Model Minorities

is fucking shock up for hours away. If you fast asleep on what happened to the Japan, if you'd be laughing at least wind at the target and then the cast look at the ship that they left us within this lifetime when our parents is sucking they wasn't then they ripe. Mine is selling a future and profit off

of the pipeline. They trying lines and we hiding behind rhymes some product of pop For me, I was born in the cold black shed until you would have sworn with snow when this way, since I was forming, this whole boat was raised to hold it and then to the point of start to torturous. Yo, y'all take an advantage of it. Y'all look kind of quiet, long black hoody like I'm trying to start a riot. Let's take it to the city Hall and stop till they retire and take all this corporate bread and just put that

on the diet of the fingers in the year. The silent majority is waiting on reparation. This is mama, my no, hey, dope knife com lingo franca. We are waiting on reparations. Have the cat jumping up and down, Yeah, it would be. Let live his life. He's joyful. We're just having a good time. Shout out to the Factor chandelier for the beats for today's episode. So how did your weekend at a van? Didn't you didn't you have another protests? Weren't

you hitting the streets? Obviously gotta be Yeah, I hosted another car caravans hoturday night, shut down the streets around City Hall, bumped our radios, listening to some Kendrick as well as some speakers from the State House. Um Spencer Fries with with a c l of Georgia's political director Chris Bruce called in to talk about the fun the police as well as like state level reforms that have

been proposed. Um. It's really funny actually, because I got a call from the city manager today that was like, we've heard you've been having these protests in the streets and like you didn't get a permit, and you need to get a permit because people are complaining. And I was like, I'll pass it on to the organizers because it's not like I'm the end. I'll be all of these things that are happening. I'm just like one of many moving parts in this work. So they give you

a hard time. They gave me a a little bit of hard time, Like what's the hard time? Like, I mean, do they just like they actually stop you from doing stuff? They were like, So the police showed up, and we had like our own security people like on the ground kind of monitoring the police presence at the protests, and they at one point we're like directing traffic away from

like the blockage we had created. And eventually, when this like beautiful young trans woman was like chancing no justice, no peace, fun these racist as police, they started retreating. So I guess they got complaints from surrounding like business owners or something like when we tried to vent in this streets. We gotta get a permit. So why is it that, like these protesters are out here like shutting down traffic and y'all aren't like locking them up, And

it's like these are our streets. Who streets? Our streets? Man? But I mean they didn't get to it though, Like at the end of it, would you say, at the end of the yeah, it was successful. We disbanded around ten um, got people to like call and write their legislators while they were sitting in their cars listen to music. We had like catering from this like dope Jamaican Lady in town. It was like it was a beautiful thing.

It was a beautiful thing. Yeah, I would have I would have gone with you for sure, because I told you last week that I was gonna goring. I wasn't feeling good and all the COVID stuff going on. I didn't know if that was the showing symptoms or not. So I was like, yeah, let me keep my hand at my ass home. So what did you end up doing this weekend? I was just trying my hardest not to like fall too deep into the Tulsa rally and

stuff like that. I decided to just chill and try to clear my mind, but I ended up scrolling the net and Twitter getting dragged into the rabbit hole that was the J Cole versus No Name little little disagreement? Did you do you heard about that? A little bit about that? Would you end up thinking about that? So? I mean I listened to J Cole song, I listened to No Names response. I mean mad Live Kid will

be I think everyone can agree upon that. Well, okay, let me let me recap the situation as far as I know, right, so, as far as I know, the the protests started after George Floyd's death and No Name who is a rapper from Chicago. Um, I guess she put out a series of tweets where she One of the tweets she was critical of like, um, the top selling rappers are silent right now and they should be

doing something something of that effect. But what I noticed in like J Cole's response to like the initial beef is that it really like centers its feelings, like in a way that I think is like important to do is least important have to work through on a personal level,

but like not necessarily helpful to broadcast. But I don't know it, feel kind of conflicted about it, like damn, like write your the fucking little poetry and keep yourself and like work through your problems on your own, and then use this opportunity to like link to bail funds or go fund meats, petitions or actions happening in the area. But instead he just made it all about his feelings about getting called out, and like I felt, to a

certain degree that was some week ship. But at the same time, I think it's being to a real struggle that like a lot of folks right now are waking up to the evils of capitalism and corporatism of our fun boppily learning more about freedom movements that have come before us, and you know, just like taking to the streets for so maybe some of their first ever protests.

And just because you're black doesn't mean you won't necessarily like as if we talked about an upcoming episode, there's a lot of folks who want to like progressive as hip hop just because some of us choose to convey our experience to poverty and survival and brutality of our current systems. But the fact, the fact is that a lot of people in hip hop aren't overtly political, and they gotta wake up as much as white people who have been standing on the sidelines need to as well.

And I think Jacole does a good job of modeling what that growth and that vulnerability looks like, which is helpful for people who might feel similarly inadequate during these times that are trying to figure out what to do. But you know, and so that's helpful even if it falls short of modeling what's taking action looks like, which I think is the important part that was missing of

this dialogue. And like the little piece and Teco wanted to throw up and in the conversation with like it could have gone a lot farther than that, and like it's as No Name says in her response, you really about the right about me when the world isn't smokes like it's distracting from the conversation around abolishing the police, around like the women that are going missing, around the

trans black black trans women that are getting murdered. So I feel like she hits on some really important points. And also, you know, is hammering home the fact that like you could be using your platform for anything right now. I don't know, you know this this whole thing is is has been very weird to me. At first, I was really into it, and now it just seems kind of off putting. Two rappers that are dope, pretty intelligent

people having a disagreement talking about it in rhymes. The way I look at its beautiful most beautiful beefs and hip hop up all times as a battle As a former battle rapper, to me, that's like the biggest breasts of fresh air to battles that I've heard in a long time. I mean, everybody was engauged. It had people talking about the issues. I just all around. I thought

the ship could have been really dope. I mean, I'm personally not really into telling people when they can and can't or should or shouldn't make the music they want to make. I'll say whether I like the ship or not, but I mean, go ahead, and do you think I don't think it's distracting. I think it's adding to the conversation. But even regardless, I don't think that anybody who's out there, who's really doing the work is going to be distracted

