Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Civic Cipher. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Ramsay's Ja big shout out to q Ward who is
Speaker 1: off today, but have no fear because we have a
Speaker 1: very special guest in with us. Today's show is going
Speaker 1: to be about race relations really between black and Asian
Speaker 1: communities in this country.
Speaker 2: There's a lot there.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot in recent months that we've had
Speaker 1: to talk about in today's episode, We're going to be
Speaker 1: continuing that dialogue as we committed to doing. My guest
Speaker 1: today is Liza's son. Welcome to the show. A little
Speaker 1: bit about Lisa is she's a former State House of
Speaker 1: Representatives candidate for Legislative Legislative District number nineteen, a former
Speaker 1: vice chair of the azaap I Caucus, and you know,
Speaker 1: just an all around community the activist and politician and
Speaker 1: from what I know of you, someone who has a
Speaker 1: lot of insight into the history between our two communities.
Speaker 2: As we relate to each other, but also.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe a path forward, a path toward you know,
Speaker 1: having a more profound and meaningful relationship that will you know,
Speaker 1: result in more positive interactions and less negative interactions between
Speaker 1: our two communities. And so I'm grateful that you would
Speaker 1: take the time to come on the show and you know,
Speaker 1: share your thoughts and your opinions, you know, and you know,
Speaker 1: in a little bit we'll we'll certainly peel back some
Speaker 1: of the layers and check out what's going on there.
Speaker 1: So before we get to that, though, it's standard practice
Speaker 1: around this time to do a little bit of celebrating
Speaker 1: of what we'd like to call Ebony excellence. All I
Speaker 1: do is win no matter what. For Ebony excellence, what
Speaker 1: we do is we highlight something positive in the black community.
Speaker 1: This week, it was one that I believe to be
Speaker 1: very special. Q actually sent this over in Shreveport, Louisiana.
Speaker 1: There's a man named Michael Lafitte and he started a
Speaker 1: program called Dads on Duty. After twenty three students were
Speaker 1: arrested in three days, parents in Shreveport, Louisiana took it
Speaker 1: upon themselves to organize and patrol the halls of the
Speaker 1: schools in shifts. And what they do is they greet students,
Speaker 1: they helped maintain a positive environment, and so far it's
Speaker 1: been working. They're looking to actually expand the program into
Speaker 1: other schools, cities, and states. And the interesting thing about
Speaker 1: this is that none of these dads have backgrounds as
Speaker 1: counselors or as you know, in law enforcement anything like that, fathers.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what Michael Lafitz says. He says, we're dads.
Speaker 1: We decided the best people who can take care of
Speaker 1: our kids are who are us and quote, and you know,
Speaker 1: they just fill the halls with you know, dad jokes
Speaker 1: and a little tough love and some stern looks and
Speaker 1: you know, so far there's been no fights. Again, when
Speaker 1: you see the drastic turnaround, twenty three students arrested across
Speaker 1: three days because of fighting. And then these dads show
Speaker 1: up end mass and hang out in the hallways and
Speaker 1: crack jokes and just really are a presence. They all
Speaker 1: wear the same T shirts and they interact with the students.
Speaker 1: You know, some of the students. I've seen some of
Speaker 1: the videos on this, some of the students seem to
Speaker 1: be really grateful and they feel protected in a strange way,
Speaker 1: even though these men aren't their biological fathers. They're just
Speaker 1: some dads that decided to show up. But I think
Speaker 1: that that's Ebny excellence if I ever heard of it.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that we got a chance to share that
Speaker 1: story about the dads on duty. Now moving along back
Speaker 1: to our guest Lisa's son. So twenty twenty was a
Speaker 1: difficult year for everyone, and everyone has their story about
Speaker 1: that year. Twenty twenty one, of course, has been very
Speaker 1: much a continuation of a lot of the stories that
Speaker 1: we begin to hear about in twenty twenty. But there
Speaker 1: is a unique characteristic that I believe relates to Asian
Speaker 1: Americans specifically. And you know, discrimination against Asian Americans goes
Speaker 1: all the way back to perhaps the first Asian Americans
Speaker 1: that ever landed on this you know, continent. But last year,
Speaker 1: I believe there was a marked change in tone with
Speaker 1: respect to our Asian brothers and sisters when Donald Trump
Speaker 1: said all the things that he said about the China
Speaker 1: virus and the I don't even want to repeat all
Speaker 1: the hurtful and racist things that he said, And I
Speaker 1: believe that that gave license to people his supporter specifically,
Speaker 1: to terrorize and make fun of, brutalize, et cetera Asian Americans.
Speaker 1: Add to that that, in certain communities there has been
Speaker 1: a longstanding, deep divide between Asian Americans and those communities,
Speaker 1: namely black communities, now you can correct me if I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: but my understanding is that the reason that we see
Speaker 1: lots of Asian Americans opening up businesses in lower income neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: black and brown neighborhoods, is not because Asian folks want
Speaker 1: to take advantage of the poor people in this country.
Speaker 1: It's a result of folks immigrating here and qualifying for
Speaker 1: loans that black people and brown people in this country
Speaker 1: have been systemically discriminated against in terms of receiving those loans.
Speaker 1: And then for the Asian folks that they show up,
Speaker 1: they are enterprising people. They show up, they have to
Speaker 1: create an economic system to support themselves, and where they
Speaker 1: can qualify for loans and where they can set up shop,
Speaker 1: if you will, is those communities, those black and brown communities.
Speaker 1: And so it ends up being this dynamic that looks
Speaker 1: based on only the optics if you don't know the
Speaker 1: mechanism behind it, like perhaps these folks are coming here
Speaker 1: to take advantage of it us. And then there's a
Speaker 1: component where there's a lot of significant cultural differences in
Speaker 1: Asian and you know, I'm gonna try to be a
Speaker 1: little bit more specific, but Chinese, Japanese Chinese mostly, and
Speaker 1: I'm from Los Angeles and this is those are the
Speaker 1: tots of people I would interact with Chinese and Korean
Speaker 1: folks when I was growing up.
Speaker 2: Everybody.
Speaker 1: There's all types of Asian folks in California, but those
Speaker 1: are the folks I remember a lot of cultural differences.
