Latest / The Breakfast Club / Best of full interview: Pastor Jamal Bryant On 40-Day Fast Against Target, Black America's Success, Politics + More

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Best of full interview: Pastor Jamal Bryant On 40-Day Fast Against Target, Black America's Success, Politics + More · The Breakfast Club

0:00
Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club.
0:05
Speaker 2: Morning everybody, It's the DJ Envy Jess Hilarious, Charlamage, the
0:09
Speaker 2: guy we are the Breakfast Club Lawn LaRosa is here.
0:11
Speaker 2: We got a special guest in the building. Yes, indeed
0:13
Speaker 2: have passed, Jamaal Bryant.
0:15
Speaker 1: Welcome brother, Thank you, sir. Good to be with y'all.
0:17
Speaker 3: How you feeling this morning, Bill?
0:18
Speaker 1: Great?
0:18
Speaker 3: Feeling good?
0:19
Speaker 1: You flew in this I flew in last night. Oh
0:21
Speaker 1: wow wow, get right after the service, right after, sirvice. Yeah,
0:25
Speaker 1: I was too scared. I was gonna be delayed. Delta
0:27
Speaker 1: got a whole lot going on right now. So I
0:30
Speaker 1: came in last night. Better safe than sorry.
0:32
Speaker 4: You know you you one of the people who you
0:34
Speaker 4: You actually use social media to spread the word and
0:37
Speaker 4: spread what you're doing in a in a great way.
0:40
Speaker 4: When did you realize that you had to start doing it?
0:43
Speaker 1: I think, uh, culture made it. The culture changes every
0:47
Speaker 1: four years. Church culture changes every twenty so the average
0:52
Speaker 1: church is fifteen years behind schedule. So to reach a
0:55
Speaker 1: younger demographic, I knew I had to hear that most
0:58
Speaker 1: churches Charlamagne broadcasts on Facebook. Most young people are on TikTok,
1:03
Speaker 1: So it's a great disconnect. So social media really is
1:06
Speaker 1: that bridge to make the church relevant to a generation
1:10
Speaker 1: as disconnected and.
1:11
Speaker 3: Church called you said, church cold changes every twenty.
1:13
Speaker 1: Years, look like well by virtue of the fact that
1:17
Speaker 1: we're always running behind. So the average Black church wouldn't
1:21
Speaker 1: even know what AI is. You have to think most
1:24
Speaker 1: churches didn't even stream to the pandemic. Three thousand, three
1:30
Speaker 1: forty five churches closed in the pandemic simply because they
1:34
Speaker 1: didn't have online given they still passing the plate in
1:37
Speaker 1: writing checks and don't know how to download. So a
1:41
Speaker 1: lot of our churches have got to really run up
1:43
Speaker 1: to speed.
1:43
Speaker 2: Wow, and how is that with the old congregation, the
1:45
Speaker 2: older congregation and the younger congregation with the TikTok and
1:48
Speaker 2: Facebook mesh, Right.
1:50
Speaker 1: It is really a changing of the guard. That church is.
1:56
Speaker 1: What was our grandmother's church with funeral home fans and
1:59
Speaker 1: fried chicken downstairs has shifted and the newer generation may
2:04
Speaker 1: not come to a physical building. They may just stream.
2:08
Speaker 1: So those who are on the old church that are
2:10
Speaker 1: you ain't really doing it if you ain't in the
2:12
Speaker 1: building when we do everything online. So to say that
2:16
Speaker 1: you're not really connected to God because you're streaming and
2:18
Speaker 1: not sitting on the pew. Is a disconnective of what
2:21
Speaker 1: the culture is and where we're going.
2:23
Speaker 5: What's your I mean, I know you get you always
2:26
Speaker 5: get people that love you or don't love you. They
2:29
Speaker 5: probably used to this, But what's your model every day
2:31
Speaker 5: when you're like, Okay, I'm gonna get up, I'm gonna
2:33
Speaker 5: say something that people probably won't touch. What's that motivating factor?
2:36
Speaker 5: Because sometimes I think pastor stereoway from stuff because they
2:40
Speaker 5: don't want controversy, because they think controversy means that God
2:43
Speaker 5: is not within the house anymore.
2:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's an incredible book called The Carriage to be Disliked.
2:48
Speaker 1: There's a whole lot of people always live for other
2:51
Speaker 1: people's affirmation. John Maxwell said, if you want to be
2:54
Speaker 1: like sell ice cream, but if you add sprinkles, somebody
2:59
Speaker 1: gonna be allergic to it. And so I think that
3:01
Speaker 1: the call to be great and a call to make
3:04
Speaker 1: a difference is realizing that you're going to go outside
3:07
Speaker 1: of the culture. When Doctor King was killed, his popularity
3:10
Speaker 1: was at its lowest. But now everybody got street signs
3:13
Speaker 1: and T shirts and a lot of times people don't
3:17
Speaker 1: recognize your greatness until after you make the impact. Maha
3:20
Speaker 1: Na Gandhi said, first they laugh at you, then they
3:22
Speaker 1: try to kill you, then they try to copy what
3:25
Speaker 1: you did. And so once you find out how to
3:28
Speaker 1: be a frontiersman and to make that difference, it'll really
3:31
Speaker 1: free you from other people's opinion.
3:33
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask one more back to the church question.
3:36
Speaker 2: Is a physical church necessarily needed?
3:38
Speaker 3: Right?
3:38
Speaker 2: And the reason I asked that is you talk about
3:40
Speaker 2: the amount of people at Duch Stream, right. Yeah, it's
3:43
Speaker 2: difficult to get out if you have a bunch of
3:44
Speaker 2: kids and everything that's going on in this world, people
3:46
Speaker 2: are scared. Is it physical church needed now?
