#RolandMartinUnfiltered - TX Dems sue Gov. Abbott; Vax required for military; R. Kelly trial starts; DaBaby's anti-gay rant

Episode Date: August 10, 2021

8.9.21 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Texas Dems sue Gov. Abbott; COVID vax required for U.S. military; Teachers back masks and vaccines to keep schools safe; R. Kelly trial starts; Today marks the 7th year since the death of Mike Brown; DaBaby's anti-gay rant sparks outrage; Are there health risks associated with waist trainers?Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered#RolandMartinUnfiltered is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Thank you. Today is Monday, August 9th, 2021. Coming up on Roller Martin Unfiltered, Texas Democratic lawmakers have filed a lawsuit against Governor Greg Abbott saying his attempts to make them come back violate their First Amendment rights. We'll talk with one of the Texas House Democrats. Teachers groups are co-signing the need for children and teachers to be vaccinated and masked as students return to school in the fall. We'll talk with the head of the Florida Education Association. President Joe Biden's infrastructure bill is closer to passing after a late-night Senate vote. We'll tell you when it will come up for a vote in the full Senate.

Today marks the 7th anniversary of the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson. We'll look back at how he's been remembered, how things have changed. In New York, the beginning of the second trial of R. Kelly has begun. He, of course, has been hit with a litany

of federal charges, including running a criminal enterprise. And the baby's comments started a whole conversation about destigmatizing HIV and AIDS. We'll discuss that. Plus, also, he's now deleting an apology that he gave to the LGBTQ community. Plus, in our Fit, Live, Win segment,

we'll talk about the pros and cons of waist trainers. Are they a good idea? It's time to bring the funk. I'm Roland Martin on Filch It. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the I'm Roland Martin on Filter. Let's go. To news, to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling With some go-go-royale It's rolling Martin Rolling with rolling now

He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best You know he's rolling Martin As a number of COVID-19 cases continue to rise, members of the U.S. military will be required to get the vaccine beginning September 15th, a plan endorsed by President Joe Biden. This is Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. This is what he stated. I will not hesitate to act sooner or recommend a different course to the president if I feel the need to do so. To defend this nation, we need a healthy and ready force. President Biden strongly supports his defense secretary's message in the COVID-19 vaccine, the list of required vaccines, the list of vaccinations

that service members must be able to get. Quote, I strongly support Secretary Austin's message to the force today on the Department of Defense's plan to add the COVID-19 vaccine to the list of required vaccinations for our service members not later than mid September. Secretary Austin and I share an unshakable commitment to making sure our troops have every tool they need to do their jobs as safely as possible. These vaccines will save lives, period.

They are safe. They are effective. Over 350 million shots have been given in the United States. Alone being vaccinated will enable our service members to stay healthy to better protect their families and to ensure that our force is ready to operate anywhere in the world.

Now folks, Florida has reported 134,506 new COVID-19 cases over the last week and just under two weeks, six unvaccinated members of the same church contracted COVID-19 and died in Jacksonville, FL. cases over the last week. In just under two weeks, six unvaccinated members of the same church contracted COVID-19 and died in Jacksonville, Florida. Currently, 15 to 20 members from the church are in the hospital. The church hosted a free vaccination clinic on Sunday for those who wanted to get vaccinated. But this thing goes even deeper than that, folks.

What we're seeing is a number of companies, law firms and others now requiring their workers to be fully vaccinated. The NFL is taking a very strong stand when it comes to this issue as well, yet you still have players like Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins, who said that he will not take it, and then he said he will take himself as best possible, including plexiglass. It's a little hard for you to have plexiglass surrounding you if you're playing on the field. Lamar Jackson, who plays for the Baltimore Ravens, their star quarterback, he's tested positive for COVID, and he still says he's unsure if he's going to take the vaccine. You've tested positive twice. We are seeing, folks, more and more of these cases. We're seeing in hospitals where

children are dying as a result of getting this Delta variant. It is causing significant issues all across this country. And so we've been keeping up with a lot of the folks who've been following this. More and more people also are posting all types of videos, things of that nature, in order for people to understand what's going on. We've had on the show before, of course, the brother out of Arizona. He goes by CleavonMD. This is what he actually posts on his page, on his Twitter page. He has an ongoing graphic. Guys, let me know if y'all can see it. All right, I'm going to figure out what's going on here. I want to pull that up because it really jumped out at me. And so let me just get this

straight here. I want you to see this. What he does is he posts ongoing messages, ongoing messages on his social media account with regards to COVID, what's happening with COVID. And it goes by Cleavon, C-L-E-A-V-O-N underscore M-D. And so what he does is he, I got Anthonyony i think this is going to be the fix right here um let's see if this works i got it we're up so uh we're i want to show you this here so this is this when he's gone by you go to the hashtag souls lost to covid souls lost to covid uh and what he does is he posts a lot of these items. They are teachers, they are doctors. I saw a story the other day, post the other day of a gentleman who is an architect in Arkansas. He felt he was healthy, 49 years old, did not want to take the

vaccine, but he's now dead. And it's causing a lot of conversation in the community where he lives because people are now talking about it and it's now gotten their attention. His wife actually gave a comment where she said that now people realize this is an issue by saying that now they realize it comes to their doorsteps. You know, this says a whole lot, folks, as well. This was a I'm going to show you in a second this video here, because one of the things that he's also been doing is posting a number of items from individuals, from folks, from family members. But just so you understand what's going on here, that was a doctor in England who tested positive for COVID. Why is that interesting?

Because he posted on Facebook how he was happy that he got it. Okay. And he said, I want to show people that this is not that big of a deal. Okay. He posts these videos about how, yeah, I'm feeling bad, but you know what? I felt this way before when it comes to the flu. Well, a few days after that, he was dead. Now, mind you, he posted videos on his Facebook page saying that he was glad that he got it because, and I'm going to try to find the video here to show you, because it would have shown folks that, hey, this is really no big deal.

He's dead. Dr. Julian Malvo, Dean, College of Ethics Studies, California State University, L.A. Dr. Omokongo Dabinga, professorial lecturer, School of International Service, American University, and also John Mustafa Santiago Ali, formerly with the EPA. I just, it's interesting here, Omokongo,

and there are people out there, I've already heard them, oh, oh, y'all trying to scare people. And, you know, these tactics and you've got one pastor, these crazy comments out here. Oh, you know, COVID is from the devil and all this kind of stuff like that. I saw this brother on Instagram. He was like, I'm protected by God. And I said, well, if you get COVID, you'll go to church. I mean, I just, I mean, but it's amazing to hear these people throw these things out. And I get it.

I get people who have apprehensions. Totally get that. But what else do you need? What else do you need to understand what's going on here? It's really tragic. And I feel like, unfortunately, too many of these guys are going to need these near-death experiences or somebody close to their family passing from it. And I think that it's just really tragic. Look, my dad passed last August of 2020, and he got COVID and, you know, he was in the recovery process for it. He was already dying of other things. So he was already starting to recover from it when he passed. But I'm like,

wow, if we had a vaccine at that time, he may not even have been hospitalized, right? And so we see these situations and we see these Republican commentators who are dying talking about it. And so, Roland, to be quite honest, I'm really at a point now where I feel like, and I hate to say it, some of these guys, they're just going to have to die off in order to influence other people. And it should not have to come to that. I heard somebody say over the weekend, you know, if, you know, you see those movies where Martians come down and the whole world unites to fight off the aliens, that wouldn't happen nowadays because of so much misinformation. Are they really Martians? Are they this? Are they that? You know what I'm saying? It's just like, we can't come together because people want to say I can do what I want.

And as a doctor said last week on your show, there's a difference between freedom and license. These guys are not only not taking the vaccine, they're out there bragging about it. And now they're dying off one by one. And it still may not be enough to convince people. And it's just really sad to see, Roland. It really is. And I don't care what your political, religious affiliation is, this should not be happening to anyone. So, UK lawyer

Leslie Lawrenson trained at Cambridge. This is what he posted on Facebook after he got COVID. He died nine days later. But he posted two videos. Watch this. This is a very high temperature. Let's make some pains for shivers. He died nine days later, but this is the post of two videos. Watch this.

Very high temperature. Let's make some pains for shivers. Cold in my extremities. It feels exactly like a cold, maybe a little bit worse. When I stand up, I feel like I'm going to fall over. I can't remember if I've ever had that. Never had a cold before. I hope I've got it.

I hope it is Covid, because I'd rather have the antibodies in my blood than take the jabs. Anyone who knows my opinion, anyone who has followed my comments on my Facebook page knows what I feel about the jab. This is an update on the vlog that I made yesterday I've already posted on Facebook that last night was pretty dreadful the symptoms that I had at half-eleven had massively ramped up I don't know how long probably about six hours are spent in a fetal position trying to block out the pain it was it was every part of my body was racked with the pain if these are things that we have to

suffer it's part of living you have to trust your immune system and if the alternative is that we live in fear that we create a bogeyman out of something that hopefully I'm showing isn't anything to be afraid of for 99.9% of us we've got to deal with that we've got to make the government aware that that is how we feel people get through people get colds people endure it and then get on with their lives that's the way it's always been covid19 in my view um from what i've experienced so far is nothing different nothing different then but the dangers of potential dangers from taking the experimental jab for me are not worth that risk. I'd rather take my chances with...

Yep, he took his chances, Julianne. Yes, he did. And, you know, I'm sorry that people don't believe science, but I'm not sorry for them. Quite frankly, I won't say anybody deserves to die, because that's on God. But what I would say is this idiot deserved to die. I mean, he flaunted, not only did he flaunt his disrespect for science, but he basically attempted to influence others, talking about an experimental jab. We know this experimental jab works. We know that COVID prevents, I mean, the immunization prevents death. So, you know, if you want to die, do it on your

own. Don't basically advertise this as an attempt to influence others. We've got a group of folks here at Cal State LA who are talking about it's illegal to make them basically take a vaccination. The campus policy is as of August 23rd, with classes start, everybody needs to be vaccinated and or have a medical excuse as to why not. And those who are talking about their free speech rights and their right to decline it. Well, but you don't have the right to expose me. You don't have the right to expose other people

or children. And so that's really where we are. This is beyond, you know, they would say you put your fist out as far until it hits somebody else. And then you basically are in trouble. All these people are in trouble. And they seem to relish it, Roland. That's what makes it so bad. They seem to relish it. And only occasionally these wives, when their crazy husbands didn't take it and then died, did these wives say, oh, everybody should take it.