Speaker 1: You know, the way that folks relate to each other
Speaker 1: is very different than the way you know, Black folks
Speaker 1: relate to each other, and you know, to other people,
Speaker 1: and a lot of times it can come across dismissive,
Speaker 1: it can come across you know, whatever, and it's just cultural.
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's people who grow up in very
Speaker 1: loving households, you know, Asian mother, Asian father, and you know,
Speaker 1: the way that love is shown, in the way that
Speaker 1: the legacy is written in.
Speaker 2: Those cultures is very different.
Speaker 1: And I think that those long standing issues and the
Speaker 1: failure to connect in a meaningful way over many years.
Speaker 1: And then of course there was I forget the little
Speaker 1: girl's name, but there was a significant incident in Los
Speaker 1: Angeles where a store owner, an Asian woman, shot a
Speaker 1: little black girl and she actually died over that.
Speaker 2: And this was in the early nineties.
Speaker 3: Yes, and that definitely echoes even within the AAPI community
Speaker 3: as shocking. Yeah, yeah, you know, heartbreaking to hear someone
Speaker 3: within our community could go that far right and retaliation.
Speaker 2: Right, right.
Speaker 1: And so when you think of, you know, how these
Speaker 1: these two communities, black and Asian communities and people relate
Speaker 1: to each other, you start to recognize that there has
Speaker 1: been a divide that has perhaps deepened since twenty twenty. Now,
Speaker 1: I want to maintain that the vast number of the
Speaker 1: attacks on Asian folks over the past two years have
Speaker 1: not been by black people exactly, but there's enough to
Speaker 1: tell a story if you want. The media can tell
Speaker 1: a story, and then you know, we're caught in this
Speaker 1: weird cycle. But the point is there should be none
Speaker 1: is contrived, absolutely, and I want to say this again,
Speaker 1: The point is there should be none. We're brothers and
Speaker 1: we're sisters, and we share this planet, we share this country,
Speaker 1: and despite us having significant cultural differences, we do have
Speaker 1: more that we can relate on than we differ on.
Speaker 1: We all love our families, We all you know, love
Speaker 1: to laugh, and so forth, and so on, very rich
Speaker 1: histories and et cetera. With all that said, today, I
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure that we painted a picture for
Speaker 1: our listeners so that folks who maybe are not Black
Speaker 1: and maybe are not Asian, who are listening to you
Speaker 1: and I speak right now, can perhaps understand how things
Speaker 1: like white supremacy can affect people who are not white,
Speaker 1: and it can empower people who are not white to
Speaker 1: continue to propagate it, proliferate. That's the word I'm looking for,
Speaker 1: thank you, And you know it's it's a very ugly
Speaker 1: monster that runs on its own turns on its own access,
Speaker 1: and you know that's what we're here to talk about.
Speaker 1: So that brings me to my first question, which is
Speaker 1: how do you feel about the relations between Black and
Speaker 1: Asian communities in general?
Speaker 3: The word community is so broad. It can be a neighborhood,
Speaker 3: it could be a small town, it can be a school,
Speaker 3: it can even be the place where you work can
Speaker 3: be called a community. And my struggle being an AAPI
Speaker 3: member of our society interacting with the black community has
Speaker 3: overall been very positive. I think that it's up to
Speaker 3: the individual's perspective, based on their anecdotal experiences, to make
Speaker 3: an assessment on the health of the relationship between the
Speaker 3: AAPI and the Black communities. I mean, we can go
Speaker 3: and discuss our personal experiences. But for me, I grew
Speaker 3: up in a very all inclusive town called in Urbur, Michigan,
Speaker 3: in the eighties and in the nineties, and the community
Speaker 3: that I belonged to was very diverse. I had a
Speaker 3: neighbor that had young children that called on me to
Speaker 3: be their babysitter, and the father was a black surgeon,
Speaker 3: and the mother was a white stay at home mom,
Speaker 3: and my early exposure to diversity was very healthy. Now
Speaker 3: that doesn't go without saying that I had a perfect
Speaker 3: interaction with the black communities, But when I did, I
Speaker 3: had that personal, positive anecdotal experiences with certain black members
Speaker 3: of the community. That tells me that when you have
Speaker 3: a negative experience, it's just that person that shared a
Speaker 3: similar physical attribute, particularly the skin color, that's it. But
Speaker 3: when you don't have enough of that positive anecdotal experiences,
Speaker 3: you can see how someone can warp that perception and
Speaker 3: it can lead to discrimination and even racism, and that
Speaker 3: can be fueled by certain family members or their mentor
Speaker 3: within their own communities that may share that same negative
Speaker 3: anecdotal experiences. At times, those experiences it's not fair, it's
Speaker 3: not balance because childhood trauma. Average childhood experiences plays a
Speaker 3: huge factor into how to shape the mind of a
Speaker 3: youngster within the community, and that can further translate on
Speaker 3: how well they interact with certain members of our communities,
Speaker 3: particularly people of color. Again, going back to my own experiences,
Speaker 3: it's been very positive and the negative. I just look
Speaker 3: at it as an indivisual, not a broad brush within
Speaker 3: a given community, because then that will be discrimination.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, you know. And there's something that's interesting. So I've
Speaker 1: been to ann Arbor, but I've spent more time in Detroit,
Speaker 1: and you know, they're very different culturally, but you know,
Speaker 1: they're close in terms of their proximity to each other.
Speaker 1: And right, you know, you can find a lot of
Speaker 1: black folks that live very black lives, right and you know,
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with that. You know, there's places, there's
Speaker 1: other places in this country where you can find a
Speaker 1: lot of Asian people who live very Asian lives. Chinese,
Speaker 1: there's China towns everywhere and so forth. But what ends
Speaker 1: up happening a lot of times in those circumstances is
Speaker 1: that you have a very limited view of what other
Speaker 1: people might be like, you know.
Speaker 2: To your point, so.
Speaker 1: Again, those limited interactions, especially if you're interacting with people
Speaker 1: who are perhaps not the best, you know, best suited
Speaker 1: to represent an entire race of people exactly.
Speaker 3: I mean you just said it doesn't sound ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, it's insane, But I do see how
Speaker 1: it can happen, and it's.
