#RolandMartinUnfiltered - VA Our Voices Our Vote Town Hall & LA Black Voting Crisis

Episode Date: October 17, 2023

10.16.2023 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: VA Our Voices Our Vote Town Hall,  LA Black Voting Crisis, Interview/w VA Dem Joshua Cole Candidate  Roland is in Fredericksburg, Virginia, for a special edition of Roland Martin Unfiltered "Our Voices, Our Vote" Town Hall powered by Virginia House Democrats and the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus. Tonight, Roland will be talking about the importance of voting.  It was the lowest voter turnout for a Louisiana governor's election in about a dozen years.  Roland will examine how the Democratic Party's failure made it easy for a MAGA Republican to win the governor's mansion.  Roland will also talk to Joshua Cole, Democratic Candidate for Virginia's 65th House District.   It's Time to Bring the Funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered streaming live on the Black Star Network.  Let's go. Download the Black Star Network app at http://www.blackstarnetwork.com! We're on iOS, AppleTV, Android, AndroidTV, Roku, FireTV, XBox and SamsungTV. The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Pre-game to greater them. Let's put ourselves in the right position, pregame to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org, brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. Today is Monday, October 16th, 2023. Coming up on Roller Park Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. We are here in Fredensburg, Virginia at the Zion Church focused on the elections here in Virginia. Today is the last day to register to vote and the black vote is going to be critically important if Democrats retake the House and of course that would mean the election the first black speaker in Virginia's history. So we'll talk to candidates and officials here about what is being done to really rally African-American voters in this state.

We'll also talk about Louisiana, where there was a porous turnout of black voters there. Louisiana Democratic Party did a horrible job when it comes to their candidates. We'll break down exactly what happens in the second most populous state in the country for African-Americans, what is happening and what is needed to turn voters there out. So we'll talk about all of that right here. I'm Roland Martin-Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Let's go. All right, folks. We're here at the Zion Church in Fredericksburg, Virginia, the third of our five town halls we're doing across Virginia,

focusing on the election taking place next month. Today is the last day to register to vote in Virginia. And, of course, you can, they've got the provisional ballot stuff, but we don't focus on that because we already know how that drama goes when it comes to counting provisional ballots. And we want all votes to actually count. And we were making the point about how critically important, obviously, voting is. But when it speaks to our issues, when we talk about Louisiana, the next hour will lay exactly out, laid on exactly what happened there. Awful, awful turnout there, where many people were expecting there to be a runoff. But in fact, MAGA Attorney General Jeff Landry actually won it outright.

And some of the things that he tried to do as Attorney General he certainly will do as Governor and none of those bode well for African Americans. But here in Virginia you've got Glenn Youngkin, Republican Governor, which we have Democrats in control of the Senate and if they're able to flip several House seats then they will be electing their first Black Speaker of the House in Democratic minority leader Don Scott. That is a huge, huge deal leading into the 2024 presidential election. So we want to get things started right now with a variety of folks here. But first off is Sharnell Herring.

She joins us right now. How are you doing? I'm good. Thank you for having me. Good to see you. Good to see you. Good to see you. You are chair of the Virginia House Democratic Caucus. And so let's walk through this because the recurring theme we're going to be talking about tonight is, again, the power of our vote. And I think for a lot of people, they say, well, you know what, African-Americans, we hear this all the time, we only make up 20% of the state.

But that is a huge voting block if used properly. That's absolutely correct. And what NAGA Republicans are counting on is that minority groups won't turn out to vote. I've heard them say, you know what, this is an off-off-year election, so, you know, in likelihood, we're going to win. This is our opportunity to make our voices heard. We have better voting laws thanks to Virginia Democrats, but they are at stake. They are at stake, and we've got to make sure that we're turning out our voters. And that means thank you for being here to spread the word.

But it also means that everyone's listening to this program, please tell your loved ones, especially if they're in Virginia, they need to go vote. Remind them that they have to vote. Well, reminding folks to vote and pushing that is one thing, but what are they voting for? They're voting for progress, and they're voting to continue to turn the clock forward and not backward.

We have seen the Virginia legislature for the past two years under the Youngkin governorship attempts to roll back the progress we made with abortion rights. Virginia is now the only state in the South where the Roe v. Wade construct is in place to make sure that there are no non-evidence-based restrictions. We have moved the map when it comes to maternal health to making sure that we're looking at black maternal health because that is at stake in this election. We have moved what's also at stake is our public schools. We've seen attempts to cut our funding as well as to provide tax breaks for corporations. So we've got a lot of work to do, but turning out to vote means, for me and for many people, it's about our voice and our right to vote. Because all the other things that we talk about, it's not going to make a difference if we don't show up and vote and make sure that we have individuals who represent our

values at the table, in the seats, and that state legislature. Reproductive rights is a huge issue. We saw it take place in the 2020 election. But we look at the data, we look at what we're hearing from black voters all across this country, they want to hear more than that. They want to hear about economic opportunities. They want to hear about opportunities for black-owned businesses. They want to actually hear about education, funding for HBCUs. And so make the case that if Democrats control the House, that those things will actually happen. I can make the case that we are the only party that has started the course to make things happen.

And they can happen, but it takes people to turn out and vote. And I would say that look at our records. Look at our records when it comes to funding our HBCUs. Look at our records of what party actually fought to make sure the HBCUs are properly funded. And we've still got more work to do, absolutely. But look at our records when it comes to education, our children's education, where most of our children, black children,

go to public schools, most do. And we want to make sure that we have the best talent and the best teachers in those schools and making sure that they have safe schools to go to. So just take a look at the record for Democrats versus MAGA Republicans and you'll see we are more likely to deliver on the issues that are important to our community. What are we seeing right now in terms of African Americans taking advantage of state contracts and businesses? How does Virginia look in that area? We've got a lot of work to do.

I have talked to individual contractors where they will go to Maryland and said that there are better opportunities there. We've got work to do, and I will tell you, though, the clock has sort of stalled on that. We made progress. We had a study done. We were starting to make progress under the last governor, Governor Northam, and then we stalled. So that's why, again, this election is important, because if the governor gets both chambers, the House and the Senate, we were not going to see any progress. And in fact, his appointed officer went to a university here in Virginia and said and pronounced diversity, equity,

inclusion is dead. So that's what we're talking about. You can either trust them or trust us with our record. And when you say the study, you're talking about the disparity study. That's correct. Yes. Gotcha. And again, because one of the things that especially young voters, because that's that's a huge issue there.

If you look at the numbers there, African-Americans who are 65 plus 55 plus significantly identified as Democratic voters. When you go below 55, that never begins to drop off. It is a huge drop off between 18 and 49. And so what are you saying to those younger voters? And we look at those exact same numbers. Those folks who are 50 plus, they are far more likely to vote than folks who are 18, 49. What are you saying to them to get them energized to say if this actually matters, why they need to actually come out and vote in this election? I would point them to the issues and the issues that they care about.

That age group that you mentioned, the younger voters, are concerned about the environment. They're concerned about affordability of things like food on their table for their young families. They're concerned about their public schools. And so I would say to them, we value you, we value your future, and we need you to come out and vote. Because if we don't make it, we're not going to be able to help you. We're not as effective. And Roland, I've been there when we were at 32, and we were helpless. We couldn't even override a governor's veto. And I've seen us grow, and I've seen the progress that we made when we got to the majority. But, and we do depend, and I will, I would say though, that younger voters tend to identify more with the Democratic

agenda. Yeah, I mean they don't self-identify but when they vote, they're more likely to vote Democrat but they're also more likely not to vote. So the issue is not necessarily how do they lean, the issue is how do you get them to actually turn out. We saw an increase in the 2020 election. Folks talked about the importance of younger voters, but the reality is if millennials and Gen Z, if they actually vote their numbers, and I hear it all the time when I go to college campuses, they complain about baby boomers. They complain about older voters. And I always say, yeah, but they show up. You don't.

And so the reality is those who show up are the ones who folks actually pay attention to. And so candidates also and parties have to figure out how to engage those individuals to get them to actually come out in both their numbers. No, absolutely. And we have college programs, and I just have to say, thank all of our college Democrats for spreading our words, spreading the message, and being part of this process. And it is the younger, I will tell you, also in our chamber and as well as our candidates, we have a lot of young candidates running this year.

And so I'm just hopeful, and we'll continue to work together to make them turn out. Again, I want to go back to when we talk about turning out African-American voters. What are the critical areas in this state in terms of where do you need to see significant black turnout in order to win back the House? What are the areas of the state? Well, it would be the Hampton Roads region. That's a critical area we're playing in. Northern Virginia, we do have a few competitive

races up there as well that we need African American voters to turn out. But I don't want to neglect any part of the Commonwealth we have a competitive race out in the West too. So we need everyone turning out. And again, the goal is is the more people that vote, honestly,

the better chance that we have of regaining the House. All right, then. Well, Sharnell, we certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Thank you. And look forward to seeing what happens over the next few weeks. Thank you so much. All right, Thanks a bunch.

