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Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with

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Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Daniel Moody. Pre recording from the Home Bunker. Folks,

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Speaker 1: I hope that you have enjoyed your holiday week. We

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Speaker 1: are offered just one more day, but I'm very excited

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Speaker 1: to welcome to wok F Daily for the very first

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Speaker 1: time Varunnicor, who is the founding executive director of AAPI

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Speaker 1: Victory Alliance. And you know, in this conversation with Varun,

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Speaker 1: I ask questions, you know, about how the AAPI community

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Speaker 1: has been positioned in many ways through the lens of

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Speaker 1: white supremacy as model minorities, and what does that mean, right,

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Speaker 1: and how they better move past that distinction to link

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Speaker 1: arms with other communities of color, the black community and

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Speaker 1: other communities of color, And you know, I ask questions

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Speaker 1: about what it is that we get wrong right about

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Speaker 1: this very diverse, very layered community. And on top of that,

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Speaker 1: we get into a conversation which is just shilling right,

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Speaker 1: But the last couple of headline mass shootings that we

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Speaker 1: saw were actually at the hands of AAPI individuals, directed

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Speaker 1: towards people in their own communities. And Varun talks about

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Speaker 1: a really startling new marketing campaign that the NRA has

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Speaker 1: been doing directing their attention to this community which is

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Speaker 1: very affluent but has had a very low gun purchasing rate,

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Speaker 1: and how they have exploited, how the NRA has exploited

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Speaker 1: these last shootings and the rise in anti Asian hate

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Speaker 1: that we saw at the hands of the Trump administration

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Speaker 1: and particularly during COVID has used this to try and

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Speaker 1: get new fucking members. And it's really wild and crazy,

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Speaker 1: and so we talk about so very much in this conversation,

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Speaker 1: and you know, it's one that we will continue to

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Speaker 1: have on WOKF because I believe that we need to

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Speaker 1: What does it look like right to really form a

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Speaker 1: multi racial democracy, particularly at a time when white supremacy

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Speaker 1: and white supremacy, domestic terrorists violence is at an all

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Speaker 1: time high. What does it look like to link arms

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Speaker 1: to elevate each other's stories successes as well as traumas,

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Speaker 1: and then how do we find solutions together? So I'm

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Speaker 1: really excited, folks, to bring you this conversation with Varun Neicor,

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Speaker 1: who is the founding executive director of AAPI Victory Alliance. Folks,

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Speaker 1: I am very happy to welcome to ook F Daily

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Speaker 1: for the very first time Varun Neicor, who is the

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Speaker 1: founding executive director of the AAPI Victory Alliance as well

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Speaker 1: as the newly launched AAPI Think Tank. Varun, it's great

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Speaker 1: to have you on WOKF and I want to start

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Speaker 1: off with talking today about the fact that whenever we

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Speaker 1: have had a whether it is a mass shooting, it

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Speaker 1: is a stabbing, it is a push on the subway

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Speaker 1: over the last couple of years, and that violence being

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Speaker 1: directed towards a member of the AAPI community. We have

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Speaker 1: news reports, we have headlines, we have coverage for what

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Speaker 1: feels like a hot minute, and then we go about

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Speaker 1: our business in mainstream media. And so I want to

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Speaker 1: get a sense from you how you feel about the

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Speaker 1: coverage right of said violence against your community, and then

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Speaker 1: also how do we continue to have the conversation regardless

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Speaker 1: of specific acts that reached the headlines.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I appreciate you having me on, Daniel, Thank

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Speaker 2: you so much. This is such a great opportunity to

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Speaker 2: tell the larger story of what's happening in America to day,

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Speaker 2: at least from the API perspective. You know, the coverage

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Speaker 2: is disheartening, I would say in many respects. Right, We've

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Speaker 2: heard about shootings go on, you know, literally for decades,

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Speaker 2: as gun ownership in the United States has increased, you know, manyfold, Right,

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Speaker 2: I think there's six hundred million guns in the country

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Speaker 2: or so, and so with I would say the nuance

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Speaker 2: that's happening more recently is this concern legitimately over the

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Speaker 2: numbers of mass shootings, which are now occurring about one

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Speaker 2: a day according to the Gun Violence Archives. And interestingly, right,

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Speaker 2: I think there's another trend here that since Sandy Hook

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Speaker 2: about ten years ago, a little bit more than ten

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Speaker 2: years ago now, the number of ar style weapons, which

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Speaker 2: are the assault weapons being utilized in these mass shootings,

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Speaker 2: has seen also an exponential rise since Sandy Hook. So

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Speaker 2: folks are those with guns, they're not only utilizing these weapons,

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Speaker 2: but they're utilizing these weapons because obviously they want to

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Speaker 2: cause the most amount of mass destruction in the shortest

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Speaker 2: period if possible. Right. So that's that's alarming. And so

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Speaker 2: I think the statistic is roughly seventy five percent of

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Speaker 2: the mass shooting incidents are now caused by assault weapons. Right.

