"The Great Resegregation", Pastor Jamal Bryant Target fast, MSNBC cancels Joy Reid's show

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
I'm Isaac Hayes, the third founder and CEO fan Base,
and right now we're accepting investors in our seventeen million
dollars round to revolutionize the future of social media. Today,
for just three hundred and ninety nine dollars, you can
own sixty shares of stock and fan Base at six
to sixty five a share. Go to start Engine, dot Com,
slash Fanbase and invest today. While the big platforms have

(00:46):
grown two massive and disconnected from their users, fan Base
is building a platform where creators and users truly come first.
We've already raised eight point six million dollars every day
investors who believe in this vision, and now you can
join them. This is your chance to invest in the
social media tech company with over one million users that
is disrupting media by allowing anyone to reach all of

(01:08):
their following and monetize their content from day one.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
The market is changing.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Big platforms are failing to serve their users, and fan
Base is stepping up to fill the gap. Don't wait
until it's too late. Invest now. Invest for yourself and
your future. Go to start Engine, dot Com, slash fan
Base and all the future of social media.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Today's Monday February twenty four, twenty twenty five, Coming up
on Roland Martin unfilter instreaming live on the Black Start Network.
Every day we witness hard fought civil rights being stripped away.
The Atlantic reporter Adam Surr will talk to us about
the great resegregation by Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Georgia
pastor Jamal Bryant will join us talk about the upcoming

(01:58):
Target Fast and also his thoughts on the hmm black
Macan Republicans who held up a picture of his face
at the White House celebration. MSNBC is canceled. Joe Anne
Reid's show tonight is her last show. Got a couple
of things to say about that. Plus former Vice President
Kamala haarra to the center stage at the fifty six

(02:19):
annual nap Image Awards this weekend where she received the
Chairman's Award. I'll show you her acceptance speech. Plus we
lost two great musical giants, ROBERTA. Flat and Jerry Butler. Folks,
it's time to bring the funk. I'm rolling Martin on
Filcher on the Black So Network.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Let's got whatever the best he's saw it, whatever it is, believes.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
He's right on top.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
Best believe he's Slens Loston, mister politics with entertainment.

Speaker 4 (02:56):
Just book keeps.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
He's sto, it's bolen, he's boy sprest, she's built up question.

Speaker 5 (03:16):
No, he's rolling.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
A couple of weeks ago, I did a breakdown saying
Magna is trying to defund Black America. When you look
at their attacks on black folks and people of color,
it's abundantly clear what they are trying to do. Make
America great again, it really means make America great again
for white folks. Adam Sir, who's a writer for the Atlantic,
wrote an amazing piece called the Great Resegregation. The Trump

(03:53):
administration's attacks on DEI are aimed at reversing the civil
rights movement. Adam Jones is right now, Adam, Look, I
totally agree with it. As I said when I broke
that thing down, talking about their goal is to completely
destroy the civil rights and the economic rights infrastructure that
really has created the opportunities for African Americans. It is

(04:15):
not like it's been great and perfect, but the gains
that we have have been as a result of those movements.

Speaker 6 (04:24):
Right.

Speaker 7 (04:25):
I think if you look at a lot of their
early moves, they have been to undermine anti discrimination efforts
and to ban or remove information that I could teach
people about why racial inequality continues to exist in the
United States. And I think another thing they've done, really

(04:48):
is they've talked a lot about being meritorious and color blind,
but by their standards, you know, you never. By their standards,
the assumption is that a white person is always competent,
and a person of color has to prove that they're competent.
And you can see this already with the removal of

(05:11):
a four star general as the chairman of a black
four star general as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, only to have him replaced by a lower
ranking white general who happens to have the most important
qualification for any position in the Trump administration, which is
that he is supposedly extremely loyal to Trump.

Speaker 8 (05:30):
And that has nothing to do with merit at all.

Speaker 7 (05:32):
That has to do with Trump wanting people who are
going to follow his orders without being worried about what
the law says.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Well, first of all, let's even go before that. First
you have the conservative attack when it comes to affirmative
action in colleges. Then you have Republicans who say oh,
because of that Supreme Court ruling that that somehow applies
to everything. And so you had racist center Tom Cotton
of Arkansas seeing letters to law firm say, oh, your

(06:00):
law programs that are about encouraging diversity, those are illegal.
Then you had the Republican Attorneys General doing the exact
same thing, and then you had the attack and companies.
So companies begin to repeal their DEI programs. And what
I keep saying to folks is my argument for DEI
programs are not for some largely white woman or a

(06:23):
white man who's in the DEI job. It's actually for
the contracts, the supply diversity, all the other things that
fall under the DEI window. That's what I'm looking at. Well.

Speaker 7 (06:34):
I think it's important to distinguish between d I as
you know, a set of practices and d I as
they're using it. And I think d I for them
is an umbrella term that just means, you know, any
effort whatsoever to rctify historical racial inequalities. They think those
inequalities are the results of natural differences and ability between people,

(06:57):
not public policy, and therefore would be a moral uh
to try to rectify those racial inequalities. And it's not
just a question of employment or education, as he pointed out,
but I think it's it really begins with an attack
on voting rights.

Speaker 8 (07:13):
If you go back to the you know.

Speaker 7 (07:15):
Essentially the Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act in
the Shelby County case. You know, Chief Justice John Roberts,
you know, he'd already uh, he'd already weakened water down
Brown v Board of Education and non existence by saying,
you know, efforts to integrate were themselves racially discriminatory. Uh,

(07:35):
And then he took the Voting Rights Act, the law
that essentially made America a multi racial democracy, a true
multi racial democracy for the first time, and weakened its
protections to the degree, uh that you know, you could
continue to you could discriminate on the basis of race
in voting laws. And we've seen a number of voting
laws that happened to do that. And since then, they,

(07:58):
the Roberts Court has continued to weaken uh, the Voting
Rights Act. They have ut sided against it in every
single case. There was a notable case involving black congressional
districts in Alabama where they decided not to side with
the conservatives in that case. Uh, but you know this
this attack is uh, you know, multi prong. It's occurring

(08:19):
in education, it's occurring in voting rights, it's occurring in entertainment.
When you ever see you see these backlashes against black creators,
you know, whether they're in the writer's room, whether they're
on screen, you know, this is part of an effort
to say, you know, we want black people out whatever.
You know, this this slight integration of elite basis of

(08:40):
American life. We want black people out of there. And
this backlash is has has now you know, reached the
heights of American power where the people who feel like
civil rights have gone too far are now in charge
of making public policy.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
And you know, and on one of the things that
again when we're trying to unpay this and explain to
people so they can they can just understand the depths
of this. You know, we're talking about on the federal level.
Last year, some ten billion dollars in contracts went to
black owned businesses, a record amount. Now it wasn't even
two percent, but it was the highest amount ever. Then

(09:19):
when you look at a seventeen billion that went to
HBCUs So Trump comes in cuts to eighteen ninety langred
college scholarships, then begins to make we know what's gonna happen,
how they're going to rebundle contracts and so over the
next four years, stripping DEI out of everything, you know,
suspending people who went to DEI conferences. Then you have

(09:43):
the Office of Civil Rights, a Department of Education telling
college universities any affinity program, Black Latino Asian women must
all must all end. Well, people need to understand when
you talk about corporate America, you have these affinity groups
which vide an opportunity for African Americans, Latinos and others

(10:03):
to be able to join like minded people and then
begin to have support. Then when you talk about fellowship programs,
internship programs, apprentice programs of medical schools, law schools, engineering schools,
all of these different things that have played a crucial role,
they want to get rid of all those things. Then
go to the Department of Justice. They want to shift

(10:24):
away from investigating white domestic terrorism and now go after
black lives, Black Lives Matter, and Antifa, and so people
need to really understand that Product twenty twenty five lay
all these things out and folks, some black folks acting
as if well, that's really no big deal, but they
don't realize it is a full on assault on everything

(10:47):
that speaks to the interests of black people being able
to rise and prosper in this country. This is not
a game, this is not fiction. It is literally happening.

Speaker 8 (11:01):
That's right.

Speaker 7 (11:01):
And I think the thing to think about is they believe,
you know, as as you just described, they believe that
any effort to provide opportunities to people who have historically
been denied those opportunities is itself racist against white people
who have a right to be on top forever. You

(11:23):
know that that that's an ideology that is fundamentally discriminatory,
and yet they've inverted it to say that if you
try to help out people who have historically not had opportunities, uh,
that's the real racism.

Speaker 8 (11:38):
And it's extraordinary that this is, you know.

Speaker 7 (11:42):
Essentially the ideology that is, you know, behind the federal
government has control of the federal government right now.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Well, and not only that, when you when you look
at even just the statements being made, you know, when
Elon Musk is talking about birth birth rate, uh, that's
that's about whiteness. He is bringing a and apartheid perspectives
to the country. When Donald Trump says, oh, let me
attack South Africa because they're they're they're they're stealing land

(12:12):
when they're not actually doing that, then I'm gonna withhole aid.
That's really Elon must being pissed because us A I
D played a role in bringing down apart TID. When
you see these actions, and for the people who yell, well,
that's right, we shouldn't be spending money overseas, they don't
really even understand that a lot of this stuff was
also frankly repayment for America colonizing countries and trying to

(12:35):
fix the wrongdoing they were involved in. And so this
thing is broader and deeper. And really what Trump and
Elon Musk and Republicans are trying to do is completely
decimate this system, this infrastructure, so it is nearly impossible
to re establish it if Democrats ever get back in charge.

Speaker 7 (12:57):
I think, you know, especially with Musk, if you've been
on X recently, you've probably encountered the absolute avalanche of
scientific racism that is present on the site.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Uh.

Speaker 7 (13:07):
That kind of content, UH seems to have been promoted
since months Musk took over. In fact, he often highlights
it himself. And when I talk about scientific racism, I mean,
you know, the the ideology, and it is a pseudo
scientific ideology because race is not a biological reality. It
is a pseudo scientific ideology that holds that race determines,

(13:28):
you know, your intellectual, creative, human potential. And so if
you subscribe to that ideology, then it makes sense to
discriminate on the basis of race because you have a
sort of almost cast system like belief about who is
capable and who is not, who is capable of discharging
certain responsibilities, of performing certain kinds of jobs. And unfortunately, uh,

(13:49):
you know, that kind of perception is it seems to
be very popular among the people who you know, are
are are have a lot of power in this administration.
I mean Musk himself, as I said, has promoted scientific
racism on numerous occasions, and that, uh, you know that

(14:09):
when you have that kind of worldview, then you just
assume that, you know, as conservatives seem to have done
recently with any you know, catastrophic issue, uh, that if
something goes wrong, then it must be the responsibility of
a person of color who did not uh, who did
not really earn their position.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, uh yeah, I mean aren't you getting are you
getting the kick out of it? Was DEI the cause
of plane crash and then we find out the pilots
were white. Oh, it's as if that thing just disappeared.

Speaker 7 (14:39):
Well, I mean they're just staying on message, right. They're saying,
if there's if your workplace is diverse, it's because the
people who are not white who are there didn't earn it.
And they say that sometimes explicitly. And what's uh useful
about the terms DEI for them is that they say

(14:59):
dei and allows them not to say.

Speaker 8 (15:01):
What they really mean, which is the N word.

Speaker 7 (15:05):
And sometimes yeah, they say sometimes they're saying d I
with a hard art correct. But you know, they're not
just talking about black people. Sometimes they're talking about women.
So sometimes they're talking about.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
White white women, the administration, white women.

Speaker 7 (15:20):
Yeah, you know, sometimes you know they you know, they're
obviously not interested in uh protecting LGBT people from discrimination either,
you know. So this is really about re ordering society
into the sort of traditional hierarchies of race and gender
that they feel are appropriate and using government power to

(15:45):
do that.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
Here's what I have been saying to people, and in
fact I was saying it in real time. This is
what we saw. First of all, in May would be
the fifth anniversary of the death of George Watte George
and here's the death of George Floyd and the reaction
to it is what I think truly scared white America.

(16:13):
And this is this is why I say that because,
first of all, this was the first black movement that
in the history of America where a majority of Americans
agreed with it, the Black Lives Matter movement, and I
think there are forces in white America say, especially on
the right old hell no. And let me be real
clear to people who are watching, this is not just Republicans,

(16:36):
white some white Democrats as well. That was I mean literally,
that was the basis of what I laid out in
my book White Fear. And so what do we then
had have? They saw young white people, young Latino people.
They saw young people embracing the movement, demanding change. I
never forget. Adidas announced that they were going to do

(16:57):
a ten million dollar donation, and I felt have a
certain percentage of new hires. The white folks in the
company went crazy. The next day, the CEO of Adidas
had to announce it was going to be a one
hundred million dollar commitment, and they increased the percentage of
new hires. We're gonna be people of color. So what
happened in twenty twenty one, attack Black Lives Matter, what

(17:19):
happened twenty twenty two, attack critical race theory, what happened
in twenty twenty three, attack Woke, twenty twenty four DEI.
All of those things were all a response to the
national response to George Floyd. So they were pissed off
that the database was created for corrupt cops or cops

(17:42):
that have killed people. They were angry that companies were
creating DEI programs and were prioritizing diversity people of color
when it came to jobs, when it came to investment,
when it came supporting things. And so the Christopher Rufos
of the world, the folks on the right, they said,
what we can do is we cannot have a generation

(18:04):
of white kids learning the real history of America. So
they attacked books, banner, attack education. People need to understand
this did not just happen. This was a clear, organized,
well funded effort to decimate everything in the aftermath of
George Floyd's death.

Speaker 7 (18:26):
I think that's right, and I think, you know, but
part of the reason I think it worked is that
there was so little that was done substantively in the
aftermath of George Floyd's murder in the sense that, you know,
you had Democrats sort of you know, doing all these
symbolic acts, but there was not you know, there was

(18:49):
no never any police reform legislation that there were not
There were no new laws that were passed that specifically
addressed the issues that brought people into the streets. And
so when Republicans started saying, oh, you know, liberals and
Democrats they're insincere about that. They're insincere about this, they're cynical,

(19:11):
they're just using this movement to control what you say
in what you think, you know, I think that resonated
with some people, in fact, because they did feel like
the Democrats were insincere in their commitments to black equality,
that they were cynical, that they didn't mean them, and
that as a result of that, you know, it was
you know, it might have been easier to convince people

(19:32):
to stay home in twenty twenty four, or convince people
that you know, these issues were not going to be
as much of a priority for the Trump administration in
terms of attacking the foundations of anti discrimination law, that
that wouldn't be one of their primary goals. And unfortunately
now we're learning, you know, just how important it.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
Is to them. So, Adam, what do you see moving forward?
I mean, the reality is we're just entering the second
the second month, this is four years. Republicans are going
to be controlling the House, in the Senate at least
for the next two years. I get asked this all
the time. I got asked this a lot. At the

(20:17):
Image Awards this weekend, I get asked this. I got
to ask NBA All Star Games, man, what do we do?
What's like? What do we do? Where do we go?
What do you say to people who ask that question?

Speaker 7 (20:31):
Look, you know, I'm a journalist. I don't know how
to tell people how to respond to this.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
So okay, so what do you tell journalists how we
need to be covering this?

Speaker 7 (20:44):
How how how well I will say this? You know,
right now, a lot of most of the things that
Trump is doing are unconstitutional. He's trying to do by
executive order, you know, things that require Congress, and so
The question is how much of this other court is
going to stop and how much is Donald Trump going.

Speaker 8 (21:04):
To listen to the courts.

Speaker 7 (21:06):
But ultimately, enforcing the Constitution is going to be up
to the people. People have to respond to what this
administration is doing and let them know that they aren't
happy with this stuff. People are going to have to
get involved and assert their priorities in order to counter this.
If it's something that you know they want to stop,

(21:27):
they're going to have to be active. They are not
going to be able to rely on the right wingers
on the Supreme Court or the conservatives the Trump is
conservatives in the judiciary to protect their rights. They're going
to have to do that. And I don't have a
roadmap for how they should do that because I'm not
a political strategist, But I do think that ultimately it's

(21:49):
going to be up to the people to protect their
rights because the institutions in American law, said, are surrendering
one by one to Donald Trump.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
All right, Adam Serve of the Atlantic folks, be sure
to pull the article up check out his piece of
the great resegregation with the Atlantic. Adam, thanks a lot,
Thank you, folks. Gonna go to break. We're gonna talk
about my panel next about this topic. You're watching Roland
Martin Unfiltered right here on the Blackstar Network.

