So he brought small people basically and said, Oh, well, don't you see how they look like, you know, chimpanzees and monkeys and the New York times actually, you know, wrote stories praising it to sell. Yeah, this Africans are the closest things to monkeys and chimpanzees. And, you know, and basically at the end of the wall stay, um, He took him to the Bronx Zoo and, you know, basically, you know, got some money from him for him at the Bronx Zoo. And, uh, the director of the Bronx Zoo put him in the, in the cage, you know, with the monkeys and the chimpanzees to, You know, so that people could come and watch,

we'll discuss race and how it plays a factor, how we didn't even talk about this topic because we were afraid

a black executive perspective.

Welcome to a black executive perspective podcast, a safe space where we discuss all matters related to race, especially race in corporate America. I'm your host, Tony Tippett.

And I'm your cohost, Chris P. Reid. Before we get started today, let me give a shout out to Code M. Remember to check out our partners, Code M magazine. Whose mission is saving the black family by first saving the black man. Check them out at CodeMMagazine. com. Thanks,

Chris. So in today's episode, we delve into the known history of Africa and its extensive diaspora stretching from the continent itself to the Americas and the Pacific islands. We will explore the rich cultural heritage, key movements, and profound connections that bind these diverse communities. Joining us today is Dr. Niyi Coker, professor and director of the School of Theater, Television, and Film at San Diego State University. He will guide us through these intricate narratives and the history that remains largely unknown to most.

Let me tell you a little bit about Dr. Coker. So he's earned several accolades, including the Washington DC Kennedy center award for directing his films have garnered international recognition with black studies, USA reaching finalist status at the Hollywood black film festival and Ota Benga. Human at the zoo premiering at the Smithsonian museum and winning best documentary at the London international film festival in 2016. His script for pennies for a boatman won best film script at the 2012 Madrid international Dr. Coker significant works include directing Miriam McCabe, mama Africa, the musical in Cape town, supported by a Carnegie fellowship and the U S consulate, which toured the United States in 2018 and 19. Prior to his current role, he spent 14 years as the E. Desmond Lee Endowed Chair and Distinguished Professor at the University of Missouri, Go Tigers, and has served as a Visiting Artistic Director at various international universities. Dr. Niyi Coker, Jr. Welcome to a black executive perspective podcast.

Thank you so, so much. I'm really, really honored to be here and, um, just to be part of this. And, you know, uh, it's really, it's really exciting for me.

Well, listen, we, we are excited that you're here. We want to hear your perspective about the African diaspora and, you know, our audience is excited just as we are because of your extensive background. I mean, we're blessed to be in. Presence, and we can't wait to learn a lot more about Africa, its history, its movements. So this is an exciting time for us. So Dr. Coker, why don't you tell us a little bit, you know, about where you're currently residing and a little bit about your family?

Well, um, I currently stay in San Diego, um, San Diego, California, and, um, really enjoy being here in San Diego, not just because of the weather and the, uh, the people and the vibe, uh, basically. And one of the. Things I really enjoy about being in San Diego is it, um, affords me the, uh, opportunity to, you know, go in and out of, um, visiting Mexico, Tijuana, Rosarito, and, you know, the Baja California area. Um, and actually I practically spend all my weekends, um, down there. Um, it's, um, you know, because it's, there's, there's just a lot of culturally affirming, um, aspects of, uh, Mexican life that I find. Um, being in the area and, um, understanding the contributions of African people, um, to that civilization. And, well, I'm still continuing to understand it, of course. And, um, it's just very, very, very, you know, uh, like I said, you know, people always talk about folks running to the north or escaping to the north, um, you know, during the periods of the dark days of enslavement. Um, nobody People forget that there were folks who ran to the South, um, because, I mean, you know, it wasn't always Canada, um, there's that history of Africans who went South because it was closer to, you know, the Southern parts of the United States, you know, um, for, uh, uh, for Africans to get there through Texas, or, you know, um, many outlets and, uh, actually created communities, large communities, uh, in Mexico. Wow. So, um, that's a, that's a lesson on history. I mean, you know, I mean, if you were in Texas, where would you be running to? You're not going to look at Canada.

No, I mean, you know what? I'd be honest. I never, I never thought of that. Never knew it. I figured that. If you wanted to run, if you're in Texas and you want to run further South, I mean, and then there's no else to run. So you just like give up. They got me as nowhere else for me to go. So I didn't even think about Chris. Do you know anything that you, you're a historian, you've got a great history background.

Absolutely. Absolutely. No, I was totally unaware of that. I mean, it makes sense when you say it out loud, obviously. Right. When you think of it in retrospect, but I think there's so much of what we think of our. Uh, coming of age story as, as African Americans is always centered around that Southern region, that Bible built type of region. And we don't think about the people. We don't think about the people further to the West and things of that nature or any of the struggles, even in the North at that time, like, where do you go when you're not, when you're being infringed upon? So that's a very, that might be something we might need to pod at some point. We got to do a podcast

on that because that's a whole level of information that, that escapes all of us. Most definitely,

please. I think you really should because as African people around the globe are beginning to see their connections and that connectivity, um, we forget that it's only recently that, you know, um, on the Mexican law now, you know, afro Mexicans are now, you know, legitimately affirmed and asserted, you know, I think was two years ago that that was on the ballot. You know, to affirm the identity, to say, no, you know, we might be Mexican, but we are Afro Mexican in the sense that we, you know, come from a stock of African people. Um, I mean, historically, if you look at parts of, uh, Mexico, uh, parts like, uh, Veracruz, um, you would find that in Veracruz, there, uh, used to be, um, an enslaved African that named El Yanga, um, E L Y A N G A. Whose statue basically opens up the city now as he's breaking chains. And, you know, it's a, uh, it's a, it's a, it's a symbol of liberation. Wow. That, you know, here we are liberated. So if you just, you know, Google it, Elga, E-L-Y-A-N-G-A, you will see, oh wow, this is, and it says it clearly there though, that, you know, this is, this is a, this, were Africans who came here, you know, and basically we are teaching us on and working with us in terms of, uh, freedom, equality, justice, and um. There's still a very large population of African people down there today. You know, um, I mean, we think about it. There's more Africans other than the continent in Brazil. That's you get more African people. Like, so, so, I mean, go for the, you know,

you make a good point. I mean, you got, you had Cuban Africans, right? You had, you know, so to your point, you never think about it until you said it. And it makes, it makes total sense. So we're, we're definitely going to dive into the, the Southern hemisphere in terms of, you know, the African history and population. But right now we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna keep it North. And, uh, we're gonna, we're gonna definitely go East. Okay. I mean, definitely, you know, and look, you, you already started providing this history before we even got through the warmup questions,

right? Came out the gate, man.

Classroom classroom mentality. I love it. I love it. We getting, we getting a bang for our buck here, Chris, don't we? Absolutely.

