Kamala Harris not running for Gov, Trump Taps Proud Boy Joe Kent, Bove Confirmed, Medicaid turns 60

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
So there's Wednesday, July thirty, twenty twenty five coming up
from Roland Martin unfles.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Of streaming live on the Blackstart Network.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Vice President Kamala Harris makes a huge announcement saying she
will not run for governor of California. And Texans Republicans
kissed the ass of Donald Trump and they take out
five Democrats with these new congressional maps, and they specifically
are trying to screw.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Over black and brown voters.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
We'll talk to a Texas state rep who sits on
the Registive Committee about how shameful these maps are and
how it was done in secret. Also, the Senate narrowly
confirmed Trump's attorney Emil Bove, who lied in front of
the here in front of the committee, proved him to
be on a powerful appeals court one step away from

(00:54):
the Supreme Court. Yes, folks, spent sixty years since President
Lyman Bangs Johnson signed dedicate into law. We'll talk to
an expert who worked in the Biden administration about how
Republicans are doing it's going to have devastating impact on
people all across this country, especially African Americans. And plus
we'll talk with UH the son of the founder of

(01:16):
Good Foods. We'll talk about how they had been trying
to compete with their canned food company and also the
impact of the Target boycott on their sales.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
It is time to bring the phone a roland Mark
on filch it the black studn netvert. Let's go Scott
whatever the best he's sold it, whatever it is.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
He's got the fact to find now. Wenna believes he's
right on time and is strolling best believe he's knowing
putting it down.

Speaker 4 (01:45):
Frank's Loston news to politics with entertainment.

Speaker 5 (01:49):
Just books.

Speaker 6 (01:50):
He's stole up, strollen.

Speaker 5 (02:06):
He's pro's real the question, No, he's roven.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Donald Trump wants it. Republicans, they will give it to him.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
The Republicans today in Texas this morning unveiled the new
congressional maps that devastates the Democratic delegation in Texas, but
they also screw over voters in the state of Texas
who are black and brown.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Now keep in mind sixty one of Texas minority.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yet for these Republicans, they want as many white members
of Congress as they possibly can. So as a result
of this decision, what they're doing is they're forcing a
number of Democrats who to now run aga against each
other when it comes to the seats.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
They take out a.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Black district in Fort Worth, they take out a black
district in Houston, and the surgical precision about which they're
operating is all because of Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
There are so many people in.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Texas who've been speaking out on this, but this has
been a very clear plan for Republicans because Donald Trump
said I want five seats. He wants to take out
Jasmine Crockett, he wants to take out Congressman Al Green.
But he made it clear to Texas Governor Greg Abbott,
who's nothing but a Trump sinkle fat, saying that hey,

(03:38):
I want to pick up five because Republicans are scared
to death they're going to lose the House next year.
So as a result of the Texas House Congressional Redistricting
Committee has been having these hearings. Now here's the crazy
thing about these hearings. People have been testifying, but they
hadn't had any maps. It wasn't until this morning.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
When the apps were released.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
I'm going to show some of that a little bit later,
but first I want to talk right now with Texas
State Representative Jelanda Jones, who sits on that committee. She
glad to have you here. So is what's crazy. You've
been on this committee and you sent me this video
earlier where the chair came off this rule that what

(04:22):
y'all In order for anybody to speak, they had to
be so called neutral. They couldn't be up for or against,
which is crazy because it's clear what they're trying to do.

Speaker 5 (04:34):
So for sure, and let me say this, I stepped
I stepped down from the committee.

Speaker 7 (04:39):
Because I'm running for something.

Speaker 5 (04:42):
But that's neither here or there. What they wanted to
do is they're trying to create a record, and the
record that they're trying to create is that everybody's neutral
on these maps.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
So people are.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
Literally actually actually actually as Hod type one check and
I'm getting some feedback. So if you you have our
live feed up, can you mute that on your end
because it looks like I'm getting feedback, so when you talk,
I'm actually hitting getting double audio.

Speaker 8 (05:11):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Okay, keep talking, keep talking, come back to me.

Speaker 9 (05:14):
I don't.

Speaker 5 (05:17):
I don't have your live feed up.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Okay, all right, so I'm not sure what we're getting
a double audio? Keep talking and if it continues well
we'll we'll stop and trying to get it fixed with
go ahead.

Speaker 5 (05:27):
Okay, So we actually had these hearings with no maps
and people were expected to testify. With the exception of
one person, everybody said, we don't want redistrictive at all.
But there was nothing to complain about, like actuality. Normally,

(05:48):
there's supposed to be a bill before us people come
and they speak on the bill so you can see
how the bill affects you. So, for example, the bill
that was fouldest morning, the racist build that was a
fout this morning, literally for the most part, substitutes Congressional
District eighteenth for Congression District nine.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
So so one seconds.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
But people who don't who don't understand, uh h you
know the maps there. So Congressional District eighteen in Houston
was held by the Lake Congressman Sebsta Turner, Lake Congresswoman
Sheila Jackson Lee. That's the that's the seat that that
you also are actually announced you were running for. Congress

(06:32):
Congressional District nine was the seat held by Congressman Al Green. Correct, yes, yes,
so so what they're doing, So what they're doing is
they're wiping out nine, making that a Republican district. Uh yeah,
to force for Hispanics and to force Congressman Al Green
to run for the eighteenth congressional seat. And the way

(06:53):
they changed the map, that's not that's where he now lives.

Speaker 5 (06:57):
So they literally moved to him. But the Congressional District eighteen.
Although normally incumbents, there's something that says protecting cumbents, Texas
has said, we don't give a hell about that. We're
not protecting incumbents. They literally moved Congressman Green into Congressional
District eighteen.

Speaker 7 (07:13):
Let me tell you how they did it.

Speaker 5 (07:14):
They took for Congressional District eighteen. Seventy point seven percent
of the proposed Congressional District eighteen comes from Congressional District nine,
so his constituents will now be in Congressional District eighteen.
They're not used to being in Congressional District eighteen. Congressional
District eighteen is only keeping twenty five point six percent,

(07:35):
So I'm certain everybody who's running for Congressional District eighteen
it's just sick because people love Congressman Green here. But
the bottom line is there were two black seats and
there's not only going to be one.

Speaker 9 (07:46):
That's the problem.

Speaker 5 (07:47):
They did the same thing up in Dallas County, in
Tarrn County, they literally moved it.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Yep. So let's go okay.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
So in Dallas County, Dallas County Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett spoke
to her today, Tarret County Congressman Mark Vezi, he's in
Fort Worth's what they've done is they've completely eliminated the
Democratic district in that seat in Fort Worth, just totally eliminated.

(08:14):
And in fact, and we've been saying this because they've
been doing reditricating on the county level where they are
trying to eliminate one of the black county commissioners in
Terran County. And terrn County is the last large county
in Texas that's red.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
So they are desperate to hold.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
Onto that county because Harris County, Dallas County, Austin, Travis County,
Bear County, Travis County is Austin, Bear County, San Antonio,
all those are now blue counties.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
And so that's the game they're playing. But go right ahead,
But let me tell you what they did.

Speaker 5 (08:48):
And I spoke to Jasmine today or congress Woman Crockett
today here's the deal.

Speaker 7 (08:52):
They literally moved.

Speaker 5 (08:53):
Her from Congressional District thirty where she currently represents, and
they moved her into Congressional District thirty three, which is
where Mark VC represents. They literally took out all of
the economic drivers in her district. So not only have
they tried to consolidate black districts to get rid of
two black congress people, but they've also taken away economic drivers.

(09:17):
Airports are economic drivers. They did the same thing in
Congressional District eighteen. They took that from CD eighteen. It's
always been there. So they are eviscerating black districts and
it is terrible. And literally, people who live in Fort Bend,
they're used to voting for CD nine, they're not used

(09:37):
to voting for CD eighteen. People will go to the polls.
If they go to the polls, they will not know
who they're voting for because they're literally not used to
these people. This map is done with surgical precision. I
almost believe that AI did it, and it is so
racist on his face. I think that it violates Section

(09:59):
two of the voting I also, first of.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
All, let's give you about how we got here. The
Trump DJ First, of all, I could go back for it.
So these maps were approved by Republicans in Texas in
twenty twenty one.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
Let me be clear, these maps go ahead.

Speaker 5 (10:18):
These maps were drawn. They weren't just approved, right, These
maps were drawn by Republicans and they shoved the redistricting
plan down the reps faces. If you'll recall, the Reps
did a corn Brook and they went to d C.
So these were Republican maps, to say.

Speaker 1 (10:34):
So the Republicans so, so the Republicans drew these maps.
The Republicans said that race was not a factor in
drawing these maps. They testified to that Senate.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
So they came. They were like real clear.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Trump's Department of Justice sends them a letter and says, oh, no,
these violate Uh, these violate the law, but by using race,
and the same Republicans go.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
Oh, you're right, we're gonna readrawn.

Speaker 5 (11:10):
Actually no, the Republicans li just testified to go in
this trial about these maps. The Attorney general said, no,
these maps were not based on race.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
We did not consider race.

Speaker 5 (11:23):
And Senator Joan Huffman, who was over the Senate Committee
on Redistricting, said these maps didn't have anything to do
with race.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
Okay, so let the attorney so let's be recluted.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
So Republicans in Texas said, these maps have nothing to
do with race, but the TRUMPDJ sends a letter and
says it does, and the Republicans go, okay, we're gonna
change the maps, when normally the state of Texas would say, no,
we disagree, we'll see you in court.

Speaker 5 (11:54):
That's what the say to Texas said a month ago.
They've changed within the last month.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
And mothergol. They said that. Then Trump said I need five,
when they were like, okay, okay, okay, cult leader, okay,
we're gonna give you five.

Speaker 5 (12:09):
And the funny thing is they identified four districts. They
identified CD eighteen, CD nine and CD twenty nine in
Harris County, and they identified CD thirty three in Dallas.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
And Terran County.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
So these are the three right here, go to. These
are the three at nine, eighteen twenty nine. Now explain
to people, because see this is where we talk about
cracking and packing. So what they what they did was
so they made they made eighteen in our So first
of all, hold up, let me go over here. So
y'all see right here percent of the black population, the

(12:47):
two thousand sisters. Orange is seventy to one hundred. Excuse me,
the magenta seventy one hundred. That oranges sixty to sixty nine.
So all of a sudden, So what they did was
they pecked as many black folks as possible into eighteen
in order to take them away from another district. And

(13:08):
that's and that's how they really that's how they put
eighteen and nine together.

Speaker 2 (13:12):
To form this little one black superdistrict.

Speaker 7 (13:15):
Can you can you lower it a little bit?

Speaker 10 (13:16):
Rolling?

Speaker 5 (13:17):
I want to explain something to what you just lowered it.
Lower it so that I can see the top part
where it says where I need to see twenty nine
and eighteen.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, that's right there.

Speaker 5 (13:25):
But make it you can make it bigger.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
I got it, told you you look.

Speaker 5 (13:28):
Leave it right there. So where the eighteen is showing,
you see at the bottom and it's got that that
is a high concentration of black people.

Speaker 2 (13:36):
Yeah, that's why.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
Okay, if the dark orange, that's the high countivation of
black people.

Speaker 5 (13:42):
Go ahead, right, so if you go up to twenty nine,
you see what say's twenty nine, that's that's yesterda twenty nine.
Those that orange and red up there used to be
in eighteen, it's now in twenty nine. So they literally
cracked because in redistricting talk they talk about cracking district
or cracking people and then packing people. They took these

(14:04):
high voting areas for black people and literally took them
out of eighteen and put them in twenty nine. So
twenty nine is represented by a Hispanic woman and so
and hold up. The lower part is akers Home Acres
Holme is historic to Congressional District eighteen. Congressman Turner was
from akers Home. It's always been in Congressional District eighteen

(14:27):
under Barbara Jordan, Mickey Leland, Craig Washington, Sheels, Jackson Lee,
And all of a sudden, they took a high voting
black precinct that and they moved it to a Hispanic precinct.
But there aren't enough Black people to overcome that. So
that area of Houston, that black area of Houston, will
not have a They will not get to choose the

(14:48):
representative of their choice like they did before. I mean,
they literally have not tried to preserve any core parts
of any of the congressional districts, the black ones. They
are like out the window were about to divide y'all up,
we're about to take over. We're gonna cut you out
from four to two just that quick.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
Well, and not only that, what they've done is they're
not They're forcing two Democrats in the Austin sententtonial.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
Area to run against each other. And so again they're
what their goal is.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
Their goal I think right now, is it twenty five
to thirteen the breakdown Republicans Democrats? Yes, breakdown, Yes, twenty
five Republicans in the House, thirteen Democrats. What they want
are thirty Republicans in the House in eight Democrats.

Speaker 11 (15:39):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
And that's and that's what their goal is. To put
them all.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
Against, to basically force them all to compete against one another.
Obviously they're going to be legal challenges, but it is
absolutely stunning Representative Jones to sit here and watch Republicans
go yeah, no, no, no, there was no race, there
was no raise, and then now all of a sudden,
because month later, a month later, Trump wants to get

(16:05):
what he wants, They're like, yeah, we're gonna go ahead
and move forward with this whole thing.

Speaker 5 (16:07):
It's crazy, it is, and to the point that you
were talking about with neutral in court, it's important in
court that people say I'm either for or against something.
The reason they were just so cold with how they said,
oh no, no, no, you got to testify neutral. We
don't have a map. Literally, when it goes to court,
is going to appear that people were neutral on it.

(16:27):
They didn't have an opinion, which will help the Republicans
try to keep these maps in court. Which my personal
opinion is, we need to break up out of here
because there's eighty eight Republicans and sixty two Democrats in
the House. There's twenty Republicans and eleven Democrats in the Senate.
Sixty two don't never be eighty eight, eleven, don't never
be twenty. We need to get up out of here.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
No, when you say it's boka, okay, when you say
get up out of here, do you mean first of all,
quorn break. That's what I'm saying so for people don't
understand there has to be a quorum for the House
to do business. And in previous redistricting battles, Democrats fled
the state. Republicans have changed the rules now say they
will find any Democrat that has absent what five hundred

(17:11):
bucks a day something along those lines.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yes, the Texas Tribune.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
I was looking at a story a little bit earlier
where they were talking about that where they said that
that Texas. Here's the story right here. Texas Democrats are
fundraising to potentially lead the state to block Jill backed redistricting.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
Again.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
We previously saw them leave to go to Oklahoma and
other places. Republicans even were threatening to send Texas state
troopers after House Democrats if they if they if they
did that. But the reality is Democrats must do all
they can to stop this, you know, stopping from happening.
And and the last time that happened, you frankly had

(17:53):
some Democrat turncoats who said, oh no, you know, we
need to stay here and fight, and that's what gave
them a corp absolutely.

