Tamika Mallory Opens Up: Surviving Rape, Addiction, The Night Her Dad Warned Her + More

Tamika Mallory Opens Up: Surviving Rape, Addiction, The Night Her Dad Warned Her + More

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
What's up.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
It's way up with Angela yee.

Speaker 3 (00:05):
I'm here with my good friend coach Jesse, and look
all my good friends again. Honestly, I'm gonna just in
full disclosure for like thirty minutes, we've all been talking.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Yet.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
You know, Lindsay Granger's here, she's been guest hosting. So
proud of my girl, Lindsay World of Travel, Thank you
appreciate it. Also News Nation catch all of that, and
of course the birthday Girl in the Flesh every Birthday.
Nika Valori is here, and we've been talking about this
because your book I Live to tell the story. When
I tell you, I thought I knew you and like

(00:39):
they used to stay on MTV, but you have no
idea and this memoir of love, legacy and resilience is
so amazing. So I'm glad we have a chance to talk.
But one thing we all have in common is that
we've all done the detox.

Speaker 4 (00:52):
Now it again. I need to do it birthday. That's perfect.
After the birthday, that's what they I'll do it with you.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:02):
It's funny because Queen of Four contacted me the other day.
She was at my birthday party and she called me
and said, hey, you need to do a detop now,
this is the time.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
So I'm I'm in, I'm in.

Speaker 4 (01:15):
I love Queena to me to shout outs amazing, isn't
she just to see everybody doing like this type of
work and whoever you get the message from, as long
as it keeps on coming out there and you one
day like it might take a while to pay attention
because it took me a while to do for the first.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
But we get with Jesse.

Speaker 5 (01:34):
She's gonna make sure you do it because.

Speaker 4 (01:36):
You wanted me to do water only and I pushed
back on that, but you gave me another alternative and
I was working.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
I'm going to do his push back.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
That far.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Name pushback, but no, I just am.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
I applaud you for having the courage to add, well,
you've you've had courage but to tell your own story,
because sometimes when you're fighting for other people telling other.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
People's stories, it's not easy to tell your own.

Speaker 4 (02:06):
Oh absolutely, I mean, you know, I'm glad that I did.
I'm glad that this book is out because it feels
like I had a baby, you know, as we were
in the writing process and the teams, the marketing, everything
everybody's going crazy trying to get the final product together.
Y'all know about publishing is work, And I kept saying

(02:28):
to everybody that we're at the end, like the baby
is dropped, it's low, you cant And once it was out,
it felt like a big relief to me. You know,
some of it. Some of the book has a lot
of shame in it. You know, for me, moments when
I felt ashamed of certain things. Also, just like you said,

(02:49):
things that people have no idea about that have happened
in my life.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
How I got.

Speaker 4 (02:53):
Over And so it felt good to like get it out,
but to also be on the other side of so
much of it.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
It was not like I was actually in it when
it was released.

Speaker 4 (03:03):
You know, I'm not depressed the way that I was
in these stories that I tell, And so it feels good.
I mean, I feel like I'm in the best place.
At forty five. They say once you get past forty,
you know, you start to get into your groove.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
And at forty five, I feel like, damn, this.

Speaker 4 (03:20):
Is it, Like this is like a reburn of times.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Really it is a rebirth.

Speaker 6 (03:26):
You talk about birth, about this book being at birth,
and you talk about how having a kid really changed you.
So I have a four year old, so I can
relate to that in a totally different way than you.
But still you just your something clicks, like, oh no,
it's time to really do what I came here to do.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
So tell us about.

Speaker 5 (03:41):
How that changed you for real and what clicked in
that moment.

Speaker 4 (03:44):
Yeah, So you know my son's father and now God
rest is soul Jason Ryan's we were a hot mess
and it's all in the book.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
You know, it's a hot mess.

Speaker 4 (03:55):
And you know, I feel like when, especially for women
in general, when we have babies, after you've carried a
baby and then you birth the baby, you automatically have
a little bit of a shift. And I think for us,
he was kind of like, what do you mean We're
not going to still.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
Be a mess?

Speaker 4 (04:12):
You know, we were having to get there, you know,
and I was like, nah, I got it. I have
to do better for my son. From the moment I
looked at my son, I was like, oh, this is
like real, Like he cried, you go like his mouth.
I'm like, oh, he's hungry already. Oh you know it.

(04:32):
And so I matured from that moment, and you know,
my son he First of all, I feel like he
and I grew up together because I was so young.
I'm eighteen years old with this baby, and so now
he is twenty six. Twenty six is crazy and I
can't believe it.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Crazy.

Speaker 4 (04:52):
His father passed away when Tarik was two, So for
twenty four years it's just been he and I just
figuring it out and who ever came into our lives.
It's just, you know, thank God, because he's had some
great examples of manhood and friends, people who he still
talks to that have come, you know, in and out
and been a friend to me or someone I dated.

(05:13):
So thank God. Throughout the journey, you know, God has
placed the right people around. But nonetheless is his mother
and and him like together on this journey. And now
he's a two year old and she's my best see,
I love you, she copy but she's not even just me.

(05:34):
She looks like her other side of a family too,
And now all of us are starting to look alike.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
We love you, we love you, and.

Speaker 4 (05:40):
That's a that is another dope thing about like being mature,
and everybody is together as a big family.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
It's just beautiful.

Speaker 4 (05:49):
So I gotta go, just you gotta go okay, well,
thank you all right, thank you very much.

Speaker 5 (05:59):
Got that you are the best looking grandma all of us.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
You know, it's so interesting just even thinking of a
young Tamika and things that you went through. And I
know for some parents reading the book that have teenage daughters,
it made me reflect on how I was to as
a kid because I was a mess, and the friends
that you think of your friends at the time, and
the boys that you think care about you, and the

(06:26):
situation you go through rebelling against your parents who at
the time they're trying to do the best that they
can for the best they can as far as raising you,
trying to protect you from the outside world. But sometimes
there is nothing a parent can do when you're determined
to be outside.

Speaker 4 (06:41):
Absolutely, and you know my parents experience that. At my
birthday party, I said to them publicly, thank you for
not leaving me, for never leaving me, because they could have.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
I was ridiculous, like ridiculous.

Speaker 4 (06:53):
I was a runaway always, you know, dropped out of school,
everything you could think of. I was just a mad
And in the book you you'll you'll hear or read
many moments where I talk about how much my parents
try to protect me and all of the wisdom that
they were trying to pour into me, and I just

(07:14):
rejected it so much. My mom is like a major
force in our family and what I learned because all
everywhere I go people ask on book tour, they're like,
what's the one thing that you would tell your younger
self or some young person as you know, relates to
the book? And I say, listen to your parents and
listen to your mother. Your mother is actually like the

(07:37):
navigational tool mechanism.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
For your life, you know her.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
Yeah, but that's easier said than done.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
I do want to say, the more sometimes your parents
tell you something, the more you go the other way.

