I'm Tamika D. Mallory and it's.
Your boy my son in general.
We are your host of t M I.
Tamika and my Son's Information, Truth, Motivation and Inspiration.
New Name, New Energy.
So what's going on to mek A D. Malory? How you feeling today?
Doing all right? At the Pull Up for Peace conference in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Yeah, it's like, yes, you have a live ta lia.
What's up y'all? This is your girl, doctor Jamelle T. Davis, and this is Star Wallace and this is I Love me More.
Hey, Hey, hey, how are you girl? It's been a weekend.
I can only imagine I have to ask you what are you doing to try to stay calm and balance throughout all of this?
How can you stay calm when you're doing a conference that you never dreamed the thought that you could do before.
So we live and direct at pull Up.
For a Peace that is say do who did the walk today?
And hold up y'all. We got a live audience.
Let's give it a full love audience.
That is so dope, so many young faces.
I love that.
That's right, So pull Up for Peace, y'all. It's all about organizing and galvanizing people from all across the country. And y'all see I lost my voice, right. So we've been dancing, we've been talking, we've been healing, we've been praying.
It's been everything here.
And what's so dope about this particular conference is that it's young people, it's old the people, it's everyone.
It's everyone in one room.
I don't think I've seen that in a long time. I wish I had been here for the entire thing to just really absorb it.
Are y'all having a good time? Are y'all learning stuff? That's so dope.
I remember as a kid, we always had to be in these rooms where we're learning, you know.
The kids did their thing. We always had to be.
In the room where the adults are leading and teaching us things. So I think it's so dope, and I don't think you guys should take that for granted.
That's right. So pull up for peace, y'all. Is a movement.
It's a movement all across this nation to let people know it's to put the guns down and put the healing up. And what do we mean by healing? It means to take care of our minds, our bodies, and our souls and to really emerge into our greater self. So today, y'all, we got something different. Not only do we have our podcast I Love Me More, today we're doing a remix with tm I. So we got tm I in the building and they doing they thing, and we're gonna do our thing together.
So guys, get ready for some fun.
We're definitely in Atlantic City for the Pull Up for Peace conference, which has been nothing short of amazing.
It's crazy.
I never thought I would be at a conference like this, Like I've been to so many different conferences, but when you put these type of credible messages and you put this type of energy in this type of love in the building, it's just way different. So I just want to shout all of the organizers of this amazing conference out for doing a great job.
It has been really, really beautiful to see all of us come together for something so impactful. I don't think anyone or that we can depend on anyone to do this type of work for us and for our communities. And I often hear, you know, people, when we're talking
about the political dynamics of America. People will say, well, we have to just figure out ways to do for our own, you know, and we know that right like, because we understand that no matter who's in white in the White House, the state House, the city house, or any level of government, they're never going to be as invested in our communities as we are on the ground.
And I think that this conference is an example of that, of us pulling ourselves together to figure out what are the strategies, and more importantly, meeting people from across the country. I was talking to a woman in the hallway yesterday and I asked her, you know, what has been the best part of this conference, and she said that I get to meet other people who are doing what I'm doing, who may be feeling the stress that I feel or you know, and it's not always stressed, because she made
sure to tell me it's not all bad days. But it feels good to have other folks that I can say, Hey, what about your experience in this area? She said, you know, I've been sharing with so many people. I have new friends, I have new collaborators, new thought partners, which is important.
And I thought that was it has to be exactly what this conference was designed to do, to bring people together so that they can feel stronger and so that they can feel like they have a network of other people across the country who are striving for the same goals.
We are the remedy Tamika.
I watched you guys help to organize Target boycott, and we saw with our own eyes how quickly stocks plummeted. Right, So with this conference, we see and know that if we galvanize, stocks can go up. But it's our stocks. We must invest in us. And too often we are divided because we're taught only one organization can shine, only one queen could be in the building. But when we come together, nothing is impossible. Nothing is and we need each other's resources.
Right.
You might have one thing, but I got the other, and you struggling waiting on your one thing.
But if I got the other, we could put that together and we could go. Chinese people come together, the Vietnam.
The Vietnamese people come together and get nails laws across the country and all these things. Why not the violence, the people that are stopping by community orgs? Why not we come together while we waiting for the White House to fund us. Now we need their resources, so we want them, right, But if they say no.
