Speaker 1: Yeah, everybody and your boy my son in general, and
Speaker 1: I'm Tamika D. Mallory and this is a little deviation
Speaker 1: for him our regular format and our regular programming, but
Speaker 1: we thought it was necessary to address some online accusations
Speaker 1: that followed Tamika's Grammy performance, which was excellent, phenomenal, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, so we wanted to come out and address
Speaker 1: these issues. A lot of people have been asking for statements,
Speaker 1: and you know, we just won't oblige. From my perspective,
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that as a mother that
Speaker 1: I speak directly to Miss Rice, and and also just
Speaker 1: so that folks know I have reached out through some
Speaker 1: other individuals. I don't have a direct contact for Ms Rice,
Speaker 1: but I have reached out and let some other folks
Speaker 1: know that if she wants to speak with me, I'm
Speaker 1: a veil to do so. Unfortunately, the world we live in, UM,
Speaker 1: everything hits social media uh so quickly, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: give us an opportunity all the time to have direct conversations. UM.
Speaker 1: And I've I have seen a lot of you who
Speaker 1: have been asking me to do what I always do,
Speaker 1: which is to be authentic and to come to you all. UM,
Speaker 1: and and talk about some of what you have heard. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, I want to just make sure that we
Speaker 1: start off grounded and the fact that nothing UM we
Speaker 1: say today is an attack against UM miss Rice. UM.
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that that is stated from
Speaker 1: the very very beginning. Quite frankly, ms Rice is right. UM.
Speaker 1: I support one hundred percent how she feels UH and
Speaker 1: what she has stated in terms of her pain UM
Speaker 1: related to her son. Right. And in fact, UM, I
Speaker 1: think and I was gonna say to you, Mi set,
Speaker 1: I feel like we all have failed her. You know,
Speaker 1: I was thinking a lot about this coming here today.
Speaker 1: We all have failed her UM as a nation. I
Speaker 1: think that whenever a child or any person, but particularly
Speaker 1: a child is killed, UM, we should this nation should
Speaker 1: have erupted. And the fact that UM she did not
Speaker 1: get the proper justice for her son would make anyone angry.
Speaker 1: And so I totally understand and respect the trauma and
Speaker 1: pain that she feels as a mother. UM. The second
Speaker 1: point is that I think for far too long, the
Speaker 1: issue of divisiveness has been used in every single movement
Speaker 1: and it has actually destroyed movements. And UM, I don't
Speaker 1: participate in it. If you know anything about me, and
Speaker 1: you guys get to see me up close and personal.
Speaker 1: We're on lives, we go into communities, we work with
Speaker 1: people directly, we're on the ground. Uh, and so you
Speaker 1: have an opportunity to see me up close and personal.
Speaker 1: And the one thing that I try my best not
Speaker 1: to do is to get caught up in the divisiveness
Speaker 1: that I know can happen in this movement. So again,
Speaker 1: if people are watching looking for some aha moment of
Speaker 1: me uh speaking uh negatively about or to Miss Rice,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna happen. UM. I will never ever allow
Speaker 1: my organization, my team, UM and until Freedom, or myself
Speaker 1: to be used as a tool in the master's box.