Speaker 4 (07:54):
But I think I think it's important though, for us
to normalize saying it, because it's kind of corny, right,
like nobody if people don't really say that, like or
listen to your parents. But it needs to be underscored
every day because my parents, my mother used to say,
I don't like that little girl. Don't bring her back
in my house or energy. I don't like her, and

(08:16):
she has it's my everything that my mother told me.
Everything came to pass in one way or the other.
Everything I'm not saying she knew exactly at that moment,
but the wisdom that she had like her intuition, Because
I always tell people your parents don't like we always
say God or your child is not born with written instructions,

(08:39):
and they are not. But what they are born with
is a parent's intuition. Like that's where the instruction comes from,
the gut instinct.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
And you know, if I listened to my mom and
dad on a lot.

Speaker 4 (08:51):
Of things, a lot of this stuff would not have happened.

Speaker 7 (08:54):
So as a I'm a mother of a teen, she's thirteen,
I can't believe she's so cannot she's lot and she lives,
thinking she lives. Now you know, I'm I'm a studying mother.
I'm reading a book right now called Boundaries with Teens
because I'm trying to up my game as a mother,
right And one of the things it talks about is,
you know how their number one need is to be understood. Right,

(09:18):
So I think about what you shared, how you're saying
you wish now what you want to impart to the
younger generation is listen to your parents. Here, you were
in a situation where you had boys who you trusted,
nearly gang rape, them, right, you talk about it in
the book, and that kind of betrayal, not boys who
were antagonistic, but your friends.

Speaker 8 (09:40):
Like did your.

Speaker 7 (09:41):
Parents ever know? Like how did how did that betrayal
affect you? And now how you fight for young girls?
And so my parents did not know that. My parents
did not know that that particular incident occurred. And my dad,
I knew he was going to to feel some kind
of way and reading my book, right, they knew it, yes,

(10:06):
they but they knew. I called them two weeks before
the book came out and I said, I just want
you all to know this is gonna be hard, and
I'm gonna bring a copy over, which I did. I
gave a copy to my sister and you know, my parents,
and I let them read it. And my sister was like,
I just can't believe you're telling all of this, like
this is tough, and they were like, this book is
hard to read. My dad did not say anything to

(10:26):
me for at least three weeks, and then finally one
day he's like.

Speaker 4 (10:30):
You by yourself, Yeah, I knew what you knew it was.
This book was really hard for me. He said, it's
a lot a lot of things that he had hurt.
But it's funny because again, listening to your parents, my
dad would say all the time, do not go to
any boy's house, period, period. Just don't go because you
don't know what's gonna happen.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
But I'm like, that's not cool. Like I'm like, that's
not cool.

Speaker 4 (10:53):
That's not fair, you know what I mean, because like
all the everybody else is going to the boy's house,
So when everybody else goes to the cool kid's house,
I'm the one who has to be like, see you later,
you know. In my mind, it made me feel like
I'm corny. I want to show people I can hang.
And then I went to this boy's house and he
had three other boys there, and they attempted to, uh,

(11:15):
what is it, How are you.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
Supposed to stay on the radio? Well, are you supposed
to say rape?

Speaker 4 (11:19):
I don't know, but that's what's going to happen. And
they went all of them had different conversations with me,
and they tried their best and tried their best to
talk me into it. Big old dog in the house.
I'm scared to death. My friends crying close, disheveled, and
the boy's mother came in the house and looked at

(11:39):
me and said, what is this little girl doing in
my house?

Speaker 1 (11:43):
And she was like, get yourself together and get out.
She never took her eyes out of my eyes.

Speaker 4 (11:48):
And as I think back over it, God only knows
what her experience was in life that had her like, Damn,
this girl is about to experience something. I'm here to
catch it as a mother of the boy who is
orchestrating it.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
And I wonder if she, I also was thinking has
her son done things?

Speaker 1 (12:06):
God only knows she was.

Speaker 4 (12:08):
We're right, probably that is horrific if that is your child.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
And you know what to add on to that, to
add more trauma onto that. Your best friend, who you
thought was your best friend at the time, then spreads
a rumor about you.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
Guys, So then she goes out and spreads that.

Speaker 4 (12:27):
You know, I'm basically out here letting people run a
train on me, you know, I mean.

Speaker 3 (12:32):
And it's why I think about this. I always think
about this summit that we did talking to young girls,
high school girls about the Me Too movement, and it
was in a safe space.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
It was all young girls.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
We were in Long Island, and the stories that they
have to tell, I mean, it was like everybody in
the room was crying. These young girls just talking about
what they go through other women, other girls, like you know,
spreading rumors, mocking them for things that have happened to them.
One girl was like, I get off the bus every
day and my neighbors a group of boys come and

(13:02):
they like grope me, and the girls all call me
a hoe when they see me, and it's like you're
literally being assaulted.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
And then on top of that.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
You have other young girls who are making it seem
like you are a problem a.

Speaker 4 (13:15):
Little fast as yeah, and then it's like who do
you tell? Because then if you tell people, you're really
not in the cool category. So you know, a lot
of what we do as young women is just trying
to be cool, like we just want.

Speaker 8 (13:29):
To that's so important. That is literally the cool piece.

Speaker 7 (13:33):
So looking back, I think about the trauma you've been
through and how did you navigate it in a point
where because who.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
Did you talk to?

Speaker 8 (13:41):
How did you navigate that?

Speaker 7 (13:42):
Well?

Speaker 4 (13:43):
You know what, God has blessed me with a lot
of good people. As I said about my son, he's
been blessed with a lot of good people, so have I.
My parents have always introduced me to environments where folks
could help me grow. And then I also, I don't know,
I have a thing about elders. I'm just one of

(14:03):
those people that I love elderly people.

Speaker 2 (14:06):
I know I do.

Speaker 4 (14:07):
But you know, God bless my my godmother, Hazel Dukes,
who passed away recently. She was ninety two years old
when she died. And I can I can just think
about all the conversations I could talk to her about anything,
not just call up and say, oh, you know, because
she was in the movement, a leader in the NAACP

(14:28):
and in the Harlem community, and you know, of course
work stuff. I call and we get into back and
forth on who I should support or what I should
do or how to move. But I can also say,
and you know what I have. You know, I don't
know a female problem going on? What do I do
about that?

Speaker 1 (14:44):
She like, let me give you a number, lady, because
when I deal with that, you know.

Speaker 8 (14:50):
So that's so the intergeneration always.

Speaker 4 (14:52):
That's really big for me is that I have always
had an older person that I can talk to, whether
it's a cousin or a friend. And now my one
of my mentors is Coral masters Berry, who is the
widow of the Honorable Mayor Marion Berry.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
She lives in Washington, d C.

Speaker 4 (15:11):
Seven am in the morning, she calls me, custom me
out and hang up on me.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
I'm like, what did I do?

Speaker 4 (15:16):
She's like, you know you need to go out there
and act like who you are today. You know you
need to be strong on this issue. Make sure you
tell them this or you know you're you're important. Like
stop stop downplaying your eyes. I heard you on an
interview say you know whatever, and she's like, that's not
how you should speak about yourself.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
Damn it.

