2:05AThe reason why we stress the restoration of the minds of African people is because of our belief that the only way to truly liberate a person is to liberate their minds. A person who is mentally enslaved can never truly know freedom, and we are a people that have been mentally enslaved for centuries. The Movement for Restoring the African Mind recognizes that this mental enslavement is a multifaceted issue with many components, and it is for this reason that we seek to develop a multifaceted solution to this problem. Now, what I mean when I say multifaceted issue is that we’re indoctrinated with the self-hatred through a number of means, one of which is education.
2:47AWe go to schools where we don’t learn African history, and the few times we do appear in the history is through token figures such as -- we’ll learn about Martin Luther King, but they’ll just give us his I Have a Dream speech, or we’ll learn about Rosa Parks, and the only thing they’ll teach us is that she refused to give up her seat on the bus. So we don’t really have a comprehensive understanding of who we are based on the education that we receive in the classroom. But this issue is also bigger than what simply goes on in the classroom. This could even be extended to movies, television.
3:19AI was at an event recently and I asked the people there how many of them were familiar with the Avengers movies that came out recently, and most of the people there had seen these Avengers movies. Now, one of the characters in these Avengers movies is Thor. He’s a European Sure. My next question was, how many people in attendance knew about Shango, the African thunder god from the Yoruba tribe? Most people there didn’t know who Shango was, but they knew who Thor was because they had learned that through movies. So what we have to recognize is we live in a society that’s geared towards celebrating European history and European culture, but our African history and our culture is completely neglected.
4:00AAnd this is one of the reasons why I think we need to form a movement to correct that issue. I also believe that we need to build this into a global movement because self-hatred among African people is a global issue, and global issues require global solutions. Now, in order to build this global movement, I’ve already taken steps to contact certain individuals from around the country and around the world as well to build this into a Pan-African movement. Some of the people that I’ve been in contact with is a brother named Rick Wallace in Houston, Texas. He runs the Odyssey Project, which is a project that has a number of initiatives that have a very similar agenda to what I’m trying to do with this movement.
4:45AI’ve also contacted the Union of Pan-African Collectives. This is an organization out in Brazil that has a lot of African cultural events. And I have not contacted this organization yet, but there’s an organization called the Dominica American Relief and Development Association, and they’re currently working with Dominica to help recover from the hurricane because, as you know, that island, as well as many other islands, have been devastated by some recent hurricanes. So I’m helping to raise money for them and their cause. So these are some of the activities that I’m engaged in, not only locally, but on a Pan-African global scale, because as I said, the issues that we face as a people are global issues, and I believe that we need to unite and create global solutions to these issues.
5:35AThis is another paragraph from the manifesto that I wrote out for this movement. I write, the movement for restoring the African mind takes the position that accepting our African identity is an important step towards restoring the minds of African people. Why do we say this? We say this because of the extremes that the slave masters went to to destroy our identity. So that one may ask, why does it matter being an African? Why is it important? My answer is that obviously it was important enough for the slave masters to destroy our identity. Those of us living in the Americas were often indoctrinated by propaganda that made us think of Africa as being the dark continent.
6:18AAfricans were presented as cannibals and savages running around in the jungles with spears. They did the same thing to the Africans that were living on the continent as well. When the Europeans colonized Africa, they presented what they were doing as a mission to civilize these Africans, and they set up colonial schools in which they also taught the Africans living on the African continent that they were cannibals and savages living in jungles and they had no civilization before the Europeans got there. So in the process of conquering African people, one of the consistent themes has always been this attempt to make us feel ashamed of being African, to make us feel as though we’re inferior people.
6:55ABy doing this, we accept our state of subjugation. And this is also critical too, because it has made recovering from what we’ve endured very difficult. We all know about slavery, which lasted many centuries, but the recovery process has been very difficult because of the conditioning that we endured during the process of being enslaved. And Africa went through a similar thing during colonialism. Europeans came in there, made African people feel ashamed of our history and our culture. And by doing this, you know, Africans -- it’s been very difficult for the leaders on the African continent to come up with solutions to really recover from what colonialism has done to Africa.