Speaker 1: I will never allow that. So UM, if that's what
Speaker 1: you're looking for, you might as well turn away because
Speaker 1: it's not going to happen. I will, however, say that
Speaker 1: I think it's important to clarify the questions around whether
Speaker 1: or not we have used Miss Rice's child, her baby
Speaker 1: UM in campaigns or in speeches or fundraising or any
Speaker 1: of those types of efforts. We have not UM my speeches,
Speaker 1: my son's speeches, and the work that we do it's
Speaker 1: very very public. Um. You all can go back and
Speaker 1: and look through speeches, look through my page. I encourage
Speaker 1: you to do so. UM. Other than potentially calling the
Speaker 1: role of all the people UM that that we can
Speaker 1: think about at any particular time who have been killed
Speaker 1: by the state, I have been very very careful, have
Speaker 1: always been careful not to speak about cases or individuals
Speaker 1: that I have not worked directly with the families. And
Speaker 1: in particular, in this situation which Ms Rice has already said,
Speaker 1: we've never even met UM. If we have, UM, it
Speaker 1: has been something like maybe at a conference, I may
Speaker 1: have been introduced, or we may have seen each other
Speaker 1: in that way, but we've never actually sat down, had
Speaker 1: a phone conversation or met in any way. And so
Speaker 1: there for I would never be so disrespectful as to
Speaker 1: speak about her child or to have a campaign that
Speaker 1: addresses her child or that uses her child's name to
Speaker 1: uplift any cause UM. And so I think that's really
Speaker 1: really UM important to state UM. I you know, to
Speaker 1: to that end, I guess UM. Miss Rice has said
Speaker 1: that she does not want she wants me to you know,
Speaker 1: not speak of her child UM. And while I may
Speaker 1: not have been doing it in the past, I will
Speaker 1: be very very very careful going forward to ensure that
Speaker 1: I respect her wishes. I think we both can say that,
Speaker 1: you know, we will be very careful to respect her wishes,
Speaker 1: even if we feel that we're using all the names
Speaker 1: in order to make a bigger point, we will be very,
Speaker 1: very very careful not to disrespect her wishes. Now, although
Speaker 1: what Miss Rice has said, UM calling me out my
Speaker 1: name and speaking to me, speaking about me without knowing me,
Speaker 1: has absolutely hurt. It definitely hurt me. But again I
Speaker 1: understand and because of the fact that I do this work,
Speaker 1: that we do this work from a very very very
Speaker 1: sincere and authentic place. I may not have lost the child,
Speaker 1: but I did lose the child my child's father, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't a police brutality. But I understand lost and
Speaker 1: I also want to and I fight every single day
Speaker 1: to ensure that I don't have to experience what so
Speaker 1: many mothers of young black men have experienced, and so
Speaker 1: I do come from a personal perspective. Although I have
Speaker 1: not lost the child, and because I understand that pain
Speaker 1: and trauma working with families for so many years, I
Speaker 1: would like to tell miss Rice today UM that I
Speaker 1: am available to be supportive if necessary. I'm here for
Speaker 1: or phone calls. I'm here to have any types of
Speaker 1: conversations with any family, UM that would like to reach
Speaker 1: out and talk about the death of their their child
Speaker 1: or some tragic situation that has happened to them. Um,
Speaker 1: We're just one small group, right. There are many organizations
Speaker 1: doing work, doing great work, but until freedom is one group,
Speaker 1: we can't help every family. We wish we could, but
Speaker 1: we don't have the resources to help every family. UM.
Speaker 1: And there certainly are our situations that have been heartbreaking
Speaker 1: that have kept us up at night that we have
Speaker 1: not been able to get involved with. But again, just
Speaker 1: to reiterate, under no circumstances would we ever be so
Speaker 1: disrespectful as to use the name of a person, child,
Speaker 1: or otherwise that we have not met, work with, and
Speaker 1: talked with their family, and have not been directly asked
Speaker 1: to uplift their's name or their family member's name while
Speaker 1: we are out doing our work. UM. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you want to have a response to because I
Speaker 1: have some other things on. Yeah, pretty much, you know. Yes,
Speaker 1: so miss Rice lost her son. I remember it was
Speaker 1: a year and I just entered into the space of activism,
Speaker 1: you know, and and I remember hitting the world hard,
Speaker 1: and I was I wanted to see justice family, you know,
Speaker 1: so I understand how she must feel as being his mother,
Speaker 1: you know, so her sentiments are felt just from just
Speaker 1: being a human being. You know. When I heard her sentence,
Speaker 1: I didn't take it personal, you know. But what I
Speaker 1: what I did take person who was the attacks of
Speaker 1: the media, of people that I've known for years, of
Speaker 1: people that have been around us for years, of people
Speaker 1: who had direct contact to us, who've seen the work
Speaker 1: that we've done. I did personalize those things. I never
Speaker 1: thought about miss Rice in anyway. The work that we've done,
Speaker 1: I've when I've done for the last eight years and
Speaker 1: you've done for twenty five years, has spoke spoken for itself.
