 Hello, welcome to Think Tech. I'm Crystal here on FOCTOP, still in Hong Kong. And I am very excited to share this conversation with you today to talk about anti-blackness from an Asian perspective. You know, we talk about racism and anti-blackness in the States. It's a very contentious topic and it's a very black and white binary, as you all know, and we're trying to break through those boundaries. But how about resituating our lens to Asia, to see Asia as a center of perspective, to uncack the way colonialism has affected certain countries, and how those residues of post-colonialism have impacted the way we live and our lens against people of color in Asia. So let's talk about that with my wonderful guest, the founder of the Africa Center in Hong Kong, innocent Lutanga. Welcome, innocent. Thank you. So happy to be here. I'm excited for this conversation. Thank you. And I love talking to you about this stuff because we can go all over the place and, you know, we're going to try to unpack, you know, micro and macro perspectives on race and racism. Because sometimes it's those small stories that really impact. I remember actually a few years ago we did this really, the radio interview with you. And you were talking about one of your favorite foods. Do you remember that interview? Yeah, yeah, I do. Talk about your childhood? Yeah, yeah, okra, you know, okra soup, which is a very, very delicious dish that I grew up doing, you know, also going to the bushes and gathering up by myself. So it's been a, it was a hobby growing up. So, you know, I cannot forget one of my favorite foods because I still enjoy it up to today. Yeah, see, it's so specific and, you know, memories are so tied to culture and associations with everything. So that's a great way to start. So give us a little more background about where, what type of a place you grew up in and how and why you came to Hong Kong first. Yeah, I mean, I was born and raised in Zimbabwe, you know, before coming to Hong Kong about 10 years ago. And while I was in Zimbabwe, I think, you know, my childhood is defined by two places. One was rural countryside. And then the other part was coal mining town. So in the rural side of things, that's where, you know, it's kind of going around, you know, finding all the different fruits in the forest. You know, finding this so called bush opera, I think the Egyptians call it Molokai as well, you know, and, you know, and to heading goats and cattle. You know, that was fun. You know, that was a very, very interesting coming of age, you know, experience where being a man. I remember it meant that you had to go through some experience, you know, having wasped by two, you know, having to go through some of these very, very painful experiences. You know, from becoming. You call that a coming of age of being stung by a wasp, you know, the stereotype of maybe some coming of ages from certain countries would be something more like some challenge of throwing you into the jungle and having you survive for a few days on your own type of thing. But that was like your normal life growing up. Yeah, it was a thing for us coming of age was not an event. It's a gradual, you know, you don't, you know, which actually makes most sense. I'm just saying one day, you know, two days, then you kind of age, but it was more like gradual, you know, where you can have to go through this, you know, and there is second chances. You know, if you fail, you know, you're going to get more, you know, stung by more wasp, you know, so it was straight. So that was kind of like my experience, at least within the rural areas. And then the mining town, I always tell people like I know almost everything about coal. Now, because that's where I grew up, you know, in this part of me, you know, that's how I grew up. I want something about coal, because I don't know anything about it. You know, nowadays, of course, people talk about poor isn't an unclean form of energy. You know, but when I was growing up, I wasn't thinking it in that way. For me, it was just a source of income for all the miners that were working in there. You know, of course, when I look back, I realized sometimes even the way the houses were arranged, going back to colonialism and apartheid, the houses were arranged. The Europeans were usually their house in the eastern sides, and then the Africans on the western side, so the dust, the coal dust was going to the western side. So a lot of people actually minors were dying because of TB and other different issues around coal dust. And, you know, I mean, I'm only understanding those things when I go older like, damn, this was just not the best way the town was planned. The town planning was planned in a very, very weird way. All these toxic gases, you know, go to the African population, while the European populations are very nice, you know, outside of things as well. So that was kind of like, you know, so dust, coal dust was just the normal aspect of life growing up. That's such a good metaphor. You know, I'm thinking about the U.S. and the kind of the segregating, not on a legal term, but even today in the more subtle ways of redlining, you know, where houses for the disenfranchised are always in these certain kind of communities where they just lack resources, right? The water is dirtier. They have less trees, so it's hotter. And they're just all these trickling residues of these ongoing racial structures. And it's the same in Africa. Yeah, it is. It is. I mean, it's in a lot of these are still there. And yes, you know, there