#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Trump Ballroom Fight Explodes. Black Women Job Crisis. How American Whiteness Was Made

Episode Date: August 15, 2026

8.14.2026 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Trump Ballroom Fight Explodes. Black Women Job Crisis. How American Whiteness Was Made The twice impeached convicted felon Donald Trump is asking a judge to intervene and allow him to build a NEW 90,000 square-foot ballroom in place of the demolished White House East Wing. We'll tell you about his new request to the Supreme Court.  Job prospects are uneven for Black women, and a new report has the data to prove it. Institute for Women's Policy Research's Dr. Jennifer Turner will join us live to discuss the real reason women are struggling to hold down jobs in the work force, and it has nothing to do with effort or qualifications.  Wisconsin Republican Congressman up for re-election in November has a goal to help the rich get richer. We'll play you the clip of what  Historian Carmen Thompson explores how the concept of Whiteness predates European expansion into the Americas. She explains that it was a central factor in the settlement of Virginia, the first colony of what would become the United States of America. Black Star Network Partner: ChapterChapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options. ____ Download the Black Star Network app at http://www.blackstarnetwork.com! We're on iOS, AppleTV, Android, AndroidTV, Roku, FireTV, and SamsungTV. The #BlackStarNetwork 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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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With best in class pricing, unbeatable trade values, and 70 years of trust. It's easy to see why families choose the Plaza Auto Group. Plaza Auto Group, Celebrating 7,000. 70 years, family owned and operated. Visit plaza autogroup.com. If your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island to serve the same level of discourse.

Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Did you hear the new episode of The Hey Jonas Podcast? We are at D23, so we'll see who stops by. The cast of Frozen stopped by, Kristen Bell, Josh Gad, and Adina Mansell.

I auditioned for Frozen. What? For Christoph. They said, okay, what are you going to be singing today? I said, I don't know. That must have been why you didn't get it. Oh, you probably won't. Plus, John Stamos, Hayden Christensen from Star Wars and more.

And I guess I can share that... No way. Listen to the latest episode of Hey Jonas and the Iheart radio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook. Each week, we talk to someone in show business

and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, Adam Scott, Danny McBride, Ben Stillard, and a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Like CNN. In 2014, 2,000 Black Star Network, it is day three of the National Association of Black Journal's Convention here in Atlanta. We'll have for you a fascinating conversation that lays out the state of America for black folks. It took place that was moderated by Joy Ann Reed, and it features Nicole Hannah-Jones and Dr. Kimberly Crenshaw. Also, Jane Kennedy, Overton, one of the first women to sit on a series. sports anchor of a main broadcast was one of the folks honored today

being inducted into the NABJ Hall of Fame. We'll show you her incredible speech. Also, a white congressman said we're not doing, a white Republican congressman said America's not doing enough for the super rich. Yes, y'all. He literally said that.

Job prospects from black women are extremely bleak. We'll tell you what new report says about that as well. It is time to bring the fog. I'm rolling button on Filcher. The Blackside Network, let's go. He selected to serve on who has been a charge in the death of Tupac Shakur that took place 30 years ago. Opening statements in the trial in Las Vegas will begin on Monday.

Family members and fans of the rapper have been waiting for decades to learn the truth about what happened on September 7th, 1996, when a drive-by shooting took the life of Tupac Shakur. He was just 25 years old when he was shot and killed at the height of his career. this took place on the Las Vegas Strip. The shooting happened in the middle of a fierce battle for dominance in the music industry by gravel gangs. Three years ago, investigators charged D. Davis with murder describing him as the shot caller who planned the killing. Davis has pled not guilty and could be sentenced to life in prison if he is convicted. My panel right now, joining me is Michael Inhum Tep host, the Africa History Network show out of Detroit. Candice Kelly,

host legal analyst and host of Takeaway with Candice Kelly South Orange, New Jersey. Matt Manning, civil rights attorney out of Corpus Christi. Matt, I'll start with you.

Listen, this is 30 years ago. This individual has been before he's bragged about participating in this murder. Now he claims that he wasn't involved. Does the prosecution

have a very tough case to prove a case when a case is 30 years old? Yes. per se, as a matter of course, I think a case that old presents difficulties that, you know, more recent cases just don't present, particularly when you look at the fact that when it's a case of this age, I can't speak to all the forensics or whatever they might have in custody, what they might have maintained. But there are a lot of questions for a chain of custody, degradation

of materials, and most importantly, memories. Because as people know, I mean, what they've got to prove to the 12 people in the box is they've got to prove he committed this crime. in whatever way they're alleging beyond a reasonable doubt. And the more time goes by, the easier it is to mount reasonable doubts, with the caveat that if you have DNA or some other compelling kind of evidence, maybe you get over that. But it's much, much harder to, I think, controvert a doubt when you're looking at 30 years have gone by between the event happening and when it's being prosecuted. So I do think they have a very difficult case.

I never had a case this old. But in an example, the case that I proved that I believe was about 15 years old, it was DNA. The person was found by DNA, and that makes it a lot easier when you have that kind of compelling evidence. When you have eyewitness testimonies, eyewitness statements, those are already difficult even, you know, if you have a trial within a year or two years, because people's memories fade and a million things can mediate what they believe they saw. 30 years is a very, very long time, and I think that makes it a difficult case to prosecute. Well, listen, we are looking at a case that, as Matt said, is very old. We're also looking at a case that if the prosecution needs to prove it, there really is nothing so far that we know out here in the public after all of these years that says anything about

DNA, that says anything about forensic evidence or bloodstains being any there. All they have is Dwayne Keefe Davis's admission that he did this. And now he has recanted that admission. He's been on about eight or nine different interviews. And what he said was he thought that the proffer agreement that he had in a federal in order to get him out of cocaine charges was something that would stand in everything that he said. So this is something that's very important for people to understand. You have a proffer agreement.

It works within the confines of that agreement. You're protected when you say that. He made all these admissions outside of the agreement. And if it wasn't for those admissions, Roland, this case would have never happened. But they pushed, they pushed. And outside people pushed too. Some of those people will be taking the stand to say this is, what he said and this is why we believe him.

But I think the other reason that the prosecution is going to have a hard time is because this is a guy who on the record has already said, I lie. He wrote a book about having the gun, passing the gun to the person who actually killed Tupac and actually shaved Shignite in the back of the head. Now he's saying that it didn't happen. So we're talking about beyond a reasonable doubt in a murder case, the doubt for me is kind of very, there because he's he's a liar so i would imagine that the prosecution has more than what we are hearing more than just his admission because he is admitted that he does not tell the truth and that

is on record and it has been for since 2008 when he had that proffer agreement uh michael i mean this sort reminds me the jam master j trial uh where individuals were found guilty but then also that it was thrown out and so this is one of the issues you have when you have a case that is an case. Yeah, Roland, I think it's going to be hard to prosecute, but also, you know, it's a few questions, but also I think the prosecutors have more evidence than just statements that he's made. Yes, he's made conflicting statements. You know, one of my questions is, okay, who else is involved in this killing of Tupac Chouar

and where are they? And, you know, so we'll see what happens with this. We don't know what type of forensic evidence, what type of hard evidence they had. But just, you know, I remember when Tupac was killed. I'm a little bit older, I think maybe than Matt and Candace. But I remember when Tupac was killed. And one of the tragic things about this whole beef is Tupac was killed, Biggie was killed, Shug Knight is in prison, and I think he belongs in prison.

But this was all over the battle of who's going to rule hip hop, okay? And black people lost out on that battle. I mean, you look at the consequences. You look at the aftermath of this. So, you know, this is a tragedy on multiple levels as far as I'm concerned. It absolutely is. All right, folks, let's get to a break. We'll be right back.

Roll of Martin unfiltered on the Black Star Network. All right, folks, let me get approached for a second. My mom had questions about her. Medicare, so she called Chapter, a Medicare advisory company, and she texts me right after saying it's a great benefit. It was easy. A real person walked her through the whole thing, and now she understands better what's going on. But also it's not just her.

The woman in Yonkers rode in saying the process was so simple, the enrollment was easy, and she was so glad she called. Then there's Maryland, 90 years old, in Florida, living on Social Security. Her premium climbed every single year north of $400 a month for coverage. she could barely afford any more. So what does she do? She called Chapter. They found her the same top-tier coverage

for hundreds of dollars less, 90 years old, and finally, somebody in her corner. I hear stories like that again and again from our community. The Medicare system was not built to work for you. Too much fine print, too many plans. Yet Chapter's advisors are independent and honest, the only Medicare advisors that compare

every plan nationwide. They're focused on one thing, what actually works for you. If you're already in the right plan, they'll tell you. No games. And people who switched to a chapter saved an average of $11,100 a year. All takes us 20 minutes. You talk to a real person and is completely free.

Help. So call Chapter at 724-264-8281. 724-264-8-1. That's Chapter. Let me ask you a question. Why do so many people seem to think they know black men so well, but they think we want, what they think we need, They even tried to tell us why and how we voted,

but never had a conversation with us. Never asked us how we felt. It brings us joy. What makes us angry? What makes us scared? How do we live? That's what this show is about. No translation, because we don't need anybody speaking for us. We can speak for ourselves. This will be a show where we bring brothers on

that you don't see on every other talk show. Nope. Brothers that are doing work in local communities with black men for black communities. We're going to hear each other and try to understand so perhaps we can move forward together. No translation because we don't need anybody speaking for us. What we need is each other.

No translation. Right here on the Black Star Network. Check it out. Hey everybody. I'm T.D. Jackson. I want to encourage you to watch Roland Martin unfiltered. It'll blow your mind. Donald Trump truly is one of the most dumb people you've ever seen in your life.

This fool has had around today. And he actually said that he is going to declare the street of Hormous, U.S. territory. Seriously. This idiot said that. So, the ceasefire with Iran is breaking.

There is no deal in this idiot wants us to believe that he is going to declare a Hormuz a U.S. territory. I don't think Iran

would be... But this sounds like this ridiculous idea to take over Greenland. and we're just going to take it ourselves. Y'all, we're dealing with an idiot. And I am glad I am not one of the stupid fools who voted for this man. Michael, really?

Oh, so you just think Iran is going to be like, sure. Go ahead. It's yours. What a dumb ass. Yeah, Roland. You remember a few weeks ago, I said, I hope Donald Trump shows. his entire ass every day, because I want the white people that voted for him to see how stupid he is. So, yeah, he thinks he suffers from this strong man sickness.

He suffers from the strong man mentality, and he thinks he can just tell his supporters that, yeah, we're going to make this a U.S. territory. We're just going to take it. And they're dumb enough to believe it. You know, now he thought Iran was going to roll over like Venezuela. when he went in and kidnapped Maduro. Iran said, no, no, no, you know we're not going for that. And it's six months later, and he still doesn't know what to do with Iran.

But yeah, you're going to have this will play well on Fox News. This will play well with the 77 million who voted for him or the diehard Maga that support him. But no, no, they're not going to, he's not going to do this. And they're still not letting the ships through the straight of her moves for the most part. So he's trying to, as gas is $4 a gallon, he's trying to project this strong man facade. My SUV is worth more than ever. Time to upgrade? There's never been a better time.

At Plaza Auto Group locations get top value for your trade and shop hundreds of new and pre-owned vehicles across 11 locations. And if you can't come to us, we'll come to you. With best in class pricing, unbeatable trade values, and 70 years of trust. It's easy to see why families choose the Plaza Auto Group. Plaza Auto Group, celebrating 70 years, family owned and operated. Visit Plaza Auto Group.com. If your bookshelf and your for-you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.

This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're concerned. connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. So I'm obsessed.

From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, You're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

See you between the pages. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network. Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners. Each week, we talk to someone in show business, aka The Biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us.

Everyone has a good time, and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, not that great. Actually, can you help me shape this? Yeah. How about we flip it on his head, right? How about we flip the script?

Okay. What is the surprise woman? Actually, you think is the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird. Adam Scott. This entire time, you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show. I would never I have I would never set expectations for something like that

to happen. If the universe allows for something like that to happen, I'm open to it. I'm always going to accept. You know, Danny McBride, fine. Yeah, it's all this fragile masculinity exuding. I could smell it walking down the hallway, to be honest with you. I was like, I was like, is that weed? Nope, it's fragile masculinity.

