WEBVTT - Tamika's Thought of the Day: "Think Before You Accuse" 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:06.000 My thought of the day is, as I look at 0:00:06.640 --> 0:00:09.160 many people who have reached out, even some of them 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:13.560 are advocates themselves, and they are helping with this situation, 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:19.160 why do people feel like the right way to address 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:23.400 me or us and other leaders is to try to 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:27.560 either shame us and disrespect us in order to make 0:00:27.640 --> 0:00:32.080 us pay attention to an issue. So people were tagging 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:35.680 me in the comments. Are your trash because you're not 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:39.639 helping this girl? You haven't done your job? Where are you? 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:43.680 How dare you? You only get involved in cases when 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:47.240 something you know benefits you, which, by the way, that's 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:49.680 the biggest line has ever been told, because most of 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:51.880 the people that have have come to us for support are 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:54.960 people who have no name. No one really knows what's 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:58.600 going on. Maybe their child was killed or some incident happening. 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:01.720 Maybe there's some talk on mine, but there's no organization 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:05.040 around them. They don't have really the resources, the financial 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:08.040 resources which we have to often raise and bring to 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:13.479 the families, and beyond that, they had no international name 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:16.760 the way that we ultimately did for Brianna Taylor. And 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:19.560 I've been involved in many cases for my career. Over 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.960 my career twenty five plus years I have been helping 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:26.200 to take cases and families from one space to the next. 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:31.280 We got involved in Trayvon Martin, same thing. Trayvon had 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:34.840 been dead. People were kind of talking about it. But 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:37.520 when we got there and we put that extra work 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:41.200 on in Trayvon became an international name. His mother Sabrina 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:43.760 folks who will tell him that okay, And again, like 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:46.560 I said, same thing with Brianna Taylor. So I'm trying 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:48.920 to figure out why people feel like they need to 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:52.560 shame you and talk down on you to make you 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:55.400 get involved in something when they don't know who you're 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:58.960 talking to, they don't know what's happening behind the scenes. 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:02.639 And also they don't understand the process that it takes 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:06.080 before people like us can go and get involved in 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:10.040 certain situations. And I think, and I'll let you respond. 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:13.160 Then one of the problems that folks deal with is 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:16.080 not understanding that they're they're the fact that they have 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:19.800 five hundred followers or two thousand followers, and even five 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:23.160 thousand followers. They don't understand that when they go out 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:25.960 and say something, the risk is not the same as 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:29.800 someone like me and like us who have a million 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:33.799 plus people and major platforms, because guess what we will 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:36.840 get sued if we have not done the due diligence 0:02:36.840 --> 0:02:40.680 of having our attorneys get involved in these situations. Imagine 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:46.600 us going out there and calling this family rapists, kidnappers, 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:50.000 all kinds of words that we need to we would 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:52.919 be using or at least implying in order to bring 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:56.600 attention to a situation without giving our legal team the 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.200 ability to look at the law and what we can 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:01.800 say and what we can't say. And also the woman 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:04.239 that's telling the story, we don't know her. I believe 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:06.359 she's doing the right thing and I want to support her, 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:08.800 but we don't know her, so we can't say a 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:13.040 hundred percent that what she's telling us is absolutely true. 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:15.520 All of this has to be dealt with, and there 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:18.000 are people out there in the world who don't seem 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:21.000 to know understand that there is a process that we 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:23.880 have to go through before we get involved. It doesn't 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:27.040 mean that we won't take on situations that's difficult because 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:29.639 guess what they told us. Brianna Taylor's boyfriend was a 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:32.520 drug deal Our ex boyfriend was a drug dealer. They 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:35.800 told us, Oh, Kenny Walker, he might have something over here. 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:41.800 Brianna's actual boyfriend. They told us, well, uh, what's his name? 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:46.480 Eric Garner? He was selling Lucy's cigarettes. Nicole Bell's man. 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:48.880 They tried to put off the sparaged them with all 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:53.280 types of things that Joe Guselan Trump benefield their arrest 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:56.600 records from the past. Every case we get involved in, 0:03:57.000 --> 0:04:00.400 Mike Brown, Oh, he attacked the man at the store. 