Akala speaks at the 70th commemoration conference of the 1945 Pan African Congress, Manchester

[Applause] slightly embarrassed but it's okay good afternoon brothers and sisters how you doing good so um I'm going to do a couple of things um and then that'll be it um I'm going to share an Acappella with you um then I'm going to you know open up about what I think that means I want to talk a little bit about education you know in terms of preparing our young people for the 21st century for the world they have to exist in globally we have some challenges of Education I I'll give a preamble before I do the acapello and go into it I was in Zimbabwe just a couple of weeks ago and it's interesting looking been in Nigeria I've been in the states I've taught in many different parts of the globe um and it's interesting looking at how the different challenges manifest in different places with regards to a panafrican education in particular so for example in the schools I visited in Zimbabwe where I lectured and I Tau they don't have the behavioral challenges that we have yes the kids listen that's not a problem kids are quiet kids are quiet and believe it or not as much as a lot of our my older my Elder um the elders in my family and many of the Caribbean families would say the you them need a beaten believe it or not it is a night in Zimbabwe they love their teachers like they hug their teachers at the end of the day unlike here where if you you know hug a student you might get done for sex offense because we got such a problem with child abuse in this country that you can't even show an affection to a child in your care in Zimbabwe that wasn't the issue so Behavior wasn't a problem literacy is not one of the problems a lot of people don't know for Zimbabwe's challenges they have one of the highest female literacies in the world not in Africa 98% female literacy I'm not being romantic here and this is one of the things I think in a safe space like this we need to not do is be romantic we can be self-critical and still be self-loving we don't need to run to white people's media and offer up those criticisms because we know what the agenda is but in a safe space like this we can be self-critical and still be self-loving so the challenge wasn't Behavior there but what I have noticed all across the continent more so than here is the access to good panafrican books which are ridiculously expensive even here so you can imagine what they cost in a continent access to those curricular and the colonial framework of a British education system in Nigeria in well in Mary it was French in Zimbabwe haven't been to Ghana right that that Legacy is still very much there and there's still actually this uh admiration in many ways for a British education system where you can go to the main University in Harari and you can have more probably everyone in here has got more more books about African history than they have in their University Library which is shocking shocking now what can we offer up in exchange in that way those of us that have access here why are we not sending books back why are we not making that part of because I think sometimes we forget how much of a two-way dialogue it is we forget that Garvey never set foot on the continent but inspired it or part of it was part of an inspiration for an entire process that is part of why we're here today so I think that challenge is there whereas here of course the challenges are completely different here behavior is the problem literacy is the problem problem structural white supremacy is the problem you know so we have a whole different set of challenges that are functional to maintain in this system because believe it or not if black people globally were educated properly and by properly I mean educated to serve their individual and then Group self-interest which is what every other group of people do you couldn't have the kind of initiatives we're talking about today you couldn't have the global exploitation of black people you couldn't have as many black billionaires and hundreds of millionaires that you have and still have this situation where Hollywood can continue to whitey black history and we've got no answer we've got no answer the best we can produce is films about Butlers and more films about slavery slave films about slavery don't even include acts of resistance we're just waiting for Brad Pit to come and save [Music] us because miseducation means that many of our elites on the continent and externally don't even have the self-respect that once they are in a powerful position to do anything to serve themselves and I'm not saying everyone's doing bad things I'm sure many of our successful extremely successful brothers and sisters undercover of funding this and funding that and doing much great work so I'm not condemning a whole group of people what I'm saying is functional miseducation which is something I was a victim of growing up which I'm going to talk about in Peller and then unpack for you functional miseducation is an integral part of the world system full stop regardless of race functional education even of white people in this country which we don't look at one of the things I think we or one of the self criticisms I would offer up and one of the things for me that has been most revolutionary and most revealing believe it or not has been a study of European history why cuz I think sometimes we like to think that we're we're in a particularly awful situation which maybe we are we like to think that we've been victims of particularly awful process which we have but by studying the history of the people that colonized us we're like right these people are just crazy and actually and actually in this country it wasn't that long ago we're in Manchester Peter L anyone heard of pet wasn't that long ago that their military constabulary were hacking to death 15 protesters in this country wasn't that long ago at tyburn down in Westminister down at Marble Arch so if you're ever on Marble Arch you'll see a church on the corner right by High tyburn they used to hang poor people there for stealing bread and milk and rich people's hats and we're not talking about ancient history so when you see that this country's friends with Saudi Arabia you shouldn't be surprised words of a fever flock together right and so for me actually studying that history and realizing how brutal Europe was to itself it's not a way of saying oh we're all the same all our struggles are the same will we Unified no but it is a way of understanding the mentality understanding imperialism and also and I don't mean this obviously in the way that racist idiots mean it when they say get over it get over your victimhood or whatever is nonsense they're talking but actually it's therapeutic to understand oh damn these people are just crazy and they would have done it to anyone regardless and that doesn't mean there are no other crazy people on the Earth of course I don't share these romantic Notions that we were all kings and queens bogling and singing kumay and Africa before might white that wasn't the case there's been there's been oppressors for as long as there's been humans probably the degree of Oppression has changed the scale of Oppression has changed the particular brutality of Europe can be addressed without us pretending like I said that we were all just you know doing Buddhist prayer charts before mighty white he set for on the continent so I think all of those things are challenged I think even addressing some of those painful aspects black collaboration is an unavoidable part of this process and it's not something we have to sit down and be like what what racist people try to do is they try to beat you up with it like the idea cuz there's black collaborators that that somehow excuses you lot and your Madness and and what happens often is I've seen this so many times rather than coming back with just telling people to shut the f right we actually try and explain away black collaboration when the British were colonizing Ireland and starving millions of Irish people to death were they not Irish collaborat yeah when the British colonized India and starve 30 million Indian people to death which they did during their reign in India were they not Indian collaborators in fact when the Moors were in Europe for 800 years what kept the wars in Europe for 