back to indexMagatte Wade: Africa, Capitalism, Communism, and the Future of Humanity | Lex Fridman Podcast #311
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you have to have the free markets
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in order to build prosperity.
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And prosperity means economic power.
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If you have economic power, no one messes with you.
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Or if they're gonna do it, they're gonna have to think twice
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and when they do, they're gonna have to pay consequences.
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The following is a conversation with Magat Wade,
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an entrepreneur who's passionate
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about creating positive change in Africa
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through economic empowerment.
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This is the Lex Friedman Podcast.
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To support it, please check out our sponsors
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in the description.
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And now, dear friends, here's Magat Wade.
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You were born in Senegal.
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You have lived and traveled across the world.
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So let me ask you, what is the soul of Senegal?
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Like, its people, its culture, its history.
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Can you try to sneak up on telling us
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what is the spirit of its people?
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Taranga, it's a Wolof word.
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Wolof is the main indigenous language of Senegal
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and it means hospitality.
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That is what us, the people of Senegal, are known for.
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And it transpires in everything that we do,
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everything that we say.
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It's a place where, I guess with hospitality,
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goes this concept of warmth.
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So we are a very warm people.
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So in a nutshell, that's us.
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That's us, the place where you come
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and everybody will just embrace you,
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make you feel very comfortable,
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make you feel like you're the only person in the world
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and that we've been waiting for you our whole life, right?
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So that's my country.
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So that's for people in Senegal, people in Africa,
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or also people across the world,
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weird strangers from all walks of life.
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So hospitality towards everyone.
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For everyone, for everyone.
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Especially towards the foreigner
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because it's very ingrained in us,
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this understanding that especially the foreigner,
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the foreigner is called foreigner
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because the foreigner is coming from somewhere else.
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So if someone has taken the time and the energy,
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whether in a forced manner or because it's a choice
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to travel so far to come to a place that's not theirs,
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to start where that's where the foreigners again,
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then it is your duty to welcome them,
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to be uber welcoming to them.
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So there's not a fear of the foreigner.
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There's not a suspicion of the foreigner.
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And I think this goes with the other way around.
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Maybe it has to do with just,
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you know, when you feel good about yourself,
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when you're very grounded yourself,
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it's very easy to open yourself to others.
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And I'm wondering if that's not, you know,
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the other side of the equation in a way.
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So no, we don't have a fear towards a foreigner.
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When you have a pride of your culture,
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pride of your own people, it's easier to sort of embrace.
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I mean, it's interesting how these kind of cultures emerge
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because, you know, the Slavic countries
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are sometimes colder.
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They're slower to trust others.
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We're now here in Austin, Texas.
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One of the reasons I fell in love with this place
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when I showed up is there's that same hospitality
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as compared to other cities I've lived in,
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sort of Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco.
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There's a hesitation to open up, to be fragile,
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to be caring before understanding
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what I can gain from you kind of calculation.
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It's really interesting.
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And I wonder how those kinds of dynamics emerge
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because they're certainly parts of the world.
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Like Austin is one of them
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where you just feel the kindness,
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just radiate without knowing kindness from strangers.
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You know, if I were to advance one thing,
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and I had the same experience
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after having lived in San Francisco first,
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then we went to New York, then we came to Austin.
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And when we came to Austin, I felt,
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it took me a while to put my finger on it,
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but what I found in Austin, people just hang.
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And like what you were saying, I feel like
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in these other places, people are,
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it's a destination for people who want to come and perform.
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I think maybe the early San Francisco people,
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it was different for them.
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But later as prosperity starts to come in
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and success comes in, then you attract a different breed.
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At first, we're the people who made it,
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who made this place be what it is.
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And then it attracts all the bling followers
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and the bling attracted people.
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And when those people show up,
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it's time for all of us to get out.
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And that's one of my worries about Austin too.
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And I guess I'm one of, I count myself in it,
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but you know, because we're also new arrivees,
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always been furious now.
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But how are we gonna protect this place?
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Yeah, these are, you know, the best possible version
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of the Austin history.
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This is the early days of Silicon Valley in Austin.
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And so you get a chance to build
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on top of this culture that's already been here
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of the weirdos, the artists, the sort of the characters,
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but also the general kindness and love
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that just permeates the whole place,
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build on top of that entrepreneurial spirit.
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So like the tech companies, new startups,
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all that kind of stuff.
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And then you get a chance to build totally new ideas,
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totally revolutionary ideas and make them a reality
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and dream big and build it here.
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I think Elon represents that with all the people
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that kind of try to do the cutting edge stuff
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they're doing at Tesla and SpaceX.
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But there's a bunch of other companies,
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they're just like coming up.
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I get to talk to a bunch of tech people
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and they're just incredible.
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Versus San Francisco, there's a cynicism a bit.
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And also some of the interaction with strangers,
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there's always a bit of a calculation,
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like how good is this going to be for my career?
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How can hanging out with this person can advance me?
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You go to a party, they're seizing up.
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It's like, I'm not gonna talk to so and so
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because that's not gonna advance me.
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Who's gonna advance me next?
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And so this is what I would not wanna see here in Austin.
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And I think maybe there's one way to try to,
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I really would like to see Austin
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not go the way San Francisco did
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and other towns before.
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I like how you pronounce San Francisco with a French accent.
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Yeah, that's great.
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That's the one word you go with a French accent.
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It sounds beautiful.
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But you know, so now that you find that cute,
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you're gonna have to forgive me when I mess up my English
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because English is not my first language.
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So I always try to make sure people know that.
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But you know Lex, this is why I am very interested
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in what some folks here are working on.
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And I'm just gonna be very selfish here
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because I wanna help her with what she's doing.
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It's someone like, you know, Nicole Nodzak and her project,
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you know, with the housing project that they have right now,
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making sure that Austin remains a town
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that's affordable for people of all walks of lives.
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If we can accomplish making sure that all walks of lives,
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doesn't matter how little or big you're making money wise,
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that you can stay in this town
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so the diversity at that level can remain,
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then I think Austin stands a chance to really show the world
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how to do things differently.
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And what I love about, you know, her initiative
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is just how they're really trying, you know,
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to again work on keeping affordability down for most people.
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I think it's important to,
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because it seems like it matters to you,
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I know that it matters to me.
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I absolutely would not wanna see Austin go away
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that San Francisco did.
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And I think the key to that is making sure
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that true diversity,
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not like the fluff, fluff crap diversity we're hearing over there.
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And that's another thing by the way,
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because San Francisco likes to pride itself in,
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oh, you know, we are so into diversity,
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but I'm like, if diversity for you means gender,
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difference of gender, skin color, you know,
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maybe the different accents we have,
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and you think check, check, check, check, check,
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I'm like, it's not enough.
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Can we also add diversity of thoughts?
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And that's the other problem I have with that place,
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And I know some folks who are scared of saying much
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around people, that's also another thing.
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So not only they're sizing you up,
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but everybody's also, there is this invisible,
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this invisible, how should I say this?
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There's this invisible agreement
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that they all seem to have to stay on script.
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Yeah, there's a feeling like you're following
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a certain kind of script that's very kind of shallow.
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And there is a bit of a categorization going on,
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which category do you belong to?
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And let's put this into a simple math equation,
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what comes out, as opposed to just the free, open embrace
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of people, the weirdos, the characters, the interesting,
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the full, deep sense of diversity.
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Not just ideas, but backgrounds, and rich and poor.
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Artists, engineers.
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High school dropouts, PhDs, all of this.
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Yes, yes, that's what makes for a rich society
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if it's gonna get ahead.
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I'm glad you mentioned Nicole's efforts,
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I know she really is passionate about.
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I don't know how complicated that work is,
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because there's probably a big force trying to increase
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how much it costs to live in Austin.
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I don't know how you resist that.
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Whenever I go to New York City,
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just the fact that there's a giant park in the middle of it,
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I wonder, how did they pull this off?
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It's like to resist the force of the increasing price
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of the land, and still to protect this idea
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And then in the same way, protecting the ability
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for people from all walks of life to live
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in the center of the city, to live around the city,
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to chase a dream when they don't get any money
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I don't know how you do that.
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It's partly political, probably, regulation,
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all that kind of stuff.
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A lot of it has to do with regulations.
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And this is where her and I also very much see eye to eye
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in terms of the free markets and also prosperity building,
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because it's always the same problems most of the time,
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Here, what you have is some people in the name of,
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we gotta stand for, and I don't like to use this word,
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but maybe you help me find a better one,
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but at least that's a word that people can understand.
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We gotta stand for the lesser fortunate among us.
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Some people would call them, maybe oftentimes use the word,
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maybe the underdogs, whatever it is.
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I will just say maybe the lesser fortunate among us, right?
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In the name of standing up for them,
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you're promoting policies that are actually gonna backfire
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and where they end up being the first ones
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to suffer from it.
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So let's take this whole housing issue
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that Nicole and her team are working on.
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We find that oftentimes the cost at the end of the day,
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it's the good old supply and demand equation.
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If you're gonna make it so hard
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that the supply level of housing remains
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below a certain threshold,
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remains lower than the demand of people who need,
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especially affordable housing, housing altogether,
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what's gonna happen is scarcity, prices go up,
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and who gets kicked out first?
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The lesser fortunate among us.
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And so, but I find that oftentimes people
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in the name of We Care don't engage their mind.
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And a friend of mine said this, and he said it so well.
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He said, having a heart for the poor, that's easy.
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Having a mind for the poor, that's the challenge.
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And oftentimes we all have a heart for the poor.
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But when it comes then to, then what do we do
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to have a real impact on making sure
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that people get a chance at going up,
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then that's where everything starts falling apart.
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And then you have people who,
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then they start pushing for policies, housing policies,
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making it super hard for you to even renovate
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or add one more store to your home or anything like that.
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By doing that, you're messing up with the supply,
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with the supply of housing.
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And therefore the people who can't afford,
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people get priced out of the market.
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And so what people like Nicole are doing
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are going back to where all of this is taking place
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and they're going back to the regulation side.
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And just like, I'm sure we'll talk about it here,
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but people wonder today, why is Africa
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the poorest region in the world?
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We go back to the same culprit.
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Bad laws and tons of senseless regulations.
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If you make it so hard that in Berkeley,
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for someone to build one more store to their home,
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which means maybe one more unit
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that could be rented out to someone.
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And if many more people do that,
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then you have a much bigger supply,
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which means the prices will go down,
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which means more people have access and among them,
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especially the lesser fortunate among us,
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then we're starting to see a winning proposal, aren't we?
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But instead, if you go the other way around,
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then all of a sudden you're pricing them out of the market.
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Same thing was done with us.
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So oftentimes when I see problems of this nature,
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you can betcha that regulations and census laws
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are the heart of it.
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And that's what they're tackling.
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It's not popular, it's not fun.
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And people tend to not even understand
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where you're coming from.
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But this is a problem we have
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with people not understanding economic econ 101.
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Well, so it's the regulation and the laws
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and the system that props them up
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and increases the span of those laws.
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And we'll talk about that,
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the fascinating way those kinds of things develop
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when it works, when it doesn't.
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Let me sort of step back
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and ask you a question about Africa.
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In the West, in many places in the world,
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Africa is almost talked about like it's one country,
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like it's one place.
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So in what ways is Africa one community?
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And in what ways is it many, many, many communities?
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Just from your perspective from in Senegal and beyond.
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So at the most basic of what makes us one
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goes back to even what makes you African.
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You are African, I'm African.
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We're one big family.
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Africa is very much at the end of the day,
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the foundation and the birth of the human race.
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So from that standpoint, at the most basic level,
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we're all Africans.
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Where this whole thing started.
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Where this whole thing started
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and how at some point humanity was hanging
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by its fingernails.
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Only 2000 of us were left on this earth.
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And eventually we started, we went for survival.
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And that's how we started to spread around
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and some going up north, some going this way, that way.
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And as you're traveling to different places
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then features start to change to adapt
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to where you are, right?
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So hair gets lighter for some people,
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eyes get different shape for others to adjust
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to our new natural habitat.
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You know, the genomics program,
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I think at the National Geographic did that so well
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for people who are interested in going back
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to that work with Spencer Wells and such.
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But yeah, so at the very basic, most basic level,
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that's what unites us all first of all.
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And then I would say that the continent, especially here
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I will group it into black Africa, you know, black Africa.
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Unfortunately our common stories, you know,
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of having gone through this terrible, horrible period
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of around the same time the whole continent being,
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you know, enslaved and colonized.
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So that in a way forms, not that we were ever
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the first people or only people ever, you know,
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enslaved in this world.
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As a matter of fact, I mean, the word slaves comes
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from esclav, you know, esclav, slave, slavs, les slavs,
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right, from the Eastern block.
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So the first slaves were actually people looking
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more like you than looking like me, right?
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So, but we don't necessarily remember all of that
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because in our human psyche, the closest to us in history
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of a big mass of people being enslaved is African people.
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We were the last, you know, group like that.
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You know, the pain of World War I and World War II
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permeates Europe, but it certainly does
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for the former Soviet Union, the countries
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that made up the former Soviet Union.
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Does in the same way, the pain of slavery
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and empires using Africa, does that permeate the culture?
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Is there still echoes of that?
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In a way, yes, especially the fact that, you know,
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in many different places, whether it's Ghana
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or my country or Benin, where you have these places
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that we call the door of no return or the places
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of no return, which this was the last place
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where the slaves were standing or, you know,
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this is in Senegal, we call it the door of no return.
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There is this one door, you're there in the slave house.
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And once they go, they go, that's it.
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That's gonna be the last time they see back home.
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So, you know, those, of course, of course,
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it creates for a common lived experience,
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which becomes a common lived history.
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And of course, it's gonna tire us up.
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Is there a resentment, because you mentioned hospitality,
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is there a kind of a resentment of the foreigner
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that there's a rich, vibrant land?
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There's many resources, there's powerful cultures.
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Are they just going to show up and use us?
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That's a way to see geopolitics in this modern world.
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This is, okay, so where it plays very differently is,
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so if you came to Senegal today,
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there is not really a problem at that level.
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Where people's resentment start to come from is,
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of course, when bad behavior shows up,
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meaning like you have so many white people who can show up
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and just in the attitude,
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they have an entitlement attitude, right?
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And they think that in a way, we're all still servants.
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Some people in your face, some people more,
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but that can cause some little resentment,
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but where really the resentment is.
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And that can, the entitlement can take different forms,
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Yes, don't even get me going on that one.
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I was trying to be polite today.
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So just don't, Lex, do not.
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You know, sometimes I tell myself,
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my God, today you're going to be all composed.
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You know, Lex is all composed.
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So don't go there and make a fool of yourself.
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But if you get me on some grounds,
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that's when it's all going to go to hell.
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So yeah, let's move beyond that too.
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So resentment, there's a dance
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between hospitality and resentment.
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So when you come in, you're you, you live your life.
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You're just a normal human being
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and you treat me decently
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like you would treat a friend, normal people.
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I have no problem with you.
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I'm not going to come back and be like,
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well, you and your ancestors have enslaved me.
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You, you're not going to see that stuff.
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Sometimes I'm in this country where I feel like that's,
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you know, it might look like that,
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but we in Africa don't do that.
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Now, if you come, you have this nasty attitude.
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You think you're still serving servants around.
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Well, you can have a problem with someone like me.
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I might even grab you by the back of your neck
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and, you know, take you back to the airport.
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That's when you're lucky.
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I'll be you very quickly.
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But where things come up is,
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especially nowadays with the African youth,
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when we have to be reminded of the World Bank,
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when we have to be reminded of even the world,
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places like the World Economic Forum,
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you know, like all of these places that seem to constitute,
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they would, the way they describe them,
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when I say they, it's primarily my Pan African friends.
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So here maybe terms are worth describing.
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So the Pan African movement goes way back when,
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we're talking about, you know, way back when,
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started in the thirties going on all the way from there.
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So what you have there is people
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who have started coming together
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and dreaming up an emancipated Africa
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away from the colonies,
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because at that point there were still colonies
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and dreaming up all of that.
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So we're talking about people like Kwame Kuma of Ghana,
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we're talking about Julius Nyerere of Tanzania,
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talking about Blaise Diagne of Senegal
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and other people like that, Bandi of Malawi.
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So anyway, so, and the African youth of today,
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we're still hanging on to those,
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onto some of these ideas of,
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and on some of these dreams of a reunited Africa.
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So when you were talking about what seems to unite you,
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there is that, you know, also,
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meaning like we all feel like we're part of the same family.
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Is it only in our heads?
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Many, for many different reasons,
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there is definitely what we call a Pan African movement.
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And I very much myself, consider myself one of them.
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I don't agree all the time with our,
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where we want to go and how we want to go there,
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but not where we want to go.
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Where we want to go is we would love to see
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a united Africa for sure.
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But how to get that accomplished,
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that's where oftentimes we have issues.
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So on something like that,
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so this Pan African, especially the Pan African youth,
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but it's beyond the Pan African youth,
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it's the youth in general in Africa,
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World Bank, UN, all of these organizations
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that they tend to qualify as imperialist organizations.
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And it's not always a correct way to describe them,
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but I'm sure you get the sentiment.
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And from that place, there is tons of resentment
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because for the longest time,
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these groups, organizations,
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and some that preceded them,
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have proceeded to actually decide
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what even our new frontiers would be.
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You see, when you go to a place like Senegal,
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Mali, all of that, different countries,
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but we were one people,
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one group, one kingdom.
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And then at some point they decided just,
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when you look at Africa,
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have you looked at how straight some of these borders are?
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You're like, did a robot just draw these?
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No offense to robots.
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No offense to robot, especially this one,
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But you know what I mean?
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So they have continued deciding
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what it would be to be us,
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to live on our land,
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and how do we even progress?
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And it just keeps on going.
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They get to decide how are we gonna,
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which type of even economic development path
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are we gonna choose or not?
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So it's very, so from that standpoint,
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yes, there's a lot of resentment,
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including even from people like me.
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Yeah, and it's interesting that the invader
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and the oppressor and the empires
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have actually created a force for unity.
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I've seen that in Ukraine and the invasion of Ukraine,
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where it was a pretty divided,
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not a pretty, a very divided country with many factions.
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But the invasion really forced everyone to think
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about the identity of this nation together,
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beyond factions, beyond all of that.
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It allowed it to look at its history and its future.
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Like they all say that all great nations
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have had to have a war of independence.
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And this is our war to find our own identity.
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And so in that sense, Africa as one place,
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as one continent had to find multiple times its identity
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through the resistance of the oppressor.
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Especially subterranean Africa,
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especially subterranean Africa, yes.
