Watch the full-length conversation:
Listen tot he audio-only version:
About Dr. Vibe’s Guests:
- You can contact Sarah Onyango via http://www.blackhistoryottawa.org/
- You can contact Cesar Ndema-Moussa via https://www.facebook.com/cesarrimyemery
- You can contact Roger Dundas via https://byblacks.com/
Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited):
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[Music]
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[Applause] [Music]
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what is up everybody it’s dr vibe here host and producer of the award-winning doctor vibe show the home of epic
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conversations and i’m the host of epic conversations 2020 best podcast news
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award winner and 2018 innovation award winner given out by the canadian ethnic media association i am also a host of
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the only online conversation in the world for dads and fathers that is sponsored by dove men care it’s also
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co-sponsored by dad central canada’s national fathered organization and part
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of that being part of that team last year was able to reach out to over 100 000 fathers and dads around the world
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last year and as always i like to say you’re blessed highly favored a magnet for miracles and a solution for
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someone’s problem we are broadcasting live march 27th in cold and snowy
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believe it or not toronto spring started last week where is it don’t know where it is but we’re warm in here and we’ve
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got heat coming with you as you know or you may not know every sunday afternoon 5 p.m we do black
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canada talking it’s a live online event that provides black canadians the opportunity to give their takes and povs
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on stories that are of importance to them and also we do round tables and today we have another round table and we
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have a new member of our round table that we’ll be introducing you in into you in just a second but let’s first
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bring up sarah yongo sarah how are you hello dr vibe i’m wearing my duke
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university blue because they are in the final four of the ncaa men’s basketball
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championship and i am thrilled and i’m coming to you from anishinaabe
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algonquin territory unseated and surrendered and i’m really looking forward to this discussion okay now we
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got sarah now we got caesar can’t hear them but i can see them
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i mean uh now we can got you we got you both now bonjour
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how are you how’s everybody how doing fine sarah how are you doing
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oh i’m i’m well i was actually watching cesar on a okay for some reason we’re
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not on a black film festival uh panel discussion don’t know what’s
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going on on sarah the is it me or we hear dr vive but he
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doesn’t hear us yeah that’s what it looks like okay can everyone hear me yes
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but i don’t hear sarah oh i’m not muted
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that’s okay i don’t know why we’re not hearing sarah
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uh cesar okay so how are you doing i think we’ll just we’ll work on getting
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sarah on in just a moment things going well on your end going well thank you very much uh
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just like you were saying apparently it’s spring but this is canada it’s still winter yeah
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you expect we expect snow any time of year in canada absolutely absolutely uh
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you know most of our people need to know this it actually won’t snowed in july in canada
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i don’t remember the year i don’t remember the place i don’t know if it’s a lie but i was told it won’t snowed in
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july in canada so all right we got sarah back wonderful it
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was in alberta oh there you go so this country is winter
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okay well you know what uh we’re gonna have we have someone new for everybody today
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family uh gentlemen that i’ve known for a while sarah’s known for a while for me
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he’s up close and only he’s close personal friend family fan and business associate we have roger dundas
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co-founder and publisher of buyblacks.com canada’s number one black online
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magazine mr dundas yes
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because sarah did this i have to do this too right yes
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so good to have you and roger has uh said for a long time says will you go get me on this thing
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when you’re going to get me on this thing so we have got him for uh the next few
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round tables hopefully longer but you know he’s a family man i’m i’m here i’m here
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okay i’m missing i’m missing aldo yes i don’t know what’s going on with it
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balance it off you know yes hey don’t worry sarah can hold her own
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just fine we know that yes so roger for those who don’t know you
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can you just give a little background on yourself with our audience and we’ll get right into the conversation well that’s
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going to take up the whole artwork
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oh man i’ll just do a quick intro of um
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yes oh co-founder by blacks.com we started that in 2013 i’m also the
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managing director for convo media inc which is also uh it’s a marketing agency
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owned by three black principals and uh yeah happy
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happy to be here happy to be here to join syria and says ah
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well looking forward to an epic conversation let’s get right to it because there’s so many conversation topics but we had to
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pull one off because we only have an hour so let’s get right to it our first conversation piece today
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blacks not wanting to go back to the office and one major reason is microaggressions in the workplace
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who wants to start off on that one you know i i saw it in a in an article
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and uh uh it was on bus journals um san jose
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and it was interesting because the the number one reason is the microaggression so
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you know if you don’t need to if you can work from home and you don’t need to interact with
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somebody who’s trying to put you down and make you feel awkward for being black then if and if you can
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work from home why bother that’s the question right
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go ahead sarah yeah and i and people who are not black or brown or
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indigenous really cannot possibly understand the extent to which these microaggressions
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are not only a distraction to to a black uh worker
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but just how um [Music] detrimental they are to our health in
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fact our health is impacted by it you know there’s a reason why we have blood uh high blood pressure
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you know from [Music] working in certain environments i have
