Solidarity and Collective Responsibility

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Tamika D.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Mallory and it shit Boy my son in general.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
We are your host of TMI.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Tamika and my Son's Information, Truth, Motivation and Inspiration.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
New name, new energy. What's going on, my son, Lennon?

Speaker 2 (00:16):
I am blessed, black and Holly favored, Tamika D. Mallory.
How you feeling today?

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Good?

Speaker 4 (00:21):
You know, I'm still I'm on vacation. I'm only here
because I love doing the show. You know, I think
since we have rebranded, I love to street politicians too,
And in fact, sometimes I wish we didn't change the name.
But that's a whole, different, whole different conversation. Yes, but
I understand why we needed to evolve. We've been doing

(00:41):
that for a while and it certainly had put up
some robot blocks for us. But I have had a
renewed excitement around coming to this studio and beautiful studio
and being here and filming the show, and so I
don't mind doing that. But this is like the only thing.
And I say that, and then I do sixteen different things.

(01:01):
Go I say I'm only doing the show, and then
I go to Newark to a city council hear and
now I say I'm not going to do this, and
then I got to go to somebody else's event and
do this and that. But I'm really It's after Thanksgiving,
and you know, I don't go back to work until
second week of January. All these people calling me talking
about are planning meeting and this and that, and I'm

(01:23):
doing it.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
I don't know why though I don't want to. I'm
on vacation.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Listen, the work don't stop. Man. We had to give
out turkeys, you know, Shout out to unfriendly Baptists. Shout
out to Vanessa Gibson, Kevin Raley who donated turkeys, my
little young Kings who was out there giving out. Shout
out to Bronx logo. My boy was with me. We
had to bust full of turkeys, hundreds of turkeys that

(01:48):
we drove and we picked them up and we went
to the store by ourselves. They picked up them turkeys. Man,
So shout out to everybody. Miss Tea over there.

Speaker 4 (01:57):
Mil Walker, who's a hard legend, my friend Jessica Walker's father.
He is I don't know exactly what his title is
for the State Office building in Harlem, but he runs
it and he's been there a long long.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Long time.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
But I'm sure he has a title chairman or something
like that. I don't know exactly what it is, but
mister Walker is a Harlem legend, okay, and he made
sure to send some turkeys.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Definitely shut up to him.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
You got a long line of people out there.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
Oh man, that line was long, and it was over
so fast that this probably was like the fastest. I
think we were a lot more organized. Yeah, we and
we had and it was a lot of more people
that but it was more people than we've ever usually
at the end of our turkey drives, like we'll be
having about thirty more turkeys that we have to stop
cars that's driving by me, like, hey, you want a turkey.

(02:50):
They was on that line in about thirty minutes.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
They got their turkeys and that was.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Gone, two three hundred turkeys going in a matter of
thirty minutes. Yeah, So shout out to everybody came out.
You know, there's something that I want to make sure
that we do. I try to give back to the
community because you know, it's hard, Like you said, people
can't afford you know, eggs and milks, so I definitely
can't afford turkey. So you know, we made sure that
we do for the community.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
Man.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
They always appreciative, you know. Once again, shout out to
mis t Shout out to to my cousin James, you
know over there at Fronty Baptist Daycare Center for always
housing all of our events.

Speaker 4 (03:26):
When I was at the city council meeting for in Newark,
they said I heard one or two people say, you know,
sometimes I'll be thinking to myself, Wow, black people black,
not even black people. I take that back. I always
say black people. Everything for me is about black people.
But older people can be so rude and crazy, like

(03:48):
how the hell please don't let me be the real
crazy person. I think about like how our mothers can
be when they want to be, how they can be,
you know, and imagine that with people being upset about
their communities and dealing with trauma. That So it was
like times ten in these in this council meeting with

(04:09):
people saying all kinds of things, and I'm thinking to myself,
the young people that are watching the older people, you
can't possibly expect that the younger people are going to
act right when they go outside when we're inside of
a actual courtroom. Really, I mean, well, I don't know
if it's a courtroom, but the council, that the chambers,
the chambers, and I mean Jesus, but one thing I

(04:33):
can say is that they keep you honest. Dumb people
over there, they keep you honest. And one of the
things that I did, because what I tried to do,
there was a lot of abrasive conversation and a lot
it was whoa at times, because people feel they got
their issues. They bringing it to the forefront. It's how

(04:53):
I feel, right, And I said, okay, let me stop
watching and and and you know, and being influenced if
you will, or whatever triggered by the tone, and listen
to exactly the words. And there was a woman who said,
we don't we don't have jobs, or no, they don't

(05:16):
have jobs. She didn't say we maybe she has a job.
They don't have jobs. But they got a turkey. And
I was like, damn, like for a person who gave
out turkeys and who worked to get them to pick
them up, to bring it to your community, to get
boxes of turkeys. So because you want to help a family,

(05:37):
that that's one thing that they don't have to deal
with this holiday. They know for a fact that every
year two days three two to three days before Thanksgiving,
my son is going to give out turkeys. And that
makes people be like, Okay, I don't got to worry
about that. I can get all my other things, which,
by the way, next year our plan is to have

(05:58):
all the other things and the turkey. But a shout
out to country cooking Auntie sad out in Philadelphia. I
was looking at some of what she gave out and
I was like, oh, this is exactly what I want
to do, you know, not no envy, but like learning
from influenced by right, and you do something so good,

(06:18):
and then to hear someone say, oh, I ain't got
a job, but I got a turkey, it's so deflating
because it's.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
Like, damn, we're just dealing with so much trauma.

Speaker 4 (06:29):
Right, Because then I was gonna say, but I feel
you though. I feel you though, like you don't have
a way to buy your own so you got to
depend on somebody else to give you one, when really
all you want is a job.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Reality is the person that's giving you a turkey don't
have a job for you, so they trying to compensate
for whatever they can because they understand that you don't
have a job or you don't have the resources, right,
so you kind of villainizing the person that's trying to
do the best that they can because they probably barely
got a job for themselves. But they saying, I got
a little more what somebody else does, so let me

(07:01):
try to give back a little more. And we don't
understand that we do more harm to our own people
when we criticize them for trying to help than anything.

Speaker 4 (07:10):
But I guess I want to feel like and understand
that it wasn't meant for the person who gave out
the turkey, but it was really a message to the city,
to the city council people like yeah, we've got all
of these things, these trinkets being done, but the central
issue is that so many of our people don't have jobs.
And it's not a newer thing by itself because newerk

(07:33):
you know, from what I can see and just you know,
talking to Keisha Yuri, who is the Deputy mayor for
Violence in Intervention, Uh she and I probably got that
tight wrong, but she's definitely over the Office of Violence Prevention.
There you go, she's a deputy mayor. She was really
showing me like this is what we've done. These are
the jobs, This is what we have been able to

(07:55):
do for the community, for grassroots organizers around this issue
of violence interruption, and we have the data to prove
that it's working. It may not have solved the problem,
but it's working, and it's working in a lot of
places in Newark that used to be like popping all
the time. You see the violence calming down, and so

(08:16):
there are people who are really working hard. But it's
not a Newark problem. People speaking in the New York
City Council meeting are responding also to what's happening in Alabama,
what's happening in Saint Louis, what's happening in DC and
New York City across the bridge. Folks are just feeling suffocated,
They're feeling strained, they're feeling suffocated. So you know, it's

(08:38):
a good place to be because I always put myself
in the middle of listening hearing from people who are frustrated,
because that informs for me and reminds me, humbles me,
to remind me that you're doing a little bit of stuff.
You're doing a little bit of stuff, but you're not

(09:00):
even comparing to what it really is. Going to take
to actually heal our communities. So don't you get yourself
all feeling big and high fluting because you gave out turkeys,
or because you gave out whatever, because you did any
None of it is the solve.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
We're just trying to do our part.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
It's hard. It's hard, but that's that's a that's a
tough pill to swallow for a lot of people, right
because we asked, we ask our people to give back,
We ask our people to look out for the communities.
And then when you feel like you're being villainized for helping, yeah,
the average person doesn't know how to take that. Right.
So when we look at we hear the quote unquote
sellout and the people that left the community because they've

(09:42):
been beat down by the people they're actually trying to help.
And it's and it's it's trauma. And if you don't
understand that, if you don't really understand where we're coming
from and what goes on in our communities and how
that trauma has affected them to where a lot of
people hurt people actually hurt people. If you don't do
that and you internalize that, then it sours you. You know,
I feel like people man, fuck y'all can start. I'm

(10:05):
gonna be good me and I'm worried about me and
my family because I hear that all the time, or
I gotta worry about me and I don't. I don't
have that mindster, and I refuse to have that mindster.
So regardless of whatever it is, it's never always just positive.
It's there's a lot of negative feedback that I get.
But at the end of the day, for me, when
when I see those people and they take them turkeys
and they smile and they hug you and they say
thank you, and they know Thanksgiving is coming in three

(10:30):
or four days before we give out the turkeys, they
called me, Hey, are you giving turkey this year?

Speaker 4 (10:34):
They call you about the community day doing?

Speaker 1 (10:38):
What's today doing?

Speaker 2 (10:39):
You know we're giving y'all giving out book bags, you
got school supper. So I know that they there's a need,
they appreciated, they need.

Speaker 4 (10:45):
And it's it's sometimes the squeak, the what you call
the squeaky wheel gets the oil. So the person who
might be speaking the loudest is making you feel like damn,
like what you know, why did I do it? If
it's gonna be met with this type of fear. But
actually those people are in the small majority. And I
think that's something for us to say to all those

(11:07):
people who are out there trying to do things, not
just in the holiday season, but all the time, to
keep going, you know, keep going because the majority of
people they appreciate it, they see it, they're thankful, and
they speak highly of you when they're not around you.
And I'm not talking about just you. I was thinking
about you know, Maya Baraka, and I stick it to him.

(11:27):
It's got to be hard because we know him. He's
one of the most authentic elected officials in the entire country,
like he truly is that not just him, but also
may and Lamamba in Lord in miss Jackson, Mississippi. Also,

(11:49):
I believe you know, Oh, I know who I want
to say. I'm talking about black men right now, Wes Moore,
the governor of Maryland. These are people that I know them,
I know their hearts, and I could probably go on
with a list. It ain't that long of a list,
but it's a list of black elected officials are outgoing
Congressman Jamal Bowman.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
There are people out there. I was trying.

Speaker 4 (12:13):
To I know, I know, I was trying to find
choquait la Mamba, but got it?

Speaker 1 (12:18):
Does he know? He know he's my brother?

Speaker 4 (12:21):
These I have to wonder what these people feel when
they go home and they sit with all of this stuff.
I'm trying to be authentic. I'm out here giving of myself.
I'm up against y'all don't even know, Like when I
walk out of this room talking to you, and you
done beat me down and told me I ain't shit

(12:41):
and cussed me out and said you ain't got this,
and you ain't got that, and this ain't right and
that ain't right. With some of that stuff, I acknowledge,
and I'm trying to figure out a way, But you
don't even know that when I turn my back and
I go this way, the people that I have to
deal with to fight for the little bit of resources
that I am.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Able to bring to the community, it's no joke.

Speaker 4 (13:03):
Like it's hard and it's a struggle. And so I
just I thought about may and Baraka while I sat there,
and I said to myself.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
These people have every right to speak for their truth.
They do. They have every right. They were talking to
the council members.

Speaker 4 (13:17):
It's a little different, but nonetheless it has to be
a heavy burden as a black person who's in a
position of power, especially as an elected official, to hear
people just beat you down and down and down and down,
and you did everything wrong all the time. No matter what,
we're still all human, you know. So anyway, shout out

(13:37):
to May and Barroca because he is doing a really
really good job of trying to turn a city from
hell to getting closer to heaven. He definitely is doing that.
Just real quick on my thought of the day, so
last week, so this is really true in true black
women mine in our business fashion. Something happened last week

(13:58):
and I just watched to see what people would say,
who was going to be out there. I saw a
few people speak on this issue, but not many. Walmart
decides to close its DEI initiatives down. They shut down
all that stuff, and they closed some other department that
has to do with black folks and LGBTQIA communities and

(14:20):
so on and so forth. So basically all that stuff
that they have been involved in for many years, they
decided they're not doing those things anymore.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
Now.

