Maryland's 1st Black Governor, TX HISD Takeover, BWR 12th Annual Women of Power National Summit

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
March twas Thursday. In March sixteen, twenty twenty three, coming
up on rolland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black
Star Network. He's the third after American Governory Legass Reconstruction.
From chatting with the Governor Westmore of Maryland, the Texas
Education Agency has taken over the Houston Independent School District.
Black Legs officials are not happy about that at all.
Who discuss all that and more? Today, on one hundred

(00:22):
and ninety sixth anniversary of the founding of the first
black newspaper, Freedom's Journal, it is time to bring the
funk on rolland Martin on Filtered. Let's go. He's whatever
the best, He's on it, whatever it is, He's got
the fine, He's right on time and is rolling. Best

(00:43):
belief he's going to politics would entertainment just on helling all.
It's strolling March. He's spooky, specially she's built up pusion

(01:10):
though he's rolling. Come straight to him, folks. Is the
third African America elected governor in the United States since Reconstruction.
Westmore is the new governor of Maryland, and of course

(01:31):
he also is a proud man of Alpha Fi Alpha
Glad to have you on the show. Frett. Are you doing.
It's good to see you, Frett, and how you doing.
I'm doing great. You have had quite a time thus
far since your inauguration. Folks there in the state of
Maryland are quite happy. But obviously it's also about getting
down the business. What is your focus in your first year? Well,

(01:52):
our focus in the first year is what we said,
the whole focus is the entire administration. It's about creating
pathways for work, wages and wealth. How are we making
sure that all families have an opportunity to be able
to have employment that pays them a fair wage and
that allows them to create generational wealth for them and
their families. And I think you've seen from the very
first days of our administration that has been the push,

(02:15):
whether it has been being able to enhance enhance options
for people to be end to be able to enter
into the workforce, being able to create a service here
option for all high school all high school graduates to
have the year's service to the State of Maryland. Making
sure we're pushing for a fifteen dollars minimum wage, and
ensuring that people are not working, in some cases working

(02:35):
multiple jobs and still living below a poptyline, and then
also focusing on things like educational supports, business supports, being
able to address the a to one racial wealth gap.
This is about work, wages and wealth, and that's going
to be the push of our administration. One of the
things that I've often talked about also is that the
need to expand contracts African Americans being able to be

(02:57):
a part of the economic advancement in this country. And
all too often we have not seen that your focus
there in Maryland on that particularly issue as well. Yes,
and I tell you we're proud of the fact that
we're leading on this. Where in my first days, I
signed an executive order that is requiring all of our agencies,

(03:17):
all of our departments, to be able to give us
a plan as to how they plan on hitting the
twenty nine percent goal that Maryland has when it comes
to MBE participation. But then Maryland has come nowhere near hitting.
Far too often in the State of Maryland, we allow
ourselves to give away these free waivers, or we allow
business to be given out by simply saying, well, we
made a good faith effort to find MBE participation and

(03:39):
we couldn't find it. Those days have come to an end,
and so actually signed an historic executive order actually ensuring
that all of our departments are actually hitting the target
of twenty nine percent MBE participation and ensuring that the
entire state of Maryland is going to be one that
it's going to not just hit those targets, but also
e sieving those targets as well. And again, contracts is

(04:02):
one thing, but building capacity is another. Obviously when you
talk about that in places like Baltimore, that of course,
major city in the state of Maryland, has some significant issues.
How are you looking to work with the mayor there,
Brendan Scott, and other election officials to improve the plight
of African Americas and others in that city. Yes, I mean,

(04:23):
I think about some of the core reasons why I
ran in the first place. And you know this this
issue is personal me because you know, I'm a Baltimore
and I take this and I have not just a
deep sense of pride in Baltimore, I take personally the
idea that you cannot have a thriving state of Maryland
if you do not have a healthy city of Baltimore.
And so that's why you see we make significant investments

(04:45):
within the City of Baltimore in Mark Carts and our
budget that focuses exclusively on things like downtown and Harvard Place,
and also and also the infrastructure that we have within
the City of Baltimore, but also ensuring that we can
focus on things like that people have a right to
feel safe in their own communities, in their own homes,
and then their own skin, that we have to record

(05:06):
histore investments in public education. We're literally made the largest
investment in public education of any governor in the history
of the state of Maryland. And also focusing on transportation
assets because we've got to be able to move people
from where they live to where opportunity lives. And so
in order from Maryland to thrive, it means we have
to have a city of Baltimore, It's largest city, that's

(05:26):
going to help lead the charge. So many folks, so
many Democrats, are scared to death of being tagged as
being soft on the crime The previous governor often would
have the Attorney General will try to take over cases
from the state state Attorney there in Maryland Mosby, We've
got elections next year as well, and again as crime, crime, crime,
But what I keep saying the folks, is you cannot

(05:49):
have a conversation about crime if you don't have a
conversation about what actually leads to crime, and that is
lack of jiles like opportunities in education as well. And
so how are you how are you going to make
that case to folks in the state that don't just
simply say, let's throw more money at cops to deal
with crime, but let's confront the root condition of crime

(06:11):
and poverty. First of all, You're absolutely right. And the
thing that we have to do is and where I
tell people, I am data driven in heart lat where
I tell people I wear my heart on my sleeve,
and I acknowledge that, but I know this data matters,
and I don't move without data. And the thing that
we do know is this, you are never going to
incarcerate or militarize your way out of a larger public

(06:33):
safety challenge. And so that means, yes, do we have
to make sure that we are fixing our parolal probation
system and our Department of Corrections because we have massive
vacancies in the state of Maryland. When it comes to
we have over ten thousand vacancies in the state of
Maryland of amongst state jobs to include things like Parotoal
Probation and Department of Corrections. Absolutely, But the reality though,

(06:56):
is this, if you are not investing in an education system,
if you were not pipelines for young people to who
be able to have second chances, if you still have
situations where people cannot drew from the water fountains because
of the lead poison, or people do not have transportation
assets that can get them from where they live to
where opportunity lies, then you will consistently find yourself just

(07:16):
cleaning up the debris that comes from broken systems. We
can't do this, and being able to make sure that
we have a police force that moves with appropriate intensity
and absolute integrity and full accountability is important. But this
is not about the police exclusively. You've got to deal
with the root causes of why we continue watching people
feeling less safe in their own neighborhoods and on their

(07:38):
own communities. Are you also making that case to other
Democrats across the country who are running for reelection next year,
including the President, because again in my estimation, it's so
much they are so scared to death of the phrase
defund the police with what really people are talking about
is how do you reimagine policing, how do you put
as resources into mental health, how you deal with cases

(08:01):
like that, how do you also get officers to stop
beating folks. That's also costing cities millions and millions and
millions of dollars. That's a going to waste because of
police brutality. And I think what we have to do
and what we're doing here in Maryland is we're leading
by example and we're showing folks that, you know, we
have been offered a bunch of false choices, and we've

(08:21):
been offered a bunch of false choices that simply tells
us that it's one way or the other. And so
what we've shown here in the state of Maryland is
that we can actually support and make sure that local
law enforcement you're getting the training and the recruiting that
they need. It's part of the reason why we put
you know, we put forth one hundred and twenty two
million dollars in supporting the training in the mechanisms for
local law enforcement. But at the same time, we have

(08:42):
to address the fact that Maryland incarcerates more black boys
between the eighties of eighteen and twenty five than anywhere
else in this country. Number two is in Mississippi. But
it's not a choice. We have to be able to
do both. And that's the thing that we want to
be able to push in on and how we're going
to lead by example here in the state of Maryland
that yes, we want to make sure that we're supporting

(09:03):
local communities and ensuring that law enforcement have that we're
we're recruiting proper and well trained and ethical and transparent
law enforcement. And at the same time knowing that our
solution is never going to be just lock up more children.
That's not going to be the answer. Education. We got
a couple of minutes left, now you have to go.

(09:23):
We'll do want to deal with education. The governor, after
repeated pressure in the legislature overruling him, Governor Hogan was
over ruled silently historic settlement for HBCUs money that they
were owed. But you also still have to deal with
future investment. So let's talk about your education priorities from HBCUs.

(09:44):
But then also, of course K through twelve because really
the competies are at the end of the line. What
happens K through twelve is really critically important when it
comes to your future workforce. That's exactly right, and you're right.
I mean, we're coming from a situation here in the
state of Maryland where HBCUs had to sue the state
in order to get money that was owed to them.

(10:07):
And so if you look at our budget and our
first proposed budget, we invested and I made an historic
investment a four hundred and twenty one million dollars going
towards Maryland's HBCUs, a historic number. But in addition to that,
you're absolutely right, we made an historic investment in our
casewelve public education system. Because for everything that we're looking
to accomplish, it's going to be because education is going

(10:30):
to help to lead the way. And when you think
about the type of assets that we have here in
the state of Maryland, the fact that we have for
the top HBCUs in America here in the State of Maryland,
every single pipeline that we're looking to fill, from nurses,
from nursing to education, to cyber technology to life sciences.
The genius of our state is being produced in our HBCUs,

(10:52):
in our ksewelve system every single day. But if we're
not investing in that, that genius will never show itself.
And so that's why you see we have made it unparalleled,
unparalleled investments and ensuring that our students and our children
are on the proper pathway to work, wages and wealth
and d and a governor more glad to have you
on the show, look forward to having your back in

(11:14):
good luck with a very tough job. Is not easy
then in the top spot, but I think you were
trained probably for it. Yes, sir, you know I was.
You know I was. God bless you. I appreciate it.
Fry take care. They're gonna alright, folks, gotta go to break.
We'll be back right here. Roland Martin unfiltered on the
Black Start Network. Coming up on the Next Black Table,

(11:40):
a conversation with Professor Howard W. Rich on his new
book Born in Blackness, covering six hundred years of global
African history and helping us understand how the world we
know today. It's a gift from black people. There could
have been no West without Africa and Africa. That's on
the next Black Table with me Greg Carr. Only on

(12:02):
the Black Start There Hatred on the Streets, a horrific
scene white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violent white
people are losing their minds. As a man were approach
Trump mob storm to the US capital, who show We're

(12:23):
about to see the lives of what I call white
minority resistance. We have seen white folks in this country
who simply cannot tolerate black folkst voting. I think what
we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denials. This
is part of American history. Every time the people of
color and media progress, whether real or symbolic, there has

(12:44):
been the Carold Anderson at every university calls white rage
as a backlashes as the wrath of the proud boys
in the Boogaloo Boys America. There's going to be more
of this would have done. This country is getting increasingly
racist in its behaviors and its attitude because of the
fear of white people, the fear that they're taking our job,

(13:06):
they're checking our resources, they're taking our women. This is
white fear riddle, and you're watching Roland Martin unfiltered. Stay woken,

(13:37):
All right, folks, I want to bring my panel right now.
I'm glad to have them here. Rece Cobrad, host of
rec Cobrad Show, Crystal Night. She's a democratic Straggist and
will be joined by Greg car Department of African American
Studdies at Howard University RESIL. I'll start with you the
job again, the top job of governor, huge responsibility. Governor
Westmore h is now Folks of calling him, you know,

(14:01):
the next star, and always always say this all the time.
And it's not just about him, it's about anybody. I say,
let them do their job first before folks start trying
to anoint them for the next job. Okay, there were
people he hadn't even been inaugurated yet and folks were
saying he should run for president twenty twenty four. I
was like, y'all, will y'all breathe, You kind of gotta

(14:22):
get inaugurated first, and that's all. That's the advice I
would give any African American who elected to a new job.
Don't fall for the media height of you're the next star,
focus on the job and then build from there. That
is true. But I will say that Governor Westmore is
a superstar. I think that he is incredibly dynamic, incredibly charismatic,

(14:47):
but most importantly, he has his head in the right
place when it comes to policy and what we're seeing
in Maryland is what happens when you have Democrats in
control of both the legislature and the executive branch. Then
term of the appointments that he's made, and with the
emphasis on diversity, and in terms of working with the
Democratic Legislature to undo a lot of the damage that

(15:09):
Governor Larry Hogan did. I mean, he got a lot
of credit for being a never trumper and for being
on the moderate side when you compare him to the
likes of Tate Reeves or Greg Abbott, but the reality
was that he was an obstructionist to a lot of
the more progressive things that the Republic I mean that
the Democratic Legislator tried to do. So, I think with
Governor Moore in charge, and then we have Anthony Brown

(15:32):
as the Attorney General, and we have a number of
people in really high positions that I think are going
to turn Maryland into a state to really watch in
terms of being on the forefront of progressive values on
the East coast. Crystal. The reason I make that point
about just sort of temporary expectations is because again, if

(15:52):
people get so locked into the media hype and not
on I mean, like, forgive perfect example, tur Davis. Oh
my god, all of these people were saying he was
gonna be the next Obama. Well what end up happening.
He runs for governor, he loses, he because he screws
over Obama supports Mitt Romney bounces back as a Republican Democrat.

(16:13):
Republican Democrat. Uh, and where is he right now? And
that's why I tell people, listen, let people do their
jobs first, let them build from there, and not all
of a sudden to start trying to call other things.
Let him be the governor of Maryland, and guess what.
When he kills it, then it's all right, you know

(16:34):
what's next. And so that's just that's just one of
the things that I'm just always want to caution people
on because media jumps out there real quick in trying
to label folks, and then they don't let them do
the work. Absolutely. I think, you know, the media is
powerful in that it's able to paint a narrative about

(16:55):
anyone quite frankly, and if you play the same story over,
if you play the same narrative over and over, then
people begin to believe that. Because people unfortunately don't always
read or go back and do the background in the
history on you know, things that they see and here
in different media sources. But I agree with you. I
think Westmore just got elected. I mean, it's not been

(17:17):
a full year of his term, and so we need
to see him actually lead these policies that he just
spoke about. Will those actually come into fruition. It sounds
very ambitious and aggressive, and I'm wishing him the best,
but absolutely he needs to have a record of things
that he's done before he's able to move on to
the next role or to the next thing. I think

(17:39):
the other thing that's really interesting here is that as
people continue to speculate that he should run for president
in the future, they're skipping over a number of different
other governors or senators or just other candidates who could
be out there. But I think the bottom line for
me is that the Democratic Party, which is our party,
my party, we need to do a better job with

(18:01):
building the bench. If we build a really solid bench,
we have a good number of people that we can
pick from, so that any new shiny candidate like Westmore
who comes about, we're not all grabbing hoping that he
will be the next great hope, hoping that he will
be the next person to save this party when we
have the time right now to really cultivate leadership, cultivate

(18:23):
new leaders all across this country so that when it's
time to pick new leadership, we have people who are credible,
who are tested, and who have real results that they
can point to as they think about as sending to
run for president. Well, one of the things that he's
dealing with here recy Democrats control the House and the Senate,

(18:44):
now the governor's mansion, but also the top two four
positions in Maryland are African American. You're talking about the governor,
you're talking about the attorney general, and of course leadership
in the House and the Senate. The thing, the thing
here is he has something that very few Democrats have
in terms of whether they're able to control all forms

(19:06):
of government. That's also why it's going to be critical
in terms of that agenda, really putting something forward that
speaks for the people. Oh yeah, absolutely, and I think
that there's plenty of evidence that that's happening. I mean,
his priorities are passing in the legislature right now, and
you know the different phases of it. The legislative calendar

(19:26):
is almost up in Maryland, so it will be not
long before we see the actual results of what he
can get through the legislature and his priorities. But I
definitely think that he's incredibly well positioned. And I just
want to clarify stars are not only presidents in this party.
I mean, we used to have where we recognize governors
as stars, where we recognize senators as stars. And it
wasn't just that everybody needs to be president. We recognize

(19:49):
the power of these offices. And the fact that he
is the only black governor in the country, one of
the few black governors to ever have been elected in
this country. I think that's significant of itself, without even
looking later on down the pipeline, Crystal. I think also
when you mentioned the whole issue of the bench and look,

(20:10):
he ran a very effective race, and I think when
you look at now, granted, Maryland is a different state
than others, but we got to go back just for years.
I mean Ben Jealous when he ran for governor against
Larry Hogan, and so the groundwork had been laid, if
you will, for Westmore and in terms of the people
that were in places, were number of afric Americans who

(20:31):
were trying to ascend to the governor's mansion who feels short.
But I do think black candidates across the country should
look at how he ran this race in terms of
when they are seeking statewide office in other states around
the country. Absolutely, you know, And I also think we
have to remember that Anthony Brown, who's who's now the

