- I was in North Minneapolis and I was returning some jeans.

The cashier was just like, "Yo, where do these flies come from?"

And I look around, I'm like, "I don't even see any flies.

I don't know what this guy's talking about."

And as I was driving away, I realized that that was like a racism encounter towards me at being African.

- Oh, was this another black man?

- It was a African American man.

So I was just laughing about it in my car.

I was like, "Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, we're the same people."

(upbeat electronic music) If somebody were to be racist to me, I don't see them as a threat whatsoever.

- What?

- Oftentimes, I ignore it.

- No way.

- What I think about is, "Are you in a position of power?"

- Yeah.

- 'Cause if you are a judge and you just treating me less than human, then you permeate your own belief systems into your service of other humans.

- Yeah, so true.

People in positions of power, like cops, for example, right?

- Have you ever been pulled over?

How does that play out?

- When I get stopped by cops?

- Yeah.

- I get nervous as hell.

I put my hands on the steering wheel.

I take my wallet out, put it on the dashboard right away 'cause I don't wanna give no reasons for somebody to have a flash in their eyes of like, "Oh, this guy's a monster."

When the cop comes, I roll down the window and the cop's always stern, "Where are you going?"

I don't wanna be perceived as aggressive.

- How do you do that?

- My tone of voice is lower, slower.

- Okay.

- I answer the questions and I make it a conversation like, "Oh yeah, have you seen the Raiders today?

They're doing really well."

And having that small talk that actually had him calm down and be a little nicer to me.

- Yeah.

- And I ended up going home that night.

So I've learned to just humanize myself to dispel the assumptions and ideas of what I could be.

It was like, "Oh, no, don't fill the holes in.

Let me show you just through this conversation with type of person I am."

- Bruh, right on.

(upbeat music) So tell me about who you are.

- I identify as Oromo, the country of Ethiopia, the land of Oromia.

- How did you come to live in Minnesota?

- Me and my family had to leave because it was too dangerous for us to stay.

We lived in Michigan, Lansing, Michigan is where we came, flew in first.

Almost two years, we were here and that's when 9/11 happened and my family comes from a Islamic background.

We started being treated differently, my father was fired from his job for being Muslim, very much so.

- Oh wow.

- And we had to leave 'cause it became dangerous.

- Yeah.

- But it never stopped in Michigan, it just carried over elsewhere.

- Yeah, can you paint a picture of that?

What was that like?

- Before 9/11, we were able to go outside at any time, play with the neighbors, be in the neighborhood.

9/11 happened and we couldn't be outside anymore.

The neighbors don't even wanna talk to you anymore.

Those traumas don't just like go away of always having to run away.

- Yeah.

I get it.

It's a recurring cycle, right?

Your family having to leave your native country because of injustice, and now in this new country, again, you're having to leave because of hatred.

(upbeat electronic music) - When I came into this country, black people were like shown to us in a very negative way through orientation-type (cluck).

Don't interact with them, don't be friends with them, don't marry them kinda situation.

- Whoa.

- They're a menace to society, quite literally.

That's the propaganda I was given.

- Wow, so as the welcome packet into this country, you're already being trained into the racist ideals of this country.

- The brand of racism that is very popular is whites hating blacks.

But me, I see it more as a disease and anybody can carry that disease.

- Yeah.

- You do see on TV a bunch of racism and you do see white supremacy.

At the height of 2016, I took a whole 30 day bike trip across the US, starting from Las Vegas through the Twin Cities 'cause I wanted to understand people in their lives rather than what I hear on TV, right?

In this biking through the countryside, I had families inviting me into their homes.

Majority of folks I met were white folks in the Backcountry, ranchers.

They'd say, "You're the first black individual that has ever been in my home."

Or, "You're the first Muslim that's ever been in my home."

A lot of these folks, we don't share the same political views, we don't share the same religion.

But it really taught me that these individuals still have their humanity.

Not one person had ill intent or tried to do something bad to me or said anything bad.

And I learned throughout this journey that there's a lot of misinformation out there because we don't have the courage to go to our nextdoor neighbor, knock their door and get to know who they are, ya know?

- Yeah.

So maybe the answer to all of this is paying less attention to the propaganda and putting more effort into having conversations with people around you.

(relaxing electronic music) - Brown and black folk, there's a level of trust I can have with them without having to go through a period of time of like, "Can I trust you to that level?"

- So then what has to happen for you to feel like you can trust others who don't share your experience?

- I know I have a buy-in from the other person.

If the other person decides to take the time and energy to understand my perspective of the world and to understand how our workplace or whatever we're working together on keeps me out or works against me.

- Thank you.

(relaxing atmospheric music)