The Breakfast Club - Tamika Mallory Calls Out Panini's Lack Of Black Leadership, Talks Corporate Diversity + More

Episode Date: June 7, 2023

Tamika Mallory Calls Out Panini's Lack Of Black Leadership, Talks Corporate Diversity + MoreSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Morning everybody, it's DJ Envy, Charlamagne Tha Guy. We are The Breakfast Club. Our guest co-host, Claudia Jordan, is here. Yes, indeed. And we got a special guest in the building, Miss Tamika Mallory. Welcome back. Hey, hey, hey.

How you feeling? Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here with y'all. Queen Mallory. You look cute. It's been a while. It's been a long time. Thank you, I appreciate it.

They invite me and I say no. Every time. Really? Yeah, I have to tell them no. But you got a lot of work that you're doing right now you gotta get the word out about some things a lot happening

I say I've been telling people that the movement is on all cylinders right now so many things so many cases actually I wrote stuff down

because I was like bruh I gotta really know what to inform people about but there's a lot happening I think you know

the overall thing that we need to know is that our country is in big trouble and everyone, everybody is going to suffer as a result. But whenever we in trouble, black folks, brown people, we suffer the most. You tried to tell them we in a state of emergency. You see, you got your book sitting right here. It is a state of emergency indeed. And it's getting worse. I mean, you and I talk about this all the time. To me, it feels like it's getting worse. I mean, you and I talk about this all the time. To me, it feels like it's getting worse. I think also because a lot of people are so numb, they don't really want to focus anymore. And that's dangerous because there's just too many things to do,

too much to know about. And we just need to be well informed about what we're up against. And I think that, you know, being able to call it what it is, that white supremacy, excuse me, and white vigilantism is on the rise. And, of course, we're dealing with issues within our own community with mental health problems and poverty causing violence. There is a tension and a feeling in the country that I'm sure you all feel, and it's really dangerous. It's not a comfortable space. And, you know, I don't think it gets better just by us ignoring

the problems. How do you think we get around this fatigue? Because I do notice there is a fatigue, right? It seemed like we were all hands on deck, maybe 2020 in the height of all the George Floyd protests and all that. Everybody seemed like alright, we on this. And it seemed like everyone just kind of fell off. Not everyone. People like you, thank God for you.

But it seemed like there's a lot of fatigue right now. Like people just, ah, I'm tired of hearing about it. And that's dangerous. People also, first of all, movements always are up and down. They never stay consistent at one pace. It's impossible. People have to get back to their lives. Folks have families and things that they have to do.

So that's normal. But there is a fatigue that unfortunately, I think doesn't change until people feel so uncomfortable that they have no choice but to get back in the game. And, you know, we try to continuously sound the alarm by making sure folks feel like there's a way for them to fit in and get in. But it's not until you start feeling it on your block in your home that it's like, oh, wait a minute, where's the protest? Or who am I supposed to be voting for? You know, what am I supposed to do to jump in the fight? So let's start.

You know, a lot of people, they don't necessarily run because a lot of people don't know what's going on. Like we get bombarded with so much in the news. And half the time we don't know what's real or what's fake, what's true, what's false. So what should we be focusing on now? What are you focusing on? Well, you know, I wrote these things down so that, you know, we could kind of break things into different parts. You know, in the summer 2020, since you brought that up, a lot of corporations were talking about their commitment to diversity.

That was the whole thing. In fact, corporations made pledges for millions and millions, probably billions of dollars. And certainly we've not seen that in the movement and across all spectrums of areas where marginalized communities need support. Most companies have have either, you know, gone away. They, you know, what do you call it? Out of sight, out of mind. And then some did a few things. And of course, we can't ignore that the recent news on Black Lives Matter has certainly helped people find a way to say, oh, well, you know, maybe I shouldn't be given to those causes, which, you know, we talk all the time about how I call bullshit on a lot of it. Nonetheless, it has been an issue. It is an issue. And so one thing I have

been focused on is calling corporations back to the table. And I've been working specifically on a company called Panini. And people are like, how did you get in sports and trading cards, sports memorabilia and trading cards? Like, where did that come from? But I always, I often remind people that every case we get involved with, we find out from the people. People call us. They call us and say there's a police brutality incident. They say something happened in the jail. That's how we got in Parchment prisons, which shout out to our family at Rock Nation and Team Rock, because we work to really make change in Parchment. And I'm sure people in Parchment are probably like, what change what change you know it's still slow coming but we did work with the local community in Mississippi to make some change there

but this all comes from people calling us elected officials concerned citizens scary folks that's like don't tell nobody it's my you know that I called but somebody hit me up and was like hey you should check out what's going on at this company, Panini. They have 75% of their trading cards and their talent, if you will, black athletes, black and brown, but primarily black athletes. A $3 billion company with no senior executives that are black people. Not even one. So when we found it out, we were like, okay, well, first of all, maybe we don't know. Maybe they just didn't put them on the website. You know, we're going to see.

