Speaker 1: Wake that ass up early in the morning. The breakfast
Speaker 1: Club Morning.
Speaker 2: Everybody's dej Envy, Jess, hilarious, Charlamage the guy we are
Speaker 2: the breakfast Club Lo La Rosa feeling and for Jess,
Speaker 2: and we got.
Speaker 1: A special guest in the building. Yes, indeed, my new
Speaker 1: book is out right now.
Speaker 2: I Live to Tell a Story, A memoir of love,
Speaker 2: legacy and resilience. Ladies and gentlemen to me a Mallory,
Speaker 2: welcome back to me on family.
Speaker 3: How are you feeling.
Speaker 1: It's good to see y'all. I'm good. I'm feeling excited.
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, another book today today came out to day.
Speaker 4: I Live to day story a memoir.
Speaker 5: Yes, and thank you, my brother, thank you. Because you know,
Speaker 5: Charlemagne and I as a family made some decisions about
Speaker 5: my book deal. I called him to say, hey, I
Speaker 5: don't know, am I supposed to it was during the summer.
Speaker 1: No, it was twenty twenty one.
Speaker 5: I don't know. Okay, it was twenty twenty right, because
Speaker 5: the book was released in twenty twenty one, So you know,
Speaker 5: I called him to be like, hey, they're offering me
Speaker 5: a lot of money, but there's a lot of people
Speaker 5: offering me different deals.
Speaker 1: What should I do?
Speaker 5: So he's like, well, you know, I have a new imprint,
Speaker 5: and you know, if you want to be my first book,
Speaker 5: I'm down to do a deal with you. And I
Speaker 5: was like, Oh, I didn't even need to hear the
Speaker 5: rest of it. I just said yes, and I'm excited.
Speaker 5: I'm glad that I did. I had a lot of
Speaker 5: creative control here. I would text you and say they're
Speaker 5: not listening to me. Tell them something, you know, But
Speaker 5: it worked out. The whole team has put a lot
Speaker 5: of love and energy in these both books. But this
Speaker 5: one right here is real special to me.
Speaker 4: What's the difference in mindset when it comes to a memoir?
Speaker 4: Because I live to tell a story as a memoir.
Speaker 4: State of Emergency wasn't a memoir. What's the difference between
Speaker 4: the two.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: State of Emergency was more so my theory of change
Speaker 5: for America. It was really a prescription for what I
Speaker 5: think we need to do as a country, and especially
Speaker 5: how people can be not just allies of ours, but
Speaker 5: really accomplices like throw down with us, get yourself in
Speaker 5: trouble if you really stand with black people. But this
Speaker 5: book is a prescription for me and hopefully what comes
Speaker 5: out of it is that somebody else will read the
Speaker 5: book and say, wow, I have I've had some of
Speaker 5: the same challenges, or I was thinking of going down
Speaker 5: the same path, but I see something different that I
Speaker 5: can do. And I know there's a lot of people
Speaker 5: out here, especially young girls, who need somebody to tell
Speaker 5: them that their mistakes are not the end of life,
Speaker 5: you know, because everybody's going to tell you, Oh, you're
Speaker 5: too fast, you're too loud, you talk too much. That's
Speaker 5: what that's the black girl experience. I'm sure you know
Speaker 5: we talk all the time, but you know, but I
Speaker 5: think what you now see is that people pay me
Speaker 5: to talk. Right, So I went from being told that
Speaker 5: I needed to be quiet to people saying, hey, speak up,
Speaker 5: you know, and speak up for me. So I'm hoping
Speaker 5: that it translates in that way. And in fact, a
Speaker 5: lot of people got pre copies, and you know all
Speaker 5: the things that happens in the publishing world, and I've
Speaker 5: already been hearing from people and I'm on my third
Speaker 5: tour date pre release.
Speaker 1: Well now I'll release.
Speaker 5: But the folks who are meeting me and saying, hey,
Speaker 5: you touched me in so many ways just because you
Speaker 5: were honest about things we try to hide.
Speaker 1: That has been really powerful.
Speaker 6: What was the decision to do because the front of
Speaker 6: the book there's a braids on one side. In the
Speaker 6: back of the book is the blone thirty inch bus
Speaker 6: down exactly?
Speaker 1: What was that decision?
Speaker 5: So yeah, so I came up with that. My mother
Speaker 5: kept saying, your first book was really good and I
Speaker 5: loved it, but your picture needs to be on it.
Speaker 5: And I was like, mom, my memoir is going to
Speaker 5: have a picture. And I was tossing and turning with
Speaker 5: how to represent myself properly? What the corn rolls people
Speaker 5: know me for? Especially if you met me after George
Speaker 5: Floyd passed away because of or was killed because of
Speaker 5: the viral speech in Minneapolis, you probably met the corn
Speaker 5: roll because that was all we had, and especially during
Speaker 5: the pandemic, I could only get some corn rolls from
Speaker 5: my homegirl who does my.
Speaker 1: Hair, who was braiding, but we.
Speaker 5: Weren't like weaving and doing all of that, spending eight
Speaker 5: hours in the salon. So I was out in the
Speaker 5: summertime in Kentucky. It was hot, everything was closed down.
Speaker 5: The corn rolls worked, and a lot of people met
Speaker 5: me that way, and that's me. I'm on the ground.
Speaker 5: I love my corn rolls. You see, I've decided to
Speaker 5: keep this look even during this release. But that's just
Speaker 5: that's not I'm not one dimensional, right, My bus down
Speaker 5: is another part of my life. I like to be
Speaker 5: a girly girl, and so I've struggled with how to
Speaker 5: do both things. Could I put two pictures, it wouldn't
Speaker 5: have been too much. And then I just came up
Speaker 5: with this idea that I wanted to half do and
Speaker 5: everybody thought I was absolutely crazy until they designed it
Speaker 5: and came back and said, you know what, this might
Speaker 5: actually work. And the other thing that people don't really see,
Speaker 5: and well, you know, I pointed out all the time
Speaker 5: is that the housing projects I was born and raised
Speaker 5: in is in the background of the book, so you
Speaker 5: can see the buildings literally where I grew up. And
Speaker 5: it's it's really this cover is more than just a cover.
Speaker 5: It's like telling you a story about what's in the
Speaker 5: book and what's in my life.
Speaker 3: Is that where you found your voice?
Speaker 5: Brothers, absolutely, because you know in the book there's a
Speaker 5: part where it talks about me running around the house
Speaker 5: as a little kid, saying power to the people, power
Speaker 5: to the people, and everybody in my house is like, okay,
Speaker 5: we get it, power to the people, but we tied
Speaker 5: go to sleep. My parents have always been super duper black.
Speaker 5: They wear Dashiki sweatsuits. You know, they like that black
Speaker 5: Koofi's black. And you know, they always took me to
Speaker 5: places and spaces where I was empowered, even as a
Speaker 5: young kid. You know, you take your kids places and
Speaker 5: don't think they're paying attention. But it was getting in
Speaker 5: me from young so it translated into you know, where
Speaker 5: I am today, and it's been all throughout my life.
Speaker 1: What I have learned is when and where to speak.
Speaker 5: I've learned to be more mindful and careful about what
Speaker 5: I say, you know, and where I say it. But
Speaker 5: when I was young, I just was like i'mna say
Speaker 5: anything because y'all said power to the people.
Speaker 1: So hey, it's like you gotta go there sing woo.
Speaker 4: That's a good point because I like, you know, they
Speaker 4: always say the opposite of courage is not cowardice is conformity.
Speaker 3: So you think that's conforming.
Speaker 5: Well, I don't think I was conforming, I think, or
Speaker 5: now I don't think I'm conforming. But I'm just wiser,
Speaker 5: you know, and I also have learned to protect my peace,
Speaker 5: so I don't want to get in every fight.
Speaker 1: I don't want to argue all the time. I used
Speaker 1: to do that.
Speaker 5: I used to spend my whole day going back and
Speaker 5: forth with people. And then I realized that I was
Speaker 5: not necessarily being as effective in my own life because
Speaker 5: my time was spent debating with people who that's what
Speaker 5: they do, you know what I mean, that's all they do.
Speaker 5: I got all these other things. I run businesses, I
Speaker 5: run an organization, I have all this stuff going on,
Speaker 5: and I'm sitting up here just in every argument all
Speaker 5: the time. So I just decided to make my voice
Speaker 5: mean more by using it at the appropriate time. So
Speaker 5: I wouldn't say it's conformity, but it certainly is wisdom.
Speaker 6: Do you remember what point in your life that was
Speaker 6: when you decided to do that, because you have a
Speaker 6: lot of battles.
Speaker 5: What was that when well, stop arguing with him all
Speaker 5: the time? That's where it first started. I just got Look,
Speaker 5: I just stopped because between him and Bruh, we can
Speaker 5: stay on a text threat for three days fighting about
Speaker 5: the same thing. So I just learned how to just
Speaker 5: be like, you know what, I'm gonna be quiet. I
Speaker 5: know exactly what he does. But we do have meaningful conversation.
Speaker 5: I can say that even I'm sure we both will
Speaker 5: agree that even when we don't agree, we still come
Speaker 5: out wiser, like we know a little bit more about
Speaker 5: the topic and see different perspectives, which is important. But
Speaker 5: I think that when I really learned how to be
Speaker 5: more effective and using my voice was during the Women's March, right,
Speaker 5: like you know, that was a real, real hard time,
Speaker 5: and I once I started going through the controversy and
Speaker 5: all the attacks and people coming at me for anything
Speaker 5: they could think of, I found myself getting you know,
Speaker 5: I was drained trying to explain and it's like, why
Speaker 5: do you you just stop?
Speaker 1: Just stop.
Speaker 5: In fact, some of the sisters around me called me
Speaker 5: one day and said, it's not working. Like what you're doing.
Speaker 5: You on Twitter, you on Instagram, You're trying to explain.
Speaker 5: It's not working. It's not coming across. And it hurt
Speaker 5: my feelings because I'm like, but y'all know, y'all know
Speaker 5: what they're doing to me. But then it will I
Speaker 5: kind of opened my eyes to what they were saying
Speaker 5: that I was only making the situation worse.
Speaker 1: It wasn't getting better.
Speaker 6: So you feel like you wroke. You became stronger in
Speaker 6: your messaging after you realize that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think, well, I know, I became stronger as
Speaker 5: a person, right that, which you know is what I
Speaker 5: don't think. My message wasn't strong, but it was overkill,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean, because you again, you cannot
Speaker 5: force people to understand what they're not trying, even if
Speaker 5: they already know. Many people already know what you're saying,
Speaker 5: and they have decided that they're just not going to
Speaker 5: agree with you. So I think it made me stronger
Speaker 5: as a person that now when I speak on something,
Speaker 5: I absolutely feel convicted. And therefore, whatever I gotta do,
Speaker 5: whatever war, I'm in. Hey, to hell with it, we
Speaker 5: in it, I do it.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna ask good that was going to ask why
Speaker 2: the memoir now? Right? Some people will say it's still
Speaker 2: too early for a memoir. Some people will say, you know,
Speaker 2: a memoir is a period piece of time in your life,
Speaker 2: so why now?
