Did you miss us last week? We missed you! Listen in to this week’s episode in order to hear some exciting updates, a small podcast look-back, and what we have planned for this summer…
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As we’ve discussed on the show, as biracial people with Japanese immigrant parents, anti-Asian hate is something we’ve had to be even more keenly aware of over the last few years. Even beyond that point of tension, let’s be honest, the world is just a lot - for everyone - nowadays.
So we wanted to present you with a gift.
The gift of connecting with spiritual energy, along with an actual sound healing that you can pull over to the side of the road for, or sit or lay down in a safe space to listen to and absorb.
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We’ve spoken about cross-racial solidarity a few times, but never with quite the beautifully illustrative stories and historical references and personally motivating oomph that we did today. And I think it’s important to note that this conversation is one that happened between the three of us, all identifying as Asian and American, about topics that involve not only our shared Japanese American and Asian American history but included a focus on how we collectively combat White supremacy.
We get to speak with David Mura, author of The Stories Whiteness Tells Itself - yes, it’s quite the title - and if you have any desire to make any change in this country whatsoever, you’ll want to commit to listening to this conversation in its entirety. We absolutely loved it.
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When the email came into our inbox introducing us to a multimedia project called “Jane Crow, Then & Now,” we were immediately intrigued. After all, Jane Crow - or White women’s support for White supremacy - is something we’ve talked about a lot. This support, of white women for white supremacy, has gone on for way longer than most people realize; it’s not just confined to the South; and it’s a prevalent force in our schools, meaning that students and teachers of color are often oppressed due to the power of white women’s support of white supremacy.
As we’ve often said, White women have a lot of power in their own spheres of influence, where two-thirds of women voters are white, 80% of public school teachers are white women, and beyond that, one of these many spheres is deeply personal: child-rearing. It’s the conversations and actions that White women are taking with regard to their own children, and what they’re teaching them, both implicitly and explicitly, that will change the course of the future - for the collective good, or for individual gain.
A lot of White women have chosen to uphold White supremacy through apathy or inaction, even if they don’t consider themselves racist. Those who have chosen to walk against the tide of our country’s trajectory toward racism have done so at great personal cost - but sometimes, for even greater collective gain: our children’s futures.
That’s why, on the eve of Mother’s Day, we’d like to highlight this project by EdPost which highlights the allies in history: the White women accomplices who challenged the system and worked for equity in education for Black and brown children, at great personal cost. For white women looking for historical role models and sheroes, the Gallery of Accomplices provides a GREAT list of resources to encourage and inspire all people to deepen our historical knowledge and commitment to cultural humility, deeper listening when working with children, and families, and communities whose experiences differ from our own.
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If you’re listening to this episode when it’s released, we’re now in May of 2023, which is also AAPI Heritage Month. There are a lot of names for this month, which is great, as there are also a lot of countries and ethnicities represented by the simple word “Asian”. But one group of people that is often left out of the overarching Asian umbrella are the biracial Asians - and, given our own identities in this space, this is something that we experience regularly.
So, to kick off AAPI Heritage Month from a perspective not often discussed, we’re focusing today on our personal stories of being biracial Asian women, and what identity, belonging and inclusion means when we look at being Asian in this country through this lens. And, since it’s us, we’ll be throwing in a little bit of history, laws and psych along the way.
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What SCOTUS will do this term, and what they decide in June, will determine a lot of our ability to keep some basic human rights in a democracy - and the three cases that we’re going to be talking about also may impact you, regardless of what state you’re in.
Back in Episode 108, “Why we all should be concerned about voter suppression,” we talked a LOT about the history of voting rights in this country, the need for the Voting Rights Act (hint: it comes back to racism), and how voter suppression was currently happening in this country. And… while we’d like to say that here in 2023 things have changed, they have not, given that two of the three cases that we’re talking about in this episode deal directly with the right to vote. The third addresses LGBTQ+ rights, but could be interpreted to limit rights much more broadly, and in all 50 states.
