#RolandMartinUnfiltered - TX House approves voting changes; COVID causes erectile dysfunction?; Clemency for "Martinsville 7"

Episode Date: September 1, 2021

8.31.21 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: TX House approves statewide voting changes; Study suggests COVID may cause erectile dysfunction; Clemency for the "Martinsville 7"; Chicago cop on desk duty for harassing Black woman walking her dog; Fitness guru Donna Richardson and mom introduce new baking mixes based on their family traditions; Hurricane Ida relief efforts ramp up.#RolandMartinUnfiltered partner: CEEKCEEK is a streaming platform for virtual events and Virtual Reality experiences featuring the biggest names in music, sports, and entertainment from around the globe. Check out the VR headsets and 4d headphones. Visit http://www.ceek.com and use the discount code RMVIP21Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered#RolandMartinUnfiltered is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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at taylorpapersilling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. Today is Tuesday, August 31st, 2021. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered in Texas. Republicans in the House approved a measure of putting new limits on how and when Texas can vote, making it a crime for election judges to obstruct partisan poll watchers. This is the voter suppression bill House Democrats were trying to stop. It now goes to the Senate for final passage and then on to the Republican governor, and then it becomes law. We'll talk with a Texas House member on the show. New data suggests

COVID-19 increases the risk of developing erectile dysfunction. Nearly six times we'll talk to a black doctor about that in Virginia. Governor Ralph Northam grants clemency, possibly, to the Martinsville Seven, who were wrongfully convicted of raping a white woman in the 1940s. Chicago cop is on death's duty after harassing and grabbing a black woman, walking her dog in the park. Fitness guru Donna Richardson team up with her mom to launch a

new mix of chicken and waffles. We will talk with both of them on the show. Plus the latest on Hurricane Ida relief efforts and evacuation in Afghanistan. Folks, it's a jam packed show and don't forget also we'll talk with HBCU students in the evacuation in Afghanistan. Folks, it's a jam packed show and don't forget, also we'll talk with HBCU students in Houston, Texas University, how they're using the Nextdoor app

to communicate and share with each other. It's time to bring the funk on Roller Mark Unfiltered. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the piss, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling.

Best belief he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks. He's rolling. It's Uncle Roro, y'all. It's rolling,oro, y'all. Yeah, yeah. It's Rollin' Martin. Yeah, yeah. Rollin' with Rollin' now.

Yeah, yeah. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know he's Rollin' Martin now. Martin. In Texas, House Republicans have passed a controversial Senate bill. And they're moving one step closer to law. This particular bill, folks, is an onerous voter suppression law that simply is dangerous. It is all about Republicans backing Donald Trump and his big lie. Remember, it was Texas House Democrats who fled, keeping them from having a quorum. They came here to the nation's capital to encourage the Democrats in the United States Senate to pass the For the

People Act and the John Lewis Act. But you had several Democrats who came back to Texas to move forward. Republicans had a quorum. Now they are fastly moving forward on this bill. Mr. Murr moves the House adopt the Conference Committee report on SB1. Mr. Rooker's vote. The clerk will ring the bell. So, Mr. Murr voting aye. Mr. Burrow is voting aye. So, Ms. Perez voting nay.

All members voting. All members voting. There being 80 ayes and 41 nays, the Congressional Court SB1 is passed. The bill now goes to the Texas Senate for final patches, then on to the desk of Republican Governor Greg Abbott. A rewrite of election laws in Texas is, again, this is actually happening, bottom line. And so Democrats have been trying to stop it. This is why they have been making it clear to send Democrats they must do more. Republicans, they were actually following the footsteps of Donald Trump, yelling how he lost the election, but he won Texas. OK, they claim there are safeguards, and they accuse Democrats, frankly,

of trying to delay the inevitable in installing this particular bill. Democrats say the new rules would have a disproportionate impact on voters of color. Folks, joining us right now is Texas House Representative Ron Reynolds, Reynolds' first vice president of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus and secretary of theative Black Caucus, and Secretary of the Texas Black Caucus, Representative Jarvis Johnson. Glad to have both of you here. So what happened here?

You had more than 50 Democrats who left, came to Washington, D.C., to keep it from actually being a quorum. Did the Democratic Cau caucus break down? Were there members who simply said, you know what, we just can't stay out? Because Abbott kept saying he's going to keep calling special session after special session. So just your take on what really happened here. Well, well, Fred, let me just say it's great to be back on your show. I love the shirt that you're wearing today. I know I know my colleague Jarvis Johnson really loves it with his purple and gold that he's wearing. But but seriously, this is a dark day for Texas. Make no mistake, this this bill was surgically designed to limit black and brown folks from voting that typically vote Democrat. This is a voter suppression Jim Crow 2.0 bill. The Republicans hate when we speak truth to power and call it what it is, but it was perpetuated based on the big lie of voter fraud. They know it was no voter fraud, but they don't care. They want to suppress black and brown folks from voting. This is unpatriotic, is

un-Texan. A Texan, Lyndon Baines Johnson, signed the Voting Rights Act into law. A Texan, former President George W. Bush, reauthorized the Voting Rights Act. And it is shameful that Texas passed this most restrictive voter suppression bill in this country. And myself and my colleague and some of us went to D.C. And we fought because we need federal legislation to stop states like Texas from passing these bills. So, unfortunately, we're still beholden to the U.S. Senate to pass H.R. 1 and H.R. 4. And until they do, we are potentially going to disenfranchise millions of black and brown folks in this state. And so I'm outraged, but I'm going to continue to press on and continue to fight. And it was a breaking alert went out, Representative Johnson, that the Texas Senate, they've already moved on this particular bill. And they really were targeting Harris County. Let's just be real clear.

They were targeting the large counties in Texas. They have been ticked off, pissed off that they've been losing seats in Harris County, in Dallas County. And they did not want election officials in Harris County, in Dallas County, actually expanding access to the ballot. That's absolutely correct. That's exactly what they're continuing to do as they continue to say, oh, we've expanded voting hours. You expanded voting hours for smaller counties, but you've really stripped away the voting hours for counties like Harris and Austin and Travis and all those Democratic counties. And so at the end of the day, this is the most horrible voting bill that I think we've seen thus far that this nation has seen. And people are not realizing how punitive it would be and just how ultimately ridiculous this bill is.

It's an intimidating voting bill in itself. One of the provisions in the bill, Roland, is if someone, if a disabled person, you can still vote from your car if you show that there is a disability, that you actually can go to the polls. They'll bring the voting machine out to you. In this bill, it literally says that the poll watcher has to have the ability to see what you're doing, which means that the poll watcher has to have access to get inside of your car as you're voting. That's literally how they're going to use this bill as a bill to intimidate

people. The most sacred things in America have always been our confession, our taxes, and our voting rights. And this is what they're trampling on. They're trampling on our ability to have a free and have free access to voting. And they are definitely targeting those Democratic counties that are doing a fantastic job of making sure that we're able to get people to the polls. And the Republicans are literally trying to stop people from getting to the polls. Here is the paragraph of the New York Times article. It also borrows election officials from sending voters unsolicited absentee ballot applications and from promoting the use of vote-by-mail.

So, Representative Reynolds, I'm trying to understand here. That means that election officials can't promote to the public vote-by-mail? That is absolutely correct, Roland. Think about that. Think about that for a second. Hold on. So what you're saying is they can't run commercials. They can't put out.

I mean, the way I'm reading this, if you are the Harris County Elections Department, you can't even put a tweet out encouraging folks to vote by mail. That is correct, Roland. You're reading that correct. The strict language of that bill is designed so that there is less assistance promoting elections. Yeah, you read it right. It's crazy. I mean, this is backwards. It's almost unfathomable to think that this is real. This should be some kind of satire. This should be some kind of, you know, a crazy TV show of what is fake news. But this has happened in our state right before our very eyes. And it is designed so that you don't help

vulnerable communities, communities that need more help. It's the fluent communities don't need as much help. But we know that some people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, younger people, disabled, some people that are new immigrants to this country, they need more assistance. Well, this bill is to curtail that and to prevent them from doing that. It's also to empower partisan poll watchers like the Proud Boys to come in Fifth Ward and Acres Home and Black communities and intimidate them so that they won't vote.

So there's a lot of gotchas in this bill, including more extreme penalties, so that you can prosecute more people like Crystal Mason and Purvis Rogers that make simple voting mistakes with felony convictions. It is so laced with so many voter suppression tools that it's unreal. Representative Johnson, again, this is what the New York Times article says, the bill greatly, to the point Representative Reynolds just said, the bill greatly empowers partisan poll watchers, creates new criminal and civil penalties for poll workers, and erects new barriers for those looking to help

voters who need assistance, such as with translations. It requires large Texas counties where Democrats perform better to provide live streaming video at ballot counting locations. So what about the smaller Republican counties? Are they required to have live streaming? At the end of the day, I actually don't know. You know, this is the bill is only applicable when they want it to be applicable. Again, this bill is going to be used as a weapon to to intimidate people. And so what works in their community certainly won't work in ours. Because let's just think about for a second, because if what's good for the goose is good for the gander. So at the end of the day, let us send poll watchers into their communities. Now, if a bunch of strong

minded, strong will, strong, very intelligent omega men walk into the polls, if one of their polls and just simply stand there, will be considered an intimidating force and will probably be asked to leave. But yet those same poll watchers can come and be in Fifth Ward, in Acres Homes, in Sunnyside, in some of our black communities, and they have to have full and complete access to wherever voting is taking place. Well, here's the deal. Look, Representative Johnson, I'll be honest. I'll be perfectly honest. This, to me, is where Democrats or others should actually do exactly what you just said. Exactly. Okay, fine. We're going to send a group

of black men to these white polling locations, and let's see how they respond. And then dare Fox News to say, oh, they're wrong. Because we saw how Fox News acted a fool when a couple of new Black Panther Party members were at a polling location in Philadelphia. Hell,

Megyn Kelly talked about that for damn near five damn years. Let's send them over there. Let's send the Black Panthers, the new Black Panthers, let's send those brothers over into their communities, into River Oaks, into the affluent areas in the Republican strongholds. That's what I want to see. If it's good for the hood, it should be good for the suburbia as well. So I recommend that we take them up on that. Let's do that. But it's not a one-size-fits-all approach. It's a tale of the two communities. They want to be able to punish the urban areas that tend to

vote Democrat, and then they exclude, they give exemptions for those rural areas that tend to overwhelmingly vote Republican. They even said it overtly, that they didn't need it there. So that's what's going on. So what, Representative Johnson, what next? I mean, this is where at some point, this is where Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema got to wake the hell up and realize that if they keep sitting here standing firm with not any of the filibuster, these laws will take effect and will be in place in the 2022 election that could very well, first of all, erode Democrats controlling the U.S. House. They could lose the United States Senate. They're going to be sitting in the minority because they want to uphold,

they won't even do a carve-out in the filibuster for voting. This is where President Biden has to step up. We understand what Manchin and Sinema have done all this time. And I continue to say that they're making too many excuses as to why we're not able to use the stronghold and the bully pulpit of the Oval Office to send a clear message. And I think that clear message has to be sent to Sinema and Manchin. And I truly believe that it is time for Biden to make this of high, high, high priority. And don't get tricked and fooled with some of the antics that they're pulling with the Afghanistan and keeping him off-kilt with everything else. But we need to be focused on

this. And so it is time that the presidential office step up and be strong about this, because we already know the Republican Party are going to be unapologetic if, in fact, they're able to take the Senate back. We already know the filibuster is gone. We know that. And so just as unapologetic as they've been, that's just as unapologetic as they've been, as just as unapologetic as we have to be in using our opportunities and our power to make sure that we protect all citizens of America, in particular, all citizens of Texas, because we understand the Republican Party only care about their base. They don't care about American citizens. They don't care about Texas citizens. They only care about the Republicans. And so we as Democrats work hard for everyone. Either one of you may not want to comment on this, but here's a quote that's in the