by the new j could drop. Yeah, yeah, totally. I feel like people who are really in the struggle are not going to get sidetracked by this. But folks who might be like new to this work not I hear you. I hear you, And we talk about this another episode. But maybe you know, people should be more picky about the rappers that they follow and look up to. It was like a productive I don't even know if you

can call it about. I think it's because like no name still like name drap women that are have been murdered exactly important to centering black trands women, like the discussions around abolish and the police and like anti capitalism and so like this whole beef has brought a lot of attention to It's very hard for me to look at these things like outside of like the rapper perspective. So like, I think she won, and in winning, she kind of like proved a point that's like, oh, yeah,

there are more important things. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. So it's just I don't know, she she apologized for her not necessarily apologized. I mean, she just she's she was like it was a waste of my time or I shouldn't have done Yeah, she like I got caught up an ego and whatnot. But I don't know, it's like it's it's stuff like that. To me, it is like, I'm I'm one of those true believers when it comes to the power of hip hop and ship like that.

So I believe that you can change the world through rap if if you, if you funk with it right. So you know, it's kind of a bummer that, like the whole thing ends in a splitter of like, yeah, this rap stuff is meaningless. I was hoping that they would have just kept it going and kept the conversation growing and expanding, but it's like everybody's too cool for

school to wrap. I just I just I'm one of those people that thinks that I got more insight out of hearing them rap about this ship than I would have gotten from an interview of them doing it. So I always encourage people to wrap. But the verdict is that no name one. Her beat was Doper, her rhymes are Dover, and her song was Doper, And I feel like I need to be a better man after listening to it and catch up on my W E B DWO. Boy. Well, um, let's let's go into what we were going to be

talking about. Yeah, the topic of this day is um model minorities, model minority. So what made you think about having that be the topic slash name of what we're

talking about today? Um so into Thus eighteen, I put out an album called Model Minority, aware of it's like racist history within the Asian community, but also reflecting on my own experience with like, you know, growing up in a predominantly white community where I was like kind of nerdy and like in band and shipped like that, and like having a lot of people tell me that I wasn't like other black people, like oh, well, you talk right,

and like you're not like the rest of them. Literally had this one friend who's like confided to me in secret that her parents called black people Canadians and public look at those Canadians over there and the corross the room at Applebee's, like they're so loud, I bet they don't even tip, And like thinking that they could get

away with saying that kind of shipped to me. And so like being positioned in my own as a different kind of model minority among black people of like of only everybody could be like you, and so it kind of in an attempt to like push back at that and laugh at that positioning through my my music and so I adopted that moniker for the title of my LP. Well, you know, I didn't grow up in the States like that, so it wasn't until I was a little bit older that I like heard of the term model minority and

what it was used for generally. Now, according to Wikipedia, model minority is a minority demographic weather based on ethnicity, race, or religion, whose members are perceived to achieve higher degree of socio economic success than the population average, thus serving

as a reference to groups in out groups. This success is typically measured relatively by educational attainment, representation and managerial and professional occupations, and household income, along with other socio economic indicators such as low criminality, high family and marital stability. The concept was controversial as it was historically used to suggest that the government didn't need to intervene in socio

economic disparities between racial groups. So that's what Wikipedia says, and you know, of course, I think it's always important to listen to just check out what Wikipedia says, because the average person, you know, when they don't know some ship, they're gonna check in Wikipedia. So we've established a baseline

of what everybody knows about it. But generally it's something that's like used as like a wedge issue between minority groups to to get them to distrust each other or to criticize each other, and to overlook the greater fight that needs to be fought, holding one group up as like a model for what the other groups should try to invitate. Its generally just two so tension within the within the minority groups. And usually when I hear heard about this concept, it was in relation to African Americans

and Asian Americans. So these times it's also been exploited to dismant all legal protections for people of color. In two thousand and fourteen, a lawsuit against Firmative Action Asian American plaintifts argued that Harvard Admissions discriminated against Asian American students. The case, which was filed with assistance from right wing activists Edward Bloom the Man Sarah Hanger, staff attorney, a c l Use Rachel Industics program, describes it's on a

mission to kill Affirmative Action. During the LA riots following the acquittal of police officers who beat Rodney King on camera, many Korean owned businesses were damaged, partially because fifteen year old black girl Natasha Harlans, as we referenced in our first episode, was killed by a Korean liquor store owner, um who only got community service, funeral institution, and a five hundred dollar fine for shooting Natasha Harlans in the back of the head while trying to escape or store

during an alleged robbery. You know that story didn't really get covered as oh no, no, no, yeah, And like that's what I was kind of bringing up with the whole no name thing of like in the Black Lives Matter movement, like the killings of black men are far more um fuel for the fires of indignation than are the murders and black women, Like, but what about Ayana Jones, who you know was younger than Trayvon Martin when she was killed by police. Um, folks like Latasha Harlan's like

don't get credit for starting the LA riots. But you remember Rodney King. Brianna Taylor is no longer trending, even though her murderers haven't been arrested. Yeah, they fired one of them, that's it. Unlike the killers of Ray Sharry Brooks or the colors of George Floyd. Speaking of George Floyd, you know, at this point everybody's seen the tape, so it's kind of hard to not notice Officer thou R Tao performing crowd control. He's the Asian American police officer

that was on the tape. Things like this. I don't think they've started or ratcheted up tensions between the two communities anymore or anything like that. It's definitely not what it was during the l A riot. Times in Asian American are definitely out there in the streets right now protesting with Black Lives Matter, you know, all over the country,

fighting for justice. But I did come across an article with the Sahan Journal, which is a news outlet that's dedicated to the immigrant and refugee community in Minnesota, um that even though of Asian American Minnesota's are in fact fighting for justice out there alongside us, there are some who are feeling like they're targeted within that community. People who have the last same last name as the officer have been getting social media threats and stuff like that.