You should have told your husband that one night. You know, you should have shut down. You know, and said, look until you uh get the vaccination sleep in another room i mean we we have influence but many of us aren't using it so the wall street journal um posted uh this particular article here uh over the weekend uh go to my computer please uh this is out of Arkansas. A neighbor's death from COVID-19 have an Arkansas town reassessing vaccine. The woman on the right there, y'all, she is a nurse. She is a nurse in Greenwood, Arkansas. I'm looking down here for her name. And the story posted,

a lot of people have been talking about this story since they posted it uh you want to understand what's crazy so how about this this fool right here this is dr lee johnson a republican um mustafa he is an er doctor and you're gonna love and this is interesting right here uh Dr. Johnson is an emergency room physician, a Republican member of the Arkansas House of Representatives and a Greenwood local where he grew up with Mr. Lejean. These days, he dedicates much of his long ER shifts and his time outside the hospital to talking to patients and constituents about the vaccines and trying to assuage their fears about them. Now, this is what they write. People bring up fears about blood clots. He provides them with factual information about their rarity. Women ask if the vaccine can impact fertility. He tells them

there's no evidence it can, and the obstetricians he knows have all vaccinated their daughters. He recommends people talk to other doctors. Quote, there are some people who just aren't afraid of COVID. I haven't figured out how to turn that person, but I do know that making them feel defensive for their passionately held opinion isn't productive. Yet, here's what's interesting. Dr. Johnson has also been grappling with statewide decisions as part of a special session of the Arkansas State Legisl legislature last week to consider whether to rescind a statewide ban on mask mandates by local governments. Dr. Johnson, who voted for

the ban when it seemed the virus was declining, was open to changing it, but skeptical of leaving the decision to individual school districts. Okay, now I'm confused, Mustafa. Of all people, an ER doctor. So he's skeptical of leaving the decision up to local school districts, but he's decided that the state will make a decision for you by saying absolutely no mask mandates. What the hell kind of doctor is that? I'm not sure. Somebody needs to take a look at his license, I guess, and do some evaluation there. You know, this is not so different than climate change where the majority of scientists will tell

you, you know, that the impacts of man-made and the different things that are going on. You even have a few doctors who are outside of the norm, who are not willing to stand up and to state the truth, to state the science, which we all know is very clear. This is tied to ideology. And we've got folks who are making scientific decisions, are making public health decisions based on politics, instead of actually following the science. And you know, they're literally playing with their lives. Now that's one thing. To play with other people's lives, to play Russian roulette with other people's lives

and to possibly expose them is a whole other matter. And that's where we get into that conversation of, have we allowed this to go on for far too long, of allowing individuals to expose, sometimes tens, sometimes 20s and 30s of other individuals? And, you know, we know there's a precedence for sexually transmitted diseases and individuals not being able to do that without there being some legal ramifications for folks who intentionally expose folks. So we've got to get really serious about this, because what has happened is we've allowed these variants to continue to find fertile ground and to grow and to become more virulent. And we now know that the Lambda variant is now starting to take hold inside of our country. So we can either continue to play games

and we can continue to allow folks to, you know, actually end up getting infected and then being hospitalized. So we can get very serious and start to put some hard things from the federal level in place to actually protect those who, for whatever reason, haven't yet evolved into the basic understanding of what science is telling us. So in this same article, this is what they wrote. Robert and Vi Herring, both in their 70s, were lifelong residents of the area, married 34 years with five children between them. They didn't like the idea of getting the vaccine, their children said. They became sick after attending a 52nd high school reunion and died within three days of each other at a Fort Smith hospital in late July. Now, Shonda Parrish is their daughter.

She considered her father her hero. She's devastated, she said, clinging to waves of numbness between grief and anger. The deaths have caused a rift within the family, whose children remain split on their views of the vaccine. Ms. Parrish, by the way, who is a nurse, says she still won't get it. She simply doesn't trust a newly created vaccine. She doesn't regret that her parents didn't get vaccinated, she said. It was their choice. Instead, she regrets that she was quarantining ahead of a cancer treatment SHE SAID SHE WAS NOT GOING TO GET VACCINATED. SHE SAID SHE DIDN'T GET VACCINATED, SHE SAID.

IT WAS THEIR CHOICE. INSTEAD, SHE REGRETS THAT SHE WAS QUARANTINING AHEAD OF A CANCER TREATMENT WHEN THEY FELL ILL AND COULDN'T BE INVOLVED IN PUSHING TO GET THEM HOSPITALIZED SOONER. MS. PARISH'S LAST INTERACTION

WITH HER FATHER WAS A VOICEMAIL FROM THE HOSPITAL OF HIM MOANING AND GASPING FOR BREATH. IT DOESN'T EVEN SOUND HUMAN, SHE from the hospital of him moaning and gasping for breath. It doesn't even sound human, she said. I don't like hearing it, but I can't delete it. One of y'all can go ahead and talk. Yeah, you know, when my dad got COVID in the hospital and they called me and started reading the last rites over the phone. I didn't know what the guy was doing, the reverend guy. And this was at the height of it all. And

I'm like, wow, what if those were like really the last moments, right? How many families have had to go through that situation where the parent didn't come home or the child or the son or whoever, and they died alone in these rooms on these ventilators. And look, this argument that this is a new thing, people started working on this vaccine over two years ago as it related to SARS and other derivations that eventually would become this COVID. So this whole idea of it's new, it's not true. And again, to say that you're mad at, you're not mad that this is how they chose to go, this idea of, well, if they die, they die, this is not how it's supposed to be. And it is really ridiculous, especially when we see the numbers rising with children now.

And they're not only rising with children, but they're rising with them more quickly. So hospitals, I heard just today, a hospital in Texas, it took three months to get to a certain level of COVID patients, and they got there in three weeks this time around. So if you're not going to wake up to it now, you're going to be attending a wake for a family member, and people got to get over this right now. The thing here, Julianne, this was a quote from the daughter. Since the Herrings died, Ms. Parrish has felt judgment from friends and acquaintances asking why her parents weren't vaccinated, why she didn't make them get vaccinated. Quote, we didn't kill them, but some people make us feel like it's our fault. They're gone. No one should try to make you feel guilty because someone died. Now, her brother

feels different. He said apparently he tried unsuccessfully to push his parents to get vaccinated and is now trying to persuade his relatives. He was put off by friends and acquaintances pushing conspiracy theories about the vaccine even after his parents' death. I'm absolutely angry and frustrated. Their age and health conditions, they should have gotten vaccinated really early and then trying to talk to friends of theirs and hearing these ridiculous things about depopulation and computer chips. You know, first of all, this woman, Ms. Parrish, she's a nurse. She should not be allowed into anybody's hospital. She refuses to get vaccinated. She should be forced either to get vaccinated or to find another job. You cannot telework as a

nurse. So go do something else. You know, I mean, seriously, this her brother is absolutely right. They didn't kill their parents, but they contributed to their death. This laissez-faire attitude of what will be will be, let's not worry about it. If I die, I die. If you want to die, you'll die. Not having a vaccine, as far as I'm concerned, is akin to committing suicide. You say that you wish to be dead, and you're prepared to actively court death, especially if you're of a certain age. These people were in their 70s. From a picture of them rolling, they look like vital people. They went to a high school reunion from 50 years ago.

They didn't have to die. They chose to die by listening to all this gobbledygook that keeps coming from wherever. And I don't know who these people are, but I have to confess, I have a sibling who refuses to get the vaccination. And no matter what we say to him, you know, it's a white man's conspiracy. He doesn't trust it. Whatever he has to say, it's absurd. And it has to be coaxed to wear a mask. I mean, we refused up until a point to wear a mask until the nurse practitioner told him he couldn't come in the house to see his mother as she was dying unless he put a mask on. So I don't know where these folks come from, and I don't know

what they're thinking, but I know that they're imperiling others and they're imperiling themselves well i'll tell you basically well i'll tell you mustafa um i'll tell you point blank um uh saturday um i was was it saturday it was saturday we were um i was at the uh congress of jim cliburn golf tournament in santee south carolina and there was a brother who wanted a selfie. And he was walking around no mask. I was like, you vaccinated? He's like, oh, let me go get the mask. So he went and got his mask. Then he came back and he was like, well, you know, I'm looking at this variant, but I was waiting to see if another variant comes out. And I literally stood there and we had a very long conversation. Me explaining to him the virus and how these things work and how variants go on and how we've had black doctors. After about 15 minutes, homeboy said,

I got to stop messing around. You convinced me to go get this vaccine. There was a sister who posted a tweet a little bit earlier, and she said that because of our coverage, and she tweeted to me and Dr. Ebony Hilton, she said that because of our coverage, and she tweeted to me and Dr. Ebony Hilton, she said, because of our coverage, because of what we have been putting out, this sister said, she is going to get vaccinated. This is why we have to keep putting out real information, Mustafa. We're going to talk about this a little bit later in the show. Same thing when it comes to climate change. We cannot allow these crazy people to continue to drive the conversation. Yeah, she goes by 11 Orchid on Twitter. She said, you two have convinced me to get the vaccine, getting my first dose tomorrow morning.

We have no choice. We are trying to save lives. We simply cannot let these crazy, deranged people lead the conversation, Mustafa. Without a doubt. I'm glad you were able to reach all those individuals that you are. That's why influencers are so incredibly important. Sometimes the influencers are- Knowledgeable influencers. Well, this is true. This is true this is true without a doubt i mean we remember the aids epidemic where we had folks who finally started to come out and speak out against it um and to tell folks you know to educate themselves to become safer and have better practices and all these different types of things we got to have those educated influencers in this moment also continually to share and those are folks in our local communities all the way up to people that we watch on TV.

And just like this show is so incredibly important and pushing and making sure that folks have the information that's so critically important. But we should just also call this out, that we have become very cavalier about death in this country. And individuals feed off of that and they utilize that. So we got to do everything that we can in our power to make sure that our people are educated, they have all the information they need, and we have to continually push them because we love them. So that's a part of our responsibility is to try and reach each and every one of them to make sure that they get protected. Folks, schools are going to be preparing to open back up again in the next few weeks, and teachers are asking for a vaccine mandate. In fact, many states, students have already returned to the classroom. With the increase in COVID-19

numbers and variants spreading, the American Federation of Teachers requests a vaccine mandate. Now you have some places, though, like, for instance, in Texas, where you have some school THE GOVERNOR SAYS THAT THE GOVERNOR IS NOT GOING TO HAVE A MASK MANDATE. NOW YOU HAVE SOME PLACES, THOUGH, LIKE FOR INSTANCE IN TEXAS WHERE YOU HAVE SOME SCHOOL DISTRICTS WHO ARE DEFYING AN EXECUTIVE ORDER OF TEXAS GOVERNOR GREG ABBOTT WHO

SAID ABSOLUTELY NO MANDATE. THE DALLAS INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT HAS ALREADY SAID THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE A MASK MANDATE. THEY DON'T CARE WHAT THE GOVERNOR SAYS. YOU'RE SEEING MORE AND MORE OF

THAT. WE'RE SEEING THE SAME PROBLEMS IN FLORIDA WHERE THE GOVERNOR IS LITERALLY THREATENING TO PULL FUNDING FROM SCHOOL same problems in Florida, where the governor is literally threatening to pull funding from school districts that require a mask mandate. Andrew Spahr is president of the Florida Education Association. Andrew, glad to have you here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. This is, here's what just trips me out, Andrew. All these Republicans love to talk about big government, big brother, nanny state, local control, personal choice. But they're not allowing superintendents, school boards, and mayors of cities and county leaders to make their own choices for their people. They're saying, no, we're going to decide this for the entire state.

The hell with what y'all think. Yeah. So, Roland, first, thanks for having me. It's an honor and a privilege to be here. And absolutely. I mean, you know, at the end of the day in Florida, we have school boards and school boards are elected by parents in the community. They are closest to the parents in the community.

And they should be able to take the advice of the medical professionals. They should be able to look at the data in their community, and they should be able to listen to parents and school employees and make the best decision to keep kids safe, what was just being talked about. We are seeing an increase in kids who are being impacted by COVID. Our pediatric wards and children's hospitals here in Florida are reporting that they are near or at capacity with the number of children who are being impacted by COVID. We've had three children under the age of 16 die from COVID in the last week and a half here in Florida. So as we go back to school, most of the state tomorrow, we are

absolutely concerned. Are we going to be able to do everything within our power to keep our kids and the people who work in our schools safe? And we've got a governor who's playing politics, quite honestly. He's playing the politics of division, trying to keep our local school boards from doing what they want, threatening not just funding for our schools. Today, his office came out and said he was going to withhold salaries from school boards or superintendents who go against him. Wow. Because we have two courageous school boards who are going to do that here in the state of Florida. This is not Florida, but this is the idiot governor of South Carolina, where I've been twice in the past month. This is the kind of nonsense. WHERE I'VE BEEN TWICE IN THE PAST MONTH. THIS IS THE KIND OF NONSENSE. AND I DON'T WANT THIS TO BE A PARTISAN ISSUE.