Right now, I want to talk about a couple of things. One, we're going to be joined by several folks. Gary Flowers, who's host of the Gary Flowers Show. He's going to be joining us. Looking forward to having him here. As I said, we're going to talk about also what has been happening in Louisiana. And the reason why all this is important, because when I look at elections, when I look at what is happening around this country, in many ways, these things are connected. You can look at different elections to get a sense of where people are. And the reality is there was a lot of, there was a whole lot of apathy, if you

will, that we saw in Louisiana, a lot of apathy there. And what we're also seeing again, is you look at declining numbers. And so if you look at the last five or so elections, obviously you had significant black turnout in 2008 with the election of President Barack Obama. Then you saw, of course, a huge drop off in 2010 with the midterm elections. You saw folks come back out in 2012. But then you saw in 14, 16, 18 and 20 and then 2022, you saw declining numbers. And one of the things that we have consistently made clear to folks that you have to understand what those numbers look like, what those numbers are, and understand how they are impacting elections. And so a lot of people just have this assumption that all things are going

fine. But even if you look at 2022, that was a big drop-off of black voters in Florida and South Carolina and many of those places. And we often talk about Georgia, but folks don't realize Georgia is in many ways an anomaly when you talk about what's happening in southern states because they really had an active campaign where they had a third-party group that really focused on really mobilizing and organizing that state. And I think one of the biggest issues that we continue to see is this inability to actually mobilize and organize outside of parties. And so we're going to talk about that in just a moment as well. Again, what is happening when you're not able to mobilize outside of these parties.

Folks in the control room, let me know if y'all got your video playback. Also, I need to see monitor here. And so we're going to deal with that. And what really still is a concern for me is that we are not maximizing our numbers. So when I said I want Ambassador Andrew Young, when he ran for Congress in 1972, more than 70% of African Americans turned out to vote. When Harold Washington was elected mayor of Chicago in 1983, 85% of all eligible black voters voted.

Without that number, he doesn't become the first black mayor of Chicago. Yet when you begin to look at what is happening all across this country, what we're seeing in many of these places, we literally are seeing 30, 35, and 40%. If we hit 45% in some places, that's considered a miracle. So what I need folks here to understand is if you really begin to look at the numbers, if we focus

on turning out anywhere from 60 to 70% of our vote, we literally can win elections statewide. Literally win. So even in a state like Virginia, where you have 20% African Americans, if we are voting at that 60, 65, 70% clip in statewide offices,

we're controlling who wins. And so the problem is I think we're sort of looking at this thing, I believe, in the wrong way. There were some people who were a little upset with me. They said, oh, I was blaming black folks in Louisiana for not voting. And they're like, oh, but candidate X didn't come here, didn't come there. And then I love hearing people say, well, it's not enough to say how bad the other person is going to be.

To me, that's about the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. Because, and let me be clear, I understand any candidate should be saying what I'm going to do for you. But I'm also aware of what someone is not going to do for you. But I also aware of what someone is not going to do for me and how are they going to make my life even more difficult and even more terrible. And we actually see that based upon who these folks are right now. They are deciding who is going to be a speaker in, is going to be a in Washington, D.C. Everybody in Washington, D.C. knows, even the people in Ohio know, that Jim Jordan is one of the most evil individuals ever. And I know the Republican, they got these...

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barriers at taylorpapersceiling.org brought to you by opportunity at work and the ad council trackers here uh in virginia coming to all the town halls. And so I speak to the trackers every time we do one of these. And so I want y'all to write it down. I'll say it slowly because y'all sitting here. Jim Jordan is one of the most evil people in all of America. I'm real clear. And again, understand how does a Jim Jordan get into power based upon how we voted in the 2022 midterms? And so when the folks didn't vote in certain races, then we see who won, and all of a sudden, house flips. And so then we talk about power. You've got 58 members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

If they are in the majority, they are chairing committees. They're chairing subcommittees, they're in control of power. And so you bring this to Virginia, all of a sudden, if Democrats are in control of the Virginia House, you will have this year after the election, the largest number of African Americans in the Virginia House in Virginia history. Which means you will have an African American Speaker of the House, you have an African American woman who's controlling the money in the Senate, you have African Americans who are controlling committees, and so that's understanding power.

And so all of us have to make sure that we're connecting these dots, if you will, when we are communicating with our family members, friends, fraternity brothers and sorority sisters, because too many people really aren't quite understanding how all of these things are interrelated. I want to bring up right now a brother who is running the Democratic candidate for Virginia's sixth House district, Joshua Cole. Come on up. Joshua, how you doing? Well, thank you. Good evening. There you go. So I saw you nod your head over there on a couple of those things. Absolutely. I think you

were speaking truth to power. And I currently teach for the James Farmer Scholars Program here in the city of Fredericksburg. And our first class, the James Farmer Scholars Program here in the city of Fredericksburg. And our first class, I had a group of young women, and I told them, I said, when we get out and we vote, take a look at who's in control of Virginia right now. We have Lily Louise Lucas, L. Louise Lucas, who's currently the president pro temp of the Senate in Virginia. Even though we have a Republican, it's still a black woman who is the lieutenant governor of Virginia presiding over the Senate. And we're about to make sure that Don Scott becomes the first Southern black speaker in the entire United States. And so that's absolutely true what you

said. That means the money comes through black hands. That means all the committees come through black hands. And that's what gives us power. And that's why it's important for a lot of Dottie and everybody to show up to see I don't go ahead go ahead I make this perfectly clear and some people get upset with me when I do that but they'll get over it I am not particularly concerned when somebody who looks like like us if they're not for us. And so, again, for the tracker, I don't care if a lieutenant governor is a black woman. She is not advocating policies on behalf of black people. Absolutely. And so, and again, the hardest thing is to get people to understand how we have to connect the dots. Because I think a lot of people just don't understand, really, the basic roles of different people.

Who's the state rep, who's the state senator, who's county, who's city, who's school board. And not understanding that when you have folks in those positions who have our community's best interests at heart, then we begin to see the kind of return on our investment that we expect. Absolutely. And I think it's key that, as you stated, we have to, one, understand who's at every single level. And right here in Stafford County, we are running an election, when you want to talk

about the power of black people, every single state candidate for the House of Delegates running in Stafford County is African American. Delegate Candy King, myself, and Bishop Leonard Lacey. So that means for the entire of Stafford County, which links up as one of the 10th most powerful counties for black wealth, all three state house candidates are African American. We also have to understand that it's determined in the courts when we get elected to the House of Delegates, we are the ones who pick and appoint the judges to be on the bench who determine when our brothers and our sisters get certain, you know, judgments. It's also

imperative that we know who's running for Commonwealth attorney here in Virginia, who's running for sheriff, who's running for school board, and then we have to get behind them. We see the education system in Virginia is coming direct attack by this Youngkin administration. First of all, our governor lost $201 million by mistake and said, I don't know how I lost that education money, but y'all figure it out until I can find it. Then they are directly attacking our education by stating, we're going to take Martin Luther King out of the curriculum. We're going to remove going to take Martin Luther King out of the curriculum. We're going to remove the I have a dream speech out of the curriculum. Oh, and by the way, y'all can't even read Toni Morrison.

And so we have to make sure that we are involved at every single level from the dog catcher all the way up to the president. I want to stay on that point about in terms of what's happening in education. And I've been yelling from the rooftops for years that so many of us overlook school board races. We saw in 2022, and it really before that, where after the 2020 election, folks like Steve Bannon and others were saying, we're going to take over school boards. And they began to attack critical race theory. They began to turn that into something that actually it wasn't, but they were all lying about it. You had people who were running their school boards in Virginia yelling, you're teaching CRT. And superintendents were like, no, we're not.

That's not even taught, even in undergraduate and college taught really on a graduate level. But we knew exactly what that was. They were pressing the buttons of white fear. And that's what was going on there. But we saw too many people who were falling asleep. So what happened? Moms for Liberty took over a slew of school boards all across the South and immediately began firing superintendents,

began targeting teachers, targeting curriculum, targeting with books and libraries. And we saw in one particular state, they were so angry with the school board, with the librarian, they literally defunded the library so the library can go out of business. And so that's the type of folks that we're seeing. And that's the type of person you're actually running against. Absolutely. What you're talking about happened right here in Spotsylvania County just a couple of months ago when the Republicans took control of the Spotsylvania school board. They fired a well-beloved superintendent and then the MAGA Republican chair hired his best friend.

But this is what was so crazy about that higher enrolling. That person had never been to public school. His kids never went to public school. This is the most crazy part. His own daughter wrote a letter to the school board asking them not to hire her father. And he still got hired. They had to go through some hoops and governor Yunkin approved them. He got approved to be the superintendent. And the first thing he did, remember when I told you about that $201 million that the governor lost? The first thing that superintendent did, he said, let's fire all librarians. Let's get rid of governor school. Let's get rid of international baccalaureate programs.

And let's get rid of all paraprofessionals. Now, this is one time I'm going to agree with the Republicans. The Republicans on the school board stopped them as their majority. But we are seeing that as we have candidates who are running for the House of Delegates, instead of speaking truth to power and talking about the issues, they're taking all these money from these Republican elected officials and then they're being utilized as puppets. If you don't agree with banning books, then say you don't agree. Don't hide behind the people who are endorsing you and not saying anything. If you think that our history needs to be taught, don't hide behind the people who are endorsing you and paying you and speak up and talk about it. If you are tired of our

schools being defunded and money being taken away from our schools, don't hide behind the people who are endorsing you and funding you and speak up and talk about it. See, the thing that really concerns me, again, is that if they get power, they want to control the purse strings. They want to control the curriculum. And so now, all of a sudden, we're even seeing in my home state of Texas, where they're now trying to attack tenure on a college level. They claim that, oh, we're getting rid of this indoctrination. But really what they're trying to do is install a hard right wing, fact free indoctrination of our children and even folks who are working in these areas. Absolutely. When I served in the House of Delegates, I was on the House Education Committee and specifically the Higher Ed Committee.

