Speaker 1: Amen, we we are.
Speaker 2: Miss how are you greeting?
Speaker 3: Hey? Can you hear me? I?
Speaker 2: Can can you hear me?
Speaker 3: I Amanda? Yeah, I can perfectly clear.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, Well let me just tell y'all. Misundscribes himself
Speaker 2: your your your Instagram bio is very specific while not
Speaker 2: being specific at all. So miss unsays dyslexic neurodi Virgin
Speaker 2: Oscar nominated End of lazyp Award winner. Opinions expressed are
Speaker 2: solely my own. However, you are I know you to
Speaker 2: be a photographer.
Speaker 3: Before we even get there.
Speaker 4: I jumped on early and I hadn't seen the clip
Speaker 4: that you shown of these priests were the.
Speaker 3: Pastors?
Speaker 2: Yeah, everybody is getting brainwashed. Baby. That's the new that's
Speaker 2: the new wave.
Speaker 4: Mm hmm I and it's it's particularly I don't know
Speaker 4: if you've seen the Voice of hinrad Jab yet.
Speaker 3: Have you watched that film?
Speaker 2: No? I have not seen it yet. There's a part
Speaker 2: of me that's not prepared.
Speaker 3: Listen. I ran away from it.
Speaker 4: I've run away from that film for four months, and
Speaker 4: I decided, look, just you know, if if Palestinians are
Speaker 4: enduring what they're enduring, go and see the bloody film,
Speaker 4: and I sat down. And the reason I'm bringing this
Speaker 4: up that it's particularly hard to see men and women
Speaker 4: of God going to this place after watching that film,
Speaker 4: because what you learn in the film is we all
Speaker 4: know what happened to this six year old.
Speaker 3: But what I didn't know is that.
Speaker 4: They had the technol to have the heat that they
Speaker 4: could see who is dead or alive. They could see
Speaker 4: the size of the soul, so they knew it was
Speaker 4: a child, and they knew that this child was surrounded
Speaker 4: by her dead relatives, the corpses of her dead relatives.
Speaker 4: And then they just played call of duty for three hours,
Speaker 4: taking pop shots at her.
Speaker 3: And it's just to.
Speaker 4: See people of God, you know, in the twenty four
Speaker 4: hour period. I just I didn't know about this trip.
Speaker 4: I missed this one.
Speaker 2: And it's hard to keep up, to be quite honest,
Speaker 2: I mean, the nonsense is just so innumerable that it's
Speaker 2: hard to keep up. I mean, the other day you
Speaker 2: had it too, mar Ben Gavie wearing a noose pin.
Speaker 2: I saw that, along with others in the Israeli Kanesse
Speaker 2: in support of their push to create a death penalty
Speaker 2: for all of the Palestinian prisoners. Mind you. These people
Speaker 2: have not had cases, they have not been able to
Speaker 2: even fight. There a lot of them don't even have charges.
Speaker 4: Them are no adults, actually judicial cults in Hebrew, which
Speaker 4: your kids don't understand, and they're being held Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Anyway, in the context of that, well, no, I mean
Speaker 2: I'm not surprised because the context of our conversation was
Speaker 2: about Jasmine Crockett, who was a black woman who was
Speaker 2: running for senator. And you know, there's now a lot
Speaker 2: of hullabulu and hubbub about her being progressive and her
Speaker 2: being you know, the next wave and she's going to
Speaker 2: save the Democratic Party and me and Sabby Sabs landing
Speaker 2: that plane at No. No, this is not a progressive.
Speaker 2: This is someone who has staunchly supported Israel. I mean
Speaker 2: it's not hard to discern this. You know, people are like,
Speaker 2: where's the evidence, where's the evidence? And the evidence? I mean,
Speaker 2: I can show you as basic as this.
Speaker 5: When Governor Wall started out tonight by repeating this for Frain,
Speaker 5: that Israel has a right to defend itself.
Speaker 3: Israel has just invaded Lebanon.
Speaker 5: Israel is now intimating that it could attack Iran, So.
Speaker 3: Shouldn't we be looking for a.
Speaker 5: Little more than just these platitudes about Israel having a
Speaker 5: right to defend itself. What is the limiting principle, especially
Speaker 5: when the US the one providing the armaments for Israel
Speaker 5: to wage these military campaigns. As you know, having voted
Speaker 5: for the National Security Supplemental back in April, which underwrote
Speaker 5: Israel's war effort, I.
Speaker 6: Absolutely did vote for it. I voted for that along
Speaker 6: with every other supplemental that was available. And I will
Speaker 6: tell you this, It is important that people understand what
Speaker 6: diplomacy looks like, and it looks like the fact that
Speaker 6: this relationship between Israel and the United States has existed
Speaker 6: since before I was born. And guess what, this relationship
Speaker 6: will continue on in perpetuity even after I'm gone.
Speaker 4: I don't know how many Nigerians you know, but I'm
Speaker 4: a Nigeriane man, So sometimes I may switch to pigeon
Speaker 4: when I have when I can't sound like British. Because
Speaker 4: this is this is madness. Yes, I came, Jeffries Corey Booker,
Speaker 4: and I need you to help me, as an African American,
Speaker 4: to explain to me how these well educated, seemingly well traveled,
Speaker 4: supposedly politically astute Black African American men and women that
Speaker 4: have chosen a life of service have got to a
Speaker 4: place where I'm looking at Corey Booker walking down corridors
Speaker 4: or dancing with you know, genocidal maniacs, like, how does
Speaker 4: it get to that place?
Speaker 2: So the first steps is in knowing that the United
Speaker 2: States does not actually have politics as a public service.
Speaker 2: They're not actually in service to the people. They're in
Speaker 2: service to lobbyists. They're in service to packs and to donors.
Speaker 2: So when you say they have entered a life of service,
Speaker 2: the life of service they've entered is to those who
Speaker 2: are going to give them money, and they serve them
Speaker 2: by passing and supporting legislation or standing in the way
Speaker 2: of legislation that prevents those corporate interests from being able
Speaker 2: to advance. And they know this. You know, there's the
Speaker 2: reason why you have so many lawyers that go into
Speaker 2: these fields. Right, There's a reason why you have so
Speaker 2: many entrepreneurs go into these fields. It's because they already
Speaker 2: know the one too of what's going on. So when
Speaker 2: you see this in black people, you also understand that
Speaker 2: we do live in a capitalist country, and at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, there has been a constant push
Speaker 2: of this idea of generational wealth and Black people need
Speaker 2: to get our economics together. However, it's not done under
Speaker 2: the auspices of socialism and supporting communities. It's done under
Speaker 2: the auspices of individual accomplishment. Right, Like Jasmin Sullivan was,
Speaker 2: Jasmin Crockett was already a successful lawyer who made more
Speaker 2: money as a lawyer than she did in Congress if
Speaker 2: she was not going to take any corporate money. So
Speaker 2: it's not like she was struggling, right, It's not like
Speaker 2: she was saying, you know, I'm going to find my
Speaker 2: purpose in this path. However, what frustrates me is that
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people inherently think that black
Speaker 2: people have a higher moral quotient, Yeah, because of the
Speaker 2: historical because exactly, and that same thing is why Israeli
Speaker 2: Zionis are getting away with that are doing because they
Speaker 2: effectively peddled this idea of a moral higher a higher
Speaker 2: moral ground because of having a higher pain, right, higher harm,
Speaker 2: higher moral ground. And so that's where you get the
Speaker 2: whole like, we get to harm people because we were harmed.
Speaker 2: We have the moral army because we didn't have an
Speaker 2: army to protect us, which was literally just pr right
Speaker 2: because the Zionists were actually in cahoots with Nazis, like
Speaker 2: Zionists Jews said okay, we'll work with you Nazis, versus
Speaker 2: other Jews who were like, no, no, we don't work
Speaker 2: with the people who are trying to kill us. Like
Speaker 2: I think, people have really just come to kerfuffle everything
Speaker 2: together in the same way that they have now with
Speaker 2: black people in America. And I am a black person
Speaker 2: who lives on a value system that is not capitalists,
Speaker 2: hence being a radical black intellectual. And we are not
Speaker 2: the same just because we are black, like the saying
Speaker 2: goes all skin poking, kinfolk, and we keep using identity
Speaker 2: politics in this country to put black people in power
Speaker 2: that do not support black liberation.
Speaker 3: And so how do you how do you connect? I
Speaker 3: think you kind of connected.
Speaker 4: Another interesting thing is which is how the far right,
Speaker 4: and I mean the real far right has seemingly gone
Speaker 4: into bed with the Zionist entity. And what I mean
Speaker 4: by that when Elon Musk did the what do they
Speaker 4: call it, they hate the.
Speaker 3: You know, the hand, the Hitler hand.
Speaker 2: Thing, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: And then the yeah, and the the ad L defended
Speaker 4: him said he was, you know that we should move on.
