![Level Us Up ft. Misan Harriman [EP 92] - podcast episode cover](https://assets.metacast.app/images/episode/artwork/G7lvdUcf)
Amen, we we are.
Miss how are you greeting?
Hey? Can you hear me? I?
Can can you hear me?
I Amanda? Yeah, I can perfectly clear.
Okay, okay, Well let me just tell y'all. Misundscribes himself your your your Instagram bio is very specific while not being specific at all. So miss unsays dyslexic neurodi Virgin Oscar nominated End of lazyp Award winner. Opinions expressed are solely my own. However, you are I know you to be a photographer.
Before we even get there.
I jumped on early and I hadn't seen the clip that you shown of these priests were the.
Pastors?
Yeah, everybody is getting brainwashed. Baby. That's the new that's the new wave.
Mm hmm I and it's it's particularly I don't know if you've seen the Voice of hinrad Jab yet.
Have you watched that film?
No? I have not seen it yet. There's a part of me that's not prepared.
Listen. I ran away from it.
I've run away from that film for four months, and I decided, look, just you know, if if Palestinians are enduring what they're enduring, go and see the bloody film, and I sat down. And the reason I'm bringing this up that it's particularly hard to see men and women of God going to this place after watching that film, because what you learn in the film is we all know what happened to this six year old.
But what I didn't know is that.
They had the technol to have the heat that they could see who is dead or alive. They could see the size of the soul, so they knew it was a child, and they knew that this child was surrounded by her dead relatives, the corpses of her dead relatives. And then they just played call of duty for three hours, taking pop shots at her.
And it's just to.
See people of God, you know, in the twenty four hour period. I just I didn't know about this trip. I missed this one.
And it's hard to keep up, to be quite honest, I mean, the nonsense is just so innumerable that it's hard to keep up. I mean, the other day you had it too, mar Ben Gavie wearing a noose pin. I saw that, along with others in the Israeli Kanesse in support of their push to create a death penalty for all of the Palestinian prisoners. Mind you. These people have not had cases, they have not been able to even fight. There a lot of them don't even have charges.
Them are no adults, actually judicial cults in Hebrew, which your kids don't understand, and they're being held Oh my god.
Anyway, in the context of that, well, no, I mean I'm not surprised because the context of our conversation was about Jasmine Crockett, who was a black woman who was running for senator. And you know, there's now a lot of hullabulu and hubbub about her being progressive and her being you know, the next wave and she's going to save the Democratic Party and me and Sabby Sabs landing that plane at No. No, this is not a progressive. This is someone who has staunchly supported Israel. I mean
it's not hard to discern this. You know, people are like, where's the evidence, where's the evidence? And the evidence? I mean, I can show you as basic as this.
When Governor Wall started out tonight by repeating this for Frain, that Israel has a right to defend itself.
Israel has just invaded Lebanon.
Israel is now intimating that it could attack Iran, So.
Shouldn't we be looking for a.
Little more than just these platitudes about Israel having a right to defend itself. What is the limiting principle, especially when the US the one providing the armaments for Israel to wage these military campaigns. As you know, having voted for the National Security Supplemental back in April, which underwrote Israel's war effort, I.
Absolutely did vote for it. I voted for that along with every other supplemental that was available. And I will tell you this, It is important that people understand what diplomacy looks like, and it looks like the fact that this relationship between Israel and the United States has existed since before I was born. And guess what, this relationship will continue on in perpetuity even after I'm gone.
I don't know how many Nigerians you know, but I'm a Nigeriane man, So sometimes I may switch to pigeon when I have when I can't sound like British. Because
this is this is madness. Yes, I came, Jeffries Corey Booker, and I need you to help me, as an African American, to explain to me how these well educated, seemingly well traveled, supposedly politically astute Black African American men and women that have chosen a life of service have got to a place where I'm looking at Corey Booker walking down corridors or dancing with you know, genocidal maniacs, like, how does it get to that place?
So the first steps is in knowing that the United States does not actually have politics as a public service. They're not actually in service to the people. They're in service to lobbyists. They're in service to packs and to donors.
So when you say they have entered a life of service, the life of service they've entered is to those who are going to give them money, and they serve them by passing and supporting legislation or standing in the way of legislation that prevents those corporate interests from being able to advance. And they know this. You know, there's the reason why you have so many lawyers that go into these fields. Right, There's a reason why you have so
many entrepreneurs go into these fields. It's because they already know the one too of what's going on. So when you see this in black people, you also understand that we do live in a capitalist country, and at the end of the day, there has been a constant push of this idea of generational wealth and Black people need to get our economics together. However, it's not done under the auspices of socialism and supporting communities. It's done under
the auspices of individual accomplishment. Right, Like Jasmin Sullivan was, Jasmin Crockett was already a successful lawyer who made more money as a lawyer than she did in Congress if she was not going to take any corporate money. So it's not like she was struggling, right, It's not like she was saying, you know, I'm going to find my
purpose in this path. However, what frustrates me is that I think a lot of people inherently think that black people have a higher moral quotient, Yeah, because of the historical because exactly, and that same thing is why Israeli Zionis are getting away with that are doing because they effectively peddled this idea of a moral higher a higher moral ground because of having a higher pain, right, higher harm,
higher moral ground. And so that's where you get the whole like, we get to harm people because we were harmed. We have the moral army because we didn't have an army to protect us, which was literally just pr right because the Zionists were actually in cahoots with Nazis, like Zionists Jews said okay, we'll work with you Nazis, versus other Jews who were like, no, no, we don't work
with the people who are trying to kill us. Like I think, people have really just come to kerfuffle everything together in the same way that they have now with black people in America. And I am a black person who lives on a value system that is not capitalists,
hence being a radical black intellectual. And we are not the same just because we are black, like the saying goes all skin poking, kinfolk, and we keep using identity politics in this country to put black people in power that do not support black liberation.
And so how do you how do you connect? I think you kind of connected.
Another interesting thing is which is how the far right, and I mean the real far right has seemingly gone into bed with the Zionist entity. And what I mean by that when Elon Musk did the what do they call it, they hate the.
