Keep on riding, would have says. We continue to broadcast the balance and defend the discourse from the hip hop Weekly Studios. Welcome back to Civic Cipher. I'm your host, Ramsey's Ja.
He is Ramsey's Jaw. I am q Ward. You are hopefully still tuned in or really just now tuning into Civic Cipher.
Either way, we appreciate you and the time that you're spending with us. And today's guest, who is a social media influencer that goes by the name of Asian Soap. She can be found online at the handle at Asian Underscore, self sph or at Mixed Present and she is one such individual who speaks on the mixed bipod multiracial experience in the United States. And we are having just a grand time talking with her about the state of the world.
And you know, things have been better, but I think that there's a sense of calmness that comes with at least understanding the nature of the problem, and she certainly help us get to the bottom of a lot of the goings on. Before we continue our conversation, it is time to be aba, become a better ally. And today's Baba, we want you to visit stopaapihet dot org. It's been a while since we've mentioned this org, but they are one of our favorite orgs to support, and so I'll
share from their website. In the face of inhumane mass deportation, raids on places like fruit farms and family homes, militarized force against peaceful protesters, and a sharp escalation of Trump's authoritarian political agend of millions of people, including many Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, decided they had enough. From Los Angeles to San Francisco, and from Houston and Philadelphia, nationwide protests bought together people of all backgrounds shouldered to shoulder
with Black, Indigenous, and Latino communities. They showed the world what solidarity looks like and proved to each other that they are stronger when they stand together.
The numbers add up.
According to the latest data from State of Hate Report, more than nine to ten aapi adults believe in the importance of cross racial solidarity, and more than eight and ten believe it is necessary to end racial discrimination. Trump is working over time to divide us against each other any failing on all accounts. This means people cannot give up now. We must continue to hold the line with
other communities. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and all others need to keep joining protests, calling lawmakers, organizing communities, and showing up for immigrant neighbors as would our closest friends, because the fight for justice isn't over and we need each other to continue pushing back against the abuse of
power against our communities. Data and research, policy and advocacy, community care, and strategic communications are all ways that AAPI or stop AAPI dot org uses your investment to make an impact in the community. So do us a favor. Visit STOPAAPI hate dot org and make a donation, or if you can't do that, figure out some other way to get involved again stop AAPI hate dot org. Okay, so self, let's switch gears because you have been on
the ground in Los Angeles. So I know that everyone knows about.
The ice raids and the protests and so forth, but not everybody has been able to get a first hand account of what it was like to be on the ground.
So one of the things that we learned in twenty twenty, because Q and I were both out protesting during the racial reckoning of twenty twenty, Black Lives Matter movement.
Is that we could be out there with our children. We could be out there.
Holding hands, singing songs, chanting Kendrick Lamar lyrics and all that sort of stuff, and we'd go home after the protest was over, after we'd reached the end and everyone had dispersed, we would see on the news that it was a riot or otherwise some form of some mischaracterization of the event that took place. Like we could see like I got an afro, So it's really easy to say, oh, look at me, I'm in the corner right there, So I was these are the protests we're ed.
I ain't see your riot at all.
Right, So again based in LA getting a chance to go out to these protests, you know, I want you to talk about what it's like on the ground, what you've seen out there, and give you a chance to really establish a factual narrative that is not secondhand for our listeners.
I mean, well, first and foremost anyone who's not actually here, I always say they got the second last opinion because you don't actually know you know what I mean, And it's exactly what you said, Like it's beautiful community is people coming together you know, we're demanding justice and dignity and chain and trying to protect people in our community
and obviously pushing back against you. I mean, this was part of the No Kings protests as well too, And all it is is being in community with one another almost always, like people are usually dancing, there's usually music, like I have been at a myriad of protests that are all different, and they usually involve a lot of joy, and you can be there with your kids. A lot of people were there with their kids, and oftentimes what happens this is not a new tactic. Calling protests a
riot is just this classic tactic to delegitimize them. And I've organized a number of rallies and marches and vigils and all kinds of things, and what I see on the ground is intention and care and community. It's very organized, is very peaceful, but the media often zooms in on the bad actors, and law enforcement is known to provoke, can escalate as it always has. I mean, when you're rooted in being slave catchers, it's rotten to the core
rights I'm just saying. And then that also it's known historically that not only has law enforcement and government agencies infiltrated a lot of these movements, but also the far right to create chaos and to shift the narrative. It's not new. It happened with the Black Panthers, it happened with labor re unions, happened in Selma, happened in all of these major movements. And these far right agitators come in and infiltrate to cause chaos, and it gives the
cops a reason to justify a crackdown. It gives you know, the National Guard or whoever's getting called in a reason to have violence. And they don't reflect the heart of the movement when this happens, and people it's just people demanding dignity and justice and change, like I said. And the media does such a great job at zooming in on the wrong thing and talking about the wrong thing all the time, and that's exactly what we're seeing. And so people get this narrative that spoon fed to them,
and it shows how easily they fall for propaganda. And that's how I feel about that.
You know, it's a really interesting thing happening.
Now.