Texas Tribune. Quote, this bill is not good enough for me to vote for. I think it still has major flaws that will create problems down the road. And all I can hope is that if those problems occur, that we come back here in two years and fix it, because the worst thing we could ever do is prevent someone from exercising their constitutional right to vote. This is Representative Garnett Coleman from Houston, representing a black district who came back to Austin to help Republicans, frankly, meet a quorum. Brother, that was the whole point of us staying out and staying strong. Unfortunately, there were too many people that felt there was a different way of doing it. There BROTHER, THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT OF US STAYING OUT AND STAYING STRONG. UNFORTUNATELY, THERE WERE TOO MANY PEOPLE THAT FELT THERE WAS A DIFFERENT WAY OF DOING IT,

THERE WAS DIFFERENT TACTICS THAT COULD BE USED. BUT THE ONLY TACTIC, THE ONLY TACTIC AND THE ONLY TOOL THAT WE HAD THAT WAS GOING TO BE EFFECTIVE WAS TO CONTINUE TO BREAK QUORUM, TO MAKE THIS BILL GO AWAY, TO BRING THEM TO THEIR KNEES, TO THEN MAKE SURE WE WALK INTO REDISTRICTING WHERE THERE make this bill go away, to bring them to their knees, to then make sure we walk into redistricting where there was no time and no opportunity to talk about a voting bill that was totally unnecessary. And so, unfortunately, there were those that felt the pressure of Twitter, that felt the pressure of social media, and fell for the lie themselves. Well, like right here, this is the article.

On Tuesday, Democrats decried the Senate's objection to the Mason Amendment with State Representative John Turner, Democrat from Dallas, stating he hoped it was, quote, not because they believe that more people in situations like that of Crystal Mason should be prosecuted or imprisoned, unquote. Coleman and Turner were part of the panel that worked out the final version of the bill in backroom talks. So I'm sorry. They actually thought Republicans were going to go along with that. Look, look, look, look, Roland. Maya Angelou said it best. When people show you who they are, believe them the first time. They knew what these Republicans were going to do. There was

no reason, no reason that we should have broke quorum when there was no negotiations. We came back and they did what we knew they would do. They ran this bill down our throats. They didn't accept any amendments and they passed this voter suppression bill that's going to be to the detriment of black and brown communities. So they are going to have to answer that to their constituents. I know my constituents that put me in office were very sure of why I was holding out because I told them why, and they supported that. Only Republicans were the ones who were criticizing me, calling me, get your ass back to Austin. Jarvis received those same racial epithets. So those were the

people that wanted us to go back so they could put an assault on black and brown communities. So I'm very disappointed in my colleagues that went back. We got nothing for going back other than getting railroaded. And now we have this bill that we're hoping the U.S. Senate will bail us out, because if they don't, Lord help us, we're going to lose massively. Even though we gained black and brown populations for the U.S. Senate, there are more blacks in Texas than any other state in this country. Blacks will not be well represented when it comes to redistricting because of gerrymandering. And I'm very, I'm pissed off,

to be quite frank with you, because so many people made tremendous sacrifices so that we could overcome voter suppression laws. And here we are in 2021 under the auspice of the big lie. We got Senate Bill 1, Jim Crow 2.0. And I just literally have no idea what the hell Representative Coleman is talking about. I said, hopefully we can come back in two years. Well, with these changes, Representative Coleman pretty much guarantees that Republicans will further cement their hole on the Texas legislature. So how in the hell do you think they're going to change it in two years?

I don't quite understand. Gentlemen, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thank you, Roland. Let's go to our panel. Dr. Cleo Monago, Chief Advisor to Black Men's Exchange. Breonna Cartwright, Political Strategist. Mustafa Santayegh Ali, Former Senior Advisor for Environmental Justice at the EPA. Mustafa, this is the thing right here that is just more evidence to Senator Kyrsten Sinema and Senator Joe Manchin.

What the hell do you think is going to happen? I mean, Republicans, this is the thing. When Republicans have power, they use it. When they have power, they flex it. You have these weak-ass Democrats, Sinema and Manchin, and

yes, a few others, Dianne Feinstein and others, oh no, what happens if one day we're not in power? We in the filibuster. Well, guess what? Your ass may guarantee you're not in power because all these laws go into effect. Oh, you're going to see the Republicans take control of the U.S. House, take control of the United States Senate in 2022 by controlling the legislatures. They already control the gerrymandering process. So they could very well gerrymander themselves into winning back the U.S. House. You know, Republicans, they follow their strategy.

They don't vary off of it. And they understood that I believe since 2010, you got 10 million new people who have moved to Texas. And the last study that I saw said nine out of 10 of those were people of color. So how do you control that type of a situation? You utilize these types of tactics to make sure that the folks can't have power because the power is associated with your vote. My dad used to tell me, you make sure you don't break the picket line. You gotta stand strong together if you actually want to have something better

to actually happen for yourself, for you to actually be able to get the rights that you should have as a worker. And I translate that into this moment. You know, for those folks who decided to go back to Texas and to, you know, give the quorum that was necessary, you were literally giving the Republicans the justification and the power to do these types of actions. So now we find ourselves focused on the Senate once again with Manchin and Sinema.

You know, now for Manchin, you know, he's the chair of a committee right now. So if he doesn't do the right thing, he's no longer going to be the chair of that committee because we know that the changes that are going to happen in the Senate. So folks got to do the right thing. They're going to have to stand up. But, you know, we've got these extremely egregious behaviors that are going on that are putting Black and brown lives in danger with some of these actions that are inside of this bill that Governor Abbott will sign? Breonna, the point Representative Johnson made, Biden, you got to step up. You got to get aggressive. I mean, this is going to guarantee losses. The Republic. Look, I'm a registered voter in Texas. They were specifically targeting Harris County,

Dallas County, Tarrant County, Bexar County, Travis County, five Democratic strongholds in Texas. Yes, you see the issue in Texas, even in some pockets of Florida, Georgia, it's an issue. And unfortunately, right now, they've used the filibuster to prevent H.R. 1, right? And if we had that, it made national vote by mail law of the land. Right. You just spoke of how people are coming down with horrendous restrictions on vote by mail, which, you know, it's because they're afraid of Democrats using it. They, you know, our tactic as Democrats is to get out the vote and literally theirs is to restrict the vote. And, you know, they're trying to prepare for these midterms. And, you know, with Mitch McConnell blocking H.R. 1 with the filibuster of Hector Square 1. But it's time for us to figure something out because, you know, they're limiting access to vote by mail.

They're shutting down polling places. In Georgia, they're criminalizing passing out water to voters, right? Our democracy is in peril. And, you know, they're really trying to go for the vote because that's the way that they hang on, because if everybody went out to vote, they know they would lose. And so that's the game they're playing. And, you know, we need to take away the filibuster.

What they're doing here with this particular bill in Texas, Cleo, again, eliminating drive through voting, eliminating 24 hour voting, banning mail ballot drop boxes. That's the kind of game that they're playing because they need to shrink the electorate to win. That's what they need. And I've been saying this obviously impacts people

of color, but it impacts white folks. And I'm like, all these white liberals, where you at? I've been seeing black folks protesting, Black Voters Matter, Untell Freedom. You see the multiracial campaign, or the Poor People's Campaign. But it's a whole bunch of these white liberal organizations been sitting on their ass doing nothing. Rosen, I must admit that I have not been following this to the microscopicness of you all. I've been

focused on other things, but I of you all i'm going to focus on other things but i'm here and i'm going to do my best to contribute but one thing that's consistent since i was last on the show when you talked about republicans and complacent or passive democrats who seem to allow who seem to allow i can hear the production company in my ears. Go ahead, go ahead. What keeps blowing my mind is the lack of analysis of the passiveness of people who are in the Democratic Party. I think it was Representative Reynolds who said that the Republican Party is unapologetic. And that implied that the Democratic Party is apologetic. But what's not being considered, and maybe I'm incorrect, but of course I agree with myself when I say that

there's people who are inside of the Democratic Party who are not sure they don't support the monstrosity, the power, and the agenda of the Republican Party. Because people who are serious about winning, Roland, they step up and they hang in there and they fight until they win. There's a lot of people in the Democratic Party who are either unconsciously on the side of the white supremacist agenda of the Republican Party or simply afraid and going through what I call the trauma trance. And they have a lot of paralysis where they just can't step up and be clear. And also there's people in the Democratic Party

who are afraid to offend somebody. Now, you can figure out who that is they're afraid to offend, but they keep walking on eggshells and not stepping up with the unapologeticness and the clarity of a Democratic Party. So the question should be, what's up, Democrats? Why are you less forceful and more passive than Republicans? What is going on? And I think the answers to those questions, if they're actually asked, could be revealing and can inform a better strategy. Because this is not just intellectual.

This is an emotional thing. When people see people practicing injustice, trying to stop people from being able to vote, that's obvious and that's wrong. But the counter to it is so passive. So the question is, why is it passive? You might want to ask, next time you have some brothers like these representatives on here, what is your perspective from the inside of the party of why your party is so not unapologetic? I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask

you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm Republican Party, you're either right or hard right. The Democratic Party, you've got centrists,

moderates, conservative Dems, progressives, far left. You literally have five different Democrats, okay? Republicans is two Republicans. Far right and right wing. That's it. That's two. But guess what? But guess what?

To help Donald Trump get into office, all kinds of white people, including people like some people who are lesbian and gay, et cetera, who are like in polar opposites in terms of their values to a lot of people in the Republican Party. Many of them joined the Republican Party despite their differences. They had this because because because because them being gay and lesbian ain't their values. Well, I know this. Right, right. So, again, so Democrats like to play by the rules. Democrats,

I mean, I'm telling you, Democrats are about, no, we're going to do the right thing. It's going to be fair and just. Republicans are like, damn that. We're gonna, it's gonna be fair and just. Republicans are like, damn that. We in power. They don't care. The last four years, Mustafa, not a damn Republican gave a damn about the federal deficit. They didn't care. We in power. Now all of a sudden, oh, the debt ceiling. We're not gonna vote to increase the debt ceiling.

They didn't give a damn when the debt ceiling with Donald Trump was there. They use power. And that is the difference between these two parties. Democrats like playing, no, no, if you're in a fight, you shouldn't pick up a tree branch and hit somebody over the head with it when you're in a fight, you shouldn't pick up a tree branch and hit somebody over the head with it when you're in a fight. Republicans are like, I'm going to grab a tree branch.

