FL GOP Try to Block DEI in Education, FL Propose Flag Ban,7 Deputies Charged W/2nd-Degree Murder

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This attorney, Robert Hilow City and for Roland Martin on
Roland Martin Unfiltered, straining live on the Black Star Network,
Our Rolands getting mestiscidity. He will be with us tomorrow.
But here's what we have coming up tonight. Florida Republicans
are using new legislation and threatened black fraternities and sororities
by stopping college funding for any program or campus activities

(00:20):
supporting university equity inclusion or critical race theory. We will
speak with the state Senator Serving Jones about his efforts
to protect the Divine nine in Florida. We have some
good news out of Florida. Also, after serving thirty four
years of a four hundred year sentence, a man is
finally exonerated after a new probe finds he was wrongfully convicted.

(00:41):
I'll talk with one of his attorneys from the Innocent
Project of Florida, who helped the Browert County States Attorney's
Office free and innocent man. Seven Virginia shareff deputies faced
second degree murder charge for the depths of a black
man held in a state mental hospital. We will tell
you the emerging details of the haroling trend and statement
for hospitals has been Also, it's been a tumultuous day

(01:03):
for the banking industry. We will speak with the President
CEO of the National Bank of Association about how the
Silicon Valley Bank and the Signature Bank collapsed hood impact
minority owned banks. Finally, reading is an essential part of
life and one roup to create a web based reading
support programs to increase reading levels and children of all ages.

(01:23):
We will speak with the creator Reading Revolution Online about
how they help children build reading skills and confidence using
cultural identity development. It's time to bring the funk on
Roller Martin and Filter extreaming live on the Black Stern
nets it whatever he got the fine, he's right on

(01:47):
time in Israel. It best believe he's skilling. Politics would entertained,
just built up. No, he's rolling. As always, we have

(02:32):
to start with the State of Florida has been as
we talked about last night, the state of Florida has
house buildin Senate Bill two sixty six, which are directly
aimed at higher education. The bills seek to eliminate all
forms of diversity, equity and inclusion programs from state colleges
and sort of how they used to you know, at
least lie about what they were trying to do. Now

(02:53):
they just tell you upfront we are going after diversity,
equity and inclusion. So sometimes I appreciate their candor. We
told your last night how Senate Bill two threatens the
Divine nine. We're going to take you to Senator to
Jones's tweet, I'll just read from Florida Senator to Shervan
Jones h During the show, she said, I would like
to publicly thank the bill sponsors of six, Senator Aaron

(03:15):
Garl for hearing the concerns of the black fraternatys and
sororities by removing language that could have been at an
unintentional consequence to our organizations. As a proud member of
Alpha Alpha Phi Alpha. Thank you from Roller of course.
Florida Senator Jones joins me from tallahasse and Senator Jones,
how are you this evening? Doing well? How are you?

(03:38):
I am doing doing great? So Keen tell us about
the latest developments with regards to this uh, these Florida
efforts to curtail diversity, equity and inclusion, particularly as it
may have impacted black fraternity and sororities. Yeah, I appreciate
you all bringing light to this issue. I think it's
important for people to understand that the House bill and

(04:01):
the House Bill nine nine nine and the Senate bill
Senate Bill two six six, they are two separate bills.
You have the House bill that had language in it
that which was problematic because the bill specifically said that basically,
send any membership or organization that promote, support or maintain
any program or campus activities that violate equity inclusion, or

(04:25):
that espouse anything dealing with diversity, equity inclusion or critical
race theory can no longer receive funding from the from
the state. A lot of our programs here, whether it's
in at Florida a M, whether at UF, or any
other schools that have divine nines, if they fell into
this category who received money through the Student Activities and SGA,

(04:45):
they will have the vagueness of that language could assume
and get colleges and university to begin to quote unquote
defund D nine programs. But currently we in the Senate
that language was totally eliminated from from our from out
of there and then placed in an exempt The activities

(05:09):
of student activities are example from this period. Okay, and
so what was that One of the questions was was
writing or what about things like the Black Law Students
Association or NASBY or National Socialist of Black Journals. Are
those organisms? Are there still going to be student organizations?
Are for groups like that? Well? Yeah, those those student
organizations will still be able to function because they fall

(05:32):
under the category of student activities. Okay, And so this
is what the Senate build that this happened was Is
there any movement on something like this happening in the
House and the House doesn't adopt that type of language,
what will be the next of the dislating step. Yeah? So,
and here's what I will say that I think the
the advocacy around this is valid um for those individuals

(05:55):
who think that this is a win because the Senate
has put language to basically protect these a lot of
these affinity groups and it's specifically like the Divine nine.
That's one thing. But I think they need to stay
on the House to make sure that the House adopts
our language in the next committee stop because remember, the
House language is really what the government wants, but the

(06:17):
Senate language is probably going to turn into a bargain
into as it stands, right now, the Senate prevident and
the bill sponsor have megan commitment that our language is
going to stand, and so I think the voices still
need to continue to be raised that we protect our
divine nine and other organizations like our Black student unions

(06:39):
or the Black Law Association, that other organizations who might
fall into that category. Well, for the public can kind
of talk a little bit about why it's important to
to protect these types of programs, because I'm sure somebody
are opponents of the change of this language may be
listening and saying, well, why shouldn't we have a special
group that cuts people up tidically just have all the
students together. Shouldn't everything just being all the engineers, all

(07:02):
the journalists, all the whatever, the group to our wife
separate them out. Well, when we when we talk about
not just a diversity, equity, inclusion, but we talk about communities,
I'm not even talk about groups communities. Individuals can be
a part of whatever community they want to be a
part of, especially put on our college and university campuses.
But why these why why are these programs important? Because

(07:24):
everyone needs to have a place where they belong to,
where they can go to, whether it's the Black Stupid
Union where whether it's the Hispanic Hispanic Unity, whatever those
groups are, it doesn't matter. Everyone should be able to
go to a group, to be able to feel as
if they heard and they can have thought partners within
these groups. It's not saying that other individuals are not
welcome there, but in this, in this standpoint, these are

(07:46):
in this is where we are. They look at black
fraternities and awards. Why were we creative? Where we were
creative as groups back back during the time to when
we weren't welcome in other groups, and because we weren't
welcome in those other groups, we found ways how to
empower our own, to advocate for our own, to educate
our own. And that's still important to this day. Although
we have probably moved on quote unquote uh in society,

(08:11):
these groups are still necessary in need because these are
areas where where we continue to move our agenda as
a community. Now, Governor de Santis has made U kind
of the backbone of his potential. Twenty twenty four presidents
from campaign that Florida's the state were quote unquote woke
goes to die. Will Governor Desantist sign a bill with

(08:32):
the type of compromises languagena or will it be sitting
back to be reinserted? Say, I can understand the last
part of your question. Sorry, what well, Governor the santists
basically saying this is where WO goes to die? Would
he even sign a bill well this type of compromised language? Ina, Well,
I mean I can tell you this the the Republicans,

(08:53):
they're not going to want to be embarrassed, so that
would probably be worked out prior to even making it
to the Governor's desk. I can guarantee you that someone
from the Governor's office are already talking to the fourth
floor on whether or not they do or don't want this. Look,
what should people do if they want to make sure

(09:14):
that they can put the type of pressures that you
mentioned on the House to make these changes, Because often
these things get through community to get through here, and
fore most of the public even know what's going on.
What can be done to breathing the proper amount of
tension and pressure to the House side to make their
proper changes. You know, this is a great opportunity for
fraternities and soroarritores and other groups to use this as

(09:37):
a chance to reach out to the governor's office, reach
out to the Senate president's office, reach out to the
Speaker's office. And I really think the national presidents from
these soarritors universities should be the one to do that.
Why is that important? Because if if these individuals of
high regard reach out to the governor and reach out

(09:57):
to some of these other chamber heads, I think it
can make a hill of difference for a response that
will come from the Florida current leadership. And just finally,
what this concerted attack on diversity, equity and inclusion in
the state of Florida. What can be done to protect
those programs that do exist, for things such as bringing

(10:17):
in more African American students to the higher education, making
sure we have programs they're specifying black history, they're specifying
black thought, all this kind of macro issue with Florida
going after diversity, equity, inclusion. What can be done to
fight back against that larger effect? You know one currently
now in the legislature, we don't have any leverage in

(10:39):
the House, nor do we have leverage in the Senate.
So the first part of your question, I'll say that
we need to be working now and ensuring that what
we are seeing that we do something about by electing
those people who are reasonably minded when it comes to
these types of issues. We also want to point out

(11:02):
that everyone has to realize where this conversation came from.
And briefly, I'll tell you we see we saw since
twenty eighteen you after the death of George Floyd, this
whole uprising of the elimination of d EI, which started
with Donald Trump, because there was a pupole that was done.
It showed that over sixty one percent of white men

(11:23):
and women saw the word white privilege over and over
again during that time, and individuals started implementing dis within corporations,
within schools and everything else. They didn't like that. And
because they didn't like that, we are now and we
saw this whole uptick of removing d EI from federal

(11:43):
from federal programs, removing d EI from states, and that's
where this continuation is happening. This is a power graph.
This is nothing but a power graph. It has always
been a power graph that we will continue to see
this until we as a people across this country stand
up to let this know the d EI is not
the booge yard. Well, you know, the Florida has always

(12:03):
been the canary in the coal mine. So things are
happening in Florida, you best believe they're going to continue
on the rest of the country. Thank you so much
in the New Jones for joining US Police give people's
update on e legislative developments there. Appreciate it. Thanks, We'll
be back after the break. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered
streaming line on the Black Store Network. A lot of

(12:26):
these corporations or people that are running stuff push black
people if they're doing a certain thing. What that does
is it creates a butterfly effect of any young kid
who you know, wants to leave any situation they're in,
and the only people they see your people that are
doing this, or I gotta be a gangster, I gotta shoot,
I gotta sell, I gotta do this in order to
do it, and it becomes a cycle. But when someone

(12:47):
comes around is making another oh, we don't do you know,
they don't want to push her to put money into it.
So that's definitely something I'm trying to fix. Twos, you
show those other avenues. You don't gotta be rapping. I'm
gonna be a ball player. Can be the country. Scene's
gonna be an oppersent, or you can be a dam whatever.
Showing the different alvenue is not as possible, and it's
hard for people to realize as possible. To someone done.

(13:17):
On the next Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, America's
wealth coach. The studies show that millennials and Gen xers
will be less well off than their parents. What can
we do to make sure that we get to children
younger and that they have the right money habits well?