3:49
Speaker 1: Absolutely? It is the power of unity. There was an
3:53
Speaker 1: article a couple of weeks ago how social media has
3:57
Speaker 1: made this the loneliest age. People are connected online but
4:01
Speaker 1: disconnected from people. So a lot of people are depressed,
4:05
Speaker 1: a lot of people have anxiety, a lot of people
4:07
Speaker 1: have sleep disordered, a lot of people are confronting mental illness.
4:10
Speaker 1: But online everything is up and we're stuck. But I
4:14
Speaker 1: think that that sense of community, that sense of connectedness,
4:17
Speaker 1: is still necessary.
4:19
Speaker 4: Before we get into the target fast, I want to
4:22
Speaker 4: talk about Jesse Waters from Fox News. Yes, Jesse Water
4:25
Speaker 4: said you was racist, Yes, because you criticized black people
4:28
Speaker 4: who went to the White House for the Black History
4:30
Speaker 4: Month program.
4:31
Speaker 3: Right, what do you say to.
4:32
Speaker 1: That that he clearly doesn't know what racism is because
4:35
Speaker 1: I wasn't telling about white people. I would talk about
4:40
Speaker 1: black people who having an identity crisis, who were in
4:44
Speaker 1: their cheering for Black History Months. Under an administration that
4:48
Speaker 1: wants to make it illegal, no federal agency could honor
4:52
Speaker 1: Black History Months, So for them to have a program
4:56
Speaker 1: was absolutely crazy. And all the more, they raised up
5:00
Speaker 1: my picture Charlemagne after announcing who was the new FBI director.
5:06
Speaker 1: Uh So for your own people to do that to you,
5:09
Speaker 1: I was calling them out. I don't know why he
5:10
Speaker 1: would call that racism, as much as it was exposure.
5:14
Speaker 1: Black people don't have the capacity to be racist.
5:17
Speaker 3: I wonder why they did hold your picture up in
5:18
Speaker 3: the white.
5:19
Speaker 1: Three of them, Charlamagne, you've been to the White House
5:22
Speaker 1: on the way, Yeah, you've been to the White House
5:24
Speaker 1: never in your life, never under nobody.
5:28
Speaker 3: No oh Wowresident President.
5:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's take the Vice president house. You're not going
5:35
Speaker 1: in the Vice President's house with a picture or a
5:37
Speaker 1: sign holding up no stick. You barely can get a
5:40
Speaker 1: backpack in there. So for them to have three pictures
5:43
Speaker 1: of me in the east wing is absolutely crazy. And
5:47
Speaker 1: I don't know Jasmin Krackett is up there, how came
5:51
Speaker 1: Jefferson is up there? Clypbun is up there? Why put
5:54
Speaker 1: my picture up? Uh? So I think it was a
5:56
Speaker 1: targeted attack.
5:58
Speaker 5: Uh.
5:58
Speaker 1: And so for them to assume I wasn't gonna say
6:00
Speaker 1: anything was outlandish.
6:01
Speaker 3: You did call them the spools who sat by the
6:03
Speaker 3: door though, yes, well that's a good thing.
6:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, in the context of the book, what was funny?
6:12
Speaker 1: And Charlemagne none of them negros ready, so they didn't
6:17
Speaker 1: even know what I was talking about, uh until you.
6:19
Speaker 1: I also called him as a runaway slave, which is
6:23
Speaker 1: and they didn't even understand the context of it because
6:26
Speaker 1: they're lost in their own misery of delusion.
6:28
Speaker 5: You also said you reminded them that you ain't never scared,
6:31
Speaker 5: reminded them from the West side of Baltimore and told
6:34
Speaker 5: them they got a problem.
6:34
Speaker 3: Pull up on you.
6:35
Speaker 5: Has anybody reached out to you to have that conversation
6:38
Speaker 5: or whatever? That pull up you thought was?
6:39
Speaker 3: No.
6:39
Speaker 1: They made videos that they don't have none of that
6:42
Speaker 1: in them. This was the society, this was the fraternity
6:45
Speaker 1: of Calton Banks. None of them, none of them got
6:50
Speaker 1: that kind of DNA in them. So they all went
6:53
Speaker 1: on and did the social media posts. Uh. I don't
6:56
Speaker 1: even know if they knew what that meant. They needed
6:58
Speaker 1: a hood interpreter, a hood whisperer to tell them what
7:01
Speaker 1: it is that that meant. But they are so lost
7:04
Speaker 1: that they have that access to the president and didn't
7:07
Speaker 1: champion any of the needs of their own community. So
7:12
Speaker 1: while they are celebrating Black History Month, they should have
7:14
Speaker 1: said to them, Hey, if we're going to celebrate it,
7:17
Speaker 1: we can't ban the books that record it. If we're
7:20
Speaker 1: going to celebrate it, then we can't penalize the public
7:23
Speaker 1: schools that want to teach it or fire the instructors
7:26
Speaker 1: who are really ambassadors for it. For them to have
7:29
Speaker 1: that access and that opportunity and not, in the words
7:32
Speaker 1: of Bishop Jackson, maximize the moment with just a waste.
7:36
Speaker 3: You from Baltimore. How come you don't say church pew listen.
7:41
Speaker 1: From Baltimore? Yeah, oh yeah, no, I'm local and global.
7:47
Speaker 1: So I got out, oh yeah, half and a half
7:54
Speaker 1: with wings, period. I got it. All day long. I'm
7:57
Speaker 1: Baltimore through and through, but I spent time in bolt
8:01
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, went to more House, then I went to
8:04
Speaker 1: a duke for a grad school, and then I went.
8:06
Speaker 5: Back to Bolton, don't you And what's your relationship like
8:08
Speaker 5: with the black pastors who were also working President Trump?
8:11
Speaker 5: Because I know you called them out before too, it
8:14
Speaker 5: was on their top So is there, like, is there
8:17
Speaker 5: a working relationship, because I think you do make points
8:19
Speaker 5: that people should listen to and they're there.
