Transcript:
Daren Isom:
Welcome back to Dreaming in Color Live, a special series within the Dreaming in Color Universe. The series is rooted in our belief that the equitable future we seek requires celebrating the genius of today's leaders of color and creating space for their brilliance, lived experience, and imagination to shape how we think about our impact. Dreaming in Color Live is a live conversation and convening series, small rooms and shared tables where bold questions, creative spirits, and community energy meet. Each gathering brings artists, funders, thinkers, and community builders together to explore the ideas shaping a more just and more beautiful world.
This episode comes to you from Gorée Island, a place of history and homecoming, but also of imagination. A place that reminds us not just where we've come from but who we're becoming. This conversation's about connection. Un lien qui traverse les frontières, qui traverse les langues. Between art and action, place and purpose, Africa and its diaspora. I'm joined by Wiatta Thomas, co-founder, strategic advisor and board president at Dare to Innovate and Dedo N. Baranshamaje, internal executive director of the Siegel Family Foundation.
To help ground us in this place and its beauty its rhythm and its truth, I'd like to invite my brother, Tijan Watt, founder and CEO of Solarbox, general partner of Wuri Ventures and Dreaming in Colors season five alum to open us up with a few reflections. I'm your host, Darren Isom. Welcome to Dreaming in Color Live.
Tijan Watt:
Good to see everyone. Back here in lovely Keur Louise. Thank you for Gilles and Nadia for being our gracious hosts. Sometimes, I come to Gorée at night and it's a little bit different at night because as you walk down the streets, you realize that there's something that you're not hearing. You're not hearing cars. The streets are narrow. They're made of cobblestone and it's because this place was built hundreds of years before there were cars. Other things you think about when you come to Gorée is the famous door of no return. That makes Gorée one of the most iconic slave ports in Africa and everybody knows that.
I remember when Barack Obama came and stood in the door of no return with Michelle and it's meant to be empathic. It's meant to denote sadness. But there's a flip side to that, which is it can also be the door of the return. Right now, people are waking up to Africa and have discovered that this place is more interesting and more vibrant than they had been told. And we have this opportunity in Gorée to make this because it's the most iconic former slave for it. It can be also the most iconic place of return, a place for atonement, for reconciliation, and also for return.
And we have people from all over the diaspora, which includes Jamaica, which includes Kenya, which includes the United States, Europe, everywhere. And we invite everyone to come back and to invest, to be creative, and to just enjoy what the continent has to offer. So, with that, I'd love to watch this amazing podcast and yeah, I'll hand it off.
Daren Isom:
Thank you, Tijan.
Tijan Watt:
Thank you very much.
Daren Isom:
Thank you. Thank you. And we give Tijan a round of applause. I have to say for the record, we just did our fifth season of Dreaming in Color, and the last season was on the continent. And we spent some three weeks visiting some six countries, which included South Africa, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Kenya, Tunisia and Senegal. And there's a reason that we're back in Senegal of all the countries that we visited. One, because as my team knows, Dakar is my favorite city on the continent, one of my favorite cities on the world, on the planet. There's just a level of culture and sophistication and groundedness.
I joke cosmopolitan with both a large c and a small c in one city, but also Dakar is one of those cities when I visited for the first time back in early 2000s, I felt instantly at home. And not so much as the black American coming to West Africa looking for home, but there was something as a New Orleans boy so familiar about the Dakar lifestyle and the pace and the cadence and the beauty of the people. So, thank you for that opening. I like to start all of our podcasts as a tribute to my New Orleans upbringing with a bit of invocation. So, it's a quote or poem that reflects the evening and what I'd like to set for the evening from a mood perspective.
And this one is a quote from the Ghanaian writer, Ama Ata Aidoo. We are each other's business. We are each other's magnitude and bond. So, tonight we honor that. So, welcome to Dreaming in Color. And with that, I love to throw out a question to my two beautiful guests who get to introduce themselves a little bit as they answer the first question. And I'd love to begin with this idea of place. So, when you think about being here, Dedo, I'm going to send to you first. When you think about being here in Senegal and Dakar on Gorée, what does it stir in you? How does this place shape your sense of belonging or possibility?