You know, the hand, the Hitler hand.
Thing, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then the yeah, and the the ad L defended him said he was, you know that we should move on. We've just had something in England where a guy called Magel far Arche. I don't know if you know, you probably.
Know who he is. I know him vaguely, Okay, he's ahead of.
He is openly racist, openly anti Semitic, head of the Reform Party in the UK, and a lot of the people that went to school with him who are actually Jewish have come out saying he is an anti He's been saying things like Hitler was right, you know, reminding reminding of people of Candice Owens pre her rebrand and it's it's it's very very interesting because the Jewish Chronicle, the Jewish Chronicle, big paper in the UK, did an article saying that we should forget about all the anti Semitic.
Things he said in the past, and I was like, what it's it's it's really really we get the light off.
Yeah, it's really really confusing for me to see how, you know, organizations and all newspapers that are supposed to be defending actual Jews are writing articles that are defending they're not.
Because this is the thing the same way that I was saying, like there has been a confluence, like a false equivalence created amongst all black people. There's been a false equivalency created amongst Jewish people. Right. There is Jewish there's Judaism as a faith, and if you follow Judaism as a faith, then you don't. It's the same with Christianity. There's Christianity as a faith, and then there's people who are claiming Christianity but they're not following the faith of
it at all. In the same with everything. There's the same thing with Islam. Right, So you have all of these folks and they like to call it extremists, when I think that's a false nomenclature because they're not. To me. If I'm an extreme Christian, I'm extremely giving, I'm extremely non judgmental, I'm extremely supportive. Right. If I'm an extremist, it is because I am so committed to the faith that I am deeply rigid and in my morals and
my ethics and my principles. These are not dreamers, these are liars, These are these are people who simply just use these these spiritual tools to weaponize against humans because of our capacity to be moved, and you are, You're divergent, So you have less of a capacity to be flipped and spun. It's just what it is. Are wiring is not.
Direct, you must I'm believing that you also.
Are absolutely autistic.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think that we're a funny lot because I think the marriage of trauma, like real childhood trauma.
Which I know you had, and then being.
On this spectrum is is a really really interesting cocktail because you know, you're such a monol what you're unique in the conversation of American culture.
And my sister who is.
Your friend, I believe Briann and Joy Gray and a few others are Yeah yeah, I mean they don't play as well, and it's it's just really really interesting.
But they're like three of you. Just where are the rest?
The truth is is that there are more. It's just that we have been so ostracized and shunned by our coat, by our fellow black folks, that many people then you know, they don't have the support system to really manage it right. And I was very very fortunate that when I was ostracized from the black community for just being myself, I was very fortunate that I had a psychiatrist that really helped me to move through that and I also had
the right people around me. It wasn't about amount, it was about quality, you know, the right people around me to catch me and give me a soft landing into a path forward that commits to this, regardless of the ostracizing right. And then you start to understand that, oh, I'm not alone in this, and so now I need to create spaces for others to not feel alone in this. And that's what we do here Abuse for Amandoland, That's
what I do on my Patreon. I so often find people saying I'm here because I don't have anyone in my immediate circle that I can talk to about these things, and I feel crazy. And then I come here and I feel sane because I know that I'm not bugging. And that's why you know they've said forever it's only about five percent. I love this neuro defiant. I love that I'm making a T shirt that says that. But it's really true that there is a necessity to uplift
these voices. And that's why I originally got connected to you through your film. I need to I haven't seen anything. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, I'm messing up a messing up I want to put yours on witness.
You can travel the world with this thing and just beare witness people only for celebt images, But my passions is observing the human condition and making arts that has purpose.
Miss An Harriman's work captures protests.
Like no other.
The images help people see they're not alone and being frustrated.
I do wonder about the difference I'm actually making. What do protest movements truly achieve? If people are still demanding the same human rights. What you're doing is to give one the opportunity to be able to see the images will be here forever. As a young boy, the images of apartheid South Africa shook me to my core, and then I went on a journey of understanding what it all meant.
Got to tell the truth racial profile still exists.
What do you want?
She's going to be the biggest protest ever. All this is part of the journey.
People have a goodness in them.
That needs to be fed like a plant. This is the work. This is the bearing witness.
I mean, this is the work the bearing witness. I can't help but try a British accent when I'm talking to someone with the British accent, So I'm not mocking you. I'm really just.
Join you.
I'm working, I'm working on it, but it's so tell me about tell me about the film, and and to me, it goes directly along with what we've been talking about.
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
And I remember, you know, I made a film before this and it got nominated for an Oscar and there was a lot of heat around me, and I was like, with this heat, I'm just gonna see if I can get them to let me do what I want to do. And I could see the world getting more and more crazy, and I was like, why don't we do a feature lengths dock on what it means to be an artist that refuses to look away when it pays to be
apathetic through the lens of protest. And I think whilst making it, everything just kept getting crazier.
And I was just like, you can't ignore Palestine.
You cannot make a protest film and focus on queer, trans climate women, black lives and just pretend that Palestine isn't happening, which is what the industry was strongly suggesting to me and my team. And we're like no, And there's a there's a great page on interign called Pomegranates, and she she has a great analogy.
She says that.
Gaza is I don't know if you are a Star Wars person, but she said, it's a wait wait wait.
Wait wait wait wait, you don't know if I'm a Star Wars person, Okay.
Jed.
Well, she said that that the Gaza is the single shot through the exhaust valve of the Deathsta that brings down the whole empire.
I believe it too, you know, and.
I love it so much because I think what this what this film is is, it's this film isn't really for you and me.
This film is.
For the dads and mums in Ohio that don't know what occupation means.
They don't know about the Peal Commission in thirty six.
They don't know about church Hill's dog in the Manger quote, which is just pure white supremacy before the.
Existence of Israel.
And then they see me with George Floyd's people in Minnesota, and then they start connecting that with the violent war for profit, white patriarchal, extractive capitalist machine that allows black men to lie in their own piss whilst begging for their Mamma as they late leave this mortal coil, and then I take them from there to Johannesburg, and I take them to the University of Johannesburg that used to be an all white university, and within our lifetime that university looks like.