8:21
Speaker 1: Yes, No, it's Nikki Giovanni's ego tripping. A lot of
8:25
Speaker 1: people miss what the assignment is because they want the
8:29
Speaker 1: proximity of power without even really having the real access
8:33
Speaker 1: of it. And so it's got to go beyond what
8:36
Speaker 1: is the photo app or a handshake to say, oh,
8:38
Speaker 1: I know the president, but now that you know them,
8:41
Speaker 1: what are you going to do about it? So I
8:43
Speaker 1: think that there is a common ground for us to
8:45
Speaker 1: be able to meet, but you've got to make sure
8:48
Speaker 1: that you don't sell your own people out in the process.
8:50
Speaker 4: To your point, That's why I never wanted to go
8:52
Speaker 4: to the White House because it's just like for what, like,
8:54
Speaker 4: I'm not going just for a photo op if I'm
8:56
Speaker 4: not presenting anything or going with somebody who's presenting something
8:58
Speaker 4: with the point.
8:59
Speaker 1: I'm with you on fifty yard line. But you represent
9:02
Speaker 1: too much people of influence who won't have that access.
9:05
Speaker 1: So when it is that you go there, this is
9:07
Speaker 1: an era Charlemagne where you would have more influence than
9:12
Speaker 1: any head of any civil rights organization. More people are
9:16
Speaker 1: listening to you. I don't want to call the names
9:18
Speaker 1: of organizations than a lot of those organizations. Let's go
9:21
Speaker 1: and step further. We step outside of this room, go down,
9:25
Speaker 1: says and ask people who is the head of this organization?
9:28
Speaker 1: A head of that? They have no idea. And so
9:31
Speaker 1: I think that you got to realize that the shaping
9:33
Speaker 1: of influence is different than the microphone that you would
9:36
Speaker 1: have entree to get into those spaces.
9:39
Speaker 3: Would you meet with Trump?
9:41
Speaker 1: I would meet with Trump, but I wouldn't go by myself.
9:43
Speaker 1: Got you. I wouldn't go by myself. I'd have to
9:45
Speaker 1: take some credible people with me. So one, hold me
9:49
Speaker 1: accountable so we can all say what happened in that meeting.
9:53
Speaker 1: And two to make sure y'all ain't gonna play me
9:56
Speaker 1: like Zelensky. Ain't no way in the world. You're gonna
9:59
Speaker 1: have all them cameras rolling and then say you ought
10:01
Speaker 1: to be grateful to be here, And how come you
10:03
Speaker 1: ain't got a suit on? You got to have some
10:07
Speaker 1: level of accountability in it.
10:08
Speaker 3: Would you pray before you go in there?
10:10
Speaker 1: So I pray before I pray in there. I'd have
10:13
Speaker 1: a vial of my grandmother's ore, lay my podcast. Oh no,
10:16
Speaker 1: all of that. But there's no way I would just
10:18
Speaker 1: go in there.
10:18
Speaker 3: Hey, let's get you to handle that.
10:20
Speaker 1: I think he did it. What this administration has shown
10:24
Speaker 1: us is diplomacy is no longer honored. That was an
10:29
Speaker 1: argument in the barbershop that was not world leaders talking
10:33
Speaker 1: about the devastation of hundreds of thousands of lives. So
10:37
Speaker 1: I give him high accommendation. That the argument should not
10:41
Speaker 1: be whether he had a suit on, is what are
10:43
Speaker 1: you going to do about innocent children being bombed? About
10:46
Speaker 1: seniors who are living out in the street. And the
10:49
Speaker 1: question that he should have said, why do y'all have
10:52
Speaker 1: suits on when your people are fighting to get medicaid
10:56
Speaker 1: while y'all got suits on when all of these students
10:59
Speaker 1: are getting ready to be ribb The scholarships from pel
11:01
Speaker 1: grants while y'all got suits on. When the stock market
11:04
Speaker 1: is losing billions of dollars every day, everybody should be
11:08
Speaker 1: an overalls. So he should have flipped it. But I
11:10
Speaker 1: think he did it in as much decency intact as
11:13
Speaker 1: he could.
11:14
Speaker 4: I want to ask you to as a pastor, what
11:15
Speaker 4: makes you get involved in politics so much? Because I
11:18
Speaker 4: see people, I see a lot of passes like to steer, steer,
11:21
Speaker 4: stay clear from that.
11:22
Speaker 3: Why do you like to get involved?
11:23
Speaker 1: Well, one a lot of staying clear now because they
11:26
Speaker 1: don't know what this administration is going to do. This
11:29
Speaker 1: administration has already said that they want to take away
11:32
Speaker 1: five or one c threes. Uh, they want to look
11:36
Speaker 1: at anybody who stands with Palestine as a terrorist organization.
11:41
Speaker 1: But I think that it's got to be a revolution
11:44
Speaker 1: comes with inconvenience, Uh, to know that it goes against
11:48
Speaker 1: the prick, and you got to stand on business. Uh.
11:51
Speaker 1: And to be a real profit is not you get
11:54
Speaker 1: a car, you get a house, you get money. A
11:56
Speaker 1: real profit biblically was to confront the king and say
12:00
Speaker 1: you out of order, you're not doing this right. And
12:03
Speaker 1: I think that you're going to find a whole lot
12:05
Speaker 1: of people emerging, and they are people who are doing it.
12:08
Speaker 1: What has happened in the culture is we have confused
12:12
Speaker 1: notoriety with strength. The most powerful preachers in every major
12:16
Speaker 1: city don't have megachurches, but they're in the community doing
12:20
Speaker 1: the hard work. But they don't have press conferences. They
12:23
Speaker 1: don't know the governor, they don't know the mayor, but
12:25
Speaker 1: the people in the community they serve on in respect them.
12:29
Speaker 2: Let's talk about this the forty day Fast of Target. Yes,
12:32
Speaker 2: and this is something that you're trying to put into play,
12:35
Speaker 2: and why I'm not trying you are putting it in
12:37
Speaker 2: another way.
12:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. So people are asking, why did we pick Target
12:44
Speaker 1: when Walmart out of order, McDonald's out, or the John
12:47
Speaker 1: DIA's out, or the Bank of America's out of order, Amazon,
12:50
Speaker 1: Amazon is out of order? Is we wanted to go?
12:54
Speaker 1: The African proverb says, if you want to eat an elephant,
12:56
Speaker 1: do one piece at a time. So we picked Target
12:59
Speaker 1: first for say reasons. Number one, Target is headquartered in
13:04
Speaker 1: the same city George Floyd was killed. When George Floyd
13:07
Speaker 1: was killed, Target came out made an announcement that they're
13:11
Speaker 1: going to invest two billion dollars in the Black business
13:15
Speaker 1: two billion drum roll and it starts December of twenty
13:20
Speaker 1: twenty five. When Trump made the announcement January of twenty
13:25
Speaker 1: twenty five, they dishonored that commitment. So we wanted to
13:29
Speaker 1: hold them accountable because when they made the pledge, they
13:32
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with DII. Secondly, I am embarrassed
13:36
Speaker 1: Breakfast Club to say to you, Nigro spend twelve million
13:40
Speaker 1: dollars a day in Target and I don't know any
13:44
Speaker 1: black business that amasses that much money in any singular
13:48
Speaker 1: day to twelve million day a day. Number three, Target
13:53
Speaker 1: is on twenty seven college campuses and not one HBCU.
13:59
Speaker 1: Number four outside of the federal government, Target is the
14:04
Speaker 1: largest employer of black people. There are four hundred thousand
14:09
Speaker 1: black people on payroll and don't honor us. So we're
14:12
Speaker 1: given that kind of money, that much human capital, and
14:16
Speaker 1: to not honor us, I think is dismally disrespected. And
14:19
Speaker 1: because they're publicly traded, we wanted to see what will
14:23
Speaker 1: happen in those forty days that shows the data, this
14:27
Speaker 1: is the impact when black people walk away, and to
14:30
Speaker 1: share it with those sharecrops, so it will not just
14:32
Speaker 1: be forty days but every movement has to have a benchmark,
14:36
Speaker 1: It has got to have a strategy, and you got
14:39
Speaker 1: to have some data.
14:39
Speaker 3: What do you call it fast and not a boycott?
14:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, I called it a fast because this was a
14:45
Speaker 1: call to the Black church to become active. Something happened
14:50
Speaker 1: silently that scholars and historians are going to have to
14:54
Speaker 1: pay attention to the rise of Black Lives Matter. Charlemagne
14:59
Speaker 1: was the first movement of civil rights for black people
15:04
Speaker 1: that was not berthed out of the church, the very
15:07
Speaker 1: first civil rights movement that happened that didn't have a
15:10
Speaker 1: religious leader at the front. And so the Black church
15:14
Speaker 1: is going backwards. This is the largest demographic of Black
15:18
Speaker 1: people since we've been in America who don't go to
15:21
Speaker 1: church at all, who don't subscribe to organized religion. We're
15:24
Speaker 1: at twenty eight percent, the largest amount of Black people
15:29
Speaker 1: who self identify as atheists, who say they don't believe
15:33
Speaker 1: in God, don't believe in nothing. So this was a
15:36
Speaker 1: call specifically for Black Christians to show the younger generation
15:41
Speaker 1: our head is not in the sand. We're a part
15:43
Speaker 1: of it, but we're aligning it with prayer that those
15:47
Speaker 1: forty days is the high holy season for the Christian community.
15:51
Speaker 1: We're praying because this is a spiritual warfare that we're
15:54
Speaker 1: under with jed Vance and Donald Trump, with all of
15:58
Speaker 1: the things that are happening with these executive orders. Marching
16:01
Speaker 1: is good, Protesting is necessary, Petitions are important. But if
16:06
Speaker 1: we don't bring a spiritual grounding to it, I think
16:09
Speaker 1: that we're gonna miss it. During the Montgomery bus boycott
16:12
Speaker 1: that lasts three hundred and eighty one days, what nobody
16:16
Speaker 1: talks about is for three hundred and eighty one days,
16:20
Speaker 1: every night they went back to the church for prior.
16:23
Speaker 1: So I think that in the movement, you've got to
16:25
Speaker 1: have a faith entity intertwined in it in order for
16:28
Speaker 1: you to move forward.
16:29
Speaker 2: What do you say to some of the people that
16:31
Speaker 2: have black products in Target? They say that, you know,
16:34
Speaker 2: because of this boycott. If a boycott happens and people
16:36
Speaker 2: are stopping to go to Target, that is going to
16:38
Speaker 2: affect their products even more.
16:39
Speaker 3: I know.
16:39
Speaker 2: We had the co founders of Rocket Roots on the
16:42
Speaker 2: Breakfast Club. They found the lit bar and they were
16:45
Speaker 2: saying that if people don't come into the store, which
16:48
Speaker 2: Target is their hugest manufactured, the hugest buyer.
16:51
Speaker 1: So what happens to those products Number one, the lip Barn.
16:55
Speaker 1: All of those entities understand a new thing out called
16:59
Speaker 1: drop Ship. You don't have to go in the physical
17:01
Speaker 1: store to help them. Because of that, In foresight, we
17:06
Speaker 1: partner with the US Black Chamber of Commerce. So every
17:09
Speaker 1: person that goes to targetfast dot org, within an hour,
17:14
Speaker 1: I send you a digital directory of three hundred thousand
17:18
Speaker 1: black businesses across the country. So we don't want those
17:21
Speaker 1: businesses to be adversely impacted. We want people to support them,
17:26
Speaker 1: but do it online. I can support the lit bar
17:29
Speaker 1: and not go into Target to do it. I can
17:31
Speaker 1: go online to do it. And so I think that
17:33
Speaker 1: as innovative and creative people, as black people are, let's
17:37
Speaker 1: do it online. We do everything else online, so let's
17:40
Speaker 1: support them and the one thousand black vendors who are
17:44
Speaker 1: placed in Target, we're going to prominently place on the
17:48
Speaker 1: website so that you'll be able to find them quickly
17:51
Speaker 1: without any pause. I saw you.