So the solidarity could always be stronger. This isn't the first time an Asian American officer has been involved in one of these killings of one I'm Black men and two half of fourteen and yp D officer Peter Liang, a rookie, fired his gun. The bullet ricocheted off a wall and killed the Kai Gurley while he and his

partner were patrolling a public housing development. There's no reason for the tension to exist between these marginalized communities, but there is some precedent set for like some pensions within the communities themselves. At the end of the day, both communities have been put through shipped from this country, so there's no reason that the unity shouldn't be. So today we're here with my friend Kodu Ishibashi also known as Kishi Bashi, also known as k world renowned violinist and composer,

or like he wants to be called a athens musician. Guy, Okay, how are you today? Great? I'm I'm an Athenist musician, guy, just like you, just like us, just like us, you know, in the on world tour, like you know any other fancy ship. Just an Athemisian and Guy, I think there's a bit more to it than that. I got your Wikipedia page joke right now. It says um says you're

an American singer, multi instrumentalists and songwriter. He is a founding member of Jupiter One, and for a few years he was and a member of the band of Montreal. He embarked on his career as a solo artist in two thousand and eleven, released his debut album one a at Joyful Noise recording in two thousand and twelve, to immediate fan fair and critical claim immediant fanfare, that's like

your blood. How do how do you feel about that? Um? Immediately, I don't know if it was immediate, this ship, says immedia. So it's Wikipedia, it's the Internet. It's true, I mean immediate NPR fanfare, that was for sure. You love meeting a modest famous person. It's always really nice. Well, of Montreal's what brought me to Athens, you know, it's okay, So that's like, that's how that's why I'm here. Also,

were you from? I lived in um Well, good question, Okay, So I was born in Seattle, but I grew up on the East Coast and then I lived in But before before Athens, I lived in New York City for like ten years. What your parents did? My parents are professor, So I'm a very middle class Asian American upbringing. Played play the violent, get it work work. We're really excited to have you on today to discuss some of the overlaps between the struggles that um Asian Americans have faced.

You know, are are struggles to also unite as folks of color, particularly around this moment where Black Lives Matter is taking the forefront of the national conversation. Um And I wanted to start out by asking, like, kind of a personal question from my own maybe funk up that I made a couple of years ago. So in two thousand eighteen, I dropped an album entitled Model Minority, And I want to explain why. And I want to explain why.

So when I was younger, I grew up around a lot of white people, and I was told in subtle and not so subtle ways, how great it was that I wasn't like other black people. I was smart, I talked right, all this kind of stuff. And so as I've gotten older, I used hip hop to kind of a my black identity. But I titled my album Model Minority as a as a nod to the privileges that I do have as a light skinned, middle class, highly

educated black woman. But in your opinion, was it funked up that I made my album then, okay, so um uh yeah, the model minority myth? So what does that mean? And it wasn't that wrong of me to do that? Well, um, I think sociologists call they developed this model minority myth.

We know it as a myth now because it was this basically racist institution of encouraging like Asian people to be like, this is how minorities should assimilate to society, and so Asians kind of took that to heart, like in the fifties, especially after Japanese incarceration, meaning like they had they were like they were told by white people to be like, you know, this is how you can

become American and assimilate into society. But what really happened was they were kind of used as a wedge to further put down black people, you know, basically showing black people like hey, look at the minority, look at this model minority, look at this is a model you know, and furthermore, you know, disenfranchising people. So it's just a

misuse of the word term, I guess totally. Yeah. I mean, like I think there are parallels to the way that certain like people in the black community are held up as examples of like, look, why can't you be a good black person like this one? And like I definitely want to ward off any of that people who want to point to me as like a shining example because like I speak mainstream of American English, because I have

a master's degree. Uh, because you know, like middle class all these things like no, motherfucker, like don't try to put down folks that are lower income or you know, speak like a A B or you know, aren't's educated? Is me because those voices are as important and sort of like lashing out at that way that I'm sometimes positioned by white people. I don't think anyone's gonna take that away from your use of the title. I mean it's I think in the context that you're using it,

it works. Yeah, the feeling is the same because it's like basically the model minority. You're saying, like, you know, why don't you be more like us? But meaning more like white? So Congratti, that's that's what it is without saying it like that, you know, So the feeling is the same, but it's it is used to basically push down any other culture that's not all American. And we

know now that all American just means white. Yeah, so exactly. Yeah, do we want to talk a little bit about your documentary, Sure to tell us about um am I saying you're right, Omoyari. Yeah, So Amoyari is um I kind of started working on it about three or four years ago, basically after Trump got elected, and they basically it was around the Muslim ban started happening, and basically people in the administration we're

using the Japanese American incarceration um. And for those who are those who are not familiar with it, it's basically during World War Two, when America was at war with Japan, they basically incarcerated, removed the entire West Coast community of Japanese people, like a hundred twenty people, and put them into internment camps, like concentration camps in like the desert

and in the interior. And so they're using that as a precedent for locking up like even if you're an American citizen, we have a right to you know, profile you to lock you up, you know, using the incarceration, the internment as a as a precedent. And it got me really upset because I was like, HOLLI show this things it's happening again. We haven't learned our lesson. In fact, we've taken this lesson and turned it upside down, you know,

as a precedent or some people have. And and so anyway, so I went I started going to these Japanese incarceration sites and I and I started writing music, and I wrote a song and then before before I knew it, I just have this like album and I have UM, this feature length documentary of just me going around kind of really trying to figure out what it means to be like an American now, like an immigrant American or or a child of immigrants, or what it's like to

look different than you know, the all American standard that we we kind of grew up with. And so when I was UM, when I was in high school, we went on I used to live in a Senegal and we went on a trip to Cape Verde and got to see like the old like slave quarters and like the places where they used to like sell and trade slaves at It's kind of hard to put in towards like how it makes you feel, but you definitely feel something eerie when you're like walking around places like that.

