WEBVTT 00:00:00.100 --> 00:00:06.673 ...and I walked up to him and I said you know your bike's blocking my way. 00:00:06.673 --> 00:00:12.145 And I mean he just turned around and kind of looked at me, had his helmet on, he opened his visor, 00:00:12.145 --> 00:00:17.518 and he said "I'm busy. I'll get to it in a minute" 00:00:17.518 --> 00:00:20.521 Sort of telling me, "I've got the power, you don't". 00:00:20.521 --> 00:00:23.336 I felt like it was misplaced rage. 00:00:23.336 --> 00:00:28.462 I felt like it was focused on me, but it was misplaced rage. 00:00:28.462 --> 00:00:30.331 And I'm afraid of that. 00:00:30.331 --> 00:00:34.835 I run into it, and I'm afraid, and I think that... 00:00:34.835 --> 00:00:38.238 I read the media, I watch television, read the newspapers, 00:00:38.238 --> 00:00:49.150 and all I get is this reenforcement, all I get is reenforcement about these negative stereotypes. 00:00:49.150 --> 00:00:56.444 And it takes a real effort to, sort of, combat this. 00:01:12.887 --> 00:01:19.880 I am reluctant and fearful of further division between us. 00:01:19.880 --> 00:01:27.621 I'm worried that dividion between us will happen even more where we won't come back together. 00:01:27.621 --> 00:01:31.592 That, that's something that is, runs deep with me. 00:01:31.592 --> 00:01:35.095 That stops me from looking at areas that get hard, 00:01:35.095 --> 00:01:37.640 when it comes to other people of colour. 00:01:37.640 --> 00:01:41.602 I have been, uh, a little bit nervous about getting into this, 00:01:41.602 --> 00:01:49.389 and not wanting to have us uh... y'know just laying our junk out on the table 00:01:49.389 --> 00:01:57.118 without acknowledging that it's a, that there's a context of white racism that we live within, 00:01:57.118 --> 00:02:02.523 that helps to separate us and confuse us about each other. 00:02:02.523 --> 00:02:11.498 And I do agree that um, you have to look at inter-ethnic racism within the context of white supremacy, 00:02:11.498 --> 00:02:15.135 but I disagree with the fact that you can't cover that up, because it is there 00:02:15.135 --> 00:02:17.337 and we have to deal with it 00:02:17.337 --> 00:02:22.083 before we can do anything about white racism. 00:02:22.083 --> 00:02:24.916 We have to deal with that conflict, 00:02:24.916 --> 00:02:27.672 because it's there, and in my opinion it's growing. 00:02:28.631 --> 00:02:35.956 By exploring inter-ethnic racism, we've torn apart the unity that we built up earlier 00:02:35.956 --> 00:02:37.858 when we were jsut attacking white people. 00:02:37.858 --> 00:02:40.527 [Victor interrupting] ... the bit about attacking white people, 00:02:40.527 --> 00:02:47.596 I think attacking white racism... I don't think it's about attacking white people. 00:02:48.602 --> 00:02:52.873 There is some anger, um, underlying real anger, 00:02:52.873 --> 00:02:59.013 and we're afraid to express it because we want to as Victor said maintain some kind of unity here 00:02:59.013 --> 00:03:01.046 that we've established. 00:03:01.046 --> 00:03:08.270 Maybe we should take the risk and lay it all out. 00:03:08.655 --> 00:03:11.692 [Roberto] I mean, talking about it helps. 00:03:11.692 --> 00:03:14.328 Bringing it out into the light helps. 00:03:14.328 --> 00:03:16.430 It loses some of its mystery. 00:03:16.430 --> 00:03:18.168 Some of its power. 00:03:19.099 --> 00:03:21.154 Growing up. I picked up stereotypes 00:03:21.154 --> 00:03:28.871 that Blacks were lazy, that they were violent, that they were dangerous. 