March 18, 2021 • 29 mins
Tamika D. Mallory and Mysonne "The General" take a moment to break down their journey and how it continues to inspire them to do the work in local communities.
After taking the this years past Grammys stage, Tamika and Mysonne address some of the questions surrounding why they believe they were called to become activists on the frontlines of the fight for justice.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, everybody and your boy my son in general, and
I'm Tamika D. Mallory and this is a little deviation
for him our regular format and our regular programming, but
we thought it was necessary to address some online accusations
(00:22):
that followed Tamika's Grammy performance, which was excellent, phenomenal, I think,
you know, so we wanted to come out and address
these issues. A lot of people have been asking for statements,
and you know, we just won't oblige. From my perspective,
I want to make sure that as a mother that
I speak directly to Miss Rice, and and also just
(00:45):
so that folks know I have reached out through some
other individuals. I don't have a direct contact for Ms Rice,
but I have reached out and let some other folks
know that if she wants to speak with me, I'm
a veil to do so. Unfortunately, the world we live in, UM,
everything hits social media uh so quickly, and it doesn't
(01:08):
give us an opportunity all the time to have direct conversations. UM.
And I've I have seen a lot of you who
have been asking me to do what I always do,
which is to be authentic and to come to you all. UM,
and and talk about some of what you have heard. UM.
You know, I want to just make sure that we
(01:29):
start off grounded and the fact that nothing UM we
say today is an attack against UM miss Rice. UM.
I want to make sure that that is stated from
the very very beginning. Quite frankly, ms Rice is right. UM.
I support one hundred percent how she feels UH and
(01:52):
what she has stated in terms of her pain UM
related to her son. Right. And in fact, UM, I
think and I was gonna say to you, Mi set,
I feel like we all have failed her. You know,
I was thinking a lot about this coming here today.
We all have failed her UM as a nation. I
(02:13):
think that whenever a child or any person, but particularly
a child is killed, UM, we should this nation should
have erupted. And the fact that UM she did not
get the proper justice for her son would make anyone angry.
And so I totally understand and respect the trauma and
pain that she feels as a mother. UM. The second
(02:37):
point is that I think for far too long, the
issue of divisiveness has been used in every single movement
and it has actually destroyed movements. And UM, I don't
participate in it. If you know anything about me, and
you guys get to see me up close and personal.
We're on lives, we go into communities, we work with
(03:00):
people directly, we're on the ground. Uh, and so you
have an opportunity to see me up close and personal.
And the one thing that I try my best not
to do is to get caught up in the divisiveness
that I know can happen in this movement. So again,
if people are watching looking for some aha moment of
me uh speaking uh negatively about or to Miss Rice,
(03:24):
it's not gonna happen. UM. I will never ever allow
my organization, my team, UM and until Freedom, or myself
to be used as a tool in the master's box.
I will never allow that. So UM, if that's what
you're looking for, you might as well turn away because
it's not going to happen. I will, however, say that
I think it's important to clarify the questions around whether
(03:49):
or not we have used Miss Rice's child, her baby
UM in campaigns or in speeches or fundraising or any
of those types of efforts. We have not UM my speeches,
my son's speeches, and the work that we do it's
very very public. Um. You all can go back and
(04:11):
and look through speeches, look through my page. I encourage
you to do so. UM. Other than potentially calling the
role of all the people UM that that we can
think about at any particular time who have been killed
by the state, I have been very very careful, have
always been careful not to speak about cases or individuals
(04:36):
that I have not worked directly with the families. And
in particular, in this situation which Ms Rice has already said,
we've never even met UM. If we have, UM, it
has been something like maybe at a conference, I may
have been introduced, or we may have seen each other
in that way, but we've never actually sat down, had
(04:56):
a phone conversation or met in any way. And so
there for I would never be so disrespectful as to
speak about her child or to have a campaign that
addresses her child or that uses her child's name to
uplift any cause UM. And so I think that's really
really UM important to state UM. I you know, to
(05:20):
to that end, I guess UM. Miss Rice has said
that she does not want she wants me to you know,
not speak of her child UM. And while I may
not have been doing it in the past, I will
be very very very careful going forward to ensure that
I respect her wishes. I think we both can say that,
(05:42):
you know, we will be very careful to respect her wishes,
even if we feel that we're using all the names
in order to make a bigger point, we will be very,
very very careful not to disrespect her wishes. Now, although
what Miss Rice has said, UM calling me out my
name and speaking to me, speaking about me without knowing me,
(06:05):
has absolutely hurt. It definitely hurt me. But again I
understand and because of the fact that I do this work,
that we do this work from a very very very
sincere and authentic place. I may not have lost the child,
but I did lose the child my child's father, and
it wasn't a police brutality. But I understand lost and
(06:29):
I also want to and I fight every single day
to ensure that I don't have to experience what so
many mothers of young black men have experienced, and so
I do come from a personal perspective. Although I have
not lost the child, and because I understand that pain
and trauma working with families for so many years, I
(06:51):
would like to tell miss Rice today UM that I
am available to be supportive if necessary. I'm here for
or phone calls. I'm here to have any types of
conversations with any family, UM that would like to reach
out and talk about the death of their their child
or some tragic situation that has happened to them. Um,
(07:15):
We're just one small group, right. There are many organizations
doing work, doing great work, but until freedom is one group,
we can't help every family. We wish we could, but
we don't have the resources to help every family. UM.