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to say myself i work for a media organization i have been actually going in
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throughout the pandemic except when we had the occupation for four days uh i
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didn’t go in because it was just ridiculous but again because of social distancing
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they reduced the number of people that could come in so that reduces
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the likely you know uh occurrences of the microaggressions etc it also helps when
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in an organization you work in your corner you’re in the back room so you know you’re just typing away your little
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worker bee you don’t really you’re not really interfacing with people and the
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interfacing happens by email and emails i hope my boss isn’t listening you can
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ignore those so i’m just saying
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oh my god guys cesar anything you want to add on this one well i mean what i will say uh adding to
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my brother my sister having spoken is very much the fact that a pandemic brings changes
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and when we talk about the return to work versus return to the workplace versus
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working from home it’s not just a conversation about real estate
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and uh what is uh what’s going to happen to the offices but it’s very much the fact that for two
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years people notably blacks were subjected to the microaggressions and we say macros
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sometimes they’re outright aggressions especially when you’ve had to endure certain comments you will life that
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non-black people sometimes put as jokes or just you know
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um uh how can i put it uh unconscious bias
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the fact that you were able to work from home for the last two years basically opened an entire field in terms of a new
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conversation not just in terms of leadership but at the same time in terms of
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unions in terms of time management but we have to be honest also in terms of
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salary and a potential of entrepreneurship in terms of blacks
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becoming more aware that the aggression that they had to go through at work
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kevin has shown that they are able to perform without having to go through them
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sure we can talk about a certain privilege in regards to those who are able to work from home but the reality
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is that it’s not about a privilege from working from home it’s why are we in the 21st
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century with all the training the education and other talks about creating more inclusive environments
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creating harassment free workplaces and a discrimination free society why are we
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having aggressions of all types that are leading non-white people
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especially black people to dreadfully look at returning to the workplace and to endure
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what for two years despite the pandemic what they didn’t have to go through this is a conversation that
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crosses the federal the provincial municipal levels but as well
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the corporate sector you don’t have to take the macro aggression working from home but even if you are in
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the workplace you don’t have to take it yeah you know what in in that article uh dr
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vibe they talked about the the issue of um black people code it
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so you know you guys are familiar with that so you know i’m a jamaican and you can hear my accent right so
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you know you get into the workplace jamaica nigeria and ghanaian trinidad wherever you’re from you have
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an accent and then one of the first things people would ask is hey where are you from
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you know uh or or your name they would they would highlight that
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that your name as if it’s something unique they’re not doing it from a friendly i want to get to know your
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perspective they’re doing it from a other in perspective like to say hey you know
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you’re not quite up to scratch you are you know substandard you name your accent it’s
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not really the preferred thing here and that’s been my experience working i work corporate
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10 years and the last job i had was a recruiter of all things so and in a fortune 500 company publicly
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traded big big firm and that microaggression came head-to-head
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so there were people you know as a recruiter we’re recruiting and i would say mostly to be honest with mostly immigrants
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you know the canadians uh they were easy it was
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easy for them to job switch without any help easier i should say easier it was
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the it was really the immigrants that were looking for help and when i say immigrant i’m an immigrant
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basically everybody is an immigrant that are not indigenous but you know what i’m saying a recent immigrant let me let me
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correct my statement a recent immigrant i remember this this scenario where
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it was a south asian gentleman and his name was i can’t remember his name now and i wouldn’t want to say but
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it started with v his first name side with v and it was about 10 letters and his last name
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started with v and it was about nine letters right it wasn’t really hard to pronounce
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but the white person in my office said ah you know what i don’t think the client is gonna wanna
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you know work with somebody you know where they can’t pronounce the name so he just took the resume and
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threw it in the garbage literally he had the paper copy of the resume and he threw it in the garbage and so you know
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when you when you talk about those are type of things that you’re facing from uh from a discrimination and then
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also from a microaggression of just looking at you and saying hey this guy’s black salt asian asian indigenous
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not gonna fit into this environment so i’m not gonna go ahead with that person so these are things now you can you can
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stay out of the office you jump on some zoom calls that’s fine all right but you have to deal with it
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in office you you bring in your aki and selfish to to work and they’re like oh my god what’s that smell
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oh my god what’s your pasta smell you know come on every food has a smell
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you know so anyway that that’s been that’s been my experience looking um the whole microaggression thing well as
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cesar says it’s not even micro it’s just aggression
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anyone else want to add the last thing i will just say i’m sorry so very quickly is that
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as we talk about returning to work but truly return to assemblance or normalcy
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uh one of the things black people get criticized a lot because i had this conversation last week with a white