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.839 Every case we get involved with, there's a story. There's 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:06.880 always a bad story. I got a bad story. There's 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:08.840 some ship. You can come right now and say you're 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:11.920 gonna help to meet it, and it's gonna be some ship. Right. 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:15.320 Everybody got a story, But it takes a process so 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:17.520 that you can know what your risks are and how 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:21.200 you intend to approach a situation. So my thought of 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:24.039 the day is like, what the hell are y'all talking about? 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:26.320 And why do people who have never been in our 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:29.480 positions have so much to say about things that they 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:34.279 don't have to assume the risk for Well, my assessment 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:37.600 of the situation is that there are two types of people. 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:41.919 There are people who actually just don't know right, and 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:44.400 then there's the type of people who just want to 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:47.120 hate right. They just want to do anything to to 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:49.719 make you look negative and vilify you. Right, So the 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:52.440 people who don't know, they make statements say why are 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:54.640 you hiring doing anything? Why don't you doing this? And 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:58.039 what's going on with this? And they don't understand exactly 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:01.960 high works. And then there are people who have unrealistic expectations. Right, 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:04.800 they expect you to talk about everything that's going on 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:07.080 in the world. There's so many different things that people 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:09.400 were able to see our d m s and our 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:12.440 emails and see how they're flooded with so many different 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:16.920 individuals who have an issue, right, and and and they 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:20.680 will understand that we don't have the capacity as organization, 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:26.279 let alone individuals, to bring to like every issue, every 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.520 situation that somebody brings to us. And everybody feels that 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:32.640 the situation that they think is important, it is equally 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:36.000 as important. There's nobody who doesn't think that the boy 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:38.800 who was running down the block and he got hit 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:41.240 with somebody throw a rocket at him doesn't think that's 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:43.800 more important than the police that shot him, or that 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:47.120 the kid that show. Everybody thinks that their issue is 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:50.000 paramount to everything else, so they're gonna come at you. 0:05:50.080 --> 0:05:52.680 So that's that's why I've taken that. But then there's 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:56.920 just those people who are actually agent provocateurs, right, They 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:00.200 sent to try to, you know, to defame you and 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:02.000 make it seem like you're not doing your work. They 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:05.720 have a little bit more followers. They utilize social media, 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:07.839 and this in a in a different plat or a 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:11.159 different way in which they utilize it to it the 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:13.679 message that they have is spread all over the place, 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:17.479 so it starts to become a recurrent theme, theme and 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:21.080 the narrative that people grab onto. So those are two things. 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:25.160 So what I say is this, we have to continue 0:06:25.160 --> 0:06:27.839 to just do the work right. And I understand how 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:31.080 it can be demoralizing, and I understand why, like before us, 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:33.680 like you don't understand why a lot of celebrities just 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:35.520 don't step up, like you've got a platform you to 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.120 do this, and they're vilified, right and this is not 0:06:38.200 --> 0:06:40.719 their everyday work. Some of them step up and just 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:42.760 want to say, you know what, I don't I don't 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:45.359 agree with what happened, man, let me say something about it. 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:48.600 And people start tearing them down, or you don't do this, 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:50.840 what are you doing this for? Or you you should 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:53.880 have been did this or nobody cares what you're saying. 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:56.360 Just shut up and dribble or shut up and wrap 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:59.799 or whatever it is. So it is it is you know, this, 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:03.440 this work that we do is an everyday process. It 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:06.479 has to be God's purpose for you because it is 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:10.080 very painful, especially when you have you know, when you 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:13.520 care about your name, you care about how you are portrayed, 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:16.920 when your reputation is like because for me, my reputation 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:19.240 is all I ever had, you know, prior to getting 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:21.640 involved in this in the I mean this work doing, 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:25.280 prior to WRAP or anything, I was a respected individual 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:27.560 because the way I carried myself, in the way that 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:30.320 I I dealt with integrity. And that's that's one thing 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:32.880 throughout my history of my life that people were always 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:35.560 able to say about me. And this was the first time, 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:38.840 even in hip hop music whatever, my integrity was never 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:41.680 in question. Right it was my talent, my skill level 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:44.120 or did he wash up or nobody cares? And I 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:47.280 went through all of that. But this space people started 0:07:47.280 --> 0:07:51.000 to attack my integrity as a man and calling you 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:54.560 scammers and stealers and liars and cloud chases and amble 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.440 all of these names. So it takes a lot, and 0:07:57.640 --> 0:07:59.880 it really takes a lot. This has to be your caller, 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:02.840 you know, so, and we we deal with it very well. 