BUT THE REALITY IS, STUCK ON STUPID IS REALLY DEFINED ON THE REPUBLICAN SIDE OF THE AISLE WHEN IT COMES TO THIS ISSUE. HERE IS SOUTH CAROLINA GOVERNOR HENRY MCMASTER. FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO MASK CHILDREN WHO HAVE NO CHOICE TO PROTECT ADULTS WHO DO HAVE A Carolina Governor Henry McMaster. For the government to mask children who have no choice to protect adults who do have a choice is the wrong thing to do, and we're not going to do it. We're not going to shut our state down as other states did. Mandating mask is not the answer. Personal responsibility is the answer. Common sense is the answer. And we have an abundance of both in South Carolina. Actually, you have none in the governor's mansion.

This is a perfect example, Andrew. I was there this weekend, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I'm sitting in a restaurant Friday. Sister comes up, she's the waitress. And first of all, I walk in. They got the salad bar open. So already we got a problem. Okay. I'm seeing people serving salad. No mask. People who are patrons. I'm seeing a brother who's refilling the salad area. His mask is on his chin. He's talking. He's just talking to folks, whatever, and just talking away. And I'm sitting there going, no way in hell we're going to order a salad. So we sit down. The waitress, she has no mask. I said, sister, where's your mask? Oh, I forgot it. You know, they don't really require it here.

And I said, she's like, are you vaccinated? Oh, I'm vaccinated. Well, no, I've had my first shot. I said, well, boo, you ain't vaccinated. I said, having one shot don't mean you're fully vaccinated. It's like, oh, no, I know. I know. I mean, my first shot. I said, well, boo, you ain't vaccinated. I said, having one shot don't mean you fully vaccinated. It's like, oh, no, I know, I know. I mean, you right. My mama's a nurse. I'm like, your mama's a nurse?

I said, and luckily, the Carnes and Clyburns, they gave us five masks that were in our golf gift bag. I said, I'll be right back. Went out, got a mask. I said, put this on. And it was a trip because at multiple different times she had a below nose but she was she would see me and look it up she would hurry up put it back on she's like okay i remember i remember and i said baby i'm trying to keep you safe but again this is part of the problem when you have this governor and the santa saying stuff

like okay uh personal choice this governor says kids wearing masks to protect parents. No, it's to protect the kids too. Absolutely. So first of all, let me just say, you know, this is a public health emergency. I think you know that, Roland. I think all your listeners know that it's a public health emergency, which requires a public response, right? And we have a governor who not only is he saying no mask mandates and threatening school boards, he's actually holding back billions of dollars from federal stimulus money that was sent down both under the Trump administration and the Biden administration that could be used in school districts for cleaning and sanitizing,

for making sure we have air purifiers in the classroom, for additional PPE, for making sure we're doing COVID testing and tracking and isolation and such to make sure we keep COVID from spreading. This COVID strand, the Delta variant, is spreading like wildfire here in Florida. And we are literally sending kids back to school tomorrow. And I suspect, as a lot of others have said, that within the next week, we're going to have breakouts all over, outbreaks all over the state of Florida in our schools. And so what do we do then? And so this governor is not preparing us for that. And we need leadership in a time of a public health emergency. We need to bring people together and not have this politics

of division that exists that we just heard from the governor in South Carolina and that we've been seeing from the governor here in Florida. And at the end of the day, it should be what are we doing to keep kids safe and make sure that the learning continues? I'll also point out that the governor's order here in Florida only applies to public schools, not charter schools, not voucher schools, not private schools, only to public schools. So why is that? Like, what is the reason to truly undermine our public schools at a time of this public health emergency? Um, how about this? So is this happening in Florida? I'm very curious in Texas, the Texas education agency notified THE TEXAS EDUCATION AGENCY NOTIFIED PARENTS THAT THEY WOULD, THAT IF A CHILD TESTS POSITIVE, PARENTS WOULD NOT BE NOTIFIED IF IT HAPPENS IN THAT PARTICULAR SCHOOL.

WELL, THE AUSTIN INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT SAID TO HELL WITH THAT. PARENTS WILL BE INFORMED OF POSITIVE COVID-19 CASES DURING THE SCHOOL YEAR DESPITE THE NEW GUIDANCE FROM ISSUE THURSDAY BY THE TEXAS EDUCATION AGENCY.

WHAT IS DESANTIS SAYING IN FLORIDA? IT'S THE SAME THING. ACTUALLY, LAST YEAR THROUGHOUT THE INTEGRITY, THE TEXAS year, despite the new guidance from Issue Thursday by the Texas Education Agency. What is DeSantis saying in Florida? It's the same thing. Actually, last year, throughout the entire school year, we were back in person, and school districts took it upon themselves to report what was going on, but the governor refused to report what was going on in our schools. I'll also point out, Florida is only doing weekly updates on the COVID numbers in the state of Florida. If you want accurate numbers as to what's happening in the state of Florida,

you have to go to the CDC because Florida is not being transparent with what's going on in COVID right now. They're hiding the number of cases that are happening with our kids and in our communities. And that's quite honestly scary. If you want trust, then you've got to make sure you're being transparent. Look, Roland, the bottom line here is we need to encourage vaccination of everyone. And we've been working with school districts to do that. But we have to remember that those under 12 cannot get vaccinated. So we have to do whatever we can to make sure we have a safe environment for our children. It's actually required in the Florida Constitution year that kids go to school in a safe and healthy environment. And we need to make sure that's happening. We want every child, regardless of race, background, or zip code, to get the education

they deserve in the safest possible way. And our governor isn't allowing it because he's actually interfering with our ability to do that at the local level. And it's an outrage. And here is an example. First of all, this was a great tweet that came from Akilah Hughes. She says schools can't enforce masks, but they sure did enforce not letting us wear shorts or spaghetti straps. So there are a lot of people have been talking about these school dress codes that folks actually had to deal with. But here's a perfect example. We talk about what's happening in schools.

This was sent out by Mike Collier in Texas. There's a crisis unfolding in our public schools in Garland ISD, folks, that's in Texas, right outside of Dallas. 31 staff and 224 students have already tested positive for COVID-19. To your point, Andrew, if you go by what DeSantis is doing, no one will know this. You will not know how many staffers tested positive. And clearly, if they don't even want to reveal the information, that means you're not going to have contact tracing. You literally might be sitting next to a student or working next to a staffer or next to a teacher or administrator who has COVID, and then you will have no way of even knowing. Yeah, and I'll tell you what we're talking about even here in Florida right now is that we have

one school in Polk County, just outside of between Orlando and Tampa. And in Polk County, they had to shut down a school before it even started because they have so many faculty and staff who have tested positive for COVID. So when school starts tomorrow, it will be concerning, I think, because of the fact that we aren't able to put those measures in place. Our governor actually said this, Roland. He said that if you isolate and quarantine students because they've been impacted by COVID, which the health department requires, by the way, or if you put a mask mandate in place, they're calling that bullying. And they're saying we're going to that's going to be considered bullying.

And now they can get a voucher to go to a private school. And trust me, that's going to be from people who look more like me than you. And that is a great concern. This is truly an undermining of our public school and the public health and the public trust. And this shouldn't be about politics. Democrats and Republicans and everyone should be coming together, as we have seen in other places, to make sure that safety is number one, that the learning continues, and that we're taking reasonable precautions. These are reasonable precautions and protocols to put into place to make sure that everyone is safe.

And that's one of the reasons why we're seeing craziness. And you want to see crazy. This is, again, I hate to say it, but two of the most nuttiest states in the country are Texas and Florida. I'm a native of Texas. This is this idiot Congressman Dan Crenshaw. Frankly, I think we should be thanking the Obamas for ensuring that Americans will absolutely not comply with more lockdowns. He's talking about the 60th birthday party former President Obama had this weekend. This is what he said. Lockdowns don't work. The costs are too high, and the people who force them upon us know this too. Do not comply. You literally have Republicans, Andrew, who are saying

don't comply with mask mandates, fight them, ignore them, don't comply with lockdowns. This is the sort of stuff that they're saying. And then unfortunately, they're also being aided by these right-wing preachers. Here is one of the craziest ones. Listen to this. Listen to me. I understand. And let me speak now to the cameras around the world, to every pastor that's watching this broadcast, to every Christian that is cowered in your home. I realize that for this last year that maybe you've been fed fear and fear and fear. But the Bible says that God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind. You have a sound mind. You don't have to wear the mask. You got Jesus. You don't need the vaccine. You got Jesus. Listen to me. I guess this particular pastor here, let me find this fool's name, Joshua Feuerstein.

I guess he didn't hear about Bishop Harry Jackson, who preached in the Oval Office on Easter Sunday last year. Harry went to the Amy Coney Barrett super spread event in the White House later that year. I think that was October. Harry died the next month, COVID. He was a bishop. He had Jesus. He dead. Well, and look, if you look in the Bible, if you look in the Torah or the Quran, or you're a spiritual person, and you look at some of the spiritual writings, it always talks about taking care of thy neighbor, taking care of thy family. So wearing a mask is about taking care of others and caring

for others. I think that's really rooted in the religious beliefs. And I believe it's rooted in our spirituality. And I believe it's rooted in our country, that we take care of others. That's what we're supposed to do. And so when you talk about not wearing masks as a personal freedom, personal freedom doesn't mean you get to infringe on others' freedoms. And so we've got to take care of the least fortunate. And when you think about the fact that kids under the age of 12 cannot get vaccinated right now, that should be a driving factor for all of us. And look, in Florida, I'll say this, Roland, we know that those over 65 in Florida, about 85 percent have been vaccinated.

They have the lowest spread rate right now in Florida. And those under 12 can't get vaccinated. They have the highest community spread rate in Florida. So clearly, we know the vaccine helps in slowing the spread of the virus, and it certainly helps in keeping people out of the hospital and alive. That's what the medical experts tell us. I'm not a medical expert. I'm a teacher. I'm a music teacher. My wife's a music teacher. Our two girls go to school. Our youngest is a seventh grader. Our oldest, we're taking her this week to Howard University, where she's going to be a freshman. And even at Howard University, they're requiring vaccination, and they're requiring masks. And so it's about keeping everyone safe.

This is a public health emergency. It requires a public community response. Absolutely. Andrew, we certainly appreciate it. Good luck there in Florida dealing with a governor who is desperate to please the right wing because he wants to run for president in 2024. He is not listening to the health officials. Y'all certainly stay safe in the Sunshine State. Thanks, Roland. Appreciate it. Julian, this is the battle that we're in. We're literally in this battle, Julian, this battle of, I mean, these folks are saying, damn, damn the children. They are ignoring all this data we keep seeing. They're ignoring the ICU cases. They're ignoring all of these things because they now want to make this thing out to be, oh, that's a person.

See, and now you want to see stupid? Boom. This literally just dropped five seconds ago from the Texas Tribune. Breaking. Texas Governor Greg Abbott is asking hospitals to delay certain elective procedures so space can be free for COVID-19 patients. He still won't let local governments and schools require masks or vaccines. What an asshole. That's a nice way of putting it, Roland.

I mean, that man is a certified public idiot. And many people had to wait until, you wait until April, May, June of this year to get elective surgery. And now he's asking them to put it off again because his intellectually deficient behind can't figure out that masks are important, that vaccinations are important. He, you know, he's playing Russian roulette with people's lives. And he's doing it for political gain. And somebody in the Republican Party, because we can say all we want is Democrats. They're not going to pay us any mind. Where are the Republicans with sense?

That's what I want to know. Where are the Republicans who will call this governor out and say, look. And that clip you showed earlier, I mean, I'm glad that I was not on camera. I hope I wasn't because I was about to roll on the floor. That stupid pastor who said we got Jesus. No, you don't. You don't have a speck of Jesus in you. Because if you had Jesus, you would look at the Bible that says things like, you know, love your fellow man. If you loved your fellow man, you'd have a vaccination. You'd put your dirty mask on. I mean, he doesn't have Jesus.

What he has is a microphone. And that's all. I just don't get it. I don't get just this notion that these things are not happening on the Congo. I mean, he don't do elected procedures to free the beds up. And you're telling districts no mask mandates. You're threatening school districts as well. You tell TEA don't inform parents of positive COVID tests. That is demonic.

