Diddy trial bombshell, Biden prostate cancer diagnosis, St. Louis deadly tornados, New voter ID laws

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
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Blackstart Network is here, bunches a revolutionary right now.

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You're gonna work this man, Black media.

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Make sure that our stories are told.

Speaker 6 (02:06):
Thank you for being the voice of Black America.

Speaker 4 (02:08):
Roland.

Speaker 5 (02:08):
He a moment we have.

Speaker 6 (02:11):
Now we have to keep this going.

Speaker 4 (02:13):
The video looks phenomenal.

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See this between Black Star Network and Black owned media
and something like seeing in. You can't be black owned
media and be scape. It's time to be smart.

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Bring your eyeballs home.

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You dig.

Speaker 4 (02:46):
All right.

Speaker 8 (02:47):
It is Monday, May nineteen, twenty twenty five, and I'm
Kandice Kelly sitting in for Roland Martin. Here is what's
coming up on Roland Martin and filtered streaming live on
the Black Star Network. The Diddy drial just took a draw,
dropping hern a former Danity Kinge member, hit the stand
with explosive testimony about shocking.

Speaker 9 (03:05):
Abuse and threats.

Speaker 8 (03:06):
I was on the ground and we have the latest
with what happened inside of courtroom.

Speaker 9 (03:11):
Voting rights are under attack.

Speaker 8 (03:13):
Louisiana's new voter ID law is sparking outrage. Critics say
it's built to suppress, not protect. Daniel Lange from te campaign.
Legal Center will explain and President Biden's cancer diagnosis is
hitting home, especially for black men. We're talking with the
top neurologists about what metastatic pastate metastatic prostate cancer means

(03:36):
and why it is a major With a poem for
our health. Plus deadly tornadoes written through the Midwest, devastating
communities in Missouri, former Saint Louis mayor to Sharra Jones
joins US Live to talk about the damage, the response,
and what recovery looks like. It's time to bring the
fronk on Roland Martin on Filter and streaming.

Speaker 9 (03:56):
Live on the Blackstar Network. Let's go peace.

Speaker 10 (04:00):
Whatever the best, He's do it, whatever it is.

Speaker 5 (04:03):
He's got the school, the fact, the fine.

Speaker 10 (04:06):
He waita believes he's right on time.

Speaker 11 (04:08):
It is rolling best believe he's going putting it out
from his Boston news to politics with entertainment, just book kakes.

Speaker 5 (04:18):
He's going.

Speaker 10 (04:21):
It's rowing. It's rolling montane.

Speaker 11 (04:27):
Yeah, rowling within, He's bronky spress, she's real the question, No,
he's rolling.

Speaker 5 (04:38):
Montee Martel.

Speaker 9 (04:52):
All right, folks.

Speaker 8 (04:53):
A powerful storm in Saint Louis has caused one billion
dollars in damages. The storm hit more than forty four
hundred buildings. At the height of the storm, over one
hundred thousand residents lost power.

Speaker 9 (05:05):
Five people have been confirmed.

Speaker 8 (05:07):
Dead and dozens more were hospitalized with injuries.

Speaker 9 (05:11):
As of noon this past Sunday, some thirty.

Speaker 8 (05:14):
Six thousand customers were still without electricity despite nineteen hundred
workers on the ground. Restoring power has been a huge challenge,
with nearly three hundred power polls down. Joining us now
as the former mayor of Saint Louis, Missouri, Tisharra Jones,
thank you so much for being with us tonight.

Speaker 9 (05:33):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 8 (05:34):
So, can you describe a little bit about what's going
on on the ground right now? What does it look
like to you when you hit the streets.

Speaker 12 (05:42):
Yeah, So, I have been out in community for the
last three days since the storm hit.

Speaker 9 (05:47):
My neighborhood took a direct hit as well.

Speaker 12 (05:51):
I've been out without power up until last night, and
there are still.

Speaker 9 (05:56):
Hundreds or thousands of people still without power.

Speaker 12 (06:00):
And what I have seen as I drive around the
community and as I am helping people dig out of
this horrendous storm. Is that we still need more help
and that the need is vast, and so the city
is doing its coordination with other departments regionally and nationally,

(06:20):
and where I have chosen to focus my efforts as
the former mayor of this city is trying to make
sure that no one falls through the cracks and what
are those gap services that we can provide. So I
have been working with Action Saint Louis on the ground
as we do resource distribution, as we raise money to

(06:44):
help people get through this, because we know that most
of the storm hit black, majority black and brown communities
actually majority majority black communities, and a lot of those
communities are not going to have the resources they need
to recover after this tornado.

Speaker 8 (07:01):
So what are you expecting something in terms of what
the president can do and those with the executive powers
can do at this time, what does that look like?

Speaker 12 (07:10):
Well, we had a tornado back in March and President
Trump still has not issued an emergency declaration from that,
so you know, we don't expect him to act with
urgency to issue an emergency declaration for this storm. So
we have to mobilize and organize and make sure that
we have our communities back. And that's exactly why I tried,

(07:33):
why I'm coming on here tonight to let people know
how they can help the black community in Saint Louis
recover from this deadly tornado.

Speaker 8 (07:42):
All right, let's talk about that a little bit more.
What can people do? You said that you are, You
know they already have a couple of thousand people on
the ground. That is not enough. But what people who
are watching tonight do for your community.

Speaker 12 (07:55):
Well, first and foremost, they can contribute to Action Saint Louis,
and I will send you a link where people can
contribute to Action Saint Louis and they are providing direct
resources to communities.

Speaker 9 (08:09):
So we are collecting all sorts of supplies.

Speaker 12 (08:13):
Cleaning supplies, construction supplies, plywood, wheelbarrows, whatever, whatever we can
get our hands on to make sure and then deploy
that out into into the community.

Speaker 9 (08:24):
We're working with a Mayer Corps to make sure that we.

Speaker 12 (08:27):
Can put together a database of people that still need help.

Speaker 9 (08:31):
And then we will.

Speaker 12 (08:32):
Continue to call on our people who have expertise and
construction to help rebuild roofs, to help tark roofs. So
we are boots on the ground making sure that we
are that no one falls through the cracks. And so
we have been stationed at a local y m c A.
If people are familiar with Saint Louis, the of Allen

(08:53):
Park y m c A on a daily basis, just
to make sure that people that there.

Speaker 9 (08:57):
Is some somewhere that people can come.

Speaker 12 (08:59):
And let us know what they need, and then we
will also deploy the resources within those communities.

Speaker 8 (09:05):
And what are you finding are the needs that residents
are coming to you the most? What are people saying
on the ground when you talk to them, Well.

Speaker 12 (09:14):
A lot of people are still without power, and we
realize that our utilities are working around the clock to
restore power. The biggest need is repairs to homes and
and what happens when you don't have access to power.

Speaker 9 (09:28):
So our seniors are disabled will also need.

Speaker 12 (09:32):
Housings as we continue, as we try to rebuild their apartments,
their their homes. You know, in the black community, and
especially in Saint Louis, we have an old housing stock
and old beautiful housing stock. You know, four sides brick,
three layers of brick in some of these homes, and

(09:53):
so bricks are everywhere on the ground and so we
are picking up and salvaging what we can, but it
also makes rebuilding very very.

Speaker 9 (10:03):
Difficult and very expensive.

Speaker 12 (10:05):
So we are trying to make sure that we can
shore up the homes where we can. Again, there are
other storms that are expected later on in the week,
and so just making sure that people have what they
need to write this out, and then we'll also pivot
to talk about other financial resources that we can raise
money for to help them survive or recover.

Speaker 9 (10:27):
From this storm.

Speaker 8 (10:29):
And what is your advice to people in your community, because,
as you said, you just came did not recover yet
from the past storm. Now we are in a situation
where more storms potentially becoming. What do you tell your
residents your community in terms of preparing for what is
possibly to come.

Speaker 12 (10:50):
What I'm telling everybody is to make sure that you
have some people who will have your back and so
you're not taking advantage of We hope that everyone has insurance,
but we realize that many may not and may need
help rebuilding their homes, and in some cases those homes
may not be able to be rebuilt. We are talking

(11:12):
about a community that has been neglected for at least
seventy plus years, and so rebuilding is going to be
very difficult. But we want to be a part of
the solution and provide as many resources as necessary, and
that's why we are asking people everywhere across the country

(11:32):
to donate.

Speaker 9 (11:32):
To Action Saint Louis.

Speaker 12 (11:34):
That way, we know that resources will get directly to
the people in need and need it most.

Speaker 9 (11:40):
Action Saint Louis.

Speaker 8 (11:41):
But when we talk about a timeline what you're doing
to help people in terms of people going back to work,
in school and getting on their way, what's the outlook
in terms of I know that possible recovery isn't going
to happen fully for anytime soon, but what is the
timeline for what your hopes are.

Speaker 12 (11:59):
You know, we're probably going to be in recovery mode
for you know, several months, because our public transportation system
also took a hit, a direct hit. So just when
I was picking my son up from the airport last night,
I saw our crews out trying to fix our train
system or our metrolink system. We're going people's cars were

(12:23):
buried under trees, and so they're going to need transportation
to work.

Speaker 9 (12:26):
You're going to have.

Speaker 12 (12:27):
People without work because their businesses were also decimated through
the storm. So recovery is going to be very very long,
and very arduous and very difficult for a lot of people.

Speaker 9 (12:40):
So anybody within the sound.

Speaker 12 (12:42):
Of my voice, we need all of the resources that
we can to help this community recover from this horrible,
once in a lifetime storm, because a tornado hasn't hit
this part of our.

Speaker 9 (12:55):
Community since nineteen fifty nine.

Speaker 8 (12:59):
Now, in terms of the monies that you're asking for,
where where will it go directly?

Speaker 9 (13:03):
How will it serve the community?

Speaker 12 (13:05):
So Action Saint Louis has been buying supplies for people,
buying water, food, construction supplies, and literally we set up
shop where people can come pick them up. We also
work with other organizations to deploy them in communities. For
the construction materials. For example, we're working with a couple
of organizations and labor unions to collecting addresses to make

(13:31):
sure that those who need construction on their homes or
it needs some shoring up, that we are deploying units
or volunteers to help shore up these people's homes. So
those are those that's what the money is going forward.
When you donate to Action, that money goes directly into

(13:52):
the community.

Speaker 8 (13:53):
I know that people can lose hope during these times.
What is the sense from the people that you're talking
about about out their their outlook, how they're feeling about
Saint Louis, Missouri, especially when more storms could potentially be coming.
The one thing that I have seen as I have
been in the community since the storm hit is the

(14:14):
resiliency of our community. People are really pulling together and
it's such a beautiful thing.

Speaker 9 (14:21):
As I am.

Speaker 12 (14:22):
As I was on a street helping one of my
former staffers with his home, people you know, drove by
or walked by with water, with food, with snacks because
they realize that, you know, once you're working and you
just don't stop to eat or to stay hydrated. So
our community is really coming together and it's such a

(14:42):
beautiful thing. And also, you know, what I want people
to know is that we will rebuild. We are a
resilient community, and we are coming together during this storm
to help each other, to help our neighbors, to help
our friends and family. So I am I am, I
am very very hopeful that we will rebuild our community

(15:03):
after this horrible storm, because we are going to come
together and roll our sleeves up and help our neighbors
and friends rebuild.

Speaker 8 (15:11):
All right, Tshara, I want you to one more time
just mention how people can give you donations in order
to help your community before we leave tonight.

Speaker 12 (15:21):
So Action Saint Louis is a nonprofit and you can
find them on act blue. So if you go to
ActBlue dot com, you can search for Action Saint Louis
for their five oh one c three.

Speaker 9 (15:32):
They're a nonprofit and donate there and.

Speaker 12 (15:36):
We will welcome any size donation from a dollar to
whatever you can afford. We realize that these are tough
times for everybody, but we are are asking people to
keep first keep us in your prayers, but also if
they can help us out, help us recover, and help
us help our community recover, we would greatly appreciate it.

Speaker 8 (15:56):
All right to Sharra Jones, the former mayor of Saint Louis, Missouri.

Speaker 9 (15:59):
Thank you for letting us know our hopes and prayers are.

Speaker 8 (16:02):
With you, and I'm certain that people will donate to
help you and what's to come. Thank you again and
get to see you, and thank you God bless all right, folks,
we're going to be back after rape. So Stay with us.
We've got the latest on all of the headlines that
you want to hear about, including that Sean Holms trial.
Stay with us.

Speaker 13 (16:23):
This week on a Balanced Life, we are getting real
about mother wounds. While May is the month that we
shower mom with love, for some people, this time of
year is a stark reminder of fractured relationships and feelings
of abandonment. In this episode, we will be uncovering the
trauma of mother wounds and sharing tips on how we

(16:45):
can begin to heal them.

Speaker 14 (16:46):
What we don't talk enough about in our community is
given ourselves permission to even heal.

Speaker 15 (16:52):
That's all next on a Balanced Life Here Black Star.

Speaker 16 (16:55):
Network, get in a place that you got Kick Tachamama,
University creator and second producer of Fat Tuesdays and Area
hip hop comedy. Right now, I'm rolling with Roland Martin, Unfiltered, uncut, unplugged,
and undamn believable him.

Speaker 9 (17:21):
All right, I want to welcome our panel tonight.

Speaker 8 (17:23):
I am joined by doctor Juliane Melvo, economist and President
America of Bennett College and author of Surviving and Thriving
three hundred and sixty five Facts in Black Economic History.

Speaker 9 (17:34):
She's out of Washington, d C.

