Sabotage or Critique

Shout out to Principle Spain who invited me. It's such a it was such a dope event, right, And I think it's like I said, I think it should be something that's implemented all around the city. Like, you know, I think just seeing that presence of men in the school greeting, you know, just showing that their presence, like it's because it's so absent, it's not something that's normal, but it's should be normal. Right, Like I felt good

watching these kids, they've seen us. They excuse me to him music playing, We hugged some of them, We gave him high fives. It was just an energy, you know, and doing that like once a month. Yeah, you're giving him a vibe. It's like the school feels protected, right, you feel you feel connected to the school, the community. Brothers coming out of the community start paying attention. You know.

It makes people who would seek to do anything negative around that looks from somewhere else to go because they realized there's a presence around there that's not gonna you know, tolerated. So I think it's something that you know, we should look for, you know, to get done in schools or in the city. Well, I think two things. One that's what I was talking about, you know, in reference to

the interview, Um, I'm excuse me. The conversation we had last week on the white man fighting the kid, or you know, him not fighting the kid, beating up a child because he bought his kid to fight another child of white kid against the black child. And then of course when the black kid got the best of his child, he got frustrated, jumped in and put his hands on a kid, which he shouldn't have. And that was my whole point about fathers, you know, being present. I think

it will really really help us. And you don't have to be someone's biological parents to show up and present the fatherhood that we need in communities. So I think that's great, And I think the second point is that the culture is not gonna just change on its own.

We literally have to force a shift by actively doing things, whether it's in music, art, entertainment, you know, just everyday life, everything we do in education, everywhere we go, and everything we do, even the what we eat, what we're feeding ourselves, what we're saying on social media, how we're presents in every space. We have to be intentional about shifting this culture because people have gotten really comfortable for the last two years three years with stupid ship. I keep saying,

stupid ship is the is my type? What's that's my own? What do you call a term that I'm using for so many things that's going on right now, And I don't think it's gonna just change. We've got to make it change. Yeah, we gotta be intentional. You know, I coined the frame. I've coined the phrase coward culture and coward culture and stupid ship. That's that's unto the way. Now, excuse street politicians has two phrases that you can depend on us to say coward culture by my son Linnen

and stupid ship by Jaminamality. Yeah, and that's what it is. Man. So shout out to the brother and shout out to Derek, Shout out to Billy all other brothers who came out, you know and represented man. It was a dope e vat cool whoa that? I love it. I love it. So while you all were out there at the school with the young people, the the Attorney General of New York, Leticia Jane Letitia Jamesia as we call her, she did a thing which was to bring charges against uh, you know,

Donald Trump, and not just him. His kids are in then in in the the charges. They are all a part of the case. And you know, I listened to the press conference, which is not something that I would generally do because I'm so over Trump, because I don't really think that it will result in anything seriously happening to him. But you know, maybe a black woman will

get it done. Um. But you know, as I was listening to what he did in terms of in inflating his income, um, you know, claiming to have more money and for his properties to be evaluated at higher prices. So no matter what if the auditors and the appraisers said two hundred million dollars. When the paperwork was filed or when they applied for loans, it was at five hundred,

five hundred and fifty. I'm talking about not like twenty dollars, thirty dollars, even a hundred mill We're talking about hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars that he was inflating his numbers per the charges and that she's put forward. And of course his children running the companies. In order for him to be able to do that,

they would have to be a part of it. Um, running the companies, the buildings, all the things, and even even the size of his apartment at Trump Towers was like say eleven thousand square feet or eleven hundreds square feet or something some number like that. And instead I think they may have, um, you know, submitted paperwork that said it was like fifty on some you know, some crazy, crazy, crazy numbers. Don't quote me on the numbers. Make sure

you read the article. But the point is that he what they were doing was just so blatant, right and and and and at one point I was listening, I'm like, damn, like this is really crazy, Like somebody needs to go to jail. And then I realized the brother learned this stuff from his daddy. This is what I'm like, who like, how we need to it's some other people that need to go down because they've been doing this. This is

he this is a strap. They've been doing this. Black men ain't gonna over say, black man gonna say, I'm gonna put about an extra ten feet or so tight, I'm gonna put by an extra thousand couple of dollars on it. These things just what I'm saying, we got we're doing it wrong. Man, were like, no, listen what I'm trying to tell you, man, we ain't even stealing right.

The crime that we do don't even make sense. These things just figure out how to make two or the million, and we're still the couple of thousands, two thousand, maybe fifty hundreds of millions. And the benefit that they received is that if they inflate the numbers, it puts them in a different tax bracket, and they're gonnay all of these allotments, and you know, it breaks tax breaks and and you get all of these benefits of having more,

because that's how capitalism works. The more you have, the less you have to pay in taxes, and the more benefits and perps you get from the system. So it's crazy. We'll see what happens, you know. All I know is I prayed for uh, for the turn to a G's life,

and I hope that she is well protected. Um And you know, there have been times and it's you know, you know, it's certainly know um secret about it, but there have been times when I've been saying, Tish, I don't like you know what you're doing, you know, And we've challenged her on many issues, and so it's not so much that um, I think that she you know it. Well, let's put it this way. This political space is very, very complicated. It's so many different complications and speaking of that,

that goes to our next subject. But it's very complicated. But I I also understand that certain things that you have to do or that you choose to do as an elected official, and particularly a black elected official, it takes courage because you literally get yourself killed anything you have going on. If Pooky and your family got some stuff going on, it's gonna become your problem. Um. You know, it can, really it can you can really be damaged in a lot of ways for trying to stand up

against the system. So you know, shout out to her for that, and hopefully something comes out of it, because Trump is just running wild and no one is doing anything about it. But then I hope after she finishes with Trump that she moves on to some other landlords in New York who are doing just the same as some other millionaires. Uh So, speaking of politics, Hurricane Fiona and Puerto Rico is like crazy, right, God bless the people Puerto Rico, very similar to Haiti. It's just like you.

It doesn't doesn't stop, it just keeps coming. And then you have at this simultaneously the water crisis in Jackson, which Jackson is not alone. Even in North New Jersey there have been reports of water issues and there are other states and cities across the country that have issues with water. Um, but Jackson is is in the center of attention right now. We um ship five thousand dollars, I mean, get five thousand dollars worth of water to

Jackson State University. UM. We are involved in some events, just actually attended an event, uh to support the people of Jackson. And the thing what comes to my mind is how much we as all kinds of people, not just black people, but a lot of different people who don't pay attench to the news and this and that,

or people who feel like politics is too much. We really don't understand, as we've talked about on the show many times, and we had to show what we talked about it with Tesla and Figura of Straight Shot No Chaser. Everything is political. Water is political. How you get hurricanes and how they hit and what type of damage happens, and then what they do immediately afterwards to try to

preserve lives that's political. And where you are located in the in the country, where you are prioritized on the list of the political uh whatever political political priorities basically right, which means you've got money or you've got something that benefits the politicians, not just they're gonna take care of your community because they should. It doesn't work like that, unfortunately. There's got to be something. Either you're voting your you're

you're investing by giving donations. There's got to be something. You're making noise, you protest, and you've got to be leaned in in order to get the services that you

need from this political system. So to sit outside of it and a hurricane hits and you want to make sure that your community is it's protected, you better be on the ground busting ass telling them that you want the resources necessary because when hurricane there are certain things that need to be done to protect your community so that when a hurricane hits, it doesn't damage as much as you know, from an infrastructure perspective, as much as

as they could. And then of course things like water, making sure you have clean water, clean pipes like Front Michigan. All of that is political because people are making decisions about it. I have to, you know, And that's what I'm saying. People that are trying to circumvent on act like the process they don't want to be involved in. Like if you ain't at the table, you want the menu, man. You know. So when we look at these situations and we constantly see the same areas, you know, I know

it's geographical. Stop that, you know, you can't really stop that, But there has to be some something that we can do from a governmental perspective that makes it okay since we already know the geographical you know, situation that they're dealing with, and knowing that they're highly likely to deal

with these hurricanes and these tropical storms. What what systems are we gonna sit in place to be able to help them, to to prevent, to do things that you know that we're already that we ain't behind the eight ball, and people are losing their lives and losing their homes and losing their property so rapidly, and we don't have anything set up. So I think we got to look into that. I think people have to be very intentional.