Is there anything similar when you're walking around like old

internment camp spaces or anything like that. Um No, it's I think at first, like I went on a research trip, you know, and then it was really difficult because we went some some of them are really pleasant and so you're sitting there with all this like this like really difficult you know, history of injustice, and you're just having a really pleasant time and it's and it was basically I think sometimes it was deeply powerful because you felt like,

you know, you had a story or someone to connect with. But a lot times in just places, so it really depends on, um, your state of mind, and it also takes different times to process like events, you know, personal or so. Um. And Cape Bertie, Yeah, I've heard Cape Bertie is very beautiful. Um uh, you know it's crazy

about Cape Bertie. And this has nothing to do with this podcast, but apparently tuna fisher I had his friend and he told me that Japanese tuna fishermen would come out all the way out there from Japan and that's the tuna. Yeah, and they said they like left some impregnated some women in the island and there's like some half Japanese like a bunch of like have Japanese people there, it'll it'll it'll have to going to going there, trust me for sure. Anyway, that's a wild story about Bertie.

So let's talk a little bit more about internment. Like what was Was there a legal precedent set beforehand that like was used when Franklin Roosevelt issued his executive order to um um execute the internment? Like, what were there? What were the grounds? Was there any grounds for that

previously established in the country. No, not really, because it's basically I mean, well, after Pearl Harbor, it became martial law, and so the military really took control of Hawaii, and Hawaii basically had so many Japanese Americans that they couldn't really you know, lock everybody up. And so what happened was, um, you know, there's generally a lot of anti Asian sentiment

to begin with. So what happened was a lot of lobby groups started lobbying people in Congress and created this and the media as well, you know, created this hysteria that ultimately led to people just wanting the removal of this entire population. And a lot of agricultural groups were behind it too, like lobbying for the wealth of the

Japanese because they were such great farmers. Um. Like one statistic that kind of surprised me was that about over of California's produce was was basically done by Japanese farmers.

M and so this was like a land grab for white farmers who are kind of jealous, you know, and this and this happens all the time, you know, throughout history, like Nazi Germany of this to the Jews because they're just jealous, you know, and they just use this kind of hysteria um to basically put the enemy, which is the you know, the army, imperial Army of Japan and these basically Japanese immigrants who really had nothing to do but want a better life for themselves in America. And

so um, yeah, there's no legal precedent. They locked him up, and a lot of people are like these you know, these people are American citizens. How could how could they do this? And there was there was a Supreme Court thing, but ultimately it was just a time of war and the Supreme Court fact you know, yeah, I was reading about how the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the removal, which is nuts that that's still a precedent that holds

to this day. Yeah, well recently. You know what's really crazy is that recently do you remember that muzzle the reversal of the muzzle away, so the upheld upholding the Muslim ban. Yeah, they also threw in the a note that korematsu was unconstitutional. So recently it was overturned in that thing. Oh, it was overturned recently. Well that's kind of good news, Thank god, it's good news. But it was kind of like a slap in the face because it accompanied the upheld, the end of the upholding of

the travel. Yeah. Hey, do you know if um any any even remotely comparable sort of actions were taken against like Italian Americans or German Americans. Yeah, so at the time, you know, they rounded up a lot of Italian nationals and German nationals, you know, the ones that are close

to the embassy and close to the government. But then also there's just like so many white people that they just decided that this was gonna be a white country and Asians Japanese were definitely easier to pick up, and so it was a really racist move and FDR ultimately, you know, he's like this nobody people don't really know much about FDR, but um, one thing for sure is that like he's this hero because he helped America out of um, you know, the great depression and social programs

that we still depend on today. But he was like this villain because for the Japanese, because he just couldn't help He couldn't help them, he couldn't protect them. These are just civilians, you know, just immigrants, and so he couldn't help them from racism that ultimately led to their

incarcerations on mass Yeah. I found it interesting that the United States Census Bureau actually assisted in the interment efforts by providing uh specific in individual census data on Japanese Americans, and they denied this role for decades subsequently, contrary to um scholarly evidence, and only in two thousand and seven did that understanding of how they partact part partook in

internment become more widely known. Um Yeah, I mean, I think they did whatever they could to round them up, you know, because I guess they you know, they claimed it to be wartime. UM, so I think they just used that that like the fury of a wartime America to just kind of impose on people's civil rights, which we know has happened time and time again, you know,

like it's a war. It kind of makes me nervous for the hurt moment we're in because if things get ratcheted up, I mean, they're already putting all that stuff into the frameworks now by trying to declare Antifa terrorist organization. Just using inflammatory language like that is is how you lead to people green lighting ship It's all a matter of precedent. It's like what's been you know, what's been

set set before. It's like if it happened once, all it really takes is somebody with the political will to do it, you know. I mean like I was kind of I was starting to get afraid, you know, when Twitter started removing Trump's things, and then all of a sudden, you know, he could just use the N s A or whatever to to remove whatever he wants from the Internet. You know. So it's like at some point he could cross the line and become a dictator, a totalitarian, authocratic

and an autocratic dictator. You know, but hopefully there's enough people in the government that would not allow him to do that. You know. Maybe what I mean, I think there's enough people in the government that he that he wouldn't be able to do it from a government level. But I mean there's a lot of crazy people out

in the street. You know. If you were just to even be like conservative with it, and only five of Trump supporters would be willing to like go to the extreme, you know what I mean, to get their way, that five is like millions of that five percent is like way more than al Qaeda, you know. Yeah, especially given in Georgia, you know, we have the citizens arrest law that was cited in the case of laud Are very these former police officers were going to make a citizens

arrest of someone they suspected to be a burglar. Like they could just start like citizens just random Trump supporters could go around start rounding up uh, folks like us on the grounds that we are in TIFA for something like I mean, that was I'm sorry to yeah, well I was. I was thinking about that because it's like, you know, because currently in Seattle, you know, like they have Chaz right and it's like this nargist it's like

anarchistic state. And then you think about anarchy and you're like, sure it's great for like liberal progressive people, but like think about the other way around, like that's how lynch, that's how lynching happens when you know, it's like exactly.