(20:51):
attorney general, he also ran as well and he was unsuccessful.
So even before being jealous, there was other work or
groundwork as you say, that have been done to prepare
the land for a Westmore to actually become governor. But
I agree with you, you know, there are many other
candidates that across this country that deserve, you know, to

(21:13):
assent to whatever position quite frankly, that they desire within
their respective states. And it just depends on what the
nature of the state is. As you stated, Maryland is
different and that they you know, it's generally and traditionally
been a Democratic state, although Larry Hogan was able to
serve eight years under the gubernatorial ship. But you know, Westmore, Um,

(21:39):
I am excited about his candidacy. I'm excited about his governorship,
but I also would like to see the things that
he has planned for the state, and I hope that
he's able to accomplish those things. I do want to
talk about this here, um, and I'll try to pull
it up here. I got a kick. So there was
amants that were made by actress Amanda Seals with regards

(22:05):
to Vice President Kamala Harris. Let's just say that reci
wasn't too particularly happy with her comments. U and yeah, yeah,
come well, now you know I pack a picture to everything. Uh.
And so this is what Seals had had to say
about Vice President Harris. And I want to get you commenting,

(22:26):
I'm gonna put in adopt a great car. When Kamalas
said this ain't the racist country, she lost me and
she ain't got me back yet. We have a country
that was one thousand percent built on the foundation of
racism that now legislators are trying to pretend didn't happen
and are getting that through and doing it on an

(22:47):
education level and on a d EI level. You cannot,
as the second in line to the highest form of
office in this country, you can't get in there in
that position and then make such an egregiously false statement,
so she said, and the egregiously false statement I was

(23:09):
on the breakfast club yesterday was the day before. We
taped it on Tuesday. Uh. It aired yesterday and I
made this comment to Charlemagne and DJ Envy Recy where
I said, that's a difference between offering a critique, offering
criticism and being reckless. And what I meant by reckless

(23:32):
is when you don't tell the whole story, when you
tell partial story. You put the video out and you
were critical of a Mana's comments by saying she didn't
tell the whole story. H Oh, I thought you were
going to play the video. Okay, no, I don't need
to play you right here? Okay, yeah, no, no, no,

(23:54):
well and see this. This is that's exactly my problem.
I think what happens is we live in a headline culture.
We live in a meme culture where one sentence can
plaster it on because you can have it in sixty
size font and have all kinds of colors on it,
and people take that and run with it. The reality is,
if you're looking for a person to humor you and

(24:14):
speak the exact words in the exact manner that you
want them to, you're never going to be satisfied with
anybody under those circumstances. But if you're looking for a
person who does the work. And if you're looking for
the policy, the action, and the leadership, then that's the
standard that I can get behind, because the reality is, yes,
Kamala Harris did say, no, I do not think that

(24:36):
America is a racist country, but we do have to
recognize the history of racism and its existence today and
so on and so on and so forth. And so
if you're a person who malfunctions after one sentence is like, uh,
five words too much and you only want to harp

(24:57):
on the first five seconds, I don't know what I
can do for I don't know if there's any kind
of intellectual argument that we can have here. But the
reality is, if you're concerned about her erasing racism in
its existence, clearly she acknowledged that if you're concerned about
the fact that we have a domestic terrorism problem fueled
by white supremacy. In the same exact interview, she pointed

(25:18):
out that, and I will add them. When she was
a senator, she got up Christopher Ray's ass over what
the FBI was doing to combat white domestic extremist terrorism specifically,
which nobody said people about then. So it's important to
have contexts. It's important to recognize that the sound bite
may not be satisfactory to you, but the policy and

(25:40):
what she's being getting done. In twenty twenty one was
the worst year for black maternal depths in history. It's
ten times. You're ten times more likely to die in
this country from childbirth than you are in Japan and
other advanced nations. And that is something that Vice President
Kamala Harris has put the full weight of the White
House behind. That's what I'm talking about, Crystal Hill's your deal,

(26:02):
those of us who've been covering this for very long time.
If if Vice President Kamala Harris has said America is
a racist country, nothing she said after that will be replayed.
The reality is this, when you're in certain positions of
elected office, when seventy one percent of a total electorate

(26:25):
are white in the twenty twenty election, there are things
you probably think, probably no, but you can't say it's
called politics. Polosi. I totally agree, and Amanda Sales knows this,
and I don't understand this whole Kamala Harris hate train.

(26:45):
There's been several articles that come out, and even Donna
Brazil wrote something in the New York Times just this week.
About really understanding the position of power that the vice
president is in and her ability to do things and
get things done, but also the positioning for twenty twenty four.
If we're really serious about reelecting President Biden and Vice

(27:06):
president heres then having these kinds of comments going on
these you know, talk shows or podcasts or whatever you
want to call them and making these kind of just
blanket statements, They're not helpful. They're not helpful to the
cause at large. And I'm so thankful for recy And
I commented on her her post and I've shared it
as well, about really calling out just incorrect you know, commentary.

(27:29):
And listen, everyone is a commentary. I mean, everyone is
a pundit these days. Everyone is able because they have
a cell phone to really share their personal opinion about
a number of topics. But what we're not all entitled
to are the truth. We're not all unentitled to the
facts as they are, you know. So I appreciate this
rebuttal in which every single thing that she said, Reesy

(27:51):
was able to go back find video, archive video and
really refute those claims and those statements. But unfortunately, I'm
just not surprised that this is coming from Amanda. She's
done this before and unfortunately she'll do it again. See
this is this is why Greg I have and again
in a previous interview when I was on The Breface Club,
I said this when I said respect, you have to

(28:19):
respect the microphone. You have to understand when you are
the host of a show, I don't give a damn
who comes on that. There are people who are listening
to you. They're listening to a guest, and they don't
have access to the same facts. They don't have access
to the data. And so there's a reason why if

(28:42):
somebody comes on my show and says something like that
or something else, I'm going to immediately fact check them,
because I don't want anybody listening to go away and say, well,
they didn't say anything, so it must be correct. And
then what happens is a clip gets played, it gets

(29:02):
picked up, it gets amplified, and so when you tried
what Recdal or others try to come back and then
explain it, well, it doesn't get the same amount us
as of heat as the original comment. And so therefore
the misinformation then gets sent around and folks believe that.
That's why I'm always saying don't play around with the

(29:27):
microphone and the medium because it has power. Right, No, absolutely, Roland,
But I mean we live in an idiocracy. Lowid's common denominator.
It's what rules. Of course, America, the United States of
America's a racist country. It's racist to its course, the
damn settler colonial state. It was built with anti blackness
as the core composite of well really whiteness, meaning anything

(29:50):
that wasn't white, indigenous people, Africans, others, even many people
who would now be considered white from the Irish City Italians.
You know, the whole thing is organized around race. And
of course Mamma Harris can never say that, so it's
simply for the simple facid of matter is a Manda
Seal has a brand. That brand is feeding with a
brand like brother Lenard McKelvey, who name himself after someone

(30:14):
who actually was over the Holy Roman Empire. Although if
you put a gun to the head of every one
of his listeners, they would all be have their brains
blown out if you asked them to explain the providence
of the phrase Charlemagne the God. But at any rate,
when you go into space like that Roland, you have
to balance and you again conducted a class and Recie
thank you again for walking through the facts. I agree
with what Cristal said laying out the facts. When you

(30:35):
go into space like day, you know that the listeners
could give a damn about facts. They're there for branding,
that their entertainment. They're there for the gloss. And as
Crystal said, you can't win a federal election for president
or vice president. The closest you could get to call
America racist country and say we have a spiritual malaise
is a Jimmy Carter. Perhaps you see how they then

(30:56):
and reelected Donald Trump the first also known as Ronald
Ray because he was trying to talk even a little
bit of truth when he was a white man. The
closest you could get to America racist country's probably lending
mains Johnson and them days is gone. So at the
end of the day, you're going to a space with
a guy who calls himself Charlomagne the God, and you're
trying to teach your audience. You did what you always do.

(31:17):
Instead of just plastering the facts and coming with the
data since that doesn't matter and an idiocracy, you gave
them three simple words to sort into categories, the last
of which was very basic and say that you can't
go out there talking reckless. At that point, the people
were there for the entertainment can grasp it. And that's
all you can do in a space like that. Because hell,

(31:38):
Charlomagne be the damn president before long, because this ain't
about facts. This is about visibility and branding folks. Again,
so that the Man of Seals interview that was with
Jason Lee, that was on Revolt. If you missed My
Breakfast Club breakdown, to simply go to their YouTube channel
you can actually see it again. It was like yesterday,
and look, it was all about break these things down

(32:00):
and walking people through again politics stuff on those lines.
But I'm gonna say it again week. You can offer
a critique, you can have criticism, but you can't be
reckless with comments because you have to understand that somebody's listening.
I gotta go to break we come back. We're gonna
talk about the takeover of the Houston Independent School District
by the State of Texas. Black elect officials are not

(32:21):
happy at all. You're watching roller Bock unfiltered on the
Black Star Network. A lot of these corporations or people
that are running stuff, push black people if they're doing
a certain thing. What that does is it creates a
butterfly effect of any young kid who you know, wants
to leave any situation they're in, and the only people

(32:43):
they see your people that are doing this, or I
gotta be a gamester, I gotta shoot, I gotta sell,
I gotta do this in order to do it, and
it becomes a cyclable when someone comes around is making
other Oh we don't get you know, they don't want
to push, or they put money into it. So that's
definitely something I'm trying to fix. Two, it's your show
those other avenues. You don't gotta be rapping, I'm gonna
be a ball player, to be aful the country sing,
you're gonna be an operation, or you're gonna be a
damn whatever. You know. I'm showing the different alvenue is

(33:05):
not as possible, and it's hard for people to realize
as possible to someone done on the next A balanced
life with me, Doctor Jackie. We entry anxiety. A lot

(33:27):
of us are having trouble transitioning in this post pandemic
society and don't even realize it. We are literally stuck
between two worlds in purgatory, How to get out of
purgatory and regain your footing and balance what emotions they're
feeling and being able to label them, because as soon
as you label an emotion, it's easier to self regulate,

(33:48):
it's easier to manage that emotion. In the next a
Balanced Life on Black Star Network, I'm Dumber Owens, America's
wealth Coach, and my news show, It's Wealthy, focuses on
the things that your financial advisor and bank isn't telling
you but you absolutely need to know. So watch Get

(34:11):
Wealthy on the Black Star Network. I'm Chris That Michelle All,
I'm Chiley Rose, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered Falls
of Texas Educational Agency is now taken over the Houston

(34:34):
Independent School District, which means they will be running all
of the district's affairs, replacing the school superintendent, putting monitors
in place of the Houston Independent School District Board. This
has been talked about for a number of years, and
the trigger was pooled this week. Black and leged officials
are not happy about that. Mayor Semester Turner and others
have spoken out against it. My next guest Representative Jarvis

(34:55):
Johnson also is one of those folks as well. Glad
to have you back on the show. Here's the thing here, Jarvis,
that that a lot of people who are not aware.
First of all, this thing had been building for quite
some time. Many people are saying, oh, this is Governor
Greg Abbott taking it over him. But a lot of
this also went far back as when you had the
schism on the board between Latino board members and blackboard members.

(35:16):
When Grenia Lathan was a superintendent. Frankly she should have
been named superintendent, but the Hispanic board members did not
want her in the job. They tried to hire a
previous Hispanic superintendent. They had an illegal board meetings, and
that level of dysfunction really is what invited the Tea
into this deal. So for a lot of and then

(35:36):
a lot of those same board members law. So this
thing has been very convoluted and has been building over
a number of years. Well, that is very true. But
while there has been a riff between board members, and
while there have been problem problems with the board, I
will say this though, that board was duly elected by

(35:58):
the people of the state of Texas and because they
were of the city of Houston. And because they were
duly elected, is the responsibility of those voters to then
vote them out? And I think that is exactly what
happened when they realized the mistake that was made, and
so changes were made. And but since then, the before then,
the governor didn't have a problem. And since then, the

(36:20):
governor didn't have a problem. But now this year, the
governor has a problem. And the governor wants to use
this opportunity to push his agenda to create vouchers and
to destroy public education in the state of Texas. So
what then is next? Because obviously, I mean, you're talking
about a district as a majority black and brown, and

(36:44):
now we're talking about complete control. Also, this board was
talking about a bond election coming up soon as well.
But other districts have been taken over. The Wimen Hutches
School District years ago was taken over. No long even
exist in the Dallas area because of just rampant board
dysfunction in academics there as well. The board TA taking

(37:04):
over a board has never been effective. Ever, it has
never worked. And currently right now HISD has a B
plus rating, has no financial problems, has no fraud involved
the school that actually triggered this takeover was Phyllis Wheatley
High School. Since that time, a bill was actually put

(37:25):
in place back in twenty twenty one that gave a
one year time period by which weekly can come out
of R which is an unacceptable rating, and if they did,
then that would stop the takeover. Well, Wheatly did that.
They came out. They have a C plus rating and
have done everything that they're supposed to do. Tea is
proposing to take over his B at the end of

(37:48):
the year, which means there's a whole another year of
grading that will come out, and we obviously anticipate the
schools doing well again. So the question has to be
what are you taking old and for what purpose? Because
if you're saying that you're here for the protection of
the students of his D, well, the school is doing well.
It's a B plus raided school. And when the school

(38:10):
district and when you look at his D versus all
of the other larger school districts, his D does better
than all of the other major larger districts in this state.
So the question has to be what are you trying
to do? And the answer is only simple. This is
used as a scapegoat, and this is used as a

(38:30):
test dummy for vouchers. This is used to make sure
that they continue to attack Harris County, continue to attack
the City of Houston, which are all democratically led city
and I D as well as county. So this is
nothing more than a simple usurp of government, usurp of
of law by simply saying we're going to do what

(38:50):
we want to do. And yesterday, and I will quote
Mike Mrath, what happens to be your fret brother, I digress,
but I will say this, he said, the law is
different when it comes to Houston and our actual an explanation,
but there was no explanation given that's the problem with
the State of Texas. They usurped the law. They're creating

(39:12):
different laws for different people. And we see this over
and over again. And this is gonna put the State
of Texas in peril. I think this is obviously gonna
put Hi s D in PARI on. This is going
to certainly help hurt all of our students in our
business community, because who wants to relocate to a city
that does not have effectiveness? And let me just say
this last thing about HISD superintendent House that has gotten

(39:37):
here a little over a year ago was nominated as
Superintendent of the Year not in Texas but the entire
United States because of the turnaround that he has put
in place for HSD, taking fifty schools from a D
rating to a C or above rating and of those schools,
we only have seven schools that are in an unacceptable

(40:01):
rating at this time. That's a tremendous turnaround. And so
they're on the right track. But the State of Texas
wants to come in, TA wants to come in and
totally tear it down. And then they're gonna point the
finger and say, see, I told you Democrats don't know
what they're doing. And now they're coming back to us
and saying, well, who do you want to nominate to
be on for border managers? And again, these border managers

(40:22):
don't have to have any experience, don't have to have
any knowledge, don't have to be involved or engaged, and
just simply be donors or political operative for the Republican Party.
So in terms of okay, so they're gonna then take
it over. Then what is now then going to be
the response of black elected folks there in Houston. What

(40:45):
is going to be the response of parents, How are
people going to be engaged, because again, if they're doing it,
then there has to be a counter response to it.
They're kind of response that I have said to all
of my constituents, that I have said to the Texas
Legislative black Hawker, is that we have to ask. We

(41:07):
have to have meetings with our parents, with our students,
with our business community, to all stand tall because at
the end of the day, without a plan, because there
is no plan, there has been no mention of what
will be done in the event that this takeover happens.
There is not one plan that says this is what
we're gonna do. And so I'm asking, and I'm demanding
parents ask the question. And if that is the case,

(41:28):
then they must stand tall and stand strong and stand
on the line and said, I can't go to school
unless and I think this has to be across the board,
I can't go to school unless I know what's happening.
Teachers are worry. We're already in a position where we're
losing teachers at at an unusual rate. Teachers are so uncertain,
the administration is uncertain, the police department is uncertain, and

(41:52):
so we have to demand, and I think the only
way we have to demand is that we stand on
the line and say there will be any school. There
won't be much learning going on unless they give a
true plan for what is going to be done with
the school. The school is already on. The district is
already on the right trajectory, uh, and so there shouldn't

(42:14):
be any interruption in that, but unfortunately there is. I've
talked with Aretha Thomas with ATSP, with which is the
custodio workers, bus drivers and so forth and so on.
They're ready to stand up. We're talking with the teachers.
Teachers really want to stand up, but unfortunately the state
of Texas law prohibits them from from from from boycotting
or or or standing up the way they want to.

