Speaker 1: Chat. Uh huh, you ain't no reparations. You're listening. You're
Speaker 1: waiting on reparations for production. If I heart radio, if
Speaker 1: you told me that tomorrow, why'd be trapping a camp.
Speaker 1: I ain't even gonna front with you. I'll be crapping
Speaker 1: my pants. This isn't an imprecedented doesn't happen, but chance
Speaker 1: all that takes a couple of fashioned plans that are
Speaker 1: happening again. It's like it's happening now with the fashion
Speaker 1: some power. I'd love to see us lock the cave
Speaker 1: is fucking shock up for hours away. If you fast
Speaker 1: asleep on what happened to the Japan, if you'd be
Speaker 1: laughing at least wind at the target and then the
Speaker 1: cast look at the ship that they left us within
Speaker 1: this lifetime when our parents is sucking they wasn't then
Speaker 1: they ripe. Mine is selling a future and profit off
Speaker 1: of the pipeline. They trying lines and we hiding behind
Speaker 1: rhymes some product of pop For me, I was born
Speaker 1: in the cold black shed until you would have sworn
Speaker 1: with snow when this way, since I was forming, this
Speaker 1: whole boat was raised to hold it and then to
Speaker 1: the point of start to torturous. Yo, y'all take an
Speaker 1: advantage of it. Y'all look kind of quiet, long black
Speaker 1: hoody like I'm trying to start a riot. Let's take
Speaker 1: it to the city Hall and stop till they retire
Speaker 1: and take all this corporate bread and just put that
Speaker 1: on the diet of the fingers in the year. The
Speaker 1: silent majority is waiting on reparation. This is mama, my no, hey,
Speaker 1: dope knife com lingo franca. We are waiting on reparations.
Speaker 1: Have the cat jumping up and down, Yeah, it would be.
Speaker 1: Let live his life. He's joyful. We're just having a
Speaker 1: good time. Shout out to the Factor chandelier for the
Speaker 1: beats for today's episode. So how did your weekend at
Speaker 1: a van? Didn't you didn't you have another protests? Weren't
Speaker 1: you hitting the streets? Obviously gotta be Yeah, I hosted
Speaker 1: another car caravans hoturday night, shut down the streets around
Speaker 1: City Hall, bumped our radios, listening to some Kendrick as
Speaker 1: well as some speakers from the State House. Um Spencer
Speaker 1: Fries with with a c l of Georgia's political director
Speaker 1: Chris Bruce called in to talk about the fun the
Speaker 1: police as well as like state level reforms that have
Speaker 1: been proposed. Um. It's really funny actually, because I got
Speaker 1: a call from the city manager today that was like,
Speaker 1: we've heard you've been having these protests in the streets
Speaker 1: and like you didn't get a permit, and you need
Speaker 1: to get a permit because people are complaining. And I
Speaker 1: was like, I'll pass it on to the organizers because
Speaker 1: it's not like I'm the end. I'll be all of
Speaker 1: these things that are happening. I'm just like one of
Speaker 1: many moving parts in this work. So they give you
Speaker 1: a hard time. They gave me a a little bit of
Speaker 1: hard time, Like what's the hard time? Like, I mean,
Speaker 1: do they just like they actually stop you from doing stuff?
Speaker 1: They were like, So the police showed up, and we
Speaker 1: had like our own security people like on the ground
Speaker 1: kind of monitoring the police presence at the protests, and
Speaker 1: they at one point we're like directing traffic away from
Speaker 1: like the blockage we had created. And eventually, when this
Speaker 1: like beautiful young trans woman was like chancing no justice,
Speaker 1: no peace, fun these racist as police, they started retreating.
Speaker 1: So I guess they got complaints from surrounding like business
Speaker 1: owners or something like when we tried to vent in
Speaker 1: this streets. We gotta get a permit. So why is
Speaker 1: it that, like these protesters are out here like shutting
Speaker 1: down traffic and y'all aren't like locking them up, And
Speaker 1: it's like these are our streets. Who streets? Our streets? Man?
Speaker 1: But I mean they didn't get to it though, Like
Speaker 1: at the end of it, would you say, at the
Speaker 1: end of the yeah, it was successful. We disbanded around
Speaker 1: ten um, got people to like call and write their
Speaker 1: legislators while they were sitting in their cars listen to music.
Speaker 1: We had like catering from this like dope Jamaican Lady
Speaker 1: in town. It was like it was a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: It was a beautiful thing. Yeah, I would have I
Speaker 1: would have gone with you for sure, because I told
Speaker 1: you last week that I was gonna goring. I wasn't
Speaker 1: feeling good and all the COVID stuff going on. I
Speaker 1: didn't know if that was the showing symptoms or not.
Speaker 1: So I was like, yeah, let me keep my hand
Speaker 1: at my ass home. So what did you end up
Speaker 1: doing this weekend? I was just trying my hardest not
Speaker 1: to like fall too deep into the Tulsa rally and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. I decided to just chill and try
Speaker 1: to clear my mind, but I ended up scrolling the
Speaker 1: net and Twitter getting dragged into the rabbit hole that
Speaker 1: was the J Cole versus No Name little little disagreement?
Speaker 1: Did you do you heard about that? A little bit
Speaker 1: about that? Would you end up thinking about that? So?
Speaker 1: I mean I listened to J Cole song, I listened
Speaker 1: to No Names response. I mean mad Live Kid will
Speaker 1: be I think everyone can agree upon that. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: let me let me recap the situation as far as
Speaker 1: I know, right, so, as far as I know, the
Speaker 1: the protests started after George Floyd's death and No Name
Speaker 1: who is a rapper from Chicago. Um, I guess she
Speaker 1: put out a series of tweets where she One of
Speaker 1: the tweets she was critical of like, um, the top
Speaker 1: selling rappers are silent right now and they should be
Speaker 1: doing something something of that effect. But what I noticed
Speaker 1: in like J Cole's response to like the initial beef
Speaker 1: is that it really like centers its feelings, like in
Speaker 1: a way that I think is like important to do
Speaker 1: is least important have to work through on a personal level,
Speaker 1: but like not necessarily helpful to broadcast. But I don't
Speaker 1: know it, feel kind of conflicted about it, like damn,
Speaker 1: like write your the fucking little poetry and keep yourself
Speaker 1: and like work through your problems on your own, and
Speaker 1: then use this opportunity to like link to bail funds
Speaker 1: or go fund meats, petitions or actions happening in the area.
Speaker 1: But instead he just made it all about his feelings
Speaker 1: about getting called out, and like I felt, to a
Speaker 1: certain degree that was some week ship. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, I think it's being to a real struggle
Speaker 1: that like a lot of folks right now are waking
Speaker 1: up to the evils of capitalism and corporatism of our
Speaker 1: fun boppily learning more about freedom movements that have come
Speaker 1: before us, and you know, just like taking to the
Speaker 1: streets for so maybe some of their first ever protests.
Speaker 1: And just because you're black doesn't mean you won't necessarily
Speaker 1: like as if we talked about an upcoming episode, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of folks who want to like progressive as
Speaker 1: hip hop just because some of us choose to convey
Speaker 1: our experience to poverty and survival and brutality of our
Speaker 1: current systems. But the fact, the fact is that a
Speaker 1: lot of people in hip hop aren't overtly political, and
Speaker 1: they gotta wake up as much as white people who
Speaker 1: have been standing on the sidelines need to as well.
Speaker 1: And I think Jacole does a good job of modeling
Speaker 1: what that growth and that vulnerability looks like, which is
Speaker 1: helpful for people who might feel similarly inadequate during these
Speaker 1: times that are trying to figure out what to do.
Speaker 1: But you know, and so that's helpful even if it
Speaker 1: falls short of modeling what's taking action looks like, which
Speaker 1: I think is the important part that was missing of
Speaker 1: this dialogue. And like the little piece and Teco wanted
Speaker 1: to throw up and in the conversation with like it
Speaker 1: could have gone a lot farther than that, and like
Speaker 1: it's as No Name says in her response, you really
Speaker 1: about the right about me when the world isn't smokes
Speaker 1: like it's distracting from the conversation around abolishing the police,
Speaker 1: around like the women that are going missing, around the
Speaker 1: trans black black trans women that are getting murdered. So
Speaker 1: I feel like she hits on some really important points.