Absolutely. But Dr.

Coker, listen, let's, uh, we already, you ready to talk about, cause I want to, me and Chris got a bunch of stuff we want to ask you. So are you ready to talk about it, my friend? Oh

yeah. Okay. Sure. Let's talk

about it, my brother. So listen, one of the things that in your bio Chris spoke about is, you know, you, you Which you sent to me and I watch, uh, and it was, it was, it was, uh, it was interesting to watch was the film that you, the documentary you put together on Ota B, I mean, you produced it, you directed it. So before we jump into it, I want to play a quick little clip of that documentary so everybody can hear. Then I'd love to hear your thoughts and we can learn more about Ota Benga.

Sure. Thanks. At the turn of the 20th century, a man named Ota Benga was displayed at the Bronx Zoo with monkeys and chimpanzees. He was an African housed at the zoo as living proof of an inferior race. A hundred years after this bizarre event, we can look back now and ponder how it came to be that. In the United States, a human being was actually housed with primates. Several argued then, as some would today, that such an action has nothing to do with race. You be the judge.

I mean, that is, so number one, that is, it's moving. It's it's so powerful when I watched it and I had to stop to be to be honest, as I was going through it, I had to, you know, I don't say turn it off. I just had to pause it for a little bit just to to marinate. This is this is not in 1700s or, you know, in the early 1800 doing slavery. This is the early 1900s. And so number one, I want to thank you for bringing this story to life. Obviously you've gotten accolades for this story, but my first question is what made you want to, you know, do this story on Ota Benga?

Uh, I used to live in Birmingham, Alabama, and, um, when I was teaching at the University of Alabama and director of their program of the African American Studies, uh, school there. And I moved to St. Louis in two thousand and, uh, five. And, um, I moved very early in the summers, you know, so that I could, you know, be ready to start school. And in that period of time, what I did was I, you know, as you usually do, get to know your city, and I went to the St. Louis Arts, uh, the St. Louis Historical Museum, just to, you know, because here's the land of Dred Scott.

Right, right, that

says, Hey, man, you know, you can't, you're not free anymore. Okay, we're neutral. And, you know, so, so Missouri started to really, I mean, you know, I was excited and intrigued about, you know, uncovering and going to some of those landmarks. And unbeknownst to me, um, just going to the, uh, uh, his St. Louis historical museum. Um, I thought I was just going to be seeing stuff on Dred Scott, et cetera, et cetera. And I saw this large photograph and it was a photograph of a man, um, an African, um, a man of African descent housed in a loincloth carrying, um, um, um, um, an orangutan on his shoulder. And it said, you know, Ota Benga, St. Louis Walls Fair, 1905. And I thought. Something is not adding up here. That's a name, St. Louis Worlds Fair 05. So I started to dig more into the St. Louis Worlds Fair and what, um, the presence of this African was doing at the St. Louis World's Fair, because it had other photographs of the World's Fair. It had people like Geronimo. It had, you know, the Igorots. It had native peoples. It had people from the Philippines. And, and, um, I grew to understand that the Walls Fair basically was what you might call the beginning of in 1905. World's Fair was always, um, um, places where people would come. Back then, before the days of the internet to like an expose, right? The Wall Street people discovered ice. Right, right. See what's going on in

the world. It would come. It will be there.

Educate themselves. But this particular World's Fair, there was a guy, um, whose name is McGee, Dr. McGee. And who's known as the one of the founders of the American Anthropological Association, so basically it's an anthropologist, and this field of anthropology was just beginning to fire it, fire up, and, um, what McGee wanted at that point was he wanted at that World's Fair to have, you know, Every possible human represented in the globe at the World's Fair, he wanted representation because this was going to be the place where they were going to study, um, humanity, study cultures and to see, you know, the goal was to see who was the most sophisticated, you know, to create a chart. To see who's the most, which are the most sophisticated races and the most inferior of all the races. And, um, so he commissioned a guy named Werner at this point. This is the documentary. He said, okay, look, I've got Geronimo, I got Indians, I got this, I got that, but now we need Africans. We need, you know, so although enslavement as we know it had ended, he commissioned, um, He commissioned Werner to go to Africa and go and bring him some, some pygmies, some, you know, Batuar and people from the heart of Africa, from the Congo. So Werner, you know, buys a license basically, uh, uh, you know, because at that point in the U. S. A. the only way you could go is if you were in the church. So he buys a license, seminary license in, you know, a day, what takes people four or five years or a year to get, he, you know, got it in a day or two and he, you know, made his way to, stopped in Belgium, met with Leopold, uh, uh, because Leopold at that time, you know, ruled, owned the Congo, which is called Congo Leopoldville, and, um, he got permission to just go kidnap and bring Africans over. So I think he was asked to go bring 20 something and he only got three or four or five. And, um, what he did was he went there, he, uh, and met with the Belgian first public, which is the police. And they, at that point had arrested a group of Africans who had attacked them, uh, because they had burned down the village of these Africans and murdered all their women and babies and all that. Those one, those Africans came to attack the public and, uh, the public arrested them. And among them was this guy named Ota benga. And so he brought Ota. Benga, you know, to the USA and brought him to St. Louis, to the World's Fair. And so this is all in the documentary. And what is beautiful about the documentary is the coincidental part of it. It took about 10 years to make. Because each time I was working on that, I thought, okay, it's almost there. Something else would reveal itself. Like, you know, I was working on it at a point and it just so revealed itself that in Paris at the place called Museum Brulé, they were actually showing the Wall Street exhibit. They, somebody was able to take a camera there. And so they were showing it in Paris at Museum Brulé. So I had to head up there quickly to, you know, see it for myself and see if I could, you know, uh, buy clips or borrow clips. Basically the bar vein of the story, she brought out a banger to, um, the World's fair to be displayed. And, uh, in that display, of course they said, Oh, okay. You know, Africans then are the lowest people on the totem pole. And of course, you know, the people who are backwards in Africa, you have the tallest people in the Sudan. You have the, Smallest people in the Congo, so he brought small people basically and said, Oh, well, don't you see how they look like, you know, chimpanzees and monkeys and the New York Times actually, you know, wrote stories praising it to say, Oh, yeah, this Africans are the closest things to monkeys and chimpanzees. And, you know, and basically, at the end of the walls there, he, um. He took him to the Bronx Zoo. Mm-Hmm. And, you know, basically, you know, got some money from him for him at the Bronx Zoo and, uh, the, uh, director of the Bronx Zoo put him in the, in the cage, you know, with the monkeys and, uh, the, the, the, the, the chimpanzees to. You know, so that people could come and watch and pay money and, um, you know, and in the backdrop of this, we, I, we should always remember that in the backdrop of this Darwin had just written less than 20 years, the evolution of the species. The evolution of the species talks about, uh, basically it's theory breakdown theories that there's really nothing like creation, that God created human beings and all that, and that we've all evolved, you know, evolution through evolution is how we've all become human beings, et cetera, et cetera. So, um, and again, I want us to remember that against this backdrop, Africans had just 1876, 18, so, you know, the, the, uh, the civil war had just ended and, you know, um, Abraham Lincoln in Abraham Lincoln in court had just freed the enslaved people and Congress, the U. S. Congress was still wondering. What to do with these people who are now roaming free and, you know, are they human beings or are they one thirds of a

person?

