0:00:15.173,0:00:17.232
Salam alaykum.

0:00:17.232,0:00:21.761
Before I start talking: We've been sitting for a long time, [br]so I just want to play a little game.

0:00:21.762,0:00:25.417
I need two volunteers from the crowd, [br]any two random volunteers...

0:00:25.417,0:00:29.335
...little game.

0:00:29.335,0:00:32.231
Another random volunteer?

0:00:32.231,0:00:35.115
Alright, come up.

0:00:39.561,0:00:41.591
Come on up here.

0:00:41.683,0:00:44.400
(Applause)

0:00:46.123,0:00:47.856
Stand right here.

0:00:47.871,0:00:51.088
Stand facing each other.

0:00:51.104,0:00:54.136
So, the game we are going to play[br]has only one rule.

0:00:54.136,0:00:56.027
There is a red line here

0:00:56.027,0:00:59.496
and the person who convinces [br]the other person to cross the red line, wins.

0:00:59.527,0:01:03.367
That's the only rule.[br]If you convince her to cross the line, you win.

0:01:03.367,0:01:05.273
If you convince her to cross the line, you win.

0:01:05.273,0:01:09.631
What would you tell her [br]to convince her to cross the line?

0:01:09.651,0:01:14.126
Girl 1: "Be strong. Use your strength."

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Girl 2: "There is an iPad over the line."

0:01:23.505,0:01:25.421
RA: So you try to bribe her to cross the line.

0:01:25.421,0:01:29.507
That's a good thing, that's a good thing.[br]Thank you.

0:01:29.507,0:01:31.819
Thank you, thank you.

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(Applause)

0:01:33.938,0:01:36.697
Now, the real answer to that question is, [br]you tell that person:

0:01:36.697,0:01:41.181
"If you cross the red line, I will cross [br]the red line and then we'll both win."

0:01:41.181,0:01:44.818
See, that's the difference between [br]real life and competitive sports.

0:01:44.818,0:01:48.060
In competitive sports, we believe [br]that there has to be only one winner,

0:01:48.060,0:01:51.864
but in real life we can all win together [br]and I'll try to explain this later.

0:01:51.864,0:01:54.303
(Applause)

0:01:54.303,0:01:56.984
The reason I decided to talk [br]about racism today is because

0:01:56.984,0:02:01.227
four months ago, I was chilling in the 'Nile Street' [br]with around 15 of my friends,

0:02:01.227,0:02:03.126
University of Khartoum Students,

0:02:03.126,0:02:07.051
people that society considers to be educated people [br]and the future of our country,

0:02:07.051,0:02:09.534
and they were talking about politics,

0:02:09.534,0:02:12.694
you know, UoK students love talking [br]about politics, religion and all of that,

0:02:12.694,0:02:16.892
so I said, you know, let's see what these [br]educated people have to say about racism,

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and so I decided to start[br]a conversation about racism.

0:02:19.933,0:02:22.733
They were are all saying beautiful things [br]until this one guy asked a question.

0:02:22.733,0:02:28.575
He said, "What if a man from Southern Sudan, [br]who happens to be a Muslim, well educated,

0:02:28.590,0:02:30.377
and has a decent job,

0:02:30.377,0:02:34.114
what if this man proposes to your sister?[br]Will you allow it?"

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14 out of the 15 guys[br]that were sitting said no,

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and they insisted they said this [br]has nothing has to do with racism.

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So that brings me to a question. [br]Do people understand what racism is?

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A statistic that we did in 12 schools[br]throughout Khartoum,

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12 high schools –

0:02:50.101,0:02:53.208
we have been working with high school kids[br]about racism, doing workshops –

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80 percent of our high school students

0:02:57.019,0:02:58.968
do not know anything about racism.

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They don't know what racism is.

0:03:00.534,0:03:03.417
But once you explain it to them, once you say,[br]"Racism is this, that and the third,"

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and you give them examples of racism,

0:03:05.987,0:03:08.768
they all click, they say, "I know this is happening [br]but I just didn't know that it has a name."

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so it shows you that this is [br]a big problem that we live in everyday,

0:03:12.219,0:03:18.759
but we don't have a name for it, that means [br]we cannot point to it as a problem and solve it.

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So the question is,

0:03:20.337,0:03:23.853
Is there racism in Sudan?[br]Is there racism in Sudan?

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You guys wanna answer it?[br]Audience: Yeaah!

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RA: OK. But the average person...

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Before before we continue, [br]let's define racism, alright?

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Racism is views, practices and actions,

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reflecting a belief, a belief that members [br]of the same race share certain attributes

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that make this race collectively, as a whole,

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less desirable, more desirable, inferior, superior.

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It's like when you say,[br]"Black people are thieves,"

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that's it, you are closing the door, [br]saying black people are thieves.

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"White people are this," [br]this is racism, when you generalize.