Speaker 8 (17:36):
Also joining US tonight former Georgia State Representative Rinita Shannon
out of Atlanta, Georgia, And finally, doctor Omicango dibinga senior
professional professional excuse me lecturer at the School of International
Service at American University and author of lies about Black
people How to combat racist He is out of Washington,

(17:58):
d C.

Speaker 9 (17:59):
I want to start with the good doctor, doctor de Benga.
How are you doing tonight.

Speaker 6 (18:03):
Evan great? How are you?

Speaker 9 (18:04):
I am doing well? Listen. I just wanted to talk
to you about these storms.

Speaker 8 (18:08):
Your take on really what the president and his office
should be doing at this time. It seems to me
that he steps up in other places that need money,
but some reason not Saint Louis.

Speaker 6 (18:19):
Well.

Speaker 17 (18:20):
You know, whenever your your your citizens are struggling, just
go bring some so called farmers in from South Africa
and set them up with housing and everything else that
they need.

Speaker 6 (18:32):
I mean, this is this is disgraceful.

Speaker 17 (18:35):
During the last Trump administration, I remember listening to black
mayors across the country who said, when Trump went Atlanta
other places, when Trump was mayor, I mean was president,
we were on our own. And it seems like that's
repeating itself right now. And one of the things I'm
wondering also is with the firings that they're doing in
places like Noah, and the life they're getting rid of,

(18:56):
like you know, mid overnight forecasters and you know where
there's signs that are hurricane that were coming that were
missed because of what they were doing with Elon's must department,
that maybe some people could have got early warning signs
and maybe evacuated in their life. So on some levels,
their ignorance and budget cuts are making these storms worse,
and then the people are not getting help on the other.

Speaker 6 (19:15):
Side of it.

Speaker 17 (19:16):
And it's also sad that, to be quite honest, like
my first stories about the hurricanes and their life, but
I haven't seen this on any other network. I haven't
seen anyone talk about it in March except US. I
haven't seen anyone talk about it in recent days. In
terms of the lack of assistance that these people are getting.
People just talk about Hurricane Blue though town. Certain people die,
people have no power, and that's about it. And this

(19:39):
is how the president gets over. We expect Trump to
do what he does, but Trump has been known to
bow when.

Speaker 6 (19:46):
The pressure becomes strong.

Speaker 17 (19:47):
Enough and if people aren't reporting on these things, then
there can't be any pressure. And so people need to
get this word out. We need to spread that website
to help people get the funds. But this is going
to be the case for the next four years. How
do I know that because it was the case for
the last four years. There's nobody coming to save us
but us. It's tragic. More attention needs to be drawn
to it, and his hands needs to be forced in

(20:09):
order to help serve our people.

Speaker 6 (20:10):
We can't just give up, but we have to call
it out.

Speaker 8 (20:13):
Doctor Binger, you are so right. I spoke to a
couple of people today. I said, have you really heard
about the storm? He said no, I absolutely knew nothing
about it, which is incredible because of the number of
media outlets that we have that are out there, not
traditional but also online. Representative Shannon, I wanted to ask
you this about the responsibility of the politician to jump

(20:34):
in here.

Speaker 9 (20:34):
I haven't heard a lot about that either.

Speaker 10 (20:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 18 (20:37):
Sure, I mean, obviously it's the responsibility of the elected
officials to help lead folks through traumatic events and through
events like this that really rock the foundation of the
residents that live in the places that have voted for them,
their constituents essentially, but this does so that's kind of
the role of the elected officials to speak up for
their communities and say what their communities need. As the

(20:59):
even the she's the former mayor. Mayor Jones just told
us what the community needs, she's still pretty much serving
as an elected official even though she's not currently in office.
So she's doing what she needs to do. The folks
who are currently active and elected need to be doing
the same. But I would add the larger point is
that this is really the place where the federal government
really needs to step in with assistance.

Speaker 9 (21:20):
And so I would argue that.

Speaker 18 (21:22):
It's Trump is not only just screw trying to screw
black black folks.

Speaker 4 (21:26):
He screws his own.

Speaker 9 (21:27):
Don't forget that.

Speaker 18 (21:28):
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, governor of Arkansas, recently had to fight
the Trump administration where her state needed help because of
a climate disaster and they were denied.

Speaker 4 (21:37):
So all of the.

Speaker 18 (21:38):
Cuts that you hear about, whether it's cutting the National
Weather Service, whether it's saying that they're going to take
down FEMA and cuts the FEMA and all of these
services that are that collectively support the country, and and
and everyone and and folks in different states, all of
those services. Really this is you don't realize how much

(21:58):
these things really matter until you need them. It's almost
like insurance. You don't care about that support until you
need that support.

Speaker 8 (22:05):
Doctor Malvaul, I'm sure no surprise to you.

Speaker 19 (22:09):
You know, he's taking FEMA apart, and FEMA would be
the agency that would respond from this. So, as Radita
has said, you don't know what you need until you
don't need it. People don't know that we need FEMA
until FEMA is there. I was in Grenada over the
weekend celebrating Malcolm X's mother, and I was with a brother,

(22:33):
Mike Rogers, who's a big corporate deal in Saint Louis,
and he is spending most of his time he's supposed
to be with us on the phone trying to figure
out what was going on. And one of the things
one of the other brothers said is this isn't on
the internet. You know, most of us get our news
these days through you know, CNN, PBS, DA, DA, DA.

Speaker 4 (22:56):
This is not a big deal for those people who
choose to ignore.

Speaker 19 (23:00):
So while I'm not holding all media responsible, I'm wondering
where your lens goes and why and why that lens
does not go to predominantly black communities. It is right,
It's not that this is not a racial thing, but
basically the lens shifts. How do you get some mothly
white South Africans who people are saying, well, they were

(23:23):
discriminated against because someone tried to take their land? Well
where and you know what did they get the land from?

Speaker 8 (23:29):
It's not what in their land right right right? And
there you have it, you know, like like you said,
it is. It is a problem bigger than we know.
A lot of it does have to be do with
the media because we just don't know what's going on
and our algorithms don't take us to these types of stories.
I'm certainly a lot of people will donate to the cause.

Speaker 9 (23:49):
All right, if.

Speaker 8 (23:50):
People I want to move on, want to talk about
Sean Colmes. Because today began the second week of testimony
in the Shawn Call sex traffic trial. Former Danny Caine
member John Richare was back on the stand, facing defense
attorneys who questioned her credibility, citing inconsistencies and her statements

(24:11):
and her continued work with Colmbs after the alleged incident
that she talked about. Rashard sued Combs last year, accusing
him of groping, assaulting, and imprisoning her and threatening her
life when she defended Venture.

Speaker 9 (24:23):
She also spent for unpaid wages.

Speaker 8 (24:26):
What I also came out on Friday on Rashard's first
day of testifying was.

Speaker 9 (24:30):
That Colmbs's lawyers filed to have her lawsuit dismissed.

Speaker 8 (24:34):
Finally, on the witness stand today was Cassie Venture's former
best friend Carrie Morgan. She described instances of being allegedly
abused by Colmbs. Doctor Malvau, I want to start with you.
I know your feelings about this trial. I know you say, listen,
we've got a lot more important things and think about
than this trial. But I think that there is some
importance in terms of having eyes on the justice system,

(24:58):
especially when.

Speaker 9 (24:59):
People of color are involved.

Speaker 8 (25:01):
Yeah, I know that people have been in your ear,
even if you haven't been following it yourself. What is
your take so far on what you think is happening.

Speaker 19 (25:12):
Well, I think that Oma Coango called me on my
stuff the last time we're here together. I said, I
don't care about it, and frankly, I still don't. What
I care about is the misogyn ware. I care about
the fact that black women are too often sideline and
black men are too often excused.

Speaker 4 (25:30):
I would like to have thirty.

Speaker 19 (25:32):
Minutes, though, maybe even ten with that man in a
small room with an ugly stick, so I could just
you know, that came into next week as said, I
know your mama did raise you like this boy.

Speaker 4 (25:43):
I know that you did. You know anyway, neither here
nor there.

Speaker 19 (25:49):
I can't deal with the particulars of this because it's layered,
but I can deal with the societal impact of this,
because it's important.

Speaker 4 (25:58):
How are black women girls.

Speaker 19 (26:00):
Because you know some of these people are girls, are fourteen.
How are they introduced to the music business, who gives
them a past, who closes their eyes when they see
a predator, a predator hitting on a little girl and
having sex with her in a room where all that
bottle baby oil with salu.

Speaker 4 (26:19):
I mean, don't get me started.

Speaker 9 (26:21):
Well, I think you already started.

Speaker 8 (26:23):
I do want to say, listen, in this particular place,
so far we are talking about adults. The question becomes
doctor de Benga, consenting adults, and that really is the
question on the table here. Whether Cassie venture, whether the
other victims actually consented to this, or was this just
as the defense attorneys and all the term our painting that. Listen,

(26:48):
these were two drug addicts in a bad relationship, and
people have all been there.

Speaker 9 (26:52):
What are your thoughts about this?

Speaker 17 (26:55):
Well, look as as somebody who's who's you know, been
in the game in terms of you know, and putting
out albums and touring and things like that.

Speaker 6 (27:03):
You know, I'm familiar with how.

Speaker 17 (27:06):
Cutthroat the industry is and how people have had to
do incredible things to advance themselves. And I think that
that's a big part of this. I think that this
idea that these were just people who are just you know,
cold drug addicts or whatever they said, and just love parties,
I think it's nonsense. R Kelly is is an R

(27:27):
and B figure, right, So Diddy is really the first
person in hip hop to really suffer the consequences of
the me too movement, me to movement skipped over rappers,
And it really bothered me that a lot of these
guys were not called to task like some of these
other guys, the Weinsteins, the Bill Cosby's and all of that.
This is a moment for us to really reflect I personally,

(27:51):
you know, do not believe that Cassie and these guys
are are lying and making up stuff and you know,
just trying to get attention.

Speaker 6 (27:57):
I don't believe in any of that.

Speaker 17 (27:59):
I believe that the end of the day, that Diddy
has always been a violent person. I believe that this
is a person who, inside itself is a small person,
and so it's always had a need to dominate and
control people.

Speaker 6 (28:10):
And he's not the only one. In hip hop.

Speaker 17 (28:13):
We come out of a culture, particularly those of us
who are part of that hip hop generation. If we
go back and listen to the music, a lot of
this stuff, a lot of it was about sex and
relationships with underage people.

Speaker 6 (28:23):
You know, BBD do Me Baby.

Speaker 17 (28:24):
Backstage, under age adolescent, how you doing, LLLKUJ Biggo budd
I was down at the high school whatever. Like, we
came out of this culture and a lot of us
were too young to understand what's going on. We dance
to it. Now we're older, we're parents, aunties, uncles or whatever,
and now we need to be part of the group
that's going to hold our community accountable. So I'm hoping

(28:45):
that it all comes out. I hope that there's not
any particular glitches or whatever that leads to some form
of mistrial, because this story needs to be told, and
it's chilling hearing all of the stories.

Speaker 6 (28:56):
But at the same time.

Speaker 17 (29:00):
Lad that these stories are coming out so we can
know so much of this behind the scenes stuff about
the growth of hip hop that people just don't know about.

Speaker 9 (29:08):
Doctor de Binger.

Speaker 8 (29:08):
I want to stay with you for a one moment,
especially because you have been in the industry. You know,
in court there were several mini mani emails where Cassie
Ventura looks like she did want to participate, and I
know that can be explained in many different ways. People
get themselves in bad relationships and often do things for
their partners they don't want to do. Does it extend

(29:28):
to this for the normal average person, probably not, But
for her this was the threshold. And of course there
were times where she said she was abused. I'm just
wondering if you were on that jury, would that make
a difference to you that there were in fact some
texts where she said, hey, I am ready for a
freak golf and I love you, or if she was
doing drugs on her own, or she would call mail escorts.

Speaker 9 (29:49):
After they left on her own.

Speaker 8 (29:51):
All of that did come out from her own mouth,
and I'm wondering just how you feel about, especially again
being part of the industry.

Speaker 17 (29:58):
Well, look, people have to understand, and I mean, look
at the age difference between you know, Cassie and Diddy,
look at her career trajectory as relates to their relationship
and the like. I hope that the people who are
prosecuting Diddy are doing a good job.

Speaker 6 (30:10):
I haven't watched every answer to trial, are.

Speaker 17 (30:12):
Doing a good job of helping people understand the pressures
that a lot of these young women.

Speaker 6 (30:17):
Particularly go through to be part of the industry.

Speaker 17 (30:20):
And so my hope is that these people on the
jury will look at the scale, my hope of what
he did versus what she may have done. Afterwards, I
hope that they will have people who are trauma and
abuse experts who can speak about things like Stockholm syndrome
and how people may feel attached, you know, to their captor.
I'm somebody who's also worked internationally in the field of

(30:40):
sex trafficking, and so I understand what it's like for
somebody to feel like and people say, well, she was
a singer, she was famous.

Speaker 6 (30:46):
It doesn't matter. I know exactly.

Speaker 17 (30:48):
I've seen what it's like for people to feel like
they have to be under the thumb of somebody, even
when that person is not around. And so regardless of
what she may have done here and there, there's a
larger network of issues that she did, as far as
I can tell, was a victim to and so I'm
hoping that the Jerry Kennon deep.

Speaker 6 (31:06):
C through that. But it's up to the prosecution to
make sure that that is happening.