That's demonic, evil leadership. He's killing people, plain and simple. And, you know, he talked about that pastor talking about Jesus and God. Jesus and God, you know, gave us the science that created the vaccine and the mask and all of these other types of things. So where do you draw the line? And look, going back to these schools and what Mr. Spahr was talking about, look, the other part that he didn't talk about, and I know he knows about it, but just didn't mention it this time around, was that also the stay-at-home option is no longer there. So if parents are opting to stay home, they are on their own. They are not going to get the Zoom from the teachers as they did last time. So that's also not an option for

parents in these public schools. And so DeSantis is going to take that money from the schools and give it to parents to send their kids to a private school where they have mask mandates, because, as Mr. Sparks said, there's no policy for the public, I mean, for the private and charter schools. This is idiotic. And I really feel for the parents who don't have the resources. And I'm with the other town or city that you mentioned earlier that said, hey, screw the governors. We are going to do these mask mandates. The parents, the people have to stand up to protect their children. My son is going into the first grade in a K-8 school. The staff is all vaccinated. But by science alone, the majority of the people in that school with kids are not going to be vaccinated.

We got the mask mandates. All of the precautions are being met. And we also know that our public schools don't, because they're not getting the financial resources, they are not being able to retrofit. They're not being able to do all of the things with the ventilation and all of that. So we're sending them into death traps and they're going to be going home to their communities and spreading this at an even faster rate. Governors got to go and the people need to stand up across the country to save our children and everybody that they might infect as well uh mustafa last point here uh go to my uh computer please uh this was from associated press breaking arkansas reports the largest number of covet 19

hospitalizations in the state since the pandemic began since the pandemic began the state reported its covet 19 hospitalizations rose by 103, its biggest one-day increase to 1,376. So here's what we can do. And for some reason, folks haven't done it yet. You know, I have expertise in climate law, but I know a little bit about criminal law as well. So there is child endangerment, there is public endangerment, and there is reckless endangerment. So these individuals who are making these decisions, there are ramifications for those. And folks need to begin to call them to the mat, as folks would say, and actually take these folks

to court. If you want them to stop this type of behavior, then we've got to utilize the courts. We have tried everything else. We've actually asked people's better angels to do the right thing. We've supplied the science. We've given examples of how we can actually slow the virus and eventually stop the virus. None of these things are motivating these folks. So it's time to take them to court. Folks, got to go to break. When we come back, we'll talk about the craziness that's happening out of Texas where the out-of-control demonic governor still wants to arrest House Democrats for not showing up, bringing the quorum.

We'll discuss that next right here on Rolling Martin Unfiltered. When you study the music, you get black history by default. And so no other craft could carry as many words as rap music. I try to intertwine that and make that create whatever I'm supposed to send out to the universe. A rapper, you know, for the longest period of time, has gone through phases. I love the word. I hate what it's become, you know,

and to this generation, the way they visualize it. Its narrative kind of like has gotten away and spun away from, I guess, the ascension of black people. Dear Republicans, I know you won't listen to Hollywood people or New York people or, God forbid, those libtards. So here's a video featuring exclusively your heroes. I want you to listen to your own leaders in their own voices.

You can't call this fake news. These are your pals. Unedited. Roll tape. Would you recommend to our audience that they get the vaccine then i would i would recommend it and i would recommend it to a lot of people that don't want to get it and a lot of those people voted for me frankly get vaccinated we are all pro vaccine i would encourage people to get the vaccine. I have high confidence in it. I got it

myself. If enough people take the vaccine, he says we could get back to normal. Each one of these Republican leaders took the vaccine, and they made damn sure their children took the vaccine. But then they worked behind the scenes to create a marketing plan, and that's what it was. Targeted at low-information Republican voters that tied your personal freedom to not wearing a mask or taking the vaccine. I love the poorly educated. And tens of millions of you in red states fell for this ridiculous lie. The federal administration is trying to do is shove it down your throat. What are they shoving, the science?

Even when confronted with your fellow Republican leaders telling you on television that they were wrong. I'd already eliminated our statewide mask mandate. And yes, in hindsight, I wish that had not become law. Many of you still refuse to do what is best for you. Any questions? Your families, your community, and your country. Everybody, don't listen to no foolishness. Go get vaccinated. You can't enter the Fox News building without providing your vaccination information.

But on show after show, they tell you not to wear a mask because it's an assault on your freedom. They are laughing at how gullible you are. And here's the kicker. While they're laughing at you, you are sending them donations. You are literally paying your Republican leaders to deceive you. Think about that. Black women have always been essential. So now how are you going to pay us like that?

And it's not just the salary. I mean, there are a whole number of issues that have to support us as women. Yeah. But that's what we deserve. We shouldn't have to beg anybody for that. I think that we are trying to do our best as a generation to honor the fact that we didn't come here alone and we didn't come here by accident. I always say every generation has to define for itself what it means to move the needle forward. Hello everyone, it's Piera Sheard. Hey, I'm Taj. I'm Coco and I'm Lily and we're at the movie.

What's up y'all is Ryan Destiny and you're watching Roland Martin unfiltered. Texas Democrat lawmakers who fled Texas to stop Republicans from passing a voting bill can begin to return home this week after a state district judge issued an order prohibiting their arrest. The 22 Texas Democrats sued some of

the state's top Republican leaders in federal court alleging the GOP efforts to bring them home for a special legislative session and fringes on their constitutional rights to free speech and to petition the government for redress of grievances. Texas Republicans that representative Matt Krause was caught on video

admitting the new voting election bill is a partisan power grab. We just want to make sure that Texas stays red and that this becomes like a vote. And, you know, the election bill is like really, really important to that. So y'all are going to get it passed. We're going to keep Texas running. Yeah, it's just a matter of time. So it's just the late tactics right now. We'll get it done. Yeah, Texas is going to go to the math, right?

Yeah. I agree. I agree. And really, for me, it has nothing to do necessarily with the beginning of the court or whatever, what happened at the presidential level. It has to do with Harris County, our largest county in Houston. They made all the changes to the election code you're in no way, which just divides it from the next shooting.

So that's what we're going to focus on is all these people who are just trying to do it, and they watch it to the election code, which allows for things like Georgia and other places to happen. Can you cover the top of the line there? Yeah. He's one of the friends of Audit. Oh, yeah. I'm sort of friends of Audit.

You're friends of Audit. You had to get engaged in your. I was told a friend's about it. We had to get engaged in the fight to make sure that Democrats didn't go to the state. So, you know, we just want to make sure that y'all get the election vote passed. That's what we're here for. Yeah. They're not going to lose seats. They're not going to gain seats next time. They're not going to take over.

They're going to actually erode. So we're going to make sure we come back with more Republicans next time. Thank you so much. We just want to let y'all know that y'all are really important. We didn't get involved in politics really with the South West and the Democrats. But the Democrats are going to have elections and we're going to make sure that y'all are doing

what you can to keep Texas red. We are. I live in a real red district but I found out to be primary so that I can help people that are in those close districts. We'll see the end of the future. Redder and redder. This is Chairman of our conference right there, Jim Murphy. But thank you all for being here. I think the election bill is going to come next, but...

Yeah, and we're going to get it passed. It's just that we just got to... You know, it seems like it's dragging out forever, but, you know, things move slowly. You're going to get them back? We feel like we're going to have a forum on Monday. We just adjourned until Monday. It's going to be close. We've got half a dozen Republicans that have it,

Evan McFarland or Kovac or something like that. And so we've got a few Republicans that can't make it. We're hoping to have a forum on that. We can kind of get to that. Yes, sir. Let's go to Representative Jarvis Johnson. He's right now. Jarvis, glad to have you back on Roland Martin Unfiltered.

So are you still here in D.C. or are you back in Texas? No, I'm still in D.C. So let's talk about this judge's order. Now, again, they can easily go to court, overturn that, and then begin to arrest folks. Are you trusting that decision? And I saw another story where some other Democrats said, hey, look, we're going to have to come back, and we're just going to have to fight this as best as we can. So what's going to happen?

No, I mean, I trust the TRL. I mean, at the end of the day, it is what it is. We made a commitment to stay in D.C. until the Senate adjourned. It went on recess. So our work is still continuing. So at the end of the day, those that decided to go back, you know, went back for various reasons. And I choose not to get into the, you know, to the details about that. But I will say that at the end of the day, we watched all day long

where the Republicans never, ever sat down and talked, negotiated or communicated with us in any way. And so there's nothing to fight back at the House until we're able to get this TRO and be able to have our own seat on the House floor. And so on that particular point there, so how many Democrats, first of all, how many Democrats are required to be away danger of them having a quorum? No. Republicans are doing what Republicans do, lie. They're out here saying, oh, we're going to get quorum, we're going to get quorum, we're going to get the Democrats back. They're playing poker. They got their poker face on. You said it before in your previous segment how Republicans are just, they're diabolical. They don't, you know, they're just doing what they do. They lie just to get what they want.

And so at the end of the day, we're still holding strong. There have been some that have walked back on the floor to ask for strict enforcement, to make sure that we hold Republicans accountable. I understand that there are at least nine Republicans on that House floor that have COVID. We do know of one that is back. He just, he hadn't been back, he hadn't been out nine days, and he's already back on the House floor. So it's that kind of stuff that they're doing to try to push this unnecessary, tyrannical legislation through, because we already know this legislation is not even necessary, simply because there's no evidence of voter fraud. And you just played the clip in which they just simply said, this is a power grab to make sure that Texas stays red and they can continue to have their power.

So, but you guys are also filing suit against them, saying that trying to arrest you and infringe on your First Amendment rights. You know, it ain't no fun when the rabbit got a gun. So at the end of the day, they've been out here hunting us. And all of a sudden we got a gun and we can fight back. And now they're going, the democrats are you know they're they're they're derrick on their duties and they're not doing this and they're not doing that and i'm just i'm i'm amazed by my by their privilege i'm amazed by the the lack of of shame or and it's just it's amazing to me the fact that we're out here literally being sheep and they're wolves and they're upset with us because we won't let them eat us. They're upset because we won't sit back and watch as they just, you know, just demolish us. So, you know, as my grandmother used to always say, I ain't fat and no frog for no snake.

So I'm not going to go back to the House floor and let them do what they want to do. Treat me how they want to treat me and pass legislation that's not even necessary. So at the end of the day, the fight continues. We're going to continue to fight, and we're going to fight to the bitter end. So at the end of the day, that talk about the 13th check, you know, COLA, CPS, and all those things, we're willing to go back to the floor. We'll talk to the governor. We'll talk to the speaker and say we will go back and we will legislate those things that

are important to all Texans, not some, you know, tyrannical legislation that you're pushing forward because of the big lie that Donald Trump has been telling. And now you guys want to use that lie to stay in power. No. So we're going to continue to fight. And we got a gun now and they're upset. And so they're going to cry like they always do. They get to make fun of us. You know, when a few of my brothers and sisters up here got COVID, you know, they just drug us on social media. They drug us in the media. But, you know, we didn't do the same to them. You know, we have the corn, we have morals. So it's not even necessary. But at the end of the day, we're't do the same to them. You know, we have the quorum. We have morals. So it's not even necessary. But at the end of the day, we're going to continue to stay our course so that we can kill this hateful legislation

so that we can make sure that all Texans have access to the ballot box without being intimidated or bullied. All right. Representative Jarvis Johnson, always a pleasure. I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. My pleasure, brother. Take care. Yes, always a pleasure. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot. My pleasure, brother. Take care. Keep up the good work.

Yes, sir. I certainly appreciate it. To the panel here, they, of course, Democrats, have done their best to hold back. But you also have what's going on with the infrastructure bill. You have the Senate likely to vote on this tomorrow. But what's up with the voting bill? Over the weekend, they broke the filibuster for that. 67 votes.

