1
00:00:03,240 --> 00:00:12,040
Speaker 1: What's in conquering my dominating my colonial colony. Jesus, I

2
00:00:12,039 --> 00:00:14,880
Speaker 1: don't know that. We're talking to Robert Evans behind the

3
00:00:14,960 --> 00:00:20,120
Speaker 1: Bastards badly introduced podcast about even worse people. Today we're

4
00:00:20,160 --> 00:00:24,720
Speaker 1: doing another motherfucking episode about white English dudes in Africa

5
00:00:24,800 --> 00:00:29,520
Speaker 1: in the eighteen hundreds. So strap the fuck in everybody. Uh,

6
00:00:29,560 --> 00:00:32,960
Speaker 1: my guest today say you don't know how to do

7
00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:36,680
Speaker 1: an introt to a podcast ever? Again, that was phenomenal. Continue,

8
00:00:36,760 --> 00:00:40,960
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. My guest today, Jason Petty a

9
00:00:41,120 --> 00:00:45,960
Speaker 1: k A pro West West. I'm coming in blind. So

10
00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:48,120
Speaker 1: I had no idea we were doing another white colonial

11
00:00:48,120 --> 00:00:51,400
Speaker 1: in Africa. This is we're not We're not doing another

12
00:00:51,400 --> 00:00:55,279
Speaker 1: white colonial in Africa. Actually, we're doing the white colonial

13
00:00:55,280 --> 00:00:58,240
Speaker 1: in Africa. We're talking about the guy we're talking about today.

14
00:00:58,240 --> 00:01:03,760
Speaker 1: Problem might be the whitest man who ever lived. Um,

15
00:01:03,800 --> 00:01:08,560
Speaker 1: we are talking about Cecil, motherfucking Rhodes. The boy's name

16
00:01:08,680 --> 00:01:14,520
Speaker 1: is Cecil Cecil. Let's go Cecil. And he's the namesake

17
00:01:14,560 --> 00:01:18,320
Speaker 1: of Rhode disja. Um oh my god, yeah, I'll tell

18
00:01:18,319 --> 00:01:24,280
Speaker 1: me Rhode is named after him. Yeah, Rhoda was his

19
00:01:24,319 --> 00:01:30,800
Speaker 1: personal property. Um, so the Cecil Rhodes is not just

20
00:01:31,120 --> 00:01:34,479
Speaker 1: like an influential imperialist. He's one of like he's Hitler

21
00:01:34,640 --> 00:01:39,679
Speaker 1: Stalin Mao level of influential in the world. Um he is.

22
00:01:39,720 --> 00:01:43,160
Speaker 1: In addition to owning Rhodesia and another nation as his

23
00:01:43,240 --> 00:01:47,800
Speaker 1: private property, he governed a third country. He controlled of

24
00:01:47,800 --> 00:01:51,560
Speaker 1: the world's diamonds supply. Uh oh. And by the way,

25
00:01:51,720 --> 00:01:56,520
Speaker 1: he helped invent apartheid. Um, so like that that's where

26
00:01:56,560 --> 00:02:01,880
Speaker 1: I'm from. Apartheid. Yes, like, here we go. That's why

27
00:02:01,920 --> 00:02:03,760
Speaker 1: didn't know you. I didn't think about the Rhodes thing.

28
00:02:03,800 --> 00:02:05,720
Speaker 1: I just do it from the apotheid stuff. But yeah,

29
00:02:05,760 --> 00:02:10,120
Speaker 1: here we go. Yeah. Yeah, he's like he's bastard with

30
00:02:10,200 --> 00:02:14,679
Speaker 1: the capital be bold underlying three exclamation points. Yeah, he's

31
00:02:14,720 --> 00:02:16,520
Speaker 1: one of the big ones. Yeah, he's one of the

32
00:02:16,520 --> 00:02:20,040
Speaker 1: big ones. And he is like Mark like when you

33
00:02:20,080 --> 00:02:23,840
Speaker 1: see the when you see like the fucking like the fashy,

34
00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:26,040
Speaker 1: proud boy types out in the street. He's what every

35
00:02:26,200 --> 00:02:28,560
Speaker 1: every one of them wants to be. Like. Cecil Rhodes

36
00:02:28,639 --> 00:02:33,760
Speaker 1: lived the dream life of an imperialist. Um. Yeah, yeah,

37
00:02:33,800 --> 00:02:37,880
Speaker 1: it's cool stuff. Prop it's cool stuff. This is I

38
00:02:37,960 --> 00:02:41,720
Speaker 1: can't wait, dude, this is one of those episodes where

39
00:02:41,760 --> 00:02:43,760
Speaker 1: I included a bunch of quotes from him, and then

40
00:02:43,800 --> 00:02:46,200
Speaker 1: I had to go through the quotes and edit out

41
00:02:46,680 --> 00:02:51,680
Speaker 1: the inn word repeatedly because he says it a lot. Yeah, okay,

42
00:02:51,720 --> 00:02:55,120
Speaker 1: so like this is why I was smiling so much.

43
00:02:55,200 --> 00:03:00,160
Speaker 1: I remember early on in my career there was is

44
00:03:00,240 --> 00:03:03,640
Speaker 1: this like venture capitalist guy that just really took a

45
00:03:03,680 --> 00:03:06,520
Speaker 1: liking to me because he's super wealthy, super white, but

46
00:03:06,560 --> 00:03:11,960
Speaker 1: he loved hip hop, so he was essentially trying to

47
00:03:12,040 --> 00:03:15,200
Speaker 1: help mentor me and my business thoughts. But he would

48
00:03:15,240 --> 00:03:19,040
Speaker 1: say things like I bought that company because who says

49
00:03:19,080 --> 00:03:22,920
Speaker 1: you can't? And then he would be like and his

50
00:03:23,000 --> 00:03:26,280
Speaker 1: whole thing was like, dude, that's He's like, that's the

51
00:03:26,280 --> 00:03:28,440
Speaker 1: money got to live by. Who says you can't? You know,

52
00:03:28,600 --> 00:03:30,399
Speaker 1: you just go pursue your dreams? Who says you can't

53
00:03:30,400 --> 00:03:37,240
Speaker 1: do it? And I just thought, okay, you're where do

54
00:03:37,280 --> 00:03:41,119
Speaker 1: I start? Man like you saying? I'm like you're you're

55
00:03:41,200 --> 00:03:45,520
Speaker 1: trying to motivate me, but you turned me to funk

56
00:03:45,520 --> 00:03:48,280
Speaker 1: off because I'm like, what do you mean? Who says

57
00:03:48,320 --> 00:03:52,560
Speaker 1: you can't? I mean, actually I know what you mean? Yeah,

58
00:03:52,600 --> 00:03:56,280
Speaker 1: And I'm like, no, I don't I don't know, man,

59
00:03:56,320 --> 00:03:57,960
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm gonna I don't know if

60
00:03:57,960 --> 00:04:00,320
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go down this road. But yeah, that's why

61
00:04:00,320 --> 00:04:02,000
Speaker 1: it giggles, because I was like, yo, he was telling me,

62
00:04:02,040 --> 00:04:03,920
Speaker 1: this says like a good thing, Like, hey, man, who

63
00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:07,320
Speaker 1: says you can't? Yeah? I think it's you got one

64
00:04:07,320 --> 00:04:09,680
Speaker 1: of those You've got one of those reminders that we

65
00:04:09,720 --> 00:04:12,840
Speaker 1: all get from time to time that there are within

66
00:04:12,960 --> 00:04:16,120
Speaker 1: this planet, there are multiple planets, and that guy lives

67
00:04:16,120 --> 00:04:18,320
Speaker 1: on a different planets, on a different one. Just just

68
00:04:18,520 --> 00:04:21,320
Speaker 1: that's not ours. He's on the who says you can't planet,

69
00:04:21,640 --> 00:04:24,440
Speaker 1: He's on the yeah, And I'm just like I just

70
00:04:24,560 --> 00:04:29,480
Speaker 1: I God, okay, I guess yeah, because for me, I

71
00:04:29,520 --> 00:04:31,760
Speaker 1: have I do have who says you can't feelings. But

72
00:04:31,760 --> 00:04:34,800
Speaker 1: it's when I'm looking at like like like a like

73
00:04:34,839 --> 00:04:38,760
Speaker 1: a really fancy bag of coffee, Like it's twenty five

74
00:04:38,800 --> 00:04:41,599
Speaker 1: dollars for this bag of coffee, who says I can't? Like, yeah,

75
00:04:41,800 --> 00:04:43,400
Speaker 1: I'll get I'll get the nice coffee. I like how

76
00:04:43,440 --> 00:04:46,160
Speaker 1: he translated that into like prop speech. That's great. Yeah

77
00:04:46,279 --> 00:04:50,040
Speaker 1: you know I love it. Yeah, you know. Whereas with him,

78
00:04:50,080 --> 00:04:54,120
Speaker 1: it's like the company that makes the coffee. Yeah, yeah,

79
00:04:54,520 --> 00:04:56,760
Speaker 1: you know this is his family. You know, it's it's there.

80
00:04:57,120 --> 00:05:01,520
Speaker 1: It's their granddad's plantation in Lumbia. You know what I'm saying.

81
00:05:01,560 --> 00:05:04,080
Speaker 1: And he's like, I want a coffee company. You know

82
00:05:04,080 --> 00:05:05,840
Speaker 1: who says you can't. I'll just buy it from them.

83
00:05:05,839 --> 00:05:09,200
Speaker 1: I'll give him a good price. And that's it is

84
00:05:09,320 --> 00:05:12,880
Speaker 1: very appropriate because Cecil Rhodes is that guy. But he's

85
00:05:12,960 --> 00:05:15,000
Speaker 1: he's a step above that guy. So that guy's a

86
00:05:15,000 --> 00:05:17,039
Speaker 1: step above you and I we we we say that

87
00:05:17,080 --> 00:05:19,039
Speaker 1: when we think about buying a nice product. He thinks

88
00:05:19,080 --> 00:05:22,599
Speaker 1: about that. When Cecil Rhodes was that for Nations. Yeah,

89
00:05:22,839 --> 00:05:24,760
Speaker 1: he says, I can't. You know what, I'm gonna take

90
00:05:24,760 --> 00:05:31,520
Speaker 1: it like, I'm just gonna take this. Yeah. So this

91
00:05:31,600 --> 00:05:34,359
Speaker 1: is the guy we're getting into um and I'm gonna

92
00:05:34,360 --> 00:05:38,479
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna start. Cecil John Rhodes was born on

93
00:05:38,600 --> 00:05:41,920
Speaker 1: July five, eight fifty three, in the hilariously named town

94
00:05:41,960 --> 00:05:43,839
Speaker 1: of Are you ready for this? Prop Here we go,

95
00:05:44,400 --> 00:05:50,320
Speaker 1: Bishop Stortford in Hertfordshire, England. Um probably pronounced wrong. Who cares?

96
00:05:50,320 --> 00:05:54,760
Speaker 1: It's the English um Bishop not a town name, but

97
00:05:55,160 --> 00:05:56,960
Speaker 1: is a town name. But that's not what you should

98
00:05:57,040 --> 00:05:59,320
Speaker 1: name a town. I wish I understood that. I wish

99
00:05:59,320 --> 00:06:04,200
Speaker 1: I understood or like language animalogy of like British things

100
00:06:04,279 --> 00:06:09,560
Speaker 1: like thornberry and yeah works in stire like why yeah

101
00:06:09,560 --> 00:06:12,599
Speaker 1: Worcestershire Wooster, I think is how you're supposed to say it,

102
00:06:12,720 --> 00:06:16,200
Speaker 1: like yeah, like what's the wars going on with you people?

103
00:06:16,440 --> 00:06:20,839
Speaker 1: Why that? That obviously must be safe word and nobody

104
00:06:20,839 --> 00:06:22,719
Speaker 1: can figure out how to pronounce it and that's why

105
00:06:22,760 --> 00:06:26,840
Speaker 1: everything's so fucked up. That's a good get. Yeah, I

106
00:06:28,080 --> 00:06:30,960
Speaker 1: feel like I feel like we just all kind of

107
00:06:31,040 --> 00:06:33,560
Speaker 1: left the English alone on their island for too long

108
00:06:33,800 --> 00:06:36,880
Speaker 1: and that was a bad call. Yeah, because that little,

109
00:06:37,240 --> 00:06:40,320
Speaker 1: that little teeny island conquered the planet. Yeah, and they

110
00:06:40,360 --> 00:06:42,960
Speaker 1: came up with some weird things to ways to pronounce

111
00:06:43,040 --> 00:06:46,599
Speaker 1: words in weird ways to pronounce things yes and very

112
00:06:46,920 --> 00:06:50,440
Speaker 1: enizes worse. Yeah, just can't y'all have no saut just

113
00:06:50,480 --> 00:06:53,360
Speaker 1: add some weird stuff. Anyway, if you're English, this might

114
00:06:53,400 --> 00:06:55,720
Speaker 1: be a hard episode to listen to because we're we're

115
00:06:55,720 --> 00:07:00,440
Speaker 1: going to be going off. But yeah, anyway, so uh

116
00:07:00,600 --> 00:07:04,000
Speaker 1: Cecil was the fifth son of Reverend Francis William Rhodes

117
00:07:04,320 --> 00:07:08,279
Speaker 1: and Luisa Peacock his best biographer, probably Robert Rotberg, calls

118
00:07:08,320 --> 00:07:14,320
Speaker 1: the Rhodes family circumstances modest but hardly deprived. And this

119
00:07:14,400 --> 00:07:16,480
Speaker 1: is something I'll probably quibble with him on a bit,

120
00:07:16,560 --> 00:07:22,160
Speaker 1: because modest is not how I would describe the Roads friendly. Um,

121
00:07:22,200 --> 00:07:26,320
Speaker 1: both sides of his family owned a significant amount of property.

122
00:07:26,360 --> 00:07:29,040
Speaker 1: As late as nineteen o one, the Roads siblings were

123
00:07:29,080 --> 00:07:33,480
Speaker 1: receiving rent payments from six D properties and bishops. That's

124
00:07:33,520 --> 00:07:37,920
Speaker 1: not modest, that's not modest. Yeah, it would be fair

125
00:07:37,960 --> 00:07:40,000
Speaker 1: to say that Cecil never worried about money in his

126
00:07:40,160 --> 00:07:43,720
Speaker 1: entire life. Um, the Roads were of modest means though

127
00:07:43,760 --> 00:07:47,400
Speaker 1: within the world of the British upper crust. So within

128
00:07:47,480 --> 00:07:51,680
Speaker 1: the social environment they existed in. They were middle class,

129
00:07:51,680 --> 00:07:54,520
Speaker 1: but they existed in the upper like five percent of

130
00:07:54,520 --> 00:07:57,840
Speaker 1: of the British nation. You know, yeah, there's there's money.

131
00:07:58,480 --> 00:08:01,640
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, they got they got the c

132
00:08:01,840 --> 00:08:07,600
Speaker 1: class Yeah exactly, Okay, got it. Yeah, they rent there

133
00:08:07,640 --> 00:08:09,840
Speaker 1: that like today, They're the kind of family that rinse

134
00:08:09,920 --> 00:08:12,520
Speaker 1: yacht's a couple of times a year but doesn't because

135
00:08:12,560 --> 00:08:15,160
Speaker 1: they just can't handle those slip fees. Yeah, got it,

136
00:08:15,240 --> 00:08:19,280
Speaker 1: got it. So Cecil's mother and father spawned uh. Copiously,

137
00:08:19,360 --> 00:08:22,400
Speaker 1: they produced nine children in very quick succession. Seven of

138
00:08:22,400 --> 00:08:24,680
Speaker 1: those kids survived to adulthood, which means they were pretty

139
00:08:24,680 --> 00:08:26,840
Speaker 1: good at being parents by the standards of the time.

140
00:08:26,880 --> 00:08:29,040
Speaker 1: You get seven and nine into adulthood, you're doing all right.

141
00:08:29,080 --> 00:08:31,320
Speaker 1: In eighteen fifties. That's pretty good for scentage. Because that

142
00:08:31,440 --> 00:08:38,680
Speaker 1: bodio boy, Yeah, it's a yeah no no, yeah, yeah no,

143
00:08:38,720 --> 00:08:42,240
Speaker 1: it should have been more like five. Really. Cecil was

144
00:08:42,360 --> 00:08:45,520
Speaker 1: child number four, the middle kid, and he was most

145
00:08:45,600 --> 00:08:49,840
Speaker 1: definitely his mama's boy. Um Rickett the family servant, and

146
00:08:49,880 --> 00:08:53,000
Speaker 1: I should say that boys named Rickett. Yeah, yeah, they

147
00:08:53,000 --> 00:08:56,880
Speaker 1: had a family servant named Rickett. His name Rickett. That's

148
00:08:56,880 --> 00:08:59,160
Speaker 1: like what you put into a show if you're making

149
00:08:59,200 --> 00:09:01,360
Speaker 1: fun of the British shuffle upper crust as you give

150
00:09:01,440 --> 00:09:03,880
Speaker 1: him a servant named Rickett. You give him a servant

151
00:09:03,960 --> 00:09:10,560
Speaker 1: named after a disease. Yeah, which understand was wrong, which

152
00:09:10,600 --> 00:09:15,520
Speaker 1: I'll putting use words randomly, very funny. Um. So yeah,

153
00:09:15,600 --> 00:09:19,240
Speaker 1: the family servant, Rickett later recalled he was his mother's boy,

154
00:09:19,480 --> 00:09:22,800
Speaker 1: her favorite. I mainly included that quote, yeah, just because

155
00:09:22,840 --> 00:09:24,320
Speaker 1: I wanted to laugh at the fact that they had

156
00:09:24,320 --> 00:09:27,160
Speaker 1: a servant named Rickett. Um. So Cecil was the only

157
00:09:27,160 --> 00:09:29,800
Speaker 1: one of his siblings whose mother called him my darling,

158
00:09:30,320 --> 00:09:32,480
Speaker 1: and by all accounts, she was a very nurturing mother.

159
00:09:32,600 --> 00:09:34,920
Speaker 1: While her children were young, she acted as their teacher,

160
00:09:34,960 --> 00:09:37,680
Speaker 1: helping them learn to read and write. Cecil's father was

161
00:09:37,720 --> 00:09:39,959
Speaker 1: a very different sort of parent. The couple had married

162
00:09:40,000 --> 00:09:42,080
Speaker 1: when she was twenty eight and he was thirty six,

163
00:09:42,400 --> 00:09:45,160
Speaker 1: which was unusual because that's very old for a woman

164
00:09:45,160 --> 00:09:46,920
Speaker 1: to get married in this period of time. Like she's

165
00:09:46,920 --> 00:09:51,439
Speaker 1: a spinster at um. So you would say that, like

166
00:09:51,520 --> 00:09:54,760
Speaker 1: he he Actually I was like, sorry, Sophie, And that's

167
00:09:54,760 --> 00:09:59,240
Speaker 1: just the way they talked in the back then, Sophie.

168
00:10:00,840 --> 00:10:04,600
Speaker 1: It's awful. I mean, low key. All of the rich

169
00:10:04,679 --> 00:10:08,719
Speaker 1: people back then were in the teenagers. Like that's the

170
00:10:08,760 --> 00:10:13,400
Speaker 1: way it worked in those days, and it was messed up. Yeah.

171
00:10:13,440 --> 00:10:16,040
Speaker 1: So you got to give Cecil's dad credit for, you know,

172
00:10:16,480 --> 00:10:21,960
Speaker 1: marrying someone who's an actual adult. Um, that's good. Uh so. Yeah,

173
00:10:22,000 --> 00:10:23,880
Speaker 1: but this did mean that he was in his fifties

174
00:10:23,920 --> 00:10:25,800
Speaker 1: by the time Cecil came into the picture. He was

175
00:10:25,880 --> 00:10:29,439
Speaker 1: not a super fun dad was a very strict disciplinarian,

176
00:10:29,679 --> 00:10:32,000
Speaker 1: and the children often ran to their mother for comfort.

177
00:10:32,800 --> 00:10:36,559
Speaker 1: Robert Rothberg's Cecil's biographer or Cecil's biographer writes, quote, Ms.

178
00:10:36,640 --> 00:10:40,960
Speaker 1: Rhodes was unusually skilled in establishing supportive relations. Well liked

179
00:10:40,960 --> 00:10:43,880
Speaker 1: by contemporaries and servants, she provided an ample measure of

180
00:10:43,920 --> 00:10:46,800
Speaker 1: love for her children, especially Cecil. It was that special

181
00:10:46,840 --> 00:10:50,000
Speaker 1: love which was the foundation of his invincible self confidence,

182
00:10:50,160 --> 00:10:52,600
Speaker 1: an affirmative sense of self which was both a spur

183
00:10:52,679 --> 00:10:56,720
Speaker 1: to accomplishment and a resilient buffer against the ravages of failure.

184
00:10:57,000 --> 00:11:00,120
Speaker 1: To his credit and discredit roads throughout his lifetime. Was

185
00:11:00,200 --> 00:11:03,920
Speaker 1: remarkably free of both guilt and shame. So his mom

186
00:11:04,040 --> 00:11:06,480
Speaker 1: is very supportive, and maybe she should have been a

187
00:11:06,480 --> 00:11:09,280
Speaker 1: little less supportive. Job. Let me tell Let me tell

188
00:11:09,320 --> 00:11:13,240
Speaker 1: you the parent that actually cares about their kids. Biggest

189
00:11:13,280 --> 00:11:18,040
Speaker 1: fear is that you were you actually showed your favorites

190
00:11:18,679 --> 00:11:21,600
Speaker 1: and like cared for one more than the other. And

191
00:11:21,640 --> 00:11:24,520
Speaker 1: then one of him is like well adjusted and wonderful,

192
00:11:24,640 --> 00:11:27,320
Speaker 1: and then the other ones like you know, in and

193
00:11:27,360 --> 00:11:32,120
Speaker 1: out of rehab, and you're like, not to shame anybody

194
00:11:32,160 --> 00:11:34,680
Speaker 1: for that, but you're just like or the one and

195
00:11:34,720 --> 00:11:38,600
Speaker 1: then like in this scenario, the one you actually unfairly

196
00:11:38,800 --> 00:11:43,440
Speaker 1: favored turns out to be the piece of crap you

197
00:11:43,559 --> 00:11:46,720
Speaker 1: was trying to avoid your saying, yeah, that's kind of

198
00:11:46,760 --> 00:11:50,000
Speaker 1: where where this story is a leading unfortunately. So yeah,

199
00:11:50,080 --> 00:11:54,400
Speaker 1: he grows up um yeah, very very very much coddled

200
00:11:54,440 --> 00:11:57,720
Speaker 1: by his mama. Uh this, and he grew up very

201
00:11:57,840 --> 00:12:00,000
Speaker 1: entitled as a result of this. And this is particular

202
00:12:00,040 --> 00:12:03,080
Speaker 1: clearly illustrated by an anecdote from his nurse when he

203
00:12:03,160 --> 00:12:05,600
Speaker 1: was five or six years old. She just made jam

204
00:12:05,600 --> 00:12:07,439
Speaker 1: and had set it up high to cool. She left

205
00:12:07,480 --> 00:12:09,120
Speaker 1: the room for a few minutes, and she came back,

206
00:12:09,559 --> 00:12:11,920
Speaker 1: the jam was gone and Cecil had clearly eaten it.