You and Mi no right.
And there's a scene in Johannesburg with a professor talking about Palestine. It's sat African man being strong man talking
about the history and the connection. And I think for a lot of Americans, this film is accessible because it's got all the shiny things when me and the oscars and everything else, but it always takes them back to help them understand that we have to decolonize our mind and protest matters not just because of getting arrested and getting on the news, because you build community, and within community.
Lies the ability to unlearn.
Because one of the most dangerous things I've seen is a combination of confirmation bias.
And arrested development.
Just hanging out with the same people that holiday in the same place and listen to the same music that you know, love jay Z, Beyonce Taylor, whoever, and they literally are in a bubble of extractive capitalist status quoism.
And my film is to gently but hold.
Your hand and pull you out of that room, you know, for you to look outside and realize that your reality is not built on anything outside of the blood and broken bones of brown and black. Usually at this point, if you're looking at your iPhones and your Tesla cars kids, because you look at Congo, you look at the new phones every September.
You look at the.
Fact that many of us don't realize that a lot of the things we're told to buy that we don't need, we don't even we're Christmas now, for God's sake, how many of us are still buying shopping.
I canceled Christmas, which is invest and Jerusalem, whereas right in Powerisi.
So it's a film about my life that helps you go on a journey of on learning and decolonizing yourself through my images. Listen, Edward lenningfil changed my life. When I became the first black man to shoot the cover of Vogue in twenty twenty, I could have just stayed on that lane and done pretty well for myself taking pictures of famous folk. I'm very proud of the humans.
That I've shot.
I'm very proud of how I shoot black people in particular because I have a lot of issues with the gaze of our people when they make us.
I thought she was saying the gays like g a y s And I was.
Like, what the gays have a problem with They haven't hurt anyone, you know, I'm talking more about the game.
Yes, I mean that was uninsecure, and that was like a really big issue with not issue, but that was a really big focus was like shooting black people properly, you know, and us being able to, like you said, not be purple.
Yeah.
And you know, if you look at most of the biggest this is American verge I'm talking about, they still in general use anileboits, and I'm always confused by that because there are plenty of black men and women, even in New York State. They can take a picture and I'm like, if you're going to shoot, you name it.
You know.
Most of the black covers sometimes I use Tyler Mitchell, which is great. He was the first black man to shoot the color he did Beyonce in twenty eighteen. But in general it's usually ani.
And I'm like, yeah, but people don't make demands. That's also part of the problem too. You know, we act as if we don't have agency, right I mean, and they don't want to lose an opportunity, so they're not going to make any changes. They're not going to make any challenges. And that's why people don't like me, because I'm going to be like no, or I'll do it if.
Like when I did Essence, I did a shoot for Essence in Grenada, and they wanted me to do my shoot at this hotel in Grenada that was built by an Egyptian man who does not live in Grenada, and he was able to get citizenship by doing so. He built a wall that impeded a view that Grenadians in that part of the island had of the sea for how many decades? And now he come under the wall.
The Grenadians came and teared dumb the wall. But then the government said, nah, man the man paid him, so he get a bill of the wall, and so he gets to build this wall. They had this hotel at the time. I don't know if it's changed yet, but at the time, it's not like they were using agriculture from the island. You know, it's not like they're actively in cohesion and symbiosis with the island, So why would I come and do my photo shoot for Grenada in
this hotel. There are hotels on the island that are owned by Grenadians. There are also hotels on the island that are staffed that may not be owned by a Grenadian, but are owned by people who actively pour back into the economy of Grenada. So I said, I'm not gonna do it unless I can do a shoot that is reflective of the island in the way that the people of the island want it to be reflected, which is
in its ecology. Right, It's strength. Its strength is in its ecology, and it's commit meant to it to preserve preservation of culture in ways that other islands unfortunately haven't been able to do because of the just impact of colonization. But like, I'm only bringing this up because they could have said no, and then I wouldn't have.
Yeah, but no, every I mean, look at it.
Simone Biles, for example, rights like, I don't know when she got that big cover.
You know, you mean the Simone Biles who cheered Wait wait, wait, you mean the Simone Biles who cheered of excitement and exaltation when there were three black women who were on the podium at Worlds. You mean that, Simone Biles, Like, I need y'all to stop giving these people passes, like they don't know what's up. Simone Biles is a black woman in gymnastics, and I will tell you now missing we have always been the because I was in gymnastics,
We're always the one black girl. You're always you mean someone Biles who comes from a foster home, whose mother could not have her and her whole siblings because she was an addict. Simone Biles is acutely aware of.
Race saying that, But I'm saying when.
She say, right, but you, for instance, had people telling you don't do Palestine, but you were like, hmmm, I can't know.
It's it's growth, it's growth, right, it's this years ago. You know, I don't think I would have been in this place. And I don't think you've always been in this place? Have you always been in this You just popped out like this, Wow, I've literally.
Always been like this. You can ask anyone. Like in high school, I led a whole movement in the theater program when the whites were mad because there were three black leads that were doing the Black leads in the shows. Ask anybody and they will tell you she's always been like this. But I also came from a home that was very like I grew up listening to Bob Marley, like that was my lullaby music, you know what I'm saying.
So I think that's just I think there's also something real about our DNA, you know, And what's what we show up with in our physical being and how that gets shaped and get what is the catalyst for that turning up? I mean, I'm still in touch with my first grade teacher who when we first got back in touch, she was like, I have a bone to pick with you.
I'm like, oh, my first grade teacher, I had a bone tom with me, and her bone was she said, in your comedy special, you said that you learned the Negro National Anthem in tenth grade, but you were singing the anth the Negro National Anthem in first grade. I had you all singing the Negro National Anthem in first grade. I had it up on the wall because she was like, I didn't want black children.
To be.