7:40AOne of the things that I especially want to do with this movement is to educate people on African culture and to bring back the pride and the sense of cultural identity among African people. One of the reasons why culture is important is because it is on culture that people build foundations for institutions. Now we see this in American history. When we study history in school, history doesn’t start at the beginning of American history. It starts at the beginning of European history with Greece and with Rome. And the reason for this is not only to glorify Europe’s history. This is also done because Greece and Rome had directly influenced the creation of the Americas.
8:24AWhen you study the history, you’ll find that many of America’s founders were men who had studied the history of Greece and Rome. were influenced by those ideas, and many of the ideas, many of the Greek and Roman ideas were used in the creation of America. So there is a direct connection to culture and history and building on institutions. As I said, you know, the American political institution was built on previous Greek and Roman institutions. And the problem that we run into as African people is that our history was taken from us, or our culture was taken from us, So we don’t really have the foundations on which to build institutions of our own.
9:04AI want to give 2 examples of why culture is important, not only from a historical perspective in terms of understanding our history, but also in terms of culture being relevant to our present-day struggles. The first example is family values. We hear people talk very often about how the problem in the Black community is a lack of traditional family values. And this argument was always interesting to me from the perspective of, we always talk about traditional family values, but there’s never a conversation about whose family values we’re really speaking of. Because you see, there’s obviously traditional family values from a European cultural historical perspective, as well as African culture, because we had our own values before we were brought here.
9:51AAnd then this is especially relevant to the current situation we face, because people talk about the Black community lacks family values, and, you know, we speak about the number of single Black mothers in the community. But when you study African culture, you find that African culture, it was a very communal society, a very family-oriented society. We were stripped of that and we were forced to adopt the European model, although aspects of our original family model still survive, but the family model we have is a mostly European model. And One of the reasons why that’s been problematic is that the European family model tends not to be as communal or as close-knit as the African model.
10:31AWhen you look at African languages, you find many African languages where the word for father and the word for uncle means the same thing because that’s how close that bond was. Or the word for mom or aunt means the same thing because again you’re talking about a very close-knit family bond. Now in the European model, we kind of separate the immediate family from the relatives, but that wasn’t something that was done In the African family system. And the problem we run into here is, like I said, when we talk about the broken households in the Black community, single Black moms, is that in this society, a family is, you know, 2 people get together to create a family.
11:07AAnd if one person in that situation leaves, let’s say, you know, a dad walks out on the family or he’s arrested or killed, now you’re left with a woman or a man who’s forced to raise his family on their own. Now in the African system, as I said, it was very communal. I mean, there’s even an African, a very famous African proverb about how it takes a village to raise a child because it was a village that raised a child. So now in that situation, let’s say, you know, the father dies. There’s a mom to raise the child, but there’s also uncles, aunts, there’s the rest of the village.
11:34ASo you had a communal structure that could step in and raise a child when, you know, the two-parent dynamic broke down. In this society, we don’t have that. So if the two-parent dynamic breaks down, then you are left with a --
11:45DOrphans.
11:45Aa broken household because there isn’t any -- there is not a safety net to take care of that. So when we talk about traditional family values, we have to start thinking in terms of whose traditional values are we speaking about. Are we speaking about our own traditional values or the traditional values of other people? The other example I want to get into is economics. Very often many of us go into African history looking for great African kings and great African queens because we’re looking African history to instill a source of pride in us. And I’m not completely against this, but I think one of the things that we have to start looking into African history for as well is economic structures, because you don’t have wealthy and powerful kings and queens without an economic system in place to build that.
12:32AAnd again, this is also relevant to our present economic situation. We talk about not only the economic struggles of African people in the United States, but I mean, globally, we are still a very impoverished struggling people. And an aspect of this is that we don’t have our own economic systems. One system that I will mention here tonight is one known as the susu. I’m sure people from a Caribbean background is familiar with that, and that comes from a West African system. And what that is, is it’s an informal loan system How it works is, let’s say there’s a group of 5 people. These 5 people will decide, we’ll meet every 2 weeks, and every 2 weeks all 5 of us will throw together a pool, and the pool will be like $100 each.