Dedo N. Baranshamaje:
Oh, wow. First I have to say thank you for the fabulous idea of convening us on Gorée. On the boat with a few of my new friends and beautiful and very smart, you're looking at this historic and quaint city and imagine that that's where you're going to spend your afternoon. I could do this for the rest of my life with this crowd.
Daren Isom:
Nice.
Dedo N. Baranshamaje:
No, Senegal is a place that is quite fascinating. We're just talking about La Porte de Non-Retour, but now it seems like actually La Porte de La Rentrée with all these beautiful ideas that you've seen, you see a lot of creativity, you see a lot of people who have magnificent ideas and who want to really shake up things and who are inspiring not only their own on this land. I am from Burundi, but every time that you turn on the radio now, you hear the magnitude of the creativity and happening across this continent and this region particularly, Francophone, West Africa is having its own rising in the moment, which is inspiring all of us.
So, this is a retour to the source, to the ideas, to the creativity, to the people and to new ideas and where the world is being redefined. Mm-hmm.
Daren Isom:
Great energy. All the things. Wiatta, what you got?
Wiatta Thomas:
I was thinking about the last time that I came to Gorée, which was last year I brought my parents and also my boyfriend's parents. And I got to the slave house, the slave castle that's here. And I've been saying for a long time that I'm done with slave movies, I'm done watching any documentaries. I'm done. I don't want to rehash the story. I don't want to live in that sadness, but because I had guests here, we're going to go to the castle, we're going to go to this touristic site and I started to walk in and I was like, "Okay, I'll do this." And they started with the story of how the children were kept to one side and how there were so many deaths of children.
I decided I'm not going to do this. I'm going to stick to what I had said before I'm leaving this. So, I walked out and just sat on the sidewalk and I'm just thinking about how, like Tijan said earlier, it's meant to denote sadness. There's this sadness, this sad story that is slavery and I really resonate with the idea of how are we reclaiming that story? How are we making it our own in a different way with the return? It can be the door of return. I love that point. Yeah. So, how are we rethinking our autonomy? How are we working together to create autonomy? How are we with the limited resources that we do have pooling resources together to build?
I really am tired of living in the sadness of slavery and I'm really excited for what's coming. What are we building together? How are we moving forward together? So, that's what comes to mind for me.
Daren Isom:
And that's a great transition point. I remember as well, the first time I visited the island, it was back in 2005 and I remember going through the slave castle, and I remember remarking the only people that were crying were actually the white European tourists, right? I was like, "Why is it really is what we're doing? Y'all are the ones that are crying? I feel like I should be more moved by this than you are," right?
But I think that it's always interesting as well when you think about there's a wonderful American writer, thinker, politician, Maurice Williams, Mo Williams and he talks about, it was at a convening some years ago about reparations and it reminded us when you visit places like that, let's not forget that the Black American narrative, yes, it's whenever you visit slave houses, slave dens where they were auctioned, that you have to remember that we're here, black Americans as a people because throughout the slave auctions, the slave dens, the transatlantic slave trade, the boats, the years of slavery and enslavement, incarceration, all the things that through all of that, someone found love and that's the reason that you're here, right?
And so, our existence is not only a testament to endurance and trauma, it is testament to love and what a beautiful product to be a part of, right? So, each of you are doing work that really connects purpose and possibility in a beautiful way. I would love to hear, and I'll start with you this Wiatta, what called you to this work, the path that you're on and was there a moment that made it feel inevitable?
Wiatta Thomas:
So, I'm Liberian. I grew up in the States. My family's from Liberia and Sierra Leone as well. I am the first in my family born in America. And when I was growing up, we were always hearing about the war. That was the war in Liberian, Sierra Leone. Civil War is why my family was in the States. And so, I always, as the first child of my generation, this was something that always sat heavy on me even as a kid. My mom always said that even though I was born in America, my heart is buried in the soil in West Africa because from a very young age, all of my school assignments were about Africa. I wrote short stories about the war in Liberia. When I went to university, I majored in African studies.
