Best of 2025 - Pastor Jamal Bryant On 40-Day Fast Against Target, Black America's Success, Politics. Recorded 2025.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Morning everybody, It's the DJ Envy Jess Hilarious, Charlamage, the
guy we are the Breakfast Club Lawn LaRosa is here.
We got a special guest in the building. Yes, indeed
have passed, Jamaal Bryant.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome brother, Thank you, sir. Good to be with y'all.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
How you feeling this morning, Bill?
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Great?
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Feeling good?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
You flew in this I flew in last night. Oh
wow wow, get right after the service, right after, sirvice. Yeah,
I was too scared. I was gonna be delayed. Delta
got a whole lot going on right now. So I
came in last night. Better safe than sorry.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
You know you you one of the people who you
You actually use social media to spread the word and
spread what you're doing in a in a great way.
When did you realize that you had to start doing it?
Speaker 1 (00:43):
I think, uh, culture made it. The culture changes every
four years. Church culture changes every twenty so the average
church is fifteen years behind schedule. So to reach a
younger demographic, I knew I had to hear that most
churches Charlamagne broadcasts on Facebook. Most young people are on TikTok,
(01:03):
So it's a great disconnect. So social media really is
that bridge to make the church relevant to a generation
as disconnected and.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Church called you said, church cold changes every twenty.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Years, look like well by virtue of the fact that
we're always running behind. So the average Black church wouldn't
even know what AI is. You have to think most
churches didn't even stream to the pandemic. Three thousand, three
forty five churches closed in the pandemic simply because they
(01:34):
didn't have online given they still passing the plate in
writing checks and don't know how to download. So a
lot of our churches have got to really run up
to speed.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Wow, and how is that with the old congregation, the
older congregation and the younger congregation with the TikTok and
Facebook mesh, Right.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
It is really a changing of the guard. That church is.
What was our grandmother's church with funeral home fans and
fried chicken downstairs has shifted and the newer generation may
not come to a physical building. They may just stream.
So those who are on the old church that are
you ain't really doing it if you ain't in the
(02:12):
building when we do everything online. So to say that
you're not really connected to God because you're streaming and
not sitting on the pew. Is a disconnective of what
the culture is and where we're going.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
What's your I mean, I know you get you always
get people that love you or don't love you. They
probably used to this, But what's your model every day
when you're like, Okay, I'm gonna get up, I'm gonna
say something that people probably won't touch. What's that motivating factor?
Because sometimes I think pastor stereoway from stuff because they
don't want controversy, because they think controversy means that God
is not within the house anymore.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Yeah, there's an incredible book called The Carriage to be Disliked.
There's a whole lot of people always live for other
people's affirmation. John Maxwell said, if you want to be
like sell ice cream, but if you add sprinkles, somebody
gonna be allergic to it. And so I think that
the call to be great and a call to make
a difference is realizing that you're going to go outside
(03:07):
of the culture. When Doctor King was killed, his popularity
was at its lowest. But now everybody got street signs
and T shirts and a lot of times people don't
recognize your greatness until after you make the impact. Maha
Na Gandhi said, first they laugh at you, then they
try to kill you, then they try to copy what
you did. And so once you find out how to
(03:28):
be a frontiersman and to make that difference, it'll really
free you from other people's opinion.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I wanted to ask one more back to the church question.
Is a physical church necessarily needed?
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Right?
Speaker 2 (03:38):
And the reason I asked that is you talk about
the amount of people at Duch Stream, right. Yeah, it's
difficult to get out if you have a bunch of
kids and everything that's going on in this world, people
are scared. Is it physical church needed now?
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Absolutely? It is the power of unity. There was an
article a couple of weeks ago how social media has
made this the loneliest age. People are connected online but
disconnected from people. So a lot of people are depressed,
a lot of people have anxiety, a lot of people
have sleep disordered, a lot of people are confronting mental illness.
(04:10):
But online everything is up and we're stuck. But I
think that that sense of community, that sense of connectedness,
is still necessary.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Before we get into the target fast, I want to
talk about Jesse Waters from Fox News. Yes, Jesse Water
said you was racist, Yes, because you criticized black people
who went to the White House for the Black History
Month program.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Right, what do you say to.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
That that he clearly doesn't know what racism is because
I wasn't telling about white people. I would talk about
black people who having an identity crisis, who were in
their cheering for Black History Months. Under an administration that
wants to make it illegal, no federal agency could honor
Black History Months, So for them to have a program
(04:56):
was absolutely crazy. And all the more, they raised up
my picture Charlemagne after announcing who was the new FBI director.
Uh So for your own people to do that to you,
I was calling them out. I don't know why he
would call that racism, as much as it was exposure.
Black people don't have the capacity to be racist.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
I wonder why they did hold your picture up in
the white.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Three of them, Charlamagne, you've been to the White House
on the way, Yeah, you've been to the White House
never in your life, never under nobody.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
No oh Wowresident President.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah, let's take the Vice president house. You're not going
in the Vice President's house with a picture or a
sign holding up no stick. You barely can get a
backpack in there. So for them to have three pictures
of me in the east wing is absolutely crazy. And
I don't know Jasmin Krackett is up there, how came
Jefferson is up there? Clypbun is up there? Why put
(05:54):
my picture up? Uh? So I think it was a
targeted attack.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
And so for them to assume I wasn't gonna say
anything was outlandish.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
You did call them the spools who sat by the
door though, yes, well that's a good thing.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, yeah, in the context of the book, what was funny?
And Charlemagne none of them negros ready, so they didn't
even know what I was talking about, uh until you.
I also called him as a runaway slave, which is
and they didn't even understand the context of it because
(06:26):
they're lost in their own misery of delusion.
Speaker 5 (06:28):
You also said you reminded them that you ain't never scared,
reminded them from the West side of Baltimore and told
them they got a problem.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Pull up on you.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Has anybody reached out to you to have that conversation
or whatever? That pull up you thought was?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
No.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
They made videos that they don't have none of that
in them. This was the society, this was the fraternity
of Calton Banks. None of them, none of them got
that kind of DNA in them. So they all went
on and did the social media posts. Uh. I don't
even know if they knew what that meant. They needed
a hood interpreter, a hood whisperer to tell them what
(07:01):
it is that that meant. But they are so lost
that they have that access to the president and didn't
champion any of the needs of their own community. So
while they are celebrating Black History Month, they should have
said to them, Hey, if we're going to celebrate it,
we can't ban the books that record it. If we're
going to celebrate it, then we can't penalize the public
(07:23):
schools that want to teach it or fire the instructors
who are really ambassadors for it. For them to have
that access and that opportunity and not, in the words
of Bishop Jackson, maximize the moment with just a waste.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
You from Baltimore. How come you don't say church pew listen.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
From Baltimore? Yeah, oh yeah, no, I'm local and global.
So I got out, oh yeah, half and a half
with wings, period. I got it. All day long. I'm
Baltimore through and through, but I spent time in bolt
in Atlanta, went to more House, then I went to
(08:04):
a duke for a grad school, and then I went.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
Back to Bolton, don't you And what's your relationship like
with the black pastors who were also working President Trump?