We talk about the muzzle velocity with which the president has disrupted and really terrorized marginalized groups in this country since he was re elected. And what I know about our president, what I think a lot of people know but some won't admit, is that he's not that bright, he's not that intelligent, he's not that structured, he's not that he didn't have his ducks in a row in
that way. So you'd imagine that there had to be some pre planned, you know, maybe nine hundred million page document that may have already been written, so that by the time he became president, maybe all the steps that he needed to take would already be laid out, and he'd be able to very very efficiently execute something like what he's doing now. Now, if only any of us could have saw something like that coming before he got elected and warned everybody about it, so that we could
have prepared ourselves and maybe made some different decisions. But we didn't have that insight. We weren't able to warn people, and we weren't able to let people know what was coming. So now it's like a oiled machine. And even things that are already diabolical in nature, you dig one layer lead one layer deeper, or you flip through a couple hundred more pages, and you realize that it's even more
nefarious than you thought. So what we see and those of us who are frustrated, angered, hurt, terrified at the possibility of what might happen to us and our families with these ice raids, and with the way that immigrants and just people of color in general are being treated. They're not just singling out immigrants, They're using immigrants as an excuse to really snatch up whoever they want, citizens
and non citizens alike. That by itself seems cruel enough, but you start flipping through these pages and you realize that there are people who are involved in a far more nefarious and capitalistic way that might benefit in ways you never imagined from being able to, you know, perhaps snatch people off the streets and turn them into free labor.
I was wondering if you may have heard anything about something like that possibly going on in our country, as ice and people dressed as ice just our cart blunche to snatch people off the street, out their cars, and out of their homes.
I mean, I mean just talking about the ice detention centers themselves, which, by the way, a lot of these popped up so fast. I mean, we can't like give people housing. But somehow we can create these centers like so quick. But they's just a humanitarian crisis. And they're detained without due process, which is unconstitutional. In the constitution, you don't have to be a citizen to get certain rights, and a lot of people just don't know enough about
the constitution and I think that's a huge problem. But they're detained without due process. The conditions are horrid. It's a dollar a day, you know, for labor, five dollars per phone call. I mean, we see that. I mean, it's just basically like the prison system. Essentially, it's minimal medical care. You know. Some people were talking about they haven't been fed. Some people were talking about they were snatched up and held in abasement and not fed. Families
didn't know where they were. And these centers are run very much by for profit companies that with government contracts that require them to stay full. There's quotas, and people's freedom is directly tied to a business model, much like the prison system.
Same way.
So if someone has proven to be wrongfully detained, they've still endured a system designed to dehumanize them. And it's not just about immigration policy. It's incarceration for profit, which is very much a legacy of the United States. But yeah, I mean, I don't know what even else to say, Like, I mean, there's not enough words in the language, in the English language to talk about how despicable I think all of this is.
You know, this is why I think the protests are so necessary and why I think, you know, conversations like these are necessary.
Right now.
You know there, you know, there's one half of the country that is controlling all the levers of government, and it's up to the rest of us to ensure that this doesn't become the norm for this country. Those of us that still believe in the promise of this country, those of us who are born here or not, that have a vested interest in the success of this country, it's up to us to.
Protest. That's what we that's what we're able to do.
And for those of us that feel that we're under a hostile government, it's still, for the most part, technically legal for us to do that. I want to circle back though, because you mentioned something that I think a lot of people maybe don't realize. First, I'm going to connect a couple dots. You said something about, you know, tactics, right wing tactics that they'll use to change narratives, co op narratives, you know, rebrand things, et cetera. And to
their credit, they're very good at that. You mentioned, you know, people on the right fil trading movements, you know, protests, etc. Police infil trading movements. And this is something that I remember too. I was in like the discord chats, and like I got into the deep end real early because I was on the radio. So they were like, hey, look, we could trust you, so look out for these people. They usually wear these type of shoes and blah blah blah, and you could see them out there and they would
whisper in our ear. Hey, that guy is probably one of them. So anyway, I have not yet come across the same type of kind of underhanded strategies used by folks on the left, folks who are more progressive in terms of their politics. I don't know if there were any leftists on January sixth at that protest. They were also trying to set it off and trying to you know,
create friction unnecessarily. I think that those were all bona fide right wingers doing exactly what their boss told him to do, and indeed, in any movement, I haven't really seen that, but I will say that the opposite. You know, I was at a No King's protest in Phoenix and
there was a gentleman that came out. He was wearing a gentleman loosely, but he came out and he was wearing a some sort of I don't know what this shirt said, I forget, but it had some sort of message on the shirt that implied that he was a right winger. But you wouldn't know because you know, there's a lot of American flags out there, and indeed I love that effort for folks to reclaim the American flag for all of us, not just for the right wing.
But this guy's out there.