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Speaker 2: So that's why a lot of folks, including our organization

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Speaker 2: and many many others are calling for an assault weaponspan

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Speaker 2: media has been it's sort of interesting, right, It's there's

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Speaker 2: so many things going on in today's new cycle that we, yes,

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Speaker 2: we hear about a mass shooting, there's a lot of heartbreak,

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Speaker 2: and then we move on to either the next mass

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Speaker 2: shooting or we move on to the next you know, incident,

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Speaker 2: whether it's the overthrow putin in Russia this week, or

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Speaker 2: it's something about you know, Donald Trump's myriad of cases

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Speaker 2: the next right. Then it's it's the desensitization. I would say,

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Speaker 2: over all of this that alarms me. We are, on

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Speaker 2: one hand, desensitized and on the other hand, I think

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Speaker 2: we are also we're concerned. Uh. And one one data

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Speaker 2: point specifically is you know you're referring to and your

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Speaker 2: second question was referring to the API community and how

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Speaker 2: we're sort of seeing what I would call the back

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Speaker 2: end of the of the of the tail of the

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Speaker 2: rise and racist incidents against the ape community post pandemic.

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Speaker 2: Right now, it was sort of random acts of violence,

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Speaker 2: if you will, and it's now turning into our people

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Speaker 2: are being targeted by guns, right and so you've seen

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Speaker 2: the extreme nature of the violence and the hate now

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Speaker 2: starting to rear its ugly head. And it's unfortunately it's

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Speaker 2: not only folks that are not Asian that are causing incidents,

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Speaker 2: but it's also Asian Americans who are you know, responding

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Speaker 2: to the marketing And I'd love to talk to you

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Speaker 2: about that more. But we're responding to the marketing by

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Speaker 2: the NRA to our community, exploiting our fears, marketing guns

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Speaker 2: to us. We are purchasing the guns. And now unfortunately

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Speaker 2: in certain cases we're actually utilizing those guns, like we

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Speaker 2: saw in Monterey Park and have Tom Bay earlier than year.

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Speaker 2: Both of those mass shootings were Asian Americans.

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Speaker 1: Unfortunately, let's talk about that because you know, here's the

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Speaker 1: thing about the n RA uh and there and their

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Speaker 1: underhandedness and how and who they market to and when,

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Speaker 1: which is that the marketing is based on fear. Right, So,

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Speaker 1: any community that is currently being targeted outside of the

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Speaker 1: black community because they don't want the black community to

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Speaker 1: have guns, but any other community that is being targeted,

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Speaker 1: they then see a marketing opportunity, right, a marketing opportunity

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Speaker 1: at the hands of the very thing that is killing

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Speaker 1: said members of the community. It's a it's it is

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Speaker 1: a it's such a cecuitous and crazy uh web that

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Speaker 1: they that they leave and it works, And I do

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Speaker 1: I want to talk about those two shootings that happened

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Speaker 1: that were at the hands of Asian Americans directed towards

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Speaker 1: right the AAPI community, and how did you how do

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Speaker 1: you grapple with that? Because you see, the media is

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Speaker 1: not very good at nuance. The media is not very

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Speaker 1: good at really being able to part out and parcel

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Speaker 1: and make sense of complicated issues that the media is

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Speaker 1: very binary in their thinking, right, very A. Then we

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Speaker 1: go to B very black and very white. So how

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Speaker 1: do you talk about how do you think that we

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Speaker 1: needed to have a better narrative around those kinds of incidents?

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Speaker 2: Well, you're I'll start with You're absolutely right. Mainstream media

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Speaker 2: is really not We long for the days of long

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Speaker 2: form media, right where you could actually have an intelligent conversation.

