February 10, 2021 • 39 mins
Tamika gets personal about being a single mom, what led her to her full-time involvement as an activist, and her new book State of Emergency. Tamika also sheds insight on where the money goes when you donate her organization Until Freedom.
*This episode contains references to drugs and gun violence that may be triggering.
Guest Info:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tamikadmallory/?hl=en
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TamikaDMallory?s=20
Until Freedom: https://untilfreedom.com/
Pre Order Tamika's Book State of Emergency
Host Info:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gammynorris/
Twitter:: https://twitter.com/abjgammy_?s=20
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you're listening on Apple podcasts, be sure to rate
and review the episode. I just want the listeners to
be aware that this episode contains reference to drugs and
gun violence that may be triggering. Thanks. Positively gam is
sponsored by Vasiline. See how they are working towards equitable
(00:22):
skin care for all at vasiline dot com. Tell me
one thing you would want people to know about you
to mek it that they don't already know. That's not
a well known piece of information about yourself. So I
have such a big mouth, and I've had incredible moments
(00:43):
where I think I have been able to articulate Black
rage and black pain. But I actually do not like
doing speeches at all. I hide, I cry, I beg
people not to have needed speak. What's up, everybody, I'm
(01:04):
Gammy and this is positively gam Every week I have raw,
in depth conversation with inspirational people pushing for change on
everything from aging, relationships, politics, wellness, to the current issues
facing the black community. Joining me today is civil rights activists,
community organizer and co founder of Until Freedom, a social
(01:29):
justice group fighting against the stemic and racial injustice. Miss
Tamka Mallory. Tamika is one of the most powerful speakers
of her generation. She delivered two of those speeches earlier
this year after the murders of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor.
Welcome to Mika. You know how I feel about you.
I'm a huge fan and I'm really excited to talk
(01:52):
with you today. People know you as this organizer, of course,
and they know you from until freedom, but I wanted
to try to get just a little bit more personal
with you today, if you don't mind, is that okay? Sure?
I love that with you for sure, Okay, alright, because
(02:13):
you you seem like such a superhero all the time,
and I know how hard it is. But when the
cape comes off, who is to make a really And
what is life like for you? And how is it
that you went about and made the decision to commit
yourself to activism. So I did get involved with activism
(02:36):
because of my parents initially. So it's very similar to church.
When your parents take you to church as a child,
you have no choice but to go, and you better
have a positive attitude because you'll be there all day.
And that's just it's just it's a part of your upbringing.
For me, we did go to church on Sunday, but
Saturday rallies and other community activities were even that they
(02:59):
were equally important to my parents, and so my mom
went to church, but my dad wasn't a big church
go or. However, he was a big activist and always
helping people in the community. And so, um, you know,
I had to get up every Saturday morning and attend
rallies and other events, and throughout the week, my parents
were the ones who would be working within the housing
(03:21):
projects to feed people and just to assist other families.
They went to precinct council meetings. And now imagine me
being a little kid with folks dragging me around to
be with old people all the time. It was really miserable.
Where did you grow up? What's city in Harlem, in
Manhattanville projects on a hundred and thirty third Street in
(03:44):
Old Broadway. We as young, you know, peep. Younger people
are influenced, of course by your surroundings. And so imagine
living in the projects where some of the kids there,
their parents weren't woke, if you will, and there was
a lot of stuff happening, and I was attracted to
what I thought was cool, the people hanging out people
(04:08):
who were able young girls. They were able to stay
out all night, they slept over one another's homes, they
had all the boyfriends. And so watching those things play
out right before my eyes, but not being able to
participate in much of it because of my parents taking
me to places where, like I said, there were a
lot of older people and it was a lot of talking.
(04:30):
It wasn't as fun to me. Now. One thing I
do remember is when I learned about chanting, it felt
like really demanding to say no justice, no peace, and
that was something that got me a pretty excited. So,
you know, hanging around the young people within the movement,
we started to be expert chanters, and that was something
(04:51):
that made me feel like we were having at least
a little bit of fun. You have a son, and
the father of your son, can you talked to me
a little bit about about him and perhaps if that
had any influence on your decision to commit your life
to activism. Absolutely, my son's father, So first of all,
(05:15):
just piggybacking off of this idea that I was pretty
bored and pretty miserable and thought I was being punished.
I rebelled. By the time I got to about sixteen.
It started around twelve, running away from home, um, you know,
and not being very respectful of my parents. You know,
if I told him I was going to the store
(05:36):
at twelve o'clock, I didn't come back until four, you know,
things like that. So that started around the age of twelve.
But by the time I got to be sixteen, it
was really a problem. I was trying to find a
way to be in the streets, just being attracted to
what I thought was cool. And I met my son's
(05:57):
father along the way. He actually lived lived in the
same building that my parents live in. His grandparents and
my mom and dad lived there. His parents were perpetual
drug abusers who had been in and out of prison
his entire life, so he was living with his grandparents.
We met in an elevator. We started seeing each other.
It was probably the most toxic relationship you could ever imagine.
(06:21):
We were fighting all the time, everything you could think of.
Too young to be in a relationship like the one
that we were in. I got pregnant, had my son,
and he moved away from New York City with a
group of people that he met somewhere in Harlem. Two
of them were brothers and in the course of time.
(06:44):
What we have been told is that they were selling marijuana.
And one night after he left my son's birthday party,
my son's second birthday party in New York. My son
is now twenty one, he'll be twenty two in March um.
When he left his birthday party New York and went
back to Pennsylvania where they were living, the drugs that
(07:05):
they had in the house were gone. And of course,
because these were two brothers who were sort of the
head of this enterprise, if you will, I don't think
it was that big of an enterprise, but nonetheless their
little business, they they turned on him. They looked at
him as a suspect for how the drugs went missing.
It came out in court that it actually had something
(07:26):
to do with an upset girlfriend and something totally different.
But they over a day tortured him, beating him trying
to find out where the drugs were. And by the
time the evening came, they knew that you can't just
beat a man and let him go because the retaliation
issues and all of that. And Jason was a pretty
(07:48):
tough guy. He had grown up in the streets, and
so they knew that they had to kill him, and
they took him to a field. They waited basically until
it got dark, because as I said, this went on
throughout many hours of the day, and by evening they
took him out to a wooded area. They shot him
twice and they pushed him over an embankment where you know,
(08:12):
they believed he was gonna, of course fall all the
way down, but he actually got caught on some branches
and was laying there for two weeks. At the end
of the two week period, a woman who was walking
her dog happen noticed that the dog was excited about
this particular area. She looked over the embankment and saw
his sneakers caught to the tree. And of course the
(08:32):
police came and they discovered that it was Jason. So
he was fully decomposed. We weren't able to have a
proper service for him, open casket or any of those things. Um.
And you know, like I said, he had been there
dead for a long time and we were looking for him, um,
you know, calling his phone, trying to find out what
was going on. Uh, and he was dead. Wow. That
(08:56):
that must have been horrible And how over you at
this time, like eighteen years old, I was actually twenty
because my son was too. I had my son at eighteen. Yeah,
I was fwunny and we weren't together. I always say
that because people, you know, they like to say, well,
you know her boyfriend, he actually wasn't. We weren't together.