And of course, you know, we all know how that ends up in the Constitution as a, you know, being a third of a person and not a human being. In that background, also, you have scientists who are beginning to study these people, this strange People of African being, uh, African origin and looking at their brains craniologically to determine whether or not they could fly an airplane.

So can you stop right there? Because I, I read that. All right. And most people don't know that. And they use that, that, that science or lack thereof, I should say, to, to, to speak against Tuskegee Airmen. All right. And one of the reasons why they didn't want blacks to fly. Because at the end of the day, when they get up in the altitude too high, their brains are too small. Then they lose oxygen and then they pass out. All right. And this was, and this was supposed of a scientific theory. It was science that was like proven, which made no sense. So I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I remember, I remember reading that and I couldn't believe it. And and that was one of the things that they used. To stop black people from flying and it wasn't for Eleanor Roosevelt, you know, we don't know where that would have went. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. No, you, you, you, you're absolutely correct because this, you see when people talk about race or racism and a lack of equity. Uh, what people don't understand or realize is that this was baked into the ingredients of the system, where what begins to happen then is rather than studying, you know, you have your med, people go to med school, people go to vet school to become veterinarians, you had people who were studying slave medicine, which is basically, you know, how do you treat, because it's not a human being, this is a property and it's a slave, how do you treat them? You can't give them the same medicinal, you know, Prescriptions that you would give a white person. So they was it was different specialization. So, um, or Ota Benga basically ended up at that zoo. People came to the zoo to watch a lot of scientists, you know, basically based their science on it. Theologians based their theology on it. Um, people who wrote stories about African, African people based their, you know, literature and the literary theories on it. The U. S. Congress basically, you know, hired. A guy named, um, Dr. Agassiz, who was from a university in Switzerland, and another guy named Dr. Martin, who was at Harvard University, and said, you know, help us study this folk and come up with something and, and educate us about if they're human beings and what they're capable of doing or not doing. Um, again, we don't forget that, um, you know, Thomas Jefferson, you know, had written his notes on Virginia, that the highest intellectual capability basically of anybody of African descent. The highest intellectual capability would be that of a 10 year old white child, you know, um, so all this again, basically is coming from voices of authority. And, um, so Ota Benga was there, people went to the zoo, they saw him at the zoo, um, paid a lot of money. The Bronx Zoo made a lot of money. The, uh, pastors and people in churches, especially black pastors, um, were in a revolt and wanted him removed from the zoo. Um, if you look at the Bronx Zoos, um, in terms of accounting, how much income they've made, the highest income the Bronx Zoo has ever made, and has never beaten that record, was 2. While Ota Benga was at the zoo, because now basically what it meant for the public was, you know, you've been told you're created by there's God and there's, you know, Adam and Eve, and here you have proof before your eyes at the zoo about evolution, which is what they were saying that, okay, man, ape, that's the closest link, closest relatives to the apes is this human beings, but they Africans and they're black people. And, um, it, it begins to ingrain. You know, um, um, a racist trope of thinking and, and, and, and, and false, very false, but then, but go ahead and go ahead. Dr. Coker. Yeah. So, so basically, you know, they got him out of the zoo and ironically, sadly, I mean, the best place they took him to the Virginia theological seminary at a place called Lynchburg, Virginia, which, um, to turn him into, you know, a Christian and, you know, Christianize him and stabilize him and educate him, you know, and so the irony for, again, there is that in the attempt to, in quote, give him freedom, they, you know, They were locking him into another kind of enslavement. I mean, I'm not casting aspersions on anybody's religion, please, but was to make him a Christian. You know, which would then make him human is to Christianize him, you know, and, you know, basically he didn't have a religion or religious belief where he was coming from, right. Um, you know, uh, so, so they said he took his life. I said, they said, because I couldn't find any evidence that he did or that he didn't, right. The 10 years of the work, um, and we don't know where he's buried. Um, which again is another tragedy in the situation because the moment news of his death came out, um, there were actually people as far as, you know, Amsterdam, London, France, Belgium, that were already beating him. To have his remains, his corpse, because they needed to take it and study it and all that, you know,

let me ask you this, um, and, and I, and Chris, I know you know, you loaded up, um, and I got, I mean, we can just, to be honest, man, we could talk about this for the next hour or two, right? Because I got a million questions. Okay. Um, but I'm going to, so let me ask you this. Why isn't this story more known in the United States?

Um, because the curriculum is Euro centered. Um, the curriculum in many ways, in all ways, actually, not in many ways, the curriculum is a major problem, and the more that we begin to have this, um, this situation where, uh, critical race is being, you know, questioned and, you know, writers like Angelo and Morrison are being stricken off, uh, or Mollifia Santi are being taken off, uh, Um, school curriculums in public schools. Um, what it does basically is it continues this Ota Benga syndrome where, you know, anything that has to do with either accomplishment Or that negates and shows the felicity or the falseness of falsehoods of enslavement and that this people you enslave were human beings that you took out of a continent. And you condition people into believing that they were less than human. You don't want those facts in the textbooks. Uh, you know, uh, you don't want to put that in the textbooks because, um, basically it keeps a hegemonic, uh, uh, control in many ways. It keeps the Eurocentric part of the curriculum strong because if that were in textbooks today and had been in textbooks very fairly, I think it would. The rate of failure or the rate of dropout or dropout rate in the, especially in the African American community would be much lower because what you do then is children begin to understand the truth and the facts and not feel that there is anything negative about them or their being and their existence. Yes,

it's about,

you know, and it's also good for not just the children of African descent, but the children of, European descent to understand not to make the mistakes. Number one. And number two, to begin to come to see, um, you know, all the races as being just as human and wanted the same things. And I bet you, you know, um, Du Bois talked about, you know, the, uh, the fact that the race war risk issues in the USA in 1905, right? Said he would follow us to the end of the 20th century. He wrote that in the Souls of Black Folk in 1903, sorry, that he would follow us to the end of the 20th century. We're in 2024 right now. We're still dealing with it in the 21st century. And I don't, we don't see it going away. No, well, especially

if you're, if you're trying to, well, not trying, you're hiding and you won't, uh, Self accountable. Um, Chris, any, cause I don't want to dominate here because I know you may have a couple of questions. That's cool. Yeah. No, you're good.