Republicans, they want to get a piece of that money as well. Look, money talks, and so that's what you have going on here. But again, what's still jumping out to me is, are they going to go on recess when it comes to that before they vote on the voting bill? That's the issue, Julian, that people are demanding. And so the question is, will Senator Chuck Schumer force Manchin and Sinema to end the filibuster with that? Nothing I see says it's going to happen.

I agree with you, Roland. I don't think it's going to happen either. I mean, it should happen, but Manchin and Sinema have been just consistently obstructionists when it comes to justice. They are dinos, Democrats of name only. Sure, they want to slice that infrastructure money, but I don't think we're going to get a vote before they go on recess, unfortunately. I think that the filibuster has to be gone. It's the only way you can put it. The filibuster has to be eliminated. And I think that too many Democrats have shilly-shallied around it, asking, well, gee, what happens when we're the minority? Well, what happens when you're in the minority is what always happens when you're in the minority. You tend to lose. So I just find this pro-infrastructure,

anti-voting rights—and there are no rights without voting rights. I mean, infrastructure can come and go. We need the right to vote. We need to be protected. And I don't see that happening in this session. Omokongo. Yeah, I've heard low-key talk about Schumer saying that he's going to make sure that that vote happens before the recess, but I'm not optimistic either. And really, quite honestly, at the end of the day, if that does not happen, we need to make sure that every single day we go Reverend Barber on them and make sure that they are hearing us and seeing us, whether it's in the streets, whether it's flooding

the phones, social media, whatever it is. Look, again, without voting rights, there is nothing else. And we can go back and forth about everything. But look, this is what we sent them to do. We sent them there to protect these rights. And quite honestly, if they're not going to do that, they don't have a right to be in office. And to me, it's like you just had that segment where you're talking to Representative Johnson about how these Republicans want the ultimate power grab. This is what Republicans are doing right now with their delay tactics and their stall tactics getting closer to 2022. We've got Manchin and Sinema, as Dr. Malvo was saying, acting as Democrats in name only. They have to have the issue forced down them with no remorse whatsoever, because if Democrats go

down and make this mistake, we can kiss 22 goodbye, which means that we're probably going to have to kiss 2024 goodbye. Look, people are looking right now to see if Donald Trump was the anomaly as president or if in this current climate, Biden is the anomaly right now. And if everything that the Republicans are doing across the country to steal these elections, if it was already in place in the last election, Trump would still be in charge right now. And so if they don't get on their ball right now and do this on a national level and get this legislation passed, we can kiss it goodbye. And we can't let that happen. Mustafa? You've got to make whatever modifications to the filibuster that's necessary to make sure that we

can pass, you know, the For the People Act, because the For the People Act is actually tied to the resources. So if you don't have the right to vote, folks need to understand that when this money leaves the feds and starts to make it to the states and the counties and the local level, if you're not able to actually vote and be able to get the right people in, it's not going to make it in significant ways to our community. So all of this is interconnected. And that's why we have to continue to push both on the filibuster and the For the People Act. Let's talk about another issue.

We talk about pushing. I think it's also tied to, of course, we'll be talking about with COVID, and that is the U.N. dropped a report today dealing with climate change that was startling. Basically, what they said is that folks have been sitting on their ass for so long that we pretty much guaranteed that we're going to have a warmer climate. And this is what they said, irreversible changes, warmer temperatures sooner. Five alarming findings from the UN climate change report dropped today paints a dire picture of where we are, and it really speaks to a lack of leadership, if you will. Mustafa, let's talk about this here.

And folks, again, just like COVID, just like so many other things, we've been sounding the alarm, and as long as folks on the right oh it's a hoax it's a hoax this stuff is false it's false and now these scientists are saying we've reached the point of no return y'all screwed this up you didn't do what you're supposed to do over the last 20 years so guess what we are here now yeah the under intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, is made up of the world's top scientists on climate. And the report that came out was talking about the impacts that are going on, the ones that are happening in this moment in the climate crisis

and also what is coming in the not-so-distant future. You know, there's a number of just mind-blowing things that are currently going on that sometimes people just don't see because you're dealing with so many other types of things. You know, our temperature right now, our global temperature, we haven't seen these levels in 100,000 years. And the amount of CO2 that we currently have in our atmosphere hasn't been seen in over two million years. And those are elements that are playing out in the warming up of the planet, of the oceans. And you see these extreme weather events that are going on.

When you see places with temperatures of 118 degrees and you see these biblical floods and these wildfires that are just devastating millions of acres, all of that is driven by the decisions that humans have made and the actions that we have with our addiction to fossil fuels. So the IPCC is saying, you got five options, and it's going to play out. Either we can be all in, we can make sure that we're making the investments that get the policies in place, and then we can limit many of these impacts that are happening, or we can put our heads in the sand, and there will be devastating effects that will happen not only to the environment, but also to our economy.

And we know that Black and brown and indigenous folks are the ones that are going to be hit first and worst. We see it play out every time that there's a hurricane, every time there's one of these major floods, and a number of other things. So the IPCC is once again saying what front-line communities have been saying for decades now, that everything is accelerating, but we got to get moving right this moment. That's why the Biden administration has got to be tougher. They've got to make sure that they're expanding and that they're being bold on the actions that are necessary. The five takeaways on the Congo, let's go to my computer. We may reach 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming much sooner than it was expected.

We're a decade ahead. Also, the report says human caused climate change is already affecting every region across the globe, saying that humans are the reason for the problem. Also, as global temperatures get high, extreme weather will get worse. As Mustafa talked about, we've seen these hurricanes, these floods. We've seen all of these different things. If temperatures increase by two degrees, a once in every 10 years extreme is likely to occur 5.6 times. Well, that means every other year. If each incremental increase in global temperature will lead to lower levels of Arctic sea ice, snow cover,

and permafrost. Under all five admission scenarios, the report lays out the Arctic is likely to see at least one September month that is practically free of sea ice before 2050. Then it says many changes to Earth are irreversible for centuries and millennia. Irreversible. Yeah, and I think that in addition to everything Brother Mustafa was saying as well when we talk about this, we also have to talk about when we talk globally about the political cost of climate change, because people don't talk often about how climate change actually also is part of what can create refugees. I've seen this all across the world, having visited and worked in almost 30 countries.

There are wars and civil conflicts that happen when the wells dry up and people don't have access to water. Well, you got to get it from somewhere. You're moving over into neighboring communities. They're like, you know, we're not with that. And so conflict ensues. And then when you talk about other resources that are drying up, the ability to not have agri-bill land, right, that people have to move to find that as well. Well, if the populations you go to are not moving, these are the political costs of climate

change that people don't understand, which have literally led to violence across the world in the past and is also happening currently. So we talk about the economic issues. We talk about the environmental consequences to our health. But wars will literally be fought over this issue of climate change as well. And so if that's not an additional incentive to start doing something about it now, it's going to be too late. And there's going to be real bloodshed that's going to continue to shed over this issue of climate change. So I just wanted to add that to the conversation as well. And the thing that drives us crazy, Julian, is that these folks who, the answer, if you want to kill something in America, oh my God, it's going to cost jobs. It's going to cost too much. It's sort of like for me

with COVID, people say, my freedom. You ain't got no freedom when you're dead. And so for the people who are yelling about, oh, this is going to affect jobs, if you got no planet, ain't going to be jobs. And so, like, for instance, here's this idiot, Josh Hawley, out of Missouri, complaining about the infrastructure bill because, oh, it has that green stuff in it. Listen to this. Video is frozen. I'm let me do a reset here i mean it's just it's just unbelievable here uh picture at all go to now it's about woke politics why is president biden so enthusiastically for it because it advances his far left agenda the green new deal elements of it across this bill the climate change agenda it's stuffed into this bill, quotas for this, that, and the other in this bill. So this is a bill that is about the woke

political agenda of the left. It is being paid for with this massive pork barrel spending. And I just hope Republicans will open their eyes to what's actually in the bill. You know, when you get a bill this late in the process, this 2,700 plus pages long, sometimes it's tempting not to actually look and see what's in the bill not to actually look and see what's in the bill. Folks should look and see what's in this bill. I think it's going to be awfully hard to explain to Republican voters that we have gone along or some Republicans have gone along with this kind of an agenda, this sort of a social agenda, this kind of pork barrel spending. And so I think it's absolutely vital

that Republicans take a principled stand and say, we're not going to be part of Joe Biden's left wing agenda. We're not going to advance his woke political agenda. We're going to stand up for the principles that we share and believe in as Americans. We're going to stand up for some basic fiscal responsibility. And for those reasons, we're going to vote no on this bill. And of course, there he offered absolutely no on this bill. And, of course, he offered absolutely no specific, everything was just woke, woke, woke, woke, woke, Green New Deal, woke, woke, woke, woke,

woke, Green New Deal. But guess what? There are 18 Republicans who did go along with this because they understand it. The thing here, Mustafa, that, again, that people don't see. Huh?

Then you just call on me and then moved on. No, no, no, no. Hold tight one second. Because the reason I need you to hold tight, because Mustafa is actually leaving us at 730. And so I need to get his comments before he has to leave us. So I'm coming right back. Just hold on.

Mustafa, the thing here that is so troubling is that it's happening in front of us. And how then, though, how do politically do folks make the argument to get voters to realize that this is an issue. I think that's the big deal. How do you get voters to wake up and realize this matters and they should be voting based upon climate change? Well, some people are beginning to move because of the impacts that are happening. Farmers, for an example, they see these extreme droughts that are happening. So they are now linking that, of course, to climate change. Many other folks because of being impacted from the wildfires and some of the other things that are going on. But for others, the president was really smart by actually talking about climate change in the prism of jobs and the millions of new jobs that are a part of the solutions that are going on. Now, Republicans should be lining up to actually make sure that there are more jobs that are available, especially inside of their states, because many of the folks who are some of

the most ardent detractors from what's going on are ones who most desperately need these new sets of jobs and these economic opportunities that are tied to it. So that is also beginning to move, folks. The other part, Roland, that I will share very quickly is that young Republicans are saying that climate change is real, that we need bold action on it. And they are also, even though they don't have a huge influence yet in their party, they are pushing their party to get in alignment with what the world is asking for. So it's not the Democrats asking for this.

The world is saying that we have to do this. And if we don't, the price will be astronomical. We spent $1.9 trillion over the last 30 years on the impacts of the climate crisis. And that's before it began to rev up. So you can pay now or you are going to try and pay later. Mustafa, we certainly appreciate you joining us. Thank you so very much. Thanks a lot. Julianne, I'll now go to you. That's the real issue. That's the real issue right here. How do we get people to realize politically this is an issue. They should be voting along these lines. The Republicans love to demonize, love to demonize the Green New Deal,

but it's dealing with the economy. Well, precisely. Mustafa is absolutely right when he says you will pay now or you will pay later. But the issue is we will pay. And we're already paying. We see the pain in terms of these massive floods, in terms of the fires, in terms of all of that. And what needs to happen is that some environmentally situated economists need to cost some of this stuff out. How much does it cost for you to lose a whole town in California, a whole town, or hundreds of acres of basically forest, which then means that has another impact on the environment in terms of not having that forest

anymore. Some of these things need to be costed out and put in real dollars. That holly is just, somebody just put a sock in it. I mean, what the right has been very, very capable of doing is taking our language and turning it against us. So it's awoken. Well, what's wrong with being woke? You want to be asleep? You know, it's a woke agenda. It's the Green New Deal.

The Green New Deal has so many really important aspects to it. All of the rhetoric is basically designed to separate people from reality. And what we know, what the UN report said, and the language was really quite stunning, they call it a code red for humanity. That's a term they used, a code red for humanity. And that's where we are. Omicongo's point about migration is really important, because the other thing that happens is, from an economic

perspective, that some countries in the short run are better able to withstand this than others are. When 2010, I went to the COP15, the Climate Change Conference, And there were some brothers there, they're Polynesian brothers who are from a little island called Tuvalu. They had seen their island literally lose half of its land mass because of increased flooding. And I haven't kept up with what happened after that. It may not be there anymore. So then where do those people go? And what happens to them? Some of our developing countries, on the African continent, especially on the coasts, if you see some of that, it's going to affect different countries differentially. Oh, the U.S. could probably stave it off for another 10, 20 years. But there are some

countries who are only going to last five. So this has long-term implications. And the term code red for humanity couldn't be more telling. This is an emergency that we seem to not care about. Again, Omokongo, you have to put this in a political way for voters to get. And I think that has not been achieved by Democrats. They have not been able to, because again, the argument that always defeats them, it's going to cost us jobs, it's going to cost too much money, and this is a capitalistic society. Everything is put in those terms.