13:22AAnd at each meeting, a different person within that group gets that money. And not only is this a traditional African system that survived the Middle Passage and slavery in the West Indies and some parts of South America, but It’s a system that works. I’ve come across many examples of people coming here from the Caribbean and they were able to open businesses, buy houses, buy cars, put their children to school using this system. And the interesting thing about this loan system, it’s very different from the traditional banking system in terms of there’s no interest rate, no fees, or that kind of stuff that we usually run into in banking.
13:58AAnd again, one of the issues too with banking is discriminatory. lending, you know, Black people have a much harder time securing loans and that sort of thing from banks.
14:05DSure.
14:06ASo this here is a system that’s traditionally African that we could use to build an economic structure around. So when it comes to culture, I think we need to start thinking of culture not only as culture in terms of what it can do for us in instilling pride, but also culture and how can we apply traditional aspects of our culture to deal with present-day problems. that we are experiencing. So as I said, that’s one of the things that I want to start doing with this movement that I want to build. It’s a movement to restore the minds of African people, to get us to appreciate our history, to appreciate our culture, and then use those things to really create solutions to the problems that we are experiencing as a people.
14:48AAnd as I said, this is a global issue, and I think we need to build a global movement to deal with that. Before I get into questions about movement, I just want to bring up some points about some ideas I have moving forward with what I want to do with this movement. One of which is access to books and other educational material that’s relevant to African people. One of the things I want to do is make that more accessible to people because the problem that we run into is there’s no shortage of information on European and other history, but for African people it’s very difficult for us to get a hold of great sources on our history.
15:25AOne of the reasons why I’ve written so many books is just to get that history out there and make it more available for people. So one of the things I want to do with this movement is to make the history more accessible and available to people and get that information out there. The other thing is building institutions. I think institutions is very important and one of the problems that we run into as a people is that because we’ve been stripped of our history and culture, we don’t really have original institutions of our own, so we always find ourselves having to utilize other people’s institutions. And the problem with that is those institutions may not necessarily have been built with our situation in mind, so we have to develop institutions to deal with the situations that confront us.
16:11AAnd finally, as I said, I want to make this a global Pan-African movement, and I’ve already taken steps to contact people from around the country and around the world. And one of the things I want to do with this is to build a network of people that are working towards the common goal of liberating African people. And I’m sure some of you here are involved in other initiatives that I could get involved in and we could build together on that. So that’s a quick summary of why I organized this movement, the Movement for Restoring Africa Mine, and some of the goals that I have for this movement.
16:46ASo Next, I’d like to open the floor to any questions or comments.
16:49DCan you tell us about your books? Like, books, um, can you describe maybe a couple of them and the benefits of reading them that will help us to restore the African mind?
17:05COh, okay.
17:07AYeah, I honestly, I -- it’s kind of hard for me to even know where to begin because I’ve, like I said, I’ve written 15 books and they cover such a wide range of topics, I really can’t pick one. But what I will say is the reason why I’ve even written so many books is our history is very vast and very complex. So in those books I deal with different aspects of the history. One of the books I’ve written about is Essays Towards a Sovereign African Mind, which is kind of based on this movement that I’m building that touches on the psychological aspect of our the oppression of African people. I have another book that addresses the economic aspect. So what I do with my books is not only do I look at the history of African people throughout the world, but also different elements. So one book might touch on the economics, one book might touch on the psychology.
17:55BThat’s awesome.
17:57ASo that’s what I try to do with my books. And my hope is that by the time people are done reading the 15 books that I’ve written, they’ll have a very comprehensive view of African history from a global perspective as well as comprehensive from an aspect of economics, of psychology, of politics. I think that’s one of the things that my books can do to help restore the African mind, is to give people that comprehensive view of our history and who we are as a people.
18:21EAwesome.
18:31Bquestion. How can we, how can we move forward and get our minds right, restoring the African mind, if we do not have the, whatever we call it, the ecology, or the ecology, or the environment within which to, for this to grow? It’s kind of like a seed that goes into the ground.
18:54CYeah.