207
00:12:12,040 --> 00:12:15,439
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna quote her relating the rest of this story. Cecil,

208
00:12:15,800 --> 00:12:19,240
Speaker 1: did you eat that jam? Yes, he replied, I am sorry,

209
00:12:19,280 --> 00:12:24,840
Speaker 1: it's gone. It was very good. Makes some more. I

210
00:12:24,880 --> 00:12:28,800
Speaker 1: can't take any of this seriously. Yeah, yeah, that was

211
00:12:29,320 --> 00:12:31,960
Speaker 1: that was a that. This is first of all, spot

212
00:12:32,000 --> 00:12:38,480
Speaker 1: on great accident, um and five and he's giving orders

213
00:12:38,520 --> 00:12:43,200
Speaker 1: to adults. Yeah, just hey, make more. I just I

214
00:12:43,240 --> 00:12:48,160
Speaker 1: wish Cecil was Caesar, so our r sezel. So when

215
00:12:48,200 --> 00:12:52,120
Speaker 1: a nurse comes in and says you eat that jam,

216
00:12:52,120 --> 00:12:56,800
Speaker 1: and he goes hell yeah, mm hmm, makes him amazing. Yeah,

217
00:12:56,920 --> 00:13:00,880
Speaker 1: he was seezed. Yeah. She described his attitude as superior,

218
00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:02,720
Speaker 1: and he just told her to make more jam and

219
00:13:02,800 --> 00:13:07,520
Speaker 1: walked away, whistling to his mom and asked what should

220
00:13:07,559 --> 00:13:10,439
Speaker 1: be done with a boy like that, and his mom said,

221
00:13:10,640 --> 00:13:12,960
Speaker 1: let him alone as long as he speaks the truth,

222
00:13:13,960 --> 00:13:17,600
Speaker 1: which is my god. Look at that point, nurse, take

223
00:13:17,640 --> 00:13:20,360
Speaker 1: your apron off and just be like, look, it's a

224
00:13:20,360 --> 00:13:22,240
Speaker 1: lot of rich people in this city. I'm gonna go

225
00:13:22,280 --> 00:13:26,040
Speaker 1: work somewhere else. I don't need this. Yeah, at that point,

226
00:13:26,280 --> 00:13:28,040
Speaker 1: I'm not. I would. I would not be bought. I'm

227
00:13:28,080 --> 00:13:29,920
Speaker 1: already bossed by you. I would not be bossed by

228
00:13:29,920 --> 00:13:32,720
Speaker 1: a five year old. It seems like the thing that

229
00:13:32,800 --> 00:13:35,280
Speaker 1: he needs is the thing that's done in some households

230
00:13:35,280 --> 00:13:37,440
Speaker 1: when you talk back to your mom or your auntie

231
00:13:37,480 --> 00:13:40,320
Speaker 1: and they chunk their their sandals at you. Yeah, like

232
00:13:40,360 --> 00:13:43,559
Speaker 1: that just the kind of yeah, not nothing that hurts,

233
00:13:43,760 --> 00:13:45,880
Speaker 1: but a sandal thrown at him. Yeah, just a nice

234
00:13:45,920 --> 00:13:49,080
Speaker 1: chunkl just real, yea chocolate exactly. Yeah, just you know,

235
00:13:49,640 --> 00:13:51,959
Speaker 1: just let me remind you which one of us is

236
00:13:52,000 --> 00:13:53,880
Speaker 1: the adult. That's the way my poles used to say.

237
00:13:53,960 --> 00:13:56,680
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna remind you which one of us is

238
00:13:56,720 --> 00:14:00,640
Speaker 1: the adult. Yeah, so that should give you some idea

239
00:14:00,679 --> 00:14:02,559
Speaker 1: as to the way the kid grew up seeing himself

240
00:14:02,600 --> 00:14:05,480
Speaker 1: and other people. Um, we don't know very much about

241
00:14:05,520 --> 00:14:07,920
Speaker 1: like his dad personally. There are a few details that

242
00:14:07,960 --> 00:14:10,320
Speaker 1: I kind of find tantalizing, one of which is that

243
00:14:10,400 --> 00:14:13,360
Speaker 1: as a preacher, he was eventually a vicar um. He

244
00:14:13,440 --> 00:14:16,520
Speaker 1: was famous for never delivering a sermon longer than ten minutes.

245
00:14:21,040 --> 00:14:24,080
Speaker 1: So I grew up, grew up in a Baptist you know,

246
00:14:24,600 --> 00:14:29,480
Speaker 1: a Black Baptist church. Talk about ten minutes sounds great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

247
00:14:29,560 --> 00:14:32,040
Speaker 1: that that part sounds cool. And the other thing Cecil's

248
00:14:32,080 --> 00:14:35,120
Speaker 1: biographer just drops this in the biography with no added context,

249
00:14:35,200 --> 00:14:38,640
Speaker 1: probably because we don't have it, is that um Cecil's

250
00:14:38,680 --> 00:14:42,520
Speaker 1: father despised the law and raised his children to not

251
00:14:42,640 --> 00:14:44,840
Speaker 1: respect the law and to abide by their own more.

252
00:14:44,920 --> 00:14:48,120
Speaker 1: He just hated He hated the idea of going to lawyers,

253
00:14:48,280 --> 00:14:50,880
Speaker 1: he hated judges, he hated cops, And we don't know

254
00:14:50,960 --> 00:14:53,160
Speaker 1: anything about why, but that was just something they were

255
00:14:53,200 --> 00:14:56,360
Speaker 1: raised with a little conflicted about Cecil's daddy. Now you know,

256
00:14:56,400 --> 00:14:59,520
Speaker 1: I'm saying, like, okay, hold up, you know what I'm saying,

257
00:14:59,600 --> 00:15:02,600
Speaker 1: Like money, you know he was able to keep his

258
00:15:02,680 --> 00:15:07,920
Speaker 1: kids alive. Uh keep the speeches short, speech short, and

259
00:15:08,320 --> 00:15:11,280
Speaker 1: the cops. I'm like wait, and he married a full

260
00:15:11,280 --> 00:15:14,280
Speaker 1: grown adult, you know, like he he was married and

261
00:15:14,280 --> 00:15:16,520
Speaker 1: he went He wasn't at the middle school picking curls,

262
00:15:16,600 --> 00:15:18,520
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, he wasn't getting married to a fifteen

263
00:15:18,560 --> 00:15:23,720
Speaker 1: year old at age, which a lot of dudes did. Yes. Yeah,

264
00:15:23,880 --> 00:15:28,440
Speaker 1: so uh Cecil's first school was was a private school

265
00:15:28,520 --> 00:15:31,240
Speaker 1: rather than a public school. And that means a different thing. Actually,

266
00:15:31,280 --> 00:15:32,840
Speaker 1: that means he didn't go to he didn't go to

267
00:15:32,880 --> 00:15:35,000
Speaker 1: like Eaton or one of the fancy schools. It means

268
00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:36,880
Speaker 1: a different thing, I guess in England in this period.

269
00:15:37,280 --> 00:15:39,760
Speaker 1: Um so he was always kind of insecure about the

270
00:15:39,760 --> 00:15:42,920
Speaker 1: fact that he went to a private school and didn't

271
00:15:42,920 --> 00:15:44,960
Speaker 1: get to go to one of the big fancy like

272
00:15:45,040 --> 00:15:46,880
Speaker 1: he he didn't get to be an Etonian. You know,

273
00:15:46,920 --> 00:15:50,400
Speaker 1: we talked about that in our our episodes on the

274
00:15:50,440 --> 00:15:53,520
Speaker 1: Wonga Coup, like that, that he didn't get to to

275
00:15:53,560 --> 00:15:56,480
Speaker 1: get that early introduction into like the fancy pot of

276
00:15:56,520 --> 00:16:00,240
Speaker 1: the of the of the white British boys education. Um So,

277
00:16:00,800 --> 00:16:05,680
Speaker 1: maybe that's why he thinks he's like he's of modest. Yeah.

278
00:16:06,320 --> 00:16:08,920
Speaker 1: They his parents I think kept him out because his

279
00:16:08,960 --> 00:16:12,040
Speaker 1: health wasn't great, although that's even debated. There's a lot

280
00:16:12,120 --> 00:16:14,320
Speaker 1: of like argument over whether or not he was a

281
00:16:14,360 --> 00:16:16,360
Speaker 1: sickly kid, which I just don't care to get into

282
00:16:16,360 --> 00:16:20,880
Speaker 1: because it's boring. Um. Yeah, he was studious and intelligent. Um,

283
00:16:20,960 --> 00:16:24,200
Speaker 1: And he's overwhelmingly described as having been very moody. His

284
00:16:24,320 --> 00:16:27,400
Speaker 1: nurse claimed that he was never like a normal child,

285
00:16:28,800 --> 00:16:31,920
Speaker 1: although the evidence she gives for this is also baffling

286
00:16:32,000 --> 00:16:34,520
Speaker 1: because the thing that she she cites is that he

287
00:16:34,560 --> 00:16:39,000
Speaker 1: only laughed when he liked, which is like when else's

288
00:16:39,920 --> 00:16:43,080
Speaker 1: wait yeah, yeah, I don't understand what she was going

289
00:16:43,400 --> 00:16:45,480
Speaker 1: It's just you get reminders reading through this that like

290
00:16:45,520 --> 00:16:48,000
Speaker 1: oh yeah, this is like a again a different world,

291
00:16:48,120 --> 00:16:51,280
Speaker 1: like I don't understand what these people are talking about,

292
00:16:50,600 --> 00:16:53,600
Speaker 1: as like she's bitter that he didn't laugh at her job.

293
00:16:54,360 --> 00:16:55,960
Speaker 1: Like to me, it was like, maybe you're just not

294
00:16:56,000 --> 00:16:59,200
Speaker 1: funny because like your first story, Yeah, that's a warning

295
00:16:59,240 --> 00:17:01,000
Speaker 1: sign from a kid. But like the fact that he

296
00:17:01,040 --> 00:17:03,080
Speaker 1: doesn't laugh when he doesn't want to laugh, you can't

297
00:17:03,080 --> 00:17:08,320
Speaker 1: really Yeah, yeah, well who does laugh when they don't

298
00:17:08,320 --> 00:17:10,800
Speaker 1: want to laugh? You laughing light? You don't learn that

299
00:17:10,880 --> 00:17:14,520
Speaker 1: until you're an adult. So yeah, of course he didn't laugh.

300
00:17:14,680 --> 00:17:16,720
Speaker 1: I guess English kids are supposed to learn that earlier.

301
00:17:16,720 --> 00:17:18,600
Speaker 1: I don't know. But for a little bit more context

302
00:17:18,640 --> 00:17:21,639
Speaker 1: on Cecil as a boy, I'm going to read a

303
00:17:21,760 --> 00:17:25,720
Speaker 1: quote from the Founder, which is a biography about him.

304
00:17:26,280 --> 00:17:28,640
Speaker 1: When vexed, he would hide in a dark corner under

305
00:17:28,680 --> 00:17:31,720
Speaker 1: the staircase, not speaking for hours. He sometimes fled to

306
00:17:31,760 --> 00:17:34,080
Speaker 1: the family summer home with a book, poring over it

307
00:17:34,240 --> 00:17:38,879
Speaker 1: by the hour, together resenting imperiously any attempted intrusion. He

308
00:17:38,960 --> 00:17:42,680
Speaker 1: was prone to strange fits of moodiness, some vague uneasiness

309
00:17:42,680 --> 00:17:46,000
Speaker 1: of spirit, whose source he was never able to properly communicate,

310
00:17:46,200 --> 00:17:49,800
Speaker 1: unaware himself of whether it was melancholy or horror that

311
00:17:49,920 --> 00:17:54,000
Speaker 1: seized him. Occasionally, the young Rhoades rocked himself to and

312
00:17:54,040 --> 00:17:56,480
Speaker 1: fro and kept up a low crooning which was almost

313
00:17:56,520 --> 00:18:00,120
Speaker 1: a moan, a crooning that never shaped itself into articulate word.

314
00:18:00,520 --> 00:18:03,080
Speaker 1: At such times Ms Rhodes would go to his special son,

315
00:18:03,160 --> 00:18:05,680
Speaker 1: and with her arms about him, she would beg him

316
00:18:05,680 --> 00:18:08,320
Speaker 1: to explain the reason of his disquiet, but he never

317
00:18:08,359 --> 00:18:11,520
Speaker 1: told her, locking himself. Then, as later in a private,

318
00:18:11,720 --> 00:18:15,200
Speaker 1: possibly solipsistic world. There were similar moments when he curled

319
00:18:15,240 --> 00:18:18,240
Speaker 1: up under the dining room table, remaining there invisible behind

320
00:18:18,280 --> 00:18:21,840
Speaker 1: an overflowing table cloth. Despite the frantic searching of servants.

321
00:18:21,960 --> 00:18:24,560
Speaker 1: He sat underneath, dinnerless through many a meal of his

322
00:18:24,640 --> 00:18:35,120
Speaker 1: young ears, hugging his knees. Yeah, he's sounds autistic. Thing

323
00:18:35,240 --> 00:18:37,560
Speaker 1: like I used to used to teach special ed and

324
00:18:37,600 --> 00:18:40,120
Speaker 1: like that is like, um, and I've heard a number

325
00:18:40,119 --> 00:18:41,960
Speaker 1: of theories as to like why it's a thing, but like, yeah,

326
00:18:42,119 --> 00:18:44,879
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like you can't diagnose a guy who

327
00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:49,560
Speaker 1: died decades before, like yeah, obviously, um, but it does

328
00:18:49,640 --> 00:18:52,480
Speaker 1: sound like he was, Um he was. I don't know,

329
00:18:52,560 --> 00:18:55,520
Speaker 1: Like I don't even like the term neurotypical a lot.

330
00:18:55,800 --> 00:18:59,400
Speaker 1: It sounds like he was. He definitely had some there's

331
00:18:59,440 --> 00:19:03,200
Speaker 1: something going on there and maybe understanding yeaheah, they didn't

332
00:19:03,200 --> 00:19:05,119
Speaker 1: have a name for whatever that was. Well, yeah, and

333
00:19:05,119 --> 00:19:08,040
Speaker 1: it's and it's that's a benefit for like being seeing

334
00:19:08,080 --> 00:19:11,080
Speaker 1: the world differently can allow you to see options others don't.

335
00:19:11,080 --> 00:19:13,360
Speaker 1: And I think kind of what you with this paragraph

336
00:19:13,400 --> 00:19:15,359
Speaker 1: is getting at and what I've experienced with the number

337
00:19:15,440 --> 00:19:17,720
Speaker 1: of a number of the autistic folks that I worked with,

338
00:19:17,720 --> 00:19:20,440
Speaker 1: who would do who would have kind of behavior, coping

339
00:19:20,440 --> 00:19:23,160
Speaker 1: behaviors like that. The moment is they're taking in like

340
00:19:23,280 --> 00:19:25,960
Speaker 1: too much of the world, like yeah, yeah, like they're

341
00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:29,560
Speaker 1: they're kind of overwhelmed by all of the sensory stimuli

342
00:19:29,600 --> 00:19:33,560
Speaker 1: because their brain, for whatever whatever ours like other people,

343
00:19:34,040 --> 00:19:36,399
Speaker 1: their brain maybe filters out more or something. And maybe

344
00:19:36,400 --> 00:19:38,639
Speaker 1: that's part of why Cecil was able to see some

345
00:19:38,680 --> 00:19:40,240
Speaker 1: of the options. He was able to see. I don't know, like,

346
00:19:40,280 --> 00:19:43,320
Speaker 1: let's yeah, I don't want to psychoanalyze dude, but that

347
00:19:43,600 --> 00:19:45,760
Speaker 1: there is something to being able to have a coping

348
00:19:45,800 --> 00:19:48,320
Speaker 1: mechanism that maybe the rest does think are weird, but

349
00:19:48,840 --> 00:19:51,040
Speaker 1: we don't. But we ain't go on, I met we

350
00:19:51,080 --> 00:19:54,720
Speaker 1: have some mechanisms is probably a less less anger than us,

351
00:19:54,760 --> 00:19:56,960
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. Yeah, that's so yeah anyway,

352
00:19:57,359 --> 00:20:00,960
Speaker 1: and they're able to navigate a world U because his

353
00:20:01,040 --> 00:20:03,760
Speaker 1: brain works a certain way, which we don't know obviously,

354
00:20:03,760 --> 00:20:06,719
Speaker 1: is all. Yeah, it just it does sound like what

355
00:20:06,760 --> 00:20:08,439
Speaker 1: we can say from that paragraph is that he's he

356
00:20:08,480 --> 00:20:11,720
Speaker 1: was he felt overwhelmed a lot by reality as a

357
00:20:11,720 --> 00:20:14,639
Speaker 1: little kid to an extent that was was was unusual.

358
00:20:15,440 --> 00:20:18,800
Speaker 1: Um so yeah. Now, the author of that biography, Robert Rockberg,

359
00:20:18,920 --> 00:20:22,080
Speaker 1: is very interested in developmental psychology, and he analyzes Cecil

360
00:20:22,160 --> 00:20:24,119
Speaker 1: repeatedly through that lens. And I think the book was

361
00:20:24,119 --> 00:20:25,879
Speaker 1: written in eight eight, so there's not a lot of

362
00:20:25,920 --> 00:20:27,800
Speaker 1: he didn't. I think if it was written more recently,

363
00:20:27,840 --> 00:20:30,199
Speaker 1: he probably he might have speculated more on some of

364
00:20:30,200 --> 00:20:32,720
Speaker 1: the stuff that we've been talking about. UM. But he's

365
00:20:32,800 --> 00:20:35,479
Speaker 1: he's real into like some Freudian ship um. And he

366
00:20:35,640 --> 00:20:37,920
Speaker 1: notes that first and only children tend to get the

367
00:20:37,920 --> 00:20:41,520
Speaker 1: most attention, while middle children learned better inner personal skills,

368
00:20:42,080 --> 00:20:45,560
Speaker 1: and Rockberg basically writes that Cecil had elements of both

369
00:20:45,600 --> 00:20:47,800
Speaker 1: of these things in his own upbringing. He was the

370
00:20:47,840 --> 00:20:49,919
Speaker 1: middle kid, but he was also his mother's favorite, and

371
00:20:49,960 --> 00:20:54,000
Speaker 1: so he got special attention and he he he theorizes

372
00:20:54,040 --> 00:20:56,040
Speaker 1: that this kind of might explain how he grew up

373
00:20:56,119 --> 00:20:58,600
Speaker 1: into the political animal he became, because he was both

374
00:20:58,680 --> 00:21:01,600
Speaker 1: kind of surrounded by a very competitive family and he

375
00:21:01,680 --> 00:21:04,080
Speaker 1: learned how to do diplomacy as a result of that.

376
00:21:04,359 --> 00:21:06,440
Speaker 1: But he also grew up with this kind of limitless

377
00:21:06,440 --> 00:21:10,120
Speaker 1: self confidence that comes from being, you know, the most

378
00:21:10,160 --> 00:21:14,280
Speaker 1: favored child. So another major influence on the growing Cecil

379
00:21:14,359 --> 00:21:16,080
Speaker 1: was the fact that his father was kind of a

380
00:21:16,160 --> 00:21:19,480
Speaker 1: dick um, and as Cecil later confided to a friend,

381
00:21:19,560 --> 00:21:23,240
Speaker 1: quote my father frequently and I am now sure wisely demolished.

382
00:21:23,240 --> 00:21:25,760
Speaker 1: Many of my dreams is fantastical. But when I had

383
00:21:25,800 --> 00:21:28,080
Speaker 1: rebuilt them on more practical lines, he was ready to

384
00:21:28,080 --> 00:21:30,399
Speaker 1: listen again. He never failed to put his finger on

385
00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:32,639
Speaker 1: the weak spots, and his criticism soon taught me to

386
00:21:32,680 --> 00:21:35,560
Speaker 1: consider a question from every possible point of view. I

387
00:21:35,560 --> 00:21:37,119
Speaker 1: don't know, it sounds a little bit dickish to me

388
00:21:37,160 --> 00:21:39,400
Speaker 1: to like be tearing apart of kids dreams all the time,

389
00:21:39,480 --> 00:21:42,600
Speaker 1: but Cecil clearly was grateful for it. So yeah, yeah,

390
00:21:42,600 --> 00:21:46,320
Speaker 1: somehow like read like read like a little history revisionism

391
00:21:46,359 --> 00:21:48,560
Speaker 1: here like looking back going. I guess it was kind

392
00:21:48,560 --> 00:21:51,520
Speaker 1: of cool that my dad was emotionally abusive and didn't

393
00:21:51,560 --> 00:21:54,359
Speaker 1: let me imagine. Also, yeah, he just decided to stop

394
00:21:54,440 --> 00:21:57,679
Speaker 1: doing the accent. Well, yeah, I'm not going to do

395
00:21:57,720 --> 00:21:59,400
Speaker 1: it all the time, So Fie, I like to think

396
00:21:59,440 --> 00:22:01,719
Speaker 1: that that your cat looks at you when you do

397
00:22:01,760 --> 00:22:05,440
Speaker 1: those accents, like who is this man? I do enjoy

398
00:22:05,480 --> 00:22:08,960
Speaker 1: a nice British accent. You're very good at it. Thank you,

399
00:22:09,240 --> 00:22:11,560
Speaker 1: thank you. I have a real racist Italian accent to

400
00:22:12,160 --> 00:22:17,520
Speaker 1: they don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, Okay,

401
00:22:17,640 --> 00:22:19,679
Speaker 1: I only I only do it when I'm cooking pizza,

402
00:22:20,440 --> 00:22:27,400
Speaker 1: which is fine. I'm a Talian. Yeah, but so um yeah.

403
00:22:27,520 --> 00:22:30,919
Speaker 1: From an early age, Cecil's talents as a leader were evident.

404
00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:33,720
Speaker 1: He loved to play soldiers, but he insisted on playing general.

405
00:22:34,160 --> 00:22:36,320
Speaker 1: He was temperamental. And I find it noteworthy that the

406
00:22:36,359 --> 00:22:38,600
Speaker 1: main people who reported on this later were not his

407
00:22:38,680 --> 00:22:41,520
Speaker 1: actual family members, but the help all of whom seemed

408
00:22:41,560 --> 00:22:43,600
Speaker 1: to have stories about the fact that he was very

409
00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:48,160
Speaker 1: easily angered. Um. So all of like the service workers

410
00:22:48,200 --> 00:22:51,880
Speaker 1: who know this kid say like, he's fucking dick. Oh

411
00:22:51,920 --> 00:22:55,000
Speaker 1: my god, this kid. That's because they're didn't just dude.