And what we have to make sure is that we are protecting, one, the ability for students to explore and to think, not control how they think. And I think what the problem is is when these people and their beliefs are challenged, then they believe that people are being indoctrinated. No, we are encouraging our students to grow, think, and challenge the norms,

and there's nothing wrong with that. But furthermore, we have seen that public education, whether it be the community college, the college, or the public school, has been attacked by the Republicans for centuries. And it's now catching up to us where they have now been able to amass enough support to take money from our public schools. And now they're telling you, well, this is why you need to have a charter school. This is why you need to have a coupon to go take your kids to a private school. But baby, let me help you out. If your student is having problems in a school that the public, the private, the politicians have

already taken money from. If you take more money from those schools and go to a private school, which is not regulated by the state, you are only moving the problem and you're not addressing the problem. But the other thing is this here, and this is, and I have no problem saying it, I have always been an ardent supporter of charters, but I want us to control them. Let me be perfectly clear. I want us to control them completely. The problem that, like even right now in Texas, they've called a special session over a voucher bill.

It's actually a scam. As somebody who supports school choice, who has an initiative called School Choice is the Black Choice, I know what is happening in Texas is a scam. Because what their goal is, and this is the thing people don't understand, and I love when people say this, oh, we want to make it open and they can go to private schools.

You only have a certain number of seats. I've always argued that if you're going to provide a voucher program, it should go to the worst of the worst. What are the academic numbers? Oh, no, no, I'm not talking about trying to see a suburban child who their parents can't afford to go to the private school, and they want to use that voucher to do so. No, no, no.

Make it available for that low-income child who has no future, who has been going to, frankly, a failing school for 20 years. They don't actually want to support that. So that's really what happens there. And we've seen that here in Virginia. The governor talked about the voucher program, and then a report came out and showed that he was supporting wealthy families more than those who were actually in need. Right, and so that's when, for me, as somebody who supports it,

I like to expose those individuals because they are not, they don't actually care about the poorest of the poor. They don't care about those kids who are not going to properly funded schools. We know exactly what that scam is. You served in the General Assembly, lost in 2021. So for the folks who, again, who do not understand of the role and the power of state rep, explaining to them really what that is about and why it matters who is representing you there in that body. Absolutely. I think going back to what I mentioned earlier about appointing

judges on the bench, when I was in the House of Delegates, we appointed the youngest African American male to serve in the 15th Judicial District. That's right here in Fredericksburg, Stafford, and Spotsylvania. And then the next year, we came around and appointed Judge Jane Reynolds, the first African-American female, to serve on the bench in the 15th District. And so that means when our brothers and our sisters and our kids go to court and they're encountering situations and circumstances, we now have at least two judges, three judges on the bench who can live through lived experience eyes and say, you know what, I'm going to send you to community service, but you come back to me, then I'm going to send you to juvie.

We now have the opportunity to give people second chances and the option not to mess up their life because of a mistake. We also look at what happened in the education committee. I was chair. I didn't share. Excuse me. I participated in a board that helps do research we going to do scholarships for black people who want to be teachers and make sure they can get full school rides? What are we doing for black and minority swam, small women and minority owned businesses to make sure that they're giving the first opportunity? What are we doing about this now that we have legalized marijuana and we're moving towards the industrial industry part of it? How are we going to make sure that black owned businesses are right there in the front line instead of Philip Morris and Altria? Those are the type of discussions we were having when the Democrats and the African Americans were leading these committees.

Now, mind you, now that the Republicans have control of the House of Delegates, they only have one elected Republican and he doesn't chair anything. Well, that's a big difference. That's a difference. This you're now in the final days. And what do you believe in terms of you look at the last election numbers? What do you what do you what do you believe you're going to need to win? Absolutely.

As we're looking at numbers, one, the last district I ran in, the 28th House District, was a Republican gerrymandered district. So when I won in 2019, it was a miracle. I shouldn't have been elected in the first place as a nappy-headed black boy from Stafford County. But now we're running in a brand new district with slightly lean Democrat that has not been gerrymandered. But what's more important is with this district being about roughly 18 to 20 percent black, the same thing as our state, it's an amalgam. It's a little microcosm of the Commonwealth of Virginia. We need Lottie Dottie and everybody to show up. And we need to make sure that people understand this race is about our freedoms. But I heard someone say the other night that for people who felt like they never had freedom, for people who felt like the system never worked for them in the first place,

it's going to be even harder to convince them to show up to vote. And this is what I've been encouraging people as I've been talking on the doors. You look at me, and if you feel like I look like you, I'm going to fight for you. If you look at me and you hear how I'm talking, I'm carrying the issues that you are concerned about the most. We're talking about schools. We're talking about traffic. I don't know which way you came if you had to deal with traffic coming down here, but I got friends that I was asleep. So I have friends that come

through here. Sean was dealing with traffic. I was asleep. And they tell it. That's why I pay him to drive. They're like, I don't like coming to Fredericksburg because their traffic is possessed. We can have an opportunity to invest in a regional transportation authority that will keep our funds right here. We have the opportunity to invest to make sure that there are businesses that are bringing good paying jobs so that the people

who commute up and down to D.C. every single day will be able to work here and spend more time with their children and make it to their football games. This is what this is all about. Hold tight one second. I'm going to go to break. We come back. We're going to take some of the questions folks here. I'm sure they got some questions for you. So we'll do that.

Also a little bit later, we'll be chatting with my man, Gary Flowers, radio talks, your host talk about politics here in Virginia. And we'll also we'll have some guests who are joining us from Louisiana talking about what happened there this weekend as well. Folks, we're here at Zion Church in Fredericksburg. And so glad to be here for our third town hall here in Virginia. And so we look forward to coming right back. You're watching Roller Mark Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. work. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1,

Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English.

I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King,

John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Sh Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter

and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. podcast.

I always had to be so good, no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes

rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersilling.org, brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. Thank you. All right, folks, welcome back to Roland Martin on the filter on the Black Star Network here at Zion Church in Fredericksburg. Glad to be here. So we're going to do this here. We've got Joshua Cole here taking who's's of course running in the 6th District. So we're going to take some questions. And so who got some questions for the candidate? What you got? Anybody? Don't be scared. Alright, step on up. Actually, I'm going to come down. I'll come down.

So we got some rules. So first of all, I don't need you touching the microphone. I got it. I don't need you touching the microphone. I got it. I don't need no help. Come on. Come on up. Step up right here. All right, cool. What's your name?

What's your question? My name is Sharon Bethune, and I do represent the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union of representative federal employees. We were talking about education. And one of the things that I do know is that the Virginia lottery designates so many millions of dollars every year to K-12 public schools. FY 2023, $867 million went to public schools.

Stafford County received $16,234,899 to go towards 34 schools here in Stafford. What is going on? I had the experience of watching a teacher in line. She was brought to tears because she was in there buying supplies for her students. And her husband told her that they could no longer afford for her to be a teacher. Because too much of her money was going back to the classroom. But yet we hear about the Virginia lottery giving us so many millions of dollars. Where is that money going and why isn't there more oversight?

All right. Appreciate it. Thank you for that question. What I think is very key to understand how this partnership works between the state, the federal, and this local government. And we have seen time and time again, especially if we're talking about Stafford County Public Schools, where I live and my kids go to school, we are seeing where there is like, and for lack of better explanation, a divorce between the school board and the board of supervisors. And there will be a fight between the two. Well, if you don't do this, we're not going to give you that money. And so we get the money. We do what we're supposed to do on a state level. We send it down to the

local level. And then the sad reality is sometimes the local level, the local government, the board of supervisors or the city council will hold certain funds. But more importantly, there's also a lack of complete funding because the local governments have to come up with the rest of the funding. So we send money, but the local governments have to come up with the rest of the funding. And if you have these localities who are cutting taxes and not raising taxes to make sure that they can fund these schools, that's where the major problem is. So we have to make sure we have the right people on the board of supervisors, the city council, and the school board to work together so that money goes where it needs to go. See, that's one of the things that I think a lot of people, it's always interesting to me. Look, I'll cover city government in Fort Worth, I've covered county government in Austin, and then, of course, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, and here as well. And what a lot of people don't understand is that when candidates run,

and then they say, I'm going to cut taxes, one of the things that people don't do is first ask the question, how is stuff being paid for? And the reality is, so for me in Texas, we don't have a state income tax, but you will have hospital district, school district, you have property taxes. And so when people love to say, hey, cut taxes, but then when you cut taxes, you're decreasing revenue as coming into government. Then all of a sudden, people start making cuts to government and they go, why are you making cuts? Well, it's real simple. Decreased revenue, you got to sit here and actually cut something. And that's just one of the things that I think a lot of folks aren't really putting together when we start talking about how government is actually funded. Obviously, people want to keep as much money as

they can, but they also want potholes to be filled. They also want certain things that government provide, and that's literally what government provides. I don't have children, but I understand the importance of a school district, because if you actually own a business, you want to make sure that kids are being taught, because you're going to be employing individuals if they're staying home. And so I think a lot of people really don't connect those dots and we're talking about when we hear candidates say, I'm going to cut your taxes, well you better start asking what else are you going to cut when you cut taxes.

Questions? Who else we got? We got one question here. Come on up. Step on up. Alright. What's your question? All right. What's your question? My question is concerning veterans. I'm Hashmel Turner, and I'm a former Vietnam veteran, former city councilman here in the city of Fredericksburg. We are concerned about homelessness for our veterans, unable to get the proper medical treatment that they deserve. They've laid their lives on the line for us so that we could even have this town hall meeting tonight.