18:55BSo then, if we’re in the concrete jungle, We’re not going to get the nourishment or the soil that can make this actually expand. So how do you -- what do you recommend that we -- or how do we go about developing an ecology where these ideas and everyone can benefit from the harvest, so to speak, of what you’re trying to do?
19:18AWell, I mean, I think in terms of the conditions around building this movement, I feel I’m very optimistic that the conditions are there already. I mean, we see this in how widespread the Black Lives Matter movement has been, what’s going on right now in the NFL and the protesting. So I think we’re in a situation right now where African people are more conscious than we’ve been in several decades, it seems like. I mean, the Black Lives Matter movement, that’s a national movement. And when you think about it, we haven’t really had a national movement that large since the 1960s with the civil rights movement. And I could even take that outside of the United States.
19:49ASome of the stuff you see going on in the Caribbean, for example, a couple years ago Haiti had an uprising. Barbados right now has recently had a lot of strikes against the government. Togo right now, Togo is going through, Togo is in West Africa, they’re going through a revolution right now against the dictatorship. So one of the reasons why I feel confident in forming this movement at the time that I’m doing it is when I look around the world I see African people all around the world are kind of struggling and they recognize the situation. So I don’t think necessarily we’re planting in concrete because like I said, the conditions are there.
20:21AI’m seeing, you know, areas where people are moving and trying to improve the situation African people are in. And as I said, I’m contacting different people around the world. So I feel like there is an environment for which we can plant this movement and make it grow. So I don’t feel like I’m planting in concrete when I’m doing this. Does that answer the question?
20:43BYes, definitely. Yes, yes, yes. But the reason why I say that, because for example, you mentioned Black Lives Matter, right?
20:48DYeah.
20:49BIt seems to be more reactionary.
20:51AYeah, I mean, that is, and that’s one of my issues with Black Lives Matter. But yes, it’s reactionary, but I’m still encouraged because it’s a reaction. I mean, if that’s going on and the people aren’t reacting, then, you know, you’re in a difficult situation.
21:04BBut when you have your own ecology, yeah, your own environment, You’re not reacting to the political, social-political whims of the system.
21:14ANo, yeah, I agree with that. I mean, that is one of the critiques I would make of Black Lives Matter, but I’m still encouraged because it’s easier to build with the people that are reacting than to build with the people that are oblivious, that are not reacting. So, I mean, the conversation would then be, okay, instead of constantly having to react to these things, we should build our own institutions, and certain issues we shouldn’t have to deal with in terms of policing. I mean, why can’t we take over our own communities, control the police in our communities, and that kind of thing? That’s a conversation I don’t really see happening with the Black Lives Matter movement. But the fact that they’re reacting lets me know that these are people that want change, and then we can engage in that discussion about change. But if there’s no reaction and people accept whatever’s going on, then you’d be, like you said, then you’d be trying to plant in concrete. You won’t really get anything done with doing that.
21:59BLike a concrete jungle. Thank you, appreciate it.
22:04CThank you.
22:04BYou have any comments?
22:08EI’m just listening, and I feel the movement is very necessary. I’m just wondering how we link it into Africa, because the problem, of course, it exists in America and the diaspora, different places. But even the continent of Africa itself, you know, is running towards traditional cultural values, and it seems to be striving towards reflecting the West, Western culture.
22:48AYeah.
22:48EYou know, in so many ways. And what do we do about that? You know, it’s almost like traditional African culture is considered primitive, and that’s just not even here, that’s in Africa.
23:01BYeah.
23:02EYou know, I just returned from Africa very recently, like, uh, about 30 days ago.
23:07AWhich country?
23:08EAnd the experience -- I was in Ethiopia, and, uh, you know, I lived in Nigeria, you know, for about 3 years, and, uh, in Nigeria you do find, uh, people grasping onto their culture, and it’s very, you know, important part, you know, of their existence, you know, to relate to the culture. You know, insofar as, take for instance, religion and things of that nature. Most religions are looked at as primitive, and how could you, you know, be practicing that kind of voodoo and, you know, that kind of craziness when, you know, It’s just the king’s, you know, the King of England’s religion now, you know, which is all a part of, you know, enslaving us mentally.