412
00:22:55,119 --> 00:22:57,080
Speaker 1: Now now I get a better picture. It's like the

413
00:22:57,119 --> 00:23:01,199
Speaker 1: servants are action figures. They're just they're living accent figures

414
00:23:01,200 --> 00:23:04,399
Speaker 1: to him. Yeah. Yeah, And that's and again one of

415
00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:07,320
Speaker 1: the people a lot of people who come up later,

416
00:23:07,359 --> 00:23:09,080
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about this when we talk about all

417
00:23:09,119 --> 00:23:11,760
Speaker 1: of the racism, because he gets defended a lot by

418
00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:14,240
Speaker 1: people today by saying like, well, we can't deny that

419
00:23:14,280 --> 00:23:16,080
Speaker 1: he believed things that were racist, but it wasn't out

420
00:23:16,080 --> 00:23:18,720
Speaker 1: of step with the attitudes of the time, which number one.

421
00:23:19,240 --> 00:23:20,879
Speaker 1: I hate it when people bring that up because there

422
00:23:20,880 --> 00:23:23,359
Speaker 1: were actually a bunch of dudes and ladies at the

423
00:23:23,400 --> 00:23:25,679
Speaker 1: time who were like, hey, our society is racist, this

424
00:23:25,720 --> 00:23:27,919
Speaker 1: is fucked up. It's like with slavery. There were a

425
00:23:27,920 --> 00:23:30,120
Speaker 1: lot of abolitionists. Like, no, that was never a thing

426
00:23:30,200 --> 00:23:33,280
Speaker 1: that was just like taken for granted as as right

427
00:23:33,760 --> 00:23:36,800
Speaker 1: like it, it doesn't make it okay. But also like, yeah,

428
00:23:36,840 --> 00:23:39,760
Speaker 1: the treating the help shitty that was very common among

429
00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:42,440
Speaker 1: the British upper crust. Also doesn't mean he's not a dick,

430
00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:46,960
Speaker 1: yeah exactly. Yeah. When Cecil turned sixteen, he was more

431
00:23:47,040 --> 00:23:49,399
Speaker 1: or less a man because again, people didn't live all

432
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:51,560
Speaker 1: that long back then. Um, So it was time for

433
00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:53,920
Speaker 1: him to head to grammar school, which is a term

434
00:23:53,920 --> 00:23:56,560
Speaker 1: for secondary school. UM. But I think was kind of

435
00:23:56,600 --> 00:24:00,920
Speaker 1: more like it was basically like he the normal thing

436
00:24:00,960 --> 00:24:03,440
Speaker 1: to have done for a boy and his his his um,

437
00:24:03,560 --> 00:24:06,040
Speaker 1: his situation would have been to get on the track

438
00:24:06,080 --> 00:24:09,159
Speaker 1: to start going to university right um, and and to

439
00:24:09,280 --> 00:24:10,960
Speaker 1: have done that and go to some place like he

440
00:24:10,960 --> 00:24:13,880
Speaker 1: wanted to go to Oxford, that was always his dream um,

441
00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:17,800
Speaker 1: and he wanted to become a lawyer. But yeah, he

442
00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:20,879
Speaker 1: he didn't like he It was kind of like a

443
00:24:20,920 --> 00:24:24,280
Speaker 1: situation where he wasn't a certain about what he wanted

444
00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:28,400
Speaker 1: to do, and um, he wound up picking another option,

445
00:24:28,440 --> 00:24:30,720
Speaker 1: which was that his brother Herbert had moved to South

446
00:24:30,760 --> 00:24:33,800
Speaker 1: Africa and started a cotton farm, and his family kind

447
00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:36,280
Speaker 1: of thought that he wasn't really ready for college and

448
00:24:36,320 --> 00:24:39,359
Speaker 1: he couldn't wasn't mature enough to go to join the

449
00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:42,879
Speaker 1: military or anything like that. Yeah, they wanted to harden

450
00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:45,600
Speaker 1: him up. That's what you did if you were an

451
00:24:45,640 --> 00:24:47,960
Speaker 1: upper class British family and you had a kid that

452
00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:53,199
Speaker 1: you wanted to toughen up, you would send them to Africa. Um. Yeah,

453
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:58,560
Speaker 1: it was like a yeah, my god. Yeah. Yeah, and

454
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:03,240
Speaker 1: just knowing it's South Africa just even adds yes, yeah right.

455
00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:05,920
Speaker 1: And at this point South Africa is not a political entity.

456
00:25:06,000 --> 00:25:08,840
Speaker 1: It's the Cape, the Cape colony. Um. And we'll talk

457
00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:10,800
Speaker 1: a little in a little more details soon about like

458
00:25:10,840 --> 00:25:12,919
Speaker 1: what the powers kind of in Southern Africa are at

459
00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:16,439
Speaker 1: that point. Yeah. But yeah, Africa in this point for

460
00:25:16,480 --> 00:25:18,800
Speaker 1: the British was seen as a place, not where, not

461
00:25:18,880 --> 00:25:20,479
Speaker 1: just as a place where a white man could get

462
00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:22,879
Speaker 1: rich because it was obviously that. But where a white

463
00:25:22,920 --> 00:25:26,560
Speaker 1: boy could become a white man by ordering you know,

464
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:31,199
Speaker 1: black African people to work for him. Um yeah, and

465
00:25:31,320 --> 00:25:37,120
Speaker 1: surviving malaria. Uh So. The primary motivating factor was probably

466
00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:39,600
Speaker 1: Cecil's father, who saw his son as soft and an

467
00:25:39,720 --> 00:25:44,280
Speaker 1: underachiever in school. Um. As Rotberg writes, despite the school

468
00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:46,760
Speaker 1: prizes that Cecil had won, the vicar may have also

469
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:49,280
Speaker 1: had qualms about the thoroughness of his preparation in Greek

470
00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:52,520
Speaker 1: and Latin. Furthermore, his father recognized that he was unfitted

471
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:55,159
Speaker 1: for a routine life in England. Sons of the sturdy

472
00:25:55,240 --> 00:25:58,879
Speaker 1: Victorian middle class went overseas. They went to America and India.

473
00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:02,400
Speaker 1: They were beginning to go out to Africa again. Dirty,

474
00:26:02,920 --> 00:26:06,560
Speaker 1: sturdy middle sturdy middle class. That's what a great term.

475
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:08,960
Speaker 1: And that's who builds the British empire. You know, it's

476
00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:11,960
Speaker 1: not the it's not the wealthy people, um like they

477
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:13,560
Speaker 1: have they fund a lot of it. But if you're

478
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:15,680
Speaker 1: looking at like the people who actually conquer most of land,

479
00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:17,840
Speaker 1: it is these like these folks and Cecils, these kind

480
00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:21,920
Speaker 1: of the upper classes middle class is who actually goes

481
00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:27,080
Speaker 1: out to prove themselves in these places. It just I

482
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:31,480
Speaker 1: just wonder what it would like, honestly, feel like to

483
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:35,960
Speaker 1: really believe that, like the world is your playground. Yeah,

484
00:26:36,040 --> 00:26:40,360
Speaker 1: and no matter where I go, I'm at home because

485
00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 1: these are our colonies. So when you land in the

486
00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 1: Southern Cape, you're like, well, this is England. Yeah yeah, yeah,

487
00:26:51,359 --> 00:26:55,359
Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's

488
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:59,760
Speaker 1: there's a there wasn't not anymore, but there wasn't. One

489
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:02,920
Speaker 1: time when I was traveling the most, I I felt

490
00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:07,000
Speaker 1: kind of similar to that having a US passport, because

491
00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:09,480
Speaker 1: you can go anywhere and everybody like I can. I

492
00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:12,000
Speaker 1: remember times in like Central America where they were just

493
00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:13,959
Speaker 1: I'd be in towns where there was a whole police

494
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:17,359
Speaker 1: force just to keep just for the tourists, Like cops

495
00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:19,639
Speaker 1: would like stop and give you rides and stuff to

496
00:27:19,680 --> 00:27:21,600
Speaker 1: go get to go to the next bar, because it's

497
00:27:21,600 --> 00:27:23,920
Speaker 1: like our job is to make sure that the white

498
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:27,920
Speaker 1: Americans who visit have the best possible time, because that's

499
00:27:28,040 --> 00:27:31,880
Speaker 1: an important part of our Like it's yeah, I feel

500
00:27:31,920 --> 00:27:34,320
Speaker 1: that to a small extent. You know, it's not the same,

501
00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:39,560
Speaker 1: and it just both scenarios seem amazing. Yeah, you know

502
00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:46,680
Speaker 1: what I'm saying just yeah, blissfully unfair, but probably incredible. Yeah,

503
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:52,119
Speaker 1: very definitely unfair. Um yeah, so uh yeah, there's pretty

504
00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:54,720
Speaker 1: persistent rumors that Cecil's family sent him to Africa because

505
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:57,240
Speaker 1: he was sick, uh, and that wandering around Africa was

506
00:27:57,280 --> 00:27:59,439
Speaker 1: like a medical treatment at the time. Like, and you

507
00:27:59,480 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 1: get that a lot in the Cecil's life. He'll get

508
00:28:01,119 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 1: ill and they'll be like, go to Africa and then

509
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:05,000
Speaker 1: he'll get another kind of ill and they'll say, oh,

510
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:06,720
Speaker 1: you need to head back to England. There was a

511
00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:09,239
Speaker 1: lot of medicine was like go where it's hot, go

512
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:16,320
Speaker 1: where it's cold. Um. Rothberg, who I think is probably

513
00:28:16,400 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 1: the most rigorous biographer of Cecil, thinks that this is untrue,

514
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:21,680
Speaker 1: that like looking at letters between him and his family,

515
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:24,000
Speaker 1: there's no evidence that he was sick um and that

516
00:28:24,080 --> 00:28:27,440
Speaker 1: he probably his family mostly wanted him to go get

517
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:30,000
Speaker 1: hardened up and go make the family wealthier by taking

518
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:33,040
Speaker 1: other people's stuff and his his his family invested a

519
00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:34,920
Speaker 1: lot of money in him. His aunt gave him two

520
00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:39,160
Speaker 1: thousand pounds, which was like that's a year's worth of

521
00:28:39,240 --> 00:28:43,040
Speaker 1: living comfortably at that point in time, um, which he

522
00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:47,720
Speaker 1: could use to like fund whatever adventure venture struck his fancy. Um.

523
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:51,479
Speaker 1: So he again he's he's his family. He's never worried

524
00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:54,120
Speaker 1: about money. He always knows when he when he strikes

525
00:28:54,120 --> 00:28:56,640
Speaker 1: out to Africa. Number one, I have a giant pile

526
00:28:56,680 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 1: of cash and no matter what I do, my family

527
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:02,760
Speaker 1: will send more. Yeah, this is an understanding he has.

528
00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:05,400
Speaker 1: So he lands in Africa in eighteen seventy and at

529
00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:09,120
Speaker 1: the time, Southern Africa was divided between several white colonies

530
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:11,440
Speaker 1: were like the major powers in the area. There was

531
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:14,240
Speaker 1: the British controlled Cape Colony, which was roughly the size

532
00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:17,120
Speaker 1: of Texas. When we call this a colony, most modern

533
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:21,480
Speaker 1: nations are smaller than the Cape Colony. Like, again, fucking Texas.

534
00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:23,960
Speaker 1: It's the size. It's almost it's like it's the size

535
00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:27,840
Speaker 1: of Europe basically. Yeah, there's the Orange Free State, which

536
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:30,680
Speaker 1: was a bunch of Dutch weirdos who really hated the Brits. Uh.

537
00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:34,200
Speaker 1: These are like the Bowers or the Africanners. And there's

538
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:36,400
Speaker 1: the trans Ball which is also which it's run by

539
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:39,080
Speaker 1: even weirder Dutchmen and it was essentially a theocracy at

540
00:29:39,120 --> 00:29:42,480
Speaker 1: this point. Um, and these are also Bowers. Yeah, exactly.

541
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:46,480
Speaker 1: So between these white people controlled lands. A lot of

542
00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 1: Southern Africa was still independent and controlled by people like

543
00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:52,920
Speaker 1: the Sotho, the Nama, the Herrero, I think the Pseudo

544
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:57,680
Speaker 1: was one of them, the kimbay Um yeah or in

545
00:29:57,680 --> 00:30:01,320
Speaker 1: the something we'll get to them later, the a yeah

546
00:30:01,400 --> 00:30:04,239
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, and and these there's there's still there are

547
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: still some very like the um the Mada Bali I

548
00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:09,040
Speaker 1: think is one of them. Are are very have a

549
00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:12,240
Speaker 1: lot of power and still control a sizeable chunk of land. Yeah.

550
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:13,680
Speaker 1: I was like, I know, I know a little bit

551
00:30:13,760 --> 00:30:16,880
Speaker 1: just because of my black panther father and then um

552
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:21,160
Speaker 1: being like I perform in South Africa at least once

553
00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:23,760
Speaker 1: a year except for this year. But like yeah, so

554
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:26,520
Speaker 1: like the Zulu region down south, you know, they're obviously

555
00:30:26,640 --> 00:30:30,640
Speaker 1: very still very tribal, but like that, the power that

556
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:34,880
Speaker 1: they wielded among even surrounding tribes was like yeah, it

557
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:39,000
Speaker 1: was undeniable, and their interaction with the with the colonizers

558
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:40,920
Speaker 1: was like super crazy. Like you know the whole Shaka

559
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:45,160
Speaker 1: Zulu story Yeah, yeah, the Zulu wars and stuff, um, yeah,

560
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:47,240
Speaker 1: which is which is happening in this period? Like this

561
00:30:47,280 --> 00:30:50,400
Speaker 1: is this is exactly the period where also the Zulu

562
00:30:50,400 --> 00:30:54,440
Speaker 1: wars are happening, um, which are you know, there's there's

563
00:30:54,440 --> 00:30:56,719
Speaker 1: a there's a phrase that sums up all of the

564
00:30:56,760 --> 00:31:03,560
Speaker 1: wars between the English uh and and the bowers and

565
00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:05,880
Speaker 1: um and the African tribes at this point, and it's

566
00:31:05,960 --> 00:31:07,520
Speaker 1: it's a phrase that has come up with by a

567
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 1: British poet and I believe the poem was kind of

568
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 1: critical of of imperialism. But the phrases, whatever happens, we

569
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:16,960
Speaker 1: have got the maxim gun and they have not, which

570
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:19,160
Speaker 1: is like the maxim guns, the first heavy machine gun.

571
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:23,240
Speaker 1: That's all the wars is at the end of the day. Yeah,

572
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 1: a few hundred white troops, thousands of African troops, but

573
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:29,840
Speaker 1: the white people have heavy machine guns. Yeah, the shield

574
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:33,760
Speaker 1: is still stretched like leopard skin. That's still their ship,

575
00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:37,160
Speaker 1: no matter how Chraine you are. Yeah. And a lot

576
00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:39,880
Speaker 1: of these African tribes they're fighting with rifles still, but

577
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:43,120
Speaker 1: it's one they have antique rifles and the white people

578
00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 1: have machine guns. So it doesn't you know, it doesn't matter, Yeah, Robert, Robert,

579
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:51,960
Speaker 1: you know what doesn't matter? You know who else has

580
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:55,560
Speaker 1: machine guns? No, No, that's not that's not I mean

581
00:31:55,640 --> 00:32:09,840
Speaker 1: probably right, yea somewhere in the room. Um, that was trash.

582
00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:13,840
Speaker 1: All right, we're back. So uh Cecil has just landed

583
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:17,200
Speaker 1: in Africa, Southern Africa and the Cape Colony. And the

584
00:32:17,240 --> 00:32:19,960
Speaker 1: first thing he learns after setting foot on the continent,

585
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:23,160
Speaker 1: um is that the cotton he had gone there to

586
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:25,760
Speaker 1: grow cotton because his brother has this cotton farm, um.

587
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:29,200
Speaker 1: And this is a period where cotton's prices temporarily skyrocketed

588
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:31,840
Speaker 1: because the U s has a civil war and Sherman

589
00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:34,840
Speaker 1: burns all of the cotton fields and stuff. So there's

590
00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:36,920
Speaker 1: a period it was it was for the longest time

591
00:32:36,960 --> 00:32:39,240
Speaker 1: not profitable for anyone but people who lived in the

592
00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 1: south of the United States to grow cotton because it's

593
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:42,840
Speaker 1: just the best region to grow it in and they

594
00:32:42,840 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 1: were producing so much of it that there was no

595
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:47,840
Speaker 1: point in anyone else growing it. There's this brief cotton

596
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:50,400
Speaker 1: boom in this period in like the eighteen seventies, and

597
00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:52,360
Speaker 1: it doesn't last long, but it's kind of at its

598
00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:55,080
Speaker 1: height when he lands in Africa. But as soon as

599
00:32:55,080 --> 00:32:58,680
Speaker 1: he gets to Africa, he starts talking with people and

600
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:02,760
Speaker 1: he learns that cotton he hears about essentially a a

601
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:09,960
Speaker 1: boom product that he finds a lot more exciting than cotton. Diamonds. Um. Yeah,

602
00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:14,479
Speaker 1: so yes, diamonds. And he starts talking with as soon

603
00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:16,720
Speaker 1: as he lands, he meets a guy who just discovered

604
00:33:16,760 --> 00:33:20,240
Speaker 1: a massive diamond mine in southern Africa. Um and yeah,

605
00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:22,440
Speaker 1: and his brother actually doesn't show up to meet him.

606
00:33:22,480 --> 00:33:24,920
Speaker 1: He leaves him a note because he was scoping out

607
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:27,800
Speaker 1: diamond fields when Cecil landed. Um and had also like

608
00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:29,840
Speaker 1: kind of moved on from the cotton. These are all

609
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 1: these are all speculators right like they're they're they're boom chasers.

610
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:36,040
Speaker 1: It's the same basic thing going on in Africa in

611
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:38,280
Speaker 1: this period, in Southern Africa in this period as was

612
00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:42,800
Speaker 1: going on in California, you know, with the gold run goal. Yeah.

613
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 1: So Cecil fell in love with the geography of Africa

614
00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:47,440
Speaker 1: at once. Um. And when I say he fell in

615
00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:49,960
Speaker 1: love with it, I I want to be really like,

616
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:51,800
Speaker 1: he didn't fall in love with Africa. He fell in

617
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:55,440
Speaker 1: love with the land in Africa. It was a possessive

618
00:33:55,520 --> 00:33:58,960
Speaker 1: love and it did not include it's the people there. Um.

619
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:04,280
Speaker 1: And that's a long terms sort of thing. Yeah. Having

620
00:34:04,320 --> 00:34:07,640
Speaker 1: spent a decent amount of time in Africa, there is

621
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:10,720
Speaker 1: and I say this in all honesty, there is something

622
00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:14,239
Speaker 1: magical there and then just and also the idea that

623
00:34:14,280 --> 00:34:18,759
Speaker 1: like inside of the ground somewhere in Africa, I mean,

624
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:22,839
Speaker 1: the the land just produces everything. Yeah, it's just like

625
00:34:22,880 --> 00:34:26,680
Speaker 1: it's all of it is there. It's it's pretty crazy.

626
00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:29,960
Speaker 1: It's massive, it holds, and so it's so much bigger

627
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:34,040
Speaker 1: like our maps. Do us a disservice? Do it a disservice? Um,

628
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:37,240
Speaker 1: because again, like one of the colonies in Southern Africa

629
00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:39,319
Speaker 1: is the size of Texas, and there's a bunch of

630
00:34:39,360 --> 00:34:44,200
Speaker 1: other ship they're still the other land in the world

631
00:34:44,520 --> 00:34:49,440
Speaker 1: in Africa. It's huge. So yeah, I'm gonna read a

632
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:53,120
Speaker 1: paragraph that is something that that Cecil wrote about kind

633
00:34:53,160 --> 00:34:58,080
Speaker 1: of the native peoples in Africa after he first arrived there.

634
00:34:58,080 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 1: So this is one of his first impressions. Uh. And

635
00:35:00,600 --> 00:35:03,959
Speaker 1: the term he uses here, I don't know. I didn't

636
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:06,520
Speaker 1: decide like I don't. I don't. I don't normally I

637
00:35:06,520 --> 00:35:09,800
Speaker 1: don't read out like slurs if I can avoid it.

638
00:35:09,840 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 1: I also don't want to say the K word. But

639
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 1: it's it's the it's that it's that word in South yeah, yeah, yeah,

640
00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 1: the South Africa's version of the in word. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

641
00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:21,239
Speaker 1: and and at this point I should stay. They use

642
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:24,879
Speaker 1: both that word and the in word interchangeably, and they

643
00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:27,839
Speaker 1: are they are slurs, but they're not using them as

644
00:35:27,840 --> 00:35:29,960
Speaker 1: slurs because to them, this is just what you call

645
00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:33,799
Speaker 1: these people like, it's not it's not. Yeah, so which

646
00:35:33,840 --> 00:35:38,160
Speaker 1: is time and language is crazy alive? Yeah? Yeah, So

647
00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:42,319
Speaker 1: the people here shock your modesty. Many of them have

648
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:44,799
Speaker 1: nothing on excepting a band around the middle. They are

649
00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:47,600
Speaker 1: fine looking men and carry themselves very erect. They all

650
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:50,040
Speaker 1: take snuff and carry their snuff boxes in a hole

651
00:35:50,160 --> 00:35:52,640
Speaker 1: board through their ears. They also pay great attention to

652
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:55,160
Speaker 1: their hair and carry porcupine quills in it with which

653
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:57,279
Speaker 1: they dress it. You often see them sitting down in

654
00:35:57,320 --> 00:36:00,920
Speaker 1: groups dressing each other's hair and picking the fleas out. Um.

655
00:36:01,040 --> 00:36:02,560
Speaker 1: And then he talks about how he doesn't think they

656
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:05,440
Speaker 1: smell very good. Um, and he's very judgmental. Um, just

657
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:10,440
Speaker 1: a real judgmental dude. Uh So yeah, that's that's Cecil's

658
00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:14,719
Speaker 1: first impression of these people. And he eventually receives a

659
00:36:14,800 --> 00:36:17,080
Speaker 1: letter that his brother has sent him that included twenty

660
00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:19,439
Speaker 1: dollars in a crude map to the cotton farm, So

661
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:22,680
Speaker 1: he heads to the cotton farm uh. And you know,

662
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:26,719
Speaker 1: pretty soon after he arrives there, the price of cotton falls. Um.

663
00:36:26,760 --> 00:36:30,080
Speaker 1: But he he spends some time as a cotton farmer,

664
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:33,160
Speaker 1: and he's not really interested in cotton. He really wants

665
00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:36,000
Speaker 1: to get into diamonds. But his family keeps writing him

666
00:36:36,080 --> 00:36:39,279
Speaker 1: letters basically saying, don't like, stay stay on the cotton path.