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lawyer in which the lawyer the white lawyer is talking about how all black people are
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too sensitive and me reminding him that unless you’ve gone through the black
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experience slavery colonization apartheid segregation systemic criticism and all
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the sub topics such as mental health but as well always being
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seen first and foremost as black aka anything and everything negative
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you cannot speak of black people as being sensitive we are not all the same we are different
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type of black people different levels of resilience but one thing that i know for sure
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whether your last name is uh obama or whether you are the phd
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or whether you’re a student or whether you are the junkie down the street
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ultimately you are seen and judged men women lgbtq religious non-religious
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whatever your identities you have seen and judged and treated first and foremost
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as black and if you think you’re the exception that’s not a good sign yes because
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you’re the exception that proves the law and i’m often treated as the exception and that’s what i remind people
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one hundred percent agree with that one hundred percent let’s go ahead and start
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oh all i wanted to say was that i hope that articles like this one that roger
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brought up about the reasons that not just black people but probably other you know people of
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color may be reluctant to go back into the office
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in person etc then articles like this will prompt a dialogue in the workplace
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or continue the dialogue in the workplace that started when uh the george floyd uh murder you
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know got at the height of the media attention put on that i hope the dialogue will
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continue as in oh we have a labor shortage my god the last thing we need is you know for an
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exodus of all of this black and brown talent from our field because they can now be
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consultants and work at home and do their own thing and not be subjected to all the nonsense that we subject them to
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every day in in the workplace hopefully employers are now going to be serious
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about harassment free and inclusive workplaces that’s it
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anything to add anyone else before we move on to our next conversation well if not i’m going to
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add in my two-minute story regards to microaggressions this goes a little way back i was the inside sales manager of a
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company that was owned by a couple and the owner was very british
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i mean very british and we were looking to get some new frontline staff so
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we went out to agencies and i got their resumes and i looked them over
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and i said they they look really good pass them over to the owner he said can we get anyone
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who has an english last name please and thank you thank you i could tell that you know
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there were immigrants in the last name he says you know he says no i don’t want any of these people because i can’t pronounce their last name
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yeah and i what i did is i said hey if you want to hire what you want you do
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the hiring and i gave i said and i left yeah that’s that you know what um
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in in that recruiting organization there’s so many circumstances that i got um
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exposed to um i should mention also that there i
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became the one of the first black canadian directors for that vertical
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that i was working in so i was an anomaly they treated me as such and you know to
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what cesar said you kind of feel like oh you’re you’re not like them that’s how they would
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approach me but i i was still not um you know free of the microaggressions and the comments
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uh about my accent and just everything
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everything so you know eventually you just can’t stay there
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that’s that’s the thing you get uncomfortable and that’s why in that article as well they were saying i think 70 odd percent of white people feel fine
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about going back to work as opposed to 54 of black people say they don’t really feel
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like they belong in in the organization so that’s that’s something that um
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have to take note what’s interesting too for us even for for my blacks and convo media we have a work from home set up we
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actually have never had an office never not even then you know we’ve been
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operating from 2013 never had an office everybody works from home
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and i i kind of like it that way where people are not just i mean
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you work in mostly well you work in yeah i would say mostly with people like yourselves
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so there’s no risk mike there’s no microaggression there’s no discrimination i hope or anything like that
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but still it there’s a certain sense of um savings too right that that occurs when
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you work from home you know i tell them all a while you’d have to dress up you can wear a t-shirt
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right you have to buy clothes for work you’d have to commute you’d have to go out and buy lunch you
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know what i mean it’s an incredible savings factor and and you can you have
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flex time right so yeah you’re working nine to five but let’s say at an appointment in
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the day you can finish up work after five if you want but we’re not gonna communicate with you after fighting
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that’s the difference yeah yeah you know the the data they had a workplace um
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i can’t remember the exact name of it recently but um there’s a line placed now that says
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yes with your team members outside of their work time yeah and we’ve tried to
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maintain that not only with the team members but also with the clients
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all right all right all right let’s move on to our next conversation topic
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uh don’t make it short and simple the the royals two of the royals were and i i
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don’t follow the royals so i don’t know which two were in william and kate okay william and kate
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william and kate where is kate yes william and kate were in jamaica this
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week and and now the question is and i think we have a little video maybe
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we’re going to play here so producer if you can give us the audio i think it’s on mute
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start from the top yeah let’s okay we are not hearing
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the audio for some reason
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well we can just walk yeah we’ll just we’ll watch we can watch it just talk about it while we’re discussing but now