Speaker 2: It's I think.
Speaker 1: There's a degree of individual responsibility that needs to come
Speaker 1: into play. For each of these people who has again
Speaker 1: an unfounded or or a baseless generalization of any group
Speaker 1: of people, it's incumbent upon them to try to learn more.
Speaker 1: But in terms of folks listening to you and me
Speaker 1: right now who perhaps don't feel that way, the people
Speaker 1: that our listeners tend to be a little bit more progressive,
Speaker 1: a little bit more educated, folks that really want to
Speaker 1: see a better world for all of us. It's our
Speaker 1: job to identify in those people, be they black, white, Asian,
Speaker 1: or whatever, to point out to them, Hey, listen, I
Speaker 1: think that what you're basing your your generalizations on, it's
Speaker 1: it's based on a limited, you know, interaction, a limited
Speaker 1: amount of interaction with these types of people. Now, I
Speaker 1: want to jump in here. A lot of what a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't know this about the show. I
Speaker 1: have an older brother. His name is Raka iras Science
Speaker 1: of the Dilated Peoples. That's a hip hop group that
Speaker 1: is relatively successful, you know, toured around the world and
Speaker 1: plaques on the walls, this, that, and the other. This
Speaker 1: is part of the reason why I've been able to
Speaker 1: be on the radio because my big brother kind of
Speaker 1: looked out for me, and here I am. Yeah, my
Speaker 1: big brother is half Korean. Actually two of my big
Speaker 1: brothers are half Korean and one of my sisters. So
Speaker 1: when I was sitting down to create this show, I
Speaker 1: talked with my older brother, Raka, and I says, Hey,
Speaker 1: so here's what I'm trying to do. Do you have
Speaker 1: any advice from me? And he made sure that. He
Speaker 1: said that I need to share this space in solidarity
Speaker 1: with people who don't look like me. And don't forget
Speaker 1: who showed up In twenty twenty, he mentioned something to me.
Speaker 1: He says, can you name one time when black folks
Speaker 1: showed up for Asian folks? And he said, I was
Speaker 1: asked that question and I couldn't come up with an answer,
Speaker 1: but I can name a few instances where Asian folks
Speaker 1: showed up for black people and he said, make sure
Speaker 1: that black people know that. Now, my brother is black too.
Speaker 1: His father's black. His father is my father, but his
Speaker 1: mother is from South Korea.
Speaker 2: But a family is my brother.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So he wanted to make sure that this wasn't
Speaker 1: a show where the black listeners, which admittedly they're not.
Speaker 1: The majority of our listeners are not black. This show
Speaker 1: is meant to empower non black people. There's plenty of
Speaker 1: shows to empower black people, but this show is to
Speaker 1: give some a glimpse, some perspective into what it's like
Speaker 1: to be black.
Speaker 3: This show is a bridge.
Speaker 2: There you go, bridge, thank you.
Speaker 3: So the rainbow over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1: I like that that works. But yes, he said, make
Speaker 1: sure that we remember who showed up in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: And this was interesting for me because I hadn't thought
Speaker 1: about it. My personal experience was that I've been to
Speaker 1: more Asian majority places on this planet than almost everyone.
Speaker 2: I'd say maybe ninety nine point ninety nine percent of people.
Speaker 1: I've been to China, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand,
Speaker 1: We're everywhere. Yeah, that's me Hawaii, you know, I just
Speaker 1: just got back from Hawaii. Not too long ago, and
Speaker 1: these weren't just like quick trips to see what's going on.
Speaker 1: Like I was there on the ground interacting with people.
Speaker 1: And you know, I've told this story before, but for me,
Speaker 1: the most significant and prolific way to connect with a people.
Speaker 1: I've been to other countries too, you know, but the
Speaker 1: most significant way to connect with the people is you know,
Speaker 1: I took a page out of my father's book. My
Speaker 1: father was a minister, and I found myself in the
Speaker 1: churches or the places of worship of you know, all
Speaker 1: these different countries, right And you know, as I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: Asian people are as different as they come, as diverse
Speaker 1: as they come. But in all these countries, with all
Speaker 1: these people, where I didn't speak the language, and I
Speaker 1: was the only person that looked like me, and I
Speaker 1: was there by myself, and I had to walk around
Speaker 1: and try to have a meaningful experience in a place
Speaker 1: on the other side of the planet where I have
Speaker 1: no family, that's very very lonely. I can't talk to anyone,
Speaker 1: you know, But I could go to church or you know,
Speaker 1: temple or whatever, and there's a Buddhist temple or you know,
Speaker 1: whatever it was, you know, and I was welcomed every time.
Speaker 2: The only thing they would say is could you take
Speaker 2: off your shoes?
Speaker 3: You know, and they say that to everybody, everybody.
Speaker 1: And so for me, for Ramses, I recognize that that
Speaker 1: was a beautiful experience and you know, a unique experience.
Speaker 1: Not everyone gets to have that. And so when my
Speaker 1: brother was talking to me about that request, it didn't
Speaker 1: strike me as odd, but it did strike it did
Speaker 1: feel like it was news because I just assumed that
Speaker 1: everything was okay. And then once he broke it down,
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, you know, I kind of get it.
Speaker 1: And then we're seeing the stop asient. This was it
Speaker 1: Stop Asian Hate that we're now renaming to Stop Asian Harm.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Campaigns shortly thereafter, and really need to show up for
Speaker 1: our Asian American brothers and sisters. And I says, in
Speaker 1: my mind, now's the time that we can show up, right,
Speaker 1: And because my brother asked, when we're black people there
Speaker 1: for Asian folks, Well, now we can be there and
Speaker 1: I can start with this program.
Speaker 3: So I add on to the hashtag that you just mentioned,
Speaker 3: stop Asian Hate and the reason why we're switching it
Speaker 3: up to stop Asian harm is because the word hate
Speaker 3: has been weaponized by our elective officials or law enforcements,
Speaker 3: and even in our judicial system to further criminalize people
Speaker 3: of color, because with privatized prison and mass incarceration, that
Speaker 3: word is over utilized to imprison small acts of crime
Speaker 3: that are non violent, majority of them over eighty percent
Speaker 3: or non violent, and they usually tag it on the
Speaker 3: word hate because when you do a hate crime, your
Speaker 3: sentencing goes up, and we can't support that. We just can't.