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Alright.

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So to answer the question,[br]"Is there racism in Sudan?",

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what we'll do instead of saying yes or no – [br]you guys already said yes,

0:04:02.750,0:04:06.489
but then my presentation will be over [br]so we still have to do this.

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So to answer the question, [br]we'll look at racism

0:04:10.102,0:04:12.464
and what it does to an individual and [br]what it does to society.

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And then we'll look at the Sudanese [br]individual and the Sudanese Society

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and see if there are traces of racism.

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So first we'll talk about 'stereotypical racism'.

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Stereotyping is when you generalize something,

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just like I said, "Black people are thieves."

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You see one black thief, you say,[br]"All black people are thieves."

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This is stereotypical racism.

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So what stereotypical racism does [br]is that it reinforces the stereotypes,

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for example, we continue with the thief thingy,

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if – let's say we have a tribe called Tribe X, [br]and Tribe X is known to be a tribe of thieves,

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so what we'll see on the streets, [br]if a lady is walking by, she sees a kid from Tribe X.

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He hasn't stolen anything yet, still a kid,

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she says, "Oh, that's the Tribe X kid, [br]so I'm gonna cling on to my bag,

0:04:51.554,0:04:54.316
because I know what he is trying to do, [br]he is trying to steal my purse."

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So this Tribe X kid goes and [br]sits on the public transportation

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and the man sitting next to him is like,

0:04:59.414,0:05:01.067
"Oh, Tribe X kid is sitting next to me.

0:05:01.067,0:05:03.761
I need to check my pocket every two minutes [br]to make sure my wallet is still there."

0:05:03.761,0:05:06.582
So this kid is being treated like a thief [br]before he steals anything,

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and if anything is missing, [br]society accuses him of being a thief.

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So society actually pushes this guy [br]towards being a thief,

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and if we look at the Sudanese society, [br]we have a lot of stereotypes.

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One of the stereotypes that we have [br]is about the Shaigiya people.

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Is anybody here Shaigiya?

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Raise your hand if you are Shaigiya.

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So OK, we love Shaigiya people, [br]it's OK to be proud of yourself

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as long as you don't think you are better [br]than anybody else, that's not racism.

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(Laughter) (Applause)

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One stereotype that we have about [br]Shaigiya People is that they are cheap.

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Some people say Shaigiya people [br]don't like giving anything,

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so let's look at a kid [br]who's born to a Shaigiya family.

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This guy is born and society treats him[br]like he is cheap,

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for example if I want to make a phone call [br]and I don't have credit,

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this guy sitting in the middle is Shaigiya,

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so I go like, "Do you have credit?",[br]he says, "No,"

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then I'm like, "Oh, he's Shaigiya."

0:05:54.505,0:05:56.263
"Do you have credit?"[br](Laughter)

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So this guy – so I'm giving him [br]an excuse for being cheap.

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I'm like, "You are Shaigiya, it's OK, [br]you don't have to be generous."

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If he does something nice,[br]I'm like, "Oh my God!

0:06:03.784,0:06:05.744
This Shaigiya person[br]has actually invited me for a drink.

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I don't know how it happened."

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(Applause)

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So what we are doing is, we are not giving [br]him a chance to be a generous person

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because we are giving him an excuse[br]for being cheap

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and we are not actually encouraging him [br]to do do anything,

0:06:21.066,0:06:25.402
so this enforces the stereotype, [br]it makes him more and more cheap.

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And this can be seen in our society.

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One of the things that racism causes[br]is what we call self-hatred.

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When a person is constantly subjected to racism,

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they start to question themselves.

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They start to hate themselves.

0:06:37.687,0:06:40.066
It's like, "Oh, I'm black, maybe there is [br]something wrong with my color,

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because people are making fun of me,

0:06:41.627,0:06:43.556
my hair is nappy, there is [br]something wrong with nappy hair."

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And then you become embarrassed of who you are.

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And we can see this in the Sudanese society.

0:06:47.585,0:06:50.785
Some of our sisters, they're bleaching [br]their skin with toxic chemicals

0:06:50.785,0:06:53.503
because society tells them that [br]if you become white,

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if you behave like white people,[br]then you become a better person.

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(Applause)

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And so you see a Sudanese person [br]goes to Egypt, he stays in Egypt for two months,

0:07:05.669,0:07:07.424
and he comes back as an Egyptian.

0:07:07.424,0:07:09.629
He stays in Saudi Arabia, [br]he comes back as a Saudi Arabian,

0:07:09.629,0:07:12.797
because we don't have a reason [br]to be proud of ourselves,

0:07:12.797,0:07:15.828
because we have racism within ourselves.

0:07:15.828,0:07:20.452
So if you consider self-hatred[br]– (Applause) –

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and you look at the Sudanese society, [br]you see a lot of self-hatred.