Speaker 4: We've just had something in England where a guy called
Speaker 4: Magel far Arche. I don't know if you know, you probably.
Speaker 3: Know who he is. I know him vaguely, Okay, he's
Speaker 3: ahead of.
Speaker 4: He is openly racist, openly anti Semitic, head of the
Speaker 4: Reform Party in the UK, and a lot of the
Speaker 4: people that went to school with him who are actually
Speaker 4: Jewish have come out saying he is an anti He's
Speaker 4: been saying things like Hitler was right, you know, reminding
Speaker 4: reminding of people of Candice Owens pre her rebrand and
Speaker 4: it's it's it's very very interesting because the Jewish Chronicle,
Speaker 4: the Jewish Chronicle, big paper in the UK, did an
Speaker 4: article saying that we should forget about all the anti Semitic.
Speaker 3: Things he said in the past, and I was like,
Speaker 3: what it's it's it's really really we get the light off.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really really confusing for me to see how,
Speaker 4: you know, organizations and all newspapers that are supposed to
Speaker 4: be defending actual Jews are writing articles that are defending
Speaker 4: they're not.
Speaker 2: Because this is the thing the same way that I
Speaker 2: was saying, like there has been a confluence, like a
Speaker 2: false equivalence created amongst all black people. There's been a
Speaker 2: false equivalency created amongst Jewish people. Right. There is Jewish
Speaker 2: there's Judaism as a faith, and if you follow Judaism
Speaker 2: as a faith, then you don't. It's the same with Christianity.
Speaker 2: There's Christianity as a faith, and then there's people who
Speaker 2: are claiming Christianity but they're not following the faith of
Speaker 2: it at all. In the same with everything. There's the
Speaker 2: same thing with Islam. Right, So you have all of
Speaker 2: these folks and they like to call it extremists, when
Speaker 2: I think that's a false nomenclature because they're not. To me.
Speaker 2: If I'm an extreme Christian, I'm extremely giving, I'm extremely
Speaker 2: non judgmental, I'm extremely supportive. Right. If I'm an extremist,
Speaker 2: it is because I am so committed to the faith
Speaker 2: that I am deeply rigid and in my morals and
Speaker 2: my ethics and my principles. These are not dreamers, these
Speaker 2: are liars, These are these are people who simply just
Speaker 2: use these these spiritual tools to weaponize against humans because
Speaker 2: of our capacity to be moved, and you are, You're divergent,
Speaker 2: So you have less of a capacity to be flipped
Speaker 2: and spun. It's just what it is. Are wiring is not.
Speaker 3: Direct, you must I'm believing that you also.
Speaker 2: Are absolutely autistic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: I think that we're a funny lot because I think
Speaker 4: the marriage of trauma, like real childhood trauma.
Speaker 3: Which I know you had, and then being.
Speaker 4: On this spectrum is is a really really interesting cocktail
Speaker 4: because you know, you're such a monol what you're unique
Speaker 4: in the conversation of American culture.
Speaker 3: And my sister who is.
Speaker 4: Your friend, I believe Briann and Joy Gray and a
Speaker 4: few others are Yeah yeah, I mean they don't play
Speaker 4: as well, and it's it's just really really interesting.
Speaker 3: But they're like three of you. Just where are the rest?
Speaker 2: The truth is is that there are more. It's just
Speaker 2: that we have been so ostracized and shunned by our coat,
Speaker 2: by our fellow black folks, that many people then you know,
Speaker 2: they don't have the support system to really manage it right.
Speaker 2: And I was very very fortunate that when I was
Speaker 2: ostracized from the black community for just being myself, I
Speaker 2: was very fortunate that I had a psychiatrist that really
Speaker 2: helped me to move through that and I also had
Speaker 2: the right people around me. It wasn't about amount, it
Speaker 2: was about quality, you know, the right people around me
Speaker 2: to catch me and give me a soft landing into
Speaker 2: a path forward that commits to this, regardless of the
Speaker 2: ostracizing right. And then you start to understand that, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm not alone in this, and so now I need
Speaker 2: to create spaces for others to not feel alone in this.
Speaker 2: And that's what we do here Abuse for Amandoland, That's
Speaker 2: what I do on my Patreon. I so often find
Speaker 2: people saying I'm here because I don't have anyone in
Speaker 2: my immediate circle that I can talk to about these things,
Speaker 2: and I feel crazy. And then I come here and
Speaker 2: I feel sane because I know that I'm not bugging.
Speaker 2: And that's why you know they've said forever it's only
Speaker 2: about five percent. I love this neuro defiant. I love
Speaker 2: that I'm making a T shirt that says that. But
Speaker 2: it's really true that there is a necessity to uplift
Speaker 2: these voices. And that's why I originally got connected to
Speaker 2: you through your film. I need to I haven't seen anything.
Speaker 2: Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, I'm messing
Speaker 2: up a messing up I want to put yours on witness.
Speaker 4: You can travel the world with this thing and just
Speaker 4: beare witness people only for celebt images, But my passions
Speaker 4: is observing the human condition and making arts that has purpose.
Speaker 1: Miss An Harriman's work captures protests.
Speaker 4: Like no other.
Speaker 3: The images help people see they're not alone and being frustrated.
Speaker 4: I do wonder about the difference I'm actually making. What
Speaker 4: do protest movements truly achieve? If people are still demanding
Speaker 4: the same human rights. What you're doing is to give
Speaker 4: one the opportunity to be able to see the images
Speaker 4: will be here forever. As a young boy, the images
Speaker 4: of apartheid South Africa shook me to my core, and
Speaker 4: then I went on a journey of understanding what it
Speaker 4: all meant.
Speaker 3: Got to tell the truth racial profile still exists.
Speaker 2: What do you want?
Speaker 3: She's going to be the biggest protest ever. All this
Speaker 3: is part of the journey.
Speaker 4: People have a goodness in them.
Speaker 3: That needs to be fed like a plant. This is
Speaker 3: the work. This is the bearing witness.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is the work the bearing witness. I
Speaker 2: can't help but try a British accent when I'm talking
Speaker 2: to someone with the British accent, So I'm not mocking you.
Speaker 2: I'm really just.
Speaker 6: Join you.
Speaker 2: I'm working, I'm working on it, but it's so tell
Speaker 2: me about tell me about the film, and and to me,
Speaker 2: it goes directly along with what we've been talking about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: And I remember, you know, I made a film before
Speaker 4: this and it got nominated for an Oscar and there
Speaker 4: was a lot of heat around me, and I was like,
Speaker 4: with this heat, I'm just gonna see if I can
Speaker 4: get them to let me do what I want to do.
Speaker 4: And I could see the world getting more and more crazy,
Speaker 4: and I was like, why don't we do a feature
Speaker 4: lengths dock on what it means to be an artist
Speaker 4: that refuses to look away when it pays to be
Speaker 4: apathetic through the lens of protest. And I think whilst
Speaker 4: making it, everything just kept getting crazier.
Speaker 3: And I was just like, you can't ignore Palestine.
Speaker 4: You cannot make a protest film and focus on queer,
Speaker 4: trans climate women, black lives and just pretend that Palestine
Speaker 4: isn't happening, which is what the industry was strongly suggesting
Speaker 4: to me and my team. And we're like no, And
Speaker 4: there's a there's a great page on interign called Pomegranates,
Speaker 4: and she she has a great analogy.
Speaker 3: She says that.
Speaker 4: Gaza is I don't know if you are a Star
Speaker 4: Wars person, but she said, it's a wait wait wait.
Speaker 2: Wait wait wait wait, you don't know if I'm a
Speaker 2: Star Wars person, Okay.
Speaker 3: Jed.
Speaker 4: Well, she said that that the Gaza is the single
Speaker 4: shot through the exhaust valve of the Deathsta that brings
Speaker 4: down the whole empire.
Speaker 2: I believe it too, you know, and.
Speaker 4: I love it so much because I think what this
Speaker 4: what this film is is, it's this film isn't really
Speaker 4: for you and me.
Speaker 3: This film is.
Speaker 4: For the dads and mums in Ohio that don't know
Speaker 4: what occupation means.
Speaker 3: They don't know about the Peal Commission in thirty six.
Speaker 4: They don't know about church Hill's dog in the Manger quote,
Speaker 4: which is just pure white supremacy before the.
Speaker 3: Existence of Israel.
Speaker 4: And then they see me with George Floyd's people in Minnesota,
Speaker 4: and then they start connecting that with the violent war
Speaker 4: for profit, white patriarchal, extractive capitalist machine that allows black
Speaker 4: men to lie in their own piss whilst begging for
Speaker 4: their Mamma as they late leave this mortal coil, and
Speaker 4: then I take them from there to Johannesburg, and I
Speaker 4: take them to the University of Johannesburg that used to
Speaker 4: be an all white university, and within our lifetime that
Speaker 4: university looks like.