Speaker 1: You know. There has been this quote unquote fake activism,
Speaker 1: you know, and I asked, what is real activism? You know,
Speaker 1: if going out standing by families who have asked you
Speaker 1: to stand with them, uplifting the voices of the people
Speaker 1: who have lost their lives, standing in communities and taking
Speaker 1: guns out of hands of kids who are killing each other,
Speaker 1: you know, going in communities, starting programs and organizing in
Speaker 1: different communities to bring peace, treaties If that's not real activism,
Speaker 1: then what is real activism? You know, when I looked
Speaker 1: at the media, I was disgusted because they highlighted the
Speaker 1: trauma and pain of a woman who lost her child,
Speaker 1: but they didn't highlight when she was telling them to
Speaker 1: get justice for her child. None of these many of
Speaker 1: them did not. They didn't post any of the post
Speaker 1: when she was saying, we want justice for a child,
Speaker 1: But they decided to post as she put poured pain
Speaker 1: and trauma and talked about her her opinions because we're
Speaker 1: all a tied to our opinions. Her opinion of me,
Speaker 1: her opinion of you is is valid for her, but
Speaker 1: you can't. You can have your own opinions. But people
Speaker 1: don't get it. They don't get the opportunity or the
Speaker 1: right to make those opinions. Facts like she said, we
Speaker 1: have never I would never, as a man of principle
Speaker 1: and integrity, I would never utilize the name of anyone,
Speaker 1: not just a person who's lost their life, but of
Speaker 1: anyone that I didn't have any connection to, a prior
Speaker 1: commitment from, to raise any money or to catapult myself
Speaker 1: in any manner. You know, I lived my life on
Speaker 1: the level of integrity, and those things actually bothered me,
Speaker 1: you know, and they were coming from people that I
Speaker 1: actually knew, who have been attacking us for way before that,
Speaker 1: and they utilized this moment. You know, I want to say,
Speaker 1: I want to say this about you, you know, I
Speaker 1: want to say that we were proud to see you
Speaker 1: on the Grammy stage, you know, not for the glitz
Speaker 1: and glamor, but the fact that you were up there
Speaker 1: talk in truth to power. You called out the president
Speaker 1: and demanded that he gives black people equity and justice
Speaker 1: in this world. And if we don't utilize those platforms,
Speaker 1: if we don't utilize every platform, we can't keep screaming
Speaker 1: from our you know, our soapbox about what we need.
Speaker 1: We can't keep going to the same communities that are
Speaker 1: impoverished and telling them that we need something to change.
Speaker 1: We have to be able to speak to eighty million
Speaker 1: and ten million people. I'm going to advocate every time
Speaker 1: I can, on every platform, that we stop police brutality,
Speaker 1: that we stop mass incarceration, that we stopped um gun
Speaker 1: violence in our communities, every opportunity, and I don't care
Speaker 1: what how people think about that. You know, people they
Speaker 1: asked you to go to the Grammys because you have
Speaker 1: made one of the biggest speeches of this error. They
Speaker 1: wanted somebody to deliver a message, and you have made
Speaker 1: one of the biggest speeches of this err and you
Speaker 1: do not have to apologize for that. You do not
Speaker 1: have to apologize because you have done the work for
Speaker 1: twenty five years. You have done the work, and you
Speaker 1: don't have to be sad. You shouldn't be attacked because
Speaker 1: you have done work that has put you in a
Speaker 1: position to be able to speak in terms of people
Speaker 1: saying that we are using the names of children or
Speaker 1: that we're cloud chasing, as they say. I wanted to
Speaker 1: be clear that if anyone, especially when you talk about
Speaker 1: the media, when you say, well, you know, these folks
Speaker 1: have not necessarily been there to support um miss Rice's
Speaker 1: family and the ways in which they should, it's important
Speaker 1: to also challenge the media to do real work and
Speaker 1: real because we put stories out into the world without
Speaker 1: actually doing the research. If you actually talk to families
Speaker 1: that I have worked with for twenty five years and
Speaker 1: that we have been working with since my son, Linda
Speaker 1: Angelo and I UM came together to form Until Freedom,
Speaker 1: you will not here. And I am a hundred percent
Speaker 1: sure of that that you will not hear UH sentiments
Speaker 1: like we are cloud chasing and we use their children.
