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