Race & Inequality Across the Pond with Inaya Folarin Iman

[Music] hey everyone thanks for checking out the show my podcasts all have ads if you find the ads annoying then consider subscribing to the podcast with a subscription you won't hear any ads plus you'll have access to exclusive content only available to subscribers if you can't afford a subscription please write to me at admin Coleman hughes.org with a few words explaining why you enjoy the channel and how it benefits you we'll get back to you after a short period of consideration and will offer a subscription free of charge thanks again for watching and for all your support welcome to another episode of conversations with Coleman today we have my second UK guest inaya folarin Iman Aya is the founder of the equiano project a British organization dedicated to promoting Free Speech common humanity and universalism she recently organized a conference called towards the common good hosted at Cambridge where John McWhorter Glenn Lowry Thomas Chatterton Williams and yours truly all spoke along with a host of British thinkers who are fighting in the same trenches that people like John Glenn Thomas and myself are and inaya is one of the major people fighting this fight in the UK she and I are exactly the same age which makes it all the more impressive that she's built a functional organization that can throw impressive conferences that's something I can't really imagine having done by 26. she also ran for Parliament as part of the brexit party in 2019 and she has written for many outlets in the UK including Telegraph spiked and unheard in this episode we discuss inaya's background growing up in a working-class immigrant family we talk about the influence of black lives matter and the George Floyd moment in the UK we talk about the similarities and the differences between the US and the UK with regard to race relations we talk about the contents of Boris Johnson's Commission on race and how that report was mis portrayed in the media we talk about the tragic cases of Sasha Johnson a Brit and Jasmine Barnes an American both of whom call into question which black lives matter and which black lives don't now let me just say this to my American audience if you appreciate my perspective and my work on race in America then I can't urge you enough to support inaya who is doing analogous work in the UK by following her on Twitter and supporting the equiano project so please do that so without further Ado I give you Anaya folarin Iman [Music] all right Anaya thanks so much for coming on my show thank you for inviting me so we just got done with the equiano project which is the reason I'm here in the UK for the first time in my life this conferences um this conference that you organized which I didn't know what to expect all I knew is that a few Americans that I know namely Thomas Chatterton Williams John McWhorter Jason Riley Glenn Lowry and myself were all crossing the Atlantic to speak at a conference about race with uh well we were the minority within a minority I suppose and in the room in that we were American and everyone else was from the UK and um it it turned out to be just an extremely interesting event where you know a very high level of discourse was had about race and racial identity racial inequality about how the conversation about race is broken and the differences between Britain and America and I had an excellent time and you organized this conference and this is um first of all I just want to say this is an incredible feat of organization and institution building so congratulations thank you that means that means a lot and thank you so much for speaking it was really really exciting yeah I think um hopefully with if and when people see footage of this event they'll kind of get a sense of what we're talking about but I guess before before I get into um the event I'm just I want to give my audience a little sense of who you are and um you know where you're from and how you how you came to be a person that's organizing around issues like free speech and increasing Viewpoint diversity on the issue of race so basically you know where were you born how how were you raised and has that informed at all who you've become yeah no that that is a really good question and it's always really hard to to answer because you are just the person that you are and so a myriad of things influence you um but I was born born in London um to British Nigerian uh parents both of my parents actually went to school here but they are their first generation and my mum she's very political she was actually at the conference funnily enough was it the woman that looked exactly like you that's what everybody has said I was suspiciously like yeah yeah she looks like me I don't look like that yeah exactly but yeah so she she was very political um and has quite conservative values but is also I would say an independent thinker so for a Nigerian which is known for its Pentecostal Christianity she's actually an atheist and which is quite surprising so there was always that uh pushing back against expectations and and things like that and there's also um something quite strong within Nigerian culture and I have many criticisms of criticisms of Nigerian culture but there's a lot of elements that I admire as well and it is that um heart work ethic the importance of Education personal responsibility um and and pride and so those values um I think actually often go very neatly with a lot of the criticism of identity politics actually a society that is positioning your you as a victim and that's your kind of primary identity status is seems to run difficulty when up against some of the things that are inculcated in Nigerian culture but so for me that was a big influence in terms of my political thinking but it was really what I went to University the places where you would expect as you would hope really are freedom of expression academic freedom lots of challenging thought-provoking ideas to develop you and I went to University at the time where there was many of these big cultural and political debates happening around populism uh brexit Trump freedom of speech and whilst these debates are happening within wider society and shaping the conversation it often felt like the very space to which these conversations needed to be had were being restricted on University campuses and from my perspective this universities are really the places that train the next generation of leaders and so it seemed completely absurd to accept the fact that these spaces which are so important to our democracies were increasingly becoming places where debate wasn't wide enough certain views were being delegitimize and demonize and that wasn't okay but it was so discussion about free speech and all of those things were very interesting but as many people it was the black lives matter uh moment of 2020 which meant that there was a sense of urgency and uh a narrative quickly formed as as you know very well um about what western Society was the position of of ethnic minority people um how we should view history how we should view relations between different groups and the ideal of color blindness which for an older generation was the very ideal which transformed the the status of ethnic minority people to be that equal um legally to to the majority population was now being seen as racist and from the Nigerian people that I grew up around and the people that I've listened to that does not reflect the view of all ethic minority or black British people let alone African-Americans and that was really why the Econo project was started to represent um and amplify the perspectives of a whole range of ethnic minority people that are committed to Liberal ideals which I felt was being marginalized yeah so we'll get to 2020 in a second but I I learned that you also ran for a House of Commons as part of the brexit party yeah and in what year 2019 yeah that was in 2019 so I I yeah I was 22. so you and I are exactly the same age all right I'm probably six or seven months older than you oh nice um and so we were no doubt in college at the same time and it's funny that we you know I was dealing with exactly the same issues that you describe at Columbia which is that you would think this is the place where you go to have a freewheeling debate and get your mind changed in class and hear an idea you've never heard before but it was exactly the opposite I was I would go to class be afraid to Devil's Advocate a position and then after class I would throw on a podcast that I would listen to secretly like lunch and be far more informed far more informed and I would you know secretly talk to my my couple friends on campus that kind of were we would in hush tones we would have these debates and conversations exactly the same experience yeah yeah so it's interesting that there's that similarity across the ocean um but I didn't notice when 2020 hit all of a sudden all of these very smart and interesting black British writers just started popping up everywhere like Anaya and Aisha I was like who are these people where um and mercy and many many others many of whom were at the conference [Music] um and you know this what happened in the summer of 2020 when George Floyd was killed and we had riots and protests and it was during covid so