(13:37):
Joining me on the next Get Wealthy is an author
who's created a master playful being willing to share some
of your money mistakes. Right if that's what? If that's
what you have to lean on. Start with the money
mistakes that you have made. But don't just tell the mistake, right,

(13:57):
tell the lesson in the Masta state. That's right here
on Get Wealthy only on black Star Network. Hi, I'mpton,
what's up? I'm lands gross and you're watching Roland Martin
unfiltered Welcome back, of course. Another Florida story. Another Florida

(14:25):
bill has Republican lawmakers pushing for legislation to exempt the
Confederate flag from a broad proposal to ban most flags
from being flown outside of state government buildings in Florida.
So what this is is they want to ban the
flying of Black Lives Matter flags, for example, or Pride
flags outside of governmental buildings. So they are passing laws

(14:47):
that restrictly number and types of flags that can't be flown.
But now Florida Republicans want to make sure that if
it's a Confederate flag, it gets to be flown right
along with the other official flags. UH the so Florida
State Center J. Collins filed a new amendment to Senate
Bill six eight, which were opposed. The creation of a
new section two five sits dot O four five and

(15:09):
the Florida Statutes once will define the term governmental entity
in restrict that only certain flags are displayed on public
buildings and other public properties. The Confederate flag is among
the twelve types of flags specifically exempted from the band
in the unit, one being the United States flag, the
State of Florida flag, the flag of the United Nations,
the pow Mia flag, the flag of foreign Nations, the

(15:32):
flags that represent branch of the United States Military and
Armed Forces, the Florida National Guard, the Florida Counties flags
of Florida municipalities, public universities and colleges. The flag of
the Olympics and the flags indicating beach warnings are right
now the only flags exempted from this new legislation. But
if you want to fly the red, black and green

(15:52):
Liberation flag, that will be illegal if this new bill
is passed in Florida. The Florida Senate Committee on Governmental
Oversight and Accountable really recommends to the bill if approved
take effect July first, twenty twenty three. We got to
talk about this. Joining me now as our panel, we
have a Scott bolden Ford and chaired the National Bar Association,
Rebecca Carruthers, vice president of the Fairy Election Centers at

(16:15):
Joe Richardson's civil rights attorney, to discuss all things Florida. So, Scott,
I wanted to talk start with you specifically on this bill,
the diversity equity and inclusion ban in the state of Florida.
What is what this Republican sudden attack basically being honest
about they're saying the quiet part out loud now that

(16:37):
we are going after and trying to stop diversity, equity
and inclusion, even if we can carve out something for
the divine nine and affinity groups. They're going after the
meat of the subject of college admissions and scholarships, et cetera.
Why are they saying the quiet part out loud? Now?
What can we do to stop it? Because Governor DeSantis
was just re elected by twenty points, they feel empowered.

(17:01):
The messaging on this coming out of Florida is just
really incredible, it really is. They don't want to say
the word gay, they don't want to use diversity and
inclusion or list it. They must not want to implement it.
And so as a result, you know, the messaging out

(17:23):
of Florida is that we have a race neutral society
and we are going to practice race neutrality. And as
a result, if we say it enough and we live
it enough, then that could be the case twenty plus
years outside of twenty forty three, when black and brown
people will be the majority in this country we call America.

(17:46):
It's a very dangerous rhetoric because it empowers white nationalists
and white racists, It empowers white oppression and white violence
against people color. In the Jewish faith, and so I'm
deeply concerned about it. One of fifty doesn't sound a lot,
but as you say, this is going to spread to

(18:06):
Texas another more conservative red states, and then you're gonna
have a higher level of the civil war that we
think many of us think we're in right now. We're
battling ideas now, but the closer we get to twenty
fourth three, twenty forty three, we may be battling each
other literally, physically and violently or Rebecca. On that same note,

(18:30):
it seems that this should be one of the number
one things percolating through black media, black social media fighting
back on this because just as we saw it stays
your ground laws back in two thousand and six. You
start with a state like Florida, then a you know,
the whole country has the law before you can even
fight back against it. We saw this with abortion laws,
the six week heartbeat bills. You started in a state

(18:51):
like Florida or Georgia, and then it metastasizes across the country.
What do we need to do to get in front
of this type of legislation because they're telling you exactly
what they want to do destroy fifty years of progress
in diversity, equity, and inclusion in society that has seen
black folks and other people of colored catapulting over poort
white people. They're trying to reset that social system. Well,

(19:14):
first of all, Robert, we're not going anywhere. That's the
first thing that Governor Dessentis need to know. We were
here before him, and we will be here after him.
In fact, I'm actually in Florida tonight. And one thing
that I would say that yes, as a member of
the Divine nine, I am a member of Alpha Kappa
alph Authority Incorporated. I am glad that Senator Jones was
looking for ways to make sure that Divine nine organizations

(19:39):
are impacted by HD nine nine nine. However, that isn't enough.
While it's great for us, it's not great for our
overall community, and other communities have colored us being unfairly
targeted in Florida. I do think Governor Desantist is going
too far. One, just like Scotch has said, you can't
say gay anymore, two students who are non binary or

(20:02):
identify as trans are now being attacked. Governor Desantists went
after Disney. So Governor Desantist keeps doing these things and
he's going to go too far, even seeing in the
last couple of days that members of the GOP like
more of the hawkish shipes people. People are going after
Desantists because of some of its foreign policy stances that

(20:24):
he's taking. I am hopeful that people in Florida would
show up and vote these people out in twenty twenty four,
because there's enough people who didn't vote in Florida who
could vote and could completely change the trajectory of what's
happening down here in Florida. Joe. Kind of on that
same note, there's always been this, there's often this criticism

(20:47):
that the Divine Nine, the Boulet, the letter organizations, et cetera,
separate themselves from the rest of the black community. Did
you have the kind of elite bourgeoisie blacks in one
place and they legislate for themselves, kind of leaving everyone
behind by creating an exemption in the legislation that helps
the Divine Nine and other affinity groups but doesn't address

(21:08):
the bigger issue, the destruction of diversity, equity, inclusion. Does
that push well, kind of supporting buttress that argument that
they see themselves to being separate from the masses. Well, boy,
you know what's interesting is that, actually, I think, at
the risk of saying so, may become a bit of
an in house conversation, right how we feel about each other,

(21:30):
how we separate ourselves, you know, whether you're talking about
everything from organizations involved in or part of and not
a part of, or light skin or dark skin or
whatever that was. We're better off with the Divine nine
than without it, okay, and with them being able to
have every strength that they can possibly have, including upper

(21:51):
mobility in the way of scholarships, community involvement, government support
related to that, institutional support related to that. So that's
not going to be the problem right now, you know,
to your point, perhaps some people will use this moment
as one to express the differences, to point out the differences,
and the areas are, okay, why did they get an exemption?

(22:13):
But but but these organizations don't. Why are they so specials?
Some will think that, But that was not my first thought.
And I would like to think for anyone that wants
black institutions to survive, things that were created from a
survival standpoint, for a reason to to survive and a
way to survive. Um, I would like to think that
the first th thought would be, we have to preserve

(22:36):
those black institutions, not those alone. Not those institutions or
those organizations alone, but we certainly have to be with them,
and then some of this other stuff that we may
be talking about has to be in house, stuff that
allows us, if we need to talk about whatever we
need to talk about, so that we present a united
front and can't be divided in common and well and

(22:58):
real quick. On the you of the flag and they're
putting in place, Becca, I wanted to ask you about that.
The idea that they want to list the Confederate flag
alongside the United Nations flag and the flag of the
State of Florida as being exemped from this new flag
band they have. But at the same time they're going
to ban the Black Liberation flag and the ban the

(23:19):
gay boy Pride flag, and ban Black Lives Matter flags.
How do they keep getting away with this level just
bold faced white supremacy. Well, Governor of the Santis and
his hinchmen and hinchwomen that's in the Florida State House
and the Florida State Senate. What they're telling us is
that they support treason, They support people who turn their

(23:40):
back on this country, wanted to rip this country apart,
didn't want this country to exist in any shape, symbolance,
or form. And they're saying that we support treason, so
they want to support treason once again. I tell Florida voters,
you have the opportunity to do something about this. I
even tell Republicans and the Republican primary, you have an

(24:01):
opportunity to choose better and not choose lesser. And so
I'm telling voters there are enough gen X, there's enough
gen Z, there's enough millennials to actually do something that
changes this course, because we cannot go backwards. And if
we go the way that Governor de Santist wants us
to do, we will be going backwards as a country,
and that simply isn't good for us. And Scott all

(24:26):
the same point, and seems the Democrats are running scared
of the Santists. You're seeing more and more attention being
pushed on him when it comes to attacks, whether it's
in late night comedy, whether it's on the rhetoric we
hear on the Sunday shows, and so much so that
it seems that they're almost supporting Trump over the Santists,
hoping and thinking that Trump and inter candidate to beat.
Why are people so afraid of the sentence is a

(24:47):
candidate for president? Because he's not Trump, and we don't
know whether we can beat him. We know we can
beat Trump for sure, and so whether it's the flag
issue of these cultural issues, the santists laying a foundation
for his campaign that is going to harp, arm or
tap on these cultural differences without the noise of Donald Trump.

(25:09):
The Democrats need Trump, who's got thirty of the GOP,
to feel comfortable that with Biden running again, no one's
convinced that Biden can meet anyone but Trump. And that's
the cars that are being played right now. And so
you know, the culture war with regard to the Confederate flag,
I don't tell you they lost that war, that Civil war,

(25:32):
and yet we continue to promote them as the rebel
part of the country. But who celebrates a loser? Who
celebrates a loser like Trump or the Confederate flag? And
so the Santis is dangerous because he comes without the noise.
The Democrats haven't figured out a strategy in regard to
how to beat him just yet, and we need to

(25:52):
get to get in, as my grandmother used to say,
about what that race would look like and whose best
position to beat him, because while he's behind Donald Trump,
right the GOP review of the research says that many
of the folks who are undecided are not comfortable with
Trump would go to the Santists, and there only a

(26:15):
few others in the race right now, and so that's
the power that the santist brings. The unknowing. Well, all
I know is the last time Democrats story getting behind
and hoping that Donald Trump will run, and twenty six
teen think he'd be easy to beat. He won, So
be careful what you wish were We'll be back after
the break, but he lost. In twenty twenty live on

(26:36):
the Black Star Network, We'll be back after the break.
Hatred on the streets, a horrific scene white nationalist rally
that descended into deadly violence white people. As a man,
we approach Trump, Mark storms to the US capital about

(27:00):
to see the lives of what I call white minority resistance.
We have seen white folks in this country who simply
cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing
is the inevitable result of violent denials. This is part
of American history. Every time that people of color have
made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been the

(27:21):
Carol Anderson at every university calls white rage as a
backlass is the right of the proud boys and the
boogaloo boys America. There's going to be more of this poy.
This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and
its attitudes because of the fear of white people, the
fear that they're taking our job, they're taking our resources,

(27:44):
they're taking our women. This in white Field, we're all
in pact about the culture, whether we know it or not,
from politics to music and entertainment. It's a huge part

(28:05):
of our lives and we're going to talk about it
every day right here on the culture with me for
Raji Muhammad only on the Black Star Network. What's up, y'all?
I will packing Hello, I'm Bishop TV Jake, and you
are watching Roland Martin that's sent me home reading his

(28:52):
family after Florida judge at their Florida's dishonerating him from
fort nineteen eighty eight on Robert after the two and
a half, After two and a half of your investigation,
with the help from the Innocent Project to Florida, evidence
proved Sydney did not commit the crime that he had
already served thirty four years in prison, four, Sydney says,

(29:13):
despite it all, he has no hate in his heart.
Joining me from Tallahassee, Florida. It's Steph Miller's one of
the attorneys for the Innocent Project of Florida who helped
Sydney gain his freedom. Attorney Miller, how are you doing
this evening? I'm doing great? How are you? I am great?
Can you talk a little bit about this case in
particular and what evidence it was to help to exonerate

(29:33):
mister Miller? You know it's okay for mister Holmes. His
case rested solely on an eye witnessmiss identification. And when
we look at these cases, we're trying to figure out
how does someone get in a lineup? And the most
interesting thing is this, maybe it's the strangest case I've
ever seen about how someone got in a lineup and

(29:54):
was there for misidentified. Mister Holmes was out of family
barbecue for father day of the day the crime, all
day long with his family. At the same time that
a robbery of two individuals going on somewhere else at
a gas station, and one of those individuals who was
waiting in a car a getaway car, he left while

(30:15):
the other two individuals stole the victim's cars. The brother
of the victim, one of the victims, said, when he
heard the description of the car, said, hey, that sounds
like a car that robbed me earlier in the day.
They went around looking for a car, didn't find a car.
Two weeks later, the brother finds a car that is
a brown Oldsmobile Cutlast, one of the most sold cars

(30:37):
at that time, and says, I think this was the car,
gives the tag to law enforcement officers. It hits Sidney Holmes,
so there was no police investigation. They put him in
the lineup. He's missed. He was not identified the first time.
Put him in the lineup a second time, he's therefore identified,
and that's the case. That's the entire case against Sydney Holmes.