And we sent a letter to Panini. It took them a while to get back to us until it started to pick up in the media, especially after we sent letters to the NFL and the NBA and the Players Associations and all the others asking, why are you partnering with these folks or allowing them to use your talent? It's basically our people being exploited. And so, you know, folks is like, well, how are you going to tell this company what they should do with their business? But, of course, we can't allow that because diversity, equity, and inclusion is supposed to be the moral, like, heart of every business, especially when you're using our brands and then you won't hire our people and put them in senior level positions. And the other thing is, it's like, what's the matriculation process for the people who already work there? They claim they have 10,000, I mean, excuse me, 10% of African-Americans working within the company.

So then what happens when those people apply? Do they even feel like they can apply for senior level positions? So we've now heard back from Panini. We heard back from the MLB, NFL, a couple, you know, people got back to us in the industry to say, hey, they support the cause for diversity and inclusion and equity, most importantly, which is what this is about, because there is a difference between equity and equality. We need to be aware of that. But Panini got back to us, and their response was that, you know, we are committed to diversity, but we understand that you're asking a deeper question about our leadership, and we're going to hire somebody to come in and help us. But that's, so you know that's not enough for us. We need to sit at the

table, have other people, advisors, people. I was thinking to myself that why would we not have former retired players and others be able to go work at Panini? Right. Why not? Why this specific company, though? Because there's a bunch of billion dollar companies that don't have black people in the C-suite. So why this specific? Well, first of all, one, why not? So that's one. Just because they we found out we went, we checked and we did the work. But they're not the only company. You know, we've had similar conversations over the years with Walmart, with Verizon, you know. And in fact, with Verizon, we went to them around Colin Kaepernick to ask them why would they continue to sponsor and, you know, be partners with the NFL knowing what was happening to Colin.

So we find reasons to approach corporations all the time about their commitments or their said commitments to our communities. And from my perspective, black folks in this moment, they need jobs like they need jobs, any opportunities. They need a seat at the table. Right. know some people say well entrepreneurship yeah but while you're building because all of us here are entrepreneurs but we got jobs too does panini feel that since they're giving so much money away to students and especially college athletes i know they do a lot with nil deals that because they're doing that they necessarily don't have to because they feel like we're giving the community money well they didn't say that but the from our perspective no like at until freedom our perspective is regardless of how much you give away you're just doing what you're supposed to do

but then also now let's find out what social causes are you involved with that the players care about not saying education is not one of those things but there may be other issues gun violence might be an issue that you need to be invested in. You know, a number of issues. Voting rights. Like, there are other things that the players, again, that's why you have to have our people in senior level positions to help make those decisions. So what kind of action plans would you like to see Panini do to correct this, like, lack of diversity? What would you like to see yeah so first of all they need to have an advisory committee of individuals from our communities that can help them look at the

diversity issues and when they say they're gonna hire somebody who you are don't hire your homie who's who's gonna say everything is okay you just need to hire like two black people and that's it you know no there needs to be a top-down strategy and there are a number of companies that do this. There are companies that have done a decent job. I can't say a great job, but a decent job of looking at their diversity issues through the eyes of people who look like us. And so I think that's one. But first of all, they need to have us at the table to help them decide how to move forward. And that doesn't mean we're not asking them for a dime. So let's get that straight before the Breakfast Club friends go talking about we asking them for money.

We're not asking them for anything. We're asking them for change. Now, what other companies are in a similar situation that you want change like that? I know you look at like Envy, there's a lot of them. I'm glad. Listen, I'm not going to answer you only because, you know, you never really let them know. Like, Panini had

no idea we were coming. And when people, when you start calling names, folks get things straight. They start putting people on the website. They be like, where the website? Bring the website. Don't we got some Negroes in the basement? Bring them upstairs and take some pictures. So we won't do that, but we

certainly are looking at other companies, you know, and we'll be talking about them as time goes on. It's actually been amazing, the dip in what we see. Like, I really felt like there was actually some, even if it was for optics, some type of effort being made. Oh, yeah. And some of it would surface, like you'd see the commercials, right? All of a sudden, like every commercial of every company was like a black person was in it. A lot of times it was like an interracial couple.

But you saw people trying to make at least an effort publicly. It seems like they're not even giving a damn anymore what it looks like publicly anymore. Well, just on that point, when we did the research to find at every company, we sent letters by companies. I'm talking about the leagues and the players associations. We sent letters to the CEO. We also went to look for the diversity person, right? Because most companies have somebody. And we found that most of those people were hired in 2020. Like all the different leagues, their diversity person came on board around 2020 and was well celebrated by the company. So that

just goes to show you that movements work. That's first of all, that, you know, for those people who think movements don't work, it actually provided opportunities for some of our people. And I'm sure depending on who the black person is in that seat, there's more happening within the community, but there's so much more that can be done. And that means that the movement can't stop

because the job is not complete. Are people getting, are they getting to actually be able to work? Or is it one of those things where we're hiring them just for the face, but they're not actually being able to contribute? Well, you know what? I don't know. And I'm sure there's a little bit of all of that happening, you know, because I know several diversity folks in different companies,

and some of them are frustrated. Others feel like they're really being supported. So I think it's a mixture of that. But we don't know until, unfortunately, issues start to come up and you start asking questions. That's the reason why we have to have different examples. So Panini becomes an example, which says to other companies, they might be coming my way.