everyone was looking for something to do right the protests went worldwide and the narrative the American narrative was shipped overseas in a way so can you talk a little bit about you know like 2020 was such a crazy moment for Americans we don't really think about what happened in other places I mean we saw the the videos of people protesting as far as New Zealand and and Europe and elsewhere but the cities were burning so we were very in the classic American Way focused on ourselves but what was going on in the UK at that moment yeah I mean I think even here I think a lot of people are still processing and kind of reeling and figuring out the the real impact of of the 2020 moment and as you rightfully mentioned we were all locked out and that created I think the pressure cooker conditions for when everyone was obviously plugged into the internet um and anything that came out spread instantly at the same time because we were all basically that was the main thing that we were all doing and so it was very similar the things that happened um in the UK to what was going on in America all of a sudden it was like this eruption of a kind of public Consciousness to quote unquote do something um about racism within society and it was very interesting many of the narratives um coming out of America were applied wholesale to the UK so one of the examples that many people bring up is this whole the phrase hands up don't shoot and actually many protesters in the UK were saying the same thing even though uh it's known widely that British police don't carry guns and actually there is that and that's just an example of of um this the way that that people were saying hands up don't shoot in Britain what were they imagining I mean did they imagine that they were protesting about George Floyd and Michael Brown and other Americans or did they imagine that they were protesting about the treatment of British blacks by police what I think it's both and I think this is one of the frustrating things about the uh Global racial Consciousness narrative is that it seeks to universalize a particular idea of what black identity is and so if uh anyone who um is perceived of as black or sees themselves as black if there is a kind of slight or a problem or a controversy that happens anyway it becomes internalized and it takes on something that people in take on for themselves and I think that that is a huge kind of burden and responsibility to take on for yourself when actually um the specificities and nuances across different countries are are very very different but there was also a way to but the narrative was was specifically about the UK and many people were holding up uh banners saying the UK is not innocent and I think what they meant by that was the fact that um obviously that the UK was one of the world's kind of biggest Imperial Powers um and whilst uh it didn't necessarily have slavery in the same way on British soil it did export slavery to the colonies in the Caribbean and in other parts of the world so there was a attempt to uh include Britain in the history and the Legacy as to why racial politics in America is the way that it is and you know I don't I think it is important to say that whilst I'm very critical of the direction of travel of contemporary anti-racism I think it's you know very valid and legitimate and important to have conversations about you know the role that Britain has played um historically in the development of racist ideas but that's part of the problem it's often very one-sided that one we talk about there is an attempt to paint Western societies as kind of uniquely morally evil and not also recognize the development of liberal ideals which was very much part of the process of challenging um the very ideas that produce racism and so on so I think that's one of my fundamental critiques of of the ideology and the the assumptions behind black lives matter and the movement is that it's often very one-sided and doesn't paint that nuanced picture yeah that's as true in America as it is here um I mean it's interesting because you know we had the 1619 project in 2019 um I mean one thing is that the BLM issue was big in America for about six years before before 2020 and obviously it exploded then but there they were you know it was already very much in the conversation and that ethos led to the 1619 project and the major claim made there was that um the reason the 13 colonies revolted against the British was to preserve slavery against the fear that the British would stamp it out and that's a claim that has been almost universally refuted by historians across the political aisle it was you know picking up on one Fringe history book but there was it was interesting because the uh the the radical race anti-racist activists at that moment at least in America wanted to almost paint America specifically as evil at all costs even at the expense of simplifying the British role as sort of the anti-slavery Good Guys of course the truth I think in both cases is is complex right it's like in America we fought a civil war over the issue of slave we were as divided as the country has ever been over any issue um and and in Britain you had certainly um certainly responsible for a large portion of the slave trade but then also responsible for stamping it out at Great expense and forcing the world to stop the slave trade earlier than it otherwise would have so like you I'm never opposed to talking about the the good and the evil in in the histories of of all of these countries but it does get painted in a one-sided way more and more and you see in America things like the 1619 project being taught in schools right so being just taught as fact that everything is about slavery America's evil and this is something that a lot of people are uncomfortable with not least because it is historically inaccurate but also because it gives people a picture of their country that is totally lopsided right all the bad and none of the good no I I completely agree and I think that that that point about um the harm that it does I think is a really important one so similar to the 1619 project we have something here called decolonizing the curriculum and that has effectively been embraced wholesale by institutions and universities it was something that was a prominent feature of my University and there's so there's many things I have a problem with it one as we just mentioned is the fact that um it paints a one-sided View and often a very historically inaccurate view um so I remember one of the classes that I took um one of the lectures I went to on decolonizing gender and one of the things it said was that there was no gender binary before a British imperialism in in West Africa and it's this and I just thought this is just completely false and it seeks to effectively create a new form of um orientalism romanticization of of pre-colonial uh Western societies as if they were this utopian gender equal spiritually Superior Society before interaction with the West so that's one just historically inaccurate and and deeply kind of infantilizing to the reality of the historical complexities and tensions and conflicts that many different parts of the world took part in it also I think is a kind of reverse form of eurocentrism that decolonizing the curriculum it suggests that white Western Europeans were kind of responsible for all of the gains of humanity when actually in many senses African countries and Asian countries were part of the development of the process of of many of these um ideals so a great example is a the Haitian revolution um after during the French Revolution that the ideals that came out of that about men and women and men being created equal and right to Liberty the the Haitian revolutionaries used those um ideals to challenge uh slavery and that was being enacted upon them and so actually it was often uh the uh both African-Americans and Colonial subjects that used the arguments of of Liberty to take it to its most ultimate conclusion so oftentimes these that kind of decolonizing the curriculum narrative cuts out uh black and brown people from the history um that is their their very Birthright and the third thing that I really worry about as you touched upon is how it really alienates um all people black white or otherwise from their cultural inheritance um which is the fact that this is our society as well we belong here and the histories um of this Society is ours also and to paint it as a kind of manikian racial history that we shouldn't have the right to to um experience and enjoy and feel proud of I think is is a very disempowering uh narrative for for young people how do you identify politically conservative or I don't necessarily identify with that label I think and so I have conservative values in so far as I do believe in a personal responsibility and and individual Freedom um but and also I kind of shared moral framework you know I do believe that um in kind of community and a sense of Civic purpose and Duty and responsibility to society that doesn't make me a conservative but I think those values about continuity Duty and tradition um and and honor of very good values that I think we we do away at our Peril but I I like to think of myself as a liberal um I believe in freedom of speech tolerance or quality under