Speaker 1: What's your family. It's your girl to make a d
Speaker 1: Mallory and it's your boy and my son, and we
Speaker 1: are your hosts of street politicians the place with me
Speaker 1: going on my son Lennen. You know me, I'm blessing
Speaker 1: Holly Favorite, doing God's work. Sure, so you just a
Speaker 1: couple of days ago out with the kids in the
Speaker 1: school greeting them. Were you guys greeting them when they
Speaker 1: went in or out and were greeting them going in? Okay,
Speaker 1: that's cool, amazing day. Shout out to Pierce one Hollom,
Speaker 1: Shout out to Principle Spain who invited me. It's such
Speaker 1: a it was such a dope event, right, And I
Speaker 1: think it's like I said, I think it should be
Speaker 1: something that's implemented all around the city. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: I think just seeing that presence of men in the
Speaker 1: school greeting, you know, just showing that their presence, like
Speaker 1: it's because it's so absent, it's not something that's normal,
Speaker 1: but it's should be normal. Right, Like I felt good
Speaker 1: watching these kids, they've seen us. They excuse me to
Speaker 1: him music playing, We hugged some of them, We gave
Speaker 1: him high fives. It was just an energy, you know,
Speaker 1: and doing that like once a month. Yeah, you're giving
Speaker 1: him a vibe. It's like the school feels protected, right,
Speaker 1: you feel you feel connected to the school, the community.
Speaker 1: Brothers coming out of the community start paying attention. You know.
Speaker 1: It makes people who would seek to do anything negative
Speaker 1: around that looks from somewhere else to go because they
Speaker 1: realized there's a presence around there that's not gonna you know, tolerated.
Speaker 1: So I think it's something that you know, we should
Speaker 1: look for, you know, to get done in schools or
Speaker 1: in the city. Well, I think two things. One that's
Speaker 1: what I was talking about, you know, in reference to
Speaker 1: the interview, Um, I'm excuse me. The conversation we had
Speaker 1: last week on the white man fighting the kid, or
Speaker 1: you know, him not fighting the kid, beating up a
Speaker 1: child because he bought his kid to fight another child
Speaker 1: of white kid against the black child. And then of
Speaker 1: course when the black kid got the best of his child,
Speaker 1: he got frustrated, jumped in and put his hands on
Speaker 1: a kid, which he shouldn't have. And that was my
Speaker 1: whole point about fathers, you know, being present. I think
Speaker 1: it will really really help us. And you don't have
Speaker 1: to be someone's biological parents to show up and present
Speaker 1: the fatherhood that we need in communities. So I think
Speaker 1: that's great, And I think the second point is that
Speaker 1: the culture is not gonna just change on its own.
Speaker 1: We literally have to force a shift by actively doing things,
Speaker 1: whether it's in music, art, entertainment, you know, just everyday life,
Speaker 1: everything we do in education, everywhere we go, and everything
Speaker 1: we do, even the what we eat, what we're feeding ourselves,
Speaker 1: what we're saying on social media, how we're presents in
Speaker 1: every space. We have to be intentional about shifting this
Speaker 1: culture because people have gotten really comfortable for the last
Speaker 1: two years three years with stupid ship. I keep saying,
Speaker 1: stupid ship is the is my type? What's that's my own?
Speaker 1: What do you call a term that I'm using for
Speaker 1: so many things that's going on right now, And I
Speaker 1: don't think it's gonna just change. We've got to make
Speaker 1: it change. Yeah, we gotta be intentional. You know, I
Speaker 1: coined the frame. I've coined the phrase coward culture and
Speaker 1: coward culture and stupid ship. That's that's unto the way. Now,
Speaker 1: excuse street politicians has two phrases that you can depend
Speaker 1: on us to say coward culture by my son Linnen
Speaker 1: and stupid ship by Jaminamality. Yeah, and that's what it is. Man.
Speaker 1: So shout out to the brother and shout out to Derek,
Speaker 1: Shout out to Billy all other brothers who came out,
Speaker 1: you know and represented man. It was a dope e
Speaker 1: vat cool whoa that? I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1: So while you all were out there at the school
Speaker 1: with the young people, the the Attorney General of New York,
Speaker 1: Leticia Jane Letitia Jamesia as we call her, she did
Speaker 1: a thing which was to bring charges against uh, you know,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, and not just him. His kids are in
Speaker 1: then in in the the charges. They are all a
Speaker 1: part of the case. And you know, I listened to
Speaker 1: the press conference, which is not something that I would
Speaker 1: generally do because I'm so over Trump, because I don't
Speaker 1: really think that it will result in anything seriously happening
Speaker 1: to him. But you know, maybe a black woman will
Speaker 1: get it done. Um. But you know, as I was
Speaker 1: listening to what he did in terms of in inflating
Speaker 1: his income, um, you know, claiming to have more money
Speaker 1: and for his properties to be evaluated at higher prices.
Speaker 1: So no matter what if the auditors and the appraisers
Speaker 1: said two hundred million dollars. When the paperwork was filed
Speaker 1: or when they applied for loans, it was at five hundred,
Speaker 1: five hundred and fifty. I'm talking about not like twenty dollars,
Speaker 1: thirty dollars, even a hundred mill We're talking about hundreds
Speaker 1: and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars that he
Speaker 1: was inflating his numbers per the charges and that she's
Speaker 1: put forward. And of course his children running the companies.
Speaker 1: In order for him to be able to do that,
Speaker 1: they would have to be a part of it. Um,
Speaker 1: running the companies, the buildings, all the things, and even
Speaker 1: even the size of his apartment at Trump Towers was
Speaker 1: like say eleven thousand square feet or eleven hundreds square
Speaker 1: feet or something some number like that. And instead I
Speaker 1: think they may have, um, you know, submitted paperwork that
Speaker 1: said it was like fifty on some you know, some crazy, crazy,
Speaker 1: crazy numbers. Don't quote me on the numbers. Make sure
Speaker 1: you read the article. But the point is that he
Speaker 1: what they were doing was just so blatant, right and
Speaker 1: and and and at one point I was listening, I'm like, damn,
Speaker 1: like this is really crazy, Like somebody needs to go
Speaker 1: to jail. And then I realized the brother learned this
Speaker 1: stuff from his daddy. This is what I'm like, who like,
Speaker 1: how we need to it's some other people that need
Speaker 1: to go down because they've been doing this. This is
Speaker 1: he this is a strap. They've been doing this. Black
Speaker 1: men ain't gonna over say, black man gonna say, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna put about an extra ten feet or so tight,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put by an extra thousand couple of dollars
Speaker 1: on it. These things just what I'm saying, we got
Speaker 1: we're doing it wrong. Man, were like, no, listen what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to tell you, man, we ain't even stealing right.
Speaker 1: The crime that we do don't even make sense. These
Speaker 1: things just figure out how to make two or the million,
Speaker 1: and we're still the couple of thousands, two thousand, maybe
Speaker 1: fifty hundreds of millions. And the benefit that they received
Speaker 1: is that if they inflate the numbers, it puts them
Speaker 1: in a different tax bracket, and they're gonnay all of
Speaker 1: these allotments, and you know, it breaks tax breaks and
Speaker 1: and you get all of these benefits of having more,
Speaker 1: because that's how capitalism works. The more you have, the
Speaker 1: less you have to pay in taxes, and the more
Speaker 1: benefits and perps you get from the system. So it's crazy.
Speaker 1: We'll see what happens, you know. All I know is
Speaker 1: I prayed for uh, for the turn to a G's life,
Speaker 1: and I hope that she is well protected. Um And
Speaker 1: you know, there have been times and it's you know,
Speaker 1: you know, it's certainly know um secret about it, but
Speaker 1: there have been times when I've been saying, Tish, I
Speaker 1: don't like you know what you're doing, you know, And
Speaker 1: we've challenged her on many issues, and so it's not
Speaker 1: so much that um, I think that she you know it. Well,
Speaker 1: let's put it this way. This political space is very,
Speaker 1: very complicated. It's so many different complications and speaking of that,
Speaker 1: that goes to our next subject. But it's very complicated.
Speaker 1: But I I also understand that certain things that you
Speaker 1: have to do or that you choose to do as
Speaker 1: an elected official, and particularly a black elected official, it
Speaker 1: takes courage because you literally get yourself killed anything you
Speaker 1: have going on. If Pooky and your family got some
Speaker 1: stuff going on, it's gonna become your problem. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: it can, really it can you can really be damaged
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways for trying to stand up
Speaker 1: against the system. So you know, shout out to her
Speaker 1: for that, and hopefully something comes out of it, because
Speaker 1: Trump is just running wild and no one is doing
Speaker 1: anything about it. But then I hope after she finishes
Speaker 1: with Trump that she moves on to some other landlords
Speaker 1: in New York who are doing just the same as
Speaker 1: some other millionaires. Uh So, speaking of politics, Hurricane Fiona
Speaker 1: and Puerto Rico is like crazy, right, God bless the
Speaker 1: people Puerto Rico, very similar to Haiti. It's just like you.
Speaker 1: It doesn't doesn't stop, it just keeps coming. And then
Speaker 1: you have at this simultaneously the water crisis in Jackson,
Speaker 1: which Jackson is not alone. Even in North New Jersey
Speaker 1: there have been reports of water issues and there are
Speaker 1: other states and cities across the country that have issues
Speaker 1: with water. Um, but Jackson is is in the center
Speaker 1: of attention right now. We um ship five thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: I mean, get five thousand dollars worth of water to
Speaker 1: Jackson State University. UM. We are involved in some events,
Speaker 1: just actually attended an event, uh to support the people
Speaker 1: of Jackson. And the thing what comes to my mind
Speaker 1: is how much we as all kinds of people, not
Speaker 1: just black people, but a lot of different people who
Speaker 1: don't pay attench to the news and this and that,
Speaker 1: or people who feel like politics is too much. We
Speaker 1: really don't understand, as we've talked about on the show
Speaker 1: many times, and we had to show what we talked
Speaker 1: about it with Tesla and Figura of Straight Shot No Chaser.
Speaker 1: Everything is political. Water is political. How you get hurricanes
Speaker 1: and how they hit and what type of damage happens,
Speaker 1: and then what they do immediately afterwards to try to
Speaker 1: preserve lives that's political. And where you are located in
Speaker 1: the in the country, where you are prioritized on the
Speaker 1: list of the political uh whatever political political priorities basically right,
Speaker 1: which means you've got money or you've got something that
Speaker 1: benefits the politicians, not just they're gonna take care of
Speaker 1: your community because they should. It doesn't work like that, unfortunately.
Speaker 1: There's got to be something. Either you're voting your you're
Speaker 1: you're investing by giving donations. There's got to be something.