What do we do?
I still want to be able to say, yes, yeah, we can't stop just because you know, as people change face in different positions, different positions of power. When they change faces, then all of a sudden, our communities are no longer able.
To move forward Shample.
And that has never been our reality. We've always been a resourceful people. And when you think about all these young people who are here today, you know, I think that's what we want to teach, right. We want you all to be able to see that there are people in our communities who actually care and we're coming together with solutions for the issues that you're dealing with and
not pointing fingers at other people. Yes, though, we are are going to make sure that we advocate for ourselves because the resources that we want from the government, the resources that we demand from people who are in positions of influence and power and corporations and all of that, that is our money. It is our money. It is our tax dollars that we're asking. We're not begging anyone.
If you ever hear people say, oh, they're just looking for a handout, no, we're looking for our tax dollars to circulate back into our communities to address the concerns like we're putting money in the government. When you pay your taxes on your job. How many of you have a job. You have a job and you see little taxes come out your check, right, and it kind of hurts,
doesn't it. It's like over here the grown people are like, yeah, the young people might not really pay too close of attention, but those little taxes, that's serious, right, Like you've given somebody your money, So when you put your money out into the world.
You want to see that.
Because the whole point of them collecting taxes is that they're supposed to be taking care of.
The needs of the people.
But it seems that when it comes to the needs of black folks and brown folks and underserved communities, we are always the last ones to get back the resources that we need. Our communities don't look like the communities where the rich people live. And guess what, they don't pay as much tax They don't pay as many taxes as we do.
Isn't that crazy? Oh no, because the system is designed for them to win. So now this new system that we're going to create is designed for us to win, and it starts.
With you, young people. I've dedicated my.
Life now to teaching financial literacy to teens. We gotta start with y'all. Y'all gotta understand and know what credit is. Y'all gotta understand and know what budgeting is. You gotta understand how to use your money and make your money grow. You cannot wait for a handout because the handout might not be available to you, right, So you got to know how to make your money, make money. I want
to teach you god side hussuits. I want to teach you guys how to flip money, how to take but we ain't gonna do it like they do it on the block. We ain't gonna buy that other stuff. We're gonna learn how to buy merchandise, how to sell things, how to sustain yourself when others won't sustain you.
So I think that's really the.
Key, y'all, is to teach our people how to collect and remember the susu back in the days, all that kind of stuff our parents.
Used to do it.
Okay, y'all know you're shaking your head with the susu. We gotta figure this thing out like so explain it on the susu.
So the susu was we had everybody in the family put a certain amount of money into a pot and every week, so it's savings, so a saving and what happened was one family member would get that pot every month, right, so you as it built up, it just kept going around as long as you put the money in. And it was like sometimes you get like five ten thousand, and but you just keep putting your same amount of money and it would grow. The more people that put
into it, it will grow. And this is how a lot of us was able to survive with the suits.
So that was a big thing. We got to get back to that.
But that's literacy. Do you remember.
That's so really good?
Like any end, what is what are the findings?
Like?
If you put into it for so long.
The findings is you're saving your money.
Yeah, is we spend Oftentimes we spend before we get how many of y'all can admit. Sometimes you spend that paycheck before that paycheck come. That's not good. So what the SUSU does is helped you have a lump sum so that it budgets you. It helps you the budget and save and be able to really really get your money together.
So it's really.
These banks, these banks is taking your money. They doing the same thing and they giving you like less than one percent of your money. So they flipping your money. You put money into the bank. That's that's what the bank does. They take your money, they invest in stocks and all these things, and they make billions and billions of dollars and they give you like zero point one
percent of growth on your money. I'll be looking at the bank, I'll be like, you had this amount of money and it's only like forty dollars in like two years.
Growing, Like what the hell is going on? It ain't really nothing growing.
If you're waiting on that, brother, you're gonna be waiting for this real time exactly.
So that's what I'm saying is sousu is at least when you get that that lump summer money, you like, oh I'm putting my money and I actually see some level of return on it. So we got to get back to financial literacy. And I think that's what I love about this converse, like this, this conversation right here is this is what we've been doing. We've been sharing. Is nobody gay keeping. It's not somebody little means.
And big us.