800 years but white people fighting amongst each other when we talk about what's going on in Israel and Palestine no one says ah it's semi on Semite violence just ignore it when we talk about what happened in the Nazi Holocaust no one says Ah it's white on white violence just ignore it 25 million Russians died in World War II that's more than every single War fought in Africa since the end of World War II so white people are in no position to be lecturing anyone about white on white or black on black violence so I think we can do away with that but recognizing the role in which collaborators play internally and externally is a very very important part and we will never ever get any genuine sense of Liberation or any sense of progress without realizing in the way in which you have some people that make compromises that are genuine but they make compromises I think that's one thing if we study our history we can look at T who for Jean Jac desine made too many compromises with the French but tus lur was a genuine revolutionary no question about it he just made compromises because he had a difference of strategy we can bring that right back up to today with the anti-apartheid struggle nelon Mandela made certain compromises I don't think that is the same as being an out andout collaborator and I see a very one-dimensional critique of Mandela sometimes people who've never spent any time in prison getting out of their Prime and cussing down Mandela like you from nobody I'm not in it that doesn't mean that doesn't mean we can't be critical no one is above criticism not even Garvey not even Malcolm no one is above criticism and obviously not little old us who stood up here today but there was a very very very big difference between what Mandela had to do and what tcon ton L had to do and what blae compart had to do if we're talking about Bina Faso that's a collaborator very big difference yeah and I think understanding those Dynamics is very very important anyway that was a little Preamble that wasn't supposed to be a preamble I want to share with you an acapella talk a little bit about my personal Journey not because I think my personal journey is particularly important but because I think it offers a micro of the macro challenge particularly for those of us that are educated in white societies see one of the things that's fascinating about teaching in the Caribbean or teaching in Africa and I think that our people with the greatest of respect in those places don't even understand and I don't mean this in a rude way when I'm in Zimbabwe and i' I lectured at Unity and I told people the first time I saw someone get Cho up I was 12 it was in the barber shop now that wouldn't shock anyone in here because you know what England's really like but they some people point blank refus to believe me L another that doesn't happen the only reason they were kind of like oh maybe was because it was the week after the London R I was in there in August 2011 as well the only that and these are kids who went to private school daddy drove them to school in Alexus they were private school they're now at University I didn't went University I barely went college but because they believe in some sense just as our grandparents believe this is how well the colonial propaganda is working they believe cuz they're born in Africa they're automatically more disadvantaged than I am I I never grew up my dad I grew up on benefits first time I saw someone get chop up I was 12 life is not all wonderful just because you live in the west and actually I think one of our key and that doesn't mean we're saying that there are not more severe struggles often in quote unquote third world countries but there is the converse there are forms of benefit that we don't understand living in a society where being black is just normal all of you know what I'm talking about when I first went to Nigeria in 20 6 it was just like and I wasn't ignorant of the problems I could see the poverty I could see the classism I could see all of the problems that are there but I just I don't have to explain myself all day every day how [Applause] amazing and of course if you're born into it you don't um you don't even realize that that's what you have Zimbabwe was particularly inspirational for me I don't know how many people in here Vint to Zimbabwe but you won't see skin bleaching in Zimbabwe if you've been your you won't you hardly even see perm it's weird this light-skin worship which is another sickness we have right I didn't really see it people are just happy to be black it was amazing right and so and so for all its problems and I'm not uncritical of what's going on there but again you can be critical and be loving and so I think there's a two-way dialogue that we're not sharing enough I think one of our functions when living and working in the Caribbean or in West Africa one of the things we need to engage in where we losing ground I've heard a lot of talk about NOS about charity work about all of this stuff here one thing I would say that I think is dangerous that maybe we need to learn some infiltration techniques right because all the people on the continent at the moment and in the Caribbean but mostly on the continent and mostly the only people they're hearing from at the moment are middle- class white people and what does that mean that means even if that middle class white person isn't even being dishonest cuz for them England is wonderful America is wonderful so in a way they're not even being dishonest about their own experience but what does it mean it reinforces the idea that we just need to make it to the west and everything would be wonderful and then what happens brain drain doctors that could have been doctors in Nigeria come and live in Pekka and their yous get killed they could have just stayed in Nigeria and what's happening in my generation so many people of my age group I'm done I'm going back people are not even from Gambia like I'm moving to Gambia Jamaicans are moving to Gambia right people are saying you know what actually it's not all it's CPT up to be but we do have a purpose here and a function here it's not a coincidence that the panafrican conference occurred in the center of of Empire and it's not a coincidence that we're back here in the center of Empire because as much as America wants to Big up itself and Shout this is the center of the Empire don't ever forget that as sophisticated as these people are they don't need to go around shouting it's like we're just calmly own the whole world it's a very good book on a on a on a side note it's called who owns the world you should read the book because it looks at who the largest land owners in the world are and of course it's not the people you think it is largest land owners in the world in the British Monarchy still followed by the sou Australia and her family were third or fourth sister Esther Stanford taught me this by the way in our reparations conference so s may remember this right do you know who this is just a complete aside do you know who whose family our third or fourth biggest land owners in the world Nicole Kidman I was shocked they must have been the ones that done off all the aboriginies and own half Australia so anyway like I said I'm going to share an Acappella with you reflect a little bit and then I'd like to actually offer a few provocations and open up for a bit of dialogue before we finish because I think often when we're talking if I'm talking somewhere like this where I'm going to assume I'm preaching to the converted there's no point me coming and telling you things that you probably already know so I'd rather you know I offer a little bit of my story how I think that relates to our Global challenges offer a few purifications and we end with a little bit of a back and forth it doesn't have to be questions it can be comments it can be but no lectures though let's just let's just have a discussion okay so go like this take one more sip of my te I'm just winding you we can play and then still and still have goes like this yes I grew up on adult in a single parent family been through a little bit of tragedy yes I was around drugs and violence before the day that I started secondary that's part of it not half of it get the picture the rest ain't necessary growing up got a little caught up but that ain't even half of my life