And I just think that people just got to say, y'all keep playing with this here, you're going to be dead. Your kids are going to be dead. And then I think they got to challenge evangelicals. They got to go white evangelicals. How can y'all talk about the Bible said, take care of what, be good stewards of what God gave you, and y'all don't give a damn about the planet. You got to go there.

I mean, I just think Democrats have to communicate in a different way. Right now, it's perceived as being too flowery, too flower child-like, hippie-like. No, you've got to cut right to the heart of it to get somebody in their face and say, hey, it's affecting you right now. Yeah, I don't think that our current leadership, you know, the Democrats have the ability to do that. I don't think that they have the ability to really drive it home like that. And living in a society where we've literally lost the ability to focus on the common good, maybe we never had that idea. Maybe it's just a romanticized notion, but people are so in it for themselves that, quite honestly,

I feel like these Democratic leaders can probably do a better job of driving home these economic consequences and maybe making the messaging better around that. Look, we talk about climate change. We talk about COVID. I believe that there are many people who are starting to get the vaccine because they're seeing the death straight up in front of them more. But I think the majority of people are starting to get it because it's going to hurt them economically when they can't fly, when they can't go back to their jobs. Government mandates, corporations are mandating it that they're working for. And now they're like, I got to have this job. And so I'm going to do that. And I think with climate change, it has to be the same way. They're, you know, convincing people in the coal mining world that going with, you know, working with solar panels and all that other type of stuff economically makes more sense.

Because whenever people talk about these political consequences rolling there, we're Democrats got to be better at that message now to to get more people on board because they can't drive the message home. They're not capable of doing it. Maybe the younger guys, the Cori Bush's of the world, the AOC's, the Omar's of the world, we could hit that message on a more personal level. But the current leaders at the top, they just don't seem to be able to do that. All right, then, folks, today marks 70 years since a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, killed Michael Brown. Of course, today, dozens of people gathered at Canfield Green Apartments, the spot where Brown was gunned down. Over the weekend, several activities commemorated his life,

such as a town hall featuring his father, Michael Brown Sr., and a free screening of the Ferguson Rises documentary. Representative Cori Bush says the fight for justice is far from over. It's heartbreak because we're still here. We're still fighting this because the family is still traumatized and has not received justice. And, you know, we're out here with the people that we were out here with back in 2014 that we've continued to rock with and stay with and build community with and coalitions with and we've done work with since 2014. We've been one family and it's important to continue to show up. We got to not only talk about it. We got, you know, I can't just talk

about it and then work on policy for it. We got to also show up and be a, continue to be a part of the movement because movements move, they morph, they change. And so we got to continue to be a part of it because we got to be able to carry out this work. The Black Liberation Movement, Civil Rights Movement was 10 years strong. We seven years in, so we got, we still got work to do. And after that, we can continue to do work. We at least got to get 10 years strong. We seven years in. So we got we still got work to do. And after that, we can continue to do where we at least got to get 10 years in. And so I hear that all the time from my good friend, Jahai Kayyem. But this this for this weekend in August, Mike, is where we got to be. You know, you got to show up. This family deserves us to show up. All right, folks, let's

go to New York where jury selection began in the second criminal trial for R. Kelly. It comes to more than two years after the R&B singer was charged with abusing women and underage girls for almost two decades. The Grammy award-winning singer faces charges including child sexual exploitation, racketeering, bribery. He has pleaded not guilty. Following jury selection, the trial is due to begin on August 18th and could last several weeks. He's facing decades in prison for this case. The 54-year-old has cases against him in Illinois and Minnesota as well. So this will not be the only shot prosecutors have at putting R. Kelly in jail. Folks, it's been 35 years since Sylvia Mathis

and Linda Berry became the FBI's first black female agents. A black woman from Tampa, Florida, hopes to go even further with the Bureau. She goes by Ty, and she's a special agent in the FBI's Puerto Rico office. According to the agency, she's the first black woman to train for the FBI SWAT team since the division began in 1973. Ty began new operator training school in late July. If she completes the 10-week course, she will join the FBI's Puerto Rico SWAT team as a probationary member. For Ty to become officially certified, she'll need to undergo more training during the probationary period.

Ty says regardless of the results, she hopes her journey will inspire others. So good luck to that sister. All right, folks, got to go to break. We come back. We'll talk about the continuing controversy with DaBaby over his comments. He's been blasted as homophobic. And folks say his information regarding HIV and AIDS is also wrong as well. But Jasmine Koenig, a sister out of L.A. who's lesbian, she says,

hmm, what's up with this double standard dealing with comments by the baby? I'm going to unpack all of that next right here on Roller Martin Unfiltered. George Floyd's death hopefully put another nail in the coffin of racism. You talk about awakening America, it led to a historic summer of protests.

I hope our younger generation don't ever forget that nonviolence is soul force. Christ. What's up, y'all? I'm Will Packer. Hello, I'm Bishop T.B.J. What up? Lana Well, and you are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Alright, DaBaby has been in the news

for the last couple of weeks over comments that he made at a concert. Now, at the particular concert last month, he made what has been called anti-gay remarks on stage at the Rolling Loud Musical Festival. Now, we're going to play these comments for you, just giving you a warning right now. They are crude, and so if you want to turn this audio down, you want to turn it away, that's no problem. It's going so if you want to turn the audio down, you want to turn away,

that's no problem. It's going to give you time to do so. It has set off a torrent of criticism. He's been dropped from a number of festivals and led to an apology from him. But then he repealed the apology. I'll explain all of that. This is what he said in concert. You didn't show up today with HIV, AIDS, any of them deadly, sensual, all of that. This is down and said that his gay followers understood what he was saying, that it was not a big deal. That did not sit well with a number of festival organizers. He was accused of spreading misinformation, many considered harmful with regards to HIV and AIDS. Now, this has prompted a variety of conversations with folks about this issue, including rappers and the issue of homophobia, but also HIV and AIDS. So it's been going back and forth, back and forth what's going on. So then the baby dropped

the video on his Instagram page where he was talking about this whole issue of where he apologized, apologized for his comments. Well, over the weekend, he actually pulled that video. It was deleted. So it raises a lot of questions to deal with. And so it's been a lot of back and forth. Now, let me join right now by, first of all, first of all, there have been a number of people who have been trying to educate the baby. There were people who actually signed a letter saying that they would meet with him as well. Now, Jasmine Koenig, of course, we've had Jasmine on the show for many times. What was interesting is that Jasmine dropped a piece that I found to be quite interesting.

And this is what what how she titled it. She titled it The Baby Outrage Illustrates Double Standards. So when you click her piece, what she lays out in this article, how people I'm pulling it up right now to show you exactly what she wrote. And she said a double standard is a rule. So she goes on and talks about his lyrics. So she says in here, look how me and my little bitch be dressing and fucking her. Right. But you ain't pulling her hair. Yeah, bitch yeah bitch ass nigga oh you asking for pictures with niggas that's from one of his lyrics uh actually from one of his songs that have earned multiple nominations now this is what jasmine writes most people who knew of charlotte rapper the baby were okay with him profiting off calling black men and women niggas and bitches but once he talked about sucking dicks in the parking lot

and dying from AIDS, in two to three weeks then, he had to be canceled. He said that she writes, because of the continued stigmatization of HIV and AIDS among blacks, HIV and AIDS are still being used as a weapon. Now, so she goes on to write in here how folks are talking about, and this is what she writes, somehow as a black lesbian

woman, I'm supposed to be more outraged over DaBaby's homophobic and anti-AIDS comments than I am about being called a bitch or a nigga. How does that work? The only conclusion that I could draw was that nobody cares when a black rapper is calling other black people niggers and bitches. It pays, and it pays well for so many people. But when that same black rapper says something offensive about gays, which by definition happens to include white gay people, that's when he must be canceled. For the record, white people in general and specifically white gay people aren't known for shutting down and canceling rappers who call black men and women niggas or bitches. They have pretty much always been OK with that by way of their silence.

A double standard is a rule or principle which is unfairly applied in different ways to different people or groups. She says, Jasmine writes, I am black. I am a woman and and I am a lesbian, so this is no way a defense of DaBaby. He was making ignorant statements long before his latest inflammatory comments, but I really do want to know how we're choosing who to cancel and for what reason. This selective outrage is confusing and hypocritical. Why can DaBaby's concerts be canceled for his homophobic remarks and not for his misogynistic lyrics and use of the n-word? Is it because then 95% of today's rappers would also be canceled? Because, let's admit it, almost all of the successful rappers today got there using the words bitch, hoe, and nigga. Is it because the music industry and its connoisseurs have no problem with profiting off of the degradation of women, black women in

particular, and the use of the N-word? That would never happen with anti-Semitic lyrics. In fact, it doesn't happen with any other type of hate speech because black people are okay with calling each other bitches, hoes, and niggas as long as we are okay with calling each other bitches, hoes, and niggas as long as we are, everyone else, including us, is allowed to make a profit off of it. Unlike with other groups of people, be it the LGBTQ community, Jews, Asian Pacific Islanders, or any other race, we are the only people who are okay with self-degradation under the guise of replacing the letters ER with an A. And as far as bitches and hoes go, we call ourselves that too. In this politically correct, me too, woke world that we live in,

that just doesn't seem like something that would be tolerated, let alone accepted. It's easy to hop aboard the hashtag cancel the baby train all aboard. I need the same energy that's being used to punish DaBaby for his homophobic and anti-AIDS comments to be directed towards rappers like him who continue to call women bitches and hoes and use the N-word. Omokongo and Julianne, let's talk about this. So when we, so when you have, so really what Jasmine is doing, Jasmine is challenging, not just black people, she's also challenging gay folks to say, y'all quiet about that, but you're commenting on this. Why not both? And as she said, she's not defending the baby.

She's saying, if he want to cancel them, cancel them for both, not just one. You know, her piece is very thoughtful. It's a really good piece. And I think it's really important to challenge us, but also the industry. There it is, the industry. Remember Michael Jackson had some little lyric that was somewhat anti-semitic yeah he he said uh uh it was uh i think he said uh jumi screw me something along those lines uh me jumi don't you black and blue me kick me me don't you black or white me. Yeah, and so that record had already been printed. They ordered the destruction of all of those records and for the apologize, yes.

So, you know, basically you could do that with another group of people. You could do it with black people, you couldn't do it with any other group of people. Even if you did some things, I mean, years, years ago when I did Daily Radio, one time I said, Chris Columbus was a drunken Italian who got lost. You would have been stunned at the number of letters the station got saying,

she can't say that. But it's the truth. The man did get lost. So somehow we're at the bottom of the, we black people and women, are at the bottom of the food chain when it comes to outrage. You know, you can say anything about us, and some of us will laugh, some of us will say right on, and many of us are going to go right through their heads. But it's not just about us.

It's about an industry that profits from the degradation of Black people, about an industry that profits from—the baby has been a fool. From what I can tell, I really am too old to follow that kind of mess. But he seems like he's been a fool from the word go. Only when he starts talking about homosexual sex does he suddenly become cancelable. If he were going to cancel him, he should have canceled him some time ago. So kudos to Jasmine for putting it out there like that, putting herself out there like that. I'm sure she's going to get both positive and negative feedback, but I think her piece was very good.

