Escape From Plan A

The term “internalized racism” gets thrown around a lot in Asian American online discussions, but what does it really mean? While the phenomenon of internalized racism is undoubtedly real and has been historically apparent across all racial (usually non-white) groups, would online discussions be more productive if we were more articulate and specific in what we are saying when we use this term? Oxford and Jess welcome two first-time guests, Diana (a stand-up comedian) and Ken (an engineer), in talking through this topic.

Intro/Outro Song: "Answer: Love Myself" by BTS

Intro Voice Track: Highlights from "Take Me Out" (Australian dating show), "Why is China furious at RiceGum?", "The Hangover," and Esther Ku's standup

TWITTER:

Oxford (@oxford_kondo)

Jess (@cogitatotomato)

Diana (@discoveryduck)

REFERENCED RESOURCES:

"What Is Internalized Racial Oppression and Why Don't We Study It?" by Dr. Karen Pyke: http://www.irows.ucr.edu/cd/courses/232/pyke/intracopp.pdf

"Far Away From Me" by Jenny Zhang: http://www.rookiemag.com/2015/04/far-away-from-me/

Tim Chiou on dating as an Asian guy: http://www.thickdumplingskin.com/post/4719422289/tims-response

Show business, and creative industries in general, are difficult to be successful in for all people. But for minorities, there is an added burden of limited opportunities and community pressures to either not do it at all or be perfect at it. Jess hosts this discussion with two Asian women—Millie (a writer/director) and Quyen (an actress)—and an African American man—David (an actor/writer and first-time guest of this podcast)—to get a sense at what some minorities in America have done in the process of working in show business.

Intro/Outro Song: "Make'em Laugh" from Singin' In The Rain

TWITTER:

Jess (@cogitatotomato)

Millie (@onemillicentcho)

Quyen (@_quyenngo)

David (@an_publisher)

REFERENCED RESOURCES:

Man of the Hour Magazine (David's magazine): http://www.manofthehourmag.com/

Priska (the artist Millie is making a music video for): http://www.priskamusik.com/about/

Loa podcast (Quyen's podcast): https://www.loa.fm/

To celebrate Halloween, we're taking a break from our usual neurotic dissections of Asian America and just telling spooky and/or goofy stories! So get your toasted pumpkin seeds and Tootsie Rolls and join Teen, Mark, and Sammi as they swap tales.

Intro/Outro Music: Theme from "The Omen"

Intro Voice Track: Creepy Little Girl Talking & Singing / Halloween (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrH4jWchep8)

TWITTER:

Teen (@mont_jiang)

Mark (@snbatman)

Kevin Xu of The Model Majority Podcast (modelmajoritypodcast.com) joins Oxford, Jess, and Teen to discuss his views on identity politic's effect on Asian Americans, as well as the importance of the coming November midterms. We try to avoid the standard civics class lecture, and try a more realistic assessment of liberal identity politics, Asian pet issues, and giving half a shit. The Model Majority Podcast is available on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, and basically wherever you get your podcasts your from.

Intro/Outro Music: Rage Against the Machine (Bulls On Parade, Testify)

Intro Voice Track: The Manchurian Candidate (2004)

"The Hate U Give" is the new movie starring Amandla Stenberg that's based on the bestselling YA novel about a Ferguson-like incident where a policeman kills an unarmed young black man. The movie has been universally acclaimed, but it is not without its faults, especially with regards to how much responsibility it places on the black community for police violence. Teen, Oxford, and Millie talk about the pros and cons of the movie and wonder if it will age as badly as another once-heralded race-conscious movie like "Crash."

Intro/Outro Song: "God Bless The Dead" by 2Pac

Intro Voice Track: Thug Life Tupac Shakur Speech HQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2v4rWyCEeE)

TWITTER:

Teen (@mont_jiang)

Oxford (@oxford_kondo)

Millie (@onemillicentcho)

REFERENCED RESOURCES:

The National Review's disturbingly positive review of "The Hate U Give": https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/09/black-lives-matter-movie-stealth-conservatism/

Wesley Morris's article in NYT about art vs. wokeness: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/03/magazine/morality-social-justice-art-entertainment.html

Edward Crawford, iconic Ferguson protestor, found dead: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ferguson-protester-edward-crawford-subject-iconic-photo-found-dead-n755401

The ending of "La Haine": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IHO1LzLgIg

The Immigrant Time Warp is the phenomenon in which immigrants are locked into the social norms of their native countries at the time they left. Thus, they remain cultural time capsules, often unable to evolve with either their new cultures or their old ones. T.K., creator of the popular website Ask A Korean, has written about this issue on his blog and joins Oxford and returning guest Quyen to talk more about this topic, especially how it affects the children of these immigrants.

