#RolandMartinUnfiltered - USPS suspends changes; DNC recap: Michelle Obama rips #45; Tavis ordered to pay $2.6M for misconduct

Episode Date: August 19, 2020

8.18.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: USPS suspends changes until after election; DNC day 1 recap: Michelle Obama rips Donald Trump; Rev. William Barber will join us to talk about Ohio Governor John Kasich's plan to vote for Biden; Will young voters turn out and flip red states blue? As children head back to school, the effects of the COVID-19 crisis take hold; Essence Magazine independent review is complete; Arrest made in the murder of Jam Master Jay; Tavis ordered to pay PBS $2.6M for misconduct Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered #RolandMartinUnfiltered Partners: 2020 Census In America, everyone counts. And the 2020 Census is how that great promise is kept. Respond today online, by phone or by mail and help inform hundreds of billions in funding for education, health programs, and more. Shape your future. Start here at www.2020census.gov. #RolandMartinUnfiltered Partner: Ceek Whether you’re a music enthusiast or an ultra-base lover. CEEK’s newly released headphones hear sound above, below and from multiple directions unlike traditional headphones where users only hear sound from left and right speakers. Be the first to own the world's first 4D, 360 Audio Headphones and mobile VR Headset. Check it out on www.ceek.com and use the promo code RMVIP2020 #RolandMartinUnfiltered is a news reporting site covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Today is Tuesday, August 18, 2020. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, the Postmaster General of the United States Postal Service backs down. He has suspended their changes until after the November election. We'll give you the latest details. We'll also show you some of the speeches you have missed from last night's first night of the virtual Democratic National Convention. Of course, Michelle Obama is the talk of the country for a very clear and black speech. Reverend William J. Barber joins us. Not too hyped about Ohio Governor John Kasich last night speaking at a Democratic convention. We'll break that thing down. Plus, young people could be the ones to turn red states blue, but how we make sure they turn out to vote.

Plus, as children go back to school, they're showing the same signs of stress and depression that we're seeing in parents. We'll give you tips with one of our black experts. Plus, a new bipartisan study released that shows Russia did, in fact, meddle in the 2016 election, and Trump advisors knew it and welcomed it. We'll chat with national security expert Malcolm Nance. Plus, excuse me, Essence Magazine's independent review is complete. We'll tell you what it revealed. An arrest has finally been made in the 18-year-old death of Jam Master Jay of Run DMC. And Tavis Miley has got to pay up big time after losing his PBS lawsuit. Folks, a jam-packed show.

It is time to bring the funk on Rolling Mark Unfiltered, where we get in good trouble. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the piss, he's on it. unfiltered where we get in good kicks. He's rolling. It's Uncle Roro, y'all. It's Roland Martin. Rolling with Roland now. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know he's fresh, he's real, the best you know. He's rolling, Martin. Martin.

After national outrage, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy says the U.S. Postal Service will be suspending operational changes like removing mail processing equipment and collection boxes until after the November election. The agency is trying to reassure Americans that it can handle the anticipated surge in mail-in voting. DeJoy says the agency won't change retail hours at post offices across the country or close any mail sorting facilities. He also says overtime hours will continue to be approved as needed to process the mail. Now, keep in mind, uh, Republic Democrats announced they were calling the house back. Nancy Pelosi, she was calling the house back to actually vote on a bill to force the postal service to do this. Republicans countered by trying to hold a actual hearing on Friday, the day before the Democrats. That's sort of the

game and ship you see taking place. Of course, all this took place after Donald Trump's appointee, DeJoy, came in and ordered all of these massive changes, firing some two dozen top Postal Service officials. That's what happens when you have no proper oversight. My panel is Kelly Bethea, communications strategist, Malik Abdul, Republican strategist, Davon Love, director of public policy, leaders of a beautiful struggle. Kelly, this is real simple. This would not be happening at all if you would not have a national uproar. And a lot of Republicans were real silent, especially these red state Republicans, these rural Republicans. But the real issue to me goes beyond the mail-in ballots. It was people, veterans and others,

who were not getting their medicine on time because of these delays. Some folks waiting three and four weeks before it took three days. It's absolutely ridiculous, and you're completely right about just how frustrated Americans are, not just because of the voting processes that are going to be delayed as a result of the damage that has already been done, but on a more personal level, people need the mail literally to survive. You can't email somebody a pill bottle. You can't email somebody life-saving measures on a weekly basis. That's not how it works. That's why the mail system is still in place. So for people out in rural areas who literally depend on their mail to survive,

it was incredibly callous of this administration and the Postmaster and President Trump specifically to promote the propaganda that the mail was not necessary or that there would be an incredible influx of fraud during the election should they not do something about it and what have you. And like I said, the damage has already been done. You can postpone or stop whatever you're going to do now, but if I'm not mistaken, five of like 24 of the major places or pieces of machinery necessary to process mail

have already been taken out. One of those pieces of machines churn out almost 200,000 pieces of mail like at an alarming rate per day or something like that. I can't remember the exact data, but it just shows you how necessary USPS is and how callous and negligent this administration is in regards to USPS. Now, look, I read one story where there was a former veteran and a former Secret Service agent who had to drive two hours to pick up his life-saving heart medicine because it was taking so long. How do you say we were trying to be more efficient where mail that used to be delivered in three days has been taking three and four weeks. This obviously was a massive screw-up by DeJoy because it wasn't properly planned. Oh, I think for the first thing I should say,

because everyone asks me all the time to correct. So my name is pronounced Mel-eek, Mel-eek. Everybody always say, well, why don't you correct Roland? Well, anyway, it's Mel-eek. To your question. All right, Mel-eek, Mel-eek, Mel-eek. Mel-eek, that's it. Okay,'s Malik. To your question. All right, Malik, Malik, Malik. Malik, that's it. Okay, Malik.

Got it. All right, got it. But to your question about the UPS, I think it's important to understand a few things. First of all, the Board of Governors actually chooses who the Postmaster General is. The Postmaster General definitely is someone who supported Donald Trump, but the Board of Governors are the people who actually selected DeJoy. The changes that DeJoy has made over, even in his short time, I think he got in there around June or something, the changes that he's making have been part of a strategic plan, a consistent thing that the post office has

done for a while. The Trump administration, I think maybe in 2018 or so, he actually formed a commission to study this. And you can go and check it for yourself, but it is the National Association of Letter Carriers submitted a work product to the Trump administration because they were part of the working group. And what they said in the document that is easily verifiable, that over the past decade the post office has closed or decommissioned for about maybe 485 of their over 600 facilities. They've collectible removed about 12,000 or so collection boxes. About 200,000 employees, their jobs have been removed. So this is part of a larger plan that the post office has had for a while.

Now, the problem is, is that it has been exacerbated by the pandemic. And I believe we were on your show. Well, I know I was on your show before talking about what the Bipartisan Policy Center said about the sheer difficulty in implementing all-male voting during a pandemic. So we see that it came, the changes that you had, that had been on the books for quite some time now have kind of exacerbated, have been exacerbated. Right. So don't you, so doesn't it make. So doesn't it make sense if you were DeJoy and you were actually paying attention to what was happening

as opposed to allowing these things to go forward? You were sitting here and go, hey, it's August. We see what's happening in these primaries. Minnesota just had their primary massive increase

in mail-in balloting. Wisconsin, the same thing. Isn't the smart thing to say, hey, let's pause this, not after this huge blow-up, not after the ads, because here's the deal. The Postal Service, as well as the Postal Union, they've been running ads since April. This is not like the last two weeks.

This has actually been going on the last several months. It would have made sense for the postmaster if they actually were an experienced person to say, hmm, hold up. We see what's going on. We see what's about to happen. It doesn't make sense for us to be not only taking offline, but disassembling major mail sorting machines. Why even disassemble as opposed to saying, no, keep them online?

Because if we all of a sudden see immediately uptick, we can go ahead and put them back online versus having to have to bring them back in, reassemble them, put them back online. Yeah, I totally agree with that. And it seems as if DeJoy actually made the right decision in postponing this until after the election. But I also think it's important to point out that this is not being part of the strategic plan. They're not killing it. It's just being postponed. So these same machines, they will be decommissioned. These same boxes, these boxes will be removed after the election. But I think that what we're learning now, and I'm one of those who, whether it's on the left or the right, when you're talking about something like a pandemic, this is the new norm. Yes, it would have been great that if when DeJoy became postmaster general in June, that by August he would have stopped some of the things that the Postal Service

was already doing. That, we can definitely say that's a screw-up on his part for not foreseeing what would happen. But again, we're talking about something that really is, for all of the nation, be it on the mayoral, local level, state level, or even the federal level, this is something that we haven't experienced before. And unfortunately, there will be hiccups because we know that when it comes to government and any type of entity, there is nothing called perfection in the history of the United States. Well, Davon, no one's talked about having perfection. What we did say is that it may use this common sense, common sense in terms of how you were to proceed to understand what's going on. And this is what DeJoy did. And again, pressure, pressure is what led to this decision, pure and simple.

Well, I think it's important that the underlying, you know, aspect of the political discourse that's important to use as we talk about this is that for Republicans, the idea of bail-in ballots is a threat to them electorally, right? And so even though we can point out, you know, as you did and others, many of the mistakes that were made as a result of this Trump appointee, we should see this as a part of the larger strategy, particularly of the Republican Party in terms of its own electoral viability, that if mail-in ballots become the norm beyond the pandemic, it poses a threat to them politically. And look, we actually have seen that, Kelly, where we actually had a Republican in Georgia, the House speaker who said, oh, my God, if mail-in ballot is allowed, we're not going to win any of our positions. Republicans absolutely fear massive mail-in

voting because historically they have always had a lead when it comes to absentee voting because typically older voters voted for Republican. They are scared to death to allow more people to actually participate in the electoral process. Yes, Kelly. Oh, I'm sorry. I was offline for a second. No, you're absolutely right. And like a lot of people have been saying, myself included, I don't see how this is not another form of voter suppression, because the goal of all of these tactics, specifically when it comes to mail-in voting, is specifically to suppress the vote. And the consequences that, the residual consequences, rather, that are just as serious, such as the delay of medication and vital packaging to Americans, that is ancillary

compared to the goal of dismantling the Postal Service, which is to suppress the vote. So the fact that this is voter suppression tactics coming from the White House, that is treasonous. That is beyond the scope and beyond the pale of what it is to be presidential, what it is to have the interest of American citizens at heart. And like I said before, it's just completely negligent and completely crass and just callous of this president, of this administration. I understand, Malik. I can't remember how you pronounce it already. I'm sorry.