Speaker 1: And also, you know, is hammering home the fact that
Speaker 1: like you could be using your platform for anything right now.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know this this whole thing is
Speaker 1: is has been very weird to me. At first, I
Speaker 1: was really into it, and now it just seems kind
Speaker 1: of off putting. Two rappers that are dope, pretty intelligent
Speaker 1: people having a disagreement talking about it in rhymes. The
Speaker 1: way I look at its beautiful most beautiful beefs and
Speaker 1: hip hop up all times as a battle As a
Speaker 1: former battle rapper, to me, that's like the biggest breasts
Speaker 1: of fresh air to battles that I've heard in a
Speaker 1: long time. I mean, everybody was engauged. It had people
Speaker 1: talking about the issues. I just all around. I thought
Speaker 1: the ship could have been really dope. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: personally not really into telling people when they can and
Speaker 1: can't or should or shouldn't make the music they want
Speaker 1: to make. I'll say whether I like the ship or not,
Speaker 1: but I mean, go ahead, and do you think I
Speaker 1: don't think it's distracting. I think it's adding to the conversation.
Speaker 1: But even regardless, I don't think that anybody who's out there,
Speaker 1: who's really doing the work is going to be distracted
Speaker 1: by the new j could drop. Yeah, yeah, totally. I
Speaker 1: feel like people who are really in the struggle are
Speaker 1: not going to get sidetracked by this. But folks who
Speaker 1: might be like new to this work not I hear you.
Speaker 1: I hear you, And we talk about this another episode.
Speaker 1: But maybe you know, people should be more picky about
Speaker 1: the rappers that they follow and look up to. It
Speaker 1: was like a productive I don't even know if you
Speaker 1: can call it about. I think it's because like no
Speaker 1: name still like name drap women that are have been
Speaker 1: murdered exactly important to centering black trands women, like the
Speaker 1: discussions around abolish and the police and like anti capitalism
Speaker 1: and so like this whole beef has brought a lot
Speaker 1: of attention to It's very hard for me to look
Speaker 1: at these things like outside of like the rapper perspective.
Speaker 1: So like, I think she won, and in winning, she
Speaker 1: kind of like proved a point that's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: there are more important things. Yeah, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So it's just I don't know, she she apologized for
Speaker 1: her not necessarily apologized. I mean, she just she's she
Speaker 1: was like it was a waste of my time or
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have done Yeah, she like I got caught
Speaker 1: up an ego and whatnot. But I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: like it's it's stuff like that. To me, it is like,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm one of those true believers when it comes
Speaker 1: to the power of hip hop and ship like that.
Speaker 1: So I believe that you can change the world through
Speaker 1: rap if if you, if you funk with it right.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's kind of a bummer that, like
Speaker 1: the whole thing ends in a splitter of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this rap stuff is meaningless. I was hoping that they
Speaker 1: would have just kept it going and kept the conversation
Speaker 1: growing and expanding, but it's like everybody's too cool for
Speaker 1: school to wrap. I just I just I'm one of
Speaker 1: those people that thinks that I got more insight out
Speaker 1: of hearing them rap about this ship than I would
Speaker 1: have gotten from an interview of them doing it. So
Speaker 1: I always encourage people to wrap. But the verdict is
Speaker 1: that no name one. Her beat was Doper, her rhymes
Speaker 1: are Dover, and her song was Doper, And I feel
Speaker 1: like I need to be a better man after listening
Speaker 1: to it and catch up on my W E B DWO. Boy. Well, um,
Speaker 1: let's let's go into what we were going to be
Speaker 1: talking about. Yeah, the topic of this day is um
Speaker 1: model minorities, model minority. So what made you think about
Speaker 1: having that be the topic slash name of what we're
Speaker 1: talking about today? Um so into Thus eighteen, I put
Speaker 1: out an album called Model Minority, aware of it's like
Speaker 1: racist history within the Asian community, but also reflecting on
Speaker 1: my own experience with like, you know, growing up in
Speaker 1: a predominantly white community where I was like kind of
Speaker 1: nerdy and like in band and shipped like that, and
Speaker 1: like having a lot of people tell me that I
Speaker 1: wasn't like other black people, like oh, well, you talk right,
Speaker 1: and like you're not like the rest of them. Literally
Speaker 1: had this one friend who's like confided to me in
Speaker 1: secret that her parents called black people Canadians and public
Speaker 1: look at those Canadians over there and the corross the
Speaker 1: room at Applebee's, like they're so loud, I bet they
Speaker 1: don't even tip, And like thinking that they could get
Speaker 1: away with saying that kind of shipped to me. And
Speaker 1: so like being positioned in my own as a different
Speaker 1: kind of model minority among black people of like of
Speaker 1: only everybody could be like you, and so it kind
Speaker 1: of in an attempt to like push back at that
Speaker 1: and laugh at that positioning through my my music and
Speaker 1: so I adopted that moniker for the title of my LP. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't grow up in the States like that,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't until I was a little bit older
Speaker 1: that I like heard of the term model minority and
Speaker 1: what it was used for generally. Now, according to Wikipedia,
Speaker 1: model minority is a minority demographic weather based on ethnicity, race,
Speaker 1: or religion, whose members are perceived to achieve higher degree
Speaker 1: of socio economic success than the population average, thus serving
Speaker 1: as a reference to groups in out groups. This success
Speaker 1: is typically measured relatively by educational attainment, representation and managerial
Speaker 1: and professional occupations, and household income, along with other socio
Speaker 1: economic indicators such as low criminality, high family and marital stability.
Speaker 1: The concept was controversial as it was historically used to
Speaker 1: suggest that the government didn't need to intervene in socio
Speaker 1: economic disparities between racial groups. So that's what Wikipedia says,
Speaker 1: and you know, of course, I think it's always important
Speaker 1: to listen to just check out what Wikipedia says, because
Speaker 1: the average person, you know, when they don't know some ship,
Speaker 1: they're gonna check in Wikipedia. So we've established a baseline
Speaker 1: of what everybody knows about it. But generally it's something
Speaker 1: that's like used as like a wedge issue between minority
Speaker 1: groups to to get them to distrust each other or
Speaker 1: to criticize each other, and to overlook the greater fight
Speaker 1: that needs to be fought, holding one group up as
Speaker 1: like a model for what the other groups should try
Speaker 1: to invitate. Its generally just two so tension within the
Speaker 1: within the minority groups. And usually when I hear heard
Speaker 1: about this concept, it was in relation to African Americans
Speaker 1: and Asian Americans. So these times it's also been exploited
Speaker 1: to dismant all legal protections for people of color. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and fourteen, a lawsuit against Firmative Action Asian
Speaker 1: American plaintifts argued that Harvard Admissions discriminated against Asian American students.
Speaker 1: The case, which was filed with assistance from right wing
Speaker 1: activists Edward Bloom the Man Sarah Hanger, staff attorney, a
Speaker 1: c l Use Rachel Industics program, describes it's on a
Speaker 1: mission to kill Affirmative Action. During the LA riots following
Speaker 1: the acquittal of police officers who beat Rodney King on camera,
Speaker 1: many Korean owned businesses were damaged, partially because fifteen year
Speaker 1: old black girl Natasha Harlans, as we referenced in our
Speaker 1: first episode, was killed by a Korean liquor store owner,
Speaker 1: um who only got community service, funeral institution, and a
Speaker 1: five hundred dollar fine for shooting Natasha Harlans in the
Speaker 1: back of the head while trying to escape or store
Speaker 1: during an alleged robbery. You know that story didn't really
Speaker 1: get covered as oh no, no, no, yeah, And like
Speaker 1: that's what I was kind of bringing up with the
Speaker 1: whole no name thing of like in the Black Lives
Speaker 1: Matter movement, like the killings of black men are far
Speaker 1: more um fuel for the fires of indignation than are
Speaker 1: the murders and black women, Like, but what about Ayana Jones,
Speaker 1: who you know was younger than Trayvon Martin when she
Speaker 1: was killed by police. Um, folks like Latasha Harlan's like
Speaker 1: don't get credit for starting the LA riots. But you
Speaker 1: remember Rodney King. Brianna Taylor is no longer trending, even
Speaker 1: though her murderers haven't been arrested. Yeah, they fired one
Speaker 1: of them, that's it. Unlike the killers of Ray Sharry
Speaker 1: Brooks or the colors of George Floyd. Speaking of George Floyd,
Speaker 1: you know, at this point everybody's seen the tape, so
Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to not notice Officer thou R
Speaker 1: Tao performing crowd control. He's the Asian American police officer
Speaker 1: that was on the tape. Things like this. I don't
Speaker 1: think they've started or ratcheted up tensions between the two
Speaker 1: communities anymore or anything like that. It's definitely not what
Speaker 1: it was during the l A riot. Times in Asian
Speaker 1: American are definitely out there in the streets right now
Speaker 1: protesting with Black Lives Matter, you know, all over the country,
Speaker 1: fighting for justice. But I did come across an article
Speaker 1: with the Sahan Journal, which is a news outlet that's
Speaker 1: dedicated to the immigrant and refugee community in Minnesota, um
Speaker 1: that even though of Asian American Minnesota's are in fact
Speaker 1: fighting for justice out there alongside us, there are some
Speaker 1: who are feeling like they're targeted within that community. People
Speaker 1: who have the last same last name as the officer
Speaker 1: have been getting social media threats and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So the solidarity could always be stronger. This isn't the
Speaker 1: first time an Asian American officer has been involved in
Speaker 1: one of these killings of one I'm Black men and
Speaker 1: two half of fourteen and yp D officer Peter Liang,
Speaker 1: a rookie, fired his gun. The bullet ricocheted off a
Speaker 1: wall and killed the Kai Gurley while he and his
Speaker 1: partner were patrolling a public housing development. There's no reason
Speaker 1: for the tension to exist between these marginalized communities, but
Speaker 1: there is some precedent set for like some pensions within
Speaker 1: the communities themselves. At the end of the day, both
Speaker 1: communities have been put through shipped from this country, so
Speaker 1: there's no reason that the unity shouldn't be. So today
Speaker 1: we're here with my friend Kodu Ishibashi also known as
Speaker 1: Kishi Bashi, also known as k world renowned violinist and composer,
Speaker 1: or like he wants to be called a athens musician. Guy, Okay,
Speaker 1: how are you today? Great? I'm I'm an Athenist musician, guy,
Speaker 1: just like you, just like us, just like us, you know,
Speaker 1: in the on world tour, like you know any other
Speaker 1: fancy ship. Just an Athemisian and Guy, I think there's
Speaker 1: a bit more to it than that. I got your
Speaker 1: Wikipedia page joke right now. It says um says you're
Speaker 1: an American singer, multi instrumentalists and songwriter. He is a
Speaker 1: founding member of Jupiter One, and for a few years
Speaker 1: he was and a member of the band of Montreal.
