Paranoia: “Suspicion and mistrust of people or their actions without evidence or justification.” -Google Dictionary.

All cultures have their preoccupations but the exceptional power of White culture in the United States to back up its fears with violence demands special attention. Today we consider what the recent killings of Asian women working at massage parlors and public reaction from majority communities says about fear and racialized misogyny in White communities and we consider opportunities to connect and collaborate with Asian women.

What happens when your sense of identity no longer matches your access to power where you live? Our guest today is the poet, essayist, and actor Danielle Levsky, a first generation U.S. citizen whose parents immigrated to the United States from post Soviet Russia in 1992.

She joins us to query what it means to be simultaneously dominant in one place and subservient in another, what that reveals about the contrived nature of White supremacy, and the potential that uncovering White supremacy’s artificiality brings to liberating other intersecting identities from the false constructs of power in the United States. Come Abide Here. Come Hungry/Leave Transformed.

“ Paradox: One (such as a person, situation, or action) having seemingly contradictory qualities or phases” Merriam-Webster. While all women in leadership positions face the perceived paradox of being a woman in power, women of color, and Black women in particular, often face additional challenges just doing their jobs.

In this pre-Tea episode Deane joins Come Abide Here founder Bathabile Mthombeni to talk about what makes being a Black woman in power so complicated and about how White women can better partner with Black women and other women of color in their organizations to build coalitions that resolve the perceived power paradox.