[nicolas]

Yeah, exactly. And I think it's one of the, at the same time, the worst influence and the best influence of big star, Afro-American big star versus the Afro-Diasporic world. Because they are often really, you know, visible and the main example of successful life, you know, but for the best and the worst reasons for me.

 

And yeah, I think it's something I'm always a bit amazed by how, not amazed, but I really question the fact that it's your point of view is not as visible. There is structural reason for that, but year after year, you know, we learn lessons and we know that a Black successful person in the capitalist world doesn't mean almost nothing. Almost.

Except that, yes, you can make money if you are ready to make some arrangement with values and you accept other hierarchy of, you know, fundamental values and way of seeing the world. And it's still not so clear, I think.

 

[amy]

Yeah. I think it's, you know, it's hard because I'm trying not to, to your point, the reason why I guess I see the world in this way is, one, I'm first generation American. So my value system started somewhere else.

 

It didn't start here in America, you know? But I am an American. I was born here.

 

So I understand that value system very well. I'm a part of that engine that I'm always trying to unpack and unlearn. But I think, and I'm trying hard not to kind of center the American system because, but it's hard not to because America has become the driver of this idea of this capitalist, you know, approach to life.

 

But it's like, I'm trying to remember how I was going to say this. During the civil rights movement or even before the civil rights movement, there was this window of time where Black people in America were forced to live in their own communities, build their own systems, you know, from doctors to teachers to everything in between. And, you know, I don't want to make this a religious thing because this is not a religious thing, but at the center of it was like a Black, was the Black church that was kind of keeping people together.

 

It was the core driver of information, of access, etc. And I feel like there was something very beautiful about that community, like thinking about those communities and how we were able to retain us in many ways. And I think while the civil rights movement was necessary in order for us to achieve certain things now or have certain things now, and that's like, and that has influenced other places across the globe, I feel like in many ways we lost the value of supporting this bubble called us, you know.

 

And I'm starting to see younger generations not necessarily think about that time per se, but kind of create new systems where they're working together, where they're bartering with each other for services, where they're bartering with each other for just skill sets, like I can do this, what can you do, how do we share? And I think that's the kind of networking, that's the kind of community building, coalition building, however you want to see it, that we need to do now to create new systems that support our growth and support this cultural preservation. I think that, I think it's interesting because even in that, like if we take it out of the American context, let's use like Black Coffee as an example.

 

I'm going to use music. Black Coffee, amazing producer, talented in the music scene, in House specifically, where is he spinning? He's spinning in Ibiza every year.

 

He's spinning in spaces where we don't necessarily frequent. How do we make sure that he's protected? Because he's one of us.

 

How do we make sure that he's protected? How do we support him? We haven't figured that out.

 

And I think that's where we are now, culturally around the world. We're starting to think about, well, how do we do that? And who's one of us for real?

 

Because that's the other thing, right? How do we determine who is of the same mind? Or like what I say, who are the people who are part of our tribe?

 

And how do we support their continued growth? How do we support their continued work, production? So as an example, one of the things in 2018, 2019, I started researching all of the Black arts leaders across the diaspora.

 

And I started saying, okay, what if we could create a network to start sustaining each other? Even if we created a susu so that if somebody was going through something, we could support that person so that they can continue another year or another two years. And we're still working together.

 

There are about 14 founding organizations. We still meet. We still have we offer now kind of sessions about things that we're learning.

 

We're doing research to support and then fundraise together. So creating these collectives and learning from the practices of the collectives that came before in the 60s and the 50s across the Pan-African movement, I think will help us to continue to survive and break the systems that have kind of held us in this space of just being attached to capitalism. Does that make sense?

 

It helps us pool our resources together and sustain ourselves in a new way, but it's based on a cultural economy as opposed to the machines. Does that make sense? It took a long way to get there.

 

[nicolas]

It makes sense a lot. And I think I share everything you just said. And I think we have to insist on the transnational networking, you know, because if we stay into nations that are just fundamentally fictions, and fictions that were not the main role and based on the labor that Afro-Diasporic African people made.

 

So we have to be able to have a decent life in those societies. But at the same time, we have to work in connecting communities around these different nations and territories. And I think it's something really, really important to do.

 

Because I think in France, or in Europe in general, there is also a national movement of people from African descent claiming for a citizenship issue inside the national, you know. I think it's good. But for example, for the France, we have so much, the country has so much interaction with African countries, still now.

 

Still now that there is the so-called independence. Still now that the France-Africa stuff is over one year again, you know, because each year is the end of the France-Afrique.