Allow upon everyone, it's a real pleasure to have you here with us in the Association for Baha'i Studies Virtual Conference. The round table that we're going to have this evening is titled What is Knowledge? Thoughts from a Baha'i Working Group in Africana Studies. We're going to open up with a prayer by Masood Olifani. Give God the prayer. Give God, forgive God. Masood, if we didn't know how to draw down the spirits into the Zoom Room, I think we do now. Thank you so much for that. That was beautiful. And it's a wonderful introduction to a round table that is bringing together a group of scholars who gathered about a month ago, a month and a half ago in a seminar that was organized by the Association for Baha'i Studies that focused on methodology, methodology in academic fields. And the way the seminar came about was through the Association trying to live out the vision established for it by the Universal House of Justice. And throughout its 40 years of existence, the Association has been guided by the Universal House of Justice and has been called upon to carry out certain kinds of activities within the Baha'i community here in North America. And of late, the House of Justice has begun to ask us to think about the methodologies underpinning the studies that we engage in in various academic fields. And so about a month and a half ago, a small group of about 40 to 50 scholars came together to think about that very question. What are the methods that are being used in the studies that we work within, in the fields that we work within? And those of us who are here together, along with a few others, came together as part of an Africana Studies group. And now we come from a variety of fields, sociology, the arts, education, literature, anthropology, and several other fields to think about the importance of ideas that are coming out of the Black experience in the modern world and in history. And in that discussion, we were attempting to figure out what are some of the underlying methodologies of our field. And as we began to study this, one of the things that we came to understand that there was a important intersection between a concept which is very important to the Baha'i faith and particularly to the Association for Baha'i Studies, which is the generation and application of knowledge for the benefit of all of humanity. And we understood that from an Africana Studies perspective, there would be some very interesting insights that we could bring into this discussion about what it is that we think of when we bring up this concept of knowledge. What is knowledge itself? And from the perspective of the scholars here and the artists who are assembled here on this roundtable, there are many insights that can be drawn. And I'm hoping that the insights which we'll hear this evening will really be illuminating to those who are in other fields and other areas of study. We have with us tonight four extremely talented and insightful and thoughtful individuals. And they're each going to share on this topic of what is knowledge. And then after that, for about 40 minutes of individual presentations, 10 minutes each, after that we'll go into a question and answer session where the audience will have the opportunity to ask whatever they like of the scholars who are on the panel here today. So I'm just going to begin by introducing them according to when they're going to appear. And we're going to first start with Laili Maparayan. And Laili is a wonderful scholar. She is the director of the Center for Women and the professor, I think the chair of Africana Studies at Wellesley College. She holds a PhD in psychology. And she has two books out, the Womanist Reader and the Womanist Idea. And forthcoming, she has Womanism Rising. And she's going to open us up. And then I'm also going to just introduce Masood, who you've already heard from. And he's an artist of many different fields. We can see his vocal talents already. And he's also an actor, a mixed media artist, a writer, a sculptor. And he has exhibited his works nationally and has appeared in roles on numerous films and television shows. After Masood speaks, we'll have Angelita Areas, who is an award-winning author and educator. She's a public speaker. And she has a distinct voice in the global arena of new approaches to social justice. And she's published extensively on topics related to social justice and ideas of social transformation. And she'll be the third presenter. And finally, we have Dr. Anthony Outler. And Anthony is a K-12 educator. He's worked primarily in predominantly black schools in the Atlanta area for about 17 years. He's currently an assistant principal of a school indicator. Recently earned his PhD in education policy studies. And he really concentrates on culturally responsive and emancipatory educational practices that empower youth from predominantly black communities to figure out how to transform their own communities. And Anthony is also one of the instructors in the Wilmette Institute. Probably you all may have encountered him there. So I'm just going to turn it over at this point to Lely, who's going to start us off and then we'll go one by one for the rest of the evening. Thank you. Thank you, Derek. And to everybody else, good evening, good afternoon, good morning, depending on where you are in the world. And of course, to everybody, allow a paw. I'm going to start the conversation today by making a few remarks about the contributions of Africana studies to knowledge and methodology. Of course, having only 10 minutes, there's only so much I can cover. But hopefully I can set the stage, particularly for people who are less familiar with Africana studies and its contributions to knowledge inside and outside academia. I want to begin with a quote from Bahá'u'lláh. It's from the Kitabi Ghan. Nay, whatsoever preceded from these minds of divine wisdom and these treasuries of eternal knowledge is truth and not else but the truth. The saying knowledge is one point which the foolish have multiplied is a proof of our argument. And the tradition knowledge is a light which God shed it into the heart of whomesoever he willeth, a confirmation of our statement. I'm going to try to cover four topics in my 10 minutes. The first is a general introduction to Africana studies critique of knowledge and methodology. I then want to bring in some womanist contributions to thinking about knowledge production and methodology. I want to bring in some of Abdel Bahá'u'lláh's comments about human knowledge, both its limitations and its potentials. And finally, I want to bring it all together by thinking about how Africana approaches to knowledge and methodology can support the faith and the future of humanity. So let me begin. The starting point, the starting place for the Africana studies critique of knowledge and methodology is resistance to the ways in which knowledge and methodology have been used to dehumanize and oppress people of African descent. It is the effort to reclaim full humanity and to enter the global community as cultural, intellectual, social, and political equals. This is the reason for being of Africana studies. The second main effort of Africana studies is to reclaim, restore, explore, and generate Africana cultural knowledge, that is, the longstanding and ever-growing storehouse of knowledge associated with Africana cultures around the world, traditional and contemporary. These bodies of knowledge have been suppressed and obscured by both racism and colonialism. The Africana knowledge project is holistic, integrative, and person-centric. In comparison to the Eurocentrically dominated Western approach to knowledge, which tends to be more fractionating, taxonomic, that is separating and hierarchizing, and object-centric. A watchword of the Africana knowledge project could be Use Everything, taken from an essay by Black women studies author Michelle Russell, which means knowledge emerges from human engagement with all levels of experience, including sensory, bodily or kinesthetic, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, social, cultural, relational, and environmental. The human being slash human mind slash human soul organizes and integrates this information to produce what we call knowledge. Human beings are always in communication with one another, as well as with the natural world, plants, animals, minerals, weather, space, as well as with the spirit world, including God, heavenly beings, ancestors, and the like. Knowledge then is a product of these ongoing relationships and communications. This is the methodology of Africana knowledge production. The object of knowledge is increasing the well-being of the collective, and the progressive transformation of that collective, i.e., the betterment of the world to use Baha'i Lingo. Often, this pursuit of universal well-being is framed in terms of liberation, which means at least three things. First, eradication of the hierarchical view that Black African descended people are in any way less than European-descended white people or any other people of any background. Second, an end to political, cultural, social, economic, psychospiritual, and environmental structures of domination and violence. And third, the efflorescence of Black or African cultural ways of knowing, being, and doing. This is a shift in global history and thinking of major magnitude, not just a Black thing. All humanity would have to change under this understanding of liberation, and this new knowledge would have to permeate all areas of life, thoroughly and sustainably. Africana studies then, as a discipline, is working to make this happen. Now I want to bring in a bit of a womanist slant. Womanism is an African-centered perspective on knowing, being, and doing that has emerged out of Black African-descended women's culturally informed approaches to sustaining Africana communities and advancing social and environmental change objectives worldwide, so not just for the Black community, but for all communities. Based on the African worldview, womanism posits that humans, nature, and the spiritual realm are all indissolubly interconnected, making vast realms of knowledge and methodology available to human beings for any purpose. Central to womanism is the notion of kinship, all humanity as one family, with increasing circles of inclusion that begin with the dyad, usually the husband and wife or the mother and child, and proceed through the household, family, clan, tribe, nation, ultimately