Speaker 1: He embarked on his career as a solo artist in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eleven, released his debut album one a
Speaker 1: at Joyful Noise recording in two thousand and twelve, to
Speaker 1: immediate fan fair and critical claim immediant fanfare, that's like
Speaker 1: your blood. How do how do you feel about that? Um? Immediately,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was immediate, this ship, says immedia.
Speaker 1: So it's Wikipedia, it's the Internet. It's true, I mean
Speaker 1: immediate NPR fanfare, that was for sure. You love meeting
Speaker 1: a modest famous person. It's always really nice. Well, of
Speaker 1: Montreal's what brought me to Athens, you know, it's okay,
Speaker 1: So that's like, that's how that's why I'm here. Also,
Speaker 1: were you from? I lived in um Well, good question, Okay,
Speaker 1: So I was born in Seattle, but I grew up
Speaker 1: on the East Coast and then I lived in But
Speaker 1: before before Athens, I lived in New York City for
Speaker 1: like ten years. What your parents did? My parents are professor,
Speaker 1: So I'm a very middle class Asian American upbringing. Played
Speaker 1: play the violent, get it work work. We're really excited
Speaker 1: to have you on today to discuss some of the
Speaker 1: overlaps between the struggles that um Asian Americans have faced.
Speaker 1: You know, are are struggles to also unite as folks
Speaker 1: of color, particularly around this moment where Black Lives Matter
Speaker 1: is taking the forefront of the national conversation. Um And
Speaker 1: I wanted to start out by asking, like, kind of
Speaker 1: a personal question from my own maybe funk up that
Speaker 1: I made a couple of years ago. So in two
Speaker 1: thousand eighteen, I dropped an album entitled Model Minority, And
Speaker 1: I want to explain why. And I want to explain why.
Speaker 1: So when I was younger, I grew up around a
Speaker 1: lot of white people, and I was told in subtle
Speaker 1: and not so subtle ways, how great it was that
Speaker 1: I wasn't like other black people. I was smart, I
Speaker 1: talked right, all this kind of stuff. And so as
Speaker 1: I've gotten older, I used hip hop to kind of
Speaker 1: a my black identity. But I titled my album Model
Speaker 1: Minority as a as a nod to the privileges that
Speaker 1: I do have as a light skinned, middle class, highly
Speaker 1: educated black woman. But in your opinion, was it funked
Speaker 1: up that I made my album then, okay, so um
Speaker 1: uh yeah, the model minority myth? So what does that mean?
Speaker 1: And it wasn't that wrong of me to do that? Well, um,
Speaker 1: I think sociologists call they developed this model minority myth.
Speaker 1: We know it as a myth now because it was
Speaker 1: this basically racist institution of encouraging like Asian people to
Speaker 1: be like, this is how minorities should assimilate to society,
Speaker 1: and so Asians kind of took that to heart, like
Speaker 1: in the fifties, especially after Japanese incarceration, meaning like they
Speaker 1: had they were like they were told by white people
Speaker 1: to be like, you know, this is how you can
Speaker 1: become American and assimilate into society. But what really happened
Speaker 1: was they were kind of used as a wedge to
Speaker 1: further put down black people, you know, basically showing black
Speaker 1: people like hey, look at the minority, look at this
Speaker 1: model minority, look at this is a model you know,
Speaker 1: and furthermore, you know, disenfranchising people. So it's just a
Speaker 1: misuse of the word term, I guess totally. Yeah. I mean,
Speaker 1: like I think there are parallels to the way that
Speaker 1: certain like people in the black community are held up
Speaker 1: as examples of like, look, why can't you be a
Speaker 1: good black person like this one? And like I definitely
Speaker 1: want to ward off any of that people who want
Speaker 1: to point to me as like a shining example because
Speaker 1: like I speak mainstream of American English, because I have
Speaker 1: a master's degree. Uh, because you know, like middle class
Speaker 1: all these things like no, motherfucker, like don't try to
Speaker 1: put down folks that are lower income or you know,
Speaker 1: speak like a A B or you know, aren't's educated?
Speaker 1: Is me because those voices are as important and sort
Speaker 1: of like lashing out at that way that I'm sometimes
Speaker 1: positioned by white people. I don't think anyone's gonna take
Speaker 1: that away from your use of the title. I mean
Speaker 1: it's I think in the context that you're using it,
Speaker 1: it works. Yeah, the feeling is the same because it's
Speaker 1: like basically the model minority. You're saying, like, you know,
Speaker 1: why don't you be more like us? But meaning more
Speaker 1: like white? So Congratti, that's that's what it is without
Speaker 1: saying it like that, you know, So the feeling is
Speaker 1: the same, but it's it is used to basically push
Speaker 1: down any other culture that's not all American. And we
Speaker 1: know now that all American just means white. Yeah, so exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: do we want to talk a little bit about your documentary,
Speaker 1: Sure to tell us about um am I saying you're right, Omoyari. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So Amoyari is um I kind of started working on
Speaker 1: it about three or four years ago, basically after Trump
Speaker 1: got elected, and they basically it was around the Muslim
Speaker 1: ban started happening, and basically people in the administration we're
Speaker 1: using the Japanese American incarceration um. And for those who
Speaker 1: are those who are not familiar with it, it's basically
Speaker 1: during World War Two, when America was at war with Japan,
Speaker 1: they basically incarcerated, removed the entire West Coast community of
Speaker 1: Japanese people, like a hundred twenty people, and put them
Speaker 1: into internment camps, like concentration camps in like the desert
Speaker 1: and in the interior. And so they're using that as
Speaker 1: a precedent for locking up like even if you're an
Speaker 1: American citizen, we have a right to you know, profile
Speaker 1: you to lock you up, you know, using the incarceration,
Speaker 1: the internment as a as a precedent. And it got
Speaker 1: me really upset because I was like, HOLLI show this
Speaker 1: things it's happening again. We haven't learned our lesson. In fact,
Speaker 1: we've taken this lesson and turned it upside down, you know,
Speaker 1: as a precedent or some people have. And and so anyway,
Speaker 1: so I went I started going to these Japanese incarceration
Speaker 1: sites and I and I started writing music, and I
Speaker 1: wrote a song and then before before I knew it,
Speaker 1: I just have this like album and I have UM,
Speaker 1: this feature length documentary of just me going around kind
Speaker 1: of really trying to figure out what it means to
Speaker 1: be like an American now, like an immigrant American or
Speaker 1: or a child of immigrants, or what it's like to
Speaker 1: look different than you know, the all American standard that
Speaker 1: we we kind of grew up with. And so when
Speaker 1: I was UM, when I was in high school, we
Speaker 1: went on I used to live in a Senegal and
Speaker 1: we went on a trip to Cape Verde and got
Speaker 1: to see like the old like slave quarters and like
Speaker 1: the places where they used to like sell and trade
Speaker 1: slaves at It's kind of hard to put in towards
Speaker 1: like how it makes you feel, but you definitely feel
Speaker 1: something eerie when you're like walking around places like that.
