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He Had to Leave America to Be a Free Black Man · Babes, how did you get here

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When you speak about being a digital nomad of that time, like nowadays, everybody's very familiar.
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A lot of people- Yeah, I was a pioneer, yeah.
0:41
Somebody wrote a book on digital nomads and interviewed me for the book.
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Oh, really?
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Because when you said it, I was like, that's really early, right?
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In terms of back in those days, digital nomad wasn't a thing.
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And I just wondered, how did you know that you could pursue that lifestyle?
1:00
Well, I'd been working from home, right?
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And receiving payments at a distance for consults and so on.
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And I knew that the spiritual law that allowed me to work was also portable, right?
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So I don't need to be in front of you to do a consultation for you.
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I have your name, I have your energy, I have you, you know, in communion.
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So we can do the work.
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Okay.
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Right.
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Does it help to have the person physically in your presence?
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I suppose with, there are certain things that do require the person to be there.
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Okay.
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Right.
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But, um, generally for consults, it's not required.
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Yeah.
1:47
And what does a consult look like?
1:49
Like you come, you sit.
1:52
Depending on the style of diviner, they will either address your specific concerns or they see what the spirit world has to say first and then they go from there.
2:05
So there is always like a diagnostic and treatment plan.
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Process, okay.
2:13
You know, divination is not fortune telling.
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It's resolution.
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Right.
2:17
Yeah.
2:18
And in terms of being able to work from Cape Town, are there any, because the time difference is quite big, were there any hesitation on to choosing this location?
2:30
I don't go to bed until 4.30, regardless of where I'm at.
2:33
Okay.
2:34
Yeah.
2:34
Have you always been a night person?
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As an adult, you know, like, I mean, when I was younger, it's you don't have control over your schedule.
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You have school.
2:45
As an adult, you know, especially with clubs closing at four in New York City, you're not getting home until five.
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Right.
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Even if you leave right at the end.
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Right.
2:56
Yeah.
2:58
And so that just became my...
3:00
Your rhythm.
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My rhythm.
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It also works because there are certain prayers or things that one must do at night.
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Okay.
3:06
And if you're already awake and wide awake, you're already awake.
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So other people are going to sleep and waking themselves up to do?
3:13
Yes, yes.
3:13
Okay.
3:15
But me, I'm awake, I guess vigilant through the night.
3:23
And then I go to sleep when I'm ready and I wake up when the sun wakes me up.
3:28
So I get my eight hours of sleep.
3:30
But it's just a bit pushed back.
3:32
Right.
3:33
Yeah.
3:34
Or forward, rather, yeah.
3:35
For life in Cape Town, for someone that's not familiar, it's one thing to come here and visit for a month.
3:42
You know, it's one thing to come every six months and know that you're leaving.
3:46
But it's a different experience when you're like, this is home.
3:49
Can you explain, was there anything that you had to kind of transition into to find that rhythm of making this home?
3:56
I think, um...
4:00
Not really.
4:01
I'd anchored myself in relationships before I ended up here on the visit that turned into me living here.
4:11
And I'd left.
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I'd been living abroad for years at that point.
4:14
So, no.
4:17
What's the hardest thing about living abroad?
4:19
Not necessarily in South Africa, just in general.
4:23
Uh...
4:27
You do miss people that you love, you know, because now that you're abroad, they are less accessible.
4:34
Right.
4:35
Yeah.
4:35
But if that is something that's manageable for you, I don't know what else.
4:41
As long as you have a consistent stream of income, whether it be passive income, you know, stuff like that.
4:47
I don't know.
4:51
I can't say.
4:52
Like, living in one place is equally challenging.
4:58
As living home.
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You know, I mean, yes, there's the passport privilege and applying for visas and et cetera, et cetera.
5:09
But once those things are out of the way, like the act of having to live abroad can often be healing actually in ways that living in your home country, it won't do for you.
5:24
Why is that?
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You're forced to prioritize parts of yourself that you may not necessarily be able to look at.
5:36
You know, if you are in community with people in your home place, in your home city, you're operating with a face of yourself relative to them.
5:45
Right.
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That kind of becomes locked in.
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Whereas when you are abroad, not only do you have to engage parts of yourself that you aren't usually looking at, but you have to be your full self in ways that you may not have been able to with your family or at home, you know.
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6:26
How are you different, the CFA that lives abroad versus the CFA in New York City?
6:33
Well, I grew up and it was abroad that I truly became a free black man.
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What does that mean?
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Unpacking and releasing the notion that I ever needed to be the kind of black man that other people wanted me to be and not the one that I am.
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Okay.
6:54
Who are you?
6:56
I'm babaciete.
6:57
But, you know, having to deal with even things like my hair, right?
7:04
That's significant, actually, one of the most significant changes.
7:08
So I have religious taboo that I am to have long hair.
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So there's spiritual symbolism in...
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having long hair, um, especially with where it pertains to the water spirits.
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But I actively resisted that to avoid, um, being policed, you know, and in New York and in America at large, um.
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Really, I would say the only acceptable condition for being able to grow your hair long and not be, oh, you're a pretty boy, or oh, you know, F word, and so on, is if you have locks.
7:48
Okay.
7:49
Right?
7:50
So if you are a black man with locks, you get to have long hair, right?
7:55
If you just have long curly hair, then you then become subject to, oh,
8:02
effeminization as if hair is masculine or feminine.
8:08
Right.
8:08
And then you tack on the light skin that's already leading in that.
8:14
Oh, yeah.