Speaker 1: You will not hear that. Um. Many of those families
Speaker 1: have reached out to me over the last few days
Speaker 1: to check in and to to offer their support. So
Speaker 1: when you think of folks like Trayvon Martin, Um, you
Speaker 1: think of Shakisha Clemens, you think of Joe Guzman and
Speaker 1: Sean bell Um, you think of Brianna Taylor. Of course
Speaker 1: you think of the family of Ramarley Graham, Uh, Sandra
Speaker 1: bland Um, Jordan Davis. These are individuals that I have
Speaker 1: actually worked very closely with and that our organization has
Speaker 1: been supportive of, especially in the case of Brianna Taylor,
Speaker 1: and of course George Floyd's family. These individuals, if you
Speaker 1: actually do your work as a journalist and you speak
Speaker 1: with them to find out what or to ask them
Speaker 1: about our character and our work ethic, I can promise
Speaker 1: you that all of the individuals that I just name
Speaker 1: our people who will tell you that we still stay
Speaker 1: in contact. I'm thinking about Christopher Lloyd Morgan Jr. Who
Speaker 1: was a four year old child that I helped to
Speaker 1: bury some years ago. We still speak to these families
Speaker 1: on a regular basis. We still are very much so
Speaker 1: a part of their families, and we work together. We
Speaker 1: invite them to come out and and and be a
Speaker 1: part of activities that we're doing. We work with these
Speaker 1: individuals and try to support them all the way through
Speaker 1: and guess what, they support us as well. So it's
Speaker 1: important for people who are looking for uh ways to
Speaker 1: just jump in on the attacks that you do some real,
Speaker 1: real homework. I wrote down some points because I wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure to keep it um, you know, really
Speaker 1: tight and shut. There's several misconceptions that I think need
Speaker 1: to be stated on the record today. Number One, my
Speaker 1: activism did not start with the Women's March. It did
Speaker 1: not start with the Women's March. The Women's March did
Speaker 1: not make me. The people who worked together to gather
Speaker 1: five million people around the world we made the Women's March.
Speaker 1: The Women's March did not make me. Now, it is
Speaker 1: true that in the last five years the media has
Speaker 1: begun to pay attention to my work on a larger
Speaker 1: scale because we organized five million people. But if you
Speaker 1: again do your research and you check your facts, you
Speaker 1: will find that I have been an activist since I
Speaker 1: was fourteen years old, and that my parents actually started
Speaker 1: me in the movement as a young young child, very
Speaker 1: very small child, because the two of them have been
Speaker 1: activists all my life. I was born into this work.
Speaker 1: I did not jump up one day as a hashtag
Speaker 1: person who just decided to run to the movement, which
Speaker 1: is okay, I'm not taking away anything from anyone who
Speaker 1: did do that. I'm just talking about my story. Okay.
Speaker 1: I have not been a hashtag organizer. I have been
Speaker 1: doing this work since I was a very very young girl,
Speaker 1: and my parents again helped to get me started in
Speaker 1: the work. Can say something please, you know, And she's
Speaker 1: not a hashtag organizer. I started this work after I
Speaker 1: came home from prison after being incarcerated for seven years
Speaker 1: for a crime I didn't commit. I decided to understand.
Speaker 1: I decided to change my focus, you know, being a
Speaker 1: hip hop artist. A lot of people know me from
Speaker 1: hip hop, and there's been a lot of questions, Oh,
Speaker 1: is this some type of skin You're just trying to
Speaker 1: get some money. You know, he's a failed rapper, so
Speaker 1: now he moved into activism. Listen, rapping and hip hop
Speaker 1: is my passion. But I realized that activism was my
Speaker 1: purpose when I sat in those sales with these young
Speaker 1: boys that kept coming in and revolving door, and a
Speaker 1: let of them didn't even understand why they was coming
Speaker 1: to jail after the streets had lied to them, had
Speaker 1: that they've been sold dreams and thought coming to jail
Speaker 1: with some type of badger honor. And they listened to me,
Speaker 1: and O G sat me down and talked to me.