I'm going to grab a lead pipe. I'm going to grab whatever I need to knock you the hell out. That's what I'm going to do. That right there, Mustafa, is the difference. Republican street fight. They don't care if it's dirty. They just go get the job done. They're very focused. When I worked on Capitol Hill, it was amazing to see how they utilize the

exact same language. Every person did not vary one iota. And that's the laser focus that you got to have. And the Democrats have to get laser focused. It is all, every one of the issues that I work on and care about, it is all tied back to the vote. So that should be President Biden and everybody else's main focus is making sure that we are protecting the vote. Because if you don't have the vote, if you care about climate change, trust me, we're going to lose on climate change because if you don't have the right people in office and you don't have the resources going to the right places, it's game over. If you care about racial justice issues, if you don't have the vote, then you can forget about us ever getting the reforms that all of us are working so much on. If you care about housing,

housing is not going to happen for our people if we don't have the vote. Now, folks will say, well, we've had that in the past. This is our moment now. If we don't get this stuff right in this particular moment, all of it that everybody worked for, that everybody suffered for, that folks lost their lives, they took beat downs and everything else, it's all gone. It's just that simple. So that's why Biden, that's why the folks in the Senate, they got to stand up and do the right thing. And that's why each and every one of us got to pick up the phone. Stop acting like you don't have power. You have power unless you give it away. Pick up the phone and continue to call folks, continue to email them, continue to text them if you got their numbers, to let them know what you expect. And then show up.

When we're up there on Capitol Hill and folks have been up there actually rallying and protesting and getting arrested. And when you look around and you don't see a whole bunch of the other folks who should be there, then you're sending a signal across the country that this moment, that this particular issue isn't as important as it actually is. Stop giving your power away and hold people accountable. Well, the question now is what's going to happen in the United States Senate with Democrats? I doubt they do anything because Sinema and Manchin have dug in. Folks, let's go now to

New York where day nine of the R. Kelly trial. Today, Suzette Mayweather, Kelly's former employee, testified the R&B superstar once had his girlfriends fight one another as punishment. Yesterday, a man identified only as Lewis testified

the singer lured him to his home and studio when he was 17 with promises of helping his music career, but instead R. Kelly sexually abused him and forcing oral sex on him. Lewis is the first male to speak of related sexual abuse by Kelly publicly. Joining me now to discuss this trial is attorney Tammy Allison. Tammy, glad to have you on the show.

So I've been getting these text messages from R. Kelly fans saying, pull the transcript. No, you guys are wrong. These people are lying. R. Kelly is innocent. These people really believe that R. Kelly, his defense is winning this trial. Your assessment. Thank you for having me, Roland.

Listen, Robert Sylvester Kelly is always going to have some super fans, right? But the fact remains, this is a federal case with a federal district court judge and a federal jury that has been instructed. These are very serious charges in the courtroom, the demeanor, in the line of questionings, and these charges are going to be serious and taken very seriously. So it's different with the state courts, where there's a lot of, you know, shenanigans that takes place. Here, these charges, racketeering, you know, the sexual trafficking interstate, these are very serious charges.

And what's really important is that I think some of these superfans, while they're screaming their support for Robert Sylvester Kelly, they're forgetting about the fact that these charges are not about rape or sexual assault individually on these alleged victims. These charges are about an enterprise where the statute of limitations does not prevent the prosecutors from bringing in evidence that dates back to like the 90s when we all heard about these rumors. And what's also happening here is you're having his former employees testify against him. In fact, it's very interesting. So Suzette Mayweather, yes, related to Floyd Mayweather. I remember running into her and a relative in an airport in Houston, and I didn't realize

they had worked for R. Kelly. And they said, we are not going to be protecting Robert. We get called by a court. We're going to tell the truth. And so the difference between this trial and the previous one, he has people who were on the inside. You had the guy who testified that he was the one who paid somebody off to doctor the driver's license of Aaliyah to show that she was 18. You have this guy, Lewis, also testifying that he also tried to bribe another witness to change their story. So you're seeing the similarities in stories as well. And so that's, I think, also the big difference between these two trials. Absolutely. And bringing in those insiders that actually worked with him one on one, including Mr. Mayweather, who testified today, that is building up the prosecution's case for those racketeering

charges that shows that this was an enterprise. This is something that was ongoing. There was a pattern here that Mr. Kelly was participating in. And that criminal enterprise and having those insiders that actually work with him so very closely testify this very damaging testimony that corroborates these alleged victims' testimony is only helping the prosecution. And I'm very interested to see what his defense attorneys are going to do to combat that testimony. Obviously, they will get their shot right down there on the cross-examination, but they get to put their defense on. And so based upon what you've seen and heard, do you believe that R. Kelly is certainly on his way to being convicted in this trial?

You know, it depends. You know, again, this is federal district court. And, you know, I'm a former federal prosecutor, former senior attorney with the Department of Justice, having spent, you know, over a decade at the United States Department of Justice. So in federal district court, the jury instructions are very clear. So how the case is presented by the prosecution and the defense is going to determine how the jury is going to decide whether they're going to convict him or not. So it all is going to depend on how the defense attorneys do their cross-examination to combat these witness testimonies, to combat the validity and take away the credibility of each one of these witnesses' testimony from the prosecution,

because no matter what, in a criminal matter, the standard of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt. So if there's any type of doubt that the defense attorneys can present, the jury could find him not guilty. All right. We're certainly going to be following this trial and see what happens next. We appreciate it. Thanks a lot. All right, folks, going to break. We come back. The final U.S. troops have pulled out of Afghanistan. People still are criticizing President Joe Biden, saying he did not do well. Well, hmm. What does Malcolm Nance say? National security expert.

We'll talk with him next on Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, so a lot of y'all are always asking me about some of the pocket squares that I wear. Now, I don't know. Robert don't have one on. Now, I don't particularly like the white pocket squares. I don't like even the silk ones. And so I was reading GQ magazine a number of years ago, and I saw this guy who had this pocket square here, and it looks like a flower. This is called a shibori pocket square. This is how the Japanese manipulate the fabric to create this sort of flower effect. So I'm going to take it out and then place it in my

hand so you see what it looks like. And I said, man, this is pretty cool. And so I tracked down the, it took me a year to find a company that did it. And so they basically about 47 different colors. And so I love them because again, as men, we don't have many accessories to wear, so we don't have many options. And so this is really a pretty cool pocket square. Now what I love about this here is you saw when it's in the pocket, you know, it gives you that flower effect like that. But if I wanted to also, unlike other, because if I flip it and turn it over, it actually gives me a different type of texture. And so therefore it gives me a different look. So there you go. So if you actually want to get one of these Shibori pocket squares, we have them in 47 different colors.

All you got to do is go to rollinglessmartin.com forward slash pocket squares. So it's rollinglessmartin.com forward slash pocket squares. All you got to do is go to my website, and you can actually get this. Now, for those of you who are members of our Bring the Funk fan club, there's a discount for you to get our pocket squares. That's why you also got to be a part of our Bring the Funk fan club. And so that's what we want you to do. And so it's pretty cool. So if you want to jazz your look up, you can do that.

In addition, y'all see me with some of the feather pocket squares. My sister was a designer. She actually makes these. They're all custom made. So when you also go to the website, you can also order one of the customized feather pocket squares right there at RolandSMartin.com forward slash pocket squares. So please do so. And of course, that goes to support the show. And again, if you're a Bring the Funk fan club member, you get a discount. This is why you should join the fan club. Hi, I'm Teresa Griffin.

Hi, my name is Latoya Luckett, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Folks, Afghanistan is now waking up to a new reality. The U.S. military has withdrawn all of its troops, ending America's longest war. Nearly 2,500 Americans died during that particular war, spanning four presidencies. Also today, President Joe Biden spoke with regards to the pullout. You've had people who are still questioning that, saying that why did troops, why did, of course, the United States pull out that he could have rescinded the decision or altered the decision of Donald Trump.

But President Biden made it perfectly clear that was not the case. And he also made it clear that this was the right decision for America to get out of this war, for him to actually end this particular war. And so you still have those particular critics. Here is what some of what he had to say today. It is now over. I'm the fourth president who has faced the issue of whether and when to end this war. When I was running for president, I made a commitment to the U.S.

and our allies to safely increase the risk to U.S. personnel and our allies. As a result, to safely extract American citizens before August 31st, as well as embassy personnel, allies and partners, and those Afghans who had worked with us and fought alongside of us for 20 years. I had authorized 6,000 troops, American troops, to Kabul to help secure the airport. As General McKenzie said, this is the way the mission was designed. It was designed to operate under severe stress and attack, and that's what it did. Since March, we reached out 19 times to Americans in Afghanistan

with multiple warnings and offers to help them leave Afghanistan all the way back as far as March. After we started the evacuation 17 days ago, we did initial outreach and analysis and identified around 5,000 Americans who had decided earlier to stay in Afghanistan but now wanted to leave. Our Operation Allied Rescue ended up getting more than 5,500 Americans out. We got out thousands of citizens and diplomats from those countries that went into Afghanistan with us to get bin Laden. We got out locally employed staff in the United States Embassy and their families,

totaling roughly 2,500 people. We got thousands of Afghan translators and interpreters and others who supported the United States out as well. Now we believe that about 100 to 200 Americans remain in Afghanistan THE UNITED STATES OUT AS WELL. NOW WE BELIEVE THAT ABOUT 100 TO 200 AMERICANS REMAIN IN AFGHANISTAN WITH SOME INTENTION TO LEAVE. MOST OF THOSE WHO REMAIN ARE

DUAL CITIZENS, LONG-TIME RESIDENTS WHO HAD EARLIER DECIDED TO STAY BECAUSE OF THEIR FAMILY ROOTS IN AFGHANISTAN. THE BOTTOM LINE, 90% of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave. And for those remaining Americans, there is no deadline. We remain committed to get them out if they want to come out.

Secretary of State Blinken is leading the continued diplomatic efforts to ensure safe passage for any American, Afghan partner, or foreign national who wants to leave Afghanistan. In fact, just yesterday, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution that sent a clear message about the international community expects the Taliban to deliver on moving forward, notably freedom of travel, freedom to leave. And together, we are joined by over 100 countries that are determined to make sure the Taliban upholds those commitments. It will include ongoing efforts in Afghanistan to

reopen the airport, as well as overland routes, allowing for continued departure to those who want to leave and deliver humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan. The Taliban has made public commitments, broadcast on television and radio across Afghanistan, on safe passage for anyone wanting to leave, including those who worked alongside Americans. We don't take them by their word alone, but by their actions. And we have leverage to make sure those commitments are met. Let me be clear. Leaving August the 31st is not due to an arbitrary deadline. It was designed to save American lives.