17:54
Speaker 5: Two things to what you're saying. So the first thing,
17:56
Speaker 5: when they were up here, they talked about the inventory
17:58
Speaker 5: and just how much money they have to put a
18:00
Speaker 5: head to be in the stores. That comes out of
18:02
Speaker 5: their own pocket. That they will lose out on if
18:04
Speaker 5: people do not if they're not supporting these companies or whatever.
18:08
Speaker 5: So even if you're buying it from their website, because
18:11
Speaker 5: they're already in contract for this amount of inventory alloted
18:13
Speaker 5: to Target, they lose out it. They don't profit on that.
18:15
Speaker 1: Now, yes, that money has already been spent. A movement
18:19
Speaker 1: comes with inconvenience. It came that same argument happened in
18:24
Speaker 1: the Montgomery bus Boy Guide. The question was asked, what
18:28
Speaker 1: do we do for the bust mechanics who are all black?
18:32
Speaker 1: So what they did is they pulled all of those
18:34
Speaker 1: bust mechanics out of Montgomery and set up garages at
18:38
Speaker 1: the churches. What nobody is talking about is four mechanic
18:42
Speaker 1: shops came out of it. So I understand that it's
18:45
Speaker 1: an inconvenience. I know we got to go a different route,
18:47
Speaker 1: but I would then say that's up. The ant is
18:50
Speaker 1: a business principle, let's buy more to cover what is
18:53
Speaker 1: that loss? Companies take losses all the time. But a
18:57
Speaker 1: group of misguided preachers went into Target in Detroit and
19:01
Speaker 1: say let's just buy black inventory and come out. You're
19:04
Speaker 1: still supporting Target. So I think that we've got to
19:07
Speaker 1: come away, even if we got to raise the price
19:11
Speaker 1: in order to make the balance. Let's do it. One
19:14
Speaker 1: of the things that black people do wrong whenever it
19:17
Speaker 1: is with supporting black business, we always want a discount.
19:20
Speaker 1: Let's pay full price and support them. Let's not just
19:23
Speaker 1: do it with lip service, but let's do it through
19:26
Speaker 1: the investment.
19:26
Speaker 5: And I saw you my last thing to your point
19:29
Speaker 5: of like just up in the ante online. Yes, the
19:32
Speaker 5: women from Rocker Roots talked about how majority Ellen's I'm sorry,
19:35
Speaker 5: I her name me, I own Jamison and Ellen sellers
19:39
Speaker 5: talked about how even in Walmart's majority of their clients
19:43
Speaker 5: heele that they make a large amount of their money
19:45
Speaker 5: off of on those products. They don't have the access
19:48
Speaker 5: to the dot com So being able to walk into
19:50
Speaker 5: like it's just different in some of the lower royal areas.
19:53
Speaker 5: So being able to walk into a Walmart or a
19:55
Speaker 5: Target helps them as far as inventory and creates access
19:58
Speaker 5: for those people.
19:59
Speaker 1: What about that? Yeah, I think that we've got to
20:01
Speaker 1: ask ourselves what is the principle And is the principle
20:05
Speaker 1: more important than the profit. You've got a whole lot
20:08
Speaker 1: of churches who have space that is underutilized and underused.
20:14
Speaker 1: The fact that in twenty twenty five we don't have
20:18
Speaker 1: a minority on retail space to direct people on says
20:23
Speaker 1: that we got to re evaluate how we do business.
20:26
Speaker 1: So going into Target to buy whatever this product is
20:30
Speaker 1: to say, hey, forget that they don't honor us, forget
20:33
Speaker 1: that they've disrespected to George Floyd family, forget that they
20:36
Speaker 1: are only allowing black people on entry level positions. Let's
20:40
Speaker 1: do it for lipstick. I think that we're losing the
20:43
Speaker 1: larger conversation. I want to see the sisters win. I
20:45
Speaker 1: want to see them do overwhelmingly well. But I think
20:49
Speaker 1: that we got to get into a room and figure
20:50
Speaker 1: out how do we make it more accessible for those
20:53
Speaker 1: in rural areas. I don't think that the answer is
20:57
Speaker 1: to keep shooting ourselves in the foot and then ask
21:00
Speaker 1: for a cast.
21:01
Speaker 2: So when we ever get there past it, like you know,
21:03
Speaker 2: we want to get there, right, Will we ever own
21:05
Speaker 2: our own Target slash Walmart? Where we ever own our
21:08
Speaker 2: own car manufacturer? Will we ever own our own so
21:11
Speaker 2: we can rely on it? It just seems like we're
21:14
Speaker 2: far stretched from that.
21:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, So one of the things that we're asking for
21:18
Speaker 1: Target to do And for all of the demands that
21:21
Speaker 1: we're asking of Target, please go to targetfast dot org.
21:25
Speaker 1: They're on twenty seven college campuses. But no HBCUs. I'm
21:29
Speaker 1: asking Target to partner with ten HBCUs to show our
21:34
Speaker 1: businesses how to scale up and to go into the
21:37
Speaker 1: retail space. REPM Shopton is one of my mentors. But
21:41
Speaker 1: in the history of black people, we have never marched
21:45
Speaker 1: black people into a white business to say, spend money here.
21:49
Speaker 1: So we got to figure out how it is that
21:51
Speaker 1: we really re route and redirect so that we can
21:54
Speaker 1: create an ecosystem for us to be able to do.
21:57
Speaker 1: I think that is possible, but as a plan that
22:00
Speaker 1: has to be a foot in order to make it done.
22:02
Speaker 4: I don't have any problem with the boycott, but I
22:04
Speaker 4: don't have a problem with the boycott either. I just
22:06
Speaker 4: feel like, you know, people should do something. I agree
22:09
Speaker 4: if they're moved to do something. But I saw you
22:11
Speaker 4: repost the preachers who let it there flocking to the store.