Ben Stiller, no. Because a lot of times, out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is. You know what I mean? They're like, oh, what's a state. Everyone's so dumb except for you. And fake. Right, fake and also not interested or just like, oh, I've got my life. I don't care about your life.

And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotbby. If you know me, you know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover those things together through meaningful conversations with fascinating people. Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're hired to fill the space with you. You

have something in your guts. You go with it. And Sean Johnson recalled the moment she realized her now husband, Andrew, was the one. He was just so unapologetically himself and knew nothing of Hollywood. He hadn't been on a plane before without his family. It was so pure. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast. or wherever you get your podcasts. Again, and no, it's not going to work this time. And I think this is the divert away from the fact that he got away from one plane and go to another plane and the catering car and a catering truck.

He may be trying to wipe that story off the headlines as well. The thing that got, there has to be cracking up, Candace, is this fool gets into a war with Iran because of Israel. And he ain't got no way out. And Iran's literally like, yo, man, we ain't doing none of that bullshit you're trying to do. And this fool is just throwing up any sort of comment to get our attention. But it all goes back to the same thing. You are losing.

You are losing. And we know that the straight is under a different authority that has been fighting this forever. Remember, he teased about calling this the straight of Trump or the straight of America. kind of reminds me of the Kennedy Center, how he went through all of that process. And now he has his name on the Kennedy Center because it says that it was restructured by Trump. He's going to try to get his name on there some way. But this is the type of person that we're dealing with. We're dealing with someone who is egotistic.

We're dealing with someone who wants to see their name all over the place. We're dealing with someone who is worried about legacy, whether it's, you know, in the ballroom or whether it's in the reflecting pool. But this is indicative of the type of man and the type of level of intellect that this man has to just go out there and say anything, like a third grader. Just say anything and see where it hits and see if anybody corrects you. But this is part of what he does and it's part of his plan. Just keep talking, keep talking, keep talking. Unfortunately, he has people that will keep listening. And, you know, if he keeps moving the way that he does, he's going to entwine more people into, into, you know, his arena. But we know that he is

never going to get that straight. And it will never be the straight of Trump. I don't believe intellect should ever be used in the same sentence as Trump, Matt. I mean, this is just stupid. And again, Fox News, conservative media, all these people eat the stuff up. He has no plan to extricate us. a battleship. But they have been out at sea for nine months. They are complaining about backed up toilets, no food, mildew, mold, all this sort of

stuff. And you know, he goes, they haven't been out long enough. I need all of these white folks, broke folks to understand Donald Trump does not give a damn about veterans or the military. He is all about how he can use

them for whatever purpose. He's a fraud. He is a joke. He is despicable, Matt. The America that Maga wants to go back to is the James K. Polk Manifest Destiny America, where you just point and say that's mine and I'm going to take it. That's the reason you make these kinds of statements. I think Michael hit the nail on the head and Candace as well. This is about, you know, feeding red meat to his base.

And as you said, Fox News, this is a talking point. Nobody can, nobody can truly believe he's trying to get the straight-of-hoer moves. But, you know, when you look at Greenland and look at somebody, other things that he said, this is part and parcel with that most American ethos, especially for people who are jingoist, who see America as this shining city on a hill where we go back to the foregone days of the forebears, right? It's this idea that we can just go take whatever we want. And even though that's not ever going to happen, what you get from that is the rhetorical

value of being the strongman, as Michael put it, to say, I'm going to go out there and get what I want and stake my claim in this world. And we know he's lying. we know that there's not ever a realistic chance that's going to happen. It's more about rhetoric and getting the juice off saying crazy things like that, that people, some people, have red meat for. That's all it's about. And I don't think he's an intellectual by any stretch, but I will say one thing that he and his team have done that is smart,

is they pander to their base. They say things like this that would be utterly just like incomprehensible in any other era and policy. He says this kind of stuff on a daily basis and people eat it up. And to some extent, they've leveraged that. So, I mean, there's some intellect and at least realizing what your people want to hear, but whether it's a thing that's actually going to happen, we know it won't. Well, when your people are stupid, that's what happens. All right, y'all, check this one out.

I know y'all are going to be fascinated by this. So Joe Lombardo, who's running forward in Nevada government, said at a rally with Trump that, you know, these billionaires, they're sitting here and they're providing jobs, things along those lines. This one guy here did a little bit better. Glenn Rothman, Republican, up for election in November, was a sixth term congressman, Trump loyalist. He was talking about the economy in Troy, Michigan, with the state's GOVP

gubernatorial candidate, the black Republican John James, as well as House Majority Steve Scalese. And you know what? Just play the clip. So there's a little bit what's going on. Don't let anybody tell you the people running Congress right now are looking out for the rich. Actually I think we should do a little more but but we don't you know right now. I'm sorry did we did you guys that? Run again. So there's a little bit what's going on. Don't let anybody tell you the people right Congress right now looking out for the rich. Actually I think we should do a little more but but we do you know right now. Candace we should do a little bit more for the rich.

How much more are we going to do? I mean look at the economy, look at the housing market, look at how people are struggling to keep jobs and look at the hundreds of thousands of well let's start with a black woman that have lost jobs. When we talk about what's going on for the rich the rich are actually protected. Soon people are going to be taking a note and a page from the mayor of New York who is taxing these almost million properties of second properties for people who don't even stay there. You know, he's going to amass about $500 million in monies that will go to different education programs and programs for youth and things of that nature.

But these are the types of things that you really do have to do in order to keep the economy going. And fortunately, and unfortunately, for the- those who are rich, they're going to be the ones who are stricken. But we are already doing enough and a lot for the rich, which is why the economy is where it is now and why people are suffering. Matt, the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, which was ugly and shameful, hook rich folks up in a huge way. You've got to really be stupid to make a claim like that in today's economy. That we should be doing more is what you mean? Is that what you're talking about?

His comment. Oh, okay. Should we do more for the rich? Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. In fact, it's funny we're talking about this today, because yesterday I listened to an NPR long-form interview with Congressman Roe Kana. He was talking about how in his district in Silicon Valley, there's like, what, 900 billionaires or something, and they own like 21% of all of the money in the United States, all the assets in the United States, which is just, an extraordinary thing, 900 people, right? And he was talking about all of the things that could be done if we tax the rich. And Steve Inskeep, to his credit, you know, really pressed him on. He said,

okay, how are you going to make sure they actually pay the taxes? But the point is, he goes through this numerical thing of all of the things that we could have accomplished in society if we tax the rich, these billionaires, the right way. And he's a politician, so take some of it with a grand assault. But the point of it is, there is a massive hoarding of wealth and they're not being taxed and there's already so much being done for the rich as Candace alluded to. And you know, I don't know why you make a comment like this unless you're trying to curry favor with some of those very rich people, but we could certainly, people could still be billionaires

and trillionaires, a la Elon Musk, keep their wealth and we could be doing a lot more for society. The rich are already getting a very, very good go with the government as it is. And that's why at his inauguration, Mr. Trump's second inauguration, we saw all of those billionaires stepping and fetching it right there because they want to be right at the hand of the king so they can get the spoils from the king. So the rich are already being hooked up. In a huge way. Michael?

Yeah, Rowling, you know, no, the wealthy don't need anymore. The big-ass-lugly bill gave them a tax cut to the tune of over $1 trillion by cutting Medicaid by $1 trillion over the next 10 years. and that tax cut goes to the top 1%. So here you have Representative Glenn Groffman probably trying to appeal to the diehard Trump supporters who are at the gas pump at the gas station making life-altering decisions, whether they can afford medication or gas, whether they can afford food or gas.

So I think this is going to backfire on him. especially if his opponent in the race puts this together in the clip and puts it on social media. It says this is the type of dumb ass that you're going to try to reelect. So no, the wealthy don't need more tax cuts. No, they don't need more help. But this is, these are the type of sycophants that Donald Trump has, especially in the House of Representatives, and some in the Senate, but especially in the House of Representatives. These are type of sycophants he has that are voting for his policies.

And these are the type of people who have to be voted out of office in November, 26. Look, and you're doing with an economy where the consumer, the consumer sentiment, even more Republicans, has gone down. Also, retail sales slump in July. And Fox News can yell and scream all they want to, but this is not a great economy. Let me go to a break. We come back. We're going to talk about how bleak the jobs outlets. for black women.

You're watching Rolla Martin Unfiltered. The Black Star Network. Be sure to join our Breindefunk Fan Club. The goals get $20,000 of our fans contributing on average, 50 bucks each a year. That's $4.19 a month, 13 cents a day.

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At rolling at rolandmartin Unfiltered.com. Back in a moment. All right, folks. Let me get approached her for a second. My mom had questions about her Medicare, so she called Chapter, a Medicare advisory company, and she texts me right after saying it's a great benefit. It was easy.

A real person walked her through the whole thing, and now she understands better what's going on. It was also not just her. A woman in Yonkers wrote in saying the process was so simple, the enrollment was easy, and she was so glad she called. Then there's Maryland, 90 years old, in Florida, living on Social Security. Her premium climbed every single year north of $400 a month for coverage she could barely afford any more. So what does she do?

She called Chapter. They found her the same top-tier coverage for hundreds of dollars less, 90 years old, and finally, somebody in her corner. I hear stories like that again and again from our community. The Medicare system was not built to work for you. Too much fine print, too many plans. Yet Chapter's advisors are independent and honest. The only Medicare advisors that compare every plan nationwide. They're focused on one thing, what actually works for you.

If you're already in the right plan, they'll tell you. No games. People who switched to a chapter saved an average of $1,100 a year. All takes is 20 minutes. You talk to a real person and it's complete. completely free help. So call chapter at 724-264-8281, 724-264-8-1. That's chapter. Let me ask you a question. Why do so many people seem to think they know black men so well, what they think we want, what they think we need? Hell, they even tried to tell us why and how we vote.

They never had a conversation with us. Never asked us how we felt. It brings us joy. What makes us angry, what makes us scared. How do we live? That's what this show is. about it. No translation, because we don't need anybody speaking for us. We can speak for ourselves. This will be a show where we bring brothers on that you don't see on every other talk show. Nope. Brothers that are doing work in local communities with black men for black communities. We're going to hear each other and try to understand so perhaps we can move forward together. No translation, because we don't need anybody speaking for us. What we need is each other. No translation.

Right here on the Black Star Network. Check it out. What's up? It's Tammy Roman. Hey, it's John Murray, the executive producer of the new Sherry Shepard Talk Show. It's me, Sherry Shepard, and you know what you're watching. Roland Martin, unfilty. Folks, black women have lost jobs at three times the rate of all women in professional and service occupation in 2025.

A new report reveals how dire this situation is, including soldiers with advanced degrees. Jennifer Turner is the Senior Researcher, Associate at the Institute for Women's Policy Research. She joined us right now. Jennifer, glad to have a year here on Rolla Martin on filter. All right, we've talked about this. We've explained how these things. How bad is this? Yeah, it's pretty dire.

And thank you so much for having me and for raising awareness around this issue. We do know that hundreds of thousands of black women lost jobs between January and August of 2025. And our report focuses specifically on young black women. So we're looking at why young black women are having trouble entering into the labor market. And so we look at kind of three different reasons why this may be the case. Are more young black women than ever entering the labor market and they competing with each other? Is it the occupations that they're going after? Or is it what else is going on?

And so we really came to the conclusion that it's structural, racism and discrimination that is keeping young black women out of the labor market. And so that's what we're focused on in this report. And at IWPR, we're very committed to raising awareness around these issues. Okay. So the report is called barriers, not bootstraps. And the thing that the thing that jumps out is, again, the anti-DDI attacks, the federal government cuts as well, African-Americans over indexing the federal government. And so that's a when you have federal job, government job losses and corporate job losses? Absolutely. We know that black women were disproportionately affected by the federal job cuts. And so this, it has huge ripple effects. It does feel kind of like an attack on black women in this moment where these jobs that used to be able to provide a pathway to the middle class and help black women achieve economic mobility.

are no longer there. And so you're seeing black women pivot to entrepreneurship and other things. And we do have to praise the resilience of black women, but we also need to keep in mind that we need policies in place to protect black women and to make sure that black women have equal access to education and to economic mobility.