He's got a full face mask, like full ski mask on, which again there are some people that that's how they move nowadays, right, But he gets out there and he like starts picking a fight with somebody. Was super weird. And you know, of course there's the shouting, the back and forth. But he's there all alone at the No Kings protest, so everybody there is on one side of this topic. He's out there on his own starting a fight that that turns into like a fistfight, and you know,
the guy ends up losing that fight. Indeed, there were other people that jumped in to try to break the fight up, but this was a bigger guy, so he had a couple of people on him just to tone him down. He would say he got jumped, but you know, I don't know what he expected to come out there, and it'd be like seven thousand people versus him. You know. But anyway, once he gets up, after you know, his defeat,
he pulls out a gun. Everybody starts running okay, and you know, people start telling the police, oh, he's got a gun. He's got a gun. Cop jumps out, chopper on deck, runs into the crowd, grabs him, arrests him.
Brings him to the car. Now I saw this happen. I got a video of it.
And people in the comments section we're trying to say, oh, y'all jumped in when he was out there, you know, the political opposition, They were saying all that type of stuff. But I suspect that he was one such infiltrator or a counter protester that didn't come out there to hold a sign and you know, be accounted among the numbers. He came out there to actually start friction. Now, because
I know that this has happened with individuals. Indeed, that's the most recent example I've seen, but I've seen it happen with police.
I've seen police throw rocks, you know, like all kinds of stuff.
And I know that there's this narrative on the right that you know, there's LA is this lawless land full of agitators and rioters and whatnot. I guess what would you if you could talk to a person who consumes far right content, what would you say to them if they were legitimately curious about the nature of not just the protests, the recent protest, but protest from more progressive groups in general. What would you say to a person be willing to listen but has that viewpoint.
Well, I usually am like, do you want like a short answer or a long answer? A longer answer would include more historical facts. But for the most part, what I would tell somebody is, don't believe what you see in a ten second clip. You know, come to the protests, see the organized Like when I say community people are handing out water, they're handing out food, they're taking care
of each other there. When you organize, often you have to coordinate, like people to keep you safe and medics, and there's a lot of translation being done for elders or people who may not speak English. It's protecting each other. And you see the love and the acknowledgement land acknowledgments. Yeah, like you see the love and the rage that drives people to be in the streets. Not for destruction, but
it's for dignity. And you know, another thing to do is to ask why don't just take things at face value? Ask why? And ask who is benefiting from you believing this narrative about it? You know, the real issues are not broken windows, They're not any sort.
Of property on fire.
Yeah, the broken system is the issue. The system that made the protest necessary is the issue.
Yeah, very good place.
And I think a lot of people just again, they take a lot of things at face value and are very much not interested in doing their own research and critically thinking, which is really upsetting because you miss out on the opportunity to really grow as a person and to really expand your worldview.
All right, well, let's shift gears here.
Do us a favor, and because there's there's a lot of conversations in different like racial groups, and you're one such person that might be able to speak to the experiences or the conversations being had in one such group, discuss what the implications are for Asian Americans to join this movement or what the consequences could be if they don't.
Yeah, honestly, not just for Asian Americans, for all people who are in a marginalized identity group. At the end of the day, all of this is rooted in racism. It all goes back to colonization, it all goes back to slavery, it all goes back. It's all motivated by the same things. And you know, Asian Americans actually have a very long, powerful history of solidarity with other marginalized identities. Yes, I know, yeah, from the Third World Liberation Front and the Black Student Union at.
San Francis very good, the Udi.
Kochiyama standing beside Malcolm ed you know, Grace Lee Boggs and her husband. But too often that history has been hidden and instead we're fed this myth of the model minority to be a wedge between us and other communities of color. And a lot of it, at the end of the day, is rooted in anti blackness, and anyone who doesn't understand that the only reason we have the ability to be citizens and to vote and to have the rights that we have is because of black people
just doesn't know enough about our history. And if we're not asking the question of why and who does this benefit for us? To not be aware of this stuff again, you you can be so easily swayed and conditioned into believing things that are not rooted in reality, and then you end up voting against your best interests. Like those Asians who voted against affirmative action and did that whole lawsuit.
They just took the word of the white man, and that's we got to stop taking else But anyway, joining the movement isn't just about you know, being transactional or showing up for ourselves. It's about showing up for others. It's about reclaiming our own history and our own dignity and our own collective liberation. Because it's really true that
saying unless we're all free, no one's free. And if we stay silent, if we at the end of the day, risk being used as pawns and systems that were not built or designed for us at all, they are not built or designed to protect us. And unity at the end of the day is power and we need each other now more than ever. And if you're not going to show up now, don't ask people to show up when it's you that's on the chopping block.
Just can't be like that.
Well, those are some powerful words and then words that we all can use, not just one community, but all of us can use. So unfortunately we're out of time. I'd love to keep talking to you, so we're gonna have to have you back on the show. But I appreciate the time that you spent.
With us today.
Do us a favorite before you jet shout out all your social media how folks can tap in with you and keep up with all the content that you're putting out.
Yeah, so you go find me at Asian sof Asian Underscore, s oph on TikTok and Instagram. I actually do prefer TikTok more. And then you can also find me at Mixed to Present on Instagram as well too.
Okay, and don't forget you can follow us on all platforms at Civic Cipher. You can check me out. I am Rams's job on platforms.
I am Qward on all social media as.
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