Let me try to get my stuff together. When you talk about things working, Parchment is a good example of things working. Yeah. Because I think the documentary comes out June 17th, exposing Parchment. What did the work around, you know, what did the movement do for Parchment?

So we found out about Parchment, again, people call you, and, you know, tip you off to stuff that's happening. And, in fact, in Parchment, I have to give a shout out to many of the incarcerated individuals because they did the work. They are the ones that filmed the horrific conditions within the prison. And, you know, I never forget being in the car. I don't know where I was going to do an interview, somewhere in the south. And I remember getting a phone call from a woman that you could clearly

hear she was like 90 something years old and she was like you know my son he said he sent you something she said could you please you know go look because you know on instagram and other things if you're not following the person or whatever they send it it's a bunch of messages way back somewhere in the you know and so i had no idea what was going on but she called my attention to it and so I you know looked in and saw all these videos blood you know people hanging from you know it was just bad like rats mold terrible and at the same time we have family our Mississippi Prison Reform Coalition folks out there Rakia Lumumba and others who are in Mississippi, they were friends. So we contacted them from Until Freedom. It was when we first started our organization, contacted them, like, what can we do? Got everybody together, Yandy,

all our people, like, we're going to try to go. And then at the same time, had been already working with Rock Nation. They also were getting calls. We went to them saying, let's combine our efforts, and we started rallying. You know, they put op-eds in the major newspapers. That's what happens when you work with people that have money. People don't understand why that's important to have access to capital. We talk about Harry Belafonte as someone who had access to capital, and Dr. King, yes, rest in peace to Mr. Belafonte,

Mr. B as we call him, he had access to resources. So Dr. King was able to work with him and he helped and supported Dr. King to get his word out, to get his message out, to travel the world. So it's important when you have people, people get mad at me every time,

like, why do you keep saying J&M? They did, They helped us. They help us all the time to make sure we could get there, travel. It costs money to get on a plane and fly to a city and be in that city. You need security. It's a lot of things. So we combined our efforts. They're not activists.

They're not on the ground. They allowed us to stage. They put the stage up. We got on it and did what we had to do. And as a result, you know work and by the way the people in mississippi had already been doing this work for years so we bought them some extra stuff and spiced it up and there was this big pot of gumbo that forced ultimately uh the the state one to come in and look at the jail and say okay the prison and say there's some serious human rights abuse and issues and now

there's a plan that they have to work through the jail is responsible the government is overseeing it and the lawyers that were hired by Team Rock and Rock Nation have been engaged and there's a lawsuit with many of the incarcerated people there.

So, again, it's not the fix-all. It's not. We can't. We're well beyond fix-all, right? We've been dealing with this 500-plus years, so it's not the fix-all. But we've done our part to at least move us a little bit closer to what it looks like for a more just society. You know, when it comes to stuff like that, like, you know, you protest, you march. When Roc Nation does something like a Kalief Browder doc

or a Trayvon Martin doc or the Exposing Parchment doc that's coming, does that make y'all jobs easier? Yeah, it helps. Well, first of all, it helps because we get eyeballs on our work. People get to see that it's actually something happening because a lot of times we fall into this place

where the narrative is like, this don't mean nothing nobody's doing anything people are not focused and so when you get to see us because i'm in the documentary um and you also get to see the local people local people get ignored you know they get overlooked and you get somebody like a rock or whomever to go into a city even me even i have to be careful because I have a brand that I can go into cities and drown out those individuals who are on the ground. So it's our responsibility to use every resource we have to uplift those people who are there. We learned that, of course, in Louisville, Kentucky with Breonna Taylor. And, you know, and so the documentary helps people to see the work. It also helps people to see the elements that went into the types of people, like how much collaboration it takes.

It's not just marching. It's not just policy. It's not just legal strategy. But all of it coming together is what makes up a movement. So, yes, those documentaries are important. I mean, when we go back and watch documentaries of the past, if you are a true student of history, or if you really want to understand how we even ended up here, good or bad, you go back and you watch old documentaries and read books, and you can figure out or really kind of trace the steps of what has taken place before us. You're on the front lines. Do you ever get discouraged?

Hell yeah, I get discouraged. And do you ever feel like, what am I doing? I get more than discouraged. I get pretty nasty about it. I send text messages in the middle of the night, like saying words, bad words. You know, lately I've been saying, you got to stop texting this stuff because these things are going to be historic documents.