Like her. Majority of my school was black and Mexican, and she was like, and I didn't want y'all not knowing what the real deal is, even if I had to make you say the pledge of allegiance. So like, these types of things are instilled in you early and you know you either are able to carry them forth. But you know, Simone is a she's a young I wouldn't use her as an example just because you're right, she's a young person like she had at the time.
Also is a big American vote cover.
They would have told her it's a huge deal, and she probably would have been because it's outside of her world.
You know, I'm just I just folks had circles around them that we're on code, and so often we're not because the code is money, the code is access, the code is visibility, and I sacrificed that because that doesn't have value to me in the way that it did when I was like at one point, So even if I had been woke forever, I still had people around me that were like, you should do this, and then I'd have like, yeah, nah, But the people were still
around me though, you know, like because you're supposed to have been around you.
So why have we got from Langhares, from Nina Simone to Pharrell? Thing he doesn't well, you know what he said, why have we got in the seventies.
In the seventies we had the Black Power movement, but then we also had simultaneously the Southern Strategy and Nixon saying, what we're going to do is we are going to bring black people into capitalism, and instead of us actually shifting the systemic racism that takes place, we are going to sible them but surreptitiously treat it as a goal that they can achieve economic freedom and that they are now able to do so. And so that's what it became.
And then you put drugs in a community, and you give people the ability to capitalize at the same time as they're killing their own community. And you give these same people who you continuously you are continuously suppressing and oppressing. Right, So that's the thing. It's like, there's no, it's completely it makes perfect sense to me why you would have black capitalists because the oppression never stopped. So like the the seeing it happened in front of your face all
the time. Yeah, never stopped. And so you're like, well, I got to get out of this.
To get out of this, I had a lot of American brothers and sisters messaging me.
They were not upset that they were challenging.
I did a one hour interview on Middle East Eye and I brought up the fact that the NBA and NFL is a really good example of not us not recognizing our collective power.
That's nice, you know. You look at I don't know what percentage of the NFL is black, I mean.
Enough to say the vast majority.
Yeah, And I said, it's crazy to me that, you know, someone like Lebron James doesn't wake up and you know, and this is why they pay him and others so much. It's hard to have that bird's eye view perspective of saying, why don't we just go and raise the money ourselves and set up a co op set up only the European players, that the white players that are good at using European they're going to come with us.
Anyway, right and have real ownership.
And then you look at the NFL, which in many ways is even worse because so many of the owners of the NFL teams are just.
Just read this comment. This is what this is how we get for RELs.
I see Lord, and he has Lord in his name. I see and love. But this is, but is it a human or bot?
I mean it doesn't It doesn't matter because they'll still be humans that respond to the bot. Right, But this is very much the thought process. Just shut up and get your money, m don't.
Yeah, hm, well, I mean getting them yeah, And that's that's the that's what because.
You know the other part of the of the of the NBA in the NFL is that many of them, more NFL than NBA, are shaped by white.
Men in their young lives in coaches, yeah, who do not have the politics that recognizes the humanity of black and brown bodies, which is which I.
Find so interesting. Right if you and then you look at the quarterbacks, like I'm forty seven, I you know, we didn't have black quarterbacks to what nineties.
Nineties like when Mike Nick was a quarterback, people were like, this is impossible.
Yeah, because we were the Bucks, right you shut up?
Well they said they literally said we're not smart enough, not and read the ship said we're not smart enough.
Yeah yeah, And so I say that, I say, I say, actually, you know that the structure, the power structure on the field was plantation based as so as I'm concerned, right, And people like what are you talking about it?
I'm like, better look at it. Just look at it. And how do we have the level.
Of wealth that is in the NBA in terms of fifty million, one hundred million, And you're telling me ten players couldn't get together and buy a major chunk of the team.
You know, I think they're like three.
Owners and those are you know, the the you know, the Michael Jordan's and the Yeah, you.
Know if you like Claren Kaepernick kneeled for awareness around police brutality and the entire league didn't kneel with him.
And then as life, I mean you know that they have they even Spike Lee's doc. Have they pulled it? I don't think that's coming out.
I didn't even know it existed.
There's a big doc Spike's been doing for a long time on Caps Life, and I don't We'll see.
HBO has just been bought, so we'll see.
But I heard it's not, well did it get bought?
There's a new offer? Right? I thought it was. Yeah.
I'm talking about it a little later Larry Ellison and Oracle, So tell me this in this climate, how is it different in Britain in terms of creating if at all because in the United States it's become damn near impossible for folks who want to create in the network system or in the studio system, you can't. You're not going to be able to create anything that is subversive, let
alone that is that is black, let alone subversive. Right, Like, I grew up seeing so much black creativity, and it's been withered and withered and withered to the point now where when I am scrolling, I genuinely don't see much of anything. And when I do see black people, we're in movies about cops or we're in movies about politic Yeah, So I'm curious in the British side of things what it looks like.
Well, I think in the traditional mechanisms of I mean, it's all about money, right, Who's going to commission what? And you know, the first one I made with Netflix was because it was a guy. You know, it was a black woman, Fiona Lambty, that was head of commissioning. He then has left, right, And I think a lot of people are realizing that, and I think Gaza has everything to do with it, because there's a renaissance of what the consumer wants to see. So if you look
at their three films out Voice of Hand. All this leftters you and the Palestine thirty six. They're selling out in every single cinema, right. They all had to hustle like phone calls from uncles, aunties, rich rich every rich friends that you think care, and they have the film's finance. But what they've did all of those films outside the studio system. Watermelon Pictures has been set up, yes, which is which which my film has?
They have a global rights to my film? Right people?
And what what I've learned, it's incredible because they're saying they're saying, we're just going to look at the blueprint of what has been done for the last hundred years, but do it with a with a with.
A global lens, and the consumer wants it.
So what's going to happen now is that people are going to be flying to meet banks in the global South, to meet culture funds. I know three culture funds which I can't speak about, that are being set up by people of color. Right, there are parts of the Arab world that are like, oh, we shook we you know, we've been buying football teams, We've been buying useless truthts. We're not going to make that mistake again. For the price of two yachts, we can have ten years of
podcast being commissionedly, TV shows, films. So that's all been built now and I think a lot of folks that know how to move and where to move are going to be finding pockets of fiscal availability outside of the European and North America.