And yet when they come back home, they are treated like they're expendable. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. First, Reverend Turner, we appreciate your service both to our country and to our community. And we thank you for being an amazing staple right here. In 2020, I carried a piece of legislation that would have stopped retired military pay taxing. And so we had a discussion again, going back to what you said, you stopped the taxing. What is that going to cover? And so we had a discussion that something absolutely has to be done to protect our veterans, to honor our veterans. But that bill was not passed. We continue to move on.

I'm going to continue to have that discussion and to carry that bill. We're also excited about the new VA hospital that's coming right here to Spotsylvania County, which is going to bring many jobs to the area and stop people from having to drive all the way down to mcguire and richmond are up the road and so and so we're excited about that but most importantly we know right here in fredericksburg housing is a major issue and so i have been making it a prime part of our campaign to address affordable housing talking with developers to making sure that when we put these housing in play, it's not Section 8 housing or low-income housing. It's workforce housing, maybe even veterans housing, so that you have a nice place to live and that you don't have to come out of the wazoo to pay and live.

And those are things that are definitely on our list that we have to address. All right. All right, question back here. Yeah, come on. Watch the camera. Don't want you to trip. We ain't suing nobody. All right, what's your question? Many of the opposing candidates in Stafford County are accusing all of our candidates that are running of pushing to defund the police.

And we know that that is not true. But this theme keeps coming up in all the attack ads. Gotcha. Oh, yeah. As a matter of fact, I think, what was the other day, I saw a wild ad going after you, and I understand when you see these ads, as a journalist, anytime I see something being stated, the first thing I do is, okay, what are they citing? What's the source? And there's never a source. It's always sort of these very just broad claims.

And, oh, yeah, again, one of the ones the trying to defund the FBI, defund the DEA, defund ATF. They've been mad that they are targeting January 6th people. So it's amazing the people who keep complaining about defund the cops. They ain't got no problem supporting folks who want to defund the cops on a federal level and then they want to protect January 6 folks who were beaten trying to kill cops. But go ahead, you go ahead and answer that. No I think it's amazing. As you can see, my opponent is an African American cop who's running on the Republican

side so I guess they tried to pit him against me as a progressive person running in this area. I served on the House Public Safety Committee and I was the one who carried the budget amendment to increase police funding training throughout the entire Commonwealth of Virginia. And so, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. See, first of all, come on now, you're preaching. You know, you're supposed to like restate something, make it plain. I mean, you need to say, let me put a pin in it. Come on now, you just don't move on to the next point. So you need to like restate that point again for the folk who didn't quite hear it,

especially the Republican trackers that are in the room. And I think that's key. You know, they're attacking me on this, but I was the one who carried the budget amendment to increase police training funding throughout the entire Commonwealth, not just in Fredericksburg, but for all of our regional police academy. How much was that? It was over a million dollars. Absolutely. And that was just a small drop in the bucket of what needs to be done. When I was in the house, I chaired the state advisory commission on autism.

And I can't tell you the amount of parents with students on the spectrum who would come to me to say, you're on the Public Safety Committee and our law enforcement officers have to be trained, must be trained, on how to deal with our people in the community on the spectrum. And I think that's very key. One, you can look through my social media. You can look on my personal page. And you will never find a retweet, a like, or a post calling for defunding the police. I have worked with law enforcement

officers. I have made sure that when the protests were happening in the city, I fostered community relations with many community leaders who are in the house tonight to bring protesters together, with police officers together, to find out how we can move forward. And this is why it's so important. You have the right people in these seats who are not going to lie to y'all and expound on the falsities that's happening in the community, that we have real people who are bringing real community solutions. So what you're saying is, which camera? Which camera is on me?

Which camera is on me? Which camera is on me? The center camera, that one. This one right here? The center camera right here? All right, so what you said, oh, this is the slider. What you're saying is Lee Peters is a liar. I know we're in church. What you're saying is he lying.

He's a bought and paid for liar because he has received the most money from governor yunkin and the current speaker of the house all right just checking see i like to make it plain for folk all right anybody else with a question come on step on up yeah i'll make it real plain lee you lying all right put your hand up Just cause you're an alpha Don't mean you get to grab the microphone That don't mean nothing Oh shit

Brother Michael Power, how you doing? I'm concerned with the voter apathy Between the age brackets When we have the youth who are not coming out to vote So I got six categories Here I wanted to discuss with you. Voter education, grassroot mobilization, outreach programs, volunteering and mentorship programs, and address voter suppression.

If you had to select one, which one would you say organizations like I'm involved with need to concentrate on to encourage those youth to get out and vote. Give me those first three again. I'm sorry. Voter education, grassroots mobilization, outreach programs. Okay. So I think grassroots mobilization is going to be very key because we have to partner with the people who are in the community. We have Black Voters Matter who are here. I see local pastors like Reverend Herman Gladney who has a civic engagement ministry at Emanuel AME.

We need to partner with these local grassroots organizations who have already done the work. We don't have to work harder. We got to work smarter. And so there are already organizations that are in the community and we need to partner with them. This is so key. When I was elected in 2019, I was one of three Members of the General Assembly who were under the age of 30. I'll state that again three members out of 140 Who were under the age of 30? I was the one of the youngest members of the House of Delegates and God willing speak those things that are not as though they were When I get a reelected on November the 7th

I'm still gonna be one of the youngest members in the General Assembly and We have to make sure I quote this all the time. President Barack Obama said, if you don't let your grandparents pick your clothes, why are you letting your grandparents pick your leaders? And I want to I want to pick up on the voter mobilization piece. So last election, how many votes did you lose by? Just under 700 votes. 700 votes. And what's the available number of voters in the area for that seat? It's about, I'm looking at my campaign manager, it's about, so the district itself is about

88,000 voters. Okay. A consistent voting of about You need 13,000. Gotcha. voting of about... You need 13,000. Gotcha. And how many did you get last time? Last time we were right about 12,000, I think. Gotcha. So here's one. I'm going to answer your question in a different way.

And this, what I'm talking about now is old school. So one of the biggest problems, I believe, and we saw this with Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2016, is that folk get so caught up in new technology. They get caught up in algorithms. They get caught up with polls saying, when there's really only one poll that matters, and that's the last one is how people actually vote. So if you look at that, polling data is also public, meaning you can actually go pull the data and see how every precinct in the district voted in the last election, not just in the 2021 election.

You can look at how those same precincts voted in the 2022 election. And so then what you then do is this is what every group can do. What you then do is you say, OK, if you got to get 13,000, you look at where did he get the votes in 2021, and then go, okay, where are the weak areas? Meaning, where are the high propensity, and when we talk high propensity, where are the people who are likely to support him? Where are the people who are likely to vote and if you look at a precinct and that particular precinct has 800 registered voters but only 40 80 or 100 people voted that means in that precinct

alone it's 700 potential folks to touch and so you also know, because it's public also who's registered, you can go to folks' door. So what happens is, I think one of the greatest mistakes, and I love, I had somebody who was trying to, who had, they thought they were trying to criticize me on social media by saying,

well, I wish these media figures, you know, who are talking politics, would come out here and do phone banks and mobilize and organize, and he was trying to suggest that I don't. What he didn't realize, because he didn't learn how to read a bio, is that I was 8, 9, and 10 standing outside of polling locations passing stuff out because mom and dad were working campaigns. My parents have actually run phone banks. They worked on the campaign like Houston's first female mayor, Kathy Whitmire.

So they've run, they've been precinct judges at a voting location for the last 30 years. So when somebody tries to ask me, they don't know what I'm talking about, I actually lived it because every election, because we were free labor, we had to work elections. So I kind of know what I'm talking about considering I had to go door to door when I was 10, 12, and 14 years old. And so I love the people who understand that. But that's literally what should happen. Folks in here, different groups should be saying, so let's say you've got alphas, you've got AKs, you've got deltas, you've got kappas, omegas, you've got Prince Hall Mason, you've got Eastern Star,

you've got links, you've got all these groups, you've got church groups. Folks need to stop trying to do everything by themselves. If the Divine Nine says, alright, we're going to target these three precincts and then another organization, we're going to target these three precincts and then another organization, we're going to target these three. How many precincts in the district? 18. They're 18? Oh, this ain't that hard. So it's 18. So literally, if groups say we're going to take this one precinct and we're going to blanket that one precinct and other groups say we're going to take that one, you now

all of a sudden have folks putting their energy in the right place so one group's not trying to hit all 18 you could just focus on one that's what has to happen for us to drive our numbers up so i think a lot of us as we tell you said earlier are not working smarter as it when it comes to these elections we're trying to all do the exact same thing when it makes no sense whatsoever so we have to maximize our time and our resources that's what has to happen so today is the last day of early voting then between now and the election day when is early voting ends early voting ends this month the saturday before so on the 28th. That's the last day of early voting. Gotcha. So, go ahead.

November 4th. Early voting November 4th. November, the 28th is when it starts. So, focus right now has to be on driving folks to vote early and then the election is? November the 7th. Now you have, after that, those three days

to say, okay, who didn't vote and then hit them that way that's how the that's where the targeting uh then has to be uh and then i think again when you target uh and then if you talk about within a fraternity or sorority you got your graduate and was in your and your younger members and so again parsing folks out that way that's just going old school and that's and that's how it used to be where they weren't so caught up in again, the algorithms and the technology. It was old school going door to door and, and hitting folks three, four, five times. Did you vote? Did you vote? Did you vote? Were they going to let me, I'm so sick of y'all coming out going to where you go vote. I ain't

going to come into your house again, but that's it. But house again. But that's literally how folk used to do it. And we're still doing that right now. Since July, I think I've knocked just shy of 5,000 doors in the 65th. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir.