Because I know you called them out before too, it
was on their top So is there, like, is there
a working relationship, because I think you do make points
that people should listen to and they're there.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yes, No, it's Nikki Giovanni's ego tripping. A lot of
people miss what the assignment is because they want the
proximity of power without even really having the real access
of it. And so it's got to go beyond what
is the photo app or a handshake to say, oh,
I know the president, but now that you know them,
what are you going to do about it? So I
(08:43):
think that there is a common ground for us to
be able to meet, but you've got to make sure
that you don't sell your own people out in the process.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
To your point, That's why I never wanted to go
to the White House because it's just like for what, like,
I'm not going just for a photo op if I'm
not presenting anything or going with somebody who's presenting something
with the point.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
I'm with you on fifty yard line. But you represent
too much people of influence who won't have that access.
So when it is that you go there, this is
an era Charlemagne where you would have more influence than
any head of any civil rights organization. More people are
listening to you. I don't want to call the names
of organizations than a lot of those organizations. Let's go
(09:21):
and step further. We step outside of this room, go down,
says and ask people who is the head of this organization?
A head of that? They have no idea. And so
I think that you got to realize that the shaping
of influence is different than the microphone that you would
have entree to get into those spaces.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Would you meet with Trump?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
I would meet with Trump, but I wouldn't go by myself.
Got you. I wouldn't go by myself. I'd have to
take some credible people with me. So one, hold me
accountable so we can all say what happened in that meeting.
And two to make sure y'all ain't gonna play me
like Zelensky. Ain't no way in the world. You're gonna
have all them cameras rolling and then say you ought
(10:01):
to be grateful to be here, And how come you
ain't got a suit on? You got to have some
level of accountability in it.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Would you pray before you go in there?
Speaker 1 (10:10):
So I pray before I pray in there. I'd have
a vial of my grandmother's ore, lay my podcast. Oh no,
all of that. But there's no way I would just
go in there.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Hey, let's get you to handle that.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
I think he did it. What this administration has shown
us is diplomacy is no longer honored. That was an
argument in the barbershop that was not world leaders talking
about the devastation of hundreds of thousands of lives. So
I give him high accommendation. That the argument should not
(10:41):
be whether he had a suit on, is what are
you going to do about innocent children being bombed? About
seniors who are living out in the street. And the
question that he should have said, why do y'all have
suits on when your people are fighting to get medicaid
while y'all got suits on when all of these students
are getting ready to be ribb The scholarships from pel
(11:01):
grants while y'all got suits on. When the stock market
is losing billions of dollars every day, everybody should be
an overalls. So he should have flipped it. But I
think he did it in as much decency intact as
he could.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
I want to ask you to as a pastor, what
makes you get involved in politics so much? Because I
see people, I see a lot of passes like to steer, steer,
stay clear from that.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Why do you like to get involved?
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Well, one a lot of staying clear now because they
don't know what this administration is going to do. This
administration has already said that they want to take away
five or one c threes. Uh, they want to look
at anybody who stands with Palestine as a terrorist organization.
But I think that it's got to be a revolution
(11:44):
comes with inconvenience, Uh, to know that it goes against
the prick, and you got to stand on business. Uh.
And to be a real profit is not you get
a car, you get a house, you get money. A
real profit biblically was to confront the king and say
you out of order, you're not doing this right. And
I think that you're going to find a whole lot
(12:05):
of people emerging, and they are people who are doing it.
What has happened in the culture is we have confused
notoriety with strength. The most powerful preachers in every major
city don't have megachurches, but they're in the community doing
the hard work. But they don't have press conferences. They
don't know the governor, they don't know the mayor, but
(12:25):
the people in the community they serve on in respect them.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Let's talk about this the forty day Fast of Target. Yes,
and this is something that you're trying to put into play,
and why I'm not trying you are putting it in
another way.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Yeah. So people are asking, why did we pick Target
when Walmart out of order, McDonald's out, or the John
DIA's out, or the Bank of America's out of order, Amazon,
Amazon is out of order? Is we wanted to go?
The African proverb says, if you want to eat an elephant,
do one piece at a time. So we picked Target
(12:59):
first for say reasons. Number one, Target is headquartered in
the same city George Floyd was killed. When George Floyd
was killed, Target came out made an announcement that they're
going to invest two billion dollars in the Black business
two billion drum roll and it starts December of twenty
(13:20):
twenty five. When Trump made the announcement January of twenty
twenty five, they dishonored that commitment. So we wanted to
hold them accountable because when they made the pledge, they
had nothing to do with DII. Secondly, I am embarrassed
Breakfast Club to say to you, Nigro spend twelve million
(13:40):
dollars a day in Target and I don't know any
black business that amasses that much money in any singular
day to twelve million day a day. Number three, Target
is on twenty seven college campuses and not one HBCU.
Number four outside of the federal government, Target is the
(14:04):
largest employer of black people. There are four hundred thousand
black people on payroll and don't honor us. So we're
given that kind of money, that much human capital, and
to not honor us, I think is dismally disrespected. And
because they're publicly traded, we wanted to see what will
happen in those forty days that shows the data, this
(14:27):
is the impact when black people walk away, and to
share it with those sharecrops, so it will not just
be forty days but every movement has to have a benchmark,
It has got to have a strategy, and you got
to have some data.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
What do you call it fast and not a boycott?
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah, I called it a fast because this was a
call to the Black church to become active. Something happened
silently that scholars and historians are going to have to
pay attention to the rise of Black Lives Matter. Charlemagne
was the first movement of civil rights for black people
(15:04):
that was not berthed out of the church, the very
first civil rights movement that happened that didn't have a
religious leader at the front. And so the Black church
is going backwards. This is the largest demographic of Black
people since we've been in America who don't go to
church at all, who don't subscribe to organized religion. We're
(15:24):
at twenty eight percent, the largest amount of Black people
who self identify as atheists, who say they don't believe
in God, don't believe in nothing. So this was a
call specifically for Black Christians to show the younger generation
our head is not in the sand. We're a part
of it, but we're aligning it with prayer that those
(15:47):
forty days is the high holy season for the Christian community.
We're praying because this is a spiritual warfare that we're
under with jed Vance and Donald Trump, with all of
the things that are happening with these executive orders. Marching
is good, Protesting is necessary, Petitions are important. But if
we don't bring a spiritual grounding to it, I think
(16:09):
that we're gonna miss it. During the Montgomery bus boycott
that lasts three hundred and eighty one days, what nobody
talks about is for three hundred and eighty one days,
every night they went back to the church for prior.
So I think that in the movement, you've got to
have a faith entity intertwined in it in order for
you to move forward.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
What do you say to some of the people that
have black products in Target? They say that, you know,
because of this boycott. If a boycott happens and people
are stopping to go to Target, that is going to
affect their products even more.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
I know.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
We had the co founders of Rocket Roots on the
Breakfast Club. They found the lit bar and they were
saying that if people don't come into the store, which
Target is their hugest manufactured, the hugest buyer.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
So what happens to those products Number one, the lip Barn.
All of those entities understand a new thing out called
drop Ship. You don't have to go in the physical
store to help them. Because of that, In foresight, we
partner with the US Black Chamber of Commerce. So every
person that goes to targetfast dot org, within an hour,
(17:14):
I send you a digital directory of three hundred thousand
black businesses across the country. So we don't want those
businesses to be adversely impacted. We want people to support them,
but do it online. I can support the lit bar
and not go into Target to do it. I can
go online to do it. And so I think that
as innovative and creative people, as black people are, let's
(17:37):
do it online. We do everything else online, so let's
support them and the one thousand black vendors who are
placed in Target, we're going to prominently place on the
website so that you'll be able to find them quickly
without any pause. I saw you.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
Two things to what you're saying. So the first thing,
when they were up here, they talked about the inventory
and just how much money they have to put a
head to be in the stores. That comes out of
their own pocket. That they will lose out on if
people do not if they're not supporting these companies or whatever.
