streaming mechanisms that exist, it's easier for them to get that brilliance into people's homes. And the thing is, Julian, Gary mentioned a documentary, and as a result

of having so many far more options, we've seen an explosion, if you will, an explosion of documentaries being done because there's an appetite, and not just that, the black consumer consuming more podcasts, things along those lines.

And so, I mean, the same thing, the success that we actually have, even with this digital show, what is happening is black consumers and others are saying, we're not getting what we want or what we need from MSNBC, from CNN, from Fox News, from ABC, NBC, CBS. You know, I saw where ABC put this announcement out. They're doing this news magazine type show for six weeks. I got the email. And the thing that struck me was, it's damn near all entertainment.

And I'm like, look, we've got enough of that. But again, having the outlets, having the ability to reach far more people. And in this case, as he said, on demand, you can go right to it and you're not, so even if you don't even have HBO or Showtime, you now can access the content. You know, Roland, the thing about COVID that's been fascinating is how nimble, to use

Gary's words, people have been, how people have taken this medium, the streaming, all of that, and adapted it to their needs and to their programs. The good thing about it certainly is that you don't have to go through the gatekeepers. Nobody has to green light your film. The market, supply and demand, will say whether your piece is worth watching or not. The word gets out, do people watch it or not? And what are their feedback? So it's an exciting time for entertainment. But let me say this, this is Black History Month. And I just sit up and crack up at all these mainstream networks who have all these little commercials. It's Black

History Month. We celebrate black people. We celebrate black excellence. Well, how come they not on your air? You know, it's all about the way the commercial that you see on mainstream because they're not doing any ads with black media. Okay. No, no, you're not seeing. I mean, I can tell you that right now. As a matter of fact, it's been quite interesting how they're doing again. So what they are, you see how what they're doing is they're driving more of those dollars to mainstream media because now mainstream media now, ooh, black is now profitable.

Black is now it. That's why you're seeing so many other media companies doing black targeted content. But I keep explaining to folk, you've got to be real careful over what's black targeted content and black owned content because there is a difference. And black creative content, because some of the stuff that these people produce

is garbage. I mean, with all due respect. Um, or not. I mean, what I'm thinking, where are the documentaries about, um, Maggie Lena Walker? I saw that mess on, uh, Netflix about Matt and C.J. Walker.

They took it so out of context. Her great-grand, A'Lelia Bundles, said there was no light-skinned, dark-skinned thing going on. They just did that for drama. Got it. There's so many stories. What about Marcus Garvey?

How come we can't have a Marcus Garvey documentary? But again, the thing that I keep explaining to folks when it comes to resources, Avis, is that when you don't get the advertising dollars, you cannot green light the projects. When you can't green light the projects, then it's not there. And so that is one of the fundamental issues that we have. When we are frozen out of the media dollars, we do not have the ability to actually build and grow. And for all the people out there who say,

man, we need to stop sitting here worrying about white folks, build it yourself. Again, I said to those very people, are you right now supporting black media? Like I had a guy the other day, was sitting there talking about how this sister needed to start her own deal. And I asked him, are you a supporter

of Roland Martin Unfiltered? He said, no. I said, so your ass freeloading. I said, so you trying to tell somebody they need to start it for free? I said, but the problem is, what's going to happen when she starts it, but then you don't financially support it? So you can't tell folk to start something, but then you don't want to support it,

but you'll be sure to use your dollars in supporting somebody else that's not black. Avis, go ahead. That's exactly right. I mean, if we want to have representation, if we want to have institutions that reflect us, that tell our stories, and even our anchor institutions, if we want them to not be dependent on corporate dollars, guess what? That means we need to cough up more dollars, okay? But the overall nature of this particular movie and what it shows to me, once again, is how we are shifting, generally do have more opportunity really than ever to have to not have to go through

the few limited, largely white gatekeepers that's related to Hollywood, that's related to the traditional media to get it out there. I myself am working on a current, on a new streaming option for Black people myself. And absolutely, fundraising is a challenge. But the bottom line is, that's what's necessary. It's going to be what's necessary because at the end of the day, it's very important to me that it's authentic, that it reflects our needs, and that it is something that is made by us for us. And that's really what we need more of today. And for folks who say there's no, oh, my goodness, you don't really have a black streaming service. Actually, you do.

I feature the folks called Quele TV. I feature them on my TV One show, and so they're out there. So be sure to check them out. Check out their app if you can because they are, again, one of the services out there providing the kind of content,

and it's K-W-E-L-I TV. All right, folks. We have, of course, everybody. Actually, I'm going to go to a break real quick. I'm going to go to a break. When we come back, we're going to talk with a book author about her new book on the issue of race. So let's do this here. Cue Ali Sadiq.