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One other thing that racism does is

0:07:26.004,0:07:29.662
it creates more racism, [br]what we call reverse racism,

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and reverse racism is when [br]somebody is being racist towards you

0:07:32.855,0:07:36.850
and you don't want to hate yourself, [br]so you say, "Hey, I'll just hate you

0:07:36.850,0:07:39.849
and I'll become racist towards you," [br]and this will create a head-on collision

0:07:39.849,0:07:42.224
and that can be seen[br]in the African-American struggle.

0:07:42.224,0:07:44.237
It lead to the rise of militant groups,

0:07:44.237,0:07:47.353
we have the Black Panthers, [br]the Black Panthers is a militant group.

0:07:47.353,0:07:51.048
When the average African-American [br]was straightening his hair and lightening his skin,

0:07:51.048,0:07:53.842
the Black Panthers, they were growing afros [br]and taking the AK47

0:07:53.842,0:07:55.941
and then that created more violence.

0:07:55.941,0:07:58.378
The white people called them niggers,[br]they called them wiggers.

0:07:58.378,0:08:00.500
You call me chocolate,[br]I'll call you vanilla.

0:08:00.500,0:08:05.386
And then it just became[br]a conflict within the society.

0:08:05.386,0:08:07.320
So racism leads to more racism,

0:08:07.320,0:08:09.255
and we can see this in our society here.

0:08:09.255,0:08:11.267
Some tribes, they never get along here in Sudan,

0:08:11.267,0:08:14.548
because one tribe might have started this [br]and became racist against this tribe,

0:08:14.548,0:08:16.100
and now they are racist against each other

0:08:16.100,0:08:17.772
and this leads to nowhere.

0:08:17.772,0:08:20.588
So what's being done[br]to fight racism in Sudan?

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Well, I'm actually here[br]to talk about a group of people.

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I'm very honored[br]to be a member of this group.

0:08:25.478,0:08:28.481
We call it the Unity House,[br]and what we do is –

0:08:28.481,0:08:31.340
shout out to the Unity House –

0:08:31.340,0:08:36.121
Big round of applause![br](Applause)

0:08:36.168,0:08:43.626
The Unity House is a group of artists, [br]musicians, writers and... yeah.

0:08:43.626,0:08:45.992
What we do is we fight racism through art.

0:08:45.992,0:08:49.125
We perform at open mic nights,

0:08:49.125,0:08:53.723
we perform at poetry events and we try [br]to fight racism through poetry and writing.

0:08:53.723,0:08:58.904
We also conduct workshops, [br]we have conducted twelve workshops

0:08:58.904,0:09:03.305
throughout the capital in high schools... [br](Applause)

0:09:03.305,0:09:06.829
with high school children, where 80 percent [br]of them don't know what's racism is.

0:09:06.829,0:09:11.495
We have conducted five workshops [br]in Aldamazeen and in Babanosa

0:09:11.495,0:09:14.396
and we have conducted a workshop[br]for poets in Aldamazeen.

0:09:14.396,0:09:17.427
So how this works? [br]Why do we use arts to fight racism?

0:09:17.427,0:09:22.070
The thing with arts is that arts is a soft tool, [br]art is easy to accept,

0:09:22.070,0:09:24.771
like you saw the play[br]by Shawareea earlier,

0:09:24.771,0:09:26.928
like they're trying to send you[br]a very deep message

0:09:26.928,0:09:29.160
and you just see it in a form of entertainment, [br]it doesn't have to be rare

0:09:29.160,0:09:31.426
so that's what we do,

0:09:31.426,0:09:33.825
in performances we create scenarios,

0:09:33.825,0:09:36.665
in workshops what we do[br]is we usually work with artists,

0:09:36.665,0:09:38.547
so we get them to feel comfortable first

0:09:38.547,0:09:41.995
and then we start talking about racism, [br]and then we create scenarios.

0:09:42.011,0:09:44.541
One of the workshops we were working on,

0:09:44.541,0:09:48.141
poets from Aldamazeen, this one girl [br]at the beginning of the workshop,

0:09:48.141,0:09:52.504
she introduced herself, she said, [br]"My name is so so, and I'm a war poet."

0:09:52.504,0:09:53.999
I said, "What is a war poet?"

0:09:53.999,0:09:59.264
She said, "I write poetry to provoke people [br]and encourage people to fight the rebels."

0:09:59.264,0:10:00.864
That was her idea.

0:10:00.864,0:10:05.143
After five days, after the workshops finished,[br]she performed the piece.

0:10:05.143,0:10:09.300
And in that piece she was talking about [br]building a house with her lover,

0:10:09.300,0:10:10.914
her and her lover building a house.

0:10:10.914,0:10:13.165
So I called her and said, [br]"What is this that you're talking about?

0:10:13.165,0:10:15.400
Like, what does this[br]have to do with racism?"