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And there's an interesting aspect to this
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because the president of Senegal is also
link |
the head of the African Union.
link |
So we'll talk about the fascinating geopolitics
link |
of that whole situation.
link |
But let me ask in general,
link |
you talk about this question, this fascinating question,
link |
what does it take for a country to prosper?
link |
What does it take for a country to prosper?
link |
You see many countries in the world that really struggle
link |
and many that flourish.
link |
And it's not always obvious why
link |
because some have natural resources, some don't.
link |
Some have wars, some don't.
link |
Some have sort of authoritarian regimes, some don't.
link |
And some have democracies and all that kind of stuff.
link |
So the dynamics aren't exactly obvious.
link |
Is there commonalities?
link |
Is there fundamental ideas that result
link |
in a prosperity of a nation?
link |
Today, I can confidently say yes,
link |
despite all the differences that you talked about.
link |
And I think then this is where it becomes very important
link |
that we are very clear about the question you asked me.
link |
You said, what does it take to make a country prosperous?
link |
So I'm just gonna stick to prosperity
link |
because prosperity doesn't necessarily mean,
link |
sometimes it has nothing to do with maybe how
link |
you conduct yourself otherwise, socially speaking, right?
link |
So you can be prosperous.
link |
And still when it comes to your family laws,
link |
all the way you approach the other aspects of your life,
link |
maybe you're running a very communist lifestyle
link |
or you're in a very liberal society.
link |
So for me, when we talk about prosperity,
link |
I just want to make sure that we're clear on that
link |
because some people might say that,
link |
might be somewhere and be like,
link |
well, because I know what I'm gonna talk to you about next.
link |
And some people are gonna sit there and be like,
link |
well, China is not like that.
link |
Or even Dubai is not like that.
link |
No, so what I'm talking about is this thing.
link |
And that's what I love about this.
link |
If we just stick to the word prosperity.
link |
To me, I see prosperity as this.
link |
It's like, economically speaking,
link |
what are we gonna be to be a prosperous nation?
link |
Meaning we are a middle to high income nation.
link |
I'm not talking about what are the rights of your women
link |
to vote or can people live like this?
link |
Or I'm not talking about any of that.
link |
Economic, fundamentally economic prosperity.
link |
Because I think that distinction is very important
link |
because over the years,
link |
I've seen people push back on all types of things
link |
and it occurred to me
link |
that that's what the misunderstanding was there.
link |
So if we're gonna talk about prosperity,
link |
making sure that the country can make money
link |
so that it can take care of its needs
link |
and the needs of its citizens,
link |
then what I have come to find is that at the root of that
link |
is gonna be what we call economic freedom
link |
and what I call the toolkit of the entrepreneur.
link |
In that you can put the rule of law,
link |
you can put the concept of clear
link |
and transferable property rights.
link |
Economic freedom is at all the levels
link |
that which will allow entrepreneurs
link |
and business people to create value
link |
and create value entrepreneurially.
link |
We're not talking about rent seeking or anything like that.
link |
It's like you found a pie to be this big
link |
and you make it this big.
link |
So that's what we're talking about.
link |
Create value, yes.
link |
So when it comes to that,
link |
we have found that whether you're looking at two countries
link |
that start out the same,
link |
we're talking the same people,
link |
East Germany, West Germany,
link |
South Korea, North Korea,
link |
very similar people to start with, right?
link |
But yet radical outcomes.
link |
I know that today Germany is united,
link |
but we're talking about back in the days
link |
when you had East and Western block.
link |
Same people, very different outcomes.
link |
Like I said, South Korea, North Korea,
link |
and so on and so forth.
link |
And at the same time, very different nations.
link |
Dubai compared to Singapore or to England,
link |
very different yet the same outcome.
link |
So it seems to me like whenever we're looking at prosperity,
link |
if a nation is prosperous,
link |
regardless of whatever other shenanigan
link |
they might be running,
link |
whatever other operating software
link |
they might be running for anything
link |
that's not related to business,
link |
if on the business side,
link |
they are proponents of a free markets
link |
or at least a base level of free markets,
link |
we know that such countries will create prosperity.
link |
So what are the aspects of the operating systems
link |
that lead to Singapore and to South Korea
link |
and all that kind of stuff?
link |
So can you speak to different elements
link |
that enable the toolkit for entrepreneurs?
link |
let me just maybe illustrate it with my own story
link |
and then I can take you back to...
link |
Yeah, what's your...
link |
Oh my God, tell us your story.
link |
It's just because it started with me coming here.
link |
You showed me the robot and everything
link |
and now it looks like we know each other for too long.
link |
And then you're like, tell people.
link |
But so this is where this question,
link |
even when you asked me,
link |
how do some countries become prosperous?
link |
That question, Lex, I had it when I was seven or so.
link |
That's when my family moved me to South Korea
link |
to from Senegal for the first time of my life,
link |
I left my country, I left my continent
link |
and I was headed to Europe to go join my people,
link |
my family, my parents who were there as economic migrants.
link |
My parents had migrated for a better life
link |
as so many people have to,
link |
so many people have to coming from poorer places,
link |
coming from low income countries.
link |
You saw the difference?
link |
Between the two places.
link |
How else would you call it?
link |
Here you are in Senegal,
link |
minding your own business,
link |
causing tons of trouble everywhere,
link |
just being a happy free wrench kid that I was.
link |
Yeah, so you were always a troublemaker, not just now.
link |
Life wouldn't be fun without it.
link |
Yeah, of course, I agree.
link |
So, because even you,
link |
and you're all put together front,
link |
I know there's a lot of troublemaking behind you.
link |
Desperately trying to keep it together.
link |
I know you are, but with me,
link |
I'm gonna totally bring it out.
link |
So you saw the difference.
link |
Right, I saw the difference.
link |
I'm walking in here, back home,
link |
and I tell people this story
link |
because to me it's a defining story.
link |
Back home, to take a shower, it takes time.
link |
Grandma has to make the charcoal catch
link |
on a little stove like you use when you go camping.
link |
And then she puts a pot of water on it, it boils.
link |
She takes it, puts it in a bigger bucket,
link |
mixes it with some colder water.
link |
Then we put a little pot in it,
link |
and a stronger member of the family
link |
has to drag it to the shower.
link |
And then there, finally, I can proceed to take my shower.
link |
Here I'm in Germany in the middle of the winter,
link |
and my mom's like,
link |
my god, time for your shower.
link |
I'm like, I'm not getting naked.
link |
Where is the bottle?
link |
Where is the bucket of hot water?
link |
She's like, oh, you silly, come on, just jump in.
link |
And I jump in the shower, turn the buttons,
link |
the water is coming down temperature.
link |
I'm like playing with.
link |
It's like, are you kidding me?
link |
I've been cheated out of life my whole life.
link |
So that's what happened.
link |
And then I'm like, oh, and all of these roads,
link |
they're paved roads.
link |
And like back home, everything is like sandy,
link |
and my feet are always ash.
link |
I always have to wash off when I go back home,
link |
and your shoes get ruined most of the time.
link |
And it started, and I had this question,
link |
and it was just like, wow, how come they have this?
link |
So I was not being like, oh, you know,
link |
how come they have all of this money?
link |
I was not, it was just like, how come?
link |
And I think what I was alluding to was,
link |
how come life is so easy here, and back home it's not?
link |
And easy, not in a negative sense, in a beautiful sense.
link |
Sometimes I get, you know, just having traveled
link |
through the war zone, just to come back,
link |
traveling through Europe, back to America,
link |
it just, I'll just get emotional just looking
link |
at the efficiency of things, like how easy it is,
link |
how we can, first of all, in Ukraine,
link |
you currently can't fly, right?
link |
Just even the transportation, you said roads.
link |
Yeah, the quality of roads in the United States is amazing.
link |
Just not, you know, many of the places
link |
that drive in Ukraine, you're talking about,
link |
I mean, really bad conditions of roads.
link |
And I'm sure in many parts of Africa
link |
and many parts of the world, the roads are even worse.
link |
And outdoor, you know, having an indoor toilet
link |
is a fascinatingly awesome luxury to have.
link |
And don't take me wrong, Lex.
link |
Do we have some great roads now in many parts of Africa?
link |
Yes, main arteries, great roads,
link |
you're like, whoa, this is moving.
link |
But definitely more today than in my time growing up.
link |
Do we have, you know, a country like Nigeria
link |
that just birthed six unicorns last year alone?
link |
Do we have the African youth out there
link |
being so amazing and, you know, living their lives?
link |
Yes, we have all of that.
link |
But it is still, unfortunately,
link |
just like we're scratching the surface.
link |
And those people still are getting all of that accomplished
link |
literally swimming through molasses.
link |
This is some of the most gross,
link |
immoral, unfair waste of human capital.
link |
And so that is the, started with you as a seven year old
link |
asking, wait a minute,
link |
how do amazing people in Europe do this
link |
and the amazing people in Africa don't?
link |
Yeah, and that's a key word, amazing.
link |
Because that's what I realized later
link |
because it was not always like that for me,
link |
amazing and amazing, right?
link |
I knew instinctively that of course we are amazing too.
link |
But so eventually the question became how,
link |
so I went from how come they have this and we don't
link |
to the country as I'm growing up and researching
link |
because it stayed with me.
link |
When I tell you I'm obsessed, I'm haunted.
link |
So you can laugh all you want, but it's,
link |
so the question became, the question became,
link |
how come some countries like the United States,
link |
Singapore are rich and some others like mine
link |
and many others in Africa are poor?
link |
That became the question.
link |
And along the line, like along the road,
link |
I continued on living my life, wondering about this question.
link |
And I've heard all types of reasons
link |
as to supposedly why that might be the case.
link |
Some people with a very straight face
link |
are still peddling the IQ fury, according to which,
link |
come on, darling, it's not your fault.
link |
You know, your skin color goes with a gene sequence
link |
that just doesn't allow you to be as smart
link |
as white people are.
link |
And it's not your fault, but just accept it.
link |
That stuff is still out there.
link |
I and I have to hear it.
link |
And others would say to me, oh, it's just because,
link |
you know, you guys don't have adequate level of education.
link |
And I say, you know, maybe you gotta go say that
link |
to most of the street sellers you go see in Senegal.
link |
You go up to any of these,
link |
to many of these street sellers in Senegal,
link |
they are wading through cars and moving cars
link |
under the hot sun, fumes thrown at their face,
link |
trying to sell you anything that you think
link |
you might be able to use.
link |
Whether we're talking about an ironing board
link |
to an umbrella, to Q tips,
link |
to, you know, toothpicks,
link |
selling you whatever you need from your car,
link |
these are street sellers.
link |
And you ask them, dear, do you have any degree?
link |
Yeah, I have this great degree in math
link |
or in literature or whatever.
link |
Some very, very educated people.
link |
Yet they're right there, this is what they're doing.
link |
So that's just at scale wasted human potential.
link |
So that has to do, the wasted human potential
link |
has to do now with the system,
link |
with something about the laws.
link |
Something about sort of the things that limit
link |
or enable the entrepreneur.
link |
Yes, because at that point I've heard this,
link |
you know, I heard people say,
link |
yeah, your IQ is no good.
link |
Yeah, you don't have enough degrees
link |
or you're not educated.
link |
Yeah, some people would even say,
link |
it's because you guys are malnourished,
link |
you're malnourished, you need to be fed.
link |
Others, oh, well, maybe I'll give you some shoes
link |
and maybe something is gonna change, whatever.
link |
And then, so I heard all of this nonsense, Lex,
link |
but you guess what, but guess what?
link |
None of them made sense.
link |
You know why it didn't make sense?
link |
Because if any of that crap was true,
link |
why, oh, why is it that my parents
link |
or any other people from these places,
link |
and oh, and by the way,
link |
some people call those places God forsaken land.
link |
That's also the type of cred you always have to hear
link |
when it's not just flat out,
link |
SHIT whole countries from, you know,
link |
one person a few years ago, president of this country.
link |
That sentiment is sometimes there.
link |
As I go on with my life,
link |
trying to find the answer to why are some countries
link |
like mine poor while others are rich,
link |
I'm hearing all of these reasons thrown at me.
link |
And then they make no sense because then how come then
link |
if my parents move as it is usually anyone else
link |
who moves from a poorer nation
link |
to a nation that supposedly is rich,
link |
all of a sudden they get to manifest the greatest potential.
link |
So I'm starting to think this has nothing to do
link |
with a person per se,
link |
because we're talking about the same person,
link |
same background, same name, features, everything.
link |
Now I'm starting to think
link |
maybe it doesn't have to do with a person.
link |
Maybe we're talking about something that has to do
link |
with a place that they came from
link |
or the place that they're going to.
link |
So this little thing is starting to be in my mind.
link |
Again, remember, this is not something
link |
that I woke up to overnight.
link |
I'm like, voila, I got my question.
link |
It took me for a long time.
link |
And I had to face off
link |
to have many different ideologies face each other.
link |
I had to really have a reckoning
link |
literally in my heart and in my mind.
link |
And so then that's what I'm thinking.
link |
It cannot be, no, no, no, it's the same people.
link |
It has to be about the place.
link |
It has to be about the place, but then what about this place?
link |
But then even about the place, you're thinking,
link |
again, two countries, different backgrounds, same outcome,
link |
same background, different outcome.
link |
I start, I am in Silicon Valley
link |
in the late 90s, early 2000s,
link |
that come boom, all of that.
link |
And I'm starting to discover this concept
link |
of this thing called entrepreneurship.
link |
You know, I'm in Silicon Valley
link |
and just getting to experience what seems so cliche by now,
link |
but you know, people getting together
link |
in the back of a napkin, talking about an idea,
link |
putting it out, and then they go out
link |
and they talk to some of these investors
link |
who's gonna invest in it.
link |
Then they have the lawyers
link |
who get to put all of this stuff together.
link |
And then they have the big four CPA firms,
link |
this whole ecosystem of what they call entrepreneurship.
link |
And then eventually this concept of entrepreneurship
link |
being this idea of creating something out of nothing.
link |
And at some point I become an entrepreneur myself.
link |
And the way I became an entrepreneur was not like,
link |
I woke up and I'm like,
link |
I wanna make money, so I'm gonna become an entrepreneur.
link |
No, and this is also another problem I have with people
link |
who have a problem with entrepreneurs or business people.
link |
Most entrepreneurs do not start a business to become rich.
link |
Most entrepreneurs start a business
link |
because they have found, identified a problem
link |
that bothered them enough,
link |
that they said, enough is enough.
link |
I'm gonna do something about it.
link |
What entrepreneurs are are people who criticize by creating.
link |
Do they always get it right?
link |
No, as a matter of fact,
link |
the failure in entrepreneurship is humongous.
link |
It's kamikaze path to take the entrepreneurship path.
link |
We lose our spouses.
link |
My first husband passed away
link |
as soon as I was about to sign my first term sheet.
link |
And yet I had to keep going.
link |
What force can keep you going
link |
after you just lost the love of your life?
link |
What force keeps you going?
link |
The force of, oh, I just wanna be rich, really?
link |
When your whole world is upside down,
link |
your whole world is upside down and you just want to quit.
link |
You just want to go meet him and join him in death.
link |
Because of the same reason why I started my company.
link |
I stayed because of the women
link |
whom I had put back to work by then.
link |
We're talking about some of the most vulnerable women
link |
These are women who grow the hibiscus,
link |
which we need to make the bisap,
link |
which is the juice of taranga, remember?
link |
This is our national identity drink.
link |
And for the longest time, women grow this hibiscus
link |
that we use for the national drink, for this drink.
link |
And now that Coca Cola, Pepsi, and all that
link |
had made it through the marketing
link |
that it is more cool to drink those beverages,
link |
now there is no more market for the hibiscus.
link |
And with that goes the livelihoods of these women.
link |
And for me, that bothered me enough
link |
because in that force, I saw two things.
link |
One was a part of my culture.
link |
We're talking about, I mean,
link |
part of my cultural identity, for Christ's sake,
link |
the juice of taranga.
link |
You asked me, what defines you?
link |
I said, taranga, there's a juice for it.
link |
So my culture is disappearing.
link |
And at the same time, these women
link |
are sliding into abject poverty
link |
because what they used to make no one needs anymore.
link |
So that is what got me to start a company.
link |
And the company was created just because of that.
link |
I wanted to build a company that would allow me
link |
to not only preserve this very important aspect
link |
of my cultural identity,
link |
and at the same time, put these women back to work.
link |
And maybe it's more difficult to put into words,
link |
but there's a kind of, it's a basic human spirit
link |
where you see the place where you came from
link |
breaking apart in some kind of way,
link |
and you have the entrepreneurial fire
link |
that dreams of helping.
link |
And that, sometimes it's hard to convert that into words.
link |
You have to tell nice stories and so on,
link |
but it's the basic human desire to help.
link |
And like I said, criticized by creating.
link |
Especially when you've been,
link |
especially when, and let's face it,
link |
do we all, are we all a bundle of circumstances,
link |
some happy, some worse?
link |
And oftentimes I ask myself, my God, why you?
link |
Why did you get to have the opportunities that you have?
link |
What makes you different from, let's say,
link |
even your cousin that couldn't, that is still home, trapped?
link |
Because we call ourselves trapped citizens.
link |
When you're trapped in these countries that go nowhere,
link |
we're like a bunch of trapped citizens.
link |
So you see, Lex, when my husband passed away
link |
and I wanted nothing more to do than to quit
link |
and to send, investors had already said,
link |
we understand if you want to stop.
link |
Whatever you decide to do, we'll do that.
link |
And I wanted to quit and I was actually on my way.
link |
I was in Senegal for a month,
link |
trying to really get a bearing over myself.
link |
And by the end of the month, I had decided I'm letting go.
link |
The pain was too great, nothing made sense anymore.
link |
So I went to see this woman and I talked to the one who,
link |
you know, we're talking back then,
link |
there were 400 of them, later on we grew to 9,000.
link |
And I told the representative of all of them,
link |
and I told her, this is very, this is her old lady.
link |
And just looking at her,
link |
I knew I was going through some pain,
link |
but this woman has probably gone through 10 times,
link |
not that pain is, you know, like measurable,
link |
but you could tell this woman probably lost a child
link |
as oftentimes happen in places, you know,
link |
that are lower income countries.
link |
Probably lost a husband also, probably who knows,
link |
so many people, loss is part of our lives.
link |
You can see the pain.
link |
You can see the pain, yet she's so, so dignified.
link |
She's so dignified.
link |
And that already kind of made me like,
link |
my God, stop crying.
link |
But, and I told her that I was quitting.
link |
I could not look her in the eyes.
link |
And she said, look at me.
link |
I could not look her in the eyes.
link |
She said, look at me, child.
link |
And I looked at her and she said,
link |
you know, I know you're in pain,
link |
but where your husband is, where your beloved is,
link |
is absolutely nothing that you can do for him.
link |
But for us, you can change everything.
link |
So that's what entrepreneurs are at their best.
link |
Did she help you find your strength?
link |
Yes, and I was weak still,
link |
but I said, you put that aside.
link |
There's a job to do here.
link |
And I went back and I fought with everything that I had.
link |
And this company that I started in my kitchen
link |
became this company that had the who's who
link |
of the beverage world,
link |
with at some point, Roger Enrico, the chairman of PepsiCo
link |
sitting on my board.
link |
And yeah, I went back because of that.
link |
So the reason why I tell this story for me is important
link |
because the world needs to understand
link |
that there is a viable way of caring
link |
and of being part of a solution
link |
for the lesser fortunate
link |
in terms of not keeping them where they are
link |
and we're like the saviors coming
link |
and giving them food and all that.
link |
No, no, no, no, no.
link |
But it's just like the leg up I got in my life.
link |
Give somebody else a leg up.
link |
What are the things you're fighting against in Africa
link |
when you try to build a business like that?
link |
So then we're building this company.
link |
And back then, this was in 2004
link |
that was when I built my first company.
link |
We had to have two sister companies, one there, one here.
link |
So the one in Africa was about the whole supply chain.
link |
And the one in America was research and development,
link |
sales and marketing, all of that good stuff.
link |
And then at some point I look around,
link |
I'm like, wait a second.
link |
Here, back in the days before we had the,
link |
they would talk, they would say, oh, we have this one stop shop
link |
for business registration.
link |
But the truth is very quickly
link |
you can set up an LLC in the US.
link |
We're talking about less than, even then less than,
link |
today it's super fast, 20 minutes online, done.
link |
Back then it was less than few hours to get it done,
link |
cost you almost nothing.
link |
We're talking about a few hundred dollars,
link |
three, two to 350 depending which state you are.
link |
So LLC, starting a basic company takes almost no time.
link |
No time, no time, no money, almost.
link |
You don't have to know a guy that knows a guy
link |
that slipped some money to the politician and so on.
link |
No, none of that stuff, none of that stuff.
link |
And so at the same time, also things like,
link |
and this I can take you even to today's day.
link |
Okay, Lex, I don't know if you have employees
link |
on payroll or anything like that,
link |
but do you have to go every month
link |
or anybody listening to us right now,
link |
do they have to go every single month
link |
to three different type of agencies,
link |
like governmental agencies to do one step?
link |
This one is basically you're gonna go
link |
and give them your retirement money,
link |
like the pension part of the salary
link |
that you took out from your employee.
link |
You have to go to this agency
link |
and put that application through.
link |
So you leave that money behind,
link |
then you go to another agency.
link |
This one is for the health, care, whatever.
link |
You have three of those places
link |
where you have to literally go to in person,
link |
three times, three places every single month
link |
to drop off these paperwork.
link |
Do you have to do that anywhere in the US?
link |
I mean, do we have that situation
link |
anywhere that you know of right now?
link |
And do you think that's a business friendly
link |
or do you think it's cumbersome in business?
link |
And that's not just cumbersome sort of physically,
link |
it's cumbersome psychologically,
link |
that there's a feeling like the system around you,
link |
yeah, there's a feeling like you're trapped.
link |
It's a feeling like the system doesn't want you to succeed
link |
versus a system that does want you to succeed.
link |
You're in a country like we're in Texas.
link |
If you make less than a million bucks in revenues a year,
link |
all you do, five minutes it takes you,
link |
you're filing your franchise tax, that's it.
link |
It's below that number, tell them what it is,
link |
then you have nothing to give them
link |
or anything like that, you move on.
link |
Us, even if I make this much,
link |
there is a minimum tax that you have to pay,
link |
which is $1,000 in Senegal right now.
link |
For the listener, my guy was holding up a zero.
link |
You make no money.
link |
You still have to pay.
link |
You still have to pay.
link |
And then, oh, let me walk you through what happened to me
link |
when we had to try to get the electricity hooked up
link |
on our first office.
link |
So we go, they say, oh, first you have to apply,
link |
you know, like you normally you have to apply.
link |
Then we apply, we pay the money.
link |
Remember again, here you have to also go,
link |
this was like, you know, you go to the office and you pay.
link |
And then we wait, and we wait, and we wait.
link |
And when I say we wait, I'm not talking about
link |
we waited 24 hours, we waited 48 hours.
link |
A month, two months, three months, four months,
link |
five months, you go, you send your assistant,
link |
she goes, she comes back.
link |
Well, they say we send it to wait.
link |
At some point I'm like, I gotta go there.
link |
So I go there and I asked to speak
link |
to the head of the district for, you know,
link |
and I'm just like going on and on and on and on
link |
about how we've been delayed.
link |
This is gonna be a problem.
link |
We have to produce, everything is delayed.
link |
And I risk losing my business.
link |
We already presold some of these products to our customers.
link |
I gotta, something needs to happen.
link |
So at some point the gentleman looks at me,
link |
he's like, lady, look over there.
link |
I look over there, I see a pile of paper this high.
link |
We're talking about maybe hundreds of applications.
link |
Each one of them is a single sheet.
link |
Each single sheet is an application
link |
for getting the electricity.
link |
And he says, do you see that?
link |
And he said, look over there.
link |
I look over there to the other side.
link |
He's like, each of these applications needs one of those.
link |
How many do you see?
link |
Then I knew I was in trouble.
link |
And then I said, what do I do?
link |
And he said, lady, it's not at our level.
link |
And I agreed with him.
link |
It was not on his level.
link |
But eventually, by now you can tell
link |
that I pretty much get what I need because,
link |
and at that point what I did was not threaten him
link |
or anything like that.
link |
I didn't even pay a bribe or anything,
link |
but you could see why people pay bribes.
link |
Because when you have a pile like that,
link |
then the only way to advance your file,
link |
and that by the way happens even at the passport office.
link |
You come, you apply for your passport, which is your right.
link |
They forced us to have passports.
link |
It's your right as a citizen to have a passport.
link |
And even there, if you want yours
link |
to keep going through the process,
link |
you have to bribe somebody so it can go
link |
even the pace it's supposed to go, let alone faster.
link |
So here, I'm thinking I have a problem.
link |
And at that point, I did what I do.
link |
I talked to him about all the things I was trying to do.
link |
I explained to him why I'm here, why I'm trying to do this.