So even if you're buying it from their website, because
they're already in contract for this amount of inventory alloted
to Target, they lose out it. They don't profit on that.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Now, yes, that money has already been spent. A movement
comes with inconvenience. It came that same argument happened in
the Montgomery bus Boy Guide. The question was asked, what
do we do for the bust mechanics who are all black?
So what they did is they pulled all of those
bust mechanics out of Montgomery and set up garages at
(18:38):
the churches. What nobody is talking about is four mechanic
shops came out of it. So I understand that it's
an inconvenience. I know we got to go a different route,
but I would then say that's up. The ant is
a business principle, let's buy more to cover what is
that loss? Companies take losses all the time. But a
group of misguided preachers went into Target in Detroit and
(19:01):
say let's just buy black inventory and come out. You're
still supporting Target. So I think that we've got to
come away, even if we got to raise the price
in order to make the balance. Let's do it. One
of the things that black people do wrong whenever it
is with supporting black business, we always want a discount.
Let's pay full price and support them. Let's not just
(19:23):
do it with lip service, but let's do it through
the investment.
Speaker 5 (19:26):
And I saw you my last thing to your point
of like just up in the ante online. Yes, the
women from Rocker Roots talked about how majority Ellen's I'm sorry,
I her name me, I own Jamison and Ellen sellers
talked about how even in Walmart's majority of their clients
heele that they make a large amount of their money
off of on those products. They don't have the access
(19:48):
to the dot com So being able to walk into
like it's just different in some of the lower royal areas.
So being able to walk into a Walmart or a
Target helps them as far as inventory and creates access
for those people.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
What about that? Yeah, I think that we've got to
ask ourselves what is the principle And is the principle
more important than the profit. You've got a whole lot
of churches who have space that is underutilized and underused.
The fact that in twenty twenty five we don't have
a minority on retail space to direct people on says
(20:23):
that we got to re evaluate how we do business.
So going into Target to buy whatever this product is
to say, hey, forget that they don't honor us, forget
that they've disrespected to George Floyd family, forget that they
are only allowing black people on entry level positions. Let's
do it for lipstick. I think that we're losing the
larger conversation. I want to see the sisters win. I
(20:45):
want to see them do overwhelmingly well. But I think
that we got to get into a room and figure
out how do we make it more accessible for those
in rural areas. I don't think that the answer is
to keep shooting ourselves in the foot and then ask
for a cast.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
So when we ever get there past it, like you know,
we want to get there, right, Will we ever own
our own Target slash Walmart? Where we ever own our
own car manufacturer? Will we ever own our own so
we can rely on it? It just seems like we're
far stretched from that.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Yeah, So one of the things that we're asking for
Target to do And for all of the demands that
we're asking of Target, please go to targetfast dot org.
They're on twenty seven college campuses. But no HBCUs. I'm
asking Target to partner with ten HBCUs to show our
businesses how to scale up and to go into the
(21:37):
retail space. REPM Shopton is one of my mentors. But
in the history of black people, we have never marched
black people into a white business to say, spend money here.
So we got to figure out how it is that
we really re route and redirect so that we can
create an ecosystem for us to be able to do.
(21:57):
I think that is possible, but as a plan that
has to be a foot in order to make it done.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
I don't have any problem with the boycott, but I
don't have a problem with the boycott either. I just
feel like, you know, people should do something. I agree
if they're moved to do something. But I saw you
repost the preachers who let it there flocking to the store.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
To buy all the black products. Why why why did
you feel the need to read the room.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Read the room. There's there's there's no.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Way room though everybody room different.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
No, no, no, no, Read the living room. Yeah. The Japanese
proverbs said the best room in the house is the
room for improvement. You'll notice that the caurreed on nowhere.
Nobody thought that that was a good idea.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Except a lot of people talking about a bide.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yeah, end target.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Yeah, a lot of people saying't going in there and
buy all the black products.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah, don't do that, Yeah, don't do that. I think
that there's got to be a different way that we redirect.
I think, to my sister's point, how do we support
these businesses, to Envy's point that we don't have a
major retailer. We're the most creative people, y'all, and brought
everybody in there. Master p got on from selling from
the trunk of his car. So I think that we
(23:09):
got to be innovative and put a think tank together. Say,
Maggie Johnson, you brought all these movie theaters in the
concession staying cannot now buy lipstick. I don't know the
answer to it, but I think that we've got to
figure out a way, and figure out a path and
figure out a tributary.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
I just don't want us to make the same mistakes
that our generations before us. Me meaning like people would
knock Martin Luther King Jr. For his methods, and you know,
different organizations would knock each other and say, no, we
should be doing it this way, we should be doing
it that way.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
It's just like you.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
As long as everybody's doing something, I feel like it
all can be effective.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
In a sense. I'm gonna meet you on the fifty
yard line. If you got beef with somebody, Me and
you were friends and you find out who you got
beef with, I'm at dinner with You're like, oh, man,
I thought we was together. Don't worry about it was
just cheesecake. We didn't even talk about you. You would
look at me with a different kind of eye, like
(24:02):
cay Man. If we in it together, how are you
carrousing with the person who is against me? And so
I think that there's gotta be a line in the
sand of how it is that we stand without attacking
each other. I think that's where where the rubber is
the road that can be many different paths. I spoke
at a college last week in Michigan, and I asked
(24:23):
them who is the head of the LGBTQ movement, And
all of these college students, nobody can answer it, and
I said, do you all believe that LGBTQ has a movement?
They said yes, and I said, you don't know. The
head said no. I said, that's the memo black people
gotta take have a movement without making one singular spokesperson,
(24:47):
that what it is that we're doing can be rested
on the back of the shoulder of one person being
the leader. So the movement doesn't have to be just
shopped in or Jasmine Crockett or Maxine Waters that all
of us are moving towards that, but it is not
one entity against another. The reality is Malcolm X made
Martin King a better leader because he questioned his philosophy
(25:09):
and he had to defend it. And so I think
one of the things that the Detroit Passes did made
a sharpen the conversation as to why it is that
we're not going So it's not just a social media
post or rob rob moment, but there's something really tangible
for us to.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
Argue to that point. I feel like Malcolm was wrong
for that. And the reason I say that is because
Martin Luther King Jr. Was doing real work in an
area we needed him to do real work, meaning that
he was building with John Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson
to get actual legislation passed. But we need somebody like Martin,
I mean, Malcolm raising hell in the streets. So to me,
there was no reason for Malcolm to be calling out Martin,
(25:46):
yes and vice versa.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yeah, yeah, I think it was calling out the philosophy.
The students who are part of the civil rights movement
before they could protest, before they could demonstrate, they argued
on the college campus with the professor, and they had
to have practice. So if somebody spits on you, that's
what you do. They try to pull you out from
the lunch counter, this is what you do. The reality
(26:09):
is we are no longer arguing philosophies. We're just arguing
about people and personality on who I don't like, who
I agree with. But I think that iron sharpens iron
in that space of arguing and articulating what we stand
on and why there needs to be different tracks. My
issue is not with people who argue against my methodology.
(26:32):
My issue is with those who don't believe in nothing,
who are just internet gangster. Oh, this ain't gonna work,
We ain't never gonna stick together. This ain't gonna have
no traction. Okay, then what are you gonna do?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
How those people reached out to you, the people that
don't agree with what you're doing, like those pastes that
took their congregation into buy Have you had those conversations?