the law color blindness um that's a I mean that could be a little bit Lost in Translation for Americans because liberal basically means left that that's so that is an interesting one I don't think you guys have it right yeah unless you specify I mean that's why people started I mean people have been doing this for a long time but especially maybe ten or five years ago really started specifying on the classical liberal so in America you say classical liberal and that doesn't you could be a you could vote Republican and be a classical liberal but if you say you're liberal in America people assume that you are a Democrat yeah no that that so yeah I think a classical liberal but it's funny because you in in the UK classical liberal has almost been uh seen as just right-wing now right yeah so it is something that might be Lost in Translation ultimately liberal ideals of freedom of speech tolerance and color blindness and the quality of things I believe in right um yeah right me too so you ran through you ran as part of the brexit party in 2019 um what moved you to do that ideologically in terms of what you uh what did you see in brexit what were your reasons for supporting it and then secondly just on a personal level what made you I mean that's a it's an unusual decision to run at such an age right 22 Yeah 23 yeah so those are the two questions so it's funny because I didn't actually vote in the referendum um yeah so I wasn't in the country at the time I was like living in Morocco strangely enough long story but I wasn't in the country and um but as soon as we voted for to leave the European Union um I thought it was imperative that we implement the vote but I also think that um you know I'm a huge believer in democracy and not just that kind of general statement that that's intrinsic to how I view my Politics as a Democrat um and I think that there are really important questions about National sovereignty and the way that which I think is linked to the Trump debate as well that a huge section of the population increasingly felt that the politics that was governing their lives did not represent them and not only didn't represent them actually um were contemptuous of any attempt for ordinary people to make their voices heard and I think at some point uh that that particular settlement that both America and Britain were experiencing was going to unravel and and that often have that happened in the form of kind of populist backlash and at the time um I was very sympathetic to uh a powerful expression of of democratic agency in a kind of pushed back against what I felt was an elite political class that were not interested in improving people's lives substantially and had kind of given up on that and so in that sense to me when we had voted to leave the European Union that was something that I felt I wanted to be part of ensuring that happen but also similar with the the discussion about black lives matter I think that whilst we can put ourselves in boxes political boxes I do think that there's always exceptions and there's always a whole wide range of people that think a whole wide range of things for different reasons and I think we have to um as as Citizens uh listen to our fellow citizens and not just assume that oh well you you voted brexit you must be this horrible racist or something like that I don't think that's healthy and I think that's part of the problem so that's kind of why I did it um to for Democratic reasons for because I believed in National sovereignty and I wanted to represent the fact that you can think these things and not be um what is called in the UK you know a Gammon which basically just means a what a Gammon yes that's basically a kind of uh it's a derogatory term used for people like like Trump support is kind of like a derogatory Trump for people for people that supportables yeah like that exactly exactly Rubes yeah that's yeah wow I've never I've never heard that word yeah Gavin's Okay so um so let's let's get into some of the differences between uh the UK and America with regard to these issues one of the so it seems to me if this slogan on the British left during 2020 was the UK is Not Innocent meaning you know America may be bad but we're we are just as bad we we just as much are in some way responsible for what happened to George Floyd if you go far back enough then it seemed like the slogan among some of the um the the non-progressive speakers at the conference was you know the UK is not America um right the Amer and the subtext being the American situation with race relations is much worse um much more difficult to figure out and the UK should not you know blacks in the UK should not start talking and thinking like black activists in America because what applies there doesn't necessarily apply here um you know and I I as I as I joked at the conference I got sick of hearing that phrase by the end because whenever someone said that you you know Britain is not America I heard the unspoken thank God before not but beforehand and um and the reason for that is because to take the example of hands up don't shoot right so you have British people importing this American slogan that's been going on for well let's see it's 20 23 almost seven years now six and a half years that slogan's been going on and it's the slogan has been a myth in America ever since it started right Michael Brown did not die with his hands up that's been completely refuted instead he you know was punching the police officer repeatedly reaching for his gun struggling for the gun and that that's the circumstance in which she was shot um and so it's it seems to me you know if Britain is not America is not even America in the sense that you know if the if the idea is we shouldn't import the the American race conversation that might apply over there but it doesn't apply over here my argument is that it doesn't even apply over here right so uh it I feel somewhat abandoned by by some of my British um sort of Co people I share a lot in common with that say you know what you're you're on your own but we're just going to separate ourselves from you and implicitly acknowledge that maybe the activists are right about your case but not ours yeah that is such an interesting point and I think that's a really important point and I would I would push back against both the you know importing the racial cultures from America narrative but also just saying that we should ignore it or or reject it because that we're not America and the fact that we wanted voices like yourself and John or water and Glenn Lowery and so on at the conference is because I actually think there's so much that we share and and there's a lot that we can kind of learn from one another so the discussion about how color blindness is being increasingly delegitimized that's the problem we're both facing totally questions about history and how that's being recast um I think is of things that we share as well and I think manira actually also mentioned the fact that progress is how it's overlooked um and it's the narrative is very pessimistic and I think Kenna Malik mentioned that the the over emphasis on the kind of symbolic and performative nature of activism over actual material questions that both black and white people have concerns about whether that's housing or or crime or health care and so on so I think there's it and also the discussions about Free Speech yeah and and tolerance and and confidence in institutions in challenging uh authoritarianism um whether that's from the left or the right so I actually think on the the big questions on these key discussions shaping liberal democracies I think there's much more that we we share that and actually in building those coalitions oftentimes International coalitions um is empowering to the argument so I I agree with you on that point I think um I also agree about the points of of the differences but that should not I think impede on Coalition building so even though as I mentioned earlier the history of slavery is different there are overlaps but those differences produce very different things in the UK so whilst uh African Americans were a part of the foundation foundational creation of America most of the ethnic minority the black and brown people in Britain here today um came or are descendants of those who came in the post-war years so whether that was Caribbeans from Windrush but as recently as the 1990s there was a huge wave of immigration from Africa uh and India and Pakistan in the 1990s so there's there's still a level of immigrant optimism amongst the ethnic minority people here so that that the lack of homogeneity so to speak amongst the uh black groups in Britain I think is quite telling and I think that was mentioned in the conference some of the differences between uh Caribbean black Caribbean British people yeah and black African British people when whereas those temperatures aren't so uh sharply defined because the majority of of black uh people in America African-American right so there are those differences and also I mean the civil rights movement in America was is a huge historical uh point of significance whereas there was an aspect of a civil rights movement in the UK um so and there was never uh formal segregation so um whereas there was in America and so there's been a much more