Speaker 4 (14:29):
First of all, I worked with and no Walmart, right,
it was a struggle to get it in the first place.
So just be clear that Walmart did not just pop
up out of nowhere, like we love black people and
we want to have initiatives for other marginalized communities. No, no, no,
people fought Walmart and they had to open up their

(14:49):
board of directors and their advisory board and other initiatives
within the company because they were losing support from black people.
Black people were speaking out against them, Black civil rights
organizations were holding them accountable. I think, I think, and
so if I'm wrong, I can be corrected. But I
think they had made it to a list at some

(15:12):
point of corporations that are not doing good in the diversity,
equity and inclusion space, and so they were not. This
stuff did not just happen because Walmart was just this
good company. This happened over time, and since they've been
in this position with DEI programs, there still has been problems.
It's not like they just went and got straight and

(15:34):
they were just these great stewards. No, they still still
still had community issues. Just thinking about John Crawford, the
man had a toy gun in Walmart and they shot
him to death, right, And Walmart's response at first was
kind of shaky. People had to like beyond them, and
then their response got a little bit better. And I
don't even know where it ended up, because you know,

(15:56):
with these corporations, one day they'll be over here saying
like were that this happened, and then the other day
they won't change the policy. Though that actually created the
situation in the first place. You got Walmart being a
place that actually sells weapons. Right two people, you can
go walk up in Walmart in certain places because of

(16:16):
the state.

Speaker 1 (16:17):
I'm not saying that this is Walmart's doing it.

Speaker 4 (16:19):
I'm just saying, because of the laws of the state,
you can walk in there and get a gun, and
meanwhile the police are able to come in there and
shoot a man down over a toy gun in the
damn store. So don't let's not get it twisted. They're
not closing down their DEI stuff now because of Trump.

Speaker 1 (16:38):
That is a lie. It is a lie.

Speaker 4 (16:40):
So anybody who's out there like, oh my god, Trump
and so no, no, no, the environment calls for a moment.
Prior to even Donald Trump and him now being elected.
This has been going on since the summer of twenty twenty,
when corporations acted like they were so excited to get it.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
Involved with DEI.

Speaker 4 (17:01):
By the next year, most of the commitments that they
made they never actually.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
Followed through with.

Speaker 4 (17:08):
And so for me, I just a black woman mind
of her business. I just sat there and looked at
it and said to myself, so what you you posting it?
You are in the comments section. I see all these
people like, oh my god, you see you see Trump's coming.
And now what you're gonna do about it? What you're
gonna do about it?

Speaker 2 (17:27):
People ain't gonna do nothing but talk, because when you
explain to them that these things were happening, that we
already for saw all these things coming, forecasted exactly, we've
seen it coming before it even happened. And we explained
to them, look, they're setting the stage for this. What
they did with the feels is fun, right. They told
us that we can't even support our own people. So
we if we can't support our own people, you know

(17:48):
that they wasn't gonna support our people. So and then
people say, and then the thing about it is that
we like, once again we have our own people telling
us that, well we don't need d I, you know,
and we made d I into a cur But then.

Speaker 4 (18:00):
They say it, would it not be dee I When
you say, what exactly is Kamala Harris or Joe Biden
whomever gonna do for black people?

Speaker 1 (18:11):
Is that not de I?

Speaker 2 (18:12):
I think it's o d I think. But I'm just
trying to tell you the narrative, right, the narrative is.
And the thing is the others they never asked the
other side what they're gonna do for black people because
they don't care. You understand, they don't really want they
You are just trying to tell you that this is
a strategy that they use all the time because they
don't really want those answers, right. They want to ask

(18:33):
a black person. They want to ask people that support
black people, what are you gonna do for black people?
So that the other side could block you anyway because
they never gonna do nothing. So they want you to
publicly say, yea, I'm gonna be for reparations, so the
Republicans give reparation, You're gonna get them people. It just
don't make sense. It's so counter productive if we do

(18:54):
it all the time to ourselves, and I watch I
watch us do the same, you know, in a barrel
song and dance bullshit all the time. So we are
where we are. So now you ain't got d I.
So now these major corporations that take all your money,
that that you know, that feed off black people, that
feed off the one trillion, the ten trillion dollars that

(19:15):
we one whatever it is, it's ten trillion, should be
up to about ten trillion by now. But whatever it is,
we are the biggest consumers in the world. And now
we don't even call the people who we consume from
to hire us anymore, to give us positions in these
corporations and in these companies. So now they don't kind
of give you ship. They can keep hiring their cousins,
their brothers and their sisters that don't have any qualifications,

(19:37):
and you can graduate the top of your class, and
you can go in there with your resume and they
can say we don't want nothing to do with you
because you're not doing d I no more. Because you
the d I hired just because you're black. You are
you smarter than everybody. You don't graduate top of your class,
you did all the ship, you don't beat them in
every other area in the world. And now you come
to get a job for the corporation, they tell you, now,

(19:57):
we don't do it, not.

Speaker 4 (19:58):
Just the job, because they will let let you clean
the floors, and they will let position and they right,
and they will let you do some front office stuff.
You can answer telephones maybe because if white women decide
that they want to go to work, then you might
not even be able to answer the telephone. But you
will not be in a senior level position. You will

(20:19):
not be as we for on the boards and this
and this and that. So you know, and they will
have some black people there, but there will be black
people who agree with their position, black people who support them,
black people who have their same mindset or at least
act like they do to be able to get in
the room. And you know, I was sitting there thinking
to myself, I was saying, no, they will, they'll have.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
Well, but they did just what they.

Speaker 4 (20:43):
Did, just put them a black person in the department
of huts. Well, but I'm just saying there will be
a black because the reason why these companies will put
a black person in charge of some thing or put
them somewhere in a position within a company is because

(21:04):
they do want When you go on their website and
you look them up and you're making a decision about
who you want to buy certain things from. They do
want you to have the illusion that these people of
the illusion of inclusion.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
That's a very good.

Speaker 4 (21:19):
That's good. That was great, my son. You get this
snigger the finger snaps for that. However, when I see
people saying, oh, Walmart, Oh Walmart, Walmamart, Walmart, you know
what I say. I don't wear Nike. I found some
I was going through boots this weekend and I found
some Gucci boots. That's bad to the bone. I pulled

(21:41):
them out, said, damn, these boots to fly. I forgot
I had them. I might have got those boots probably
six months or so before we decided we weren't wearing
Gucci anymore. After they fashionably a black face sweater. I

(22:02):
don't wear them anymore. I looked at the boots. I said, oh, well,
somebody can have these. I had some snow boots though
that's school treet that. I'm like, only time I would
ever really put them on my feet is to go
outside and shovel the snow.

Speaker 1 (22:13):
So that's okay.

Speaker 4 (22:14):
Then they can make it for that, and I don't
have I just don't. I don't wear them.

Speaker 1 (22:19):
I don't wear them.

Speaker 4 (22:20):
It's somebody else I don't wear. It's some other brand
that I don't wear, and it's certain stores I won't
go in. So I'm already on the boycott stuff train.
I don't So you don't worry about sending me Walmart,
because once they said they canceled d I I already
knew I wasn't going back to Walmart again in my life.

(22:40):
I could be in the middle and my family members
that live down South.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
All they have is a Walmart.

Speaker 4 (22:48):
So I understand that that is all literally Walmart in
the city in Alabama that my family is from. Walmart
is the mall. It is literally the mall. So I
understand in their situation. But I promise you that me
when I go down there to visit them, I'm coming
from Atlanta from a different store with the stuff in

(23:09):
my car because I will not walk in Walmart for
any reason.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
Anything I have to have.

Speaker 4 (23:15):
I'm not going in Walmart to get unless it's life
or death. I don't eat. I don't eat waffle House.
I don't do nothing all of this Shakisha Clemens waffle House.
I don't eat waffle I don't care. I have I
have arrived in Ohio some years ago. It was late
at night. There was nothing open Walmart, I mean, waffle

(23:36):
house was the only thing open. My entire family looked
at me and said, it's sad that you're gonna really
be hungry, because we getting ready to go over there
and get us some waffle house. I said, well, I
won't be eating it, and you know what ended up happening.
They was like, we can't even go in here because
of this, and we went to my aunt's house and
pulled out the grits from the cabinet and made our

(23:57):
own damn food. I won't be going to Walmart. That's
just my position on it.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
Our guess to coming up.

Speaker 4 (24:04):
We got to reset and we'll be right back. So
we're super excited today to be joined at the same time.
Usually we'll have one or the other, but today we
have two of our friends, you know, my sisters, our sisters,
two women that I respect so much. You know, I
was looking at something the other day where a person

(24:26):
said I love you to a woman and then they
said I respect you, and it struck me because that
second sentence sometimes is even more important than the first.
Everybody loves everybody, but to say I respect you. It's
so deep, and I truly respect the two of you
and so excited that y'all are joining us today so

(24:47):
we could talk. You know, anytime all three of us
get together in one place, people get worried about what
we might be getting ready to say, and you should
be worried, because we have plenty to say. But we
wanted to have an authentic conversation post election to catch
up to, you know, just kind of kick it and
talk about where we are, where we stand, and make
sure that the world continues to see that while people

(25:09):
may be hurting and folks have all types of feelings,
that folks who've been together must stay together more now
than ever before. So I'm excited to have Linda Sarsour
and Carmen Perez.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yeah, yes, three fourths of the Women's March coach here.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
Three four You know, he ain't gonna never let Bob
be on Bob.

Speaker 5 (25:29):
Bob is Bob.

Speaker 6 (25:30):
But you actually it's a three fifths because technically you were.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Like the fifth coaches.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
Of the Women's March, Yes.

Speaker 2 (25:39):
The honorary fifth coach here, because you know, I had
to make sure everybody was safe. So that's that's a
coach here in itself. So you know, I'm just glad
to see you guys like I always do. You know,
these people run my life.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
But you know that's the best.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
Always because we love and respect you the same way.

Speaker 4 (25:56):
Respect I say guys all the time. We all say it,
but to stop saying. Tyson was in a room with
a bunch of women, and when a young lady who
was one of the speakers, got up to the podium,
she said, yeah, guys, you guys, you guys, you guys,
and sisterly Tyson stood up in the audience and started yelling,

(26:19):
where do you see guys in this room?

Speaker 1 (26:22):
Hold which one guy? Stand up? Guys? And there was no.

Speaker 4 (26:27):
As she said, these are not guys. Why do you
use that? And everyone whenever I've said it to other people,
they are like, that's I mean, it's just a regular thing.
But oftentimes we don't think about how we've been conditioned
to say things like I'm not a guy, You're not
a guy.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
You're not a guy. We're ladies, right, and so.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
You ladies, ladies and one guy.

Speaker 1 (26:47):
But I say guys.

Speaker 6 (26:49):
Sisters and sisters Linda's favor line, sisters and brothers, sisters,
and brothers.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
We are here to.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
Well. I asked the two of you to come. My
son said, you asked who to do?

Speaker 2 (27:05):
What I said.

Speaker 4 (27:06):
I wanted to have Linda and Carmen to come so
we could talk about a lot of things, and particularly
the Women's March. I think it's important because we now
see that the Women's March, those who are there as
organized as within I guess the Women's March organization, they
have called for another march and there's a whole lot
of talk about it. In fact, there is someone who

(27:28):
works within the Women's March name Tamika m who's black.
I don't know her full last name, who has been
soliciting people for different reasons for a while doing her work.
I've been told she's a great young lady. I don't
know her, but it makes people call me and say
to me, will you back at the No, not me, sorry,

(27:49):
and so wanted to talk about that. But before we
get there, Before we get there, I think that it's important.
You know, as I said, we've been together, we will
always be together. And when over the last few weeks
since the election, I've been in conversation and in fact,
even before the election, there were black women who would

(28:10):
say to me, I swear to you, if people don't
vote right in this election and they let Donald Trump
become president, I will never talk to so and so.
I will never march with so and so. I don't
care whatever they were, you know that concerned, and you know,
of course, sometimes I have the energy to push back.