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Speaker 2: We're devoid of intelligent conversations. You were moving from one

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Speaker 2: emotion to the next emotion and uh, you know one

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Speaker 2: hundred times in a thirty minute program, right, So uh,

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Speaker 2: and so mainstream media is also sort of exploiting this.

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Speaker 2: They're furthering the the fear that we all fear feel

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Speaker 2: rather you know, during this time, and that's why I

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Speaker 2: think many of us have just turned off like nightly news.

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Speaker 2: Who wants to watch that right before we go to bed? Right?

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Speaker 2: And so you know, I would say in terms of

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Speaker 2: this exploitation uh that the NRA is utilizing, they're not

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Speaker 2: only utilizing obviously you know, to the uh TO and

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Speaker 2: far the API community. Right, they look at whatever marketing

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Speaker 2: niche they can, right. They they're they're callousness. Callousness knows

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Speaker 2: no bounds, their vileness knows no bounds. As well as

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Speaker 2: they're racist. The racist elements of their programming no knows

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Speaker 2: no bounce. So with that as an accepted baseline, you know,

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Speaker 2: let's just say that, you know, the NRA saw gun

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Speaker 2: sales decline in the twenty eighteen to twenty timeframe in

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Speaker 2: the latter half of the Trumpet administration. Right, typically gun

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Speaker 2: sales go down in Republican administrations, they go up in

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Speaker 2: democratic administrations for obvious reasons. But you know, the once

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Speaker 2: again it's the exploit exploitation rather that Democrats are going

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Speaker 2: to take away your guns, right, And so then they

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Speaker 2: saw this sales decline, and then they did ethnographic marketing

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Speaker 2: analyzes where they were like, okay, well, where can we

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Speaker 2: sell guns? You know, their marketing showed, their analysis showed

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Speaker 2: that essentially the API community was it was the lowest

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Speaker 2: gun ownership community in the United States, and on a

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Speaker 2: per capita basis, we were also the wealthiest community. Wow,

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Speaker 2: you know, why don't we mark it to Asians? They

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Speaker 2: just started to market to Asians when the pandemic hit.

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Speaker 2: And then of course the rhetoric that was spewed out

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Speaker 2: of the last administration in Donald Trump's mouth just further

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Speaker 2: the you know, the extreme pandemic. So that's the genesis

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Speaker 2: of it all. But you know, the NRA kind of

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Speaker 2: took their marketing to another level. There's this Chinese American

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Speaker 2: gentleman based in California who won a shooting competition and

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Speaker 2: he was sort of really interesting. He was untrained, he

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Speaker 2: was self taught. He wins this major shooting competition. The

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Speaker 2: NRA grabs this gentleman and they decide to make him

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Speaker 2: one of their national spokespeople. And of course the words

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Speaker 2: that are coming out of this gentleman's mouth are every

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Speaker 2: Asian needs to own a gun. Not only is it

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Speaker 2: our Second Amendment right, but also you know, just insert

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Speaker 2: your you know NRA tach line here. You know, you're

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Speaker 2: going to be more safe if you own a gun.

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Speaker 2: You're going to keep your family safe. You know all

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Speaker 2: this bs, you know, ad infinitem that we hear, you know,

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Speaker 2: out of the nira's mouth every day. And and so

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Speaker 2: what we saw in twenty twenty was a rise in

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Speaker 2: gun ownership sales. And the thing that concerns us as

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Speaker 2: as a national organization is and I think reason statistics

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Speaker 2: that we've just heard, I think it was out of

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Speaker 2: the CDC, if I'm not mistaken, said that the vast

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Speaker 2: majority of new gun owners are not trained. But you know,

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Speaker 2: a lot of these folks have young kids in the house,

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Speaker 2: and if you're not trained on safe storage. We know

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Speaker 2: what happens when people own guns. By every measurable statistic

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Speaker 2: and metric in the United States of America, one is

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Speaker 2: less safe. Soon sides rise, accidental death, accidental injury, intentional death,

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Speaker 2: intimate partner violence. You know, just every measurable statistic is

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Speaker 2: the wrong way. And I think that, you know, we

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Speaker 2: need to do a better job as a community organization.