uh fused and intermixed relationship between working-class people across racial groups here in the UK because class has historically been a much more uh potent uh decider of people's lives obviously nowhere near the extent now than it was in the past so those those kind of class struggles were bigger in the UK as opposed to racial struggles so those differences are worth pointing out and there are other discussions in the UK that I think aren't as big in America such as multiculturalism as a as a public policy is quite a big discussion here but also integration from a religious point of view is different so I think on the on the nuances I there there are UK specific discussions we need to have but actually on the broader big debates about where we are in terms of how confident we are on the future of liberal democracy I think we we should be sharing those conversations and platforms with with you with you guys yeah yeah um yeah so there's a lot in there one thing I found very interesting in that I I didn't know before this conference was the huge difference in social outcomes between the first wave of black Caribbean immigrants to the UK in the 50s and the social outcomes for black largely Nigerian immigrants in in more recently you have you know much higher rates of crime and delinquency and all of the you know negative social indicators among the black Caribbean population and then much higher lower levels of crime higher levels of income Etc for the black Nigerian population and you know that that is interesting because it makes it with us in America isn't it the Caribbeans are doing quite well the Jamaicans I think that well you're so so in America yeah the Caribbeans in many places black Caribbeans are doing better than the the African-American population um and also the black African population which is both groups are very small relative to African-American population something like 10 of of black people in America are immigrants or recent immigrants the other 90 are descended from from slavery so so yeah so so that's a that's a major difference I mean the fact that you have those kind of two groups of the same race doing very very different it it creates a natural experiment in question in everyone's Minds which is okay well what what's going on here between the two groups can't be a matter of skin color or racism because that's a constant that's shared whatever level of racism there is in the UK whether you think it's here or whether you think it's all the way down here that's a constant between what is faced by black Caribbeans and black Nigerians and yet you have these wildly different outcomes which which means you have to start looking in other places for the source of disparate outcomes no absolutely and on top of that it also could mean that groups can succeed despite racism right now that's not of course you know we all share and agree that racism is a profound moral evil but it can also demonstrate that is there ways in which we can focus on the models for success and and the models in which we can advance groups rather than always focusing on on the kind of more pessimistical or or negative end but I think it's interesting the history of kind of Caribbean's um and Africans in the UK so the the problem was that when many of the Caribbeans did come they were very uh optimistic and ambitious um but you know they came to what at the time was perceived of as the motherland which was meant to be this uh country of of huge wealth and oftentimes actually when they came here they were subject to racial discrimination and abuse and were often forced to live in in um areas of of poor housing and poor quality and uh David goodhart um who is a a writer on this issue in the UK he talks about the fact that many of the Caribbeans who came here adopted many of the perhaps more negative behaviors that proliferated on in socially deprived white communities because they were so marginalized at the time um so those so they did experience racism and and a lot of issues but then and in some senses there was a kind of improvement but then it plateaued over time um whereas the the late the latter Generation Um the Africans benefited from the uh of the struggles against slavery that the Caribbeans fought for I was not slavery sorry um the African britons that came here they benefited from the struggles Against Racism um that the Caribbeans fought for but and also a lot of the improvements that had happened by the time that they were already there on top of that the Immigrant optimism and the ambition that you often come with when you come to a new country so that has also contributed to the fact that the the black Africans have been able to advance they've not had the baggage of the experiences that many black Caribbean people did have in the mid 20th century But ultimately and I think this was a point raise and many of us raise is that we are where we are and and you can't change the past and and even if something may have its roots 100 years ago or 400 years ago of why it first happened in the first place we we are here now and have the power to change the future and I think that that is um that is the kind of worry of the emphasis at the moment is that okay well we are where we are whatever the roots are of this issue cannot be changed what we can change is how we create models for success for newer Generations yeah to me the crucial difference in the American case is anytime someone points to the black immigrant population whether that's Caribbean or West African someone could just clap back and say well those are immigrants immigrants always do better than average you know immigrants from Asia do better immigrants from Africa do better Etc and therefore that just puts that argument out of mind and makes it easier to believe that historical racism is the one and only cause of uh white black disparities and therefore the only solution is something you know some State action to undo the effects of of past racism and so because of that you know you're you know many many of the British commentators are right that the American conversation is harder it's actually it's um it's harder because because of that reason it's easier analytically to blame everything on racism there's also the fact of slavery and how that shapes many black Americans the the story that we tell ourselves about like why we're in the country like we didn't come here voluntarily we came here in Chains right it's like we didn't choose to be here we were a captive audience so you owe us there's this attitude that gets told in certain corners and handed down in certain corners of the black population here um which couldn't really it's not really a story that a black Britain could tell him or herself right um and then and I think all of that sort of I mean all that makes the position that people like myself and Glenn and John and and Thomas stake out in America I think slightly more Taboo in America than the same position is in Britain um it's like for for instance I was just sort of looking up how do black uh Britain's vote right and like you will see over the past 10 years or certain elections where you have a solid 20 of black British people voting conservative and maybe 65 voting for labor right that split has been Unthinkable in America for for like 60 70 years right like to get any more than 10 percent would be almost unheard of and to get for for the Republican party to get you know six percent of the black vote in a given year would be like pretty typical really wow yeah wow so I think you know it's clear that the position staked out by many people at the equiano project the idea that racism is not the sole cause of every problem that black people face that there's something communities can do themselves in order to uplift themselves move up the socioeconomic ladder all of these positions they are Taboo in both countries but they're they're somewhat more Taboo in America I think that that's really really fascinating and I and I do think that that is a challenge because even if we put the facts or the reality aside if you can just think well African Americans you know that their history is is marred by uh slavery and Jim Crow of course it's uh not right to expect them to lift themselves up I mean you can just you can run through the argument and it kind of makes logical sense right um but I think one of the points that was made in the conference which I thought was a really important one is this idea of the necessity um and the moral imperative to tell ourselves new stories so you mentioned the kind of story that is told but to me there's there's a another story that's just as powerful just as compelling and I'm sure that you'll agree in in many ways of agency of of transformation and I mean one of the things that I always find is remarkable is Frederick Douglass who was a former slave and had such a powerful belief in freedom of speech you know that in a position of the it's hard to imagine more significant human subjection and subjugation to be able to think Beyond to be able to see the humanity in those endorsing views that would lead to your enslavement and to actually be able to imagine the possibility of human Freedom if if individuals like Frederick Douglass I mean the Econo project allowed at qiano is a former slave could do