All right everybody, welcome back to yet another OpenShift Commons briefing, and as we like to do on Fridays is talk about transformation as in transformation Fridays, which is our hashtag. And today we have Sasha Rosenbaum, otherwise known as divine ops, which I didn't think about that one. But yes, and we're going to talk today about something that's a bit near and dear to my heart. And I know Sasha and Jay Bloom is with us and Chris Short is with us. So we're going to have a conversation today, but around creating allies and allyship and how to do that and how to create healthy, engage relationships in all of these technology communities and elsewhere in the universe. And so I'm going to let Sasha introduce herself, talk for a little while, and then we're going to all jump in. Well, take it away, Sasha. Thank you for coming today. Thank you. Okay. Technology stuff seems like I'm on air. So this is good. All right. Good. So I'm Sasha Rosenbaum. I work for GitHub. I worked for Microsoft before that for about five years. So I started my career as a developer, and then kind of got involved in Opsie stuff and then became a part of the DevOps community. There's also kind of a big road there, and I'm right now a product manager, and I do a lot of things that are related to DevRel. So basically held every possible job, I think. I was also in technical sales for a while. So basically, I think I held every possible job in the industry. I don't know, maybe there's a couple more I'll add to the list over time. I also, so I was born in Ukraine back when it was Soviet Union, and then I made a journey to Israel where I lived for a little over a decade, and now I'm about a decade in the United States. So, and that's relevant to the whole conversation, I think, because basically having the experience in different cultures kind of expends your horizons on how you talk to people and how you appreciate where they're coming from. I think I want this to be a conversation.  I love being on a soapbox, but I don't want to preach about this because I think this in particular is a thing that we are trying to solve as a community, right? Like creating allyship and especially in the current political climate kind of, you know, bringing people together rather than pushing them apart. And so I would prefer us to have a conversation about this right now than me just be on a stage. I don't know how you all feel about that. Totally okay with it. And I think it's really, it's interesting communities come in so many different layers. I mean, you've just described moving from from Russia and Ukraine to Israel to this and the things that we learn as children. And as teenagers and through school and through the different communities that we engage in, that help us adapt and bring in other people into, you know, make new friends when we go to new schools and other things. So there's some, it's almost like those lessons that people talk about things you knew in kindergarten, but you forgot. Right. So the elementary school, the very basic things that make us human and want to connect with each other. And we learn the skills to connect from our peers and from our parents and from our communities. And maybe if we could talk about it a little bit from from that perspective, what you learned because you moved so many times. And so you had to go into different communities. Yeah, so I think a lot of times we forget and like it sounds like a common like knowledge that cultures change throughout time and throughout base, right, but we don't really appreciate the power of that. So a lot of times I would see people say, oh, how person X could say the such and such words. And then they have to step back and be like, well, they're from a different country with a very different background, and they don't have the same cultural norms. But we forget that and we kind of expect everyone to be on the same page about everything. Right. So it's like a perpetual playing catch up. Now, that doesn't mean that you can sort of let people get away with bad behavior just because of where they're coming from. Right. But I do think that a lot of times, sometimes it's like the lack of education. No one ever told someone about, I don't know, toxic masculinity, right, in certain cultures. It's a normal thing. People express themselves that way. And they maybe if you had a conversation about this and explained it in a non sort of argumentative non alienating way, we could get on onto the common ground. But we kind of cut it off from the beginning. It's especially, I think on social media and on the internet in general, we can take out the stability out of the conversation, right, and become immediately sort of take sides. And take out all the shades of gray, which we can rant about this, but it's an impossible to solve. Right. And like the shades of gray are never going to be there in online conversation. So I will say, like, I definitely censor myself in some ways because I know that certain things will be misconstrued in certain ways. Right. So I can't say, even though like opinions have like more, you know, shades of gray student. Yeah. Yeah. So part of it, and, you know, the toxic masculinity, even those two words together, the language and having the common language to discuss topics of allyship and creating connections across it. People don't realize, you know, some of its cultural some of its education. A lot of its language and having these concepts, key core concepts that we share and can communicate without offending people, really, and it taking on the responsibility of educating and we talk a lot about trolls and other things.  Right. So it's, there's two levels of censorship there's censorship because I know people who are watching and listening to it for work stuff. They have a policy of not being nasty, and not, you know, not trashing your enemies, or your competitors rather. They're not enemies. They're just collaborators, future ones. But there's a lot of education that we have that we have to do in some ways. I'm LGBTQ, or a woman, or Black Lives Matters, different communities that we're in, that we have to teach each other the language that we, and have a mutual language to discuss these topics in. And I know, Jabe, had you've been on here before with Dimeje, and there's a lot of conversations around social justice, and not just that some of it flows as well in technology, but the work that Dimeje and Jabe have been doing really has helped give us, give me some insights into the languages that we need to be sharing beyond just, just the basics, you know, and I think that's that's been really key.  And localism is more about like I live in Pittsburgh, and therefore Pittsburgh influences who I am and the language and culture that I express because that's my like my local loop, right. And so there's this idea of like existing on multiple different levels of granularity as an individual. And of course, to some extent, the cosmopolitan levels end up forcing kind of more universal conversations right like they, they force conversations, and they, like, it's hard to have a fight about whether or Pittsburgh is better than Chicago, I mean, we can, but it's not not going to not going to nobody's going to win that fight right like I mean, and not just up but it tends to be kind of, I think in at least in culture arguments about like Pittsburgh versus Philadelphia or San Francisco versus New York.  Now, talk about what universally good things are, things get really wacky, right, like, you should you should never be able to do this you should never be able to do that all sorts of different variations on it right. So we get these kind of multiple levels. And part of what ends up happening I think to kind of relate it to what Diane was just talking about is that those those big stories those cosmological stories. They don't have language or pointers in those stories to allow certain ways of being in the world to be seen. Yeah, now that changes over time. But for instance, like LGBTQ peoples have frequently been not part of the cosmological story, they've been hidden, they've been erased, they've been, you know, removed from that women in the world for the last 30 years, their contributions to the not only the technology itself but the culture of technology erased, right. And so part of like becoming an ally part of working with others to become allies is to say it's important to reveal certain other ways of being in the world and that there's not we don't need to all be the same we need to be accepting of other ways of being in the world. But we also need to reveal them so that they can be seen. And you know this is this is the kind of I think one of the really interesting observations of something called epistemic justice and and in epistemic justice theory there's a concept called hermeneutical justice and it basically says it's not when you're when you are allying with young African American black women to be capable or be seen in technology. You're not just like opening a space for them, you're you're helping them to make sense of themselves in relation to other stories by actually showing them where they where they are in the story that they that they can be part of the story.  Those terms did not exist before the 70s.  So she left, and she tried to get unemployment and unemployment people said well why did you leave your job and she said personal reasons. And because I was the best she could do to describe it. And they said you don't get you don't get any unemployment you can't just leave. And she went back to the university and talked to a bunch of women, particularly lawyers, about this problem can I get help is going to lawyer help with this. And all the lawyers were like that. Whoa, that happens to everybody that happens to me but we've never been able to talk about it before, because there's no handle there's no story to pass around that what were so sexual harassment not only became a concept in legal terminology, but it actually became a cultural concept that allowed women to say and make sense of their experiences. I'm being harassed. This isn't okay. And if prior to having that terminology you could feel uncomfortable but you couldn't express it and more particularly it's hard to make sense of what's happening to you. So, again, I think allyship and the development of these languages and stories and narratives and the unerasure of people is partially about helping them to make sense of what who they are in the world, what they'd like to be in the world, and how they want to change the stories. How now they are a character in the story that can change the story, as opposed to like, I can see there's a story happening over there that I'm nothing I'm not part of that. Okay, you had said so many things that I want to dive into and like there's like so many layers. So, I'll just pick on a couple. So, in terms of being cosmopolitan. So, we can see if we look at history we can see like this populist movement right and then