8:14
Yeah.
8:15
So and that, you know, then you have to engage with homophobia, you know, so living abroad is when I realized that, well.
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Everyone else just sees me as a masculine black man.
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The end.
8:32
Irrespective of these other things.
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Yeah, like, I can do whatever I can wear.
8:37
I didn't wear shorts in America.
8:39
Like... Why?
8:41
Because of my legs.
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What happened to your legs?
8:44
I have nice legs, right?
8:45
Right.
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But...
8:47
those things are also interpreted everything becomes retroactively interpreted through the lens of what they want to see so if i if i'm wearing shorts now oh now you're wearing bati riders and and they're not right okay yeah um
9:04
You know, so that, yeah, that's the bias.
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But now I can wear whatever I want.
9:10
Right.
9:11
You know, I grew my hair out to follow my taboo right.
9:15
The thing that I was supposed to be doing the whole time, it was safe.
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And you said it has symbolism.
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Yeah.
9:22
What does it represent?
9:26
Not just a position of strength and sovereignty and eldership, you know, but also elegance and, you know, just the capacity to have the long hair in the first place.
9:44
You know, yeah.
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So, I mean, without getting too deep into the personal reasons.
9:50
Sure.
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But also a lot of water spirits have long hair themselves.
9:53
Okay.
9:54
You know, whether it be represented in art as long braids or long locks or just long curly hair that's longer than their body.
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It is a sign of you've actually lived enough for your hair to be that long.
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Right.
10:10
Right.
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Along with cultural concepts around beauty.
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You know, so it's not just that I am a man.
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I'm a beautiful man.
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And that beauty is something that is to be recognized and seen.
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And that as a representative of the divinities and the ancestors, my beauty is not something that is, you know, not part of the foreground of how I'm to represent myself.
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Okay.
10:40
Okay.
10:42
And then outside of the physical, how are you different having lived elsewhere?
10:50
I argue less.
10:52
Okay.
10:53
I'm, you know, less angry, you know, because people aren't challenging me.
11:00
Right.
11:00
Yeah.
11:01
You know, your own culture will test you in ways that other people won't.
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Because they know you belong to them, so then they're holding you accountable to their cultural expectations that you guys both share.
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Right.
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And when you are engaging with people who do not have that cultural script for you, it can be relieving or cathartic.
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You know?
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By every metric of South African masculinity, I am a man.
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What is South African masculinity?
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It's not one distinct thing.
11:32
Okay.
11:33
But there's so many different tribes and cultures here, but none of them are looking at me as big and strong as I am and being like, let's nitpick.
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And let's nitpick on this or that thing and then use that as a way to remove your masculinity or emasculate you.
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And that
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exists broadly.
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Like I've never experienced any African iterated masculinities that would take someone like me and then be like, you are not manly.
12:10
Right.
12:11
You know, only through post-colonial slavery embedded societies have I ever been judged against a standard of masculinity, only there.
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And that says that you are relating to my manhood through a lens of trauma.
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So, you know, I didn't experience it in Europe either.
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But European masculinities do not ask me to be anything other than what I am.
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They see me.
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I am a black man.
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They see a black man.
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Without all of the added boxes.
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Without all of the, yeah, without all that extra, and it doesn't mean that European perception is superior because I would never.
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But it does say that there are specific traumas that are embedded in diasporan experiences and survival tactics that,
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and you know, expectations that are, you know, specific to us.
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When you go back home after these travels and you have had these experiences that have clearly changed you and been so freeing, how do you then interact with home?
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So I last visited New York in 2023.
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Okay.
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And I had a great deal of anxiety about it before I actually got there, right?
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So I'm going on this journey, I'm living abroad, I'm healing, I'm growing up, I'm getting healthier, losing all this weight and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and everything.
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And then there's like, oh shoot, you're going back to where it all started.
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And the fear was that New York had not changed.
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that I was gonna go back to a place that was traumatizing for me.
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And so I resisted, I didn't wanna go actually.
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Why did you go?
14:12
Well, I had to see my family.
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I hadn't seen them, you know.
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How long prior?
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The whole time?
14:21
Yeah.
14:21
From the 2019?
14:22
Yeah, yeah.
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Aside from a cousin visiting me in Paris.
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This is the first trip home.
14:28
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
14:29
Okay.
14:30
Yeah, from the end of 2017, actually.
14:33
Wow.
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So, because it was always something else, right?
14:36
Right.
14:38
So, me returning back to see my family...
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forced me to have to actually engage America again fully after so much of my development had happened outside of it.
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And I was so worried that I was gonna go back to New York and have to beat someone bloody for a dirty look or some sort of reaction to their own being intimidated by me.
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I was so concerned that I was gonna go there, eat American food, and just regress.
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You know, like, you know all the poisons and stuff that are in American, yo, so, you know, imagine.
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You've been eating fresh food.
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You've been breathing in clean air for years.
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And you remember what your city sky used to look like.
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You know, and you're flying back into that.
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Did you return as the new Ciete?
15:41
Did you wear shorts?
15:42
Did you have?
15:43
Yeah, I did exactly, you know.
15:45
Yeah.
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And you know, I'm a trained kickboxer now.
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So it's like.
15:50
play with me if you want.
15:51
Right.
15:52
It was, you know, I was never for play, but there's a difference between...
15:55
Technique now.
15:56
Yeah.
15:56
Yeah.
15:57
My dad's black belt in Kung Fu.
15:59
I know the difference between like a brawl and trained.