Speaker 4 (22:22):
This week on the Other side of Change.

Speaker 9 (22:24):
Abolition focused should we aim for reform or abolishing the
entire system?

Speaker 10 (22:28):
Come feeling let us know how much possibility lies? And abolition.

Speaker 11 (22:32):
That is such a radical image because it offers the suggestion,
a suggestion that.

Speaker 4 (22:39):
We already know to be true, which is that we
have what it takes to take care of each other
and to take care of ourselves.

Speaker 10 (22:46):
Watch us on the Blackstar Network, So tune in to
the Other side of Change.

Speaker 12 (22:58):
On the next Get Wealthy with me Deborah Owens, America's
wealth Coach.

Speaker 13 (23:02):
Have you ever had.

Speaker 12 (23:04):
That million dollar idea and wonder how you could make
it a reality? On the next Get Wealthy, You're going
to be Liska Askalis, the adventurous someone who made her
own idea a reality and now is showing others how
they can do it too.

Speaker 14 (23:24):
Positive focusing in on the thing that you want to do, writing.

Speaker 15 (23:29):
It down, and not speaking to naysayers or anybody about
your product until you've taken some steps to at least.

Speaker 14 (23:37):
Execute Liska Askalie on.

Speaker 12 (23:40):
The next Get Wealthy right here only on Blackstar Network.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
Hey, this is Motown recording artist Kim.

Speaker 16 (23:51):
You are watching Roland Martin unfiltered?

Speaker 2 (23:55):
Boy?

Speaker 16 (23:56):
He always unfiltered, though I ain't never known him to
be filtered?

Speaker 2 (23:58):
Is there another I hate to experience Roland Martin than
to be on filtered? Course, he's unfiltered. Would you expect
anything less? Why watch? Why watch what happens next?

Speaker 5 (24:14):
Correct?

Speaker 2 (24:19):
All right, folks, my paying on John quaul Neil, attorney
for the John Quell Neil Law Firm out of Atlanta.
Derek Jackson's state representative out of Georgia District sixty eight,
joins us out of Atlanta, doctor Julian Melbow, economists author
of Surviving and Thriving through in their sixty five Facts
in Black Economic History, and the president Emerita of Bennett College,
jermin Us from d C. Let him all three of
you here. Derek, this is very simple. I'm gonna start

(24:42):
with you, and that is again, this is all about
how do you attack the economic and the civil rights
and the people think that this is not that's not
what's going on. They clearly are not paying attention. It
is very clear.

Speaker 17 (24:59):
Hey, Roland. Now, only they're not paying attention. They don't
understand history. This is not the first time individuals tried
to resegregate us. If you go back to the times
of reconstruction, when Frederick Douglas and those started passing the
thirteenth Amendment, fourteenth Amendment, in the fifteenth Amendment, folks were upset.

(25:23):
When Woodrow Wilson became president. Grand Dragon himself did not
like what was going on. Then they formed the KKK.
And so if folks don't understand what's going on, they're
sleeping at the wheel.

Speaker 8 (25:40):
Here's the bottom line, Roland.

Speaker 17 (25:42):
If I may evoke the spirit of Joe Madison, the
Black Ego, we know what's going on. The real question
is what are we going to do about it. We
got to do more than just stay silent. We got
to show up and show out. We got to boycott,
we got to protest, We got to let our voice
be heard. Because our ancestors pray too hard and pray

(26:05):
too long and suffer greatly for us to just stay silent.
And so that's the real question, what are we going
to do about it? And here, starting in Georgia, we've
been doing a lot. We've been making our voice heard,
We've been protesting, we've been boycotting Target and others. We
just cannot stay idle because the future Roland is going

(26:27):
to look back at this time and ask what did
we do in twenty twenty five with Thirdgod Marshall, Not
what doctor King did, what did we do? And the
question will be asked and depending on what we do
today will determine that answer.

Speaker 2 (26:45):
Julian. One of the reasons why we have to do
what we do, because we have to walk folks through
all this stuff means, and it literally is a civil rights, illegal,
and economic and educational assault. It is in all areas.
It is happening on the federal level, the state level,
in the local level, and too many of our people

(27:07):
are asleep at the wheel, focusing on other things, not
realizing what is really going on, and if they don't
wake up, it is literally going to be too late,
you know, Roland.

Speaker 18 (27:19):
One of the things that interests me is the way
that this person, the president, has sown everything, including the
baby in the bathwater in the mix. So on one hand,
he's talking about getting rid of straws.

Speaker 5 (27:36):
On the other hand, he's you know, let's look.

Speaker 18 (27:39):
At the bottom line, and the bottom line is the
economic issue. He said he was running because he wants
to fix the economy.

Speaker 5 (27:47):
He has done very little about the economy. So that's
number one. Number two, you're right.

Speaker 18 (27:52):
The whole bunch of our people have lost their you
know what, minds not paying attention, and you have to
pay attention to what this man is saying that he's
going to do. But if we paid a chip peeple
with the red twenty twenty five, because he laid it all.

Speaker 5 (28:09):
Out there, this is what to do.

Speaker 18 (28:11):
Number three, I commend all the folks who are talking
about boycotts, so let's be clear. Montgomery bus boycott was
three hundred and eighty one days, three hundred and eighty
one day.

Speaker 5 (28:22):
I love bro Jamal. I know he's coming on thirty days.

Speaker 18 (28:26):
Ain't gonna get it, thirty days, ain't gonna get it,
lin ain't gonna get it.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
No no, no, no, no no no no no, no, nope, nope. Julian,
I gotta stop you. I got hope. Matter of fact,
let me see, I gotta stop Julian. I know you
you you real smart, but I gotta stop you. Here's
why always do it. No, no, I gotta stop you. Nope,
here's why, here's why. This is the book The Montgomery

(28:52):
bus Boycott and the women who started the Memoir of
Joey and Gibson Robinson. All right, here's the reality. The
Montgomery bus boycott was not originally three hundred and eighty
two days. The Montgomery bus boycott originally was one day
after they did. After they did one day, they said,

(29:13):
let's do it for the rest of the week. After
the fifth day, then they said let's continue it. So
the reality is, and this is and this is the
reason I say this, but that's a mistake that we
often make. We look at the Montgomery bus boycott and
we keep saying three hundred and eighty two days, but
that was never the original intention. They added and then

(29:34):
they said, let's keep going. The reason I'm saying that
is because what Jamal Brin is doing and I know
because I talked to him about before he launched it.
The plan is to do a forty day fast. It
is to go from the beginning of Lent to Easter,
and then after they hit Easter, there's a second phase.

(29:57):
The reality is, we cannot get people to think about
a year boycott if they can't do six months, and
we can't do six months if we can't do a month.
So the reason I support the way he's doing it
is because they are trying to do this thing in stages.

(30:20):
Nina Turner and her organization launched their boycott February first.
That was the first wave. We've seen the we've seen
the stock price of Target. Give me one second, Target stock, okay,
so give me. I'm gonna do one month. Okay, give

(30:40):
me one second, give me one give me, just give
me one second. No, I need to show folk, so
I need folk watching this year. This here is okay,
it's coming up. This is the stock price of Target.
It's had some ups and downs, but the reality is

(31:00):
when Target announced that they were going to get rid
of their DII programs that following Monday, the stock price
was one hundred and forty two dollars and fifty cents.
Since then, the stock price has gone down almost seventeen dollars.
So I want us to do this properly in terms
of how we lay it out. So these are the facts.

(31:23):
How it actually started. Joanne has it in her book.
It was one day, then it was five days, then
it kept going and after the Supreme Court decision, it
hit its three hundred and eighty second day.

Speaker 5 (31:37):
I will yield to your greater wisdom, Roland.

Speaker 18 (31:40):
I will certainly do that, because actually it was a
situation that started with one day and kept going. But
the piece, the piece that I wanted to raise up
always is the fact that.

Speaker 5 (31:52):
This was a long distance billcot.

Speaker 18 (31:55):
It started one day, five days, one month, but it's
a long distance boycott. And so a lot of people
are like, Okay, I'm not going to target day now,
keep yourself out of target indefinitely.

Speaker 5 (32:08):
And it's not only target.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I mean, I absolutely I agree
with that. But the problem somebody in the chat room
said this, and absolutely right. If your target goal is
to lose forty pounds, if you don't lose five, you
can't get to forty. And I just think that oftentimes,
I don't think that. Oftentimes what we do is we

(32:34):
don't approach it with a day by day strategy. I
think we try to approach it long term. And I'm
simply saying I can't start something long term if I
can't get you to commit the short term. So I
think we've got to get out people to commit the
short term and then build from there.

Speaker 18 (32:53):
No, you're absolutely right that you know yard by what
my mom just say, yard by yard life is hard.
Inch by inch is a chinche and inch by inch
is you know, not go to Target to day or
tomorrow and figuring figuring it all out. What the power
of economic boycott is very very important. We've seen their impacts,

(33:17):
but they have to be sustained, yes, and we have
to start thinking about ways. Here's one of the biggest
challenges in rural areas, very in any places else but Target.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Okay, okay, all right, figure out No no, no, no, no, no, no,
see his again. I understand the point. But here's the reality.
We don't worry about rural parts of the country. Here's
the rally is country. No no, no. First of all,
Target has had for the past decade, a urban strategy

(33:58):
has been their target unintended. Okay, Target has not had
a rule strategy. That's Walmart's strategy. So it's not like.
So the reality is Target has been thriving because they
have been opening targets in major cities. So to hurt Target,
you furgut to be honest, you focus on the thirty

(34:22):
largest urban markets where black people are. You hit target
in those thirty cities, that stock price is gonna go
below one hundred dollars. You're gonna knock off fifteen, twenty, thirty,
fifty billion or more invaluation. So I'm not working right now.
I'm actually not worried about rule America. I'm focused if

(34:46):
you hit target in the thirty top cities, you are
gonna decimate their stock price and their market valuation. So
we know if you live, if you live in rural
parts of America, that's the only store. Hey, do what
you gotta do. But really the focus is really in

(35:08):
those top places. Let me go to Johnquell, because John
Quell the legal strategy is to be a part of
this as well. The lawsuits, the class action lawsuits. We're
seeing that, we're seeing how the various groups assumed the
federal government. But we've got to have our legal folks
suing these companies as well. If you've got the white

(35:31):
conservatives like Ed Bloom using the eighteen sixty six Civil
Rights Act against black people, we got to have a
legal strategy going after them.

Speaker 6 (35:43):
I mean, that is an interesting dynamic and point Roland.
We've certainly heard about the lawsuit, the big the first
major one which was with the federal District Court in
Maryland that has blocked Trump some of his DEI orders,
But as it relates to certain facets of it, not

(36:03):
in totality, but they are injunctions where he cannot move
forward with certain portions of eradicating DEI. As it relates
to your standpoint at the state level, with attorneys mobilizing locally.

Speaker 13 (36:20):
To sue these companies, that's an.

Speaker 16 (36:24):
Interesting construct and one.

Speaker 13 (36:26):
That I think would need to be.

Speaker 16 (36:29):
Fleshed out.

Speaker 6 (36:30):
And it's something you know, this is what I will say,
where everyone is in America at this point. Everyone is terrified,
they're scared, they're anxious, they're avoiding the news, they're avoiding
the issues.

Speaker 13 (36:44):
They are not confronting these issues. And frankly, this.

Speaker 6 (36:49):
Is I mean, that's an idea or a construct that
would have to be mobilized in order for that to
even see what that framework or what that would even
look like, whether that's at the state level or the
federal levels. So that's an interesting construct as it relates
to attorneys mobilizing in that manner, I'm suing over suing
these specific companies, that's interesting. So that's something that we

(37:13):
would have to mobilize. And I'll tell you right, I'm
a millennial and I'm on this panel.

Speaker 13 (37:18):
You know I was not my generation. We were not
alive during the Civil Rights movement, okay, And frankly, you know,
I would say that a lot.

Speaker 6 (37:27):
Of us need help with mobilizing as we did not
have to.

Speaker 13 (37:32):
We didn't come up during that era. That's not something.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
Oh hold up, now, hold up.

Speaker 5 (37:37):
I'm just telling you we learned.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
Hold up, hold up, hold up. But the civil rights
arguably the civil rights movement in it with the death
of doctor of Doctor King in nineteen sixty eight, but
in the early nineteen eighties, hit the apartheid movement in
the nineteen in the nineteen nineties hit the Genus six
your Trayvon Martin.

Speaker 13 (37:58):
But we were kids.

Speaker 2 (37:59):
No, no, no, no, no, okay, hold up, hold up.
Let me just see hold up. See I mean, I
hear y'all, I hear y'all. But hold up. I was
born in the eighties and okay, wait a minute, wait
a minute, wait a minute, I'm.

Speaker 19 (38:11):
At the top.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
No no, no, see you see that's nice. See hold up.
Nice that you said you were born when in eighty five.

Speaker 13 (38:19):
I was born in eighty five. I'm at the top
end of the.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
No, no boo. You were twenty one when the Jena
six happened.

Speaker 13 (38:28):
This is what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
No, I'm not done. I'm not done. I'm not John done,
johnco Johnquay, I'm not done. When the Jena six happened Louisiana,
some thirty and forty thousand people mobilized in Louisiana. You
twenty one. Tray Von happened in twenty twelve, you were
twenty seven. So the reality is wait, wait no, no,

(38:51):
wait wait wait wait then then Michael Brown, then why
is it escape from me? Eric garner All. So the
reality is there have been movements, there have been actions
where people have mobilized when you have been in your
twenties and thirties. So the civil rights movement is one thing,

(39:15):
but we've had events that have happened in the seventies,
in the eighties, in the nineties, in the two thousands,
in the twenty tens, now the twenty twenties. So nobody
has an excuse where they can't get involved in something
because shit has gone down in every generation.

Speaker 13 (39:36):
So that's not what my point was.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
Okay, what's your point.

Speaker 6 (39:40):
I'm I'm aware, and we're aware of those things that
are happening. But what is going on now is, in
my humble opinion, you know, is fairly radical.

Speaker 13 (39:53):
It is something that we have not seen before. And
just talking amongst you know, people in.

Speaker 6 (40:02):
My age group, they want to be involved, but they're
not sure, and a lot of people are taking an
avoidant standpoint because their anxiety is so high.

Speaker 5 (40:09):
So what I'm merely.

Speaker 6 (40:10):
Stating is that with mobilizing in the different efforts, and
I'm aware of the target effort that's coming down on
March fifth, but I'm just saying as a whole, I definitely,
humbly speaking, is saying that I think that you know,
this is somewhat uncharted territory.

Speaker 13 (40:29):
It may not be maybe.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
No, no, no, no, listen, I did something last week
and it's just to me, it's the real deal. I
think too many people who are millennials and gen z
are making excuses. I got the whole deal about it's

(40:52):
it's it's a lot going on, folk. Are I forgot
the word that you used?

Speaker 16 (40:58):
It?

