1 00:00:15,173 --> 00:00:17,232 Salam alaykum. 2 00:00:17,232 --> 00:00:21,761 Before I start talking: We've been sitting for a long time, so I just want to play a little game. 3 00:00:21,762 --> 00:00:25,417 I need two volunteers from the crowd, any two random volunteers... 4 00:00:25,417 --> 00:00:29,335 ...little game. 5 00:00:29,335 --> 00:00:32,231 Another random volunteer? 6 00:00:32,231 --> 00:00:35,115 Alright, come up. 7 00:00:39,561 --> 00:00:41,591 Come on up here. 8 00:00:41,683 --> 00:00:44,400 (Applause) 9 00:00:46,123 --> 00:00:47,856 Stand right here. 10 00:00:47,871 --> 00:00:51,088 Stand facing each other. 11 00:00:51,104 --> 00:00:54,136 So, the game we are going to play has only one rule. 12 00:00:54,136 --> 00:00:56,027 There is a red line here 13 00:00:56,027 --> 00:00:59,496 and the person who convinces the other person to cross the red line, wins. 14 00:00:59,527 --> 00:01:03,367 That's the only rule. If you convince her to cross the line, you win. 15 00:01:03,367 --> 00:01:05,273 If you convince her to cross the line, you win. 16 00:01:05,273 --> 00:01:09,631 What would you tell her to convince her to cross the line? 17 00:01:09,651 --> 00:01:14,126 Girl 1: "Be strong. Use your strength." 18 00:01:20,917 --> 00:01:23,505 Girl 2: "There is an iPad over the line." 19 00:01:23,505 --> 00:01:25,421 RA: So you try to bribe her to cross the line. 20 00:01:25,421 --> 00:01:29,507 That's a good thing, that's a good thing. Thank you. 21 00:01:29,507 --> 00:01:31,819 Thank you, thank you. 22 00:01:31,819 --> 00:01:33,938 (Applause) 23 00:01:33,938 --> 00:01:36,697 Now, the real answer to that question is, you tell that person: 24 00:01:36,697 --> 00:01:41,181 "If you cross the red line, I will cross the red line and then we'll both win." 25 00:01:41,181 --> 00:01:44,818 See, that's the difference between real life and competitive sports. 26 00:01:44,818 --> 00:01:48,060 In competitive sports, we believe that there has to be only one winner, 27 00:01:48,060 --> 00:01:51,864 but in real life we can all win together and I'll try to explain this later. 28 00:01:51,864 --> 00:01:54,303 (Applause) 29 00:01:54,303 --> 00:01:56,984 The reason I decided to talk about racism today is because 30 00:01:56,984 --> 00:02:01,227 four months ago, I was chilling in the 'Nile Street' with around 15 of my friends, 31 00:02:01,227 --> 00:02:03,126 University of Khartoum Students, 32 00:02:03,126 --> 00:02:07,051 people that society considers to be educated people and the future of our country, 33 00:02:07,051 --> 00:02:09,534 and they were talking about politics, 34 00:02:09,534 --> 00:02:12,694 you know, UoK students love talking about politics, religion and all of that, 35 00:02:12,694 --> 00:02:16,892 so I said, you know, let's see what these educated people have to say about racism, 36 00:02:16,892 --> 00:02:19,933 and so I decided to start a conversation about racism. 37 00:02:19,933 --> 00:02:22,733 They were are all saying beautiful things until this one guy asked a question. 38 00:02:22,733 --> 00:02:28,575 He said, "What if a man from Southern Sudan, who happens to be a Muslim, well educated, 39 00:02:28,590 --> 00:02:30,377 and has a decent job, 40 00:02:30,377 --> 00:02:34,114 what if this man proposes to your sister? Will you allow it?" 41 00:02:34,114 --> 00:02:36,402 14 out of the 15 guys that were sitting said no, 42 00:02:36,402 --> 00:02:39,579 and they insisted they said this has nothing has to do with racism. 