advocate, adviser, writer, storyteller
As my black and brown friends on Facebook express grief and horror at the recorded murders of #AltonSterling and #PhilandoCastile, the majority of my Asian/Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) friends' statuses are about the latest Pokemon Go release and basketball players. Don't get me wrong -- not posting about #BlackLivesMatter doesn't mean you are somehow anti-black …
Continue reading "Asian police and the complicity of Asian Americans in anti-blackness"
Rachel Dolezal, Vijay Chokalingam (Mindy Kaling’s brother, who became known after pretending to be black on medical school applications), and now Michael Hudson. Running through these racial disguises is a common, disturbing thread: the notion that racial identity — composed of all the nuanced struggles and complex interactions that come with navigating America as a racialized person — consists …
Continue reading "What racial masquerades show about our understandings of “diversity”"
Like, I'm sure, many others, I've been trying to articulate why precisely white woman Rachel Dolezal's claim to black identity is so problematic, particularly in the context of many people's ignorant comparison of the Rachel Dolezal story to that of Caitlyn Jenner's. I've read many thought pieces and seen videos, and though each have enlightening …
Nicole Zhao 