Speaker 3: And with the stop Asian hashtag Stop Asian Hate, I
Speaker 3: just think that it's been overly used in the past
Speaker 3: year with the incidents, especially with the visceral comments from
Speaker 3: our previous president, and again we don't want to go
Speaker 3: into details on what he was saying, but it was
Speaker 3: disgusting enough and it emboldened these certain constituents of his
Speaker 3: to do, you.
Speaker 2: Know, really horrible thing.
Speaker 3: Yes, really horrible. And I'm glad that you mentioned that
Speaker 3: it wasn't all from the black communities. No, that is
Speaker 3: a misinformation, right.
Speaker 1: The thing is, there were enough videos of Asian folks
Speaker 1: being attacked by black people to paint that picture in
Speaker 1: the media. But I maintain that the number of black
Speaker 1: people that attacked Asian people should be zero. It should
Speaker 1: have been zero, It should have always been zero. And
Speaker 1: regardless of how Black people have felt about our relationship
Speaker 1: with Asian Americans, we get nowhere by behaving the way
Speaker 1: white folks used to behave toward us in the past.
Speaker 1: We get nowhere by behaving that way toward our asia
Speaker 1: and brothers and sisters. And so I needed to make
Speaker 1: sure that I stated that. Now we do have to
Speaker 1: take a pause for some commercials, but we're coming back
Speaker 1: in just a second, So don't go nowhere, and now.
Speaker 2: Watch going my mic back.
Speaker 1: You're like that journalist journalist time strikes from headquarters behind
Speaker 1: in the And if you're just tuning into civic cipher,
Speaker 1: I am your host. Rams's jo Q board is off today,
Speaker 1: but no worries. We have Lisa's son with us UH
Speaker 1: and we are discussing race relations between black and Asian
Speaker 1: American communities. And for those just tuning in, Lisa is
Speaker 1: a former State House of Representative candidate for Legislative District nineteen,
Speaker 1: a former vice chair of the AZAA p I Caucus,
Speaker 1: and a community activist and politician. And one thing that
Speaker 1: we didn't get to talk about is your background. It
Speaker 1: feels a little late in the conversation to be talking
Speaker 1: about that, but please let everyone know what your background is.
Speaker 3: Well, you just mentioned the high lights of it. There's
Speaker 3: not really much.
Speaker 1: Well how about your ethnic background, because you know, the
Speaker 1: radio folks can't really hear it.
Speaker 3: So being a middle aged woman, I, you know, immigrted
Speaker 3: here to the States when I was seven years old,
Speaker 3: and before that, I was born off of the islands
Speaker 3: of South Korea called Chechu, and my parents were also
Speaker 3: immigrants to South Korea due to the Civil war in
Speaker 3: China back in the fifties. So I come from three
Speaker 3: generations of immigrants, So we know how it feels to
Speaker 3: be an outcasts in the given society three generations, and
Speaker 3: at times when it spans that long, there's a sin,
Speaker 3: the loss of belonging that it's really hard to explain
Speaker 3: to people that don't share the same experiences, and that
Speaker 3: sometimes lead to that desired to fit in. So a
Speaker 3: lot of the immigrants that comes from the Asian continent
Speaker 3: in general would come to the United States of America
Speaker 3: and they will know right away where the the totem
Speaker 3: pole hierarchy, the hierarchy and that is just something that's undeniable.
Speaker 3: Although we don't talk about it, but it is there
Speaker 3: and we know right away who's at the bottom.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's a huge you know play in that.
Speaker 2: Well, let's let's talk about that.
Speaker 1: So what we do on the show is we have
Speaker 1: a segment it's called Baba become a Better Ally. In short,
Speaker 1: if you were able to empower the listeners of this
Speaker 1: program to become a better ally to not only Asian Americans,
Speaker 1: but you know, to all of us, what is your
Speaker 1: vision on how we can best be better brothers and sisters.
Speaker 3: And it's funny when you say baba because in Chinese
Speaker 3: Mandarin Chinese, the word baba means father, and you can
Speaker 3: even see there's so many commonality within our languages, let
Speaker 3: alone our culture and our shared history.
Speaker 2: Sure, so I love that focusing.
Speaker 3: On our shared history, which has been whitewashed is not
Speaker 3: being taught, especially after the reconstruction era, because the South
Speaker 3: really took over by the elective officials that were still
Speaker 3: racist and they made sure that our history was not
Speaker 3: written in the history books. Agent's been around since the
Speaker 3: colonial time. We know that colonial time has been around
Speaker 3: just as long as our constitution colonial spans over two
Speaker 3: hundred years, and Chinese and Philippines were you know, common,
Speaker 3: but they weren't a large group. They were probably around
Speaker 3: about one hundred to a couple of thousand, and because
Speaker 3: they were discriminated by the white Europeans, they were only
Speaker 3: legally allowed to marry other minorities such as the blacks,
Speaker 3: the Native Americans and Mexicans if they're in that area,
Speaker 3: but they were not allowed to marry the whites, and
Speaker 3: if they did, they will be lynched or even murdered.
Speaker 3: So we have common DNA from two four hundred years back.
Speaker 3: We share that histories for hundreds and hundreds of years. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: when they saw us being united, it bothered the white
Speaker 3: supremacy because they were afraid that we will consolidate power.
Speaker 3: So moving forward, when there was more immigration coming forward
Speaker 3: from the Asian continents, they realized that the numbers getting
Speaker 3: too high, and the Asian Americans were like the first
Speaker 3: ethnicity group to have the Exclusion Act, and to this
Speaker 3: day we are still the only one. And that puts
Speaker 3: a dark cloud over the Aapi community that none of
Speaker 3: us know the history.
Speaker 1: So what you're saying is that it's probably a good
Speaker 1: idea to learn the history.
Speaker 3: You know, that's an obvious statement. Sure, the question is
Speaker 3: if it's not written down, and if it's not published,
Speaker 3: how can we learn the history?