Speaker 5 (18:01):
So let me explain to you about the korum. There
are one hundred and fifty of us. In order to
conduct business, there have to be two thirds, which is
one hundred. There are eighty eight Republicans. They need twelve
Democrats to reach the one hundred mark to conduct business,
which is why we need at least fifty one of
us to go because you can't get to one hundred

(18:22):
if fifty.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
One of us are gone.

Speaker 5 (18:24):
So yeah, that's what we need to do. We need
to stop this because mathematically we are overmatched again because
of the eighty eight sixty two to twenty eleven dynamic
that I told you about. That's the only way and
we can stop this.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
And one of the reasons you have that dynamic because
they also have jerry manner the state districts. Yes, they
have to give them to give them a majority. Y'all
do me a favor to pull up the tweet that
went out today by that idiot jd Evans. If you
all want to see a level of stupidity. Jd Evan
sent a tweet out today complaining of about jerry mandering

(19:01):
in California.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
Y'all, where's where? Where's the jd advance tweet? Now? I
can barely see that. You know, I got it, I
got it, I got it, Uh, because I need to
show people what it looks like. So you come back.
I'll pulled up in a second. Uh.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
If you want to understand how crazy uh these folks are.
It really is unbelievable. Representative Jones, how hypocritical they are.
You've got you got uh, You've got these silly Uh
Republicans complaining about jerry mandering Kevin Collie in California.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
Old, this is not right. This is just unfair. Uh.
And so how how you know?

Speaker 1 (19:38):
How dare you all these different things along those lines,
and and and and these people are so so you
don't see this tweet right here?

Speaker 2 (19:47):
This is hilarious.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
So he posted this is jd Vance. Mind you where's
JD Vance from? J? D Vance is from Ohio?

Speaker 2 (19:56):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (19:57):
And what are they trying to do in Ohio? They've
been jerry manderin in Ohio. They had a reditionary committee.
They ignored that particular committee. They totally ignored the committee.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
And they're trying to jerry manders seats as we speak
right now. First of all, so JD.

Speaker 1 (20:17):
Evans goes, the jerry manner in California is outrageous. Of
their fifty two congressional districts, none of them are Republican.
That means seventeen percent of their delegation is Republican. When
Republicans regularly win forty percent of the vote in that state.
How can this be possibly allowed? Well, okay, let's see, dumbass.
Last I checked the.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
Supreme Court, the conservative Supreme.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
Court, ruled that they had no place, no place when
it came to political jerry mandry, racial jerry mandering, they do.
John robers led Supreme Court said they have no place.
So that gave Republicans the green light to jerry mander,
which they also said was at the state Supreme Court

(20:58):
then had jurisdiction. So that's why when the Democrats elected
the woman in Wisconsin, which gave the Democrats a four
to three majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, guess what
they did. They ruled partisan jerry manning to be unconstitutional
because in Wisconsin you talked about surgical well, the Republicans
did in that state. If Democrats won fifty five percent

(21:21):
of the vote in Wisconsin, the Republicans was still control
the legislature because of how they used surgical precision computer
models to actually be able to have political jerry mannering.
So who hells JD. Vans fooling? This is what Gavin
Newsom did. This is his response to that idiot JD.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
Vance.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
I got you done, and y'all don't want y'all pull up.
Y'all got the graphic pull it up. This is this
was the so this to this right here Okay, this
is the most jerry mannered states. All right, So I
want you to see this. This is Gavin Newsom responding
to that full JD vance, trying to show him, oh,
you're complaining about California and jerry mandering when the states

(22:05):
that jerry mander the most literally are Republican states.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
That's literally what its response is.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
Now, Representative Jones, what we already see is Gavin Newsom
has already made clear, okay, two can play that game.
And so, going back to the Texas Tribune, Newsom will
move to redraw California map if Texas redistricts team up
national fight.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
And so the story right here says.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
He's told California Governor Gavin Newsom has told AIDS he
will move forward with a plan to redraw his state's
congressional lives to install more Democrats if Texas Republicans pass
their own updated map, according to a person with direct
knowledge of Newsom's thinking.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
And so here's the new Representative Jones.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
Not a California, I say, Maryland, you do it too,
Illinois you do it, Virginia, you do it.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
New York State, you do it.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
Though there are more, there are more popular states that
are blue than there are red. And so if they
want to pick up five in Texas, which still be
fought in the courts, Democrats could pick up twelve to fifteen,
maybe even twenty in these other states.

Speaker 5 (23:19):
Here's what we are we do and because look, when
you go lower, I'm gonna go lower. But what I'm
telling you is this Broland, here's what's gonna happen. If
the if the maps change here, the people are gonna
win because of how they gerrymander. The lawsuit is gonna
come full five years later. The damage is already gonna
be done. So that's why we have to do what

(23:40):
we have to do now.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
Right Well first now, well, first of all, let's explain
to people the lawsuits are not gonna come four five
years later. Laws is gonna be found immediately. But here's
what happens. The Supreme Court has a has a rule
that if it's so right now, this is this is July. Okay,
So they make this move right now, you're gonna have

(24:04):
the lawsuits. Well, the problem is your primaries. When the
when of the when of the Texas primary Texas.

Speaker 5 (24:12):
That's what I'm saying. They're gonna get elected the primaries
are in March.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
No no no no no no no no no no
no no no.

Speaker 1 (24:17):
Right, but I'm having to explained to people what why
were you talking about? So because the Texas primaries are
in March and the general election is in November, and
the Supreme Court has done this before. They did this
with the maps in Louisiana as well as Alabama.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
They allowed they allowed the election to move forward.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
So they basically froze everything in place by saying it's
too late in order to litigate this, which is also
bs because the Supreme Court can move fast if they
chose to. So they're gonna say, if this is now
in July, Texas passes this map in the next week,
lawsuits are immediately filed.

Speaker 2 (25:02):
Now you're going to district. Now you've got to go.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
You're going through all the steps they're gonna be then say, well,
you know what, even if it comes to us by January,
it's simply too late because the primary is in March,
it's gonna cost things be an upheaval. So therefore we're
gonna leave things in place, which means they will pick
up those five seats election takes.

Speaker 5 (25:26):
Because you've got a file in December, right.

Speaker 1 (25:28):
Election takes place in November. Elections take place in November,
and then the litigation continues.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
So essentially they will.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
Get those five seats in the House in November twenty
twenty six, and they might lose after that, but that
means that those folks are in place through twenty twenty eight.

Speaker 5 (25:51):
Even farther than that, because the litigation that just happened
in El Passa last month Roland was for the maps
that were drawn in twenty twenty one, twenty twenty five,
so four years later the trial happened, so those people
have been elected for four years. So the damage it's done,
and they have to draw Why the reason that the

(26:12):
Republicans have to do this with the speed with which
they're doing it is because the law requires that the
maps be drawn within a certain period from the day
that you have to file, which is in December. So
people have to be able to look and say, hey,
I want to run for this seat, I want to
run for that seat. So that's why there's the haste,
and that's also why there was redistricting by ambush. That's

(26:33):
why they didn't put these maps out during the three
hearings in Austin, Houston, and Arlington because they didn't want
people up in arms like they are now. And I believe,
just from a strategic standpoint, the only way we can
stop it from happening where they don't actually take the
seats yet is for us to quarm break and.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
Get out of here.

Speaker 5 (26:53):
Is what I think we need to do, because if
we come back, or if we don't quorn break, they're
going to win the seats and the damage will already
be done because they will be able to hold on
to their lead in the House in the midterms, and
Trump will probably be running for his third term, which
we know he ain't supposed to do, but he don't
give a care about what's really going on. So that's

(27:13):
why it's important. And the only people who can stop
this from happening are state representatives in Texas, and so
at this moment in time, I am thankful to be
the state representative for House Seste. One forty seven because
I'm gonna do all I can do to stand in
the gap for Texans generally and for Black Texans specifically,

(27:34):
because if we lose these two black seats, we won't
ever get them back because of our population. So and
that doesn't make any sense. Black people are twelve zero
point three three percent of the Texas population, and right now,
with the four seats we have, that's only four. That's
only a little over ten percent. If we lose two,
it's gonna be down to seven percent of the entire population.

(27:57):
So our congressional delegation already below our actual population in
the state of Texas. That's why this stand is so
very important, and that's why I'm asking people from around
the country to help us to be able to sustain
a quorum break. Because y'all think we just fighting for
Houston or Dallas. Let me be clear, we fight for democracy.

(28:17):
Because if you think it can't get worse where you at,
let Trump stay in office for six more years.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
Well and again with you need to understand Republicans are
doing this not just when it comes to the congressional district.
They're doing it to a county commissioner's seat in Galveston County,
They're doing it in Tarrant County.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
This is about holding on to power. That's what it is.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
Represent with Jehona Jones, appreciate it, thanks a lot, Thank you, Rowan.
I want to bring in my Panol rober Bertillo who
joins us right now, Robert, glad to have you on
the show. Civil rights attorney Robert also first of all,
out of Georgia where they they've had, of course a
number of redistricting battles in that state as well, and

(29:04):
so we've seen that take.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
Place over and over and over again.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
Also Rebecca Caruthers, of course CEO Fair Elections Center. Glad
to have her on the show as well. Rebecca, I'll
start with you again. We know what their strategy is
and they're playing it out. I'm purposely wearing this shirt, Rebecca,
because this is one of the issues. Texas has more

(29:33):
eligible black voters than any state in the country, and
when we have we have been on this show imploring
black people that they have to vote. This is why
the Republicans have taken advantage of people sitting elections.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
Out and mute.

Speaker 12 (29:58):
During that segment, you all definitely got an the weeds.
I want to make sure that we're broading it out
for the audience. So this isn't just Texas, because Missouri
is now talking about doing this, including eliminating the Kansas
City Black District, which is Congressman Emanuel Kleaver, Ohio is
now talking about doing this. The reason why we need

(30:20):
to talk about this more is, first of all, the
current maps in Texas are bad. There are several lawsuits.
I'm claiming that it's unconstitutional already, and that's from the
twenty twenty census with the very extreme gerrymandering and racial
gerrymandering that happened already.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
So now on top of extreme, to be honest, actually
after about fifteen years.

Speaker 12 (30:43):
Of extreme jerry mandering, because after the twenty ten census
it was very jerry mandered, and then Texas picked up
two additional seats off of the back of the increased
population of Hispanic voters sorry Hispanic folks in Texas. But
then what happened is that there should have been more
Hispanic seats in Texas after twenty twenty. That did not happen,

(31:06):
but they became white majority seats. And so now when
we're seeing specifically this cracking that's happening, I really want
viewers to understand what that means. To put Mark VC
against Jasmine Crockett fort Worth versus Dallas, that's the equivalent
of having the representative that represents Gary, Indiana to represent Chicago,
or the representative of Willington, Delaware representing Philadelphia.

Speaker 3 (31:31):
And so people just really need to understand what this means.

Speaker 12 (31:34):
It isn't just oh, it's an overlapping district for them
to go to such extremes, to go over an hour away,
and that's without traffic, to try to connect folks along
this slivered path in order to make up a new district.
This is very intentional and like Representative Jones mentioned, hey,
this must have been AI, and I guarantee you yes,

(31:55):
this was AI with this surgical precision.

Speaker 7 (31:58):
So now you have racially you.

Speaker 12 (32:02):
Have members in Texas who are racially motivated. Now they're
using technology. Now they have a weekend voting Rights Act,
which means these things can happen.

Speaker 3 (32:12):
So Representative Jones is right.

Speaker 12 (32:14):
Unless members of her caucus decide that they're not going
to be around for quorum, this new map, which is
even worse than the current map, is going to become law.
And so what you and her were talking about is
like next steps with the litigation. The issue that we've
seen in the past when it comes to litigation around

(32:36):
redistricting is the courts, especially if they have a particular
ideological bent they end up kicking the ball down the road,
or kicking the can down the road until it's now
too close to the actual election to do anything about it,
which means that it is years of folks not being
able to vote for the candidate of their choice. And finally,

(32:59):
when it comes to redistricting, one of the most important
pieces of it is when you draw a district, it
needs to contain a community of interests, Meaning if it's
a college campus, you shouldn't divide the college campus, which
happened to North Carolina A and T when Republicans at
North Carolina decided that they wanted to racially jerry mander
some of the State House and State Senate seats surrounding HBCUs.

(33:22):
So we see this happening every ten years. Of what
is extremely troubling is now this is happening every couple
of years.

Speaker 13 (33:29):
Robert, Look at this point in time, Rowland is very clear.
Democrats have to stop trying to live in the America
that they have imagined that they want. They have to
stop imagining we are in this Greek platonic democracy and
start getting into the gutter fighting the same way Republicans are.
They've not just started this. This is just the latest
iteration of this. They've been trying to do this since

(33:50):
after the two thousand census. We've had litigation for the
last twenty five years over jerrymandering, over cutting up of districts.
They've been going after the voting rights that for over
a decade at this point in time, chipping away with
him bit by bit, And now with the Trump having
sits three majority of the Supreme Court, we're having control
of most of the circuit courts, having control of the
Senate where they can pass through literally his personal attorneys

(34:13):
to be circuit court judges and appeals court judges. Democrats
have to realize, as was said by the representative, they
got to get up out of there. You have to
fight the same way that they are fighting. There's no
other way to do it. Now you have to use
their weapons against them. And then it democratically controlled states
like California and Maryland and other places where you have
the opportunity. You're damn right. You need to be fighting

(34:35):
fire with fire. Enough of all this high minded moralism
that we're just going to do what is correct. Remember
when Trump was transitioning to power and all the Democrats
made that big show saying look, this is how we
dignified have a dignified transfer of power.

Speaker 14 (34:48):
We're not like those January sixth people. What good did
that do you?

Speaker 13 (34:52):
Where did that get you? How has that progressed anything?
You're letting the people who are fighting the wrong way win.
At what point in time do you just say, hey,
look I'm gonna get the brass nuckles also and let's
take it to them. I think that's the point we
have to be at now. The American people want fighters
a the post and simply wanted someone who's going to
roll over and let Republicans in the extreme maga agenda
do whatever they feel like.