encompassing all humanity and the entire cosmos. These circles of inclusion also include nature, animals, plants, et cetera, as well as the entire spirit world. Everything is interconnected in a concept known as intulogy, which means that all sets are interrelated through human and spiritual networks, a concept we thank Nichols for. Within womanism, there's a pedagogical and developmental rubric that I refer to as the ladder of learning. The ladder of learning is a notion that at the lowest levels, learning is about basic facts, simple information. As we move up the ladder, we move to knowledge, which is the organization of facts into theories and models. From there, knowledge gained from action produces wisdom, and beyond wisdom, there's enlightenment, which is characterized by communion with the sacred, the divine, or the Holy Spirit. Now these two lower levels, information and knowledge, are what's typical in Western education today. It's basically what we understand, whether K through 12 or whether we're talking about higher education. The upper two levels of wisdom and enlightenment have historically been the Provence of esoteric education, but are now universally accessible. Baha'u'llah democratizes and universalizes access to the higher levels of the ladder of learning, inviting all to the independent investigation of truth. Cultural knowledge systems from around the world, particularly African and other indigenous knowledge systems, have much to offer humanity in this regard. Abdu'l-Baha'u'llah affirms in the promulgation of universal peace that the four criteria of human knowledge, sense, perception, reason, traditions, and inspiration, which come from the body, the intellect, authorities, and the heart respectively, are all faulty and unreliable because they're tied to the human material world of phenomena. What then remains, he asks, how shall we attain the reality of knowledge? He answers, by the breaths and promptings of the Holy Spirit, which is light and knowledge itself. Through it, the human mind is quickened and fortified into true conclusions and perfect knowledge. Of course, we also know that Baha'u'llah's revelation is perfect knowledge and that its appearance among humanity has caused, to quote him, the world's equilibrium to be upset. One gift of Africana approaches to knowledge is their ready embrace of the spiritual dimension of divine knowledge and the human connection to spirit, all of which carry us beyond the limited scope of western academic knowledge. Thus, all humanity benefits from the Africana perspective on knowledge. Now I'd like to share another quote from Abdu'l-Baha'u'llah. He says, Now, in this glorious age, which is the century of Baha'u'llah, consider how far knowledge and learning have progressed, how fully the mysteries of creation have been unveiled, and how many great undertakings have been embarked upon and are multiplying day by day. Soon will material knowledge and learning, as well as spiritual knowledge, make such progress and display such wonders as to dazzle every eye and to disclose the full meaning of the verse of Isaiah, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord. But this quote is important because it shows us that we need the contributions of all kinds of knowledge to make this growth of knowledge possible, including the knowledge that comes from the Africana peoples of the world. I now want to end on a kind of a different note. I don't know how many of you have seen the movie Black Panther, but I just want to close with this. How many people remember Shuri the scientist and her research lab in the Marvel Universe superhero movie Black Panther? Shuri, arguably a womanist scientist, brings together the forces of healing, science, social good, magic, and moral rectitude in her lab, where she heals both Wakandans and non-Wakandans alike, developing miraculous methods, materials, and machines unknown beyond the borders of Wakanda. Imagine what our science and medicine could look like, informed deeply by largely understudied and underutilized Africana knowledge bases, perspectives, and moral systems, including and especially those by women. It would likely be transformative in ways that are nearly unimaginable and in ways that might allow us to move ever closer to the world Baha'u'llah has made it possible for us to realize. So I'll end there. Thank you. So I suppose should I just jump in here I guess then? Okay, thank you Laylee for that wonderful, wonderful presentation. I think it helped frame a lot of where we're going to kind of go from here. So I wanted to begin and open up with a couple of quotes from Baha'u'llah just to add on to what Laylee already said. And the first is says the source of all learning is the knowledge of God exalted be his glory. And this cannot be attained safely the knowledge of his divine manifestation. And then another one which I think is equally powerful says, fear ye God and God will teach you. And as a multi-disciplinary artist, I tried to engage in a number of different practices that are all for me have always been interrelated and interconnected. And being educated in the Western model of, you know, of higher education, of course, everything is separated. And I think the challenge for me when I was going through school was how was I going to engage and kind of integrate all of these approaches to creativity on the one hand being a visual artist and also being a performer as well, and a writer. And we find that that, you know, the Western idea of learning is prioritizes the written text. It's held up above the other modalities of learning, which include, you know, kinesthetic, which is through the body. So knowledge being passed down through movement through dance through postures of the way that we walk so forth and so on. You also have our knowledge being passed down through the plastic arts to painting and sculpture. Also through food, how a history of a people is passed down through the foods that they eat and the way that they cook. A variety of different modalities of learning oral traditions, which do not depend on the written text. But all of these are in the Western mind, generally and historically, have been considered as secondary modes of knowing and subservient to the written text. And of course, what that has served historically is to reinforce the power of empire, and which is built on the backs of marginalized, dehumanized, and the objectified peoples of the world. So what I find is, what I have found is that in looking at African inspired approaches to knowledge, and also to the indigenous communities, which are non-Western oriented, is that things aren't linear. There is not this prioritization of the written text. Lely spoke a bit about this in her presentation. All of these various methodologies of learning, these modalities, these ways of passing information from one person to the next, from generation to the next, are equally held as important to the community and the culture in which they are based. So oral tradition is equally as important as the written text. Kinesthetic ways of knowing are equally as important as the written text. Wrapping or passing information through rhythm, through the drum, is equally as important as the written text. Indeed, some of these ways of knowing, given certain circumstances, are more appropriate and more effective than the written text. So thinking about this and looking at, for example, the history of the African-American community here in the West, and we're looking at just the whole history of music, for example, since it's probably one of perhaps the most celebrated form of knowledge transference in the Black community by the general culture. It's been the most accepted. And we think about how the slaves communicated to the enslaved Africans when they came over here through the field holler songs, how they were transferring information and knowledge back and forth through meter, through rhythm, through time, as they were laboring to kind of set a kind of a way of getting through the day from one moment to the next. And then we go on from the field holler songs to the spirituals. And then from there that leads into the blues, which in turn goes into jazz, which in turn goes into soul music and hip hop. An example of the power of this form, of this way of learning is in rap music. And I was raised on hip hop. I remember back in the 80s when I was coming up, being exposed to some of the first rap artists in Queens, New York. And then listening to Grand Master Flash and Furious Five. One of my favorite rap artists from the 1990s is a cat named Nas. And one of his powerful lyrics talks about this kind of spiritual transference of knowledge where he says, my intellect prevails from a hanging cross with nails. I reinforce the frail with lyrics that's real. Word to Christ, a disciple of streets, trifle on beats. I decipher prophecies through a mic and say peace. That's from Nas Illmatic. And then again on to the powerful words of Lauren Hill, where she says, I philosophy possibly speak time, beat rhymes, Abyssinian Street Baptist. Wrap this and find linen from the beginning. My practice extending across the atlas. I begat this. Flipping in the ghetto on the dirty mattress. You can't match this. Rapper slash actress, more powerful than two Cleopatra's bong graffiti on the tomb of Nefertiti. MCs ain't ready to take it to the Serengeti. Now here this mixture where hip hop meets scripture, develop a negative into a positive picture. So, you know, these two examples of hip hop, which historically have been disregarded by the larger society been kind of castigated as being violent and so forth and so on. But here we have two artists who are steeped in the hip hop culture who are disseminating information, spiritually based information. The Bahá'u'lláh tells us that when the manifestation of God comes, it releases a spirit throughout the world that impacts every living thing. So we see this transfer and some knowledge through music in the black community, not only in music, but also in expression and the other art forms and also in our oral traditions and so forth and so on that are based in spiritual realities. And of course, we have to draw on those for survival. And one of the most powerful things in a Baha'i faith in regards to the African-American community course is our spiritual designation as pupil of the eye. And what does that mean? I mean, fundamentally, of course, light enters