(42:36):
But that doesn't stop them from wanting to do what
I think is necessary to protect their jobs. And I've
met with a lot of parents and they're also saying
the same thing, that it is time that they do
something about this, because they can't just sit by and
watch as their children are doing better and watch the
school for the school district fall apart. So I think
you're going to see um a mass exodus versus people

(42:59):
wanting to stand and for the uncertainty of what's going
to happen to hid all right, but I think that's
by design. That's also bout design that they want this
mass exodus because right now the government is talking nothing
but about vouchers. He's talking nothing about oh, we want
to make sure that children have an opportunity of going
to schools, good schools. Well, the vouchers only six thousand
dollars potentially seven. So there's no private schools in Houston

(43:23):
that seven thousand dollars. So where is the parent going
to find the additional ten to twenty thousand dollars to
meet that gap. They won't find it unless they're already
affluent enough to go to private schools. So this is
nothing more than a money grab for the for the affluent,
all right, represent Johson, I appreciate it, Thanks a lot,
Thank you, brother. This point right here, Crystal, is what

(43:43):
I've been sound the alarm of this show, not just
with this but also Moms for Liberty winning school board
seats all across the South, taking over those school boards,
firing superintendents when we are asleep at the wheel in
school board races we don't understand, and the power of
who controls curriculum, who controlling hiring, who's controlling his bond elections.

(44:07):
People love spending so much time on the presidential or
US Senate race, but that school board is just as important. Absolutely.
I mean, if this hasn't shown us anything, it shows
that every single election matters. Local elections matter, and it
also matters who's in our schools, who's teaching our kids,
who are the principles, who are the superintendents. And the

(44:28):
thing that really struck me about what he just said
was that the new superintendent has turned around the school district.
And the way that you know, Greg Abbott has rewarded,
you know, his efforts is by really coming in and
having this overreach by the state government. And that's something
that's really hard to It was hard to listen to
the interview, although it's very informative, because really, when you

(44:51):
have a superintendent who's able to come in, turn around
failing schools, bring them and uplift them, then all of
a sudden it becomes an shoe and there's this need
for overreaching. When he talked about the seven thousand dollars
school voucher, I agree with him, that's not enough to
send a child to any private school and get a

(45:11):
quote unquote better education. But again, this is something that
you know, the underlying premise is, you know, Greg Abbott
and the state want control over this district, which is
majority minority. Seventy seven percent of the students there are
Latino or identify as Latino twenty two percent, or African
American four percent, Asian eleven percent white. And so why

(45:34):
are they focusing on this one school district across the
entire state, which happens to be the largest is because
they want to control what students and what teachers are
able to teach and what students are being taught in
the schools. Hold on one second ago to break, we
come back. We'll get reacing risk comments on this year
watching La Martin unfiltered right here on the Blackstar Network

(46:00):
Hatred on the Streets, a horrific scene white nationalist rally
that descended into deadly violent White people are losing their
damn minds as a man wary approach, Trump mob storms
the US capital. Who we're about to see the lives
of what I call white minority resistance. We have seen

(46:21):
white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black
polst voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable
result of violent denials. This is part of American history.
Every time that people of color and meta progress, whether
real or symbolic, there has been. But Carol Anderson at
every university calls white rage as a backlashes. Is the

(46:43):
life of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys America.
There's going to be more of this Proud would have done.
This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and
its attitude because of the fear of white people, the
fear that you're taking our job, they're taking out our resources,
they're taking out women. This is white Beard. Coming up

(47:16):
on the next Black Table, a conversation with Professor Howard W.
Fritch on his new book Born in Blackness, covering six
hundred years of global African history and helping us understand
how the world we know today is a gift from
black people. There could have been no West without Africa
and Africa. That's on the next Black Table with me

(47:38):
Greg Carr only on the Black Star Net. Hi, I'm
bb Windings. Hey, I'm Donnie Simpson. What's up. I'm Lance
Gross and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Welcome back to

(47:58):
Roland Martin unfilter If you watch YouTube, be sure to
hit that light button folks, as you're watching the show
Greg education, education, education for anybody who doesn't have any understanding.
Black folks historically have understood this. That's one of the
reasons why those free people of African descent when they
got in South Carolina legislature, they put it in the

(48:19):
constitution for them to be publicly financed education. And then
when the white folks took over after the Great Compromise
of eighteen seventy seventy, through all the advances out, but
they kept that one in. And so education has always
been paramount to us. And the reason I keep making
this point about it about voting in what we do
these are This is the result of what happens the

(48:42):
last election seventy five, when Bettor Rourke was running against
Greg Abbott, seventy five percent of young voters in Texas
did not vote in the election. African Americans in Texas.
Texas is sixty percent minority, sixty percent minority, Yet sixty
percent of people who vote in Texas are white, and

(49:04):
so if anybody wants to talk about why does they takeover,
you have to understand those who are in power. We
old power. That's right, that's right. It reminds me of Clifforld,
of Tosha and all those hours you spend on the road.
You know, these battles are one door by door, life
by life. Black and brown people got together and put

(49:24):
together in Texas state legislation the ten Percent Plan that
allowed the top ten percent in any high school student
and the top ten percent of their class anywhere in
the state of Texas to attend one of the public
universities in Texas. And they also did that with poor
white legislators. That's because it was in everybody's mutual interests
what dere Bill calls interest conversion, but a convergence. But
what we see here is not just in Crystal nil this,

(49:46):
of course, this is about majority nine white school district
over women, the majority white nine white. But this shovelmouth
bastard governor of Texas Abbott is after that budget as well.
So I agree with Representative Johnson. The budget in the
school district his to Houston and pend schools roam about
two point two billion dollars I think over to Seal. Yeah. Yeah,

(50:07):
So so this comes down to this. See, I worked
for the schools in Philadelphia when it was taken over
by the state of Pennsylvania when Tom Rich was the governor.
This was nineteen ninety eight, and they getting they engaged
in a game of chicken with the mayor of Philadelphia
at the time, John Street, of Black Men and and
the and the soft takeover was something called the School
Reformed Commission. They were able then to get their hands

(50:28):
on the budget of the schools in Philadelphia at that
time the fifth largest school just in the country, and
they were then they tried to privatize it. They put
Edison schools in the folks. We all protested and organized.
Jersey City, I think was taken over by the state
of New Jersey back in nineteen nineteen eighty nine. It
just got controlled back in twenty seventeen. So it does happen,

(50:49):
but all end with this. It's really disaster capitalism. Paul Vallas,
who was running from mayor of Chicago, he went down
to New Orleans in two thousand and seven because after Katrina,
they turned the whole on the school district into a
charter school district. And that's when you can get at
who buys the toilet paper, who puts the lightbulbs in,
who's got the budgets. This is a grab for the

(51:09):
budget of the school district of Houston, and it is
made easier, as Crystal said, because those children are other
people's children. But make no mistake about these white boys
after the money, Crystal, I'm sorry. You know. What I'm
also thinking about, too, is connecting the dots between the
Republican power grabs around the country. If we look at

(51:31):
what's happening with take Raves down in their Mississippi trying
to take over the courts for Jackson, also obstructing federal
money going to fix the lead water issue in Jackson.
When we look at Brian Kemp and Georgia trying to
take the airport away from the city of Atlanta. If
we look across the country, what we're seeing is Republicans
trying to strip away the power and the democratic enclaves

(51:53):
of these Republican trifecta states. And so this is just
a sample of what we have to look forward to
as a law as the Republicans have power, and as
long as they understand that as soon as Democrats exercise
the capacity they have to vote that they're going to
be out on their ass. They're going to try to
see how much they can get away with, how much
they can can can peel away from the Democrats in

(52:17):
the state, and then how they can take this nationwide.
So I think that people should really be paying attention
to how these Republicans are wielding power at the state level,
but particularly how they're trying to strip your power away
from you at the local level. And I'm I'm gonna
keep saying this, and again, I don't understand why people
are not getting it. When we are not maximizing our

(52:40):
voting numbers, we are putting our fate in somebody else's hands.
We cannot continue in these elections voting at thirty eight
forty forty two, forty eight percent. I don't have much
time left. But Crystal, if and I keep saying this,

(53:03):
I kept saying this on a breakfast club, if we
are voting at sixty sixty five, seventy and seventy five
percent of our registered voters, we would be sweeping elections state.
Why absolutely we you know, every single advocacy group, organization,

(53:24):
anyone who just cares about democracy, or the black electorate
for that matter, needs to really impress upon voters why
their vote matters. So many people, and I've heard this
throughout the twenty election cycle and even now, there are
so many people in this country who just don't vote,
and then when things like this happened, then they're like, oh,

(53:46):
should have, could have? Would have. I don't understand this
is what they do. You know, you hear these, you know,
the rhetoric, the talking points about why people don't vote
because they don't feel that people who are in elected
office have their best interests in mind, but reoutely in
a city or in a county like Harris County, or
seventy seven percent of the children that go to attend

(54:08):
those school districts are minority. Really, it's over seventy seven percent.
It's more like eighty something percent. There should be that
many people voting. And I wish I had the perfect
answer on how we increase the amounts of people who vote.
But until these kinds of things continue to happen more,
I don't know that people will really realize that this

(54:29):
is something that is systematically designed. The less you vote,
the less power you have, and the more that we
see white people voting, the more power that we're really
just giving away to them to make these kind of
crazy and drastic decisions. And again before our goal votes
again quickly going to my iPad, voting turnout for black
people in North Carolina was up four percent in twenty

(54:51):
twenty it was a sixty eight percent. Here was a problem, folks,
the previous in twenty eighteen, Sherry Beasley lost the Chief
Supreme Court Justice seat by four hundred votes. Four hundred votes. Now,
why does that matter. Democrats could have had a six
to one majority on the state Supreme Court. She loses.

(55:11):
They had a four to three majority in twenty twenty two.
That was an election Democrat lost. Republicans now they had
regained the control of the State Supreme Court six months ago.
The Supreme Court made a couple of rulings on ratio
of voter IDs and Rachel jaredmandering. Now the Republicans now
control it, they're going to rehear those cases. So, folks, again,

(55:32):
four hundred votes if she had won four hundred votes,
So go back to it. It says black vote turnout
was up four percent, which means it was sixty four
percent in twenty sixteen sixty eight percent. But if we
actually if it wasn't sixty four percent in twenty eighteen,
she wins, it's a different ballgame. I just keep telling folks,

(55:53):
that's the way this whole thing goes. We have a
shortened show because I am actually hit it over to
the Black Women's Roundtable their cons there. I'm gonna be
in conversation with Melanie Campbell in thirty minutes and so
I'm headed over there. Now. Let me thank Krystal rec
and Gregg for being on today's show. What's gonna happen, folks.
We're going to go live from there at seven thirty

(56:15):
and so we're carrying that. So they've been meeting for
the last couple of days. We've been streaming it on
the Black Start Network. You can see those restreams by
going to our app or simply going to our twenty
for our streaming channel as well. So again at Krystal,
rec and Gregg, thank you so very Much'll be sure
to check out recy show and Serious XM on Saraday.
I think she's gonna have a couple more things to

(56:35):
say about Amanda Seals and the Vice President Kamala Harris.
All right, folks that don't forget to watch The Black
Table with Greg car as well. All Right, folks, thanks
a bunch. I'll see yell in thirty minutes right here
on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Start Network. We're
all impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not.
From politics, music, and entertainment. It's a huge part of

(56:59):
our lives. We're going to talk about it every day
right here on the Culture with me for Raji Muhammad
only on the Black Star Network. A lot of these
corporations or people that are running stuff push black people

(57:19):
if they're doing a certain thing. What that does is
it creates a butterfly effect of any young kid who
you know, wants to leave any situation they're in, and
the only people they see your people that are doing this,
or I gotta be a gangster, I gotta shoot, I
gotta sell, I gotta do this and wanted to do it,
and it becomes a cyclable when someone comes around is
making another Oh, we don't do you know, they don't
want to push them to put money into it. So

(57:39):
that's definitely something I'm trying to fix. Two, it's just
show those other avenues. You don't gotta be rapping. I'm
gonna be a ball player the country. See can be
an operation, or you can be a m whatever you know.
Don't showing the different avenues not as possible, and it's
hard for people to realize as possible to someone done.

(58:05):
We talk about blackness and what happens in black culture.
We're about covering these things that matter to us, speaking
to our issues and concerns. It's just a genuine people
power of movement and a lot of stuff that we're
not getting. You get it, and you spread the word.
We wish to plead our own cause to long have

(58:25):
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(58:47):
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(59:11):
I'm Lance Gross and you're watching Roland Martin unfiltered. The
family of farmer NFL cornerback Stanley Wilson Jr. Believes law
enforcement beat him before he died at a California mental hospital. Wilson,

(59:31):
a farmer Detroit Lion, died on February first, after officials
initially reported that he collapsed and fell from a chair.
The family fouled three wrongful death claims against Los Angeles County,
one on behalf of each of his parents, Stanley Wilson,
Singer and doctor Poulaine Lucas, and another on behalf of
his estate, asking for forty five million dollars in damages.

(59:53):
Wilson's family revealed photos of his body, showing marks on
his head that appeared to show he was stomped, and
scars on his hands and wrists that indicate that he
was handcuffed. Wilson was admitted to the Twin Towers Correctional
Facility in August after he was declared incompetent to stand
trial on vandalism charges. Wilson's family believed he may have

(01:00:17):
suffered from CTE. Autopsy results have not been released. When
I go back to the panel on this, doctor Car,
it's still with us as well as Crystal Knight. You
know what's so crazy about all about this story is
that this kind of stemmed from vandalism charges, and so
we had a person who was suffering for some kind

(01:00:39):
of mental health issues in a facility that's not just
a regular mental health hospital but actually like an incarce
mental health facility, and this is the fallout, Doctor Car,
What do you have to say about how this has
escalated from the point of vandalism charges to his ultimate death. Well,

(01:01:01):
we know, we know, sisters, that you know, being black
in this country is we're born at risk, and this
is just another example of violence. And one of the
reasons I was a little late today. My students help
me over up at However, my friend Jolani cob just
published an article in The New York are on the
fifth year anniversary of hip hop, and he talks about
the fact that while everybody loves hip hop, black people

(01:01:24):
out in the streets dying, And he says, the simple
fact that the matter is that all of our culture
speaks to this desire to live just a little bit
longer because we're all gonna die. This brother was a
professional athlete trying to make away for his family, trying
to you know, make a better life for himself, and
had a career ending injury and ends up a victim

(01:01:45):
of state violence. Now, whether it's high blood pressure, diabetes,
or any number of things that take our lives, infant mortality,
anything to take our lives, or in this case, abuse
by the state, after abuse by the sport you're playing,
just to get aid it. This is another example of
the risks of being black in America and trying to
extend your life a little bit longer. And this is

(01:02:07):
sometimes what happens too often. Whatever, Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
I mean, if you think about it, the mental health
facility is where you're supposed to heal, not where you're
supposed to actually die. So the circumstances surrounding this being
in handcuffs, being stomped, which is brutality. It's just inexcusable. Crystal,
what's your take on this one. Yeah, this story is

(01:02:29):
it's sad. I mean, it's it's sad to hear. I
hope that, you know, more of the details surrounding his
death actually come out. But you know, I agree with
what doctor Carr said. You know, black men are not
living to see sixty I mean probably even less than that,
you know, just thinking about all of the black death

(01:02:51):
that we've seen over the last couple of years. And again,
if this is someone who was crying out for help,
who needed help to see get treated and then die,
the circumstances surrounding that are very murky at best. And
I you know, I want answers for it. I think
his family deserves to understand exactly what happened. And ultimately,

(01:03:15):
I want people in our hospitals, care facilities, police officers
to see black bodies as worthy because when they do,
they won't take, you know, actions that ultimately will will
lead to our demise. And that's actually that's what I'm guessing.
That's what happened, is that people, you know, don't don't

(01:03:36):
see black bodies as valuable in this country, and so
when something happens, that's negative or something that is life
altering happens. Instead of helping people, just continue to exacerbate
the problem to the point of death. You're so right,
And we've seen cases, We've covered it on the show
where for instance, with Tyree Nichols, where he was not

(01:03:57):
administered the proper medical care. We've seen it with other
cases where the paramedics show up and they don't do
what they're supposed to do. You know what's very interesting though,
is when we talk about police brutality, when we talk
about the criminal justice system, often the mental health hospitals,

(01:04:18):
mental health professionals are put up as an alternative to
policing itself, as though that would make us safer. And
here's a case where we see that even if you
and if you inject any kind of carcerl aspect to it,
it seems to have the same result. What do you think,
doctor Carr, No, I agree absolutely. I mean again, I

(01:04:41):
mean the fact that this was a junior, you know,
meaning his parents, his father has to I mean, you
know it just I mean, it's just the way that Crystal,
I think where you laid it out again, is there
we are not human and you know the fact that
you sustain the type of injury that could shorten your
life anyway, and then you call out for help. And

(01:05:03):
as you said, Racily, this is supposed to provide. Mental
health facilities are supposed to provide help, and they do
for human beings. But if you're not a human, then
you won't receive anything other than brutality there. So I
mean again, our fundamental problem is the challenge, and this
is for men, women, children, all of us as African people.