Did I say it? Yes. Okay, great. But you were mentioning how the postmaster is voted on by a board of governors, what have you. But at the end of the day, he's still a Trump supporter. And whether he was appointed by Trump himself or a board, he's still aligning with the Trump administration in his tactics in doing so. So it's kind of irrelevant who appoints him. It's really about his actions at this point. And it's just frustrating all around how we are literally seeing anti-American tactics within an American administration, within an American system. And frankly, nobody's doing anything about it. All right, folks, last night, Democrats had their virtual convention, first night of five nights of virtual convention. There were a number of highs

and lows. Some say it was great to see the diversity. Others say it was absolutely boring to watch the production of it. But my line is people did see it. Here's a roundup of what took place last night. We the people call the 48th Quadrennial Democratic National Convention to order. Hi, I'm Gwen Moore, and it's my honor to represent Milwaukee in Congress and to kick off the 2020 Democratic Convention. Oh, I sure wish you all were here in the city of Milwaukee, which takes its name from the languages of the First Peoples, interpreted as good land and gathering place by the waters.

This is a city where blood was shed for labor rights, where a fugitive slave was freed from prison, where women's right to vote was first ratified. But today, we gather virtually. However, we gather unified in spirit, unified in our values and purpose to heal divisions and together move the nation confidently into a prosperous, inclusive future. Oh, what better way to gather than all across America to nominate my beloved friend, Joe Biden, to be 46th president of the United States of America with my VIP VP nominee sister, Kamala Harris Harris by his side. Tonight, we are gathered to reclaim the soul of America. So if you're ready to come together, America, text JOIN to 30330. Thank you. I love you

all and God bless you. Hello, I'm Uriel Bowser, Mayor of Washington, D.C. The story of our nation's capital is a story of reckoning. It was here that John Lewis and Dr. King spoke on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. It was here that millions of women and men flooded the streets for the Women's March. It was here that just weeks ago, Americans donned face masks and safely and peacefully protested the death of George Floyd. But while we were peacefully protesting, Donald Trump was plotting. He stood in front of one of our most treasured houses of worship and held a Bible for a photo op. He sent troops and

camouflage into our streets. He sent tear gas into the air and federal helicopters, too. I knew if he did this to D.C., he would do it to your city or your town. And that's when I said enough. I said enough for every black and brown American who has experienced injustice. Enough for every American who believes in justice. But I said enough for another reason, too. I have a two-year-old daughter, and I want her to grow up in an America where she's not scared to walk to the store. An America where she's safe

behind the doors of her own home. An America where the president doesn't fan the flames of racism and looks out for all of us. So I created Black Lives Matter Plaza right behind me as a place where we could come together to say enough.

And by coming together this November to elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, we will say next. Because we can't just paint those words behind me. We can't just say those words. We have to live those words. We have to undo the laws and systems that have codified racism for far too long.

But we have to do something, too. Each and every one of us challenge our own biases. If we see something, do something. Together, we can turn this reckoning into a reimagining of a nation where we, the people, means all the people. There were a few people who stood on this very balcony as thousands of people peacefully protested in this city.

One was our next vice president, my sister Kamala Harris. The others were members of George Floyd's family, who I'm honored to introduce now. George was selfless. He always made sacrifices for his family, friends, and even complete strangers. George had a giving spirit, a spirit that has shown up on streets around our nation and around the world. People of all races, all ages, all genders, all backgrounds peacefully protesting in the name of love and unity.

It's a fitting legacy for our brother, but George should be alive today. Breonna Taylor should be alive today. Ahmaud Arbery should be alive today. Eric Garner should be alive today. Stephon Clark or Tatiana Jefferson, Sandra Bland, they should all be alive today. So it's up to us to carry on the fight for justice. Our actions will be their legacies. We must always find ourselves in what John Lewis called good trouble. For the names we do not know,

the faces we'll never see, those who can't mourn because their murders didn't go viral. Please join me in a moment of silence to honor george and the many other souls we lost to hate and injustice and when this moment ends let's make sure we never stop saying their names everybody how are you thanks for doing this thank Well, Mr. Rizzo, you were great. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Jamiro, tell the rest of the folks a little about your background. I started doing activism when I was 15.

It was at the intersection of knowing both a perpetrator and a victim. My brother Andre was shot and killed in Philadelphia, and it made me realize that I had a responsibility, almost a collective responsibility, to assure that that didn't happen to other young people. And I think that's what's missing in America right now, is our collective responsibility to each other

and to realize that the person down the street or around the corner, even across the country, that we have a responsibility to ensure that we're making sure that they're safe, they have access to education, and that in all, we're created in a world in which their differences are celebrated as well as protected under the law.

Mayor, how are you prioritizing the many things you have to do as we try to tackle in a way that we haven't before systemic racism in the city? It really is about economic empowerment. Because if people are lifted out of poverty and they are given an opportunity to feel a stake in their own future, that goes a long way. We're also challenging, you know, all kinds of institutions from corporations to community-based organizations to think about what they can do

better to end systemic racism and make sure that we're uplifting the quality of life in communities, but also the voices of people that traditionally don't have a seat at the table. The president's talking about defunding the post office and mail-in voting. I mean, what do you think we should be doing, Mr. President? Well, first of all, we have to change the public discourse around voting. It should be seen as a democratic thing to do, the most patriotic thing we can do, and not a partisan exercise.

Secondly, how do we open up access to voting so we can address some of the systemic problems? Not only should we reauthorize the Voting Rights Act, but we have to go further. Most importantly, voting should be seen as a constitutional right that's guaranteed and with that level of sight that all citizens can be assured that they can have unfettered access without being suppressed. This is a watershed moment and we can't lose this moment. We have got to have action at the national level. We have got to have congressional action.

We cannot have 18,000 police departments, and in 2020, have police departments still allowing the use of a knee on a man's neck in George Floyd. A lot of us were shocked, and I think what gives me hope is that police officers were shocked, police officers had spoken out, and we're hopeful that we'll have some national standards as it relates to policing, use of force, a national database, an abolishment of prohibition, a national standard in terms of chokeholds, and that we actually use the death of George Floyd and others to actually make policing taken to the next level, which is what everyone wants, including all the good cops that are out there,

that thankfully there are more of them than there are bad cops. Most cops are good, but the fact is, the bad ones have to be identified and prosecuted and out, period. Gwen, how are you doing? Oh, well, I'm doing pretty well, as well as can be expected. You know, I'm sure that the words of George Floyd, I can't breathe, were not new to you and they echo in your mind every single day.

Six years ago when your son died, We can't let this keep happening. What do you think the next thing we have to do? Well, first of all, I know when my son was murdered, there was a big uprising. But then it settled down. We can't let things settle down. We have to go to the politicians and we have to hold their feet to fire because otherwise the big uprising is not going to mean a lot. So I'm just asking that

if you become the president, that you make sure that we get national law as well as state and local law, especially when it comes to police brutality, because that has been an age-old problem. Well, I may be kidding myself, but I think the people are ready. I think people are ready. We just got to keep pushing. We can't let up. But thank you for what you're doing.

I really appreciate it. Thanks for joining me. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye. Folks, we're going to play a lot more of the other black speakers later in the show. But I do want to talk about this here. One of the things I've always said is that Michelle Obama, she actually gives an even better speech than her husband, former President Barack Obama. Even told him that a couple of times. Well, last night, the opening night of the Democratic National Convention,

she certainly came through and made it perfectly clear that she knows how to galvanize the party and bring it together. And this woman, the first black first lady, was not afraid to speak to the issue of race multiple times in her 18-minute speech. As George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and a never-ending list of innocent people of color continue to be murdered, stating the simple fact that a Black Life Matters is still met with derision from the nation's highest office. They see people calling the police on folks minding their own business just because of the color of their skin. They see our leaders labeling fellow citizens enemies of the state while emboldening torch-bearing white supremacists. Now, I understand that my message

won't be heard by some people. We live in a nation that is deeply divided, and I am a black woman speaking at the Democratic Convention. But enough of you know me by now. You know that I tell you exactly what I'm feeling. You know I hate politics, but you also know that I care about this nation. You know how much I care about all of our children.

The beat of her speech is that she could be empathetic, sympathetic, strong, and have conviction. That was exactly what she did when Michelle Obama got to the point of speaking directly to, about, frankly, the incompetent leadership of Donald Trump. So let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can. Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job,

but he is clearly in over his head. He cannot meet this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is. It is what it is. Malik? I think that overall, obviously, Michelle Obama was the best speaker out of the night. I'm not one of those who would just criticize everything about the performance, even about the convention, even from a production standpoint, because I think that we've seen over the course of COVID that people can't even figure out how to do Zooms. So yes, production wasn't great. Michelle Obama obviously was the best of the night.

There are other things, other things that speakers made, even if you think about Muriel Bowser, which a lot of people in the community, which is where I live, have been talking about her speech and how Black lives matter um black lives haven't really mattered to her if you listen to many of the people who've been marching in the streets now in her second term but overall i think it was a they did michelle obama they did exactly what they were supposed to do got to make it about trump i assume that at this point they're probably tonight maybe they'll start talking about joe biden but i don't have a problem with it. Michelle Obama did what she would have done for any candidate. Kelly, bottom line is what you saw here. This, she was, that's probably the, the blackest I've heard her talk in these speeches.