(09:19):
But it's funny that for the few weeks right before Gammy,
he and I started to become friends. We were in
that phase of the co parenting situation. We fell out
over two years. I had all, I was mad, he
was mad. We did all of that, and now we
were starting to talk to each other and try to
figure out how we could be friends and move forward
(09:42):
with our son. Um and you know, the lifestyle, it
caught up with him. And you know, I always say
to people that the bottom line is you do wrong
and these things can happen, But we have no We
can't um separate how he grew up and the things
that he saw as a kid from ended up happening
to him. His ultimate demise is directly connected. Even though
(10:04):
he lived with his grandparents, who are amazing people. His
grandmother his grandfather is now deceased, but his grandparents were amazing.
They tried to do everything they could, but it just
isn't It isn't always enough to have your grandparents taking
care of you, with your parents in and out of
your life, going in and out of prison, and having
(10:24):
this drug abuse issue that today is being called a
mental health crisis, a public health crisis, But at that time,
the way to deal with drug abuse was to throw
people in jail and not to give them any real
help at all. I know all about that. It was
to criminalize that the whole circumstance. And yeah, I have
(10:44):
a whole lot of feelings about how now it's an epidemic,
when when we the black community has been suffering it
for decades and we were just made criminals. How did
all of that affect your decision to get involved with activism?
Do you think I didn't want to talk about his
(11:04):
death much, But in my own family, I was hearing
so many devastating stories from women about their child's father
and then being out of the home for various reasons.
And so it started to come together for me what
my parents had been teaching me again back to church,
because of course, in church, when you little, you're there
(11:27):
because you have to be. But at some point the
lightbulb goes off and yeah, and God becomes your own
you know what I mean. And that's what happened for me.
The movement became mine. It was no longer my parents
movement that I had to be a part of because
I was forced. It was now that I was the
one running around like what time are we going to
the rally? Like y'all are not going. I can't believe it,
(11:49):
and I want everybody to get involved because I made
the connection between poverty and drug abuse and lack of
education and all those things to directly to what happened
to him at the end of his life. And I
understood that it wasn't me that needed to be embarrassed,
that America really needed to have to explain why this
(12:12):
crisis of black men being killed wasn't the front page
of the newspaper with solutions to back it up, because
I knew that if it were white boys, we would
be doing something about it. For you, as a single mother,
(12:35):
what was that like, trying to raise your son with
the lifestyle that you chose important as it was its
respectfully and for lack of a better word, it was
left up like, you know, thank God my parents did
step in and trust and believe my mom didn't step
(12:56):
in because, uh, you know, she was excited about me, um,
you know, having this baby. Although she of course they
loved their grandsons so much. I I just the way
you guys love your grandchildren is just incredible because we
were as kids, we never received the kind of love
that these grandchildren. It's just my parents. They're gone over
their grandchildren, and so they loved him, but she was
(13:19):
always she was so disappointed because my mom knew that
I could do so much more without having a baby
that I had to also take care of. And so
when Jason died, I remember seeing my father at the
burial as they were lowering the casket into the ground.
My father went over to the casket and punched it
(13:41):
twice on the top and said, I got this, We
got it. We're gonna take care of him. I'll never
forget seeing him do that. And it was it was
I think it was in that moment that they realized
they really had step in and helped me, because I
was probably a disaster anyway, and they knew that he
wasn't gonna get the right type of attention because I
(14:02):
was out of the honeymoon stage of washing the clothes
and doing the thing. And now I'm at the point
of will you watch him while I go to the club,
And so they stepped in and they began to help me.
I got into I started working at National Action Network
for Revenew Sharpton, so I got really busy. The club
stage phase was real, real short. I got really busy
(14:23):
at work. And today you have to ask my son
how it felt not to have his mom basketball games.
I wasn't there parent teacher conferences. I was. I went
to some. I went to some, but I missed a
lot more than I should have just being present. Even
at home. He talks about the fact that he doesn't
(14:44):
remember us really sitting down watching movies together and doing
things like that. And it's because my life is still
so on all the time, and I think coming home
from trauma, right because during this time, you're talking about
A'madu Diallo, Abna Luima, all types of cases that's happened
(15:06):
in the Jersey for um. You know, we're dealing with
all of the backlash, if you will, of all of
those cases that happened so close together. And then of
course Sean Bell, which is where I really got into,
kicked in my gear in activism and sort of started
to be on the forefront. And and that's a lot
of trauma. So when I came home, I would come
(15:27):
home and want to just take it all off and
not really talk I'm dealing with. I just saw crying mothers,
I'm burying babies because I was also working in the
community and handling funerals for women who lost their children.
And he experienced all of that with me. And and
now today he gets it, but he still he gets
(15:48):
it now, but he gets it, but there's still resentment.
There's still resentment, and it comes out whenever I'm pushing him.
Because the one thing I never stopped doing nomatter where
I was, I always had high expectations of him, and
I always took care of him and made sure that
he did what he was supposed to do. And so
(16:09):
there comes the clash because he wants to use my
absence as an excuse for his issues, and I wouldn't
allow it, and so he would, you know, start with it.
You're never here, and I don't even know if you
love me, And and it happened all the time, and
in fact, the last big incident that we had was
(16:30):
just last year where he finally moved out. And now
I never If I knew that moving out would be
the thing to make us best friends, I would have
he would have been gone a long time ago, because
that's my homie now. And so how did you all
deal with that though? Did you ever seek any outside counsel?
(16:52):
Did you all go to therapy or anything like that
to help overcome some of these issues of abandonment. We're
doing it now. We're doing it now. I so feel
it to because I so feel you, because of course,
Jada went through the same kind of stuff with me.
(17:12):
It's just that my absence was in a different way.
My absence was because I was an addict. But it
still feels the same. It feels the same, It feels
the same, And I used to use that as my excuse.
It's not like I'm out here hanging out. I'm not
on drugs, because you know, my mother, she was like,
let me just tell you something. You are trash, like
(17:35):
she was on me hard. And I used to be like,
I can't believe you would say that to me. I'm
out here working this and she would say, nothing is
more important than taking care of your son. I think
seeing me where I am now. Everyone is now understands
that it was God's calling, it wasn't my own, it
wasn't my choosing. And now they're like, Okay, we're glad
(17:57):
that we invested and we stayed together. But there was
some real to motionless times because I was working for
someone else, leaving my child for weeks at a time,
so that to them was not exciting. But now that
they see where I am, they know it was all
preparation for the moment that we're currently in. And I'm
(18:17):
glad to have this conversation with you too, to Maka,
because I think people see you now and think that
this is new, Oh, this is who's on the scene
right now, But you've been doing this for years and
so I just think about the level of stress that
that causes in your relationships, not with just your son.
(18:39):
How has it affected some of your other personal relationships?
Are you dating now? You got all the good questions,
Give me the good questions. The dating part is hard,
that's the part. I was in a relationship with a
man who we were together for eleven years. He is twenties,
(19:01):
seven years older than me, and when I when when
I was younger, and he was younger, it was great.