43 00:02:39,579 --> 00:02:43,152 So that brings me to a question. Do people understand what racism is? 44 00:02:43,152 --> 00:02:48,284 A statistic that we did in 12 schools throughout Khartoum, 45 00:02:48,284 --> 00:02:50,101 12 high schools – 46 00:02:50,101 --> 00:02:53,208 we have been working with high school kids about racism, doing workshops – 47 00:02:53,208 --> 00:02:57,019 80 percent of our high school students 48 00:02:57,019 --> 00:02:58,968 do not know anything about racism. 49 00:02:58,968 --> 00:03:00,534 They don't know what racism is. 50 00:03:00,534 --> 00:03:03,417 But once you explain it to them, once you say, "Racism is this, that and the third," 51 00:03:03,417 --> 00:03:05,987 and you give them examples of racism, 52 00:03:05,987 --> 00:03:08,768 they all click, they say, "I know this is happening but I just didn't know that it has a name." 53 00:03:08,768 --> 00:03:12,219 so it shows you that this is a big problem that we live in everyday, 54 00:03:12,219 --> 00:03:18,759 but we don't have a name for it, that means we cannot point to it as a problem and solve it. 55 00:03:18,759 --> 00:03:20,337 So the question is, 56 00:03:20,337 --> 00:03:23,853 Is there racism in Sudan? Is there racism in Sudan? 57 00:03:23,853 --> 00:03:26,336 You guys wanna answer it? Audience: Yeaah! 58 00:03:26,336 --> 00:03:27,981 RA: OK. But the average person... 59 00:03:27,981 --> 00:03:30,081 Before before we continue, let's define racism, alright? 60 00:03:30,081 --> 00:03:35,515 Racism is views, practices and actions, 61 00:03:35,515 --> 00:03:42,066 reflecting a belief, a belief that members of the same race share certain attributes 62 00:03:42,066 --> 00:03:44,618 that make this race collectively, as a whole, 63 00:03:44,618 --> 00:03:47,708 less desirable, more desirable, inferior, superior. 64 00:03:47,708 --> 00:03:50,188 It's like when you say, "Black people are thieves," 65 00:03:50,188 --> 00:03:54,033 that's it, you are closing the door, saying black people are thieves. 66 00:03:54,033 --> 00:03:56,737 "White people are this," this is racism, when you generalize. 67 00:03:56,737 --> 00:03:57,831 Alright. 68 00:03:57,831 --> 00:03:59,735 So to answer the question, "Is there racism in Sudan?", 69 00:03:59,735 --> 00:04:02,750 what we'll do instead of saying yes or no – you guys already said yes, 70 00:04:02,750 --> 00:04:06,489 but then my presentation will be over so we still have to do this. 71 00:04:06,489 --> 00:04:10,102 So to answer the question, we'll look at racism 72 00:04:10,102 --> 00:04:12,464 and what it does to an individual and what it does to society. 73 00:04:12,464 --> 00:04:15,250 And then we'll look at the Sudanese individual and the Sudanese Society 74 00:04:15,250 --> 00:04:17,055 and see if there are traces of racism. 75 00:04:17,055 --> 00:04:19,602 So first we'll talk about 'stereotypical racism'. 76 00:04:19,602 --> 00:04:23,103 Stereotyping is when you generalize something, 77 00:04:23,103 --> 00:04:25,182 just like I said, "Black people are thieves." 78 00:04:25,182 --> 00:04:27,179 You see one black thief, you say, "All black people are thieves." 79 00:04:27,179 --> 00:04:29,487 This is stereotypical racism. 80 00:04:29,487 --> 00:04:32,917 So what stereotypical racism does is that it reinforces the stereotypes, 81 00:04:32,917 --> 00:04:36,035 for example, we continue with the thief thingy, 82 00:04:36,035 --> 00:04:40,880 if – let's say we have a tribe called Tribe X, and Tribe X is known to be a tribe of thieves, 83 00:04:40,880 --> 00:04:46,629 so what we'll see on the streets, if a lady is walking by, she sees a kid from Tribe X. 84 00:04:46,629 --> 00:04:48,354 He hasn't stolen anything yet, still a kid, 85 00:04:48,354 --> 00:04:51,554 she says, "Oh, that's the Tribe X kid, so I'm gonna cling on to my bag, 86 00:04:51,554 --> 00:04:54,316 because I know what he is trying to do, he is trying to steal my purse." 