Baye McNeil: Legend of Black Self-esteem

Season Three Episode Eight

‘When you have healthy self esteem and you see everyone as your equal, you approach the world differently’

I have to be honest that I was a bit nervous - a little starstruck interviewing Baye. I had been waiting for Baye for a year - I really wanted to do the video interview with him because he is such a star but a year on and with the pandemic still in play I just bit the bullet because Baye sounds good in May - catchy.

You can kinda tell that I was a bit in awe when we start AND I keep saying his name wrong. I AM SO SORRY BAYE. In my head is was Baye like May - IT IS NOT, it is Ba-Ye like Kanye. Please adjust your mind voice to Baye’s Senegalese name. And once again to Baye - thank you for correcting me over and over as I revelled in being in your presence. I am shouting at the screen as I am watching myself make this mistake repeatedly.

Baye is a high-profile writer; columnist in Japan Times’ Black Eye, author of TWO best-selling books “Hi My Name is Loco and I am a Racist” and “Loco in Yokohama”. I can’t even tell you how many other things Baye has done - listen in and visit his website, linked below.

Baye is charming, funny, serious, and fascinating - he opened my world up in the first 5 minutes of this interview. It is my opinion that Baye will go down in history as a great influencer and activist in Japan who changed the course of Japanese history, not only for people of African and Japanese-African descent but so many more people. He opens up minds to what is going on and encourages the good questions. His writing is brilliant and straightforward; generous and rich. He is a presence.

I loved every minute of Baye talking to me - we debated language use and he told me his preferred terms for bad practice when we discussed his part in the rectification of the Naomi Osaka Nissin whitewashing debacle.

There are layers and layers of depth and discussion in this interview and I implore you to listen to every last second as Baye keeps delivering more and more wisdom, information, history and humour. He really is terrific company!

BY THE WAY - we talk of two McMillans - Terri McMillan - Tokyo based creative and technology legend and Terry McMillan - US based legendary author.

More show notes here: https://www.sarahfuruya.com/blog/legend-of-black-self-esteem-baye-mcneil

Find Baye here: www.bayemcneil.com

Twitter @bayemcneil

Instagram @bayemcneil

If you liked this interview you might enjoy:

Terri McMacmillan - also Brooklyn background and Tokyo Legend

https://www.sarahfuruya.com/blog/the-legend-of-humans-terri-macmillan

Liza Chantelle - who talks at length about Jamaica and England

https://www.sarahfuruya.com/blog/legend-of-liza-chantelle-aono

Nina Cataldo - who we mention during the interview

https://www.sarahfuruya.com/blog/legend-of-nina-cataldo-podcast