16:02
Yeah.
16:03
It's very different.
16:03
It is very different.
16:04
Yeah.
16:04
You know, it expects different things of you too.
16:09
You know, so now being a trained Muay Thai fighter and all that, it's like...
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I'm prepared.
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Why did you choose to train in martial arts?
16:20
So it is part of my personal philosophy of black sovereignty.
16:26
Okay.
16:27
You know, a lot of people have this notion that being spiritual means being nonviolent and that somehow we're supposed to just absorb violence.
16:40
Whether it be ideological violence, emotional violence, physical violence even.
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And I'm not big for nothing.
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I'm not.
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You know, so it's...
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I also don't want to be a liability to my own body.
16:56
You know?
16:57
And also as a spiritualist, you have to condition your whole self.
17:02
How can I...
17:04
Condition my mind, condition my spirit, train for all these years, learn all these prayers, speak in all these different languages and this and that.
17:12
And then my body is literally rotting like that.
17:15
That is not taking care of the house of spirit that you were given.
17:23
And then with respect to not even just yours, but the initiations that you hold.
17:30
Right.
17:30
So then it becomes an abuse of the body to neglect it.
17:38
And also, I'm 36.
17:42
Right.
17:44
So, you know, although.
17:45
When's your birthday?
17:47
August 16th.
17:47
Okay.
17:48
I'm 36.
17:49
Yeah.
17:51
So, you know, that age where you're like, uh-oh, 40.
17:55
And also like the body that you cultivate now is the body you're gonna have for the rest of your life.
18:01
Right?
18:01
So, I refuse to be aged, elderly, you know, trapped in my own body.
18:14
And then being 6'3".
18:19
So, you know, with gravity being what it is, you know, I just don't want to be a feeble old man.
18:26
Right.
18:26
You know, even though I'm well far away from that.
18:31
There's no better time than now.
18:33
Yeah.
18:33
Yeah.
18:34
And so when you do return, the anxiety that you described...
18:38
It was not anything that I was anxious about.
18:43
Okay.
18:43
I was actually shocked that things were so easygoing.
18:49
Oh, amazing.
18:50
Yeah, yeah.
18:51
Everything was great.
18:52
You know, I had a cookout, you know, because so many people needed to see me.
18:56
They had not seen me in years, right?
19:00
Everything was great.
19:01
I was shocked.
19:02
Isn't it crazy how in our minds?
19:03
I was ready, like even on the flight.
19:06
I did, you know, while I was abroad, a cousin and I had fallen out.
19:14
Okay.
19:16
He'd been experiencing some mental health challenges and then became increasingly erratic.
19:22
Okay.
19:23
Right?
19:24
And this is a cousin that was like a big brother to me growing up.
19:27
So I felt very betrayed at some of the things that he said before.
19:32
And so it was very on site for him.
19:35
And I told him, as I was landing into JFK, you know when your phone- Can work.
19:41
Uh-huh.
19:42
I was like, where you at?
19:45
It's on site.
19:47
Like, you had all of that to say.
19:50
And now I'm here.
19:51
Now I'm here.
19:53
You know?
19:54
And even though people can argue that, oh, that's a very primitive approach to addressing a conflict, and you're better than this and that.
20:06
But black man to black man, I'm now here.
20:12
Say it to my face.
20:14
It was cute for you to say that when I was- Millions of miles away, yep.
20:19
You know?
20:20
Now I come to y'all, what's up?
20:22
And what was his approach?
20:24
He deflected.
20:25
Okay.
20:26
He didn't want the smoke.
20:28
And, you know, this was a cousin that was one of the people who taught me how to fight.
20:33
Okay.
20:34
Yeah.
20:35
You know, this was someone who protected me and advocated for me when I was that young nerd.
20:41
You know?
20:41
And then you become the villain.
20:43
What he said or how he treated you to his mental health?
20:47
Yes.
20:48
Okay.
20:48
Yes.
20:48
So are you able to let it go because it's mental health?
20:51
I've resolved that.
20:54
You know, and yeah, I've resolved that.
20:58
In terms of mental health and the black community and being a man.
21:02
Oh yeah.
21:04
That's a lot in and of itself.
21:05
Oh yes.
21:07
Was it always
21:09
like within your family unit to be able to open to addressing these issues and labeling them as such, labeling them to be mental health?
21:18
I like to believe so.
21:21
Part of the reason why I felt comfortable taking up space was because there was no overt or distinct pressure to swallow my feelings within my family.
21:40
You know, so even with the tension that I had with my mother, I was allowed to be sad, you know?
21:47
I was allowed to have feelings, even if it was, oh my God, what do I do?
21:53
How do I manage my son?
21:54
Right.
21:55
You know, there were some patriarchal scripts that just didn't make it to me, you know?
22:02
So by the time I was old enough to be out there in the world,
22:06
You know, and this is like a family-wide trait.
22:09
So like he had a similar upbringing to me.
22:12
And although I can't say that I know everything that happened with regards to how my aunt raised him and my uncle, her husband, you know, we had a similar enough upbringing that I can say that there weren't, because I also know how my aunt was with me.
22:32
And my family is very, this is what you get.
22:34
So, you know, if for better or worse, we are consistent people.
22:43
You know, so I don't, I can't say I know everything.
22:47
Sure.
22:48
But what I can say is that I do have enough awareness from proximity to say that, you know, it may not have been from within his family.
22:58
Right.
22:59
Our family.
23:00
And that homecoming that is so much better than you expected it to be.