(30:58):
What we were able to do is we were able
to show that that I would identification was unreliable and
confirmed the alibi, and the state finally agreed that there
was no evidence to even try him in the first
place and agreed to exonerate him. Wow, why would something
like that takes thirty four years to be rectified, because,

(31:19):
as you said, there's really no forensics, no kind of
things tying him directly to what took so long getting
this case of finally sorted out properly. Well, I think
what people don't understand is that the system that we
have to, let's say, overturn a conviction is actually designed
to preserve wrongful convictions. So unless you figure this out

(31:40):
very close in time to when you're convicted and sentence
and after you've had your first appeal, the system is
designed to prevent you from continually challenging your conviction. And
so we didn't actually have any real court remedies that
we were able to go in ourselves and file. Instead,
what we had to do was wait for the innovation

(32:00):
of this conviction review in it within the Prosecutor's Office,
a unit designed to look back like at the Innocence Project,
we do look back at wrongful convictions, reinvestigate them, and
determine whether they are in need of relief. It was
only when that office was created in two nineteen by
the previous state Attorney continued by the current state Attorney,

(32:22):
Harold Pryor in Broward County, that we're able to collaboratively,
jointly investigate the case and come to an agreement that
justice was denied in this case and the case need
to be rectified, and then I know they're probably thousands
of other cases like this in every states. Only board
for the National Association to Criminal Offense Ory for Barry

(32:44):
check and when we talk about this, to sheer volume
of this, what can be done to create more capacity
within the legal community to handle these sorts of cases,
even if they even if it does require something legislative
or even an initiative in the prosecutor's office is mentioned. Well,
I can tell you that only five of the twenty

(33:06):
prosecutors offices in the state that cover our sixty seven
counties have a conviction integrity unit or a conviction review unit.
And so you know, for those that want to have
a serious unit that's serious about looking and finding miscaredas
of justice, we should have more of these units because
I can tell you that for the places that don't

(33:26):
have them, I and my team, organizations like ours and
other places have to fight tooth and nail for years,
sometimes five years, ten years, fifteen years just to rectify
a case, often over the prosecutors oppositions. So if there's
efforts to institute these units and they're independent of the

(33:46):
rest of the office, they can look back at this
conduct by the office and there's real effort to try
to overturn role for convictions. We can get these done
more quickly and more efficiently and collaboratively, which I think
the public expects prosecutors to do justice when they see
evidence of wrongful conviction, and these units are the way
to do that and there need to be more of
them all. I remembering the pamel in Joe, do you

(34:08):
have a question for Attorney Miller. Attorney Miller, great work,
congratulations to you. I am wondering out, Wow, not dissimilar
from what was just being said by Robert is their potential.
I'm really concerned about the potential for the political wins

(34:31):
wins w I n ds in Florida to filter down
to this very very important work, and perhaps the governor
wants to weigh in on it that it shouldn't be
happening because the fact of the matter is it's not
very popular. Doesn't get people elected to exonerate people and
admit that your system was wrong, sometimes grossly wrong and

(34:53):
for a very long time. But how safe do we
feel in feeling like believing that the current state's attorney
and that there's enough of an imprint with what's going
on and how important it is that it will continue
to be a priority and grow and not be a
political casualty. It's a great question. Many of your listeners

(35:15):
might know that the state Attorney I Andrew Warren in
Hillsborough County in Tampa, was removed by the governor this
past summer for reasons that didn't have to do with
his looking backwards work to rectify wrongful convictions, but did
have to do with the governor's disagreement with him basically
about political beliefs and approaches. And we have unique, the

(35:38):
governor's unique powers in Florida to do that. So it's
our hope that that won't filter down. What I can
tell you is that my experience of doing this for
almost two decades is that whether the prosecutor is one
that fashions him or herself as a forward thinking progressive
prosecutor or a tough on crime prosecutor, when we have
been able to rectify wrongful convictions with agreements of all

(36:01):
different kinds of prosecutors, the smartest prosecutors recognize that they
can own and take credit for this work because it
is politically viable, because it is politically popular. These are
the biggest news stories in the country when they happen,
and when prosecutors can realize they can take ownership of that,
it oftentimes redounds to their benefit. And that's kind of

(36:22):
what we've been trying to talk about the folks, that
this is good policy and in many cases, good policy
makes good politics. Scott, do you have a question for
Attorney Miller. Yeah, Attorney Miller a Scott Bold and just
excellent work having represented Jimmy Gardner out of West Virginia
who wrongfully incarcerated for twenty seven years, and I look

(36:43):
at your case, your client was incarcerated wrongfully for some
thirty years. Two things stick out of me, stick out
for me as a lawyer and wants you to comment.
One was the amount of time each of them were
sentenced to. I mean, Jimmy Garden was sentenced to like
one hundred years. Your client was sentenced to four hundred years.

(37:05):
And then secondly, what's remarkable about them having been a
let out of prison is the faith and hope and
resolve they maintained while they were incarcerated. Can you comment
on those two points based on your experience and representing
wrongfully convicted defendants. Well, I'm so proud to hear that

(37:26):
you represented Jimmy. I love Jimmy. He's a good friend
of mine and a great advocate for preventing wrong field
convictions in the future. Look, in this case, Sidney Holmes
was sentenced to four hundred years, and I think you're
viewers need to understand that was a compromise sentence. In
this case. The prosecutor, because Sidney Holmes wouldn't turn in

(37:47):
people that he didn't commit the crime with, he didn't
know who committed the crime because he was innocent, the
prosecutor asked for eight hundred and twenty five years, and
the judge thought that was excessive and set out on
four hundred. This is insane. I've never had a case
like this before with that kind of sentence, but in
a case where he wasn't eligible for a life sent
an actual life sentence at that time under the current laws.

(38:09):
The judge through the book at him for another reason,
because the prosecutor, you know, stated he should die in prison,
he should never get out of jail. These you know,
these things are abhorrent. Florida has some of the worst
sentencing laws, and you know, we're trying again to change
our death sentence law to allow for a majority vote
of a jury to give someone a death sentence. Is

(38:32):
going to increase a likelihood of innocent individuals, wrongfully convicted
individuals getting executed. So we're going in a wrong direction
in that way. Now. As for like these people, I'm
always it's so surprising they're so resilient. I can tell
you that Sidney Holmes has an unbelievable family and it's

(38:54):
his family that is with him. His faith has been
with him all these years, and I think it's what's
going to serve him well as he tries to navigate
the path to transition back into free society. He's overwhelmed now,
but but he's hopeful and it doesn't really have bitterness
in his heart. I will say if he had bitterness,

(39:15):
if he was angry, it would be reasonable and he
would certainly we'd grant him that grace. But he's someone
who's looking forward and we're going to help him reintegrate
back into society to meet all his goals. Rebecca, do
you have a question before we go, Attorney Miller on
just a couple quick questions. In your estimation, how many

(39:36):
wrongful convictions do we have now? Is it one out
of ten, it's a two out of ten? Is it
less than that? More than that? And second, how do
you all pick and choose and decide or evaluate which
cases you're going to pursue? Both great questions. Thanks, There's
been a lot of studies Pew Research has done to

(39:56):
study that suggests there's up to four or five scent
of individuals in prison who are wrongfully convicted. You can
imagine even more people who are charged with very minor
crimes that they didn't commit but just enter please that
never even go to prison because they have to get
home to their families, don't want to lose custody of
their children, don't want to lose their homes, these types

(40:17):
of things. So that's probably a low estimate of the
number of people who are wrongfully convicted annually in Florida,
the United States. As for I'm sorry, I forget your
second question, can you repeat it? So, how does Innocence
Project pick and shoes or determine which cases that they're
going to pursue. Yes, so it's a very difficult thing

(40:38):
to do. We have hundreds of people who ride us
each year and really what we're trying to do is
identify issues in cases that we know cause wrongful convictions
and use the existence or the presence of those causes
as a way to filter cases to cases we can't
put resources into investigate and ones that we do. And
then what we're doing is for evidence that wasn't available

(41:02):
to the jury the first time around that tends to
demonstrate innocence that then we can bring forward to the
courts through legal games or to conviction reviewing it to
reinvestigate collaboratively and try to resolve the case without litigation.
But it's very, very difficult to figure it out, and
we sometimes get it wrong. And when we get it right,
we get situations like Sydney Holmes. We're able to rectify

(41:24):
case after thirty four years, and Pernie Miller, most people
probably would think, well, after thirty four years in custody,
he's going to probably get you know, tens of millions
of dollars from the system. Can talk about what the
actual reimbursement is and how it works in Florida, it's
a great question because that doesn't happen, and I think

(41:45):
most people think it should. In Florida, we have a
law that allows for fifty thousand dollars a year for
each year of wrongful incarceration, capped at two million dollars.
It's been like that since two thousand and eight, not
adjusted for inflation, hasn't been raised at time. We've fallen
behind many states, including Texas and Indiana, who provide much

(42:06):
more generous compensation packages. The real problem is that it
has exclusions that make it be that most people get compensated,
including city homes, because it has an exclusion for if
you have committed and been convicted of a prior felony
conviction unrelated crime. And so right now we have a
bill going through the legislature. We've been trying since two

(42:28):
thousand and eight to fix this, and it looks like
this year might be the year that would pull that
clean Hands per vision out and it's going to lead
to many, many people who are equally innocent but for
years and eligible to be compensated and finally get that
in money, the financial support that they need to find

(42:50):
financial stability and overall stability. So we're hoping that are
either consider this year will be able to get that done. Well,
please people to updated. We want to advocate and we
have the whole show has been about Florida thus far.
We really thank you for all the work that you
do and hopefully the legislature can rectify that wrong. We're
going to continue this conversation on the other side of
the breaker watching Roland Martin Unfiltered streaming live all the

(43:13):
Black Star Network. On the next A Balanced Life with Me,
Doctor Jackie re Entry anxiety. A lot of us are
having trouble transitioning in this post pandemic society and don't
even realize it. We are literally stuck between two worlds
in purgatory. How to get out of purgatory and regain

(43:36):
your footing and balance what emotions they're feeling and being
able to label them, because as soon as you label
an emotion, it's easier to self regulate, it's easier to
manage that emotion. In the next A Balanced Life on
Black Star. Nextwork coming up on the next black Tape,
A conversation with the Professor Howard W. Reach on his

(43:58):
new book Born in Blackness, covering six hundred years global
African history and helping us understand how the world we
know today. It's a gift from black people. There could
have been no West without Africa and Africa. That's on
the Next Black Table with me Greg Carr only on
the Black Star net Live Start Networks. It's a real

(44:25):
old revolution there right now. Thank you for men the
voice of Black America. A moment that we have now
we had to keep this going. The video of phenomenal
between Black Star Network and Black owned media and something
like CNN. You can't be black owned media and be scared.
It's time to be smart. Ring your eyeballs hole, get dig.