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we want to bring up the conversation topic should jamaica become a republic because there is a lot of conversation
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in jamaica saying we need to break away from this old-time thing we don’t want these we
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need we don’t be giving money to these people on a regular basis so
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let’s have the comments from our panel should jamaica become a republic
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right i i think the first you know when you look at what barbados did right um of
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what’s the term they secede is that the term i think yeah right from
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from the from the monarchy or from britain right
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i mean historically i mean it’s a it was a slave owner relationship right
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they um acquire let’s say they acquired jamaica from the spanish is my
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understanding and they continued the slavery that what that was happening there right
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so all of this this money that they made from slavery
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right has powered the the nation of britain
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all right so we we got our independence but what i’m trying to figure out is
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what is the benefit to jamaicans for still being a part
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of the chrome that that’s a part that i’m not really understanding not really understanding that part right
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what what do we get out of the deal i can’t get an answer from anybody
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go ahead sarah yeah i mean i i’m i’m with uh roger in terms of like what what
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have you done for jamaica lately like seriously you know it’s not as if the royal family runs around being um
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a promoter of brand jamaica for example they don’t run around sort of touting
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all of the resorts the amazing resorts jamaica has it’s not like the royal family
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necessarily advocates for jamaica you know in terms of um
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uh duties on um their jamaican exports right
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of of uh fruits vegetables or whatever um and it’s not like any of the
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[Music] uh what’s it monuments or historic sites in jamaica you know
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people are rushing to go see them because they are associated with the monarchy uh on the contrary people are
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like a relic of slavery kind of thing it’s just a reminder of that so there’s you
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know this whole rule britannia great britain or whatever empire is crumbling and
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this is we’re sort of at a crossroads like barbados got the party started
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but apparently it’s not only jamaica that’s sort of wondering about
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maybe sort of growing up and uh leaving home kind of thing right uh remember
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they went to belize and i think belize is where um there were protests like out and out i
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know there were protests in jamaica as well i think it was rastas that came out who were protesting but in belize uh
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yeah they you know they were protest against plus they were expensive you know every royal visit i mean here
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in canada every time they come here it’s tens of millions of dollars
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not just in accommodation and transportation but security security you
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want to know the security bill for these people you know and when they come they don’t just you know come to ottawa and
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then go home they have to go across canada and there’s like six or seven stops and this
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ribbon cutting and the other thing and we’re paying for that for what
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it’s and also in this day and age when you know we’ve with covid we’ve seen
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all of the the social problems that government
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is not really stepping up to help fix you know the under housed or unhoused
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the poverty the child poverty rate right the infrastructure that’s crumbling or
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non-existent for uh public transportation right
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refugees resettlement that takes money but we’re going to spend tens of
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millions of dollars because uh queen elizabeth shows up here or camilla
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and charles and whatever and in a matter of a week
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or two weeks we spent you know the budget for you know uh social programs for a city
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the size of ottawa seriously no i i by um
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by like 2030 uh i see a whole bunch of republics um
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yeah in the caribbean i’m waiting on australia like what are
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they waiting for what about canada this is true
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let’s let’s start there cesar i know for we will get something good for you
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from your pan africanus lands on this [Laughter]
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you’re you’re smiling so oh oh oh oh okay go ahead cesar i was here
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practicing my uh meditation in regards to this topic looking at
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one of our ancestors pharaoh aminotept the fourth better known as akhenaten
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i was meditating on how to best bring it because um
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first and foremost let me just say this one thing with all my honesty intellectual honesty
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and care for black people if you live in a country such as canada or australia if you listen to us
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and for the need of your employment or your promotion you need to swear or whatever to the
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queen of england do it you’re not doing it because you believe what you support
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you’re doing it for your employment so what i’m saying does not apply to you here
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the vast majority of us regarding notably black nations such as jamaica
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you see when we talk about equity diversity and inclusivity so in the professional sector or if you want
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in the united states critical risk theory just as when we talk about geopolitics
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in terms of politics economics globalization but also
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cultural influence in that pyramid of power
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this british royal family is the epitome of privilege
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they’re the epitome of privilege they are literally at the very top
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of the pyramid of the iceberg in terms of
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so many things that are wrong in this world allow me to give you a very concrete example
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i always find it so sad when talking about you know
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an example uh social determinants of health but also in the u.s it’s also known as social capital
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the mere fact that a child is born in a place called buckingham palace
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or last name is linked to the windsor family you get thousands of people will go