We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King,

John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush.

What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I always had to be so good no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling.

The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersceiling.org, brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. District, and we're still going to be knocking until election day to pull Lottie Dottie and everybody out. And I've already hit people's doors six, five times. I promise. I knocked on the door on Saturday.

I said, Mr. Johnson, this is my last time coming on your door. But I just need you to answer me this question. Can I count on your support? And do you plan to vote early, vote in person? I'm going to vote in person. And you good. We're going to support you. So I appreciate that even though they're they frustrated they still tell us they're gonna support us right right well first of all how you talk you were probably talking to somebody who was 65 plus so they gonna vote so i don't even know let's just be real clear they got a plan already it's them other folk right who ain't who ain't got. So that's the deal there. Any other questions before I let Joshua step aside?

Anybody else? Anybody else? Are you walking up here with a question or are you just walking? Girl, you don't just be walking in no church. Like, you either coming up here laying some money on the altar or praying you don't just be walking forward just because i'm gonna put your finger in the air so we know what you're doing all right joshua your final thoughts i just think it's really important that everyone understands how important this election is as i've been knocking on doors and talking to everyone as i

said earlier this election is literally about our've been knocking on doors and talking to everyone, as I said earlier, this election is literally about our freedoms coming under attack. We have watched our governor, who has shut down early voting locations in African-American communities, who has shut down and stopped Sunday voting in predominantly African-American communities. And now we just found out that over 147,000 people have mysteriously been kicked off the voting rolls.

That is not something that just happens. This is a direct attack on African Americans. And I don't care if the highest person in his administration is a black person. Just because all skin folk ain't all kin folk. And so we have to make sure that we are showing up in mass. And some kin folk ain't kin folk. And so we have to show up in mass. Don't be swayed by the lies and the propaganda that you see.

They do that to turn down the vote because they know how you're going to vote. And as I talk to young people, as I talk to people, African-Americans all over the community, I tell them all the time, if your vote really didn't matter, they wouldn't be fighting you so hard to prevent you from voting. And so while maybe you don't care about politics, your landlord does, and that's how they keep your rent high. You may not care about politics, but your insurance companies do, and that's how they keep your premiums high. You may not care about politics, but your boss does, and that's how they keep your payload.

And so we have to unite together. We have to show up at every election, and it's not time now nor in the future to go to sleep. So I got a, someone sent me a text about the early voting numbers and of 18 different races, three of them lean Democrat, five are competitive, three are strong Republican, and seven lean Republican. And so that's also why early voting actually matters. And then actually when I'm looking here, we're talking about 13,000, 15,000. I'm looking here at 3,000, 3,100, 3,200. So what we're seeing is folks are going to be hoping most folks turn out. So the reality is what you would prefer, I'll declare if I'm wrong,

you would prefer that early vote number be as high as possible so you're not hoping they turn out. And again, and that's the thing. They are hoping people turn out as opposed to, no, no, no, I got to get them out. Absolutely. And that's what we've been working. As I have over thousands of volunteers going out, knocking on thousands of doors,

we are encouraging people to go show up and vote. I was just knocking in Spotsylvania County, literally next door to the Breezewood Shopping Center where early voting is going, and I was telling them, y'all can go vote right now, right next door, it's right there. There you go. We will walk you over. We're going to be all right. All right, Josh McCullough, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. I appreciate it. There you go. And so as we will walk you over, we're going to be all right.

Right. All right, Josh McCall. We appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. We'll go to a break. We come back.

Uh, we're going to, I'm going to talk with, um, Leonard Lacey was running for delegate district 64. And then we're going to talk about what happened in Louisiana. All of that's next right here in Roland Park, unfiltered right here in the Black Star Network.

Back in a moment. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir.

We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.

We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things.

Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple

Podcasts. Here's the deal. We got to set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game. We got to make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. you you Thank you. District 64, Leonard, come on up, please. Glad to have you here.

First off, it's going to be a little hard for them to say you want to defund the police yes explain why things got to change we got to press forward and continue to go forward and not back up and I think where we are in the state of Virginia right now if we lose this election meaning the party we're going to be going in reverse and we don't need that when you hear folks from the other side make those claims, you serve as a state police officer.

I did. For quite some time. Right, 33 years. And the thing that's interesting to me, I talk to black cops all across this country, and I have noble executives on the show all the time and they stop me all the time saying keep doing what you're doing because we know what it's like inside of these departments and what needs to happen to have better relationships with the public and so how important will it be for someone like you to be in public office on this very issue who knows this issue quite well because you did it for three decades? Well, it's important because of education.

I believe all systems of our government and even in some of the industry, there needs to be some re-education going on. If you think about it, law enforcement go to school, get their training pretty much in doing investigation and how to write tickets. They don't get a lot of instruction about different communities and cultures and things of that nature. So I think the whole agency needs to pay a little bit more attention and understand that every community is not the same. And that you don't just come in my community with your sirens blasting and

don't go in another one's siren. It's just so subtle little things that can make a big difference in our community. Well, it ain't always subtle. I mean, look, we run these videos all the time on my show and we see what happens. The other day, there was a white

woman who walked into a police station, was shooting in the police station, and she's still living. They busted in after she fired the last shot with stun guns and stopped her. I ain't never seen somebody black walk into a police station, firing a gun indisc this criminally and they still here and so so we actually can see with our own eyes the treatment and the disparity how different people are treated how when it comes to us there's typical escalation and others there's de-escalation right but then there's perhaps that unspoken, untold situation is going on as well that does not fit a culture. You got law enforcement. They give a gun, give an authority, and the last thing that they will acknowledge that I'm fearful.

So maybe some of these shootings or some of these incidents that we're experiencing in our community is coming out of fear. And once the person is shot, then oftentimes they revert to, I thought I saw a gun. Right. Where there was really fear to start with. So I think getting a— Because also we know how the law is very protective of police officers, and that's always a go-to for a lot of people. And, see, that's where I think on this issue, it really is a major,

major thing when it comes to how communities respond differently. If you have no relationship with a community or with people, then you don't know how to deal with them. I was in Peoria, Illinois a couple weeks ago. There was a brother being a police officer two decades. And he said, when I'm walking around, he said, one,

they know who I am. So if I encounter them, it's not an automatic fear because I know them, they know me, and I can say certain things that's going to cause them to say, all right, you're right, we need to go ahead and do this here.

But when you have folks, when you don't have that relationship who are in our communities, then you sort of have this adversarial relationship. That's right. And this is where relationships goes back. If we never have a conversation, I never spend any time with you, there can be no relationship built. And this is why law enforcement got to get out of the car and only showing up in our neighborhoods when it's time to arrest somebody or do an investigation and be out there in

the cooler today when other things are going on as well. You talked about education of police, but also education itself is one of the issues that you're focused on. Yes. And community need to be educated as well. Our parents need to be educated as well. Our parents need to be educated as well. I'm going to listen to you guys that talk with Josh and the questions that were presented. And a lot of things that we're speaking about tonight, you gave us a good education on how to get the vote out

tonight. But all of us, every church, every organization need to onboard that attitude and get out here and not just sit on the sideline and complaining about what is not working. Absolutely, absolutely. And a couple of more mental health services, that is something that we hear. Anytime after one of these shootings, I love to hear the folks who don't believe in gun control say, oh, it's mental illness, but then they vote against mental health services. Well, how are you going to deal with mental illness if you're not properly funding mental

health services? We have to get the funding there for the treatment, but not only that, for the kind of service in our schools and our communities that's needed. I believe here in our community, if someone needs to have residential service, maybe perhaps Richmond and Stanton, Virginia is the closest place we have of the beds field here. So we have to put the resources there. I believe COVID brought on a lot of things in our community. But in addition to that, many times we're in denial of what's really going on,

and we kind of pass it off. I've got a headache, but there's some serious issues. So I just think, again, educating and utilizing all of our community groups and churches to get this message out that this is a serious issue. How is your race looking? What help do you need? Okay, which camera I'm looking at? It's hard. I'm not going to do it as I'm knocking on doors as well.

But volunteerism is difficult. Not getting the resources to fund, to buy some of the TV ads like Josh got. I saw him the other night on TV looking good. He hasn't got there yet. So I'm out knocking on more doors. It is a red district. It's a hard district, but I got one thing going for me is that I'm out there. I know the community. Been there in the community since 1977 and um know pretty much the heartbeat of what's going on all right well then you need to tell people how to contact you you need some help

where can they go what's your website the website is laser for delegate.com i'll even give you my cell number it's going to be when you come to my table and get it from me. I'm not going to shout it out like that. We want serious people to get on this campaign trail with us. We need to vote from the top down, make this thing happen so we can make history. One thing, Roland, that's going to happen in Virginia. History will be made this year. Either way. Either way, good or bad, it depends on.

And I don't hear no mouth. It would go the other way. Oh, I agree with you. We can win this. We just got to get out. So I know we got pastors in here. Get out and charge your congregation. Get them to vote early.

They might get stuck in traffic. We don't know what will happen. Vote early. Get it on the record. It's done. And we'll feel better. I know Josh will feel better. And every one of our candidates will feel better when you get that early vote.

Plus, if you vote early, then you can drive other folk to the polls on Election Day because you're free. Yeah, that's right. It ain't that hard. Leonard Lacey, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. I'm sorry? I said we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Good luck. Okay, I'm good, man. Appreciate it. Now give folks your number at that table. Don't shout it out.