Speaker 3: You and Mi no right.
Speaker 4: And there's a scene in Johannesburg with a professor talking
Speaker 4: about Palestine. It's sat African man being strong man talking
Speaker 4: about the history and the connection. And I think for
Speaker 4: a lot of Americans, this film is accessible because it's
Speaker 4: got all the shiny things when me and the oscars
Speaker 4: and everything else, but it always takes them back to
Speaker 4: help them understand that we have to decolonize our mind
Speaker 4: and protest matters not just because of getting arrested and
Speaker 4: getting on the news, because you build community, and within community.
Speaker 3: Lies the ability to unlearn.
Speaker 4: Because one of the most dangerous things I've seen is
Speaker 4: a combination of confirmation bias.
Speaker 3: And arrested development.
Speaker 4: Just hanging out with the same people that holiday in
Speaker 4: the same place and listen to the same music that
Speaker 4: you know, love jay Z, Beyonce Taylor, whoever, and they
Speaker 4: literally are in a bubble of extractive capitalist status quoism.
Speaker 3: And my film is to gently but hold.
Speaker 4: Your hand and pull you out of that room, you know,
Speaker 4: for you to look outside and realize that your reality
Speaker 4: is not built on anything outside of the blood and
Speaker 4: broken bones of brown and black. Usually at this point,
Speaker 4: if you're looking at your iPhones and your Tesla cars kids,
Speaker 4: because you look at Congo, you look at the new
Speaker 4: phones every September.
Speaker 3: You look at the.
Speaker 4: Fact that many of us don't realize that a lot
Speaker 4: of the things we're told to buy that we don't need,
Speaker 4: we don't even we're Christmas now, for God's sake, how
Speaker 4: many of us are still buying shopping.
Speaker 3: I canceled Christmas, which is invest and Jerusalem, whereas right
Speaker 3: in Powerisi.
Speaker 4: So it's a film about my life that helps you
Speaker 4: go on a journey of on learning and decolonizing yourself
Speaker 4: through my images. Listen, Edward lenningfil changed my life. When
Speaker 4: I became the first black man to shoot the cover
Speaker 4: of Vogue in twenty twenty, I could have just stayed
Speaker 4: on that lane and done pretty well for myself taking
Speaker 4: pictures of famous folk. I'm very proud of the humans.
Speaker 3: That I've shot.
Speaker 4: I'm very proud of how I shoot black people in
Speaker 4: particular because I have a lot of issues with the
Speaker 4: gaze of our people when they make us.
Speaker 2: I thought she was saying the gays like g a
Speaker 2: y s And I was.
Speaker 4: Like, what the gays have a problem with They haven't
Speaker 4: hurt anyone, you know, I'm talking more about the game.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean that was uninsecure, and that was like
Speaker 2: a really big issue with not issue, but that was
Speaker 2: a really big focus was like shooting black people properly,
Speaker 2: you know, and us being able to, like you said,
Speaker 2: not be purple.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And you know, if you look at most of the
Speaker 4: biggest this is American verge I'm talking about, they still
Speaker 4: in general use anileboits, and I'm always confused by that
Speaker 4: because there are plenty of black men and women, even
Speaker 4: in New York State. They can take a picture and
Speaker 4: I'm like, if you're going to shoot, you name it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: Most of the black covers sometimes I use Tyler Mitchell,
Speaker 4: which is great. He was the first black man to
Speaker 4: shoot the color he did Beyonce in twenty eighteen. But
Speaker 4: in general it's usually ani.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, yeah, but people don't make demands. That's
Speaker 2: also part of the problem too. You know, we act
Speaker 2: as if we don't have agency, right I mean, and
Speaker 2: they don't want to lose an opportunity, so they're not
Speaker 2: going to make any changes. They're not going to make
Speaker 2: any challenges. And that's why people don't like me, because
Speaker 2: I'm going to be like no, or I'll do it if.
Speaker 2: Like when I did Essence, I did a shoot for
Speaker 2: Essence in Grenada, and they wanted me to do my
Speaker 2: shoot at this hotel in Grenada that was built by
Speaker 2: an Egyptian man who does not live in Grenada, and
Speaker 2: he was able to get citizenship by doing so. He
Speaker 2: built a wall that impeded a view that Grenadians in
Speaker 2: that part of the island had of the sea for
Speaker 2: how many decades? And now he come under the wall.
Speaker 2: The Grenadians came and teared dumb the wall. But then
Speaker 2: the government said, nah, man the man paid him, so
Speaker 2: he get a bill of the wall, and so he
Speaker 2: gets to build this wall. They had this hotel at
Speaker 2: the time. I don't know if it's changed yet, but
Speaker 2: at the time, it's not like they were using agriculture
Speaker 2: from the island. You know, it's not like they're actively
Speaker 2: in cohesion and symbiosis with the island, So why would
Speaker 2: I come and do my photo shoot for Grenada in
Speaker 2: this hotel. There are hotels on the island that are
Speaker 2: owned by Grenadians. There are also hotels on the island
Speaker 2: that are staffed that may not be owned by a Grenadian,
Speaker 2: but are owned by people who actively pour back into
Speaker 2: the economy of Grenada. So I said, I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: do it unless I can do a shoot that is
Speaker 2: reflective of the island in the way that the people
Speaker 2: of the island want it to be reflected, which is
Speaker 2: in its ecology. Right, It's strength. Its strength is in
Speaker 2: its ecology, and it's commit meant to it to preserve
Speaker 2: preservation of culture in ways that other islands unfortunately haven't
Speaker 2: been able to do because of the just impact of colonization.
Speaker 2: But like, I'm only bringing this up because they could
Speaker 2: have said no, and then I wouldn't have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but no, every I mean, look at it.
Speaker 4: Simone Biles, for example, rights like, I don't know when
Speaker 4: she got that big cover.
Speaker 2: You know, you mean the Simone Biles who cheered Wait wait, wait,
Speaker 2: you mean the Simone Biles who cheered of excitement and
Speaker 2: exaltation when there were three black women who were on
Speaker 2: the podium at Worlds. You mean that, Simone Biles, Like,
Speaker 2: I need y'all to stop giving these people passes, like
Speaker 2: they don't know what's up. Simone Biles is a black
Speaker 2: woman in gymnastics, and I will tell you now missing
Speaker 2: we have always been the because I was in gymnastics,
Speaker 2: We're always the one black girl. You're always you mean
Speaker 2: someone Biles who comes from a foster home, whose mother
Speaker 2: could not have her and her whole siblings because she
Speaker 2: was an addict. Simone Biles is acutely aware of.
Speaker 3: Race saying that, But I'm saying when.
Speaker 2: She say, right, but you, for instance, had people telling
Speaker 2: you don't do Palestine, but you were like, hmmm, I
Speaker 2: can't know.
Speaker 4: It's it's growth, it's growth, right, it's this years ago.
Speaker 4: You know, I don't think I would have been in
Speaker 4: this place. And I don't think you've always been in
Speaker 4: this place? Have you always been in this You just
Speaker 4: popped out like this, Wow, I've literally.
Speaker 2: Always been like this. You can ask anyone. Like in
Speaker 2: high school, I led a whole movement in the theater
Speaker 2: program when the whites were mad because there were three
Speaker 2: black leads that were doing the Black leads in the shows.
Speaker 2: Ask anybody and they will tell you she's always been
Speaker 2: like this. But I also came from a home that
Speaker 2: was very like I grew up listening to Bob Marley,
Speaker 2: like that was my lullaby music, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: So I think that's just I think there's also something
Speaker 2: real about our DNA, you know, And what's what we
Speaker 2: show up with in our physical being and how that
Speaker 2: gets shaped and get what is the catalyst for that
Speaker 2: turning up? I mean, I'm still in touch with my
Speaker 2: first grade teacher who when we first got back in touch,
Speaker 2: she was like, I have a bone to pick with you.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, my first grade teacher, I had a
Speaker 2: bone tom with me, and her bone was she said,
Speaker 2: in your comedy special, you said that you learned the
Speaker 2: Negro National Anthem in tenth grade, but you were singing
Speaker 2: the anth the Negro National Anthem in first grade. I
Speaker 2: had you all singing the Negro National Anthem in first grade.
Speaker 2: I had it up on the wall because she was like,
Speaker 2: I didn't want black children.
Speaker 3: To be.
Speaker 2: Like her. Majority of my school was black and Mexican,
Speaker 2: and she was like, and I didn't want y'all not
Speaker 2: knowing what the real deal is, even if I had
Speaker 2: to make you say the pledge of allegiance. So like,
Speaker 2: these types of things are instilled in you early and
Speaker 2: you know you either are able to carry them forth.
