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,
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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
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because that's when they formed their plans
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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.
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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
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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,
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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
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to the concept of socialism, Marxism,
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all of that way before by some of these, you know,
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black African American intellectuals of their time
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who were very socialist Marxist by that time.
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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
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and, you know, presidents, most of them,
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most of them are socialist,
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various forms of statist type of government.
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And this is because at that point,
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we had made a fatal mistake of going,
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of saying we are Marxist socialist
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because you guys fight for equal rights.
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So in this case, there should be no colonialism
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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
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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
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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.
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So not only you have that force,
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but at the same time,
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if these two forces are fighting one another,
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it turns out that the one representing capitalism
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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
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because while yes, there were maybe good things
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to agree on with Marxist socialist of the times,
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especially equal rights for all people and all of that,
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that's the only thing we should have,
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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.
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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.
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And when they do, they're gonna have to pay consequences.
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So if you want for blacks to be respected
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anywhere in the world,
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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.
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We as a group have to be critical mass of prosperity
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And because we're talking critical mass of prosperity
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it means black people everywhere in the world.
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We in Africa happen to represent 90% of our representatives
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So you're gonna be serious about black lives mattering
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without being serious for Africa,
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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,
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so that they can rocket up prosperity wise.
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And the resources of the young people, the young minds.
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So that all of these young people, young minds
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can finally manifest their greatness that I know they have
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and that they're showing us every day
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despite the obstacles.
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That's what we need.
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Senegal becomes rich and Senegal can become
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and will be richer than France.
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Singapore did it, we can do it.
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Mali rich, Nigeria rich, functioning as well.
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Malawi rich, Tanzania rich, Uganda rich,
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Zimbabwe rich, Niger rich, everywhere rich prosperous
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as prosperous, if not more prosperous than Switzerland
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or Singapore or the U.S.
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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
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having a very different relationship with us.
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That's the only time we will commend any type of respect.
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That's when people, even our common psyche will change
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even about black people.
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All of the stereotypes that they have of us
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is gonna melt away.
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And you may still not like us, but you will still respect us
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because we are a force to be dealt with.
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And only economic power does that.
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It would be nice, of course, for us to respect people
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because they're people.
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It would be nice, but let us not kid ourselves.
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And someone said, nice people will make it to heaven,
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but not to Harvard necessarily.
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It's interesting that pity does not ever turn into respect.
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It would be nice if it did.
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It would be nice, but it doesn't.
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Prosperity is the only thing.
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Prosperity is the only thing.
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And the way we do that, there is no,
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just like all of us humans have to inhale oxygen
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and exhale carbon dioxide.
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That's a human way of breathing.
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You bring me on, but you wanna be foolish
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and be like, oh, well, sorry.
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That's how white people breathe.
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So as black people,
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we're gonna have to do something different.
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Well, good luck with that.
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So this is here why I'm saying,
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I have no patience for Black Lives Matter.
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They're making a mistake that was made 60 some plus 60.
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Years ago, even more than that.
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Maybe even a hundred, you know,
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when we were siding with the Marxist socialists
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because they're the ones who've been fighting
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Let me ask you though, about racism.
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Do you, as you travel through this world,
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as you travel through America,
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feel the burn of hatred?
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You've spoken about the revolutions
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that have been fought throughout the 20th century
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But today, as people talk about educating,
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reminding the world with the,
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even with more philosophical ideas
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of critical race theory, for example,
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do you think this is still a battle
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that needs to be fought
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at the forefront of culture in the United States?
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Um, does racism exist?
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But all forms of isms exist.
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Some people, it's about various forms of ableism.
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Others, it's about size.
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And racism, yes, is one of them.
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But is it what's gonna stop anyone
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from manifesting their greatest potential?
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Many people in this country have showed it.
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Whether they're African Americans
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or African immigrant, I'm an African immigrant.
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You have African Americans like Oprah and others,
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and other people even before her,
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who despite the nastiness around them,
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were able to make it.
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So we do know, especially as black people,
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but I think it's humanity as a whole.
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And that's what I love about the human spirit.
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But resiliency only can happen
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if you don't allow yourself to be beaten down
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and to lose yourself of agency.
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It's, of course, easier said than done.
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And some among us need a little bit more help
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to not succumb for it than others do.
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It might be harder for you
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if you're somewhere in inner city,
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inner city black America.
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Maybe the environment might be a little bit tougher
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for you to try and get your act together
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and all of that stuff.
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But even in that situation,
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we need to, I think it's important