Speaker 1: I realized I had a different purpose. So I came
Speaker 1: home with a different purpose. And you know, and by
Speaker 1: the grace of God, I got in tune with Tamika
Speaker 1: and the likes of the Gathering for Justice in which
Speaker 1: they brought me in and wet. I started out in
Speaker 1: detention centers and I started talking to young boys and
Speaker 1: telling them how to utilize music as an alternative to violence.
Speaker 1: This was a process for me. You know, so a
Speaker 1: lot of people I get that you questioned that you
Speaker 1: don't know you know my song from the street. You've
Speaker 1: seen me in the streets. You know I was a
Speaker 1: hip hop artist, So I don't I don't have any
Speaker 1: problem with the skepticism, but I want you to understand
Speaker 1: that for the last eight years. My record has been stellar.
Speaker 1: I've been on the front lines of this movement. I've
Speaker 1: been taking guns out of hands. I've been side by
Speaker 1: side with families. I've cried with families. I've been on
Speaker 1: the front line. I've been to jails, I've organized, and
Speaker 1: I've mobilized, and I've been doing this work. So to
Speaker 1: keep questioning whether it's authentic, that's something that you got
Speaker 1: to deal with yourself. I would not apologize for doing
Speaker 1: work and being recognized. I would not apologize for being
Speaker 1: unapologetic and standing on the front line. Absolutely, I'm you
Speaker 1: shouldn't apologize. None of us should. In fact, all of
Speaker 1: us should be. But the problem is people want to
Speaker 1: see you. They want to see you unsuccessful. I've seen
Speaker 1: a video where Brothers said, Yo, you've got a dorman
Speaker 1: in your building. So I'm not supposed to have a dorman.
Speaker 1: I had a domain in my building before I started
Speaker 1: doing activism. But you want to make it seem like
Speaker 1: we're taking money from somebody. People hate to see that
Speaker 1: you have some level of success. I say all the time,
Speaker 1: I don't want donations. People who invest in our organizations
Speaker 1: or investments because they see the work that we're doing.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to think that you're pitying us
Speaker 1: or we're not grifters. This quote unquote world a grifter?
Speaker 1: What the hell is after I'm going to point number
Speaker 1: two because we have to wrap this up and get
Speaker 1: into our regular show. Um. The And I've said it already,
Speaker 1: but I think this is very, very very important, and
Speaker 1: this is a it's a sensitive topic for a lot
Speaker 1: of people. Our organization. We say this every other week, um,
Speaker 1: but sometimes people seem to miss it. And maybe today,
Speaker 1: now that most folks are listening, they can actually hear
Speaker 1: and understand. Our organization is called Until Freedom, Until Freedom.
Speaker 1: Our organization is called Until Freedom. We are not part
Speaker 1: of the Black Lives Matter organization all we are not
Speaker 1: part of the Black Lives Matter organization. We all believe
Speaker 1: that black lives matter. And you probably have heard all
Speaker 1: of us saying black lives matter. Um. I think that
Speaker 1: is a statement, a mantra that is really held from
Speaker 1: the highest part of the land, and a beautiful It's
Speaker 1: beautiful that three sisters came up with such an important
Speaker 1: way to frame our movement. But there is a such
Speaker 1: thing as the Black Lives Matter organization, and we at
Speaker 1: until Freedom. Are not part of it. We are not
Speaker 1: engaged in the finances of Black Lives Matter, we are
Speaker 1: not on the board, We're not a part of the administration.
Speaker 1: We are not funded by Black Lives Matter UM, we
Speaker 1: are not in any way affiliated with the business of
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter. Now I personally know the founders UM,
Speaker 1: and I also know very well Patrice Colors, who is
Speaker 1: the current UM leader of Black Lives Matter, and I
Speaker 1: love them all. So this is not about trying to
Speaker 1: separate ourselves in any way UM in a disrespectful way.