And making things. This is the other thing.
Making the films that we never got to see Palistin thirty six feels huge, right, but it is just one story. And how many films have we seen about Laverture and the Haitian Revolution, How many films have we seen about the Congo genocide and Leopold? How many films have we seen about the Mau Mau massacre. How many films have we seen about the Bengal famine.
I can go on all day.
People want to see that, and they're now going to be made and we don't have to ask permission of racist usually men that are sitting in their la offices trying to think that we are the only gatekeepers that you know, allow us to tell our stories. And you know, Tyler Perry, movies get made. Oprah is allowed to do what she does for a reason. You know, you know, we have to ask ourselves. No, but I know why
hasn't Tyler can make a movie about Lubata? So Oprah could financial movie about you know, the the Dema Mile massacre, right, I.
Mean you would think they did roots, you know, for the and it's like how many times we're going to do ruths? How much news? There's there's new knowledge about old things that need to be shared. And we don't even have any history after nineteen forty five here in the United States, Missen, you would think that nothing happened after nineteen forty five, Like Martin Luther King was alive and then he died, not assassinated, he.
Died Like I mean, I've just got that book, have you? Did you get the book without Sanctuary? Have you got that book yet?
No? Without Sanctuary?
I mean, America is so fucked up about the Christmas the lynching Christmas cards. You're well, not you, but Americans used to send themselves. So it's it's an extraordinary book that goes into detail. I mean, this was this was a real practice where someone would send a relatively picture of a lynched black woman or black man as a Christmas card and somebody needs to do no no, and someone needs to do the documentary. And I know people don't want to see it, but I think of him
every day. I don't want to get emotional now, but I think of George Stinney Junior every day. And Ava Devernet touched on it. But he needs his story told properly, you know, and people sometimes.
Argue whether whether the Bible bit is true.
You know that he was too small, so they made him sit on the Bible before the electrocuted him. You know, youngest person to be electrocuted.
I don't even it.
Doesn't matter they eecuted. They electrocuted a child in America for a crime that he did not commit. And that story, outside of little mini ten minute segments, has never been told. So yeah, that you're right. There are stories to be told and it's not And people say, oh, I'm tired of all the trauma and blah blah blah. Listen, if we talk about how many movies have been made about a singular story, I think of all the history lessons I had at school.
They're just telling me the same story.
I know more. I know more about the Holocaust than I did about my own people I could tell you about Crystal knocked, the Nuremberg Trials. I can tell you about the Warsaw Ghetto, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. I can tell you about Dahaw and Auschwitz and.
Many great films, many many great films.
No, but I'm telling you I knew that from school. I knew that from school. I can sing the Drado song, Oh, Drado, Dradel Dradol, I made it out of clay. I can do all of that. However, I didn't do the Zionism.
Do they teach you about Congo, Congo, about Leopold? Okay, we didn't learn.
About I mean, we barely learned that Africa existed.
So they didn't talk about ten million jenes, No, ten million hands being chopped off with kids, none of that.
None of it. We haven't in the United States. I mean, you have to really be intentional about your children or yourself learning the length that this nation has gone to exhibit harm against everybody who is not wife. And then you go to a whole other level to see who the whites that they exhibited harm against because they wasn't
working with the Appalachians. Yeah, and so you know, we find ourselves at this really important zenith where which is why I refer to myself as an artistic intellectual, where the necessity for art to educate is again back to It's no longer just like a subcategory. I feel like it needs to be the category that we're creating in, you know, because like for a lot of time, it's felt like, you know, can't we just have like a feel good film? No, no, no?
And also I don't know how you know.
In thet I've got a big exhibition of my photographs and again everyone's like saying, miss and put the BLM stuff, put the climate, put the quip. You're going to do so well, the art world's going to love you. I'm like, it's fifty images of Palestinian solidarity and resistance on three continents, because that has been of my lifetime. This the biggest single protest movement that I've ever witnessed with my lens.
And again I put it all in a black owned gallery and it's become the busiest gallery show.
In London by quite a mile.
But the big bart is I'm in a position that I can force that issue to happen. The bigger question is if you look at the top ten black artists in the world. You know, what's the term they use, blue chip artists. What are they saying about the world as we know what?
No, no, no, I have to say, they'll be showing at the Goggenheim, and they'll be showing here. But if your revolutionary work m makes rich folk comfortable.
At the same time, then it makes them.
Richer well as an asset class. Yes, of course, you know, yes, of course.
And but but the thing about art is that when it's really dangerous is when it goes beyond that and that the people want it, then it becomes part of the zeigeist anyway, right, And I think I never waited to ask permission to do any of the things that I'm doing in terms of you know, if I have There's there's an image I have in the gallery that says fuck white privilege, with a woman wearing a mask saying Trump stinks. And somebody walks in saying, you know what,
why would you have this in an exhibition? And I said, for the very reason that you have the infantry to sit there as a white person and ask me why I would have that in an exhibition is the reason why it has to be in the exhibition.
And now go do the work on yourself, right, you know.
So I don't know how it is in America, but I think the museum system is the gallery system. A lot of people that are black, that are doing.
Very well, are very, very scared.
That's why Amy Sherrold is just a legend because she's like, no, you're not going to do that to me.
You know, she found a she.
Found a space where her work could breathe and be what it's supposed to be.
They are not many Amy Cheryl's out there.
I'll tell you, well, that's what you were saying before though, right, I mean like there there's like little pepperings of us in various spaces. And why that's also why it's so imperative that we all remain connected. And and to ask you.
What was your your lowest point in the last two years, because I know you've been vocal about all of this for a long time before October, but I know for most people it became I mean, I look at I mean at Miss Ray was hiring security now, right, I mean it's just out of control. Was there a time in the last two years where not because people are necessarily after you, but the pure medieval violence reigned upon men, women,
and children, but particularly children. For me, was there a moment where You're just like, I don't know what to do or say anymore?