I think all of those cities and states and countries who who live in those areas that are prone to deal with those mass destructions from hurricanes and trafical storms should have things in place. And I always say that, remember your why the same places keep getting hit and having the same You know, how can we already know that Haiti has that they are earthquakes and stuff happened there? Right?

We know that, we know that there as many environmental challenges and we know that and punished, so you know that. I mean, that's a whole other thing. But I'm just saying again, it's political. It's who you have in office, it's your relationship to America. Unfortunately, and other very powerful nations around the world. It's so much that's involved with it, and you definitely have to understand the politics of how even in New Orleans, if you notice black people live

and lower um what do they they call it? Something? I think make sure that that we talk about this again. People who have more resources, they live higher up. So when the storms come, it impacts the people living in the lower belly of the the of Louisiana and of New Orleans. So this is very it's geographical, but it's

also designed by um, you know. I guess we just have to say racism, because racism is what puts us in certain communities and sort of keeps us in poverty and in areas that we can't necessarily get out of. And they haven't done anything in terms of making sure what I mean. There's been some infrastructure stuff done with the levies, but it clearly it hasn't been enough. So anyway, it's all political. Every yeah, you do politics or politics

would do you? That's right. You saw the woman king and I was all in the uproar about people online suggesting it be boycott, and so we've been trying to figure out, first of all, what are they talking because I don't you know, I'm not gonna sit here and say everybody that's talking is wrong, because you know, sometimes you can get different perspectives. But we did our little bit of research. We discussed it. They said one too many feminine men, that the male characters were feminized. Did

you see that? I seen one one guy? You saw one man? Right? But did you see what? The question I asked was It said the male characters with an S were feminized? Did you feel that there was a lot I didn't agree with that, Okay, it was it was I felt I felt like they were just men and women. That's me. But you know, wherever I thought they were masculine women? How about that? Nothing? Anyway, next thing was women and men were pitted against one another.

And then then they talked about the history. So the history component is important, right because there are some people who did just because it's coming out of Hollywood, they don't want to have anything to do with it because they don't trust the narratives about you know, stories about

our people. But there are different debates on the history, and we're gonna talk about the specifics of it during the the interview that we're doing with our guests, but from I want to know, you know, because I thought maybe I was tripping and the question that I'm asking, are we sabotaging because it was another movie? What was the name of the other movie that they were talking about boycott? What was Harriot? Dark skinned characters, dark skinned

black women characters? And Viola Davis has been talking about that, so they were saying that. Then I figured, am I crazy? But I wanted you and everybody else on our team to see it and give your feedback. And no one said this film should be boycotted. No, I don't. I don't see any reason. I didn't see a reason for having to be boycotted. You know, I think people are people are are so gun hold on trying to tear things down, like that's what it is to me, Like

historical there are different historical facts. But when we have movies, you know, there's a level of entertainment that you add. There are levels of things. There will be historical facts is based on history, and there will be some things that that don't completely agree with the historical facts that

we know and we understand that. So she'll be able to take take the history the history and you mix it with the entertainment to come up with a movie, and I think people looking for a movie to be to t historically correct is just stupid, right, So what we want to do we want to ask the question do we think it's sabotage or do we think it is reasonable critique? We want you to comment in the section let us know what do you think? When did you see the movie? Did you see Harriet? Are you

are we? Are you listening and paying attention because it seems only, like she said, a lot of the movies with dark skinned women are heroes and being amplified. You know, it seems to have the same level critiques. So are we too critical or we overcritical? Or we're looking to just sabotage everything that happens that glorify us and empathized the black women in America and in in in our entertainment and our historical context when we meet, are we doing it too much? Or is it reasonable? Give us

your give us your thoughts on it. Well, I'm sure our guests today has something to say about us, so we'll ask him. It's like take me back to Ghana, oh my lord, experience of what he saw and what we did while we were there in Ghana. Wow wow wow and one of the and and my song. We have talked so much about how one of the most impactful moments was having an opportunity to meet our guests. That is joining us today and that is Rabbi Cohen Nathania Halivi. Oh my, thank you so much for joining

street politicians today. Thank you, thank you for invited me, and I look forward to all discussions and exchange today. Yes, now, you are a rabbi and a priest. You are a visual artists, You're an art teacher, you're a community leader. You have a master's in theology and arts education. You You've got certificates so many I can't even name a public speaker historian I think you are. Are you an

anthropologists as well? Yes? I have. UM. You know I'm in the anthropology and received my certificate and I've been doing that for many years. Um. Well, I've been in this struggle since UM for fifty This year is forty nine years. I can say wow from being at Savannah State College. So that's where all of those lineup of UM certificates, that experience and all that comes from. Wow.

And again just an overall historian and educator. UM and and you when when when we visited with you and we had our tour of uh the slave Dungeons, I heard something in your voice and I and it it made me say where are you from? You know, because I could I could tell it wasn't necessarily there was something that was real familiar to me and being some open lives, you know, sort of like the North Bronx and I'm I'm from Harlem, but I've been in the North Bronx for a long time. I knew that sound.

And you said Mount Vernon and I'm like, oh my god, you must know my past. The Dr W. Franklin Richardson, who I eventually talked to about you, and he's like, that's my brother. And you know, that made it even closer to home for us to find not that you were actually from New York but living in Ghana. And I guess the first question that my son and I discussed that we wanted to ask you is how does a man find himself first in Mount Vernon and then

living in Ghana and educating people? Then well, yeah, that's a big question, you know. Um we let me announce that right now. We have a group of three hundred and fifty African American educators in Ghana right now in Cape Coast. And these are all um university and college presidents and they're here to study how they can introduce African centered education into the curriculums of our black school system in America. And so the phenomena of our people

reconnecting with Mother Africa is great. And when I was in the supposing with them two days ago, they asked me that same question. And they also asked me, how did I, you know, take up this way of life and how did I become a Pan Africanist and get involved in all the things I've been involved with. And I took it back to my route. I told him I was born in Mount Running, New York, and Um, I was writing a chapter on some of you know, the early parts of my life, and I named that chapter.