Speaker 1: But it is important to have clarity about who we
Speaker 1: are and where UH and and where we operate from
Speaker 1: and what our organization does. It's very very important because
Speaker 1: once we start to gather and loop and put everyone
Speaker 1: together UM, we lose the clarity among who is actually
Speaker 1: in which positions and what folks are actually doing. The
Speaker 1: next point is that you know that I've heard this comment,
Speaker 1: and I can tell that a lot of people don't
Speaker 1: necessarily understand the highway, if you will, of activism and
Speaker 1: and and of the movement right and UM and the
Speaker 1: fact that there are actual lanes that people are in,
Speaker 1: things that folks specialize in. Until Freedom's job on this highway,
Speaker 1: our lane is to motivate, mobilize and educate people on issues,
Speaker 1: on cases and things that's happening UM in the movement space, right,
Speaker 1: that's our job. So we create a climate by keeping
Speaker 1: the streets hot, by organizing people, by training people. That
Speaker 1: really allows our friends and and and associates and other
Speaker 1: people that we work with who do policy work. It
Speaker 1: gives them the fuel that they need to go get
Speaker 1: laws passed. Right, and so we've been involved in a
Speaker 1: number of those things in New York. UM. We have
Speaker 1: helped to change UM the issue of of unarmed individuals
Speaker 1: being killed by police or being shot by police too.
Speaker 1: Instead of it being an issue that is handled by
Speaker 1: the same prosecutors who work with police all the time,
Speaker 1: we have been able to push for legislation that was
Speaker 1: actually passed where there is now a special prosecutor. We
Speaker 1: also have been a part of efforts to UM raise
Speaker 1: and to to secure from the City of New York
Speaker 1: forty million dollars and it's now more than forty million
Speaker 1: dollars for anti violence programs. And again that is from
Speaker 1: the mobilizing efforts. Now I'm not a politic, but I'm
Speaker 1: extremely politically savvy and so therefore you will see us
Speaker 1: at times moving in and out of spaces. But in
Speaker 1: terms of our day to day work, our job is mobilization.
Speaker 1: That's what we do. We train people and we do mobilization.
Speaker 1: We also are very much so involved in getting Brianna's
Speaker 1: Law passed across the country in different cities, which is
Speaker 1: a band or no knock warrants. It's being led locally
Speaker 1: in Kentucky by Representative Attica Scott and also Katura Haran,
Speaker 1: who was an organizer on the ground until Freedom helps
Speaker 1: to create an environment where the two of them and
Speaker 1: others are able to go into the halls of the
Speaker 1: legislature and get the actual policy um in place. I
Speaker 1: have seen people on my page and people who have
Speaker 1: text and called who really are concerned. They're really trying
Speaker 1: to understand one because they want the language that they
Speaker 1: can use to talk to family members, friends and others,
Speaker 1: naysayers because they believe in us. And so that is
Speaker 1: why we sat down today to be able to discuss
Speaker 1: and dispel some of these things that are being stated
Speaker 1: that just sort of catch like wildfire without people actually
Speaker 1: doing real work and real research. And we do feel
Speaker 1: that we have to and we should be transparent and
Speaker 1: accountable to the community. We do ask for your investments.
Speaker 1: But I will say this to get to your other point,
Speaker 1: and I'm done after that. I will say this just
Speaker 1: to get to the last point. In terms of the Grammys,
Speaker 1: I don't owe anyone an explanation for why I was
Speaker 1: invited to the Grammys because for twenty five years of
Speaker 1: my life I have worked, and for twenty of those
Speaker 1: years I was you know, I was basically working for
Speaker 1: other individuals and being sort of behind the scenes. Uh,
Speaker 1: the fact that I made it to the Grammy stage
Speaker 1: or was invited to be. I didn't call the Grammys.
Speaker 1: I didn't call a little baby who I appreciate, she
Speaker 1: ate so much for including me in and for Tima
Speaker 1: Robinson and Jesse Collins and others. I did not call them.