23:05
Did you consider staying?
23:07
No.
23:07
Okay.
23:10
The cookout wasn't that good.
23:13
No, it wasn't even about the cookout.
23:15
It was just, you know, not just the...
23:20
I'm not single.
23:22
Okay.
23:22
Yeah.
23:23
So your partner is in South Africa.
23:25
Yes.
23:26
You go and visit, but you have something to come back to.
23:28
Yeah.
23:29
Aside from that, aside from your relationship, if that relationship didn't exist...
23:34
It would have been me going somewhere else.
23:36
Okay.
23:37
There was no part of you that wanted to return to America?
23:40
No.
23:41
Why?
23:43
My...
23:43
I just... All the same things?
23:46
No, not necessarily.
23:47
It's just...
23:49
I felt like I was done, you know, like I felt like the story arc of living in America has been completed.
23:55
Okay.
23:56
So there's no revisiting that part.
23:58
There's no, oh, let me move back to America.
24:00
No.
24:01
Okay.
24:02
Yeah.
24:03
This is family visit.
24:04
I need you to see my face.
24:06
I'm seeing your face, but this is not home anymore.
24:09
Yes.
24:09
Okay.
24:09
Correct.
24:10
Okay.
24:11
And South Africa is home.
24:13
In my heart, yes.
24:14
Okay.
24:14
Yeah.
24:15
So, you know, there's always the formal immigration processes and visa things and whatever.
24:22
But I just mean in your state of being and feeling.
24:24
In my state of being, I will be buried here.
24:27
Really?
24:27
Yes.
24:29
That's such a strong feeling.
24:30
Yes.
24:31
That is, yes.
24:32
Why?
24:33
What is it?
24:33
80 years from now.
24:34
This is where I go and come and find you?
24:36
Yes.
24:37
Okay.
24:38
80 years from now.
24:39
Cause I'm 36, so you know, I'm not trying to be here forever.
24:45
But you know, I, yeah.
24:48
What is it about South Africa Cape Town that gives you that resounding feeling?
24:54
You know it within yourself.
24:56
Okay.
24:57
You know, yeah, it's a very intangible thing to know like this is where you are going to be buried.
25:06
What's beautiful is that I immediately think of the time when you said you arrived and you had that emotional overwhelming feeling.
25:12
Yeah, so that is the full circle.
25:13
I'm gonna get emotional.
25:17
Yeah, yeah.
25:18
And to essentially become an ancestor of this land.
25:22
Yeah.
25:23
Whether people like it or not.
25:27
You know?
25:27
Yeah, yeah.
25:32
And it's crazy because is it fair to say that at that time when you had that emotional feeling, you weren't certain that that's what it was?
25:41
It felt like everything had just collapsed into one point.
25:45
I did not have a verbal or...
25:52
cognitive capacity to process exactly what that was then okay yeah can you talk to me a little bit about finding love because you said that you would never have expected it even when you you know when you said the doctor needs to go to the doctor that was one of the things that you were concerned about
26:08
I didn't want to be a Luther Vandross.
26:10
Right.
26:11
But you taught me what that is.
26:13
Yeah.
26:14
And so I just wonder what was that journey?
26:16
I found love during lockdown.
26:18
Really?
26:19
Yeah.
26:19
COVID was giving you all of everything, babe.
26:22
All the blessings, right?
26:23
Yeah, all the blessings.
26:26
I found love during lockdown.
26:27
Okay.
26:27
Yeah.
26:29
And then how has that impacted your life?
26:33
Well, it's one thing to be a spiritual leader, a teacher, a nurturer and a giver, and take care of people and be there for people, and it be at the expense of self, and it be your destiny and your work and your life's work, right?
26:53
It's another thing to receive love,
26:57
receive intimacy, and be loved in a way.
27:02
Someone is loving you as a man and not as a figure, not as an office, not as the head of a transnational, multi-continental spiritual house.
27:18
You get to meet me at a human level, and when you are dealing with the spirit world,
27:26
in your everyday life, you start to forget because so much of you is on the other side.
27:35
So these anchors that remind you of your humanity, that engage your humanity,
27:46
there's parts of me as a man that can only be experienced by the person that I'm in love with.
27:51
Okay.
27:52
And that is where I'm at.
27:55
I actually have someone with whom I'm in love with and I can be that person with.
28:01
Right.
28:02
Was it ever a challenge for your partner to understand what you have beautifully described in the sense of a huge part of you being connected with the intangible?
28:16
I think so.
28:18
I'm with an Aquarius.
28:22
I do think so.
28:24
How were you able to bridge that?
28:27
Well, I talk about it.
28:28
Okay.
28:28
Yeah, I'm very big on communication and I've had plenty of time to think about these things and develop my positions about these things.
28:40
So when I talk about them,
28:43
I don't have to waste words because I've turned it over in my mind.
28:49
And that also helps being able to communicate more clearly.
28:53
Yeah.
28:54
How is dating in Cape Town?
28:57
Uh, just like dating elsewhere for the most part.
29:01
Okay.
29:01
Because different people describe different locations.
29:04
Yes.
29:05
They experience different Cape towns.
29:06
Okay.
29:07
Yeah.
29:08
So, um, what are the different Cape towns?
29:11
There are a few, I mean, every city has multiple layers of, of functioning and, you know, different subcultures and so on.
29:19
So, you know, I would say that, um, I guess because South Africa is kind of
29:28
more visible than its actual reach in terms of actual South Africans traveling.
29:36
Okay.