Joining us right now is counterterrorism expert Malcolm Nance. He's the author of several books, including The Plot to Betray America, How Team Trump Embraced Our Enemies, Com, compromised our security, and how we can fix it. The reality is this here, Malcolm. President Joe Biden had the guts to do what his predecessors did not, and that is end this war. Nearly 2,500 troops. I've seen estimates ranging from $2 trillion to $20 trillion spent in Afghanistan. The initial focus was achieved, taking out Osama bin Laden

and also reducing the capacity of al-Qaeda there. And so when you see these war hawks who continue to yell, oh, we should stay, we should reinvade Afghanistan, did they not learn? Well, to be honest, it's almost as if the last 20 years did not happen. of 14 and 15 complete minutes of war coverage in the last 10 years, just don't believe that this story should end. So we have these people who want to carry out

retaliatory attacks for a suicide bombing attack, or to continue our presence in Afghanistan, which would bleed us even further. And manpower, which would bleed us even further. And manpower, it would bleed us economically. It would take our eye off the ball of restoring America as a great nation state. And there were some strides made in Afghanistan. We have to give credit that over the last 20 years, we did allow the education of women. We did allow a more expanded

press in the country. But the very fact that Donald Trump carried out a secret deal with the Taliban and negotiated a peace treaty behind the backs of the government of Afghanistan and signed that peace treaty on 26 February 2020, it became clear to every person in Afghanistan that the United States had cut a deal with the Taliban and the Taliban were going to come in eventually as the leadership and the rulers of that country. So explain this. So Malcolm, explain this.

So you have people say, oh, I love these Republicans say, well, Biden didn't have to abide by that agreement. He could have people say, oh, I love these Republicans say, well, Biden didn't have to abide by that agreement. He could have he could have junked it. Yeah, he could have junked that agreement. And what you would have had was open warfare with only two thousand five hundred troops in the United States in that country. One of the biggest problems that we had was what we call green on blue violence, which were Afghans who were Taliban who were infiltrated into the government or who had a private gripe with certain American trainers and would just come up, take their weapons and kill them. I mean, we could have lost numerous people had the fighting season started again.

The Taliban had been left unchecked. They had been, you know, this treaty was supposed to be conditional. Donald Trump adhered to none of the conditions. Joe Biden saw the writing on the wall and he could have adhered to the treaty, which said the United States was supposed to leave on May 1st. Donald Trump himself in his last weeks tried to get his acting secretary of defense to remove every U.S. soldier before January 1st of this year and abandon all U.S. equipment in the country. Not the stuff that belonged to the Taliban, the stuff that belonged to us. So Joe Biden extended that, sat down with the Joint Chiefs and came up with a plan. What he didn't have a plan for was the fact that for over a year, all of the tribal chiefs, the provincial governors, members of the Afghan government

had already seen the writing on the wall and were cutting secret deals with the Taliban and essentially handed the keys to them when one guy on a scooter showed up. And wasn't this, look, the way I see this is very simple. Biden goes, I'm going to take the hit. Yep. Biden could have easily done what Obama did. He could have

easily done what Bush did. That is, oh, no, no, no. Just keep it going. Keep it going. Keep it going. Where he oh, no, no, no, just keep it going, keep it going, keep it going. Where he said, no, no, no, I'm gonna take the hit and I think the American people are gonna side with me. So why you got Fox News and OAN and Newsmax and all these people and yeah, certain people on CNN

and MSNBC saying that this was loud, this was awful. I remember seeing one person saying, there's no way we can get 50,000 people airlifted out of the country before the August 31st deadline. We did. We did. We did that around 35,000. And I think it was Eric Bullard who said, what happens if we're a success? And he picked the arbitrary number of 100,000. And we eclipsed that. We blew past 100,000 very, very quickly. The one thing that the United States is competent in is executing a plan. who, by the way, many of them were very beholden to their, you know, one or two time experiences in Afghanistan, living the whiskey tango foxtrot life. And if you haven't seen that movie, I'm

going to prescribe this to all your followers. If you want to see why they went after Joe Biden, watch the Tina Fey movie, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, which is about the wild life of journalists living in Afghanistan. It's sort of like an adult amusement park with liquor, right, where they live in these luxurious villas. They all have private security guards drive around in armored vehicles to get that perfect shot or to get that interview. And people die all around them. Many of these journalists are regretting now that they don't have that. That life is going away. The people that they met, the experiences that they have. Unfortunately, they do not believe that the Afghan people

technically chose this. And I have some news for many of your listeners. Afghanistan has 38 million people. Only 5 million are in Kabul, which means the other 33 million who are relatively rural or living in the smaller cities, they cut these deals with the Taliban and they turned over the keys to the country. And now they have the peace that they want. And before I go to questions, my panel, this is what I keep saying, and it's hard for some of these people to understand. It's their country. It's

their country. And I absolutely understand the concern about women, about girls, about freedom. The Taliban has already made it clear that they're going to lead by a rigid Islamic rule.

But let's be real clear, that's Saudi Arabia. Right. Look at how the dictator in Turkey, how he's leading. Myanmar. I mean, we can go, Philippines. We can go a whole lot of places in the world where America is aligned with folks who do not believe in democracy, do not believe in human rights.

Hell, China. I mean, we could go on and on and on. And so this idea that we are going to tell somebody what the hell to do in their country. But then we're the same folks. Hell, who do't want Americans telling each other what to do in this country? Come on. That's a farce. Yeah. And Afghanistan is a patriarchal, misogynistic, tribal society. Okay. And 90% of that population lives rurally. You know, very funny, the right wing criticized me for saying that many of them are goat herders. Most of them are goat herders. I mean, this is a rural society that is agrarian. You know, they live on basic substance. But you know what their key substance is? Islam, as they want to practice it. Islam, as they see it, they are conservative, they

are fundamentalist, right? But what they want is they want their cultural norms to be adhered to without a 2,000-pound laser-guided bomb dropping on their head, accidentally wiping out their village or destroying a wedding party with an AC-130 gunship. It's regrettable. But those deaths were principally because we decided that, you know, we would work towards the goals we established, which were not particularly compatible with the average person in Afghanistan. So they spent this last year choosing who they wanted to rule. Questions from our panel. Mustafa Zadniyat Ali, your question for Malcolm Nance.

Malcolm, it's good to see you. I was blessed that both my family and friends made it back home safely after fighting in Afghanistan. I'm curious, what are one or two of the lessons that you think we should take away from the engagement there. So, you know, I'm an old spy, so I have some very specific things that just drove me absolutely crazy because I speak Arabic. And when I went there the first time in 2002, the reason that I got through to so many of the Walis, right, the senior male leader of the village tribe family, is because I could pray in Arabic. I could speak Islam. I could speak Arabic to them. I could read the Koran in Arabic. I could sing the sheets in Arabic, which they view as the pure language of the Quran, the pure language of the prophet.

So it opened immense numbers of doors. The very fact that we have to evacuate tens of thousands of translators shows that for 20 years of war, our people didn't even learn their language. So we have a very soft bigotry of culture. We do not care about the cultures we go into. We want to bring our culture on top of it. You know, we want to teach kids not just to eat chocolate bars, but to drink Rippet, you know, concentrated caffeine drinks and things like that, and create this expectation that they will become a mini United States. Many of the neoconservatives and the politicians who invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, especially Iraq, thought they were going to recreate Germany or South Korea there. It takes five minutes on the ground to realize you're never getting there.

This is not a place where a Marshall Plan could build them up economically and you could change their culture into being, you know, freedom-loving, you know, small-D Democrats. These people live tribally. They defeated Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great and the British twice and the Soviet Union with their inter-familial tribalism. So instead of bringing that and investigating the human factors to determine why we were considered bad, laser-guided bombs, and why the Taliban were considered acceptable, Muslims working towards a cause they could understand, well, then we essentially just fought that war 20 times over. And the worst part is no one read a book about Vietnam, which was the exact same thing. Brianna, your question for Malcolm Nance.

Yes, thank you so much for having this conversation. It's very vital with our world expanding. And you've touched on great points. You know, I don't remember Donald Trump flying one Kurd to safety. He let Tarkvi slaughter them. And they were our allies. They served with our troops. And there was no outrage

from that. But Biden has safely evacuated more than 100,000 Afghans at this point. And I'm saying, let's take score. As it's stated, you know, Trump had a year to get the civilians and allies and diplomats out of there, but not one peep. He did it for the Nobel Peace Prize, wasn't serious, and now Biden comes in and takes control of it. And while we work to end our presence safely, we can't abandon the women and children of Afghanistan. But frankly, I know we can't keep asking our service members to go in alone anymore. And so it's time for the world to generally invest in the United Nations to develop a robust and consensus-building institution, one that's truly capable of handling severe humanitarian challenges like Afghanistan and Haiti as well of what's going on

over there. And so as we keep a close eye on how these crises unfold, what are some policies or suggestions that you think could come from the White House and really playing a role stronger into the United Nations when focusing on this? You know, I'm glad you said that. I've worked with the United Nations in some pretty obscure parts of the world. Sometimes they knew I was working with them. Sometimes they didn't know that I was working with them. But I always understood their goal, right? Many people like to disparage the United Nations and think, oh, there are a bunch of consensus-building people, we're going to have 500 meetings. There are some organizations that are insanely successful. World Food Program, the World Food Program is like the Special Operations Command.

And instead of dropping bombs at their terminal target, they pallet drop food or they bring in bags of food. The World Food Program is insanely successful organization. No one starves when they're around. And they have these incredible digitized databases where everybody gets a little tag on their arm. And they know precisely down to the calorie how much each of you have gotten in food. And they can get that food out there. We should be supporting the WFP, UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Education Fund. You know, they're talking about transitioning funds.

We just had $6 billion sitting in a kitty right now that was supposed to go to the government of Afghanistan. It's not going to go there. That was supposed to help the government, you know, integrate itself more better and computers. Those people stole the money, right? Because they're government bureaucrats. There's not a country in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, Southwest Asia or Asia proper itself where the bureaucrats don't steal money and are corrupt. It's just it's a fact of life. Take that six billion dollars, drop three billion dollars into UNICEF, drop the other three billion dollars into the World Food Program, you know, or UNHCR, United Nations High Commission for Refugees. You know, the Taliban are children of the Afghan refugees who went to Pakistan when the Soviet Mujahideen war that we were funding was being

fought. And so in those camps, they became the Taliban, right? The students who were studying fundamentalist Islam. And therefore, when they came together as a combat arm, they were the Taliban, those who are students or those who are educated, dot, dot, dot, in Islam. Well, maybe we can moderate some of that with United Nations High Commission for Refugees. Drop $10 billion in their laps, and the U.N. will work with the countries the Taliban trust, Qatar, Oman, Turkey, and in some respects, Pakistan. And maybe we can maintain these gains for women. Maybe the Taliban don't want to be North Korea of Southwest Asia. Maybe they want to be the Saudi Arabia of Southwest Asia, which means women will put the burqa back on. They will be what we call Mia bil Mia, which is 100 percent.