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crowding there cheering and celebrating a child was a descendant
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of the kings and autocrats i mean people talk about putin putin is lightweight to these
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people these rulers who have sent the essences of the people cheering
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to die for family conflicts to die for them to get richer
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to die for the most futile reasons which for me
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when i see and this is obviously not so much against
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what’s his name williams and kate they don’t matter to me i don’t know them they don’t know me
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but the institution they represent especially the grandmother elizabeth who
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has been queen since 1952 aka colonization
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this woman has been queen before my father was born
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there are vampires blood suckers of our people of our ancestors
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it’s a humiliation a constant reminder of a painful historical path
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past when a black nation is part of the commonwealth we’re talking about jamaica but we could
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be talking about nigeria or ghana 54 countries absolutely
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it’s colonization light it’s a reminder so when you are asking
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brother roger what does jamaica get from from for being part of it
31:52
technically that if someone attacks jamaica england will come to protect kind of like nato a former colonia former
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uh colonization former slave nations but no it’s a humiliation we cannot claim to be free
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we cannot claim to be independent if we don’t read ourselves
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of such an institution that institution first and foremost people have to understand the monarchy
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is fundamentally a principle that goes against democracy
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you cannot name even if you have such a thing as in england and canada a
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parliamentary um uh regime federalism with the queen as
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head of state blah blah blah it is anti-democratic because simply by statutes of birth as sarah was
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so well pointing out these people are privileged and they’re only privileged
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because they are born with that last name and they’re associated to the castle
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buckingham palace it will be as if today in france they had kings where were ruling and simply
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because they’re linked to versailles it would be as if in the united states you had a monarchy
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was last name is washington or lincoln or jefferson
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so no i i totally oppose them and i encourage every black nation not only to
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become a republic but truly you have to leave the commonwealth just as for franco for nations in africa you have to
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exit from south creek these are tools of colonization and for us as individuals
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because it goes on par with when i criticize the fact that as black people just look at my name
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my name is a colonial name a black person called cesar show me that
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why person was first name is called coffee you know for all that they talk about
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loving mandela and what’s his name mandela martin luther king and obama
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when have you ever met a white person a white child named barack after obama
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or mandela after nelson no we have to cut these colonization ties whether they
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be in terms of republic and the commonwealth whether they be in terms of our name and whether they be in terms of
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religion as christianity and islam because these are constant inferiority complexes that we subject our children
34:25
to and i see this in the high schools when our black children teenagers
34:31
and make them realize your first name and very often your last name
34:36
are legacies of slavery and colonization and yet the white kids the arab kids the
34:43
asian kids none of them can even think of having a black name
34:48
please sarah i have i have a question for roger because roger’s the yachty in the group here yes
34:56
ed i think you’re jamaican too do you have jamaican ancestry okay so
35:01
um reparations right yes
35:08
so now that there’s talk about you know jamaica
35:14
assist i guess leaving uh the monarchy behind or whatever where where does that
35:20
leave negotiations around reparations because that’s how many hundred years
35:26
that uh great britain has you know basically lived off of
35:34
unpaid african labor that was kidnapped taken
35:39
to you know human profit human trafficking it is human trafficking on a grand scale but so roger where does that
35:47
leave oh uh reparations and the issue of the windrush deportees those two all right so so i i
35:54
have no knowledge of weird and reparations negotiations are at this point to to be honest and and it’s
36:01
something that we personally i’m interested in to to see where the current
36:07
administration is going with it um what what is interesting on i mean
36:14
what we were talking about earlier is one of the reasons a stumbling blocks
36:19
guys of why this has not happened and why a lot of countries are not doing it is just the sheer cost of doing it
36:27
because no you have to you have to unravel yourself from the monarchy
36:33
right so you have to update every law document
36:39
everything throughout your whole legal system throughout your whole parliamentary system you have to remove
36:45
signage it it’s it’s similar to what and this is a funny one
36:51
to what is being talked about now with changing the the dundas street
36:57
right so when you look at changing the street you look at change in the signage and the this and the that and he addresses
37:03
another i think the first the first quotation was just six million dollars
37:09
just to do that yeah yeah oh yeah so just imagine now that you’re gonna that’s six million canadians so imagine
37:15
that’s just one street imagine you’re gonna change the entire jamaican
37:21
government system your entire system not just government but everything to do
37:27
with your country to remove the queen from it it’s a very expensive ordeal and really
37:33
what i was saying to a friend of mine who’s a historian i was saying that really what should happen to the point
37:38
of your reparations is that the reparations should pay for it they shouldn’t be doing that
37:44
from out of our own taxpayer pocket right kind of similar to what they did
37:50
no what they did actually back in 1837 with the slave compensation act is when
37:55
they abolish slavery rather than giving the slaves
38:00
you know as americans would say 40 acres on a mule right they gave them nothing
38:06
and gave the slave owners money compensation for the 40 000 odd slaves
38:14
that they were losing right so they paid that they they took a
38:20
loan they didn’t even have the money they are better yet they didn’t want to use their own money so they borrowed
38:26
that money compensated the slave owners including the ones from jamaica to give
38:32
them a leg up in continuing business right and an irony of it is that it only
38:39
finished in 2015. you know what you know what i think if i’m if i’m not mistaken i think the
38:46
decade of african people started in 2015. if i’m not mistaken it did right
38:53
yes that’s a hell of a coincidence that is a hell of a coincidence so so
38:59
the thing is again coming back to jamaica jamaica i just went there i was there on vacation in um for
39:05
um spring break and there’s been a lot of improvements of
39:11
course as you know with a high wind a new highway system amazing the chinese built that for them
39:16
and they owe the chinese money they’re paying them money they pay them back um well what i understand is the toll
39:22
from the highway goes to the chinese yeah right okay to pay them back for
39:29
building it’s a fantastic highway and it has really increased the the the
39:34
transportation and business and commerce in jamaica so i would not say it wasn’t a bad thing but
39:41
