Roland S. Martin. Photo courtesy ESP PR, Los Angeles.
Outspoken award winning journalist Roland Martin has come under attack about his black heritage. In a recent podcast of For The Record, hosted by Eurweb.com publisher Lee Bailey, Martin shares how controversial activist group American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) has viciously attacked his blackness.
The maternal great grandson of a Haitian immigrant says of ADOS, “It’s not like I have any problem with a black agenda…The problem I have is when we are limiting and defining who is black. …That’s why I call it a ‘purity test.’ That, to me, is illogical and not where we need to be.”
ADOS was founded by Howard University graduate Yvette Carnell and UCLA alumnus Antonio Moore. The controversial organization believes that black people whose lineage runs through “slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, convict leasing, mass incarceration and immigration,” have unique needs and a political agenda that is separate from those whose ancestors immigrated to the U.S. from Africa or the Caribbean.
The host of the digital daily show #Roland Martin Unfiltered and a former CNN contributor, Martin feels ADOS challenged his “black cred” because of his support of 2020 presidential hopeful, Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) whose black heritage was also challenged by ADOS because she is the daughter of a black Jamaican father and a mother who is from India, which means, if you read what ADOS believes, she may not be a descendant of African American slaves.
Harris’ father is black, just not “American black.” And although he may be a descendant of black people who originated from Africa, as did most African Americans, he came as an immigrant, as did Martin’s Haitian great grandparent.
Clearly displeased with ADOS Martin commented, “I have no problem calling those folks out for their line of stupidity because they want to sit here and pick and choose,” Martin tells host Lee Bailey. “…The real issue for me is how do we, moving forward, have a real substantive conversation about issues that are not defined by blackness and purity?”
If you’d like to hear more of this conversation on the podcast For The Record with Lee Bailey click here and just listen.