What I mean by that is being very explicit in this speech about the issue of race. Absolutely. And I feel like as the years progress and she is further removed from her station as FLOTUS, that we will be able to hear what she really thinks about the state of this country and the state of this nation because that burden of perfection will be lifted off of her slowly, but surely as she is further removed from being considered

FLOTUS, although she will forever be my FLOTUS. But regardless of that, you're absolutely right. Her speech was just absolutely incredible, but it was needed. And I feel like it was a great way to kick off the convention because, frankly, as a democrat as a a progressive it it has been trying this year to say the least the past three four years to say the least regarding our agenda what the democrats are about um all of it and it it for me at least, I was tired. And hearing her speak and empathizing with her and hearing how tired she was of the entire ordeal made me, you know, feel like my feelings were validated for her. And the fact that she was able to convey that. And I've been reading her speech online. Some of the things that she wasn't able to say on air that I didn't catch, rather, her mentions of going high. She said, quote,

going high means unlocking the shackles of lies and mistrust with the only thing that can truly set us free, the cold, hard truth. And she really gave that to us last night. And I really appreciate it. Davon, before I go to Reverend Barber, I want to go to you. Bottom line is, you need to be explicit. The bottom line is, Donald Trump has been locked and loaded on race. You've got to be explicit. Yeah, you know, but Roland, I got to be honest, man. I mean, watching the DNC and even former First Lady Michelle Obama's speech, to me, is a big reason why I think a lot of people are disengaged from politics. If you think about a lot of the people who are often during election cycles, the biggest cheerleaders of vote no matter who, you know, a lot of those folks are the black professional political classes, regular participants in politics are the people that kind of laud, you know, what happened at the DNC and Michelle Obama's speech.

I'm thinking about a lot of the folks for whom have to deal with black elected officials that are given $600 billion to underarm an agenda by South Baltimore who are cowards on expungement and police reform locally. You know what I'm saying? And so for me, you know, over almost half of the electorate doesn't participate in the process. And I think it's important that we have to acknowledge that. And I think even though she made gestures to it, I would argue that the substance of why it is that a lot of people don't participate was not addressed. It's easy, I think, to talk about, you know, issues of police brutality because they've become mainstream. But are we going to talk about that black professional political class that keeps a lot of this stuff intact? And again, I just think it engenders mistrust from people who aren't

typically involved in national Democratic Party politics. But the issue that I've always raised, Reverend Barber, is that it's very simple. If somebody says that I don't like what's happening, the solution is not to actually be in the game. Because if you don't actually, if you do nothing to actually change it, then the system does not change. That's the thing that you have been constantly saying with the poor people's campaign that poor people, whether they are black or white, Latino can, can actually change the politics, but you can't change the politics, but you can't change the politics if you're not engaged in the politics.

Exactly. And that means that you have to bring to the table your own agenda, which is one of the reasons you and I have talked. I've asked people to go to the moral agenda for the healing of the nation. It's been put together around these five interlocking injustices. We talked about systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, a war economy, false modernized religious nationalism.

It's not just cursing the darkness, but it's also talking about the kind of change, radical change that we need. And then you have to—voting is a key piece. You have to engage. And so let's just say for the last 10 years, you say you didn't vote because we never heard people call our names or call our issues. Well, now you have to then say, well, I'm going to vote because I'm not going to let anybody else get elected who does not feel my power. I'm going to make you call my name. And then I'm not just, and my voting is going to be a sign, not that I'm voting going away, but I'm going to vote and stay engaged.

And so the very fact that we went through that convention last night, there's some great things about it. But one thing that Michelle Obama said when she talked about, don't mistake what I meant by high versus low, because she came out talking about that doesn't mean you're not angry. That doesn't mean you don't fight. Okay. Well, then there's a level at which we're right.

We have to have a righteous anger roller. But there's also the fact that they would have Kasich last night, who has been a proponent of voter suppression. That made me want to vote now. I've got a lot of calls from poor people's campaigns that said the very fact that the Democrats felt they had to put him up is now making them want to vote. Not for Trump, but to vote in such a way that their power is expressed that that won't happen again, that we an insult to poor people and to black people

because he's been wrong on welfare rights, on welfare reform, wrong on living wages, wrong on union rights, the part of the Newt Gingrich piece. He's been a voter suppressionist. And to put him up there and give him all that time to speak. But it's actually, for my folk I'm talking to, Roland, they're saying, well, then we really need to be engaged. You know, because if we're not engaged, then if people win and we weren't there when they win,

they may not have any option to do the kinds of things that we need to do, as my brother was saying earlier, that has to relate to policy and has to relate to our communities and across the board. And so they don't, Dave, on that point again, it's look, if folks say I'm not engaged because of this, well then who are they waiting to come along? Who's going to speak to those issues if they don't, if you do not have any mobilization and organization, if you don't do that, the very same people who are in charge are going to continue to be in charge.

And then the people who say I'm disaffected are going to always be disaffected. Something has to change and it's not going to be the professional class. Rolling. Is that you're talking to a person? They want to go ahead. You see, you're talking to a person who's engaged in local politics. They won't. They won't. Go ahead. So you're talking to a person that's engaged in local politics. Here's the point that I'm trying to make, which is that when we talk about the importance of people being engaged, part of the problem is that when every election cycle, when folks say vote blue no matter who,

we saw a decline of 7% of black participation in the elections from 2012 to 2016. What that says is that people are sick of people selling them this vision of things are going to be different. The world's going to end if we don't get engaged. And yet it is usually the black professional classes that are the biggest beneficiaries of patronage with the Democratic Party. So no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But I got I got to ask. OK, OK, I'm taking that.

But what I'm asking is if you have this group of people who feel that way, who is mobilizing and organizing them to do something different? You saw what happened in Cori Bush. She loses and she loses in 2018 to Clay by 20 points. She comes back two years later because she mobilized and organized and beats him. The same thing happened with Elliot Ingle who got beaten. Ayanna Pressley, the CBC folk pack, didn't support her, supported the white incumbent. She still wins. And so what I'm saying is people can be disaffected, but who is mobilizing, organizing them to say you can make a difference, but you

can't make a difference if you're not engaged in the process. What I'm saying is that as someone who's engaged, the people that are in my way are black democratically elected officials locally for whom when I'm organizing the mobilizing, and these are the same people that are talking about vote blue no matter who. And what I'm saying is that that discussion, like, Roland, you came and gave a keynote speech to the Black Business Breakfast at the Maryland Legislative Black Conference. Yes. Where you quoted King about the way in which a lot of black elected officials

won't rock the boat. Right. Because they're worried about their position, the way in which they lot of black elected officials won't rock the boat. Right. Because they're worried about their position, the way in which they capitulate to the corporate sector. My point is that if we're interested in getting people to be more involved, and I've seen you and others on previous shows characterize a lot of the people that are deciding not to participate as either just armchair revolutionaries or people that don't want to participate

or people that are questioning Kambalah harris's blackness both are they exist but aren't the majority of the people that aren't participating and if you want people to be involved what i'm saying is that we have to speak to the fact that many of the people that every election right sell this whole thing of vote blue no matter who even though we know trump is a disaster no one's saying that trump isn't a problem i'm saying that when we look at how do we actually make it so that people organized on the ground can actually feel like the people saying they're going to hold people accountable when Biden and Harris get elected, we need to hear people talk about that dynamic. But what I—

You know, Mario Bowser. Right, right. That's why I'm— Those are folks who need to be held accountable. Come on, Reverend Barber. Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay.

Well, one of the things—first of all, I think my brother—I appreciate the point. That's why we say in the Poor People's Campaign, vote you no matter who. It's not about voting blue or voting red. It's about voting you. And when you come get the numbers, right now there are 15 states in this country where it takes less than 20 percent of poor and low-wealth people to organize around the agenda, and most of them less than 5 percent, where they can fundamentally change presidential, Senate, and government's race. If you've got that kind of power, you've got to use it. We used it in Kentucky, changed the race, and also changed some public policy.

There's a young lady that was running in the Poor People's Campaign. We didn't endorse a candidate, but she got so involved in organizing, she then ran in the Democratic primary and beat a traditionalist. And raised $8,200. She only raised $8,200. Right. That's what I'm saying. And so what I'm saying is it's our democracy. Yes, if they're black and they're not pushing, then primary them and organize and run. But the thing we can't do is stay out.

32 million people, poor people alone, stayed out. We're poor and low-income people. A quarter million people of this, 25% of the electorate now. And for instance, Ohio, excuse me, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, 2.1 million poor and low-wealth people did not vote. Trump wins by 79%. Now, they're not armchair revolutionaries. I get it. We've gone all over the country, and folks have said,

we didn't vote because nobody talked about our issue, and we listened and we heard that. Now we said, but then how do we make them talk about it? And then folks said, well, we got to do more. We said, that's right. We must mobilize, organize, register, educate people to vote. They should have recognized you, but since they didn't, then let's make them feel our pain. And it may mean that we vote for somebody that doesn't make 100 percent on our report card, but guess what? We're not going to disengage after the vote either. And what we're saying is a little different from vote and go home and let them handle it. We're saying vote and make sure your vote is felt. And then if people benefit from your vote, do not let the pressure off.

Do not let the pressure off. Demand that they have to have a 100-day, a certain thing they got to do in the first hundred days. And so that's why I'm telling you, I've got calls from all around the country that saw some things last night. You know, a lot of what we saw with the people, they kind of modeled what we did rolling on June 20th when we let people speak and talk. But there were some things they saw, and it's actually causing people to say, wait a minute, this is actually making me, if you, for lack of a better word, angry enough to engage. I'm not going to turn this party over, or any party, I'm an independent, I'm not going to turn this

party over to Kasich. I'm not going to let folks think that Kasich is, and whatever he represents, is more powerful than the 25 percent of the electorate the 140 million people that are poor and low wealth in this country we're going to organize we're going to mobilize so so one of the things while this was going on this weekend role you know what we were doing Saturday we were training 500 leaders from from 43 states the district of Columbia that are organizing 15 to 2,000 people in those states to do massive voter organization, not just for this election, but we're building a permanently organized community. And you know where we learned it from, Roland, of all places? Charles Koch.

When Charles Koch in 1972 in a private meeting told people, he said, we are going to stop searching after Messiah candidates. What we're going to do is build organization. We're going to build information outlets. And we're going to organize people so we can punish our enemies and reward our friends. And then it's not so much who runs what the personality looks like. We're going to create enough power that whoever the personality is they have to address our agenda and if not we'll primary them a bit

and then he actually admitted from what i understand is he said we're basically stealing the the methodology of the civil rights movement people forget we did not get the right to vote in an election year oh and i wish folk again you talk about all time we got the right to vote in an election year. And I wish folks could get it. You talk about it all the time. We got the right to vote in a non-election year, but the people elected to change the political atmosphere. That's what we have to do. It's not just voting in November and going home. It's your power being felt at the ballot box and then your power being felt after the ballot box during the election.