(44:52):
We're all impacted by the culture, whether we know it
or not, from politics to music and entertainment. It's a
huge part of our lives and we're you want to
talk about it every day right here on the Culture
with me Baji Muhammad only on the Black Star Network.
Heym Dianco from Blackest Everybody, just you man Fred Hammond,

(45:16):
and you're watching Roland Martin, my man unfiltered. Turning out
to the State of Virginia, seven Virginia Sharriffs deputies faced
second degree murder charges for the depth of a black
man while held in a state mental hospital last week.
Henrico County Deputies Randy Joseph Bowers, Dwayne Allen Brammel, Jermaine LaVar, Brandt,

(45:41):
Bradley Thomas des Tabatha, Renee Laver, Brandon, Edwards Rogers, and
Kaylin de George Sanders have been charging the connectually depth
of Irvo on Tieno. During the intake process at the
Virginia State Medical Hospital, deputies philically restrained the decedent and
was smug to death by the weight of seven deputies

(46:02):
on top of him. According to the police documents, Irvo
was taken to Virginia State Central Hospital after being identified
as a possible burglary suspect on March third. He was
in place under an emergency custody order and taken to
the local hospital when he became physically combative with officers.
Officers then transport him to the County County West Jail,

(46:24):
but the County Sheriff's Office personnel took him in around
four pm on March sixth and admitted him to the
Virginia Central State Hospital. Virginia State Police have attained a
twelve middle on security security video, but there's no immediate
plan to release the video to the public. All deputies
are set to appear before of the grand jury on

(46:45):
March twenty one at nine am. Scott, I wanted to
go to you first on this. We have these cases
and it seems the black folks at every intersection that
they have any contact with law enforcement, you risked death.
How can something like this happen where someone is being
taken into a mental facility, They know this person has issues,

(47:06):
they know that this person may act out, and they
still end up killing him while in custody, and they
know that they're being videotaped. This is an incredible This
is an incredible stuff, man, and it keeps happening over
and over and over again in almost every part of
the country. Robert, you do criminal defense. Let's just think

(47:28):
about this. The police clearly don't care. The police training matters,
but I'm not going to let the government off the
hook about that. The mental health issue was so huge,
and he was in custody being taken into a mental
institution to get the help he wanted. The police didn't

(47:49):
have to do anything but taking there, and then they
suffocated him because he's having a mental episode. And the
other thing that you get in this case and other
cases is what's the rush with the police if you've
got a disruptive, mentally ill patient, Right what's the rush?

(48:10):
And either moving them or bringing them out of a
barricaded situation in a home or a garage or a bathroom,
what is the rush? Why not let the mental health
experts do their thing. But the police have no discretion.
All they know is force, arrest and arrest with force.

(48:34):
That's all they know. There's no discretion on the street,
and they do what they're known to do and people
die from it, especially mental health patients. And so so
much has to be done in criminal justice reform and
police reform right for them to be better. But there again,

(48:55):
where is the discretion? And so I've actually been doing
rolling for five years, maybe seven years. I'm tired of
talking about these cases. It seems like every week there's
another case, and it's not getting better. People are dying,
it's just not getting better. The police are just done.
The cities keep paying out multiple millions of dollars, and

(49:16):
you get to a point where you think, okay, enforcement
or money judgments just aren't working, and all the political
statements there are aren't working. The police are just it's
too ingrained in their training and stuff. And what we
really need to do is do a nationwide retraining national

(49:37):
mandate manual for police training and start to implement it
now because they're not going to do it on their own.
The police, in my opinion, are incapable of changing it,
just aren't. So that thin blue line has to be
changed to be thicker or thinner, but more importantly transformative
and better. On that same point, Rebecca, you know, we

(50:00):
need to start a hash tag mental health while black
because the scenes that are having a mental health episode
while also being black has turned into a deaf sence.
What can we do to better tap people are, particularly
black folks who are going through mental health crisises. Robert,
I'm pretty sure that's already a hashtag. In fact, just
like Scott said, we talked about as similar ass you

(50:21):
last week when we talked about the young brother in
New Jersey where he was barricaded in his home. He
was having a mental health crisis. Actually worked with mental
health trauma. Folks who worked with them showed up to
the scene and try to talk to law enforcement who
are on the scene, and they weren't listened. Instead, I
believe he was shot dead. So you know, I do agree,

(50:43):
what is the rush when it comes to someone who's
in a mental health crisis. What is the rush to
quickly get the situation quote unquote handled or under control
by any means necessary. I don't even know that training
is the issue here. I don't think law forcemen should
be involved when there are mental health crisis. I think

(51:03):
there should be a mental health task force that we
have alone, like we have the nationals that for one,
I forgot what the national number is now for those
who are in a mental health crisis. But police shouldn't
be on the other side of that call. Instead, it
should be trained people. We should put money into this
country to invest to make sure that we have the

(51:25):
proper number of mental health counselors and therapists and crisis
folks to deal with what is an increasing population that
have mental health needs. And Joe kind of on that
same point, what do we need to do legislatively or
policy wise to stop the thing from happening? Because it's

(51:46):
very difficult to get any traction on police reform on
the national level. But as everyone has said, these stories
happen on a weekly basis. We can literally fill up
an entire twenty four hour network. Well just came of
let folks being abused or beaten by law enforcement or
killed by law enforcement. What should be the solution or
what should at least be the role towards the solution.

(52:09):
There's a wishless here. You know, there's so many things
that need to be done. But could we possibly agree
and I'm just throwing this out there, could it possibly
become an initial to become important? Okay, you feel a
certain way about police brutality, right, but we all agree,
or at least most of us, that there is some
such thing as having a mental health crisis and that
it actually ought to be approached differently. So you do

(52:31):
one of two things. You make police accountable to make
that situation less likely from happening. And of course there
needs to be this discussion and action related to police
not dealing with mental health issues, or once someone is
in a mental health box or in a mental health situation,
that there's certain rules that are different than the ones

(52:52):
that the police are used to being able to live by,
survived by, etc. Because you're under the guys of mental health.
You know, we have been talking a long time about this,
and you know what can change and when it can change,
And there's more discussion on mental health and that's that's important.
But should it really be that police should be in

(53:14):
a mental health here. There's no question that there's a
mental health issue going on here. This guy is in
a mental health place dealing with mental health issues. But
if you bring police brutality into that, if you bring
priest culture into that, it should do two things. It's
just say no, not here. That's thing one, okay, but
thing two. Have this larger discussion about what belongs with

(53:36):
Pete police and and what does not. But I think
the consolation prize for now is to find some way
for there to be accountability and different rules that that
hopefully lend to a different spirit and a different culture
as it pertains to people that are being dealt with
under the mental health care umbrell. And you know, we

(53:58):
were just on a conservative shore a week or so ago,
and the people on the other side of the aisle
have a completely different view of these things. They say
that there's a crime wave nation wide. Do we need
to be empowering officers to be more violent, to be
more aggressive, to be more militaristic in order to put
down and control me in these communities? How exactly can
we get to a point of compromise where we on

(54:20):
this side. I see a very clear situation. One black
and brown people are murdered on a daily basis by
law enforcement. But the folks on the other side see
there being this crazy crime wave that they have to
put down by any means necessary, and they're not willing
to even come to the point of having a conversation,
let alone a compromise. They want to add to the

(54:40):
penalties too, They want to lock them up for longer.
You know, Washington, DC as one of the highest incarceration
rates in the country, if not the highest, right, and
we lock them up for a long time in Washington,
and guess what, like any other urban center, the crimes
keep coming. We still got a crime wave. And so
I think a couple of things. We have to take

(55:02):
a holistic view towards rethinking criminal justice and law enforcement
and how we enforce the laws. Right. So, for example,
have you ever done a ride out with the police?
You ride out with the police, and the police ride
around in most jurisdictions, and they get a call after
the crime has been committed, and you show up with

(55:23):
the police and the police begin their investigation. Why don't
we put more money into preventing crime versus sobbing crime.
If I'm a victim of a crime, I don't care
what happens after I'm a victim. Sure, I don't want
them to be arrested or return my property or what
have you. But I've been victimized already, So why not
increase police presence in my community, high crime or not,

(55:45):
so that the presence prevents the crime versus prosecuting or
investigating the crime. That's one thing. The other thing is
looking at a holistic approach the high crime communities and
implement with poor communities and rural communities that we're going
to require folks to be in schools, stay in school,

(56:08):
job training, jobs, entrepreneurship, giving them alternative to gang violence
or life of crime. Most young kids who are selling drugs,
are involved in the gangs, are involved in both of
those bad activities because that's the way out of their community,
of their view, and they don't see an alternative without adopt.
You got to give them hope, whether it's with the church,

(56:30):
with the YMCAs, with the boys club, girls club, whatever
it is, it's a holistic approach or continuum of care
that keeps them busy. We used to have midnight basketball,
which was very popular in the eighties and nineties to
divert kids from being involved in crime after eight o'clock
or nine o'clock. But all of these programs, Robert take

(56:52):
money and taking care of poor people or are young
people who preventing crime is far more expensive. Yet we
get billions to Ukraine, we get billions to other countries
around the world to defend against our national security, and
yet we won't give billions to black communities or poor communities,

(57:14):
or communities of kids and adults who are incarcerated. Why
don't we require them to have a skill set and
have a job when they come out of the penitentiary.
Why don't we require them that they cannot be in
a gang. But it's illegal to be in a gang
if you're out of the penitentiary. Serve the illegal when
you are in the penitentiary. Where does the First Amendment
come with that? Just a few ideas, let Scott you

(57:37):
know on that point. Whenever I have conversations on some
of our conservative friends and they say, well, what about
black on black crime, I say, well, what about reparations?
If you want to copy right for reparations and we'll
all sorts of self out we're getting this conversation going
on to the other side of the break. You're watching
Roland Martin Unfiltered streaming live on the Black Star Network,
and make sure you get these streaming numbers of. We

(57:58):
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(58:19):
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(59:01):
palace Are Martin Unfiltered to benmos are m Unfiltered, zeal
Is Rolling at Rolling Esque Martin dot com. We're all
impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not,
of our lives, and we're going to talk about it

(59:21):
every day right here on the Culture with Me Roger
Muhammad only on the Black Star Network. On the next
A Balanced Life with Me, Doctor Jackie, we entrgue anxiety.
A lot of us are having trouble transitioning in this
post pandemic society and don't even realize it. We are

(59:43):
literally stuck between two worlds in purgatory. How to get
out of purgatory and regain your footing and balance what
emotions they're feeling and being able to label them, because
as soon as you label an emotion, it's easier to
self regulate, it's easier to manage that emotion. Shot the
next Balanced Light, Hello everyone, I'm good free and you're

(01:00:08):
watching Roland Martin Unfiltered and while he's doing unfiltered, I'm
practicing the wobble. Last week, we saw the second largest
bank collapse of United States history and the collapse of
Silicon Valley Bank, the largest that we've seen since the
two thousand and eight financial collapse. That was followed up

(01:00:29):
Monday by the collapse of the third largest bank collapse
in US history and the collapse of Signature Bank. As
a result of this kind of run on banks that
we've seen recently, we've also seen the collapse of Seagate Bank,
as well as markets overseas working hard to try to
re shure up this process. We saw the UK brands
of Silicon Valley Bank be bought by HSBC, as well

(01:00:52):
as the Indian government stepping into the reassured startups there
that there are deposits would be secured. And we've seen
reassurances from the federal government Janet yelling President Biden reassure
people that the banking system is secure. The FED has
announced that they will not be or many people believe
the FED will not be raising rates in March, despite

(01:01:12):
the last two years nearly of continuous rate heights as
a result of this, but despite these we're still seeing
people are very unsure about their money. With the Silcom
Valley banks, customers will through forty two billion dollars in
a single day and that's what led to them not
having the cast flow balance order to stay operating. Now,
could this banks deminds me more businesses of more business

(01:01:34):
for minority banks? Joining me now from watching NDC is
Nicole Elam, President and CEO of the National Bankers Association.
NBA was found in nineteen twenty seven as the Negro
Bankers Association. The organizations missing it to promote minority but
depository institutions. Nicole, how are you doing this series? I'm
doing well. Thank you for having me today. Well, thanks

(01:01:55):
so much for coming on during this very I kind
of wrought time for people. I can talk a little
it about what led to the collapse of Silicon Valley
Bank and Seagate Bank and Signature Bank, because I think
a lot of people don't understand that these banks don't
actually have that money just to be in a volt
That money is out living its best life while it's deposited.