When I was young, my mother took me to church and my father took me to Hollow So that's the name of the chapter. So I got both those um fans. My mother was very deep and spiritual into the church. My father was deep in terms of the Hollow Mights to Hollom socialite and all of that. And I was on those street corners in Hollan every weekend, listening to the street corner nationalists and preachers talking about African history and African people where you couldn't get that kind of

knowledge anywhere. And of course to me, it wasn't only knowledge, it was inspiration. So that inspiration came UM, and I got committed when I was at Savannah State College of Savannah, Georgia, when I left Mount Brannon High School and went to Savannah State UM to study education, and then I say I got my calling. Then I wanted to be a part of the Black movement. I want to be a part of those who made a difference in all people's lives and the conditions that we were living in the

better condition the people of African descent. So I brought that back up to Mount Running from Georgia and started the Barristeeth Cultural Institute, and UM, we started that institute to educate young black children in the history of who

they were as black people. I was really upset when I went to school and realized I spent all that time in high school, elementary school, and no significant knowledge about African people was transmitted to us through those curriculums, and I wanted to make sure that god Um that happened to our children at a young age and at their foundation level, that we would put into them who

it is that they are as a people. And so that inspiration spurned another form UH inspiration, and that was I actually got tired of just reading about Africa UM through textbooks, and I'm displaying my Africanness through UM cliches and posters and making sure I had the latest edition of the latest book on my bookshelf to show that I had read it. But I wanted the real experience with Africa, and so I made my first trip in nine seven. And when I made that trip, it was

like a spiritual revelation that I had to do. This was home. It took me seven years and thirteen trips before I finally migrated here in nineteen ninety four. And so in nineteen ninety four, I have been part of all the marches that we participated in after the murder Eleanor Bumpers, a seventy eight year old grandmother and her home in New York City, after the murder of Michael Stewart for painting graffiti in the subways, UM as I,

as you read, I'm a community activist. We were we led protests in Westchester protests and Brooklyn protests in Manhattan, and I got tired of the redundancy, and I said, there has to be an alternative. So I decided I wanted to move to Africa to try to carve out some alternative options that we would have so it wouldn't be like we were animals trapped in a in a on a street corner, or trapped in a ghetto, or

trapped in a circumstance where we didn't have options. So um I decided to move to Africa and bring my activism here since I realized that we had so many strong activists in the United States of America and elsewhere,

but we needed to build bridges. And I was in position had made contacts, built networks where I can come to Mother Africa and try to use my experience in America and the movement to bring it to Africa so we can build bridges and make this one struggle for African people, whether we were in Africa, whether we're in the America's or whether whether it is that we are

in this world where we're suffering. We have to join our struggle together so that we can come up with remedies, how we can stop the suffering, stop the dissension, and start with the ascension of African people returning to their proper place. You know, in this plobe, were being respected in our dignity restored by ourselves. Amen. So you know, first of all, I just want to say thank you you. You know, meeting you as life changing. You know that the tour that you gave us, you know, I couldn't

hold back tears. Described went down in those dungeons which they call castles and and and you made us to them as dungeons, you know, just put it in the real perspective or we have that, you know. And it was a life changing experience. And I remember first seeing you online, you know, with a lot of our colleagues, and during the year of Return and hearing your voice and hearing and everybody came and said, you have to go on this tour with this man. I just want

to say thank you because it's open my eyes. It's giving me a different level of purpose in which the way that I show up and the way that I moved, you know, understanding what our people went through just for me to just still be alive, you know, So I just want to thank you for that. Well, you're quite welcome.

My brother was my pleasure, and that's part of what I'm here for, you know, to help build that bread and make that experience real when we experience it, sir, and I met it being in Mount Vernon, I did. They had a concert many concerts day a few weeks ago in which I met your son and your daughter and took a picture with them. You know, all right, yeah, it's really cool. There's like you're with her father and

after because so I just wanted to say that. But you know, the work that you do, it's not something that's not right. The way that you're so invested in our history and what it is that we come from in educating. Where did that, Where did that thirst come from? How long? How did you know that this is what you wanted to do? Well? I take it um nothing less than um, a very spiritual um uh commitment that

I have and that I served religiously. It's not a religion, but it's something I do religiously in terms of it's an internal commitment. I feel it's a calling. I come out of the era when I saw you know, and heard Amanga Evers assassinated in my era. You know, um Malcolm X assassinated in my era. You know, the family of Malcolm X, you know, ultimately ended up living in learning.

Martin Luther King murdered. I saw blood panther officers, you know, blown up, and I just felt that the reason why America is strong today, or any nation is strong today, it's because of their continuity. They remember their fore fathers, their founding fathers, their heroes and their heroes you know that live for them, was prepared to die for them. And the only honor that we can give to them is by carrying on the legacy. And it's through continuity.

It's not by starting something over new again and acting like because we're on the scene, is started. But it's about where did they leave off. It's like when you march out with a regiment, a military regiment, and before you go into battle, there's a flag bearer and your captain or your commander usually asked, if this flag should fall to the ground, who's gonna pick it up next? And it was a matter of who's gonna pick up that flag? When we lose one leader another leader, that's

a step up. It's not just about a leader either, you know, it's about leaders. It's about all of us doing whatever we have in our capacity, recognizing whatever gift that it is that we have, and how do we join those us together to make a solid movement. And so I realized early as an artist that I first started out with learning my art talent to the street corner murals, UM, painting the murals and the pictures of our heroes when Malcolm and King and all them um

taking out of the flower of their life. You know, many of us artists joined in and painting their portress in our community, making four young people still saw you know, Malcolm still saw, King still saw Mega Evers still saw a black panthers struck Um. You know, leaders and so images were very important. And then I transferred that even

on another level, you know, on the spiritual level. I even started painting you know, the patriarchs of of the of the Bible, you know, in black face at the original form that they belonged in UM, that we would have positive images around us, And that was the artistic part of me. But it was always that passion in me um that our race and our four bearers our fore fathers and four mothers were worth investing in and

worth living for. And so because I saw at an early age our martyrs, there was an old man that said to me when I began my journey, he says, son, you know, um, the martyrs have their time, but don't try to just say that you will die for this cause. What we need is people who will live for this cause. So live for this cause. We've had bloodshed already, but make a difference by living for Make this your life, make this your passion, make this your breath. M make

this very substance of your being. So it wasn't easy to travel to Africa. Um. You know in the in the late eighties and early nineties. You know, Kwamie and Croma was gone. Secretary was gone, his imperial magicity, Allice a Lastie was gone, Patrice la Moment was gone. A lot of the progressive African leaders who were the ones chosen to make Africa different, they were wiped out by a cynical system that didn't want to see Africa transform. They didn't want Africa to be able to enjoy the

fruits for independence labor. They still wanted to keep Africa um dependent a lot of our early leaders who sought to go back to Africa at that time came into that turmoil and had to return back to the US. But still we had a legacy here. Still we had footprints in the ground here. We have wb the Boyers tumbs here. He was buried here, his wife Shirley Graham. The Boyers, you know, stayed here all the way up

into and Chroma's overthrow. We had Richard Wright, the author. Um. We had Maya Angelo who lived here for a number of years, all the way up into and Chrema's overthrow. We had people like Martin Luther King, um Um Muhammad ali Um. We had uh Adam Clayton Paul Jr. We had so many prominent African American figures um, intellectual politicians, performers, academians, and playing workers who came here to build Ghana as

a new African nation. That's why Ghana has a black star in her flag, because it was meant to be a part of the diaspora. So that's how I linked up with Ghana versus Ethiopia or Liberia, which were also common at that time. You know, for a lot of people losing to look to was Ethiopia, they look towards Liberia, but because of the unrest in those places, although Ghana had some instability, was more stable of the three who

were used to receiving people from the diaspora. And having studied that history and knowing that history, I heard the call of the ancestors. I'm calling me back to Ghana so we can finish the dream because it had been deferred and it had been derailed, it had been thrown