Speaker 2 (41:00):
No, not that one. It is how they're feeling about
what's going on. But The reality is folk who are millennials,
they were here when George Floyd happened. They were here
when Eric Garner happened, they were here when Michael Brown happened.
They were here in the Black Lives Matter movement. The
problem is the problem is folk today, to Julian's point,

(41:26):
didn't ain't put the marathon shoes on that they sprint
shoes on. The problem is folk figured Oh Obama's elected
were good. No, when Doug Wilder was left to the
first black governor of Virginiamy, were not good when Third
Good and Marshall became the first black Supreme Court. It

(41:46):
wasn't like yo were good with racism in the criminal
justice system. And so what has to happen is we
gotta have folk stop checking out. I said last week
that my issue with folk who are eighteen fifty, My
issue people were eighteen to fifty, is that they have
been making withdraws from the bank of Black socials, from

(42:11):
the bank of Black justice, and they ain't made no deposits.
That the generation that was going to the council meeting,
was going to the school board meeting, was going to
the county commissioner's meeting, was going to the state capitals,
was coming to Congress. The folk who were mobilizing and organizing,
the folk who were working the polls, the folk who

(42:32):
were precinct captains, the folks who were going door to
door knocking on doors trying to get people to vote.
The people who were forming civic clubs and community clubs,
who are neighborhood watches. Those folks like my parents, are
now in their late seventies, and some of them are
becoming ancestors. Are some of them already retiring. And so
this is the moment when I need baby boomer excuse me,

(42:55):
I need gen s and millennials and gen z the
step they ass up. And if somebody says, wow, you know,
I don't know where to go, I said, what it's
lays out in me a maya, you start right in
front of you. If you are a millennial or gen

(43:15):
z in Atlanta or Houston or Charlotte or New Orleans
or anywhere, your deal should be. Okay. What do I
care about? Is an education? Is a black entrepreneurship? Is
it voting rights? What do I care about? Now? Once
I decide, hey, this is what I care about, I

(43:37):
now need to find me an organization that's doing that
very work. I don't need to start my own nonprofit.
I don't need to sit here and create something new.
Whatever you want to involve yourself in, there is something
that exists right now. To actually do it, then I
need them to show up. I need them to join,

(43:59):
you know as well as I do. It's a whole
bunch of It's a bunch of us walking around because
you want to correct your a delta right Okay, your delta.
Dereck'son alpha, Julian's a delta right now, all four of us.
We know some deltas and some alphas walking around wearing

(44:20):
their letters but ain't involved in shit. We know some
folks wearing their letters. And even if you don't, if
you don't even want to go to meetings, but damn it,
at least be financial, at least joining the service project.
We know this. So the problem is we got to
be willing to challenge some folks saying what did the

(44:43):
late Joe Madison always say? What are you going to
do about it? And the struggle that we have right
now is that that generation that took us from the
black freedom movement known as civil rights movement and then
took us through the seventies, and took us through the eighties,

(45:03):
and took us through the nineties, and brought us to
two thousand and twenty ten in the twenty twenty. Those folks,
they truly are tired. And when I think of the
brothers and sisters that made Atlanta, every Negro in Atlanta
who is talking of calling today the Mecca, that's because

(45:28):
it was some folk that elected Maynard, that elected Andrew Young,
that re elected Maynard, and elected Bill Campbell, and elected
Shirley Franklin, and elected Cassim Reid, and elected elected black
mayor at the black mayor. But it's been close the

(45:50):
last two or three times Atlanta did almost came close
and not having a black mayor. So I just need
folk to step up and stop stepping out. Now, y'all
can respond John Quall, then I'm gonna go to Derek.

Speaker 6 (46:07):
Then Julian, Well, we are getting to my point right.
So my point was is that I think people are
unsure about how, with the state of things and where
they're at, how they can get involved in you Why, I.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
Don't understand why they're unsure. I don't understand what that means.
I really don't. What do they care about? And have
they joined anybody?

Speaker 13 (46:42):
Well, that's a fair question.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
That's the problem.

Speaker 13 (46:45):
I mean, that's a fair question.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
I'm telling you right now, in every major city in America,
I can guarantee you there are multiple organizations, Derek, that
exist for folk to join. But here's the most important
thing there. Why doesn't matter? Why doesn't happen? Because it's
called accountability. Because see, Derek, it's easy to talk shit

(47:10):
about what not happened and what needs to happen when
your ass don't join nothing?

Speaker 17 (47:16):
Right, right, Not only that they don't join anything, Roland,
they're comfortable, right, I mean, listen, Roland, man, I am
so with you on this one, brother, because when you
think about everybody's been talking about, well, the Dems don't
have a message, or Kamaide Harris did this and this

(47:37):
and this wrong. No, No, nobody in the history of
this country ran one hundred and seven days for president
and came up two million short. She got seventy five million,
the convicted felon got seventy seven million. But Roland eighty
nine million people register voters.

Speaker 14 (47:59):
What was it?

Speaker 17 (48:00):
What was it that they didn't see or hear? Because
we talked about Project twenty twenty five. We talked about
you may lose your job. And now there's eighty nine
million who did not participate like the other one hundred
and fifty two million. Roland, they calling my They calling
my office up saying, I just lost my job at CDC,
I just lost my job at FAA, I just lost my.

Speaker 8 (48:21):
Job at TSA.

Speaker 17 (48:22):
They thought, and listen, Roland, I'm gonna be honest with you.
They do not look like any of us on this
panel that's calling my office right now. They they voted
for him, and so people just got too comfortable. And
so I always say, you got spectators and participators. Spectators,

(48:45):
you're gonna have to live with the participators do. And
so those eighty nine million registered voters. And then I
like to bring it to Georgia because I love what
you said, Roland. We almost missed Atlanta having a black mayor.
Seven hundred and forty two thousand black and brown folks
in Georgia did not vote.

Speaker 8 (49:04):
Seven hundred and forty thousand.

Speaker 17 (49:06):
There's two point seven million of us in Georgia, and
so we can control our own destiny. We can have
the number of governors, Lieutenant governors, the attorney generals in Georgia,
and so that's seven hundred and forty thousand. I right,
challenge them all, join NAACP, join the Urban League, and
if you are a member of the Divine Nine, as

(49:27):
you stated, Roland, be financial cut. There's a lot of
work to do, because it's too late when you lose
your job to make a protest and boycott.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
You know, just getting on one end. You know, Julian,
there was a Nakima Levey Pounds. This happened in Minneapolis.
They were very frustrated with the NAACP. There, Cheruel, these
young folks did. They became members, and then they ran
for office and because they brought in more people, they won.

(50:00):
They took over the chapter. I remember when I was
in Chicago and black folks used to call in to
wvo IN radio on my show on wvo IN, and
they will complain about the NAACP, And I said, take
it over. What do you mean? I said, well, you
is one person you need to go in and join

(50:20):
with thirty dollars. And then when you get there, you say,
we're the last time we had election, and then when
you find out how people voted, let's say the person
got elected with one hundred votes. I said, well, then
go out and recruit one hundred and twenty four of
your friends, and y'all come back and join. Don't tell
nobody what y'all doing, and when it's election time, run

(50:41):
everybody for every position and take the whole thing over. Well,
and you know, I well, I said, hold up, I
don't understand why you getting excuses. I said, either you
take it over or shut the hell up. And it
was I mean, I don't know. I'm like, right, because

(51:04):
that's gonna require that's gonna require some work. It's gonna
require you.

Speaker 18 (51:09):
Five The youth membership was five hours, so we got
the old man who was the president was interesting, So
we got folks five dollars.

Speaker 5 (51:20):
I stole somebody.

Speaker 18 (51:22):
Or I I reappropriated somebody from my mama's pocketbook to
get some of my friends to join, and we took
it over.

Speaker 5 (51:32):
And that's what I am frustrated with my sorrow here.
I love her dearly.

Speaker 18 (51:37):
I'm so happy to be on this panel with her,
but I'm frustrated by the young folks saying, we don't
know what to do. The playbook is out there, you
do know what to do.

Speaker 5 (51:47):
And we must do it.

Speaker 18 (51:48):
I lined up with my brother who's talked about what's
happened in Atlanta is happening all over the country. Our
younger people are sitting back like they don't know anything,
but hell, they came up under us.

Speaker 5 (52:01):
They got to know something. They've got to know something.

Speaker 18 (52:04):
And here's the bottom line here, what we see is
a conspiracy of silence. I'm so glad you have the
brother on from the from the Atlantic to talk about
the resegregation, because it's really important, is what's happening.

Speaker 5 (52:19):
What we're seeing is a lot of people they not
in it.

Speaker 18 (52:22):
I just had one of my white neighbors telling me
I don't even know why she talks to me, telling
me though that her niece got laid off from a
health lab in somewhere in the middle fields somewhere.

Speaker 5 (52:35):
She's like, well, what can we do?

Speaker 18 (52:38):
You know, I tried to keep my language clean, but
I'm figured if you had not voted for that man,
we would not be in this situation. So the fact
is that some people do not believe that fat meat
is greasy. They do not believe that Project twenty twenty
five was a playbook. And now we're all feeling it.
And there I don't think there's anybody on this hand

(53:00):
or anywhere else who was saying government could be streamlined.
But streamlining government and wholesale layoffs fifty four hundred here,
three thousand there. USAID workers are stranded abroad.

Speaker 5 (53:15):
That's not what they voted for, but that's what they got.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
Got it.

Speaker 18 (53:19):
So we move ahead into twenty twenty six terms.

Speaker 20 (53:25):
Whack system.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
Actually, actually you can't get the twenty sixty t deal
with twenty twenty five locally elections. Let me let John
Quell respond, and then I got to go to a
quick break and then.

Speaker 6 (53:36):
Go to my next guest, go, I'm gonna say this
real quick. I think everybody is missing my point. My
point is it's not the state that I'm unaware of
how to be active. I'm extraordinarily active in the community.
What I'm what I was stating is is that my
generation specifically did not grow up under the conditions during
the Civil Rights movement with having to deal with racism

(53:58):
to that magnitude to the day of the day. And
as a result of the hard work that our ancestors
and frankly my parents and other people have had to
put in through their tenure so that we could have
the life that we have had in America. It has
developed into a level of being stagnant or being uninvolved

(54:18):
as a result of that. And what I'm stating is
is that the state of the country at this juncture
is beginning to outwardly appear that it is really going
back to that way, although there have been significant incidents
after that. But my point was is that it is
coming out that it is affecting people's day to day

(54:39):
and that kind of capacity. And that's what I meant
by relating that back to the civil rights movement, to
where I think more people are wanting to be involved in,
are more anxious, and they are scared to the degree
that those back then during those times where some of
these other instances over time may not have affected them
to that level of intensity.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
No, No, I got your point. And I'll say this
here before I go to break. I think the problem
for and I often refer myself as a post civil
rights movement baby, the problem for posts civil rights movement babies,
and that's Gen X, that's millennials, that's Gen Z, and

(55:22):
now Gen alpha, is that, as I said, we are
still living off of the hard work of baby boomers
in the previous generation, and a lot of us fail
for the okie doke. We actually believed that we would
not have to fight racism. We actually fail for the

(55:44):
okie dok. And I was on CNN telling people, don't
believe that bs that we lived in a post racial America.
Many of us were shielded by parents from the harsh
realities of redlining, of segregation in homes, and the things
that we encountered. So we actually believe that we lived

(56:07):
in this that scene from Scandal when a man says,
you're running around and if you're running around as bombs
are going off and you're mistaking it for a field
of daisies. And so what we have to recognize is
now that Gen X and Babe and Millennial and Gen
Z and Generation Alpha is now faced with the reality

(56:29):
of what they're doing. The question now is are they
going to wake the hell up? The question now is
are they gonna get their asses off the sidelines and
get away from the brunches and get away from taking
eight ten trips a year and doing all and listen,
we all have done fun things. But are they going
to get in the game? Are they actually going to

(56:50):
be able to do something. Are they gonna sit here
and step up? Are they going to join organizations? Are
they going to recommit themselves to the advancement of Black America.
If they're not going to recommit, if they're going to
stay on the sidelines, they're not going to get involved,
then they're going to get exactly what the opposition is
going to do, and that is they're going to run

(57:11):
a rough shot over this system. Well, too many are
sitting idly by, as I said, engaging in bullshit conversations
about a Housewives show, or if lebron and Michael Jordan
is the goat, or some other stuff. I don't give
a shit what medicine married to medicine is talking about.

(57:31):
I don't give a damn about no Hollywood, No, I
don't zeus network, I don't give a damn who Joscelyn
is fighting. I don't give a damn about any of
that stuff. But what we cannot have is another generation
of black folks who are ill informed, who don't watch news,
who don't listen to the news, but would rather say
I don't want to hear all of that stuff because

(57:53):
it's just too much. But then when that stuff comes
to their front door. They then go, I wish somebody
would have told me, well, you have the opportunity to
access the information, but you opted not to for some
other stuff. And that's really what we're being faced with.
I'm gonna go to a break. When I come back,

(58:13):
passa Jamal Bryant attacked at the White House. He's got
some words to say about that. Also launching targetfast dot org.
We'll talk about that as well right here on rolls.
The Black Star Network support the work that we do.
You see be rocking my shirt. Black on media matters.
But here's the whole deal. We can't just talk about
black on media. We can't talk about Oh I wish

(58:35):
they would cover this stuff. We can't just sit here
and be mad at MSNBC. It's canceled Joy and Red's
primetime show. We can't be med up these things if
we don't actually financially contribute to the building and the
sustaining of black on media. So if you want to
support this show on this network, give to us via
for cash opp use a strike QR code. It's right there.

(58:57):
If you're listening, go to Blackstar Network dot com access it.
You can also see in your checking money order Peelbox
five seven one ninety six, Washington d C two zero
zero three seven Dash zero one ninety six pay palas
are Martin unfiltered, Venmos are m unfiltered, Zell Rolling at
Rolands Martin dot com Rolling at Rolling Martin unfiltered dot Com.
We'll be right back.

Speaker 9 (59:21):
This week on the other side of change, abolition focused.

Speaker 10 (59:25):
Should we aim for reform or abolishing the entire system?
Come feeling, lets us know how much possibility lies and abolition.

Speaker 11 (59:32):
a suggestion that we already know to be true, which
is that we have what.

Speaker 4 (59:41):
It takes to to take care of each other and
to take care of ourselves.

Speaker 10 (59:45):
the other side of change.

Speaker 17 (59:57):
Let's see if y'all this is Wendew Haskins aka Win
Hogan at the original te Golf Basket and you know
our watch Roland Martin Unfiltered.

Speaker 2 (01:00:33):
All right, folks, we've had conversations talking about the focus
on target. You earlier you saw me with the show
the Target Stock Price. That effort was a launch by
Nina Turner's organization that commenced on February first. Ever, since then,
you've seen the actions take place all across the country.

(01:00:55):
You've even seen some folks going to Target filling their
baskets up with groceries and then going to the counter
and literally saying, oh, no, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna
buy these items because y'all are not supporting DEI. And
we talk about DEI. It's not just folks, it's not
just you know. Again, as some people rightfully say, oh,

(01:01:16):
these DEE oppositions largely held by somebody white, it's really
about the infrastructure, supply, diversity, contracts, things along those lines,
and so passing. Jamal Bryant announced earlier this month an
initiative called Target Fast, and he's gonna explain what this is.
But a lot of people always talking about, well, what

(01:01:38):
are the demands, Well, they're very clear. If you go
to targetfast dot org, this is what you'll see. The
four demands of Target honor of the two billion dollar
players of the black business community through products, services and
black media buys, deposit two hundred and fifty million dollars
amongst any of our twenty three black banks, completely restoring

(01:01:58):
the franchise, commitment to DEI and the and create a
Pipeline Community Center at ten HBCUs to teach retail business
at every level. Pastor Jamal brin or New Birth Missionary
Baptist Church in Atlanta joins us right now, Pastor Brian
glad to have you here.

Speaker 21 (01:02:13):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:02:14):
And to Scott Bolgen, you're watching. I told you I
allow Kapus on the show every now and then, I think, Jamal,
you're on mute. I think you're on mute. I can't
hear you laughing. There you go. Let's see you take
it off of mute. See I Alpha gotta still teach
you still on mute? Can you hear me? You can

(01:02:37):
hear me. I can't hear you, Control room. What's going on?
Is is he on mute? He's not on mute? All right,
So here's we're gonna do. Uh, that's fine, that's fine.
All y'all gonna do is just drop his signal reconnect,
just doubt. All you gotta do is to drop a
center reconnect. We have it fixed. So let me walk
you through this here. So again, when Target announced that

(01:03:00):
they were doing this was a few years ago, when
we in the Black on media lines, we begin to
challenge them. Target announced they were going to spend by
two thousand, by December twenty five, two billion dollars annually
with black owned businesses. Okay, then they also were rolling

(01:03:22):
out a program to really add black OneD products to
their stores. So if you actually go to I'm going
to show you in a second, if you go to
Target dot com, they still may they may still have
it up because they had it doing. They had a
button on their site for Black History Month. We got
Jamal Bryant back. So Jamal, can you now hear me?

Speaker 21 (01:03:46):
I can hear you, sir.

Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
Okay, there we go, There we go. See, Alf was
always teaching, always teaching. This right here is Target's website.
So this is their Black History Month section. So you
see down here what they have all of this number
button out here called shop all Black owned or found
it brands. So when you kick click that, there are
one one hundred and thirty five results now last month

(01:04:10):
and well more than that, you've had some black owned
brands that will actually pull their products from Target stores. Jamal,
you got a brother at your church a couple of
weeks ago who was in more than a thousand Target stores.
Is a clothing brand, and he pulled his product to
honor this boycott effort.

Speaker 20 (01:04:27):
Correct, that's correct. Black men smile and so.

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
So the goal is to get one hundred thousand people
to sign up for Target Fast that begins. Is it
March fifth?

Speaker 20 (01:04:41):
Yes, sir, next Wednesday, we're up in our roads seventy thousand.

Speaker 2 (01:04:46):
So seventy thousand people signed up. Your goal is to
get one hundred thousand by next Wednesday, March fifth, So
you got thirty thousand to go.

Speaker 21 (01:04:53):
That's correct.

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
Walk folks through the thought process of how you decided
to not call it a boycott but to call it
a Target Fast.

Speaker 19 (01:05:06):
Explain because my call rolland was directly to the Black churt.
I wanted the Black church to have sin in the game.
In the emergence of Black Lives Matter, this is the
very first civil rights movement where the Black church is
not on the front line and a faith leader is
not the drum major. And so I'm mindful that other

(01:05:27):
boycots are moving forward, but I wanted the Black church
to say that our head is not in the sand,
but that we're aware and we're lifting our pathetic voice.
Lent is the holy season for Christians that goes from
ash Wednesday to Easter, so that while we withdrawing our
funds from Target, we're also focused in.

Speaker 21 (01:05:48):
Prayer to take the spirit of the Montgomery.

Speaker 19 (01:05:51):
Bus boycott who every night for over a year went
back to the church at night to get their spiritual grounded.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
Well, I was explained. I was to explaining this earlier,
and I showed this book here the Montgomery bus Boycott
and the women who started the memoir of joe An
Gibson Robinson. She was the one who crafted this, who
crafted the boycott. And as I said, it was a
one day boycott. After that first day they extended it

(01:06:20):
five more days and then they said, we're going to
continue it in perpetuity until we get what we want.
And so and so you are very specific in saying
we're going to do this from Lent to Easter. Yes,
explain that as well.

Speaker 19 (01:06:36):
Yes, Because Target is publicly traded, we're able to use
forty days to see what is the spending impact Somewhere
in the orbit.

Speaker 20 (01:06:45):
I learned Writer on the rolland Martin.

Speaker 19 (01:06:47):
On Filter show Black people spend around twelve million dollars
a day, so we're able to track over those forty
days to see where it has over it gone down.
The stock has dropped by eleven dollars, a sayer, they're
losing millions of dollars and those of you who missed it.
Stockholders are now suing Target. So we're able to take

(01:07:10):
utable data and say, with these one hundred thousand people
whose emails we can point to and show them where's
the price point, take it to the stockholders of Target
and the board and say now let's talk. Now, let's negotiate,
because we're operating from a position to strive.

Speaker 2 (01:07:28):
And if you go through that piece and then after Easter, yes,
a second phase, if you decide to continue that correct.

Speaker 20 (01:07:37):
Yes, So forty days is our initial rollout.

Speaker 21 (01:07:40):
It is not the end of the journey.

Speaker 20 (01:07:43):
It is really for us to have a benchmark to
see where we are and how we proceed.

Speaker 21 (01:07:48):
The stockholders meeting is on June.

Speaker 19 (01:07:51):
The eighth in Minneapolis, June the fifth, excuse me, in Minneapolis,
and so we're prepared that we'll go there if it
extends that law. But the way all the reports are
coming back that Target is underperforming.

Speaker 21 (01:08:06):
I don't think they'll be able to sustain.

Speaker 2 (01:08:08):
Until that bored me and the thing that that that
and you know this because I'm always saying this in
our chats and everything else, is that we have to
study Operation bread Basket and how he did it and
what they did, and understand that it must be properly
organized and mobilized. People call for boycotts, but if it
ain't organized and mobilized, it's absolutely going to fail. So

(01:08:30):
by having a very specific organization and mobization. And again,
as I said, Nina turn In, her group started on
February first, this is this is another piece of it,
not tied directly to it, but it adds to it.
And so as I said, as I showed earlier, if
all of a sudden, here we are, and then you know,

(01:08:52):
we come back here, let's say at the end of
at the end of the after Easter, and if we
come back and all of a sudden, I'm able to
click this one month right here, and all of a sudden,
I see that Target stock goes from today one hundred

(01:09:13):
and twenty five dollars and seventy seven cents, and it
goes month. It's right here. Target stock is down eight
point seventy nine percent, or twelve dollars and twelve cents
in the past month. That's critically important. If that thing
drops to one hundred and twenty one hundred and fifteen,
one hundred and ten, they're losing market cap, They're losing

(01:09:34):
billions of dollars. And that's what people have to understand.
But if it's not organized and mobilized, it will absolutely fail.

Speaker 19 (01:09:44):
Yeah, this is the information age, and knowledge is power.
When we're able to roll out tangibly, what is the data?
Men live, women live, Numbers never lie, and so when
we're able to roll that out, I think that we're
able to have a greater impact. Every changes our position.
We're not asking target to do as a phavor. We're

(01:10:04):
asking target to be a partner.

Speaker 21 (01:10:06):
Because we're long standing in the community.

Speaker 19 (01:10:09):
We always banter about that we are two trillion dollars
worth of spending power. Now let's lean on it and
shore where our real strength is not just as consumers,
but concientious consumers.

Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
Before I go to the next topic, I want to
go to each of my payments for questions specifically about this.
So let me start with Julian. Julian, what's your question
for Jamal.

Speaker 5 (01:10:31):
Bran he Chabal. Good to see you appreciate you that
I know your parents.

Speaker 21 (01:10:36):
I'm very proud of you, I hope.

Speaker 5 (01:10:38):
So you have laid this out with Target, what's next?

Speaker 18 (01:10:44):
Is it going to be continuing with Target or finding
another predatory capitalists that we also need boycott.

Speaker 21 (01:10:54):
Yeah, I think that Target is the first.

Speaker 19 (01:10:56):
As our other dear panelists say about mindsets of generation,
don't forget that the large bulk of this generation was
born under Obama. And so I think it's very important
that we just shoot at no pun intended one target
at the top.

Speaker 21 (01:11:15):
As I keep saying, Target.

Speaker 20 (01:11:16):
Is the first, it is not the last, and it
will not be the only.

Speaker 21 (01:11:21):
But this generation needs to see a win.

Speaker 19 (01:11:24):
And so I think if we hone in on Target
and then from there, whether we go to a wal
Mart or Amazon.

Speaker 21 (01:11:30):
But I want the generation to be able to find
its wings and its legs.

Speaker 20 (01:11:35):
And say we did it here.

Speaker 21 (01:11:36):
Now let's move on to the next one. But I
want to do it one at a time.

Speaker 2 (01:11:40):
And I think the other reason why you do it
one at a time is because you have to learn
best practices. Two. You don't have to always hit ten.
You can hit one and the other nine are going
to see and say I am not trying to have
that smoke come my way.

Speaker 19 (01:11:57):
Yeah, that's what McDonald's feeling from the back of the
Latino community.

Speaker 21 (01:12:02):
Even in this moment, and so all of them.

Speaker 19 (01:12:05):
Are huddling trying to figure out how do we resist
the win so it doesn't turn into.

Speaker 21 (01:12:09):
A world wind.

Speaker 20 (01:12:11):
The old quote is that we're not out numbered, we're
out organized.

Speaker 19 (01:12:16):
And so I think if we organize in this era,
then this administration and these corporate factions will be mindful
that these black people aren't just coming up with ans page,
but they're really mobilizing and make an impact.

Speaker 21 (01:12:31):
Derek that the Bryan.

Speaker 8 (01:12:33):
Always good saying you sir, my questions.

Speaker 17 (01:12:36):
My question is around mobilization and organization, and you certainly
don't have to share your strategy on here, but it
just seems like the more that we do in terms
of mobilizing and through that organization through Black Churches, through
the Divine Nine, through NAACP Urban League, are you also

(01:12:59):
having conversation with those organizations as well.

Speaker 19 (01:13:03):
I am particularly around the black denominations. Again, I really
wanted the churchs to take the lead in the forefront
of supermand Sister whose name now escapes me from Harvard
University said that the revolution is a three percent lead.
You don't need everybody to do it, but at three
percent of the population, I get a made up mind.

(01:13:24):
They'll change policy, they'll change culture, and they're change society.
Let's not forget in our fantasy island memory of doctor
King that the reality is most of Black America wasn't
supporting Doctor King at the time of business sassination. The
Baptist conventions flit. So we don't need everybody to do it.
We need really just a small faction who we're staying

(01:13:48):
steadfast in order to make the end.

Speaker 6 (01:13:51):
John Weell, I note that previously in Greetings Doctor Bryant,
pastor doctor brid I know that one of the black
businesses was able to pull their business or their distribution
at Target. Do we know anything about any of the

(01:14:13):
other black businesses that may solely be distributed by Target,
or anything in relation to them and kind of where
they staying on these issues?

Speaker 21 (01:14:23):
Thank you so very much.

Speaker 19 (01:14:24):
What I'm neglected to Shales. We've partnered with the Black
Chamber of Commers. So when people register at targetfas dot
org within the hour, I emailed them a black business
directory of three hundred thousand black businesses around the country.
We sent an invitation to all of the vendors who

(01:14:45):
are in target to know that if they come and
be a part of this, they'll be prominently.

Speaker 21 (01:14:50):
Placed on the page. We don't in any way want to.

Speaker 19 (01:14:55):
Hamper or damage in these black businesses or black families,
but we believe that they can make that same level
of impact if they do it digitally and do it online.
So we sent out that invitation. I'll have to ask
brother Ron Busby where we are on those numbers, but
I do know that we've set up a platform so
that they'll be able to thrive if they're prepared to

(01:15:17):
make the cycle.

Speaker 2 (01:15:19):
Uh, let's move on to the next thing. Last week,
Trump through a joke of a Black History Month reception
at the White House even though the other federal agencies
can't do any commemorations, and as a result of some
of these are some of his black Maga minions had

(01:15:40):
a video, I mean they had a sign held up
with your face on it. You see some of these
folk here, Uh, and uh, they roll that video of
that that one of those minions posted where they were
waving the sign with your face on the White House.

Speaker 22 (01:16:00):
Yeah, yeah, and hey, hey, everybody here, Kash, but God
has been confirmed.

Speaker 2 (01:16:07):
That's happy out the record.

Speaker 5 (01:16:12):
Who's gonna heads to role?

Speaker 2 (01:16:17):
Yesh I know you got the receipts. Oh then mothersucker's
a cutaball. Yeah that's right, Jamal, Yeah, that's right. So
they did that, and you responded very clearly yesterday from

(01:16:39):
the pulpit.

Speaker 8 (01:16:41):
Y'all been praying for me all week. You've been nervous
all week.

Speaker 23 (01:16:44):
But I ain't afraid of the spoots that said at
the door, these runaway slaves hiding in the White House,
gonna throw my picture up thinking.

Speaker 2 (01:16:55):
That I'm gonna be afraid.

Speaker 23 (01:16:59):
If you got real carriage, don't show my picture. Show
the picture of the one that fired the black joint
chief of Staff from the military. If you gonna show
a picture, show a picture of the CEO of Target, Walmart,
McDonald's in Amazon that does not recognize black dollars or

(01:17:22):
black business.

Speaker 8 (01:17:23):
If you gonna put.

Speaker 23 (01:17:24):
Up a picture, put up a picture of the state
legislators in Florida that abandoned black books. If you gonna
put up a picture, put up the picture of the
one who is stealing classified information from the eye. R
Rest and Social security. If you gonna put up a picture,
put up a picture of those that don't want your

(01:17:46):
mama to pay thirty five dollars for insulin and your
child to pay thirty five dollars for inhala.

Speaker 8 (01:17:54):
If you gonna put up.

Speaker 2 (01:17:55):
A picture, put up a picture of.

Speaker 23 (01:17:57):
Those that are jailing children and separating families. I ain't
ever scared. Ain't case you forgot. I'm from the West
side of Baltimore. If you got a problem, pull upon me.

(01:18:32):
Stuckley Carmichael said, our fathers had to run, run, run,
but my generation is out of breath. We ain't running
no more. Yay, though I walk and have to be
in on the run for twenty six years. From Saul
and Philistines, David said, my running days are over. We

(01:18:55):
don't have to run anymore. You only run when you're scared,
But when you walk, when you got confidence that greater
is he that is in me than he that is
in the world. Would you look at your neighbor and
tell them I ain't running and nowhere be like a tree,
Be you steadfast, unmovable, always abounding, knowing that your labor

(01:19:21):
is not in vain. I'm not gonna run when nobody
is a chasing me. But I'm gonna walk like a
smooth operator. I gotta walk because I understand that no
weapon formed against me shall be able to prosper.

Speaker 2 (01:19:39):
All these other.

Speaker 23 (01:19:40):
Churches might not say nothing, but at sixty four hundred Woodrow,
we right outside of Dacato, wears greater.

Speaker 13 (01:19:49):
You got to.

Speaker 23 (01:19:50):
Understand that there is more for us than there are
against her.

Speaker 2 (01:19:55):
Look at your.

Speaker 23 (01:19:56):
Neighbor and say, as long as we stick together, we
gotta ruck.

Speaker 8 (01:20:01):
Had you to mins it.

Speaker 23 (01:20:02):
Whenever I tried to make our people be free, there
were a few Negroes that tried to go backwards and
tried to risk our freedom.

Speaker 2 (01:20:12):
I feel bad for them.

Speaker 23 (01:20:13):
Coons in the White House who are in that tap
dancing for Massa, wearing bow tie, shinning and dried it,
laughing like nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:20:23):
That's funny.

Speaker 23 (01:20:24):
Get out of that negro and stand with your people
so that you understand that God is on our side.

Speaker 2 (01:20:36):
And of course, like clock work, Fox News came out
with a story regarding comments you made about Minister Lewis Farakahn,
asking you have you condemned his attacks on Jews. That's
what happened.

Speaker 19 (01:20:53):
Yeah, it's the same playbook over and over again, is
that they didn't speak to any of the issues from
the sermon on yesterday, but immediately it is to this credit.
So it's easy to talk about me speaking at the
leaguing man mark than to talk about Elon.

Speaker 20 (01:21:12):
Munks raising up the high Hitler signs.

Speaker 21 (01:21:15):
So I get it.

Speaker 19 (01:21:17):
But it is important that we remember Nelson Mandela's words.
You don't let your oppressor pick your friends. So I
think that we've got to keep focus on what is
the main.

Speaker 2 (01:21:28):
So I mean absolutely, and you know, for me, I
may perfectly clear. You know, those those are you know,
those are minions. Those are folks who don't mean nothing.
They ain't in no policy meetings, they ain't making no decisions.
They just happy to get an invitation. Uh and uh.
I thought it was interesting what Tiger Woods now braceist

(01:21:49):
being black.

Speaker 20 (01:21:49):
Huh hey, listen, listen.

Speaker 21 (01:21:55):
It never rains in southern California.

Speaker 13 (01:21:57):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:21:59):
I mean, he just said to show up to a
Black History Month reception. I'm like, ain't that something all right? Again?
Pastor Brian. Let folks know when the target fast starts.

Speaker 19 (01:22:10):
Which sart next Wednesday, with thirty thousand from my goal,
lodded dot everybody, please go to targetfass dot org.

Speaker 21 (01:22:18):
I need you to register.

Speaker 19 (01:22:19):
I'll send you a digital director of three hundred thousand
businesses and today is our first day towards making a
difference in impact Roland.

Speaker 21 (01:22:27):
Thank you so very much.

Speaker 2 (01:22:28):
I appreciate it. And I see some of y'all in
that chat, y'all were saying man Pastor Brian sound muffled.
I know why he sounds muffled, y'all, don't worry about it.
I've already sent him some links to some items to
get to correct that. So just go ahead and check
your text message. And as always, you know, you know,
when it comes to your broth, when it comes to technology,

(01:22:50):
I don't play.