(28:32):
Other times, depending on who it is, it's somebody who's like,
you weren't gonna fight no way. So it really is
an important and I know there's some people who it
is their literal excuse to get out of having to
stand up and speak out against things that are pretty dangerous,
like the.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
Stuff we get involved in.

Speaker 4 (28:51):
It is not I don't know why we can't find
like scholarships to give out like something. Now we get
involved in all these controversial things. Some people they just
really never wanted to be involved in the first phase.
But then there are people who really.

Speaker 1 (29:05):
Have been engaged.

Speaker 4 (29:06):
They've put their reputations on the line, their organizations on
the line, even when they were afraid or just didn't know.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
I'msure we pulled them along.

Speaker 4 (29:18):
Some of them jumped in front to say, hey, I
don't like what's happening in Gaza. Or you know, I
feel immigrants need to be protected or whatever, and they
are feeling very bruised by the election. By the numbers. Now,
I think it's important for us to always be careful
about exit polls because as I've been studying, it's like,
it's no way that the polls that came out the

(29:38):
first few days could be correct when you still have
more numbers being dropped every single day. So you got to, like,
you know, look at those numbers and really analyze it.
But I do I hear women and men, but particularly
in the ninety two percent of black women saying that
they are tired of standing up for everybody, and that
includes black men sometimes, you know, and they are now

(30:03):
deciding to retreat and to not be engaged in any
movement at all. I know, I don't have that luxury, right, Like,
that's a to me, that's a luxury to decide you're
not going to continue to be engaged in intersectional movement building.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
I don't have that luxury, nor do I want it.
You know.

Speaker 4 (30:21):
I love where I sit in a place where the
people around me are not all the same, and that
means that when.

Speaker 5 (30:27):
I'm tired, you pick it up.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
You pick it up. We fight together, but it's a
difficult place.

Speaker 4 (30:32):
So anyway, I set all of that just to set
the tone for talking about coalition building, because we are
the big rainbow. Like everybody, we're in the second phase
of the rainbow coalition. Reverend Jesse Jackson started the Rainbow
Coalition and then we came and we have actualized it

(30:53):
as a true coalition that is a rainbow, including you,
mister CoA chair of They're Women's March. So how do
you all feel like just after the election?

Speaker 1 (31:05):
In general?

Speaker 4 (31:06):
We talk, but every day the feelings change, you know,
So I just wonder whoever wants to start on how
you feeling in this moment, I let you start.

Speaker 5 (31:19):
I feel I feel the same.

Speaker 6 (31:22):
I knew we was going to fight regardless of who
went to the White House. We were already prepared. We
were having the discussions about whether or not if it
was going to be Kamala Harris, what kind of fight
we were about to have, if it was going to
be Donald Trump, what kind of fight we were about
to have. And you know, as someone who's Palestinian like unfortunately,
you know, we knew that regardless of who went to
the White House, the genocide is probably going to continue,

(31:43):
that the conditions are going to be the same. But
I want to say to many of those black women,
some of whom I know myself personally because of the
work that I do with you and the friendships that
I've made through you and through your networks, is that
it's okay to feel all those things, and in fact,
it's tolkay to chill, like, you know, take some times
off of the holidays, relax, like a lot of people

(32:04):
were really working hard during this election, Like people were
really spending time away from their family, They were traveling
to other states. There were people that were on the
phone constantly all day every day. I was witching the
car many times during our own work, And I know
people were working hard. And of course you feel disappointed,
you feel frustrated, and we also know who Donald Trump is,
so that also is part of it. It wasn't that

(32:24):
Kamala lost an election to like a regular moderate Republican.
We lost an election to a fascist authoritorian Like this
is not a joke, and we understand that. So I
really haven't taken anything personally. I think people should be
able to feel what they want to feel. But I
want to offer a perspective in ways that I think
about this election. A lot of people who were outraged
that Kamala Harris lost the election, and they were saying,

(32:47):
you know, how could they, you know, how could some people,
you know vote for Donald Trump? How could some people
look past you know, the racism, the bigotry, you know,
all of that and vote for Donald Trump. And as
we know, a lot of folks chose things that were
personal to them, whether it was economic reasons that they
voted for Donald Trump, etc. And I say to people,
it's the same thing that people wanted people to do
to vote for Kamala Harris. People wanted people to look,

(33:09):
for example, past the genocide. They wanted us to look
past the genocide, to forget that this Democratic Party just
aided a better a genocide and that Kamala was part
of an administration that did that. And we were supposed
to do that because it was still somehow the right
thing to do. And it's not about whether I agree
with that perspective or not, but that's how a lot
of voters thought about it. Like in both cases, we

(33:30):
had to overlook major outrageousness in order to make those choices. Now,
for me and all of us we organized under Donald Trump.
I know who Donald Trump is, I know the people
personally around him are absolutely outrageous. And so I sit
in this weird place where I'm like, I get it,
I get what you are saying. But now I'm more
self reflective and I'm more like, Okay, we could be frustrated,

(33:53):
we could be disappointed, but maybe we just got to
sit and ask ourselves a question, why and how did
we get to this place.

Speaker 5 (34:00):
We're the What were the.

Speaker 6 (34:01):
Deficiencies of us as a movement? What were the deficiency
of a democratic party? And stop blaming the opposition for everything.
Everything can't be because of them, Maybe it's because of
us sometimes. And that's kind of where I'm at right now.
So I'm not I want people to you know, take
this holiday time, this, you know, before the end of
the year. And people I've seen women saying that they're
taking you know, vacation, they're taking time off. That's nothing

(34:22):
wrong with that, because guess what, the fight is still
going to be here. What I'm hoping is by the
time you get back here after the new year, you
got your mind right and you're back outside where we're.

Speaker 5 (34:30):
All supposed to be well.

Speaker 3 (34:32):
I think for me, I pivoted, first of all, like,
I'm so happy to be with you all and really
engage in a conversation about this, because y'all are like
the people who I go back to when I'm dealing
with various things, and especially the movement and this very
purest mentality, because clearly that's not the way we live

(34:52):
our lives. Right, We're still representing a community that we
are from.

Speaker 7 (34:57):
And so I think Linda's absolutely right.

Speaker 1 (34:59):
I think that.

Speaker 3 (35:01):
You know, a couple of things happen for me is
in twenty twenty, there were numbers that were released about
Latino voters and although they favored Democrats, that were beginning
to lean Republican. And so what I learned in twenty
nineteen December of twenty nineteen was that there was a

(35:22):
confidence gap when it came to Latina voters and they
were going to be the largest majority block that were
grown into the largest minority block when it came to voting.
And so I pivoted, and I started building with other
latinas a group called Boderistas, and really trying to educate
our young women through lifestyle, trying to get them civically engaged.

(35:45):
What didn't happen is we didn't get the Latino men right.
So I focused on women because that's where we saw
the confidence gap, and so we were able to see
Latina show up and vote. But when I was out
there voting or knocking on doors in Pennsylvania or in
Arizona or even in California, Latinos were saying that nobody

(36:06):
came and knocked on their door, or that they were
not being spoken to or outreached.

Speaker 7 (36:12):
To by the Democratic Party.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
That it was really Trump that was out there making
these announcements. And also I think various things were happening
in the Latino community. The church plays a huge role
as well as economics plays a huge role, and then
Latinos are not a monolith, right.

Speaker 7 (36:33):
So for me, I think the first night, I think.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
I was one of those people that felt I had
gone out there and put it all on the line
and leaving the comfort of my home and leaving my
children to go knock on doors.

Speaker 7 (36:50):
But I'm even more so fired up, and I.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
Think even though I work in the field of criminal
justice and police accountability, I'm.

Speaker 7 (36:57):
All hands on deck. Still. What I will say, I
think that we all.

Speaker 3 (37:04):
An immense gratitude to black women as a Latina and
being a friend of yours and a sister of yours,
and even growing up in a Chicano Black community. Black
people have always paved the way for those of us
that have been in this community, and so I'm really
grateful for that. And like Linda said, it's okay to
feel the way that you do. But I will say

(37:26):
for you, Tamika, I know you don't stop because I
know your heart and I know that everything really affects
you and everybody's.

Speaker 7 (37:34):
Reaching out to you for answers.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
And I hope that you do get the rest that
you deserve, that you do get the protection that you deserve,
because it is difficult as and I know we're going
to be talking about the Women's March, but what we've
been through together and also separate, has really done.

Speaker 4 (37:52):
Something to us. It was damaging, Yeah, to us, it
was in a lot of ways.

Speaker 6 (37:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (37:57):
I was having a conversation with somebody today and we
were talking about a woman who has a very powerful
position in the movement. And I'll just leave it there
because if I say you know what they what their
power is, it'll be given away and that person has
said very nasty things about me, and they all of

(38:18):
a sudden called me one day like, hey, Okay, you know,
I know that stuff happened, but now I want you
to help me do something different.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
And I think God probably wanted me.

Speaker 4 (38:30):
To do it because it probably probably would have been
the right thing to do.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
But then I forgot.

Speaker 4 (38:37):
So I'm like, God, if you wanted me to do
it, you should have put it back on my mind because
I forgot, Like you were supposed to remind me. A
few days later, I've totally you know, the text messages
and the emails come through like wildfire.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
So I forgot. I literally forgot until today.

Speaker 4 (38:52):
I was having a conversation with another person who's going
through some stuff and just feeling like people beating them
up while they're trying to do the right thing, and
I was like, let me just tell you this story.

Speaker 1 (39:03):
So I'm tell them about this other thing.

Speaker 4 (39:05):
But despite whatever God may or may not have wanted
me to do, hopefully give me another opportunity to get
it right. I was saying that it wasn't that what
they did just hurt my feelings. It was reputational damage
that was caused as well, because people around the world
who may not have come back for my response or

(39:27):
for the second half of the show only heard the
first part, which was that I did X y Z
thing to hurt them that wasn't true. And I just
find it really difficult to see how people will approach
you as if something didn't happen, like you said you
were talking about this last week entitlement and won't even.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
Say I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 (39:49):
And no one has apologized to us, No one, no, no,
what we've been through.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
No no, So you know what it is for me
just watching just knowing the love that we have. People
don't understand it. We have a lot of contentious conversations
all the time, like everything is just not peaches, and
sometimes we disagree about that is an understatement, you like,
really like, you know, so when we look at all

(40:15):
of our communities in this moment, we're all facing a
lot of different things. Right when we look at the
election and we look at the presidency, we look at
we look at mass deportation, we look at immigration that
that's going to affect Carmen. We look at the genocide
going on in Gaza, right, we look at black women
feeling like this was their opportunity to be in a

(40:37):
position of power and feeling betrayed. And each one of
those things has a place right and each one of
those things had an intersection, especially in this moment, that
everybody had their point of view it and it was
contentious conversations to have to be able to say, hey, listen,
I can't support the genocide. I don't care who's what
administration it is. Right. Then there was a then it

(40:57):
was black women like, listen, we're gonna have to figure
this out because because I believe the black women is
gonna figure this out and we're gonna let us get
to there. And then it was those conversations where it
was button heads like and those things still exist, right,
So that's why it's hard for us to move. So
how what is that process like? Because when you have
a conversation with black women and they know that Linda

(41:19):
is one of your best friends, and then you like,
we're gonna keep fighting, they're like, well, the Muslim lady said,
and the Palastinian said, they wasn't doing all this, so
I hear you, and you can go do that, but
I can't do that. Or you know, the people said
immigration that you know the the Hispanics voted this way,
and I know calm in and I know y'all love
these people, but you can do that by yourself. Like,

(41:39):
how does that conversation?

Speaker 4 (41:41):
Well, I just would say one thing on that. Every
single person that I've talked to who has said things
to me like so and so could be on fire before.
I mean they are when I say her and feeling betrayed.

Speaker 1 (41:54):
Its deep.