Speaker 8 (31:10):
Representative Shannon, Before I get to you, I just wanted
to share with folks that you know, going into the
courtroom and seeing Sean Combs All Gray, I mean the
pictures and the sketches that you see they are are
a fair representative. I say that it's actually slightly worse
in person. All Gray probably lost about twenty pounds with
his glasses at times. He reads the Bible, he's you know,

(31:32):
you know, he's thanks to everybody who was in there,
and he watches everything and he takes notes. The public
is overnight there at three pm, six pm, lining up,
especially during the time of passing.

Speaker 9 (31:43):
Today, it wasn't that bad.

Speaker 8 (31:44):
But there's just a lot of talk in the courtroom
outside of it rather about you know, what can happen,
And I think that a lot of this just has
to do with who is telling the better story, And
like doctor Deminga said, we need somebody to context this
because why did she stay in this relationship for eleven years?

(32:05):
Representative Shannon, what are people talking about in your circles?

Speaker 18 (32:08):
Well, I think that people are really shocked that this
is really such a complex case, because it is really complicated.
I think a lot of people thought that this was
going to be a case very similar to the R.
Kelly case, where it was almost pretty clear what was happening,
that he was, you know, keeping folks, holding folks hostage
for the purpose of sex, and making people do things
completely against their will almost the entire time. This case

(32:32):
has become very complex because through testimony, we do know
that Cassie said that in the beginning things were consensual.
She did want to do these things because she did
she did not want him to leave her. So that
I think the prosecutors have the job of basically figuring
out okay, since everybody admits that at some point this
was consensual, when did it become coercial. You got to
establish that timeline. I've been keeping up with the case,

(32:54):
and what I'm seeing is that they're doing a great
job of outlying these state charges. I'm seeing almost every
day plenty of things where they're proving that he's guilty
of state charges, but they haven't made the full link
for those federal sex traffic charge charges and all of that.

Speaker 9 (33:08):
And I think that that has come. It's becoming complicated
because of.

Speaker 18 (33:12):
The text messages where they are, you know, showing where
she said that she wanted to do some of these things,
and so it's just become a very very complicated case.
But overall, I would say there's a lot that can
be learned from this. I think about, you know, how
folks sort of push back on what they would call,
you know, being woke and uh, some of the newer

(33:32):
values that have really entered our society, and one of
them is really conversations about consent. Folks will push back about,
you know, not that you know, consent is woke. It's like, well,
consent is the thing that you understand and consent and
how consent actually works is the.

Speaker 9 (33:49):
Thing that can keep you out of jail.

Speaker 18 (33:51):
And I think that he's seeing that right now. What
you may cast aside is just woke garbage or bs
has nothing to do with you, is actually a thing
that separates you and being in jail.

Speaker 8 (34:03):
Yeah, so I wanted to give a little insight today.
I was in court Donashar. She took the stand. She
was a former member of the band Danity Kane and
was on the reality show making the band. I was
very interested because she was a corroborating witness to say, hey,
I did see Cassie be put in these dangerous situations
where she was beat, she was struck, and she did

(34:24):
make her point to some extent in terms of her
being punched at a table in front of different employees
and ushers, you know who was even out to dinner,
being punched right there at the dinner table.

Speaker 9 (34:35):
But you know, when Cross came, they really put a.

Speaker 8 (34:38):
Lot of holes in her story asking about specificity did
she see Sean Colmes hitting Cassie with a pan, a
frying pan as she was making eggs one morning?

Speaker 9 (34:50):
And so she went back and forth.

Speaker 8 (34:51):
And I'm afraid that on Cross you could look at
the jury and the jury was not having it. They
did not take her as a credible witness, and it
was very difficult to to sit there and think, Okay, wait,
what was true?

Speaker 9 (35:02):
What wasn't true? Because she did seem to change her story.

Speaker 8 (35:07):
She said she answered it to all the questions to
the best of her ability, but it certainly didn't come
out very well. All right, anybody want to give a
final comment on this Sean Tolms trial.

Speaker 9 (35:19):
Is that going to be you, doctor malvel?

Speaker 4 (35:21):
It can be what you know? One of the things
I think is important here.

Speaker 19 (35:24):
Obviously, the prosecution has proven that this man is a
horrible human being who hits women, who coerces people, And
the question is consent. The question is because he had
all this money so he could manipulate people. But at
what point were you complicit in your own oppression? And
I think that's what the jury is going to have

(35:45):
to grapple with. I mean, did you choose to get
your behind beat because you thought you were going to
get a record deal? You know? I mean, as I said,
I'm an elder, I look at this bit and I
shake my head. But I also say that people should
not be coerced, their livelihood should not be placed online,
which it appears to have been done here and those

(36:07):
like Ohm Congo who know more about the music industry
than me, are better qualified to talk about it. But
I would just say this thinks. I don't know if
it was a federal case, but certainly it's a case
of some sort.

Speaker 4 (36:18):
And black folks, yeah, we.

Speaker 19 (36:20):
Have I was with a bunch of people, multi generational,
and I had a couple of folks say, well did
she choose to do that? We have to start looking
critically at the people we lived up If nothing else,
nobody ever, ever, ever, ever needs a buy another Diddy whatever, whatever,
whatever again, record the boy just go set fight. A

(36:42):
small hole to sit in. Could be the jail, but
it could be your mama's house.

Speaker 8 (36:47):
You said, mama has a lesson Listen, this was a
federal case. I want to say that you mentioned her
record deal. She had a ten record record deal. She
had one record come out of that lengthy relationship, be
it personal or professional. And I want to say this
before I throwed the break that I do think they
have made the case that he did cross someone over

(37:07):
state lines for the purposes of prostitution. That is the
lowest charge, so in terms of the jail time, he
would get you know, it's up to ten years, but
I do think that they are actually going to say
and so far have proven prosecution and defense.

Speaker 9 (37:20):
All right, we'll give that up.

Speaker 8 (37:21):
We are kind of conceding to that he did cross
state lines for purposes of engaging sex and.

Speaker 9 (37:28):
Paying for that sex. All right.

Speaker 8 (37:30):
We're going to be keeping more up with more on
that here on Roland Martin Unfiltered, and those of you
who are watching to stay with us. We've got more
of the headlining news after the break. We'll be right back.

Speaker 9 (37:44):
On the next Get Wealthy with me Deborah Owens.

Speaker 20 (37:48):
Have you ever had a million dollar idea and wondered
how to bring it to life? Well, it's all about
turning problems into opportunities. On our next Get Wealthy, you'll
learn of a woman who identified the overlow bag syndrome
and now she's taking that money to the bank through global.

Speaker 9 (38:10):
Sales and major department stores.

Speaker 7 (38:12):
And I was just struggling with two or three bags
on the train, and I looked around on the train
and I said, you know, if there are a lot
of women that are carrying two or three bags.

Speaker 20 (38:23):
That's right here on Get Wealthy only on Blackstar Network.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
I'm Russell L.

Speaker 9 (38:34):
Honoree Lieutenant Gerald United States are retired and you're watching
Rolla Martin.

Speaker 6 (38:39):
I'm healthy, all right.

Speaker 8 (38:47):
Louisiana is at the center of a voting rights fight.
A new lawsuit is taking aim at a controversial new
state law, Senate Bill four thirty six that now requires
proof of.

Speaker 9 (38:58):
Citizenship register to vote.

Speaker 8 (39:01):
We're talking about for certificates, passports, other documents of proof,
but the law doesn't clearly define what's acceptable or how
voters are supposed to even submit it. Civil rights groups,
including the end OFACP and the League of Women Voters,
say this is not just confusing, it's unconstitutional. They argue
that the law creates unnecessary hurdles that will hit black voters,

(39:24):
low income communities, students, and seniors. The hardest joining us
now is Danielle Lange. She's the senior director of voting
Rights at the Campaign Legal Center. Danielle, welcome to Roland
Martin Unfiltered, and I want to start with this what
exactly makes this law so dangerous?

Speaker 21 (39:43):
Thank you so much for having me and taking time
to talk about this important case. So you're absolutely right
that Louisiana recently passed a law that says that you
have to provide proof of citizenship when you register to vote.
I think there are a few things that make this
law so dangerous. It is essentially a copy cat version
of a federal bill that's being considered called the Save

(40:04):
Act that has passed the House, but that has been
enormously controversial because it would throw voter registration nationwide into chaos,
and that's exactly what this law in Louisiana threatens to do.
Voter registration is designed to be a simple process, one
where you can fill out a form and get on

(40:25):
the rolls so you can show up and vote on
election day. And now there's a new law that says
that anytime you register to vote, or even if you
move county and you have to reregister update your registration,
you're going to have to provide proof of citizenship.

Speaker 10 (40:41):
And that alone is enormously harmful.

Speaker 21 (40:44):
We know that when states have tried this out before,
and very few have, but the ones.

Speaker 10 (40:49):
That have, tens of thousands of folks, largely.

Speaker 21 (40:52):
Students, low income people, people of color, are disenfranchised because
the burdens and hurdles that you face and trying to
provide that documentation make it difficult to get registered to vote.
But what happens here in Louisiana is that the legislature
passed this law with absolutely no idea how it was

(41:14):
going to be implemented, no rules about who is going
to collect this, how they're going to collect it, what
counts as proof of citizenship, whether or not a copy
is acceptable. Do you have to submit it in person?
Does this imply to online voter registration? Does it apply
when you use the federal form?

Speaker 10 (41:34):
We just don't know.

Speaker 21 (41:35):
And that makes our clients in a very difficult position
because they're trying to.

Speaker 10 (41:40):
Engage in voter registration drives. How can they do that
under these circumstances.

Speaker 21 (41:45):
And let me just provide one example of how difficult
it can be for proof of citizenship for individual voters,
especially when there are no definitions about what counts, and
so many married women, of course, change their name when
they get married. And in order to provide proof of citizenship,
your driver's license isn't going to be good enough because

(42:07):
lots of people with immigration status other than citizenship can
get driver's licenses.

Speaker 10 (42:13):
So you're going to need something more than a driver's license.

Speaker 21 (42:16):
You're going to need something like a birth certificate likely
to provide proof of citizenship, well, most married women if
they are if they've changed their name, their birth certificate
name is obviously not going to match the name on
the voter registration roles or the name on their driver's license.
So what is somebody in that circumstance supposed to do.

(42:38):
This law makes it, you know, impossible to know what
someone like that is supposed to do.

Speaker 9 (42:44):
Not a well thought out law. You know, what are
your thoughts about?

Speaker 8 (42:49):
You know, people don't understand that while many people we
may not have their birth certificates, a lot of people
just don't have them, or they were born in a
time where they weren't keeping track of them, they didn't
need them. If you're ninety years old and you're down
and you live in Alabama and this is someone who
I know, they did not have their birth certificate. They
had to find someone that knew them and had to

(43:12):
go sign an affidavid to get the birth certificate. To say,
to connect all of the dots. Some people don't even
have birth certificates.

Speaker 10 (43:19):
That's absolutely true.

Speaker 21 (43:20):
So it was very common for elderly folks, especially black
elderly folks in the South, to not ever get issued
a birth birth certificate in the first instance. But even
outside of that population, think about all the people who
don't have that easily accessible to them. Students are a
perfect example, right, And so if you're a student LSU

(43:40):
and you're trying to get registered to vote, and you're
on campus and there's a voter registration drive and you
want to get registered, and then they say, oh, in
order to get registered and vote, you actually have to
provide your birth certificate. And you know, most students that
I've encountered in this work, their birth certificate is somewhere
with their parents in some files, maybe somewhere else.

Speaker 10 (44:00):
In the state, maybe outside of the state. And getting
that and getting that in a timely fashion.

Speaker 21 (44:05):
Getting cop you know, access to copiers and scanners, this
is not an easy task. You know, Folks in Louisiana
are no stranger to natural disasters. Folks lose their records
in those natural disasters. Some of sometimes those records themselves
are lost in the government offices that keep them.

Speaker 10 (44:27):
So there are many folks in many.

Speaker 21 (44:29):
Different circumstances that are going to have trouble providing this
type of documentation.

Speaker 10 (44:33):
Fact, a recent study suggested that something.

Speaker 21 (44:36):
On the order of nine million Americans don't have this
kind of documentation. Again in Louisiana, we're not even sure
what we're talking.

Speaker 10 (44:43):
About here and what might count. And we've seen different definitions. Right, So,
some states.

Speaker 21 (44:49):
Or some kind of the federal legislation talks about tribal leggis.
Some you know, draft legislation includes tribal iggis, some does not.
So what's going to count is very unclear. There's been
no guidance given by the Secretary of State this law.
You know, I couldn't My jaw nearly dropped when I love.

Speaker 10 (45:10):
It because it's about two sentences long.

Speaker 21 (45:13):
So this is a law that's intended to kind of
entirely disrupt.

Speaker 10 (45:17):
How we do voter registration Louisiana, turn.

Speaker 21 (45:20):
It from a simple, you know, fill out a form
process into a kind of complicated d MB esque you know,
documentation policy. And yet there's there's nothing to the text
of the law.

Speaker 10 (45:33):
It seems to have been barely thought through.

Speaker 8 (45:36):
All Right, Before I go to my planel, one more
question about this very vague law. What is your center
going to be doing in terms of next steps in
order to combat this?

Speaker 21 (45:44):
Yeah, so we represent as you mentioned, the League of
Women Voters, Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, the NAACP,
and Vote, the Voice of the Experienced in Louisiana, and
we're working with Southern Poverty Law Center and Lawyers Committee
on this lidgation.

Speaker 10 (46:01):
And so we filed the complaint. It's now on the
state to kind of respond.