That's all black, all gloves, all socks. That's what the Saudis are. And they're considered relatively liberal compared to the Taliban. The Saudis themselves will want to have a moderating effect on them and to create this Islamic emirate of Afghanistan. But we have to support the global organizations. And you know, the minute we do this, we execute the Malcolm plan, the right wing will go crazy about the new world order because they're crazy and they hate anything that will benefit people of color on the other side of the world, even if it is the most successful food

programs that moderates the Taliban's extremist activities. These people won't care. You and I both know that. Final question, Cleo Monago from Malcolm Nance. Greetings, Malcolm. It's good to meet you. Before September 2001 at 8.46 a.m., most of us had not heard of the Taliban. They weren't a household word to us. I've been told that they're a terrorist organization. I've also been told that before 9-11, this country, I think it would maybe have been the younger Bush, had invested in the Taliban and given money to the Taliban. And I'm trying to find out from you, my question is, is this true? Is it true that United States had collaborative financial, in particular, relationships with the Taliban before 9-11

and did not consider them terrorists then, but they became terrorists in name after 9-11? Yeah, this is where you have to block out history by decades, because what I'm going to do is I'm going to clarify some of the timeline. From 1980 to 1989, the men that the United States funded from the northern tribes in Afghanistan—whoops, I'm sorry—the northern tribes in Afghanistan, and then assisted the government of Saudi Arabia to fund Arabs to come from across the Middle East, the fundamentalist diaspora, and to get fundamentalist Arabs out of their country so that they wouldn't carry out their own jihad, the Saudis chose a representative who was the son of one of the 52 children of the richest man in Saudi Arabia. And that person was named Osama bin Laden. The United States and the CIA were funding another branch of that, the Northern Alliance forces, and the men from the Peshangir Valley, Ahmed Shah Massoud. Doesn't matter. Another group that we were supporting because

of our resources going to the Saudis was a a guy by the name of Ahmed Azzam. This was the fundamentalist—Azzam was a Palestinian who had studied in Saudi Arabia, close friends with bin Laden. But Azzam was really about the whole—the entire getting rid of the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan. Those people were all collectively called the Mujahideen, right? The holy warriors. When the war ended in 1989 and, you know, everybody started to dissipate, the Afghan tribes went back to their areas and created warlords, right? Osama bin Laden and Abdullah Azzam got

into a fight in Peshawar, Pakistan, 1989, because Azzam said, war's over, everybody go home. Osama bin Laden had in his mind a philosophy that he needed to incite a clash of civilizations between the West and the Arab states in order to defeat them. And then they could take over all the Arab states and create a caliphate. This started in 1989. They killed Abdullah Azam with a car bomb in Peshawar, Pakistan. And then all those Arabs that were under Azam fell under Osama bin Laden and his organization, Al-Qaeda Al-Jihad, headquarters of the Holy War. They went to Sudan because the warlords in Afghanistan started fighting. Now, notice I said they went to Sudan. Taliban were these children living in Pakistan in eastern Afghanistan who were not—they

were Afghans from the Pashtun tribes in the northwest frontier province in eastern Afghanistan. They didn't go with bin Laden. So this is where the Taliban came from. They are the refugee children and fighters from the holy warriors. Osama bin Laden branched out specifically to be a terrorist group in order to incite a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West. 1980 all the way up to 2001, right? Or I think it was like, no, not 1980. 1990, 91, 92, all the way up to 2001. They were just creating their own country, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. But because they revered bin Laden, he was a fighter, he had money, he's a Saudi,

they let him come and stay in their country, run their armed forces. And they didn't understand that this man intended to attack the United States mainland directly in order to get the United States to invade Afghanistan. And his incitement was called the, you know, the September 11th attacks, the holy month attacks. That was 9-11. Bin Laden wanted us to invade Afghanistan so that he could do to us what he did to the Soviet Union, which was break us politically and economically. And arguably, he's done that. Malcolm Nance, I have not seen you a lot on MSNBC. That's why I called you. I said, I need to get your perspective. There are very few black people out here breaking this whole stuff down from a counterterrorism perspective. We certainly appreciate you joining us, folks.

One of Malcolm's books, you see it right there, and that is The Plot to Betray America. Folks, be sure to get that. Malcolm, thanks a lot. Just remember, Roland, Black spies matter. Absolutely. I agree. Folks, going to break. We come back to Roland Martin Unfiltered. COVID-19.

Rectile dysfunction. Y'all going to keep playing with it now? And I ain't talking about your penis. I'm Tom, I called you watch a role in the future. I believe the people are a 10 lost the ability to focus the discipline on the art of organizing the challenges is so many of them and they're complex. And we need to be moving to address them. But I'm able to say, watch out Tiffany, I know this road.

That is so freaking dope. Floyd's death, hopefully put another nail in the coffin of racism. You talk about awakening America, it led to a historic summer of protest. I hope our younger generation don't ever forget that nonviolence is soul force. I'm Chrisette Michelle. Hi, I'm Chaley Rose and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. We know COVID is ravaging communities nationwide. Folks, to date, there are 39,953,651 reported cases of COVID.

656,482 people have died as a result of COVID-19. Patients are filling hospitals, overwhelming ICUs. 98% of those who are in ICUs are unvaccinated. Folks, ICU beds are near capacity in five southern states, Alabama, Georgia, Texas, Florida, as well as Arkansas. With 10% of available ICU space and staff shortages, a dangerous time for those needing any medical treatment unrelated to the virus is here. Now, according to the CDC, those who are unvaccinated, as I said, require hospitalization at 16 times the rate of the vaccinated. And one of the issues that COVID-19 has also impacted, oh yeah, erectile dysfunction. There are a number of post-COVID conditions, including frequent headaches, continuing coffee,

difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, and erectile dysfunction. A recent study found that COVID increases the risk of developing erectile dysfunction by nearly six times in young men in a real-life setting. The flip side is if you already have ED, you are more likely to contract the virus. Joining me now is primary care and HIV physician, Dr. Oney Blackstock. Glad to have you on the show. So, alright,

Dr. Blackstock. So, I got this stuck on stupid fool on my YouTube page. He's always complaining. And he's like, oh, first of all, he tries to go by the name of Truth Seeker. That's a joke. He goes, Roland, stop the fear already. Cut it out. You detail all of this on your Twitter feed. I saw it. I retweeted where you laid out.

Y'all can sit in joke all you want to, but COVID could very well create erectile dysfunction in a lot of young men. Yes. Thank you so much for having me on. Yet we're getting more and more data as this pandemic continues on around sort of the many different ways in which COVID affects the body, including long term. We know that it affects the lungs, the heart, the brain, and increasingly we're getting more data to suggest it also has an impact on erectile function, which isn't surprising. The erectile tissue has tons of blood vessels, and we know that its impact on the lungs and the heart and brain are related to blood vessels and the inflammation that the virus causes. So the fact that we're getting

more data on it potentially causing erectile dysfunction isn't too surprising. Okay, so again, walk folks through this who, they love the doubt stuff. They love, they, oh, I doubt this, I doubt that. All right, you're gonna doubt, then you're gonna be limp. Right, so, you know, the virus causes a lot of inflammation in the body. And one thing that it does is it actually causes the lining of the blood vessels

to become inflamed, which then causes clotting or clots to happen. And so I know some of your viewership have probably heard of folks who've gotten pulmonary embolism, so clots to the lungs, clots in their legs affecting their heart, strokes related to COVID-19. And it's similar, again, with the penile tissue, which has a very heavy and intense blood supply. It's primarily, it's very vascularized, we say, that it's not surprising that the inflammation that this virus causes would also affect that area of the body. And so we hope that as we get more information about how this virus affects the body, including long-term, that we'll get more and more folks who have not been on board, for instance, with vaccinations, that this will

increase the likelihood that they'll want to get vaccinated because many times it's about not what's the matter with someone but what matters to them and so we know that for many men they care about their erectile function and so hopefully some of this information can get folks more interested in getting the vaccine if they haven't been vaccinated already but docky of all these folks who are like, oh, follow the research, follow the research, again, you laid it all out. This is not like some far off study that was done and bought with a very small sample size.

So explain the science behind what you're talking about for the stuck on stupid folks who love to question everything, but they'll run around and they'll see they inject themselves with steroids or they'll take an Advil in a heartbeat? Right, so there were two studies in particular. There's one that was conducted by professors at the University of Miami,

but that was a small study. They looked at about two individuals who actually had recovered from COVID-19 infection and had ended up with severe erectile dysfunction after their COVID infections. These men were seven to nine months out from having their COVID infection, and they were actually coming in to get penile implants because their erectile dysfunction was so severe. And as part of their surgeries, there were biopsies that were done. And in the biopsies, this is seven to nine months out after infection, in the biopsies that were done as part of their

penile implant surgeries, the pathologists and doctors found that they had viral particles, so parts of the virus, that were present in their penile tissue, so suggesting that the virus can persist in ways. And so the inflammation and the clotting issues that it can cause can also continue on. There was a larger study that was done in Italy surveying about 100 men, younger men, 25 of whom had COVID, 75 who didn't. And they were basically matched across many different characteristics, including age and weight and other chronic medical conditions. And they found that those who had COVID-19 were several times more likely to have erectile dysfunction compared to those who did not have COVID-19. And so we're going to get, I'm sure we're going to get more and more information, more studies being done to give us a clearer picture on this

potential link and association between the infection and erectile dysfunction. And as you said as well, this study as well, the Italian study, found that among those with erectile dysfunction, they seem to actually potentially possibly be at increased risk for COVID-19 or worse outcomes from COVID-19. So there's definitely a connection there. All right. So you've got somebody who's watching and they're saying, okay, taking the vaccine is not going to help me at all. Cause what if I, what if I take the vaccine? I still get COVID. Will I still get erectile dysfunction? So, so the thing is we know

just from all of the accumulating data that we have about the vaccine, there is no indication that there is association with the vaccine in terms of affecting male sexual function. However, we do know and we do have accumulating data suggest that if you do get infected, that that could impact your erectile function. And so I think people need to look at, you know, what is the data that we have for the vaccine and potential side effects. And we know that people, and as you mentioned look at, you know, what is the data that we have for the vaccine and potential side effects. And we know that people, and as you mentioned, that, you know, people who are unvaccinated are at 16 times higher risk of being hospitalized and having a number of other complications. Complications such as, you know, long COVID, which, you know, obviously is becoming, is impacting younger people as well and people who don't have other health conditions. So all this data that we have, I think the abundance of data really supports folks getting the vaccine

in terms of staying safe and avoiding many of these complications associated with COVID-19 infection. Well, Dr. Blackstock, we certainly appreciate it. Hopefully those who are watching are paying attention. Again, our goal is very simple. We're going to bring on actual black doctors, black scientists, black experts to break this thing down. I don't have these conspiracy theory people on here. People keep saying, why don't you have so-and-so? No, I don't have ridiculous people. And so if somebody wants to see the hearing

contest the information that's fine they can go right ahead but go ahead and take your chances and then see what happens uh when uh you can't perform i agree thanks so much for having me on thanks a lot uh i want to go to my panel here uh cleo i want to start with you. Look, it amazes when you try to kick out information. And first, it's the white doctors. Then they come back, oh, but you know, but the black doctors tied the big pharma. And I'm sitting there going, all right, well, who you gonna believe?

Then again, when the folk get sick, who they run to? The same doctors. Well, I'm involved in a Maryland statewide COVID-19 vaccine literacy project and have been on the street in conversation with folks, particularly black folks, who are resistant to getting vaccinated. And maybe this erectile dysfunction claim might be a

motivator. However, when I spoke to one young man about it today, he said, well, I take Viagra. So he already had a way to talk himself around the possibility of getting ED. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Help me out. So he's unvaccinated. That's what he said. No, no, no. out. So he's unvaccinated. That's what he said. No, no, no. Hold up. He says he's unvaccinated. He wasn't.