I was also given the knowledge of self that is all we actually need to survive so if you saw me age n reading Malcolm just fine teachers still treated me stupid students that couldn't speak English to put me in groups with and iron is Su of the first man to give me schooling they were called youngsters but I already explained that we know what the truth is they used to say don't be like me yeah I got a name and do on the street night time comes I can't sleep that's the part Fake Rappers don't speak we don't hit the road cuz we're tugs don't come out the W want to sell drugs if we got the right guidance and love would we fight people just like us how could I knock the hospit to get by how do you think I ate as a child judge no one D many's wrong just don't boast about it in songs but listen to my older bars I was just as confused as you probably are but you grow when you learn Trav one c one too many men you know get c one too many men that could have been doctors end up spending the whole life boxed up you learn if you study it's all set out just to make them money no cover it's all about getting poor people to fight one another so it's logical that us killing our brothers dissing our mothers is right in line with the philosophy of our time but time is a cycle not a line comes back around you gain your mind ready for the energy chh remed the P the Jeopardy your mind when the world Le is a crime so we can all fight with our brothers over crumbs it's harder to fight the one who makes guns we can all talk sh and get to harder to be the one who seeks knowledge if we understood economics we know money is nothing think nothing of it money is a means to get wealth not the wealth itself and don't get confused far from all do you see me do I own but I won't hang walk around my neck I know from where that the diamonds came but I do literally own a library that definitely cost more than your chain and businesses and property far from star and I eat quite properly and I don't care I just said it for the kids who need to know you're not broke to listen who don't know asset from a liability cuz they never been shown or told the difference so we don't change situation why the richest man in Britain is Asian and that's significant not coincidence cuz when Asian communities build their businesses it's not by flossing and going out shopping and giving out the culture for everyone's profit who runs Bollywood Indian people who runs rap so we shake our ass and dance as if racism just oped and vanished but has it no it's right on course you're beating so bad you're training to ignore let me not just make sweeping statements give me a second I'll explain it for small amounts of nonviolent drug possession there's more black people in jail in America than there is for rap and armed robbery and murder all put together and you can say they're just locking up tugs but imagine they prison every middle class kid that ever hold drugs oh that's right that'll be their kids see it's bigger than that what is going on with this prison in America's private business they get paid 50k per year per inmate by the state just wait also legally are allowed to use their prison in makes of slaves cheap slave labor for big corporations to come out of jail and they can't get a job so when we celebrate going to jail we literally celebrating enslavement after to that that the hood that you live in engineered social condition that be by Design where do you think you get your nine and you can say that they're just black but I like to deal with facts in the 1920s you would have found in America black towns that were prospering centers of economics and education to make you proud but some people could have bear it the former slaves would not just lie down so the KKK and other hate groups burn those towns to the ground killing hundreds if it ain't understood you think you were always living in a hood it's only been 50 years since the hung blacks and burn them and that was so cool they were your PS picnic baskets even gave kids the date off school Garcia lynchin have a picnic it's fun to watch The Little Monkeys die and people act a little dysfunctional and we want to pretend that we don't know why if your color means you can be killed and you're powerless to get Justice about it is it difficult to figure out how you would then end up feeling about it and I ain't excuses I'm just dealing with the roots of abuses that make a reality where a generation of young men speak of ourself as dir casually that's America this Britain something similar some different in this country the first enslave with the working class was changed worse jobs worse conditions most tax you quit a living get to go to the pub on a Friday night and we'll fight with a guy don't know what for won't fight with a guy in a suit and a tie who sends your kids to die in a war they don't send the kids of the rich of the politicians it's their kids the poor British that they send to go and die in a forign land for these kids that you don't understand you say you are British and that lovely patriotism they feed you but in reality you have more in common with immigrants than with your leaders I know both sides of my family black and white I fed get mentality reality in the system poor people are dirt regardless of shame but with that said let's not pretend for one second that everything is the same cuz when up grandparents came here to Britain if you had had a criminal record you couldn't get in when our grandparents came here to Britain if you had a criminal record you couldn't get in they a protect them from all of the stupid stupid abuses they will be living kicked in the teeth stabbed in the street many times firebombed our houses put fees through our little box and AC course the cops did so much about it daily up to the 80s people spitting in my PR cuz I was a [ __ ] baby but of course that has had no effect on why today we are crazy and none of this was for any good reason they were just dark and breathing to ease the guilt now for all of this treatment constant stereotypes are needed so if I celebrate how big that my brick flipping Clips start sticking chicks I'm hitting I'm playing my position but if I teaching kid to be a mathematician I'm messing with them how they going to fill a prison with materialism is no longer our religion what do you think we got now in Britain just like America private prison prison for profit so that mean if your kids go jail someone makes money off it so keep environments that breed crime build more jails at the same time Market Badness to the kids in the Rhymes long as Rich Kids ain't dying it's fine get them to the point where some are so lost they actually believe if they don't celebrate killing themselves off it's because they're soft who's Mar soft was Marley soft tell me was Marcus Garvey soft well was Muhammad Ali soft N N I think not but they want us to think that the road is cool and being on road is all we can do and we don't control the wholesale production so who benefits from us moving the food or thinking there's no way out a road Life Book Malcolm X used to hustle in a road siden Marcus garby organized more than 6 million people with no Facebook or Twitter why is it something we can't equal one of my own homeboys did a 10 straight in the don't tell me that it's too hard who trained you to believe you're inferior your s b evero in Nigeria are the remains of an an Mo dog 1,000 years ago is 20 M wide 70 Down Round the remains of an ancient Town that's 400 square miles around 400 sare mil around but please please don't believe me it was a documentary on BBC but we ain't studying history too busy watching MTV and MTV said we Platinum everybody want to go and wear platinum and MTV said pop Magnums now everybody want to go and pop Magnum if MTV said drink prune juice you would start hearing that in tune Su hey today is it now less important what I got to say ho and I have a Mercedes by the way so everyone listen to what I got to to say does that make you all happy ah but sh my head's still nappy think for myself so I'm mad at me but on my not one bad as we all of this here is good for the Rhymes they put us in the same place at the same time and it's clear to everybody I'm mind some of these guys are RH clear to everybody go ear he's the guy that they just might fear they want to get near but they can't