So, so obviously I'm, I'm. Go ahead, buddy.

Go

ahead. Yeah.

Go ahead.

Yeah. Yeah. So obviously, and you guys know this from the political landscape that we live in now, confirmation bias is very real. And once you tell yourself something, you're bound and determined to do everything you can to reinforce whatever you started with. As opposed to being nimble and opposed to being agile in your thought. My question for you is beyond the, and I, beyond the physical or observational, uh, understanding of this man is this size. And this man is this color, this pigmentation and, and whatever the case may be, was there any other science that you found to be associated with their learnings or what they're calling science? Because I, I find it to be. Disrespectful to keep saying science when no science was really being performed, right? There was no real science that was Extracted here and it so it's just and I think that if we continue to perpetuate that by using that word we water down the actual Situation as it was constructed where they kidnapped this person held them against their will and then demonized him physically Only to try to elevate him spiritually, which is contradiction in itself But i'll ask you that question what science was being really used

He was A science, there's a saying among, a lot of people say, have it now in the world. The day, the day lions begin to tell their own stories, a lot of hunters are not going to have tales of bravery anymore. So the science that was used was the science that was, you know, uh, uh, that was, um, uh, basically formulated by. Folks who already knew the destination in which they wanted to go. And

that's it.

And that's it. You know, I mean, it's like the word objectivity. Oh, no, no. We're just being objective.

You're not being objective. If you already have a bias, you already have a bias, right? So you're just going to find what you want to find anyway. So you don't make it come out to where you want it to come out.

That's it. That's it. I mean, so, so it's funny because I mean, when you say the, um, the science it's, we're in a trap situation, we're in a trap, you know, we're in a linguistic trap because basically a lot of the, um, my, my mentor would say, you know, um, if you look around you, you know, Um, you look up, you go, that's Mars, that's Pluto, that's Jupiter, that's Uranus, who named it that? But you referring to, we all refer to it as that. I mean, we're communicating based on all of us, three, three of us here of African descent. We're communicating in a language that's basically not ours.

Correct.

And so the, The viewpoint or the lens in which that what science is then described is from the lens of the language in which we're speaking and the lens of the language in which we're speaking is one that went out to colonize and dominate and Christianize. And so, you know, that language then is not is the language that we're trapped in and we used to, you know, we use that language in saying, okay, you know, that's the far east. That's the Middle East. Far to who, middle of where, you know, far from who, you know, I mean, so, so, so, so basically, um, even on the maps, you know, um, you gotta look at the fact that, you know, we're in a containment and until we liberate our language, which is, you know, like my, you know, um, um, Uh, mentor would always, you know, say to me says, you know, when you go back and you think you think about liberating language and when you liberate your language, you liberate your thinking, you know, I mean, you know, words like, you know, tribe, you know, he would say, you know, I mean, who's a tribe? What's a tribe? You know, um, you'll find it's only people of color for, you know, either native American or African descent that that tribes people, um, you know, all the people are nations or ethnic groups, you know,

right. So,

um, yeah. So, so again, it's the language. So that's the, with the science, science,

right. I think that, I think that, you know, you touched on something that reminded me of a previous episode where we talked about, uh, the fact that we were brought over here and deemed. Unintelligent or, or inoperable from a mental perspective because of the language difference. We were smart and we were great where we were and we spoke what we spoke where we were. And then we came here and it wasn't the King's English, so to speak. And therefore we weren't right. All of a sudden they use language as a weapon.

But the other thing is we were multilingual and we continue to be multilingual on most, you know, uh, uh, you know, uh, places where you have people of African descent and so to say, Oh no, they not bright. And, but you know, Just, just, just listen to this one and just, you know, see how, um, uh, how tilted this whole thing is. If you go to Liverpool Museum, where Liverpool Museum holds the records of people that were brought in, in terms of enslavement, where the ships would be basically, the ships had to come into Liverpool. Download their stock, see who's on it, who's off it, how many people, and this is where the insurance company would pay if there were losses of people or loss of cargo, and then the ships then would continue to the U. S., to the new world, in quotes. So, there was always a request for rice farmers, or people who were skilled in farming, and there was a certain part of Africa, you know, Sierra Leone today. Which they would go to, to bring these people and those people who had the skills in rice farming, et cetera, would always end up in St. Helena's Island, what you call the Gullah Islands off of South Carolina, you know, the Gullah, the Geechee, because they already had the skill. of planting rice. They had a skill. So it wasn't that people with zero skills were being brought. People at that point understood that, look, what I'm planting is rice. I need people who do rice. So go bring them and bring them, dump them here. And so they, so to sell, no, they didn't have skill or they didn't have knowledge. Everybody knew that was, if you knew they didn't have skill or knowledge, why would you bring them over here? Why would you bring them over here? But that would, but you

had to create that narrative. Okay. Of course. So to be able to, to, you know, basically confirm. Right. Um, what you were doing. Okay. But at the end of the day, you don't bring over anybody who doesn't have any skill. And the next thing you know, you're getting, making billions of dollars of cotton. All right. Yeah. You taught him. That doesn't make any sense. Hey,

yeah. And that narrative is so easy to create. Um, in the sense that, I mean, we just saw one, you know, where, you know, we all believe that Iraq and Saddam Hussein had a bomb. Yeah. We all believed it. I mean, come on now, let's be on the weapons, the weapons,

the mass

destruction, weapons, the mass destruction, you know, and at the end of it, it was like, okay, well, no, we didn't find anything. Everybody believed it. The world believed it because it was a narrative that was so, so it's very easy to put out a narrative that's not true and make everybody believe, oh, you know, this is, you know, so it was the same that happened with people of African descent. You know, these people are barbaric. These people are, you know, savages. These people are not Christian. We're gonna Christianize them and Okay. All right, you end up Christianizing them and you get the black churches springing up all over the South. Did that mean freedom? Now they're Christianized. Right. That's all. Oh, you're Christian now. Okay. Now you could go, you know, it, it became property became, you know, it was about the money. Wasn't about Christianization or civilization, you know,

absolutely.

You know, you wouldn't have on, on, on tutored people raising your kids. Because basically these were the people who went into the homes to raise the kids and take care of the elderly and, you know, do what, you know, nurturing is about, you know, of raising other people where, you know, we all read, we've read all kinds of, you know, literary works, you know, that talk about how a lot of the, um, um, Children of European descent in the South were closer to the maid, you know, the house maids and women, African women that raise them.

Absolutely,

biological parents, you know, absolutely.

I think that you

would dump

it. I think the concept of. Needing to civilize the savages has been used over and over again, not just with us, but with many different people with native Americans, everybody's a savage. You know, like I said, if you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Right? So everybody's a savage. And we're talking about Christianizing and changing, uh, their religious beliefs in order to save them, uh, save their souls. Right? So saving souls, but the concept of, yeah. Uh, you have these savages that you are trying to make into civil, uh, human beings, but then you treat them uncivilized. How do, how do, how can that be reconciled at any point? Like how does that work, especially when we talk about the role of religions and things of that nature?