Speaker 14 (35:12):
So get out there and do some bam fighting.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
Absolutely are folks.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
We're going to continue to cover this repeated lead there again,
Folks are speaking out, they are weighing in, and it's
about mobilizing and organizing. So you've got a political fight
in the legislature, you've got a legal fight in the courts.
While they're doing that their part, folks need to be
doing their part more mobilizing, organizing in Texas. Listen, let

(35:41):
me explain to people what has to happen here. Okay,
can Democrats take control of Texas. No, but what's the process. First,
you have to break the Republicans supermajority. That means identified. Look,
there have been a couple of times in the last
deck in the last eight years where Democrats about five
seats away from taking control of the Texas House. You

(36:04):
have to break the supermajority. That's first and being you
have to begin to build. You have to you have
to completely build and rebuild the state party. Texas used
to be an all Democratic state. It's now an all
Republicans state. That's because Texas is.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
Not organized and mobilized.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
You've got more than two million eligible but unregished Latino
voters in Texas. When Betro ran against Greg Abbott for governor,
seventy five percent of voters under the age of thirty
did not vote. The hundreds of thousands of black voters
not voting as well. And so there's a way to
stop Republicans sitting out elections.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
Is not one of them. Representative Jones, We appreciate you
joining us. Thank you so very much. We come back.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
We'll talk Medicaid and how Republicans are trying to attack that.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
Next, rolling Unfolted on the Black stud.

Speaker 15 (36:56):
Network speak on the other side of Change, Dura on Mamdani,
the New York City mayor race and this progressive wave
that has sent such a shockwave through all of New
York City and really the rest of the country. Jamal Bowman,
who's going to help us understand what this mayoral election
means and how we make sure that it translates across
the mes.

Speaker 16 (37:16):
You do you imagine national democrats like identifying themselves as
having flavor or rears or swag like, absolutely not right.
So hopefully the city does what it can in November
to help resurrect is dying, partying and honestly just resurrect
our democracy only.

Speaker 17 (37:35):
On the other side of change on the Black Start Network.

Speaker 4 (37:38):
On the next a Balance Life with me, doctor Jackie,
we're talking about leveling up, or to put it another way,
living your very best life, how to take a bold
step forward that'll rock your world.

Speaker 18 (37:49):
Leveling up is different for everybody, you know.

Speaker 19 (37:52):
I think we fall into this trap which often gets
a stubbs because we're looking at someone else's level of
journeys what level elope means to them. For some, it
might be a business venture, For some it might be
a relationship situation.

Speaker 3 (38:05):
But it's different for everybody.

Speaker 4 (38:07):
It's all a part of a balanced life. That's next
on Blackstar Network.

Speaker 20 (38:15):
Next on the Black Table with Me, Greg call Democracy
in the United States is undeceased.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
On this list of bad actors.

Speaker 20 (38:23):
It's easy to point out the Donald Trump's, the Marjorie
Taylor Greens, or even the United States Supreme Court.

Speaker 9 (38:29):
As the primary villains.

Speaker 20 (38:31):
But as David Pepper, author, scholar, and former politician himself says,
there's another factor that trumps them all and resides much
closer to many of our homes. His book is Laboratories
of Altaker's a wake up call from behind the lines.

Speaker 21 (38:49):
So these state houses get hijacked by the far right,
then they jerry mander, they suppress the opposition, and that
allows them to legislate in a way that doesn't reflect
the people in that state.

Speaker 20 (39:01):
David Pepper joins us on the next Black teape here
on the Black Star Network.

Speaker 22 (39:09):
On the next Get Wealthy with Me, Deborah Owens, America's
wealth coach. Black Americans have one tenth the wealth of
their white counterparts.

Speaker 3 (39:19):
But how do we get here? It's a huge gap. Well,
that's why.

Speaker 22 (39:24):
We need to know the history and what we need
to do to turn our income into wealth. Financial author
and journalist Rodney Brooks joins us to tell us exactly
what we need to do to achieve financial success.

Speaker 23 (39:37):
You can't talk about why we are as black people
where we are unless you talk about how we got here.

Speaker 3 (39:44):
Bridging the gap and getting wealthy.

Speaker 7 (39:47):
Only on Black.

Speaker 3 (39:48):
Star Network.

Speaker 24 (39:53):
Hatred on the Streets, a horrific scene white nationalist rally
that descended into deadly violence on our well not white people.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
Are moving their their minds.

Speaker 25 (40:05):
As a angry pro Trump mob storm to the US
capital Ship.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
We're about to see the lies what I call white
minority resistance.

Speaker 26 (40:13):
You have seen white folks in this country who simply
cannot tolerate Black folks voting.

Speaker 21 (40:19):
I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of
violent denial.

Speaker 14 (40:24):
This is part of American history.

Speaker 27 (40:26):
Every time that people of color have made progress, whether
real or symbolic, there has been but Carol Anderson at
every university calls white rage as a backlash.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
This is the right of the proud boys and the
Boogaaloo boys America.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
There's going to be more of this.

Speaker 28 (40:42):
This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and
its attitudes because of the fear of white people the few.

Speaker 26 (40:51):
That they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're
taking our women.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
This is white being.

Speaker 15 (41:09):
This week on the other side of change, Dura on Mamdani,
the nation.

Speaker 16 (41:27):
Do you imagine national democrats like identifying themselves as having
slavor or rears or swag Like, absolutely not right. So
hopefully the city does what they can in November to
help resurrect is dying party and honestly just resurrect our democracy.

Speaker 17 (41:45):
Only on the other side of change. On the Black
Start Network, what's.

Speaker 25 (41:50):
Good Jonnie is Doug e Freshan and watching my brother
roland Mark underbuilt it as we go a little something
like this hit it.

Speaker 9 (42:02):
It's real.

Speaker 6 (42:06):
Insti insist in inst in smith inst.

Speaker 8 (42:36):
In in.

Speaker 6 (42:43):
In instant inst in instat inst in instant inst in

(43:43):
insta insta, inst in insta inst in instant inst in

(44:33):
instant insta insta instant inst instead instead instead instead instead

(45:23):
instant instead, insta instead instead in instat.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
Sixty years ago, President Lennon Banks Johnson sign into law Medicaid,
of course, providing a safety net for individuals looking for
healthcare in this country. Republicans want to in danger that
we're seeing these actions take place right now with Trumps
signature of the gross build that he signed on July fourth.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
Now, what's crazy about this. Republicans keep lying.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
They lie to themselves, they lie to their voters. They
consistently say, oh, no, this is not a problem. We're
not sitting here, We're not sitting here cutting medicaid. And
in fact, that's exactly what they're doing. It's happening over
and over and over again. Now what's even crazier is
that Republicans in these red states, they're the ones with

(46:51):
the voters who have the most serious problems. Like I
love these folks in Kentucky who have been saying repeatedly, oh,
don't you touch my Affordable Care Act, but get rid
of that Obama Care.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
Oh, we need to go ahead and cut these things.
We need to cut health care.

Speaker 9 (47:13):
But then.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
They're the ones who need it the most. It doesn't
make any sense. It literally makes no sense whatsoever. So
what you're seeing are Republicans who were consistently and repeatedly
voting against.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
Their own interest. They're killing their own people, that's what
they're doing.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
We talk about medicaid, we're talking about people who literally
depend on this to say their lives. We talk about
North Carolina when they resistant Medicaid expansion.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
You know what happened.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Rural hospital shut down, Folks had to travel fifty sixty
miles to get care, Folks who actually died.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
These things are actually real. So let's unpack this and
let's talk about it.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
Get A brooks ull Ashore, the former administrator of the
Centers for Medicaid in Medicare and Medicaid Services, joins us
right now, and we're also going to be joined by
Roger Mitchell, Junior President of the National Medical Association. Chai
don't want to start with you first. I mean it
is when this conversation has had it's a process conversation.
It's a Washington, DC process conversation where what I keep

(48:27):
saying is like, no, this is a healthcare conversation, and
you have to put a face on it, and it's
stunning to me to see individuals who literally are voting
against the interests of their own constituents.

Speaker 11 (48:41):
It's been incredibly painful, and I'm really glad that you
started with saying people are talking about this as though
it's a process. I have spent the last couple of
months talking to people across the country about what this
is going to mean to them. People have been in tears.
People have called in and said, my kid is covered

(49:02):
by Medicaid, my kid has XYZ conditions, I have multiple sclerosis,
I have a disability, and I'm going to lose access
to my bipolar medications. I am a doctor who takes
care of patients. What is this going to mean from
my clinic? What is this going to mean to my hospital?

(49:24):
This is millions of people's lives and livelihoods that are
at stake with this bill, and it is really I
would call it a moral just what this bill is
going to.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
Mean to our Well, well, you listen to people who
claim the pro life but they support this bill. This
sort of that, that's a bunch of crap. We talk
about the most what are the most affected states. We
talked about seventeen million people. What are the top five
or so states most impacted?

Speaker 11 (49:55):
You know, I would say all of them are and
in different ways. You are right to say that in
many of the red states this is going to be devastating.
And I will just take a moment to back up
a little bit about what was going on before this
bill passed. We had healthcare problems in our country before
this legislation passed, particularly in rural areas, and COVID really

(50:20):
hurt a lot of hospitals across this country. I spent
a lot of time talking to people, and Medicaid and
medicare prop up most of the rural hospitals in this country.
And so you mentioned how North Carolina before it had expansion,
had hospital issues. So does did Georgia, So does Mississippi

(50:42):
and Alabama. And that's before this bill passed. So let's
see what does this bill do. It hurts Red states
who disproportionately have Medicaid people, but to the Blue states,
this bill targeted them. And so there are a whole
bunch of provisions that don't say New York and California
in them, but the provisions themselves are going to cut

(51:05):
the ability of those states to cover the people that
they are legally allowed to cover if they choose to
with their own dollars. It is hampering those states that
did take the expansion and phasing their dollars down and
hampering their ability to raise revenues to pay for Medicaid.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
So that's what I would say.

Speaker 11 (51:25):
Yes, a lot of the Red states are hurt, but
the Blue states are too.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
Doctor Mitchell, I want to go to you because there
is a direct impact on doctors, nurses. I remember when
the entire Louisiana healthcare system, they were imploring Speaker of
Mike Johnson, do not do this, You're going to put
our system in jeopardy.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
He totally ignored them. And so.

Speaker 1 (51:51):
Explain to folk what will be the impact directly on
doctors when it comes to these Medicaid cuts.

Speaker 10 (51:59):
We know that, And and good evening, and it's good
to be here with you, and it's good to see Hikita,
who is really our Medicaid you know, administrator. We say
that every time we see her. Physicians get paid, you
know we we we receive dollars through through insurance and

(52:20):
one of the biggest insurance providers, particularly for physicians that
have made a decision to do the work in communities
that are disenfranchised or disinherited, rural communities, urban communities, communities
in the poor. Those that treat disabled patients, those physicians
that treat our pediatricians, uh, those that are geriatricians and

(52:44):
treat our oldest of our individuals.

Speaker 7 (52:48):
Those those physicians are going to be greatly.

Speaker 10 (52:50):
Impacted because now you're you're talking about treating patients that
don't have access to the insurance to pay for their
so that that that is one set set.

Speaker 7 (53:04):
Of physicians, but then there's a whole group of physicians.

Speaker 10 (53:07):
That are in hospitals, that are hospitalists, that are intensivists,
that are emergency room physicians. We know that this these
types of cuts are these types of changes are going
to lead to congestion within our emergency departments. We it's
it's it has to and we we were going to

(53:29):
guard against it. But has the potential to impact quality
of care because long wait times is impacts quality of care,
and then congested emergency departments impact quality of care.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
And so.

Speaker 10 (53:42):
The way that you deal with and ensure that health
care costs come down is have more healthier people, not
cutting access to people.

Speaker 7 (53:54):
Because individuals will.

Speaker 10 (53:56):
Now seek care, but they'll seek care when they know
longer can stand the fact that they're suffering from that
disease or injury.

Speaker 7 (54:03):
So that means that care is going to require it's
going to be more severe.

Speaker 10 (54:06):
That disease or injury is going to be more severe,
and they're going to come to care much later, and
so it's going to be more expensive to deliver that care.
And now the government is saying, well that subsidy is
no longer going to be available for the people that
most needed. So the physicians are at the front lines
of having to provide provide this care at at at

(54:28):
no cost and at low cost.

Speaker 7 (54:32):
And so it's going to be it's going to be
a problem for our physician groups.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
But again it's not as people are sick. This is
going to cause folks to die. I mean, this is
just it's a fact. We've already seen this. When rural
hospitals shut down, it was people who experienced medical emergencies
who had to travel further. I mean every single minute
it was precious and people died absolutely.

Speaker 11 (54:56):
I mean we and there are parts of this country
right now where people have to travel for an hour
or two to get to a doctor and whether it
can make all the difference. I drove in Colorado a
couple of years ago when I was CMS administrator. They
told me on my way to a hospital, they told
me that roads out one every three days of the year.

(55:18):
So you think about what happens when one of these
hospital shuts down. This is maternal health in our country.
How quickly can you get to a obgyn to deliver
your baby? It's certainly you have a heart attack, it's
all of us. And so you know, when we think
about there is an estimate on the bill that over

(55:38):
three hundred hospitals will close as a result of this legislation,
we already have seen hospitals talking about the impact of
these cuts.

Speaker 2 (55:50):
And not only you know, are we.

Speaker 11 (55:52):
Hearing about closing, but also decisions changing about whether or
not they're going to open a wing.

Speaker 2 (55:57):
These these choices.

Speaker 11 (56:00):
Hospitals have already been on a razor thin margin in
much of our country, and.

Speaker 2 (56:05):
Doctors, that's the hospitals.

Speaker 10 (56:06):
We talk about nursing homes as well, that's right, I
mean nursing homes are impacted because many of our older
patients that are dual eligible. These are individuals that are
both getting Medicaid and Medicare are in our nursing homes.
There's provisions in our nursing homes that deal with staffing

(56:27):
levels and ensure that there's no real criteria for staffing
levels to ensure that our patients and nursing homes get
the care that they need.

Speaker 9 (56:38):
Roland.

Speaker 10 (56:38):
This is a big issue now sixty years and I
know that we're having this conversation on sixty years since
this Medicaid and Medicare were passed in the Social Security amendments.

Speaker 7 (56:50):
We don't need this to be rolled back.

Speaker 10 (56:52):
I'm a forensic pathologist and I often say that I
see failed policy on my autopsy table, and that's the truth.
I mean, you just talked about the death. It is
the medical examiner's offices and the morgues that are going
to be telling the story about the deaths that happen
in this country. And I happen to be a hospital
president as well, in a safety net hospital, Howard University Hospital,

(57:17):
Freedman's Hospital to begin with, and we are having the
conversations how do we deal with the cuts, what types
of outreach do to individuals that we know are going
to be just purged from the roles because they have
not kept up with their six months re up on

(57:39):
their Medicaid right, so this becomes a penalizing people for
not being able to meet a deadline, not necessarily ensuring
that people that have care have care. And so we
have to develop a whole outreach initiative to ensure that
our patients, which are the majority Medicaid patients and Medicare patients,

(58:01):
have the necessary reminders, have the necessary technical support to
be able to fill out the paperwork so that they
don't lose eligibility when they are actually eligible. And so
there's a lot of tricks in this bag that we
have to keep our eye on. The good news, if

(58:22):
there's any good news that many of these provisions don't
hit until twenty seven and twenty eight, So you know,
several that are hitting now that we have to watch,
but there's some that we have some time, and so
there's work that can happen now, particularly in the voting booth,
to make sure that these types of changes don't actually
take hold.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
Questions from my panel. First at Rebecca.