the eye through the pupil, so we can't see without the pupil. So it's that very real kind of biological reality that we can look at in a fundamental and a real way. But there's also this deeper spiritual dimension that relates to our survival. I heard someone say at a very powerful talk, a Baha'i scholar was giving his talk and he was saying the reason that black people were given the designation of pupil of the eye is not because we are special, are born inherently with some capacity that sets us far apart than any of the group. It is because of the suffering. So the designation is a gift of Baha'u'lláh. So that designation of being the pupil of the eye infuses everything that we do. And we're in this moment right now in terms of a racial reconciliation, a kind of racial reckoning, if you will, with our history, with the troubled history of America. And we're trying to navigate and work our way through this very troubled past and also our troubled present. And the beautiful thing about the experience of African-Americans, what we bring to the discussion, to the dialogue, aside from being the sign signifier of the inherent contradiction that is at the core of the American mythology, what we also bring is the truth, is the light. And that is because of our experience. So we render the contradictions, we render the internet sign cracks, we render the fractures in the contemporary society. And we transmute all of those experiences in how we transfer knowledge from one generation to the next, be it through art, be it through the way that we talk, be it through the way we use language, be it through the way that we interact communally, so forth and so on. So it's a more of a holistic view of knowledge. Baha'u'lláh says that knowledge is like an ocean, a vast ocean. And so when we prioritize the written text, and we see that as the primary way of knowing, and we cut out, or we subvert all of these other ways of knowing, then we're cutting ourselves off from that ocean. And the beautiful thing about these African kind of centered, these African centered ways of knowing, these ways of knowledge transference, these indigenous ways of knowing is that we don't have to fragmentize, we don't have to categorize, we don't have to cut ourselves off from those other ways of knowing. I can write, I can dance, I can sing, I can paint, I can sculpt, I can cook, all of these ways, legitimate ways of passing information on from one generation to the next. And as we move further as a community, as the Baha'i principles become more situated in a fundamental way into society, I have only, I can't even imagine what our understanding of knowledge, how amazingly it will grow, and how it'll be more integrated, and we won't be as fragmented, and we'll be able to look at these things holistically and collectively, and expose ourselves to these other ways of knowing and not think that one is higher than the other. They're different, but they're also the same. Lely said something, she quoted one of my favorite quotes from Baha'u'llah, knowledge comes from one point, but it is, but we have multiplied it, the ignorant have multiplied it. So all of these ways of knowing come from God, from the one spirit, right? But because of the Western mindset and an approach to, to education, to prioritizing the written texts, which is very much connected to materialism, very much connected to the preservation of empire, to the perpetuation of empire, we have cut ourselves off from these other ways of knowing. Baha'u'llah frees us to integrate, to acknowledge, to recognize the beauty of the diversity of knowledge transference, and then to integrate it into our being, into our societies and into our community. And that is about fundamentally at its core, unity through diversity. So there you go. Thank you, Masoud. I was so enthralled with your words. And of course with Lely's, I almost forgot that I'm next. That was beautiful. Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody. Good evening. And I'm just very excited about this round table of this whole dynamic of knowledge. I'm interested in knowledge mobilization or activating scholarship for multiple audiences that include the general public in and outside of Africana studies. So I want to contextualize these few minutes with a quote from a letter written from the Universal House of Justice dated February 8, 1998. Although in conveying his revelation, the manifestation uses the language and culture of the country into which he is born. He delivers his message in a form which his audience, both immediate and in centuries to come, is capable of grasping. It is for Baha'i scholars to elaborate over a period of time methodologies which will enable them to perform their work with this understanding. This is a challenging task, but not one which should be beyond the scope of Baha'is who are learned in the teachings as well as competent in their scientific disciplines. So what do we mean by the mobilization of knowledge? Or I prefer to say mobilizing, that action verb, to work with knowledge. This mobilizing knowledge that enables multiple audiences to be a part of social transformation. We have this translation of scholarship from scholarly communications and the application of its results for social transformation which includes racial justice and gender equity. In all our disciplines, we thrive for the illumination of knowledge. How do we translate that illumination? This particular approach is marked by and described as civic engagement with scholarship and knowledge. And then we move from those truths to public knowledge to public conversations and ultimately new and dynamic interdisciplinary learnings for social transformation. Ultimately we have impact or evidence of purpose to refute anti-blackness, to refute all this history in Africana studies, in the context, in the history, in the places of Africana studies. So this is moving, making this translation, it's not hierarchical. Lately mentioned we are challenging the academy, we're challenging western models. And so this is the same here with mobilizing knowledge. We can also see this as youth-inspired research. It enables and promotes us to be a part of civic discourse and genuine concern for what Dr. King refers to as the beloved community. Mobilizing knowledge intersects all of our different knowledges. Power, justice, equity, and critique. Regarding methodologies then in another letter from the Universal House of Justice quote, some discussions on methodologies have implied that the only way to attain a true understanding of historical events and of the purport of the sacred and historical records of the cause of God is through the rigid application of methods narrowly defined in a materialistic framework. These discussions have even gone so far as to stigmatize whoever proposes a variation of these methods as wishing to obscure the truth rather than unveil it. Close quote. So I would like to briefly share with you an example of unveiling, unveiling, obscuring the truth through mobilizing knowledge. Keeping in mind we have action research or youth-inspired research which can lead us to all kinds of new learnings through knowledge. One example is the 1619 project. I want to preface however the the context of the project, the 1619 project with a quote from Shobhi Effendi in the advent of divine justice.  What are these slow healing wounds? When did they start in the new world for Africana people in the early republic in Virginia? In order to move forward with knowledge we have to know what happened in the past to cause these wounds. How can we heal? How can we make leaps and hurdles into the actuality of the oneness of humanity without knowing the past and sustaining our progress? There is an ultimate warning quote unquote warning in the real chapters of our history, in the real unveiling. The history is so gruesome, it's so painful and we've witnessed this pain on May 25th. Nicole Hannah Jones provides some intellectual framework and answers to these questions with her 1619 project sponsored by the New York Times and also controversial as some of you may know. The introduction to the 1619 project begins with quote, in August of 1619 a ship appeared on the horizon near Point Comfort, a coastal port in the English colony of Virginia. It carried more than 20 enslaved Africans, what the records call 20 and odd negroes. They were sold to the colonists. No aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by the years of slavery that followed. It is finally time to tell our story truthfully, close quote. So the 1619 project is an outgoing initiative from the New York Times that began in August 2019, the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. Now some of us would want to think that slavery started in 1776 with the New Republic. But this project aims to reframe the country's history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of black Americans at the very center of our national narrative. So 1619 is this rewriting of history right where we are, bringing people of African descent into the history of the early republic. We're all familiar with Baha'u'llah's metaphor, as Masoud has mentioned, that people of African descent are likened to the pupil of the eye, light, enlightenment. Technicians of the unseen in his brilliant critique of the pupil of the eye metaphor, Derek tells us quote, prioritizing consideration of such groups is of course against the mainstream of social thought and shakes the very foundation of hegemonic world order, which is stabilized with systemic devaluation of the most marginalized and the least capitalized, unquote. Throughout our history in Africana studies, we have these references to the pupil of the eye, to the technicians of the unseen. Paul Marshall in her praise song for the widow captures the landing of the people on the shores of Virginia, metaphorically in 1619, also in 1803 when the people are brought to the shores and they look as technicians of the unseen. They look down and they see history, year by year, century by century, the slavery, the disenfranchisement, segregation, Jim Crow, they are technicians of the unseen. They see all of this and some of them say we're going back. They step into the ocean. They want to walk back to Africa. So practically speaking, the people who witnessed this walking back said they committed suicide. Their descendants say they were Africans and they had the empowerment of flying back to Africa because