appear de hard you just SL be front a kid for another five years but come to my shows and some C here see me that mushroom it's a movement I don't speak for myself but unit black white man woman anyone respects truth we putting these dudes are like no dinner we're just pudding yeah you sweet but no substance pudding you can never ever be with leev on all songs get played out L on we speak the people properly not for the old fat guys in offices anyway that's enough kissing my own back to the more important task of being so shower that I got half the hood screaming knowledge is power and I ain't saying I change that back but I do know this for a fact right now there's you on your block with his hands on his face screwed up so he don't care that he don't give a that he won't let nobody call is Bluff but the words go in open your shakas once that's happened to is no going backwards start to see what is really happening who the enemy should be attacking is so read read read stuck on the Block read read sitting in the Box read read don't let them say what you can achieve cuz when people are ins slav one of the first things they do is stop them reading cuz it is well understood that intelligent people will take their freedom cuz if we knew our power we understand we can't be held down if we knew our power we would not Elevate not one of these clowns if we knew our power we wouldn't get arrogant when we get two pennies if we knew our power we would see what everybody sees that were Rich already but never my nmc's go run for your mommy I'm hungry I run for my tummy that's enough back to worshiping money I'm off back to the study [Applause] [Music] you're going to make me blush and we're not supposed to blush now thank you very much brother and sister I really appreciate it so I'm going to I'm going to reflect reflect a little bit on like I said my personal Journey how I think that relates to our larger challenge for those of us living in quote unquote the West educating our children properly but what we can learn and what we can exchange then with the continent with majority black Nations like the Caribbean or Brazil most people don't know Brazil is a majority Black Nation you'd never know that from looking at the marke but there are more Africans in Brazil than any country in Africa aside from Nigeria as I'm sure you will know so for those who didn't pick it up in that in that little Acappella I was offering and this is not uh I'm going to put this in historical context for you so when we had the waves of immigration post World War II no matter what the qualifications were of Caribbean people we were not brought here to become doctors and lawyers and engineers and to do the jobs that necessarily some of us might have even been qualified to do we're brought here to do menial manual labor to rebuild the country after the Queen's German cousins bombed it that's what we're brought here to do right what did that mean to turn people cuz you know what we see a lot I'm going to remark on this this has actually just occurred to me looking at this picture we see a lot of the older generation how they dress and saying if they just dressed better police wouldn't kill them well look how these people were dressed sharp as anything did it make a difference people in a business hour black person's dressed it don't matter you can put what what you could dress how you want if they have the power to do to you what they have done they will do it so what did this mean with this wave of immigration as many of you as you know you had to have functional and structural Injustice embedded into the way we were dealt with we couldn't be brought here and be getting any big ideas that we were going to run the country or have a say in the way the country was run this impacted on my father's generation in one particular practical way which relates to my life so you had this thing many of you probably know about it called ESN educationally subnormal yeah so in the 70s and ' 80s young afro Caribbean boys particularly but sisters also were labeled educationally subnormal which is a offshoot of eugenics we'll get into we can't get into all that that's another lecture for another day how did this impact me well by the time I was going to school Primary School in the late ' 80s you no longer had that particular category but you had the same function so at 7 years old I was very lucky even though I didn't gr with my dad my dad was very supportive very big on education as was my mom as was my godfather and both my dad and my godfather you know they're that strapping black man you want to be like so because they were both into education I never had you know it's a real thing a lot of our uh young Brothers particularly you know if you watch a show like The Fresh Prince of B the educated one is I don't I can't really swear because there's young kids in here but the educated one is a fool really he's the one no girls are interested in he does some corny dance you don't want to be like K Banks yeah you want to be like Will Smith but what are they telling you they're telling you the guy who pays in pays attention in school and actually does well is a fool and a guy who doesn't and that's what be being marketed to young boys particular in a certain way so it meant that this idea that education was almost eff feminine unmasculine particularly for black men it's something that has been a very genius piece of marketing strategy from the white supremacist machine that a continent that for tens of thousands of years was among human preeminence of achievement in science and math and architecture and all that the descendants of that continent now associate someone say stop talking white as if you know being intelligent is Monopoly of white people so what happened to me was is a legacy of of of structural cuz see it's important that we make the structural person because sometimes we have these big big words like imperialism we're chatting to a you on a level in school you know Marxist leninist ideology or Pana africanist ideology or whatever ideology ain't necessarily going to get it done but if we can look at how does this affect you in your day-to-day reality so 7 years old I got put in a special needs group for kids that didn't speak English but I had a gcsc read nam I had a high I'm not saying this to show off this is a a point my teacher white lady was making it very clear to me that me being educated was threatening was problematic and let's think about it like this she's a middle- class white woman brought up in a culture that teaches her ethnic exceptionalism teaches her white people are wonderful they've invented everything ever since the dawn of humanity everything the Greeks didn't invent the European Renaissance did and then we did the rest in the 20th century now of course if that's your vision of world history I mean you're a bit of an idiot firstly but secondly no genuinely if that's your vision of the way the world evolved the way the whole Human family evolved that less than 10% of humanity invented everything you're not going to be very good at teaching people who don't look like you and what dilemma are you presented with I went to a school in a very confusing area I went to school in Camden in London for those who don't know it Camden is a strange area you got some of the richest people in the country living next to some of the poorest people and you've got every ethnicity under the sun right but we go to the same school so I went to school with Tessa J's kids I went to school with the head of green piece's kids and I also went to the school with my Breen on the Block who was selling drugs for his dad at 11: so it was a very confusing place to go school what do you do as a teacher as a teacher brought up in that way to believe those things if the smartest kid in your class isn't the young white kid it's the young brown boy who's on free School meals you got a choice you either try and get the best out of that student or you reinforce and reproduce the Prejudice of your society and sadly luckily for me I had a yo-yo between bad teachers and good teachers but this particular teacher put me in a special needs group with kids that didn't speak English now how you knew what she was doing was wrong she never told my mom so it wasn't like an official thing it was like oh this guy's a bit too clever for