You know, he was the one who had the career,
an amazing career and advertising had the number one advertising
agency for black people in America. UM, And I was
just sort of figuring out. So I could, you know,
run around with him and jump on the plane with
(19:21):
him and be you know, work from wherever on my
laptop and do those things. And that was cool. But
over time, as my career has began to blossom, and
my lifestyle is that I'm gone and sometimes I forget
the call and I'm a mess. It's I'm never I'm
always going the doors, revolving in and out again. The
(19:41):
same issues with my son. When I come home, I'm
not really in the mood to talk, and sometimes I'm
on the phone too much and all those things. And
after a while it became clear that we're and we're
the best of friends. I mean that we talk every day.
I'm probably not the best, the easiest person into love
right now, and so that's something that I have to
(20:04):
work on because there are moments of extreme loneliness because
when you do want to stop, there's nobody to call
to say, let's go on a trip or do something together.
UM And so I find myself entertaining myself, uh, spending
a lot of time out alone, going to dinner, doing
things by myself, because it's really difficult to turn to
(20:27):
your friends and sort of take them up and down
on your roller coaster. You're never available, but then when
you are available, you want everybody to change everything to
feed what you need, and that it doesn't really work
like that. So it's pretty hard. It's hard. Perhaps I
have to accomplish a few more things so that I
can actually invest in a relationship in the way in
(20:49):
which if I need to know, you say, accomplish some
things before I go onto the to the next question.
Let me let's unpack that for a minute. What is
it you think that you need to accomplish? So I
just turned in the manuscript to my first book, State
of Emergency. I wouldn't talk to anybody. I wouldn't even
(21:10):
allow people to look at me for the last for
the last few months while I was in the writing process,
and then the editing process is horrible for anybody who
knows it's hard. It's I felt suicidal during the last
few days because I just felt like I didn't write enough.
It didn't say enough so I was probably really moody.
People who write books need a sabbatical or you need
(21:33):
to be somewhere by yourself, because it's hard to have
to entertain people and get that done at the same time.
I and then now I have a second book, my memoir.
The first book is about the movement and the state
of America, but the next book is actually my memoir.
So I really feel like and that's I have a
year to do that work. I think I need to
get through that. And then there's some personal things that
(21:56):
I have not had an opportunity. You asked a question
about therapy. I don't talk much about it, but I
do mention that I had a period after experiencing severe
attacks from the right wing during the Women's March, that
I got heavily addicted to xan x and had to
go to a drug treatment program, that I had to
(22:17):
go to a PTSD program to try to address how
I got on the xan x. And so while I'm
not on any of that and I'm happy to be clean,
there's still some residual things about why that even happened
to me in the first place, and some restoration that
I need to do. So I don't know that I
can go and and really be someone's lover when I
(22:40):
have I'm missing some things that I need to deal
with for myself. That's an important recognition about yourself, hugely important.
You don't want to come into a relationship with all
of your damage, So you gotta heal yourself first, and
you are the most important person. Is only you can
(23:00):
do that. That's a hard part, yeah, and that but
that's so important to your recovery process. So don't don't
take that lightly. And I'm glad to hear you share
that because it's so important. Talk a little bit more
(23:23):
about the stresses of this life that you've chosen, because
I think people kind of have a tendency to glamorize it.
To Mika, they see you on TV and they see
you with these powerful speeches, and but there's no salary,
there's no health benefits. How do you what is that like?
(23:44):
And how do you take care of yourself and your family?
So there is a salary, but in order to get it,
it's hard work. Because we have established an organization called
Until Freedom where people can donate and we all receive
a salary from the organization. The problem is that the
(24:07):
work we do has peaks and loads. People are paying
attention when George Floyd is killed, people are paying attention
when you're mobilizing for Brianna Taylor. And then we fall
in love with the fact that we elected Joe Biden
and Kamala Harris and now it's okay, they'll take care
of it, and and we just let's depend on the
Democratic president, when in fact that's not accurate. It's really
(24:30):
going to be the work of the people to push
them that will get the job done. And that's where we,
you know, constantly working is trying to figure out how
do we respectfully but yet and still very firmly pushed
the administration to make do on the promises, And so
in those moments you see less support, less giving. And
(24:51):
we try not to take corporate money for our general
operating expenses. So if some corporate partner wants to be
a part of any event or some activity that we're doing,
we will entertain it, depending on who that player is,
but for general operating we try not to take corporate
money because we don't want to be censored, if you will,
(25:12):
from what we can say, what we can get involved with,
and how hard we can challenge the system, and so
that speaks to your point the salary piece. You just
never know. We are constantly raising money, and the way
in which we look at it is that we have
to raise money for a full year so that we
know at least for this one year we're going to
get paid. However, that's not a sustainable model for people
(25:35):
who are forty years old and older. All of us,
of the four co founders, are forty. I think Attorney
Angelo pintol is maybe like thirty eight. But our lives
like and we all have children, we have families, we
have homes, we have other things, and we have aspirations
and people don't necessarily they don't. I don't know. I
get these questions all the time. What do you how,
(25:56):
why are you and where do you get your money in?
And why do you look so you what are you
doing with their money? First of all, the money that
comes in from the organization pretty much does cover healthcare
and things like that, paying your taxes, those types of things,
and of course your basic living expenses. But I also
can speak, I can write, I can do other things.
(26:17):
I plan events, I convene individuals and and do consulting work.
And so, just like everyone else, should I not be
paid for the service of and and my skills that
I have that I bring to the table. I would
hope that people want me to be able to buy
a home and to have a car, you know, to
go on a vacation to look nice, because I don't
(26:37):
feel like living in Kentucky or being on the road
in these places. I was in Mississippi and Parchment Prison
fighting with the Mississippi Prison Coalition group there to stop
the literal death of prisoners. Every single day to maybe
three prisoners were dying in Parchment Prison, and we were
(26:59):
there even in Mississippi. I don't want to stay at
the worst hotel in town. I want to stay at
least in a decent place that I can feel comfortable
because I'm out there doing things that most people are
not able or willing to do, and so they are.
People do either glamorize it or they diminish the value
and think that somehow we're supposed to just be you
(27:21):
know what, And it's a mindset that has been taught
to us. Being enslaved has really done us in, right,
It did us in because the mindset that we have
is that people doing service, are supposed to be poor,
and so knowing that Dr King died not having the
(27:42):
types of resources, like we just celebrated Dr King Day,
And I wonder if today, knowing all of his contributions,
we had the opportunity to give him his flowers, to
give him our resources, would we make sure that Dr
King had a beautiful home, that he had all the
things necessary to be as comfortable as possible. And of
(28:05):
course I'm not calling myself anywhere close to Dr King,
but you get the point. I think that we would,
that we would pour into Dr King if we could
do it all over again. And I think that's the
way we need to look at many activists, not just
to makea mallory, but many activists and organizers, that there's
no reason why those individuals should go home and be struggling.
(28:27):
And by the way, the brothers on my team will
tell you when they show up at home and their
wives are they're taking care of their kids while they're
on the road, the wives are looking at them like
where the light bill broke? Like where where's the food?
Like it's not about it just being a good nature,
good moral cause. We also are working and to your point,
(28:49):
it is selfless and thankless and no because I'm not
gonna do it. It's real. I'm sixty seven years old.
I'm not gonna be out there marching with you. I'm not.
