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Earlier this week, Samaria Rice, the mother of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy, who was slain by police in Cleveland, Ohio, shared her disgust for activist Tamika Mallory’s performance at The Grammys. She believed she was there seeking attention and clout.
Later, she and Lisa Simpson, the mother of Richard Risher, came forward with a list of demands asking that Mallory, Shaun King, Benjamin Crump, Lee Merritt, and Black Lives Matter Global Network, not use their sons’ names at all.
Since then, Mallory, who was the initial target of Rice’s outrage, has responded to her claims.
See what she had to say below.
“From my perspective, I want to make sure that as a mother I speak directly to Ms. Rice. And also, just so that folks know, I have reached out through some other individuals. I don’t have a direct contact, but I have reached out and let some other folks know that I am available to do so.
Unfortunately, the world we live in, everything hits social media so quickly and it doesn’t give us an opportunity all the time to have direct conversations. And I have seen a lot of you to do what I always do, which is to be authentic and come to you all and talk about some of what you have heard.
I want to just make sure that we start off grounded in the fact that nothing we say today is an attack against Ms. Rice. I want to make sure that’s clear from the very beginning.
Quite frankly, Ms. Rice is right. I support 100% how she feels and what she has stated in terms of her pain related to her son. I feel like we all have failed her. As a nation, I think that whenever a child, or any person but particularly a child, is killed, this nation should have erupted. And the fact that she did not get the proper justice for her son would make anyone angry.
So I totally understand and respect the trauma and pain that she feels as a mother.
The second thing I feel is that the issue of divisiveness has been used in every single movement. And it has actually destroyed movements. I don’t participate in it…If people are watching looking for some aha moment of me speaking negatively about or to Ms. Rice, it’s not going to happen. I would never ever allow my organization, my team at Until Freedom to be used as a tool in the master’s box. I will never allow that.
I will however say that I think it’s important to clarify the questions around whether or not we have used Ms. Rice’s child, her baby, in campaigns, in speeches, in fundraising or any of those types of efforts. We have not. The work that we do is very, very public. Other than potentially calling the role of all the people that we can think about, at any particular time, that have been killed by the state, I have been very, very careful not to speak about cases or individuals that I have not worked directly with the families.
As Ms. Rice has already said, we have not even met. We’ve never actually sat down, had a phone conversation or met in any way. So I would never be so disrespectful as to speak about her child or have a campaign that addresses her child or that uses her child’s name to uplift any cause.
…
Ms. Rice has said she wants me to not speak of her child, I will be very, very careful, going forward to ensure that I respect her wishes.
Although what Ms. Rice has said, calling me out my name and speaking about me without knowing me, has absolutely hurt, it definitely hurt but again, I understand. And because of the fact that I do this work from a very, very sincere and authentic place, I may not have lost a child but I did lose my child’s father. It wasn’t to police brutality but I understand loss. I fight everyday so that I don’t have to experience what so many mothers of young Black men have experienced.
Because I understand that pain and trauma, working with families for so many years, I would like to tell Ms. Rice today that I am available to be supportive if necessary. I’m here for phone calls. I’m here to have any types of conversations with any family that would like to talk about the death of their child or some tragic situation that has happened to them.
We’re just one small group. There are many organizations doing great work. We can’t help every family. We wish we could. But we don’t have the resources. And there are situations that have been heartbreaking that have kept us up at night that we have not been able to get involved with.
But again, just to reiterate, under no circumstances would we ever be so disrespectful to use the name of a person, child or otherwise, that we have not met, worked with and talked with their family and have not been directly asked to uplift their child’s name while we are out doing our work.”
You can listen to Mallory’s full comments in the video below.