Speaker 1 (15:35):
You know that's every every day somebody calls you up
at seven o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 4 (15:41):
But I need it because some days I don't be
knowing what to do. Like I'm like, why do I
have to be the one that knows the thing that
sees the problem that you know, that feels for community.

Speaker 1 (15:54):
Or pera point?

Speaker 6 (15:55):
What a lot of black women feel like that about
this moment in general, and with your life and understanding
your story and how much your parents inspired even the
work that you do now, some black women just want
to tap out. So what do you tell people that
are still chasing some rest also knowing that you're on
the forefront a lot of this stuff, but probably chasing

(16:17):
rest yourself. Well yeah, well, you know, Joyane Reid said
something to me recently that it shook me, and I
was like, yeah, that's it. She said, you know that
picture where the women are sitting on top of the building,
the black women, and then everything is on fire, and
it was like a meme that came out after the election,

(16:37):
this current presidential election, and the women are up there
kind of like, y'all can burn the damn thing down.
They drinking their wine, they looking good on top of
the building. And she said, but you know the problem
with that, the building under them is on fire too,
so you really.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
Kind of can't chill like you're just saying.

Speaker 4 (16:54):
We actually do not have the luxury of saying that
we just gonna take a break, because meanwhile, they are
in the process of cutting Medicaid, cutting very serious benefits
that we need. And by the way, I know people
want to not care about this Social.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
Security another thing.

Speaker 4 (17:14):
I mean, trying to cut the Department of Education. Do
they need some reforms and changes, certainly, but to get
rid of it completely, getting rid of FEMA, like this
stuff is serious. It's not gonna just impact other people
like you, as a black person, will also experience the
hell that comes from what these folks are trying to do.

(17:36):
And I know people walking around like, oh, we don't
care about you know, we can't get ourselves involved.

Speaker 1 (17:42):
Let me not say we don't care. We can't get.

Speaker 4 (17:45):
Ourselves and what's happening with the immigrant population. That's not
our that's not our fight. We gotta worry about us, sweetheart.
Any time that people can show up without a warrant,
with their faces covered with masks and just rip people
away from school work, off the street.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
I just watched the video where a woman was in
her car.

Speaker 4 (18:09):
They bust the car window open, went into the car,
took the lady out, ripping children from the arms of.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
Their mother or father or whoever.

Speaker 7 (18:18):
Without due process, Without due.

Speaker 4 (18:21):
Process going they're actually showing up at the immigration offices
and arresting people who are in the process of trying
to get their paperwork right. If you think that that's
okay and that it will stay contained to only one
group of people, you are sadly mistaken. What they are
doing is testing to see how far they can go.

(18:43):
When you have a president who is now using terms
like homegrown terrorists. He said, now we're going to start
working on homegrown terrorists. And then they just had a
vote the other day to say that he can deport
American citizens.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
Which is wild. And people are telling you and some things.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
We don't know what's true and what's not, but they're
even saying when you're traveling with your idea, they're like
checking people.

Speaker 4 (19:06):
Oh yeah, people are experiencing a little more search and
holding them for a longer time.

Speaker 1 (19:12):
That's actually happening.

Speaker 8 (19:14):
Right now, that's actually happening.

Speaker 7 (19:15):
Like I have my sister's colleague had a banana in
his bag. They detained them for two hours. Yeah, for
a banana.

Speaker 6 (19:23):
And that's why the conversation about Abrego Garcia is so
important because even though he's from El Salvador and got
sent to El Salvador, it just tays the tone that
if we don't follow any due process, then that means
that we don't have to follow due process.

Speaker 5 (19:34):
That's just the law now.

Speaker 4 (19:35):
Right, And when do we start acting like l Salvador's
government is like an honorable government, Like what are we
doing here?

Speaker 1 (19:43):
Like I'm just saying people, you know, now the president is.

Speaker 4 (19:47):
Sitting in the oval office with the president of another
nation that has severe problems. The reason why people are
running fleeing El Salvador is because of the crises that
are happening there.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
And now our.

Speaker 4 (20:02):
President is in the oval office with him talking about
some type.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
Of trade deal with people who are not even from there.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
They can send them there.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
And the other thing to note about that is when
people are fleeing from danger and harm and they are
allowed to come and seek asylum.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
So that's not illegal.

Speaker 3 (20:19):
Because I think there's this less of color committee, Right,
if you're a white.

Speaker 4 (20:24):
White Africa, it's a part of what right, Yeah, South Africa.

Speaker 7 (20:38):
Right. What I'd like to think about or to talk about,
is how you went through all this Trump and yet
you transitioned at the same time you're on the front
lines with your parents. You're you were literally rooted in
activate activism growing up, right, What was the switch?

Speaker 1 (20:56):
I wanted to be cool? I told you, I'm serious,
Like my parents were trying to do all the right things.
They took me to the right places.

Speaker 4 (21:04):
I would say that one of the things that I
do recognize about my parents is that they were over protective.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
Have to be really.

Speaker 4 (21:12):
Yes you, yeah, you gotta have a balance, like the
things that my friends could do just going to you know,
volleyball or I don't know wherever, bowling pool or skate key.

Speaker 8 (21:27):
I could never go.

Speaker 4 (21:30):
Skate I couldn't even go to the store.

Speaker 1 (21:33):
Skate key was out.

Speaker 4 (21:35):
Now that's a problem for a young person growing up
in New York during ska key days because to go
you're gonna sneak out.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
You're gonna sneak out. You have to go. Skate is
a skating rink that is near Yankee State.

Speaker 4 (21:48):
Oh the place, and yeah, and it was the thing
right on the Friday Saturday.

Speaker 7 (21:53):
Night provoked your children to rest That's exactly what they
were doing. They took so much restriction that it caused
like you know what.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
They were trying to protect.

Speaker 4 (22:03):
You. Gotta have a little bit of balance with that.
So that would be the one thing that I would say.
But overall, I get it because a lot of things
was going on and staky people got killed, you know,
incidents took place, people you got drugged.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
You know, we know about the story. But you just
like I wouldn't have been the one to get killed.

Speaker 6 (22:22):
Going to be in New York is not like an
easy place for a kid, you know, it's not the easiest,
not like the suburbs that have nothing around.

Speaker 4 (22:30):
Suburban kids getting types of trouble different, it's different.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
They house.

Speaker 5 (22:36):
There's definitely a lot going on.

Speaker 6 (22:37):
But I mean, as far as you got in the suburbs,
you know who's going to be outside.

Speaker 8 (22:42):
But it's happening in the house though. That's what she's sorry.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
About, right everything out.

Speaker 3 (22:50):
So and I do feel like when I came, I
moved from Brooklyn to New Jersey, I also feel like,
you know, kids have a lot more like house freedom
things like that. Like when I was in New York,
it was you know, you can't do nothing without the
neighbors seeing everything you got going on, Like this village,
it's right there, so every move you make. I learned
a lot moving to the suburbs.