So listen up, because we’re going to be breaking down three key cases and why you should be following these decisions when they’re released in June.
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With decisions pending in the two Supreme Court cases discussing the future of affirmative action, today we talk about all things affirmative action, including: where it came from, who the biggest beneficiaries of it have been (and if you know a White woman in this country, you’ll want to listen) if we still need it (yes), and what you’ll really need to know about where our society may be headed – because this not only impacts education but our companies and communities, too.
Bottom line: affirmative action actually affects all of us. Listen in to hear why.
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This week marks the FOUR YEAR anniversary of the Dear White Women podcast!
From those first few episodes released altogether on April 15, 2019, to now… it’s been quite the ride. This year, in order to kick off year five (!!!) of the podcast, we thought we’d devote an entire shorter episode to talking about not only the past four years but what we have in store for the future (you didn’t think we’d end with four, did ya?).
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Most people that we know didn’t grow up thinking about or knowing people who were involved in unions. Us too – until Sara married a union man. And it got us thinking… how have unions impacted all of our lives? Turns out, quite a lot.
Here’s one way: the length of the typical workday. Thank unions for 8 hours – because that didn’t just magically happen out of the goodwill of employers. Unions campaigned for over 70 years to move the average workweek from 100 hours per week (!!) down to 40. At one stage, back in the 1950s, nearly one in three workers were in unions, and they played a HUGE role in reducing income inequality and boosting wages. Done right, unions are a public good – they provide benefits for all of society, so basically are the underpinning of a democracy and economy that works for most people.
But here we are today in 2023. You have probably heard about the Fight for 15, to get $15/hour to be the minimum wage for folks in the fast food industry. You may be seeing headlines of workers starting unions at Starbucks, Amazon, Apple, and maybe you even know some folks who are involved. Support for labor unions in the U.S. is currently at a 57-year high, where 71% of Americans approve, but participation is at a record LOW, where only just over 10% (about 14 million American workers) are actually part of a union. Join us as we dive into understanding this critical piece of the puzzle when it comes to shaping not just corporate but our country’s policies and the perpetuation of this growing inequality - and yep, it’s not surprising, but there’s a racial component to this too.
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I hear the word lobbying and used to envision some sort of dark mysterious magic taking place. But it turns out there are some very forthright, thoughtful individuals who play the role of lobbyist - being hired because they know something about how the legislative process works, willing to give advice and defend positions about what they think is right when it comes to regulating companies and advocating for or against policies that will impact the folks living in our country.
Today, we speak with one of those fantastic individuals, David Louie. David is a former Attorney General of Hawaii and lobbyist for firms including Meta and Airbnb. So grateful that he was willing to share this time with us on the podcast so we can learn first-hand about what lobbying means for individuals, and for the future of our democracy! And a note to all you lawyers out there: add “lobbyist” as a potential career path if you want to use your advocacy skills in a different, yet similar way…
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If you’ve ever watched an episode of Law and Order, you’ll know Jack McCoy, who was the District Attorney (with a capital D and A) in that show. Together with his team, Jack McCoy made decisions about a lot of people’s guilt or innocence and argued that in court. Typically, when we think about a criminal trial, there are two phases: culpability, and sentencing. So in the first phase, either the judge or jury decides if the defendant is guilty or not, and then, if the defendant is found guilty, in that second phase, the judge or jury decides what that sentence should be.
But aside from that, it’s true that a lot of us don’t know what DAs do, or what their role is with regard to mass incarceration. Let’s get a little more analytical than Law and Order, and by the end of this episode, we hope you not only know more about what your DAs do, but have some ideas of how to hold them accountable, just like they hold us accountable.
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Today's interview is with Trinidad Rodriguez, who is a candidate for Mayor of Denver. Today, he's giving us an inside look at what it’s like running for office, to expand on our civics engagement series. [The DWW Podcast does not endorse political candidates.]
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When we first released this episode, it was roughly two months after George Floyd had been murdered by the police and it was perhaps the first time that non-Black Americans, and in particular, White Americans, realized that this police violence wasn’t isolated to a few communities, but indeed was a national problem.