off track. And when you get lost on the journey, the first thing you try to do is identify where did you make that wrong turn or how did you get off track and get back to that point and continue the journey to where you want to go in

your destiny. Wow. I mean, I know you've already said all the things that needs to be said about this, but I have to ask you very directly, how important do you think it is for for us as uh Africans in America to visit different places in Africa and especially Donna, and to make sure that our children have an opportunity to get direct access not just books, but you know, we take vacations. See I've been having that conversation with people since we've been back. Oh, we can't

get there. It's too expensive. Uh, it's this, it's too far. But then they go to Hawaii, which you know, obviously it's in America, but still they take that long trip, they pay that money to go to Hawaii, and then they go, of course to places out of the country. And and and I believe that there was a very deliberate, um, an intentional attempt to make us stay away from visiting Africa by making people feel like it would be dangerous, it's dirty, it's you're not you know, all the things,

the negative things. But how you think it is now for people to bring their children and families to the continent. I think it is extremely important. It's probably one of the most important decisions that you can make in your life and make for your children or any of your family members. This is something that completes us within a way that we don't even know what can anticipate. UM. It's not a matter of coming to live to Africa or relocate to Africa, but it is a matter of

reconnecting to Africa. We have to remember that within UM the traumatic experience UM of having been snatched and torn away from mother Africa was not natural um, those of us who are in the America's by virtue of North Atlantic slave trade, are here as as as a and by virtue of the most traumatic experience that any class of human beings have ever experienced over an extended amount of time, so consistently and so conspiratorially, so many different

nations that have been a part of the conspiracy, and I've benefited from it. So in our DNA, and there's still some trauma, and we don't know within ourselves how remedial it is for us to come back to the continent and just walk on that soil, come back on that continent, and have the voice of our ancestors embrace us and develop us to even live within the concepts of the of an African world. Something happened to us that we don't live in our conscious mind with is

registers in our subconscious mind. And as I said in our d n A, it's only when you touch base back on that soil that that returns back to you. There's a level of empowerment that doesn't come academically, it doesn't come intellectually. It comes to your soul. And you know, we used to use that term in the sixties and the seventies soul Brother, Soul sister, What is a part

of our soul that remains in Africa? And then the other part of that People have tried to make Africa so distant, you know, from us, try to make us a shame of Africa. And the only way we can get rid of that shame is to confront it, to come back here and feel the reality that this is where we come from. Whether we choose to come back here or not, we must never neglect to identify with it. Um well, I know that I come up in a generation in the US where right after World War Two,

people used to laugh at Japanese products. They used to call them just Japs. Watches didn't work, radios didn't work. People made fun of, I said, Japanese people. But Japan rebuilt herself and and rebuilding herself, she never denied who it is that she was, and her people kept faith in her. And so therefore, when Japan became strong again, Japanese people are respected again all over the world. Same

thing with Chinese people. People saw them as people to do your laundry, but make well started shirts and sheets or either you know, good Chinese food. People laughed at them. But now that China, through its diaspora has been made strong because this diaspora has used its exposure to technology that they came in contact with in the West to share that technology back home. And now China actually is

buying for the most powerful nation in the world. And so likewise, Africa will never realize her strength until African people make her strong. And African people will never realize their strength. Non't be respected, don't have their dignity restored until Africa's dignity is restored. People think Africans are inferior because they think Africa is inferior. People disrespect Africans because they disrespect Africa. I don't care what we have in

terms of our degrees. If we are PhD and you stand next to any other nationality, they assume that you are inferior. Until you prove your equalness, youre equality or your superiority. But we must always prove ourselves and that's

because of the stigma and Mother Africa. So we have a duty to help to restore the dignity of Africa so that African people, no matter where we walk out on this globe, will have our dignity restored and that could only have happened when your mother is respected, and Africa is our mother, and we must protect our mother, protect our house, and that way we protect ourselves and shield ourselves. So I promote that strongly. Every African child deserves to visit Africa wherever it is that you go

and walk on African soil, be amongst African people. See yourselves on billboards, see yourself at the center of activity, in the center of attraction. See yourself in an African world where we're empowered. No matter what our state is, no matter what our challenges are, we still have worlds that we have built and maintained in Mother Africa, and every African deserves to experience that. I'm going to buy my ticket right yet that right that's supposed to be

an emerging man. But like I said, you know, I was very emotional inside and slaved engines. I couldn't hold back tiss you know you and you told us a lot about the history. You know, told us about a

lot of people who you've given this tord to. And I remember you you told us about when you brought the bottas and you did the tour with them, and you said, and you told me you told us how they were pretty much cool until one point that you know, you've seen that, you know, prison Obama was fighting back tears at one point, and I just wanted to actually, yeah, you know what it was actually when I when I was doing I shared with you that the tour operated

a young man s. O. Blankston that gave him the tour was somebody that I worked with for the years, and we were giving him mentorship and tout ledge the night before the Obama's came to made sure that he hit the proper points. And so when that experience is over, we were right there. So he shared every second and

every moment of that experience. But yes, it was the point where it was reported that of course the presidents, the first Lady and her mother and her daughters, they felt and showed some emotions throughout that tour, and it was that it was that the President had pretty much

composed himself. But it was when he came out of the mail Dungeon and it was said to him that this was the church, the Anglican Church that was upstairs, right up on top of the mail dungeon, he showed and you know, the most emotions he has showed on that trip and actually kind of buckled a little bit there um to see to think about the irony that people could worship above the male dungeon with human beings up to a minimum of a thousand, and many times

up to a thousand, five hundred on males being kept incarcerated, you know, in those dungeons with their moaning there groaning, all the crying to tears and whatever else, that you can actually be holding church upstairs from there. That was that that that really touched me, man. And so I'm just trying to figure out, how do you you know, I know it's been a lot, but it must be.

Do you relive those emotions? Do? Do? Do you find yourself getting emotional or have you become somewhat in them to it as you continue to do the tour, do you find yourself reliving as emotions with the people that you've given the tour? I do. I do find myself reliving it, you know, Um. I I treat every tour

sacred and I take none of them for granted. I don't remove myself from the experience of what our ancestors went through, and that is that's what helps me convey to those who are on um that pilgrimage or that tour at that time, feel it because I feel it. It's not a single time that I can go there and go through that exercise and not conduit the spirit of our ancestors. And that's what I see it as. I see it as a ritual that I actually form any time that I'm going into that. Not a ritual,

per say, but it is a ritual. I meditate strongly, and I asked that the spirit of the Almighty and the spirit of our ancestors conveyed through me what that person needs to experience or that group needs the experience

of that time. There are mechanical things that are the same in terms of the historical content, the historical facts, um, the historical logistics, but the spirit component of it is I try to tune into every person, every client that I go through there with so that their spirit, their experience isn't a rich one and not just part of some um ritual that you can get up of a baller plate like you know, I've seen that, I've done

that before. So even when people repeat the tour, they tell me they felt something different, they heard something different, and um, they're glad they even repeated it. So it never gets redundant for me, So there never becomes redundant for the people that I'm serving. At that time, well, I tell you what was emotional for me. I watched white folks, Europeans or and others walking around taking pictures, smiling, laughing, you know, having a good old time. And I struggled

with that rab you know, I can't. I struggled with it. And as we rode home or back to the hotel,

it was, you know, it was hidden. And then when we got back to the hotel, because so many people are obviously doing big business in Honna, and it also has become a vacation spot, they were white in the lobby enjoying their martinis and they were laughing and they were talking, and it really really struck a nerve with me that I'm not sure that they felt, because coming back we were quiet, you know, we didn't even have

words to describe. Included and the other young man who was with us, our our brother and the fourth coach co founder until freedom, attorney Angelo Pinto, he was with us, he just kind of blurted out in the car, we are not outraged enough. We're not outraged and I don't believe that that outrage should just be ours. I had to rest now with myself and I said after, um, you know when we did our show immediately following, this is not just African history, it's European history also, absolutely,

so I just wanted you to know I was. It hit me hard to see white people like it just normalting Well, you let me share this. You know, first of all, I don't do this tour for white people. I do it for all people, but they should have this experience. What I do do, I do deep programming for them after they've gone through it. I've been in sessions where we've discussed it, so I can really penetrate into them to let them know the role they played

in this and where we find the relationships today. Human relationships today have been seriously damaged because of the whole white supremacist theory which was manufactured out of that experience.

