Word Food: It's Possible & Black and White

Pushback Talks Season 9 is here with "Word Food"!

This season, Fredrik & Leilani return with their signature bite-sized episodes: sharp, surprising, 15-minute explorations of the words that shape our world. Each week, they pick a single word (or two) and unpack how its simple surface hides deeper social, political, and economic realities.

Think of it as thought-provoking “intellectual snacking” -  quick enough for your commute, rich enough to shift how you see power, privilege, and the systems around us.

This weeks episode:

It’s possible: a depiction of hope as a way of resistance and how our ability to imagine a better world becomes a threat to the capitalist and corrupt systems.

Black & White: the tracing of the marks left by the apartheid system and the need to debunk the idea that there are only two colours, two sides.

New episodes drop every week.

Make this your ritual for keeping your curiosity - and your resistance - alive!

Transcript

Fredrik Gertten 0:03

I'm Fredrik Gertten and I'm the filmmaker.

Leilani Farha 0:05

And I'm Leilani Farha, and I'm the advocate.

Fredrik Gertten 0:08

And this is Pushback Talks, the word special. We are back this fall with words that make our life shine. We are word artists. No, we are not. But yeah, we're trying to. We're trying to. Wordsmiths. Words.

Leilani Farha 0:28

I can't whistle, so I am a word smith these days. You are writing writing.

Fredrik Gertten 0:33

You're writing a book. That's good. That's good. So I guess it's my time because you last time you shot me, and I now I shoot you.

Leilani Farha 0:41

I don't like can we can we lose the uh war metaphor? Don't shoot me. Please don't shoot me.

Fredrik Gertten 0:48

I will send you a letter with a word. I love it. Okay. It's possible.

Leilani Farha 0:55

Oh. It's possible. That's very nice and hopeful. I like that. It that speaks to me of hope. I think, in fact, for all of the horrible things that are happening in the world, and the world is horrible right now. Horrible. I haven't seen so much activism, advocacy, people believing that change is possible, that it is possible. Otherwise, why are people taking to the streets every weekend on different issues? It's really been an amazing time of possibility, while at the same time being one of the darkest periods, I think, in recent history, right? Or in a long time. So I like that things seem I like the idea that it's possible. The it is the big question mark. What does it make you think?

Fredrik Gertten 1:57

No, I I I mean you can say it's possible or is it, but I think I mean that was a part of my my Breaking Socials film. That's that it's radical to be hopeful, you know? Because they, the corrupt forces, the Trump forces, they want us to be cynical like them. They want us to lose hope. So by by staying hopeful, we resist. And that's also a responsibility. So we also have to help each other to get out of the cynical mode, or it's now it's too dark, it's going to hell everything. And then we have to then we need to tell each other's stories about cool things that is happening at the same time. And cool things can be many things. It can be the 2700 cities going in the no no kings marches around the US. But it can also be that now, for example, in California, the alternative energy is, you know, solar energy, wind energy is like it's it's booming with new batteries. And you know, the Trump people they talk about, you know, drill, baby drill, you know. It's like the last scream of the of the this oil business that that fed them for so many years. But there is something else happening at the same time that's also hopeful, you know. So it's I think the hopeful can be many things. It can be the president of Mexico, uh a Jewish climate researcher, woman, climate expert, who is at the same time as Trump is being silly, she stands up and says, Long live the indigenous woman, long live the immigrant women. I mean, this is happening at the same time. And also, in I mean, in the in the capital, Mexico City, there the mayor is also a woman, and she is also, she's she created a project called Utopias. We we talked about it with in one of our podcasts here with Silvia Emanuele from Mexico, and who works with the mayor. I think that's also something that gave me some light, you know. There are cool things happening. So I think it's also our responsibility to look out for them and talk about them.

Leilani Farha 4:28

Yes, and join them, join them too, if you can. I mean, I think people are finding each other through these, like we're not actually alone, that there's a collective, that there's an uh a whole other narrative that's far more possible and positive than the one that a lot of leaders are putting forward that have taken up a lot of airspace. I liked what you said about the the idea that we are supposed to be giving up hope and that being hopeful is a kind of resistance. I read a book recently by a Palestinian Canadian American named Saeed TB. He's written a book called You Will Not Kill Our Imagination.

Fredrik Gertten 5:12

Beautiful.

Leilani Farha 5:13

And it's beautiful. And this idea that that's they want to kill our ability to imagine a different world, to imagine a better place. And he's he really has a strong call at the end. He's not an activist, but he has a call at the end, like we have to resist using our imaginations. That's just beautiful.

Fredrik Gertten 5:32

That's why we need art, you know, because art, music, film, poetry, paintings, uh, you know, films, is also about creating dreams.

Leilani Farha 5:44

Yeah.

Fredrik Gertten 5:44

And for the cynical people like like Trump and his gang, dreams are dangerous, you know. So let's keep dreaming, guys.

Leilani Farha 5:56

I'm a dreamer. So you gave me two words, but I'm gonna give you two words.

Fredrik Gertten 6:04

Uh-huh.

Leilani Farha 6:04

Actually, sort of three. Are you ready? Oh wow. En France. I'll say it in English. Okay. For our English-speaking audience. Black and white.

Fredrik Gertten 6:18

Black and white. Yeah, that's it's a very interesting question. Is the world black or white? Probably not. Black and white is something, you know, some extreme ends of something. But I think complexity is what we need to look for. Uh again, the demagogues on the other side, the provoking demagogues, they try to paint everything in black or white. And then, of course, they try to, you know, blackpaint things that we think are is amazing and important, and you know, and on the other hand, I mean it's it's extreme right now. But of course, when you are in South Africa, it's obviously in you are in Cape Town, a city that I have been visiting for 40 years, and uh you think apartheid is over, and well, it's not really over because in Cape Town, you where you are right now, more into the center of the city, it's whiter than ever in some ways. So, in a country like South Africa, the wealth stays on the pale-skinned people, and the blacks are still very poor. So, it's it's um in that sense, the black and white tells us a story. And of course, I mean, if you in push, we talked about the global financial crisis, we talked about black stone coming into the to the picture, you know, grabbing up all the houses, and from whom did they get all these homes? Yes, from Afro-American and Latino families who lost their homes in the big crisis. So that's again the you know, the white against the black.

Leilani Farha 8:03

You've just given me so much, so much to think about for my book, actually, because of course Blackstone is featured in my book to some degree, and the idea that they're making their wealth from blacks is quite interesting.

Fredrik Gertten 8:17

I actually went, I I actually sorry, I went into I went into Blackstone's website yesterday, and I saw the our not friend, Steven Schwartzman, the president and founder, still going strong. He writes uh despite the volatile market backdrop, we grew earnings significantly and totally assets under management increase 13% year over year to more than 1.2 trillion in new industry record. That was like the last financial report from Blackstone. 1.3 trillion.

Leilani Farha 8:58

Yes, and Mr. Schwartzmann himself is worth apparently I read the other day 50.4 billion dollars, US dollars. That's his worth.

Fredrik Gertten 9:09

And this this is the black, black, dark, dark side of reality that these guys they make money out not out of producing or creating great stuff for humanity. It's all about handling money, looking for for growth. And the the growth is almost all the time financial. And and it's um it's a fake economy, it's fake growth. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Leilani Farha 9:36

Offering us nothing. No. Offering us nothing. None of the richness of life comes through their activities. Quite the opposite. It's driving human misery, you know, economic insecurity, et cetera. It's it's remarkable. When I think about black and white, I and what you were saying about South Africa and me being here in Cape Town, I was looking at the uh transit um map, you know, of all the bus lines and subway lines and et cetera. And it is an absolute apartheid transit system. Still, like to this day, you know, as they're growing the transit system, you see all sorts of like pink and green and yellow lines, and so many lines in the areas that are predominantly inhabited by white people. And then Kyalecha, of course, the largest uh informal settlement in Cape Town, which is, you know, on the periphery, on the outskirts, uh absolutely related to apartheid South Africa. There's one line, a blue line that apparently the buses never run, you know? So you're what you're seeing this black and white world play itself out geo, you know, geospatially.

Fredrik Gertten 10:52

Also remember that I mean, long before this very strong financialization, the apartheid system had a group areas act. Sounds like Israel, but it was South Africa. And they reforcedly they declared a lot of areas, especially in the center of the city, white. So all the people so-called color, the the you know, the the Africans, they had they were moved out to the plains, you know, which called Cape Flats. So that's why the city is also so so white, because the the people were moved out. And and then it was hard to come back, of course. So it and if you walk down in Seapoint, you know, there is a swimming pool, a public swimming pool. I don't know if you have time to go down there, but that that was all a white area, and still you see most white people swim there because it's like for the uh for the rest of the population, it feels not this is not ours, you know, anymore. It's it's really it's deep in there. Yeah.

Leilani Farha 11:59

Yeah. And I'm here working with a group that works with Reclaim the City, and and it's called Endafunu Quasi quasi. They are working to take public lands in the city center and return them to black South Africans and colored South Africans. It's an amazing movement. And so they're resisting this black and white and saying, no, no, there's a nuance, mix, we need mix, integration. It's lovely. And I mean, you know, when I think about my life, it's always in the nuance that I sort of like to dwell, that I derive pleasure and this idea of like black and white and separating people and separating ideas and thoughts is so stark and not it it doesn't offer much for the imagination, for example, you know, where it's it's the in-between spaces that are so lovely. So fuck the politicians.

Fredrik Gertten 13:00

Um fuck black and white. I mean, I know some restaurants served, they served black and white sauces, you know, but um that's boring. Don't go for it. Go for complexity. Thank you. We will continue next week with more words. More words. There's always more words, always more words. This is Pushback Talks, and we are doing a kind of our word food, word play, word salad. And we have this podcast together, we make it for fun, we want to tell inspirational stories, and we don't make any money out of this, so we try to kind of find time to do it. And and how do we fund it? Because we still have a technical crew who is editing, and so we are not without cost. How do we fund our podcast, Leilani?

Leilani Farha 13:53

Well, we try to fund it using our Patreon account. If you go to patreon.com, you can support pushback talks, and people do. Yeah, and every little bit helps.

Fredrik Gertten 14:05

Thank you for every single person who is supporting us. It means a lot because support is also some kind of love going away. And and we are addicts of love. Thank you. See you very soon.

unknown 14:19

Bye.

Leilani Farha 14:20

See you next time, Frederick. Bye.

unknown 14:22

Bye.

Kirsten McRae 14:26

Pushback Talks is produced by WG Film. To support the podcast, become a patron by going to patreon.com slash pushback talks. Follow us on social media at make underscore the shift and push underscore the film. Or check out our websites makeshift.org, pushthefilm.com, or breaking socialfilm.com.