(01:02:15):
You are absolutely right. Most people don't understand what happened
at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. And because they
don't understand it's leading to a flurry of people wanting
to take their deposits and take them to banks that
are considered too big to fail. But what happened to
Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank is that they had
a high concentration of their deposits and asset base and

(01:02:39):
things that are considered risky in crypto, the volatile venture
capital tech startups, and so if you have one leave
and you have all of those deposits in that asset base,
it makes it very risky. That's unlike most banks all
across the country. That's what people don't get, and they
don't understand that Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank are

(01:03:01):
unlike most banks all throughout the country, and that they
had a rapid growth a non traditional banking model that
is unlike most banks, like community banks that I serve,
and what you know. Kind of the animating point of
this was a tweet from Peter Till the Billionaire the
kind of spoot the markets can talk about, what causes

(01:03:22):
bank run on these banks and kind of the current
financial fear that we're in. Yeah, so what happens is
if you have somebody who says, oh, my goodness, you
should fear it. Then you have people doing that. People
leave the market and they want to take their money
out for fear that it won't be there when they
need it. And so the interesting thing is the impact
not just that it had on Silicon Valley Bank and

(01:03:44):
Signature Bank, but the impact that it's having on minority banks.
Because most people don't understand that Silicon Valley Bank and
Signature Bank were the bank of tech and crypto and
venture capital. They don't understand that their money is safe,
and so what happens is they lose fear and the
entire banking sector and so we've been spending a lot
of time telling customers that your money is safe, that

(01:04:07):
you need to leave it in our banks. Ninety eight
percent of deposits at minority banks are under two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars, so they're fully fdic ensued, but
people don't get it. And so the impact of that
is that our customers are now leaving our banks and
they are going to banks that the federal government taught
them in two thousand and eight are too big to fail,

(01:04:28):
and so you're seeing a deposit flight and that has
ripple effects not just only on what happened at Signature
Bank in Silicon Valley Bank, but on not big banks
like our traditional smaller minority banks. After the two thousand
and eight financial collapse, we did see legislation and dot
Frank in twenty ten I meant to stop some of
these risky investment practices that you mentioned earlier. At that time,

(01:04:51):
it was primarily pointed towards the real states, to the
liar loans to no money down, no job, no car payment,
mortgages that were being given out. But the tech sector
figured out kind of ways to circumvent this by giving
out large loans to venture capital funds startups that really
had no history or no evidence they ll be able
to pay these loans back. Then in twenty eighteen, we

(01:05:13):
saw the rollback of Munch of Dodd Frank under the
Trump administration. Senator or Foreign Congress from Barty Franks was
on the board of Signature Bank. That kind of freed
up much freedom much of lending prohibitions that we're created
in twenty ten. Can talk about the way that legislation
has kind of created the situation where banks such as

(01:05:34):
Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Bank can make these risky
loans and go under, and could that become a contagion
in the system other people of fear spreading out throughout
the financial sector. You know, that is a great question.
But the interesting thing is that this wasn't a case
where you necessarily had loopholes, and it was a loophole
that led to the crash. The reality of it is

(01:05:55):
is that banks have to go through stress test and
the fact that this is a bank that grew three
hundred and fifteen percent in two years and sixty percent
of its assets we're in treasuries that everybody else was
saying you need to do something different with that in
and of itself should have been something that would have
been alarming and should have triggered a stress test. So

(01:06:15):
what tends to happen when you have these type of big,
major events is that people's first reaction is, oh, my gosh,
we need new legislation, we need new regulations, and we
need to overcorrect. But this isn't a case actually that
you need new legislation and regulations. What you actually need
to do is implement what was already in place. And

(01:06:37):
on that same note, we're seeing with those long term
treasuries The big thing that changed was when they made
the moans. We were talking on interest rates being two percent,
but then after the last two years of Chairman Powell
with the merely monthly seems like raises and interest rates,
now we're at over five percent, which makes those long
term long term treasury notes less valuable. Things that he's

(01:06:59):
following the following the roadmap laid out by Paul Voker
in nineteen seventy nineteen eighty when it came to breaking
back of inflation by raising interest rates. How exactly have
those rate heights are impact to small and meeting size
minority banks. You know, one of the biggest ways that
we're seeing the rate heights impact us is through deposits

(01:07:20):
and the post pandemic, post George Floyd environment. What we
saw is a lot of people now wanting to support
minority banks, which is an awesome thing. And one of
the ways that they sought to support minority banks is
by making deposits. And so you saw a lot of
big banks incorporations really think about making deposits and minority banks. Well,

(01:07:41):
what happened is when that rate environment changed, they then
wanted a deal that was a market specific and not
necessarily impact investing. So what we're seeing is a flight
of deposits that were placed in minority banks at one
rate and people trying to renegotiate it because of the
rate change. And so it really goes to show are

(01:08:01):
people really in it to have an impact and to
support minority banks, or are they in it to say
that they're supporting minority banks and all the same note,
what we saw with these banks that then go under
is that they were very much the banks of venture capital,
the banks of startups. Black and minority businesses often don't
have access to you know, angel investors that are going

(01:08:23):
to come in to help get your business or your
apps started, or access to some of these loans that
were considered risky. What role do small and meeting size
black banks play and kind of filling that gap between
those risky investment investments that something like the solcon value
would make versus people not having access to the funds

(01:08:43):
to grow their businesses and really bring their ideas to fruition. Yeah,
so our banks really focused on small businesses that are
sitting in and serving our communities. Those are the businesses
that we are investing in, and we are making sure
that they have access to capital. When it comes to
larger tech startups that, as you said, are riskier, there
are banks that do that, and so what we do

(01:09:05):
is we partner with venture capital companies that are supporting
those banks, and we really want to focus on, particularly
entrepreneurs of color, those tech startups, and so we partner
with those venture capital companies to ensure that those small
businesses that are in the tech industry have the capital
that they need to survive and thrive. But those types

(01:09:27):
of investments are very different than perhaps the traditional community
bank lending that you see happen on a local level.
And just kind of finally we saw that in the
wake of the collapses on Friday and Monday of Silicon
Valley Bank, Venture Bank, Seagate Bank, they are think there
were twelve plus banks that they had to stop trading

(01:09:47):
in the stock exchange because they had lost, you know,
seventy plus percent of their value. For nervous investors or
people who are thinking on pulling their money out of
traditional banks and putting them into crypto or putting them
into hard assets like gold and rare earth elements, etc.
How could they be sure or how can they know
if their bank bank is in danger of going under.

(01:10:09):
Talk to your bank, right. The reality of it is
is that our bank is not a bank that is
that is going under. Right, Most of the accounts deposit
accounts that are at our banks are under two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars, so they are fully federally ensured
by the FDIC. And for those accounts that are over
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, there are a number

(01:10:29):
of tools that are in place to maximize FDIC insurance.
They're called reciprocal deposit agreements, where banks have agreements with
one another for amounts that are over two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars, so they are secure. So what I
would say is that our banks are probably more safe
than any of the other things that you are seeing
out there. So keep your money at a local community bank.

(01:10:50):
These are the ones that have been sitting in and
serving your community. We have a long standing track record
for over a century of proving that we are reliable,
we are here to stay, we are well capitalized, and
we are full of liquidity. So we are here ready
to lend and your money is safe all right, and
real quick before we go, Where can people find more
information about those small emit sizes of black owned banks

(01:11:12):
and community banks. National Bankers dot Org is the place
to go to find out more information about minority owned
and operated banks. Well, thank you so much for all
the information. I've been encouraging people on the radio all
week learn more about the banking system. Because the CEO
of Silicon Valley Bank cast out three point five million
dollars two weeks before they went out of business. The

(01:11:34):
executives at Silicon Valley Bank gave them those bonuses Friday morning,
paid out by Silicon Valley Bank. They're posited in the
bank than when the bank went under. Now that gets
picked up by the federal government. So the FDSC pays
to bet their money. Learn the way that money works.
It helps you out. Thank you so much for joining us.
You're watching Roller Martin Unfiltered streaming live on the black
Star Network. We'll be back after the break on the

(01:12:02):
next Get Wealthy with Me Deborah Owens, America's wealth Coach.
The studies show that millennials and gen xers will be
less well off than their parents. What can we do
to make sure that we get to children younger and
that they have the right money habits well. Joining me

(01:12:23):
on the next Get Wealthy is an author who's created
a master play book being willing to share some of
your money mistakes. Right if that's what If that's what
you have to lean on. Start with the money mistakes
that you have made, but don't just tell the mistake, right,
tell the lesson in the mistake that's right here on

(01:12:46):
Get Wealthy only on Blackstar Network. A lot of these
corporations or people that are running stuff push black people
if they're doing certain things. What that does is it
creates a butterfly effect of any young kid who you know,
wants to leave any situation they're in, and the only

(01:13:07):
people they see your people that are doing this. Or
I gotta be a gangster, I gotta shoot, I gotta sell,
I gotta do this in order to do it, and
it becomes a cyclable when someone comes around is making
another Oh, we don't do you know, they don't want
to push them to put money into it. So that's
definitely something I'm trying to fix. Two, it's your shows
other avenues. You don't gotta be a rapping I'm gonna
be a ball player. It could be from the country scene.
Canna be an oppersent or you're gonna be a dam
whatever you know, don't trying the different avenues is not

(01:13:29):
as possible, and it's hard for people to realize that's
possible to someone done. Hi, everybody, this is Jonathan Nelson. Hi,
this is sheer Lee Ralph, and you are watching Roland

(01:13:50):
Martin Unfiltered. We talked earlier about the quote unquote war
on woke the governor Rondas sentences launched in Florida. The
idea that he now says Florida state where woke goes
to die. Well, there's a clip right now there's going viral.

(01:14:11):
Conservative author Beth Demi Mendel struggled to define the word
woke while criticizing a clip that has now gone viral.
So they're on the show The Hill. On the Hill's
websites rising, Mandel spoke to Brianna Joy Gray about her
latest book on the issue with the progressive left and
the leftist agenda, and at one point during the issue

(01:14:32):
the greatest question her and said, Hey, what does woke mean?
The title of your book? You talk about it time
and time again. What I clipdown has two million plus views.
The term woke is something that's often used by Republicans
under the conservative attacking critique Democrats, anything progressive is woke.
If you make the Little Mermaid black, that is woke.