Speaker 3 (58:46):
Hey, doctor Minchell, good to see you.

Speaker 12 (58:48):
Congratulations becoming the president of the National Medical Association. You
mentioned that people have to become healthier, and currently most
medical schools don't require students to take a nutrition course
during their didactic years. I'm should there be a push

(59:10):
for nutrition to be included in medical curriculum.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
Yeah?

Speaker 10 (59:15):
Absolutely, and I'm glad you brought that out the National
Medical Association. Actually, one of my pillars is surrounding food
as Medicine. Here at Howard University College of Medicine, we
have our Wellness Vice Dean who is a food as
Medicine expert. Food as medicine and this type of nutritional

(59:35):
health is coming in to medicine now. So I think
it's critically important to teach nutrition, to teach healthy living.
But one of the things that Chikida will tell you
is that we were moving down this road towards value
based care.

Speaker 7 (59:50):
We were moving down this road towards.

Speaker 10 (59:55):
Really incentivizing prevention and screening and make sure that people
are getting into care early. And that's really what I'm
what I'm talking about, not necessarily switching the onus on
to the patient, but really incentivizing both the patient and
the provider to say, hey, listen, you need to get

(01:00:17):
people in your cluster of patients. You need to make
sure that you're checking on whether or not they're checking
their cholesterol and their blood pressure, checking their prostate checking
and getting their regular mammograms. So if we're going to
find disease, let's find it early and be able to
treat it early before it becomes life threatening and before
it becomes extremely extremely expensive. And so nutrition and food

(01:00:41):
is medicine in the in the in the curriculum is important,
but making sure that we understand value based care also
should be in the curriculum as well.

Speaker 13 (01:00:50):
Robert and before both of you, thank you so much
for the work that you do and the information provide.
A few weeks ago, when the big brutal lie the
bill was going through, I found that there was an
information gap between the folks who knew and understood what
was going on and then everybody else. Even if you
looked on CNN the day the bill was being voted on,

(01:01:10):
on one screen, half of the screen they had the vote.
On the other half they had the Diddy trial. What
do you think has to happen for US bill to
explain this information to average people so that one they
can understand what's going on with that the fact that
any of these cuts are back loaded, so they're not
going to come in place after the twenty twenty six election,
and they need to make provisions in the meantime for

(01:01:31):
what that will mean for them, but then also how
they can fight back against this and politically and understand
that this is not the time for apathy. But they
are literally cutting healthcare from fifteen to twenty million people,
and there's not a lot we can do about it
unless we get out and voted in the next election.

Speaker 11 (01:01:47):
Well, I'm so glad you raised this because we all
are struggling with the fact that once people knew was
in the legislation, they overwhelmingly rejected what was going going
on in terms of the healthcare provisions, but awareness was
really low. I think what we all need to do
moving forward is make sure that people are really aware

(01:02:10):
of what is in this bill. And I think one
of the challenges is that we had a debate on
healthcare during the first Trump administration. It was Affordable Care
Act Reveal or Replace. People understood very clearly that Republicans
wanted to take Medicaid and ACA coverage from you. But

(01:02:31):
this one was really more challenging. There are dozens of provisions,
some of which are very detailed and hard to explain,
but some of these provisions are going to take place
this fall, and I want to make sure that people
know that if they start to see what we expect,
which are twenty percent increases in premiums for people who

(01:02:51):
are on Affordable Care Act coverage, which means hundreds of
dollars for some people thousands of dollars that they will
pay more this fall, we need to make sure people
know that is because of this bill and the decisions
that are being made by this administration.

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
You know.

Speaker 10 (01:03:10):
And I'll just add to doctor brooks Leshore's comments, and
it's it's really trusted messengers like we have here on
Roland Martin and the panel to really bring these issues
to the forefront.

Speaker 7 (01:03:25):
You know.

Speaker 10 (01:03:25):
It is you know, we're spending a lot of time
on Epstein and a lot of time on the you know,
really the sensationalized issues when this is happening right now
and this is going to affect lives. And I think
that the more conversations that we can have about this,
the nuances really creating a volunteer pool of individuals that

(01:03:48):
are going to help people understand understanding that part of
that work requirement is eighty hours for every month. How
do we as as as community develop and ensure that
every one has documented eighty hours if indeed that work
requirement ends up going through right and so we can
use that volunteer hours to teach the issues surrounding Medicaid

(01:04:12):
and make sure that the individuals.

Speaker 7 (01:04:13):
Don't fall off the roles that are don't have to,
and then make sure that people become eligible.

Speaker 10 (01:04:21):
There's a lot of education that we need to do,
and that's why on the sixtieth anniversary of Medicaid Medicare
being signed into law, you having time to have this
conversation is extremely important, but one time is not going
to do it. We need to be constantly having conversations
and the NIME you know, obviously is standing by.

Speaker 7 (01:04:40):
To be able to be that trusted messenger for our
community of FI out comment.

Speaker 11 (01:04:44):
Just to say how just to here showing pictures of
the Presidents Truman and LBJ when they were signing the
Medicare and Medicaid becoming into law changed our country and
we need to continue to move forward in our trajectory

(01:05:05):
of getting more people covered and making sure they have
access to better care. This bill pulls us back and
we need to make changes so that we don't move backwards.

Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
All right, then we'll surely appreciated. Give you thanks a lot,
Dot thanks a lot as well, keep up the fight.

Speaker 7 (01:05:22):
Thank you folks.

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
Going to a break we come back.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
We're going to go loud to more of Mondays repairs
of the breach holding one of their trainings. Actually we're
going to go loud because they will show you someone
what was happening there with Bishop Rigya Barber, Repairs of
the Vision of po People's campaign.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
We also got lots.

Speaker 1 (01:05:37):
Of boy we want to break down and talk about
in the world of news and politics, folks.

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):
So you're watching Roller but unfilched. The Black stud Networks.
Support the work that we do.

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(01:06:07):
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Speaker 8 (01:06:39):
Be right back.

Speaker 9 (01:06:42):
Next on the black table with me.

Speaker 14 (01:06:44):
Greg call.

Speaker 20 (01:06:46):
Democracy in the United States is undeceased on this list
of PAD actors. It's easy to point out the Donald Trumps,
the Marjorie Taylor Greens, or even the United States Supreme Court.

Speaker 9 (01:06:57):
As the primary buildings.

Speaker 14 (01:06:58):
But as David Pepper, scholar and.

Speaker 20 (01:07:00):
Former politician himself says, there's another factor that trumps them
all and resides much closer to many of our home
His book is Laboratories of Attaker's A wake Up Call
from behind the lines.

Speaker 7 (01:07:16):
So these state houses get hijacked by the far right.

Speaker 21 (01:07:20):
Then they jerry mander, they suppress the opposition, and that
allows them the legislate in a way that doesn't reflect
the people that state.

Speaker 20 (01:07:29):
David Pepper joins us on the next Black Tape here

Speaker 15 (01:07:37):
This week on the Other Side of Change, d'ur on Mamdani,
the nation.

Speaker 16 (01:07:55):
Do you imagine national Democrats like identifying themselves as hoving
slav or ris or Swade, Like, absolutely not right.

Speaker 25 (01:08:04):
So hopefully the city does what it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):
Can in November.

Speaker 16 (01:08:08):
The health resurrect is dying party and honestly just resurrect
our democracy.

Speaker 17 (01:08:13):
Only on the other side of change on the Black
Side Network.

Speaker 22 (01:08:21):
On the next Get Wealthy with Me Deborah Owens, America's
wealth coach. Black Americans have one tenth the wealth of
their white counterparts.

Speaker 3 (01:08:31):
But how do we get here? It's a huge gap. Well,
that's why we need.

Speaker 18 (01:08:36):
To know the history and what we need to do
to turn our.

Speaker 3 (01:08:39):
Income into wealth.

Speaker 22 (01:08:41):
Financial author and journalist Rodney Brooks joins us to tell
us exactly what we need to do to achieve financial success.

Speaker 23 (01:08:49):
You can't talk about why we are as black people
where we are unless you talk about how we got here.

Speaker 3 (01:08:56):
Bridging the gap and getting wealthy. Only on Black Star Network, on.

Speaker 4 (01:09:06):
A next a Balanced Life with me, Doctor Jackie, we're
talking about leveling up, or to put it another way,
living your very best life, how to take a bold

Speaker 18 (01:09:16):

Speaker 19 (01:09:19):
a stuck because we're looking at someone else's level of journeys,
what level lupe means to them. For some, it might
be a business venture, for some it might be a
relationship situation.

Speaker 18 (01:09:32):

Speaker 4 (01:09:35):

Speaker 24 (01:09:42):
Hatred on the Streets, a horrific scene white nationalist rally
that descended into deadly violence.

Speaker 2 (01:09:48):
Of white people are losing their their minds.

Speaker 25 (01:09:55):
It's another way pro Trump modern storms in the US
Capital sp about to.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
See the lies what I call white minority resistance.

Speaker 26 (01:10:02):
You have seen white folks in this country who simply
cannot tolerate black folks voting.

Speaker 27 (01:10:09):
I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of
violent denial.

Speaker 14 (01:10:14):
This is part of American history.

Speaker 27 (01:10:15):
Every time that people of color had made progress, whether
real or symbolic, there has been the Carold Anderson at
every university calls white rage as a backlash.

Speaker 1 (01:10:25):
This is the right of the proud Boys and the
Boogaaloo boys America.

Speaker 2 (01:10:29):
There's going to be more of this.

Speaker 28 (01:10:32):
This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and
its attitudes because of the fear of white.

Speaker 26 (01:10:40):
People the few that they're taking our jobs, they're taking
our resources, they're taking our women.

Speaker 2 (01:10:45):
This is white Field.

Speaker 25 (01:10:54):
Hi, everybody, I'm Kim klet Hey.

Speaker 2 (01:10:56):
I'm got a symptive from blackness, and you why I'm felthy.

Speaker 1 (01:11:07):
Folks, repairer of the breach of the Purpoples campaign continue
their advocacy, their teaching, and their training. Right now, let's
go live to Bishop William Barber for one of their sessions.

Speaker 8 (01:11:18):
The theme of to night is organized kind of organizing
must we do in times of oppression? And we want
to go from macro to micro. I'm gonna use your pastor.
He's an economist, so Macro is the big up here.
And then by the time we finished, I want to

(01:11:40):
talk about power building here because really you can't deal
with here unless you be a power from here. All
great movements began locally. It was not the national bus boycott.
It was the Montgomery bus boycott. That's how it started.
It was at Greensboro cit Ins, it was whatever was

(01:12:00):
in Charlotte, and you get breakthroughs. What you do is
you nationalize local movements. Your nationalized local movement. Now, I'm
gonna give you a scripture because we are in Bible
Studium and you grab Acts Chapter two, and we're gonna
I'm gonna call on you in a second. What we're
gonna look at tonight first is the context in which

(01:12:21):
we are operating in right now. And then we're gonna
talk about four aspects of what we call fusion or
moral m O or r al fusion f U s
i O N organizing fusion organizing, fusion organizing moral fusion

(01:12:41):
organized m f oh maral fusion organizing, and we want
to talk about what the components are. Now. I will
tell you that Marral fusion organizing, when I teach each
one of the four points, is an entire class. And
yeahe a three hour class, so I can through the whole.
But this is to entice you so that you will

(01:13:03):
go to the website and continue to study.

Speaker 9 (01:13:05):
And by the way, if.

Speaker 8 (01:13:07):
You're really interested in public policy in public theology, whether
you're a layperson or a pastor or a preacher or
neither of the one, we offer a free course at Yale.
All you have to do is go now to the
Center for Public Theology and Public Polics at Yale University
and you can take in your at your own speed.
At your own speed is right there for for you.

(01:13:29):
I just want to mention that. And so infusion in
moral fusion organizing. The first thing that you have to do.

Speaker 2 (01:13:46):
Is called marrow.

Speaker 8 (01:13:51):
You got to do a Maral assessment, a Maral analysis.
Say that with me analysis. If you're thinking about really
being in a movement that's gonna make a difference. You
don't just go grab a sign and start and don't
even know really what it's about. You just somebody somebody
told me hold this sign. Or you just go to
one event, And that's all you do, the first thing

(01:14:13):
you do. If you're going to stick in it, if
you're gonna really make change, you have to do an analysis,
an analysis of of of what is the political atmosphere,
what's going on? What is the issue? Why is it
an issue? Who doesn't impact right? Why shouldn't the church
be involved anyway? But see, because from a from a

(01:14:39):
moral religious standpoint, ain't Sangreda. That's what y'all know, Sangreda.
He's back there. She's been handing out everything. From a
moral standpoint, from a righteousness standpoint, that's a word that
you see in the Bible. The church doesn't stand up
for or against an issue because it's it's a democratic issue,

(01:15:01):
a republican issue, because one of the members on the
deacon board wants it, because one of the members of
powerful family in the church wants it, because the pastor
just wants it. We have to have an agrid something
that guides us to say we get into devolved in
this issue. And for the church, if I can narrate
quickly for us, it's Luke chapter four, verses eighteen through nineteen,

(01:15:26):
and Matthew twenty five and Isaiah chapter ten. That are
the three scriptural grids that we put on top of
any issue to even decide if we are to be involved.
And I say that the pastor, your pastor has been
doing this thirty years, so it's not new to your

(01:15:47):
But but why are we even engaging in it? Because
if the church is going to be involved in an
issue in the public square, we're not supposed to sound
like everybody else, even if it's or if you're just
Tomorrow movement, if they plays not that's it from the church.

Speaker 9 (01:16:01):
But you're saying I'm.

Speaker 8 (01:16:01):
Here because it's a moral issue, Well, what makes it
amral issue? What how do you determine that it's Moorrow?
So in our work we say we use our deepest
religious values in our deepest constitutional value. Right now, on
the religious value side, from a scriptural standpoint, Isaiah ten says,
woe unto those who legislate evil and rob the poor

(01:16:26):
of their rights and make women and children pray pr
e y.

Speaker 9 (01:16:32):
So if an issue comes.