And there certainly are our situations that have been heartbreaking
(07:36):
that have kept us up at night that we have
not been able to get involved with. But again, just
to reiterate, under no circumstances would we ever be so
disrespectful as to use the name of a person, child,
or otherwise that we have not met, work with, and
talked with their family, and have not been directly asked
(07:58):
to uplift their's name or their family member's name while
we are out doing our work. UM. I don't know
if you want to have a response to because I
have some other things on. Yeah, pretty much, you know. Yes,
so miss Rice lost her son. I remember it was
a year and I just entered into the space of activism,
(08:19):
you know, and and I remember hitting the world hard,
and I was I wanted to see justice family, you know,
so I understand how she must feel as being his mother,
you know, so her sentiments are felt just from just
being a human being. You know. When I heard her sentence,
I didn't take it personal, you know. But what I
what I did take person who was the attacks of
(08:43):
the media, of people that I've known for years, of
people that have been around us for years, of people
who had direct contact to us, who've seen the work
that we've done. I did personalize those things. I never
thought about miss Rice in anyway. The work that we've done,
I've when I've done for the last eight years and
you've done for twenty five years, has spoke spoken for itself.
(09:05):
You know. There has been this quote unquote fake activism,
you know, and I asked, what is real activism? You know,
if going out standing by families who have asked you
to stand with them, uplifting the voices of the people
who have lost their lives, standing in communities and taking
guns out of hands of kids who are killing each other,
(09:26):
you know, going in communities, starting programs and organizing in
different communities to bring peace, treaties If that's not real activism,
then what is real activism? You know, when I looked
at the media, I was disgusted because they highlighted the
trauma and pain of a woman who lost her child,
but they didn't highlight when she was telling them to
(09:47):
get justice for her child. None of these many of
them did not. They didn't post any of the post
when she was saying, we want justice for a child,
But they decided to post as she put poured pain
and trauma and talked about her her opinions because we're
all a tied to our opinions. Her opinion of me,
her opinion of you is is valid for her, but
(10:10):
you can't. You can have your own opinions. But people
don't get it. They don't get the opportunity or the
right to make those opinions. Facts like she said, we
have never I would never, as a man of principle
and integrity, I would never utilize the name of anyone,
not just a person who's lost their life, but of
anyone that I didn't have any connection to, a prior
(10:32):
commitment from, to raise any money or to catapult myself
in any manner. You know, I lived my life on
the level of integrity, and those things actually bothered me,
you know, and they were coming from people that I
actually knew, who have been attacking us for way before that,
and they utilized this moment. You know, I want to say,
I want to say this about you, you know, I
(10:52):
want to say that we were proud to see you
on the Grammy stage, you know, not for the glitz
and glamor, but the fact that you were up there
talk in truth to power. You called out the president
and demanded that he gives black people equity and justice
in this world. And if we don't utilize those platforms,
if we don't utilize every platform, we can't keep screaming
(11:14):
from our you know, our soapbox about what we need.
We can't keep going to the same communities that are
impoverished and telling them that we need something to change.
We have to be able to speak to eighty million
and ten million people. I'm going to advocate every time
I can, on every platform, that we stop police brutality,
that we stop mass incarceration, that we stopped um gun
(11:37):
violence in our communities, every opportunity, and I don't care
what how people think about that. You know, people they
asked you to go to the Grammys because you have
made one of the biggest speeches of this error. They
wanted somebody to deliver a message, and you have made
one of the biggest speeches of this err and you
do not have to apologize for that. You do not
(11:59):
have to apologize because you have done the work for
twenty five years. You have done the work, and you
don't have to be sad. You shouldn't be attacked because
you have done work that has put you in a
position to be able to speak in terms of people
saying that we are using the names of children or
that we're cloud chasing, as they say. I wanted to
(12:21):
be clear that if anyone, especially when you talk about
the media, when you say, well, you know, these folks
have not necessarily been there to support um miss Rice's
family and the ways in which they should, it's important
to also challenge the media to do real work and
real because we put stories out into the world without
(12:46):
actually doing the research. If you actually talk to families
that I have worked with for twenty five years and
that we have been working with since my son, Linda
Angelo and I UM came together to form Until Freedom,
you will not here. And I am a hundred percent
(13:07):
sure of that that you will not hear UH sentiments
like we are cloud chasing and we use their children.
You will not hear that. Um. Many of those families
have reached out to me over the last few days
to check in and to to offer their support. So
when you think of folks like Trayvon Martin, Um, you
(13:29):
think of Shakisha Clemens, you think of Joe Guzman and
Sean bell Um, you think of Brianna Taylor. Of course
you think of the family of Ramarley Graham, Uh, Sandra
bland Um, Jordan Davis. These are individuals that I have
actually worked very closely with and that our organization has
(13:50):
been supportive of, especially in the case of Brianna Taylor,
and of course George Floyd's family. These individuals, if you
actually do your work as a journalist and you speak
with them to find out what or to ask them
about our character and our work ethic, I can promise
(14:10):
you that all of the individuals that I just name
our people who will tell you that we still stay
in contact. I'm thinking about Christopher Lloyd Morgan Jr. Who
was a four year old child that I helped to
bury some years ago. We still speak to these families
on a regular basis. We still are very much so
(14:32):
a part of their families, and we work together. We
invite them to come out and and and be a
part of activities that we're doing. We work with these
individuals and try to support them all the way through
and guess what, they support us as well. So it's
important for people who are looking for uh ways to
(14:55):
just jump in on the attacks that you do some real,
real homework. I wrote down some points because I wanted
to make sure to keep it um, you know, really
tight and shut. There's several misconceptions that I think need
to be stated on the record today. Number One, my
activism did not start with the Women's March. It did
(15:19):
not start with the Women's March. The Women's March did
not make me. The people who worked together to gather
five million people around the world we made the Women's March.