may not be so much European business, the Africans, but now it's a class issue now. You know, where the wealthy ones kind of sort of like continued, you know, of course, move to the other side just where the Europeans were. So these things are very much there. So it wasn't just polluting, you know, it wasn't bad for the health, you know, the water, you know, a lot of these things were also being impacted as well. That in some, but actually could do a very good study on the impact and the effects of this, you know, because a lot of people, the mind has died so young. And that was just normal for people like, oh, yeah, I don't even remind that this is the life you chose. But now I think of, but now it's definitely problematic that people have to die so young because, you know, they had to go through these. They don't have the best protection stuff like that. All right. And people don't challenge people don't question or the ones who want to question and challenge don't have the voice or the platform, right? So were you always around your own people? Like was it mostly people Africans? Were there white people or white Africans who were in your area? Did you have like what was your first experience of so-called racism growing up that affected you? It was multicultural and multi-racial in our community. You know, of course, the people around me were Africans, but not necessarily Africans from Zimbabwe. It was also African Zambia, Malawi and all of these was being in mining. That's a very good point because, you know, we had that talk at the Africa Center with my students. And, you know, sometimes their questions were, oh, so give me a little culture, an example of a cultural something. But we tend to think of Africa as this whole monolith kind of like Asia. Like I have this issue with Asian American. There's so many things. So you see the class we had, which was wonderful experience for doing talking about culture and introducing them to African culture. And you were trying in your very short time to be able to explain that every country in Africa has their own very unique thing, which is something we don't learn, you know? Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's a big like, you know, for a lot of people, it's like, oh, Africa is a giant village with the same culture. You know, and, you know, sometimes even just a picture of showing the coastal aspect of Africa, just because it blows people's minds, especially here in Asia, where people are like, wow, so you guys have oceans, you've got, I'm like, yeah, I mean, like, yeah, yeah. But it actually changes people's minds just to saw a picture, which is fascinating how people's stereotypes sometimes can fall off after just being exposed to various things that I would usually take for granted. You know, just show them a picture of your house and then they are going to change a lot. Because these people are already imagining that you're running around with animals without clothes. So just showing that it already cannot have a positive impact in terms of how they perceive the continent and its people as well. Is that one of the efforts you have with the Africa Center when you talk about rebranding Africa? Tell us about that. Yeah, so basically that's one of the aspects we do. So rebranding Africa, rebranding blackness, because you've got people who have these perceptions which have kind of formed through all this negative history that it portrayed Africa in a negative way. You know, slavery, colonialism, apartheid, and now, you know, the charity discourse, you know, which is kind of portraying these Africans, these kids that flies on their nose who are so little that they can't even kick the fly out. You know, so the continuation, it didn't end with colonial, this charity discourse is also playing the same, onto the same narrative as well. These vulnerable Africans who are very smart and who are quite lazy in some way. So we challenge those perceptions and have people have accurate representations, not just positive. You know, one bit of complete and full, because we're not here to manipulate people like God. You know, we have problems, we also have good things, you know, as I get in society. So we figured out, you know, when it comes to blackness or Africa, it's not a letter of, oh, we are inferior. You know, it's about, you know, we have the fundamental value, we have all these things, just a perception issue. You know, so we're not saying let's industrialize Africa or anything like that. We're saying let's rebrand, because people have the negative ways of looking at Africa. But how do you bring the people into, you know, you can rebrand to your own small little community or contacts, but how do we really make the impact to change and disrupt this way of thinking about. So what we're doing is to, as much as we do directly with people, you know, more tactical, we talk to the schools, talk to students, this media conversations. That's one thing, but also on a strategic point, you know, we're going through like curriculum adjustments, for example, in talking, for example, the Education Bureau, you know, talking with the people who are in positions of making that larger in that they can incorporate, you know, content that's African, they can, you know, they can change some, both when I look at some of these books that were being used in Hong Kong, you know, I remember this one that was talking about the will of charity, you know, where there were these people in Africa who were living in a house that was leaking, and