667
00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:42,080
Speaker 1: This is safe, Like this is a good investment. Diamonds

668
00:36:42,080 --> 00:36:45,799
Speaker 1: are risky and that's kind of um. You know, his

669
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:49,440
Speaker 1: first year or so in in Africa is him constantly

670
00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:52,279
Speaker 1: getting this like this flood of information about all the

671
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:55,240
Speaker 1: diamonds people are finding in different parts of southern Africa,

672
00:36:55,239 --> 00:36:56,520
Speaker 1: and it makes his he write he writes that it

673
00:36:56,560 --> 00:37:01,439
Speaker 1: makes his mouth water. Um and uh, but why why

674
00:37:01,600 --> 00:37:05,520
Speaker 1: is his family so involved? But this is like that's

675
00:37:05,560 --> 00:37:07,600
Speaker 1: what they do. This is what I think that's pretty

676
00:37:07,680 --> 00:37:10,440
Speaker 1: standard for an upper crust family at the time. Like this,

677
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:14,279
Speaker 1: like a child is also an investment, and he reflects

678
00:37:14,320 --> 00:37:16,799
Speaker 1: on the family and you you're you're putting a lot

679
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:19,000
Speaker 1: of money into him to send him there. You want

680
00:37:19,040 --> 00:37:25,560
Speaker 1: him to do things that will will provider return. Still building, Yeah,

681
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:30,000
Speaker 1: you're building the empire. Remember they're like middle rich, so

682
00:37:30,040 --> 00:37:32,799
Speaker 1: you got to build the empire. Yeah. Yeah, And empires

683
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:37,080
Speaker 1: are built by people who are building private empires for themselves, right,

684
00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:39,719
Speaker 1: Like that's what makes it doable. You know. It's the

685
00:37:39,840 --> 00:37:43,120
Speaker 1: Eric Prince sort of thing. So, um yeah, they warn

686
00:37:43,200 --> 00:37:45,640
Speaker 1: him away from this path, but he keeps. He keeps

687
00:37:45,680 --> 00:37:48,799
Speaker 1: like hearing all these stories like that. There's he reads

688
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:51,840
Speaker 1: a story about how an African man found a diamond

689
00:37:52,239 --> 00:37:54,600
Speaker 1: and traded it for a roll of tobacco to a

690
00:37:54,640 --> 00:37:56,319
Speaker 1: white man, and the white guy sold it for eight

691
00:37:56,360 --> 00:38:00,000
Speaker 1: hundred pounds. Um. His brother finds a couple of diamonds

692
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:02,240
Speaker 1: because he's always going off to go diamond finding some roads,

693
00:38:02,320 --> 00:38:04,960
Speaker 1: just keeps getting his key, like he's got this hunger.

694
00:38:05,040 --> 00:38:07,319
Speaker 1: He does describe it as like a physical hunger to

695
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:10,680
Speaker 1: go out and find diamonds. Um. Now, the first diamond

696
00:38:10,719 --> 00:38:13,600
Speaker 1: had been discovered in South Africa three years earlier, in

697
00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:16,640
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty nine, a black farm employee had found an

698
00:38:16,719 --> 00:38:20,439
Speaker 1: enormous eighty eight carrot diamond the Star of Africa. And

699
00:38:20,719 --> 00:38:23,600
Speaker 1: I think this is neat. So the diamonds were first found,

700
00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:26,560
Speaker 1: as far as we can tell in human history, um,

701
00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 1: by people in southern India. And carrots are what you

702
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:34,040
Speaker 1: you kind of measure diamonds by because those people back

703
00:38:34,040 --> 00:38:39,040
Speaker 1: in like seven hundred BC UM, would weigh a diamond

704
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:44,000
Speaker 1: next to carib seeds. And that's why it's called carrots.

705
00:38:44,160 --> 00:38:46,600
Speaker 1: Is like the number of carab seeds that it takes

706
00:38:46,640 --> 00:38:48,480
Speaker 1: to like way a diamond. Like that's where that word

707
00:38:48,560 --> 00:38:50,920
Speaker 1: came from. We don't use carab seeds anymore, but like anyway,

708
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:53,759
Speaker 1: I just thought that was neat that research and it's yeah,

709
00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:57,000
Speaker 1: and it's not carrots like every kid thinks, no, no, no,

710
00:38:57,239 --> 00:39:00,000
Speaker 1: it's like carab seeds. So he was paid the black

711
00:39:00,080 --> 00:39:03,200
Speaker 1: man who finds the Star of Africa, this massive diamond. Yeah,

712
00:39:03,480 --> 00:39:05,680
Speaker 1: he was paid five hundred sheep, ten oxen and a

713
00:39:05,719 --> 00:39:07,759
Speaker 1: horse for it, which actually, like if you're looking at

714
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:11,600
Speaker 1: kind of like Africans who find diamonds and sell them

715
00:39:11,640 --> 00:39:13,960
Speaker 1: to white people, that's not a bad price. That's a

716
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:16,600
Speaker 1: lot of ship. Yeah yeah, yeah, he came up off

717
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:20,480
Speaker 1: found in the ground. Yeah you know yeah. Yeah. The

718
00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:24,160
Speaker 1: star though did eventually sell for twenty five thousand pounds,

719
00:39:24,239 --> 00:39:27,520
Speaker 1: which is like you're very wealthy if you've got access

720
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:29,840
Speaker 1: to that kind of money in in in this period

721
00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:32,440
Speaker 1: of time. Um, it's about the equivalent of four million

722
00:39:32,440 --> 00:39:38,239
Speaker 1: modern dollars. Yeah, that's some money. Yeah. So this does

723
00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:40,799
Speaker 1: bring me to an interesting The fact that this guy,

724
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:43,680
Speaker 1: this farm worker who sold him and got paid reasonably

725
00:39:43,719 --> 00:39:45,560
Speaker 1: nothing like close to what it finally sold for, but

726
00:39:45,600 --> 00:39:47,640
Speaker 1: got paid pretty good does bring me to a point

727
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:50,840
Speaker 1: about Southern Africa in this period that is important to state.

728
00:39:51,320 --> 00:39:56,160
Speaker 1: It was less racist than it became. This is actually

729
00:39:56,480 --> 00:40:01,080
Speaker 1: it actually started out as a much less racist as

730
00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:03,560
Speaker 1: a colony. Then it turned into and the guy we're

731
00:40:03,560 --> 00:40:06,120
Speaker 1: talking about today is part of why it made that turn.

732
00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:10,400
Speaker 1: So Obviously the British were outrageous bigots, um, and everybody

733
00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:12,200
Speaker 1: in this period, every English person this period in the

734
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:14,040
Speaker 1: colony is tossing around the inn word like it's going

735
00:40:14,040 --> 00:40:17,479
Speaker 1: out of style. But the Cape Town Colony was run

736
00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:21,400
Speaker 1: under British law, and the British had a whole be

737
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:23,279
Speaker 1: in their bonnet in this period about the rights of men,

738
00:40:23,320 --> 00:40:25,920
Speaker 1: and British law held in theory at least that all men,

739
00:40:26,080 --> 00:40:29,160
Speaker 1: even black men, were equal. Um. And this was this

740
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:31,800
Speaker 1: was something that was enshrined in their in their legal

741
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:33,279
Speaker 1: codes in a way that it was not in the

742
00:40:33,320 --> 00:40:37,400
Speaker 1: United States. Um, this was a principle. Um. It was

743
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:39,120
Speaker 1: not like a civil right in the way that we

744
00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:41,960
Speaker 1: conceive of it, um. But it was a principle that

745
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:44,359
Speaker 1: was abided by. And so while while black men were

746
00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:46,759
Speaker 1: very much second class citizens in the eyes of the

747
00:40:46,760 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 1: white people who lived there, they still theoretically enjoyed full

748
00:40:50,560 --> 00:40:53,279
Speaker 1: rights if they owned property, they could vote. Segregation was

749
00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:55,920
Speaker 1: not a matter of law, um. And that this is

750
00:40:55,920 --> 00:40:58,080
Speaker 1: within kind of the core of the Cape colony. And

751
00:40:58,080 --> 00:40:59,560
Speaker 1: one of the things you'll see is that like within

752
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:02,279
Speaker 1: the core of the colony they hold pretty strictly to

753
00:41:02,360 --> 00:41:05,560
Speaker 1: these these things that they consider proud traditions of the

754
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:07,960
Speaker 1: British Empire. And the further out you get from it

755
00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:11,120
Speaker 1: in the areas where they're actually extracting resources, the less

756
00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:15,439
Speaker 1: and less those legal niceties apply right um. But within

757
00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:17,839
Speaker 1: the center of the colony they make at least an

758
00:41:17,840 --> 00:41:20,400
Speaker 1: effort at that. And there are you know, to their credit,

759
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:23,480
Speaker 1: you will find lawmakers who when there are other people

760
00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:26,279
Speaker 1: who are talking about like restricting the rights of of

761
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:29,160
Speaker 1: black Africans, there are lawmakers in the colonies who get

762
00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:31,680
Speaker 1: very angry about that, white lawmakers. So there is this

763
00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:34,120
Speaker 1: is part of why you can condemn people like cecil Is.

764
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:36,319
Speaker 1: There are white men at this time who are like

765
00:41:36,360 --> 00:41:39,759
Speaker 1: that's not right, Like all men should be equal and

766
00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:41,399
Speaker 1: they have to be treated that way under the law,

767
00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:44,080
Speaker 1: and like you are you are developing a separate legal

768
00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:47,000
Speaker 1: code for them, which is just worth noting that this

769
00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:50,160
Speaker 1: is not when we talk about the racism of colonialism.

770
00:41:50,200 --> 00:41:53,160
Speaker 1: I do think we often we often make it out

771
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:55,759
Speaker 1: to be something that everyone just thought was fine, and

772
00:41:55,800 --> 00:41:58,480
Speaker 1: they didn't A lot of people pushed back, a lot

773
00:41:58,480 --> 00:42:00,480
Speaker 1: of white people pushed back against you. It's part of

774
00:42:00,480 --> 00:42:03,719
Speaker 1: why you can condemn the ones who didn't. Yeah. Yeah,

775
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:08,319
Speaker 1: I would even argue that, like that's like, yeah, things

776
00:42:08,320 --> 00:42:11,359
Speaker 1: don't things don't start at the end, you know, And

777
00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:14,359
Speaker 1: that I mean, the same happen in America, Like there

778
00:42:14,400 --> 00:42:21,600
Speaker 1: couldn't without the without the work of you know, non

779
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:24,960
Speaker 1: racist white people. Yeah, we probably couldn't have gotten where

780
00:42:24,960 --> 00:42:29,439
Speaker 1: we've gotten so far anyway. Yeah, And and I think

781
00:42:29,480 --> 00:42:32,080
Speaker 1: for this it's because they don't stop anything from happening

782
00:42:32,120 --> 00:42:35,839
Speaker 1: in the Cape colony, right, Like the racism is is

783
00:42:36,040 --> 00:42:39,239
Speaker 1: enshrined into law despite their objections. But the fact that

784
00:42:39,280 --> 00:42:43,080
Speaker 1: people objected is important, I think for for condemning the

785
00:42:43,080 --> 00:42:47,680
Speaker 1: ones who were who pushed for the racism, including Cecil sure. Um.

786
00:42:47,880 --> 00:42:49,719
Speaker 1: At this point in our story, though, Cecil is just

787
00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:51,480
Speaker 1: a seventeen year old boy learning how to become a

788
00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:54,040
Speaker 1: cotton farmer UM, or rather, he was learning how to

789
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:57,360
Speaker 1: command the Zulu laborers who actually work out his farm,

790
00:42:58,680 --> 00:43:02,399
Speaker 1: how to run a farm, not how to farm. Now,

791
00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:05,760
Speaker 1: it seems fair to say from the context that Cecil

792
00:43:05,920 --> 00:43:10,000
Speaker 1: was not an excessively hateful racist in his personal interactions

793
00:43:10,000 --> 00:43:13,640
Speaker 1: with the natives UM, but he was in his bones

794
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:17,560
Speaker 1: a capitalist, and he was very frustrated by the fact

795
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:20,359
Speaker 1: that these people were not. Their way of life did

796
00:43:20,360 --> 00:43:24,080
Speaker 1: not jell well with capitalism, uh. He wrote, for though

797
00:43:24,120 --> 00:43:26,919
Speaker 1: there are any amount of he uses that k word

798
00:43:26,960 --> 00:43:29,920
Speaker 1: out here, there are such independent fellows that the greater

799
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:33,080
Speaker 1: part of them won't work. Their daily food is mealy

800
00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:35,719
Speaker 1: maze porridge. They grow their own mealies, and the only

801
00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:38,000
Speaker 1: thing they had must have his money for their hut tax,

802
00:43:38,040 --> 00:43:40,680
Speaker 1: which is very light. And he considers this a problem

803
00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:42,760
Speaker 1: that all they They're like, Oh, I grow my own food.

804
00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:44,680
Speaker 1: I don't really need money, so I'm not gonna work

805
00:43:44,719 --> 00:43:47,000
Speaker 1: that much because I don't. I don't want much. I'm

806
00:43:47,040 --> 00:43:49,879
Speaker 1: happy just growing my own food and living. I don't

807
00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:52,080
Speaker 1: want to like labor for someone else all the time,

808
00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:56,799
Speaker 1: and he's like, this is a problem. It sounds kind

809
00:43:56,800 --> 00:43:59,880
Speaker 1: of good. Yeah that that actually says like an I

810
00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:02,840
Speaker 1: a life sounds pretty great. I have what I need. Yeah.

811
00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:06,960
Speaker 1: But he's he's recognizing these people are not going to

812
00:44:07,120 --> 00:44:13,160
Speaker 1: be ideal citizens um of of of global capitalism, which

813
00:44:13,200 --> 00:44:15,800
Speaker 1: isn't a thing at this point, but is being born.

814
00:44:15,920 --> 00:44:18,000
Speaker 1: And Cecil is one of the people who first kind

815
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:21,120
Speaker 1: of sees what's going to be born. Um, and he

816
00:44:21,160 --> 00:44:24,120
Speaker 1: wants to build. He becomes enthralled with the idea of

817
00:44:24,160 --> 00:44:27,319
Speaker 1: building a massive network of trade throughout Africa and the

818
00:44:27,400 --> 00:44:30,560
Speaker 1: rest of the world. Um, so that products can move

819
00:44:30,600 --> 00:44:33,759
Speaker 1: and go because he loves he in his bones, he

820
00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:38,480
Speaker 1: loves capitalism. That's and yeah. So uh. He was unique

821
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:40,760
Speaker 1: among the white men in his area for being willing

822
00:44:40,800 --> 00:44:43,279
Speaker 1: to lend his black workers money. Um. He and his

823
00:44:43,320 --> 00:44:46,960
Speaker 1: brother both believed strongly that Africans were almost incapable of

824
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 1: lying um. And that's so, like you could trust them

825
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:52,920
Speaker 1: with money. He actually said that, uh, he would prefer

826
00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:55,040
Speaker 1: to loan them money than to like have money in

827
00:44:55,080 --> 00:44:56,840
Speaker 1: the Bank of England, because the Bank of England was

828
00:44:56,840 --> 00:45:00,879
Speaker 1: a less trustworthy institution. So like that's something. Yeah, that's

829
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:03,440
Speaker 1: that's that's the that's the off balance racism where you

830
00:45:03,520 --> 00:45:08,120
Speaker 1: like to hang I don't. Yeah, I feel so weird. Yeah.

831
00:45:08,400 --> 00:45:11,560
Speaker 1: I've heard some descriptions that his workers were basically slaves,

832
00:45:11,560 --> 00:45:14,080
Speaker 1: And it does seem like later on, as the story develops,

833
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:16,879
Speaker 1: it became that way that does happen to the people

834
00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 1: who work for him, but that doesn't appear to have

835
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:22,200
Speaker 1: been the case in this period. In fact, in this period,

836
00:45:22,440 --> 00:45:25,000
Speaker 1: Cecil probably could be described as one of the better

837
00:45:25,000 --> 00:45:28,400
Speaker 1: white men in the Cape Colony to the black people

838
00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:31,279
Speaker 1: who worked for him. Um, he was also one of

839
00:45:31,280 --> 00:45:34,400
Speaker 1: the better insult me. Yeah, I mean it's not a

840
00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:36,759
Speaker 1: it's not a compliment, it's I'm just trying to make

841
00:45:36,800 --> 00:45:40,600
Speaker 1: sure there's proper context of this guy's journey. Um. He

842
00:45:40,680 --> 00:45:43,960
Speaker 1: was also one of the better cotton farm managers, but

843
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:47,680
Speaker 1: he didn't really he never really liked farming cotton. Um.

844
00:45:47,719 --> 00:45:51,000
Speaker 1: He couldn't stop thinking about diamonds. And in eighteen seventy one,

845
00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:55,120
Speaker 1: a huge field of diamonds, the biggest diamond find in

846
00:45:55,120 --> 00:45:59,120
Speaker 1: in the world, was found near a town now called Kimberly, Um.

847
00:45:59,200 --> 00:46:02,440
Speaker 1: And at the time Kimberly was part of what was

848
00:46:02,440 --> 00:46:05,800
Speaker 1: called greek A Land Um, which is an independent territory

849
00:46:05,840 --> 00:46:09,160
Speaker 1: founded by a mix of some members of different African tribes,

850
00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:12,080
Speaker 1: a lot of former slaves, but also groups of kind

851
00:46:12,080 --> 00:46:15,520
Speaker 1: of disaffected white men. Like it's actually a very multicultural

852
00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:18,600
Speaker 1: group of people who all kind of reject what's going

853
00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:21,440
Speaker 1: on in the colonies of Africa and moved to this

854
00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:24,879
Speaker 1: place in the middle of nowhere, um, dusty, unfertile land

855
00:46:24,920 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 1: together so that they could be kind of free, almost

856
00:46:28,200 --> 00:46:32,680
Speaker 1: like an autonomous zone. Yeah, I mean it was still

857
00:46:32,719 --> 00:46:34,719
Speaker 1: like they had I think they had kind of like

858
00:46:34,880 --> 00:46:38,960
Speaker 1: there was like a like a yeah, their leadership structure

859
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:41,839
Speaker 1: was was was you know, somewhat horizontal, but like yeah,

860
00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:43,319
Speaker 1: it was a lot of people who were kind of

861
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:46,080
Speaker 1: rejecting what was being done elsewhere in Africa at the

862
00:46:46,120 --> 00:46:49,680
Speaker 1: time and wanted to get away from it um. And

863
00:46:49,719 --> 00:46:51,440
Speaker 1: so yeah, that's the Greeks, and it's a very I'm

864
00:46:51,480 --> 00:46:54,560
Speaker 1: not going to do that whole story justice. It's worth

865
00:46:54,719 --> 00:46:57,200
Speaker 1: noting as we tell the rest of the story, you

866
00:46:58,400 --> 00:47:00,640
Speaker 1: from what I've read, you will not find in this story.

867
00:47:00,680 --> 00:47:03,400
Speaker 1: In South African history books, Greeka Land has been pretty

868
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:07,320
Speaker 1: much written out of the written out of the story. Yeah,

869
00:47:07,480 --> 00:47:10,799
Speaker 1: um so, I'm gonna quote next from an article in

870
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:14,080
Speaker 1: the History News Network. Then, in June eighteen seventy one,

871
00:47:14,080 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 1: a White prospector announced the discovery then eighty three point

872
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:20,120
Speaker 1: five carrot diamond at the place now known as Kimberly,

873
00:47:20,200 --> 00:47:22,719
Speaker 1: so named after Earl Kimberly, the British Secretary of State

874
00:47:22,760 --> 00:47:25,279
Speaker 1: for the Colonies. This site of the discovery just happened

875
00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:27,719
Speaker 1: to be within Greek A territory, but fortune hunters never

876
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:29,960
Speaker 1: did bother to raise any questions with the Greeks as

877
00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:32,000
Speaker 1: to the ownership of the mining rights. Just a few

878
00:47:32,080 --> 00:47:34,879
Speaker 1: days earlier, the British Colonial Secretary and a dispatch dated

879
00:47:34,920 --> 00:47:38,000
Speaker 1: May eighteen seventy one, had already authorized the British High

880
00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:41,640
Speaker 1: Commissioner in Cape Town to extend the British territory in

881
00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:45,279
Speaker 1: South Africa by annexing Greeka land. It seems unlikely that

882
00:47:45,320 --> 00:47:48,160
Speaker 1: the close timing of these two events was purely coincidental.

883
00:47:48,280 --> 00:47:51,400
Speaker 1: Of yeah, so, oh there's diamonds. I guess this is

884
00:47:51,440 --> 00:47:55,319
Speaker 1: ours now, um yeah, And the Kimberly discovery came at

885
00:47:55,320 --> 00:47:57,960
Speaker 1: a faithful time. Diamonds in South Africa then were like

886
00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:01,400
Speaker 1: golden California again a thousand. The prospectors would just swarm

887
00:48:01,480 --> 00:48:03,800
Speaker 1: any chunk of land that seems like it might hold wealth.

888
00:48:04,239 --> 00:48:06,560
Speaker 1: And just before the discovery had come, there had been

889
00:48:06,560 --> 00:48:08,879
Speaker 1: a number of false finds. Generally, people would like find

890
00:48:09,000 --> 00:48:11,479
Speaker 1: a couple of diamonds and like an alluvial plain, which

891
00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:14,479
Speaker 1: is like land around a river, um and people would

892
00:48:14,480 --> 00:48:16,560
Speaker 1: swarm there, but there wouldn't actually be nearly as many

893
00:48:16,600 --> 00:48:19,280
Speaker 1: diamonds as they'd anticipated. So that had happened a few times.

894
00:48:19,520 --> 00:48:21,400
Speaker 1: So a lot of these guys were very desperate. So

895
00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:24,120
Speaker 1: once diamonds are found in Kimberly and it's clear that

896
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:27,680
Speaker 1: this is a real find, tens of thousands of desperate

897
00:48:27,719 --> 00:48:30,560
Speaker 1: miners start swarming in to tear the whole this big

898
00:48:30,600 --> 00:48:33,640
Speaker 1: mountain that is the find apart. We're not mountain, like

899
00:48:33,680 --> 00:48:37,520
Speaker 1: a hill, a large hill um. And yeah, Greeka land

900
00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:39,719
Speaker 1: was brushed out of existence so that these guys could

901
00:48:39,760 --> 00:48:42,840
Speaker 1: get rich. Uh. Quote from the History News Network, Greek

902
00:48:42,840 --> 00:48:46,440
Speaker 1: a leader Nicholas water Bower, through a legal advocate, had

903
00:48:46,520 --> 00:48:49,640
Speaker 1: during all this time been importuning the British colonial authorities

904
00:48:49,680 --> 00:48:52,120
Speaker 1: at the Cape to respect Greek lands sovereign independence and

905
00:48:52,160 --> 00:48:54,480
Speaker 1: its ownership of the land upon which the Diamond Field

906
00:48:54,520 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 1: was situated to no avail. Finally, in May eight and

907
00:48:58,239 --> 00:49:00,960
Speaker 1: armed rebellion broke out the light. The armed Greeks were

908
00:49:00,960 --> 00:49:03,520
Speaker 1: no match for colonial troops armed with cannon and breech

909
00:49:03,560 --> 00:49:07,320
Speaker 1: loading rifles. A massacre ensued, with the colonial forces suffering

910
00:49:07,360 --> 00:49:10,239
Speaker 1: only nine fatalities. It signaled the beginning of the end

911
00:49:10,280 --> 00:49:13,560
Speaker 1: for the Greek nation. Most of the survivors migrated several

912
00:49:13,640 --> 00:49:17,200
Speaker 1: hundred miles to the northwest, settling ultimately in Southwest Africa

913
00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:22,040
Speaker 1: now Namibia. So Greeks, you know, not a great story

914
00:49:22,080 --> 00:49:26,839
Speaker 1: for them. Um, so yeah, the men there's yeah, there's

915
00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:32,680
Speaker 1: just like an entire as, an entire like like there's yeah,

916
00:49:32,840 --> 00:49:35,840
Speaker 1: there's they're just not in history books now like that

917
00:49:36,120 --> 00:49:38,640
Speaker 1: what would they be they didn't win? Yeah, yeah, it's

918
00:49:38,680 --> 00:49:41,800
Speaker 1: so crazy that like, yeah, I guess they didn't exist,

919
00:49:41,880 --> 00:49:45,400
Speaker 1: but no, it's all the existed. But now they're no yeah,

920
00:49:45,600 --> 00:49:53,160
Speaker 1: not no more, not no more. So uh yeah. Um.