Speaker 21 (46:05):
And explain itself and especially explain how they're planning to
implement this vague law. But we're planning on following through
on all of our legal claims, both constitutional claims but
also claims under the very important National Voter Registration Act,
which the Supreme Court has already said that that law
means that Louisiana has to accept what's called the Federal form,

(46:27):
which is a national voter registration form that does not
require documentary.

Speaker 10 (46:32):
Proof of citizenship.

Speaker 9 (46:34):
All right, Doctor Melvaul, your question for Danielle lifted up.

Speaker 19 (46:40):
The students, but I think is also important to lift
up the elders. My mom died when she was ninety three.
She was from Mississippi. We had to get her versertificate
for something. Her name was spelled wrong, her race was lost.
As college as in college Greens, we had a good
time teasing her about about being collared. So obviously some

(47:01):
literate person had registered my mother's birth and it took
us almost a year to get that straight.

Speaker 4 (47:07):
We don't have a year with these bit term elections.

Speaker 19 (47:11):
What kind of emergency measures is your organization put in.

Speaker 4 (47:16):
So that people don't have to go to court and
fight to make sure that they're eligible.

Speaker 10 (47:21):
Thank you so much for telling that story.

Speaker 21 (47:23):
It's just one of many stories that we hear about
the individuals who would be affected by these kinds of laws,
and so our clients are prepared to take this to
court to get whatever relief is necessary for upcoming elections
and to stay in this fight for exactly the reason
you said. It cannot be the case that individual voters

(47:45):
all have to.

Speaker 10 (47:45):
Go to court to prove their eligibility.

Speaker 21 (47:48):
It cannot be that they have to wait kind of
months long bath blogs to get their birth certificate in
order to be able to exercise their fundamental right to vote.

Speaker 9 (47:59):
All right, doctor, question for Danielle.

Speaker 17 (48:03):
Thank you so much Danielle for your work and your advocacy.
My question is what are you hearing from people who
may be more on the magasides of things you know
and the Mike Johnson's side. The things, is this an
area of information where they're not even getting or are
they receiving it and not caring because they feel like
they'll be okay, or are they starting to move towards

(48:25):
your coalition as well to make sure that this is
something that does not affect them.

Speaker 10 (48:30):
Yeah, thank you so much for the question.

Speaker 21 (48:32):
I do think that there's a lot of misinformation out there.
I think that, you know, a big concern for myself
and my organization is that the Americans don't know a
lot about all the sords we already have in our
election system, and so when we have folks who should
be in positions of trust kind of undermining trust in elections,

(48:54):
it's natural that some Americans might wonder about what changes
do we need to make to our elections.

Speaker 10 (48:58):
But the fact is I have the opportunity to.

Speaker 21 (49:02):
Work really closely with election officials all the time and
know the really complex processes that already go into securing
our elections. When you register to vote, you provide an
identity number. That identity EO a social security number or
driver's license number that's often matched up against a database
to show that you are who you say you are, and.

Speaker 10 (49:22):
That you are. You know that I am Danielle Lang.

Speaker 21 (49:25):
From Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and that that matches other databases, and
I also have to affirm my citizenship, and we know
that these systems.

Speaker 10 (49:33):
And safeguards are working really well.

Speaker 4 (49:36):
You know.

Speaker 21 (49:36):
One thing I am hearing though from the American public
on for example, the save legislation at the federal level,
is that ordinary Americans might have first heard a suggestion
of oh, proof of citizenship, and say, oh, that might
be a good idea, and then they hear the details,
and they hear about how this might affect people they know,
married women, elders, students, their children, and they say, hey.

Speaker 10 (49:59):
That doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 21 (50:00):
We haven't been doing that, and why why are these
elected officials trying to up end the system by.

Speaker 10 (50:07):
Which we access our elections. And I think that there.

Speaker 21 (50:10):
Has really been popular support for this idea that we
should not be making it harder to vote. We should
be making voting more accessible. And there are lots of
ways that we can modernize our election systems, make them
work better, and make them work better for voters. And
those are the types of solutions that voters want to see.
I think of all political Stripes.

Speaker 9 (50:29):
All right, Representatives Shannon, Yes, well, thank you for your work.

Speaker 18 (50:33):
I actually served six years in the Georgia House of
Representatives and I served on the Governmental Affairs Committee, which
dealt with election laws. So we would see plenty of
these bills come up that were just meant to be
voter suppression bills that were sort of trying to lead
people to believe that they were just trying to increase
election integrity, but they were really just attempts to suppress

(50:54):
the vote. Hearing what you're saying about this bill, I mean,
I could say I'm surprised, but I'm not. This sounds
particularly egregious, especially with it just being two sentences in
the bill. Makes me kind of wonder if this bill
is an attempt to pass it at the state level,
see what hurdles it goes through in reference to court fights,
so that they can really game out the fight at

(51:14):
the federal level to pass the same back, because we
do see that a lot of times. So is that
something that you all have thought about as you take
on this lawsuit?

Speaker 9 (51:22):
And obviously I don't know.

Speaker 18 (51:24):
How the Louisiana courts work, but do you have any
indication of when may be your first time that you
may go to court over this.

Speaker 10 (51:31):
And what the court fight might look like. Yeah, thank
you so much for the question.

Speaker 21 (51:36):
So what I'll say is that this Louisiana bill is
definitely not a standalone matter.

Speaker 10 (51:43):
Right.

Speaker 21 (51:44):
I have been working on issues around this new form
of obstacles.

Speaker 10 (51:49):
To voter registration for some time.

Speaker 21 (51:52):
I've been working on the issue in Arizona. We saw
Kansas try this before, so we know this is coming
from a place book. It's coming from a kind of
known playbook. It's also coming from a playbook that's already
lost in court, and yet they're trying it again.

Speaker 10 (52:08):
And so it is definitely part of this broader strategy.

Speaker 21 (52:11):
And we saw a number of other states still considering
these types of bills right now in their state houses.
And I think there's this kind of ecosystem between the.

Speaker 10 (52:22):
Federal legislation and state legislation.

Speaker 21 (52:25):
Yeah, some of it might be the state legislation feeding
the federal but it's also you know, by the House
passing the same act, they're sending a message to state legislatures, hey,
you should do this thing. Even if we can't get
it passed in the Senate, you should go about this
at your state level, and so we're definitely thinking about
this as part of a broader strategy to make it

(52:47):
harder to vote and to make access to vote more difficult.
As far as the kind of the timeline for the law, duit,
I think it's too early to tell. Like I said,
in the ordinary course, after you file a complaint, the
next move is kind of for the state to respond,

(53:07):
and we'll be looking to them to do that, and
you know, looking at all of our options for the
right timeline for this case.

Speaker 8 (53:17):
And Danielle, before we go, I want to ask you,
how can people get involved in your organization, especially down Louisiana,
to fight this good fight to make.

Speaker 9 (53:24):
Sure that this voto suppression does not happen.

Speaker 21 (53:27):
Yeah, you can visit our website at campaign Legal dot
org and learn about this case and also all the
other cases we have fighting for the freedom to vote
across the South and across the United States. We have
a very important lawsuit against an executive order issued by
President Trump trying to upend various parts of our election system,
including touching on this issue of documentary proof of citizenship.

(53:50):
And I'd also encourage folks to look at the websites
of our clients as well that are doing the really
important on the groundwork in Louisiana.

Speaker 9 (53:58):
All right, a.

Speaker 8 (53:58):
Very big, big law so I'm sure more to come
out of that. Danielle, thank you so much for being
with us tonight.

Speaker 10 (54:04):
Thank you to all of you for the great questions.

Speaker 9 (54:07):
Thank you all right, stay.

Speaker 8 (54:09):
With us here on Roland Martin Unfiltered Live on the
Black Star Network. We've got more headlines for you coming
up right after the break.

Speaker 22 (54:22):
Hey, y'all, welcome to the Other Side of Change, only
on the Blackstar Network and hosted by myself.

Speaker 9 (54:27):
Free Baker and my good sis Jimy or Burley.

Speaker 22 (54:30):
We are just two millennial women tackling everything at the
intersection of politics, gender and pop culture.

Speaker 9 (54:36):
And we don't just settle for commentary.

Speaker 23 (54:38):
This is about solution driven dialogue to get us to
the world as.

Speaker 10 (54:41):
It could be and not just as it is.

Speaker 22 (54:43):
Watch us on the Blackstar Network, So tune in to
the Other Side of Change.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
Hello.

Speaker 3 (54:53):
Next on the black Tape with Me Great Call, we
featured the brand new work of Professor Porter, which simply
put is a revolutionary reframing of the African experience in
this country. It's the one legal article, every I mean
everyone should we Professor Porter and doctor Velithia Watkins, our

(55:14):
Legal round Table team join us to explore the paper
that I guarantee is going to prompt a major aha moment.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
In our culture.

Speaker 23 (55:25):
You crystallize it by saying, who are we to other people?

Speaker 9 (55:28):
Who are African.

Speaker 6 (55:29):
People to others?

Speaker 9 (55:30):
Governance is how are they?

Speaker 23 (55:34):
Who are we to each other? The structures we create
for ourselves, how we order the universe as African people?

Speaker 3 (55:41):
That's next on the Black Table. Here on the Black
Star name. Hey, what's something y'all?

Speaker 22 (55:50):
I'm Devond Frank, I'm doctor Robin Bee, pharmacist and fitness coach,
and you're watching Roland Martin unfiltered.

Speaker 4 (56:01):
All right.

Speaker 8 (56:02):
Texas Congressman Al Green is trying to stop Trump like
a lot of other people right, The longtime Democrat is
once again calling for President Trump to be impeached. He
filed new articles this week saying that flat out Trump
is unfit to occupy the Oval office. You might remember
Green made headlines earlier this year when he was kicked

(56:23):
out of Trump's State of the Union. The congressman says
Trump's behavior is authoritarian and dangerous, accusing him of ignoring
court rulings, disrespecting the separation of powers, and acting like
the rules don't apply. He is waiting for a full
blown crisis. His words, tanks rolling down the streets are
not an option.

Speaker 4 (56:42):
Now.

Speaker 8 (56:43):
Not everyone is on board, all right, but Green was
recently censured by the House. Even some Democrats voted against him,
but he says he would do it all again. Doctor Malveaux,
what are your thoughts about this impeachment.

Speaker 9 (56:58):
I mean, what he is saying is true. The letter
of the law is not being followed.

Speaker 8 (57:03):
Separation of the powers, uh, separation of all of these
executive branch. You know, a lot of what's in the
Constitution just not being honored, one amendment at a time.

Speaker 4 (57:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 19 (57:15):
I appreciate Reverend Reverend Content Green so much for his
work or his advocacy, and for his audacity.

Speaker 4 (57:23):
I'm happy that.

Speaker 19 (57:24):
He's introducing these articles of impeachment. But we have to
be honest. This is a full party effort. The Congress
is majority Republicans. They're not They might cross a line
on Medicaid, they might cross a line on subject. They're
not going to cross the line on impeachment, even though
they know better. They know better.

Speaker 4 (57:45):
But they're not going to do better, So we have
to do our job.

Speaker 19 (57:48):
You know, as African American commentators, African American activists, artists,
artists who are activists, our job is to continue to
lift the brother up. It may be a fool errand
because we know we don't have the numbers, we can't
let this nonsense go away.

Speaker 4 (58:06):
We can't let people think that.

Speaker 19 (58:08):
It's normal for a person who's been elected president of
the United States just overlook the courts, overlook the people,
just do whatever he wants to do. And he's pretty
much said I'm gonna do what I want to do,
and nobody's prepared to check him.

Speaker 4 (58:23):
So Bravel, the congressman, breeding for checking.

Speaker 8 (58:26):
So Representative Shannon I am hearing the same thing that
doctor Melvae is saying. Listen, this probably won't happen, so
that people have to depend on themselves, create community, do better,
go out there and fight for justice on your own.
But is there something else that we should all be
doing at this time because it seems as dough. I'm

(58:47):
not going to say nothing's being done, but we certainly
want more to be done, and we're not seeing what
is being done in the way that we.

Speaker 18 (58:54):
Want sure, so there is a lot that can be done.
I mean, I think you're right that, and doctor Malveaux
sort of said this too, which is that Congressman Green
has taken the right approach. What kind of frustrates me
is that too often black seniors in particular, who have
the lived life experience to know when something is about
to get bad, usually get cast aside as people who

(59:16):
are blowing things up and not to be listened to,
when that's just really not the case. He's absolutely right
in what he filed in these papers, particularly the point
where he hones in about that you were not far
from seeing tanks coming down the street.

Speaker 1 (59:29):
He's right.

Speaker 18 (59:29):
I was talking in an interview last week about how
the new executive order that Trump signed basically it says,
and this is not a summary, these are the words
in executive order. It's calling for aggressive policing of communities.
It's calling for lawyers who work for the government to
do pro bono work, which means represent for free cops
who have been charged with misconduct. Talks about jailing more

(59:53):
elected officials who basically disagree with Trump, even.

Speaker 9 (59:57):
Including those who want to move forward.

Speaker 18 (01:00:00):
So this isn't so he's you know, Congressman Green is
not blowing anything out of proportion. This is like, really
what is in front of us. I would say what
people can do is because we see that Democrats have
too often sort of sat back and said, oh, you know,
everybody's blowing things.

Speaker 9 (01:00:15):
Out of proportion, it's not that bad.