I want to hear what Ali Sadiq had to say. We had that clip. So get that clip ready. I want to play that clip. Then we're going to do our celebrity drops. And then we're going to come back. Roll the mark. Unfiltered. We had that clip. So get that clip ready. I want to play that clip. Then we're going to do our celebrity drops and then we're going to come back to Roller Martin Unfiltered back in a moment. I grew up wanting a lot

of activities in my neighborhood that was in close proximity. You know, my mom wasn't always there so I didn't always have a ride to places. And you know, you want to be able to walk down the street and get to something that's some food for your soul in your community.

You know, I relished, you know, the days of being in Clarksdale, Mississippi. And when I had to go out there and live with my people, they had actually black. Hey, what's up? This is Marlon Wayans. No, it's not Kenan. No, or as some of y'all say, Klignan. No, it's not Damien. It's really, and it's not Damien,

because I do not have a bald head. It's one of the Wayans. It's not Winans, because they have been coming up to me, hey, how you doing? I love the Winanins. There's no Bebe and no Cece in this family. There's Kiki and Damon. So I am one of the Wayans brothers,

or as you may want to call fraternity population. There's the Chinese and then there's the Wayans. We, there's so many of us. Seven Wayans was born during this drop. So you are watching my man, Roland Martin, who really is swagged out. I want to give a big shout out to my man, Roland Martin, because he inspired the generation.

He's the one that got Al Sharpton in the gym doing selfies. He got a, hey, hey, hey. That Reverend Al was like, oh, I see Roland trying to look like he got a little two pack. I'm going to get him one better. He's the one that got Al doing the one headed almost push up on the desk. So Roland Martin is the inspiration behind that.

So be sure to tune in and watch... Roland Martin, Unfiltered. My next guest, Heather McGee. She is the author of the book, The Sum of Us, What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. It highlights the inequality and the lesson that many Americans have failed to learn.

Heather, how you doing? I'm so good. Glad to be with you. So, uh, so let's break this thing down when you talk about, uh, how, again, first of all, there are people who go, okay, look, you keep talking about it, you really aren't impacted by racism. Not really.

Yeah. So this book was really aimed at trying to shake America up and say that so many, in fact, truly, virtually all of our biggest challenges, economic inequality, the corruption, our democracy, our inability to fight and tackle climate change is all linked to racism. And really, the loss of the American dream, which of course has impacted white, Black, and brown, right? 40% of American workers before the pandemic couldn't meet their basic needs with the pay they were taking home.

And-and that didn't used to be the case. And so, you know, everyone is asking, what happened? Was it the immigrants' fault? Was it the Black folks' fault? You know, that's one answer from the right wing. But what I found in a journey across the country talking to hundreds of people and doing my own economic research

was that racism was driving our country's dysfunction at its root. But for the people who say, how? They say, I don't see it. They say, Heather, I don't see it. Well, here's one of the many ways. Take this story that I certainly grew up with, that I'm sure you have your own experience

with, Roland, that's really at the heart of the book, which is the story of when towns across the country, and not just in the South, decided to drain their public swimming pools rather than integrate them. Now, we used to have nearly 2,000 grand resort-style pools in this country, and they were built with tax dollars. But when Black people in the 50s and 60s said, hey, those are our tax dollars funding these pools, our children should be able to swim too, what happened?

Across the country, Washington State, West Virginia, Ohio, Mississippi, you name it, they decided to back trucks of dirt into their own swimming pools. And in so many ways, that's what's happened to our whole country. We used to build things in America. We used to invest in our people. We used to have the government pay for people to go to college.

And now that the country is becoming more diverse, we've drained the pool. And it's this zero-sum mentality that the majority of white people have, this idea that progress for us comes at their expense, that is undermining American prosperity for everyone. One of the things that, on this point, when we talk about moving forward, is you got to own up to it. And the reality is you have a Republican Party that simply says that President Joe Biden

is wrong for talking about systemic racism. You constantly had Vice President Mike Pence during the debate with then-Senator Kamala Harris say implicit bias just simply isn't real. And so what you have, Heather, is you have white denial in America about the reality of race. Yep. Yeah, and it's truly actually killing us. I mean, this is the issue. So many people don't

realize that the last time a white majority voted for a Democrat for president was when Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. That was it. He was the last Democratic president to win the white vote. Ever since then, white people have been choosing the party of their race, rather than anything that might have to do with their class interest, anything that might have to do with sheer competency. The fact that Donald Trump was able to win the white vote two times, and that he was then able to turn around and use this, it's not dog whistling, as you know, it's a bullhorn now, use this language, this scapegoating, this demonizing and distrusting

of Black folks and brown folks to get a coalition of white people to vote for an impeached president who lied to them every day, and then to get so many of them to believe his lie that because he didn't win the white vote, he didn't actually, you know, because, I'm sorry, because Joe Biden didn't win the white vote, he didn't win the election. That is the depth of the lie that has a stranglehold on the majority of the white population. I'm offering this book, which is full of stories of everyday Americans, of all races. It's full of economic data as an invitation, because I know that Black Lives Matter is the largest social movement in American history, that we have tens of millions of people who took action,

and that we have a lot of people who are sitting on the fence who are white or who are people who are, you know, just have a consciousness where they're not very racially conscious, no matter what their color. And they want to know, can we get to the promised land together? Is it a zero sum? Does progress for people of color, or the fact that people of color are soon to be the majority of the country, what does that mean for people who are not brown and Black?