Speaker 2: But you know, Simone is a she's a young I
Speaker 2: wouldn't use her as an example just because you're right,
Speaker 2: she's a young person like she had at the time.
Speaker 3: Also is a big American vote cover.
Speaker 4: They would have told her it's a huge deal, and
Speaker 4: she probably would have been because it's outside of her world.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm just I just folks had circles around
Speaker 2: them that we're on code, and so often we're not
Speaker 2: because the code is money, the code is access, the
Speaker 2: code is visibility, and I sacrificed that because that doesn't
Speaker 2: have value to me in the way that it did
Speaker 2: when I was like at one point, So even if
Speaker 2: I had been woke forever, I still had people around
Speaker 2: me that were like, you should do this, and then
Speaker 2: I'd have like, yeah, nah, But the people were still
Speaker 2: around me though, you know, like because you're supposed to
Speaker 2: have been around you.
Speaker 4: So why have we got from Langhares, from Nina Simone
Speaker 4: to Pharrell? Thing he doesn't well, you know what he said,
Speaker 4: why have we got in the seventies.
Speaker 2: In the seventies we had the Black Power movement, but
Speaker 2: then we also had simultaneously the Southern Strategy and Nixon saying,
Speaker 2: what we're going to do is we are going to
Speaker 2: bring black people into capitalism, and instead of us actually
Speaker 2: shifting the systemic racism that takes place, we are going
Speaker 2: to sible them but surreptitiously treat it as a goal
Speaker 2: that they can achieve economic freedom and that they are
Speaker 2: now able to do so. And so that's what it became.
Speaker 2: And then you put drugs in a community, and you
Speaker 2: give people the ability to capitalize at the same time
Speaker 2: as they're killing their own community. And you give these
Speaker 2: same people who you continuously you are continuously suppressing and oppressing. Right,
Speaker 2: So that's the thing. It's like, there's no, it's completely
Speaker 2: it makes perfect sense to me why you would have
Speaker 2: black capitalists because the oppression never stopped. So like the
Speaker 2: the seeing it happened in front of your face all
Speaker 2: the time. Yeah, never stopped. And so you're like, well,
Speaker 2: I got to get out of this.
Speaker 4: To get out of this, I had a lot of
Speaker 4: American brothers and sisters messaging me.
Speaker 3: They were not upset that they were challenging.
Speaker 4: I did a one hour interview on Middle East Eye
Speaker 4: and I brought up the fact that the NBA and
Speaker 4: NFL is a really good example of not us not
Speaker 4: recognizing our collective power.
Speaker 3: That's nice, you know. You look at I don't know
Speaker 3: what percentage of the NFL is black, I mean.
Speaker 2: Enough to say the vast majority.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I said, it's crazy to me that, you know,
Speaker 4: someone like Lebron James doesn't wake up and you know,
Speaker 4: and this is why they pay him and others so much.
Speaker 4: It's hard to have that bird's eye view perspective of saying,
Speaker 4: why don't we just go and raise the money ourselves
Speaker 4: and set up a co op set up only the
Speaker 4: European players, that the white players that are good at
Speaker 4: using European they're going to come with us.
Speaker 3: Anyway, right and have real ownership.
Speaker 4: And then you look at the NFL, which in many
Speaker 4: ways is even worse because so many of the owners
Speaker 4: of the NFL teams are just.
Speaker 2: Just read this comment. This is what this is how
Speaker 2: we get for RELs.
Speaker 3: I see Lord, and he has Lord in his name.
Speaker 3: I see and love. But this is, but is it
Speaker 3: a human or bot?
Speaker 2: I mean it doesn't It doesn't matter because they'll still
Speaker 2: be humans that respond to the bot. Right, But this
Speaker 2: is very much the thought process. Just shut up and
Speaker 2: get your money, m don't.
Speaker 4: Yeah, hm, well, I mean getting them yeah, And that's
Speaker 4: that's the that's what because.
Speaker 2: You know the other part of the of the of
Speaker 2: the NBA in the NFL is that many of them,
Speaker 2: more NFL than NBA, are shaped by white.
Speaker 7: Men in their young lives in coaches, yeah, who do
Speaker 7: not have the politics that recognizes the humanity of black
Speaker 7: and brown bodies, which is which I.
Speaker 4: Find so interesting. Right if you and then you look
Speaker 4: at the quarterbacks, like I'm forty seven, I you know,
Speaker 4: we didn't have black quarterbacks to what nineties.
Speaker 2: Nineties like when Mike Nick was a quarterback, people were like,
Speaker 2: this is impossible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because we were the Bucks, right you shut up?
Speaker 2: Well they said they literally said we're not smart enough,
Speaker 2: not and read the ship said we're not smart enough.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, And so I say that, I say, I say, actually,
Speaker 4: you know that the structure, the power structure on the
Speaker 4: field was plantation based as so as I'm concerned, right,
Speaker 4: And people like what are you talking about it?
Speaker 3: I'm like, better look at it. Just look at it.
Speaker 3: And how do we have the level.
Speaker 4: Of wealth that is in the NBA in terms of
Speaker 4: fifty million, one hundred million, And you're telling me ten
Speaker 4: players couldn't get together and buy a major chunk of
Speaker 4: the team.
Speaker 3: You know, I think they're like three.
Speaker 4: Owners and those are you know, the the you know,
Speaker 4: the Michael Jordan's and the Yeah, you.
Speaker 2: Know if you like Claren Kaepernick kneeled for awareness around
Speaker 2: police brutality and the entire league didn't kneel with him.
Speaker 3: And then as life, I mean you know that they
Speaker 3: have they even Spike Lee's doc. Have they pulled it?
Speaker 3: I don't think that's coming out.
Speaker 2: I didn't even know it existed.
Speaker 4: There's a big doc Spike's been doing for a long
Speaker 4: time on Caps Life, and I don't We'll see.
Speaker 3: HBO has just been bought, so we'll see.
Speaker 2: But I heard it's not, well did it get bought?
Speaker 3: There's a new offer? Right? I thought it was. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about it a little later Larry Ellison and Oracle,
Speaker 2: So tell me this in this climate, how is it
Speaker 2: different in Britain in terms of creating if at all
Speaker 2: because in the United States it's become damn near impossible
Speaker 2: for folks who want to create in the network system
Speaker 2: or in the studio system, you can't. You're not going
Speaker 2: to be able to create anything that is subversive, let
Speaker 2: alone that is that is black, let alone subversive. Right, Like,
Speaker 2: I grew up seeing so much black creativity, and it's
Speaker 2: been withered and withered and withered to the point now
Speaker 2: where when I am scrolling, I genuinely don't see much
Speaker 2: of anything. And when I do see black people, we're
Speaker 2: in movies about cops or we're in movies about politic Yeah,
Speaker 2: So I'm curious in the British side of things what
Speaker 2: it looks like.
Speaker 4: Well, I think in the traditional mechanisms of I mean,
Speaker 4: it's all about money, right, Who's going to commission what?
Speaker 4: And you know, the first one I made with Netflix
Speaker 4: was because it was a guy. You know, it was
Speaker 4: a black woman, Fiona Lambty, that was head of commissioning.
Speaker 4: He then has left, right, And I think a lot
Speaker 4: of people are realizing that, and I think Gaza has
Speaker 4: everything to do with it, because there's a renaissance of
Speaker 4: what the consumer wants to see. So if you look
Speaker 4: at their three films out Voice of Hand. All this
Speaker 4: leftters you and the Palestine thirty six. They're selling out
Speaker 4: in every single cinema, right. They all had to hustle
Speaker 4: like phone calls from uncles, aunties, rich rich every rich
Speaker 4: friends that you think care, and they have the film's finance.
Speaker 4: But what they've did all of those films outside the
Speaker 4: studio system. Watermelon Pictures has been set up, yes, which
Speaker 4: is which which my film has?
Speaker 3: They have a global rights to my film? Right people?
Speaker 4: And what what I've learned, it's incredible because they're saying
Speaker 4: they're saying, we're just going to look at the blueprint
Speaker 4: of what has been done for the last hundred years,
Speaker 4: but do it with a with a with.
Speaker 3: A global lens, and the consumer wants it.
Speaker 4: So what's going to happen now is that people are
Speaker 4: going to be flying to meet banks in the global South,
Speaker 4: to meet culture funds. I know three culture funds which
Speaker 4: I can't speak about, that are being set up by
Speaker 4: people of color. Right, there are parts of the Arab
Speaker 4: world that are like, oh, we shook we you know,
Speaker 4: we've been buying football teams, We've been buying useless truthts.
Speaker 4: We're not going to make that mistake again. For the
Speaker 4: price of two yachts, we can have ten years of
Speaker 4: podcast being commissionedly, TV shows, films. So that's all been
Speaker 4: built now and I think a lot of folks that
Speaker 4: know how to move and where to move are going
Speaker 4: to be finding pockets of fiscal availability outside of the
Speaker 4: European and North America.