link |
And even him said, lady, someone like you,
link |
you have no reason to even be here.
link |
You could be back in America, living your life,
link |
la vida loca, you don't have to be here.
link |
So that I think gained a lot of his respect.
link |
And I said, if you don't do, if you don't help me with this,
link |
I understand I shouldn't be of a priority
link |
or anything like that, but I beg you, I beg of you.
link |
I need for this to go on this week.
link |
And he said, okay, that's how I got my meter.
link |
One of those two meters became mine.
link |
So then he said, but we have a problem.
link |
He said, well, the truck, we need a truck to be here
link |
to do it because of where you are from the poll,
link |
we need long cable lines to get it all done.
link |
But the truck is, I don't know,
link |
I don't know where the truck was
link |
because they had this one truck
link |
for I don't know how many customers.
link |
So I go to the mayor of a town
link |
with whom I'm quite friends, but you see, I know people,
link |
but it shouldn't be this way.
link |
So I go to the mayor of a town and I said, mayor,
link |
he happens to have the same name as me,
link |
first, last name, same, but except he's the ugly one,
link |
I'm the pretty one because, you know, he's, you know.
link |
That's so people can tell you apart, she's the pretty one.
link |
Exactly, I'm the pretty one and he's the whatever.
link |
So I got to the mayor and I'm like, mayor,
link |
I need your help, you need to help me with this.
link |
He's like, now what?
link |
And I explained to him and he's like, okay,
link |
you can take the truck from the city hall.
link |
I'll tell the guys that they can allow you to have it.
link |
And then they come and then you guys can do this.
link |
And then we arrived there.
link |
I thought I was done, Lex, but I was not done.
link |
Because now the electricity company, by the way,
link |
whom we paid, everything was there.
link |
They've been sitting on our money for nine months by now.
link |
Well, we need a ladder long enough to, you know,
link |
like one of the super, super professional ladders
link |
that normally the electricity companies have.
link |
Theirs was in some other village and they didn't know
link |
if it was going to be back for another three days
link |
I said, are you kidding me?
link |
So I call mayor again.
link |
I'm just like, mayor, do you have a ladder?
link |
And I explained and he said,
link |
and that's how I got my electricity hooked up.
link |
Otherwise I probably would still be waiting.
link |
So Lex, you add all of these things together.
link |
And also the fact that in my country, by the way,
link |
the labor laws are so stringent.
link |
Basically you are married to employees for good or for bad.
link |
And some people say, oh no,
link |
you're not married for good or for bad,
link |
except that it will just cost you a lot of time and money
link |
to get rid of any of them.
link |
It doesn't matter the circumstances.
link |
Do you think I really, an entrepreneur really need
link |
to hear something like that?
link |
You know, the head of the ILO,
link |
I had an argument with him at the UN.
link |
And I said to him, listen, and you listened to me very well.
link |
The reason, if you want to protect employees,
link |
as you claim, everything you're doing is to protect employees.
link |
A, you know better of a human being than I am
link |
in terms of wanting to make sure
link |
that people are treated right and fairly.
link |
But last time I checked, Google, for example,
link |
is not offering their employees chef cooked meals,
link |
super healthy, anything they want,
link |
feeding them from morning till evening,
link |
having some babysitters, having childcare on site,
link |
all of these perks that come on top of really cozy salaries.
link |
It did not happen because you, the ILO, told them,
link |
you have to do this.
link |
It happened because there are enough jobs created around
link |
that now you're in an employee's market
link |
and employers have to fall all over themselves
link |
to attract the best talent among us.
link |
That's how it's done.
link |
And not with your nonsense that you're imposing me right now,
link |
which the only results you're gonna get,
link |
like in my country, do you know what we have to show
link |
for all of these, the fact that the Senegalese employees,
link |
the most protected employee on paper in the world?
link |
Well, we're one of the 25 poorest countries in the world.
link |
That's what it got us.
link |
So let's try to just untangle this.
link |
So there's a system in place.
link |
There's a momentum with that system.
link |
Like you said, ladies, it's not my level,
link |
which is for somebody who grew up in the Soviet Union,
link |
at least echoes some of the same sounds I heard
link |
from people I knew there.
link |
It's kind of this helpless feeling like,
link |
well, this is just part of the system,
link |
this gigantic bureaucracy.
link |
And the corruption that happens is just like the only way
link |
to get around, to get anything done.
link |
And so the corruption grows.
link |
Maybe could you speak to the corruption?
link |
Is there, to what degree is there corruption
link |
in Senegal and Africa, and how do we fix it?
link |
So when you said to which degrees there is corruption,
link |
I will respond to you the same I respond to people.
link |
I say, yeah, we have corruption,
link |
and it's almost as bad as in Chicago, right?
link |
So now what I want people to understand
link |
when it comes to corruption,
link |
it's because we are misguided with corruption.
link |
We think corruption is the root cause of problems.
link |
When corruption is simply a symptom
link |
of the deeper root problem.
link |
In this case, if you make the laws so senseless,
link |
meaning, let me give you an example of senseless laws.
link |
Every time I have to import something in my country,
link |
I have a business, we're making lip balms in this case
link |
and all those skincare products.
link |
Some ingredients I'm able to find in the country
link |
at the standard that I need in order to remain competitive.
link |
Because for example, our products are sold
link |
at Whole Foods Market.
link |
You can understand it's a pretty sophisticated
link |
and really, they don't just put anybody on the shelves.
link |
But the thing is, it means that on the other end,
link |
my inputs has to be right.
link |
So out of those, some, we have seven ingredients,
link |
seven items that need to come from abroad
link |
to go into the making of this product.
link |
Some packaging and some raw material.
link |
But guess what, Lex, for five of them,
link |
I am paying a 40% tariff
link |
and for the other two, almost 70% tariff.
link |
That I call senseless laws.
link |
These tariffs are senseless.
link |
Yeah, corruption is just a symptom.
link |
They reveal that something was broken about the laws.
link |
And the laws are, so taxation,
link |
this kind of restricting laws,
link |
like laws that slow down the entrepreneurial momentum.
link |
Because in this case, when my product comes,
link |
what do people have to do?
link |
Because every time, if you add 40%,
link |
you're basically on the other end.
link |
So every time you add,
link |
if let's say my product normally costs a dollar
link |
and with your 40%, by the time I'm done,
link |
I had to pay, now it's costing me 140.
link |
By the time it arrives in my warehouse,
link |
in my manufacturing facility, it's now at 140
link |
because of a tariff I left behind.
link |
That 40% you added to it,
link |
do you know how much it's gonna add to my final cost
link |
that once the product is finished,
link |
I have to sell it to the customer?
link |
I have to sell it for $1.60 more because of that 40 cents
link |
extra you took from me.
link |
In order for me at the end of the day
link |
to have some type of profits,
link |
because profits at the end of the day
link |
is the blood of a business.
link |
There are two people are misguided.
link |
They say, oh, you dirty, greedy business people.
link |
And it's all about profit, profit, profit, profit.
link |
You know, I belong to this organization called,
link |
I'm a board member on the conscious capitalism.
link |
It is the largest organization of purpose driven
link |
businesses and entrepreneurs.
link |
The type of people I told you about,
link |
we've started our businesses because we see something
link |
that needs to be taken care of in society.
link |
Whole Foods Market is one of them.
link |
The Container Store, you know,
link |
all of these companies that are beloved in the US
link |
that you can hear of.
link |
We believe that the end goal of business is purpose.
link |
But in order to do purpose,
link |
you have to have profits to stay alive.
link |
And the best way for people to think of profits
link |
so that they're not all twisted about it.
link |
Lex, if I asked you, what's your goal in the world?
link |
You're probably gonna tell me your dream.
link |
You're gonna talk to me about what you're doing right now
link |
and how you want to be uniting,
link |
or you want a more harmonious world.
link |
You want human flourishing.
link |
That's what you're working towards.
link |
That's what you say to me.
link |
You're not gonna say, well, my biggest goal in the world
link |
is to produce as many red blood cells as I can.
link |
Except you need to produce those, otherwise no Lex.
link |
And if no Lex, no one working.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
So that's how people need to stop
link |
with this whole profit, non profit.
link |
Do we have some psychopaths among us?
link |
Yeah, one person of us in this world are psychopaths
link |
in every field, anywhere you look.
link |
And surely you'll find that in the entrepreneurial field.
link |
Entrepreneurs world as well.
link |
So we have one person of us who are psychopath for sure.
link |
But do they define the rest of us?
link |
And thankfully not.
link |
So let's just be clear on that.
link |
So here, you know, you charge me 40% tariff,
link |
which is outrageous.
link |
Then you're forcing me to sell it for $1.60 more
link |
than my competitor who does not have to go
link |
through that nonsense because she's an American woman
link |
who is operating in America.
link |
And she doesn't have that nonsense put on her.
link |
So now I'm on this market competing against this woman
link |
So if we're selling the same value product,
link |
mine costs $1.60 more simply because of some stupid rules
link |
from back home, then guess who is going to stay in business
link |
See, they want to talk about equality.
link |
That's the type of equality I want to see.
link |
The playing field has to be leveled.
link |
Told you English is my fourth language.
link |
It was two people talking between us.
link |
Maybe we'll have this English thing figured out.
link |
We'll have it figured out.
link |
So the idea of capitalism,
link |
the idea of conscious capitalism is the thing
link |
that in large part enables this level playing field.
link |
That's what we want.
link |
So what you're trying to say, so here,
link |
so when I talked about census laws, that's an example.
link |
So when you make the tariff so high
link |
that you're going to render me, you know, noncompetitive,
link |
then that's where, for people who might make sense,
link |
when the product arrives at port, they say,
link |
hey, I give you this.
link |
What I give you, maybe it's 10% of the price or 5%.
link |
It's surely not 40%, but you are happy with it.
link |
You're the government official.
link |
That's what we call a bribe.
link |
And me, I'm like, hey, I saved myself money.
link |
And also I saved myself time.
link |
But you see, if the laws where you pay 5%
link |
or even the 10% that I just left behind or nothing,
link |
you come, you pay it, you move on.
link |
Because who has a business of fooling around
link |
and staying behind?
link |
And no, you do that when it's actually makes sense to do that.
link |
So I'm not sitting here telling people
link |
I engage in unlawful practices in my case,
link |
because I'm around saying the things I'm saying right now.
link |
You have to do things cleanly.
link |
And I believe in doing things that way.
link |
So what I had to do was go to the ask again mayor.
link |
We have a problem.
link |
Mayors, whenever he sees me, he's like, now what?
link |
So I'm like, we've got a problem.
link |
You're best friends now.
link |
So I say, now it's the customs.
link |
And he's like, what do you want me to do?
link |
I said, do you know anybody at customs?
link |
I need to hire up at customs,
link |
because I got to explain to them what's going on here.
link |
They all know, of course,
link |
but I think they're not always maybe understanding
link |
or maybe they understand.
link |
And in this case, he understood.
link |
So we went and he's like, yeah, I know this is not,
link |
this is not very, yeah, this.
link |
And I said, what do we do now?
link |
And I saw him going through binders and binders
link |
in his office, because he's going to try to go and look
link |
where in the law can we find something
link |
that can help me escape these rules.
link |
And you know, the best he found Lex was,
link |
oh, well here, see this one.
link |
If you've been in business for two years,
link |
then we can allow you, there's a special term for it.
link |
It's French, it's technical.
link |
We can allow you to bring your raw material,
link |
but you have to tell us exactly how much you're bringing.
link |
And it has to match your formulation because, you know,
link |
they don't want you to bring in more that we need
link |
and maybe sell some of that to the rest of the market
link |
and they didn't make their money on it.
link |
So there, it means I have to give them my recipe.
link |
Imagine Coca Cola being asked to give their secret sauce
link |
to government officials in a country
link |
that you can't even know what might happen,
link |
let alone even in business, you don't do that.
link |
I mean, trade secrets are trade secrets,
link |
but here you're asked to be putting it in front
link |
of some people you don't know
link |
where it's going to go after that.
link |
Because there they get to see, okay,
link |
her recipe calls for X amount of Candelilla Wax,
link |
X amount of coconut oil.
link |
Okay, and on top of that,
link |
we have to think about how much foliage might there be or not
link |
because again, we don't want her to buffer it over there.
link |
So you have to get naked in front of them
link |
in terms of your recipe,
link |
which might end up only God knows where tomorrow,
link |
maybe competition or maybe even them,
link |
they start a business and they compete with you
link |
because we've seen that.
link |
So you have to do that.
link |
And then each time fill out a paperwork,
link |
get the approval, then it can come in.
link |
So when it can come in, you don't have to pay the tax.
link |
Oh, and by the way, you have one year,
link |
one year to make this product and get it out.
link |
And all of it needs to be back out
link |
because if any of it stays here,
link |
you're going to pay the taxes that we held up.
link |
So you're basically forced by these census laws
link |
to be dishonest if you want to succeed.
link |
All of this is so cumbersome
link |
because it means more paperwork, paperwork everywhere,
link |
maybe having to disclose your things.
link |
So me, in my case, what I did is this person said,
link |
okay, we're going to see how we can work with you.
link |
But for the first two years,
link |
we were more or less in the gray area.
link |
Yeah, so even gray area is good.
link |
Yeah, but what does it mean?
link |
In a situation like that,
link |
whenever they want to mess with you,
link |
it means they can come and they will look
link |
and they will find something.
link |
So it means that every day I'm trying to do business,
link |
I'm running the risk of being harassed
link |
and or maybe even put in jail, depending on what it is.
link |
I mean, you're an incredible person
link |
because it seems like there's two ways to change this.
link |
One is to become president or gain power in the country
link |
and to try to change the laws,
link |
which seems really difficult to do.
link |
And the other way is fight through the laws
link |
and create the business anyway,
link |
build the business community and through that method,
link |
create a huge amount of pressure to change the laws.
link |
You're totally getting it with your last part
link |
because this is the other thing.
link |
And this is where I get so upset sometimes
link |
with my fellow Africans
link |
because they get so disgusted by what they're seeing, right?
link |
And they think the answer is to go for politics.
link |
Let's go be president.
link |
And we're gonna change everything.
link |
I see that in the US too.
link |
People thinking that presidents have all this power.
link |
Do you know who has the least power in government?
link |
I mean, people don't get that.
link |
Your best bet, if you insist on going into politics,
link |
stick to the local level.
link |
That's where all the skeletons are buried and hidden.
link |
And that's where you can make the most impact, local level.
link |
I know it's not shiny.
link |
I know it's not exciting, but that's where it's at.
link |
So if you must go into politics, but there's another way.
link |
So in my case, what I do is two things.
link |
I preach and I practice.
link |
I preach, when I'm here talking to you about this,
link |
I am sharing with people that is which I found.
link |
And by the way, the answer was there.
link |
I was doing these two businesses,
link |
realizing the difference in treatment
link |
of the doing business environment
link |
of the US compared to the doing business environment
link |
And at first I was like, of course, us,
link |
everything is messed up.
link |
It's because we're a poor country.
link |
But when I started to put two and two together,
link |
I'm like, you're poor because you have no money,
link |
at least not enough money to take care of your basic needs.
link |
You have no money because you have no source of income.
link |
Where does a source of income come from for most of us?
link |
It comes from a job, doesn't it?
link |
And then some people, sometimes at my UC Berkeley class,
link |
they say, oh no, it comes from government too.
link |
I'm like, I would like to think that even if you work
link |
for government, you're going to be paid something, right?
link |
And they're like, yeah.
link |
And then even before I can say something, they're like,
link |
yeah, because that money we use to pay our public officials
link |
comes from taxes, you know, employers, employees,
link |
we go back to the private sector for most of it,
link |
from where this whole thing is created.
link |
So it's clear, you're poor because you have no money,
link |
no money because no source of income,
link |
source of income for most of us is a job.
link |
We're talking about, so where do jobs come from?
link |
The private sector, primarily small
link |
and medium sized enterprises.
link |
Then don't you think that we should make it easy,
link |
that we should have a friendly doing business environment.
link |
And also a lot of it comes not just from the small
link |
and medium sized businesses, but I think a lot
link |
of the values created from new ones being launched, right?
link |
It's not just like me, like saving somehow
link |
through regulation, the ones that are already there.
link |
It's like letting the market,
link |
letting the new better ideas flourish.
link |
It's about what I mean by doing business environment
link |
is all the things that you and I talked about earlier.
link |
Even the access of electricity is part
link |
of a doing business, but doing business.
link |
So basically when I discovered all of that,
link |
when I put all of those dots together,
link |
then I'm like, well, I guess the business,
link |
and it makes sense, Lex.
link |
If you want to grow tomatoes,
link |
you're gonna have to have two things.
link |
One is a good seed, right, that has good attributes.
link |
And then you're gonna have to have a good environment
link |
Is the soil the right one?
link |
What's your pH level?
link |
All of those good nutrients that you're gonna put in it.
link |
Is it in a place that has tons of sun?
link |
How much sun exposure or not?
link |
The climate in general, is it gonna be cold?
link |
You can have some beautiful tomatoes
link |
in the middle of Siberia, last time I checked.
link |
So same thing here.
link |
You know, Mohammed Yunus, the Nobel Laureate for Peace,
link |
said, poor people are bonsai people.
link |
They're the same people.
link |
If you put them in the normal, natural, friendly habitat
link |
where they can thrive, they become the tallest tree
link |
Poor people are bonsai people.
link |
So you see that tiny pot you put around the bonsai tree?
link |
That's the tiny pot that's created
link |
by giving me such a hostile business environment
link |
that basically we're put together by the set of laws
link |
that you have put, that basically I have to jump through
link |
as a business person, practicing business in my country.
link |
If you turn that environment into a friendly environment
link |
where I am not married to my employees,
link |
I have flexibility of the labor laws
link |
are simple, straightforward, clean,
link |
where the tax code is very simple.
link |
It's not worth truckloads of laws like in my country.
link |
It's so complicated.
link |
You have to hire a CPA, which costs more money.
link |
And even them tell them, girl, we're gonna make some mistakes.
link |
They don't talk to me like that.
link |
They don't tell me, girl, they shouldn't, they better not.
link |
But they say, whatever they say.
link |
You know, they're like, we're gonna,
link |
but bottom line is we're gonna make mistakes.
link |
This thing is so complicated, we're gonna make mistakes.
link |
So, which means my ass is on the line.
link |
So anyway, so if the tax code was so simple,
link |
straightforward, like it is maybe in Texas,
link |
where up till a threshold, you owe me nothing,
link |
go online, five minutes, fill out your taxes,
link |
you're compliant, keep building your business
link |
because that's what we need from you.
link |
If you made it so easy and straightforward,
link |
then you know what?
link |
That's when you get all of these people,
link |
Lex, that you're talking about saying, you know what?
link |
My name is Aminata,
link |
and I live in the middle of nowhere, Senegal.
link |
But you know what?
link |
I've got this great idea for this really hot,
link |
nice hot sauce that I know the Americans are gonna love.
link |
I'm hearing that hot sauce is a big thing.
link |
Let me bring it to them.
link |
But everything is there for you to jump
link |
into the ring of entrepreneurship.
link |
You don't have to know someone like my God.
link |
You don't have to even have the ability
link |
to sell yourself maybe like I can sometimes.
link |
You are someone with a great idea.
link |
You're willing to work hard for it
link |
and pour everything you got into it.
link |
You can get into the race.
link |
You can be a dreamer,
link |
and you can be a dreamer in a rural little village.
link |
And then that has ripple effects
link |
throughout the entire country.
link |
Young kids growing up, you know,
link |
I wanna be the next X, whatever.
link |
And it doesn't have to be the next Steve Jobs.
link |
That seems really far, far away.
link |
It's at all levels.
link |
You create local heroes because representation matters.
link |
So, and we are so badly in need of that.
link |
And so that's what all the things
link |
that have been stolen from us
link |
as long as things remain the same.
link |
So Lex, once I found out that basically at the end of the day
link |
the answer is economic freedom.
link |
And that when it comes to that,
link |
the indexes, economic indexes that measure that,
link |
whether it's the doing business index ranking
link |
of the World Bank,
link |
or the Fraser Economic Freedom Index
link |
of the Heritage Foundation.
link |
When you look at all of those indexes and others,
link |
what do they have in common?
link |
One after another they show you
link |
that it is harder to do business
link |
in almost anywhere in Sub Saharan Africa
link |
than it is per se anywhere in Scandinavia.
link |
So it is telling you that Scandinavian nations,
link |
that socialist Americans tend to love so much
link |
and take as an example,
link |
although there too they're showing you
link |
that they don't understand
link |
what's going on really in Scandinavia,
link |
that Scandinavia is more capitalist.
link |
Scandinavian nations are more capitalist
link |
than almost any Sub Saharan African nations.
link |
Ultimately, the political systems
link |
actually don't even matter nearly as much
link |
as the private sector being able
link |
to operate the machinery of capitalism.
link |
There you go, there you go, there you go.
link |
And it's almost like, like I said,
link |
it's almost like its own little widget within it.
link |
You can have whatever type of society
link |
you want to practice,
link |
you want to exercise at whatever level you want to.
link |
But if you're serious about becoming a capitalist,
link |
becoming a middle to high income nation,
link |
there is no other pathway that we know of at this point.
link |
And you know what made me super excited about that
link |
beyond having finally found my answer.
link |
I have to tell you when I found that answer,
link |
I literally fell to my knees.
link |
It was the type of feeling that,
link |
you know, if something is not well with you,
link |
whether it's physical or mental,
link |
something is not well, you're not well.
link |
And you go around and you go to the so called specialists,
link |
some of them, you know,
link |
but you're going around for years,
link |
going around trying to get help for your ailment.
link |
And here they don't know.
link |
Here they tell you things that you can't tell why,
link |
but you just know it's not true.