And it's continuing to do it. And you can't do that just through email and tweets you got to organize communities permanently organized communities that know the numbers and know the percentages and understand that in most of these places we're talking about we're talking about one percent can change everything five percent five percent can give you an entirely new politics. That's where we are. Reverend William Baldwin, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you very much, sir.

Here's the thing, Kelly, that in terms of how I look at this, and again, I base my perspective on this. There's nothing to do with D.C. or Virginia or state capital in Texas. My mom and dad never went to college. Lived in Clinton Park in Houston. And they said, we want to change our neighborhood. So they said, we're going to start a Clinton Park Civic Club. There were people who were saying, man, y'all ain't going to do nothing. That thing ain't going to work. Ain't nobody going to listen to y'all.

So it don't even matter. They said, OK, thank you very much. And so a handful of people, six, eight, just kept meeting. They started the whole deal. They started this process by saying, we want to cut. We want to see some grass, uh, overgrown lots cut. They say, okay, well, who's in who, who does that? Is that the city that the County who does that? And then they said, well, let's go from a street to a block. And then they said, well, we got abandoned houses. And then they said,

you know what? We want to step up police patrol. So who's, who's the commander for this area? Okay. Who's over that commander? And so then they said, uh, and all the people said, y'all still ain't going to do nothing. And they said, fine, we're going to keep it. But then it went from six to eight people to now 12 people, uh, 20 people. They probably never had more than 30 or 40 people at a meeting, but they kept pressing their agenda. And what happened? They contacted the city council member, the county commissioner, the county judge, the mayor, all the levers of power. And then when they say they wanted new streets and streetlights and sewer system, the park refurbished to flip us a old fire station to a senior citizen center. It got all of that. How did they get that? Because

they, they work with ordinary people who just simply said, you know what, we want to change this. So the point that I'm making is if there are people out there who are disaffected, people who say we've been left behind, I live that as somebody who had to go pass out those flyers for my parents who helped put signs up. These were disaffected people who said, ain't nobody going to come to save us, but us. And they organized and mobilized themselves into a political force. So when you ran, you had to come through them because you didn't want them to oppose you. And then my mom goes from that to one of the citywide co-chairs

of a metropolitan organization, an interfaith group, goes from a civic club in a community, never even went to college, to become one of three citywide co-chairs. That's my point. What I'm arguing with people is you can't sit on your ass and complain that stuff hasn't gotten fixed. And then you're unwilling to get in the game to help stuff get fixed.

I absolutely agree with you. Before I say what I'm thinking, I believe you're saying disenfranchised, correct? Disenfranchised, disengaged, disillusioned, pissed off, upset, whatever phrase you want to use. Okay. No, I thought I was hearing disinfected. I'm like, no, I'm pretty sure. Okay, anyway, you're absolutely right. I keep hearing, like, when I hear this argument from either Davon or even Reverend Barber, and they all have the same sentiment, but when I talk to colleagues and, you know,

people online about this issue, especially the ones who are disengaged and actively disengaged, they are, you know, they allude to people who are engaged as sellouts and things like that. But here's the thing. While there's sentiment of you can't, you know, dismantle the master's house using the master's tools, that is correct. But you also can't dismantle the house without knowing the infrastructure. And that is key. So like what your parents did, it's not like they were trying to assimilate into something that was already in existence. They learned what was happening, how it was happening, and they dismantled it and reframed it such that they can benefit from it as well.

And not just them, but the people like them who were also disenfranchised. And that's what Reverend Barber is talking about. That's what Davon is talking about. Those people who are more or less not the professional black people who like the status quo, but the people who understand that they don't need the master's tools to dismantle the master's house. They just need to know what the infrastructure is. They just need to know what the blueprint is and they can take it from there. So that's what Barbara is talking about. That's what Devon is talking about. And for those people who are on the outside, who are actively disenfranchised, I implore you today

to rethink about this, to reprogram your mind in such a way that you understand that it's not about assimilation. It's about restructuring. Well, here's the thing. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. So because what you and I agree on is the importance of political mobilization, particularly at the grassroots and holding people accountable. My point is, is that as a person who is doing that, that many of the people who chastise folks who aren't voting, many of them, with notable exceptions, are the people who are in the way of people doing what you described that, you know, your parents did. And take them out! Take them out! You're not listening to what I'm saying, Roland.

I'm saying that those are the folks that are in the way. And so what happens is, is that who gets chastised? The people who look around, see all the people exploiting and hustling off their suffering, and are like, we don't want to participate. And the people that don't get chastised are the black professional class who get to run around with Biden-Harris signs who aren't criticized to the same degree as people that are not voters. And what I'm saying, and what I'm saying, and what I'm saying is take them out. Again, the example I use, Nakima, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, hold up. Nakima Levy Pounds Armstrong.

Young folks in Minneapolis said the NAACP chapter here ain't doing nothing. They ain't responsive. They ain't protesting. They ain't saying nothing. Now, young folks, they were like, so you know what we're going to do? First of all, they stepped in. They joined. Then they were like, when's the next election?

They found out how many votes it took last time, went and signed up a whole new crew, came in, had elections, and swept everybody out. That's how she became president. All I'm saying is, and again— That's not responsive to my point. I'm saying that the people who are disengaged for good reasons are folks who get chastised. The folks that don't get chastised are the people who typically are in the way of people trying to organize. And what I'm saying to the people who get chastised is move their asses out the way. I live this. I literally live this, Davon.

This is not an academic conversation. I literally saw with my own eyes what I'm describing. And I saw my mama and my daddy and my aunts and my uncles in Clinton Park in Houston. Work phone banks, put up signs, work and move their asses out. And the people who were in the way saw what was coming and said, I better change my ways because if they went after them, they're going to come after me. That's all I'm saying, bro. That's what we got to have.

And we got to be able to look young folks in the eye and say, you can actually do it, but you cannot do it if you are not engaged. Let them chastise you, hate on you, and you just sit back and say the last school board election you won with 400 votes. We've already mobilized 550 people and we're going to pick our own candidate and we're going to vote your behind out. That's how you get back at them. Right. And my personal right. You keep responding to a point I'm not making. I'm not making the point that you don't do any of that because that's what I'm saying. I'm making a point about what we talked about, the DNC and people clamoring over some of the things that issues that were brought up in the DNC.

I'm saying that what does not get brought up are the people who are cheerleading Biden-Harris, but are the folks who, in other institutional contexts on the local level, are actually part of the problem. And when that conversation is not made front and center, but people are able to talk about, like Mario Bowser, if you talk to local organizers on the ground,

that's not somebody that's actually, he's actually doing things that go against a lot of folks on the ground. Okay, and all those, hold up, go against a lot of folks on the ground. Okay, and all those, hold up, hold up. All those people on the ground mobilizing, organizing to take her out in the next election.

Absolutely. But you know that it takes money and resources to do that. I'm just... But, Dong, all I'm simply saying is you're going to have those people, but that cannot be something that actually gets in the way. I want to bring

in my next guest to this conversation because this also applies to it. Uh, and that is CC battle. She's director of, or young people for an organization that encourages people across campuses, community leaders, CC again, this is what, what, what, what I struggle with is when, and I've spoken on college campuses and high school campuses and where folk talk about the likes of Congressman John Lewis and Diane Nash. All them folks were 17, 18, 19 and 20 years old. And so I struggle with people who say, man, this thing ain't going to never change. And all I'm saying is stuff will never change if you have folk who don't make change happen. Cece, go ahead. Can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you. Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. Thank you so much for having me, Roland. I

definitely understand that. But I think one of the things that we should illuminate is the reason why folks don't know, quote unquote, the way to access power is because it's been intentionally held from them. So a lot of the work that we do at Young People 4 is to demystify that. We've been on the road for the last four years providing free civic education to folks so they understand how the systems work. Because what you see now in a lot of elections that are super problematic is we only push candidates. Right. We're not actually teaching people the power of the seat to be able to do the next thing, which is get them in office, hold them accountable, and possibly get them out. And what we've seen is the way that we message elections, the way that we talk about this process,

can't just be contingent upon who the current candidates are. Right. Because as we saw in 2016, the number one reason why young folks 18 to 35 didn't participate was that they didn't like the candidates. So now we're in a situation where most folks would argue they don't like the quote-unquote candidates, and we haven't done the work. I think this is what I was hearing from your previous guest about doing the big picture, because a lot of the folks who are quote-unquote knowledgeable about the political process

do not make it accessible for people to understand how it works to actualize power in a way that can actually support the work. On that point right there, I want to bring Mellie, Kevin, Kelly and Davon on that point right there. You're absolutely right because and again, this is not like I have been saying again, because I saw growing up and yelling and screaming this for 30 plus years. Citizenship education training was something that SCLC did, SNCC did, CORE did, all those folks did. And I think what happens is a lot of times we assume people know. I'm going back to the civic club. They sat in a meeting and they said, we got abandoned houses. How do we get those

abandoned houses down? And somebody said, all right, well, okay, do we go to the county? Do we go to the city? Who do we do it? So then they began to ask the questions and then they got the process, came back to the group, said, this is how we do it. The purpose of the civic club, them meeting every month was to do exactly what you just said, CC. And that is training, teaching. I remember being a 14 year old kid going and testify before the Houston city council about the slashing of swimming pool hours in the budget. I was 14. I remember jamming up city councilman Ernest McGowan, who came to our church bazaar. He came there just to wave and shake hands. I hit his ass up about cutting the swimming pool hours. I was 14. Yes. Yeah. I think what you're talking about is

the power of young people when they have access to resources and opportunity is tremendous. Ten years ago, I created a civic engagement framework called Passion Framing that challenges people and educates them on the power of the seat, but to your point, connects it back to issues that they're really pissed about. And not these, like, theoretical issues, very small issues like, why can't I turn up till 6 o'clock in my neighborhood like I want to? Or why is there a pothole in my street? And we find, and that's the framework that we use for the last four years, it's made a big difference. And I think that is where we need to get to as a society. It's great that we want to mobilize folks right now because, you know, we're trying to, you know, make it past November 3rd and that's great. But what I want us to do, and I think this is what young people are challenging us to do, is what next? Let's talk about the full picture now. And I think what we need to do in terms of

our messaging, especially talking to Black folks, especially talking to young Black folks, is saying, listen, we know that the democracy in this country was not made for you and I. That is real. And we have to participate in order to transform. That's what it is. And it's not the only tool that we use. Yes, we're going to protest and we're going to vote. Yes, we're going to mobilize and we're going to vote. Yes, we're going to provide mutual aid and we're going to vote. And I think we need to do a better job of talking about the full picture of what we need to do instead of piecemealing the different strategies

that we need to use together. Melly, look, you're in D.C., and so is that... Okay, from your vantage point, where you live, are you seeing that actual community mobilization? Are you seeing that training? Are you seeing that conversation? Are you seeing that conversation? Are you seeing that dialogue happening? And if not, why not? Go ahead. Yes, I'm actually seeing that. And that's been the case since I've lived here. And I think even