Speaker 3: And making things. This is the other thing.
Speaker 4: Making the films that we never got to see Palistin
Speaker 4: thirty six feels huge, right, but it is just one story.
Speaker 4: And how many films have we seen about Laverture and
Speaker 4: the Haitian Revolution, How many films have we seen about
Speaker 4: the Congo genocide and Leopold? How many films have we
Speaker 4: seen about the Mau Mau massacre. How many films have
Speaker 4: we seen about the Bengal famine.
Speaker 3: I can go on all day.
Speaker 4: People want to see that, and they're now going to
Speaker 4: be made and we don't have to ask permission of
Speaker 4: racist usually men that are sitting in their la offices
Speaker 4: trying to think that we are the only gatekeepers that
Speaker 4: you know, allow us to tell our stories. And you know,
Speaker 4: Tyler Perry, movies get made. Oprah is allowed to do
Speaker 4: what she does for a reason. You know, you know,
Speaker 4: we have to ask ourselves. No, but I know why
Speaker 4: hasn't Tyler can make a movie about Lubata? So Oprah
Speaker 4: could financial movie about you know, the the Dema Mile massacre, right, I.
Speaker 2: Mean you would think they did roots, you know, for
Speaker 2: the and it's like how many times we're going to
Speaker 2: do ruths? How much news? There's there's new knowledge about
Speaker 2: old things that need to be shared. And we don't
Speaker 2: even have any history after nineteen forty five here in
Speaker 2: the United States, Missen, you would think that nothing happened
Speaker 2: after nineteen forty five, Like Martin Luther King was alive
Speaker 2: and then he died, not assassinated, he.
Speaker 3: Died Like I mean, I've just got that book, have you?
Speaker 3: Did you get the book without Sanctuary? Have you got
Speaker 3: that book yet?
Speaker 2: No? Without Sanctuary?
Speaker 4: I mean, America is so fucked up about the Christmas
Speaker 4: the lynching Christmas cards. You're well, not you, but Americans
Speaker 4: used to send themselves. So it's it's an extraordinary book
Speaker 4: that goes into detail. I mean, this was this was
Speaker 4: a real practice where someone would send a relatively picture
Speaker 4: of a lynched black woman or black man as a
Speaker 4: Christmas card and somebody needs to do no no, and
Speaker 4: someone needs to do the documentary. And I know people
Speaker 4: don't want to see it, but I think of him
Speaker 4: every day. I don't want to get emotional now, but
Speaker 4: I think of George Stinney Junior every day. And Ava
Speaker 4: Devernet touched on it. But he needs his story told properly,
Speaker 4: you know, and people sometimes.
Speaker 3: Argue whether whether the Bible bit is true.
Speaker 4: You know that he was too small, so they made
Speaker 4: him sit on the Bible before the electrocuted him. You know,
Speaker 4: youngest person to be electrocuted.
Speaker 3: I don't even it.
Speaker 4: Doesn't matter they eecuted. They electrocuted a child in America
Speaker 4: for a crime that he did not commit. And that story,
Speaker 4: outside of little mini ten minute segments, has never been told.
Speaker 4: So yeah, that you're right. There are stories to be
Speaker 4: told and it's not And people say, oh, I'm tired
Speaker 4: of all the trauma and blah blah blah. Listen, if
Speaker 4: we talk about how many movies have been made about
Speaker 4: a singular story, I think of all the history lessons
Speaker 4: I had at school.
Speaker 3: They're just telling me the same story.
Speaker 2: I know more. I know more about the Holocaust than
Speaker 2: I did about my own people I could tell you
Speaker 2: about Crystal knocked, the Nuremberg Trials. I can tell you
Speaker 2: about the Warsaw Ghetto, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. I can
Speaker 2: tell you about Dahaw and Auschwitz and.
Speaker 3: Many great films, many many great films.
Speaker 2: No, but I'm telling you I knew that from school.
Speaker 2: I knew that from school. I can sing the Drado song, Oh, Drado,
Speaker 2: Dradel Dradol, I made it out of clay. I can
Speaker 2: do all of that. However, I didn't do the Zionism.
Speaker 3: Do they teach you about Congo, Congo, about Leopold? Okay,
Speaker 3: we didn't learn.
Speaker 2: About I mean, we barely learned that Africa existed.
Speaker 4: So they didn't talk about ten million jenes, No, ten
Speaker 4: million hands being chopped off with kids, none of that.
Speaker 2: None of it. We haven't in the United States. I mean,
Speaker 2: you have to really be intentional about your children or
Speaker 2: yourself learning the length that this nation has gone to
Speaker 2: exhibit harm against everybody who is not wife. And then
Speaker 2: you go to a whole other level to see who
Speaker 2: the whites that they exhibited harm against because they wasn't
Speaker 2: working with the Appalachians. Yeah, and so you know, we
Speaker 2: find ourselves at this really important zenith where which is
Speaker 2: why I refer to myself as an artistic intellectual, where
Speaker 2: the necessity for art to educate is again back to
Speaker 2: It's no longer just like a subcategory. I feel like
Speaker 2: it needs to be the category that we're creating in,
Speaker 2: you know, because like for a lot of time, it's
Speaker 2: felt like, you know, can't we just have like a
Speaker 2: feel good film? No, no, no?
Speaker 3: And also I don't know how you know.
Speaker 4: In thet I've got a big exhibition of my photographs
Speaker 4: and again everyone's like saying, miss and put the BLM stuff,
Speaker 4: put the climate, put the quip. You're going to do
Speaker 4: so well, the art world's going to love you. I'm like,
Speaker 4: it's fifty images of Palestinian solidarity and resistance on three continents,
Speaker 4: because that has been of my lifetime. This the biggest
Speaker 4: single protest movement that I've ever witnessed with my lens.
Speaker 4: And again I put it all in a black owned
Speaker 4: gallery and it's become the busiest gallery show.
Speaker 3: In London by quite a mile.
Speaker 4: But the big bart is I'm in a position that
Speaker 4: I can force that issue to happen. The bigger question
Speaker 4: is if you look at the top ten black artists
Speaker 4: in the world. You know, what's the term they use,
Speaker 4: blue chip artists. What are they saying about the world
Speaker 4: as we know what?
Speaker 3: No, no, no, I have to say, they'll be showing
Speaker 3: at the Goggenheim, and they'll be showing here. But if
Speaker 3: your revolutionary work m makes rich folk comfortable.
Speaker 2: At the same time, then it makes them.
Speaker 3: Richer well as an asset class. Yes, of course, you know, yes,
Speaker 3: of course.
Speaker 4: And but but the thing about art is that when
Speaker 4: it's really dangerous is when it goes beyond that and
Speaker 4: that the people want it, then it becomes part of
Speaker 4: the zeigeist anyway, right, And I think I never waited
Speaker 4: to ask permission to do any of the things that
Speaker 4: I'm doing in terms of you know, if I have
Speaker 4: There's there's an image I have in the gallery that
Speaker 4: says fuck white privilege, with a woman wearing a mask
Speaker 4: saying Trump stinks. And somebody walks in saying, you know what,
Speaker 4: why would you have this in an exhibition? And I said,
Speaker 4: for the very reason that you have the infantry to
Speaker 4: sit there as a white person and ask me why
Speaker 4: I would have that in an exhibition is the reason
Speaker 4: why it has to be in the exhibition.
Speaker 3: And now go do the work on yourself, right, you know.
Speaker 4: So I don't know how it is in America, but
Speaker 4: I think the museum system is the gallery system. A
Speaker 4: lot of people that are black, that are doing.
Speaker 3: Very well, are very, very scared.
Speaker 4: That's why Amy Sherrold is just a legend because she's like, no,
Speaker 4: you're not going to do that to me.
Speaker 3: You know, she found a she.
Speaker 4: Found a space where her work could breathe and be
Speaker 4: what it's supposed to be.
Speaker 3: They are not many Amy Cheryl's out there.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you, well, that's what you were saying before though, right,
Speaker 2: I mean like there there's like little pepperings of us
Speaker 2: in various spaces. And why that's also why it's so
Speaker 2: imperative that we all remain connected. And and to ask you.
Speaker 4: What was your your lowest point in the last two years,
Speaker 4: because I know you've been vocal about all of this
Speaker 4: for a long time before October, but I know for
Speaker 4: most people it became I mean, I look at I
Speaker 4: mean at Miss Ray was hiring security now, right, I
Speaker 4: mean it's just out of control. Was there a time
Speaker 4: in the last two years where not because people are
Speaker 4: necessarily after you, but the pure medieval violence reigned upon men, women,
Speaker 4: and children, but particularly children. For me, was there a
Speaker 4: moment where You're just like, I don't know what to
Speaker 4: do or say anymore?