it kind of goes up and down. Right. And actually, the worst the situation in the country is the more like economic unrest or something like that. It's happening. The more populist autocratic goes up right and then it kind of comes and goes in waves. But we also like if we take the tide all together we can see that we're moving progressively towards globalization right that the cultures become bigger the countries become bigger we used to be, you know, really small tribes and then we became the king ships and like, you know, night ships and then it became countries and it keeps expanding. And so a lot of people right now are saying like well we couldn't, you know, make the world work globally right there's no global law there's no global ethics standards and stuff like that. But I think we can right because again if we look through history we can see that it's progressively becoming more cosmopolitan. But the problem with humans is it's really hard to exist on these multiple levels and it's really hard to make sense of all of it. And it was really easy to say my tribe is right and my God is the right God and my way of living is the right way of living. And when I have to hold in my head the all the multiple ways in which people function and all the multiple beliefs that don't agree with one another. And how do I not offend anybody. It becomes really difficult right and that kind of creates this like pushback right I now want to close up I want to be, you know, loyal to just my small tight tightly knit groups group because it makes sense to me. I think, and when we can't you know all move through 15 different countries to experience the world right. I think it's about basically psychological safety. Right and so it kind of becomes this thing where people on all sides of this conversation are not feeling enough psychological safety to express themselves and go ahead. You bring up a great point in the sense that we can't move like most people can't move about countries like freely like maybe you have or you know other people have but you can move about your own country pretty freely no matter what and what I've seen here in the United States across my journeys across the country back and forth is that there's all these microcosms there's all these bubbles right and they all exist in their own little way and even between my community here and the city of Detroit 40 minutes away those bubbles are vastly different. Right and it's it as a crow flies it's only a few miles and the the the the cosmopolitan nature or you know kind of underlying thinking and feeling of the community is completely different. So just getting out and experiencing things that are outside your bubble is vitally important on your journey in life in my opinion. But I really actually really like the psychological safety concept here because I think you've hit on something Sasha that's that's really important is that when people feel threatened or people feel scared or their economic viability or their physical safety isn't there and psychological safety is a big part of it and what I'd like to tease out a little bit is this how how can we come from obviously we come from places of privilege and we use our power to elevate our folks and create these bubbles are not bubbles but these psychological safety for people and maybe from some of your experience in DevRel world and other places if you can talk a little bit about how you actually can go about helping people and creating those spaces. So I'm going to do a politicians move and not answer the question but I hope I hopefully will come back to this because this is a very interesting question. So there's a book that I wanted to bring up that was recommended by our mutual friend actually Katzwell to me and it's called The Righteous Mind and it has some useful ideas for this conversation so I just want to kind of point them out first. So one is that it's essentially been proven by research that we don't actually reason about moral issues right we make a snap judgment based on our emotions and then we move on from that and backtrack assign reasoning to why this is actually the right thing right so if I see someone hidden a child I'm not thinking about whether hidden a child is the right thing to do right I have a snap judgment this is bad right and if I lived in Biblical times and you know there was the whatever Don was hold a rod from your child type of mentality around me maybe my snap judgment would be different and I would react to it differently and again this exemplifies the fact that people coming from different cultures and you can definitely like different countries on this globe right now are in different stages of this journey right so like this whole big thing to you know address here but so the second very useful idea that comes from this book and that maybe can provide a way for us to talk about this is that people have so essentially the assumption is that we have moral foundations and we get we essentially have like five different moral foundations and they're like taste buds so like we're born with predisposition to relate to these ideas right so it's care harm right fairness shooting loyalty betrayal authority subversion and sanctity then degradation so I said a lot of words big words but so the idea in the book that is underscored is that the more liberal leading people are relying on the care and fairness right so we want to take care of as many people as possible we want to create justice for all we want to pay people who are being harmed and give more ice to the LGBTQ community or whatever it is right we want to create more justice more fairness and then the people on the right side of the spectrum they tend to lean on the loyalty and authority and sanctity more right and loyalty and authority we just talked about it right we just talk about loyalty I'm from Pittsburgh Pittsburgh is the best is the best right I my red head is the best like whatever whatever it is like my small group is a group that wins and you're all wrong right and then in terms of authority so we have a system that society works in and it's a right hierarchical system right and someone in that hierarchy is on a bottom and someone's on a top right and so this whole conversation like it it always comes to this when when you hear people being radicalized by this argument it's always about one person is arguing about fairness so we shouldn't hurt the people on the bottom of the hierarchy and the other person is arguing about loyalty so the system worked for us for 2000 years why we're trying to disrupt it right and so the argument doesn't even agree because both sides kind of decide based on emotions and then I can start bringing up so if I'm on the conservative side of this I will start bringing up arguments like well people who are hurt or deserving of that hurt we're actually having meritocracy this is how the world of whatever right I actually find ways to dismiss the fairness arguments because I'm coming from a completely different thing right so I want to hear what you all think about this before we can see me I mean Diane if you want to weigh in go ahead but I mean I can talk about it if you want the the the idea that like we have to be beholden to the things we've done in the past is something that I've literally spent the past like two decades trying to destroy like in my mind in my own self so I know it is hard to do but it is possible right like if you look at DevOps look at how many organizations have changed and just digitally transformed the way they do work right the way they release code they've changed the way they thought about safety in general and sped things up right so I know that this change is possible in the mind of a human is just how do we get it outside of these small little things like tech or like how to do something right and get it into a larger kind of global globalization kind of mindset. What so for one. Hold on. I'm going to find it. So for when there's obviously like if you're on the top of the hierarchy is going to be really hard for me to convince you that you should change the system right but it's not just that you can find people on every level being very loyal to the system. That again that also comes from that book. There's a study on how people vote and they don't vote in their best interest people vote with their community. I belong to the community. I align myself to the ideas. So if I'm in the devops community and I know that my community has my back. I'm now defending the devops ideas because I feel that psychological safety and I feel that people are behind me. Right. If I went ahead and said something that differs from that community. Right. And I tried to define an opposite idea and I just lost my kinship. I lost my community. I lost my tribe. I'm alone in the darkness and I'm upset. Right. And maybe the idea that I had had merit but it doesn't really matter if I die alone in the darkness of hunger. Right. So incentives. Right. It's always about incentives. And I go ahead. I was going to that point. It's interesting because we're all in the tech communities too. So like I've been doing platform as a service and clouds infrastructure stuff for almost 10 years now. And so back in the dark ages I actually worked on a distribution of cloud foundry. And so there was the whole cloud foundry versus open shift versus every other platform in the service in the beginning days. And we watched as the whole. And there was a lot of loyalty. Trust me. There was a like cloud foundry is better. Pivotal is great. Right. That's wonderful. Open shift and I actually switched teams which was really interesting. I've done that a few times in my life. But there's a there's a thing that's happening now. I think in tech and part of it it comes from and I was just giving a talk a few hours ago about cross community collaboration and how we've had to change our whole mind with the whole. And I think I give a lot of credit to the cloud foundry, not the cloud, the cloud native foundation for creating the space and to do this cross community collaboration to have the innovations from different projects. And the interrelatedness of all of the projects and the, what I would call the in between this, the centrality of the different people who are in the different projects and the people who are the connector personas. And those people are the ones that I think I have learned the most from like identifying people who maybe have loyalty to a project that is a competing project, but also are able to connect me to that technology to understand their roadmap, their vision. So, you know, we often see that and I think it plays out in the real world as not the tech isn't the real world, but in the real world as well as finding people like yourself Sasha and jade and Chris, who connect us through these different projects and help us understand the, the world views, the loyalties, the, you know, you know, what the layers are and that's really I think one of