I was the first to graduate in African studies from Emory University and built the major there. And I've just always had this deep calling back home because I knew that there was a home that we had that had been destroyed and made it necessary for us to live in America. And I wanted to be a part of the story of coming back to that home and rebuilding. And initially, I wanted to work in development because that's what I knew. I knew nonprofits. I wanted to work in public health. I wanted to be a doctor when I first went to university. That ended quite quickly.
Daren Isom:
Took that first science course. Nevermind.
Wiatta Thomas:
Yeah, yeah. I saw how residents looked like they were 50 when they were 20 and I was like, "That's not the life for me." But I wanted to go into development and I took three courses my last year of university, ecology, sociology of economics and African economics together and fighting with my professors during those courses who all had this idea of the West as best and this idea of development saving the world and being the savior for Africa. I really came to realize that it's not that Africa that's underdeveloped, it's that the West is overdeveloped and is pulling usurping resources from the continent.
And so, from that point I was like, "I know that I don't want to do development and I really believe that economic development is the basis of all other development. We have to have economic autonomy, period." And so, that really pushed me to say, "My next move is going to be the continent." Instead of going the traditional route of maybe, I don't know, getting a job in the States, working for a consulting company, whatever it is, I decided to join the Peace Corps and I decided to...
Daren Isom:
Don't hate on consultants, just for the record.
Wiatta Thomas:
I'm not going to hate consulting. Sometimes, I do listen...
Daren Isom:
You can totally hate on consultants. You totally...
Wiatta Thomas:
I sometimes wish I would've taken that path a little bit, but no, I joined the Peace Corps because it was for me the easiest way for me to go back underneath a structure and learn, learn on the ground. And so, I was taken to Guinea. I wanted to be in a French-speaking country because I purposefully wanted to learn French. I wanted to be able to go in between English and French-speaking countries, because I knew I wanted to be on the ground in West Africa. And so, I was a community economic development volunteer in Guinea. And while I was in Guinea, I started a incubator accelerator called Osé Innover, Dare to Innovate. That was the first incubator in Guinea.
When I further was absolutely nothing in regards to entrepreneurship, training, incubation, anything having to do with investment. I mean, there was absolutely nothing. There was zero. And so, started Dare to Innovate, quickly saw that training alone is not going to take a young person from zero to launching a business that's going to create jobs. Our goal really was, we were told to reduce the unemployment rate, go and reduce the unemployment rate. And so, we started with entrepreneurship training, but we saw that the ecosystem was completely underdeveloped. And so, without investment, without capital, without the value chains necessary to build companies, how can someone go from zero to a hundred?
And so, we built dare to innovate to provide not only training, but also coaching and investment in startups and really SMEs in Guinea and across West Africa. We're now in Guinea, Benin, Ghana, and we're expanding into Senegal and Nigeria. But it was really, for me, if you're talking about a nexus point, it was that point when I was leaving university my last year, I just started the major, the African studies major. Prior to that, it was a minor at Emory University and seeing what people saw as the savior for Africa and wanting to build upon that. And I became committed from that point.
Daren Isom:
And I want to come back to this because I think there's something very special about having just a different narrative around the quality of a place and understanding of the place. I'm constantly amused when America is being modeled as an example of a democracy. I mean, particularly now.
Wiatta Thomas:
Right, right.
Daren Isom:
Our shadows are being revealed, but it's always been a little...
Wiatta Thomas:
Can't be real.
Daren Isom:
I'm a product of the American South. We've lived under fascist regimes for a hundred years or so, right? So, it's always been surprising. So, I want to come back to this in a bit, but I want to throw it to you now, Dedo. You spent your career connecting people and ideas. What have you learned about the power community and creating change? And before I say that, I also just want to thank you for the work that you do. I mean, I was told by a mentor, you should always thank people that you admire and you think the world of. And so, both of you are those people, but Dedo, you're one of those people in the philanthropic world that I'm like, "I wonder what Dedo's doing.