The Women's March did not make me. Now, it is
true that in the last five years the media has
begun to pay attention to my work on a larger
(15:43):
scale because we organized five million people. But if you
again do your research and you check your facts, you
will find that I have been an activist since I
was fourteen years old, and that my parents actually started
me in the movement as a young young child, very
very small child, because the two of them have been
(16:03):
activists all my life. I was born into this work.
I did not jump up one day as a hashtag
person who just decided to run to the movement, which
is okay, I'm not taking away anything from anyone who
did do that. I'm just talking about my story. Okay.
I have not been a hashtag organizer. I have been
(16:25):
doing this work since I was a very very young girl,
and my parents again helped to get me started in
the work. Can say something please, you know, And she's
not a hashtag organizer. I started this work after I
came home from prison after being incarcerated for seven years
for a crime I didn't commit. I decided to understand.
(16:46):
I decided to change my focus, you know, being a
hip hop artist. A lot of people know me from
hip hop, and there's been a lot of questions, Oh,
is this some type of skin You're just trying to
get some money. You know, he's a failed rapper, so
now he moved into activism. Listen, rapping and hip hop
is my passion. But I realized that activism was my
(17:06):
purpose when I sat in those sales with these young
boys that kept coming in and revolving door, and a
let of them didn't even understand why they was coming
to jail after the streets had lied to them, had
that they've been sold dreams and thought coming to jail
with some type of badger honor. And they listened to me,
and O G sat me down and talked to me.
I realized I had a different purpose. So I came
home with a different purpose. And you know, and by
(17:28):
the grace of God, I got in tune with Tamika
and the likes of the Gathering for Justice in which
they brought me in and wet. I started out in
detention centers and I started talking to young boys and
telling them how to utilize music as an alternative to violence.
This was a process for me. You know, so a
lot of people I get that you questioned that you
don't know you know my song from the street. You've
seen me in the streets. You know I was a
(17:50):
hip hop artist, So I don't I don't have any
problem with the skepticism, but I want you to understand
that for the last eight years. My record has been stellar.
I've been on the front lines of this movement. I've
been taking guns out of hands. I've been side by
side with families. I've cried with families. I've been on
the front line. I've been to jails, I've organized, and
(18:10):
I've mobilized, and I've been doing this work. So to
keep questioning whether it's authentic, that's something that you got
to deal with yourself. I would not apologize for doing
work and being recognized. I would not apologize for being
unapologetic and standing on the front line. Absolutely, I'm you
shouldn't apologize. None of us should. In fact, all of
(18:31):
us should be. But the problem is people want to
see you. They want to see you unsuccessful. I've seen
a video where Brothers said, Yo, you've got a dorman
in your building. So I'm not supposed to have a dorman.
I had a domain in my building before I started
doing activism. But you want to make it seem like
we're taking money from somebody. People hate to see that
you have some level of success. I say all the time,
I don't want donations. People who invest in our organizations
(18:54):
or investments because they see the work that we're doing.
I don't want you to think that you're pitying us
or we're not grifters. This quote unquote world a grifter?
What the hell is after I'm going to point number
two because we have to wrap this up and get
into our regular show. Um. The And I've said it already,
but I think this is very, very very important, and
this is a it's a sensitive topic for a lot
(19:17):
of people. Our organization. We say this every other week, um,
but sometimes people seem to miss it. And maybe today,
now that most folks are listening, they can actually hear
and understand. Our organization is called Until Freedom, Until Freedom.
Our organization is called Until Freedom. We are not part
(19:39):
of the Black Lives Matter organization all we are not
part of the Black Lives Matter organization. We all believe
that black lives matter. And you probably have heard all
of us saying black lives matter. Um. I think that
is a statement, a mantra that is really held from
the highest part of the land, and a beautiful It's
(20:00):
beautiful that three sisters came up with such an important
way to frame our movement. But there is a such
thing as the Black Lives Matter organization, and we at
until Freedom. Are not part of it. We are not
engaged in the finances of Black Lives Matter, we are
not on the board, We're not a part of the administration.
(20:25):
We are not funded by Black Lives Matter UM, we
are not in any way affiliated with the business of
Black Lives Matter. Now I personally know the founders UM,
and I also know very well Patrice Colors, who is
the current UM leader of Black Lives Matter, and I
love them all. So this is not about trying to
(20:48):
separate ourselves in any way UM in a disrespectful way.
But it is important to have clarity about who we
are and where UH and and where we operate from
and what our organization does. It's very very important because
once we start to gather and loop and put everyone
(21:10):
together UM, we lose the clarity among who is actually
in which positions and what folks are actually doing. The
next point is that you know that I've heard this comment,
and I can tell that a lot of people don't
necessarily understand the highway, if you will, of activism and
and and of the movement right and UM and the
(21:33):
fact that there are actual lanes that people are in,
things that folks specialize in. Until Freedom's job on this highway,
our lane is to motivate, mobilize and educate people on issues,
on cases and things that's happening UM in the movement space, right,
(21:55):
that's our job. So we create a climate by keeping
the streets hot, by organizing people, by training people. That
really allows our friends and and and associates and other
people that we work with who do policy work. It
gives them the fuel that they need to go get
laws passed. Right, and so we've been involved in a
(22:16):
number of those things in New York. UM. We have
helped to change UM the issue of of unarmed individuals
being killed by police or being shot by police too.