Question from the panel. Canna, you first? So we are black women, large participants, in the workforce in general. Yeah. And we saw that because of the numbers and the way that we were let go. What is it at the core in terms of someone who is hiring that they are leaning on that is not allowing them or enabling them or why are they not motivated to hire black women? And also you said that you looked at the younger age sector.

What age group are you talking about when you say younger age group? 16 to 24. So that age group. And then, yeah, you know, that's a really good question. What's not motivating employers to hire black people or black women? I don't necessarily have an answer for that. But I would say to employers that we know that black women are a highly educated, highly skilled workforce. And so pushing a workforce like this out of the labor market is detrimental to their bottom line, you know. So if we have to think of, it in the sense of, you know, money talks, as they say. If we have to think of it that way, then it's in the best interest of employers to hire black women. So, you know, we really need to think about how we can reverse this. Michael. All right. So I saw an article about this report from the Black Wall Street Times, and we have been seeing this phenomenon since Trump came back in the office. And I know that I've read articles where African American women are talking about starting businesses, things of this nature, right? But at the same time, about 80% of

black-owned businesses go out of business in the first 18 to 24 months. So I was just wondering if you have come across any pivot-type success stories where African-American women were lost their jobs because of anti-D-EI policies or doge and things like this and have been able to pivot, take their talents, start businesses, and, you know, become somewhat successful so far. I was just wondering if you come across anything like that. We have come across a lot of stories of black women pivoting right now. In terms of whether or not they're successful, I think it's going to take some time. My SUV is worth more than ever. Time to upgrade?

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If your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story.

I'm obsessed, so obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to pro society on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. See you between the pages. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network. Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners. Each week, we talk to someone in show business, aka The Biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us.

Everyone has a good time, and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman. Actually, can you help me shape this? How about we flip it on his head, right? How about we flip this around? What is the surprise woman? Actually, you think it's the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird. Adam Scott, this entire time you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show.

I would never expect. I would never set expectations for something like that to happen. If the universe allows for something like that to happen, I'm open to it. I'm always going to accept. You know, Danny McBride, fine. Yeah, it's all this fragile masculinity exuding. I could smell it walking down the hallway, to be honest with you. I was like, is that weed?

Nope, it's fragile masculinity. Ben Stiller, no. Because a lot of times out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is. You know what I mean? They're like, oh, what's just a state. Everyone's so dumb. And fake. Right, fake and also not interested.

or just like, oh, I've got my life, I don't care about your life. And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hoda Kotvey, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby. If you know me, you know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize. maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover those things together through meaningful conversations

with fascinating people. Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're hired to fill the space with you. You have something in your guts. You go with it. And Sean Johnson recalled the moment she realized her now husband, Andrew, was the one. He was just so unapologetically himself and knew nothing of Hollywood. He hadn't been on a plane before without his family. It was so pure. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think you raise a really good point about the issues that black businesses and black

entrepreneurs face, especially here in D.C. I live in D.C. I live in D.C. And so we know that it's really hard for small business owners to sustain, especially in like the restaurant industry. And so I think that's another area where we can have policies and, you know, I've been seeing different grants for business owners to basically for other people, for people funders and policymakers to prop up black businesses because we know that it is harder for black businesses. This is a time to invest in black business. Okay, thank you. That's kind of a perfect segue into the question I was going to ask because one of the things I found striking in the report is that you find this issue with black women getting hired despite there not being a material change in qualifications. And what I was interested in is, I guess, what are your findings from the report about the correlation between education and the women who are graduate degrees and, you know, well-accomplished their inability to find jobs and the policy recommendations that come from

that. And I ask because generally when economies are bad, people run to get education, but clearly that doesn't seem to be remedying the issue. So I'd like to hear your thoughts on that. Yeah, that's such a great question. Unfortunately, for black women, the returns on education, so the ROI is not the same as their white counterparts. That doesn't, however, mean that black women shouldn't continue getting education. We know that black women are highly educated as a group. I would say that in terms of policy recommendations, really looking at, you know, how, for example, the federal government has been overhauling the student loan system. That's one of the things that we really need to prop up student loans, and we really need to roll back some of those policies

that are going to disproportionately impact black women. Black women are already the bear the brunt. of student loan debt in this country. And so, but at the same time, putting caps on things like graduate student loans is going disproportionately affect black women as well because it's going to impede their access to education. So I think it comes down to really reinforcing things like civil rights protections and workforce protections, making sure that the EEOC has the data and thing or the capacity to collect the data necessary to ensure that we have equal access.

to opportunity for black women. So it's not so much that black women need to go out and get more education. It's that we need the protections in place, and we need to bolster the infrastructure that we have to make sure that black women have equal access. Jennifer, where can people go to read and report? www.org is where you can go to find all of our research. And then also, I would say, follow me on LinkedIn at Jennifer L. Turner, PhD. I post about these issues all the time, and we're committed at IWPR to

raising awareness on these issues. All right. We're surely appreciate you joining us. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Have a good one. I appreciate it. Folks seven years ago, Atyana Jefferson was shot and killed in her home. Now the four city council is approving a 11.25 million dollar settlement for her family. You might remember the shooting we covered it. It took place in 2019. The agreement would resolve civil complaints, civil claims related to her death, of the four city council is said to consider the settlement on August 25th, if approved, it would require approval by a probate court for its finalization.

Under their agreement, Jefferson's two nephews, one who witnessed the shooting, will receive a larger share of the settlement with their money placed in trust until they turn 18. The rest would be divided among Jefferson's family. Her attorney, a sister, Ashley Carr, emphasized that while the proposed settlement is a form of accountability, the financial agreement does not bring back her family's laws. And again, you might remember, again, she was in her home, and police were called, and she was shot through the window by an officer, and she was shot and killed while her nephew was there. All right, folks, you know, that story is still crazy to me, Matt,

what happened in this case. And it goes to show you that, you know, I think about Sonia Massey, I think about this, even when black people call the cops and we call the cops out of fear, there may be something else going on, we can still end up there. Yeah, you sure can. And it's still very, very, very difficult to hold a police officer accountable for a bad use of force in a situation like this. And I'll admit readily, I don't recall whether there was a criminal prosecution in this case. but I'm glad that there's some form of justice for this family. It is a substantial sum compared to what we see sometimes in other cases.

But I'm glad you read the family member statement because one of the big problems with the civil justice system is money doesn't get remotely close to bringing back the person you love and lost in a way you should not have lost them. So, you know, this is a better outcome than a lot of situations, but this certainly never should have happened. And this is the kind of thing we see entirely too often. And I've had cases like that where people call the police for help. The police come, and they immediately assume the person who called is the one who's at fault. And before you know it, you needed help, and now you're the one hooked up. It's sad, but that is definitely reality and certainly a reality for black people in this country. Michael?

Yeah, Roland, I remember when, you know, this case happened when Attessiana Jefferson was killed. And then, you know, also I remember sometime after that. passed away if I remember correctly as well so this is good the settlement hopefully it's approved by City Council so that's good but you know the whole thing is just a tragedy from from start to finish is you know it's just a tragedy she was there playing video games with a nephew. She's a licensed concealed pistol holder. She sees somebody outside flashing a flashlight through the window. It's dark. She pulls out her gun, ends up dead. And so hopefully this will bring some type of closure for the family. And the officer,

was later convicted a manslaughter also in this case as well, Aaron Dean. Canis? So here's what I'm thinking about this. You have a situation where someone called because it was a welfare check. There wasn't any threat. There wasn't anyone saying that someone in the house had a gun. She had that front door open like I have my front door open right now to put a breeze through the house. And this is how it ended up.

One of the things that's a takeaway for me is, look, Those video cams are important because without that, you would have had an eight-year-old competing with, I think, Aaron Dean, the one who was in jail, as Michael said, and then you would have had two competing different testimonies. So thank goodness for the cam. The other thing is that it is very unusual for this to even happen. We're talking criminally. He did not get immunity. Why? Because it was such a ridiculous case. He didn't announce who he was. He came there for a welfare check. He didn't, you know, he didn't do so many things. There was no threat, obvious force. And because of that, he wasn't able to get community criminally and civilly. They won and they won big. Obviously, they're not thinking that because you cannot replace this young woman. You cannot replace what her life was going to be. You cannot replace her hopes of being a doctor and what she was going to contribute to this society. But all of that aside, this is an exceptionally unusual case where criminally and civilly something like this happens.

And it is a good precedent for the future and to look at and to understand that if you fight hard enough, in the situation, the facts present themselves in a way that would lean in this direction, that you can have success in both of those lanes, criminal and civil. All right, then, Matt, Canvas, and Michael, I certainly appreciate y'all joining me on today's show. Thank you so very much to everybody who's watching. We are not completely done. Stop to flash at that little Sigma nonsense, Michael. All right, y'all, we're not done on today's show.

We got some great content from NABJ. Joy Ann Reid sat down for a great conversation with Nicole Hannah-Jones and Dr. Kimberly Crenshaw. We're going to have that for you. Jane Kennedy Overton, honored as one of the Hall of Famers members of the National Association of Black Journalists and I talked to the author of a new book.

It is called The Making of American Whiteness, the formation of race in 17th century Virginia. Historian Carmen Thompson, you do not want to miss that interview. So we have some great stuff for you. And so we come back. We got all that for you right here. Roland unfiltered on the Blackstone Network. All right, folks, let me get personal for a second.

My mom had questions about her Medicare, so she called Chapter, a Medicare advisory company, she texts me right after saying it's a great benefit. It was easy. A real person walked her through the whole thing and now she understands better what's going on. It was also not just her. Woman and Yonkers rode in saying the process was so simple, the enrollment was easy and she was so glad she called. Then there's Maryland, 90 years old, in Florida, living on Social Security. Her premium climbed every single year north of $400 a month for coverage she could barely afford anymore. So what does she do? She called Chapter. They found her the same top-tier coverage

for hundreds of dollars less, 90 years old, and finally, somebody in her corner. I hear stories like that again and again from our community. The Medicare system was not built to work for you. Too much fine print, too many plans. Yet Chapter's advisors are independent and honest, the only Medicare advisors that compare every plan nationwide. They're focused on one thing, what actually works for you. If you're already in the right plan, they'll tell you. No games, and people who switched to a chapter saved an average of $11,100 a year.

All takes us 20 minutes. You talk to a real person and it's completely free. Help. So, call Chapter at 724-264-8-281. 7-24-264-8-1. That's Chapter. Let me ask you a question. Why do so many people seem to think they know black men so well?

What they think we want, what they think we need. Hell, they even tried to tell us why and how we voted. They never had a conversation with us. Never asked us how we felt. What brings us joy? What makes us angry? What makes us scared? How do we live?

That's what this show is about. No translation, because we don't need anybody speaking for us. We can speak for ourselves. This will be a show where we bring brothers on that you don't see on every other talk show. Nope. Brothers that are doing work in local communities with black men for black communities. We're going to hear each other and try to understand understand so perhaps we can move forward together no translation because we don't

need anybody speaking for us no what we need is each other no translation right here on the Black Star Network check it out the African American Policy Forum Kimberly Crenshaw out the Joryo the Jor Richel family that is watching us on the live stream so shout to the Doritio fam that are watching right now thank you ladies for being here so I to start just by kind of giving you all a chance to react to what we just heard. And get each of your thoughts about whether it seems to you that the leader of the Democratic caucus in the House really perceives the intensity of the battle within the party between the

progressives and the moderate wing of the party. I'll start with you, Nicole. Oh, Lord, why start with me? Because she knows you. Right. Good morning, good morning. You start with the one who doesn't have a poker face. You know, I've been thinking a lot about the area of reconstruction. And reading up to Reconstruction, we had a progressive wing of the Progressive Party at that time, the radical Republicans.