Dave Vaughn will say that there are plenty of people in his own community that he deals with who are doing that same thing. I think we should talk of, there are two things that I've heard with you and Devon talking about. One of those is voter apathy, and another is that civic engagement. Well, that voter apathy leads to the lack of civic engagement. And I think understanding where that voter apathy comes from is one of the things that we have to do to figure out how to get people engaged. To Devon's point, we have a place like Washington, D.C., absolutely. If you ask the activists on the ground, they don't think that Black Lives Matter to the mayor. A lot of what we talk about,

and I think this is one of the things that hamstrings the conversation, because a lot of the things that we talk about, like right now, we're having a presidential election, and so it's vote or die. You got to do it. Vote blue no matter who. But the fact is, if you ask the people on the ground in the community how much their lives personally have been affected, whether it was Barack Obama in the White House or even Donald Trump in the White House, that is very minimal. I say that to point out that many of the things that affect us, whether we're talking about crime, whether D.C. having one of the highest income wealth gaps in the country between black and white. The fact is, I just heard on a local news station last night, D.C., black people in D.C. are 6 percent more likely to die, and it is the greatest disparity in the entire country. Whether we're talking about gentrification, crime, education, zoning decisions that affect affordable housing,

these things happen at the local level, not the presidential level. And the presidential, you shouldn't talk about those things at the presidential level. But I make this, I just want to say this, I make this point to really kind of break this apart just a little to understand where the voter apathy comes. So with election presidential cycle, that is, with presidential cycle after presidential cycle after presidential cycle, people are saying that this is the time. You got to vote Barack Obama out or Donald Trump out. out, but the conditions in their neighborhood, to your point, affected by the local politicians who we just allowed to remain in office for all of these years, and these things continue to happen, those things become conflated. So we are led to assume that if I elect Donald Trump, then that affordable, if I elect Joe

Biden, let's say that, then that affordable housing that our neighborhoods have been needing or the need to disperse affordable housing across all eight wards instead of concentrating poverty in one area, the things like use of force agreements. But

the things that we're talking about. Lamella, you about to close the meantime as a Baptist preacher. That's your third close. Okay. The last one. That's your third close. Okay. The last one. That's your fourth close. You got 20 seconds.

Those things happen at the local level. The mayors, the council members, those are the people who at the local level can affect things where we're talking about use of force. But we kind of put that at the presidential level. Got it. And of course... Hold on, hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on. Wait 20 seconds.

No, no, hold up. I gotta go to Kelly. You're 20 seconds up, Malik. But Kelly, it's called connecting the dots. And I think what happens is if we don't connect the dots, so for instance, if you talk about how do you change housing in a community, the reality is states get that housing money in federal block grant funds. Two things happen. You typically will have Republicans who want to give the money to as block grants to the state.

So now you go from federal to state. Now your local community, you got to go to the state. Typically, your Democratic presidents want to give the money to directly to the mayors. Now you've cut a layer out. And so on one of those, if you don't know the process, you have no idea how to change it. So Kelly, speak to that. I want to get Davon in and then I'm going to have CeCe address something else. But Kelly, go ahead. No, and this reinforces my point of knowing what the structure is, knowing how things work. And the only way you know how things work is to engage.

Because if you're not engaged, what are you doing? You're just complaining. If you're disenfranchised and you're not doing anything about said disenfranchisement, you're just complaining. So you need to be engaged. You need to be active in this. You need to find that circle that has the same mindset as you that wants something to change as well. And like you said, connect the dots. So if it's something as small as what Cece was saying, like how come I can't stay up until X amount of time? Figure out

who makes that decision. Figure out who makes that decision and see what you can do as a citizen to either change that person's mind or to get somebody in there who aligns with you. But you have to know what the infrastructure is in order to do that. You can't be on the sidelines complaining about your disenfranchisement when you, as a citizen, have tools at your disposal to do something about it. Davon? There are two points I want to make. One is that we have to be honest about the forces arrayed against people who organize and try to push on policies where there's lots of resources and power at stake. And so I think while there are examples of folks that have been able to organize and overcome, and I've been able to do that as a person that mobilizes work here in Baltimore and in the state of Maryland,

what I'm saying is that we have to be realistic. And a part of what makes it difficult is that when you see folks like Mario Bowser, right, or other people who are in that black professional class that are propped up by the Democratic Party, then what it says to folks who have tried to push on issues that have made a difference, it creates the apathy. That's not saying that people should not be engaged. And that's the point that I want to continue to make, Roland, because I don't want to be characterized as someone who's saying people should not be engaged. I'm saying that we have to be honest about the fact that the Democratic Party, even in how the DNC convention was framed last night, propping up examples of elected officials that have been in the way on the ground, we have to speak to that or people

will not want to participate. Right. And I get that. But see, the whole point here is, again, that what I want to bring you in here is because this here. Ain't nothing easy. First of all, changing any system ain't easy. I understand that. What are you doing to build capacity, CeCe, of what you are trying to do? Where you're trying to go. So, like, right now, how many cities are you in? How often are y'all meeting?

What is your goal in terms of where you want to be by this point in 2021, 2022? Because all this stuff we're talking about, if you don't build capacity, if you don't go from five cities and you're meeting once a quarter to 50 cities, you're meeting every single month. We're going to be back here a year from now having the same conversation. Cece, go ahead. Absolutely. And to answer that question, I really want to kind of tie in what everyone was talking about. But it's intentional that folks, particularly young folks, can't connect the dots. You know, we've been at this point in the last four years to all 50 states and territories training, mobilizing. The folks that are in our network is 2,100 of us

who are also in all 50 states and territories, who are in all industries. We're working with folks who are a part of our network who are elected officials and some of the activists that you see on the foreground. And what we know for sure is regardless of their education, regardless of their socioeconomic status, they all struggled with connecting the dots. Most people, because of education in this country, do not have access

to resources to really understand, again, my point, the power of the seat. So I think it's important for us not to demonize folks that, you know, oh, they're just complaining. We need to really investigate and interrogate the systems to say that they don't have access to the resources and information that they need. So to your question about what we're doing, last week we held a free virtual civic engagement summit where we engaged over 15,000 young people from 41 states and territories to help them build their plans. What are they going to do in their communities? We had some of the homies like Angela Rye and Andrew Gillum and Philip Agnew, who is alum of Young People 4,

all working and strategizing together with the young folks that we serve. Before that, for four weeks, we held an intensive civic engagement training program that broke down local government, state government, federal government, all the way to international government so people have the skills to connect the dots in their communities. And it's free and on the Internet right now. So that's what we're doing. We're not just mobilizing the 2,000 folks that we serve, but we're also opening up

our work free and open to the public because what we know in order to transform all of our communities, we need everybody. And here's the piece. Final comment on this point here before I got to go to a break and then go to my next guest. There is nothing, I cannot think of any movement, any effort that is in, that's on a street, that's on a block, that's in a neighborhood, That's in a neighborhood. That's in a city. That's in the state in this country where forces who you are fighting made it easy. I can't think of one.

I can't think of one where people didn't get frustrated or people said, why are they making this thing so hard? Why are they throwing so many roadblocks? I can't think of one. But what I do know is that when people are more focused on the end result, as opposed to that frustration, they're going to actually begin to see stuff actually change and happen. And again, as somebody who was 10 years old, who was there as these folks were

meeting in my parents' kitchen, and I'm like, why are these folks at our house for three hours talking about this Civic Club stuff? Why do I, as a 10-year-old and my brother who's 11 and my sister who's not, why we got to walk around this neighborhood putting these flyers inside of people's doors? Ten years later, when I was 20 and I saw new streetlights, a totally refurbished park,

a senior citizen center, there used to be a fire station, new sewer systems, new streets, that's the result. So all that frustration of folk getting in the way, people then saw, oh damn, y'all weren't joking about this thing. Y'all was serious about this change. And that's what I'm saying. But we have to be willing to get folks through and say, your frustration will never result in stuff getting changed. Only the work will. Cece, you said it's on the internet. You got to be more

specific. Where do folks find it? You don't come on out. Cece, I got to help you with branding. Don't say it's on the internet. Where do folks go who are watching and listening to get the information you're talking about? Thank you so much for that, Uncle Roland. So it's on youngpeople4.org. You can go on our YouTube, youngpeople4, on our Instagram, youngpeople4, on our Twitter, youngpeople4. It is everywhere, and even on my personal social media, The CC Battle.

You can find it there in the link. All right, then. So that's CC, just in the future. Every time you do an interview, don't say it's on the internet. Get that site, and then if you're also trying to raise't say it's on the Internet. Get it at sight. And then if you're also trying to raise money, tell folk how to give. The same. Absolutely.

Okay. All right. CeCe. CeCe Bella, I appreciate it. Thanks a bunch. Folks, you got to go to a break. When we come back, we'll talk about children, depression, COVID. School is about to start.