a similar thing how do I or how can I in the 21st century with the opportunities and the rights and freedoms and abilities we have today not think similar things if not more so and similar with the Civil Rights Movement despite all of that um the the ideals of of the content of one's character and the color of one skin the the belief that we we could create a society and and we're very much on our way to creating a society that saw that was that treated people equally to me that that that to me is a incredibly powerful story that's an empowering story that's a that's a that's one that is compelling and galvanizing and I think for for many of us it's it's finding ways to uh make to articulate that story um and to find ways of saying that that that really touches upon and engaging with people's genuine concerns and anxieties but shows that there's another way to think I mean a good example to me is in the UK and I think there's been similar ones in America about getting rid of different statues and and think or or buildings and things renaming them if they have connections to slavery um so there was a a famous One in Bristol at the height of black lives matter the Edward Coulson statue which was toppled and thrown in the Bristol Harbor in the UK and it was everyone said that and he he's a former slave trader and but he was a huge philanthropist as well not many people said that the the statue was traumatizing to ethnic minority people um which I I've not I'm yet to see any evidence of but actually to me rather than see that statue as something traumatizing and a reminder of your inferior position why not see that as something that to demonstrate that how amazing it is that we live in a society that no longer produces ideas that facilitates people like Edward Colston or or a triumph over the ideas that um he may have propagated and actually uh a desire to create a memorial landscape in public that reveals to us not just who we could be but how far we've come I think part of the reason people struggle with that is is because they believe things like slavery and colonialism were invented by countries like the UK and America they you know the way that history is taught in schools for people that don't really do their own research is that basically basically the human race was just Kumbaya friendly you know frolicking around in in um you know in in loincloths and sharing the land and not fighting at all for hundreds of thousands of years and then white people came along and just raped and pillaged and burned and and and and all of this so if you if that's your picture of you know what's gone on on planet Earth the past 100 000 years or ten thousand years say um well then yeah you're not gonna think there's you're not going to be able to reframe that story in terms of look what we stopped doing because you're just going to think well we shouldn't have started it right the problem is that's just not you know that's totally historically inaccurate right slavery's been around for 10th you know as long as civilization has been around you know 10 000 years or more on every inhabited continent and you can't even actually find an anti-slavery argument in print until like the 17th century or something like that which is to say you can't find documentary evidence anywhere certainly in the Bible the Torah the Quran or in anything written between the Quran and the 17th century which says you know I am such and such I believe slavery is an inherently moral evil in all cases full stop right you get lots of people saying well I'd like not to be a slave but but really consider that consider How Deeply you know moral Norms were different from for most of our existence once you acknowledge that um then you can begin to appreciate that it is actually kind of remarkable that we have gotten past those practices um but I I think historical ignorance is at play in a case like that statue I I agree and I think it's it's in a way is is quite ironic because a lot of the people that advocate for identity politics and and racializing history are constantly talking about the fact that we don't know enough about history yes yes that's a common refrain and it's true but just not the way they think no exactly and actually if we uh did know much more about history we would know that um as as you rightfully mention it is a huge achievement that we uh if you look at it from a a wider historical view uh believe that humans have share equal moral worth um and that and the belief in human agency and that what's most fundamentally important um in in judging people's uh character is how they behave um not any kind of superficial uh category um that Society imposes upon them and even just we we know from whether that's the history of the development of Islam but all the the various Empires with it within Africa um the history of of indigenous societies like the Mayans I mean it's endless to talk about the the the complexities of human beings from examples of great uh extraordinary bravery to unimaginable evil and and and that is the rich tapestry of of who we are as people and and I think it's very sad that that complexity is being reduced and no wonder that then do we have a Generation Um who are both alienated from the past um and kind of fearful of the past and and therefore feel anxious in the present because there is no kind of anchor that we can feel that we can build upon um to take us forward in the future but that was the other problem with the the New anti-racist Politics is that it doesn't really have a vision for the future either so it's got a very pessimistic view about human beings that racism is fundamentally entrenched within Society potentially could never really be got rid of and that all relations are governed by racism so if you see the future as as almost as racism being almost as inevitable uh problem in so far as it never gets better but also the past is something that is the source of all evil then I I don't see how you can have the confidence um in in the present day to really take ownership of of your life and and want to improve things um or see society as a way that can be improved and so I think that that that is to me um one of the core problems with this New Politics that that the pessimism about the past and the future so if you make these kind of points in America a certain kind of person will respond well Anaya you just you you must not have experienced very much racism in your own life and you know whether that's by Dent of luck or luck and class or outlier some whatever whatever explanation you know if you had experienced racism you'd be agreeing with the progressive activists on the issue um has anyone ever you know hit you with that argument and how do you respond to it have you experienced racism and do you how do you frame if so those experiences so I that is a common uh claim that is leveled um at pretty much all of the people that that forward these arguments in public I don't think that I mean correct me if I'm wrong but I personally don't think there is a single black or brown person that hasn't experienced some form of racism at some point in their life it it I mean the extent to which it is uh argued happens or occurs I think um it is very much Up For Debate but I'm sure you know it has occurred at some point with most people so that is for me undeniable but I think to me these are arguments and that and this is the important and frustrating thing about the way that the debate is framed when it's always framed um in terms of i as of this because I think that actually what's Universal um is the fact that we all have the capacity to uh weigh up competing arguments and come to their own conclusions and even if one hasn't experienced racism directly I think we'll as human beings again can imagine what it might feel like to be discriminated again so I'm very I don't think that um the whether or not someone's experienced racism should necessarily be a decider of whether or not they have a fair or legitimate argument to to put forward even if it can be useful um in understanding people's experiences and so on so that that is an accusation that's leveled I think the class point is is leveled quite a lot and I always find it amusing I mean my mum worked three jobs uh to send my sister and I to to good schools um because of those values I talked about in the beginning and you know I'm very grateful to have been educated and that's an opportunity available for uh other people so to me there's it's just not true um and I think it's again reveals to me the Viewpoint that uh for others who disagree with this perspective think about a lot of black people that um if you are educated if you're well spoken if you present yourself a certain kind of way then your authenticity um as someone that can speak on issues of race and racism is is undermined or delegitimized I mean that reveals something to me about how how they perceive of black people um so I I would definitely challenge the argument and I think that the point about racism though is is an important one because of course racism exists and I think as we all have to caveat that but actually there are disagreements about what constitutes racism and there are disagreements about the extent of the problem so I don't I I don't fully agree um about many of the