Like people are going to print your text messages out. Nika Nalli be like, fuck these niggas, I'm over it. That's what I be saying. I be like, fuck these niggas. I'm over it. I'll be saying, why do I do this again? So where's your motivation come from on those days when, you know, we see the wins, right? But there's the days where you probably... I don't know about the wins.

Well, wins are... I'm not... Progress. Progress. A little bit of progress. A little bit of progress. Because wins, I don't feel like I'm there yet, you know. A little bit of progress. A little bit of progress because wins. I don't feel like I'm there yet. You know, and, you know, whatever. Some people would argue that we should be careful not to appreciate the things we've been able to accomplish and which we have many things. But I think my my I always say that my investment in this movement is very selfish. It's not like, oh, I'm doing it because of the other children and the other people.

It's my own family, like me. You know, I want to be able to drive and feel comfortable and walk around in society and not be treated differently or othered. I want my son to be protected. And now I have a grandchild, you know, and here this is a young girl or a baby who's going to grow up in this society what is it going to look like I don't want to leave here with people

saying like well what did you do to contribute and I'm over here pointing at oh well they did no we have a responsibility and I think that's where every you know when I get up and some days Claudia is turned into a situation where I go to bed like I promise you I will not do shit else for these people.

Because of all the stress that I go through, the attacks, the lies, the this and that. I'd be like, that's it. And then I'd be like, which people? Our people? Like in the morning when I wake up, I'm like, let me go to work because this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Calling on your life is something. I was telling you that, which you didn't respond to. But I was texting you

about that, you know, when you start, it's like a revelation that happens in you and you know you've been called. I didn't reply to that. No, sir. I know exactly what that convo was about. That was about... What a friend. I was going to ask you.

Hold on. Can we stop for one second though? This is what a grandma looks like in 2023. God damn, man. Think about what grandmas used to look like 30, 40 years. They was looking good too. They just, you know, it was just different, but they taught us, they made us look like this. It's a fountain of youth.

I was gonna ask you, you know, with everything that you do, do you ever feel like I'm doing it for nothing because it's the same storyline over and over again? You know, you fight for this family here and then a day later this happens here and then a day later this happens here. And it feels like I keep fighting and nothing changes because we see it all the time. And it feels like people's mentality of how they look at us never change. I shifted my perspective on that because I did have that.

And it sent me into depression, sent me into addiction, sent me into a bad, dark place. So I shifted my perspective to understand through therapy, which is incredibly important, that my job is to just take the baton and pass it along. It's not to fix the problem. So that's what happens is when we think that, like, it starts with us and ends with us.

We're the end-all, be-all. We got to fix it. Like, if we die and it hasn't been fixed, we failed. That is not realistic, and it's not true. Our responsibility is to be able to show that we got in the game and it got it was better because of us, that we pass it along to others just like someone passed the work on to us. And so I now in that in that light or understanding that I feel like I'm doing a great job. I don't think that we're winning, but I think I'm doing a great job of being committed and focused on something for 30 years of my life. This is all I know. This is what I've been doing.

I mean, you know, I'm working. I do other things. Obviously, I'm an author. Thank you, Lenard. And I have other consulting businesses and all of that. But this one thing is my passion. And it's what i do every day when i wake up and before i go to bed and i believe that god blessed me like i feel so blessed to be called like you know how oh man he put it on you you know what i'm saying like you actually have the discernment and the understanding he gave you a voice and a power and relationships like you're a real blessed person if you get all that I have and you're able to be in as many rooms and spaces as I've been in and to have so many families that are my,

that's my family. You know, I have so many family members out there that we met through tragedy, but these are my people. Right. We're lucky to have people like you and have you specifically because, you know, it's always when are they going to do something? And you're the they that we talk about. You know, we're the to have people like you and have you specifically because you know it's always when are they gonna do something and you're the they that we talk about you know we're the they that we need because a lot of people don't have that in them to go do that and you do it for us so thank you I appreciate that Claudia talk to us about uh was it I might be pronouncing the sister name

wrong Ajika Owens man boy I tell you what um I was on a conference call last night with Angela Rye and Amanda Seals and I mean, Alicia Garza, Ben Crump, everybody, Jeff Johnson, the names go on and on. All the people, Christy Henderson was the coordinator of it. And first of all, the brilliance in this movement. Oh, wow. To be on that call. I just wish it could be taped so everybody could see the thoughts and people working together to try to help get justice for this woman's family. What happened to her is it seems to be very clear, at least as clear to me. And, you know, Crump, before he gets an attorney, Crump, before he gets involved in things, he kind of knows what happened for the most part. So it appears that the neighbor was a menace already.

Like she had been harassing. This is the story you gave the lady donkey today too, right? Yes. No, no, no. We just talked about Tesla. We talked about it this morning. We talked about it this morning. Yeah, so it seems that she had already been harassing

the children and people in the community. And this particular day, the kids were playing next door, which you guys probably already discussed. But, you know, the kids were playing next door in a field and she thinks she owns the field. So she's neighborhood Karen. She thinks she owns the field. She tells them when to come and go. The iPad was still in the field when the young man noticed it. All the kids were inside. He noticed his iPad was there.

