In an image taken from video, a woman later identified as Toya Graham wrangles her son after she found out that he was rioting in Baltimore on Monday. (Courtesy of YouTube)

(CNN) – The Baltimore mother who slapped her son several times and pulled him out of a protest told CNN on Wednesday she wasn’t concerned that she might be embarrassing her son.

“Not at all,” Toya Graham told CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360˚” in an interview that aired Wednesday night. “He was embarrassing himself by wearing that mask and that hoodie and doing what he was doing.”

The video of Graham yanking her son, Michael Singleton, and slapping him with a right hand as CNN affiliate WMAR recorded has led to the Internet calling Graham #motheroftheyear. Many people have praised the unemployed, single mother of six for going to the Mondawmin Mall and getting her son away from the escalating violence.

Graham told Cooper that she saw her son with a brick in his hand, and she lost control of her emotions and told him to drop it.

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“I did (get emotional). You know, once he threw that rock down I said, ‘You weren’t brought up like this,’ ” Graham said.

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