It's none of that it's us giving you our knowledge, our wisdom, our our triumphs our fails and everything so that you can learn from it and growth from.
I also want to say something because you know, this just reminds me of when I went to college, and the first thing that you do when you go to college is almost set up for failure, Like that first week of college when you enter the dorm room business conference, and that conference is set up for you to get your first Discover card for you get your first credit card, and it's so easy to get that, but there's not one class on how to manage that card, how to use this card to build your credit.
So by the time you get to that five hundred dollars, you have.
The first negative thing on your credit report, on top of these student loans that you're taking out that you think are going to take.
Care of themselves that don't go anywhere.
So I think this is so important because it's financial literacy is the tool that unless you're taking finance, there's no where to talk about finances and how to manage that. You think they're just going to make the money and pay it off, and that's not how it works. Like you're set up for failure, even in the institutions that are that are designed for success.
You know what, this is such a good conversation because when you think about pull Up for Peace, you think of a conference that is designed to bring together the community that's working to curve violence in our communities. You would believe that we're only going to talk about like shooting and you know, different strategies to get guns off the street. But what we have to understand is that violence is a public health crisis. And if violence is a public health crisis, that means there has to be
a public health strategy for addressing violence. And in order to do so, you have to look at the root causes of an issue. Right, That's what public health does. Whenever something is considered to be a public health crisis, there are people who study the public health issues that lead to the crisis. And poverty is a number of issues. It is a number one. How many of you think that poverty is a number one issue for problems that
you see in your community? For the young folks in the back, are you listening to me, Yeah, there you go, poverty?
What do you think? Yeah?
What do you think? Do you think that poverty is probably one of the biggest challenges in your community. We would you say yeah, People are saying yes, absolutely, and.
I just want to jump in here.
So the goal is we have to break the thorns of poverty, right, and poverty makes people desperate.
People don't just want to commit crimes. Wow.
People ain't just saying Hey, today I'm gonna go commit a crime. People are saying today, I want to get a lick. People are saying today, I want to survive. So if you look at crime, crime is generally directly related to a financial gain. So if I teach people how to get to the back, chances are they're not going to get to the back the wrong way. And for me to me, I went to jail for a
thirty million dollar bank for a case. Right, So I learned early how to get to the bag, but I was getting there the wrong way, and I didn't realize when you get to the bag the wrong way, you're throwing Brits at the penitentiary system. Okay, cause it's gonna come get you. It's all a paper trail, they all waiting for you. But I learned when you do it the right way, that's how you break the bonds and pop and you take your time.
So my parents did it.
One of the ways to do it is through education. We tell y'all to go to school, and y'all like, uhuh, But let me explain to you. When you go to school and you get a certain degree, there's a certain bottom line level of money that they gotta pay you.
And we're not even saying, okay, just get the degree.
Get the information, because some of y'all entrepreneurs. If you have the information, you're gonna be able to make more money. Now to make that money, you gotta make that money grow. So you need to know about real.
Estate and assets.
And then my parents came from nothing and they used real estate to make them rich. They bought property after property after another property. My father owns like maybe fifty properties now.
But the thing about your family that you know. A couple of weeks ago, I needed something that Jamilla couldn't get to me physically, so she left it in her mom's office and I went to her mother's office to go pick up my books, right And while I was in there, the thing that I realized is not only because they have cornered the marketplace your family, and this is you're thinking about two people, just regular folks just
like us. Yeah, regular people, regular people. And now still at this point they're elderly and your mom is still whatever her real estate to the company. So what they have done is not only do they own properties, they sell properties. Right, your mom is like doing transactions selling properties and renting to people while also buying properties. And it gives you. It's like you have to They say that a woman needs seven forms of incomes in order
for her to be successful, to sustain herself. We need seven forms. So imagine they are collecting rinks.
That's a lot of income. Jesus.
I mean by how many jobs.
Do you do? How about ten jobs? Actually?
But you gotta have it, so mice. That's why y'all. We're giving y'all game right now.
We want you to get it from now to know that making money it's not difficult. People make it difficult because we see I need twenty dollars. Then you got to get away from the twenty dollars people. But you need to get around the people who.
Talking about something. And I learned that too. Poverty.
