NEW JERSEY — Kendi King, the daughter of activist Shaun King has penned a letter addressing the backlash surrounding the King’s lavish New Jersey home.
“Last week, our family’s address, the address where my mother and siblings and puppies live was posted by multiple news outlets. Pictures of the front of our house, the yard where my siblings play, were everywhere,” Kendi wrote on The North Star.
“My family who has done nothing to deserve this now has to pack up our lives and leave my mother’s house tirelessly to buy. This was her dream home. She put the wallpaper up herself. For the first time, my siblings got to have their own rooms,” she continued, adding, “We all agreed this place felt like our home from the very beginning, and now it’s been taken. I see no justice in that.”
Several newspaper outlets published images of the front of the King’s five-bedroom, four-bathroom home. Social media was up in arms mostly because many assumed that the North Star founded had purchased the home using funds raised from his activism.
Rai King shared shortly after that the home had been purchased with her money, not Shaun’s.
“I know we mostly lack the generational wealth that allows our parents to gift us down payments for homes like other communities,” Rai wrote at the time. “And I know we’re often playing catch-up when it comes to gaining the financial literacy skills to set us on the path to home ownership… And I know there are racist, predatory systems that set up barriers all along the way.”
Kendi, a student at NYU, says the incident has left her feeling jaded. She made comparisons between the treatment of her family and that of disgraced New York governor Andrew Cuomo.
“I am an activist, a fighter for justice, but I am finding it harder to fight. This is just a moment, and it will pass. I know. But it’s hard to see my family struggle so terribly, to watch my siblings cry because they have to leave their school and friends and home, while Cuomo and men much worse than him get to ride off into the sunset so comfortably.”
Her mother, Rai, also addressed the controversy once again on Instagram.