Because as you know, and you remember when I started the toy and I then I gave the story of Mansa Musa, the condition of West Africa, you know, seven hundred years ago versus europe um, even coming down further to five hundred years ago versus Um Europe and what has happened in that gap, and so the the theory of white supremacy haven't been manufactured out of that period, and we've been the victims of it, and other people are victims. They don't see it that way. They see

themselves just been a factors. But in that respect, yes, they need to hear this. But I don't do those joint tours, UM do the dungeons because the dynamics are too much, and all people deserve to have that experience as their experience. And yes, and so I just had about one month ago, I had a hundred people from n double a c P that we did together. Sixty of them were university students. And because they were sponsored um by some white people. UM, of course they wanted

to go on the tour. But my condition was they can't go on the same tour that I'm doing. UM. We have the tour guides there that will give a meaningful tour, and they should have that tour. But my

tour is for our people, and that's who I cater to. UM. If there's a debriefing session, they can be debrief but this experience is a sacred experience and they understand because they know what they hold sacred to themselves that we can't participate that, you know, whether we know it or not, and we have sacred things and this is one of them that they cannot participate in with us. Especially this type of tour was another assignment that you went through

actively with That's another thing. So the same thing with this group that I mentioned earlier, the three d and fifty who are here right now. They didn't have many, but there's at least about ten educators, you know, white Americans who are with them, and we had to do the same thing, separate them from the experience. You know, they had the experience, and they should happen because we stuffer more from white ignorance than we do from our

own ignorance. And it's Europeans ignorance of us that breathe that prejudice and that inferior the complex on our their superiority complex on their part is through their ignorance. They don't know us. We were renamed in history, um our names were taken away. Then they know the negro. The negro was their product that they manufactured. We have our African detentions, right, they manufactured negro. That's not who we are. That's who they know, that's what they want us to be.

They've never taken the time to know us, but we knew every aspect of them because we had to live under them. So we had to learn that. I used the expression we would hand the slave master handkerchief before he sneezed, because we had to anticipate every movement he made. We had to know what he's gonna do before he knew he was gonna do it. So we had to learn of them. We had to know them. We had

to anticipate them to even survive. They only knew the face that we showed them and what they thought they had made out of us. So in our best moments with schizophrenic we showed them the face that they we think they want to see what we want to show them if they make it look like they were successful to who they remade us into, but there's us that they don't know, they've never known, so they need to be enlightening without us wasting too much time on that.

Because one of the reason why man ever, I said, I spent forty years of my life in America, and my great great grandfather slave for America, and he would never respected as a human being. My grandfather's share crop for America is never respected as a human being and as a man. My father work all of his life in dignity and American retired, never respected as a man. I'm not willing to slave share crops nor give all of my life to America. So what would be my

expectation of them accepting me? So I'm not looking for the acceptance of white America to accept me. I'm looking to invest my energy and repairing all people, whether it's in America or whether it's in Africa. My attention, my focus is on my people. Cannot just jump in real quick, my son and say, imagine they don't know us and we don't know us either. Yeah, it's such a heavy

uh load to carry when you do. When you do know, like after you've been educated and you've touched the soil and you've had the experience, then you watch the world happening and you realize why our young brothers are killing one another because they don't know, they've not been exposed to where we come from. And you know, for me as a leader, it is very, very heavy. I think it got heavier after coming back, you know, from the continent. So I just want to say that, and I guess

we could transition. We should transition to our topic, because I think this is right on here. We were talking before you came on about UM The Woman King, and I mentioned to you how incredible this film is UM. And one of the things that has become a topic of discussion online is people wanting to boycott and and this is led by black folks. People wanting to boycott The Woman King because they say two different things. One is that the history of the Dohoney tribe is not

being represented properly in two different ways. They some say that women are being romanticized in the film, as though this group they didn't want to kill and enslave Africans and so they, you know, presented the king with the opportunity to sell palm oil. And that's not the truth. The truth is that the Dohoney women were just as ruthless as the men, and they weren't, you know, they weren't like these good moral people who you know, wanted

to see change. So that's one side of it. The other side is people saying that because they know or have read or have heard that the Dahomie tribe was engaged in the slave trade, that they don't feel we should be celebrating that particular, you know, group of people in a movie like this. But also they wanted to some of these same people and others wanted to boycott Harriet,

the movie about Harriet Tubman. And it appears to me that every time we have especially dark skin black women as the center character where the story is about what black women did, um and the role that they played in terms of fighting for us or whatever role um and powerful roles, that there's always a demand for boycott. And the question we asked here today is it sabotage

or is it genuine critique? We don't always know, right and and so just wanted to get your thoughts on sabotage or critique and what do you think because and I'll say this and then let you respond, I don't believe that we should watch any film and take it as the full history. I think we have a responsibility to do research after, you know, we watch a film. So what's your thoughts on that? Well, thank you for you know, um allowing me to have a chance to

weigh in on that. And let me first say that my perspective is not coming from having viewed the film, but I'm familiar with the dialogue, and um, what happens, you know, when we try to promote ourselves in any positive light, and especially for our women, and especially for our women who don't come in the stereotypical um features of what has been defined as beauty, you know in America.

And so when you raise those points, you know, it brings to me the age old arguments of never giving our women, um, black women, women of African ancestry with the features of Afrikaans and and the non stereotypical form and non acceptable form of America. The West has been used to presenting that they don't get that without a struggle. We still struggle. Now all of us know Hollywood in America.

If you're not growing up in America, you know, or in the West, then maybe you can say you don't know the intentions, you know, in the motives of Hollywood. Hollywood you know, is about making profit. You know, they separate films sometimes as documentaries, but we have a drama, full drama film. They have to put in every drama pieces in the film that don't necessarily meet the criteria of all the historical accounts by detail, so they have to put something in it that makes it worth being

called the drama. That having been said, um, we can't tell the story of Africa, um, you know without it having multiple side. Most signs we say two sides. But the story of Africa is so complex we can't even say that it has two sides. So if we decide now to bring about um with some dignity, and that's where the problem comes in, to bring about with some dignity our narrative and our truth out of whatever segment

of history that we choose to tell it from. It's no different in our everyday life when we share experiences everyday life and every day that we live and we make an account for that day's activities. There's a positive way of sharing what we've lived the experience of that life today, and there's a negative way. There's a there's a there's a diplomatic way we say with the words we can say something, and there's an undignified way that we can say something. So I would say with critique.