Speaker 8 (01:16:33):
Up in the community, I'm gonna take that scripture and
lay it up there and say, let's see if this,
if this, if this is legislating evil, And how do
I know if it's legislating evil. Does it make women
and children pray, pr e y? Does it hurt women
and children? Does it take their lives? Does it is

(01:16:54):
the issue in the community, people pushing it because they
know they can get away with it, because it's feeding
on the least of these. And does it steal the
rights of the poor? Does it hurt the poor? The
poor have a right not to be violated. The poor
have a right, it's a god right not to be oppressed, not.

Speaker 9 (01:17:15):
To be kicked.

Speaker 8 (01:17:16):
Right, yesterday and the other day in the General Assembly
they vetold a bill that was challenging duke power, and
some of the people on the floor said, well, let's
don't worry about the fact that how it's gonna hurt
the poor.

Speaker 9 (01:17:30):
At least Dark Carolina is gonna make more money. Now.

Speaker 8 (01:17:33):
See, if I was gonna speak on that issue as
a pastor and my members were gonna go, we wouldn't
say we're here because the Democrats disagree with that issue.
We're here because the Republicans supported. No, we're here because
that bill legislates evil.

Speaker 14 (01:17:50):
How do I know?

Speaker 8 (01:17:51):
Because it robs the poor of their rights, and it
makes women and children pray, You know, what pray is.
Pray is something you eat, you catch, you kill, you destroy.
Not pr a wy like this, but pr e y
and any time people in power will pray pr a

(01:18:14):
wy at the beginning of their commissioner's meeting, that city
council meeting, their legislative meeting, and then after they pr
a wy they pass bills that pr y. There ought
to be a moral outcry from the church, from the
moral voices of the community. The other scripture is Luke,
chapter four, verse eighteen, which is Jesus' first sermon after

(01:18:39):
the beginning of his public ministry, and Jesus lays out
a category of people that he says, this is the
ethical framework and focus of the Holy Spirit. That the
Holy Spirit is not just what makes you clap your
hand and patch your feet. The Holy Spirit actually has

(01:19:01):
an ethical agenda, an ethical agenda, right. That's why the
slaves used to say everybody talking about here, man going there,
because they watched people go to church, but they didn't
follow the ethical agenda of the scripture. And Jesus says,
the spirit of the Lord is upon me, upon me.

(01:19:24):
In other words, it's the agenda from above. It comes
down from a higher place it is. It is that
which is born not of us, but born of God,
who has a right to set the agenda for God's
Church with God's people. Spirit of the Lord's punis preach
good news to the poor, foroi he has anointed me
and anointed. That's interesting that word anointing in the Old Testament,

(01:19:45):
where that same scripture comes out of Isaiah sixty one,
there were two words for anointing. One word for anointing
meant things you annaught to sit in the temple, like
the you anoint the poor pit, or you anaint the
laverge they use to baptis ties people.

Speaker 9 (01:20:00):
Are you annoying that that was a kind of annointed.

Speaker 8 (01:20:03):
But the particular word for anointing in Isaiah sixty one,
from which Luke for eighteen Jesus is quoting, it is
a word which literally means anointed to show uncommon grace
in a mean world. It literally means anointed to be

(01:20:24):
to be to be empowered to do what you can't
do in your own strength. It means that that's most
shock is the word in Hebrew. It literally means to
be anointed to in such a way that you have
to speak to the death of our times, whatever is
killing folk, I'm anointed from God to speak to that

(01:20:47):
and challenge it. Even if it doesn't change, speak to it.
And then it gives the categories what is it that
you're supposed to speak to it? First thing is poverty
good news to the poor. And the word there for
poor is par tocos p t h o s in
which in Greek means people who've been made poor by
policy is There are three other words for poor. One

(01:21:11):
of them is you just lazy. That's not what the
word Jesus uses. Another word is poor because you may
have just you know, happen to become poor because of
an uncertain sickness. But the poor in Luke for eighteen
is when you are poor.

Speaker 9 (01:21:29):
And low wage.

Speaker 8 (01:21:31):
Because policies make it so, And the anaunting of God
says the church has to challenge that. And then the
other category says that the healing to the broken heart,
and the word for healing there has two meanings. It
means to heal miraculously, like by laying on their hands
of annoyting with ail and God heals, but the word

(01:21:53):
also means to remove that which is making people sick
in the first place. So the heal of broken hearted.
I mean people's hearts get broken, not by mysterious people,
but by other people in politics.

Speaker 9 (01:22:06):
That's how folks heart get broken.

Speaker 8 (01:22:08):
So he says, preach good news for the poor, healing
to the broken hearted, recovery of sight to the blind,
blind their meaning, blinded to love, blind it to justice,
blinded by the oppressive systems of the world, recovery sight
to the blind.

Speaker 9 (01:22:26):
And then it goes on to say and then.

Speaker 8 (01:22:28):
At the end it says, and to declare the acceptable
year of the Lord, which literally means to preach that
the year of Jubilee is now, and that God is
saying to every political system and power system, if you

(01:22:49):
are selective in who you care for, you are outside
of the will of God. Because God's calling in their
northing is to declare the acceptable year.

Speaker 9 (01:23:00):
So how do I why would.

Speaker 8 (01:23:02):
First Baptists go down to the city hall for an
incident challenging issue if city hall was passing things that
was saying, this community matters, but these folk don't. These
folks matter, but these people don't. Right trans Attax for instance. Right,
so folks are saying that these folks, this is the

(01:23:24):
accepted crowd, but this is not any time society's power structure.

Speaker 9 (01:23:30):
Is limiting justice to unlimiting grace to certain groups.

Speaker 8 (01:23:38):
Luke four eighteen says, the anainting of God calls us
to challenge that. And then Matthew twenty five is the
scripture we all have heard quota, we all amen it,
but sometime we miss it when Jesus said, he said,
and I will say to the nations governments. A lot

(01:24:00):
of time we have taken as an individual text, he says,
but he's not. I will say to the nation when
I was hungry, did you when I was naked? Did
you when I was sick? Did you when I was
in prison? Did you inasmuch as you've done it unto
the least of these? So a church's public platform has

(01:24:27):
to ask this question, who are a hungry, who are
a naked?

Speaker 9 (01:24:31):
Who are in prison?

Speaker 8 (01:24:33):
Who are the least of these in the community, Because
we are required to challenge the community that if you
are passing policies that hurt the sick, the imprison, the hungry,
and the least of these, then those policies are contrary

(01:24:57):
to God's will. And and so the first step of
a congregation organizing around how it's gonna what it's gonna
where it's gonna stand is to take and it doesn't
have to be those three scriptures, because there are two
thousand scriptures in the Bible that speak to the issue
of how we stand in relationship to the poor, the
least of these and those on the margin.

Speaker 9 (01:25:19):
By the way, I thought, I mentioned that.

Speaker 8 (01:25:21):
You can't if you take all those scriptures and cut
them out of the Bible, the Bible falls apart. Bible
literally is no more Bible.

Speaker 9 (01:25:29):
Uh.

Speaker 8 (01:25:29):
It's actually how I open my class at Yale. Now
I open my class at Yale. I come in with
a cellophane bag full of all the scriptures that talk
about justice, love, and mercy, and I dump it on
the table and then I show them the Bible that
came out of and say, now, is this your ministry?
Is this how you're gonna preach. You're gonna preach with
a holy Bible, not holy h O l WI, but
holy the other way.

Speaker 26 (01:25:52):
Right.

Speaker 8 (01:25:52):
So, but but you have to have and decide this
is the grid that we're gonna analyze where we stand
on the issue. And pastors like yours does has a
responsibility to say I'm not just standing against this issue
because I don't like it, or I don't like the
people who pushing it. I'm standing because we're required by

(01:26:17):
the scripture and by the anainting of the Spirit. And
so if we don't do it, we're gonna be held
accountable as a church. And if not now, we're gonna
be held accountable.

Speaker 9 (01:26:28):
When we face God. But the problem is a lot
of time we're gonna be.

Speaker 8 (01:26:30):
Held accountable now because if we don't do it, I
guarantee it's gonna hurt people in your corregation that you
call brothers and sister.

Speaker 9 (01:26:40):
Fusion.

Speaker 8 (01:26:40):
Now, the other thing we do with fusion is the
constitutional side, the constitution of these United States. Well, let
me do North Carolina, let me come a little bit macro.
In eighteen sixty eight, two pastors help rewrite the North
Carolina state Constitution after the end of slavery.

Speaker 9 (01:27:02):
Two pastors.

Speaker 8 (01:27:03):
One was a white pastor who had come here from Ohio,
and another was J. W. Hood, who later became the
President of Livingstone and the Bishop of the Aam Design Church.
And they came together and they wrote, helped rewrite the
Constitution of North Carolina. And in the preamble they set

(01:27:25):
out some foundational principles. Say for that foundational principle, and
this is what they wrote, We hold these truths to
be self evident that all persons. Now you know, the

(01:27:49):
federal stuff doesn't say person, it says all men. But
when these two preachers helped rewrite the North kind of
constitution post slavery, they took out me an insertain person,
because they knew that God was concerned about all people,
regardless of their gender.

Speaker 9 (01:28:09):
We hold these truths to be.

Speaker 8 (01:28:10):
Self evident that all persons are created equal, endowed by
their creator, with certainly inalienable rights, among which a life
liberty was Now that's the Federal But when two preachers
trying to trying to lay down principles that would keep

(01:28:33):
us from going back to slavery, they added something, We
hold these truths to be self evident that all persons
are created equal, endowed by their creator, with certainly nailable rights,
among which are life liberty, the enjoyment of the fruit
of their own labor, and the pursuit of happiness. So
what they said, Rick, what pastor, is that anything that

(01:28:54):
undermines your ability to enjoy the fruit of your own
labor is pseudo slavery. And so from a constitutional right perspective,
why do I fight for living wages?

Speaker 9 (01:29:06):
Why does the church?

Speaker 8 (01:29:07):
Because it violates the ability of people to enjoy the
food of their own labor, it makes people work at
slave and poverty wages.

Speaker 9 (01:29:16):
Why do I challenge things that take money out of
the pockets at least of.

Speaker 8 (01:29:20):
These because it violates the ability for them to Not
only is it anti what God said about the poor,
but from a constitutional basis, it's also violated.

Speaker 9 (01:29:31):
Y'all with me there?

Speaker 1 (01:29:33):
All right, folks, we're going to restream all of that
right here in the Black Start Network.

Speaker 2 (01:29:39):
But I want to go to Rebecca and Robert here. Robert,
I'll start with you.

Speaker 1 (01:29:42):
Something Reverend said their bishop to sit there, that you
know I talk a lot all helling my speeches as well,
is that if we're talking about how we mobilize and
organize people, we have to go micro macro, not macro micro,
And that so many people want to focus on big initiatives,
large initiatives, national initiatives. But what we're seeing in Texas,

(01:30:06):
what we're seeing all these other places is what happens
when you have state boards of elections, when you have
local elections, you have state rep, State Senate, good vitorial,
you know, the state legislatures, state Supreme Court, whatever, And
I think you know too often that's where the focus
has been. And so what I keep saying to people,
think small, small, all of a sudden, five ten, fifteen, thirty, thirty, five, forty,

(01:30:30):
one hundred, all of a sudden, you now take one hundred.
Now do that in ten different places. That's a thousand votes.
And so we have to break this thing down in
bite sized ways of people to actually accept this, to
understand they can actually change politics. But it has to
be micro a start. First, you're muted. You're muted, Still muted.

(01:31:07):
All right, let's do this here. We're going to go
to Rebecca. Then we come back to Robert. Rebecca, go ahead.

Speaker 12 (01:31:12):
I know it's important for people to understand that all
politics is local, and that it's very important to connect
with what's happening in people's communities with what interns happened
at the ballot box. I'm listening to the Reverend doctor Barber.
It also made me think of the previous segment when
we were talking about medicaid and medicare getting ready to

(01:31:34):
celebrate his sixtieth anniversary and knowing that next week is
the sixtieth anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, and it's
just so interesting now all of the things are intersected
around sixty years ago and with a fight for civil
rights and what the local fight and then what became
the national fight. One thing that we can understand is
that whether it's our individual health at the micro level

(01:31:57):
is determined by macro health of this country, which.

Speaker 7 (01:32:00):
Is at the ballot box.

Speaker 13 (01:32:03):
Robert, we have you now, Yeah, and we're alling just
kind of piggybacking off of what Rebecca said. We absolutely
took our finger off the trigger. We took our eye
off the ball after two thousand and eight, and that's
when the Democratic Party decided that they would invest everything
on the federal level.

Speaker 14 (01:32:21):
They will send everything to Obama for America.

Speaker 13 (01:32:23):
It was so important to keep the presidency, to keep
the Senate that they forgot about grassroots efforts after that.
For the decade or so, we lost one thousand and
forty four races on the state and local level after
Obama came to power because they stopped investing in those
little races. And that's how they built this MAGA movement
from the ground up in the course of about ten years,

(01:32:46):
which means that on this outside of that, we can
do the exact same thing. For the last few weeks,
have been going through the MLK files since they came out,
just seeing what they released to what we can find
and more people to start reading through and understanding what
people are doing sixteen seventy years ago in church basements
with telephones, without the internet, meeting individuals and pta halls, talking.

Speaker 14 (01:33:10):
To your neighbors.

Speaker 13 (01:33:11):
They were able to literally change the entire arc of
the moral universe just by connecting on those small levels
with the people around them and deciding that enough was enough.

Speaker 14 (01:33:19):
If they can do that, there's no excuse.

Speaker 13 (01:33:21):
For our generation to drop the ball and let things
roll backwards at our watch simply because we did not.

Speaker 14 (01:33:27):
We did not put the work in to organize people
on the ground.

Speaker 1 (01:33:33):
Absolutely, and those were decisions that actually made. And I
remember three individuals, Paulmagaya, James Carvill, Robney Manuel did not
want Howard Dean to remain as DNC chair because they
wanted to focus on national races, and they convince Obama
to get rid of him when Dean kept talking about
a fifty state strategy that to me was an absolutely dumb,

(01:33:58):
dumb decision by President Obama to do that. You're absolutely
right everything about being about Obama for America. And also
that also just basically cause the DNC to be completely gutted,
and so you saw the results of that. And so,
but what I want our people to understand is what

(01:34:19):
I'm talking about here. It's not political party. What I'm
talking about is black grassroots. What we can do to
mobilize and organize our community and ourselves. That I'm telling you,
as long as we keep sitting out elections, we are
making maga's job easy, and we should be making their
job hard. They are attacking black people, they are attacking

(01:34:44):
the black agenda. They want to defund Black America politically
and economically and for all of youall people, And I'm
gonna say it right now, and I don't care. Y'all
need to stop listening to Omar Johnson. I need to
stop listening to Tarika Na Sheet.