So it's like, yeah, so it's a really complicated thing because it's because it isn't that with because with your you know, defund the police and all that kind of thing, you're trying to figure out an alternative way to police, right, so you know some of the things that talking about like community policing, I mean, is that kind of dangerous. It's like it sounds good at first, but then it could also turn the other way around. For like like the like the community that a mont Aubrey was jogging in,

rights that community, that's true, Trayvon Martin's community. I guess we have to be like representative community policing. I guess, well, I mean, I mean, it isn't that like like wherever Trayvon Martin was, you know, like that's he was he was he was walking around in their representative community. And that guy was was again Zimmerman, he was a representative of their community. Right, So it sounds a little sounds a little dangerous to me, But no, affilia, that's a

very valid concern, very valid concern. Something else I wanted to ask you about that. I thought was an interesting parallel between the way that race is legally inscribed in the States and been used to either provide legal protections

or validate discrimination. UM during the tournament, Colonel Carl Carl Bendetson, Yeah, either architect behind the program UM went so far as to say that anyone with one drop of Japanese blood qualified for internment, which you know, the one drop rule has been used for Black Americans UM for discrimination previously, and it also has parallels with the blood quantum laws with Native Americans, the legal requirement that one have at least one fourth in digitus blood to qualify for a

certain government program and things like that, even though that's imposed upon these tribes by the federal government and not necessarily they something that they they personally validate within their

own communities. Yeah, I think, like what kind of surprised me, Like when I when I was doing a lot of research, is basically human do you think about you think about racism and racism is is like pretty um, the idea of of combating racism is pretty new, you know, and that like back then in the thirties forties, like almost everybody's racist, you know, kind of protecting their own communities,

their own ethnic groups. And even like eugenics was was a science back then, you know, a yeah, and so blood quantum, these things are like these things are valid, real things that people that a lot of Americans really

thought is just the way it is, you know. And so like when we're I think in the sixties seventies where we're just like this is fucked up, where we just where we start to have, like our baby boomers had this like individualistic freedom that we started to really realize that we should change, you know, from the inside, you know, and like and and make create a better society. But like it was a struggle in the thirties and fouries to convince somebody that, you know that this America's

for everybody, because it wasn't. And and a lot of people didn't believe that. Yeah. So let's talk a bit about reparations. So how relevant it was recommended that the

government pay reparations to the internees. In President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Civil Liberties Act of nineteen which apologized for interment on the behalf of the US government and authorized payment of twenty thousand dollars equivalent to forty three thousand dollars in two thousand nineteen to each former internee who was still alive when the act was passed.

The U. S Government eventually dispersed more than one point six billion the equivalent of three point three point four billions in two thousand nineteen in reparations to eight two thousand, two hundred and nineteen Japanese Americans who had been interned for who had been interned and their heirs. Yeah, it's um, yeah, they got there is. Yeah. They call it redress, you know,

the Redress movement. Um, it's really interesting because, um, when I was making my movie, you know, I couldn't make that the end of my movie because it wasn't really happy ending for America necessarily. It was a happy ending for the Japanese American story, you know. And then they got they also got a grant that have they have to include it in some textbooks, and there's a there's

an annual grant that goes along with that. But I think, um, the reason why I couldn't make it the ending is that it's like that's one community that that did get redress, and and there's an entire other communities that didn't, like the African American comunity or the Native American community. And

it's like, why is that? And I can only see it as a preferential treatment, you know, for one ethnic group over the other, you know, right, I don't see any other and why they would get money and a whole another whole other groups who have offered Yeah, I mean, I guess I've heard arguments for like, how would reparations work for like African Americans, And we're gonna obviously do a whole episode of reparations to come soon. But um, the I mean this runs counter to that somewhat in

that there's some historical precedent for how reparations work. But in this specific instance, they were able to identify all of the former internees they were still alive when the Act was passed, and give them a certain amount of money. Whereas you know, we have African descendants of slaves that

are you know, separated out from recent African immigrants. We have people who you know, like my my my brother's daughter, Um, she looks after she looks Caucasian even though she has a uh, you know, black father, And like, does she get reparations to like what I guess the questions of

like what is the lines with black people? It's like the it's like the offense was for so long, you know what I mean, and it was just yeah, it was such a cluster funk that it's like you don't know where anybody's from or who anybody's people are to

like you know, you have two more. So do it from like a a community level, you know what I'm saying, as opposed to like we're going to identify each person who was Yeah, because I mean this is speaking from an Asian person who's basically like a white person is like kind of like, um, because you know, you put like a thousand dollars in your pocket or two thousand or ten thousand or whatever, you know, whatever dollar amount, is that really going to empower the community to become

equal members of society? Like no, no, right, just cash won't do that. I don't. I don't think it'll help. It'll be a good gesture, but you know, um, so I don't know that. I mean, concerning the Japanese incarceration, the redress thing, it was they set a precedent and that like you had to be alive when the injustice happened, which is kind of you know, dangerous in that it's set a precedent for basically excluding every you know, Native

Americans and African Americans. So, um, yeah, it's uh, I think it's I don't know, I don't know how to think about it except it's just something that happened because the Japanese Americans, you know, they they they became affluent and they had political connections. They have some congressmen to you know time, so um, Normandetta really pushed that. So they had connections, you know, they assimilated. Yeah. Um, but African American redress, I don't I don't even are uh

what is it? What do you call it again? Reparations? Reparations? Yeah, yeah, African reparations dress. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I don't know how Yeah, I don't know. I like I like the scholarship idea. I think did you mention that like college scholarships? Um,

I feel like that's something but or is Yeah. Yeah, I'm looking looking forward to breaking down the various things ways that preparations could play out for African Americans and sometime soon since we are way reparations, but you mentioned that, like, um, you didn't want to end the film with redress to talk to us something about the aftermath of internment. How did this impact the Japanese American community in the years and decades that followed. Yeah, so a lot of it.