Speaker 21 (01:22:51):
I'm glad to be here.

Speaker 2 (01:22:53):
Thank you, appreciate it.

Speaker 21 (01:22:56):
DOCT thanks a lot, love yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:23:00):
You know. Folks, Again, let's be real clear when you
are doing the work, When you're doing the work, folk
are going to get mad. And so all you got
to do is just challenge folk who ain't doing the work.
That's what you gotta do, all right. So we're gonna
go to a break. We come back, we're gonna talk
about MSNBC them canceling Joy and Reid's show. She's on

(01:23:23):
live right now. It's seven forty four, sixteen minutes left
in her show. She's also going to be announcing on
her show what she plans to do next. But I
got some thoughts about what has gone down. You're watching
Rolling Mark and Unfilched on the black Star Network supports
the work that we do. Join our bringing fuck fan
club Now. Some of y'all in the chat have been
asking how do we contribute be a cash app? Show

(01:23:44):
it right now. This is the QR code. Cash app
canceled all of our accounts because they changed their rules
on the type of company you have to have, So
in order for you to give us be a cash shap,
you can do so through the strip app. This is
the QR code right here that you can just point
your camera to then they'll take you right to it
to give via cash shap. If you're listening to us

(01:24:06):
on the podcast, go to Blackstar network dot com to
access the strike QR code. To give to us via
cash shap. You can send your checking money order Peelbox
five seven one ninety six Washington, DC to zero zero
three seven Dash zero one ninety six paypalas are Martin unfiltered,
venmos r M unfiltered Zel Rollin at rollins Martin dot com,

(01:24:28):
Rolling at Rolling Martin on filter dot com, download the
Blackstar Network app Apple Phone, Android phone, Apple TV, and
drud TV, Roku, Amazon fireTV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV.
If you want to get our Rolling Martin on Filtered merchandise,
go to Rolling Martin dot great, das Spring dot com
or go to the Blackstar Network dot com. You can

(01:24:49):
get our new shirts. Don't blame me, I voted for
the black Woman and hashtag we tried to tell you
fa f O twenty twenty five and so do that.
And also get a copy of my book White Fear
of the Rounding of America's making white folks lose their
minds that they at bookstores nationwide. You can get the
audio version that I read on audible. Thanks a bunch.
We'll be right back.

Speaker 4 (01:25:13):
This week.

Speaker 9 (01:25:14):
On the other side of change, abolition focused should we
aim for reform or abolishing the entire system?

Speaker 10 (01:25:20):
Comeon, feeling, let's us know how much possibility lies and abolition.

Speaker 11 (01:25:23):
a suggestion that.

Speaker 8 (01:25:30):
We already know to be true, which is that we
have what.

Speaker 4 (01:25:33):
It takes to take care of each other and to
take care of ourselves.

Speaker 10 (01:25:37):
the other side of change.

Speaker 12 (01:25:49):
The next Get Wealthy with me Deborah Owens, America's wealth Coach.
Have you ever had that million dollar idea and wonder
how you could make it a reaction?

Speaker 13 (01:26:00):
On the next Get Wealthy, You're.

Speaker 12 (01:26:02):
Going to be Liska Askalis, the adventurous someone who made
her own idea a reality and now is showing others
how they can do it too.

Speaker 14 (01:26:15):
Positive focusing in on the thing that you.

Speaker 15 (01:26:18):
Want to do, writing it down, and not speaking to
naysayers or anybody about your product until you've taken some
steps to at least.

Speaker 12 (01:26:28):
Execute a Liska Askalie. On the next Get Wealthy right
here only on Blackstar Network.

Speaker 24 (01:26:40):
Hatred on the Streets a horrific scene, a white nationalist
rally that descended into deadly violence.

Speaker 2 (01:26:49):
White people are losing their their minds.

Speaker 8 (01:26:52):
As an angry pro Trump mod storms the US capital.

Speaker 2 (01:26:57):
We're about to see the lies where I call white
minority resistion. You have seen white folks in this country
who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting.

Speaker 14 (01:27:06):
I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of
violent denial.

Speaker 8 (01:27:11):
This is part of American history.

Speaker 1 (01:27:13):
Every time that people of color have made progress, whether
real or symbolic, there has been But Carold Anderson at
every university calls white rage as a backlash.

Speaker 2 (01:27:23):
Since the right of the Proud Boys and the Boogaaloo
Boys America, there's going to be more of this, all
the Proud.

Speaker 25 (01:27:29):
Boy This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors
and its attitudes because of the fear of white people the.

Speaker 2 (01:27:38):
Few that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources,
they're taking our women.

Speaker 22 (01:27:43):
This is white field, you know, my man of luck
current and you're watching Roland Martin unfiltered, deep into it

(01:28:04):
like pasteurized milk without the two percent were getting deeped.

Speaker 2 (01:28:08):
You weren't turning that shit out. We're doing an interview
with mother father, all right, folks. Over the weekend, a
lot of people were angry when the word came out
that Joe and Reid, her primetime show on MSNBC had
been canceled. The I found out on Saturday, and then

(01:28:32):
MSNBC would not confirm that, but then variety of the
new York Times dropped some stories that that night that
confirmed what was going on. She's hosted that particular show
for five years, and prior to that, she had a
weekend show on MSNBC as well. Before that a daytime
daily show and before that a weekend show. So this

(01:28:53):
was actually the fourth show at Joan Reid has had
an MBSSNBC. And so there have been a number of
people who have been expressing lots of outrage as a
result of this decision last night that were a number
of people at one point that about ten thousand. This
was Win with Black Women and the Win with Black

(01:29:15):
Men Zoom. At one point they had about ten thousand
people who were on the zoom and about thirteen fourteen
thousand people who were live on YouTube.

Speaker 21 (01:29:26):
And so.

Speaker 2 (01:29:28):
What MSNBC has apparently decided they're going to move the
weekend show that features Michael Steele, Samone Sanders, and Lisia
Menendez is going to move that show to the seven
pm slot that Joy currently occupies. She's doing her last
show right now announcing what she's going to be doing next,

(01:29:50):
and so that's happening as we speak. So that's with
that decision. Also the New York Post reported that they
were ending several other shows, but uh they were like
versus Jonathy cape Hart as well as a couple of others,
but they could be moving them to other shows. So
there's a whole realignment with their programming strategy. Rebecca Cutler

(01:30:14):
used to I worked with her at CNN several years ago.
That that's the whole other story.

Speaker 25 (01:30:19):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:30:19):
She became the president of MSNBC when Rashida Jones announced
that she was stepping down, and so Cutler has been
remaking uh the network, you know, in her own image.
Now also understand it's also upheaval happening at MSNBC because
Comcasts announced and they were creating a separately publicly traded

(01:30:41):
company called spin Co.

Speaker 1 (01:30:44):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:30:44):
And what spin Co is uh is uh Comcast is
moving uh these various uh, these various uh networks into
a separate business. Let me pull that press release up.
Uh and this also is part of this. So under
under this, MSNBC and NBC were under the Comcast umbrella

(01:31:06):
when they purchased NBC Universal. But now go to my iPad, Henry. So,
Comcast announced on twentieth they were creating this separate business
and so what they were doing they're putting excuse me,
they're putting USA Network, CNBC, MSNBC, Oxygen, the E Network,

(01:31:28):
Sci Fi, and the Golf Channel, along with their other
digital assets such as Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, Golf Now, and
Sports Engine through a separate publicly traded company called Spinco.
Mark Lazarus was going to be the CEO UH that company.
They're going to keep NBC under Comcast, and so now

(01:31:50):
you have in these separate companies. You've had Elon Musk
float the idea that when they become public, he may
buy that company. So all these things are being thrown out.
So keep in mind when you talk about changes over
the years, You've had other folks who've had shows. You've
had other black women who've had shows on MSNBC. Shows
got canceled. Tiffany Cross had a weekend show that was canceled.

(01:32:13):
In December twenty twenty three, Karen Finny had a weekend show.
Melissa Harris Perry had a falling out with the network
where she did not want to cover Trump rally. She
said she wanted her show back, they said, no, you
have to cover it. She ends up leaving the network
and then when that happened. Joyan Reed, who had a
weekday show, then took over her weekend slot. Before she

(01:32:35):
took over, got the primetime show. And so all these
things are going on, and you see the decisions of
how these mainstream networks operate. Now you also have these
networks who are getting rid of folk because they've been
highly critical of Donald Trump. You look at Jim Acosta
over at CNN. They chose to replace him at ten

(01:32:57):
am and offer him a midnight show, which he obviously declines.
So he has since left the company and he has
his own show on substack. Again, Joy's announcing right on
her show what she's going to be doing next, and
so I don't know if it's a podcast, if it's
a daily show, if it's something on Patreon, substack, no
idea about that. But you have a lot of her

(01:33:20):
supporters who are very upset with this decision because they
say it is the silacing of strong black voices, the
solcing of strong female voices. And so what is been
happening is her supporters, give me one second, I'm gonna
show you this here. They actually were encouraging people, They

(01:33:43):
were encouraging people to support her show tonight. So it
can end with very high numbers. Now, this here is
a graphic that they've been distributing. It says, turn the
TV off and turn on black media. We won't let
media conglomerates determine who tells our stories. We need fifteen
million people tune in for a Joy's final show, then

(01:34:03):
turn the TV off. And then they had this other graphic,
we need Joy. MSNBC is slacing black voices. We're not
letting this go. Called MSNBC at two one two sixty
sixty four four four four four and demand they stop
erasing black voices from political media. So that is happening.

(01:34:26):
And the thing that we have to understand is that
the reality is when you talk about these shows, when
you talk about on these networks, the African Americans who
have these shows, they don't own the shows. The network does.
And the reality is the network decides who they want
on for a variety of reasons. And so it's understanding

(01:34:52):
what is going on, is understanding how the world is changing,
is understanding how how these folks are making decisions. And
the reality is this, and y'all have heard me say
this for a very very long time. If you do
not own it. You only have what we could call

(01:35:19):
leverage and influence. Owners have power. You me tell this
story before. When Michael Jordan play in the NBA, Michael Jordan,
folks talked about how he was the most powerful basketball
player in the NBA, and they were actually wrong. Michael

(01:35:40):
Jordan had the most leverage, Michael Jordan had the most
influence because Michael Jordan could put seats, could put butts
in the seats. So Michael Jordan when he decided to
become president of basketball operations for the Washington Wizards, he
will still flexing his power and influence. Then Michael decided

(01:36:05):
to come back and play for two seasons. And here's
what happened. After Michael played his second season, Michael then
chose to retire. And when Michael retired, Michael went to
meet with a polland the owner with Ted Leonis, one

(01:36:27):
of the minority owners, to get his job back. And
while sitting with Ted Leonis, ted Leone said, oh, Michael,
we're going to go in a different direction. And see
Ted Leonis privately, secretly, silently was bothered by some things

(01:36:49):
that Michael Jordan had done, how he had treated some
staff there. Okay, so polland says Michael, here's a ten
million dollar check, thank you for your services. Michael was stunned.
Michael looked at Ted Leo Ownins like, what the hell

(01:37:09):
is going on? Tied Leomos had no idea either a
polland fired Michael Jordan. See, Michael Jordan didn't have power
because he didn't own it. He had leveraged an influence,
and Michael stormed out of the meeting, ten million dollar
checks sitting on the table, got it his jaguar and

(01:37:30):
drove off. So when you see that photo of Michael
Jordan behind hit the wheel of his Jaguar topped down.
He was leaving the parking lot. Later, Michael Jordan tried
to buy the Milwaukee Bucks. He was rebuffed. He later
ended up buying the Charlotte Hornets from Bob Johnson, where
Michael Jordan did that he was the majority owner. Then
Michael had power. What am I saying? What I'm saying

(01:37:53):
is when we talk about these shows, whether they are
on CNN or MSNBC, whether they are on any of
these networks, in fact, whether somebody has a show on
my network, the reality is they may have leverage, they
may have influence, but they actually don't have power because
they don't own it. When you own it, you decide

(01:38:19):
who's on and who's not. You decide how much they
get paid, You decide what they do. And so we're
here where we are because Frederick Douglas's owned the North Star,
because Robert Abbott owned the Chicago Defender, because the owners
of the Pittsburgh Courier, the owners of Ebony Jet was

(01:38:40):
John Ah Johnson, Earl Graves owned Black Enterprise, Ed Lewis
and others own Essence Magazine. I can go on and
on and on. What we have to recognize is that
it's important to have black voices in mainstream media. But
the fact of the matter is mat media, mainstream white media,

(01:39:02):
largely lived by white executives, are going to make decisions
that they want to make, and so what we can
never do. While I absolutely support brothers and sisters and
have fought for them to get mainstream jobs, what we
can never do is allow black owned media to die

(01:39:23):
and perish, because if that happens, then there is no
place for us to have the unadultered, raded of the
unfiltered truth. When it comes to our issues. We must
recognize that when we talk about black owned media. It
also means hiring people behind the scenes, hiring people who

(01:39:45):
are editors and directors and videographers and video playback and
associate producers and production assistance, and on and on and on.
This should be a wake up call to every brother
and sister at those jobs are temporary, their short term,
and it happens at black on Media. We're sitting here

(01:40:09):
because TV one, Alfred Liggins, the owner, the CEO of
Urban One, decided to cancel News one Now. And when
Alfred Liggins sat me in his office in December I
think was December second, twenty seventeen or December ninth, I
can't remember to tell me the show was being canceled.
Did I flinch? Note? Did I cry? Nope? Was there

(01:40:31):
a punch to the gut? Note? Literally? As Alfred Liggins
was telling me the reasons why he was canceling News
one now after four years and before that, I had
Washington watched for four years. As he was talking, I
was planning. As he was talking, I was plotting. We

(01:40:53):
walked out of that meeting. I was sitting in d'angela Proctor.
We to high school with her. She was an senior
executive at TV one. She was sitting next to me
and we went to her office and she was like,
I'm stunned. Now. I remember I was looking at her
wall and she was sitting around. She's like, how are
you feeling. I said, oh, I'm fine. I'm planning because see,

(01:41:14):
the day I walked in the TV one, I knew
there was an expiration date. The day I sat in
the lobby at CNN in two thousand and seven and said, God,
if this is for me, let your will be done.
I knew there was an expiration date. So I want
all of us to understand that we should be rightfully

(01:41:37):
upset with one of our favorite voices. It's no longer
on one of those mainstream platforms, but we must remember
that that date could come for any one of the folks.
Lester Hope and now today that he was stepping down
as the anchor of the NBC Evening News is going
to commit himself to just doing dateline other shows. Holds

(01:41:57):
have left, and I had people tell me. Have people
tell me, they said, and I'll never forget. I had
a group I was working with, all black. They said, well,
we're no longer gonna work with you because this is
a true story. I got the letter because your media
profile is diminished. And first of all, I'd already decided

(01:42:17):
to fire them because they had they were not productive,
and I said, I'm sorry, diminished. See what happened was
they felt my media profile was diminished because I was
no longer at CNN when in April twenty thirteen I
left after they did not sign me to a new contract.
And I said diminished. We had just announced I was

(01:42:38):
going to get a syndicated radio show, a daily morning
show on TV one, not something a new deal with
time during the morning show. But my media presence was diminished.
Here's what they were really saying, You're no longer on
white media like CNN, so we don't want to represent you.
These were black people, but see it, I'd already fired
them because they had not done what they should have done.