Intro/Outro Song: Theme from "Back To The Future"

Intro Voice Track: Abe Simpson from The Simpsons episode "Much Apu About Nothing"

TWITTER:

T.K. (@askakorean)

Oxford (@oxford_kondo)

Quyen (@_quyenngo)

REFERENCED RESOURCES:

T.K.'s article about the Immigrant Time Warp: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2010/09/mysteries-of-buffets-and-koreans.html

Quyen's Vietnam podcast: https://www.loa.fm/

T.K.'s article in NY Mag about BTS, Blackpink, and Kpop: http://www.vulture.com/2018/08/bts-black-pink-and-the-continued-success-of-k-pop.html

E. Alex Jung's article about being gay in Korea: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ealexjung/korean-american-asian-american

Oriana, Jess and Teen talk about Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's historic testimony against Brett Kavanaugh, and the disturbing connection it has with Amy Chua.

Intro/Outro music: "Don't You Forget About Me" by Simple Minds

Intro Voice Track: Dr. Christine Blasey Ford

TWITTER:

Jess (@cogitatotomato)

Teen (@mont_jiang)

REFERENCED RESOURCES

David Chen's NYT article about Yale Law's obsession with power: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/nyregion/yale-touted-kavanaugh-now-comes-a-moment-of-reckoning.html

Jess's referenced article about female bosses: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/the-queen-bee-in-the-corner-office/534213/

Twitter may be a mad circus, but there are still real people and real emotions powering that spectacle, which means important things can still be learned from it. What's the meaning behind Joshua Luna's Nerds of Color brouhaha involving (yet again) WMAF? Or the Celeste Ng and Louis Leung mess involving fake male allies and sock puppet accounts? And what does Black Twitter's drama over Briahna Joy Gray vs. Tariq Nasheed, as well as the recent outburst against DeRay McKesson in Ferguson, have to do with Asian Americans? Oxford, Teen, Mark, and Sammi try to make sense of all this (and Sammi wonders if she should indeed get a Twitter account).

Intro/Outro Song: "Heart and Soul" by Hoagy Carmichael

Intro Voice Track: Tarleton Gillespie on Custodians of the Internet (CivilServant Community Research Summit at MIT 2018)

TWITTER:

Teen (@mont_jiang)

Oxford (@oxford_kondo)

Mark (@snbatman)

REFERENCED RESOURCES:

Joshua Luna's "Reconciliasian" comic: https://twitter.com/Joshua_Luna/status/983778232918036481

Luna's tweetstorms about Nerds of Color incident: https://twitter.com/Joshua_Luna/status/1040650527879688192

Twitter jihad against Yowei Shaw: https://i.imgur.com/lhOkrMP.jpg

Academia silencing Dr. Karen Pyke: https://i.imgur.com/agHy6Br.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/nwquIya.jpg

Celeste Ng's tweets about not being attracted to Asian men: https://i.imgur.com/XESIDpv.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/JJsxoqY.jpg

Bitch Magazine on why "To All The Boys I've Loved Before" doesn't over-glorify white men: https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/double-standards-in-to-all-the-boys-ive-loved-before

Bitch Magazine on why "Master of None" does over-glorify white women: https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/aziz-ansari-white-feminism-south-asian-women

Briahna Joy Gray's tweet putting class above race: https://twitter.com/briebriejoy/status/1041864771702808577

Tariq Nasheed's tweet about Briahna Joy Gray and white and Asian zaddies: https://twitter.com/tariqnasheed/status/1042487646671405056

Briahna Joy Gray's tweet about attacks on her interracial relationship with an Asian man: https://twitter.com/briebriejoy/status/1042132437847957507

Lana Condor's interview where she compares WMAF with LGBTQ rights: https://www.thecut.com/2018/08/interview-lana-condor-on-to-all-the-boys-ive-loved-before.html

Pride Magazine slamming Lana Condor for comparing WMAF with LGBTQ rights: https://www.pride.com/movies/2018/8/28/lana-condor-dont-compare-lgbt-discrimination-interracial-dating