when we become a republican we need to focus on some things we need to we jamaica we need to focus on i’d say five
39:47
there’s really four things all right the one of the first things is our
39:53
infrastructure so the road system aside from the highway it is the roads are bad if you go into smaller communities
40:00
uh the roads are just bad all over right um not like oh you think our roads are but our roads are amazing in canada
40:07
think about that our roads are amazing just think about that per se all right so the infrastructure buildings bridges etc etc
40:15
all that needs to be fixed the education system needs to be fixed you know like barbados has a 99.6
40:21
percent literacy rate jamaica is 88 so you can see there’s a big big
40:28
difference and you can see it based on communicating and weird jamaicans are at in the country right
40:34
the medical system needs to be improved you know when corporate was going on there was this shortage of
40:40
hospital beds ventilators etc etc we just we couldn’t keep up with it
40:45
even though the country i think it’s still the the rate is 25 compared to our
40:51
um 25 vaccine compared to canada’s 98 right and then of course that i think
40:57
the big thing i think is security they really need to beef up and and improve
41:02
the security so education infrastructure medical security
41:08
and then they need to shift it so that in canada
41:13
most people are happy to become a government worker because there’s so many benefits in jamaica is not the same
41:21
so they need to change that that dynamic where the government is seen as like one of the best
41:27
companies to work for because they’re so progressive uh and i’m not sure that all of that is
41:33
gonna keep on it’s gonna occur under this current system so i think the
41:38
republic is the first thing it’s uh what i’m understanding from talking to jamaica is not really anything more than
41:46
the mental change the mental slavery that’s going to be removed
41:52
of saying that we are in control now totally black people as as pj patterson said years ago black man time now again
41:59
maybe that’s what we really need to say it’s our time to run our own country we can’t run our own country
42:06
we have all the the technocrats there we are brilliant people
42:11
you can see that everywhere we’ve gone around the world jamaicans i’m talking about now they are brilliant they’ve
42:17
done very well every country that even if if you look in canada you
42:22
know a lot of our political class our entrepreneurial class
42:27
uh even in stem fields yeah it’s a lot of jamaicans it’s a it’s
42:33
a jamaican or a nigerian yeah basically i think that um
42:40
there’s a joke that says that they said the worst slaves well not the worst slaves the
42:45
troublemaker slaves the ones that were rebelling they would send them to jamaica with the pirates that that was the talk you know
42:52
and it’s somewhat true some of the history you know of port royal being run by a pirate and all
42:59
that that’s fine but i find that jamaicans that they they tend not to take oppression too well
43:05
most of them they stand up to oppression says all right jump in i see that you
43:11
want us well allow me to just add to what you’re saying
43:16
is it not ironic when you say jamaicans don’t stand oppression so well that
43:21
jamaica sure people think um of usain bolt
43:27
and they may think of bob marley but really jamaica is the land of marcus garvey the
43:33
greatest pan-africanist 100 cannot dishonor his memory for all that
43:39
i mean little shocker to some people he was quite anglophile the notion of speaking the queen’s english or the
43:46
king’s english speaking good english but truthfully the greatest pan-africanist
43:52
is born in jamaica we cannot have this knowledge
43:57
and whether you are a pan-africanist or not but simply for being black
44:02
live well with knowledge that we keep the great island of jamaica
44:09
under the boot of the commonwealth aka the british monarchy
44:14
the island next door haiti freed itself over 200 years ago yeah
44:20
and i think um white supremacy i’m not saying white
44:26
as individual but really white supremacist ideology has done so well to
44:31
convince people that the haitian adventure in terms of what
44:36
it looks like now in terms of poverty violence etc but as well the fate of too
44:42
many african countries you know and we can add here diseases and you know
44:48
um bad governance is an ultimate fate of any
44:54
black nation and by extension community and by extension individual
45:00
would dare to truly want to be free and this is very much damaging the psyche of our people
45:07
when you look even in terms of our leaders and those who represent us when you look at even
45:12
someone as obama the symbolism that i celebrate of them
45:18
is to have shown that as a black person you can reach the very top but there it is thanks to whites whether
45:24
it is whatever we want to call it whether you be the darkest skin or you be
45:30
black mixed with green eyes you can reach the top that’s symbolism but concretely
45:37
obama has done nothing for black people and for africans concretely and as such it shows in the psyche of
45:44
the fear the sacred emotional fear that becomes ingrained in all of us
45:51
and that is passed on to our children that to dare to really stand up
45:56
in speech and in actions as unapologetically black
46:03
will lead to a dire fate we must end that notion no we cannot tell our people
46:10
to be free to honor marcus garvey and even even if we talk about let’s say our
46:15
entertainers usain bolt is beautiful to see us but forgive me our ladies of jamaica who are
46:23
sprinters it’s beautiful to see them win and to show the flag of jamaica
46:28
i take honor when people see my uh seashell earrings my corey and they ask
46:33
if he’s from jamaica because they see the colors i take pride in it they know
46:38
jamaica but to what extent are they willing to have a conversation about
46:44
how much you really claim to like jamaica if you are okay with jamaica
46:49
being under white supremacy such as this british visit
46:55
royal british visit what black couple not even obama and michelle get these type of welcomes when
47:02
they go to white countries countries where there are they have newspapers that refer to them by the n
47:08
word that associated them to monkeys that masculinize michelle obama
47:15
this is the the reality you know roger i’m looking right behind you we have another jamaican
47:21
big smiles
47:30
he was born in the us i believe based on his documents his mother he’s his mother
47:35
his brother sorry but to what extent
47:41
especially us as black people are we willing to assume we are black and proud but we have to cut these sides
47:47
of colonization not everybody has to have the fist raised high like this but
47:52
even intending the hand to do business with non-whites we have to keep our
47:58
dignity and our dignity starts with truly our freedom
48:03
100 you know you know what’s interesting what you said um there’s some
48:09
there’s and i have this i have this conversation all the time with jamaicans different types of jamaicans about
48:15
being a africa and jamaica
48:23
let that sit there for a second as opposed to a chinese
48:28
jamaican because that’s how they refer to themselves jewish
48:33
jamaican right so so there’s that it’s like a chinese american
48:39
a chinese canadian african canadian there’s african jamaicans jamaicans seem to think that
48:45
they are you’re not you’re not a quote unquote race you’re an island
48:51
that was colonized and slaves were brought there from africa so if you’re black and
48:57
you’re there’s peter say no matter where you come from as you’re a black man you are an african and there are people
49:02
on there who said that we’re not africans we’re jamaicans so as i said there’s a lot of um
49:07
i bring up that point to say there’s a lot of on right there’s a lot of unlearning and and self
49:14
love that needs to start happening and it can only happen with education
49:22
that is it so when i talk about this thing about education education is not just saying hey we’re gonna throw the kids in school
49:28
and let them learn one plus one equals two it’s about learning the right history
49:33
when i when i was in school in jamaica they were teaching me about spaniards and and and the british
49:39
they’re not teaching me anything about africa where we were from the african slaves
49:44
where they settled they thought okay they taught us about the maroons because you couldn’t help but teach us about the maroons because they were so powerful
49:51
but they beat the british okay
49:56
all right good stuff anything else before we move on to the
50:01
next subject all right we’re good all right next up let’s talk about the republicans
50:07
performance at judge katangi brown jackson’s supreme court nomination
50:12
hearings this past week sarah go ahead can we play that clip do you have that clip when when ted cruz was uh interviewed no
50:21
harassment no listen can we not actually
50:26
like give these repugnant republicans any more
50:32
spotlight than they already have because basically what we’re doing is overshadowing
50:38
the black excellence of the honorable
50:44
kbj katanji onika brown jackson
50:52
who was not asked about her um her legal uh her
50:59
as much about her legal background about her experience on the bench of
51:05