Instead of it being an issue that is handled by
the same prosecutors who work with police all the time,
we have been able to push for legislation that was
(22:38):
actually passed where there is now a special prosecutor. We
also have been a part of efforts to UM raise
and to to secure from the City of New York
forty million dollars and it's now more than forty million
dollars for anti violence programs. And again that is from
the mobilizing efforts. Now I'm not a politic, but I'm
(23:00):
extremely politically savvy and so therefore you will see us
at times moving in and out of spaces. But in
terms of our day to day work, our job is mobilization.
That's what we do. We train people and we do mobilization.
We also are very much so involved in getting Brianna's
(23:20):
Law passed across the country in different cities, which is
a band or no knock warrants. It's being led locally
in Kentucky by Representative Attica Scott and also Katura Haran,
who was an organizer on the ground until Freedom helps
to create an environment where the two of them and
others are able to go into the halls of the
(23:43):
legislature and get the actual policy um in place. I
have seen people on my page and people who have
text and called who really are concerned. They're really trying
to understand one because they want the language that they
can use to talk to family members, friends and others,
naysayers because they believe in us. And so that is
(24:04):
why we sat down today to be able to discuss
and dispel some of these things that are being stated
that just sort of catch like wildfire without people actually
doing real work and real research. And we do feel
that we have to and we should be transparent and
accountable to the community. We do ask for your investments.
(24:24):
But I will say this to get to your other point,
and I'm done after that. I will say this just
to get to the last point. In terms of the Grammys,
I don't owe anyone an explanation for why I was
invited to the Grammys because for twenty five years of
my life I have worked, and for twenty of those
years I was you know, I was basically working for
(24:47):
other individuals and being sort of behind the scenes. Uh,
the fact that I made it to the Grammy stage
or was invited to be. I didn't call the Grammys.
I didn't call a little baby who I appreciate, she
ate so much for including me in and for Tima
Robinson and Jesse Collins and others. I did not call them.
They called me, and they called me because for twenty
(25:10):
five years of my life I have been on the
ground doing the work of UM in communities and they
know that, and that's why I was invited there. I've
heard people say that somehow I'm canceled. You cannot cancel
what God has called. And the reason why I know
I have been called is because there have been so
(25:33):
many attempts to destroy me, to discredit my work, and
to try to move me out of the way. And
I'll be honest with you that when situations like this happened,
I don't always feel like getting up and getting back
in the fight. But every single time that I begin
to feel weary, God comes and instills in me and
(25:53):
puts in me and motivates me to get back in
the fight. We all get tired, sometimes, we all get
beat down sometime. But every single time that I think,
you know what, that's an I can't do it anymore.
I need I'm pretty smart, I could go work anywhere,
But for whatever reason, God continues to elevate me and
to put me in position within the work that I
(26:16):
am currently doing. And I know again that I have
been chosen to do this work and that I have
no choice but to do this work because every single time,
every single time that the naysay is get together and
that people try to take me out, instead of me
actually being buried, I continue to grow. And I just
want to say to all of you, those of you
(26:37):
who are saying that I need to stop and I
need to move out the way, and I need to
do all these things. Growth is exactly what I intend
to do. I'm not going backwards. I'm going forward, and
every single opportunity that I believe in that God puts
before me, I'm going to take it. And I'm going
to bring the voices of those who have asked me,
(26:57):
the people who I do represent, as well as my
own family, my own struggle, my own desire to save
my child and to save his children. I'm going to
bring that message to any place that I believe is
deemed a space where we can expand the awareness for
the issues that we're fighting against. So that for me,
(27:19):
is really the statement that the bottom line is you
cannot cancel what God has called. And I know that
I have been called to do this work. That's I mean,
that's gospel, you know, And I just I just want
to end it by saying this. You know, when you
come from where I come from, they make you believe
that you can't grow, you know, and they want to
(27:42):
continue to pull you down. A lot of people call
it crabs in the battle, you know, And I say,
I used to say it was the crab out the
battle mentality because a lot of these people feel that
when you get out, you're not coming back to get them,
so they're not happy for you to leave. But what
what happens when somebody who's actually getting out and they're
coming back to help, they still want to pull you back.
And don't let these people believe that you can't evolve,
(28:04):
that you can't grow, that you got to be a
street dude your whole life, that you can't see things
and you can't evolve your mind state, and you can't
speak for our people, that you can't fight alongside me
in this fight. Don't let these people feel that you're
not supposed to be successful. They question your success because
you're not doing negativity. But when you're doing positivity, I mean,
when you're doing negativity, they're happy to see you success.
(28:26):
They're not mad. When they hear rappers talking about killing
and drug dealing, they don't ask them why they got money.
They don't ask them why you got a house or
why you got a call. But when you're talking about
positivity and you're talking about uplifting your people, you're a
fake activist. You know the mind state we have to change,
And don't let these people make you believe any such thing.