Speaker 8 (23:12):
I've got a lot more isolation.

Speaker 4 (23:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (23:15):
I used to talk through the wall to my neighbors,
like in the projects where I grew up, and we
could talk back and forth, like if you could hear
when someone was in the kitchen, because you would hear
like plates and stuff.

Speaker 1 (23:26):
And I'm like, hey, so on and so on. Hey,
we have a whole conversation through the wall, all the
music saying too loud. You'd be like, come on, that's it,
turned it down.

Speaker 7 (23:34):
So what transitioned you into actually doing the work of ACTIVISMY.

Speaker 4 (23:38):
Well, I was always in it, So I think I
remember being at a rally at like four years old, right,
That's where I met Reverend Sharp and my parents took
me up to him, and he was this big man.
I remember vividly how I thought to myself, Wow, like
this guy's mouth.

Speaker 1 (23:55):
Is wall man.

Speaker 5 (23:58):
You know.

Speaker 4 (23:58):
I was mesmerized by the power, you know. And so
that was set four. We went to a rally every Saturday,
the way that you know, folks have to go to
church on Sundays, which, by the way, we met my
mom and I went to church too on Sundays, but
it was not the same as a rally on Saturday.
The way that you know people you know, your grandmother

(24:19):
is like, everybody's going out this house to church on
Sunday morning.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
That's it. That's that's how Saturday rallies.

Speaker 7 (24:25):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (24:25):
And every single thing that we were involved in it
was mandatory as a family, and so you pick up things.
I tell people all the time, if you go to
church every Sunday, in the beginning, it's your parents, your grandparents,
they're taking you. You're kind of vibing, but you're just there,
rattling with the piece of peppermint.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
Paintings or whatever, you know, just being in.

Speaker 4 (24:49):
But once that boyfriend breaks your heart or you know,
something bad.

Speaker 8 (24:54):
You pray for myself, you being there like.

Speaker 4 (24:56):
Jesus, you know, all of a sudden, the songs feel different,
and that's happened. And that's exactly what happened to me
with the movement. I got in as my parents, you know,
forcing me to be there. But then my son's father

(25:17):
was murdered. And once my son's father was murdered, everything just.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
Went click click click click click. I got it.

Speaker 4 (25:22):
I understood, because you know, he he had two parents
who are great people. His father is still alive, but
his mom, she, you know, she passed away in a
you know, a very painful situation. And they both had
issues with the addiction what do you call it, the
disease of addiction, So they were in and out of prison.

(25:43):
There was no public health crisis determination around drugs at
that time where they could get help for their issues.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
It was sending them back and forth to jail.

Speaker 4 (25:53):
So while he grew up in a wonderful home with
his grandparents and his uncles and you know, a beautiful
and environment in the same building where my parents lived.
They are great people, It's still not the same as
having your parents, your mother and father, especially when they're
crisscrossing in and out of your life, going in and
out of prison, going in and out of treatment, you know,

(26:15):
different issues. So when he was killed, I was just
kind of sitting with what the hell happened here? And
his life zoom passed me and it came to me
there was a problem that he needed solved, but there
was nobody there he had. I'm sure he had mental
health issues, what they weren't addressed, I'm sure. You know,

(26:37):
he was just dealing with a lot, and he never
got the support that he needed. He never went to therapy.
You know, nobody back in that time. It's twenty something
years ago.

Speaker 8 (26:48):
Mindset, you're not even thinking about mental health.

Speaker 4 (26:50):
You were not even thinking about that twenty years ago.
We just started talking about mental health, like last week,
He's going through all these things. And then the work
became so real to me because I'm like, oh, oh,
nobody even cares that a black man was killed. Yeah,
nobody even cares, like where is the newspaper? And I

(27:13):
will I vividly remember picking up a daily newspaper because
so many people were calling me like, oh, you know,
this one got shot, and that happened and this, and
during this time period, like everybody's trying to make you
feel like you're a part of a family in a
community because there's so many other people that's happened to.
So I got a newspaper one day and I was
just sitting there, like, let me see if all these things,

(27:36):
all these killings and stabbings and all this violence, is
in the newspaper reported I found it in the Daily Blodder.
Now you know, the Daily Bloder Blotterer in New York
is like this column that has incidents. It doesn't say,
you know, Richard was a good young man who just

(27:59):
happened to get into some trouble. It doesn't tell your story.
His parents were working people. It says Richard so and
so seventeen shot on corner of one twenty seventh and eighth.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
Next, like that's it.

Speaker 4 (28:11):
They don't even have a story to them. And once
I saw that, I knew where my work would be.
And I got with Erika Ford and at Mitchell and
started working with them, and we created what is now
the crisis management system in New York that started out

(28:31):
with zero dollars, and because of our work together, we
got the first five million dollars to invest in grassroots
organizations and now it's over one hundred million dollars that
is being poured into groups around the city and violence
is actually down in those places because one thing Mayor
Bloomberg said to me was that I don't see the

(28:53):
data that proves that your model works. But we still
forced that five million dollars. And now I always remember,
we need data, and we got the data and got it.
And you know, one thing you always stress is the
importance of financial support when it comes to getting this
work done. And in this book, just even being able

(29:13):
to reach out because you need help was not an
easy thing to do because sometimes people think that as activists,
y'all should be broke.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
That's it we're giving her money for.

Speaker 3 (29:24):
They also look at somebody like Tamika and see you
as kind of a celebrity and automatically.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
Assume, oh, is she straight? What does she need? She got?
She hanging with this person? She hanging with that person.

Speaker 3 (29:35):
But can you talk about you finally saying that you
needed help.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah, So all of it came together, the taking.

Speaker 4 (29:43):
I was taking pills at the same time that you know,
I was depressed the Women's March. There's a lot going
on in my life, and I got addicted to pain pills.
So that was like a dark, dark, dark space in
and of itself. Then I finally went through this process
of like getting myself together, getting back on my feet.

(30:04):
But I had not been working as much, especially because
I had been labeled anti Semitic, which meant that every
single speaking engagement that I had and people were like
backing away from me. No one wanted to talk to
me or touch me. But even some black folks. Thank god,
there were black women who jumped in and held me down.
And not just black women. Because I have to give

(30:25):
Mark morriel and who was the president and CEO of
the National Urban League, also Reverend Mark Thompson and Derek Johnson,
the president of the NAACP. I have to give them
a lot of credit because they stepped in and used
their the heavy lift of their names to say back
up off of her. But there were a lot of

(30:47):
other women who came together. Not even people that I
had worked with would support me. It was really, really,
really bad. So the pills thing happened. I have no work,
I have no money. I come home from rehab and
now I'm broke and I don't even know like what
to do, where to turn. And so I reached out
to a group of people. I wrote a text message,

(31:09):
and I reached out to a group of people. One
of them, Kim Blackwell, was the sister that you know,
I didn't even really know her, but every time I
would see her out in spaces, she would say, please
let me do something for you, like I want to
do something for you, you know, you know, she's amazing, amazing
and I and she kept saying that, and people always
say that but they don't really mean.

