Shaun KingVerified account

Our marriage has struggled under the weight of the work Shaun does. I find myself reading old accounts of wives in the Civil Rights Movement - trying to understand how they bore it all. It feels so unbearable sometimes.

So when you ask why Shaun hasn’t answered this accusation or resolved this question, it’s because he has a wife at home that is calling him to task about the amount of time he spends on bullshit. It’s because he has a business to run, and articles to write, 5 children to raise..

So when you ask why Shaun hasn’t answered this accusation or resolved this question, it's because he has victims to support, a book to edit, a phone call to take, a child to pickup, a doctor’s appointment not to miss....

So when you ask why Shaun hasn’t answered this accusation or resolved this question, it's because he has a school conference to attend, a meal to eat, a candidate to push for, a birthday present to buy, a recital to watch, and the occasional award to accept!

You could NEVER comprehend the pain, stress, and heartache involved in being a partner in this work. The sleepless nights. The ulcers. The headaches. Trying to give your husband space to do important work, but drowning under the weight of it all yourself...

You could NEVER comprehend the pain, stress, and heartache involved in being a partner in this work.... Constantly trying to rise above the noise, and the ugliness. The lies and deliberate disparaging of your name. It's so very hard.

There are days when I’m ashamed to even walk into my office. To have to look people in the face knowing they’ve read the latest bullshit about me online. It’s horrific!

Knowing when you pick your kids up from school that parents at the door are going to want to talk to you about the latest lies they saw about your family when all you want to do is grab the kids and go. I don’t even recognize my life.

And you may say that we signed up for this. I can confirm for you that I did not. Having your name and reputation obliterated by strangers for things you did not do should not be par for the course in the fight to end police brutality.

Having your sleep stolen (not because of the pain of a hurting family-though I’ve had those too), but because of your own anxiety over seeing your own loved one treated with such evil. It's unsustainable.

I don’t mean to whine. Our lives are mostly good. We lead humble lives in a nice apartment, driving beatup cars, but our lives are comfortable enough. When I think of all the actual suffering taking place in the world, I feel horrible to complain.

When I was praying & asking the Holy Spirit to encourage me, I was reminded of the fact there are innocent people currently rotting away in prison w/ no hope of acquittal. I’m trying to outlive lies in the comfort of my home. They’ve literally lost their freedom because of lies.

My pain doesn’t compare to people struggling in prison. And yet, pain is relative. It’d be one thing if it was just white supremacists and bots. And we’re aware that there’s plenty of bots driving these attacks. But when it’s your own people, the pain hits different.

It’s all just so mean and nasty. You’ve launched entire campaigns mocking my husband’s race, accusing him of plagiarizing people he’s never even heard of without asking THEM to produce proof of said plagiarism, and accusing him (and by proxy, me) of stealing money. All lies.

I used to think that you all must actually believe these things & that’s why you go so hard. But now I’m 100% sure that you know them to be false. You know Shaun never stole a dime from not one family. You’ve actually been knowing. @AttorneyCrump has told you that you’re wrong.

Y’all want to keep saying well what about this, and what about this, and what about the bake sale you threw in 8th grade??? You literally need him to be a thief at this point! You do. Because if he isn’t, what does it say about how you’ve spent several years of your life?

You’ve wasted so much energy scurrying around talking to this person and that person and digging for tweets and launching campaigns to discredit my husband…and for what??? Who are you helping and who is he helping?

I’m starting to wonder who you’re working for @Deray? Who’s paying you to do these things? What side are you really on? What are you deflecting from? Show us your receipts. Where are your tax returns? Where’s the report on your finances? Do what my husband & I did.

Just call him what you want to call him: White. You’re spinning your wheels with endless insults trying to call him everything but that. But let’s be real. At the root of so much of this is your disdain for him bc you actually don’t seem him as being one of “us.”

You’re like the white people who want to say “nigger” so bad but instead say uppity, rude, and even bitch.

I know this bc in one breath you say to white people that even if they see Black folx going in on each other, they have no place to jump in. But when you post about my husband, and white folx are all up in the comments, you don’t chime in to stop it. I see it.

It’s because to you, he’s not one of you. This isn’t “infighting” to you because you’ve placed Shaun squarely on the outside of your circles. He’s not Black enough for you. You’ve been brainwashed and are drinking the water of your own oppression.

But were you there when Shaun was conceived? Were you there when he had tobacco spit thrown in his face by rednecks or was chased home and called "nigger" by a pickup truck full of bigots? Were you there when he took that ass whooping from a white mob when he just a boy?

I’ve had folx tell me I just need to grow thick skin. It’s been five years of this bullshit, and I don’t think my skin can grow any thicker. I’m in counseling. My kids are in counseling. Other activists are literally killing themselves over this stuff.

WE ARE PEOPLE. And words have power. You can’t just say horrible things about someone and expect it to mean nothing. You can’t launch entire smear campaigns and expect it not resonate in their actual lives.

Or maybe that’s your goal. You want my children to be asked about it at school. You hope to ruin my career. You aim to destroy my marriage. In your “service” of Black people, @DeRay, you hope to spread enough lies and float enough inuendo to directly harm this Black woman??

Your goal on Thursday @DeRay was to center yourself and push another Black woman out of the spotlight in service of your own personal vendetta. Rihanna earned and deserved that night to highlight her good work. But you made it about you.

You showed your true colors when you got so in your head about Shaun, that you stole an important moment from a worthy Black woman. What you did on Thursday was not righteous @DeRay. It was selfish.

. @Deray. You and @Nettaaaaaaaa threw another Black woman, @TamikaDMallory, under the bus for her honest work in gathering countless statements from families that Shaun helped. All this talk about protecting Black women and Shaun doing harm to Black women. Hypocrites!

The good news is that Shaun will continue this work until the day he dies. God literally wired him to do nothing else. He’s been grinding on behalf of others since the day I met him as a 15 year old girl in church. This is who he will always be.