then they ate some organization with some girls somewhere had a charity thing to bring over to save the day. You know, I'm like, okay, this, Yeah, why save your resume? Yeah, so, so, so, so we had to kind of like, no, we have the conversation with the people, the school, the education, people like that, Facebook, I don't think it's good. So, and then we adjust. So that's more like what a strategic point of view. And also that every child in the future would have absolutely a more accurate, you know, reception, they can't actually get their own view. I think we need this also in the United States. I mean, you know, Hawaii, where I'm based is really a little bit. Well, I mean, it's all comparative and it's all a spectrum, right? I mean, racism does exist in Hawaii, you know, people think, oh, it's not itself. It's a beautiful paradise. But it does. So, the ideas of racism that are inbuilt into the structures and to your point is the education systems, where are we lacking in the ways to unlearn certain things? You know, I think that's a lot of work to do. And you recently had an opportunity to go to the US to do this leadership program. Can you tell us a little bit about that and what that impression was for you about the US being there and kind of comparing, I guess, the anti-blackness in Asia with that in the United States? Yeah. So, I joined a program called the IBOP, it's an international leadership program. This is the very premier exchange program by the State Department, which has been there since 1940. So, it's a fascinating experience, a fascinating opportunity that I was very proud and happy to be part of. So, as part of this, we kind of went to different states and cities, and learning about, you know, my topic was on racial and social justice, and learning about the efforts, you know, the problem itself first, and then the efforts that people are doing to address the issue. You know, I think the issue is very complex in the US. You know, I think, you know, of course, being from outside, initially, I kind of think of it like, okay, this is the US race problem. And once I'm in and then from state to state, city to city, county, county levels and all these different things, I see all these different ways how people are addressing this as well as how the actual problem manifests. It was manifesting in terms of housing, for example, I go to some other places, gentrification is a huge, huge, huge problem. And in a way, I remember, at some point in Harlem, you know, I was talking some of the organizations there that usually when they're selling some of these houses to white Americans, you know, there will be the idea that, oh, no, you can come here, stay in Harlem, you know, five years down the line, or three years down the line, all these black neighbors will be gone, you know, and then some of the European Americans end up living in Harlem because they figure out five years down the line, black people are still there. But of course, on the overall aspects that actually there's been less and less in African Americans in Harlem, as it was, so there's a lot more gentrification, you know, that we're seeing. And then how were you perceived, did you have any encounters of feeling othered by people in America, or fascinated, or, you know, by your difference. The perception, I think one thing that I enjoyed first is that I feel like, oh my goodness, finally I can just mix among with black people and now we are many. You know, I enjoy that because in Hong Kong, you know, usually you're kind of like the other almost every single second. And, you know, there is no point of solidarity with somebody else, you know, you get on the subway in Hong Kong, nobody sits next to you, or they stand up, you know, it's not sitting as one thing, but standing up, when you sit down, that's a problem, that's even worse, you know. And then you can kind of have this kind of, you know, it's, you know, it's this microaggression that you see a lot more in Hong Kong, that's a problem. So I'm not trying to feel more welcome because there's, you know, there's a community of different people of color that come together in some kind of commonality. And yet sometimes you can say you treat, would you say you have more, what is it, do you have more power or at least voice here because you're not swimming around with so many of your like-minded people and you can do more because of that, would you say? I think there's that partly, but I think the other thing that I don't have much power on is that if you're not many, one negative thing you do, one negative thing one of you does, you know, it's going to stick around in the people of the minds of the dominated group. And so there is no opportunity or privilege to be bad here. One white guy does something bad here in Hong Kong, nobody's going to be running away from white people, okay. But one white guy does something bad, you know, we are going to suffer for the next six months. You know, one white guy goes to a shop, shop leave, you know, each time I go to any shop, I'm going to be watched very, very closely. But the way being watched, you think it's a little bit different. So the US, that watch, that surveillance, that subtle kind of, or not so subtle type of racism comes embedded based on the foundation the country was built on, right? The legacy of slavery. But in Hong Kong, it's different. There is, I think, to some extent to give, you know, Asians the benefit of a doubt sometimes it's just pure curiosity, right? Where do you draw the line? I think the idea