And now we’re sitting here, a month after Tyre Nichols was murdered by the police, and thought it was important to revisit this topic based on the discussions that we’ve been hearing, and reading, on the topic of police. We’re now 2.5 years away from this original recording - how have your own thoughts on the police changed since that point?
In the end: the history of policing in our country is America’s history. If we don’t understand this history, we won’t be able to keep ALL of our communities safe in the future.
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Today is the last day of Black History Month in the United States. It shouldn’t be confined just to the shortest month of the year, but instead should be taught to our kids every day of the year, and should be talked about by us as grownups by an equal amount. Tune in and share!
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If you’ve been following us on our journey through (third grade) civics, you’ll know that we’ve covered the federal government/civics on a national level in our Civics 101 episode, which was Episode 203, and then focused on state government in Civics 102, which was Episode 205. We’re now here to round out our basic civics knowledge with Civics 103 - everything - and more, if we’re being honest - that you wanted to know about your local city/county/municipal governments. Let’s jump right into this.
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A recent headline that Governor Ron DeSantis of FL was banning the AP course on African American studies, the same curriculum that is taught in ALL 50 STATES! We’re on our civics kick, and we are bringing you back to the discussion we had in April 2022 on banned books. Tune in!
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We’re back in our Intro to Civics course! You know, the one you probably took in third grade and maybe, if you were lucky, in some form in middle and high school and didn’t pay enough attention to? Or maybe you never took it, if you live in the 60% of states that don’t require students to take a civics exam as a graduation requirement - which is something we learned about in Episode 203, “I’m Just A Bill,” where we focused on the federal level.
This episode, is going to focus on the states, get a little deeper into what our own local officials are doing, and how we can all get more involved in our own governance.
You're probably with us in being sick and tired of feeling like we can’t make a difference or make positive change. SO get ready - we think you’ll be blown away when you learn how much local politics affect us on a daily basis.
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This is not the episode we wanted to record this week - but it’s the one that we NEEDED to record this week. Why? Because just as we’re venturing down the rabbit hole of topics over the next few months that is Civic Engagement and making a difference for 2024, we had blatant scary fearful reminders about why we want you all to know and do more - because people’s lives are at stake.
If you want to know how we feel about the latest mass shootings targeting Asian folks and Black folks, why we don’t give a shit that it was an Asian shooter, how to think about hate crimes, and what the larger issues are and what things are that we can each actually DO - listen in.
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I’m just a bill, on Capitol Hill… do you remember that song, from Schoolhouse Rock? If that jogs your memory, this is the episode for you. If you’re too young to remember that song, this episode is for you. If you hate that song, this episode is for you.
Why? Because this episode is about civics - in other words, how our government functions. We’re at a pretty critical time in our country’s history. With all of what’s been in the news, through the disastrous Speaker of the House election in the House of Representatives, and in the discussions we’ve had, and will have, about Supreme Court decisions, and how where we are right now in 2023 is basically setting the stage for the crucial Presidential election of 2024 - this is a topic that we probably all should know a lot more about. Because right now, we don’t.
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We promised to bring you more conversation about civics and engagement - and today we get to bring you a “real talk” episode about one of our favorite topics - civics, engagement, and a White Woman’s Work. Plus, as a special bonus, we do this in conversation with NYT Bestselling Author Kate Schatz - a queer white woman - who is basically the perfect human being to tackle these topics with.
We talk about what she’d say to white women if she could say absolutely anything, the interconnectedness of oppression while avoiding devolving into the Oppression Olympics, how to figure out what to ask fellow white people about racism instead of asking people of color,
How white women can channel a little more bravery once they know what’s really at risk - which is tied into the mic drop moment when she references Trevor Noah - and really importantly, the folks and civic organizations who are actually making huge differences that we can each get behind. Consider this your “DWW ease in” to our civics focus, but any way you think of this, you should listen, and then get all of your friends to do the same, as we kick off 2023.
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