Speaker 1: You're making noise, you protest, and you've got to be
Speaker 1: leaned in in order to get the services that you
Speaker 1: need from this political system. So to sit outside of
Speaker 1: it and a hurricane hits and you want to make
Speaker 1: sure that your community is it's protected, you better be
Speaker 1: on the ground busting ass telling them that you want
Speaker 1: the resources necessary because when hurricane there are certain things
Speaker 1: that need to be done to protect your community so
Speaker 1: that when a hurricane hits, it doesn't damage as much
Speaker 1: as you know, from an infrastructure perspective, as much as
Speaker 1: as they could. And then of course things like water,
Speaker 1: making sure you have clean water, clean pipes like Front Michigan.
Speaker 1: All of that is political because people are making decisions
Speaker 1: about it. I have to, you know, And that's what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. People that are trying to circumvent on act
Speaker 1: like the process they don't want to be involved in.
Speaker 1: Like if you ain't at the table, you want the menu, man.
Speaker 1: You know. So when we look at these situations and
Speaker 1: we constantly see the same areas, you know, I know
Speaker 1: it's geographical. Stop that, you know, you can't really stop that,
Speaker 1: But there has to be some something that we can
Speaker 1: do from a governmental perspective that makes it okay since
Speaker 1: we already know the geographical you know, situation that they're
Speaker 1: dealing with, and knowing that they're highly likely to deal
Speaker 1: with these hurricanes and these tropical storms. What what systems
Speaker 1: are we gonna sit in place to be able to
Speaker 1: help them, to to prevent, to do things that you
Speaker 1: know that we're already that we ain't behind the eight ball,
Speaker 1: and people are losing their lives and losing their homes
Speaker 1: and losing their property so rapidly, and we don't have
Speaker 1: anything set up. So I think we got to look
Speaker 1: into that. I think people have to be very intentional.
Speaker 1: I think all of those cities and states and countries
Speaker 1: who who live in those areas that are prone to
Speaker 1: deal with those mass destructions from hurricanes and trafical storms
Speaker 1: should have things in place. And I always say that,
Speaker 1: remember your why the same places keep getting hit and
Speaker 1: having the same You know, how can we already know
Speaker 1: that Haiti has that they are earthquakes and stuff happened there? Right?
Speaker 1: We know that, we know that there as many environmental
Speaker 1: challenges and we know that and punished, so you know that.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a whole other thing. But I'm just
Speaker 1: saying again, it's political. It's who you have in office,
Speaker 1: it's your relationship to America. Unfortunately, and other very powerful
Speaker 1: nations around the world. It's so much that's involved with it,
Speaker 1: and you definitely have to understand the politics of how
Speaker 1: even in New Orleans, if you notice black people live
Speaker 1: and lower um what do they they call it? Something?
Speaker 1: I think make sure that that we talk about this again.
Speaker 1: People who have more resources, they live higher up. So
Speaker 1: when the storms come, it impacts the people living in
Speaker 1: the lower belly of the the of Louisiana and of
Speaker 1: New Orleans. So this is very it's geographical, but it's
Speaker 1: also designed by um, you know. I guess we just
Speaker 1: have to say racism, because racism is what puts us
Speaker 1: in certain communities and sort of keeps us in poverty
Speaker 1: and in areas that we can't necessarily get out of.
Speaker 1: And they haven't done anything in terms of making sure
Speaker 1: what I mean. There's been some infrastructure stuff done with
Speaker 1: the levies, but it clearly it hasn't been enough. So anyway,
Speaker 1: it's all political. Every yeah, you do politics or politics
Speaker 1: would do you? That's right. You saw the woman king
Speaker 1: and I was all in the uproar about people online
Speaker 1: suggesting it be boycott, and so we've been trying to
Speaker 1: figure out, first of all, what are they talking because
Speaker 1: I don't you know, I'm not gonna sit here and
Speaker 1: say everybody that's talking is wrong, because you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: you can get different perspectives. But we did our little
Speaker 1: bit of research. We discussed it. They said one too
Speaker 1: many feminine men, that the male characters were feminized. Did
Speaker 1: you see that? I seen one one guy? You saw
Speaker 1: one man? Right? But did you see what? The question
Speaker 1: I asked was It said the male characters with an
Speaker 1: S were feminized? Did you feel that there was a
Speaker 1: lot I didn't agree with that, Okay, it was it
Speaker 1: was I felt I felt like they were just men
Speaker 1: and women. That's me. But you know, wherever I thought
Speaker 1: they were masculine women? How about that? Nothing? Anyway, next
Speaker 1: thing was women and men were pitted against one another.
Speaker 1: And then then they talked about the history. So the
Speaker 1: history component is important, right because there are some people
Speaker 1: who did just because it's coming out of Hollywood, they
Speaker 1: don't want to have anything to do with it because
Speaker 1: they don't trust the narratives about you know, stories about
Speaker 1: our people. But there are different debates on the history,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna talk about the specifics of it during
Speaker 1: the the interview that we're doing with our guests, but
Speaker 1: from I want to know, you know, because I thought
Speaker 1: maybe I was tripping and the question that I'm asking,
Speaker 1: are we sabotaging because it was another movie? What was
Speaker 1: the name of the other movie that they were talking
Speaker 1: about boycott? What was Harriot? Dark skinned characters, dark skinned
Speaker 1: black women characters? And Viola Davis has been talking about that,
Speaker 1: so they were saying that. Then I figured, am I crazy?
Speaker 1: But I wanted you and everybody else on our team
Speaker 1: to see it and give your feedback. And no one
Speaker 1: said this film should be boycotted. No, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't see any reason. I didn't see a reason for
Speaker 1: having to be boycotted. You know, I think people are
Speaker 1: people are are so gun hold on trying to tear
Speaker 1: things down, like that's what it is to me, Like
Speaker 1: historical there are different historical facts. But when we have movies,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a level of entertainment that you add.
Speaker 1: There are levels of things. There will be historical facts
Speaker 1: is based on history, and there will be some things
Speaker 1: that that don't completely agree with the historical facts that
Speaker 1: we know and we understand that. So she'll be able
Speaker 1: to take take the history the history and you mix
Speaker 1: it with the entertainment to come up with a movie,
Speaker 1: and I think people looking for a movie to be
Speaker 1: to t historically correct is just stupid, right, So what
Speaker 1: we want to do we want to ask the question
Speaker 1: do we think it's sabotage or do we think it
Speaker 1: is reasonable critique? We want you to comment in the
Speaker 1: section let us know what do you think? When did
Speaker 1: you see the movie? Did you see Harriet? Are you
Speaker 1: are we? Are you listening and paying attention because it
Speaker 1: seems only, like she said, a lot of the movies
Speaker 1: with dark skinned women are heroes and being amplified. You know,
Speaker 1: it seems to have the same level critiques. So are
Speaker 1: we too critical or we overcritical? Or we're looking to
Speaker 1: just sabotage everything that happens that glorify us and empathized
Speaker 1: the black women in America and in in in our
Speaker 1: entertainment and our historical context when we meet, are we
Speaker 1: doing it too much? Or is it reasonable? Give us
Speaker 1: your give us your thoughts on it. Well, I'm sure
Speaker 1: our guests today has something to say about us, so
Speaker 1: we'll ask him. It's like take me back to Ghana,
Speaker 1: oh my lord, experience of what he saw and what
Speaker 1: we did while we were there in Ghana. Wow wow
Speaker 1: wow and one of the and and my song. We
Speaker 1: have talked so much about how one of the most
Speaker 1: impactful moments was having an opportunity to meet our guests.
Speaker 1: That is joining us today and that is Rabbi Cohen
Speaker 1: Nathania Halivi. Oh my, thank you so much for joining
Speaker 1: street politicians today. Thank you, thank you for invited me,
Speaker 1: and I look forward to all discussions and exchange today. Yes, now,
Speaker 1: you are a rabbi and a priest. You are a
Speaker 1: visual artists, You're an art teacher, you're a community leader.
Speaker 1: You have a master's in theology and arts education. You
Speaker 1: You've got certificates so many I can't even name a
Speaker 1: public speaker historian I think you are. Are you an
Speaker 1: anthropologists as well? Yes? I have. UM. You know I'm
Speaker 1: in the anthropology and received my certificate and I've been
Speaker 1: doing that for many years. Um. Well, I've been in
Speaker 1: this struggle since UM for fifty This year is forty
Speaker 1: nine years. I can say wow from being at Savannah
Speaker 1: State College. So that's where all of those lineup of
Speaker 1: UM certificates, that experience and all that comes from. Wow.
Speaker 1: And again just an overall historian and educator. UM and
Speaker 1: and you when when when we visited with you and
Speaker 1: we had our tour of uh the slave Dungeons, I
Speaker 1: heard something in your voice and I and it it
Speaker 1: made me say where are you from? You know, because
Speaker 1: I could I could tell it wasn't necessarily there was
Speaker 1: something that was real familiar to me and being some
Speaker 1: open lives, you know, sort of like the North Bronx
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm from Harlem, but I've been in the
Speaker 1: North Bronx for a long time. I knew that sound.
Speaker 1: And you said Mount Vernon and I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: you must know my past. The Dr W. Franklin Richardson,
Speaker 1: who I eventually talked to about you, and he's like,
Speaker 1: that's my brother. And you know, that made it even
Speaker 1: closer to home for us to find not that you
Speaker 1: were actually from New York but living in Ghana. And
Speaker 1: I guess the first question that my son and I
Speaker 1: discussed that we wanted to ask you is how does
Speaker 1: a man find himself first in Mount Vernon and then
Speaker 1: living in Ghana and educating people? Then well, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a big question, you know. Um we let me announce
Speaker 1: that right now. We have a group of three hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty African American educators in Ghana right now in
Speaker 1: Cape Coast. And these are all um university and college
Speaker 1: presidents and they're here to study how they can introduce
Speaker 1: African centered education into the curriculums of our black school
Speaker 1: system in America. And so the phenomena of our people
Speaker 1: reconnecting with Mother Africa is great. And when I was
Speaker 1: in the supposing with them two days ago, they asked
Speaker 1: me that same question. And they also asked me, how
Speaker 1: did I, you know, take up this way of life
Speaker 1: and how did I become a Pan Africanist and get
Speaker 1: involved in all the things I've been involved with. And
Speaker 1: I took it back to my route. I told him
Speaker 1: I was born in Mount Running, New York, and Um,
Speaker 1: I was writing a chapter on some of you know,
Speaker 1: the early parts of my life, and I named that chapter.
Speaker 1: When I was young, my mother took me to church
Speaker 1: and my father took me to Hollow So that's the
Speaker 1: name of the chapter. So I got both those um fans.
Speaker 1: My mother was very deep and spiritual into the church.