You are supposed to grow, you are supposed to evolve,
(28:48):
You're supposed to come from the bottom and go to
the top. So don't let anybody hold you back, young King,
because I'm not letting them hold me back. Well that's that,
on that on period as my sister Leslie Redmus, and
(29:09):
though we owned it,
Yeah, everybody and your boy my son in general, and
I'm Tamika D. Mallory and this is a little deviation
for him our regular format and our regular programming, but
we thought it was necessary to address some online accusations
(00:22):
that followed Tamika's Grammy performance, which was excellent, phenomenal, I think,
you know, so we wanted to come out and address
these issues. A lot of people have been asking for statements,
and you know, we just won't oblige. From my perspective,
I want to make sure that as a mother that
I speak directly to Miss Rice, and and also just
(00:45):
so that folks know I have reached out through some
other individuals. I don't have a direct contact for Ms Rice,
but I have reached out and let some other folks
know that if she wants to speak with me, I'm
a veil to do so. Unfortunately, the world we live in, UM,
everything hits social media uh so quickly, and it doesn't
(01:08):
give us an opportunity all the time to have direct conversations. UM.
And I've I have seen a lot of you who
have been asking me to do what I always do,
which is to be authentic and to come to you all. UM,
and and talk about some of what you have heard. UM.
You know, I want to just make sure that we
(01:29):
start off grounded and the fact that nothing UM we
say today is an attack against UM miss Rice. UM.
I want to make sure that that is stated from
the very very beginning. Quite frankly, ms Rice is right. UM.
I support one hundred percent how she feels UH and
(01:52):
what she has stated in terms of her pain UM
related to her son. Right. And in fact, UM, I
think and I was gonna say to you, Mi set,
I feel like we all have failed her. You know,
I was thinking a lot about this coming here today.
We all have failed her UM as a nation. I
(02:13):
think that whenever a child or any person, but particularly
a child is killed, UM, we should this nation should
have erupted. And the fact that UM she did not
get the proper justice for her son would make anyone angry.
And so I totally understand and respect the trauma and
pain that she feels as a mother. UM. The second
(02:37):
point is that I think for far too long, the
issue of divisiveness has been used in every single movement
and it has actually destroyed movements. And UM, I don't
participate in it. If you know anything about me, and
you guys get to see me up close and personal.
We're on lives, we go into communities, we work with
(03:00):
people directly, we're on the ground. Uh, and so you
have an opportunity to see me up close and personal.
And the one thing that I try my best not
to do is to get caught up in the divisiveness
that I know can happen in this movement. So again,
if people are watching looking for some aha moment of
me uh speaking uh negatively about or to Miss Rice,
(03:24):
it's not gonna happen. UM. I will never ever allow
my organization, my team, UM and until Freedom, or myself
to be used as a tool in the master's box.
I will never allow that. So UM, if that's what
you're looking for, you might as well turn away because
it's not going to happen. I will, however, say that
I think it's important to clarify the questions around whether
(03:49):
or not we have used Miss Rice's child, her baby
UM in campaigns or in speeches or fundraising or any
of those types of efforts. We have not UM my speeches,
my son's speeches, and the work that we do it's
very very public. Um. You all can go back and
(04:11):
and look through speeches, look through my page. I encourage
you to do so. UM. Other than potentially calling the
role of all the people UM that that we can
think about at any particular time who have been killed
by the state, I have been very very careful, have
always been careful not to speak about cases or individuals
(04:36):
that I have not worked directly with the families. And
in particular, in this situation which Ms Rice has already said,
we've never even met UM. If we have, UM, it
has been something like maybe at a conference, I may
have been introduced, or we may have seen each other
in that way, but we've never actually sat down, had
(04:56):
a phone conversation or met in any way. And so
there for I would never be so disrespectful as to
speak about her child or to have a campaign that
addresses her child or that uses her child's name to
uplift any cause UM. And so I think that's really
really UM important to state UM. I you know, to
(05:20):
to that end, I guess UM. Miss Rice has said
that she does not want she wants me to you know,
not speak of her child UM. And while I may
not have been doing it in the past, I will
be very very very careful going forward to ensure that
I respect her wishes. I think we both can say that,
(05:42):
you know, we will be very careful to respect her wishes,
even if we feel that we're using all the names
in order to make a bigger point, we will be very,
very very careful not to disrespect her wishes. Now, although
what Miss Rice has said, UM calling me out my
name and speaking to me, speaking about me without knowing me,
(06:05):
has absolutely hurt. It definitely hurt me. But again I
understand and because of the fact that I do this work,
that we do this work from a very very very
sincere and authentic place. I may not have lost the child,
but I did lose the child my child's father, and
it wasn't a police brutality. But I understand lost and
(06:29):
I also want to and I fight every single day
to ensure that I don't have to experience what so
many mothers of young black men have experienced, and so
I do come from a personal perspective. Although I have
not lost the child, and because I understand that pain
and trauma working with families for so many years, I
(06:51):
would like to tell miss Rice today UM that I
am available to be supportive if necessary. I'm here for
or phone calls. I'm here to have any types of
conversations with any family, UM that would like to reach
out and talk about the death of their their child
or some tragic situation that has happened to them. Um,
(07:15):
We're just one small group, right. There are many organizations
doing work, doing great work, but until freedom is one group,
we can't help every family. We wish we could, but
we don't have the resources to help every family. UM.