Speaker 1: Well, you know what, I'll jump in here. In preparing
Speaker 1: for this show today, I learned new things a simple
Speaker 1: Google search. We live, you know, for everything that wasn't
Speaker 1: written down, there are people like you still telling stories
Speaker 1: and the information exists somewhere. It might not be taught
Speaker 1: in schools, but it exists. And so you know, just
Speaker 1: like me going and sitting in front of a computer typing,
Speaker 1: taking fifteen minutes to an hour per week to do
Speaker 1: some research. You know, folks listening to you and me
Speaker 1: have this conversation can do the same. And you know,
Speaker 1: knowledge is power, and this is the way that we,
Speaker 1: you know, create a better you know world for each other.
Speaker 1: And you know that brings me to my next point.
Speaker 1: I did want to ask you what are some of
Speaker 1: the things that you feel contributed to the current relationship
Speaker 1: between black and Asian communities in this country.
Speaker 3: I personally believe that that crack that division actually started
Speaker 3: very strongly after World War Two, because that's when they
Speaker 3: took the economic structure and used it to divide us.
Speaker 3: For example, after the Japanese encampment, they gave a lot
Speaker 3: of the Japanese compensation by allowing them to buy homes
Speaker 3: and helping them with loans. And that actually further assisted
Speaker 3: with the rest of the Asian American communities because in
Speaker 3: some ways the bank were like, oh, they're actually great investors.
Speaker 3: Let's open the door for the rest of the Asian Americans.
Speaker 3: And as that occurred, unfortunately simultaneously the black communities families
Speaker 3: were denied of these loans.
Speaker 2: And back in the.
Speaker 3: Forties, to buy a house you only need like about
Speaker 3: ten to twelve thousand dollars. And then if you look
Speaker 3: at the pay in the salaries, the average black families
Speaker 3: could afford it. They could afford a mortgage, they could
Speaker 3: afford to get the loans from the bank. But the
Speaker 3: fact that they were denied, and then on top of
Speaker 3: that they redlined allow of the black communities. They would
Speaker 3: actually make them rent homes from white folks so that
Speaker 3: they can provide equity and profit while the black communities
Speaker 3: were only allowed to rent. This continued over a span
Speaker 3: of two to three generations. Now it wasn't until nineteen
Speaker 3: don't quote me on the year, but I think it
Speaker 3: was nineteen sixty eight when it was written in law
Speaker 3: that the black communities can.
Speaker 2: Buy homes anywhere.
Speaker 3: And when that happened, it was too late because.
Speaker 2: And sucked out of the black community exactly.
Speaker 3: And what made it worse was that they were buying
Speaker 3: over the price. They were over And that has been
Speaker 3: shown because we can retrieve all the sales and the
Speaker 3: transaction and all the mortgage is being signed that and
Speaker 3: then if you were to sell it to a white family,
Speaker 3: they will have a better rate. So the question is that,
Speaker 3: But then from then till now, shouldn't things equalize? Well,
Speaker 3: to this day, I live in West Phoenix and in
Speaker 3: that area we have loans being denied to black folks
Speaker 3: at eighty percent, Hispanics seventy percent, Asians forty and what's
Speaker 3: the benchmark the white folks?
Speaker 2: Wow, Okay, that makes me.
Speaker 3: So angry. You have no idea?
Speaker 1: Well, you know what, so I you know, I spoke
Speaker 1: about my dad a little earlier where I was born. Actually,
Speaker 1: there's a place called Lafayette Park in California, in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: and you know it was one of those communities, like
Speaker 1: you said, where you know, my my dad came from
Speaker 1: some means, right, and during that time, black people could
Speaker 1: not buy houses anywhere. You know, black you were kind
Speaker 1: of restricted to certain places. Is you literally could not
Speaker 1: it was illegal to do so, to own a house
Speaker 1: outside of these certain neighborhoods.
Speaker 2: By law. I just want to make sure people listening
Speaker 2: know that this was actually the law. If you were black, you.
Speaker 1: Could not own a house above this street or you
Speaker 1: know that sort of thing. But you know, at the
Speaker 1: time when my grandfather and grandmother were, you know, putting
Speaker 1: down some roots in Los Angeles, they wanted to live
Speaker 1: in a nice neighborhood. And at the time there were
Speaker 1: black entertainers who were doing well, this is Los Angeles, right,
Speaker 1: So there's a little Richard, there's you know, all the
Speaker 1: there's all these like entertainers and stuff like that. So
Speaker 1: they buy a house in this this community called Lafayette Park,
Speaker 1: and you know that's where I you know, I remember
Speaker 1: we called it the Castle. Was a really nice house
Speaker 1: and a really nice neighborhood. But the legacy of that neighborhood, now,
Speaker 1: of course everyone lives there, all different colors of people
Speaker 1: live there. But the legacy of that neighborhood is it
Speaker 1: was a black only neighborhood where the rich black folks
Speaker 1: could live. And this is where my father, this is
Speaker 1: my father's home where he came to so neighborhood. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then you know, obviously that's a part of my
Speaker 1: upbringing as well. So it's just interesting to know that,
Speaker 1: you know, what you're talking about wasn't just behind the
Speaker 1: scenes thing. It was actually written in law too. In
Speaker 1: some places in this country.
Speaker 3: It's actually still written in our home these what you
Speaker 3: call it home loaning companies is actually still in their script.
Speaker 3: It hasn't been removed, It's still there.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, Okay, So how about this, just because I
Speaker 1: want to make sure that I get as much from
Speaker 1: this conversation as I can, Let's talk a bit about
Speaker 1: the model minority myth.
Speaker 2: First off, explain what that is.
Speaker 3: The mall minority myth. Is this myth that we have
Speaker 3: ascended to the status of the whites Asian American correct,
Speaker 3: And what we realized, especially in the last the past
Speaker 3: couple of years, is that we have been stopped at
Speaker 3: a certain level, you know, the saying, you know, breaking
Speaker 3: the glass ceiling right for the AAP, I would call
Speaker 3: it the bamboo ceiling, because we noticed that at the
Speaker 3: leadership position where you're at the table where decisions are
Speaker 3: being made. Sure we're not there, we're just right below it.