Omokongo? Even beyond the industry, there's this mentality of do whatever you want in the black community to yourselves, but you're going to stop when you come towards us. You can go back to the riots after Rodney King, right? As soon as it started moving out to the suburbs, oh, here's the National Guard. The list goes on and on, right? Look, when we come back to the industry, I did my doctorate on Jay-Z. I teach several hip-populated courses at American University. And the fact of the matter is, when she talked about white gay men being silent, I would argue that many of these guys are not silent they're at the concert singing along with with many of these lyrics you know

what i'm saying i've seen them we've all seen about if you've been to a hip-hop concert so she's absolutely right there's this level of acceptance of y'all gonna do what you're gonna do and we you know i'm a rapper myself of course and, you know, we as artists do need to be more responsible, but we can be more responsible as we're calling out this hypocrisy as well, because we need to be past this day and age where we're putting out any of the derogatory lyrics towards any group, but especially our own community and culture, because we just don't, we never needed to do it in the first place. And we're successful enough now in the industry in terms of people running their own labels and the like to not have to do that and still get our message across. And so I applaud what Jasmine is doing.

And we really need to take control of this music. Look, I'm raising daughters now. I'm raising sons. And look, at American University, yo, when these kids are coming into class singing this this stuff, and have no historical context, and we just got to start, and some of my Black students as well, the few that I have in there, they don't even have historical context. And I also teach a class called Global Hip Hop and Resistance. And so when you talk about an international word in terms of how this language has been populated across the world, like KRS-One said, that, Mike, you speak through, go from here to Mogadishu,

and how you represent us is the issue. Yes, we do need to call ourselves out in the same way, but also call out the hypocrisy that Jasmine is mentioning. So kudos to Jasmine as well. I want to bring in a guest, Renia Copeland. She is president and CEO of Black AIDS Institute, Carolyn Weisinger, board president, San Francisco Pride, and Reverend Rob Newells-Newton, Director of the National Program for the Black AIDS Institute. Glad to have all three of you here. So this conversation, first of all, there's several different things going on here. So DaBaby drops his video, re-apologizes over the weekend, now apparently deleted the video. There are a number of different

groups that actually wrote him an open letter asking to sit down and educate him. And then now you have what Jasmine is saying here. Just want to get the three of you your thoughts on this issue. So you have the homophobic comments. You have the issue dealing with comments about HIV and AIDS. And then, of course, you have what language that he uses that Jasmine says is targeting black people. What do you make of the whole discussion?

Anyone can start. Hold on one second. We're not hearing you. No, not hearing you yet. All right. All right, so let's do this here. Okay, we'll do this here. We're going to go to a quick break.

Y'all figure, we're going to figure the audio stuff out. I'm going to come right back to Roller Martin Unfiltered. Black women have always been essential. So now how are you going to pay us like that? And it's not just the salary. I mean, there are a whole number of issues that have to support us as women.

Yeah, but that's what we deserve. We shouldn't have to beg anybody for that. I think that we are trying to do our best as a generation to honor the fact that we didn't come here alone and we didn't come here by accident. I always say every generation has to define for itself what it means to move the needle forward. white supremacists ain't just about hurting black folk we gotta deal with it, it's injustice, it's wrong I do feel like in this generation

we've got to do more around being intentional and resolving conflict. You and I have always agreed. Yeah. But we agree on the big piece. Yeah. Our conflict is not about destruction. Conflict's going to happen. Hello?

What? Yo, what's up? This your boy Ice Cube. What's up? I'm Lance Gross, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. You got it? Alright, so I think we've got the audio issues settled, so again, let's bring in

our panel here, Renea Copeland, as well as Carolyn Watzinger and Reverend Rob Newells-Newton. All right. Let's see if it works now. Let's see. Can you hear me now? There we go. We got you. All right. Well, what I was saying before my audio decided it wasn't time was that Jasmine is absolutely correct. And what we talk about at Black AIDS Institute is how white supremacy and anti-Blackness really is the stem of oppression that is impeding our

ability to respond to HIV and AIDS. You know, we specifically call out the misogynoir that we saw from the baby. I think that if you would have played the recording a couple seconds earlier, you'd hear him talking about Black women and calling us names, and that that is something that, you know, they come together. But I completely understand and agree that there is this double standard where we think that it's more acceptable, but we know it's not. At least when it comes to HIV, we talk about and we have so much data that shows that this misogynoir that's specific towards Black women is part of the reason we see increased HIV cases amongst Black women. We see higher rates of intimate partner violence among Black women living with HIV.

We see higher rates of homelessness among Black women living with HIV as well. And so this is all because of and roots from this same anti-blackness that we see from DaBaby in much of his music, and certainly most recently from his latest comments. Rob? Look, I'm a same-gender-loving black man who's been living with HIV for the last 16-plus years. So, A, you don't die in two to three weeks.

And I say I was surprised that his comments caused such an uproar because I didn't expect it because it hasn't before. Gay folks, women, we're all in the same gang when it comes to being disrespected by the hip hop industry. But I also say that we didn't call to cancel anybody. We called to engage and educate. And probably more important than educating the baby is educating the folks that listen to him so that when he says stupid stuff, they don't believe it. Carolyn. Yeah, I want to echo what Reverend Rob said and really push back on this notion that the baby is just misinformed.

The baby is not misinformed. The baby is playing out the misogynoir, the anti-blackness, the homophobia that he has been taught for generations and for decades. We have seen this within our black LGBTQ, our black community at large. And, you know, what Reverend Rob said is correct. And I don't know which one of it was in my of my Facebook friends. You know, I've been having this conversation in these Internet streets a lot. But one of them did also remark that 10 years ago, if a rapper had said these same things, he would not be getting the cancellation. But I think that there's a much deeper conversation

to be had about where we are here in 2021, where we do have a debate making these comments here. But a couple of weeks ago, we had someone like Lil Nas X who literally had a video with naked black men in it. That's something that went viral, but that was widely accepted. So we have to have these critical conversations about where we are and where we have seemingly progressed to. But are we having the conversation about the harm that has been felt by black LGBTQ folks? And really also the fact that when you talk about, I'm not going to say white gays, I'm going to say non-black gays, because non-black and white gays all participate in this notion of black rappers as this stereotype. They don't see the offense of talking about black women in that way. And part of that is,

I'll put that a lot on my generation. I'm from the generation, I'm 42 years old, so I grew up listening to the Sugar Freeze of the world. And a lot of folks, you know, talking this way about black women and black gays. But for people who are not us and not in our community, it's a little bit different. And there's an amazing writer named Ashley Marie Preston, who is a black trans woman writer and media personality who said, let black LGBTQ folks deal with the baby unless you are directly affected by the things that he said. And really, black LGBTQ folks, the ones who are normally raised from these conversations, are the ones who are directly affected and should be dealing with him directly as such. So, OK, so so so with that, there were a number of several African-Americans who are involved in LGBTQ organizations.

And so. All right. Who reaches out? Who goes to him? I mean, I get the open letter part, but who's made the effort to say, hey, we want to sit down with you. Have any of you have you have you heard from his camp? Are they willing to have a conversation? We're working on it. We've been engaged with them. We were one of the folks who were in that open letter. I also want to be really clear that the majority of folks on that open letter were Black-led agencies, which we thought was really important, particularly organizations in the South where we see the majority of new HIV cases. And I think that this is, you know, there's been some engagement, but let me tell you, we haven't sat in a room with him yet. We haven't gotten a phone

call. We haven't even been put in a text message chain with him. So there's some work to be done. And I think that there is a lot of protection from his representation, from Universal Music Group that he's underneath, because I think they haven't done the work, that they allow this kind of misogynoir, this anti-Blackness, and they profit off of it. And so sitting him in a room with, you know, some of the nation's leading advocates to respond to HIV, I wish there was some more responsiveness. I wish we had a date on the books. At least there's some conversation back and forth. But I think that there is a huge systemic issue that these companies have around profiting off of anti-Blackness. And what does that mean, especially after last summer, where we believe that more people said Black Lives Matter

than we ever heard before? And so we haven't seen it realized yet. We're hopeful that it will happen, but it's been slower progress than I would have hoped for. So I'm confused here. So you just said that his record label is Universal? Uh-huh. Who owns Universal? I'm not sure.

You tell me. Who owns Universal? Is it Universal owned by Comcast? Is it Universal? Is it Universal? So I'm curious. So if you have a guy on the phone with his team, what is the label saying?

We're waiting on him. We're waiting on him. We're waiting on them. You know, we're getting back and forth. But, yeah, we sent that letter last week, and we haven't heard anything definitive yet. We've been in conversation. We're trying to book something, but there's nothing that's been on the table yet. I would have hoped for a speedier response. Yeah, I'm sorry.

Especially around something that is so impactful in black communities. Yeah, Universal, actually, Universal, all these people have gone through these sales. So Universal Music Group is owned by the French media conglomerate Vivendi with a Chinese tech company, Tencent, owning a minority stake. Their headquarters in the

Netherlands, as well as in Santa Monica, California. But the interesting thing is that their subsidiaries include Interscope, Republican Records. Let me just go ahead and read them. Cash Money Records, Universal Music Group, Mercury Records, Virgin Records. These are all the folks who will go under the label and brand. Oh, let's see here. Actually, here we go. Capital Music Group. We've got Decca.

Oh, Motown is underneath this as well. And so Universal Music Group Nashville, Universal Music Latin Entertainment, EMI, Capital Music Group. So that, see, and this is the point that I think that what Jasmine was also making in her piece when we talk about language. I remember when I was on Paula Zahn's show years ago at CNN before I actually officially joined them,

and they had this whole hour dedicated to rap lyrics, and they wanted Russell Simmons on the show, 50 Cent. And finally I said, whoa, whoa, whoa. How in the hell are we having a conversation about the artist? But when you said a damn thing about the CEOs of these record labels? So from any of you, what is the path forward? Sure, talking to him and his team is one thing. Who will call out his label? And who's going to say to the label,

y'all got to stand up. And I guarantee you, you've got LGBTQ folks involved in this label who got them support in many of their efforts. And see, and this is, I think, what Jasmine is talking to. You got folks who are profiting off of black artists, but now you want to say something, but you weren't saying that before. So, Reverend Carolyn, how do we have this conversation, not just in black America, but in broad America? What do y'all care about? Well, I think that there's, again, a lot of different ways to go with that particular question, because especially you mentioned how many people who were in the streets last year saying Black Lives Matter. And you have to recall that the murder of George Floyd happened, I believe, a week before June Pride Month kicked off. And so I remember as

the head of a pride organization, I remember getting emails for days from presumably, I'm going to assume, white gay men who thought that we were going to cancel Pride because now, in 2021, because George Floyd has been killed, now they need to focus on black people. So you have this issue where you have, again, I'll say non-black, not just white, but non-black people of color and white people who don't really focus so much on the issues affecting black folks, including black LGBTQ folks, including our black black folks, including black LGBTQ folks, including our black trans community, including our black folks who are affected by the HIV crisis, until someone literally tells them to do it. And so, we can definitely focus on hitting them in

the pockets. When you look at that list that you just gave, I mean, we think about Interscope, we think about Def Jam. So many of them have profited not just on language that have demeaned black women, but have been profiting on artists who have demeaned black LGBTQ folks for decades. So it's how do we get together as a black LGBTQ, together with our black straight community? That is very important, because one of the things that I saw a lot in, again, the Internet comments section is you start to see that deep chasm between black LGBTQ folks and black straight folks who did not find any type of issue. How can we hit those companies in the pockets and force them to look at this issue if at the core of it we're still so divided on it? Revan? Look, I'm of the sense that we can separate morality and supply and demand.