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know what, I'm at the hopefully like a
Speaker 5: little less than halfway point right about fifty. You think
Speaker 5: you're kind of at the halfway point of life. I'm
Speaker 5: forty four. Obviously, other people.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. I work at this every day.
Speaker 5: Obviously, people saw that in me that there was a story.
Speaker 5: And when I first when I first sat and wrote
Speaker 5: a outline and outline of what would be in the book,
Speaker 5: I didn't believe on page one that.
Speaker 1: There was a story. I was like, this is whatever.
Speaker 5: But by the time we finished the outline and went
Speaker 5: over it together, I said, oh my God, like this
Speaker 5: is a real powerful story. And I'm at the point
Speaker 5: in my life where I can actually walk with this
Speaker 5: book and tell the story for myself versus being elderly,
Speaker 5: you know, and kind of unable to even remember some
Speaker 5: of the things that happened, you know. But obviously a
Speaker 5: big part of this book is that I ended up
Speaker 5: going to rehab for the pill addiction, which we've talked
Speaker 5: about on this show before, and I think that that
Speaker 5: marks a really important time that kind of like bookends
Speaker 5: the story, you know, from me starting as a little girl.
Speaker 5: I tell you all about that because who knew coming
Speaker 5: from the projects in Harlem that I was going to
Speaker 5: end up on stages in front of millions of people
Speaker 5: and that folks would be listening to me as a
Speaker 5: leader no one ever instilled that. I mean, my parents
Speaker 5: may have told me that, but the world didn't say
Speaker 5: little black girl from the Projects can become this. It
Speaker 5: just you know, it wasn't a thing. So that's the
Speaker 5: first part. But then there's like there's challenges. There's challenges
Speaker 5: that come with influence and what some people consider to
Speaker 5: be celebrity, even though I don't really use that and
Speaker 5: reference to myself, but some people feel that way. There's
Speaker 5: challenges that come with all of that and ending up
Speaker 5: in that place, that dark place of being in rehab.
Speaker 5: It's something that I knew I had to tell and
Speaker 5: I don't want it to be like mixed into an
Speaker 5: early story. I really wanted it to be like you
Speaker 5: and me, we on this journey together right now. When
Speaker 5: I said it here on the Breakfast Club in the
Speaker 5: Old Space, people started reaching out to me. That you know,
Speaker 5: because you're in the world, so you understand. But there
Speaker 5: are a lot of people that you would think, whoa, hey,
Speaker 5: A lot of people did what I did. Because when
Speaker 5: I first contacted Jason Williams, the NBA All Star, you
Speaker 5: know he is in the healing space after all the
Speaker 5: things we know he went through. My first contact in him.
Speaker 5: I was kind of like, Hey, my friend is going
Speaker 5: through something, what can you tell me. He let me
Speaker 5: do that for two times, two three calls. By the
Speaker 5: third call, he was like, Sis, I already know what
Speaker 5: it is. It's all good, Like you need to get
Speaker 5: shipped together, basically. And I started getting those calls and
Speaker 5: some people who were real honest, and I said, Oh,
Speaker 5: hold up, this is serious, because these it's not. It
Speaker 5: wasn't people who look cracked out on the street. This
Speaker 5: was folks who have big jobs, they sitting in big positions,
Speaker 5: and they were like, I am so proud of you
Speaker 5: that you were brave to speak about it. And you know,
Speaker 5: I know somebody who might be also dealing. Pilliction is real,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean? Pill addiction is real because
Speaker 5: it's silent. You don't smell it like alcohol. You don't
Speaker 5: see people looking like they're high, but they're taking pills
Speaker 5: to numb themselves, all different types of things. And when
Speaker 5: I started to see how many people have the same experience,
Speaker 5: I knew it was time for me to release this story.
Speaker 4: You know, another part of the book that I love
Speaker 4: is when you talk about you know what happened with
Speaker 4: the Women's March, and you know, not just what happened
Speaker 4: with you. I wonder if people are going to read that,
Speaker 4: especially women that were involved, and say, man, she wasn't
Speaker 4: just ringing the alarm for herself, she was bringing their
Speaker 4: along for how they're trying to break us up. That
Speaker 4: was such an amazing movement that way. So I feel
Speaker 4: like they broke up rather fast. Was that a hard chapter?
Speaker 3: Right? Yeah?
Speaker 5: Well, the Women's March part is really difficult for me
Speaker 5: even to talk about, just because first of all, it
Speaker 5: still exists, and there are people there who were a
Speaker 5: part of breaking up.
Speaker 1: The Women's March.
Speaker 5: So I try not to call their names because I'm
Speaker 5: trying to do better in life.
Speaker 1: It took me.
Speaker 5: I was as a whole way here. I kept saying,
Speaker 5: don't be calling people's names, and so, yeah, it's hard
Speaker 5: to write about that. Our experience there is something that, Yes,
Speaker 5: it was amazing, incredible. I'm glad I did it, even
Speaker 5: knowing what I know, I would do it again because
Speaker 5: we made history that can't be taken away from us.
Speaker 3: Are duplicated, and it.
Speaker 1: Is it does.
Speaker 5: I mean, they actually just had something that was you
Speaker 5: know good, you know, I'm glad that they're continuing our
Speaker 5: work because we certainly were the trailblazers.
Speaker 1: We started it.
Speaker 5: We the list that is, you know that that they used,
Speaker 5: the social media, all of that we created.
Speaker 1: That those are people who started.
Speaker 5: Following us, and and and and it's not about just
Speaker 5: replacing individuals. It's also, in my judgment about the people
Speaker 5: who were there were ordained, if you will, to be there,
Speaker 5: right like it was the place that God put us
Speaker 5: and it was for a reason. And so there's a
Speaker 5: history that exists that at times it can be painful
Speaker 5: to have to relive and then also to kind of
Speaker 5: see people act like they were the first ones at
Speaker 5: the gate, you know what I mean. And so but
Speaker 5: at the same time, I will say that I know
Speaker 5: there are some incredible women that are in the Women's
Speaker 5: March today, black women who've taken over the space, and
Speaker 5: they're making sure that the Women's March continues to be
Speaker 5: welcoming to black women. And so, you know, I'm happy
Speaker 5: to see that word continue.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask, you know, how do you
Speaker 2: deal with everything that you're going through?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: We see you on the front lines a lot of times,
Speaker 2: we see you online, we see you on TV. But
Speaker 2: you have to be going through a lot because not
Speaker 2: everybody that's with you is supporting you, right, There's a
Speaker 2: lot of people that's going against you, and you have
Speaker 2: to deal with that as well. Where you're really trying
Speaker 2: to do something, not for financial grain financial gains. A
Speaker 2: lot of times it puts you in danger, but you
Speaker 2: still do it. But there's a lot of people that
Speaker 2: still attack you. How do you deal with that?
Speaker 5: So I don't mind any you know, I've been in
Speaker 5: this for thirty years, envy like, that's how long. That's
Speaker 5: how long I've been in this work for thirty years.
Speaker 5: I started before my son was born and he's about
Speaker 5: to be twenty six, so that's a long time. So
Speaker 5: I'm used to attacks, right, And I'm definitely used to
Speaker 5: the attacks that come from what is considered to be
Speaker 5: the other side. What is often very very frustrating. It's
Speaker 5: people who are supposed to be in the movement together,
Speaker 5: we're all supposed to be trying to work towards the
Speaker 5: same goal, who you just see and hear with the
Speaker 5: sly attacks and the sly comments and things that they're
Speaker 5: doing and saying to try to discredit the work that
Speaker 5: we put in that for me is probably the most
Speaker 5: frustrating part. And what's frustrating about it it's not even
Speaker 5: that they do it. What's frustrating is that I have
Speaker 5: always tried to maintain a posture of not getting into
Speaker 5: a public battle with people who were all supposed to
Speaker 5: be walking in the same direction. You know. I always
Speaker 5: think about and I try to remind myself because I
Speaker 5: was raised in the King tradition, right in the Doctor
Speaker 5: King tradition. That's what I learned. I learned about the
Speaker 5: principles of nonviolence. Carmen, if she was here, Carmen Perez
Speaker 5: would say, you attack the forces of evil and not
Speaker 5: people doing evil, right, And I've had to tell myself
Speaker 5: that over and over and over again, even when evil
Speaker 5: means people, even within our movement.
Speaker 1: And so I was raised.
Speaker 5: I think about this one particular scene in a movie
Speaker 5: called King in the Wilderness.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 5: I love this one of my favorite documentaries films about
Speaker 5: Doctor King because he knows that he's about to die.
Speaker 1: He can feel it. You know, he has a great despair.
Speaker 5: You can see him walking around and at times you
Speaker 5: know that he's like, you know, really going through something
Speaker 5: that's telling him this danger Lumen lat yeah, right, last
Speaker 5: eight months of his life. And there's a scene where
Speaker 5: he is walking next to Stokely Carmichael.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: So, first of all, they're in the same march and
Speaker 5: they had tension. Trust me, they had tension, and a
Speaker 5: lot of times they kept the attention in the basement
Speaker 5: of a building and then came out and they was together.
Speaker 5: You couldn't necessarily tell this particular day. They're walking in
Speaker 5: the march and the reporter is asking doctor King, like,
Speaker 5: what should you know? How should we be moving forward?
Speaker 5: What should people be doing? And Doctor King is like,
Speaker 5: you know, you know, I believe in the principles of
Speaker 5: nonviolence and it is not passive, and he's going on
Speaker 5: and on about nonviolence. And then they turn around and
Speaker 5: they asked Stokely Carmichael, what do you think that we
Speaker 5: should be doing?
Speaker 1: What's the direction?
Speaker 5: He said, I think we should burn this whole damn
Speaker 5: thing down, right, And so it's two different mindsets, two
Speaker 5: totally different mindsets, but they're walking in the same direction
Speaker 5: and they're able to be there. And doctor King didn't
Speaker 5: get scared and say let me run away. In fact,
Speaker 5: he used the energy of those people who were like
Speaker 5: burn it down, tear it up. And he took that
Speaker 5: into these government offices and corporations and wherever else he
Speaker 5: was and said, Hey, these folks getting ready to mess
Speaker 5: your shit up, like you know, y'all better figure out
Speaker 5: what we're doing here. And they also held him accountable
Speaker 5: by saying, these are the things that we need you
Speaker 5: to get done if you are going to go in
Speaker 5: these places and be sort of the voice of the people.
Speaker 5: So I've always tried to be that. I've always tried
Speaker 5: to be that. But I can also tell when people
Speaker 5: are disingenuous, when when it's more about them than it
Speaker 5: is about the actual movement, and that is something that
Speaker 5: gets me pissed off. Then I'll be ready to, you know,
Speaker 5: say things.
Speaker 3: Don't you think we need an inside outside?
Speaker 4: Because one thing from the same Bacmendary Kingdowilderness, there was
Speaker 4: a scene where Lyndon B. Johnson calls Martin Luther King Jr.
Speaker 4: When he's in LA I believe for the Watch Rights right,
Speaker 4: and he goes, Yo, what is going on? But Martin
Speaker 4: knew that call was coming right right. So Martin was like, well,
Speaker 4: now we need our check. Like you know, we got
Speaker 4: the civil rights and the voting rights and all that,
Speaker 4: but now it was about the money that people are
Speaker 4: out here hurting. So don't you think you need an
Speaker 4: inside outside?