He ran out to go get it. She already had it. Somewhere along the line, he approached her to get the iPad. And she hit him with something. So, and called him. The N-word. What age is one of your kids? Well, this young man young the young boy is nine

nine and this and AJ as they affectionately call her AJ Owens she has four children and so I think

the youngest one is two and so she so he went and got mama and mama came back to talk to the woman

get the iPad probably ask you know why did you hit my child or that and the woman shot her through the door shot ask, you know, why did you hit my child or that? And the woman shot her through the door. Shot her through the door and killed her. I mean, period. You know, and to

add insult to injury, which is very similar to what happened to Jordan Neely, or at least what happened to Daniel Perry, the man who killed Jordan Neely, is this thing where you can just go down to the precinct, they ask you a few questions, and then you just white,

and they say, okay, you can go home after you've killed somebody. It is amazing that they, it's like, do you mind coming in and talking to us? Yeah, we just want to ask you for formality. And let you go home. And don't release her name. Well, yeah, they didn't release her name, but we know what it is. Her name is Susan Lawrence. Thank you. I believe that's her name. Susan Lawrence.

And, you know, again, people in the neighborhood know her. But let me just say, on the issue of people getting to go home. Did she call 911 at all? So she didn't call 911 until after she shot? I don't know. That's a good question. Because, you know, usually it's self-defense, and if the door was closed, if the door was closed, there was no way that she felt like her life was in danger.

I mean, you got to, come on. And she'll try to use Stand Your Ground, of course. It's a lot of things that I think they're going to try to use. I think they're going to have a mental illness thing. They're going to try a lot of things. So why people are the only people that are allowed to be mentally ill? Because with us, we don't get that grace. No, we don't.

But let me say that one of the things I want to make sure we mention is that this is not a new issue or a new concern. If you think about Emmett Till and other cases of the past, there was a time when white people could literally decide that you made them feel uncomfortable or you committed some criminal act. They didn't have to be in law enforcement. They could decide your punishment, kill you, whatever they want to do, and there was no consequences for it. So we're going backwards to a time when that is now a thing again, that you just go on downtown and tell Billy Bob, Officer Billy Bob, everything was cool, you know, I just shot me a nigga today.

That's it. It's just, and of course, I hope we understand not to say that it's okay when it happens to men because we fight for black men all the time. Our entire movement has been focused on black men, but now they're killing black women, which brings us to Breonna Taylor. Shout out to Breonna Taylor and her family. Look, happy birthday. She would have been 30 years old, man, 30 years old, a young, beautiful life taken.

Her boyfriend, Kenny Walker, thankfully the charges that the officer had against him have been dropped. So he's now free and clear to live his life. But yesterday, I don't know when that's the case with standing ground work for a black person right yeah what uh kenny walker case oh yeah right well yes kind of yes yes yes they charged him at first but then they eventually charged him but they dropped it they never admitted it that's the point nobody ever said that he had the right to do what he did or whatever, but he did, right?

And I think that they dropped the charges for a different reason, which is because they don't want to have to go to court and lay out the details. They're trying to push it, you know, sweep it under the rug. It would make them have to do too much. But anyway, so the attorney general in Kentucky, y'all talked about this. His name is Daniel Cameron. This man was responsible for the prosecution of the officers. He was responsible for finding justice. Right. As the attorney general, because the local government

decided that they didn't want to try the case. It was too close with the police department and the local DAs and whatever. So they pushed it to the attorney general. First of all, Daniel Cameron is a cop lover. He has videos out there talking about how he will defend police and law enforcement until the end. He will do whatever is necessary to stand with police. So he had the case and had a grand jury impaneled, which they went and they presented a case to the grand jury, of course, and which is what we fight against, the grand jury proceedings being secret. That's a problem because you don't know what's happening. You don't know what they're presenting with the witnesses,

what's going to happen. So the grand jury comes back and returns their decision, which is to charge one officer with shooting through the wall. And that that could have hurt the people on the other side. It didn't, but it could have. And so that charge was called wanton endangerment. And that's what the person was indicted on. They never came back with any charges about Breonna Taylor being murdered. But when Daniel Cameron did his press conference to announce what happened in the grand jury, he said that the jurors decided that no charges would be brought against those officers for killing Breonna. That's a lie.

Why do we know that? Not because what Tamika Mallory is saying. The jurors came forward, Envy. The jurors. There was about four of them that did an interview saying, we were never presented with anything for Breonna Taylor. We kept asking, when y'all going to talk about Breonna? And they never brought it up because that's what you can do.

That's why they say you can indict a ham sandwich because you go into the jury pool in the jury room and do whatever you want. Present the case that you want that gives you the outcome that you desire. And he went in there and didn't want to charge those officers, and so they didn't. So now he's got the audacity. I was about to call him names, and then I thought about it.