February of twenty twenty. For I remember, I was just talking about this last night with my homegirl. I was I was sitting in my car in my garage. I
had just come home. I was sitting in my car, I was on the pull with my homegirl, and I remember just sitting in the garage at the dark, talking to her and saying like, I just can't get like, I don't want to kill myself, but it feels like I'm dead, Like it feels like death, Like I feel like I know what death is, and I am in a cloud every single day, like the depression of But
it wasn't. And the thing about it is that it was more, Actually, if this is even possible, it was more than simply just the images that I was seeing out of Palestine. It was also simultaneously really understanding the complete deprivation of the nation that I'd lived in, of the system that I'd been supporting, so somewhat, you know, even on a democrat level of the world, and so it was a complete ego death of what I knew or thought I knew. But it was also a complete
death of my existence, you know. So, I mean, it's just like watching Alderan be eviscerated and I I could. I mean, people saw me crying on Instagram every day that was and I had to get on Lexapro. I mean I had to get on because I just realized, like I mean, I developed ibs. Like I mean, it was just like you can't can't manage like and I had to really meet myself at the reality of like, you can't manage and you are dealing with a force that is not something you're making up.
That is well organized, incredibly unemotional, and in his long term intention to do what it needs.
I mean, it's it's straight up Star Wars.
And but the thing that makes us so much worse than Star Wars, apart from it being real, is that the you know that there was something it's been removed from the Internet is I can't find it anymore. Of a child that was in the rubble and she you could only see her head and the guys couldn't dig her out. She was in a position that they couldn't dig her out, and they knew that she was dying, and they knew she didn't.
Have long and they talked to her.
And then one of the guys was playing with her hair, my sister, and she was there's something she didn't know she was dying, you know.
And they were having and I locked myself.
I have two little girls. I loved myself in the toilet. And you know, there's there are different types of crying, right. There's the kind of tears rolled down and you're like, you know, and then there's like I do that a lot, but this is the first time I can remember, at least in my adult life, no I wailed.
I wailed.
I I sounded like like an animal. It was it wasn't I didn't sound like you know. And and then then from that wailing, I would then go into one of because I wear many hats, right, a work environment surrounded by people that are trying to tell me that this is exactly how it's supposed to be, and that can make that can I can see why people lose their minds, you know.
Yes, it's.
Because it's you know, and this is why it's so necessary to keep making the things right. And doing the things, and I I'm going through that now with Sudan and the Couzo and hearing the stories that are coming out of there are a whole other level of retrobate. Reprobate. So it's it's you know, and you're you're trying to somehow. I feel like we're having to create a cellular capability that allows us to see it and it's horror without
becoming calloused. And thus, like the processing of it has to be not how do I not feel when I see this? But how do I become action oriented when I see this? Cons Yeah, it's a conscious decision I've had to make around how to take in this this information, you know. And then you see people like Hillary Clinton and Sarah Horowitz running around talking about, well, you know, the problem is really that people are watching TikTok, not the fact that there's aside happening.
It's not the bombs. Yeah, and the arrogance. This is the thing about confirmation bias, her level of arrogance. And you know, when you see someone like her saying and she's fundamentally saying that when it all boils down to it, the only answer is violence. She can use all the you know finery that you know it's she's just saying the bombs have to drop and they have to continue dropping. And the the pure white supremacist viewpoint of her world is extraordinary to me that she can sit. And the
second interview she did, the guy actually tried. He tried to push back and he goes, yeah, but what about the baby? I mean he tried and she's like, well, war is war?
I'm like, is it.
Is that?
What's happening in Ukraine?
Hmm, don't let me start with that.
I called I'm ambassador to Save the Children and I got very frustrated with UNICF. So the two biggest charities, not with UNISF but because there's some amazing people a UNICEF, but the biggest ambassador for UNISF from a British point of view is somebody called David Beckham. I'm sure you've heard of and I remember the vocal Well, he wasn't doing anything like that for the last two years for Palestinian kids, yet he was incredibly vocal for Ukrainian children.
And I don't mind if you're rich, I don't mind if you're famous. You can get on with your life and enjoy it. But if you choose, and this is where we get into an issue with me, if you choose to be a children's good will ambassador, right, and there's a place that is the size of a postage lamp with a million children, that has had six Hiroshimas dropped on it, and you haven't said anything, and your good will ambassador for the biggest children's charity in the world.
I have a problem with you. Either you relinquish that or you these children. And I will say, I just need your voice, just speak, say something. It really matters in the British cultural setup. He is someone that he can get a meeting within one hour with the Prime Minister.
This is the way things are set up, right. It is what it is.
There's something you know, You've got your knighthood, you've got all your things, but you see you are still as children's ambassador. And I found it extraordinary to me the amount of good will ambassadors for children in the last two years that were completely and utterly mute in the biggest attack on children that we have we have seen in the generation.
You know, just just because white children's ambassadors, they're they're they're ambassadors in really just the regard of and they may not even know this, but they're really just tools for soft power, because a lot of the actual services being provided to the children that they are the ambassador for are done so with an attachment to some level of leverage or leverage or power that is being carried out.
So like when you see someone like Bill Gates or you see the United States government somewhere helping, it's never done in altruism. It's never done in altruism. It's always done in an exchange of power, whether it's militarized or economic.
Right.
So then you they get celebrities who come on board to be the children's ambassadors, which sounds very noble and very like weak care. And those celebrities don't realize that while they are simultaneously also building up their own face and their own you know, report reputation for being a good person, they are actively supporting systems that are in place to actually diminish these people's safety. So it's a part of the NGO, you know, nonprofit system that really
does not seek to solve problems. So I'm feeling particularly skeptical today, so cynical today. So you're getting a lot of you're getting all the no.
But you know, we've you're not you know, we've we've this two years. You know.