Speaker 5: I mean I play it all the time. We played
Speaker 5: outside a lot more than we do the inside. So
Speaker 5: certainly I think that's important. I think I'm speaking to
Speaker 5: something different. But the answer to short answer to your
Speaker 5: question is yes, we have to have that.
Speaker 4: I think the problem is the inside more than it's
Speaker 4: the outside nowadays, because y'all be outside doing what y'all
Speaker 4: are supposed to do. But then it's hard to get
Speaker 4: people on the inside. Yeah, they want to work with
Speaker 4: y'all because they want to you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's that's true.
Speaker 5: People get comfortable when they get on the inside, and
Speaker 5: they are afraid to work with people who are considered
Speaker 5: to be controversial, you know. And so I would say
Speaker 5: that that is an issue that we deal with. But
Speaker 5: not everybody on the inside is like that, you know.
Speaker 5: I think about somebody like Mark Morril, who is sort
Speaker 5: of an insider right National Urban League. He's in the buildings,
Speaker 5: in the meetings, but there's not been a time when
Speaker 5: I've called him to say, Mark, here's our position. Here's
Speaker 5: what I want you to say, or here's you know
Speaker 5: what I need from you. That he hasn't shown up
Speaker 5: to be a partner in that way. And so there's
Speaker 5: a lot of people like that, and you know, I
Speaker 5: think we have to give credit too, I think, in
Speaker 5: every aspect of the movement, because there's outsiders that are problematic, right,
Speaker 5: So there's inside outside, it's problematic people all over the place,
Speaker 5: which is part of why our struggle seem in the
Speaker 5: cycles continue to go around in the ways that they do.
Speaker 5: I think we if we were a little bit more
Speaker 5: effective in how we coordinate the inside outside, and also
Speaker 5: that we identify the opponent not being us. It's not
Speaker 5: black institutions, it's not black people, it's not black organizers,
Speaker 5: it's not black protesters. The problem is that we're fighting
Speaker 5: against something, and we all need to identify white supremacy
Speaker 5: looks like what white nationalism is. We need to identify
Speaker 5: what ignorance and hate is and really use our energy
Speaker 5: to talk more about our strategies rather than to talk
Speaker 5: down on people who have built Because you know, when
Speaker 5: I think about black institutions, and I also think about
Speaker 5: Black Wall Street and Rosewood and all of these places
Speaker 5: that we know black people built real economic power. It
Speaker 5: wasn't that black folks didn't do it. It's not that
Speaker 5: black institutions weren't a part of it, because it would
Speaker 5: not have existed if it had not been for the
Speaker 5: work of people who have been have have toiled and
Speaker 5: died in order for us literally put their lives and
Speaker 5: bodies on the line, in order for us to be
Speaker 5: in the positions that we're in to even be able
Speaker 5: to sit here in this great, big, beautiful building today.
Speaker 1: But there have been it. At every point.
Speaker 5: White folks government had literally burned down physical burned down
Speaker 5: what we built. So I don't think anybody worked hard
Speaker 5: to say, massa, let me in. I want to be
Speaker 5: your friend. You know, just accept me. That's not what happened.
Speaker 5: People worked so that we can actually enjoy our labor.
Speaker 5: As Angela Rai says all the time, we built this
Speaker 5: nation for free on our backs. So we're not asking
Speaker 5: for anything that we don't deserve. We pay taxes. We
Speaker 5: ought to receive part of our tax dollars to help
Speaker 5: empower our community. So when folks are saying to the government,
Speaker 5: we want positions of power, we want resources for our community.
Speaker 5: We're not asking somebody for a handout for charity.
Speaker 1: We're asking for.
Speaker 5: The money that's going out of our paycheck to come
Speaker 5: back and recycle in our community.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: So I always, I always am cautious about Yes, there
Speaker 5: needs to be a critique. We all absolutely need to
Speaker 5: critique where we are with our institutions, with our organizations,
Speaker 5: and where we are as a movement. But a critique
Speaker 5: that is not also coupled with step one, two, three, four,
Speaker 5: five six of the next level of the plan is
Speaker 5: problematic to me. And be honest with you, I don't
Speaker 5: trust people who spend a lot of time talking about
Speaker 5: themselves and then talking down on black institutions.
Speaker 1: I don't trust them.
Speaker 6: So I was going to say, so, I know the
Speaker 6: target conversation comes up when I think about this, right,
Speaker 6: And you were pushing the boycott target when the DEI
Speaker 6: stuff happened, and then, like Tabitha Brown, there's people saying,
Speaker 6: don't boycott target, support the black brands so that they
Speaker 6: don't erase the black brands out of there. I know
Speaker 6: you get pushed back for your take, but I don't
Speaker 6: know you also listen to it as well to try
Speaker 6: and figure out how to move forward.
Speaker 1: What's the answer to all of that?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 6: Because you're strongly on one side, you got other people
Speaker 6: on the other side, Is there ever really answer to that?
Speaker 1: Like, what do we really do?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 5: First of all, people gonna do whatever they gonna do,
Speaker 5: So let's just be clear about that. We're never going
Speaker 5: to be in a situation where one hundred percent of
Speaker 5: anybody of any group says we're all gonna do the
Speaker 5: same thing. And I also want to say publicly that
Speaker 5: I love and appreciate tap at the Brown. Right, this
Speaker 5: is a sister that I watch all the time. You know,
Speaker 5: I see people in my comments section like, oh Taba
Speaker 5: think going like we're not doing that right? Like, I'm
Speaker 5: supportive of her. I've purchased products from her offline. I
Speaker 5: support her. Love the sister and the other black business owners.
Speaker 5: Courtney Adele Judy, you know, I call it what she's
Speaker 5: BB Judy. I was getting ready to say what BB
Speaker 5: means to me, but we ain't gonna do that.
Speaker 1: Doing that cleidoscope.
Speaker 5: That's right, that's my girl though, love her, love her,
Speaker 5: love her, And it's not just her. There's a bunch
Speaker 5: of a bunch of things as well. Absolutely lit lip
Speaker 5: bar who I just learned of rook Roots. Uh yeah,
Speaker 5: So it's it's so many people I want to get
Speaker 5: in trouble for for that.
Speaker 3: I actually got a few of them coming up.
Speaker 5: Good.
Speaker 1: Good.
Speaker 5: So all these businesses are important, and I think that
Speaker 5: we do need to support them. But I also understand
Speaker 5: that every time you First of all, I'll say two things.
Speaker 1: Your presence is also a part.
Speaker 5: Of your boycott, right, It's also a part of your protest,
Speaker 5: if you will that when you walk through the door
Speaker 5: of a business, a building, anywhere you go, if people
Speaker 5: see your face, that also is a sign of support.
Speaker 1: So a part of our withdrawal.
Speaker 5: Is that we shouldn't even be showing up in spaces
Speaker 5: where people are saying they don't want And I am
Speaker 5: very careful not to continuously say DEI, because that takes
Speaker 5: away the power of the meaning. Diversity, equity and inclusion
Speaker 5: are what we're talking about. And so if somebody says
Speaker 5: I've decided that I'm rolling back the diversity, equity and inclusion,
Speaker 5: what are we talking about. There's no reason for me
Speaker 5: to even give you my money. I just you know,
Speaker 5: I don't see a reason to to shopping your stores
Speaker 5: and to be a consumer that helps you to raise
Speaker 5: your bottom line. And so for me, I drop brands
Speaker 5: all the time and that's why I'm.
Speaker 1: Easy to do it.
Speaker 5: Gucci had to face the blackface sweater out gone, Nike
Speaker 5: cut their contract with Kyrie Irvin, and I felt it
Speaker 5: was very unfair. It was just racist to me and
Speaker 5: wrong out. I'm done all Nikes going out of my
Speaker 5: home and shout out to my song for that because
Speaker 5: he started it, and I was kind of like.
Speaker 1: We're gonna throw our Nike away? What you mean?
Speaker 5: But then when I really when I really thought about it,
Speaker 5: I was like, you know what, You're actually right, So
Speaker 5: I understand, you know what he meant, and you know
Speaker 5: why he did that and why that was his protest.
Speaker 5: And guess what, Now I'm on actively Black. So it
Speaker 5: was like a mindset shift that I went from wearing
Speaker 5: all the tech suits wearing all the Nikes too. Now
Speaker 5: I'm in actively black and other black sports where and
Speaker 5: I started wearing Cya Collector sneakers.
Speaker 1: I immediately I needed.
Speaker 5: Something right, and I immediately thought, let's transform spending money
Speaker 5: with these people and start spending it with our own.
Speaker 5: And that's why I've been saying to people that that
Speaker 5: is for us. In a lot of ways, what we
Speaker 5: know will happen, what will come out of this is
Speaker 5: that people are frustrated, they're angry, they want to do something,
Speaker 5: they want to get active, and now they're able to
Speaker 5: take and shift their power. Now, the first part of
Speaker 5: it is learning how to hold your money. Because we
Speaker 5: are big consumers. You know, we love to spend money.
Speaker 5: So the first part is learning how to hold your money.
Speaker 5: The next part is when you start thinking, well, where
Speaker 5: else how can I be creative in other places that
Speaker 5: I can go to? Maybe let me look online to
Speaker 5: see if there's a black company that can ship me
Speaker 5: paper towels and toilet tissues. That is how you start
Speaker 5: to transition the thought the thought and excuse me the mindset,
Speaker 5: if you will.
Speaker 1: And that's what we're working on.
Speaker 5: I think that people often forget when folks say, you
Speaker 5: know a boycotts, boycotts don't work, or why boycott? What
Speaker 5: people don't understand about us is that we are and
Speaker 5: I have to remind folks we're frontliners.
Speaker 1: This is what we do. We prepare people for combat.
Speaker 5: When people come through our doors, they are trained mentally
Speaker 5: for whatever the next steps are going to be and
Speaker 5: if other people say, well, we need to do more,
Speaker 5: because this is me and Charlomagne arguing about what about
Speaker 5: this company? And what about Amazon? And what about Walmart?
Speaker 5: And what about Meta? Those things are important and there
Speaker 5: are people who are doing all of it.
Speaker 1: Some people don't. They are my comment.
Speaker 5: Sections saying they're never going back to Walmart. They got
Speaker 5: rid of everybody on the DEI list. But there are
Speaker 5: people who need to start somewhere. And there is power
Speaker 5: in using your force to attack one particular issue at
Speaker 5: a time. Once you are able, in my judgment, to
Speaker 5: show Target that we as black women especially spend a
Speaker 5: lot of money with you that I think the numbers
Speaker 5: are around twenty nine million dollars you would lose in
Speaker 5: one day if all black people didn't shop in Target. Right,
Speaker 5: If we can show Target that the message resonates with
Speaker 5: all the other companies that you're talking about, everybody gets
Speaker 5: the message that wait a minute, the black people are
Speaker 5: getting upset. We need that two trillion dollars of spending
Speaker 5: that they usually circulate within our companies and our businesses,
Speaker 5: and now they're starting to think and move differently. Once
Speaker 5: you start saying I'm actually going to join this movement
Speaker 5: and start to boycott and start to.