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All right, folks, a lot of parents out here stressing about the coronavirus pandemic and how to keep themselves and their children safe. They're often missing depression among their children, not being able to spend time with their friends, not being able to enjoy their summer. Nicole Christian Brathwaite is an adult and child psychiatrist. She joins us right now. Nicole, how you doing? I'm doing well. How are you? So this is something

that is one of those things that I think we don't pay attention to. Look, I had to deal with this with my nieces. One of them really feeling depressed because not being able to see friends, not being able to fly back home to see family, not being able to just to go out and enjoy being 16 years old. We're seeing this with young kids as well. And we're about to see it now with school coming back because you're having people, a lot of young folks who are having to do online school. So their world was caught up in social interaction among their peers. Right, right. Exactly. I think especially for black children, COVID-19 and racism. So there were our children are dealing with two pandemics. So they're dealing with the isolation of COVID-19,

not being able to see their friends, not even having the physical contact of hugging their grandparents or hugging friends, and then not even having the social milestones and the educational milestones like graduation and prom. And our children are grieving. They're grieving the loss of the life that they once had and the life that they expected to have. And so it's not uncommon to see increased irritability and increased frustration and mood swings and even some regressed behaviors in our children because this is frustrating and it is difficult. So how then do we deal with that? Because you got parents on short fuse as well. Some have been laid off, hours cut. They're having

to deal with a lot of the same issues their children are. Right, exactly. I mean, I think we're all in a similar situation in that we're all struggling. And it's important to recognize that a lot of the loss, a lot of the experiences, both the loss, again, of the social milestones, but Black children are losing family, they're losing friends, their parents are losing jobs, and all of these experiences are quite traumatic. But then there's the racism. There's finally the nation waking up and being even willing to say the word racism. So Black children are now also having to be reminded of the racism that they have to live through on a daily basis. And all of us are

struggling and managing this. So there are a few things that parents can do to both support themselves and to support their kids. One thing I always say to parents is talking and listening to our kids. I think as parents, we kind of assume that we know what our kids are going to say. So often we're listening to our kids, but we already have our answer keyed up. We already know how we're going to respond.

And so I recommend using a technique called reflective listening. So actually listening to your kid, but not providing an answer, not providing a solution, but summarizing what they just told you. So it really encourages our children and tells them that we're listening. So if our kid is saying, I'm frustrated, I'm angry, I didn't have prom, I'm annoyed that I can't see so-and-so, rather than providing a solution stating, wow, okay, so what it sounds like to me is that you are really angry about all the losses

that you've experienced. And it also sounds like to me is that you are really angry about all the losses that you've experienced. And it also sounds like that you're frustrated that I'm not allowing you to go out like some of your other friends without a mask. I can't imagine how difficult that is. And I'm not offering any answers, but I'm letting you know I heard you. I'm able to identify the emotion that you're experiencing. And I'm not trying to fix it, but I'm here to listen. And oftentimes our kids have a lot to say, but they don't feel heard. And so if we can start really practicing,

utilizing reflective listening, then we can even help our kids come up with a solution. And that is kind of another suggestion that I offer is giving kids power. Because one thing that trauma does, it takes away our power. It takes away our sense of control. And everyone right now can relate to, I feel like I can't control anything in my life right now. And kids feel that to a significantly higher degree.

And so being able to provide our children with options and giving them a chance to choose and feel like they have agency or a say in their life is very empowering and can also help them not feel so frustrated. So what you're saying is you shouldn't say, girl, sit your ass down as far as you go out here and get yourself killed because of COVID. That's what you're saying? Okay, I got it. All right. That's questions from the panel. Kelly, go. No, no, we can't do that as parents or children, rather. Well. No, I completely, you can't. But to Dr. Braithwaite, I believe that's how you say your name. For those out here who not necessarily are dealing with the acute depression and anxiety of this issue, because that, for the most most part is temporary, you know, fingers crossed anyway. But for those children and even parents who are dealing with mental illnesses such as anxiety, depression, bipolar, what have you, can you use

these same methods as a parent or as a child? And to piggyback off of that, the options that you were talking about, could you explain to the audience just some of the easy ones, no matter where you live? Sure, sure. So, I mean, thank you. Thank you for bringing that up. I think it's important to establish that depression and mental illness is a major issue in the black community right now. Suicide is the third leading cause of death in black children, especially black boys. So our children were suffering pre-COVID. And just to acknowledge racism is trauma. Racism is a risk factor for suicide. And so Black children, simply by existing in the United States, are at greater risk than other populations of experiencing

mental health problems, experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder, and experiencing suicidal thoughts. And our income doesn't change that. Actually, those of us who have full-time jobs or qualify for the middle income, actually, our kids are at greater risk because they're more exposed to white populations. They're more likely to be in the minority and are at greater risk of suffering. And so, absolutely, these are existing problems that are now just compounded because of all that's going on. In terms of can we use these solutions with kids who have ongoing mental health problems? Absolutely. Everyone needs to feel heard. Everyone needs to know that their pain

is being acknowledged. Everyone needs to feel like the adults in their lives are listening. And so reflective listening is a skill that psychiatrists and therapists learn. It's, you know, therapy 101. Make sure people know that you're present. Make sure people know that you're being heard. In terms of offering options to kids, you know, it's offering, so it's kind of like, well, what do you want for dinner? Do you want spaghetti or hot dogs? And then they say pizza. You know, I would love if we could have pizza, but right now our choices are spaghetti or hot dog. And I would love for you to choose. I would love for you to help us decide what we're going to have for dinner or if a kid says I want to go sleep over so-and-so's house. Man you know I understand that you really want to sleep over and I bet it's incredibly

frustrating but what about visiting with them outside or having them come to our house and visit outside? What about one of those options? And, you know, they may still say that's not what I want. I can totally understand, but I value your opinion. And I really want to hear what you would choose and what you think would be the best option. And so, you know, I even do this with couples counseling, too, like make the husband feel like he had a choice when he really didn't. So still giving people the option and allowing them to feel like they have some say or some control. But ultimately, if kids really are struggling with depression and if they're struggling with safety or feeling unsafe,

it goes beyond just having these conversations. You have to be willing to seek treatment. And so often in our communities, there's this, there's a stigma that depression equals weakness. And by no means is depression weakness. And so often we feel like we have to struggle. Black women, we feel like we have to be the strong black woman, or men feel like they, they may not be able to show their emotion, but the fact is that we are all suffering. And if anything, our suffering actually leads to early death and it leads to chronic disease. And so we, it's killing us not to address these things. If you go to my website, wellmindsconsulting.com under resources, I have a couple of handouts that I created. And one of them is a handout on COVID-19

resources. And it lists dozens of different resources, both for parents, because we have to care for ourselves, but also for our children, people for parents, because we have to care for ourselves, but also for our children, people we can contact, websites that have information, and suicide hotlines. You know what? I'll just say this here before I go. Dave Vaughn for the next question. I ain't never heard y'all use a damn example, Doc, by saying, oh, well, make the woman seem like you're listening to her, but then in the end, she going to do what you want to do anyways. Always make the man feel like he got power, but he really don't. See, yeah. Oh, you thought I pick up on that, huh? Yeah, I picked up on that.

Davon, ask your question of Doc. So, you know, there are a lot of children that are going to have to experience education virtually. And I imagine that there are particular stressors that come that are unique to that experiences. Could you speak to that? Sure, definitely. I recently read an article here in Massachusetts where I'm based. They were looking at calls to DCF and all of the calls to DCF about kids not attending virtual classes were from predominantly communities of color. And so it seems like teachers were calling DCF and filing for neglect against parents when their children weren't going online. And so one of the things that we have to

deal with is just racism and bias in education that exists within the school system day to day when kids are going, but that will continue to exist through the virtual world. And so one thing that we as parents and as supporters of our children have to do is advocate for ourselves and advocate for our kids. And also educating schools about filing for neglect against a parent because their kid didn't sign on is racist, but also did you ever ask why they didn't sign on?

Did you ever inquire as to what is going on in their household? Many kids don't live in a home that's conducive to being in a room alone. So if you live in a one- or two-bedroom home, you may not have the space to be alone and take class, or there may be two or three other kids who are trying to take class at the same time. And so it's really important that our schools,

one, educate themselves about some of the challenges that our kids experience, but also stop relying on kind of racist tropes and stereotypes and going against our parents and making it more difficult for our children to succeed rather than building equity, which means giving each student individually the tools that they need to be successful. Last question. Alit.

All right. Yeah. So I think early on in this pandemic, there was some discussions and then even to an extent it was mocked, the idea that how this affects the psyche of people, you know, going through something that we've never experienced before in our lifetime. Who mocked you? We didn't mock you. We mocked you voting for Trump. We didn't mock you about that, but go ahead. I'm not talking about me personally. Okay. All right. Go ahead. The conversation that when we were having conversations early on, even in reference to school closings, yes, everybody was really concerned about it. But the idea that kids, particularly black people, black kids, will suffer from things like depression. We've seen things like suicide. All of those things increase when you're dealing with these type of stressors.

I was on a call just last week with Dr. Jonathan Shepard. He's out of Baltimore, another adult and child psychiatrist. And he was talking about some of these similar things. So my question to you is, as far as just our school system, we know what the APA said, the American Pediatrics Association said about the need for kids to go back to school, and it kind of backed off, and then it kind of went back in the different direction. But my question to you is, have you been in, and I know it's a little difficult maybe with funding or something, but are you finding in your profession that schools or districts are reaching

out to people like you? Fortunately for me, my school where I volunteer in D.C., there's an actual psychiatrist in-house. So that's helping. Boy, what's your question? But for schools that don't have these type of resources, Got it. that they are reaching out to psychiatrists. What is that landscape for you in this new norm that we're in?

Yes, thank you. So I receive a lot of requests from schools. So a part of the work that I do is consulting to schools specifically to train teachers and educators and school systems on trauma, becoming trauma-informed institutions, but also understanding that racism is trauma and that children experience racism in the school day. And so some of the work that I'm doing with schools is one, understanding that many children are going to come back to school feeling extremely traumatized because of COVID, but understanding that Black and Latino children are going to be even more traumatized.