Speaker 3: And you may want it to call it the white
Speaker 3: collar or you might want to call it the professional doctors, lawyers,
Speaker 3: you know, attorney, but nothing outside of that in terms
Speaker 3: of creativity and an artist street. That movement has just
Speaker 3: recently occurred with a younger generation, but as far as
Speaker 3: the older generation, either they were immigrants or they were
Speaker 3: here to you know, promote their children to be that
Speaker 3: white collar worker. So now we're seeing that bamboo ceiling
Speaker 3: and we can't seem to pass it, and we're being
Speaker 3: held back, and that's the myth.
Speaker 1: So I appreciate you saying that. I want to pull
Speaker 1: something from a Rolling Stone article that I came across.
Speaker 2: So long story short, there was.
Speaker 1: An Oklahoma State senator who ended up using the term
Speaker 1: yellow to describe Asian Americans in a in like a
Speaker 1: chamber meeting or something like that.
Speaker 2: And you know there's you know, we call black people black.
Speaker 1: You know, brown skin melanated. Yeah, folks whose ancestors are
Speaker 1: more directly tied to Africa, we call those people black,
Speaker 1: white people whose ancestry is more directly tied to Europe
Speaker 1: or you know, Central Asia. You know, we call those
Speaker 1: people white. And you know, we have these colored color
Speaker 1: terms that you know, work for many people and there
Speaker 1: are no negative connotations necessarily associated with them, or maybe
Speaker 1: we haven't uncovered them yet. But one thing is, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pull this directly from the article just so
Speaker 1: that people know. This is not what I'm trying. That's
Speaker 1: not the point I'm trying to make, But I think
Speaker 1: it's important for everyone to know the use of the
Speaker 1: term yellow has an ugly and racist history. The term
Speaker 1: yellow peril was used in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
Speaker 1: to describe people of Asian descent as a threat to
Speaker 1: Western values and to justify zenophobic immigration policies that's severely
Speaker 1: limited Asian immigration to the US. And it goes on
Speaker 1: to talk about you know, Donald Trump and all a
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff we don't need to talk about anymore.
Speaker 1: But that term, that color term, as it relates to
Speaker 1: Asian American people is offensive. And this senator didn't know it,
Speaker 1: or maybe didn't just chose to lean into it. But
Speaker 1: that's not the point. The point is I came across
Speaker 1: something about the model minority.
Speaker 2: So the way this exchange.
Speaker 1: Went, you know, in fact, I'm gonna skip it because
Speaker 1: we've already described that. We don't need to talk about
Speaker 1: that part anymore. But I'll just jump in right here.
Speaker 1: So forgive me if this doesn't have any previous context.
Speaker 1: But it says, quote because of their because their experience
Speaker 1: has been totally different than many others that have not
Speaker 1: come over. Raiders remarks pushed the quote model minority myth
Speaker 1: that Asian Americans don't experience negative consequences of racism in
Speaker 1: the same way as other races, and it goes on
Speaker 1: to allege that black families were better off and much
Speaker 1: more intact before the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: four and so forth. And then he says, you know
Speaker 1: the data, I've seen black families much more intact and
Speaker 1: much more able to be together in the nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: than it was even thirty years or forty years later.
Speaker 1: From that point on, he claimed, perpetuating the myth pushed
Speaker 1: by some Republicans, the black culture and not racist government policy,
Speaker 1: is responsible for the racial wealth gap. Now, folks that
Speaker 1: are not educated folks that don't know what they don't know.
Speaker 2: It's very easy. I'm talking about black folks here.
Speaker 1: It's easy to look at Asian people who have businesses
Speaker 1: in your communities, our communities.
Speaker 2: I'm black too, by the way, in case you.
Speaker 1: Don't know, it's easy to look at the these people
Speaker 1: and say, well, they are here in our communities and
Speaker 1: they are not living or investing in our communities in
Speaker 1: the same way that a black person would be, and
Speaker 1: completely ignore the McDonald's on the corner, completely ignore you know,
Speaker 1: the Starbucks and you know whatever else, right, because I
Speaker 1: think that that's something that black folks are used to seeing,
Speaker 1: and I think that what exacerbates those circumstances is a
Speaker 1: lot of times the cultural differences. But you know, as
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier in the show, having been to so
Speaker 1: many places on this planet where the majority of the
Speaker 1: population is Asian or Pacific Island or something like that,
Speaker 1: I've been in a lot of these places, and some
Speaker 1: of the cultures are just like that, you know. And
Speaker 1: once it's going to sound very weird, I'm begging you
Speaker 1: to just just trust me and follow me, please, But
Speaker 1: once you start to understand it, you begin to see
Speaker 1: the beauty in it. I'm not saying anybody is better
Speaker 1: or worse, or anybody's perfect or not perfect, but you know,
Speaker 1: everyone is unique, and it's possible to see the beauty
Speaker 1: in it. There are some cultures where they don't talk
Speaker 1: as much as we talk in the US.
Speaker 2: There are some cultures where.
Speaker 1: Honor and values and things like that are just way differently,
Speaker 1: where exchanges are not as necessary, that pleasantries aren't offered,
Speaker 1: given and received in the same way. It's just assumed
Speaker 1: right and it doesn't make them bad. But a lot
Speaker 1: of times, when we're only used to seeing the world
Speaker 1: through our lens, and we're only used to seeing our
Speaker 1: four blocks, and if something different is introduced into our environment,
Speaker 1: then we take it personal. We think that it's about us.
Speaker 1: And then in our households we will tell the same stories.
Speaker 1: Oh well, you know that store, They do this every
Speaker 1: time we walk in. And then the children growing up
Speaker 1: in that household have an idea that when they walk in,
Speaker 1: what is perhaps just a cultural thing is their belief
Speaker 1: might be that it's discrimination or these people don't like me,
Speaker 1: and so I have to posture myself accordingly and not
Speaker 1: like them, back and so forth. And I think that
Speaker 1: once we identify that and once and again.
Speaker 2: It really.
Speaker 1: It's the most frustrating thing, but it's the most simple thing.
