Continuing with this focus on our Asian stories during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month this May, we want to dismantle one of the most harmful stereotypes of Asian Americans: that of the “model minority.” But what is it, exactly?

It’s many things - we’ve got tons of examples. But fundamentally, it’s the thing that has us believe that all Asians are subservient, meek, and inherently successful - and ignores the complicated history of Asian immigration, the fact that Asians aren’t a monolith, and why this label hurts all of us.

But, other people might argue - as stereotypes go, it seems like a great thing to be called, right? We disagree. And today, we’re going to talk about why we stand against this idea of Asian people being thought of as a model minority.

Read More

In your elementary, middle and high school years - what did you learn about Asian American history? Can you name even one specific thing that you learned about the role of Asians in American history? If you can’t name many, you aren’t alone - these weren’t generally taught in schools when we were growing up. And given how things are slow to change, there’s a high chance your children aren’t learning these in school now either. The importance of representation in curriculum is a favorite topic of ours, and today we’re turning this focus on the history of Asian Americans in the United States.

Because if you know the history, you’ll know that anti Asian racism ain’t new, people. In fact, it’s basically been built into American society for as long as Asians have been in this country. So get ready, because today we’re going to anti-racism school.

Read More

We’re kicking off a five-episode series that takes a deeper look into what it means to be Asian/Asian-American in this country - looking at the history behind anti-Asian discrimination, but also really talking about what being Asian means for us, and for our guests. Today we talk about all of that, and more, with Sara’s dear old friend Alan Mak, who is the co-founder and CEO of Version Tomorrow as well as the managing partner of the well-known fashion brand Public School.

This is a conversation not to be missed.

Read More

If you’re listening to this episode while scrolling through your phone, we want you to stop and pay attention. This episode, after all, will be all about attention - how we use it, where we spend it, and why some people are so good at pulling attention towards them, good OR bad.

We want to thank Charlie Warzel at the NY Times for bringing this week’s guest, Michael Goldhaber, to our attention. After all, how often do you get to connect with a visionary human being who predicted the destructive forces of social media and the fight for people’s attention - all the way back in the 1980s and 1990s (in other words, before social media even existed)?

Read More

The filibuster is a political tool that we’ve been hearing more about in the media - but what is it really, and what role does it play in not only stalling political agendas, but importantly, in keeping Black and Brown people suppressed? If we’re going to see it stay - or possibly go away - we need to know more. We’re talking about this today on why we should all care about the filibuster.

Read More

While “socialism” has often been the catchphrase used to instantly dismiss any talk of building social safety nets, people in a society do need some fundamental assurances of safety in order to function - and function well.

Particularly if you’re a woman, love a woman, or are a person of childbearing age, one specific angle of social safety nets is going to be considered before the Supreme Court. That is to say, access to decisions about women’s reproductive rights: abortion.

Take a listen to learn about the upcoming court cases that may reduce both the role of the government in general, and delegate decision-making about important topics like pregnancy to various states instead. Think about who might be in charge of making decisions for you, if that happens…

Read More

2020 was a record-setting year for voting. As Politico noted, the United States saw the largest raw turnout ever, with 81 million voters backing Biden over Trump, whose 74 million votes are the second-most in U.S. history.

But as many news sources noted recently, states nationwide are about to make it harder to vote.

Acting partly in response to widespread false allegations of fraud in the 2020 presidential election (aka the Big Lie, namely that Trump won the election and there’s widespread voter fraud), state legislatures have introduced about 250 bills this year that would limit access to voting.

We should all be concerned about this. Here’s why.

Read More

We are two Asian American women sitting here, shaken, devastated, and ANGRY about the senseless loss of life in Atlanta. Yet at the same time that we heard that eight people, including six Asian women, had been murdered in their place of business by a sole white male shooter - we were waiting for the excuses. For the lone shooter story. And for the lack of white accountability. And we weren’t disappointed.

Regardless of the shooter’s story, to Asians, this is a hate crime. The problem is that we have a long history in the United States of not being able to call hate crimes what they are - and to not see hate, especially when it’s directed against the model minority.

Ultimately, we need to unify against White supremacy, and call a spade a spade - we must hold people accountable when they commit acts of White supremacy.

Read More

We bring you a conversation with Hari Ziyad, author of Black Boy Out of Time, to talk about their own experiences growing up Black and queer in America, and the necessity of prison abolition - not just physical prison, but the mindset of punishment as a method of control.

Read More

It’s time we talk about the power that women have - and to be clear, we mean anybody who identifies as a woman. We need to talk about the state of womanhood today, the power we don’t even realize we have, and the division and self-hate we need to step away from so we can embrace our whole selves and each other. Why? Because we can MAKE CHANGE TOGETHER.

Let’s lean into intersectionality, look for ways to support each other through our communities, and reflect internally on how we show up for all women. We’re the majority. Let’s act like it.

Read More

Learning about the Black Panther Party and its grassroots community programs informs not only our understanding of history, but how the modern day Black Lives Matter movement has been treated. The Black Panther Party put many of its community programs in place in a remarkably short time, which also caused the FBI to sit up and take notice. But the key point we keep coming back to is that these programs worked, and more importantly, they were so crucial for the communities that they served.

It leads us to ask: wouldn’t we ALL be better off with those social safety nets, especially for those who most need them to survive?

Read More

If you ask many current activists fighting anti-Black racism and inequity today, they’ll tell you that the influence of the Black Panthers is immeasurable.

But as TIME magazine pointed out in February of 2021, for the past half-century, depictions of the Black Panther Party in mainstream media have largely glossed over their ideas or their community activism. “They’ve been reduced to leather peacoats and shotguns,” Shaka King, the director of the new Black Panther-focused film Judas and the Black Messiah says. “They’ve been called terrorists, fringe separatists, “wild beasts” and “the civil rights movement’s evil twin.””

So here is what you need to know about the Black Panther Party - the peacoats and shotguns part, about their policing of the police. We’ll talk about their powerful work supporting communities next week.

Read More