his own good put him in a special needs group with the kids that don't speak English but you get hot chocolate and biscuits you see now when you give a seven-year-old hot chocolate and biscuits I ain't running home to tell my mom anytime soon that I'm in the bad behavior group right cuz I I want my hot chocolate and biscuits in fact I blame that teacher for why I got such a sweet tooth now so continues I'm just going to give you a little catalog of schooling cuz we're talking about education and many people in here who have children might be going through this right now what do we do right in exchange now it's very interesting because of course my mom's white and this produced a very interesting dynamic in the white teachers because of course there's a different respect for whiteness you know black woman goes to the school and it's like crazy black woman she just imagine everything white woman goes to the school even if she's not from wealth which my mom absolutely is not it's still oh ah what do we do and I remember the day so someone came home and told my mom they put your your son in a special needs group right he's in a group of kids that know speak English now that's great it's fantastic that the school provided for children who English isn't their first language but clearly that isn't wasn't my right so my mom comes up to school and my mom doesn't care my mom effing blind she so she's just effing and blinding his teacher and the teacher the teacher also hit me by the way yeah with a book yeah she hit me with a ran with a book um she thinks it's in 1964 um now my mom comes up and goes mad at the teacher and the teacher went I I admit to hitting him and to put him in the group but it's not because and she's looking at me and she can't figure out what to call me it's not because he's a and she goes to say color and she remembers it's it's 9 she can't call me color and she goes it's not because he's brown she's looking at my mom like I can't really call him black I don't know what to do now of course now my mom was different my mom learned very early and I kind of admired her for this the racism she received from her own family and her own commity well like today see a lot of people today a lot of mix kids growing up today think it was always fashionable to have little mixed race babies contrary to popular belief it was not and in the' 80s if you if you were a white woman or man but particularly woman cuz that's what most of mixing was and you decided to have a baby with those folks you basically had to accept that the only people that were going to chat to you to a certain degree if you lived in an out were going to be black people and it's a weird thing about our community that sometimes I think sometimes we're too accepted if I'm honest with you there's like almost almost it creates a situation where if a white person ENT the room and they don't receive red carpet that becomes persecution black people ain't always nice to each other so we don't always have to be nice to you but that's an aside so my mom learned very early that Dad basically disowned know my mom's family is half Scottish half English what was interesting though and this was what was fascinating to me as a kid my Scottish family didn't give didn't give a damn they were kind of like well at least he's not English I'm not saying that I'm not saying that to be romantic right for those who know the history between England and Scotland you know why right when I went to they're from the outer hebes they're Peete Farmers this is the fascinating thing about traveling on the continent is being mixed or being lightskinn people assume you come from money right as we think whiteness and wealth are intimately related my mom's family are Peak Farmers does anyone know what is that's some people stopped doing like 200 years ago so they really are like peasants like in a in a genuine sense right so I went I went to Scotland when I was young I don't know why this this matters right I only went once to visit them and it was fascinating because my cousins actually had no idea why people were Brown she had no idea they had no idea like cuz they didn't have telling there like there was like 800 people on bbec at the time they genuinely had like they were like what happened like explained to us how how it got that but the English of course indoctrinated as they were my English grandad furly to white supremacist ideology my granddad was about as racist as it's possible for for a human being to be so he kind of disowned my mom and my mom learned very early that her children were going to be dealt with a particular way and to be fair to her she along with the help of my godfather who I told you about my Godfather's family very politicized Guy inese family really politically intelligent basically they schooled my mom and was let her know this is what you're going to have to do this is how and so on that kindness she was able she sent us to Pana African Saturday school which I get it must be very difficult as a white lady you're like there's certain stuff you're not going to be part of yeah and I see this a lot with mixed kids where the white mom can't let go of the fact that yo you need to prepare your children to exist under white supremacy where it also means it's going to create some tension and I see a very big challenge where a lot of the mixed kids think that being black is about being bad so I'm going to be extra bad to prove my blackness yeah and I think maybe I went through that a little bit right so we come into uh year four I'll visit these are just some significant schooling experiences that I think is important because like I said many of us may share them and then how does it relate to teaching what we need to teach I went to the National Portrait Gallery with my teacher in year four primary school now there's a picture of William Wilberforce in the National Portrait Gallery everyone knows what's coming right now this teacher decides to take me aside no one else I wasn't the only black kid in the class but I was one of those black kids I was already my my my panafrican Saturday school was called the Winnie Mandela school so you already know where it was coming it was no softing it was militant right so she pulls me aside she says she was Canadian this is my worst attempt at a Canadian accident she's like King this man he stuck SL and I went I'm seven but I'm not stupid right so I went miss all by himself um and she responded with yes so she was obviously trying to impose on me that one white man was so powerful he just wave his magic anti-slavery W right and set everybody free hooray now at this point I already knew who the Maroons were I knew a little bit about the Haitian revolution so I knew she was chatting egg and fart yeah what happens to the child that doesn't know them yeah once that's once that's instilled at you at seven who is it who said it's easier to build strong children than to fix broken ad was it FR fantastic so fantastic quote there right now what happens to all the children that don't know that history and their teachers do a S that's aggressive to teach a young black child this one white man is so amazing he's basically God he just waved the one then all black people were free and you L did nothing you just sat down and waited for w Force to come on right go forward and what's interesting is the dynamic we never talk about I've heard Dr Umar talk about but many other people seem to be afraid to talk about the dynamic between middle class white women and young black boys yeah we don't like to talk about that dynamic because white men are supposed to have done all the racism all by themselves and it's a very interesting thing cuz actually most of my attention in school was actually women I was encoun so in secondary school I had a my form Shor this is the last episode of my own education I'll give but I had a form tutor she was my main form she was also the head of history and the head of re in our school she was the head of re but she refused to teach anything about Islam cuz to quote her she didn't want bombs through her letter box oh it gets worse oh it gets way worse it gets way worse that's I'm just introducing you to what she was about this is in my nice liberal art school in cden that like to think of itself as a nice liberal yes Kid Likes to think of itself as a nice