24:01EBut the situation is serious, you know, it goes beyond America and the islands and, you know, places like that. The main problem is Africa itself, you know, like -- You’d be surprised at the people that’s driving. I just want to go to America. America, you know, like where, you know, life is going to be better. And I’m, I’m so tired of, you know, this, uh, backwards, you know, traditional, uh, culture that we have here. Like the best thing is like America or London or places like that. That’s what people are striving towards. So if we’re going to start a movement, don’t you think it has to begin there?
24:46Eor at least make us aware of the problems there too. You know, even pre-slavery, you know, it was the Africans who sold out each other, you know, and made it very easy, you know, for our people to be enslaved, you know. And even being an African today, I see that slavery mentality As a part of culture almost, where people don’t mind, where, you know, I’ll serve you, you know, I’ll come to your house, just if you allow me to exist, you know, I’ll cook your food, wash your clothes, wash your cars, you know, basically be your slave, you know. And my evaluation of the situation was it was white people that probably visited Africa as visitors and said, oh my God, if these people would do this, just think what we could do in America, you know.
25:51ESo let’s get these people to come over to America and we’ll use that kind of subordinate system to work here. It wasn’t like, uh, you know, these white Enslaving people was so mean, they just, uh, you know, chained us up and brought us to America. It’s almost a culture in Africa, you know, to almost be like slaves, and it’s accepted. You know, a lot of times, well, that’s just my purpose. If I could just get by this rich man’s house, and he would just allow me, you know, to be his boy, you know, to be his houseboy or something like that. I have an opportunity to progress, you know, and it’s heavy, man, you know, to the point where, where do, where do we start?
26:42EWhat do we have to correct? Do we have to correct that, that, uh, system in Africa?
26:48AOh yeah, yeah, definitely.
26:50EBecause, you know, that it still exists today in Africa, pretty much.
26:59CAt the educational level, in schools and churches.
27:03EI mean, do you, you know, and which direction do you take it in? You know, do you tell them that these modern religions, you know, aren’t necessarily the answer? You know, can’t we explore our traditional religions? You know, where do we begin? Where do we get off the track? You know, to the point, you know, of where we’re existing, you know, today. You know, the problem as I see it, it’s within the Africans themselves.
27:38CIt feels like a runaway train. It feels like a runaway train.
27:41EYou know, it was just like, uh, the situation, uh, it existed in African culture, you know, to have so-called, for lack of a better term, slavery, you know, uh, it becomes a part of society.
27:59BMore like servitude.
28:00EYou know, you know, servitude. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds, you know.
28:05AI think that’s --
28:07BI think because I have a sister, I have a cousin of mine that’s born in Sierra Leone, and she talks about, she speaks about growing up and having to servants, you know, Black people servants, sort of making her breakfast or driving her to school. So I think this thing with servants, it became a new economy, like an underground economy, underground system. So now they weren’t slaves, right, but there were servants who served. So that basically it was like, you know, like this is our --
28:44AYou’re like family.
28:45BYeah, they were family, but they were not bloodline family, but they were family. They were treated with respect and with honor, but you know, they made your breakfast for you. Okay, I get it, but I’m saying, but like, when you have the, when you have the ecology, right, talk about ecology, right? Yeah. When the European come into Africa, right, he destroyed the ecology, he destroyed the environment.
29:10ESo then you have Black people I don’t necessarily think he did that.
29:16BBut I’m saying though, the system collapsed, the ecology collapsed.
29:20EThe point I was trying to make -- see my point? The system existed. We’re giving the white man too much credit, you know, to think that he’s that big of a --
29:30Byou know what I’m saying?
29:33EIf I could, you know, get it out, you know, just give me a second. You know, the system was there and the white man came over and decided how he could exploit it, you know, how he could make this system work over here in America for him. But the system was already there and the system exists till today.
29:59BRight.
29:59EYou know, it’s still there. So we’re giving the, the Yeah, I don’t want to do that like that. I don’t want to be giving him too much credit.
30:10BBut we can understand though.