87 00:04:54,316 --> 00:04:57,669 So this Tribe X kid goes and sits on the public transportation 88 00:04:57,669 --> 00:04:59,414 and the man sitting next to him is like, 89 00:04:59,414 --> 00:05:01,067 "Oh, Tribe X kid is sitting next to me. 90 00:05:01,067 --> 00:05:03,761 I need to check my pocket every two minutes to make sure my wallet is still there." 91 00:05:03,761 --> 00:05:06,582 So this kid is being treated like a thief before he steals anything, 92 00:05:06,582 --> 00:05:09,316 and if anything is missing, society accuses him of being a thief. 93 00:05:09,316 --> 00:05:12,055 So society actually pushes this guy towards being a thief, 94 00:05:12,055 --> 00:05:15,348 and if we look at the Sudanese society, we have a lot of stereotypes. 95 00:05:15,348 --> 00:05:17,930 One of the stereotypes that we have is about the Shaigiya people. 96 00:05:17,930 --> 00:05:19,601 Is anybody here Shaigiya? 97 00:05:19,601 --> 00:05:21,316 Raise your hand if you are Shaigiya. 98 00:05:21,316 --> 00:05:24,104 So OK, we love Shaigiya people, it's OK to be proud of yourself 99 00:05:24,104 --> 00:05:27,066 as long as you don't think you are better than anybody else, that's not racism. 100 00:05:27,097 --> 00:05:29,338 (Laughter) (Applause) 101 00:05:31,893 --> 00:05:36,075 One stereotype that we have about Shaigiya People is that they are cheap. 102 00:05:36,075 --> 00:05:38,224 Some people say Shaigiya people don't like giving anything, 103 00:05:38,224 --> 00:05:42,459 so let's look at a kid who's born to a Shaigiya family. 104 00:05:42,459 --> 00:05:45,340 This guy is born and society treats him like he is cheap, 105 00:05:45,340 --> 00:05:48,716 for example if I want to make a phone call and I don't have credit, 106 00:05:48,716 --> 00:05:50,586 this guy sitting in the middle is Shaigiya, 107 00:05:50,586 --> 00:05:52,745 so I go like, "Do you have credit?", he says, "No," 108 00:05:52,745 --> 00:05:54,505 then I'm like, "Oh, he's Shaigiya." 109 00:05:54,505 --> 00:05:56,263 "Do you have credit?" (Laughter) 110 00:05:56,263 --> 00:05:58,395 So this guy – so I'm giving him an excuse for being cheap. 111 00:05:58,395 --> 00:06:01,264 I'm like, "You are Shaigiya, it's OK, you don't have to be generous." 112 00:06:01,264 --> 00:06:03,784 If he does something nice, I'm like, "Oh my God! 113 00:06:03,784 --> 00:06:05,744 This Shaigiya person has actually invited me for a drink. 114 00:06:05,744 --> 00:06:07,381 I don't know how it happened." 115 00:06:07,381 --> 00:06:10,188 (Applause) 116 00:06:10,188 --> 00:06:14,172 So what we are doing is, we are not giving him a chance to be a generous person 117 00:06:14,172 --> 00:06:16,385 because we are giving him an excuse for being cheap 118 00:06:16,385 --> 00:06:21,066 and we are not actually encouraging him to do do anything, 119 00:06:21,066 --> 00:06:25,402 so this enforces the stereotype, it makes him more and more cheap. 120 00:06:25,402 --> 00:06:27,406 And this can be seen in our society. 121 00:06:27,406 --> 00:06:30,066 One of the things that racism causes is what we call self-hatred. 122 00:06:30,066 --> 00:06:34,602 When a person is constantly subjected to racism, 123 00:06:34,602 --> 00:06:36,346 they start to question themselves. 124 00:06:36,346 --> 00:06:37,687 They start to hate themselves. 