Speaker 4 (41:55):
The conversations are tough like and like I said, some
days I have the energy. Other days I just sit
and listen. And some things I just cry because I
know that that that feeling. I'm not even judging them
for it, but I know that they must be going
through some deep hurt to feel that that strongly that

(42:17):
I wouldn't even piss on such and such if they
was dying, they was on fire like this, that's a
lot of energy. But every single time they go. But
I still love Linda, So you know, they all say
that they like but Linda, she's still invited to the barbecue,
but she better not bring anybody from her community with
her right now. And that's just a real thing. And

(42:39):
we talk about it. We talk about it. I don't
I don't I don't hide it. I might not say, oh,
it's this person and this person, because your memory bank
can't let go of things that you know. So if
you if I tell you, well, you know, Tutu's the
one who said it, you may get past it, but
your memory bank will always hold that this is how

(43:00):
this person fell when you were in the midst of
a genocide. Right, So I may not say that because
that person don't mean That's the thing. People feel like
they mean it, they really really feel like they mean
it until the deportations are happening and it's going on
in your community as well, and then some black person

(43:22):
is caught up in the middle of it.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
Because when ICE is moving.

Speaker 4 (43:24):
That was the reason why we fought so hard against
ICE some time ago. I don't even know that wasn't
even in the Obama administration. That was I mean in
the Trump it was no, no, no, no no. Obama
administration at that time, he had deported more immigrants than
any other administration. Right in the Obama administration, we were

(43:46):
in a full blown fight. During that time, I was
working at National Action Network and other coalitions to come together,
not so much because I won't I don't want to
speak on behalf of anybody else's organization. But my recollection
wasn't even the deportations, which was horrible, but it was
also the use of ice and the way in which

(44:09):
ice was entering our community. It was putting black folks
in danger as well. And so people who believe that
you can separate yourself from these issues, I'm not even
gonna argue with you. I just know you're gonna see
it and say wait a minute, because you must think
that they know the particular zip code address and they're
gonna just be precise with rolling up on Wan Carlo.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
That's not how it works.

Speaker 6 (44:34):
And even some of the laws are arbitrary, like for example,
you know CBP, which is Customs of Border Patrol, can
operate one hundred miles from the border, right, so when
you talk in the northern border, that's the whole state
of Michigan.

Speaker 5 (44:45):
So if you in Detroit, you part of one hundred miles.

Speaker 6 (44:47):
And as we know, and you remember this during the
Biden administration, when we rolled up to Del Rio in Texas,
the migrants that were there were not Latinos or Central Americans.
They were in fact as black as black and being
they were mostly Haitians, a lot of Panamanians, people who
are very dark skinned, who if we're walking around the
streets of Brooklyn or the streets of Harlem, you really
wouldn't be able to tell the difference if they were

(45:09):
African American or African or a Caribbean, and whether or
not they were US citizens or not, Like you wouldn't
be able to tell that just by looking at them.
And so we went down there, and you know, and
the thing that I think is important at that time
also another reflection that I have about our movements is
something I've held with me. If you remember that time

(45:29):
when we went to Del Rio, Texas black migrants.

Speaker 5 (45:33):
I remember I looked around, where were the people? We
were the only ones out there? It was us.

Speaker 6 (45:39):
It was Girleen Joseph from Haitian Bridge Alliance with like
two of her staff. I remember, there was another two
people from Alita Garcia who's a friend of ours.

Speaker 5 (45:50):
Her team were out there.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
And national actually that work was there the day before.

Speaker 5 (45:54):
But from a movement from an image, yeah perspective, the
people weren't outside.

Speaker 4 (46:00):
But that's how people feel about our movements, like people
feel like when black folks are killed. And I have
to always run because, as my son said, we do
have contentious conversation. We was having one the other day
on text message. Everybody's going back about back and forth
about how we feel and people black folks feel like.
I think this is also what they're responding to, is

(46:21):
something that has been tucked away in their pocket that
they never felt like anybody else really cares about our issues.
Seeing you and maybe ten people who look like you
at a rally, even a hundred people who look like
you at a rally, seeing you, know, not understanding the shades,
the different physical shades of black people, so Afro Latino

(46:44):
and all of the different groups, not knowing that and
just looking for the light skin like close to white
skin individuals in the midst of a rally you may
or may not ever find them. In fact, they are
more white people that show up for black folks, which
they should a data cause of the problem, or at
least their their lineage.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
Is the cause of the problem.

Speaker 4 (47:06):
But people feel like, we don't see any other community anyway,
So why is it that we have the key showing
up and that I think that's a part of it.
They just pulling out the handkerchief that's been stuck in
their pocket. Like you know, now I'm raised and I'm
swinging afect. Excuse me, what is it called when you
flo flag? But it's something anyway, waving the flag.

Speaker 3 (47:29):
I think what's really interesting about what we're all talking
about is that there are different shades of folks.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
Right.

Speaker 7 (47:35):
When I went to the border with you, we were
in Alfaso.

Speaker 3 (47:38):
And I ended up going to Gattis to go visit
one of my aunts, and my aunt was housing Afro Cubans,
so it was actually black women in her home who
she was providing you know, mutual aid for. And when
I think about that, like we just had gone to
the border, and I was like, I have the luxury
of them going and crossing and meeting the people that

(48:00):
are being impacted by this. And then you know, and
then I think about the criminal legal system, like my
fight has always been because when I go into the prisons,
it's black and brown folks, right, and we use black
and brown as a talking point. Meanwhile, there aren't a
lot of Latinos that are sitting in leadership when it
comes to the criminal legal system right movement. But what

(48:22):
I also will say is recently working on a project
called the Latine Police Accountability Network. We were looking at
state sanctioned violence and policing and the parallels between I
would say Chicano's Mexicans and African Americans and the lynchings
that have happened, right. But what happens is that we're
not able to continuously tell that story. There's no real

(48:44):
books that allow us as Latinos to see what has
happened in our community. And so we start a movement,
will be in it for twenty years, and then we
focus on immigration. And a lot of it has to
do with where the funding comes from. Right, So foundations
are pitying Latinos in one category. And I remember going
to a solidarity summit and one of the foundation women

(49:07):
was like, Oh, Carmen, what you know, So.

Speaker 7 (49:09):
What immigration organization do you work for? And I was like,
I don't.

Speaker 3 (49:13):
I work on criminal justice because on my Chicano side,
my family has been impacted by incarceration.

Speaker 7 (49:19):
But what we found was that people like a zeal.

Speaker 3 (49:22):
Ford Filando Castile, we're all Afro Mexicanos, right or Afro
Puerto Ricans, and we need to do better when it
comes to our solidarity. And I know folks are saying,
you know, f solidarity, like we're tired, We're tired of
asking you to show up for us. But I know
for me, I try to organize within the Latino community
to educate them about the parallels, to educate them that

(49:43):
this is our issue too, and to disrupt this linear
issue area that we keep getting funneled into, because not
all of us are impacted by that. Like when you're
talking about this policy that is coming up on mass deportations,
in the first first hundred hours, we're not talking about
the first hundred days.

Speaker 1 (50:02):
We're talking about the first.

Speaker 7 (50:03):
One hundred hours.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
Educate they're going to be doing mass deportation and it's
going to include citizens. In nineteen twenty nine, the Repatriation
Act deported my Chicano family that was from here before
it became the United States. They were sent to a
country they had never been to. They had never been
to the other side of the border. And what that
did to my family. It took away our land, it

(50:25):
took away our business, and empovered my family. My Chicano
family comes back to the United States. My dad can't
even cross the border legally because he has no documentation
that he was born in the United States, so he
had across the river grand and unfortunately my family faced
extreme poverty because of that. But there were two point

(50:46):
one million citizens that were deported under the repatrioti Repatriation
Act because of the scapegoating of white people who said
that Mexicans were taking their jobs right and there was
no due process. We also know operation what back happened
in the nineteen fifties. I think you recently posted something
about that. Again, mass deportations without any due process that

(51:10):
continues to sweep up citizens of the United States. And
so if you don't think it impacts you, if you think, well,
I'm born here, my grandmother's born here, my mother's born
you're wrong.

Speaker 7 (51:20):
It's going to impact you.

Speaker 3 (51:21):
And it also, like you said, people don't know your citizenship,
so they don't need to have a due process. They're
going to continue to funnel back folks and they're deporting.

Speaker 7 (51:31):
Them to Mexico.

Speaker 3 (51:32):
Mexico has been trying to work with the United States
in order to make sure that they have the capacity
to receive the people that are trying to come through
the through Mexico into the US, but the US doesn't
want to work with them. There's just so much education
that really need to do, and I think there's an
opportunity for us. Like I said, for me, I'm looking

(51:54):
at pivoting, especially because I know that if it doesn't
personally affect me, it's going to personally affects something that
I love and that I know.

Speaker 6 (52:02):
Right, And so I'm all hands on, I think, and
everything that Carmen said, And I think it's again the
lack of knowledge and people understanding history that that sometimes
we don't think a country's capable of something if you
don't know that they.

Speaker 5 (52:13):
Actually did it before.

Speaker 6 (52:14):
Yeah, but I will say this, you know, absolutely people
are gonna get caught up in it. They're gonna lots
of legal You're gonna need lawyers, you know, again, having
to prove your citizenship because your burden of proof is
on you, not on the government.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
May they carrying your passport. You think that's going to.

Speaker 5 (52:28):
Be a thing. That might be a thing.

Speaker 6 (52:29):
I mean, you know me, I've been carried since seven
since twenty seventeen.

Speaker 5 (52:33):
That passport. I literally got it in my bag right now.

Speaker 6 (52:36):
But what I will say to folks, and I hope
that we get to this place, maybe it won't affect you,
but it's still wrong. And I want people to get
to the point in life where if you're sitting at
home and you watch your undocumented neighbors being stripped from
their children, or you watch ice vands raiding a community,
or street vendors in the street, or the local you know,

(52:57):
deli or the supermarket where some of these undocumented people are,
I just want you to be like, no, this is
not okay. I don't care if you have impacted or not.
You might be impacted, but you might not be and
that still makes the thing wrong. And what I will
say to Meka, we have to sometimes tell the truth.
And this is why I love watching your podcast and
you and Mices, because you just say what needs to
be said, and it's gonna lay wherever it lays. The

(53:20):
bottom line is true. Our community's got to do better
at solidarity. That's just the bottom line. Like I'm not
going to sit here and say that. You know, Arab
American or Palestinian American communities have done this like massive
wave of solidarity.

Speaker 5 (53:33):
Over the years.

Speaker 6 (53:33):
Yes, of course there are key Palestinian Americans in this
country who are outside been outside. There is a long
trajectory and history of Black Palestinian solidarity that dates back
to even before the Malcolm x'es and the Black Panther Party.
But the bottom line is that's just key individuals that
you could pout to say that our entire communities are
coming out and the droves to stand with black people.

Speaker 5 (53:53):
It's not true.

Speaker 6 (53:54):
And that's a lot of work that we got to
do on our part. And I will also say, you know,
as you know in the Muslim community, you know many
of them, A third of Muslim Americans are African American,
They're black people. And so this idea that the Muslims
are the quote like you said, the light skin or
the Arab or the South Asian, No, a third of
our my community is your community. Those are your people too,

(54:15):
because they also have to figure out how to be
black and Muslim in America. And the solidarity is also
sometimes not there within our own community. And so I
just want people to know if you're not in the community,
I'm letting you know this is the hard conversations that
we have within our own community. We got to step
up better for each other first within our Muslim community.
That then helps us develop the type of solidarity that
we can give to folks that are not exactly from

(54:36):
our Muslim communities. But it's a struggle, and I've been
struggling with it for twenty five years.