Nothing wrong with you know, critique. We should always be critiquing ourselves. We were people always partiques ourselves, but we shouldn't be apologize for celebrating ourselves. We shouldn't be apologizing for glorifying ourselves as long as it's not totally a total distortion. Um, White folks have built up their self esteem for years, but we don't call it self esteem movies,

we don't call it self esteem. Hollywood. All the stretching of the imagination and the stretching of the facts, they stretched the facts outside of facts have become outright lies, not even contradictions, and we enjoy it. We support those movies, We finance those movies. We hope break box office on records every weekend and every time that any one of

them have a debut. So anytime something that comes along that looks like it might empower people of African ancestry, black folks, you know, to make us feel good, to make us feel um um, with a highest sense of self esteem. And I'm not talking about feel good movies. I'm talking about movies that touch the content of our history that we walk away with feeling good. You know, I don't even like the fact that, um, they call them movies that came through in the seven Black Black floitation,

you know, exploitation movies. You know, because we were so happy in that generation, Um, just to see the black men get together in the hood and out thinking out smart white folks. We just was glad that at the end of the now that we got over on the mafia, you know, not even then they leave it, you know, in a post, you know, a humorous way. These are black exploitation movies. To us, we were winning. Finally, to us,

we didn't end up dying. First when I was a youngster, every hero we had in the movies, they had to die, even when Jim Brown with our greatest heroes in the football field, when he got as a major movie, you know, and the Dirty Dozen, and he was then in that movie and then at the last moment Jim Brown had to die, and was like, oh no, Jim Brown died.

We always walked away with a bad feeling. So for us to tell stories and then they have some historical content, not just imaginatory historical content, but we put into the historical context, especially when it involves Africa today, um, and walk away with some good feeling. Especially for our women. You know that they have not been sideliners. They have not just been behind men in some cases not just

been beside men, but being in front of them. We shouldn't have to pay a price for a penalty for that, you know, and be overcritical, you know, Martin Luther King said at the height of the movement, when he was being criticized for his methodologies and so much, he said, let us not be bogged down with the paralysis of analysis. You know that we analyze things so deeply that we become paralyzed and rather than empowered from the inspiration of

feeling good about ourselves. And we don't have to make apologies for feeling good about ourselves, feeling good about our images, um, feeling good about reconstructing ourselves who have destructively been dismembered and disembarked and disenfranchised from the dignity of just feeling good. M that's the point. That is definitely the point, man,

I think. I think for me watching the movie right, there was so much black and forth before I watched the movie, and then watching the movie, I was in power. There was there was that it was you know, you were empowered. I was in power. They tried to say that they pitted men against women, and to me, it showed them working in unison. It showed them moving as

one unit. It showed exactly which what each of us represent, right like women represent the sense of power and strength, and they represents a conscious to men sometimes that we don't. Our egos somehow sometimes take over and we move off our ego and pride. And it showed how a woman's her intellect and her emotion and her you know, her level.

The reason with him soften that ego because he respected her so much and they respected each other and they were able to rule together to what she was deemed the woman king because she earned that and he had earned because he had his abilities and he was a strong and respected and he had levels of understanding. He understood you know, culture, he understood the history, and he was he was like his father in that regards and

people have respected him. And these were two respected people that respected each other and were able to lead because of this mutual respect, you know, and a lot of times you don't see that you see the levels of hier Kane. It's important that again telling all that see we have that balance in Africa. There's no king that can sit on the stool in Africa without him being

chosen by a woman. That's what our queen mothers do the finals say so after the kingmakers have chosen candidates and they've gone through screening the finals, say so, is that queen mother who puts her finger on the one that will be king the man that would be king. We have history throughout Africa and various cultures about the roles that our women played even as queens being king upset too. She was the queen, but she ruled as

a king the kindersman queens of Ethiopia. You know the power that they had, Queen Makata Vocus Machaeta that we know it's queen and Sheba. We know the power that they had and how they ruled their kingdoms as kings, but they were queens and so he heard that balance. Queen y'all. I'll never ever will forget that sister in the story. Absolutely that lives in that range supreme here

in Ghana. That's a part of our living legacy. Every gunny and child knows Nana Queen y'all santi Wa and what she did when the men were depressed and the and depleted in their spirit because their king had been captured and imprisoned and put in the Almina Castle dungeon and locked up, and she went and fired up all the men. If you all will not get your act together, then I'll lead us into battle and I'll recover all king,

and I will I will take on the British. And these stories lived and they we have multiple stories like that, and we need to revived more of them. And we we have living history that we don't need to use imagination to come up with superhero We are real superheroes, you know. I mean, I mean, look contemporarily, we never have to make no Rocky because there wasn't Muhammad our League, there wasn't Joe Lewis, it wasn't Jack Johnson. We didn't need a Hollywood to make up a Rocky. You know,

we go through all the episodes of our history. We have really what you call superheroes. And that's not talking about the leaders and the narrative that we're now digging up. I was telling people the other day, we can't use a shovel to think up our history. We need an excavator. They buried our history so deep, and they buried and put rocks on it, see men blocks on it. So

we need excavator to break up the fallow ground. Then we gotta go deep and deep and deep, to go down where they buried up our history and smuggling it up. It's their lies, So they can't exaggerate that enough. I mean, I know I know the history. You know then, I know of that there was a lot of things that are not nice telling. But what is more of a feel good culture than American history? Right? Right? Everything we learned, every theory is right, Yeah, the theories. They don't want

their children to feel depressed exactly. They don't even want you to that history. They don't I mean, they don't even want you to know that slavery existed. They don't want you to talk critical race theory. I mean, they went through a whole six months of finding ways to change the curriculum in colleges and forcing you know, school districts not to talk about enslavement at all. But listen, you talked about digging up the history, and I know you've gotta go and at some point we gotta end

the show. But it's just so good. But we knew that, so we left a lot of space um for us to be able to talk with you and get really deep. But let's get to the the other topic. That is all over the news, and I see a lot of Black people who are either trying to figure out why were folks so upset about the coverage of the queen passing Queen Elizabeth the Third right, um? And then there are some people are like, well, why y'all so upset about that? You know, because they don't know they have

they don't know. And then there were people who were super duper angry about it. And I'm not sure that they all understood the history either. Rather, you know, some people just have heard all the queen was a part of an empire that did some bad things to African people. And but I listened to a lot of the critique and I could tell that even the super duper angry people,

not all of them. Of course, I really didn't understand the depth of the history, right and and and and and of course they're I don't want to be disrespectful to those who do know, and they know very much so about what took place, and they've studied. But thing that came up, and you know, I want you to just give us break it down. We don't even have

to talk. But there was one thing that came up where people kept talking about her crown and the diamonds in the crown, um, and they were saying, now it's time for the diamonds to be returned to where they came from. And I realized that I don't even know the history of that, So why don't you talk to us about and and I don't think we can let the Portuguese off the hook, especially because in the Woman King the Portuguese are mentioned. They're the ones that are

actually there for uh, you know, trading of humans. So let's give it to us. Rabbi, Well, yes, I'm glad that you didn't bring that up, because it is the current debate at the moment. And I think that there's a reason why. Um. Today let's take currencies. That the strongest paper in the world right now that we call money is the British pound. And you say, why is that? So? How can that paper be more valuable than all the other paper, more valuable in the dollar, more valuable in

the euro? What makes that pound? You know, I'm so powerful and world exchange and currency? And the answer is entwined there because the British, they presided over the largest imperialistic exploitation of the developing world in any other empire, and longer they perfected um the slave trading colonialism. Of course, you see the French, you know, trying to the French,

you know, rivaling them in Africa. But nobody has um presided over the most brutal, imperialistic, exploitative government in the world than what we know as Great Britain. And the Queen represented the head of that. She was the head of that. Not one single um petition towards reparations, reconciliation, whatever addressed in the formal manner, they were all ignored. We see that there was never ever any granting of independence by the British Crown without serious atrocities being committed

to maintain those colonies. Before those colonies one their emancipation and independence by struggle. Even though Ghana was not an armed struggle, it was still a struggle, and that struggle was only one because of an earlier agreement that was made with the Aboriginals People's protection right where Ghana established way before this Queen came to the throne, that he was the Aboriginal people there and the land ultimately belonged

to the original people who were there. So even though the English colonized it, the land never belonged to them. But outside of that, when we started talking about the atrocities that we took place in South Africa with a stone that she wore in her crown came from and in places that got to be known as Zimbabwe, who were earlier Rhodesia. Um the pronunciations of iron Smith, who was originally Englishman, and protection they got from the English.