Speaker 18 (01:00:17):
What everybody can do is reach out to their elected
official to say, listen, I want you to take this seriously,
and you need to be following Congressman Green's lead. That
is the thing that's going to make a difference, because
at the end of the day, elected officials worry about
getting reelected, and many of them, particularly when they don't
come from an activist background, are going to see to
whatever wherever the most pressure is from. So if they

(01:00:38):
see if so, if their constituents are telling them, you
need to get behind Congressman Green and take all of
this seriously, and we believe that, you know, things are
really at this level that something must be done and
we are in dire circumstances, then that is something that
is going to give Representative Green more energy, more fuel
to really push this thing forward.

Speaker 9 (01:00:57):
Doctor DEBINGA, how does the sound of impeachment strike you?

Speaker 6 (01:01:02):
It sounds great, exactly, sounds.

Speaker 8 (01:01:05):
Very But in terms of the real application of it,
how does it really sit with you?

Speaker 6 (01:01:10):
Well, it's not going to happen.

Speaker 17 (01:01:12):
But you know the fact that the matter is is
today's one hundredth birthday of Malcolm X. And this is
a man who brought a case to the United Nations
to you know, argue for the rights of black people
in America. I mean, he helped globalize the plight of
our people and connected us with an international community of people.

(01:01:34):
Did he believe in his heart that he was going
to go to this trial, he was going to win,
and that everything was going to change. Probably not, But
the effort matters, which is why we still celebrate him today.
History is watching what's going to happen thirty forty fifty
years from now, where you know, our grandchildren, our great
grandchildren or whoever you know, our great nieces, whatever, are
reading these books and see and see nothing. See no

(01:01:57):
impeachment efforts were made, no new voter efforts were made.
I believe honestly that what's going to happen is that
he's going to keep overstepping and at the very least
more Democrats are going to join even if it's not,
a lot more are going to join what he's doing,
and by the time we come to the midterms, there'll
probably be a larger ground soil of people calling for ompeachment,

(01:02:19):
even though it still won't happen under these Republicans. But
this is the time for Democrats to show spine. This
is for them to show backbone. So many of them
are just focusing so much on their local communities, which
I get it, all politics is local, but there are
real things that are happening in this country and he's
only expanding his dictatorial mentality even more.

Speaker 6 (01:02:38):
People have to stand up. People have to speak up.

Speaker 17 (01:02:40):
And at the end of the day, I'd be calling
him out if they didn't say something. So I applaud
him for doing that, and he needs to continue to
do that so people can follow his example.

Speaker 8 (01:02:49):
Representative Shannon, can we talk about the separation of powers
for one moment. I mean, this is why we have
the Constitution. But you get a Supreme Court ruling nine zero,
it's ignored. How do you think that's happening? And is
there anything that you think might be going on behind
closed doors? Maybe we don't know about, you know, out
here on these streets that's going on. Maybe something's being

(01:03:09):
worked on that maybe we don't know about in order
to stop this, because this is just unprecedented all around.

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
Right.

Speaker 18 (01:03:17):
So you know, one other comment on Representative Green, People
can't disregard him.

Speaker 9 (01:03:21):
He was the one.

Speaker 18 (01:03:22):
He didn't get enough credit for it, but he was
the one who laid the foundation for impeachment the first
time Trump served, and he did get impeached. He got
impeached twice. And it was Representative Green who was the
first person to realize the harm and say to everybody,
I'm filing impeachment papers. So I wouldn't just chalk it
up to, oh, this can't happen. It's a drum beat
that you have to beat. It's a conversation that you
have to keep rolling. That you have to you get

(01:03:44):
more and more people to understand why you're saying what
you're saying as it relates to impeachment. And you know,
more folks than what you thought may jump on. Trump's
already having problems with the publicans who are breaking ranks
even over trying to pass this budget bill that was
a fight the first time that they tried to do it.
They couldn't get it done. Then they did get it
done the second time, but hasn't cleared the sendate. So
to answer your second question, yeah, like I think with

(01:04:08):
the separation of powers and him just ignoring the constitution,
this is literally what is the difference between having a
democracy and having a dictatorship. It's very dangerous because I
tell people this all the time. When you have a
set of rules that people and we know that things
are not fair. There are many things. Take the justice
system for example, especially as it relates to black folks,
the rules are not often followed followed. But when you

(01:04:29):
have somebody who is president who is completely saying I don't.

Speaker 10 (01:04:33):
Follow any of the rules.

Speaker 18 (01:04:34):
I am the final say so the courts don't matter
and nothing else matters, which is essentially what he's doing
when he just decides to.

Speaker 10 (01:04:41):
Ignore court orders.

Speaker 18 (01:04:43):
What you have is if you don't have a system
that people are willing to adhere to to make decisions
as a society, you know what comes next, making decisions
by whoever has the most force.

Speaker 10 (01:04:54):
In the streets.

Speaker 18 (01:04:55):
So I think that the issue here and this is
why Representative Green is waving the flag now to say listen,
something needs to be done. Is that you don't want
to wait until you have, you know, decisions being made
by force in the streets, because that is what breaks
apart countries.

Speaker 9 (01:05:10):
So we don't need to wait to that point.

Speaker 18 (01:05:12):
Democrats don't need to wait to that point before they
feel some urgency to do something. Now is the time
to be having conversations with constituents. Now's the time for
constituents to be having conversations with their elected officials, and
for Democrats to be publicly getting behind Representative Green and
talking about how we're in such a dangerous place.

Speaker 9 (01:05:29):
Because you may think.

Speaker 18 (01:05:30):
Only Democrats listen to those who are in elected office
if a Democrat is speaking.

Speaker 9 (01:05:34):
But it's not true.

Speaker 18 (01:05:35):
I mean people even we just like we have to
listen to people that we don't agree with all day long,
and sometimes people realize what you may think is a
broken clock is right twice a day.

Speaker 8 (01:05:45):
M You got that right, doctor de Binga. I want
to close this segment out with you. Listen, before the
president was elected, I think that there were some things
you know, that we've been seeing. We could go through
the gamut that people thought would never happen. I'm wondering
your estimation. Were some things to come that you think
could possibly happen in terms of the extreme that people

(01:06:07):
need to open their eyes about and not think, oh,
that just happens in some science fiction movie.

Speaker 17 (01:06:13):
Yeah, I mean people have to be mindful of the
fact that we are living in a dictatorship now. And
the fact of the matter is dictatorships across the globe
they never had everybody under the thumb of the leader.
It was the people who were the dissenters. There are
people who were walking around just fine in Nazi Germany,
who were walking around find in Iwanda and Congo and

(01:06:33):
other places around the world there unaffected. But people have
to understand that it's just a matter of time before
it comes to you. So what I can envision happening
when Representative Standon was talking about that police order earlier,
the language that he was using and there was to
unleash them, right, you know, to set them loose.

Speaker 6 (01:06:52):
And so you also see that the.

Speaker 17 (01:06:54):
D and I Gabby and Telsea Gabbert, you know that
she's happy trying to have her team rework intelligence reports
to get them to say what they want to say.
Because once you can put out an intelligence report that's
saying wonder thread warn the invasion from any group.

Speaker 6 (01:07:09):
All the gloves are off.

Speaker 17 (01:07:10):
I mean, he's actually looking at putting out executive orders
that can target nonprofits and call them terrorists, so like
the Boys and Girls Club could be labeled a terrorist organization.
And again, once the language is there, anything becomes possible.
So I envisioned detention. Were already seeing that of American citizens.
I'm seeing people getting expelled from their communities, from their homes.

(01:07:30):
We're seeing we're seeing these things happening already on a
small scale. They're just going to be enlarge. And so
really at the end of the day, people are going
to have their incomes, you know, targeted, because he controls
the irs, like everything that happens overseas can happen. And
here's the last point I'll say, and this is that
Trump is doing all of this and he has not.

Speaker 6 (01:07:52):
Fired a single shot yet.

Speaker 17 (01:07:55):
People need to be careful because what he's doing all
of this, now, what's happening with abductions and things of
immigrants and are like, it is violent, don't get me wrong,
but the bullets haven't started flying yet, and he's just
setting and prime tuning it up for those things that
start happening. As well, people should not be surprised if
we start seeing blood in the streets, defying this man.

Speaker 8 (01:08:16):
All right, all right, certainly something we're going to be
keeping up with here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. You are
watching Roland Martin Unfiltered here on the Blackstar Network.

Speaker 9 (01:08:25):
Stay with us.

Speaker 13 (01:08:29):
about mother wounds.

Speaker 15 (01:08:34):
While May is the month.

Speaker 13 (01:08:35):
That we shower mom with love, for some people, this
time of year is a stark reminder of fractured relationships
and feelings of abandonment. In this episode, we will be
uncovering the trauma of mother wounds and sharing tips on
how we can begin to heal them.

Speaker 14 (01:08:53):

Speaker 15 (01:08:58):
That's all Next on Alan's Live Here Black Star Network.

Speaker 24 (01:09:07):
This is Sambula Main and this is David Man, and
you're watching Roland Mark.

Speaker 6 (01:09:11):
I'm filter.

Speaker 8 (01:09:17):
All right, now, a look at President Biden's deeply personal announcement.

Speaker 9 (01:09:21):
He is battling mena static prostate cancer, a.

Speaker 8 (01:09:25):
Serious diagnosis that means the cancer has spread beyond the prostate.
This is the kind of news that stops you in
your tracks. Not because he's the president, but because so
many of us know this fight all too well.

Speaker 9 (01:09:49):
And the message of the nation. Biden said, cancer touches
us all.

Speaker 8 (01:09:52):
Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned
that we are the strongest in the broken places. Thank
you for lifting us up with love and so and
for black men, this moment hits a little differently because
they are the most at risk. Black men face the
highest rates of prostate cancer in the United States and
are more likely to be diagnosed late and die from it.

(01:10:15):
So tonight we are raising awareness and talking about it
to help us break this down and what this diagnosis
means and what every Black man and their families should know.
We're joined by doctor Leslie A. Dean, a leading urologist
with Howard University's Cancer Center. Doctor Dean, thank you for
being here.

Speaker 1 (01:10:33):
Thanks for the opportunity to join you tonight.

Speaker 8 (01:10:35):
Absolutely let's start with the President's diagnosis. What this type
of prostate cancer he has, the metastatic, What exactly does
that mean and why is the early screening so critical?

Speaker 9 (01:10:47):
Especially in our community?

Speaker 1 (01:10:49):
Are some foremost So I would like to extend well
wishes to the former president and his family. You know
I think he's lucky to have this support that he has,
and also the support of the of the nation and
the globe as a hole. What metastatic prostate cancer means
is that it has spread outside of the prostate, either
to local areas close to the prostate gland itself, to

(01:11:14):
the lymph nodes, or in the president in the former
president's case, to the bone. That's very important because that
means that it is an advanced stage of disease.

Speaker 8 (01:11:26):
And we talk about this advanced stage of disease, and
we talk about black men the awareness that they should
have in and around this. They should be doing something
different than people of other races in terms of checking
for this and preventing this.

Speaker 9 (01:11:40):
That is the status in terms of what they should
be doing.

Speaker 1 (01:11:44):
Yes, so black men need to screen earlier than the
general population, and from an age perspective that is generally
within the forties that it should start, especially if there's
a family history of prostate cancer in a first degree relative,
either a parent or a brother.

Speaker 8 (01:12:05):
You know, people would want to know, and I know
that this happened in my family when questions came about
when people got pasta cancer. They just want to know,
you know, Could I have prevented this in some way?
What is it that I did in my youth? You know,
they start tracking and what happened in their lives. What's
your question to that when you get that from people
who say, could I have prevented this? Can I prevent
it from happening again? You know if my PSA numbers

(01:12:28):
go down?

Speaker 1 (01:12:29):
So the important thing to know is that there aren't
really any specific factors that we can incorporate to prevent
us from getting prostate cancer. We have to live a
generally healthy lifestyle. I think that's the most important part.
Try to minimize stress, increase exercise, watch our diets, and

(01:12:50):
eat healthy and all of those things will will help
to minimize the risk. But there isn't anything that we
can hang our hats on to actually prevent prostate cancer
from occurring.

Speaker 8 (01:13:02):
So I mentioned PSA, a number that you know, I'm
very familiar with in terms of the terminology because people
in my family. But can you explain that and how
you step a person through the process of being checked,
what that entails. We need to let people know and
remind them and also what this PSA.

Speaker 9 (01:13:20):
Number is.

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
A. PSA stands for prostate specific antigen, and this is
a factor that we find in the blood that is
associated with the risk of having prostate cancer. So the
higher the number, the higher the risk. Generally speaking, a
PSA number higher than four nanograms per mL is suspicious
and concerning, But we have to really focus in on

(01:13:47):
what the patient's age is. So the younger you are,
a PSA of four may actually be very high for
a forty year old, So we age adjust that PSA
number down the younger you are, and then we accept
higher numbers as you get older. But it's important to
have a baseline of what your PSA is in your

(01:14:08):
forties so that that number can be trapped and if
it is increasing at a rate that is not acceptable,
then that needs to be investigated and evaluated further.

Speaker 8 (01:14:19):
All right, before we go to the panel of questions,
the test itself invasive, people should just understand that they
have to go through the process, and you have to
go through it if you want to save your life potentially.

Speaker 1 (01:14:31):
Correct. So, the PSA is a simple blood test, and
it takes a discussion with either your primary care physician
or your urologists to understand the nuances of prostate specific
antigen testing in regards to any risks that there may
be from the downstream effect of the result of the test.

(01:14:51):
Sometimes we still do a digital rectal examination to examine
the prostate and if that's going to be done, basically
takes three or four seconds, uncomfortable, shouldn't be painful, and
it's something that you would want to consider having done.