I'm too old for that. So I appreciate what you
guys are doing, and I think a lot of people do,
but how do you show up for that appreciation. What
we are working on is a campaign that is many
(29:11):
black folks and brown folks and people who are our supporters,
allies and accomplices will give um a portion of their
monthly resources to us so that we have the money
to leave the campaigns. I think the work that we
did with Brianna Taylor shows now we have three officers
who have at least been fired from They should be charged,
(29:33):
they should be arrested, they should be convicted, but the
system doesn't allow for an easy way to do that.
Is it's this is something that we've got to work
on on so many levels. It's not just Brianna Taylor,
but across the nation, so many have died and have
been murdered and we haven't received the type of justice.
So that's a systemic problem. But in terms of pushing
(29:55):
the buttons, of the system, the local system there in
the Oville, Kentucky, alongside that local community. We see now
that three officers who were there that night and are
responsible for her death have actually been fired from their jobs.
That is a direct result of the work that we
did and the campaign in the ways in which we
(30:16):
were able to do that work well. We moved into
an airbnb. I don't even know exactly what the bill was,
but it costs us money to be there. The fact
that jay Z said I'll pick up the bill for
security and also for your housing, that was very helpful
to us, so that we didn't have to think about that,
but we focused our attention on the work that we
(30:37):
were there to do. We also and these are things
people don't think about. I as Tamika Mallory, who and
you know it's me, you can see me, right. I
don't I don't go into a lot of restaurants to
eat in towns where I'm fighting in the local town
against their authorities, especially in a place like Louisville and Kentucky.
I don't go to a lot of restaurants. So I
(30:58):
try to make sure we go to a lot of
black restaurants. And you know, places like that or across
the bridges and go into other towns. So we had
a chef. She brought us a good meal for dinner
so that we could be safe. So nobody's trying to
poison us, right, because this is this These are real things.
And so again we because of that, we were able
to focus our attention every day on organizing get in
(31:21):
industry getting. We've done so much work with the local
community there, and in fact, we applied for other grants
where we now have given money to many of the
local groups and left them with resources so that they
can continue to build. So these are the things that
people never get to hear about, and they don't necessarily see,
and then they say, what you're gonna do with my money?
(31:41):
I'm doing. I would hope that just like we give
the Red Cross and all these others, that we also
invest in those who are trying to provide emergency services
to our communities as well. Yeah, thank you so much
for sharing that to me, because I think it's important
because there are a lot of people like me who
can't participate. But this is your financial support is always
(32:04):
a way that you can participate and help. But people
do want to know how their money is being spent.
And I don't think people think about all of these things,
and it's very important because you guys have to survive,
you have to live one I think I want to
ask how what do you do to care for yourself emotionally, physically,
(32:25):
and spiritually, because the stress that goes along with dealing
with these kinds of challenges on a daily basis, it's
just overwhelming to me. God bless and just I'm so
thankful that somebody created therapy because, honey, a lot of
people don't understand how important it is to have somebody
(32:47):
to talk through all your stuff that's not there to
judge you, it flashed across the screen. Or because we're
involved in so many different cases, we're constantly hearing no
we're constantly hearing no charges filed, We're constantly receiving pushback,
and to be quite honest, we're constantly fighting with our
(33:07):
own people to try to get us on one accord
as well about how we should approach the movement and
what type of sacrifices are necessary in order for us
to get where we're going. It's very stressful, it's extremely demanding,
and it's extremely painful. The last thing I'll say is this.
You know, I finally have reached a place in my
(33:29):
career after twenty five years where I don't have to
be around negative people who don't have my back. I
can actually, I can say nope, I see it already.
I don't trust you, or I don't think you believe
in me, you don't help, you don't make me better.
I feel judged, I feel I don't feel good about
your presence in my space. And I finally am at
(33:50):
a place where I can just go nope, and that's
good and that's it, and it's the best. It's so liberating. Yes,
I can imagine, don't be afraid to say no. We're
gonna do the ones you'd like to know. Segments before
(34:12):
we let you get out of here. What book are
you currently reading? State of Emergency? My own book? Your
own book, yes, ma'am, Yes, ma'am. So I'm reading it,
editing and getting it fine tune. Okay, So when when
when will it be ready for us? It's first of all,
you can pre order right now. Okay, it's on Amazon
(34:33):
and everywhere else that you buy books. But it also
it will be out on May eleven. The Hard copies
will be in the store on May eleven. Okay, perfect,
And one thing you would like to get off your chest?
One thing I would like to get on I think
we covered it already that activists should not be broke.
(34:53):
That is something that's that's a norm that needs to
be thrown out. That activists should be able to live
and thrive just like everyone else. And I agree with
that one. So to Meka, what's a model you live by?
What's a model that I live by? And it's a
new one for me, that who is they the day?
(35:14):
Get rid of day in your head because they all
stop you from doing things. They'll tell you you can't
dress a certain way, can't talk a certain way, can't
dance a certain way. They is not real. It's in
your head no more day. That is such a good
one to Maka. And if I could stop worrying so
(35:35):
much about what other people think of me and just
worry about how what I think of me, my life
would be so much easier. I would have so much
more self confidence if I could get the days out
of my head. Me to someone said to me one time,
it's not just the idea of saying getting rid of
the thoughts of day and worrying about day. It's also
(35:57):
identifying who the days are because sometimes the day could
be closed. People who are really close to you that
you depend on and they're actually pouring negative thoughts into
your head about yourself and it's stopping you from realizing
your dreams. So we do have to identify who they
is and decide whether or not they have your best
(36:19):
interests at heart. And guess what, I'm just trying to
figure it out. This is real new, but I figured
while it's fresh on the press for me, I'll share
it with everybody else. Let's figure out day. And obviously
you've been doing something to to make sure that you're
taking care of yourself and that's evident by the conversation
that we're having. Thank you so much. Just keep fighting
(36:41):
the good fight, keep stirring up good trouble. We need you,
We are need we need you, and I'm so excited
about your book. Tell us where people can find you
on social media, so people can go on Instagram to
add to mek A D. Mallory at to mek A D. Mallory.
If you're looking for the business page, the more appropriate
(37:04):
content you should go to until freedom. That's my organization's
Instagram page. But my page to mek A D. Mallory
is where it goes down. It could be anything from
the Wop song and how much I Love that all
the way to how fine a man is? And then
I might also be fighting whoever needs to be fought
(37:26):
in society. But don't come on my page trying to
sense to me. We do whatever we want to do
exactly on your personal page. There you go, there you go.
Thank you. You know how we feel about you. Here
the smith Household to me because we love you, love
you too. So here in my takeaways after my conversation
(37:48):
with Tamika, activism is selfless and thankless work, and we
must continue to show up. Don't discount the importance of
your contribution, and whether it's ten toes down or through
financial donations, the work never ends. Tamika's book State of
(38:08):
Emergency is now available for pre order on Amazon. Thank
you to my guest to Nica Mallory for sharing time
with us today. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, be
sure to rate and review. Follow me on my Instagram
at Gammy Norris to share with me your thoughts on
the episode I'm here, I'm talking, and I'm listening. As always,
(38:32):
stay grateful, y'all. Positively GAM is produced by Westbrook Audio
Executive producers Adrian van Field, Norris, Jada Pinkett Smith, Amanda
Brown and Fallon jethro Co executive producer Sam Hoti, associate
producer Erica Ron and Crystal Devon's editor and mixer Calvin Bailiff.