921
00:49:53,280 --> 00:49:55,520
Speaker 1: The men who would come to work the Kimberly find

922
00:49:55,560 --> 00:49:58,680
Speaker 1: were also Africans, um, but they were not people who

923
00:49:58,719 --> 00:50:01,400
Speaker 1: had lived in the Greek a terror tory previously. They

924
00:50:01,440 --> 00:50:04,280
Speaker 1: were a different group of Africans who had been dispossessed

925
00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:06,680
Speaker 1: by the colonial greed of the Boers. Most of them

926
00:50:06,680 --> 00:50:08,920
Speaker 1: were refugees from areas around the trans Fall in the

927
00:50:08,960 --> 00:50:11,920
Speaker 1: Orange Free State, they've been pastoral nomads who had had

928
00:50:11,920 --> 00:50:15,799
Speaker 1: their lands seized by military force. Uh they were destitutes,

929
00:50:15,840 --> 00:50:18,160
Speaker 1: starving and homeless, and so a lot of these guys

930
00:50:18,160 --> 00:50:20,000
Speaker 1: had no choice but to work the diamond minds because

931
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:23,520
Speaker 1: otherwise they were going to starve to death. Yea quote.

932
00:50:23,719 --> 00:50:26,240
Speaker 1: Fortune hunters from all over Southern Africa and from Europe,

933
00:50:26,239 --> 00:50:29,200
Speaker 1: America and Australia fought over claims well at the same time,

934
00:50:29,239 --> 00:50:31,840
Speaker 1: remaining united and the common purpose of being the masters

935
00:50:31,840 --> 00:50:35,200
Speaker 1: of black labor. Seven hundred individual claims or plots of

936
00:50:35,239 --> 00:50:37,640
Speaker 1: ground containing a little more than eight hundred nine three

937
00:50:37,680 --> 00:50:40,760
Speaker 1: square feet were marked off and taken possession of thirty

938
00:50:40,760 --> 00:50:43,640
Speaker 1: thousand black laborers toiled away in that confined space, but

939
00:50:43,680 --> 00:50:47,160
Speaker 1: were themselves prohibited from owning claims or dealing in diamonds.

940
00:50:47,360 --> 00:50:50,160
Speaker 1: They were subjected to constant body searches and restricted to

941
00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:53,440
Speaker 1: their Hutson tints by nighttime curfew. Any dark skinned person

942
00:50:53,480 --> 00:50:55,560
Speaker 1: in the vicinity who could not prove he was employed

943
00:50:55,560 --> 00:50:58,040
Speaker 1: as a servant or laborer was declared a vagrant and

944
00:50:58,120 --> 00:51:05,799
Speaker 1: subject to flogging. So you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm

945
00:51:05,800 --> 00:51:08,759
Speaker 1: not a new story, not a new story. Yeah, just

946
00:51:09,239 --> 00:51:12,560
Speaker 1: even you know, there are places in Central and South

947
00:51:12,600 --> 00:51:17,600
Speaker 1: America and bring it back to coffee again that the

948
00:51:17,640 --> 00:51:21,200
Speaker 1: locals that the farms that grow it, and the people

949
00:51:21,280 --> 00:51:25,560
Speaker 1: that like harvest the coffee, they're legally not allowed to

950
00:51:25,640 --> 00:51:29,360
Speaker 1: drink that, like the beans are only for export, you

951
00:51:29,400 --> 00:51:32,120
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, And like, yeah, just it's like

952
00:51:32,160 --> 00:51:36,319
Speaker 1: tail as old as time, like this day land. Yep.

953
00:51:36,640 --> 00:51:39,880
Speaker 1: I can definitely say that. One radicalizing moment for me

954
00:51:40,000 --> 00:51:42,319
Speaker 1: was during the time I spent in Guatemala hanging out

955
00:51:42,400 --> 00:51:46,359
Speaker 1: with like some native Guatemalans in their homes and being

956
00:51:46,440 --> 00:51:49,799
Speaker 1: given instant coffee, yeah, in an area surrounded by and

957
00:51:49,840 --> 00:51:57,000
Speaker 1: being like, uh wait, we're on a coffee Like there's

958
00:51:57,120 --> 00:52:00,279
Speaker 1: there's all of the world's coffee comes from here here.

959
00:52:00,600 --> 00:52:04,440
Speaker 1: What is happening? Yeah? Why are we drinking net cafe?

960
00:52:06,120 --> 00:52:10,040
Speaker 1: Does not compute? Yeah, it's because my country has all

961
00:52:14,120 --> 00:52:15,879
Speaker 1: you walk into their village like, hey, guys, I got

962
00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:19,040
Speaker 1: this single lordin guatemaland you guys want to try Oh yeah,

963
00:52:19,120 --> 00:52:21,319
Speaker 1: we grew that right, here, yea, it comes from here.

964
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:24,600
Speaker 1: We don't get that. We can't drink it though. And

965
00:52:24,920 --> 00:52:33,480
Speaker 1: speaking of capitalism, Robert, you know what will let you know? Okay,

966
00:52:33,680 --> 00:52:43,920
Speaker 1: well you know it's goods. Yeah, I'm no help. Yeah

967
00:52:44,640 --> 00:52:48,160
Speaker 1: ah oh, those are some good ads. Let me tell

968
00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:52,160
Speaker 1: you something. I'm about to use all those promo codes.

969
00:52:53,880 --> 00:52:58,120
Speaker 1: I love promo codes because I love promotions, and it

970
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:01,279
Speaker 1: will put food on y'alls to table. I love food

971
00:53:01,320 --> 00:53:04,600
Speaker 1: on the table. So while the Greek a territory had

972
00:53:04,640 --> 00:53:07,640
Speaker 1: been annexed by the Cape Colony, it did not benefit

973
00:53:07,719 --> 00:53:10,319
Speaker 1: from the same enlightened legal system as the rest of

974
00:53:10,320 --> 00:53:13,520
Speaker 1: the colony, because again it's on the periphery. And while

975
00:53:13,560 --> 00:53:16,080
Speaker 1: it's important for us in the cities to abide by

976
00:53:16,120 --> 00:53:19,280
Speaker 1: these these laws that we all think are very very nice,

977
00:53:19,600 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 1: once we get out to where the money's made, people

978
00:53:22,160 --> 00:53:25,760
Speaker 1: stop talking about the rights of man, you know, because

979
00:53:26,040 --> 00:53:29,120
Speaker 1: there's money. Yeah. It's the same thing as how the

980
00:53:29,200 --> 00:53:32,319
Speaker 1: United States, our whole lives, talks a good game about

981
00:53:32,360 --> 00:53:36,200
Speaker 1: the rights of man. But also, UH fundamentally could not

982
00:53:36,239 --> 00:53:38,680
Speaker 1: exist in the same fashion if a large number of

983
00:53:38,719 --> 00:53:41,799
Speaker 1: its UH critical products were not made in areas without

984
00:53:41,840 --> 00:53:45,879
Speaker 1: any sort of labor laws. Yeah it wouldn't work. Yeah, yeah,

985
00:53:45,960 --> 00:53:49,719
Speaker 1: we're just we've we've diffused the responsibility by making those

986
00:53:49,760 --> 00:53:54,279
Speaker 1: be an independent countries now. So Cecil Rhodes was one

987
00:53:54,280 --> 00:53:57,080
Speaker 1: of the very first white men to rush towards like

988
00:53:57,160 --> 00:53:59,680
Speaker 1: he just kind of abandons the cotton farm and he

989
00:53:59,719 --> 00:54:01,360
Speaker 1: goes to what would turn out to be one of

990
00:54:01,360 --> 00:54:04,040
Speaker 1: the world's are just diamond minds, the Kimberly find And

991
00:54:04,120 --> 00:54:06,440
Speaker 1: at the time, the hill where the mind was centered

992
00:54:06,480 --> 00:54:08,080
Speaker 1: had a Dutch name, which I'm not going to try

993
00:54:08,120 --> 00:54:10,480
Speaker 1: to pronounce, like I I don't even know how to

994
00:54:10,520 --> 00:54:14,319
Speaker 1: begin pronouncing it. Long is how It's just I don't

995
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:19,080
Speaker 1: even know how to say it is wrong? Right? Um. Yeah.

996
00:54:19,120 --> 00:54:21,480
Speaker 1: He was nineteen when he traveled there to help his

997
00:54:21,520 --> 00:54:23,719
Speaker 1: older brother, who bought a couple of claims um and

998
00:54:23,840 --> 00:54:26,920
Speaker 1: roads immediately brought his considerable gifts to bear because he's

999
00:54:26,920 --> 00:54:30,279
Speaker 1: a great organizer. He's great at maximizing productivity. He's one

1000
00:54:30,320 --> 00:54:33,400
Speaker 1: of these people who can who can just like, look

1001
00:54:33,480 --> 00:54:35,840
Speaker 1: at a bunch of people working at a task in

1002
00:54:35,960 --> 00:54:38,399
Speaker 1: scene ways in which to make it more efficient. He's

1003
00:54:38,440 --> 00:54:43,000
Speaker 1: got that Henry Ford thing going on. I was gonna say, man,

1004
00:54:43,200 --> 00:54:45,040
Speaker 1: you know is the worst thing in the world is

1005
00:54:45,080 --> 00:54:49,879
Speaker 1: to be like in some sort of uh relationship with

1006
00:54:50,000 --> 00:54:53,279
Speaker 1: a person that's good at those things. Yeah, because that's

1007
00:54:53,280 --> 00:54:55,680
Speaker 1: something like it's just like, man, can you just can

1008
00:54:55,760 --> 00:54:59,239
Speaker 1: you just let me put my shoes where they go? Yeah?

1009
00:54:58,560 --> 00:55:02,799
Speaker 1: I mean you're probably right, but like, damn, man, I

1010
00:55:02,800 --> 00:55:04,920
Speaker 1: don't want to think about it. I just don't want to.

1011
00:55:05,200 --> 00:55:09,440
Speaker 1: Oh my god. When I first got married, I remember

1012
00:55:09,600 --> 00:55:11,360
Speaker 1: I come back from a show like I'd be gone

1013
00:55:11,360 --> 00:55:14,879
Speaker 1: two days. All of a sudden, the drawer that used

1014
00:55:14,960 --> 00:55:18,640
Speaker 1: to have the knives and forks now it's towels in,

1015
00:55:19,080 --> 00:55:22,879
Speaker 1: And I'm like, what am I crazy? Because she didn't

1016
00:55:22,880 --> 00:55:25,040
Speaker 1: figure it out a better way for our kitchen to function,

1017
00:55:25,280 --> 00:55:29,600
Speaker 1: And just man, can you just okay? I don't have

1018
00:55:29,640 --> 00:55:33,080
Speaker 1: an argument as to why this is not. It's actually

1019
00:55:33,080 --> 00:55:38,839
Speaker 1: a better idea, but god, you married up. I did.

1020
00:55:38,960 --> 00:55:41,480
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I really did it. She's much

1021
00:55:41,520 --> 00:55:44,360
Speaker 1: more efficient. But sometimes like you're getting all you know,

1022
00:55:44,520 --> 00:55:47,040
Speaker 1: Rhoda on me. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, I

1023
00:55:47,160 --> 00:55:50,000
Speaker 1: just think of all the times Robert can't find things,

1024
00:55:50,560 --> 00:55:54,000
Speaker 1: and then we start things late because you can't find things.

1025
00:55:54,960 --> 00:55:58,319
Speaker 1: I have started the rebellion against capitalism early in my

1026
00:55:58,360 --> 00:56:01,720
Speaker 1: own life by refusing to ever know what I'm doing

1027
00:56:01,880 --> 00:56:05,399
Speaker 1: or have a plan. And you know what, it works

1028
00:56:05,400 --> 00:56:07,800
Speaker 1: out fine. This is one thank you successful podcast. Thank you,

1029
00:56:08,160 --> 00:56:10,040
Speaker 1: thank you so uick, thank you. So you don't need

1030
00:56:10,120 --> 00:56:14,600
Speaker 1: capitalism as something as you have products and services. So

1031
00:56:16,160 --> 00:56:19,080
Speaker 1: he was, Yeah, he's a born entrepreneur. He creates a

1032
00:56:19,080 --> 00:56:21,320
Speaker 1: bunch of side hustles in order to basically make additional

1033
00:56:21,360 --> 00:56:23,480
Speaker 1: cash to fund the expansion of their mind to buy

1034
00:56:23,560 --> 00:56:26,759
Speaker 1: their claims. Uh. The probably most successful of these was

1035
00:56:26,800 --> 00:56:28,759
Speaker 1: he bought an ice machine so he could sell ice

1036
00:56:28,760 --> 00:56:31,640
Speaker 1: cream during the vicious summer months in southern Oh my god,

1037
00:56:31,719 --> 00:56:39,760
Speaker 1: this is brilliant. Yeah, that's brilliant, like the fucking middle

1038
00:56:39,880 --> 00:56:43,160
Speaker 1: of like the the dead middle of like southern Africa,

1039
00:56:43,440 --> 00:56:45,400
Speaker 1: like people working in the summer on a mine and

1040
00:56:45,440 --> 00:56:47,359
Speaker 1: you're like, you know, it'll do well, here's a fucking

1041
00:56:47,400 --> 00:56:54,200
Speaker 1: ice machine. You remember, you remember, uh early like two thousand,

1042
00:56:54,600 --> 00:56:58,160
Speaker 1: you know, teena lever earlier at his decade, like when

1043
00:56:58,160 --> 00:57:02,040
Speaker 1: the one to one model was like like the Tom's model, right,

1044
00:57:02,160 --> 00:57:05,160
Speaker 1: was all the all the all the rage I saw

1045
00:57:05,200 --> 00:57:08,160
Speaker 1: this video was going around. Its hilarious. I think those

1046
00:57:08,200 --> 00:57:11,720
Speaker 1: dudes make commercials now but like they were totally dressed

1047
00:57:11,760 --> 00:57:16,120
Speaker 1: like the guy that started Tom's and they were supposed

1048
00:57:16,120 --> 00:57:18,080
Speaker 1: to be in Africa doing this one to one thing

1049
00:57:18,120 --> 00:57:20,000
Speaker 1: and he says, you know, I never forget it. Man.

1050
00:57:20,000 --> 00:57:23,720
Speaker 1: I I had this idea where um I was out

1051
00:57:23,720 --> 00:57:25,760
Speaker 1: in Africa. We were on a missions trip and I

1052
00:57:25,800 --> 00:57:28,520
Speaker 1: just thought to myself, where can I get a smoothie?

1053
00:57:29,280 --> 00:57:31,200
Speaker 1: And he goes, He's like, I never forget it. The

1054
00:57:31,880 --> 00:57:37,160
Speaker 1: the tribe said what's a smoothie? And he was like,

1055
00:57:37,200 --> 00:57:38,960
Speaker 1: and that's when I knew we want to do one

1056
00:57:39,000 --> 00:57:43,880
Speaker 1: to one smoothie machines. So their whole business model was

1057
00:57:44,880 --> 00:57:49,400
Speaker 1: if you buy a smoothie machine, they will provide one

1058
00:57:49,880 --> 00:57:53,320
Speaker 1: for a tribe in Africa. I mean, I kind of

1059
00:57:53,400 --> 00:57:56,760
Speaker 1: love the idea of like hunter gatherers but with a

1060
00:57:56,800 --> 00:58:01,080
Speaker 1: smoothie machine, because like everybody enjoys a smooth because they're all, yeah,

1061
00:58:01,400 --> 00:58:04,440
Speaker 1: they're all you need is like yeah, ice, milk and

1062
00:58:04,560 --> 00:58:07,080
Speaker 1: running water. I'm sure they can get that, right, Yeah,

1063
00:58:07,240 --> 00:58:11,400
Speaker 1: they're good, right, smoothie machines. And they did totally shot

1064
00:58:11,440 --> 00:58:13,760
Speaker 1: at like what those conversives were, like, you know, he

1065
00:58:13,840 --> 00:58:16,040
Speaker 1: got this white ladies, really nice white person handing this

1066
00:58:16,080 --> 00:58:19,080
Speaker 1: smoothie to like the smiling African and then the guy

1067
00:58:19,120 --> 00:58:21,760
Speaker 1: a little African boys holding They're like what do what

1068
00:58:22,880 --> 00:58:25,840
Speaker 1: is one kid just dragging it by the power cord? Right?

1069
00:58:25,880 --> 00:58:28,200
Speaker 1: Just do that. They're putting rocks on the inside, Like

1070
00:58:28,240 --> 00:58:32,320
Speaker 1: what do I do with this? Right? Anyway has with everybody.

1071
00:58:32,560 --> 00:58:35,560
Speaker 1: But anyway, hey, this boo was brilliant. Sell ice cream,

1072
00:58:35,960 --> 00:58:41,200
Speaker 1: Sell ice cream? Yeah, sell ice cream? Um smart smart guy.

1073
00:58:41,600 --> 00:58:44,800
Speaker 1: Um so yeah. Now, when he first arrived at Kimberly,

1074
00:58:44,840 --> 00:58:47,600
Speaker 1: he described the site of this, this hill that's the cut,

1075
00:58:47,680 --> 00:58:49,560
Speaker 1: like this is the center of the mining claim, as

1076
00:58:49,600 --> 00:58:51,880
Speaker 1: looking like a giant ant hill covered in thousands of

1077
00:58:51,920 --> 00:58:54,960
Speaker 1: scurrying black shapes. And he predicted in this turned out

1078
00:58:54,960 --> 00:58:56,919
Speaker 1: to be very accurate that one day the hill would

1079
00:58:56,960 --> 00:58:59,640
Speaker 1: be completely dug away and replaced by a giant hole

1080
00:58:59,680 --> 00:59:03,360
Speaker 1: in the itself. And he was completely right about this. Um.

1081
00:59:03,520 --> 00:59:06,520
Speaker 1: If you go to Kimberly today, you can go visit

1082
00:59:06,600 --> 00:59:10,400
Speaker 1: the Big Hole, which many suggest, it's not confirmed, but

1083
00:59:10,440 --> 00:59:13,200
Speaker 1: many suggest is the largest pit ever dug by human hands.

1084
00:59:13,200 --> 00:59:15,240
Speaker 1: And if you look up the photos of this, it's

1085
00:59:15,240 --> 00:59:18,520
Speaker 1: astonishing it is. It is a really big hole. Yeah,

1086
00:59:18,600 --> 00:59:21,200
Speaker 1: that's crazy, I didn't know. You can still go man, Okay, yeah,

1087
00:59:21,200 --> 00:59:23,480
Speaker 1: it's right. Yeah, because they just dug They dug so

1088
00:59:23,560 --> 00:59:25,280
Speaker 1: deep into the ground to get all the diamonds. And

1089
00:59:25,280 --> 00:59:27,800
Speaker 1: then there's there's this giant hole. Nobody's gonna fill it up.

1090
00:59:28,040 --> 00:59:29,480
Speaker 1: What are you gonna do? H what are you gonna

1091
00:59:29,520 --> 00:59:32,760
Speaker 1: do after? Now we have a hole in our town? Yeah, guys, Hey,

1092
00:59:32,760 --> 00:59:36,240
Speaker 1: now hey look capitalism, Hey, come see the hole comes

1093
00:59:36,960 --> 00:59:41,360
Speaker 1: hole a hole. Let's monetize it. Yeah, you're you're I'm

1094
00:59:41,400 --> 00:59:44,800
Speaker 1: trying to do your sometimes your old timey like newspaper

1095
00:59:44,840 --> 00:59:48,040
Speaker 1: guy voice, Come see the whole. I can't do it, dude.

1096
00:59:48,280 --> 00:59:50,600
Speaker 1: The natives could never have dugging a hole this big, Like,

1097
00:59:50,640 --> 00:59:52,400
Speaker 1: look at this hole. Only white men could make a

1098
00:59:52,440 --> 00:59:57,840
Speaker 1: hole this big. That's it. There, it is so this.

1099
00:59:58,040 --> 01:00:00,800
Speaker 1: The year after Cecil arrived, the popular lation of diggers

1100
01:00:00,840 --> 01:00:04,200
Speaker 1: in Kimberly swelled to as many as about fifty thousand,

1101
01:00:04,480 --> 01:00:07,600
Speaker 1: and at first most of them operated independent claims finding

1102
01:00:07,600 --> 01:00:10,080
Speaker 1: diamonds because it required nothing more than hand tools. Right,

1103
01:00:10,080 --> 01:00:11,920
Speaker 1: you were just kind of digging and like running water

1104
01:00:12,000 --> 01:00:13,720
Speaker 1: through it and with oil and I don't know, it's

1105
01:00:13,760 --> 01:00:15,480
Speaker 1: a it's a process, but it's pretty simple and it

1106
01:00:15,480 --> 01:00:19,800
Speaker 1: didn't require heavy equipment UM. But as these claims were

1107
01:00:19,800 --> 01:00:22,520
Speaker 1: found more profitable, and as the digging got deeper, eventually,

1108
01:00:22,600 --> 01:00:25,160
Speaker 1: like you started turning it into a big hole, and

1109
01:00:25,200 --> 01:00:27,960
Speaker 1: that becomes too much of a process for small independent

1110
01:00:28,360 --> 01:00:30,880
Speaker 1: diggers to be a part of. So things start getting

1111
01:00:30,880 --> 01:00:33,880
Speaker 1: consolidated UM and people start abandoning in it too, because

1112
01:00:33,880 --> 01:00:35,960
Speaker 1: there's a period when you're mining diamonds where you strip

1113
01:00:35,960 --> 01:00:38,680
Speaker 1: away like the surface level and it looks like you're done.