You know. Um, you know, there's a group now that I work with called Two for Solidarity, and they work to end attention, uh immigrant attention, because the idea is that the precept is that you know, basically they're locking up people of color, like brown people, uh from Latin America, you know, and it's, um, it's racist, the origins are racist, and it's also just um it's ramped up heavily, and

so um, we're showing solidarity with that group. And then I basically, uh, there's a there's a huge amount of anti not I don't know about huge amount. There's always been like anti black sentiment within the Asian American community, and we're really trying to trying to like focus on that and as a major issue especially now. You know, where do you think that comes from. I think it's the model minority that we bought into in the fifties. I think they're like, look, you can be a part

of our club. And then and then uh, and then once we're in that club. You know, there's like a famous saying where it's like you could be you know, do you want to be at the do you want to be at the at the dinner table, or do you want to be on the menu? You know, So it's kind of like once you're at the table, you know, once you're at the table, what are you gonna do for your everybody who's not at the table? Are you

just gonna you know, leave them out? And I think a lot of Asian people of have you know, taking that privilege and just kind of kept it to themselves. And I think that's that's where we're trying to show solidarity with, you know, the Black Lives Matter movement because it's it's yet again another ethnic group being suppressed and oppressed, you know. So, um, that's more. We had conversations with um folks in within the Asian American community about Black

Lives Matter recently. Oh yeah, tons, it's basically, um, I mean there's a lot of solidarity. Well the people I talked to, but um, I've I've had a lot of the older Asian people are just kind of like the older white people that you may not talk to on a regular basis, you know what I mean, They're just they're they're feeling like, what's the problem. You know, like once she's pulled your pull yourself up by your bootstraps. It's probably the same thing, same thing in that community,

you know. Um so um yeah, I don't know what, you know, it's just like an ongoing discussion, the same the same discussion we have to have that white people are having with their grandparents right now. Have you had

any difficult conversations? Yeah, I've been talking to um, I've been doing uh like like I've been calling people, actually people who didn't I did a post on my social media where it's like, oh yeah, I saw that, yeah yeah, And I called a few people, you know who didn't understand black lives matter, or like just one kid didn't

know systemic oppression was real. And then I called like a Chicago cop, you know, a police officer, and that really kind of hardened my opinion on like what the what the role of cops are in that, Like, you know, they're there too to stop crime, you know, that's her job, but not necessarily to figure out why there's crime in the first place, or to to help communities, like it's it's just not in their job description, you know. So yeah, so what were some of the things that the Chicago

cop was talking to you about when you called him up. Yeah, I mean she was a woman and she yeah, she was like it was interesting. She was like, I used to be a musician. I went to I got an arts I went to arts college and then you know, but then I just like applied for a job because I didn't have one. And it was fun at first because it was like, you know, busting like gangs and stuff like that, and then it got and then she's like, I hate my job. I don't really, I don't really

like my job now because everybody hates us. You know, it's kind of dangerous. I can't, you know. I'm fearful in my own neighborhood. Um. And it's like the whole the whole idea is that like if only they wouldn't commit crimes and then we wouldn't have to bust them.

And that's like her, that's her attitude, and I feel like that's a lot of cops attitudes and that if we if we're going to really reform police, they have to reform they need cops to like either understand the idea geology of systemic you know, racism, and that will affect you know, they're hiring in their in their practice like out on the streets um and started hiring people who understand that because they don't. I don't think they do. It's just not in their education or training or anything.

You know. I had a I had like an argument once with friends, like brother in law who was like a like like literally like a Puerto Rican cop, and he like looked me dead in the eye and was like, well, I mean black people in Puerto Ricans commit all the crimes, so we have to art like saying ship like that. So it's definitely something that's like ingrained in them when

they're getting trained or something. Oh yeah, and it's and that, Yeah, it's not their job to like figure out why they're so destitute that they have to join a gang and like the gangs like the only way out of their community. I mean, I was like, so we were filming in like you know, West Chicago, like in Austin, talking to like gang interventional counselor UM, and she was just like, there's like nothing for these kids out there, you know,

there's just like no resources. They're shutting down schools, they're just hiring more cops. Is like this police state and there's literally the kids just don't have anything to look up to, like nothing, you know. The only way out is like like gangs or crime or something like that, like quick cash. But no, it just underscores the importance of actually making investments in community to stop crime from happening in the first place. Because cops just respond to

crime after it happens. That's like their primary role. They very really stop a break in or stop a sexual assault. But if we actually invest in like education and housing and stuff like that, in programs for these kids that are thinking about joining a gang, giving them something to be part of in their community that makes them feel validated and supported, we can actually cut this out at the route are we're gonna say, mac um I was

gonna go back to speaking of a police state. So you obviously know, you know, we've got this issue with mass incarceration, you know, going on right now. So do you see any sort of like link or relationship between Japanese and tournament and mass incarceration that we see today and that it's like incarceration yeah, I think like other rising people and making people the enemy, I think is just like something that's easily that that makes you easily

able to detain someone. You know, So like Mexicans calling them rapists and murderers and illegal aliens, you know, two negative words you know, right next to each other, is basically humanizing. Oh yeah, it's just it's it's a it's an optics war, right, so if you if you can dehumanize them, then sure you can lock them up. And so you know, as we've seen with like the media,

you know, black people cause crimes. Is that that's like in the movies and everything you got, Like I mean the eighties did have a lot of crime, sure, but it's like it was like all they focused on at the nightly news, the same way that I imagine the media was used to drum up hysteria around Japanese Americans

the World War. Absolutely, and it was it's basically like it's differentiating between um like immigrants in America, you know, like the Japanese immigrants in America who kind of looked like the Japanese enemy you know, over there, but they're just like they have no connection in that, like they're not military officers or like soldiers out in Asia, you know, so I think, um, that's that's one argument I've heard pe but like, oh, they should they probably you know,

they did horrible things in the Philippines, you know, to our soldiers in the Baton Death March and stuff like that. You know, they deserved it. And that's or they could have like they could have like uh, you know, they might like have enemy fields that when they invade, you know, they're going to help them when they invade. But there's like no evidence of that, you know. And so it was basically a lot of like lobby groups lobbying to the two politicians and to the media to kind of

hype up this this thing. And you know what I I also saw is that a lot of in wartime, a lot of like fringe writers, like like writers who would be on op ed pieces and not like the best journalist. That's the ones who come to the front, you know, and start spewing their kind of like racist ideologies.