29:37
Um, you know, for obvious reasons, um, there is a sense of, and I can encounter it all the time of, um,
29:48
South Africa feeling as if it's singular in its experience.
29:51
Okay.
29:53
And that is artificial disconnection from the experiences of the rest of the black Atlantic.
29:59
Right.
30:01
You know, but I get it.
30:02
Right.
30:03
And so I have to navigate a place of, I have all this experience and all these countries.
30:09
And I also come from a place that's foreign and I've experienced these things in my foreign country and,
30:17
And then I come here and I have to find a way to express that while also not being patronizing or condescending.
30:27
Or...
30:29
even elitist you know so it forces self-reflection but with regards to dating people are people and people are going to people right and people are going to be messy and you know dating is messy wherever you are so you know that's yeah it is what it is yeah
30:48
But a lot of the Capetonians that I know, they think that, oh my God, Cape Town is so messy.
30:51
And I'm like, if you only knew.
30:54
And within the expat community, there seems to be a lot of Americans making their way.
31:02
Yes, that is a new development, I would say.
31:04
Okay.
31:05
How do we feel about that development?
31:09
I have a lot of thoughts.
31:10
Okay.
31:13
Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts.
31:14
How much time do we have?
31:16
So I would prefer or I would hope for people to be more informed about their impact.
31:25
You know, we tend to be more focused on ourselves and our experience and what we need
31:33
and less so about the places where we go and what that means for the people that are there.
31:38
Right.
31:41
And so for me personally, me being here has never just been about enjoying myself and being safe and happy, right?
31:51
Because immediately outside of the zone of my privilege, situational privilege, right?
32:00
There is deep suffering everywhere.
32:03
I mean, there's suffering everywhere all the time, relentlessly, right?
32:07
And I'm a person and I'm one person, so I can't do everything and I can't fix everything, but I have a responsibility to create an impact that is positive.
32:18
Okay.
32:19
Right?
32:19
So I don't just get to be here and know that there are millions of people suffering and I ignore that.
32:30
During lockdown, I purchased 10,000 menstrual pads out of pocket and distributed them because I saw Karens hoarding menstrual supplies.
32:40
And I'm a man.
32:42
So for me, it's like if the Karens are hoarding menstrual pads, and I don't know how many periods they have left.
32:53
Yeah.
32:55
Like, you know, like...
32:57
And you just know that they're not buying them to also help and distribute, right?
33:02
Sure.
33:03
You know, they were hoarding toilet paper as well.
33:07
That was a global thing for sure.
33:09
Yeah, I'm like, people really, you know.
33:12
Yeah.
33:13
So I was like, what can I do with my little bit of money?
33:17
You know?
33:19
And I took them to the townships.
33:22
You know, some of the Uber drivers were terrified, but they were like, look, like if you're going there, hey, you know, you're big and strong, and also you must know somebody there, and you know, but yeah, I became popular with the Uber drivers because I was doing, I was driving food, you know, we were donating food to the street homeless, you know, PPE, I bought more masks than the pads,
33:51
And I specifically bought pads instead of the tampons because, one, accessibility, you know, and...
34:02
just to make sure that I was filling a need where people didn't have to choose.
34:11
People were like, well, why not the tampons?
34:14
And I'm like, well, from what I know- Some people don't like them.
34:18
Some people don't like them, but everybody can use them.
34:21
Yep.
34:24
I'm a son of a black mom.
34:26
I was sent to the store.
34:28
Right.
34:28
I love that.
34:29
I love that.
34:30
You know, so it's a rite of passage for black boys, you know, to have to go fetch, you know, pads for mom.
34:40
Right.
34:40
You know, and so I knew, okay, you know, everybody can use these.
34:45
Yes.
34:45
You know, so preference is one thing, but if I can, you know, get bulk,
34:53
accessibility.
34:54
Yeah.
34:55
I mean, yeah.
34:56
And so I took them to places like, uh, to Langa, to Kyalicha, to Mitchell's Plain, to Heidefeld, to Manenberg, to Lavender Hill, to all of these places that, um,
35:09
Anyone listening from South Africa would be horrified to hear that I was there.
35:13
Did you know people?
35:16
You said the taxi driver's like, you must know people.
35:17
Did you know?
35:18
Did you have connections to all of those places?
35:20
So in some of these places, yes.
35:21
In other places, I would just call a shelter and be like, are you open?
35:24
Okay.
35:24
Okay.
35:25
and I would go.
35:26
What do you think is some of the misconceptions?
35:28
Because it is rare for someone, American, you know, foreign, whatever, to make that concerted effort to go to a township.
35:37
And having had that experience, are you able to share what you think some of the misconceptions are?
35:44
I feel like the main misconception is that, you know, oh, you're just driving in the Uber and, you know, you're going to die.
35:52
Like, you know, like, you know,
35:54
I mean, I grew up in New York City in the 90s.
35:56
So, you know, there's not much that is happening in these townships that I have not seen.
36:04
I'm not afraid of bullets.
36:05
You know, ooh, they shoot in.
36:07
You know, like, as a New Yorker, we run to the shooting.
36:10
Like, we run towards it.
36:12
Like, you know?
36:15
Yeah, I just...
36:18
I don't feel unsafe in these places.
36:21
I
36:23
I'm certainly never been made to feel unsafe by anyone in these spaces.
36:29
People are surprised.
36:30
And that disarms them more than any.
36:32
Even the gangsters are, like, surprised.
36:35
You know, if they see me, if they encounter me.