125 00:06:37,687 --> 00:06:40,066 It's like, "Oh, I'm black, maybe there is something wrong with my color, 126 00:06:40,066 --> 00:06:41,627 because people are making fun of me, 127 00:06:41,627 --> 00:06:43,556 my hair is nappy, there is something wrong with nappy hair." 128 00:06:43,556 --> 00:06:45,637 And then you become embarrassed of who you are. 129 00:06:45,637 --> 00:06:47,585 And we can see this in the Sudanese society. 130 00:06:47,585 --> 00:06:50,785 Some of our sisters, they're bleaching their skin with toxic chemicals 131 00:06:50,785 --> 00:06:53,503 because society tells them that if you become white, 132 00:06:53,503 --> 00:06:57,354 if you behave like white people, then you become a better person. 133 00:06:57,354 --> 00:07:00,195 (Applause) 134 00:07:02,424 --> 00:07:05,669 And so you see a Sudanese person goes to Egypt, he stays in Egypt for two months, 135 00:07:05,669 --> 00:07:07,424 and he comes back as an Egyptian. 136 00:07:07,424 --> 00:07:09,629 He stays in Saudi Arabia, he comes back as a Saudi Arabian, 137 00:07:09,629 --> 00:07:12,797 because we don't have a reason to be proud of ourselves, 138 00:07:12,797 --> 00:07:15,828 because we have racism within ourselves. 139 00:07:15,828 --> 00:07:20,452 So if you consider self-hatred – (Applause) – 140 00:07:20,452 --> 00:07:24,096 and you look at the Sudanese society, you see a lot of self-hatred. 141 00:07:24,096 --> 00:07:26,004 One other thing that racism does is 142 00:07:26,004 --> 00:07:29,662 it creates more racism, what we call reverse racism, 143 00:07:29,681 --> 00:07:32,855 and reverse racism is when somebody is being racist towards you 144 00:07:32,855 --> 00:07:36,850 and you don't want to hate yourself, so you say, "Hey, I'll just hate you 145 00:07:36,850 --> 00:07:39,849 and I'll become racist towards you," and this will create a head-on collision 146 00:07:39,849 --> 00:07:42,224 and that can be seen in the African-American struggle. 147 00:07:42,224 --> 00:07:44,237 It lead to the rise of militant groups, 148 00:07:44,237 --> 00:07:47,353 we have the Black Panthers, the Black Panthers is a militant group. 149 00:07:47,353 --> 00:07:51,048 When the average African-American was straightening his hair and lightening his skin, 150 00:07:51,048 --> 00:07:53,842 the Black Panthers, they were growing afros and taking the AK47 151 00:07:53,842 --> 00:07:55,941 and then that created more violence. 152 00:07:55,941 --> 00:07:58,378 The white people called them niggers, they called them wiggers. 153 00:07:58,378 --> 00:08:00,500 You call me chocolate, I'll call you vanilla. 154 00:08:00,500 --> 00:08:05,386 And then it just became a conflict within the society. 155 00:08:05,386 --> 00:08:07,320 So racism leads to more racism, 156 00:08:07,320 --> 00:08:09,255 and we can see this in our society here. 157 00:08:09,255 --> 00:08:11,267 Some tribes, they never get along here in Sudan, 158 00:08:11,267 --> 00:08:14,548 because one tribe might have started this and became racist against this tribe, 159 00:08:14,548 --> 00:08:16,100 and now they are racist against each other 160 00:08:16,100 --> 00:08:17,772 and this leads to nowhere. 161 00:08:17,772 --> 00:08:20,588 So what's being done to fight racism in Sudan? 162 00:08:20,588 --> 00:08:23,203 Well, I'm actually here to talk about a group of people. 163 00:08:23,203 --> 00:08:25,478 I'm very honored to be a member of this group. 164 00:08:25,478 --> 00:08:28,481 We call it the Unity House, and what we do is – 165 00:08:28,481 --> 00:08:31,340 shout out to the Unity House – 166 00:08:31,340 --> 00:08:36,121 Big round of applause! (Applause) 167 00:08:36,168 --> 00:08:43,626 The Unity House is a group of artists, musicians, writers and... yeah. 168 00:08:43,626 --> 00:08:45,992 What we do is we fight racism through art. 169 00:08:45,992 --> 00:08:49,125 We perform at open mic nights, 170 00:08:49,125 --> 00:08:53,723 we perform at poetry events and we try to fight racism through poetry and writing. 