But he takes Viagra. But he don't know what the hell's in that Viagra. No, he doesn't know what's in Viagra, but he does know that he gets a particular outcome that he wants. If he takes Viagra, and in case COVID-19 might interrupt that outcome, he has a cure for it without being vaccinated. But the point I want to close with is that if people are really going to be getting ED resulting from COVID, you might want to do a custom-made campaign that proves this in undeniable terms that people can see,

because that is a very interesting take on why people should be concerned, because folks don't want their stuff flopping. So I have a follow-up question with you in regards to that. So when you were having that conversation with this individual and they said, okay, I'll take Viagra because it'll give me the result I want, despite not knowing what isn't Viagra other than it's FDA approved, which now Pfizer is FDA approved as well. The result of if they take the vaccination, which means that they won't be hospitalized, wouldn't that be the same effect of knowing the outcome? Thus, you would take something that's FDA approved to prevent what they want?

Well, one of the problems I think that occurs when people try to communicate with people who are disoriented or who have apprehensives, that people keep using logic. Okay, go ahead. I'm sorry. You laugh at Roland. And you have to get beyond logic and understand people's narrative and address their narrative. He knows how to get an erection, regardless

of any kind of stressors or challenges to that agenda. So he said that I ain't taking that shot and if something does occur that interrupts my erection, I already know what to do about that because I do it anyway. So you're talking about the FDA approval and all those logical things. First of all, you've got to get past or engage people's distrust of the FDA and concerns about people making money at capitalists making money off of a convenient, this is a prospect of his outfit,

that's what I'm saying, don't look at me, people making money off of a convenient virus that they quote somebody. But isn't he buying the Viagra? Yeah, but see, another thing that's important,

and I'm going to leave this alone, is that people respond to what they see and what's inside of popular culture. That's why I said that this ED issue, because part of a popular culture narrative, people might attend to it. Popular culture, including rap music, talks about Viagra. I don't know if you heard some of these songs, but it talks about how to get myself even more ready, I took some Viagra and people bouncing to the beat. Nobody's having no bouncy to the beat songs about vaccinations. And people are going by what they fear, what caused them anxiety, and when the smoke clears, what they see in pop culture and what their peers are concerned about. They're not breaking things down to the level that your sister just broke down in terms of the FDA. Because like I said, he knows how to get what he wants out of a particular product.

He doesn't see the value of that compared to the vaccine because he claimed that he knew some people who were vaccinated who died. Did nobody die from Viagra from his perspective? Mustafa, again, what people are realizing, these long haulers are experiencing this, they are realizing you play with COVID, even if you don't die, and more than 650,000 have died, you are playing games with long-term health effects that are not good at all. You're playing Russian roulette with your health,

playing Russian roulette with your life. And we also got to call out the fact that we got a number of our folks who don't love themselves. You know, they've been taught not to. There have been all these different types of dynamics that have gone on that lead people to that space. So there's work that we have to do there. We also got to continue to educate folks. So we know that there are studies that have shown that COVID scars the lungs, that COVID impacts the heart. Those two things also play a role in the issue that we're talking about right now. So we may also find out as we garner more information about the long-term impacts from COVID that there also could be scarring that's happening inside of our genitalia, which therefore could also make us not able to have children.

So all these things we have to take into consideration. And Doc is right that you've got to meet people where they are. So that's the reason we've got to make sure that we have information and education that resonates with folks, that comes from folks who look like them and who comes from their sets of experiences. But you also got to eventually wake up because, you know, we've seen far too many of our people die. And we've seen too far too many of our people be impacted. So, and we just got to do better. Absolutely. All right, folks. Again, y'all can see the end. This is how you're going to look. Keep, keep playing. Keep, keep, keep, keep playing around. You need a thicker one than that if you want to talk to black folks, my brother. You need a little bit thicker than that.

Well, excuse me. I ain't got an extra cable around here, but I'm just saying that's how y'all going to roll. All right, before I got to go to a break, let's hear from our partners with Seek.com. Субтитры сделал DimaTorzok All right, fam. Folks, it's Seek.com. Virtual reality, of course. You can check out the content at C-E-E-K.com. The company is Black On, founded by Mary Spio. They've got great content, but also some great products.

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and check it out. All right, folks, got to go to break. We come back. We're going to, we have our Marketplace segment where we'll be talking to Donald Richardson and our mama about their chicken and waffles, black-owned business, as we focus in on. Also, our HBCU segment as well. HBCU Connect will be talking

with some students from Texas Southern University about how they use the Nextdoor app. Also we'll be talking about the protests that took place on yesterday with regards to canceling student debt by a group of HBCU students. We'll also hear from the president of North Carolina Central University and

Eddie George talks about being the head football coach at Tennessee State. All of that in our HBCU segment. That's next. Roller Mark Unfiltered. Back in a moment. White supremacy ain't just about hurting black folk. Right. You've got to 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. But we agree on the big piece. Our conflict is not about destruction. Conflict's going to happen. I'm Bill Duke.

This is DeOlla Riddle, and you're watching Roland Martin, Unfiltered. Stay woke. All right, folks. Every Tuesday we focus on the marketplace on black-owned businesses. Today we're going to talk about a food business. This was created by Donna Richardson and her mother. Chicken and waffles, this particular mix. First of all, Donna, y'all are going to send me this mix. On full will, I'm on an eating plan.

She's like, oh, but you can go ahead and break it. I said, how are you going to be the fitness person? How are you going to be the fitness person trying to get me to break my food plan in order to try your product. Y'all, it is called Mama Laverne's Chicken and Waffles, and they join us right now. How y'all doing? We're doing good. How are you? All right, so, okay, where does things start? Why did y'all decide to say we're going to take this product and put it on the shelves? Well, it started about like over 25 years ago. And when I was growing up, I remember going to my grandmother's house after church, having brunch with all family and friends, and it would be all this great soul food, homemade food. You know, you gather, you play a little

bit, whiz, dance, watch the game, talk trash. But that was how I grew up. Eventually, my grandmother passed away, and we started gathering at my mom's house and then by that time she had put her foot in that chicken and waffles and it became very popular so she started traveling around coast to coast cooking it for our friends family celebrities that's how it started uh so uh laverne, but, okay, cooking is one thing, but then all of a sudden you go into business. Now all of a sudden you're like, what? Hold up.

You trying to get me to do what, Donna? Well, yes, because I have been going around to different ones, family and friends' home. They always, Mom, Laverne, can you cook me some chicken and waffles? And out of love, I cook them chicken and waffles for them. Okay, first of all, tell your friends. Don't be trying to call you while y'all on the show.

Go ahead. Go ahead. And I was cooking this chicken and waffles for everybody, just out of love and just wanted them to enjoy my cooking. And so then Donna, they kept saying, well, you should put it out there on the market. So we thought about it. And one, we thought about a restaurant. I said, no, at 81, no, I don't think I want to go in the restaurant business. And then we thought about the truck. I said, no, at 81, I don't think I want to go on the restaurant business. And then we thought about the truck. I said, no, at 81, I don't think I want to go on the truck business, you know, the selling the food truck.

And so Donna and I, we talked about it. Donna said, well, Mom, maybe we'll make a little light on it, a little easier. And we thought about the flour mix. That's how it came about. And that's how it came about. Yeah, because, you know, during the pandemic, Roland, it shut my business completely down. I couldn't get out and speak and host events anymore. So right when we were starting the pandemic last year, we had loved ones who died from

COVID. My mom got really sick for months, but she ended up having severe bronchitis. My brother had two strokes, lost his vision, has lupus. And then Roland, I got injured. I, right now, am still learning how to walk again. And through all those challenges, all those uncertainties and everything happening, it allowed us to just stay focused and take that recipe and turn it into a commercial formula so that we can pass produce it and sell it so what you have is love and legacy mixed in a chicken seasoning

mix and a pancake and waffle mix. So Laverne you can't 81 so talk to the person out there who says, I'm too old to start a business. I'm too old to be an entrepreneur. You're never too old to start something new. I just left my tax business that I was doing for 30 years. And so I said, now let me go and see what else I can do. I feel good.

I'm in good health. And God has blessed me all these years. And I quote Sarita Jake. And like she said, you're never too old to start something new. And I'm starting something new with this pancake and waffle flour mix and chicken mix. And it's not, you know, come on, Roland, this, I'm 58, she's 81, and this is not easy. It ain't for the faint.

I can just remember this past year just going through a lot, you know, the stress, the anxiety, pinching pennies, making mistakes, working long hours into the morning, crying myself to sleep, living in pain because his knee injury has been very painful. But I will say because of my faith in God and the fight that I have in me, that's what kept me going. And just us coming together and knowing that what God has for us is for us. My mom and I became much closer with our family and friends during this pandemic,

and it just allowed us to step out on faith and just go for it. Well, absolutely. First of all, people are already asking, how can they purchase the chicken and waffle mix, the seasoning? Where can they get it? In stores? Online? Yes, they can get it on Amazon. And also, we just came from Philly. We launched in ShopRite grocery stores. And I just want to give a shout out to Jeffrey Brown. He was the

CEO of ShopRite. And he gave us our first opportunity to grace his shelves with our product. And, you know, we've worked really hard. and no matter what you do when you're starting a new business you've got to stay focused you've got to eliminate distractions you've got to commit because most people don't realize that you cannot conquer what you're trying to do if you deviate if you don't stay focused you've got to stay committed

so you can conquer whatever it is. And more importantly, you got to be relentless, perseverance, knock down doors, call people. I don't know how many times I called you and everybody else. Bugging the hell out of me. Yes, I did. But guess what? That's why we're here right now. You've got to keep it going. It's like consistency will get you there. Being relentless and perseverance will keep you there. It's li get you there. Be relentl will keep you there. But and grateful will increas we are very humble, very

a lot of work to do. And she was meeting and greet press. I mean it was a lo 81 years young, but she h in there like a true champion. I'm so proud of her. But, yeah, it's good, and we are very happy to have this Black-owned business. And I'm going to address what you said earlier. It is not just for frying.

So you can fry, use the seasoning to fry your chicken, meat, seafood, vegetables, and everything. But we use it every day because we use it to bake or roast or even grill chicken, meat, seafood, vegetables, however you want. All right. Let's see. Real quick, I'm going to do a question from one of our panelists. Let's see. Mustafa, Brianna, and Cleo, Which one of y'all actually cook? Which one cooks?

Oh, man. Well, first of all, Cleo and Mustafa didn't even bother to raise their damn hand. I think Mustafa's just waving. So, Brianna, you get the question for Laverne and Donna. I love cooking. I love eating even more. So within this, I guess my question would be, what would make this easier in the process of doing it

versus using your grandma's already recipe, you know, making your waffle mix? What makes this easier and quicker for you to use? Because it's pre-packaged, it's pre-mixed. So if you were doing chicken and waffles normally, that could take like an hour. But because the seasoning is pre-mixed, you're just putting the chicken in the seasoning and frying it, baking it, or grilling it. And then with the flour mix, that's already mixed. So you're just adding the liquids to it. So you're getting homemade food, but it's only taken a fraction of the time to make. Great. And did we get pricing on it? Yes. If you're shopping in ShopRite grocery stores, it's $9.99.