which she has lots okay about her academic credentials about her community
51:13
service about her public service not none of that from republicans no
51:20
you’re getting questions about defining what a woman is and this is from a woman
51:25
you know uh senator blackburn uh you’re you’ve got the ted cruz moment
51:31
that roger’s referring to was the children’s books and being asked if she thinks babies are racists and
51:39
uh that basically crt in schools can be reduced to that kind of thing as
51:46
if crt is even taught at that level i was embarrassed that a latin american
51:51
man was asking that question i i i like leave leave i thought that would have
51:56
come from from a white man and not a latin american roger he considers himself as a white man first
52:06
has no level no no remember there’s no bottom there’s no bottom there’s no
52:11
bottom for cancun cruise at all there’s no bottom
52:16
[Laughter] and apparently there’s no bottom for
52:24
lindsay drama queen graham either who okay what really outraged me there was
52:31
there was so much going on with lindsey graham because he was trying to pit one black woman against another black woman
52:38
you remember i think it was day two day two where he was going on and on
52:44
about how come biden didn’t choose michelle childs from south carolina
52:50
which is his his home state and he was going on and on and he was asking
52:57
judge jackson what she thought about what you know president biden’s choosing her over
53:04
judd childs and that sort of thing that is such a typical you know white
53:10
person thing to do when they’re not getting their way where they pit you know the two black people against each
53:17
other like that but what i want to remember from
53:22
the the four days is senator cory booker and how a black man
53:28
stood up a black man stood up for a sister
53:34
yes a black man stood up for her sister and talked about a whole bunch of black joy and black prime black history black
53:42
excellence black brilliance black everything those republicans
53:47
whatever they said needs to be a footnote anyway because none of them ain’t none of them going to
53:54
vote for her anyway and all we need is the tie breaker vote from vice president kamala harris you know a black woman
54:01
break the tie confirm her already mansion has confirmed he is voting for
54:06
her uh the other senator we haven’t heard from her but chances are she’s going along too so
54:13
where christian cinema oh god cesar your comments
54:22
what i will say is very simple um the republicans uh made a mockery of
54:29
themselves uh and i’m not saying this as um just to criticize them but you see
54:37
they claim to hold the moral high grounds uh in uh
54:42
in terms of uh reference to uh justice kavanaugh that um
54:49
george jackson would not be subject to some below the bell type of questioning
54:55
that’s what they had claimed from the start uh and unfortunately but should i say
55:00
unfortunately but very predictably they were really republicans
55:07
as i’m saying that we have to be strategically we have to think strategically
55:12
the year is 2022 you have senate elections that are coming in november
55:20
a lot of these republicans uh you know if you are to be honest
55:26
is it really the republicans or the trump leakants donald trump
55:32
is very much like a virus to the republican party and as such
55:38
the very notion of a black woman to be judged on the supreme court
55:45
justice jackson don’t get me wrong they all love michael jackson
55:51
but angie jackson that doesn’t sit well with them it’s a seat of power it’s a prestigious
55:57
seat it’s a seat for life and the sierra is one of those dangerous radical lefties
56:04
aka she doesn’t exactly sound i hope i’m wrong
56:10
she doesn’t sound like she would be another clarence thomas aka affirmative action led this black
56:17
person there the efforts of course but greatly affirmative action
56:22
and then they switched to show that they’re even more conservative than many whites are
56:29
judge katenji jackson soon to be i mean next week
56:35
uh justice jackson scares them she scares them
56:41
because she represents absolutely the enemy the domestic enemy you see for
56:48
conservatives such as republicans but as well a conservative in canada
56:54
the number one domestic threat is not called white supremacy the number one domestic threat is all
57:01
those dark skinned faces that are rising especially if they’re also a woman
57:06
because by default of conservative values you know things such as abortion
57:12
women’s rights on top of voting on top of minorities rights
57:18
she represents all of that and how does she show up there with dreads
57:25
with her afro-centric look so and this is a little critic criticism to
57:30
some of my black brothers who were bashing the fact that she has a white
57:36
husband i’m sorry let us stop wasting time in foolishness
57:42
yes her husband is white yes kamala harris husband is white yes clara’s
57:48
thomas wife is white yes yes yes yes yes but at the same time if you really talk
57:53
about symbolism do not forget it is her efforts that have led her there
57:59
and no matter the skin color the person with which she is with
58:04
her efforts are first of all paramount and the symbolism so going back to obama
58:10
will have a black wife so to prove you can be a black couple and reach the very
58:16
top so just as for obama the symbolism of a black female judge
58:23
judge in the supreme court because if you are honest clarence thomas is an absolute failure in terms of black pride
58:30
but i have hope that justice ke tangi jackson will be able to be a role model
58:38
to so many black girls and boys notably
58:44
those who are pursuing a career in law but notably in terms of standing up and
58:50
working hard to fight all these republican legislations that are aiming
58:56
at curtailing the votes of minorities because the republicans know they cannot count
59:02
on white on the white birth rate and they cannot count on white immigration i mean
59:08
they’re not trying to have the four million ukrainian refugees to move to the united states for white votes
59:16
i’m just gonna leave you there but i’m glad you all understand what i was saying oh my god
59:22
oh boy anyone that’s a dagger
59:28
any any any okay before we finish out cesar i know you wanted to admit a
59:33
little quick thing about the liberals and the new democrats making a deal to preserve the minority
59:39
government quick very quickly uh look
59:44
i’ve always been want to say that the ndp is useless in terms of politics no i’m not saying
59:51
that to be honest please don’t hold back please i’m not saying that to be harsh
59:57
my honesty my friends must report the ndp they know this about me i’ve always said that
1:00:02
the number one rule of politics is to get to power number two is to remain in power the ndp in canada is a party that
1:00:10
will not come to power federally in the current context even despite of it
1:00:16
as such the third alternative for them was to tie up with the liberals and many of
1:00:22
you know the conversation which has often been the case in canada should the ndp just merge with the liberal party in
1:00:30
order to really bring leftist socialist blah blah blah
1:00:35
policies this is what they did it’s not a coalition it’s an agreement
1:00:40
for the first time i’m as blunt and honest as you know me for the first time i can truly say
1:00:47
jack meeting has acted as a true politician has acted
1:00:52
as a man of power and i can say i’m proud of him i’m proud of him because this agreement that the conservatives
1:01:00
tried to paint as anti-democratic hypocrites as they are this agreement is good for canadians
1:01:07
dental care farmer care is absolutely needed notably for so many black people
1:01:15
was household don’t make 90 000 dollars they need this white poor
1:01:21
canadians need this how can you be against this how can you claim to care about the
1:01:27
people and be against this when we know so well we’ve covered
1:01:33
it’s not just inflation it’s a loss of buying power it’s an increase in terms of mental health
1:01:41
it’s basically such demographic changes and now we’re about to have i don’t know
1:01:46
how many and i’m gonna say it i don’t know how many ukrainian refugees are going to come and they’re going to
1:01:52
get vip treatment compared to all the somalis the afghans the syrians the congolese
1:02:00
the blah blah blah blah blah not white and christian thank you jack meeting
1:02:07
thank you justin trudeau it was bold it was brave you know what it’s called it’s
1:02:12
called real politic this is what it’s about so that’s what i wanted to see
1:02:18
it’s a good thing for canada and it will benefit not just blacks and non-whites
1:02:23
it will benefit a lot of poor whites because let’s not get it twisted there are far more poor whites in canada
1:02:29
than there are we all need this foreign everyone just
1:02:34
based on the numbers sarah and roger anything you want to add no no roger didn’t say anything about uh
1:02:41
judge uh jackson no you know why because cesar i think he encapsulated every
1:02:46
thought i had about that that that idea of her becoming the the next um
1:02:53
superior so what oh so so but but the thing about this the
1:02:59
whole thing with ndp and the liberal party my observation and
1:03:04
i i communicate a lot let’s just say as sarah does with a lot of politicians
1:03:10