Speaker 1: You know, if you just hang out with people, if
Speaker 1: you just see how they are with each other or
Speaker 1: with other people, then you don't learn to take things
Speaker 1: so personal. You learn to understand that this is just
Speaker 1: what it is, and even if you don't like it,
Speaker 1: you don't have to hate it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, just to elaborate on what you just said,
Speaker 3: is that I usually tell people in general that we
Speaker 3: shouldn't really stress about how other people feel or react to,
Speaker 3: you know, adversity. I always believe that you are responsible
Speaker 3: for your own behavior. Sure, and I'm not going to
Speaker 3: sit here and to say that, you know, being an
Speaker 3: AAPI person, you know, we are this and that and
Speaker 3: we're perfect or we're better, or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 3: I have issues within my own community members that are racists.
Speaker 3: They are racists, and that is everywhere, and I can't
Speaker 3: stop them from being racist. But what I can do
Speaker 3: is continue to speak out and to meet people halfway.
Speaker 3: Because I can't stop the AAPI community in San Francisco,
Speaker 3: where they're asking more police in their community to retaliate
Speaker 3: the stop agent harm in their community. Like I can't
Speaker 3: control that, I would like to say, if they are
Speaker 3: willing to listen and to tell them the information, how
Speaker 3: harmful that may become. Not just for the black community
Speaker 3: that you're thinking is attacking you, but even for your
Speaker 3: own community. You don't want more police in your community.
Speaker 3: You need to ask for more resources, more education, more awareness.
Speaker 3: And I always want to give a shout out to
Speaker 3: anyone who's listening to ask for education and ali ship
Speaker 3: and sometimes that requires funding and resources instead of asking
Speaker 3: for retaliation, for more you know, sentencing, you know, more policing,
Speaker 3: because that would lead to the opposite, because that's how
Speaker 3: we were divided to begin with.
Speaker 1: Well said, Well said, I think that you know. There's
Speaker 1: a story that Q and I talked about on the show.
Speaker 1: There was a man who was on vacation in Hawaii,
Speaker 1: Black man who's on vacation out there with his new wife,
Speaker 1: and he accidentally, very much accidentally walked into the neighboring
Speaker 1: house of a temple. He thought it was the temple.
Speaker 1: He's not from there, walked into this house instead of
Speaker 1: the temple. If you've never been to Hawaii, a lot
Speaker 1: of the houses look similar just like pretty much every
Speaker 1: other day, goes into the wrong house, take takes the
Speaker 1: shoes off at the door, goes in, finds out it's
Speaker 1: the wrong house, and leaves. The person will owned the
Speaker 1: house was an Asian woman. She called police on them.
Speaker 1: After he apologize, called the police on the police showed up,
Speaker 1: of course killed him. We know the story. This man
Speaker 1: is not alive anymore because he went to the wrong
Speaker 1: house to pray or meditator or whatever it was he
Speaker 1: was trying to do. And I think that that story
Speaker 1: illuminates not just what the consequences are of like more
Speaker 1: police and that sort of a thing, but also it
Speaker 1: illuminates exactly how significant the divide can be between our
Speaker 1: two communities, and where our opportunities are to really learn
Speaker 1: more about each other, and what our fears are based
Speaker 1: in and are they really founded or are they unfounded?
Speaker 1: Has there been any real harm, and if so, is
Speaker 1: it something that we can get past? And I think
Speaker 1: that a lot of those questions will find that there's
Speaker 1: really not a reason for us to have really too
Speaker 1: much in the way of issues with each other. As
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier, there's a younger generation that don't really
Speaker 1: feel the immigration label as intensely as perhaps their parents
Speaker 1: and grandparents did they feel American. And I do believe
Speaker 1: that a lot of those folks are who we saw
Speaker 1: in the streets during twenty twenty when we were protesting.
Speaker 1: We're arm in arm, you know, walking together, and you
Speaker 1: know they're still you know, if we're if we're dealing
Speaker 1: with the larger Asian American and Pacific Islander community.
Speaker 2: That we also need to deal with the folks.
Speaker 1: From the older generation and and understand their fears and
Speaker 1: their concerns too, so that we don't end up with
Speaker 1: more police doing more harm. With that said, let's talk
Speaker 1: about some older Asian people now, or one person in particular,
Speaker 1: because it is time for our way Black History fact.
Speaker 1: Today's way Black History fact is about a woman named
Speaker 1: Uri Koachi Yama. This I pulled my sources from Wikipedia
Speaker 1: and from NPR, so without further ado, the brief friendship
Speaker 1: of Malcolm X and Yurikachiyama began close to fifty years
Speaker 1: ago with a handshake. She and her eldest son were
Speaker 1: arrested alongside hundreds of other people, mainly African Americans, during
Speaker 1: a protest in Brooklyn in nineteen sixty three. In this
Speaker 1: packed court house, there were a lot of activists who
Speaker 1: were waiting to hear their civil disobedience charges in walks
Speaker 1: Malcolm X, who was quickly mobbed by the adoring activists,
Speaker 1: Kachiyama said, I felt so bad that I wasn't black,
Speaker 1: that this should be just a black thing, she recalled.
Speaker 1: But the more I see them all so happily shaking
Speaker 1: hands and Malcolm so happy, I said, gosh, darn it,
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to meet him Somehow. Eventually Kochiyama
Speaker 1: called out to Malcolm X, Can I shake your hand?
Speaker 2: What for?
Speaker 1: He demanded, to congratulate you, forgive direction to your people,
Speaker 1: She finally mustered. Malcolm X smiled and extended his hand.
Speaker 1: Koachiyama remembered how she could hardly believe she was meeting
Speaker 1: the most prominent black nationalist leader of all time. She
Speaker 1: was born May nineteenth, nineteen twenty one, and she passed
Speaker 1: June first, twenty fourteen. I want to say her real name.
Speaker 1: Their characters here that I can't read, but her real name,
Speaker 1: says Kochiyama, Yuriko, and that's her real name.
Speaker 2: We do believe in names.