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Speaker 2: And frankly, a lot of you know, I think we

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Speaker 2: need to have you know, much like we saw smoking

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Speaker 2: public service announcements and you know, tobacco and pollution. We

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Speaker 2: need to have that for gun ownership in this country,

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Speaker 2: and the gun industry should pay for this. There should

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Speaker 2: be a tax. There should be you know, required insurance

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Speaker 2: on guns. If guns had an insurance requirement on them

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Speaker 2: like every other, like major thing in this country, the

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Speaker 2: cost of a gun would go up tremendously because the

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Speaker 2: liabilities alone on a person owning a gun. Folks would

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Speaker 2: think twice, frankly if if they had to also buy

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Speaker 2: corresponding insurance to buy a gun right to protect themselves

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Speaker 2: and to protect the safety of the community in those

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Speaker 2: around them.

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Speaker 1: You know, It's just it's always so fascinating to me

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Speaker 1: because I talked to you know, gun reform advocates all

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Speaker 1: the time, and the reality is is that if having

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Speaker 1: a gun made you safer, than America would be the

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Speaker 1: safest country in the world. Right that we have more

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Speaker 1: guns in the hands of people than we do people

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Speaker 1: in this country, and it is, you know, it's it's

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Speaker 1: like two or three guns per person, you know how

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Speaker 1: how it maps out, and it's just it's ridiculous and

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Speaker 1: even just listening to you because this is the first

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Speaker 1: time that I've heard the piece about the insurance is that,

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Speaker 1: my god, you know, it is just like we we

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Speaker 1: just have a free for all, a free for all

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Speaker 1: in this country of Mayhem. You don't need to be trained,

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Speaker 1: you barely need to have a license, you don't need

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Speaker 1: to have insurance, but you can buy as many guns

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Speaker 1: as you want, and no one says anything or does

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Speaker 1: anything about it. And then we have, you know, thoughts

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Speaker 1: and prayers that are sent down every time that there

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Speaker 1: is a shooting.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 1: One of the other tactics that your organization is looking

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Speaker 1: at is going after the banks, going after the banks

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Speaker 1: that support gun manufacturers. Can you speak to that and

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Speaker 1: why you think that that is a good tactic?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? And so I want to give kudos to an

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Speaker 2: organization called Guns Down America, which several years ago, I

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Speaker 2: think it was twenty eighteen or so, it came out

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Speaker 2: with a report card. I want to say, one of

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Speaker 2: the first folks in the GDP movement, the gun violence

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Speaker 2: prevention movement to do this. And so what they did

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Speaker 2: was they rated banks on several factors, you know, but

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Speaker 2: the long and short of it was, you know, do

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Speaker 2: they invest in the gun industry, do they bank, do

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Speaker 2: they allow the NRA to bank with them? Are they

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Speaker 2: transparent about gun violence in America? Are they transparent about

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Speaker 2: their ESG policies and their principles right related to guns

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Speaker 2: and gun violence? And so they came up with this

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Speaker 2: report card. It's on a website called is Your Bankloaded

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Speaker 2: dot com And so you will see there's I want

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Speaker 2: to say about four f rated banks, and Wells Fargo

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Speaker 2: is one of them. And so what we did was

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Speaker 2: we took their analysis and we worked with them. And

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Speaker 2: the reason we sort of picked on Wells Fargo is

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Speaker 2: we knew that being a West Coast bank that started

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Speaker 2: originally in California and frankly even bragged about and to

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Speaker 2: this day still brags about the fact that during the

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Speaker 2: Chinese Exclusion Act in the late eighteen hundreds they still

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Speaker 2: let Chinese Americans bank with Wells far Go uh and

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Speaker 2: that you know, they're good on this related APIs and

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Speaker 2: good on that. We wanted to sort of call out

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Speaker 2: their hypocrisy of it all. And so what we did

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Speaker 2: was we started a campaign about two months ago where

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Speaker 2: we protested Wells Fargo because folks don't really realize that

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Speaker 2: Wells Fargo is the bank of choice for the NRA,

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Speaker 2: and when they were called to testify in Congress several

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Speaker 2: years ago, all they would say in response, uh, in

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Speaker 2: terms of you know, financing the gun industry and the

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Speaker 2: NRA is oh, our relationship hasn't decline. But since that

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Speaker 2: time several years ago, they have not set a peep,

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Speaker 2: They've not said a word. There's nothing in their annual

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Speaker 2: reports in relation to guns or the NRA that's toxic

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Speaker 2: of a customer. The gun industry and the NRA are

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Speaker 2: And so what we decided to do is almost borrowing

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Speaker 2: from you know, Jesse Jackson back in the days of

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Speaker 2: the Rainbow Push Coalition, which if your listeners might recall,

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Speaker 2: was a time when a lot of Fortune five hundred

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Speaker 2: companies and companies in America were just not being very

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Speaker 2: good to the black community. Right. There was few if

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Speaker 2: any blackboard members, there was few if any black in

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Speaker 2: C suites, in higher even in middle management. And so

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Speaker 2: what they did was they started protesting and boycotting these banks.