of being watched in this context is that it's not, this one is not curious, this one is absolute fear that this particular person might do this harmful thing. You know, but curiosity is there overall, you know, which, you know, but that's more like on the, you know, on the street on the day to day, people want to laugh, right? So you can have people who are cautious and people who are curious and sometimes happen at the same time. You know, this is something that you would, you know, you sort of also experience. But on the other hand, I think there is quickness to judge. That's what I'm trying to get to within the Asian context, especially Hong Kong and China. There is like quickness to judge based on one little thing, it can paint a whole negative image. So I think it's, you know, that one also manifests on a good way that based on this, you know, sometimes you just show one picture, it undo all the negative imagination that they had. So I feel like, I think people make judgments quickly here. You know, there's that whole respectability politics, you know, just because you have a suit on and you're educated at Harvard and you walk in the street, if you're a black man, you'll still be a target. You know, so the color of your skin is so deeply ingrained and associated with racism that I don't know, and on a global scale, that when we say we need to reeducate, we need to rebrand, how do we even move and break those boundaries? Yeah, I mean, that's the other thing. Here, if you wear in your suit, people are more likely to respect you. That's true. They're going to think like, oh yeah, he's making more money. You know, therefore, I got a, so there's a very classist. The class issue actually plays in more. It plays in, I think a little bit more, but there is an intersection of it. You know, there is an association that darker skin means no economically. So, so you want to necessarily give it the benefit of the doubt that, oh, even if you're darker, you might potentially be on the other side of the, of the thing. The initial assumption is that you're darker, you are lower class. And then when they... Chinese Asians too. Yeah, when they see something, they'll say, oh, okay, I'm out, I'm out, I'm out. Yeah, that's the impression of, again, class and hierarchy of like privilege of climbing up a social network. And then when you're kind of climbing up the social ladder, the idea of success always associated with wealth, which is kind of sad too. And we're, you know, part of rebranding I think comes from the cultural aspect. And I want to bring it back to our event at the Africa Center last week when I brought my students over to your, your center. And one of the most brilliant things I thought was by introducing the different cultures on the African continent through music. Because you had like, okay, so Northern, and even then it was quite generalized, but still you had chunks of the continent. Northern Africa has what kind of music? What are the moves different? How is it different from like the Southern Africans in the East and the West? I have a short clip of this one of a drumming session where he does this. Maybe we can take a quick look and then we come back to it. What's his name again? That's Ronout, that's Ronout, Bob Wood. So it's brilliant that he brought out all the different African instruments and he's playing and he's getting the students to come and enjoy and embrace. And again, this whole sense of circular gathering is a very important energy that I think a lot of times when we think of education, we think of these kind of very static seats with the teacher in front and the students, you know, and I feel like this really brings an energy together to embrace a certain experience. Yeah, I think one of the important things we try to do with these programs is to be able to learn both the tangible and the intangible aspect of the culture. There is always a tendency to stick on the material side of the culture, like, oh yeah, you guys have these beads, you guys, you know, wearing this kind of clothes, that's all beautiful. But I think with music, for example, we're teaching them the concept of like, you know, how in African culture, you know, you can be different, but together it doesn't preclude you from forming harmony, even with all the difference. You can encourage all those aspects of it. And then through music, people are learning all these beautiful aspects of the culture, you know, which, you know, are not always easy. You can't teach that by saying, oh yeah, you know, this is the clothe, which are all great things to do, you know. So if we try to kind of get the kids to realize that it's Africans, we're not just dancing beings, you know, but there is a thought process behind it. There's a philosophical aspect to it, because that's not something that people initially associate with Blackness, you know, they, you know, you know, yeah, they can think about, you know, Nietzsche and all the different guys, you know, and then, you know, when they think about, oh, you know, how did the Europeans think about what does it mean to be human? Oh, I think the FIM, but what about the Africans? You know, I am, you know, I am because you are, you know, all these aspects of understanding what does it mean to be human, how the culture, how the people actually, you know, relate and interact. So these are kind of like important things to try to bring up as well. Right, so talking about learning culture through music and different aspects and just exposing it, and I think it goes