(01:43:00):
And see, the interesting thing is that too many of
us operate by white validation. Too many of us believe
that white owned media is better than black on media.
And the problem always comes up where we think that
it's better, We think it's a bigger check, it's a
better vehicle. And let me be real clear, I'm not

(01:43:21):
specifically talking about anybody in particular. I'm telling you a
state of mind that exists among black people. And so
the funny thing is the folk who said that my
media presence was being diminished because I wasn't on CNN
didn't realize that I've been gone for twelve years. I

(01:43:42):
actually make more today than I was making from CNN.
We actually have done more. See. What we should never
do is believe that their ice is colder. We should
never believe that I my being is tied up in

(01:44:02):
having that company at the end of our name. Twenty thirteen,
when I excepted the NABJ Journalists of the Year war
in Orlando, this is exactly what I said to everybody
in that ballroom. I said, too many of you are
enamored with the largeness of the letters on your business card.
I said, you work for big media companies, but you

(01:44:26):
have small opportunities. I said, you see when I have
sat at the table in front of the President of
the United States, I was sitting there because I was
an anchor at TV one. But they were black folks
who were at NBC and CBS and ABC who had
big jobs. But because they were not main anchors, they

(01:44:46):
were not invited to the meetia at the White House,
and I said to that audience, I would rather have
a big opportunity at a smaller company than that was
small opportunity at a big company. Do y'all realize that
when we launched news one Now in November of twenty thirteen,

(01:45:07):
I could not get an associate producer or a line
producer at a major network to apply for my executive
producer job at TV one because they said that was
a lesser network. Here were folk who weren't even the
executive producer, but they were so enamored with those call

(01:45:31):
letters NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, MSNBC, CNN. They were enamored
with those call letters. What I'm trying to get us
to understand here is that folks should be upset that
Joanne Reid's voice will not be seen every night on MSNBC.

(01:45:53):
They should be upset that they're not going to be
able to see the different voices that she brought onto
her show. They should be But let me be perfectly clear,
Joanne Reid's name does not have to have MSNBC host

(01:46:13):
at the end for her to be effective. Joanne Reid
does not have to have primetime host on MSNBC to
be relevant. What we have to understand is that we
still can do amazing work away from those mainstream outlets.
We can actually build up our own and create sustaining

(01:46:37):
organizations and not bow down to corporate overlords. Because here's
the reality, folks, and I get it. Ask this all
the time. I remember I was going after one particular
company and there was somebody with that particular company. They
hit an agency that I work with, and they said,
you know, we think he is just going too hard

(01:46:58):
against us.

Speaker 21 (01:46:59):
Who can we call?

Speaker 2 (01:47:00):
And the brother said, what are you talking about? There's
nobody you can call because Roland doesn't have a boss.
There's nobody over him who you can call. He owns
his show and his company one hundred percent. I had
to explain to them that if you're upset with my commentary,

(01:47:22):
that's your problem because on the corporate hierarchy here at
the Blackstar Network, the only person above me is God,
and the only person who can cancel me is God,
not Rebecca Cutler, not Mark Lazarus, not MSNBC. And so

(01:47:44):
that's what I would say the joy and read to
Tiffany Cross, to anybody else. When we become owners, when
we control our voice and control our destiny, and we
do what Freedom's Journal says that I have we have
it on our wall. But they wrote a March sixteen,
eighteen twenty seven, the nation's first black newspaper, we wish

(01:48:05):
to plead our work own cause to long have others
spoken for us. That has been the mantra of the
black press since March sixteen, eighteen twenty seven. And so
the message to Joanne Read and to every black person
who's been laid off and let go from a mainstream

(01:48:28):
media organization, let me be abundantly clear. Your life is
not over, your voice is not silenced. You can have
an impact, and you can affect and effect this world,
and you can infect folk with the truth. And you
don't have to answer to a Rebecca or a Mark.

(01:48:52):
All you have to do is have faith in yourself
and rise above that moment and understand that that job
is now in your rearview mirror and there is an
open road ahead, and you can choose to do whatever
you want to do on that open road and truly
say what you always wanted to say, because no longer

(01:49:15):
do they get to tell you what you can and
cannot discuss I'm gonna go to my panel.

Speaker 18 (01:49:22):
Julian you first, ooh bruland thank you for that encouragement
for our people who are being laid.

Speaker 5 (01:49:30):
Off joy and read we miss her.

Speaker 20 (01:49:32):
We will miss her.

Speaker 5 (01:49:33):
But like you said, she has a voice.

Speaker 18 (01:49:35):
She has a brand, just like you did when you
stepped out and did the Black Star Network. She has
a voice, she has a brand, and she needs to
leverage it. There were I was on the call last evening.
There were tens of thousands of us on the call. Then,
what we're really talking about is taking stuff back, this

(01:49:56):
forty seven moment of this person who pretend to be
the president of the United States because Democrats don't play
as dirty as other people do. So we accept the
results even though we believe they're flawed. Four million people
basically voter suppressed. Have they been able to vote? What

(01:50:18):
would have happened. But let's just say this is a
moment for two things. One for black people to start
working together. Too many of us have failed to, so now.

Speaker 5 (01:50:29):
It's coming together time. But the other thing, the other.

Speaker 18 (01:50:33):
Time, it is is a time for us to look
at the strength of our organizations, the strength of what
we have.

Speaker 5 (01:50:40):
I'm looking at Woodrow Wilson. I'm looking at Ronald Reagan.

Speaker 18 (01:50:44):
I'm looking at evil devils who have been presidents before,
and I'm saying we survived it, we will survive.

Speaker 20 (01:50:55):
There.

Speaker 17 (01:50:57):
Yeah, I appreciate your words of encouragement as well, rolling
your spot on, but I just want to be abundantly
clear because all day today a lot of us was
on that same call that you reference. We were one
of of the ten thousand, and people were talking about
well because her Nielsen ratings and she didn't get the awards.

(01:51:20):
And I keep telling folks, no, you go to the
Nielsen ratings and you see her brand alone. Every time
she went from one day or timeslot, Joanne Reid delivered
her Nielsen ratings speak for herself.

Speaker 21 (01:51:40):
She gets so many awards.

Speaker 8 (01:51:43):
She just got an award, an Image award.

Speaker 17 (01:51:46):
And so I tell folks, stop pushing somebody else's narrative.
This was strictly about power and control and rolling your
spot on. We don't need somebody else to validate us.

Speaker 2 (01:52:02):
Absolutely, John quell.

Speaker 6 (01:52:05):
My sore joy and read, this particular season in your
life is meant for you to use your God given gifts,
which is to be a voice, right, a voice that
speaks up for our communities, for our people, a voice
that speaks up against injustices, that calls out people in

(01:52:28):
many of the same ways as Roland Martin does.

Speaker 13 (01:52:31):
But the difference is is.

Speaker 6 (01:52:32):
That now you have the opportunity to use your platform
and your ability to.

Speaker 13 (01:52:38):
Impact millions of people by the means of ownership and
frankly by any way that you want to.

Speaker 6 (01:52:45):
And so you know, I'll leave with this is that
you know, when you're able to use your God given
gifts and you have the opportunity and the ability and
the ability and the means you make a broader impact
on your own terms, that is the way to go.
And Roland Martin is one hundred percent correct in ownership.

(01:53:09):
That is the best thing that you can do with
your with what you have and your gifts that you have,
whatever opportunities that you choose next, I know that they
will be fantastic. And just know that we are all
here supporting you and to keep fighting the good fight
because we.

Speaker 2 (01:53:24):
Need you folks. I want to play this because I
think some folk need to be reminded of what happens
when you step out on faith and when you don't
worry about what other folks have to say. And this
was twenty nineteen, Tyler Perry getting his Beet Award. Listen

(01:53:49):
to this, please sit up.

Speaker 26 (01:53:52):
I couldn't help but think about my mother. I remember
being a kid about five years old. She would take
me into the projects with her when she played cards
some Friday nights.

Speaker 2 (01:54:00):
Bunch of women.

Speaker 26 (01:54:00):
Now these women didn't have more than a twelfth grade education,
but they were smart Black women. They were powerful Black women.
They had great stories to tell. And I was a
five year old kid sitting there on the floor playing
with my matchbox cars, listening to them talk about their men,
their relationships, and their pains. And when one of them
would get really sad, another woman would come in and
make a joke and they'd all start laughing. I didn't

(01:54:21):
know I was in a masterclass for my life. I
would get home and my father would be beating my
mother and doing all kinds of things and saying all
kinds of stuff to it, and he would leave the
room and I'd walk in and I didn't imitate one
of those women, and she would start laughing. There was
a power in that that I didn't really get until
I got older. I remember being about eleven twelve years
old on my way to my new school, and I

(01:54:41):
got to this intersection. I had to walk past pimps, prostitutes,
walk through literally walk through a graveyard, get to this intersection,
six lane intersection, and there was a man standing there saying,
will someone help me cross? Was someone help me cross?
And there were all of these people that kept passing
by him and passing by him. I said, I'll help
you cross. He told me he was going to my
school and he was going to sell candy there. That's

(01:55:03):
how he made his living. So I helped him cross
the street to get there. We became good friends. His
name was mister Butler. That moment reminded me of my
mother bringing her out of pain into laughter to help
her cross. My first ten movies were all about her
subconsciously wanting her to know that she was worthy, wanting
black women to know you're worthy, you're special, you're powerful,

(01:55:24):
you're amazing. All of that was about helping across. When
I started hiring people like Taraji and Viola Davis and
Idris Elba, they couldn't get jobs in this town, but
God blessed me to be in a position to be
able to hire them.

Speaker 2 (01:55:40):
I was trying to help somebody cross.

Speaker 26 (01:55:45):
When I built my studio, I built it in a
neighborhood that is one of the poorest black neighborhoods in Atlanta,
so the young black kids could see that.

Speaker 2 (01:55:51):
A black man did that, and they can do it too.
I was trying to help somebody cross.

Speaker 8 (01:56:00):
That studio was once.

Speaker 26 (01:56:01):
A Confederate Army base, and I want you to hear this,
which meant that there was Confederate soldiers on that base
plotting and planning on how to keep three point nine
million negroes enslaved. Now that land is owned by one Negro.

(01:56:26):
It's all about trying to help somebody cross. While everybody
was fighting for a seat at the table talking about
Oscar so White, Oscar so White, I said, y'all go
ahead and do that, But why are you fighting for
a seat at the table. I'll be down in the
land of building my own because because what I know
for sure is that if I could just build this table,
God were prepared for me in the presence of my enemies.

Speaker 2 (01:56:53):
Rather than being an icon, I.

Speaker 26 (01:56:54):
Want to be an inspiration. So thank you, b Et,
my new family, thank you everybody. I want you to
hear this. Every dreamer in this room. There are people
whose lives are tied into your dream. Own your stuff,
own your business, own your way. God, bless you, Thank you,
Thank you, Scott.

Speaker 1 (01:57:11):
I love this thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:57:14):
That was important to play because I think sometimes folk
have to be reminded that you don't have to seek permission.
Tyler and I had a conversation after that, and one
of the things that he told me, he said, Roland,
if you think about every major black person in Hollywood,
he said, I have offered to them to come to

(01:57:39):
be able to sit down and I'll lay out what
I've done, how I built this. He said. The only
person who took me from his offer was Kevin Harton.
Since the conversation, Nate Parker did, fifty did, But but
the reality is they weren't entry. I need people to

(01:58:03):
understand who something, who's watching. It's just not just applied
to media. This applies to our earlier conversation. It applies
to politics, It applies to economics, it applies to entrepreneurship,
it applies to social justice, It applies to how do
we transferm our communities. There are a lot of people

(01:58:28):
in our community who have conversations about what we need
to do to change a lot of people who are
excellent at talking. They are excellent at identifying the problem.
They are excellent at saying, man, we need we should

(01:58:50):
be doing this. Man, we should be doing that. Man,
we should be doing this. Man, we should be doing
They are excellent at all of that. Rarely do we
ever ask, so, why haven't you done it? I need
folk to understand that when we started this show, black

(01:59:12):
folk told me that shit ain't gonna work. Black folks
told me, man, what you doing that? You can't do that?
I remember YouTube. We went YouTube people they were actually
funding products, literally said black news can't work. When we

(01:59:39):
launched this show, we launched with one hundred and fifty
seven thousand subscribers on September fourth, two thousand and eighteen.
That's what we launched with. How many y'all remember this
social media post when we hit five hundred thousand? How

(02:00:05):
many y'all remember that particular post? How many y'all remember
when we posted this? How many y'all? How many y'all
remembered when we posted this? How many have y'all remembered
when we posted this? How many of y'all remembered when

(02:00:30):
we posted the next number, and we kept going and
we kept climbing. When we posted this, how many y'all
remember that. How many y'all remember when the folks who said, man,
y'all ain't doing nothing, it ain't gonna involve nothing, and
we said, okay, code, were good, were good? Y'all. Folks

(02:00:52):
said you this, and you that, and you booleing, you
booje and you this, and I'm like, okay, cod. What
we did was what Neil Maya said, just keep one
head on your weapon and the other hand building. We
didn't worry about the haters. We didn't care what the
haters had to say. We didn't care about nothing they
had to say, because all they did was just talk.

(02:01:14):
We kept building. Y'all. Remember this one right here? Huh.
We hit that earlier this year. But just so you
understand right now, we've got one million, six hundred and
fifty eight thousand, eight hundred and sixty nine subscribers on
our YouTube channel. In the last twenty eight days, We've

(02:01:40):
had thirty two point five million views. This is just
on YouTube in the last twenty eight days. Eighty five
thousand new subscribers in the last twenty eight days to
watch Time six point seven million hours of watch time.

(02:02:00):
But six years and four months ago folks said that
ain't gonna work. Launched it with one advertiser asked me,
in three hundred and fifty thousand dollars of my own money,
I'm saying that because the message to anybody out there
in media. Tom Jordan and I talked about this beforehand

(02:02:20):
as well. If you take care of the community, the
community is gonna take care of you. Sure, thirty four
thousand people have donated to this show, and I've had
people come to me. I've had people they asked me
to stream stuff, they asked me to cover stuff. Hey, man,

(02:02:42):
can you come out, and they talked about brother, I'm
praying for you. I mean, I'm praying for your health.
I'm praying for you. I'm praying for praying for that.
And man, we got to support black on media then
we really need that. We got to keep that thing going.
So then I called my man, Keenan, who hands out
digital operations. I said, keen It, can you check the
role to see if their name is mentioned? Can Keenan,

(02:03:08):
can you check the role to see if they donated?
And ninety nine point nine percent of the time Keenan
will hit me and be like, mm hmmm, mm hmmm,

(02:03:29):
I don't see their name. Mm hmmm. Folks who will
stand there and talk about, all, man, we gotta have this.
It's amazing we never see their name because they never gave.
Now again they want me to cover their stuff, that
they want me to show up, that they want us

(02:03:52):
to do this. But they ain't contributed nothing, they ain't
done nothing. They've done any of that. And remember when
I told y'all, Remember when I told y'all, when I
told y'all, while we need modern day nea Maya's and

(02:04:13):
when I told y'all that history will always remember the
folk who stood with you, not the folk liking Niamyah
who's on the outside the gate saying y'all can't do it.
They gonna remember the builders. And if y'all think I'm lying,

(02:04:34):
all you gotta do is when you go to near
my chapter three, it says that right here this gate
was rebuilt of the sons of Hassanaiah. They laid its
beams and put its doors and boats and bars in place.
Then it says me and moth son of your riot

(02:04:56):
repair at the next section, and this humanitahthing repaired for
the next section, and it says the next section and
it says, the Deshauna Gate was repaired by Boom. They
laid its beans and put its doors with their boats
and bars in place. You read me of my three
and foot, it's gonna tell you they name all of

(02:05:16):
the people who helped rebuild the wall. So I hope
y'all now understand why every Friday we run the names
of the people control room, get it ready, we run
the names of the people who gave ten thousand, five thousand,

(02:05:37):
one thousand, five hundred two fifty two hundred, one hundred
fifty forty thirty twenty ten five one. They are the
people who can take credit for helping build the Blackstar Network.

(02:05:58):
And when we as bl people take full accountability and
are willing to put our money where our mouth is,
if we are willing to actually engage in the action,
has nothing that we cannot build. And I can tell
you right now we can build a network as big

(02:06:19):
as CNN, bigger than MSNBC, bigger than what's out here.
We've got to first have the faith in God to
do it, second, the faith in ourselves. And thirdly, we've
got to be willing to do the work to build.
So let me think let me thank John Quell, let
me think there, let me thank Julian for being here.