30:11EAs far as, all right, if you could just let me make my point, you know, and then, you know, you can add into it. But the point that I’m trying to make is that where do we attack, uh, the system, the educational point? You know, we always blaming the white man or the European, you know, for putting us in this situation. We actually, as part of our culture, if you study all the way back to Egypt, you know, and, and different things, there were slaves in society. There were people that would look like they weren’t as good as another aspect of society.
30:52BRight.
30:53EAnd my point is that It was exploited, but it wasn’t like it was created.
31:00BRight.
31:00EIt wasn’t like there was harmony and Black people, you know, uh, were just so perfect and then someone came and destroyed it. We have to get to the root of where we got off, you know, and that’s just my opinion. It’s just to deal with it from that level and how do we educate you know, our universal, uh, lack of a better word, African culture. Because we get into that, it’s not really African culture either, you know, that’s a whole nother lecture.
31:34CYeah.
31:34EYou know what I mean? That we’re not talking about John Africanus and all of that, we’re talking about, you know, a culture, you know, of people. Now, I mean, judgmentally, is it right, is it wrong, or whatever? You know, but we’re giving our slave masters a little bit too much credit, you know, insofar as how they conquered or dismantled our culture.
31:58BRight.
31:58EIt’s already been a part of our culture, you know, and I think we have to address that issue, you know, for the youth, you know, let’s try to like address that in our culture, you know, and who’s to say right or wrong or whatever, or You know, it’s a heavy thing, you know, and we have to address that.
32:24BWe let him answer the question.
32:25AYeah, I mean, that actually, I mean, it’s a great point, and I do point out in my books that I wouldn’t necessarily call it slavery, but servitude definitely did exist in Africa. I mean, in situations where, let’s say, you know, 2 tribes went to war and the one that won would, you know, take those people, and now those people have to serve the conquering. But I wouldn’t say slavery. I mean, one element of it is when you look at African history, a lot of Africa’s great kings were people that were servants that rose to the level of being a king. Now, in the American system, you can’t rise from -- you couldn’t rise from being a slave to being the president. So I think it’s different in that regard. But I mean, as you said, certainly there was servitude and that was a problem. But one of the things that the Europeans --
33:04EOr was it a problem?
33:05AWell, I mean, I was going to get to that too, because one of the things that the European European did is when you study European history, obviously there was exploitation among European people, like with the system of feudalism.
33:16CThat’s right.
33:17ABut Europeans were able to evolve, you know, past that stage to the next stage. When Europeans came into Africa, we were actually -- many African civilizations were in a process of evolution themselves. For example, the Zulus in South Africa were building their empire. The Ashanti people were building an empire. So when Europeans encountered Africans, we were in the process of evolving as a people, and they somewhat disrupted that evolution. So one of the things I hope to do with this movement is to get past that disruption and to have us progress as we would have done anyways. Because as I said, Europeans -- when you study European history, and I don’t just look at African history, I try to study other people’s history -- Europeans have had all sorts of problems within their own societies, but they were able to work beyond it to create solutions.
34:01AAnd one of the things that we haven’t been able to do as a people is create our solutions. Because like I said, when you take the history and the culture away from people, they don’t have that as a foundation to build institutions on. So they’re always having to grab a hold of other people’s ideas, other people’s philosophies, and try to use it to build their own institutions. But that doesn’t necessarily always work because the situation African people face might not be the same situation that a European would have to face or an African.
34:29EI’m gonna come right back and we’re going to like, you know, like get up, get into that because it’s very interesting, you know, on where, where, you know, where did it really start, you know, and what, what part, you know, is the main problem. But I think what we’ve gotten away from is culture in general, you know, and we have to find ways to preserve our culture. You know, that’s what we’ve gotten away from. Even here in America, it’s like family structure and things you talked about hasn’t been as bad as it is.
35:05AYeah, like today, because I said there were aspects of our culture that, yeah, they survived, you know, during slavery, and we gradually losing it over time, you know.
35:14EBut I’ll be right back, you know. I gotta make --
35:17CPart of it isn’t even in the music because growing up in the ’70s, the musicians that we had, the Black musicians, like Earth, Wind& Fire, Brother John Brothers, they --
35:31BO’Jays.