Speaker 1: My father was deep in terms of the Hollow Mights
Speaker 1: to Hollom socialite and all of that. And I was
Speaker 1: on those street corners in Hollan every weekend, listening to
Speaker 1: the street corner nationalists and preachers talking about African history
Speaker 1: and African people where you couldn't get that kind of
Speaker 1: knowledge anywhere. And of course to me, it wasn't only knowledge,
Speaker 1: it was inspiration. So that inspiration came UM, and I
Speaker 1: got committed when I was at Savannah State College of Savannah, Georgia,
Speaker 1: when I left Mount Brannon High School and went to
Speaker 1: Savannah State UM to study education, and then I say
Speaker 1: I got my calling. Then I wanted to be a
Speaker 1: part of the Black movement. I want to be a
Speaker 1: part of those who made a difference in all people's
Speaker 1: lives and the conditions that we were living in the
Speaker 1: better condition the people of African descent. So I brought
Speaker 1: that back up to Mount Running from Georgia and started
Speaker 1: the Barristeeth Cultural Institute, and UM, we started that institute
Speaker 1: to educate young black children in the history of who
Speaker 1: they were as black people. I was really upset when
Speaker 1: I went to school and realized I spent all that
Speaker 1: time in high school, elementary school, and no significant knowledge
Speaker 1: about African people was transmitted to us through those curriculums,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to make sure that god Um that
Speaker 1: happened to our children at a young age and at
Speaker 1: their foundation level, that we would put into them who
Speaker 1: it is that they are as a people. And so
Speaker 1: that inspiration spurned another form UH inspiration, and that was
Speaker 1: I actually got tired of just reading about Africa UM
Speaker 1: through textbooks, and I'm displaying my Africanness through UM cliches
Speaker 1: and posters and making sure I had the latest edition
Speaker 1: of the latest book on my bookshelf to show that
Speaker 1: I had read it. But I wanted the real experience
Speaker 1: with Africa, and so I made my first trip in
Speaker 1: nine seven. And when I made that trip, it was
Speaker 1: like a spiritual revelation that I had to do. This
Speaker 1: was home. It took me seven years and thirteen trips
Speaker 1: before I finally migrated here in nineteen ninety four. And
Speaker 1: so in nineteen ninety four, I have been part of
Speaker 1: all the marches that we participated in after the murder
Speaker 1: Eleanor Bumpers, a seventy eight year old grandmother and her
Speaker 1: home in New York City, after the murder of Michael
Speaker 1: Stewart for painting graffiti in the subways, UM as I,
Speaker 1: as you read, I'm a community activist. We were we
Speaker 1: led protests in Westchester protests and Brooklyn protests in Manhattan,
Speaker 1: and I got tired of the redundancy, and I said,
Speaker 1: there has to be an alternative. So I decided I
Speaker 1: wanted to move to Africa to try to carve out
Speaker 1: some alternative options that we would have so it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be like we were animals trapped in a in a
Speaker 1: on a street corner, or trapped in a ghetto, or
Speaker 1: trapped in a circumstance where we didn't have options. So
Speaker 1: um I decided to move to Africa and bring my
Speaker 1: activism here since I realized that we had so many
Speaker 1: strong activists in the United States of America and elsewhere,
Speaker 1: but we needed to build bridges. And I was in
Speaker 1: position had made contacts, built networks where I can come
Speaker 1: to Mother Africa and try to use my experience in
Speaker 1: America and the movement to bring it to Africa so
Speaker 1: we can build bridges and make this one struggle for
Speaker 1: African people, whether we were in Africa, whether we're in
Speaker 1: the America's or whether whether it is that we are
Speaker 1: in this world where we're suffering. We have to join
Speaker 1: our struggle together so that we can come up with remedies,
Speaker 1: how we can stop the suffering, stop the dissension, and
Speaker 1: start with the ascension of African people returning to their
Speaker 1: proper place. You know, in this plobe, were being respected
Speaker 1: in our dignity restored by ourselves. Amen. So you know,
Speaker 1: first of all, I just want to say thank you you.
Speaker 1: You know, meeting you as life changing. You know that
Speaker 1: the tour that you gave us, you know, I couldn't
Speaker 1: hold back tears. Described went down in those dungeons which
Speaker 1: they call castles and and and you made us to
Speaker 1: them as dungeons, you know, just put it in the
Speaker 1: real perspective or we have that, you know. And it
Speaker 1: was a life changing experience. And I remember first seeing
Speaker 1: you online, you know, with a lot of our colleagues,
Speaker 1: and during the year of Return and hearing your voice
Speaker 1: and hearing and everybody came and said, you have to
Speaker 1: go on this tour with this man. I just want
Speaker 1: to say thank you because it's open my eyes. It's
Speaker 1: giving me a different level of purpose in which the
Speaker 1: way that I show up and the way that I moved,
Speaker 1: you know, understanding what our people went through just for
Speaker 1: me to just still be alive, you know, So I
Speaker 1: just want to thank you for that. Well, you're quite welcome.
Speaker 1: My brother was my pleasure, and that's part of what
Speaker 1: I'm here for, you know, to help build that bread
Speaker 1: and make that experience real when we experience it, sir,
Speaker 1: and I met it being in Mount Vernon, I did.
Speaker 1: They had a concert many concerts day a few weeks
Speaker 1: ago in which I met your son and your daughter
Speaker 1: and took a picture with them. You know, all right, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really cool. There's like you're with her father and
Speaker 1: after because so I just wanted to say that. But
Speaker 1: you know, the work that you do, it's not something
Speaker 1: that's not right. The way that you're so invested in
Speaker 1: our history and what it is that we come from
Speaker 1: in educating. Where did that, Where did that thirst come from?
Speaker 1: How long? How did you know that this is what
Speaker 1: you wanted to do? Well? I take it um nothing
Speaker 1: less than um, a very spiritual um uh commitment that
Speaker 1: I have and that I served religiously. It's not a religion,
Speaker 1: but it's something I do religiously in terms of it's
Speaker 1: an internal commitment. I feel it's a calling. I come
Speaker 1: out of the era when I saw you know, and
Speaker 1: heard Amanga Evers assassinated in my era. You know, um
Speaker 1: Malcolm X assassinated in my era. You know, the family
Speaker 1: of Malcolm X, you know, ultimately ended up living in learning.
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King murdered. I saw blood panther officers, you know,
Speaker 1: blown up, and I just felt that the reason why
Speaker 1: America is strong today, or any nation is strong today,
Speaker 1: it's because of their continuity. They remember their fore fathers,
Speaker 1: their founding fathers, their heroes and their heroes you know
Speaker 1: that live for them, was prepared to die for them.
Speaker 1: And the only honor that we can give to them
Speaker 1: is by carrying on the legacy. And it's through continuity.
Speaker 1: It's not by starting something over new again and acting
Speaker 1: like because we're on the scene, is started. But it's
Speaker 1: about where did they leave off. It's like when you
Speaker 1: march out with a regiment, a military regiment, and before
Speaker 1: you go into battle, there's a flag bearer and your
Speaker 1: captain or your commander usually asked, if this flag should
Speaker 1: fall to the ground, who's gonna pick it up next?
Speaker 1: And it was a matter of who's gonna pick up
Speaker 1: that flag? When we lose one leader another leader, that's
Speaker 1: a step up. It's not just about a leader either,
Speaker 1: you know, it's about leaders. It's about all of us
Speaker 1: doing whatever we have in our capacity, recognizing whatever gift
Speaker 1: that it is that we have, and how do we
Speaker 1: join those us together to make a solid movement. And
Speaker 1: so I realized early as an artist that I first
Speaker 1: started out with learning my art talent to the street
Speaker 1: corner murals, UM, painting the murals and the pictures of
Speaker 1: our heroes when Malcolm and King and all them um
Speaker 1: taking out of the flower of their life. You know,
Speaker 1: many of us artists joined in and painting their portress
Speaker 1: in our community, making four young people still saw you know,
Speaker 1: Malcolm still saw, King still saw Mega Evers still saw
Speaker 1: a black panthers struck Um. You know, leaders and so
Speaker 1: images were very important. And then I transferred that even
Speaker 1: on another level, you know, on the spiritual level. I
Speaker 1: even started painting you know, the patriarchs of of the
Speaker 1: of the Bible, you know, in black face at the
Speaker 1: original form that they belonged in UM, that we would
Speaker 1: have positive images around us, And that was the artistic
Speaker 1: part of me. But it was always that passion in
Speaker 1: me um that our race and our four bearers our
Speaker 1: fore fathers and four mothers were worth investing in and
Speaker 1: worth living for. And so because I saw at an
Speaker 1: early age our martyrs, there was an old man that
Speaker 1: said to me when I began my journey, he says, son,
Speaker 1: you know, um, the martyrs have their time, but don't
Speaker 1: try to just say that you will die for this cause.
Speaker 1: What we need is people who will live for this cause.
Speaker 1: So live for this cause. We've had bloodshed already, but
Speaker 1: make a difference by living for Make this your life,
Speaker 1: make this your passion, make this your breath. M make
Speaker 1: this very substance of your being. So it wasn't easy
Speaker 1: to travel to Africa. Um. You know in the in
Speaker 1: the late eighties and early nineties. You know, Kwamie and
Speaker 1: Croma was gone. Secretary was gone, his imperial magicity, Allice
Speaker 1: a Lastie was gone, Patrice la Moment was gone. A
Speaker 1: lot of the progressive African leaders who were the ones
Speaker 1: chosen to make Africa different, they were wiped out by
Speaker 1: a cynical system that didn't want to see Africa transform.
Speaker 1: They didn't want Africa to be able to enjoy the
Speaker 1: fruits for independence labor. They still wanted to keep Africa
Speaker 1: um dependent a lot of our early leaders who sought
Speaker 1: to go back to Africa at that time came into
Speaker 1: that turmoil and had to return back to the US.
Speaker 1: But still we had a legacy here. Still we had
Speaker 1: footprints in the ground here. We have wb the Boyers
Speaker 1: tumbs here. He was buried here, his wife Shirley Graham.
Speaker 1: The Boyers, you know, stayed here all the way up
Speaker 1: into and Chroma's overthrow. We had Richard Wright, the author. Um.
Speaker 1: We had Maya Angelo who lived here for a number
Speaker 1: of years, all the way up into and Chrema's overthrow.
Speaker 1: We had people like Martin Luther King, um Um Muhammad
Speaker 1: ali Um. We had uh Adam Clayton Paul Jr. We
Speaker 1: had so many prominent African American figures um, intellectual politicians, performers, academians,
Speaker 1: and playing workers who came here to build Ghana as
Speaker 1: a new African nation. That's why Ghana has a black
Speaker 1: star in her flag, because it was meant to be
Speaker 1: a part of the diaspora. So that's how I linked
Speaker 1: up with Ghana versus Ethiopia or Liberia, which were also
Speaker 1: common at that time. You know, for a lot of
Speaker 1: people losing to look to was Ethiopia, they look towards Liberia,
Speaker 1: but because of the unrest in those places, although Ghana
Speaker 1: had some instability, was more stable of the three who
Speaker 1: were used to receiving people from the diaspora. And having
Speaker 1: studied that history and knowing that history, I heard the
Speaker 1: call of the ancestors. I'm calling me back to Ghana
Speaker 1: so we can finish the dream because it had been
Speaker 1: deferred and it had been derailed, it had been thrown
Speaker 1: off track. And when you get lost on the journey,
Speaker 1: the first thing you try to do is identify where
Speaker 1: did you make that wrong turn or how did you
Speaker 1: get off track and get back to that point and
Speaker 1: continue the journey to where you want to go in
Speaker 1: your destiny. Wow. I mean, I know you've already said
Speaker 1: all the things that needs to be said about this,
Speaker 1: but I have to ask you very directly, how important
Speaker 1: do you think it is for for us as uh
Speaker 1: Africans in America to visit different places in Africa and
Speaker 1: especially Donna, and to make sure that our children have
Speaker 1: an opportunity to get direct access not just books, but
Speaker 1: you know, we take vacations. See I've been having that
Speaker 1: conversation with people since we've been back. Oh, we can't
Speaker 1: get there. It's too expensive. Uh, it's this, it's too far.