Speaker 1: Fast from particular businesses.
Speaker 5: It's easier for you to start thinking, well, what else
Speaker 5: can we do together?
Speaker 2: I guess people will question it, like how do you
Speaker 2: decide which business to start?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Because you know you can say Target, But like you
Speaker 2: said Walmart, people say, get their packages on Amazon.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: People are still on.
Speaker 2: Facebook all day long, They're still on Instagram all day
Speaker 2: So I guess people were saying, like, how do you
Speaker 2: pick and choose which way to go?
Speaker 5: So I have a perfect answer for you for that.
Speaker 5: It comes from the people. It comes from the bottom up.
Speaker 5: You have to be able to listen to people. So
Speaker 5: I'll give you an example. In my comment section. There
Speaker 5: are black women in there who are saying Target hit different.
Speaker 5: It feels different to them right they go. People say
Speaker 5: what about Meta? Well, when I open my phone for Meta,
Speaker 5: I don't see my bank account dwindling. It just doesn't
Speaker 5: resonate the same way. It's not to say Meta is
Speaker 5: not problematic, but people do not see the bottom line
Speaker 5: of their bank account impacted by their getting on social media.
Speaker 5: There's a black woman in my comments right now saying
Speaker 5: that when she closed her Target card, she looked at
Speaker 5: what she spent, and she spent forty six thousand dollars
Speaker 5: over twelve years.
Speaker 1: You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: We gave it a nickname, we called it Tarjam and
Speaker 5: walked in there feeling at home, feeling.
Speaker 1: Like, Okay, I'm safe in Target.
Speaker 5: I could spend four hours in here buying stuff I'm
Speaker 5: not even supposed to have, but I feel comfortable. So
Speaker 5: with movements I always use I've been using this example
Speaker 5: for the last few weeks there. I've been involved in
Speaker 5: all types of police shootings.
Speaker 1: Some of them are.
Speaker 5: Worse than anything that you could name on this show.
Speaker 5: And we know some really bad situations, and for whatever reason,
Speaker 5: there are certain issues that touch people. When you see that,
Speaker 5: as an organizer, you don't say, well, what about ism?
Speaker 1: Because what about ism is the art of confusion.
Speaker 5: It keeps people in paralysis and they don't want to
Speaker 5: move at all. You have to say, well, I see
Speaker 5: people are really concerned about Breonna Taylor. Even though Pam
Speaker 5: Turner was shot to death as a woman, a older
Speaker 5: woman who was mentally unstable. She was shot to death
Speaker 5: in Houston, Texas, outside of her building by who knew
Speaker 5: she had mental illness and he gunned down while she
Speaker 5: was on the ground laying down. That's terrible. But guess
Speaker 5: what did you hear about Pam Turner? Probably nay.
Speaker 6: I think I did see us wipe through breaking down
Speaker 6: her case a bit, but it wasn't.
Speaker 5: It's not something digital exactly. Brianna Taylor. Terrible, but Brianna Taylor.
Speaker 5: It mobilized people. It got people really upset this young
Speaker 5: girl in her house. They got really upset about it.
Speaker 5: So we have continued to lift Pam Turning. In fact,
Speaker 5: we bring her daughter with us to events and Toorny
Speaker 5: Crump continues to check on her, and I love her.
Speaker 1: Dear young sister.
Speaker 5: And I'm sure there are times and I've had other families,
Speaker 5: not her, not Pam Turner's family, but I've had other
Speaker 5: families say why not us, like look at me? I
Speaker 5: also have lost a loved one, and it seems like
Speaker 5: everybody is organizing over here.
Speaker 1: That happens.
Speaker 5: We should continue to bring those people, But you cannot
Speaker 5: stop a grassroots movement from rising from the round up.
Speaker 1: You can't do that.
Speaker 5: So for whatever reason, Target has touched a nerve in
Speaker 5: people and has made them feel like they're ready to
Speaker 5: get active on that.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that we need to shift the energy.
Speaker 5: I think we need to use Target as a starting point.
Speaker 5: As has been said Nina Turner. Let's give her the
Speaker 5: honorable Nina Turner hopefully should be up here soon. Her
Speaker 5: and of course Jamal Brian has the Target fast. These
Speaker 5: two individuals are looking at where we are and how
Speaker 5: do we start? And now we can take that and say, oh,
Speaker 5: and just so you know, because I just saw Disney World,
Speaker 5: I think yesterday they announced that they're rolling back their
Speaker 5: DEI practices.
Speaker 1: So now what do we do about that? We can
Speaker 1: continue to move people.
Speaker 5: And you're also talking about folks who've never ever boycotted anything.
Speaker 1: They've been the best consumers.
Speaker 5: You are now having to retrain people's minds to know
Speaker 5: that you're not gonna die if you don't go to Target.
Speaker 5: There's other places that have your makeup, white removers or
Speaker 5: your dog food, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: So I got a lot of different questions, you know,
Speaker 4: And I think what you said about the confusion part
Speaker 4: is very true, right because even when it comes to
Speaker 4: things like Nike. Yeah, okay, Kyrie, Irvan, you know is
Speaker 4: no longer with Nike, but then they have people like
Speaker 4: Lebron James. Of course, I have people like Colin Kaepernick. Yeah,
Speaker 4: people like I guess I'm wanna talk about Lebron and
Speaker 4: Colin in particular, is because they do different levels of activism,
Speaker 4: so people feel like they still want to support that,
Speaker 4: or you know, even with the Target thing. Yes, if
Speaker 4: there's a grassroots movement and people are saying, hey, I
Speaker 4: want a boycott Target, cool, But what about when they
Speaker 4: look at this whole other list and they do ask they.
Speaker 3: Will continue to ask that question.
Speaker 4: They will continue to say, well, you're still using Amazon,
Speaker 4: You're still going to Walmart, you know, you're still on Meta.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I don't think that it is the responsibility.
Speaker 5: First of all, I'll say this, if you boycott your shoes,
Speaker 5: your shirt, your pants, your T shirt, your underwear all
Speaker 5: at the same time you walk around get people not
Speaker 5: gonna do that. That's not realistic. And I don't think
Speaker 5: that we should set unrealistic goals for ourselves and our movement.
Speaker 5: It's already hard enough to get people just to lect
Speaker 5: the algorithm rhythm, or for the algorithm to push the
Speaker 5: message that there is even a Target fast or a
Speaker 5: Target boycott.
Speaker 1: That's like not easy to do.
Speaker 5: You actually got to hit the streets, knock on doors,
Speaker 5: and talk to people directly, which we are beginning to do.
Speaker 1: Nikima Armstrong, who.
Speaker 5: Is an organizer in Minnesota. This is the local community
Speaker 5: where the Target headquarters is located and the place where
Speaker 5: my viral speech which I mentioned Target in the speech,
Speaker 5: where it happened because of George Floyd. Like that's the
Speaker 5: other thing, is like the connection between Target and that
Speaker 5: moment when the city of Minneapolis was burning down, right,
Speaker 5: Like y'all remember that when everything was on fire and
Speaker 5: Target seemed to remain standing right there and it was
Speaker 5: next to an AutoZone. The AutoZone was burned down, the
Speaker 5: police precinct was burned down, and Target was right there.
Speaker 5: In my speech when I said I don't give a
Speaker 5: damn if they burned down Target, because Target ought to
Speaker 5: be out here with us fighting for justice, I wasn't
Speaker 5: saying go burn down Target. I'm just saying, don't even
Speaker 5: bring up buildings burning. When a man was killed, he
Speaker 5: was murdered on TV in front of a bunch of
Speaker 5: people who a part of them was murdered as well,
Speaker 5: in that moment, and Target the next day released a
Speaker 5: statement saying they were going to open the doors and
Speaker 5: let people come in and out and get whatever they wanted.
Speaker 5: Folks were in Target getting milk for the eyes of
Speaker 5: protesters who you know, the police were out there tear
Speaker 5: gasing people. They were getting alcohol and gods and everything
Speaker 5: else that they needed to deal with, rubber bullets, and
Speaker 5: I'm sure they got some TVs and some pamps and
Speaker 5: some the things too. I'm not gonna say they didn't.
Speaker 5: I'm sure they did. But Target heard the message. So
Speaker 5: the connection is not some pie in the sky thing
Speaker 5: that we just said, oh, we're just gonna pick on Target. No,
Speaker 5: that the CEO came out and said, this could have
Speaker 5: been one of my employees. So how when Donald Trump
Speaker 5: comes with his racist attack on diversity, equity and inclusion,
Speaker 5: do you just fold like that and people say, well,
Speaker 5: you know, no, no, no, they still have the program,
Speaker 5: which by the way, they have not said a thing.
Speaker 5: So I just want to say for people who are
Speaker 5: listening who keep calling me telling me, well, did you
Speaker 5: talk to this person and that person? Because they still
Speaker 5: have a program and they still are committed to some
Speaker 5: of these things. The question that I have for you
Speaker 5: is when is Target gonna come out and talk about it.
Speaker 4: I never understand why any of those corporations are not
Speaker 4: any of this publicly, To be honest.
Speaker 5: With you, right, you could have changed it and we
Speaker 5: wouldn't have even known, right, Like, they haven't done it. Well,
Speaker 5: that's the reason why they publicly said it is because
Speaker 5: they want to be down with the good old boys.
Speaker 1: They want to be in the oligarchy.
Speaker 5: Huh.
Speaker 6: A lot of it is investors too, Like with Disney
Speaker 6: what you were talking about, their investors are.
Speaker 5: The contracting them, asking them to do it, and so
Speaker 5: and get and and you bring up a really powerful point.
Speaker 5: You bring up a powerful point. Their investors want them
Speaker 5: to change their programs. They want them to stop the
Speaker 5: initiative uh DEI diversity equing inclusion.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: That means people who spend money with them have made
Speaker 5: a decision they don't want something. So why is it
Speaker 5: that black folks don't have the same mindset that we're
Speaker 5: investors as well. We're investors and and and and in fact,
Speaker 5: we have the right to be offended. We have the
Speaker 5: right to be offended, and we have the right to say,
Speaker 5: you know what, target. Don't even worry about John John them,
Speaker 5: We're gonna get you first. And you run to these
Speaker 5: meetings and these uh these golf tournaments and all of that,
Speaker 5: and tell people when they ask you, oh, Billy, Bob,
Speaker 5: how how's your numbers? We having some problems.
Speaker 1: We have a problems. Black people ain't feeling us right now.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I.
Speaker 5: Made the right decision. That's that's the goal. And yes,
Speaker 5: I know, Charlemagne, you're right. People are gonna say why
Speaker 5: not this one and that one? You should do that.
Speaker 5: I don't wear a bunch of stuff. I don't shop
Speaker 5: in a bunch of places. I've been to Walmart in years.
Speaker 5: That's that's that's what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: You should do that.
Speaker 5: Anybody who feels like and nobody stops anybody from saying,
Speaker 5: I am now leading. I think you should lead the Walmart,
Speaker 5: Amazon and Meta boycott.