link |
They're this, they're that.
link |
And it's going on for years after year after year.
link |
And finally you meet this one person
link |
and boom, it's there.
link |
Not only the liberation,
link |
but also this whole new world that comes with it.
link |
You know, I'm still ill, but guess what?
link |
There's a path forward.
link |
I'm going to have a lot of work to do, but there's hope.
link |
Yeah, and you're the beacon of hope actually,
link |
for a lot of people in that part of the world.
link |
And those beacons are actually really necessary.
link |
So not only is there hope, but you can become,
link |
I mean, the beacon for your people, your home,
link |
this power that you see that you feel all around
link |
to become, to escape the feeling of being trapped.
link |
Is there a device you can give to people that,
link |
to young girls and boys dreaming somewhere in Africa
link |
of how to change the world?
link |
And by the way, I want to say there are bigger beacons.
link |
There are better beacons than me.
link |
I just happen to be someone who has the chance
link |
of talking to you right now.
link |
And one of my goals is to open the same doors
link |
that were opened for me, because together, our voice,
link |
there's such amazing stories out there.
link |
And so bigger beacons, better beacons out there.
link |
One thing here for me, the reason why I do
link |
what I'm doing right now, and it's almost to a point
link |
of self destructing my own health.
link |
I feel invested with such the mission of,
link |
I have been afforded the truth.
link |
So it is my moral duty to try to take it around.
link |
I know I sound, people sometimes say,
link |
when I listen to you, I feel like I'm talking to a priest.
link |
And I'm like, because the gospel, I receive the gospel.
link |
So anyway, but the thing is, Lex,
link |
who tells you these things to this day?
link |
When they talk about the poverty of Africa,
link |
what do they talk about?
link |
They sit in front telling you,
link |
oh yeah, it's because of colonialism.
link |
It's because of racism.
link |
It's because of imperialism.
link |
It's because they're stealing raw material, blah, blah, blah.
link |
Is any of those guilty to some level of where we are today?
link |
Maybe part of the reason where we are today?
link |
Is that the only reason or the overwhelming reasons?
link |
Is that insurmountable?
link |
So for me, don't stay in that place
link |
that steals and robs you of your agency.
link |
So I think it's important for people to A,
link |
get the right diagnosis as to why we are where we are.
link |
Because what you and I just talked about,
link |
the mainstream does not talk about this
link |
when they even talk about Africa
link |
in terms that are not the usual suspect of,
link |
oh, famine is building over there.
link |
War is building over here.
link |
Oh, we're having Ebola is coming.
link |
All of that stuff.
link |
Even when they were talking about the monkeypox,
link |
which at first, in this wave,
link |
it started with white people in Europe.
link |
Well, even in the many newspapers you pull out,
link |
it's black people with monkeypox on their skin.
link |
I'm like, wait a second.
link |
This time around, it did not start with us.
link |
So why are you always showing us
link |
when it's right now happening to white people?
link |
So all of that is happening.
link |
So for me, the thing is,
link |
we, the world simply right now,
link |
does not have the right diagnosis
link |
as to why this continent right now,
link |
despite all of its riches,
link |
because Lord knows it's got riches
link |
starting it with its young population.
link |
75% of the population in my country
link |
is below the age of 25 years old.
link |
So when we're talking, I know we're talking about,
link |
repopulation, it's an important,
link |
we're gonna have to go for that.
link |
Maybe you'll get me going about comments,
link |
I don't know, but anyway.
link |
So here, my point is,
link |
A, we need the right diagnosis
link |
as to why this continent is the poorest continent
link |
in the world, despite its riches
link |
starting with its young people,
link |
all the natural resources, diversity in land,
link |
people, cultures, languages,
link |
everything that make for great ingredient for awesomeness.
link |
Despite all of that,
link |
we are the poorest region in the world.
link |
People need to know that the reason why that is,
link |
it's because we also happen to be
link |
the most overregulated region in the world.
link |
At the end of the day, what Africa,
link |
and I dare to say Africa here,
link |
and treated as one,
link |
we are 54 countries, 55 depending on how you count,
link |
yet we almost for a tiny minority of these countries,
link |
we almost all lack one of the most crucial freedoms
link |
If you're serious about prosperity building,
link |
we lack economic freedom.
link |
And economic freedom is the thing
link |
that unlocks that human potential of the young people just.
link |
Yes, for them to run,
link |
to run with their ideas, to start businesses,
link |
or to start initiative.
link |
It doesn't have to be for profit all the time, right?
link |
But it is this thing that gets you to get up
link |
and go and do something, criticize by creating.
link |
Young people are naturally wired
link |
to wanna criticize by creating.
link |
They're not sitting around waiting or complaining usually,
link |
unless you put them in a tiny box
link |
and they have no other way to go.
link |
And in this situation, what they do,
link |
let's talk about precolonial Africa,
link |
of four favors before slavery ever happened.
link |
There were black people on the continent.
link |
You see, when we talk about the story of black people
link |
and Africans, black people in Africa,
link |
for most of us, even me,
link |
I noticed that unconsciously it starts with slavery.
link |
But you're like, no, we were there before,
link |
before white men ever set foot.
link |
What were we doing in our diversity?
link |
What economic systems were we running on?
link |
And then you realize that for most of them,
link |
they were free marketeers
link |
and they were very much on the free trade,
link |
on the free enterprise side.
link |
So even that is a reinforcement.
link |
This is a place where we do not understand our history.
link |
So proper diagnosis, Africa is a poorest region in the world
link |
because it happens to be
link |
the most overregulated region in the world,
link |
lacks economic freedom.
link |
Number two, what do we do about that?
link |
We gotta become serious about reforms, economic reforms,
link |
so that we can become beacons of free markets.
link |
Just like the Asian tigers,
link |
that's what the Asian tigers did.
link |
They had to become serious.
link |
Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea,
link |
those guys had to become serious about the free markets.
link |
Lee Kuan Woo, he's just like, we gotta do something.
link |
And he looked around and he realized at some point,
link |
we gotta make these reforms.
link |
And he went onto that journey of reforms,
link |
making his country one of the most free market countries
link |
in the world, and voila, the magic happened.
link |
Back in the 30s, the stock market crash
link |
and the Great Depression and everything,
link |
the world and with all the lies that were told
link |
to the world coming from the Soviet Union, Stalin,
link |
while they were starving and dying over there,
link |
but oh no, I mean, Durante was telling the world that,
link |
oh no, no, everything is going well,
link |
nobody's dying when we know now
link |
and getting political prices based on this stuff.
link |
But then the world went on believing that,
link |
oh no, capitalism failed.
link |
This crash that you had in the stock market
link |
is proof this is what late stage capitalism produces.
link |
You guys always have your big ups and downs.
link |
And by that time, it was so hard on people
link |
that they're like, we're done with this.
link |
And at the same time, we were told the lies
link |
coming out of the Soviet Union,
link |
that supposedly the communism was doing just fine.
link |
And you're at the point where the free market concept
link |
almost died and it's the Asian tigers
link |
who kind of helped bring that idea back to life, right?
link |
Their success having used the free markets.
link |
And so for me, we gotta make a new commitment
link |
to the free markets on this continent
link |
if we wanna go anywhere, if we wanna go anywhere.
link |
And the timing is perfect because the young people,
link |
there is a kind of freedom
link |
for the revolutionary free markets in this whole space.
link |
Exactly, and you said something, oh, say that again,
link |
because I wanna tell you what I'm hearing in that,
link |
because something's really cool.
link |
Say it again, come on, Lex.
link |
I don't know which part, English is my second language too.
link |
No, you said there's something revolutionary in that.
link |
Because you know how young people are attached
link |
to the revolution and how, I understand,
link |
look Lex, I understand and I am willing
link |
to give the benefits of a doubt
link |
to some of these socialists who came to it
link |
because they had to witness
link |
some of the horrors of their times.
link |
There's a revolutionary spirit behind that.
link |
It's ultimately criticized by creating.
link |
Exactly, exactly, but violent revolution
link |
is never the answer.
link |
But that's what they went for in 1789 in France,
link |
the French Revolution, and Marx and Engels,
link |
they're promoting these ideas that usually,
link |
for them, justifies violent revolution.
link |
Then in all of these people,
link |
I am with them when they say that they want
link |
to see equal rights for people.
link |
Of course, I don't agree with their,
link |
therefore, we need to push for equal outcomes.
link |
Equal rights is right, but equal outcomes is not right.
link |
But I am with them for all the way to equal rights,
link |
but this is where the two paths go this way.
link |
And also, the fact that they have no issue
link |
with violent revolution, people get killed.
link |
People get put in gulags and people get, that's not right.
link |
So what you just said here, just give me goosebumps,
link |
because there is revolution in the free markets,
link |
but that's the type of revolution we want.
link |
The revolution that comes from people creating,
link |
criticizing by creating, it's one of the best forms
link |
If you ask me, that's the most sexy way of revolution.
link |
Criticize by creating, but what,
link |
you're gonna go shoot people or be like,
link |
what's his name, Che Guevara, who tells you,
link |
I love, it's in writing, I love nothing more
link |
than to fry the brain of a man with his gun, really?
link |
Well, in terms of sexy, there is power in that message
link |
of the oppressor, the abuser, the enemy that has abused
link |
their power, they need to be destroyed,
link |
and there's power in the message of that violence.
link |
Unfortunately, the lessons of history show
link |
that the violence, one, doesn't work,
link |
but it does the following.
link |
There is something about human nature,
link |
as the old cliche goes, that power corrupts
link |
and absolute power corrupts absolutely,
link |
is the people who are in charge of committing that violence
link |
it does something to their head.
link |
The first person you kill, the second person you kill,
link |
for some reason, you lose your ability,
link |
the compassion for other humans.
link |
Even if you began as a revolutionary,
link |
as the Soviets did, fighting for the worker,
link |
for the rights and the basic humanity of the people
link |
that really do the work, you lose the plot somehow
link |
because of the violence.
link |
So in that way, it seems like the lesson,
link |
at least of this part of the human history,
link |
until the robots take over, is that the economic freedom,
link |
free markets, and protecting those,
link |
and allowing anyone from your country to dream
link |
and to make that dream a reality by creating it
link |
with as few sort of roadblocks as possible.
link |
Exactly, so that's why for me, the message is very clear,
link |
is what we talked about today.
link |
The reason why Africa is the poorest region in the world
link |
is because it happens to be the most overregulated region
link |
in the world, and for some people who might be put off by it
link |
because they're like, oh, she's talking about laissez faire!
link |
No, let me put it maybe in a way that you can understand.
link |
Do you think that it should be as easy
link |
for any person in Africa, for any entrepreneur in Africa
link |
to enterprise than it is for any person in Scandinavia
link |
If your answer is yes, which I would hope it is,
link |
then you have a moral obligation to work with me
link |
to make my country, and as a whole, my continent,
link |
more free markets.
link |
At that point, there's no like, yes,
link |
but on the other hand, uh uh, no.
link |
And for me, on that question,
link |
and I yet have to find somebody who claims to say no.
link |
If you say no, then we have a whole nother problem
link |
that I'm not even talking to at that point anymore.
link |
So just to clarify, there's a perception in some reality
link |
that the Scandinavian countries have elements of socialism
link |
in their politics, in their society,
link |
even in their economics.
link |
So at the very least, Africa should have,
link |
in terms of economic indices, should be as free
link |
as the Scandinavian countries.
link |
You're just giving that example.
link |
As economically free, yes.
link |
Because see, the Scandinavian, they do have
link |
a subsidized, you know, like a welfare system,
link |
that's what, a more socialized welfare system,
link |
but the way they make their money
link |
is very much the way of the free markets.
link |
So there is how you make your money,
link |
and then there's how you maybe decide
link |
as a country to redistribute it, right?
link |
And so even there, even in Scandinavia,
link |
again, yes, they have more economic freedom.
link |
So then from there, Lex, where we go is my job
link |
and my goal is for every single African, young and old,
link |
to know what I have come to learn.
link |
We are not doomed.
link |
It's not over for us.
link |
We will never catch up.
link |
The time for catch up is gone, but guess what?
link |
We've got a strong, strong possibility
link |
and chance to leapfrog, and leapfrog we will.
link |
It is still time, but for that to happen,
link |
like I said, we need to know
link |
what we just talked about today
link |
because that is not what the mainstream
link |
keeps us abreast with.
link |
When you go to the World Bank,
link |
they don't necessarily work along these lines.
link |
They're still, it's not, when you go to universities,
link |
I will ask you, MIT, the MIT Econ Department,
link |
or even some, most of the professors,
link |
are they free market oriented?
link |
We find that oftentimes in academia,
link |
there is a strong anti capitalist bias.
link |
There is a strong anti free market bias.
link |
So this is a problem.
link |
This is a problem.
link |
Nobody cares about the economists anyway.
link |
Yeah, so we move forward.
link |
In MIT, the spirit of the entrepreneur burns bright,
link |
not in the economics department
link |
because they just write op ed articles,
link |
but in the dreamers, the young undergrads
link |
that actually build something.
link |
But then we cannot be stifling their efforts
link |
by putting these artificially made regulations and laws
link |
that stand in the way and clip their wings.
link |
So that's why when you were saying,
link |
what advice do you give to them?
link |
The advice I give to them is each one of them,
link |
they have to pay attention to this discourse we just had.
link |
I don't ask anybody to agree with me on face value.
link |
Go back, do like I had to do.
link |
I come very much from the left of the left,
link |
if you can believe that.
link |
But I had to have my own intellectual journey.
link |
And in this case, my intellectual journey
link |
was very much complimented by my own life.
link |
Having to build these companies on two separate continents
link |
and having to, I had front row seat of the differences.
link |
At first, I thought it was this way just because we're poor
link |
and therefore we must stop and therefore it's like this.
link |
But eventually I learned that no,
link |
we're poor because we lack academic freedom.
link |
And if a country allows its citizens
link |
the academic freedom to enterprise, then they become rich.
link |
So yeah, I had it upside down, you see.
link |
And so it's important for people to know that.
link |
So number one, know your facts
link |
because your facts will empower you.
link |
In this case, I like to use that word,
link |
facts will empower you and they will even furthermore,
link |
they will power you, empower and power you.
link |
Because empower is like inside
link |
and power is like I push you forward and up.
link |
So that's what it does to know the facts.
link |
And then go on and look around you.
link |
Where are the best practices of this?
link |
Who is at the cutting edge of a free markets?
link |
Where it's done in a way there,
link |
people don't necessarily be left behind
link |
or anything like that.
link |
We're in 2022 for Christ's sake.
link |
We don't have to do entrepreneurship
link |
the same way maybe it was done 50 years ago,
link |
100 years ago when as a community, as a people,
link |
we were maybe less enlightened because of our times, right?
link |
We can update this thing and move forward,
link |
but update is definitely not build back,
link |
what do they call it?
link |
Build back new or whatever they're calling it at the WF,
link |
whatever nonsense and stuff they're smoking over there.
link |
There are some principles that are universal
link |
and that stand the test of time.
link |
Those we have to keep and on top add the new things
link |
we learned from our times and from life.
link |
So that's what I want them to know.
link |
Learn your facts, be empowered and powered,
link |
and then look around, think about it
link |
and look to see where the best practices are
link |
around the world because the world is yours.
link |
You might be African, but the world is yours.
link |
So stop this nonsense of, oh, well,
link |
it's done by white people, so we're not gonna do it.
link |
Get the best that exists in humanity
link |
for what you're trying to solve.
link |
And on top of that, put your own twist, right?
link |
Bitcoin is all of ours to take.
link |
Bitcoin is not the white man's thing,
link |
so therefore, oh, come on, you know,
link |
because we have a misguided pride,
link |
we're not gonna use Bitcoin because it's white man's time.
link |
Bitcoin is math, you idiot.
link |
Math is universal, so it belongs to all of us.
link |
In the space of economics, in the space of ideas.
link |
And there's a chance to leapfrog too,
link |
which is really, really powerful.
link |
Exactly, because here we will leapfrog,
link |
and let's, I'm not crazy, this is gonna happen.
link |
You mark my words, but it's gonna happen
link |
if as many people hear what we're talking about today,
link |
because at some point, the solution is not gonna come.
link |
It's not me, it's not,
link |
it's gonna come from the wisdom of a crowd.
link |
This is why I love the crowd.
link |
There's no better wisdom than the crowd,
link |
and that's also why I believe in the free markets.
link |
This concept of emergent order, there's no way,
link |
there's no central planning that is smart enough,
link |
that has the level of intel that street level people have,
link |
trying to create something.
link |
It's just, we just have to be humble.
link |
There's just something at the bottom of a pyramid
link |
that just bubbles up and happens.
link |
I think the cynicism, the idea that people are dumb
link |
is at the core of a lot of things
link |
that prevent the flourishing of society.
link |
You know, this kind of anecdotally,
link |
people are like, ah, everyone is stupid,
link |
and people say that jokingly.
link |
But the reality is, people are incredible.
link |
They have the capacity for kindness, for love,
link |
for innovation, for brilliance, in all kinds of dimensions.
link |
You might suck at math,
link |
but you might be amazing at carpentry.
link |
You have to find that thing,
link |
and there's something about,
link |
when there's a freedom to find that thing,
link |
and people interact, they get excited about shit together,
link |
and then they build.
link |
If you look at authoritarian,
link |
at places that limit that freedom,
link |
at the core, I think, is the idea that people are dumb.
link |
Let us take care of everything.
link |
We'll come up with the rules and the regulations,
link |
because people are too dumb to manage things themselves.
link |
And then that idea builds on top of itself,
link |
where you think that the entire populace
link |
is much lesser than the wise sages sitting at the top.
link |
Then you add violence on top of that,
link |
and that leads to corruption,
link |
to corrupting of just the human mind of the leaders,
link |
and the whole thing becomes a giant mess.
link |
The antidote to that is economic freedom.
link |
For people to have a freedom to enterprise.
link |
And look, Lex, when we allow for that to happen,
link |
have you looked around lately
link |
and looked at the level of niche
link |
that has happened in this country?
link |
I mean, you have clubs where, you have places
link |
where people are into guitar strings,
link |
you know, like some of the,
link |
like it's all about guitar strings.
link |
And others, it's all about these best cupcakes.
link |
And others, it's all about this new crypto thing over here.
link |
And others, like hair, best, you know, weight.
link |
It's, when you allow us, because seven billion geniuses,
link |
each one of us, I believe,
link |
came to this world with something,
link |
something that only he or her possesses.
link |
And that is the genius,
link |
and it is their contribution to the human problem.
link |
When you think about your identity today,
link |
so it all started in Africa,
link |
just like it did for the entirety of the human species.
link |
There's a bit of European flavor in there,
link |
a little French, Silicon Valley.
link |
You're now, in part, a Texan.
link |
There's, you really are an American,
link |
but you're also an African.
link |
Who are you, when you look in the mirror,
link |
when you think about yourself,
link |
when you listen, when everything gets quiet
link |
and you listen to your heart, who are you?
link |
Can you figure out that puzzle?
link |
That's a very interesting question,
link |
because it's been a long time I haven't asked myself.
link |
What I have found is,
link |
I think who I am today has been, for sure,
link |
shaped by, I call it Dakar, Paris, San Francisco.
link |
Dakar is Senegal, Paris, France,
link |
and San Francisco, primarily.
link |
And now, yeah, I think I might want to ask,
link |
there's a little bit of Texan in there.
link |
How do you say Texas in French?
link |
Not quite as good as San Francisco.
link |
you, I was formed by those three.
link |
I have to say that what I enjoy from my Senegalese roots
link |
are our commitment to peace, love, and tolerance very much.
link |
And Taranga, obviously.
link |
And I like that it's a culture
link |
that's very much about reverence.
link |
It's, we're big on reverence.
link |
I don't think you could ever hear me tell an older person,
link |
especially not my parents or my grandma or anybody like that,
link |
for us to be able to tell an older person that's not true
link |
or you're lying would never cross my mind
link |
because that's the most disrespectful thing
link |
the most irreverent thing you can think of.
link |
It doesn't mean that you have to agree
link |
with everything that's said,
link |
but there is a way to disagree.
link |
There is a way to push back
link |
that doesn't have to rob this person
link |
who happens to be older than you,
link |
especially from the dignity that older age normally provides.
link |
And there's wisdom to their words
link |
that you yourself may not see.
link |
So the reverence is for the idea of wisdom, of tradition.
link |
And again, so that is something that I really enjoy,
link |
especially, and something I'm very attached to,
link |
to this day, and then from France,
link |
what I really came to enjoy, of course,
link |
is all the fineness that one can find
link |
within French culture.
link |
Yeah, the fineness.
link |
You mean like the intricacies, like the very...
link |
Yeah, the soft sophistication in there.
link |
I mean, French lingerie, for example.
link |
I mean, la dentelle, the laces, all of that,
link |
it's super, it's exquisite.
link |
The fashion, the food.
link |
The fashion, the food.
link |
I mean, there's something to be said about all of that,
link |
and it's very beautiful.
link |
And I love also, even when I talk about fineness,
link |
it's like a meal is not about this big thing
link |
they put in front of you,
link |
but smaller portions, enjoy what you're eating
link |
and spend time at a table.
link |
Like the eating time is not necessarily
link |
just this function of feeding yourself,
link |
which I understand it,
link |
but this is something that they share
link |
with Senegalese culture,
link |
is eating is a moment of communion.
link |
It's a moment of friendship, family.
link |
It's a precious moment.
link |
To this day, and my husband is American,
link |
we eat our meals together all the time.
link |
I would not have it any other way.
link |
And there's a prep time, all of that stuff.
link |
It doesn't matter how busy I am, but we're doing it.
link |
Actually, to push back a little bit,
link |
it's interesting, because yeah,
link |
the camaraderie over a meal is a beautiful thing.