Speaker 2 (01:34:58):
Y'all need to.

Speaker 1 (01:34:59):
Stop listening to all of these foods, the Boyce Watkins
of the world, all of them who tell you voting
doesn't matter because they're liars. Because you are seeing what
happens when people do vote and you're seeing public policy.
You're seeing right now because of Donald Trump holding the

(01:35:19):
levers of power, having the White House, the House, in
the Senate. They are extorting five hundred million dollars from Harvard,
two hundred million dollars from from Columbia. They're now targeting
UCLA and others. They're using civil rights laws against black people. Now,
some of y'all might say, well, that that's Harvard, that's Columbia,

(01:35:40):
that's UCLA.

Speaker 2 (01:35:41):
But they're targeting the black.

Speaker 1 (01:35:42):
People in Lownes County who had sewage in their lines,
sewage in their yards. They're targeting the hood lawsuits as well.
They're letting millionaires. The guy, the guy with fat Burger,
gave a big donation Donald Trump. They cancel the forty
seven million dollar lawsuit against him.

Speaker 2 (01:36:00):
The needs are happening for our very eyes.

Speaker 1 (01:36:01):
So anybody black, and I'm gonna say this before I go,
because to break come to my next story. You have
never seen white folk say don't vote. You don't get
nothing for that. So why don't they hear what you
listening to? Somebody black telling you that every single thing

(01:36:22):
in our society. I don't care whether y'all like it
or not impacts by politics.

Speaker 2 (01:36:28):
Take your pick, take your pick.

Speaker 1 (01:36:33):
Your interest rates on your car in your house, that's politics.
That's the faied, the whole deal with credit reports.

Speaker 2 (01:36:41):
Yep. Politics. I can go on and on and on.

Speaker 1 (01:36:45):
So we would be stupid to listen to anybody who
tells us.

Speaker 2 (01:36:51):
Don't vote.

Speaker 1 (01:36:53):
I'm not saying that is the be all to end all,
but I can tell you this year, we're seeing right
now what happens when evil is it control of our politics.
And he's going to be there for at least the
next three and a half years. You'd better buckle up
because it's real.

Speaker 2 (01:37:10):
Gotta go to the break. We come back.

Speaker 1 (01:37:11):
We're gonna talk with the owner of Chicago Food Company.
They of course have been in business for more than
two decades. There can good company. We're going to talk
about the target Boy acount, how it impacts them, but
also the work that they have to try to build
and grow the business in this age, which makes it
a lot difficult for a lot of black owned businesses

(01:37:32):
to get financing but also to be able to get
their products on store shelves.

Speaker 2 (01:37:35):
You're watching rollingd markin unfiltered right here on the Black
Sun Network.

Speaker 15 (01:37:40):
This week on the other side of Change, dur on
Mamdanie the New York City mayor race and this progressive
wave that has sent such a shockwave.

Speaker 17 (01:37:49):
Through all of New York City and really the rest
of the country.

Speaker 15 (01:37:51):
Jamal Bowman, who's going to help us understand what this
mayoral election means and how we make sure that it
translates across the.

Speaker 16 (01:37:58):
Meet Should you imagine not know democrats like identifying themselves
as having slaver or ars or sway like, absolutely not right.
So hopefully the city does what it can in November,
the health resurrectuves dying party and honestly just resurrect our democracy.

Speaker 17 (01:38:16):
Only on the other side of change on the Black
Start Network.

Speaker 20 (01:38:21):
Next on the Black Table with me Greg Carr, Democracy
in the United States is undeceived. On this list of
bad actors, It's easy to point out the Donald Trumps,
the Marjorie Taylor Greens, or even the United States Supreme Court.

Speaker 9 (01:38:35):
As the primary villains.

Speaker 20 (01:38:37):
But as David Pepper, author, scholar, and former politician himself says,
there's another factor that trumps them all and resides much
closer to many.

Speaker 2 (01:38:47):
Of our homes.

Speaker 20 (01:38:48):
His book is laboratories of Altacer's a wake up call
from behind the lines.

Speaker 21 (01:38:55):
So these state houses get hijacked by the far right,
then they jerry manner. They suppress the opposition, and that
allows and the legislate in a way that doesn't reflect
the people that state.

Speaker 20 (01:39:07):
David Pepper joins us on the next Black Table here

Speaker 29 (01:39:15):
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Speaker 4 (01:40:35):
On the next a Balanced Life with me, doctor Jackie,
we're talking about leveling up, or to put it another way,
living your very best life. How to take a bold

Speaker 18 (01:40:46):

Speaker 19 (01:40:48):
a stuck because we're looking at someone else's level of journeys,
what levelpe means to them.

Speaker 18 (01:40:56):
For some, it might be a business venture, for some
it might be a real relationships situation.

Speaker 3 (01:41:01):

Speaker 4 (01:41:04):

Speaker 5 (01:41:11):
What's up, everybody? It's your girl Attasha.

Speaker 4 (01:41:12):
From the A and you're watching Roland Martin unfiltered.

Speaker 1 (01:41:34):
All right, folks should Marketplace seven when we focus on
black owned businesses, and we don't just talk about you know,
the great things, but the good, the bad, the ugly,
all that good stuff that comes with it.

Speaker 2 (01:41:44):
And how do you build and grow businesses.

Speaker 1 (01:41:46):
You always hear me talk about capacity, How we have
to build capacity, how we have to be able to
continue the businesses to grow because what often often happens
is the owner will start something and it's in a
lot of cases the children don't over the business to
continue to actually grow that business. Well, what we have
out of Chicago Good Foods, a can good company that

(01:42:09):
was started a couple of decades ago. Now the CEO
is Andrew Johnson. He's the second generation CEO owner of
Good Foods and he joined us right now.

Speaker 2 (01:42:20):
Andrew, glad to have you here.

Speaker 1 (01:42:22):
So first off, for folks who don't know, they may
have been in the stores that may have seen the products.

Speaker 2 (01:42:30):
How did Good food start?

Speaker 25 (01:42:33):
So I'll sum up two decades in about minutes. But
my father started this in two thousand and three. Was
a corporate farmer rep. I worked at Abbot thirty five
years and a certain point he said, hey, I want
to start my own food business. The connections and so
Good Foods has really started out of frustration of corporate America,
but also in a necessity to provide can goods and

(01:42:59):
products that we can afford that are nutritional and available
to the community. And so we really started in the
food deserts of Chicago in the Wick centers. There's a
very unique opportunity and situation there where they have grocery
centers only catered to participants, and so we called the
Golden Age of good Foods. That was, you know, when

(01:43:20):
my dad we had this contract, so he right off
the bat one this contract supply all the centers. So
it's imagine if you go into a Kroger or Walmart
and everything is coming directly through us. We were doing frozen,
canned baby food, anything you see in the grocery store,
even dairy fresh produce, and so really government sector distribution company.

(01:43:43):
And then sort of over time we transitioned into retail
local company in Chicago called Jewelasco, which is like Albertson's
found out about us and found about the family story
the business and asked us to start selling to them.
So it sort of went from like couple one hundred
stores in Illinois that we expanded into Indiana and kind

(01:44:06):
of moving along really more in the government sector and
then sort of a little bit of retail, and then
that pandemic hit man, as you remember, and we just
kind of took off, you know, just timing, never giving
up being the right place. And you know, we sold
the years worth of supply in about thirty days.

Speaker 2 (01:44:21):
Wow.

Speaker 25 (01:44:22):
And so we went from like two.

Speaker 2 (01:44:24):
Of that because the folks were just at home and they.

Speaker 25 (01:44:26):
Folks, well, nobody canet any can goods too, right, So
all the big fellas, the del Monte's, I don't want
to say any competition on the show, but everybody basically
was already allocated, and so we were able to kind
of slither in there and get a lot of this
business that some of these big fellas couldn't produce for
with some of the stores. So we went from two

(01:44:49):
hundred stores to about four thousand and about a year
and a half two.

Speaker 2 (01:44:53):
Thousand. Wow.

Speaker 25 (01:44:54):
Yeah, over eight hundred percent growth, and so that's abnormal.
It's abnormal. Yes, So yeah, the whole family joined in,
you know, because up until then it was you know,
we had a small staff, but less family. More outsourcing
a lot of the work, and sister joined, Mom joined.
Everybody was all hands on deck right because it was

(01:45:14):
the pandemic and from there, unfortunately, in the middle of that,
my father passed. I'm sure I think you know the
story also Alpha, so you sure as you know and
you know also I want to say, first of all,
thank you for me on the show, having me on
the show because I met you. I think I told
you on the phone back in twenty twelve with my father,

(01:45:34):
And shout out to my uncle Charles Robertson. You know,
he's sitting at home watch right now. If I don't
mention his name, he's gonna be calling me up to
the show. So shout out to uncle Charles. And you
were very gracious. I didn't even know what I was
doing back then. My dad had started the business, right,
but I was slowly, you know, trying to figure out
what you was doing. We didn't know, you know, government work.
You're like, okay, that's cool there, but I don't really

(01:45:56):
understand it. I'm in college. Then he started getting the Walmart,
so that's kind of Walmart, you know, So that that
sort of interested me. When I was a marketing major
at all the universities.

Speaker 1 (01:46:06):
But I want but I want to freeze it there
because the government. I want to hit the government.

Speaker 2 (01:46:11):
Piece for a reason.

Speaker 1 (01:46:12):
Yes, it's because I again, I was just talking about uh,
these folks out here who say, oh, man, you ain't
getting nothing when voting. And I keep trying to explain
to people that if you look at a significant number
of block owned businesses, they have been able to start
and grow because they had been able to access government contracts.

(01:46:32):
They be be able to access city, county, school, district, state, federal.

Speaker 2 (01:46:37):
Uh and and this is a this is this is
a reality.

Speaker 1 (01:46:41):
Uh and and and when I talk about building capacity,
the ability being with to have locked in contracts, once
you have that, you can go to a bank and say.

Speaker 2 (01:46:49):
Oh, xter them contracts, xterme um goods.

Speaker 1 (01:46:53):
This is exactly how many units are going to be
moving out now lines of credit loans as well.

Speaker 2 (01:46:58):
So, uh people, you know, we're crapping on Biden and Harris.

Speaker 1 (01:47:03):
But the reality is it was less than two percent,
but it was a record ten billion dollars in federal
contracts that black folks got. So anybody who says that
stuff is irrelevant without those government contracts, there is no
expansion to four thousand stores.

Speaker 25 (01:47:21):
There's no good foods. You know, it was it was
started through government contracts because it's very expensive to do
retail business. You know, government work is a lot of
it's relationship based, so that is a liability with that
because one person leaves and then you're kind of liable
to whoever's coming up next. If you don't have that relationship, yey,

(01:47:42):
you're out. I got a guy that's cheaper than you.
Was very price based. Now in retail, it's about the brand,
and that's why you've probably seen us on TikTok. We've
been solely becoming the TikTok brand and that's great. You know,
however you can get the word out.

Speaker 1 (01:47:55):
It's all about name brands. Store folks are looking at
name brands. Oh, I know that food company and that
food company.

Speaker 2 (01:48:03):
And then what happens is that also impacts where you
get placed on shelves.

Speaker 25 (01:48:07):
Yes, yes, yes, so another thing. So I get people say, well,
you're on the top shelf at Kroger.

Speaker 6 (01:48:13):
You're in.

Speaker 25 (01:48:14):
You know, it's very very competitive. There's there's thousands of
brands that don't have any shelf space. You know, some
of these stores. We have eight skews seventy. I mean
my day used to say more when you different can products?
Eight different products in that store?

Speaker 2 (01:48:27):
Yes, got it? Yes?

Speaker 25 (01:48:28):
So some places it's regional, you know, some of Walmarts
we have four, Target four and myer aid. So it depends.
But you know, the most expressive real estate in America,
my dad I used to always say, is that grocery shelf.
Because you have to pay to put on scan down,
you have to constantly run promotions. A lot of people
get sliding fees. Just there's a lot of pay to
play and then the marketing, you know, so there's there's

(01:48:51):
given take between government and retail. But ideally you want
to have both if you're trying to build a sustainable business.

Speaker 1 (01:48:58):
But people need to understand though, and that when we're
talking a lot of people watching and not loving when
these people got lots of stuff to say, who don't
know a damn thing about the business, who don't understand
the reality we need to have more of this and
more of that, not understanding what that takes.

Speaker 2 (01:49:16):
I hear all the time in media and I.

Speaker 1 (01:49:19):
Go, okay, you do know in terms of cameras and teleprompters,
and monitors and all these like. It ain't just easy
to say we need this here. And Chicago's is a
flash for because that's what Operation bread Basket was about.
It was leveraging protests to get products in grocery stores.

(01:49:41):
The reason you had those black millionaires and those major
black businesses in Chicago in the late sixties and early
seventies and eighties was because of Operation bread Basket. But
you then come in, your dad then comes in and
what I would call that second wave because they basically there.

Speaker 2 (01:50:00):
That's first wave of black people who were in corporate America.

Speaker 1 (01:50:03):
Then that second wave of in the wake of the
civil rights movement comes in in the late eighties and nineties,
and now it's not a different type of focus.

Speaker 2 (01:50:15):
And people have to recognize what that history is.

Speaker 1 (01:50:18):
And it's not as simple as saying, oh, yeah, we'd
have a black can good company.

Speaker 2 (01:50:23):
Okay, but but they're real, they are real things that
go with that.

Speaker 25 (01:50:28):
Yes, yes, it's not as easy as as we make
it look. You know, to get into four thousand stores,
I mean there was a lot of It's not like
we just went you know, my dad had built relationships.
We had to show up at different networking events.

Speaker 6 (01:50:41):
Right.

Speaker 25 (01:50:41):
We had to pull up to some of the golf oightings, right,
I mean I go on for hours about what took
you know, you say you have a put plant, like
literally my dad, you know, at a certain point kind
of what happened was is we transitioned, got all these stores.
But as right before we expanded, he was in his sixties, right,
so he was ready to retire. He said, Drew, I'm

(01:51:03):
gonna let you take over at this point. I'm gonna
stay on as a mentor, board of Advisor, but you
do what you do. I'm done. I put in my
years of work, right, and so, long story short, we
were at the Kroger version of Chicago's grocery stores called Mariano's,
and we're about three hundred stores. This is right in
the pandemic hit. You know, everyone doesn't really know what

(01:51:25):
the future holds. And my dad was like, I don't
want to do anything else, Like I told you, you're
taken over. I dragged him down to this event downtown Chicago.
He's the type to pull up at the event. He's
got his miniature put He's like, you don't care who's around.
I'm like, dah, Okay, fine, do that. Just stay here
for a presence. Literally, the Kroger buyer flies to Chicago

(01:51:46):
randomly dead and we had no idea, and I run away.
I find out he's like dad, put the put the
put it on the Kroger. You know, he's a Cincinnati guy,
so this is a big deal for him, right, And
so long story longer he you know, we found out
that he were local. We had all these can goods
store in our warehouse, and that's how we really expanded
and from there just trickle effect, you know. Literally, that's it.