Um, in terms of religion, um, again, I don't want to cast as precious, but I, I think religion is an, is a tool and an illusion that's been used in deceiving people. a lot of people around the world. And, um, religion again has been used for gain, for profit, um, to justify the bringing of enslaved people and say, you know, you had to be a member of the church to go do that. Um, if you ever go to, um, Cape Coast, which is one of the forts where Africans were enslaved, I mean, it will bring shivers down your spine if you look at those forts. Um, at the top of those forts in a place called Cape Coast and another one called Elmina. Cape Coast actually Barack has Barack Obama plaque because he and Michelle visited, had to visit Cape Coast while he was president. Um, if you look at those forts and the dungeons where the African people were held while they were waiting for the ships to come back, there's stairs that go up to the top of the dungeon. Those stairs lead to church. So there was a church on top of a dungeon. That held enslaved people. They held the women separate from the men on the women's side of the dungeon. In Cape Coast and Elmina, there is a door that leads to the room of the priests. And, you know, so basically they were abusing, sexually abusing the women at their whim. You know, while they were out there, they would basically just take whoever they wanted. And, um, but again, this was the church. Um, and so you see that and you say, wow, and they were holding services here. And basically the bedrooms to all the priests bedrooms had access to the chambers where the women were held. And you begin to reconcile it and go, wait a minute. And the, uh, the, the exploration in Africa was to CCC, triple C, Christianize, colonize, and civilize. Was the aim basically was why they said they were in Africa and at the end of it all it became a land grab Because they had to sit down in Belgium and decide. Okay, let's cut the place up, you know, and you know Stanley or whatever decided a listen Leopold. I will be the referee but before I referee the Breaking up of the place. I have to take land five times or 10 times as large as Belgium and the red round in the middle and he took that and then he decided, British, you take that Frank, you take that Germany, you take that Italy, you take that, you know, so it was just divided up without even talking to the people themselves and they just went there and put the flag. And again, if you've ever been to those, I'm sorry, if you've ever been to, again, those castles, Whether it's in Senegal, Goreo, and you will find their cannons, their cannon balls with cannons, which used to be the serious weapon. Back in the day, you put the cannon and you shoot it out. Why are those cannons facing the sea? Why are those cannons not facing inland? If the people inland are the enemy and the people you are afraid of, the cannons are facing the sea, because if you're French and you own this colony and you're getting enslaved people from it. If you saw a British ship coming toward that place, you blow it out of the water because it's, you know, it's territorial stuff. The panels were no, no, the panels where they were, you know, knew how to take care of each other and say, no, no, no, you're not going to come to my territories. It's gangland stuff. Right, right. And so, so again, to come back to your question of rationalization, you can't, you can't defend indefensible as my mentor would say, you can't rationalize it. And that has been the major problem to say, Oh, look, I'm sorry. You know, this should not have happened. How do we recompensate? How do we pay, uh, you know, peer reciprocity to make sure that, you know, there's an equity playing field? Um, you know, even even, you know, 3, 000 40, 000 a mule. So at least people would have something was voted down. You're free. Where do you go?

You were talking about the colonization, the three C's, right? And colonization. I was recently looking at a theological study on, um, what is the Middle East, but used to be North Africa until the Suez canal was built. That was all North Africa. Let's just be real. That was all North Africa. And so then they cut it up and then they named it, whatever they want to name it. And they put people here and. Kick people out and all that kind of stuff in the idea of Christianity and Islam being adapted or adopted. Uh, how did that transform some of the African communities in the diaspora?

Uh, the African communities in the diaspora had to take on. It had to take on the Africans in, uh, let's start with, say, uh, the Africans in Brazil had to take on Catholicism because I mean, it was a Catholic church at that point that was, yeah, those in, um, yeah. And even though they took on Catholicism, the one funny thing was that in taking on Catholicism, they, Africanized Catholicism in the sense that the dominant religion in Brazil became Candomblé. So the, the, what the Africans, uh, uh, worship in recognize the ancestors through, even though they impose Catholicism on them and say, you know, you have to have saints, this and that's in this. And this is a structure in the church. They replaced those saints with, um, what you would call the Orishas. Ogun, Shongo, Yemoja, Oshun, these were African deities. So they replaced it with deities. And if you go to, say, um, uh, uh, Cuba, or any of the Spanish islands, uh, Hispanic speaking islands, what you find there is called Santa Ria.

And

so the Santeros again, replaced the saints with Santeros would say with, with, with, um, you know, you know, and, um, so even though they were forcing them to Catholic stuff, they took it and replaced and replaced and replaced and Africanized. And if you go to Haiti or the French colonies. What they have is called Vodun, but of course Hollywood has turned it into voodoo. Oh, wow. They would, you know, turn you into a doll and, you know, um, but it's called Vodun, you know. Um, and so what a lot of Africans did, and again, if you look at the southern part of the USA, a lot of Africans who went there, I mean, even though you had Catholicism, you had Anglicans, you had Methodists, the Africans, they gravitated toward more of the Baptist. To becoming Baptists and in all of this, there's one connection and that connection is water to be a Baptist. You get baptized in water and the power of water. If you look at what's happening in Cuba or in Brazil, for example, the biggest date is Oshun, Oshun. That's the goddess of the sea, the oceans, you know, so water becomes a very powerful symbol in all this African, you know, uh, religions in the new world. And that water is a testament to the power of the wheel and the water that the Africans came through to come to this new place. And the power of the water to purify, the power of the water to possibly take them back, and the power of the water for those whose souls remain in that water, who, you know, so, um, basically, um, Africans, if you look at what Africans have done in the new world, And you want to really actually document it. Um, you look at, for example, the songs and the spirituals and how those spirituals led to the blues and those spirituals, you know, what they've become today and, and, and those spirituals really becoming, uh, the, the aspect of the lives that saw Africans through a difficult time. And these are people you say are not religious, you know, or have those spirituality. But then, you know, you look at what, what American music is today. It's really, you know, African music. It's really the poly rhythms that have come from religious practices, right? Right. That have created the basis of what it is that we are seeing today, you know? Um, so yeah, in terms of that religiosity, what we've done with it is not just as African people, not just take it and accept it. And I mean, if you go to a, a, a predominantly white church and you go to a black church, I mean, you go get the Holy Ghost in one. You're going to have so much singing that people, you know, um, going to trance and dance, you know, to be late, you sing loud. So the spirits come down.

So let me, so Dr. Coker, let me ask you this. And we were talking music, right? I want to go to your girl who kept, um, somebody famous alive. Okay. By her music. So let's go here that way. Can you play clip four?