22:15
Speaker 3: To buy all the black products. Why why why did
22:18
Speaker 3: you feel the need to read the room.
22:20
Speaker 1: Read the room. There's there's there's no.
22:22
Speaker 3: Way room though everybody room different.
22:24
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, Read the living room. Yeah. The Japanese
22:30
Speaker 1: proverbs said the best room in the house is the
22:32
Speaker 1: room for improvement. You'll notice that the caurreed on nowhere.
22:36
Speaker 1: Nobody thought that that was a good idea.
22:39
Speaker 3: Except a lot of people talking about a bide.
22:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, end target.
22:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of people saying't going in there and
22:46
Speaker 4: buy all the black products.
22:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't do that, Yeah, don't do that. I think
22:50
Speaker 1: that there's got to be a different way that we redirect.
22:53
Speaker 1: I think, to my sister's point, how do we support
22:56
Speaker 1: these businesses, to Envy's point that we don't have a
23:00
Speaker 1: major retailer. We're the most creative people, y'all, and brought
23:03
Speaker 1: everybody in there. Master p got on from selling from
23:07
Speaker 1: the trunk of his car. So I think that we
23:09
Speaker 1: got to be innovative and put a think tank together. Say,
23:12
Speaker 1: Maggie Johnson, you brought all these movie theaters in the
23:15
Speaker 1: concession staying cannot now buy lipstick. I don't know the
23:18
Speaker 1: answer to it, but I think that we've got to
23:20
Speaker 1: figure out a way, and figure out a path and
23:22
Speaker 1: figure out a tributary.
23:23
Speaker 4: I just don't want us to make the same mistakes
23:25
Speaker 4: that our generations before us. Me meaning like people would
23:29
Speaker 4: knock Martin Luther King Jr. For his methods, and you know,
23:33
Speaker 4: different organizations would knock each other and say, no, we
23:35
Speaker 4: should be doing it this way, we should be doing
23:37
Speaker 4: it that way.
23:37
Speaker 3: It's just like you.
23:38
Speaker 4: As long as everybody's doing something, I feel like it
23:40
Speaker 4: all can be effective.
23:42
Speaker 1: In a sense. I'm gonna meet you on the fifty
23:43
Speaker 1: yard line. If you got beef with somebody, Me and
23:46
Speaker 1: you were friends and you find out who you got
23:50
Speaker 1: beef with, I'm at dinner with You're like, oh, man,
23:53
Speaker 1: I thought we was together. Don't worry about it was
23:56
Speaker 1: just cheesecake. We didn't even talk about you. You would
24:00
Speaker 1: look at me with a different kind of eye, like
24:02
Speaker 1: cay Man. If we in it together, how are you
24:05
Speaker 1: carrousing with the person who is against me? And so
24:08
Speaker 1: I think that there's gotta be a line in the
24:10
Speaker 1: sand of how it is that we stand without attacking
24:14
Speaker 1: each other. I think that's where where the rubber is
24:17
Speaker 1: the road that can be many different paths. I spoke
24:20
Speaker 1: at a college last week in Michigan, and I asked
24:23
Speaker 1: them who is the head of the LGBTQ movement, And
24:30
Speaker 1: all of these college students, nobody can answer it, and
24:33
Speaker 1: I said, do you all believe that LGBTQ has a movement?
24:36
Speaker 1: They said yes, and I said, you don't know. The
24:38
Speaker 1: head said no. I said, that's the memo black people
24:42
Speaker 1: gotta take have a movement without making one singular spokesperson,
24:47
Speaker 1: that what it is that we're doing can be rested
24:50
Speaker 1: on the back of the shoulder of one person being
24:52
Speaker 1: the leader. So the movement doesn't have to be just
24:55
Speaker 1: shopped in or Jasmine Crockett or Maxine Waters that all
24:58
Speaker 1: of us are moving towards that, but it is not
25:01
Speaker 1: one entity against another. The reality is Malcolm X made
25:05
Speaker 1: Martin King a better leader because he questioned his philosophy
25:09
Speaker 1: and he had to defend it. And so I think
25:11
Speaker 1: one of the things that the Detroit Passes did made
25:13
Speaker 1: a sharpen the conversation as to why it is that
25:17
Speaker 1: we're not going So it's not just a social media
25:19
Speaker 1: post or rob rob moment, but there's something really tangible
25:23
Speaker 1: for us to.
25:23
Speaker 4: Argue to that point. I feel like Malcolm was wrong
25:26
Speaker 4: for that. And the reason I say that is because
25:28
Speaker 4: Martin Luther King Jr. Was doing real work in an
25:32
Speaker 4: area we needed him to do real work, meaning that
25:35
Speaker 4: he was building with John Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson
25:37
Speaker 4: to get actual legislation passed. But we need somebody like Martin,
25:40
Speaker 4: I mean, Malcolm raising hell in the streets. So to me,
25:43
Speaker 4: there was no reason for Malcolm to be calling out Martin,
25:46
Speaker 4: yes and vice versa.
25:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think it was calling out the philosophy.
25:52
Speaker 1: The students who are part of the civil rights movement
25:54
Speaker 1: before they could protest, before they could demonstrate, they argued
25:58
Speaker 1: on the college campus with the professor, and they had
26:01
Speaker 1: to have practice. So if somebody spits on you, that's
26:04
Speaker 1: what you do. They try to pull you out from
26:06
Speaker 1: the lunch counter, this is what you do. The reality
26:09
Speaker 1: is we are no longer arguing philosophies. We're just arguing
26:13
Speaker 1: about people and personality on who I don't like, who
26:17
Speaker 1: I agree with. But I think that iron sharpens iron
26:20
Speaker 1: in that space of arguing and articulating what we stand
26:24
Speaker 1: on and why there needs to be different tracks. My
26:26
Speaker 1: issue is not with people who argue against my methodology.
