Black & Asian American Solidarity: Exchanging Ideas, Sharing History

Cathy Park Hong is a Korean American poet, writer, professor, and the poetry editor at The New Republic. Her recent book, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography in 2021. Hong and Dr. Kendi have a deep discussion about the uniquely Asian American experience of living at the intersection of racist vilification and the stereotype of the “model minority.” For further reading, resources, and a transcript of this episode visit pushkin.fm/show/be-antiracist-ibram-kendi/

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. The rights of Asian Americans and Black Americans are
not mutually exclusive, but interconnected. White supremacy historically and still

(00:36):
today makes us believe that they're in opposition, but they're not.
This is why Black and Asian Americans really, really, really
need each other and must be there together for the struggle.
The image is fixed in my mind. Malcolm X lays

(00:59):
unconscious on the ground with his shirt opened and soaked
in blood. His arms are spread less people give him
medical attention alms autobamb Ballroom on February twenty first, nineteen
sixty five. The photograph only captures the faces of two people,
Malcolm X and a bespectacled Japanese American woman who cradles

(01:24):
his head in her hands. When I first saw this
photo as a twenty three year old graduate student, I wondered,
who is this Asian woman cradling the assassinated Malcolm X.
I had to find out. I learned her name was
Yuri Kochiyama, and the more I learned about Kochiyama, the

(01:48):
more I learned about other Asian American activists who helped
extend the heartbeat of anti racism beyond the lifespan of
any individual, even a giant like Malcolm X. I'm ibramax Kendy,

(02:11):
and this is be anti racist. Uri Korchayama grew up
in San Pedro, California. She endured anti Asian racism as
a nissa, a child of Japanese immigrants. During World War Two,
Kochiyama and her family were among the one hundred and
twelve thousand Japanese Americans incarcerated in internment camps run by

(02:35):
the federal government on the West Coast. The newspaper headlines
were get the depths out. And not just the newspaper headlines,
but there were signs all over and get the Depts out,
Get the depths out. She was painfully aware of how
it felt to be seen as a stranger and a

(02:56):
threat in your own home. I tell you the Japanese
Americans and even the Essay's first generation who could not
become Americans. They were so America, and yet the hysteria,
the suspicion of Japanese people was very, very strong. In

(03:17):
nineteen sixty Kocheyama moved to Harlem, where she worked with
Black Asian and Latinex organizers to advance civil and human rights.
After being arrested at a protest. In nineteen sixty three,
Kochiyama met Malcolm X. They shared a birthday May nineteenth,

(03:38):
and developed a friendship that would last the rest of
his life. One night in nineteen sixty four, Malcolm X
spoke to a group of survivors of the Hiroshima atomic
bomb in Kochiyama's apartment. You were bombed, he said, and
have physical scars. We too have been bombed, and you

(04:00):
saw some of the scars in our neighborhood. We are
constantly hit by the bombs of racism, which are just
as devastated. Half a century later, the bombs of anti
black and anti Asian racism continue to detonate. While Black
Americans died at disproportionate rates from COVID nineteen and at

(04:23):
the hands of police, hate crimes against Asian Americans jumped
one hundred and fifty percent in twenty twenty. Racist references
to COVID nineteen as the China virus or Kung fluid
inflamed anti Asian violence, including the tragic murder of six
Asian women who worked at massage parlors in the Atlanta

(04:45):
metro region, and yet Asian Americans are considered by racist
Americans to be the model minority. By this purview, Asian
Americans are assimilated wealthy, high achieving, and law abiding citizens,
not like the problem minority black people. But this framing

(05:06):
veils many Asian Americans and obscure American history. It veils
the racist and classist immigration laws that prioritize highly educated
people from East and South Asian countries. It veils all
the poor and working class Asian Americans, and the fact
that Asian Americans experience the highest amount of income inequality

(05:29):
of any racial group in the United States. It veils
the anti Asian attacks before the pandemic. It veils all
the connections between the black and Asian experiences inside and
outside of the United States, connections that bonded Uri Kochiyama
and Malcolm x. Uri Kochiyama and her husband Bill helped

(05:54):
to secure the US government's formal apology and reparations to
Japanese American survivors of the Interminent Camps through the Civil
Liberties Act of nineteen eighty eight. Reparations for Japanese Americans
fired activists to continue the reparations fight for Black Americans.