And that's what's happening now exactly. Yeah, Okay, so so, um, I mean, what role do you think like Pearl Harbor did and like shocking the system, do you think that also kind of made it easier for them to to pull the trigger on it. Yeah, I mean that was like the I mean Pearl Harbord was just like just like the fuse on the powder keg of the big

bomb of what like this Japanese American struggle was. And so kind of in my movie, what I'm showing is that um America is America's don't like to be called imperialist, but they were definitely imperialistic in that, you know, they grabbed Hawaii, and they grabbed Guam, and they grabbed the Philippines and it's just they they had this westward expansion and so Japan was um uh, Japan was like the only you know, they're you know, Britain got China and Singapore,

and you know, the Dutch got in Malaysia and basically European powers in America were doing this vicious like land grab of all of Asia and Japan, Japan was really the only country that could stand up to this kind of imperialism and so they had to like quickly, you know, um build forces. And Hawaii was like half Japanese almost like with there's a lot of Japanese people living there at the time, and so it was like this kind

of in between place. It was like barely America, you know, because American Marines like basically took it in the eighteen what nineties Bannitt Treaty. So it's um, I can't even remember the original question, but I think, yeah, Pearl Harbor was like this the trigger. It was just like this it's ongoing power struggle between American Japan at that time. I mean, like I remember like some Japanese American people being like, um, when when nine eleven happened, people were like,

this is just like Pearl Harbor. And then Japanese Americans were like, I hope it's not like Pearl Harbor because after that, that's when we started locking up, you know, people like indiscriminately. So I think all these years later, I didn't even I didn't even stop to consider how

Japanese Americans must have felt during that time. That's crazy. Yeah, And I think we've we've mature, we're always maturing, you know, progressing, but there's always it's so easy to like forget these lessons, you know, like forget that, forget what we've done because it's uncomfortable talk or never learn what like what we've done, but in the first place to be mistaken into thinking though what we did was like way longer ago than

it actually was. Yeah, or it's very easy if you're the oppressor to be like, oh, come on, it's just like such a long time ago, you know. But you know, it's like, I guess you have to understand what generational trauma you know too, and if you don't have it, it's really difficult to understand. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we had a lot of conversations about generational trauma in our

last episode or a couple episodes. Go maybe, um, but um, you wanted to talk something about you seeing m art and songwriting too, sort of sort of like relive or re or like reinvigorate our understandings that history. Um. Yeah. So I think like as a musician, you know, all of us were kind of activated because we're generally liberal and progressive people, you know, artists, so, um, like after

Trump became came into power. So I think I definitely started writing more about history because I felt it so important. But it's difficult, you know, because history is like dusty, and the language is a little different. They speak, you know, differently than and it's like the photographs are all black and white and so and making this movie and this album, I had to figure out what was um like how

to really connect the modern audience to the past. And so instead of like being angry and like negative with

about injustice, I kind of um humanized the people in creating. Like, so a lot of my I'm still writing like love songs and UM songs about like you know, desire and you know, loss and stuff like that, but just to humanize the people back then, just to show people now that they were people just like you and they had these these same things that you the same feelings that you had that you have now to to empathize with them.

That was real dope talking acc you. We're gonna have him back later so we can do a little rapping thing later, right, Yeah, but first we want to talk a little bit about Asian contributions to hip hop. Yeah, we felt like, you know, I wanna I want to like close it on a positive note. Yeah, And also there's a lot of like prominent rappers that have um Asian heritage that doesn't get talked about because of the

binarization of race. So like you're either black or you're white, like I'm Native American, but I was never like that was never really impressed upon me at a young age because like I'm black, yeah, something like my grandmother's Native Americans, right exactly, And so like there's like it's lost when you're talking these like struggles, you know, it's like, right, yeah,

framed in white and black. And so we don't talk about the fact that Danny Brown was raised by a Filipino grandmother and karup attending at Filipino American church, or that Nike, even Naja's father is half Indian, or that Tiger's mother is Afro Vietnammes and grew up in Vietnam. And surprisingly to me, I didn't know Foxy Brown is of Chinese descent. The ways that race is constructed in

America that are racist, these heritages. But then there's a lot of contributions of Asian American rappers themselves that uh don't quite get the show that they deserve. So who do we got first? So first we got g Yamazawa with the track Violence. Yamazawa is a Durham born son of Japanese immigrants, a national poetry Slam champion, and a diplomat in the State department word. Yah, I know, yeah, I think it's really interesting. He opens the news video

with a quote from Norwegian sociologist Dr. Johan Galtung. Direct violence is intended to insult the basic needs of others, including nature. Structural violence implements such insults into social world structures as implements I drink a lot of wine. I drink a bottle of wine. Sorry A. Structural violence implements such insults into social and world structures as exploitation and repression. Cultural violence, such as religion and language legitimizes direct and

cultural violence. And that's how he starts the video. That's how he started, like always like on a black on white or something like that, like the black screen in the white text. Let's let's listen to something that real quick. The ceremonies never because the blood, guns and money isn't. Yeah. He talks about where he learned to talk about violence to describe his feelings in the context of rhyme from movies, TV, video games, and talks about the inherent violence in our

culture as well as art as a weapon. Like many rappers, uh talking about weaponry sold off shotgun as a metaphor to describe his rhyme skills, while also referring to like the broader violence that exists in our culture as well. Well. I wanted to bring up a rapper that I've known about for a long time, the this cat Dumbfounded. He's a known battle rapper, dope free styler. He used to write with Project Blowed back in the day. He's really dope cat. But this is his track safe Let's check

this up. Yeah um. In an interview with The l A Times, he said that the song came from when he was watching the Oscars a few years ago and they were having that Oscar so White controversy, and he was like he was watching it, but he was he still wasn't seeing any Asian people there, and I guess like Chris Rock was doing the hosting and he was making a bunch of like Asian jokes and they were

pretty stereo. You know, from the interview, Dumbfounder wasn't too like bothered by the Asian jokes, but just that they were like the same old stereo typical stuff and they were getting like huge roaring laughter. So he was like, man, funk that. So he he made this song where he's referencing how there's there's there needs to be more leading men in the Asia, in in in Hollywood, and that here's the only yellow man there. It was the goddamn statue and ship. Yeah, let's take a look at Year

of the Oxes, thoughts and prayers. You're sorry. I gotta give a shout out to your The ox Mahomie is lyrics. I know that, dude. Yeah. Yeah. So the Korean American rappers from Fairbacks and Virginia Beach and in this song.