I'm on the radio. He went in there. No, now he's running for governor. Like, what? That's crazy. crazy like how do you get rewarded and he might win well if let me tell you something i don't want to say i don't want to put wish death on myself or anybody but i promise you we gonna fight them like cats and dogs in the street we um yesterday on brianna taylor's birthday. Her mother started off the donation to our organization to

Until Freedom for our efforts. We are asking, she made, I didn't even know she was going to do this. She asked people to match her by donating $30, $300, $3,000, whatever you can in honor of her daughter being 30. And we're opening two offices in both of the more urban neighborhoods, you know, communities in Kentucky, which is in Lexington and in Louisville. And these are places where,

you know, supposedly low propensity voters, which Linda Sarsour, my partner, at Until Freedom often says they are high potential voters because they don't really come out unless they're motivated. And we're about to knock on doors until November.

We're going to put ads up on TV. We're going to make sure that everybody, Lottie Dottie and everybody, knows about Daniel Cameron and what he did to Breonna Taylor's family. How do you protect yourself in situations like that? Because that's dangerous. To go post up in Kentucky and go against this guy who's got a massive support in Kentucky.

How do you protect yourself? Well, we're going back again because remember, we lived there for four months under mass surveillance by law enforcement and white supremacists. And there's like video to show what we experience. I mean, you know, I don't know. First of all, we have security 24 hours a day, which is important. But security is not necessarily able to stop some crazy person from driving a car through the window of your office or whatever. Are y'all being set up? You know what I mean? Stuff like that. But before we even get to the point of physical harm, just watch. You're going to be like, like you gotta come back and talk about

this they're gonna have articles out in a minute about everything we ever did wrong who's who paperwork ain't right what organization did this who which is why i don't like to get into a back and forth about whether or not somebody bought a house in blm i don't like to get into that because i know what that conversation is all about and i know who it benefits for us to get stuck in that. They want to discredit our movement so that they can make sure that nobody donates to Tameka Mallory either. We all criminals. But you're not BLM though. I'm not.

Of course I'm not. We said that on this show so many times. But you're right. Repetition matters. I'm not in the organization black lives matter um and but i'm just saying that i i've seen this movie before this is not the first time they they don't they actually don't do anything new they repeat the same script over and over again it's just that there are new players involved so you think you in something new

but they literally have intentionality right now around discrediting our movement. It doesn't mean you shouldn't ask questions. There should be no accountability. That's not what we're talking about. But when we start going down that rabbit hole, there's a reason why they want us to stay there. And so what will happen is that in the next couple of weeks,

especially if Danieleron feels like our movement is a danger to him you'll start hearing who slept with who johnny you know shot somebody when he was 12 who went to prison that's what they're gonna do to try to discredit the people locally and nationally who will be there fighting him but we we, despite it all, despite it all, we gonna be there. We have to stop eating that up, though. We're so quick to be like, I knew it was a scam,

and we have to stop being so skeptical of each other. Yep, yep. Because I saw that happening, and I'm like, oh. But there are scams. There are scams. And guess what?

White people run them every day. That's right. But they don't, I feel like they don't i feel like they air their laundry like we do something no no you'll never you will never see like i give you an example the women's movement right they got all kinds i know we were in it right in the women's march we were in it we was in we we we were leaders of the women's march we know all about the stuff that goes on internally but you don't know who's about people's salaries

you you don't know how much they make in these major women's organizations and other um organizations that have or social cause organizations that have people that don't look like us. You tell me what's their salary. It doesn't come up. You don't know what house they have, where they live, how much money they spent. And if there is an issue, they deal with it internally. When it became public that there was a fight, which wasn't even about money, it was because it was women of color at the helm of it. So we just have to be aware of that.

That does not mean that you don't have the right to say, I gave $100, $200,000, whatever it is, and I want to know what is being done with my resources. I'm not telling people not to ask those questions. I'm saying that what we see going on right now is not about asking questions. It is about creating a creating um a dissension campaign or whatever against our movement as a whole and and yeah i'm not in blm at all i have

nothing to do with the money never received the dime in fact i asked them for a million dollars and i'm still waiting on somebody to respond so i i this is not about that. But I also am clear that I don't get to separate myself from this whole movement because I know I only raised, my organization raised $3 million when BLM received $90 million. So that's why we asked for a million, which is not even enough because we was in the street in the summer of 2020, and we know that people went on their phone and said, I don't,

I'm not going to look for a particular name. I'm just going to give money to BLM. So I feel they owe me money. Right. I think they have some of my money. So we asked for a million dollars, but I understand that this movement, everything that happens,

there are implications for all of us. If something happened with you, Envy, I've been watching you for the last few days. I talked to you. You know what I'm saying? It impacts everybody that's close to you. That's just what it is. So I just want to put that message out there.