I I look back and I think none of us, none of us, are ever going to be the same, you know, the whatever whatever veil that was on. For me, it's just all gone right and I'm not alone. But what's amazing is that a lot of other people. And this is what gives me hope, because sometimes you're like, where's the hope? Where's is a lot of people. I beginning to go on a journey to like, oh ship
the Democrats, the Republicans just bomb everyone. That being right or center or left, depending on where you live doesn't mean that you're not bombing people. And then you because I remember one of the big wake up calls for me was I'm not American, but I I will say that if I was, I would be obviously a progressive, left leaning Democrat. And I'm like, how can I you know, I watch Joe Biden.
But even that's not enough.
Go on, Pam saying that, But everything you.
Just said, that's not even a thing like, that's not being a progressive, left leaning Democrat. You're still a part of the liberal system that upholds all the ship.
No, that's that's the thing that I think.
If I was American, my wake up call to that would have been the Biden administration in the last eighty years.
I see, I see, and I think, Okay, so you know what, I agree with you, because I not agree. It's not the word I was there. I was. I was that person.
Hm.
Then the Thomas Greenfield like, you know, Auntie, I did a post saying, am I going to tell my daughters this is the sort of person that I used to think I would tell my daughters about for them to look up to, right? And I'm like, what am I going to say? And I had a whole bunch of folks get in the comments saying, miss and have you looked at her? CV, it's better to have one of us in the room, And I said, no, it's not. If that is erasing a people, then I don't want any of us in it, right, or.
Or even better, the person that was in it.
If they want greatness, right, if it's about the cult of individualism, if they want legend, resign exactly. Pamla Harris if she had resigned saying this this a crazy old man. I can't deal with him, resign. Do not wheel out Bill Clinton too, dearborn and have him say things to Arab Americans like Judaean Samaria, are you mad?
Are you mad?
Bring go and bring a palace in the person, Bring a progressive Jewish person, bring them together, stand there and saying this, we need to cease fire. This is if you if you don't at that stage once you use the word genocide, but you can use all kinds of
ethnic cleansing other terms. But do not wheel out Clinton to a place with more Arab Americans than anyone else and expect that anyone under twenty five is going to care any white, black, brown people that are just on the side of like this is this is crazy.
And of course any traumatized Arabs who are in diaspora seeing children in their image of their limbs removed being eaten by dogs. This is not dogs. What do we what do you know? Anyway, So that's what you do instead of us saying, no, we celebrate any of us that are in the room. Which room. If the room is just ripping with blood, why should we be inside?
Well, that's what Martin Luther King said. Doctor Doctor Martin Luther King Junior said, you know, I feel like I've integrated my people into a burning house. And what he meant by that was he thought that the United States had some level of moral code and it does not, and so he has literally ushered his people into an immoral, unethical space where they are now going to be used against themselves.
And that's what happened. Money Mayweather.
Oh, I mean he can't even read, so he's probably got so much ct.
No.
So we have one question from our bridge across the pond, Reese, who asks a pleasure to witness this conversation. Also, mister Harriman, I'm friends with Nadia so Wilha and Mark, So this is wondrous intersection going to the new year. Do you have any further activism projects?
Yeah, Nadia is a Jordanian British treasure.
So is her amazing husband Mark.
She has been a real deal since the very beginning. I have photographed her reading the names of murdered children outside the houses of Parliament. I love that woman with all my heart. Yeah, look, I've got my projects. Why
why photographed black children with down syndrome? So I'm trying to find a way to so again with my lens, I point to communities and places that don't always get the recognition I've had the honor of photographing so even within Down syndrome, they have just in general, they raised black children right, and I don't know if you know, Down's children are all angels, and to have black babies with Down's big, you know, photograph of me, it was more important to me than any celeb that I've ever shot.
So I'm trying to make sure We've done a few little shows and exhibitions, but that's a big program that I'm trying to reach others. I'm trying to get into Sudan. I'm trying to get into Congo with my camera.
I was in Somalia and Hiro.
With some of the projects that I'm working on, it's getting harder and harder for me to get into certain places. I want to get to the West Bank, but I'm on a very very very very naughty list with you know who. My safety isn't guaranteed there that I'm just going to keep pointing my lens and then I'm shooting my next my next movie as well, so trying to.
Keep are you allowed to talk about that? Are not allowed? But are you interested?
What two things I'll say about films.
The one that I'm hoping to shoot next year is is.
About addiction and redemption.
In a in a forgotten America, starring a major one of the great actors of our time, a black man.
That's all I can say.
The second one, which is in development and you'll love this, And I'm developing a movie about a Beyonce level pop star that has her private jet. Let's say she's in grenade or whatever. It stops working and she's without her team. She's stuck in an island and she goes down a reddit rab at hole and realizes that she is literally the face of capitalism of a supremacist ecosystem from Fast Fashion. And it's a comedy akin to Don't Look Up and Don't Remember.
Where.
The movie basically starts with her being isolated, gone down a rabbit hole, and she tweets free Palestine, Free Sudan, and free Congo and it's like deaf Con seven, like they call the presidents and call the President, And it's about what the team in New York and LA are trying to do to mitigate this, and the journey that this pop star has on realizing the inherent power of this immense.
Audience that they've been given.
Because this is why I keep bringing up celebrities, you see, It's that, not because I see them as some messianic figures, is that they won the land grab of the real ESTs state that for now we're stuck with. If you look at the top ten most followed people on Instagram alone, it is four Kardashians, three or four footballers, Taylor, Beyonce, what have you, And the total following is almost four
billion people right now. This is this is obscene. And they they they can literally once a week do a post with a fundraiser, right that could raise more money than every single humanitarian organization can find. And they wouldn't have to leave their bedrooms. Okay, so I'm not asking them to become revolutionaries at the tip of the spear of any movement. I'm saying, now you've got the land grab usurp it and then use it. And you're too rich to be to even need to be worried about
being canceled. How can you cancel Jay Z and Beyonce?
Oh well, and Swiss beats, you know, I look at Alicia Keys and Swiss beads, you know, Swiss Beads is out here being Muslim, you know, with the name uh.
Came.