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Speaker 2: And we said, you know, I hadn't seen too much

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Speaker 2: of that in America as of late. It kind of happens,

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Speaker 2: and it doesn't happen, but as a tactic. It's sort

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Speaker 2: of lost favorability for one reason. And I started, you know,

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Speaker 2: noodling around this issue, and I said, wow, you know,

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Speaker 2: Asian Americans are the wealthiest community in this country. How

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Speaker 2: do we use the power, the social power, the social

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Speaker 2: capital of that wealth. We're not using it at all. Right,

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Speaker 2: It's basically we're about it. We don't like to brag

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Speaker 2: about it. We're not very for the most outside of weddings.

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Speaker 2: I joke, we don't really brag about our house. We

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Speaker 2: have the big, elaborate weddings, but outside of that, one

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Speaker 2: would never know. And I started to say, you know,

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Speaker 2: we need to start using this as a wedge with

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Speaker 2: banks and say, look, if you don't start changing your

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Speaker 2: corporate policies, if you don't stop defunding the NRA and

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Speaker 2: the gun industry, the same industry and the same organization

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Speaker 2: that are taking our paychecks and our deposits and our

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Speaker 2: investments and then investing it in an industry that's marketing

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Speaker 2: to us. We're purchasing more guns, other people are purchasing

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Speaker 2: more guns, and then they're killing our community. Right, So

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Speaker 2: you can see how this vicious circle starts with assets,

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Speaker 2: It starts with money, and that's what we're really trying

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Speaker 2: to disrupt.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think that it's a I mean, it's

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Speaker 1: a brilliant tactic, right because I think that when we

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Speaker 1: often see these crises unfold, we think about the NRA,

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Speaker 1: we think about the gun manufacturers, but we don't think

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Speaker 1: about all of the funding that goes on behind closed doors.

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Speaker 1: We don't think about where these organizations, where these groups

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Speaker 1: are putting their money, and who is holding it. And

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Speaker 1: I think that it is really important to find other

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Speaker 1: tactics and other avenues to get the job done right,

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Speaker 1: which is to protect as many people as possible. No

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Speaker 1: one is saying, oh, take I mean, I say it

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Speaker 1: to take people's guns away, because I don't see what,

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Speaker 1: you know, what good they do? To be honest, and

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Speaker 1: you know, had the founding fathers of this nation had

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Speaker 1: you know, a magic eight ball that could have showed

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Speaker 1: them what was going to happen, I doubt that they

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Speaker 1: would have said, you know what, we should all still

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Speaker 1: have the right to bear arms. I think they probably

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Speaker 1: would have amended the Constitution or never put it in

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Speaker 1: there in the first place, you know, for one of

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Speaker 1: the other the other issues that I would love to

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Speaker 1: tackle with with just the few minutes that we have

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Speaker 1: is that, you know, the API community is a community

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Speaker 1: that has been looked at, or at least portrayed by

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Speaker 1: wide Americans as the model right as you you know,

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Speaker 1: the term model minority, as a way to create a

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Speaker 1: wedge between other communities of color, namely the black community, right.

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Speaker 1: And so I want you to speak to what it

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Speaker 1: looks like or how you move outside of that narrative

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Speaker 1: that was placed on your community and work in collaboration

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Speaker 1: with other with other racialized minorities uh in this country

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Speaker 1: to really create a true multi race democracy, which is

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Speaker 1: what we want.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll give you one but one tangible example that

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Speaker 2: I think is going to be the most illustrative. Given

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Speaker 2: that here we are Tuesday, June twenty seventh, the Supreme

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Speaker 2: Court will end their session in about forty eight hours

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Speaker 2: or so. We're waiting on a number of rulings, but

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Speaker 2: I would say one of the highest profile rulings we're

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Speaker 2: waiting on is is what the Supreme Court is going

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Speaker 2: to say on possibly striking down affirmative action in college missions. Right.