0:10:15.400,0:10:21.024
She said, "My lover is the rebels that I'm fighting [br]and the house is Sudan that I'm trying to build."

0:10:21.024,0:10:26.664
(Applause)

0:10:26.664,0:10:28.164
So the whole idea changed

0:10:28.164,0:10:31.465
because we just got together and we started [br]talking and we started creating scenarios.

0:10:31.465,0:10:33.023
And the power of scenario is

0:10:33.023,0:10:36.228
that sometimes you don't know something is wrong [br]until we put you in that position.

0:10:36.228,0:10:40.224
I was doing a workshop in [br]Abubaker Alamin High School in Omdurman for girls

0:10:40.224,0:10:45.884
and this one girl, she said, "A man proposed to my sister[br]and we rejected him because of his tribe,

0:10:45.884,0:10:47.228
and my sister loved this man very much

0:10:47.228,0:10:49.747
and then she got depressed and [br]she dropped out of school for two years now."

0:10:49.747,0:10:51.706
And I said, "Is this right?"

0:10:51.706,0:10:54.087
She couldn't tell me it was wrong,[br]so she said,

0:10:54.087,0:10:58.440
"You know, we are tribe, we have our traditions, [br]we can't give our daughter to anybody."

0:10:58.440,0:11:00.185
So I tried to switch things a little bit.

0:11:00.185,0:11:02.165
I said, "What if the man that you love [br]comes to propose to you,

0:11:02.165,0:11:04.280
and your family rejects him[br]because of his tribe?"

0:11:04.280,0:11:07.348
So she was quiet,[br]so then I tried to flip it again.

0:11:07.348,0:11:09.584
I said, "Is your mom and dad[br]from the same tribe?"

0:11:09.584,0:11:12.182
She said, "Yes." I said, "Let's assume [br]they were not from the same tribe."

0:11:12.182,0:11:14.644
I said, "Is your dad a good person?",[br]she said, "Yes."

0:11:14.644,0:11:17.061
I said, "Does your dad deserve[br]to be rejected?"

0:11:17.061,0:11:18.231
She said, "No."

0:11:18.231,0:11:20.144
So I said, "What if your dad came [br]and proposed to your mom,

0:11:20.144,0:11:22.920
and then he was rejected because of his tribe, [br]would that be fair?"

0:11:22.920,0:11:24.166
She said,[br]"No, that's not fair."

0:11:24.166,0:11:26.305
So what we do is we mix things a little bit

0:11:26.305,0:11:28.667
and when we put them[br]in positions that they're not in,

0:11:28.667,0:11:31.159
and that way we can change the society.

0:11:31.159,0:11:35.679
One other thing that art does[br]is art gives you a lot of options,

0:11:35.679,0:11:39.558
like I can talk about racism,[br]or I can talk about the things that racism does.

0:11:39.558,0:11:42.113
And one of my favorite topics[br]is to talk about self hate.

0:11:42.113,0:11:45.691
If I feel like a group of people hate themselves [br]because people have been racist towards them,

0:11:45.691,0:11:47.713
I try to make them feel better.

0:11:47.713,0:11:51.102
So to end this, I'm going to share [br]a piece of poetry that I wrote

0:11:51.102,0:11:53.906
for all Africans, because I believe [br]Africans are very beautiful people

0:11:53.906,0:11:55.625
and they deserve to be happy[br]for who they are.

0:11:55.625,0:11:59.934
(Applause)

0:11:59.934,0:12:01.693
And this piece is called "Africa".

0:12:01.693,0:12:04.206
So Africa, please wake up, [br]your history was stolen.

0:12:04.206,0:12:07.350
Some of it survived [br]but still it was taught wrong.

0:12:07.350,0:12:11.631
We wasn't taught about the beautiful [br]African beings, the African kings

0:12:11.631,0:12:14.831
that traveled all across the globe[br]doing African things.

0:12:14.831,0:12:17.934
African rhythm,[br]African words over African beats.

0:12:17.934,0:12:21.355
African [artists] [still sleeping] [br]through them African streets.

0:12:21.355,0:12:25.454
African eyes, open up and realize [br]that sit back and watch as the melanine dries.

0:12:25.454,0:12:28.304
It hurts me to see all the Africans cry.

0:12:28.304,0:12:29.703
Africans, why?

0:12:29.703,0:12:33.356
Why Africans die, over hunger [br]while the colonizer's eating our pie.

0:12:33.356,0:12:36.441
Africa is not poor,[br]that's an African lie

0:12:36.441,0:12:38.625
black gold still glitters[br]under African sky.

0:12:38.625,0:12:40.711
Best believe these facts[br]from this African guy.

0:12:40.711,0:12:41.961
(Applause)

0:12:41.961,0:12:43.604
Thank you.

0:12:43.619,0:12:45.594
(Applause)