(06:14):
Uri Kochiyama passed away in twenty fourteen, but her life
gave me a window into Asian anti racist activists and
their long standing bond with activists of other racists. Asian
and Black activists leading the Yellow Power and Black Power
movements exchanged ideas and stories about their own communities experiences

(06:37):
of racism. Richard Aoki, a Japanese American who endured incarceration
in an internment camp, was a founding member of the
Black Panther Party. Kocheyama and Malcolm X understood, we are
all being bombed by the structures of racism. This isn't
a fight just for Asian Americans, or Black Americans or

(06:59):
any other group of Americans. This is a fight for
us all. This is a fight for humanity. Welcome to
be Anti Racist in Action podcasts, where we discuss how
to diagnose, dismantle, and abolish racism, how to save humanity

(07:21):
from the divisiveness of racist ideas and the destructiveness of
racist power and policy, How to free humanity through the
unity of anti racist ideas and the constructiveness of anti
racist power and policy. On Be Anti Racist, we discuss
how to make the impossible possible and how to bring

(07:43):
into being what modern humans have never known a just
inequitable world. You ready, let's roll. I'd see some Asian

(08:07):
Americans who call out other Asian Americans as you're being
anti black, Stop being so anti black, And I'm like,
I don't think scolding is going to work. I think
you need to first talk about reconciling with what you
went through, that you have been taught to deny and suppress,
and open that up. And only through opening that up,

(08:28):
opening up your vulnerability, will you really be able to
fight for a more equitable country. Kathy Park Hong is
a Korean American poet, writer, professor, and the poetry editor
at The New Republic. Her recent book, Minor Feelings in
Asian American Reckoning reveals the unique duality of hyper invisibility

(08:52):
and hyper visibility experienced by Asian Americans. Minor Feelings was
a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and won the National
Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography. I recently spoke with
Hong about the uniquely Asian American experience of living at
the intersection of racist stabilification and the stereotype of the

(09:15):
model minority. I've been looking forward to talking to you.
I think I can speak hopefully for many people who
have had the chance to read your latest book. Not
only was I blown away with the way in which
you integrated your personal story with some of these larger
ideas and even histories, but to me how critically important

(09:39):
this book is for the here and the now. Specifically,
over the last year, there has been, for better off,
for worse, more and more mainstream conversation around the Asian
American experience. How hard is it to talk about the
Asian American experience since the term even Asian Americans encompasses

(10:03):
so many groups. Yeah, it's a conversation that always starts
off with like ten minutes of qualifications. You know, I'm
only speaking from my experience. I'm just a tiny sliver
of a demographic. Asia is a continent after all, you know,

(10:25):
almost as a way of safeguarding inevitable rebuttals where rightly
Asian Americans are like, well, you're not representing my experience
at you? Oh, how could you not be representing my experience?
And I think part of that defensiveness, this is how
I feel, too, is because there's been such a dearth
of public exposure of all the many different kinds of

(10:49):
Asian American experiences, so that when there's one filmmaker, one
fiction writer, novelist that breaks out, there's both celebration and excitement,
but there's also defensiveness because inevitably, as it happens to
most minorities, American mainstream culture is likely to be like, oh,
it's a singular Asian American experience. So I've been very

(11:13):
gratified and really honored and humbled is really the most
apt term for how people have responded to my book.
But when people say, as they have a couple interviewers
said in the past that the book is representative or
it's like I'm a spokesperson or something, you know, I
want to run the other direction. But I do think

(11:35):
that one bright side to this very very very dark
year is that I have noticed among Asian Americans they're
much more emboldened, daring, much more radicalized. And I just
think there'll be a lot more conversation about Asian Americans,

(11:57):
all the different ways they fit into the racial history
of this country and the racialized present, and also the
kinds of stories and artworks that they're gonna produced. Not
that it hasn't been happening, but I hope there's even more. Yeah, certainly,
And I can relate in this sense of Black Americans

(12:17):
in this country. I have often been radicalized or a
certain sense of solidarity has emerged through years of terror. Yeah.
And obviously the Asian American community has been subjected to
all forms of terror and violence. And so you're saying
you're seeing somewhat of the same phenomenon. Yeah, I mean,

(12:42):
in writing Minor Feelings, I was definitely inspired by the
black radical tradition, so many of the thinkers, Baldwin, Moten, Morrison.
It's just a long, long tradition. What I'm also inspired
by is how African Americans have used those years of

(13:03):
white supremacists or racial capitalist terror and really turned their
race into an oppositional identity. Black is an oppositional identity,
and I think that that is what I'm trying to
impart when I do talk about the Asian American identity.