And Black and Latino children were already traumatized. Simply, again, being Black in America can lead to trauma. Living in a community where you may have food insecurity or housing insecurity is traumatizing. Experiencing a family member that has mental health problems, those can all be traumatizing. And each of these traumas are cumulative. So these build. And so often what happens, our kids come into class in what we describe as survival mode. So they're in that fight, flight or freeze. And teachers will say, oh, he just exploded out of nowhere.

And we don't understand why he exploded. But the issue is because you're not trauma informed and because schools don't understand what our kids are coming in with, they may not know all that child had to experience last night or all that child had to experience in the morning. And so it's important to understand the way trauma impacts the brain and putting us into survival mode, meaning like we're focused on survival, not focused on learning, and that can be difficult for kids. And so teaching schools how to approach kids and using tools and techniques to reduce the stress and reduce the reactivity and that feeling of being in fight, flight, or freeze with things as simple as mindfulness. And mindfulness or meditation is just simply being present and going through breathing exercises every morning to help decrease that stress response so that kids can be in a position to be ready to learn. And that is

needed more so now, again, because so many Black children have lost so much. Some of my patients have lost entire generations of their families because of COVID. They've lost friends. They've lost family that they will never be able to see again because of COVID. And so there's so much loss. And watching the news, seeing beautiful Black bodies being murdered on TV is traumatizing. And it's important that both parents and teachers recognize that our Black kids are coming in with significant pain. And so I do train teachers, one, to recognize trauma, understand how trauma impacts the brain, and understand how to support kids with trauma, but then how to not re-traumatize them. So your bias, your racism, the institutional racism that exists is only exacerbating underlying trauma. And we need to address that if we truly want to

support our kids. And also having Black teachers. Black students do better with Black teachers. Black students do better with black teachers. Black students do better with black mentors. And so it's also important to add diversity to teaching staff because black teachers are more likely to recognize excellence in our students. All right. Nicole Christian Brathwaite, an adult child psychiatrist. We appreciate it. Thank you so very much. And yeah, we'll try some of that. Someone's going to take you behind in your room. No, I'm just messing with you.

Doc, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you for having me. All right, y'all, coming up next, we're going to talk to my man, Malcolm Nance. Talk to Malcolm Nance about today's Senate report. Republican-led Senate report. That's it. Trump team.

Oh, yeah. They were talking to a Russian intelligence officer in the 2016 election. We'll break real. It's Roland Martin Unfiltered. See that name right there? Roland Martin Unfiltered. Like, share, subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's youtube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin. And don't forget to turn on your notifications

so when we go live, you'll know it. Martin! All right, folks. Folks, it's Seek.com, black-owned company led by founder Mary Spio. They have these great virtual reality headsets. It allows you to actually place your phone inside of here. You can watch their content at Seek.com. You can also watch 360-degree video as well. In addition to that, of course, they have their 4D 360-degree headphones.

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That's the promo code that you use. Go to seek.com. You can get the VR headset and or these music headsets. Use that promo code RMVIP2020 at seek.com, C-E-E-K.com. All right, folks, a report by the Senate Intelligence Committee totaling nearly 1,000 pages found that the Russian government launched an extensive campaign to try to sabotage the 2016 election to help Donald Trump become president, and that some

members of Trump's advisors were open to the help from an American adversary. But Donald Trump kept saying that this was a hoax. That's what he was saying. The report details that Paul Manafort was passed on information to a Russian intelligence officer. The report also states that when the the extra video came out of Donald Trump talking about grabbing a woman by her vagina. Is that what he said? They got a heads up on that video going out. The Roger Stone contacted WikiLeaks and see it drop emails from John Podesta, which came 30 minutes after the videotape came out. Now, of course, Donald Trump, he pardoned Roger Stone and Stone tried to say, well, no, he was never in contact with those Russians. Hmm. Kind of interesting. Uh, we're waiting to get Malcolm Nance on. Okay, here we go. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, Malcolm, how you doing, man? How you doing, man? Hi, how are you? All right. So, uh, Trump kept yelling hoax.

This is a report led by Senate Republicans. Richard Burr, North Carolina. Can't call this one a Democrat hit job. No, and let me tell you something that's interesting about how they formulated this. First off, this is a key component of the counterintelligence report that everyone had been talking about that was missing from the Mueller report. And when we use the word counterintelligence, I want you to understand what that means. The phrase counterintelligence means spy hunting.

It means that they are actually looking for links between American citizens or wherever their target is and foreign intelligence officers. This report, which you said the Republicans helped draft, signed off on, literally shows that Paul Manafort was carrying out his activities that he did in the Ukraine back in the early 2000s, in which he acted as an agent of a foreign government in order to attack the election to get Ukraine out of their attempt to go into NATO. Paul Manafort came in as a straight, dirty, strict operative. And this report really hints that Russia and the Trump campaign put him in that job, perhaps,

to do the same thing to the United States, to throw an election and put a pro Moscow puppet in there. So, again, all we've heard, hoax, hoax, hoax. And the report says that WikiLeaks dropped the emails after Roger Stone said, hey, we need your help.

Drop them. Yeah. Well, all I know is a lot of people owe me some apology because we've been on this for four years where I identified in my first book, Plot to Hack America, in September of 2016, six weeks before the election, that Paul Manafort would be the key player in what I called, you know, Donald Trump's dirty trick team, or I think I called them the Kremlin crew,

Mike Flynn, Paul Manafort, Roger Stone. And in my latest book, The Plot to Betray America, I have a whole chapter on Manafort and Stone and how they detail how they would set this up and why. And all of it turned out to be true. And the Republicans are still going to call this a hoax. In the appendix to this, they actually said that this proved there was no collusion. The entire report is a report on collusion with foreign intelligence agencies. And Manafort, an intelligence parlin, may actually have not been an asset. That would just be too easy. He may have been an actual paid agent of Moscow.

That's a traitor in most common parlance. And this is the same guy they let out now to serve out his three-year sentence at home and benefiting from all the money that he took from Ukraine and Moscow oligarchs. So it's absolutely a disgrace. Malik, they can't act like this was no big deal. This is a Republican-led report.

Yeah, well, you know, this is the beautiful trick about Republicans. They will just say it. They will come out in light of the facts and say, there's nothing here. This just proved what we already knew, what the Mueller report, no collusion, Donald Trump is innocent. All right? Don't believe you're lying, not. And that is part of the information operation Russia led them to. Russia also put into their mouth foreign intelligence officers, told them to blame Ukraine, right? Not to lie about WikiLeaks. Donald Trump apparently

lied to Congress and the Mueller report about his contacts with Roger Stone and WikiLeaks. Roger Stone was literally drafting tweets that were Russian propaganda in order to cover Russia and make a detente, as he used it, between Moscow and the United States. These people, if they lose this election, they're all going to go to prison again. Because now there's a completely different aspect to this story we're seeing, which is, were they spies for foreign power? Malik? And so one of the things that I heard Malcolm say, he said that perhaps that Manafort was put in this position perhaps to essentially aid, well, work against the United States. And I think you mentioned earlier when you first started that this is one of the documents that apparently

was missing from the Mueller report. What I want to know, or what my question is, and I'm sure many people out there are wondering, considering what Mueller had at his disposal, why was this not included in the, because it seems as if you're suggesting this is something that is definitely, if not criminal, definitely impeachable on the part of the administration. But considering how much leeway Mueller had, why is this not something that was included in his final report, if it's something that is so indicting. You know, about halfway through the Mueller investigation, I sort of became convinced that Robert Mueller's own sense of decency, his own sense that he was a straight shooter, he would play it with deference to the president of the United States and presidential power,

that that was the reason he was chosen. That's why there was no Republican opposition to him. They knew that when running up against something which would deface the presidency, he would pull his punches. And one of the punches that apparently he pulled, and I mean everyone screamed about it when the Mueller report came out, and I think the Mueller report itself gave us more than enough information

to impeach Donald Trump. But what was missing was what we referred to as the bridge, that key piece of data linking Donald Trump to Paul Manafort's activity. This showed Roger Stone and Paul Manafort, the two guys who ran a consulting company known as the Dictators Lobby, right? Their job was to get criminals off and to manifest criminal activities to make dictators stay in power. It was incumbent on Trump that Roger Stone and Paul Manafort shut up and that they don't say anything.

This part of the report for the Republicans, they can actually say, well, we went along with this. We determined this counterintelligence threat. We've got it out. It's nice and clear. But we're talking, what, a year after Donald Trump tried to fake and intimidate and extort a foreign power, Ukraine, to come along with a fake investigation of Joe Biden. And that, in turn, led them to start pushing this fake Russian intelligence trope that Ukraine actually hacked our election. That came straight from Vladimir Putin's mouth. He actually said that out loud once. It's a Russian intelligence trope, and literally every Republican today says that. I mean, it's insane.

Now these Hill Republicans may have gotten themselves some cover by putting this report out so that if they lose the election this year and they're in a minority, they can say that they went along with this and, you know, didn't join the treason caucus. Davon, question for Malcolm. No, I have a question. I'm not I'm really not the best person on the Russian piece, given how the United States disrupts democratically elected governments around the world. It's Russia doing a more mild version of what it did to Bolivia last year through the Organization of American States,

interrupting the election of Evo Morales, who's an opponent to American imperialism. So, you know, it just confirms what Russia is trying to do. They're trying to do a milder version of what the United States has been doing in its foreign policy for many decades. You know, I don't think that that kind of equivalency can be made here, considering that the United States, for all of its faults in the past, and yes, I'm an intelligence officer. I can tell you there's many documented cases where the United States tended to use its influence. All right. When this is all said and done, and I'm saying to you with all sincerity, and for the last four years, this is all every word we're saying here has been called a conspiracy

theory. But let me tell you something. If it worked this time, you may never have the right to say what you just said to me again. All right. If it worked this time, you may find out just how oppressed an African-American man can be on the street by the police. We are talking the end of the American experiment. So you know what? What little mischief that we may do by buying TV airtime in Bolivia or, you know, this isn't Mossadegh in Iran in 1952, right? This is the United States actually becoming under the sway of a foreign power where the leader himself is pushing this nation to dictatorship. And, you know, there's no equivalency here, because that means there will be no one standing by the leftover, even try to stop and correct the wrongs that we ourselves may have done. Kelly.