I was born in a township, New Brighton. It's a two roomed house. We are about 11 in the family. We lived about 12 kilometers to the White Port, Elizabeth, which had all the bright lights and all the beautiful things about humanity, about normality. We grew up asking questions, Why are we living this side of the city and they're living on the other side? And our parents would always say, Why You ask too many questions. Now the only thing that kept us alive or kept some form of entertainment is when you had the radio and there it was. Oh my God. We as little boys. So, Dr. Coker, talk a little bit about, you know, Miriam Makeba. Um, and I love that little intro. Um, and obviously he was sharing about being in South Africa and why they lived on one side of the tracks. Versus somebody else and your parents trying to protect you. None of your business. But at the day, that music, uh, really inspired them. And she had a message behind it. So speak to that a little bit.

Yeah. Miriam Zenzile. Makeba. Uh, I know as mama Z. basically came to the United States in the fifties, late fifties. And, um, just around the time she came, of course, we know what was going on in South Africa, the apartheid system of government, the past laws, um, um, um, and, and Nelson Mandela and the ANC struggling for, you know, equal franchise having to be sentenced to life on Robben Island. Miriam Makeba was a singer and basically when she came to the States, um, she was, you know, was always on the night show and, you know, co sang with Harry Belafonte and, um, you know, sang at, uh, JFK's birthday, even though more people would think about Marilyn Monroe as opposed to Miriam Zenzile Makeba singing on his birthday. Um, and she actually spoke at the United Nations because she pressed, um, Uh, JFK about the situation in South Africa to say, Hey, listen, we have the situation of apartheid where the black majority in South Africa have been pushed into homelands and removed from the cities. And there is a segregation that's going on in South Africa, which was, I mean, the South Africans basically came to the USA to want to study Jim Crow. And then go back to South Africa to implement it, you know, on a national scale. And, um, and through that, of course, you know, um, this is why I say, you know, uh, the word slavery is not, I don't use it with kids. I prefer to use the term enslavement because there's always a, it shows you there's a resistance. And so the Africans did the same thing in the sense that they created a resistance against, you know, the domination. In South Africa, uh, by the white minority, um, and Mandela went to prison as a result of that. And Zinzi Makeba was here when that happened. So Makeba started to speak up about it. To sing about it in nightclubs, to sing about it on television shows and use her national platform or international platform to talk about Mandela. And this is how the world came to know about Mandela's plight. The world at that point, there was no internet, there was no, I mean, nobody knew who Mandela was, what was going on down there. But it was this one woman, this, Powerful female artists who made it her cause and she went on and on and she met with dr King she joined the civil rights movement and you know started to understand that even though she was in the usa It was the same thing condition that people in africans in america were suffering that people in south africa Basically africans in south africa were suffering. So, um, basically, um, You She did fall in love and marry, um, uh, Kwame Toure, who, you know, Stokely Carmichael, who was the SNCC, you know, um, student, uh, president, you know, and this caused her a lot of problems. It actually cost her her career because then nightclub stopped booking her. Then record companies didn't want to sign up to contracts because there was this whole thing about she would be taking the income from records. To form the black panther party because he was now married to a black panther. She was more sympathetic. To, you know, um, uh, the black movement in the USA. So why buy her records? You know, so people were burning the records in mass and white stalls and, you know, um, so in that sense, it cost her a career, you know, in, in some ways, but it didn't break her down because she continued to talk and advocate and basically had to leave the USA and go to Belgium because, um, she, um, she actually moved to the Bahamas first. And started, you know, a fashion business in the Bahamas and clothing stores and that kind of stuff. And the Bahamian government called her and said, Hey, look, we can't have you here because we've been, we've been visited by the IRS, the FBI, the CIA. So she left and went to Belgium. And then from Belgium, decided she was going to go and, you know, stay in Guinea. Because Sekou Touré, Um, you know, became close to Kwame Ture and, you know, they, you know, she moved to Guinea and it was out of Guinea that she continued to operate and sing and talk about apartheid around the world out of the USA, you know, and continue to keep the struggle going on and, um, she lost her only child, um, as a result of this, I mean, actually died. She lost two grandkids. Her mother died while she was in exile because she was banned from South Africa now. Um, because of her being very outspoken, she was banned from her own homeland, such that when her mother passed, um, she couldn't even go give her mother the last rites. She was denied, um, you know, and so, um, but that didn't deter her. She continued, you know, talking about apartheid and singing about apartheid and letting the world be conscientized about apartheid until Mandela, until it became a party. Global calls. I'm Mandela walked out of prison. And so in many ways, people say, you know, no black man freeze themselves from prison. There's always got to be some advocates here outside help or somebody pleading your case. And in this case, Miriam Makeba was that person. And, um, she returned to South Africa after Mandela got out of prison. And, you know, yeah. Um, but what I found in South Africa is that they generate have music, of course, was banned in South Africa, as you can imagine. And so when I went to South Africa first, um, I think was University of the North before I went to University of the Western Cape. These are historically black schools, because under apartheid, just like in the USA, they were not admitting black students. black students to predominantly historically white schools. You had to have the Morehouse and the Spellmans and, but in the case of South Africa, they're called technicons. And you do what Bukati Washington first started out to do in Tuskegee, which is, you know, trade school, learn how to be a carpenter, use your hands basically. And, um, but then they moved on to becoming more, you know, um, humanities based. And I found out that none of those generational students knew Miriam Makeba. Because she had been removed from the history, just like we're talking about now. Why don't students understand certain things here? They are in her homeland. There were kids who went college and never knew the name, never knew. Some of them will say, Oh no, I recognize that song. My parents played in their bedroom quietly in a low volume. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I recognize that. So this was what apartheid did basically was, you know, ensure that this person was wiped out of history or wiped out of the news. And because who controlled the news, you know, I mean, internet was not, you know, people were not on Facebook and all that back then and news wasn't circulating at that rate. People controlled it, right? And so, um, we got to give praise to Miriam Zenzile Makeba. And, um, I was, you know, compelled into writing a musical about her life and, uh, which the Carnegie, you know, Foundation kindly, you know, funded and the U. S. government, the U. S. State Department in Cape Town, South Africa, you know, um, did everything to make sure, um, it was successful and, um, because at that time the, um, The, uh, Consul General was a guy who had gone to, uh, what's the school in, um, he'd gone to the school, uh, HBCU in, um, Louisiana, uh, Grambling, he, he was a graduate of Grambling, so, yeah, so he saw this and he was, uh, was like, wow, This is, I mean, he was watching the parallels between that and the civil rights movement on stage and say, you know, this, this has to go to the USA. This is, this is our story.

Right. Right.

And yeah.

But you know what, Dr. Coker, I mean, listen, you have, um, you have faith to so many stories of African American people who the majority of us know nothing about. I mean, you are a walking and I, and don't, you know, I want to say encyclopedia, but you know, when it comes to walking, Google,

right.