He grew up in that in that context. His name is Cassim, his son's name is Cassim. And they have not said anything because they will get phone calls or they'll lose their money, et cetera. You know, and Alicia Keys loves to talk about you know, civil rights and blah blah blah, and some people will say, well, maybe they're doing stuff in the background. And I guess what I would say now is that the days of doing
stuff in the background is no longer. Uh it's it's it's we cannot continue to support surreptitious support because you're if you're actively also supporting in silence.
And you cannot have hundreds of millions of followers and not use that.
It's like.
It's like you have this reach Muhammed Ali, for example, before social media. And this is what Mayweather has always got frustrated about in terms of not being called the graces, is that most people today, if you see posts about Ali, it's not him fighting in the ring.
No, it's him with Malcolm X, it's him schooling apolous white interviewer. You know it's him talking about being a person a faith of character, right of revolutionary radical mindsets to this day that to this day, we're the right moves, you know what I mean? Like, there's no there hasn't been like some you know, some type of epiphany where people are like, man, he made the wrong choice. No, he was actually right the whole time, with.
His whole chest on prime time.
Right, And this is this is exactly what a Pharral or a jay z Shtoot you would think at this stage in their career, like what are they upholding? What are this this they play? I get I almost understand playing the game to get there, But when you are in the room, the whole point is to remember why you wanted to get in that room.
Right, But then you try to open a casino in the middle of New York City. So, and people will say, but they also do good things, and I'm just like, why can't you just do good things? Why? Why? Why is why is there like a give and take? Why why I don't understand that?
So and even for the passign.
Now, you know, if people say, well, you know, black folks talk about black folks, then they should talk about congo and how about that.
Fine, And you can't talk about the Congo and Sudent without yes, yes, but.
No, no, no, no, your too ill to advance.
You're both from iOS three to fourteen.
Listen, listen, thank you so much for joining U.
My pleasure, my pleasure, thank you so much. Just before
I go, I will say this about Congo. Imagine if jay Z, I don't know doctor dre Pharrell pulled up Tim Cook at Apple and said, Tim, you have one trillion dollars cash reserves, it would be a rounding era to set up a thirty billion dollar fund to make sure that no child under eighteen is anywhere near the mining system, right, to make sure all the schools, hospitals are built, roads built, that the best conga lese mines in country and in diaspora are leading this charge in
making sure a country that should be richer than Saudi Arabia, that is fueling the future.
This aik would say.
Tim Cook would say, I don't have the power because and that's and that's the other part is that the people that we think are running the show ain't even running the goddamn show.
True, But if you had Lebron jay Z, the people that shape culture actually speak in one voice about this thing. It will I think it would trying.
To get into but this is the thing, Like I don't even want I don't I actually don't want them to just speak. Like what what made Princess Diana so you know, crazy to the to the monarchy was that she physically went mm hmm, you know, like she physically went and spoke to people. She physically went and walked through the land mines and apparently Palestine was next on her agenda, and they took her out. I believe that they took her out. It's alleged, but that's my belief.
I say that to say it actually isn't enough for them to just go to Tim Cook. I think that there's something very real about the fact that these people have the money and the safety and the capabilities to.
Bring things to a yeah, to do them. I forgot how wealthy they are. I mean like.
It's like next level the wealth is next level the wealth.
Yeah, I know we're going to go. You're amazing. Are you ever in London?
I would like to be. I would like to be. I need to be. I need to be. I need to be on more international spaces and whatnot. So I am trying to do more podcasts from you know, having and not just like in an ambitious mindset, but in a we need to be having like these cross connection cost cultural conversations. Part of what has been so problematic in the United States is that we've really been siloed and that has limited our ability to be useful for
not only ourselves but for the world. And so there has to be a geopolitical consciousness that is actively pursued. So I'm making up my business to try to have more conversations outside of the United States sphere. And so if you know any podcasts on the international stage that you think I should connect with, let me know.
Of course, of course thank you for having me.
Thank you.
So I wouldn't say I won't.
Say happy Holidays, because I genuinely think it is this time where we need to recognize that eighty Congo, Sudan, Palestine. This is the time you need to think about what you're going to do about it. Whilst you're a home over fed think about it. For me, my film Watermelon Pictures, just follow them. They're gonna, you know, show put it in the chat.
So he'll put it in the chat. Again y'all, and thank you so much for the work that you do. And yeah, let's let's continue you and Mason stops sending me to the eleven dms. Let me tell y'all something, Masan is gonna send you every.
Post so you know, you know, when I meet someone that is on my spectrum, I love it right because there's a friend of Michael, Lisa Morris, so she sends even more.
Than I do. I have no I can't.
I mean, I just no, no, no. Honestly, when I read your in your your IG bio today, I was like, oh, that's why.
Fully, I'm not trying to that's me trying to limit myself.
I respect it. I respect it. I'm telling you. Once I saw the bio today, I was like, oh, I get it now. I understand where a can mine is more compartmentalized. I have very specific people that I send specific things, Like some people they get all posts that I see about mushrooms. One person he gets anything I see about firefliesse I know he loves fireflies. My homeboy Luke is going to get anything that is wizards, Lord of the Ring and animals being cool. And it's very
very specific. I used to send somebody whales, but they fell off my list, so no more whale posts. It just is what it is.
Oh gosh, well that makes me feel a little better.
What Oh you felt bad? I'm sorry, apologies. I wasn't trying to. I was just skipping. I was just having a laugh.
You know that.
I absolutely love the idea that no one can pretend to be who they're not online, Like, if.
You look at the behavior of all of us, it's us. It's us, right, you know, like it is who you are. And I love what people pretend like they think that they're it's us.
They're playing there, they think they're playing five D chess. No, no, no, no, no, it's just you. Excuse well. I'm glad we got to meet digitally. I look forward to us meeting in person.
Absolutely.
I will make it my business to watch the film now that I actually it's like when I'm home, I don't get time to do anything. When I'm on the road is when I actually get to because I just between doing things, I'm like, oh, I can watch stuff. So I will be watching the film.
Before my film. Watch the Voice of head Red, please please watch.
Note all right, and then
Spot by the end