1114
01:00:39,000 --> 01:00:41,480
Speaker 1: And Cecil and a number of other like smarter, well,

1115
01:00:41,520 --> 01:00:44,360
Speaker 1: I guess like just more intuitive guys understood that no, no no,

1116
01:00:44,560 --> 01:00:46,720
Speaker 1: there's gonna be more diamonds underneath that. But we need

1117
01:00:46,760 --> 01:00:49,760
Speaker 1: to be we need to build larger companies to buy

1118
01:00:49,880 --> 01:00:53,880
Speaker 1: larger equipment to go deeper and extract those UM. So

1119
01:00:53,920 --> 01:00:56,760
Speaker 1: he starts investing his money into buying up individual minds

1120
01:00:56,800 --> 01:00:58,800
Speaker 1: and adding them to he and Herbert's claims, and the

1121
01:00:58,800 --> 01:01:02,040
Speaker 1: process started slowly, took years and years and years UM,

1122
01:01:02,040 --> 01:01:04,080
Speaker 1: and it was a time that Cecil would remember fondly,

1123
01:01:04,120 --> 01:01:06,440
Speaker 1: this like sixteen seventeen year period where he's kind of

1124
01:01:06,440 --> 01:01:09,560
Speaker 1: building the foundation of it would become his empire. UM.

1125
01:01:09,600 --> 01:01:12,120
Speaker 1: In eighteen seventy two, when he's about a year into

1126
01:01:12,120 --> 01:01:15,000
Speaker 1: this process. Um, he's a very happy guy. His only

1127
01:01:15,040 --> 01:01:17,680
Speaker 1: frustration came from the fact that he wasn't able to

1128
01:01:17,720 --> 01:01:22,200
Speaker 1: go back to Oxford. As Rottenberg writes, quote, Rhodes may

1129
01:01:22,200 --> 01:01:25,000
Speaker 1: have continued dreaming of a university education and of life

1130
01:01:25,000 --> 01:01:27,480
Speaker 1: as a professional, probably a barrister, but these would have

1131
01:01:27,480 --> 01:01:30,120
Speaker 1: been dreams with utilitarian motives. For the moment, he was

1132
01:01:30,160 --> 01:01:33,320
Speaker 1: content to have land of your own, horses of your own,

1133
01:01:33,440 --> 01:01:35,560
Speaker 1: and shooting when you like, and a lot of black

1134
01:01:35,840 --> 01:01:38,840
Speaker 1: inwards to do what you like with apart from the

1135
01:01:38,840 --> 01:01:44,840
Speaker 1: fact of making money. So that's his attitude. Yeah, there is, Yeah,

1136
01:01:44,880 --> 01:01:48,360
Speaker 1: it's it's yeah. And again, the the the ease with

1137
01:01:48,400 --> 01:01:51,960
Speaker 1: which he could kind of talk about how happy he

1138
01:01:52,000 --> 01:01:53,360
Speaker 1: was probably had something to do with the fact that

1139
01:01:53,400 --> 01:01:56,240
Speaker 1: his parents were backing him, um and would continue to

1140
01:01:56,280 --> 01:01:59,440
Speaker 1: do it so he never had to like he he

1141
01:01:59,560 --> 01:02:02,320
Speaker 1: had this, He had a cushion, you know, that's the Yeah,

1142
01:02:02,360 --> 01:02:05,280
Speaker 1: he had a where it's like, it's really not a

1143
01:02:05,400 --> 01:02:08,480
Speaker 1: risk because if all else fails, you could just go

1144
01:02:08,560 --> 01:02:10,360
Speaker 1: back to you just go back to England, you know

1145
01:02:10,360 --> 01:02:14,400
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, And and metaphorically and quite literally just

1146
01:02:14,480 --> 01:02:17,720
Speaker 1: leave a hole in Africa and just and just you

1147
01:02:17,800 --> 01:02:19,960
Speaker 1: just go back home like, well it was fun. I

1148
01:02:20,000 --> 01:02:23,240
Speaker 1: guess it didn't you know whatever, you know, And and

1149
01:02:23,520 --> 01:02:29,560
Speaker 1: that like knowing that it's like it makes the the

1150
01:02:30,240 --> 01:02:32,960
Speaker 1: it's it's you gamified like it's a video game now.

1151
01:02:33,000 --> 01:02:36,560
Speaker 1: So it's like, this is fun building an empire, building

1152
01:02:36,600 --> 01:02:40,800
Speaker 1: an industry. It's fun because if it if it fails,

1153
01:02:40,920 --> 01:02:42,600
Speaker 1: it's just like, oh, it's like a video game. Just

1154
01:02:42,640 --> 01:02:44,560
Speaker 1: hit the reset button and start over. Don't save it,

1155
01:02:44,600 --> 01:02:47,360
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, it just start over. Yeah,

1156
01:02:47,560 --> 01:02:50,280
Speaker 1: like the thing that you like, I enjoy. I don't know.

1157
01:02:50,320 --> 01:02:52,480
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know if this impulse is is coated

1158
01:02:52,600 --> 01:02:56,880
Speaker 1: in white dudes socially or if or if there's there's

1159
01:02:56,920 --> 01:02:59,640
Speaker 1: something deeper to it. But like the only video games

1160
01:02:59,640 --> 01:03:01,840
Speaker 1: that I play our games where you you build an

1161
01:03:01,880 --> 01:03:04,840
Speaker 1: invir you you like, build like cities or countries, and

1162
01:03:04,880 --> 01:03:08,440
Speaker 1: you like, you know, it's all about expansion and all

1163
01:03:08,440 --> 01:03:11,400
Speaker 1: of that stuff. Um and I you know, I I

1164
01:03:11,760 --> 01:03:13,960
Speaker 1: feel that impulse and I get to play video games

1165
01:03:14,000 --> 01:03:17,120
Speaker 1: about it. Uh. I suspect if I had been raised

1166
01:03:17,160 --> 01:03:19,520
Speaker 1: in Cecil's time, in the culture he did, I probably

1167
01:03:19,520 --> 01:03:23,600
Speaker 1: would have done some some fucking imperialism. Probably man I mean,

1168
01:03:23,800 --> 01:03:26,000
Speaker 1: and it's like, who could blame you, you you know, because

1169
01:03:26,120 --> 01:03:30,800
Speaker 1: you could, but I do think, um, I find and

1170
01:03:31,600 --> 01:03:33,360
Speaker 1: I mean, you've joked about it a few times about

1171
01:03:33,360 --> 01:03:36,160
Speaker 1: like starting a cult, you know, and the first time

1172
01:03:36,200 --> 01:03:38,000
Speaker 1: I heard you quote it, i't talk about it. I

1173
01:03:38,040 --> 01:03:42,040
Speaker 1: thought to myself, I have imagined often building a culture

1174
01:03:42,120 --> 01:03:44,320
Speaker 1: from scratch, and I'm like, well, I mean that's what

1175
01:03:44,440 --> 01:03:46,840
Speaker 1: it is. And I'm like, I guess essentially a cult

1176
01:03:47,000 --> 01:03:50,880
Speaker 1: is just a small culture. And in my head, I'm like,

1177
01:03:51,720 --> 01:03:55,320
Speaker 1: imagining the thing and making it up would be so

1178
01:03:55,440 --> 01:03:58,960
Speaker 1: much more fun than running it, you know. So when

1179
01:03:58,960 --> 01:04:01,160
Speaker 1: I see dudes like like this, that's like, yo, no,

1180
01:04:01,280 --> 01:04:03,240
Speaker 1: let's figure out how to do this consolidated thing doing

1181
01:04:03,240 --> 01:04:05,600
Speaker 1: the thing. And it's like I start, Okay, we did it,

1182
01:04:05,800 --> 01:04:07,800
Speaker 1: but now you gotta maintain it. Then you're like, damn,

1183
01:04:07,800 --> 01:04:10,240
Speaker 1: that's a drag. You know, Well let me go start

1184
01:04:10,280 --> 01:04:12,880
Speaker 1: another one, you know, and then you start another business

1185
01:04:12,880 --> 01:04:15,439
Speaker 1: and then you go because because the building the thing's fun.

1186
01:04:15,680 --> 01:04:17,040
Speaker 1: So I just think about that, like even if I

1187
01:04:17,040 --> 01:04:19,120
Speaker 1: was gonna, you know, I would love to just like

1188
01:04:20,280 --> 01:04:23,880
Speaker 1: you know, if I'm everybody on Tuesday nights, we sit

1189
01:04:23,960 --> 01:04:27,520
Speaker 1: in a circle and you have to drink uh you know,

1190
01:04:28,160 --> 01:04:31,520
Speaker 1: green tea specifically only with your left hand at five

1191
01:04:31,720 --> 01:04:34,400
Speaker 1: forty two pm. That's the rule in our cult. And

1192
01:04:34,440 --> 01:04:36,360
Speaker 1: I just think that, like making up stuff like that

1193
01:04:36,400 --> 01:04:40,600
Speaker 1: just seems fun, you know, So in him, yeah, figuring

1194
01:04:40,680 --> 01:04:46,040
Speaker 1: out the best way two make this thing work and

1195
01:04:46,080 --> 01:04:49,280
Speaker 1: then shoot shoot shoot messages back to his brothers and

1196
01:04:49,320 --> 01:04:51,520
Speaker 1: his family like suck it. I'm living out here, y'all

1197
01:04:51,480 --> 01:04:53,040
Speaker 1: send Yeah, he because you thought I couldn't do it,

1198
01:04:53,280 --> 01:04:55,600
Speaker 1: check this out. I'm winning, you know. I could see

1199
01:04:55,840 --> 01:05:02,960
Speaker 1: the psychology developing again. Yeah, yep, yep, yep, yep. Um,

1200
01:05:04,480 --> 01:05:06,200
Speaker 1: I get you know. And this is kind of one

1201
01:05:06,240 --> 01:05:10,560
Speaker 1: at where I land on like thank God for video games,

1202
01:05:11,680 --> 01:05:13,959
Speaker 1: but also like I don't know, like this is something

1203
01:05:14,000 --> 01:05:16,120
Speaker 1: I wrestle with, like if I can be completely honest

1204
01:05:16,160 --> 01:05:17,720
Speaker 1: with you, like part of why I moved out to

1205
01:05:17,760 --> 01:05:21,480
Speaker 1: the West is I want to own land. I want

1206
01:05:21,520 --> 01:05:24,760
Speaker 1: to buy I want to buy a chunk of land

1207
01:05:24,880 --> 01:05:27,760
Speaker 1: that that feels wild to me and get to live

1208
01:05:27,800 --> 01:05:32,000
Speaker 1: on it and roam around. And there's certainly conversations to

1209
01:05:32,040 --> 01:05:34,800
Speaker 1: be had about how ethical that is. Um. It's a

1210
01:05:34,800 --> 01:05:38,959
Speaker 1: powerful desire and it's coated in me as is as

1211
01:05:39,080 --> 01:05:42,120
Speaker 1: is finding romance and things that I know are not romantic,

1212
01:05:42,400 --> 01:05:44,320
Speaker 1: like the like like like The Cowboy or like The

1213
01:05:44,360 --> 01:05:49,000
Speaker 1: Agent Exploration, UM, which is like I was reading those

1214
01:05:49,040 --> 01:05:50,840
Speaker 1: books when I was like five years old, and you know,

1215
01:05:50,960 --> 01:05:54,280
Speaker 1: I I've gone out of my way to educate myself

1216
01:05:54,320 --> 01:06:01,040
Speaker 1: about the reality. But you never quite fully break that spell. Nah. Yeah,

1217
01:06:01,120 --> 01:06:03,960
Speaker 1: you can't help but be a like and products not

1218
01:06:04,000 --> 01:06:07,800
Speaker 1: the right word, but but yeah, like you are influenced

1219
01:06:07,800 --> 01:06:13,360
Speaker 1: by the era you're in and you can't not be

1220
01:06:13,520 --> 01:06:15,440
Speaker 1: what you are. So yeah, now I feel I think

1221
01:06:15,480 --> 01:06:18,840
Speaker 1: about that when we talk about reparations with black people. Um,

1222
01:06:18,880 --> 01:06:21,160
Speaker 1: you know, hey, where's our forty acres in a mule?

1223
01:06:21,400 --> 01:06:24,480
Speaker 1: And you turn right over to your indigenous friend that

1224
01:06:24,520 --> 01:06:27,840
Speaker 1: goes like where they've gonna give you land? It's not

1225
01:06:27,920 --> 01:06:29,640
Speaker 1: there's like you know what I'm saying to you, like

1226
01:06:30,280 --> 01:06:38,000
Speaker 1: a yeah gang, yeah, yeah, you say anyway, yeah, And

1227
01:06:38,040 --> 01:06:40,040
Speaker 1: there's a I don't know, there's a good conversation to

1228
01:06:40,040 --> 01:06:45,960
Speaker 1: be had in um condemning things that are bad, like imperialism,

1229
01:06:46,040 --> 01:06:49,120
Speaker 1: and also understanding the the extent to which we're all

1230
01:06:49,200 --> 01:06:53,520
Speaker 1: products of this system, so that we can have forgiveness

1231
01:06:53,600 --> 01:06:58,480
Speaker 1: for each other. When people realize they've been wrong, you know, dude,

1232
01:06:59,160 --> 01:07:02,320
Speaker 1: collect offering. That's that was That was disarming, right, there's

1233
01:07:02,520 --> 01:07:04,520
Speaker 1: a collect offer and now was good? All right? So

1234
01:07:04,960 --> 01:07:08,760
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy three he returned to Britain or England

1235
01:07:08,880 --> 01:07:10,800
Speaker 1: or whatever. People always yell at me for calling it

1236
01:07:10,920 --> 01:07:13,280
Speaker 1: one or the other. His purpose here was twofold to

1237
01:07:13,320 --> 01:07:15,880
Speaker 1: take care of his ailing mother, who died the next year.

1238
01:07:15,920 --> 01:07:18,320
Speaker 1: He was very sad and to return to his education.

1239
01:07:18,840 --> 01:07:21,160
Speaker 1: He applied to Oxford because a degree at Oxford would

1240
01:07:21,160 --> 01:07:23,560
Speaker 1: mark him out as an Englishman of distinction. But he

1241
01:07:23,600 --> 01:07:25,560
Speaker 1: failed the entrance exam and so we had to ask

1242
01:07:25,560 --> 01:07:27,440
Speaker 1: a family friend who was a graduate to use his

1243
01:07:27,440 --> 01:07:30,880
Speaker 1: influence with the school to get Cecil admission again. He

1244
01:07:31,160 --> 01:07:33,840
Speaker 1: always has help earning the things that he gets planned

1245
01:07:33,840 --> 01:07:38,960
Speaker 1: B baby, who says you can't plan B I'm white.

1246
01:07:39,480 --> 01:07:42,120
Speaker 1: So for most of the next decade, Cecil would switch

1247
01:07:42,160 --> 01:07:44,760
Speaker 1: between summer semesters at Oxford, and he takes some years

1248
01:07:44,760 --> 01:07:47,400
Speaker 1: off in between. It's not every year, and winters in Africa,

1249
01:07:47,560 --> 01:07:49,840
Speaker 1: a scene to the expansion of what was becoming a

1250
01:07:49,920 --> 01:07:53,560
Speaker 1: mining empire. He initially funded his education by the money

1251
01:07:53,640 --> 01:07:55,560
Speaker 1: his dad had set aside for it. But as he

1252
01:07:55,640 --> 01:07:57,840
Speaker 1: and Herbert's business expanded, he was able to pay his

1253
01:07:57,920 --> 01:08:01,520
Speaker 1: own way through Oxford. He was very proud of this um.

1254
01:08:01,560 --> 01:08:03,840
Speaker 1: He was not a good student, and he was regularly

1255
01:08:03,920 --> 01:08:06,280
Speaker 1: in trouble for failing to attend lectures and not doing

1256
01:08:06,320 --> 01:08:08,800
Speaker 1: the reading that he was ordered to do. It seems

1257
01:08:08,800 --> 01:08:10,640
Speaker 1: like most of his time at school was spent at

1258
01:08:10,680 --> 01:08:14,080
Speaker 1: fancy parties making connections. He was always careful to make

1259
01:08:14,080 --> 01:08:17,240
Speaker 1: sure everyone knew how wealthy he had become, generally by

1260
01:08:17,280 --> 01:08:20,960
Speaker 1: carrying a box of diamonds with him wherever he went. God,

1261
01:08:22,240 --> 01:08:26,320
Speaker 1: you imagine pulling up to the frat party with Yeah,

1262
01:08:26,520 --> 01:08:30,920
Speaker 1: I was thinking, this guy is so stereotypical white male privilege.

1263
01:08:30,960 --> 01:08:32,680
Speaker 1: But then you were like, oh no, no no, But

1264
01:08:32,760 --> 01:08:35,479
Speaker 1: also no, no, no, let me let me dial this

1265
01:08:35,600 --> 01:08:38,800
Speaker 1: up a bit. There's like, yo, there are things that

1266
01:08:38,960 --> 01:08:44,880
Speaker 1: just like I like we just said, being gracious with

1267
01:08:44,920 --> 01:08:47,320
Speaker 1: each other and understanding that we're all products. That is

1268
01:08:47,360 --> 01:08:50,719
Speaker 1: saying gulage. There are parts of me that like deeply

1269
01:08:50,920 --> 01:08:55,880
Speaker 1: admires what he just explained right now that like equivalent

1270
01:08:55,920 --> 01:08:58,879
Speaker 1: though of showing a frat party with a box of diamonds,

1271
01:08:58,880 --> 01:09:04,519
Speaker 1: like the biggest that is the greatest flex. I've ever

1272
01:09:04,840 --> 01:09:11,160
Speaker 1: dude looking around diamonds. Yeah, playwood diamonds, keep pocket diamonds

1273
01:09:11,200 --> 01:09:14,280
Speaker 1: like up chicks diamonds. I don't even need these diamonds.

1274
01:09:14,280 --> 01:09:16,639
Speaker 1: I don't even need these. I got a whole field

1275
01:09:16,680 --> 01:09:20,440
Speaker 1: of them in Africa for which I spent my winters

1276
01:09:20,520 --> 01:09:27,360
Speaker 1: because London is cold down here. Yeah, you diamonds like diamonds.

1277
01:09:27,520 --> 01:09:29,479
Speaker 1: There's a part of me that like and that you

1278
01:09:29,479 --> 01:09:32,599
Speaker 1: ain't got a Really I'm going to Oxford literally for

1279
01:09:32,640 --> 01:09:35,040
Speaker 1: the flex because I don't have to care. It's like

1280
01:09:36,280 --> 01:09:38,280
Speaker 1: and they don't even do the work. I han't even

1281
01:09:38,520 --> 01:09:42,519
Speaker 1: the work. I hate him like he stands for everything

1282
01:09:42,600 --> 01:09:48,000
Speaker 1: that I hate. But also that's that's that this style

1283
01:09:48,160 --> 01:09:52,800
Speaker 1: that's flag is just my first year of teaching. I

1284
01:09:52,880 --> 01:09:54,599
Speaker 1: never think it was my first year of teaching. There

1285
01:09:54,640 --> 01:09:57,200
Speaker 1: was a little eleventh graders, which was crazy because I

1286
01:09:57,240 --> 01:10:02,320
Speaker 1: was like maybe four years old, but like, uh I

1287
01:10:02,400 --> 01:10:06,720
Speaker 1: this kid, this was like eBay time, right, So this

1288
01:10:06,840 --> 01:10:10,840
Speaker 1: kid was selling these like paint guns on eBay, you know,

1289
01:10:11,160 --> 01:10:14,080
Speaker 1: and I remember being like, first of all, how do

1290
01:10:14,120 --> 01:10:16,719
Speaker 1: you know how to do this? Number one? And number two?

1291
01:10:17,040 --> 01:10:18,599
Speaker 1: Where do you keep him? He was like, oh, they

1292
01:10:18,640 --> 01:10:21,080
Speaker 1: I never get them they don't. I don't have them.

1293
01:10:21,120 --> 01:10:23,000
Speaker 1: I just they don't come to me. I buy them

1294
01:10:23,000 --> 01:10:26,080
Speaker 1: and then sell them. And then this little dude will

1295
01:10:26,120 --> 01:10:29,679
Speaker 1: show up late because he was working the German stock market.

1296
01:10:30,120 --> 01:10:32,960
Speaker 1: Eleventh grader, and I was like, if this fool never

1297
01:10:33,040 --> 01:10:36,599
Speaker 1: turns in an assignment, I don't blame him. I don't

1298
01:10:36,640 --> 01:10:40,240
Speaker 1: blame you for not taking high school serious. Yeah, yeah,

1299
01:10:40,360 --> 01:10:43,840
Speaker 1: fuck it, yeah exactly, Like he knows. He has this

1300
01:10:43,920 --> 01:10:46,400
Speaker 1: thing that you have to have to be truly successful

1301
01:10:46,439 --> 01:10:48,680
Speaker 1: within a society, which is knowing that all of the

1302
01:10:48,720 --> 01:10:52,320
Speaker 1: conventions of your society or bullshit. And Cecil Rhodes knows

1303
01:10:52,400 --> 01:10:56,240
Speaker 1: that Cecil Rhodes understands that it's all it's all a dumb,

1304
01:10:56,800 --> 01:10:59,920
Speaker 1: bullshitty grift. And like he will, he will refuse to

1305
01:11:00,040 --> 01:11:02,400
Speaker 1: do work, and then his like his friends at school

1306
01:11:02,439 --> 01:11:04,719
Speaker 1: will be like the dean's gonna kick like you're gonna

1307
01:11:04,720 --> 01:11:07,120
Speaker 1: get kicked out of school. And he has a number

1308
01:11:07,160 --> 01:11:09,800
Speaker 1: of meetings with them, and they never do and he

1309
01:11:09,840 --> 01:11:12,479
Speaker 1: knows they're not going to because they know that he's

1310
01:11:12,479 --> 01:11:15,679
Speaker 1: going to be extremely wealthy and powerful and they want

1311
01:11:15,720 --> 01:11:17,880
Speaker 1: to be able to brag that he's an alumni. So

1312
01:11:17,920 --> 01:11:19,760
Speaker 1: when he sits exactly. So when I sit down in

1313
01:11:19,800 --> 01:11:22,200
Speaker 1: this meeting about you about to expel me, I'm just

1314
01:11:22,240 --> 01:11:24,720
Speaker 1: gonna put my backpack down and just let a diamond roll,

1315
01:11:24,800 --> 01:11:28,840
Speaker 1: oh you know when, and let you tell me so

1316
01:11:28,960 --> 01:11:32,080
Speaker 1: tell me, so, tell me how, tell me how this goes?

1317
01:11:32,240 --> 01:11:37,360
Speaker 1: Excuse me pick up lines like what? How? Well, we'll

1318
01:11:37,400 --> 01:11:39,920
Speaker 1: talk about his romantic life a little bit in a moment.

1319
01:11:39,960 --> 01:11:43,880
Speaker 1: So does women really? Well? Is he just a standing guy?

1320
01:11:43,960 --> 01:11:45,759
Speaker 1: Is that what I should be expelled? No, he doesn't,

1321
01:11:45,760 --> 01:11:48,800
Speaker 1: he doesn't. He doesn't even think about women. Um, he's

1322
01:11:48,920 --> 01:11:51,559
Speaker 1: he's again, he's he's he's he's gay. Well we're talking

1323
01:11:51,560 --> 01:11:53,120
Speaker 1: about this in a little bit, but yeah, he's not.