(13:23):
To some Asians who feel that term is very abstract
or constraining, I'm like, you don't have to think of
it as a label, but more as something that is
oppositional or aspirational, something that's more about coalition building. One
of the reasons I really wanted to talk to you, Kathius,

(13:43):
because for the better part of roughly six to nine months,
there was some conversation about anti Asian violence, specifically as
a result of the pandemic and the slurs that emerged
around it. In recent months, specifically with the attack on

(14:04):
critical race theory, Asian Americans have been spoke about in
a different from a type of way, primarily coming from conservatives,
some Asian Americans, but mainly white conservatives, who are seeing
that critical race theory is anti Asian Asian Americans yet
again being used as a wedge. This is why I

(14:24):
find media so frustrating, because I know that the majority
of Asian Americans are still fighting for racial justice in
solidarity with Black Americans and digitous Americans and Latin X Americans.
Quite frankly, I have not been following the critical race

(14:44):
theory debate as closely as I could because I find
the controversy so manufactured by conservatives and so stupid and
maddening and absurd. It's really surreal. It's like arguing with
Q and on conspiracy theorists. Let me just say that
white people are enraged about is that many of us

(15:07):
are finally trying to understand and read about an American
history and culture that hasn't been censored, whitewashed, and sanitized
by the victors of history, a history where whites and
men have to be held accountable for past injuries injustices,

(15:29):
and they cannot stand that. To say critical race theory
is anti Asian is to not understand that this history
includes Asians. When I was growing up, the history that
I learned a lot of it was not true, the
stories about indigenous people who are happy to be civilized

(15:53):
by Spanish missionaries. It was also a history that had
nothing to do with me or how I got here.
For instance, I did read a little bit about the
Korean War, but it was about the heroic fight for
democracy won by Americans and for which Koreans were eternally grateful,

(16:15):
the self congratulatory perspective of the white powers that be,
which had nothing from a Korean perspective. It wasn't until
much later that I learned that four million Koreans were
killed during the war. Critical race theory, I don't even
like to call it that. I want to call it
American history and literature. The uncensored and unabridged version means

(16:38):
that Americans will also understand more Asian Americans. And when
I was reading that Asian Americans are emerging as a
strong voice against critical race theory, that's also bullshit. It's wrong.
There's so many activists of Asian Americans who don't prescribe
to these conservative talking points. It's similar to saying that

(17:02):
Asians are against affirmative action, when in fact, seventy percent
of Asian support affirmative action. Whoever is making these claims
is not listening to what Asian Americans have been saying
throughout this whole year. They haven't been listening to the
outpouring of anger and grief and this kind of mantra

(17:24):
that no one is listening to us. We're invisible. We
are racial minority who have been oppressed or victimized for
this many reasons. The Asians who say that critical race
serious anti Asian are the Asians who need critical race
theory the most, because they don't understand that they're being

(17:47):
used and instrumentalized by tone deaf white conservatives to delegitimize
black struggle and how this model minority myth has been
used as a cudgel against civil rights movement and the
Black struggle for equality. By denying that we learn about race,

(18:08):
which means learning about the real truth about Asian American histories,
these Asians are basically denying their children to learn about themselves.
Asian Americans were part of the formation of critical race
theory from the beginning. Marie Matsuda wrote a great response
to this. She was one of the activists who was

(18:30):
part of the Third World Liberation Front from the Bay
Area in nineteen sixty eight that demanded ethnic studies. Marty
Matsuda had to come out and be like, Uh, what
are you talking about. Asians were always part of the
struggle for schools to not whitewash Asian Americans. You talk