How you said it's a public health is you can it's a disease and it's o agous. Let me tell you, I love my folks, but I don't hang around broke folks.
Now broke folks.
Today saying you, if you hang around five people, you're gonna be the six.
So if you around people like a ta meek, a mallory of so, because y'all keep me going now, I'm like, all right, we're gonna go a little higher.
We're gonna go.
You gotta be around people doing things, and then it'll show you that you could do it too. They're not smarter than you, They not better than you, they're not wiser than you.
The difference between you and dumbest information.
Well, it's not just information. It's not just information because some of these people be dumb as hell and they make a lot of money because they have discipline and they and they are that's the epation.
So the information is how to be successful.
So Stephen Kobe right has the seven steps of being an effectual successful person.
But don't you see no information?
But don't you think you can have information if you don't do anything with what you know.
You're going biblical right. So faith without works.
As void rightsibility because I can give you all the tools that you need but if you're not going to have that mind set and your stuff and believe you your stuff to go apply it.
Then So let's talk about this real quick. Our people perish because of lack of knowledge.
So we're gonna take it to the word. So we at the world. Let's go to the world.
Our people perish because of what even spiritual knowledge. Right, we're working in spiritual warfare. Some of us have generational curses on.
Us and all kinds of things.
Right, So if we lack the knowledge of how to pray to break the spiritual curts, we're done.
If we don't know how you can get money on the phone, we got down. Kids are different than us. We used to really have to do real work to get money. I didn't know you can't can get on.
The phone, do a shimmy shade, do a front of our sell a shirt, and go get to the bag. Our people perish because of what lack of knowledge. So it's our to show people that it doesn't take a lot to get money. We keep acting like, oh, you got it, Nah, you can get.
On TikTok shimmy shak.
We can figure out the shimmy shak and we can get a coin, So we have to figure out different ways to get money, and we got to teach our kids how to do it so that they know it's not as difficult as they think.
All right, Just no, I just want to add to that.
She's been preaching all day.
To day, lady.
I feel the spirit she been led today.
Nah No, I just want to say, you know in that I you knows as young people, you know the confidence level, right, It would be so amazing to see the same confidence that I see young people when something is bad or when it's time to fight or do something crazy, but the lack of confidence when it's time to step up and.
Learn information and apply that information.
And I really want you guys, as we're sitting here having this conversation, to look within and.
Find those tools, you.
Know, look within and understand that you are a beautiful person, that you are an amazing person, that there's only one person in this entire world like you, and apply that to what we are saying, to what you identify with.
We're not saying, you know, uh, there's one lane for you. There are multiple lanes for everybody in this room. But to have the.
Confidence to step into it and to know that You guys are not in this room by chance, a happenstance, but there's somebody who loves you right to bring you, to take the time to bring you into this room, into these rooms, and that not just take it for granted, but to know that you are supposed to be here because there's something great in you.
Baby, we might need to put up a chance.
I'm telling you, come on up.
You know you might be the wonder day because God the Spirit is moving to Meka. First of all, I love you. I might love you too, but to me, I love you, and I'm gonna tell.
You why I love you. I love you because.
You have power, and with your power, you're willing to lend that power to others. So I think one of the call of actions is teaching not just our youth, but our people are skilled. I want to share one of the things we're doing in Birmingham and one of the things we do in New York City. I make sure that they give us discretion every funding to give each of our kids five hundred dollars to start their own businesses. Juneteenth, we had over one hundred teen entrepreneurs
vending at their city complex. Right we're going to Birmingham with it. And now we do a program for gods called Flipping the Game where we give them two thousand dollars to start their own business. And people don't understand that resources and information is a game changer because one of two things are going to happen. Even if my kids don't pursue the career that we give them or
show them how to do, guess what happens. Their confidence is boost they know what success looks like, they can feel once you could feel it, baby, That's how the battle because you got to have the faith to be So if we speak light to them, we give them resources, we give them information, and.
We charge our people to do the same.
So one of the things I want us to do through this podcast, through this platform, we know so many people that get to the bag. First of all, Black women right are the number one entrepreneurs in the country.
Right.
And one thing about black women, black women love who that to meeke a dem allery?
Date who they love her?
Yesterday?
Do black women love to make a dem allery? So one of the things I want you to make a pledge for us for pull up for because baby, I have an ass That's another thing y'all gonna learn right.
