Diaspora Conversations

Hello and welcome to Diaspora Conversations. It is my hope you have been keeping safe. Between Covid and Black Lives Matter, I took a break to process things. As people of African descent, this has been quite the year especially in the US. We are still asking for our rights, even though slavery and colonization ended, years ago. And I have been thinking- how do we end this? What can we do, to show the rest of the world, that enough is enough? I am a community organizer and one thing I know is that there is strength in unity and powers that be pay attention to a unified people. That is why I have a greater zeal for this podcast because in my own small way, I am working towards uniting people of African descent by showcasing that our stories and cultures are very similar than different. 

That is why I was so excited to land my next guest. His is Taalib Saber. Taalib is a lawyer, a poet and a filmmaker based in the DC/Maryland area also known as the DMV Metro. 

He is the co-chair of the Social Justice Committee of the Washington Bar Association’s Young Lawyer’s Division and the Managing Director for the movement for Black Power, a DC based organization dedicated to the establishment of justice, liberation and power for Black people in America and Abroad.

As you will hear in the interview, Taalib staunchly identifies as a pan Africanist. He believes that regardless of how we left Africa-slave trade or voluntary immigration we should simply identify as Africans in Diaspora regardless of what country we are in. This is what drew me to him and I made every connection possible to get him on the podcast. I cannot wait for you all to hear his story and his journey of embracing Pan Africanism. 

Although we do talk about his life growing up, I was so intrigued by his stance that that is what we began with. 

Taalib mentions two books in the interview: World’s Great Man of Color I & II and King Leopold’s Ghost. If you can try and find a black owned bookstore to buy them. 

His contact information is: Email- [email protected]: Instagram-@ thesaberfirm: Facebook- The Saber Firm

 We can no longer stand on the sidelines anymore because we do not understand the fight. Here's what you can do. 

A short clip on my thoughts about Africa Day. This was originally posted on YouTube and I made an audio file for the podcast.

 Dr. Paul Tiyambe Zeleza is the current Vice Chancellor and Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at the United States International University-Africa, Nairobi, Kenya.

He is a distinguished academic, award winning author, one of Africa’s leading diaspora intellectuals’ who has held senior administrative positions in higher education in Canada and the United States for 25 years. 

His research project on the African academic diaspora led to the establishment of the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program that sponsors African born academics in the United States and Canada to work in universities in African countries.