link |
I got, I mean, I was in a pretty dark place
link |
because on the way to Ukraine,
link |
I traveled to Paris, I stayed in Paris,
link |
and I wasn't able to enjoy the fineness
link |
because it was almost a distraction
link |
from the humanity for some reason to me,
link |
because there's such a focus on the art of it all
link |
that you lose the basic connection to humanity.
link |
Depends what you're talking about.
link |
I think some of the lack of connection over humanity
link |
was the fact that while I did know how to speak French
link |
for a long time, I forgot most of the language.
link |
And so part of it, there is a barrier.
link |
You said hospitality.
link |
There is a bit of a barrier in French culture
link |
to where in order to be welcomed in,
link |
you have to hear the music
link |
and be able to play the music of the people.
link |
And if you don't, there's a bit of a barrier.
link |
I must admit on that end that it is true.
link |
You would feel less that
link |
if you were with a group of Senegalese people per se,
link |
or I would even say if a group of Spanish people.
link |
And I think this is maybe the other side
link |
of it for the French people.
link |
They can be a little bit uppity up there.
link |
And I think maybe that's what you're sensing there.
link |
If you don't have the codes,
link |
which is what you call if you don't sing the music,
link |
then it's hard for you to be part of it.
link |
But I was speaking here from the standpoint of your inn.
link |
Yeah, from the inside.
link |
Also, come on, coming from Texas and also Ukraine,
link |
Ukraine, I should say some of the best steak and meat
link |
I've ever had, cheap.
link |
Texas, some of the greatest.
link |
And the size of the meals in France,
link |
it's like, what are we doing here?
link |
I mean, I get it's art.
link |
I'd like to look at my art on the wall
link |
and then eat my damn steak.
link |
I just wanna cut the shit.
link |
Did you go, so maybe, okay, no, no, no, no.
link |
Okay, now here I have to defend them,
link |
although sometimes I'm the worst.
link |
Now, did you go to some Michelin star restaurant?
link |
Yeah, a little bit, a little bit.
link |
That's why, because next time you go to France,
link |
I'll take you to the countryside or any French home.
link |
They will serve you multiple times.
link |
I mean, by the time you're done,
link |
even if the portions are smaller,
link |
they're smaller if you want to,
link |
but because that way you get a chance
link |
to really feel what you're eating and then have more
link |
and then all of that stuff, but not be like, ah, like this.
link |
And then, but no, you'll eat plenty,
link |
but it's because you went to the Michelin places
link |
where they were like.
link |
I'm sure the warmth of the people is there.
link |
It almost makes me sad that sometimes,
link |
I think to properly be in a place,
link |
you really should spend a long time there.
link |
And also be emotionally ready.
link |
Again, I was emotionally unavailable.
link |
Well, I would imagine on the way to the Ukraine,
link |
I'm like, who can think about food?
link |
But in your identity, a bit of Texas,
link |
a bit of San Francisco, a bit of Africa.
link |
Yeah, San Francisco.
link |
And I guess from the America,
link |
the defining thing for me for America is,
link |
it's the freedom and the entrepreneurial mindset.
link |
See, very quickly when I moved from France
link |
to the United States,
link |
and I started becoming successful in the United States,
link |
I found myself, me and my husband,
link |
he was French and my first husband who passed away.
link |
We found ourselves at some point,
link |
we stopped talking to our friends in France
link |
who stayed in France,
link |
because we were talking to them about things
link |
that were so outside of their comprehension.
link |
What do you mean you're in your twenties
link |
and you just raised, I don't know,
link |
a million dollars or $2 million,
link |
especially from back in those days.
link |
Today, it's easy here and there.
link |
So even in France,
link |
that entrepreneurial spirit didn't burn quite as bright.
link |
I mean, don't take me wrong.
link |
Do you have some entrepreneurial people in France?
link |
Yeah, but to the level that you have it in the US,
link |
It's just, I mean, in France, it's still very much,
link |
you're born in this area,
link |
you go to school in that area,
link |
your parents live around,
link |
eventually you'll marry and be where your parents are
link |
or maybe go to where your spouse's parents are
link |
and you buy your house and you buy it once
link |
and you're not gonna do like the Americans,
link |
two years later, I sell my house, I go somewhere else.
link |
You don't have any of anything.
link |
What do you mean, just stopping from nowhere,
link |
you're gonna do what?
link |
Start a business and you have nothing to back you up
link |
Oh, and even this idea of going and fundraising,
link |
this venture cap, especially back in the days,
link |
venture cap, all of that, it's very American.
link |
We take it for granted, but it's very American.
link |
Who would have made a bet on me in France?
link |
I would not have found the same people.
link |
I would never in France have been able to raise,
link |
at some point it was $32 million for my first business,
link |
never would have been able to do that in France.
link |
And it doesn't mean that French people are bad people
link |
or anything like that.
link |
It's just something that's just not so in the culture.
link |
Just like this whole concept of philanthropy,
link |
it's not that the French people don't do philanthropy,
link |
but philanthropy in America is very different
link |
from the level and also the magnitude
link |
of maybe what the French people do.
link |
And also they have this always like,
link |
oh, let's do it behind the scene.
link |
Money is suspicious, success is suspicious.
link |
So at some point my husband and I just felt like
link |
our friends actually were maybe thinking
link |
that we're maybe some drug dealers or something.
link |
So we just stopped because it just was not flowing anymore.
link |
And so yes, in America I found this entrepreneurial spirit,
link |
but then I was able to link it with something
link |
that I'm very familiar with in my country.
link |
See, back home in Senegal, I'm part of this,
link |
you have what we call the Mourid, I'm a Mourid.
link |
So what it is is one of the four brotherhoods in Senegal,
link |
Mouridism is the most influential of them
link |
and the biggest one.
link |
And us, it's all about entrepreneurship as well.
link |
I mean, of course there's the whole religious part,
link |
but our mantra is,
link |
pray as if you will die tomorrow
link |
and work as if you will never die.
link |
And the way we say,
link |
the way somebody will say that somebody passed away,
link |
we say, somebody has retired.
link |
Somebody has retired from their work.
link |
So, I think it's funny because in that community,
link |
we're very much entrepreneurial,
link |
left to our own devices, we're entrepreneurial.
link |
But then what happens is the minute that we die,
link |
then what happens is the minute people start going to,
link |
they're being educated through the education system,
link |
you know, like the French, especially the system,
link |
but tend to breed more like, you know,
link |
the French bureaucrat mindset,
link |
then you can see all the entrepreneurial mindset
link |
kind of starting to dwindle down.
link |
So it's kind of very interesting.
link |
So in a way, America helped me reunite
link |
with that side of my roots,
link |
where America tells me, reinforces that side of my roots
link |
and also gives me more tools to practice
link |
that side of my roots, if that makes any sense.
link |
Through all of that, that's what brings out
link |
the heart of a cheetah, which I think is a beautiful,
link |
beautiful thing that encapsulates that whole trajectory,
link |
which I think is the best possible answer
link |
anyone could give.
link |
It makes me want to really think about who I am,
link |
because you really have brought together
link |
so many cultures within yourself
link |
that just talking to you makes you feel like
link |
we are just all one people.
link |
Because at the end we are, at the end we are.
link |
And, you know, when you come from,
link |
at the end we are, and also I think for me,
link |
if people can take anything from my story,
link |
it's at the end of the day, I am very clear about it.
link |
And I'm all for harmony among people
link |
and among us peoples.
link |
If we can accept that we're all,
link |
I know this sounds so cliche, but for me it's so true,
link |
that we're all humans.
link |
You know, when I left Senegal,
link |
when I was about to leave Senegal for the first time
link |
and to go to Europe to be reunited with my parents,
link |
because now they had emigrated
link |
and things were going to be fine.
link |
And I was going to be, things were stable for them.
link |
Now they're like, it's time to be reunited with her.
link |
They brought me over, but before I left Senegal,
link |
my grandma sat me down.
link |
She actually, she lowered herself down to my level
link |
and she said, my god, you're about to go to this place
link |
where most people will not look like you.
link |
And most people speak a language
link |
that's going to be different from yours.
link |
And you're going to realize that all the kids
link |
are going to school and you've never been to school
link |
because, you know, I was, like I said, a free range kid
link |
and I was just living my life.
link |
And she said, but I don't want for any of that,
link |
and she showed her words, she said,
link |
I don't want for any of that to intimidate you.
link |
She said, you can be impressed by some of it if you want,
link |
but no intimidation.
link |
And she said, because the fact
link |
that they might be different from you,
link |
yeah, they're going to have a different skin color from you,
link |
but it is still human skin.
link |
You're human, they're human.
link |
And she said, this language you're going to speak,
link |
it's a different language from yours,
link |
but it is still a language that humans speak.
link |
You're human, they're human.
link |
Therefore, you're going to speak it.
link |
And lastly, they have gone to school.
link |
Going to school is what little humans do.
link |
You're a little human, so you'll be just fine.
link |
And I went and grandma was right.
link |
Right, she was right.
link |
And that helped me.
link |
And I think when you internalize that so early on,
link |
it just makes you belong to the human family
link |
that you're part of.
link |
I am part of a human family.
link |
And I would have no problem going to Russia, for example,
link |
let's take, and be totally open.
link |
Maybe don't go right now, but.
link |
Maybe not now, you're right.
link |
Or at least don't bring weed if you go on the plane.
link |
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, yeah, right.
link |
That girl, I don't know what she was thinking, but.
link |
No, so, but what I'm trying to say, Lex,
link |
is I feel like I can go anywhere in the world,
link |
including some of the most unfriendly places in the world
link |
to someone like me, because there are places like that.
link |
And yet I know, I know that somehow, somewhere,
link |
someone will take care of me.
link |
Someone will help me.
link |
When I first came to this country,
link |
I came as a tourist, but you had this amazing family
link |
who had a business, a family business in Indiana,
link |
Columbus, Indiana, the Wences, Carolyn Eldon Wence,
link |
I owe them everything that I have in this country,
link |
that I am in this country.
link |
They are Americans in the mid America
link |
from a place that most other Americans
link |
would maybe look down on because,
link |
and some people would be like, oh, you're going to this place
link |
where they have more churches and cows than people,
link |
that type of behavior, because the elite coastal elites,
link |
but it is in Midwest, in the Midwest that I found,
link |
that I, black young women coming out of nowhere,
link |
They all rallied around me.
link |
I didn't even come from the same faith as they are from,
link |
yet their whole church rallied around me
link |
to find me an apartment.
link |
My host family found me, got me a job,
link |
and it was not a pity job.
link |
They were like, we need, we are in serious needs
link |
of getting our accounting under control
link |
and our marketing and all of that.
link |
And I had to catch up years of accounting like to the cent
link |
and come up with marketing, all of that.
link |
And I did it way faster than they thought
link |
I would ever be able to do that.
link |
At some point they look at me and they're like,
link |
look, there is a future for you.
link |
And we are too small for that future.
link |
And now we could be selfish and keep you here with us.
link |
And we would want nothing more than that
link |
because really they're like my parents to this day.
link |
I just came back from seeing them.
link |
And they said, but there's so much more for you
link |
and we don't have it.
link |
So we want you to go and find out what it is.
link |
And that's eventually when I,
link |
because something was brewing up in San Francisco
link |
when I say I left my heart in San Francisco
link |
because the man who would become my husband,
link |
we went to the same business school in France,
link |
but then he was older than me.
link |
So he had come to San Francisco and started a business there.
link |
And it just looked like there was something there.
link |
And Scarola was like, you gotta go to San Francisco
link |
and find out with Emmanuel what's going on.
link |
So I went and I left my heart in San Francisco.
link |
I came back and I'm like, okay, I'm leaving.
link |
Here's the keys to my apartment.
link |
What, I don't understand.
link |
But I'm like, I'm out of here.
link |
So no, but Carol, so this is it.
link |
This is what I'm saying, especially in these times
link |
when this country loves to dwell on,
link |
you're bad because you have this skin color.
link |
Here are people with a completely different skin color
link |
than mine, completely different faith than mine,
link |
yet embraced me, protected me, paid for my visa,
link |
you know, for my lawyer, for my H1B, everything,
link |
and also played emotional support for me.
link |
And no one, no one asked them to do that.
link |
They didn't have to do it.
link |
So what I'm saying is,
link |
and this has been the story of my life,
link |
everywhere I go, regardless of the hostility around me,
link |
you betcha that there's always,
link |
always gonna be somebody who shows up for you.
link |
And somebody who's at the extremes,
link |
at the antipodes of where you are and who you are.
link |
And that tells me something.
link |
In the end, we are good people.
link |
Most people are good people.
link |
And there's so much power to that,
link |
the internalizing of this idea that we're all just human
link |
and there's human kindness all around us.
link |
I've seen it a lot where people internalize that
link |
and they're able to walk lightly amidst hate
link |
and walk past it and it doesn't stick to them
link |
in a way that they build resentment and it paralyzes them.
link |
If they internalize the world as human,
link |
they can be in the, just like you said,
link |
in the worst places in the world for them.
link |
And someone, somewhere that human magic and touch is there.
link |
Yeah, it will find them.
link |
It will find, yeah, yeah.
link |
And you know, the other thing too, Lex is,
link |
especially in these times we're walking in,
link |
it is to remind yourself,
link |
I think this is where we all are called
link |
to practice more courage.
link |
I call it courage.
link |
It's the courage to show up with curiosity,
link |
with empathy and with love.
link |
To me, those three are the antidote to pretty much anything.
link |
Curiosity and love.
link |
In the face of fear, can you show up with curiosity?
link |
In the face of hate, can you say,
link |
I'm gonna engage with love?
link |
Even if I'm scared to death
link |
and even if I'm pissed off to death by this,
link |
but can you do that?
link |
In the face of just like, you know, judgment or whatever,
link |
can you show up with empathy?
link |
And I had just found that when you try to do that,
link |
you engage very different parts of your brain.
link |
That's proven by the way, by the brain scientists,
link |
but you also can feel it in your body
link |
that you're engaging very different parts of your soul.
link |
And so I try myself, I'm not always good at it,
link |
but it's a practice that I try to honor,
link |
which is curiosity, empathy and love.
link |
As I told you offline,
link |
those, I agree with you 100% on that,
link |
but there is, you know, when you go to Ukraine
link |
and you can say, you can speak about the power of love,
link |
but when you lose your family, when you lose your home,
link |
all you have in your heart is hate.
link |
Even if you know it, you're not supposed to have it.
link |
You still, all you have is hate.
link |
So sometimes it's a very human thing
link |
to have resentment, to have hate.
link |
But it is about trying not to stay there.
link |
And it's okay if it takes you years,
link |
but it is about trying, and I mean the word trying,
link |
it is about trying not to stay there.
link |
Let me ask you about some of the things
link |
you see in this country from your perspective
link |
of everywhere you've been in the world.
link |
What do you think about the Black Lives Matter movement
link |
here in America that does struggle
link |
with the role of skin color today
link |
and throughout the history of this country,
link |
maybe even throughout the history of the world?
link |
Well, Black Lives Matter has been a very hard one for me,
link |
because do Black Lives Matter,
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those three words together in that order,
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what they mean, they mean everything,
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because Black Lives do matter,
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as any other lives do matter.
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But I know in this case why they say Black Lives Matter,
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because some of the context we have had.
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Now, while I agree with the principles
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that Black Lives Matter,
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I have a big problem with the organization.
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With the organization and what it stands for.
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When I have an organization that pretends
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to want to stand for Black lives to matter,
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yet you are self proclaimed Marxist socialists,
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I pause and then I'm like, have we learned nothing?
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Have we learned nothing?
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And the reason why I say that, Lex,
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is because 60 some years ago,
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it started before even 60 some years ago,
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Black people, in this case,
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I'm talking about the African people,
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I'm talking about the Black Africans
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who would go on to really cement
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this concept of African emancipation
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and African liberation.
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And here I'm taking us back to 1945.
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They had four of them before that.
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But in 1945, in Manchester, UK,
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happened something that would become major
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for Africa and its future,
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especially subterranean Africa.
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In Manchester, UK,
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people like Blaise Diagne of my country,
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Nyerere, Tanzania, Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana,
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and others and others from different parts of the continent
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got together with Marcus Garvey and W.E.B. Dubois.
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And I say Dubois because that's how we say it in French.
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He has a French name, French sounding name at least.
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And Americans would say, so for Americans listening,
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I know you say Duboy, but it's Dubois.
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No, because just in case they're like,
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who is he talking about?
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That's who I'm talking about.
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So all of those people got together in the UK
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and with W.E.B. Dubois and Marcus Garvey,
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big top African American intellectuals of their times.
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W.E.B. Dubois had so many things happen to him,
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starting from the North,
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being more or more or less a liberal type guy.
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You know, came to the South just to see at this time,
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you know, people, black people being lynched
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and some of the body parts been shown in store windows.
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I mean, just for a second, we put ourselves in his shoes.
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I put myself in his shoes.
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And that's when he started to become radicalized, right?
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Because at first it was like, oh, reforms,
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and I was like, God darn it.
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And I mean, these people, we don't talk to them.
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We force, you know.
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And eventually, little by little, things going through.
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Yeah, you have these people,
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they're very much on the Marxist socialist train.
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So do you think the sort of,
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it's the political movements that are just using?
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Yeah, because what happened back in those days, it is true.
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But to their credit, communist socialists
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were fighting for equal rights.
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They were fighting for equal rights.
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They were fighting for the rights of black people
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to have equal rights.
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So of course, I could see why one could say,
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especially in this times, you've been lynched,
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bodies burnt, body parts showcased at window stores.
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Meanwhile, in Africa, under colonization,
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in your own country, in your own land.
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And you have this group that's saying,
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your fight is part of what we fight.
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And you have this group that's saying,
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your fight is part of what we fight.
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Of course, you're gonna say I side with you,
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especially if this is all happening at a time
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where, you know, so 1945, these guys who would be
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the liberators of various African nations,
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they're meeting with Garvey, with W. E. B. Du Bois.
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And that's where this meeting is very important.
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It's the fifth Pan African Congress meeting.
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It's very important.
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It's gonna be the last one, but it's the most important one
link |
because that's when they formed their plans
link |
and really rallied around this concept
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of African emancipation and African liberation.
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We're gonna liberate our countries.
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Then later, so that's how all of these movements
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started to happen.
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And from there, Gandhi was already making some progress
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with India, you know, getting them out of British rule
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So all of this was happening and it really like,
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this whole thing was bubbling, bubbling, bubbling,
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you know, like there's like a new force going on.
link |
And then we arrive in the late fifties
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and, you know, Kuma with, you know,
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them with the British as well,
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they might manage to become their colonization is over.
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They're the first one to go in, 57.
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Then from there, it's what we call the independences.
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That's what most of Sub Saharan African nation
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are getting their independence is different dates.
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Mine, April 4th, 1960.
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So all over, so this is happening.
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And now think about it.
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You're talking 57, you're talking 60.
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We're like at this time now with the middle of a Cold War.
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Because we have to put things in context
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if we wanna understand what's going on.
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Because people today ask me, why do you think,
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because even now when they understand,
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oh, you're right, it makes sense.
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If you have no economic freedom, you're gonna be poor.
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But why, why, why did they go for this?
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Why did they go for this?
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And then they don't understand.
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So that's what happened.
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So beginning of day of times, pre colonial Africans
link |
were free marketeers, free enterprise.
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It's pretty well recorded by someone like George Aite.
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That's where I got the cheat I think from
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and Ghanaian economist.
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And then slavery happened, colonialism happened.
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And then the independences, late fifties, early sixties
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for most sub Saharan African countries.
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So there what you have is,
link |
but then what happened there?
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So I told you in 45, fifth Pan African Congress in the UK
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with the liberators of Africa under the leadership
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because he was the wise, you know, eldest man.
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Dubois was, he was in his seventies back in the day.
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So he's older than them, you know,
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and he's coming with all of his ideas and everything.
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So they're like, ooh.
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So there they are.
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Now we're in the late fifties, early sixties.
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We're starting to make progress with the independences.
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You know, India has gone there before.
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So all of that is starting to happen.
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And at that time, remember,
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they already were being introduced
link |
to the concept of socialism, Marxism,
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all of that way before by some of these, you know,
link |
black African American intellectuals of their time
link |
who were very socialist Marxist by that time.
link |
So now they're becoming independent
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because I do independent like this
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because I reckon that there's still neocolonism going on.
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So now this is happening, they're becoming free.
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But then you look around, what do you see?
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That now most of these liberators of their nations
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become the president of the nations.
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But remember what I told you?
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Most of them have dranken the Marxist socialism Koolaid.
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So as these African nations become independent
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with their first independent governments
link |
and, you know, presidents, most of them,
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most of them are socialist,
link |
various forms of statist type of government.
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And this is because at that point,
link |
we had made a fatal mistake of going,
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of saying we are Marxist socialist
link |
because you guys fight for equal rights.
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So in this case, there should be no colonialism
link |
or anything like that.
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So not only you have that going on and the people,
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so right now you had this battle of ideology going on
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because on one end represented by freedom
link |
and the economic, what do you call it?
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The economic system they were using is capitalism.
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And these are represented by the Western nations
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facing off with Eastern block,
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practicing various forms of statism,
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socialism, communism, various forms of statism.
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And these two are fighting for influence.
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So, and we also have, it's also not, so two things there.
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One is we're at a time where,
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remember the free market concept was almost dead,
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So almost every intellectual at that time
link |
was social Marxist or Marxist socialist,
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I put the name, that's what you were.
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So you're in a world where it was a normal thing,
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it was just mainstream acceptance.
link |
So not only you have that force,
link |
but at the same time,
link |
if these two forces are fighting one another,
link |
it turns out that the one representing capitalism
link |
and freedom, well, sorry,
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but isn't it you who enslaved us and colonized us?