Who y'all can get on the same page and see
some of the things that yes.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yes, yes. So as soon as I saw it, because
I know them, three fourths of them, I text them,
Hey man, y'all on the wrong side of history.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
You said amen, he said, nigga.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
I said it was a Sunday. I said it was
a Sunday. So I said, hey man, I said, hey man,
you're on the wrong side of history. He texted me
back and said, hey, this is what I thought process was,
This is why it is that we did it. I said,
it would have gone a whole lot further and better
(27:25):
if you had the conversation before you went in there.
So I went on a college campus to go speak
in Detroit, Wayne State. I come out of a lecturing
and the press is there and says, what do you
think about these pastors going to target? Said what passed us?
What are you talking about? The reporter showed it to
me on the phone, and so that's when I got
(27:45):
in it. And I think that communication can solve a
whole lot of issues on so many different levels, whether
you married or whether you go on political agendas. Silence
is the worst thing that you can ever do. But
when we learn how to talk to each other and
discuss it, I understood where it is that they were
coming from. Those pastors are now walking alongside us for
(28:08):
the target fast. But I think that communication is necessary.
I also want to put on record that I think
that it's good for black people to be in a
Republican party. I don't think all black should be Democrat.
We need somebody else who is in there. But if
you in there, you got to advocate for your people.
At the same time, I.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
Saw you say that Target have been trying to reach
out to you. Yes, but I don't want to talk
no diversity.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
No, you may not have a job next week. You've
reached out during Black History mand I don't know if
you're gonna make it to Saint Patrick's Day. I need
somebody who got some job security and got some influence
to make a decision. I think this generation doesn't want
symbolic wins. They want substantive strides. And if you're just
(28:55):
doing that to say we met, we talked alldustreet, credibility
is gone. Needs somebody who can make a decision. And
you got to ask Vy, what's in the mind of
a CEO that can lose twelve million dollars a day
and say I'm not meeting.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
So the person that reached out to you felt had
no influence, not enough influence.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Yeah, so you're gonna send the black people out to
talk to the black black guy, go talk to the
black saddle them down. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, I
need to talk to the CEO or I need to
talk to somebody who was on that board of Target
or who can really help me understand where you are.
And if you all are being punked by jd Vance
and Trump, tell me that let's figure out how we
(29:37):
can walk alongside each other.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
That's what it is.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:42):
When you so I know that talking about meeting eventually
y'all want to have a conversation or there is something schedule, right,
you guys will be meeting June twelfth of Minneapolis.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
That's when their stockholders meeting is. Yeah, so we are
planning on going now. I'm hoping that we have resolved by.
Speaker 5 (29:58):
Them, That's what I was getting.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Yes, we can't wait till June, but June twelfth and
there Now it's an underground murmur that they don't even
want to do an in person shareholders me. They want
to do it by zoom. They don't want you guys
to show yes. But that's why it's important for you
to have the data to show how this has been impacted,
how much money you've lost in the stock and what
(30:21):
is at stake. So we wanted to take take all
of that to the shareholders me to June twelfth.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
But you know, there was a bunch of Target shareholders
who filed a class action lawsuit against Target and they
claim that Target artificially inflated stock prices and failed the
one investors about how removing DEI and ESG, which is environmental,
social and governess policies, could cause stock prices to plummet.
And it also talks about how Target concealed the backlash
it suffered from the Pride Month campaign, Yes after they
(30:50):
removed the LGBTQ merchandise, and that's how they've been losing
all of that money since November of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
America's worst Nightmayre is the marginalized unit. Fine, if all
of the different sectors came together, that's when you have
real power. Fingers separated don't mean anything. Fingers together become
a fists. The Poor People's Campaign is what doctor King
was putting together just before he was assassinated. He said,
(31:16):
the same poverty that's happening in Selma is the same
poverty that us in the Appalachian Mountains. What happened that
really frightened Jagahoover against the Black Panther Party was they
were unifying all marginalized people. So imagine if we're dealing
with immigration, we don't allow the media to just make
(31:37):
it a Mexican issue. Let's talk about the five hundred
thousand Haitians who are unprotected. Let's talk about the Africans
who are being deported. Hear this family who they not
even deporting back to Africa. They in jail right now
in Panama, and we're not doing anything or raising the alarm.
If all of these factions come together, a sister out
(31:57):
of Harvard University says, you to have a real revolution,
you don't need one hundred percent participation. You only need
three percent. If three percent of the population organized, you
can shut any culture down, any government down, any society down.
And what we're seeing in these town hall meetings with
these Republican senators and congress people is people are waking
(32:20):
up saying, Hey, this and what I signed up for.
This can't be the last train to Paris. Let me
get out of here and change direction. So I think
that you're getting ready to see a percolating in America
of those who are marginalized, that it is not just
a race issue, it is a class issue.
Speaker 5 (32:36):
My last question for you, where are you at now?
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Numbers wise?
Speaker 5 (32:39):
Because I know you were looking to get one hundred
thousand people by when's this Wednesday the fifth? When it
starts and you are.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Say, yeah, I got one hundred and ten thousand people,
gotcha have come and we did it before we ever
got to the breakfast club. So now, y'all, we got
to get to one fifty. We got to get to
one fifty because numbers is power. It was important for
me to have tangible evidence of how many people are
standing behind us, that it is not just a post,
(33:06):
it's not just likes and shares, but one hundred thousand people.
I can press a button's and the email to say,
hey we outside in Target, Hey we in Cincinnati, so
that the people at Target know that we mean business.
That is not just symbolism, but there's substance behind you.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
How can people get behind you?
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Go to targetfast dot org. It's just one word there.
You'll see what is our list of a demand. When
it is that you sign up for Target fast, I'm
gonna send you a digital directory to those three hundred
thousand businesses. And even for those of you who don't
go to church or watch online, I'm gonna send you
a daily prayer devotional so that you can stay focused,
no pun intended, so you can stay on target for
(33:47):
what it is that we're trying to get done.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
All right, Well, we appreciate you for joining us this morning.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Thank you, Target fast dot org. Thank you so much.
Brother man, thank you. And when y'all come to Atlanta,
I'm coming through. I ain't even got a ticket. I'm coming.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Yeah, he came up. Pata Jamal's popped up to my
Black Podcast Festival.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
I'm coming this year.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
I want to come to New birth Man. You gotta
want to come on Sunday and check it out.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah, you gotta come. Absolutely, It's Room at the Cross.
Hey let me say this too. I'm from Baltimore. Do
you know the first place I ever had Crayton, South Carolina.
Monk's Corner, Monks Corner, Okay, Monks Corner, am Church, Uh
right there, James Blake, James Blake just back in the eighties. Okay.
It is the first place that I ever had. My
famous from Georgetown, South Carolina. So we used to come
(34:28):
down there every summer. But Baltimore you had crabs and
you're from Baltimore. They better than Baltimore. Never does not
go too far.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
I was trauma.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
No, no, it was trauma that I had to do
it in South Carolina before I had is amazing. It's amazing.
It's great. Just not as good as Baltimore, but it's good.
Thank you all.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Passing Jamal Brian.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
It is the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Good morning, wake that ass up in the morning. The
Breakfast Club
Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Morning everybody, It's the DJ Envy Jess Hilarious, Charlamage, the
guy we are the Breakfast Club Lawn LaRosa is here.