the things that is changing now. I think before we were in our, I come from open source community development so we were in our individual project camps. Shall we say, so to apply this or if we're even within red hat we were in our individual silos are you in middle where are you in open ship, and what we're, what we're seeing, and how some of this allyship, we see play out in tech. And now in the greater communities outside of in the world in the politics today that we see between in the US between Republicans and Democrats is that's the missing thing is who are those connector people who can make it and help create those spaces for us to hear the other people side, and that I think is the thing that we have to work on more before. So, I think, like, what if we're talking about like organizational transformation stuff like that. I like to look at incentives, and I like to look at the common goals right. So the whole like dough of movement the reason it made sense was because we said, Oh, we're not like one one person is working to keep the lights on and the other person's looking to do the most changes and break the most things. Surprise we're working to deliver software to people to deliver value to them right and we are all incentivized to do that and keeping the lights on or pushing new changes is just part of it. It helps that speed and quality turns out actually go together and they work together and that's awesome and now we have these numbers and we don't even have to appeal to the higher nature but we can just show people data. But it's it's about it now in terms of incentives. So, back in the day we when we came in and we said, you know, we can automate all of your deployment or whatever people said like I'm going to lose my job. My job is going to go away you automated me out of a job.  Right.  Right. Like, your job is going to be better. Now, this doesn't always work like this. This doesn't always apply to all levels in society but it definitely applies to our jobs and technology right whenever we automate someone out of a job it usually gives them a better job to do. So, if you dress up the things that you want to accomplish. As in, they're good for you that usually works usually gain L a ship in that way. Now, I just want to say, basically one more thing and that is, in terms of creating allies in general, like in a company in a community in the world. There's two things that I like the most personally it's one is helping people. So that sounds obvious right but helping people really helps you build trust and relationships and as people help you back. But the other thing that is interesting is asking for people help actually works just the same maybe even better. And I think, especially in the beginning of your career is kind of hard to go and ask people for help you kind of like, oh, well, they will think I don't know things and they will doubt me and whatever. But actually asking questions is has been one of the best things that you like I could do for my career, because it helps you because you get answers. And so, you know, I can Google how to solve a problem for three hours or I can ask Chris who's done this before and he will tell me, and he will he has already experienced all the pain that goes into, you know, trying a bunch of different solutions and he will point me to the right one right at the gate and that's both of us all at a time, especially me. The other thing that happens is that Chris is going to feel really good about himself and that's a great thing to happen right both for Chris and for me because now Chris likes me. So, you know, I know it maybe sounds manipulative to an extent but it really works like if you wanted to build an allyship with a person and they were kind of immune to everything that you were doing like ask them for a favor. Oh, yeah, that's a great one. I think, you know, the other thing, just to kind of like reflect a little bit on like DevOps and some of the previous parts of the conversation. There's two big ideas in my head. One's called universalism and one's called pluralism and so universalism is the idea that we all live in the same universe. The same story, same dominant story exists and we all have to figure out how we fit into that universal story. Pluriversalism says that's not actually true. There's no way that the entire world kind of actually comes together on the same timeline. There's multiple experiences that people are having and you shouldn't actually try to optimize the world for universalism. You should try to optimize it for pluralism. So, why do I say that? Why do I talk about DevOps? I think there's two ways to look at DevOps. One is that you want to develop a universalist version of DevOps, which is roughly like DevOps culture inside of an organization is that the developers and operators share a complete understanding of the universe that they share that understanding. And therefore, like the developers understand the operators and the operators understand the developers and you might end up in those arguments leaning towards conversations like noOps because if we all are the same, then why do we need others? We just need more developers, right? On the other hand, you look at DevOps as a pluriversal system and then there's a different kind of question. And that is like, is there a developer culture and an operator culture and then this third shared set of values and that the goal isn't to actually smash everything into one way of thinking about the world. It's to have enough shared common ground understanding of what's happening in our organizations so that we reduce the friction that occurs because I literally don't have a clue what's happening across the wall of confusion, right? And that's different. And why I think it's important to notice the difference between these two things is to point back to Chris's comments about traveling. The value of traveling is experiencing other ways of being and the value of experiencing other ways of being is to understand your own way of being better. Like to understand your own existence a little bit better by having contrasts and frictions that are interesting. And so I, you know, one of the things I try to say about DevOps all the time is DevOps isn't about making developers into operators and it's not about making operators into developers. Although by the way, it's probably more about making operators slightly more developer-ish. But anyway, we've created the job title. We can just give up and admit that it's fine. But the idea here is that I think if you do DevOps well, the point of the developers interacting with the operators isn't to become better operators. It's to become better developers and vice versa. The point of the operators interacting with the developers is to become better operators. And it's the friction between the two cultures and the way in which it reveals difference and the fact that operators do different things than developers do and developers do different things than operators do. And those are, that's not what we're trying to eliminate. We're not trying to homogenize organizations. We're trying to make multiple simultaneous cultures exist inside the organization without causing tribal wars to occur. That's the challenge to me. And that's why I think about allyship and things like that and bridging and things like that. It's not to integrate the two cultures. It's to make them productive in relationship to each other. So bridging. And that goes back to the original bits that we were talking about. I think I mentioned creating a common language and sharing and educating across the silos, across the community walls, across cultural walls and community walls. I think that's the thing that asking the question, Sasha, asking for favor, asking for things that are bridging tools that open up conversations that create these spaces for people to get a better understanding of what's going on on the other side of the wall. It's not always about breaking down the wall. It's about giving a language so people know what's going on in the other room. And I think those are the things. Go ahead. There's a great Ursula Le Guin book called The Dispossessed. And in the book, there is two different worlds, right? And they're closely aligned and one is basically a highly authoritarian world and one is an anarchistic world, right? And one of the most important kind of symbols in the book is that the highly authoritarian world sends a rocket occasionally over to the anarchistic world. And the rocket lands and there is a stone wall around where the rocket lands that is the boundary. And in it she kind of describes how it's not a thin line. It's actually like a space where they can meet together. And that is what a boundary is. It's not a wall that separates them. It's a place of negotiation. It's a boundary in a way. But that doesn't unify them. It's like a cell wall. It allows the right kind of nutrients to move back and forth between the sub-systems while still maintaining the sub-systems. It's just such an interesting book and everybody should read it and that's one of my favorites. I do absolutely love the author. So I wanted to come back to something that Diane said and Jade said about language and visibility. So I think this is really important and part of the reason I'm probably the biggest reason I'm on stage ever is representation, right?  And I think, I thought about this a lot in terms of role models and how, I'll take the example of sexism because it's something in personal experience, right? I spent a couple of decades not noticing that sexism existed. So I was literally like, I didn't know that it was there, right? And then I spent another, I don't know, five years being like, well, I guess half of my life basically being like, I'm not like them other girls, right? And that was my tagline, right? I'm just not like them. Like, I like computers because I'm not like other girls. Like it just made sense.  Like how did I not notice this? And I will tell you how I didn't notice this. I didn't associate myself with the princes, right? I associate myself with the prince because like that was the only role model I could have. I could not associate myself with an invisible woman in the script. It just, because it just, her, her, her existence was to be a painting on the wall. And this is about visibility, right? Like visibility in language to describe your experiences and representation in terms of having people know that it's safe to be themselves, right? And that they can accomplish certain things while still being themselves. Now, the thing is the thing that like, and I don't know if I want to go and do this because it's dangerous territory, but we're not actually so all the groupings that we have are absolutely arbitrary. Like gender is a social construct. And I don't think we talk about this enough. We keep assigning new labels and saying like people are like, people like this are called that and whatever. But in reality, each one of us has different traits and different, you know, desires and different understanding of the world. And we just can't get that granular so we keep grouping people together. But in my idealistic world, like that pluralism would be at the individual level, like I can be whatever I want and you don't have to assign me a tag and, you know, but yeah, I think like we're kind of far from there, but we're making strides towards it and I think it's a good thing. And again, like just, there's another idea that I want to quote because it's a really nice idea. It comes from Tapien's by Yvonne O'Hurari and it kind of explains some things to me. Because I was thinking about the fact that like men have like as much requirements of how to be a man as women have of how to be a woman, right? But we are talking about sexism, you know, as impression of women and at the opposite side. The reason for that is like he says in a book is like, if you conform to being a man, if you 100% execute on what a man should be, you win the game.  