Speaker 1 (01:52:08):
Relationship. I'm gonna bring my pamily in just a second here.
But one of the things that we also talked about
is that you guys are in Target, and that was
not an easy thing to get again, getting into these
retail stores takes a long time. How long did it

(01:52:30):
take for y'all to break to crack that code to
finally get in Target?

Speaker 25 (01:52:36):
Was I mean we started back in twenty seventeen. I'll
say that I actually put it out there head, I
want to be in Target, and everybody from our banker
to my father to just our accountants said, hey, that's
even our farmers. The farmers that we produce with. That's
a very difficult account. Target is not a traditional grocery store.
They don't they move a lot of food products. So

(01:52:57):
but hey, you have my blessing if you get it
from there. It was like two hundred emails right to
the Target buyer. Never know, no response is some little response.
Hey they connect you with this person, you get a meeting,
and the business terms don't work out. And so the
process was like five years. It was five years of
just going back and forth. And so I say, like

(01:53:18):
all the time, it's like the stories you see us in.
They agreed to our business terms. I pitch regularly every
day of my life to every store possible. So I
would love to be in HB. Costcos even more. Walmart's
more targets. So you know, it was not easy process,
and it was way before you know a lot of

(01:53:39):
the controversy that's going on, and so a lot of
times people don't understand the history. You know, two decades
of work went into Target even being able to take
us seriously, I had to get into Kroger first, I
had to get into Walmart first. Oh okay, now you're
really in my backyard, you know, I'm within a ten
minute direction of every target. Okay, I have to take
these guys seriously. You know, one of those situations we

(01:53:59):
kind of be too good to ignore.

Speaker 2 (01:54:02):
How have y'all been impacted by the target boardcot?

Speaker 25 (01:54:05):
We took a huge hit in January, you know, up
until January when we did get in a target actually
became our number one seller, number one selling story. When
January hit and all the controversy came h.

Speaker 1 (01:54:19):
January twenty fourth, this memo about then getting the ending
DEI drops next day, a couple of calls for boycott.
Then all of a sudden, that thing starts February first.

Speaker 25 (01:54:30):
So I would say within the first week or two
of February, we saw a dramatic decrease I mean almost
fifty percent decrease in sales because the audience that they
had brought us in really to push us at was
no longer going to the store. And you know, knock
on wood, we've luckily in the last month I would

(01:54:51):
say literally, I mean people are trying to slowly get
back into the store. We saw an increase and saw
some of the sales back on certain items, but you know,
it wasn't like before, you know, when we were really moving,
you know before jam.

Speaker 2 (01:55:05):
Did they did they? And I'll talk to other folks.

Speaker 1 (01:55:07):
Did they communicate with black owned companies, what they would
what they were going to do.

Speaker 2 (01:55:13):
I talked to others who said they were.

Speaker 1 (01:55:14):
Totally caught off guard, bye bye by this decision, and
they were sort of left out there being forced to
defend themselves. People like y'all may pull your products, not
understanding that you have contracts.

Speaker 2 (01:55:26):
That's money. Is that Ain't that simple to say take
your product off shelves? Right?

Speaker 25 (01:55:32):
You know, we were very blessed and so a lot
of people don't realize, like there's a lot of African
American executives at Target. Nobody knows what's going on except
the CEO and the investors. Everyone else is just kind
of trying to figure it out. This is from what
I understand. I have a broker, I have a sales rep.
But you know, we didn't get a member. We had

(01:55:53):
to kind of fend for ourselves. But I will say
that the buyer specifically for Ken Goods, it was a
young African American woman. Huge shot up to her because
she really kept us in the loop. She was very
transparent When I said, hey, what should I do. What
can I say? You know, because I'm getting you know,
emails and voicemails like, you know, take your product off

(01:56:13):
the shelf. People don't understand there's fees and fins associated
with thousands, hundreds of thousands depending on your distribution. You know,
It's not like I can just pull it off. And
also you understand, you a lot of people you use
Target to leverage in the other stores, you know, so yeah,
it's not it's not easy. I can't just I can't
just take it off without a huge repercussion of something

(01:56:34):
and a lot of story. You know, companies could go red,
could go under with fees like that.

Speaker 1 (01:56:41):
And and have they have they since communicated with you
and others, And because because what I've heard from other
black owned companies said, they're like, dude, like yo, y'all
got to say something.

Speaker 2 (01:56:53):
Y'all got to communicate this. This going to this cone
of silence is nonsensical. Uh. And they're not even willing
to sit and talk with you know, the leaders of
the boycott to walk. I keep hearing.

Speaker 1 (01:57:06):
I saw Rich Dinnis going on the Breakfast Club talk
about all these great things Target has done, how amazing
they've been and I said they're rich. Okay, so when
is Target gonna say that? He's like, well, that's really
that's only them.

Speaker 2 (01:57:16):
I'm like, well, that one of the reason why to
get a buzz kicked.

Speaker 25 (01:57:19):
Yes, And that's why I wanted to come on the
show because I think, you know, we have a very
unique situation in the sense that the buyer that I
was dealing with, I will never not say that she
was super transparent and super helpful throughout this process. She's
now off the desk. So I have a new buyer
that I'm dealing with, but they've been communicating as far
as like business, Hey, you know, I'm getting orders every week,

(01:57:43):
but as far as what was announced in January, nobody knows.
My broker as an office down the street from Minneapolis
next to Target headquarters. He doesn't know. He can't get
any answers. So I have to kind of play it
by you, and it's a day by day thing.

Speaker 1 (01:58:02):
Before I go to the panelist, you mentioned Costco. Uh, Costco,
you know, firms their support for DEI, and so I
put something out on social media as a test. As
a test. Now, do just ask the basic basic question. Hey, y'all,
don't know how many black owned products or in Costco,

(01:58:23):
And it was like six or eight.

Speaker 2 (01:58:25):
And all these black folks will getting mad at me.
We can't boy cost somebody else. I said, I'm sorry,
I didn't even mention the boycott, but I had a
problem that Focus only named six or eight.

Speaker 1 (01:58:37):
Clearly y'all have a great product and is doing well.
Why are you're not in Costco?

Speaker 25 (01:58:44):
That's a great question. I would love to be in Costco.
Like I said, I love to be in HGB. I
would love to be in all the Albersons. I've pitched
to them and I am working diligently. One thing I
will say about Costco, no matter who you are, right,
there's small business problems that everybody deals with that transcends race.
I know folks that get into stories and they're like
my products in the back, or they see they don't

(01:59:06):
see on the shelf that you're a small business, you're
a new brand. It's going to get lost in the sauce.
You're not top priority. So yeah, I would love to
be in Costco. You know, hopefully somebody's watching and they
can reach out. But it's expensive. You have to do
bulk packaging, a lot of times most brands, small businesses
can't afford that. You know, instead of like a traditional
one can on the shelf, you now have to do

(01:59:28):
a special wrap and twelve pack sell it on the shelf.
Right there's bulk orders. Then they want you to do
maybe a custom wrap that's another additional price. And in
something like can Good super slim margins that could really
crush you. There's no there's no room to make any money.
So you might get a huge order, but how much
should it cost to make that? Got Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:59:48):
Questions for the panel, Rebecca.

Speaker 3 (01:59:50):
You first, Andrew, thank you so much for being on
the SHEW tonight.

Speaker 12 (01:59:55):
So there are many questions in the chat, and the
biggest question is is that you're talking about your products
and you're saying that.

Speaker 7 (02:00:01):
They're all natural. Do you use GMO?

Speaker 3 (02:00:05):
Are genetically modified plants?

Speaker 9 (02:00:10):
Now?

Speaker 25 (02:00:10):
All of our products are non GMO, and we source
from some of the highest quality soil in the country
in the Upper Peninsular region of Minnesota right on the
border of Minnesota and Canada, and so everything is growing
in the US. We use a co operate farmers that
are within one hundred thousand mile radius that are literally

(02:00:30):
one hundreds of miles from any type of pollution. We
don't use any glyphosate or pesticides on the crops as well,
so everything is non GMO, and you will see that
on the label. I don't know if you need it
close up, but all of our products are labeled non gmo.

Speaker 1 (02:00:46):
Robert, all right, all right, Robert's not there, not a problem. Yeah,
I'm looking at a product here.

Speaker 2 (02:00:58):
This is a good foot.

Speaker 1 (02:01:00):
It was all natural sweet peas. I will never be
eating these eight peas, so I'll do corn. I'll do men,
I can't stand peas. Don't even give me start a case.

Speaker 25 (02:01:10):
I got a case.

Speaker 2 (02:01:11):
Don't they get me started on peas?

Speaker 25 (02:01:12):
Oh you like cranberry sauce? Thanksgiving cranberry sauce?

Speaker 2 (02:01:16):
Maybe?

Speaker 25 (02:01:17):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (02:01:18):
I don't eat many vegetables, blaming on my dad and
we used to have vegetable week these man, look, don't
even get me started.

Speaker 2 (02:01:25):
See you about the trigger And it says picked and
pat same day. What does that mean?

Speaker 25 (02:01:31):
That means within twenty four hours of the crop being pulled,
it is canned and sealed, so it seals all of
the nutrition within basically a day.

Speaker 2 (02:01:43):
Got it? Non gmo, no preservatives, BPA free. What is that?

Speaker 25 (02:01:50):
That means the cans are BPA free. So there's a
very thick lining between the food and the can that
prevents any contamination or any type of bacteria from getting
into it.

Speaker 2 (02:02:02):
No salt added.

Speaker 1 (02:02:04):
All right, cool, cool, Let's see here, this is good
sweet peas, hummus.

Speaker 2 (02:02:10):
I think this is a recipe. I want to give
folks recipe idea and all right, cool cool.

Speaker 25 (02:02:19):
And then all the products are WICK approved, so very
strict dietary guidelines going to that. No sugar added to
any of our products.

Speaker 2 (02:02:28):
And you purposely have your dad's photo on here, I do.

Speaker 25 (02:02:31):
Yeah. That was sort of like a just a tribute
to him and everything he's done. And we put that
on about two years ago, and a lot of people
resonated with that in the story.

Speaker 2 (02:02:43):
Total number product, y'all have ten.

Speaker 25 (02:02:46):
Ten items right now. He's corn, green beans, mixed vegetables, peas.

Speaker 2 (02:02:51):
No corn, yes, okay, greens yes.

Speaker 25 (02:02:55):
Okay, So you're not mixed vegetables. That's peace corn okay,
peace past black beans. Hell no, I'm gonna get a candy.
I absolutely not kidney beans.

Speaker 2 (02:03:10):
Hell no.

Speaker 1 (02:03:11):
You understand, we had okay growing up in Houston we
in our pantry, we had like the mental shelf was
every bag of.

Speaker 2 (02:03:21):
Bean known to man. I'm talking about if you open
the pantry, bags of beans are falling out. All right.
My dad is a bean lover. If I don't see
another bean in my life, it'll be awesome. Dog. You
don't understand I'm talking text from him. I mean, if

(02:03:41):
you name a bean, a bag was in that in
that pantry. Okay, like every bean on the man. Get Rebecca,
what's up?

Speaker 7 (02:03:51):
So?

Speaker 12 (02:03:52):
Look, we've been talking about health and how food and
nutrition is good for foundation health.

Speaker 3 (02:03:57):
This is how our ancestors live to be like one
hundred years old.

Speaker 12 (02:04:01):
I got it so to get your protein through some
non animal products.

Speaker 2 (02:04:06):
So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna eat vegetables
that I like.

Speaker 7 (02:04:14):
How do you like vegetables?

Speaker 1 (02:04:17):
I've just told you why I.

Speaker 22 (02:04:19):
Don't like them?

Speaker 2 (02:04:21):
No, you did?

Speaker 3 (02:04:22):
How how do you not like vegetable?

Speaker 2 (02:04:25):
Easy? Because I don't like them?

Speaker 1 (02:04:28):
Well, guess what, there's a lot I've told you, Miss,
I'm real clean.

Speaker 2 (02:04:37):
It's green and okra is green? Is the vegetable I
eat that green bean green band especially made.

Speaker 1 (02:04:46):
With garden scek Rebecca breed, Rebecca breed green bean.

Speaker 2 (02:04:54):
What means I'll do that cabbage absolutely would do that
to get that boom.

Speaker 12 (02:05:02):
We're good, right, We're good right, you're nutrients. Are you
taking a daily multi viightyment thing? Because you you're missing
a bunch.

Speaker 9 (02:05:09):
Of you're wrong.

Speaker 2 (02:05:11):
Yeah, baby's called one to day. So he's got way
ahead of you. I'm way ahead of you. See, don't
the don't see, but.

Speaker 3 (02:05:17):
Our body is absorbed it better.

Speaker 14 (02:05:20):
Actually, I understead all that.

Speaker 2 (02:05:22):
I just made it clear to you what I ain't eating.
I remember I remember when.

Speaker 9 (02:05:27):
When George H. W.

Speaker 2 (02:05:28):
Bush was president, uh and he was like, look, I'm
the president. I ain't eating roccily and all these Broccoly
produced folks park eighteen wheelers in front of the White
House of Broccoli. He's like, I don't give it now,
how many trucks out there? I ain't eating Roccly. That
was the one time I was like, hey, it's nothing.

(02:05:49):
I'm put you on that one right there.

Speaker 25 (02:05:50):
I'm to pull up bean shucken.

Speaker 2 (02:05:57):
You're gonna get cut. I'm telling you.

Speaker 13 (02:05:59):
My daddy love it.

Speaker 12 (02:06:00):
But I.

Speaker 2 (02:06:02):
So, Reba, you shake your head out, you want to.

Speaker 3 (02:06:04):
I'm trying to live until one hundred and five years old.
So I know I need to eat.

Speaker 12 (02:06:09):
I'm trying to live until at least one hundred and
five years old. Have a party of life that requires.

Speaker 25 (02:06:14):
Means a part of longevity.

Speaker 2 (02:06:16):
Look at George Burns. Smoke the cigar every four cigars,
every damn day. I don't even smoke it. He lived
to be like one hundred and two. So okay, all right,
so what smoking cigar? So what they tell you don't smoke?
And hell, he did cigars every single day of his life. Okay,
all right, Okay.