(02:06:42):
I appreciate it. I appreciate the folks who are on
our panel every single night would make this possible. But
also want the folk watching understand we can do it.
Joy can do it, Tiffany can do it, Angela Rai
can do it. We can all do it. And what
also has to happen is folks also work together in
concert to actually make it happen. Your support is crill

(02:07:04):
to our success. So if you want to make it,
you want to allow to do what we do. Contribute
to our Brina Funk Fan Club. We make it real simple.
The target goal is to get twenty thousand people contributing
on average fifty dollars each a year. It's four dollars
and nineteen cents a month, thirteen cents a day. You
could do that by utilizing the striped QR code. Cashap

(02:07:25):
cancel our accounts because we are an inc. But they
but you have to be a loc So if you
want to contribute via cash up, use the striped QR code.
It's right there. Click the cash hup button. To continue
to contribute, you can send your checking money order peel
box five seven to one ninety six Washington, DC two
zero zero three seven dos zero one ninety six, PayPal

(02:07:47):
are Martin unfiltered. It's PayPal dot em e forard slash
are Martin unfiltered. Put that in your signature in your
subject line signature line in Google venmo is Venmo dot com,
forward slash r M unfiltered, zell rolling at Roland s
Martin dot com rolling at Rolling martinunfilter dot com. If
you want to get my book White Fear, How the
Browning of Americas making wife fors lose their minds. When

(02:08:08):
you buy that book, that money comes, that money invested
back into the show. Bookstores you can get it all.
So get the audio version unaudible. When you get our merchandise,
the money for merchandise goes back into the show, and
so go to Roland Martin dot creator ass Spreen dot
com for the actual merchandise as well. And so and
download our Blackstar Network app Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV,

(02:08:29):
Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox one, Samsung Smart TV.
Tell your friends and family to subscribe to our channel.
We want to hit two million subscribers. So just go
to YouTube dot com for Slash Roland. That's Martin, click subscribe.
That's all they gotta do. And so that's what Because
we launched a new show with Jamir Burley and Bria Baker,
I want to launch three other shows this year. And

(02:08:51):
this is what it's all about, not having to ask
somebody for permission to talk about what our concerns are.
So that's what we're actually trying to do. All y'all
YouTube folks, it's eight thousand of y'all. Hit that light button.
When you hit the light button, y'all, that impacts the algorithm.
So right now we got thirty six hundred likes. How
do we have eight thousand people watching live right now

(02:09:13):
and we don't have eight thousand likes? I know some
haters in there. We should easily have six or seven
thousand lights. So y'all should be hitting that light button
before before I sign off. Now, I put this commercial
together because here's the deal. I don't know what Joy's
next thing is. I don't know she's launching a daily show.
I don't know. I'm gonna I'll get that update. But

(02:09:34):
here's a deal. We put this together for the folk
who put that together, for the folk who if you
watch her show every night, guess what want to turn
MSNBC off? And you know what we hear every single night,
roll it.

Speaker 18 (02:09:49):
We begin tonight with the people who are really running
the country right now. Trump is often wrong and misleading
about a lot of things, but especially about hysteril.

Speaker 10 (02:09:55):
Trump falling in line with President Elon Musk in the way.

Speaker 2 (02:09:59):
Of the unset news that MSNBC has canceled Joy and
Read primetime show, the readout, Roland Martin and the Blackstar
Network would like to extend an invitation to all of
the fans of Joy and Red's MSNBC show to join
us every night to watch Roland Martin Unfiltered streaming on
the Blackstar Network for news discussion of the issue that

(02:10:21):
matter to you and the latest updates on the twice impeached,
criminally convicted film in chief Donald Trump is unprecedented assault
on democracy as well as co President Elon musk takeover
of the federal government. The Blackstar Network stands with Joy
and Read and all folks who understand the power of
black voices in media. We must come together and never

(02:10:44):
forget that information is power. Be sure to watch Roland
Martin Unfiltered weeknights six pm Eastern at YouTube dot com
forward slash Roland s Martin or download the Blackstar Network app. Folks,
this is all about us building building building After we

(02:11:05):
roll roll all of our donors, Uh, we're gonna restream
the program that we streamed earlier with Isaac caton fan Base.
If you want to download fan Base, that's a perfect example.
Why are we still sitting here on clubhouse and we
got all your rooms on fan Base. We can be
posting images on fan Base. We can be seeing they're
gonna be working on a micro blogging site called a

(02:11:25):
spark that that that replaces Twitter bottom line. Y'all, we
should be supporting, building up and investing in a black
owned app as opposed to us just being consumers. So
download the app fan Base. Are you gonna invest? You
to start engine dot com forward slash fan Base for
more information, folks, y'all see I'm rocking black on Media
matters hashtag black on Media matters. Use that post that

(02:11:47):
because what we're building allows us to tell our story
and we got to ask nobody for permission. I'm gonna
see y'all tomorrow. How in.

Speaker 16 (02:12:13):
In in.

Speaker 27 (02:12:17):
In in, in.

Speaker 2 (02:12:29):
In in.

Speaker 16 (02:12:41):
In in in in in in in in.

Speaker 20 (02:13:15):
In in.

Speaker 8 (02:13:24):
In in.

Speaker 20 (02:13:34):
In in.

Speaker 2 (02:13:43):
In in in in.

Speaker 16 (02:14:02):
In in.

Speaker 2 (02:14:12):
In in.

Speaker 13 (02:14:21):
In in.

Speaker 20 (02:14:31):
In in.

Speaker 26 (02:14:41):
In in.

Speaker 21 (02:14:48):
In in.

Speaker 1 (02:15:00):
In in.

Speaker 2 (02:15:04):
In in.

Speaker 16 (02:15:16):
In in.

Speaker 21 (02:15:26):
In in.

Speaker 16 (02:15:33):
In in.

Speaker 13 (02:15:51):
In in.

Speaker 22 (02:16:05):
In in.

Speaker 27 (02:16:15):
In in.

Speaker 20 (02:16:24):
In in.

Speaker 6 (02:16:34):
In in.

Speaker 2 (02:16:43):
In in.

Speaker 27 (02:16:53):
In mm hmmmmmm mm hmmm mmmmmmm mm hmmmm.

Speaker 2 (02:17:14):
H m m.

Speaker 27 (02:17:19):
M hmmm mmmmmmmmmmm h m m m m hmmm mmmmmmmmmmm
mm hmmm mmmmmmmmmmmm mm hmmmm mmmmm mmmmmm.

Speaker 14 (02:17:43):
Okay, we are officially live, uh and we're gonna give
everybody just a second here to funnel into the room
and quickly, I'll just introduce myself. I'm I'm Josh Amster.
I'm the senior vice presden A fundraising here at Start Engine,
and we've got two very special guests with us today.

(02:18:07):
I'm sure many of you will recognize the famous Kevin O'Leary.
Mister wonderful Kevin, thanks for joining us this morning.

Speaker 16 (02:18:15):
Great to be here, thank you.

Speaker 14 (02:18:17):
And then we have Isaac Hayes a third. Isaac is
the founder and CEO of fan Base, who is the
company that we are going to be focusing on for
today's conversation. So Isaac, thank you for joining.

Speaker 2 (02:18:32):
Us as well.

Speaker 1 (02:18:34):
Thank you for having me absolutely so.

Speaker 21 (02:18:39):
Great.

Speaker 14 (02:18:39):
So today's conversation, we're going to go into a few
different topics related to fan Base and the social media
industry as a whole. We are going to take some
questions as well, so if you're in the audience, please
feel free to submit questions to our team. We'll make
sure to get to as many of those as we
can during the course of our conversation. But I thought
first as a starting point, Isaac, if you don't mind

(02:19:02):
just talking to us about fan Base and why you
started fan Base and what it does, and then we
can go from there.

Speaker 3 (02:19:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:19:11):
Well, fan Base is a next gen social media platform
that allows any person to monetize from day one. It
has six content verticals, which are just posting stories, live
long form content, audio, chat rooms, and short form content
like what you would think reels and TikTok videos are,

(02:19:34):
and it's monetized for every single person on the planet.
I wanted to remove the barriers that creators have to
monetize content, and I wanted to create something that did
not suppress the visibility and roach of people that you
social media, just based on the fact that sometimes advertising
gets in the way and limits the reach of creators online.
I saw a creator go viral. I felt like we

(02:19:55):
needed something that allowed any person on the planet to
become a content creator, either by intention or by just
using the platform and discovering that ability. So we started
with in app purchase peer to peer subscription. So fan
Base was the first app that actually allowed another human
being to subscribe to another human being using in app
purchase capability, not a credit card, but in at purchase.

(02:20:19):
So before then, you know, you would have these a
credit card, or you could only subscribe to platforms like Spotify,
you know, Netflix, But I wanted that the ability to
turn everybody basically into their own on demand stream services.
So that's what fan Base is about.

Speaker 14 (02:20:36):
Great and so fan Base right now has a reggae
offering that is live on the platform on start Engine,
and as I mentioned, the company's raised just over nine
and a half million dollars in the current reggae offering,
but a lot more in crowdfunding previously, I know, I
think more than eight million dollars and prior regulation CF

(02:20:59):
offerings in total between everything, you know, over seventeen million
dollars in crowdfunding. So, Isaac, what is it about crowdfunding
that has you know, attracted you to it and why
have you been so successful within it?

Speaker 1 (02:21:13):
Well, a couple things. It was a necessity at the
time because we were kind of in COVID. We weren't
able to move. But I also think that the having
a product already built, like we already had an MVP.
I'd already paid for the platform to exist, spent money
building an MVP, and so I feel like when you're
raising capital, when people have something that's tangible and they

(02:21:35):
can use and assess for themselves to decide if they
want to invest their money in it, it's good. And
I always say nothing speaks better for fan base than
the product itself. It's not me, it's the amazing people
that built the platform that continue to do that. And
I know people invest in founders, but I also think
that fan base speaks for yourself when you actually use
the platform, and it also builds in a community of

(02:21:56):
people that want to help support and build something. Typically,
offerings like this in early stage tech companies are available
to a credited investors, angels, high network individuals, and so
allowing people to have a shot to invest in a
tech startup which can scale, you know, pretty large. I
think is enticing for people because a lot of people
never get a shot at this type of situation, and

(02:22:18):
so I think it's extremely advantageous that people really take
a look at fan Base and understand the opportunity that's
in front of them, because then you have advocates, you
have people that actually support content creators that can actually
own equity in a platform that they use, and a
lot of people there are quite a few people that
have invested in fan Base and already made back money
that they've invested infamase by using the app, and that's

(02:22:41):
remarkable because it's doing the job it's supposed to do.

Speaker 14 (02:22:45):
Very interesting now, I know TikTok has been in and
around the news a lot recently, and Kevin, you've been
very involved in that discussion in the news cycle. Just
a fun stat since the kit TikTok ban that was
in place that helped fan base dramatically. I think almost
four million dollars was raised by the company since that

(02:23:08):
band was put into effect and then obviously delayed. But Kevin,
what does it that got you just interested in this
space and looking at a TikTok purchase, what is it
about the social media space as a whole that, as
from an investor standpoint, people should be looking at.

Speaker 25 (02:23:25):
I would go back up to thirty thousand feet and
go back maybe three years ago, just pre pandemic. I
have over fifty four private company investments in all eleven
sectors of the economy, and we know pretty well and
these are private so what matters is revenue and free
cash flow in each case. So we have a pretty

(02:23:45):
good idea of where the pain points are in each business,
no matter if it's insect aside or commercial kitchens for
airlines or wireless charging. They have two challenges always how
do they acquire new customers and they call that CAC
these days customer acquisition caused. And how how do they
best spend their advertising dollars grow as return on ad spend.

(02:24:07):
Those are two metrics that have become within the nomenclature
of every sector of the economy.

Speaker 16 (02:24:12):
Now, I don't care if you're Nike, you care about that.

Speaker 25 (02:24:14):
And social media in the last three years is the
fastest growing spend for acquiring customing customers and maintaining communities
and so what's very difficult to do with and I
think fan bases achieved that is to get some kind
of critical mass, to actually form a community that advertises

(02:24:35):
to itself effectively.

Speaker 16 (02:24:37):
It says, look this platform. I'm a creator on this platform.

Speaker 25 (02:24:40):
And I monetize on it, and it's worth my time
when I get up in the morning and spend my
eighteen hours a day doing whatever I do, because this
is a giant digital community that has choices.

Speaker 16 (02:24:50):
It can go to any social media side TikTok included.

Speaker 25 (02:24:53):
Or Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn even or x whatever
and monetize their business, grow their business, form a community,
and figure out a way to live off it's it's
actually turning into the fastest growing part of the economy
and job creation, and even Congress has started to notice
it because the market caps of these companies are over

(02:25:16):
a trillion dollars. So you have to try and find
from the investment perspective of this deal if you can
catch the wave early enough and it continues to get scale,
because it's like almost like supernova, it creates its own energy.

(02:25:37):
At some point is the critical mass tipping point. And
I think that's kind of the story here and why
it's whether or not TikTok makes a difference.

Speaker 16 (02:25:47):
It may it may go dark on April fifth, we
don't know.

Speaker 25 (02:25:52):
But this is achieving success while TikTok's still around.

Speaker 16 (02:25:57):
So every social.

Speaker 25 (02:25:59):
Media plat for If TikTok gets shut down, it'll be
jump ball for users.

Speaker 16 (02:26:03):
So you want to have some level of critical mass
the day that occurs.

Speaker 25 (02:26:08):
If it occurs, and nobody knows for sure what's going
to happen here, but it does show you the importance
of building a community where people trust the platform regarding
their personal information and their ability to monetize it, because
that's what got TikTok in trouble in the first place.

Speaker 14 (02:26:25):
And I think that's something that fan base is obviously
taken to another level by turning their users into investors
right through the equity crowdfunding solution. Isaac, talk to us
a little bit about this, the brands that is fan
base and how big that community is, and you know
how strong that community is given everything that you've done

(02:26:47):
in your guys' past.

Speaker 1 (02:26:49):
Yeah, So we have over one point four million users
on the platform. A lot of those came in January
just because of that brief ban and it's brought our
NAU to over six hundred thousand in January, and so
it's really brought a lot of attention to the platform
and introduced people to options. I think another thing that

(02:27:10):
really is attractive for fan Base is the ability to
migrate your content. You built something called a content migrator,
so that's the ability to take all of your content
up to a thousand posts from either Instagram or TikTok
and import them over to fan Base. So it takes
your profile, picture, your information, your links, everything and up
to a thousand posts and brings them into fan Base,
so you're not starting from scratch. And another thing that's

(02:27:32):
really attractive about that is is fan Base has a
functionality called tipping, which is giving love right, and so
you can like something on fan Base which is absolutely free,
but if you want, you can purchase this digital currency
called love and tip tip people. And so from that perspective,
you've instantly put all of your content in a position
for it to be monetized and people can do that.
And I think what people will realize is that humans

(02:27:54):
are transactional. We're generous. We will show support and we
will spend money on content that we do appreciate. And
I think even a penny at a time which a
fan base user receives fifty percent of that revenue can
add up, because again, a penny doesn't seem like much
until a million people give you one, right, and then
it adds up. And that's just even where we are
right now on the platform. As we continue to scale,

(02:28:16):
just posting content, just regular posts, allow people to tip you,
allow people to support you, and support is an important
part of becoming a content creator, and so the brand
of fan Base is super inclusive. I built this platform
to actually be a successor to the legacy platforms that
exist because I feel that no I feel like no

(02:28:37):
social media platform is immortal in the sense of relevance
because kids are always going to be on platforms that
their parents are not on. And so soon as my
mom got on Facebook, I left Facebook and went to Instagram.
And I have a nineen year old brother who is
nowhere on Instagram. Because younger people are going to migrate
away from, you know, older audiences, and so what happens
is platforms capture that audience like TikTok young kids, and

(02:28:59):
then it starts to trickle up into the OVA generations
and then that becomes too saturated and then the audiences
start to look for somewhere else to go. So fan
base is a great alternative in a way that I
think I see the vision of what social media is
going to be, especially with content. This is something that
I said even you know, the last couple of days.
I feel like that people are consuming content through large

(02:29:20):
social networks rather than traditional television, right. And I feel
like in the future, the way that people consume content
is going to be through platforms like YouTube, like Instagram,
like TikTok, and whoever owns the infrastructure of those platforms
that distribute that content have the ability to be trillion
dollar companies. Now, that remains to be seen whether or

(02:29:40):
not that it's for fan base, but as Kevin mentioned,
you have platforms like a Meta which are like, you know,
one point seven trillion dollars, right, and so it's really
a great opportunity to try to build something disruptive, inclusive
and for every single person.