36:39
Right.
36:40
You know, and yeah.
36:43
So I think that's the main thing.
36:45
It's like, obviously you have to keep your wits about you and use your street smarts and stuff.
36:52
Presuming you have them.
36:53
Because not everybody does.
36:55
Very true.
36:55
But I grew up in New York.
36:56
So, you know, I mean, there's standard procedures, you know.
37:03
And I very...
37:04
very deliberately wanted to be the one.
37:06
I didn't wanna, well, I've purchased and then let me give it to someone else to distribute.
37:11
Right.
37:12
You know?
37:13
Why?
37:14
Because I needed to also position a specific impact.
37:22
Right?
37:24
I'm looking you in the eye.
37:26
I am not a distant benefactor.
37:30
I'm not going to hand these off to the Red Cross and hope that they actually take it to where it's supposed to go.
37:37
I'm not going to make someone else responsible for the work that I'm meant to do.
37:41
Okay.
37:41
So I'm going to do it.
37:43
Yeah.
37:45
I just couldn't drive.
37:47
Nope.
37:48
I didn't have a car.
37:49
So, you know.
37:53
Uber drop-offs.
37:54
Yeah.
37:55
And that was in response to what people need to understand when they move, right?
38:02
In terms of their impact.
38:02
If you are going to...
38:03
I'm sorry to cut you off.
38:04
If you're going to be a digital nomad or if you're just going to emigrate and you have resources, you have a responsibility to create a positive impact.
38:16
Right.
38:17
Don't just go and suck up these people's resources and don't pour back into the people.
38:26
And I think that applies for everywhere.
38:28
In general, everywhere.
38:30
But if you're coming from the global north and you are moving to somewhere in the global south, and these are artificial designations because there are plenty of countries that are above the equator that are global south.
38:47
I just hate the term third world country.
38:51
But none of these words are sufficient anyway.
38:52
But anyway, if you are going to a place where you have passport privilege and you have economic privilege and you have resources, you have a responsibility to do good for the people.
39:12
Because your presence...
39:14
Especially now that people are catching on, right?
39:18
Your presence is something that people are anticipating and they are anticipating your money.
39:25
And then that creates ripples.
39:28
So you have to offset, at the bare minimum, you have to offset your own presence.
39:38
damage.
39:40
Yeah.
39:40
Yeah.
39:41
Because it is damaging in certain ways.
39:44
I think I'd love to know about life here that surprised you, because it feels like you're visiting a lot.
39:54
It feels like you're quite comfortable and just spiritually you knew that you were- It was a natural progression.
40:00
But I feel like everything in life, something surprises us, no?
40:05
What surprised me is that
40:07
I was able to actually have it.
40:12
Okay.
40:13
Yeah.
40:14
It's one thing to be told, everything's gonna be okay, and you're gonna have all the things, and just follow the rules.
40:23
But in my individual case, things have actually happened and unfolded
40:31
Truly and according to the way that I was informed it would.
40:35
Right.
40:36
So watching it happen in real time has been the surprise like, oh, OK, like a continuous.
40:47
Things are great.
40:48
You know, you are OK, you're going to be OK, you know, you've not had to return back to the United States.
40:56
Right.
40:58
You know, because I have colleagues, people who are in the expat groups who have returned to the U.S. Maybe they tried to start a business abroad and didn't work out.
41:10
Or a relative got sick and they had to return to care for them or, you know, so on and so on, right?
41:18
So not everybody's blacks it.
41:26
Is as they imagined.
41:27
Yeah.
41:28
Yeah.
41:29
What is the expat community like here?
41:33
Is it easy to make friends?
41:34
Is it easy to find your community?
41:36
Is everybody warm and open?
41:38
Like, one of the things that I love...
41:40
I have only engaged with...
41:45
whether you define them as expats or economic immigrants, or you know, cause there's a class coded thing around the term expat.
41:59
I don't know any non-black ones.
42:01
Oh, really?
42:02
Yeah.
42:04
Yeah, this entire time, I just haven't encountered any of the unseasoned ones.
42:09
Okay.
42:10
So, yeah.
42:15
Is that just how it is?
42:17
Or is that a conscious decision?
42:20
No, I just...
42:22
It just doesn't happen that way.
42:23
It just doesn't happen that way for me.
42:24
Okay.
42:26
Yeah, even when I lived in London, I just, whiteness is not a thing in my life for the most part.
42:31
I have friends who happen to be white.
42:33
Right.
42:34
You know, they happen to be white.
42:36
Right.
42:39
I don't position myself towards proximity to whiteness.
42:43
Okay.
42:44
And it's not like an intent.
42:45
I have to make sure.
42:47
It just, my life just does not.
42:49
Flow that way?
42:49
Yeah.
42:50
Okay.
42:51
So, it's like, under what circumstances would I meet new white people?
42:57
Even though, you know, I'm often in these spaces.
42:59
Right.
43:01
Yeah.
43:03
You know, I just like after this interview, I'm gonna go and do my kickboxing training in the CBD and then I'm gonna do a 10 kilometer walk all the way to Camps Bay.
43:21
So, you know, passing through all that white wealth, you know, on the way to the sea, well,
43:28
You know, walking along the seashore.
43:32
You know, but, yeah, I haven't mixed with them.
43:38
I will be taking unseasoned with me from this conversation for a long time.
43:45
In New York, when I lived in New York, one of the things that I loved was there seems to be an energy that celebrates you wanting to do well, whatever doing well means for you in a way that I didn't find in London.