(18:51):
in your book about the way in which Asian Americans
are used to keep black people down. So I've seen
this shift in which the predominant conversation was that Asian
Americans were suffering violence, and then seemingly, almost over night,
that was lost to Oh, let's now continue to project

(19:14):
Asian Americans as the model minority. Suddenly Asian Americans demonstrate
racism doesn't exist. It's almost like Asian Americans were abstracted
as this rhetorical cudgel that they bring out of their
closet whenever they feel that Black Americans are being too
quote unquote uppity or overly outraged, and then they say, okay,

(19:39):
well look at these Asian Americans, which is like, we
don't actually exist. It's complete abstraction, and it's real pity
that that's the case. These conservatives. Their idea of Asian
is so offensively narrow. They're not only perpetuating the nefarious
model minority myth, they're also ignoring the fact that Asian

(20:00):
Americans have the biggest wealth gap. This whole brouhaha about
how Asians are successful, they will fit racial prototype. The
reason for that is because after nineteen sixty five, there
was a quota where the Asians who were allowed in
were professional engineers and doctors. So of course their children

(20:22):
will be successful. It doesn't have to do with meritocracy.
Compare that to say, Cambodians and Boutanies who came here
as refugees, and many of them are still struggling and
they need affirmative action and other government funded programs we
all do. What's striking to me is the invisibility that

(20:44):
you reference in terms of Asian Americans also extends to
the invisibility against anti Asian racism, and then that even
extends to the invisibility of Asian Americans who are fighting
against racism. I was delighted in your book to learn
even more about Uri Kochiyama, who is one of my heroes,

(21:06):
and so if you could speak a little bit about
her old history, her story, Oh yeah, of course. Uri
Kuchiyama is Japanese American activist. She was second generation born
in California, and for the earlier part of her life
she was very a political, very Christian, had mostly white

(21:27):
friends and all of that, and then she was sent
to the internment camps with her family. People have some
grasp of the internment camps in the US, but what
they don't understand was like the deep discrimination against Japanese
Americans post internment camps. So once the Japanese Americans left,

(21:49):
they were dispersed across the country so they wouldn't amass
into an angry collective. They were also discriminated from getting
jobs and so forth. So she had a hard time
finding jobs around where she lived, so she moved to
New York. She ended up working in Harlem in this restaurant,
and her fellow wait staff were black, and she became

(22:12):
friends with them, and it was the first time she
really learned about America's racist past, and she learned about
the history of slavery and Jim Crow and all of that,
and she also realized the great crime that America committed
against her and other Japanese Americans. So she became radicalized

(22:34):
through these black friends, and it was sort of like
I guess you could say the miseducation of ury Coortiama
from them going on where she became very involved with
the civil rights movement, with the local politics of Harlem,
and then she became friends with Malcolm X, and from

(22:54):
that point on she was just an integral part of
that black struggle. I mean, she was just always there fighting.
And there's a photo of her actually, which is how
I came across her when Malcolm X was murdered. There's
her holding his head up, and that was the first

(23:15):
time I saw her. I was like, who's that Asian
woman in that picture? And then she went on. I mean,
she was just very generous. She fought for Puerto Rican independence.
She was also among many of the Japanese Americans who
fought for and received some reparations for the Japanese in
tournament and so forth. I actually learned about it the

(23:37):
same way you did. I came across that picture. Yeah,
I asked the question, like, who's this Asian woman? And
then I learned her name, and then I learned about
her life, and then that then caused me to want
to research even more, and then it allowed me to
connect anti Asian racism to anti black racism. W the

(24:00):
Boys during his life thought black and Asian solidarity were critical,
and throughout your book you spoke to that the critical
importance of solidarity between black and Asian peoples. There are
so many instances throughout history. Black Americans have been there
from the beginning, backing Asian Americans. Going back to what

(24:25):
Frederick Douglas said he was against the immigration band against
Chinese Americans. He said, when there is a supposed conflict
between human national rights, it is safe to go to
the side of humanity. I could go on about like
the examples of interracial solidarity, the Black support for Filipino

(24:48):
freedom fighters during the Philippine American War, or how the
term Asian American wouldn't exist without the support of the
Black Power movement in nineteen sixty five Filipinos and Central
American farm workers locked arms and went on the Delano
grape strike. I think some Asian Americans are aware of it.