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Speaker 2: And so we are just in the process now of

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Speaker 2: you know, preparing our statements and I will say this

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Speaker 2: that if it wasn't for affirmative action, and I would

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Speaker 2: say this multi racial democracy that relied frankly on affirmative

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Speaker 2: action to ensure true diversity in you know colleges, right,

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Speaker 2: it is. It is created multi generational wealth for black, Brown,

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Speaker 2: Indigenous and API communities, even the communities within the API,

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Speaker 2: you know umbrella that are are not as prominent and

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Speaker 2: high profile and certainly not money Southeast Asian communities, West

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Speaker 2: Asian communities, Pacific Islander communities, et cetera. Right, they don't

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Speaker 2: have the wealth that typical Chinese, Indian, Korean, Vietnamese might have. Right,

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Speaker 2: and so we need to stand together on this issue.

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Speaker 2: We assume the worst is going to come out of

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Speaker 2: the Supreme Court. Why because a lot of bad things

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Speaker 2: have come out right a year ago a little bit more,

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Speaker 2: we got the unfortunate Dopts decision, right, so we know that.

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Speaker 2: But this is an opportunity, I think for this Supreme

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Speaker 2: Court ruling that we're all waiting on right now, This

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Speaker 2: is an opportunity for once again for all of us

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Speaker 2: to stay and arms locked and say we cannot move

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Speaker 2: forward as a nation. I cannot prosper as an Indian American.

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Speaker 2: I cannot prosper as an Asian American API if all

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Speaker 2: people don't prosper, but particularly if people of color don't

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Speaker 2: prosper in this nation. Those who are less I looked

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Speaker 2: at this up the other day. Those that are less

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Speaker 2: than twenty one years of age in this nation are

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Speaker 2: already living in a majority minority you know ecosystem, right,

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Speaker 2: And every year that goes by this country, you know,

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Speaker 2: accelerates towards this new country, right, And if it only

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Speaker 2: works for white people, you know, it's not good enough.

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Speaker 2: It's it's not good enough, and we cannot prosper as

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Speaker 2: a nation. We can't have now we grow our GDP,

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Speaker 2: we can't lower the black unemployment rate even more, we

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Speaker 2: can't lower the Hispanic unemployment rate even more. If we're

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Speaker 2: not all you know, together on this one specific issue.

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Speaker 2: But I think this issue sort of tells a lot

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Speaker 2: about sort of, you know, how this nation is going

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Speaker 2: to exist going forward, If we're going to be successful

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Speaker 2: or we're not going to be successful. Assuming that this

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Speaker 2: this case is, you know, doesn't go our way, I

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Speaker 2: think we'll, well, we'll have to figure out, I would say,

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Speaker 2: a better way. I don't hear a lot, and maybe

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Speaker 2: I'm just not in the right circles. I don't hear

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Speaker 2: a lot or see a lot in terms of you know,

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Speaker 2: us in the API community talking to you know, black

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Speaker 2: orgs and and Latino orgs and indigenous works, you know,

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Speaker 2: about how we're going to move forward on affirmative action,

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Speaker 2: perhaps on some other issues. You know, we have seen

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Speaker 2: a lot more racial solidarity, I would say since George Floyd,

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Speaker 2: but I think it's kind of simmered, and maybe this

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Speaker 2: will be, you know, another opportunity for us to join

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Speaker 2: hands again.

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Speaker 1: Varu Nicour, thank you so much for making the time

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Speaker 1: for wok F. Thank you for the work that you

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Speaker 1: were doing. I think that this was a very illuminating conversation.

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Speaker 1: Before you go, please tell people how they can you know,

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Speaker 1: connect with your organization, how they can connect with you.

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Speaker 2: Our two main channels, of course, our website API Victory

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Speaker 2: Alliance dot com and Action API Action is our Twitter handle,

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Speaker 2: and of course then you can get connected to our

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Speaker 2: Instagram reels as well.

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Speaker 1: Okay, wonderful, Thank you so much.

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Speaker 2: Appreciate you, Thank you, Daniel, appreciate your your voice and

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Speaker 2: you uplifting this great conversation. Today.

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Speaker 1: That is it for me today. Dear friends on wok

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Speaker 1: f as always, power to the people and to all

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Speaker 1: the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.