Speaker 3 (02:06:36):
You're doing too. You're doing the important work in this country.

Speaker 2 (02:06:39):
And we talk. I know the vegetables I eat. I
will eat cabbage seven days a week.

Speaker 25 (02:06:48):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (02:06:49):
Is it a vegetable?

Speaker 11 (02:06:50):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:06:51):
Is it green?

Speaker 22 (02:06:51):
Yeah?

Speaker 25 (02:06:52):
In the story, you are getting some vegetables in huh,
you are getting some vegetables. Okay, I can't. I got
nothing to do.

Speaker 2 (02:07:00):
I means I do, cabinet, You.

Speaker 25 (02:07:03):
Said, corny, I do? Okay, Corin, I got you on
the corn.

Speaker 2 (02:07:06):
Hell yeah, man, corn is a vegetable.

Speaker 3 (02:07:08):
Yes, I love I pop say vegetable.

Speaker 1 (02:07:12):
See hold on, I'm talking to the vegetable expert here, Rebecca.
I think he knows something about So corn is a
vegetable coin?

Speaker 25 (02:07:21):
Is a vegetable coin is described and categorized as yes, yes,
what Now people digested differently, so that's a whole other story.

Speaker 2 (02:07:32):
No digest problem. But again, I eat three green vegetables, Rebecca,
But I damn sure.

Speaker 1 (02:07:40):
I don't eat no asparagus, green peas, broccoli or the
rest of that stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:07:45):
If you want that, go right again.

Speaker 1 (02:07:49):
A coupleca were already covered all that, Rebecca.

Speaker 2 (02:07:52):
It don't even matter. You can sit here and you
can holler stream all you want to. I don't care.
You can vest that sucker up. Hon't you want to?
It ain't gonna happen.

Speaker 18 (02:08:03):
How do you get fiber?

Speaker 2 (02:08:04):
Huh?

Speaker 3 (02:08:05):
How do you get fiber?

Speaker 2 (02:08:06):
What the hell is? What the hell you think old
mills for?

Speaker 25 (02:08:10):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (02:08:15):
Oh no, not fiber?

Speaker 7 (02:08:18):
Wait?

Speaker 3 (02:08:18):
Is it processed? Oat mills?

Speaker 12 (02:08:20):
Is still cut?

Speaker 3 (02:08:20):
Oats? What kind of oat mill is it? Isn't that about?

Speaker 2 (02:08:24):
It's old damn meal?

Speaker 25 (02:08:28):
Se fiber?

Speaker 2 (02:08:30):
But how to show something out? They don't want to
ask or something. No, it's old meal? Is that not
a fiber?

Speaker 9 (02:08:39):
Mother?

Speaker 3 (02:08:41):
It depends on how it's processed with the actual reliability.

Speaker 2 (02:08:45):
Yeah, Okay, all right, okay, I will say.

Speaker 25 (02:08:48):
There's nothing better than the root, the vegetable from the ground.
That's the best source of fiber is getting it straight
from the ground. But definitely, yeah, every day growing up.

Speaker 2 (02:09:00):
Damn dad. Now people hate old meal, but that isn't
my problem. I like them. I'm good with it.

Speaker 3 (02:09:06):
Anything else. Add well, oatmell at least keeps your cholestero
in check.

Speaker 2 (02:09:11):
You damn skippy.

Speaker 1 (02:09:12):
That's why I don't have a lot of cholesterol, and
I got a low blood pressure until you bring up
them goddamn vegetables.

Speaker 2 (02:09:20):
Then the blood pressure go up. That's how it worked
so well.

Speaker 25 (02:09:25):
Sodium so hopefully down the first of all.

Speaker 1 (02:09:28):
And the same thing when you look at the sugar
content sodium content.

Speaker 2 (02:09:32):
I got blaying golf the other day. I was like,
y'all want something to drink? They had power aid. That
sucker had so many The Fanta soda had less sodium
than the power Aid.

Speaker 25 (02:09:45):
Yeah, you go.

Speaker 2 (02:09:46):
So it's like, yo, you can pay attention to it,
you know.

Speaker 1 (02:09:49):
But you got loud folk over that town boy, you know,
eating vegetables and beans, and they want to questioning my
fiber intake.

Speaker 2 (02:09:57):
Anyway, anyway, anyway, let me let me ask this here
in terms of in terms of what's next, what's the
what's next.

Speaker 25 (02:10:08):
What's next is Good Foods is going to keep expanding products.
We're going to be throwing what we can against the
wall scene with sticks. I got apple juice coming. Uh,
We're getting into planteing chips. That's some of the couple
of things I could talk about. And then really transitioning
back into the government sector, you know, because we took
a lot of the last three years to really focus
on retail and build the brand and the name. But

(02:10:31):
as you know, with the just whole climate of the economy,
it's tough out there. So we're really balancing a little
bit more on the government side. But look out for
some new items from Good Foods to be tested out
and check it out. Check us out a good Foods
Family dot com. Type in your zip code on our
store locator and you'll be able to see where you

(02:10:52):
can find Good Foods. And we're also online of target.

Speaker 2 (02:10:54):
So you see you said Good Foods GEO O d
e yes fofamily dot com. So you go to the
website find in stores.

Speaker 12 (02:11:04):
Right.

Speaker 2 (02:11:05):
So let's say we're here in uh, the d m V.
So let's just put it our zip code here the
Black Star Network studios. Let's see where y'all located, and.

Speaker 25 (02:11:19):
We'll not not too many DC stores, but we are
in the surrounding Maryland and Virginia, so probably food Line, Kroger,
some targets probably pop up.

Speaker 1 (02:11:29):
Okay, all right, then, so again y'all go to Good Family,
Good Foodsfamily dot com, g O O d E. Foodsfamily
dot com. You can check out where to get it.
Do y'all do any online sales direct? Do you have
to go through the store?

Speaker 25 (02:11:46):
Yeah, we go through Target because Can Goods just the
cost of shipping Can Good it's it's not Yeah, it's
not feasible financially. Most can food companies don't ship direct.
They use a Target, get a Walmart. So the Target
really helps us alleviate that cost of shipping and keep
the price down. Some people can to afford to buy

(02:12:07):
the products. And then also if you are Thanksgiving turkey
cranberry sauce person, maybe put that ocean spray down, grab
some Good Foods Target.

Speaker 2 (02:12:19):
So there you go. So we are here, so I'm
trying to sit here and type into the website. There
we go. The iPad was active up, so let's see here.

Speaker 1 (02:12:30):
So so, yeah, your location, Yes, so I'm looking at
a couple of targets and Silver Spring a food line
in Rockville, Maryland.

Speaker 2 (02:12:40):
Another food line and Laurel.

Speaker 1 (02:12:43):
And so so they had a number of locations in
the milland Maryland area. Also, I see Boom a food
line in Sterling, Virginia, Woodbridge, Virginia. So yeah, folks, just
go to the website and then putting your zip code
and then you'll be able to to fight it there
as well. Well, Andrew, we certainly appreciated good luck with

(02:13:05):
growing the company.

Speaker 2 (02:13:05):
Again.

Speaker 1 (02:13:06):
You know, I talk all the time about how we
have to build capacity and it's not simple, and people
have to understand the business of the business. You can
have a great idea for a product, if you don't
understand that business part, the rest of that stuff don't.

Speaker 25 (02:13:19):
Matter, right right, Appreciate the opportunity.

Speaker 1 (02:13:22):
I appreciate it. Thanks a bunch folks. Going to a
quick break when we come back. A couple more stories
to do right here in rolland Martin Unfiltered on the
Black stud Network and I ain't eating them damn beans.
Rebecca back in the moment, I guarantee you.

Speaker 15 (02:13:42):
This week on the other side of change, dur on,
Mam Donnie, the New York City mayor race and this
progressive wave that has sent such a shockwave through all
of New York City and really the rest of the country.
Jamal Bowman, who's going to help us understand what this
mayoral election means and how we make sure that it
translates across the meat.

Speaker 16 (02:14:00):
Should you imagine national Democrats like identifying themselves as having
slavor or briars or swag like? Absolutely not right. So
hopefully the city does what it can in November. The
health resurrect is dying, partying, and honestly just resurrect our democracy.

Speaker 17 (02:14:18):
Only on the other side of change. On the Black
Start Network, Hello, I'm Jamia Peugh.

Speaker 11 (02:14:27):
I am from Coastville, Pennsylvania, just an hour right outside
of Philadelphia.

Speaker 3 (02:14:30):
My name is Jasmine Pugh.

Speaker 2 (02:14:31):
I'm also from Coastvial, Pennsylvania. You are watching Roland Martin unfiltered.

Speaker 9 (02:14:36):
Stay right here.

Speaker 6 (02:15:01):
Instead instead instil instead, inst instead instead, inst in instead.

Speaker 30 (02:15:52):
Insta instead, folks, fits administration has no problem with races.

Speaker 2 (02:16:15):
The Senate is about to confirm the same guy who
called the proud boys.

Speaker 1 (02:16:19):
Just a group to scare left wing people, to lead,
of all things, the nation's top counterterrorism agency.

Speaker 2 (02:16:26):
Joe Kent.

Speaker 1 (02:16:27):
Trump's picked a hit the National calent Terrorism Center, the
former CIA officer in green beret who's twice lost congressional
races in Washington State. But it's his far right views
and inflammatory statements that have sparked serious concerns. Promoted conspiracy theories,
blaming the FBI for the January sixth capital attack, downplay
violent extremist groups, and targeted black activists. Now the same

(02:16:51):
man could soon be the one in charge of the
National counter Terrorism Center, the agency responsible for analyzing and
coordinating all USA intelligence on terrorism, foreign and domestic. Do
y'all now see how crazy and derange it is to
have Donald Trump in charge? How many times have we

(02:17:13):
told y'all what's going on here? This keeps happening, folks.
Longtime Democratic Congressman Danny David says he will not seek
re election in his retire He's expected to formally announce
his retirement this week, concluding nearly thirty years of service
in the US House Representatives. He was first elected in
nineteen ninety six. He's been a prominent advocate for issues affecting.

Speaker 2 (02:17:32):
Urban communities and social justice.

Speaker 1 (02:17:33):
Before his tenure in Congress, he served as a Chicago
alderman and as a Cook County commissioner. His departure signifies
another shift within the Democratic caucus, as several veteran lawmakers
prepared to step aside Davids as anticipated to endorse Illinois
state the state Representative Lashawn Ford as his preferred successor
in the heavily democratic seventh Congressional district. It also means
why I'll be losing another alpha brother there in Congress.

Speaker 2 (02:17:55):
Folks I mentioned this earlier.

Speaker 1 (02:17:57):
Trump's DJ dismisses fraud charges against a Trump donor, the
founder and chairman of restaurant franchise or Fat Brands, Andrew Wheatonhorn.

Speaker 2 (02:18:06):
Was indicted on allegations.

Speaker 1 (02:18:07):
Of concealing forty seven million dollars from the IRIS, which
he improperly characterized as shareholder loans. In tuesday's quart filing,
Used attorney Bill Assali in La announced the.

Speaker 2 (02:18:20):
Dismissal of all charges without prejudice.

Speaker 1 (02:18:22):
The filing called for withdrawing the indictment against Fat Brands,
as well as his former chief financial officer and an
outside accountant did not provide a specific reason for the dismissal.
Wheaton Horn's trial had been scheduled for January. Rebecca, this
just goes to show you Donald Trump has no problem
hooking up his donors and as long as they cheat,

(02:18:44):
he's good with it.

Speaker 3 (02:18:46):
Yeah, and even with the white.

Speaker 12 (02:18:49):
Nationalists perspective as well, when we see it's these people
who they have no ethics, they have no morals, but
they also have a particular ideology.

Speaker 3 (02:18:58):
But this was part for the course in America.

Speaker 12 (02:19:01):
There's been many administrations in this country that've had a
white nationalist in government as well as doing favors. Like
there's a lot of people who are suspicious of our
system because they always think that there's corruption in the system. Well,
the corruption now is right out in the front, and
people are seeing that, they're ingesting it, and now we
have to ask the people.

Speaker 3 (02:19:21):
To do something about it. Do something about it going.

Speaker 12 (02:19:23):
Into the elections as fall, do something about it next
year during the midterms.

Speaker 2 (02:19:27):
No, well, Donald Trump, he loves a tax cheat because
he's one of them all.

Speaker 1 (02:19:31):
Rebecca, we appreciate it. Probably we appreciate it being on
the show as well. He had to go earlier. Folks
that's it for us. Don't forget support the work that
we do. Listen, ain't nobody else doing this here, No
other black on media has a live daily news show
that speaks to African Americans that centers us. And guess
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(02:19:55):
and we're the only black news outlet in the top
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Speaker 2 (02:20:00):
Everybody else who's black is Sports Entertainment Order, a couple
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Because we don't have millionaires in billionaires sending us money,
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You want to.

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Contribute to a casht you just tripe QR code. You
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(02:20:52):
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Fear How the Browning of Americas making white folks lose
their minds, so they will have bookstores nationwide. Get the
audio version I read unaudible. Also get our shop black
Get our roller Martin non filter gear from shop Blackstar
Network dot com.

Speaker 2 (02:21:13):
We have change vendors.

Speaker 1 (02:21:15):
We're not using custom Spring with way too many problems
with your orders if you order it from them, go
to roll Listsmartin dot com. Go to roller Market on
Filter dot com. Send us an email will help you
get your products. But we use a different company now.
So if you want to get your t shirts and
your mums and have some a lot of good stuff,
it's a different company we're using, go to shop Blackstar
Network dot com. You also see all of these products

(02:21:36):
that are here on my news desk These are all
the products that we're carrying on our shop Blackstart Network
dot com.

Speaker 2 (02:21:44):
All of these are black owned companies.

Speaker 1 (02:21:46):
And so if you want to support black owned companies,
we got toilet paper, we got we got different sauces.
You've got the gym wraps from the Cole Ari Parker,
You've got a drink mixing is, you've got course popcorn,
all kinds of different traits. And so go to shop

(02:22:06):
Blackstartnetwork dot Com to support these black owned businesses. And
don't forget download the app fan Base of course black
on social media app. If you want to be one
investing fan base that a seventeen million dollar Gold Series
A raised, I've already raised about twelve point seven or
eight billion dollars. Go to start Engine dot Com forward
slash fanbase. Start Engine dot Com Forward slash fan base.

Speaker 2 (02:22:28):
All right, folks, that's it.

Speaker 1 (02:22:29):
I'll see you tomorrow right here, Rolling Mark unfiltered on
the Blackstart Network.

Speaker 2 (02:22:33):
How

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Roland Martin

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