Be careful what you allow yourself to get dragged into. What would you say to people who say y'all should just focus on getting money? Forget all the marching and everything. Just focus on getting the money. I mean, you know what? And some of my family in the movement, some of my great brethren, feel that way now. And I have debate back and forth about, again, the collaboration and the need for all of us to be working together or at least not getting in anybody's way.

So whether it's opportunity or white supremacy, either thing has a different perspective of how you address it. The march brings attention to an issue. Then you have people who might be there from a financial perspective to say, well, look, we're building ways that we don't even need police anymore. So now everybody knows there's a problem.

And now there are new people coming along to say or other people coming along to say we're going to build a new system. Right. Then there's politicians that also have their role. But here's another important point. All my brothers and sisters who are out here doing financial upliftment, what is it called? The financial literacy.

But it's something else. Financial development, economic development, right? There's a strong movement, and I support it. They make laws that control what you do. You're not just out here thinking that your money, you're going to just be able to put your money together in a shoebox. You're going to have to use a bank, create a bank.

You're going to have to have tax codes. There are laws. So those laws mean that you got to have elected officials that you have to vote for that make the laws. And then how do you get elected officials that you believe will support your interests? You need movement to be behind those people. So none of us could be disconnected from one another. We all play a role in how even the big economic strategy,

the exodus that we are planning, that is being planned, I hope, there's still going to be rules, laws, and other things that apply. And lastly, I will say that most of our people ain't where some of us are. So most of our people live in the projects right now and they need their city council person to make sure that they don't have rats, that they have light, that they have heat today. So while you're over here in the lab strategizing on this plan for how we're going to invest together and build together and crypto and all of that digital money and all that stuff, over here, Jojo, who lives in the projects that doesn't even have a cell phone to watch our lives and to show up at our conferences and all of that, he needs lights, water, food, job. His baby needs Pampers right now. And there are people who run for office every day from the federal level down who are responsible for that.

And we have to be a part of that process. How can people donate if they want to donate? To Untool Freedom? Yes, absolutely. Child, we need y'all to donate so bad. Lord have mercy. Before you talk about donations, I just want to make sure we mention Shanquilla Robinson today.

There's still a fight to get the State Department. You got to remind people what that case is. When you said her name, I was like, damn. You had to go back and pull. She's the sister who got killed in Mexico, right? Yeah, she was killed in Mexico.

And oftentimes, because it was people who look like us, we forget about it. And we're like, oh, well. I had a group tell me, and it was a deep, like, this is, I know we got to go, but this was, like, really messed me up. I called the group. I said, yo, we're going to D.C.

We're about to protest, you know, and make sure that they extradite. The State Department has the power to extradite the one aggressor that we see in the video beating on assaulting Shankwala. They have the ability to extradite the one aggressor that we see in the video beating on assaulting shankwella they have the ability to extradite them because mexico claims they filed all the paperwork to get that person so they can prosecute so that i so i call my people i'm like yo me me and dc like we gonna do this thing we'll do a press conference and one woman i don't i don't i would wish i could mention her name but she's a powerful organizer said to to me, I can't do it. She said, because we are abolitionists.

We don't believe in turning our people over to the police or to extraditing them. We believe in give them to us and let us deal with the issue. And I was like, yo, this kind of messed me up because I never I didn't think about that, that, you know, there are people among us that not saying that she thinks she knows that what happened is wrong. And in fact, she came and stood behind the cameras. But her position was I can't be a part of turning our people over to this system. We need a mechanism for addressing injustice, violence and all of that in our own community. So we got a lot of things to think about. And with that being said, you can donate to Until Freedom by going to untilfreedom.com, which is the safest, best way to get us donations.

But, of course, if you want a cash app and Venmo and all of that, we're Until Freedom. Spell it properly because people have stolen our stole, whichever is the right way to say it, our name, colon stolen our stole, whichever is the right way to say it, our name, colonized our name, and they put one extra E, one, the L's or whatever, and so a lot of our

donations were going to these other accounts. So until freedom, U-N-T-I-L-F-R-E-E-D-O-M on all platforms you can give. And did we get everything on the notepad? I think so. Let me see.

Oh, Cop City. Cop City. In Atlanta. Cop City, which they voted today to pass the budget. So that happened overnight. So Cop City, for folks quickly, is in Atlanta. Man, they did such a good job of keeping all the people who usually would have been on the issue,

like celebrities and others, they kept them unaware of what was even happening he made it a classism thing where the only the organizers shout out to queen yonasaha um shout out to uh great attorney gerald griggs uh who was the head of the atlanta naacp shout out to my homeboy marcus t coleman it's a bunch of people out there um that did a lot of great work. Kimberly Latrice Jones. And so basically, Cop City is a place that is being designed to train police officers from around the country. So in DeKalb County, Andre Dickens, the mayor, is creating a city. And by the way, people want me to mention that this was not his plan.