We got a special guest in the building. Yes, indeed
have passed, Jamaal Bryant.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Welcome brother, Thank you, sir. Good to be with y'all.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
How you feeling this morning, Bill?
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Great?
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Feeling good?
Speaker 1 (00:19):
You flew in this I flew in last night. Oh
wow wow, get right after the service, right after, sirvice. Yeah,
I was too scared. I was gonna be delayed. Delta
got a whole lot going on right now. So I
came in last night. Better safe than sorry.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
You know you you one of the people who you
You actually use social media to spread the word and
spread what you're doing in a in a great way.
When did you realize that you had to start doing it?
Speaker 1 (00:43):
I think, uh, culture made it. The culture changes every
four years. Church culture changes every twenty so the average
church is fifteen years behind schedule. So to reach a
younger demographic, I knew I had to hear that most
churches Charlamagne broadcasts on Facebook. Most young people are on TikTok,
(01:03):
So it's a great disconnect. So social media really is
that bridge to make the church relevant to a generation
as disconnected and.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Church called you said, church cold changes every twenty.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Years, look like well by virtue of the fact that
we're always running behind. So the average Black church wouldn't
even know what AI is. You have to think most
churches didn't even stream to the pandemic. Three thousand, three
forty five churches closed in the pandemic simply because they
(01:34):
didn't have online given they still passing the plate in
writing checks and don't know how to download. So a
lot of our churches have got to really run up
to speed.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Wow, and how is that with the old congregation, the
older congregation and the younger congregation with the TikTok and
Facebook mesh, Right.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
It is really a changing of the guard. That church is.
What was our grandmother's church with funeral home fans and
fried chicken downstairs has shifted and the newer generation may
not come to a physical building. They may just stream.
So those who are on the old church that are
you ain't really doing it if you ain't in the
(02:12):
building when we do everything online. So to say that
you're not really connected to God because you're streaming and
not sitting on the pew. Is a disconnective of what
the culture is and where we're going.
Speaker 5 (02:23):
What's your I mean, I know you get you always
get people that love you or don't love you. They
probably used to this, But what's your model every day
when you're like, Okay, I'm gonna get up, I'm gonna
say something that people probably won't touch. What's that motivating factor?
Because sometimes I think pastor stereoway from stuff because they
don't want controversy, because they think controversy means that God
is not within the house anymore.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Yeah, there's an incredible book called The Carriage to be Disliked.
There's a whole lot of people always live for other
people's affirmation. John Maxwell said, if you want to be
like sell ice cream, but if you add sprinkles, somebody
gonna be allergic to it. And so I think that
the call to be great and a call to make
a difference is realizing that you're going to go outside
(03:07):
of the culture. When Doctor King was killed, his popularity
was at its lowest. But now everybody got street signs
and T shirts and a lot of times people don't
recognize your greatness until after you make the impact. Maha
Na Gandhi said, first they laugh at you, then they
try to kill you, then they try to copy what
you did. And so once you find out how to
(03:28):
be a frontiersman and to make that difference, it'll really
free you from other people's opinion.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
I wanted to ask one more back to the church question.
Is a physical church necessarily needed?
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Right?
Speaker 2 (03:38):
And the reason I asked that is you talk about
the amount of people at Duch Stream, right. Yeah, it's
difficult to get out if you have a bunch of
kids and everything that's going on in this world, people
are scared. Is it physical church needed now?
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Absolutely? It is the power of unity. There was an
article a couple of weeks ago how social media has
made this the loneliest age. People are connected online but
disconnected from people. So a lot of people are depressed,
a lot of people have anxiety, a lot of people
have sleep disordered, a lot of people are confronting mental illness.
(04:10):
But online everything is up and we're stuck. But I
think that that sense of community, that sense of connectedness,
is still necessary.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
Before we get into the target fast, I want to
talk about Jesse Waters from Fox News. Yes, Jesse Water
said you was racist, Yes, because you criticized black people
who went to the White House for the Black History
Month program.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Right, what do you say to.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
That that he clearly doesn't know what racism is because
I wasn't telling about white people. I would talk about
black people who having an identity crisis, who were in
their cheering for Black History Months. Under an administration that
wants to make it illegal, no federal agency could honor
Black History Months, So for them to have a program
(04:56):
was absolutely crazy. And all the more, they raised up
my picture Charlemagne after announcing who was the new FBI director.
Uh So for your own people to do that to you,
I was calling them out. I don't know why he
would call that racism, as much as it was exposure.
Black people don't have the capacity to be racist.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
I wonder why they did hold your picture up in
the white.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Three of them, Charlamagne, you've been to the White House
on the way, Yeah, you've been to the White House
never in your life, never under nobody.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
No oh Wowresident President.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah, let's take the Vice president house. You're not going
in the Vice President's house with a picture or a
sign holding up no stick. You barely can get a
backpack in there. So for them to have three pictures
of me in the east wing is absolutely crazy. And
I don't know Jasmin Krackett is up there, how came
Jefferson is up there? Clypbun is up there? Why put
(05:54):
my picture up? Uh? So I think it was a
targeted attack.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
And so for them to assume I wasn't gonna say
anything was outlandish.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
You did call them the spools who sat by the
door though, yes, well that's a good thing.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, yeah, in the context of the book, what was funny?
And Charlemagne none of them negros ready, so they didn't
even know what I was talking about, uh until you.
I also called him as a runaway slave, which is
and they didn't even understand the context of it because
(06:26):
they're lost in their own misery of delusion.
Speaker 5 (06:28):
You also said you reminded them that you ain't never scared,
reminded them from the West side of Baltimore and told
them they got a problem.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Pull up on you.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Has anybody reached out to you to have that conversation
or whatever? That pull up you thought was?
Speaker 3 (06:39):
No.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
They made videos that they don't have none of that
in them. This was the society, this was the fraternity
of Calton Banks. None of them, none of them got
that kind of DNA in them. So they all went
on and did the social media posts. Uh. I don't
even know if they knew what that meant. They needed
a hood interpreter, a hood whisperer to tell them what
(07:01):
it is that that meant. But they are so lost
that they have that access to the president and didn't
champion any of the needs of their own community. So
while they are celebrating Black History Month, they should have
said to them, Hey, if we're going to celebrate it,
we can't ban the books that record it. If we're
going to celebrate it, then we can't penalize the public
(07:23):
schools that want to teach it or fire the instructors
who are really ambassadors for it. For them to have
that access and that opportunity and not, in the words
of Bishop Jackson, maximize the moment with just a waste.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
You from Baltimore. How come you don't say church pew listen.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
From Baltimore? Yeah, oh yeah, no, I'm local and global.
So I got out, oh yeah, half and a half
with wings, period. I got it. All day long. I'm
Baltimore through and through, but I spent time in bolt
in Atlanta, went to more House, then I went to
(08:04):
a duke for a grad school, and then I went.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
Back to Bolton, don't you And what's your relationship like
with the black pastors who were also working President Trump?
Because I know you called them out before too, it
was on their top So is there, like, is there
a working relationship, because I think you do make points
that people should listen to and they're there.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yes, No, it's Nikki Giovanni's ego tripping. A lot of
people miss what the assignment is because they want the
proximity of power without even really having the real access
of it. And so it's got to go beyond what
is the photo app or a handshake to say, oh,
I know the president, but now that you know them,
what are you going to do about it? So I
(08:43):
think that there is a common ground for us to
be able to meet, but you've got to make sure
that you don't sell your own people out in the process.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
To your point, That's why I never wanted to go
to the White House because it's just like for what, like,
I'm not going just for a photo op if I'm
not presenting anything or going with somebody who's presenting something
with the point.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
I'm with you on fifty yard line. But you represent
too much people of influence who won't have that access.