Speaker 1: Since you keep asking.
Speaker 4: You you should, since you keep asking why, because I
Speaker 4: know I'm not getting off metal, Okay.
Speaker 1: Well that's fine. Well we're supposed to be on fan base, and.
Speaker 3: I kind of believe it.
Speaker 1: And see that's the other thing, right, we're supposed to
Speaker 1: be I was.
Speaker 4: Gonna say that too, like, you know somebody, I'm not
Speaker 4: gonna say who I was arguing with somebody Friday, right,
Speaker 4: he was on the three away with him every day.
Speaker 1: I can't say who it is.
Speaker 4: And Ler was saying, well, I gotta I gotta be
Speaker 4: able to get my messaging out, That's what I'm saying
Speaker 4: on that.
Speaker 3: And I was like, well, we could organize the mass exodus.
Speaker 1: He is, but he is, but you can't. You can't.
Speaker 1: You have to say that.
Speaker 5: Uh, And I'm an investor, you're an investor in fan base.
Speaker 5: We have to say that Roland has been one of
Speaker 5: the most consistent voices supporting Isaac and Isaac CA's and
Speaker 5: trying to get people to go to UH fan base.
Speaker 5: And every time I open the app, there goes Roland.
Speaker 5: His face is there, so he is doing it. But
Speaker 5: you know what, It's okay, guess what, they use us
Speaker 5: all the time. So why all of a sudden do
Speaker 5: we have to be uh the purest that if we're
Speaker 5: going boycott one thing, we got to do everything. You
Speaker 5: know what, It's a million people on my page on
Speaker 5: Instagram and people get the message. I have thousands of
Speaker 5: people that's on their talking so you know what, I'm
Speaker 5: gonna use your platform to boyo, boycotch your homeboy. That's
Speaker 5: what I'm gonna do for now. You shut me down,
Speaker 5: then I'll go somewhere else. You use me, all of you.
Speaker 4: It was in me right now, what if I believe
Speaker 4: in bycotting meaning that you know, you know, we know
Speaker 4: that there's black businesses there, so focusing our dollars on
Speaker 4: making those black businesses like I love with John hol'brien
Speaker 4: presented when he talks about the reframing of diversity, equity
Speaker 4: and inclusion, I love business and God and not a
Speaker 4: political agenda, meaning reframing diversity, equity and inclusion as a
Speaker 4: as critical for economic competitiveness, innovation, and market right because
Speaker 4: if we don't buy those products in those stores and
Speaker 4: they just sit there on the shelf and they don't sell,
Speaker 4: they'll just say, you know what, get rid of that
Speaker 4: shit in they cell.
Speaker 5: So so there at least it is two businesses that
Speaker 5: I've heard of that have sold out their products since
Speaker 5: this happened because people have been buying directly from them online, right,
Speaker 5: so that there is a way to continue to support
Speaker 5: these people. Yesterday, this brother Carlton Maxwell, Carlton Maxwell He
Speaker 5: was at Jamaal Bryant's church in Atlanta, Georgia, at new
Speaker 5: Birth Baptist Church, and he had car to Maxwell's stand
Speaker 5: up in the audience and he said, you know this
Speaker 5: brother was in one hundred and nineteen stores, No, nineteen
Speaker 5: hundred stores, nineteen hundred stores, Target Art, Yes, and he
Speaker 5: did not renew his contract when the boycott began selling
Speaker 5: sports wear, black history stuff shirts, tope bags, he did
Speaker 5: not renew his contract. And it is because he decided
Speaker 5: that he wanted to join.
Speaker 1: The boycott efforts.
Speaker 5: Right. Jamal had him stand up yesterday. He told everybody
Speaker 5: in the church, and you know it's thousands of people
Speaker 5: at new Birth on Sundays. He told him, go on outside,
Speaker 5: put your stuff up. Everybody gonna come out there. People
Speaker 5: bought everything from him, and I think most people, whether
Speaker 5: they wanted the stuff or not, were motivated to go.
Speaker 5: And by the way, he has some fly stuff, socks, sweatpants.
Speaker 1: I need those sweatpants.
Speaker 5: Cars.
Speaker 1: You ain't have my size, but he would.
Speaker 5: Everything he had was purchased, and he said his online
Speaker 5: sales are up. People are supporting him. So there's more
Speaker 5: than one way to skin a cat, right. We have
Speaker 5: to be creative, because what if they just said tomorrow
Speaker 5: they don't even want us in the store, then what and.
Speaker 3: They will definitely say that if people are not buying. So,
Speaker 3: I mean, I get you.
Speaker 4: I just feel like you got to have a plan
Speaker 4: to readirect energy towards supporting companies like call, but also
Speaker 4: supporting companies who are doubling down on the EI.
Speaker 1: Well, well one hundred percent.
Speaker 5: And that's why this whole thing where people are like, oh,
Speaker 5: you know, Reverend Sharp then took people to Costcos and
Speaker 5: why would you go to Costco's.
Speaker 1: Well, let's get to your point.
Speaker 5: If somebody says, if you are going to punish one person,
Speaker 5: then why not reward the other?
Speaker 1: If they say, you know again.
Speaker 5: Everything, I mean, it's because you know why, because most
Speaker 5: of the those people who were there, they're older, right,
Speaker 5: most of them. There were some younger folks, but most
Speaker 5: of them are older. And that's what they do. That's
Speaker 5: what motivates them. When we do protests, we be out
Speaker 5: there singing some different stuff, right, we evolve, things shift
Speaker 5: and they change. But what motivates that group of people,
Speaker 5: which includes my mother, my father and other people who
Speaker 5: are a little bit older than us, that's what they like,
Speaker 5: and I don't.
Speaker 1: See anything wrong with it.
Speaker 5: The point is they were making it clear to another
Speaker 5: company and to other companies that we are smart enough
Speaker 5: to know that if we want something and you say that,
Speaker 5: you're going to fight.
Speaker 1: Because by the way, Costcos.
Speaker 5: Is in a fight. They're not keeping DEI easily there.
Speaker 5: As you said, they're stakeholders, stockholders, they're investors there.
Speaker 1: Even I've heard that the.
Speaker 5: Elected officials in the city where their headquarters is has
Speaker 5: been calling them, trying to force because the whole thing
Speaker 5: is they need all these companies to do it at
Speaker 5: one time so that there's nobody left and therefore you
Speaker 5: have no choice because you're not gonna boycott every single company.
Speaker 5: So they're trying to put pressure to make sure that
Speaker 5: it is. There's a domino effect. Everybody decides to do it,
Speaker 5: and then there's nowhere for you to go, right.
Speaker 1: But Costco said, nah, we gonna stand on business.
Speaker 5: We believe in this, and now we know Delta Airlines
Speaker 5: that said that, what is the difference.
Speaker 1: Between Target and Coscos? What is the difference?
Speaker 5: Why is it that Target does not respect the black consumer,
Speaker 5: especially black women, enough to say this is gonna upset
Speaker 5: them not to mention. Target pulled its DEI initiative. It
Speaker 5: was announced, and they didn't even call the black businesses
Speaker 5: that you're talking about to let them know that this
Speaker 5: is gonna happen. I think those black businesses should get
Speaker 5: together and sue Target me because you have impacted my
Speaker 5: bottom line. You have hurt my brain and being in
Speaker 5: your store right hurt my chances of being a successful
Speaker 5: vendor within Target without even coming to me to say, hey,
Speaker 5: something is going to be different and you might be
Speaker 5: impacted by my new decision.
Speaker 1: They didn't even do that.
Speaker 5: They didn't even have respect enough to call these folks
Speaker 5: and say, hey, we got some things going on.
Speaker 1: We want you to know about it first.
Speaker 5: And give me an option of how I want to
Speaker 5: move when the announcement is made.
Speaker 1: They didn't even do that. So why are we being
Speaker 1: so nice and kind? And guess what?
Speaker 5: There are different types of people in this movement. You
Speaker 5: got people who are going to go in the store
Speaker 5: and say, I'm just gonna buy this one thing.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna get this.
Speaker 5: But I can tell you right now being products the
Speaker 5: black products, right, But I can tell you right now,
Speaker 5: you walk through the door and the toilet tissue is
Speaker 5: gonna be on sale for two dollars because target is
Speaker 5: these people are master marketers. They are master manipulators. That's
Speaker 5: what they do. They have people who study our habits
Speaker 5: so they will know what to do in order them
Speaker 5: to draw you in. So you think you're gonna walk
Speaker 5: in there just to grab one thing, and now your
Speaker 5: child who's four years old is laid out flat on the.
Speaker 1: Ground screaming Mommy, please get me so and so.
Speaker 5: So you're gonna be like, get it, just get it,
Speaker 5: and lets go right, and eventually you slip back into
Speaker 5: the same habits. So we're asking people to please ensure
Speaker 5: that you uh support every single black business. I'm buying stuff.
Speaker 5: I'm play Pits is a new brand I just found
Speaker 5: out about that is deodorant four kids.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying found out about.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's actually the good thing about this moment,
Speaker 4: right because I didn't know all of those products.
Speaker 6: Exactly what I felt as loud as it did like
Speaker 6: during the pandemic when it was like the push of
Speaker 6: like black businesses or whatever. I felt like it was
Speaker 6: so loud and like everybody was passing around these list
Speaker 6: or whatever.
Speaker 1: I don't think that it's like that, but.
Speaker 3: Them ain't do shit. I want to and I love
Speaker 3: that you we were talking about the book. I love
Speaker 3: to tell the story.
Speaker 4: But you told me something the other day that I
Speaker 4: was like that I really forgot about that the work
Speaker 4: that somebody like Reverend Jesse Jackson was doing right.
Speaker 3: How he did it right?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Right, So go ahead.
Speaker 4: You asked the question, say, like, you know, when we
Speaker 4: talk about these corporations who pledged all of this money
Speaker 4: right after George Floyd, they didn't delivered.
Speaker 1: They did not.
Speaker 4: But back in the day with Jesse Jackson was you know,
Speaker 4: pushing these people for diversity and everything.
Speaker 3: He was on a big yes.
Speaker 5: And not all the companies did it then but then,
Speaker 5: But there are certain companies that it's certain there are
Speaker 5: certain brands and I'm not going to name them today's
Speaker 5: being given them free promotion, But there are certain brand
Speaker 5: because I don't know where they stand now, but there
Speaker 5: are certain brands that we as black people are attracted
Speaker 5: to for a reason, and it's because you know, it's historic,
Speaker 5: like we learned that such and such was our friend
Speaker 5: kind of whatever that means back then, and that behavior
Speaker 5: has translated down through generations and it's just like you
Speaker 5: going to so you don't even know why you more
Speaker 5: interested in this than that. And it has a lot
Speaker 5: to do with how your parents knew that this company
Speaker 5: was safer for us, or at least they were hiring
Speaker 5: more people and they had more opportunities for us. And
Speaker 5: that's something that I have to give a lot of
Speaker 5: credit to Reverend Jackson and those people who sort of
Speaker 5: followed in Doctor King's footsteps, because you look at Operation
Speaker 5: bread Basket, which was an initiative that literally dealt with
Speaker 5: the economics within our community, and they had principles for
Speaker 5: how you decided whether you were going to work with
Speaker 5: or support a corporation or not. And I will say
Speaker 5: when you talk about companies who made commitments, one of
Speaker 5: the commitments that Target made was to spend two hundred million.