It's actually interesting because they addressed the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally and the murder of Heather Higher and the opening lines, but they also speak to the desensitization that comes with political engagement and outrage fatigue when they talk about it's hard to have an appetite when you notice this time started off as black and white, but you noticed the gray. As you get older, your arms get

fold and your hearts get cold. To get minds so coustophobic like just and I feel I haven't feel that a lot lately with the uprising of just like Funk. I'm fucking tired and like trying to fight that and try not to like make that, make let that make you into more of a conservative, because I'm really happy they touched upon that in this song. It like wears

on you after a while. Yeah, yeah, And we're broadly to talk to touch upon gun violence, to talk about the Mandalaid Bay shooting in Las Vegas and I believe two thousand and sixteen, as well as anti immigrant racism and the Trump administration. But then I thought, you know, I reflected a lot on the closing lines, So tell

me what's the move here. Nobody's been through it, no one can tell us what to do here, and what it's been on my mind a lot is that it's like a common feeling with how unprecedented things seem with the rise of fascism, the current pandemic and economic collapse,

the uprising. But the terms is that we have seen things like this before, and it's so important to learn from the past, from the Great Depression and how it gave rise to ideas like the Green New Deal, from the Spanish flu of nine eighteen, from the freedom fights that have come before us, and like remember bring that are times are precedented, and like learning from the folks that dealt with it before and embracing their tactics to answer that question that you're of. The ox leaves off

at the end of the song the next track. I like to pride myself in how much hip hop I listened to, But to be honest with you, I didn't even know that this girl wrapped until I stumbled upon this song for this project. Um, this is Aquafina with the song Pockies. Let's listen to this, white folks. Yeah, you see what I mean. It's like, it's not changing the world or anything like that. Obviously, it's one track.

I don't want to judge it by her whole discography, but I get the sense that she's kind of like a comedy rapper a little bit. That's some funny bars, which like are integral to any raps really if you don't chuckle at the metaphors and like what are you doing with that? But there is a difference because there are some there are there is some rap that's literally geared to be like stand up or like comedy show

that form. You know, it kind of reminds me of it has the same vibe as like Little Dickey exactly exactly. That's exactly I'm thinking, Hey, do your thing. It's just not really my my personal ship it was ill though, I mean, like the music video was dope and like it bangs, yeah for sure. I mean I did hear that there's a little bit of controversy with her for black scent and cultural appropriation and stuff like that. But A, that's a subject for another episode, and B I don't

really give a fun what's the next one? Kid Fresco, oh, kid Fraslino, what do you think about that? So it's a Japanese rapper here rapping in a mixture of Japanese and English, which to me comes across that's really impressionistic. But maybe there's something I'm missing as a non Japanese speaker. But like I mean, but just regarding the flow and regarding the beat, it's really like the times you can

sure switch ups. And I really it's got this little shout out to No Name when he talks about you know, no one is safe, which is pretty ill. So, like, you know, as a fan of like people like asap rock, like, I enjoyed the impressionist nature of the song as well as like the way he toy us with time signature and whatnot. So let's give it a listen really quick. You are the reason why I think no faith killer

a mighty folk. Yeah, I mean the thing that stood out to me and I was really digging the flow and like, I love the way that he transitioned between the Japanese and the English. That's actually brilliant. That's something that I'm starting to hear a lot of international rappers start to do now, which is like really making me wish I still do how to speak French because it sounds I used to. Yeah, I used to. I used to speak French up until I was like six, and

then that's when I started learning English. But I was still taking it throughout school and then you know, graduate school and started drinking and smoking and stopped speaking it with people, and the next thing you know, you haven't spoken it. Insane and last, but not least, is a rapper on the rise. It was my life by China Mac. Let's check this up. Always always feeling I was on

the long out of fight for that fall. Now, the thing that I initially noticed about him is it's like the opposite of Aquafina, where he's a street rapper, except he's coming at it from a uniquely Asian perspective. I mean, if you, if you listen it and I, you know, skim through some more of his stuff, and it's from a content standpoint. It's no different than stuff that you would hear, like a g Unit record or you know what I mean, Cassanova, Rick Ross, you know what I mean.

But the thing is he's doing it from his perspective. So he's rapping about his mother being an immigrant. He's got like lines like I didn't have no silver spoons that had chopsticks, you know what I mean. It's just like some some good quality gutter street rap, you know what I'm saying, but with an Asian twist to it. I love it. I love it. So I think that's gonna do it for this episode. You're ready to wrap rap. Let's get Keyshie back up here. Okay. So what I

do is I start with the violin. I looked at the metronome. I got your favorite tempo VPM. I'm adding more violent. I'm one okay. Now I'm gonna speed it up double time. I'm going to pick up the mic a little beat down. Okay. Now I'm taking the violin, pens the base down on its FI and now it's ready for wrap, ready for rap, whether you pack them on three and in factory in Pakistani packing on the eat the Black with Attias, Oh Yestas takes me for me, the blasted things when they said arm me for your

family and everybody on the street. It's like they did in California nineteen forty three. If you listen, they take some notes about the history battles of the victory, the intersectional plitter Sweet, whether you folcome to her key over the one in between. We gotta beat the inner. They tap my phone, so the streets for Washingtek. I like the beats poppies, but now you rock them with the Kishi bashi. He saw my autograph. I keep the copies.

I like some about the popular podcast. We will speak to Nazis cause we just keep the sloppy while the beat is knocking. Dinch stop me, I would eat a rapper likes beef and rock me dope knife. You heard the chap. Don't stop until I put those cops in the term and camps. I'm a fucking idiot, A I'm dope nice. We are waiting on reparation. H We'll see you next week. Waiting on reparations as a production of

I Heeart Radio. Listen to waiting on reparations on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.