All right. We got it. I appreciate it. Thank you so very much. All right, folks. I started off talking about what happened over the weekend in Louisiana. You heard a listener say good can happen, bad can happen. In Louisiana, terrible happened. What Charles Barkley would say, terrible,

terrible, terrible actually happened. And again, I think for a lot of people who sit at home are now going to realize once certain policies now come into play, they're going to realize the mistake that they actually made by sitting at home. There are a couple of people who they've been tweeting lots of information. They've been covering what happened there. And I really think what happened in Louisiana is instructive for folks here in Virginia. We got upcoming elections in Mississippi, governor races in Mississippi, in Kentucky.

And what happened there can also teach us and get us ready for next year for the presidential race as well. Robert Collins, Dr. Robert Collins, professor of urban studies and public policy. He's at Dillard University. He joins us out of New Orleans. Glad to have you here. John Kavillion. John is the founder and CEO of JMC Analytics and Polling out of Baton Rouge.

Glad to have both of you here. John, I want to start with you. I sort of want to set this. I've really been looking at the tweets that you've been posting, breaking down the data. And so first off, for folks who are unfamiliar with the state, how many eligible registered voters are there in the state of Louisiana? So the total voter registration is approximately 3 million in Louisiana. Okay, so you got about 3 million in Louisiana. Okay, how many people actually voted in this

year's election? So turnout was 36 percent, so it was just over a million total voters. So it was just over a million total voters. So you have leadership in the state elected by barely one-third of all voters? In the strictest technical sense, yes. And for African-Americans, you've got more than 900,000 African-Americans who are registered voters in Louisiana, correct? Correct. They're about 31 percent of the electorate. 31 percent of the electorate. And we made up what percentage of this year's election? My estimate, based on the precinct data I saw and the early voting data, I'm estimating an approximately 24% black electorate when all is said and done.

Black electorate, done. Whoa. So not 24% of those who voted of all those voters of black voters in Louisiana, 24% of the 900,000. Correct. Correct. Uh, Robert, I'm not, I'm in a church. I'm trying not to cuss, but Robert, what the hell happened? Well, Roland, you know, today I went and did some unscientific polling. And what I did was I walked through City Park in New Orleans, and I asked people whether or not they voted. I didn't ask them how they voted because that's private, but I asked people whether or not they voted. And if they said no, I didn't vote. And I asked, why didn't you vote?

And and the responses I got was normally along the lines. Well, it's not going to matter anyway. We're a conservative state no matter what you do. You know, it it it doesn't matter if if Jeff Landry won in the primary or in the general. He was going to win in the general election anyway. You know, so I got a lot of, you know, old boss, you know, new boss, same as the old boss kind of responses. Basically, I think what happened, Roland, was two things. Number one, there was sort of an air of inevitability around Jeff Landry. He has led this election from wire to wire. He had by far the most money.

He had raised over $10 million. He still had a lot of money in the bank because he expected a runoff. So he didn't even spend all of his money in the primary. He only participated in one debate. And despite that, in all the pollings, he led wire to wire. And so he was locked in. Most people did expect a runoff, even up until yesterday. So it was basically a surprise yesterday.

And I think what happens when you get voters in their mind, when they get this air of inevitability locked in, then the election becomes boring to them. And if it becomes boring, they don't participate. You know, the thing about Louisiana voters, Louisiana voters are used to really, you know, big, large, colorful personalities, interesting people. You know, we're the home of, you know, Huey Long and Edwin Edwards and really outsized characters. And when you have sort of a low key race like this and you don't have, you know, colorful characters, people get bored and they stay home. And then the second issue is we don't really have a legitimate opposition party in the state of Louisiana right now. Louisiana Democratic Party has no real structure to it. And so it is not a get out the vote apparatus. It doesn't have a candidate recruitment apparatus. So you don't have Democratic candidates down ballot to help with- Robert, hold up, Robert, freeze right there. How in the world does the Louisiana Democratic Party not have a vote, a get out the vote apparatus.

That's what they're there for. Yeah. Well, they don't have the money. They don't raise the money. You know, Roland, yesterday, and John can speak to this as well, and I'll just say this. You know, yesterday, as you know, I serve as a political analyst for WVUE, Fox 8, down here in New Orleans. And I did four hours of live television last night.

I stood on the set and did four hours of continuous analysis. And at the end of the night, the anchor asked me closing thoughts. And I said closing thoughts are the Louisiana Democratic the louisiana democratic party basically um needs to be if if we are going to have a legitimate two-party system in the state of louisiana then the louisiana democratic party basically should be burned to the ground and basically reconstructed from the ground up with with all new people because the people that they have now are simply are not doing the job at all. Job at all. John, this is where I'm confused here. John Bill Edwards is the governor.

He's a Democrat. So typically when you talk about who's over your part, it's the person at the top. That would be governor. Yeah, you have a party chair. Nationally, Joe Biden is the head of the Democratic Party. Okay, Jamie Harrison is the chair. But the reality is biden and his team they're actually calling the shots um what happened in louisiana is an utter disgrace i mean i don't know there's no other way uh to call it how do you have a sitting governor who's democrat and the person who who is running is Jeff Landry, who is a hardcore

Trump MAGA candidate who has an absolutely horrible record, especially when it comes to African Americans, and Democrats literally put up no fight against him. Well, there are a couple additional pieces to the puzzle that need to be discussed here, because those are some very interesting points. We've already discussed the lower black turnout that I saw, not just in early voting, but especially with Election Day voting. But one thing I saw, not only with my polling, but on election night results, is this. Jeff Landry consistently polled

at 8% amongst black voters, which for Republicans is pretty impressive. Along comes election day, and when I looked at the precinct data where 70% or more of the registered voters are black, I saw that John Bel Edwards got 91% of that vote in the 2019 primary. In the 2023 primary, which has just concluded, not only did Sean Wilson get about 70 percent of that vote, but Jeff got 12 percent. And if you were to restrict your analysis to the 60 less urban parishes, in other words, everything but East Baton Rouge, everything but Caddo, everything but Jefferson, everything but Orleans, Jeff's vote share went up to 16 percent. In other words, we're talking about more of the rural Black constituencies. So I think that those additional data points that I just brought up are things

that need to be discussed within the Democratic Party you? I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good

and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st. And episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts I'm Clayton English

I'm Greg Lott and this is season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast yes sir, we are back in a big way in a very big way real people, real perspectives this is kind of star studded a little bit man we got Ricky

Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote

drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corps vet. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working,

and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you've got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication.

Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. Robert, explain that to me. How does a white Democrat get 91% of the black vote, but a black gubernatorial candidate gets 70. Well, so, so Jeff, Jeff Landry had a very well-funded campaign. And in the last few weeks of the campaign, he put out some, he, he did some, some ad buys and he put out some very strict, I mean, some, some very, some very slick ads where he had black voters, including one black police officer whose son had been killed, whose son had been murdered, talk about crime and crime in the black community

and how Jeff Landry doesn't care if you're black or white. He's going to fight crime. In fact, I take that back. He actually had two parents whose children had been murdered, black parents, that appeared in several ads for him. So he had well-funded. He did give the endorsement of at least one black Democrat in New Orleans, a gentleman named Austin Badon, who is a former three-term state

legislator, state representative. I think we can expect Austin to show up in a Jeff Landry administration in some appointed role. So, basically, he did spend money. His ad people were very good and were very professional, and they did spend money putting black faces on television saying, you know, we endorse Jeff Landry, we think he's a good man, we think, again, specifically focusing on the crime issue, which is obviously a hot point in urban areas.

And you know, those ads worked. I mean, those ads were designed specifically to peel off segments of the black vote, and they worked. I think you would have to say they were effective. He got his money's worth out of those ads. the same Jeff Landry who wanted to open the juvenile, make public the juvenile records of kids 13 and older in only three parishes in the state, and those were the black parishes? It is, but honestly, Roland, I don't think that issue resonated to the extent that you would, you know, that it should have, or that you would have thought that it would have. So, because, you know, I mean, I'm just, I mean, I'm still

trying to, I'm still trying to understand again. Look, if I'm on the outside looking at who a person is and their record. And he now gets elected. He now has a super majority in the Louisiana legislature. They can do whatever they want, like in Florida and Texas and Georgia and other places. Now, all of a sudden, the things that he wants to do, they can now do and it can't be stopped. So folk actually voted for that? Well, folks, folks voted for it because they didn't think that their vote was going to make any, any difference. So, I mean, again, you know, again, there, there are some black voters that thought that, that he was the law and order candidate and, you know, they're scared of crime. And though,

even though I, I, I would point out that in Louisiana, the governor has very little to do with fighting crime. Crime is fought at the local level by police chiefs and elected sheriffs and mayors and elected district attorneys. It's just the way our constitution and our statutes work. But I'm glad you brought that up, John. 63 sheriffs were on the ballot across Louisiana. All 63 are men. 57 out of the 63 are white men. That was one sheriff who runs a horrible jail. It is in a blue county, and the Democrats didn't even have somebody running

against him. How can you stand? First of all, how can you have a shot at winning if you don't run? Well, there's also another piece of the puzzle that needs to be discussed here, is that same group of sheriffs who endorsed Jeff Landry had endorsed Governor John Bel Edwards before, whose brother, by the way, is the sheriff of Tangipo Parish. So in other words, I think you have to look at this more holistically than just the example you have provided. No, no, no, no. But I'm still raising the critical question because I've said this, and Reverend William Barber has said this all across the South.