Speaker 1: Dollars with black businesses.
Speaker 5: The two billion or two hundred million, yet check it
Speaker 5: because I might be wrong. I was getting ready to
Speaker 5: say two hundred billion, but I know I'm wrong about that.
Speaker 1: It might be two billion.
Speaker 3: Or is it plage two billion business?
Speaker 5: Okay, I'm fright, right, cool, so right, So I'm wrong.
Speaker 5: So that was by twenty twenty five. We want to
Speaker 5: know what happened money? Did you do it before you
Speaker 5: talk about rolling back DEI? Don't you think they should
Speaker 5: put out a report that says we put we we'd
Speaker 5: spent all this money. And by the way, twenty twenty
Speaker 5: five doesn't end for another eleven months. So did you
Speaker 5: end your DEI practices before you got to the full
Speaker 5: two billion? Thank you for correcting me. Did you know
Speaker 5: what happened?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 5: To your point about Reverend Jackson, this is another reason
Speaker 5: why I get frustrated when I hear people say we
Speaker 5: don't need DEI.
Speaker 1: D I never done nothing for me. It's not important.
Speaker 5: And Roland Martin gave me some examples the other day
Speaker 5: of how DEI is just the child of things that
Speaker 5: have happened before it. Right, So they may not have
Speaker 5: been calling it DEI in the seventies and eighties, right,
Speaker 5: we were looking for black economic power. We were looking
Speaker 5: to again, if you have a business, in our business,
Speaker 5: in our in our community, you not gonna just set
Speaker 5: up shop and not give our people jobs, not put
Speaker 5: us on in positions of power within the company.
Speaker 1: That's just not gonna happen.
Speaker 5: And they were right to say that because you right
Speaker 5: here and people are gonna run in your store buying
Speaker 5: things from you. We deserve a piece of the pot.
Speaker 5: It's not we are asking for charity. We're saying that's
Speaker 5: how you do business when you into somebody's community.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: You can't move in my house as a man and
Speaker 5: me and you live in here and you say I'm
Speaker 5: gonna eat your food, I'm gonna drink everything, I'm gonna
Speaker 5: take all the resources from you, and I ain't gonna
Speaker 5: help you pay the rent.
Speaker 1: That's ridiculous.
Speaker 5: Right. So when I think about Reverend Jackson, remember I
Speaker 5: was a little girl, and it is in I live
Speaker 5: to tell the story to some degree being in the movement.
Speaker 5: And I watched them protests companies because you would find
Speaker 5: out that a company.
Speaker 1: Again and it is in the community, and they don't even.
Speaker 5: Have one black board member or women. Now, has it
Speaker 5: been infiltrated by other people. Absolutely, But that certainly was
Speaker 5: a time when it was all male, all white, and
Speaker 5: the white women actually were working as administrators in the company.
Speaker 5: You were able to white women was able to answer
Speaker 5: the telephone.
Speaker 1: Right, And that's about it.
Speaker 5: And be secretary Reverend Jackson and all those working with
Speaker 5: him winning there and said hell to the no, you
Speaker 5: can't operate in our business if we don't have a
Speaker 5: piece of the pie. And when we talk about DEI,
Speaker 5: a lot of people are thinking about jobs and thinking
Speaker 5: about you know, maybe some of the vendors and things
Speaker 5: like that, but what about suppliers. You have people who
Speaker 5: had advertising companies who had contracts with these agencies, with
Speaker 5: these businesses. You have people who had the security firm.
Speaker 5: You see the people at the front door. You don't
Speaker 5: know who's actually running that firm. It could be a
Speaker 5: black man or a black woman behind that. You have drivers,
Speaker 5: the truck drivers that are out there bringing the products
Speaker 5: across country. A lot of times those are people who
Speaker 5: come from the DEI aspect of the company.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: These are suppliers that were also a part of the work.
Speaker 1: That Reverend Jackson and them did.
Speaker 5: And to speak to the point about boycotts and protests
Speaker 5: and why they go hand in hand, is that he
Speaker 5: would not have been able to do that if Miss
Speaker 5: Susie and them didn't go stand outside and form a
Speaker 5: picket line to create actual visuals of what was going
Speaker 5: on in the meetings, and Miss Susie didn't have millions
Speaker 5: of dollars. So you know, there's no expectation that the
Speaker 5: person who has decided that my little ten dollars, I'm
Speaker 5: gonna keep it in my pocket. But she was out there,
Speaker 5: braving the cold, standing outside in front. And those are
Speaker 5: your combat front liners. We have to remember that in
Speaker 5: the in war, everybody doesn't do the same thing.
Speaker 1: You got people who are on the front line.
Speaker 5: You got people who are driving the vehicles, you got snipers.
Speaker 5: You have all different types of people who are doing
Speaker 5: work that makes up the whole and gets.
Speaker 1: Us to an end result.
Speaker 5: So let's not let's not let's not fight the protesters
Speaker 5: and the boycotters. Let them do their job and use
Speaker 5: it as fuel. If I'm if I'm Tabitha Brown, if
Speaker 5: I'm you know, Courtney Otia, if I'm what's our sister's
Speaker 5: name from? I best ones, Lord, have mercy ingrid.
Speaker 1: I love you. You know that I'm sorry too much in
Speaker 1: my head.
Speaker 5: But if I get it right, absolutely, If I'm these folks,
Speaker 5: I'm getting together and I'm not saying don't boycott. I'm saying, Okay,
Speaker 5: I don't really want you to because my product is
Speaker 5: in there. But guess what if you're gonna do it.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna go inside and fight. Not not not going
Speaker 5: and I'm not I am not saying that they're not fighting,
Speaker 5: So let's get cause you know they'll say, oh, Tamika
Speaker 5: Mallory said, y'all punks and y'all ain't fight.
Speaker 1: No, I'm not saying they're not.
Speaker 5: I'm sure there are things happening that everybody's not gonna
Speaker 5: see and hear.
Speaker 1: But if I if I.
Speaker 5: Was them, I would be saying I'm gonna use the
Speaker 5: energy from the street to take in here and say,
Speaker 5: you guys have hurt our businesses because of what you
Speaker 5: have done to our community. You have to work in
Speaker 5: tandem inside, outside strategy and guess what fight fight. This
Speaker 5: is a time that we are in. Well, we just
Speaker 5: at the beginning. We've got four years at least, maybe
Speaker 5: even more of people who are going to continue to
Speaker 5: hit us with these particular plays because they are attempting
Speaker 5: to return this nation to an all white, all male
Speaker 5: for the most part leadership. And these are not white
Speaker 5: people that just gonna do what you say because we
Speaker 5: ad asked them to.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to make a demand.
Speaker 5: And so it's good for us to start flexing our
Speaker 5: muscles and learn what it feels like to get in
Speaker 5: a fighting position. Now, to Angela Rye's point, who I
Speaker 5: was listening to the other day, in a minute, if
Speaker 5: we don't show our power in this particular moment, we're
Speaker 5: gonna look around and ain't gonna have no money to
Speaker 5: buy a target anyway, So we all gonna be boycott.
Speaker 2: Ask your question, Ask one question about the boycott thing. Okay,
Speaker 2: I'll let you finish first.
Speaker 4: I was gonna say about Uh, I guess that's the
Speaker 4: other thing too. Is it easier or heart of the
Speaker 4: protest with social media? Because things can be so fragmented, right, Yeah,
Speaker 4: Like when Friday, I didn't know Jamal Brian was doing
Speaker 4: a protest. I just found out about this on Friday, right,
Speaker 4: And then I didn't know Nina had announced one, right,
Speaker 4: And I know you, I know y'all were talking about it,
Speaker 4: but I didn't know they actually announced it, right. And
Speaker 4: then when I started to look into it, because I
Speaker 4: was like, well, what are the demand I haven't heard
Speaker 4: what the demands are. And Somebody's like, well, go look
Speaker 4: on Jamar Brown's website. But when I go look on
Speaker 4: Jamal's website, it said the protest don't start till March fifth.
Speaker 3: Well, so who's doing is Has Nina started? Yes?
Speaker 5: So yeah, thank you, thank you for asking that because
Speaker 5: that's important. And I've heard a few people say they're
Speaker 5: confused and we're not perfect as a movement, and so
Speaker 5: there needs to be people who call in and say, hey,
Speaker 5: we don't understand. So first of all, I mentioned Nakima Armstrong,
Speaker 5: which is a woman who is there in Minnesota where the.
Speaker 1: Target headquarters is.
Speaker 5: They started for Black History Month, right, They already started,
Speaker 5: the folks, and they're not just on social media.
Speaker 1: They are on the ground.
Speaker 5: They have held demonstrations, they've been outside. In fact, there
Speaker 5: is a Latino group that was also protesting. They had
Speaker 5: a big protest outside of a Target in one of
Speaker 5: their communities, not connected to Nikima. I don't believe, but
Speaker 5: I'm just saying they started right away. So Black History
Speaker 5: Month they were saying, don't shop in Target, need to
Speaker 5: turn that. This is all great minds coming again, right,
Speaker 5: and now we all are part of something called the Mothership,
Speaker 5: so we all talking to one another.
Speaker 1: But in the beginning we were not.
Speaker 5: Nina Turner had also been working through we are somebody
Speaker 5: on a similar idea that beginning Black History Month, and
Speaker 5: it didn't have an end date, but beginning in Black
Speaker 5: History Month, that there would be a boycott of Target
Speaker 5: and a bycot of all of the other brands. And
Speaker 5: so they created the list and put all of that
Speaker 5: information out there. So now I Nina called me and said, hey,
Speaker 5: would you like to be involved in this?
Speaker 1: Where do you stand with it?
Speaker 5: I said, I definitely want to join you, and then
Speaker 5: I connected Nina and Nikima. So now they've been talking
Speaker 5: about how we come together. Then the brothers said hey,
Speaker 5: and Jamaal Briant being one of them, were getting ready
Speaker 5: to go into a season of lent, right, so people
Speaker 5: during Lent they fast, and he said, let's bring the community,
Speaker 5: the clergy community, the our ministries, and our church community
Speaker 5: into this thing by asking people starting the beginning of
Speaker 5: Lent too fast from Target, right. And so it's all
Speaker 5: a continuation and how that gets properly articulated is something
Speaker 5: that we are gonna have to work on. But hey,
Speaker 5: I'm up here today, and so then I included Jamal
Speaker 5: into the text chain and so now all of us
Speaker 5: are talking and Roland has been given his advice and
Speaker 5: elders have been calling a Michael Eric Dyson is saying, hey,
Speaker 5: let me, you know, ask you some questions. Have you
Speaker 5: thought about this, have you thought about that? And so
Speaker 5: you know, so it is. It is not perfect. No,
Speaker 5: it's not. Because it happened in one particular moment. People
Speaker 5: moved again, we moved based upon what you saw.
Speaker 1: I could go up.
Speaker 5: There right now on my page and say we gonna
Speaker 5: do X, We're gonna boycott this cup company.