liberal Great Space where everyone can come and get along a teacher told me in this school little aside a white teacher by the way told me that at the beginning of every year induction in the school the school would look at the names of pupils who came in in year seven and make bets on who would finish score and who wouldn't merely based off the surnames so if Jermaine Williams comes into the school they're like he's not making it if Harry Tay comes in they're like he's making it and they said 90% of the time they were correct but anyway this particular form true are we'd had a million arguments because my school weirdly even though it had all of that going on there was a brother in there from the noi who had an extracurricular African history class where he taught us where we listened to this big narrated tape of the Haitian revolution where we studied some serious panafrican stuff so on the one hand you had this school that was quite regressive on the other hand you had this extracurricular class that was radicalizing whatever that means cuz the PO is a non-radical norm and anything outside that is radical right um he was radicalizing us into kind of black nationalist pan africanist ideology right or educating us I would prefer to say so you had all of that going on all those Dynamics in the same this particular teacher we've had a million arguments I mean she said things like you can't look all the B they did in slavery because they built rways uh I pointed out where the Nazis also built rways but I doubt you say that which obviously she wouldn't because she'd lose her job but this one particular then I remember I'll remember this forever we were having an argument she was arguing that the Nation of Islam and the KKK is essentially the same except one's black and one's white I guess worse that's come on that's that's just the that the warmup so I said to her Miss come on that's a little bit farfetched whatever you think of the ni's opinions on racial Evolution they're not a terrorist group they don't go around hanging white people from trees and you know cutting their penises off and burn him in the steak and burn him down white towns and all of those acts of mass terrorism that we know the KKK are responsible for but what's more than that this was a period in the '90s where the noi had got into a lot of African-American neighborhoods unarmed and there were police in a lot of neighborhoods it was it was even in mainstream news over here they were kind of like you know what whatever we want to say about these man they're kind of doing some produ like you know that reluctant I don't know if you remember in the '90s where that there was that reluctant mainstream acknowledgement over here the raw these men are kind of like serious and obviously they're going into the hood unarmed and the men the tugs are looking at them like ra I can't really shoot a black man who looks that sharp you just look too shocked to get shot cuz unlike racist black people seem to care about appearance any so I say to I miss not only are they not a terrorist organization they are doing lots of positive work like stopping crime in Black black communities right policing them and she turned around and said the crew clut Clan stop crying by killing black people you didn't M hear me you did not missar me what's the name no but more important than that it wasn't about the individual teacher it was about the school's reaction that's funny cuz anyone who knows me you know I've got a company we do a little bit of educational work we've probably been in 500 schools in this country I've never been invited back to my secondary school and I'm I I'm wondering I might be wrong and I've never spoke about this before recently like last couple of months I was keeping this particular issue like I don't really want to talk about this yet it's not time but last couple of months I've started talking about I spoke about on my Twitter first and then a few lectures right because it's an interesting thing where this like I said this liberal Progressive and sometimes the liberal Progressive people are worse you you just want a person who tells you to your face I don't like you you know you all had a go and you know what I can actually respect a person who knows history who says listen everyone else had a go at mass murder and rape and imperialism and we were the best act so get over yourself there's a degree not totally but a degree of slight truth to that if you like listen everyone else had an Empire when it came to organizing mass murder we were the best that get over yourself I can almost expect respect to a degree a person who's just that Unapologetic and just tells me to my face this is what it is whereas the people kind oh love and peace and love and peace but will force I'm not in right Master you know and the head Master called me in his office one day and he sat me down and he done what liberals always do he plated me and he gave me a book about my cuz of course the answer to everything is my king and I'm not even dissing Dr King I've got of immense love for the for the man's strength but this idea even that we can be dictated to by white people who we should idolize I don't idolize nonviolence nonviolence as a political strategy I respect that a person made that decision I admire the courage it takes to stand in front of people while they're beating a living dayl out of you and your woman I respect it but I'm not going to engage in it if you slap my girlfriend in front of me well good luck to you and I'm I'm not saying that cuz I'm some kind of bad man I'm just saying I think they like to believe that of course all black people agreed with one strategy it makes us easier you know we're all just one big unitary group no G's organization shot police officers and they kept kidnapp CL members and whipped them they don't want to tell you that part of the history the Panthers were like no no no in fact many of the even the deacons around Dr King we know were armed we know how people black people voted in loud's County where the original black panthers were formed they went to the polling station with straps granny turned up she put the Magnum down she C that vote and she went back but we don't want to promote that side of the story we'll we'll give you Selma over and over again over and over again we not going make a film about you know black grandmothers taking guns to the Poland station that's a little bit dangerous that image so what do we do then in terms of Education when our when our young people are in a system where education doesn't only come from the school comes from music particularly I was very lucky you know growing up in the kind of mid 90s American hip hop believe it or not as much as people want to cuss hip hop that was one of the main forces that kept us in you can say what you want but wuang n eradu or actually not totally but for me actually I grew up luckily kind of in the last era where there was a representation of black intelligence that I could relate to whether we like it or not not all of our young people are going to relate to University professors and that's okay because I doubt as someone pointed out I doubt Bill Gates is particularly popular in high school this is not unique to black people you know not everyone like not everyone um understands or is engaged in you know that level of kind of academic discourse so music became an incredible vehicle for translating particular truths or ideas and stuff like that and so for me when M came out and from my whole era it was a way that we could be intelligent speak a certain way be benevolent without feeling like we were trying to be like the rich white kids and so it was revolutionary in that sense which the music industry understood and so of course that narrative there was a time when rap was just offensive to everyone rap would use any racial slur now you can only use one and we all know which one that is when before when we were spreading the love yeah when it could you can make a song called Poly on a cracker as well as you know songs with the word [ __ ] every two minutes right you could you can have that broad spread of kind of uh of kind of uh what's the word of I don't know of racial offense should we say you had dead PRS but all of these groups are sort of deleted from hiop and so we don't have that voice so much we