Speaker 1: Is there anything similar when you're walking around like old
Speaker 1: internment camp spaces or anything like that. Um No, it's
Speaker 1: I think at first, like I went on a research trip,
Speaker 1: you know, and then it was really difficult because we
Speaker 1: went some some of them are really pleasant and so
Speaker 1: you're sitting there with all this like this like really
Speaker 1: difficult you know, history of injustice, and you're just having
Speaker 1: a really pleasant time and it's and it was basically
Speaker 1: I think sometimes it was deeply powerful because you felt like,
Speaker 1: you know, you had a story or someone to connect with.
Speaker 1: But a lot times in just places, so it really
Speaker 1: depends on, um, your state of mind, and it also
Speaker 1: takes different times to process like events, you know, personal
Speaker 1: or so. Um. And Cape Bertie, Yeah, I've heard Cape
Speaker 1: Bertie is very beautiful. Um uh, you know it's crazy
Speaker 1: about Cape Bertie. And this has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: this podcast, but apparently tuna fisher I had his friend
Speaker 1: and he told me that Japanese tuna fishermen would come
Speaker 1: out all the way out there from Japan and that's
Speaker 1: the tuna. Yeah, and they said they like left some
Speaker 1: impregnated some women in the island and there's like some
Speaker 1: half Japanese like a bunch of like have Japanese people there,
Speaker 1: it'll it'll it'll have to going to going there, trust
Speaker 1: me for sure. Anyway, that's a wild story about Bertie.
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit more about internment. Like
Speaker 1: what was Was there a legal precedent set beforehand that
Speaker 1: like was used when Franklin Roosevelt issued his executive order
Speaker 1: to um um execute the internment? Like, what were there?
Speaker 1: What were the grounds? Was there any grounds for that
Speaker 1: previously established in the country. No, not really, because it's
Speaker 1: basically I mean, well, after Pearl Harbor, it became martial law,
Speaker 1: and so the military really took control of Hawaii, and
Speaker 1: Hawaii basically had so many Japanese Americans that they couldn't
Speaker 1: really you know, lock everybody up. And so what happened was, um,
Speaker 1: you know, there's generally a lot of anti Asian sentiment
Speaker 1: to begin with. So what happened was a lot of
Speaker 1: lobby groups started lobbying people in Congress and created this
Speaker 1: and the media as well, you know, created this hysteria
Speaker 1: that ultimately led to people just wanting the removal of
Speaker 1: this entire population. And a lot of agricultural groups were
Speaker 1: behind it too, like lobbying for the wealth of the
Speaker 1: Japanese because they were such great farmers. Um. Like one
Speaker 1: statistic that kind of surprised me was that about over
Speaker 1: of California's produce was was basically done by Japanese farmers.
Speaker 1: M and so this was like a land grab for
Speaker 1: white farmers who are kind of jealous, you know, and
Speaker 1: this and this happens all the time, you know, throughout history,
Speaker 1: like Nazi Germany of this to the Jews because they're
Speaker 1: just jealous, you know, and they just use this kind
Speaker 1: of hysteria um to basically put the enemy, which is
Speaker 1: the you know, the army, imperial Army of Japan and
Speaker 1: these basically Japanese immigrants who really had nothing to do
Speaker 1: but want a better life for themselves in America. And
Speaker 1: so um, yeah, there's no legal precedent. They locked him up,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people are like these you know,
Speaker 1: these people are American citizens. How could how could they
Speaker 1: do this? And there was there was a Supreme Court thing,
Speaker 1: but ultimately it was just a time of war and
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court fact you know, yeah, I was reading
Speaker 1: about how the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the removal,
Speaker 1: which is nuts that that's still a precedent that holds
Speaker 1: to this day. Yeah, well recently. You know what's really
Speaker 1: crazy is that recently do you remember that muzzle the
Speaker 1: reversal of the muzzle away, so the upheld upholding the
Speaker 1: Muslim ban. Yeah, they also threw in the a note
Speaker 1: that korematsu was unconstitutional. So recently it was overturned in
Speaker 1: that thing. Oh, it was overturned recently. Well that's kind
Speaker 1: of good news, Thank god, it's good news. But it
Speaker 1: was kind of like a slap in the face because
Speaker 1: it accompanied the upheld, the end of the upholding of
Speaker 1: the travel. Yeah. Hey, do you know if um any
Speaker 1: any even remotely comparable sort of actions were taken against
Speaker 1: like Italian Americans or German Americans. Yeah, so at the time,
Speaker 1: you know, they rounded up a lot of Italian nationals
Speaker 1: and German nationals, you know, the ones that are close
Speaker 1: to the embassy and close to the government. But then
Speaker 1: also there's just like so many white people that they
Speaker 1: just decided that this was gonna be a white country
Speaker 1: and Asians Japanese were definitely easier to pick up, and
Speaker 1: so it was a really racist move and FDR ultimately,
Speaker 1: you know, he's like this nobody people don't really know
Speaker 1: much about FDR, but um, one thing for sure is
Speaker 1: that like he's this hero because he helped America out
Speaker 1: of um, you know, the great depression and social programs
Speaker 1: that we still depend on today. But he was like
Speaker 1: this villain because for the Japanese, because he just couldn't
Speaker 1: help He couldn't help them, he couldn't protect them. These
Speaker 1: are just civilians, you know, just immigrants, and so he
Speaker 1: couldn't help them from racism that ultimately led to their
Speaker 1: incarcerations on mass Yeah. I found it interesting that the
Speaker 1: United States Census Bureau actually assisted in the interment efforts
Speaker 1: by providing uh specific in individual census data on Japanese Americans,
Speaker 1: and they denied this role for decades subsequently, contrary to
Speaker 1: um scholarly evidence, and only in two thousand and seven
Speaker 1: did that understanding of how they partact part partook in
Speaker 1: internment become more widely known. Um Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think they did whatever they could to round them up,
Speaker 1: you know, because I guess they you know, they claimed
Speaker 1: it to be wartime. UM, so I think they just
Speaker 1: used that that like the fury of a wartime America
Speaker 1: to just kind of impose on people's civil rights, which
Speaker 1: we know has happened time and time again, you know,
Speaker 1: like it's a war. It kind of makes me nervous
Speaker 1: for the hurt moment we're in because if things get
Speaker 1: ratcheted up, I mean, they're already putting all that stuff
Speaker 1: into the frameworks now by trying to declare Antifa terrorist organization.
Speaker 1: Just using inflammatory language like that is is how you
Speaker 1: lead to people green lighting ship It's all a matter
Speaker 1: of precedent. It's like what's been you know, what's been
Speaker 1: set set before. It's like if it happened once, all
Speaker 1: it really takes is somebody with the political will to
Speaker 1: do it, you know. I mean like I was kind
Speaker 1: of I was starting to get afraid, you know, when
Speaker 1: Twitter started removing Trump's things, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you know, he could just use the N s A
Speaker 1: or whatever to to remove whatever he wants from the Internet.
Speaker 1: You know. So it's like at some point he could
Speaker 1: cross the line and become a dictator, a totalitarian, authocratic
Speaker 1: and an autocratic dictator. You know, but hopefully there's enough
Speaker 1: people in the government that would not allow him to
Speaker 1: do that. You know. Maybe what I mean, I think
Speaker 1: there's enough people in the government that he that he
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to do it from a government level.
Speaker 1: But I mean there's a lot of crazy people out
Speaker 1: in the street. You know. If you were just to
Speaker 1: even be like conservative with it, and only five of
Speaker 1: Trump supporters would be willing to like go to the extreme,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, to get their way, that
Speaker 1: five is like millions of that five percent is like
Speaker 1: way more than al Qaeda, you know. Yeah, especially given
Speaker 1: in Georgia, you know, we have the citizens arrest law
Speaker 1: that was cited in the case of laud Are very
Speaker 1: these former police officers were going to make a citizens
Speaker 1: arrest of someone they suspected to be a burglar. Like
Speaker 1: they could just start like citizens just random Trump supporters
Speaker 1: could go around start rounding up uh, folks like us
Speaker 1: on the grounds that we are in TIFA for something
Speaker 1: like I mean, that was I'm sorry to yeah, well
Speaker 1: I was. I was thinking about that because it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, because currently in Seattle, you know, like they
Speaker 1: have Chaz right and it's like this nargist it's like
Speaker 1: anarchistic state. And then you think about anarchy and you're like,
Speaker 1: sure it's great for like liberal progressive people, but like
Speaker 1: think about the other way around, like that's how lynch,
Speaker 1: that's how lynching happens when you know, it's like exactly.