It's one of those people that you can trust from a thinking perspective, from an impact perspective." So, I thank you for that. It's great to have that reference point here on the continent, but I'll give you the space to answer that question as well.
Dedo N. Baranshamaje:
It's a really deep one that I spent a lot of time thinking about. I like to say that I was born in Burundi, but I was assembled across the world. I grew up all over the place with my parents who were professional, itinerant and/hippie. And when I was 20 years old... that story is important because it gives you a little bit of a backdrop around our dinner tables that are full of people from really everywhere with different talents, with different questions where you figure out pretty quickly that to learn how to get people to have common interests, you have to figure out a language that brings everyone together.
Oftentimes it's through art or it's asking people questions about the things that they care about. Fast-forward, I want to say 15 years ago, I got sick and tired of being in places where the only thing that people were complaining was their step not being blue enough. And where you turn on the TV and radio, you hear the things that are happening in the world and realizing that there's a huge vacuum between reality that people oftentimes in the Western world and other parts of the world are living and decided to go on the road with a backpack and to discover the continent where I'm from and through the road trip all the way from Egypt all the way down to South Africa...
Daren Isom:
Oh, you were really back... That's not a backpacking across the... That ain't a Route 66. That's a real...
Dedo N. Baranshamaje:
And the thing that was fascinating was to see this contrast between the stories that we seen on media about Africa and the creativity, the depth and the resilience and the ambition of the people across. And I continued to think of myself, how do I participate in changing that narrative and bringing new stories? And as anyone whose early 20s would do, I started a nonprofit that was going to do that and realized that, wow, it's much more complicated, that fundraising was really, really hard and I did not give up and then I joined a larger organization that is founded in the Western world and quickly realized that it was super easy to raise money.
But at the same time, you have all these really cool people who have great ideas of how they can change their society. And on the other, you have organization that originated elsewhere who are raising way much more money. These decisions are arbitrary. And then I realized that I could go back and pick up from my upbringing and using that multi-culturality to bridge the gap, to connect people, to connect ideas and to help people translate one another. Because at the core of it in the investment world, the difference between having access to capital is simply trust is how do we broker it pretty quickly and decided to join philanthropy to do that.
And I've been working for the last 12 years with a foundation that has given me that opportunity to not only connect ideas, but also to drive value and to drive money across the Sub-Saharan African continent, which is also the reason why I'm here. And we're discovering different ways we can get back to the basic around sharing values and sharing mutuality and creating a world that we're all happy to be part of and using the perspective that I know the best of capital of funding.
Daren Isom:
And I'm going to go off script a little bit, not to scare you guys, but my team I'd say all the time, the easiest way to disrupt a broken narrative is to tell a more beautiful, more compelling one. We're in the business, as an American, we're in the business of storytelling. What's the story you want? How do you tell it and make it stick? And I think that so often within this work itself, it's about really understanding for me, the narratives that I've internalized in a good way about my community and my place and making sure that other people see that narrative as well. I'm always surprised.
I joke about growing up in New Orleans, you grew up in this world that America's a white country, obviously Louisiana white state, but New Orleans is a very black city. And I grew up in a very black city. It was New Orleans in the '80s and '90s. It was 75%, 80% Black. And my parents made this active decision to send me to the integrated school. So, there are white people there. And I remember this was the first time my parents realized I was going to be entering rooms with white people and I'd not spent any time with white people. And so, my grandmother giving me this conversation, you're going to be going to school with these people who might be different from you and it's important for you to appreciate their difference and for them to appreciate your difference.