have the internet and we have people doing things you know becoming successful in that manner even myself as an independent artist without the internet I'd be struggling I ain't going to get on the radio but I think we have to be sophisticated and how we manipulate the tools that are at hand there was a brilliant documentary recently on the be of all places I don't know if you saw it Britain's forgotten slave owners yeah it was about the compensation that British slave owners paid at the end of slave now the thing is what I don't I think we we sometimes and again this is about being respectfully critical even of myself we sometimes I don't think can always work as well as we can on multiple layers and recognize that different people have different jobs and this has been a historic conflict Garvey and theis the Martin and Malcolm and and still today we have a similar scenario where actually two sets of people two sets of ideologies or more that maybe have similar shared aims what we did over religion we're disagreeing because we're from different class backgrounds different education whereas actually we might have similar aims that we want to get done so why don't we unify our no and we can disagree because if we agree on everything then we're just automatons we're not people why should I agree with everything you believe and you agree with everything I believe and how does that impact on education how do we resurrect the kind of Saturday school movement in a in a kind of current climate that we have today where there isn't that funding where there isn't the cultural icon see in the late ' 80s early '90s for those who didn't grow up yeser or not of my age or older we also had even in television you had the RO McCoy you had desmonds and they were small they might not you know what is they you realize now how massive they were that they don't exist you this gaping hole in Black television where you realize we had a little point where black people had started to gain a foothold in this country because I think one of the things when we discuss Garvey when we discussed the Pana africanist movement one one of the things we can gloss over very quickly is Garvey never said all black people should move back to Africa some of us are useless and we should just stay where we are and and some of us are useful and should stay where we are what we're talking about is a panafrican trading Network what we're talking about is black people across the globe building a unitary power block to counter Europe and Asia and that's not even necessarily beef there might be cooperation who knows in terms of particularly the emergence of Asia there might be some form of economic cooperation but it has to be from equality of power CU there is no justice without power people would like us to get up and beg Justice and ask people to be nice unfortunately that doesn't seem to me to be the way the world works and it certainly isn't the way that European racialized power works and how do we then and what can we contribute in terms of Education getting our children even just staying in school we can cust the school system when we want but most countries in the world do not have free school so just having access to free school is a privilege what do we do with that then how do we give our children the equipment to get through the racist School L they're going to have and come out the other end the same human beings as one of my good friends MK says they have to take two sets of notes they have to take the sets of notes they need to pass the test to get through to have the cuz the bottom line is if you drop out of school at 12 we know where you're headed private prison we know where we know what happens you get expelled you go unit you go jail that's the rule so whatever school's fa Faults Are we still need the schools at this present point until we have our own and how do we use the Saturday schools how do we resurrect that movement how do we create alternative Community schooling but still get the qualifications we need within the systems that are there because we still need Engineers Dr clarkk talked about this all the time we still need people who make shoes think about something basic like that a billion black people on Earth imagine three or four countries decided to make all the shoes that we wore how differently that would change the black economy because I know every single person in here every single one probably not one of us is wearing a pair of shoes made by an African person right maybe one raise your hand if you got shoes on it you I know you know I'm made by an African company there you go no I'm not even cussing I'm not wearing them either cuz I don't know if they exist right so the point is very basic things that we need to learn taking even The Rao ized education that we need the education that we need to survive racism to combat white supremacy the education we need for activism even removing that for a moment our kids need to learn how to make shoes how to design cars how to build houses how to farm all these practical things are things that we need to learn of course this education system is not going to teach them because it doesn't even teach it to working-class white kids cuz this country was not designed for the majority of the population to have a stake in the way the country is run so if we think we're suddenly going to get educated in how to run a country it's a bit ridiculous that's not what's going to happen so how do we transmit those skills with all the other challenges we've got I don't have the answers but I think it's a challenge we can meet and we have met before I think sometimes again when we talk about this history we can forget the victories formal Western colonialism was designed to last centuries it lasted barely 70 years it was a total failure because of our resistance transatlantic slavery was not supposed to end because William Wilberforce sent a partition a a petition to West Minister without the Haitian revolution without the Maroons without consistent VIs IAL Bloodshed and struggle there's no reason to believe there suddenly said all this wealth and power it's just sporing I'm just going to give it up there's no reason to believe that even if we look at a country like Jamaica today and the relationship Britain has had since then with its former colonies with Grenada most of us have forgotten that Britain allowed a commonwealth country to be bombed by America in the 1980s this is the relationship Britain has with its former colonies how do we give all of that all of that equipment and all of those relationships you know across continents essentially I don't know I'd like to hear from you guys as well but I just want to offer a few kind of closing uh points one little thing we need to resurrect which I'm sure many people in here are already resurrecting is pardon how many people are part of any kind of parner scenario in here I mean that's brothers and sisters in an audience like this for five people to tell me they're part of a part does everyone know what partner is raise your hand if you don't know what parner is okay so quite a few people so partner was a system I I'll explain partner was a system of Cooperative economics that our grandparents mostly practice practi where they would save up money to give up so say it's a partner join is £100 there might be 50 of us we put in we put in £100 a month and each person gets a draw a different part of the month this is where a lot of people bought their houses now I'm part of a part we don't take draw out of it it's just money that we save and we don't actually know what we're doing with it yet and and that's okay it's a panafrican group we save money together when something arises that we think is sensible to put our money into we'll do it right now I'm not you know it's not a whole load of money I'm not acting like there's Millions sitting in the it's not right there certainly isn't the point is even if it's a £1 a month don't leave yasa and at least five of you ain't formed the group together there's five of you that live in a c part of Manchester cool set up a little bank account put A1 pound of Mont in because you don't know what 5 10 years that will accumulate and all of a sudden oh a piece of land's come up in gone or this has come up there or a school a black school is going out of business