Speaker 1: So it's like, yeah, so it's a really complicated thing
Speaker 1: because it's because it isn't that with because with your
Speaker 1: you know, defund the police and all that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: you're trying to figure out an alternative way to police, right,
Speaker 1: so you know some of the things that talking about
Speaker 1: like community policing, I mean, is that kind of dangerous.
Speaker 1: It's like it sounds good at first, but then it
Speaker 1: could also turn the other way around. For like like
Speaker 1: the like the community that a mont Aubrey was jogging in,
Speaker 1: rights that community, that's true, Trayvon Martin's community. I guess
Speaker 1: we have to be like representative community policing. I guess, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, it isn't that like like wherever
Speaker 1: Trayvon Martin was, you know, like that's he was he
Speaker 1: was he was walking around in their representative community. And
Speaker 1: that guy was was again Zimmerman, he was a representative
Speaker 1: of their community. Right, So it sounds a little sounds
Speaker 1: a little dangerous to me, But no, affilia, that's a
Speaker 1: very valid concern, very valid concern. Something else I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask you about that. I thought was an interesting
Speaker 1: parallel between the way that race is legally inscribed in
Speaker 1: the States and been used to either provide legal protections
Speaker 1: or validate discrimination. UM during the tournament, Colonel Carl Carl Bendetson, Yeah,
Speaker 1: either architect behind the program UM went so far as
Speaker 1: to say that anyone with one drop of Japanese blood
Speaker 1: qualified for internment, which you know, the one drop rule
Speaker 1: has been used for Black Americans UM for discrimination previously,
Speaker 1: and it also has parallels with the blood quantum laws
Speaker 1: with Native Americans, the legal requirement that one have at
Speaker 1: least one fourth in digitus blood to qualify for a
Speaker 1: certain government program and things like that, even though that's
Speaker 1: imposed upon these tribes by the federal government and not
Speaker 1: necessarily they something that they they personally validate within their
Speaker 1: own communities. Yeah, I think, like what kind of surprised me,
Speaker 1: Like when I when I was doing a lot of research,
Speaker 1: is basically human do you think about you think about
Speaker 1: racism and racism is is like pretty um, the idea
Speaker 1: of of combating racism is pretty new, you know, and
Speaker 1: that like back then in the thirties forties, like almost
Speaker 1: everybody's racist, you know, kind of protecting their own communities,
Speaker 1: their own ethnic groups. And even like eugenics was was
Speaker 1: a science back then, you know, a yeah, and so
Speaker 1: blood quantum, these things are like these things are valid,
Speaker 1: real things that people that a lot of Americans really
Speaker 1: thought is just the way it is, you know. And
Speaker 1: so like when we're I think in the sixties seventies
Speaker 1: where we're just like this is fucked up, where we
Speaker 1: just where we start to have, like our baby boomers
Speaker 1: had this like individualistic freedom that we started to really
Speaker 1: realize that we should change, you know, from the inside,
Speaker 1: you know, and like and and make create a better society.
Speaker 1: But like it was a struggle in the thirties and
Speaker 1: fouries to convince somebody that, you know that this America's
Speaker 1: for everybody, because it wasn't. And and a lot of
Speaker 1: people didn't believe that. Yeah. So let's talk a bit
Speaker 1: about reparations. So how relevant it was recommended that the
Speaker 1: government pay reparations to the internees. In President Ronald Reagan
Speaker 1: signed into law the Civil Liberties Act of nineteen which
Speaker 1: apologized for interment on the behalf of the US government
Speaker 1: and authorized payment of twenty thousand dollars equivalent to forty
Speaker 1: three thousand dollars in two thousand nineteen to each former
Speaker 1: internee who was still alive when the act was passed.
Speaker 1: The U. S Government eventually dispersed more than one point
Speaker 1: six billion the equivalent of three point three point four
Speaker 1: billions in two thousand nineteen in reparations to eight two thousand,
Speaker 1: two hundred and nineteen Japanese Americans who had been interned
Speaker 1: for who had been interned and their heirs. Yeah, it's um, yeah,
Speaker 1: they got there is. Yeah. They call it redress, you know,
Speaker 1: the Redress movement. Um, it's really interesting because, um, when
Speaker 1: I was making my movie, you know, I couldn't make
Speaker 1: that the end of my movie because it wasn't really
Speaker 1: happy ending for America necessarily. It was a happy ending
Speaker 1: for the Japanese American story, you know. And then they
Speaker 1: got they also got a grant that have they have
Speaker 1: to include it in some textbooks, and there's a there's
Speaker 1: an annual grant that goes along with that. But I think, um,
Speaker 1: the reason why I couldn't make it the ending is
Speaker 1: that it's like that's one community that that did get redress,
Speaker 1: and and there's an entire other communities that didn't, like
Speaker 1: the African American comunity or the Native American community. And
Speaker 1: it's like, why is that? And I can only see
Speaker 1: it as a preferential treatment, you know, for one ethnic
Speaker 1: group over the other, you know, right, I don't see
Speaker 1: any other and why they would get money and a
Speaker 1: whole another whole other groups who have offered Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess I've heard arguments for like, how would reparations
Speaker 1: work for like African Americans, And we're gonna obviously do
Speaker 1: a whole episode of reparations to come soon. But um,
Speaker 1: the I mean this runs counter to that somewhat in
Speaker 1: that there's some historical precedent for how reparations work. But
Speaker 1: in this specific instance, they were able to identify all
Speaker 1: of the former internees they were still alive when the
Speaker 1: Act was passed, and give them a certain amount of money.
Speaker 1: Whereas you know, we have African descendants of slaves that
Speaker 1: are you know, separated out from recent African immigrants. We
Speaker 1: have people who you know, like my my my brother's daughter, Um,
Speaker 1: she looks after she looks Caucasian even though she has
Speaker 1: a uh, you know, black father, And like, does she
Speaker 1: get reparations to like what I guess the questions of
Speaker 1: like what is the lines with black people? It's like
Speaker 1: the it's like the offense was for so long, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, and it was just yeah, it
Speaker 1: was such a cluster funk that it's like you don't
Speaker 1: know where anybody's from or who anybody's people are to
Speaker 1: like you know, you have two more. So do it
Speaker 1: from like a a community level, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: as opposed to like we're going to identify each person
Speaker 1: who was Yeah, because I mean this is speaking from
Speaker 1: an Asian person who's basically like a white person is
Speaker 1: like kind of like, um, because you know, you put
Speaker 1: like a thousand dollars in your pocket or two thousand
Speaker 1: or ten thousand or whatever, you know, whatever dollar amount,
Speaker 1: is that really going to empower the community to become
Speaker 1: equal members of society? Like no, no, right, just cash
Speaker 1: won't do that. I don't. I don't think it'll help.
Speaker 1: It'll be a good gesture, but you know, um, so
Speaker 1: I don't know that. I mean, concerning the Japanese incarceration,
Speaker 1: the redress thing, it was they set a precedent and
Speaker 1: that like you had to be alive when the injustice happened,
Speaker 1: which is kind of you know, dangerous in that it's
Speaker 1: set a precedent for basically excluding every you know, Native
Speaker 1: Americans and African Americans. So, um, yeah, it's uh, I
Speaker 1: think it's I don't know, I don't know how to
Speaker 1: think about it except it's just something that happened because
Speaker 1: the Japanese Americans, you know, they they they became affluent
Speaker 1: and they had political connections. They have some congressmen to
Speaker 1: you know time, so um, Normandetta really pushed that. So
Speaker 1: they had connections, you know, they assimilated. Yeah. Um, but
Speaker 1: African American redress, I don't I don't even are uh
Speaker 1: what is it? What do you call it again? Reparations? Reparations? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: African reparations dress. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I don't know how Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I like I like the scholarship idea.
Speaker 1: I think did you mention that like college scholarships? Um,
Speaker 1: I feel like that's something but or is Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm looking looking forward to breaking down the various things
Speaker 1: ways that preparations could play out for African Americans and
Speaker 1: sometime soon since we are way reparations, but you mentioned that, like, um,
Speaker 1: you didn't want to end the film with redress to
Speaker 1: talk to us something about the aftermath of internment. How
Speaker 1: did this impact the Japanese American community in the years
Speaker 1: and decades that followed. Yeah, so a lot of it.