(38:58):
Positively GAM is in partnership with Art nineteen. Hmmm hm
If you're listening on Apple podcasts, be sure to rate
and review the episode. I just want the listeners to
be aware that this episode contains reference to drugs and
gun violence that may be triggering. Thanks. Positively gam is
sponsored by Vasiline. See how they are working towards equitable
(00:22):
skin care for all at vasiline dot com. Tell me
one thing you would want people to know about you
to mek it that they don't already know. That's not
a well known piece of information about yourself. So I
have such a big mouth, and I've had incredible moments
(00:43):
where I think I have been able to articulate Black
rage and black pain. But I actually do not like
doing speeches at all. I hide, I cry, I beg
people not to have needed speak. What's up, everybody, I'm
(01:04):
Gammy and this is positively gam Every week I have raw,
in depth conversation with inspirational people pushing for change on
everything from aging, relationships, politics, wellness, to the current issues
facing the black community. Joining me today is civil rights activists,
community organizer and co founder of Until Freedom, a social
(01:29):
justice group fighting against the stemic and racial injustice. Miss
Tamka Mallory. Tamika is one of the most powerful speakers
of her generation. She delivered two of those speeches earlier
this year after the murders of George Floyd and Brianna Taylor.
Welcome to Mika. You know how I feel about you.
I'm a huge fan and I'm really excited to talk
(01:52):
with you today. People know you as this organizer, of course,
and they know you from until freedom, but I wanted
to try to get just a little bit more personal
with you today, if you don't mind, is that okay? Sure?
I love that with you for sure, Okay, alright, because
(02:13):
you you seem like such a superhero all the time,
and I know how hard it is. But when the
cape comes off, who is to make a really And
what is life like for you? And how is it
that you went about and made the decision to commit
yourself to activism. So I did get involved with activism
(02:36):
because of my parents initially. So it's very similar to church.
When your parents take you to church as a child,
you have no choice but to go, and you better
have a positive attitude because you'll be there all day.
And that's just it's just it's a part of your upbringing.
For me, we did go to church on Sunday, but
Saturday rallies and other community activities were even that they
(02:59):
were equally important to my parents, and so my mom
went to church, but my dad wasn't a big church
go or. However, he was a big activist and always
helping people in the community. And so, um, you know,
I had to get up every Saturday morning and attend
rallies and other events, and throughout the week, my parents
were the ones who would be working within the housing
(03:21):
projects to feed people and just to assist other families.
They went to precinct council meetings. And now imagine me
being a little kid with folks dragging me around to
be with old people all the time. It was really miserable.
Where did you grow up? What's city in Harlem, in
Manhattanville projects on a hundred and thirty third Street in
(03:44):
Old Broadway. We as young, you know, peep. Younger people
are influenced, of course by your surroundings. And so imagine
living in the projects where some of the kids there,
their parents weren't woke, if you will, and there was
a lot of stuff happening, and I was attracted to
what I thought was cool, the people hanging out people
(04:08):
who were able young girls. They were able to stay
out all night, they slept over one another's homes, they
had all the boyfriends. And so watching those things play
out right before my eyes, but not being able to
participate in much of it because of my parents taking
me to places where, like I said, there were a
lot of older people and it was a lot of talking.
(04:30):
It wasn't as fun to me. Now. One thing I
do remember is when I learned about chanting, it felt
like really demanding to say no justice, no peace, and
that was something that got me a pretty excited. So,
you know, hanging around the young people within the movement,
we started to be expert chanters, and that was something
(04:51):
that made me feel like we were having at least
a little bit of fun. You have a son, and
the father of your son, can you talked to me
a little bit about about him and perhaps if that
had any influence on your decision to commit your life
to activism. Absolutely, my son's father, So first of all,
(05:15):
just piggybacking off of this idea that I was pretty
bored and pretty miserable and thought I was being punished.
I rebelled. By the time I got to about sixteen.
It started around twelve, running away from home, um, you know,
and not being very respectful of my parents. You know,
if I told him I was going to the store
(05:36):
at twelve o'clock, I didn't come back until four, you know,
things like that. So that started around the age of twelve.
But by the time I got to be sixteen, it
was really a problem. I was trying to find a
way to be in the streets, just being attracted to
what I thought was cool. And I met my son's
(05:57):
father along the way. He actually lived lived in the
same building that my parents live in. His grandparents and
my mom and dad lived there. His parents were perpetual
drug abusers who had been in and out of prison
his entire life, so he was living with his grandparents.
We met in an elevator. We started seeing each other.
It was probably the most toxic relationship you could ever imagine.
(06:21):
We were fighting all the time, everything you could think of.
Too young to be in a relationship like the one
that we were in. I got pregnant, had my son,
and he moved away from New York City with a
group of people that he met somewhere in Harlem. Two
of them were brothers and in the course of time.
(06:44):
What we have been told is that they were selling marijuana.
And one night after he left my son's birthday party,
my son's second birthday party in New York. My son
is now twenty one, he'll be twenty two in March um.
When he left his birthday party New York and went
back to Pennsylvania where they were living, the drugs that
(07:05):
they had in the house were gone. And of course,
because these were two brothers who were sort of the
head of this enterprise, if you will, I don't think
it was that big of an enterprise, but nonetheless their
little business, they they turned on him. They looked at
him as a suspect for how the drugs went missing.
It came out in court that it actually had something
(07:26):
to do with an upset girlfriend and something totally different.
But they over a day tortured him, beating him trying
to find out where the drugs were. And by the
time the evening came, they knew that you can't just
beat a man and let him go because the retaliation
issues and all of that. And Jason was a pretty
(07:48):
tough guy. He had grown up in the streets, and
so they knew that they had to kill him, and
they took him to a field. They waited basically until
it got dark, because as I said, this went on
throughout many hours of the day, and by evening they
took him out to a wooded area. They shot him
twice and they pushed him over an embankment where you know,
(08:12):
they believed he was gonna, of course fall all the
way down, but he actually got caught on some branches
and was laying there for two weeks. At the end
of the two week period, a woman who was walking
her dog happen noticed that the dog was excited about
this particular area. She looked over the embankment and saw
his sneakers caught to the tree. And of course the
(08:32):
police came and they discovered that it was Jason. So
he was fully decomposed. We weren't able to have a
proper service for him, open casket or any of those things. Um.
And you know, like I said, he had been there
dead for a long time and we were looking for him, um,
you know, calling his phone, trying to find out what
was going on. Uh, and he was dead. Wow. That
(08:56):
that must have been horrible And how over you at
this time, like eighteen years old, I was actually twenty
because my son was too. I had my son at eighteen. Yeah,
I was fwunny and we weren't together. I always say
that because people, you know, they like to say, well,
you know her boyfriend, he actually wasn't. We weren't together.