things that I claim to be racism within society would be that microaggressions or or even the fact that in Impact is emphasized over intention but I think intention does matter and I think actually a lot of the time people don't intend to be that way and I think you have to think about how you're perceiving it um but also I think more nebulous forms of racism um or or what is classed as racism um whether that's systemic I think is is often very difficult to pin down and to Define and um so so one of the things that is was discussed in the UK very significantly over the last few weeks is where are you from where are you really from these are these are nuanced debates we have to explain to an American audience why that I mean we my audience will certainly be familiar with the idea that asking where are you from know where are you really from is a microaggression um but but can you explain a little bit of the controversy what happened here so there was a member of the royal family lady Jose um who asked a a British black woman he was dressed in African inspired attire where he repeatedly said where are you really from now and there was a huge controversy in the UK and it eventually led to the woman lady Hussey the member of the royal family stepping down and did she permanently step down or yeah she permanently stepped down and um there was many black activists on the radio saying this is you know a disgrace and about the fact that she asked her this question and that it reveals that you know the society is deeply racist and how dare she it was really quite vitriolic um whole week um in the in the public conversation now I think it can be very it was crass I think it was also um I I can understand why that would make someone feel uncomfortable but I also think we have to take into account people's intentions so someone dressed seemingly in a way to over emphasize their their non-britishness by they've changed their name to a african-sounding name and also um dressing in a way that is clearly inspired by traditional African whatever that means traditional African Garb um and I think lady horses of an older generation and may not be familiar with all of the uh lingo that is now used you know whether that's what what is your heritage or something like that um so I think that that's an example where uh we can't have a nuanced conversation um something that is perceived of as racism is taken as racism no questions asked the other person's perspective is totally ignored and their intention and then and that label which has often almost been used to describe the worst possible thing that could ever happen to somebody um is is now stuck to that person um that that is being accused so I would say that I I don't think I think I would have a I'd use the term racism more less frequently as it's used because I take it seriously right so I I even feel in describing a story you're in a way giving too many concessions to the people that think this is racist right mentioning her age or whatever like let's assume she was she said the same exact thing but was younger and let's even assume that I mean I guess it is kind of relevant that this woman changed her name to an African sounding name and was wearing african-looking Garb right if I meet a person with an African sounding name an African guard and I'm interested in asking those first few Icebreaker questions that help you start conversations with a stranger and again like where are you from is top three in that regard in my experience one of the best questions to ask because it often leads to oh I've been there oh I have a friend there and then you're into you know the beginning of a friendship or acquaintanceship and um and so you ask oh well where are you really from you know the reason for me that I don't even see how it could be I don't see that it's racist necessarily it's because if she had said oh I'm I'm really from Nigeria would the other lady have said oh yuck Nigeria or would she have said oh Nigeria that's amazing I have one of my good friends right so the the mere curiosity or the assumption that your parents or Grandparents were probably not born here based on how you look uh that is not a judgment on the fact that you weren't born here I'm not judging your parents for not being born here I may just be genuinely curious because most most people you know who look like you their grandparents were not born on this patch of land and I'm curious what the story is right I totally and I'm personally very proud to be a British Nigerian I'm quite happy to talk about it as somebody asked me and so and I think it's often cherry picking a lot of these people when they're going to be offended by it because we know that what amongst ethnic minority people oftentimes and I think this is a huge shame when I speak to fellow British Nigerians and and Jamaicans and so on they'll say oh I'm Jamaican I'm not British I'm Nigerian um as a way of emphasizing their ethnic origin but then what if a white person might ask well you know where's your origin then you're saying oh are you saying that I'm not British so I think it's actually trying to have your cake and eat it particularly on that same point the fact that identity is emphasized so much to such an extent where many of these uh black activists suggest that their their ethnicities who they really are you know it's not their interests it's not their their taste is actually their their racial identity and so actually when a society then becomes created that um sees that as actually a really important fact about a person then all of a sudden that's a problem but I agree with you you know if I'm in a taxi and I hear or for an accent you know I ask you where are you from ethnic minority people ask them that all the time if I ask that to white people if someone's really really blonde and really blue eyes I often ask are you from Scandinavia or something like that right and it's like we know this so this is what's so frustrating it's like we're having we're being forced to have a conversation indulging in these things and we all know that actually we all do this and the intention is much more uh innocent than than what is frame so on that earlier point you asked about whether or not I've experienced racism and how I frame that discussion um I think I'm very Frank about the fact that I do disagree with um some of the definitions that are have been popularized around racism and how we understand racial disparities as being primarily a cause of discrimination and and that frustratingly means that people say well you must not believe racism exists and I think that that is just an absurd claim um and not helpful to actually understanding what's going on in a situation yeah so on that topic under Boris Johnson there was a now famous or inFAMOUS report commissioned that was headed by by Lord Tony Sewell [Music] um can you talk about that commission a little what was the purpose of it and what did it find and what what's your opinion of it yeah so the as you uh alluded to so that when black lives matter happened there was a huge Groundswell of uh demand for something to be done about racism in society and there's been many reports that have been done in the UK understanding various different aspects of racial disparities whether that's in policing or health there was the something called The Llama review um on on the criminal justice system and one of the most famous ones was the MacPherson report that that occurred and the findings of many of these reports and uh things that were commissioned frequently uh concluded that a particular system a criminal justice system the police were institutionally racist and that what whatever disparity there was in outcomes socio-economic outcomes was primarily or significantly driven by by racism and actually for many campaigners and and thinkers um that that are perhaps from a different persuasion have expressed worry over the last few decades that so much money has been invested into trying to combat institutional racism through anti-racism training or or various different race race conscious schemes and that has not necessarily changed the conclusions of the report on of the reports or actually led to um the kinds of outcomes that these race conscious policies purport to result in and so there Tony saw he founded an organization called generating genius which effectively takes a disadvantaged young black children from a young age a mentors them in to get into stem subjects science technology engineering and medicine and it has been incredibly successful and he is through his own research and through his own work has found you know agency and empowerment and models of success to be a very good way of advancing the the position of of a low socioeconomic people and so the the report sought to look at many different uh socio-economic indicators um and look at what other factors could be uh involved in why there are certain disparities and it revealed that there were disparities as bigger disparities within ethnic minority groups as there were between ethnic minorities and white people more broadly that there are other factors that should be looked into cultural factors such as family structure individual Behavior education and also talks about replicating the models for Success not solely focusing