Speaker 1 (31:29):
It, you know. And so I was like, damn, I'm
gonna you know, ask I just.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
Had a pinky col giving her her praise too.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
Like oh yeah, pinky too.

Speaker 4 (31:38):
So I just sent this text message to folks and
people started texting me back like is this you? Like
one of my friends, Brian Benjamin, who was the Lieutenant
Governor of New York at one point, he called me like, yo,
is this text message from you.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
I need to know because it's no one. It had
never ever ever happened.

Speaker 4 (32:00):
I never sent the text message out from my personal
self like that didn't happened. I might send y'all text
message and say can you help it. Well, at that time,
we didn't have unto freedom but whatever organization or cause.
And so next thing, you know, being money just money, money.
Money just was come and come and come, and people
just sending it. They were like, listen, let me know
if you need something else. So there's always people even

(32:22):
when you think there's nobody.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
But sometimes we don't even like to ask.

Speaker 4 (32:25):
I didn't want to ask anybody for money. Hell no,
I didn't want to do that was embarrassing. Again, the
shame of things that you know ended up in this book.
But I'm grateful. I'm glad that and it helps people
to realize that, oh, we need to make sure she
has opportunities. And that was like how I started to
kind of get back into the groove.

Speaker 7 (32:45):
And that's that's what I was going to say, is
that you you know, the shame that you felt. Honestly,
it should never have been shamed because you were in
that situation, because you were speaking truth, and you were
fighting right of people who were marginalized voices. And even
if I don't agree with what you're saying, all of
a sudden, it's that cancel culture that puts you in

(33:07):
that position. It was so it never should have been shamed.

Speaker 3 (33:11):
Yeah, there's some people that want to see you, Yes, yeah,
I mean fuel that that want to be like, see,
this is who she is.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
She's this I see like Kelle getting canceled.

Speaker 4 (33:26):
And then she's so amazing and brilliant. I reached out
to her to let her know that, like I feel you.
You know, I know what you're going through, because it's
no joke when you get hit with accusations just because
you're choosing to speak truth about an issue. Because and
by the way, I'm at the point now God is good,
Because God is good because what happened was that I

(33:49):
was dependent on something that wasn't real. And break it
down this way. Coming out of the Women's March, white
women were paying me tremendous amounts of money to come
to their homes and salon series to tell them what's
wrong with y'all, Like this is the problem you and

(34:09):
your white tears are very dangerous for us as black
people and other you know, people of color. And here's
some of the work that you have to do to
make that shift if you because they were they were,
they were like open to it, like you know, Donald
Trump first election, they're like this racism thing, like break
it down, Like how what is my role?

Speaker 1 (34:29):
I didn't vote for him, but obviously my.

Speaker 4 (34:31):
Mother, my grandmother, my aunts, everybody around me, there's some
work that needs to be done. So they were paying
me a tremendous amount of money to speak on those issues.
And I'm flying all around the place and of course
going to colleges and doing all that work. But then
when the anti semitism accusation started, everybody shut me down.

(34:52):
And that's for a pharic because because well it was,
it got it went beyond that. So it started out
as you know how I went to the same Yesday
event and so they said they wanted me to denouncements
of Farakhan, and I said, I don't know. You know,
I can tell y'all that I don't agree with everything
he said, but I cannot use the word denounce to
describe any black men.

Speaker 3 (35:14):
Because he's done may not agree with everything.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
Exactly but I denounce.

Speaker 4 (35:21):
You know, that's crazy, and because then people would turn
around and ask me, well, what are you denounced?

Speaker 1 (35:26):
Like break it all down.

Speaker 4 (35:27):
And when you say you denounce somebody, that's some serious stuff.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
And you don't denounce.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
And I don't denounce. I don't denounce back. Man.

Speaker 4 (35:34):
I even't even denounced the black men who killed my
son's father, because that's the work that I do. I
actually have to look at their situation also and be like, damn,
y'all were messed up too, you know. I I of
course what they did I don't agree with, and I
feel that they should. There should definitely be accountability and
all that. But I'm not into denouncing black men. That's

(35:55):
not going to happen from me. I can't do that.
I have a black son, so no son. When the
accusations first started, then all of that was shut down.
And now I have created a situation where it does
not require me to have to fly around in white
women's homes and make money. But see, God had to
shift that thing because what he wanted me to know

(36:17):
was that this is not sustainable. Because at the point
that these people get upset with you for any whims,
then here we.

Speaker 1 (36:23):
Go, you know.

Speaker 4 (36:24):
And so yeah, it did start with the pharakhon peace.
But when it got serious, serious, serious, it was serious,
but serious serious was when I went to Palestine and
came back and said, oh, this is a humanitarian crisis.
There is an occupation and there are a group of
people who are basically being wiped off the damn planet.

Speaker 1 (36:45):
And Israel's responsible for it and that's it.

Speaker 4 (36:47):
And when I came back with that, they said, oh,
hell no, we have to shut her down now. They used,
they weaponized whatever they could because the ultimate goal was
to stop the Women's March from growing and remaining a
powerful force right Trump and of course against Trump and
against fascism and sexism and racism and all the things.

(37:09):
We were building something diverse, We were changing hearts and minds.
So the way in which the Women's March was out there,
and like we would have women, hundreds of women going
down to the border and being arrested in protests. They
had never been arrested anywhere for anything in their lives.
White women like, oh my god, we're gonna get arrested,

(37:30):
you know, Like what the how? But they were like,
if that's what it takes. Because I don't like seeing
children separated from their parents, and so we were organizing
that type of stuff. We were doing things around gun violence.
They're like, oh, hell no, so now we got the
phara Khon thing, We'll use that. But it's kind of
hard because people are like, okay, but that's pharakhons, So
why is you know, like, why are you trying to

(37:53):
make his words her words? So that kind of didn't
They couldn't keep that going in fizzle, good word it
fizzle baby Gaza Palestine.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
Oh no, that didn't fizzle. And they still tried that
with me.

Speaker 4 (38:07):
But at this point we were ahead of our time
because now everywhere you go, everybody is saying.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
This ain't right. Yeah, and they always go too far.

Speaker 4 (38:17):
My mentor Cora Berry all Cora masters Berry always says
that they always go too far. So at this point,
now you're killing all these babies and people are seeing it.
So even folks who don't want to be in it,
they don't want the labels of anti Semitism, they don't
want to lose their funding, their sponsors, that this and that, they.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
Don't want to go through all of that, but they
can't be quiet. They just can't. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (38:40):
You just you're forcing people to say, nah, I got
to speak up on this.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Yeah, humanitarian issues.

Speaker 3 (38:47):
This is not anti this is a humanitarian thing.

Speaker 1 (38:50):
Like exactly, it's not.

Speaker 3 (38:52):
There's no way I could watch the news and watch
certain things that are happening and not feel empathy and
compassion and feel like this is wrong.