Speaker 1: But then they go to Hawaii, which you know, obviously
Speaker 1: it's in America, but still they take that long trip,
Speaker 1: they pay that money to go to Hawaii, and then
Speaker 1: they go, of course to places out of the country.
Speaker 1: And and and I believe that there was a very deliberate, um,
Speaker 1: an intentional attempt to make us stay away from visiting
Speaker 1: Africa by making people feel like it would be dangerous,
Speaker 1: it's dirty, it's you're not you know, all the things,
Speaker 1: the negative things. But how you think it is now
Speaker 1: for people to bring their children and families to the continent.
Speaker 1: I think it is extremely important. It's probably one of
Speaker 1: the most important decisions that you can make in your
Speaker 1: life and make for your children or any of your
Speaker 1: family members. This is something that completes us within a
Speaker 1: way that we don't even know what can anticipate. UM.
Speaker 1: It's not a matter of coming to live to Africa
Speaker 1: or relocate to Africa, but it is a matter of
Speaker 1: reconnecting to Africa. We have to remember that within UM
Speaker 1: the traumatic experience UM of having been snatched and torn
Speaker 1: away from mother Africa was not natural um, those of
Speaker 1: us who are in the America's by virtue of North
Speaker 1: Atlantic slave trade, are here as as as a and
Speaker 1: by virtue of the most traumatic experience that any class
Speaker 1: of human beings have ever experienced over an extended amount
Speaker 1: of time, so consistently and so conspiratorially, so many different
Speaker 1: nations that have been a part of the conspiracy, and
Speaker 1: I've benefited from it. So in our DNA, and there's
Speaker 1: still some trauma, and we don't know within ourselves how
Speaker 1: remedial it is for us to come back to the
Speaker 1: continent and just walk on that soil, come back on
Speaker 1: that continent, and have the voice of our ancestors embrace
Speaker 1: us and develop us to even live within the concepts
Speaker 1: of the of an African world. Something happened to us
Speaker 1: that we don't live in our conscious mind with is
Speaker 1: registers in our subconscious mind. And as I said in
Speaker 1: our d n A, it's only when you touch base
Speaker 1: back on that soil that that returns back to you.
Speaker 1: There's a level of empowerment that doesn't come academically, it
Speaker 1: doesn't come intellectually. It comes to your soul. And you know,
Speaker 1: we used to use that term in the sixties and
Speaker 1: the seventies soul Brother, Soul sister, What is a part
Speaker 1: of our soul that remains in Africa? And then the
Speaker 1: other part of that People have tried to make Africa
Speaker 1: so distant, you know, from us, try to make us
Speaker 1: a shame of Africa. And the only way we can
Speaker 1: get rid of that shame is to confront it, to
Speaker 1: come back here and feel the reality that this is
Speaker 1: where we come from. Whether we choose to come back
Speaker 1: here or not, we must never neglect to identify with it.
Speaker 1: Um well, I know that I come up in a
Speaker 1: generation in the US where right after World War Two,
Speaker 1: people used to laugh at Japanese products. They used to
Speaker 1: call them just Japs. Watches didn't work, radios didn't work.
Speaker 1: People made fun of, I said, Japanese people. But Japan
Speaker 1: rebuilt herself and and rebuilding herself, she never denied who
Speaker 1: it is that she was, and her people kept faith
Speaker 1: in her. And so therefore, when Japan became strong again,
Speaker 1: Japanese people are respected again all over the world. Same
Speaker 1: thing with Chinese people. People saw them as people to
Speaker 1: do your laundry, but make well started shirts and sheets
Speaker 1: or either you know, good Chinese food. People laughed at them.
Speaker 1: But now that China, through its diaspora has been made
Speaker 1: strong because this diaspora has used its exposure to technology
Speaker 1: that they came in contact with in the West to
Speaker 1: share that technology back home. And now China actually is
Speaker 1: buying for the most powerful nation in the world. And
Speaker 1: so likewise, Africa will never realize her strength until African
Speaker 1: people make her strong. And African people will never realize
Speaker 1: their strength. Non't be respected, don't have their dignity restored
Speaker 1: until Africa's dignity is restored. People think Africans are inferior
Speaker 1: because they think Africa is inferior. People disrespect Africans because
Speaker 1: they disrespect Africa. I don't care what we have in
Speaker 1: terms of our degrees. If we are PhD and you
Speaker 1: stand next to any other nationality, they assume that you
Speaker 1: are inferior. Until you prove your equalness, youre equality or
Speaker 1: your superiority. But we must always prove ourselves and that's
Speaker 1: because of the stigma and Mother Africa. So we have
Speaker 1: a duty to help to restore the dignity of Africa
Speaker 1: so that African people, no matter where we walk out
Speaker 1: on this globe, will have our dignity restored and that
Speaker 1: could only have happened when your mother is respected, and
Speaker 1: Africa is our mother, and we must protect our mother,
Speaker 1: protect our house, and that way we protect ourselves and
Speaker 1: shield ourselves. So I promote that strongly. Every African child
Speaker 1: deserves to visit Africa wherever it is that you go
Speaker 1: and walk on African soil, be amongst African people. See
Speaker 1: yourselves on billboards, see yourself at the center of activity,
Speaker 1: in the center of attraction. See yourself in an African
Speaker 1: world where we're empowered. No matter what our state is,
Speaker 1: no matter what our challenges are, we still have worlds
Speaker 1: that we have built and maintained in Mother Africa, and
Speaker 1: every African deserves to experience that. I'm going to buy
Speaker 1: my ticket right yet that right that's supposed to be
Speaker 1: an emerging man. But like I said, you know, I
Speaker 1: was very emotional inside and slaved engines. I couldn't hold
Speaker 1: back tiss you know you and you told us a
Speaker 1: lot about the history. You know, told us about a
Speaker 1: lot of people who you've given this tord to. And
Speaker 1: I remember you you told us about when you brought
Speaker 1: the bottas and you did the tour with them, and
Speaker 1: you said, and you told me you told us how
Speaker 1: they were pretty much cool until one point that you know,
Speaker 1: you've seen that, you know, prison Obama was fighting back
Speaker 1: tears at one point, and I just wanted to actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know what it was actually when I when I
Speaker 1: was doing I shared with you that the tour operated
Speaker 1: a young man s. O. Blankston that gave him the
Speaker 1: tour was somebody that I worked with for the years,
Speaker 1: and we were giving him mentorship and tout ledge the
Speaker 1: night before the Obama's came to made sure that he
Speaker 1: hit the proper points. And so when that experience is over,
Speaker 1: we were right there. So he shared every second and
Speaker 1: every moment of that experience. But yes, it was the
Speaker 1: point where it was reported that of course the presidents,
Speaker 1: the first Lady and her mother and her daughters, they
Speaker 1: felt and showed some emotions throughout that tour, and it
Speaker 1: was that it was that the President had pretty much
Speaker 1: composed himself. But it was when he came out of
Speaker 1: the mail Dungeon and it was said to him that
Speaker 1: this was the church, the Anglican Church that was upstairs,
Speaker 1: right up on top of the mail dungeon, he showed
Speaker 1: and you know, the most emotions he has showed on
Speaker 1: that trip and actually kind of buckled a little bit
Speaker 1: there um to see to think about the irony that
Speaker 1: people could worship above the male dungeon with human beings
Speaker 1: up to a minimum of a thousand, and many times
Speaker 1: up to a thousand, five hundred on males being kept incarcerated,
Speaker 1: you know, in those dungeons with their moaning there groaning,
Speaker 1: all the crying to tears and whatever else, that you
Speaker 1: can actually be holding church upstairs from there. That was
Speaker 1: that that that really touched me, man. And so I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to figure out, how do you you know,
Speaker 1: I know it's been a lot, but it must be.
Speaker 1: Do you relive those emotions? Do? Do? Do you find
Speaker 1: yourself getting emotional or have you become somewhat in them
Speaker 1: to it as you continue to do the tour, do
Speaker 1: you find yourself reliving as emotions with the people that
Speaker 1: you've given the tour? I do. I do find myself
Speaker 1: reliving it, you know, Um. I I treat every tour
Speaker 1: sacred and I take none of them for granted. I
Speaker 1: don't remove myself from the experience of what our ancestors
Speaker 1: went through, and that is that's what helps me convey
Speaker 1: to those who are on um that pilgrimage or that
Speaker 1: tour at that time, feel it because I feel it.
Speaker 1: It's not a single time that I can go there
Speaker 1: and go through that exercise and not conduit the spirit
Speaker 1: of our ancestors. And that's what I see it as.
Speaker 1: I see it as a ritual that I actually form
Speaker 1: any time that I'm going into that. Not a ritual,
Speaker 1: per say, but it is a ritual. I meditate strongly,
Speaker 1: and I asked that the spirit of the Almighty and
Speaker 1: the spirit of our ancestors conveyed through me what that
Speaker 1: person needs to experience or that group needs the experience
Speaker 1: of that time. There are mechanical things that are the
Speaker 1: same in terms of the historical content, the historical facts, um,
Speaker 1: the historical logistics, but the spirit component of it is
Speaker 1: I try to tune into every person, every client that
Speaker 1: I go through there with so that their spirit, their
Speaker 1: experience isn't a rich one and not just part of
Speaker 1: some um ritual that you can get up of a
Speaker 1: baller plate like you know, I've seen that, I've done
Speaker 1: that before. So even when people repeat the tour, they
Speaker 1: tell me they felt something different, they heard something different,
Speaker 1: and um, they're glad they even repeated it. So it
Speaker 1: never gets redundant for me, So there never becomes redundant
Speaker 1: for the people that I'm serving. At that time, well,
Speaker 1: I tell you what was emotional for me. I watched
Speaker 1: white folks, Europeans or and others walking around taking pictures, smiling, laughing,
Speaker 1: you know, having a good old time. And I struggled
Speaker 1: with that rab you know, I can't. I struggled with it.