00:03:28.871 --> 00:03:32.808 I mean, there still is a tape in the back of my head that plays back all the time, 00:03:32.808 --> 00:03:38.434 but there's another tape that I've developed that says that this isn't true. 00:03:39.281 --> 00:03:44.986 When I see Asian people being, uh, praised for intelligence, 00:03:44.986 --> 00:03:47.889 and Black people invalidated for being stupid, 00:03:47.889 --> 00:03:50.659 I feel bitter about it. 00:03:50.659 --> 00:03:53.762 You know, cause, I know I'm very smart, I've always been very smart, 00:03:53.762 --> 00:03:59.635 and you know, it hurts me to see that acknowledgement given up to other people, 00:03:59.635 --> 00:04:01.537 when it's taken away from me. 00:04:01.537 --> 00:04:05.975 And all the people in my community, with very few exceptions where I grew up, 00:04:05.975 --> 00:04:07.576 worked very very hard. 00:04:07.576 --> 00:04:11.379 My mother worked hard, my grandmother worked hard, my aunts & uncles worked hard, 00:04:11.379 --> 00:04:12.848 they worked themselves to death, 00:04:12.848 --> 00:04:14.883 and they pulled and they pulled on their bootstraps, 00:04:14.883 --> 00:04:17.881 and those suckers just tore off, and they didn't get no place. 00:04:18.019 --> 00:04:19.710 You leave home every day, 00:04:19.710 --> 00:04:21.990 your parents instill in you that you're a good person, 00:04:21.990 --> 00:04:23.325 you know 00:04:23.325 --> 00:04:24.893 you're a moral person. 00:04:24.893 --> 00:04:27.496 Yet when you go out into the world, yknow, 00:04:27.496 --> 00:04:32.801 just because of the colour of your skin, people avoid you, 00:04:32.801 --> 00:04:36.538 they look at you as if you're a potential killer, 00:04:36.538 --> 00:04:38.540 they don' t think you're as smart as they are, 00:04:38.540 --> 00:04:42.944 you watch the news, who do you see being taken away in handcuffs all the time? 00:04:42.944 --> 00:04:47.015 It's somebody that looks like you, somebody that could be you. 00:04:47.015 --> 00:04:51.294 You're always under suspicion, so at times you do wonder if it is you. 00:04:52.988 --> 00:04:58.255 In my father's restaurant, it was, y'know, make sure we don't have Blacks come into our restaurant 00:04:58.255 --> 00:05:01.730 because it'll mean tha white people won't come into our restaurant. 00:05:01.730 --> 00:05:06.802 And you know... people, white people don't want ... Blacks in the restaurant. 00:05:06.802 --> 00:05:12.007 But all tha time, the whites were really encouraging that, without knowing it. 00:05:12.007 --> 00:05:16.645 And that's why when I hear about the Black and the Asian community, I feel so sad about that, 00:05:16.645 --> 00:05:24.152 because I think that there's a way in which we've been really used, used, to put down Black people. 00:05:24.152 --> 00:05:25.888 y'know, especially the L.A. riots, y'know? 00:05:25.888 --> 00:05:31.160 "The poor little Korean grocer, if only Blacks could work as hard as us, 00:05:31.160 --> 00:05:33.462 with such great family values, 00:05:33.462 --> 00:05:38.834 y'know, look what they get, then the Black people beat em up, burned down their stores", 00:05:38.834 --> 00:05:43.205 y'know, and the fact of it was, we were both being exploited, 00:05:43.205 --> 00:05:46.741 we've been both taught to be really scared of each other. 00:05:49.144 --> 00:05:54.816 And I, I, it just, it's it's, I mean it hits me here, y'know? 00:05:54.816 --> 00:05:59.588 Because, many of you know because my mother was murdered by an African American man. 00:05:59.588 --> 00:06:06.028 I can be just as angry and buy into my father's stereotypes about African American men, 00:06:06.028 --> 00:06:08.897 but I knew where he was headed with that. 00:06:08.897 --> 00:06:11.333 I knew where he was headed. 