Exclusive: Preview Angela Davis on Red Table Talk for Juneteenth

The push to make Juneteenth a national day of observance isn’t just about celebration. It’s also a way to spark discussion and prompt reflection on the enduring impact of slavery in America, which is why Jada Pinkett Smith is centering today’s Juneteenth-themed episode of her Facebook Watch series Red Table Talk more broadly on what she described as “the State of Emergency the Black Community is in within the nation.”

This time, Pinkett Smith, her daughter Willow and mother Adrienne will be joined by the activist Tamika D. Mallory—and none other than the civil rights movement icon Angela Davis. They’re taking up topics like racism, police brutality, and white supremacy, as you can see in the exclusive clip below, ahead of today’s episode. “I think it’s good that we’re seeing so many white people out in the streets,” Davis says, as the Smiths and Mallory heartily agree.

“I won’t talk about Roger Goodell taking a knee,” Davis continues, referencing the NFL commissioner whose recent condemnation of racism was widely considered hollow and disingenuous, given Goodell’s past treatment of Black players like Colin Kaepernick. “When people like that engage in such behavior, it’s actually a good thing because it represents their sense that they’ve got to find their way to the right side of history. That’s all it represents. It doesn’t represent what they really think, what they really feel, what they’re committed to doing. It represents the fact that they want to be included in those movements that are moving in the direction of progress.”

The group will also discuss so-called Karens and cancel culture. “If you’re not canceled, you ain’t really popping,” Mallory says with a laugh when Pinkett Smith admits she has personal experience with the latter.