If you're on Amazon, it's $12.59 because they're shipping it out to you. All right. Yes. All right. Well, we's $12.59 because they're shipping it out to you. All right. All right. Well, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Good luck with it. Move that product. Yeah, go ahead, Laverne.

Show it. Show it. Of course, and I forgot mine at the crib, but trust me, we got it. We'll show it. So I appreciate both of y'all, folks. Mama Laverne's Chicken and Waffles Seasoning and Baking Mixes. Much love to you. All right.

Thanks a bunch. Y'all take care. Okay. All right, folks. That's what we do here. Again, supporting black-owned businesses right here on Roller Martin Unfiltered. See, I told y'all, this is a full-service show. Everybody else ain't going to do that.

And so we certainly appreciate that., I told y'all, this is a full-service show. Everybody else ain't gonna do that. And so we certainly appreciate that. All right, y'all. So, all right, so Mustafa and Cleo, I'm gonna deal with y'all, too. Cleo, you ain't even attempt to raise your hand. So what, you don't cook nothing, Cleo? Well, I don't

eat chicken. All right, well, I... So... Well, hell, first of all, you ain't... I can't... Hell, do you eat a waffle? On occasion, I'll have a waffle. Well, damn, it's chicken and waffles. You ain't got to eat them together, Cleo. I've never cooked a waffle,

and I would be afraid of what it might come out like if I made it. You know, I'm not that kind of cook. But I can work a microwave, though. Well, so we need to get you the mix. Because you can have a waffle maker that will tell you what time to just open it, and then your waffle is done. So it could be really easy for you to start. I'll buy some burnt stuff for my mama and my family.

No, no. I'm turning my back on your ass. You talking about I could work a microwave. Mustafa gone. You cook anything? Well, I'm a vegetarian, but I do like waffles. So I'm definitely getting some. I'm definitely going to cop that.

Oh, man. Y'all are really killing me. Y'all are killing me with this here. Lord have mercy. He just sat here and said, I can work a microwave. All right. All right, y'all. Are we ready for our HBCU Connect segment?

Let's go. Let's go. All right, folks, for the last few weeks, we've been talking about, of course, HBCU students using the app Nextdoor, how they stay connected. Of course, Nextdoor's purpose is to deliver a kinder world where our neighbors can rely on one another when they all feel welcome. This week, we're going to talk with some students from my home city, Texas Southern University. D'Angelo Coulter, Bianca Elam, and Dexter Maryland. How y'all doing? Good, good.

All right. Glad to have y'all on the show. And so it's interesting, we were talking to some of the other schools and we're talking about how students stay connected. Look, you got a lot of students at TSU were actually from Houston. And so you got some students who stay on campus,

but many of course, living on their own particular neighborhood. Just give me some examples of how y'all been able to maximize the next door, to communicate and help out each other. Yeah, so definitely one of the ways that I definitely can say that we have utilized the next door for our student body is that one, of course, you know, Houston is a very diverse city.

And so with Texas University, even though we are a historically black college university, you know, we still embrace the embrace the different you know diverse backgrounds that the students have and so and so for certain students and support groups you know we kind of you know connect them with some certain groups so that way they feel more connected and kind of get more acclimated to the campus so for our students you know that from you know a muslim or eric background should be connecting with certain focus groups to kind of help them and connect them to feel more acclimated to campus and things like that. I know for the newspaper with the Herald,

I'm kind of trying to use the platform to kind of get information out about what's going on locally in our area. So I do plan on doing a piece on the Nextdoor app for one of our publications, just so the students can be aware of what's around us. If they need any mental health groups, if they need anything, you know, just for support. There's a lot going on in the world right now.

So it would be beneficial for students to be utilizing this app just to kind of, like he said, kind of not also get acclimated, but just kind of know what's around you. Because there's kids coming from, like he said, out of state who don't know about Houston. And, you know, we want to make students feel as welcome as possible. Wow. That's pretty cool there. Obviously, you've got a new a new a new school year. And so have you already seen folks, you know, look, they're moving and I need this fix or I need to get this here. And they're able to communicate and chat with each other next door and obviously because of COVID you're not necessarily interfacing with people personally as you normally are so has that also been a benefit? I think I think there's been

a huge benefit using Nextdoor. I know for me a lot of notifications to know what's going on um different finds in the community i know one of the biggest things for me is um the the feature to get free things um a lot of us we're struggling college students we're um trying to pay tuition and afford things on campus and with next door there are things on there where you can get free things um free things for your dorm they give away um furniture um different medical supplies a lot are things on there where you can get free things, free things for your dorm. They give away furniture, different medical supplies, a lot of things on there that's free. So I know that's been one of the biggest benefits I've seen on there. And also getting those notifications just to connect, to see what's going on in the community. All right, cool. That's really pretty cool there. A final comment from each one of you in terms of how do you plan on using it throughout this school year?

And so we're talking about not just if I need some help with moving to college or doing this, but different campus related events and obviously with COVID as well. And have you found that it's actually even it's a lot faster being able to be able to connect? Yes, so for me, I actually serve as the Student Government Association student body president on the campus of Texas Southern University. And so one of the ways that student government kind of utilizes Nextdoor is whenever we're having, of course, our annual, you know, weekly Senate meetings where, you know, basically where students can come and kind and see what SGA has been going on doing for our students, even just with certain town halls that we have with administrators or with different community members, as well as just any kind of, even other events that

SGA has going on. We utilize that app to help market a lot of things, even initiatives that we're doing, such as, for example, we are doing care relief packages for the college universities and residents in Louisiana. So just things, initiatives like that, using the Nextdoor app platform to kind of market and spread the word about those kinds of things that student government is doing.

I know for myself, I definitely want to use it to kind of stay in tune on what's going on. I do plan on having my staff use the Nexar app just to, you know, stay in touch with news stories. It is a way for people to also feel safe. I know we didn't really touch on that, but it can also be used for safety purposes. So we can also utilize this app in personal life, you know, with TSU being in such a central area, it would be very beneficial for students to be utilizing this app for safety purposes. Just so, you know, if like I said, like we mentioned earlier, if they are new, you know, they definitely have an app that they can turn to and kind of be aware of what's around them. So absolutely, there's a lot of ways we can utilize this for the Herald. Yes, I emphasize on what both of my fellow peers

said. Serving as the SGA Attorney General, I want to make sure that not only the student body, but our student leaders utilize the app to let the community know about all of the outreach events that we're doing. We plan on giving back to the community more this year, giving back to CUNY Homes, Jack Yates. We plan on giving back. So I more this year, giving back to CUNY Homes, Jack Yates. We plan on giving back. So I think utilizing that app to let them know, hey, we're giving away free gifts for Christmas or turkeys for Thanksgiving. Anything that we have going on, I think that will be the great way for us to utilize that app. And that was rather wise of you to mention Jack Yates. That, that was rather wise of you to do so considering that's my alma mater. All right,

folks, we certainly appreciate y'all being on the show. Shout out to your fellow TSU Tigers. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us. Thank you. Thanks a lot. All y'all take care. All right, folks. In some other HBCU news, many people were very surprised

when Eddie George announced that he was going to take over as head football coach at Tennessee State University. And so this weekend, we were in Atlanta for the MEAC Swag Challenge. He was actually on ESPN. Well, I hit up President Dr. Glenda Glover. I was like, yo, text Eddie to swing by. Talked to us here at Roland Martin Unfiltered. And he did so before he flew back to campus for practices. Here's my conversation with the Heisman Trophy winner and former NFL great.

Coach Eddie George. Yes, sir. Not the Heisman, not the Houston All-Ireland. I don't say Tennessee Titans. H-Town. H-Town, baby. Hey, Coach. Why? Why don't say Tennessee Titan. I'm the Houston. I'm the Houston, baby. Hey, Coach, why? Why don't you say, you know what, let's do this?

Well, after not going into all the details and take you back to the beginning, we'll be here all day. After really doing a lot of soul searching, looking at the opportunity that was presented before me, wasn't searching for it, didn't think I would ever go into coaching. I had to really listen to say, okay, is this my next step, what God wants me to do? And it's a calling. Coaching is truly a calling because you are responsible for the lives of 100 young men

or so in the staff. And I took it on as a wonderful challenge. You're responsible for the lives of 100 young men or so in the staff. I took it on as a wonderful challenge. It's stretching me as a leader. It stretches me as a husband. It stretches me to be the best person I can be every day. It keeps me accountable. That's why. when do we ever have an opportunity to be a head coach with no coaching experience at a prominent, historic university, HBCU?

That's once in a lifetime if anything comes around. So to not take that opportunity seriously and look at it, do my due diligence and my homework, I would be on my deathbed kicking myself like, dang, you know, what could have happened if I had done this? I tell folks all the time, regret is a mother. I mean, I wish I had done that. And it's about seizing the opportunity. That's right. And we're also now operating in a space where there is a lot more heightened interest

in historically black colleges and universities. And people are now getting out of the, let's just be clear, white validation. Look, Ohio State, Texas A&M, and then folks say, wait a minute, hold up. That's just as good. This is good. The product is just as good. I think the key now is this can't be a spike or just overnight. It's got to be sustained.

How do you make it sustainable? I think it's going to be an investment it's going to have to be through um uh the right resources building facilities uh truly changing how we operate and do business as hbcus uh investing in our um maintenance in terms of our facilities so all of that is going to be a huge difference in terms of making it sustainable here to stay. You talked about it being a calling. Also, the fact that now for a lot of HBCU students, you've had former NFL players coach before at HBCU,

but now it's also the same for these players. These players, you can now come to an HBCU and elevate your game to go to the next level. Yeah. I mean, on our coaching staff, we have a wealth of guys that have coached and played in the NFL, coached and played on the collegiate level. I believe I can take a five-star and still get him to that next level. And I'm going to develop that two- or three-star and get him to that next level. By the things of how we operate

both on and off the football field how we practice how we prepare and how we move so that's that's what i believe in well i tell you what i think uh it's because we're operating a social media world with dion at jackson state you at tennessee state ricky theist and bethune cookman i think it's also sending message to a lot of other guys. Hey, wait a minute. I'm trying to go back to my alma mater. I can actually have a greater impact by being able to align with HBCU. Yeah, I mean, given my experiences and things that I've done through building businesses and getting my master's in business, people that I've met throughout my career I can now take those resources

and help build out BHBCUs and implement different strategies that I've been afforded to see be successful at other institutions other businesses that I believe could be a culture changer for a lot of these other BHBCUs. Well look, I know you got a plan to kick. Y'all got practice. You tell Dr. Glover, I did a commencement a couple of years ago. And so I'm gonna be a scholar and resident at Fisk this fall. So I might swing on by. You know what, I won't fault you for making some poor decisions in your life. I noticed that you're an alpha, right?

Oh, well hold up. You didn't recognize that? You didn't see that? Yeah, that's a poor distinction. It's about the purple and gold. What, are you through? Yeah. What, are you through? I'm the purple and gold. Oh, oh. You know that one.

You know that one. Well, y'all took one of our colors. Because we had it first. So, always remember. We enhanced it. Always remember. We enhanced it. Remember, alpha's your daddy.

The omega is the end. Oh, yeah. And remember, Jesus is your daddy. The omega is the end. And remember, Jesus was an alpha. Okay. My man. All right, baby. I appreciate it. Good to see you. Yeah, he had no comeback for that one, Jesus being an alpha.