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And you're fighting with the people who represent,
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supposedly people who are saying that
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who had been fighting for equal rights for us,
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with us for the longest time, these are our friends.
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And that's when we made a fatal mistake
link |
because while yes, there were maybe good things
link |
to agree on with Marxist socialist of the times,
link |
especially equal rights for all people and all of that,
link |
that's the only thing we should have,
link |
among the only things we should have agreed upon.
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There are violent revolution tendencies, no way.
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When it comes to the economic nonsense, no way.
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We should not have thrown the baby out with the bathwater,
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but that's what we did.
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And that's when we made a fatal mistake.
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So then we became free, all of these nations,
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and most of them started with socialist or communist leaders.
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My country, socialist, Léopold Sédar Senghor,
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he was a socialist.
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And they stayed in power for 40 years,
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the first 40 years of our freedom years.
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And all over the continent, more or less,
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that's what you had.
link |
And on top of that,
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something else that the French don't know,
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the people don't know is France with its colonies said,
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you cannot, not do,
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you have to keep the French civil law.
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So we're talking about the Napoleonic civil code.
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Are you kidding me?
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So that's what happened.
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So the reason why I go back to BLM is while I have
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all the respect in the world
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and all the compassion in the world
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for people like Krummer, for people like Nyerere,
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for people, all of us people of those times,
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the liberators of Africa,
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while I have so much love, compassion for them,
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I am also able to say,
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because I got the benefit of 60 some years time,
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and where you get to do a debrief
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and see what worked, what didn't work, what happened.
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We have had the 60 years to look back and to reflect.
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So yes, I can understand why they did what they did.
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I can understand why they sided with these people
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who on the surface, or at least some part of a fight
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was the same fight as them when it came to equal rights.
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I can excuse them,
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but I will not excuse the BLM founders
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because that mistake was tolerable 60 some years ago.
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The blacks of today cannot be serious
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about black lives mattering and saying in the same sentence,
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and we're going to be socialist Marx, Marxist socialist.
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It just doesn't work.
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So the BLM movement is too deeply integrated
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with the ideas of Marxism.
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Yeah, they're anti free market, anti capitalist.
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And we do know that you have to have the free markets
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in order to build prosperity.
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And prosperity means economic power.
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If you have economic power, no one messes with you,
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or if they're gonna do it, they're gonna have to think twice.
link |
And when they do, they're gonna have to pay consequences.
link |
So if you want for blacks to be respected
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anywhere in the world,
link |
you're gonna have to be serious about black prosperity,
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all mass, not just a few people,
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Oprah over here and somebody over there, no.
link |
We as a group have to be critical mass of prosperity
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And because we're talking critical mass of prosperity
link |
it means black people everywhere in the world.
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We in Africa happen to represent 90% of our representatives
link |
So you're gonna be serious about black lives mattering
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without being serious for Africa,
link |
the 1 billion people in Africa that are black
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and for them to have access to the free markets
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and yes, fossil fuels,
link |
so that they can rocket up prosperity wise.
link |
And the resources of the young people, the young minds.
link |
So that all of these young people, young minds
link |
can finally manifest their greatness that I know they have
link |
and that they're showing us every day
link |
despite the obstacles.
link |
That's what we need.
link |
Senegal becomes rich and Senegal can become
link |
and will be richer than France.
link |
Singapore did it, we can do it.
link |
Mali rich, Nigeria rich, functioning as well.
link |
Malawi rich, Tanzania rich, Uganda rich,
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Zimbabwe rich, Niger rich, everywhere rich prosperous
link |
as prosperous, if not more prosperous than Switzerland
link |
or Singapore or the U.S.
link |
I don't know, or the Lichtenstein or Luxembourg,
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places that have no natural resources.
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We become rich and you watch the world
link |
having a very different relationship with us.
link |
That's the only time we will commend any type of respect.
link |
That's when people, even our common psyche will change
link |
even about black people.
link |
All of the stereotypes that they have of us
link |
is gonna melt away.
link |
And you may still not like us, but you will still respect us
link |
because we are a force to be dealt with.
link |
And only economic power does that.
link |
It would be nice, of course, for us to respect people
link |
because they're people.
link |
It would be nice, but let us not kid ourselves.
link |
And someone said, nice people will make it to heaven,
link |
but not to Harvard necessarily.
link |
It's interesting that pity does not ever turn into respect.
link |
It would be nice if it did.
link |
It would be nice, but it doesn't.
link |
Prosperity is the only thing.
link |
Prosperity is the only thing.
link |
And the way we do that, there is no,
link |
just like all of us humans have to inhale oxygen
link |
and exhale carbon dioxide.
link |
That's a human way of breathing.
link |
You bring me on, but you wanna be foolish
link |
and be like, oh, well, sorry.
link |
That's how white people breathe.
link |
So as black people,
link |
we're gonna have to do something different.
link |
Well, good luck with that.
link |
So this is here why I'm saying,
link |
I have no patience for Black Lives Matter.
link |
They're making a mistake that was made 60 some plus 60.
link |
Years ago, even more than that.
link |
Maybe even a hundred, you know,
link |
when we were siding with the Marxist socialists
link |
because they're the ones who've been fighting
link |
Let me ask you though, about racism.
link |
Do you, as you travel through this world,
link |
as you travel through America,
link |
feel the burn of hatred?
link |
You've spoken about the revolutions
link |
that have been fought throughout the 20th century
link |
But today, as people talk about educating,
link |
reminding the world with the,
link |
even with more philosophical ideas
link |
of critical race theory, for example,
link |
do you think this is still a battle
link |
that needs to be fought
link |
at the forefront of culture in the United States?
link |
Um, does racism exist?
link |
But all forms of isms exist.
link |
Some people, it's about various forms of ableism.
link |
Others, it's about size.
link |
And racism, yes, is one of them.
link |
But is it what's gonna stop anyone
link |
from manifesting their greatest potential?
link |
Many people in this country have showed it.
link |
Whether they're African Americans
link |
or African immigrant, I'm an African immigrant.
link |
You have African Americans like Oprah and others,
link |
and other people even before her,
link |
who despite the nastiness around them,
link |
were able to make it.
link |
So we do know, especially as black people,
link |
but I think it's humanity as a whole.
link |
And that's what I love about the human spirit.
link |
But resiliency only can happen
link |
if you don't allow yourself to be beaten down
link |
and to lose yourself of agency.
link |
It's, of course, easier said than done.
link |
And some among us need a little bit more help
link |
to not succumb for it than others do.
link |
It might be harder for you
link |
if you're somewhere in inner city,
link |
inner city black America.
link |
Maybe the environment might be a little bit tougher
link |
for you to try and get your act together
link |
and all of that stuff.
link |
But even in that situation,
link |
we need to, I think it's important
link |
that we still do not rob you of your agency.
link |
And this is where I am mad as heck
link |
against those who supposedly care
link |
and their idea of how to make sure
link |
that I don't become or stay a victim of racism
link |
is through all the things we talked about,
link |
the CRT, the anti racism crap of, you know,
link |
Ibrahim X. Kendi and what's her name, Robin DiAngelo.
link |
I mean her, I'm shocked.
link |
The woman is making all of this money
link |
supposedly fighting a war on our behalf.
link |
I'm like, lady, I hear you loud and clear
link |
that you are a true racist.
link |
I know, but you told me you are.
link |
And for you to think that your anti racism
link |
makes you less racist and it's, that happens too.
link |
She comes from a racist background.
link |
Fine, she's saying it, it's true.
link |
But this idea that every walking person on earth
link |
belongs to one category or the other,
link |
depending on what, you know, which skin color you came with,
link |
it's problematic at its root.
link |
So my point is, does racism exist?
link |
Do you think it's gonna stop me
link |
from doing anything I have to do?
link |
Might it make it harder, longer?
link |
Maybe, but it will not stop me from doing anything.
link |
But it will not stop me.
link |
But for it not to stop me,
link |
I can't engage in victimhood mentality.
link |
I can't lose myself as self.
link |
I got to use all the agency that I have
link |
to fight back and fight beyond.
link |
See, it's just a bit of fight back.
link |
You fight back and you fight beyond.
link |
Cause at some point, yeah and.
link |
It's this concept of yes and.
link |
So this is why I have loved the job.
link |
So when I have somebody who is like,
link |
oh, anti racism is a way.
link |
We're gonna go and tell all the white kids
link |
that, you know, because they will happen to be white,
link |
that they're really the oppressors and blah, blah, blah.
link |
And the black kids, because they're black, you know,
link |
you're not changing anything when you're doing that.
link |
Nothing except that you're causing,
link |
you're putting problems
link |
where there were no problems to start with.
link |
All we had to do was maybe
link |
go for a different route from there.
link |
Kids are born kids.
link |
And this, I'm not sure if you want to get me going
link |
onto the whole science of bias,
link |
because that's something I spent years of my life on.
link |
And my journey on the science of bias
link |
started with the days of Philando Castile,
link |
Eric Garner, that whole summer of 2016,
link |
when we had this horrendous, horrendous situation
link |
of black people being killed by the police,
link |
where they shot before asking,
link |
and people left to die in the most inhumane way
link |
for the rest of us to watch from the social media.
link |
That's when my George Floyd moment happened.
link |
Not later than four years ago,
link |
and the whole world is like, you know.
link |
So that sent me on a journey
link |
of understanding what discrimination is and bias is.
link |
And in a way, that's the reason why I started this company
link |
that I even called Skinny Skin.
link |
That's where it came from.
link |
Again, criticized by creating.
link |
I needed to understand what discrimination was.
link |
Is it true what Kendi is saying?
link |
Is it true what DAngelo is saying?
link |
Is it true that it could be that your race
link |
is just because of the skin color you happen to be born in?
link |
I needed to know, because I was at a time of my life
link |
where at some point, you know,
link |
when those killings were happening,
link |
it was so hard for me being a black person in this country.
link |
I mean, what is this?
link |
And what do we do with this?
link |
How much discrimination am I operating under in the system?
link |
You need to understand the full characteristics of,
link |
if you're dreaming of making a big change
link |
by building companies, you have to kind of intuit,
link |
how much, what am I up against?
link |
What am I up against, right?
link |
And so this is why, you know,
link |
spend all of this time on some of the work.
link |
And then eventually I understood that discrimination,
link |
if you wanted to understand it beyond,
link |
it's, you know, beyond the big lines of,
link |
especially the clickbait lines
link |
would make it very black and white.
link |
Then I had to really take a moment and I spent time,
link |
you know, with a world of brain scientists,
link |
with behavioral psychologists,
link |
with evolutionary biologists.
link |
We have all of this ecosystem, but together form
link |
what one might call the science of bias.
link |
And especially I came across the work
link |
of this team of scientists at the University of,
link |
I think it's Wisconsin,
link |
and they're the only ones who made sense
link |
in this sea of nonsense back then.
link |
And this article was in Politico,
link |
and it was saying something that I could relate to it.
link |
And eventually what I learned was,
link |
and this part comes from the evolutionary biologist people,
link |
they in a way tell you that right around age three,
link |
can happen sooner or later,
link |
because you know, we're all different,
link |
but you go from this person who has to rely
link |
on these other people, usually your parents, to stay alive,
link |
to be fed, to be housed, to be in your diaper change,
link |
all of that stuff, right?
link |
To now, something is kicking in.
link |
Where you have to, in order for you to survive,
link |
and this is all wired in,
link |
so you don't even understand it consciously,
link |
as I'm saying it now,
link |
where in order for you to survive,
link |
in order for you to go from this state of dependency
link |
to the next stage and more and more and more,
link |
you're gonna have to develop this ability
link |
to make sense of the world.
link |
And what's making sense of a world
link |
at its most basic level means is,
link |
can you determine if a situation
link |
or a person is good or bad for you?
link |
Failure, and you need to be able to do so ever so quickly,
link |
because failure to be able to do that
link |
means that you might not be alive the next second.
link |
See, it's so wired in.
link |
So this process is starting to kick in.
link |
And at that point,
link |
your brain is gonna be your best ally for that.
link |
And what the brain is gonna do is it's gonna help you,
link |
and the way the brain works is through,
link |
it works with, it's all wired for efficiency.
link |
And the way it goes for efficiency is through automation,
link |
meaning that every time it has computed,
link |
and you probably know these things way better than me,
link |
every time it has computed one algorithm,
link |
it doesn't want to do it again.
link |
It's almost like this, okay, got it, stored, stored, right?
link |
And then it adds maybe some little levels of complexity to it,
link |
but it has to be something new,
link |
meaning the new level of complexity
link |
for it to even be willing to reconsider.
link |
Otherwise you have, so then all of a sudden
link |
what you have is these neurons in the back of your head,
link |
and they have created pathways, right?
link |
So, and every time neurons have created pathway
link |
among themselves, because basically they're attached,
link |
and here is the pathway,
link |
well, this pathway in the world of,
link |
in the world of science of bias, it's a habit.
link |
In general, it's a habit when they form two pathways,
link |
when they form a pathway, it's a habit.
link |
So if we're willing to talk about unconscious bias,
link |
because of course it's very different
link |
from somebody who tells me to my face,
link |
there's no world in which you or I could ever be equal,
link |
because you're black and I'm white,
link |
you're a woman, I'm a man, this, this and that,
link |
that people like that, again, 1% of psychopaths in our world,
link |
they're out there, unfortunately,
link |
by the time they do nasty things, it's pretty horrible,
link |
and that's what all we hear about,
link |
but I'm talking mostly about the rest of us.
link |
Remember when I told you that most of us are good people,
link |
bumbling along, making it up as we're going,
link |
and that's why I have compassion for human nature.
link |
So, but really, in the morning when I wake up,
link |
do you really think that I'm waking up and thinking,
link |
how am I gonna go kill?
link |
How am I gonna kill?
link |
How am I gonna kill?
link |
And I wake up and thinking, how am I gonna go kill?
link |
How am I gonna go kill Lex?
link |
That Lex guy needs to go down, he's a man, he's a,
link |
don't take me wrong, I'm sure there are some women
link |
who feel like that, but I'm not one of them,
link |
and I do think a majority of us are not, whatever.
link |
But you know, in the morning I'm waking up,
link |
I'm just like, gee, can I get my tea?
link |
Oh, my dog is not looking okay today.
link |
You know, we've got, right?
link |
It's a lot going on, and so you're using these kind of,
link |
just like you said, brilliantly,
link |
it has a bunch of simplifications that's built up,
link |
and it uses those simplifications to get through the day.
link |
To get through the day, exactly.
link |
So then here you are, needing to make sense of a world,
link |
and then the brain is your best ally in that.
link |
The way it's gonna do it is through efficiency,
link |
efficiency done through automation.
link |
So every time it thinks it's figured something out,
link |
it's never gonna think about it again,
link |
so that's how you build all of these habits
link |
of unconscious bias, because everything,
link |
so it's somewhere along the line,
link |
you come up with the information
link |
that black man walking around with a hoodie equals danger.
link |
So later, what do you see?
link |
Whether it's Lex or my gut, I'm walking in the dark alley,
link |
I see a black man with a hoodie,
link |
maybe I'm gonna run away
link |
because I've been given that information.
link |
So the best way to think about it is the brain is a hardware,
link |
and the software it runs on is, what do you call it?
link |
Is a cultural imprint.
link |
All of this information that we're getting
link |
from the Disney movies that you're reading,
link |
telling you that damsels are to be saved by the prince
link |
and all of that stuff, and girls wear pink and all, whatever.
link |
You watch the movies, and all the movies,
link |
whenever you watch images about Africa,
link |
they're talking to you about the blood diamonds,
link |
or they're talking to you about slavery,
link |
or they're talking to you about this,
link |
and then no wonder you walk away
link |
thinking that all the ills of Africa are caused
link |
because of resource extraction, the diamonds,
link |
or they're always fighting each other,
link |
look at Idi Amin in the movie,
link |
or slavery all the time, you walk away and this is it.
link |
And we all programmed along the same lines,
link |
see that's the beauty of it.
link |
All of us are, because even some black people
link |
who are gonna claim that they didn't visit up
link |
when they registered, really?
link |
So the truth, so then when I learned all of this,
link |
I'm like, wow, this concept of if you've got the brain,
link |
you've got biases, it comes with the territory,
link |
Now, it doesn't mean we can't transcend
link |
that function of a brain and that we should transcend it.
link |
But I think it's very important
link |
because once you understand that,
link |
a little bit more peace is created among us
link |
because this is not about a black and white,
link |
or a yellow and green issue,
link |
it's about we are human issue.
link |
And these are part of things we develop to stay around.
link |
Just like we no longer have to rely on this fear of flight,
link |
like ability of a brain because bears over there
link |
start running and running fast, right?
link |
Today, where are the bears?
link |
Show me where they are.
link |
But we have kept this tendency to go for fear of flight.
link |
I don't know how they say it.
link |
And so we have this courtesan done by the stress,
link |
stress triggers that back in the days,
link |
we have a stress trigger, we run,
link |
and it's all expelled out.
link |
But today we get triggers
link |
and we don't know what to do with it
link |
because where do we run to?
link |
The bear is not even here.
link |
So same thing here with that.
link |
And so then you realize there's this whole thing
link |
that is now what you understand
link |
is that this problem is not about anti racism BS,
link |
but it is about can each one of us
link |
do the work where the work is needed,
link |
which is we look inside.
link |
Can we go for this work of deprogrammation?
link |
This concept of a mindful practice
link |
of undoing the habit of bias.
link |
And that doesn't necessarily have to do
link |
with a simple categorization of black and white.
link |
It's all kinds of biases.
link |
It's about everything.
link |
It's about everything.
link |
And when I started on that journey
link |
and my friend back then built this practice
link |
of undoing your habit of unconscious bias,
link |
we had all types of people come and say,
link |
wow, I discovered that my bias is against larger people.
link |
And I'm more like, what do you mean?
link |
Well, I think it seems to me like I felt
link |
that larger people maybe are dumb.
link |
No, we heard things and you don't judge.
link |
And you see it's at every level.
link |
I don't know, like there's even this one friend,
link |
she was like, when I looked into the whole dating thing,
link |
I absolutely didn't want to date the Asian men
link |
because her mind was into some stereotypes
link |
about the size of whatever.
link |
And she was like, no.
link |
But you see, once you start,
link |
because there's this whole thing of,
link |
it's the five step thing, bias awareness.
link |
This, basically at this level,
link |
what you're doing is you're learning
link |
to spot the biases in our culture,
link |
because that's where the cultural imprint comes from.
link |
You're watching this movie and you're realizing,
link |
just like I said, wow, gee, I realized once again,
link |
the black person is portrayed like the fog of a movie.
link |
Or, you know, the Latina lady,
link |
this is how she's been portrayed.
link |
And you see it everywhere.
link |
Even the NPR, NPR is happening,
link |
like you're listening to something like NPR.
link |
It's gotta be more liberal than that.
link |
And this gentleman is asking these two candidates,
link |
one of them is a woman, political candidates,
link |
the other one is a man.
link |
I'm hearing him asking the lady a question
link |
that I know he's not gonna ask the man and he didn't ask her.
link |
He said, how do you balance your race with a family?
link |
Does a man not have a family?
link |
Right there, you see, it's very subtle.
link |
But you see, but because now my mind is kind of trained
link |
to see things, I'm like, interesting.
link |
Or like when the media just says,
link |
froze climate change issue on something
link |
without even the choice of words.
link |
So it's pretty much everywhere.
link |
You open a book everywhere.
link |
The interesting thing though,
link |
I mean, even that man, woman example,
link |
is I think it's really powerful
link |
to bring that bias to the surface,
link |
but not let that lead to kind of fear and paralysis.
link |
You should almost, I mean, that's where humor is,
link |
make fun of it, bring it to the surface,
link |
like acknowledge the fact that those things
link |
are a part of the conversation.
link |
And a lot of them are, it is, it's a cultural imprint
link |
because it's part of culture.
link |
And that might be, there could be,
link |
I grew up in the Soviet Union
link |
where the gender roles were stronger than in other places.
link |
And that's part of the culture.
link |
We have to acknowledge that this is how,
link |
this is affecting how I think.
link |
We might like how that works, we might not,
link |
but we have to acknowledge it and not get,
link |
make it part of humor, make fun of yourself,
link |
all that kind of stuff.
link |
And so that's why this first step is bias awareness.
link |
So you get, you train yourself, oh yeah, okay,
link |
that was one or it's, you know, and it's about,
link |
it's in you, we're talking about you, we're not.
link |
And then from there, you're like replace the bias,
link |
like bias replacement.
link |
Then it is where you practice the empathy.
link |
You're like, gee, wow, I wonder how I would feel
link |
every day I walk into a store
link |
and the guy thinks he should be following me
link |
because maybe I might steal something because I'm black.
link |
Because once you try that,
link |
to put yourself in the other person's shoes,
link |
all of a sudden something else starts to click.
link |
And then from there, you go on to making connection.
link |
Then you're making a connection
link |
and then things start to change because now you know,
link |
you're making, then you make cultural immersion.
link |
So this is where we had some people like this one woman,
link |
she was very quite, very feminist oriented.
link |
And she had an issue with women wearing the hijab.
link |
And because for her it was like, how come you,
link |
how come, how come you just lower, you know,
link |
like how come you're accepting this demeaning of yourself,
link |
not understanding everything else that comes with it.
link |
But through, as she understood that she even had that bias,
link |
then she went on through all the different processes.
link |
And then eventually when comes the next step,
link |
cultural immersion, she started going to the mosque
link |
during Ramadan when the Muslims are doing, you know,
link |
they're, it's the holy month of, you know, fasting
link |
and then we break at night.
link |
And she started understanding very different things.
link |
And eventually happens the last step that happens naturally,
link |
making a true, real, genuine connection.