Speaker 2 (54:41):
It really is. It's really a struggle, and I didn't
see it until this moment, right because I've seen it
during the Woman's March, and I know it for y'all,
especially like I watched Tamika have to deal with it
a lot, right because every time she does intersectionality work,
black women say what are you doing? Right? Every time

(55:01):
the Women's March, right when everything started to me, it
was the first one targeting black women said, I told
you not to do this. Right when we look at
this this election, and black women are saying, look again,
you still out there. But you know what I'm saying.
And the reality is, I understand everybody's point of view,
but I do I understand that the Palacinians said, well, listen,

(55:24):
I understand that's a black woman, but this person is
complicit in genocide. And I can't. I can't say, I
can't of sound mind for my people and my own
sanity say that I'm just gonna overlook that because of
the black woman. As much as I love you, and
that's what I'm saying. So I understand everybody's point of view.
I understand that everything is true, just like I understand

(55:46):
that I don't really understand that the Latino men that
Trump because I just think that's just a misogynistic bullshit.
But but but it's a reality because some of them
is thinking about their pockets, they thinking, some of them
think that they have proximity to whiteness. Whatever it is.
This is damn reality, and what it forces us to
do as real leadership, right is we have to take

(56:07):
our personal emotions out and lead with the reality that
we actually have to deal with. And that's what it's
forced me to do because I'm not gonna lie. I
I've been pissed off for a couple like I checked out, Like, Yo,
you know what, I don't think this. I just don't
think this is it. I just don't see it. I
don't feel that. I don't have the energy. And then
I have to say, that's not really leadership, right, It's

(56:27):
not really leadership to say because it don't go the
way I wanted to or doesn't go the way I
think it should go, that I should just lead. So
I have to understand everybody's perspective, and I have to
figure out a way to relay it to other people
who might not get it right and show and lead
through example and say, despite what you might think is
going on, despite how we might feel at this moment,

(56:48):
the only way that we actually can win is actually
do this together. It's no other way. And they know
that they understand. By dividing us and disenfranchising us, this
is what they've done all the time. And I was
having this conversation and you kind of brought me back
to it because I was like, I don't see it work.
I just don't see us doing this. I think right now,
what they're trying to do is disenfranchise a movement they watch.

(57:10):
Even even though the Democratic Party has a lot of bullshit,
it's not destroy the Democratic Party, right because there's so
many We have Blacks, we have Latinos, we have Palacenians,
we have muslim we have all of the shit in here.
We just gotta figure out how do we make it
move the way we.

Speaker 1 (57:25):
Want, right, because this is what leadership, that's what it is.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
It's like, Yo, I'm not gonna leave my foundation. They said, Yo,
we need to all go be repulbed. Why the fuck
would I go somewhere where it's only five people that look.

Speaker 1 (57:35):
Like me and they value none of.

Speaker 2 (57:37):
This fit me? Why would I move my whole town
to go. No, I'm gonna fix my town up because
this is where our found that we built this ship,
and they know that we built it, and they seen
it and they said, we just gotta fit. We gotta
divide this ship. And it's just like black Walls. It's
the same. It's the same strategy and tactic. They blew
it up last time. They just blew it up. They
timp bombs. Did y'all building too much here? We're just

(57:58):
gonna blow it up. They did the same thing even
when we was when they say the Republican Party was
for blacks. Before they made us say okay, we're not
doing that shit no more, and we switch a part.
And what they keep doing is making us switch and
have to migrate to different ship when we gotta be
strategic enough to say, nah, I'm not switching. I got
we got this. We're gonna build. We're gonna build this
shit right. We're not leaving our people. We're not leaving

(58:20):
the ship we built because it didn't go right for us?
What's hill? So this is the moment for us to
be strategic to understand what our enemy is doing. They
want you to believe when I sit there and say, Okay,
we got sixty we just got sixty one black people
on the judges that just got put into it, and
who gives a fuck about that? We don't care about that. No,
we do. We actually these things are very important. When

(58:41):
I'm sitting there talking about but we got democrats. I
got over three hundred people that's elected that I know.
I know about fifty elected officials that I can go
to and you can come to me because I'm in
your community and I can go to them and we
can actually make change. I'm not gonna leave that because
it didn't go right for me.

Speaker 4 (58:57):
I mean, but I am interested in what it looks like.
I do think and Angelo said this the other day
that black people have to be able to build because
if what we say is true, that black folks will
not that other communities cannot get free until black people
are free. That means that there has to be some

(59:18):
real intentionality around black people getting free, because we can't
as long as our foundation is shaky, then then no
one else will be able to be whole if you will, right,
And so there has to be some intentionality. I think
that black people are in a position many of us
who are on the same page, there are others who

(59:39):
are not to build something that allows us to have
political leverage. Right, Like, I'm still I still don't know
that we're at then. I don't think I'm saying anything
different from you. I'm just adding I think that we
may still choose to vote Democrat, workers, family Party, whatever

(01:00:01):
those things are, but we still need an organizing base,
right So, the Black Party or whatever people want to
call it, you still need an organizing base, a place
where we can get ourselves together so that we can
set the tone for what is happening inside the party
or which whoever we decide to vote for. Right now,

(01:00:22):
it's not that I think we're and this is something
that people may not be able to articulate properly, but
it is something they are feeling that we're so mixed
with so much that therefore is chaotic.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):
That's right, because the Democratic.

Speaker 4 (01:00:37):
Party is a little chaotic, it's a lot chaotic, right,
I will say.

Speaker 6 (01:00:42):
I mean you started the show with this, and my
song was trying to take us here, and I actually
think that it goes with what you're saying.

Speaker 5 (01:00:47):
So we could get into the elephant in the room conversation.

Speaker 4 (01:00:50):
Well, I want to say one thing before you go
to that, but go ahead and then you go into
the Okay, let me say what upsets me is not
people who didn't vote for a Kamala or that voted
for Donald Trump because they were upset about Gaza. It's
not people who say they are dealing with economic challenges

(01:01:11):
and perhaps being closer or having proximity to Trump and
what they believe to be money in power might make
it better for them. Their economy was different or better
during the pandemic when their grandmother was dying in order
for them to get the twelve hundred dollars check. But
that's going down in the rabbit home. What I'm upset

(01:01:31):
about and what I have to get past in terms
of what's giving me a emotional block for being in
coalition with anybody, is that I know that many Arab men,
Latino men, and Black men and others who chose not
to vote for a Kamala or voted for Donald Trump

(01:01:52):
did it because they don't like black women. That for me,
the massogyny is more danger to me then people who
made a decision based upon their pockets or their political
views or their morals or whatever. That part I can
work on, right, But there's no way that I can

(01:02:14):
get past the idea that you would look at this
woman who's highly qualified.

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
Know it in your mind too.

Speaker 4 (01:02:22):
It's not that you don't know it, but you know it,
you acknowledge it, but refuse because you just can't. Your
racism and your sexism, even more than racism, says that
you cannot vote for a woman, because that right there
is not just about Kamala Harris.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
It's about me, and.

Speaker 4 (01:02:40):
That becomes way more personal to me than just not
voting for somebody because of genocide, which is obviously important,
or these other things are important. We were talking, we
debated about this the other day. Eggs and milk and bread,
that's important. Gas is important, you know, well, all these
things important. People feeling like in their community they have immigrants,

(01:03:04):
there are migrants there who have harmed them.

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
That's important. Safety is important.

Speaker 4 (01:03:10):
But just making a decision that she as a woman,
you can call her names and disrespect her and all
of that.

Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
That for me, I can't get with.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
But I think my personal position in this is that
all of those things feed into the same thing, right,
Because when you're having a conversation and somebody is explaining
to you that Donald Trump is better for the economy,
that's not factual, right, It's never been factual that the
facts that tell you that that's not true. When you
having a conversation they say that immigrants are killing people

(01:03:40):
in the hood. I've been living in the hood. Those
things aren't really happening, right, So what I'm trying to
say it feeds in to the narrative of the racism
and the sexist anyway, because they want to believe that
shit anyway so that they can justify everything else. Because
when you have conversations with the average person that said that,
because there's very few, there might be a couple that
actually say, Okay, these things right, here are things that

(01:04:01):
I believe, and they come with opinion based on facts
and they've done some research. But the average person that
says it, I'm saying, where do you get that from?
What information proves that? Because nine out of ten people
say that Donald Trump is not gonna be better for
the economy, right, where do you get the information from
what community are you from where the immigrants or the
migrants are coming in there taking jobs or killing and

(01:04:22):
raven people. Where is this actually happening? And they don't
have any facts to support those things. So most of
these people just using these same talking points to justify
the old bias that they have inside themselves.

Speaker 3 (01:04:34):
Absolutely, and that's that's what we were seeing in the
Latino community, is that a lot of the men were
repeating Fox News talking points, which is an opinion news, right.
We were hearing things like you know, and I've seen
it when I was watching football Monday night football, there
were advertisements about trans kids, that Kamala was converting children

(01:04:55):
and elementary into trans you know, there was just all
this stuff and all the these advertisements were being paid
by Trump and people started repeating it or yes, and
you know, people who were undecided were saying to me,
we're doing research, you know, to see if she's qualified.
And she they would say to me, you know, under

(01:05:16):
her current administration, under her leadership, they've allowed eleven million
immigrants to come here and kill and rape people. I'm
just kind of like, I was so appalled, but it's
exactly to your point.

Speaker 7 (01:05:28):
Right.

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
One. We can't dismiss what Tonika saying is that there
is racism, there's sexism. We're not ready for a woman president,
particularly a black women president, right and there is a
lot of anti blackness in these communities.

Speaker 7 (01:05:41):
And the fact that a lot of the people who.

Speaker 3 (01:05:43):
We were knocking on doors are talking to were repeating
the same things that Fox News.

Speaker 7 (01:05:48):
And it's because it's on a cycle.

Speaker 3 (01:05:50):
If you turn on your TV, the first channel that
it goes to is Fox, you kind of stay there
because it's you know, it's compelling.

Speaker 7 (01:05:57):
But if you don't know this information, you're gonna keep
repeating it and keep believing it.

Speaker 5 (01:06:02):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 6 (01:06:04):
Y all made the very points that I wanted to make.
So I'm going to move us along here on my
you know, one thing that I'll say before I get
us into the elephant in the room, because I think
a lot of people are trying to figure out what
to do. And as we kind of move into the
new administration, I mean, January is right around the corner.
We're going to close our eyes and open them. It's
going to be January twentieth, which will be the day
that Donald Trump will be inaugurated against in the White House.

(01:06:26):
But before I get to that, I wanted to share
something that doctor John Powell, who is the leader of
the Othering and Belonging Institute in California, who's someone that
I'm in a cohort with, and me and him go
back and forth all the time. I'm kind of like
a little more hot headed, a little younger, you know,
And me and him for many years have went back

(01:06:47):
and forth on this idea of like righteous rage and
what does it look like in the movement and when
do we get to the point where we really start
being a little quiet and listening to the people around us,
even those that we don't agree with. And this election
kind of re affirmed what he had said to me
many times before, where he says, let's be soft on
people and hard on systems. And I think what his
point is to say is, like, even the people you're

(01:07:08):
talking about, the Latino men, the black men, the Muslim
men in our communities, those that we believed were part
of our coalition who kind of walked away from us.
The question is why is it about them personally? Is
that really the conversation or is there something more deeply
systematic that caused those people to believe that we were
not the party for them, or that our movements were

(01:07:29):
not for them. Is there something about what they were
saying that we didn't take seriously where they really had
deep concerns, some of it that comes from the misinformation
and disinformation campaigns, But.

Speaker 5 (01:07:41):
We never leaned in. We were more like you just ignorant,
You just don't know what you're talking about.

Speaker 6 (01:07:45):
Man.

Speaker 5 (01:07:45):
Maybe there was something deeper there.

Speaker 6 (01:07:46):
And I think doctor John Powell's point is to say,
sometimes you just got to lean in and listen. You
don't got to agree with people, but you got to
hear where they're coming from, because everybody comes from somewhere,
and positions come from somewhere. And so I wanted to
say that because I think it's been something that has
been very compelled for me, and I've really been leaning
in and been listening to people in my own community,
like let's talk about it, like what happened, Like what's this?
Let's talk about the conversations. And there was a lot

(01:08:08):
of what Carmen talked about, you know, culture wars. The
Republicans were leaning into culture wars. They were, you know,
leveraging sensitivities around social issues. And some of our more
religious elements of our community. You know this in the
Black community, this exists as well as in the Muslim community,
around issues of abortion, around the issues of LGBTQIA. Issues
like these are real things that we have to talk

(01:08:29):
about within our communities. And so anyhow, and that brings
me now to you know, where we go from here,
because a lot of people keep, as you know, Tamika,
calling us, emailing us, you know, asking us all these questions.