(01:05:24):
Sander Bland after all, in a sale where they say
she killed herself, why she should never have been halted
in the first place. Our challenge is to navigate this
funky place that we're in. It cannot be saved in
its current form. It's gonna have to be remade because
it has never seen us as human and it will
never see us as human. We're gonna have to win
that respect by first respecting ourselves enough. Maybe we need

(01:05:46):
some more black mental health facilities and some more elected
officials to be run management over the ones that treat
our people like this, right right, Well, we have to
go to her break in a second. But one thing
I just want to say is what's interesting is the
seat to eat aspect and so autopsy has not been
performed yet. I'm interested to see when that is performed,

(01:06:06):
if they're if that played any kind of roll in it.
But we have to take a break. We'll be right
back with more Roland Martin unfiltered here on the Black
Start Network, people that are running stuff push black people
if they're doing a certain thing. What that does is
it creates a butterfly effect of any young kid who

(01:06:29):
you know, wants to leave any situation they're in, and
the only people they see your people that are doing this,
or I gotta be a gangster, I gotta shoot, I
gotta sell, I gotta do this in order to do it,
and it becomes a cyclable when someone comes around is
making another Oh we don't do you know, they don't
want to push them to put money into it. So
that's definitely something I'm trying to fix. Two, it's just
show those other avenues. You don't gotta be rapping. I'm
gonna be a ball player, I could be the country sing.

(01:06:50):
You can be an opperson, or you can be a
m whatever. You know. Don't showing the different avenues not
as possible, and it's hard for people to realize as
possible to someone done. We talk about blackness and what

(01:07:11):
happens in black culture. You're about covering these things that
matter to us, speaking to our issues and concerns. It's
just a genuine people powered movement. A lot of stuff
that we're not getting. You get it, and you spread
the word. We wish to plead our own cause to
long have others spoken for us. We cannot tell our

(01:07:34):
own story if we can't pay for it. This is
about covering us invest in black owned media. Your dollars matter.
We don't have to keep asking them to cover ours,
So please support us in what we do. Folks, we
want to hit two thousand people fifty dollars this month.
Waits one hundred thousand dollars. We're behind one hundred thousand,
so we want to hit that. Y'all. Money makes us possible.

(01:07:54):
Check some money orders go to feel box files in
the one ninety six Washington d C two zero zero
or three seven dash zero nine six has afris dollar
sign r M unfiltered, paypalas R Martin unfiltered, bn mo
is r M unfiltered, zel is rolling at roland s
Martin dot com. This iss math. What's going on. Everybody,

(01:08:15):
it's your boy, Maquis, and you are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered.
A former activist is blasting San Francisco's reparations plan as
gas flighting Black Americans. Xavier de Rosso, who claims to
be an ex BLM supporter, appeared on Fox News is

(01:08:38):
the ingram Angle to discuss how the plan falsely promotes
systemic racism after San Francisco's Board of Supervisors embraced one
hundred eleven recommendations made by a city appointed reparations committee.
Now is Xavier de Rosso a former BLM activist, Turn
Pregger you personality, Davi're great to see tonight. You have

(01:09:01):
an interesting perspective on this debate. Explain. Yes, I think
it's important that first of all, we call this exactly
what it is. This is one hundred and eleven ways
to gaslight Black Americans and to thinking that we need
to be dependent on a system of handouts in order
to be successful. Black Americans have been indoctrinated with these

(01:09:21):
lies for far too long, and I used to fall
for the lies until I took a deep dive into
the videos on priggeru dot com and realize how easily debunked.
These fraudulent narratives surrounding systemic racism actually are. The plan
included lump sound payments of five million dollars to every
eligible black citizen, guaranteed incomes of ninety seven thousand dollars

(01:09:44):
per year for two hundred and fifty years, elimination of
personal debt and tax burdens, and homes for just one dollar.
The San Francisco Reparations Committee will continue to deliberate recommendations.
It's final report is due to the legislature on July first.
Now I have thoughts about this program, these recommendations. First

(01:10:06):
of all, Um, financially, I just don't even see how
it's feasible at all. So I would tend to agree
with the idea of gas lighting in the sense that
it's probably never going to happen. But Xavier made a
quite different point, Doctor Carr, what is your take on
this reparations plan. Well, we can start with Dennis Prager's

(01:10:28):
scam also known as Prager University, an unaccredited place that
shows videos, and so I think that anything after that.
As soon as she had announced him and identified him
as affiliated with a Prigger university, the next thing should
have been as he started talking. Oh wait, oh, you
couldn't hear me. No, it's the mute. Should have gone

(01:10:50):
on at that point. But uh in a in an instance,
it reminds me of something Minister Firkin back in the
eighties he gave. He went on two around the country
when they were engendering this notion of selling products lotion
and so it's called power at Last Forever. And in
Atlanta he gave a speech where the refrain he kept
returning to was figure it up, count it up. And

(01:11:13):
he started saying, they took the whole country. Count that up. Okay,
then they murdered all the Native Americans. Count that up.
Then they brought us over here by the millions. Count
that up. And then he kept going everybody, and finally
in he said, if you figure it up, you'll find
out that they ow's the whole damn country. And we're
not even asking for that. See, the exercise of making
this concrete, whether you ever get a dime or not,

(01:11:36):
is to describe the enormity of the debt, whether you
ever get a penny or not. Now what this fool
is doing, Yasa talking to this white nationalist who has
no problem engendering all kinds of propaganda from her perch.
As she tweets her button, texts her buddies over there
fellow anchors, saying, I know they craziest hell, but we

(01:11:56):
can't mess with the money in the ratings. We have
to understand that this is a propaganda war. It's a
propaganda war. San Francisco ain't got the kind of money
to get that kind of check. But when you think
of the enormity of the harm, it can in many
ways remind us that not only are we owed, but
we are at the foundation of this thing called the
United States of America. And of course when it comes

(01:12:19):
back they can adjust any of the one hundred and eleven.
They're going to be things on there that they probably
will pass well. Genius, of course, and a whole sermon
there a doctor Carr. I think you make such a
great point about the at least moral victory of putting
such a high number on something that's really invaluable or priceless.

(01:12:41):
But Crystal, what's your take though, in terms of if
you want to move beyond a moral victory into actual payments,
into actual tangible results. Do you think that the numbers
being put out there is something that puts us closer
to that, or do you think that's something that kind
of blows it out at anything being feasible. Well, I

(01:13:03):
think that there are challenges with the number that is proposed.
My take on, you know, the whole proposal is that
we have to start somewhere. I tend to agree with
doctor Carr that, you know, regardless of if it's too
big or even too small, getting it through, getting something
actually passed to me is more important. And then you

(01:13:26):
can go back and work on the numbers. You know.
I don't think that this will pass, you know, in actuality,
but I do think that we need to have the conversation.
We need to normalize having city councils or county commissions
or you know, state governments really discuss and talk about
reparations across this country. Right now, we've seen it. It's sparse.

(01:13:49):
It's here and there, it's in California, there have been
some in Illinois, maybe another or two in other places.
But even at the federal level, we haven't taken up
reparations to even study at the federal level. And so
I think that, you know, if we are serious about
paying back the debts of our ancestors who have built
this country for free, who were brought over here against

(01:14:11):
our will. Whatever the first step is, we have to
get there. We have to get through whatever this first piece.
No one will ever be fully satisfied with the number
or the items that are being suggested. But if we
continue to tear down even the process of just having
the conversation, getting a first read, getting something past, we

(01:14:33):
will forever be in this revolving cyclical door about something
not being enough or or something being too much. That's true, Crystal,
to your point, I mean about the how necessary it
is to have a conversation and to start somewhere. I
can't say that I've seen a lot of in person

(01:14:53):
engagement around us now. Granted I'm not in San Francisco,
I'm not in California. Am I missing some things? And
doctor Carr you can weigh into because you obviously were
part of the statewide study or initiative behind this. Is
there an on the ground where we talk about things
like cific engagement, going to your school board meetings, going
to your county meetings? Has there been a galvanization around

(01:15:16):
this on the ground from in the same way that
we hear about it online if people were in the
YouTube chats. Oh. Absolutely. In fact, the first major effort
to organize African people of reparations in this country goes
back to the nineteenth century, as sister named Kelli House
and Isaiah Dickerson the Ex Slave Mutual Relief and Pension Fund.
These were Africans who had actually gone through enslavement who

(01:15:39):
demand made a demand in federal government. So it starts
in the eighteen eighties and eighteen nineties, and it's really
an unbroken string. In the nineteen twenties, thirties, Queen Mother
Avlie More. By the nineteen sixties you're talking about the
Republic of New Africa. You're talking about Chopway LAMMBA, the
father of the current mayor of Jackson. That's how they
ended up in Jack's first place from Detroit. And there's
the National Coalition of Blacks Reparations in America found began

(01:16:01):
in nineteen eighty nine to bring those groups together. And
of course, as Chausa just said, there's HR forty, which
John Coyers began introducing forty years ago, and now of
course Celia Jackson Lee has taken it up. It's an
unbroken string. The only thing I would say is that
there are local reparations movements. There have been resolutions passed
in cities like Philadelphia. There's obviously what's going on in
the northern suburbs of Chicago, the Evanston work. So there's

(01:16:23):
an unbroken thing. And finally, what you said, reseeing you
always remind us of this in terms of this question
of social media, particularly weaponized ignorance, the sentence, and of
enslavement conversation going on. All that's local and there's a
lot of people organizing around it. I do not agree
with the California framework in terms of this notion of
only those who were enslaved in the United States, the

(01:16:45):
senator them can get reparations. But I do think it's
important that the momentum has now taken up again. So no,
there's an unbroken string of this demand. And like Crystal said,
you gotta put something on the table. Once that is established,
then we began the negotiations. Until you make that demand,
you know, we just basically are talking to each other. Well,

(01:17:05):
I agree with you, I definitely agree. I think that
there's a rich legacy of this kind of local activism.
I'm just curious how much of that local advocacy is
paired up with, or how proportional it is to people
proporting to actually care about this issue. When you look
at the kind of value of traffic that you have online,

(01:17:26):
and I've seen that proportion of interest on the ground.
But again I could be missing something. What do you
think are so in that? No, I don't know that
I've seen. So when I and when I think about
this issue, I want to just you know, compare it
to voting rights. So if we think about when President
Biden took office, we heard national advocacy organizations, We heard

(01:17:51):
even the DNC talking about, you know, the need to
pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, the need to
you know, get voting rights really and truly codified or
really and truly you know, just immersed in our American
voting electorate system. I don't hear the same resounding voice

(01:18:14):
from national groups and even local groups or state based groups.
Now that's not to say, as doctor Carr stated, that
there aren't people out here talking about it, but I
don't think that reparations is a true agenda item every
single year by advocacy organizations big and small, and until
it becomes this resounding thing. If we talk about reparations

(01:18:35):
the way we talk about people registering the vote, we
could probably get we talk about registering the vote every
single year to vote. It's critical that you use your voice,
it's critical that you do all these things. We just
had a segment on that with Roland about you know, Texas.
But if we talk about reparations in the same light
and with the same weight that we talk about these

(01:18:57):
other civil rights issues, then I think when we hear
this narrative, when you talk about, you know, the narrative
in the media, it is not talked about enough. So
it's not that people don't care about it, it's just
not enough people care about it collectively, all at the
same time. And so that's what that's my perspective about
it is that I think people, yes, everyone, I haven't

(01:19:20):
really heard anyone say I don't want reparations, but I
haven't seen a year round campaign about preparation, about reparations,
excuse me, in the same manner, And that they run
these year round campaigns about voting rights, voter registration or
any other issue that they really care about. Well, I

(01:19:42):
absolutely agree with you. But and to be clear, I
mean this Xavier person and talked about not wanting reparations
because it's a handout. Reparations is not a handout, it's
a repayment for the unspeakable horrors that have been inflicted
on us. And so to your appoint CHRISTI yeah, you're right,
there has not been the same kind of result ding
voice behind that. But look at how much begging we've

(01:20:05):
had to do just to get people at thirty percent turnout.
And this is people who are already registered to vote.
We're not even talking people who aren't even registered to vote.
And so where do we go from here? I don't know,
but it definitely seems like at least San Francisco is
it's serious about evaluating this what ultimately what kind of

(01:20:26):
check gets cut? And I haven't even heard the details
around what eligibility looks like. But if you, if you
have anybody that came through San Francisco, now might be
a good time to get your paperwork together. It might
be a good time if you are in San Francisco
to register to vote on whatever the crime peg of taxes,

(01:20:47):
do your tax return file for residency, because that's right now.
I'll go ahead, No, no, no, I know, I know
we're gonna go to breaking. The second, I do want
to stress the fact that the fact that we're having
this conversation, when you look back over the full arc
of the reparations movement, this really is progress. Reparations has
typically been a cause that has been championed by Black

(01:21:09):
Nastals and Pan Africans. The fact that we are now
having this conversation, you know Tanau see coaches Arcle in
Atlantic years ago before that, Randall Robinson's two thousand book
called the debt. The fact that we're even doing it
now that the California state legislature appointed a committee the
largest state in the country, headed in the legislation by
a black woman who is a retired professor of Afrimaican states,

(01:21:30):
when you measure the movement of the nineties, eighty, seventy sixties,
all the way back to the nineteenth century to now,
this is a quantum leap. So I think we should always,
you know, not just where we're going, but measure against
where we've been. This was something the Black panthers used
to bring up us, used to bring up the Pan Africans,
used to bring up political prisoners, used to bring up

(01:21:51):
and now it's stuff that's being discussed by white Nashtals
like lord Ingram because it can't be ignored anymore. That's progress, right.
I'm not used to write, doctor Carr. I mean, leap
is not a word you hear a lot because we
live in an instant gratification society. But when you put
it in the context, this is radical, drastic progress, even

(01:22:12):
if it's not at the finish line yet. Well, we
have to wrap up. We're going to go to the
Black Woman's Roundtable that that Roland will be moderating at
Crystal Night Democratic Strategies. Thank you so much for being here,
Doctor greg Hart. Always good to be with you. Y'all.
Check out the Black Table tomorrow and I'm Rica Cob're
signing out for Roland Martin. Unfilter this part, Bye, y'all, Bye,

(01:22:37):
Thank you. Streets a horrific scene white nationalist rally that
descended into deadly violent as any coach Trump mad storms
to the US capital about to see the lives of
what I call white minority resistance. We have seen white

(01:23:00):
in this country who simply cannot tolerate black post voting.
I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of
violent denials. This is part of American history. Every time
that people of color and the progress, whether real or symbolic,
there has been the Carol Anderson at every university calls
white rage as a backlashes as the right of the

(01:23:22):
proud boys and the boogaloo boys. America. There's going to
be more of this. This country is getting increasingly racist
in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear
of white people, the fear that you're taking our job,
they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. This is
white fear. A lot of these corporations are people that

(01:24:00):
are running stuff push black people if they're doing a
certain thing. What that does is it creates a butterfly
effect of any young kid who you know, wants to
leave any situation they're in, and the only people they
see your people that are doing this, or I gotta
be a gangster, I gotta shoot, I gotta sell, I
gotta do this in order to do it, and it
becomes a cyclable when someone comes around is making another Oh,

(01:24:21):
we don't do you know, they don't want to push
them to put money into it. So that's definitely something
I'm trying to fix. Two, it's your show. Those other avenues.
You don't gotta be rapping. I'm gonna be a ball player,
could be from the country scene. Canna be an operating
or you can be a dam whatever you know. I'm
showing the different avenues not as possible, and it's hard
for people to realize as possible to someone done well.