Speaker 4 (39:00):
And you know how it's happening, like they want you
to act. Like the word that they'll say is people die.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
No, people were being.

Speaker 4 (39:06):
Murdered and somebody and if a person is murdered, then
there's a murderer and exactly, and that's the issue. So
it's a hard conversation for a lot of people. And
like you said, but folks see what's going on, and
it is definitely mislabeling to call people anti Semitic just
because they're speaking out against the states people down.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
What's the cost of courage for you?

Speaker 6 (39:33):
Because and then also what would you tell people that
you know, everybody's not an activist. Some people don't even
know how to jump in some of these conversations or fights.
You know, we all know kind of what we would do,
but there's some young people that don't know how to
get in this conversation without risking losing jobs and like,
so what what's your yeah?

Speaker 5 (39:50):
Right, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
It's funny because I tell people all the time.

Speaker 4 (39:53):
They think that I'm going to say, like, you know,
shut it down everywhere you go, God, stand up sick.

Speaker 1 (39:59):
I'd be like, don't you lose that job now?

Speaker 4 (40:01):
And they're trying to argue with some folks every day,
and you better go to work and do your job
and work towards being an entrepreneur, or work towards getting
in a place where you can be yourself.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
You can speak up and you know, and be protected.

Speaker 4 (40:15):
But so long as you down at that corporate job
where you that you need, your children can go to college,
and you can have a house and all of that,
be an activist outside on the weekend.

Speaker 8 (40:25):
Let your money, let your money fun support.

Speaker 4 (40:30):
Help us out with what we may need. Sometimes you gotta,
you know, be able to be like, okay, you know what,
I know.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
I could push this.

Speaker 4 (40:35):
We sell toilet paper every month. The activist is gonna
get free toilet paper, and that's what we're gonna do.
But I ain't going in here every day becoming that voice,
right because some people can't afford that.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
And when you ask, what's the price.

Speaker 4 (40:49):
So for me, if I had it my way, because
dealing with black folks and fighting with and for black folks.
When I say with, I mean alongside, it's hard. It's
hard because we know how to judge our own people
worse than.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
Anybody else in the work. His social media is shamble.
I don't even go over there.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
He's a devil tap everybody.

Speaker 4 (41:28):
You know, some what he needs well and they and they,
And now he's into it because what I said to
him one day, I'm like, you know what, I realized,
You're a really powerful, important individual. And the reason why
I know that it is because I can tell that
it's a farm that's after him. It's not like it's
not like two people. He can post hey, good morning,

(41:49):
and all people start going crazy in his face. That
tells me that they have they have, they have. They
have singled you out as one who has the ability
to move the hearts and minds of the masses, and
they are trying to shut it down and change the
narrative through the comments. So just remember that, not that
you know it means that you do anything different, but

(42:11):
just keeping all the time that that's what's happening, and
so he's into it. So now he's like, oh, let
me go drop this. He's like, I ain't afraid, you know,
of the of it, but it's it's a lot, I
mean anyway, So.

Speaker 8 (42:28):
It's also part of protecting your mental health, saying you
know what, I'm just.

Speaker 6 (42:33):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
I don't I can't go over there. I don't go there,
and I don't allow That's what he does. He loves
the debate. I can't go over there.

Speaker 4 (42:42):
But but I'm talking about the cost, you know, so
so getting aggravated, frustrated and everything else. Sometimes I'm just like,
you know what, my skills are transferable, Like I am
an organizer. If you attended any of my birthday celebration
in first of all, every year, my sister and I
Lushawan Thompson who turned fifty five and I'm forty five,

(43:02):
we've been for like the last five years doing our
birthdays together and we have all these activities and coordinate
all of this stuff just to give our friends a
good experience.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
Most of the time people are like, I don't do.

Speaker 4 (43:14):
Half the year and birthdays, but if you attend our
birthday events, you will see grand coordination.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
Right, like every detail.

Speaker 4 (43:26):
I had this big latessiak and lace party on Saturday
night and it was like it was all read. The
work that went into it was a lot. I had
to bring furniture in and work with designers.

Speaker 1 (43:39):
That's what I do.

Speaker 4 (43:40):
I am an organizer, but that doesn't mean I can
only organize a protest. I'm telling you that to say
I can organize anything.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
But guess what, because of.

Speaker 4 (43:53):
Me being so outspoken and now being labeled as controversial
and all the things, I can't take the skills to
go work for ex company because they're not going to
hire me. As soon as they google me, they're gonna
be like, you can't come in here.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 8 (44:08):
Overqualified.

Speaker 4 (44:10):
I tried to wrap presents three years ago at Sachs
and like Bloomingdale's, I applied for the position because I'm
really good at wrapping prices brouh sometimes not that type
of but money, you know, you get a little extra

(44:32):
holiday money. I'm like, Okay, this is a good time
for me. I'm not doing and I love it. I'm
good at it, and it would just give me something
else to do. Right, So I had all these things
in my mind. One of those stores, the person who
got the application contacted me to be like, this is
not gonna happen, not gonna like what are you talking about?

Speaker 1 (44:53):
Why are you over?

Speaker 4 (44:54):
Are you crying for this position, Miss Mallory? And the
answer is just so.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
Even though that might.

Speaker 4 (45:02):
Be funny because it was funny, my friends was like, girl, please,
why did you even apply to that? But it's not
funny if I was seriously in need of the job, right,
it's not funny because if I really really really needed it,
then what do I do? Where do I go that
I can get gainful employment where my uh you know,

(45:22):
my my political views does not overshadow the fact that
I can actually wrap gifts really well. I would have
been really good at it, you know, and I might
want some more people to the store because you know,
I put it on.

Speaker 7 (45:37):
If you would have did it for a charity, then
they might have been like instead of no, but I
need the money.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
I want the.

Speaker 4 (45:43):
Money my charity, my every day I'm charity.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
I'm actually really good at rapping gifts too.

Speaker 3 (45:51):
Maybe we need a random answers because you know, I
got like nineteen cousins and so I'm always there like
one wrapping the presents and I enjoy it.

Speaker 1 (46:00):
Yo, he might be a holiday.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
I always paper.

Speaker 4 (46:06):
I don't play around with wasting paper. I know how
to fold everything. And I'm like, cut straight, you're not good.

Speaker 1 (46:13):
I'm okay.

Speaker 8 (46:16):
I am very detailed oriented when it comes to that.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
I could see that.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
Now.

Speaker 3 (46:20):
I do want to ask you about something else in
the book that you mentioned, right, And this was an
instance fourteen years old where you were raped by somebody
that you knew, but still have to see that person
at times and kept it cordial even though it wasn't.
And you said, you can understand people who don't because
you went through this, you didn't speak up about it,
and then even still continue to at times run into

(46:42):
this person.

