13% Of The World’s Population Is White | One54 Africa Podcast

[00:00:00]13% of the globe's population, which is all that is white, >> it it's that's it.

[00:00:07]>> 13 >> 13% which means 7% of the world's population are white men. So what what are we doing?

[00:00:16]>> Word.

[00:00:17]>> What what what are we actually doing here? We we are so You look at Africa on the map and it's the wrong size. You look at Great Britain on a map and it's too big. Like images are political and the only way you can reframe the narrative is to be in the driving seat of the perspective and the narrative and the pipes.

[00:00:36]>> You have to have a distribution mechanism because at the end of the day that is the mechanism through which the narrative gets out into the world. And so that's what Mana is for us. It's small, it's nent, but it's ours. And the perspective on there is ours. And the people who are on there we value and we are platforming them and we are giving them a place where they are valued as opposed to what every single one of us experience elsewhere which is that you're thought of as charity.

[00:01:09]>> Yeah.

[00:01:10]>> Like we made Queen of Cartwe at Disney and an executive there referred to the film as a brand deposit. I said, >> "Oh, what what the >> what's a what's a brand deposit?

[00:01:25]>> The hell is that?"

[00:01:25]>> To my face, this person said, >> "The kind of film >> it's good for us to be seen making >> to make them look good, >> right?"

[00:01:35]>> Oh, that they made this.

[00:01:36]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:01:36]>> Yeah. But then they made that move, then they made the then they did right after that they did the white girl that can play chess. They copied it.

[00:01:44]>> Oh, a Queen Gambit.

[00:01:45]>> Queen Gambit. I was cuz as soon as I said that's the kid when they took it and I do it on stage I go oh you guys think you slick cuz they did the African chick and I do a whole joke about >> you know the African girl not having enough chess pieces >> right >> right and then I put Samuel Jackson in I'm just making it goes YOU TRYING TO PLAY CHESS WHERE THE hell are your pieces I I don't have it I don't A ROCK AND A SOCK say hell yeah you know I said they gonna make the African girl not had no money and all >> oh my gosh Godfrey is a problem. I'm I'm I'm just going to say it again. I'm just going to say it. I'm just I'm just going TO SAY IT AGAIN.

[00:02:24]>> GODFREY, I'm out here trying to get Queen of Cart made. He has reccast Sam Jackson as me.

[00:02:31]>> I didn't ask you a goddamn film.

[00:02:34]>> Say what again? YOU DON'T HAVE ENOUGH CHEST PIECES. GET YOUR ASS out of here.

[00:02:39]The hell's wrong with you? YOU CHESS?

[00:02:41]ARE YOU AFRICAN? ARE YOU AFRICAN? SO, not only can he not be my dad, he cannot he can he cannot run a studio. We do not want we do not want Godfrey anywhere near Rockus Productions presents. ROCKUS PRODUCTION.

[00:02:57]>> How about this? Rafian Films.

[00:03:02]>> Films from the bush.

[00:03:04]>> We must perform an intervention. If this if this starts brewing as an idea, I will come.

[00:03:10]>> Are you even going to BE IN A MOVIE?

[00:03:12]WATCH. It'll be his raggedy brother.

[00:03:15]>> Oh my goodness.

[00:03:16]>> I'll be like, man, you need to go punch him in his face.

[00:03:18]>> Oh my gosh.

[00:03:19]>> Oh my goodness.

[00:03:21]>> But the queen, as soon as I saw the the white woman, the the that that scene, I go, "Get the I was like, yo, get the hell out of here."

[00:03:29]>> It was like they copied.

[00:03:31]>> No, but I I I think it it's it's so deep because in this trip that I was telling you guys to, you know, for for me going to Nigeria and taking my family, I spent a lot of money. But I spent a lot of money because what I wanted to do was and when you said that something hit me deep inside. What I was really trying to do was erase what my kids because growing up with a certain perspective and I'll never forget maybe about four or five years ago I showed one of my kids uh a picture of a beautiful beach.

[00:03:59]I said this is Africa.

[00:04:01]>> No it's not. Wow.

[00:04:02]>> He immediately said no it's not.

[00:04:04]>> Wow.

[00:04:05]>> I go yes it is. I said look >> that's not real. And I thought, "Oh my goodness, I haven't really said anything. I hadn't like, you know, they had already had this belief from somewhere else that Africa could not be this beautiful beach." But had I said that this is somewhere in Europe or had I said something else, they would have believed that, but they wouldn't have believed that this was a beautiful beach. And so what I tried to curate in this trip and some, you know, I had family members like, "Oh, you're not giving them the real African." I was like, "I have another plan."

[00:04:35]>> Yeah.

[00:04:36]>> I'm giving them for this first trip. I'm showing them different things, stuff that is very close to what they've been hearing sitting here in America. So when somebody goes to them and says Africa doesn't have it, like >> yes, it does.

[00:04:48]>> Yeah. I mean, we were in a house that was 36,000 square feet. They ain't never that's the biggest house they've ever The biggest house they ever been in was in Nigeria, right? You know what I mean?

[00:04:56]So it's so important because it reminds me of when I when when Queen of Carter first came my way as a project. My kids had been with me on the set of Selma.

[00:05:07]They had seen me giving those speeches.

[00:05:09]They had seen me front and center in a film of that nature. The next film I did was Queen of Cartwway. And I remember saying to my kids, my eldest son, who was 12 at the time, I remember saying, "Yeah, I'm going to do this film for for Disney called uh Queen of Cartwe." The first thing my son said to me was, "Oh, wow. Daddy, are you going to play the best friend?"

[00:05:30]>> Damn.

[00:05:31]>> That was the first thing he said to me.

[00:05:35]are you going to play the best friend?

[00:05:37]And and I was like, hold on. What what about me doing a film for Disney makes him immediately equate >> that I am going to be on the periphery >> of the narrative. And I went, "Oh my gosh, he has internalized, not unlike your kids in relation to what beautiful beaches look like." He had internalized that a film of that nature means daddy is going to be an addendum, >> is going to be peripheral, is going to be on the side of the protagonist.

[00:06:14]>> And that is verbatim what he said to me.

[00:06:16]It hit me to my core that reality.

[00:06:22]>> Yeah. Yeah. And and to the point whereby when we were, you know, cuz I came on board of Queen of Cartwe and we were still kind of, you know, working the script and because I had come on board, Lupita Nyongo had come on board, she just won the Oscar for 12 Years a Slave and it centered this girl, they were still working on the script and I could feel that after they cast me, it was starting to make my character more central. And I went, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This girl is the center of the movie. We have to retain that cuz that I haven't seen before.

[00:06:58]>> I have not seen an 11year-old dark skinned African girl the center of a movie where she is a genius >> in spite of where she's from. Let's not >> get pulled into, oh, David just did Selma, Nikita just did whatever. Let's really protect this here. And it was my son's voice reverberating in my ears because I had a daughter. I I you had three sons and then a daughter. And I was like, this is my love letter to her because I cannot have her growing up thinking that she is never central in a narrative. So that was very very specifically a film that all of my energy was about when I'm no longer on this earth. Zoe, that's the film you go look at to see how I think of you.

[00:07:48]>> Wow.

[00:07:49]>> Yo yo, it's finally here. We are dropping our lifestyle merch 154 is here. It's hot. Come get it. Bam.

[00:08:06]>> Ain't no place like ain't no place like home.

[00:08:10]Ain't no place like no place like