(01:24:51):
The next Get Wealthy with me Deborah Owen's America's Wealth Coach.
The studies show that millennials and Gen xer will be
less well off than their parents. What can we do
to make sure that we get to children younger and
that they have the right money habits well? Joining me

(01:25:12):
on the next Get Wealthy is an author who's created
a master play for being willing to share some of
your money mistakes. Right if that's what if that's what
you have to lean on. Start with the money mistakes
that you have made. But don't just tell the mistake, right,
tell the lesson in the mistake. That's right here on

(01:25:35):
geft Wealthy Only on Black Star Network, we talk about
blackness and what happens in black culture. You're about covering
these things that matter to us, speaking to our issues
and concerns. It is a genuine people pirate movement and
a lot of stuff that we're not getting. You get

(01:25:57):
it and spread the word. We wish to leave our
own cause to long have others spoken for us. We
cannot tell our own story if we can't pay for it.
This is about covering us invest in black owned media.
Your dollars matter. We don't have to keep asking them
to cover ours, So please support us in what we do. Folks.

(01:26:18):
We want to hit two thousand people fifty dollars this month.
Waits one hundred thousand dollars. We're behind one hundred thousand,
so we want to hit that. Y'all. Money makes us possible. Checks.
Some money boarders build peter box files in the one
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dash zero one nine six cash apples, dollars, sign r
M unfiltered, paypalas are Martin unfiltered, venmo is r M unfiltered,

(01:26:40):
zeal Is rolling at rolling s Martin dot com. Hatred
on the streets a horrific scene white nationalist rally that
descended into deadly violence. White people are losing their vind
as a name. We approach mob Storm to the US capital.

(01:27:03):
We're about to see the lives w I call white
who simply cannot rate black folks voting. I think what
is part of American history. Every time the people of
color and made a progress, whether real or symbolic, there

(01:27:24):
has been the Carold Anderson at every university calls white
rage as a backlash is the wrath of the proud
boys in the Boogaloo Boys America. There's going to be
more of this proudoy. This country is getting increasingly racist
in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear
of white people, the fear that you're taking our job,

(01:27:45):
they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. This is whitefield.
Black Star Network is here a real old revolutionary right

(01:28:07):
now black media. He makes sure that our stories are told.
I thank you for being the voice of black Amaron
Corollas all moments that we have. Now we have to
keep this going. The video looks phenomenal. See this difference
between Black Star Network and black owned media and something
like CNN. You can't be black owned media and be scaped.

(01:28:29):
It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs, hold your
dig pull up a chair, take your seat the Black
Teape with me Doctor Greg car Here on the Black
Star Network. Every week we'll take a deeper dive into
the world we're living in. Join the conversation only on

(01:28:53):
the Black Star Network. I am Doctor Jackie, and Martin
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as if your life is teetering in the way and
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But Doctor Jackie, we're all impacted by the culture, whether

(01:29:19):
we know it or not, from politics to music and entertainment.
It's a huge part of our lives that we're going
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Culture with me for Raji Muhammad, only on the Black
Star Network. Ohen's American Wealth Coach and my new show

(01:29:40):
Get Wealthy focuses on the thing that your financial advisor
and bank isn't telling you what you absolutely need to know.
So watch Get Wealth on the Black Star Network. Hatred

(01:30:11):
on the Streets a horrific scene white nationalist rally that
descended into deadly violence. White people are losing their dads.
As a man approach Trump mod storm to the US capital,
We're about to see the lads, or I call white

(01:30:33):
who simply cannot tolerate Black folks voting. I think what
is part of American history. Every time that people of
color and meta progress, whether real or symbolic, there has
been the Carold Anderson at every university calls white rage
as a backlashes. Is the wrath of the proud boys

(01:30:54):
and the boogaloo boys America. There's going to be more
of this. That this country is getting increasingly racist in
its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of
white people to feel that you're taking our job, to
taking our resources, for taking our women. This is white Field.

(01:31:30):
I'm Dean Caley. You're watching Martin Unfiltered, Stay Woken. We'll
discussed here today as the nation's most engaged and reliable
voting black But who is that? Who is that we

(01:31:50):
have the power to effect change? Say? We have the power,
we have we know that when black women show up
to the polls, we know only vote for ourselves, for
our families and communities that are stated and this nation
we have saved. See how many times over and our
democracy he saved them once again. So we're here today

(01:32:15):
to walk these halls of Congress, to walk these halls
at the US Senate, most specifically today, because we have
to make sure that our children are here. We have
high schools who are here from from high schools today.
I know a bunch from Alabama and other states are
here today, and so they're here to learn from us,

(01:32:37):
but also tell their US Senator. And some will go
to Congress House officers to meet with staffords, but to
remind them while we sip them here and this and
and here's the focus for us. Our priority issues are
to make sure they pass a fair budget. Say pass
a fair budget, protect our rights and freedoms. We're about

(01:33:03):
making sure you protect workers' rights, and make sure that
all of our communities are safe with fair public safety policy.
I'm gonna say again we want our community safe with
safe public safety policy, not to just lock our folks up.

(01:33:26):
We are here to deal with issues of privacy. We're
here to talk about and demand that they protect the
safety net. And what is that. That's Medicare, that's medicaid,
that's social security, that's making sure that when you talk
about having not to have to win to say, take
care of our medicine, low costs of taking care of

(01:33:48):
having to pay for medicine, not have to make choices
of whether you can eat or whether you can take
care and get the medicine you need. We're here about
criminal justice and giving first a second chances right around that,
around criminal justice reform, and and and at the end
of the day, we talk about second chances. We're talking

(01:34:09):
about making sure that we pour into folks so that
they have an opportunity to thrive in this country. And
we're talking about economic security and prosperity in this nation
as our priority. So this time I would bring on
some of our national partners. I want to call your
name and you come in this order. Our sister Clayole Brown,
President National President of eighth for the Randolph Institute. But she,

(01:34:32):
like a lot of sisters, got to wear two or
three hats, and they need her so much. She also
is the special assistant around strategic partners and Alliances that
messed that up. She helped makes you that do right
right community and partner up with all of us with
a fl cio. Then you will hear from our sister leader,

(01:34:54):
Sheena me who is a CEO Cleans Late Initiative, Okay,
the Cleans Late Initiative, but also has been with us
for years from black people go on and they're so proud,

(01:35:15):
says uh, so we know we get that loan right, um,
and see the meet and then we'll hear from who
will talk about not just criminal justice reform, but about
second chances and what all that means for all of
our communities. And doctor Elsie Scott, who's the founding director
of the Ronald Walster's Leadership Public Policy Center. And I

(01:35:36):
say this, I don't want to hear this Howard University,
just at like you't to hear you from Howard. Oh,
go ahead, go ahead, right uh. And then we will
hear from our senator hopefully, and then we will hear
from our some of our our state leaders uh and
young leaders uh to talk about why they're here as

(01:35:58):
a part of this coalition. Coyola Sitta. All right, all right,
all right, good morning, everybody, Good morning, everybody, morning. You
have to be dedicated to get up and put on
your go get them shoes, to come and make sure
that your voice gets heard. So I say congratulations to

(01:36:18):
you before you meet with anybody this morning. You met
with yourself, You met with your dignity, You met with
the pride that comes with being a black woman. Our leader,
Melanie Campbell, said that black women has saved this country.
Yes we have, and we gonna keep doing it because
if we don't stand up for ourselves, nobody else will
do it for us. Now, let me tell you this,

(01:36:40):
workers rights is tied in with all of these pieces
that we're talking about, because if there's anything a black
woman knows about, it's what it is to be a
worker and line none of the other things. At the
same dag on time. I'm gonna try real good and
I ain't gonna cut this morning, mildy. But if we
take a look at some of the legislation that's being provided,

(01:37:01):
and I say provided, because they didn't ask us nothing. Right,
you have to read two times to make sure that
you up in there all right. I am not a PhD.
So you're gonna hear what comes out of South Carolina. Listen,
closer that you don't miss it. But workers' rights goes
way beyond just the ones that are people who are
going into a shop or plant or whatever. If you

(01:37:21):
get up every day and you're going to meet the
cause for providing for your family or having a right
to make a choice about your life and what you
do with your own body, you are a worker in
the movement of being protective of yourself and your dignity.
So when we talk to these legislators, let them know
that we are not a one trick pony. Not one

(01:37:42):
issue is going to satisfy anybody. All of the signs
that you see, to talk about the pride of our family,
about the dignity of work, voice, all of those things
are a part of who we are as black women.
Don't go ahead, be improper, go in there being your self.
It's their job to know the number of the bill,

(01:38:03):
it's their job to know how it ties to particular legislation.
But it's your job to let the legislators that represent
you know that you are paying attention. And that's why
when Melanie say we're coming on point, well, we're talking,
we're talking from our heart in our history. Don't let
that be anything fancy for you, just be yourself. They

(01:38:24):
understand that there is no question about honesty, about truth,
and about dignity, and black women got all of that,
So we don't show them that today as we do
our walk. Thank you very much, Melanie for the two seconds.
I'm done. Hatred on the streets. A horrific scene white

(01:38:49):
nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence. Trump mob storms
the US Capital show. We're about to see the lives
of what I call white minority resistance. We have seen
white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black

(01:39:11):
folks the voting. I think what we're seeing is the
inevitable result of violent denials. This is part of American history.
Every time the people of color and meta progress, whether
real or symbolic, there has been the Carol Anderson at
every university calls white rage as a backlash. Is the
life of the proud boys in the Boogaloo Boys America.

(01:39:32):
There's going to be more of this poy This country
is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes
because of the fear of white people, the fee that
you're taking our job, they're taking out resources. If you're
taking our women. This is white feel We're all impacted

(01:40:08):
by the culture, whether we know it or not, from
politics to music and entertainment. It's a huge part of
our lives that we're going to talk about it every
day right here on the Culture with me for Raji
Muhammad only on the Black Star Network. You know what's up?

(01:40:29):
Did your boy ice Cube? What's up? I'm lands gross
and you're watching Roland Martin unfiltered walk through the halls
of the Capitol that who out tim day didn't know
who you are and realize that you pay taxes to

(01:40:50):
be here. This is your house and these are your employees.
You employ the folks in here, and if you have
somebody ain't acting right, what you do, just let them know.
My name is Sheena Meed. I'm the CEO the Clean
Slate Initiative. But more important, let me credentialize myself. I'm
a Black Youth Vote Florida Youth Vote alumni. I'm a
Black Woman's Round Table member, I'm a I'm a contributor

(01:41:14):
to the organization and I'm coming up here as a
sponsor and a leader. And I'm here from the South,
a girl from the South and I want to thank
this Milian and Campbell. The dirty we ain't gonna get
We're gonna talk about how dirty it is when we
get up in there. But I want to thank this
Milian and Campbell for um, you know, for what she

(01:41:36):
always do for Black women and girls. And again I'm
a product of the investment to see that was planning.
I'm the manifestation and the plant that was rooted, and
I'm the blood today. So I'm not gonna preach and
do my two minutes like Miss player Hold said. So
I just want to say, you know, one thing about
Black Woman's Round Table. They always show us to show
for our community, to not leave a sister behind. But

(01:41:56):
I want to give y'all some haunt us, some haunts
and stats that there are eighteen million women nationwide who
have a conviction or non conviction on their record. And
let me break that down for folks who like it
like it broken down. They mean someone's been arrested. How
many people have someone and their family or their friends
that they know raise your hand that know that has
a criminal record that has been impacted or incarcerated. One

(01:42:20):
out of three Americans, one out of two children have
a parent with a record, and when we say, you know,
we're about cific engagement, bringing people to the table, bringing
people to the voting booth. But what happens when they
shut out? How do we ask you to show up
for our community when they cash off for work because
they can't get a job, when they cash off for
their children, because they're not allowed to go to the

(01:42:41):
school on a field trip, when they can't get a
career because they excluded from forty four thousand occupations and
in certificates. We need to tell Congress to act today
at passingly slate and give a pathway for people to
clear their records. Because we can't build back better and
we leave in people behind. Let me let you know
we can't build back better when we leave in seventy

(01:43:04):
to one hundred million people behind. And so as you
go up there today, we're asking people to share your
stories in the field. Let people know that there are
people that is that is behind, that cannot be here
with us today because they're out there searching for a job.
They're trying to figure out how they can show it
for the community and the children's because they have a
record and we're not gonna leave them behind. We're gonna
leave them sisters behind. We're gonna leave the brothers behind.

(01:43:27):
So I'm asking you all to show up and show
out and talk about the Clean Slate Act and tell
Congress that they need to create a pathway. Tell our
administration when y'all go to the White House that we
cannot build back better when we leave in seventy million
people behind. Thank you, Good morning, everybody. I am Elsie Scott.

(01:43:50):
I'm here or with the Black Women's round Table with
the National Coalition on Civic Black Civil Participation, and we
are just happy that we have a good turn on
the women today, a good turnout of young women today.
And when you go to the Senate today and speak
with your senators, and if some of you go on
the House side and speak with the House staff, we

(01:44:12):
need to emphasize that criminal justice reform is very important
in the lives of black people in this country. We
have been brutalized by the criminal justice system. We have
been the victims of poor policing. We've been the victims
of aggressive policing. We've been the victim of over inconserration.

(01:44:34):
We've been the victim of sentison acts that sent us
to prison. For longer times, so we want to talk
about reform. It's when George Floyd was killed, we thought
we were going to see some action here in Congress.
We had to George Floyd Police and Act passed on
the House side, but it didn't pass on the Senate side.
We got to continue to push for police reform. And

(01:44:56):
I can speak about that because I have done both
sides of the policing. I have served as a defty
commissioner for the New York City Police Department and try
to reform from the inside, but I've also been an
active activists on the outside trying to push full police reform.
So policing is a local function, but the federal government
has a lot of power in terms of bringing about

(01:45:18):
change in police department. We can't just let small, twenty
person police departments do what they want to do, not
observe the proper laws, not trained their police officers properly,
not select people who don't have bad records, criminal records.
So there are things at the federal level we can
put in standards in order to force all police departments

(01:45:42):
to clean up their act, to select people that should
be policing, us, to get rid of people who should
not be on the police department in the first time,
because there's people that cannot be trained. We can talk
about police training, but I used to run training programs,
but there's some people should not be in the police
department in the first place. So no amount of training

(01:46:04):
is going to stop them from brutalized and communities. So
I'm not going to spend a lot of time, but
I do have to mention since we're talking about women,
we have to talk about domestic violence, violence against women.
We must look at how we can get the system
to fight for women who are being brutalized. Because we

(01:46:25):
talked as we talked yesterday, is that many women now
they have given up on the system helping them with
domestic violence. We are turning to our sisters as the
first responders instead of police departments. But we have to
get mental health services into our cities to help black
women who are being brutalized in their homes by their spouses,

(01:46:46):
by their bore friends. But this is one of the
main areas that I want to leave you with. All right,
thank you, Elsie. She got receipts. You know, she's very
humble about what she knows when it comes to Public
Safety erect where the director of Noble Ye National Organization

(01:47:10):
Black Law Enforcement, exactly what you're doing New York Commissioning
Commissioned Training give the New York City. So she's not
just talking. She didn't walk to it. Thank you, my sister. Um.
I heard that the Senator is here Zac correct, not yet,
but I do know Vince Evans was here from the

(01:47:32):
exactly direction of Congressional Black Caucus. If he could walk
up here where even more even more home like he
don't know what when? Come on, come on, let's ignore me, y'all. Okay,

(01:47:53):
we're gonna thank you. Come on up here for for us.
Good morning, everybody. Listen. I learned a long time ago.
You do what Melanie Campbell tells you to do. She
told me to be here on behalf of the Congressional
Black Caucus and our members who are obviously home in
their districts today, the fifty eight members of the CBC,
let me publicly say first what we say privately to

(01:48:14):
Melanie Campbell, which is thank you. I have seen these
past couple of years here on Capitol Hill and in
the White House. I've seen Melanie Campbell in rooms where
there are cameras and rooms where there are no cameras.
Melanie Campbell is the same in private as she is
in public. She's a fierce fighter and a defender, so
let's get her a round of applaw. I want to

(01:48:35):
thank the Black Women's Roundtable for your leadership. I will
not repeat all the issues that you of her, from
a police accountability in public safety, to voting rights, to
equal pay for equal days, pay for equal days work
for women, women's housewright. These are all issues that the
Black Women's Round Table and the Congressional Black Caucus are
fighting for. We're proud to be a partner with you,

(01:48:57):
Melanie and the Black Women's Agenda. I believe on this now.
And Julia Cooper said, when and where the black woman
enters and the quiet undisputed dignity of her womanhood, When
and where the black woman enters in the quiet, undisputed
dignity of her womanhood without suffrage and without patronage, their interest,
the entire Negro race. Black people don't enter without black women.

(01:49:21):
Thank you well, I told you all. Thank you, Vince.
We are so so delighted and were the first fake
Senator Van Holland from the Great Say of Maryland. Who

(01:49:42):
is hosting us today? Senator, you have Nolan in the house.
Maryland was in the house. We are our seven is
being hosted at the Gay Lord. We're getting money in
the state of um. So thank you for he is

(01:50:04):
our host. So thank our host. I do want to
just believe you, Okay. Uh. Senator Chris Van Holland UH
is elected to the United States Senate by the people
of Maryland and November twenty sixteen. Holland is committed to
fighting for every day, every day, fighting every day to
ensure that our state, in our country live up to

(01:50:27):
their full promise of equal rights, equal justice, and equal opportunity.
So repeat after me, I say, equal rights, equal justice,
and equal opportunity. Technology is wonderful when it works right.
Senator bad Holland believes that every child, say, every child

(01:50:50):
deserves the opportunity to pursue their dreams and benefit from
equality education. And then everyone willing to work hard should
be able to find a good job. And you other people,

(01:51:11):
I'm just gonna say this last. That's why his top
priorities include creating more and better jobs, strengthening small businesses,
and increasing educational and job training opportunities. For individuals of
all ages and every in every every community. Senator Van Holland,
tell us what you want us to know. Thank you,

(01:51:32):
thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Melanie. It's
great to be here with you. It's great to be
here with the Black Women's Roundtable and with the National
Coalition on Black Civic Participation. Thank you, thank all of you.
And it is an honor to team up with the CBC.
Thank you all for your leadership and to host this
gallery today here in the United States Senate. I just

(01:51:57):
wanted to come to thank you, to thank the cold,
to thank the Roundtable for all the work that you've
done over so many years, I think twelve years now
in terms of advocating to make sure that our country
does live up to the promise of equal rights and
equal justice and equal opportunity, and to make sure that

(01:52:17):
we have an equitable society where everybody gets a fair chance,
and that we also make sure that everybody has that
opportunity to have a good job and a good paycheck.
And when it comes to women, we have to deal
with the equal pay for equal work. I want to

(01:52:38):
thank all of you because black women have been at
the forefront of the fight in our country for justice
and liberty since the earliest days of our country. I
just came from my office in the Capital, and on
my wall there hangs the portrait of a great Marylander
and a great American, Harriet Tubman, And we are fighting

(01:53:01):
to make sure that Harriet Tubman has a rightful place
on the twenty dollar bill. And we and Maryland are
working very hard to get a statue of Harriet Tubman
in the United States Capital. So I want to thank
all of you for carrying the torch that has been
carried from Harriet Tubman to so many other black women

(01:53:23):
over the years, because you, when it comes to casting
your votes and calling for change, you are the ones
who have moved our country forward. I want to thank
you for what you did to help make progress possible
over the last two years. Over the last two years,
and we did a lot together, including ensuring that we

(01:53:47):
have the first black woman on the Supreme Court of
the United States, Justice Katanji Brown Jackson. Katanji Brown Jackson.
That was made possible because black women and voters around
the country came together to elect a president and a

(01:54:08):
vice president who made justice and equity a priority in
the United States of America, and that of course gets
to the fundamental issue of voting rights, because what we
know is that as we gather here, there are state
legislatures around the country that have already enacted and are
in the process of act enacting laws to erect barriers

(01:54:31):
to make it harder for people to vote, especially to
make it harder for people of color and younger people
to cast their ballots. Which is why, which is why
we need, as you have called for a national law
to protect the right to vote across the country, the

(01:54:53):
John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act,
because we shouldn't have different standards. The standards should be everybody,
every citizen should be able to have access to the
ballot box without having to jump over a lot of
hoops are standing long, long lines that are specifically designed
to gank people get tired of voting. Now black women

(01:55:16):
have never gotten tired of voting. But there's no reason
that people should have to jump over extra hoops to
exercise their right to vote in the United States of America.
And we have to deal with issues of public safety.
We need to get these weapons of war, these semi
automatic assault weapons, off our streets and have common sense
gun safety laws. And we need to make sure that

(01:55:38):
we have criminal justice reform and end the national scandal
of mass incarceration in the United States of America, and
have constitutional policing and pass things like the George Floyd
Justice in Policing Act. So we have a lot of
work to do, including on the education front, including on
the healthcare front. And I just want to this we

(01:56:00):
made progress in the last two years. We've helped lower
the cost of prescription drugs for people on Medicare, including insulin,
but we have a lot of work to do to
do that across the country. And of course deal with
women's maternal health, especially Black women's maternal health. And so
we look forward to working with you to make sure
that we have an equitable health system, equitable education system.

(01:56:24):
And of course, in terms of speaking to the Supreme Court,
there's the good news from the Court, Justice Jackson. There
was the bad news, of course from the Court which
was overturning Rov. Wade. And as we speak, we also
know Texas and other states are making it harder for
women to exercise their reproductive freedom and reproductive rights. So

(01:56:45):
whether it's healthcare, education, public safety, all these issues. We
have made progress in the last two years, but we
got a long way still to go. So I want
to thank all of you because you are the engine.
You're the the fuel that helps move this country forward. Um.
And I'm grateful for all you do and look forward

(01:57:06):
to continue to work with you in Maryland and around
the country for years to come. And for all of
you who aren't from Maryland, come on over. We love
to have you in Maryland. Take care and God bless you.
Thank you, Senator Marylands and what people come on Maryland,
but come on over, Whiz Robin, Whiz Robin and Maryland.

(01:57:30):
We're very proud of our new governor, Governor Westmore. Okay um.
And then while we're coming up, I didn't want to
make sure any Marylands will come up, want get a
photo with him in his knas. But what I want
to also let you know, and I forgot to say
this honorary chair. Yes it's somebody I know you know
pretty well, uh, And that's Chris George is kind of

(01:57:52):
executive Angela la And you get over there. Angela Ulster
Brooks is and I'm amazing county executive, work very closely
with her in fact, they just got a note from
her this morning. She's but can we give uh, We're
gonna say, you are senators a round of a blood

(01:58:15):
and I think folks are coming, and I will say
anyone from the District of Columbia, we need statehood for
we need democracy and self determination for the people of district.
All right, thank you very much, thank you so very much. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(01:58:36):
you have to go take a picture with it. Yes, yep, Okay,
thank you, thank you again, Senator Van Holland. Uh. And
so we're gonna have um some quick um um uh
remarks because we want to make sure to folks don't
miss that promise of doing it good on times that
we're doing good on time. So this next way were folks,

(01:58:57):
it was quite a few um um because we want
the state leaders come up. Make sure you bring your
black you vote coordinator, if you have one with you,
so that you all can share in your comments. So,
but we're gonna start with some of our policy lead
leads with the with the coalition, Jocelyn Tate, who's our
senior policy advisor, tech policy advisor, and all things policy advisor,

(01:59:20):
quite frankly, who has an exemplary record around issues around
technology and tech policy and how that impacts We talk
about equity and opportunities here and they're fighting to fight
UH and represents us on the FCC Advisory Council and
a correct Joyson, so Jooryston Tate will come up to
talk about our priority issue around privacy. Following Jayson, you
will hear from Carol Jorner, who is UH with Family

(01:59:44):
Values Action and I say that right exact director for
Family Values Action, who's our assistant and partner all the
members of Black Women's Roundtable as well, who will focus
on economic security, specifically issues around paid family leads and
also weigh in a little bit of equal pay and
how important that is. Following her, you will hear from

(02:00:05):
Cassangel Welshon, who is who leads the Mississippi Coalition on
Black Civic Participation. Mississippi Black Women's round Table has been
a fighter in the state of Mississippi around issues around
economic justice and opportunity for Black women and our children.
Do the issues of childcare and many may other things.

(02:00:26):
She will focus on reproductive rights and equal rights. Follow
her Helen Butler voting rights and I think you have
m Mary Patton Acton with you as well and been
honorable Sheila Tyson, who will focus on from alabrom the
Great State of Alabama. Who leads Black Women's round Table
in Alabama, Helen Butler, I forgot to say her title

(02:00:46):
exact director Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda and Georgia
Black Women's round Table, and the Georgia folks could come
up at that time. So if you're here when we
call your state, y'all come up and y'all do that together,
and then we have other states that we will call
on accordingly after that. We're all impacted by the culture,

(02:01:10):
whether we know it or not, from politics to music
and entertainment. It's a huge part of our lives and
we're going to talk about it every day right here
on the culture with me. For Raji Muhammad only on
the Black Star Network. Hey, I'm Donnie, simple, what's up?
I'm lands gross and you're watching Roland Martin unfiltered when

(02:03:02):
nobody else will show up, I said, brother if I
texted him and say roll, I need boom when where
I'm there And we don't take that rolling for granted.
And so we were on the road because to talk
about volks like what you coming to DC. Fat weren't

(02:03:24):
going to whether to mean in the ballroom where we
outside in the ballroom, ladies today we were well, we
were We went to um on the Senate side today
to make sure that we weighed in and we took
our agenda to these folks Democrats and Republicans. And so

(02:03:49):
I just want to thank you, and I said, we
wanted to make sure that we showed you our love
and rolling if you haven't made a contribution to his
media platform one black owned, we need to do that.

(02:04:10):
But we need to do that. We owned the ten
dollars do that. So Roland, Um, we're not gonna keep
I know, and I know you just got off there.
I'm sure And so when have you come up um

(02:04:32):
and get us started. We've got our sister Joy sing
Tate who's going to interview you, who is our senior
policy advisor extraordinaire off of tech policy. But also it's
a bad sense of for Memphis, Tennessee, who speaks truth

(02:04:52):
to power where she goes and sits there at the
Federal Communication Commission. I getting that right was FCC and
make sure that she weighs in and ex folks understand
but the issues of privacy is a civil rights issue
of the day. And so turn it over to my sister,

(02:05:13):
Jocelyn says, to have this fire sat chat and after
that we will provide Wheland will provide signed copies of
the book. And that's a spot survived Black Women's drown Table.
Thank you grow than Joscelyn. Thank you so much, Melanie,

(02:05:34):
and thank you so much Roland for coming today to
share this book with us today. White fear, how the
browning of America is making white folks lose their mind,
lose their dog on one mind. So we just want
to start first, I want to start talking. In the book,

(02:05:57):
you said that by twenty forty three, no ethnic group
will be the majority in America. Now let's unpack that
and see why that's making white people lose their dog
going mind. Well you might remember probably but thirty years
ago when the story first came out saying America will
be a national majority of people of color. Then it

(02:06:19):
was really like twenty sixty and people kind of like,
oh man, that's so far where will be dead. Then
it started dripping from twenty fifty to sixty to fifty
seven and fifty five fifty three then we're all down
on forty three. By twenty thirty nine, the majority of
the working class in the country will be people, so
forty seven percent of whites will be the popula should

(02:06:41):
be forty seven percent of white. Then you have Latino
African America's Asian a American comprising fifty three percent. Now
even inside of that, you have to then begin and
look at, well, even what's happening within the Latino slash Hispanic,
because you have a number people who identifies white, Hispanic
who identifies more as white than Hispanic. So you have
that dynamic as well. But real, so really what what

(02:07:03):
it is called? It caused, It caused a lot of
people start freaking out, But really what did it for
me was in two thousand and nine, Riley and augur Ratio,
a study was releasing. The question was asked, are you
optimistic about the future of America for your children? Every group, Black, Asian,
every group majority said yes except White America. Now, normally,

(02:07:25):
when you look at these stories, how media typically works, Uh,
they're just sort of they look at the story, don't
ask that next question and the next question. And that
caught my attention. I begin to look look into it
further and then you begin to see again how folks
are reacting. So I remember I was at CNN and
was when I was there at John Avlon. I were

(02:07:46):
off air and we were to go on, and I said, John,
we are living in the beginning status of white minority resistance.
He's like, what are you talking about? I said, whitefold
are about. This thing is about to get ill. Even
with mega majority. You were about to see the tension
because they cannot handle this demographic shift. And then I

(02:08:07):
think it was over. Timer news Week did a story
that showed that the average death rate in about ten
states was higher than the average white birth rate, So
that mean there were more white folks who were dying
than they were being born. So then when you saw
when you start looking at how aggressive folks got over
the issue immigration started talking about great replacement theory. That

(02:08:29):
you begin to see all of these attacks on di
and multiculturalism and crick a race theory, anything dealing with
black folks and others advancing. You see what's happening. The
reason I chose that picture for the cover, which is
from January sixth, so the pictures of a white man
with his arms outstretched in front of the Capitol, where

(02:08:50):
for me, that picture says all of this is ours.
Because you got to remember, when Donald Trump was complaining
about losing, he kept mentioning four cities Atlanta, Philadelphia, Detroit,
Milwaukee was the black cities. So the anger was at
black folks. They were pissed off at losing Georgia because

(02:09:13):
black folks turned out in massive number. So when you
start breaking all of them. And it's very interesting. I've
had black hosts of mainstream shows called me and say,
I would love to have you on my show, but
my white producers don't like your book title. And I said, well,

(02:09:34):
you know, I talked about those Vera people in the book.
So the reason mainstream media, white media can't deal with
white fear just because they're white. They don't want to
confront the exact same situation. And so you have white executives,
You got largely white producers who are controlling the information flow,
which is why, matter of fact, just a side note,

(02:09:57):
today is one hundred ninety six anniversary of the folding
in the nation's first black newspaper, Freedom's Journal, Mark of sixteenth,
eighteen twenty seven, which they said in the third paragram,
we wish to pleay our own calls too long have
other spoken for us. So this is a perfect example
of why you have to have black owned media, because
even white media does not want to confront this. That's
why in twenty sixteen they kept talking about economic anxiety.

(02:10:20):
And that was always the dumbest thing to me because
I was kind of like, well, if you look at numbers,
black folks of broken than anybody else, so here we
should be the most had the most anxiety by the economy,
But they kept focusing on that, and really what that
was a bowl was all of these white folks were
I'll never forget that was a story and this white
guy was complaining that he wished they could go back

(02:10:41):
to the days of when he could just call his
boss to get his son hired. And I was laughing
at the story, because what anger is them is that
they now have to compete. And so when you start
looking at that academics and everything else, that's really what's
been pissing them off, that they now have to compete.
The nation that they used to control, they now can't

(02:11:03):
control it the same way. And that's and that's the
underpinning of so many different things and media does not
want to get at the heart of it. And I
literally be hinting discussing this six two thousand and nine
and so, and then predicting what's about to happen. So
all this anti CRT stuff, the tax on DEI sought
all coming, and too many of us were actually falling

(02:11:25):
asleep without realizing that they are trying to solidify power
for the next fifty to one hundred years. And so
let me put this understand. Remember it was a thirty
five year old white woman that Trump and McConnell appointed
as a federal judge. She was eleven years removed from
law school. Okay, had no business been federal judge. If

(02:11:47):
she retired at the same age past, that woman will
be on the federal bench until the twenty sixty nine
twenty sixty nine. And so that's why when I'm trying

(02:12:09):
to explain to our folk why you can't act like
Judge Katanti Brown Jackson is no big deal to the
Supreme Court and the federal judges, the black federal judges
that Biden has been appointing with the Senate Democrats is
no big deal because these white conservatives are looking at
how can we control every level of power for the

(02:12:34):
next fifty two hundred years, which means that when you
get the twenty forty three, yeah, y'all got numerical numbers,
but we still have power. And my fear is that
we will be like South Africa. We will have the
political power, but they will still control the economic power
of the judicial power and still control the country. And

(02:12:55):
so you unpack that a little bit about the judiciary,
because to talk about how Mitch McConnell was holding up
you said in the book, or absolutely holding up everything
so he could get uh the uh, you're going to
all of the they're all of the conservative white judges.

(02:13:17):
And they were real clear. They were real clear. He
gave an interview with Sean Handy where they said, we
are going after young judges. The judges were thirty five
to forty five. They if you are if you were
fifty five sixty, you didn't have a shot because they
wanted folks who would be there at least thirty forty years.
And see, this is where and this is where democrats,

(02:13:38):
progressives and black folks were completely asleep at the wheel,
not just on the federal level, but you take the
state level. I was just literally just walked off the air.
And in twenty twenty, that was an increase of four
percent of black voters in North Carolina from sixty four
to sixty eight percent from twenty sixteen to twenty twenty. Okay,
now that's great, but if you go back to two

(02:13:59):
thousand and eight, look at how black turnout was the
regional Obama wins on the Carolina by fourteen thousand, one
hundred votes because you had massive black turnout. Of course,
they've been put in place in basket vote suppression voter ID.
To bring the number down, you had more Mondays, repairs
of the breach, poor people's campaign fighting and bringing back.
But here's what happened in twenty eighteen. Shared Beasley loses
by four hundred votes on a North Carolina Supreme Court.

(02:14:20):
She was chief Justice. Now you might remember Democrats took
over the Supreme Court. That's how they ruled against racial
jarmandering against voter ID, and which fought a lot of
their back. She loses by four hundred votes. Had she won,
Democrats we have a six to one advantage of the
state Supreme Court. It went down four to three twenty two.
They just lost one of those seats. Republicans now control

(02:14:43):
the state Supreme Court four to three. What do they
just do? The courts issued a ruly in two cases,
a Jarmandering case and a ratio in a vote I
D case six months ago when there was a Democratic majority.
Now that they took controuble in January, they're gonna rehear
those cases. So now you're talking about because again they
understand that we three branches of government, legislative, executive, in Judiciu.

(02:15:06):
Judiciu has the final say so. So while folk have
been sitting here learning about who's going to be in
the White House, who's gonna be in the Senate, in
the Congress, they've understood if we control the courts, it matters.
That's why that special election in a few weeks in
Wisconsin is so important because there's a if the Democrat,
if the woman, the white woman who's running, wins, that

(02:15:27):
court flips. Now that court flips, they now can rule
against Jarmandering. Now that completely changes the makeup of the
courts in Wisconsin. And so we have to understand they
have been plotting this because they've been pissed Off's bombers
were education, they were angry with the Appeals Court in

(02:15:49):
the Fifth Circuit. Who was really making all the different
rules coming through the civil rights movement. So that's really
what the Christian Faiers Society is. And so they are
sitting here playing a long game. We were folks were
talking about all man is. Even Biden was saying that
this things don't get back to normal when Trump. I'm like, now, player,
things are not getting back to normal when Trump is out.

(02:16:09):
They the party, the Republican Party of Trump is the
Republican Party. And so what we have to understand is
we are simply not even maximizing our numbers. There was
a massive drop off in South Carolina in the last
election of black voters. You look at Book one, only
one by ninety five thousand votes. Okay, and let me

(02:16:31):
be real clear. If it was not for the third
party groups on the ground, he would have lost. Let
me real clear, because it's campaign. I know, I know
we got her because his campign his campaign was weak
as hell. They were not doing they were supposed to do.
They when they had not put any money in any
black newspaper until late September. Now they don't like, I

(02:16:54):
ain't got a problem because they even trying to come
to me with small one money. I tell him to
go to hell. You're not gonna see them played me small.
And so we have to. And so when I was
just on the breakfast club yesterday trying to explain, I'm like, look,
we had to. If we are voting at sixty five
to seventy percent of our numbers, we sweet seat statewide

(02:17:17):
if you got five hundred thousand, and so when I'm
bringing out white fields, so he's a perfect example anti CRT,
we many of us who are asleep. That propelled all
in white folks to the ballot in two thousand twenty,
two thousand twenty one in South Carolina, Mom's for Liberty.
That crazy right wing group took over ten of the

(02:17:38):
fourteen largest school districts in South Carolina. What do they
merely do? So fire superintendence, So change your curriculum. That's
black folks. So we have to be in a constant
state of educating enlightning. We keep telling the folk vote,
you can't vote unless you get unless you readish. But

(02:17:59):
you can't read unless you're enlightened. You can't be enlightened
unless you get educated. And so right now we have
to be engaged in an aggressive education and enlightenment campaign
for next year to walk folks through because they are
executing their strategy. What Rundas sentists did in Florida by

(02:18:21):
attacking the AP curriculum. That was the strategy. The story
came out to. Now here's what the next deal is
right now, the next attack isn't of the history class
social studies. One of the book publishers said, they went
through the books and trying to remove race as much

(02:18:41):
as they can, even when it came to rows of
parks for fear of violating the law that they passed.
So then what did he do next? The EIPs what
happened at HIT in Florida? Then Texas picked it up,
in North Carolina picked it up. So they are using
the power where they control state legislatures to enact these

(02:19:01):
policies because they do not want to see the advancement
of African Americans and Latinos. And that's what's going on.
And the reason media is so important, it's because that's
how you're able to change hearts and minds. And so
too many of us are listening to black radio and
laughing in, giggling and not being educated. And then when

(02:19:27):
the stuff goes down like that villain Florida. I got
some fools say annoying to black fraternities. Its worded it
was from And I told this fool will stop tweeting
because you know the hell you're talking about, because I
call the black letters lators in Florida. The bill was
written in such a way that it could it could impact.

(02:19:52):
Then you don't give them that sort of leeway because
they are specifically writing the laws to eliminate as much
as our power as possible. Because and here's why they
attack on the D nine. It's so important because because
the Divine nine, out of all the Black institutions we have,
is the most sophisticated and vertically and horizontally integrated. We're international, national, regional,

(02:20:19):
state grad chapter, undergrad chapters with program and impact K
through twelve, and we are other than the Black Church.
We are self funded. So if you attack, so they
are attacking our pillars. So if you attack the pillars
of the Black community, then you are in position to

(02:20:41):
simply back us in every other way. Now, you talked
about how this strategy, because this is this strategy is real.
White white people are afraid and they're attacking and they
are using judiciary strategically, they're using motor suppression strategically, they're

(02:21:01):
using education strategically. Are you talking the book about the
black Republicans? How are they being used strategic? Well, it's very's.
Look right now, you have the largest number of black
Republicans in Congress that you've had, uh since, um, since
the eighteen hundreds, and so what is happening? What is
happening there? You got John James who's licting in Michigan.

(02:21:22):
You've got Byron Donalds who was in Florida. Of course,
you got Tim Scott. And so what they then say is, oh,
my goodness, you can't call us racist because therefore we
have we have these black Republicans. And so they are
also living in denial about that exactly what is going on.
And so you got the brother who's lieutenant governor in
North Carolina who's talking about running for governor as well,
and so and the thing for me is, for me,

(02:21:45):
it's not a question of who's blue, who's read, who's Republican,
or who's Democrat. The question is where do you sit
when it comes to the policies and how they impact people.
Michael Steele, Black Republican is different from a Byron Donalds
black Republican, but known black Republicans all our lives. But
the Ad Brooke Black Republicans for most part do not

(02:22:05):
exist anymore. And so we have to understand. And a
lot of them are actually coming from districts that are
seventy eighty ninety percent white, and so they are advocating
policies that are absolutely against us, you know. So you
take Senor Tim Scott, for example, who is literally doing

(02:22:27):
the bidding of these folks who who have our interest
at heart, and so he gets on the floor he
talks about or how he's been racial racially profiled. When
we look at the George Floyd Justice Act, he was
the one who actually he killed it. He killed it
because one of the most violent sheriffs in all of

(02:22:48):
South Carolina came out against it, and he used that
as the reason why he didn't want to support it.
Then he goes on the face the nation he says
that Democrats wanted to defund police and that was a
bridge too far. Here's why that's interesting. A year earlier,
Michael Harry wrote a piece in The Route where incented
Tim Scott's own bill that he had a provision that

(02:23:10):
said if laws were not passed, they couldn't access the money.
So the very thing that he criticized Democrats on face
the nation, he actually did a year earlier. Now here's
why I know he's full of shit. It's because when
I texted him and I got the text. When I
text him about the bill, oh, he was very responsive.

(02:23:32):
He was very responsive. But then when I asked him, Okay,
what's the difference between what your bill said and what
you're using Democrats of he goes silent. I asked him
five times, I asked his staff, and nobody wants to respond,
and so he wants to stand out here and dance
around and talk about old how the bill died. No, bro,

(02:23:55):
we know exactly what happened here. Because they don't want
to deal with police brutality. They don't want And the
crazy thing is two of the police unions actually came
out and said that what he said, what's wrong? They said, no.
The two of the union said, we have not heard
any Democrats say defund the police and the negotiations. But
he wants the run for president, and so he killed

(02:24:18):
the George Floyd just as act to help his run
for president. That's exactly what he did. And so we
just have to understand what is that play here and
again how these pieces are going. And I'm gonna throw
something else out there right now that again many of
us ain't paying no attention to people'll talk about white fear.

(02:24:39):
Where most of our HBCUs, they're in the South. Most
of them are state institutions. When you have all of
these ANTIDEI policies, those policies impact all state schools, including
the HBCUs. Look ten what happened in Tennessee. The lawmaker

(02:25:02):
has said the Tennessee Old Tennessee State by the five
hundred million dollars and being historically underfunded. When when Tennessee
State went to the legislature, you're asked for two hundred
and fifty million. Then they said it's done audit. Then
all of a sudden, Old we have issues with the leadership,
all kinds different stuff, only they so asking for more money.

(02:25:23):
Ruth Simmons, who just resigned as President Prevy A and M,
criticized the Texas in and Border Regents. Same thing, and
if you read her letter, we broke it down on
my show. She basically was saying alumnis, students, faculty, y'all
had better fight and take control of your school. So
we have to understand by them having a grip on
state legislatures, they literally will be they are in control

(02:25:45):
of most of our HBCUs and so that's gonna that
I can they already go up in Tennessee State. Watch
that's going to be the next frontier. They're going to
then begin to exert control over HBCUs. So here we
are shouting HBCUs talking about football and basketball and bands,

(02:26:06):
and they are going to be controlling the very places
where we're graduating most of our professional class. If we
don't understand the battle that's literally in front of us,
we're gonna get caught a flat footed. And that's why
we have to be thinking multidimensional. That's why I've said this.
I don't care. I've said the black folks do not

(02:26:28):
do not send a dime to the Democratic National Committee
or to any let be real clear, to any political campaign.
Send that money to black organizations that are on the ground.
Here's why Mandela barm Mandela Barnes, and I don't care

(02:26:51):
what he says. Mandela Barns would be the United States
Center from Wisconsin right now, if he had not listen
to those white consultants and ignore Milwaukee, that was a
fifty thousand voter drop off in Milwaukee last year from
twenty eighteen. He lost by twenty six thousand votes. He

(02:27:13):
from Milwaukee. I had Milwaukee consultants who said they had
no contact with the Barnes campaign. Because the white consultants
were like, yo, we got that. They put no money
in Milwaukee. That's how he lost. Sherry Beasley lost North
Carolina because she listened to white consultants who told her

(02:27:33):
to run from black people. How does the black female
vice president come in North Carolina and you don't show
up where she's at? How are you black running for
the United States Senate and you have no campaigns on
HBCU campuses and they can't say black volks who are
not trying to come in because I got the text

(02:27:56):
where I was texting directly when do you want me
to come in with my show? They never called old.
So what I'm saying is we have to understand next year.
Let's just be real clear. We know what they're not
going to spend money on. So black folks should right
now be saying we must be funding our institutions that
are in the States, and because they're going to be

(02:28:19):
driving voter turnout, and we know for a fact they
would be putting that money on the ground in black radio,
in black newspapers, in black media, on the ground getting
to get our folks out. Because for me, and Charlota
Mayne asked me the question, yes necessary on the breathe up,
I said. He said, well, shouldn't Democrats be doing it?
I said, I'm not gonna wait on a party or
a candidate to turn our people out when the policies

(02:28:43):
have a direct impact on us and all of these things.
Trust me, because this is would have happened in for
young Ken tear McCullough was an awful candid. He shouldn't
have run. Okay, he should not have run, But here's
a deal. He didn't lose votes. White turnout was actual higher.
They were simply more energized. And so we have to

(02:29:04):
be fixated on taking our numbers up five twenty five
percent if we If you look in Florida Broward in
Miami day awful numbers. I had Nikki Frieda and I
was like, Yo, what you're gonna do about those black numbers.
You cannot win Florida if your numbers in Broward County,
in miament data under sixty percent. You da And so

(02:29:26):
this is a numbers game. I'm gonna last say one
thing because you said something earlier and most of us,
again are not looking at the data. When you mentioned
voter suppression. Terrence would Bury we hit him on before
the election and he said, we have to stop using
voter suppression. I said, Terence, why because all of his
all of his focus groups is polling data. He said,
when young voters hear the phrase voter suppression, they immediately

(02:29:48):
think the nineteen sixties. He said, we use it as
a catch all. He said, but those same voters, well
that when you if you say they coach closing your
polling locations, they're changing the hours and they're getting rid
of ballot drop boxes. That resonates more with them than
voter suppression because you're explaining it. Then what he also

(02:30:10):
said is he said the numbers don't lie. When black
voters are told your votes will make the difference, they
are more likely to vote than just saying you have
to vote. So the language that we use, we have
to change the language in communicating with our folks to

(02:30:31):
get them to understand why they must turn out because
next year. Trust me, the Right Axios did a story.
They have a working group as we speak, laying out
a plan of action where they looked at everything Trump
did and they said, this is how we're gonna do

(02:30:51):
it next time. And they literally plan to fire several
thousand government bureaucrats workers who folks who would just who?
Of course, remember we have disproportion of government workers. They
are looking to fire them because they say, this is
where we missed up last time. We're not gonna mess
up this time. So allowing them to get anywhere near

(02:31:13):
the Oval office will be absolutely catastrophic to black people.
Now you mentioned in the book. Now, so we do
a lot of voter work, but votermobilization. So it's very
good that you said that. You told us about we
need to change the term. We can't use voter suppression.
That's not resonating. So it's in his data, he lays,

(02:31:34):
he gets into data. So we were so this is
what we've got to do as we get ready to
do our votermobilization work. We can't use terms like voter suppression.
We've got to. So we'll be looking at that because
these women are on the ground in the States, so
we need to do what resonates with our communities. Now

(02:31:55):
let me go to another point where you're talking about
the upcoming election. You said in the book to you
cannot separate Trump from the Republican Party. That has the
stupidest thing Hillary Clinton did, that's the stupidest thing she
I was like, what the hell you're doing. I'm like,
if he no, I'm a need because see Inbobe you
the exact same thing when he kept saying that he thought,

(02:32:16):
if there's the return, return back to normal, I was like,
what are you going. I'm like, what that's the party?
See what that is? That's white Democrats still thinking they
can go get them Reagan Democrats. They gone, They're gone,
they're coming back. Then you have again, this is what's
again what's crazy to me with the language that they

(02:32:39):
use because they still have this fallacy that, oh, if
we could just connect with them, we can bring them back.
You're gonna have to spend so much time and money
trying to get them when you can actually spend less
money and less time going after folks who are more
likely to vote for you who you simply haven't touched.

(02:32:59):
They don't. And so what has to happen right now?
And again, this is where how our mobilization has to
operate differently. Yes, there are five or one seed three
organizations that are nonpartisan, but here's what has to happen.
We have to have individuals and organizations who right now
are putting massive pressure on all levels of Democrat Party

(02:33:24):
and progressive politics to say, where's our money right now?
Listen to me, not May twenty twenty four, right now.
Biden campaign in twenty sixteen was, oh my god, we
have a six million dollar expenditure of a two hundred

(02:33:44):
and eighty million they spent. There was six million dollars
expenditure for black targeted, black owned media that they were
taling larders in history. And I was like, y'all got
to think I'm excited about six and you're spending two
hundred and eighty and so it's here and here's the
other thing. Don't get caught into the trap because folks

(02:34:04):
say what Jamie doing. First of all, the parties have changed,
there's so much mother money flowing in. The DNC actually
has the least amount of money, So you have the
dnc D, Triple c dscc DLC Democratic Government Association, but
then you have all these progressive packs. These progressive packs
ain't spending the money with us. So we need to

(02:34:26):
be saying to progressive packs, to Emily's list, Oh and
here too, right now, that we absolutely must be calling
out to the carpet climate or we're going to be
environmental lobby. Crazy amount of money they spend virtually no
money to black people. Okay, I called him out last year.