You're at a loss, you're at a down in the hierarchy and you have a problem. And that is true in like racism as well, right? It's true of the hierarchical systems and positions. The problem isn't that like there's no toxic masculinity and men are not told that they're not allowed to cry or whatever and not experience certain levels of personal oppression. And they do, but they have an option to opt out and like opt in into the game and win it whereas like some other people do not, right? Okay. So this is really good book by a guy named Herbert Dreyfus called All the Things Shining. And the point of the book is roughly this, one of the things that the Greeks had was a polytheistic system. And therefore, like if you wanted to explain yourself, you could say like I'm under the thrall of the God of love right now.  But now I'm all of a sudden under the God of war and I want to kill people. And I can switch my personalities and it's totally rational to switch my personality because all I'm doing is saying the God that I used to be in thrall to... I'm not paying attention to him anymore. I'm paying attention to her now, right? And one of the things that happens in Western culture is we move to a monotheistic God, a universal system with one concept of what goodness is. And therefore your idea of being able to switch personalities is challenged because I still have to serve this primary set of ethical standards. Even if I claim that I've changed what was not, I can't radically change what was not like I could in the Greek times. It's a good book. You guys shall read it quickly. You'd like it. We're going to end up with a bibliography at the end of this talk. I know, right. I keep having to hunt for like book titles and dropping links in the live stream chats and it's like, oh my gosh, there's so many books in there. But I want to go back a little bit to what Sasha said because it's been my experience too. When I read books as a kid, I probably never picked the princess as the person that I envisioned when you project yourself into a book. And I think there's another thing that I think it's a little saying somewhere about if you don't see yourself in the room, then you don't... If you don't see someone who looks like yourself in the room, you can't visually visualize yourself being in that room. So Sasha and other folks is getting other people on the podium so that others can see them on the podium and see themselves reflected back in the conversations that we're having. It has been really one of the things that I've been keen to do with all these new tools that we have for virtual worlds. We've democratized the access to all of this stuff. So now we should actually leverage that to bring more people and make people more visible where they want to be and empower them. Go ahead, Sasha. Yeah. So I just wanted to add to the via presentation matters. And in addition to that is we stereotype by default, right? Our mind's stereotyped. Like there's nothing we can do about this because like we must generalize and can't treat every sort of circumstance on its own. And that's why representation matters because if I don't see anyone who looks like me on that stage, I can't visualize, you know, me being on that stage. And then if I thought roughly 50% of women in tech, then I wouldn't be, you know, arguing that women are biologically disqualified to work with computers or not what the hell people argue. So it's just normalizing people of certain that look a certain way, but like a better description being in certain spaces, right? Exactly. Absolutely. I think that's for me, because the whole topic here today and welcome, Andrew. Hello. Creating allies and allyship and, you know, we, we've wandered into a PhD territory and other other places. And it's great. This is exactly should allow James to join. So we went up, we went to that higher level too. But I also think that one of the things that we really what I want to tease out a little bit more to is how we with the dev ops and the dev. Yeah, maybe dev rel and other things. We've, we've had a lot of tools and a lot of the capability to help bring other people to the farm. We still have so much more to do. And just would love to hear Sasha and Andrew of where, where we can do more in terms of raising up visibility, creating more spaces and what the because I know you've had a lot of success in the dev op days and other places. And what else you would, would share with people to do to help to create that visibility in that space. It's one thing to say we need to do it. But how are you, how would you do that. Go about that. So, so from personal experience, I think I was thinking about this because like I belong to different, like, I, like I said, I held a lot of different jobs in tech, right. But I'm part of only one community for real and that's the dev ops community, right.  And the reason is because they had people who were allies to me. Like, I came there and people hug me and, and I stayed because like that was a welcoming place where I had psychological safety and all that stuff. And so what I think I want to do is hug people back like hug new people. Right. I think so, like, if I say Twitter, you know, lots of people on Twitter have this like, oh, I want to be followed by cool kids like I want to be able to have conversation with cool kids. I think what matters to me is when I have a conversation with someone who's less privileged than me, and I can see that I've gained their trust. Like I, they can talk to me and not be scared that I'm going to dismiss their feelings or, you know, just imply that they don't belong in some way. And like, that's what, like me personally, I'm trying to create a situation in which people with less privilege than me can feel safe to express themselves. Which goes back to that psychological safety conversation earlier. And I think one of the things that I think we need to do as parents is creating those places where we can connect and create these spaces and listen for them and, and reach out that and use the privileges that we have and the technologies that we have to connect with people. And I think that's even more so now with COVID and everything else that's going on. It's really important to do that and to reach out. This is a bit of a counterpoint maybe, or I don't think it is. It's actually just kind of thinking about a different part of the system or a different level of the system. I, I love events. I love, you know, communities, you know, I'll hug people, this kind of stuff. I think that you have to look at the dynamics of the power that these things all rested, right. And I really believe in representation and putting people on the stage and I've done as much of that as I as I could, or as I was conscious and capable of. But when you look at the systems that create these dynamics, the power is actually above that. And these kind of representations of putting someone on the stage is somewhat superficial when you don't have representation at the board level at the C suite at the management level. Like, so there's there's all this other work that I think that we have to do and we're all kind of different levels of access to that and being able to facilitate that. But I think that's the work that needs to be done over the like, do we change the dynamics of the system and everything. And I don't know if this was brought up earlier.  I'm late, but I think sometimes there's this there's this weird conversation that is hard to hard to have about the what what actually ends up happening in a lot of cases when you look at the the rings of power and privilege is that the people that are representative that are most like the people that already have the power and privilege sort of come next so it's like sort of expanding out in rings so it's like you have, you know, power. And he is having internet connection issues. Yeah, he go. And there he goes. And he'll probably be back in a second or two. So we'll we'll do that. There he comes. Hello, finish that thought and I'm going to blame. I'm going to blame the internet again. I think that we just have a lot of work to do about all the systems all the power dynamics and be careful not to just make the privilege go to the people that are the most like the people that have the power but also slightly different to to really look at diversity at the basic level of what that means and try try to expand it more holistically than just oh that person sort of talks and sounds like this, but they have a different skin color or different gender. So we'll invite them to the to the party. There's there's one like you touched on DevOps. Sasha and how you know you were welcomed into the community and they hugged you and then like for me I'm a little bit older and so for me that was the Python community and the Django community they were just, you know, amazing. And they did a lot of work, you know, a long time ago around diversity and inclusivity. But then there's another conference that that I go to now lesbians who tech LWT he can find them, and they have done some really amazing work that I think one of the things that you touch on is that there. We, we tend to sometimes think that what we're doing is putting a representative person, like we pick the one LGBTQ person put them on the one person of couple color and put them on the stage or whatever it is and we think we're doing the work. But this, excuse me this other conference that I go to and I love, they have a thing. They don't put it that way they put it the way I'm trying to get the I'm sure they have a better phrase for it. That we're out there there, you know, we're actually we do exist in the tech community, you can put 50, you can, if you actually actively work, you can find 50% women of color to put on stage to have as your keynotes and you can find trans people and you can find people from disadvantaged there. We actually are here in your communities. We just the it's doing getting the organizers or the folks to actually recognize us and see us is really I think one of things go for it Sasha. I think so I want to. So for one for the spending in rings, I think the gradual changes okay and that we can come back to that I don't like revolution so we can come back to that topic it's a whole other topic. But in terms of putting people on stage. This is inspired by recent experiences that make me really mad, but people who get on stage get attacked. Putting themselves in danger. And I recently had an experience of putting someone an amazing person on stage, who got attacked pretty much for what they look like. And that person is at a level in their career and their journey where they could just shrug it off and be like, you know, this is absolutely fine. I'm not in danger.  