1324
01:11:53,200 --> 01:11:57,200
Speaker 1: He has no interest in women. Um yeah, so does

1325
01:11:57,200 --> 01:11:59,320
Speaker 1: a slight turn of events? All right, yeah, yeah, yeah,

1326
01:11:59,360 --> 01:12:01,200
Speaker 1: we'll talk about that in a bit, because there's some

1327
01:12:01,240 --> 01:12:03,200
Speaker 1: things to say about it. Um. I don't want to,

1328
01:12:03,240 --> 01:12:05,360
Speaker 1: like a lot of people talk about it too much

1329
01:12:05,439 --> 01:12:07,840
Speaker 1: because I don't think it's that big of a thing.

1330
01:12:08,280 --> 01:12:10,760
Speaker 1: But there's some areas in which it impacts kind of

1331
01:12:10,800 --> 01:12:12,400
Speaker 1: other things that he does. I still want to know

1332
01:12:12,400 --> 01:12:16,839
Speaker 1: what his lines were. Well, we'll talk about that too briefly.

1333
01:12:16,960 --> 01:12:19,720
Speaker 1: I mean, even it's gay or straight you walk into

1334
01:12:19,760 --> 01:12:22,559
Speaker 1: a party with some diamonds that you're just playing around with,

1335
01:12:23,120 --> 01:12:25,519
Speaker 1: shaking him like dice for you know what I'm saying.

1336
01:12:26,640 --> 01:12:29,479
Speaker 1: So uh. Once a classmate and this is back to

1337
01:12:29,479 --> 01:12:32,799
Speaker 1: the story about his diamond box, a classmate reported quote

1338
01:12:32,920 --> 01:12:35,479
Speaker 1: when he condescended to attend to lecture with which proved

1339
01:12:35,520 --> 01:12:37,719
Speaker 1: uninteresting to him, he pulled out his box and showed

1340
01:12:37,760 --> 01:12:40,160
Speaker 1: the gyms to his friends, and then it was upset

1341
01:12:40,240 --> 01:12:43,240
Speaker 1: and diamonds were scattered on the floor, and the lecturer

1342
01:12:43,280 --> 01:12:45,360
Speaker 1: looked up asking what was the cause of the disturbance

1343
01:12:45,360 --> 01:12:48,560
Speaker 1: and received the reply, it is only rhads and his diamonds.

1344
01:12:48,880 --> 01:12:53,800
Speaker 1: Oh god, I hate this guy being the professor just

1345
01:12:53,840 --> 01:12:57,160
Speaker 1: look at at this like, yeah, ah, this little prick,

1346
01:12:57,439 --> 01:13:01,479
Speaker 1: you little prick. Yeah, damn, one of those rocks is

1347
01:13:01,560 --> 01:13:05,720
Speaker 1: my year's salary. Yeah, he's probably like that guy, that

1348
01:13:05,800 --> 01:13:08,880
Speaker 1: guy that was viral on social media, the guy who

1349
01:13:08,960 --> 01:13:14,280
Speaker 1: salts the meat, remember that salt. Yeah, he was probably

1350
01:13:14,360 --> 01:13:20,960
Speaker 1: die yeah that guy that's where yeah. Yes, So let's

1351
01:13:21,000 --> 01:13:22,840
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about what it took for Cecil

1352
01:13:22,880 --> 01:13:25,400
Speaker 1: to get those diamonds so right before leaving for his

1353
01:13:25,439 --> 01:13:29,040
Speaker 1: first turn of Oxford. Yeah, um, yeah, yeah, yeah, none

1354
01:13:29,080 --> 01:13:32,360
Speaker 1: of it is ever so. Right before he left for Oxford,

1355
01:13:33,040 --> 01:13:35,920
Speaker 1: Cecil and his brother Herbert moved most of their operations

1356
01:13:35,960 --> 01:13:38,479
Speaker 1: to a new set of claims in a mind named

1357
01:13:39,160 --> 01:13:43,360
Speaker 1: De Beers. Uh. Yeah, that's where this story is going.

1358
01:13:43,439 --> 01:13:45,479
Speaker 1: So if you want an exhaustive account of every blow

1359
01:13:45,520 --> 01:13:49,400
Speaker 1: and play, you can read Rottenberg's biography, The Founder. The

1360
01:13:49,479 --> 01:13:51,640
Speaker 1: short of it is that Cecil came to own the

1361
01:13:51,840 --> 01:13:54,719
Speaker 1: entire mind, and he didn't buy it at all. In fact,

1362
01:13:54,760 --> 01:13:58,320
Speaker 1: he convinced a number of investors, many of whom were

1363
01:13:58,320 --> 01:14:01,240
Speaker 1: like men in and around his age group, ambitious younger guys,

1364
01:14:01,680 --> 01:14:04,000
Speaker 1: to invest and he had He's noted as having this

1365
01:14:04,160 --> 01:14:08,320
Speaker 1: superhuman ability to convince primarily other white dudes, to work

1366
01:14:08,400 --> 01:14:10,639
Speaker 1: towards his vision. He's able to get people to buy

1367
01:14:10,680 --> 01:14:14,080
Speaker 1: into a vision and give him full control of achieving it.

1368
01:14:14,280 --> 01:14:17,280
Speaker 1: That is his gift, that's his his real talent. Because

1369
01:14:17,280 --> 01:14:18,840
Speaker 1: he's not using all of his own money for this,

1370
01:14:18,880 --> 01:14:22,240
Speaker 1: he's convincing other people to pay and let him run things.

1371
01:14:22,560 --> 01:14:25,280
Speaker 1: Freaking brilliant dude. Yeah, and he's very good at that.

1372
01:14:25,439 --> 01:14:27,920
Speaker 1: Starting in the mid eighteen seventies, he began collecting a

1373
01:14:27,960 --> 01:14:31,000
Speaker 1: group of mostly young men around him, and to these

1374
01:14:31,200 --> 01:14:34,640
Speaker 1: most trusted acolytes, he would reveal what had become his

1375
01:14:34,800 --> 01:14:38,720
Speaker 1: true goal, the creation of a secret society aimed at

1376
01:14:38,760 --> 01:14:42,320
Speaker 1: furthering the spread of the British Empire over the entire world.

1377
01:14:42,800 --> 01:14:45,360
Speaker 1: The first people he collected for this grand endeavor were

1378
01:14:45,400 --> 01:14:48,880
Speaker 1: co investors in his mining operation, men with money and

1379
01:14:48,960 --> 01:14:51,679
Speaker 1: influence that he welded with the power of his dreams

1380
01:14:51,680 --> 01:14:55,040
Speaker 1: into what essentially functioned as a fanatically loyal board of

1381
01:14:55,120 --> 01:14:58,559
Speaker 1: directors for his business. They were so devoted to Roads

1382
01:14:58,560 --> 01:15:01,280
Speaker 1: and his goals that any in the Cape colony began

1383
01:15:01,320 --> 01:15:06,120
Speaker 1: referring to these men as the apostles. Wow. Yeah. In

1384
01:15:06,200 --> 01:15:09,400
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy seven, after just six years in business, Roads

1385
01:15:09,439 --> 01:15:11,880
Speaker 1: had accrued in a state worth about ten thousand pounds,

1386
01:15:11,960 --> 01:15:13,880
Speaker 1: which did not make him super rich, but he was

1387
01:15:14,000 --> 01:15:16,680
Speaker 1: very comfortable, and it was enough that he wrote his

1388
01:15:16,720 --> 01:15:19,640
Speaker 1: first will, which listed his wish that all his possessions

1389
01:15:19,680 --> 01:15:23,480
Speaker 1: go quote to and for the establishment, promotion, and development

1390
01:15:23,520 --> 01:15:26,839
Speaker 1: of a secret society. The true aim and object whereof

1391
01:15:26,880 --> 01:15:29,839
Speaker 1: would be for the extension of British rule throughout the world.

1392
01:15:30,400 --> 01:15:32,680
Speaker 1: Rhodes went on went so far as to specify that

1393
01:15:32,720 --> 01:15:35,360
Speaker 1: he wanted the society to ensure the spread of British rule,

1394
01:15:35,439 --> 01:15:39,240
Speaker 1: to quote, the entire continent of Africa, the Holy Land,

1395
01:15:39,439 --> 01:15:42,439
Speaker 1: the Valley of the Euphrates, the islands of Cyphrus and

1396
01:15:42,520 --> 01:15:45,479
Speaker 1: candy A, the whole of South America, the islands of

1397
01:15:45,479 --> 01:15:48,800
Speaker 1: the Pacific not heretofore possessed by Great Britain, the whole

1398
01:15:48,840 --> 01:15:53,000
Speaker 1: of the Malay Archipelago, the seaboard of China and Japan,

1399
01:15:53,240 --> 01:15:55,840
Speaker 1: and the ultimate recovery of the United States as an

1400
01:15:55,840 --> 01:16:00,639
Speaker 1: integral part of the British Empire. Yo, Yeah, I am

1401
01:16:00,720 --> 01:16:04,240
Speaker 1: so glad, he added that last part. Yes, that's gotta

1402
01:16:04,280 --> 01:16:09,000
Speaker 1: be a that's gotta be a freaking thorn in your flesh.

1403
01:16:09,320 --> 01:16:12,599
Speaker 1: He hates that the US left the empire. Yeahn't believe

1404
01:16:12,640 --> 01:16:16,639
Speaker 1: we lost this. Yeah, he's very frustrated by that. So

1405
01:16:16,920 --> 01:16:19,519
Speaker 1: the very next year, in eighteen seventy seven, while he's

1406
01:16:19,520 --> 01:16:23,120
Speaker 1: at Oxford, Rhodes published what he called His Confession of Faith.

1407
01:16:23,520 --> 01:16:26,240
Speaker 1: Now he picked that title because by this point, years

1408
01:16:26,240 --> 01:16:29,160
Speaker 1: of ruling over black African servants and workers and extracting

1409
01:16:29,160 --> 01:16:31,519
Speaker 1: the wealth of their homeland for his own benefit felt

1410
01:16:31,520 --> 01:16:34,680
Speaker 1: so right to him that he considered imperialism to be

1411
01:16:34,840 --> 01:16:37,879
Speaker 1: his religion. When he's saying confession of faith, he's literally

1412
01:16:37,920 --> 01:16:41,400
Speaker 1: saying this is this is my God, this goal is

1413
01:16:41,439 --> 01:16:45,439
Speaker 1: my God. Um. So he opened the statement by noting

1414
01:16:45,439 --> 01:16:47,800
Speaker 1: that he did not care about marriage, he didn't care

1415
01:16:47,800 --> 01:16:49,920
Speaker 1: about having a family, and he didn't even care about

1416
01:16:49,960 --> 01:16:53,800
Speaker 1: attaining personal wealth. The sole aim that interested him was

1417
01:16:53,840 --> 01:16:58,960
Speaker 1: the furtherance of the Anglo Saxon race. Quote. I contend

1418
01:16:59,000 --> 01:17:00,880
Speaker 1: that we are the finest in the world, and that

1419
01:17:00,920 --> 01:17:02,479
Speaker 1: the more of the world we inhabit, the better it

1420
01:17:02,600 --> 01:17:04,880
Speaker 1: is for the human race. Just fancy those parts of

1421
01:17:04,880 --> 01:17:07,080
Speaker 1: the world that are at present inhabited by the most

1422
01:17:07,120 --> 01:17:10,760
Speaker 1: despicable specimens of human beings. What an alteration there would

1423
01:17:10,760 --> 01:17:13,520
Speaker 1: be if they were brought under the Anglo Saxon influence.

1424
01:17:13,720 --> 01:17:16,120
Speaker 1: Look again that the extra employment of a new country

1425
01:17:16,120 --> 01:17:19,080
Speaker 1: added to our dominion gives. I contend that every acre

1426
01:17:19,120 --> 01:17:21,840
Speaker 1: added to our territory means in the future birth of

1427
01:17:21,880 --> 01:17:24,519
Speaker 1: some more of the English race who otherwise would not

1428
01:17:24,600 --> 01:17:30,040
Speaker 1: be brought into existence. He's a white supremacist, Yeah, and

1429
01:17:30,080 --> 01:17:32,519
Speaker 1: a lot of people were you can talk about like

1430
01:17:32,560 --> 01:17:34,840
Speaker 1: there's again, I don't want to like get too into

1431
01:17:34,880 --> 01:17:37,240
Speaker 1: the birth the invention of the white race, because that

1432
01:17:37,360 --> 01:17:39,080
Speaker 1: is a story I want to I do want to tell,

1433
01:17:40,040 --> 01:17:46,560
Speaker 1: but he is. He might be the first modern white supremacist,

1434
01:17:46,680 --> 01:17:52,200
Speaker 1: the first proud boy style white supremacist where that Yeah, yeah,

1435
01:17:52,240 --> 01:17:54,200
Speaker 1: I was gonna say that there's this and it's crazy,

1436
01:17:54,240 --> 01:17:59,000
Speaker 1: like how you know this is that intermingling. I would say,

1437
01:17:59,040 --> 01:18:01,200
Speaker 1: like you don't see a lot of this stuff in

1438
01:18:02,120 --> 01:18:07,800
Speaker 1: Christian literature until about now, where like this like intermingling

1439
01:18:08,200 --> 01:18:13,559
Speaker 1: of yeah, this is our mandate on the planet from

1440
01:18:13,560 --> 01:18:17,360
Speaker 1: our maker, like we are we're helping, this is what

1441
01:18:17,400 --> 01:18:19,800
Speaker 1: God wants for us. You know what I'm saying. Yeah,

1442
01:18:20,000 --> 01:18:23,320
Speaker 1: Cecil's modern defenders will often bring up like things he

1443
01:18:23,400 --> 01:18:26,480
Speaker 1: said about believing that black people are are are inherently

1444
01:18:26,520 --> 01:18:30,080
Speaker 1: the same as white people. It's a cultural problem and

1445
01:18:30,080 --> 01:18:33,920
Speaker 1: as as soon as they fully embrace Anglo Saxon culture,

1446
01:18:33,960 --> 01:18:36,160
Speaker 1: then I think they deserve to be treated equally. And

1447
01:18:36,200 --> 01:18:38,360
Speaker 1: let's say, like, Nos, he wasn't racist. He had beliefs

1448
01:18:38,360 --> 01:18:40,640
Speaker 1: about like he thought that he wanted to. It was

1449
01:18:40,720 --> 01:18:44,639
Speaker 1: just a cultural thing for him, and that is that's

1450
01:18:44,640 --> 01:18:46,080
Speaker 1: why I say, I think he might be the first

1451
01:18:46,080 --> 01:18:49,320
Speaker 1: that I've come across really truly modern white supremacist. He's

1452
01:18:49,320 --> 01:18:52,320
Speaker 1: a white supremacist in the way that the Proud Boys are. Were, like,

1453
01:18:52,520 --> 01:18:55,320
Speaker 1: they've got black members, they've get get Pacific Islanders, they

1454
01:18:55,360 --> 01:18:57,920
Speaker 1: have have Latino members, But their whole thing is their

1455
01:18:57,960 --> 01:19:01,679
Speaker 1: Western chauvinists. They yeah, exactly. They believe that the West

1456
01:19:01,800 --> 01:19:04,519
Speaker 1: is best and that as long as you buy into that,

1457
01:19:04,680 --> 01:19:06,920
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what color you are. And that's Cecil,

1458
01:19:07,360 --> 01:19:11,960
Speaker 1: that's Cecil Roads. Yeah. And he's writing this ship out

1459
01:19:11,960 --> 01:19:17,280
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy seven when most races are much cruder. Yeah,

1460
01:19:17,320 --> 01:19:20,840
Speaker 1: and we're yeah, and we're still like suffering from those

1461
01:19:20,880 --> 01:19:25,600
Speaker 1: writings to this day. Yes. Now, Like all arch imperialists,

1462
01:19:25,600 --> 01:19:29,719
Speaker 1: Cecil attempted to justify his mad ambition on humanitarian grounds,

1463
01:19:29,840 --> 01:19:32,200
Speaker 1: lamenting that if the Empire had not lost the United States,

1464
01:19:32,240 --> 01:19:33,960
Speaker 1: it would have been able to stop the Crimean War

1465
01:19:34,000 --> 01:19:39,080
Speaker 1: by denying both sides money and arms. CRIMEA Yeah, Yeah,

1466
01:19:39,120 --> 01:19:43,320
Speaker 1: that's good. Good, I appreciate that. Uh yeah, what it

1467
01:19:43,360 --> 01:19:46,439
Speaker 1: really was, Yeah again naked white supremacy. Roads lamented that

1468
01:19:46,479 --> 01:19:49,320
Speaker 1: secret societies of the day, like the Masons, didn't direct

1469
01:19:49,400 --> 01:19:52,439
Speaker 1: their wealth and power towards a clear aim quote, why

1470
01:19:52,479 --> 01:19:55,240
Speaker 1: should we not form a secret society with but one object?

1471
01:19:55,320 --> 01:19:57,920
Speaker 1: The furtherance of the British Empire, and the bringing of

1472
01:19:57,960 --> 01:20:00,519
Speaker 1: the whole and civilized world under British rule, for the

1473
01:20:00,520 --> 01:20:03,000
Speaker 1: recovery of the United States, and for the making of

1474
01:20:03,040 --> 01:20:07,240
Speaker 1: the Anglo Saxon race. But one empire. What a dream.

1475
01:20:07,280 --> 01:20:10,040
Speaker 1: But yet it is probable, it is possible. I once

1476
01:20:10,080 --> 01:20:12,000
Speaker 1: had it argued by a fellow in my own college.

1477
01:20:12,040 --> 01:20:14,000
Speaker 1: I am sorry to own it, by an Englishman, that

1478
01:20:14,120 --> 01:20:15,880
Speaker 1: it was a good thing for us to have lost

1479
01:20:15,880 --> 01:20:18,479
Speaker 1: the United States. There are some subjects on which there

1480
01:20:18,479 --> 01:20:21,080
Speaker 1: can be no arguments, and to an Englishman this is

1481
01:20:21,080 --> 01:20:23,400
Speaker 1: one of them. But even from an American's point of view,

1482
01:20:23,479 --> 01:20:25,960
Speaker 1: just picture what they have lost. Look at their government.

1483
01:20:26,080 --> 01:20:28,320
Speaker 1: Are not the frauds that nearly come before the public

1484
01:20:28,400 --> 01:20:31,400
Speaker 1: view would disgrace to any country, but especially There's, which

1485
01:20:31,479 --> 01:20:35,439
Speaker 1: is the finest in the world. Yeah, I mean, you're

1486
01:20:35,439 --> 01:20:38,160
Speaker 1: not wrong. All of our politicians have always been frauds.

1487
01:20:38,240 --> 01:20:41,120
Speaker 1: You get that correctly. But you had a king like like,

1488
01:20:41,280 --> 01:20:46,479
Speaker 1: come on, dude, Yeah, yeah, you're not wrong, but you

1489
01:20:46,600 --> 01:20:50,519
Speaker 1: can't say that. Yeah, not wrong, but you're not wrong,

1490
01:20:50,560 --> 01:20:53,439
Speaker 1: but you're not better either, Like, so go funk yourself.

1491
01:20:53,560 --> 01:20:57,760
Speaker 1: Yeah it takes one and no one. Yeah, you know.

1492
01:20:58,240 --> 01:21:00,559
Speaker 1: He went on to express a desire to the entire

1493
01:21:00,640 --> 01:21:03,880
Speaker 1: continent of Africa, not just under British rule, but filled

1494
01:21:03,920 --> 01:21:08,120
Speaker 1: with English settlers. Africa is still lying ready for us,

1495
01:21:08,160 --> 01:21:10,120
Speaker 1: and it is our duty to take it. It is

1496
01:21:10,120 --> 01:21:13,559
Speaker 1: our duty to seize every opportunity of acquiring more territory.

1497
01:21:13,720 --> 01:21:17,000
Speaker 1: And we should keep this one idea steadily before our eyes.

1498
01:21:17,200 --> 01:21:21,280
Speaker 1: That more territory means simply more of the Anglo Saxon race,

1499
01:21:21,640 --> 01:21:25,400
Speaker 1: more of the best, the most human, most honorable race

1500
01:21:25,479 --> 01:21:28,840
Speaker 1: the world possesses, the most human. The thing that I

1501
01:21:28,880 --> 01:21:31,639
Speaker 1: still can't get my wrap my brain around, especially from

1502
01:21:31,640 --> 01:21:37,000
Speaker 1: writing's like this. I'm like, y'all ain't invented sewage. Yeah

1503
01:21:37,720 --> 01:21:40,840
Speaker 1: you in there, Yeah, y'all. Still you still throwing human

1504
01:21:40,880 --> 01:21:43,000
Speaker 1: ship in the street and don't know why you sick?

1505
01:21:43,680 --> 01:21:46,000
Speaker 1: Like you know what I'm saying, like this, how are

1506
01:21:46,040 --> 01:21:50,320
Speaker 1: you gonna tell me? Yeah, so you carry smell things

1507
01:21:50,439 --> 01:21:53,439
Speaker 1: because you don't bathe. I'm like, why are you telling?

1508
01:21:53,800 --> 01:21:57,040
Speaker 1: Why do you think I'll give this? In Cecil's defense,

1509
01:21:57,080 --> 01:21:59,320
Speaker 1: he was known and it was odd in this period

1510
01:21:59,320 --> 01:22:01,400
Speaker 1: that he bathed every day, even when he was on

1511
01:22:01,520 --> 01:22:04,000
Speaker 1: campaign in the woods. He had like a bath taken

1512
01:22:04,040 --> 01:22:06,280
Speaker 1: around with him that his black servants filled up for

1513
01:22:06,360 --> 01:22:08,519
Speaker 1: him and stuff because he had the wealth to bath

1514
01:22:08,520 --> 01:22:11,640
Speaker 1: of every day. Had the wealth debate, I'm like, you

1515
01:22:12,080 --> 01:22:19,840
Speaker 1: seen have you seen everyone? Yeah to rest y'all like yeah.

1516
01:22:20,080 --> 01:22:23,000
Speaker 1: So the secret society Roads proposed sounds almost more like

1517
01:22:23,040 --> 01:22:25,679
Speaker 1: a precursor to the c I A a handpicked group

1518
01:22:25,680 --> 01:22:28,280
Speaker 1: of ambitious and talented young men who would dedicate their

1519
01:22:28,320 --> 01:22:31,480
Speaker 1: whole lives to this cause. When he actually started inducting

1520
01:22:31,520 --> 01:22:34,680
Speaker 1: more men into this society, he tended to restrict his

1521
01:22:34,720 --> 01:22:37,320
Speaker 1: members from marrying and starting families so they would have

1522
01:22:37,360 --> 01:22:39,960
Speaker 1: no priorities before the empire. And this is where we

1523
01:22:39,960 --> 01:22:42,559
Speaker 1: talk about Roads of sexuality because he himself never married.