Speaker 4 (46:43):
And he was going to be a basketball star in
my mind because he went to Rice High School and
you know at the time, back in the days, Rice
was like that's where all the shooters came from, you know,
and he was he was adored the community. You know,
he was playing at all the tournaments and in what's

(47:03):
that thing that you know all the tournaments in New York.
I forget the name of that, but it was it's
a particular thing that he was a part of, and
you know, and and so I'm thinking to myself, damn,
if I tell this story, this might ruin his career,
you know, like I actually.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
Took that into account. I'm like, he could get, you know,
in a lot of trouble.

Speaker 4 (47:24):
Then I started being like my parents told me, don't
be going to no boy in the boy's house. And
so now it's kind of my fault because I shouldn't
have been here and they don't even know where I
was that nights. And now in order for me to
say that I got raped by this young man, I
got to tell them that I went downtown to Harlem
where I should not have been, like it was your

(47:45):
own fault, like it's my own fault.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
So it's all these things.

Speaker 4 (47:47):
And then it's like, damn that I don't want to
be labeled, and you know whatever, the next boyfriend is
not gonna like me because now I'm told on this guy.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
So all of that stuff played in my mind.

Speaker 4 (47:58):
I was at an event, one of a book event
in Westchester.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
A group of women came with a.

Speaker 4 (48:04):
Little girl who was about she might have been nine,
and so as soon as they gave her the book,
which was at the beginning of the event. I guess,
you know, she just started reading. So she's just sitting
in the pews of a church just reading the book.
And so at the end she stood up and I
had to run to another event, and so I was

(48:25):
like getting ready to go, and she stood up and
said she wanted to ask a question. And they were like,
I mean when I say I had to go, I
really had to go. The time for the next event
was I was already late. So they were like, no,
you know, we're not going to take any more questions.
But I looked at her and I'm like, no, I
have to stay here to answer this baby. So I said,
you know, go ahead, please, and so she said, well,
I've been sitting here reading your book. And one of

(48:48):
the other things that happened to me in my life
was that my fifth grade teacher asked me to sit
on his lap, right, and so so she was like,
but you saying here that you didn't tell anybody said,
now as that you're older, would you do something different,
like would you would you approach this in a different way.

Speaker 8 (49:07):
I was just I was just gonna ask you that question.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
That's what I was that long away.

Speaker 4 (49:12):
That she sat there and read that long that much,
but then also that that was the question she had,
you know, And I'm like, damn her mind, Like what
even made her think to put that together and ask
going through?

Speaker 1 (49:24):
Because and I don't, I don't.

Speaker 4 (49:26):
I think I don't know because I would like to
think not. I mean, I'm sure her mom probably asked
some more questions, but I would like to think not.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
Because a group of women and the people she's.

Speaker 2 (49:36):
With really powerful, she would have done it different.

Speaker 4 (49:39):
But maybe she thinks maybe she thought to herself, well
that happened, I would.

Speaker 1 (49:43):
Tell right, like why did you not?

Speaker 4 (49:46):
Which is a good thought, But but in my mind,
I'm thinking I don't want my dad to go to
jail because I already know like this is gonna go up.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
A woman said that in the town hall that I had.

Speaker 3 (49:56):
She said she didn't tell her dad because her father's
been his friend molested her driving her to school. Why
she was like, I didn't want my dad to go
to jail and that was his only friend.

Speaker 4 (50:05):
Yet like I don't. I don't want my dad to
go to jail again. I'm you know, in school, they've
kind of made me feel like I'm a problem person,
Are they going to believe me all these things? But
what I said to her in response was, Oh, if
I could do it again, I would definitely tell because
what I realized in hindsight is that he had to

(50:25):
be doing it to somebody else's.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
Absolutely he had to be. But as a young kid,
you're not You're just that, and you're also not knowing
if you'll be believed.

Speaker 3 (50:33):
There's a lot of things, but that was important for
me in that particular part because I see a lot
of things happening in general today when people who was
it belle maher that was like, let's make a new
rule when something happens, say say something right away. Yeah,
that's not a thing, And so it's definitely not I mean,
we want to encourage you too. Yes, yes, but we
also have to think about things that happened when people

(50:55):
do decide to speak out. One of the first things
I always hive it, well, why she waited this long?
Why look at Megdae Stallion.

Speaker 4 (51:04):
I mean, every day she's being torn to shreds. Why
would anybody? I just said that on my podcast the
other day, which is called The tam My Show, Timiki
Mallory and my son Lennon.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
You can check the salary on Instagram.

Speaker 4 (51:20):
And so I just said the other day, Megdae Stallion,
what's the other young lady's name?

Speaker 1 (51:27):
Hailey, Bailey, and Cassie.

Speaker 4 (51:30):
All three of them in the same week were called liars,
all three of them.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
This one was a liar for various reasons.

Speaker 4 (51:37):
And I ain't even litigate in what you feel about
each scenario. I'm just saying three different women all being
called liars in the same week. It really makes me think, well, damn,
if I'm a girl who's and something happens to me,
I might as.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
Well keep my mouth shut.

Speaker 4 (51:51):
Because these three women, high profile individuals, none of them.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
Are being believed.

Speaker 3 (51:56):
And god forbid, there's no video. Nobody believed Cassie to
that tape. Oh facts came out, so there's no proof, right,
But even if there's footage, you must have done something.
The things to you, you must have you you're not
telling the whole story, you know, there's always gonna be that.

(52:18):
So if I'm a young woman, I mean, I just
feel like we're creating a society that further cements the
idea that if you speak out about your speak out
about your pain, people are going to accuse you of something,
you know, So it's not a healthy environment for young
women or men men. God bless what they've gone through

(52:41):
that no one knows about, the sexual assault from the
babysitter or the on or whomever, no one knows, or
the man you know, and their family, no one knows
about that.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
No one knows they're.

Speaker 4 (52:53):
Being beaten by their wives. And if they come from
oh heck ye you can't. You know, no one knows
about that. They don't feel comfortable sharing those things.

Speaker 7 (53:02):
But yeat and still you took everything that you went
through and you openly shared it, and that was so courageous.
Something you mentioned about depression, right you said in the
book you didn't even know that you were depressed.

Speaker 4 (53:14):
No, right like that. We never used that word depressed
in my household. I didn't know nothing about depressed.

Speaker 7 (53:19):
So getting going back to where you were in that place,
how did you get help?

Speaker 4 (53:25):
Oh, thank you God for help, Thank you God for
Thank you God for the rough days. The rough days, unfortunately,
is where I learned how to take care of myself.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
You know.

Speaker 4 (53:38):
Another saying by my mentor, I'm telling you, I'm really
big on talking to the elders. She said to me,
you know, God's address is in the dark.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
That's where he lives.

Speaker 4 (53:51):
Like when you're in a dark space, that's where you
find God. I said, Wow, his address is in the dark.
I need a T shirt that's powerful. And it's so
true because that rehab facility it was so dark, like
it just was, you know, because the light is not
good for people who are going through all the things.

Speaker 8 (54:13):
So the rehab was so because during depression you were
the pills.

Speaker 4 (54:18):
Yeah. At the same time I'm acting like the Yeah,
remember connect the dots.