43:57
Right.
43:58
And so I'm wondering from a Cape Tonian perspective, for example, if I had an idea in New York that I shared with someone, they'd be like, oh, I need to link you with my brethren.
44:07
because he can XYZ, right?
44:09
There was a very much, once there was mutual respect, there was like, we can make the connections.
44:15
And I just wondered in Cape Town, do you find that amongst the foreigner, let's call them the foreigner community.
44:22
Foreign.
44:24
Is there that same sort of connectivity?
44:28
I will say that the other black Americans and even some Caribbeans
44:35
who are here, we form like a very close knit.
44:43
Okay.
44:43
Yeah, like it's growing, you know, it's becoming more of a community as, you know, we're doing things and having activities and so on.
44:57
I was appointed,
44:59
an admin of a WhatsApp group last year.
45:02
It's like, hey, you have been promoted.
45:05
So I'm like, what?
45:10
These people are like,
45:12
Many of them are retirees who had very illustrious careers before their retirement, so that's a little intimidating.
45:21
You know, for Thanksgiving, I was in the company of the former US ambassador to Liberia, and she is a force of a woman.
45:33
And you can just feel like the, just a powerful regal woman and, you know,
45:39
especially with regards to being a black American and she's from Louisiana and also with, you know, representing the US with regards to Liberia and Liberia's history, you know, we don't have time for that today, but you know, let's, a very complicated history.
45:58
Yeah.
45:59
Right.
46:01
Yeah.
46:02
And just to be in her presence, you know, was,
46:08
it was very eye-opening for me to be in the space of figures like that.
46:14
And people who had been in the military for an extremely long time, and their experiences, and doctors who have retired, just to be in the company of people who have all arrived here for their different reasons, and they have come here as complete people.
46:37
You know, and I'm the youngest one in the room.
46:41
Yeah.
46:43
And still the admin, you know, so it's like, but I do have a long history of being the youngest one in the room of elders.
46:54
And for me, it's always been, well, you better catch up.
46:59
You know, like, you can't slip.
47:05
You can't afford to slip, you know, when you're the young one in the room full of elders.
47:10
You know, you have to show your competence while also balancing whatever humility that you have.
47:23
have to cultivate while also standing on your own square.
47:29
Because true elders don't want you to shrink.
47:33
When true elders see you, they see your potential and they want that continuity.
47:38
They want you to grow into something that continues a legacy.
47:44
of greatness for yourself, for your family, for your culture, et cetera, right?
47:50
So I've been very blessed to, for the most part, have elders who have seen the light in me and have wanted that light to grow because they know that me taking up space opens up room for other people to take up space because there is enough space.
48:09
You know, me taking up space has never been about pushing people to the margins.
48:15
You know, I expect people to take up space.
48:18
I expect people to operate within their own personal sovereignty and agency.
48:25
I don't minimize or infantilize people.
48:29
I refuse that.
48:30
You know, so that is how I was raised into leadership.
48:36
You know, you are not an infant.
48:39
You have a responsibility for yourself.
48:41
You are responsible for others.
48:44
You have a responsibility to yourself, to your family, to your nation, you know, my ethnicity, because, you know, we don't have our own country yet.
48:54
But, you know, yeah, you know, those layers of responsibility all have to be met.
49:04
And in terms of how you're received in South Africa, do people immediately know that you're not South African?
49:10
So, when they do, it's usually because of, like, let's say I'm not speaking.
49:18
If I'm not speaking...
49:21
and they know what African Americans look like, and they can identify me as along those lines, then yes, they know I'm American, right?
49:29
Okay.
49:30
Um, but I'm also, uh, phenotypically identified as South African, like, but particularly an ethnicity of multi-generationally mixed people.
49:41
Right.
49:41
So, um, you know, that has its own politics, right?
49:46
Because, um,
49:49
from abroad, you know, being multi-generationally mixed does not disidentify you as black.
49:57
But the politics of South Africa, you know, have their own unique circumstances and also positions of erasure and, you know,
50:09
disidentifying people as black as a form of social control and also so that you can erase their origins and then make it easier to take right so leaving a group of people who have been here continuously you know their african ancestors continuously for over 40 000 years and then you say that
50:33
they don't belong and they're not of this land and you explain their features away as belonging to, you know, their admixture, right?
50:45
But it's incoherent.
50:48
The average African-American is at least a quarter European.
50:51
Right.
50:52
So we are unilaterally identified as black, you know?
50:56
And then you have people like me who have a Dugla grandfather,
51:01
So, you know, but I am black, you know, and proud.
51:07
You know, so it's incoherent that like a group of people who anywhere else in the world would be identified with blackness are kept in suspense and in ambiguity, right?
51:23
And then have had to internalize that ambiguity in order to survive as a people.
51:29
So I think that that's something that's very unfair, that people like to do with that.
51:33
How has that influenced your experience of South Africa?
51:38
Well, with regards to Cape Colored people, they are a Creolized people of the Black Atlantic.
51:46
And during the transatlantic slave trade, people who were snatched from Mozambique, who were snatched from the Western Cape, were also sold into the Caribbean.
51:59
And also many ended up in the United States
52:04
And I have San ancestry from Angola and from here that has passed through that corridor as well.
52:11
So there is an ancestral element to why I'm here as a point of return.
52:19
Even though, you know, most of my African ancestry is from Western Central Africa.
52:24
You know, so there's, you know, there's...
52:27
that circle.