Speaker 1: And as we rode home or back to the hotel,
Speaker 1: it was, you know, it was hidden. And then when
Speaker 1: we got back to the hotel, because so many people
Speaker 1: are obviously doing big business in Honna, and it also
Speaker 1: has become a vacation spot, they were white in the
Speaker 1: lobby enjoying their martinis and they were laughing and they
Speaker 1: were talking, and it really really struck a nerve with
Speaker 1: me that I'm not sure that they felt, because coming
Speaker 1: back we were quiet, you know, we didn't even have
Speaker 1: words to describe. Included and the other young man who
Speaker 1: was with us, our our brother and the fourth coach
Speaker 1: co founder until freedom, attorney Angelo Pinto, he was with us,
Speaker 1: he just kind of blurted out in the car, we
Speaker 1: are not outraged enough. We're not outraged and I don't
Speaker 1: believe that that outrage should just be ours. I had
Speaker 1: to rest now with myself and I said after, um,
Speaker 1: you know when we did our show immediately following, this
Speaker 1: is not just African history, it's European history also, absolutely,
Speaker 1: so I just wanted you to know I was. It
Speaker 1: hit me hard to see white people like it just
Speaker 1: normalting Well, you let me share this. You know, first
Speaker 1: of all, I don't do this tour for white people.
Speaker 1: I do it for all people, but they should have
Speaker 1: this experience. What I do do, I do deep programming
Speaker 1: for them after they've gone through it. I've been in
Speaker 1: sessions where we've discussed it, so I can really penetrate
Speaker 1: into them to let them know the role they played
Speaker 1: in this and where we find the relationships today. Human
Speaker 1: relationships today have been seriously damaged because of the whole
Speaker 1: white supremacist theory which was manufactured out of that experience.
Speaker 1: Because as you know, and you remember when I started
Speaker 1: the toy and I then I gave the story of
Speaker 1: Mansa Musa, the condition of West Africa, you know, seven
Speaker 1: hundred years ago versus europe um, even coming down further
Speaker 1: to five hundred years ago versus Um Europe and what
Speaker 1: has happened in that gap, and so the the theory
Speaker 1: of white supremacy haven't been manufactured out of that period,
Speaker 1: and we've been the victims of it, and other people
Speaker 1: are victims. They don't see it that way. They see
Speaker 1: themselves just been a factors. But in that respect, yes,
Speaker 1: they need to hear this. But I don't do those
Speaker 1: joint tours, UM do the dungeons because the dynamics are
Speaker 1: too much, and all people deserve to have that experience
Speaker 1: as their experience. And yes, and so I just had
Speaker 1: about one month ago, I had a hundred people from
Speaker 1: n double a c P that we did together. Sixty
Speaker 1: of them were university students. And because they were sponsored
Speaker 1: um by some white people. UM, of course they wanted
Speaker 1: to go on the tour. But my condition was they
Speaker 1: can't go on the same tour that I'm doing. UM.
Speaker 1: We have the tour guides there that will give a
Speaker 1: meaningful tour, and they should have that tour. But my
Speaker 1: tour is for our people, and that's who I cater to. UM.
Speaker 1: If there's a debriefing session, they can be debrief but
Speaker 1: this experience is a sacred experience and they understand because
Speaker 1: they know what they hold sacred to themselves that we
Speaker 1: can't participate that, you know, whether we know it or not,
Speaker 1: and we have sacred things and this is one of
Speaker 1: them that they cannot participate in with us. Especially this
Speaker 1: type of tour was another assignment that you went through
Speaker 1: actively with That's another thing. So the same thing with
Speaker 1: this group that I mentioned earlier, the three d and
Speaker 1: fifty who are here right now. They didn't have many,
Speaker 1: but there's at least about ten educators, you know, white
Speaker 1: Americans who are with them, and we had to do
Speaker 1: the same thing, separate them from the experience. You know,
Speaker 1: they had the experience, and they should happen because we
Speaker 1: stuffer more from white ignorance than we do from our
Speaker 1: own ignorance. And it's Europeans ignorance of us that breathe
Speaker 1: that prejudice and that inferior the complex on our their
Speaker 1: superiority complex on their part is through their ignorance. They
Speaker 1: don't know us. We were renamed in history, um our
Speaker 1: names were taken away. Then they know the negro. The
Speaker 1: negro was their product that they manufactured. We have our
Speaker 1: African detentions, right, they manufactured negro. That's not who we are.
Speaker 1: That's who they know, that's what they want us to be.
Speaker 1: They've never taken the time to know us, but we
Speaker 1: knew every aspect of them because we had to live
Speaker 1: under them. So we had to learn that. I used
Speaker 1: the expression we would hand the slave master handkerchief before
Speaker 1: he sneezed, because we had to anticipate every movement he made.
Speaker 1: We had to know what he's gonna do before he
Speaker 1: knew he was gonna do it. So we had to
Speaker 1: learn of them. We had to know them. We had
Speaker 1: to anticipate them to even survive. They only knew the
Speaker 1: face that we showed them and what they thought they
Speaker 1: had made out of us. So in our best moments
Speaker 1: with schizophrenic we showed them the face that they we
Speaker 1: think they want to see what we want to show
Speaker 1: them if they make it look like they were successful
Speaker 1: to who they remade us into, but there's us that
Speaker 1: they don't know, they've never known, so they need to
Speaker 1: be enlightening without us wasting too much time on that.
Speaker 1: Because one of the reason why man ever, I said,
Speaker 1: I spent forty years of my life in America, and
Speaker 1: my great great grandfather slave for America, and he would
Speaker 1: never respected as a human being. My grandfather's share crop
Speaker 1: for America is never respected as a human being and
Speaker 1: as a man. My father work all of his life
Speaker 1: in dignity and American retired, never respected as a man.
Speaker 1: I'm not willing to slave share crops nor give all
Speaker 1: of my life to America. So what would be my
Speaker 1: expectation of them accepting me? So I'm not looking for
Speaker 1: the acceptance of white America to accept me. I'm looking
Speaker 1: to invest my energy and repairing all people, whether it's
Speaker 1: in America or whether it's in Africa. My attention, my
Speaker 1: focus is on my people. Cannot just jump in real quick,
Speaker 1: my son and say, imagine they don't know us and
Speaker 1: we don't know us either. Yeah, it's such a heavy
Speaker 1: uh load to carry when you do. When you do know,
Speaker 1: like after you've been educated and you've touched the soil
Speaker 1: and you've had the experience, then you watch the world
Speaker 1: happening and you realize why our young brothers are killing
Speaker 1: one another because they don't know, they've not been exposed
Speaker 1: to where we come from. And you know, for me
Speaker 1: as a leader, it is very, very heavy. I think
Speaker 1: it got heavier after coming back, you know, from the continent.
Speaker 1: So I just want to say that, and I guess
Speaker 1: we could transition. We should transition to our topic, because
Speaker 1: I think this is right on here. We were talking
Speaker 1: before you came on about UM The Woman King, and
Speaker 1: I mentioned to you how incredible this film is UM.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that has become a topic
Speaker 1: of discussion online is people wanting to boycott and and
Speaker 1: this is led by black folks. People wanting to boycott
Speaker 1: The Woman King because they say two different things. One
Speaker 1: is that the history of the Dohoney tribe is not
Speaker 1: being represented properly in two different ways. They some say
Speaker 1: that women are being romanticized in the film, as though
Speaker 1: this group they didn't want to kill and enslave Africans
Speaker 1: and so they, you know, presented the king with the
Speaker 1: opportunity to sell palm oil. And that's not the truth.
Speaker 1: The truth is that the Dohoney women were just as
Speaker 1: ruthless as the men, and they weren't, you know, they
Speaker 1: weren't like these good moral people who you know, wanted
Speaker 1: to see change. So that's one side of it. The
Speaker 1: other side is people saying that because they know or
Speaker 1: have read or have heard that the Dahomie tribe was
Speaker 1: engaged in the slave trade, that they don't feel we
Speaker 1: should be celebrating that particular, you know, group of people
Speaker 1: in a movie like this. But also they wanted to
Speaker 1: some of these same people and others wanted to boycott Harriet,
Speaker 1: the movie about Harriet Tubman. And it appears to me
Speaker 1: that every time we have especially dark skin black women
Speaker 1: as the center character where the story is about what
Speaker 1: black women did, um and the role that they played
Speaker 1: in terms of fighting for us or whatever role um
Speaker 1: and powerful roles, that there's always a demand for boycott.
Speaker 1: And the question we asked here today is it sabotage
Speaker 1: or is it genuine critique? We don't always know, right
Speaker 1: and and so just wanted to get your thoughts on
Speaker 1: sabotage or critique and what do you think because and
Speaker 1: I'll say this and then let you respond, I don't
Speaker 1: believe that we should watch any film and take it
Speaker 1: as the full history. I think we have a responsibility
Speaker 1: to do research after, you know, we watch a film.
Speaker 1: So what's your thoughts on that? Well, thank you for
Speaker 1: you know, um allowing me to have a chance to
Speaker 1: weigh in on that. And let me first say that
Speaker 1: my perspective is not coming from having viewed the film,
Speaker 1: but I'm familiar with the dialogue, and um, what happens,
Speaker 1: you know, when we try to promote ourselves in any
Speaker 1: positive light, and especially for our women, and especially for
Speaker 1: our women who don't come in the stereotypical um features
Speaker 1: of what has been defined as beauty, you know in America.
Speaker 1: And so when you raise those points, you know, it
Speaker 1: brings to me the age old arguments of never giving
Speaker 1: our women, um, black women, women of African ancestry with
Speaker 1: the features of Afrikaans and and the non stereotypical form
Speaker 1: and non acceptable form of America. The West has been
Speaker 1: used to presenting that they don't get that without a struggle.
Speaker 1: We still struggle. Now all of us know Hollywood in America.
Speaker 1: If you're not growing up in America, you know, or
Speaker 1: in the West, then maybe you can say you don't
Speaker 1: know the intentions, you know, in the motives of Hollywood.
Speaker 1: Hollywood you know, is about making profit. You know, they
Speaker 1: separate films sometimes as documentaries, but we have a drama,
Speaker 1: full drama film. They have to put in every drama
Speaker 1: pieces in the film that don't necessarily meet the criteria
Speaker 1: of all the historical accounts by detail, so they have
Speaker 1: to put something in it that makes it worth being
Speaker 1: called the drama. That having been said, um, we can't
Speaker 1: tell the story of Africa, um, you know without it
Speaker 1: having multiple side. Most signs we say two sides. But
Speaker 1: the story of Africa is so complex we can't even
Speaker 1: say that it has two sides. So if we decide
Speaker 1: now to bring about um with some dignity, and that's
Speaker 1: where the problem comes in, to bring about with some
Speaker 1: dignity our narrative and our truth out of whatever segment
Speaker 1: of history that we choose to tell it from. It's
Speaker 1: no different in our everyday life when we share experiences
Speaker 1: everyday life and every day that we live and we
Speaker 1: make an account for that day's activities. There's a positive
Speaker 1: way of sharing what we've lived the experience of that
Speaker 1: life today, and there's a negative way. There's a there's
Speaker 1: a there's a diplomatic way we say with the words
Speaker 1: we can say something, and there's an undignified way that
Speaker 1: we can say something. So I would say with critique.