So when it is that you go there, this is
an era Charlemagne where you would have more influence than
any head of any civil rights organization. More people are
listening to you. I don't want to call the names
of organizations than a lot of those organizations. Let's go
(09:21):
and step further. We step outside of this room, go down,
says and ask people who is the head of this organization?
A head of that? They have no idea. And so
I think that you got to realize that the shaping
of influence is different than the microphone that you would
have entree to get into those spaces.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
Would you meet with Trump?
Speaker 1 (09:41):
I would meet with Trump, but I wouldn't go by myself.
Got you. I wouldn't go by myself. I'd have to
take some credible people with me. So one, hold me
accountable so we can all say what happened in that meeting.
And two to make sure y'all ain't gonna play me
like Zelensky. Ain't no way in the world. You're gonna
have all them cameras rolling and then say you ought
(10:01):
to be grateful to be here, And how come you
ain't got a suit on? You got to have some
level of accountability in it.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Would you pray before you go in there?
Speaker 1 (10:10):
So I pray before I pray in there. I'd have
a vial of my grandmother's ore, lay my podcast. Oh no,
all of that. But there's no way I would just
go in there.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Hey, let's get you to handle that.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
I think he did it. What this administration has shown
us is diplomacy is no longer honored. That was an
argument in the barbershop that was not world leaders talking
about the devastation of hundreds of thousands of lives. So
I give him high accommendation. That the argument should not
(10:41):
be whether he had a suit on, is what are
you going to do about innocent children being bombed? About
seniors who are living out in the street. And the
question that he should have said, why do y'all have
suits on when your people are fighting to get medicaid
while y'all got suits on when all of these students
are getting ready to be ribb The scholarships from pel
(11:01):
grants while y'all got suits on. When the stock market
is losing billions of dollars every day, everybody should be
an overalls. So he should have flipped it. But I
think he did it in as much decency intact as
he could.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
I want to ask you to as a pastor, what
makes you get involved in politics so much? Because I
see people, I see a lot of passes like to steer, steer,
stay clear from that.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Why do you like to get involved?
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Well, one a lot of staying clear now because they
don't know what this administration is going to do. This
administration has already said that they want to take away
five or one c threes. Uh, they want to look
at anybody who stands with Palestine as a terrorist organization.
But I think that it's got to be a revolution
(11:44):
comes with inconvenience, Uh, to know that it goes against
the prick, and you got to stand on business. Uh.
And to be a real profit is not you get
a car, you get a house, you get money. A
real profit biblically was to confront the king and say
you out of order, you're not doing this right. And
I think that you're going to find a whole lot
(12:05):
of people emerging, and they are people who are doing it.
What has happened in the culture is we have confused
notoriety with strength. The most powerful preachers in every major
city don't have megachurches, but they're in the community doing
the hard work. But they don't have press conferences. They
don't know the governor, they don't know the mayor, but
(12:25):
the people in the community they serve on in respect them.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Let's talk about this the forty day Fast of Target. Yes,
and this is something that you're trying to put into play,
and why I'm not trying you are putting it in
another way.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Yeah. So people are asking, why did we pick Target
when Walmart out of order, McDonald's out, or the John
DIA's out, or the Bank of America's out of order, Amazon,
Amazon is out of order? Is we wanted to go?
The African proverb says, if you want to eat an elephant,
do one piece at a time. So we picked Target
(12:59):
first for say reasons. Number one, Target is headquartered in
the same city George Floyd was killed. When George Floyd
was killed, Target came out made an announcement that they're
going to invest two billion dollars in the Black business
two billion drum roll and it starts December of twenty
(13:20):
twenty five. When Trump made the announcement January of twenty
twenty five, they dishonored that commitment. So we wanted to
hold them accountable because when they made the pledge, they
had nothing to do with DII. Secondly, I am embarrassed
Breakfast Club to say to you, Nigro spend twelve million
(13:40):
dollars a day in Target and I don't know any
black business that amasses that much money in any singular
day to twelve million day a day. Number three, Target
is on twenty seven college campuses and not one HBCU.
Number four outside of the federal government, Target is the
(14:04):
largest employer of black people. There are four hundred thousand
black people on payroll and don't honor us. So we're
given that kind of money, that much human capital, and
to not honor us, I think is dismally disrespected. And
because they're publicly traded, we wanted to see what will
happen in those forty days that shows the data, this
(14:27):
is the impact when black people walk away, and to
share it with those sharecrops, so it will not just
be forty days but every movement has to have a benchmark,
It has got to have a strategy, and you got
to have some data.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
What do you call it fast and not a boycott?
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah, I called it a fast because this was a
call to the Black church to become active. Something happened
silently that scholars and historians are going to have to
pay attention to the rise of Black Lives Matter. Charlemagne
was the first movement of civil rights for black people
(15:04):
that was not berthed out of the church, the very
first civil rights movement that happened that didn't have a
religious leader at the front. And so the Black church
is going backwards. This is the largest demographic of Black
people since we've been in America who don't go to
church at all, who don't subscribe to organized religion. We're
(15:24):
at twenty eight percent, the largest amount of Black people
who self identify as atheists, who say they don't believe
in God, don't believe in nothing. So this was a
call specifically for Black Christians to show the younger generation
our head is not in the sand. We're a part
of it, but we're aligning it with prayer that those
(15:47):
forty days is the high holy season for the Christian community.
We're praying because this is a spiritual warfare that we're
under with jed Vance and Donald Trump, with all of
the things that are happening with these executive orders. Marching
is good, Protesting is necessary, Petitions are important. But if
we don't bring a spiritual grounding to it, I think
(16:09):
that we're gonna miss it. During the Montgomery bus boycott
that lasts three hundred and eighty one days, what nobody
talks about is for three hundred and eighty one days,
every night they went back to the church for prior.
So I think that in the movement, you've got to
have a faith entity intertwined in it in order for
you to move forward.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
What do you say to some of the people that
have black products in Target? They say that, you know,
because of this boycott. If a boycott happens and people
are stopping to go to Target, that is going to
affect their products even more.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
I know.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
We had the co founders of Rocket Roots on the
Breakfast Club. They found the lit bar and they were
saying that if people don't come into the store, which
Target is their hugest manufactured, the hugest buyer.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
So what happens to those products Number one, the lip Barn.
All of those entities understand a new thing out called
drop Ship. You don't have to go in the physical
store to help them. Because of that, In foresight, we
partner with the US Black Chamber of Commerce. So every
person that goes to targetfast dot org, within an hour,
(17:14):
I send you a digital directory of three hundred thousand
black businesses across the country. So we don't want those
businesses to be adversely impacted. We want people to support them,
but do it online. I can support the lit bar
and not go into Target to do it. I can
go online to do it. And so I think that
as innovative and creative people, as black people are, let's
(17:37):
do it online. We do everything else online, so let's
support them and the one thousand black vendors who are
placed in Target, we're going to prominently place on the
website so that you'll be able to find them quickly
without any pause. I saw you.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
Two things to what you're saying. So the first thing,
when they were up here, they talked about the inventory
and just how much money they have to put a
head to be in the stores. That comes out of
their own pocket. That they will lose out on if
people do not if they're not supporting these companies or whatever.