Speaker 5 (01:08:40):
I got the media in my inboxes, as you all
do as well.

Speaker 1 (01:08:42):
I don't interestingly.

Speaker 4 (01:08:45):
That's why when y'all was talking about it on the
text thread, I didn't say anything. Nobody from the media
reached out to ask me what I think.

Speaker 7 (01:08:53):
That lady, they I know.

Speaker 1 (01:08:55):
I'm just telling you I didn't get it.

Speaker 6 (01:08:56):
I mean, I got a few, and I have chosen
probably getting them, and she's probably.

Speaker 5 (01:09:00):
Getting them, exactly.

Speaker 6 (01:09:01):
I mean, I've gotten a few, and of course just
organizers in general and people that are leaders of some
organizations around the Women's March which is happening that week
which weekend, which will be two days before the inauguration
of Donald Trump, and people keep kind of asking us,
you know, are we involved.

Speaker 5 (01:09:16):
The first To make it simple, no.

Speaker 6 (01:09:19):
We are not involved in the twenty twenty five Women's March.
Just want to make sure that we put that out there.
And I think everyone's going to do what everybody wants
to do, and everybody's free to make whatever decision that
they want to make on whether they want to participate
in marches right now or participate in this particular march
that's being dubbed the People's March. And it's interesting enough,

(01:09:39):
about a year and a half ago, I already you know,
we got permits. We have our own permits because we
didn't know how this was going to go. We didn't
understand where we were going to be. We didn't even
understand at that time who was going to be the
Republican nominee. We did this way before it was clear
that Donald Trump was the nominee, and so we.

Speaker 1 (01:09:56):
Had certainly didn't think that Biden was going.

Speaker 5 (01:09:59):
To be out that too.

Speaker 6 (01:10:01):
We were actually the real perspective that we had was
that we was going outside for Biden.

Speaker 5 (01:10:06):
Actually we thought we was going to go back.

Speaker 6 (01:10:07):
Outside for him, because you were there for four years
and now all this is happening. We went to get
those permits believing that we were going to show you
in your next term, like we are outside all the
way outside right now, because this is going to be
your second term and you ain't got nothing to lose,
And that's kind of how we.

Speaker 5 (01:10:20):
Were thinking about it.

Speaker 6 (01:10:22):
But I just say to people right now, like, as
strategic OG organizers who've been around for a long time,
people have to understand that the way we organize marches
and how we think about organizing the things that we
do is based on the political condition we find ourselves in,
and not every minute, and not every month, and not
every year is the same as the year before that
or the year before that. We have watched violence from people,

(01:10:45):
not all the people who voted for Donald Trump, but
elements of the movements that support Donald Trump. And for
me personally, I think about a lot of things with
all these marginalized people, with these threats of deportation, with
the ways in which law enforcement had came out unequivocally
for Donald tr Trump. We know that the unions from
the national to the local unions that endorse Donald Trump, Like,

(01:11:05):
do you want to bring people in the same weekend
where we know there's going to be an inauguration with
potentially tens of thousands of people who are supporters of
this administrative, this next administration for me personally, in twenty seventeen,
we had no choice. Donald Trump was a new politician.
We weren't sure yet if he was actually going to
commit or fulfill the things that he promised. So the

(01:11:26):
idea was we going outside, because we want to make
sure that you know that we're not sitting at home
and letting you just go outside and do whatever you want.
Although he did do many of the things that he said,
So we had to make a point to Donald Trump
and his administration that we were going to make sure
you know where we stand as a movement. Do we
got to make that same point again? Do we not
believe that Donald Trump doesn't think that the movement still

(01:11:48):
don't agree with the things that he is proposing to do.
That's kind of where I'm at right now. I think
there's a point that was already made and doesn't have
to be made at the beginning of his administration. I
think and Carmen alluded to this earlier. I think where
I am right now is you got to go internal,
you got to go on the ground, You got to
be figuring out where do we then start appropriating resources

(01:12:10):
to the community organizations that they need the most resources.

Speaker 5 (01:12:13):
How do we develop the deep relationships.

Speaker 6 (01:12:16):
To try to heal some of what has happened over
the last few months, because we're going to need each
other to protect our people. What are the mechanisms What
does it look like for us to protect ourselves from
ice raids in our community? Do we need to train
more people instead of cop watch, ice watch? And there
are people that are already doing that, Like you know
what happens if you're next door building right and you're

(01:12:36):
in the window and you're watching this whole thing go down?
What are your rights? Can you come outside? Can you
record ice agents? What are the repercussions of that? The
other thing that we know is that with this Hr.
Nine four nine five, which people have seen all of
us talk about, it passed in Congress, it's going to
come up in the next Senate, which remember they have
the Republican Senate, Republican House, and Republican White House.

Speaker 5 (01:12:55):
That's a bill that's going to pass and it's.

Speaker 6 (01:12:56):
Going to go after organizations who are going to be
in opposition to the administration's agenda.

Speaker 5 (01:13:01):
So that's something we got to worry about.

Speaker 6 (01:13:03):
There's also this other thing that we'll talk about on
a different show that comes from the Heritage Foundation also
in some of these other conservative groups called Project Esther
and Project Esther specifically a project that is going to
focus on, you know, any groups that they believe to
be supporting quote unquote terrorist organizations, which.

Speaker 5 (01:13:23):
Is similar to the bill four h nine four nine five.

Speaker 6 (01:13:27):
And the thing that people have to understand about four
hr nine four nine five is that if the government
says that you are a terrorist supporting organization, remember blacked
identity extremists, climate people have been called domestic terrorists in
the past. I mean Cop City people were charged with
reco charges just like a year and a half ago.
So this is real life things that happen. The burden

(01:13:51):
of proof is on you, not the government. So the
government could just say so and so and so and
so are terrorist supporting organizations. They're under investigation, we're going
to shut them down and potentially worse charge their leaders
or whatever. Yeah, they don't have to have evidence. Their
government just could say it. It's just a statement that
it's made, and it is. The burden of proof is
on us to prove that what the government is saying

(01:14:13):
is wrong. And mind you, ninety nine point nine percent
of the organizations and leaders will be able to prove
that they're not what the government says they are. But
after how much hundreds of thousands of dollars of legal
services that people are going to have to put up
lawyers and do all of that, because the in order
to prove that you are not what the government says you.

Speaker 5 (01:14:30):
Are requires a certain type of lawyer. It can't be like.

Speaker 6 (01:14:33):
Our friend, you know down the block that helps us
every once in a while with some paperwork. You need
national security type folks that know how the government works
on these materials support to terrorism type of cases. So
the point is back to the women's arbitrary.

Speaker 4 (01:14:46):
It's arbitrary and and there's a language in it that
is not just about terrorism either. So it's it's it's
it's very broad, and it really makes me feel. I
know people are not gonna like this what I'm about
to say, but it scares me that folks can be
so clueless to write comments that asks me, well, why

(01:15:10):
should we care about it? I mean, if you're supporting
a terror and they really mean it. If you're supporting
a terrorist organization, then there's something should be done about it.
Their mind doesn't even expand far enough to understand that
you can be labeled that way whether you're doing it
or not, just because you're dealing with a vindictive presidency
and government that can choose to say just because you

(01:15:33):
out here talking about free Palace. First of all, I've
had people tell me that my clothing a sweatshirt that
has a watermelon on it, which, by the way, black
people eat watermelon too, so it might not even manit
I'm saying free.

Speaker 1 (01:15:47):
Palestine, but it is. That's what that's what it's for.

Speaker 4 (01:15:51):
People have said, oh, that scares me, or that makes
me feel like you're saying death to Israelis or to
Jewish people. Right, so, how they will make the decision
of who they label one way or the other, it's
gonna be very much. It's gonna be very broad, right,
and so you have to expand your thinking beyond believing.

(01:16:15):
And black folks, a lot of black people suffer with
this because, you know, especially if you are from a
family where mother, grandmother, grandfather, whatever, were people who told
you you do what them folks tell.

Speaker 2 (01:16:27):
You to do.

Speaker 1 (01:16:29):
Follow the rules are the rules.

Speaker 4 (01:16:32):
Don't be getting into nothing with mister Johnny them down
there downtown. You already know they don't like us. You
too black to go certain places at certain times, and
it is trauma and fear. That's not who they want
to be, but that's their reality. And so when there
those are people who pretty much believe whatever they hear

(01:16:53):
in the news, on in the newspaper, whatever the media says.
How people say, they can't be saying. They can't be
telling you one thing on the news if it's not
really true, that's right, right, Like there's no way they can.

Speaker 6 (01:17:08):
But also black people are saying that for other good reasons,
right because they know when these types of laws and
the things that happen, when law enforcement comes, they always
come for the black people.

Speaker 4 (01:17:17):
Well no, but I'm talking about people who who are
looking at me. I get those folks who are just like,
don't just stay out of trouble. But that mindset often always,
i mean often leads to if that's what they said,
then it must be true because they won't lie like
they just believe, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:17:37):
So I'm saying, I'm.

Speaker 4 (01:17:38):
Just I'm putting.

Speaker 1 (01:17:39):
All that out there. Let me just say how I
feel about the women's marketing.

Speaker 5 (01:17:42):
That's what you say.

Speaker 6 (01:17:42):
Well, I just want to end my point by saying
all this that I said is to say that it's
a dangerous time and we have to be very intentional
about who we're putting outside and how we're bringing marginalized
people to the street, because at the end of the day,
as organizers, at least we do feel this way, we're
responsible for people, and I don't want to be in
a place responsibility for people's safety.

Speaker 5 (01:18:02):
And also for the government to start deciding.

Speaker 6 (01:18:04):
Now who are the people that are in opposition to yal.

Speaker 4 (01:18:08):
I think that it should be called the women the
white women's March. I think that white women should ask
black and brown women to stand down.

Speaker 1 (01:18:21):
You protect yourself, don't worry about it.

Speaker 4 (01:18:24):
We're gonna go out here and we're gonna put ourselves
in harm's way and in danger's eye, and we're gonna
do the work for at least the next several months,
at least for the next two years.

Speaker 1 (01:18:38):
I don't know what the time period is.

Speaker 4 (01:18:40):
And not put black and brown folks and small black
and brown organizations in harms way. I don't think anybody
would have been I got people sending me all types
of things. They're sending me letters where they're calling for
the Women's March not to do this march. I've got
people sending me petitions, and people will send me all

(01:19:01):
types of stuff where they're trying to say that this
should not happen. I'm saying that it should happen, but
it should be a c full of white women. Yes,
that's what I think it should be. That's my advice
to the WAU.

Speaker 3 (01:19:18):
I'm so glad we're having this conversation, and I know
we've been texting about different things. And I think, first
of all, just to reiterate what Linda was saying, we
are not part of the Women's March, and so I
love all of you who have been reaching out, but
we are not going to be march.

Speaker 1 (01:19:33):
It's been five years. You're telling me people don't pay
attention for five years ago.

Speaker 6 (01:19:38):
Well, I think people think major mobilization, you pop back up,
you pop back up. But also they know that we're
the ones capable of actually doing the mass mobilization.

Speaker 5 (01:19:46):
Because people know us.

Speaker 3 (01:19:46):
And I'm hoping that they do outdo what we were
able to accomplie.

Speaker 7 (01:19:50):
Absolutely, you know there.

Speaker 8 (01:19:51):
Should be over twenty million, twenty million, white millions and millions,
and white women, yes, and their white husband's, white fathers,
white sons.