The guaranteed way for you never to win is you never run somebody. And so Robert talked about how the party has to be blown up top to bottom. Is that part of the problem in that? Because it's not like you have few Democrats who have registered in Louisiana. You got a significant number. But what is happening in this state where they're not running folks in a lot of these positions? And I do I do these stories all the time. I can't tell you how many times I've had to do stories about somebody being shot or beaten by cops in Louisiana, the young folks who were thrown in Angola

when the federal judge ordered them to be released in a week, I mean, I've done numerous stories. How is the Louisiana Democratic Party not using those things to recruit candidates and to run folks in this state, because what took place on Saturday is an absolute national embarrassment with the second largest population of African Americans of any state in America. Well, when you talk about the embarrassment, I think there's something else that needs to be discussed as well, and that is there's an implicit assumption that black voters would always be nearly unanimously Democratic.

And I see that begun to change in very recent times, specifically since the pandemic started. Donald Trump, for instance, received double the percentage of the black votes he received in 2016. And while that's not yet a statistically large number, when I see data points like that and Jeff Landry getting 12 percent and 16 percent in more rural parishes, Billy Nungesser, our lieutenant governor, got 30 percent of the black vote. I think the assumption of black voters being automatically wed to the Democratic Party is perhaps one that is changing as we speak. Well, first of all, that is changing as we speak. Well, first of all, that is the case, Robert. I broke this thing down because young African-Americans are not self-identifying.

That's why I didn't make the point about party. I made the point about issues. And so, Robert, from your vantage point, how is the Louisiana Democratic Party not pinpointing those issues that African Americans care about and then not using that to their advantage in elections? Well, the Louisiana Democratic Party doesn't have an issue operation. It doesn't have, as I said before, doesn't have a candidate recruitment operation. You know, if you talk to local candidates on the ground, like, let's say, Democrats that are running for state representative in New Orleans, and you ask them, has the party done anything for you, they would say no. They said they will tell you flat out, Louisiana Democratic Party is irrelevant and it doesn't

matter. It doesn't do anything for them because they don't raise any money for them. I mean, you know, look at the disparities in the amount of money that they raised for Sean Wilson, let's say, compared to the amount of money that right next door the Mississippi Democratic Party raised for Brandon Presley. You know, it's not even close. You know, they raised millions for, you know, for Brandon Presley. They raised, what, like $50,000 for Sean Wilson. So, you know, it's, you know, so I mean, it really is the party has been impotent for some time now. But, you know, in terms of their ability to get out to mobilize people and get out the vote.

But at least they had a messaging operation before. At least they would message on behalf of the candidates. Right now, I can tell you the current chair of the Louisiana Democratic Party was basically invisible in this last cycle. And when I say invisible, I mean literally. I don't mean figuratively. I mean literally. Nobody knows where she is.

Nobody has seen her. She's in hiding. So that's a problem. When you don't have a Democratic Party chair who's visible, who's out visiting candidates to see what they need, it's just, it is a it is a structurally bankrupt, physically bankrupt organization that's just going to have to be completely reformed from from top to bottom. I mean, you know, they've they've been at crisis level for some time now, but now they're beyond crisis level. They're they're not they're basically not salvageable at this point. They're not salvageable at this point. They're not salvageable

in their current form. And it probably took them failing to get a gubernatorial candidate into a runoff for the first time in modern history to let the general public see that. To let the general public see that. John, I saw one story that say in the last, in this campaign, Republican national, the Republicans spent about $1.2 million and Democrats only spent $28,000. Correct? You're referring to black outreach or something broader, like just general campaign spends? Like just general campaign spends. I was looking at terms of what parties spent. Robert, did you come across that? I saw several tweets stating that.

Did you come across that as well? Yeah, I mean, I came across some tweets that just basically comparing just general spending between the Sean Wilson campaign in Louisiana and the Brandon Presley campaign in Mississippi. I mean, I know, I'm not sure the exact amounts. I thought it was around $50,000, but it's in the tens of thousands as opposed, and again, we're talking about Democratic Party spending. We're not talking about money that Sean Wilson has raised himself. He raised a lot more than that.

But as far as the assistance that he got from the Democratic Party, it was like in the tens of thousands, whereas Brandon Presley in Mississippi is literally getting millions of dollars in help from the Mississippi Democratic Party, which I'm assuming they're raising from out of state and bringing into the state. But the Louisiana Democratic Party doesn't even have any apparatus like that where they ask for money from the DNC or they have some dark money groups outside the state that raise money for them. They don't have any similar apparatus. They don't have any similar apparatus. They don't have any similar apparatus. Hey, John, I got a kick out of one story, how the governor and other Democrats were targeting a progressive Democrat in New Orleans area for defeat. And someone said, wow, only Louisiana Democrats could spend more money and time trying to defeat one of their own than the opposing party.

Explain that. And I'll admit to you that was something, Roland, that genuinely puzzled me because the district that you're referring to, which, by the way, is down the road from where Dr. Collins' school is, but the district we're referring to is a solidly progressive district, and Mandy Landryry who is the incumbent state representative fits it like a glove so the thing which i will admit to you i don't understand the rationale for is if she fits her district like a glove why would the governor spend or should i say divert resources to getting her defeated when he should have been keeping his eye on the ball and helping Sean Wilson.

And by the way, the challenger to— She got 66 percent of the vote. Correct. And my polls showed her she was always solidly in the lead. So it is a question of misplaced priorities that I genuinely don't understand, especially since there are allegations about the challenger, who Governor Edwards Edwards endorsed had a history of voting in a Republican primary before. So, you know, I think we're talking about far broader issues than just Sean Wilson. We're talking about a misplacement of focus and priorities. Yeah. And yeah, last couple of questions. OK, I just go ahead. Add on to what John was saying. Yeah. So not not not only did did the challenger have the endorsement of the governor. She had the endorsement of Congressman Troy Carter. She had the endorsement of a former U.S.

Senator Mary Landrieu. She basically had the endorsement of every major Democratic organization, every black elected official in the city of New Orleans. And the excuse, we were told, is because Mandy Landry was not a team player with the Democratic Party. Basically, she got mad because she ran for state Senate in a special election last year against another Democrat. She didn't win, so temporarily she switched her voter registration to independent. Now, she did switch back to Democrat a few weeks later, or a few months later, but the Democratic Party said that they were going to punish her because she wasn't a team player and she wasn't a real Democrat, so they were going to run a real Democrat against her.

But just the fact that she she crushed them. Now, here's the Democratic pardonization. They said they said, OK, Mandy, we're going to punish you because because you're an independent and you're too progressive and you don't get along with the establishment Democrats. So we're throwing the you know, the you know, the Democratic we're throwing the Democratic establishment against you. Mandy said, no, it's not going to go down like that. And she literally, she crushed them. She crushed them and destroyed them and sent them away. So that just shows you how weak the Louisiana Democratic Party establishment is. They can't punish anybody.

Mandy, she embarrassed them. She literally embarrassed them. Yeah, you got to feel really stupid if you endorse somebody and that person got beat with 66% of the vote with all of that firepower. Yeah, that shows they're real impotent. All right, last couple of questions for you, John. I want to start with you. We saw at the last election, Florida Democrats just blew it up.

Nikki Freed now is running the statewide party. What are you hearing in Louisiana? Are people ticked off, mad, upset, or is there a collective shrug like, oh, well, ain't nothing we can do. Let's just keep the same loser who blew this thing this time? Well, I do think that given that there is increasing factionalism within the Louisiana Democratic Party between those who are primarily in New Orleans and have more progressive bent versus the historical base of the Louisiana Democratic Party in rural areas, that kind of factionalism is something that the current party chair has to deal with. But given the Democrats' performance in Saturday night's election, combined with the fact that you had the party apparatus going against a progressive incumbent, I see the potential for there to be some, let's just politely say, turmoil and unrest when party elections come soon?

Robert, are folks looking to plant grenades in this party and just blow it all up in the state? Because this has to be embarrassing. And if you are a member of Congress or you are a representative or I mean, you're a state representative, state senator or whatever. You should be just grossly offended by what took place. I mean, I get losing, but they lost like they would. What's that team that played IMG, the football, they weren't even a real high school, and they got blown out? That's what it looked like for Louisiana Democrats on Saturday. Well, I can tell you. That was Bishop Sycamore. That was Bishop Sycamore. They weren't even a real team, a real school. That's what it looked like for Louisiana Democrats on Saturday. Well, I can tell you who's...

That was Bishop Sycamore. That was Bishop Sycamore. They weren't even a real team, a real school. Yeah, well, I can tell you who's really fired up. The progressive wing of the party, the people that supported Mandy Landry, you know, they're fired up right now. And the establishment folks are sort of in hiding right now, because they know that they're going to get the blame for the loss yesterday.

So they really haven't come out with any statements. They haven't really said anything, basically because they know folks are going to be coming for them. They know folks are going to be coming for their heads, basically. So yeah, so I would agree with John. And in the next round of elections for a Democratic state central committee and all the various parish executive committees, I think you will see a slew of progressives running against the more moderate establishment Democrats. And I think you're going to see some knockdown drag-out races,

and we're going to have a struggle for the soul of the party. And people are going to just have to make a decision. Is the party going to just settle for its position as an irrelevant party and basically try and form coalitions with the Republicans in the state legislature. That's what I expect them to do in the short term. I expect the O-line groups like the Legislative Black Caucus to form as a bloc. And what they normally do is that, like, for example, there'll be a speaker of the House

election, there'll be a conservative candidate and a more moderate candidate. And they'll try and cut deals with the more moderate candidate and swing their block behind the more moderate candidate. And in return, ask for some committee chairmanships or some other considerations. That's what they're going to do in the short term. But in the long term, yeah, I think the progressives are coming for everybody. I think the progressives are coming for everybody. I think the progressives are coming for everybody's head. All right. Well, John and Robert, I've been loving the tweets that y'all been posting, giving people a real important insight to what's been happening there in Louisiana. And look, there are there again. What happens is when you don't show up, now Republicans have a super majority.