52:31
But yeah, with regards to me being identified as belonging or not, I'm embedded enough that people see me as belonging here, even if I'm foreign.
52:41
Okay.
52:42
Yeah.
52:42
Like,
52:44
They see me everywhere.
52:45
You know, I live here, live here.
52:47
Like I don't live here in the way of a visitor.
52:51
You know, they will see me in Kyalicha at Rans.
52:55
They will see me in deep in the trenches of Delft.
52:58
Like, you know, like I live here, live here.
53:00
And it's very important for me to live here, live here.
53:04
Not, oh, you know, I just, uh.
53:09
You know, like, yeah, like whether I lived in Seapoint, whether I lived in Camps Bay, et cetera, you know, that was not the locus of my experience.
53:21
You know, that's where I laid my head, you know?
53:25
Is there anything that you would have wanted to touch on, talk about that we haven't covered?
53:30
Ooh, um...
53:36
We had a lot to say today.
53:42
I feel like we covered all of the major bases.
53:45
Yeah.
53:47
Cool.
53:47
Yeah.
53:48
My last question for you.
53:49
Okay.
53:50
If your life was a postcard, what would the picture look like?
53:55
Lots of beaches for the most part.
53:57
Because I really don't.
54:00
I can't live anywhere where there's no ocean.
54:02
Okay.
54:02
Yeah, that's like a big thing for me.
54:05
London and Paris were probably the main exceptions, you know, but I was still close to water.
54:12
Where were you in London that you were close to water?
54:14
Zone two.
54:14
And it wasn't the Thames.
54:16
I mean, it's still water.
54:18
It's water.
54:19
The Thames?
54:20
That dusty piece of water?
54:22
It's not the best.
54:24
That is very kind.
54:25
That old river.
54:26
Yeah.
54:28
And I have a story.
54:29
I poured libation into the Thames.
54:33
So my second book, Spiritual Diplomacy, Hoodoo, Jurisprudence, and Natural Law, I speak about how when you engage with different lands, you pay respects to the land, right?
54:47
So, yeah, I'm in England and a lot of people just think that, oh, these European spaces, they...
54:56
But...
54:58
Europe is still part of Mother Earth, right?
55:00
So the land still has memory and the land is still alive and the rivers are still alive.
55:07
So I went and I poured libation, you know, got me a bottle of Captain Morgan, poured libation into the river.
55:16
And I just felt within myself like, oh, you people still do this?
55:19
Since when?
55:21
Like that sense of nature responding, but in surprise.
55:26
Yeah, I can't, you know, people are like, why do you live in Cape Town and not Joburg?
55:35
And Joburg's the black city, as if there are no enclaves of whiteness and wealth and privilege and
55:43
in Joburg, right?
55:46
You know?
55:49
And then they kind of like pathologize my choice of remaining in Cape Town as, you know, but hey, there's a few hundred years of reasons why people are doing this, right?
56:04
But the sea is right there.
56:06
The beautiful sea.
56:07
Yeah.
56:08
Yeah.
56:09
Yeah.
56:10
What is New York City's beaches looking like?
56:14
Were there anything else other than that?
56:15
In terms of your criteria for a space that gives you all you need, what are you looking for?
56:23
Before you phoned Cape Tone.
56:25
Beaches, what else?
56:26
People.
56:27
Okay.
56:28
Diverse.
56:29
Okay.
56:30
Types of people, cultures, you know, even though Antwerp was like an exception.
56:37
Antwerp, I mean, Antwerp was like a side trip.
56:41
And then when I was in Brussels, I...
56:49
People have been defacing the statues of Leopold II, who is the Belgian king that colonized Congo and murdered millions of Congolese.
57:02
And there have been many acts of activism against the statues that commemorate his existence.
57:11
And I'll leave it at that.
57:12
I feel you.
57:13
Yeah.
57:14
Cool.
57:14
Yeah.
57:16
I hope he is frying in hell like a pork chop.
57:21
But, yeah, like, why do I need to live near water?
57:25
I mean, spiritually, energetically, emotionally, you know, like, I'm from New York, which, you know, it is an island.
57:34
Like, you know, like, Manhattan is an island.
57:36
Brooklyn and Queens are on Long Island.
57:38
Yeah.
57:39
it's an island city except for the Bronx, right?
57:43
But we don't relate to it as an island.
57:46
It's so funny, I was at school once in New York and somebody said to me, oh, you're from Jamaica, but you've lived in England and know you're here, you really love the islands.
57:56
And I was like, what?
57:57
And it was only- Yeah, you don't think about it.
58:01
Literally.
58:01
And then when I stopped, I was like, oh, he has a point, but you're completely correct.
58:06
I would never think of being in Manhattan.
58:08
I mean, yeah, I chose islands.
58:10
Yeah, right?
58:12
Yeah.
58:14
Cause when we think islands, we think tropical, right?
58:17
But you know, the water is there, you know?
58:22
So to be in Joburg and just, it's just landlocked.
58:28
You know, I... Computer says no.
58:31
Yeah, computer says no, no.
58:33
And you know, like there's a lot that I do love about Joburg.
58:38
But to live there, not for me.
58:42
Cool.
58:42
Yeah, and it's not a value assessment, it's an alignment.
58:49
Alignment, or lack thereof.
58:51
Yeah, yeah.
58:52
Well, thank you very much for sharing with me.
58:54
Thank you.
58:55
You've taught me a lot.
58:56
Thank you for hosting me, oh yes.
58:58
Yeah, and thank you for holding space for me, yeah.