Speaker 1: You know. Um, you know, there's a group now that
Speaker 1: I work with called Two for Solidarity, and they work
Speaker 1: to end attention, uh immigrant attention, because the idea is
Speaker 1: that the precept is that you know, basically they're locking
Speaker 1: up people of color, like brown people, uh from Latin America,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's, um, it's racist, the origins are racist,
Speaker 1: and it's also just um it's ramped up heavily, and
Speaker 1: so um, we're showing solidarity with that group. And then
Speaker 1: I basically, uh, there's a there's a huge amount of
Speaker 1: anti not I don't know about huge amount. There's always
Speaker 1: been like anti black sentiment within the Asian American community,
Speaker 1: and we're really trying to trying to like focus on
Speaker 1: that and as a major issue especially now. You know,
Speaker 1: where do you think that comes from. I think it's
Speaker 1: the model minority that we bought into in the fifties.
Speaker 1: I think they're like, look, you can be a part
Speaker 1: of our club. And then and then uh, and then
Speaker 1: once we're in that club. You know, there's like a
Speaker 1: famous saying where it's like you could be you know,
Speaker 1: do you want to be at the do you want
Speaker 1: to be at the at the dinner table, or do
Speaker 1: you want to be on the menu? You know, So
Speaker 1: it's kind of like once you're at the table, you know,
Speaker 1: once you're at the table, what are you gonna do
Speaker 1: for your everybody who's not at the table? Are you
Speaker 1: just gonna you know, leave them out? And I think
Speaker 1: a lot of Asian people of have you know, taking
Speaker 1: that privilege and just kind of kept it to themselves.
Speaker 1: And I think that's that's where we're trying to show
Speaker 1: solidarity with, you know, the Black Lives Matter movement because
Speaker 1: it's it's yet again another ethnic group being suppressed and oppressed,
Speaker 1: you know. So, um, that's more. We had conversations with
Speaker 1: um folks in within the Asian American community about Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter recently. Oh yeah, tons, it's basically, um, I
Speaker 1: mean there's a lot of solidarity. Well the people I
Speaker 1: talked to, but um, I've I've had a lot of
Speaker 1: the older Asian people are just kind of like the
Speaker 1: older white people that you may not talk to on
Speaker 1: a regular basis, you know what I mean, They're just
Speaker 1: they're they're feeling like, what's the problem. You know, like
Speaker 1: once she's pulled your pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
Speaker 1: It's probably the same thing, same thing in that community,
Speaker 1: you know. Um so um yeah, I don't know what,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just like an ongoing discussion, the same
Speaker 1: the same discussion we have to have that white people
Speaker 1: are having with their grandparents right now. Have you had
Speaker 1: any difficult conversations? Yeah, I've been talking to um, I've
Speaker 1: been doing uh like like I've been calling people, actually
Speaker 1: people who didn't I did a post on my social
Speaker 1: media where it's like, oh yeah, I saw that, yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: And I called a few people, you know who didn't
Speaker 1: understand black lives matter, or like just one kid didn't
Speaker 1: know systemic oppression was real. And then I called like
Speaker 1: a Chicago cop, you know, a police officer, and that
Speaker 1: really kind of hardened my opinion on like what the
Speaker 1: what the role of cops are in that, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: they're there too to stop crime, you know, that's her job,
Speaker 1: but not necessarily to figure out why there's crime in
Speaker 1: the first place, or to to help communities, like it's
Speaker 1: it's just not in their job description, you know. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so what were some of the things that the Chicago
Speaker 1: cop was talking to you about when you called him up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean she was a woman and she yeah, she
Speaker 1: was like it was interesting. She was like, I used
Speaker 1: to be a musician. I went to I got an
Speaker 1: arts I went to arts college and then you know,
Speaker 1: but then I just like applied for a job because
Speaker 1: I didn't have one. And it was fun at first
Speaker 1: because it was like, you know, busting like gangs and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and then it got and then she's like,
Speaker 1: I hate my job. I don't really, I don't really
Speaker 1: like my job now because everybody hates us. You know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of dangerous. I can't, you know. I'm fearful
Speaker 1: in my own neighborhood. Um. And it's like the whole
Speaker 1: the whole idea is that like if only they wouldn't
Speaker 1: commit crimes and then we wouldn't have to bust them.
Speaker 1: And that's like her, that's her attitude, and I feel
Speaker 1: like that's a lot of cops attitudes and that if
Speaker 1: we if we're going to really reform police, they have
Speaker 1: to reform they need cops to like either understand the
Speaker 1: idea geology of systemic you know, racism, and that will
Speaker 1: affect you know, they're hiring in their in their practice
Speaker 1: like out on the streets um and started hiring people
Speaker 1: who understand that because they don't. I don't think they do.
Speaker 1: It's just not in their education or training or anything.
Speaker 1: You know. I had a I had like an argument
Speaker 1: once with friends, like brother in law who was like
Speaker 1: a like like literally like a Puerto Rican cop, and
Speaker 1: he like looked me dead in the eye and was like, well,
Speaker 1: I mean black people in Puerto Ricans commit all the crimes,
Speaker 1: so we have to art like saying ship like that.
Speaker 1: So it's definitely something that's like ingrained in them when
Speaker 1: they're getting trained or something. Oh yeah, and it's and that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not their job to like figure out why they're
Speaker 1: so destitute that they have to join a gang and
Speaker 1: like the gangs like the only way out of their community.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was like, so we were filming in
Speaker 1: like you know, West Chicago, like in Austin, talking to
Speaker 1: like gang interventional counselor UM, and she was just like,
Speaker 1: there's like nothing for these kids out there, you know,
Speaker 1: there's just like no resources. They're shutting down schools, they're
Speaker 1: just hiring more cops. Is like this police state and
Speaker 1: there's literally the kids just don't have anything to look
Speaker 1: up to, like nothing, you know. The only way out
Speaker 1: is like like gangs or crime or something like that,
Speaker 1: like quick cash. But no, it just underscores the importance
Speaker 1: of actually making investments in community to stop crime from
Speaker 1: happening in the first place. Because cops just respond to
Speaker 1: crime after it happens. That's like their primary role. They
Speaker 1: very really stop a break in or stop a sexual assault.
Speaker 1: But if we actually invest in like education and housing
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, in programs for these kids that
Speaker 1: are thinking about joining a gang, giving them something to
Speaker 1: be part of in their community that makes them feel
Speaker 1: validated and supported, we can actually cut this out at
Speaker 1: the route are we're gonna say, mac um I was
Speaker 1: gonna go back to speaking of a police state. So
Speaker 1: you obviously know, you know, we've got this issue with
Speaker 1: mass incarceration, you know, going on right now. So do
Speaker 1: you see any sort of like link or relationship between
Speaker 1: Japanese and tournament and mass incarceration that we see today
Speaker 1: and that it's like incarceration yeah, I think like other
Speaker 1: rising people and making people the enemy, I think is
Speaker 1: just like something that's easily that that makes you easily
Speaker 1: able to detain someone. You know, So like Mexicans calling
Speaker 1: them rapists and murderers and illegal aliens, you know, two
Speaker 1: negative words you know, right next to each other, is
Speaker 1: basically humanizing. Oh yeah, it's just it's it's a it's
Speaker 1: an optics war, right, so if you if you can
Speaker 1: dehumanize them, then sure you can lock them up. And
Speaker 1: so you know, as we've seen with like the media,
Speaker 1: you know, black people cause crimes. Is that that's like
Speaker 1: in the movies and everything you got, Like I mean
Speaker 1: the eighties did have a lot of crime, sure, but
Speaker 1: it's like it was like all they focused on at
Speaker 1: the nightly news, the same way that I imagine the
Speaker 1: media was used to drum up hysteria around Japanese Americans
Speaker 1: the World War. Absolutely, and it was it's basically like
Speaker 1: it's differentiating between um like immigrants in America, you know,
Speaker 1: like the Japanese immigrants in America who kind of looked
Speaker 1: like the Japanese enemy you know, over there, but they're
Speaker 1: just like they have no connection in that, like they're
Speaker 1: not military officers or like soldiers out in Asia, you know,
Speaker 1: so I think, um, that's that's one argument I've heard
Speaker 1: pe but like, oh, they should they probably you know,
Speaker 1: they did horrible things in the Philippines, you know, to
Speaker 1: our soldiers in the Baton Death March and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: You know, they deserved it. And that's or they could
Speaker 1: have like they could have like uh, you know, they
Speaker 1: might like have enemy fields that when they invade, you know,
Speaker 1: they're going to help them when they invade. But there's
Speaker 1: like no evidence of that, you know. And so it
Speaker 1: was basically a lot of like lobby groups lobbying to
Speaker 1: the two politicians and to the media to kind of
Speaker 1: hype up this this thing. And you know what I
Speaker 1: I also saw is that a lot of in wartime,
Speaker 1: a lot of like fringe writers, like like writers who
Speaker 1: would be on op ed pieces and not like the
Speaker 1: best journalist. That's the ones who come to the front,
Speaker 1: you know, and start spewing their kind of like racist ideologies.