Speaker 1: People don't always move, y'all know that. I'll be telling you.
Speaker 5: I'm frustrated people are not seeing the importance of this moment.
Speaker 5: But if I say this these flowers and everybody's on it. Okay,
Speaker 5: now we got action, we got motion, and I'm gonna
Speaker 5: use this moment with these flowers to talk about that cup.
Speaker 5: That's just that's just organizing one oh one, you know.
Speaker 5: So that's where we are.
Speaker 1: It's just a.
Speaker 5: Continuation they're doing because they already will have their people
Speaker 5: in a season of fasting thinking about what they can
Speaker 5: pull their resources from or put their resources towards. And
Speaker 5: what he did at church on Sunday by one having
Speaker 5: people buy out all my books. Thank you New Birth
Speaker 5: for doing that for showing up lines of people purchasing
Speaker 5: black folks products right in the lobby of the church.
Speaker 1: We got to go back to that.
Speaker 5: And that's why another thing I have to say, go
Speaker 5: back to another point. That's why I'm also protective and
Speaker 5: I get upset about the dismissal of black institutions because
Speaker 5: their Black institutions.
Speaker 1: Have buien housing.
Speaker 5: We got people, thousands, millions of peop people around this
Speaker 5: country living in housing that was built by churches, by
Speaker 5: organizations that they put their little resources together and put
Speaker 5: up a building. The next thing you know, it turned
Speaker 5: into a senior center and senior living and a place
Speaker 5: for low income housing. Black institutions hire millions of people.
Speaker 5: You have millions of people who are working in either
Speaker 5: churches or the Urban League or the NAACP or these
Speaker 5: different organizations. We have had a tradition of folks who
Speaker 5: have worked really hard to get us to where we
Speaker 5: are today, which there's challenges, there's problems, and it is
Speaker 5: time for evolution.
Speaker 1: For sure. We've got to go to the next phase.
Speaker 5: We have to look at what black organizations can be
Speaker 5: in the future with all that we now have at
Speaker 5: our fingertips. But I don't think that we can dismiss
Speaker 5: the work that was done previously, because if it were
Speaker 5: not for their sacrifices, we would not be in the
Speaker 5: positions that we're in today.
Speaker 3: I agree with you.
Speaker 4: I don't know if this is as much of a
Speaker 4: dispissal as it is to your point, what happened to y'all?
Speaker 3: Y'all were doing all of this in the community. Where
Speaker 3: is that at now?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 5: I mean again, people ask me all the time, and
Speaker 5: I see it in my science comments the most I
Speaker 5: be wanting to cuss people out in there, but I
Speaker 5: decide it's too toxic over there, so I just let
Speaker 5: him deal with that. His comments section is mad toxic,
Speaker 5: y'all know, you know. But anyway, people say to us
Speaker 5: all the time, why y'all don't do nothing about black violence?
Speaker 1: What about it?
Speaker 5: And meanwhile we're all outside like that's what he does
Speaker 5: every day. Maybe you don't necessarily see it, and maybe
Speaker 5: those questions need to be.
Speaker 1: Asked, But I'm out there and see what right? What
Speaker 1: does she do? What is exactly Erica and not?
Speaker 5: And and by the way, y'all, people have the right
Speaker 5: to get older and to evolve themselves.
Speaker 1: So rather than Erica being on the front line.
Speaker 5: Where she used to be out there burning herself out
Speaker 5: to the point where she got sick, she now is
Speaker 5: empowering a whole group of younger people who will do
Speaker 5: it their own way. It doesn't mean that we can
Speaker 5: just dismiss what she did. No, she's still important because
Speaker 5: she has wisdom to bring to the table for how
Speaker 5: you go forward.
Speaker 1: She is able to see.
Speaker 5: What what you may not know, because you know when
Speaker 5: younger folks start getting and stuff we bring or they
Speaker 5: bring because I ain't that young anymore, but they bring
Speaker 5: a certain level of courage and fire that we need
Speaker 5: new energy. But sometimes they can't see the pitfall that's coming,
Speaker 5: and so you need an elder. I would never say
Speaker 5: that my grandmother's her remedy for healing me when I
Speaker 5: have a cold, or when I'm having a baby, or
Speaker 5: whatever things you may encounter, that those things are no
Speaker 5: longer and that that's all they know. No, Actually, they
Speaker 5: know something powerful because if it healed you when you
Speaker 5: was twelve, it might be able to heal you now.
Speaker 5: Is there sea mass today? Absolutely, that's a new thing.
Speaker 5: My grandmother ain't know nothing.
Speaker 1: She died. She know nothing about Sea Mars.
Speaker 5: But it doesn't mean that her old Buckley's routine that
Speaker 5: she used to put together, or the castor oil that
Speaker 5: that doesn't matter, and it doesn't help us to make
Speaker 5: the grandparents and the institutions of before to feel like
Speaker 5: they are passaying No. They need to be at the
Speaker 5: table and they need to know that when they come
Speaker 5: to the table, there's a new generation of people who
Speaker 5: have ideas that we're able to even bring you along
Speaker 5: to the next day mental counsel young men for Woo.
Speaker 2: That's right women nineteen Keys was here Friday and said
Speaker 2: something I think that you didn't like to sparked the
Speaker 2: nerve with you right because you left the comment on
Speaker 2: the breakfast club page just sold it mysoon what sparked
Speaker 2: the nerve? A and B You talked about Stokely and
Speaker 2: King and how two different people look at things two
Speaker 2: different ways, and they said that you know, when they
Speaker 2: had their differences, they were able to speak behind the
Speaker 2: scenes and then come out in public and still fight
Speaker 2: for the same fight. So one on's balked the nerve
Speaker 2: and two how come y'all haven't talked behind the scenes
Speaker 2: and had that conversation where it doesn't look like you
Speaker 2: guys are going at each other.
Speaker 5: So to be clear, Number one, I have talked to
Speaker 5: nineteen kids, and that's my brother, and he and I
Speaker 5: do disagree on different things, but I was mad at him.
Speaker 5: My comment in them, yes, okay at Charlemagne.
Speaker 1: My comment.
Speaker 5: On your page on the Breakfast Club page wasn't so
Speaker 5: much about nineteen keys. Although I still think it's important
Speaker 5: for us to lift up the work of our institutions
Speaker 5: because we know what they have done and how important
Speaker 5: they have been. And again, the reason why we had
Speaker 5: black wall streets and the Rosewoods and other places that
Speaker 5: were burned down by the government and white vigilantes is
Speaker 5: because black institutions exist and existed at that time, and
Speaker 5: people that came out of those traditions work to create
Speaker 5: sustain those in these types of economic chambers, if you will,
Speaker 5: like a Black Wall Street.
Speaker 1: So that's important.
Speaker 5: I'm a defender of black institutions because I come out
Speaker 5: of one, and I know the power of what they've
Speaker 5: been able to do. I know that when people's lights
Speaker 5: are turned off, sometimes the only place you could go
Speaker 5: to is to a black church or to the National
Speaker 5: Action Network. Those are real things happening every day. We
Speaker 5: got theories and ideas and things that probably will and
Speaker 5: can work if we all work together. But we also
Speaker 5: have people who need food right now. They need to
Speaker 5: be able to go somewhere and say, Hey, the landlord's
Speaker 5: trying to kick me out, will you come and show
Speaker 5: up over here and fight this white man or this
Speaker 5: whoever man that's trying to put me out? Of those
Speaker 5: black institutions do that work every single day, So I'm
Speaker 5: always very protective about that. But the person that I'm
Speaker 5: really talking about when I say I was pissed off
Speaker 5: is this one right here. And the reason why is
Speaker 5: because Charlomagne asks several questions, which I think is what
Speaker 5: about ism, what about Amazon?
Speaker 1: What about this place? What about that place?
Speaker 5: After I had already told him in the text message
Speaker 5: three days before that why I don't believe that there's
Speaker 5: a good strategy to try to boycott everything at once.
Speaker 5: And he didn't say what I said as a response.
Speaker 5: So what he did was basically leave people with an
Speaker 5: open freaking answer or open question to something that I
Speaker 5: already told you. Even if you don't agree, I'm not
Speaker 5: saying you gotta agree, but you can at least say,
Speaker 5: but you know what. I did speak to Tamika Mallory
Speaker 5: and she said XYZ thing, and he is now saying
Speaker 5: he didn't know about Nina and them. I did not
Speaker 5: know that, So I maybe I'm not as upset with
Speaker 5: you as I was about that.
Speaker 1: But I feel like it's too serious.
Speaker 5: Of a time for us to have conversations that just
Speaker 5: leave people confused when there are answers. So to me,
Speaker 5: it would have been better to have Nina or Jamaal
Speaker 5: didn't know Cool or me call in on the phone
Speaker 5: and talk about the boycott and get those points straight
Speaker 5: and have the discussion, rather than have people walk away
Speaker 5: like yeah, man, come on, they playing themselves. They're not
Speaker 5: trying to get off meta. They're not trying to do
Speaker 5: when we actually have an answer for why Target is
Speaker 5: the first place that we're deciding to to target pun intended.
Speaker 4: I guess I wasn't trying to make it specific about
Speaker 4: anyone present because there was so many people talking about boycotting.
Speaker 1: Well, that's that's your answer, you just said it.
Speaker 5: The reason why Target is the target is because so
Speaker 5: many people are ready to boycott Target.
Speaker 1: That's the answer. That's why.
Speaker 6: Completely separate. I guess it's not separate from all of
Speaker 6: this because I'm sitting here listening to you talk. And
Speaker 6: then I know in the book you talk about a
Speaker 6: lot of personal stuff, and I'm like, when do you
Speaker 6: take time to deal with.
Speaker 1: Your own stuff? Because you I mean I do. I
Speaker 1: do now a little bit better.
Speaker 5: I know he's right though, because I'm kind of going
Speaker 5: because what I do. When I get to the point
Speaker 5: that it all fills up at me and I'm as
Speaker 5: big as a balloon, then I start crying on his phone,
Speaker 5: and I mean real tears.
Speaker 1: He has had to.
Speaker 5: Be like, Okay, we're gonna get through this because I'm like,
Speaker 5: I'm so frustrated. I got so much going on, but
Speaker 5: I'm getting better at that.
Speaker 1: And rehab taught me.
Speaker 5: Like when I was in rehab, there was no cell phone,
Speaker 5: the TV had some weird ass stations. I was in
Speaker 5: like the backwoods somewhere in Ohio. The it just wasn't
Speaker 5: it wasn't good. And there I learned the art of
Speaker 5: taking care of me. And in the book, I have
Speaker 5: this quote in there that I want to share with
Speaker 5: somebody who is listening. It says that I will I
Speaker 5: was born fighting for freedom and I will die fighting
Speaker 5: for freedom, but this time freedom includes me me, and
Speaker 5: that's where I'm at. I'm all about what about me now?
Speaker 5: Just so you know, Lauren, when we go to these
Speaker 5: cities and we're like in Kentucky and other places, oh honey,
Speaker 5: we get a twerk on, we get to work on,
Speaker 5: we find out where the little after hour spot is.
Speaker 3: People go out.