Speaker 1: Nothing wrong with you know, critique. We should always be
Speaker 1: critiquing ourselves. We were people always partiques ourselves, but we
Speaker 1: shouldn't be apologize for celebrating ourselves. We shouldn't be apologizing
Speaker 1: for glorifying ourselves as long as it's not totally a
Speaker 1: total distortion. Um, White folks have built up their self
Speaker 1: esteem for years, but we don't call it self esteem movies,
Speaker 1: we don't call it self esteem. Hollywood. All the stretching
Speaker 1: of the imagination and the stretching of the facts, they
Speaker 1: stretched the facts outside of facts have become outright lies,
Speaker 1: not even contradictions, and we enjoy it. We support those movies,
Speaker 1: We finance those movies. We hope break box office on
Speaker 1: records every weekend and every time that any one of
Speaker 1: them have a debut. So anytime something that comes along
Speaker 1: that looks like it might empower people of African ancestry,
Speaker 1: black folks, you know, to make us feel good, to
Speaker 1: make us feel um um, with a highest sense of
Speaker 1: self esteem. And I'm not talking about feel good movies.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about movies that touch the content of our
Speaker 1: history that we walk away with feeling good. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't even like the fact that, um, they call
Speaker 1: them movies that came through in the seven Black Black floitation,
Speaker 1: you know, exploitation movies. You know, because we were so
Speaker 1: happy in that generation, Um, just to see the black
Speaker 1: men get together in the hood and out thinking out
Speaker 1: smart white folks. We just was glad that at the
Speaker 1: end of the now that we got over on the mafia,
Speaker 1: you know, not even then they leave it, you know,
Speaker 1: in a post, you know, a humorous way. These are
Speaker 1: black exploitation movies. To us, we were winning. Finally, to us,
Speaker 1: we didn't end up dying. First when I was a youngster,
Speaker 1: every hero we had in the movies, they had to die,
Speaker 1: even when Jim Brown with our greatest heroes in the
Speaker 1: football field, when he got as a major movie, you know,
Speaker 1: and the Dirty Dozen, and he was then in that
Speaker 1: movie and then at the last moment Jim Brown had
Speaker 1: to die, and was like, oh no, Jim Brown died.
Speaker 1: We always walked away with a bad feeling. So for
Speaker 1: us to tell stories and then they have some historical content,
Speaker 1: not just imaginatory historical content, but we put into the
Speaker 1: historical context, especially when it involves Africa today, um, and
Speaker 1: walk away with some good feeling. Especially for our women.
Speaker 1: You know that they have not been sideliners. They have
Speaker 1: not just been behind men in some cases not just
Speaker 1: been beside men, but being in front of them. We
Speaker 1: shouldn't have to pay a price for a penalty for that,
Speaker 1: you know, and be overcritical, you know, Martin Luther King
Speaker 1: said at the height of the movement, when he was
Speaker 1: being criticized for his methodologies and so much, he said,
Speaker 1: let us not be bogged down with the paralysis of analysis.
Speaker 1: You know that we analyze things so deeply that we
Speaker 1: become paralyzed and rather than empowered from the inspiration of
Speaker 1: feeling good about ourselves. And we don't have to make
Speaker 1: apologies for feeling good about ourselves, feeling good about our images, um,
Speaker 1: feeling good about reconstructing ourselves who have destructively been dismembered
Speaker 1: and disembarked and disenfranchised from the dignity of just feeling good.
Speaker 1: M that's the point. That is definitely the point, man,
Speaker 1: I think. I think for me watching the movie right,
Speaker 1: there was so much black and forth before I watched
Speaker 1: the movie, and then watching the movie, I was in power.
Speaker 1: There was there was that it was you know, you
Speaker 1: were empowered. I was in power. They tried to say
Speaker 1: that they pitted men against women, and to me, it
Speaker 1: showed them working in unison. It showed them moving as
Speaker 1: one unit. It showed exactly which what each of us represent,
Speaker 1: right like women represent the sense of power and strength,
Speaker 1: and they represents a conscious to men sometimes that we don't.
Speaker 1: Our egos somehow sometimes take over and we move off
Speaker 1: our ego and pride. And it showed how a woman's
Speaker 1: her intellect and her emotion and her you know, her level.
Speaker 1: The reason with him soften that ego because he respected
Speaker 1: her so much and they respected each other and they
Speaker 1: were able to rule together to what she was deemed
Speaker 1: the woman king because she earned that and he had
Speaker 1: earned because he had his abilities and he was a
Speaker 1: strong and respected and he had levels of understanding. He
Speaker 1: understood you know, culture, he understood the history, and he
Speaker 1: was he was like his father in that regards and
Speaker 1: people have respected him. And these were two respected people
Speaker 1: that respected each other and were able to lead because
Speaker 1: of this mutual respect, you know, and a lot of
Speaker 1: times you don't see that you see the levels of
Speaker 1: hier Kane. It's important that again telling all that see
Speaker 1: we have that balance in Africa. There's no king that
Speaker 1: can sit on the stool in Africa without him being
Speaker 1: chosen by a woman. That's what our queen mothers do
Speaker 1: the finals say so after the kingmakers have chosen candidates
Speaker 1: and they've gone through screening the finals, say so, is
Speaker 1: that queen mother who puts her finger on the one
Speaker 1: that will be king the man that would be king.
Speaker 1: We have history throughout Africa and various cultures about the
Speaker 1: roles that our women played even as queens being king
Speaker 1: upset too. She was the queen, but she ruled as
Speaker 1: a king the kindersman queens of Ethiopia. You know the
Speaker 1: power that they had, Queen Makata Vocus Machaeta that we
Speaker 1: know it's queen and Sheba. We know the power that
Speaker 1: they had and how they ruled their kingdoms as kings,
Speaker 1: but they were queens and so he heard that balance.
Speaker 1: Queen y'all. I'll never ever will forget that sister in
Speaker 1: the story. Absolutely that lives in that range supreme here
Speaker 1: in Ghana. That's a part of our living legacy. Every
Speaker 1: gunny and child knows Nana Queen y'all santi Wa and
Speaker 1: what she did when the men were depressed and the
Speaker 1: and depleted in their spirit because their king had been
Speaker 1: captured and imprisoned and put in the Almina Castle dungeon
Speaker 1: and locked up, and she went and fired up all
Speaker 1: the men. If you all will not get your act together,
Speaker 1: then I'll lead us into battle and I'll recover all king,
Speaker 1: and I will I will take on the British. And
Speaker 1: these stories lived and they we have multiple stories like that,
Speaker 1: and we need to revived more of them. And we
Speaker 1: we have living history that we don't need to use
Speaker 1: imagination to come up with superhero We are real superheroes,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, I mean, look contemporarily, we never
Speaker 1: have to make no Rocky because there wasn't Muhammad our League,
Speaker 1: there wasn't Joe Lewis, it wasn't Jack Johnson. We didn't
Speaker 1: need a Hollywood to make up a Rocky. You know,
Speaker 1: we go through all the episodes of our history. We
Speaker 1: have really what you call superheroes. And that's not talking
Speaker 1: about the leaders and the narrative that we're now digging up.
Speaker 1: I was telling people the other day, we can't use
Speaker 1: a shovel to think up our history. We need an excavator.
Speaker 1: They buried our history so deep, and they buried and
Speaker 1: put rocks on it, see men blocks on it. So
Speaker 1: we need excavator to break up the fallow ground. Then
Speaker 1: we gotta go deep and deep and deep, to go
Speaker 1: down where they buried up our history and smuggling it up.
Speaker 1: It's their lies, So they can't exaggerate that enough. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know I know the history. You know then, I
Speaker 1: know of that there was a lot of things that
Speaker 1: are not nice telling. But what is more of a
Speaker 1: feel good culture than American history? Right? Right? Everything we learned,
Speaker 1: every theory is right, Yeah, the theories. They don't want
Speaker 1: their children to feel depressed exactly. They don't even want
Speaker 1: you to that history. They don't I mean, they don't
Speaker 1: even want you to know that slavery existed. They don't
Speaker 1: want you to talk critical race theory. I mean, they
Speaker 1: went through a whole six months of finding ways to
Speaker 1: change the curriculum in colleges and forcing you know, school
Speaker 1: districts not to talk about enslavement at all. But listen,
Speaker 1: you talked about digging up the history, and I know
Speaker 1: you've gotta go and at some point we gotta end
Speaker 1: the show. But it's just so good. But we knew that,
Speaker 1: so we left a lot of space um for us
Speaker 1: to be able to talk with you and get really deep.
Speaker 1: But let's get to the the other topic. That is
Speaker 1: all over the news, and I see a lot of
Speaker 1: Black people who are either trying to figure out why
Speaker 1: were folks so upset about the coverage of the queen
Speaker 1: passing Queen Elizabeth the Third right, um? And then there
Speaker 1: are some people are like, well, why y'all so upset
Speaker 1: about that? You know, because they don't know they have
Speaker 1: they don't know. And then there were people who were
Speaker 1: super duper angry about it. And I'm not sure that
Speaker 1: they all understood the history either. Rather, you know, some
Speaker 1: people just have heard all the queen was a part
Speaker 1: of an empire that did some bad things to African people.
Speaker 1: And but I listened to a lot of the critique
Speaker 1: and I could tell that even the super duper angry people,
Speaker 1: not all of them. Of course, I really didn't understand
Speaker 1: the depth of the history, right and and and and
Speaker 1: and of course they're I don't want to be disrespectful
Speaker 1: to those who do know, and they know very much
Speaker 1: so about what took place, and they've studied. But thing
Speaker 1: that came up, and you know, I want you to
Speaker 1: just give us break it down. We don't even have
Speaker 1: to talk. But there was one thing that came up
Speaker 1: where people kept talking about her crown and the diamonds
Speaker 1: in the crown, um, and they were saying, now it's
Speaker 1: time for the diamonds to be returned to where they
Speaker 1: came from. And I realized that I don't even know
Speaker 1: the history of that, So why don't you talk to
Speaker 1: us about and and I don't think we can let
Speaker 1: the Portuguese off the hook, especially because in the Woman
Speaker 1: King the Portuguese are mentioned. They're the ones that are
Speaker 1: actually there for uh, you know, trading of humans. So
Speaker 1: let's give it to us. Rabbi, Well, yes, I'm glad
Speaker 1: that you didn't bring that up, because it is the
Speaker 1: current debate at the moment. And I think that there's
Speaker 1: a reason why. Um. Today let's take currencies. That the
Speaker 1: strongest paper in the world right now that we call
Speaker 1: money is the British pound. And you say, why is that? So?
Speaker 1: How can that paper be more valuable than all the
Speaker 1: other paper, more valuable in the dollar, more valuable in
Speaker 1: the euro? What makes that pound? You know, I'm so
Speaker 1: powerful and world exchange and currency? And the answer is
Speaker 1: entwined there because the British, they presided over the largest
Speaker 1: imperialistic exploitation of the developing world in any other empire,
Speaker 1: and longer they perfected um the slave trading colonialism. Of course,
Speaker 1: you see the French, you know, trying to the French,
Speaker 1: you know, rivaling them in Africa. But nobody has um
Speaker 1: presided over the most brutal, imperialistic, exploitative government in the
Speaker 1: world than what we know as Great Britain. And the
Speaker 1: Queen represented the head of that. She was the head
Speaker 1: of that. Not one single um petition towards reparations, reconciliation,
Speaker 1: whatever addressed in the formal manner, they were all ignored.