The demonization of Robert mcgaby because England did not stand behind its promise to compensate its farmers for the land that they had stolen from these Zimbabweans and had promised and the Zimbobbie and Robert mcgaby um got them to um was let him movement and take that land back. And the British promised to compensate them and paid them reparations. Can you imagine. But nonetheless British, the British made that

comment and they didn't do it. Rather, what they did, rather than pay fulfill their promise and fulfill their word, which is all happening under the Queen that just passed, they rather went on a campaign to demonize Robert mcgaby. And so although Tony Blair and Bush engaged in pronouncing to the whole world that Robert mcgaby didn't give in to the demands of the white farmers, that they would break his economy and they would turn his people against him.

They had the nerve to even advertise what they would do to destabilize his country rather than to address the situation that was at hand, and they went along and demonized mcgabbi. You had black people, even black leaders, saying mcgab he's too old, he's an old man. Why don't he stepped down from office. Mcgaby's messed up the economy. Macgabi has destroyed the country. They never ever talked about

the actions of the British crown. They never talked about the actions of the British politicians who forecast that and did that to protect their illegal migrants who migrated to South and Southern Africa years ago and illegally occupied that line, committed so many atrocities that we cannot come up with the numbers and the figures of the African lives who were brutalized, who were murdered, who were disenfranchised, who lost their mind and went insane, and that course of the

that course is the borders of Rhodesa or Zimbabwe, and is in all of Southern Africa and not just Southern Africa. Look at the situation that we have that the British crown um was a part up. We have Ghana, we have Nigeria, we have Gambia, we have Egypt, we have Jamaica, Falkland Islands, we have India. All of these were under the Crown of England, and all of these were tributaries to England, not tributaries and allowed to operate in their

own dignity and their own economies and pay taxes. But literally we're enslaved and literally were brutalized, brutalized to enrich

the British crown. So it is only those people, like I said, who have not come to grips with the history of England and the how they have maintained their crown and how they had maintained their position even though they've lost a lot of ground today that would speak by virtue of them having been programmed or I would even use terms like brainwash to where they become insensitive to the insensitivity of how the British got to be

who they are. How can someone who does not have one single gold mine and have the largest reserve of goal in the world. How can someone who doesn't have one single diamond mind have so many diamonds, not just in the crown, but in storage that backs up the paper that is used for currency. So what we need to do is become more informed about what was the result of all of this exploitation. What is in the details of why people who are calling for reparations are

calling for reparations. Let's put these things in perspective. How did this small little island all the way in the northern hemisphere become as rich as it has? How do so many of us speak the English language over our own language? Was it by choice that we didn't want to speak our language? What was the process that caused

us to be English speaking nations? And then we're only cutting on the edge, We only on the cusp of the matter of what that digging would open up if we were to really dig and go into that history.

So we even have the fact that most recently in the last two years, the same governments and crowns that called for Africans of the Caribbean and Africans and other um people people melonated people to come from other parts of the world to help rebuild England after World War Two because they had lost so many men and women

in the war they needed help. And then all of a sudden, after they find themselves back up on their feet two to three years ago, they called these same population undocumented people and unwanted people in England and want to send them back to the lands of where they originated from, showing that the insensitivity has not matured underneath the same white privilege that they have introduced to the world as white supremacy, that the English became dominant and

masters of and supreme uh so in that respect. By the time the English came along with the uh involved in the slave trade, they actually mastered it like nobody else before of them had um others who were bad

were abandoning it. The English were coming into it and so um as I said, we can use the show exclusively to talk about that for hours and would not even do anything but touch the tip of the iceberg in terms of what would be listed as the number of atrocities that took place now, because the English have a system where they separate um the politics, prime minister and the parliament from the crown, but believe me. We

should not be deceived. Nothing happens except under the authority and with the approval and under the influence of the crown. But that's what gives the cover. It's the crown that gives the cover. So it's a mastery of political science for us to be presented and a fashion that when it's convenient, the the whoever wears the crown, king or queen can take the credit and when it's not conveyed

and they can distance themselves from it. But we should not be deceived by that master of political science by giving us that deception in their operations. Listen, I just this is like a history class man. You just this is four years of college in the our man. You know what I'm saying that you've never learned that you've never been taught. And uh. And that's why I say, you know, just the experience of what you gave us transform my life, you know, for for forever. Um. Even

if we look at the American history. Let's try this, and we look at American history, Um, the founding fathers of America that we that were reconstructed into heroes, you know, let's look at how they were founded. If we look at the language of the Declaration of Independence. You know, the white Americans who were invested in separating themselves from England. They wrote in there that the King of England, George,

was a despot, that he was a tyrant. They had to justify their reasons for wanting to sept rate, because they said, it's no small thing when a nation of people wants to separate themselves from a sovereign power. So they had to justify their reasons who wanted to separate from England. And the reasons that they justified started with the tyranny of the leadership and of the crown of England.

That's in the document. So what was in the historical annals of time that showed that they ever changed their character? That we would not suspect them to be exactly who their own children said they were when they claimed their independence.

And what they did was they learned that if my mother and my father are thieves, and we're doing all this hard work in the foreign land, and they're treating us like strangers, and they're treating us like step children, then why are we robbing somebody else's land to pay them taxes? If we're gonna be thieves? Let us steal for ourselves. So they stole the American territory and refused to give the spoil to their parents and rather establish their own white nation and kept those um and kept

those spoils for themselves. That's the foundation of America. Broke it down. No, I just before we go, I just want to touch on this because there's this whole thing, and you know, and we we we we never ignore. We always acknowledge that there was Africans trade and other Africas, there were Africans who were slave trade that contributed to the slave trade. But I want you to touch on and give the history of that and break it down

and explain it. And absolutely the reason the reason why we have Iraqis and America's because Iraqis were collaborating against Iraq and the Iraqian War. The reason why you have Afghanistanians being you know, brought into America right now and commercials on TV about how we's open arms to them because they were friends to US and Afghanistan because they were fighting and trading against their own people. They were Jewish people who collaborated in the Holocaust. Nobody mentions that

no other exploited people. Um suffering people have ever had to take the double blame of being the cause and the reason for their own exploitation. They were collaborators, but the collaborators were so small in number that they wouldn't even constitute double digit percentage points. Most Africans were victimized or in the dark of what those two collaborators were doing to help collaborate with the Arabs, order Europeans and

selling other Africans. It wasn't a matter of you know, African whole African populations collaborating to sell their brothers and sisters. As I said, they were collaborated, just like we still got collaborators in the black community today. You know that sell out the black people today, but that doesn't say all black people to sellouts. We that's never changed in history.