Speaker 8 (54:22):
We want you to get the book.

Speaker 4 (54:24):
So going to rehab, which I have to give, you know,
so much love to my sister Rachel Nordlinga who dropped
me off, took me to it was there's a picture
of us that she sends me every year at the
same time, an annual photo. We're inside of the facility
and she's about to leave. Wow, And she sends me
that picture every year to remind me of how far

(54:45):
I've come, you know, since twenty nineteen. And Jason Williams,
the NBA All Star, sent me to rehab under an alias.
I didn't have to pay one dime, put me in
a program which I later found out was eighty thousand dollars,
and I was like, well, should give me a thousand
dollars and I'll.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
Go home and see if I have to work it out.

Speaker 4 (55:03):
Like like shoot. But it was there that the therapists
would come. Of course, every day he had to be
in the kitchen at a certain time. He'd come in,
had whiteboard, and he would ask me questions, which I
talk about in the book. He asked me different questions.
He asked everybody questions. And then since I was the first,

(55:25):
it was my first time there, I had to speak
one day and he gave.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
Me a question.

Speaker 4 (55:30):
Now, by the way, even though I was under an alias,
all of the staff knew exactly who I was or
who I am, and so when he asked a question,
he was being very intentional, and he was trying to
figure out why are you here? Like why are you
in here right now? And I'm like, well, I want
to get sober. You know, I just gave a very
generic quick answer. But all night I sat with that thing,

(55:53):
why are you here? You know, what's really got you here?
And that next day I was really bust out and
I said, my life is in shambles.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
The relationship between my son and I. It's a mess.

Speaker 4 (56:09):
I'm just all everything around me is falling apart, and
I need to get myself together. And later on he
pulled me to the side and said, everything that you're
going through in this moment, you need to recognize that
it's okay to take care of you. So I have
this quote in the book that says, I was born
fighting for freedom, and I will die fighting for freedom,

(56:31):
but this time freedom includes me. And so I'm trying
to center myself in the midst of that. And that's
how I'm getting help. That therapy is important, and I
don't just have a therapist. I have a psychiatrist. And
because the stigma around needing medication to deal with most
different issues, there is a stigma that makes you feel

(56:52):
like you're crazy, especially in the black community.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
It's like, oh, you need to take this, Oh oh
you on that.

Speaker 4 (56:57):
But I've never been better in my life that I
have help for anxiety that I need.

Speaker 1 (57:03):
I need it every day. That's that's my truth. What
you do.

Speaker 4 (57:07):
I don't take my medication every day, and I suggest
that people and folks will say, oh, no, we do natural.
I'm for natural, so I know. So I know at
night I cannot eat a.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
Bowl of frosted flakes or or sugar. Go ahead, go ahead.

Speaker 4 (57:29):
I can't lie not in the morning either, But I'm
just saying I can't eat because I'll be all night
like tweaking, you know what I mean. I can't have that.
So I do do natural, but that's not enough. I
have a prescription and I need it and it helps
me everything. Sometimes when I don't take my medicine because
it makes me feel a little sleepy sometimes, like you know,

(57:51):
and if I don't have time to let that pass,
I gotta go. I got an eight am interview. I
don't have time to take my medicine right now.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
So all day I'm like bugging out, like hacking crazy.

Speaker 4 (58:01):
And my song will be like, hey, take takes that.

Speaker 3 (58:08):
Did my girl Jazz Jess, I'm gonna tell you, she'd
be like, you could tell I didn't take my medican.

Speaker 2 (58:13):
Because you need to eat something first. But you know,
but that's a good point.

Speaker 3 (58:16):
And I think with coach Jesse, we do always stress
the fact that we love the holistic approach, do that,
but sometimes that's not it, and you have to work
in conjunctions and do both.

Speaker 7 (58:26):
One of the things I learned when I when I
had trauma after my brain surgery, I had a brain aneurysm,
and I couldn't sleep. But one of the things was
D three deficiency. And D three deficiency is directly connected
to depression and insomnia. So did your doctor up your
give you a prescription and tell you that your D
three needed to be high and healthy like eighty. It's

(58:50):
critical so that So it wasn't until because I had
to be on prescription medicine to go to sleep, like
if I was overtired, I couldn't no melowtone.

Speaker 1 (58:59):
And no thing that would let me go to sleep.

Speaker 8 (59:02):
Nothing. I had to get real prescription man to go
to sleep.

Speaker 7 (59:05):
But it wasn't until I got my D three levels
up to like eighty that my body started to now
be able to fight that insomnia because my body could
actually help regulate your ability to go to sleep. You're
teaching me something. You teach it in your and your
your the depression. It's strongly connected to it.

Speaker 4 (59:23):
And thank god I don't take I don't have to
take sleeping pills and wore I just had to deal
with the anxiety. Yeah, so that I could rest. Because
that's the problem is that I'm one of these people
and I still do it. My team will watch this
and be like, she's.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
Sleep level.

Speaker 4 (59:45):
And I'm texting at you know, twelve one four, But
I slept from you know, one thirty to progress and
then I'm going back to sleep after four. I don't
sleep full through all night. Not my reality. But I
used to not sleep at all. Right, I would sleep
only when I first lay down, because that's like, you know,

(01:00:06):
you so tired, you lay down, So I get like
an hour.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
And now I'm up with a notepad and and.

Speaker 7 (01:00:11):
I'm telling you D three is gonna be We're gonna
find out because that will help also with the anxiety.

Speaker 8 (01:00:16):
It's connected to depression. And I'm telling.

Speaker 3 (01:00:20):
Well, listen, I love to tell the story love, legacy,
and resilience.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Tamika D. Mallory, We thank you so.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
Much, appreciate you.

Speaker 3 (01:00:28):
You know, I've I've been like, we got to get
this together, but I know you're both we're both been
traveling alive.

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
But I appreciate you for that. And it's the right time.

Speaker 4 (01:00:35):
It's my birthday week, you know, and it's well, I
just want to say later today, I'll be a cup
New York City votes.

Speaker 3 (01:00:49):
You know, we'll be watching the Mayor oald debate. We
don't know whether or not to make my pop up
and have a surprise birthday situation again, but I'm coach Jesse.
Thank you so much, Lindsey. I love the fact that
you were here for this. She was very excited to
make it.

Speaker 6 (01:01:02):
I was making I've been crossing paths for like eight
years since I worked at MSNBC.

Speaker 3 (01:01:07):
And sometimes those kind words I mean a lot. And
she recalls even times that you said some positive things
and you know.

Speaker 6 (01:01:13):
You never know some like you know, you might just
share something or write a comment that posted somebody like
tag me in what's about me?

Speaker 5 (01:01:19):
If somebody saying something negative, and you're like, we need.

Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
To hear this perspective. Yeah, and I think you know
that stuff like.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
That really had.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
I appreciate guess what your eyebrows are myself.

Speaker 3 (01:01:36):
I love you to make a happy birthday and I
appreciate you. I live to tell the story. Thank you,
Jesus