Does that mean that we are gonna be treated like Black people were treated when they were the minority? Right? Let's be real. That is a key question here. And I think it's really important to call out the fact that Black people don't think that it's a zero-sum game. This is a lie that corporate elites have fed to white people generation after generation, that they need to play defense against our progress, even if it means stifling their own progress. Questions from panel. I'll start with you, Amy Jones-Weaver, for Heather McGee.

Hi, Heather. It is wonderful to see you. Congratulations on the book. I would love to be able to get your perspective on this notion of healing. It is a pet peeve of mine, a pet peeve of mine to continue to see people want to skip over the truth part, right?

Skip over the reconciliation part and go straight to healing. With the research that you've gone through and developed in your book when it comes to solutions, what would you say about this concept that really we just need to forget all that and go straight to healing? If that's not the case, then what should we do instead? So at the end of my book, I do talk about a process that I think could help this country get on the same page so that we can turn it. Let's be very clear here.

There is a well-funded infrastructure that is pumping out lies to white people every single day, that wants to deny every single part of the truth of American history. And so there is no progress without truth. That is the most important piece. I would say, frankly, there is no progress without truth. That is the most important piece. I would say, frankly, there's no such thing as reconciliation in America.

Reconciliation means coming back together after you have been pulled apart. Our country was born apart. Our country was born on the lie of the hierarchy of human value. There's no reconciling, right? This is actually a country that needs to be transformed. on the lie of the hierarchy of human value. There's no reconciling, right? This is actually a country that needs to be transformed.

And so do I think that there is a wound in every American soul from the torture, the rape, the lying, the corruption, the distortion, the projection that white supremacy reeks on everyone who is anywhere near it? Yes. Do I think that needs to be healed? Yes. And do you know what the first part of healing any doctor would say is? It's the diagnosis. You have to diagnose the problem. So no, there is no skipping over the truth part

before you get to the healing. But I agree that there's no progress, truly, without a transformation of our people, because this lie that white people are superior to everybody else is old, it serves a purpose, it is sold for profit, and until we uproot it, this country will never ever fulfill its promise. Julianne, your question for Heather McGee.

Heather, first of all, congratulations on the book and on your work. I know that was a riveting trip around the country to talk to people. I'm interested in what you learned about white people's perception of reparations. I serve on the National African American Reparations Commission. HR 40 is being discussed. But do you get a resistance from white people who say things like, well, I never had any slaves?

Well, you know, you didn't have to. Enslaved people built the foundation of this country. But when you talk to people of all races, what are people saying back to you about reparations? Such a good question. Because, you know, one person could read at least, you know, the title of my book and say, well, if racism costs everyone, then we shouldn't have any reparations because it doesn't particularly cost Black people. Well, I am not sitting here as the descendant of enslaved people and people who were denied housing and education and safety from lynch moms

saying that the ledger is anywhere near equal. And I have a full-throated call for reparations in my recommendations in the book. The thing that I hear the most from white people is it's this zero sum, right? A dollar in your pocket means a dollar less in mine. This is the worldview that they've been sold. And so what I think is important to educate people about

is that government did the segregating, did the enslaving, did the stripping of wealth. And government, which we all fund and support, should be the one to pay reparations. So there's this idea that every white person with a black neighbor is going to suddenly have to go next door and write somebody a check, when that is not what is going to happen. And I say going to happen because I do believe it's going to happen. I do believe that you cannot have a society that is built with so much racism in its economic policy. And that is really what I try to drive home in every single chapter of my book. I talk about the financial crisis.

I talk about our resistance to acting on climate change. I talk about the resistance to acting on climate change. I talk about the cost of segregation. I talk about the way racism has been a weapon to divide people from collective bargaining and labor unions. I talk about public education, all of the different ways that racism has held the pen as we have written the laws in this country. And so, of course, we need reparations. I think we also need to say the whole sentence and say who's going to pay for the reparations, and then also talk about, frankly, the benefit, right? We know that the racial economic divides have cost us $16 trillion over the last 20 years,

that they cost as much as $2 trillion every single year. You can't have a society where a Black household with somebody who goes to college has less wealth than a white household of somebody who dropped out of high school and not admit that history shows up in your wallet. That no matter how much education and income any individual can have right now, so much of our economic path is determined by decisions that were made before we were born and by the interest on those decisions. people to create the white middle class that currently exists today, from the Homestead Act to the GI Bill to the subsidization of mortgages and the redlining of mortgages into the 1970s. And so, of course, we have to right that wrong with economic reparations for all of it. And my point is, we will all prosper because of it.