That's what I want to say in terms of putting 50 LGBT Q people on stage like I can't put it like I was just thinking about like I invited a junior engineer. You know, before a stage and like, and like what if that happened to that junior engineer, what if that happened to that person who didn't have the sense who didn't feel comfortable with their, you know, where they are, like, I would literally be responsible for putting them in danger. And so this is very, very sad and very horrible, but I have to think about that and so I think lifting people up is not as obvious and easy to do as we think it is. Correct. Absolutely. And I think that's where creating healthy safe spaces to do that and doing that. And in a way that engages the community that you're representing or you want to be represented is really important. And I keep going back to this LW, lesbians who tech LWT conference, because they do it so well. And they have managed to bring in senior people from all walks of tech communities that represent.  And you mix them with the junior folks, you can create these and they've managed to create a very nice safe space and a nice model for doing this. But that there's the huge risk as well and of being out or being on stage and getting trolled, which I think we were trolled a little earlier and I think Christian somebody done. So it's, it happens every day and creating the systems and the spaces is really what I'm interested in doing and doing it with thoughtfulness as well. So, I think, I think there's a way of doing it. And, and that that that there's a way of doing it that allows everyone to participate in a safe, healthy, engaged way and trying to create those spaces, whether it's in tech or outside of tech in our communities and in different cultural spaces. Maybe let you guys have the last words here as we're running towards the end of the hour. Sasha. One of the things I think about when I think about what Sasha's talking about is kind of one of the ally skills that that I try to talk about when I talk to people about allyship is that one of the most important questions to ask. As as the privileged side of the of the conversation is what do you what do you want, what do you want to have happen? What is it that you would like to have happen and how can I help you have that happen. And so in the case of like, I am responsible if I put a junior person on stage. Maybe the conversation has to be more like, I want to put you on stage. Here's the risks that you would take if you went on stage. Here are the things that I can do. If you if those things happen. What would you like to have happen. I'm not going to make the decision now whether or not you need to be on stage. You need to be responsible for it. And I will do everything I can to minimize the harm to you. But I think that that it's important that one of the things that we recognize is that trolling is an attempt to remove agency from people who don't have agency already. And we need to intercede and put ourselves in the middle of those conversations and say, I can't protect you from a Twitter mob. But I can do these things if you decide you want to go on stage. And I think it's important that you're here in your scene.  Like, I this is not and it can happen to anybody. Right. We have this like, just world fallacy. Right. We're like, Oh, she was dressed a certain way or she looked a certain way or she's not a real developer. I'm saying she whatever. I'm, you know, that person deserved this in some way. They did something. There were two spicy on the internet. I don't know. Right. But no, it just happens.  And there's nothing you jade can do to protect that person, literally nothing. So if we go into like very bad scenarios, like, I, I don't. I don't think I can do enough to protect. I can protect someone from a violation of code of conduct inside my conference space. Yes. But I can't do much more than that. And I don't know that there's, I don't have a solution to this. I just, I think it's a big problem. I guess my argument is that I think that I used to have this argument with a boss of mine who he'd come by and say, you need to do X, Y, and Z. And if you don't do it, I'll be responsible. I'm responsible for everything around here. And I was like, that's a weird idea that you're responsible for everything, including my, my failures. Like, you're not responsible for everything. I, if you don't want to share the responsibility, then you're that just it's. So I get frustrated. Because I think the argument that I was trying to make was not that you could protect them, but that you can be clear about what you're able to do. And what you're not able to do and what the actual risks are and then help them make a decision. Because I don't understand, I don't under, I don't know how to go from, I feel like I am putting people at risk and therefore I think the conclusion to that sentence is therefore I don't want to put people on stage. That doesn't seem like that that seems like the trolls are winning that argument. I think the point james also making is that you're giving them the agency instead of holding the agency for yourself. Right. So that that no one can protect anyone. That's the reality. That's the reality. No one can protect anyone. I understand on the agency point and I understand that I'm taking responsibility for saying, you know, that I, you know, I can also offer it. Obviously, no one has to be on stage or in the board room or wherever, right. Like everybody has an agency and decides to take this risk, but I'm also saying that people don't always understand what comes with that risk, right. And I do feel responsible if I am trying to lift someone up and they get abused because of that, I do feel responsible, right. If I invited someone to an MVP community and now they're getting death threats because I did that. It's a little bit on me. Now, my answer to that in the not letting the trolls win is exactly the gradual change. Right. Like, because I can make sure that I have this gradual influx of people who look differently into the community up to the point where it becomes normal. And so it doesn't get attacked because they're Chinese or whatever. Right. So let me frame it just slightly differently. So knowing what you know now in the next opportunity to put someone like that on the stage. Will you not do it. I will absolutely do it, but I just, I don't want to be dismissive of, like, yes, I don't want to say that if I create a conference and I put 50 LGBTQ people on stage that would automatically solve their presentation problem. Like, I just, yeah, I don't think that. Yeah. No, I don't think anyone thinks that. Yeah. I think this, what I would, the point that I was trying to make with a LWT folks is that they have had no problem once they committed to putting that many people on stage to finding that many people on stage because they, we are out there. They are out there and so I have a little bit of a problem just a little bit with the gradualness because it's I'm older probably than all of you on the here right now. And so when I started in computer science back in the dark ages, there were more women in tech and in those programs than there are now. So they're the, so, and we went from being there to disappearing for a while to coming back now. And so for me, and, and, and this is I keep saying this to people is that they're out there, you know, there's, there's a lot of people who are in senior positions at that are quite willing to speak. We just have to ask. This isn't even deeper topic than we have time for. Yeah, but one more thing, and we're talking about the stage here, and I what the stage is just where we see ourselves Sasha, right, when we go to conference and stuff, but the work of the harder work is getting it into the organizations to getting more people into positions in companies and in tech and visible to so I want to make sure that we we keep saying I keep saying yeah, they stage, but I want that. And I actually think that that we just don't do a good enough job looking and asking people for to be visible and but do it in a safe way and responsible way so I mean I'm there are people out there who are quite willing to talk and it's just finding them and making the effort. I will absolutely agree with you that stage was a metaphor for being visible and being leadership right it's it's not about, you know, being at a conference. I have so many things to say I'm just going to, you know, we can save on for some other time because like there's literally too much to dig into. I do appreciate the way this conversation that like I think we don't have enough of these conversations say like we said no shades of gray usually so like I appreciate this. So, we have every Friday so go for it Andrew have a, have another. I made a point that I think is very interesting and I thought a little bit about and I think some people understand but you know and you sort of alluded to this at some point, computing was considered women's work. Right, so like this whole idea that that's like Dominion some of these conversations and some of these spaces about what what people are capable of or not capable of is literally unfounded and it's literally it's like fashion and tribalism drives drives the dynamic more than any sort of evidence, but that dynamic change at some point when, you know, the power, the money, the rest, and they pushed out they pushed out the women essentially. Yeah, and the rest right so it's like you, the hidden figures movie kind of puts a nice historical framing and lens where like we literally kind of have done things with with space flight without the calculations and capabilities of one black woman that's just it's absurd to see some of these conversations that we have to have. Genevieve bell does this great talk where she talks about the fact that England when it was first wired was wired with two wires no ground, so they needed to basically rewire all of England to a three grand to a three wire grounded system. And so they didn't have enough electricians. And so what they did was they printed up the instructions on how to rewire your house on teen napkins and they sent it to every house in England. And the idea was