171 00:08:53,723 --> 00:08:58,904 We also conduct workshops, we have conducted twelve workshops 172 00:08:58,904 --> 00:09:03,305 throughout the capital in high schools... (Applause) 173 00:09:03,305 --> 00:09:06,829 with high school children, where 80 percent of them don't know what's racism is. 174 00:09:06,829 --> 00:09:11,495 We have conducted five workshops in Aldamazeen and in Babanosa 175 00:09:11,495 --> 00:09:14,396 and we have conducted a workshop for poets in Aldamazeen. 176 00:09:14,396 --> 00:09:17,427 So how this works? Why do we use arts to fight racism? 177 00:09:17,427 --> 00:09:22,070 The thing with arts is that arts is a soft tool, art is easy to accept, 178 00:09:22,070 --> 00:09:24,771 like you saw the play by Shawareea earlier, 179 00:09:24,771 --> 00:09:26,928 like they're trying to send you a very deep message 180 00:09:26,928 --> 00:09:29,160 and you just see it in a form of entertainment, it doesn't have to be rare 181 00:09:29,160 --> 00:09:31,426 so that's what we do, 182 00:09:31,426 --> 00:09:33,825 in performances we create scenarios, 183 00:09:33,825 --> 00:09:36,665 in workshops what we do is we usually work with artists, 184 00:09:36,665 --> 00:09:38,547 so we get them to feel comfortable first 185 00:09:38,547 --> 00:09:41,995 and then we start talking about racism, and then we create scenarios. 186 00:09:42,011 --> 00:09:44,541 One of the workshops we were working on, 187 00:09:44,541 --> 00:09:48,141 poets from Aldamazeen, this one girl at the beginning of the workshop, 188 00:09:48,141 --> 00:09:52,504 she introduced herself, she said, "My name is so so, and I'm a war poet." 189 00:09:52,504 --> 00:09:53,999 I said, "What is a war poet?" 190 00:09:53,999 --> 00:09:59,264 She said, "I write poetry to provoke people and encourage people to fight the rebels." 191 00:09:59,264 --> 00:10:00,864 That was her idea. 192 00:10:00,864 --> 00:10:05,143 After five days, after the workshops finished, she performed the piece. 193 00:10:05,143 --> 00:10:09,300 And in that piece she was talking about building a house with her lover, 194 00:10:09,300 --> 00:10:10,914 her and her lover building a house. 195 00:10:10,914 --> 00:10:13,165 So I called her and said, "What is this that you're talking about? 196 00:10:13,165 --> 00:10:15,400 Like, what does this have to do with racism?" 197 00:10:15,400 --> 00:10:21,024 She said, "My lover is the rebels that I'm fighting and the house is Sudan that I'm trying to build." 198 00:10:21,024 --> 00:10:26,664 (Applause) 199 00:10:26,664 --> 00:10:28,164 So the whole idea changed 200 00:10:28,164 --> 00:10:31,465 because we just got together and we started talking and we started creating scenarios. 201 00:10:31,465 --> 00:10:33,023 And the power of scenario is 202 00:10:33,023 --> 00:10:36,228 that sometimes you don't know something is wrong until we put you in that position. 203 00:10:36,228 --> 00:10:40,224 I was doing a workshop in Abubaker Alamin High School in Omdurman for girls 204 00:10:40,224 --> 00:10:45,884 and this one girl, she said, "A man proposed to my sister and we rejected him because of his tribe, 205 00:10:45,884 --> 00:10:47,228 and my sister loved this man very much 206 00:10:47,228 --> 00:10:49,747 and then she got depressed and she dropped out of school for two years now." 207 00:10:49,747 --> 00:10:51,706 And I said, "Is this right?" 