(01:14:54):
If you make a character that used to be white
into a minority, that is woke. If you have a
minem if now wearing jeans instead of high heels, that's well.
So I think we have a clip from the interview
of Bethany uh Mandel talking about her her new book
about woke Man. So let's see that clip. And for

(01:15:15):
Americans consider themselves very liberal, and probably few of them
consider themselves to be woken. So you know, when when
would you mind the finding? Well, because it's come up
a couple of times. I just want to make sure
we're on the same page. So, I mean, woke is
sort of the idea that, um I, this is going

(01:15:42):
to be one of those moments that goes viral. I mean,
woke is something that's very hard to define, and we've
spent an entire chapter defining it. It is sort of
the understanding that we need to ret totally reimagine and
reduce society in order to create hierarchies of oppression. Um. Sorry,

(01:16:03):
it's it's hard to explain in a fifteen second sound bite. Yeah.
Lookin So the reason it's hard to explain it because
it's a made up thing, and it's a double made
up thing if you really think about it. Because I think,
particularly in the Black keepers or light community and black communities,
for the past century, we talked about the Great Awakening
about opening up your third eye to understanding who you

(01:16:25):
really are within the society as a descendant of the
African continent. That idea wasn't taken by black liberals, are
by white liberals and turned into something completely different. And
then you started hearing on college campus is in Berkeley
and Stanford, et cetera, about them quote unquote becoming woke,
and then woke became about feminism, became about the lgbtq I,

(01:16:46):
a p K plus community. They woken has turned into
a conversation about intersect said about feminism, et cetera. And
so then conservative took what white liberals said woke, and
then they perverted it for their own purposes, also saying
that now woke was diversity, equity, and inclusion. Woke was

(01:17:06):
anything besides the traditional white American values, anything besides John
Wayne and Ronald Reagan on horseback was considered wokeness. If
we had a black couple of day commercial, now that's woke.
The military wants to have a new policy that allows
people to have gender identification that is woke. So now
we've gone so far from the actual origins of the

(01:17:27):
word and actual concept and definition of what it started
out being, that we've turned it into something that can
no longer be explained or defined. It is now there's
amorphous term that Republicans simply use to badge and to
brand anything they dislike. Meanwhile, they actually got down to
some of the roots when where the thing came from,
they would have an entirely different view of things. And

(01:17:48):
I think it's time we hold them accountable. When that's
time round the centers, an e politician or person Cable
News says they have a criticism woke, and woke is
them is ask them to define it. See if they
can tell you exactly what it is. They cannot because
they do not want to say out loud. I am
against black people having equal rights, that's what they mean
by woke. I'm against women having in place in society

(01:18:10):
outside of what it was one hundred years ago. That's
what they consider woke. I don't believe that people should
have the writer autonomy to challenge white supremacy. That's what
they mean when they say anti woke. So don't let
them get away with it. Don't let them change what
you have defined. You make them come to your definition.
You don't go to theirs. I'll go into the panel, Rebecca,

(01:18:32):
what does it say when you have these folks out here,
like this author whatever her name was on dream More Publicity,
who write entire books, who build an entire career on
fighting against quote unquote wokeness. But he can't even tell
you exactly what it is. Well, she has an entire
chapter where she defined it, right, That's that's what she
just told us. Is this clip? I mean, this is

(01:18:53):
a classic example of someone trying to use AAV and
I understand what it means. So I would tell a
lot of white people out there, including some of my
white friends, if you don't know what the word needs,
don't use it. Don't try to be funny. I mean,
bottom line is like just ridiculous. Um. And I would
even say like you wouldn't even you went back further

(01:19:14):
with explaining where woke came from and I would saying
most of the people were talking about it now, they're
just referring to in the last three years when they
saw on Twitter when black folks were using the hashtag
hashtag stay woke, and so they thought it was funny.
They thought it was a term they wanted to use
a spin against um what what what folks were activated

(01:19:36):
around George Floyd. They're trying to be funny. I mean,
it's whatever. And Joe on that same note, you know
how I blame for this childish Gambino Daniel or Donald
Glover atl Native just as I am. And when he
made that song for the for the Jordan Peel movie

(01:19:57):
with the Daniel h Lua where he said stay woke.
You know he made that song, that's when all of
a sudden it entered the kind of national lexicon. And
then that's when he started getting white liberals who took
the word and kind of perverted for their own purposes.
Then after that started to become associated with Black Lives Matter,
the social justice movements. After George Floyd, that's when Republicans

(01:20:20):
just took the word just about the same time they
took critical race theory, just discovered that and turned it
into the new boogeyman. So how can we reclaim something
that we created and have used for generations and now
it's being double perverted by these groups. There's so many
things that are actually in this category, Robert, if you
go to Miriam Westers, I actually don't mind the definition.

(01:20:41):
I love that you give us the full history of it.
But the definition of Miriam Westers isn't aware of and
actively attendive to important societal facted issues, including those surrounding
racial justice, racial and social justice. If somebody says stay woke,
stay attended, stay aware of of important societal facts, if acts,

(01:21:03):
and issues, including racial justice, I can live with that.
There's a larger story, for sure, There's more to be told,
Like so many things that are out here. We can
go to music, we can go to beer mids, we
go to whole lot of stuff that we started that
started with us and became perverted. So I think the
thing one is, you know, knowledge is keep We're prinalized

(01:21:23):
for what we don't know, so we need to know
that history. Robert. I had to make sure my daughter
has the whole story. She can give us the Merriam
Websters just just like I can. But going back all
the way to the beginning and what that means for us. Now,
we have to take a hold of that and define that,
and it's it's time for another show. You said what

(01:21:44):
you said, Maybe you weren't kidding or maybe half jokingly,
but there's a lot of stuff that gets out here
man at the top of the radio because of hip
hop and hip hop culture where it's being used for
that purpose. But it's not a public enemy. You the name,
and so therefore we really have to do what we
can to take this narrative back, and that starts off

(01:22:07):
with even correcting ourselves and making sure that we talk
about it the right way and to trumpet the horn
that being woke, it's not something for people to fear, unless,
of course, you're feeling you're fearing being outnumbered. I mean,
we keep going back to that. There's so many things
that have been corrupted, but we've got to be part
of it. If they're not going to fix this for us, okay,

(01:22:31):
So we have to be on the front lines in
terms of making sure that it's defined properly and understanding
what it means. But it's amazing that this woman wrote
a whole chapter on it and couldn't explain it in
ten or fifteen seconds, you know, with quiet and no distraction.
That just lets you know what we're dealing with. And Scott,
the amainzing thing to me that these people have to
understand is white people can't be woke. The entire idea

(01:22:55):
is that through prayer and meditation you can stimulate and
open your peniw gland, to open up your third eye
and to truly understand your position, the defined side, that
dimension of the positioning of the aga to black man,
going back one hundred thousand years to the creation of society.
But they don't want to talk about that. They currently
is now in to their own little, a little term

(01:23:16):
that they can say, well, the green eminem doesn't have
a person anymore, so that's being woke. How do we
continue to allow our culture, our history, our society to
be co opted and then fed back to us or
we're repeating their definition instead of learning what our own
definition is. No, I don't think they're repeating it back
to us. They're just using their own definition. I mean, listen,

(01:23:40):
Wokeness is not a bad word. Wokeness is a consciousness
about freedom, justice and equality in all aspects of American
society as we continue to form a more perfect union.
What America doesn't want to form a more perfect union.
It's been perfect for them, over formed it years, from

(01:24:00):
slavery to civil rights, from Jim Crow to George Floyd. Right,
make America great again is their form of wokeness. We
don't have to be sensitive to black, brown, and yellow people,
or physically challenge people or queer people. That they want
a life that is simpler and caters to white America

(01:24:21):
rooted in white privilege and the celebration of white privilege. Right,
So that's their definition of wokeness. We know our definition
of wokeness is rooted in civil rights, justice, freedom, justice
and equality, criminal justice, gun control, right, civil rights, abortion rights, right,

(01:24:44):
gay rights, and all the things that would make America
truly a country rooted in equality. That's what you tell
white people when they start criticizing a woke culture. You
don't want that freedom, justice, equality that the Constitution and
the Preamble promises of America. You want it to stay

(01:25:05):
the way it is. And so I don't think they've
they they've taken it from us, They've redefined it for
their own purpose. So we need to keep our definition
and in these debates with them, we define it. You know.
My lastly, my third grade teacher, Sister Ruth at Saint

(01:25:26):
Mary's Sacred Heart Catholic Church, and Joey Julia Delinois used
to say to me all the time, if you can't
say it, you don't know it. So in English cast
if I class, if I couldn't say it and I
didn't know what I was talking about it, She's absolutely right.
This woman wrote a chapter. Maybe she didn't even write
it actually, maybe she had a mental block. But it's
so embarrassing to criticize a woke culture but not be

(01:25:49):
able to define it. Just really really a bad moment
for her. But it shows you the air and the
lack of depth and substance on how they politicized one
of our core principles of wokeness. Look, I will just
tell these folks who call wokeness in vain, be careful

(01:26:10):
what you wish for. You don't want to really get
black folks looking up and learning things, because once you
have ten million asiaded black men, we have coming awakening
or having their awakening and becoming truly woke. After French people,
what happened in a down in Haiti. When the last
time that happened after Folks of the Stone over rebelling,
what happens when black people truly awake and become woke.

(01:26:30):
You might want to not want to play with things
you don't really understand. If you're watching Roller marderin unfiltered
streaming line on the Black Star Network, and keep this
conversation going on the other side of the break, we
will be right back coming up on the next Black Tape,
a conversation with Professor Howard W. French on his new
book Born in Blackness, covering six hundred years of global

(01:26:54):
African history and helping us understand how the world we
know today is a gift from black people. There could
have been no West without Africa and Africa. That's on
the next Black Table with me Greg Carr, only on
the Black Star Net. Oh, Black Star Network is a

(01:27:18):
real old revolutionary right now. Cloud work Sam Black Media.
He makes sure that our stories are cold. I thank
you for me and the boys of Black America rolling.
He's like a moment that we have now. We had
to keep this going. The video looks phenomenal difference between
Black Star Network and Black owned Media and something like CNN.

(01:27:39):
You can't be black owned media and be scaped. It's
time to be smart, bring your eyeballs home, your dig.

(01:28:13):
A lot of these corporations or people that are running
stuff push black people if they're doing a certain thing.
What that does is it creates a butterfly effect of
any young kid who you know, wants to leave any
situation they're in, and the only people they see your
people that are doing this. Or I gotta be a gangster,
I gotta shoot, I gotta sell, I gotta do this
in order to do it, and it becomes a cycla.

(01:28:34):
But when someone comes around is making another Oh, we
don't do you know, they don't want to push them
to put money into it. So that's definitely something I'm
trying to fix. Two, it's just show these other avenues.
You don't gotta be rapping. You're gonna be a ball player.
It could be from the country. See you're gonna be
an operation, or you're gonna be a dam whatever. You know.
I'm showing the different avenues is not as possible, and
it's hard for people to realize that's possible. To someone done.