It came from governor kemp and keisha lance bottoms and then he had the ability to keep it going or to cancel the project so they are building this facility now here's there's a lot of issues with that because by the way police had the most training ever rayshard brooks who was shot and killed while running away in atlanta We all watched it on video. He had the officer who killed him had 200 hours of training, 200 hours of training. They have millions and millions, billions of dollars in training, but they don't take the same $60 million that was approved last night in the city council.

If you go to Atlanta and go downtown, why don't we use that to put unhoused people in housing why don't we use that for mental health issues they said well gun violence is a big issue kids that have jobs and opportunities people that have jobs and opportunities they not shoot do they shoot in your community no do they shoot in your community they don't shoot in mine either they shoot in your no because you know? Most of the people in our communities have resources, they have jobs, they have opportunities. So if we take $60 million and invest it over here, maybe we won't even need as many police. But to add insult to injury, they have a group of individuals there training people called the IDF, which is the Israel Defense Forces. Now, the Israeli Defense Forces. Now, everybody got different politics on what they feel about Palestine and Israel and all of that. And we're

not getting into that today. What we do know, which is a fact, is that the Israeli Defense Forces kill people and children in Israel, Palestine every day with impunity. Maybe not every day, but very often. They killed a two-year-old yesterday or the day before, okay? They are a violent military, violent military, with massive human rights abuses. And this is not Tamika Mallory. This is Amnesty International.

This is the United Nations that has talked about the Israeli Defense Fund, which American U.S. tax dollars go to them our money helps to in to to uh invest in the work that they do killing people and um and and i won't even get into all of the politics around why they're in um in is in israel because we could go down a rabbit hole there right which i think is a human rights abuse against another group of people but i said i wasn't getting into it and then i said it right so so so this is these are the folks that they're gonna allow to come in and do training we already dying we're already dealing with a racist abusive policing system in the u.s which doesn't even have laws federally or locally enough laws to protect citizens,

black folks, and you're going to slap Cop City in the middle of DeKalb County and have some forces from a violent, dangerous, racist military to come and train the people? That is what they're going to say. It's all first responders. There's going to be people there from, you know, firefighters. They're going to have, there's an element that cannot be ignored. And that is the police training that will take place in the facility. And that is a problem.

The police association, I think that's their name. Excuse me if I got it wrong. They are the ones that's coordinating the whole space. And so the, the. And so basically the resources that the city council approved are to lease space for the responders and others to be trained. But the policing situation

is the main focus of the facility. So I called out Mayor Dickens because brother, how dare you? You as a black man know what we've been through. You called so many of us and told us that there was going to be change. And now under the guise of safety, public safety, when I could tell you right now that they do not have a program the way that we do in New York, where there's hundreds of millions of dollars going towards grassroots organizations like Erica Ford, like A.T. Mitchell, and so many groups that do work here.

And the data proves that when you invest in grassroots organizations, they do real work to make change and to stop and reduce violence in communities of color. They do not have a robust program like that in Atlanta. And you have the audacity to jump past that, go put money in Cop City and not invest in your people to really, truly keep people safe. It's wrong. Why would Keisha Lance Bottoms or Andre Dickens want it? Well, because people, elected officials, which is an important point, right? They get nervous.

And Governor Kemp is a bully. So first of all, the fact that you're in bed with Governor Kemp about anything is problematic to me. But they get nervous. And so when they start feeling the pressure from the governor and all these people, because a lot of our folks don't understand what true public safety looks like. We've been taught that public safety is locking people up. But the police exist now.

There's police all over Chicago and still there was 50-something people shot Memorial Weekend. That's right. So policing is clearly not solving the problem. But going back to the original question, are they shooting in your neighborhood? Are they shooting? Right. So we see what needs to be done.

And it is intentionally being ignored, and they are fattening the pockets of the policing system and then not even giving true accountability measures to keep people accountable. You cannot train racism and white supremacy. You can't out train it. You have to convict it. You have to lock it up and you have to give it consequences so that people will know I could be as racist as I want at my kitchen table, but I can't take that shit to work. Tamika Mallory is her name, man.

Make sure y'all support our good sister Tamika Mallory. Donate to Untell Freedom. That's Untell. Untell. Untell Freedom. Subscribe to her podcast, Scree Politicians with the good brother, My Son, and pick up her book, State of Emergency.

Thank you. Thank you. You did all this stuff. That's right. My brother, My Son. He was just up here. That's right. That's right. Love y'all. Tamika Mallory, it's The Breakfast Club. Thank you. Thank you. You did all this stuff. That's right. My brother, my son. He was just up here. That's right. That's right.

Love y'all. Tamika Mallory, it's The Breakfast Club. Good morning. Hold on one second. We just got to do something for BET. All right, when we come back, we have more with Tamika Mallory.

So don't move. It's The Breakfast Club on BET. All right, we're back. We're still kicking it with Tamika Mallory. All right, well, don't move. We got more with Tamika Mallory when we come back.

It's The Breakfast Club on BET. Cool.