You have not because you what ah.
So I want you to learn how to ask people for things because all they can tell you is no.
And I don't think my sister's gonna say no. So my ask for the.
Pull Up for Peace pledge is that you ask all of those black women and all those incredible, amazing black men that you guys know that are affluent, to come into our community and teach a skill to our people about how to get money.
I want people that are who are looking.
Like them, been where they've been, sleep where they slept, who are successful to come drop gems.
See that's the other thing we get kicked. We don't want to give up the information.
But if we create the community that cultivates the information and we roll it.
Out to our people, that's how we break the bonds apart it.
Come on, now, create the community so we not only pull up for peace, we pull up for a piece of the.
Power because it's our time. Come on now. I got a little.
Preacher in me too. Now. But this is what it's about. Man.
Energy, Just give yourself around reports everybody in the end. Man, because the energy for these last three days has just been off the Chaine.
Hold on, we're gonna through the plans, y'all gonna do now? I don't know, y'all. I don't want to commitment on the carriage.
No, no, I'm definitely down for that, definitely, no.
No.
I just was I just I've been just praising this this conference for the last three days, like just and I just want to praise you, Jamila, because.
Praise God because he's using us.
I'm a best fool and he's using me. But I know the people with the power. So that's why I was so grateful for y'all to walk through the door, because sometimes we don't even know how to use our power, right we you know, we do what we do, but I want you to use your power for the people that are going through poverty, because mentors ship what we do know and you not. I learned that in your book, baby, you have some good mentor did y'all read Micky Demailoris I left.
To tell a story.
That never if y'all ain't get that man, oh baby, but to get that thing.
And I learned you had some incredible mentors.
So success and the part of why I have such important contributions in my life is because I understood since I was a little girl, the importance of sitting with elders. Yeah, my parents took me around elders all the time. And it wasn't really they weren't doing it intentionally. It's just that they I was a kid who went wherever they went. So I would go to rallies and other organized spaces, and while being there, you know, the elders did not
just look over me. That's good, right, And that's something that we have to so lindful of as older people in the room. Sometimes we'll see a young person and kind of little kid them and not and it's aggravating that they're even there. But they didn't do that to me as a young kid. The elders would sit with me, they would talk to me. Sometimes i'd get to the
rally on a Saturday morning. We had rallies every Saturday that my parents took me to, and somebody would have like books for me, kids books with ribbons on it, and they would give it to me and then they asked me, what did you read the book? Because I was one of maybe four kids that's always around, and so they found ways to work with me and talk to me.
So I always had this thing.
For elderly people, and.
I didn't know that.
Actually, you know, it was like a blessing from God that I had the taste in my mouth or the space in my heart to sit with the eighty year old and just listen to them. Not everyone does that, right, And in my book, when you talk about my memoir, everywhere I've been on tour, people have asked me, what's the one thing that I want young people to take away from this book? And you guys should get the book. It's a really good book. And I'm not saying it
just because it's my book. It is a really good book for development in your life and just to hear the story of someone else who came from exactly where you all are are coming from, right. And so my answer to the one thing I want kids to take away is listen to your parents, right. And I know that's like corny, like you know what I mean, listen to your parents. People like, okay, you know, But what
I realized. What I realized is that every single thing my mother told me everything, I mean, every single thing she said, eventually I found out that she was right. She may not have known in the moment exactly what she was talking about, but her wisdom was actually the navigation tool for my life. And I bring that up because these elders that I talked to, that I sit at the feet of, throughout my entire life, they have
helped me. And even if in the moment whatever they was saying to me didn't make sense, there was some place that I was out in the wild and this out on the boardwalk, as they say, trying to figure out my life, and the words that they told me would come back to me. It does not mean that my friends who look like me and the people who are sitting next to you are not important. But it is the wisdom of people who've already gone passed you
that can help you. You don't make the same so you don't make the same mistake all.
The time, that we are cheat sheets to life. Yeah right, because my son, my son didn't realize this till he was twenty years old.
I never forget it.
Like I've been talking to him and you think you're not listening. But if you're talk enough, if you talk enough, they listen, you know. And that's what we gotta do. We gotta we gotta understand as elders that our kids are taking in information.