(25:09):
It's interesting that my book is now being translated. It's
coming out in Korea, and I had to write a
prolog for it, and I think a lot of Koreans
have not a lot of understanding of race in America,
and I just had to emphasize in the prolog, how
if we're going to be talking about indebtedness or gratitude

(25:29):
as well as solidarian coalition building. I was saying that
much of the rights that Asian Americans gained in the
US wouldn't have come about without the support of Black
Americans and their own ongoing struggle for justice. Another example

(25:51):
I would point out my parents came after nineteen sixty five,
which is the heart Seller Act, where they finally opened
up the immigration ban against Asia, Africa and Latin American country.
And part of the reason why they opened up the

(26:13):
country was because of the civil rights movement, Because of
the footage of black struggle and the violent exposure of
Jim Crowe spreading around the world. Cold war politics was
being combined with civil rights, and so forth and America
was afraid. They were trying to stamp out communism and

(26:36):
what was happening in America was making America look bad.
And I tell my parents and I think maybe a
lot of older generation Asian immigrants don't know that they
wouldn't be here if it weren't for black struggle. And
also later on during the late sixties, during the Vietnam
War and the Black Power movement, there was a coalition

(26:59):
of Asian Americans who also demanded equity and to be
recognized as people. There was a real allianceship during that time.
There are lionships throughout history since then, but I think
that was I don't know. For me at least had
seemed like a very pivotal seminal moment because that was

(27:20):
the birth of the term Asian American, which again wouldn't
have come about without the Black Power movement. And I
can say certainly the inspiration has gone both ways. As
you know, there were civil rights and black power activists
who were inspired by Asian revolutionaries, by Asians who engaged

(27:40):
in the decolonization movements across Asia, and it reminds me
of the Ban Dung Conference in nineteen fifty five, the
Asian African Conference, where you had all these people who
were engaged in struggles to decolonize their countries, who came
together under one principle of self determination. And even Malcolm

(28:03):
X in one of his most famous speeches, references the
band Dung Conference when he's talking about the importance of solidarity.
And once you study what happened at the band Dun
Conference and the results of the band Dun Conference, it
actually serves as a model for the same procedure you
and I can use to get out problems. At BANDOM,

(28:23):
all the nations came together. They were doc nations from
Africa and Asia. Some of them were Buddhists, some of
them were Muslims, some of them were Christians, some of
them were Confucianists, some were atheists. Despite their religious differences,
they came together. Yeah. People don't talk about that Bandung
Conference as much, or that multi ethnic coalition that was

(28:47):
happening with the Third World Liberation Front. Yeah. And also
the fact that Black Panthers were very much influenced. I mean,
they didn't know what they were going to become, you know,
Ho Chi men and Mao and oh yeah. Yeah. And
of course Martin Luther King being inspired by Gandhi. So
there was that kind of real mutual influence happening in

(29:11):
their flight for justice against white imperialism. And it's different now,
you know, I think there's still this. I don't know,
maybe it's not. I mean, do you think it's different?
I actually do. I think in the sixties, people because
they were closer to those very profound coalitions that you

(29:34):
were talking about, because they knew and saw even those
inspirational African and Asian new Heads of States or revolutionaries
coming together, or they saw members of the Black Panther
Party selling little red books to make money. Yeah. I
just don't know whether people in the Black community and

(29:55):
people in the Asian community are knowledgeable about that history
of solidarity today, and I think that combined with white
supremacists trying to urge both communities to imagine that they
are in position. Yeah, I just wish we were able
to really recover that history, but now their efforts to
not even teach history in schools. I would also like

(30:19):
to see more of a curricular emphasis or just more
conversations about interracial solidarity and interracial conflict, because I think
that's just under examined I just think right now because
of the way racial capitalism divides people of color. Yeah,
there's so much fractiousness. There's real attempts at cross racial solidarity,

(30:44):
but I think there's still a lot of misunderstanding between
racist too. Yeah. In talking to Black Americans and even
Latin X Americans about the model minority myth, I try
to remind folks that the framing of the model minority
hangs on the problem minority in a way, that both