Speaker 3 (01:20:01):
Right, I personally feel it is it is a waste
of money. As people who have organized marches at that caliber,
we know how much it costs. And our communities right
now are suffering a lot of organizations are needing money
for education, needing money for security, needing money for trying

(01:20:24):
all these I know, and so there's just a lot
that we need. And if if I know, we had
created a five O one C four so that we
could get people civically engaged, and we should have been
organizing these last four years.

Speaker 7 (01:20:41):
We should have been getting out the vote.

Speaker 3 (01:20:42):
We should have been civically getting women civically engaged, and
we should have been actually turning those white women around
that voted for Trump in twenty sixteen. We should have
been reaching out to them. But that didn't happen. And
I know it's not my responsibility, it's not your responsibility
ability or Linda's, but I do feel that we should
be doing something different, and that money that all these

(01:21:04):
folks have should be going to the most marginalized communities.
And I don't know if on January eighteenth we're going
to be seeing the same numbers that we did January
twenty first of twenty seventeen.

Speaker 2 (01:21:17):
Well, you know, first of all, I just want to
say that I love and respect all of you. You know,
I was there when the Women's March started, when you
women put your lives on the line and took a
lot of heat, and you know, I think that you
can't recreate that. You know, I don't think anybody can
recreate that. I think the energy around that march was

(01:21:38):
way different. I think, you know, like you said, Linda,
we understood that we wanted to make sure that people
knew that Donald Trump knew where we stood and that
we were against him in the world made that statement.
I think at this point that we have evolved into
different levels of leadership and strategies, and we understand now
who we're fighting against, and the best way to fight

(01:21:59):
him is to organize internally and actually not as broad
and invisible, because they're making laws that actually target us now,
that can actually take us out. So we have to
be a lot more strategic as the way we strategize,
Like you said, if the white women want to go
out there and organize the march go right along. We
need allies, we need accomplices. So we need the white

(01:22:20):
women to actually understand this moment. If you want to
go the lie and be, you know, in solidarity with us,
and we appreciate that, but at this moment, the level
of strategy and organizing that we have to do has
to be very different and has to be very intentional.
So I just want to say that I appreciate you
and I love you guys. I mean you ladies, because

(01:22:43):
you know, because she said there's no guys, I got.

Speaker 6 (01:22:45):
To say something on the record though, yes the Women's March,
because then I feel like I didn't say my part.
I will just say personally, over the last fifteen months,
I have been so disappointed with the Women's March itself.
As someone who is one of the original co founders
and cultures of the march, you would believe that a
women's march that was founded by one Palestinian American woman

(01:23:06):
who was in unequivocal solidarity with all marginalized people, where
we were outside putting our bodies aligned for others, You
would think at some point the Women's March would say
we are women with power, and we are going to
say the things that need to be said. The Women's
March in fifteen months set ceasefire one time. There's one
post on their whole social media for fifteen months that
says ceasefire, and that's all it says. It just says

(01:23:27):
the word cees fire. Then last week, I think because
of the criticism that they were receiving about the march,
they came out in addition to hundreds of other organizations
calling on people to call their members of the United
States Senate to support the Senator of Arnie Sanders, a
blocking aid to Israel that was fifteen months after a

(01:23:48):
genocide began, and even an organization that claims to support
reproductive rights, women's rights, gender justice. You would think that
someone along the way would say, wait a minute, there
are fifty thousand pregnant women in Gaza and we as
the people, are bombing the hell out of them and
making and that they have no access to healthcare. In fact,
women were delivering babies without anesthesia and having sea section.
So just want to say to people personally, and this

(01:24:10):
has my personal position, should not interfere in what you
believe or what you think about women's March. But I
just want people to know from the perspective of someone
who was part of the original group of the Women's March,
that's how I felt over the last fifteen months. And
I now know which organizations truly stand for all people
and who in the movement is willing to say and
be fully and unequivocally in solidarity with.

Speaker 5 (01:24:33):
Marginalized people around the world.

Speaker 6 (01:24:34):
And I kind of figured out what their space is
and what they've decided and what positions that they decided.
Because most of the women that we organized with that
the Women's March, who are no longer at the Women's March,
have been outside. I've seen them. I've been seeing a
lot even some of the white women Bob, a lot
of the original women from the Women's March, like Bob
Bob Revival Chorus, whatever, they come outside with the Kafias.

(01:24:55):
They're out at the pro Palestine rallies, really publicly out there.
So I just wanted to say that because it's something
that has been sitting with me, as you said, to
make it in my back pocket, that I've kind of
wanted to say, and like like we're like just to
wrap this.

Speaker 5 (01:25:06):
Up that you know, people do whatever people want to do.

Speaker 6 (01:25:08):
But if we were just here to share our perspective
about where we are and me personally, people are looking
for me.

Speaker 5 (01:25:13):
I'm down underground.

Speaker 6 (01:25:15):
Like you know, there's a meetings coming up with major
immigrant rights leaders, folks that are on the front line
to decide what.

Speaker 5 (01:25:21):
It's going to look like to protect our communities. Who
needs resources.

Speaker 6 (01:25:24):
Mapping also looking nationally, let's map the cities, which ones
are not sanctuary cities, the cities where we know law
enforcement will immediately cooperate with the Donald Trump administration. Because
there are some governors and some mayors that have said,
not us, We're not going to play that in our city.

Speaker 5 (01:25:38):
But there are others that are like, we ready, we
please pick us number one. We're over here. We just
got to make sure that we are helping well.

Speaker 4 (01:25:44):
And then you also have you have you have a
layered It's just layered. We could go on all day.
I'm not even going to I just want to make
sure to mention that you know, there are also people
out here who are calling for all women's organizations to
speak up about what's happening in the Sudan and in
the Congo to African women, and we don't see anything

(01:26:06):
on that either, So there's lots of work to go
around that requires us doing more than having a public
and not us them people from having a public march.

Speaker 3 (01:26:19):
I just want to say one last thing if I may,
and I know I don't really say this publicly, but
I have felt betrayed by the Women's March, and so
I'm also very angry that they're calling it the People's
March because of how we were organizing in twenty sixteen
and people wanting us.

Speaker 7 (01:26:35):
To call it the People's March.

Speaker 3 (01:26:37):
But it was precisely that reason that we called it
the Women's March, because we needed to galvanize women and
we needed women in leadership.

Speaker 7 (01:26:43):
It needed to be women led.

Speaker 5 (01:26:45):
But I feel.

Speaker 7 (01:26:45):
Betrayed by them because we weren't.

Speaker 3 (01:26:48):
Protected when we were being falsely accused of certain things,
and it really has.

Speaker 7 (01:26:54):
Harmed many of us.

Speaker 3 (01:26:56):
And I know we have different levels of healing, and
I feel like I'm now just kind of like at
that point where I'm talking more about it. I'm still angry,
and I know Linda has said, Okay, we got to
get over it, we got to move forward, but I
feel like they they turned their backs on us, the
current leadership that is talking about women's rights, that is
talking about people protecting people, turn their backs on the

(01:27:18):
very people that had organized the Women's March, and that
was myself, you and Linda and as well as Bob.

Speaker 5 (01:27:25):
Right and others.

Speaker 4 (01:27:27):
But I would say, and I want to say, I
thank you ladies so much for being here, for being vulnerable.
And I think that it's important for us to acknowledge
that when you say they abandoned us and they did this,
and that they some of them are the ones who
actually did the damage.

Speaker 1 (01:27:47):
So it's not just the turning your.

Speaker 4 (01:27:48):
Back, it's that they were part of organizing against us.
We knew it, didn't know it as much at the time,
but we learned it. And in my book I Live
to Tell the Story, which is going to be released
on February eleventh, there is a place where I say,
when I get old and gray, I'm going to tell
people about a black woman who was part of those

(01:28:13):
organizing against us. And I said, but I can't tell
you who to be at t ch was now because
you can't handle it.

Speaker 1 (01:28:21):
It's too it's too deep, it's too deep.

Speaker 6 (01:28:24):
But let's also just not end this beautiful conversation. By
the way, thank you so much for having us here.
In my sentiment, the truth of the matter is, there
was a lot of things that happened to us, but
God said.

Speaker 1 (01:28:35):
Oh God, still, we still still. That's why I live
to tell the story.

Speaker 6 (01:28:40):
That's why I just want to know that, you know,
sometimes and this is what I believe in. And it's
interesting because the people of gods that believe this too.
Sometimes you got to go through the worst shit. And
of course nothing we've experienced is even close to what
people God's experience to be where we are right now.

Speaker 5 (01:28:54):
To get to a better place. So I feel grateful.

Speaker 6 (01:28:55):
I just want people to know that, you know, to
Meeka got a second book coming out since we got
to remember this, we're talking about something from seven years ago,
you know, six years ago. Whatever, the things we've accomplished,
the things we've been able to get you babies now, personally,
professionally like we I'm just so grateful to God. And

(01:29:16):
the other thing is this is this right here is
also a demonstration of what's feeling, what's not. This is
still here right because we could have just been like cool,
we was at the women's Mare. I mean we obviously
knew each other before that, and we're still together and.

Speaker 1 (01:29:29):
We will stay together.

Speaker 2 (01:29:31):
We're still together fifture.

Speaker 5 (01:29:33):
It's still the fifth Culture.

Speaker 1 (01:29:34):
And my friend, that's what we love you, Bob Blad.

Speaker 2 (01:29:36):
We love you, Bob Dope interview.

Speaker 5 (01:29:40):
We appreciate y'all, love your peace.

Speaker 2 (01:29:44):
It's always a beautiful moment when all three of you
were in here and just listening to you, just reminis's
so many, so many years of camaraderie and sisterhood and brotherhood,
you know, just being a fly I called myself the
fly on the wall at the Women's march, you know,
and just seeing how you evolved from that, how theys
evolved from that, and then we find ourselves in another

(01:30:06):
pivotabal moment in history, you know, and just having that conversation.
So I just love, I love what we have as
a family, you know, and just listening to your talk.
So sometimes I just get caught enamored in the moments
to listen to y'all talk.

Speaker 4 (01:30:20):
Yeah, I mean it's you know, we talk to each
other every day and we are one another's peace. We
keep one another calm. I think all of us do. Angelo, yourself, me, Carmen,
Jay ra mean. I mean the list goes on with
a family that we've created that you know, we know
that we know one another struggles even when one of

(01:30:41):
us is not expressing it, you know, And so I
thought that it was important that you know, not have
people asking you, asking me, you ask her, and then
everybody and we all given different perspectives. You can get
it from us in one place, how we feel where
we are at this time. And I truly do believe
what I said that in this moment, the white community

(01:31:06):
needs to take a look at what has happened here
and understand that they also have a serious problem. Black folks,
mainly black black women, and black men are pretty much
on the same page. There's some who didn't vote at all,
but for those people who actually bought themselves to the polls,
they knew the assignment.

Speaker 1 (01:31:27):
We knew the assignment, and.

Speaker 4 (01:31:29):
So we pretty much have shown over and over again
that we are willing to protect everybody while also trying
to protect ourselves. That is not the case with our
white brethren and sistern. They need to have many more
opportunities to allow people of color to rest, to figure

(01:31:49):
out our conditions, our situations, what we're going to have
to face what it's going to look like to live
under a regime, if you will or want to be,
regime that is in many ways fascist and of course
a dictatorship. We need to be able to figure that out.
And people shouldn't even be asking us to march. And

(01:32:09):
I know there's some folks out there who will say, well,
no one asks you specifically to me go, or you Linda,
or you Carmena, you my sign. But there are people
asking us because we're getting the phone calls, we're getting
the questions about well, can't we do this together, can't
we come together? Well why don't we look past the
things of the past and fight? And we have people

(01:32:31):
asking us all of that, And I don't I think
that the way to protect those people who you claim
you're supposed to be so much for is to just
say we got this. We're gonna go, We're gonna organize
our people, and we're going to make sure that white
women put ourselves in the line of and I don't

(01:32:56):
want to say fire, but the line of the lion's eye.
Go out there and do that. Don't even bother just
say dis march. Ain't even four people of color it's
white people who are calling on white people to show
up and do not shift that burden on other communities.