(02:34:46):
The all of a sudden, my phone started ringing, because
we're gonna stop for Santiago Alicia. You know, he's gonna
keep hitting y'all, y'all might want to call him, and
so we're gonna be doing something soon. But the other
thing is all of the all the pro choice grewp
now they keep using us in all their ads, but
if you follow the money, that money ain't been spent
with us. And so we have to write now be

(02:35:11):
calling folks out on the money, because what they're going
to want us to do is they're gonna want us
to act as as a political sharecroppers, to do all
of that work till the soil and go go pick
the same cotton, but then you ain't trying to pay no.
And to be real clear, in September, two political campaigns

(02:35:32):
called me because the media folks called me and they said,
we got this money from this campaign, this money from
this campaign, and it was twenty five thousand each, and
they wanted this massive media plan. I said, for fifty
I'm telling y'all straight up, this is no lie. I'm
giving y'all a quote. This is exactly what I said.
They talk to my salespeople who called me, and I said,

(02:35:53):
is that what they told you? And I said, got it.
I then put a text together and I sent this
to both of the campaigns and I sent this to Clyburn,
Baby Meeks, Jeffries, and about eight others. I literally said,
fuck that. I will keep my black ass at home.

(02:36:17):
Good luck in your campaign. Why did I do that? One?
You playing me small? You want me that you want
me to do, you want ads. You wanted me to
sitt in the cover stuff on the ground. I said
for twenty I said, y'all, I get twenty thousand for
a speech that ain't happening. And they were like, oh
my god, said no, that ain't happened. Not when I
know for a fact and see understand how media works.

(02:36:40):
Send Claire Television announced in their fourth quarter they did
three hundred and forty million dollars in political advertising in
all of their local TV stations. Three hundred and forty million.
And y'all thought I was going to accept twenty five
During the Biden campaign. Brother, they brother the head call us,
who had no business even talking to us because he

(02:37:01):
had no no understanding the media. He literally said I
could take twenty thousand dollars and give it to four
black new papers and they'd be happy. And said we
ain't them. Oh god, And they said here's one hundred thousand.
We said no. Then they said here's two hundred thousand.
I said no. They said, final thing is fine. We're
doing three hundre thousand advertising. That's it. I didn't answer
for two weeks. Then when they said his final, we

(02:37:25):
accept it. Then when we signed it, I then custom
out publicly and they got mad. I said, oh, y'all
fell I was supposed to be happy. No, no, no, no,
Why am I saying that? Because that's and they literally
told me if I understand what I was told, I
was told of the twenty five twenty five ruling you
getting more than anybody else in black media. So people

(02:37:48):
have to understand. So what then happens is this is
what they expect us to do, whether you whether you
are on the ground group, whether you block on media,
they expected us to shut up, suck it up, take
the crumb, and treat the crumb like a meal. No,
a crumb is a crumb. I'm gonna call a crumb
a crumb. And so we have to say this stuff

(02:38:11):
in real time. So I've been putting everybody on notice,
everybody White House playing games when it comes to getting
interviews and getting FaceTime with the president. I was like, cool, well,
I know who y'all gonna need next year, and so
you can play games to me right now. You can
plead do the gatekeeping, but I'm telling what's gonna happen
next year, and I will purposely not talk about you. See,

(02:38:34):
we have to learn, and that's what I'm saying now.
We have to be making a level of demands now
and then and make it clear, don't come to us
with small money. Because he only won Georgia by twelve thousand,
he barely won Arizona, he only won Pennsylvania by a

(02:38:55):
little more than a hundred thousand did not win Michigan
by many. The mars are going to be small in
two thy twenty four, so every black vote is going
to matter. And so like my man um that great financier,
see it an American gangster, I'm gonna get that money

(02:39:17):
because if you ain't having a money conversation, you are
not having an American conversation. Exactly exactly we're getting the
I'm getting the same. I know y'all think I didn't
custom out, but I did. I can show you the text.
How sure did we believe you? Sometimes folks don't understand
language except some other kind of language like oh, okay,

(02:39:43):
we believe, we believe. We have no fable that you didn't.
I'm telling him following money, Well, thank you so much
for spending his time with us. I'm getting Let woll
care that that our time is up. What you've got
two more questions? Don't wear by line, Go ahead and
ask you all the two questions. Don't worry about him
and running and ask your two questions. We're gonna take

(02:40:06):
two questions questions from the audience, and the audience have
any questions they'd like to ask, right over there. Oh okay, um,
is there a microphone or okay, well, we we are,
we are, we're we're, so we need the mic so

(02:40:26):
that the people that are because we are. We also
streaming this on the black Stuff Network right now. So
thank you, thank you. I'm Cathering Hicks. I'm from Philadelphia.
I'm the president of the NAACP chapter in Philadelphia, and
i also own a black publication, the Philadelphia Sunday Sun.
So what you are saying is very very important and

(02:40:49):
it resonates especially with the elections that's coming up. So
my question is for right now, I guess you know,
for the presidential UM election coming out, Biden is running again. Um,
is there something that we should be doing or even
looking at um as far as another candidate um, Because

(02:41:15):
again you were saying that voter turnout is probably gonna
be less um and if Biden is not the choice
of everyone, this is what He's gonna be a nominee. Yes,
But he's gonna be a nominee yes. So it's gonna
be him, and it's gonna be Republican's I mean that,
I mean again, buying anything health wise or anything else.

(02:41:37):
As of right now, he's gonna be the nominade Mary
and Williams. She's not gonna be a nominade, just not she.
I don't know how many she got last time. That
ain't happening now. Yeah, but what has to But what
has to be happening, though, is we have to be
making a level of demands. The greatest time to ask
for stuff is when somebody is running, right. And so

(02:41:59):
if the White House to us, well we did this,
this this the first two years, we should say that
was last year, right, what about this year? So that
was my that's where we have to be right now. Yeah,
and he and giving me clear everybody does that. Every
other group is doing that very same thing. I remember
and with Obama's reelection when they made the parent plus
long decision, all HBCU people, it was the stupidest thing

(02:42:22):
I ever heard in my life. I was sitting with
him and they purposely did not want to raise the issue.
They said, well, we don't want to raise the issue
because he want to because of for reelection. I said, fool,
that's when you raise the issue. And what y'all doing.
And then when lexion was over, they were imagine, didn't
get what they want. I'm like, because y'all didn't say nothing.
So what should be happening right now? We should be

(02:42:43):
put again, We should be whatever our agenda is, whatever
in interividal groups should be applying the pressure to him,
to the White House, to Democrats and the Senate, and
to them in the in the House as well, because
the reality is they are going to all everybody in
the House is running again in twenty twenty four. You're
gonna have Senate races up in twenty four as well,

(02:43:06):
And so the political game it's not you wait till
it's over. Now. There are people out there who yell
all these foo foods, yells tangible. Then they said, if
I don't get this, I don't get to vote. First
of all, you can't get jack. First of all, they
can make a promise, but they can't do jack unless
they get elected. So if you don't vote food, you
can't get your tangible. But the problem for many of

(02:43:27):
our many of us, is we say nothing after the fact.
So that's what's also going on. When the election is over.
A lot of us check out as opposed to say no,
that's where you gotta stay checked in. And so that's
why this group is important. The mobilization is important because
too many of our groups are waiting after the fact,

(02:43:48):
and then we waited for something to blow up. Then
go oh, let's show up. I have been saying for
years all across the country. You take the D nine
for an example, as the VIN nine, and I talked
to the ak's Eastern Regional that's a couple of weeks ago.
I say this to the Alphas, to the Deltas, to
all of them in every city, each fraternity and sorority

(02:44:09):
should say, Okay, this month, y'all going to the city
council meeting, y'all going to the school board meeting, y'all
going to the county Commission's reading. Then you rotate the
next month, fastball. It's nine of them. Each one of
those entities only meeting ten eleven times a year, so
you probably only gonna go here one or twice. But
what has to happen is we have to be using

(02:44:30):
our organizational power to be able to change the problem
that we have. And let me be clear, you belong
to many organizations. The fundamental problem that we have is
on the political issues that we face all too often collectively,

(02:44:52):
our Alphas, Aks, Deltas, Omega's Sigmas, Aodas Zetas, Sit Kappa,
Everybody and Eastern Star and Prince Hallmason and Links and
many of the church organizations acquired. This is what doctor
King said, And where do we go from their chaos

(02:45:13):
or community? He said? There are four institutions that are
prime positioned to liberate Black America, he said, the Negro Church,
the Negro press, Negro fraternities and sororities, and Negro professional organizations.
That's what he wrote, and where we go from me
are now? This is also how he unpacked that, he said,

(02:45:34):
And I quote this all the time, so I can
pretty much doing without reading it. He said. There are
still too many Negro churches that are so absorbed in
a future good over yonder if they condition their members
to adjust to the present evils over here. To media,
too many Negro newspapers have veered away from their traditional
role as protest organs agitating for social change and have

(02:45:54):
turned to the sensational and the conservative in place of
the suction in the militant. Too many Negro socially professional
groups have degenerated into snobbishness and the preoccupation with frivolities
and trivial activity, but the failures of the past was
not being an excuse for the inaction of the president
and the future. And so when I look at it
right now, Corporate America making fifty to sixty billion dollars

(02:46:18):
in commitments in the wake of George Floyd's death, and
then what has happened in the last year. Thirty six
percent of all d EI jobs have been wiped out,
seventy five percent of all d EI jobs or white
folks the EI jobs. And so here's the question I
have for the Executive Leadership Council, which is the organization
made them of Corporate America. Why in the hell aren't

(02:46:40):
y'all being more vocal about that sixty billion dollars in
commitment from Corporate America. But y'all spend more time posting
job appointments, but you're not advancing that black organism. The
point of black organizations is to organize. If we are
preoccupied with what's happening on the inside of our groups,

(02:47:03):
then we ain't fighting for the advancement of black people
as a collective. So that's how we have to challenge
black organizations to actually do the more. Okay, okay, you
heard it right here. We have to challenge our organizations.
We have to do that. I'm a life member of
Alpha and trust me, I got the last foot prisons

(02:47:25):
on speed dollar. They know I wrote them. Look I
called out the boulet at our convention. I said, hind
the hill we got we hit. I ain't got a
problem which want to kick me out? Knock yourself out.
I literally said the signal pier five, How in the
hill are we here in the Bahamas? And we got
an election in November. We got all these damn parties
going on. If we don't have a single public policy session,

(02:47:45):
and we got people sitting in the office who running
for office, come on now? They were like, come on,
and I was like, I said, don't invite me next
time then. But that's that's that's part of the deal.
We have to be willing to college these groups because
why do you exist? And you spend twelve fourteen, sixteen
hours on meetings and I'm like like, I don't know

(02:48:07):
what my wife of a delta, I don't know what
the hell are you meeting? By that? They got that
much internal business and the same with Alas. I'm seriously,
we have to we have to ask ourselves, what are
we doing with our organizational power? That's outside of the
walls of our organization. That's what that's Otherwise, all we're
doing is beating a full good time. All right, we

(02:48:31):
got one more question. What am I the phone? Who
got it? Who got it? Oh? Come on, doctor, you
got to be upfront and president. You can be walking
way back there over there, over there, see over. That
is that clearly you did not grow up watching Donna Hue.

(02:48:52):
He's like, I have no idea who feel Donahue is Hello? Hello.
My name is Nashauna Cass. I am the second vice
president for the NAACP in Baltimore, and I am also
the vastest of the Alphilpha Sigma chapter of Signay Game
a Rose Sorty Incorporated. So what I wanted to ask was,
there's two questions. One is I have a friend in

(02:49:16):
Dolphin County, Pennsylvania. She is running for a judge seated
with the Court of common Please her name is Latasha Williams,
So anybody in Pennsylvania please keep an eye out. She
ran two years ago. One of the issues was that
we did not get out and vote. Harrisburg did not
get out and vote. She would be the first black

(02:49:39):
woman on the sitting on the Court of Common Pleas.
But we can't get people out here to vote because
they have no clue what the qute of common please is? Okay,
so what happens in any what happens in an election? Again,
this is where want of education and enlightenment. Well, the
average person black, white, they are not us, They are

(02:49:59):
not real verse and all this stuff. They just like,
we ain't got no clue. So Joe Matson is a
great phrase. You gonna put it what the ghost can
get it. We have to break you down in a way.
So here's so the question is what does the Court
of Common Please do? And so when you're talking to folks,
because what's her name again, LaTosha Williams. Okay, so here's
what happened, folk, Finally going around, we need to vote

(02:50:20):
for Latasha and say, okay, who who is? But she's
running for the Okay on what that is? Because if
you found about those chins are the lowers, the lowers
vote totals. What we have to say is, again, I
don't know what that court does. But let's just say,
uh so why things change with ditric attorneys? Because folks

(02:50:41):
Fine said, you know, the DA actually has a direct
impact on mass incarceration than any judge. The DA come
before the judge. So the reason you not have more
progressive dais because we started changing the language on why
you got to vote for the DA. And so for
the judges, what we have to say is, this is
what these judges do. They do with these cases, these cases,

(02:51:04):
these cases. That's why we need this system on the court.
I get here to go, look at you and goal
that's what they do. Most people have no idea. In
Harris County six years ago was four years ago that
eighteen black women who were running for judicial positions. It
ran as a block. The reason Republicans got rid of

(02:51:24):
straight ticket voting in Texas was because Democrats and Has
County figured out and using against them. So I went
down and help, and we travel all day with those
eighteen sisters as they gathering to vote. But they were
explaining to people what judges do. And so that's what
we have to do. We have to we have to
connect what the judges do, so our people go, that's

(02:51:47):
what they do. Yes, So when your child, or your
cousin or your church member goes before a judge this
is one of the judges this who will decide whether
they go to juvenile, whether they go to prison, whether
they go to the get it some god into third case.
So we have to explain to our people what the
judges do. The second thing is much important. You say

(02:52:08):
she lost, I would ask what did she lose by?
Very little? That's my point. Which then, so then what
has to happen. We got to go straight old school. Okay,
voting numbers of public You could literally go down and
get pull a precinct and see this precinct has seven
hundred registered voters, thirty eight voted. Well, if she lost

(02:52:31):
by a couple of hundred, that one precinct, if you
literally go do a knock in that one precinct three
to four times at one precinct could put over the top.
So here's this is what This is what we keep doing.
And I'm telling you I travel all around the country
and I see it everywhere, So I ain't picking on nobody.
What we do is we go, man, we gotta vote

(02:52:53):
and hope they show up. I in every group that
I've been a part of, I always count votes. When
I was on the board of Nationalization of Black Dattion
Association and Black Journals. When we pull out of Union Journals,
Color Convention. We're in a board meeting. They were trying
to fight to keep in and they're like, why you
ain't saying nothing. I'm like, I ain't gonna say them thing.
I got twelve votes in my pocket. Y'all have all

(02:53:13):
the conversations y'all want to I said, I said, I
already got the votes. This is all meeting less talk.
So it's counting votes. We have to stop hoping they
show up, look at the data, and then go, well,
if we pick up fifty year times five precincts, that's
two hundred and fifty votes. Look at the last one.

(02:53:35):
So if we're not looking at the data, that's where
we're losing. And if you're spending your time in an
area where they already voting high, that's a waste of time.
I'm gonna go whether whether the numbers are low, and
then say and go back to what I said earlier.
Your vote could be the difference between getting his sister
on will you vote? And then we follow up three

(02:53:56):
more times and then come election time and make sure
they get to the polls. The NN numbers change that.
That's old old school politics is still new school. Hey, okay,
that's that's that's one of our charges, ladies. Thank you
so much, Roland Martin. Let's give it up for Roland Martin. Everybody,

(02:54:19):
thank you so much. Thank you so much. A Melanie,
I'm gonna turn it over to you, but Roland will
be signing books in just a moment. Thank you. Appreciate it.
Appreciate it. You're awesome, brociate appreciate it. Come on over Yeah,

(02:54:43):
I'm we can do it with over there. Yeah, that's
gonna be easier.

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