(31:06):
framings degraded both groups in different types of ways. Another
reason why I really appreciated your work, specifically this book,
is because it seemed to me that you were writing
for Asian Americans. You even write that there's quite a
bit of literature on the self hating Black person, the

(31:26):
self hating Jewish American, but there isn't as much on
the self hating Asian American. And you were very vulnerable.
How were you able to draw that courage to be vulnerable,
to be self reflective, to even be self critical. It
was very hard. I was kind of kept by private
life private. But one revelation I had was after watching

(31:52):
Richard Pryor stand up, I was really just blown away
by his caustic humor, honesty, rage, but also the vulnerability
and how much he was able to expose himself and
the dark underbelly of the country through his humor. And
I said, I want to do that. If I really

(32:13):
want to get my perspective on race in this country,
I have to write about my own personal experiences, not
just experiences where I was a victim. I think it
was really important to me that I didn't have a
halo above my head to show the ways in which
I sided with power rather than the powerless. It was

(32:36):
important for me to implicate myself as much as possible.
That was also, I guess part of the honesty. I
don't consider myself as self hating Asian. That's just one
of the many facets of myself. The book was this
sort of progress of the decolonization of my mind, how

(32:58):
I decolonized myself of this self hatred or this consciousness
that hated the body in which she was living. It's
not like it was this redemption, but I try to
write about it as more of a struggle that some
people can identify with. I'm Kathy Parkong, and you're listening

(33:23):
to be anti racist with Ebram X Candy. You're right
that the indignity of being Asian in this country has
been under reported. I think that in a way, this
sentence can really speak to what we've even seen in

(33:44):
the last year. I mean, you know, everyone always says
about how timely this book is, But the elderly being
pushed or assaulted, or being demeaned or condescended to or harassed,
that's not no. That was happening when I was growing
up countless times when I was with my parents. I

(34:04):
don't think it's just Asians. I'm sure black people, Latin X,
a lot of wagrants can identify with us. To see
someone who you are conditioned to respect inside the house
and then you leave the house and you just see
them being treated like dirt, treated like children. It was

(34:25):
so habitual that I was always on guard when I
walked around with my parents. I felt both this hurt,
pride and shame. I felt like I had to protect
my parents rather than the other way around. That was
more of the personal experience, But this indignity has been
documented since Asians first landed in this country. They were

(34:50):
always considered pestilence, vermin in human alien and what was
fascinating was that ugly racist attacks against Asians in America
were then imported to the wars abroad for Vietnam War,
the Korean War, and so forth. So when Americans were

(35:11):
going into other Asian countries under the flag of freedom,
they were bringing that same kind of racism upon the
people of that country. I think every Asian American will
have their own ancestral history of what that indignity means.
But that since I'm Korean, my own personal references are

(35:32):
the racism that I witnessed with my family, but then
also before that, what they had to endure when Americans
invaded the Peninsula. And so what did you think about
the efforts around and ultimately the passage of the COVID
nineteen Hate Crimes Act. I don't know. I think that

(35:54):
it didn't do enough. I don't think it did enough either. Yeah,
a lot of Asian American organizations over eighty five, I believe,
opposed the BELT before it wasn't even passed because it
doesn't do enough. They believe that it's pr that the
federal government is doing something, but they're actually not. You know,

(36:18):
I think it's not enough to just have more stats
and what is very troubling is how these incidents of
anti Asian violence is being used as part of an
excuse by the government to be law enforcement, which is
the wrong approach. As an example, let's go back to

(36:42):
the Atlanta massacre press conference. Police officer talked about the
murderer having a bad day, right he was pretty much
fed up and kind at the end of his rope,
and if it was a really bad day for him,
and this is what he did. Later on, Actually, a
journalists found out that this police officer was anti Chinese.
So we cannot rely on the law enforcement. The aim

(37:05):
should be on restorative justice. I think we need more
community based solutions. The rights of Asian Americans and Black
Americans are not mutually exclusive but interconnected. White supremacy historically
and still today makes us believe that they're in opposition,
but they're not. A friend. Put it to me this way,

