 Representing Kenya today which means that different countries but one Africa what country are you representing today? One Africa one African people throughout the world so these Berlin conference fragments I don't call them countries anymore I call them cages so when you try to go from Ghana to Togo they'll ask you if you have a pass from a white man that will allow you to go to a new cage so me I don't deal with these cages because my ancestors even they enslaved long before any of these cages existed so I represent all black people throughout the world regardless of location. Wow this is gonna be an interesting episode my name is Maya and what is your name? I'm also known as Okunini Abadele Kambon so I've given you my traditional title as Bamu Chidom Hene and then also my birth name Abadele Kambon. I feel like you're akin like in Ghanaian culture I do it you've dressed I think somebody see you we think that you're akin are you akin? Yes Chidom Hene so Bamu Chidom Hene had Equipian Mampon. Where were you born? I was where or when? Where exactly. Okay so I was born in Brooklyn New York on 1979 June 16 1979 but I didn't live there long we moved when I was about one year old to North Carolina and my parents plan was one if you're interested in African liberation you can't do much but talk about it if you're living in New York because you're dependent for your water for your food for your transportation on the exact same ones we are trying to get free from so they decided to move to North Carolina to build their own log cabin in the woods to grow their own food to you know have their own water supply and everything else so that's how we grew up in a very rural setting maybe about 30 to 40 minutes outside of Raleigh North Carolina which is a capital their plan was to go from there to the Caribbean because North Carolina is where my mother's side of the family was enslaved and then the Caribbean is where my father's side of the family was enslaved specifically St. Kate's and Barbados and then their eventual plan was to come to Africa so for me to be here I'm actually fulfilling the rest of their initial plan so you move to Africa is Ghana your first destination I've actually been to about 12 or 13 countries in Africa but Ghana was the very first place that I came to in Africa I'm besides Ghana Burkina Faso, Mali, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Gambia, Degambia, Senegal, La Côte d'Ivoire, Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt, South Africa I feel like I'm missing something but that should give you okay but you know the way you've dressed I've seen you like the whole of today this is wearing the entire day I have to go and look for my own for this interview why do you dress like this because I'm African right and when we think about things just in terms of the economic warfare that's being waged against African people is that we're given various created tastes and desires and what I mean by that is that the exact same ones who enslave and colonize us tell us that our clothes are no good so once we basically internalize that idea now who you have to go to to get the clothes that are good the same ones who've been enslaving and colonizing you so now they take the money from you financing them just from a taste just from a desire and then they use that to build the prisons the bullets that shoot us down in the streets the bombs that they bomb Africa with and all of it comes not all of it but a good portion of it comes from all the Africans you see walking day by day they've given billions and billions and what's effectively aid to the exact same enslavers and colonizers so for me you know primarily economic but you know in other aspects too by understanding this as actually economic warfare so it's not oh this looks cute is that no I'm supporting my own African people and when I do that now instead of financing my enemies to the tune of billions and billions that that same money can go to other African people Africa for Africans that's right you believe in that exactly yes do you think all black people are from Africa all black people are Africans and all Africans are black people I use I matter of fact when I write it I use the equal sign I say African equals black and I write Africa with a K just so people are not confused because you have all of these fraudsters who are trying to hijack the term pan Africanism now you look at those who invented the word pan Africanism coined the word in the 1900 resolution from that conference that was held in England they actually mentioned specifically countries like Haiti like Liberia Ethiopia and any others that emerged they mentioned so for them they're already talking about not just those who happen to be on the continent but all black people so they use the word African black and Negro interchangeably so for me when you're down with the real pan Africanism out the fraud pan Africanism you're talking about black people regardless of location unfortunately pan Africanism the term has been hijacked by these fraudsters who mean location whether or not you're black and recently we've seen that with the AU when they allowed Morocco in 2016 who applied to join the AU that they were admitted while Haiti who was mentioned by those who invented the word pan Africanism they applied to join and they were rejected on the grounds that they are not located on the African continent so for me that's anti-Africanist anti-black and it's against everything that pan Africanism is about and basically you have these people who are trying to get rid of pan Africanism altogether and come with that idea what they're called all Africanism so it means excluding black people who aren't located on the continent and then incorporating the Arab enslavers and when you look at a place like Morocco they use the exact same word for slave and black person it's Abid for them there's absolutely no difference they didn't mean black they mean slave if they mean slave they mean black but then this is who was allowed into the AU and the only deliberation was how well they're treating other Arabs in Western Sahara not a single discussion about the enslavement of black people there well let me know you see yourself as an African right now you live in Ghana do you have a Ghanaian passport or American passport I actually have a Ghanaian passport and let me show you if you're interested so a couple of years ago 2016 34 of us we had our citizenship restored and I use that in the term that on my opinion Bahama use so he said I'm not giving you anything I'm restoring what's rightfully yours so we hold on to that and this is actually it right here we got our passport when you're talking to me I heard you say I'm a man pain What is your name? My name is Chi. What is your name? My Chi is not coming. I speak Fanti. What is your name? My name is Nunes. What is your name? My name is Chi. Yoruba. Wolof. Kiswahili. Kikongo. My name is Nkran. Where are you from? Where are you from? Where do you come from? Can you tell us where you came from? I am