It is good to see, Mustafa. You see, as we talked about that, the embracing of HBCUs by guys who did not attend HBCUs like Eddie George or even the Deion Sanders. Yeah, but we're coming back home to our universities. These universities were created for us to be able to show our excellence. And I hope that they all have the same level of success that Eddie George did, I mean, excuse me, Eddie Robinson did, who set, you know, who really set the platform for what a coach can do in both changing young men's lives and also winning on the field. So I hope that they have that same level of success. And the thing here, and we're going to have this conversation tomorrow, we did gonna have this conversation tomorrow.

We did a lot of different interviews and we heard from others, Brianna, about how vile it is, again, when you have these individuals who have big names, but they also have relationships and how they can impact that and bring these resources to the HBCU institutions? Sorry, absolutely. I am as well not, I never went to HBCU,

but I do find the importance of them. And you, your frat was birthed in my school. And as a Delta, I understand the bonds and what we can do as a community together to improve our community. So I wholeheartedly support it and hope that we get more people behind us to support it, to better our communities.

Cleo. Well, Roland, I think I'm somewhat topically out of the loop because I don't eat fried chicken. I don't agree with the analysis of the Democratic Party because I think we're dealing with black exhaustion and white apprehension, which is causing paralysis, so I'm

out of the loop there. And I follow sports. And you don't cook. Right. So so I'm out of the loop there. And I follow sports. And you don't cook. Right. So, you know, I mean, we can talk about black behavioral science and how to resolve black paralysis and trauma problems, but when it comes to sports and fried chicken and talking about the Democratic Party being simply a problem of diverse perspectives, getting in the way of them coming together.

I think the black folks are exhausted and the white folks apprehensive about losing power, and that's a core issue. So I'm sorry I'm not in that topic lane with everything today, but I do support HBCUs. I was a consultant to a very famous HBCU to their faculty for three years. So they are important, but I don't know nothing about the sports stuff. You do know we're seeing. Are you shaking? Are you going to turn your back on me again?

You do know we're seeing notes telling you what the topic is. I mean, you could have Googled some shit, Cleo. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I still don't know. Like, you could have Googled some shit and read an article or two, Cleo. I did. But I still cannot talk in ways that are believable regarding the intricacies of sports

and the importance of that guy's position. Well, I wasn't asking you. How he described it. I wasn't asking you to break down a cover to safety or a play. Okay, but I do support HBCUs. I just wish they would do more black critical thinking and culture affirmation work with their students and teach them to be warriors for black affirmation and power as opposed to generic students at a black school.

I'm going to put you a black card in review status. Over the fried chicken? Over the fried chicken. Fried chicken can't cook, don't follow no sports. I'm just saying, Cleo, you teetering on the edge. I know I call you super black, I'm gonna have to pull that title back. I mean, I ain't gonna get that t-shirt printed a little too early now. But you're trying to tell me that to be black, you have to fry chicken, follow sports. I'm saying Google something.

Oh, I did Google it. I saw it. All right. Let's see if you know something about this next topic. All right, y'all. On Sunday here in Washington, D.C., a group of HBCU students held a protest at the Department of Education demanding that changes be made. And then the canceling of student debt was hashtag cancel student debt. It was led by the live by the live movement.

Call out President Joe Biden, Senator Chuck Schumer to keep their campaign promises. Joining us right now is the founding executive director of the, is it the Live Movement on Your Vines or the Live Movement? Which one is it? We got two different names here, so. No, you're fine. It's the Live Movement and it's Anaya Vines. Okay, Anaya Vines.

I want to, because see, they had, they had your phonetic spelling wrong here. So Anaya Vines. All right. So first of all, so tell us about the protest. How did y'all put it together? Why did y'all choose Sunday? And how did it go? Yeah. Yeah. So just a little background about my organization, the Live Movement, standing on the foundation that we must live for those who have died. So paying homage to those who came before us by making sure we continue on the fight in the streets. We fight for racial and educational equity and we're an HBCU coalition. So this past Sunday, we had our second annual HBCU March the Generations, in which we started

at Banneker Rec Center right across the street from Howard University, where I am currently a senior, double majoring there. And we ended at the Department of Education. So we had to amplify the voices of HBCU students, which goes unnoticed so much, so making sure people understand how we need student loan debt canceled, how we need the American Families Plan passed, how we need our Secretary of Education, Miguel Cardona, to give a letter to the president recommending $50,000 immediately taken off for student loan debt. This is the demands that we were amplifying on Sunday. You've got, but you have, you know, you've had

Senator Elizabeth Warren pushing President Biden hard, saying he has the authority. You've got, but you have, you know, you've had Senator Elizabeth Warren pushing President Biden hard, saying he has the authority. You've had Speaker Nancy Pelosi come out and say, oh, well, this would be unfair for people of means. I make the argument that, look, rich folks have always gotten stuff for this country. But if you cancel student loan debt, it's going to benefit those in need more. Exactly. Exactly. It's going to lessen the generational wealth gap. There are so many in this world, me along with my parents, along with my great-grandparents, my grandparents who are burdened with student loan debt. And that's going to help Black and brown people in this country. A majority of people who are able to pay their tuition out of pocket are white people because

they have a better income. They have more consistent income just statistically um in america so canceling student loan debt is going to benefit people that look like me more than anything else uh questions um from uh pam i'll start with you brianna hi thank you so much for coming on and doing this great work. And I'm so excited to see that the protest happened. I am focusing a lot on this. So I would love to get on the ground with you. I am actually working with my SOAR, Nicole Atkinskins on a special project initiative surrounding this topic with the organization, A Thousand Women Strong.

Have you heard of it? I've heard, I've heard about them. Okay, yes, it's an organization that's focused on centering black women in the student loan crisis. And so I would love, you know, for us to work together further just to amplify the works of a million black women

in bettering our community. And so within that, as, you know, Roland was stating, Senator Warren has been pressing this. You know, there's different people who made it a promise that if we delivered the Senate that we'd get this done. And now it seems like they're backpedaling or want to do not as much. And so within the march, it's great that it happened. What are some of the deliverables and next steps that you would want to take in regards to trying to really push the administration in getting this done for us?

Well, we need to sit down and talk to people at the end of the day. There's a lot of people that are not giving attention to people like me, college students. If you don't have a big name or political power, then they're not trying to pay you any attention. People in my organization, including myself, last October, we slept outside the Department of Education for eight consecutive days trying to get a meeting with the previous Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, with no success. Because at the end of the day, when it comes to people of power, once they get that position

of power nine times out of 10, the promises they made prior to is not committed or gone through and that's that's the sad truth though we just need for people of power to actually pay their people attention and remind them that we were the people that put them in the position of power and we have the power to take that position away from them so let's have a talk because we're going to be outside their door uh well uh that obviously uh is uh is hugely important uh and we're going to be outside their door. Well, that obviously is hugely important, and we're certainly glad to see students using their voice to put pressure on the folks to make it happen. Thank you.

Hey, Roland. I want to emphasize she's not a boomer. Huh? I want to emphasize she's not a boomer. Well, obviously not if they're leading students marching, but she did, Breonna, mention her boomer grandparents and their dad. See, Breonna, let me tell you something, Breonna. You're going to learn real quick.

Don't ever try to come for Uncle Roro because I'm way too quick for you. See? Uh-huh. Yeah, see? Yeah, see? Delta is going to learn. see uh-huh yeah see yeah see delta see delta delta's gonna learn lead alphas alone uh-huh yeah uh-huh i thought so clear what are you gonna say no i was saying that the student debt relief topic is relevant to us folks that ain't young no more as well. My student debt was no more. Well, yeah, because first of all,

there are Gen Xers who are still paying their student loan debt. And then there are boomers who actually sign a lot of those papers to send folks to actually go to college, and they're being burned with that as well. And so this is a multi-generational problem, Breonna. Yes, it is. Yes, it is.

I'm a witness. See, Cleo, Breonna's trying to bring up the last conversation we had where she tried to take a shot at boomers, saying boomers, you know, they ain't really out here fighting for these issues, which I had to let her know that's not. I was emphasizing that millennials and Gen X and Gen Z still are on the streets and we can do better in voting, but that we're still active in trying. That's what I was saying. No, you were taking shots.

You were taking shots at boomers. And I had to let you know that they out here handling their business in a huge way, and they're voting in significant ways, and I still say it again, which is where this is important. Protesting is one thing, but voting is also a part of that because you can't demand policy changes if you don't change the politicians. Don't try Brianna. Don't try I agree with that. Don't try. All of the state of mind of the current youth generation

and the boomers all we have time to get to that. Okay, well, no that's't know if we have time to get into that. Okay, well, no. Particularly who is actually... Actually, we don't have time to get into it, because I've got to bring up this here, of course. We told you yesterday in that crazy white segment, the white guy who brought up on a brother at NBC in the middle of his live shot, well,

an arrest warrant has been issued for him. His name is Benjamin Eugene Dagley of Worcester, Ohio. He's going to be charged with two counts of simple assault, one count of disturbing the peace, and one count of violating an emergency curfew. He apparently also violated his probation. Why?

Because the dumbass literally drove from Cuyahoga County, Ohio, to Mississippi. He decided to roll up on Shaquille Brewster to interrupt his live shot, and now your dumbass is about to lose your job and go to jail. See, we keep trying to tell these people, dummy, you got exactly what you should have gotten. Now, I can't wait to see you do the perp walk, since you want to walk up on him in the middle of a hurricane report. All right, Mustafa, Brianna, Cleo, I appreciate it.

Thanks a bunch, folks. We got to go before we do, so if y'all want to support what we do, please join our Bring the Funk fan club, where every dollar you give goes to support this show and what we're able to do. We've got some amazing things happening. I told y'all we're in the middle of our, of course, finishing out our offices here.

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Killer music, killer music. All right, check this out. A few weeks ago, a few months ago, we had a segment on our show. We have a segment called Marketplace where we feature black-owned businesses. So we featured this black-owned drape company out of Los Angeles. And they talked about drapes, and they do green screens and stuff like that. And so we knew we were moving into our new studio. And I said, well, look, man, versus us buying it from somebody else, we'll get it from y'all.

Well, my team, they came in and they've installed it. So you'll see we've installed this green screen. And so it's going to run. So you see it runs all along here. So for us, if we want to be able to do some stuff, shoot some stuff on green screen, we don't have the capacity. I'm going to get some green mats. That's actually going to cover the floor. We can take these mats up whenever we want to.

And so, again, y'all see what your support for Roller Mountain Unfiltered, what it goes to, how we support black-owned businesses. Yes, black-owned drape company. All right. The company is called Stitch Services, Inc. out of Los Angeles. So we certainly appreciate you thinking so very much. So please, folks,

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Shout out to all my Alpha brothers. That's, you know, rocking the Life Member shirt today. And, of course, you got to try to wear the Alpha beads. Henry, go ahead and zoom in. So, you know, the brothers, you know, I said, let me just wear a few. I got one of these at the City Entertainer Golf Tournament. So that's how we do it right here, y'all.

So just a little something, something different. Yeah, always cool. And that alpha ring right there. I got to go. I'll see y'all tomorrow. Holla! I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.

I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports.

This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does.

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