Speaker 1: We see that there was never ever any granting of
Speaker 1: independence by the British Crown without serious atrocities being committed
Speaker 1: to maintain those colonies. Before those colonies one their emancipation
Speaker 1: and independence by struggle. Even though Ghana was not an
Speaker 1: armed struggle, it was still a struggle, and that struggle
Speaker 1: was only one because of an earlier agreement that was
Speaker 1: made with the Aboriginals People's protection right where Ghana established
Speaker 1: way before this Queen came to the throne, that he
Speaker 1: was the Aboriginal people there and the land ultimately belonged
Speaker 1: to the original people who were there. So even though
Speaker 1: the English colonized it, the land never belonged to them.
Speaker 1: But outside of that, when we started talking about the
Speaker 1: atrocities that we took place in South Africa with a
Speaker 1: stone that she wore in her crown came from and
Speaker 1: in places that got to be known as Zimbabwe, who
Speaker 1: were earlier Rhodesia. Um the pronunciations of iron Smith, who
Speaker 1: was originally Englishman, and protection they got from the English.
Speaker 1: The demonization of Robert mcgaby because England did not stand
Speaker 1: behind its promise to compensate its farmers for the land
Speaker 1: that they had stolen from these Zimbabweans and had promised
Speaker 1: and the Zimbobbie and Robert mcgaby um got them to
Speaker 1: um was let him movement and take that land back.
Speaker 1: And the British promised to compensate them and paid them reparations.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine. But nonetheless British, the British made that
Speaker 1: comment and they didn't do it. Rather, what they did,
Speaker 1: rather than pay fulfill their promise and fulfill their word,
Speaker 1: which is all happening under the Queen that just passed,
Speaker 1: they rather went on a campaign to demonize Robert mcgaby.
Speaker 1: And so although Tony Blair and Bush engaged in pronouncing
Speaker 1: to the whole world that Robert mcgaby didn't give in
Speaker 1: to the demands of the white farmers, that they would
Speaker 1: break his economy and they would turn his people against him.
Speaker 1: They had the nerve to even advertise what they would
Speaker 1: do to destabilize his country rather than to address the
Speaker 1: situation that was at hand, and they went along and
Speaker 1: demonized mcgabbi. You had black people, even black leaders, saying
Speaker 1: mcgab he's too old, he's an old man. Why don't
Speaker 1: he stepped down from office. Mcgaby's messed up the economy.
Speaker 1: Macgabi has destroyed the country. They never ever talked about
Speaker 1: the actions of the British crown. They never talked about
Speaker 1: the actions of the British politicians who forecast that and
Speaker 1: did that to protect their illegal migrants who migrated to
Speaker 1: South and Southern Africa years ago and illegally occupied that line,
Speaker 1: committed so many atrocities that we cannot come up with
Speaker 1: the numbers and the figures of the African lives who
Speaker 1: were brutalized, who were murdered, who were disenfranchised, who lost
Speaker 1: their mind and went insane, and that course of the
Speaker 1: that course is the borders of Rhodesa or Zimbabwe, and
Speaker 1: is in all of Southern Africa and not just Southern Africa.
Speaker 1: Look at the situation that we have that the British
Speaker 1: crown um was a part up. We have Ghana, we
Speaker 1: have Nigeria, we have Gambia, we have Egypt, we have Jamaica,
Speaker 1: Falkland Islands, we have India. All of these were under
Speaker 1: the Crown of England, and all of these were tributaries
Speaker 1: to England, not tributaries and allowed to operate in their
Speaker 1: own dignity and their own economies and pay taxes. But
Speaker 1: literally we're enslaved and literally were brutalized, brutalized to enrich
Speaker 1: the British crown. So it is only those people, like
Speaker 1: I said, who have not come to grips with the
Speaker 1: history of England and the how they have maintained their
Speaker 1: crown and how they had maintained their position even though
Speaker 1: they've lost a lot of ground today that would speak
Speaker 1: by virtue of them having been programmed or I would
Speaker 1: even use terms like brainwash to where they become insensitive
Speaker 1: to the insensitivity of how the British got to be
Speaker 1: who they are. How can someone who does not have
Speaker 1: one single gold mine and have the largest reserve of
Speaker 1: goal in the world. How can someone who doesn't have
Speaker 1: one single diamond mind have so many diamonds, not just
Speaker 1: in the crown, but in storage that backs up the
Speaker 1: paper that is used for currency. So what we need
Speaker 1: to do is become more informed about what was the
Speaker 1: result of all of this exploitation. What is in the
Speaker 1: details of why people who are calling for reparations are
Speaker 1: calling for reparations. Let's put these things in perspective. How
Speaker 1: did this small little island all the way in the
Speaker 1: northern hemisphere become as rich as it has? How do
Speaker 1: so many of us speak the English language over our
Speaker 1: own language? Was it by choice that we didn't want
Speaker 1: to speak our language? What was the process that caused
Speaker 1: us to be English speaking nations? And then we're only
Speaker 1: cutting on the edge, We only on the cusp of
Speaker 1: the matter of what that digging would open up if
Speaker 1: we were to really dig and go into that history.
Speaker 1: So we even have the fact that most recently in
Speaker 1: the last two years, the same governments and crowns that
Speaker 1: called for Africans of the Caribbean and Africans and other
Speaker 1: um people people melonated people to come from other parts
Speaker 1: of the world to help rebuild England after World War
Speaker 1: Two because they had lost so many men and women
Speaker 1: in the war they needed help. And then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, after they find themselves back up on their
Speaker 1: feet two to three years ago, they called these same
Speaker 1: population undocumented people and unwanted people in England and want
Speaker 1: to send them back to the lands of where they
Speaker 1: originated from, showing that the insensitivity has not matured underneath
Speaker 1: the same white privilege that they have introduced to the
Speaker 1: world as white supremacy, that the English became dominant and
Speaker 1: masters of and supreme uh so in that respect. By
Speaker 1: the time the English came along with the uh involved
Speaker 1: in the slave trade, they actually mastered it like nobody
Speaker 1: else before of them had um others who were bad
Speaker 1: were abandoning it. The English were coming into it and
Speaker 1: so um as I said, we can use the show
Speaker 1: exclusively to talk about that for hours and would not
Speaker 1: even do anything but touch the tip of the iceberg
Speaker 1: in terms of what would be listed as the number
Speaker 1: of atrocities that took place now, because the English have
Speaker 1: a system where they separate um the politics, prime minister
Speaker 1: and the parliament from the crown, but believe me. We
Speaker 1: should not be deceived. Nothing happens except under the authority
Speaker 1: and with the approval and under the influence of the crown.
Speaker 1: But that's what gives the cover. It's the crown that
Speaker 1: gives the cover. So it's a mastery of political science
Speaker 1: for us to be presented and a fashion that when
Speaker 1: it's convenient, the the whoever wears the crown, king or
Speaker 1: queen can take the credit and when it's not conveyed
Speaker 1: and they can distance themselves from it. But we should
Speaker 1: not be deceived by that master of political science by
Speaker 1: giving us that deception in their operations. Listen, I just
Speaker 1: this is like a history class man. You just this
Speaker 1: is four years of college in the our man. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying that you've never learned that you've
Speaker 1: never been taught. And uh. And that's why I say,
Speaker 1: you know, just the experience of what you gave us
Speaker 1: transform my life, you know, for for forever. Um. Even
Speaker 1: if we look at the American history. Let's try this,
Speaker 1: and we look at American history, Um, the founding fathers
Speaker 1: of America that we that were reconstructed into heroes, you know,
Speaker 1: let's look at how they were founded. If we look
Speaker 1: at the language of the Declaration of Independence. You know,
Speaker 1: the white Americans who were invested in separating themselves from England.
Speaker 1: They wrote in there that the King of England, George,
Speaker 1: was a despot, that he was a tyrant. They had
Speaker 1: to justify their reasons for wanting to sept rate, because
Speaker 1: they said, it's no small thing when a nation of
Speaker 1: people wants to separate themselves from a sovereign power. So
Speaker 1: they had to justify their reasons who wanted to separate
Speaker 1: from England. And the reasons that they justified started with
Speaker 1: the tyranny of the leadership and of the crown of England.
Speaker 1: That's in the document. So what was in the historical
Speaker 1: annals of time that showed that they ever changed their character?
Speaker 1: That we would not suspect them to be exactly who
Speaker 1: their own children said they were when they claimed their independence.
Speaker 1: And what they did was they learned that if my
Speaker 1: mother and my father are thieves, and we're doing all
Speaker 1: this hard work in the foreign land, and they're treating
Speaker 1: us like strangers, and they're treating us like step children,
Speaker 1: then why are we robbing somebody else's land to pay
Speaker 1: them taxes? If we're gonna be thieves? Let us steal
Speaker 1: for ourselves. So they stole the American territory and refused
Speaker 1: to give the spoil to their parents and rather establish
Speaker 1: their own white nation and kept those um and kept
Speaker 1: those spoils for themselves. That's the foundation of America. Broke
Speaker 1: it down. No, I just before we go, I just
Speaker 1: want to touch on this because there's this whole thing,
Speaker 1: and you know, and we we we we never ignore.
Speaker 1: We always acknowledge that there was Africans trade and other Africas,
Speaker 1: there were Africans who were slave trade that contributed to
Speaker 1: the slave trade. But I want you to touch on
Speaker 1: and give the history of that and break it down
Speaker 1: and explain it. And absolutely the reason the reason why
Speaker 1: we have Iraqis and America's because Iraqis were collaborating against
Speaker 1: Iraq and the Iraqian War. The reason why you have
Speaker 1: Afghanistanians being you know, brought into America right now and
Speaker 1: commercials on TV about how we's open arms to them
Speaker 1: because they were friends to US and Afghanistan because they
Speaker 1: were fighting and trading against their own people. They were
Speaker 1: Jewish people who collaborated in the Holocaust. Nobody mentions that
Speaker 1: no other exploited people. Um suffering people have ever had
Speaker 1: to take the double blame of being the cause and
Speaker 1: the reason for their own exploitation. They were collaborators, but
Speaker 1: the collaborators were so small in number that they wouldn't
Speaker 1: even constitute double digit percentage points. Most Africans were victimized
Speaker 1: or in the dark of what those two collaborators were
Speaker 1: doing to help collaborate with the Arabs, order Europeans and
Speaker 1: selling other Africans. It wasn't a matter of you know,
Speaker 1: African whole African populations collaborating to sell their brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1: As I said, they were collaborated, just like we still
Speaker 1: got collaborators in the black community today. You know that
Speaker 1: sell out the black people today, but that doesn't say
Speaker 1: all black people to sellouts. We that's never changed in history.