from Yoruba, from Yoruba, from Tanzania to Kenya. Why? I am from Yoruba. I live in Yoruba. In Kusá. I came from Yoruba. How are you? What's your name? Zorisana What's your name? Zorisana Okay What's your name? Ask him if he has been to Tanzania before What's your name? Hapana Yes But Do you travel to Kenya? Oh, he says that he has already traveled to Kenya But Ask him how did he manage to learn Swahili? How did you learn Swahili? How did you learn Swahili? What's your name? I'm from Atlanta I'm from the University of Atlanta Atlanta? Atlanta I'm an American What's your name? I'm from Swahili I speak Wolof Wolof I'm deaf Do you speak English? No, no, no That's the only thing I don't know Do you speak Amarik? Amarik? I can order food in Amarik because the main context I've learned in Amarik is in Ethiopian restaurants So I can say things like What do you eat? What do you eat? What do you eat? Like these types of things I'm really impressed Konjo Yeah And this one I forgot I'm a second dollar I'm a second dollar Is that your Mexican? All of those ones But I don't count any of those Okay So if there are languages that I can just do small in then I could count maybe about 50 of those but I don't count those as languages I speak fluently Would you say that Africans would try and embrace their own language? Especially if you go to so many African countries like East Africa some of them have started using Swahili in classroom but when you come to Ghana English is in classroom Is there anything you want to say about that? You know when I was in Kenya I was so impressed because I was like these people are serious because when you look at the sound boards things are in Ki Swahili actually so this is the show this is you know everything So I said wow these people are actually serious about being African I had people who were in Kenya was like it's not so great but you know if I compared you know at least that language policy with what we have in Ghana you know Ghana is light years behind as far as that goes defend themselves and this is my son Kweku as you see he likes to steal the spotlight he'll just hop up in here Kweku, Chiak What's your name? Kweku Kweku Kweku Kweku Kweku Kweku Kweku Kweku Kweku Kweku Kweku Kweku Kweku Kumi Kumi Sawapongese Tonguera What's your name? Bakon what's the name of your language? I don't know what's your name? I don't know I don't know it's my first ever I don't know I don't know This is the song This is the song What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? What is it? Wow Before I remember what happened I wanted you to tell us like There are a lot of black brothers out there or black brothers and sisters out there who are looking forward to move to the borderline Is there any message that you have for them since you're saying Africans for Africans any message you have for your fellow Africans out there? Yeah, so we actually have started an initiative called repatriate to Ghana comm So with this we're actually assisting Africans with everything from just advice to actually on the ground Helping them go to the Lambs Commission, you know go for Citizenship and all the things of that nature So because we started that initiative of African studies There was an elder dr. Maulana who really spearheaded it and it was through the office My office at african studies that the first 34 were able to get their citizenship and then also these This next batch that's about to get it all of their forms came to me initially It's since going on to dr. Maulana and like I said, he's been absolutely You know indispensable for this process and really you know spearheaded it But these are some of the things that we're doing to actually assist Africans It's not enough to just beat people over the head and say oh you should repatriate But it's like well, how do I do it? You know what job will I have how will I take care of myself how I take care of my family and what we're doing is We're answering those questions for them so that we can actually get to the practicalities of doing these things Also, I put myself through school for the PhD by teaching African languages online So Chi Yoruba and Walloff Teaching those through my site a BB to me comm so a BB to me that translates to black power And that's what we're all about black power a BB to me and basically the idea is that You know so many people when they are interested in African liberation They only talk about it in English or in French or in Portuguese It's like why would we have to talk about black power in the languages of our colonial enemies that we need to actually Speak about black power in African languages So that was actually a coinage so that we can have that also a BB for honey, which is actually the name of my cup where our Group a BB for hundia.com that translates to black liberation or African liberation So all of our languages black and African are the same thing So if you look at P or be beneath the BB is the black part So you say or be beneath a BB mine? That's a land of black people if you look at Yoruba. I do la war is those who are black in color That's what we call Africans and they illa do law as Africa if you look at Bamanakan Which is the Baman language out of Mali They say farafim and farafina for black person and Africa is the exact same thing and wall of nitkuniul It means black person of real nitkuniul land of black people if you look at Kikongo you have Ndumbe and Bandon be as plural if you want to refer to this land that we call Africa's and see a bandon be now you would think Okay, maybe this is just a modern thing But if you look at chemist this is the ancient what they now call ancient Egypt the land actually it means The exact same thing as a BB mine means land of black people and we call ourselves commit to you Which means black people so this is our identity that regardless of location We are all black people and this is why I even advocate that we need to start using those terms again Because when you say African you can have anyone who hops in there and says look I was born here So I'm African so he's got Chinese as the day he was born. Oh look. I'm African because I was born here So once we understand that commit to you is what we call ourselves commit T singular then we can understand that we're all Commit to you regardless of location. So those Africans in IT those are commit to you and That's who is chemist if we understand what it actually means in IT that too is chemist if we understand It means land of black people. Well, what land is blacker than that is a lot blacker than Morocco So these are things that we really have to get into the system Thank you so much for talking to us. I really appreciate all of to shake your hand and man This is a lot of money. So maybe I might take it and say This is why we do the capoeira You can get your capoeira Wow, this is amazing Okay, I hope you guys enjoyed this amazing episode. It's your boy Mr. Garner baby right there Garner I'll be in Togo on Saturday. So whip with a boy and let's take Togo to the world. I am Maya