That was my talk. Of course, I got to the school and I thought white people were just like light skin black people. I could not imagine a world where there were other people. And so, at some point, there was this, my parents came in and kept asking about my friends and they're like, "Is he making friends with white people, right?" There's this random neighborhood in New Orleans called Gentilly. It was a random neighborhood that meant absolutely nothing. And I had one aunt who was a little lighter skinned from Gentilly. And so, my mother realized that I thought white people were just light skinned black people from Gentilly because I kept saying, "My teacher, I think she's from Gentilly and then my best friend."
But it's something to be said about normalizing this beautiful narrative, right? And so, I never questioned blackness because I was wondering how they got to be white. What is that? That's a little weird, right? So, I would love to get a sense of what are the narratives that you normalize that really help you position yourself in the work differently, particularly with audiences that have normalized very problematic narratives around the continent and the work and the thinking and the people. Dedo, I'll start with you because I think that within philanthropy.
Dedo N. Baranshamaje:
Yeah, true. But I don't know if my answer is more so about philanthropy than-
Daren Isom:
Yeah, of course of course. Yeah.
Dedo N. Baranshamaje:
... that we are currently living. There are so many things that are really ugly, scary and antagonizing where everyone is thinking about, wow, the world could end tomorrow. We were talking about earlier how each day is a new headline and scary and scarier that I think around narratives that maybe perhaps what could get us to get closer to the center to the middle where we could see one another at eyesight level is to go back to beautiful narratives and to actually shift the foundational beliefs that we have known and have heard about ourselves and about the world and to put at the center mutuality and sharing.
And that is harder to do now when everyone is pulling on their side, you're seeing Europe saying Europe first and you're seeing America saying closing the door to the rest of the world that I think how do we...
Daren Isom:
Answers country as well.
Dedo N. Baranshamaje:
Yeah. And how do we get back to the center? And then I realized what if we started talking about our grandmothers? That is something that we all agree about. Everything can be political except our grandmothers, stories about our grandmothers and how they rose families and how there was our parents and how they make things work. With that, we can start to be on an eco footing that we need to build new narratives around seeing one another through the lens of who we are rather than our policies, where we're from and et cetera, to see the shared humanity. So, that's one that I've been exploring even in philanthropy to shift and that the creativity is equal, but the opportunity isn't.
And then how do we shift that sort of narrative around some being better than others to simply say, how do we create more opportunity and resource for everyone to do whatever the heck they want for an inclusive world?
Daren Isom:
What you got? What narrative are you repeating to yourself every day as you do your work?
Wiatta Thomas:
I love how you tell me, what you got?
Daren Isom:
Yeah.
Wiatta Thomas:
There were two things that came to mind when you asked the question. The first one was that Africa has something to offer the rest of the world just simply based off of how we live in our cultures. So, something that was talked about a lot over COVID times was the idea of rest is resistance and fighting against the capitalistic society values. And I think that something that we have to offer, for instance, is the fact that we move slowly. We move slower. We work in community, everything is based off of community and family That comes first. Time is relational. Time is not about a specific point.
It's about starting when everyone's here, even though I know you wanted us to be ready on time.
Daren Isom:
I sure did. I was not being African with the start of the recording of this podcast.
Wiatta Thomas:
But we start...
Daren Isom:
Got to go, got to go.
Wiatta Thomas:
But we start things when everybody's there and that's why West African international time is wait. But yeah, just thinking about what is it that we in our cultures have to offer the rest of the world that can change how we think about capitalism or building companies or interrelational aspects as well. And then the other thing that came to mind was recently I was reading an article, the headline was African American Woman Escapes America to move to, I forgot what country and start a farm. That was the headline. And I was like, "Can we change it from escape to chose to move? We're choosing Africa. We're choosing something different. It doesn't have to be that we're..."
Daren Isom:
But that's such a power shift and a narrative disruption, right? This idea that you're choosing it. Yeah, totally.
Wiatta Thomas:
Yeah. Exactly, exactly.