No, but when it comes to history and, and really understanding it, um, and these are one of the reasons why it's important to make history available to everyone, because then you can make the connection from past to the present. Right. And then obviously, like you said earlier, not hopefully try not. So, so, so for somebody out there that's listening to this podcast, and they're saying, wow, I would love to be, you know, uh, someone like a Dr. Coker, what type of advice would you give to somebody aspiring to grow up, Uh, and look, maybe it's in film, maybe it's in television or just maybe it's in any endeavor. What advice would you give them?

I would say in every endeavor that you're in, please look at the Africa centered perspective. Um, there is an Africa in every endeavor, whether it's in medicine, um, where basically if you look at the discipline of medicine people, you know, they have to take the Hippocratic oath and, you know, no medicine started way before Hippocrates, you know, you got to go back into, you know, basically, you know, um, ancient committing and look at people like him hotel. Who were the first, you know, physicians and, and this was way before Greece and Rome. Um, so long, you know, law started way before so long. Um, you know, um, Pythagoras theory, mathematics, where a mathematician, it started way before Pythagoras, you know. And all these folks, a philosopher, you want to talk about Socrates. Even Socrates says he had to go learn at the foot of people with woolly hair and burnt faces. Socrates. Uh, cross the seven cataract, which is in North Africa. So, um, so basically, whatever this is, where this becomes a goal, if you know, um, we need to make change ourselves, nobody's going to make it for us is that, you know, whatever discipline you're in, commit yourself to looking at where it got truncated in terms of knowledge to turn it into a Western centered. area of study and look at those connections that take you back to the first and the earliest. I mean, we know the first human beings came out of Africa, so they were not idiots. They were not stupid. This, this would, this would people who had a language and had a culture and learn how to fish and use a Kano and learned astronomy and the stars and knew about rain. And I mean, so whatever way you want to dissect it. You got to understand that whatever discipline you're in, please go back and look at what Malifi Kete Asante calls the Afrocentric perspective. Just go back and look at, well, where did it get truncated? Okay. What was before that? You know that we're not being told about and look at what was before that and then, you know, bring that knowledge into whatever area you're in and whether it's even, you know, the way public law and legislation is written. I mean, I lived in the state of Alabama and I bought a lot of those. Um, I, you know, used to take students to Selma quite a bit to the voting rights museum. And, um, you would see that some of the questions they would ask. Um, questions to determine whether or not as a black person, you could vote. How many bubbles are there in a bar? So I mean, I, I had this, I, I mean, I actually have, I've made copies, you know, so I mean, I said, oh no, they failed the exam. So you need to go back to stuff like that and look at how that then entered into law and entered into poly. I mean, it wasn't until when I was in, I think, yeah, my first year in Alabama was 99. In 2001 was when the, um, what's called the intermarriage app was taking up the books. So up until 2001 it was a crime Yes. For you to get married to somebody of a different race? Yes. But they were not enforcing it. But it's still on the books. But it was still on the books. It's still on the books. Still on the books. Yeah. So they had to take it of votes. Yeah. So it's on the books, so, which means anybody can enforce it. Look at what's happening in Arizona with the, the debates, the abortion, this, were not even on the, it wasn't the state yet, but they've gone and pulled it out of the books. Right. So we need to go into those books. Whatever discipline we're in and go and make the corrective measures that, you know, basically would put us, put the world, not just us, it will put the world in a better place and help the world. To find its own humanity

buddy. I love it. Yeah, I love it

I think I think I think that's a powerful You know final thought for our listeners to understand heritage and understand its impact on what we are doing now in order for us to Forge a good path into our future My question to you is how can a black executive podcast help you? How can we do anything to assist anything you have going on or or get on the train that is is headed in the right? direction that is Uh, your work, uh,

I would say please, you know, one of the major things that I do is I have a series called the Africa wall documentary film festival. And the Africa World Documentary Film Festival happens every year started. It's in the 16th or 17th year. Now it's only dedicated to documentary films that deal with the African experience. It's got a website, ww Africa world film festival.dot com. It's only dedicated to themes that talk about the African heritage everywhere around the world. And you'd be surprised. Themes coming from India. Mm-Hmm. That actually teach us with. You know, documentary films, you need to start today. This is way before AI. So they can you and you go into your history, you'll find it. I was surprised to find that there's a group of people in Hyderabad, India, known as CDs, S. I. D. I. S. Who? Everybody in India acknowledges came from Africa. They keep the African entity.

Mm-Hmm.

And guess what? They're the greatest Rios and historians. Inaba.

Mm-Hmm.

They keep Hydra stories and songs and narratives going. And so to see a documentary on this for me was like, wow, we, the Africans in India, I have gotten documentaries from China. People trying to, you know, linking. You know, parts of China with the coming of Africans who came into China, but, you know, never made it into Western history, but are respected in China for their presence in China, what they brought to China, you know, so all these documentaries, I think, you know, one thing I came to realize in running this documentary for so many years is the one thing that separates us is the language. So you get the documentaries coming from Portuguese speaking Africans. French speaking Africans in different parts of the world. Spanish speaking, Africans, English speaking Africans, um, Africans who speak just, um, Hindu Africans who speak tag gala you, so you get all this different, you know, but then they subtitle it and, um, it, it's very eyeopening. It's eyeopening. And I think, you know, um, linked to your podcast, uh, you know, people could. Please go on there and just look at titles and, and then go on, you know, in search of those documentaries who are all basically now online, you know, pretty much and get educated, you know, buddy and info

count on it. So I'm going to circle back with you after this, because I mean, we, you, I don't, I mean, buddy, this has been so fulfilling for me and I'm pretty sure I'm speaking for Chris as well. Double A to producer Noel. Um, you just have a wealth of knowledge and I, and you just expanded in this hour that we've been chatting. You've expanded my knowledge and things that I didn't even know about and given me a thirst to continue to learn, to learn more about those things. So I definitely, as you know, as Chris asked you, what can we do for you? We definitely going to link into that. And one of the other things we love to have you come back and talk further. About other areas. Um, because at the end of the day, education, knowledge is power and the more that, you know, the more you enlighten, you become, and then more

and go ahead, buddy, but it can be, it can be a burden too, though, because when, you know, you're like, Oh no, why do I know? Why do I know that you're getting very angry? Yes. You

know,

I mean, when I say angry, you're getting, Oh my, I mean, you, you're like, not another one. Yeah. Yeah. Not, Oh, wow. Why, how did this happen to us? Right. You know, right, right. You know, so yeah. Um, I'm sorry, but knowledge is power.