Speaker 5: They were in the clubs because I like to go out.
Speaker 1: I like how I like good wings.
Speaker 6: Oh so you've been in a strip clubs, because.
Speaker 1: That's what I mean. I'm not I see like I
Speaker 1: do it all.
Speaker 5: No, no, no, hey, that's your point of entryue that
Speaker 5: you might be able to get to go and we
Speaker 5: have a good time.
Speaker 1: I didn't actually that to find.
Speaker 6: Out, No, I really asked you that because you deal
Speaker 6: with some heavy stuff in the book, Like I know,
Speaker 6: for the first time you talked about the trauma you
Speaker 6: went through as a child with sexual abuse as a
Speaker 6: child for.
Speaker 1: The first time ever.
Speaker 6: And I'm like, I wonder what made her decide to
Speaker 6: put that out there. She got all these people coming
Speaker 6: at her about everything else you've been connected, like it's
Speaker 6: just the Woman's March stuff and like there's been a
Speaker 6: lot and then you put that out there, and I'm
Speaker 6: sure you have to deal with that again when putting
Speaker 6: it in the book.
Speaker 1: Here's the answer. I live to tell the story.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 5: I went through all of that and I'm still here,
Speaker 5: you know. And I'm sure some of it was meant
Speaker 5: to take me out, right, but look at me, and
Speaker 5: so yeah, taking care of myself looked like writing it down,
Speaker 5: and I didn't. My parents are reading my book right now. Well,
Speaker 5: they're finished now. I gave it to them two weeks
Speaker 5: early when I first received the book, and it was
Speaker 5: hard to put that book in their hands. I had
Speaker 5: already told them Mom and dad and my sister who
Speaker 5: thinks she's my mother, but she she she kind of is.
Speaker 4: She?
Speaker 5: The three of them, I got them on a phone
Speaker 5: call because I wrote a particular chapter, and when I finished,
Speaker 5: I cried so hard, not because of what was in
Speaker 5: the chapter. It was just it was some shame. But
Speaker 5: it was also because I was like, I cannot turn
Speaker 5: this in. I cannot let my parents have to relive this.
Speaker 5: And it was about a time when I almost was
Speaker 5: raped by several guys because I went somewhere I wasn't
Speaker 5: supposed to be, and I walked past my father in
Speaker 5: the house after the experience and didn't say anything to him.
Speaker 5: And I was so just broken from what I had experienced.
Speaker 5: And in fact, the mother of one of the boy
Speaker 5: who lived in the apartment, she happened to come home
Speaker 5: and literally save my life. Like they were seconds away
Speaker 5: from saying, that's it. It's four dudes, that's it. You
Speaker 5: got to take your clothes of Why did you even
Speaker 5: come here? They were starting to tug on me. It
Speaker 5: was a whole thing. And the mother walked in and
Speaker 5: looked and said, who the hell is this little girl
Speaker 5: in my house? Get the hell out of here, And
Speaker 5: she was looking at me instead of them while speaking,
Speaker 5: because she was like, you in trouble, and I'm damn like,
Speaker 5: get yourself together. She told me, I'm gonna close this door,
Speaker 5: get yourself together, and you can get out of here.
Speaker 5: And that's how I got out of that apartment with
Speaker 5: a pit bull sitting in front of the door. So
Speaker 5: there was nowhere that I could go even if I
Speaker 5: wanted to. And knowing that I tell that story, which
Speaker 5: is hard enough, I think for my father to deal with,
Speaker 5: but for me to say that I left that apartment
Speaker 5: and went straight home and that he was sitting in
Speaker 5: the house and I didn't even tell him what happened.
Speaker 5: I broke down so bad. I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 5: I cannot put this in this book. But then so
Speaker 5: when I put the book in their hands, I was like,
Speaker 5: oh my god, just don't read it.
Speaker 1: Just put it up as art, like, don't read it.
Speaker 5: And sure enough, I came home one day and my
Speaker 5: sister was like, I need to talk to you. This
Speaker 5: book is a lot. She was like, I'm going through something.
Speaker 5: Our parents are suffering with what's in here that my
Speaker 5: father said to her. And he hasn't said anything to
Speaker 5: me to this day. My mother done told me off
Speaker 5: about two things, because that's what she do. That's my girl.
Speaker 5: My sister was like, I don't know if you should
Speaker 5: have told these stories. But my father has not said
Speaker 5: one word. I mean, he speaks to me every day.
Speaker 5: This is my dad, that's my guy, he's my publicist.
Speaker 5: He went and picked up the banners for the tour,
Speaker 5: like that's my guy. But he hasn't said anything about
Speaker 5: how he feels. However, he told my sister that it
Speaker 5: was real hard for him to get through reading that
Speaker 5: some of this was happening and he couldn't do anything
Speaker 5: about it.
Speaker 1: So it's this book is tough.
Speaker 2: I will say this though, just on the side note
Speaker 2: especially with your father, and tell your sister just be
Speaker 2: careful because it's dad's and I think Charlemagne will know.
Speaker 2: I don't know if Charlemagne because he's into.
Speaker 1: Therapy as a dad.
Speaker 2: And knowing my dad, revenge is what we would want,
Speaker 2: right So your dad might be looking for the young boys'
Speaker 2: names and numbers right now, pull up on him because
Speaker 2: it feels like there's no way you're going to do that.
Speaker 3: To my girl.
Speaker 5: Right Well, my dad, my dad is seventy eight years old,
Speaker 5: so he needs to sit down and not be looking.
Speaker 5: My dad needs to sit down and live the beautiful
Speaker 5: life that him and my mother worked so hard to
Speaker 5: make for themselves and for us, and know that he
Speaker 5: did a damn good job because look at me right
Speaker 5: like he did a damn good job. And whoever tried
Speaker 5: to hurt me or whatever happened, it doesn't matter because
Speaker 5: at the end of the day, I made decisions for
Speaker 5: myself that I know if he was there or if
Speaker 5: he knew that I was In matter of fact, they tried,
Speaker 5: they tried to prevent me for making those decisions. So
Speaker 5: we want my dad to sit down. But that's the
Speaker 5: reason why I didn't tell him at the time, because
Speaker 5: he was popping then, okay, and he would have been outside.
Speaker 5: It's a lot of things that mothers, Black mothers keep
Speaker 5: from the father in the household to keep him from
Speaker 5: going to prison, defending daughters, sons, but especially the daughter.
Speaker 1: That's a real thing. And there's a lot of stuff.
Speaker 5: I know my aunts, if they listening, they know about
Speaker 5: it because I as a little girl used to hear
Speaker 5: them saying, don't mention this or don't say that. Now
Speaker 5: there's a double edged sword to it, because this is
Speaker 5: why people in families, especially uncles and grandfathers and others,
Speaker 5: get away with abusing young people because the women are
Speaker 5: holding secrets, trying not to create confusion between the men.
Speaker 5: And so I don't suggest it, but I'm just saying
Speaker 5: the reality is a lot of things that have happened
Speaker 5: in your families people don't the men don't know about
Speaker 5: because we're trying to make sure that they don't end
Speaker 5: up in is in or dead, trying to defend their
Speaker 5: their children.
Speaker 3: We'll pick up the book.
Speaker 1: So tonight we are going.
Speaker 5: First of all, are we telling people that because if
Speaker 5: they show up, they can't get in. It's a private event.
Speaker 5: But Charlamade is having a party for me. And shout
Speaker 5: out to my homegirl Nikiya McClain from Today and Nicole
Speaker 5: as well as Lushawn Thompson. These women have worked together
Speaker 5: with this brother to put together a private release party
Speaker 5: for me. But on Thursday they can join me at
Speaker 5: the New York Public Library on.
Speaker 1: The thirteenth, Thursday.
Speaker 5: I'll be there in conversation with our public advocate Jimani Williams.
Speaker 5: You need to have him up here again soon because
Speaker 5: he's got a lot to say, especially about the mayor.
Speaker 5: But that's another thing, And that's at six o'clock on Thursday,
Speaker 5: the thirteenth. And also the moderator of that conversation is
Speaker 5: going to be the executive director of editorial at Ebony Magazine.
Speaker 5: So it's actually going to be really dope. A lot
Speaker 5: of people have signed up. It's at the New York
Speaker 5: Public Library on fifth Ava And if you go to
Speaker 5: Tamika D. Mallory dot com backslash tour Tamika D. Mallory
Speaker 5: dot com backslash tour. You can see where I am
Speaker 5: all over the country. We're in d C next week
Speaker 5: eighteen politics and pros. The nineteenth, We're in Tosa, Oklahoma
Speaker 5: at All Saints Church.
Speaker 1: We got another event happening there.
Speaker 5: Shout out to Kim Roxy and my girl Tiffany Crutcher
Speaker 5: who are working on stuff there. I'm in New Orleans
Speaker 5: at Baldwin and Co. On the nineties the twentieth. Yeah, so,
Speaker 5: and then the next week I'm back in DC. I'm
Speaker 5: also in Miami, but it's all on my website. I'm
Speaker 5: in Jacksonville on the twenty second. I'm back in Atlanta
Speaker 5: on the twenty third at the gathering Spot.
Speaker 1: A lot of stuff my people have shown.
Speaker 4: Up tour because you didn't get to do that for
Speaker 4: State of Emergency.
Speaker 3: I did because it was cod.
Speaker 5: And but yeah, I was, I was, but but but
Speaker 5: also the balance there is that in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 5: everybody was at home. So you had everybody from Malicia
Speaker 5: Keys to Tiffany Hattish to Taraji and Jada Pinkett and
Speaker 5: Pinkett Smith and others who participated in some way in
Speaker 5: the tour because all they had to do was go
Speaker 5: turn their computers on, and so it was.
Speaker 1: It's like a little different.
Speaker 5: That now I'm calling them and they're like, oh my god,
Speaker 5: I'm in Asia, Like what you need me to do?
Speaker 5: But I will say that all of those sisters that
Speaker 5: I just named, with the exception of Tiffany, who I'm
Speaker 5: going to call, have agreed to do some type of
Speaker 5: virtual event for me which will be closed spaces for
Speaker 5: young girls, young men, and so you know, we still
Speaker 5: are going to make it happen and make sure that
Speaker 5: they participate in what we got going on with our
Speaker 5: Live to Tell the story.
Speaker 4: Out right now in bookstores everywhere.
Speaker 3: Go get you a copy. That's right now.
Speaker 4: I'm about to say, what, no, if.
Speaker 3: They're going Amazon target Jo.
Speaker 5: The last time my book wasn't target. After I said
Speaker 5: what I said, they bought nine thousand books. So that's good.
Speaker 1: So not this time.
Speaker 5: That's cool, No problem. Barnes and Nobles. First of all,
Speaker 5: I suggest people go to Barnes and Nobles. I'm not
Speaker 5: telling people Barns and Nobles and black bookstores. Go to
Speaker 5: black bookstores please. Uncle Bobby's has been really working with me.
Speaker 5: Mahogany Books. I got too many people to name, too
Speaker 5: many people.
Speaker 2: All right, well it's the Breakfast Club is to meek
Speaker 2: A Mallorie, wake that ass.
Speaker 3: Up in the morning. Breakfast Club