Daren Isom:
Well, that's language, power of language there. And I love how you started with this idea of the pace, the slowing of pace. I remember doing an interview in Mississippi Delta and there was this older grandmother at some point who walked in, we were in the room and talked about trying to find a solution for something and she said, "We're running out of time. We have to slow down." Which that sat with me, this idea that I love that. When time becomes more precious, you have to be more thoughtful about what you're doing. So, time actually slow down.
Wiatta Thomas:
That's beautiful.
Daren Isom:
Well, I want to jump just a little bit to the moment that we're in, particularly for Africa being that example across West Africa, there's a sense that something is shifting culturally, economically, spiritually. It may be shifting and just maybe acknowledged in ways that it wasn't before. When you look around at the youth energy, the innovation, the creativity, what feels possible right now speaks to the possibility. Get us excited please. I need some excitement. I got to go back to home in a few days.
Wiatta Thomas:
The first thing that comes to mind is there is so much Pan-African energy right now. I mean, we just organized a group of investors that came to Senegal, a hundred investors that are part of a program called Dream VC and just seeing how many different countries were represented in that room. I just got off of organizing also slushed and just seeing how many different countries as well as diaspora, American diaspora, French diaspora are in the room and having these conversations.
I'm just really excited about how many voices are in the room, Black voices from everywhere, how there's African-American associations, for instance, that are popping up in different countries, in different African countries. I just am really excited about bringing everyone to the room to talk about how can we work together. For me, what seems possible is we have limited resources I can say limited resources because we haven't been in the asset classes that the rest of the world white people have had access to. And so, because of that, how can we work together to build?
That is what really for me feels really, really possible right now and that I'm excited about. How can we have collective economics? How can we build together?
Daren Isom:
Dedo, I throw it to you next. What excites you about the moment?
Dedo N. Baranshamaje:
Papi who had lived in Nairobi and the parents were in Rwanda and then I felt a sense of belonging. I was like, "Oh my God, it seems like so far away but so close." I think what is possible now is connecting the continent. This African continent is the only one where you have people having trouble going east to west and north to south, but it's a continent that can also live off of itself. When you think about ability to trade from north to south and east to west, there is value in that. I'm not the one to say, "Oh, we should do as the rest of the world is doing closing off. But if we do, we could survive by connecting the sheerness of creativity and the people around this continent."
That's one. Second, everything is also possible. I had a meeting with Vibian this week when we're looking at what is around us and I was like, "You could start organization and companies that are solving from education, healthcare, waste management and everything is possible." And the third that I think is really cool is to look into the youth bulk. You have younger people really creative and who are only looking for something to do that is powerful and to do it differently in a way that puts everyone at the center.
I was quite impressed by the recent protest in Nairobi where the Gen Zs went out and with the togetherness, they pushed for a narrative of a different Kenya that they wanted and what they tried to do to disorganize them was to separate them and to say, "Oh, there are queer people." And they said, "No, no, not here. We are in this together. We're going to look at on another and protect one another and each other in this space that we are asking our country to be better." So, that sort of creativity and togetherness to me is like a validation that a new world and a new way of doing things on this continent is possible.
Daren Isom:
Yeah, very exciting. I was excited for all of us, not just you. There's a quote that I want to share that I've been sitting with lately. It was shared by the ever brilliant Orsod Malik from the Stuart Hall Foundation, which is based out of London. He's a brother who's a Sudanese background, a Brit now for sure. The quote is from CLR James and it's from the making of the Caribbean people. The quote is, "These are my ancestors. These are my people. They're yours too if you want them." And so, it reminds me that belonging is both inherited and chosen is something that we claim.
And I would love for you guys to reflect on how do you both think about belonging in your work, your leadership, your vision for Africa and its diaspora.
Wiatta Thomas:
Mm-hmm. For me, this question about belonging is interesting and what is home, for instance. Because I'm Liberian, but I was born and raised in America. I'm also American, though I really hate saying it most of the time.
Dedo N. Baranshamaje:
And it's especially now.