And there certainly are our situations that have been heartbreaking
(07:36):
that have kept us up at night that we have
not been able to get involved with. But again, just
to reiterate, under no circumstances would we ever be so
disrespectful as to use the name of a person, child,
or otherwise that we have not met, work with, and
talked with their family, and have not been directly asked
(07:58):
to uplift their's name or their family member's name while
we are out doing our work. UM. I don't know
if you want to have a response to because I
have some other things on. Yeah, pretty much, you know. Yes,
so miss Rice lost her son. I remember it was
a year and I just entered into the space of activism,
(08:19):
you know, and and I remember hitting the world hard,
and I was I wanted to see justice family, you know,
so I understand how she must feel as being his mother,
you know, so her sentiments are felt just from just
being a human being. You know. When I heard her sentence,
I didn't take it personal, you know. But what I
what I did take person who was the attacks of
(08:43):
the media, of people that I've known for years, of
people that have been around us for years, of people
who had direct contact to us, who've seen the work
that we've done. I did personalize those things. I never
thought about miss Rice in anyway. The work that we've done,
I've when I've done for the last eight years and
you've done for twenty five years, has spoke spoken for itself.
(09:05):
You know. There has been this quote unquote fake activism,
you know, and I asked, what is real activism? You know,
if going out standing by families who have asked you
to stand with them, uplifting the voices of the people
who have lost their lives, standing in communities and taking
guns out of hands of kids who are killing each other,
(09:26):
you know, going in communities, starting programs and organizing in
different communities to bring peace, treaties If that's not real activism,
then what is real activism? You know, when I looked
at the media, I was disgusted because they highlighted the
trauma and pain of a woman who lost her child,
but they didn't highlight when she was telling them to
(09:47):
get justice for her child. None of these many of
them did not. They didn't post any of the post
when she was saying, we want justice for a child,
But they decided to post as she put poured pain
and trauma and talked about her her opinions because we're
all a tied to our opinions. Her opinion of me,
her opinion of you is is valid for her, but
(10:10):
you can't. You can have your own opinions. But people
don't get it. They don't get the opportunity or the
right to make those opinions. Facts like she said, we
have never I would never, as a man of principle
and integrity, I would never utilize the name of anyone,
not just a person who's lost their life, but of
anyone that I didn't have any connection to, a prior
(10:32):
commitment from, to raise any money or to catapult myself
in any manner. You know, I lived my life on
the level of integrity, and those things actually bothered me,
you know, and they were coming from people that I
actually knew, who have been attacking us for way before that,
and they utilized this moment. You know, I want to say,
I want to say this about you, you know, I
(10:52):
want to say that we were proud to see you
on the Grammy stage, you know, not for the glitz
and glamor, but the fact that you were up there
talk in truth to power. You called out the president
and demanded that he gives black people equity and justice
in this world. And if we don't utilize those platforms,
if we don't utilize every platform, we can't keep screaming
(11:14):
from our you know, our soapbox about what we need.
We can't keep going to the same communities that are
impoverished and telling them that we need something to change.
We have to be able to speak to eighty million
and ten million people. I'm going to advocate every time
I can, on every platform, that we stop police brutality,
that we stop mass incarceration, that we stopped um gun
(11:37):
violence in our communities, every opportunity, and I don't care
what how people think about that. You know, people they
asked you to go to the Grammys because you have
made one of the biggest speeches of this error. They
wanted somebody to deliver a message, and you have made
one of the biggest speeches of this err and you
do not have to apologize for that. You do not
(11:59):
have to apologize because you have done the work for
twenty five years. You have done the work, and you
don't have to be sad. You shouldn't be attacked because
you have done work that has put you in a
position to be able to speak in terms of people
saying that we are using the names of children or
that we're cloud chasing, as they say. I wanted to
(12:21):
be clear that if anyone, especially when you talk about
the media, when you say, well, you know, these folks
have not necessarily been there to support um miss Rice's
family and the ways in which they should, it's important
to also challenge the media to do real work and
real because we put stories out into the world without
(12:46):
actually doing the research. If you actually talk to families
that I have worked with for twenty five years and
that we have been working with since my son, Linda
Angelo and I UM came together to form Until Freedom,
you will not here. And I am a hundred percent
(13:07):
sure of that that you will not hear UH sentiments
like we are cloud chasing and we use their children.
You will not hear that. Um. Many of those families
have reached out to me over the last few days
to check in and to to offer their support. So
when you think of folks like Trayvon Martin, Um, you
(13:29):
think of Shakisha Clemens, you think of Joe Guzman and
Sean bell Um, you think of Brianna Taylor. Of course
you think of the family of Ramarley Graham, Uh, Sandra
bland Um, Jordan Davis. These are individuals that I have
actually worked very closely with and that our organization has
(13:50):
been supportive of, especially in the case of Brianna Taylor,
and of course George Floyd's family. These individuals, if you
actually do your work as a journalist and you speak
with them to find out what or to ask them
about our character and our work ethic, I can promise
(14:10):
you that all of the individuals that I just name
our people who will tell you that we still stay
in contact. I'm thinking about Christopher Lloyd Morgan Jr. Who
was a four year old child that I helped to
bury some years ago. We still speak to these families
on a regular basis. We still are very much so
(14:32):
a part of their families, and we work together. We
invite them to come out and and and be a
part of activities that we're doing. We work with these
individuals and try to support them all the way through
and guess what, they support us as well. So it's
important for people who are looking for uh ways to
(14:55):
just jump in on the attacks that you do some real,
real homework. I wrote down some points because I wanted
to make sure to keep it um, you know, really
tight and shut. There's several misconceptions that I think need
to be stated on the record today. Number One, my
activism did not start with the Women's March. It did
(15:19):
not start with the Women's March. The Women's March did
not make me. The people who worked together to gather
five million people around the world we made the Women's March.