they could see through the centuries and they decided not to stay in the new world. It's this light of the spirit shining forth that will enable all of us to work together in order to attain the oneness of humanity. Thank you. Thank you, Ayanlita and Laili and Masoud. Derek, I feel like you set me up, man. Have me go last behind all these profound presentations. All right, guys. So I'm going to speak more slowly from a practitioner's perspective for my work as an educator and also as a junior youth animator in the community. I have served as an educator in the Metro Atlanta area for the past 18 years. All of my service has been in all black schools situated in marginalized, low-income black communities. I deliberately and intentionally choose to work in these schools with this demographic due to the urgent need for educators to unleash the inherent brilliance of black students in these communities. Yes, black students are indeed brilliant, contrary to anti-black narratives that characterize black students as intellectually inferior. The problem is that the brilliance of black people has been under attack since the founding of this nation. The great educator and historian Dr. Carter G. Woodson tells us that there would be no lynchings if it did not first start in the classroom. This has deep implications for the education of all students. Our nation's schools have been the primary agent of miseducation and cultural genocide for black people. Bahá'u'lláh teaches us that man is the supreme talisman. Lack of a proper education has, however, deprived him of that which he doth inherently possess. You see, the knowledge systems that frame educational policy and practice in this country are rooted in the ideology of white supremacy and designed to maintain European American dominance. These knowledge systems have produced an educational design that actually educates black children away from themselves. It seeks to disorient and confuse them. It facilitates cultural amnesia. It renders them unable to locate themselves in time and space. Instead of education serving as a means for their elevation and transformation, black students are subjected to education for alienation. They are taught to despise Africa and anything associated with it. And as a result, the byproduct is that some end up even despising their own selves. They are taught that Africa has no history worth studying. Dr. Joyce King states, bias against Africa and blackness is manifested in school knowledge, definitions of intelligence, and processes of knowing. Black students are not taught about the tradition of African and African-American educational excellence. The information they do get about themselves begins with slavery. Overlooking the fact, as the historian and educational psychologist Dr. Aisa Hilliott reminds us, that the insulated Africans who were brought here were richly endowed, highly educated, and profoundly spiritual. In the article, The Philosophy of the Sea, Dr. Irobi states that the Africans who survived the Middle Passage, and this is quote, the Africans who survived the Middle Passage were physically and spiritually the strongest of the race. They arrived in the new world, not only as resistant triumphs to the unnameable horrors done to the human body and spirit in the castles and ships, but also as living stinking embodiments of ritual, medicinal, agricultural, political, musical, artistic, organizational, philosophical ideas and knowledges from old and complex cultures in Africa, such as the Euribus, the Evos, the Dogon, the Wolof, Zulu among many others. While their captors thought these Africans were mere properties, they were actually mobile libraries of their culture's total intelligence. What was the nature of this intelligence? What are the specifics of the knowledge and belief systems they carried? How do we resuscitate these cultural retentions in Black students so that the world can benefit therefrom? Black students are not taught and are therefore unaware of African epistemology, ontology, cosmology, and axiology. They are unaware of the values, beliefs, and discourses that shaped traditional African worldview across the diverse cultures in Africa, where within these worldviews exist ideas like the purpose of human existence is to become more like God, or I mean the dog. Ideas like the purpose of human existence is to become more like God, that education should concern itself with both material advancement and spiritual well-being. Yes, these very ideas that constitute traditional African worldviews across a number of diverse African cultures are consistent with what has been revealed to us by Bahá'u'lláh in his revelation. In the spirit of the second hidden word of Bahá'u'lláh, instead of being educated to see through their own eyes, Black students have been taught to see themselves and to read reality through the eyes of others, through the lenses provided to them by those who have sought and continued to seek their dehumanization. And instead of knowing of their own knowledge, meaning the knowledge systems indigenous to African people and reflective of the insights gained as a result of our experiences, our resistance, our resilience, and the ways we have made and continuously remake ourselves under the weight of oppression, they're instead taught to know through the knowledge of their oppressive neighbors. In its most recent message to the American believers, the Universal House of Justice reminds us that racism, which is the poison that laces our system of miseducation, deprive the portion of humanity of the opportunity to cultivate and express the full range of their capability and to live a meaningful and flourishing life while blighting the progress of the rest of humanity. If Black people who, in the words of Bahá'u'lláh, are minds rich in gems of inestimable value, who have been likened unto the pupil of the eye, are not educated to cultivate and express their inherent qualities and capacities, then how can human civilization advance? How can the oneness of humanity be realized? This question has framed my work for over half of my life as both an educator in all Black public schools and in my work with junior youth in the greater community, specifically through the Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Program. My approach to education with both my students in schools and with those in the community has been to use history and culture as vehicles for Black students, all students, recognizing their inherent nobility. We can tell Black children all day that they are created noble and rich, but the conditions in their marginalized communities reflect back to them otherwise. Anti-Black narratives promulgated through the media and other socialization agents reflect otherwise. If Black students are not provided proper education regarding the history of racism in this country and how it has created the current conditions in their communities, then they will attribute their marginalization to inferiority and deficits inherent in Blackness.  We have to show Black students that they are being created noble and rich. If they're not taught about who Black people were prior to European contact and not are made aware of the knowledge, belief and value systems indigenous to African people and the fruits thereof, then we have neglected to expose them to the existential evidence necessary for them to realize the nobility of their Blackness, their nobility as human beings. We have failed to provide them with the lens necessary to truly be the pupil of the eye and as a result, the progress of all humanity is blighted. Anti-Blackness must be met with pro-Blackness and pro-Blackness is nothing more than pro-humanists an affirmation that we were all created from the same substance in the image and likeness of God. This is essential for people who for centuries have been told otherwise. Black lives not only matter, they are essential. Education for Black people must be approached with this in mind. According to Dr. Aisa Hilliard, those who seek to teach Black children must have some level of proficiency and cultural knowledge about African and other people. He states, it is virtually impossible for teachers to develop a profound respect for their Black students if they cannot locate African people in time, chronology and space geography in terms of the thematics of the evolution of their culture. Having no sense of chronology, no sense of where African people are in the world and no sense of African culture and African ways of knowing limits a teacher's ability to understand their students. Such teachers see the history of students in mere episodic terms and are unable to place students in context. This results in varying degrees of alienation of students from school experiences, the impairment of communication, a reduction in motivation and effort and low achievement. If this is the case for schools, then what implications does this have for the Baha'i community, for Baha'i education, for children's class teachers, junior youth animators, study circle tutors. If this is the knowledge base required for school teachers to make academic education relevant to the realities of Black people, then what implications does this have for Baha'is in making Baha'i and Baha'i inspired spiritual and material education relevant for Black people? Our approaches to community building must assist Black people in seeing the centrality of the Baha'i revelation to Black liberation and the redemption of humanity. Our modes and methods must be culturally responsive. I experienced key learnings related to this, related to engaging this culturally relevant approach in my work with the Umoja Soldiers Azzania Junior Youth Program in Decatur, Georgia. This junior youth group was fashioned in the tradition of African rites of passage programming. African rites of passage were processes by which African communities taught and reinforced all cultural beliefs, values and practices. In the chapter on rites of passage in the book Too Much Schooling, Too Little Education edited by Imola Musuja, it states, rites of passage is a serious commitment to young people, to the community and to oneself. It requires the facilitator to contemplate and cultivate his or her own spiritual, emotional, psychosocial and intellectual states prior to engaging in the process to educate youth. Individuals should be fully trained before they start working with young people. The three areas of focus for knowledge and