(01:29:05):
Ha ha ha ha ha ha Hey, I'm Anthony Smith.
And you are watching Rolling Martin on field. Today's black

(01:29:39):
and Missing. We have Tashaunda Anderson. She has been missing
from Fort Waye, Indiana since New Year's Eve. The seventeen
year old if five foot ten inches tall, ways about
one hundred and sixty pounds, well, black hair and brown
eyes to Shaunda may need medical attention. Anything with Anybody
with information about Tashaunda Anderson should call the Lake County,
Indiana Sheriff's Department at two one nine zero zero zero

(01:30:02):
zero one. Again, that's the Lake County, Indiana Sheriffs Department,
two one nine zero zero zero zero one. Going to headlines,
Choppin State University is not renewing the contract of head
quote the head coach, Wan Dixon. Now Dixon has been
under scrutiny as a former student filed a lawsuit accusing

(01:30:23):
Dixon of not reporting an alleged set to assault and
blackmail by Lucian Brownlee. Brownley allegedly harassed, tormented, and sexually
assaulted the player before publishing confidential information he had obtained
from the student. Brownlee was an assistant coach, the director
of player development, and the director of basketball operations at
Chopping State Now, for those people who don't know, Wan

(01:30:45):
Dixon is a former NBA player an All American player.
He led the Choppin State Eagles programs since the twenty
seventeen twenty eighteen season. Under his leadership, program has had
a mark of fifty one and one thirty nine and
six in six seasons. Following the decision not to renew
dickson contract, Topping State Athletic director Derek Carter made this statement,

(01:31:08):
Coach Dixon has been a valuable member of our community
and we are grateful for his hard work and dedication
to our student athletes. He has made significant contribution to
the Topping State men's basketball program. We wish him all
the best in his future endeavors. Want to hop to
our panel real quick on this, Joe, on this point,
do you think that it was the issue with the

(01:31:30):
failure to address the allegations by the student or was
it that fifty one and one hundred and thirty one
record that kind of costs coach Dison his job? Well,
I guess the silver lining with pat ewing situation is
that it didn't seem to be a scandal other than
him not doing a lot of winning. So it makes
you wonder out loud, right, what's what's really going on?

(01:31:52):
Because the fact of the matter is, sometimes at some schools,
you know, everybody loves a winner. When your coach is winning,
they find a way to get around this kind of thing.
So it certainly didn't help his cause that they weren't
winning games, right, But in then the event, this is
something you of course have to take seriously for sure,
and to the extent that there's potential that your culture,

(01:32:13):
that the leader of your program is complicit in all that.
I mean, you hope that this type of thing, if
it's truly about accountability, if it's truly about keeping a
problem from happening. That's the other part too. It's not
just that, Okay, we're gonna let this guy go because
we got our hands caught in the cookie jar, so
to speak. What you really want to do is have
a culture of support where athletes aren't considered first class

(01:32:35):
citizens and people that might have complaints about them considered
second class citizens. Right, are they dealing with a larger issue?
Because if they're not dealing with a larger issue, whether
Dixon was part of this or not, then this is
about to happen again because there's going to be more athletes,
there's going to be more students, and there's going to
be more situations where there's a power dynamic possibility. But

(01:32:56):
in here this situation, I don't think there's any question
that the fact that you would seem to be a
loser did not help him. That shouldn't be the final thing.
But I'm hoping that they're dealing with a larger culture.
Added Rebecca on that same point, there seemed to be
a culture in college sports where as long as the
coach is winning, they will forgive their players DUIs the

(01:33:19):
best in violence cases, pretty much any activity. But the
minute that you're not bringing those winds home, all those
all of a sudden you have to be held accountable.
What can we do to shift this culture in college
sports and athletics where they will hold players accountable for
activities or initiation assistant coach for activities they do particularly
against women on campuses. Well, in this particular situation, it

(01:33:44):
wasn't against women on the campus, but one Dick says,
the head coach was at Chopham State for about six years.
I think three years ago the basketball team was the
conference champions, So you're right, they haven't been winning as
much lately. But it was also very notable of that
Wand's wife, Robin Dixon, who comes on The Real Housewives

(01:34:06):
the tellmic which Arias on Bravo. She mentioned publicly using
that platform that one handled the situation well and with
integrity and handled it the exact same way she would
wish a coach would handle it if her son's worried
in that type of situation, I would have to largely
disagree because it doesn't look like one handle that situation
to the best of his ability. And on top of that,

(01:34:29):
we're in a country that values winning, and when you
start to lose and all of a sudden, those scandals
start to stink a bit more. And Scott kind of
on that point. You know, we've seen the scandals at
University of Alabama basketball with one of the players there
and his involvement with what led to being a shooting
in a young lady lost her life. We have the

(01:34:49):
case of Uga with the football player who's going to
be a high draft pick who was street racing while
drunk with somebody and a result in the also life
or woman's teammates, some of another young lady in that
case how can we get out of this place where
it seems that we protect and kind of condone this
bad behavior instead of really trying to root it out
and making sure we're producing not just great athletes but
great young men also. I don't think we're protecting it

(01:35:13):
or burying it. I guess those are the cases that
we don't hear about. I guess they may have been protected.
But in both of the cases with Jalen Carter and
the other basketball players from Alabama, those are pretty high
profile matters. The ball player hasn't been charged, although he
may be an unindicted co conspirator or he may be

(01:35:34):
a key material witness in that case. I think with
the endorsements that come now with college athletes, they can
get paid with it. Excuse me, comes great responsibility, an
additional oversight. You know, remember these kids are be twenty
ages of eighteen and twenty two. They're going to do

(01:35:54):
some things wrong. They're immature, immensely talented, maybe even for
bright scholarly athletes, but they're going to do bad things
because you do bad things when you're immature or you
have peer pressure. Right. So the supervision piece, in my opinion,
is really really important parents sending their kids to college.

(01:36:16):
You turn your kids over to college, whether it's University
of Alabama or more House College, right, and you expect
proper supervision and to protect them. But kids are going
to do bad things and stupid things, hopefully not so
bad where they can't recover from it. But I think
it takes school officials, parents, the community, and even alumni,

(01:36:38):
despite the excellence of these student athletes, to put your
arms around them, to supervise them and to lead them
in a way that they're going to accept your leadership
and choose to do the right thing. Whether an athlete
or not, you hope you instill the values in these kids,
your own kids, right, so that they make the right decision.

(01:36:59):
When you're not around. Often they don't make that right decision,
and so they've got a lot of growth to do
as a result. Whether you're an athlete, college athlete, or
whether you're anybody's child. But Scott, all that point, you
really don't think that these athletes get covered for me
these situations. I mean, just look at the case of

(01:37:20):
the Alabama basketball player. He's still playing in the tournament
despite perhaps being an underdted co conspirator in that case.
If you look at the back when Florida had Tim Tebow,
pretty must the whole team were criminals that were often
you know, you had Aaron Hernandez on that team who
ended up going to prison for murdering people. You had
a You have a lot of these players because they

(01:37:42):
can run fast, jump high, get wins for the school,
make the coach one hundred million dollars. They have a
culture where very much you are covering up and you're
trying to sweep these things under the rug. And I
think as long as you maintain that, you're gonna end
up with situations like this where one dison't have won
a championship this year. Is unlikely he would have been
terminated just for the actions of this coach against another individual. Well,

(01:38:05):
heit a minute, let's unpack all of that commentary. The
prosecutors decide who's a criminal or not, you and I don't.
And the ballplayer of Alabama he not charged with anything.
We're gonna suspending for suspicious of being taken part in
the murder of a of a young lady. You can't
do that. What do you think? We're in a police state,

(01:38:28):
so I'm not sure you're protecting of cobbling these athletes,
come over you. You're really showing your conservatism. Now stop stop. Okay,
these people they've got rights like everybody else. What they do,
they have rights like everybody else. Look, if he was
a chess team and accused of being part of something

(01:38:48):
to result in the depth of a young woman, I
think they will just say, well, you can't play chess
until that's worked out. But because Alabama is the favorite
team headed into the head into the march Man, well
then yeah, we can kind of forget that. And so
much so that even after he was accused of being
part of the shooting, he was doing a pat down celebration,

(01:39:09):
entering the court with one of his teammates with pat
him down as if he was looking for a gun.
These kids don't take this too seriously because they know
the school and the coaches will cover for them to
pass a rule that says they can't play. You can't
make up the rules as they go along. A kid
hadn't been indicted on anything, and with Mom Dixon, that's
an administrative peace that he should have just turned over

(01:39:33):
to the dean of that school and focused on basketball.
He may have knowledge, he may even have failed in
communicating or reporting if you will, but that doesn't get
you fired. That's a judgment call. We'll get you fired.
Is not winning games. And so the whole issue of
cuddling or coddling these athletes who engage in bad behavior,

(01:39:55):
I just don't buy it. I think the pressure to
win is really important, which is what you're really getting at.
And if you turn a blind eye of bad conduct
or even illegal conduct, then you're absolutely right. But we
never find out about the cover up until later. These
are very public cases you're talking about, and these kids
have rights just like you have a constitutional right to

(01:40:16):
a lawyer and to be innocent until proven guilty. Let's
not walk away even those principles because you want to
put some performance standard on kids, and that the NCAA
just goes soft on them because they want to win
games and generate revenue. Well that's true or not. There's
no empirical data to support that, and I think you
ought to stop saying that. Look, let's let's just have

(01:40:37):
any cust to board rule that if you are perhaps
indicated in a young woman's death for whatever reason, car racing,
bringing apicating shoot somebody, those sorts of things, then maybe
you don't do sport for a semestery, you don't do
it as the curriculativity for U s investor. Taking clear

(01:40:57):
those things up and perhaps help to the story people
who have died, because just give the rules. Let's not
have the person who died and you're still out here.
Give me the role celebrations at the game, the baby
the rules because we just assumed that people have the

(01:41:18):
type of world and values that were resulting in not
having to pass a rule to save that. Because our
betterfield is a cheerleader, they probably already have a rule
about that. Alabama, didn't the Alabama student get suspended at
first and then kicked off the team. I thought didn't
when this happened in late December, that the student was

(01:41:41):
dismissed from the team at first, So wasn't there something
that happened, But also I just wouldn't point out what
happened at Chopping State is completely different. Here you had
two coaches, and you had a coach who specifically it's
accused of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and blackmailing a student
to do a more exploitive of sexual acts that once

(01:42:03):
that student had pictures taken up him that was then
sent to other team members staff assisted was accused of
doing so, Scott, do you do you think in that situation,
maybe you should have a rule that you get rid
of the coach, or maybe the head coach you know
doesn't do that for a while. You know, I just

(01:42:23):
feel you don't like we're putting in place a system
where as long as you win, you get excused from
whatever else it is that you do societally. Well, they
with coppin State, they weren't winning. And from an HR standpoint,
you don't need a new rule that violates the handbook.
If you will, no one should be shaken down and
taking pictures and exploiting young people like that. He should

(01:42:45):
have been fired without a doubt. And if one Dixon
knew about it and did nothing about it, then one
Dixon ought to be fired too. You don't need a
new rule for that. That's just good HR employment law
and it's and it's NC double A rules. If you will,
you can't exploit anybody as a college student. So I'm
gonna trying to understand your complaint because it seems like

(01:43:06):
a lot of conjecture not based on sights or based
on reality. My point is that we should start injecting
into our public discords there's common decency and common understanding,
and then maybe it's not a good look for the university.
It's not a good look for the nc double A
to have somebody who's accused of being part of the
death of a young woman as part as one of

(01:43:27):
the faces of college basketball and one of the faces
of the tournament going forward, particularly when their parents and
her family have to see this on a daily basis,
knowing that there was some involvement. Just common Deacon, but
if there was a rule, shouldn't feel we're at the time,
We're way over. We'll be back out of the break.
You're watching Roller Martin unfiltered, streaming live while the Blackster
Network hatred on the streets a horrific scene white nationalist

(01:43:54):
rally that descended into deadly violence. White people are losing
their their minds as a man approach, Trump moder storm
to the US capital, who s we're about to see
the lives of what I call white minority resistance. We
have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot

(01:44:15):
tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is
the inevitable result of violent denials. This is part of
American history. Every time that people of color and mad progress,
whether real or symbolic, there has been the Carold Anderson
at every university calls white rage as a backlass is
the right of the proud boys in the Boogaloo Boys America.