link |
And this is where friendships happen.
link |
This is where that's it, your bias can go home now
link |
because it has been challenged with reality
link |
and understanding.
link |
And so for me, that is what I was after.
link |
And then, but then the world was just like,
link |
we don't want to be told we're part of a problem.
link |
So, but I still reckon that it is the type of mindfulness,
link |
type of practice that's going to need to happen.
link |
And it's one that's very internal to you.
link |
It is not, and it happens, everybody at their own pace.
link |
So all of this, I take it back to the racism,
link |
the question you were asking me.
link |
Does racism exist?
link |
Is it going to stop me from doing anything I want to do?
link |
Is it going to make it harder?
link |
But this is where, for anybody who is serious
link |
about making sure, about fighting racism,
link |
I think the only job you have to do is to make sure
link |
that people keep their sense of self agency
link |
and B, can you help provide people with the tools
link |
So this is why I have so much respect for Van Jones.
link |
People like Van Jones,
link |
although I disagree with him on so many things,
link |
but people like Ms. Alice Johnson,
link |
she was pardoned by President Trump
link |
through the work of people like Van Jones
link |
and Kim Kardashian and others.
link |
They all joined forces.
link |
This is a case where people of,
link |
and those folks then went on to combine forces furthermore,
link |
no regard given to their political belongings.
link |
They said, if the issue is criminal justice reform,
link |
then anybody who stands for it has to come together.
link |
And so what they did in this situation
link |
with what they're doing,
link |
criminal justice reform in my mind
link |
is a valid action to fight racism in my mind.
link |
Because what are you doing there?
link |
You're trying to get people out of jail
link |
who really have no business being there.
link |
And also when you have people like Bishop Omar
link |
and the people, he passed away, unfortunately,
link |
but today we have Anton Lucky,
link |
who was in jail for having killed his cousin.
link |
I think he started the gang in South Dallas.
link |
So we're talking really tough guy
link |
who was reading the wrong side of the equation.
link |
And then in jail, literally he found Plato,
link |
the cave and all that.
link |
So today these people, I'm like,
link |
why don't we hear more about them?
link |
The urban specialists.
link |
Because these people,
link |
it's not about the anti racism crap of Candy O'Donoghue,
link |
I'll say it again, until the cows come home,
link |
but it is about, we go where help is needed.
link |
We go in urban, inner city,
link |
inner city, black inner city neighborhoods
link |
and block by block we change the culture.
link |
And they say it like that, it's their words.
link |
These are African American people
link |
who have as many rights as anybody else
link |
to talk about their own culture.
link |
And they will tell you, we have to change the culture.
link |
I have some videos like that on my YouTube
link |
What these people are doing is what we need to do.
link |
Bishop will explain and say,
link |
sometimes people are their feet and feet
link |
deep down in the mud.
link |
And what we have to do is to try to pull them up.
link |
And you cannot say you didn't pull them up
link |
because we're not seeing their head out yet,
link |
but how much progress have they made from the bottom
link |
to where they are now and keep going.
link |
So what I see these people doing,
link |
you see, I have so much,
link |
I love and respect Glen Lowry and company,
link |
and Ian Rove and all of those guys.
link |
I love a lot of the things that they say.
link |
This whole concept of personal responsibility,
link |
we don't know that.
link |
But I'm just like, at some point,
link |
it also needs to be matched up with real actions.
link |
And that's what the people like Anton Lucky,
link |
urban specialist, Alice Johnson are doing.
link |
They're going where it's hard.
link |
Alice Johnson is getting people out of jail
link |
every single day, literally.
link |
And then people like Anton Lucky and his team
link |
are giving them the tools to live the gang life,
link |
to be better people, to go for a life of redemption.
link |
This is happening right now.
link |
But what I find is they're not getting
link |
the bulk of the attention.
link |
But anybody who's serious about this is why,
link |
how I would love to see people do anti racism
link |
is help lift people up for real.
link |
Support school choice.
link |
Support school choice.
link |
Black mamas, they know what's going on.
link |
And when they tell you we want school choice,
link |
they know what to talk about.
link |
They're not idiots.
link |
Especially at the local level.
link |
Helping them at the local level.
link |
So help them make sure that they can take their kids
link |
out of these public schools that are doing
link |
horrendous things to them.
link |
You know, Miss Virginia, watch that movie.
link |
How could you not support black moms in this country
link |
to take the kids to safety when it comes to education?
link |
That's what I want to see happen.
link |
And not like some, yeah, let's go to some classrooms
link |
and everybody's white.
link |
Everybody's a next date.
link |
And kids, let us tell you about this.
link |
As a black person, I don't want you to do any of that crap.
link |
Let me grow my wings.
link |
If you want, help put some fuel behind them
link |
and let me take my flight.
link |
That's all I'm asking for.
link |
That's the only way for you to be part of a racism battle
link |
if that's what you think is the most important battle
link |
That's what I have to say about that.
link |
And so for me, I'm keeping my head very straight.
link |
It's about what enables black people to thrive.
link |
I don't need for you to be an activist on my behalf.
link |
No, because when you're doing that,
link |
you're doing exactly what you've been doing to us
link |
black people in Africa our whole life.
link |
I don't need your white savior complex
link |
because that's what anti racism is.
link |
White savior complex.
link |
That stuff doesn't work.
link |
It only works to make you feel better
link |
about how superior you are to me.
link |
But it does nothing, absolutely nothing
link |
to change my everyday life.
link |
If it is not, if it is at least in the African side
link |
to actually even change my,
link |
turn me into somebody who's waiting for handouts.
link |
So I would encourage people to really,
link |
those people who are really serious
link |
about wanting to be part of a solution.
link |
And I know there are many out there
link |
for the love of God and everything that's out there
link |
and we care about, stop.
link |
It's about, think about what's gonna enable people.
link |
Maybe the word is wrongly chosen,
link |
but know what I'm talking about.
link |
Give them the freedom to spread their wings.
link |
Yes, give a person, teach a person how to fish
link |
and don't give them a fish.
link |
When you're putting your stupid signs on the lawn
link |
with Black Lives Matter and all that crap,
link |
you're not helping.
link |
And when you're buying one more anti racism book
link |
or as a company, financing one more DEI,
link |
if it done along those lines, I think we've got a problem.
link |
So you do think that the efforts of diversity,
link |
equity and inclusion are often not effective.
link |
Not only are they not effective,
link |
but they also backfire and there are reports on all of this.
link |
And at the end of the day, it makes sense.
link |
So for me, I am very, very glad
link |
that people have developed an enlightenment about this.
link |
Very happy about that, very.
link |
But let us not keep going
link |
for the easy perceived solution to problems.
link |
Again, they've done this to us, the poor people of Africa.
link |
They thought the solution was to give.
link |
And then they say, oh, we're gonna do social entrepreneurship
link |
on you, Tom shoes, buy one pair of shoes
link |
and we give one pair of shoes
link |
to some people in poor countries.
link |
Then guess what happened to us?
link |
You know, in the town where we operate in Senegal,
link |
where I have my little manufacturing,
link |
we have 2000 little mom and pop businesses.
link |
And guess what they happen to be in Lex?
link |
Shoemakers, right?
link |
So every shoemakers, each one of them hires
link |
at least five, 15 people.
link |
Do the math, family businesses.
link |
Guess what happens to them the day the Tom shoes truck
link |
shows up with bunch of free shoes.
link |
Who can compete against free?
link |
Now, all of these people,
link |
little by little gonna have to close their shops
link |
because who can compete against free
link |
because Tom shoes dumping all of his shoes on them.
link |
And then they go out of business
link |
and now instead of helping anybody,
link |
you actually sent all the kids
link |
who depended on these adults working in these places.
link |
Now they have to join the rank of kids
link |
who need to be given shoes
link |
because you took their parents ability
link |
to make money through their wages, buy them shoes.
link |
So first they said, we just have to give.
link |
So that was primarily, you know, the charity business.
link |
And you still have foreign aid business going on.
link |
So we just need to give.
link |
And then the social entrepreneurs came in place,
link |
but I'm like, the only person for this business is good
link |
is for Blake McCarthy, you know, the founder of Tom shoes.
link |
But other than that, I'm not sure really seeing
link |
who else is winning from this.
link |
And then they, and so today my whole thing is
link |
we got a challenge to have a mind for the poor
link |
or to have a mind for the lesser fortunate,
link |
maybe in this country, it is easy.
link |
And lesser fortunate, you know,
link |
for anybody that you feel like is being trampled upon
link |
because of something,
link |
maybe it's because of economic circumstances,
link |
or maybe it's race in this case, whatever.
link |
To have a heart for the lesser fortunate among us,
link |
for whatever reason, that's easy.
link |
But to have a mind for them, that's the challenge.
link |
Let me ask you a difficult question.
link |
As if we were not already asking difficult questions.
link |
The president of Senegal, Macky Saw,
link |
is also now the chair of the African Union.
link |
He met with the president of Vladimir Putin on June 3rd.
link |
I think primarily was to discuss food security.
link |
Africa seems to be split halfway on their perspective
link |
in the war in Ukraine.
link |
So broadly speaking, what do you think about this?
link |
First of all, the geopolitics of Africa
link |
and the geopolitical relationship of Africa
link |
with the rest of the world and this current conflict
link |
with the war in Ukraine.
link |
What are your thoughts there?
link |
Well, you've seen that many countries
link |
when it was time to vote, some of them abstained,
link |
which in a way says something.
link |
I think for the Africans today,
link |
especially as represented by the African Union,
link |
because not all countries fall along the same lines,
link |
I feel like, again, we're back to way back.
link |
For the longest time, the West tries to tell us what to do.
link |
They decide for us.
link |
And here, there's trouble,
link |
meaning there's definitely a rift, major one,
link |
between most of the Western world
link |
as represented by Europe and America primarily,
link |
and you have Australia and all that.
link |
And then they're saying,
link |
I think this is more or less an attempt
link |
to stand on their own as well.
link |
It's like, don't tell us what to do as usual.
link |
You always rope us in with, when it makes sense for you,
link |
you try to rope us in,
link |
and then we're left hanging on our own.
link |
So this goes back to the sentiment
link |
you were talking about earlier.
link |
It's been challenging for me to watch this
link |
because remember, I have one foot also,
link |
because there's what I get to see and hear
link |
from being in the Western world,
link |
but there's also what I get to see and hear
link |
from when I'm back home.
link |
So I wear all hats.
link |
And I think this is a situation
link |
where the African Union and African nations in general
link |
are saying, this is a case where almost like,
link |
you guys are fighting, you guys are fighting.
link |
Maybe for once, we have to watch out for ourselves.
link |
Yeah, there's a sense in which this is the embodiment
link |
sort of abstaining from a vote on the war in Ukraine
link |
is a political embodiment of a resistance
link |
to the influence of the West.
link |
It's not about the war between,
link |
whatever you guys are fighting.
link |
It's saying, we're not going to let this particular empire
link |
that seems to be at the top right now,
link |
which is the United States empire in Europe,
link |
to dominate our political discourse,
link |
our geopolitical considerations.
link |
It's almost like, no, we're not touching this.
link |
Yeah, especially that given usually.
link |
So when they need us, again, for influence,
link |
which means more power,
link |
oh, you guys vote the same way we do.
link |
And when it's all over and they go back to spreading,
link |
they go back to, how do you say that?
link |
They go back to exchanging and sharing between themselves
link |
the goodies of their Halloween collection.
link |
We're no longer, we're not there
link |
when the goodies are being shared.
link |
So I think it's definitely one of those situations.
link |
But for me, it still is hard
link |
because I watch everything that's going on
link |
and it's going to be complicated,
link |
the ramifications of all of this.
link |
I would like to see our African leaders also,
link |
what they're doing is clear,
link |
but this is a place where I'm also tempted to say,
link |
Yes to the reasons you're advancing right now,
link |
we don't want to be always siding because we're tired.
link |
We're tired of always being dragged around
link |
and taken for granted and you vote our way.
link |
Come on guys, when you need us,
link |
we're great and everything is good.
link |
And then when it's time to go and share the goodies,
link |
we don't exist anymore.
link |
And you actually go for policies that go against us.
link |
But in this situation though,
link |
I would like to still see us do the right thing.
link |
In my case, I was not very happy to see us going
link |
and more or less begging for,
link |
what do you call it?
link |
Cereals, oh, please let the cereals make it.
link |
So at least we get them and we don't starve.
link |
I can understand why a president would say something
link |
like that or try to negotiate something like that.
link |
But when it comes to an African president having to do that
link |
with a non African president, I'm sorry,
link |
but for me, it's too close to begging.
link |
Listen, it's hard to be a leader,
link |
it's such a difficult dance because in some sense,
link |
sort of the flip side of that is you're creating a market,
link |
a geopolitical market of saying,
link |
we're willing to sit down at the table with America,
link |
with European leaders, with Russian leaders, with China,
link |
and we're gonna let you guys convince us
link |
who we should collaborate with.
link |
And that's what sort of great nations
link |
and groups of nations do.
link |
Now, there's a cynical, of course,
link |
a dark perspective on that because what's in that game
link |
played by leaders, the people that hurt,
link |
people of Ukraine hurt, people of Africa can hurt.
link |
People of Russia can hurt, people of China,
link |
people of United States, but it is the way of the world.
link |
And to earn, you have to earn respect
link |
and sometimes earning respect leads to the suffering
link |
Well, but except in this case, yes to all of that.
link |
And the reason why I'm actually upset
link |
with going and being like, oh, can you let at least
link |
the boats that are supposed to come to Africa
link |
full of cereals come over, the wheat and all that?
link |
It's just like, look, Africa has the highest land
link |
that you can do agriculture on.
link |
We have a larger surface, such surface in the world.
link |
Why is this not a time for us to try
link |
to win ourselves off of cereals that we don't necessarily
link |
have on the ground?
link |
But no, let us go and plead.
link |
Don't beg, create instead.
link |
Create instead, exactly.
link |
This should have been, you know, just like how
link |
the rest of the world when COVID happened
link |
and China had to close off for different reasons
link |
and since then has not, you know, completely reopened
link |
and people have started to realize, wow,
link |
we've got too much, we're too dependent on China
link |
for a lot of what we need.
link |
So we're gonna have to bring back some production
link |
to the US, the Europeans are doing the same, all of that.
link |
This should have been a time for African leaders
link |
to be like, we need to be serious now
link |
about, you know, food security.
link |
And maybe the stuff that maybe don't grow
link |
under our climates necessarily,
link |
can we work on coming up with different things?
link |
Now I understand that it can take time,
link |
but if I knew that that was happening at the same time
link |
that we're saying, oh, well, let the cereals come in,
link |
maybe I would be a little bit easier with it.
link |
But right now I'm just like,
link |
is it gonna be the same business as usual?
link |
And in this case, I'm just like, are we gonna go,
link |
are we gonna keep going from one masa to another masa?
link |
The interesting aspect of all of this
link |
is if we look at all of human history,
link |
it's possible that the 21st century is defined by Africa.
link |
And the young people, the huge number of young people,
link |
it's like the trajectory could be,
link |
there's so much possibility to define
link |
the future of human civilization in Africa.
link |
And I don't mean sort of in the next 10 years,
link |
I mean in the next 50 years.
link |
So some people are concerned about overpopulation.
link |
Some people are concerned about us dying out
link |
as a human species.
link |
And both of those people live in us.
link |
Talk to me often about that.
link |
I know, I know, I know, I know who they are.
link |
What's your, in Africa is at the center of this
link |
because there is a vibrant, huge number,
link |
probably over a billion people.
link |
Yeah, we're 1.3 billion people
link |
and of those, one billion blacks.
link |
I mean that, where do you land on that?
link |
There is a reason why I say I'm haunted,
link |
that I'm obsessed, that I'm monomaniacal
link |
when it comes to the free markets
link |
and that I have such a strong sense of urgency
link |
to the point that literally it is affecting me.
link |
And it has to do with the fact that yes,
link |
you have the youngest region on earth
link |
in terms of the age of its population
link |
and the rate at which it's growing demographic wise,
link |
I am not willing to stay there and say,
link |
it's a curse for humanity,
link |
but it will be a curse for humanity
link |
if we don't make sure that these people,
link |
our youth gets to partake.
link |
And what it takes to partake is not much.
link |
So if the rest of the world thinks that
link |
get to partake means you have to send more foreign aid,
link |
you have to have more charity businesses,
link |
I mean charity organizations sending stuff away,
link |
of course, you're almost thinking parasites.
link |
I'm sorry to say it this way,
link |
if this is what you're thinking,
link |
you're seeing us as no more than parasites.
link |
And if that's what it's gonna be,
link |
I could see why some people might be worried about that.
link |
Although humans should never be seen as parasites,
link |
no matter, no matter, no matter.
link |
But some people will go there.
link |
Now, people are here.
link |
What are we gonna do, dispose of them?
link |
That's not an option.
link |
So the only option we have left
link |
is to make sure that people partake.
link |
And what partaking means is that
link |
people get included in them
link |
and are part of the systems that allow for human flourishing.
link |
And it doesn't, it's not much.
link |
In this case, it's about,
link |
can we be serious about the reforms?
link |
So we have free market zones,
link |
areas where people,
link |
where the flourishing can start to take place.
link |
The wealth that people will need to flourish,
link |
they don't need you to give it to them.
link |
But it's all about, can I let you fly?
link |
And you will make it happen for you and also for me.
link |
Every young African I see today,
link |
I realize how stupid the rest of the world is
link |
if they're not supporting what I'm trying to talk about.
link |
Cause even if you don't wanna do it
link |
because that's the right thing to do,
link |
which I think it is the right thing to do,
link |
your selfishness, maybe engage your selfishness.
link |
Cause this person right there,
link |
remember I told you seven billion geniuses,
link |
everybody came to this world
link |
with a piece of solution to the human problem.
link |
This person and that person and that person
link |
hold something for me because I'm part of humanity.
link |
This person might have a cure to a cancer
link |
that might take my wife out, the wife I haven't met yet.
link |
But this kid right here has it inside.
link |
And if I help this,
link |
if I make sure that this kid gets a chance to flourish
link |
and to manifest his genius or her genius,
link |
that trickle down many years later,
link |
comes straight back to serve me and the love of my life.
link |
If we can't see it any other way,
link |
maybe let's try to think about it that way.
link |
Cause it becomes a very good proposition at that point.
link |
So in this case, by 2050,
link |
Lagos, Nigeria will be the largest city in the world.
link |
The future is African, whether we want it or not.
link |
But is it going to be an African future
link |
where you have a youth being a ticking bomb?
link |
Because they have not, there's no hope.
link |
They stay in poverty
link |
because they belong to nations that don't even understand
link |
sometimes the importance of common law versus civil law.
link |
Because they're trapped in countries that don't understand
link |
that you need to make the legal framework
link |
to provide for better economic freedom.
link |
So you can unleash the genuineness, the awesomeness,
link |
the ingenuity, the industrious side of your young people,
link |
especially of your women,
link |
so that they build all the wealth
link |
that your nation is gonna need you to build.
link |
And with it, the respect that comes from that.
link |
See, we have a choice to make.
link |
And this is why I feel so, so, so restless about this
link |
at this point of my life.
link |
We just lost George Hayite.
link |
George Hayite is one of the few Africans that I knew
link |
That's who I learned from.
link |
And I feel a strong sense of urgency
link |
to not only bring back to the table
link |
that which he has been working on,
link |
but to also make sure that it gets seen.
link |
That's why being here talking with you today,
link |
it's, you have no idea.
link |
It's, people ask, if someone like you could say,
link |
You did more than you could ever imagine
link |
by just allowing me to take this message to one more person.
link |
And because if we do this,
link |
the change is gonna happen somewhere down the line.
link |
Yeah, the ripple effects of all of that
link |
on the unlocking the human potential.
link |
It's unbelievable.
link |
All those people in Africa are building cool stuff,
link |
So some are gonna be built stuff,
link |
others are gonna work on the reforms.
link |
So we're working on reforms, by the way.
link |
I'm the head of the Africa Center for Prosperity
link |
of the Atlas Network,
link |
the largest organization in the world
link |
working on taking down barriers of entry
link |
for entrepreneurs around the world
link |
in their respective countries.
link |
So we're doing great work there.
link |
I basically, all the, obviously all the think tanks
link |
we have in Africa right now, free market think tanks,
link |
and we wanna promote more of them to come up.
link |
And these are local solutions by local people
link |
for their local problems, always.
link |
That's where we draw the line.
link |
And so there, so we're working on reforms primarily
link |
and making people understand the free markets
link |
and the importance of it.
link |
But it is piecemeal legislation.
link |
By the time you accomplish something here,
link |
more crap has happened over here.
link |
More laws have been pounded up
link |
because you know how they fix a bad law most of the time.
link |
Whether it's in the US or somewhere else.
link |
Put other laws to kind of undo the law from before,
link |
but it keeps stacking up.
link |
And before you know it,
link |
where you should have one thing and it's clear,
link |
you have a hundred and they go against each other
link |
and then it's all, it's worse.
link |
So we have piecemeal legislation that's happening.
link |
Our teams are doing really amazing, fantastic work,
link |
especially the team in Imani in Ghana.
link |
We have a group in Burundi, in the Great Lakes.
link |
I mean, people are doing amazing work, amazing work,
link |
but we need to run faster.
link |
So while we keep, we help them running faster,
link |
we also have to unlock other things.
link |
And right now I'm working
link |
on one of my most craziest projects.
link |
Something bold, radical, crazy for some people.
link |
But I know we're not crazy
link |
because before us, Singapore has done it.
link |
You know, Hong Kong has done it.
link |
Latest, the most recent China with the SSEs,
link |
the special economic zones,
link |
some of the most radical free market zones in the world,
link |
And oftentimes within a generation,
link |
meaningful change start to happen, right?