Well, short of voting Trump out, what what can we do? What can Congress do? Are there any any repercussions or solutions to such treason? Yeah, well, you know, the funny thing is that since we're not in actual war with Russia, the constitutional definition of treason, which, by the way, is the only crime listed in the Constitution in which the crime and the punishment is in there. Other than vote, that's the way that we rigged this game. That's the way that this thing is, right? This is one of those little things that I use when I talk to pro-Trumpers all the time.

Explain to me why you support treason. And the first thing they do is they default. They say Barack Obama spied on everybody. Look, all we have is the vote. And this is the one time where everyone down at your barbershop and everyone down, you know, the street who say there's there's no difference between the two parties. OK, these are the people who hate Black Lives Matter and are trying to designate it a terrorist group. We lose this election. They can and will be designated a terrorist group. So this is like Michelle Obama said last night, vote like your life depends on it.

Because I'm telling you, we're all African-Americans here and all of our people of color, sisters, brothers and sisters. Our entire political and personal existence is at stake this year. No joke. Malcolm Nance, national security expert. And we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Our pleasure. Folks, Proskar Rose, a law firm hired to investigate claims of sexual harassment against Essence magazine owner Richa Lou Dennis, has completed their investigation and concludes that all claims are not substantiated. In a statement, they said, quote, following anonymous accusations leveled in a June 28th blog post against Essence and its owner and chair, Richie Lou Dennis,

our company launched a comprehensive and independent review by the law firms Proskauer Rose and Morgan Lewis that included investigating claims of sexual harassment and other issues that may adversely impact workplace culture. This included outreach to the anonymous accusers and interviews with current and former employees. Today, we are providing an update on the review process and sharing the findings released by Proscar Rose, led by partner Keisha Ann Gray, concerning sexual harassment. The investigation concluded that these claims are not substantiated. There were no suggestions or allegations of any sexual harassment by Dennis from witnesses in any of the interviews, nor were there ever any formal or informal complaints made to the company,

despite Essence engaging outside HR consultants and internal professionals unrelated to Dennis during the entire tenure of Dennis's ownership with whom complaints could be filed. Essence takes these matters seriously and maintains a policy against sexual harassment, actively enforcing such policies, and remains committed to ensuring a workplace free of sexual harassment. We're awaiting the conclusion of the Morgan Lewis review related to workplace culture and will provide a subsequent update once those findings are available. Essence look forward to the results as we continue to advance our mission of elevating and empowering black women and communities both in and out of the workplace. Kelly, I want to start with you. According to this, this is an outside firm

led by black female lawyers. They said they talked to the folks who made the allegations and there's no evidence. What does that say about anonymous? And I'm going to pull up in a second, an anonymous letter being written, posted, going public, picked up by numerous media folks and no meat. I think that just because it's not substantiated by whatever measures they take to make sure that something is valid, I don't think that means that what they claimed didn't happen. it rise to, you know, criminal activity? Does it rise to, to, you know, charges being filed? If that is, if that is the threshold, then that's one thing. But to say that, that wasn't the threshold, what they're saying isn't true. I'm not one to, I can't, I can't, you know, I can't not believe that. Like, I don't see the incentive to do so. I don't see the payoff in doing that, anonymous or not. Like, it's just a tricky situation.

Like, I want to believe that what they were saying is true because it takes a lot of courage, anonymous or not, to put yourself out there and speak your truth. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I gotta ask you. If you say there was sexual harassment and a person had affairs and then it's

investigated and they can't find any proof that it happened, then what are you saying that, well, it still may have happened? I'm saying that we're dealing with a lot of powerful people and powerful people can erase things. Powerful people can pay off other people before the investigation even happens. That happens every day. Cover-ups happen every day. So to say that these women are lying by way of an investigation of powerful people, I'm not one to sway that in that direction yet. Now, what the repercussions are for these

unsubstantiated claims, I don't know. That's beyond the pale of what I think and my opinion. So allow me to read this here. I just want to read this here. It said on July 22nd, 2020, and look, we covered this story. So my deal is we covered the allegations, so therefore we'll cover this. July 22nd, 2020, we, the reviewers investigators, contacted BFA by direct message on Instagram from the username Essence Review at their username Take Back Essence. We chose to contact BFA through this method because it is the method in which BFA had solicited information related to their allegations from the public. In the direct message, we notified BFA of the independent review as follows. Hello, my name is Keisha Ann Gray and I'm a partner from the law firm Prospero Rose LLP. I'm leading an independent review regarding claims made by black female anonymous of sexual

harassment at Essence. If you have any information, hold up one second, any information regarding the, regarding these claims, please contact me. They said BFA publicly stated that they are monitoring the internal investigation on Instagram. However, no one from BFA responded to our direct message requesting information about the sexual harassment claims. BFA also did not respond to our request for information or contact us on the Essence Review at Prosky or email address or otherwise. Notwithstanding not having received any response to our request for information from current employees or BFA, we identified 17 individuals who we assessed were likely to have information helpful to our review, given, among other things, their positions and tenure at Sundial and our Essence and the frequency of their interaction with Richelieu. We conducted 16 conducted 16 face to face witness reviews and one telephone interview by WebEx of these individuals. So, again, if if someone makes allegations and you want changes, shouldn't something be provided that backs up the allegations?

So there's proof that what you say actually happened happened and if and nobody and if nobody presents any well then you just have an allegation sitting out there with no nothing to back it up i i i understand that but what i'm also reading from what you just presented is like i don't see what exactly these women said and again I don't know what their criteria was for their claims to be substantiated. So if you have, like, I'm thinking back to the Supreme Court case, well, not the Supreme Court, not trial, but when they were looking at the newest justice and the woman came up there to testify, they picked her apart. They picked her apart. And what I'm saying is some people believed her, some people didn't. And the threshold of belief was based off of their own morals and values. So what I'm saying is,

in this particular document, I don't know what the threshold was. This is what they say. The claims to be substantiated. Well, this is this is what they said in the Medium Post, Malik. They are, according to Richelieu Dennis, Michelle E. Banks, Joy Collins, Prophet Mona Lou, quote, they are systematically suppressed by pay inequity, sexual harassment, corporate bullying, intimidation and colorism and classism. And then they said in this open letter, Richie Lou Dennis acquired Essence in 2018. His surface level commitment to black women is driven by greed and a debaucherous sexual appetite. He has a history of sleeping with women on the sundial staff. And for the women who don't seemingly consent, he openly sexually harasses them at private company events. And that was that was one of the allegations.

And so this is where the idea of believing all women and women deserving women deserving to be heard just collide. In this case, there was an investigation. We've seen many instances before, and I agree with Kelly, people in power can do whatever. They can do a whole lot of things. But when it comes to something like an investigation, so whether it's the allegations against Lieutenant Governor Fairfax in Virginia, whether it's the allegations against Kavanaugh, whether it's the allegations that we're talking about here, when these things are actually looked into or investigated, we can't come out, well, we shouldn't come out of it saying that we still should believe women.

Because at some point, we have to say that there was an investigation. There are elements of the investigations on any issue that people will have a problem with, but when you have a finished work product, and I believe you said, Roland, in this case, that this is an independent entity that did the investigation. So if the independent entity did the investigation and didn't come back connecting the dots, then who do we believe, the independent investigation or those who have made the allegations? Again, they deserve to be heard, but they don't necessarily deserve to be believed because they're women making accusations against

a man or if it was reversed and a man was making accusations against a woman. They don't deserve to be believed. They deserve to be heard. And it seems as if in this case, they were not just heard, but the claims were investigated and they didn't come back with what we otherwise would have led to have been believed would have been true. Davon, weigh in, please. You know, I think it's unfortunate that the issue of sexual assault and sexual violence in the past several years has been politicized in a way. And when I say politicized, I'm not saying those who are

trying to address the issue of rape culture and sexual assault. But the way that the media culture generally has politicized it has taken it away from what I think, when I talk to people who are practitioners, you know, on the ground where a lot of really terrible and violent things happen, you know, folks who, you know, are in poverty, you know what I'm saying, who live in communities where a lot of really terrible and violent things happen. Folks who are in poverty, who live in communities that don't have access to justice, from whom are most directly impacted by issues of sexual violence or sexual assault. So on this issue, because of the politicization, it is difficult. As you mentioned, these are anonymous accusations. And so we also live in a society where there is a way in which, and two things can be true,

that there are ways in which Black men have engaged in acts of sexual violence towards Black women. And we live in a society and culture that characterizes black men as inherently brutish and prone to sex and prone to sexual acts of violence. And so I just think it's complicated. And I think there aren't any really straight answers to these kinds of matters. There's no real way to resolve, you know, matters like this. And it just, and it just, it's just bad that these kinds of situations are adjudicated in such a highly visible political context where there's money and resources on the line without the really the kind of infrastructures that I think our community needs to adjudicate these kinds of issues before they become things that, you know, have to hit social media. And so I went to the Take Back Essence Instagram page and they have not responded to this review, which came out 48 hours ago. The last post they made was one on July 2nd. So if they respond, we certainly will have that. Folks, final story here. That is finally some news in the case of Jam Master Jay of Run DMC, who was gunned down 18 years ago.

A federal grand jury has indicted two men in this long unsolved murder. It took place in 2002. Jam Master Jay, whose real name was Jason Mizell, was fatally shot in the head at a recording studio in the Queens neighborhood of Jamaica when he was 37. The U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York unsealed a criminal complaint alleging that Carl Jordan Jr. and Ronald Washington conspired to kill Jam Master Jay in retaliation for a drug dispute. Also, folks, the judges ordered Tavis Smiley to pay the public broadcasting system $2.6 million for having multiple affairs with his subordinates and violating clauses of his contract with PBS. In March, a D.C. jury, federal jury, found that Smiley had breached the morals clause in that contract. The jurors heard testimonies from the six women who accused Smiley of having affairs at being employed with them.

The $2.6 million award to PBS includes $1.9 million in liquidated damages. PBS paid that amount to Smiley's company, TS Media, for the show's last two seasons. And an additional $702,898 was awarded due to corporate underwriters having paid Smiley's company for those seasons. All right, folks, that is it for us. We certainly appreciate it. Bellick, Kelly, and Davon, thank you so very much. Folks, don't forget to

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