(37:25):
which I thought was very astute. Yes, Asians get hate
crime by individuals, but Black Americans get hate crime by
the police and dugitial system. And most Asian writers and
activists I know support police in prison abolition. But this,
of course is a very long, uphill battle, which is

(37:48):
why black and Asian Americans really really really need each
other and must be there together for the struggle. There's
a chance that if Trump doesn't run for president, that
the Republican ticket could be a black man and an
Asian woman on twenty twenty four, And it seems there's
just more and more people of color who are being

(38:09):
funded at some of the highest levels to carry out
white supremacy. You speak a lot about internalized racist ideas
within the Asian American community. I speak about that within
the black community. So I'm just curious about your thoughts
about the politics of this as we move forward. Yes,
of course, I mean the reason why I started out
with a self hating Asian in minor feelings was I

(38:33):
was also writing to many Asian Americans who had this
kind of internal racism that was so corrosive that their
idea of belonging in this country means following this neoliberal
white supremacist agenda, not only follow it, but champion it, cheerlated,

(38:55):
and so forth. And you know, that was the only
way to kind of survive in this country. Loreno Grady,
she's this amazing artist who said, in the future, white
supremacy won't need white people in American minorities are going
to be the majority in twenty sixty. It doesn't matter,

(39:17):
I think if this kind of capitalist, white supremacist agenda
gets reproduced among Bye Block. This is something that I
am constantly vigilant and that I feel the sort of
responsibility to really keep this conversation going among Asian Americans.

(39:38):
For people who are interested in potentially being a part
of the struggle against racism in general, but even more
specifically anti Asian racism, what would you suggest for them
to get started for them to be a part of this,
read your book No Reminor Feelings Start. I would say,

(40:01):
first of all, stop AAPI hate has all these different resources.
They have a list of initiatives on how to help
as an organizer or just as a sensitive person who
wants to help in some way. Movement Hub is a
great place to find a list of Asian American organizations.
Asian American Advancing Justice is also great. If we're talking

(40:26):
about interracial solidarity between black and Asian Americans. That group
and what they did to register and get out the
boat in twenty twenties a terrific example. I also think
it's really important to support Asian owned businesses like black
and Latin X owned businesses. Asian small businesses were really

(40:47):
hard hit by COVID with the risk of dealing with harassment.
I know this personally because my whole extended family who
live in California are in dry cleaning and they have
really struggled throughout twenty twenty and twenty twenty one. Encourage
local schools and libraries and communities to have diverse curriculum

(41:11):
that includes Asian American history as well as book clubs
and discussion groups and so forth. And also I think
it's important to constantly engage and have conversations with family
members who might not be as understanding as you are.
During the summer, George Floyd, all these younger Asian Americans

(41:35):
wrote letters to their parents and their grandparents and so forth,
talking them, trying to educate them about what was happening
with Black Lives Matter and police brutality. And I was
moved by that. And then I would say, just read
as much as you can read The Color of Success
by Ellen wo and Making of Asian America by Erica Lee.

(41:58):
Another great book is Bengali Harlem by v. Veck Bald,
as well as poetry by chen Chen and Tarfia Fasula
and Monica Soak. Asian American Writers Workshop is a terrific
resource to get yourself acquainted with their vast library of books.
So that's my list of resources there. Well, Kathy park Hung,

(42:21):
I'm so glad we were able to spend some time together.
Your book, Minor Feelings in Asian American Reckoning was just
extremely powerful. I'm glad Pullitzer named it a finalist. Thank you.
I'm happy we're really able to talk about this interracial
solidarity that's possible, that is certainly in the history of

(42:44):
this country, in the history of the world, and the
critical importance of building thos multiracial coalitions to ensure that
we build a multiracial democracy in which everyone will be visible,
in which everyone will be respected, in which every community

(43:04):
from older Asian Americans to younger Black women will be
protect did And I'm excited to figure out a way
to build that with you. We'll do it together, definitely,
all right, Thank you, take it easy. Black and Asian

(43:26):
liberation have always been informed by the unique histories and
experiences of these communities. However, the racist realities confronted by
Asian and Black people living in the United States have
always been connected. After emancipation removed their access to cheap
black labor, railroad companies and other large employers exploited Chinese laborers,