So, of course, Republicans were considered the Progressive Party. And the radical Republicans had the audacity to think that slavery could end, called directly for the abolition of slavery, not for gradual emancipation, not for trying to appease the other side, not for trying to make friends with people who thought the slavery should continue. They pressed very hard for full equality to punish the insurrectionists and for complete liberation of enslaved people. We don't consider that a radical position now. Right now we consider that to be the position the nation should have had. So it's not new that we see this war between kind of the status quo of the party that wants to appease, that wants to maintain power, and those who really see a radical liberatory view for the nation. So I think we should just all look at efforts to suppress what is being treated as radical positions of the Democratic Party as also historical, as something that we have continuously seen, and that years from now, we may very well see folks who are now embracing those once radical views, right?

Like, if you—I didn't think I had a lot to say, but I do. So I'm going to wrap it up. If you truly want to see transformation, transformation seldom comes from the middle. It seldom comes from appealing to the middle. It comes from actually having a vision for a society that is uncomfortable for a lot of people, but having to force people often within your own party to see that vision. And you have also seen, I mean, there were fights on the floor of Congress, like physical fights. over the radical Republicans, Charles Sumner, right, gets beaten ahead with a cane, for daring

to think that black people should be free. So as we're covering this as journalists, we should understand that we also, as journalists, are creating a narrative. We're creating a narrative about this war. We're creating a narrative about who's right. We're creating a narrative about where the country should be, and if the excesses of the left went too far, and so we're deserving of this correction. And so as journalists, we should be questioning. the narratives that are being put out by those in power, but also the narratives that we ourselves are creating. That's all I got to say on that. Okay. No, I think that was it's important to frame it that way. I mean, Kimberly Frenchaw, I mean,

the notion of critical race theory was made to appear radical. The idea that you could look at the law through the lens of race and filtered through the history of race in this country was deemed too radical. Exactly. to be, you know, for children to be exposed to as if they were, and they're not, other than if they're children in law school. But we, you know, we are living in a world in which Georgia Fort and Don Lemon had to file to vacate their indictments because 40, mainly black people had a protest, and they covered it as Germans.

Exactly. So we're in a radical place right now in terms of the reaction. So I wonder how you feel about the idea of moderation, and I heard, um, you know, you're in, the minority leader really focus on the victories that Democrats have had in the number of races they've won, and as he said, from all wings of the party or winning local elections, sort of focusing on victories, electoral victories, as proof that we're beating back the true radicalism of the far right. Do you think that that's a lens that makes sense to you? Yeah.

Well, you know, I start with exactly where Nicole started. I read this moment through the lens of the last time black people were pushed outside of this democracy. The last time there was election and the party in power, which had been the party that we were connected to, associated with, and made possible their power. The last time this happened was the election of 1876. And at that moment, the Republican Party decided that in exchange to maintain power, they were going to give us up. They were going to throw us under the bus. And that's exactly what they did.

And we stayed under the bus in a state of racial tyranny for seven decades. So when I hear the conversation about moderation and underlying that a general sense that this moment is a direction to the overcorrection. In other words, racial justice discourse in the efforts to really create a truly multiracial democracy went too far. I go back to the Redeemers who said Reconstruction, eight years of us having pseudo-citizenship was too much. It was too far. So when I hear this, I'm hearing the Redeemers of the 19th century. I'm hearing the massive resistance. of 1954, I hear the MAGA anger right now about a black president in the White House and black people getting too far. So strategically, my worry is when we are in an asymmetrical war.

And let's be clear, this is a counter-revolution that is purging black people from everywhere. We are losing in media in education. in entertainment in the military, the most powerful African Americans in the military were summarily fired. So when I hear moderation in the face of a radical effort to purge us from everywhere and then take away our ability to actually name the purging. So they purge the language about discrimination, anti-blackness, bias, inclusion. So the language, is being taken away as well as our bodies being taken away. I think we're not up to the challenge at this moment

is if this is what our leadership is telling us the war is really about. And I think journalism is in a fragile place in this moment, particularly for black journalists. I mean, I cannot imagine the 1619 project being created today. I can't imagine it being greenlit today. We're in such a nadir that we can't even properly talk about race or use, as you said, language, it's coded in race. There are organizations, nonprofits,

taking the word black out of their name in order to try to get grant funding. How does journalism respond in this moment in a way that meets the moment, given the restrictions that so many journalists that are sitting in this room like we feel in their newsroom, but needing to describe the thing that they're seeing and experiencing?

That's a question for me. How should we or how are we? Give me both of those. How are we, in your view, and how should we? So, Joy, I know you know as a long-time journalist. I know the people in this room as journalists know that it has always been a struggle for us to treat the covering of race, racism, the racial infrastructure of this country is more than a fad. So we know we go through periods where usually when there's some combustible circumstance, like George

Floyd or, you know, Abner Luema, or name your crisis. And newsrooms then discover once again, oh, race is an issue. We need to hire some black folks to cover race. And then they get tired of it, right? Society gets tired of it. The newsrooms get tired of it. And then we see a purging of those beats. We see a downgrading of the status of the journalists whose expertise was covering those.

And we're certainly in a moment like that right now. Even though we are living under the most openly white nationalist administration of my 50-year lifetime, and that's saying a lot. Even though we are in a society where we're being told it was the identity politics of the left that got us here, and yet the Trump administration is running on nothing but identity politics, they're white identity politics, and so we see the white as invisible, but it is an identity politics. We're not treating this enough as a racial story, right? And as people, reporters who need specific expertise in race, like just because you have a race doesn't mean you know how to cover race. Race is an expertise and those of us who are good at it have studied it and that's why we're good at it. So we're seeing again, I mean, you look at all of the black verticals that were created after George Floyd, they're all gone.

You look at the decimation of a black report. who are covering race, many of them are gone or they've been demoted. And we've seen this pattern. I mean, I've only been a journalist only for 20-something years, but I've seen this pattern again and again, so we all knew it was coming. But it doesn't make it any less devastating that in this moment, where we need a racial analysis, like, you can't,

the reason we're seeing an attack on democracy is because the demographics of our country are shifting, and folks want democracy if they know they will be in charge and if they think they won't they don't actually care about democracy that much right that's why we've only had it for 60 years but you don't have enough folks who are able to constantly do that analysis and so we treat these as separate stories we're going to write about politics then we're going to write about race race is the politics and you have to have a political reporting class who can do that with sophistication and not treat these as separate

stories that's where we are so in the answer of where we are is also the answer of what we should be doing but you're absolutely right it's a completely different environment I honestly can't imagine even trying to pitch the 1619 right now I can't say whether it would get approved or not but I think I know myself as a journalist the atmosphere that would be inviting to pitching something like this and I think it would be very challenging any in any newsroom in this country to pitch something like the 1619 project you know I think about the fact that a bit part of the openness to

even a consideration in the mainstream media to something like 1619 project came out of tragedy, came out of George Floyd's murder. And there's this opening that happens in the world in which there's a like a small window in which it was almost a reconstruction moment. We want to hear your story. We want to know more of your stories. That moment was obviously closed and the door's been slammed shut on it. But it opened again to me a little bit because of Gaza.

There wasn't a lot of conversations specifically about Gaza, but Gaza not just, as an issue that impacted Arab Americans, Palestinian Americans, but black Americans. Particularly a lot of young black Americans who were open to a kind of progressivism that was born out of that struggle. That's not even in the United States. But the fact that the Democratic Party is still really wrestling with whether leadership is comfortable with the activism around Gaza that has fueled so much of the progressive left, including black progressives. How do you read that? Just as you're looking at it in a sort of social science way, it's like it seems that that issue is still too painful for a party that to be honest is still very much reliant on

donations from organizations that are very married to Israel. Yeah well I think what the story is telling us is that the moral imperatives behind building a truly inclusive multiracial democracy the moral imperatives behind basic the basic human rights platform has taken not only a bat seat it's just been erased in this moment so the consequences are widespread the consequences of help facilitate the erasure of these values but it most particularly the erasures of black people there is an anti-blackness that is a foot now that has run rampant and the media isn't not it's not just the media isn't reporting on it the media is facilitating it so you know I wanted to

I wanted to just run an experiment. And I call this the tale of two college presidents, right? So I'm going to tell you a story about two college presidents, right? One is a black woman and one is a white man. And I want you to guess which one actually experience the thing that I'm about to talk about. So the black woman is accused of unprofessional citation practices. And this unprofessional citation practice gets cited by the New York Times, 13 times in 10 days, creating what appears to be a firestorm seeking her removal.

It is initially a story that is seated in the far right newspaper. knowing that they can count on the paper of record to pick it up and thus extend their strategy of attacking black people, knowing that the mainstream media will pick it up. There's another college president who's accused of distorting data. We're not talking about citation practices. We're talking about making stuff up. I would use another word for it, but I'm... but I'm, you know, I'm my mama's daughter.

I'm going to be polite. But making it up. Now, one of them doesn't get any newspaper coverage at all and is allowed to quietly reside. The other one not only is humiliated and removed, but she now becomes a context-setting rehearsal every time there's a question about whether black people deserve to be where they are.

Now, I don't, I mean, you know the name of the first president, right? Everybody can repeat it. Claudine Gaet. Have you ever heard of the name Mark Trevor Tesier Levine? You don't know if this is the white president of Stanford University. Unbelievable. Remove for falsifying data. Now, there's just so much that this is telling us about media's facilities.

They are not just reporting. They are making the strategy of the far right to bring white Christian nationalism and its particular target against black bodies in high spaces to the center of American democracy, right? Relying on them to basically do the dirty work. We have all experienced this dirty work because when people come after our work, we are no longer able to respond. We are now subjects. We're no longer agents.

We can no longer actually do interviews. We're not part of the coverage, but those who are behind this, they get interviewed by Ezra Klein. They get to write op-eds. They get to extend their project. Now, this is not colorblindness. This is an anti-black racial project that is cloaked in the discourse of coverage. color blindness. But at the end of the day, it's all about the idea that black people are less than. It's all about the continuation of the basic ideology that allowed us to be enslaved.

That narrative has never been substantially interrupted, which is why this is not a left-right problem. This is across the board. There are elements of MAGA thinking about us that we can find all the way to the far left of America. the far left of American society. So to think that this is all about progressives, liberals, moderates, it's not about that. It's about anti-blackness in the way it continues to thrive in this country.

My SUV is worth more than ever. Time to upgrade? There's never been a better time. At Plaza Auto Group locations get top value for your trade and shop hundreds of new and pre-owned vehicles across 11 locations. And if you can't come to us, will come to you with best in class pricing,

unbeatable trade values, and 70 years of trust. It's easy to see why families choose the Plaza Auto Group. Plaza Auto Group, celebrating 70 years, family owned and operated. Visit Plaza Auto Group.com. If your bookshelf and your for-you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Proz Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives,

and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.

It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network.

Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners. Each week, we talk to someone in show business, aka the big. is and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, not that great. Actually, can you help me shape this? How about we flip it on his head, right? How about we flip this script?

What is the surprise woman? Actually, you think is the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird. Adam Scott. This entire time, You've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show. I would never expect. I have. I would never set expectations for something like that to happen.

If the universe allows for something like that to happen, I'm open to it. I'm always going to accept. You know, Danny McBride, fine. Yeah, it's all this fragile masculinity exuding. I could smell it walking down the hallway, to be honest with you. I was like, I was like, is that weed? Nope. It's fragile masculinity.

Ben Stiller, no. Because a lot of times out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is. You know what I mean? They're like, oh, what's the state? Everyone's so dumb. And fake. Right, fake and also not interested or just like, oh, I've got my life. I don't care about your life.

And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hoda Kottebe, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby. If you know me, you know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover those things together through meaningful conversations with fascinating people. Like one of my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring,

actors and really anybody hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're hired to fill the space with you. You have something in your guts. You go with it. And Sean Johnson recalled the moment she realized her now husband, Andrew, was the one. He was just so unapologetically himself and knew nothing of Hollywood. He hadn't been on a plane before without his family.

It was so pure. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We have a couple pretty good audience questions. I want to give them an opportunity to be heard. I don't know which one to pick here. So there's a question here about journalists who were in the space, Nicole, of trying to cover, quote unquote, the Black Beat, of trying to cover. of trying to cover our stories. And in what you've just described, Kimberly, is the recruitment of media itself into the anti-Black campaign,

the recruitment of media itself into our erasure. So if you are a black journalist, Nicole, that's working in, specifically in a space where this is what you're covering, you're trying to cover us, where does that leave you? On substack? Not a bad place? Just kidding, sort of.

