*Former “Real Housewives of Atlanta” star Phaedra Parks helped direct the funeral service of Rayshard Brooks last Tuesday in Atlanta, Georgia.
The attorney and mother of two is now speaking out about the significance of the event and her connection to his family.
Following the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, Brooks was fatally shot by police in a Wendy’s parking lot in Atlanta on June 12. His death sparked even more outrage among Black Lives Matter protesters who have been demonstrating across the country since the death of Floyd late last month. .
Speaking with TooFab, Parks opened up about what the climate in Atlanta has been like over the past month.
“It’s been heavy, because as a mother to two young African American boys, as a daughter of an African American man, a sister to two African American brothers and being in Atlanta — this is the mecca of Black Hollywood, of civil rights movement, of well-educated, well-spoken, well-traveled people of color — to see this Rayshard Brooks scenario happen here, the birthplace of the SCLC, Martin Luther King Jr., Ambassador Andy Young, it’s disheartening,” said Parks. “We all thought Atlanta was bigger, better and more progressive than that,” she said.
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This week I had the honor to serve #RayshardBrooks’ family; his lovely wife Tomeka and their four beautiful children. As a #mother and a #blackwoman my heart breaks every time I see another hashtag and hear about… https://t.co/zY1uBOOy8J
— Phaedra Parks, Esq. (@PhaedraParks) June 27, 2020
Parks noted that Brooks’ death occurred in a city where “there are very powerful African American people,” which highlights that police brutality happens anywhere Black folks reside.
She also praised District Attorney Paul Howard for bringing charges against the former officer, Garrett Rolfe, who shot Brooks. He faces 11 criminal charges, including felony murder.
“He definitely got on top of the situation, made sure charges were filed and and he handled it expeditiously, in the words of TI,” Parks continued. “It made me very proud as an attorney, it made me proud as a woman of color and it made me proud as a citizen of Atlanta that we didn’t handle it like Kentucky, this is not Breonna Taylor. We have made sure justice was served and that there was a speedy investigation. It was swift and that’s what we need to see across the board.”
Parks helped organize Brooks funeral, which was held at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on June 23.
“For our firm, service is always first. We’re always concerned with making sure that we carry out the wishes of the family and making sure we provide adequate support during the time of planning, but also after,” she explained. “And so, it’s been very important for me as a woman to check up on [Brooks’ wife Tomika Miller] every day … to make sure, ‘Are you okay?’ and encourage her.”
Parks said she is committed to supporting Brooks family and four children. “Whatever they need, after the fact, there has to be support,” she added.
Brooks, Taylor, Floyd and other Black Americans who have died at the hands of police have led Parks to discuss racism and police brutality with her young sons.
“[Dylan] saw George Floyd and he said, ‘Mommy, why is the police officer stepping on that man under that car? What is happening to him?'” she recalled. “That’s always difficult as a parent. Obviously, I want my children to know that every police officer isn’t bad, every police officer isn’t racist — but at the same time, the outcomes for people of color have been very different than caucasian people who do the same thing.”
“We had a very long conversation about when things go wrong for people and it’s not always about what they did, sometimes it’s about the color of their skin,” she continued. “I had to explain to them, sometimes when people see people of color, they have formed a stereotype that might not actually be correct. He understood.”
She wants her sons to be “very aware that just because something looks different, does not mean that it’s bad.”
“That’s something that people have to teach their children,” she added. “Differences are beautiful, that doesn’t make it wrong, it sometimes makes it very right.”
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