35:32CYeah, they -- everything with them were like natural. They were there, the chickee, the music. They didn’t -- their message was all about peace and love and harmony within our culture, and it didn’t materialize out in into the, you know, but they still got accepted. Every continent, everybody embraced their music.
35:54BGood point. Good point.
35:55CBut then we got to the point of when we got to the hip-hop environment where they degrade themselves by calling themselves the N-word and they degrade women. It’s not as meaningful and it doesn’t transpire into other cultures. growing up. I mean, when I look back at videos of Earth, Wind& Fire, the Commodores and such, those were authentic singers and their messages were -- it wasn’t laden with guns and such. It was just about who they are as a people.
36:30DWell, I think that’s absolutely true.
36:32CAnd so, if we can get back to that, and they didn’t ask too much of the They didn’t ask too much of white America to help them, like in the absence of a studio, the Blacks, um, Berry Gordy even told them, and he signed them all. So they did more time. Exactly. So if we could get back into that mindset of just developing within, you know. Well, I, I think when it comes to, um, our people, African people, African minds, I think they were talking about growing up in the ’70s, it was being Black as a race, but anymore it’s like more people look at this more as a behavior than -- yeah, and that’s kind of --
37:20BI think we’ve been taken out of our culture. We’ve been expelled from the culture.
37:25CI think we expelled ourselves.
37:27BRight, expelled ourselves. I would say both.
37:31CWhen you listen to the music from the young hip-hop artists, that’s when you realize what people --
37:37BWell, see, you gotta understand, see, Black people have become like the entertainers for other people, other cultures.
37:43CWe always were though.
37:45BRight, right. But I’m saying though, right, see, if, if you’re, if you’re a white suburban kid from Ohio, right, you didn’t have to deal with guns and being in a gang or Crips and Bloods because --
38:03CNeither did the singers from Earth, Wind Fire.
38:06AYou know what I’m saying?
38:08BBut Black people have become like a commodity when they -- where other communities can use our Black bodies to simulate what they want to go through without actually going through it. Does that make sense?
38:22AYeah, because I mean rapping about gang violence is one thing if you live in a community where there’s no gang violence, but it’s not as glamorous as Yeah, but you can, you can simulate it like a video game, right?
38:32BYou can walk around with the colors and, and the thing on your head, but you go to private school, you have a, you have a, um, you have a chauffeur taking you to school.
38:42AMan, I went to private school. There’s a lot of people that are like that, and it’s like a phase for them, you know. You got growth eventually too.
38:47BIt’s a cultural phase where they’re using your Black body, right, and, and the, the image of who you are in society to make -- to kind of like bathe themselves or to cloak themselves into you for a couple of hours. That’s all. That’s all they need. Get the energy out, right? And then you can go back into your nice safe neighborhood where you don’t have to be that all day long. So we are kind of like being used like zombies, almost like zombie bodies.
39:15CBut I think it goes both ways because we lend our spirit to them, which I agree.
39:23BYes, yes.
39:24COr they, um, feed off of our energy.
39:27BI like how you put that. Excellent. Yes.
39:29CBut then on the flip side, we’re feeding off of their fantasies, um, which like we feel good about supporting. If -- how do I want to say it?
39:44BI see your point.
39:45CThey’re happy when they’re living -- if a Black person is living in a white neighborhood or they’re driving a vehicle it or the shoes or the clothing they’re proud to own.
39:54BSo, you’re feeding each other. You’re feeding each other. It’s like a host and parasite relationship.
40:04DParasite.
40:04BOkay, I see your point.
40:05AYeah, I mean, that’s what it is. And I mean, even going back to the music, there was a point in time where rap music tended to be more positive and had a positive message. And then what happened was gangster rap came out and it was selling a lot of albums, earning a lot of money, and now rappers realized, Wait, there’s more money in this gangster rapping than there is in being conscious.