26:32
Speaker 1: My issue is with those who don't believe in nothing,
26:36
Speaker 1: who are just internet gangster. Oh, this ain't gonna work,
26:38
Speaker 1: We ain't never gonna stick together. This ain't gonna have
26:41
Speaker 1: no traction. Okay, then what are you gonna do?
26:43
Speaker 2: How those people reached out to you, the people that
26:45
Speaker 2: don't agree with what you're doing, like those pastes that
26:47
Speaker 2: took their congregation into buy Have you had those conversations?
26:50
Speaker 2: Who y'all can get on the same page and see
26:52
Speaker 2: some of the things that yes.
26:53
Speaker 1: Yes, yes. So as soon as I saw it, because
26:57
Speaker 1: I know them, three fourths of them, I text them,
26:59
Speaker 1: Hey man, y'all on the wrong side of history.
27:02
Speaker 3: You said amen, he said, nigga.
27:04
Speaker 1: I said it was a Sunday. I said it was
27:10
Speaker 1: a Sunday. So I said, hey man, I said, hey man,
27:13
Speaker 1: you're on the wrong side of history. He texted me
27:16
Speaker 1: back and said, hey, this is what I thought process was,
27:19
Speaker 1: This is why it is that we did it. I said,
27:21
Speaker 1: it would have gone a whole lot further and better
27:25
Speaker 1: if you had the conversation before you went in there.
27:28
Speaker 1: So I went on a college campus to go speak
27:30
Speaker 1: in Detroit, Wayne State. I come out of a lecturing
27:34
Speaker 1: and the press is there and says, what do you
27:36
Speaker 1: think about these pastors going to target? Said what passed us?
27:40
Speaker 1: What are you talking about? The reporter showed it to
27:43
Speaker 1: me on the phone, and so that's when I got
27:45
Speaker 1: in it. And I think that communication can solve a
27:48
Speaker 1: whole lot of issues on so many different levels, whether
27:52
Speaker 1: you married or whether you go on political agendas. Silence
27:57
Speaker 1: is the worst thing that you can ever do. But
27:59
Speaker 1: when we learn how to talk to each other and
28:01
Speaker 1: discuss it, I understood where it is that they were
28:03
Speaker 1: coming from. Those pastors are now walking alongside us for
28:08
Speaker 1: the target fast. But I think that communication is necessary.
28:12
Speaker 1: I also want to put on record that I think
28:15
Speaker 1: that it's good for black people to be in a
28:18
Speaker 1: Republican party. I don't think all black should be Democrat.
28:21
Speaker 1: We need somebody else who is in there. But if
28:24
Speaker 1: you in there, you got to advocate for your people.
28:27
Speaker 1: At the same time, I.
28:28
Speaker 4: Saw you say that Target have been trying to reach
28:31
Speaker 4: out to you. Yes, but I don't want to talk
28:33
Speaker 4: no diversity.
28:34
Speaker 1: No, you may not have a job next week. You've
28:38
Speaker 1: reached out during Black History mand I don't know if
28:40
Speaker 1: you're gonna make it to Saint Patrick's Day. I need
28:44
Speaker 1: somebody who got some job security and got some influence
28:48
Speaker 1: to make a decision. I think this generation doesn't want
28:51
Speaker 1: symbolic wins. They want substantive strides. And if you're just
28:55
Speaker 1: doing that to say we met, we talked alldustreet, credibility
28:59
Speaker 1: is gone. Needs somebody who can make a decision. And
29:02
Speaker 1: you got to ask Vy, what's in the mind of
29:05
Speaker 1: a CEO that can lose twelve million dollars a day
29:10
Speaker 1: and say I'm not meeting.
29:11
Speaker 2: So the person that reached out to you felt had
29:13
Speaker 2: no influence, not enough influence.
29:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're gonna send the black people out to
29:18
Speaker 1: talk to the black black guy, go talk to the
29:19
Speaker 1: black saddle them down. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, I
29:23
Speaker 1: need to talk to the CEO or I need to
29:25
Speaker 1: talk to somebody who was on that board of Target
29:28
Speaker 1: or who can really help me understand where you are.
29:32
Speaker 1: And if you all are being punked by jd Vance
29:34
Speaker 1: and Trump, tell me that let's figure out how we
29:37
Speaker 1: can walk alongside each other.
29:38
Speaker 3: That's what it is.
29:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah.
29:42
Speaker 5: When you so I know that talking about meeting eventually
29:46
Speaker 5: y'all want to have a conversation or there is something schedule, right,
29:48
Speaker 5: you guys will be meeting June twelfth of Minneapolis.
29:51
Speaker 1: That's when their stockholders meeting is. Yeah, so we are
29:55
Speaker 1: planning on going now. I'm hoping that we have resolved by.
29:58
Speaker 5: Them, That's what I was getting.
29:59
Speaker 1: Yes, we can't wait till June, but June twelfth and
30:03
Speaker 1: there Now it's an underground murmur that they don't even
30:07
Speaker 1: want to do an in person shareholders me. They want
30:09
Speaker 1: to do it by zoom. They don't want you guys
30:11
Speaker 1: to show yes. But that's why it's important for you
30:14
Speaker 1: to have the data to show how this has been impacted,
30:18
Speaker 1: how much money you've lost in the stock and what
30:21
Speaker 1: is at stake. So we wanted to take take all
30:24
Speaker 1: of that to the shareholders me to June twelfth.
30:26
Speaker 4: But you know, there was a bunch of Target shareholders
30:29
Speaker 4: who filed a class action lawsuit against Target and they
30:32
Speaker 4: claim that Target artificially inflated stock prices and failed the
30:35
Speaker 4: one investors about how removing DEI and ESG, which is environmental,
30:41
Speaker 4: social and governess policies, could cause stock prices to plummet.
30:44
Speaker 4: And it also talks about how Target concealed the backlash
30:46
Speaker 4: it suffered from the Pride Month campaign, Yes after they
30:50
Speaker 4: removed the LGBTQ merchandise, and that's how they've been losing
30:53
Speaker 4: all of that money since November of twenty twenty four.