(09:19):
But it's funny that for the few weeks right before Gammy,
he and I started to become friends. We were in
that phase of the co parenting situation. We fell out
over two years. I had all, I was mad, he
was mad. We did all of that, and now we
were starting to talk to each other and try to
figure out how we could be friends and move forward
(09:42):
with our son. Um and you know, the lifestyle, it
caught up with him. And you know, I always say
to people that the bottom line is you do wrong
and these things can happen, But we have no We
can't um separate how he grew up and the things
that he saw as a kid from ended up happening
to him. His ultimate demise is directly connected. Even though
(10:04):
he lived with his grandparents, who are amazing people. His
grandmother his grandfather is now deceased, but his grandparents were amazing.
They tried to do everything they could, but it just
isn't It isn't always enough to have your grandparents taking
care of you, with your parents in and out of
your life, going in and out of prison, and having
(10:24):
this drug abuse issue that today is being called a
mental health crisis, a public health crisis, But at that time,
the way to deal with drug abuse was to throw
people in jail and not to give them any real
help at all. I know all about that. It was
to criminalize that the whole circumstance. And yeah, I have
(10:44):
a whole lot of feelings about how now it's an epidemic,
when when we the black community has been suffering it
for decades and we were just made criminals. How did
all of that affect your decision to get involved with activism?
Do you think I didn't want to talk about his
(11:04):
death much, But in my own family, I was hearing
so many devastating stories from women about their child's father
and then being out of the home for various reasons.
And so it started to come together for me what
my parents had been teaching me again back to church,
because of course, in church, when you little, you're there
(11:27):
because you have to be. But at some point the
lightbulb goes off and yeah, and God becomes your own
you know what I mean. And that's what happened for me.
The movement became mine. It was no longer my parents
movement that I had to be a part of because
I was forced. It was now that I was the
one running around like what time are we going to
the rally? Like y'all are not going. I can't believe it,
(11:49):
and I want everybody to get involved because I made
the connection between poverty and drug abuse and lack of
education and all those things to directly to what happened
to him at the end of his life. And I
understood that it wasn't me that needed to be embarrassed,
that America really needed to have to explain why this
(12:12):
crisis of black men being killed wasn't the front page
of the newspaper with solutions to back it up, because
I knew that if it were white boys, we would
be doing something about it. For you, as a single mother,
(12:35):
what was that like, trying to raise your son with
the lifestyle that you chose important as it was its
respectfully and for lack of a better word, it was
left up like, you know, thank God my parents did
step in and trust and believe my mom didn't step
(12:56):
in because, uh, you know, she was excited about me, um,
you know, having this baby. Although she of course they
loved their grandsons so much. I I just the way
you guys love your grandchildren is just incredible because we
were as kids, we never received the kind of love
that these grandchildren. It's just my parents. They're gone over
their grandchildren, and so they loved him, but she was
(13:19):
always she was so disappointed because my mom knew that
I could do so much more without having a baby
that I had to also take care of. And so
when Jason died, I remember seeing my father at the
burial as they were lowering the casket into the ground.
My father went over to the casket and punched it
(13:41):
twice on the top and said, I got this, We
got it. We're gonna take care of him. I'll never
forget seeing him do that. And it was it was
I think it was in that moment that they realized
they really had step in and helped me, because I
was probably a disaster anyway, and they knew that he
wasn't gonna get the right type of attention because I
(14:02):
was out of the honeymoon stage of washing the clothes
and doing the thing. And now I'm at the point
of will you watch him while I go to the club,
And so they stepped in and they began to help me.
I got into I started working at National Action Network
for Revenew Sharpton, so I got really busy. The club
stage phase was real, real short. I got really busy
(14:23):
at work. And today you have to ask my son
how it felt not to have his mom basketball games.
I wasn't there parent teacher conferences. I was. I went
to some. I went to some, but I missed a
lot more than I should have just being present. Even
at home. He talks about the fact that he doesn't
(14:44):
remember us really sitting down watching movies together and doing
things like that. And it's because my life is still
so on all the time, and I think coming home
from trauma, right because during this time, you're talking about
A'madu Diallo, Abna Luima, all types of cases that's happened
(15:06):
in the Jersey for um. You know, we're dealing with
all of the backlash, if you will, of all of
those cases that happened so close together. And then of
course Sean Bell, which is where I really got into,
kicked in my gear in activism and sort of started
to be on the forefront. And and that's a lot
of trauma. So when I came home, I would come
(15:27):
home and want to just take it all off and
not really talk I'm dealing with. I just saw crying mothers,
I'm burying babies because I was also working in the
community and handling funerals for women who lost their children.
And he experienced all of that with me. And and
now today he gets it, but he still he gets
(15:48):
it now, but he gets it, but there's still resentment.
There's still resentment, and it comes out whenever I'm pushing him.
Because the one thing I never stopped doing nomatter where
I was, I always had high expectations of him, and
I always took care of him and made sure that
he did what he was supposed to do. And so
(16:09):
there comes the clash because he wants to use my
absence as an excuse for his issues, and I wouldn't
allow it, and so he would, you know, start with it.
You're never here, and I don't even know if you
love me, And and it happened all the time, and
in fact, the last big incident that we had was
(16:30):
just last year where he finally moved out. And now
I never If I knew that moving out would be
the thing to make us best friends, I would have
he would have been gone a long time ago, because
that's my homie now. And so how did you all
deal with that though? Did you ever seek any outside counsel?
(16:52):
Did you all go to therapy or anything like that
to help overcome some of these issues of abandonment. We're
doing it now. We're doing it now. I so feel
it to because I so feel you, because of course,
Jada went through the same kind of stuff with me.
(17:12):
It's just that my absence was in a different way.
My absence was because I was an addict. But it
still feels the same. It feels the same, It feels
the same, And I used to use that as my excuse.
It's not like I'm out here hanging out. I'm not
on drugs, because you know, my mother, she was like,
let me just tell you something. You are trash, like
(17:35):
she was on me hard. And I used to be like,
I can't believe you would say that to me. I'm
out here working this and she would say, nothing is
more important than taking care of your son. I think
seeing me where I am now. Everyone is now understands
that it was God's calling, it wasn't my own, it
wasn't my choosing. And now they're like, Okay, we're glad
(17:57):
that we invested and we stayed together. But there was
some real to motionless times because I was working for
someone else, leaving my child for weeks at a time,
so that to them was not exciting. But now that
they see where I am, they know it was all
preparation for the moment that we're currently in. And I'm
(18:17):
glad to have this conversation with you too, to Maka,
because I think people see you now and think that
this is new, Oh, this is who's on the scene
right now, But you've been doing this for years and
so I just think about the level of stress that
that causes in your relationships, not with just your son.
(18:39):
How has it affected some of your other personal relationships?
Are you dating now? You got all the good questions,
Give me the good questions. The dating part is hard,
that's the part. I was in a relationship with a
man who we were together for eleven years. He is twenties,
(19:01):
seven years older than me, and when I when when
I was younger, and he was younger, it was great.
You know, he was the one who had the career,
an amazing career and advertising had the number one advertising
agency for black people in America. UM, And I was
just sort of figuring out. So I could, you know,
run around with him and jump on the plane with
(19:21):
him and be you know, work from wherever on my
laptop and do those things. And that was cool. But
over time, as my career has began to blossom, and
my lifestyle is that I'm gone and sometimes I forget
the call and I'm a mess. It's I'm never I'm
always going the doors, revolving in and out again. The
(19:41):
same issues with my son. When I come home, I'm
not really in the mood to talk, and sometimes I'm
on the phone too much and all those things. And
after a while it became clear that we're and we're
the best of friends. I mean that we talk every day.