What we must do and be successful in doing, is dissecting these stories and these narratives and putting them in proper perspective so they're not sold to us as a wholesale sale. That that is the narrative. They sold that to us for centuries. Well, your own people sold you in the captivity. Well your own people responsible for you in slavery. But I give you contemporary and historical context.

They America um. They every time they had a campaign with a different Native america An ethnic group, they had other Native Americans from another ethnic group that worked as their spies, that worked as their interpreters. But nonetheless they would know Native American would accept the narrative to say that their own people um soul America to the white man,

or gave America over to the white man. So African people needed to reject that narrative, not that we reject the truth that is in it and the percentages that were involved, but put it in proper perspective and not allow that to be the dominant narrative. Whereby we told that story, who were the benefactors of that then and who are the benefactors of that today? Who were the victims of that then and who are the victims of that today? And then we will come up with the

proper account for who's responsible. Well that is that. That's it, you know, And I think I think one of the concerns is that the dialogue around africans Um participation in the slave trade will somehow diminished the call for reparations. And so it's important and we talked about what you said who benefited from it and who continues to benefit

from it now? Um and also and also to understand for us, even for our people to understand that there was a small group of individuals engaged in that activity. But once the Indians came and oh, oh, you have to talk about this, and then we're gone. I promise, because I know the production team, things were out of

our minds. But you have to talk about the difference in what happened and how uh traded humans were treated under African the under under the African slave trade or the African trade of individuals versus when Europeans got involved. Because you told us that the Dunges, it was very distinctly different, very extinctly different. First of all, um, as people like to throw on our face that slavery as old as humanity or human society itself. And so there's

to play on semantics. You know, if we want to use semantics, we can say any employee as a slave, but he's working under a master's just terminologies. But what was different in the North Atlantic slave trading, what happened when Europeans and slave out ancestors is we use the term chattel slavery our humanity was taken away from us and the africans um system of indented servants, um and slaves quote unquote, a person always had the opportunity and the privilege first of all to be treated as a

human being. Second of all to be able to grow out of the status being an employee, a slave, or a servant. That based on your character, your intellect, and based on um, your own um prowess, you can raise yourself out of that situation, even to the point of

becoming a member of the family. We have African tradition that you is forbidden to even speak about a member of your family whose pedatory is not blood, but may have come from a parent or grandparents that used to be a servant and started out in their relationship with the family as a servant, but because of their servitude and their dedication, they actually grapped it into the family and become a family member in all equal parts. So that is a different kind of system of servantry um

or slavery quote unquote. Then you see in chattel slavery, when your name is taken away, your language is taken away, you the ability to practice your customs and your culture has taken away. Your humanity has taken away. You are perpetual slave. You can't be free, your children can't be free. UM. The law doesn't recognize any rights as human rights. There was no place that any enslaved African that can take

a white man to get justice. I when I left America, I left there and there had not been one single case where a white man had been convicted of raping a black woman legally convicted because the foundation didn't allow for us to bring any white person to court and win, because we had no rights as a human person to say that we were violated. Because how can a human being, um be that's somebody, not a human being, be violated

for human rights. Now we find ourselves in an error when we're coming into UM advocating for human rights, where we even have animals that have more rights than Africans and we've been struggling for four hundred years to have human rights. And you get a larger penalty for having dog fights and punishing dogs. And I'm not looking for missing cats than you do for missing looking for missing people of African ancestry. So the institution introduced by the

West of Chattel Slavery UM was quite different. Hundreds of any of these reads different from what we've practiced on the African continent and what a human beings chances were in life and in life cycle to redeeming himself out

of that without the need for legislative law. But the human compassion that exists within our systems, our families, our villages, in our communities allowed for human character to stand out and you to be able to be rewarded for your human character and the excellence of character and duty and service, versus being perpetually punished because there's no way you can

be free in a society. Can you imagine that even the idea that we were not allowed to refrain to refine our intelligence by being formally educated and being denied the write to reading and writing was a direct law to stop us from refining the best of our human senses and intelligence. UM. So these are crimes, and then

we will have ourselves debating um contemporary um. Descendants of white people who say that affirmative action is um illegal um, but have no memory, They don't have any voice when it comes to how they've been given the advantages they've

been given. Can you imagine an affirmative action being deemed as reverse racism because ten percent of the population is being reserved for people who have been denied for four years and then claim them not saying nothing about the fact that that is when you turn it around, that has been preserved for them. Grab, We've gotta go. We got it. We could do a whole part too. We

got it part to. We're gonna watch this and and think about and listen to the chatter online and figure out what are some other things we want to bring you back on to talk about. You are a gym.

That is you know, as far as I'm concerned, not enough people know about you, but they will now because we're gonna tell everybody anywhere up and down the coast, in and out that you know that folks have to know you and what you have been able to accomplish, what you're doing every single day, and how important you are to our culture. We thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you well, Thank you for inviting

me and giving this opportunity. And may you continue to be blessing the work that you're doing, and may the ancestors continue to shield you and empower you and guide you. Thank you, Thank you pay here every time that I'm in the presence of the rab but I'm at all you know, his his understanding of history and our culture is just unmatched, you know, and it's always just listen, you just like I just sit here and just listen to him. It's like I never used to like school.

You know, school wasn't really my thing, but I could see me going to his class and just being intrigued in wanting to learn, you know. That's that's what teaching looks like to me. Yeah. No, he's great, He's great. I hope people will listen to the interview. I don't even have much more to say because you know, and I know oftentimes if it's not First of all, there's technical issues because he's in Africa, so the the it's slow.

So there will be moments I'm sure in the midst of uh this show where people will not necessarily be able to see him or they'll have to be you know, there'll be some distortion, and I hope folks do that because the audio was clear as can be, and I hope people will not uh stop watching it because we're so driven by visuals, and you know, I hope people will listen, will download it for no other reason our

podcast just to watch Rabbi Cohen Cohene. Excuse me, um because what he just offered to us you can't buy because and that's my other Get it man, I don't get how anybody hasn't tuned into this man. Have you have you listen? You gotta get to it. You gotta get to Ghana. You gotta look this man up. He is like you said, he is a gym, and we are wasting our time. I don't get how you ain't been to Ghana. I don't get how you haven't said that. Listen, man,

hitch Hike. You know you got buddy Patt listen all that stuff. No, it doesn't work like listen. People got seventy million dollars sneakers. They're buying the new yeass every time they come out. They got the new bag that come out. Get to them slave dungeons. Man, get to Ghana. Understand your history. Sit down with this man. He is a gym, you know. And I'm just honored to have been able to sit and be in his presence and actually in Ghana. When is it like he what he

did here is amazing. When you're in those dungeons in the way that he walks you through each step and explains to you what it is that our people were going through and he describes it. It's like it's like one of the best movie narrators you'll ever see. So make sure that you do that. Man. And with that said, man, this is probably one of my favorite episodes and this should make us number one again podcast in the world,

Street Politicians. If you have any questions, you have any ideas, something you want to hear about, let us know we're here for you. Followers a Street Politicians, I'm not gonna always be right, Tamika D. Mallory is not gonna always be wrong, but the Rabbi is gonna always be right. Pay attention to him. He's gonna always be right, and we will both always and I mean always be authentic.

Listen to Street Politicians on the Black Effect Network on I Heart Radio and catch us every single Wednesday for the video version of Street Politicians or I Women Dot TV. That's how we owned it.