We think they not listening. But I remember I woke.
I think it was like his twentieth birthday, and I went to his Facebook, and on his Facebook he wrote, I just now realized that my dad never told me nothing wrong. Everything that he ever said to me was one hundred percent correct. And we find that out. And I found the same thing else. I remember I used to tell my mother. I remember I had a girlfriend. I'm marrying this girl. My mother said, you're not married.
I love her.
Mami together, I said, you're not gonna marry.
Just relax.
And then when we broke up, and then I said, how you knew, she said, because I know because I'm your mother, because I lived life and I've had that same stage, in the same phase, and all the stuff that you're thinking, I've already thought. I'm and you're a product of me, So I know exactly what you're going through. So just understand that we have levels of wisdom and things that prevent you from making the mistakes that we made.
Don't You don't have to do it when you're around people who have wisdom and you have elders that pour into you.
Please take that out.
And you know, I think this conversation is so important because you can get money. Like you talked about, we could teach you how to make money. I need you mill to continue to teach me how to make money because I am a service oriented person, so I give more than I take right And that's changing now because
now I'm forty five years old. And so it was cute from whatever age to forty five, but now at forty five, I'm beginning to think about the rest of my life and what I will leave behind for my granddaughter, who's my bestie, my broke three year old almost three years old bestie. But she's not gonna be broke because she's going to control and my life. All of my resources will be signed over to her at some point.
If my son was here, he'd be like, word, yeah, absolutely, thank you for giving me my best friend, my sweetheart, Blair. And so you can make money, because I've made lots of money in my life, millions of dollars. But how you not only keep the money but value the money and value what to do with the money comes from your character and the other influences that you have around.
You and financial literacy.
So again information. Our people perish because of what. So as we continue to cultivate this community, I know we come into a close This is good stuff. We gotta stay in touch, we gotta give back, we gotta do more.
Right.
Most of y'all young people. Where you're from? Atlantic City? How many y'all from Atlantic City? Okay? I see a lot. How many of y'all from New York City? Okay? Few?
How many organizations? So we are representing a few organizations. So one of the things I'm gonna do, I'm gonna practice what I preach. All of y'all promise you this book I Live to Tell a Story is amazing. I'm gonna donate a copy to every single person because I bought my copy.
Shall that's my sister buying right, Yes, So.
We're gonna get y'all a copy of the book, and we're gonna start talking to your cities about contributions.
I'm doing some.
Work in Atlantic City, so I'm gonna ask your mayor about out our earn and learn program.
Let's give y'all. How many of y'all like to get five hundred dollars to start your own business in here? Okay?
You see them? Hans is out. My kids want that money. So we're going through Marty. Marty's well, we're gonna talk to you all right, so we're gonna figure out how to create more programs like that SYS.
We want y'all, y'all to come.
In the community, you know Institute or Research for Social Justice and Action that was created by myself and your brother Angelo Pinto.
We created the institute to be the church in action. Right.
It's okay to go to a place and be filled up or spiritual house, right, but some of us need other things like information, resources, stuff that applies to the natural. So we got the spiritual, then we got the practical. So the Institute was created to give the people the practical. How do I get money right now? How do I level up right now? How do our professionalize right now? To take my idea, because many of us have dreams. God talks to us through our hearts and our dreams.
But if we don't know how to make our dreams of reality, then we stock right. The Institute gives some information, So I'm looking for y'all to come on down and to the Institute and give us all lot of information and resources.
Y'all can love that.
I love it. I love it.
So you know, before we go, I just want to say that, you know, it's about taking these little bits and pieces of information right that build your life.
It's not one mapped out it's not one mapped out.
Lane the yellow big road that you follow, but it's in these places that you get information. So please y'all take this information, do the follow up, follow up, make sure you get your book, make sure you read your book right, and make sure you follow up with the people that you need to follow up to make sure that we're doing what we need to do and what
we have promised you. Because we're in this room for a reason, but we have a lot of stuff going on, but ideally we want to be accountable for everything we have said that we're going.
To hold us accountable absolutely, all right, So thank y'all so much, Thank you so much. Tune into an episode of I Love Me.
More and your Ma.
And you already know what it is.
It's cool.
We'll holliful peace pollif peace.
Pull up a peace
That's