So even if you're buying it from their website, because
they're already in contract for this amount of inventory alloted
to Target, they lose out it. They don't profit on that.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Now, yes, that money has already been spent. A movement
comes with inconvenience. It came that same argument happened in
the Montgomery bus Boy Guide. The question was asked, what
do we do for the bust mechanics who are all black?
So what they did is they pulled all of those
bust mechanics out of Montgomery and set up garages at
(18:38):
the churches. What nobody is talking about is four mechanic
shops came out of it. So I understand that it's
an inconvenience. I know we got to go a different route,
but I would then say that's up. The ant is
a business principle, let's buy more to cover what is
that loss? Companies take losses all the time. But a
group of misguided preachers went into Target in Detroit and
(19:01):
say let's just buy black inventory and come out. You're
still supporting Target. So I think that we've got to
come away, even if we got to raise the price
in order to make the balance. Let's do it. One
of the things that black people do wrong whenever it
is with supporting black business, we always want a discount.
Let's pay full price and support them. Let's not just
(19:23):
do it with lip service, but let's do it through
the investment.
Speaker 5 (19:26):
And I saw you my last thing to your point
of like just up in the ante online. Yes, the
women from Rocker Roots talked about how majority Ellen's I'm sorry,
I her name me, I own Jamison and Ellen sellers
talked about how even in Walmart's majority of their clients
heele that they make a large amount of their money
off of on those products. They don't have the access
(19:48):
to the dot com So being able to walk into
like it's just different in some of the lower royal areas.
So being able to walk into a Walmart or a
Target helps them as far as inventory and creates access
for those people.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
What about that? Yeah, I think that we've got to
ask ourselves what is the principle And is the principle
more important than the profit. You've got a whole lot
of churches who have space that is underutilized and underused.
The fact that in twenty twenty five we don't have
a minority on retail space to direct people on says
(20:23):
that we got to re evaluate how we do business.
So going into Target to buy whatever this product is
to say, hey, forget that they don't honor us, forget
that they've disrespected to George Floyd family, forget that they
are only allowing black people on entry level positions. Let's
do it for lipstick. I think that we're losing the
larger conversation. I want to see the sisters win. I
(20:45):
want to see them do overwhelmingly well. But I think
that we got to get into a room and figure
out how do we make it more accessible for those
in rural areas. I don't think that the answer is
to keep shooting ourselves in the foot and then ask
for a cast.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
So when we ever get there past it, like you know,
we want to get there, right, Will we ever own
our own Target slash Walmart? Where we ever own our
own car manufacturer? Will we ever own our own so
we can rely on it? It just seems like we're
far stretched from that.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Yeah, So one of the things that we're asking for
Target to do And for all of the demands that
we're asking of Target, please go to targetfast dot org.
They're on twenty seven college campuses. But no HBCUs. I'm
asking Target to partner with ten HBCUs to show our
businesses how to scale up and to go into the
(21:37):
retail space. REPM Shopton is one of my mentors. But
in the history of black people, we have never marched
black people into a white business to say, spend money here.
So we got to figure out how it is that
we really re route and redirect so that we can
create an ecosystem for us to be able to do.
(21:57):
I think that is possible, but as a plan that
has to be a foot in order to make it done.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
I don't have any problem with the boycott, but I
don't have a problem with the boycott either. I just
feel like, you know, people should do something. I agree
if they're moved to do something. But I saw you
repost the preachers who let it there flocking to the store.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
To buy all the black products. Why why why did
you feel the need to read the room.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Read the room. There's there's there's no.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Way room though everybody room different.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
No, no, no, no, Read the living room. Yeah. The Japanese
proverbs said the best room in the house is the
room for improvement. You'll notice that the caurreed on nowhere.
Nobody thought that that was a good idea.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Except a lot of people talking about a bide.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yeah, end target.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Yeah, a lot of people saying't going in there and
buy all the black products.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yeah, don't do that, Yeah, don't do that. I think
that there's got to be a different way that we redirect.
I think, to my sister's point, how do we support
these businesses, to Envy's point that we don't have a
major retailer. We're the most creative people, y'all, and brought
everybody in there. Master p got on from selling from
the trunk of his car. So I think that we
(23:09):
got to be innovative and put a think tank together. Say,
Maggie Johnson, you brought all these movie theaters in the
concession staying cannot now buy lipstick. I don't know the
answer to it, but I think that we've got to
figure out a way, and figure out a path and
figure out a tributary.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
I just don't want us to make the same mistakes
that our generations before us. Me meaning like people would
knock Martin Luther King Jr. For his methods, and you know,
different organizations would knock each other and say, no, we
should be doing it this way, we should be doing
it that way.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
It's just like you.
Speaker 4 (23:38):
As long as everybody's doing something, I feel like it
all can be effective.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
In a sense. I'm gonna meet you on the fifty
yard line. If you got beef with somebody, Me and
you were friends and you find out who you got
beef with, I'm at dinner with You're like, oh, man,
I thought we was together. Don't worry about it was
just cheesecake. We didn't even talk about you. You would
look at me with a different kind of eye, like
(24:02):
cay Man. If we in it together, how are you
carrousing with the person who is against me? And so
I think that there's gotta be a line in the
sand of how it is that we stand without attacking
each other. I think that's where where the rubber is
the road that can be many different paths. I spoke
at a college last week in Michigan, and I asked
(24:23):
them who is the head of the LGBTQ movement, And
all of these college students, nobody can answer it, and
I said, do you all believe that LGBTQ has a movement?
They said yes, and I said, you don't know. The
head said no. I said, that's the memo black people
gotta take have a movement without making one singular spokesperson,
(24:47):
that what it is that we're doing can be rested
on the back of the shoulder of one person being
the leader. So the movement doesn't have to be just
shopped in or Jasmine Crockett or Maxine Waters that all
of us are moving towards that, but it is not
one entity against another. The reality is Malcolm X made
Martin King a better leader because he questioned his philosophy
(25:09):
and he had to defend it. And so I think
one of the things that the Detroit Passes did made
a sharpen the conversation as to why it is that
we're not going So it's not just a social media
post or rob rob moment, but there's something really tangible
for us to.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
Argue to that point. I feel like Malcolm was wrong
for that. And the reason I say that is because
Martin Luther King Jr. Was doing real work in an
area we needed him to do real work, meaning that
he was building with John Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson
to get actual legislation passed. But we need somebody like Martin,
I mean, Malcolm raising hell in the streets. So to me,
there was no reason for Malcolm to be calling out Martin,
(25:46):
yes and vice versa.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yeah, yeah, I think it was calling out the philosophy.
The students who are part of the civil rights movement
before they could protest, before they could demonstrate, they argued
on the college campus with the professor, and they had
to have practice. So if somebody spits on you, that's
what you do. They try to pull you out from
the lunch counter, this is what you do. The reality
(26:09):
is we are no longer arguing philosophies. We're just arguing
about people and personality on who I don't like, who
I agree with. But I think that iron sharpens iron
in that space of arguing and articulating what we stand
on and why there needs to be different tracks. My
issue is not with people who argue against my methodology.
(26:32):
My issue is with those who don't believe in nothing,
who are just internet gangster. Oh, this ain't gonna work,
We ain't never gonna stick together. This ain't gonna have
no traction. Okay, then what are you gonna do?