Speaker 1: And that's what's happening now exactly. Yeah, Okay, so so, um,
Speaker 1: I mean, what role do you think like Pearl Harbor
Speaker 1: did and like shocking the system, do you think that
Speaker 1: also kind of made it easier for them to to
Speaker 1: pull the trigger on it. Yeah, I mean that was
Speaker 1: like the I mean Pearl Harbord was just like just
Speaker 1: like the fuse on the powder keg of the big
Speaker 1: bomb of what like this Japanese American struggle was. And
Speaker 1: so kind of in my movie, what I'm showing is
Speaker 1: that um America is America's don't like to be called imperialist,
Speaker 1: but they were definitely imperialistic in that, you know, they
Speaker 1: grabbed Hawaii, and they grabbed Guam, and they grabbed the
Speaker 1: Philippines and it's just they they had this westward expansion
Speaker 1: and so Japan was um uh, Japan was like the
Speaker 1: only you know, they're you know, Britain got China and Singapore,
Speaker 1: and you know, the Dutch got in Malaysia and basically
Speaker 1: European powers in America were doing this vicious like land
Speaker 1: grab of all of Asia and Japan, Japan was really
Speaker 1: the only country that could stand up to this kind
Speaker 1: of imperialism and so they had to like quickly, you know,
Speaker 1: um build forces. And Hawaii was like half Japanese almost
Speaker 1: like with there's a lot of Japanese people living there
Speaker 1: at the time, and so it was like this kind
Speaker 1: of in between place. It was like barely America, you know,
Speaker 1: because American Marines like basically took it in the eighteen
Speaker 1: what nineties Bannitt Treaty. So it's um, I can't even
Speaker 1: remember the original question, but I think, yeah, Pearl Harbor
Speaker 1: was like this the trigger. It was just like this
Speaker 1: it's ongoing power struggle between American Japan at that time.
Speaker 1: I mean, like I remember like some Japanese American people
Speaker 1: being like, um, when when nine eleven happened, people were like,
Speaker 1: this is just like Pearl Harbor. And then Japanese Americans
Speaker 1: were like, I hope it's not like Pearl Harbor because
Speaker 1: after that, that's when we started locking up, you know,
Speaker 1: people like indiscriminately. So I think all these years later,
Speaker 1: I didn't even I didn't even stop to consider how
Speaker 1: Japanese Americans must have felt during that time. That's crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think we've we've mature, we're always maturing, you know, progressing,
Speaker 1: but there's always it's so easy to like forget these lessons,
Speaker 1: you know, like forget that, forget what we've done because
Speaker 1: it's uncomfortable talk or never learn what like what we've done,
Speaker 1: but in the first place to be mistaken into thinking
Speaker 1: though what we did was like way longer ago than
Speaker 1: it actually was. Yeah, or it's very easy if you're
Speaker 1: the oppressor to be like, oh, come on, it's just
Speaker 1: like such a long time ago, you know. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, I guess you have to understand what generational
Speaker 1: trauma you know too, and if you don't have it,
Speaker 1: it's really difficult to understand. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: had a lot of conversations about generational trauma in our
Speaker 1: last episode or a couple episodes. Go maybe, um, but um,
Speaker 1: you wanted to talk something about you seeing m art
Speaker 1: and songwriting too, sort of sort of like relive or
Speaker 1: re or like reinvigorate our understandings that history. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think like as a musician, you know, all
Speaker 1: of us were kind of activated because we're generally liberal
Speaker 1: and progressive people, you know, artists, so, um, like after
Speaker 1: Trump became came into power. So I think I definitely
Speaker 1: started writing more about history because I felt it so important.
Speaker 1: But it's difficult, you know, because history is like dusty,
Speaker 1: and the language is a little different. They speak, you know,
Speaker 1: differently than and it's like the photographs are all black
Speaker 1: and white and so and making this movie and this album,
Speaker 1: I had to figure out what was um like how
Speaker 1: to really connect the modern audience to the past. And
Speaker 1: so instead of like being angry and like negative with
Speaker 1: about injustice, I kind of um humanized the people in creating. Like,
Speaker 1: so a lot of my I'm still writing like love
Speaker 1: songs and UM songs about like you know, desire and
Speaker 1: you know, loss and stuff like that, but just to
Speaker 1: humanize the people back then, just to show people now
Speaker 1: that they were people just like you and they had
Speaker 1: these these same things that you the same feelings that
Speaker 1: you had that you have now to to empathize with them.
Speaker 1: That was real dope talking acc you. We're gonna have
Speaker 1: him back later so we can do a little rapping
Speaker 1: thing later, right, Yeah, but first we want to talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about Asian contributions to hip hop. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we felt like, you know, I wanna I want to
Speaker 1: like close it on a positive note. Yeah, And also
Speaker 1: there's a lot of like prominent rappers that have um
Speaker 1: Asian heritage that doesn't get talked about because of the
Speaker 1: binarization of race. So like you're either black or you're white,
Speaker 1: like I'm Native American, but I was never like that
Speaker 1: was never really impressed upon me at a young age
Speaker 1: because like I'm black, yeah, something like my grandmother's Native Americans,
Speaker 1: right exactly, And so like there's like it's lost when
Speaker 1: you're talking these like struggles, you know, it's like, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: framed in white and black. And so we don't talk
Speaker 1: about the fact that Danny Brown was raised by a
Speaker 1: Filipino grandmother and karup attending at Filipino American church, or
Speaker 1: that Nike, even Naja's father is half Indian, or that
Speaker 1: Tiger's mother is Afro Vietnammes and grew up in Vietnam.
Speaker 1: And surprisingly to me, I didn't know Foxy Brown is
Speaker 1: of Chinese descent. The ways that race is constructed in
Speaker 1: America that are racist, these heritages. But then there's a
Speaker 1: lot of contributions of Asian American rappers themselves that uh
Speaker 1: don't quite get the show that they deserve. So who
Speaker 1: do we got first? So first we got g Yamazawa
Speaker 1: with the track Violence. Yamazawa is a Durham born son
Speaker 1: of Japanese immigrants, a national poetry Slam champion, and a
Speaker 1: diplomat in the State department word. Yah, I know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's really interesting. He opens the news video
Speaker 1: with a quote from Norwegian sociologist Dr. Johan Galtung. Direct
Speaker 1: violence is intended to insult the basic needs of others,
Speaker 1: including nature. Structural violence implements such insults into social world
Speaker 1: structures as implements I drink a lot of wine. I
Speaker 1: drink a bottle of wine. Sorry A. Structural violence implements
Speaker 1: such insults into social and world structures as exploitation and repression.
Speaker 1: Cultural violence, such as religion and language legitimizes direct and
Speaker 1: cultural violence. And that's how he starts the video. That's
Speaker 1: how he started, like always like on a black on
Speaker 1: white or something like that, like the black screen in
Speaker 1: the white text. Let's let's listen to something that real quick.
Speaker 1: The ceremonies never because the blood, guns and money isn't. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He talks about where he learned to talk about violence
Speaker 1: to describe his feelings in the context of rhyme from movies, TV,
Speaker 1: video games, and talks about the inherent violence in our
Speaker 1: culture as well as art as a weapon. Like many rappers,
Speaker 1: uh talking about weaponry sold off shotgun as a metaphor
Speaker 1: to describe his rhyme skills, while also referring to like
Speaker 1: the broader violence that exists in our culture as well. Well.
Speaker 1: I wanted to bring up a rapper that I've known
Speaker 1: about for a long time, the this cat Dumbfounded. He's
Speaker 1: a known battle rapper, dope free styler. He used to
Speaker 1: write with Project Blowed back in the day. He's really
Speaker 1: dope cat. But this is his track safe Let's check
Speaker 1: this up. Yeah um. In an interview with The l
Speaker 1: A Times, he said that the song came from when
Speaker 1: he was watching the Oscars a few years ago and
Speaker 1: they were having that Oscar so White controversy, and he
Speaker 1: was like he was watching it, but he was he
Speaker 1: still wasn't seeing any Asian people there, and I guess
Speaker 1: like Chris Rock was doing the hosting and he was
Speaker 1: making a bunch of like Asian jokes and they were
Speaker 1: pretty stereo. You know, from the interview, Dumbfounder wasn't too
Speaker 1: like bothered by the Asian jokes, but just that they
Speaker 1: were like the same old stereo typical stuff and they
Speaker 1: were getting like huge roaring laughter. So he was like, man,
Speaker 1: funk that. So he he made this song where he's
Speaker 1: referencing how there's there's there needs to be more leading
Speaker 1: men in the Asia, in in in Hollywood, and that
Speaker 1: here's the only yellow man there. It was the goddamn
Speaker 1: statue and ship. Yeah, let's take a look at Year
Speaker 1: of the Oxes, thoughts and prayers. You're sorry. I gotta
Speaker 1: give a shout out to your The ox Mahomie is lyrics.