So one, I mean, I'm sitting on stage with someone who clearly fell victim to that counter-correction, right? And I think you have demonstrated what one can do, but you already had such a big platform. I don't think that's possible for most journalists who are struggling against this. I also want to say, like, I don't have the black beat, right? Like, writing about race is largely not even writing about us. It's, my work has been like critiquing and exposing and investigating the structures that lead to the inequality and actually really, really trying to take the race beat from being about superficial coverage of black malady to actually exposing the people, the institutions,

and the policies that lead to it. And I think that's, I would hope, one of the reasons I'm still seen as as an essential voice, in a time when we're seeing the shrinking of that. So one, what I tell black journalists is arm yourself with trying to be the best at what you do. That it's not just about seeing a story that other people aren't seeing, but exposing. Like if you're presenting an investigation to your editors, the race part becomes less important, right?

So you have to understand what are their objections going to be? What are the things that they're going to use to shoot down your coverage and to try to make that coverage more essential. But I'm also like I, if anybody has ever seen me talk ever in life, you know I'm not sugar-coding anything. These are challenging times. The reason that we see really efforts to attack the press and to erase our history is you erase history so you can erase rights. You erase our ability to tell our own stories and push back against these narratives because that's the first step in making the erasure of the rights possible. And this is, again, to me, where history matters.

We've been taught now to think of abolitionists, right, as the people who fall for equality. We need to understand that the left in this country has always suffered from a racial problem. There's a difference between saying, I don't believe in this brutal practice of slavery and saying, I believe black people are my equal. That's that.

and are deserving of being in all the spaces that I should be. The North did not allow black people to vote during slavery. And in fact, the southern, white Southerners would make a critique of the North and say the only reason that you are so egalitarian about race is there's no black people up there and you don't have to deal with those folks. And as soon as black people started trying to cross the border after slavery, you saw the black codes being passed in the North. You saw places in the North not allowing black people to attend public schools

because they knew we wouldn't move to places where our children couldn't be educated. Look at Ohio and the practices of these free states. Look at Illinois. And so we've got to be able ourselves, if you don't know that history, how can you imbue that history in your reporting? How can you create that analyses to make yourself,

I mean, nobody is not expendable in these times, none of us, but there are things within our control. And the way that I've always approached it as a journalist, is I can't control what not one newsroom is going to do. I can't control what a newsroom leader is going to do, but I can do my best to make myself non-expendable through my practice. Yeah. So we are going to, you know, we know this.

We have to work twice as hard. We know this. We shouldn't have to, but if there was ever a time, I just feel too many of us, even in this room, don't understand the stakes of the moment that we're in. Most of us in this room, we have never lived in a country that we are about to be living in. Our parents did. Our grandparents did, but we have it.

I've never lived in a country that didn't have affirmative action until now. I've never lived in a country where I didn't have the protection of the Voting Rights Act until now. Right? We were all born after that or at that time. Right? So, you were born at the time. Right. So I don't even know the answer, I guess.

That's when I started rambling. It's like, I don't know the answer because I think if we don't understand how dangerous this moment is, I'm looking out at Roland and I'm looking at somebody who is trying to build a strong black press. We do have to be in these mainstream institutions, absolutely. We don't want to cede that ground, but we're also going to have to understand that the jobs that we're once there are not going to be there. and that if we're going to want to get our stories out, and I don't mean content creators. We are journalists.

We are journalists. Content creators take our work and produce content, but somebody has to be on the ground actually reporting, asking questions, doing the investigations. So I have to tell my students all the time, this I know I'm old, I have to tell my students all the time when they're like, oh, how can I make my brand? The brand is the work.

That's right. That's right. You don't have a brand. You have done nothing to acquire a brand. That's right. That's right. But the thing that will sustain you in this dark times is making your work essential. It may not be essential for mainstream newsroom, but it will be essential for our community.

So to me, that's all we have right now is put your dollars and your support in the places that you know are serving you, invest. Right? take subscribers to do your work you need subscribers for rolling to do his work he needs subscribers they then can hire the journalists who are being purged from other institutions and if you're in those institutions one thing I can say about me I've never sold myself out now one day if you know me you know this if I can't cover the things I got into this to cover then I don't need to work for you and so some of us have to be willing in this time to make a stand about what

we're going to accept to be done in our names like we do actually have have power, I think sometimes we forget that we do. Whether we're in their newsrooms or ours, we have power to determine that only us can cover the things that we can cover the way that we will. But then we have to do that. And let me just add to this, because everything you say, 100 percent, and resist anticipatory compliance. Yes. I mean, that is the touchstone of fascism. The willingness to give before the demand even happens. So, when, we're, you know, when you're doing a story on a racial topic, or you're doing a story on critical race theory,

and they say you don't need to talk to any critical race theorists. All you need to do is talk to Christopher Rufo, and that has happened many times. Resist that. That's right. Understand that you can't cover a story without knowing the content of what it actually is about. This is one of the reasons, shameless plug,

why my book, backtalker American Memoir is a memoir because the story framed the work that we did as foreign as un-American. Critical race theory, intersectionality, or as American as

apple pie and the lynching rope. You can't get away from it by saying that ain't got nothing to do with us. This is the way black people survive. You said one thing just a couple minutes ago. You've got to be twice as good to go half as far. That's critical racism.

That's critically thinking about what it means to be a black body in a post-enslavement society. These are the ideas that you are in the best position to learn. You've got to get close to the history. You've got to get close to the Sacred Gown. You've got to go to Legacy Museum. Go to where Brian Stevenson is telling the real truth

in order to touch that space. Again, that's what we're going to need to survive. I'm sorry I didn't get to more of y'all questions, but we were in class here today, y'all. The exam will be in a half an hour. You're welcome. Thank you for coming to our university. Kimberly Crenshaw and Nicole Hannah-Jones, these divas,

please give them a round of applause. Folks, let me get Perci to for a second. My mom had questions about her Medicare, so she called Chapter, a Medicare advisory company, and she texts me right after saying it's a great benefit. It was easy. A real person walked her through the whole thing, now she understands better what's going on.

But also is not just her. Woman and Yonkers rode in saying the process was so simple, the enrollment was easy, and she was so glad she called. Then there's Maryland, 90 years old, in Florida, living on Social Security. Her premium climbed every single year north of $400 a month for coverage she could barely afford anymore. So what does she do? She called Chapter.

They found her the same top-tier coverage for hundreds of dollars less, 90 years old, and finally somebody in her corner. I hear stories like that again and again from our community. The Medicare system was not built to work for you. Too much fine print, too many plans. Yet Chapter's advisors are independent and honest, the only Medicare advisors that compare every plan nationwide. They're focused on one thing, what actually works for you. If you're already in the right plan, they'll tell you. No games. People who switched to a chapter saved an average of $11,100 a year. All takes is 20 minutes. You talk to real person and is completely free help so call chapter at 724 264 8281 724 264 8281 that's chapter

let me ask you a question why do so many people seem to think they know black men so well what they think we want what they think we need hell they even tried to tell us why and how we vote and never had a conversation with us never asked us how we felt brings us joy what makes us angry what makes us scared. How do we live? That's what this show is about. No translation, because we don't need anybody speaking for us. We can speak for ourselves. This will be a show where we bring brothers on that you don't see on every other talk show. Nope. Brothers that are doing work in local communities with black men for black communities. We're going to hear each other and try to understand so perhaps we can move forward together. No translation, because we don't need anybody speaking for us.

What we need is each other. No translation. Right here on the Black Star Network. Check it out. Hi, I am Tommy Davidson. I play Oscar on Proud Family Louder and Prouder. I don't say, I don't play Sammy, but I could. Or I don't play Obama, but I could. I don't do Stallone, but I could do all that. And I am here with Roland Martin on Unfiltered.

I don't even know where to start because, you know, everybody's come up here and talked about since they were fourth grade and they wanted to be a journalist. And that was never in my mind. I grew up with all kinds of dreams. My mom said that I used to prance around in the yard. I'm out of breath. I'm so excited just coming up on stage. But thank you for having me so much.

But my mom and my grandmother used to say that I used to dance around the yard in my little shorts that had palm trees on them and cat eye glasses with rhinestones and saying that I was going to go to Hollywood and be a movie star. And my sister would get mad and say, change, shut up. you're never going to do that. And my grandma said, you let fancy prancy prance around if she wants to. But, you know, I didn't know that that's what I wanted to do. It was just something, you know.

And I went through school being a part of everything that I possibly could get into. I just had huge dreams all the time. And I would sit in my bedroom and wonder, where would the world take me? I'd never, ever thought that it would be to the desk of the NFL today. I've done so many things in my life. I've loved sports all my life. I was pre-title-9, so I could not compete. But my dad would take us to all of this baseball and softball games.

And I was his biggest cheerleader. I love football. I love Jim Brown, the Cleveland Browns. I'm from Cleveland, Ohio. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right on Cleveland. And I was at the Cleveland Convention last year. Pardon me? Best location in the nation.

Maybe, but California. I think California got me on that. But anyway, you know, it was just that I never considered myself a journalist. But when I took the desk of the NFL today, which was extremely hard to get, they said they didn't want a black woman. And they were only auditioning other people, but not black women. And my agent submitted me three times, and I kept getting, no, he submitted a list three times. Three times his list kept getting rejected. He never put me on the list.

So I called Jim Brown. And Jim Brown said, I can get you to the field producer, Bob Stenner. So he did. He sent me to another guy who, was managing Bruce Jenner at the time, Caitlin Jenner. And he said, the lady in talent is coming here next week. I can get you a meeting and see if she can bring you into New York for the show, for the audition. And she did.

She said, I love you. She brought me in. And I walked into the room. And there was supposed to be 2,000 women that had been interviewed for this position. They brought 15 to New York. They brought 16 to New York. 15 were blonde. So that immediately told me, absolutely, they're not looking for someone like you. So I just remembered what a friend of mine had said, Jane, you're intimidating. And you have to let

them know that you're their friend. And that's all you have to do. You don't have to talk about sports. You don't have to try to pretend that you know anything. They want to see your personality on camera. And I sat there with this guy who was, I didn't know who he was, but I just knew that he was a NFL player. And I asked him before, I said, do you play backgammon? It was back in the day when backgammon was the thing. And he said, yeah, so we sat and played backgammon. By the time we got on camera, we were old friends laughing and talking and having a good time. And Brent stood up, walked off the set, and he said it's Jane or nobody. So I ended up on the show only with a six-week contract

because they said that they still weren't sure. They still weren't sure. So two weeks in, I overhear the people on Sports Spectacular, which is not my show, and they're talking about how are we ever going to be able to keep our jobs if we don't get this post-fight interview with Muhammad Ali? He's fighting Leon Spinks in New Orleans, and we're the only people that don't have a post-fight interview, and they're yelling and they're screaming, and they're saying, we're going to get fired, we're going to get fired. And they said, no, not we, and you're going to get fired.

And then I put my hand up and I said, I can get you the interview. and they looked at me and said, who are you? I said, I'm the girl that can get you the interview. Put me on a private jet, send me to New Orleans. I'll have it by you. I'll have it back to you by tomorrow. I don't know why they believe me, but they put me on the jet. I called Ali.

He was my friend. They didn't know that. I called Ali and I said, listen, I need to get this interview post-fight. He said, hey, I'll leave a key at the desk. He said, and I'll meet you right after the fight before I go to the regular news broadcast. I said, great. So I had my crew in the suite, and I'm sitting there praying, please, please, Ali walked through the door. And I just hope that he kept his promise. And he did. He walked in the door and he punched the lens and he said, I'd only do this for my friend Jane Kennedy.