208 00:10:51,706 --> 00:10:54,087 She couldn't tell me it was wrong, so she said, 209 00:10:54,087 --> 00:10:58,440 "You know, we are tribe, we have our traditions, we can't give our daughter to anybody." 210 00:10:58,440 --> 00:11:00,185 So I tried to switch things a little bit. 211 00:11:00,185 --> 00:11:02,165 I said, "What if the man that you love comes to propose to you, 212 00:11:02,165 --> 00:11:04,280 and your family rejects him because of his tribe?" 213 00:11:04,280 --> 00:11:07,348 So she was quiet, so then I tried to flip it again. 214 00:11:07,348 --> 00:11:09,584 I said, "Is your mom and dad from the same tribe?" 215 00:11:09,584 --> 00:11:12,182 She said, "Yes." I said, "Let's assume they were not from the same tribe." 216 00:11:12,182 --> 00:11:14,644 I said, "Is your dad a good person?", she said, "Yes." 217 00:11:14,644 --> 00:11:17,061 I said, "Does your dad deserve to be rejected?" 218 00:11:17,061 --> 00:11:18,231 She said, "No." 219 00:11:18,231 --> 00:11:20,144 So I said, "What if your dad came and proposed to your mom, 220 00:11:20,144 --> 00:11:22,920 and then he was rejected because of his tribe, would that be fair?" 221 00:11:22,920 --> 00:11:24,166 She said, "No, that's not fair." 222 00:11:24,166 --> 00:11:26,305 So what we do is we mix things a little bit 223 00:11:26,305 --> 00:11:28,667 and when we put them in positions that they're not in, 224 00:11:28,667 --> 00:11:31,159 and that way we can change the society. 225 00:11:31,159 --> 00:11:35,679 One other thing that art does is art gives you a lot of options, 226 00:11:35,679 --> 00:11:39,558 like I can talk about racism, or I can talk about the things that racism does. 227 00:11:39,558 --> 00:11:42,113 And one of my favorite topics is to talk about self hate. 228 00:11:42,113 --> 00:11:45,691 If I feel like a group of people hate themselves because people have been racist towards them, 229 00:11:45,691 --> 00:11:47,713 I try to make them feel better. 230 00:11:47,713 --> 00:11:51,102 So to end this, I'm going to share a piece of poetry that I wrote 231 00:11:51,102 --> 00:11:53,906 for all Africans, because I believe Africans are very beautiful people 232 00:11:53,906 --> 00:11:55,625 and they deserve to be happy for who they are. 233 00:11:55,625 --> 00:11:59,934 (Applause) 234 00:11:59,934 --> 00:12:01,693 And this piece is called "Africa". 235 00:12:01,693 --> 00:12:04,206 So Africa, please wake up, your history was stolen. 236 00:12:04,206 --> 00:12:07,350 Some of it survived but still it was taught wrong. 237 00:12:07,350 --> 00:12:11,631 We wasn't taught about the beautiful African beings, the African kings 238 00:12:11,631 --> 00:12:14,831 that traveled all across the globe doing African things. 239 00:12:14,831 --> 00:12:17,934 African rhythm, African words over African beats. 240 00:12:17,934 --> 00:12:21,355 African [artists] [still sleeping] through them African streets. 241 00:12:21,355 --> 00:12:25,454 African eyes, open up and realize that sit back and watch as the melanine dries. 242 00:12:25,454 --> 00:12:28,304 It hurts me to see all the Africans cry. 243 00:12:28,304 --> 00:12:29,703 Africans, why? 244 00:12:29,703 --> 00:12:33,356 Why Africans die, over hunger while the colonizer's eating our pie. 245 00:12:33,356 --> 00:12:36,441 Africa is not poor, that's an African lie 246 00:12:36,441 --> 00:12:38,625 black gold still glitters under African sky. 247 00:12:38,625 --> 00:12:40,711 Best believe these facts from this African guy. 248 00:12:40,711 --> 00:12:41,961 (Applause) 249 00:12:41,961 --> 00:12:43,604 Thank you. 250 00:12:43,619 --> 00:12:45,594 (Applause)