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Speaker 1: From WNYC and PRX in collaboration with GBH News in Boston, this is The Takeaway with Melissa Harris-Perry in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Speaker 2: Ask yourself why it happened. Ask yourself what kind of nation are we that this is allowed? Ask yourself why are guns on the street? They can take too many, so many people's lives. In two minutes and three seconds, 10 people killed, three of them injured. Ask ourselves why our politicians refuse to believe in white supremacy?
Melissa Harris-Perry: On Monday, residents of Buffalo, New York filled a local courtroom. Many of them were the family and loved ones of the 10 people who were murdered seven months ago on May 14th, at the Tops Friendly Markets grocery store. Their names Roberta Drewry, Marcus Morrison, Andre McNeil, Aaron Salter, Celestine Cheney, Hayward Patterson, Katherine Massey, Pearl Young, Ruth Whitfield, Geraldine Talley. All of them were Black. The shooter who took their lives was enacting a white power fantasy of racial terror and he live streamed online.
The shooter faced 25 charges in New York state, including three counts of attempted murder for those who were wounded but survived, and 10 counts of first degree murder. Each murder charge carries a sentence of life without parole and he pled guilty to all of them. The shooter was also charged with one count of domestic terrorism motivated by hate, a state charge that went into effect in 2020. This is the first time it's been used. I'm joined now by Mark Talley, executive director of Agents for Advocacy, a non-profit serving the Buffalo community he founded in memory of his mother, Geraldine Talley, who was murdered in this shooting. Mark, thank you so much for being here.
Mark Talley: Thank you, Melissa. Glad to be on here talking to you.
Melissa Harris-Perry: You just had your first thanksgiving holiday without your mother. Can you tell us how you and your family are doing?
Mark: I'm doing great. I really wasn't a holiday person. I was very introverted at that, my mother knew what type of son she had. She knew I really wasn't high when it comes to family get togethers, big type of holiday, events, things, things of that nature. For me, it was a relatively, somewhat pretty normal Thanksgiving. Trust me, after all the things I was doing on Thanksgiving, delivering close to if not over 700 meals to people, it was another day as usual for me.
Melissa Harris-Perry: I know that your mother, from your early childhood on, had raised you as a single mom and had high standards for you. Do you think she'd be proud that you spent your Thanksgiving in service in that way?
Mark Talley: Absolutely. She would've probably criticized me wearing sweatpants and no jacket and the cold weather but I think she would definitely be happy with everything I did.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Did you at least have a hat on Mark?
Mark Talley: No hat needed. I got long hair. It can cover my ears.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Tell me about the courtroom on Monday.
Mark Talley: There was a lot of people showed emotions there. I'm assuming the judge had to be thorough, so she kept reading the counts of everybody who died, what order and which they were killed and where they was shot at. Most of the families at that time, they didn't know when and how their family member died that day. They just know their family member did. Once the judge started reading off the accounts, it definitely got emotional for the majority of people in the courtroom.
Melissa Harris-Perry: The man who took your mother's life as well as all the other victims, did he face you, did he express regret of any kind?
Mark Talley: Didn't face us. No regret. They had him surrounded by police. We were told that they did this because they were afraid that maybe somebody from our side, basically where all the people in attendance was sitting at, may try to jump over the rail and maybe attack him. They had him looking very, very clean cut and innocent in appearance. The gentleman never once looked at as showed any emotion or remorse.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Does it feel like justice for you?
Mark Talley: Well, that's in the eye of the beholder right there. Depends what you think is justice. To me, him going to jail, prisoner being sentenced, that's not justice for me. What may happen to him while he's in jail or prison, that'll feel more like justice for me.
Melissa Harris-Perry: This is a white supremacist, he has said so. He was motivated by racial hate. Yours is not the first Black family, nor likely the last to be affected by a racist murder. How does that hate affect how you understand what would constitute justice in this case?
Mark Talley: It really doesn't affect it at all. America was not necessarily founded, but America began its infant history, what, around 1619? Since then, America has constantly showed a tendency and hatred, a racism having strong ties of xenophobia. You can just Google right now, your phone, racist attack, and you'll get hundreds of stories. It just so happens that ours made the worldwide news that day, unfortunately. So many race attacks that happen on a daily occurrence that doesn't get that attention and notoriety. This just feels like another day being a minority in America.
We can shout and scream, but until real change gets done and America decides to recognize its past, present and racial tendencies going forward in the future, we will constantly have Black people, minorities screaming about racism. Unless it's getting done, no, it'll just be a waste of breath and us screaming.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Mark, pause with me for just a moment. We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with Mark Talley here on The Takeaway.
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Melissa Harris-Perry: You're back with The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry and I'm talking with Mark Talley. He founded the Buffalo based nonprofit Agents for Advocacy in memory of his mother Geraldine Talley after she was murdered by a white supremacist in May. She was murdered alongside nine others in a Buffalo grocery store. Mark, how has the community in Buffalo responded? We saw certainly an outpouring initially. I'm wondering, these months later, what it feels like in the city?
Mark Talley: It's a mixture. Any time during events of tragedy or happiness, you're always going to have those who's in it for the love and those who's in it for the money. You have a lot of people in the area that's trying to get attention put on them by constantly bringing up 514, whether it's making murals or making rap songs or trying to make their own homemade documentary, write books about 514 though they in no way, shape or form was affiliated with. You get to see the evilness in people. That didn't affect me emotionally because when you look at the world through a pessimistic lens and you see the evilness of society, it's hard for things to affect you and bring you down.
Luckily with the bad, there's been a lot of good with all the supports. All the events I've been doing, I've been getting tons of support from the community. People willing to help me out in any way, shape or form. People constantly want to know what's the next event or donation drive I'm doing so they can come out and just be a part of and help me.
Melissa Harris-Perry: I hear you talking about the pessimism, maybe the cynicism, the glasses through which you see the world, but then I hear this optimism in your advocacy, a willingness to engage, to seek change. Can you tell me what the change looks like? If you were able to imagine a world where this isn't possible, where this hate doesn't motivate this kind of violence, what does that world look like?
Mark Talley: Hopefully, that world is based in a reality where one's environment, one's race, one socioeconomic status, doesn't impact one's future. That's unfortunate. The idea of America is said that it's built on an idea of meritocracy where no matter where you're born, we're all at home plate trying to make our way across the field. Unfortunately, that's not true. You have people when they're born, they're already at third base. You have some people born in the parking lot.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Mark Tally, thank you so much for taking the time, for speaking with us, and thank you for your work. Mark is executive director of Agents for Advocacy and is serving in the Buffalo community. Mark, thanks again for joining us on The Takeaway.
Mark Talley: Absolutely. Thank you too.
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