30:55
Speaker 1: America's worst Nightmayre is the marginalized unit. Fine, if all
31:02
Speaker 1: of the different sectors came together, that's when you have
31:06
Speaker 1: real power. Fingers separated don't mean anything. Fingers together become
31:10
Speaker 1: a fists. The Poor People's Campaign is what doctor King
31:13
Speaker 1: was putting together just before he was assassinated. He said,
31:16
Speaker 1: the same poverty that's happening in Selma is the same
31:20
Speaker 1: poverty that us in the Appalachian Mountains. What happened that
31:24
Speaker 1: really frightened Jagahoover against the Black Panther Party was they
31:29
Speaker 1: were unifying all marginalized people. So imagine if we're dealing
31:34
Speaker 1: with immigration, we don't allow the media to just make
31:37
Speaker 1: it a Mexican issue. Let's talk about the five hundred
31:40
Speaker 1: thousand Haitians who are unprotected. Let's talk about the Africans
31:44
Speaker 1: who are being deported. Hear this family who they not
31:47
Speaker 1: even deporting back to Africa. They in jail right now
31:51
Speaker 1: in Panama, and we're not doing anything or raising the alarm.
31:54
Speaker 1: If all of these factions come together, a sister out
31:57
Speaker 1: of Harvard University says, you to have a real revolution,
32:01
Speaker 1: you don't need one hundred percent participation. You only need
32:05
Speaker 1: three percent. If three percent of the population organized, you
32:10
Speaker 1: can shut any culture down, any government down, any society down.
32:14
Speaker 1: And what we're seeing in these town hall meetings with
32:16
Speaker 1: these Republican senators and congress people is people are waking
32:20
Speaker 1: up saying, Hey, this and what I signed up for.
32:23
Speaker 1: This can't be the last train to Paris. Let me
32:25
Speaker 1: get out of here and change direction. So I think
32:28
Speaker 1: that you're getting ready to see a percolating in America
32:31
Speaker 1: of those who are marginalized, that it is not just
32:34
Speaker 1: a race issue, it is a class issue.
32:36
Speaker 5: My last question for you, where are you at now?
32:38
Speaker 1: Numbers wise?
32:39
Speaker 5: Because I know you were looking to get one hundred
32:40
Speaker 5: thousand people by when's this Wednesday the fifth? When it
32:43
Speaker 5: starts and you are.
32:43
Speaker 1: Say, yeah, I got one hundred and ten thousand people,
32:46
Speaker 1: gotcha have come and we did it before we ever
32:49
Speaker 1: got to the breakfast club. So now, y'all, we got
32:52
Speaker 1: to get to one fifty. We got to get to
32:54
Speaker 1: one fifty because numbers is power. It was important for
32:58
Speaker 1: me to have tangible evidence of how many people are
33:02
Speaker 1: standing behind us, that it is not just a post,
33:06
Speaker 1: it's not just likes and shares, but one hundred thousand people.
33:09
Speaker 1: I can press a button's and the email to say,
33:12
Speaker 1: hey we outside in Target, Hey we in Cincinnati, so
33:16
Speaker 1: that the people at Target know that we mean business.
33:18
Speaker 1: That is not just symbolism, but there's substance behind you.
33:22
Speaker 2: How can people get behind you?
33:24
Speaker 1: Go to targetfast dot org. It's just one word there.
33:28
Speaker 1: You'll see what is our list of a demand. When
33:30
Speaker 1: it is that you sign up for Target fast, I'm
33:32
Speaker 1: gonna send you a digital directory to those three hundred
33:35
Speaker 1: thousand businesses. And even for those of you who don't
33:38
Speaker 1: go to church or watch online, I'm gonna send you
33:41
Speaker 1: a daily prayer devotional so that you can stay focused,
33:44
Speaker 1: no pun intended, so you can stay on target for
33:47
Speaker 1: what it is that we're trying to get done.
33:48
Speaker 2: All right, Well, we appreciate you for joining us this morning.
33:51
Speaker 1: Thank you, Target fast dot org. Thank you so much.
33:53
Speaker 1: Brother man, thank you. And when y'all come to Atlanta,
33:56
Speaker 1: I'm coming through. I ain't even got a ticket. I'm coming.
34:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, he came up. Pata Jamal's popped up to my
34:02
Speaker 3: Black Podcast Festival.
34:03
Speaker 1: I'm coming this year.
34:04
Speaker 3: I want to come to New birth Man. You gotta
34:06
Speaker 3: want to come on Sunday and check it out.
34:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, you gotta come. Absolutely, It's Room at the Cross.
34:10
Speaker 1: Hey let me say this too. I'm from Baltimore. Do
34:13
Speaker 1: you know the first place I ever had Crayton, South Carolina.
34:16
Speaker 1: Monk's Corner, Monks Corner, Okay, Monks Corner, am Church, Uh
34:20
Speaker 1: right there, James Blake, James Blake just back in the eighties. Okay.
34:24
Speaker 1: It is the first place that I ever had. My
34:26
Speaker 1: famous from Georgetown, South Carolina. So we used to come
34:28
Speaker 1: down there every summer. But Baltimore you had crabs and
34:31
Speaker 1: you're from Baltimore. They better than Baltimore. Never does not
34:35
Speaker 1: go too far.
34:38
Speaker 3: I was trauma.
34:41
Speaker 1: No, no, it was trauma that I had to do
34:45
Speaker 1: it in South Carolina before I had is amazing. It's amazing.
34:49
Speaker 1: It's great. Just not as good as Baltimore, but it's good.
34:52
Speaker 1: Thank you all.
34:52
Speaker 2: Passing Jamal Brian.
34:54
Speaker 3: It is the Breakfast Club.
34:54
Speaker 1: Good morning, wake that ass up in the morning. The
34:57
Speaker 1: Breakfast Club