skill acquisition are education, physical development and spiritual development. Physical development is required for achieving a healthy balance between the spiritual and physical aspects of the person. Spirituality should be built into the learning of all children. This is a direct quote from the text. Is this not reflective of the characteristics of our junior youth spiritual empowerment program? Is this not a way to demonstrate the relevance of this core activity to the culture of Black people? Could knowledge of the methods and approaches of African rites of passage serve to broaden our conceptualizations of how we engage youth in our junior youth spiritual empowerment process? We structured this program around the Inguzo Saba, the seven principles compiled by Dr. Marlona Keringa in his creation of the Puanza Holiday. These principles are Umoja Unity, Kujichagalia Self-Determination, Ujima Collective Work and Responsibility, Ujima Cooperative Economics, Kouomba Creativity, E-Money, Faith. This program was able to attract both both for high youth and youth from the surrounding community. The programming placed a strong emphasis on leadership, character, and positive cultural identity development. The youth engaged in African drumming, meditation, memorization, and study of African history and culture. They also learned about the history of racism and how it connects to the current conditions within their communities. We engaged them in study of field pop text. One of my brother Masou brought that up earlier, exposing them to the deep wisdom contained in lyrics by artists like Andrei 3000 of Outkast, C. Lo Green, and the rest of the Goodymaw. Common, dead press, Talib Kuali, most deaf, and others. Many of the youth never knew some of these artists existed due to the commodification of hip hop by record companies that only promote music that reinforces the notions of Black dysfunctionality and other anti-Black narratives. This music serving as yet another tool for miseducation. We took the youth on field trips to places like the Civil Rights Museum in Birmingham, Alabama, the Million Youth March in Washington, D.C., the Lorraine Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, college tours, the Baha'i Kingdom Conference in Milwaukee, the Baha'i House of Worship at National Center in Wilmette. They also engaged in service projects. The youth programs served both Black and White youth. Once a series of junior youth texts were released, the animators then began to incorporate those books into the programming. This junior youth group started in 1996 and elements of this program still exist in other junior youth programs. As many of the participants who are now young adults are now serving as animators in their respective areas. Many of these young adults are also now demonstrating leadership inside and outside of the Baha'i community. In speaking to them, they all testified to the significance, although Mojoso Azzanea program approached and how instrumental the group was in both shaping their views of themselves and in informing how they currently serve the community, particularly communities of color. One member, an African-American female, has just completed law school and is now working to become a civil rights attorney. Another member, a white male, is now an auxiliary board member and doing work throughout the Baha'i community. Another and African-American male is now a prominent jazz musician and emerging scholar whose debut album was entitled Rights of Passage in honor of the group's significance in shaping his life. He is also an educator and currently pursuing his PhD in African-American studies. Another African-American male who ultimately became a Baha'i through initially serving the group is now serving as an educator and doing amazing work in the Baha'i community in Uganda. I was recently informed that former members of the group have created a community outreach and empowerment program in the city of Atlanta that uses the principles of the Inguzo Sabah as a portal for engagement in meaningful conversations, service the arts and core activities at the Baha'i Center. This initiative has gained tremendous momentum as a result of the mass mobilizations in Atlanta following the murders of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Ray Sharp Brooks. I received a phone call just last week from one of the participants who was not a Baha'i, informing me that he has just landed a job as a history teacher in a school located in the same community where the program was held. This young man was also responsible for resurrecting a version of this junior youth program at the Baha'i Center about five years ago. He heard that the program was no longer meeting like it was previously and took it upon himself to restart it, dedicating every Friday night to hosting activities at the Baha'i Center for youth in the surrounding neighborhood. These are just some of the fruits of this program, a program that sought to center African and African-American worldview and its approaches to the work. In closing, the approaches I suggest here are not only necessary for the education of Black youth but for the education of all youth and all people. Black people were not called the pupil of the eye simply because our skin is black. This designation has to do with the ways of knowing and the characteristics of the souls of Black folks. Our ability to realize that one is of humanity and facilitate the continual advancement of human civilization hinges on our ability to resurrect and engage African as well as other indigenous ways of knowing that have been delegitimized and obscured through processes of colonialism and oppression. Thank you, Laylee, Masoud, Angelita, Anthony. Those are really profound and important presentations that you all just did. And I think that during the methodology seminar, one of the things that we really discovered was that if we could apply some of the insights that we gathered from the consultations that we had in the seminar to the thinking of the Baha'i community at large, it would likely inspire a kind of flourishing and a fuller realization of the vision of the revelation of Baha'u'llah in our communities. And so one of the things that we really wanted to do today with this round table is just expose a larger audience to the incredible thinking that Baha'i scholars are doing as they apply the insights from Africana studies to their understandings of the revelation. And so I hope that everyone has had a really a chance to reflect on some of the important and profound implications of these presentations we've just heard. So we're going to turn it over to the questions right now. I'm going to receive questions and I'll just leave it up to the presenters to see who wants to respond to which ones. And let's see how it goes. We're going to kind of try and vibe with one another here, give everyone a chance to sort of speak to whatever question they'd like to. So I'll start out with a nice one here and I think we touched upon it in a few of the presentations. Let's see how this one goes. How do you see the Africana culture and knowledge are being used to further Baha'i culture? How can you see Africana culture and knowledge being used to further Baha'i culture? I'll take a stab at it although I know other people also have something to say. I think that Africana culture with its implicit emphasis on kinship as an organizing principle for human communities is very resonant with the Baha'i message of unity and oneness as well as unity and diversity. And I think that the idea of ever increasing circles of inclusion supports the idea of unity and diversity because it means that people can both take pride in and take fellowship with people who may have a common cultural background at the same time as they have larger identities such as planetary identity of all human beings. And so I think that Africana culture offers us many models for actually acting upon the notions of both oneness and unity and diversity. I think part of it is us being honest about the fact that in reading our current reality within Baha'i communities a lot of our activities and ways of engagement are Western-centered or Eurocentric. And so when we look at the Africana studies we look at just Black people's engagement in spirituality and in general. I came out of a Baptist church. My grandfather was a pastor and I grew up in a culture of letting God have his way. Grew up in a culture of just letting the spirit move you. People say let them use you. So this free flowing type of just and feeling the spirit through song through the ways of preaching and all those other things that work that I experienced. And Black people if we're in any kind of spiritual space and we can't feel what's going on right it's not touching our soul and our spirit then it's not going to appeal. And so that's something to be learned in terms of how we formulate our spaces of worship our spaces of engagement in ways where the spirit leads us and we tap into that. Yeah I would just say that the thing that that's resonating for me that has been for a while is these models of constructive resilience that the Black people for that Black folks for generations have had to practice because of the existential threat of racism. So we have developed methodologies of we already come from a cultural context that is you know with these different modalities of learning but then on top of that you place you take these diverse cultural groups you pack them on a ship and then you bring them west and then you plop them on a plantation and initially speaking all of these different languages initially communicating through the drum and then the drum gets taken once you know the dominant culture realizes what is being communicated that the drum is an instrument for communication and not just about sound and beats you know. And then having to develop systems for survival and a means of getting from day to day and that being practiced for 401 years we're still practicing methodologies of survival and endurance and resiliency. So I think for me as a community of faith the African American the African diaspora community has some profound lessons to share with the rest of the world about what faith looks like in the context of severe social pressure. So for me that that's you know that that's a very profound thing to really think about and you know and I'm going to shut up after this but I'm thinking about how we took Christianity