00:06:11.333 --> 00:06:16.171 That all African American men murder and kill, 00:06:16.171 --> 00:06:20.593 and he wanted me to pass that on to my child, 00:06:20.593 --> 00:06:26.314 but I know the stories he told me about the racism that's happened to us, 00:06:26.314 --> 00:06:31.387 and somehow, I just wanted to say "REMEMBER what happened to us!" 00:06:31.802 --> 00:06:36.520 Just remember what happened to us happens to everybody else. 00:06:38.193 --> 00:06:42.277 And I know he wanted somebody to stop that. 00:06:43.932 --> 00:06:46.067 He wanted another Asian man to stand up for him. 00:06:46.067 --> 00:06:48.970 He wanted another Black man to stand up for him. 00:06:48.970 --> 00:06:52.864 And maybe, another white man to stand up for him. 00:07:03.919 --> 00:07:07.756 I have had, um, a fair number of experiences 00:07:07.756 --> 00:07:13.695 of being, um, or feeling invisible from Black to Latino, 00:07:13.695 --> 00:07:19.968 where essentially I've been given the message that 00:07:19.968 --> 00:07:27.042 my issues as a brown person are not as important or as bad as a Black person's 00:07:27.042 --> 00:07:31.246 because of the ligh..., I'm whiter, y;know. 00:07:31.246 --> 00:07:36.685 So, um, that somehow the measuring of the colour line, 00:07:36.685 --> 00:07:39.495 um. you're either black or you're white 00:07:39.495 --> 00:07:42.591 and if you're in the middle there, then, it doesn't count. 00:07:42.591 --> 00:07:46.394 Like, I watch out to see, alright, now which one are you gonna be? 00:07:46.394 --> 00:07:49.998 The one that values my experience, or the one that says 00:07:49.998 --> 00:07:53.068 the only thing you need to do is pay attention to what happens to Black people. 00:07:53.068 --> 00:07:56.104 Y'know, so when I meet you, that's the kind of thing that goes through... 00:07:56.104 --> 00:07:58.231 OK now which one are you gonna be? Which one are you gonna be? 00:07:58.231 --> 00:08:01.207 Y'know, that's uh, the tape that goes on. 00:08:02.578 --> 00:08:09.151 You mention the skin colour and I think if you go back to when we were slaves 00:08:09.151 --> 00:08:11.053 or enslaved in this country, 00:08:11.053 --> 00:08:14.890 um, the lighter skinned slaves were the house slaves, 00:08:14.890 --> 00:08:17.225 and they usually had more privilege. 00:08:17.225 --> 00:08:21.496 Now, you bring that into the 20th century, 00:08:21.496 --> 00:08:27.202 and a lot of Black people may equate lighter skin with more privilege, 00:08:27.202 --> 00:08:33.075 and that's why they don't see that you would have a problem that we would have. 00:08:33.075 --> 00:08:37.079 In, you were talking about skin colour, within the Black community, 00:08:37.079 --> 00:08:40.582 well in the Latino community there is skin colour also... 00:08:40.582 --> 00:08:41.950 [Loren] What about Asians... 00:08:41.950 --> 00:08:42.985 [Lee Mun Wah] Asians too... 00:08:42.985 --> 00:08:47.856 And the darker you are, the kind of lower you are on the scale. 00:08:47.856 --> 00:08:50.859 And like, mothers when they have a baby and the baby is white, 00:08:50.859 --> 00:08:55.663 "Oh que blanco!" or whatever, "beautiful!" You know? 00:08:55.663 --> 00:08:59.834 "_es casi rubio!" you know? "He's almost blonde"... 00:09:00.742 --> 00:09:05.440 You know, I know that many Black folks resent any signs of assimilation, 00:09:05.440 --> 00:09:11.547 whether it be amongst other people in the Black community, or in oher ethnic communities. 