Speaker 2: February of twenty twenty. For I remember, I was just
Speaker 2: talking about this last night with my homegirl. I was
Speaker 2: I was sitting in my car in my garage. I
Speaker 2: had just come home. I was sitting in my car,
Speaker 2: I was on the pull with my homegirl, and I
Speaker 2: remember just sitting in the garage at the dark, talking
Speaker 2: to her and saying like, I just can't get like,
Speaker 2: I don't want to kill myself, but it feels like
Speaker 2: I'm dead, Like it feels like death, Like I feel
Speaker 2: like I know what death is, and I am in
Speaker 2: a cloud every single day, like the depression of But
Speaker 2: it wasn't. And the thing about it is that it
Speaker 2: was more, Actually, if this is even possible, it was
Speaker 2: more than simply just the images that I was seeing
Speaker 2: out of Palestine. It was also simultaneously really understanding the
Speaker 2: complete deprivation of the nation that I'd lived in, of
Speaker 2: the system that I'd been supporting, so somewhat, you know,
Speaker 2: even on a democrat level of the world, and so
Speaker 2: it was a complete ego death of what I knew
Speaker 2: or thought I knew. But it was also a complete
Speaker 2: death of my existence, you know. So, I mean, it's
Speaker 2: just like watching Alderan be eviscerated and I I could.
Speaker 2: I mean, people saw me crying on Instagram every day
Speaker 2: that was and I had to get on Lexapro. I
Speaker 2: mean I had to get on because I just realized,
Speaker 2: like I mean, I developed ibs. Like I mean, it
Speaker 2: was just like you can't can't manage like and I
Speaker 2: had to really meet myself at the reality of like,
Speaker 2: you can't manage and you are dealing with a force
Speaker 2: that is not something you're making up.
Speaker 4: That is well organized, incredibly unemotional, and in his long
Speaker 4: term intention to do what it needs.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's straight up Star Wars.
Speaker 4: And but the thing that makes us so much worse
Speaker 4: than Star Wars, apart from it being real, is that
Speaker 4: the you know that there was something it's been removed
Speaker 4: from the Internet is I can't find it anymore. Of
Speaker 4: a child that was in the rubble and she you
Speaker 4: could only see her head and the guys couldn't dig
Speaker 4: her out. She was in a position that they couldn't
Speaker 4: dig her out, and they knew that she was dying,
Speaker 4: and they knew she didn't.
Speaker 3: Have long and they talked to her.
Speaker 4: And then one of the guys was playing with her hair,
Speaker 4: my sister, and she was there's something she didn't know
Speaker 4: she was dying, you know.
Speaker 3: And they were having and I locked myself.
Speaker 4: I have two little girls. I loved myself in the toilet.
Speaker 4: And you know, there's there are different types of crying, right.
Speaker 4: There's the kind of tears rolled down and you're like,
Speaker 4: you know, and then there's like I do that a lot,
Speaker 4: but this is the first time I can remember, at
Speaker 4: least in my adult life, no I wailed.
Speaker 3: I wailed.
Speaker 4: I I sounded like like an animal. It was it
Speaker 4: wasn't I didn't sound like you know. And and then
Speaker 4: then from that wailing, I would then go into one
Speaker 4: of because I wear many hats, right, a work environment
Speaker 4: surrounded by people that are trying to tell me that
Speaker 4: this is exactly how it's supposed to be, and that
Speaker 4: can make that can I can see why people lose
Speaker 4: their minds, you know.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's.
Speaker 2: Because it's you know, and this is why it's so
Speaker 2: necessary to keep making the things right. And doing the things,
Speaker 2: and I I'm going through that now with Sudan and
Speaker 2: the Couzo and hearing the stories that are coming out
Speaker 2: of there are a whole other level of retrobate. Reprobate.
Speaker 2: So it's it's you know, and you're you're trying to somehow.
Speaker 2: I feel like we're having to create a cellular capability
Speaker 2: that allows us to see it and it's horror without
Speaker 2: becoming calloused. And thus, like the processing of it has
Speaker 2: to be not how do I not feel when I
Speaker 2: see this? But how do I become action oriented when
Speaker 2: I see this? Cons Yeah, it's a conscious decision I've
Speaker 2: had to make around how to take in this this information,
Speaker 2: you know. And then you see people like Hillary Clinton
Speaker 2: and Sarah Horowitz running around talking about, well, you know,
Speaker 2: the problem is really that people are watching TikTok, not
Speaker 2: the fact that there's aside happening.
Speaker 4: It's not the bombs. Yeah, and the arrogance. This is
Speaker 4: the thing about confirmation bias, her level of arrogance. And
Speaker 4: you know, when you see someone like her saying and
Speaker 4: she's fundamentally saying that when it all boils down to it,
Speaker 4: the only answer is violence. She can use all the
Speaker 4: you know finery that you know it's she's just saying
Speaker 4: the bombs have to drop and they have to continue dropping.
Speaker 4: And the the pure white supremacist viewpoint of her world
Speaker 4: is extraordinary to me that she can sit. And the
Speaker 4: second interview she did, the guy actually tried. He tried
Speaker 4: to push back and he goes, yeah, but what about
Speaker 4: the baby? I mean he tried and she's like, well,
Speaker 4: war is war?
Speaker 2: I'm like, is it.
Speaker 3: Is that?
Speaker 2: What's happening in Ukraine?
Speaker 3: Hmm, don't let me start with that.
Speaker 4: I called I'm ambassador to Save the Children and I
Speaker 4: got very frustrated with UNICF. So the two biggest charities,
Speaker 4: not with UNISF but because there's some amazing people a UNICEF,
Speaker 4: but the biggest ambassador for UNISF from a British point
Speaker 4: of view is somebody called David Beckham. I'm sure you've
Speaker 4: heard of and I remember the vocal Well, he wasn't
Speaker 4: doing anything like that for the last two years for
Speaker 4: Palestinian kids, yet he was incredibly vocal for Ukrainian children.
Speaker 4: And I don't mind if you're rich, I don't mind
Speaker 4: if you're famous. You can get on with your life
Speaker 4: and enjoy it. But if you choose, and this is
Speaker 4: where we get into an issue with me, if you
Speaker 4: choose to be a children's good will ambassador, right, and
Speaker 4: there's a place that is the size of a postage
Speaker 4: lamp with a million children, that has had six Hiroshimas
Speaker 4: dropped on it, and you haven't said anything, and your
Speaker 4: good will ambassador for the biggest children's charity in the world.
Speaker 4: I have a problem with you. Either you relinquish that
Speaker 4: or you these children. And I will say, I just
Speaker 4: need your voice, just speak, say something. It really matters
Speaker 4: in the British cultural setup. He is someone that he
Speaker 4: can get a meeting within one hour with the Prime Minister.
Speaker 3: This is the way things are set up, right. It
Speaker 3: is what it is.
Speaker 4: There's something you know, You've got your knighthood, you've got
Speaker 4: all your things, but you see you are still as
Speaker 4: children's ambassador. And I found it extraordinary to me the
Speaker 4: amount of good will ambassadors for children in the last
Speaker 4: two years that were completely and utterly mute in the
Speaker 4: biggest attack on children that we have we have seen
Speaker 4: in the generation.
Speaker 2: You know, just just because white children's ambassadors, they're they're
Speaker 2: they're ambassadors in really just the regard of and they
Speaker 2: may not even know this, but they're really just tools
Speaker 2: for soft power, because a lot of the actual services
Speaker 2: being provided to the children that they are the ambassador
Speaker 2: for are done so with an attachment to some level
Speaker 2: of leverage or leverage or power that is being carried out.
Speaker 2: So like when you see someone like Bill Gates or
Speaker 2: you see the United States government somewhere helping, it's never
Speaker 2: done in altruism. It's never done in altruism. It's always
Speaker 2: done in an exchange of power, whether it's militarized or economic.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: So then you they get celebrities who come on board
Speaker 2: to be the children's ambassadors, which sounds very noble and
Speaker 2: very like weak care. And those celebrities don't realize that
Speaker 2: while they are simultaneously also building up their own face
Speaker 2: and their own you know, report reputation for being a
Speaker 2: good person, they are actively supporting systems that are in
Speaker 2: place to actually diminish these people's safety. So it's a
Speaker 2: part of the NGO, you know, nonprofit system that really
Speaker 2: does not seek to solve problems. So I'm feeling particularly
Speaker 2: skeptical today, so cynical today. So you're getting a lot
Speaker 2: of you're getting all the no.
Speaker 3: But you know, we've you're not you know, we've we've
Speaker 3: this two years. You know.