that they were going to convince women homeowner women who stayed at home to rewire their own houses and they did. And the thing about it is that the moment the tipping line tipped to there were more houses with grounded wiring than not grounded wiring. It made being an electrician a highly profitable thing all of a sudden you need to go rewire all the rest of the houses and all those. And guess what the women who did the original work to rewire most of England were prevented from becoming professional electricians they were not allowed to they weren't allowed to be paid for the knowledge that they had. And you see the same types of things happening computing early computing it wasn't particularly profitable to be a programmer when it suddenly you can get six figures the first year out of school. Well maybe we don't want the girls to play over here we like to we kind of like making all the money. Let's just we'll just diminish their contributions and ignore them so that we can keep all the profits for ourselves. And you know only only recently now when we have a talent gap do do all sudden there's a concern for how we get as many people back in the system as possible. I just think you know the economics behind this stuff is really gross and and and you know, pretty clear. Anyway, yeah. So maybe Sasha will let you have the last word in here. Yeah, I could just keep going right so I'm just not going to. I think you know that we kind of maybe didn't go Dan where where you wanted to go with this, but I think it was useful. And I don't know I think I would appreciate if we. I personally would appreciate if we tried to find common ground rather than sort of radicalizing, because I think, like I said, I don't think good things come out of revolutions.  Then we sort of blew up the entire system to redistribute power because in the end of it usually the power doesn't land very well anyway so. No, I think I think we're going to have this conversation again. And, and I think that it's, it doesn't matter that we didn't maybe adhere to the topic of creating allies because I think in having this conversation we're doing some of that work. So, and I really appreciate you coming Sasha and helping us spur this conversation a little bit further, because there's so many more layers to this onion. We can peel back. I just, you know, tons of things we could we could talk about like, but I'm going to let you go because I want to respect everybody's time today. And thank you. And we'll, you know, if you have questions for Sasha or Andrew or jade or myself or Chris, hit us up on the internet and Twitter land wherever you live divine ops on python DJ there's little idea and you're, I don't know how to pronounce your site and is that is that site and find us. We're happy to all happy to talk about this. And we will be talking about this more in the future so thanks Sasha for taking the time today. Back to the revolution. I think we're going to change the theme music for this or something. So, it's all good. Thank you very much guys.


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are in the real estate business because again um this is not the kind of conversation that we want to start seeing uh attacks or whatever let's come correct first of all they say that there's a master town planning plan for Lagos right and if you check that master town planning right it gives room for where you can build where you cannot build um to check you know of course you have to check whether those areas that maybe if you're buying from an estate or whatever all of those areas do not go through some of this master plan because there are master plans for roads for drainage and all of that and again you know that we complain a lot about i mean i have been the one complaining and complaining and complaining about this our lack of expressway first of all no drainages the roads are really bad one tiny tiny accident you're all stuck till god knows when so literally right um if we see government doing this behind the rights right so let us establish that the government is right to demolish those structures is a painful thing to watch i mean if they are shown the other video where the way you will see the houses the people were bringing out their properties like it was such a painful thing to watch i was just trying to put myself in that position that hey what will i do like literally you're devastated but you see somebody said something to me said if you even check on the master plan in Lagos there's something they call the coastal road that that coastal road it comes all the way from oniru to kalabak that's it the day the government wake up and say they want to wake up that coastal road they want to do the coastal road they want to do maybe all the whatever around that area a lot of properties will go even in this oniru and all those places because it's a it's a long line that goes all the way to kalabak so that when you are buying the property there are three entities involved right they are the homonilers right where those ones are just there they want to just say go there are the developers do you understand because there are there are many entities in this in this playing game there are the developers that you know did not do their duty because even as a developer you're supposed to go with a lawyer you understand to go and check that's why you pay those lawyers to go to the lake or say land and all of that to go and check there's also the way the the buyer if the if the developer has refused to do his own checks you as a buyer you're supposed to check it and of course the overall body now covering everything is the government right so yes the government had given these people three years right warning both my questions and when i ask these questions i'll just leave it out for the ladies to respond so it took three years for them to demolish this property what happened why because even before if if a property is going up you see those government people coming to market x so even if there was warning signs at the foundation level somebody still must have collected a bribe to look away for those buildings to go up so why did they allow those buildings to even come up in the first place that's the question on the part of the government and for the developers you understand why did they not do their duties and for the buyers you understand why did they not just check what are the things like the barriers that restricts people from actually accessing these informations so that's my question okay well i think on that you know i would i would just say that some most developers are actually very greedy people yeah because most they sell is really not of their business anymore most of the time they just don't care as long as they sold they probably made their money they're not if it was a rental property now they would have been a very different case but they're not developing the houses and then they're putting it out there for so most of them are just is better from a place of greed yeah because the truth is like he rightly said somebody must have been bribed in the government you know to look away because after when they start a project i'm sure maybe the government would have come there to see okay is it in the right place are you building the right thing and stuff like that and then eventually market x but you see that most times those buildings still go up it means that they have really paid someone so it is the part it is great on the developer side one and then it is also corruption inside of the government because they know that this thing is going to boom around in the end but because of what this stands to gain in the meantime nobody really bothers about okay are we doing the right thing i'm not doing and like he also said the people that are buying i don't think i want to carry my millions of naira right now to go and buy a house where the the the documents on that house is not a governor's consent and i don't know that you'll be giving a governor's consent if your property is not standing on the ideal place it is supposed to stand so is it it's i mean where i would be shocked is if maybe they go to forge those kinds of documents are we really amazed because i believe that once you have a governor having a governor's consent on the property is one of the best documents you can actually have because it shows that it is not a government property the government has allocated that land out outside of the government so it is it has probably gone to the community and then the community has also allocated it to a developer so that's why omonule will not come and be disturbing the developer that oh you're on our land xyz xyz it because that's already been allocated so if i'm not buying a house that has that document i don't see any reason why even if i have that document at this point due diligence is very important we need to check on how many square meters is that house built i mean the area where it is built are we really really sure that it is not a government owned property because most of the house is when they come up that's the reason why they get marked because they built they were built on government own government's own land and those kind of things won't work so i don't know the me i i i strongly believe that everybody has a road to play in all of this there's greed at play there's corruption at play and there's lack of doing due diligence at play that's what i think okay so for me i'm going to start from the end user that's the buyer it's your hard earned money and i would imagine that you take make it your responsibility to know that you're not just throwing your money away if you especially in Lagos if you have taking the time to put money together to buy a property i'm not sure that you want to wake up and then tomorrow somebody says get out of this place you understand so again developers or i mean whoever sells properties are only able to do what they do because they know that buyers do not care if two three four five six seven eight buyers truly care and do what needs to be done they would know that they need to do better there is that then of course developers we we have a cultural a mentality in Nigeria there's nothing money cannot solve as long as you have the money there's always someone to talk to so even when they know for a fact that it is wrong they say is money will you find somebody don't worry now she spoke and then we spoke about for Jane while i may not be a hundred percent certain you hear the stories i mean i have been in the trust business where one of the things that we talk to people about is ensure that you perfect your documents that's very key but again Nigerians are rather laid back about documentation yeah we don't think it is necessary we don't let professionals do their job so instead of you to engage a lawyer you say let me look for one small 10k just money so people will keep getting burns yeah and this is a big ball it is there is the professional part of it