So you talked about the issue, obviously, of race in this book. So I'm curious to know, did you include this interaction? Get up here and talk about how racist Robert E. Lee was. But I'm going to talk about you, Connie. Sitting over there shopping while we're talking about Robert E. Lee. This is a picture of you shopping while we're talking about racism and history in this country. Only white members of this group... You should be doing a two-box of this.

Because you don't give a damn, and it's clear. But I'm going to tell you what the slaves, my ancestors said about Robert E. Lee, since you don't know history, sister. Let me tell you that they said when he got the plantation, after he got off the field where 27,000 people died at Gettysburg, Connie, Robert E. Lee, was a brutal slave master.

Not only did when he whooped the slaves, he said lay it on them hard. After he said lay it on them hard, he said put brine on them so they'll burn them. That's what Robert E. Lee did. And you set your arrogant self in here and sit on there shopping while the pain and the hurt of the people of this community is on display because you don't give a damn and you should resign. You should have resigned two years ago when you choked a white man in his house. You should have resigned two weeks ago when you got on TV and said foolishness.

And you should walk out of here and resign and never come back because you are the example of racism in this community. You are horrible. Not to the rest of the board. You have an obligation to the people of this community. I take it he wrote a lot about a bunch of lot of Connie's in your book, Heather.

Garrett Chambers, your question for Heather. Heather, do you think that the people that you talk to actually believe the things that they say around racism not being a big issue, or is

it that they know that that narrative benefits them to perpetuate it? Well, first of all, Gary, I'm a huge fan, huge booster of yours online. There have been some people that I have called Connie who have crossed me. We all have a Connie. Such righteousness. I'm so supportive of your campaign.

I'm so excited. Keep it on. Thank you. You know your campaign. I'm so excited. Keep it on. Thank you. You know, I think it's a mix. I think there are a lot of white people who deeply believe the zero sum, deeply believe the idea that progress for people of color is coming at their expense. It's why the white majority has never supported the Affordable Care Act, even though white people are the largest group of the uninsured. It's why white people went from supporting the idea of a guaranteed income

and a guaranteed job for everyone who wanted one. Two-thirds of white people wanted that for their country, but this is what we should have in 1960. Then the Civil Rights Movement came along in 1964. That support fell in half to just one-third and it stayed low ever since. So it is clearly an animating principle,

this idea that anything that brings us into collective action that would put them shoulder to shoulder with black and brown people is something that they are ambivalent about at best and terrified of and disdainful of at worst. So that is very clear. And I think we can't truly understand our politics even before Donald Trump, obviously, but we can't understand the story of the economic decline in this country and the economic decline of manufacturing jobs, the economic decline of how the rich are getting richer and everybody else is struggling to stay ahead without understanding how white people turn their

backs on the formula that supported a middle class back when it was a white middle class. there is some sense that I'm just trying to downplay racism because I know that that's the good look for me. Yes, absolutely. But I also think the mind is a tricky thing. And I think that if you look at the media that is targeted at white people, you know, our media that is targeted at people of color, the media that's targeted at progressives, is all over the place. It says lots of different things in a given day, right? The media that is targeted at white people to make them more conservative is laser-focused. It is terrorists for breakfast, criminal immigrants for lunch, and inner-city thugs for dinner. Rinse and repeat.

Well, that will not change because that is exactly their formula for success, and that's why you see they're continuing what they're doing. Y'all, the book is called The Sum of Us, What Racism Cost Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGee. Heather, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. All right, folks. If y'all want to support what we do here at Roland Martin Unfiltered, please do so by joining our Bring the Funk fan club. Every dollar you give goes to support the show and what we do. Many of you give there on YouTube.

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Washington, D.C., 2006. And so we certainly want you guys to support what we do to have these type of conversations. Avis, Gary, Julian, thanks a bunch. Y'all heard Heather say that. Gary, of course, is running for that special election to replace Cedric Richmond there for Congress. And so, Gary, we appreciate you taking time off the campaign trail

for joining our panel. Folks, thanks a lot. I shall see y'all tomorrow, right here on Roller Barton Unfiltered. Of course, Claflin, I'm rocking their shirt. So I told y'all, all the HBCUs, I only rock HBCU gear in the show that I've actually spoken to and visited.

So shout out to the folks at Claflin who sent me this cool sweatshirt. I've worn it before, but it was President's Day, so they don't have the air on our building, so it was kind of cold. This is a thick sweatshirt they sent a brother. So shout out to Claflin. All right, folks, I'll see y'all tomorrow. Holla! 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. 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 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. 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 their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them.

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