right we communicate a lot with politicians and particularly with the liberal and the ndp party i do not
1:03:17
communicate a lot with conservatives for whatever the reason they don’t seem to like my blocks that much
1:03:25
they don’t work against history criticism right thank you thank you but but what i
1:03:30
noticed about the ndp versus the liberal and specifically
1:03:36
around picking black candidates that they do not pick good black
1:03:42
candidates that’s been my personal opinion we have a few i say when i say we i’m not ndp but
1:03:49
there are a few good currently elected
1:03:55
um officials in the ndp the elected ones are amazing but the ones that i see
1:04:02
sometimes running i’m like how did they even get select how did they pass the vetting process
1:04:08
to get there i will not name names and they have never won anyone that i’ve looked and i said
1:04:14
there’s no way that person is going to win they have never won roger i’ll be honest with you because
1:04:21
i’ve actually had this conversation in uh in the black leaders
1:04:27
what’s up group i’m gonna be very blunt we have black candidates for the ndp but
1:04:33
also for conservatives and liberal yes very honestly and as much as they can offend some
1:04:40
people sometimes they just run to have something to put on the resume
1:04:45
to claim they have run they don’t run to win they don’t even run to represent they they don’t have no hope of winning
1:04:52
the parties put them in place just to say they have a candidate fully expecting them to lose
1:04:58
and some of them are complicit to the fact that they want to be able to beef up their resume
1:05:04
in order to be able to claim that they run in politics but what i want to say is
1:05:09
how does that help if you if you know because it gives a sense of prestige
1:05:14
it gives a sense of commitment of involvement it gives a sense of you know
1:05:20
you can be on a panel you know you it’s calculations
1:05:25
i wouldn’t bring them on a panel the ones i’m referring to i would never bring them on a panel i don’t respect their opinion so you’ll
1:05:31
never see them on a buy block i’m just saying we could we could i could lie here and
1:05:37
be politically correct but i would never bring those people and roger it’s not by black’s uh panel what
1:05:44
they want to be on it’s cbc and see i know i know
1:05:55
what i think we should also talk about is this new this new candidate for the mpp conservative party that’s going to
1:06:01
be running in um what’s that what’s the area what’s the writing again the former chief of police mark saunders
1:06:08
oh yes yes yes yes which was running in uh don valley
1:06:13
in the toronto yes uh can’t remember the name of this zach writing you see it was formerly well the former leader of the
1:06:20
ontario liberal party kathleen wynne he’s running in her writing
1:06:25
but didn’t but didn’t um no no i was gonna say uh michael
1:06:30
he’s that’s interesting because i don’t feel
1:06:36
like um sonde is as nice a guy as i think he is i don’t think i don’t feel like the
1:06:43
police force really supported him
1:06:48
yeah there’s i’ve i’ve i’ve had that black officers yeah i’ve had a number of back channel
1:06:54
conversations with people uh a lot of people don’t like him yeah as nice a guy as i think he is i don’t
1:07:00
think black black white and black a lot of black people don’t like him so i’m
1:07:06
surprised that he would flip over now to to the political arena uh also with his
1:07:11
health challenges to take on even more stress that you know so
1:07:17
i’m not sure but again to cesar’s point maybe sometimes it’s just to put on a resume just to increase
1:07:23
your resume and there’s a who to tell i mean the conservatives may very well win that seat
1:07:30
sarah you are very much involved in the political world so i would love to hear a little bit about this before we close
1:07:36
it down no i’m i’m not going to comment so much about that but just to remind people
1:07:42
that the ontario elections are june 2nd so yes guys uh whoever’s
1:07:48
out there you are an ontarian you’re over 18 make sure you’re registered you’re on the voters registry and uh get
1:07:57
ready get ready if you have to do early voting do that uh if there are other ways to vote do
1:08:02
that but please please please participate i i think that uh if if i was to say one
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thing about this coming election a lot of it hinges on the this kovid
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uh how dogford has done to manage the kuvit um pandemic
1:08:20
and at first it seemed it seemed as if he was doing an amazing job i must say i
1:08:26
was i was pleasantly surprised at first but it ended up
1:08:31
pretty bad so i’m not sure of ontario and support for the conservative
1:08:39
government going forward i’m not i’m just i’m unsure convenient economics
1:08:45
inflation the gas price ukraine convenient economics yeah and look at
1:08:53
look at uh trudeau having a coveted election and that got him a minority
1:08:59
yeah so you know ford may well be heading to a minority especially with all those uh the
1:09:06
anti-vaxxer uh freedom convoy type folks
1:09:11
in ontario yes uh who are out to get them
1:09:16
because of the the the mandates yeah then so quick thing who are the enemy
1:09:22
vouchers going to vote for well this is the advantage of going forward they’re not going to vote for liberals because in canada people type
1:09:29
federal politics to provincial so they see i mean and i mean we’ve seen the liberal leader he’s not exactly the most
1:09:35
inspiring gentleman if i dare to put it that way but i’m sorry these anti-vaxxers
1:09:41
are not going to vote for liberal i don’t see the liberals winning like sarah was saying in ontario i see dog
1:09:48
ford winning but with a minority government yeah yeah he’s not he’s not gonna landslide
1:09:54
again though i don’t think so i don’t think so all right well as that election gets
1:09:59
closer i’m sure we’ll have a number of conversations about it here but uh like to say thanks to everyone for taking the
1:10:05
time today uh sarah as always we go ladies first where can people get in touch with you
1:10:11
black on black 891 hotmail.com and our show airs every saturday from 11 a.m to
1:10:19
noon on chu 089.1 fm thank you so much sarah i’m not sarah i
1:10:25
mean cesar so my people you cannot reach me
1:10:31
ah actually i’m blocked on facebook don’t worry it’s just for another few weeks
1:10:37
yes yes um as i posted about animal rights of
1:10:42
course i did it my way facebook didn’t like it but i got apologies from facebook
1:10:47
because they deleted some of my other posts and i challenged them but don’t worry you can reach me on facebook cesar
1:10:54
remy r-i-m-y uh emery e-m-e-r-y and let us continue
1:11:00
the great conversations and topics i am enjoying being blocked this month the fight continues
1:11:07
and roger dundas you know where to find mama i’m on linkedin
1:11:12
i’m on linkedin uh i actually says i came off of facebook in
1:11:18
2019 and twitter and i’ve never been on instagram so i i know that they have blocked by
1:11:26
blacks several times now and we just can’t get a a reason a solid
1:11:31
reason of why they shut down our codes so we don’t know
1:11:37
all right well thanks everyone for taking the time today and uh again thank you roger and looking forward to having
1:11:43
you part of more conversations duke okay
1:11:49
my new mind you just one quick message yes in a very odd
1:11:56
and maybe it seems contradictory the soccer team the canadian soccer team
1:12:01
qualified they wanted to have to make it to the world cup so they won today
1:12:06
okay i don’t know if they won but they did score that one goal that they needed you know that’s it
1:12:12
all right we’re off to guitar thank you so much to each one of you my name is dr vibe host and producer of the
1:12:18
award-winning doctor vibe show the home of epic conversations and on the host of epic conversations 2020 best podcast
1:12:24
news award winner 2018 innovation award winner given out by the canaan ethnic media association and i host the only
1:12:30
online conversation world for dads and fathers that’s sponsored by dove men care and co-sponsored by dad central canada’s
1:12:37
national father organization as always i’d like to thank everyone who watched this live or on the replay
1:12:43
and as always i close out live your life as a dream if you can dream it you can make it sometimes you have to get small
1:12:48
to get stronger block assumptions and aim bigger and better aim higher and wider you can also catch me 9 a.m
1:12:55
eastern time monday and friday mornings co-hosting the morning vibe with ryan knight co-founder of the african africa
1:13:02
canadian business network and on saturday evenings 9 00 pm my host and produce state of things are the aisha k
1:13:08
staggers and jill jones next week on black hannah talking we have the founder of black
1:13:15
black comic company that’s based here in toronto black focus comment comics so
1:13:21
check us follow me on instagram follow me on twitter especially follow me on youtube and instagram you’ll get
1:13:27
notified on the upcoming conversations much thanks to bia media god bless peace y’all keep the faith remember to give
1:13:33
yourselves grace and it’s important to manage your time but it’s more important to manage your energy
1:13:38
bye everybody [Music]
1:14:26
you