Rayla Campbell Disgusted By Black Lives Matter Activist’s Racially Charged Vulgar Tirade About Her Family

Printed from: https://newbostonpost.com/2020/07/22/rayla-campbell-disgusted-by-black-lives-matter-activists-racially-charged-vulgar-tirade-about-her-family/

[Editor’s Note:  This story includes references to profane language and vulgar images.]

[Update and Correction at 1:30 p.m. EDT Friday, July 24, 2020:  Because of a technical error by New Boston Post, an attempt to send a message on Wednesday, July 22 to a spokesman for Rachael Rollins, the district attorney of Suffolk County, did not succeed.  This story has been updated below with a statement from District Attorney Rollins.]

A Black Lives Matter activist attacked a black Republican congressional candidate for being in an interracial relationship in a lengthy video recently.

Monica Cannon-Grant, a black activist who has worked to help elect Democratic politicians such as U.S. Representative Ayanna Pressley, U.S. Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III, and Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins, used anti-mixed-race-marriage and sexually explicit language about Rayla Campbell, a Republican from Randolph who is running against Pressley in Massachusetts’s Seventh Congressional District. 

Campbell, who is conservative and supports President Donald Trump, has a white husband.  

“This heifer running against Ayanna Pressley,” Cannon-Grant said in the video, posted by Turtleboy Sports, which first reported it. “This one here with the white husband. At some point we gonna have to have a conversation with black folks who get in a conversation with white folks and then forget that they black.”

Cannon-Grant used the terms “house Negro” and the N-word to refer to Campbell, as well as repeatedly making references to Campbell’s husband’s genitalia.

Cannon-Grant is the founder of Violence In Boston Inc., a nonprofit organization that has gotten public support from the city of Boston. She also organized a major Black Lives Matter protest in Dorchester in early June, and was the subject of an admiring profile in The Boston Globe afterward.

Campbell told New Boston Post in a telephone interview Wednesday that she is disgusted by the 35-minute video.

“It’s racism and bigotry at its core,” Campbell said. “Our country has moved so far past not allowing interracial relationships. I cannot believe that we still have these kinds of people out there running big things, and this is the way they think. I was sitting there in complete shock, and then fear because she was saying people should ‘pull up on her.’ I know what those words mean. Everybody knows what that means.”

“I’ve never met this woman ever, and that’s what she decided to do to me. I’m absolutely disgusted, appalled,” she added. “She’s trying to destroy my campaign, but I’m just trying to give people a voice and a choice.”

During the video, Cannon-Grant expresses surprise and disgust that a black woman would run against Pressley, Rachael Rollins, support President Trump, and drew a member of Super Happy Fun America at a campaign event of hers in Randolph earlier this month, an event New Boston Post covered

When speaking about Campbell’s critiques of Pressley, Cannon-Grant said:  “I’ll be damned if I let this melanin adjacent woman, whose proximity to white supremacy is so disgusting, be disrespectful to our congresswoman because white folks have convinced her that she was better. She’s an exceptional negro? Is that what it is?”

Cannon-Grant also said about black women:

 

We’re not a monolith. We have a right to think the way we want to think, and all of that other stuff. And that’s what I thought about this sister out in Randolph. I thought, “We’re not a monolith. She wants to be a Republican. She doesn’t have self-love.”

But you don’t recruit white men to attack a black woman in a day and age when we’re dying at an expedentiary rate.

 

Cannon-Grant also suggested at one point that Campbell, whom she does not know, married her husband just to get a house, and she made repeated vulgar references to their marital relationship, including:

 

And I get it. You’ve been riding white p—- for a while. I don’t give a s—. You and Tom, Chad, Bill can get it. Keep your hands off.

And I felt like if it ain’t directed, it ain’t respected. ‘Cause, I’m not subliminal. I’m very direct.

What her name is? Campbell? What that heifer name is? Something Campbell? I posted it on my page.

Right. And then, then she’ll be the token Negro. [Adopts falsetto voice.] “See, we have her. You guys say ‘Black Lives Matter’ but she’s black. What about her?”

No, she’s not black. I’m sorry, she’s — She’s oreo-flavored. She’s not black. She, she, she, she has self-hate. Something wrong with her. And there’s a few of those in every f—— generation.

 

Campbell said Cannon-Grant’s rhetoric goes to show that the left-wing activist doesn’t actually care about all black lives. 

She also said that the politicians who associate themselves with Cannon-Grant need to stop it immediately.

“All of the politicians she’s been working for need to come out and publicly disavow this woman, condemn her behavior, and apologize to me not just publicly because that’s just for show, but call me,” Campbell said.

Cannon-Grant issued a statement on the matter on her Facebook page on July 20, but did not apologize to Campbell.

“I do wish I had been more careful with my words when I commented about an individual seeking public office last week, and for that I take responsibility — this work requires more from me right now, and I’m learning to deal with this bigger spotlight,” Cannon-Grant wrote. “But let’s also be clear that the people who have seized and capitalized on that moment to attack me are doing so because they want to destroy the movement. They do not care about Black lives.”

The offices for Pressley and Kennedy could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

Rollins released a written statement. It states in full:

 

Running for office is difficult. It requires that you put yourself into the public realm and open yourself up to being vulnerable; hearing criticisms about yourself, your policies, and your proposals. No candidate is above that type of scrutiny. But public attacks that go after innocent family members and children are a bridge too far. I have not watched the video that Monica made, but I am told that it makes reference to Rayla’s husband, his race, and intimate aspects of their relationship. How is this relevant to a candidate’s electability, policy and platform?  It isn’t.  Who someone chooses to love and the people they call family are deeply personal and completely off-limits during campaigns. I called Rayla this morning to ask about her mental and physical health. I told her that I hadn’t seen the video, but heard that I was mentioned.  I wanted her to know that I had nothing to do with the making of the video and that nobody deserves to be verbally attacked about their family. We talked for a bit about her three beautiful children and the trials of being a political candidate. I wished her luck moving forward and said that I looked forward to meeting her in person at some point.

 

Campbell appeared on The Howie Carr Show shortly after 6 p.m. Wednesday, July 22, saying that she and her family are staying in hotels in the wake of Cannon-Grant’s video.

“We’re still hiding out. … I don’t feel safe in my own town,” Campbell said.

Campbell said she hasn’t heard from Pressley or Kennedy — or from Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, who provided office space for Cannon-Grant’s organization.

She also said she has not heard from The Boston Globe, which has not published a story mentioning Cannon-Grant since Cannon-Grant’s video was published online.

Campbell is waging a write-in-and-sticker campaign in the September 1 Republican primary to try to make the November general election ballot in the Seventh Congressional District. She needs 2,000 votes. Her campaign is distributing stickers through her campaign web site.