and we know that many of the Africans the enslaved Africans fully one third of them when they came here were actually Muslims there's a large population of you know Muslim Muslim enslaved Africans but however they were forcibly converted to Christianity under the threat of death in many instances but they took that Christianity and infuse it with an African spirit and created something that never existed before and so so that in and of itself became a way of spiritual transcendence of release of endurance of a way of you know transcending your circumstance you know those spiritual practices so yeah. We've mentioned a lot about the pupil of the eye metaphor and since we've been in this group I've been thinking even more last year when I first met Derek and I met his brilliant essay regarding the meaning of the pupil of the eye it is the spirituality as I began to also review works that have been done by Caribbean writers African American writers African writers they really use this spirituality and I just love when I was doing research on this a century ago it was a century ago it was in the 20th century this idea of the technician of the unseen of being able to see the griot Alex Haley the ancestors the sacred and Bahá'u'lláh also talks about this and so if we just look back into that long history more than 401 years there is that spirituality and we also talked about in our group how that's connected to the philosophical belief I am because we are we are that collective identity of we therefore I am I don't exist without you of course we know the paradigms that have been introduced to us changes some of that but many of us still have it in different ways that spirit that unique spirituality because we've had to have that constructive resilience thank you all for responding to that I wanted to try and combine two questions here and maybe see what you all could do with this there's a question about you know what does it look like to promote and embrace holistic ways of knowing in everyday life you know like how do you kind of how do we have this more expansive notion of knowledge and enact that in a world which seems to be out of alignment with that type of perception of knowledge and what is valuable and then I think maybe we could also put it into that because I think maybe they're tied to one another how do you come with your authentic self into a Bahá'í community that may not have many other black people in it and may be somewhat homogenous in its thinking right and where you may feel as though you're not being seen what do you do you know practically to stay resilient in these in the midst of prejudice you may find in your your communities so there's a kind of like practical questions about these issues yeah I want to speak to particularly the second part of that as relates to going into communities and not feeling like you know you your expression is welcome or part of the way of doing things and I go back to this concept of self-determination right self-determination meaning that we name ourselves we create for ourselves in the environments that we enter and the faith you know has given us that autonomy to create the community that we seek right we don't have to wait or ask for permission to engage in the ways that we know that we need to engage or ways that we know that we would be responsive to black people so we have to you know own the cause own the faith and go out and create those things in community and that was one of the the the most important lessons that I learned through the Bahá'í black men's gathering is this whole idea you own the cause faith belongs to us right and so we should not give that to to anybody else right here all other things have been taken from us and we're going to allow somebody to take that away from us as well you know we have to be self-determined individuals that go in and create for ourselves the community that we want and then we introduce that community to the greater Bahá'í community when they are are ready you know Anthony from what you've said about the black men's gathering obviously I was not a part of that but I know about it it was fantastic but some of us may remember in 1992 the world congress in new york city 30 000 people 15 000 in the morning 15 000 in the afternoon session do you remember what the universal house of justice wanted before that congress a gospel choir yes a gospel choir it said we want a gospel choir and it was formulated and Gilmer took that leadership and hundreds of voices that was bringing in our presence the africana presence and I remember that happened so long ago but I get chills when I think about how I felt at that time that oh my goodness this is phenomenal and how many of us took that energy back into our white Bahá'í communities and we were able to comfortably sing our music um I want to give out I want to give a shout out to Minnesota we were at glad tidings Bahá'í Sunday school and I remember we went back and we started singing gospel music and it became a part of glad tidings it was like oh we know this we got this it was and then it became nothing new so it was a very exciting moment and we still have to keep that energy and that inclusivity to not be surprised when something moves you you stand up and you put your hands up you know sing praises to the lord and you clap so and sometimes it's challenging if you're the only one who's doing it yes I remember the uh the the great dancer Bill T. Jones was talking about in a sense was talking about what we're talking about here and he was said they were asking him what it was like to be in a predominantly white company um as an emerging dancer when he was younger and he said it was very difficult um as an african-american male he said it was challenging he said but something shifted um at a certain point in his life where he said he just he assumed a different posture and he said he said I am not going to validate my existence to you I just am and either you accept or you don't but it does not take away the fact that I am here I am empowered I am I have a right to be in this space and I think um all marginalized groups um african-americans indigenous communities our mexican our latino latina brothers and sisters all of us who have had to deal with in some sense feeling marginalized in a space that um had certain roles assigned to us had had to find ways to just be to claim our space and then to reclaim it again and again and to say I am deal with it that's it that's it I want to say a few words about the first part of the question which has more to do with how to approach things holistically in daily life and what comes to mind for me are processes particularly related to our efforts at healing the world in so many different ways you know bahá'u'lláh comes first as the divine physician and he brings the revelation to heal the world and as Baha'is we are assisting in the healing of the world and from our different cultures we are able to bring different healing gifts to that equation so I think for example in this pandemic era when we're thinking about how do we prevent ourselves and others from getting sick or if we do get sick how do we protect ourselves and help people with health and healing or even transitioning if they need to and we think about all the ways that we have to bring everything from the spiritual gifts of prayer whether it's praying in groups or whether it's you know one-on-one sitting with someone or even if it's doing it across zoom but it's also thinking about the most mundane things like what is that person taking into their body what are they eating do they have what they need can you guide them in a way that that is better or can you help them have something that they don't need what do they need in the in the way of emotional support or what new ideas intellectually can you bring how can you bring the science you know you've got the science you've got the emotional healing the physical healing the spiritual healing that's a very holistic approach it's different than just going to the doctor and going home and so I think that as Baha'is we're very empowered by the divine physician to bring all of our cultural healing gifts to the table similarly with something like mental illness we know that there are mental health uh pandemics going on at the same time as we have our physical pandemic going on mental health takes diverse forms of healing it requires bringing everything we've got to help people get on track and stay on track it's you know those kind of uh invisible technologies that Angelina is talking about being technicians of the invisible and bringing um you know the spirituality into the healing of the psyche you know and bringing the nutritional into the healing of the psyche and bringing movement and dance and the arts as Masu talks about under the healing of the psyche and as Anthony talks about helping people get in touch with the fact that their minds rich in gems of an estimable value because society often makes people forget and that's why we get sick so I mean there's so many elements to being holistic you could apply that kind of mapping of all the threads that you're bringing in to any situation thank you all for the for those responses I we think we'll have time for about one more question if y'all could weigh in on this one um you know I think some of these have been the answers this question has kind of been implicitly answered um or the answers to this question has implicitly come out in what you've said um but maybe you want to uh clarify a few things like what are some of the implications of this more expansive and inclusive um conception of knowledge for uh you know people who are let's say not familiar with it people are not of african descent you know or who are sort of not as as I said before um so conversant or accepting of this kind of um more expansive and inclusive notion of knowledge um what are what are some of the things that you would want those people to do Anthony you want to go go here brother uh yeah I was going to say first of all to understand that to center blackness and to a center african ways of knowing is not disunifying it's not anti anything else uh I remember when we first started the religious oldest program you know there was this concern about you know the approach of the group this african approach and I was told you know not at the behai center you know you're going to really do this here and uh I think you know people at you know kind of