00:09:11.547 --> 00:09:15.284 Y'know, and some of it's the skin colour stuff, 00:09:15.284 --> 00:09:19.187 uh, whether you're in the Black community or uh other people of colour communities, 00:09:19.187 --> 00:09:22.690 if you're lighter, there's less trust often, 00:09:22.690 --> 00:09:27.796 and more like, "well, you might use that light skin uh that you have 00:09:27.796 --> 00:09:30.732 to get more goodies out of white folks". 00:09:30.732 --> 00:09:33.902 My experience has been that white folks feel more at ease with people 00:09:33.902 --> 00:09:36.338 that are closer to the colour that they are. 00:09:36.338 --> 00:09:40.610 You know, and that I get to do stuff that my mom can't do, 00:09:40.610 --> 00:09:43.045 my mom's significantly darker than I am. 00:09:43.045 --> 00:09:52.320 I have had an easier time putting white folks at ease, uh, you know, because I'm not Loren's complexion, 00:09:52.320 --> 00:09:57.058 and that can create static between me and Loren... 00:09:57.058 --> 00:10:03.431 [David L] I get the impression sometimes from the African American community 00:10:03.431 --> 00:10:06.849 that Asians are perceived as privileged, 00:10:06.849 --> 00:10:12.674 that educationally we've achieved, economically we've achieved, we're almost like white people dammit, 00:10:13.089 --> 00:10:16.478 and therefore we're hated just, I mean... 00:10:17.263 --> 00:10:23.284 [Loren] What you can do, and maybe I'm putting too much pressure on you but, 00:10:23.284 --> 00:10:28.790 I think what you can do is make people understand how you achieve what you achieve, 00:10:28.790 --> 00:10:32.894 show em how you worked hard for it, that you weren't given anything. 00:10:32.894 --> 00:10:37.432 Again, I want to dispel the myth that all Asians have made it economically, 00:10:37.432 --> 00:10:41.136 because, that's not the truth, 00:10:41.136 --> 00:10:44.140 but the ones that do are very visible. 00:10:44.140 --> 00:10:49.444 [Victor] I was just thinking "the model minority", y'know, and that it's... what a set up. 00:10:49.444 --> 00:10:54.849 Y'know, it's like "why can't you people be more like those people? 00:10:54.849 --> 00:10:58.319 And then you wouldn't have the problems that you have" 00:10:58.319 --> 00:11:03.224 [David L] I think we are comparing each other based on white people. 00:11:03.224 --> 00:11:09.819 We are not white enough and therefore we chastise or criticize each other 00:11:09.819 --> 00:11:11.586 for not being like the white model. 00:11:11.586 --> 00:11:15.270 I think that's, that's why I call it internalized racism, 00:11:15.270 --> 00:11:21.643 cause I don't think that I in a vacuum am racist against Blacks, 00:11:21.643 --> 00:11:27.649 but because I come from a white context that Blacks are not like whites, 00:11:27.649 --> 00:11:30.885 and therefore I should be against Blacks, 00:11:30.885 --> 00:11:36.147 or Asians are not like whites, therefore I criticize Asians for not being like whites. 00:11:38.660 --> 00:11:42.164 I was wanting to think that I was white. 00:11:42.164 --> 00:11:43.865 I was wanting to blend in, 00:11:43.865 --> 00:11:47.803 I was just wanting to assimilate to this extreme degree, 00:11:47.803 --> 00:11:50.305 til I realized who I really wanted to be, 00:11:50.305 --> 00:11:51.606 and I looked back, 00:11:51.606 --> 00:11:57.579 and my family's internment in the concentration camps had a huge impact on them. 00:11:57.579 --> 00:12:00.215 They didn't want to identify with being Japanese, 00:12:00.215 --> 00:12:02.116 because when they said they were Japanese, 00:12:02.116 --> 00:12:07.088 they were discriminated against severely & locked up. 00:12:07.088 --> 00:12:11.193 They didn't want to identify as being Buddhist anymore, 00:12:11.193 --> 00:12:14.262 so my grandfather became Christian to blend in, 00:12:14.262 --> 00:12:17.799 and he like lost his real religion, 00:12:17.799 --> 00:12:20.521 and just now I'm starting to reclaim that. 00:12:21.503 --> 00:12:24.005 My dad taught me a lot of lessons. 