Activist protests DeRay McKesson at Ferguson book signing event: https://bossip.com/1668127/yikes-watch-angry-ferguson-activist-crash-deray-mckessons-book-tour-sit-yo-lyin-self-down-you-stole-money-video/

DeRay McKesson's ties to Teach For America: https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/why-deray-mckessons-plan-baltimores-schools-looks-it-comes-right-out-teach

Vanity Fair's profile on DeRay McKesson: https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2018/09/deray-mckessons-vest-is-forever

This is an episode we recorded a couple months back but didn't release. Jess and Teen were discussing the qipao prom photos -- something we're sure nobody wants to revisit. But instead of just the photos, we focused more on the huge media backlash against Asian Americans in the mainstream media, triggered by that most trivial of events: the viral tweet. Some lever must be turning these small things into big things. What can we meaningfully learn from this lever?

Intro Song: Intro to "Aggretsuko"

TWITTER

Teen (@mont_jiang)

Jess (@cogitato_tomato)

At last, the day has come! Long-time chum of Plan A, Trevor Beaulieu of the podcast Champagne Sharks, comes aboard as a guest to discuss the fascinating parallels in the black and Asian media/activist class, especially in how much they're governed by the laws of mainstream white liberalism. Trevor has also been a guest on leftist shows like Chapo Trap House and The Michael Brooks Show. He has also written for publications such as The Intercept. Jess, Teen, Mark, and Oxford join him on this episode.

Intro/Outro Song: "Here" by Ruby Ibarra

Intro Voice Track: Malcolm X on freedom, justice, and equality (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i3v8MPzz-c)

TWITTER:

Trevor: @rickyrawls

Jess: @cogitatotomato

Teen: @mont_jiang

Mark: @snbatman

Oxford: @oxford_kondo

REFERENCED RESOURCES:

Trevor's article on The Intercept about Kaepernick: https://theintercept.com/2017/10/05/colin-kaepernick-national-anthem-protest-trump-nfl/

Trevor on Ep. 224 of Chapo Trap House: https://soundcloud.com/chapo-trap-house/episode-224-cortez-the-killer-feat-trevor-beaulieu-and-katherine-krueger-7218

Trevor on Ep. 52 of The Michael Brooks Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9rpbVQCoqM

Champagne Sharks episode on Brookings Institute's study on black wealth: https://soundcloud.com/champagnesharks/cs-079-black-men-and-weath-study-feat-tommy-curry-drtjc-04012018

Champagne Sharks episode on Luvvie Ajayi: https://soundcloud.com/champagnesharks/cs-112-luvvie-ajayi-and-black-blackface-double-length-08262018

Slate's "The Waves" podcast on "To All The Boys I've Loved Before" (Plan A part at 17:00 mark): http://www.slate.com/articles/podcasts/doublex_gabfest/2018/08/the_waves_on_to_all_the_boys_i_ve_loved_before_slow_burn_and_peak_desirability.html

"Past, Present" podcast about alt-right's Asian fetish (Plan A part at 15:00 min mark): http://www.pastpresentpodcast.com/episodes/2018/1/15/episode-114-alt-right-asian-fetish-temporary-protected-status-and-raw-water

"American Born Chinese" by Gene Luen Yang: https://www.amazon.com/American-Born-Chinese-Gene-Luen/dp/0312384483

Oxford's article on "To All The Boys I've Loved Before": https://planamag.com/to-all-the-boys-i-ve-loved-before-has-creepy-racial-things-going-on-ad513e4dd470

"Dominate", a short story from The Root: https://www.theroot.com/dominate-1825451881

Jenny Han's NYT op-ed about Asian representation: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/17/opinion/sunday/crazy-rich-asians-movie-idol.html

Inkoo Kang's review on Slate of "To All The Boys I've Loved Before": https://slate.com/culture/2018/08/to-all-the-boys-ive-loved-before-movie-review-netflixs-new-rom-com-pales-next-to-crazy-rich-asians.html

Vox's review of "Sierra Burgess Is A Loser": https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/9/7/17830300/netflix-sierra-burgess-is-a-loser-review

The Toxic Drama on YA Twitter: http://www.vulture.com/2017/08/the-toxic-drama-of-ya-twitter.html

DeRay McKesson's essay on Storm: http://www.vulture.com/2018/09/i-was-raised-by-storm.html