You're a hundred percent right. It does make you, it can make you get up angry because you see things. You're playing chess, not checkers, right? You're seeing things play out, you know, where they're going with it and where other people who don't have that knowledge are just, you know, walking and talking and have no clue what's going on. So it can definitely, uh, do that. But we want to thank you for joining a black executive perspective. My brother, um, you know, And look, we could be talking another couple of hours and we would enjoy it. Um, but we want to thank you. We really appreciate you joining. And like I said, we'd love for you to come back at some other time.

Thank you. I will definitely love to, I will definitely love to, because I mean, this is, I mean, it's like sitting down, just, you know, old heads, just sitting down. You're shooting the breeze, man, absolutely. It's

the intellectual, it's the intellectual barbershop, man, it's the intellectual barbershop. This

is the barbershop, this is the barbershop, exactly. Well, thank you, my brother. But I think it's now time for Tony's tidbit. All right. So Tony's tidbit, um, based on what Dr. talked about, Dr. Coker talked about today. Today's tidbit is by a Amiri Baraka and the tidbit is we must act as if we answer to, and only answer to our ancestors, our children and the unborn. All right. And that's from a Amiri Baraka. So again, I hope you enjoyed this episode of black executive perspective. However,

it's time for need to know within the singer. And so what do we need to know this week Nsenga?

Hello, and welcome to your need to know moment with Nsenga Burton. I am here today talking about DEI again, because it is a trending topic that just will not go away. And today I want to talk about the, as it relates to institutions of higher education. Um, and what is happening with, you know, what happens kind of like the, the, uh, domino effect of, uh, what happens when major corporations, uh, like zoom and other corporations like that, get rid of their DEI initiatives. Uh, what happens is other institutions follow suit, whether it makes sense or not. So, for example, Duke University is getting rid of its scholarship programs for African American students. Um. And what's interesting about that is that a lot of scholarship programs that are set up, particularly when they're for named individuals are, um, because, um, you know, they are trying to help students who might need more help. Not that they're under educated, not that they have lower grades, none of those things, but because they have been part of a historically disenfranchised group that was previously banned from attending said university. Um, they put these scholarships in place to help them. To help make sure to ensure that this doesn't happen and to reward people for being outstanding students, scholars, um, you know, servants, public servants, community servants, all of those things. And idea that you could have a whole basketball team that's black on a full scholarship, but you can't have a black folks on academic scholarships because it's, uh, um, it's. It's racist is ridiculous. They have amazing trailblazers who've gone there who've attended there who have nothing to do with athletics. Um, and so it really is a painful to see an institution like that just fall over to the wayside. So quickly, and go down the route that is on the wrong side of history. Why is the response just to roll over and let's figure out how not to get involved in this? And how to make this, uh, open this up to all the students when you historically have been an institution that was not open to all the students. Particularly black students, right brown students, um, and, uh, especially immigrant students too. Right? So, when you allow outsiders to come in and tell you what you should be teaching and what you should be doing, which you should be studying when you allow outsiders to come in and to stymie real conversations that are difficult to have. Right? Because this is what all this is about, right? The comfort ability of those who've been in power. Right? So we don't want to have these conversations because they're difficult. It makes me feel weird. It makes me feel uncomfortable. Um, this is what happens. This is the fallout from that is their goal and objective is not to make sure that students get a complex. Education where they're able to deal with complicated issues that are difficult and painful. Um, but they have to be dealt with. So we don't repeat them again. Right? Um, when you let people come in and determine what's important for your institution, which you should be discussing, which books you should be reading and they're not even there, even if they're alums, they haven't been there in 30, 40, 50 years. Then this is what happens. We're gonna hire this wonderful person, uh, at UNC Chapel Hill, but oh no, we're gonna rescind the offer because oh my gosh, you might bring something up that's gonna be difficult for people to take or to, to, to, uh, critique. And that is the part that's missing in academic institutions. They are places of humanistic inquiry, so. When you don't have these real discussions, when you try to put your foot on the neck of people who are willing to have these difficult construct, uh, difficult discussions who have done the heavy lifting, you know, who have spent their academic lives. I'm really exploring these issues living in these places reporting on these issues. When you try to stymie that that's what you get. I just wanted to say in part 2 of My DEI that until we really start having these conversations until we really decide that it is okay for you to be uncomfortable. And some of these topics will make you uncomfortable and we don't have to all agree. On the topics, and it doesn't have to be, you know, this is 1 side. And the 2nd, the other side, it could be like, 5 or 10 sides. Like, it could be lots of discussion. That is what education is for. So, I would encourage you to think more deeply and thoughtfully about DEI to think about the ways in which it impacts you to think about the people, particularly those who are historically disenfranchised and to think about some possible solutions. If, in fact, DEI is going to go away. So then what are we going to do with all of these people of color who are the majority, many of whom have done what they are supposed to have done as American citizens, including get great grades. So they can get accepted to these wonderful schools. So, I would like for you all to just think more critically about it. I would like for you all to ask people in charge to have real conversations, moderated conversations by those who are experts, but real conversations around these issues. And to really think about the ways in which we can be a more inclusive and equitable society that elevates everyone, not just those who have been in power and continue to be in power and to make the rules as we go forward. And that is your Need to Know Moment with Nsenga Burton.

Thanks Nsenga for that insight. Can't wait to see what you come up with next week.

You mean you both, but that was awesome. So again, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Voices of the African diaspora stories across continents. And our guest today, you kidding me? This dude gave us a million stores. Powerful. Oh my God. And went deep with them. Right. But now is our time for our call to action is very important that everyone incorporates L.E.S.S.. You know, it's really our goal here on a black executive perspective podcast is decrease racism and all isms. So less L E S S. L stands for learn. We're looking for you to educate yourself on racial and cultural nuances. Learn about your fellow brother and sister.

And E is for empathy. To understand diverse perspectives is the key to everything is to understand where somebody else may be coming from.

And then S is share. Now you want to share what you've learned to your friends and family so they can be enlightened as well.

And the last S is a stop actively work on stop discrimination, stopping discrimination, and fostering inclusivity is the key to our future will help build a better, more fair society and a more understanding world. Let's do all this every day. And we'll see the changes that we want to see.

Exactly. So we're looking for everybody to incorporate L.E.S.S.. Okay. So tune in to our next episode, wherever you get your podcasts, our next episode, beyond the pages, the evolution of code and magazine, please go to our website. Give us a rating. Let us know how well you like Dr. Coker, what questions Chris and I didn't ask him that you want to get asked. Okay. Leave us a review, subscribe to our podcast, wherever you get your podcast, and you can follow a black executive perspective podcast on all our socials, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn X, and TikTok at a black exec for our fabulous guest, Dr. Niyi Coker, my cohost, Chris P. Reed, give them some love, Chris.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And then for the

people behind the glass, my boy double A who all makes this happen and his new assistant, Noel, we want to thank them. We want to thank you for tuning in again. We love you. We talked about it and we're out.

A black executive perspective.