Wiatta Thomas:
But my accent, what I've known growing up, it feels comfortable when I go to Knoxville, Tennessee. It is home. I'm comfortable around Black Americans and Black American culture. America is home. So, even though that is a reality, growing up because the war was going on in Sierra Leone and Liberia, when home was spoken about in my home, it was never America. We were never patriotic in my household. It was always home is Liberia, home is elsewhere. And so, I've never really considered America home in that sense. But if I go to Liberia, they also don't consider me Liberian because they're like, "You're one of those that's over there. You're an American."
And so, then for me, I really have had to build my sense of belonging across. It really is Pan-African. I'm in Senegal now. I live for nine years in Guinea. I've traveled all across West Africa. For me, belonging is really about community, building community across Africa. Like Ditto was saying, connecting across the continent. Belonging is us. Belonging is the communities we're building, the connections we're building across countries. It's not just one place.
Daren Isom:
Got it. Dedo, how about you? Belonging, how does it fit into your work and your thinking?
Dedo N. Baranshamaje:
That's very well said. I think belonging is about keeping people safe and hopeful, because they're part of a larger movement community. These are my ancestors and they're yours if you want them to. In the pandemic, I decided to be and to stay in Malawi. And one thing that I keep thinking about now and grateful of is the relationships and the welcoming that I have experienced in many places that I go to and have been and realize that it's mostly because the values that we put forward. The story I wanted to share was about COVID time in Malawi where I have lived now for close to 10 years simply because of this same value of belonging as a principle and as a verb and as an action.
During the pandemic, my cleaning lady who realizes this kid who doesn't speak local language really well and who seemed like he could be in danger in given the situation said, "You know what? Worry not." And said, "I'm going to organize my community to help you be and thrive and stay safe." Every morning they would come with baskets of fruits and vegetables for the entirety of the pandemic. I did not have to ask, but because of this idea of belonging that you see across when you show people what your colors are, they will also do the same. That's why I'm saying that belonging is protection and that is what keeps people hopeful and able to thrive.
And we are in a moment right now, where it's particularly more important where everyone is scared and everyone is wondering what's coming up next, where we could create and double down on that and use all our creativity, our time and our money to do that. And that's something that at least philanthropy can do really well. I realize it here started coming to Senegal only a few months ago, but quickly the one person you meet introduces you to the other, they invite you to meals, they connect you to all types of creativity and things that are happening where you feel like, "Wow, I truly belong." And it's really good to see even in this room right now, many of those people who have been home to me now in this new home.
Daren Isom:
And I want to build on that because I think it was interesting within, so Dedo, invited you a few times, you haven't come yet, but I'll get you next summer. I host an event on Martha's Vineyard every summer for black and brown philanthropists and those in a philanthropic space and the mood this summer was very different. So, while the community is on attack, folks were like ready to go. Literally, this is the moment that we were all trained for. This is the moment we all went to school for. We're getting ready to fight the fight of the '60s, but with more money, more organizations, more positionality, more power, bring it, right?
And so, I think moments like these actually remind us of our sense of community and what community's good for and what we have as an asset, right? So, we're coming to a close. I would love to have you all day, but of course we have a dinner and folks are already looking board, so I'm going to move on. But as we like to close out the podcast with a question, answer the question for you is when you think about Africa and it's diaspora, all that's unfolding, all that's possible, what does winning look like? Dedo, I'll have you start that one. What does winning look like?
Dedo N. Baranshamaje:
I'm on a WhatsApp group with friends who spend time thinking about these issues and thinking about Africa rising and et cetera. So, winning seems to be about not looking East, no West, but going forward. Right now, process tension between Africa's relationship with the Western world and the fear of the new relationships with the East. And then when you sit down and you think about it, not turning East to West, it's us deciding to move forward with the very own way we know how to do it, joy and we hope that it's contagious and with creativity and resilience.
This continent has seen many crises after another. But when you go in the streets, you still see people really happy and hopeful, ready to move forward. So, to me, that's what winning is about, like pulling all that history and go forward.
Daren Isom:
Lovely.