link |
So here, what I'm working on is this concept of,
link |
some call it charter cities, Paul Romer,
link |
others call it the free cities.
link |
And I like to call it startup cities.
link |
What these are is for us to think about,
link |
okay, if piecemeal legislation takes forever,
link |
while we have this demographic
link |
that's growing faster and faster in Africa,
link |
there is a discrepancy here
link |
between the progress we're making
link |
to set the right environment for business to prop up,
link |
and how many more people are coming to life,
link |
literally every day on the continent.
link |
There's a discrepancy here.
link |
And so, the ticking bomb is going faster
link |
than the progress we can make.
link |
This is a problem.
link |
So what some of us are working on
link |
is this concept of a startup cities
link |
and to say, piecemeal legislation takes too long.
link |
How about we continue doing that work,
link |
which is essential and critical,
link |
but at the same time, can we think of zones,
link |
and I like to call them also common law zones,
link |
where we basically try to have within the country
link |
an area where for business,
link |
I'm not talking about family law or any of that stuff,
link |
no one is touching your culture or anything like that,
link |
but we're just saying business wise,
link |
an enclave where you have the best practices
link |
from around the world, including yours,
link |
in terms of what constitute a great business environment
link |
and allow people in,
link |
like you get in freely or nobody's forcing you to go,
link |
nobody's forcing you to whatever.
link |
So basically, you're to think about
link |
this rather unoccupied plot of land within a country,
link |
think Dubai, on 110 acres of land,
link |
Dubai is thinking that in their case,
link |
they're like, maybe they decided,
link |
maybe Sharia law is not the best for business in their case.
link |
And they said, they looked around and were like,
link |
wow, but common law, especially British common law,
link |
seems like a very good one.
link |
So at that point, they decided for business only,
link |
not family or anything like that,
link |
which is gonna stand to Sharia or whatever.
link |
And so they said, we are gonna bring in,
link |
so they hired retired British common law judges
link |
to educate the law and train the people under there.
link |
And I'm oversimplifying, but at the end of the day,
link |
within a generation,
link |
Dubai became one of the top
link |
international financial centers of the world.
link |
It is what it is today.
link |
And in the case of the African nations,
link |
that zone can then spread.
link |
Yes, it can not only spread, but maybe let's say Senegal,
link |
if Senegal was to go for this, here you have this one,
link |
and then over there you have another zone.
link |
And then what they start to do
link |
is they're not all modeled the same way,
link |
because maybe this one is saying,
link |
hey, we wanna attract more, I don't know,
link |
maybe we wanna attract more medical research, right?
link |
This one is gonna be saying,
link |
maybe we wanna attract more crypto,
link |
or maybe it's gonna be more like us,
link |
we wanna be more about religious this or whatever.
link |
You know what I mean?
link |
So we wanted to fit more of this or that.
link |
And just kind of give the basics, the grounds,
link |
and then watch the magic happen on it, right?
link |
And so this is what we're working on.
link |
And the hope there, because some people are like,
link |
I know some people are like, you guys are crazy,
link |
but hey, I'm like, no, it's more or less the story
link |
of the Asian tigers.
link |
And most recently, most of China's progress,
link |
economically speaking, because some people might say,
link |
well, you don't want China, we're developing, you see.
link |
Even then I say, and it's okay, you can always do better,
link |
but we cannot deny what the magic
link |
that they have accomplished, what they have accomplished
link |
is nothing short of a miracle.
link |
800 million people getting out of poverty
link |
in such a short amount of time.
link |
So it's not, yeah, for the quality of life
link |
and the majority of the Chinese population.
link |
Does something like that happen without problems?
link |
And so the next person to do something
link |
just actually gets to learn from lessons,
link |
from lessons, that's all.
link |
And leapfrog, and leapfrog, exactly.
link |
So for me, this is a promise.
link |
And the people are like, oh, but you guys are crazy.
link |
But I'm like, just like with everything,
link |
do you know how many attempts it took
link |
before the first flight, the Wright brothers took off?
link |
Do you know how many?
link |
And that's important.
link |
You try, you crash, you try, you crash,
link |
but each time you're going up higher
link |
and you want to get up for once, then you stay up longer.
link |
And before you know it, you're doing all types of things.
link |
So here's the same thing.
link |
And I tell people, listen, all I need is one success story.
link |
And then the sea change.
link |
People don't even wait for us.
link |
But this is hard because it's the first time.
link |
But the good news is there are many groups
link |
working on the continent.
link |
There are some groups in Zambia.
link |
There's a zone there.
link |
Folks are doing something like this in Nigeria.
link |
We're part of a project there in Nigeria.
link |
The one that I'm most excited about,
link |
I cannot disclose the name of the country yet.
link |
But my god, I'm so excited by it.
link |
And I just know, I just know, Lex,
link |
it's going to happen in our lifetime.
link |
It's a really powerful vision.
link |
And it's not being dramatic to say
link |
that the future of humanity depends on your success,
link |
that success in Africa.
link |
It's such an important continent.
link |
It's the continent where everything started.
link |
And I think it's the continent where that continent has
link |
to finally, finally, finally thrive.
link |
We cannot, all of us, call ourselves an enlightened
link |
society as a whole.
link |
When you have such, when you have this,
link |
it's a humongous continent.
link |
Have you seen the size of it?
link |
It's hard to fathom, actually.
link |
And it has such ingenious people.
link |
Sometimes I look at my people.
link |
I have to tell you, I'm so proud of them,
link |
and the young people, especially.
link |
And you know, you would look at them.
link |
And you know, somebody said sometimes one day,
link |
and it was so true, they said, you know,
link |
we've seen poverty other places.
link |
But here, it is just, maybe somebody doesn't have money,
link |
but they have dignity.
link |
So everything else we can handle,
link |
and we will handle.
link |
You have to mark my word for this.
link |
This is going to happen.
link |
And our youth is amazing.
link |
You should see them.
link |
So full of creativity.
link |
And it doesn't matter.
link |
You know, you were telling me, what makes you different?
link |
Many things makes us all different.
link |
You know, the Rwandans are very different from the West
link |
Africans that we are.
link |
Rwandans, for example, never dance with their hips.
link |
They dance more like, you know, with this part of the body.
link |
West Africans hips?
link |
Us, it's hips all over the place, all the time.
link |
And it's, you know, more jumping, stuff like that.
link |
In Rwanda, you feel it's more like, you know,
link |
I mean, they remind me more of, you know, the ballet thing.
link |
Rwandans have a sense where, you know,
link |
they don't eat, you know, so much in public.
link |
It's not very well.
link |
It's something you do.
link |
Us, we are, the West Africans, we like to be loud.
link |
We're almost like the Italians of the continent.
link |
And then the Rwandans are more like, you know, the Swiss stuff.
link |
Actually, the country even looks like Switzerland.
link |
I mean, we're so different from one group to another.
link |
Then you go to the Congo and you see these guys,
link |
We have a dress, I mean, les sapeurs.
link |
So we are a very different bunch.
link |
But you know what I love about us,
link |
what I love about my people?
link |
We are the manifestation of what resiliency means.
link |
And so everything we need is there.
link |
Everything we need is there.
link |
I will say that there's nothing wrong with the seed.
link |
Everything that's wrong with us
link |
is that pot that we put around us.
link |
So we're tired of being bonsai people.
link |
We need to be the tallest trees in the forest
link |
that we were designed to be.
link |
And that can be fixed.
link |
And that can be fixed.
link |
And that's the beauty of it.
link |
And that's why I am so, I'm almost dizzy with,
link |
I get dizzy with hope.
link |
I know my history.
link |
I know my economics, my fellow humans and all of that.
link |
And we know that there's an unfailing recipe.
link |
And when it comes to that recipe,
link |
we have the hardest part of it.
link |
The one missing ingredient, which is the free markets.
link |
As we go around and talk and people start to understand
link |
and each country tries to figure out,
link |
okay, where do we go there from here?
link |
I know that I will die with my continent
link |
having taken the right shift for a turn.
link |
I don't have to see where it ends
link |
because I cannot in my wildest dream
link |
imagine where it's gonna end.
link |
But I know it's gonna be, yeah.
link |
So my only job is to get this message out
link |
and then let my people do with it what they wanna do.
link |
Yeah, the scale of impact is just boundless.
link |
It's kind of cool.
link |
I mean, sometimes we think about individual problems
link |
and how do we solve them?
link |
We look up at certain individuals,
link |
like the, I don't know, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk.
link |
But it's so much more powerful to just,
link |
without knowing what they will do,
link |
give the freedom to millions,
link |
to hundreds of millions of people
link |
to do whatever the hell they're gonna do.
link |
Can you just imagine?
link |
It's truly, truly exciting.
link |
So in that sense, the work you're doing,
link |
it's unimaginable the kind of impact it would have.
link |
Now, going back to that hard moment,
link |
this dark place you went in your mind
link |
and your personal life story, you lost your husband.
link |
What gave you strength during that time?
link |
What were the places you went to your mind
link |
in terms of personal struggle,
link |
in terms of maybe even depression
link |
or these kinds of struggles?
link |
I think for me, when my person passed away,
link |
maybe my friends could see what was going on,
link |
maybe they couldn't, I don't know.
link |
But on the surface, I looked like I was fine.
link |
But what happened is the only thing I think
link |
that kept me around as I thought about it
link |
was the job to be done.
link |
These women relied on me and I was no longer free.
link |
I did not own myself.
link |
And they said it in those words,
link |
you don't own yourself anymore.
link |
And it was true, but it helped me
link |
because I was able to, you know,
link |
sometimes whatever it takes to keep you around,
link |
whatever it takes.
link |
And that's what I would tell people who feel like
link |
they can't just push one more push
link |
and they think they need to end it.
link |
At that point, whatever it takes,
link |
just stick around for one more second
link |
because the next second, you know.
link |
So I stuck around because of duty.
link |
I felt a very strong sense of duty.
link |
My duty was in this case, I think,
link |
stronger than my pain.
link |
I don't know how that was possible, but it was.
link |
And I just pushed my grief under the rug for years.
link |
For years, I worked like a mad lady.
link |
I would travel, I would do three states in three days,
link |
landing at two in the morning,
link |
around five or six going right along with our distributors
link |
because it was beverage and just keep going
link |
and have all of this energy and look like everything is fine.
link |
But what happened was just like,
link |
I was focused on the job to be done.
link |
And sometimes it is okay to do that.
link |
At least for me, it was my safety.
link |
You know, like when you're in the water
link |
and you're about to sink and they throw you that,
link |
that round thing, I don't know how you call it.
link |
You know, that, you know.
link |
I think that keeps you afloat, you mean?
link |
Yes, yes, the floater.
link |
It's the floater. Yeah, whatever.
link |
Listen, between the two of us, we're still terrible.
link |
So I said, you, you, you.
link |
I know exactly what you mean.
link |
So you understand me.
link |
So they send you that thing and you just,
link |
I was just hanging onto it.
link |
My life depended on this thing.
link |
So these women, they carried me.
link |
And with time, things are moving forward.
link |
And at some point I went into really, really deep depression
link |
and I went into a very dark place,
link |
even darker than the one I think I came from.
link |
Because by that time I had worked for years
link |
on this company and now some other things was happening.
link |
And around that time, it's also when I was discovering
link |
a lot of what we talked about today,
link |
about what makes a country rich.
link |
And for me to understand that my network,
link |
I was very much into left oriented network.
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And to just start to see all of this,
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I tried to address it to realize that many of these people
link |
would prefer go running for the hills
link |
than accept for a moment that maybe capitalism
link |
might be part of a solution,
link |
when many of them were involved in capitalism.
link |
So that was a hard time.
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At some point I was, yeah,
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so many things were happening around that time
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that basically shook up everything for me.
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One, it's hard to talk about because it's very personal
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and the person that I was having a problem with
link |
passed away last year.
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And I'm one to always say, leave the dead alone.
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So because of that, I won't speak about it,
link |
but there to having a major fallout
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with somebody who was like a father figure for me,
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somebody that I completely trusted.
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And so at some point you just tell, ask yourself,
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was my whole life built on a lie, right?
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And then you're confused and then you become confused.
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And then at some point you lose 90% of your friends
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because of, ideologically speaking, it doesn't work anymore.
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Then you just wonder, have I,
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have I been asleep this whole time?
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And then you start to wonder,
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remember when you asked me, who am I?
link |
At some point, Lex, I literally was like a candle
link |
I felt like I was a candle in the wind.
link |
And it was very hard to come back from that.
link |
And people have a hard,
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the few people I talk to about this,
link |
they have a hardest time understanding
link |
or even believing it because they're like, you?
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I'm like, yes, me.
link |
I used to be a candle in the wind.
link |
What made you overcome that?
link |
My current husband.
link |
My current husband.
link |
See, when I tell you love is the answer.
link |
But him, he came with love,
link |
but he also came with really helping me
link |
figure out the world.
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So what Michael, because that's him,
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who we're talking about, Michael Strong.
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That must be special.
link |
So you have no idea how special he is.
link |
But you know, Michael, the reason why I have such love,
link |
respect and admiration for my husband,
link |
I'll never say it enough,
link |
is because actually it's one of those relationships
link |
that got built based on intellect first.
link |
You see, at some point I was in the position
link |
where I could start a foundation
link |
after having built my first business.
link |
And all I wanted was an ability to power
link |
as many, especially women,
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African women entrepreneurs like me a few years ago,
link |
before then, to do something like I was able to do.
link |
Bring back to the world
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some really cool aspects of our culture
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built into a really cool brand, 21st century type.
link |
That's what I wanted to do.
link |
Because the more I could promote women like that
link |
and put steam behind them,
link |
and the more my dream envisioned
link |
for a respected Africa, prosperous Africa would happen,
link |
back then that's what I wanted.
link |
this was also part of a whole crisis
link |
of ideologies I had back then.
link |
Everybody was like, well, we should be just doing grants.
link |
And I knew that my people didn't need grants.
link |
They didn't need like a handout.
link |
They don't want your charity.
link |
I didn't want charity.
link |
I wanted someone who could work with me on my accounting.
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I wanted somebody who could help me brainstorm
link |
I wanted somebody, or I needed to raise money
link |
to pay my research and development guy
link |
to help me take the juices from my grandma's recipe
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to something that can be shelf stable.
link |
I needed coaching.
link |
These are all the things that I needed
link |
to make my dream happen.
link |
I didn't want you to give me some crap for free.
link |
That's not what I want.
link |
I just want to be able to build my business
link |
with all the things that business building needs.
link |
And so that's what I wanted to do
link |
and it's what it was needed.
link |
And so Michael, somebody found out about what I was doing
link |
because back in the days of San Francisco,
link |
they would write a lot about me and everything.
link |
And so Michael, along with John Mackey,
link |
the founder of Whole Foods Market,
link |
they had a nonprofit called Flow.
link |
And it's all about human flourishing.
link |
They want for people, everybody to get this choice,
link |
this ability to be able to get to a point in their life
link |
where they're in complete flow.
link |
It's, Michael, just make high.
link |
Michael is the only one who could say that last name.
link |
But you know, the whole concept of flow,
link |
when you're in a state of flow,
link |
you're basically doing what you're supposed to do,
link |
the way you're supposed to do it
link |
with the people you're supposed to, this whole concept of flow.
link |
It's human flourishing at its highest.
link |
So, you know, so I meet with this man.
link |
Max, you're so, okay, so we, he finds me, his people find me.
link |
And then there was a program
link |
where it was all about accelerating women entrepreneurs.
link |
So it's during this times
link |
that I'm starting now to see things.
link |
That's when actually all of this stuff that I noticed,
link |
how come here it takes me all of this time
link |
to start my business, over there it's 20 minutes,
link |
here it's free, over there it's thousands of dollars,
link |
all of this nonsense that I just took,
link |
oh, maybe it's just because we're messed up,
link |
we're poor, that's why everything is so messed up.
link |
Whoa, these people are introducing me to concepts.
link |
I'm like, first of all, I'm like, oh, really?
link |
What did you call the doing business in the, what is that?
link |
You know, all of this stuff.
link |
And I'm starting to discover this whole other body of work.
link |
That the free markets, like this thing that I was sensing,
link |
this environment that I was sensing
link |
that it was different around me.
link |
And that they called it the free markets over here.
link |
And over there, that.
link |
And then I started to butt head those ideas
link |
with the ideas that I was fed with before that.
link |
And the evidence won.
link |
And further more than the evidence,
link |
the evidence combined with my lived experience,
link |
it was so powerful.
link |
So I basically started understanding these ideas
link |
from the most visceral part of my body,
link |
you know, of my being.
link |
And it makes sense.
link |
So Michael, Michael helped me find the solution,
link |
the answer to my lifelong little girl's question
link |
of why do they have this and we don't?
link |
And how do some countries like mine be poor
link |
while others are rich?
link |
And with understanding all of that,
link |
the greatest, biggest sense of liberation came upon me.
link |
Like, I have no other word to describe that.
link |
True liberation, the liberation that comes from a peer
link |
to finally understand and be vindicated
link |
in your own, you know,
link |
understand in your own deep knowing
link |
or feeling that they're not,
link |
what they're saying is not true.
link |
You're not the problem.
link |
There's something else.
link |
And when I discovered that, my whole life changed.
link |
So, and since then I have been very serious
link |
about going deeper and deeper and deeper
link |
into my understanding of all of this,
link |
understanding the subtlety.
link |
At some point I was very angry
link |
about the liberators of Africa,
link |
because I was like, yes, you helped liberate us,
link |
but just to keep us in this mirrorism,
link |
I was angry for longest time.
link |
And then eventually you have to engage empathy and love
link |
to put yourself in their shoes
link |
and try to understand the time at which they were living.
link |
And that got me onto a journey
link |
of trying to understand history more.
link |
That's how I understood I was able to go beyond
link |
just these liberators and try to understand
link |
and rebuild the world around them
link |
at the macro and also at the macro level.
link |
Just really, you have to try to walk in their shoes.
link |
And from there, finally separate the baby with the bathwater
link |
that they were not able to do back then.
link |
That's why today, I'm sorry,
link |
but I have no patience for the BLM organizers, founders,
link |
especially the founders.
link |
I don't know what the organizers think,
link |
but the founders told us what they stand for.
link |
And I say, guys, don't make that same mistake again.
link |
If you're serious about this,
link |
you cannot make the same mistake.
link |
The liberals of Africa, they have an excuse.
link |
We didn't know better.
link |
It was so easy back then to conflate everything.
link |
But today, you, me, anybody alive
link |
cannot with a straight face
link |
embrace Marxist socialist ideas,
link |
especially, especially when they're claiming
link |
that they wanted people to thrive.
link |
No, you can't, I'm sorry.
link |
And I will hold your feet up to the fire on that one.
link |
And that's what I'm doing.
link |
They will give me a lot of grief for this,
link |
I could care less.
link |
Do you know why I could care less?
link |
Because we have an entire population
link |
to help rise out of poverty into prosperity,
link |
where they become co creators,
link |
global co creators of innovation.
link |
And those ideas give you hope for the place you love,
link |
for Senegal, for Africa.
link |
The world I live in,
link |
the new centers of culture and fashion are in Dakar.
link |
The new centers of tech and, you know,
link |
crypto even is somewhere, maybe Nigeria.
link |
So you see that future, you see that future clearly.
link |
It's a beautiful thing.
link |
And it's also beautiful to see that the space
link |
of these really powerful ideas
link |
is where you also found love.
link |
So at the intersection.
link |
At the intersection, Michael and I would spend hours
link |
talking about all of these ideas.
link |
And I would be like, but what about this?
link |
No, it doesn't make any sense.
link |
No, no, no, oh no.
link |
And then hours, every single day for months, Lex.
link |
And then from there, our love was born.
link |
Cause I tell people for us,
link |
love is not about looking at each other in the eyes,
link |
like, you know, they all think,
link |
but it's about, we look in one direction.
link |
And in this case, it's this vision,
link |
what we know to be possible and true.
link |
If only you liberate people.
link |
What we know to be true and possible.
link |
We, all of us are miracles walking around.
link |
Every time I get on a plane,
link |
it's a miracle of engineering.
link |
All the things we're able to do, you know,
link |
now when they do operation on your teeth,
link |
how they're able to put the pain down away.
link |
All of this is us.
link |
You're working on these robots.
link |
This, this, this inside here.
link |
Humans are amazing.
link |
So that's why, and when it works in great tandem
link |
with this guy, these two working together.
link |
There's nothing we can't accomplish.
link |
Well, God, you're one of the most incredible people
link |
I've ever talked to.
link |
You've met everybody.
link |
Thank you so much.
link |
This is truly an honor.
link |
Thank you for everything you're doing.
link |
Thank you for the fire that burns within you.
link |
And there's just the passion you have
link |
for a place that's going to, I think,
link |
define the future of humanity.
link |
So thank you for everything you're doing.
link |
Thank you for talking to me.
link |
And sometimes I hope this fire doesn't consume me.
link |
That's how much it is.
link |
But I am grateful to you for this.
link |
And yeah, thank you for,
link |
I know you don't do a lot of these, you know,
link |
I am, it's this type of interviews.
link |
Maybe I don't know, but I'm so, so happy.
link |
You mean fun, inspiring, powerful interviews.
link |
Yes, I need to do more of that.
link |
I don't know, because at first I was like,
link |
Lex Friedman, really?
link |
How's this going to go?
link |
I'm like, yeah, I'm going to talk to Lex
link |
I think you need to work on your unconscious bias.
link |
All right, thank you, Magat.
link |
Thank you so much.
link |
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Magat Wade.
link |
To support this podcast,
link |
please check out our sponsors in the description.
link |
And now, let me leave you with some words
link |
from Nelson Mandela.
link |
Money won't create success.
link |
The freedom to make it will.
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Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.