Speaker 14 (02:29:56):
We have questions from the crowd already rolling in here,
and Kevin, there's one specific for you here that I
think is similar relevant to what we were just talking about,
and you talked about some of these key terms previously
when you were speaking, But what are three things that
you look for when you're investing in social media companies?

Speaker 25 (02:30:18):
I'm looking number one for scale. I mean, did they
have they proven their reason to exist? Have they found
their niche and they're growing it? So you know, there's
a lot of social media startup ideas out there that's probably.

Speaker 16 (02:30:33):
Thirty forty decks flowing around.

Speaker 25 (02:30:37):
Ninety ninety percent are going to fail and sometimes it's
just serendipitous luck that gets one off the ground. But
I don't want to invest in an idea for social
media because the probability of success is too low. I'd
rather catch the wave after the platform has established its

(02:30:58):
community and it's that it has a right to exist,
so to speak, Because then the only challenges does the
CEO have the executional skills along with their team to
pour gasoline on the fire. Because once you understand why
people come to you, your job is to get more

(02:31:19):
of them.

Speaker 2 (02:31:20):
That's it.

Speaker 25 (02:31:21):
So you don't have to worry about do I have
to prove this idea out as has been tried so
many times. This idea works and we have over a
million followers using the platform now, we want to get
to one hundred million?

Speaker 16 (02:31:37):
How do we do that?

Speaker 25 (02:31:38):
And that's and if you believe that the executional skills exist,
then as an investor, all you're doing is saying go execute.
Doesn't mean they'll do it properly or they won't have
to pivot, but it's a whole lot more attractive then
rolling the dice thing.

Speaker 16 (02:31:56):
Does this idea even have a chance of existing?

Speaker 25 (02:32:00):
And that's why it's way better to pour gas on
the fire and social media than it is to try and.

Speaker 16 (02:32:06):
Start with the scratch.

Speaker 14 (02:32:09):
And Isaac, it sounds obviously based on what Kevin just
said and the community that you've already built up, that
you've conquered that initial challenge.

Speaker 1 (02:32:18):
Yeah, I bootstrapped the original MVP of fan Base with
my own money. Spent about two hundred thousand dollars to
build the original MVP, and I felt that that alone
would leave you know, some questions actually give some people
an opportunity not to say no, because it's it's a
lot harder to prove a concept on a bunch of

(02:32:38):
PDFs or a deck rather than something that you can download, use,
see the functionality, see that it actually works, and prove
the model, and that we actually spent a good amount
of time making sure that will people pay for content
using an app purchase capability. We did that and once
we knew that people would and we started started seeing

(02:32:58):
that younger peoplesolutely do. Then that got me excited because
now I have a community of people that can join
fan base, like I might have been on my Space
twenty five years ago or twenty twenty years ago, and
have those users for twenty years until we become the
old guy at the social media club, and then some
other platform comes along and it will evolve as a company.

(02:33:20):
But I think it's absolutely advantageous for us to be
able to scale as we have a proven model, we
have a community, and we have the opportunity for longevity
and social media because young people and especially black culture
absolutely drive the narrative and the conversation of social media.
So now you have a really long lifespan, a long
run way to execute.

Speaker 14 (02:33:43):
Isaac, what kind of partnerships is fan base leveraging right now?

Speaker 27 (02:33:49):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (02:33:50):
Well, one of the things that we're really looking into
is creative ways to actually do advertising. Advertising is a
huge part of social media, and one of the things
that I talk about about not actually interfering with the
user experience. Is partnering with brands. So brands are able
to create partnerships with fan Base to market and promote

(02:34:13):
their concepts even through audio, with something we call brand
audio on the web. And so we took our audio
rooms right and we put them on the web, and
that accomplishes are really good. Task Number one, it allows
a lot more people to listen to the conversation online
because it's available on your laptop, so available on your
phone without even having to download fan Base. But then
it also creates the opportunity to advertise, create call to

(02:34:34):
action buttons, create opportunities for people to engage and create
events and moments. So we've been partnering with brands to
be able to create that type of opportunity. So, for instance,
the ability for a brand to come on board and
talk about a release and give people early access to
things that they would not get. It creates this kind

(02:34:54):
of fomo about audio because you missed the conversation that
happened on fan Base where people were talking about something
that you really wanted to be a part of, or
talk to the creator or the producer of a film.
We've had a couple of films, a couple of documentaries
actually do things on fan base in audio. So our
brand partnership is really what we focus on for that.

(02:35:15):
And then we have HBCU partnerships. We partnered with Apples
Propel for HBCU students. I'm right here in Atlanta, Georgia,
and I think that's also critical because it gives an
opportunity for young people to get a looking side of
a tech company, to actually touch and be a part
of something and understand what's going on under the hood
and inspire them to build great things and great products

(02:35:36):
and great software as well.

Speaker 14 (02:35:39):
I think we need to get mister wonderful fan base
account who so he can do his guitar jam sessions
for the public and get some tips flowing in his direction.
I think, you know, Kevin, you probably would like that,
wouldn't you.

Speaker 16 (02:35:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 25 (02:35:52):
I wanted to ask Isaac. By the way, I said
this earlier before we went live. I'm a huge fan
of Isaac Hayes. The album from way back. I think
it was in the late sixties. What you're talking about, Yeah,
I mean I still have it on vinyl, and I
just the reason it's crazy.

Speaker 16 (02:36:10):
I just played it a couple of nights ago for
my kids. They went nuts. They loved it, and so
it just shows you everything old comes back again.

Speaker 2 (02:36:17):
So here it is.

Speaker 16 (02:36:19):
But I wanted to make sure that you maybe if
you can, I don't know about the quiet period. Talk
about how fan base makes money.

Speaker 1 (02:36:26):
For fan base, Yeah, So how fan Base makes money
is we receive twenty percent of all revenue of in
app purchases right that come through so every person, and
that adds up, you know, per user. That gives us
an opportunity to users receive fifty percent of the revenue.
Fan Base gets twenty percent. But also there's the ability
to also do these transactions online on the web, right,

(02:36:49):
and when you're on the web, that increases our our
rev share to fifty percent of what comes through the
door of any creator. So we have this online ability
for creative creators to amunetize that way, and Base receives
fifty percent of the revenue. And then on platforms like
Google Play and the App Store, we receive twenty percent
of that revenue. But again, when you're thinking of scaling

(02:37:09):
this to tens of millions, two hundreds of millions of users,
that's a lot of opportunity for revenue as well. And
then the ind app purchase part of even purchasing those loves,
that digital currency, that the way to tip. That's also
and then again once we find and really build creative
ways to make advertising possible without interrupting the user experience,

(02:37:31):
that adds another layer of monetization. And then there's some
other things that are built underneath that we haven't talked
about for in the future, for other ways for the
company to really make a large amount of money revenue
just based on the way that we pay creators and
how creators get paid creative ways to do that as well.

Speaker 14 (02:37:50):
Kevin, as an investor, what excites you about the expanding
social economy? And you know what kind of opportunities do
you see within this space?

Speaker 21 (02:38:01):
Right now?

Speaker 25 (02:38:02):
It's growing faster than traditional media, in some cases significantly faster.
You always want to go as an investor to where
the advertising dollars go.

Speaker 16 (02:38:15):
I mean, you've got to look at it this way.

Speaker 25 (02:38:17):
You got over three hundred million consumers domestically, they're awake
maybe fourteen hours a day. How many minutes of their
eyeball time do you get and where do they go?
Because that's where the advertising dollars go to acquire them
as customers, and we look at this data every Tuesday.

(02:38:40):
We use every single possible form of media to advertise,
from traditional linear television to streaming services to every single
social media platform that can prove to us, you know,
a low CAC and a high row ass and so
we're constantly looking. So I just look at each Tuesday,

(02:39:01):
what percentage of the spend of the aggregate companies across
all eleven sectors is going where.

Speaker 16 (02:39:10):
And there's no question about it. I don't care who
you are, if you're a s a P five hundred.

Speaker 25 (02:39:14):
Company or you're just a startup selling insecticide. Digital spend,
which used to be maybe twenty percent seven years ago,
is fifty percent.

Speaker 16 (02:39:25):
Now and maybe going higher.

Speaker 25 (02:39:28):
When companies spend more than fifty thousand a month, they
tend to use remnant streaming and television for a portion
of it. If they're under fifty thousand a month, it's
practically all digital. So Facebook, Google, fan base, TikTok and
whatever is working for them, whichever.

Speaker 16 (02:39:48):
Has the lowest cats.

Speaker 25 (02:39:49):
You can watch this like an ocean of capital moving around,
and it's huge dollars.

Speaker 16 (02:39:54):
It's huge dollars.

Speaker 25 (02:39:55):
And so you know, if you're just a traditional investor
and you want exposure to this portion of the economy,
you have to find companies like fan Base and put
them in your portfolio along with other ideas too. But
as I said earlier, you want it slightly de risk.

(02:40:15):
Did they prove they get a million? You know, people
engaged on the platform doesn't mean they monetize all million,
but the fact that they have a million means there's
no reason they can't have one hundred million unless they
screw it up. That's sort of that's how it works,
That's how traditionally it works. Whatever got the first million
should be able.

Speaker 16 (02:40:34):
To get the next ninety nine. You just need executional skills.

Speaker 14 (02:40:39):
And on that point, Isaac, one of the questions coming
in from the audience is how is fan Base going
to achieve that velocity, that growth velocity that Kevin's mentioned.
You know, what are the plans.

Speaker 1 (02:40:53):
Well, one of the things that we're focusing enormously on
is retention. Retention is really you know, the key to
scaling a community is once you find that perfect recipe
of what holds people on a platform. How right, Like
what Kevin was speaking about earlier is like how long
people stay on these platforms. This is a battle for
people's attention and eyeballs. Like the average person spends about

(02:41:16):
between thirty to thirty six minutes a day on fan base,
right and it's and that's an amazing part about that
is that's up there with platforms like YouTube, up there
with platforms like Instagram and TikTok. I think audio is
a real big addition to that that holds people because
people are sitting on the platform all day having these
audio conversations, and so we're looking for that sweet spot

(02:41:39):
of retention. So those are things that the functionality that
people want, the functionality that people are used to, and
then also being innovative, like really creating great product but
on you Once you nail retention and got it, now
you can market because you know that no matter who
comes in your platform, you're going to keep a percentage
of those people regardless because you've you've got that retention

(02:41:59):
recipe that just you prinstant repeat, you keep doing over
and over and over again, and that allows you to scale.
So right now, especially these next two quarters, when we
close this as we close this raise, we're going to
continue to focus so much and just really making retention
super super hot, amazing.

Speaker 14 (02:42:18):
And I guess Kevin, I mean Isaac first with you,
I mean, where do you see your industry going in
the next couple of years. I know there's a lot
that's going to be going on in the next couple
of months, but just in the next two three years,
where do you see your industry developing?

Speaker 1 (02:42:34):
I think that people are wanting to consume content in
a non traditional manner, right, I think people just sitting
in front of a screen and watching content is not
how we consume content now.

Speaker 2 (02:42:46):
Now.

Speaker 1 (02:42:46):
We want to have a little bit more immersive experiences.
We want to be able to chat while we're watching
the program. We want to be able to send this
with our friends, we want to be able to take
it with us where we go. And so I think
that a lot of media companies are really going to
focus their their attention on social media platforms to distribute
their content because a lot of these platforms, legacy platforms

(02:43:07):
are struggling to retain the attention of people, like when
you get to younger users right between the ages of
like let's say thirteen to twenty four years old, right,
the younger generation they're spending about seven percent of their
time watching traditional television. When you get up to like
thirty five and up, it's like forty five percent. So
younger people are moving away from traditional television and they're

(02:43:29):
spending their time watching content shorter versions of content. Always
say that, like the TV guide of today is your DMS. Right,
you no longer have to surf the internet anymore for
or online with what you want to watch. Your friends
sends you the things that you like. And so I
think this community based sharing of content and consuming content

(02:43:49):
is how we're going to you know, watch and use
content in the future. And so that's what I love
about fan base because once you build the community, the
functionality depending on whatever media is there, and there's other
media out there to get this podcasting, there's other things
that can be incorporated into a community. And once we
have that again, it's disguise the limit on what we

(02:44:10):
can pull in and actually build the way that we
distribute content. Again, whoever owns the platforms that distribute the content, right,
So whoever owns a piece of the YouTube, piece of
the Instagram's a piece of the tiktoks, right, you're putting
yourself in a position to have an opportunity to own
part of a platform that can scale, because I don't
see any other way that people are going to consume

(02:44:31):
content other than through large social networks with their friends.

Speaker 14 (02:44:37):
Kevin, how about you anything that maybe Isaac didn't mention
there that you also see on the horizon over the
next couple of years. Within this space, I see.

Speaker 25 (02:44:46):
A continuation of ad dollars going to social platforms. I
don't see that trend stopping. It's one of the greatest
challenges for linear television right now. I mean everything's driven
by ad dollars. Everything's driven by a and you attract
capital that people want to invest in your platform to
sell their product to service, and it's the whole deal.

Speaker 16 (02:45:06):
That's what made television what it was for over one
hundred years.

Speaker 25 (02:45:11):
And the fact that those ad dollars are pursuing other
platforms and an ever increasing rate, not because they're experimenting.
They're looking at it from the perspective of returns. So
when you invest the fifty thousand a week or whatever
is you're doing, and you're getting a three and a

(02:45:31):
half row as that's pretty hard to get on television,
So you continue to do it until you burn it out,
and there's a lot of movement and flushing around and
people try to change their messages and you know, I think,
as you mentioned this earlier, you don't know what goes viral.
It's impossible to do that. But there's so much technology

(02:45:54):
now we haven't even touched on AI that is now
being applied to creating content that may be more viral
as a result of just being more interesting to watch.
And certainly our companies are doing that, they're all investing
in that. As matter of fact, this is tomorrow night
I fly down to Miami just to deal on this topic,

(02:46:16):
to try and forecast ad spend by platform for the
rest of this calendar year. And it's a lot of money,
and it's we're just looking, you know, we're kind of
we're not emotional about it. We're just using analytical tools
that we pay for, dashboards that we pay for that
scan for results. We were watching this during the election,

(02:46:40):
you know what platforms are being We're working and kind
of tagging along with those digital spins. So this is
a really, really big space and it's not a small.

Speaker 16 (02:46:55):
You know, idea anymore. It's a huge idea. And I
kind of agree with with Isaac that.

Speaker 25 (02:47:04):
My kids don't watch TV period like zero, So they
get their content many different ways and move around until
I find the community that they want to be part of.
And they're fickle and so you have to keep your
chops up. You've got to keep serving up what works.

(02:47:25):
And there's lots of competition, but getting the first million,
that's impossible.

Speaker 16 (02:47:30):
Once you have that, the rest is execution. Have said
it three times, yeah, and fan Base has it.

Speaker 14 (02:47:36):
They already have the first million, so that's a major milestone.

Speaker 3 (02:47:39):
So clear.

Speaker 14 (02:47:39):
Well, guys, I just want to thank both of you
for your time and thoughts today. I think it's been
a really interesting discussion. Took us twenty nine minutes to
mention AI. By the way, that was probably the.

Speaker 25 (02:47:52):
First I'm glad somebody did it, but I'm sure I
have a whole story on that if we had to
get into it.

Speaker 14 (02:48:00):
Yeah, well, well great, so, Kevin, thank you for your time. Isaac,
thank you as well. Again, this is a reminder for everybody.
Fan Base has a live offering on start Engine right now.
You can there's been a ticker scrolling at the bottom
there invest dot fanbase dot app. You can go there
and learn more about the offering. But I just want

(02:48:21):
to thank both of you again for your time and
I hope you both have a great rest of your
day and a great week.

Speaker 16 (02:48:28):
Thank you.

Speaker 14 (02:48:29):
Okay, thanks everybody. Take care.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Host

Roland Martin

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Breakfast Club

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}"The Great Resegregation", Pastor Jamal Bryant Target fast, MSNBC cancels Joy Reid's show