(01:44:37):
There's going to be more of this proud boy that
this country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and
its attitudes because of the fear of white people, the
fear that they're taking our job, they're taking our resources,
they're taking our women. If in white feel we're all

(01:45:08):
impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not,
of our lives. And we're going to talk about it
every day right here on the Culture with Me for
Raji Muhammad, only on the Black Star Network. Pull up
a chair, take your seat. The Black Tape with Me,

(01:45:31):
Doctor Great Car Here on the Black Star Network. Every
week we'll take a deeper dive into the world we're
living in. Join the conversation, only on the Black Star Network.
What's going on? This is Tobias Travillion. Hey, I'm Amber
Steven's wet yo. What up, y'all, this is Jealous and
you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered and Tonight's Tech Talk segment.

(01:46:14):
We're talking about the Reading revolution and twenty nineteen National
Sessment of Educational Progress found that only about eighteen percent
of black fourth graders could read at grade level. Additionally,
fifteen percent of eighth graders were found to be proficient
at reading. And we all know that after the pandemic,
after Zoom school and a couple of years of social

(01:46:36):
distancing and isolation, those scores have dropped by much as
three percent. Because of this, the creators of the web
based reading support program Reading Revolution Online, have created a
program that helped children build reading skills, confidence, and cultural
identity development by equipping them for success in school and life.
A Ta, the creator of Reading Revolution Online, joins me

(01:46:57):
from Atlanta, Georgia, TK. How are you doing this? I
am blessed. How are you today? I am outstanding? So
talk a little bit about what led you to the
development of this product. Because of this program, because we
see so many children, we all hurt the statistics saying
that they built. They decide where to build jails and

(01:47:17):
prisons are based on third grade readings. Who are What
really inspired you to develop a program to help young
black students read well. It started when I was a
language ours teacher and a reading specialist, when I noticed that,
you know, many of our students who were not doing
well and in my area as a reading specialist, they
sent all the students to me who had not passed

(01:47:38):
the state tests and reading. So every day I would
write up a brief reading selection about a black hero
or shero, ancient or modern, and then I would add
to multiple choice questions that would simulate how they would
experience this content on the state reading test because it
was supposed to be similar to the structure the differences.
The content was about our history and about our culture

(01:48:00):
that I knew that they were not getting in their
other classes. And so in the process of doing that,
over time, we began to take that information and then
put it into a book called Reading Revolution. That book
did very very well nationally and internationally. But in two
and eighteen we began digitizing the content and then we
recently released Reading Revolution Online. It's an interactive, multimodal platform.

(01:48:26):
So for each of the reading selections about a black
hero or shero, ancient or modern, there's also a captioned video.
There is a vocabulary activity, there's a grammar and writing activity,
because we want to make sure that our children are
proficient in all of those different areas. Listen, we know
that our children are brilliant beyond measure and that those

(01:48:49):
low scores that you sided a little bit earlier are
not an indication of their intelligence or their capability. What
it is is it's an indication of the access and
opportunit unity gaps that our children don't have access to
quality teachers and to quality programs like this. You know,
throughout the show, kind of the theme has been this

(01:49:11):
attack on diversity, equity, inclusion, and education, particularly in Florida,
which has been kind of Cassius Belli of the show. Today,
we can explain why it's so important to present education
in a form that is culturally and ethnically and language
wise amenable and digestible by students, and why it's important

(01:49:32):
actually have books and programs with topics and with figures
that reflect them and they can see themselves in so
important to have culturally relevant material because when information is irrelevant,
then students begin to check out. We know, almost a
hundred years ago, Carter G. Woodson told us about the
damages that miseducation causes when children are given an education

(01:49:55):
or type of schooling that doesn't speak to their reality
or life as they will face it. But then in
while Mubaruti says, miseducation leads to diseducation, and diseducation is
an anti learning psychology. What does that mean? It means
you've lied to me so much. Now I don't want
to learn anything, so I have just mentally checked out.

(01:50:16):
Even though I haven't dropped out of college, out of school,
I have opted out. So so many of our children
are mentally checking out. But Reading Revolution is changing that
for our children. Our children are more engaged. They're learning
the truth about their history and their culture and their
loving engaging in these activities, and it's done in a
manner that stimulates their intellectual and academic and cultural growth.

(01:50:40):
All right, I want to bring the panel in thing
we lost Scott. But Rebecca, did you have questions about
the Reading Revolution online? Yes, Karkola. Even before kids get
to school, what are tips at parents could do to
engage their children and help them to develop a love
of reading. One of the best things that parents can

(01:51:03):
do with their children is to read with their children
every single day, and that can start from a very
very early age. One of the things that that does
is it increases reading fluency, it increases reading comprehension, and
it increases vocabulary development. So simply by choosing books that
are reflective of the culture and the values that we

(01:51:25):
want our children to have and reading those books to
our children every day can dramatically increase reading and literacy scores.
And before I go to Joe, I had a follow
up on Rebecca's question because I want you to talk
a little bit while it's important to make sure that
the curriculum is something that the children can know, understand

(01:51:46):
and digest and be able to remember. Because the way,
as you said, that's the way my parents taught me
to read was we read the Bible every night. So
I read the King James Virgion of the Bible all
the way through before kindergarten. So when I get the
in the garden talking about you, therefore thou art and
stuff a little bit crazy. So I can talk a
little bit about how having relative subject matter is important. Yeah,

(01:52:09):
the relevant subject matter is so important, And say shout
out to your parents because they did expose you to that,
and that's great, and I'm sure it improved your comprehension
and reading fluency skills. But we want to make sure
we know that our children are again was really for
making friends, Yes, I'm sure, I'm sure. But we know
that our children are brilliant beyond measure. But one of
the things that we have to do is we have

(01:52:30):
to take responsibility and bring them up to speed. Reading
Revolution Online is being used in a number of schools
and school districts around the country and even internationally. However,
we cannot wait for the public schools to get a clue,
and this is why it's so important that we have
this movement where we're going directly to parents and making
it available to them so that they can utilize this

(01:52:51):
with their children at home. You can use it at home.
You can use it on your smartphone, your tablet, your laptop.
You can use it while you're driving around running errands
and your I was in the seat next to you.
They can be doing the Reading Revolution activities and gaining
and tremendously by engaging in these different activities. All right, Joe,
do you have a question about the Reading Revolution Online? Yeah? Sure,

(01:53:15):
Doctor Cool how does I remember when I was little,
you know, those of us at the old school, we
had that physical library. We had a library on Crenshaw
in South Central and this coh and I specifically remember
because when I brought books late, she would take the
card out so that I didn't have to pay my
ten cents a day for the book being late being
brought back. Tell us about the connection with the physical library. Okay,

(01:53:37):
that's still perhaps in somewhere else, the cheapest resource or
the cheapest way to connect, particularly at some places, some
communities where internet is not as good as prevalent, Sometimes
people use the library for internet, etc. Is there encouragement
our connection to the library now? Is it more difficult

(01:53:59):
because of you're trying to make sure that culturally sensitive
materials and things that they're going to embrace proliferate there
and maybe that's a little bit harder to find. And
are there other connections related to other online or low
cost resources that will allow families to build on what
it is that you're doing with this program. Yeah, So

(01:54:21):
let me say first of all that having physical books
at home, I believe every black family should have a
library in their home. Every Black family should have a
library in their home of physical books, but we wanted
to make this accessible in a multimodal platform also in
a way that children could receive it. And what we

(01:54:41):
found is that because it's visual there's a caption video
for each reading selection, they're also hearing it. They're watching
the words go across the screen, and so they're being
impacted on several different levels. That allows them to digest
the material even better. So I'm not saying don't have
the physical book books, please do, but with this you

(01:55:02):
can have it wherever you go. In addition, it tracts
your child's progress across all across ninety different reading selections
and four activities for each of those ninety reading selections,
all in an interactive platform that parents can log into.
And so that's why we highly recommend it. In about

(01:55:23):
a minute, can tell us is kind of the nuts
and bolt. So how this program works and how kind
of a different differentiates from any of the other things
on the market. Sure, one of the things that differentiated
first of all is the cultural content. One of the
challenges that we're facing is that, you know, our children
are exposed to a culturally irrelevant curriculum even in the
few places and spaces where African Americans are mentioned. It's

(01:55:47):
not an authentic representation of our culture. In addition, when
our history or culture is talked about, they start us
at our lowest point in slavery, or they'll start us
in civil rights. And while those period of time are very,
very important, our history and our culture is so much
more than just slavery or civil rights. You don't start

(01:56:07):
a people's story at their lowest point. And so that's
why we've taken it all the way back to Africa
to make that African cultural connection, so that people understand
why we're called African Americans and that we have a
rich tradition that's worthy to be respected. But we have
to be the first people to respect it. And we
have to do as our ancestors said, we have to

(01:56:28):
gain knowledge of self. And in gaining that knowledge of self,
you know, I think we'll see our students begin to
pull their pants up. I think we'll see them begin
to press towards excellence. I think we'll see them take
their schooling and their education a lot more seriously. In
addition to that, they will treat their peers differently because
of the values and the character traits of resilience and

(01:56:52):
self determination and faith and unity that are embedded and
woven into every selection and in the Reading Revolution Online curriculum.
And so that's one of the things that distinguishes this
from any other resources. We've had educational leaders and principles say,
doctor Kua, this is exactly what I was looking for,

(01:57:13):
and I didn't even realize it. My students were engaged
at a higher level. But here's the other thing teachers
and leaders are telling us, I'm learning new things about
African American history and culture that I didn't know. So
parents as well as teachers and leaders love Reading Revolution
Online because many of them didn't get these lessons coming

(01:57:35):
through school. So it's a win win win situation across
the board. But we are thank you for everything that
you are working on. Police Heeple was updated. I think
it's an outstanding resource that I really wish I had
when I was a child. Thank you, yes, doctor, for
everything that you're doing. One last thing can I add?
Can I add one last thing? For those that go

(01:57:57):
to Reading Revolution. I'm sorry for those that go to
Eat Revolution dot org. If you click on parents, we
have a special that we've made available for Roland Martin unfiltered.
When you go to reading revolution dot org, click on
parents and put in the coupon code read our ead,
and you will get a special discount. If you pay

(01:58:18):
upfront the whole thing. Just put that in, you get
a special discount. If you want to pay monthly, put
read m O M standing for monthly, and then you'll
get a special discount. And that discount is tense amount
to really paying a dollar a day. And I have
to ask, is your child's future an academic success worth

(01:58:38):
a dollar a day if it is to reading Revolution
dot org. All right, thank you so much, dotor too.
I got to thank our panel for joining us today,
Thank Roland for let me sit. They inform me he'll
be back tomorrow. Thanks to the control roles making all
this work. And as let's say the endevisual on words,
guilt's gotta hearing no matter the consequence of the fears
to grip your senses. You got to hold onto your dreams,
Hold onto your dreams, America, folks. Black Star Network is

(01:59:02):
deep a real old revolutionary right now, black media. He
makes sure that our stories are told. I thank you
for being the boys of Black America Rolling all moments
that we have. Now we have to keep this going.
The video looks phenomenal. See this difference between Black Star
Network and Black owned media and something like CNN. You

(01:59:26):
can't be black owned media and be escaped. It's time
to be smart. Bring your eyeballs, hold your dig pull
up a chair, take your seat the black Tape with me,
doctor great Car here on the Black Star Network. Every

(01:59:46):
week we'll take a deeper dive into the world we're
living in. Join the conversation only on the Black Star Network.
I am doctor Jackie did Martin and I have a
question for you. Ever feel as if your life is
teetering and weight and pressure of the world it's consistently
on your shoulders. Will let me tell you living a

(02:00:07):
balanced life isn't easy. Join me each Tuesday on Black
Star Network for a balanced life. But

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