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:04.680 You know, I know that a lot of people, they 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:09.360 are a lot of UM leaders who passed in present 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:11.680 who have just said fuck it. You know, I'm not 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:14.040 doing this like I'm just gonna I'm not saying nothing. 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:16.160 Let them deal with it. They some of them have 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:18.880 quote unquote sold out because of that, because they said, 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:21.240 you know what, I'm doing all this fighting for people, 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:23.760 and people don't give a funk about what I'm doing. 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:25.480 They call them me all types of names, and I'm not. 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:28.680 I haven't benefited anywhere, so let me stop benefit. I 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:31.040 don't care what nobody thinks now because I've lost so 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:33.680 much and they attack my own people that I'm trying 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:35.680 to say, I'm trying to help and I'm trying to 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:38.320 do all these things for other ones attacking me. So 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:40.600 it's just so much that goes in that that you know, 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:43.040 that question that you know your thought of to day 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:45.720 is very thought provoking. I just asked people, man, just 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:48.440 to take the time before you write something, before you 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:52.120 to say something, before you attack somebody for your accused somebodyself. 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:54.360 Like somebody wrote today to say you're a scammer, And 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:56.640 I said, just prove it, show me one person I 0:08:56.679 --> 0:08:58.280 have a scamed or you have to do. Don't just 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:01.080 don't just go on in and and just write something, 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:03.960 you know, just throw something into the atmosphere that you 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:06.600 have no cluf of, you have no knowledge of. You 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:09.720 just heard a narrative and you grabbed onto it and 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:12.080 then you're spreading it and you're putting it on people 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:15.360 you know. And I just ask you know, as individuals, 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:17.800 as people, as black people, as people in our communities, 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:20.760 before you attack people that are doing work that you've 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:23.920 never done and never will do, and don't even understand 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:26.920 the capacity of which it needs to be done. Just 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:31.000 ask yourself, do I know what I'm saying? Am I 0:09:31.160 --> 0:09:34.560 sure about what I'm saying? Am I clear? And I 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:37.120 it doesn't make sense that I do my due diligence, 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:39.439 that I research, that I do all of this. Don't 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:42.440 understand what it takes to do what this individual is doing, 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:45.280 you know, just just do that, you know, because we 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:48.080 were still humans, you know, we're we're human beings just 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:50.559 like you. We just happened to have a different calling 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:52.880 on our lives and we're move into different space. So 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:55.280 you know, I just ask people, please, man, before you 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:58.199 write someone internet, before you attack somebody, before you call somebody. 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:00.079 And you know what, many times brothers have cold me 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:03.000 names and just said names. I'm like brother, but why 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:05.040 did you have to say that? And I and I said, hey, 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:07.360 well this was going on on my fault what I mean. 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:09.840 But you didn't even take the time out to know 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:12.800 what you meant. You just got so caught up in 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:15.520 the Internet and and the you know, the moment and 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:20.520 attacking somebody in disrespecting the individual. Luckily for you, I'm 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:23.679 the type of individual who understands where you're coming from, 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:26.000 understand that you come from a place of ignorance, and 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:28.240 not understand it. So I'm not trying to meet you 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:31.360 with the same energy. But imagine if I was. Imagine, 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:33.920 you know, and this is how misunderstands and everything starts. 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:35.679 So I just say, people just need to take the 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:39.240 time out, do some research, do something your due diligence 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:41.480 and research and this, don't attack people and you don't 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:42.760 even know what the hell you're talking about.