there are lawyers who are in i mean who are into property you know property law i mean these are things that i would expect that at the convention at the nba convention there should be serious conversations around this there is the institute of surveyors architecture i mean all these have professional bodies what are they doing so if they cannot come together to set the building standards construction standards how real estate is supposed to operate in this country we just touch a very sensitive because if you say i want to come to marry of course you see we were just talking about standardized you know real estate has become one of the most is very we bought it we bought a land many years ago from i won't mention the name of the company till today we don't even know where the lands are and this thing they did not only even just sell to individual they went to like a bank and they did like bulk so imagine an entire staff of an entire bank across all branches bought into that property we don't know where that property is today so that's an aside right real estate is so proud that they are know it is only very few people now and again you see because it is based on personal as a matter of personal principles and standards because nobody really checks these people right nobody checks them they wake up in the morning you will see gota you will see big big creators in front of your house they'll tell you this house is 10 billion oh god what are the parameters that may ensure that slice of house is slice of house now it's going for how many millions i don't get before before a before price is placed on a property it is not just the property in itself it is the environment is everything so what's that you else yes when i see some of the costing that they put on buildings i say please on what parameters are you are you put in this cost but you see guess what they take is the most booming industry everybody is doing this everybody is doing that they're just carving out estate and building it yes the real estate industry has really helped to get a lot of people out of rented apartment get a lot of people into more structured living kind of style because some estates are really structured you can take your walks you can do all of those things you can have like a decent environment but in that same breath the real estate industry has been contactless they've been known for doing things you know without any level of what's it called respect respect for the for for the laws of the land yeah because why would you a developer you know let me come to you Mary what are you looking at me so i'm just thinking of you know people who have made maybe quite a large sum of money and you know there's you have you know these real estate agents like we say or you know however they portray in themselves you know come to you you want to help the person at ten times an investment for you you know sometimes you might not maybe that's not the first property you have you know your first one that you're living in is probably you know well thoughtful and everything so this one you're saying well let me help this person and then you know you put your money there and it's this is what you're getting so my my question is or my point is why why aren't they being regulated why is it that you know you just have these people just sending out their agents out there to say you know sell sell sell sell we need to make money but then you're selling what's not authentic like i mean why would you have a whole company that is built on lies hmm people just want to say i mean money they just want to make money but that's but that's wicked because when we now say the government the government we're doing our own sales that's because there is no budget we're actually so why is it that why doesn't the government have any so so regulating body do you understand so let me i'll come back to you on that right i'll come back to you uh because one of my friends that i called in in this evening she said there is a body so when we come back from the break i will try to find that body and mention it and there's a regulatory body now that all these other bodies fall on them yeah yeah truly they were not there but i think the government has been trying to clean up that space because again it's too much money going in there all right thanks for staying with us now if you just chained in is our lady's night out and today we're having a conversation a very honest conversation with ourselves right around the checks and balances for illegal structures and we're asking who is responsible please let's hear what you have to say remember you can join the conversation send us an SMS or what's at the rate one eight zero three eight four six six three you can also call our phone line the number to call is zero seven zero two five zero zero seven seven four nine that's the number to call remember please turn off the volume of whatever devices you're watching us from so we can hear ourselves so we don't get a feedback so i think that the body that i'd mentioned before went on a break let me see if i can pull it out it's the they call it the the agency of the legal state government in charge of coordinating monitoring and regulating activities of practitioners in real estate so it's legal state real estate regulatory authority right so they have been working together and this this body has a couple of things it has all the all the key players in the real estate value chain under the body so they are the ones like the governing body watching it now see i get it the part of legal things that you talked about but you see a lawyer too cannot even do their work if you i remember when when we're going to start ways and i went to one particular lawyer or more they charge me billion i say try on top of contract when i can just get one charge and pay to just do the contract for me but it to some people it felt like i was wasting money do you understand that why would you spend so much money to drop a contract when you can get somebody that will just give you just give the person 20k and the person that just give you a contract so when it comes and it's the same thing that goes across all body it's not even just with legal even with our health like we literally don't understand how to value people's intellectual property the lawyer that would you would hand over a property to say you know what i want to go and buy this property help me look that everything is fine that lawyer knows that tomorrow if anything happens they can they can take his license oh so the lawyer would go all the work that you are paying for it is the work of traveling too because even in a lousa now they will need to go and bring that map that location that geography they will do everything they will give him a thorough or her a thorough detail you understand that they cannot come back to you and tell you okay madam i think this property is good for for purchase or not but we don't want to pay those extra income to say go and do this extra thing isn't of foolishness that you spend 10 billion to buy a property that you did not check most people just believe that the people that you are buying from the developers or the really they don't know they don't they already have already have already have already have a legal department no that's the funny thing fine the real estate company also has a legal department who helps them to check their own for you as a buyer you're bringing in so much money i think you should have a personal lawyer take it just like an artist like a musician same because your record the bell has it you are your manager if push comes to show i mean how do you have this property now i will have a lawyer i will have a lawyer yes because i get my money is coming from me because ideally if we weren't in it nobody let me know if we were in a no even in a saner country we're talking about money first of all there is business and there is money no but let me explain to you so so so properties are broad all you need to do because guess what all the listing is is monitored by the government right all the listings that are the properties that are all safe if you go online if they tell you say this property six to be one thing one thing is for sale you just need to type the address but that's it that's what i'm saying it brings out all the details when this is where she's coming from we don't have to be putting ourselves in messy situations like this you see the reality again this is one of the things that we do we try to explain but i know if i'm dealing with you first of all you are loyal to your business your legal department is there to look after your and to make sure that whatever we are to make sure that the client believes whatever we say my own lawyer knows that he or she is going to be paid to look after my own best interest do you know what i'm even saying okay like that um property now that i say you both should you should you have gone to take no yeah no marry for real because i'm just i'm saying because like take for a stand no let's really let the reason even now and young person wants to buy land just all these people they come they give you a payment for her yes clearly i have paid to come up that too it's like that's it won't probably choose even purchase the plate you see now she has sugar marry he's just we're not talking about we're not talking about uh standardization no he's just quite unfortunate that this is where we have found ourselves i mean so if this is where we found ourselves i think we should act accordingly when you are in room you be able to come on just so that because the truth is that lawyers that work for real estate companies they have just real estate interests that are not entirely your own interest yes they want you to be it's not cheap i get what you mean yet they want you to believe that what they are saying which is better so the truth is that even if what even if they abuse that house on a gutter or on a government's own property the real estate lawyer will still come and tell you oh they have all the documentation why because is a lawyer so they expect that you would believe a lawyer if it even applies telling you that they have on this decision of course they guarantee that the lawyers now will not like to do not like to you because you are simply not even that on documents they are signature they are bad they are there what's it called lawyer number but you need the one but real estate you want for the real estate can lie i don't understand wait let me support me wait let me support me did you see that let me drop one bombshell that that lawyer that lawyer that water many cases don't that i know they fake all 25 cases i want to take running i mean yes i mean so that that's a practical example yes let's let there goes advocate of what now it's a reality yes but it is always good to err on the side of course okay so let me let's bring this question back to the government and this situation now they found themselves because i mean