So for me, journalism is about people. It's about the people that you know that love you, the people that respect you. Walter Payton said, to all of the, all of the people that love you, Walter Payton said, to all of the players in the NFL when I got the job, we are going to take care of our Jane Kennedy. And I was able to get any interview that I wanted. John Johnson, Johnson Publications. A guy once asked me, how do you get so much exposure on television

and you don't have a TV show in the news and you don't have, you're not, you know, a big shot to have them writing in the news about you. But it was Ebony and Jet that kept me out there. Because John Johnson said, we're going to make sure that the United States of America knows who Jane Kennedy is. We're going to make sure that they know that there's a black woman out there doing stuff that they told her she couldn't do.

That she could, no one would believe that this opportunity would be open to someone like her. So the media was giving me so much that it was my job to give them back as much as they had given me. So any time I can be of assistance in the media, and I was so proud when they called me and said that I had been nominated for this opportunity, I cannot even tell you how much my heart fell so full because this was, this is a culminating point for me to be able to be accepted by journalists when I'm, I started the NFL today, the journalist hated me. They did not want a woman on that desk. And when you introduce me, you say the first black woman, I was the first two women. Only two women have ever held that position, a white woman and a black woman. And the only reason they got rid of the black woman is because they wanted the white woman back. It wasn't because I was lacking

in my job. It was because they wanted the white woman black because I was doing too good. the ratings were soaring. And I'm not just saying that from my perspective. I'm saying that because of all the interviews that I've done, of all the people that I've talked to, all the publications that I've talked to, I've had your support. And I cannot turn my back on you. I have been dedicated to doing as much as I possibly could for black media my entire life, even though I'm not a journalist. So I thank you so much for having me here. My dad would be. He's so proud that he's passed away 11 years ago. My mom has dementia, and so I have to go home and I have to tell her whenever I do something huge like this.

When my book came out, I've recently written a memoir called Plain Jane, and it's about my entire life. The first quarter starts with growing up, second quarter, going to Hollywood, third quarter, raising my family, my children, and finding out what a great mom I am, and then my fourth quarter, finding out who I am, and then realizing that I didn't have that answer, so I go into fifth quarter, which is overtime. And we are in overtime now. We are in overtime now.

And I am back, and I am back, and I'm rebuilding my career. And how many times does a woman or man get a chance to say that they can rebuild their career? when they walked away from it for 30 years. And people have come and they've welcomed me like all of you. You've welcomed me back. And I cannot tell you how grateful I am. So to be able to receive this honor today means everything in the world to me.

And I hope you realize how much, how important that is for me. I truly hope that you do. I had to be here, no matter what, I had to be here today. Because I wanted to see your faces. I wanted to be able to talk to you. Didn't know I was going to run into my buddy Roland, which is an extra bonus. Last year when we were in Cleveland, I bumped on him at the club and we danced a bit. So yeah, yeah, I ran into him in Los Angeles.

We danced a bit. You know, so yeah. I'm just grateful. And that's the only word that I can think of. Just totally emotionally grateful. Thank you. All right, folks. Let me get approached for a second.

My mom had questions about her Medicare, so she called Chapter, a Medicare advisory company, and she texts me right after saying it's a great benefit. It was easy. A real person walked her through the whole thing, and now she understands better what's going on. But also it's not just her. A woman in Yonkers rode in saying the process was so simple, the enrollment was easy, and she was so glad she called. Then there's Maryland, 90 years old, in Florida, living on Social Security.

Her premium climbed every single year north of $400. a month for coverage she could barely afford anymore. So what does she do? She called Chapter. They found her the same top-tier coverage for hundreds of dollars less, 90 years old, and finally, somebody in her corner. I hear stories like that again and again from our community. The Medicare system was not built to work for you.

Too much fine print, too many plans. Yet Chapter's advisors are independent and honest, the only Medicare advisors that compare every plan nationwide. They're focused on one thing, what action. works for you. If you're already in the right plan, they'll tell you. No games. And people who switched to a chapter saved an average of $11,100 a year. All takes us 20 minutes. You talk to a real person and it's completely free help. So, call Chapter at 724-264-8-281. 724-264-8-1. That's Chapter.

Let me ask you a question. Why do so many people seem to think they know black men so well, What they think we want, what they think we need. Hell, they even tried to tell us why and how we voted. They never had a conversation with us. Never asked us how we felt. What brings us joy? What makes us angry? What makes us scared?

How do we live? That's what this show is about. No translation, because we don't need anybody speaking for us. We can speak for ourselves. This will be a show where we bring brothers on that you don't see on every other talk show. Nope. Brothers that are doing work in local communities with black men for black communities. We're going to hear each other and try to understand.

stand so perhaps we can move forward together. No translation because we don't need anybody speaking for us. What we need is each other. No translation. Right here on the Black Star Network. Check it out. I'm Ryan Wilson, CEO, co-founder of The Gathering Spot, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. So, Carmen, glad to have you here. We're talking about your book, The Making of American Whiteness, the Formation of Race in 17th Century.

Virginia. Now, but I'm going to start with 2006. We are, we're recording this the day after Bad Bunny performed at halftime of the Super Bowl. And the reaction, obviously you had some of these white mega evangelical Christians, whatever hell you want to call them, who were upset because of his previous positions regarding ICE. But that's not the real deal. The real deal is, what we are dealing with is what I also laid out my book, White Fear,

the Browning of America is making white folks lose their minds. That's what this is all about. So your book talking about the making of American whiteness is still ever present in 2006. For sure. Whiteness never goes out of style, I tell people. It's always timely. So explain that some people have to understand because I have long.

said that whenever people talk about identity politics, well, it's always in reference to black people, Latinos, and others. And I keep telling us, folks, whiteness is an identity. It is. Whiteness is real. White people identify with that. It's something that people don't talk about always, but it is real. It has its origins from the founding of the United States and even before. So it is a real identity that white people embrace. They expect to have privileges and advantages. They don't see it that way because that's the norm of everyday society. That's the policy. That's the way things have always been ordered and organized. So because it's the water that we live in, they don't see it that way. You know, they say fish don't know they're in water.

And that's what fightness is. That's the water we live in. That's what we breathe. Well, that's one of the reasons why what I say is that the reason we have this is that whiteness in America is the default. When we talk about mainstream television, mainstream radio, we're talking white people. We are. Okay. So when they say, oh, Trump meets with a group of black pastures, they never say Trump meets with a group of white pastors. Because whiteness has always been the default in America. But everybody else is other.

And in fact, there's this great scene from the movie of the Good Shepherd. And it's Robert De Niro directed it. It's starring Matt Damon. There's this scene of the movie with Matt Damon and Joe Petey. And Joe Petey is playing a gangster. And Matt Damon is a CIA officer and really based off of the early CIA, the WASP in World War II. And Joe Petchie makes this comment about what we have in terms of family, the Irish, what they have, what the Jews have.

He don't say black people, he uses the N word. He says, what do you people have? And this is what the Matt Damon character says. He says, we've got the United States of America. The rest of you are just this. Yeah, yeah. That's part of their identity. That's what they think.

I argue that that style of thinking was impetus for European people to cross the Atlantic. So they came over here with this idea that they were going to set up their white society. And they set about setting up businesses back by the church, backed by the business community, backed by the royal government to colonize Virginia, the first colony that made up what the United States is today. And they came over here with a specific idea to set up a white utopia. And they did that by slaughtering Americans, taking their land, and setting up all the policies and practices that they could not have England here in what is now the United States.

Thus the title of the making of American whites. Now, unpack that because when you look at a lot of these white his historians, I would say they told his story in our history, it's all no that if you were a black land owner prior to the laws being passed in Virginia, that you were equal. This wasn't set up for white folks, is that if you were black and you own land, you were one of us. That's literally what they portrayed is saying that America, even though the first... My SUV is worth more than ever. Time to upgrade? There's never been a better time. At Plaza Auto Group locations get top value for your trade and shop hundreds of new and pre-owned vehicles across 11 locations.

And if you can't come to us, we'll come to you. With best in class pricing, unbeatable trade values, and 70 years of trust. It's easy to see why families choose the Plaza Auto Group. Plaza Auto Group, celebrating 70 years, family owned and operated. Visit Plaza Auto Group.com. If your bookshelf and your for-you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsesives, and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversation.

everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters,

then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to pro-society. on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

See you between the pages. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast, Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network. Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners. Each week, we talk to someone in show business, aka the biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time, and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show.

We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman. not that great. Actually, can you help me shape this? How about we flip it on his head? How about we flip it this room? What is the surprise woman? Actually, you think

as the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird. Adam Scott, this entire time, you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show. I would never let go of that.

I have. I would never set expectations for something like that to happen. If the universe allows for something like that to happen, I'm open to it. I'm always going to accept. You know, Danny McBride, fine. Yeah, it's all this fragile masculinity. Exuding. I could smell it walking down the hallway, to be honest with you. I was like, is that weed? Nope, it's fragile masculinity. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ben Stiller, no. Because a lot of times out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is. You know what I mean? They're like, oh, what's just a state.

Everyone's so dumb. And fake. Right. Fake and also not interested or just like, oh, I've got my life. I don't care about your life. And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us. Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Hoda Kotvey, host of the podcast. Joy 101 with Hoda Cottonbeat. If you know me, you know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover those things together through meaningful conversations with fascinating people. Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out. You're not hired just to fill time into space. You're hired to fill the space with you. You have something in your guts.

You go with it. And Sean Johnson recalled the moment she realized her now husband, Andrew, was the one. He was just so unapologetically himself and knew nothing of Hollywood. He hadn't been on a plane before without his family. It was so pure. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. People of Africa Descans came here. as slaves in 1619.

But that's how they positioned this, that, no, America before, you know, the Virginia passed this critical law was really a utopia for everyone. It wasn't, it was specifically designed for white people. They had laws and policies, they dictated that. And even though there wasn't slavery,

as we think about it today, in 1607 or 1619, when African people first arrived, they didn't necessarily, call them slaves, but they were slaves in every other way. Black people there did not have the same rights, the same freedoms as whites, even European and distant servants. They treated them different. They were different laws and policies applied to them. They had all kinds of rules that governed people who were, for lack of a better word, enslaved, no though they didn't call them that. So they had all these things set up to distinguish European people, even European and

different servants from African people and three African people. And specifically they used the term Negro, even in the early 17th century and in 1619 to describe African people. So if you already have the term Negro there versus when they talked about European and Denver servants and whites, they just called them by their first and last man, then that tells you right there that they had an ideological distinction between who they were and who European people work.

And so that is how we know that they thought of themselves as different as above my people. For folks who, what was also interesting is that when you talk to people today, they see Virginia as the north, next to Maryland, next to D.C. And they're like, well, Virginia's the north. But the reality is Virginia was always. also the South. Explain why Virginia was so pivotal and so critical. What was it about Virginia? Well, it was the first colony that the English established that makes up what is the United States today. And they established that in 1607. They also had a second colony of Bermuda that they established in 1613.

Nonetheless, Virginia was the first colony that made up the United States. And so therefore, the laws and policies that they established in Virginia set the framework and the ideology of how it is we think about the United States today. And they set up that society, set up the social structure, the racial distinctions and paradigm. They set that up in Virginia. And it was that framework that ordered their society, that structured their society, that got us to where we are today.

That is the framework. As we think about coming into 250 anniversary of the United States, it came out of that early settlement in Virginia in 1607 and the ideal framework of politeness that they used. You've had this, you know, so much of this has been determined by this country and the pilgrims came here.

and they were seeking a new land and new opportunity. I mean, that's just, I mean, that's just, you know, again, how we have been taught. Right. What is American history is so detrimental when it comes to the truth of how this country was established. It's a myth. The thing is, is that when you make a decision that you're going to leave your country,

across the Atlantic and set up shop somewhere else, that tells you exactly who you think of yourself and what you think of the other people who are there. When you come with a plan and a purpose where your government, your church, your business leaders, back you from leaving your country and coming to another place and taking over,

that tells you everything that you need to know about whiteness. You already see yourself as being superior to the people in the place that you're going, and you have the backing of your government, your church, and your business institutions that are supporting you in that and there. And the story goes from there and how it is that white people solve their mission

as being backed by God and backed by government and backed by everything. So when they get over there, the story that they tell themselves and that have taught us seems natural and normal that they're coming for a better life. They were coming to establish their world, their utopia, through a white lens, to a whiteness framework.