on um the the trauma and and and kind of disadvantage of victimhood and it didn't say that institutional racism didn't exist it said that that is how it was summarized in the Press exactly and this is this is you know what's so so saying there's no sentence in that report that says institutional racism doesn't exist or anything like that no it did not say Institute in fact it specifically mentioned gives more powers to institutions in order to combat racism as and when they find it but because he challenged the prevailing narrative that racial disparities don't necessarily equal discrimination then he was uh harangued in one of the most vicious examples I've ever seen um and although although the the report was a report that was the the Commissioners with the minority people that had had decades worth of experience in social policy health education policing and so on uh it was dismissed as a whitewash and that's not the case that's not true but regardless of all of that and I don't want it to be only negative actually it was still a landmark in showing that there is a different way of looking at this data and interpreting it and there are ethnic minority people that very much endorse that way of thinking now it's just the start more research needs to be done to find out the reasons for disparities but it just shows you the kinds of pressure people are under to come to one View and actually you have to be almost a kind of courageous or Brave person often just as they actually hold on maybe racism isn't the only reason that's not healthy if we want to genuinely deal with the issues that we claim to care about so I was reading one of your recent articles and you talked about the case of the tragic case of this young woman Sasha Johnson and it reminded me very much of an American case but can you just describe what happened to Sasha Johnson briefly and what your take on it was so that Sasha Johnson she was actually a black activist so she is a black activist but she's in hospital now and she wasn't the traditional black lives matter activist in many ways she she um is a kind of old uh black power type of activist um I I don't know the extent to which that that's still uh dominant or prevalent um but she was campaigning and uh and and very well known in the Press because she always used to Dawn Black Panther and inspired clothing and and how make loser statements about black power and so on and she was shot in the head very brutally and um when she was shot there was many suspicions that it was a white supremacist uh we actually had um a black labor MP dianaba say that oh no one should be shot for or for fighting for racial Justice and the black lives matter UK you know released a statement um basically insinuating that the support for her but very soon after it transpired that she wasn't shot by a white supremacist but it looked like it was related to uh she was it was a case we had a mistaken identity in in a kind of turf war um uh most likely by black British uh men and there was a complete silence nothing no no fundraising no campaigning uh no support for her in fact a year later uh her family you know released some photos and and a GoFundMe and it barely had any money on it um and to me it was I wrote a particle I thought it was so another just tragedy of how what we have is a situation where certain murders are politicized or certain crimes that politicize in order to push forward a particular narrative about the way Society is and actually when the facts of the matter don't conform to the narrative either there's a deafening silence or actually the the myth continues and you you mentioned that the myth of in relation to Michael Brown and the police yeah and and to me how can we say how is that okay as a society where we select we have selective outrage depending on the political motivations and I think um that to me reveals something very uh disingenuous and Stark and and tragic and sad about the situation that we're in yeah so the case of Sasha Johnson Bears an eerie similarity to to a case that happened a few years ago in Houston Texas and the one that happened in America is even a more Crystal Clear thought experiment that crystallized the fact that we care sometimes and then we suddenly stop caring based on the skin color in this case of the perpetrator so basically what happened is this little girl Jasmine Barnes who's about five years old five six or seven very young was uh sitting in a car and the car just got shot up and she died instantly and um a witness at the scene saw a white guy in a red truck driving away from the scene so that was the initial police report they drew up a picture of him and you know within hours this was a national news story The New York Times was covering it every single day right when the the killer was still at large and presumed to be a white guy who um you know a bald white guy who had the kind of look of a white supremacist or a Neo-Nazi right there was no reason to suspect he was a Neo-Nazi other than he had that stereotypical look and he was seen fleeing the scene um cut to about a week into it the times has been covering it every day you have politicians uh you know giving speeches in this little girl's name uh it's it's discovered that it was actually just another drive-by gang shooting and she was caught in the crossfire and the perpetrators were two black men in their 20s this is the kind of thing that happens just all the time in America and all of a sudden everything just shuts down you don't hear about the story ever again the um you know Sean King the the uh you know fraudulent activist who had raised a hundred thousand dollars a hundred thousand dollars in her name um suddenly the money just stopped coming nobody cared and it turns out that white guy in the in the truck was just a random guy at the scene fleeing the sound of gunfire and this was just such a crystal clear case because even in the Sasha Johnson case you could make some argument however clever about how maybe it was that they thought it was politically motivated and that's why people cared and then it turned out to not be politically motivated right but like in this case race is the only variable right there was no reason to believe this guy was a Neo-Nazi he was just white all it was is a white guy was seen and they thought he shot a little black girl and the whole country grind to a halt then it turns out it was just a black guy who killed that black girl and you never hear about the story again no I I mean it's it's just it's scary and I think actually to me there's something even more horrifying about it not just the fact that people only care about the race is that well actually I I'll be saying that it doesn't matter then if if it's a black person that perpetrated the crime right and to me that's the kind of uh a completely a huge application of responsibility um for actually dealing with the fact that um in some communities in America and also in the UK there's such a gratuitous and nihilistic attitude towards life um where these kinds of things can occur so to me it's still a political issue yeah yeah so even if people could make the argument that you you suggested about oh well well I thought it was politically motivated maybe it's not well actually in a way it still is that that actually there is a disproportionate amount of crime among some communities which me that we just ignore or that we apologize for and again part of this narrative that is disempowering and completely ignores people's agency is also it's the way in which it creates excuses for I won't say justifications for but very much excuses for kinds of behaviors that are frankly immoral and that that should not be tolerated and so to me I think it's just as much of a political issue in question as to how we have become we've almost resigned to the fact that certain uh groups of people certain communities are are where crime can just proliferate to such a point where uh Young girls and and people in general can can lose their life and so to me that that is one of the most scary elements but as you also mentioned now no and one of the things I'm actually worried about and I don't think it will be too bad I don't know it in America but also this Rising white identity politics um of course we have the historical white identity politics I.E racism but there's a kind of new form that is emerging which is almost a kind of white victimhood politics in in this discussion about anti-white racism because people rightfully and understandably feel slightly resentful of the fact that not only is there a new racial thinking where you can kind of make huge moral judgments about people based off of what they look like but also the the way in which certain crimes or behaviors are being viewed fundamentally differently depending on your race now to me we're only human and that's what's strange about this the New anti-racist Politics that almost asks white people to be more than human by not getting annoyed about the things that it would probably annoy the rest of us right um and so in regards to this issue when we don't treat crimes different um when we don't treat crimes the same we don't treat Free Speech issues at the same regardless of race then I think that you're brewing a kind of racial victimhood in white people which actually can be exploited and have a backlash and so to me that is another thing that I why deeply oppose what's going on because then you you can create new resentments that are not helpful at all no you make a great point I mean the this is the robin D'Angelo vacation of the conversation about race which is you know her whole world view probably my central problem with it is that she treats black people like children that and like like spoiled children essentially that just need to be coddled and anything that upsets you it's you know it's Mommy and Daddy's fault oh sorry I touched my mic there like anything that upsets you is Mommy and Daddy's fault and where the mature ones will fix it right and she treats white people as the adult and the adults in the room that have to you know hide their emotions so so the kid doesn't cry and like it's really she the picture she paints is similar to the relationship between an exasperated parent and a petulant child um you know so she has a you know a scene in her book where she says you know you are not supposed to as a white person cry in front of a black person because black people are if you're a white woman at least were triggered supposedly by our historical memory of white women crying in fake accusations of rape against black men that would then get black men lynched and this is obviously an absurd though that historically did happen it's absurd to think that black people think of that if they see a white woman crying today no black person in history has ever thought of that when they saw like a white woman crying for whatever reason because she just got broken up with or something that thought has never happened but in in D'Angelo's mind it's up to white people to to exercise self-control so as to spare the emotions of black people and black people we're just any emotion we have is valid right we're allowed to just like so this is um a double standard and it's one that many white Elites May kind of be comfortable with because you know if you're doing well and you are a high status person in society you don't have to worry about money and even more important you are validated you have a position of real really like feeling like you matter in society and you're seeing maybe this kind of thing doesn't bother you so much if you're a working class person and you don't have very much money and all you have is your dignity and the ability to feel that you know your country respects your identity and you're now you're being asked to basically observe this double standard where you know you have to be superhuman but uh you know people of color um are supposed to be able to do whatever they want that's the kind of thing that would really stick in your craw and Savvy politicians are going to come around and whip up and encourage that resentment in very ugly ways and I I did those circumstances how you can really expect people to really improve themselves I mean we see it in education this whole idea that punctuality so good grammar and things like that are supposedly white Western constructs and so what incentive is there to improve yourself or no one's ever going to tell you that you're wrong no one's ever going to tell you that you're talking nonsense that you need to work harder that you need to um you need to improve yourself and that you're the only person responsible for your life is is you um if you're never going to be told that or and wouldn't even expect that then you are you will be in a position of of paralysis of of infantilization and that that again is a very uh that's an awful Dynamic particularly a racialized dynamic and and you know I had I went to an event I was speaking at an event and one of the people that was speaking with me a white woman she asked me what um what I was saying before because she can't be seen to be disagreeing with a black woman I could not believe that and to me how even though I know that her intentions um were actually in a way self-preservation because her peer group um would look at her poorly how can I then how can I believe that you respect me or or see me as your recall or as an adult that I'm not capable of engaging in disagreement or discourse and so that keeps um black people and ethnic minority people more generally in this position of of of infantilization never really able to fully take advantage of opportunities because uh Society kind of expects them uh to behave in in certain ways and are not really encouraging them to take the tools that will enable them to rise above their situation and you know that that to me that that is unsustainable um because for the reasons I outlined in terms of the kinds of resentments that that it creates um but also because it's it's not true it's not an accurate reflection about how human beings behave and so we have to really confront that all right so before I let you go I I wanna I guess just ask what what are your near and medium term Ambitions as a person because you know you've proven already that you have a a talent for institution building where with the equiano project and forgive me for forgetting the name of the Free Speech organization you founded Free Speech Champions Free Speech Champions that's right so you've shown yourself to be a great institution builder at an abnormally young age to be institution building and and you've also you know you you've ran for office so I mean it can be awkward describe discussing future plans that may or may not actually pan out but do you do you have a vision for what you want to do next whether that's with the institutions you've already created or whether that's branching out into other areas well I I mean yeah project you know is definitely something that I'm after the conference which I thought was a huge success I I do think continuing to build those uh networks and connections across the Atlantic but also along from the left and the right because I think that that's one of the things about the problem of our society today about this kind of guilt by association that we have to be hyper conscious about who we're sharing a platform with and things like that actually in a democracy um we should be uh being able to have discussions um across different divides and in some ways then can we come to some kind of consensus about Solutions so I think the Econo project is going to continue to hopefully host and platform these important discussions for Liberal democracy and uh to be doing that both in the UK and the and the us but I mean by by trade so to speak I'm a broadcaster so um I have worked for for newspapers um and uh different media companies and I hope that these kinds of discussions don't whilst it's amazing that we have them um in the digital domain and and um online I don't want our arguments to be the alternative I think that they should be the mainstream arguments to me color blindness and and the kind of tolerance and Free Speech politics that is argued for should not be something that is uh considered just an alternative perspective um I think that these are the foundations for democracy and and I do think our democracy depends on their advancement and so it's taking these discussions more and more which I know that you're doing as well um to to the uh institutions are already established and convincing them um through argument through through persuasion and discussion that these are values worth defending these are values worth fighting for and institutionalizing and that the current approach that we've been taking is doing more harm than good and it's creating unnecessary division in a society at a time where we have big challenges whether that's you know AI economic stagnation technological development we're at a point in a liberal democracy where these questions are really urgent and I'd rather us be engaging with those big questions rather than you know whether or not someone does or does not feel offended by you know a tweet or or being asked where they're really from yeah so I I totally support you in that goal and I'm I'm honored to be a part of this equiano project conference and I hope all of my followers now follow you and how can they do that where should they do that what's your Twitter handle and foreignerproject.com and I'm so grateful for you also Coleman for coming over your I'm a big admirer of yours and you have a big following in the UK and long may it continue and grow awesome thanks Anaya that's it for this episode of conversations with Coleman guys as always thanks for watching and feel free to tell me what you think by reviewing the podcast commenting on social media or sending me an email to check out my other social media platforms click the cards you see on screen and don't forget to like share and subscribe see you next time foreign [Music]

Channel: Coleman Hughes

Views: 22,065

Keywords: politics, news, politicalupdates, policies, currentaffairs, political, society, highsociety, modernsociety, contemporary, intellectualproperty, debate, intellect thoughts, opinion, public intellectual, intellect, dialogue, discourse, interview, motivational, speech, answers, Coleman Hughes, talkshow, talks, ethics, intelligence, discrimination, music, Inaya, InayaIman, The Equiano Project

Id: Z9G-_7M6WnE

Length: 88min 27sec (5307 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 04 2023