Speaker 8 (01:15:06):
Absolutely definitely worth it. All right, let me go to
my panel representative Shannon. Your question, Yes, thank you for
being here.

Speaker 9 (01:15:13):
Just have a very specific question.

Speaker 18 (01:15:14):
I know for you you mentioned before that black men
should start getting screened in their forties, but can you
be more specific as far as what age you personally recommend,
because I know for women with getting mammograms, doctors will
start telling you thirty eight, thirty nine, get a baseline mammogram,
and then when you hit forty it's mandatory to every
year get one. So what's your recommendation to be a

(01:15:35):
little more specific about when in their forties?

Speaker 1 (01:15:38):
For black men, I recommend starting at age forty or
as close to that as you can as you can get.
So if it's something that you hear about and you're
forty four, go get screened. If it's something that you've
been monitoring because of a family history of prostate cancer.
Then then go out forty. If you're in your thirties,

(01:15:58):
it doesn't really make a lot of It doesn't really
have a lot of impact to get tested in your
thirties because it's really unusual to detect cross jack cancering
men in your thirties.

Speaker 17 (01:16:10):
All right, doctor DIBINGA thank you so much for this
information that you're providing tonight. One of the things I've heard,
possibly about President Biden was that because of his age,
it is also possible that the doctors chose not to
do a test because of whatever reasons, medical reasons I

(01:16:31):
can't understand. My question is we talk about the ages
that people should start, but what about older men who
are out there who may feel like, Oh, I haven't
had any screenings.

Speaker 6 (01:16:40):
I've been fine all of my life.

Speaker 17 (01:16:42):
Now I'm sixty seven, seventy one, I don't really need
to do this. Is this something that you should continually
be doing yearly basically for the rest of your life
after the age of forty.

Speaker 1 (01:16:52):
But generally speaking, we tend to stop screening at about
age seventy four. According to the America Neurological Association guidelines
There are some other guidelines, for example, by the American
Cancer Society and the US Preventative Services Task Force that
suggests stopping screening at an even younger age, at around

(01:17:15):
sixty sixty nine or so. The issue comes when you've
had a PSA done annually for the preceding fifteen to
twenty years and it's been fine, and now, all of
a sudden, you turn seventy four. I've found in my
practice over the last two decades that it's very difficult
to suggest to a man we're going to stop this now,

(01:17:38):
particularly to a healthy an otherwise healthy man. We generally
look at this disease in terms of people having greater
than a ten year life expectancy. So if the life
expectancy is greater than ten years, I would advocate for
continuing the screening process. I think that things change in

(01:18:03):
life when we develop, you know, different risk factors as
we as we get older, potentially uh in terms of
the immune system being weakened, et cetera, just as a
as a matter of of aging.

Speaker 8 (01:18:16):
UH.

Speaker 1 (01:18:16):
And that can that can change and cause a you know,
cause a prostate cancer to to pop up where it
hasn't been evident before.

Speaker 19 (01:18:25):
All right, doctor Melvow, especially for brothers at a certain age.
I want to ask you the unpack for me the
reluctance that so many black men have even get checked
that at all. And we see that I've got colleagues,
I've got a sibling. I'm not gonna let anybody put

(01:18:48):
their their finger in behind parts, which, as you let know,
it's a three second process. What can we do to
ensure that black men not only are fully informed, but
also fully encourage to be screened.

Speaker 1 (01:19:05):
Oh, that's that's a really a really good question, a
really important question. You're right that black men in particular
have been reluctant to have rectal examinations. I think that
in seeing the physician, it is very important to establish
a relationship based on based on trust, so that the

(01:19:28):
individual understands the reasons for doing these tests right now.
In my practice, I very rarely do a rectal examination.
I tend to do an MRI first. I tend to
do the blood tests first, followed by an MRI because
I think we can get a lot more information based

(01:19:49):
on more advanced testing. There are many things that imaging
is going to see in the prostate gland that's just
in the location that I can't feel. And I think
that this is, you know, really something that can be
discussed over a few visits, as opposed to I'm going

(01:20:09):
to do the rectal examination on your first visit when
I don't know you as a patient, et cetera. And
I think that that's important in establishing that trust relationship
between the physician and the and the patient the individual
being screened and tested, and I, you know, I really
advocate for establishing that very early on.

Speaker 8 (01:20:32):
All right, doctor Leslie Dean, thank you so much for
being with us. Great information and great seeing you this evening.

Speaker 1 (01:20:37):
Thanks so much you too.

Speaker 8 (01:20:39):
All right, you are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered live here
on the black Star Network.

Speaker 9 (01:20:44):
Stay with us. We'll write back.

Speaker 3 (01:20:48):
Next on the Black Table with me, great car. We
featured the brand new work a Professor A. T. Porter,
which simply put, is a revolutionary reframing the African experience
in this country. It's the one legal article every I
mean everyone should we Professor Porter and doctor Velipiah Watkins,

(01:21:09):
our Legal round Table team, join us to explore the
paper that I guarantee is going to prompt a major
AHA moment in our culture.

Speaker 23 (01:21:20):
You crystallize it by saying, who are we to other people?

Speaker 9 (01:21:23):
Who are African people to others? Governance is our thing?

Speaker 23 (01:21:29):
Who are we to each other? The structures we create
for ourselves, how we order the universe as African people.

Speaker 3 (01:21:36):
That's next on the Black Table. Here on the Black Star.

Speaker 13 (01:21:39):
Yet this week on a Balanced Life, we are getting
real about mother wounds. While May is the month that
we shower mom with love, for some people, this time
of year is a stark reminder of fractured relationships and
feelings of a b indepent. In this episode, we will

(01:22:02):
be uncovering the trauma of mother wounds and sharing tips
on how we can begin to heal them.

Speaker 14 (01:22:08):

Speaker 15 (01:22:14):
That's all next on a Balanced Life Here, Black Star Network.

Speaker 6 (01:22:21):
How you're doing.

Speaker 17 (01:22:22):
My name is Lucke Current and you're watching Roland Martin.

Speaker 3 (01:22:26):
Unfiltered deep into it like pasteurized milk without the two percent,
were getting deep?

Speaker 6 (01:22:33):
You aren't tuning that shot out. We're doing an interview
with mother Bubba.

Speaker 1 (01:22:41):
All right.

Speaker 8 (01:22:41):
Donald Trump's latest tax cut bill barely made it out
of the House Budget Committee by one vote. After days
of Republican and fighting over spending cuts and Medicaid reforms,
the bill extends is twenty seventeen tax cuts and adds
new breaks for things like tips over time and even
car law.

Speaker 9 (01:23:00):
But here is the catch.

Speaker 8 (01:23:02):
It could gut Medicaid, slash cut assistance, and blow a
five tillion dollar hole in the national debt over the
next decade.

Speaker 9 (01:23:11):
Some Republicans want even deeper cuts to social.

Speaker 8 (01:23:14):
Programs, while others are nervous about hurting vulnerable communities. House
Speaker Mike Johnson is now scrambling to unify Republicans before
a final vote. They're calling it the one Big, Beautiful Bill,
but critics say it's beautiful just for billionaires and not
the people, not everyone. Doctor Dominga not surprised, I'm sure

(01:23:36):
about this latest but I can understand certainly why even
Republicans are a little bit scared about the habit that
this could cause.

Speaker 17 (01:23:45):
Yeah, it's it never ceases to amaze me the lengths
that they will go to to protect those who are
at the top. And really, quite honestly, it's like for
what I mean, it's not like they're getting all of
the benefits of what these billionaires have, right, I mean
he has a thirteen I don't know billionaires who are
in his cabinet.

Speaker 6 (01:24:02):
It's not you know these.

Speaker 17 (01:24:04):
Guys, but you don't forget the congress people. I'm thinking
more about the constituents and a nonsen quotation about you know,
and you can convince the porous white man that he's
better than the best colored person. He won't realize you're
picking his pocket. Give him someone empty his pocket and
someone to look down on and emptiest pockets for you. Like,
how long will these guys at the bottom deal just

(01:24:28):
tolerate this? Are they going to keep allowing their representatives
to screw them as long as they're getting rid of
so called you know, illegal aliens, right, you know, undocumented
human beings. Are they going to allow as long as
they continue to end quote unquote woke policies? Not realizing
that wop policies includes the resource assistance that they have

(01:24:49):
in their schools to occupational therapists that their child needs
to get there their needs met because they don't have
the money through their insurance. Like, how long are they
going to tolerate this? Because black people's like, when we're
in this country, look into our first segment where we're
used to the struggle, We've been born into it, and
we're not happy. Where did we continue to fight, you know,
for our rights and what we deserve. But these other folks,

(01:25:09):
they keep.

Speaker 6 (01:25:09):
Going along, going along, going along.

Speaker 17 (01:25:11):
And I think that at the end of the day,
misery loves company, and I think that many of these
constituents are going to be happy to suffer as long
as we're suffering too.

Speaker 6 (01:25:19):
And that's the real shame of the American experiment, the.

Speaker 8 (01:25:23):
American experiment, doctor Malvaux. I mean, when we're talking about
gutting Medicaid, I don't understand how folks in Congress cannot
see this would have been the whole system, you know, just.

Speaker 9 (01:25:35):
The way that America works.

Speaker 8 (01:25:38):
It would disturb and trickle down so many different types
of different types of ways that we probably can't even
imagine until it happens.

Speaker 4 (01:25:46):
You know.

Speaker 19 (01:25:46):
But to understand this, Candice, we have to go back
to the fact that we've always had a biprecated system,
a biprecated tax system that benefited some of that others,
I bet a biprecated economic.

Speaker 4 (01:26:00):
System that benefited some and not others.

Speaker 19 (01:26:03):
So while everything that is being said here and over
time ago breaks down full well, But everything that's being
said here is correct. What is not pre escent is
the way that they have done much of this. So
this big beautiful tax bill gives money to wealthy people
and takes to compot people. Big beautiful tax bills puts

(01:26:26):
people who are vulnerable both wise puts them on the
chopping block. This big beautiful bill takes away rights from
workers from children. There's things about education. So what we
have to look at in my mind, and I keep
talking about this, but what is a long game here?

Speaker 4 (01:26:48):
Literally?

Speaker 19 (01:26:48):
What is a long game? That was the president of
the United States bankrupt? I don't know how many times
he's back by.

Speaker 4 (01:27:00):
He's not the evil when he al, when he's not
the evil.

Speaker 19 (01:27:04):
He is being backed by those who want to reassert
an oligarchical model of economic development in these United States.
If you take education away, people don't know. They don't
know what they don't know, but they don't know. And
so you can tell them some story about Dee I
and they believe it not having looked at it. And

(01:27:26):
I can just going on but this so we can
and I'm very as many as many might coologize, were
all mad at the orange man. But he's not the
bottom line. He's a tip of the iceberg. The bottom
line is all of God, what is what is this
relationship with Russia? Come on, why can he not pack

(01:27:49):
that a people and every other US president had.

Speaker 4 (01:27:54):
Are we going to see Trump hotel? We will in
Russia in five minutes.

Speaker 19 (01:28:00):
Trunk resorts and gods where you move the people away?

Speaker 4 (01:28:05):
Again.

Speaker 19 (01:28:06):
I don't mean to sound like a paranoid lunatic, but
I do need to say, let's take a look at
the big picture. Is so called big beautiful tax field
of a continuation of a way to deal with predatory
capitalism to extract surplus value from working people, many whom.

Speaker 9 (01:28:24):
Are earth you know, representation Shannon.

Speaker 8 (01:28:28):
I was speaking to someone today and we were talking
about this, and I ultimately, when you touch medicaid, when
you touch food assistance, when you touch programs that help
people of color, you really ultimately break down families. At
the end of the day, you can't really have a
strong base when you have families that because of the system,
it prevents them from having things like food and having

(01:28:50):
good health care. So all of it just kind of
builds upon one another, and eventually families get broken, which
is the crux of how we live in existence, well
in terms of how we get started.

Speaker 18 (01:29:02):
Yeah, but I think the thing that's so dangerous about
this bill that people need to understand is when you
let's just take the cuts for Medicaid.

Speaker 9 (01:29:07):
For example, when you.

Speaker 18 (01:29:09):
Hear about Medicaid being cut, a lot of people tend
to think that it is just people who are on
Medicaid that will be affected, and you think that these
cuts are only going to affect low income people. That's
not true Medicaid people don't realize it. But their average
community hospital basically not even say community hospital, just hospital,
because that's let's just keep the language playing. The hospitals

(01:29:29):
that you see basically can only exist a lot of
times because of Medicaid because it gets dollars from the
state that get matched at the federal level. And so
what that means is that your local hospital that you
see if you were to get in a car accident
or something, is literally only surviving because of Medicaid and
they don't get enough dollars. Already, there have been at
least for the last decade or so, many reports about

(01:29:50):
how many hospitals are on the brink of going out
of business because of Medicaid, can't keep their doors open
because they're not getting enough money, not getting enough Medicaid
funds to cover all of their expenses. And so when
you're looking at a bill like this, this is something
that will not only affect the people who are the
most vulnerable, but it will affect every single one of
us on this panel.

Speaker 6 (01:30:10):
It will even affect.

Speaker 18 (01:30:11):
Congress people because at the end of the day, unless
you have some emergency medical team ready to go back
at your back and call when something happens to you,
a personal concierge team, you would likely need to go
to a hospital. So it's really not even about just
folks who are on Medicaid. This affects all of us
because hospitals serve entire communities. They serve all of us,

(01:30:32):
and including the members of Congress. So that's why you
know there is so much contention about this bill because
the members who voted on it know and understand that
when you touch Medicaid, you're touching a lot more than
what people think when they hear about Medicaid, which is
just poor people or low income people or people who
are on Medicaid. That's just that's not even the whole game.