(43:51):
forcing them to work long hours in dangerous conditions for
little pay. Just as white workers in the South feared
economic competition from free black people, many white workers out
West thought Asian laborers would lower wages and take their jobs.
In response, Congress did not make it easier for all

(44:12):
races to band together against capital. Congress passed restrictive immigration
laws in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that
originally were intended to exclude Asian immigrants, but were broadened
to exclude black people, Latin X people in Middle Eastern people,
as well as European Jews, Irish Catholics, Southern and Eastern Europeans,

(44:36):
people with disabilities, and LGBTQ plus people. Then and now,
racist policies hurt not just their intended targets, but everyone.
Racism requires the fight of everyone. For Yuri Kocheyama and
Malcolm X, this solidarity began with a handshake when Kochayama

(44:59):
met Malcolm in nineteen sixty three and asked to shake
his hand. Malcolm asked, why to congratulate you for giving
direction to your people. She answered, they both gave direction
to interracial anti racist solidarity. We must all shake hands
in struggle. We must all be anti racist. Thank you

(45:34):
for rolling with me this season on Be Anti Racist.
I learned so much about how to be anti racist,
about what racist policies we should be fighting against, about
what anti racist policies we should be fighting for, from
some of the most brilliant and thoughtful people around. Shout
out to Rebecca Coakley, Heather McGee, Ari Berman, Don Lemmon,

(45:58):
Jamal Hill, Robin d g Kelley, Julian Kastro, Maryam Kava,
David Troyer, and Kathy park Hong. Shout out to all
the folks who joined us on the Juneteenth mixtape, including
Annette Gordon Read, Adam Surer, Tia Miles, and Maurice Carlos Ruffin.
Shout out to my great colleagues Adeline, Tammy and Heather

(46:22):
and all the good folks at Pushkin, especially Sasha, Alexandra
and Britt Thank you for all your help producing this season.
But the biggest shouts are for you. Thank you for
rolling with us towards figuring out how to build a
just an equitable world. I encourage you to check out

(46:42):
the listener guides for each episode. These guides contain lists
or further readings, resources, and anti racist organizations to support.
They are posted on the Pushkin website at pushkin dot
fm under each episode of the show. You can always
keep up with me and my work on Twitter at

(47:03):
dr Ebram and on Instagram at Ebram x k and
through the Center for Anti Racist Research at Boston University.
Until next time, I'm ebramx Kendy, reminding you that the
racial problem is not the people who are pointing out racism.
The racial problem is not what's wrong with people on

(47:24):
the lower and dying end of racial disparities. The racial
problem is racist power and policy and the racist ideas
upholding power and policy. The structures of racism are the problem.
We can no longer be not racist. If we hope
to free humanity from racism, we must be anti racist.

(47:58):
Be Anti Racist is a production of Pushkin Industries and
Our Heart Media. It is written and hosted by doctor
ebramic Kindy and produced by Alexandra Gerriton with associate producer
Britney Brown. Our engineer has been Holiday. Our editors Julia Barton,
Our Shore Runners Sasha Matthias. Our executive producers Arelie, Tom
Wollad and Mio Lobell. Many thanks to Tammy Win and

(48:18):
doctor Hedda Standford at the Center for Anti Racist Research
at Boston University for all of the help. Speaking of help,
an entire team of people at Pushkin Industries and Our
Heart Media helped bring this podcast to life at Our
Heart thanks to Conn all Byrne, Will Pearson, Carrie Lieberman,
Nathan Otoski and Alison Wright and that Pushkin Endless Thanks
to Heather Fame, Carli mcgleiore, John Schnars, Jackson Gambro, Sophie mckibbon,

(48:42):
Maggie Taylor, Nicole Morano, Eric Sandler, Christina Sullivan, Brian Sabrinik,
Daniela Lakhan, Maya Knick, Kadija Holland, Malcolm Gladwell, and Jacob Wiseburn.
You can find doctor Kendy on Twitter at d r
Ebram and on Instagram at Ebram x K. You can
find Pushkin all social platforms at Pushkin Pods, and you

(49:04):
can sign up for our news letter at Pushkin dot
fm to find out Pushkin podcast. Listen on the Our
Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you like to listen.
M