I'm probably not the best, the easiest person into love
right now, and so that's something that I have to
(20:04):
work on because there are moments of extreme loneliness because
when you do want to stop, there's nobody to call
to say, let's go on a trip or do something together.
UM And so I find myself entertaining myself, uh, spending
a lot of time out alone, going to dinner, doing
things by myself, because it's really difficult to turn to
(20:27):
your friends and sort of take them up and down
on your roller coaster. You're never available, but then when
you are available, you want everybody to change everything to
feed what you need, and that it doesn't really work
like that. So it's pretty hard. It's hard. Perhaps I
have to accomplish a few more things so that I
can actually invest in a relationship in the way in
(20:49):
which if I need to know, you say, accomplish some
things before I go onto the to the next question.
Let me let's unpack that for a minute. What is
it you think that you need to accomplish? So I
just turned in the manuscript to my first book, State
of Emergency. I wouldn't talk to anybody. I wouldn't even
(21:10):
allow people to look at me for the last for
the last few months while I was in the writing process,
and then the editing process is horrible for anybody who
knows it's hard. It's I felt suicidal during the last
few days because I just felt like I didn't write enough.
It didn't say enough so I was probably really moody.
People who write books need a sabbatical or you need
(21:33):
to be somewhere by yourself, because it's hard to have
to entertain people and get that done at the same time.
I and then now I have a second book, my memoir.
The first book is about the movement and the state
of America, but the next book is actually my memoir.
So I really feel like and that's I have a
year to do that work. I think I need to
get through that. And then there's some personal things that
(21:56):
I have not had an opportunity. You asked a question
about therapy. I don't talk much about it, but I
do mention that I had a period after experiencing severe
attacks from the right wing during the Women's March, that
I got heavily addicted to xan x and had to
go to a drug treatment program, that I had to
(22:17):
go to a PTSD program to try to address how
I got on the xan x. And so while I'm
not on any of that and I'm happy to be clean,
there's still some residual things about why that even happened
to me in the first place, and some restoration that
I need to do. So I don't know that I
can go and and really be someone's lover when I
(22:40):
have I'm missing some things that I need to deal
with for myself. That's an important recognition about yourself, hugely important.
You don't want to come into a relationship with all
of your damage, So you gotta heal yourself first, and
you are the most important person. Is only you can
(23:00):
do that. That's a hard part, yeah, and that but
that's so important to your recovery process. So don't don't
take that lightly. And I'm glad to hear you share
that because it's so important. Talk a little bit more
(23:23):
about the stresses of this life that you've chosen, because
I think people kind of have a tendency to glamorize it.
To Mika, they see you on TV and they see
you with these powerful speeches, and but there's no salary,
there's no health benefits. How do you what is that like?
(23:44):
And how do you take care of yourself and your family?
So there is a salary, but in order to get it,
it's hard work. Because we have established an organization called
Until Freedom where people can donate and we all receive
a salary from the organization. The problem is that the
(24:07):
work we do has peaks and loads. People are paying
attention when George Floyd is killed, people are paying attention
when you're mobilizing for Brianna Taylor. And then we fall
in love with the fact that we elected Joe Biden
and Kamala Harris and now it's okay, they'll take care
of it, and and we just let's depend on the
Democratic president, when in fact that's not accurate. It's really
(24:30):
going to be the work of the people to push
them that will get the job done. And that's where we,
you know, constantly working is trying to figure out how
do we respectfully but yet and still very firmly pushed
the administration to make do on the promises, And so
in those moments you see less support, less giving. And
(24:51):
we try not to take corporate money for our general
operating expenses. So if some corporate partner wants to be
a part of any event or some activity that we're doing,
we will entertain it, depending on who that player is,
but for general operating we try not to take corporate
money because we don't want to be censored, if you will,
(25:12):
from what we can say, what we can get involved with,
and how hard we can challenge the system, and so
that speaks to your point the salary piece. You just
never know. We are constantly raising money, and the way
in which we look at it is that we have
to raise money for a full year so that we
know at least for this one year we're going to
get paid. However, that's not a sustainable model for people
(25:35):
who are forty years old and older. All of us,
of the four co founders, are forty. I think Attorney
Angelo pintol is maybe like thirty eight. But our lives
like and we all have children, we have families, we
have homes, we have other things, and we have aspirations
and people don't necessarily they don't. I don't know. I
get these questions all the time. What do you how,
(25:56):
why are you and where do you get your money in?
And why do you look so you what are you
doing with their money? First of all, the money that
comes in from the organization pretty much does cover healthcare
and things like that, paying your taxes, those types of things,
and of course your basic living expenses. But I also
can speak, I can write, I can do other things.
(26:17):
I plan events, I convene individuals and and do consulting work.
And so, just like everyone else, should I not be
paid for the service of and and my skills that
I have that I bring to the table. I would
hope that people want me to be able to buy
a home and to have a car, you know, to
go on a vacation to look nice, because I don't
(26:37):
feel like living in Kentucky or being on the road
in these places. I was in Mississippi and Parchment Prison
fighting with the Mississippi Prison Coalition group there to stop
the literal death of prisoners. Every single day to maybe
three prisoners were dying in Parchment Prison, and we were
(26:59):
there even in Mississippi. I don't want to stay at
the worst hotel in town. I want to stay at
least in a decent place that I can feel comfortable
because I'm out there doing things that most people are
not able or willing to do, and so they are.
People do either glamorize it or they diminish the value
and think that somehow we're supposed to just be you
(27:21):
know what, And it's a mindset that has been taught
to us. Being enslaved has really done us in, right,
It did us in because the mindset that we have
is that people doing service, are supposed to be poor,
and so knowing that Dr King died not having the
(27:42):
types of resources, like we just celebrated Dr King Day,
And I wonder if today, knowing all of his contributions,
we had the opportunity to give him his flowers, to
give him our resources, would we make sure that Dr
King had a beautiful home, that he had all the
things necessary to be as comfortable as possible. And of
(28:05):
course I'm not calling myself anywhere close to Dr King,
but you get the point. I think that we would,
that we would pour into Dr King if we could
do it all over again. And I think that's the
way we need to look at many activists, not just
to makea mallory, but many activists and organizers, that there's
no reason why those individuals should go home and be struggling.
(28:27):
And by the way, the brothers on my team will
tell you when they show up at home and their
wives are they're taking care of their kids while they're
on the road, the wives are looking at them like
where the light bill broke? Like where where's the food?
Like it's not about it just being a good nature,
good moral cause. We also are working and to your point,
(28:49):
it is selfless and thankless and no because I'm not
gonna do it. It's real. I'm sixty seven years old.
I'm not gonna be out there marching with you. I'm not.
I'm too old for that. So I appreciate what you
guys are doing, and I think a lot of people do,
but how do you show up for that appreciation. What
we are working on is a campaign that is many
(29:11):
black folks and brown folks and people who are our supporters,
allies and accomplices will give um a portion of their
monthly resources to us so that we have the money
to leave the campaigns. I think the work that we
did with Brianna Taylor shows now we have three officers
who have at least been fired from They should be charged,
(29:33):
they should be arrested, they should be convicted, but the
system doesn't allow for an easy way to do that.