Speaker 4: I I look back and I think none of us,
Speaker 4: none of us, are ever going to be the same,
Speaker 4: you know, the whatever whatever veil that was on. For me,
Speaker 4: it's just all gone right and I'm not alone. But
Speaker 4: what's amazing is that a lot of other people. And
Speaker 4: this is what gives me hope, because sometimes you're like,
Speaker 4: where's the hope? Where's is a lot of people. I
Speaker 4: beginning to go on a journey to like, oh ship
Speaker 4: the Democrats, the Republicans just bomb everyone. That being right
Speaker 4: or center or left, depending on where you live doesn't
Speaker 4: mean that you're not bombing people. And then you because
Speaker 4: I remember one of the big wake up calls for
Speaker 4: me was I'm not American, but I I will say
Speaker 4: that if I was, I would be obviously a progressive,
Speaker 4: left leaning Democrat. And I'm like, how can I you know,
Speaker 4: I watch Joe Biden.
Speaker 2: But even that's not enough.
Speaker 3: Go on, Pam saying that, But everything you.
Speaker 2: Just said, that's not even a thing like, that's not
Speaker 2: being a progressive, left leaning Democrat. You're still a part
Speaker 2: of the liberal system that upholds all the ship.
Speaker 3: No, that's that's the thing that I think.
Speaker 4: If I was American, my wake up call to that
Speaker 4: would have been the Biden administration in the last eighty years.
Speaker 2: I see, I see, and I think, Okay, so you
Speaker 2: know what, I agree with you, because I not agree.
Speaker 2: It's not the word I was there. I was. I
Speaker 2: was that person.
Speaker 3: Hm.
Speaker 4: Then the Thomas Greenfield like, you know, Auntie, I did
Speaker 4: a post saying, am I going to tell my daughters
Speaker 4: this is the sort of person that I used to
Speaker 4: think I would tell my daughters about for them to
Speaker 4: look up to, right? And I'm like, what am I
Speaker 4: going to say? And I had a whole bunch of
Speaker 4: folks get in the comments saying, miss and have you
Speaker 4: looked at her? CV, it's better to have one of
Speaker 4: us in the room, And I said, no, it's not.
Speaker 4: If that is erasing a people, then I don't want
Speaker 4: any of us in it, right, or.
Speaker 3: Or even better, the person that was in it.
Speaker 4: If they want greatness, right, if it's about the cult
Speaker 4: of individualism, if they want legend, resign exactly. Pamla Harris
Speaker 4: if she had resigned saying this this a crazy old man.
Speaker 4: I can't deal with him, resign. Do not wheel out
Speaker 4: Bill Clinton too, dearborn and have him say things to
Speaker 4: Arab Americans like Judaean Samaria, are you mad?
Speaker 2: Are you mad?
Speaker 4: Bring go and bring a palace in the person, Bring
Speaker 4: a progressive Jewish person, bring them together, stand there and
Speaker 4: saying this, we need to cease fire. This is if
Speaker 4: you if you don't at that stage once you use
Speaker 4: the word genocide, but you can use all kinds of
Speaker 4: ethnic cleansing other terms. But do not wheel out Clinton
Speaker 4: to a place with more Arab Americans than anyone else
Speaker 4: and expect that anyone under twenty five is going to
Speaker 4: care any white, black, brown people that are just on
Speaker 4: the side of like this is this is crazy.
Speaker 3: And of course any traumatized Arabs who are in diaspora
Speaker 3: seeing children in their image of their limbs removed being
Speaker 3: eaten by dogs. This is not dogs. What do we
Speaker 3: what do you know? Anyway, So that's what you do
Speaker 3: instead of us saying, no, we celebrate any of us
Speaker 3: that are in the room. Which room. If the room
Speaker 3: is just ripping with blood, why should we be inside?
Speaker 2: Well, that's what Martin Luther King said. Doctor Doctor Martin
Speaker 2: Luther King Junior said, you know, I feel like I've
Speaker 2: integrated my people into a burning house. And what he
Speaker 2: meant by that was he thought that the United States
Speaker 2: had some level of moral code and it does not,
Speaker 2: and so he has literally ushered his people into an immoral,
Speaker 2: unethical space where they are now going to be used
Speaker 2: against themselves.
Speaker 3: And that's what happened. Money Mayweather.
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean he can't even read, so he's probably
Speaker 2: got so much ct.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: So we have one question from our bridge across the pond, Reese,
Speaker 2: who asks a pleasure to witness this conversation. Also, mister Harriman,
Speaker 2: I'm friends with Nadia so Wilha and Mark, So this
Speaker 2: is wondrous intersection going to the new year. Do you
Speaker 2: have any further activism projects?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Nadia is a Jordanian British treasure.
Speaker 3: So is her amazing husband Mark.
Speaker 4: She has been a real deal since the very beginning.
Speaker 4: I have photographed her reading the names of murdered children
Speaker 4: outside the houses of Parliament. I love that woman with
Speaker 4: all my heart. Yeah, look, I've got my projects. Why
Speaker 4: why photographed black children with down syndrome? So I'm trying
Speaker 4: to find a way to so again with my lens,
Speaker 4: I point to communities and places that don't always get
Speaker 4: the recognition I've had the honor of photographing so even
Speaker 4: within Down syndrome, they have just in general, they raised
Speaker 4: black children right, and I don't know if you know,
Speaker 4: Down's children are all angels, and to have black babies
Speaker 4: with Down's big, you know, photograph of me, it was
Speaker 4: more important to me than any celeb that I've ever shot.
Speaker 4: So I'm trying to make sure We've done a few
Speaker 4: little shows and exhibitions, but that's a big program that
Speaker 4: I'm trying to reach others. I'm trying to get into Sudan.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to get into Congo with my camera.
Speaker 3: I was in Somalia and Hiro.
Speaker 4: With some of the projects that I'm working on, it's
Speaker 4: getting harder and harder for me to get into certain places.
Speaker 4: I want to get to the West Bank, but I'm
Speaker 4: on a very very very very naughty list with you
Speaker 4: know who. My safety isn't guaranteed there that I'm just
Speaker 4: going to keep pointing my lens and then I'm shooting
Speaker 4: my next my next movie as well, so trying to.
Speaker 2: Keep are you allowed to talk about that? Are not allowed?
Speaker 2: But are you interested?
Speaker 3: What two things I'll say about films.
Speaker 4: The one that I'm hoping to shoot next year is is.
Speaker 3: About addiction and redemption.
Speaker 4: In a in a forgotten America, starring a major one
Speaker 4: of the great actors of our time, a black man.
Speaker 3: That's all I can say.
Speaker 4: The second one, which is in development and you'll love this,
Speaker 4: And I'm developing a movie about a Beyonce level pop
Speaker 4: star that has her private jet. Let's say she's in
Speaker 4: grenade or whatever. It stops working and she's without her team.
Speaker 4: She's stuck in an island and she goes down a
Speaker 4: reddit rab at hole and realizes that she is literally
Speaker 4: the face of capitalism of a supremacist ecosystem from Fast Fashion.
Speaker 4: And it's a comedy akin to Don't Look Up and
Speaker 4: Don't Remember.
Speaker 3: Where.
Speaker 4: The movie basically starts with her being isolated, gone down
Speaker 4: a rabbit hole, and she tweets free Palestine, Free Sudan,
Speaker 4: and free Congo and it's like deaf Con seven, like
Speaker 4: they call the presidents and call the President, And it's
Speaker 4: about what the team in New York and LA are
Speaker 4: trying to do to mitigate this, and the journey that
Speaker 4: this pop star has on realizing the inherent power of
Speaker 4: this immense.
Speaker 3: Audience that they've been given.
Speaker 4: Because this is why I keep bringing up celebrities, you see,
Speaker 4: It's that, not because I see them as some messianic figures,
Speaker 4: is that they won the land grab of the real
Speaker 4: ESTs state that for now we're stuck with. If you
Speaker 4: look at the top ten most followed people on Instagram alone,
Speaker 4: it is four Kardashians, three or four footballers, Taylor, Beyonce,
Speaker 4: what have you, And the total following is almost four
Speaker 4: billion people right now. This is this is obscene. And
Speaker 4: they they they can literally once a week do a
Speaker 4: post with a fundraiser, right that could raise more money
Speaker 4: than every single humanitarian organization can find. And they wouldn't
Speaker 4: have to leave their bedrooms. Okay, so I'm not asking
Speaker 4: them to become revolutionaries at the tip of the spear
Speaker 4: of any movement. I'm saying, now you've got the land
Speaker 4: grab usurp it and then use it. And you're too
Speaker 4: rich to be to even need to be worried about
Speaker 4: being canceled. How can you cancel Jay Z and Beyonce?
Speaker 2: Oh well, and Swiss beats, you know, I look at
Speaker 2: Alicia Keys and Swiss beads, you know, Swiss Beads is
Speaker 2: out here being Muslim, you know, with the name uh.
Speaker 3: Came.