back to the resituating the lens, how do we change our perception of something if we don't know that there is a different angle to it, right? And I always think about that in terms of everything we apply to, and we're not going to be able to break boundaries unless we do recognize the trapping of the certain framing that we're based in, right? So, you know, if you're in the US and you've never traveled out to Africa, and you all you see are these media examples of what Africans look like then, or in Asia, you're going to get which that really, really surface unfortunately stereotypical aspects. So changing things is harder than absorbing what we have, right? Yeah, definitely. I think one of the things we try to do is make sure people have a full experience of things. If the five senses, right, you know, they have a thick experience of their experience, where you eat, you know, your turn, you know, because one of the reasons why people end up with stereotypes, because they just rely on so much of one sense. They actually did something, they saw something, but because it was not, the context was not full, you know, they formulated an understanding of that thing based on whatever context they come from. You know, so when you start giving all these people different avenues like your students came in the other time, you know, they are eating, there's the listening stuff. Yeah, we had wonderful food. Let's talk about that. I think we have a photo of our dinner. You had an example of different types of food, including African diaspora food. It wasn't just like African countries. Yeah, yeah. So we tried to make sure the food itself is a conversation, you know, that's just throw it in the food. It opens up these avenues of reimagining Africa first, you know, to realize that when you say Africa, we have to link to both African diaspora and then how those things have evolved, you know, they become all these stories, you know, there was death chicken family, you know, and then they are going. Yeah, they are not able to resist and empowerment, you know, yeah. Well, resistance and empowerment come with you having to allow yourself to push against something too. Right. We don't sit complacently, even if we're in a society full of diverse communities, we can be isolated in our comfortable privileged shell. I have friends who lived in Hong Kong for years and never go to the Tatan tank, which is the local diners because of the language issue. So but then there's no excuse, we need to, we need to cross pollinate. And I want to find, you know, leave our last couple of minutes here to talk a little bit about that concept of cross pollination. There is a publication to it because it feels like some people who are purists feel like we're doing something that's disrupting the system. But at the same time, cross pollinating. And I think you embody that because if you don't mind me going a little more personal now, is you and your, your wife, you have a beautiful daughter who is biracial now. And now I don't know if that changes the way you think about how are you going to move forward in educating her what are the languages and cultures and embracing Hong Kong as your home and how does it all come together. Yeah, I mean, I mean, definitely I think the idea of us, you know, proactively going across cultures, going across ethnic groups is very, very important. You know, we can just let things, you know, I like the idea of self disrupting as humans, you know, can just wait for an outside forces to be the one force change on us. You know, I think it comes to, you know, the parenting aspect, I think for me, what I've discovered is that children are much more confident when they are more familiar with their heritage. So in this particular case, I'm going to make sure she's got the most of the African side, she's got the most of the Japanese side as she's growing up. She's not going to be just half Japanese or half Zimbabwean, half African. She's going to be full Japanese, full African and full Hong Kongized. So, so, you know, that's the platform that I'm going to give to her. You know, it's up to her later on to decide how she want to go forward. But I think that's the bridge for good foundation for confidence overall. You have to have that talk, you know, like in the state, if you're like, you know, African American, especially if you have a son, you have to have that talk about how you present yourself. How do you behave in front of the police? How do you, you know, how do you be careful to be not susceptible to violence, which is sad that we have to do that? But how do you feel about that living in an Asian country? Do you think you need to educate somebody to say, hey, you got to be careful of this and that? And I think I'll probably want to be as paternalistic to say you should be doing it this way. But I think I'll be able to expose it to the problems so that she understands the issues. And then she will make a judgment how she's supposed to feel that about it and variance it. I think it's going to be my approach. Because that way, you know, I don't want my biases over her as well. Right. That's great. Innocent, you know, we're out of town, but this is just kind of like the entrance into thinking about and rebranding Blackness by talking about it, and thinking about how we can proactively disrupt those stereotypes. And I really appreciate all that you always have to offer. So we can always continue this conversation. Thank you for all the work you do at the Africa Center. Thank you. I enjoyed it.