They don't necessarily articulate it that way, but obviously for African people of African- and Native Americans, that's exactly what they did. First, and again, when you start talking about history versus history, this was a colony of England. Again, how we look at the story. Oh, England decided to get rid of rabble rousers. They put them on a ship and they said, leave, get out of here.

No, that's not what we're dealing with. They established the Virginia Company of London in 1606 with the express purpose of traveling across the Atlantic to investigate colonization possibilities in the new world, what they call the New World, and ultimately Virginia. So the Virginia Company of London was a stop trading company that they set up for the express purposes of figuring out how it was that they were colonized Virginia and then what would be the United States, what would come to be the United States. So it was very intentional.

They were determined to do that, and they set up a business enterprise to do that backed by investors who put in their money to fund the venture, and for their money, they were then given Native American land for their investment. And then they brought over poor European people to do the work of colonization until African people. people arrived in 1619. Before we continue, first of all, what was it that led to you to say to really hone in on this and focus on it? I've always just kind of wanted to understand why it was that white people just had this thing with black people, hate, animus, wanting to enslave black people. And as I began to research that, it led me to really think about, you know, You know, we don't really understand whiteness and what it is.

We don't talk about it. You know, anytime you say it, people get all upset and they don't know how to articulate it. Scholars and people who deal with race, they are loath to name it. And it's like the problem in American society and in history is white supremacy. And we have to name it, frame it. And that's what I do in my book because it has not been talked about. And the problems that we have in our society, I say, is all the result of white supremacy in the United States. And I want to document that history and where that came from and how it emerged.

Yeah. And you're right. We don't want to talk about it. We don't want to discuss it. White folks act like it doesn't exist. And I think you said something earlier. And I've always said part of the issue with the phrase is how. when you hear the phrase white privilege. The problem is that when many people hear the word privilege, they automatically think economics. And so they go, wait a minute, I'm broke. I'm in Appalachia. I'm broke in Mississippi and Alabama and North Carolina

and South Carolina and Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. So I don't have white privilege. And that's really sort of what folks lean on, but they really don't think. that their whiteness somehow is an advantage and that's and that's being perpetuated when you ever when they have these conversations yes that that do voice said there's wages of whiteness one of my professors wrote a book David Rodinger the wages of whiteness this is a

psychological wage of whiteness right they can be poor they can struggle be an appellantia but they still know that they're white and that That's the quid pro quo that poor whites and wealthy whites have always had with one another. People always say, why would people vote against their interest? I always ask them, yes. Why would they vote against their interest? Why? Because they know in the end that this system is meant to take care of them.

And that is why they do it. And so that is the part that people are not focusing on. It isn't about the money. It's about the psychology of knowing that I am white and that this system in the United States was designed to take care of me and that there's a quid pro quo, an intra-racial dynamic amongst whites that work together to ensure even if I'm having a hard time, I'm poor, I don't have any health care. I'm still willing to put up with all of that for something more than money, and that's blackness. And in fact, when Dr. King gave the speech in Montgomery, after the 7th of Montgomery March,

he talked about a book that was written. He talked about the bourbon class. He talked about how the bourbon class, that is the rich white plantation owners, did not want to see, poor whites aligning and joining forces with free people of African descent. And I say this all the time, and I try to get people to understand, that in every period of American history, when black people, when African Americans fought for rights, the quality

of life of poor white people increased. four white people have always benefited from the protest, the agitation of black people, and you sit and that bourbon class sat here and said, oh, no, we can't have that. And so King talks about, he was referencing a particular book.

He was talking about how they said, no, no, we have to create this wedge between them because this system is doomed if poor white people realize that they are just as broke as poor black people. Yes, they've always been worried about the alignment of poor whites and blacks. In fact, Bacon's rebellion was about that. In the 1680s, poor whites were upset that they weren't getting all the land that the wealthy whites were getting. So what did they do as a concession?

They removed the land ownership as the qualification. to vote. And so they created then a constituency of poor whites that had access to power and the vote that they did not hang prior to that. And since that moment, there has always been a series of concession that the wealthy elites have given to poor whites to keep them voting against their interests throughout American history all the way up until this day, which is why we will have for whites against the Affordable Care Act, even though they don't have insurance themselves. They are willing to forego all of that because they know, again, they have a wage and a benefit for being white. And so it's the understanding of this dynamic of whiteness that I think is missing

from our discourse and that is helpful to us understanding, particularly as black people, how to deal with white people, particularly in voting and trying, and how it is they're courting them in the democratic process for as allies in voting, why so any of them would not vote for Kamala that will continue to vote for Trump. These people will continue to vote, as we say, against their interest. It's not against their interest in their mind because even though they won't articulate it that way, Trump represents whiteness and the continuation of what white people this is. in-group dynamic amongst white what they know about each other. You'll have a certain segment of them that won't, but the overwhelming majority will continue to vote that way. And we need to think about that as we're forming our democratic strategy to change this society

and to have a big society for our people. And we cannot necessarily rely on a large segment of the white population, particularly for anything that's going to help black people. Well, it's hilarious because you'll hear these poor white people say, uh, I can't wait today get rid at Obamacare, but they bid not touch the Ford of the Care Act. Yeah. You're like, oh, it's literally the exact same thing. They don't care. But again, yeah. They will purchase themselves in order to have a system that will not help somebody black because they know the system is there to take care of them.

Well, the point that you made about the point that you made about the landowner issue, it's also, many of them are voting, like, it is unbelievable to watch white people, white conservatives, white Democrats, vote and align themselves with big corporations who don't want to pay a living wage, who are all about, tax breaks. And they'll sit here and they actually believe I said this the other day

that many of the believe that the white women believe that their husbands could one day be as rich like Trump. And the white man think that one day they could get a wife like Melania. And I said, and I said, Donald Trump

wouldn't let these broke-ass white people even walk through one of his hotel lobbies. Nope, but they don't care. And that's what we as black people have to stop hoping and wishing. I even had to admit it. I'm a scholar. I'm a historian.

I have a PhD. And I still was thinking white women were this time they were going to because of abortion, they were going to vote for Kamala. I was even fooled. And I just had to tell myself, we have to stop thinking these white folks are going to come over to our side because of issues and interests and economics. It has nothing to do with that. It's about their whiteness.

And once we understand that, we can plan and organize accordingly to activate black people to vote, to get other racial groups over. We'll have a certain number of what I call the goodwilled whites. And that is the coalition. The Obama coalition is what he did with the various racial groups

and a few of the goodwill whites. That's what's going to happen. But we're not going to get the overwhelming majority of white people to vote because they recognize that if black people have power, they see that is taking away from their whiteness. And they never will do that because they understand that being white has its advantages

and it is not necessarily economic to that. I make the point, I go back to what Dr. King said they're referencing that book, The Bourbon Class, and they say, oh, we can't have people get together. I dare say the present day example that was the death of George Floyd. And I continually say that what happened was you had powerful white interests who saw that the death in Black Lives Matter protest was the first time in American history that there was a black centered protests where a majority of the country supported it. That was one.

they saw young white people, they saw Latinos, Asian Americans mortified to watch this man's life snuffed out, watch him being murdered, and they reacted, and they demanded change. And white, powerful, white interest said, oh, hell no, we cannot have this. So, 2021, they said, we got to take out Black Lives Matter. targeted effort and I was trying to warn BLM leaders like yo, she was about to come down

because I understood American history 2002 all of a sudden they said we got to wrap everything that's diversity whatever under the CRT banner critical race theory 2003 it was all about what 2004 it was anti-D-EI and so it was a targeting of books

it was public policy and so he and I kept yelling, I said, and I was saying, after death of George Floyd, I kept calling this potentially the third reconstruction. I said, guys, this has to last a minimum of 20 years because the first one and the second one didn't last that long. The first and the second reconstructions were not about economics. They were about changing public policy civil rights laws. I said, the third one has me about economics. And these folks saw it. They saw the corporations pledging anywhere from $30 to $100 billion for various efforts.

And these folks said, oh, hell no, because they saw the tide shifting. They saw what was going, and they said, we have got to attack this because we cannot have a next generation of white people learning real American history, learning how this country was established, and we cannot have them aligning with. black power. That's correct. And it's working. And they're doing that. They're getting the consent. They did the concession with joyfully until the tide turned. So they did the attack. And now they're trying to skip that back because these corporations were never on the side of black people in the first place. They just did that symbolically just to make themselves look good to try to be on the

right side of history while in the political realms they were doing. the work of trying to get society back to reclaim the power that they feel like that they were losing. And yes, there was a moment where the average number of white people were aligned with that George Floyd and with that movement. And as you said, they went ahead and started doing the work to reel that back in and put the power back into the hands of the elite whites. and again getting and tricking poor everyday whites to see their interests to be more aligned with them. What do you make of the efforts of Bishop William Barber, repairs of the breach in the poor people's campaign

to do fusion politics? He talks about, and that was what they did not want to see in the late 1800s, that is, poor whites and free people African descent aligning. And their whole effort is trying to really crack that code of fusion politics to, and they achieve some success. I remember that I was, I spoke, it was his last year as head of the NWACP state conference of North Carolina. And it was a group of white women I met. And they said, I bet you've never met a group of white women finals of an NWACP chapter in the hills of North Carolina.

So they were doing more Mondays. It was, you know, they started all 16, 17 people. Listen, it was black folks. And all of a sudden, that's what the issue. And all of a sudden, the white folks across North Carolina began to realize, wait a minute, the stuff they're talking about impacts me. And he told me a story with it. And we had the NWACP convention in Las Vegas.

He told me a story of being at some sort of a parade. He said, and a white boy came up to him, Confederate flag, draped around his neck with tears. his eyes saying, we don't agree on much, but, but thank you for fighting for our hospitals. They were fighting to keep rural hospitals alive. And he said, he said, now I'm going to keep working on him to get that flag off around his neck. He said, but for him to acknowledge that the work we're doing is critically important. So, so what do you make of that effort? Because that's really what the repairs of the breach is about, really trying to get people to understand

fusion politics. How do you get blacks, whites, whites, the people. to understand if you're voting for a poor people's agenda, then you can tap into the 90 million people who don't vote. I personally think that it's a good cause, but I don't, from a democratic standpoint, from a voting standpoint, I don't actually think it'll be effective in support of black people, even though, hey, let's get as many people as you can, goodwill whites.

But what I feel mostly, like, what has been like what happened this past election is that they want like white women for example they wanted abortion but they stopped it with their whiteness that meant that we're talking about with the flag he wants his hospital but he's gonna still side with his whitening so they're gonna take the results they want the good part so they'll align with us just for that one thing the the job or hospitals or the wages or the abortion, but they're still going to go back to their whiteness. So they'll vote for Trump and be against, say, a local or state election that will affect their abortion or affect the hospital. So I find that a better strategy is to focus on getting the base of black people voting, the non-black voters, the other racialized groups, Hispanics, Asian, Americans, and Native

Americans focus on that group and the group of blacks who don't vote and you have the goodwill whites that you'll have. And I think that's a better strategy that I really do believe, especially after this is the last election, that white people are going to continue to vote their interests and that they'll take whatever it is to give them the hospital to give them affordable care, but they're not going to go away from their whiteness. They'll do that and still vote for Trump. That's what I see.

Even though I think morally it's a good effort, but to expect those people to turn away from their whiteness, I think it's too much and not realistic. They'll vote to say, yes, I want the Affordable Care Act, but I'm going to still vote for Trump. I'm still going to vote for these Republicans. I don't think they'll move away from the Republican and the Maga Party towards Democrats or something other than Democrat. I don't think that's realistic, even though it's a. good moral objective to do.

And that's one of the reasons why I keep saying to Bernie Sanders and others, with Bernie Sanders and other Democrats decry identity politics and they keep talking about the working class and stuff along those lines. I keep saying y'all are knowing the white part of all of this. Yeah. Yeah. When they're saying working class, they're saying the white working class. When they say women, they're talking about white women.

And so as black people, we have to realize that white women are going to continue to vote for their whiteness. That they're working class union workers. They want the better wages. They want their benefits. They're still going to vote for their whites. So just like we've only had, what, I think we've never had maybe since the 60s white people voting masks, more than 50% for the Democratic Party. with all the work that we're doing, with all the things that are happening, they still won't do it.