Speaker 2 (26:43):
How those people reached out to you, the people that
don't agree with what you're doing, like those pastes that
took their congregation into buy Have you had those conversations?
Who y'all can get on the same page and see
some of the things that yes.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Yes, yes. So as soon as I saw it, because
I know them, three fourths of them, I text them,
Hey man, y'all on the wrong side of history.
Speaker 3 (27:02):
You said amen, he said, nigga.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
I said it was a Sunday. I said it was
a Sunday. So I said, hey man, I said, hey man,
you're on the wrong side of history. He texted me
back and said, hey, this is what I thought process was,
This is why it is that we did it. I said,
it would have gone a whole lot further and better
(27:25):
if you had the conversation before you went in there.
So I went on a college campus to go speak
in Detroit, Wayne State. I come out of a lecturing
and the press is there and says, what do you
think about these pastors going to target? Said what passed us?
What are you talking about? The reporter showed it to
me on the phone, and so that's when I got
(27:45):
in it. And I think that communication can solve a
whole lot of issues on so many different levels, whether
you married or whether you go on political agendas. Silence
is the worst thing that you can ever do. But
when we learn how to talk to each other and
discuss it, I understood where it is that they were
coming from. Those pastors are now walking alongside us for
(28:08):
the target fast. But I think that communication is necessary.
I also want to put on record that I think
that it's good for black people to be in a
Republican party. I don't think all black should be Democrat.
We need somebody else who is in there. But if
you in there, you got to advocate for your people.
At the same time, I.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
Saw you say that Target have been trying to reach
out to you. Yes, but I don't want to talk
no diversity.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
No, you may not have a job next week. You've
reached out during Black History mand I don't know if
you're gonna make it to Saint Patrick's Day. I need
somebody who got some job security and got some influence
to make a decision. I think this generation doesn't want
symbolic wins. They want substantive strides. And if you're just
(28:55):
doing that to say we met, we talked alldustreet, credibility
is gone. Needs somebody who can make a decision. And
you got to ask Vy, what's in the mind of
a CEO that can lose twelve million dollars a day
and say I'm not meeting.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
So the person that reached out to you felt had
no influence, not enough influence.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Yeah, so you're gonna send the black people out to
talk to the black black guy, go talk to the
black saddle them down. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, I
need to talk to the CEO or I need to
talk to somebody who was on that board of Target
or who can really help me understand where you are.
And if you all are being punked by jd Vance
and Trump, tell me that let's figure out how we
(29:37):
can walk alongside each other.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
That's what it is.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:42):
When you so I know that talking about meeting eventually
y'all want to have a conversation or there is something schedule, right,
you guys will be meeting June twelfth of Minneapolis.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
That's when their stockholders meeting is. Yeah, so we are
planning on going now. I'm hoping that we have resolved by.
Speaker 5 (29:58):
Them, That's what I was getting.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Yes, we can't wait till June, but June twelfth and
there Now it's an underground murmur that they don't even
want to do an in person shareholders me. They want
to do it by zoom. They don't want you guys
to show yes. But that's why it's important for you
to have the data to show how this has been impacted,
how much money you've lost in the stock and what
(30:21):
is at stake. So we wanted to take take all
of that to the shareholders me to June twelfth.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
But you know, there was a bunch of Target shareholders
who filed a class action lawsuit against Target and they
claim that Target artificially inflated stock prices and failed the
one investors about how removing DEI and ESG, which is environmental,
social and governess policies, could cause stock prices to plummet.
And it also talks about how Target concealed the backlash
it suffered from the Pride Month campaign, Yes after they
(30:50):
removed the LGBTQ merchandise, and that's how they've been losing
all of that money since November of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
America's worst Nightmayre is the marginalized unit. Fine, if all
of the different sectors came together, that's when you have
real power. Fingers separated don't mean anything. Fingers together become
a fists. The Poor People's Campaign is what doctor King
was putting together just before he was assassinated. He said,
(31:16):
the same poverty that's happening in Selma is the same
poverty that us in the Appalachian Mountains. What happened that
really frightened Jagahoover against the Black Panther Party was they
were unifying all marginalized people. So imagine if we're dealing
with immigration, we don't allow the media to just make
(31:37):
it a Mexican issue. Let's talk about the five hundred
thousand Haitians who are unprotected. Let's talk about the Africans
who are being deported. Hear this family who they not
even deporting back to Africa. They in jail right now
in Panama, and we're not doing anything or raising the alarm.
If all of these factions come together, a sister out
(31:57):
of Harvard University says, you to have a real revolution,
you don't need one hundred percent participation. You only need
three percent. If three percent of the population organized, you
can shut any culture down, any government down, any society down.
And what we're seeing in these town hall meetings with
these Republican senators and congress people is people are waking
(32:20):
up saying, Hey, this and what I signed up for.
This can't be the last train to Paris. Let me
get out of here and change direction. So I think
that you're getting ready to see a percolating in America
of those who are marginalized, that it is not just
a race issue, it is a class issue.
Speaker 5 (32:36):
My last question for you, where are you at now?
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Numbers wise?
Speaker 5 (32:39):
Because I know you were looking to get one hundred
thousand people by when's this Wednesday the fifth? When it
starts and you are.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Say, yeah, I got one hundred and ten thousand people,
gotcha have come and we did it before we ever
got to the breakfast club. So now, y'all, we got
to get to one fifty. We got to get to
one fifty because numbers is power. It was important for
me to have tangible evidence of how many people are
standing behind us, that it is not just a post,
(33:06):
it's not just likes and shares, but one hundred thousand people.
I can press a button's and the email to say,
hey we outside in Target, Hey we in Cincinnati, so
that the people at Target know that we mean business.
That is not just symbolism, but there's substance behind you.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
How can people get behind you?
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Go to targetfast dot org. It's just one word there.
You'll see what is our list of a demand. When
it is that you sign up for Target fast, I'm
gonna send you a digital directory to those three hundred
thousand businesses. And even for those of you who don't
go to church or watch online, I'm gonna send you
a daily prayer devotional so that you can stay focused,
no pun intended, so you can stay on target for
(33:47):
what it is that we're trying to get done.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
All right, Well, we appreciate you for joining us this morning.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
Thank you, Target fast dot org. Thank you so much.
Brother man, thank you. And when y'all come to Atlanta,
I'm coming through. I ain't even got a ticket. I'm coming.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Yeah, he came up. Pata Jamal's popped up to my
Black Podcast Festival.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
I'm coming this year.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
I want to come to New birth Man. You gotta
want to come on Sunday and check it out.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah, you gotta come. Absolutely, It's Room at the Cross.
Hey let me say this too. I'm from Baltimore. Do
you know the first place I ever had Crayton, South Carolina.
Monk's Corner, Monks Corner, Okay, Monks Corner, am Church, Uh
right there, James Blake, James Blake just back in the eighties. Okay.
It is the first place that I ever had. My
famous from Georgetown, South Carolina. So we used to come
(34:28):
down there every summer. But Baltimore you had crabs and
you're from Baltimore. They better than Baltimore. Never does not
go too far.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
I was trauma.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
No, no, it was trauma that I had to do
it in South Carolina before I had is amazing. It's amazing.
It's great. Just not as good as Baltimore, but it's good.
Thank you all.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Passing Jamal Brian.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
It is the Breakfast Club.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Good morning, wake that ass up in the morning. The
Breakfast Club
The Breakfast Club News
Hosts And Creators
Charlamagne Tha God
DJ Envy
Jess Hilarious
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