that watching that thing was quite devastated it is do you think that the government should compensate why wait me i learned now but that the d you will not you would agree with me that for those structures to have gone up people that taking right then they should look at the we wait i'm not waiting wait wait let take a color hold on let's take a color wait మాడిвалర్వి. మాకాక, rulesORTER compliqué crocodile ముకేవాఆ. contemporri- ముకాకే ద్న్సించోా కeticallyగోవమి. మరడిబమి. స౉మగోఢర్. So many enswear was brought by the police in Mancley that an elderly woman, maybe in her 70s, Mojesh asked her only direction. He was urinating and after she asked him for the road or for the direction, he just fell something in his body and he felt that his pain was decided. So as he thought on duty that I told him, I said the pain is still there, he said but the people thought he signed it. I said there is nothing wrong with you. And I told him that if you do not allow this, if you do not trust and have a problem like that, maybe I will take the woman in the police house that slept in the police house over night. And by the time I told him, he released his woman and come back tomorrow morning. He should have a little somebody for the money. I told him but no more. I can't make it like that. Thank you all, don't know. The next woman here, we will tell whoever. Okay, snap me out of here. Let's see really if that is true. I don't want pictures because they can't photoshop it. So back to the question I was asking. Yes. Is it possible that we, because again it's not enough. Now the victims here of course would be the end users. But there has to be consequences. For that structure, if they say according to what they said that since 2020 they have given them notice at foundation level. Somebody, you know how government people did. You know what they pretend. Somebody would have been going there every day to be collecting a camp balance every month. Monthly salary. So who are those people that were supposed to be assigned to the region? Because they are monitoring agencies. All those who come to Mac Big X with red paint. Who are those people? Let them fish them out. And those people need to also be physical. But I think we have another caller. Thank you your life. Good evening. Yes, good evening. Yeah, go ahead. Thank you Gabriel. Thank you Gabriel. I think we get the drift of what we say. But these agencies exist. So do you allow me to answer this question? Because you know what I am saying is that if the people that were supposed to stop me did not stop me both of us need to share this problem. Exactly. Yes, so I don't want to totally... not only build or furnish everything. I agree. And I am saying that I mean you came from the point of are they going to be compensated? And for me it is categorically no. And I will tell you why. So if the government is serious about making Lagos a mega city Heads must roll. And there are consequences. So first of all you that you bought property in that estate if they came to demolish unfortunately the estate owners should be sanctioned. Number one they should go to jail. Number one they should because they have to look at their documentation.  So see if the government begins to take that action they will be sanctioned. So let me add something. I am not sure that it is right to say that they won't take that action. I mean if we say that they won't take action we are always quick to say that you know the interesting thing it's not that government does not know what is right. It's not. So I want to add something to that question. We know that somebody would have gone and written an approver for the government. Right? But it takes forever. Sometimes they don't even get the approver. They will just go and build. But hold that thought. I think we have a caller. Good evening. Good evening. Mama. Good evening. Is that how it is happening in Abia State too? What is happening in Abia State now? Once the agency over in the capitals of the government authority notices a new thing that has defect what they do is to just do the discovery and bring it down. Thank you. A lot of things are involved. What I understand in this court is that to come into our market we have to do it. Okay. Thank you, Loma. Thank you. Absolutely. From the foundation. Thank you, Loma. Yes. This is even talking about safety. This one is not about it is going to demolish themself. But what about some I strongly believe that some people in the government also are developers. What I am trying to say is that they are not the face of the project. Some people do it as joint venture they probably have been land and they will get investors who want to No, but even those who want to they will not go to those kind of land that have been marked for demolition. They will never try it. Because they have access to get the real land. Do you understand what I am saying? It is the people that looked away. I was telling Jella about the bureau case here. I don't even know what to call it. The bottleneck when getting approvals. Because sometimes it will take because the government Oh my God! So what should we do? We apply for an approval I think we all need to meet each other. But if we are going the right way by trying to get the approval it is only best that you actually give us the approval. I know. It doesn't make sense right now. Jella, I had 20 million. Wait, you said it was in Russia. I had 20 million to be able to build at least maybe two properties. Maybe in 2020. Can that same 20 million build? It cannot even build a complete world. The question I will ask you is does the N justify the means? It's not about the N justifying the means now. See, there is always, it is government. There is bureaucracy in government all over the world. There is. So we cannot say that because government is not doing this I will take the shortcuts. Who gets to the end of this thing? You will find yourself to blame. Can you fight the government? Can they fight the government? Can they? They can't. Let's take comment. This is not for me. It is our challenge. Unfortunately, your money don't have one chance. It is painful. It is very painful. I don't mind crying. I was like, oh my god. It is painful. How can you be a householder? But we cannot be sentimental about this thing. And then the next minute, you are homeless. Homeless. Good evening ladies. On the unfortunate demolition of houses, I will lay the blame squarely on legal state governments. On legal state governments. All these years for not enforcing the so-called master plan. Who gives building approvals to developers? Do you know even the pack view estate in Eko'i is illegally built and reserved area for water to drain into the ocean? Absolutely. I heard that. Until same government demolition illegal structures start bringing same government people to book to stop the road, it is an unending cycle. Absolutely. The entire real estate sector corruption like all other sectors in Nigeria. Again, on the price of real estate in Nigeria, generally it is distorted and foiled by dirty money from illicit sources for money laundry generally. We all know the real estate market prices in Nigeria totally disconnected is totally disconnected from the economy realities and fundamentals of the Nigerian economy. This is knee or more knee. It is actually very crazy. I learned that the real estate style on the island is even different from the one on the mainland. Because I think agency and legal on the mainland for rent is like 20% or something. That's outrageous. And they say it's a great way. That's right. That's right. Because now there is a whole lot of issues on the island. So there is too much money coming to the mainland. So let me go now. Let's bring this home, right? So I get the part of the bureaucracies and all of that is everywhere. But you see for me, a real solution would be because now let me bring in a conspiracy theory. A conspiracy theory that certain people did not vote for certain people. From my course on, I have never. From my course on, I have never. I don't know what you know about certain people. And it seems like it's a setting. It's all right. But guess what? And that's what actually love what me said. Because if you go and check Park View estates, there is actually supposed to be like literally people built on park. So if you want to destroy one, do on to one as you do on to other. Because truly, if they really want to restructure They didn't get lawyer. They did not get lawyer. If you truly want to restructure legal states, a lot of properties have to go down. There is one on this, our freedom way. We need a certain minister. The freedom way when they were building one particular estate that they are building right on the canal. We need an air roof fire. A certain minister. Not too much work. Just an air roof fire. Let it come to legal. Because right now, all of us would cry together. Are you ready? If we drink the rich together. Are you ready? No. There will be sanity. But there will be sanity. But truly, right? And I don't want us to whip up the same sentiments with it. I mean, there are things that the government have done that were not particularly pleased with me. But you see, in this particular case, I think we should be a lot more responsible as a house buyer, prospective house buyer. Do your checks. Do your checks. It is important. And get a lawyer. Yeah, please. Get a lawyer. Pay for perfection. Get a lawyer. So yeah, you don't get into a problem. If you want to build, you need a surveyor. Yeah. Make sure you get all of this. You can't forget Baba Bill Kiss. That is a builder. That's what you see on the screen. Honestly. Baba Bill Kiss. Please tell me come tonight. Baba Bill Kiss. No. Baba Bill Kiss. No. Baba Bill Kiss will do his work. Oh God. Under the guidance of a professional. No. May we also close the show for us? Yes. May we close. Before we go. Yes, follow. Continue. Do make sure you follow us on Instagram. And waste your Africa. You can interact with us further. Absolutely. Drop a comment. Like share. Invite your audience and friends to watch us follow the conversation. We don't do. But we have to do part 2. Yes. Part 2 on Tuesday. We'll get a lawyer. We'll get a lawyer. Yeah. We want to talk about all these places that they are shorty for noise pollution. That's not a conspiracy. That's not a conspiracy. And not a conspiracy. Like what exactly is making them short please sit down. Absolutely. What are they doing? What are the parameters? Yes. Because some of these places have been there. For a long time and all of these places have been shorting them down. We're just trying to get things right. Before we go. Yes, of course. Thank you ladies. The government will not wait for people to take the laws into their hands. And still benefit from it. This was from the commissioner himself. Honorable Tokunga Wahab. We'll see you guys tomorrow at 8pm. I mean this was a great conversation. Thank you. See you tomorrow. Bye. Thank you. See you tomorrow. Bye.