inform somebody institutions of what was happening there were some questions about you know how that how that should should go so you know but that understanding is essential uh that you know embedded within african ways of knowing is this idea of oneness and interconnectedness of all people and everything and so um that's an important thing to to think about uh because that that sentiment is present whenever we start centering anything that's black you know we say black lives matters it's all a last matter right so it's like realizing that that focus does not exclude anyone else what really excludes is the focus you know the the Eurocentric focus that we've been talking about here and we're trying to you know kind of multiply their voices and that's what this you know we're the conversations about yeah I think for me that's really interesting it's that you know piggybacking on what Anthony said I think you know the spirit of the age is oneness right is integration that's the spirit of the age of the revelation of Bahá'u'lláh that's the core principle around which all the other principles revolve and anything that brings integration cohesion that breaks down disintegration that breaks down separation really is in line with the spirit of the age so even when it when you when you think about knowledges and about these different modalities and these ways of knowing you know I might be a scientist but I can also see the interconnectedness if I'm open to it right the interconnectedness between science and the arts right if I am an economist I can also find ways of um looking at the world through the lens of you know a poet and a writer and see that interconnectedness between that discipline and my discipline of being an economist so begin to break down the separation between these different disciplines and we begin to flow man we begin to dance between spaces man I mean it's it's that's the beautiful thing it's like you know I think our young people ourselves um the most of us are you know approaching middle age um some of us aren't as young and as vital as Angelita and Lele so but nevertheless you know our young people will begin to move into spaces as they're as they're growing where you know they don't have to feel like they have to um you know suppress their desire to be creative you know in order to do something else they can actually have an integrated approach and they can see the value in these different modalities different ways of learning and they enter a world where they can plunge into that ocean as Bahá'u'lláh that says that ocean of knowledge and drench themselves and all of these different modalities as ways of being it makes them more holistic or more around it um and a more just advanced human being in terms of their consciousness and understanding of the contributions of these different modalities but also the contributions that cultures have made to the integration of these different modalities in their expressions and their cultural expressions and so that's you know that I think that's really really um you know important you know I would just say I agree I have nothing else to say it's fantastic I wanted to just add a few very concrete things that people can do I think that in this day and age it's extremely important for people who are not of African descent as well as for people who are to know black history and to do whatever you need to do to be able to see racism for what it is as something that is baked into our world system that we have to extract in order to enable Bahá'u'lláh's revelation to be fulfilled I think that we still live in a stage when some people are in denial about the fact that racism thoroughly pollutes our world system and are unaware about all of the ways that anti-blackness has been baked into the world system and in fact often many of us of any race are not aware of all the ways that we continue to support that problematic system you know I think that it's very telling and very welcome that the Universal House of Justice and the National Spiritual Assembly lately have begun to use the word anti-blackness and ask us as a national and global community to look at it and to route it out because that's a very plain statement of what the problem is and when people actually look without reservation around them you can see anti-blackness everywhere and when you come to understand how much it interferes with the realization of not only the full humanity of all of the people of earth but also with our realization of Bahá'u'lláh's wonder system then we will want nothing more than to do everything in our power to remove it so I think there's a process of self-education that is very warranted not only for our Bahá'u'llháh community right now but for everyone around the world. Did you want to add anything else? This is the last chance here. Well I'm among such brilliant people. I totally agree. Laili, something that you've said really struck a chord with me, self-education. When we were meeting in our Gruber Methodologies group, George Floyd was killed and we did take moments to reflect on that and that week so many white friends and associates reached out. What can we do? Because it was just so horrific for all of us even for the ones who, as you said Laili, want to deny that racism exists in this society. It stopped them in their tracks. Oh my gosh, what has just happened at this moment? This historical moment and so you're absolutely, I totally, I mean what can I say? I totally agree. Self-education and with all these people who reached out, they wanted to do something but we're in a pandemic. What can we do? We can't invite someone for coffee. We can't go out and about especially those of us who are in a certain age group. And yet there was this cry, this plea that people want to be involved. White immigrants to our country who are categorized white. They want to be a part of transformation. But I had to tell them, by the way we started, if I can make a plug, summer road maps. We started a course, the LSA of Tempe, Arizona, free for seven weeks to do just this, to reach out through self-education. But it's not going to happen in 365 days. We have to work at this. And this is why I just, I'm so excited about mobilization, mobilizing knowledge, taking it to the people, translating it so that we all can be a part of social transformation for the oneness of humanity. We have to work at it, just like athletes have to work at becoming Olympic champions. And I think some of us forget that. We want it to happen overnight. So thank you all for your wonderful words to motivate and to sustain what we're all trying to do. Thank you so much, Angelita, Lely, Anthony, Masu. It's been really wonderful to spend just a few minutes getting a bit of insight from your minds. And I think that what has been shared here is really so critical for us to begin to incorporate into our work as a community. We know that this is, we are in the adolescence of the developing maturity of humankind. And you know, what is so characteristic of this age is the possibility for learning. We know that we are learning about so many things as we develop as a Baha'i community, as a human race. And clearly, what you all have brought to the table here is the need for a full integration of Africana knowledges into the way that we're exploring so many of the ideas that are on the table here for this conference and for, you know, all of our work outside of the conference as well. So just really deep, deep appreciation. And I hope that many people will, will watch this on its, after it's recorded and is available for others as well. So thank you all for joining us tonight, Laofa. Thank you. Bye, guys. Bye.


My name is Mats Lannestad. I'm a senior scientist at ILRI. I work in the programme of livestock systems and environment. And I'm also the science focal point for the Livestock and Fish flagship called System Analysis for Sustainable Innovations. And I particularly, in my own research interest, focus on environmental issues related to livestock production. And that of course also includes natural resource management. And we have two major projects I work with. Originally we got a rather large grant from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to look at environmental impacts at landscape scale. From livestock production, you can say, changes in the systems. So for example, if you would do a large investment somewhere and very often that investment is checked for productivity and so forth. But it's not checked for the environmental dimensions. So we look at four dimensions, water, land, biodiversity and greenhouse gases. And in this, when we developed this framework, we have now moved it towards a very clear participatory part in it. So the local stakeholders can, they first contribute to helping us setting the baseline. And then they also help out setting the scenarios. And then instead of having experts doing the decisions, they will then participate and see the outcome of different development, how it impacts the environment. And then they can also contribute to making the decisions. And in this regard, I can say as a follow-up to this ongoing gender research that has been strongly supported in Leicester-Konfisch, the mainstreaming gender work. We now also try to take this on board and use some of these insights in how we set up the participatory workshops and how we see how this can impact the people. And we just recently got another very large grant, actually $1 million from DFID, to develop this framework further. The framework is called Cleaned. And here we will have an even clearer part where we look on the equity process, how the dynamics work in the workshops. And we have a special team working on that. Another thing we work on, which is also gender-focused, which is a new thing, is to look at how do you manage natural resources. And particularly, we have water use, land use, nutrient use. And many people earlier looked at how water scientists themselves look at how can you use the water resources in the landscape. But what the farmers are really interested in is how much biomass they can produce. The crops, the feed, the grass and so forth. So now we're trying to develop a framework also on the landscape scale to see how do the stakeholders manage the biomass across the landscape. And this is, of course, then a higher level than the normal gender research when you look at the household. It's also a lower level than, for example, the district