Speaker 2 (01:33:13):
I one agree with you, that's right. So for my
I don't get it today. You know, I've been having
dialogue just over and over just trying to you know,
just the moment we're in. It's like, I'm first of all,
I just don't understand the people like I think that
was my I don't get it last week that I
don't understand the people that think now because you know,

(01:33:35):
Trump was elected president, that people are just supposed to
be quiet and just you know, all right, it's over. No,
now the work actually begins now. I was having a conversation,
you know, I seen a post that actually been Crumpet
posted and he was talking about how President Biden had
just put sixty one new judges, black judges on you know,

(01:33:58):
the benches, on the benches, and I was like, okay,
that makes sense, they said, And he has over two
hundred and sixty seven black judges that he's put on
benches since he's been in office. And I thought that
made sense. And then people say, oh, nobody, kids, what
have those people done in black faces and high places
don't do anything for black people, and that's nothing, it's

(01:34:18):
nothing in that concept. I just don't get right. I
just don't I understand that there are there are going
to be some black judges that don't do things that
we need. There are gonna be some people that don't
do anything. But to just believe that we don't need
black representation, right, that we don't need black people that
come from our community to be in positions of power,
to be able to interpret law, to dictate, to handle sentences,

(01:34:43):
and that understand our culture, to understand where we come from.
That we don't need none of them in any position
of power. It's just it's so confusing to me that
people have that that, you know, that notion, that they
believe that, like, what are we telling our kids? Were
telling our kids to go to school, be smart, you
can be a lawyer, you can be a doctor, and
then actually when they actually get to those places, we're

(01:35:05):
telling them that they have no value to us anymore. Right,
It's confusing to me. We send these kids to school,
you're paying tuition, you're paying all this thing. They scholarly,
they studying the law, they've been through the reality, they've
probably seen their uncles go to jail. They've seen their
mothers be you abused by the system, and they want
to be getting the positions to actually change those things.

(01:35:25):
And we're telling them that when they get there that
they don't matter that now they're so they sold out
because now they've actually done the things that we've told
them to do. It's just that I really am so
confused with this mind stake, and I'm confused that how
they tricked us into believing that because they are in
positions of power all the time, and we watch them
abuse the white people have been in the position of

(01:35:47):
power for since we came here, and we watch how
they've abused it, they've negatively impacted us. How when a
young white boy goes before a white judge he's able
to get probation for shit that they give us five
and ten years for. We watch it work for them.
So why how did they convince us to believe that
none of us care enough about us to be able

(01:36:08):
to implement those same, you know, levels of empathy and
understanding for our own people, Like why why do we
think this way? Well?

Speaker 4 (01:36:18):
I have so many different I have different points that
are coming up as you're speaking. First, of all, who
is the day on our side that or we we
that you're talking about, because those people who have actually
been engaged in struggle, for the most part, don't feel
the way that you're talking about right or the way
that you're what you're saying. I believe that one of

(01:36:40):
the biggest issues here and why you get confused about
things is because of the people you're talking to and
listening to. You are spending time communicating with and accepting
the rationale of a lot of stupid ass people that's
on the Internet, and that's why you're in this fish

(01:37:01):
bowl of listening to people say very ignorant things. That's
why I don't spend my time there. I don't spend
my time there. It has become a very much so
an entertainment tool for me and a messaging tool to
get out things that I care about. Sometimes I might
learn a little bit, but I am spending less of

(01:37:21):
my time. I've actually been training myself to say a
thing if I decide to make a comment on the
shade room or make a comment wherever, I might respond
one time. Other than that, I have decided that many
of these people are trolls, so they are deliberately, even

(01:37:41):
if they are trolls that have a real profile, because
as we learn, I have the evidence in my phone
that during this presidential cycle, this election cycle, there was
a way that you could be paid to use your
page to respond to things that you know, to respond

(01:38:02):
in my comments, your common whoever. I'm not saying us
we were being targeted. I'm saying in general, you could
pay to you would be paid to use your real
profile to communicate with people. Because the trolling that used
to be very prominent, or much of it, was people

(01:38:23):
who have no page, no profile, and it's just like
bots and they're talking and then you go on their pages,
either it's either blocked or it is one picture or
two pictures or whatever, and that was a clear giveaway
that these people are fake. So they are now actually
paying real live people to use their social media accounts

(01:38:46):
to be out there with the same talking points. So
you could literally go up there and say the most sensible,
sensible things, and you're going to be met with people
who are going to tell you that it doesn't matter
that they're black judges out there, you're gonna be That's
what you're gonna be met with. I don't even know
why you waste your time, because what you're doing is

(01:39:08):
expending energy talking to people who don't even.

Speaker 1 (01:39:11):
They don't want.

Speaker 2 (01:39:12):
I don't actually wait, I might respond, I respond to
one or two people that I know at this point,
I really you might get one or two comments out
of me. But still the mind stay because I go
down the line and I see a bunch of people
having these conversations and they be and there's people that go,
I don't have to do it because they're very much
trained a shout out to Aya, Aya is gonna tear
you up. She gonna tear you up from the beginning.
And then there's a couple more people that I know

(01:39:34):
that immediately when somebody says, they go to it. So
I watched the dialogue between them and then I see,
you know, fifty or sixty other people saying this, and
I'm like, what, who tricked you into believing this?

Speaker 4 (01:39:45):
Dumb strung Well, you also have black people who have
encountered a black judge that was the worst, the absolute worst,
you prefer When I went in the when I went
to vote, there was several judges, names of judges, right,
I think it was like six or seven of them
and up for election.

Speaker 1 (01:40:08):
I looked at the names and I.

Speaker 4 (01:40:11):
Literally did like place in a bet, because unfortunately I
did not know all of those people. I knew the
black woman, and I think I knew one more person.
But I looked at those people and I literally chose
the white man, saying to myself, sometimes you could get
a white male judge that actually makes sense. They are
a little more sensible by the law, by the rules.

(01:40:34):
But there was some other people that was on there.
I literally was like, I'm not going to vote for you,
because I have encountered. Of course, I voted for black women,
but I've encountered oftentimes people from all different types of
backgrounds that feel that they have a responsibility to do
you as dirty as possible just so they can continue

(01:40:55):
to prove themselves and be invited to the white people's thanksgiving.
So I I understand that some people their response is
coming from a place of trauma, But there are a
large majority of people.

Speaker 1 (01:41:07):
Who are really, really, really ignorant.

Speaker 4 (01:41:10):
They're stupid, They're ignorant, and you be up there entertaining
them and giving them your time, And this is why
you over here confused as super.

Speaker 1 (01:41:18):
What's wrong with people who tricked you into believing.

Speaker 4 (01:41:21):
Because if you walk, you walk away from the Internet
right now, and you just go up and down the street,
and if you stood on the corner of this block
and started to say exactly what you're saying, that Biden
puts sixty one judges in place, and black judges and
he has over two hundred and something and blah blah

(01:41:41):
blah and da da, and you explain to people, the
average person, regular person that you are seeing in person,
is gonna say to you, I didn't know.

Speaker 1 (01:41:52):
That that's actually great.

Speaker 4 (01:41:55):
Or they're gonna say, well, I've had a black judge
who's who did X Y Z to me?

Speaker 1 (01:41:59):
So I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:42:00):
But almost no one that you meet in person is
going to tell you that it doesn't matter that this
man puts sixty one black judges in just in the
last couple of weeks or months or whatever on on
the federal bench.

Speaker 1 (01:42:14):
It is not gonna happen. Those are people in a
bubble on this stupid shit. I'm telling you. I am
telling you, well.

Speaker 2 (01:42:21):
I'm trying to say that there's a couple of them
that I know, and they not just on there, and
they will literally argue you down with this same talking point,
and it's just like, I don't know how we got there.
And it's confusing because, like you said, for the most part,
it's people that I don't know, that I've never seen
and they but there are people on there that I
literally know, And when they have this conversation, they keep

(01:42:43):
on saying these same things, and I'm like, why do
y'all believe that? Like, what makes you believe that this
even makes sense? You know? So I just asked the
question because and they keep trying to tell you the
same thing. Oh, you know, this is what Malcolm said, This.

Speaker 4 (01:42:58):
Is what this is Malcolm Martin, Stokely Carmichael, Marcus Garvey,
Coretascott King, doctor Dorothy Hyde, who else maya Angelou. I'm
just trying to think of the whole everybody that people
might love, right, all of these Dorothy Cotton, all of

(01:43:19):
these people, Reverend Jesse Jackson, not nearly, not one of
them ever said that white people's ice is better, it's colder.
None of them said it is better to put white
people in charge of everything and they're gonna make it
all right for you because white people have been in charge.

(01:43:40):
And guess what we have the highest levels of mass
incarceration of any community. While there were white judges at
some point, all white judges, we didn't start becoming judges
until much later, after the courts had already been designed
to be the catch place, the holding place for us,

(01:44:00):
the kangaroo court. That's where that came from, right, So
it is I'm just telling you just if you I'll
give I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:44:09):
Giving you some advice today.

Speaker 4 (01:44:11):
If you want real life responses and real life and
meaningful dialogue, you should go to a street corner and
just say your thing that you feel that you would
say on social media on the street corner and have
conversation with the people.

Speaker 2 (01:44:32):
The reason why I'm having this conversation because I literally
just did a podcast three days ago with two people
that sat there and had these conversations, two black men,
and they was literally arguing me down, saying the same
dumb shit. So it's not it's not like in a bubble.
It's not. If it was just on the internet with
people I didn't see, I would be like, Okay, you're right,
But listening to these black men regurgitate the same shit

(01:44:54):
is it was. It was frustrating. And then when the
podcast was over and I'm reading the comments. It's people
that are agreeing with me, like, yo, do how are
y'all that ignorant? Who told you? How the shit that
you're saying? Like, why y'all this ignorance? So it gave
me some hope. It's like, Okay, at all is not lost.
You know, there's a bubble a place where these people exist.

(01:45:15):
But I don't even know how they exist. I don't
even know how that mind frame exists, you know, because
they've really made us believe that, you know, that's one
of the thing Michael said, who told you to hate yourself?
Like what made you believe that the white people are
going to do more for you than black people? Why?
Why have you convinced yourself for that?

Speaker 4 (01:45:34):
Well, because black people in positions of power, people don't
feel like they've done enough for them.

Speaker 2 (01:45:37):
But I understand why they don't feel like they've done
enough because a lot of them can't do enough. A
lot of them, like you said, a lot of them
don't have the position of power, and then a lot
of them are trying to appease people. So but I
want to believe. I want to believe that given the
opportunity right if we continue to change the narrative, and
we continue to reshape with America is, and we continue

(01:46:01):
to put our culture in positions of power, I want
to believe that ultimately we empower them to make those
changes that they feel comfortable in them, they feel enough
of us back them. They don't have they don't need
white validation, they don't need none of that. And when
we start to do that, then you'll see the shift.
But as long as we keep acting like our people

(01:46:23):
don't matter, then we do nothing but a disservice to
our own well.

Speaker 1 (01:46:28):
I mean, you know how I feel about it.

Speaker 2 (01:46:30):
So that brings us to the end of another episode
of TMI. We appreciate y'all for making us a number
one podcast in the world. Like we always uh TDM,
we did oury thing. Shout out to our sisters Linda
Sarsaw and Carmen Perez joining our show today. We love them.
Make sure you follow them on social media's they are

(01:46:51):
part of our organization. Linda is one of the co
founders of Until Freedom and Carmen Perez is the president
of the Gathering for Justice hier Badfont his organization. One
of our great leaders. Rip to him. We appreciate y'all. Look,
make sure that you follow us on subscribe to our
channel on YouTube. We need you to watch all of

(01:47:11):
the shows and let us know what you love to,
let us know who you want to see, let us
know who you want to interview, let us know, give
us all of your critiques, your criticism, and your love.
We love you. We're gonna continue to do what we do.
I'm not gonna always be right, Tamika d marriages and
I can always be wrong, but we will both always
and I mean always, be authentic. That's

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Tamika Mallory

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