I grew up listening to two short basement tapes in my eighth grade language lab. But I can't listen to half the stuff I used to listen to 30, 40 years ago because I've matured. And so I think educating folks, helping them come to a new place, but supply and demand is going to say, is going to let those record companies do whatever they do. My hope is that the record companies will put us out on tour with these problematic artists so that we can share accurate information about HIV. So what's the next step? What is it? I'm hoping that there is some resourcing work to do anti-Blackness work, right? So we have Universal Music Group that is making all kinds of money off of not just the babies, misogynoir and anti-Blackness, but a whole lot of Black people and black entertainers anti-blackness. And I think it is unrealistic to expect that we are going to dismantle this internalized white supremacy

that we have as black communities and black people from hundreds and hundreds of years of oppression and white supremacy that our country is steeped in. And so how can you resource these conversations that need to be had, not with white LGBTQ communities, but really within our Black community as a whole? And I think that when you start holding these entities accountable, that, you know, when we see misogynoir, we know that there are implications for our Black community overall, whether it's HIV and AIDS, whether it's heart disease or diabetes. These things show up, this anti-Blackness, it ends in sickness for our communities and that there's work that we have to do. And I think that we need to hold these companies accountable and demand that these resources that they have, this money that they're getting, some portion of that has to be invested back in community so that we're able to take care of us and dismantle some of this head stuff that

we have going on that is about thinking that our world is so binary and white. Karla, what's next? I agree as well. And I think that for those of us who create spaces, you know, I'm going to be very careful and not have anyone say I'm inviting the baby to San Francisco Pride because that will go around the internet like wildfire. But, you know, we are all about building spaces and having community. And, you know, we have, just as we have represented the Black AIDS Institute here, we have the East Bay Institute here in Oakland that would love to have these conversations, because it's really going to be about having genuine conversations. I think that's the thing that I personally fear,

is that once we do get, you know, the baby in a room, you know, the same way that he put up an apology, which was more than likely not going to read and it was not written by him, the same way that he put up an apology and took it down, we'll be able to get into a genuine, authentic conversation with him and other, you know, rappers just like him. You know, the Reverend mentioned Too Short. I grew up in Oakland listening to Too Short. How are we going to have a whole conversation about rising above and kind of changing the way

that we and our children now are listening to these lyrics and educating each other so we can move forward as a unified community? Rob? I think that's the important part, is we need to educate each other, right? Our motto is our people, our problem, our solution. And so I don't depend on the baby to become an HIV expert and go out and teach all of his audiences.

But I want an invitation to do some of that stuff. I mean, I want his audiences to start paying attention to HIV because the epidemic is not over. A lot of folks think that AIDS ended 30 years ago, and it's not over. The look of it has changed changed and it looks like us. All right. Well, I appreciate the three of you. Keep us updated on what happens if you have that conversation. And we certainly will be following this story to see what happens next. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thank you. All right, folks. Y'all saw this video over the weekend. D.C. cops were arresting this brother and one began to wail away at him, punching at him several times.

As you as you see right here, that's the multiple punches were thrown at him. This video got lots of traction on social media, shared by Snoop Dogg and many others. You can see right there when this video just eight hours ago, this video had gotten 6.6 million views on Snoop Dogg's Instagram page, where, well, as a result of all of this attention from this video, D.C. POLICE HAVE ANNOUNCED THAT ALL CHARTERS HAVE BEEN DROPPED AGAINST THIS MAN, THE POLICE CHIEF OF D.C. FIRST OF ALL, THE U.S. ATTORNEY'S OFFICE SAID TODAY THAT KAMON JOHNSON WAS RELEASED WITH NO CHARTERS FILED AGAINST HIM AFTER THE VIDEO WAS GONE OUT. THIS IS WHAT THE POLICE CHIEF SAID. I'M EMBARRASSED, DISTURBED, DISHEARTENED, disheartened, and ashamed of what I've seen. This is D.C. Police Chief Robert Conte.

And then it goes on to talk about this whole piece here. And then, again, Robert White Jr. posted, I won't repost the disturbing video of a D.C. Police Department officer punching a man in the face repeatedly. It has made many of us angry and nervous. This has been referred to the U.S. Attorney to consider prosecution. This shouldn't happen. When it does, there must be accountability. It took place on McConquay at 16th Street and V Street in Southeast.

And again, witnesses reporting a hand-to-hand drug transaction. The chief said at that point, according to this report here, they stopped an individual, did a pat down, and felt a gun. And then, of course, you had the chief saying, while getting illegal firearms is a priority for safer communities, this is not the way we would train our members

to get illegal firearms off the street. Assault on the Congo, since charges dropped against him, I will hope the U.S. Attorney announces charges against that cop. Well, and as soon as I saw the video and just to look behind him, I was like, that is Southeast, which is where I live. I just knew it. And, you know, we are the poorest area of D.C., most under-resourced, but we have the heaviest police presence. And so what I would like, like you said, I would like to have heard

something of what's happening to the officer right now, because this is a guy who should be going through the whole process, but right now on leave, at the very least, without pay, should be fired. And again, we can't keep talking about, look, we know that charges would not have been dropped if there was no video. And so these officers, we talk about how they could go above and beyond the call of duty. Look, when they do actions like this, the people in leadership need to go above and beyond the call of duty and making sure that they're getting the heaviest penalties possible up front that they can do before all of the trials and prosecutions happen because this guy has no business being in uniform. And, of course, the D.C. Police Union, Julian, released a statement on Facebook saying they're confident

when the facts come to light, the actions taken by the officers will be understood and deemed justifiable. Well, if you didn't file any charges against him, clearly it wasn't justifiable. You know, what bothers me about the video more than anything else is the fact that these other officers didn't intervene. Somebody could have put some backup, man. Stop it. I don't know what facts could emerge that would justify a police officer basically punching a man who actually is being held back. His adrenaline was out of control, but he was out of control. And, you know, shame on the police chief and shame on the mayor. I mean, she needs to have said something about this.

This man needs to have been put on suspension. It's just disgusting that folks can get away with this kind of thing. And the union, of course, thinks that black people are cannon fodder for white people's anger. So I'm sure this cop is going to have some long story about how he got angry. Well, then, you know, get anger management. But don't take it out on a black man who is unarmed. You don't beat people up because they have drugs, if the man had drugs. You don't know. So I was outraged by the thing you showed for Robert White earlier. He's a member of the D.C. Council. I would have liked to see more comments from the D.C. Council. And I really would have liked to see this police officer at the very

minimum, at the very minimum, taking off duty. But he needs to be fired. Without a doubt. He needs to be fired. Yeah, absolutely. All right, folks. Time for our Fit Live Win segment. All right. One of the training tools you may have heard about are these waist-shrinking devices. I mean, a lot of folks have been selling these. A lot of women have been promoting them, saying that they are great for working out. But I've talked to some other sisters who said,

no, you could really screw up your internal organs by doing so. Joining us right now, fitness expert Jim Jones. So, Jim, let's talk about these waist trainers. Do they make sense? They don't, Roland, man. I'm going to give you three concrete reasons why we have to throw these waist trainers away. First off, when you burn fat, it's an internal process. When your body burns fat, it burns the hard fat first. So hard fat is what's around your organs, like your liver. Then it burns the soft fat, and that's the fat that's in your thighs and your stomach area

so that's number one second of all there's no spot treatment rolling people wearing these waist trainers around their stomach if you know how fat burns it burns off all over your body so unless you're going to just wrap yourself up like a mummy and waist trainers from head to toe you're not doing nothing you know that's that's the thing so i mean they understand there's no there's no spot treatment for these waist trainers not at all and the last thing is your body is recovers best after the workout and when you're resting so unless you're going to live your life in a waist trainer all day every day it's not going to do nothing rolling and at the end of the day people they're all they do they just house sweat and bacteria because y'all not washing

your waist trainers i'm in the gym man i'm telling y'all not washing your waist trainers. I'm in the gym, man. I'm telling you, people are not washing these waist trainers. So rolling these things, they just don't work. Okay, so we've seen these waist items that boxers wear, that you'll see them. We discussed this beforehand because boxers are trying to make weight. And so they are trying to lose as much water. That's what they're doing. But as other folks, that's not what they are. Not at all wrong.

Like I said, like we talked about before, you're not going to fight in Vegas. You're not getting ready for a UFC fight. And boxers aren't wearing weights. They're wearing whole body suits, right? And they're just trying to drop the water weight. So you're just trying to just sweat as much as they can. But like I said before, when you go drink the fluids, you're going to put that water right back inside of yourself.

Boxers, they drain the water off. Then they don't touch any water until the fight starts. But the common person, you're not going to dry your body out. You're not going to drain that water and walk around like you're training to fight in Caesar's Palace in Vegas. What about these right here? Go to my computer, y'all. These waist trainer

corsets. I was online and this one sister who very much is into fitness, she said she was blasting these things because she tried one. I know and I sent her a text fitness she said uh she was blasting these things because she tried one and i know and i sent her a text and she said yo she said this thing really screwed me up

she said it shifted her internal organs it caused her to have diarrhea she said she could not control her bowel functions because of the impact that this waist trainer corset had on her internal organs absolutely absolutely rowan people understand there there can be residual effects you know that you're like that that the young sister had to deal with from wearing that corset because what it's doing is just squeezing your organs and squeezing your intestines so like right exactly it's gonna be hard to control your bowels it can really do some serious damage that you can't reverse back just for trying to take a shortcut rolling because at the end of the day people are buying into the shortcut you're not buying into what the waist trainer does you're buying into the fact that you think you can lose your stomach a lot faster if

you put this thing on or or create the hourglass waist the small waist right right right the coke the cold bottle figure but let's just think about it. How can you mold your body by not doing it? How can you push your body into shape? Bro, if that was the case, everyone would be out here with a snatched waist, tight stomach. You know, everyone would have the ideal body. You're not a piece of clay, and people don't get that.

You are not a piece of Play-Doh. You got to get in there. You have to do the work if you want to lose this weight. And just to understand, I just pulled it up. I just typed in corset waist trainer. This is all of the items

you see on Amazon. Yep. And what you're saying is don't buy any of these. None of those, Roman. None of those, Roman. That makes no sense. And here's the deal, Jim. I'm not, I'm not.

Go back. Go back. I'm not to the bottom of the page. Right, right. It's endless, Roman. It's endless out here. These body shapers. I mean, you can just see it goes on and on and on.

As a matter of fact, there's seven pages. If I go to the next page, there are more. And they're all the same thing. I mean, they got them in all shapes, colors. I mean, I just don't get, like I said, at the end of the day, you cannot squeeze your body to make it look the way you want. You just really can't. At the end of the day, you're just wasting money.

You're just wasting. You're better off donating that money to a charity or sending it to Roland Martin Unfiltered, right? Send the money to a good cause. But buying a waist trainer, you're just wasting time and money. All right. Jim Jones, I appreciate it. How can people follow you?

Hey, well, listen, I got two things to say. They can follow me at G-Y-M-J-O-N-E-Z on Instagram. I'm telling you, tomorrow I'm making a personal donation to the show, brother. I watch it every day. Keep doing what you're doing. I am personally out of my pocket making a very good donation to the show, Roman. Keep doing what you're doing. I am personally out of my pocket making a very good donation to the show, Roman. Keep doing what you're doing. We need you out here. Jim, I appreciate it, my brother.

Thank you so very much. No question. All right, folks. Omokongo and Julian, we so appreciate it. Thank you so very much for joining us. Mustafa, thank you for joining us as well. Folks, if y'all want to support what we do here at Roller Martin Unfiltered, please

join our Bring the Funk fan club. Every dollar you give goes to support this show, plus to do what we do. And we thank all of you who have joined thus far. You can join us via Cash App, dollar sign RMUnfiltered, Venmo.com forward slash RMUnfiltered, PayPal.me forward slash RMartinUnfiltered. Zelle is Roland at RolandSmartin.com, rolling at rollingmartinunfiltered.com. Our goal is to get 20,000 of our fans to contribute a minimum of $50 each year. That's $4.19 a month, $0.13 a day. Trust me, it is well worth it.

Folks, that is it. I shall see you tomorrow right here on Rolling Martin Unfiltered. Howl! right here on Rolling Button Unfiltered. Ha! This is an iHeart Podcast.