The Women's March did not make me. Now, it is
true that in the last five years the media has
begun to pay attention to my work on a larger
(15:43):
scale because we organized five million people. But if you
again do your research and you check your facts, you
will find that I have been an activist since I
was fourteen years old, and that my parents actually started
me in the movement as a young young child, very
very small child, because the two of them have been
(16:03):
activists all my life. I was born into this work.
I did not jump up one day as a hashtag
person who just decided to run to the movement, which
is okay, I'm not taking away anything from anyone who
did do that. I'm just talking about my story. Okay.
I have not been a hashtag organizer. I have been
(16:25):
doing this work since I was a very very young girl,
and my parents again helped to get me started in
the work. Can say something please, you know, And she's
not a hashtag organizer. I started this work after I
came home from prison after being incarcerated for seven years
for a crime I didn't commit. I decided to understand.
(16:46):
I decided to change my focus, you know, being a
hip hop artist. A lot of people know me from
hip hop, and there's been a lot of questions, Oh,
is this some type of skin You're just trying to
get some money. You know, he's a failed rapper, so
now he moved into activism. Listen, rapping and hip hop
is my passion. But I realized that activism was my
(17:06):
purpose when I sat in those sales with these young
boys that kept coming in and revolving door, and a
let of them didn't even understand why they was coming
to jail after the streets had lied to them, had
that they've been sold dreams and thought coming to jail
with some type of badger honor. And they listened to me,
and O G sat me down and talked to me.
I realized I had a different purpose. So I came
home with a different purpose. And you know, and by
(17:28):
the grace of God, I got in tune with Tamika
and the likes of the Gathering for Justice in which
they brought me in and wet. I started out in
detention centers and I started talking to young boys and
telling them how to utilize music as an alternative to violence.
This was a process for me. You know, so a
lot of people I get that you questioned that you
don't know you know my song from the street. You've
seen me in the streets. You know I was a
(17:50):
hip hop artist, So I don't I don't have any
problem with the skepticism, but I want you to understand
that for the last eight years. My record has been stellar.
I've been on the front lines of this movement. I've
been taking guns out of hands. I've been side by
side with families. I've cried with families. I've been on
the front line. I've been to jails, I've organized, and
(18:10):
I've mobilized, and I've been doing this work. So to
keep questioning whether it's authentic, that's something that you got
to deal with yourself. I would not apologize for doing
work and being recognized. I would not apologize for being
unapologetic and standing on the front line. Absolutely, I'm you
shouldn't apologize. None of us should. In fact, all of
(18:31):
us should be. But the problem is people want to
see you. They want to see you unsuccessful. I've seen
a video where Brothers said, Yo, you've got a dorman
in your building. So I'm not supposed to have a dorman.
I had a domain in my building before I started
doing activism. But you want to make it seem like
we're taking money from somebody. People hate to see that
you have some level of success. I say all the time,
I don't want donations. People who invest in our organizations
(18:54):
or investments because they see the work that we're doing.
I don't want you to think that you're pitying us
or we're not grifters. This quote unquote world a grifter?
What the hell is after I'm going to point number
two because we have to wrap this up and get
into our regular show. Um. The And I've said it already,
but I think this is very, very very important, and
this is a it's a sensitive topic for a lot
(19:17):
of people. Our organization. We say this every other week, um,
but sometimes people seem to miss it. And maybe today,
now that most folks are listening, they can actually hear
and understand. Our organization is called Until Freedom, Until Freedom.
Our organization is called Until Freedom. We are not part
(19:39):
of the Black Lives Matter organization all we are not
part of the Black Lives Matter organization. We all believe
that black lives matter. And you probably have heard all
of us saying black lives matter. Um. I think that
is a statement, a mantra that is really held from
the highest part of the land, and a beautiful It's
(20:00):
beautiful that three sisters came up with such an important
way to frame our movement. But there is a such
thing as the Black Lives Matter organization, and we at
until Freedom. Are not part of it. We are not
engaged in the finances of Black Lives Matter, we are
not on the board, We're not a part of the administration.
(20:25):
We are not funded by Black Lives Matter UM, we
are not in any way affiliated with the business of
Black Lives Matter. Now I personally know the founders UM,
and I also know very well Patrice Colors, who is
the current UM leader of Black Lives Matter, and I
love them all. So this is not about trying to
(20:48):
separate ourselves in any way UM in a disrespectful way.
But it is important to have clarity about who we
are and where UH and and where we operate from
and what our organization does. It's very very important because
once we start to gather and loop and put everyone
(21:10):
together UM, we lose the clarity among who is actually
in which positions and what folks are actually doing. The
next point is that you know that I've heard this comment,
and I can tell that a lot of people don't
necessarily understand the highway, if you will, of activism and
and and of the movement right and UM and the
(21:33):
fact that there are actual lanes that people are in,
things that folks specialize in. Until Freedom's job on this highway,
our lane is to motivate, mobilize and educate people on issues,
on cases and things that's happening UM in the movement space, right,
(21:55):
that's our job. So we create a climate by keeping
the streets hot, by organizing people, by training people. That
really allows our friends and and and associates and other
people that we work with who do policy work. It
gives them the fuel that they need to go get
laws passed. Right, and so we've been involved in a
(22:16):
number of those things in New York. UM. We have
helped to change UM the issue of of unarmed individuals
being killed by police or being shot by police too.