And so I think we're just, you know, hitting our head against the wall, expecting white people to turn away from that. I think we should spend more time focusing on the people who did not vote, the black people who did not vote, speaking directly to the base of the black voters and what they're concerned about. And they're working on the other racial groups and the goodwill whites who are out there, they'll come among anyway. and quit focusing our energies on trying to win over these voters because from the presidential election, they're definitely not going to move away. They're going to take that one little issue. They're going to make sure they get that and then they're going to take that, go back to the

whiteness. One of the things that I think it's difficult for a lot of people in this country to understand is how, as you laid out the making of American whiteness, how this. whiteness was exported. Yes. It wasn't just about Jim Crowe in the United States. It was how I was reading the book on Robert Abbott, the founder of Chicago Defender.

He often took an annual sort of world tour and how he traveled to certain places and went to hotels and other countries owned by Americans and was denied the ability to stay there. So here he was in other. the countries and predominantly brown countries and experiencing American Jim Crow racism. For folk who don't... My SUV is worth more than ever.

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Visit Plaza Auto Group.com. If your bookshelf and your for-you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.

It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network.

Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners. Each week, we talk to someone in show business, aka the biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicists for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, not that great. Actually, can you help me shape this? How about we flip it on his head, right? How about we flip this script?

What is the surprise woman? Actually, you think is the straight man is actually the one who's acting weird. Adam Scott. This entire time, you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to the, visit the show. I would never let go of that. I have.

I would never set expectations for something like that to happen. If the universe allows for something like that to happen, I'm open to it. I'm always going to accept. You know, Danny McBride, fine.

Yeah, it's all this fragile masculinity. Exuding. I could smell it walking down the hallway, to be honest with you. I was like, I was like, is that weed? Nope. It's fragile masculinity. Ben Stiller, no.

Because a lot of times out of context, people don't get it or even know what a circle is. You know what I mean? They're like, oh, what's just a state? Everyone's so dumb. And fake. Right, fake and also not interested or just like, oh, I've got my life. I don't care about your life. And a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us.

Oh, and by the way, Will Ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode, but he's just so busy. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hoda Kotvey, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby. If you know me, you know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy. So this podcast lets us uncover those things together through meaningful conversations with fascinating people. Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice to aspiring actors, and really anybody hoping to stand out.

You're not hired just to fill time and space. You're hired to fill the space with you. You have something in your guts. You go with it. And Sean Johnson recalled the moment she realized her now husband, Andrew, was the one. He was just so unapologetically himself and knew nothing of Hollywood. He hadn't been on a plane before without his family. It was so pure.

Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I understand the depths of this. Just explain this idea of American whiteness and how it literally went across Latin America, South America. It impacts the mind of African nations. And how, when you start talking about just this idea of if you are light skin, dark skin, if you are light skin Japanese versus a dark skin Japanese, this notion of whiteness as being the key to future success. That is because the common denominator is European people. All the places that you're talking around the globe have had European colonization there.

And that is why whiteness was exported. England learned it. They learned it from Portugal. They learned it from Spain. They learned it from France. They learned it from all these other European places that colonized Afritam that were colonizing the world. And then England peeped that and said, hmm, I see what they doing. And that's why they sit up the Virginia Company of London.

That's what they, that's why they set up in 1536, the English African company to be able to export. slave trading in Africa, then set up the Virginia Company of London in 1606 to colonized Virginia. They did that utilizing the knowledge and understanding of colonization and exportation of brown and African people that they learned from the Portuguese, that they learned from the Spanish, that they learned from the French that was going on before English people crossed the Atlantic. They learned it from them and they exported that to the United States. And then of course that then spread around the world as European people began colonizing the rest of the world. So the common denominator is anywhere that you see European people colonization, you're going to see that.

And it happened in the United States later and it began in these other places much earlier. Starting in the 15th century and many people can argue before, but in the modern time with the transatlantic transatlantic slave trade were Portugal and Spain and the Dutch were already involved in the transatlantic slave trade were already involved in colonization. And you saw as they began to set up their colonies, the Portuguese and Brazil and places around the world, they exported this idea of whiteness around the world. I call it American whiteness because when England set it up here in the United States, it took on an American version of it. And that's why I focus on the American one. But there's a form of whiteness where European people are and have been in their colonization efforts around the world. So many folks, yours included, talked about 2043, America moving towards becoming a nation, majority of people of color.

I'm born and raised in Texas. I saw what it was like, the reality of white Hispanics. So when we talk about this, the making of American whiteness. Let's talk about how we are moving forward and how you have Hispanics, Latinos. First of all, not one group. We talk about Cubans and Venezuelans and Colombians and Brazilians and we can go on and on. How this notion of whiteness is going to impact our politics and we talk about, when we talk about

Latinos being the second largest group in the United States and this reality of white Hispanics. Yes. They're lurking through ICE and deportation that whiteness doesn't always work for them. In the United States, again, we have the whiteness that are talking about European people, Hispanic people and other racial groups have always wanted to try to align themselves with whiteness,

thinking that somehow that will benefit them. And they again, as we said, have taken on whiteness, who Hispanic is a ethnicity. And so they have taken on whiteness, that they're white, Hispanic, there's black Hispanics, and there's various other racial groups within the Hispanic ethnicity. they have taken on this whiteness thinking that that's going to be visited them and is not learning other racial groups even as they even um african immigrants are learning that and so what we're having to do from a political standpoint is i'm hoping that they are recognizing through all these nights and deportation that whiteness is not going to help them and hopefully that they will begin to align with um black people and our political struggles in reminding them that you are not white. That here in America and really around the world, you are not seen as client.

But other racial groups want to view themselves that way. And black people more than any other group have been able to articulate that and understand what whiteness is about and realize that you are not going to get any benefits from trying to align yourself with white. with white. And so it is my hope that these other racial groups like the Hispanics and various other groups of Hispanic origin and as well as other Asian and Native American groups recognize that aligning yourself with

whiteness is not going to be to your political advantage that your advantage is trying to come over and work with black people who understand whiteness and white supremacy more than any other group. There are a lot of people who this discourse when it comes to Africans coming here, African-Americans going to Africa. And I keep trying to tell people that what African-Americans must understand about the perceptions of African nations, and what people have to understand about Africans coming here is what America has exported through mass media. And so what, if you are in a foreign country, your view of America has been based upon movies, music, television. The, I mean, the internet is, you know, changing that.

But the reality is we're talking about decades upon decades upon decades of massive misinformation, disinformation. And so it's no surprise that you may have Africans who may have a negative view of African Americans based upon the exporting of American whiteness. Yes. Yeah. And the media is a big part of that. There's white people behind those cameras. I mean, you're in the TV business. You're in the media business. You understand that. These images are crafted by whites. In fact, I'm about to blow you away. When this came out, when this came out, I sent this to a black host of a network show. And the host hit me and said, I would love to have you on, but my white producers don't like the title of your book. And I said, you know I write about those same white producers in the book. I said one of the reasons that we do not talk about whiteness is because you have white executives, executives, and white producers who don't want to even acknowledge whiteness, who don't want to acknowledge the reality of the stories.

I said, so it's no shock that they will sit here and not like my title, how the Browning of America is making white folks lose their minds. And then I said, the person said, well, Roland, you're preaching to the choir. I said, no, I need you to be the pastor. And what that said right there is, you might be the black face hosting the show, or you don't run the show. Exactly. Roland, I say the word white all the time in front white people. We have to quit being so shy, quit using the word.

racism. I don't use the word racism anymore. It's white supremacy. And we have all the time, wherever we are, screaming from the rooftop. White supremacy is the problem. It is not racism. I don't even know what that is. I already know what that means. It's white supremacy. Okay. Have you seen this? I have seen this so many times. I forgot. It may have been a comedian. It may be a comedian, and maybe a comedian probably about, it was several years ago, who talked about, who said that when we talk about white people,

all of a sudden, we'll whisper. Exactly. And ever since then, ever since then, because I was cognizant of that, I started saying it. To me talking, they'd be like,

white people. And I would go, why are you looking around? Yeah. Then I would go, It's just me and you here. Why are you whispering? I mean, it is, Carmen, it is stunning.

I mean, I'm talking about, I have been in numerous conversations and is hush tones. Looking around. And I'm sitting there going, it's just me and you here. Even in private, we are afraid to say white people.

And say it, with your chest out. And that's what I'm saying. And yes, it isn't good for business, right? My work, I'm trying to get it out there and get it published. You have your struggles. When you are naming and claiming widening, it is hard on the pocketbook,

but I refuse to not call it what it is because I really think that it's needed. You have to say what it is, and you have to say it with your full chest. And people, scholars that I respect in the field, They have all these prominent books and I talk about it in my book and they call, they just say the word racism. When they're really talking about white supremacy, they're talking about all the bad things that are happening to black people and why it's happened. And they never see the word white supremacy. And these are some of the leading black scholars in history and in America, academia.

And I say that's great. Everything you said is Greek. You left out one word. Why is supremacy? Why don't you say it? Why are we so afraid to say it? My book says it from the rooftop and everywhere I go and every meeting I'm in. I say it and I say it with full chest. I do not mince any words. I do not use the word racism. I use the word white supremacy every chance I get and I'm encouraging all the viewers to use that word and do not use the word racism anymore because that is not what we're talking about. We're talking about white supremacy, period. Last question for you, and I ask all authors this.

And that is when you were doing your research, when you were writing, what was your wow moment? What was something that you came across that made you go, wow, that is unbelievable. I can't, that is studying. I would say that whiteness and white supremacy is really more about the conflicts between white people. That that is really the problem.

The problems in our society revolve around poor white people being upset that they're not able to have everything that the wealthy white people have, and that the problem of race is really more about the intra-racial dynamic amongst whites, as much as it is about their disdain for black people. So when we think about race and racism, we're really talking about an intracial conflict

amongst white people. That is the problem and how it is that those two groups are wrestling with power, wealth, and resources and the fact that poor white people are being used and played by wealthier whites to advance the power goals of wealthier whites. They're using poorer whites to do that. And the conflicts that they have that we've had throughout this nation

has generally stemmed around that conflict between poor whites and wealthier whites. Yeah, it's like y'all, and when you look at these surveys and polls, like, y'all mad at black people, it's white folks, y'all's be mad at. That's what we're mad at. But they have to blame us, you know, because they can't deal with who really is the source of their problem. So wealthy whites trick them into thinking that it's black people, that it's immigrants, that is all of that, because they're trying to distract them from what the real problem is. And because wealthier whites need the poor ones to keep them in office and they need each other.

And that's the basis of the problem. And that's why when Donald Trump is sitting here, sending federal agents into Nebraska, all of a sudden, the GDP of the state dropped by 6%. And the governor, the Republican governor, calls Trump and said, can you please stop these raids because you're hurting my economy. Oh, but these same people voted for Trump to conduct those same raids. And then it hit them. Oh, damn, those are our workers.

See, that is just what is insane. And again, so whenever I talk about, oh, welfare and whatever, they blame, oh, those black people, they're on it. No, y'all white folks on it. So I crack up when I hear welfare, I'm like, no, welfare was created for poor white women. That wasn't us. That was them.

Matter of fact, we were denied. We were denied Social Security benefits. We were denied. Black people would deny so many federal benefits. I'm like, this was done for y'all white people. Stop it. Yes, I know. But they don't see it.

They really do not say it. It's like a cognitive dissidents that is in their head that they don't get it. And that's why I wrote the book. to be able to point some of these things out from a historical basis of where the origins are and how it emerged. And maybe perhaps we can utilize that. Black people can utilize that to move past thinking these white people are going to be on our side.

They're not. They're going to vote for one little thing and move back to their whiteness every chance they get. I say it all the time, folks, that if you want to understand something, you need to go to the route and then move forward to realize this. And that is the case. The book is The Making of American Whiteness, the formation of race in the 17th century, Virginia.

Carmen Pete Thompson was certainly appreciate it. Thanks a much. Thank you for having me. Do me a favor. Support our work. Give us via cash out. Use a Stripe Cure Code. You see it right here.

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