or the national level. So this is a new approach to see, myself I have a biophysical background, so I can look at that. But then we will include also the social equity and gender dimensions at the landscape level. Try to capture that in our framework. And this is something very exciting we are working on right now. When we try to, in this biomass framework at landscape scale, we think it's very important to map and capture and understand how different stakeholders sort of their role and their opportunities and how they sort of get access to resources. So when we come out with some kind of policy advice, we want to make sure that we've taken into account also various levels of, we can say, less fortunate people or less fortunate stakeholders in the process. So they included all along. Otherwise, we might give the wrong advice to policy makers. And this is particularly important when you work at these multiple scales. So the small holders or the less rich small holders, they probably work at the small scale. And if you then move at the larger scale, you might miss their, what is important for them. And we got a very big, also another big grant from actually Waterland and Ecosystems, CRP. And then we do it together with LifeStock and Fish to bridge the livestock production with the natural resources management and then the biomass is in between. And then we put in the gender dimension here. So these are two exciting projects looking at environmental and natural resources management at landscape scale where we will lead different ways, including gender. Thank you.


Hey everyone, I am Nathan and this is Prime News. So Prime News is a weekly news recap show for those who haven't seen it. We recap all the latest Nintendo news or Nintendo related news from the past week and boy, do we have some doozies for you or not, I guess I'll let you be the judge. So the first story we have for you is that Final Fantasy X and X2 as well as Final Fantasy XII, the Zodiac Age have release dates, as was announced via Nintendo's official Twitter account and the Final Fantasy X and XII have a release date of April 16th, whereas Final Fantasy XII, the Zodiac Age has a release date of, I don't know, April 30th, right? Sure, April 30th, we're going to go with that. So that's pretty interesting, I personally think it's kind of a big deal, but not really, I mean if we don't get like the full Final Fantasy XV, not just the Pocket Edition, if we don't get Final Fantasy XVI, does any of this really matter? I mean, I guess it's already a better classic selection of games than the Nintendo Switch Online service. The Nintendo Switch has surpassed 7 million units in Japan and 2.5 million units of Super Smash Bros, ultimate as of last week. This is a really, really good numbers, it is about 700,000 short of surpassing the PlayStation 4 and Smash just continues to smash sales records, so I mean, I guess keep smashing, keep buying Switches and I just really suck at Smash Bros, I'm just being honest. I literally lost to my 5 year old and earlier today my 3 year old almost beat me. So not saying I'm the worst Smash Bros player in the world, but I think I'm in the running. GameStop finds itself in a bidding war with Sycamore Partners and Apollo Global Management to actually buy out GameStop. Now this is interesting since GameStop has basically over the last 5 years done one of these, although while it's stabilized a little bit, it's still on the decline. It was up, you know, like 5% in the stock market this month, but I mean that really doesn't mean much when you've already globally dipped like 65% over the past 5 years. Still it's really interesting to think about the fact that there's actually two companies out there that are bidding for GameStop and competing against each other for a dying business. Now we talked in the video I did about this, about how they might be trying to get into eSports and trying to do what Game in the UK did to save their business, so it's entirely possible that they see a path forward with that. Maybe they just want to buy the GameStop and then liquidate all the assets. We don't really know what's going to happen. At this point all I know is that GameStop locally for me has been pushing things a lot less because, you know, GameStop usually is pushing the pre-orders, they're usually pushing the used game sales, and they haven't been doing any of that to me really the past week. So yeah I guess things are changing at GameStop, I don't even have a joke for this bit. I actually want to buy GameStop, I guess is that the joke? Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn got a release date of March 8th, that is a 3DS game because Nintendo is still releasing 3DS games or ports of games for 3DS, I mean we got Luigi's Mansion late last year, we have Mario Plus, Bowser's Inside Story, Blah Blah with some additional content, that's a port, we have Kirby's Extra Epic Yarn, that's a port, why, why, why, let it die, let it die, let it shrivel up it, oh, copyright claim, copyright claim. This week Nintendo has finally announced their new games for the Nintendo Switch, Online Service, NES lineup, those being Master Blaster and Zelda 2, the adventure of Link, releasing on January 16th. I'm actually pretty excited about these, I think they're really good games that I'm just not going to play because I've already played them a zillion times in the past, pretty much like the rest of the games on the Nintendo Switch Online Service, I find myself not really caring, but for those of you that do care, that do want to play, I mean there you go, the NES stuff works so I mean I guess Nintendo got one thing right with the online service, the NES games work, now if only Smash Online did two. Nintendo decided this week to drop the release date for Yoshi's Crafted World through a story trailer, an adorable story trailer by the way, Yoshi has been super super cute over the years and it only seems to be getting cuter with every new game, I know, I'm over using the word cute, I can't help it, you're just here for the release date, it's March 29th, pretty exciting, no Nintendo Label kit announced with it yet or anything even though it's a game based around cardboard but yeah I don't, it looks good, Kirby Star Allies, take notes because I think Yoshi is about to eat you for lunch, but then Kirby eats, they both eat, do you notice that, they both eat things, what would happen if like Kirby and Yoshi to eat each other the same time, I've tried it in Smash, it doesn't work, would like the world explode, these are the thoughts that cross my head in the middle of the night when I can't sleep, I'm sorry.  The Volvo Digital this week complained about the fact that they had a trailer for Gris that they were trying to upload, by the way, let me just stop for a second, I realized I don't think it's pronounced Gris, I don't care, I'm American, G-R-I-S Gris, anyways, they had their trailer blocked on Facebook and they said they actually appealed the block twice and were told both times, including in the original block, that it is going to be blocked because this image here is sexually suggestive, so another week has gone by and there is still no Nintendo Direct here in January, this is kind of sort of a big deal, not necessarily yet, there's still plenty of time left in the month, could be next week, could be the week after, could not be at all till February, who knows, but Nintendo, the reason I say that is because some leaks, including one we reported on, pointed to January 10th and January 10th is now behind us and we still don't have a Nintendo Direct, but we know when Yoshi's Crafter World is coming, we know about Dragon's Dogma, we know about when Final Fantasy games are coming, is that a question I'd ask, did we get a Direct? No, I mean, reality is a Direct is probably still in the works either for this month, next month, or the month after, they usually have one in the first three months, it's usually January, not always January, sometimes February, sometimes March, sometimes January and March, all I know is that Nintendo likes to march to the beat of their own drum as if they had a proverbial drum that they don't really have, because I literally can't think of anything else to make this bit funny, so yeah, Direct leaks, don't believe them, we'll still talk about them, but don't believe them. Hey, congratulations! If you've made it this far, you are hearing our final story from the week, it's also a controversial story and one that people really got mad at me about for reasons. The reason being that I reported that Nintendo might leave the console business, now despite the fact that this is like the wording that Furukawa used, reality is Nintendo is probably not leaving the console business anytime soon and that Nintendo has been prepared for the possibility of not making video game consoles or making video games in general for years and years and years, after all, as Furukawa said himself, Nintendo wasn't always a video game company even though they currently are, which is a bigger emittance than Satura Owada used to give Nintendo when he called them an entertainment company or a toy company as it were. That being said, they're basically just saying look, if we ever get to the point where we have multiple failed systems in a row and things are going downhill and we're losing billions of dollars, obviously we have to shift markets. So, I mean, it's common sense. Nintendo's not going anywhere unless they have to and no, they're not Sega. Sega was about to go bankrupt and out of business when they left the console industry. Nintendo has billions in the bank, they will leave the console industry before it ever gets to the point of Sega. So, to think they're going to stop making systems because, oh my gosh, they're going to go out of business, please sir, may I have your time to talk to you about the Nintendo Switch? And that's going to do it for this week's Prime News. I hope you learn something. I don't know what that is. Maybe that I'm a lot of cringe, that I'm not funny. I don't know. I don't know if I should even care but whatever. Enter our Nintendo Switch Super Smash Bros. Ultimate bundle giveaway thing through the Gleam.io link in the description because it's free. I mean, you can just unsubscribe after it's given away. I don't want you to. I want you to stick around hoping you're enjoying this content. I mean, I'm enjoying making this content but do you enjoy this content?  Whatever. Bye.