Instead of it being an issue that is handled by
the same prosecutors who work with police all the time,
we have been able to push for legislation that was
(22:38):
actually passed where there is now a special prosecutor. We
also have been a part of efforts to UM raise
and to to secure from the City of New York
forty million dollars and it's now more than forty million
dollars for anti violence programs. And again that is from
the mobilizing efforts. Now I'm not a politic, but I'm
(23:00):
extremely politically savvy and so therefore you will see us
at times moving in and out of spaces. But in
terms of our day to day work, our job is mobilization.
That's what we do. We train people and we do mobilization.
We also are very much so involved in getting Brianna's
(23:20):
Law passed across the country in different cities, which is
a band or no knock warrants. It's being led locally
in Kentucky by Representative Attica Scott and also Katura Haran,
who was an organizer on the ground until Freedom helps
to create an environment where the two of them and
others are able to go into the halls of the
(23:43):
legislature and get the actual policy um in place. I
have seen people on my page and people who have
text and called who really are concerned. They're really trying
to understand one because they want the language that they
can use to talk to family members, friends and others,
naysayers because they believe in us. And so that is
(24:04):
why we sat down today to be able to discuss
and dispel some of these things that are being stated
that just sort of catch like wildfire without people actually
doing real work and real research. And we do feel
that we have to and we should be transparent and
accountable to the community. We do ask for your investments.
(24:24):
But I will say this to get to your other point,
and I'm done after that. I will say this just
to get to the last point. In terms of the Grammys,
I don't owe anyone an explanation for why I was
invited to the Grammys because for twenty five years of
my life I have worked, and for twenty of those
years I was you know, I was basically working for
(24:47):
other individuals and being sort of behind the scenes. Uh,
the fact that I made it to the Grammy stage
or was invited to be. I didn't call the Grammys.
I didn't call a little baby who I appreciate, she
ate so much for including me in and for Tima
Robinson and Jesse Collins and others. I did not call them.
They called me, and they called me because for twenty
(25:10):
five years of my life I have been on the
ground doing the work of UM in communities and they
know that, and that's why I was invited there. I've
heard people say that somehow I'm canceled. You cannot cancel
what God has called. And the reason why I know
I have been called is because there have been so
(25:33):
many attempts to destroy me, to discredit my work, and
to try to move me out of the way. And
I'll be honest with you that when situations like this happened,
I don't always feel like getting up and getting back
in the fight. But every single time that I begin
to feel weary, God comes and instills in me and
(25:53):
puts in me and motivates me to get back in
the fight. We all get tired, sometimes, we all get
beat down sometime. But every single time that I think,
you know what, that's an I can't do it anymore.
I need I'm pretty smart, I could go work anywhere,
But for whatever reason, God continues to elevate me and
to put me in position within the work that I
(26:16):
am currently doing. And I know again that I have
been chosen to do this work and that I have
no choice but to do this work because every single time,
every single time that the naysay is get together and
that people try to take me out, instead of me
actually being buried, I continue to grow. And I just
want to say to all of you, those of you
(26:37):
who are saying that I need to stop and I
need to move out the way, and I need to
do all these things. Growth is exactly what I intend
to do. I'm not going backwards. I'm going forward, and
every single opportunity that I believe in that God puts
before me, I'm going to take it. And I'm going
to bring the voices of those who have asked me,
(26:57):
the people who I do represent, as well as my
own family, my own struggle, my own desire to save
my child and to save his children. I'm going to
bring that message to any place that I believe is
deemed a space where we can expand the awareness for
the issues that we're fighting against. So that for me,
(27:19):
is really the statement that the bottom line is you
cannot cancel what God has called. And I know that
I have been called to do this work. That's I mean,
that's gospel, you know, And I just I just want
to end it by saying this. You know, when you
come from where I come from, they make you believe
that you can't grow, you know, and they want to
(27:42):
continue to pull you down. A lot of people call
it crabs in the battle, you know, And I say,
I used to say it was the crab out the
battle mentality because a lot of these people feel that
when you get out, you're not coming back to get them,
so they're not happy for you to leave. But what
what happens when somebody who's actually getting out and they're
coming back to help, they still want to pull you back.
And don't let these people believe that you can't evolve,
(28:04):
that you can't grow, that you got to be a
street dude your whole life, that you can't see things
and you can't evolve your mind state, and you can't
speak for our people, that you can't fight alongside me
in this fight. Don't let these people feel that you're
not supposed to be successful. They question your success because
you're not doing negativity. But when you're doing positivity, I mean,
when you're doing negativity, they're happy to see you success.
(28:26):
They're not mad. When they hear rappers talking about killing
and drug dealing, they don't ask them why they got money.
They don't ask them why you got a house or
why you got a call. But when you're talking about
positivity and you're talking about uplifting your people, you're a
fake activist. You know the mind state we have to change,
And don't let these people make you believe any such thing.
You are supposed to grow, you are supposed to evolve,
(28:48):
You're supposed to come from the bottom and go to
the top. So don't let anybody hold you back, young King,
because I'm not letting them hold me back. Well that's that,
on that on period as my sister Leslie Redmus, and
(29:09):
though we owned it,
Hosts And Creators
Mysonne
Tamika Mallory
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