1524
01:22:42,600 --> 01:22:44,920
Speaker 1: He expressed repeatedly that he was too busy to do so,

1525
01:22:45,240 --> 01:22:48,599
Speaker 1: and everyone pretty much agrees that he was gay. Um now,

1526
01:22:49,479 --> 01:22:51,360
Speaker 1: this was illegal at the time. You can just ask

1527
01:22:51,360 --> 01:22:55,040
Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde that. But men of means and stature, it

1528
01:22:55,120 --> 01:22:57,360
Speaker 1: was impossible to be poor and gay pretty much because

1529
01:22:57,439 --> 01:22:59,559
Speaker 1: I mean, you'd probably be killed by a lot of

1530
01:22:59,600 --> 01:23:03,200
Speaker 1: like your right because it's very bigoted at the time,

1531
01:23:04,080 --> 01:23:07,639
Speaker 1: or you'd have to keep it completely secret. And yeah, uh,

1532
01:23:07,760 --> 01:23:10,800
Speaker 1: if you were rich, you could be gay and most

1533
01:23:10,800 --> 01:23:13,320
Speaker 1: people would know it. Like Rhodes is gay, it's illegal

1534
01:23:13,400 --> 01:23:16,679
Speaker 1: to be gay. Everyone in British society knows that he's gay.

1535
01:23:16,720 --> 01:23:19,519
Speaker 1: He brings these South these white South African boys back

1536
01:23:19,560 --> 01:23:21,599
Speaker 1: to England with him, these younger men, and he takes

1537
01:23:21,600 --> 01:23:26,360
Speaker 1: them to parties with him. Um is my is my assistant? Yeah? Well,

1538
01:23:26,400 --> 01:23:29,040
Speaker 1: and there's he's he's even more blatant than that. There's

1539
01:23:29,040 --> 01:23:31,679
Speaker 1: one story I heard about him where essentially like he's

1540
01:23:31,720 --> 01:23:34,000
Speaker 1: he's at a party with this young, rude South African

1541
01:23:34,040 --> 01:23:36,599
Speaker 1: boy and like the guy hosting the fancy British person

1542
01:23:36,640 --> 01:23:39,040
Speaker 1: hosting the party says Rhodes, I can't invite you to

1543
01:23:39,080 --> 01:23:41,160
Speaker 1: parties anymore if you're gonna bring boys like this around,

1544
01:23:41,160 --> 01:23:43,200
Speaker 1: Like he almost broke my hand with his hand and shake,

1545
01:23:43,680 --> 01:23:46,559
Speaker 1: and Rhodes said something along the side of the lines

1546
01:23:46,600 --> 01:23:49,360
Speaker 1: of you should see how hard he bucks. It's like

1547
01:23:49,400 --> 01:23:54,200
Speaker 1: a mule um. Like so he's he's not super coy, right,

1548
01:23:55,400 --> 01:23:59,560
Speaker 1: but I like I got pocket diamonds. You say, yeah.

1549
01:23:59,760 --> 01:24:03,040
Speaker 1: And it's worth noting that a pretty high and oddly

1550
01:24:03,120 --> 01:24:06,400
Speaker 1: high number of British imperial icons of specifically this period

1551
01:24:06,640 --> 01:24:09,840
Speaker 1: were gay, or some of them were They're called gay

1552
01:24:09,840 --> 01:24:11,200
Speaker 1: a lot, but I think it might be more accurate

1553
01:24:11,240 --> 01:24:13,720
Speaker 1: to say they were kind of romantic a sexuals, where

1554
01:24:13,720 --> 01:24:17,280
Speaker 1: they had these very strong, very clearly romantic relationships with

1555
01:24:17,360 --> 01:24:19,800
Speaker 1: men that they probably never had sex with, but they

1556
01:24:19,840 --> 01:24:21,639
Speaker 1: would be inseparable and it was just like a thing

1557
01:24:22,120 --> 01:24:26,160
Speaker 1: in imperialism. I just feel like, statistically speaking, it's impossible

1558
01:24:26,240 --> 01:24:31,360
Speaker 1: that there's any less amount of gay people there. Now

1559
01:24:31,680 --> 01:24:35,479
Speaker 1: you know I'm saying, but yeah, there's a reason why.

1560
01:24:35,520 --> 01:24:39,400
Speaker 1: There are some reasons why they're probably overrepresented within sort

1561
01:24:39,400 --> 01:24:42,000
Speaker 1: of the subset of the English population that's doing the

1562
01:24:42,080 --> 01:24:44,040
Speaker 1: imperialist ship. Some of that is that, like we talked

1563
01:24:44,040 --> 01:24:47,479
Speaker 1: about earlier, if you're gay in a majority straighten in

1564
01:24:47,520 --> 01:24:49,640
Speaker 1: a society where it's legal to be gay, you fundamentally

1565
01:24:49,680 --> 01:24:52,640
Speaker 1: see the world differently, and that confers certain advantages you

1566
01:24:52,680 --> 01:24:55,240
Speaker 1: are able to, perhaps especially since a lot of the

1567
01:24:55,280 --> 01:24:59,160
Speaker 1: other men doing this might be gay, build stronger, more

1568
01:24:59,200 --> 01:25:02,959
Speaker 1: emotional relationships with them, um, which leads to more loyalty,

1569
01:25:03,000 --> 01:25:05,280
Speaker 1: which means you have this this loyal band of like

1570
01:25:05,360 --> 01:25:08,200
Speaker 1: people who you can work with to accomplish these goals.

1571
01:25:08,200 --> 01:25:11,519
Speaker 1: It also means that, like you probably find the culture

1572
01:25:11,600 --> 01:25:14,080
Speaker 1: back home stifling, and you want to get out to

1573
01:25:14,160 --> 01:25:16,960
Speaker 1: a place where there are fewer rules and where you

1574
01:25:17,000 --> 01:25:19,439
Speaker 1: can you can get away with living being the kind

1575
01:25:19,439 --> 01:25:22,080
Speaker 1: of person that you are. There's a quote from Ruyard

1576
01:25:22,200 --> 01:25:26,040
Speaker 1: Kipling's poem Um, one of his poems about imperialism, that

1577
01:25:26,080 --> 01:25:29,080
Speaker 1: I think was about, Uh, I'm forgetting the name of

1578
01:25:29,080 --> 01:25:31,760
Speaker 1: it now, but the lion is um. Send We send

1579
01:25:31,760 --> 01:25:34,120
Speaker 1: me somewhere east of Suez, where the best is like

1580
01:25:34,200 --> 01:25:36,559
Speaker 1: the worst, where there ain't no tin commandments, and a

1581
01:25:36,560 --> 01:25:39,800
Speaker 1: man can raise a thirst, right so that there's You

1582
01:25:39,920 --> 01:25:42,000
Speaker 1: come across this a lot, and I think it's just

1583
01:25:42,080 --> 01:25:45,920
Speaker 1: because I think there's probably a number of reasons for it. Um.

1584
01:25:45,960 --> 01:25:47,920
Speaker 1: But yeah, this is a thing about cecil, and I'm

1585
01:25:47,920 --> 01:25:49,519
Speaker 1: not going to talk a whole lot more about it

1586
01:25:49,560 --> 01:25:51,360
Speaker 1: because I don't think it has all that much of

1587
01:25:51,360 --> 01:25:53,439
Speaker 1: a bearing other than to the extent that it kind

1588
01:25:53,439 --> 01:25:56,720
Speaker 1: of forms him into the man that he is. Um.

1589
01:25:56,760 --> 01:25:59,080
Speaker 1: But yeah. One of the men he brought into his

1590
01:25:59,160 --> 01:26:02,639
Speaker 1: scheme was a position named Leander Jamison, and he recalled

1591
01:26:02,640 --> 01:26:05,360
Speaker 1: that as early as eighteen seventy eight, Roads had formed

1592
01:26:05,400 --> 01:26:08,120
Speaker 1: the idea of doing great work for the overcrowded British

1593
01:26:08,160 --> 01:26:11,280
Speaker 1: public at home by opening up fresh markets for their manufactures.

1594
01:26:11,760 --> 01:26:14,679
Speaker 1: As his business had expanded, so too had British colonial

1595
01:26:14,680 --> 01:26:17,840
Speaker 1: possessions in Africa. And Cecil noticed that when the Empire grew,

1596
01:26:17,920 --> 01:26:21,839
Speaker 1: unemployment back home went down, an average income went up.

1597
01:26:22,000 --> 01:26:25,040
Speaker 1: Things got better for the average people in his country

1598
01:26:25,160 --> 01:26:27,040
Speaker 1: because they were getting worse for the average people in

1599
01:26:27,280 --> 01:26:31,840
Speaker 1: other parts of the world. Um. Yeah, So he recognizes

1600
01:26:31,880 --> 01:26:36,320
Speaker 1: this and he sees this as like a fundamentally positive thing. Um.

1601
01:26:36,400 --> 01:26:39,040
Speaker 1: And other these other white people that he's gathering him

1602
01:26:39,040 --> 01:26:42,400
Speaker 1: to himself at the time, they're deeply impressed and moved

1603
01:26:42,439 --> 01:26:46,240
Speaker 1: by his belief in the destiny of the Anglo Saxon race. Um.

1604
01:26:46,400 --> 01:26:48,360
Speaker 1: And that's what he's able to get them to buy into.

1605
01:26:48,400 --> 01:26:50,280
Speaker 1: That's why they put so much trust in so much

1606
01:26:50,360 --> 01:26:53,400
Speaker 1: their of their wealth and roads. Um. And it's it's

1607
01:26:53,439 --> 01:26:55,640
Speaker 1: his biographer Rotberg kind of compares a lot of what

1608
01:26:55,720 --> 01:26:59,599
Speaker 1: Cecil's talking about in this time to to Hitler's concept

1609
01:26:59,640 --> 01:27:03,479
Speaker 1: of levin realm um living space, right, And it is

1610
01:27:03,640 --> 01:27:07,240
Speaker 1: very similar. You can trace the birth of these ideas um,

1611
01:27:07,320 --> 01:27:09,040
Speaker 1: or at least the the birth of these ideas as

1612
01:27:09,080 --> 01:27:12,320
Speaker 1: a written down conception, because they'd certainly been pursued earlier,

1613
01:27:12,880 --> 01:27:16,040
Speaker 1: uh to sec you know, and and he has British

1614
01:27:16,080 --> 01:27:19,200
Speaker 1: imperialism had a massive impact on Hitler. And in fact,

1615
01:27:19,240 --> 01:27:21,040
Speaker 1: he would he would constantly talk about both the United

1616
01:27:21,040 --> 01:27:23,599
Speaker 1: States and the British Empire and the land that they

1617
01:27:23,640 --> 01:27:26,479
Speaker 1: had to for their people to move in as part

1618
01:27:26,479 --> 01:27:29,360
Speaker 1: of why he wanted Eastern Europe, why he wanted Russia

1619
01:27:29,360 --> 01:27:33,160
Speaker 1: and Ukraine in Poland. Um, because he wanted the same

1620
01:27:33,160 --> 01:27:36,959
Speaker 1: thing for the Germans that he saw these other empires getting. Um,

1621
01:27:37,000 --> 01:27:39,719
Speaker 1: so yeah, it is worth like he he definitely rhodes

1622
01:27:39,760 --> 01:27:43,479
Speaker 1: Is is talking early about what will become these concepts

1623
01:27:43,479 --> 01:27:48,880
Speaker 1: that we recognize as key to to to fascism. Um yeah,

1624
01:27:49,160 --> 01:27:52,720
Speaker 1: now I think, yeah, it's it's it's it's interesting. And

1625
01:27:53,240 --> 01:27:56,680
Speaker 1: rhodes Is also while he's kind of laying some of

1626
01:27:56,720 --> 01:28:01,639
Speaker 1: the intellectual foundations for the what will become fascism, he's

1627
01:28:01,680 --> 01:28:04,479
Speaker 1: also laying a lot of the intellectual foundations for the

1628
01:28:04,560 --> 01:28:07,240
Speaker 1: system of global capitalism that we live under today. This

1629
01:28:07,400 --> 01:28:09,719
Speaker 1: this idea that you can have a whole world united

1630
01:28:09,720 --> 01:28:14,040
Speaker 1: in mass resource extraction and trade in After sixteen years

1631
01:28:14,040 --> 01:28:16,040
Speaker 1: of building up his business holdings and a network of

1632
01:28:16,080 --> 01:28:19,439
Speaker 1: loyal Toady's Rhodes amalgamated all of these minds that he

1633
01:28:19,479 --> 01:28:21,759
Speaker 1: had and that his friends had accrued, and he formed

1634
01:28:21,760 --> 01:28:26,519
Speaker 1: them into a single corporation. De Beers amalgamated minds. So

1635
01:28:26,640 --> 01:28:29,559
Speaker 1: this is the de Beers corporation is birthed. Now he's

1636
01:28:29,600 --> 01:28:31,960
Speaker 1: the first head of it. Uh, he's the chairman of

1637
01:28:32,040 --> 01:28:35,599
Speaker 1: De Beers. Now. In short order, de Beers swallowed up

1638
01:28:35,640 --> 01:28:38,479
Speaker 1: almost the entire diamond trade in Southern Africa. And as

1639
01:28:38,479 --> 01:28:41,360
Speaker 1: they gobbled up more and more minds, Roads streamlined the

1640
01:28:41,400 --> 01:28:44,200
Speaker 1: mining process, killing off the old way of diggers and

1641
01:28:44,240 --> 01:28:47,880
Speaker 1: diamond booms, and refashioned the whole industry into a precise

1642
01:28:47,960 --> 01:28:50,760
Speaker 1: engine that ran on human misery. And I found a

1643
01:28:50,760 --> 01:28:53,200
Speaker 1: paper from an economic student at the University of Boulder

1644
01:28:53,240 --> 01:28:55,840
Speaker 1: that I think sums up what happens very well, and

1645
01:28:55,840 --> 01:28:59,320
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote from that now. Rhodes is colored workers

1646
01:28:59,320 --> 01:29:01,760
Speaker 1: were oppressed by his white managers and impaired by the

1647
01:29:01,800 --> 01:29:05,080
Speaker 1: atrocious living conditions. Once Rhodes had his miners, he and

1648
01:29:05,120 --> 01:29:08,320
Speaker 1: his British colonial authorities proclaimed a pass law in Kimberly.

1649
01:29:08,680 --> 01:29:11,040
Speaker 1: Black workers had to possess a document that stated their

1650
01:29:11,120 --> 01:29:13,160
Speaker 1: right to employment, and at the end of shifts, white

1651
01:29:13,160 --> 01:29:16,520
Speaker 1: policemen stripped the colored miners nude and probe their orifices

1652
01:29:16,560 --> 01:29:19,920
Speaker 1: for stolen diamonds. This indignity, however, was not forced upon

1653
01:29:19,960 --> 01:29:22,920
Speaker 1: the white laborers. To distinguish the manager's fear of theft,

1654
01:29:22,960 --> 01:29:25,360
Speaker 1: the blacks also had to live in prison like compounds

1655
01:29:25,400 --> 01:29:28,200
Speaker 1: on site for the length of their contract. De Beers

1656
01:29:28,200 --> 01:29:30,799
Speaker 1: paid its colored workers in average of ninety seven fifty

1657
01:29:30,800 --> 01:29:32,479
Speaker 1: per month, while the whites were paid in average of

1658
01:29:32,479 --> 01:29:34,800
Speaker 1: four hundred and eighty dollars, and to break even, the

1659
01:29:34,880 --> 01:29:36,720
Speaker 1: laborers needed to make it at least a hundred and

1660
01:29:36,720 --> 01:29:39,960
Speaker 1: twenty dollars monthly. So he comes up with this idea

1661
01:29:40,240 --> 01:29:43,600
Speaker 1: of amalgamating, streamlining and then getting this workforce that you

1662
01:29:43,640 --> 01:29:45,479
Speaker 1: have total control of in the same way that like

1663
01:29:45,560 --> 01:29:48,160
Speaker 1: those those a lot of those factory workers and Shins

1664
01:29:48,200 --> 01:29:51,040
Speaker 1: and China making our iPhones are and you keep them

1665
01:29:51,080 --> 01:29:53,720
Speaker 1: locked into a cycle of near poverty, forcing them to

1666
01:29:53,760 --> 01:29:57,120
Speaker 1: live in these compounds that he could control. Um he

1667
01:29:57,280 --> 01:30:01,920
Speaker 1: basically succeeded, as de Beer takes off in re enslaving

1668
01:30:02,000 --> 01:30:04,519
Speaker 1: a chunk of the black African populace for the benefit

1669
01:30:04,560 --> 01:30:08,240
Speaker 1: of the British empire. Um and this plan worked marvelously.

1670
01:30:08,280 --> 01:30:10,960
Speaker 1: In a few years, de Beers controlled between ninety and

1671
01:30:12,080 --> 01:30:15,920
Speaker 1: of the planet's diamond supply. Yeah, and then they cracked

1672
01:30:15,920 --> 01:30:19,720
Speaker 1: open a bunch of de Beers. Yeah, I'm sorry, that's

1673
01:30:19,720 --> 01:30:23,479
Speaker 1: too account at frat parties where he was just like

1674
01:30:23,720 --> 01:30:28,559
Speaker 1: frat parties, diamond diamond He's like diamonds, popping a top

1675
01:30:28,600 --> 01:30:31,360
Speaker 1: with his diamonds. All right, Well, prop, that's the end

1676
01:30:31,360 --> 01:30:34,559
Speaker 1: of part one. There's so much more of this guy

1677
01:30:34,600 --> 01:30:39,479
Speaker 1: to go, but that's what we've got time. Um boy,

1678
01:30:39,520 --> 01:30:40,840
Speaker 1: this has gone on a bit. You want you want

1679
01:30:40,840 --> 01:30:43,240
Speaker 1: to plug your plug doables? Man, Yeah, I do, And

1680
01:30:43,280 --> 01:30:48,479
Speaker 1: I also want to just diamonds are forever. Diamonds are forever.

1681
01:30:48,640 --> 01:30:53,320
Speaker 1: That's said the entire time. Yeah, and that I mean,

1682
01:30:53,320 --> 01:30:56,000
Speaker 1: that's that's that's after his time. But he sets up

1683
01:30:56,040 --> 01:30:58,599
Speaker 1: a lot of the things that make the diamond trade

1684
01:30:58,640 --> 01:31:00,960
Speaker 1: what it is. Like we'll talk about this more at

1685
01:31:01,000 --> 01:31:03,280
Speaker 1: the end, but like blood diamonds are a thing because

1686
01:31:03,320 --> 01:31:05,880
Speaker 1: of cecil roads. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. Man,

1687
01:31:06,120 --> 01:31:08,000
Speaker 1: That's what I was like, That's where I would like

1688
01:31:08,320 --> 01:31:10,080
Speaker 1: when you started the thing, That's what I was preparing

1689
01:31:10,120 --> 01:31:13,160
Speaker 1: myself for. Like we're gonna get to blood diamonds pretty soon. Well,

1690
01:31:13,240 --> 01:31:14,519
Speaker 1: let's talk about that the end. We're not going to

1691
01:31:14,600 --> 01:31:17,960
Speaker 1: talk about it enough because there's so much of roads

1692
01:31:17,960 --> 01:31:20,559
Speaker 1: to talk about. And he's not the only he starts

1693
01:31:20,600 --> 01:31:22,960
Speaker 1: the process that leads to the creation of blood diamonds.

1694
01:31:22,960 --> 01:31:25,200
Speaker 1: There are a number of other men over decades who

1695
01:31:25,200 --> 01:31:28,679
Speaker 1: are like responsible for bringing us all down that path.

1696
01:31:28,720 --> 01:31:31,320
Speaker 1: But we will talk some about that at the end. Yeah, well,

1697
01:31:31,360 --> 01:31:34,639
Speaker 1: prop hit pop dot com and prop hit pops all

1698
01:31:34,720 --> 01:31:41,880
Speaker 1: my um handles my social media. I just uh announced

1699
01:31:41,880 --> 01:31:47,320
Speaker 1: a not a blood coffee a but a real coffee

1700
01:31:47,479 --> 01:31:52,519
Speaker 1: UM collaborations company called Onyx, where I kind of special

1701
01:31:52,680 --> 01:31:55,639
Speaker 1: single origin Ethiopian blend that McGear real nerdy with y'all

1702
01:31:55,840 --> 01:31:59,880
Speaker 1: will not blend a single origin Ethiopian um. It's kind

1703
01:31:59,880 --> 01:32:03,840
Speaker 1: of tastes like dried pineapple. It's pretty bomb uh and

1704
01:32:05,120 --> 01:32:08,240
Speaker 1: in the in in in the spirit of what we're

1705
01:32:08,280 --> 01:32:13,000
Speaker 1: talking about right now, Like it's three brothers that own

1706
01:32:13,080 --> 01:32:16,720
Speaker 1: the farm. They're born and raised in Ethiopia, one of

1707
01:32:16,760 --> 01:32:21,360
Speaker 1: them lives in l A And the fair trade price

1708
01:32:21,439 --> 01:32:24,600
Speaker 1: for the bean is a buck fifty per pound, but

1709
01:32:24,720 --> 01:32:27,680
Speaker 1: me and Onyx paid nine bucks a pound because we

1710
01:32:27,720 --> 01:32:32,799
Speaker 1: believe in supporting real folks. Um, so that's the biggest

1711
01:32:32,800 --> 01:32:35,679
Speaker 1: thing I plug right now is I got a coffee

1712
01:32:35,680 --> 01:32:39,160
Speaker 1: and if you're into like drinking good coffee, please order. Yeah. Yeah,

1713
01:32:39,200 --> 01:32:42,559
Speaker 1: and it's ethically sourced and we paid the people. Well

1714
01:32:42,680 --> 01:32:47,479
Speaker 1: we're not no Cecil roads. Yeah. Uh, don't be cecil

1715
01:32:47,560 --> 01:32:50,559
Speaker 1: Roads in your own life. And don't come after me

1716
01:32:50,600 --> 01:32:53,360
Speaker 1: for calling him cecil and cecil and interchangeably. I know

1717
01:32:53,439 --> 01:32:58,160
Speaker 1: it's cecil whatever. That's my fault cecil Yeah yeah, fuck it.

1718
01:32:58,479 --> 01:33:01,120
Speaker 1: Like basically, I don't. I don't have to respect this

1719
01:33:01,240 --> 01:33:05,240
Speaker 1: man enough to pronounce his name. Right. No, No, he

1720
01:33:05,600 --> 01:33:08,120
Speaker 1: got enough respect while he was alive and fucking up

1721
01:33:08,120 --> 01:33:10,800
Speaker 1: the world. To hell with him, right, and to hell

1722
01:33:10,920 --> 01:33:14,519
Speaker 1: with all of you, my beloved listeners. Um no, I

1723
01:33:14,520 --> 01:33:16,920
Speaker 1: I thank you for listening. Uh, we'll come back for

1724
01:33:17,000 --> 01:33:19,320
Speaker 1: part two, where we'll talk about how he conquered two

1725
01:33:19,320 --> 01:33:21,559
Speaker 1: countries just for fun and did some other messed up

1726
01:33:21,560 --> 01:33:27,280
Speaker 1: stuff product. Wait, well, no, we love about forty percent

1727
01:33:27,400 --> 01:33:32,559
Speaker 1: of you statistically. Yeah,