Speaker 1: What we must do and be successful in doing, is
Speaker 1: dissecting these stories and these narratives and putting them in
Speaker 1: proper perspective so they're not sold to us as a
Speaker 1: wholesale sale. That that is the narrative. They sold that
Speaker 1: to us for centuries. Well, your own people sold you
Speaker 1: in the captivity. Well your own people responsible for you
Speaker 1: in slavery. But I give you contemporary and historical context.
Speaker 1: They America um. They every time they had a campaign
Speaker 1: with a different Native america An ethnic group, they had
Speaker 1: other Native Americans from another ethnic group that worked as
Speaker 1: their spies, that worked as their interpreters. But nonetheless they
Speaker 1: would know Native American would accept the narrative to say
Speaker 1: that their own people um soul America to the white man,
Speaker 1: or gave America over to the white man. So African
Speaker 1: people needed to reject that narrative, not that we reject
Speaker 1: the truth that is in it and the percentages that
Speaker 1: were involved, but put it in proper perspective and not
Speaker 1: allow that to be the dominant narrative. Whereby we told
Speaker 1: that story, who were the benefactors of that then and
Speaker 1: who are the benefactors of that today? Who were the
Speaker 1: victims of that then and who are the victims of
Speaker 1: that today? And then we will come up with the
Speaker 1: proper account for who's responsible. Well that is that. That's it,
Speaker 1: you know, And I think I think one of the
Speaker 1: concerns is that the dialogue around africans Um participation in
Speaker 1: the slave trade will somehow diminished the call for reparations.
Speaker 1: And so it's important and we talked about what you
Speaker 1: said who benefited from it and who continues to benefit
Speaker 1: from it now? Um and also and also to understand
Speaker 1: for us, even for our people to understand that there
Speaker 1: was a small group of individuals engaged in that activity.
Speaker 1: But once the Indians came and oh, oh, you have
Speaker 1: to talk about this, and then we're gone. I promise,
Speaker 1: because I know the production team, things were out of
Speaker 1: our minds. But you have to talk about the difference
Speaker 1: in what happened and how uh traded humans were treated
Speaker 1: under African the under under the African slave trade or
Speaker 1: the African trade of individuals versus when Europeans got involved.
Speaker 1: Because you told us that the Dunges, it was very
Speaker 1: distinctly different, very extinctly different. First of all, um, as
Speaker 1: people like to throw on our face that slavery as
Speaker 1: old as humanity or human society itself. And so there's
Speaker 1: to play on semantics. You know, if we want to
Speaker 1: use semantics, we can say any employee as a slave,
Speaker 1: but he's working under a master's just terminologies. But what
Speaker 1: was different in the North Atlantic slave trading, what happened
Speaker 1: when Europeans and slave out ancestors is we use the
Speaker 1: term chattel slavery our humanity was taken away from us
Speaker 1: and the africans um system of indented servants, um and
Speaker 1: slaves quote unquote, a person always had the opportunity and
Speaker 1: the privilege first of all to be treated as a
Speaker 1: human being. Second of all to be able to grow
Speaker 1: out of the status being an employee, a slave, or
Speaker 1: a servant. That based on your character, your intellect, and
Speaker 1: based on um, your own um prowess, you can raise
Speaker 1: yourself out of that situation, even to the point of
Speaker 1: becoming a member of the family. We have African tradition
Speaker 1: that you is forbidden to even speak about a member
Speaker 1: of your family whose pedatory is not blood, but may
Speaker 1: have come from a parent or grandparents that used to
Speaker 1: be a servant and started out in their relationship with
Speaker 1: the family as a servant, but because of their servitude
Speaker 1: and their dedication, they actually grapped it into the family
Speaker 1: and become a family member in all equal parts. So
Speaker 1: that is a different kind of system of servantry um
Speaker 1: or slavery quote unquote. Then you see in chattel slavery,
Speaker 1: when your name is taken away, your language is taken away,
Speaker 1: you the ability to practice your customs and your culture
Speaker 1: has taken away. Your humanity has taken away. You are
Speaker 1: perpetual slave. You can't be free, your children can't be free. UM.
Speaker 1: The law doesn't recognize any rights as human rights. There
Speaker 1: was no place that any enslaved African that can take
Speaker 1: a white man to get justice. I when I left America,
Speaker 1: I left there and there had not been one single
Speaker 1: case where a white man had been convicted of raping
Speaker 1: a black woman legally convicted because the foundation didn't allow
Speaker 1: for us to bring any white person to court and win,
Speaker 1: because we had no rights as a human person to
Speaker 1: say that we were violated. Because how can a human being,
Speaker 1: um be that's somebody, not a human being, be violated
Speaker 1: for human rights. Now we find ourselves in an error
Speaker 1: when we're coming into UM advocating for human rights, where
Speaker 1: we even have animals that have more rights than Africans
Speaker 1: and we've been struggling for four hundred years to have
Speaker 1: human rights. And you get a larger penalty for having
Speaker 1: dog fights and punishing dogs. And I'm not looking for
Speaker 1: missing cats than you do for missing looking for missing
Speaker 1: people of African ancestry. So the institution introduced by the
Speaker 1: West of Chattel Slavery UM was quite different. Hundreds of
Speaker 1: any of these reads different from what we've practiced on
Speaker 1: the African continent and what a human beings chances were
Speaker 1: in life and in life cycle to redeeming himself out
Speaker 1: of that without the need for legislative law. But the
Speaker 1: human compassion that exists within our systems, our families, our villages,
Speaker 1: in our communities allowed for human character to stand out
Speaker 1: and you to be able to be rewarded for your
Speaker 1: human character and the excellence of character and duty and service,
Speaker 1: versus being perpetually punished because there's no way you can
Speaker 1: be free in a society. Can you imagine that even
Speaker 1: the idea that we were not allowed to refrain to
Speaker 1: refine our intelligence by being formally educated and being denied
Speaker 1: the write to reading and writing was a direct law
Speaker 1: to stop us from refining the best of our human
Speaker 1: senses and intelligence. UM. So these are crimes, and then
Speaker 1: we will have ourselves debating um contemporary um. Descendants of
Speaker 1: white people who say that affirmative action is um illegal um,
Speaker 1: but have no memory, They don't have any voice when
Speaker 1: it comes to how they've been given the advantages they've
Speaker 1: been given. Can you imagine an affirmative action being deemed
Speaker 1: as reverse racism because ten percent of the population is
Speaker 1: being reserved for people who have been denied for four
Speaker 1: years and then claim them not saying nothing about the
Speaker 1: fact that that is when you turn it around, that
Speaker 1: has been preserved for them. Grab, We've gotta go. We
Speaker 1: got it. We could do a whole part too. We
Speaker 1: got it part to. We're gonna watch this and and
Speaker 1: think about and listen to the chatter online and figure
Speaker 1: out what are some other things we want to bring
Speaker 1: you back on to talk about. You are a gym.
Speaker 1: That is you know, as far as I'm concerned, not
Speaker 1: enough people know about you, but they will now because
Speaker 1: we're gonna tell everybody anywhere up and down the coast,
Speaker 1: in and out that you know that folks have to
Speaker 1: know you and what you have been able to accomplish,
Speaker 1: what you're doing every single day, and how important you
Speaker 1: are to our culture. We thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining us today. Thank you well, Thank you for inviting
Speaker 1: me and giving this opportunity. And may you continue to
Speaker 1: be blessing the work that you're doing, and may the
Speaker 1: ancestors continue to shield you and empower you and guide you.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you pay here every time that I'm
Speaker 1: in the presence of the rab but I'm at all
Speaker 1: you know, his his understanding of history and our culture
Speaker 1: is just unmatched, you know, and it's always just listen,
Speaker 1: you just like I just sit here and just listen
Speaker 1: to him. It's like I never used to like school.
Speaker 1: You know, school wasn't really my thing, but I could
Speaker 1: see me going to his class and just being intrigued
Speaker 1: in wanting to learn, you know. That's that's what teaching
Speaker 1: looks like to me. Yeah. No, he's great, He's great.
Speaker 1: I hope people will listen to the interview. I don't
Speaker 1: even have much more to say because you know, and
Speaker 1: I know oftentimes if it's not First of all, there's
Speaker 1: technical issues because he's in Africa, so the the it's slow.
Speaker 1: So there will be moments I'm sure in the midst
Speaker 1: of uh this show where people will not necessarily be
Speaker 1: able to see him or they'll have to be you know,
Speaker 1: there'll be some distortion, and I hope folks do that
Speaker 1: because the audio was clear as can be, and I
Speaker 1: hope people will not uh stop watching it because we're
Speaker 1: so driven by visuals, and you know, I hope people
Speaker 1: will listen, will download it for no other reason our
Speaker 1: podcast just to watch Rabbi Cohen Cohene. Excuse me, um
Speaker 1: because what he just offered to us you can't buy
Speaker 1: because and that's my other Get it man, I don't
Speaker 1: get how anybody hasn't tuned into this man. Have you
Speaker 1: have you listen? You gotta get to it. You gotta
Speaker 1: get to Ghana. You gotta look this man up. He
Speaker 1: is like you said, he is a gym, and we
Speaker 1: are wasting our time. I don't get how you ain't
Speaker 1: been to Ghana. I don't get how you haven't said that. Listen, man,
Speaker 1: hitch Hike. You know you got buddy Patt listen all
Speaker 1: that stuff. No, it doesn't work like listen. People got
Speaker 1: seventy million dollars sneakers. They're buying the new yeass every
Speaker 1: time they come out. They got the new bag that
Speaker 1: come out. Get to them slave dungeons. Man, get to Ghana.
Speaker 1: Understand your history. Sit down with this man. He is
Speaker 1: a gym, you know. And I'm just honored to have
Speaker 1: been able to sit and be in his presence and
Speaker 1: actually in Ghana. When is it like he what he
Speaker 1: did here is amazing. When you're in those dungeons in
Speaker 1: the way that he walks you through each step and
Speaker 1: explains to you what it is that our people were
Speaker 1: going through and he describes it. It's like it's like
Speaker 1: one of the best movie narrators you'll ever see. So
Speaker 1: make sure that you do that. Man. And with that said, man,
Speaker 1: this is probably one of my favorite episodes and this
Speaker 1: should make us number one again podcast in the world,
Speaker 1: Street Politicians. If you have any questions, you have any ideas,
Speaker 1: something you want to hear about, let us know we're
Speaker 1: here for you. Followers a Street Politicians, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: always be right, Tamika D. Mallory is not gonna always
Speaker 1: be wrong, but the Rabbi is gonna always be right.
Speaker 1: Pay attention to him. He's gonna always be right, and
Speaker 1: we will both always and I mean always be authentic.
Speaker 1: Listen to Street Politicians on the Black Effect Network on
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and catch us every single Wednesday for
Speaker 1: the video version of Street Politicians or I Women Dot TV.
Speaker 1: That's how we owned it.