Speaker 1: They called me, and they called me because for twenty
Speaker 1: five years of my life I have been on the
Speaker 1: ground doing the work of UM in communities and they
Speaker 1: know that, and that's why I was invited there. I've
Speaker 1: heard people say that somehow I'm canceled. You cannot cancel
Speaker 1: what God has called. And the reason why I know
Speaker 1: I have been called is because there have been so
Speaker 1: many attempts to destroy me, to discredit my work, and
Speaker 1: to try to move me out of the way. And
Speaker 1: I'll be honest with you that when situations like this happened,
Speaker 1: I don't always feel like getting up and getting back
Speaker 1: in the fight. But every single time that I begin
Speaker 1: to feel weary, God comes and instills in me and
Speaker 1: puts in me and motivates me to get back in
Speaker 1: the fight. We all get tired, sometimes, we all get
Speaker 1: beat down sometime. But every single time that I think,
Speaker 1: you know what, that's an I can't do it anymore.
Speaker 1: I need I'm pretty smart, I could go work anywhere,
Speaker 1: But for whatever reason, God continues to elevate me and
Speaker 1: to put me in position within the work that I
Speaker 1: am currently doing. And I know again that I have
Speaker 1: been chosen to do this work and that I have
Speaker 1: no choice but to do this work because every single time,
Speaker 1: every single time that the naysay is get together and
Speaker 1: that people try to take me out, instead of me
Speaker 1: actually being buried, I continue to grow. And I just
Speaker 1: want to say to all of you, those of you
Speaker 1: who are saying that I need to stop and I
Speaker 1: need to move out the way, and I need to
Speaker 1: do all these things. Growth is exactly what I intend
Speaker 1: to do. I'm not going backwards. I'm going forward, and
Speaker 1: every single opportunity that I believe in that God puts
Speaker 1: before me, I'm going to take it. And I'm going
Speaker 1: to bring the voices of those who have asked me,
Speaker 1: the people who I do represent, as well as my
Speaker 1: own family, my own struggle, my own desire to save
Speaker 1: my child and to save his children. I'm going to
Speaker 1: bring that message to any place that I believe is
Speaker 1: deemed a space where we can expand the awareness for
Speaker 1: the issues that we're fighting against. So that for me,
Speaker 1: is really the statement that the bottom line is you
Speaker 1: cannot cancel what God has called. And I know that
Speaker 1: I have been called to do this work. That's I mean,
Speaker 1: that's gospel, you know, And I just I just want
Speaker 1: to end it by saying this. You know, when you
Speaker 1: come from where I come from, they make you believe
Speaker 1: that you can't grow, you know, and they want to
Speaker 1: continue to pull you down. A lot of people call
Speaker 1: it crabs in the battle, you know, And I say,
Speaker 1: I used to say it was the crab out the
Speaker 1: battle mentality because a lot of these people feel that
Speaker 1: when you get out, you're not coming back to get them,
Speaker 1: so they're not happy for you to leave. But what
Speaker 1: what happens when somebody who's actually getting out and they're
Speaker 1: coming back to help, they still want to pull you back.
Speaker 1: And don't let these people believe that you can't evolve,
Speaker 1: that you can't grow, that you got to be a
Speaker 1: street dude your whole life, that you can't see things
Speaker 1: and you can't evolve your mind state, and you can't
Speaker 1: speak for our people, that you can't fight alongside me
Speaker 1: in this fight. Don't let these people feel that you're
Speaker 1: not supposed to be successful. They question your success because
Speaker 1: you're not doing negativity. But when you're doing positivity, I mean,
Speaker 1: when you're doing negativity, they're happy to see you success.
Speaker 1: They're not mad. When they hear rappers talking about killing
Speaker 1: and drug dealing, they don't ask them why they got money.
Speaker 1: They don't ask them why you got a house or
Speaker 1: why you got a call. But when you're talking about
Speaker 1: positivity and you're talking about uplifting your people, you're a
Speaker 1: fake activist. You know the mind state we have to change,
Speaker 1: And don't let these people make you believe any such thing.
Speaker 1: You are supposed to grow, you are supposed to evolve,
Speaker 1: You're supposed to come from the bottom and go to
Speaker 1: the top. So don't let anybody hold you back, young King,
Speaker 1: because I'm not letting them hold me back. Well that's that,
Speaker 1: on that on period as my sister Leslie Redmus, and
Speaker 1: though we owned it,