Speaker 1: On the show, it says she was an American civil
Speaker 1: rights activist and fluenced by her Japanese American families experience
Speaker 1: in an American internment camp, her association with Malcolm X,
Speaker 1: and her Maoist beliefs. She advocated for many causes, including
Speaker 1: black separatism, the anti war movement, reparations for Japanese American attorneys,
Speaker 1: and the rights of political prisoners. In the summer of
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three, Kochiyama family vacation to Birmingham, Obama to
Speaker 1: see charredhouses and storefronts left behind by racial protest. The
Speaker 1: Koa Chiyama's also visited the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church weeks
Speaker 1: before a bombing there killed four black girls. It was
Speaker 1: one of the first news stories in the civil rights
Speaker 1: movement that our mother sat us down to talk about.
Speaker 1: Kochiyama says. The growing momentum of the civil rights movement
Speaker 1: and meeting Malcolm X in nineteen sixty three radicalized Kachiyama,
Speaker 1: who became more interested in black nationalism. FBI files later
Speaker 1: described her as a ring leader of black nationalist and
Speaker 1: a red Chinese agent. Lovely the final meeting and this
Speaker 1: is how she came to my attention. Kochiyama and Malcolm
Speaker 1: X stayed in touch through postcards and even in a
Speaker 1: visit to the Kochiyama's apartment. Their last meeting was on
Speaker 1: February twenty first, nineteen sixty five, just sixteen months after
Speaker 1: their first handshake. In New York City's Albadon Ballroom. That
Speaker 1: Sunday afternoon, gunmen killed Malcolm X moments after he approached
Speaker 1: the podium to address a weekly meeting of the Organization
Speaker 1: of Afro American Unity, which Malcolm X founded after he
Speaker 1: was expelled from the Nation of Islam. Most of the
Speaker 1: audience in the bought room fell to the ground after
Speaker 1: the gunfire, crawling away for safety, but Koachi Yama headed
Speaker 1: toward the injured Malcolm X, who was lying on the floor. Quote,
Speaker 1: I just picked up his head and put it on
Speaker 1: my lap CoA Chaiyama says, I said, please, Malcolm, Please, Malcolm,
Speaker 1: stay alive. The moment was captured in a photo and
Speaker 1: Life magazine in nineteen sixty five. This is a photo
Speaker 1: that many people have not seen. They'll see videos of
Speaker 1: black people and Asian people going at it, you know,
Speaker 1: and black people attacking Asian You'll see that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: But I employ you to look up this video. It's
Speaker 1: the most human video, or sorry, the most human photo
Speaker 1: that you will see all day. She's the unidentified Asian
Speaker 1: woman in the magazine in Life magazine, we're talking about
Speaker 1: her now, but in the magazine's on identified peering worriedly
Speaker 1: through horn rim glasses at the soon to be lifeless
Speaker 1: Malcolm X. His blood soaked shirt is open, exposing his
Speaker 1: bullet riddle. Body illness and age slowed her down. And
Speaker 1: oh and for decades after her brief friendship with Malcolm X,
Speaker 1: Kachiyama remained committed to causes in the Black, Latino and
Speaker 1: Asian American communities. And then, lastly, in nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: she and other Japanese American internees, including her late husband Bill,
Speaker 1: celebrated the signing of the Civil Liberties Act. It was
Speaker 1: a formal government apology that provided reparations to World War
Speaker 1: two interneys and a milestone Kachiyama helped to achieve twenty
Speaker 1: five years ago. So, you know, we have a couple
Speaker 1: of minutes left. I'd love to get you know, your
Speaker 1: thoughts on Yuri Kochiyama did. First off, did you know
Speaker 1: anything about her?
Speaker 3: I do? I knew a lot about her to the
Speaker 3: fact that I knew that our history is not shared
Speaker 3: and that there is a lot of information out there. Again,
Speaker 3: the only problem is not being taught, and that is
Speaker 3: what has segregated our communities. But if we start looking back,
Speaker 3: you will see that we were never separated. We were
Speaker 3: just separated in the recent time with the economical you know,
Speaker 3: division through loan practices, and you can see how if
Speaker 3: that's done over a span of time, you can see
Speaker 3: how it can create that minority myth even within our
Speaker 3: own community. We had to bring awareness. So coming out
Speaker 3: here today talking with you is just one step forward
Speaker 3: to bringing back our real history.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1: You know, I really feel like you hit the nail
Speaker 1: on the head. There are some things that we just
Speaker 1: don't know. And I think that when we start to
Speaker 1: look at you know, for every story that breaks our
Speaker 1: hearts about each other, you know, there's stories like this
Speaker 1: that we don't find out about. And then today in
Speaker 1: our conversation, I learned that you know, early on in
Speaker 1: this country's history that the dating pool or the marriage
Speaker 1: pool was Asian folks and Native and Black and Hispanic people,
Speaker 1: which to me suggests that the reason that as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: the reason that that didn't wasn't standardized and that wasn't
Speaker 1: normalized is because it was a threat to the white
Speaker 1: supremacist institutions. It represented, you know, folks amassing power in
Speaker 1: numbers and strengthen numbers, and so interesting that this is
Speaker 1: our legacy, but I think that we do have a
Speaker 1: lot of positivity to look forward to.
Speaker 2: Of course, there's.
Speaker 1: Conversations like the ones we're having. Jada Pinkett had one
Speaker 1: on her show, and of course on this show. I'm committed,
Speaker 1: not only as a promise to my brother, but personally
Speaker 1: having been to all these countries and breaking bread with
Speaker 1: these people who are my brothers and my sisters, you know,
Speaker 1: eating the foods, listening to the music, walking you know,
Speaker 1: in the gardens and so forth. These are actual things
Speaker 1: that this man in this body did with his life.
Speaker 1: And there's no way you can tell me that those
Speaker 1: are not my brothers and those are not my sisters,
Speaker 1: and that those people don't love me and that I
Speaker 1: don't love them. And so that is my commitment. And
Speaker 1: then everybody that's listening, you know, they're going to have
Speaker 1: to listen to that, and we're going to get there together.
Speaker 2: But that's all the time we have pa Civic Cipher today.
Speaker 1: So again I want to thank my guest Liza Son
Speaker 1: for hanging out with us today and sharing her thoughts on,
Speaker 1: you know, race relations between her two communities. If you
Speaker 1: want to know more or download this or any other episodes,
Speaker 1: please hit the website Civiccipher dot com.
Speaker 2: And until next week, y'all peace,