#IStandWithMarkThompson

Reverend Matsimela Mapfumo Mark Thompson is under attack along with other media personalities who champion “equal rights and justice for all” such as Joy-Ann Reid, Angela Rye, Roland Martin and Malcolm Nance to name a few.

Political leaders such as Rep. Clyburn, Sen. Warren, Rep. Waters, past Rep. Conyers and Sen. Harris among others have also been under coordinated attacks from the same agents of chaos and discord.

Mr. Meyer and Mr. Maffei, the problem at hand is how long it has taken the two of you to direct your company, SiriusXM, to get Mark Thompson back on the air on his show, Make It Plain, on Progress Channel 127.

If the two of you can be coerced into silencing the voice of Mark Thompson by a coordinated staged attack spun to paint Mark as someone who shouldn’t defend himself, then you can rest assure any other progressive voice working to make this country a more perfect union will be attacked using those same tactics as well.

To keep Mark Thompson off the air one more day is another day that you are putting wind in the sails of those aimed at reaching their goal of destroying the social, economic and moral progress our country has made since its founding.

Simply put, the man who attacked Mark Thompson probably is not a SiriusXM subscriber nor are the people who are promoting and spinning his video, but many of us are some of your most cost effective longtime self-pay SiriusXM subscribers with both car and mobile subscriptions.

Others of us are potential future SiriusXM subscribers. We are watching closely the next moves you make regarding Mark Thompson. Your decisions on if and when you will bring back Mark Thompson will impact your company’s bottom line significantly.

We all want to see you do the right thing and stand up for the justice and right to self-defense issues related to the staged attack against Mark Thompson. We want to know that we are spending our hard-earned dollars with an organization who will fight for what is right and not remain neutral or be contrary in honoring the civil rights and human rights legacy with receipts of someone with the courage, character and fortitude of Mark Thompson.

If you prove to us that SiriusXM is not the type of company who will acknowledge Mark was accosted in a staged attack and not acknowledge that Mark was attacked for his effectiveness around promoting civil and human rights, then unfortunately very many of us will no longer pay for subscriptions to your service even with the addition of Pandora.

As much as we enjoy listening to other personalities and music on SiriusXM; if we come to realize that you will not direct your company to honor our wishes to hear the stalwart icon in the civil rights and human rights community that Mark Thompson is; that would be too much of a disrespectful reality for many of us to bear.

We pay our hard-earned money as SiriusXM subscribers to hear what Mark Thompson has to say on weekday mornings not the personalities you have had filling in for him the past couple of weeks.

Mark Thompson has taught us to #GetWoke. Many of us have joined civil rights organizations, attended rallies, participated in marches, called members of our local, state and national legislatures with concerns and started campaigns of our own around equal justice issues because of the guidance and boots-on-the-ground example and legacy of Mark Thompson.

Mark is so much more than just another radio personality to us. To many of us Mark Thompson is a guide, a counselor, an elder and a friend. We want to hear Mark Thompson back on Make It Plain without any further delay.

If we do not hear Mark Thompson back on Make It Plain on the morning of the 8th of May, many of us will have to make some financial decisions about our patronage to your company and SiriusXM's respect or lack thereof shown to Mark Thompson and his legacy of civil and human rights work.

You run the risk of losing millions of subscribers in a single day if our wishes to have Mark Thompson back on air are not respected. We actually don’t want to have to go that route, but over our respect and the respect and legacy of Mark Thompson we will do just that.

We look forward to seeing your leadership on display regarding the items laid out in our petition. It has been made plain.

Sincerely,

The Friends of Mark Thompson (Matsimela Mapfumo)