Speaker 8 (01:30:53):
It's not you know, I'm representative. I have one question,
and this is just for you. What is it that
people do behind closed doors to get past this fine
common ground meeting of the minds, to move past something
like this that would be so destructive in the world
of politics.

Speaker 9 (01:31:10):
How do you make that happen.

Speaker 18 (01:31:11):
I think that it really will come down to people
reaching out to their elected officials. And I know everybody's
tired of hearing about reach out to your elected officials,
but listen to this point. Don't reach out to them
to just say vote knowing a bill. Reach out to
them and let them know that you understand what these
cuts are about. Because too many times elected officials a
lot of times will understand that the public that understand
how complicated this stuff is. But when you let them know,

(01:31:32):
it's like I said before, putting that heat on elected officials,
they respond to that. When you let them know that
when they see their local hospital closed because of a
bill you pass, it's going to be their ass Let
them know that that is the type of stuff that
a a lot of times, so much damage gets done
because elected officials know. And this is not the way
that I thought when I was in office, but I
heard it too many times in the hallways. Elected officials

(01:31:54):
believe and know that people don't understand how all complicated
this is, so they know that they can kind of
use a scapegoat to say, oh, it wasn't my actions
of voting for this bill that did X y Z. No,
this needs to be clear, and people need to understand that,
they need to understand what the ramifications are, and they
need to let their elected officials know in real time,
right now, before this advance is any further, that you

(01:32:16):
will be held accountable. We do understand what the ramifications are,
and you're not going to be able to scapego to
on something else.

Speaker 8 (01:32:21):
That's right, the power of the vote. All right, thank
you for that great information. You're watching Roland Martin on Filters.

Speaker 10 (01:32:27):
Stay with us.

Speaker 9 (01:32:28):
We'll be back right after this short break.

Speaker 22 (01:32:37):
Hey, y'all, welcome to the Other Side of Change, only
on the Blackstar Network and hosted by myself Free Baker
and Mike.

Speaker 6 (01:32:43):
Goodsis Jimmy or Burley.

Speaker 22 (01:32:45):
We are just two millennial women tackling everything at the
intersection of politics, gender and pop culture.

Speaker 9 (01:32:51):
And we don't just settle for commentary.

Speaker 23 (01:32:52):
This is about solution driven dialogue to get us to
the world.

Speaker 10 (01:32:55):
As it could be and not just as it is.

Speaker 22 (01:32:58):
To watch us on the Blackstar Network, to the other
side of change.

Speaker 24 (01:33:08):
Now that Roland Martin is ruling to give me the
blueprint Casey Rise, I need to go to Tyler Fairy
and get another blueprint because I need some green money.

Speaker 6 (01:33:17):
The only way I can do what I'm doing. I
need to make your money. So you'll see me.

Speaker 1 (01:33:21):
Working with Roland.

Speaker 24 (01:33:22):
Matter of fact, it's to Roland Martin and Shawl London show.
Well it should be the show Lundus show at Roland
mart show. Well, whatever show it's gonna be.

Speaker 6 (01:33:28):
It's gonna be good.

Speaker 8 (01:33:34):
All right, Let's go to the world of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to revoke
legal protections for three hundred and fifty thousand Venezuelans, potentially
making them vulnerable to deportation. The Court's order temporarily blocks
a lower court ruling from San Francisco that had extended
temporary protected status, or TPS for Venezuelans. This was set

(01:33:57):
to inspire last month. Justices give them reason, which is
typicult in emergency decisions, but TPS allows individuals already in
the US to live and work legally if their home
countries are considered unsafe because of natural disasters or conflict.
The administration has moved to end similar protections for other groups,

(01:34:19):
including five hundred thousand Haitians.

Speaker 9 (01:34:22):
Doctor de Binga, I want to start with you. I
mean this tracks. I mean what can we say? This tracks?

Speaker 6 (01:34:31):
We can say that this is just the beginning.

Speaker 17 (01:34:33):
We can say that all of the black folks in
this country who had no problems watching some of these
people getting snatched off the street and kicked out, you know,
the Kilmar or Brageo Garcias of the world. You know,
when they start removing protective status of other groups, you know,
like we talked about with Haitians here, Hey, anybody on
this panel can be in Haitian. It can be a
Haitian as far as Ice is concerned. And again, Trump's

(01:34:55):
ability to continually play on the visions in this country
is one of to reasons why he's been so successful
in his policies. And again, as I said at the
beginning of the show, he's doing this voluntary deportations or
quote unquote deportations are happening when people are going back
to places like Honduras and Columbia, some of them taking
their US citizen children with them. People they're actively trying

(01:35:18):
to flee the country so they don't end up in
Seacott in El Salvador. While at the same time, because
of great replacement theory, he's bringing in white people from
South Africa and who I haven't even been able to
verify yet who are actually farmers in any way, shape
or form. This is what I haven't heard any journalists
talk about who these guys are, what they were doing

(01:35:38):
in South Africa, because really it's only like one white
farmer has actually been killed and none of their land
has been taken. Why would any white South African actually
leave their land to come here. So that's just the
sort of But my point is this is what he's
doing to get more black and brown people out, and
the Supreme Court just gave him another another opportunity for

(01:35:58):
him to continue to do that.

Speaker 6 (01:36:00):
Folks with a Black start network, Black folks, we gotta
wake up. We gotta stick up for.

Speaker 17 (01:36:05):
Our brown family members, our black family members, who are all
in the same community. They're not getting rid of people
of the Irish and New York or people of Irish ascent.
They're not getting rid of German people of German descent
in Arizona like they're getting rid of us.

Speaker 6 (01:36:19):
And it can stop if we wake up and fight back.

Speaker 8 (01:36:23):
Doctor Malveaux. The Supreme Court once again. I mean, here's
the thing. No matter what they said, Trump was going
to do what he wanted. He would have figured out
some way.

Speaker 4 (01:36:32):
But I find it.

Speaker 8 (01:36:33):
Interesting that the Supreme Court did this in addition to
the fact that here we are again, and the point
I was going to bring up was what doctor de
Binga says, here we are again talking about deporting people
or making them more vulnerable three hundred and fifty thousand.

Speaker 9 (01:36:48):
Yet we're bringing in people from other countries.

Speaker 8 (01:36:51):
And when we talk about Venezuelan, Venezuela and what it
might be seen unsafe, there might be some economic issue.
That is a country where we have honored this, but
here we are. What is what is your take on it?

Speaker 19 (01:37:04):
Well, first of all, I wanted to concur fully with
a condo regarding the South Africa situation.

Speaker 9 (01:37:12):
It's absurd, it is beyond absurd.

Speaker 19 (01:37:14):
The people are being the so called people are taking
their land where they get the land from in the
first place, that's all happened. Where did they get the
land from? They took it from black people. And the
Constitution of South Africa is very mild in terms of
rand land repatiation.

Speaker 9 (01:37:29):
You have to deal with that.

Speaker 4 (01:37:30):
The Supreme Court is the Trump Supreme Court. We know that.

Speaker 19 (01:37:33):
Let's not you know, he very carefully and Mitch McConnell
that was very carefully denied President Obama that.

Speaker 4 (01:37:44):
Domination.

Speaker 19 (01:37:45):
They denied him the process and then they backed it
with the reprobates who all live under oath. Let's be clear,
live under oath about where they were coming from.

Speaker 4 (01:37:58):
And so, but now you're giving this man supreme authart.

Speaker 19 (01:38:05):
You don't have to follow the constitution, you don't have
to do.

Speaker 4 (01:38:09):
With the fourteenth minute. You can do what you want
to do.

Speaker 19 (01:38:13):
I was hoping that the Supreme Court, I mean, Rogerson too,
seemed to be more strict constructionists than the little sexual predators.

Speaker 4 (01:38:25):
I won't call their names.

Speaker 19 (01:38:26):
Y'all know who I mean, But I was hoping Rogers
said form he seemed to be of the Supreme Court head.
They seem to need more strict constructionists. Strict constructionists would say,
go by the letter of the law, but they also
have drank the kool aid by the picture and so
willing to give this president whatever he wants.

Speaker 4 (01:38:50):
It does it does not bode well for the next
two years and certainly not for the next four.

Speaker 19 (01:38:58):
And it really talks about the downward slide to totalitarianism
that we're experiencing right now.

Speaker 4 (01:39:06):
What we're experiencing is people haveing no confidence in law.

Speaker 19 (01:39:12):
And if I could just take this time, we can
talk about all the civil libertarian issues, but we also
have to talk about the economy of globu Guess what
nobody trusts us fitting this. We don't keep our word
worth our own people, and we're not keeping our.

Speaker 4 (01:39:27):
Word with ourselves.

Speaker 19 (01:39:28):
And so when we have a deficit, a large deficit,
which is that problematic until people don't trust right now,
internationally people don't trust them.

Speaker 8 (01:39:39):
The right question you watch, you know, Representative Shannon Irony
of all this is that people came here because of
Wartron countries and it was unsafe and economic depression. Now
we might be sending people back. I mean, the whole
point of it was to keep them safe. That's why
we are in this position. But like doctor Malva said,

(01:40:01):
you lose a lot of trust in America. When you
switch up on your word like this, it makes you look.

Speaker 9 (01:40:06):
Like you're a liar.

Speaker 18 (01:40:08):
Yeah, Doctor Malveaux hit the nail on the head talking
about trust in a very specific way that I'm going
to kind of elaborate on. I'm not sure if this
is what she meant, but this is where I want
to take it, which is that what Trump is doing now,
which essentially what they're doing is going and getting every
single person who is not a citizen who legally showed
themselves to the United States government and said listen, I

(01:40:30):
am here, I'm a refugee. I need status because I
can't be in my home country. They are people who
are following the letter of the law, and Trump is saying,
even though you had legal status to be here, you
are getting booted out. And so what that does is
it goes back to trust. And it also is the
reason why we have had a very tough time over

(01:40:51):
the last decades or so trying to get an immigration
system that will work and that will stick, because under
some presidents you're protected say come out of the shadows
and just show yourself and let the government know that
you are here, and we can get you in a
process so you can have legal status. But then you
get somebody like Trump elected, and because you did show
yourself with the previous administration, now you're exactly who's being

(01:41:13):
deported because guess what, the government.

Speaker 9 (01:41:15):
Has your address.

Speaker 18 (01:41:16):
The people they're not able to find are the people
who never showed themselves to the government. So that goes
to breaking trust, exactly what doctor Malvoux said. And I
think that, you know, it's also important for people to
really understand what time it is because Trump enjoyed a
lot of the Latino vote and at the time people
were saying, Okay, well, he just wants to deport the
people who didn't do it right and who didn't have

(01:41:38):
legal status.

Speaker 9 (01:41:39):
No.

Speaker 18 (01:41:39):
Now, as om A Congo brought up with Trump bringing
in white South African immigrants, you see now that this
was all about race the entire time. The only people
who are getting put out of the country are black
and brown immigrants, and white immigrants are.

Speaker 1 (01:41:53):
Being imported in.

Speaker 18 (01:41:55):
So it definitely goes back to one of those things
of like it's like, hey, listen to black fels who've
been here forever and know what the deal is and
how the stuff works, and.

Speaker 9 (01:42:04):
That's the band.

Speaker 8 (01:42:05):
I'm going to close out this segment on you with you.
This sets precedent, and the more he's able to do,
the more precedent he has. And he's able to do
anything that he wants saying well, I.

Speaker 9 (01:42:14):
Did it before.

Speaker 1 (01:42:15):
You know.

Speaker 8 (01:42:15):
That's how this government is going to work. And he's
not being stopped.

Speaker 9 (01:42:20):
A terrible precedent.

Speaker 17 (01:42:21):
Though, the same day that the folks arrived from South Africa,
family from Afghanistan noticed that they were having their temporary
protective status removed and that they were going to have
to leave the country. And a lot of these people
who came here from Afghanistan come from families of men
who helped the United States during what happened after nine

(01:42:44):
to eleven. So the fact of the matter is that
look Cannice. Once this man got rid of a four
year old cancer and there was a big child of
cancer who was an American citizen.

Speaker 6 (01:43:00):
All bets were off, All bets were off.

Speaker 17 (01:43:02):
And one of the things that Steven Miller said a
few weeks ago that really surprised me was that he
said that he is surprised that he has not seen
more lawsuits and more pushback towards everything that they're doing,
and to me, that share that tells me that more
even though we see protests and hearing like more Americans
are comfortable with what he's doing with these racist policies,

(01:43:25):
then we may think and that's the reason why he's
getting away of this. If he was bringing more Asians
in or you know, people will, they're being up for.
If he was bringing more black people in there, they're
being up for. He's actually bringing in more white people
are gonna compete if their farmers are gonna be compete
for farming jobs, they're gonna be competing with other Americans
for jobs, for housing.

Speaker 6 (01:43:46):
For schools.

Speaker 17 (01:43:47):
But people really don't care that much because he's bringing
in and helping them, and subconsciously even some of these
white liberals doctor King talked about, right, you know, are
they kind of feel like we've gone a little bit
too with the DEI and the policies of inclusion and
the like. And so I think people are more low
key comfortable with this. And Trump knows this. He ran

(01:44:08):
on racism, he ran he won on racism, and so
he's low key giving what a lot of people in
this country want, because if they didn't, they would be
a lot louder, and so there's not only shame on Trump,
but it's shame on America as well.