40:21CConscious rap. Where I saw the degradation in that too is it seemed like, yes, in the beginning rap music did start off in a positive, and then eventually what I think they started to do is they started to image that the whites have them as an enemy. whatever names they call them, they turned around and used that and glorified it in a way. And then they twisted it around and said like, yeah, we just decided to take it and own it. But it’s not like owning it because they ended up glorifying it and then hoping that they still get reaccepted back into the white community after they’ve arrived from a financial gain from selling. To the people, the acceptance of what they were.
41:13BBut they did not accept it though, because once you’re used for that dirt over there, you really can’t bring that dirt. You can’t get dirty boots in my house. So even though, stay outside making that dirt, but don’t bring the dirt inside my pristine environment.
41:30DBut a lot of that degradation though had to do with these record labels not wanting to put their money behind positive --
41:40CThey used to.
41:41DYeah, they used to, but then I can tell you, so I temped in a lot of, a lot of different industries in New York. One of the places I worked at was a really major music label. I sat at the desk and I seen and heard so many things where like a Black artist would go in with an album, you know, that they wanted to produce produce, and they were told to go and make it gangster or whatever, go back, you know, do some gangster music and then whatever. I mean, I didn’t work there long, but, and it was mostly people who worked there who were telling me these stories, but it’s really, it’s really hard to get financial backing as a Black person to continue to do it.
42:22CMichael Jackson did, Will Smith did.
42:24DYeah, but they have the wherewithal to, you know, at some point start to produce themselves. This is what we really need, are like places that will --
42:31CPuff Daddy owns a studio. He could rearrange the --
42:36DWe have so many people who could make our movies, make our music.
42:40BI think what happens though, right, is that it’s like fast food, right? It’s about making that money fast, in and out, so you can maximize your money quick, fast, you know, put in a dollar, Get a half a million dollars within two days. So it’s sort of like that.
42:57AIt’s like fast food.
42:58BSo there’s no thought that’s going into it for any long term.
43:01CBut it’s all about worshipping money and yes, big bling.
43:05BYes, yes.
43:06CYou know, it’s just all about yeah, yeah, yeah. And there is no substance. There is no message, and there is nothing that any generation coming up can.
43:19BIt’s about influencing. younger people whose minds have not been molded -- talk about destroying African minds -- see, they want to destroy the African mind, the conscious mind, the productive mind. So now it’s easy to sell poison than something healthy. Like right now, McDonald’s tastes a whole lot better than something healthy. So it’s like fast food.
43:43CI was just saying, they make the bad foods cheaper than the healthy foods.
43:47BYeah, it tastes good. So people say, I don’t like it, but it sure tastes good.
43:51AI understand that.
43:52ESo, so is the music.
43:53BIt’s bad for you, but it sure tastes good. It sure what? Feels good. So they use the same old sex, drugs, guns, because see, this, this, this, this, this taps into the spirit of a young man, you know, who wants to be a warrior. He wants to be a conqueror.
44:09ASo that’s all they’re tapping into.
44:10BThey’re tapping into that warrior spirit.
44:11CBut they want to be warriors and conquerors for the weak, not for those that they feel can be more powerful than them. Right, right, right.
44:20BYes, yes, yes.
44:20CIt’s one thing to be a warrior, but you should aspire to be a warrior for those who --
44:24BNot against your own people.
44:25CAnd not against the vulnerable ones.
44:28ARight. Moms, you know.
44:30BBut it’s fast food. It tastes good, right? But you don’t want to go spend some money and buy some wholesome food. So it’s sort of like, again, They’re trying to short-circuit what? The African mind. So he’s trying to restore the African mind, right? Which means what? Studying, um, history, culture, value system. That stuff is boring. Who wants to do that? I’d rather drive around in my car, lean back with my ventilator, with my bandana on. Yes, yes, that’s, that’s more exciting. That’s more conquering the world.
45:05CYeah, because nobody --
45:05BYeah, consider read a book for 2 hours or 3 hours and do your homework. That’s boring. Who wants to do that? You’re a square. But that’s where the power is, your mind. So I support you 100%, my brother. Restoring the African mind.
45:20DAppreciate that.
45:20BI’m about that. I’m with you. Take my name, my number, and I’ll be there.