Is it's this is something that we've got to work
on on so many levels. It's not just Brianna Taylor,
but across the nation, so many have died and have
been murdered and we haven't received the type of justice.
So that's a systemic problem. But in terms of pushing
(29:55):
the buttons, of the system, the local system there in
the Oville, Kentucky, alongside that local community. We see now
that three officers who were there that night and are
responsible for her death have actually been fired from their jobs.
That is a direct result of the work that we
did and the campaign in the ways in which we
(30:16):
were able to do that work well. We moved into
an airbnb. I don't even know exactly what the bill was,
but it costs us money to be there. The fact
that jay Z said I'll pick up the bill for
security and also for your housing, that was very helpful
to us, so that we didn't have to think about that,
but we focused our attention on the work that we
(30:37):
were there to do. We also and these are things
people don't think about. I as Tamika Mallory, who and
you know it's me, you can see me, right. I
don't I don't go into a lot of restaurants to
eat in towns where I'm fighting in the local town
against their authorities, especially in a place like Louisville and Kentucky.
I don't go to a lot of restaurants. So I
(30:58):
try to make sure we go to a lot of
black restaurants. And you know, places like that or across
the bridges and go into other towns. So we had
a chef. She brought us a good meal for dinner
so that we could be safe. So nobody's trying to
poison us, right, because this is this These are real things.
And so again we because of that, we were able
to focus our attention every day on organizing get in
(31:21):
industry getting. We've done so much work with the local
community there, and in fact, we applied for other grants
where we now have given money to many of the
local groups and left them with resources so that they
can continue to build. So these are the things that
people never get to hear about, and they don't necessarily see,
and then they say, what you're gonna do with my money?
(31:41):
I'm doing. I would hope that just like we give
the Red Cross and all these others, that we also
invest in those who are trying to provide emergency services
to our communities as well. Yeah, thank you so much
for sharing that to me, because I think it's important
because there are a lot of people like me who
can't participate. But this is your financial support is always
(32:04):
a way that you can participate and help. But people
do want to know how their money is being spent.
And I don't think people think about all of these things,
and it's very important because you guys have to survive,
you have to live one I think I want to
ask how what do you do to care for yourself emotionally, physically,
(32:25):
and spiritually, because the stress that goes along with dealing
with these kinds of challenges on a daily basis, it's
just overwhelming to me. God bless and just I'm so
thankful that somebody created therapy because, honey, a lot of
people don't understand how important it is to have somebody
(32:47):
to talk through all your stuff that's not there to
judge you, it flashed across the screen. Or because we're
involved in so many different cases, we're constantly hearing no
we're constantly hearing no charges filed, We're constantly receiving pushback,
and to be quite honest, we're constantly fighting with our
(33:07):
own people to try to get us on one accord
as well about how we should approach the movement and
what type of sacrifices are necessary in order for us
to get where we're going. It's very stressful, it's extremely demanding,
and it's extremely painful. The last thing I'll say is this.
You know, I finally have reached a place in my
(33:29):
career after twenty five years where I don't have to
be around negative people who don't have my back. I
can actually, I can say nope, I see it already.
I don't trust you, or I don't think you believe
in me, you don't help, you don't make me better.
I feel judged, I feel I don't feel good about
your presence in my space. And I finally am at
(33:50):
a place where I can just go nope, and that's
good and that's it, and it's the best. It's so liberating. Yes,
I can imagine, don't be afraid to say no. We're
gonna do the ones you'd like to know. Segments before
(34:12):
we let you get out of here. What book are
you currently reading? State of Emergency? My own book? Your
own book, yes, ma'am, Yes, ma'am. So I'm reading it,
editing and getting it fine tune. Okay, So when when
when will it be ready for us? It's first of all,
you can pre order right now. Okay, it's on Amazon
(34:33):
and everywhere else that you buy books. But it also
it will be out on May eleven. The Hard copies
will be in the store on May eleven. Okay, perfect,
And one thing you would like to get off your chest?
One thing I would like to get on I think
we covered it already that activists should not be broke.
(34:53):
That is something that's that's a norm that needs to
be thrown out. That activists should be able to live
and thrive just like everyone else. And I agree with
that one. So to Meka, what's a model you live by?
What's a model that I live by? And it's a
new one for me, that who is they the day?
(35:14):
Get rid of day in your head because they all
stop you from doing things. They'll tell you you can't
dress a certain way, can't talk a certain way, can't
dance a certain way. They is not real. It's in
your head no more day. That is such a good
one to Maka. And if I could stop worrying so
(35:35):
much about what other people think of me and just
worry about how what I think of me, my life
would be so much easier. I would have so much
more self confidence if I could get the days out
of my head. Me to someone said to me one time,
it's not just the idea of saying getting rid of
the thoughts of day and worrying about day. It's also
(35:57):
identifying who the days are because sometimes the day could
be closed. People who are really close to you that
you depend on and they're actually pouring negative thoughts into
your head about yourself and it's stopping you from realizing
your dreams. So we do have to identify who they
is and decide whether or not they have your best
(36:19):
interests at heart. And guess what, I'm just trying to
figure it out. This is real new, but I figured
while it's fresh on the press for me, I'll share
it with everybody else. Let's figure out day. And obviously
you've been doing something to to make sure that you're
taking care of yourself and that's evident by the conversation
that we're having. Thank you so much. Just keep fighting
(36:41):
the good fight, keep stirring up good trouble. We need you,
We are need we need you, and I'm so excited
about your book. Tell us where people can find you
on social media, so people can go on Instagram to
add to mek A D. Mallory at to mek A D. Mallory.
If you're looking for the business page, the more appropriate
(37:04):
content you should go to until freedom. That's my organization's
Instagram page. But my page to mek A D. Mallory
is where it goes down. It could be anything from
the Wop song and how much I Love that all
the way to how fine a man is? And then
I might also be fighting whoever needs to be fought
(37:26):
in society. But don't come on my page trying to
sense to me. We do whatever we want to do
exactly on your personal page. There you go, there you go.
Thank you. You know how we feel about you. Here
the smith Household to me because we love you, love
you too. So here in my takeaways after my conversation
(37:48):
with Tamika, activism is selfless and thankless work, and we
must continue to show up. Don't discount the importance of
your contribution, and whether it's ten toes down or through
financial donations, the work never ends. Tamika's book State of
(38:08):
Emergency is now available for pre order on Amazon. Thank
you to my guest to Nica Mallory for sharing time
with us today. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts, be
sure to rate and review. Follow me on my Instagram
at Gammy Norris to share with me your thoughts on
the episode I'm here, I'm talking, and I'm listening. As always,
(38:32):
stay grateful, y'all. Positively GAM is produced by Westbrook Audio
Executive producers Adrian van Field, Norris, Jada Pinkett Smith, Amanda
Brown and Fallon jethro Co executive producer Sam Hoti, associate
producer Erica Ron and Crystal Devon's editor and mixer Calvin Bailiff.
(38:58):
Positively GAM is in partnership with Art nineteen. Hmmm hm
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