Speaker 2: He grew up in that in that context. His name
Speaker 2: is Cassim, his son's name is Cassim. And they have
Speaker 2: not said anything because they will get phone calls or
Speaker 2: they'll lose their money, et cetera. You know, and Alicia
Speaker 2: Keys loves to talk about you know, civil rights and
Speaker 2: blah blah blah, and some people will say, well, maybe
Speaker 2: they're doing stuff in the background. And I guess what
Speaker 2: I would say now is that the days of doing
Speaker 2: stuff in the background is no longer. Uh it's it's
Speaker 2: it's we cannot continue to support surreptitious support because you're
Speaker 2: if you're actively also supporting in silence.
Speaker 4: And you cannot have hundreds of millions of followers and
Speaker 4: not use that.
Speaker 3: It's like.
Speaker 4: It's like you have this reach Muhammed Ali, for example,
Speaker 4: before social media. And this is what Mayweather has always
Speaker 4: got frustrated about in terms of not being called the graces,
Speaker 4: is that most people today, if you see posts about Ali,
Speaker 4: it's not him fighting in the ring.
Speaker 2: No, it's him with Malcolm X, it's him schooling apolous
Speaker 2: white interviewer. You know it's him talking about being a
Speaker 2: person a faith of character, right of revolutionary radical mindsets
Speaker 2: to this day that to this day, we're the right moves,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean? Like, there's no there hasn't
Speaker 2: been like some you know, some type of epiphany where
Speaker 2: people are like, man, he made the wrong choice. No,
Speaker 2: he was actually right the whole time, with.
Speaker 3: His whole chest on prime time.
Speaker 4: Right, And this is this is exactly what a Pharral
Speaker 4: or a jay z Shtoot you would think at this
Speaker 4: stage in their career, like what are they upholding? What
Speaker 4: are this this they play? I get I almost understand
Speaker 4: playing the game to get there, But when you are
Speaker 4: in the room, the whole point is to remember why
Speaker 4: you wanted to get in that room.
Speaker 2: Right, But then you try to open a casino in
Speaker 2: the middle of New York City. So, and people will say,
Speaker 2: but they also do good things, and I'm just like,
Speaker 2: why can't you just do good things? Why? Why? Why
Speaker 2: is why is there like a give and take? Why
Speaker 2: why I don't understand that?
Speaker 3: So and even for the passign.
Speaker 4: Now, you know, if people say, well, you know, black
Speaker 4: folks talk about black folks, then they should talk about
Speaker 4: congo and how about that.
Speaker 2: Fine, And you can't talk about the Congo and Sudent
Speaker 2: without yes, yes, but.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, your too ill to advance.
Speaker 3: You're both from iOS three to fourteen.
Speaker 2: Listen, listen, thank you so much for joining U.
Speaker 4: My pleasure, my pleasure, thank you so much. Just before
Speaker 4: I go, I will say this about Congo. Imagine if
Speaker 4: jay Z, I don't know doctor dre Pharrell pulled up
Speaker 4: Tim Cook at Apple and said, Tim, you have one
Speaker 4: trillion dollars cash reserves, it would be a rounding era
Speaker 4: to set up a thirty billion dollar fund to make
Speaker 4: sure that no child under eighteen is anywhere near the
Speaker 4: mining system, right, to make sure all the schools, hospitals
Speaker 4: are built, roads built, that the best conga lese mines
Speaker 4: in country and in diaspora are leading this charge in
Speaker 4: making sure a country that should be richer than Saudi Arabia,
Speaker 4: that is fueling the future.
Speaker 3: This aik would say.
Speaker 2: Tim Cook would say, I don't have the power because
Speaker 2: and that's and that's the other part is that the
Speaker 2: people that we think are running the show ain't even
Speaker 2: running the goddamn show.
Speaker 4: True, But if you had Lebron jay Z, the people
Speaker 4: that shape culture actually speak in one voice about this thing.
Speaker 4: It will I think it would trying.
Speaker 2: To get into but this is the thing, Like I
Speaker 2: don't even want I don't I actually don't want them
Speaker 2: to just speak. Like what what made Princess Diana so
Speaker 2: you know, crazy to the to the monarchy was that
Speaker 2: she physically went mm hmm, you know, like she physically
Speaker 2: went and spoke to people. She physically went and walked
Speaker 2: through the land mines and apparently Palestine was next on
Speaker 2: her agenda, and they took her out. I believe that
Speaker 2: they took her out. It's alleged, but that's my belief.
Speaker 2: I say that to say it actually isn't enough for
Speaker 2: them to just go to Tim Cook. I think that
Speaker 2: there's something very real about the fact that these people
Speaker 2: have the money and the safety and the capabilities to.
Speaker 3: Bring things to a yeah, to do them. I forgot
Speaker 3: how wealthy they are. I mean like.
Speaker 2: It's like next level the wealth is next level the wealth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know we're going to go. You're amazing. Are
Speaker 3: you ever in London?
Speaker 2: I would like to be. I would like to be.
Speaker 2: I need to be. I need to be. I need
Speaker 2: to be on more international spaces and whatnot. So I
Speaker 2: am trying to do more podcasts from you know, having
Speaker 2: and not just like in an ambitious mindset, but in
Speaker 2: a we need to be having like these cross connection
Speaker 2: cost cultural conversations. Part of what has been so problematic
Speaker 2: in the United States is that we've really been siloed
Speaker 2: and that has limited our ability to be useful for
Speaker 2: not only ourselves but for the world. And so there
Speaker 2: has to be a geopolitical consciousness that is actively pursued.
Speaker 2: So I'm making up my business to try to have
Speaker 2: more conversations outside of the United States sphere. And so
Speaker 2: if you know any podcasts on the international stage that
Speaker 2: you think I should connect with, let me know.
Speaker 3: Of course, of course thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: So I wouldn't say I won't.
Speaker 4: Say happy Holidays, because I genuinely think it is this
Speaker 4: time where we need to recognize that eighty Congo, Sudan, Palestine.
Speaker 4: This is the time you need to think about what
Speaker 4: you're going to do about it. Whilst you're a home
Speaker 4: over fed think about it. For me, my film Watermelon Pictures,
Speaker 4: just follow them. They're gonna, you know, show put it
Speaker 4: in the chat.
Speaker 2: So he'll put it in the chat. Again y'all, and
Speaker 2: thank you so much for the work that you do.
Speaker 2: And yeah, let's let's continue you and Mason stops sending
Speaker 2: me to the eleven dms. Let me tell y'all something,
Speaker 2: Masan is gonna send you every.
Speaker 4: Post so you know, you know, when I meet someone
Speaker 4: that is on my spectrum, I love it right because
Speaker 4: there's a friend of Michael, Lisa Morris, so she sends
Speaker 4: even more.
Speaker 3: Than I do. I have no I can't.
Speaker 2: I mean, I just no, no, no. Honestly, when I
Speaker 2: read your in your your IG bio today, I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's why.
Speaker 4: Fully, I'm not trying to that's me trying to limit myself.
Speaker 2: I respect it. I respect it. I'm telling you. Once
Speaker 2: I saw the bio today, I was like, oh, I
Speaker 2: get it now. I understand where a can mine is
Speaker 2: more compartmentalized. I have very specific people that I send
Speaker 2: specific things, Like some people they get all posts that
Speaker 2: I see about mushrooms. One person he gets anything I
Speaker 2: see about firefliesse I know he loves fireflies. My homeboy
Speaker 2: Luke is going to get anything that is wizards, Lord
Speaker 2: of the Ring and animals being cool. And it's very
Speaker 2: very specific. I used to send somebody whales, but they
Speaker 2: fell off my list, so no more whale posts. It
Speaker 2: just is what it is.
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, well that makes me feel a little better.
Speaker 2: What Oh you felt bad? I'm sorry, apologies. I wasn't
Speaker 2: trying to. I was just skipping. I was just having
Speaker 2: a laugh.
Speaker 3: You know that.
Speaker 4: I absolutely love the idea that no one can pretend
Speaker 4: to be who they're not online, Like, if.
Speaker 3: You look at the behavior of all of us, it's us.
Speaker 3: It's us, right, you know, like it is who you are.
Speaker 3: And I love what people pretend like they think that
Speaker 3: they're it's us.
Speaker 2: They're playing there, they think they're playing five D chess. No, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: it's just you. Excuse well. I'm glad we got to
Speaker 2: meet digitally. I look forward to us meeting in person.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: I will make it my business to watch the film
Speaker 2: now that I actually it's like when I'm home, I
Speaker 2: don't get time to do anything. When I'm on the
Speaker 2: road is when I actually get to because I just
Speaker 2: between doing things, I'm like, oh, I can watch stuff.
Speaker 2: So I will be watching the film.
Speaker 3: Before my film. Watch the Voice of head Red, please
Speaker 3: please watch.
Speaker 2: Note all right, and then
Speaker 3: Spot by the end