Speaker 6 (01:44:21):
He's just revealed us for who we are.

Speaker 9 (01:44:23):
People are telling all themselves.

Speaker 8 (01:44:25):
All right, we're certainly going to be following that story
here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network.

Speaker 9 (01:44:31):
Stay with us, we'll be back after break.

Speaker 13 (01:44:37):
about mother wounds. While May is the month that we
shower mom with love, for some people, this time of
year is a stark reminder of fractured relationships and feelings
of abandonment. In this episode, we will be uncovering the
trauma of mother wounds and sharing tips on how we

(01:44:59):
can begin to heal.

Speaker 14 (01:45:01):
given our sales permission to even heal.

Speaker 15 (01:45:06):
That's all next on a Balanced Live here, Blackstar Network.

Speaker 3 (01:45:14):
Hey, this is Motown recording artist Kim. You are watching
Roland Martin Unfiltered.

Speaker 1 (01:45:21):
Boy?

Speaker 5 (01:45:21):
He always unfiltered, though I ain't never known him to
be filtered?

Speaker 6 (01:45:24):
Is there anohing?

Speaker 11 (01:45:24):
Is there another way to experience rolland.

Speaker 5 (01:45:27):
Martin than to be unfiltered?

Speaker 6 (01:45:28):
Course he's unfiltered.

Speaker 5 (01:45:29):
Would you expect anything less.

Speaker 3 (01:45:31):
Why watch, watch, watch what happens next?

Speaker 10 (01:45:45):
All right?

Speaker 8 (01:45:46):
The MAGA driven Congress is close to cutting much data
programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program known as SNAP.
Ohio Congresswoman Chantelle Brown delivered an emotional plea against these
proposed sharing how the program helped her family during challenging
times in her childhood.

Speaker 25 (01:46:07):
As I think about this from a personal place, my
mother was on food assistance when I was in school,
and I think about when I grew up as a
child with epilepsy, petite mall seizures, having to rely on
food assistance. To this day, I hate cold cuts because

(01:46:28):
I had so many baloney sandwiches growing up, because that's
all we could afford baloney sandwiches pancakes for dinner, which
I thought was a treat but later learned that's all
we could afford for dinner because we depended on food stamps.

(01:46:55):
I had epilepsy seizures. My mother was afraid to go
to work because she never knew when her daughter could
have a seizure. She did not drive, she was on
public transportation. That was the assistance that she needed to
help us survive. To help us survive She didn't wake

(01:47:19):
up wanting to be on food stamps. She didn't wake
up wanting to have a daughter who had unpredictable medical
conditions that prevented her from keeping a regular job. But
thank God for those food stamps. Thank God for those
pancakes for dinner, Thank God for those syrup sandwiches. Thank

(01:47:40):
God for those toasted cheese sandwiches that we got because
we received the cheese to make toasted cheese sandwiches that
I grew up on because of food assistance. And now
you want to take things like that away from people
who need them, depend on them, who are just trying

(01:48:03):
to get by because of systemic, structural, institutional barriers that
have put many people in impoverished conditions that they did
not decide to be a part of, but because of
the systems that we are still utilizing to oppress people

(01:48:24):
are in place when we could be giving them a
helping hand, but instead we want to take money from
poor people so we can give it to rich people.
Make that make sense. Make it make sense. People depend

(01:48:45):
on this money, not so they can get rich, not
so they can invest it, not so they can get
a jet, not so they can get a yacht so
they can have a meal, so they can eat. But
we want to take it away from poor people and

(01:49:09):
give it to rich people. Let it sink in. That's
what we're doing. We're talking about food, poor people, and hunger.

Speaker 9 (01:49:26):
The House Committee voted along party line to advanced legislation
to the House Budget Committee that would cut up to
three hundred billion from SNAP to help fund an upcoming
tax and domestic policy bill.

Speaker 8 (01:49:38):
Doctor de Binga and impassion speech certainly made a lot
of sense. I mean, it is the systems that are
the system that's in place that's creating people who can't
afford food in the first place.

Speaker 17 (01:49:51):
You know that inequality is built into this country. You know,
it's built into this country. Anything that we fought for
in this country, whether it's child labor laws, you know,
women being able to have the right to be in
the workplace. I mean, inequality has been built into this
country from the beginning, and there are too many people
who have a vested interest in keeping it that way.

Speaker 6 (01:50:13):
They don't want to compete, so they want.

Speaker 17 (01:50:15):
You know, families like how she was talking about, you know,
mother afraid to go to work because of our child
potentially having a seizure. They want family, you know, mothers
not going for work because they have their eras kids.
They want to make sure that people who may have
various disabilities can get the services that they need. Like
they have a vested interest in keeping people down. It
is evil, it's savage, it's barbaric. And the sooner people

(01:50:37):
understand this and rally around people like Reverend Barbera and
the like, we can start to make some change in
this society and in this country. But so many people
are conditioned to believe that they're just supposed to suffer
that a little more suffering, they feel like it's not
going to hurt them.

Speaker 6 (01:50:51):
We need a.

Speaker 17 (01:50:52):
Larger uprise, and we need more than the weekend demonstrations
that are happening across the country to make people understand this,
because we shouldn't have We should have enough knowledge of
history to not have to hit rock bottom once again
before people decide to rise up, because by that time
it may be too late. As this man continues to

(01:51:12):
consolidate his power, and that's all he's doing right now,
is consolidating his power, biding his time right now so
that they can make the larger moves with these tax
cuts and other things that are going to permanently cripple
too many Americans and basically destroy this country for years
to come.

Speaker 8 (01:51:28):
Representative Shannon Listen party lines as expected, This is why
we are here. What's your take on this and what
could potentially happen? Do you think that people will eventually.

Speaker 18 (01:51:40):
Come around in this, you know, I'm hoping that this bill,
although it's a budget, so you know, in the state
of Georgia, the one duty you have as a house
member or senator is to pass a budget. It's like
that's the only thing that your actual job is. If
you don't do anything else, you do have to pass
a budget. At the congressional level, I'm not sure of
all things that they are required to by law to

(01:52:03):
do within their duty, but bringing that up because I'm
really hoping that this budget bill does not get culture
in the Senate. I'm hoping that it does not see
the light of day in the Senate, and because it's
just going to be so disastrous, the snap cuts, what
I can tell you is that, you know, it really
is just taking food out of the mouths of people
who literally this is their last leg of being able

(01:52:25):
to sustain themselves and The really terrible thing about it
is that, you know, Republicans always talk about entitlements, which
is the wrong thing to be calling these programs, but
they make it seem like we spend so much money
on social safety nets in this country and we don't.
More of our money is given to fundamlitary and tax cuts,
which is what the President's new budget is. Really The

(01:52:47):
people who winning in this are the wealthy getting tax
cuts and then more money on defense spending, and I
really think that it's very shortsighted. They also don't realize
how this can be an issue of national security. I
think that decisions like this will be the reasons, not
the only reason, but it'll be the reasons why we
won't win. For example, like this teriff war that Trump
is doing with China, because a lot of the countries

(01:53:09):
that you're going up against have a better social safety net,
So if something happens to their country, their folks can
go a lot longer, they can hold out a lot
longer as it results as you when you get into
things like trade wars and things like this, because they
have consistent social safety nets. Here in America, well, you
have the freedom to be homeless if you lose your job.
You have freedom to die from lack of access to

(01:53:31):
health care if you lose your job, and you have
the freedom to go hungry if you know, snap gets cut.
And so it's like the purpose of tax dollars is
supposed to be money that is being put into a
pot that will add to the betterment of the collective
of society. That's the purpose of tax dollars. Giving our

(01:53:54):
tax dollars to folks who to rich people so that
they can have tax cuts and were spending on military that.

Speaker 6 (01:54:02):
Is just not sustainable.

Speaker 18 (01:54:03):
It's not sustainable, and you know pretty soon the bill
is going to come due.

Speaker 8 (01:54:08):
You know what, doctor MALVOUI what I've been seeing a
lot of And this has happened before, but it resonates
more now. Is black women, especially giving and passionate speech
about these things that matter to them, to try to
get people to see the side of humanity that they
just don't understand. When you take cheese from someone, it

(01:54:28):
sounds so basic that it translates into somebody having a life.
And I think that that's been very important. Even if
the needle isn't moved, I think it's very important to
hear these stories just like we heard Chantelle Brown.

Speaker 19 (01:54:43):
So chantal Brown puts a face on it. My mom
was a social worker. I remember back in the day,
people that she brought home because they couldn't get their
foodskins ya called snap and all kinds of excuses being
made as to why people could not get their food scamps.
The small picture is drilling down and putting faces on

(01:55:04):
this misery.

Speaker 4 (01:55:05):
And that's what it is, is misery. And when I
think about Malcolm.

Speaker 19 (01:55:08):
X's mother, because I'm just there, and how she had
to hustle after her husband was killed rabily lynch when
they said he committed suicide on the railroad practice another story.
But look how she scrambled to try to feed her
children and then was insptucialized because they said she could
not feed her children because they took away her food assistance.

(01:55:31):
But let's take it back a step, guys, and talk
a little bit about who benefits from low wage workers.

Speaker 4 (01:55:40):
See, our country is subsidizing.

Speaker 19 (01:55:43):
The workers who work at the big bounce stores and
are making the minimum wage the made states. You know,
it's less than eight dollars an hour in some states,
in ninety states a bit more.

Speaker 4 (01:55:56):
I guess what's happening. So we're subsidizing oppression.

Speaker 19 (01:56:01):
When we say you can get food stamps because you
don't make enough money.

Speaker 4 (01:56:06):
We don't make enough money because people are not paying.

Speaker 19 (01:56:09):
So we can look at this in terms of staff
and if what they've done, and I'm hoping that at
least three or four Republicans grow care and that.

Speaker 4 (01:56:20):
The Senate also does some closure.

Speaker 19 (01:56:22):
But it's not just want, it's a bigger picture how
we're allowing workers to be exploited and how we're we
all of us collectively are benefiting from that exploitation.

Speaker 4 (01:56:36):
A frightening situation. And uh, there are very few.

Speaker 19 (01:56:40):
There are people in city to city and state to
safe or standing up.

Speaker 4 (01:56:44):
But we need folks to stand up far more nationally
and globally to say it is not okay.

Speaker 26 (01:56:50):
To exploit people simply that they exploit people. So low
wages are essentially exploitation. And how SNAP subsidizes. Let me
call one name out. Somebody will give me for Waldmart,
that's what they have.

Speaker 19 (01:57:08):
These low wage working these are punching above their weight.
They're not getting their money. So we are subsidizing oppression.
United States of America subsidizing oppression.

Speaker 8 (01:57:23):
So listen, doctor de Binga, I want to close out
this evening on you. We've got a scene tonight exploitation
and low wages and deportation. Do you have some good
news that will leave us all a little happier when
we get out of our chairs tonight.

Speaker 17 (01:57:38):
Well, I think the good news is that we need
to be mindful of and the fact that look, today's
Malcolm Xic's one hundred year birthday, right, you know if
and you know, doctor Malvaul has you know, talked about
you know, his mom and her history and their life.

Speaker 6 (01:57:55):
This is a man that we get to celebrate.

Speaker 17 (01:57:58):
We don't have to worry off the United States, you know,
you know, creating any type of event for him, you know,
to call out for him to be celebrated. He's ours,
He's they can't take anything away from us as relates
to how we celebrate and love this man as well
as doctor Betty Shabaz as well. You know, but it's
his birthday today, so you know, talking about him more.
And the fact that the matter is when I think

(01:58:19):
about him, when I think about Betty Shabaz, when I
think about his parents and the like, I always tell myself,
if everything we're going on with dealing with right now.

Speaker 6 (01:58:29):
We have been through worse. As a people, we.

Speaker 17 (01:58:32):
Have been through worse. As a country. We have been
through worse. And if our ancestors can fight and do
what they did to get through what they had to
go through, we can get through this if we stay organized,
if we learn our history, if we stay united, if
we support each other, support Blackstar Networks, support our initiatives,
just like we opened with, you know, with with the
hurricane and everything like that, And so that keeps me optimistic.

(01:58:56):
What are so many thoughts so that we could be
here today? What are we going to do today so
that ten years, fifteen years, thirty years, fifty years, they're
going to say the work the other people on this
panel and all of those watching made it possible for
their lives to be better. It's an exciting time for
us that we should embrace.

Speaker 8 (01:59:12):
All right, Doctor de Binga, thank you for that and
ending us on that note, and doctor Malvau. Representative Shannon
as always good seeing you and having you.

Speaker 4 (01:59:21):
Thank you, sis.

Speaker 9 (01:59:22):
I'm writing absolutely everybody.

Speaker 8 (01:59:24):
Have a good evening, folks, thanks for watching, you've been
watching Roland Martin, I'm filtered live on the Black Star Network.

Speaker 9 (01:59:30):
We appreciate you tonight and have a good one.

Speaker 6 (01:59:34):
Black Star Networks.

Speaker 5 (01:59:38):
A real old revolution.

Speaker 1 (01:59:40):
There right now.

Speaker 17 (01:59:40):
Thank you for being the voice of Black America almoment
that we have.

Speaker 9 (01:59:44):
Now we have to keep this going.

Speaker 14 (01:59:46):
The video looks phenomenalf between Black Star Network and Black
owned media and something like seeing in.

Speaker 17 (01:59:53):
You can't be Black owned media.

Speaker 2 (01:59:56):
And be scared.

Speaker 3 (01:59:57):
It's time to be smart.

Speaker 1 (01:59:58):
Bring your eyeballs, hold you dig.

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