00:12:24.005 --> 00:12:29.877 Family jokes about him being the Archie Bunker of the family, y'know? 00:12:29.877 --> 00:12:38.786 And um, Chinese are like loud and noisy businessmen that try to take your money or something like that. 00:12:38.786 --> 00:12:41.493 Several of my family members do not like Japanese. 00:12:41.493 --> 00:12:43.759 I think a lot of the older ones especially 00:12:43.759 --> 00:12:46.495 still remember the Sino-Japanese war, 00:12:46.495 --> 00:12:53.168 in which Japan invaded China and prettymuch brutalized a lot of people. 00:12:53.168 --> 00:12:54.402 [Yutaka]... int he process... 00:12:54.402 --> 00:12:57.272 [David L] Yeah, and a lot of them remember that, and that continues. 00:12:57.272 --> 00:13:03.945 I think they perceive the Japanese as arrogant, distrustful, extremely violent, and repressed. 00:13:03.945 --> 00:13:11.920 [Yutaka] ...a lot of that... so much of that's true too, that's the hard thing to deny. 00:13:11.920 --> 00:13:14.756 [David L] But it's not true for a lot of Japanese people... 00:13:14.756 --> 00:13:17.163 [Yutaka]... right, for us sitting right here... 00:13:19.728 --> 00:13:26.067 The number of times where I have not intervened on your behalf, or on your behalf, 00:13:26.067 --> 00:13:30.705 even on your behalf, for my own people, you know, 00:13:30.705 --> 00:13:34.042 where racism has flown, and I've let it fly 00:13:34.042 --> 00:13:39.714 about Black people, about Asians, about other Latinos even, about Indians, 00:13:39.714 --> 00:13:43.685 and I've, I think I have a lot of shame about that, 00:13:43.685 --> 00:13:47.422 and so if I expose that, what are you gonna think of me now? 00:13:47.422 --> 00:13:53.161 You know, that kind of stuff is part of what makes this heavy for me. 00:13:53.161 --> 00:13:57.098 A woman was talking about "oh those Cubans are taking over Florida", 00:13:57.098 --> 00:14:00.868 you know, just running with it, 00:14:00.868 --> 00:14:04.138 and I sat there, and I didn't say anything. 00:14:04.138 --> 00:14:06.941 And finally she said "Hugh, I wanna ask you something. 00:14:06.941 --> 00:14:09.603 I hope you know I wasn't wanting to offend you". 00:14:12.513 --> 00:14:15.917 And all of the things that I wanted to say, I sat on. 00:14:15.917 --> 00:14:17.619 You know, I sat on it. 00:14:17.619 --> 00:14:21.122 That's an example to me of being shameful and embarrassed 00:14:21.122 --> 00:14:26.292 of not coming to intervene on your behalf, or on my behalf for that matter. 00:14:27.295 --> 00:14:29.197 I understand. 00:14:29.197 --> 00:14:33.468 Earlier in my life I was totally surrounded by white people, 00:14:33.468 --> 00:14:36.137 and that was my life aside from my family. 00:14:36.137 --> 00:14:38.706 It was all white people around me. 00:14:38.706 --> 00:14:43.144 And every once in awhile, I'd hear a comment like that, or something like that 00:14:43.144 --> 00:14:45.447 about Cubans or Mexicans or whatever, 00:14:45.447 --> 00:14:48.884 "oh but Roberto you're not like that, I mean, I wasn't talking..." 00:14:48.884 --> 00:14:51.586 I wasn't even Roberto then, I was Bob or something like that. 00:14:51.586 --> 99:59:59.999 "Oh Bob, but you're not like that" ...