They can do whatever they want. They control the House, the Senate, the governor's mansion. Again, that's power. And again, in a state that is the second largest concentration of African Americans in the country, that's problematic. And we see how Mississippi has gone. And then we look at what's happening all across the South and Texas and Florida and Tennessee and Georgia. And so I think a lot of folk over the next four years are going to be saying we better wake up and pay attention and make some changes or this thing could get even worse. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time.

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Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two

of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams,

NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill.

NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs

podcast season two on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself.

Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. Gentlemen, thanks a lot. Thank you. Thank you. All right, then. So what did y'all make of that conversation?

Wow, wasn't it? So this is so the reason why I talked about when I talked about earlier, and this is critically important for all of us, and look, I'll be 55 in November. And when I begin to look at the future, that decision, the political decisions that we are making really have to be made, not necessarily for us, but for nieces, nephews, children, and grandchildren. And I lay this out in my book, White Fear, How the Browning of America is Making White Folks Lose Their Minds. What we are seeing right now across this country, we are seeing the locking in of hard right positions when it comes to the Supreme Court, when it comes to the federal bench. And I was having this conversation with a few friends, and I was on a panel at Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, ALC, and Ellie Mischel was on a panel and Ellie is a hard charge. And he was like, he said, man, I just, you know, we just lost it for

the next 50 years. I said, actually, Ellie, you didn't. He's like, what do you mean? I said, what's the perfect example? So there are about 930 federal judges in this country. And I said, Obama got blocked by more than 100. Trump appointed more than 200. I said, I got it. Biden and Harris have appointed more than 100 judges. I said, let's say they get reelected and they control the Senate. They're going to be able to appoint another 200 plus judges. That's 300.

I said, if Democrats win in 2028, let's say you appoint another 200 judges, you're not at 500. You will not have appointed half of all federal judges in the country. I said, so you're focused on, well, we lost because you've got six conservatives in the Supreme Court versus three liberals. I said, but if you focus on the numbers, you win the next two elections, you will basically will have appointed more than half of all federal judges. And so when I look at how I look at elections, I look at them totally different than some of the different people.

I look at what's happening in this state. One, your governor can only serve one term, which is not like it's two or three terms. In Texas, we don't have term limits. Rick Peer was there for 16 years. Abbott might be there for the next 20 years, God forbid. And so when we talk about how do we look at our issues, we have to be defining them, I believe, in a totally different way. So the discussion that you heard there was this party apparatus and how it's non-extinct. But I was just texting the folks today,

I'm not concerned about a party apparatus. I am specifically saying, what is the black electoral apparatus in this state? Meaning, how are groups aligning? How are they raising funds? If we're waiting for a party apparatus to mobilize and organize, that is the dumbest thing in the world.

Our institutions have to be doing that. If anybody read Dr. King's book, Where Do We Go From Here, Chaos of Community, this is literally what he said in the book. He said there are four institutions that are positioned to liberate black America. He said the Negro church, the Negro press, Negro fraternities and sororities, and Negro professional and business organizations. He said neither one of them have fully committed themselves to the liberation of black America. And he lays out problems there. And so if we're talking about how do we begin to change things, first thing is, if you're talking about economically in this state, where are black business organizations? Where are chambers of commerce?

Where are groups like that advancing that particular issue? Where do you have black-owned media? Where do you have your black education groups? If we're talking about really changing things and really understanding power, then we have to understand that you actually have numbers here. This is not like in some places where you have 5%, 6%, 8%. 20% African-American voting bloc in this state is a large number if properly weaponized. But the mistake is when we're operating in our silos and then we're not organizing and mobilizing. And so, again, how I look at elections, if we're talking about a lazy district, okay, he says it's a Republican district. Got it. But going in and say parsing the numbers, okay, how red is it?

Or do you have moderates? How do you hit those numbers? Ron Kirk was the mayor of Dallas. He always told me, he said, Roland, he said, I count votes. And I got a kick out of that because I've served on various boards, and've had battles. I was in one meeting one time and they were going back and forth and they were like, Roland, why are you reading the book? I was like, they can argue all they want to. I got 12 of the 15 votes. I ain't about to argue. I said, I got the numbers. And that's really what it boils down to. And so

everybody who's sitting here, leaving here and I want to put this in proper context so you can understand how numbers work. So when we talk about the Montgomery bus boycott that took place in December 1st, 1955, there are literally more people who are sitting in this church right now than were sitting in the basement in Montgomery in 1955. Some of y'all are like, did he just say that? than were sitting in the basement in Montgomery in 1955. Some of y'all are like, did he just say that? Yeah. If you look around, there are more people who are sitting.

So when Dr. King was chosen to lead the MIA, there are more people. That thing was started at the kitchen table by two folks. I talked to Fred Gray, and it was him and Joanne. Two people came forward with that. Here's the other piece. The Montgomery bus boycott, we know went for 182 days. It was only designed to be a one-day boycott. After 50,000 black people didn't get on the buses on one day, they said, let's extend it five days.

After that, they said, let's keep it going. So what I'm saying is what they did was they established an agenda, brought it to the people, then said, this is what we're going to do. The people agreed. Then they said, let's go five days. Then they put together an action. The first Uber was not created in San Francisco. It was started in Montgomery. Because when they did not walk, they literally used

funeral home, cars, hearses, and individuals who drove folks around. They created a whole transportation system there in Montgomery. So that was all based upon two most fundamental things. Mobilization and organization. And so if we're talking about how do you attain power, if the pathway

politically is through Virginia Democrats, then it's, okay, got it. What's the number? How many do we need to take power? Which means that what? Three or four? What is it? Four? It's three. So you

pick up three, you control the house. You flip three seats. Now all of a sudden you have a black Speaker of the House. Now all of a sudden those things change until the next election. And so that's how we have to be thinking. And so every person, if you're a member of an organization, let's see, I see Alphas here. Let's see here. Any Masons here? Masons. All right. Easter Star here. Let's see I see alphas here let's see here any masons here masons alright eastern star here let's see any links in here okay any let's see any church ministry leaders in here alright so nearly all of us are involved in some type of

organization one way or another you now have to start asking your organization what we're doing. Because see, the one thing that I despise about many of our organizations is we are so preoccupied with our internal business that we have no time for external business.

I look, I just want y'all to understand, I'm not one who says stuff in public just to be saying it look I'm a member of Boulay chapter and in meetings I'm like y'all I can't talk about the Christmas party again like I can't discuss the Christmas party every month I said y'all I can I said, I'm not coming to a meeting that had the same conversation.

I said, I ain't coming to the Alpha meeting and we're going over minutes of the meeting. I ain't doing all this other stuff. The reason I'm saying all of that is we have to be challenging our organizations. What are we doing? Now, some of our organizations are risk averse. So we're like, we don't want to lose our 5-1-C-3 status.

Y'all, the law is the law. You cannot endorse as an organization. It does not mean you cannot organize and mobilize around a set of issues. That's what it actually means. And so a lot of us are running around scared and unwilling to actually challenge even our organizational leaders. What we are facing is real. You heard Biden talk about in the last campaign, we're fighting for the soul of America. I travel this country and I am not, this is not hyperbole.

We are facing an existential threat to democracy in this country literally a previous generation fought for us to even be where we are now the question that every person here has to be asked 50 years now, will they be talking about the previous generation fighting or this one? Because if this generation allows this stuff to continue, they going to blame us in the future. And I can tell you right now, I ain't trying to have nobody selling my name. Saying when he had an opportunity to do something, he didn't do it. And so we have this opportunity.

And so every person should be committing themselves. If you've already voted, you should be saying, I'm going to go make sure 10 to 20 other people vote. Even though I have to drive them to the polls and so now it's up to us to change the outcomes of this election and to change the change the future direction of this of the city of the county of the state and of this country it can happen if folks of conscience actually do it glad to have everybody come out I've got a glassy all of you here thank you so very much for my frat brother and my Texas A&M Aggie, Don Scott. Appreciate it.

We will be in Petersburg, Virginia, next Monday for our fourth town hall. Then we're going to Richmond after that. And so we're going to keep this going, keep sharing this information on social media, letting folks know because, again, this is critically important. And the last point is here, and I love people, and I love it when my folks on the right say, we need to get government out of our lives. Y'all, this is real simple. That's the dumbest thing in the world. Because government is a part of every aspect of our life. The moment you are born, you get a birth certificate. That's a government document.

When you get some shots to go to school, that's a government document. When you graduate, now you got to take a state mandated test to graduate. When you get married, that's a government document. When you get your driver's license, that's a government document. If you get divorced, that's a government document. And then when you die, there's a government document called a death certificate. So, when people tell me that stuff, I'm like, you must be out of your mind. It governs every facet of our lives.

Let us now control that very government by using our power appropriately. Thanks so much, folks. We'll see you tomorrow right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Howl! Thank you. Să ne urmăm în următoarea mea rețetă. Thank you. you you you you you you you Thank you. you Thank you. you you you you you you you I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast.

Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers. But we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else.

But never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. This is an iHeart Podcast.