it needs a piece of money we're not ready we're not prepared we don't have a Cooperative source of Economics we can draw and in an audience like this that's tremendous [Applause] the point I made about at the beginning about the charity and the NGO sectors I think whether we like it or not those sectors currently exist and they're not going anywhere for now I would prefer to see if I'm honest conscious black people taking some role even if they don't believe in the organizations there's conscious black people that work at the BBC I've done work for the BBC off for Sky News I don't like Murdoch but if Sky offer me a position not within the organization CU I wouldn't work for him but I've done documentaries where putting forward a position that I'm happy with and if that's in there cool if you're going to if platforms are offered to you that you're comfortable with it's better that some of us are going back home and telling the real story of what it's like to live in this part of the world then they keep getting the same old tired England's wonderful America's wonderful everyone's just bogling and sundancing so there might be a career to think about where you can do some damage and you know obviously even the fact of seeing a black face being the person who's who's in a position of giving cuz even that the culture of only ever seeing white people come to give give for you what does that tell and like I said whether we like it or not these sectors are not going anyway so what our brothers and sisters are being taught is the only people who care about them are white people of course we know that's not true but how do we combat that we may have to use some levers of power that we don't necessarily fully agree with to get our point across that may be something to educate manage disagreements yeah I think one thing we always have and I'm sure you've had it organized in this conference right is where we have a problem disagreeing and working towards a common aim I could disagree with you on religion I could disagree with your own economics but if I can find us something we agree on cool let's work in that and we won't work about the other stuff and we might even disagree so venly I'm I'm not even going to chat to my man about religion because otherwise it's just going to get like that yeah because we disagree so strongly fine like this idea like I said this kind of romantic idea I think one of the big things we need to do even in the conscious Community is kill the Romanticism we weren't all kings and queens and I'll keep repeating it we were not particularly those of us that ended up in the Caribbean we were probably servants and farmers and that's fine because Africa was not a class-free paradise where everyone just go along and that's okay we don't have to be perfect we can disagree we canot all be on the same page and that's fine we've got one particular massive problem that we need to deal with it's affecting everybody and even when that problem is done everything's not going to be perfect but how do we strategize around defeating this particular problem that's affecting all of us if we respect one another yeah and that can involve disagreeing in fact it should involve disagreeing but it shouldn't disagreement should not prevent us from working together and we've got to learn who got Garvey evicted out of America yeah all right the FBI and man might been involved but who played into allowing one of our greatest leaders to be removed from the country people who disagreed with him and were not willing to say I disagree with my man but I'm going to put my ego aside because if the if the vast majority of black workers are Garvey and pro black worker it don't work like that if 6 million black workers are behind Garvey I can't possibly be against them and be for their interest I must be for someone else's interest right so I can have my disagreements with someone and say you know you might exist hold your space do your thing I disagree on X Y and Z and that's why I can't be part of that but you know what if it leads to the end goal if it leads to some form of Liberation fantastic wonderful we can all cheer yeah so manage disagreements working to a purpose travel traces and again I'm probably preaching to the wrong room but I when I was in Zimbabwe when I posted on my uh on my Twitter on my Instagram I don't know if You' been to Harari but Harari is a beautiful city like a real nice city jackar Randa trees everywhere good roads skyscrapers hotels it's a modern city yeah and when you post these pictures online even my grand I love my grand but my grandma was like you can't go Zimbabwe dangerous and I was like I was like n you're from Jamaica like I love Jamaica yeah I love Jamaica but let's be real we've had the top we've been in the top 10 for murder rate for about the last four decades so let's just be honest Zimbabwe is nowhere near as dangerous as Jamaica right but yet my grand is believes you know she can't I love her but but I think she's symptomatic of some of the colonial propaganda that still hangs over she doesn't understand why I'm interested Africa you love Africa Ain't It Like It's Curious she was like she like why I can't figure it out right but our travel traces you know when we can we should be going to the continent or to the Caribbean I mean most of us if we're from the Caribbean we're going to go back to where we came from but can we go to other Caribbean islands once in a while mix it up can we go to particular festivals can we go and holiday not just for work purposes or that can we start we can't be cussing other groups of people who are scared to go African we're scared to go where do we pick our holiday a what do we do and I know they've deliberately triangulated all the flight paths so if you want to get to Zimbabwe then you got to go South Africa first or if you want to go to a French speaking African country you got to go to Paris first I get all of that I get the prit of costs but can we be engaged in something like that can we be critical again coming back to that point I think it's really key and maybe it's just cuz I'm a little bit older and a a little bit less romantic but I feel than I was before but I feel like criticism is the only way for it in the sense that if I I haven't got any children but if I've got a child right and I'm never critical of that child what's going to happen to the you as a say spare the rod SP the child so we can look at our post Independence leaders and say what did they do fantastically well that we can learn from but where did they fail and it's okay quami and Kum is a human being he's going to make mistakes Muhammad Ali was a human being he's going to make mistakes and it's okay to say you know what this is what you did fantastically well but actually this is what we can learn from some of the mistakes that were made and this is where it's okay to be critical yeah so I think all of those spaces being critical exchange um recognizing the reality of the situation there's no justice without deciding on economics I think the debate is still out is water roding correct does Africa itself need to divorce completely from the West failing nation state capitalist system and form something completely new and if that is the case which many of us maybe believe is to be the case what do we do in the interim how do we under a system that is not controlled at all in any way shape or form by our people or our interest how do we cooperate within that system to build towards a system that's completely different and is that even possible I genuinely don't have the answer so I kind of would like to leave you pondering those questions and just open up and have a discussion like I said not questions for me it can be a question if you have one but open up to a discussion about literally practical solutions that we can come to here today about education things that we can do little strategies we can put together from this room that we can take forward thank you very much brothers and [Applause] [Music] sisters okay so will be I'll

Channel: Crossing Footprints

Views: 174,595

Keywords: Pan-African Congress, Pan-Africanism (Political Ideology), Manchester (English Metropolitan Borough), Akala (Musical Artist), black history

Id: l9gKA2eVzzY

Length: 53min 38sec (3218 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 18 2016