Wiatta Thomas:
I absolutely agree. I think that winning looks like owning our story. I think it looks like saying this is ours. Like you said, not looking to the East or the West, but really owning this is us building our continent, our countries. Yeah, it looks like owning that story and that movement. It's saying this is ours and we're not looking to anyone else. This is us.
Daren Isom:
We're looking to ourselves.
Wiatta Thomas:
Yeah, we're looking to ourselves. We're looking inwards. Yep.
Daren Isom:
And we're looking to ourselves and ourselves is enough. More than enough to carry out the work.
Wiatta Thomas:
Absolutely. We are enough.
Daren Isom:
We are enough.
Wiatta Thomas:
We are enough. Mm-hmm.
Daren Isom:
So, I want to close at some point. I gave an earlier quote, but I want to repeat this one because it's really sitting with me. These are my ancestors. These are my people. They're yours too if you want them. I think it's the same with our narratives, our stories. They're all of our stories. We share them if we choose to take them and learn from them, right? So, to me, that's an invitation not just to remember, but to belong, to claim the fullness of our shared lineage by choice, by care, by imagination, and be sure that we keep Dreaming in Color. So, thank you guys. Thanks for joining us.
And maybe that invitation echoing CLR James, "These are my ancestors, these are my people," lands a little differently here on Gorée. An island that has come to mean so many things. A place of departure, yes, but also a place where memory gathers. L'histoire ne s'efface pas. Elle s'accumule. Elle insiste.
Where history is not distant, but felt. Where belonging is something we continue to claim, to shape, to remake. Et peut-être c'est ça le travail. Se souvenir. Porter. Transformer. To remember, to carry, to choose what we hold onto and how we tell it forward. I found myself thinking about my grandmother Lucinda this weekend.
I made her catfish court bouillon, the kind of dish that takes time, where you don't measure as much as you know. Not guessing, but remembering with precision. Un peu de ceci. Un peu de cela. Taste, adjust, taste, adjust again. I've lived without my grandmother much, much longer than I lived with her. So now when these recipes come back to me, it feels like they're being handed to me anew.
Comme un rappel. Comme une transmission. From somewhere beyond just memory. Grandma Lucinda was from Lafourche Parish, so her version was distinctly Cajun. A very dark roux, crab and oysters added in good portion. A depth of flavor that felt like it had traveled, gathering something from every shore its memory had known.
Un plat chargé de mémoire. A dish that felt like a tribute. Food like that holds story. It holds place, it holds people. Et la langue aussi. La langue porte ce que l'on ne peut pas toujours dire autrement. In its own way, it prepares you for a journey. Peut-être c'est cela finalement. Maybe that's what we've been doing all here, telling stories that prepare us for what's ahead.
Stories that help us remember who we are, et qui nous devenons. Nous portons ces histoires. Et elles nous portent aussi. We carry these stories, and they carry us. Et ainsi on continue.
And so keep Dreaming in Color. A deep thank you as well to Ti-Jean Watt and Fanta Traoré for helping shape and hold this gathering, and to Gilles and Nadia Akon-Ndi for opening their home at Cœur Louise, a space that carries the most beautiful Black Atlantic sensibility, and for their enduring commitment to Gorée as a place of return for the diaspora.
Your leadership, care, and generosity made this moment possible. Merci à vous.
And that's a wrap for today's Dreaming in Color Live conversation. These are the kinds of rooms where new ideas take shape, where truth gets spoken and where community grows and I'm grateful you chose to be here with us. Dreamy and Keller Live is a British band supported production, creating partnership with content allies, a special thank you to our show producers, Denise Savas, our associate producer, Sakina Khan, and our onboarding producer, Lambert Cruz. And of course, a huge shout-out to my British bank production partner, the ever-brilliant Cora Daniels, my partner in good trouble and all the dreaming that happens behind the scenes.
If you enjoy today's conversation, be sure to subscribe, rate and review wherever you listen to your favorite podcast and that's how this community grows. Thanks for listening. Until next time, keep Dreaming in Color.