Speaker 1: I know that, dude. Yeah. Yeah. So the Korean American
Speaker 1: rappers from Fairbacks and Virginia Beach and in this song.
Speaker 1: It's actually interesting because they addressed the Charlottesville Unite the
Speaker 1: Right rally and the murder of Heather Higher and the
Speaker 1: opening lines, but they also speak to the desensitization that
Speaker 1: comes with political engagement and outrage fatigue when they talk
Speaker 1: about it's hard to have an appetite when you notice
Speaker 1: this time started off as black and white, but you
Speaker 1: noticed the gray. As you get older, your arms get
Speaker 1: fold and your hearts get cold. To get minds so
Speaker 1: coustophobic like just and I feel I haven't feel that
Speaker 1: a lot lately with the uprising of just like Funk.
Speaker 1: I'm fucking tired and like trying to fight that and
Speaker 1: try not to like make that, make let that make
Speaker 1: you into more of a conservative, because I'm really happy
Speaker 1: they touched upon that in this song. It like wears
Speaker 1: on you after a while. Yeah, yeah, And we're broadly
Speaker 1: to talk to touch upon gun violence, to talk about
Speaker 1: the Mandalaid Bay shooting in Las Vegas and I believe
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen, as well as anti immigrant racism
Speaker 1: and the Trump administration. But then I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: I reflected a lot on the closing lines, So tell
Speaker 1: me what's the move here. Nobody's been through it, no
Speaker 1: one can tell us what to do here, and what
Speaker 1: it's been on my mind a lot is that it's
Speaker 1: like a common feeling with how unprecedented things seem with
Speaker 1: the rise of fascism, the current pandemic and economic collapse,
Speaker 1: the uprising. But the terms is that we have seen
Speaker 1: things like this before, and it's so important to learn
Speaker 1: from the past, from the Great Depression and how it
Speaker 1: gave rise to ideas like the Green New Deal, from
Speaker 1: the Spanish flu of nine eighteen, from the freedom fights
Speaker 1: that have come before us, and like remember bring that
Speaker 1: are times are precedented, and like learning from the folks
Speaker 1: that dealt with it before and embracing their tactics to
Speaker 1: answer that question that you're of. The ox leaves off
Speaker 1: at the end of the song the next track. I
Speaker 1: like to pride myself in how much hip hop I
Speaker 1: listened to, But to be honest with you, I didn't
Speaker 1: even know that this girl wrapped until I stumbled upon
Speaker 1: this song for this project. Um, this is Aquafina with
Speaker 1: the song Pockies. Let's listen to this, white folks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you see what I mean. It's like, it's not changing
Speaker 1: the world or anything like that. Obviously, it's one track.
Speaker 1: I don't want to judge it by her whole discography,
Speaker 1: but I get the sense that she's kind of like
Speaker 1: a comedy rapper a little bit. That's some funny bars,
Speaker 1: which like are integral to any raps really if you
Speaker 1: don't chuckle at the metaphors and like what are you
Speaker 1: doing with that? But there is a difference because there
Speaker 1: are some there are there is some rap that's literally
Speaker 1: geared to be like stand up or like comedy show
Speaker 1: that form. You know, it kind of reminds me of
Speaker 1: it has the same vibe as like Little Dickey exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: That's exactly I'm thinking, Hey, do your thing. It's just
Speaker 1: not really my my personal ship it was ill though,
Speaker 1: I mean, like the music video was dope and like
Speaker 1: it bangs, yeah for sure. I mean I did hear
Speaker 1: that there's a little bit of controversy with her for
Speaker 1: black scent and cultural appropriation and stuff like that. But A,
Speaker 1: that's a subject for another episode, and B I don't
Speaker 1: really give a fun what's the next one? Kid Fresco, oh,
Speaker 1: kid Fraslino, what do you think about that? So it's
Speaker 1: a Japanese rapper here rapping in a mixture of Japanese
Speaker 1: and English, which to me comes across that's really impressionistic.
Speaker 1: But maybe there's something I'm missing as a non Japanese speaker.
Speaker 1: But like I mean, but just regarding the flow and
Speaker 1: regarding the beat, it's really like the times you can
Speaker 1: sure switch ups. And I really it's got this little
Speaker 1: shout out to No Name when he talks about you know,
Speaker 1: no one is safe, which is pretty ill. So, like,
Speaker 1: you know, as a fan of like people like asap rock, like,
Speaker 1: I enjoyed the impressionist nature of the song as well
Speaker 1: as like the way he toy us with time signature
Speaker 1: and whatnot. So let's give it a listen really quick.
Speaker 1: You are the reason why I think no faith killer
Speaker 1: a mighty folk. Yeah, I mean the thing that stood
Speaker 1: out to me and I was really digging the flow
Speaker 1: and like, I love the way that he transitioned between
Speaker 1: the Japanese and the English. That's actually brilliant. That's something
Speaker 1: that I'm starting to hear a lot of international rappers
Speaker 1: start to do now, which is like really making me
Speaker 1: wish I still do how to speak French because it
Speaker 1: sounds I used to. Yeah, I used to. I used
Speaker 1: to speak French up until I was like six, and
Speaker 1: then that's when I started learning English. But I was
Speaker 1: still taking it throughout school and then you know, graduate
Speaker 1: school and started drinking and smoking and stopped speaking it
Speaker 1: with people, and the next thing you know, you haven't
Speaker 1: spoken it. Insane and last, but not least, is a
Speaker 1: rapper on the rise. It was my life by China Mac.
Speaker 1: Let's check this up. Always always feeling I was on
Speaker 1: the long out of fight for that fall. Now, the
Speaker 1: thing that I initially noticed about him is it's like
Speaker 1: the opposite of Aquafina, where he's a street rapper, except
Speaker 1: he's coming at it from a uniquely Asian perspective. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you, if you listen it and I, you know,
Speaker 1: skim through some more of his stuff, and it's from
Speaker 1: a content standpoint. It's no different than stuff that you
Speaker 1: would hear, like a g Unit record or you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Cassanova, Rick Ross, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But the thing is he's doing it from his perspective.
Speaker 1: So he's rapping about his mother being an immigrant. He's
Speaker 1: got like lines like I didn't have no silver spoons
Speaker 1: that had chopsticks, you know what I mean. It's just
Speaker 1: like some some good quality gutter street rap, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, but with an Asian twist to it.
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. So I think that's
Speaker 1: gonna do it for this episode. You're ready to wrap rap.
Speaker 1: Let's get Keyshie back up here. Okay. So what I
Speaker 1: do is I start with the violin. I looked at
Speaker 1: the metronome. I got your favorite tempo VPM. I'm adding
Speaker 1: more violent. I'm one okay. Now I'm gonna speed it
Speaker 1: up double time. I'm going to pick up the mic
Speaker 1: a little beat down. Okay. Now I'm taking the violin,
Speaker 1: pens the base down on its FI and now it's
Speaker 1: ready for wrap, ready for rap, whether you pack them
Speaker 1: on three and in factory in Pakistani packing on the
Speaker 1: eat the Black with Attias, Oh Yestas takes me for me,
Speaker 1: the blasted things when they said arm me for your
Speaker 1: family and everybody on the street. It's like they did
Speaker 1: in California nineteen forty three. If you listen, they take
Speaker 1: some notes about the history battles of the victory, the
Speaker 1: intersectional plitter Sweet, whether you folcome to her key over
Speaker 1: the one in between. We gotta beat the inner. They
Speaker 1: tap my phone, so the streets for Washingtek. I like
Speaker 1: the beats poppies, but now you rock them with the
Speaker 1: Kishi bashi. He saw my autograph. I keep the copies.
Speaker 1: I like some about the popular podcast. We will speak
Speaker 1: to Nazis cause we just keep the sloppy while the
Speaker 1: beat is knocking. Dinch stop me, I would eat a
Speaker 1: rapper likes beef and rock me dope knife. You heard
Speaker 1: the chap. Don't stop until I put those cops in
Speaker 1: the term and camps. I'm a fucking idiot, A I'm
Speaker 1: dope nice. We are waiting on reparation. H We'll see
Speaker 1: you next week. Waiting on reparations as a production of
Speaker 1: I Heeart Radio. Listen to waiting on reparations on the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts.