Podcasts about Diaspora studies

Send us a text message and tell us your thoughts.The Caribbean's artistic traditions reveal profound truths about our history, identity, and resilience. Keisha Oliver,  PhD candidate at Penn State, joins Strictly Facts as we discuss Bahamian visual culture that challenges conventional understandings of Caribbean creativity. From the gendered practice of straw craft—where women wove not just materials but stories across generations—to the radical educational approaches of forgotten art pioneers, this conversation uncovers how visual expression became a battleground for decolonization. Horace Wright traveled between islands as the Bahamas' only art educator during segregation, while Donald Russell created alternative spaces where Black and white students could learn together despite societal barriers. Their stories reflect the complex migratory patterns that define Caribbean identity itself: birth in one nation, heritage from another, and contributions to a third.Most provocatively, Oliver poses an existential question gaining urgency as climate change threatens island nations: "How do we preserve who Bahamians were outside the physicality of the Bahamas?" This challenge demands innovative approaches to cultural documentation that honor indigenous and African diasporic traditions while embracing new technologies and platforms. By framing arts education as a form of Black radical thought, this episode reveals how cultural expression functions as political resistance and nation-building. The conversation ultimately demonstrates that art doesn't merely reflect Caribbean identity—it actively creates it, serving as both anchor to our past and compass toward our future.Keisha Oliver is Bahamian assistant professor of Art and Design at the University of The Bahamas, and a PhD candidate in the dual-title Art Education and African American and Diaspora Studies program at the Pennsylvania State University. As an artist-scholar whose research intersects heritage studies and arts pedagogy, Oliver's current work focuses on mid-twentieth century transcultural African diasporic art histories and archives. She currently stewards the Charles Blockson Collection of African Americana and The African Diaspora at Penn State and serves on several boards for arts organizations in the Caribbean and United States. Her research has been published internationally in the areas of museum studies, visual arts research, Bahamian art, and Caribbean art history.Support the showConnect with Strictly Facts - Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | YouTube | Website Looking to read more about the topics covered in this episode? Subscribe to the newsletter at www.strictlyfactspod.com to get the Strictly Facts Syllabus to your email!Want to Support Strictly Facts? Rate & Leave a Review on your favorite platform Share this episode with someone or online and tag us Send us a DM or voice note to have your thoughts featured on an upcoming episode Donate to help us continue empowering listeners with Caribbean history and education Produced by Breadfruit Media

About Erica: Erica Joy Johnson (she/her) is a mother, partner, daughter, sister, minister, and scholar-artist. A doctoral candidate in the area of Religion, Psychology and Culture, with minors in Ethics and Rhetoric, Communication and Sacred Utterance, her work focuses on disclosure ethics, care practices, and black wordcraft. Prior to graduate school, Erica served as a victim advocate and grants coordinator for a domestic violence program. She holds a Master of Divinity with a concentration in Black Religion and Culture Studies, earning certificates in the Kelly Miller Smith Institute for Black Church Studies and the Carpenter Program in Religion, Gender and Sexuality. She has a Bachelor of Science in Child Development, African American and Diaspora Studies and Public Health.

Imani Patterson, Senior Assistant Director for Student Diversity Programs at UNLV, discussed the upcoming Black Mini Con, a new event inspired by the Queer Mini Con and featuring various lectures on Black history and culture. The event, scheduled for February 25, 2025, from 10 AM to 2 PM, will cover topics like Black joy, the mis-education of Black America, and community organizing. Patterson emphasized the importance of collaboration with departments like African American and Diaspora Studies and the College of Education. The event is free and open to all, with no registration required. Patterson also highlighted other cultural events planned for the year, including Lunar New Year and Woman Herstory Month.

Greetings Glocal Citizens! Next up in our Writing as Activism series, this week's episode, recorded at the 2024 Pa Gya! festival (in case you are wondering, this is the session taking place during our interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urYu7IA0ENE), features Nigerian poet and children's book author, Aduke Gomez. Aduke embraced writing in the past decade after a career in law and finance. She now utilises her legal and advisory skills to assist in business and creative development. Commencing her career in legal practice with the law firm of Udo Udoma & Belo-Osagie, she later worked for many years in various leadership roles within Ecobank Nigeria Ltd and Leadway Pensure PFA. She is regularly called to speak and moderate on topics related to her interest in history and culture and these have included sessions at Cornell University; The Institute of Africa and Diaspora Studies at the University of Lagos; the Lagos State Record and Archive Bureau; the annual conference of the Lagos Studies Association; the Ake Festival; and the Lagos Book and Art Festival (LABAF) amongst others. Her published collection of poems have featured as festival books for both the LABAF and the Ake Festival. And her children's books have also featured at previous editions of LABAF and Akada Children's Book Festival. She is currently the Chair of the Steering Committee of Art4Life (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRWjtk1Z9L6RlaKbZ88sy5w) - an initiative of the Lagos State Ministry of Health established to introduce art and the practice of art into the entire healthcare process. She is a member of the Advisory Board of Open House Lagos as well as the Advisory Board of Lagos Biennial. She volunteers on the Board of Child Life Line (https://www.childlifeline.org/mission) - an NGO established for the welfare of street children. In this conversation we not only get to know how Aduke pivoted into arts and public service, we also get to know more about her local in the context of her paternal ancestor's return from Brazil to Lagos. This speaks volume to the idea of activism as a way of being. Where to find Aduke? On LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/aduke-gomez-503668/?originalSubdomain=ng) On Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/adukegomez/?hl=en) OnX (https://x.com/duksyg) Who is on Aduke's essential Pan-African reading list? Mariama Bâ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariama_B%C3%A2), in The Paris Review (https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/05/13/feminize-your-canon-mariama-ba/) and more (https://www.ascleiden.nl/content/library-weekly/mariama-ba) Ama Atta Aidoo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ama_Ata_Aidoo) Buchi Emecheta (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buchi_Emecheta) Florence “Flora” Nwapa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flora_Nwapa) Other topic of interest: Return migration: Brazilians in Nigeria (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilians_in_Nigeria) The Nigerian Brazillian Project (https://nigerianbrazilianproject.org/aduke-gomez/) About the Emanicapados of Brazil (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2512522) Who are Tabom peoples? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabom_people) Biola Alabi Media (https://biolaalabimedia.com/about-us/) Special Guest: Aduke Gomez.

This is the Global Media & Communication podcast series. This podcast is a multimodal project powered by the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. At CARGC, we produce and promote critical, interdisciplinary, and multimodal research on global media and communication. We aim to bridge academic scholarship and public life, bringing the best scholarship to bear on enduring global questions and pressing contemporary issues. In this episode, our host, Kinjal Dave, sits down with filmmaker, artist, and writer Paromita Vohra for a wide-ranging conversation about the artist's career. As an artist, Vohra has worked across a variety of forms, including film, comics, digital media, installation art and writing to explore themes of feminism, desire, sexuality and popular culture. In this interview, she reflects on the provocations and practices that have shaped her approach as an artist, as well as the pedagogical possibilities that multimodal artworks provide in the classroom. Over the next forty-five minutes, you will hear about: What inspired Paromita Vohra to pick up a camera The challenges of building and sustaining a career as an independent filmmaker Social, political, and cultural shifts in the India during the 1990s that informed Vohra's media production How digital media technologies and the Internet shaped Vohra's work How Unlimited Girls sought to capture a particular moment within a globalizing feminist discourse, How Vohra has rejected certain aesthetic and narrative paradigms to craft her own style and voice as an artist, straddling comedy, irony, and politically incisive commentary Vohra's digital platform Agents of Ishq and the sense of community the project has built How to cultivate and encourage complex conversations about gender, sex, desire, and politics in the classroom Building intimacy with audiences and being vulnerable to criticism Vohra's upcoming projects …and more! Guest Biography Paromita Vohra is an artist who works with a range of forms, including film, comics, digital media, installation art and writing to explore themes of feminism, desire, sexuality and popular culture. Her extraordinary body of truth-telling, kinetic and intensely sensuous films, online videos, art installations, television programming and writing have made sense of feminism, love, sexuality, urban life and popular culture for a diverse and loving audience for over 25 years. Host Bio Kinjal Dave is a PhD Student at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She researches critical perspectives on gender, technology, and labor in the South Asian diaspora at the intersection of Media and Communication Studies and Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Diaspora Studies. She is a fellow with the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) and an affiliate of Data & Society Research Institute. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

This is the Global Media & Communication podcast series. This podcast is a multimodal project powered by the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. At CARGC, we produce and promote critical, interdisciplinary, and multimodal research on global media and communication. We aim to bridge academic scholarship and public life, bringing the best scholarship to bear on enduring global questions and pressing contemporary issues. In this episode, our host, Kinjal Dave, sits down with filmmaker, artist, and writer Paromita Vohra for a wide-ranging conversation about the artist's career. As an artist, Vohra has worked across a variety of forms, including film, comics, digital media, installation art and writing to explore themes of feminism, desire, sexuality and popular culture. In this interview, she reflects on the provocations and practices that have shaped her approach as an artist, as well as the pedagogical possibilities that multimodal artworks provide in the classroom. Over the next forty-five minutes, you will hear about: What inspired Paromita Vohra to pick up a camera The challenges of building and sustaining a career as an independent filmmaker Social, political, and cultural shifts in the India during the 1990s that informed Vohra's media production How digital media technologies and the Internet shaped Vohra's work How Unlimited Girls sought to capture a particular moment within a globalizing feminist discourse, How Vohra has rejected certain aesthetic and narrative paradigms to craft her own style and voice as an artist, straddling comedy, irony, and politically incisive commentary Vohra's digital platform Agents of Ishq and the sense of community the project has built How to cultivate and encourage complex conversations about gender, sex, desire, and politics in the classroom Building intimacy with audiences and being vulnerable to criticism Vohra's upcoming projects …and more! Guest Biography Paromita Vohra is an artist who works with a range of forms, including film, comics, digital media, installation art and writing to explore themes of feminism, desire, sexuality and popular culture. Her extraordinary body of truth-telling, kinetic and intensely sensuous films, online videos, art installations, television programming and writing have made sense of feminism, love, sexuality, urban life and popular culture for a diverse and loving audience for over 25 years. Host Bio Kinjal Dave is a PhD Student at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She researches critical perspectives on gender, technology, and labor in the South Asian diaspora at the intersection of Media and Communication Studies and Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Diaspora Studies. She is a fellow with the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) and an affiliate of Data & Society Research Institute. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/film

This is the Global Media & Communication podcast series. This podcast is a multimodal project powered by the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. At CARGC, we produce and promote critical, interdisciplinary, and multimodal research on global media and communication. We aim to bridge academic scholarship and public life, bringing the best scholarship to bear on enduring global questions and pressing contemporary issues. In this episode, our host, Kinjal Dave, sits down with filmmaker, artist, and writer Paromita Vohra for a wide-ranging conversation about the artist's career. As an artist, Vohra has worked across a variety of forms, including film, comics, digital media, installation art and writing to explore themes of feminism, desire, sexuality and popular culture. In this interview, she reflects on the provocations and practices that have shaped her approach as an artist, as well as the pedagogical possibilities that multimodal artworks provide in the classroom. Over the next forty-five minutes, you will hear about: What inspired Paromita Vohra to pick up a camera The challenges of building and sustaining a career as an independent filmmaker Social, political, and cultural shifts in the India during the 1990s that informed Vohra's media production How digital media technologies and the Internet shaped Vohra's work How Unlimited Girls sought to capture a particular moment within a globalizing feminist discourse, How Vohra has rejected certain aesthetic and narrative paradigms to craft her own style and voice as an artist, straddling comedy, irony, and politically incisive commentary Vohra's digital platform Agents of Ishq and the sense of community the project has built How to cultivate and encourage complex conversations about gender, sex, desire, and politics in the classroom Building intimacy with audiences and being vulnerable to criticism Vohra's upcoming projects …and more! Guest Biography Paromita Vohra is an artist who works with a range of forms, including film, comics, digital media, installation art and writing to explore themes of feminism, desire, sexuality and popular culture. Her extraordinary body of truth-telling, kinetic and intensely sensuous films, online videos, art installations, television programming and writing have made sense of feminism, love, sexuality, urban life and popular culture for a diverse and loving audience for over 25 years. Host Bio Kinjal Dave is a PhD Student at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She researches critical perspectives on gender, technology, and labor in the South Asian diaspora at the intersection of Media and Communication Studies and Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Diaspora Studies. She is a fellow with the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) and an affiliate of Data & Society Research Institute. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

This is the Global Media & Communication podcast series. This podcast is a multimodal project powered by the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. At CARGC, we produce and promote critical, interdisciplinary, and multimodal research on global media and communication. We aim to bridge academic scholarship and public life, bringing the best scholarship to bear on enduring global questions and pressing contemporary issues. In this episode, our host, Kinjal Dave, sits down with filmmaker, artist, and writer Paromita Vohra for a wide-ranging conversation about the artist's career. As an artist, Vohra has worked across a variety of forms, including film, comics, digital media, installation art and writing to explore themes of feminism, desire, sexuality and popular culture. In this interview, she reflects on the provocations and practices that have shaped her approach as an artist, as well as the pedagogical possibilities that multimodal artworks provide in the classroom. Over the next forty-five minutes, you will hear about: What inspired Paromita Vohra to pick up a camera The challenges of building and sustaining a career as an independent filmmaker Social, political, and cultural shifts in the India during the 1990s that informed Vohra's media production How digital media technologies and the Internet shaped Vohra's work How Unlimited Girls sought to capture a particular moment within a globalizing feminist discourse, How Vohra has rejected certain aesthetic and narrative paradigms to craft her own style and voice as an artist, straddling comedy, irony, and politically incisive commentary Vohra's digital platform Agents of Ishq and the sense of community the project has built How to cultivate and encourage complex conversations about gender, sex, desire, and politics in the classroom Building intimacy with audiences and being vulnerable to criticism Vohra's upcoming projects …and more! Guest Biography Paromita Vohra is an artist who works with a range of forms, including film, comics, digital media, installation art and writing to explore themes of feminism, desire, sexuality and popular culture. Her extraordinary body of truth-telling, kinetic and intensely sensuous films, online videos, art installations, television programming and writing have made sense of feminism, love, sexuality, urban life and popular culture for a diverse and loving audience for over 25 years. Host Bio Kinjal Dave is a PhD Student at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She researches critical perspectives on gender, technology, and labor in the South Asian diaspora at the intersection of Media and Communication Studies and Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Diaspora Studies. She is a fellow with the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) and an affiliate of Data & Society Research Institute. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/south-asian-studies

This is the Global Media & Communication podcast series. This podcast is a multimodal project powered by the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. At CARGC, we produce and promote critical, interdisciplinary, and multimodal research on global media and communication. We aim to bridge academic scholarship and public life, bringing the best scholarship to bear on enduring global questions and pressing contemporary issues. In this episode, our host, Kinjal Dave, sits down with filmmaker, artist, and writer Paromita Vohra for a wide-ranging conversation about the artist's career. As an artist, Vohra has worked across a variety of forms, including film, comics, digital media, installation art and writing to explore themes of feminism, desire, sexuality and popular culture. In this interview, she reflects on the provocations and practices that have shaped her approach as an artist, as well as the pedagogical possibilities that multimodal artworks provide in the classroom. Over the next forty-five minutes, you will hear about: What inspired Paromita Vohra to pick up a camera The challenges of building and sustaining a career as an independent filmmaker Social, political, and cultural shifts in the India during the 1990s that informed Vohra's media production How digital media technologies and the Internet shaped Vohra's work How Unlimited Girls sought to capture a particular moment within a globalizing feminist discourse, How Vohra has rejected certain aesthetic and narrative paradigms to craft her own style and voice as an artist, straddling comedy, irony, and politically incisive commentary Vohra's digital platform Agents of Ishq and the sense of community the project has built How to cultivate and encourage complex conversations about gender, sex, desire, and politics in the classroom Building intimacy with audiences and being vulnerable to criticism Vohra's upcoming projects …and more! Guest Biography Paromita Vohra is an artist who works with a range of forms, including film, comics, digital media, installation art and writing to explore themes of feminism, desire, sexuality and popular culture. Her extraordinary body of truth-telling, kinetic and intensely sensuous films, online videos, art installations, television programming and writing have made sense of feminism, love, sexuality, urban life and popular culture for a diverse and loving audience for over 25 years. Host Bio Kinjal Dave is a PhD Student at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She researches critical perspectives on gender, technology, and labor in the South Asian diaspora at the intersection of Media and Communication Studies and Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Diaspora Studies. She is a fellow with the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) and an affiliate of Data & Society Research Institute. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/art

This is the Global Media & Communication podcast series. This podcast is a multimodal project powered by the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. At CARGC, we produce and promote critical, interdisciplinary, and multimodal research on global media and communication. We aim to bridge academic scholarship and public life, bringing the best scholarship to bear on enduring global questions and pressing contemporary issues. In this episode, our host, Kinjal Dave, sits down with filmmaker, artist, and writer Paromita Vohra for a wide-ranging conversation about the artist's career. As an artist, Vohra has worked across a variety of forms, including film, comics, digital media, installation art and writing to explore themes of feminism, desire, sexuality and popular culture. In this interview, she reflects on the provocations and practices that have shaped her approach as an artist, as well as the pedagogical possibilities that multimodal artworks provide in the classroom. Over the next forty-five minutes, you will hear about: What inspired Paromita Vohra to pick up a camera The challenges of building and sustaining a career as an independent filmmaker Social, political, and cultural shifts in the India during the 1990s that informed Vohra's media production How digital media technologies and the Internet shaped Vohra's work How Unlimited Girls sought to capture a particular moment within a globalizing feminist discourse, How Vohra has rejected certain aesthetic and narrative paradigms to craft her own style and voice as an artist, straddling comedy, irony, and politically incisive commentary Vohra's digital platform Agents of Ishq and the sense of community the project has built How to cultivate and encourage complex conversations about gender, sex, desire, and politics in the classroom Building intimacy with audiences and being vulnerable to criticism Vohra's upcoming projects …and more! Guest Biography Paromita Vohra is an artist who works with a range of forms, including film, comics, digital media, installation art and writing to explore themes of feminism, desire, sexuality and popular culture. Her extraordinary body of truth-telling, kinetic and intensely sensuous films, online videos, art installations, television programming and writing have made sense of feminism, love, sexuality, urban life and popular culture for a diverse and loving audience for over 25 years. Host Bio Kinjal Dave is a PhD Student at the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She researches critical perspectives on gender, technology, and labor in the South Asian diaspora at the intersection of Media and Communication Studies and Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Diaspora Studies. She is a fellow with the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) and an affiliate of Data & Society Research Institute. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/communications

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz recorded live on Clubhouse. God threatens to scatter the Israelites among the nations. The Septuagint, in its Greek translation, coins a new word, maybe a new concept. A Greek word used, not for migrants but to reference a people who identify with a specific geographic location, but currently reside elsewhere. The word is Diaspora, a seminal concept in Judaism and a word that has spawned such concepts as alienation, ethnicity, repatriation and redemption. Modern day Diaspora Studies may ignore the Jews but Disapora may lie at the heart of what is the enigma of the Jews… Sefaria source sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/567783  Transcript on episdode web page: https://madlik.com/2024/05/29/diaspora/ 

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.   A teach-in by Queer Crescent in collaboration with Palestinian Feminist Collective – Palestine is a Queer Issue: Resisting Pinkwashing Now and Until Liberation. Featuring guest speakers Rabab Abdulhadi from Palestinian Feminist Collective, Ghadir Shafie of ASWAT, Shivani Chanillo from Lavender Phoenix, poetry by Mx Yaffa from Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity (MASGD). Moderator by Shenaaz Janmohamed of Queer Crescent. Important Links and Resources: Sign on to Queer Crescent's Ceasefire Campaign for LGBTQI+ organizations and leaders Queer Crescent's Pinkwashing Resources  Queer Crescent Website Palestinian Feminist Collective Website ASWAT Instagram (@aswatfreedoms) Lavender Phoenix Website Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity (MASGD) Website Purchase Blood Orange by Mx. Yaffa Transcript Shenaaz Janmohamed: Thank you all so much for being here today. Welcome to the “Resisting Pinkwashing Now Until Liberation” teach-in. Queer Crescent is honored to host this teach in in partnership with the Palestinian Feminist Collective, Lavender Phoenix, The Muslim Alliance for Gender and Sexual Diversity or MASGD, Teaching Palestine, and Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diaspora Studies   Thank you all so much for joining us and for tuning in. My name is Shenaaz Janmohamed. I use she and they pronouns. I'm the executive director of Queer Crescent.  Queer Crescent is really thrilled to offer this Teach-in and to be in learning with you all for the next hour and a half on Pinkwashing in particular, as we hold grief and rage and mourn towards healing, towards resistance, towards a free Palestine. Joining the resounding people all across the world who have been calling for a permanent ceasefire. To not let the violence and the destruction of Gaza go without our clear and determined voice to say that this is not okay, that we, our tax dollars should not be paying for this, that we do not consent to genocide. And as queer people, as trans people, it is very much a queer issue to be in solidarity with Palestine. For the next hour and a half we will take time to learn from Palestinian organizers. in Palestine, in the U. S., around the ways in which this moment can be used to understand our relationship to pinkwashing in particular and to Palestinian solidarity in general. And so thank you again for being with us today. We're going to start our Teach in with poetry, because we deeply believe as a queer Muslim organization in the power of cultural work, cultural change, and imparting our shine as queer people into the culture. That is the way that our people have survived. That is the way that people share their histories their survivalship is through culture. And so, before I bring up Yaffa, who's a dear friend and comrade, and also the executive director of MASGD, the Muslim Alliance for Gender and Sexual Diversity, let me introduce Yaffa. Yaffa is a trans Muslim and displaced indigenous Palestinian. She is sharing poetry from her new book, Blood Orange, shout it out, please get a copy if you haven't already, which is an emotional, important, and timely poetry collection. Their writings probe the yearning for home, belonging, mental health, queerness, transness, and other dimensions of marginalization while nurturing dreams of utopia against the background of ongoing displacement and genocide of Indigenous people. Join me in giving some shine, energetic shine to Yaffa, and I'll pass to you. Mx Yaffa: Hi everyone. It's so nice to be here with you all. So excited to share space with all of you, with all the incredible panelists, with the entire Queer Crescent team, y'all are just incredible. Right before this, me and one of the other panelists realized we could potentially be related. So that's the beauty of having spaces like this, where you connect with people that you've kind of been missing your entire life, but you didn't even know that they were missing. I'm excited to recite some poetry for you all from my new collection. Just a little bit about the collection before I recite some poetry.  This collection was written for the most part, on the weekend of October 13th to the 15th. Some of y'all might remember that there was an eclipse during that weekend. And I really wanted to find something that would really center queer and trans Palestinian experience in particular, and also would just support me in navigating my own processing of everything that's going on.  I have family both in Gaza and the West Bank still. I'm originally from Jaffa and Jenin, but I've kind of lived in nine different countries. So when I say I'm displaced, it's displacement from various different wars, various genocides, various everything. And the result of that was Blood Orange.  I tried to get it out as quickly as possible and here we are. The first poem that I'll read is called “Healthy”. And I'll talk a little bit about each of these poems after I read them. It's called “Healthy”. We are not meant to be okay, when genocide is our neighbor that is funded by our labor. We are meant to be a mess, our sleep tearing into reality, anxiety brewing, wondering what is hope. We are meant to tear at the seams of reality, realizing a reality built on oppression is bullshit. We are meant to realize and demand all we are worth. Self actualization, wholeness. Things systems built off of genocide can never. Our response labeled by western capitalism as wrong is healthy. We move to wholeness always, they move to pain attempting to drag us with them. So this was actually the very first poem that I wrote for this collection and it was in that first week of the genocide immediately following October 7th when so many people were really struggling with what do we do with all of this, right? We're witnessing an entire genocide right before our eyes. And what do we do? There was a lot of hopelessness going around and a lot of narratives, at least in what's known as the United States and the global north that's always told us that all of that is wrong. That we're not supposed to be overwhelmed by things. But for me, with all the practices that I have, it's actually healthy to be overwhelmed right now. We're not supposed to know how to let genocide live in our bodies with ease. We still show up, we still do the things, and yet at the same time, we honor it. That it is a large experience. This is not normal. This is not something that should be happening all the time or ever. And so really wanted to honor that of the world that we live in is not what we deserve. For us to be overwhelmed right now is actually healthy, is where we should be. So the second poem I will read kind of goes into the conversation of today around pinkwashing.  This one's called “At Odds”.  My transness and a colonized perception of Palestine are at odds. They think it's because of lack of modernity. I say I have only received death threats targeting my transness from white people, Zionists, and other various political affiliations. I say only white people around me have ever disowned their own. Yet I do not talk to sisters who choose to buy into imperialist transphobia, claiming it as their own. My parents do not understand how some of their children could hate anything any of their children could be, why anyone would hate what they do not know. I won't talk much about pinkwashing because I know we'll get to that today. But in particular, most queer and trans Palestinians over these last eight weeks have been receiving such immense violence from the broader LGBTQ community telling us that our people are the ones who are going to kill us. I've been receiving death threats my entire life in particular as an organizer since I was 19, and I have literally never received a death threat from anyone from our region from any Muslim person. It has always been white people who have sent me death threats specifically for my queerness and my transness. Let alone everything else. And so that, that poem just kind of honors that experience.  I'll read one more, and I'll say just a few words before I read this last one. For me, the arts are so important. Not just as a tool for resistance, but also as a tool for world building. Often we think of the world is what creates art, rather than art is what creates the world. If you look at literature, even with Zionism, Zionism was in literature 100 years before it was ever named. I think about that of what is the world that we are building, what is the world of tomorrow that we get to write about and paint about and do all different kinds of art forms about today. And so this last poem kind of brings a little bit of that into it. The collection goes into the topic of utopia as we're exploring all of these other things. and as we're experiencing this genocide. So this last poem is called “Land Back”. I do not know names wiped from time in Gaza Like I do not remember the names Of great uncles and aunts Who have been reclaimed by our land To say they were murdered Is to claim loss that our land will never feel For we are made of her And regardless of how many layers of phosphor fill the air We return to her in our deaths They may exacerbate the process of our return, but return we shall. Standing thousands of miles away, I know even here she will take me back for distance is a creation that is buried with bodies that were never ours. We are not the ones who take land back, it is land that takes us. There will come a day when the sun sets on a world and rises in another, when indigenous sovereignty is honored. Where queerness no longer exists, where transness is no longer an identity, where humanity means something genuine. So I wanted to end with that, on a note of everything that we're doing right now, all of the resistance is world building. We're building the world that we have always deserved. So I'll leave you all with just one final thing about the book, like I mentioned, the reason I wrote this book in the first place and published it is to raise awareness about queer and trans Palestinians in particular and our experiences, and also to fundraise for queer and trans Palestinians both on the grounds in Gaza and in the diaspora. So 100 percent of all the proceeds from Blood Orange go directly towards that.   As we're getting deeper and deeper into this, the needs of the queer and trans Palestinian community is getting so immense, both on the ground in the region and in the diaspora. Over just the last few days, I've received over $20,000 worth of requests from individuals because people are being doxed, people are receiving death threats, people are losing their jobs. In one case, people are losing their children. There's a lot happening. And so just wanted to leave with that. I want to invite you all to pay attention to those needs and honor them, especially as we go into next year and into the elections. Thank you again for having me. It was such a pleasure to be here. And I'm so excited for the rest of this. Shenaaz Janmohamed: Thank you so much, Yaffa. It's so wonderful to have you here. And it feels so important to start our teaching with the ways in which poetry, culture, moves and inspires us. It opens our hearts in ways that feel both healing and necessary as part and parcel to our organizing and our deep learning. As my comrade and partner Saba says, to growing our empathy to be able to show up with more depth, more commitment, and more resolve towards these issues because we are deeply interconnected. So thank you again, Yaffa..  Before I turn to introduce our other panelists, I wanted to just ground us for a moment in why Queer Crescent, along with the many partners that I named at the beginning felt it was important to host this teach in. Back on November 3rd, Queer Crescent in collaboration with the Palestinian Feminist Collective drafted and released a letter calling upon LGBTQI organizations, leaders, and influencers to join Queer Crescent and Palestinians in calling for an immediate ceasefire. And in particularly to take up understanding and resisting pinkwashing as a queer issue. The frame ” Palestine is a queer issue” is very much an homage of Palestinian Feminist Collective who tirelessly make the links around gender justice, bodily autonomy, self determination, sovereignty to the project of Palestinian liberation. Seeing them as part and parcel of the same project of liberation, and we very much are inspired and in deep gratitude to PFC and all the tireless folks who make those links so clear and apparent to us. We are also in deep gratitude to organizations like Al-Qaws, based in Palestine, who have been telling us about pink- washing for a long, long time, and we are finally doing our part to answer the call as an organization as Queer Crescent. Since we shared this letter, over 350 individuals have signed on, over 65 organizations have joined us in a commitment to calling for permanent ceasefire. This teach in is part of our commitment to moving those who have signed, ourselves included, and the many others who have joined us today. To deepen our shared resolve to a free Palestine through learning about pink watching as a propaganda tool of Israel and settler colonial state violence, and to allow this moment to transform us so that the grief is not in vain, towards a more fierce committed and clear stance of solidarity with Palestinian liberation movement. As queer and trans people and within LGBTQI organizations, we have a distinct role to play to organize to undermine pinkwashing. Because pinkwashing works and functions on the backs of racist tropes of Palestinians, Arabs, SWANA, and Muslims more broadly. We cannot let our vulnerabilities as trans and queer people be exploited in the pursuit of colonial violence and the genocide against Palestinians and all indigenous people. It was not surprising that some of the first folks who signed on to our letter were trans led organizations like the Transgender Law Center, like El/La, and indigenous organizations. It's not surprising because I think for folks who are leading trans led organizations, Trans and indigenous organizations, the relationship of self determination of bodily autonomy and to state violence and colonization is clear, right? Because ultimately colonization uses gender injustice and creating these wedges within our communities as a way to dampen our resistance and to keep us apart. So, I don't want to say more because our amazing speakers will speak and illuminate so much more of these issues. But I wanted to just state why it was important for Queer Crescent to support advancing these conversations. So, our first speaker today is Ghadir Shafie ( she and her). She is a Palestinian queer activist and the co founder of ASWAT, Palestinian Feminist Queer Center for Sexual and Gender Freedoms. A passionate advocate for the intersectionality of the struggle of Palestinian queer women, fighting multiple forms of oppression as Palestinians in the context of Israel's system of apartheid, military occupation, and settler colonialism, as women in a militaristic and imperialistic male dominated society, and as queers in the context of pinkwashing and homophobia. Ghadir promotes active solidarity for Palestine through global feminism and with queers. Thank you, Ghadir. Pass it to you.  Ghadir Shafie: Thank you so much. Hello from Palestine. Thank you so much for organizing this teach-in on pinkwashing. I am grateful for your presence here with me, witnessing in this horrible, horrible time. I will speak today for about 15 minutes, and I want you to bear in mind that since October 7th, Israel has killed over 18, 000 Palestinians. That is one Palestinian every 15 minutes. Imagine how many queer people are being killed daily by Israel. The scenes from Gaza are beyond description. They defy comparison, even for Palestinians, jaded by decades of occupation and settler colonial violence. Devastated landscape filled with craters and the blackened ruins of what were once people's homes, dead bodies or pieces of them. Orphaned children screaming in terror and incomprehension. Desperate survivors crying for food and water. Doctors despairing at the ever growing influx of wounded people they know they cannot treat. As a queer Palestinian watching these images of horror, one stood out as particularly revolting in a rather different way. It shows an Israeli soldier in the middle of the rubble of one of the many residential neighborhoods in Gaza, flattened by the Israeli indiscriminate military strikes. In the distance, smoke from Israel's carpet bombings hang in the air. The soldier is surrounded by Israeli tanks and demolish everything in their way. It is a scene of death and destruction The soldier stands holding a bright new rainbow flag. and Described it as a message of hope.  What hope can there be for 2.3 million Palestinians trapped over 16 years in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip. In the words of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Gaza has become a graveyard for Palestinians. They have no water. No food and no electricity as Israel has cut off what little it allowed in through its already suffocating siege. They seek shelter from Israeli bombings in hospital, UN schools, mosques, and churches, only to find these sites targeted by Israeli strikes. Those who can flee their homes along Israeli designated safe corridors only to have their vehicles shelved by the Israeli IDF soldiers. It seems incomprehensible that an Israeli soldier would pose a photo with a rainbow flag while participating in his army's mass slaughter of Palestinians and destruction of half of Gaza's homes. The truth is more sinister yet. This stunt, which was shared online by the Israeli state official social media accounts, is a textbook. example of obscene colonial pinkwashing. More than that, it is a pinkwashing on steroids. For years, Palestinian queers have denounced Israel's pinkwashing, a cynical strategy designed to use self proclaimed support for LGBTQIA plus rights as a pink smokescreen to conceal its 75 years regime of apartheid, which oppresses all Palestinians, no matter of our gender. or sexual orientation. All the while singling out queer Palestinians for persecution and blackmail. It is an attempt to falsely depict Israel as modern and a liberal country while diverting attention from its alignment with far right homophobic regimes and groups around the world and its current fundamentalist, racist, and homophobic government. In addition, Israel's pinkwashing agenda is a colonial tool that has the racist aim to misrepresent Palestinians as backwards, homophobic, and thus not deserving of human rights. It also tries to convince us, as queer and trans people, that we are somehow foreign in our society, and tries to turn us against our Palestinians brothers and sisters. I think there couldn't be any better example of Israeli pink washing than the photo that the Israeli soldier with the rainbow flag in the rubble. Israeli pink washing has always been dishonest and dangerous. It has always been racist and colonial. It has allowed Israel to continue its ethnic cleansing, besiege, imprisonment, and murder of Palestinians, queer and non queer alike, for decades. Now it's being used to cover up for genocide. In these dark times, Palestinians in besieged Gaza are bearing the brunt of Israel's full blown genocidal war and ethnic cleansing. Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories of West Bank, meanwhile, are also facing escalating waves of killing, torture by both Israeli military and illegal sectors. Apartheid, for Palestinians like myself inside Israel, is reaching new peaks as Israeli forces are targeting and suppressing any expression of sympathy with the oppressed. As hard as it is, we still maintain hope. We have no other choice. That hope comes from the grassroots mobilization that are forcing complicit governments and institutions to finally call for the bare minimum that is nevertheless the absolute priority: a ceasefire that will put a stop to Israel's carpet bombing and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Queer groups have been extremely instrumental in our struggle for liberation. Queer groups have been an important part of the mobilizations. Nearly 40 LGBT, QA plus groups across Southwest Asia and North Africa called for the immediate ceasefire stating ” we stand with justice, equality, progress, and liberty.” Throughout my life as a queer activist, I have proudly held the rainbow flag high as a symbol of queer inclusion, queer struggle, queer liberation, queer equality, and queer joy. The Israeli soldier participating in Israel's genocidal war on my people in Gaza has desecrated the flag, has disgraced the flag, and made it a mockery for all it stands for. Queer and trans people and groups are increasingly seeing through the pink smokescreen and rejecting Israel's pinkwashing and its war crimes and crimes against humanity. We will not stand by as our flag and our identities are co opted and used to justify a genocide. I call upon queer allies around the globe to remember none of us is free until we are all free. What can we do right now in these terrible times? Since 2005, Palestinians have proposed to you, our friends around the world, an entirely nonviolent method of ending Israel's power over our lives. An academic and cultural boycott of Israel. This strategy is known as BDS, Boycott, Digestment and Sanctions. BDS means boycotting all Israeli state sponsored institutions. This is not aimed at individuals, but at institutions financed by the state and that serve as extensions of the government that occupies us and keeps us under siege. We ask academics, staff and students not to speak at Israeli state funding organizations, including universities. We ask artists and cultural workers not to perform in apartheid Israel. Make sure that your universities are divested from Israeli money. Do not take israeli money for your conferences or film festivals. Do not accept deceptively free propaganda trips to Israel. End complicity with the government of Israel by among other things, cancelling all joint projects activities that are complicit with Israeli universities. Right now, the main demand is to stop the genocide. Stop the genocide and ask for ceasefire now.  So how can queer groups and queer people support queer liberation in Palestine?. One effort that is happening right now around the world is Queer Cinema for Palestine. Queer cinema for Palestine is a vibrant event that happens globally, established in 2021 to support queer art and queer cinema around the world. Today, there are more than 270 filmmakers and artists who signed our pledge to boycott Israeli film festival, to boycott Israeli institutions, and support queer liberation in Palestine. Queer Cinema for Palestine is happening online in more than 15 locations around the world from the 2nd until the 10th of December. Under the title, There's No Pride in Genocide, we gather together as artists to support, Queer Cinema for Palestine and the Palestinian struggle for liberation. There's not much to say. I think you've seen the image from Gaza. You've seen what is happening right now. This is not a regular panel on pinkwashing. It's happening during a genocide, where pinkwashing is also used to promote genocide. So, may I ask you as a Palestinian and as a queer Palestinian, please keep talking about Palestine. Palestine is a queer issue. Gaza is a queer issue, and there's no queer justice until we are all free. Thank you so much for organizing this and thank you so much for your work and activism on Palestine. You are saving lives right now. Thank you. Shenaaz Janmohamed: Thank you so much, Ghadir. Thank you so much for your passion, your commitment, reminding us that hope is an active choice that you're engaging in every day, despite all the odds, because that is the story of survival. Thank you for reminding and being so clear in the link to BDS boycott, divestment and sanction movement as tangible ways that we could be in solidarity with Palestine and to chip at the far reaching power of the Israeli state and settler colonial project. Thank you for showing the ways in which queer folks and queer organizations. use culture and art to tell different stories of survival with the Queer Cinema for Palestine. And thank you for showing up and being here with us. Thank you for all the ways that you hold communities, your fullness, and time to share and to lead us today. Wishing so much protection and safety to you and yours. Next we have Rabab Abdulhadi. Rabab Abdulhadi (she/her) is an internationally known scholar and distinguished professor and researcher. Her scholarship, pedagogy, and public activism focus on Palestine, Arab, and Muslim communities and their diasporas, transnational feminisms, and gender and sexuality studies. She is the Director and Senior Scholar in the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diaspora Studies, and a Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, Race and Resistance Studies at the Historic College of Ethnic Studies, San Francisco State University. She is also a treasure, a beloved teacher, organizer here in the Bay. I feel really grateful that you're here with us today for all the work, all the times that you've taught me. It's really such an honor to be able to host you and invite you in, Rabab.  Rabab Abdulhadi: Thank you so much Shenaaz, and I begin by acknowledging that my own university, San Francisco State University, sits on stolen indigenous Ohlone people's land, and I'm now on the east coast of the United States, where I am also present on the Lenape people's land that has been stolen and people have been displaced, just like it is in Palestine. I also want to thank Queer Crescent for organizing this with the Palestinian Feminist Collective and actually joining with Palestinian Voices. I'm very happy that my colleague, my sister, my sibling, Ghadir, was able to join us and has actually taken a lot of the things that I was going to focus on, and thank you, Yaffa, for especially naming even the poetry, Blood Oranges, because we know what oranges mean and how they have been used. And many Palestinians can't even eat oranges because it reminds them of the orchards that they've lost back home. So I start, if you don't mind, just Putting the first slide on. Yeah. And this is a slide if people can see it. This is actually was done in 2013 and it was organized by a group of underground artists, called themselves cultural jammers, to remake all the campaign that was at the time by Pamela Geller and other Zionist groups doing all this smearing and buying sides on the buses and so on. And the reason I mentioned because there is a connection between the cultural jammers and also the whole naming of pink washing because pink washing, some people say, emerged in Palestine. Some people say it emerged in the U. S. Some people talk about the whole question of washing and then the question of pink and so on. And I think for me as a researcher, a scholar, it's very, very interesting because there are so many origins of every single way that we are having the struggles. And so the colonial boundaries and borders that the colonialists and settler colonists try to impose upon us don't really work because we cross these borders at least maybe imaginary, maybe in our networks and so on. But why is it that pinkwashing persists? Ghadir spoke a lot about it. I'm just going to just emphasize a couple of things. It is necessary, very important for Israel public relations. Public relations is a very important project for it. This is why Israel consistently demands of the Palestinians and the Arab countries and the world, not only to recognize Israel's right to exist, but to recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, which in itself a very racist notion. And this is very much connected with the genocide that we're seeing now in Gaza, that also we have seen for 75 years of Nakba and for over 100 years of colonization of Palestine, because , the slogan by the Zionist movement was “a land without people, for a people without the land.” We can talk about “for people without the land” a little bit later, but let's talk about “a land without people”. In order to accomplish that and legitimize it, you have to arrest the people. You have to erase them. You have to erase their presence. You have to also discredit their discourse, their work, their culture, their interaction, their social relations, in order for you to present yourself as Israel does. And as Ghadir mentioned, as a modern state that is making the desert blue, which we know is not true, and by contrast, is the best friend of women and queer people, as a gay haven, as opposed to quote unquote the backward, savage. excessively homophobic, excessively misogynist, Arab world, Arab and Muslim world, and in which Arab men and Arab and Muslim and Palestinian men are presented as irrational, bloodthirsty, misogynist, haters of women and Queer people, and as women as being docile, as being only oppressed constantly, and need to be rescued by the colonists who will come in and basically realize what Gayatri Spivak spoke about I don't know, 30 years ago, the colonist project of trying to save brown people from brown communities and queer people from their own queer communities. And so in order for this to work, it has to be presented in all of these things that it is necessary. And it's very important for Israel to focus on its public relations. And this is something that has been actually very part and parcel of since the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948, a task that was assigned to the military, to the security of interior affairs to the Mossad, which is the CIA, outside intelligence, Shambit, the internal intelligence to everybody. And now we see more and more the Ministry of Strategic Affairs and other is, and the whole question of quote unquote branding, which I put it in parentheses because branding also refers to the ways in which people engage in slavery actually used to quote brand people whose lives they owned. So I put it in parentheses. I question it. But Israel is very big on that to brand Israel as a gay haven. Israel as a best liberator of women and so on.  This is also what we see today in the sense of Israel actually making a very public relation campaign and a very, very intensive campaign to claim that Palestinians have chopped off the head of children, which was even reiterated by the president of the United States without even thinking about it because he was quoting Israeli Officials who we know are not really known for telling the truth and then they had to retract it the second day but yesterday he repeated the same thing again and said there is the rape of women and so on which we do not have any evidence until now. We know that a lot of Israeli groups and Zionist groups like this group Bonat Alternativa and others are alleging, but we haven't seen any evidence of that. If there is any evidence of that, we will not stand for it. We condemn any kind of violations of gender and sexual, justice because we believe that gender and sexual justice is part and parcel with indivisibility of justice. So this is not something we are trying to cover, but this is very much part and parcel of the Israeli propaganda and it's churning machine, the Hasbara machine is everywhere and they keep changing their stories. And if we have time we can actually go over how each story has developed and moved from one place to the other. I'm also talking about the ways in which colonial feminisms or colonial quote unquote feminism, because feminism is supposed to be about the liberation of women as part of liberation of everybody, have been very much engaged in. But within that, there is also notion of blaming the victim. It is a very important aspect of it. So in order for the Israeli and the Zionist narrative to work, you have to blame people. And one of the very well known cases, for example, was the case of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, the young Palestinian teenager who was kidnapped from in front of his house on July 2nd, 2014, right around the big, big 2014 war on Gaza we talked about, and kidnapped by Israeli settlers who took him to a forest in Jerusalem that was built on the ruins of the village of Deir Yassin, where the massacre on April 8th, 1948 happened in order to facilitate the creation of the Israeli state. And they made him drink kerosene and set him on fire and burned him alive, which was a clear case of lynching. Now, what Israeli police tried to do was to actually say that Mohammed Abu Khdeir was killed by his own family to quote unquote salvage family honor. And they killed him because he was queer. And now if it wasn't for his father who had videotapes of the security cameras outside of the house and showed it– the Israeli police tried to confiscate it and basically destroy it– showed that these people came and kidnapped him. The relative would still be among colonists, among racists, among white supremacists, Zionists, that Palestinians are killing Palestinians and they are doing this all the time. So it's not only blaming the victim, but it also instilling and reinforcing the narrative of people, not only Palestinians, this happens with all indigenous and all colonized communities and all communities of color from time immemorial. You look at the history of the United States, this is something, this is a trope that keeps getting repeated again and again and again. And it's not an easy trope because It is not something that's only being said. It's not only a discursive issue. It's not a discursive issue that we need to deconstruct in the classroom because we know the history, including that. But recently, many people started learning more about the case of Emmett Till, the young Boy who was killed and the woman who actually accused him came out and said that she lied, but he was killed and he was lynched. And then his mom insisted on having open casket so everybody could see the crime. And there's so many more examples that we don't have time to get into all of them now, but this is part of the colonial narrative, the colonial strategy in order to discredit the people who are colonized and discredit their struggle.  And this is definitely a part in Gaza and it is, but the other thing is that it depends on the narrative of saying that our communities in particular as exceptionally sensitive and exceptionally traditional. And this is something that we saw in Abu Ghraib for example.  When they were talking about, we're not going to show the images of iraqi men are particularly insensitive. But we were raising the question, which men are okay with it, which women, which anybody, which non gender binary person, who would be okay with being subjected to sexual and gender violence; to being displaced like this and so on. Nobody will be. But the imaginary that it is trying to instill that's built on Orientalist, Islamophobic, anti Arab, anti Palestinian, anti Muslim racism as part and parcel of all kinds of racism basically makes it possible to do a little dog whistle in order for you to enforce all of this. We saw this also at the US Social Forum when Zionist groups stand with us, which now everybody knows what it is, tried to do a workshop around queer communities in the Middle East, and many of us objected to it. And the reason that it got through because the organizers thought that this would be something that would be actually really wonderful, bringing everybody together. They did not really investigate who this group was and what it was doing and did not coordinate with the many organizations that were at the U. S. Social Forum in 2010 in Detroit from our own community to see what is happening, what's going on, are you part of this unparceled hat? Even though the Palestinian queer organizations have existed for a very long time, and I think it was by then, if I'm not mistaken, Ghadir you can correct me that we organize a national tour and for all calls throughout the U S in order for people to speak and you all came and spoke in my own classroom. This is part of the stuff that keeps going back. And this is also the same thing that we hear around this group that I've mentioned now, and this propaganda that's happening, and also in terms of the ways when we passed the resolution on BDS in the National Women's Studies Association 2015, many Zionist groups came out and basically came with the whole question is there a place for Zionism and feminism? Many of the feminist groups have been targeted, including the International Women's Strike and so on. This is a continuous, systemic, persistent thing. This is not something that is out of random or accidental. And so what do we do about this? In addition to what Ghadir said, I think it's really, really important for us to say, how do we fight back? We fight back with multiple ways. One of the ways we do for example, organizing this in the classroom. So one of the things that we do in the Arab and Muslim Ethnicity and Diaspora Studies program ever since we were founded in 2007 is every single year we were partnering with the Pride Month at San Francisco State to organize sessions on the whole question of queer justice, and this is one of them. Even after San Francisco State stopped funding pride month, we continue doing it again and again. We believe that it's really important to connect the knowledge within the classroom with the knowledge outside and with the activism and advocacy. We do not separate what happens in the classroom, what happens in the academy from outside. So the academy is not producing knowledge that is divorced from reality. The people who are organizing are part and parcel of that. And so we've been doing this again and again. The other thing that is really, really important to think about is how do we work here, and I'm talking here in the diaspora, with groups on the ground, Palestinian queer groups who are working? So one of the examples that I would like to cite from our own experiences is when Al-Qaws was attacked by Palestinian police in Nablus trying to hold an event. My hometown Nablus. We were going to rush and say something, but we waited and we coordinated with Al Qaws and we asked, what should we do? And we did not do anything until Al Qaws came out because we were objecting to the whole question of saving queer people from queer communities, saving brown people from brown communities, the whole question of the colonial notion. And we were also taking leadership from the people on the ground who are day in and day out struggling. Once Al-Qaws came out with it, what we did is we published in one of the newspapers in the Bay Area, along with Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism, which is a group that has been doing a lot of work for a very long time, and whose founder actually was chosen to be the Grand Marshall at Gay Pride Parade at San Francisco. And she turned down this honor and said, because I am here in Palestine struggling with the International Solidarity Movement at the time to oppose the apartheid world to oppose the repression by Israel and so on. So we organized together. And that's when we said we endorse. We support. This is really important sometimes to think about how do we take a back road and when is it we go public with things. At this point, we really need to go public and we need to defy all this propaganda that is happening.  This is part of what the solidarity mean. But this is not free. When we do something like this, there is punishment. And these are some of the flyers I'm showing from the Queer Liberation March that took place in 2019. This was the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall, Uprising. The Queer Liberation March at that time actually decided to refuse any corporate funding, to refuse to allow the police to go march in their own uniforms and so on, rejected the policing, rejected the state apparatus that represses people, rejected the corporate money and so on. As a result, there was space for us to be there. So we were organizing, we organized a big contingent under the banner of QAIA, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, and also Queers A gainst Islamophobia.  So we participated and I took this banner and I put it on my Facebook page. This led to the another Zionist attack, which is trying to silence Palestine and were trying to criminalize Palestine in the curriculum, and especially targeting us and our program in particular. And they took it and didn't say what was on the banner. They just said that I'm spreading hate, and thus I should be– they had 86 organizations, some of them fake organizations– sign it, send it to the university, to the chancellor of California State University to the president of San Francisco State, saying that I'm spreading hate. This for them is hate. Palestine is a queer issue. BDS Zionism is racism. Silence means death. For them, this was something that was very problematic, and it was something that is undermining the Zionist propaganda, and Zionist project of colonizing Palestine and eliminating the Palestinian people like the genocide that we are seeing here, and trying to continue pushing the pink washing without having it exposed.  As a result, our program has been attacked again and again. The Lawfare Project executive director got on the TV, on Fox and friends, and made a lying statement. They sued me. And they sued San Francisco State and they sued California State University. But we defeated them. It was thrown out of court. It was dismissed with prejudice. But she lied about that. And she said that I'm spreading hate; that I'm one of the leading anti Semitic– Horowitz every single year pushes out a formula about the top anti-Semitic scholars, and they always give me number one. And I think they do it in May because this is the fundraising season for them. As a result, I started receiving death threats. However, and including to my own university and the threat voicemails on my office mail that said Muslims will die, which is the same phrase that the guy who killed Wadiah Al-Fayyumi in Chicago, stabbing him 26 times. He said Muslims will die. The university does not believe that this is actually a viable threat. And so they protect the right wing speech, which is white supremacist and Zionist is a protected speech protected that they can do whatever they want, put up hateful posters, do whatever they want against us, but we are not allowed to say so. And the university is not investigating death threat letters that actually came to me through the University President's office to my own office. However we refuse to be silenced. We refuse to lie down. And so we continued organizing. And one of the main events that we organize, and we do it every year, is this panel Queer Open Classroom that everybody can attend and come in. Queer justice against pink washing, exposing it, bringing scholars and activists, Ghadir was one of the people who spoke at that, in order for us to support liberation for Palestine as part of liberation of all, and to support gender and sexual justice as part and parcel of the indivisibility of justice. Thank you. Shenaaz Janmohamed: Oh, Rabab. I hope that you can feel all the tremendous. gratitude and love that you're getting in the chat. I think that there is such a clear longing to be hearing stories from elders, folks who have been in this fight for so long. Thank you for bringing in the long arc of queer Palestinian organizing. Thank you for bringing the long arc and history of queers being in solidarity for Palestine. It's so important that we understand that while this moment is so important for us to study, learn and act. It rests upon such a long arc and such a long history of organizing in solidarity with Palestine. Thank you for also speaking to Mohammed Abu Khdeir, thank you for speaking him into the space. Thank you for both of you reminding us to follow the lead of queer Palestinians. What we're trying to do with you all today with this teach-in is to really pull us together, circle around and invite us all to be following the lead of queer Palestinians so that we can take on this work as inextricably linked to our own liberation; to advance the work of undermining pinkwashing and Zionism as part and parcel to our queer liberation. So thank you so much, Rabab. Our last speaker, Shivani Chanillo with Lavender Phoenix. Shivani (they/them) is a trans non- binary second generation Indian American organizer. Shout out to the baddy Indian organizers out here, myself included. Their experience of active solidarity with Palestinian folks came in 2017 through exchanges they facilitated between their high school students in Baltimore, and students at Ramallah Friends School in the West Bank. These powerful exchanges stoked Shivani's passion for developing young people as critical thinkers grounded in revolutionary values and politics. As a leadership development coordinator at Lavender Phoenix, an organization that Queer Crescent deeply loves and feels deeply supported by and in deep siblingship with. Shivani continues this work by facilitating opportunities for trans and queer Asians and Pacific Islanders to practice values based organizing and contribute to intersectional movements. In particular, I just want to really say that we were so excited to invite Shivani and Lavender Phoenix in to our teach in as the final speaker, because Lavender Phoenix is one organization that really models, going back to the initial motivation of this teach in with our letter calling for a permanent ceasefire, calling on LGBTQ organizations and leaders to sign on to understanding pink washing and to support Palestinian liberation. Lavender Phoenix is one such organization that has really demonstrated such values align solidarity with Palestinian liberation. And so I'm really excited to bring you in Shivani to close us out to talk about how queer people, queer organizations can really double down on our solidarity.  Shivani Chanillo: Thank you so much Shenaaz for that introduction and to Queer Crescent for organizing this event. I just want to take a moment and just, I feel so deeply moved by the sharing from Rabab and Ghadir in this workshop and just sitting with the lineage within all of us as we take up Palestine as a queer issue. We have generations of lessons and decades of work and such powerful leaders here in this space, but all across the world to follow, and I feel so grateful and so excited to be joining in on this work and sharing a little bit about what Lavender Phoenix is doing in this moment. If you haven't heard of Lavender Phoenix, we build trans non binary and queer Asian and Pacific Islander power here in the Bay Area. We are a base building organization training grassroots leaders to build intersectional movements. As we witness an escalation of the ongoing genocide in Palestine I can say that our base is firmly grounded in the understanding that Palestinian liberation is part of our struggle and our responsibility as trans and queer Asian and Pacific Islander people. And so I want to start by sharing a little bit about what we're doing in this moment, before sharing about how our members arrived to this point. Since October 7th we have shifted our work accordingly. We have dedicated time to mobilize our members and our broader communities to action. We have educated each other to stay politically grounded. We have and will continue to support each other to process the grief of this moment and to remember hope, optimism, and commitment. In so many facets of our work, we are stepping into deeper leadership and responsibility to support our Palestinian comrades to win. And more tangibly across our six member led committees, this looks like offering healing support, coordinating our members who are trained in protest and digital security to support our comrades, coordinating contingents at in person and online actions, moving financial resources and funder attention to our Palestinian partners, and uplifting pro Palestinian messaging and calls to actions using our social media reach. Responding to Palestine and challenging pinkwashing is not a shift in our priorities, but it's actually a sharpening of our focus as an organization. We've organized our base over the years to recognize our interconnected struggles, and across our membership, we so deeply understand that the Palestinian struggle is our struggle. And Palestinian futures are our futures. All of the actions we are taking right now to support Palestine, to challenge pinkwashing are the result of so many tests, experiments, and trials that have helped us deepen our political purpose and grow our power. Many of these experiments and trials that we've conducted over the years really informed our current theory of change. And this is really critical to how we're organizing in this moment. Our emergent responses to sharpen contradictions in our world like we are witnessing with Palestine, are only possible because we organize within a consistent theory of change. A key part of our theory of change and a key part of my role as Leadership Development coordinator, is that we are committed to developing leaders who are rooted in our values, in our history, in emotional intelligence, and compassion, because we know that is how our movement will be sustained and will be effective. So we're not just developing members and masses who care about single issues, we're developing holistic, critical thinkers who care about solidarity with all oppressed people so that in moments like this, solidarity with Palestine is a natural choice in our larger fight for liberation. One of the really important ways we do this, and this workshop is a critical example, is we educate our base, our trans and queer API base, on our history. We dig into how systems of white supremacy, imperialism, colonialism, racial capitalism, and cisheteropatriarchy impact all of us across our identities in the past and in the present. Right now, the tools and tactics being wielded by fascist leaders to criminalize and punish trans people here in the U. S. are rooted in the same white supremacist, colonial, and imperialist ideologies used to justify the dehumanization and murder of Palestinians, particularly trans and queer Palestinians. As part of our theory of change, we've also spent intentional time educating our base about revolutionary politics like abolition and healing justice, and developing our skills for safety, for healing and resource mobilization that are applicable in moments all across our movement. We spent so much time since we implemented this theory of change in 2021 to build our base and grow our power so we can show up for our partners who are organizing for Palestinian liberation in this moment. We have spent so much time cultivating our skills and knowledges so we can support our movements beyond just trans liberation.  I want to end just by sharing a little bit of a story. A few weeks ago, our members participated in a direct action that asked many of them to step into higher risk than they had before. Prior to the action, we met to get grounded together. Folks shared their fears, but they also countered those fears with a really rooted sense of purpose. So many of our members talked about how they wanted to look back on this moment and know that they and we as an organization did everything in our power to support Palestinian liberation. And they spoke about the sacred responsibility and duty we have in this moment to show up in solidarity. I feel so moved, even now, just thinking back to that moment and feel so much gratitude to our members for taking new risks, to the generations of leaders in our organization and our movement who have led us to this point, and I feel immense admiration and gratitude to the long lineage of Palestinian queer and trans resistance, and current day organizers who are guiding us right now. For Lavender Phoenix, this moment is really helping us clarify our power, and for many of our members, this moment is helping them clarify their political purpose. The things all of our Palestinian siblings are fighting for, self determination, safety, healing, community, decolonization, these are the things that we as trans and queer API people here in the Bay Area so desire for ourselves as well. We refuse to let our transness and our queerness be co opted for violence and displacement and genocide, and we know that our struggles and our futures are united, and we're committed to fighting alongside our Palestinian comrades until we are all free. Thank you so much for letting me share. I'll pass it back to Shenaaz. Shenaaz Janmohamed: Shivani, thank you so much for bringing all of it. Lavender Phoenix, I just can't swoon on y'all enough. You model that clarity of purpose and power and grace. There's also such deep humility and grace to be in constant learning. As an emerging organization, an emerging queer organization, I just have to say Queer Crescent feels so deeply held by y'all and really inspired with the path that you are leading and inviting us all towards.  This piece around letting this moment sharpen the focus. It's not a pivot. I think I've even said, we're pivoting, we're in rapid response. Part of our political principles as an organization is understanding anti Zionism as part and parcel of the white supremacist project. And so this is not a pivot, it's not a rapid response, but to your point, it's a sharpening and it's a double down of our commitments, principles and priorities. So thank you for naming that.  Cheryl Truong: And that's the end of our show. Tonight's show was a broadcast of the Resisting Pinkwashing teach-in co-led by Queer Crescent and the Palestinian Feminist Collective. It was moderated by Shenaaz Janmohamed, executive director of Queer Crescent and featured poetry by Mx. Yaffa of MASGD, and guest speakers, Rabab Abdulhadie from the Palestinian feminist collective, Ghadir Shafie of ASWAT, and and Shivani Chanillo from AACRE Group Lavender Phoenix. Learn more about the incredible work of these incredible organizations and sign on to Queer Crescent's cease fire campaign through the links in our show notes.  Apex express is produced by Miko Lee, Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar. Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hien Nguyen, Nikki Chan, and Cheryl Truong   Tonight's show was produced by me, cheryl. Thanks to the team at KPFA for all of their support. And thank you for listening! The post APEX Express – 05.30.24 – Resisting Pinkwashing appeared first on KPFA.

In The Radical Isaac: I. L. Peretz and the Rise of Jewish Socialism (SUNY Press, 2023), Adi Mahalel presents Yiddish and Hebrew writer I. L. Peretz (1852–1915) in a new radical light we've never seen him in before. Conceived in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the 2011/12 Occupy Wall Street movement and social protests in Israel/Palestine, and against the backdrop of the Bernie Sander's campaigns in the United States, Mahalel revisits the radical period of the 1890s and recasts Peretz as an "organic intellectual" (Antonio Gramsci) of the Eastern European Jewish working class complementing the political work of the incipient socialist, diaspora nationalist movement of the Jewish Labor Bund. By offering close readings of the "radical" Peretz in Yiddish and Hebrew and following a partly chronological, partly thematic scheme, this study traces Peretz's radicalism from its inception through the various ways in which it was synchronically expressed during this intense period of history. It shows how this writer-cum-activist became instrumental in the realm of culture in the rise of ethno-class-consciousness among the Eastern European Jewish working class at the turn century. Adi Mahalel received his doctoral degree in Hebrew and Yiddish Studies at Columbia University and is Visiting Assistant Professor of Yiddish Studies. His articles have appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as AJS REVIEW, Studies in American Jewish Literature, Israel Studies Review, and Kesher: Journal of Media and Communications History in Israel and the Jewish World. Mahalel was a culture columnist at the Yiddish Forward. Miriam Chorley-Schulz is an Assistant Professor and Mokin Fellow of Holocaust Studies at the University of Oregon and the co-founder of the EU-funded project We Refugees. Digital Archive on Refugeedom, Past and Present. She holds a Ph.D. in Yiddish Studies from Columbia University and was the Ray D. Wolfe Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre of Jewish Studies and the Centre of Transnational and Diaspora Studies at the University of Toronto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In The Radical Isaac: I. L. Peretz and the Rise of Jewish Socialism (SUNY Press, 2023), Adi Mahalel presents Yiddish and Hebrew writer I. L. Peretz (1852–1915) in a new radical light we've never seen him in before. Conceived in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the 2011/12 Occupy Wall Street movement and social protests in Israel/Palestine, and against the backdrop of the Bernie Sander's campaigns in the United States, Mahalel revisits the radical period of the 1890s and recasts Peretz as an "organic intellectual" (Antonio Gramsci) of the Eastern European Jewish working class complementing the political work of the incipient socialist, diaspora nationalist movement of the Jewish Labor Bund. By offering close readings of the "radical" Peretz in Yiddish and Hebrew and following a partly chronological, partly thematic scheme, this study traces Peretz's radicalism from its inception through the various ways in which it was synchronically expressed during this intense period of history. It shows how this writer-cum-activist became instrumental in the realm of culture in the rise of ethno-class-consciousness among the Eastern European Jewish working class at the turn century. Adi Mahalel received his doctoral degree in Hebrew and Yiddish Studies at Columbia University and is Visiting Assistant Professor of Yiddish Studies. His articles have appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as AJS REVIEW, Studies in American Jewish Literature, Israel Studies Review, and Kesher: Journal of Media and Communications History in Israel and the Jewish World. Mahalel was a culture columnist at the Yiddish Forward. Miriam Chorley-Schulz is an Assistant Professor and Mokin Fellow of Holocaust Studies at the University of Oregon and the co-founder of the EU-funded project We Refugees. Digital Archive on Refugeedom, Past and Present. She holds a Ph.D. in Yiddish Studies from Columbia University and was the Ray D. Wolfe Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre of Jewish Studies and the Centre of Transnational and Diaspora Studies at the University of Toronto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

In The Radical Isaac: I. L. Peretz and the Rise of Jewish Socialism (SUNY Press, 2023), Adi Mahalel presents Yiddish and Hebrew writer I. L. Peretz (1852–1915) in a new radical light we've never seen him in before. Conceived in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the 2011/12 Occupy Wall Street movement and social protests in Israel/Palestine, and against the backdrop of the Bernie Sander's campaigns in the United States, Mahalel revisits the radical period of the 1890s and recasts Peretz as an "organic intellectual" (Antonio Gramsci) of the Eastern European Jewish working class complementing the political work of the incipient socialist, diaspora nationalist movement of the Jewish Labor Bund. By offering close readings of the "radical" Peretz in Yiddish and Hebrew and following a partly chronological, partly thematic scheme, this study traces Peretz's radicalism from its inception through the various ways in which it was synchronically expressed during this intense period of history. It shows how this writer-cum-activist became instrumental in the realm of culture in the rise of ethno-class-consciousness among the Eastern European Jewish working class at the turn century. Adi Mahalel received his doctoral degree in Hebrew and Yiddish Studies at Columbia University and is Visiting Assistant Professor of Yiddish Studies. His articles have appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as AJS REVIEW, Studies in American Jewish Literature, Israel Studies Review, and Kesher: Journal of Media and Communications History in Israel and the Jewish World. Mahalel was a culture columnist at the Yiddish Forward. Miriam Chorley-Schulz is an Assistant Professor and Mokin Fellow of Holocaust Studies at the University of Oregon and the co-founder of the EU-funded project We Refugees. Digital Archive on Refugeedom, Past and Present. She holds a Ph.D. in Yiddish Studies from Columbia University and was the Ray D. Wolfe Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre of Jewish Studies and the Centre of Transnational and Diaspora Studies at the University of Toronto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

In The Radical Isaac: I. L. Peretz and the Rise of Jewish Socialism (SUNY Press, 2023), Adi Mahalel presents Yiddish and Hebrew writer I. L. Peretz (1852–1915) in a new radical light we've never seen him in before. Conceived in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the 2011/12 Occupy Wall Street movement and social protests in Israel/Palestine, and against the backdrop of the Bernie Sander's campaigns in the United States, Mahalel revisits the radical period of the 1890s and recasts Peretz as an "organic intellectual" (Antonio Gramsci) of the Eastern European Jewish working class complementing the political work of the incipient socialist, diaspora nationalist movement of the Jewish Labor Bund. By offering close readings of the "radical" Peretz in Yiddish and Hebrew and following a partly chronological, partly thematic scheme, this study traces Peretz's radicalism from its inception through the various ways in which it was synchronically expressed during this intense period of history. It shows how this writer-cum-activist became instrumental in the realm of culture in the rise of ethno-class-consciousness among the Eastern European Jewish working class at the turn century. Adi Mahalel received his doctoral degree in Hebrew and Yiddish Studies at Columbia University and is Visiting Assistant Professor of Yiddish Studies. His articles have appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as AJS REVIEW, Studies in American Jewish Literature, Israel Studies Review, and Kesher: Journal of Media and Communications History in Israel and the Jewish World. Mahalel was a culture columnist at the Yiddish Forward. Miriam Chorley-Schulz is an Assistant Professor and Mokin Fellow of Holocaust Studies at the University of Oregon and the co-founder of the EU-funded project We Refugees. Digital Archive on Refugeedom, Past and Present. She holds a Ph.D. in Yiddish Studies from Columbia University and was the Ray D. Wolfe Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre of Jewish Studies and the Centre of Transnational and Diaspora Studies at the University of Toronto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

In The Radical Isaac: I. L. Peretz and the Rise of Jewish Socialism (SUNY Press, 2023), Adi Mahalel presents Yiddish and Hebrew writer I. L. Peretz (1852–1915) in a new radical light we've never seen him in before. Conceived in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the 2011/12 Occupy Wall Street movement and social protests in Israel/Palestine, and against the backdrop of the Bernie Sander's campaigns in the United States, Mahalel revisits the radical period of the 1890s and recasts Peretz as an "organic intellectual" (Antonio Gramsci) of the Eastern European Jewish working class complementing the political work of the incipient socialist, diaspora nationalist movement of the Jewish Labor Bund. By offering close readings of the "radical" Peretz in Yiddish and Hebrew and following a partly chronological, partly thematic scheme, this study traces Peretz's radicalism from its inception through the various ways in which it was synchronically expressed during this intense period of history. It shows how this writer-cum-activist became instrumental in the realm of culture in the rise of ethno-class-consciousness among the Eastern European Jewish working class at the turn century. Adi Mahalel received his doctoral degree in Hebrew and Yiddish Studies at Columbia University and is Visiting Assistant Professor of Yiddish Studies. His articles have appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as AJS REVIEW, Studies in American Jewish Literature, Israel Studies Review, and Kesher: Journal of Media and Communications History in Israel and the Jewish World. Mahalel was a culture columnist at the Yiddish Forward. Miriam Chorley-Schulz is an Assistant Professor and Mokin Fellow of Holocaust Studies at the University of Oregon and the co-founder of the EU-funded project We Refugees. Digital Archive on Refugeedom, Past and Present. She holds a Ph.D. in Yiddish Studies from Columbia University and was the Ray D. Wolfe Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre of Jewish Studies and the Centre of Transnational and Diaspora Studies at the University of Toronto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

In The Radical Isaac: I. L. Peretz and the Rise of Jewish Socialism (SUNY Press, 2023), Adi Mahalel presents Yiddish and Hebrew writer I. L. Peretz (1852–1915) in a new radical light we've never seen him in before. Conceived in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the 2011/12 Occupy Wall Street movement and social protests in Israel/Palestine, and against the backdrop of the Bernie Sander's campaigns in the United States, Mahalel revisits the radical period of the 1890s and recasts Peretz as an "organic intellectual" (Antonio Gramsci) of the Eastern European Jewish working class complementing the political work of the incipient socialist, diaspora nationalist movement of the Jewish Labor Bund. By offering close readings of the "radical" Peretz in Yiddish and Hebrew and following a partly chronological, partly thematic scheme, this study traces Peretz's radicalism from its inception through the various ways in which it was synchronically expressed during this intense period of history. It shows how this writer-cum-activist became instrumental in the realm of culture in the rise of ethno-class-consciousness among the Eastern European Jewish working class at the turn century. Adi Mahalel received his doctoral degree in Hebrew and Yiddish Studies at Columbia University and is Visiting Assistant Professor of Yiddish Studies. His articles have appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as AJS REVIEW, Studies in American Jewish Literature, Israel Studies Review, and Kesher: Journal of Media and Communications History in Israel and the Jewish World. Mahalel was a culture columnist at the Yiddish Forward. Miriam Chorley-Schulz is an Assistant Professor and Mokin Fellow of Holocaust Studies at the University of Oregon and the co-founder of the EU-funded project We Refugees. Digital Archive on Refugeedom, Past and Present. She holds a Ph.D. in Yiddish Studies from Columbia University and was the Ray D. Wolfe Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre of Jewish Studies and the Centre of Transnational and Diaspora Studies at the University of Toronto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

In The Radical Isaac: I. L. Peretz and the Rise of Jewish Socialism (SUNY Press, 2023), Adi Mahalel presents Yiddish and Hebrew writer I. L. Peretz (1852–1915) in a new radical light we've never seen him in before. Conceived in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the 2011/12 Occupy Wall Street movement and social protests in Israel/Palestine, and against the backdrop of the Bernie Sander's campaigns in the United States, Mahalel revisits the radical period of the 1890s and recasts Peretz as an "organic intellectual" (Antonio Gramsci) of the Eastern European Jewish working class complementing the political work of the incipient socialist, diaspora nationalist movement of the Jewish Labor Bund. By offering close readings of the "radical" Peretz in Yiddish and Hebrew and following a partly chronological, partly thematic scheme, this study traces Peretz's radicalism from its inception through the various ways in which it was synchronically expressed during this intense period of history. It shows how this writer-cum-activist became instrumental in the realm of culture in the rise of ethno-class-consciousness among the Eastern European Jewish working class at the turn century. Adi Mahalel received his doctoral degree in Hebrew and Yiddish Studies at Columbia University and is Visiting Assistant Professor of Yiddish Studies. His articles have appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as AJS REVIEW, Studies in American Jewish Literature, Israel Studies Review, and Kesher: Journal of Media and Communications History in Israel and the Jewish World. Mahalel was a culture columnist at the Yiddish Forward. Miriam Chorley-Schulz is an Assistant Professor and Mokin Fellow of Holocaust Studies at the University of Oregon and the co-founder of the EU-funded project We Refugees. Digital Archive on Refugeedom, Past and Present. She holds a Ph.D. in Yiddish Studies from Columbia University and was the Ray D. Wolfe Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre of Jewish Studies and the Centre of Transnational and Diaspora Studies at the University of Toronto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

In The Radical Isaac: I. L. Peretz and the Rise of Jewish Socialism (SUNY Press, 2023), Adi Mahalel presents Yiddish and Hebrew writer I. L. Peretz (1852–1915) in a new radical light we've never seen him in before. Conceived in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the 2011/12 Occupy Wall Street movement and social protests in Israel/Palestine, and against the backdrop of the Bernie Sander's campaigns in the United States, Mahalel revisits the radical period of the 1890s and recasts Peretz as an "organic intellectual" (Antonio Gramsci) of the Eastern European Jewish working class complementing the political work of the incipient socialist, diaspora nationalist movement of the Jewish Labor Bund. By offering close readings of the "radical" Peretz in Yiddish and Hebrew and following a partly chronological, partly thematic scheme, this study traces Peretz's radicalism from its inception through the various ways in which it was synchronically expressed during this intense period of history. It shows how this writer-cum-activist became instrumental in the realm of culture in the rise of ethno-class-consciousness among the Eastern European Jewish working class at the turn century. Adi Mahalel received his doctoral degree in Hebrew and Yiddish Studies at Columbia University and is Visiting Assistant Professor of Yiddish Studies. His articles have appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as AJS REVIEW, Studies in American Jewish Literature, Israel Studies Review, and Kesher: Journal of Media and Communications History in Israel and the Jewish World. Mahalel was a culture columnist at the Yiddish Forward. Miriam Chorley-Schulz is an Assistant Professor and Mokin Fellow of Holocaust Studies at the University of Oregon and the co-founder of the EU-funded project We Refugees. Digital Archive on Refugeedom, Past and Present. She holds a Ph.D. in Yiddish Studies from Columbia University and was the Ray D. Wolfe Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre of Jewish Studies and the Centre of Transnational and Diaspora Studies at the University of Toronto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the release of Beyoncé's new album, Cowboy Carter, the long and often-ignored history of Black country music is back in the spotlight. This hour, we talk to a woman who has made a career in country music, even though the industry hasn't always been welcoming. Alice Randall is a chart-topping country songwriter and author of the new book 'My Black Country A Journey Through Country Music's Black Past, Present, and Future.' She'll explain how she co-wrote the lyrics to a number one country song and tell us about the Black musicians who have shaped the genre from the very beginning. GUEST: Alice Randall: Chart-topping songwriter whose hits include “XXX's and OOO's (An American Girl),” which was first recorded by Trisha Yearwood. She is a bestselling novelist and Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies and Writer-in-Residence at Vanderbilt University. Her newest book is a memoir titled 'My Black Country: A Journey Through Country Music's Black Past, Present, and Future.' A new album called 'My Black Country: The Songs of Alice Randall' features her music recorded by Black women. You can learn more about the interview with Leah Penniman that was mentioned in this episode on our website. Special thanks to our interns Scout Raimondo and Sajina Shrestha.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Beyoncé's new album, “Cowboy Carter,” pays tribute to country music's greats while reflecting on her own connection to the genre. As she sings on the opening track, “Used to say I spoke ‘too country' / And the rejection came, said I wasn't country ‘nough.” That rejection reflects the gatekeeping that's long plagued country music – gatekeeping that determines who gets to be American and whose ‘country' it is, says Alice Randall, a songwriter, author and Vanderbilt professor. Randall was the first Black woman to write a No. 1 country hit, and her new book “My Black Country” weaves memoir with the history and impact of Black artists in the genre. We'll learn that history and Randall's place in it — and listen to country music from DeFord Bailey, Linda Martell and, of course, Beyoncé. Guests: Alice Randall, Country songwriter and professor of African American and Diaspora Studies and writer-in-residence, Vanderbilt University - author, “My Black Country: A Journey Through Country Music's Black Past, Present, and Future.”

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Tonight's show Powerleegirls hosts Miko Lee & Jalena Keane-Lee highlight the annual Day of Remembrance. They speak with Chair Jeff Matsuoka and youth leader KC Mukai. APEX Express is a proud member of Asian Americans for Civil Rights & Equality – AACRE. APEX EXPRESS TRANSCRIPT 2/15/24 SHOW Day of Remembrance 2024: Carrying the Light for Justice – Finding Our Way Home Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the Apex Express. Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:00:34] Good evening. You're tuned in to Apex Express. We are bringing you an Asian and Asian American perspective from the Bay and around the world we're your hosts, Miko Lee and Jalena Keane-Lee, the PowerLeeGirls, a mother daughter team. Tonight we're focused on the annual Day of Remembrance. February 19th is a significant date for the Japanese American community. On this day in 1942, president Franklin D. Roosevelt signed executive order 9066, which gave the United States army the authority to remove civilians from their homes during World War 2. Over 120,000 Japanese Americans and 3,000 Japanese Latin Americans were forced into concentration camps scattered in desolate, remote regions of the country. No Japanese Americans or Latin Americans wherever charged of espionage or sabotage against the United States. Yet they were targeted, rounded up and imprisoned for years. Every February, the Japanese American community commemorates Executive Order 9066 as a reminder of the impact the incarceration experience has had on our families, our community and our country. During this present time of genocide in Palestine, it is critical to educate others on the fragility of civil liberties in times of crisis and the importance of remaining vigilant in protecting the rights and freedoms of all. Never again, means never again for anyone. Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:01:59] Next up, listen to “Kenji” by Fort minor, the band created by Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda. This is a song about Mike's father and his family that was incarcerated at Manzanar. SONG Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:05:42] That was Mike Shinoda's “Kenji” based upon his family story at Manzanar. Miko Lee: [00:05:47] Welcome Jeff Matsuoka, chair of the San Francisco Bay Area Organizing Committee of the Day of Remembrance. Welcome to Apex Express. Jeff Matsuoka: [00:05:56] Thank you very much, Miko. It's great to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Miko Lee: [00:05:59] For people that don't know, can you give an overview about what the Day of Remembrance is all about? Jeff Matsuoka: [00:06:07] Sure. Yes. The Day of Remembrance is an annual event that we've been holding actually now for 45 years. This would be our 45th Day of Remembrance event and really what it's commemorating is the signing of EO9066. This is an executive order signed by President Franklin Dela Roosevelt on February 19th, 1942. And essentially what this did was it essentially empowered the military authorities, the US Army authorities, to essentially evict all Japanese Americans living in what's called the West Coast Evacuation Zones. So once again, this is right after Pearl Harbor, and what what was happening was the government feared basically Japanese Americans as collaborators with, of course, the Japanese and of course, there's no evidence as it turns out that was true, but nonetheless what happened was all citizens are all really inhabitants of Japanese ancestry, whether they were citizens or not, were evicted from their homes on the West Coast and sent to concentration camps deep in the Midwest or certainly very far away from the coast. And they said it was for our own safety, but of course there are a lot of factors there that were probably beyond safety that caused all this to happen. Of course, there's a lot of racism and a lot of also discrimination against Japanese Americans. And the bombing of Pearl Harbor and, of course, the signing of Executive Order 9066 resulted in the evacuation of our community, and it served many different purposes. One of, one being that, of course, it created, it served economic purpose for the people who did not want to see Japanese workers, Japanese American workers, for instance, competing for jobs. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of factors behind that, but the end result was that the civil rights of Japanese Americans were trampled on and they were evicted from their homes and they essentially spent the rest of the war sitting in these concentration camps far away from home. And of course, is this injustice that we want to remember every year for the Day of Remembrance. Of course, the other factor of the story as well is that, of course, we also celebrate redress. Of course redress didn't happen until, the 70s and 80s, but eventually Japanese Americans gained redress through the signing of the Civil Liberties Act of [1988], and by that, time, of course, many of the evacuees had passed away, but nonetheless, for those who were still alive at the time, they were entitled to a, to monetary compensation and a apology, actually, from the government for their unjust incarceration during the war. So we also want to lift that up as well, in that it was a celebration, it's a commemoration of the fact that we were in fact compensated by the government for that injustice. Miko Lee: [00:08:46] Jeff, can you share a little bit about your personal connection with the incarceration? Jeff Matsuoka: [00:08:52] My mother's family actually were Japanese Peruvians. They actually lived in Lima, Peru, which of course is the capital of Peru. And a little known, part of the whole sort of Japanese evacuation. I also reached down to South America and my mother's family, I predict my grandfather was actually taken by by the FBI from Peru, and they, were interned in a, separate system of camps called the Department of Justice camps, and they ended up in Crystal City, Texas, which was a maximum security concentration camp run by The Immigration Naturalization service. So my connection is a little bit different from those whose ancestors were born or who lived here in the United States itself. Since my family actually were, From peru. And they only spoke Spanish and Japanese. They didn't really speak English when they came here. Miko Lee: [00:09:39] Jeff, thank you so much for sharing a piece of the story of Japanese Latin Americans that were incarcerated. I talked about that at the beginning of the episode, over 3,000 Japanese Latin Americans, and we actually have a whole episode and a curriculum that's based on that in our series, Never Again. So I'll put a link to that in the show notes. Jeff, can you also talk about your experience growing up with the Day of Remembrance? What was the first one you attended? Now you're the chair and you've been the chair for a bit, but what was your first Day of Remembrance and how does that stick in with your family history? Jeff Matsuoka: [00:10:17] I actually attended what's called the Peru Kai Reunions. These were reunions of many of the Peruvian Japanese who were kidnapped from their countries, and they had reunions, interestingly enough. But my first really day of remembrance didn't really come until maybe around, 2010, our San Francisco Bay Area Day of Remembrance, the, one of the, one of the groups that are always represented is the Japanese Latin Americans, that's how I got involved with learning more about the Bay Area Day of Remembrance. I got involved somewhat late but nonetheless, after I understood about what's going on, what happened basically in the United States itself that really piqued my interest to see whether, we could tell the story, to the American public, because I think this is a really, very important, story that Japanese Americans and Japanese Latin Americans can tell to the American experience here. Miko Lee: [00:11:06] Every year there's a different theme, and in every area there's a different theme. This year we're focused on the Bay Area with you, and the theme for this year is Carrying the Light for Justice – Finding Our Way Home. Can you share a little bit about where that theme came from, and what does it mean to you? Jeff Matsuoka: [00:11:23] Yes. We want to actually talk about the injustices that were wrought on Japanese Americans, as well as, the redress which was a, which tried to correct those injustices. I think another part of DOR is, our experience as Japanese Americans having been, incarcerated unjustly and having also won redress from the government for those injustices gives us kind of a unique platform from which we can, also illuminate some of the struggles of our sisters and brothers, who have also suffered similar injustices in the United States. When October 7th happened, and the war in the Mideast between Israel and the Palestinian people flared up again, the committee members realized that this was something that our community had to come to grips with. So our sub theme this year, Finding Our Way Home you know, has to do with the fact that we need to try to understand a little bit more I feel about the plight of the Palestinian people who, in fact, had their homes essentially taken from them. There is a parallel there, obviously, with the Japanese American experience here, where many people lost their homes or had their properties expropriated taken over by the government or by other people. We feel that we need to have a better understanding, basically, and we need to also stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, because, and we also need to educate our, audience, which are mainly Japanese Americans, as to the, as to the parallels, between the plight of the Palestinian people that are, that they are undergoing right now, and plight of our people who, you know, who were definitely very much discriminated against and, had their human rights trampled on during the war. So this is another Aspect of DOR I believe that we need to also emphasize. DOR is many things, but I think what it really is, it really is a commemorative and educational event, certainly, but also, it does have an advocacy function as well. The theme kind of embraces that idea of home. We all want to go home and that's what certainly the people in the concentration camps felt during World War II and I'm sure that's what the Palestinian people are feeling as well. Miko Lee: [00:13:23] And how will this support and understanding of what's going on in Palestine show up at the event this year? Jeff Matsuoka: [00:13:32] We're very fortunate to have as our keynote speaker, Reverend Michael Yoshi. He's a retired minister of the Buena Vista United Methodist Church. Michael, for many years he's had a ministry with a village in the West Bank Wadi Fukin, and actually in past DORs, he has reported about his experiences there, and he's also invited members of the villagers of Wadi Fukin to come and visit the United States. He, I believe, is uniquely positioned to speak about these parallels that I'm talking about between the JAA incarceration and what's going on in Palestine, in Gaza and the West Bank today. And also he's uniquely, I think, respected in our community, and he has, he's worked very diligently, he's very highly respected in our JAA community, and I believe that he will be a really great speaker to help us educate to fulfill our educational function of, trying to try to tell us what's going on really there in Palestine. We have, I think, in the United States, a very kind of blinkered view of what's going on, and I think, I believe we need to rectify that view. And I believe, as I say, Reverend Yoshi, who has had, he's been there, he has talked to people there. I believe he is really the best speaker that we could have imagined for our theme this year. So we're really happy to have Reverend Michael Yoshi to be our keynote speaker. Miko Lee: [00:14:53] That sounds great. One of the things I've been really Noticing is how young folks in our community are really vocal about their support for the Palestinians. I'm wondering if you've noticed a difference In the young people that are part of the movement and how they organize and how they utilize their activism versus folks of our generations. Jeff Matsuoka: [00:15:15] Yeah, so of course it's very interesting, of course, the younger generation, they certainly have a proficiency with technology, in particular, social media. And that's something that I think our generation lacks, or we're not as proficient at, using those tools, they're actually able to amplify their message in a way that our generation really at least don't think we really can do. Their reach is much more widespread, I believe, as a result. What really impresses me about the young people, though, is, how as you mentioned, how fervent their advocacy is. Thing is, they're, some of them are really much more ardent, in my opinion, on this cause than people of my generation have shown. So I believe we can learn something from them and I'm really happy that we have some young people on our committee who are really helping us try to try as oldsters to try to understand how best we can bring out this message to the American community and to our community for that matter. Miko Lee: [00:16:11] That's great. And we'll hear more about that later in the episode with KC Mukai, who actually developed a youth organizing committee that's part of the work of JACL and DOR, I believe. So I'm excited to hear more about that. Can you tell us about this Year's Clifford I. Uyeda Peace and Humanitarian Awardee? Jeff Matsuoka: [00:16:32] Yes, our awardee this year is Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi, and, she is actually a professor at San Francisco State University, and, she has for many years actually been very supportive of our JA Advocacy. She's been a candle lighter at our, at our, at previous, of Remembrance events. She is the Director of Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State And she has won many awards. One thing that we really want to emphasize for this year's award is the fact that, we are talking about, the situation in Palestine. The committee felt that it was appropriate to have Dr. Albdulhadi be the awardee given all the work that she's been doing basically to promote Palestinian understanding, both in the educational aspects as well as in advocacy as well. So we feel that she's very well deserving of the Clifford I. Uyeda. Peace and Humanitarian award. And we're very happy that I understand that she will be there in person to accept the award. So we're very, we're looking forward to seeing her at our event. Miko Lee: [00:17:37] Can you give us a little background about the award and what it represents? Jeff Matsuoka: [00:17:44] Yes, the Clifford I. Uyeda award is named after Dr. Clifford I. Uyeda, actually. He was a San Francisco pediatrician, he was also an activist, a lifelong really activist in the Japanese American community. He was active in the JACL. He was very instrumental in starting the, one of the, one of the founders of the redress movement when he was president, actually, the national JACL. Also Dr. Clifford was a man who, you know really was a person of tremendous, I think, courage in the sense that he was man of principle. He took positions, which I think, could have alienated him from even other Japanese or Japanese Americans. For instance, he was very much an advocate for recognizing the Japanese government's involvement or complicity in the rape of Nanking, for instance. And he was very, yes, he was definitely very courageous in taking positions that other people in our community really felt uncomfortable actually taking positions on. When he passed away in 2004, the Day of Remembrance Committee decided to create the Clifford I. Uyeda Award to honor his memory as well as to commemorate or to honor individuals who are activists in the same vein as Dr. Uyeda was. Courageous path breakers basically in our community and also outside of community for social justice and inclusion and yeah, we're very happy that Dr. Albdulhadi is this year's Clifford I. Uyeda award winner. Miko Lee: [00:19:12] I hear what you're saying about how important it is for our community, for Japanese Americans to understand this history and to recognize it and connect it with things that are happening today. Why is it important for non-Japanese Americans to understand about the Day of Remembrance? Jeff Matsuoka: [00:19:29] First of all, I'm sorry to say this, most non-Japanese don't even know about EO966 or the internment of Japanese Americans. As time goes on the American public sort of forgets things, and this is one of those things that really can't be forgotten because obviously what happens when you forget history is you repeat history, and that's what's happening. I think, for the non Japanese community, the lessons that were learned from the incarceration of Japanese Americans, in the sense that, it was an unjust incarceration that civil rights were, in fact, trampled on, and that, in fact, the government apologized for those injustices and they actually compensated, our community. These are things that I think the American public needs to know because if they forget, and unfortunately I believe they are forgetting, then those same injustices will be perpetrated again among other, to other communities and the cycle will continue. So this is a very valuable lesson and particularly now given the political atmosphere here in this country. This is a very important lesson that needs to be taught and understood as to what the implications of government actions like this have basically on people, if our, of our certainly has affected our community but we can look at other examples of other communities that have been similarly impacted. And I believe those lessons have been lost or forgotten in those cases. The Day of Remembrance is really more important than it ever has been. Miko Lee: [00:20:56] Thank you so much Jeff Matsuoka for joining us. We will put a link in our website to the Day of Remembrance events that are happening all over the country. But Jeff, can you give us more details about the Bay Area Day of Remembrance that's happening February 17th from 2 to 4? Where is it and what will people experience when they go to it? Jeff Matsuoka: [00:21:14] Yes, thanks, Miko. Yes, the San Francisco Bay Area Day of Remembrance will take place as you mentioned on Saturday, February 17th from 2 to 4PM. It's going to be at the AMC Kabuki 8 theaters. That's 1881 Post Street in San Francisco's Japantown. And we'll have, of course, the keynote speaker, Reverend Yoshi, but, another important part, a very commemorative part of our, Day of Remembrance is the candle lighting ceremony, where we actually honor the internees of the ten War Relocation Authority camps, as well as the DOJ Department of Justice camp, with a candle lighting ceremony, and that's always the highlight of the event. A very you know, commemorative and contemplative and very actually emotional, event where we commemorate the all the internees who were unjustly incarcerated and, following the event we're actually going to have a procession through Japantown, going from the theater to a reception, which should be held at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California and that's on Center street. So we hope you can join us. It should be should be a really, meaningful and important event Miko Lee: [00:22:18] And that candlelight procession is quite beautiful. It is wheelchair accessible so people can leave the Kabuki theater and basically walk around the corner. And it's a lovely commemoration and recognition of a horrible event that happened in these United States. But we're working to remember them so that we can make sure that they don't happen again. Thank you so much, Jeff, for joining us on Apex Express. Jeff Matsuoka: [00:22:42] Thank you very much for having me. Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:22:46] Next up listen to Nobuko Miyamoto's “Gaman.” MUSIC Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:29:07] That was “Gaman” from Nobuko Miyamoto's Smithsonian Folkways album, 120,000 Stories. Nobuko was one of the many women's stories that haven't been highlighted until now. Miko Lee: [00:29:19] You are listening to 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1 KFCF in Fresno, 97.5 K248BR in Santa Cruz, 94.3 K232FZ in Monterey, and online worldwide at kpfa.org. Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:29:48] All right. Welcome KC Mukai to Apex Express. I think this is the first time that we've had the reigning Cherry Blossom Queen on our show, so it's so great to have you here. Thank you so much for joining us. KC Mukai: [00:30:02] Oh my gosh, yes, thank you so much for having me. It's an honor. Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:30:07] So can you tell us a little bit about being the Cherry Blossom Queen, like what did it feel like to win that honor, and how did you find out about the pageant? KC Mukai: [00:30:16] Well, I've always been involved in the Japanese American community growing up, going to Buddhist temples and participating in Girl Scouts. But when I came to the Bay for college, I was really searching for community. So I got involved with an internship program called Nikkei Community Internship in Japantown, and then that put me in contact with the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival. And from there, I decided to apply for the Queen Program, because it really valued female leadership, especially within the community. And it's been an amazing, amazing year so far, and I'm actually almost rounding out the end of it for the next court to come in in April. But, yeah, it's truly been such an amazing and beautiful journey with the court. Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:31:02] That's so wonderful. What are some of the highlights of your year with the court so far? KC Mukai: [00:31:09] Yeah, I would definitely say some of the highlights have been me participating in, you know, events that I grew up with, such as Obon getting to go to San Jose Obon and also Concord. Really being a part of the community there. I would also say a highlight has been just going to different community organization fundraisers the JCCCNC and Japantown as well as Kamochi and other organizations that, you know, are really critical for keeping Japantown thriving. It's been an honor to meet leaders from there and be able to see, you know, the blood, sweat and tears that really goes behind producing and helping the community thrive. And then I think, of course, getting to meet just such wonderful, wonderful and amazing women in this community not only from my current core, but also Hawaii and Nisei Week have similar festivals and programs. And so getting to meet and bond with them and just really seeing that, you know, women are the cultural keepers of our community the Japanese American community and it's really important to keep those ties close and really, really help them to grow. Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:32:26] Oh, I love that. What are some of the things that sparked your interest in Japanese American community organizing and culture bearing? KC Mukai: [00:32:39] Some of the things that inspired me, particularly in my organizing sense is definitely having, being part of the Japanese American community and I have grandparents and great grandparents and family that were among the 125,000 people of Japanese descent that were incarcerated during World War II because they were deemed a national security threat. And so because of that tie to incarceration and injustice and the fact that, you know, my great grandparents lost their livelihood and my grandparents lost their youth and kind of that community sense lost a grasp of their identity and security I ground my organizing work in kind of a lot of making sure that that injustice doesn't happen to other communities today or at least advocating for that. And I think being a cultural keeper it's growing up and being part of temples and community spaces. I got a chance to see how the women of my community and like the Obachans or the grandmas would come out and dedicate so much of their lives to keeping our temples and organizations afloat in terms of, you know, coming out early and bringing food staying till late hours cleaning up, leading the organizations on the board and stepping up for leadership positions. And it's because of those role models and that ancestral history that I continue to feel today, like, it's important to get involved in my community and also speak up for injustice. Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:34:18] Thank you so much for sharing that. Tonight's show is focused on the Day of Remembrance. Can you share a little bit about how the Day of Remembrance has been recognized in your family? KC Mukai: [00:34:30] Yeah, so in my family I'm half Japanese and half Chinese, and my Japanese side, my family has always. recognized Day of Remembrance as an important holiday within our community, specifically because of its importance to recognizing incarceration and what happened to Japanese Americans during World War II. I grew up in the Central Valley in Fresno area and the surrounding towns and being able to recognize the Day of Remembrance and kind of tie it back to my own, personal tie with this, and then also connecting it to what is happening in the world today, that's always been kind of an important keynote of, of the time. So my family, in particular, my Japanese side was incarcerated at Poston and Gila River and then they resettled back in the bay, but then my pod moved out to central California to live on a cherry farm. We always understood that despite this being kind of a historic event, the themes of injustice and exclusion, and human rights are still very much applicable to what we see happening in the world today. Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:35:55] Can you talk with us about the theme of this year's Bay Area event for Day of Remembrance, Carrying the Light for Justice – Finding Our Way Home? KC Mukai: [00:36:04] Yeah, so the theme for this year's Day of Remembrance has to do with Palestine and what we see happening in the Middle East. We chose Palestine to be your theme because we think that it's an important moment to not only share and educate what is happening with our community, but also to bring our community in and raise consciousness. We chose this topic because of course it's very urgent and very timely as, as we speak, there is still not a ceasefire in Palestine and we wanted to do all we could to really highlight the issue and center the Palestinian community and really be an ally. Japanese Americans, we know from our own history, the importance of protecting human rights and civil rights and civil liberties, since these were, of course, stripped away from us during America's World War II incarceration camps. And so, seeing then the destruction of, you know, Palestinian communities really speaks to us as Japanese Americans because we also faced the destruction of our own communities, you know, in our homes and our businesses and our farms are taken away. And also we were denied our education, our health care, our cultural rights and of course, other infringements of civil rights and basic human rights. We very much see this, and recognize the same things happening in Palestine. However, with that being said, I think our DOR committee also recognizes that not all of our community is in the same place in terms of education and understanding of this work and we want to be cognizant of that. So part of our programming is we're inviting Reverend Michael Yoshi, who's a very respected pastor within the United Methodist Church who has been doing work alongside an allyship with Palestine for a while. And we're inviting him as a respected member of our community to come and speak and share a bit about why he sees the Japanese American experience aligning with the Palestinian experience. On top of having Reverend Michael Yoshi, we're also inviting a few of our Nikkei organizations in the community to come and table and just be there to help educate. There's a growing collective called Nikkei for Palestine that has recently formed that has been trying to push our community to be more active and organized. So Nikkei for Palestine, alongside Tsuru for Solidarity is hoping to show up and also just help bring our community into the work. Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:38:46] That's so great. Thank you so much for doing that. And I feel like it really brings the phrase of never again into the present and also emphasizing that never again doesn't just mean for our own community, but it means for anyone and everyone in the world. So thank you so much for making those intersectional connections. And I know you mentioned Nikkei for Palestine and Tsuru for Solidarity. And so I was just curious if you could talk a little bit about the different kind of community organizing groups that you're a part of. KC Mukai: [00:39:21] Yeah, sure I'd love to share. So I think importantly is probably Nikkei for Palestine collective that I have been doing work in and we are a growing collective that formed out of a kind of initial meeting held by Nikkei resistors in the Bay Area that sought to kind of gather others who were really seeing the destruction and loss of life happening in Palestine and really wanting to organize around that.And so Nikkei for Palestine has been doing several things, including trying to push the JACL or the Japanese American Citizens League to speak up. We've also been holding weekly power hours for our Nikkei community to call on our Japanese American representatives to speak up. We've also been doing educational work, and putting together packets and toolkits and so that's Nikkei for Palestine. Other than Nikkei for Palestine, I'm of course involved as the Queen of the Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival and on top of that, I also do work with Tsuru for Solidarity as their current fundraiser chair. And alongside doing my fundraising role in Tsuru, I'm also on the Police, Prisons, and Detention Working Group, and currently in Tsuru for Solidarity is actually planning for a big action in Tacoma, Washington. We're organizing, to shut down the Northwest Detention Center, which, is a detention center, holding individuals that have been facing very bleak, human rights violations, in terms of not getting adequate food, having, water pipes burst in the detention center and they've actually been going on hunger strike, the individuals within this detention center have been trying to strike in their own way, and so we're hoping to do a big protest upcoming on our Day of Remembrance, actually, for February 16th. And then past that, we're also doing a big action at the end of April, in the last weekend of April. Yeah, those are some of the groups that I organize with today. Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:41:32] That's great. Thank you so much for sharing. And when it comes to, you know, growing up and becoming a woman in the world today and just everything that we're faced with when it comes to genocide and mass incarceration, both in the present and in the past, I'm curious, what are some of the things that that bring you hope and that remind you that You know, there is so much to fight for and to work for. KC Mukai: [00:42:03] I think some things that give me hope are intergenerational conversations. I think oftentimes within organizing work and can get. We tend to pigeonhole ourselves within like this one moment without realizing that we're part of a larger landscape and in a larger history of people that have been doing this work for a long time. So it makes me very hopeful and grateful to see elders that have been in this work for a long time getting involved and sharing their knowledge as well as younger folk and children also sharing and being part of the movement today. Recently I went to a ceasefire banner drop at the Buddhist Church of Oakland and there they had some of their Dharma school students actually speak up and share why ceasefire is important to them and they were leading the chants. And, as you know, going out to protest today, we often see young children out there right there with us. And I think that is so inspiring that despite all of the violence and that we see in the world today, that we're still able to have these moments of true community and true passing down of knowledge and being able to see that there is a future. I think something else that also gives me hope is cultivating spaces like some of the community groups I've been a part of, I think, especially like Tsuru and Nikkei for Palestine. Being able to have honest conversations with each other — I think it can be hard to organize especially when you're organizing against something that seems so insurmountable and then conflict often comes to that, but it's been hopeful to see the ways in which my community is able to push past, I guess, the ties of what bounds us to punitive and carceral measures in terms of like, if I don't agree with you, I'm going to shun you. And it's been encouraging to see spaces where this is rethought and how can we creatively work in and organize together in a space without and recognize that we may have differences, but that we're all in this work together and push forward from that. And so I think those have definitely kept me going in these moments. Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:44:34] And yes, we love intergenerational connections and organizing and activism, and I was wondering if you see any differences in organizing amongst our generation and our parents and our grandparents generations. KC Mukai: [00:44:48] Wow, that's a great question. Yeah, I would say something, like, I would definitely say something that I've noticed is different is that kind of abolitionist look at relationships in terms of, I feel like, in my parents and grandparents generation, there's often, and especially within the community, there's often this need to, like, disagreement is never completely dealt with, or it's definitely like more shamed upon or kind of the ways that we treat each other are, you know, not as like creative as we want it to be. And so what I see in this future generation is this. It's kind of, you know, hope to be more intentional with each other, especially under an understanding, like the work needs to be done and how can we get past this small moment of conflict and be able to see the larger picture. I would also say like in terms of organizing itself I think it's been cool to see how, I guess social media plays a role in our organizing spaces. Especially I was just on a call with an elder last night and she was sharing about her work getting involved in the Vietnam War and how from their perspective, they weren't able to get like the real time information about the atrocities happening during war like we are during this time, and being able to see, you know, the amount of destruction happening in Palestine. So I think that, you know, the social media part of it and how fast media can move is playing to our benefit, but also, you know, also our demise in some way. And so, yeah, I think those two things are definitely some differences I see in our generations. Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:46:45] Thank you. If there's someone out there listening who's not sure how to get involved in community and community organizing, and maybe not sure that their voice matters or could make any sort of impact, what would you say to them? KC Mukai: [00:47:04] Yeah, if there's someone, I think if there's someone out there listening that, you know, is maybe struggling with, seeing how their voice and their position in this matters, I would say to them that it's important to think about yourself, not just as an individual, but as part of a whole. I lean on the practice of interdependence, which is a teaching in Buddhism, which teaches us that we are all connected to each other and what I say and what I do has an impact upon others around me. And I think it's important to understand that movements get started because of a person and another person and another person joining and thinking about the, I guess, vastness of organizing work. It's important to really, while as complicated as it is, it's important to sometimes simplify it for yourselves and just say that, hey, like, I can start my own movement in my own way. I recently heard or was reminded of the way that, redress or redress for the Japanese American community kind of got steam within our community and eventually got passed in Congress. And it started with, you know, one person just keeping standing up at these JACL meetings. And for 10 years, he came to JACL National Convention and he kept arguing that we as Japanese Americans need to bring redress into Congress and because of his work, it eventually passed as a national resolution in JACL and that's when JACL got involved and really helped to push it with Congress, and that's how we got redress and that was such a long timeline and I think it's important to remember stories like that and stories of how movements are started to encourage us. Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:49:15] Absolutely. And speaking of JACL, could you talk with us about your development of a district youth board for JACL? KC Mukai: [00:49:26] Yeah, so I started the district youth board of the NCWNP district youth board, two years ago because I became the NCWNP, which is the Northern California, Western Nevada Pacific District, youth rep.And because of that position, my governor asked if I could, you know, really get a hold on this, this youth leadership. And so with her guidance, and my, I guess, ambition and drive, I brought together 6 of us, to form the 1st District Youth Board in the JACL, and we were able to build out programming and youth events and intergenerational events and get a grant to help send people to national convention as well as other projects all within our first year. And so it was very, very, very great especially for building the leadership pipeline within JACL we were able to help some of our youth members get on to leadership positions within our district council and also as chapter presidents and because of that, it helps to diversify, I guess, the outlook of of JACL in terms of what JACL is passionate about what it's able to speak on. And so I'm very, very proud of that district youth board. But since then, I have stepped off as one of the founders and so my co-founders Bruce Arao and Halle Sousa have been really, really doing such a great job with district youth board. And taking it to places I never thought I would go. So I think it's all been great getting to watch them do that. Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:51:27] That's wonderful. Thank you. Is there anything else that you'd like to add about the Day of Remembrance or about anything else that you have going on? KC Mukai: [00:51:38] Yeah. So I'd like to add, I'm also involved in a growing organization that we just founded called JAYA, which is the Japanese American Youth Alliance. And our goal is to connect all of the Nikkei youth organizations within the Bay and NorCal and Northern California together to help do like youth programming and also kind of serve as a bridge between collegiate organizations and then young adult organizations. And so because of that work with JAYA, we're actually holding our own Day of Remembrance event, and it's in conjunction with the Bay Area DOR. But it will be happening right before Bay Area DOR's, which will be in the morning around 11 AM, and we're holding it at the JCYC in San Francisco, Japantown, this event will, be more of an opportunity for youth to come together to talk about why Day of Remembrance is important. We'll also be talking about Palestine and solidarity with Palestine and so if there's any youth listening who are interested in coming, we definitely would like to see you there. And then afterwards, after our youth one, we'll be joining the Bay Area DOR one at Kabuki Theater. Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:52:26] That's great. Thank you so much for sharing. And we will link to more information on that in our show notes too. KC Mukai: [00:53:02] Okay. Wonderful. Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:53:06] Is there anything else that you'd like to add or share? KC Mukai: [00:53:08] Just thank you so much for having me. And this was such a great opportunity to share a little bit about my work, but also the larger work of the Japan town and Japanese American community. So thank you so much. Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:53:19] Thank you so much. It was so lovely getting to talk with you and it's really inspiring all the different work that you're doing and, uh, Nikkei for Palestine sounds really awesome too. KC Mukai: [00:53:29] Thank you, thank you. Miko Lee: [00:53:31] There are events happening this weekend for Day of Remembrance, all over the country. So for the community calendar, I'm going to give you a little bit of an update. To find out more about what's happening for Day of Remembrance in your community check out the Japanese American Citizen League's website to look at the regional events at JACL.org. In the Bay Area where many of us are located. This Friday night from 6 to 9:00 PM there's going to be a day of remembrance student celebration at UC Berkeley's Stephen's Lounge. And then the next day on February 17th in the Bay Area will be the Bay Area Day of Remembrance that we talked to both of our guests tonight about. It's called Carrying the Light for Justice – Finding Our Way Home to commemorate the Executive Order 9066. It will be at AMC Kabuki 8 theater on 1881 Post St, and then a beautiful candlelight procession through the streets of Japantown to a reception at the Japanese Cultural [and Community Center] on 1840 Sutter. Everyone is welcome and it's wheelchair accessible. Also February 17th from 2 to 4, if you are in Los Angeles, the Day of Remembrance is called Rooted in Resistance: Fighting for Justice during World War II, reinforces the importance of standing up for justice in times of great moral crisis. From the draft resisters and the No-No Boys to those who protested through quiet hunger strikes or chanting crowds, resistance has taken many forms since World War II and we will hear truth and testimony from those who remember and honor these stories. Some of the speakers include Diana Tsuchida, Kyoko Oda, Tak Hoshizaki, and Soji Kashiwagi. On Monday, February 19th from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM is the Day of Remembrance in San Jose. And then the following weekend, Saturday and Sunday, February 24 and 25, there will be films all about the Day of Remembrance at the Kabuki and San Francisco. And then in San Jose at the Betsuin Buddhist church. Again, to find out more what's happening in your community check out JACL.org. And remember so that we don't repeat the harms of the past. Thank you very much.   Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:55:54] Next up we hear “Summer of '42” by Kishi Bashi from the album Omoiyari. Even though Kishi and his family immigrated to the US post-World War II, he created this album to address the current political climate. He felt that the talk of walls and bans on immigrants recalls the same sort of fears that sparked the internment camps after Pearl Harbor in 1941. Jalena Keane-Lee: [00:56:18] That was “Summer of '42” by Kishi Bashi. Miko Lee: [00:59:14] Please check out our website, kpfa.org to find out more about the Day of Remembrance and the guests that we spoke to. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. Apex Express is produced by Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Hien Nguyen, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Nate Tan, Paige Chung, Preti Mangala-Shekar, and Swati Rayasam. Tonight's show was produced by Miko Lee and edited by Ayame Keane-Lee. Have a great night.           The post APEX Express – 2.15.24 – Carrying the Light for Justice appeared first on KPFA.

Malaysian Chinese (Mahua) literature is marginalized on several fronts. In the international literary space, which privileges the West, Malaysia is considered remote. The institutions of modern Chinese literature favor mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Within Malaysia, only texts in Malay, the national language, are considered national literature by the state. However, Mahua authors have produced creative and thought-provoking works that have won growing critical recognition, showing Malaysia to be a laboratory for imaginative Chinese writing. Highlighting Mahua literature's distinctive mode of evolution, Cheow Thia Chan demonstrates that authors' grasp of their marginality in the world-Chinese literary space has been the impetus for—rather than a barrier to—aesthetic inventiveness. He foregrounds the historical links between Malaysia and other Chinese-speaking regions, tracing how Mahua writers engage in the “worlding” of modern Chinese literature by navigating interconnected literary spaces. Focusing on writers including Lin Cantian, Han Suyin, Wang Anyi, and Li Yongping, whose works craft signature literary languages, Chan examines narrative representations of multilingual social realities and authorial reflections on colonial Malaya or independent Malaysia as valid literary terrain. Delineating the inter-Asian “crossings” of Mahua literary production—physical journeys, interactions among social groups, and mindset shifts—from the 1930s to the 2000s, he contends that new perspectives from the periphery are essential to understanding the globalization of modern Chinese literature. By emphasizing the inner diversities and connected histories in the margins, Malaysian Crossings: Place and Language in the Worlding of Modern Chinese Literature (Columbia UP, 2022) offers a powerful argument for remapping global Chinese literature and world literature. Cheow Thia Chan is assistant professor of Chinese studies at the National University of Singapore. His research interests include modern Chinese literature, Singapore and Malaysian Chinese Literature, Southeast Asian Chinese Studies, Diaspora Studies, and Urban Studies. Li-Ping Chen is a teaching fellow in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include literary translingualism, diaspora, and nativism in Sinophone, inter-Asian, and transpacific contexts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Malaysian Chinese (Mahua) literature is marginalized on several fronts. In the international literary space, which privileges the West, Malaysia is considered remote. The institutions of modern Chinese literature favor mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Within Malaysia, only texts in Malay, the national language, are considered national literature by the state. However, Mahua authors have produced creative and thought-provoking works that have won growing critical recognition, showing Malaysia to be a laboratory for imaginative Chinese writing. Highlighting Mahua literature's distinctive mode of evolution, Cheow Thia Chan demonstrates that authors' grasp of their marginality in the world-Chinese literary space has been the impetus for—rather than a barrier to—aesthetic inventiveness. He foregrounds the historical links between Malaysia and other Chinese-speaking regions, tracing how Mahua writers engage in the “worlding” of modern Chinese literature by navigating interconnected literary spaces. Focusing on writers including Lin Cantian, Han Suyin, Wang Anyi, and Li Yongping, whose works craft signature literary languages, Chan examines narrative representations of multilingual social realities and authorial reflections on colonial Malaya or independent Malaysia as valid literary terrain. Delineating the inter-Asian “crossings” of Mahua literary production—physical journeys, interactions among social groups, and mindset shifts—from the 1930s to the 2000s, he contends that new perspectives from the periphery are essential to understanding the globalization of modern Chinese literature. By emphasizing the inner diversities and connected histories in the margins, Malaysian Crossings: Place and Language in the Worlding of Modern Chinese Literature (Columbia UP, 2022) offers a powerful argument for remapping global Chinese literature and world literature. Cheow Thia Chan is assistant professor of Chinese studies at the National University of Singapore. His research interests include modern Chinese literature, Singapore and Malaysian Chinese Literature, Southeast Asian Chinese Studies, Diaspora Studies, and Urban Studies. Li-Ping Chen is a teaching fellow in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include literary translingualism, diaspora, and nativism in Sinophone, inter-Asian, and transpacific contexts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

Malaysian Chinese (Mahua) literature is marginalized on several fronts. In the international literary space, which privileges the West, Malaysia is considered remote. The institutions of modern Chinese literature favor mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Within Malaysia, only texts in Malay, the national language, are considered national literature by the state. However, Mahua authors have produced creative and thought-provoking works that have won growing critical recognition, showing Malaysia to be a laboratory for imaginative Chinese writing. Highlighting Mahua literature's distinctive mode of evolution, Cheow Thia Chan demonstrates that authors' grasp of their marginality in the world-Chinese literary space has been the impetus for—rather than a barrier to—aesthetic inventiveness. He foregrounds the historical links between Malaysia and other Chinese-speaking regions, tracing how Mahua writers engage in the “worlding” of modern Chinese literature by navigating interconnected literary spaces. Focusing on writers including Lin Cantian, Han Suyin, Wang Anyi, and Li Yongping, whose works craft signature literary languages, Chan examines narrative representations of multilingual social realities and authorial reflections on colonial Malaya or independent Malaysia as valid literary terrain. Delineating the inter-Asian “crossings” of Mahua literary production—physical journeys, interactions among social groups, and mindset shifts—from the 1930s to the 2000s, he contends that new perspectives from the periphery are essential to understanding the globalization of modern Chinese literature. By emphasizing the inner diversities and connected histories in the margins, Malaysian Crossings: Place and Language in the Worlding of Modern Chinese Literature (Columbia UP, 2022) offers a powerful argument for remapping global Chinese literature and world literature. Cheow Thia Chan is assistant professor of Chinese studies at the National University of Singapore. His research interests include modern Chinese literature, Singapore and Malaysian Chinese Literature, Southeast Asian Chinese Studies, Diaspora Studies, and Urban Studies. Li-Ping Chen is a teaching fellow in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include literary translingualism, diaspora, and nativism in Sinophone, inter-Asian, and transpacific contexts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Malaysian Chinese (Mahua) literature is marginalized on several fronts. In the international literary space, which privileges the West, Malaysia is considered remote. The institutions of modern Chinese literature favor mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Within Malaysia, only texts in Malay, the national language, are considered national literature by the state. However, Mahua authors have produced creative and thought-provoking works that have won growing critical recognition, showing Malaysia to be a laboratory for imaginative Chinese writing. Highlighting Mahua literature's distinctive mode of evolution, Cheow Thia Chan demonstrates that authors' grasp of their marginality in the world-Chinese literary space has been the impetus for—rather than a barrier to—aesthetic inventiveness. He foregrounds the historical links between Malaysia and other Chinese-speaking regions, tracing how Mahua writers engage in the “worlding” of modern Chinese literature by navigating interconnected literary spaces. Focusing on writers including Lin Cantian, Han Suyin, Wang Anyi, and Li Yongping, whose works craft signature literary languages, Chan examines narrative representations of multilingual social realities and authorial reflections on colonial Malaya or independent Malaysia as valid literary terrain. Delineating the inter-Asian “crossings” of Mahua literary production—physical journeys, interactions among social groups, and mindset shifts—from the 1930s to the 2000s, he contends that new perspectives from the periphery are essential to understanding the globalization of modern Chinese literature. By emphasizing the inner diversities and connected histories in the margins, Malaysian Crossings: Place and Language in the Worlding of Modern Chinese Literature (Columbia UP, 2022) offers a powerful argument for remapping global Chinese literature and world literature. Cheow Thia Chan is assistant professor of Chinese studies at the National University of Singapore. His research interests include modern Chinese literature, Singapore and Malaysian Chinese Literature, Southeast Asian Chinese Studies, Diaspora Studies, and Urban Studies. Li-Ping Chen is a teaching fellow in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include literary translingualism, diaspora, and nativism in Sinophone, inter-Asian, and transpacific contexts. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/southeast-asian-studies

Malaysian Chinese (Mahua) literature is marginalized on several fronts. In the international literary space, which privileges the West, Malaysia is considered remote. The institutions of modern Chinese literature favor mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Within Malaysia, only texts in Malay, the national language, are considered national literature by the state. However, Mahua authors have produced creative and thought-provoking works that have won growing critical recognition, showing Malaysia to be a laboratory for imaginative Chinese writing. Highlighting Mahua literature's distinctive mode of evolution, Cheow Thia Chan demonstrates that authors' grasp of their marginality in the world-Chinese literary space has been the impetus for—rather than a barrier to—aesthetic inventiveness. He foregrounds the historical links between Malaysia and other Chinese-speaking regions, tracing how Mahua writers engage in the “worlding” of modern Chinese literature by navigating interconnected literary spaces. Focusing on writers including Lin Cantian, Han Suyin, Wang Anyi, and Li Yongping, whose works craft signature literary languages, Chan examines narrative representations of multilingual social realities and authorial reflections on colonial Malaya or independent Malaysia as valid literary terrain. Delineating the inter-Asian “crossings” of Mahua literary production—physical journeys, interactions among social groups, and mindset shifts—from the 1930s to the 2000s, he contends that new perspectives from the periphery are essential to understanding the globalization of modern Chinese literature. By emphasizing the inner diversities and connected histories in the margins, Malaysian Crossings: Place and Language in the Worlding of Modern Chinese Literature (Columbia UP, 2022) offers a powerful argument for remapping global Chinese literature and world literature. Cheow Thia Chan is assistant professor of Chinese studies at the National University of Singapore. His research interests include modern Chinese literature, Singapore and Malaysian Chinese Literature, Southeast Asian Chinese Studies, Diaspora Studies, and Urban Studies. Li-Ping Chen is a teaching fellow in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include literary translingualism, diaspora, and nativism in Sinophone, inter-Asian, and transpacific contexts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/chinese-studies

Malaysian Chinese (Mahua) literature is marginalized on several fronts. In the international literary space, which privileges the West, Malaysia is considered remote. The institutions of modern Chinese literature favor mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Within Malaysia, only texts in Malay, the national language, are considered national literature by the state. However, Mahua authors have produced creative and thought-provoking works that have won growing critical recognition, showing Malaysia to be a laboratory for imaginative Chinese writing. Highlighting Mahua literature's distinctive mode of evolution, Cheow Thia Chan demonstrates that authors' grasp of their marginality in the world-Chinese literary space has been the impetus for—rather than a barrier to—aesthetic inventiveness. He foregrounds the historical links between Malaysia and other Chinese-speaking regions, tracing how Mahua writers engage in the “worlding” of modern Chinese literature by navigating interconnected literary spaces. Focusing on writers including Lin Cantian, Han Suyin, Wang Anyi, and Li Yongping, whose works craft signature literary languages, Chan examines narrative representations of multilingual social realities and authorial reflections on colonial Malaya or independent Malaysia as valid literary terrain. Delineating the inter-Asian “crossings” of Mahua literary production—physical journeys, interactions among social groups, and mindset shifts—from the 1930s to the 2000s, he contends that new perspectives from the periphery are essential to understanding the globalization of modern Chinese literature. By emphasizing the inner diversities and connected histories in the margins, Malaysian Crossings: Place and Language in the Worlding of Modern Chinese Literature (Columbia UP, 2022) offers a powerful argument for remapping global Chinese literature and world literature. Cheow Thia Chan is assistant professor of Chinese studies at the National University of Singapore. His research interests include modern Chinese literature, Singapore and Malaysian Chinese Literature, Southeast Asian Chinese Studies, Diaspora Studies, and Urban Studies. Li-Ping Chen is a teaching fellow in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern California. Her research interests include literary translingualism, diaspora, and nativism in Sinophone, inter-Asian, and transpacific contexts.

Have you ever recalled a story only to have someone point out "that's not how it went"? Well, what happens when what we misrepresent are our historical narratives? David Ikard is a professor of African American and Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt University. In this episode of How to Be a Better Human, another podcast from the TED Audio Collective, Ikard talks to host Chris Duffy about the societal and personal dangers of inaccurate narratives — and uncovers the real story of one of history's most iconic figures. For the full text transcript, visit go.ted.com/BHTranscripts

Have you ever recalled a story only to have someone point out "that's not how it went"? Well, what happens when what we misrepresent are our historical narratives? David Ikard is a professor of African American and Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt University. In this episode of How to Be a Better Human, another podcast from the TED Audio Collective, Ikard talks to host Chris Duffy about the societal and personal dangers of inaccurate narratives — and uncovers the real story of one of history's most iconic figures. For the full text transcript, visit go.ted.com/BHTranscripts Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.   A teach-in by Queer Crescent in collaboration with Palestinian Feminist Collective – Palestine is a Queer Issue: Resisting Pinkwashing Now and Until Liberation. Featuring guest speakers Rabab Abdulhadi from Palestinian Feminist Collective, Ghadir Shafie of ASWAT, Shivani Chanillo from Lavender Phoenix, poetry by Mx Yaffa from Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity (MASGD). Moderator by Shenaaz Janmohamed of Queer Crescent. Important Links and Resources: Sign on to Queer Crescent's Ceasefire Campaign for LGBTQI+ organizations and leaders Queer Crescent's Pinkwashing Resources  Queer Crescent Website Palestinian Feminist Collective Website ASWAT Instagram (@aswatfreedoms) Lavender Phoenix Website Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity (MASGD) Website Purchase Blood Orange by Mx. Yaffa Transcript Shenaaz Janmohamed: Thank you all so much for being here today. Welcome to the “Resisting Pinkwashing Now Until Liberation” teach-in. Queer Crescent is honored to host this teach in in partnership with the Palestinian Feminist Collective, Lavender Phoenix, The Muslim Alliance for Gender and Sexual Diversity or MASGD, Teaching Palestine, and Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diaspora Studies   Thank you all so much for joining us and for tuning in. My name is Shenaaz Janmohamed. I use she and they pronouns. I'm the executive director of Queer Crescent.  Queer Crescent is really thrilled to offer this Teach-in and to be in learning with you all for the next hour and a half on Pinkwashing in particular, as we hold grief and rage and mourn towards healing, towards resistance, towards a free Palestine. Joining the resounding people all across the world who have been calling for a permanent ceasefire. To not let the violence and the destruction of Gaza go without our clear and determined voice to say that this is not okay, that we, our tax dollars should not be paying for this, that we do not consent to genocide. And as queer people, as trans people, it is very much a queer issue to be in solidarity with Palestine. For the next hour and a half we will take time to learn from Palestinian organizers. in Palestine, in the U. S., around the ways in which this moment can be used to understand our relationship to pinkwashing in particular and to Palestinian solidarity in general. And so thank you again for being with us today. We're going to start our Teach in with poetry, because we deeply believe as a queer Muslim organization in the power of cultural work, cultural change, and imparting our shine as queer people into the culture. That is the way that our people have survived. That is the way that people share their histories their survivalship is through culture. And so, before I bring up Yaffa, who's a dear friend and comrade, and also the executive director of MASGD, the Muslim Alliance for Gender and Sexual Diversity, let me introduce Yaffa. Yaffa is a trans Muslim and displaced indigenous Palestinian. She is sharing poetry from her new book, Blood Orange, shout it out, please get a copy if you haven't already, which is an emotional, important, and timely poetry collection. Their writings probe the yearning for home, belonging, mental health, queerness, transness, and other dimensions of marginalization while nurturing dreams of utopia against the background of ongoing displacement and genocide of Indigenous people. Join me in giving some shine, energetic shine to Yaffa, and I'll pass to you. Mx Yaffa: Hi everyone. It's so nice to be here with you all. So excited to share space with all of you, with all the incredible panelists, with the entire Queer Crescent team, y'all are just incredible. Right before this, me and one of the other panelists realized we could potentially be related. So that's the beauty of having spaces like this, where you connect with people that you've kind of been missing your entire life, but you didn't even know that they were missing. I'm excited to recite some poetry for you all from my new collection. Just a little bit about the collection before I recite some poetry.  This collection was written for the most part, on the weekend of October 13th to the 15th. Some of y'all might remember that there was an eclipse during that weekend. And I really wanted to find something that would really center queer and trans Palestinian experience in particular, and also would just support me in navigating my own processing of everything that's going on.  I have family both in Gaza and the West Bank still. I'm originally from Jaffa and Jenin, but I've kind of lived in nine different countries. So when I say I'm displaced, it's displacement from various different wars, various genocides, various everything. And the result of that was Blood Orange.  I tried to get it out as quickly as possible and here we are. The first poem that I'll read is called “Healthy”. And I'll talk a little bit about each of these poems after I read them. It's called “Healthy”. We are not meant to be okay, when genocide is our neighbor that is funded by our labor. We are meant to be a mess, our sleep tearing into reality, anxiety brewing, wondering what is hope. We are meant to tear at the seams of reality, realizing a reality built on oppression is bullshit. We are meant to realize and demand all we are worth. Self actualization, wholeness. Things systems built off of genocide can never. Our response labeled by western capitalism as wrong is healthy. We move to wholeness always, they move to pain attempting to drag us with them. So this was actually the very first poem that I wrote for this collection and it was in that first week of the genocide immediately following October 7th when so many people were really struggling with what do we do with all of this, right? We're witnessing an entire genocide right before our eyes. And what do we do? There was a lot of hopelessness going around and a lot of narratives, at least in what's known as the United States and the global north that's always told us that all of that is wrong. That we're not supposed to be overwhelmed by things. But for me, with all the practices that I have, it's actually healthy to be overwhelmed right now. We're not supposed to know how to let genocide live in our bodies with ease. We still show up, we still do the things, and yet at the same time, we honor it. That it is a large experience. This is not normal. This is not something that should be happening all the time or ever. And so really wanted to honor that of the world that we live in is not what we deserve. For us to be overwhelmed right now is actually healthy, is where we should be. So the second poem I will read kind of goes into the conversation of today around pinkwashing.  This one's called “At Odds”.  My transness and a colonized perception of Palestine are at odds. They think it's because of lack of modernity. I say I have only received death threats targeting my transness from white people, Zionists, and other various political affiliations. I say only white people around me have ever disowned their own. Yet I do not talk to sisters who choose to buy into imperialist transphobia, claiming it as their own. My parents do not understand how some of their children could hate anything any of their children could be, why anyone would hate what they do not know. I won't talk much about pinkwashing because I know we'll get to that today. But in particular, most queer and trans Palestinians over these last eight weeks have been receiving such immense violence from the broader LGBTQ community telling us that our people are the ones who are going to kill us. I've been receiving death threats my entire life in particular as an organizer since I was 19, and I have literally never received a death threat from anyone from our region from any Muslim person. It has always been white people who have sent me death threats specifically for my queerness and my transness. Let alone everything else. And so that, that poem just kind of honors that experience.  I'll read one more, and I'll say just a few words before I read this last one. For me, the arts are so important. Not just as a tool for resistance, but also as a tool for world building. Often we think of the world is what creates art, rather than art is what creates the world. If you look at literature, even with Zionism, Zionism was in literature 100 years before it was ever named. I think about that of what is the world that we are building, what is the world of tomorrow that we get to write about and paint about and do all different kinds of art forms about today. And so this last poem kind of brings a little bit of that into it. The collection goes into the topic of utopia as we're exploring all of these other things. and as we're experiencing this genocide. So this last poem is called “Land Back”. I do not know names wiped from time in Gaza Like I do not remember the names Of great uncles and aunts Who have been reclaimed by our land To say they were murdered Is to claim loss that our land will never feel For we are made of her And regardless of how many layers of phosphor fill the air We return to her in our deaths They may exacerbate the process of our return, but return we shall. Standing thousands of miles away, I know even here she will take me back for distance is a creation that is buried with bodies that were never ours. We are not the ones who take land back, it is land that takes us. There will come a day when the sun sets on a world and rises in another, when indigenous sovereignty is honored. Where queerness no longer exists, where transness is no longer an identity, where humanity means something genuine. So I wanted to end with that, on a note of everything that we're doing right now, all of the resistance is world building. We're building the world that we have always deserved. So I'll leave you all with just one final thing about the book, like I mentioned, the reason I wrote this book in the first place and published it is to raise awareness about queer and trans Palestinians in particular and our experiences, and also to fundraise for queer and trans Palestinians both on the grounds in Gaza and in the diaspora. So 100 percent of all the proceeds from Blood Orange go directly towards that.   As we're getting deeper and deeper into this, the needs of the queer and trans Palestinian community is getting so immense, both on the ground in the region and in the diaspora. Over just the last few days, I've received over $20,000 worth of requests from individuals because people are being doxed, people are receiving death threats, people are losing their jobs. In one case, people are losing their children. There's a lot happening. And so just wanted to leave with that. I want to invite you all to pay attention to those needs and honor them, especially as we go into next year and into the elections. Thank you again for having me. It was such a pleasure to be here. And I'm so excited for the rest of this. Shenaaz Janmohamed: Thank you so much, Yaffa. It's so wonderful to have you here. And it feels so important to start our teaching with the ways in which poetry, culture, moves and inspires us. It opens our hearts in ways that feel both healing and necessary as part and parcel to our organizing and our deep learning. As my comrade and partner Saba says, to growing our empathy to be able to show up with more depth, more commitment, and more resolve towards these issues because we are deeply interconnected. So thank you again, Yaffa..  Before I turn to introduce our other panelists, I wanted to just ground us for a moment in why Queer Crescent, along with the many partners that I named at the beginning felt it was important to host this teach in. Back on November 3rd, Queer Crescent in collaboration with the Palestinian Feminist Collective drafted and released a letter calling upon LGBTQI organizations, leaders, and influencers to join Queer Crescent and Palestinians in calling for an immediate ceasefire. And in particularly to take up understanding and resisting pinkwashing as a queer issue. The frame ” Palestine is a queer issue” is very much an homage of Palestinian Feminist Collective who tirelessly make the links around gender justice, bodily autonomy, self determination, sovereignty to the project of Palestinian liberation. Seeing them as part and parcel of the same project of liberation, and we very much are inspired and in deep gratitude to PFC and all the tireless folks who make those links so clear and apparent to us. We are also in deep gratitude to organizations like Al-Qaws, based in Palestine, who have been telling us about pink- washing for a long, long time, and we are finally doing our part to answer the call as an organization as Queer Crescent. Since we shared this letter, over 350 individuals have signed on, over 65 organizations have joined us in a commitment to calling for permanent ceasefire. This teach in is part of our commitment to moving those who have signed, ourselves included, and the many others who have joined us today. To deepen our shared resolve to a free Palestine through learning about pink watching as a propaganda tool of Israel and settler colonial state violence, and to allow this moment to transform us so that the grief is not in vain, towards a more fierce committed and clear stance of solidarity with Palestinian liberation movement. As queer and trans people and within LGBTQI organizations, we have a distinct role to play to organize to undermine pinkwashing. Because pinkwashing works and functions on the backs of racist tropes of Palestinians, Arabs, SWANA, and Muslims more broadly. We cannot let our vulnerabilities as trans and queer people be exploited in the pursuit of colonial violence and the genocide against Palestinians and all indigenous people. It was not surprising that some of the first folks who signed on to our letter were trans led organizations like the Transgender Law Center, like El/La, and indigenous organizations. It's not surprising because I think for folks who are leading trans led organizations, Trans and indigenous organizations, the relationship of self determination of bodily autonomy and to state violence and colonization is clear, right? Because ultimately colonization uses gender injustice and creating these wedges within our communities as a way to dampen our resistance and to keep us apart. So, I don't want to say more because our amazing speakers will speak and illuminate so much more of these issues. But I wanted to just state why it was important for Queer Crescent to support advancing these conversations. So, our first speaker today is Ghadir Shafie ( she and her). She is a Palestinian queer activist and the co founder of ASWAT, Palestinian Feminist Queer Center for Sexual and Gender Freedoms. A passionate advocate for the intersectionality of the struggle of Palestinian queer women, fighting multiple forms of oppression as Palestinians in the context of Israel's system of apartheid, military occupation, and settler colonialism, as women in a militaristic and imperialistic male dominated society, and as queers in the context of pinkwashing and homophobia. Ghadir promotes active solidarity for Palestine through global feminism and with queers. Thank you, Ghadir. Pass it to you.  Ghadir Shafie: Thank you so much. Hello from Palestine. Thank you so much for organizing this teach-in on pinkwashing. I am grateful for your presence here with me, witnessing in this horrible, horrible time. I will speak today for about 15 minutes, and I want you to bear in mind that since October 7th, Israel has killed over 18, 000 Palestinians. That is one Palestinian every 15 minutes. Imagine how many queer people are being killed daily by Israel. The scenes from Gaza are beyond description. They defy comparison, even for Palestinians, jaded by decades of occupation and settler colonial violence. Devastated landscape filled with craters and the blackened ruins of what were once people's homes, dead bodies or pieces of them. Orphaned children screaming in terror and incomprehension. Desperate survivors crying for food and water. Doctors despairing at the ever growing influx of wounded people they know they cannot treat. As a queer Palestinian watching these images of horror, one stood out as particularly revolting in a rather different way. It shows an Israeli soldier in the middle of the rubble of one of the many residential neighborhoods in Gaza, flattened by the Israeli indiscriminate military strikes. In the distance, smoke from Israel's carpet bombings hang in the air. The soldier is surrounded by Israeli tanks and demolish everything in their way. It is a scene of death and destruction The soldier stands holding a bright new rainbow flag. and Described it as a message of hope.  What hope can there be for 2.3 million Palestinians trapped over 16 years in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip. In the words of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Gaza has become a graveyard for Palestinians. They have no water. No food and no electricity as Israel has cut off what little it allowed in through its already suffocating siege. They seek shelter from Israeli bombings in hospital, UN schools, mosques, and churches, only to find these sites targeted by Israeli strikes. Those who can flee their homes along Israeli designated safe corridors only to have their vehicles shelved by the Israeli IDF soldiers. It seems incomprehensible that an Israeli soldier would pose a photo with a rainbow flag while participating in his army's mass slaughter of Palestinians and destruction of half of Gaza's homes. The truth is more sinister yet. This stunt, which was shared online by the Israeli state official social media accounts, is a textbook. example of obscene colonial pinkwashing. More than that, it is a pinkwashing on steroids. For years, Palestinian queers have denounced Israel's pinkwashing, a cynical strategy designed to use self proclaimed support for LGBTQIA plus rights as a pink smokescreen to conceal its 75 years regime of apartheid, which oppresses all Palestinians, no matter of our gender. or sexual orientation. All the while singling out queer Palestinians for persecution and blackmail. It is an attempt to falsely depict Israel as modern and a liberal country while diverting attention from its alignment with far right homophobic regimes and groups around the world and its current fundamentalist, racist, and homophobic government. In addition, Israel's pinkwashing agenda is a colonial tool that has the racist aim to misrepresent Palestinians as backwards, homophobic, and thus not deserving of human rights. It also tries to convince us, as queer and trans people, that we are somehow foreign in our society, and tries to turn us against our Palestinians brothers and sisters. I think there couldn't be any better example of Israeli pink washing than the photo that the Israeli soldier with the rainbow flag in the rubble. Israeli pink washing has always been dishonest and dangerous. It has always been racist and colonial. It has allowed Israel to continue its ethnic cleansing, besiege, imprisonment, and murder of Palestinians, queer and non queer alike, for decades. Now it's being used to cover up for genocide. In these dark times, Palestinians in besieged Gaza are bearing the brunt of Israel's full blown genocidal war and ethnic cleansing. Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories of West Bank, meanwhile, are also facing escalating waves of killing, torture by both Israeli military and illegal sectors. Apartheid, for Palestinians like myself inside Israel, is reaching new peaks as Israeli forces are targeting and suppressing any expression of sympathy with the oppressed. As hard as it is, we still maintain hope. We have no other choice. That hope comes from the grassroots mobilization that are forcing complicit governments and institutions to finally call for the bare minimum that is nevertheless the absolute priority: a ceasefire that will put a stop to Israel's carpet bombing and genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Queer groups have been extremely instrumental in our struggle for liberation. Queer groups have been an important part of the mobilizations. Nearly 40 LGBT, QA plus groups across Southwest Asia and North Africa called for the immediate ceasefire stating ” we stand with justice, equality, progress, and liberty.” Throughout my life as a queer activist, I have proudly held the rainbow flag high as a symbol of queer inclusion, queer struggle, queer liberation, queer equality, and queer joy. The Israeli soldier participating in Israel's genocidal war on my people in Gaza has desecrated the flag, has disgraced the flag, and made it a mockery for all it stands for. Queer and trans people and groups are increasingly seeing through the pink smokescreen and rejecting Israel's pinkwashing and its war crimes and crimes against humanity. We will not stand by as our flag and our identities are co opted and used to justify a genocide. I call upon queer allies around the globe to remember none of us is free until we are all free. What can we do right now in these terrible times? Since 2005, Palestinians have proposed to you, our friends around the world, an entirely nonviolent method of ending Israel's power over our lives. An academic and cultural boycott of Israel. This strategy is known as BDS, Boycott, Digestment and Sanctions. BDS means boycotting all Israeli state sponsored institutions. This is not aimed at individuals, but at institutions financed by the state and that serve as extensions of the government that occupies us and keeps us under siege. We ask academics, staff and students not to speak at Israeli state funding organizations, including universities. We ask artists and cultural workers not to perform in apartheid Israel. Make sure that your universities are divested from Israeli money. Do not take israeli money for your conferences or film festivals. Do not accept deceptively free propaganda trips to Israel. End complicity with the government of Israel by among other things, cancelling all joint projects activities that are complicit with Israeli universities. Right now, the main demand is to stop the genocide. Stop the genocide and ask for ceasefire now.  So how can queer groups and queer people support queer liberation in Palestine?. One effort that is happening right now around the world is Queer Cinema for Palestine. Queer cinema for Palestine is a vibrant event that happens globally, established in 2021 to support queer art and queer cinema around the world. Today, there are more than 270 filmmakers and artists who signed our pledge to boycott Israeli film festival, to boycott Israeli institutions, and support queer liberation in Palestine. Queer Cinema for Palestine is happening online in more than 15 locations around the world from the 2nd until the 10th of December. Under the title, There's No Pride in Genocide, we gather together as artists to support, Queer Cinema for Palestine and the Palestinian struggle for liberation. There's not much to say. I think you've seen the image from Gaza. You've seen what is happening right now. This is not a regular panel on pinkwashing. It's happening during a genocide, where pinkwashing is also used to promote genocide. So, may I ask you as a Palestinian and as a queer Palestinian, please keep talking about Palestine. Palestine is a queer issue. Gaza is a queer issue, and there's no queer justice until we are all free. Thank you so much for organizing this and thank you so much for your work and activism on Palestine. You are saving lives right now. Thank you. Shenaaz Janmohamed: Thank you so much, Ghadir. Thank you so much for your passion, your commitment, reminding us that hope is an active choice that you're engaging in every day, despite all the odds, because that is the story of survival. Thank you for reminding and being so clear in the link to BDS boycott, divestment and sanction movement as tangible ways that we could be in solidarity with Palestine and to chip at the far reaching power of the Israeli state and settler colonial project. Thank you for showing the ways in which queer folks and queer organizations. use culture and art to tell different stories of survival with the Queer Cinema for Palestine. And thank you for showing up and being here with us. Thank you for all the ways that you hold communities, your fullness, and time to share and to lead us today. Wishing so much protection and safety to you and yours. Next we have Rabab Abdulhadi. Rabab Abdulhadi (she/her) is an internationally known scholar and distinguished professor and researcher. Her scholarship, pedagogy, and public activism focus on Palestine, Arab, and Muslim communities and their diasporas, transnational feminisms, and gender and sexuality studies. She is the Director and Senior Scholar in the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diaspora Studies, and a Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, Race and Resistance Studies at the Historic College of Ethnic Studies, San Francisco State University. She is also a treasure, a beloved teacher, organizer here in the Bay. I feel really grateful that you're here with us today for all the work, all the times that you've taught me. It's really such an honor to be able to host you and invite you in, Rabab.  Rabab Abdulhadi: Thank you so much Shenaaz, and I begin by acknowledging that my own university, San Francisco State University, sits on stolen indigenous Ohlone people's land, and I'm now on the east coast of the United States, where I am also present on the Lenape people's land that has been stolen and people have been displaced, just like it is in Palestine. I also want to thank Queer Crescent for organizing this with the Palestinian Feminist Collective and actually joining with Palestinian Voices. I'm very happy that my colleague, my sister, my sibling, Ghadir, was able to join us and has actually taken a lot of the things that I was going to focus on, and thank you, Yaffa, for especially naming even the poetry, Blood Oranges, because we know what oranges mean and how they have been used. And many Palestinians can't even eat oranges because it reminds them of the orchards that they've lost back home. So I start, if you don't mind, just Putting the first slide on. Yeah. And this is a slide if people can see it. This is actually was done in 2013 and it was organized by a group of underground artists, called themselves cultural jammers, to remake all the campaign that was at the time by Pamela Geller and other Zionist groups doing all this smearing and buying sides on the buses and so on. And the reason I mentioned because there is a connection between the cultural jammers and also the whole naming of pink washing because pink washing, some people say, emerged in Palestine. Some people say it emerged in the U. S. Some people talk about the whole question of washing and then the question of pink and so on. And I think for me as a researcher, a scholar, it's very, very interesting because there are so many origins of every single way that we are having the struggles. And so the colonial boundaries and borders that the colonialists and settler colonists try to impose upon us don't really work because we cross these borders at least maybe imaginary, maybe in our networks and so on. But why is it that pinkwashing persists? Ghadir spoke a lot about it. I'm just going to just emphasize a couple of things. It is necessary, very important for Israel public relations. Public relations is a very important project for it. This is why Israel consistently demands of the Palestinians and the Arab countries and the world, not only to recognize Israel's right to exist, but to recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, which in itself a very racist notion. And this is very much connected with the genocide that we're seeing now in Gaza, that also we have seen for 75 years of Nakba and for over 100 years of colonization of Palestine, because , the slogan by the Zionist movement was “a land without people, for a people without the land.” We can talk about “for people without the land” a little bit later, but let's talk about “a land without people”. In order to accomplish that and legitimize it, you have to arrest the people. You have to erase them. You have to erase their presence. You have to also discredit their discourse, their work, their culture, their interaction, their social relations, in order for you to present yourself as Israel does. And as Ghadir mentioned, as a modern state that is making the desert blue, which we know is not true, and by contrast, is the best friend of women and queer people, as a gay haven, as opposed to quote unquote the backward, savage. excessively homophobic, excessively misogynist, Arab world, Arab and Muslim world, and in which Arab men and Arab and Muslim and Palestinian men are presented as irrational, bloodthirsty, misogynist, haters of women and Queer people, and as women as being docile, as being only oppressed constantly, and need to be rescued by the colonists who will come in and basically realize what Gayatri Spivak spoke about I don't know, 30 years ago, the colonist project of trying to save brown people from brown communities and queer people from their own queer communities. And so in order for this to work, it has to be presented in all of these things that it is necessary. And it's very important for Israel to focus on its public relations. And this is something that has been actually very part and parcel of since the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948, a task that was assigned to the military, to the security of interior affairs to the Mossad, which is the CIA, outside intelligence, Shambit, the internal intelligence to everybody. And now we see more and more the Ministry of Strategic Affairs and other is, and the whole question of quote unquote branding, which I put it in parentheses because branding also refers to the ways in which people engage in slavery actually used to quote brand people whose lives they owned. So I put it in parentheses. I question it. But Israel is very big on that to brand Israel as a gay haven. Israel as a best liberator of women and so on.  This is also what we see today in the sense of Israel actually making a very public relation campaign and a very, very intensive campaign to claim that Palestinians have chopped off the head of children, which was even reiterated by the president of the United States without even thinking about it because he was quoting Israeli Officials who we know are not really known for telling the truth and then they had to retract it the second day but yesterday he repeated the same thing again and said there is the rape of women and so on which we do not have any evidence until now. We know that a lot of Israeli groups and Zionist groups like this group Bonat Alternativa and others are alleging, but we haven't seen any evidence of that. If there is any evidence of that, we will not stand for it. We condemn any kind of violations of gender and sexual, justice because we believe that gender and sexual justice is part and parcel with indivisibility of justice. So this is not something we are trying to cover, but this is very much part and parcel of the Israeli propaganda and it's churning machine, the Hasbara machine is everywhere and they keep changing their stories. And if we have time we can actually go over how each story has developed and moved from one place to the other. I'm also talking about the ways in which colonial feminisms or colonial quote unquote feminism, because feminism is supposed to be about the liberation of women as part of liberation of everybody, have been very much engaged in. But within that, there is also notion of blaming the victim. It is a very important aspect of it. So in order for the Israeli and the Zionist narrative to work, you have to blame people. And one of the very well known cases, for example, was the case of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, the young Palestinian teenager who was kidnapped from in front of his house on July 2nd, 2014, right around the big, big 2014 war on Gaza we talked about, and kidnapped by Israeli settlers who took him to a forest in Jerusalem that was built on the ruins of the village of Deir Yassin, where the massacre on April 8th, 1948 happened in order to facilitate the creation of the Israeli state. And they made him drink kerosene and set him on fire and burned him alive, which was a clear case of lynching. Now, what Israeli police tried to do was to actually say that Mohammed Abu Khdeir was killed by his own family to quote unquote salvage family honor. And they killed him because he was queer. And now if it wasn't for his father who had videotapes of the security cameras outside of the house and showed it– the Israeli police tried to confiscate it and basically destroy it– showed that these people came and kidnapped him. The relative would still be among colonists, among racists, among white supremacists, Zionists, that Palestinians are killing Palestinians and they are doing this all the time. So it's not only blaming the victim, but it also instilling and reinforcing the narrative of people, not only Palestinians, this happens with all indigenous and all colonized communities and all communities of color from time immemorial. You look at the history of the United States, this is something, this is a trope that keeps getting repeated again and again and again. And it's not an easy trope because It is not something that's only being said. It's not only a discursive issue. It's not a discursive issue that we need to deconstruct in the classroom because we know the history, including that. But recently, many people started learning more about the case of Emmett Till, the young Boy who was killed and the woman who actually accused him came out and said that she lied, but he was killed and he was lynched. And then his mom insisted on having open casket so everybody could see the crime. And there's so many more examples that we don't have time to get into all of them now, but this is part of the colonial narrative, the colonial strategy in order to discredit the people who are colonized and discredit their struggle.  And this is definitely a part in Gaza and it is, but the other thing is that it depends on the narrative of saying that our communities in particular as exceptionally sensitive and exceptionally traditional. And this is something that we saw in Abu Ghraib for example.  When they were talking about, we're not going to show the images of iraqi men are particularly insensitive. But we were raising the question, which men are okay with it, which women, which anybody, which non gender binary person, who would be okay with being subjected to sexual and gender violence; to being displaced like this and so on. Nobody will be. But the imaginary that it is trying to instill that's built on Orientalist, Islamophobic, anti Arab, anti Palestinian, anti Muslim racism as part and parcel of all kinds of racism basically makes it possible to do a little dog whistle in order for you to enforce all of this. We saw this also at the US Social Forum when Zionist groups stand with us, which now everybody knows what it is, tried to do a workshop around queer communities in the Middle East, and many of us objected to it. And the reason that it got through because the organizers thought that this would be something that would be actually really wonderful, bringing everybody together. They did not really investigate who this group was and what it was doing and did not coordinate with the many organizations that were at the U. S. Social Forum in 2010 in Detroit from our own community to see what is happening, what's going on, are you part of this unparceled hat? Even though the Palestinian queer organizations have existed for a very long time, and I think it was by then, if I'm not mistaken, Ghadir you can correct me that we organize a national tour and for all calls throughout the U S in order for people to speak and you all came and spoke in my own classroom. This is part of the stuff that keeps going back. And this is also the same thing that we hear around this group that I've mentioned now, and this propaganda that's happening, and also in terms of the ways when we passed the resolution on BDS in the National Women's Studies Association 2015, many Zionist groups came out and basically came with the whole question is there a place for Zionism and feminism? Many of the feminist groups have been targeted, including the International Women's Strike and so on. This is a continuous, systemic, persistent thing. This is not something that is out of random or accidental. And so what do we do about this? In addition to what Ghadir said, I think it's really, really important for us to say, how do we fight back? We fight back with multiple ways. One of the ways we do for example, organizing this in the classroom. So one of the things that we do in the Arab and Muslim Ethnicity and Diaspora Studies program ever since we were founded in 2007 is every single year we were partnering with the Pride Month at San Francisco State to organize sessions on the whole question of queer justice, and this is one of them. Even after San Francisco State stopped funding pride month, we continue doing it again and again. We believe that it's really important to connect the knowledge within the classroom with the knowledge outside and with the activism and advocacy. We do not separate what happens in the classroom, what happens in the academy from outside. So the academy is not producing knowledge that is divorced from reality. The people who are organizing are part and parcel of that. And so we've been doing this again and again. The other thing that is really, really important to think about is how do we work here, and I'm talking here in the diaspora, with groups on the ground, Palestinian queer groups who are working? So one of the examples that I would like to cite from our own experiences is when Al-Qaws was attacked by Palestinian police in Nablus trying to hold an event. My hometown Nablus. We were going to rush and say something, but we waited and we coordinated with Al Qaws and we asked, what should we do? And we did not do anything until Al Qaws came out because we were objecting to the whole question of saving queer people from queer communities, saving brown people from brown communities, the whole question of the colonial notion. And we were also taking leadership from the people on the ground who are day in and day out struggling. Once Al-Qaws came out with it, what we did is we published in one of the newspapers in the Bay Area, along with Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism, which is a group that has been doing a lot of work for a very long time, and whose founder actually was chosen to be the Grand Marshall at Gay Pride Parade at San Francisco. And she turned down this honor and said, because I am here in Palestine struggling with the International Solidarity Movement at the time to oppose the apartheid world to oppose the repression by Israel and so on. So we organized together. And that's when we said we endorse. We support. This is really important sometimes to think about how do we take a back road and when is it we go public with things. At this point, we really need to go public and we need to defy all this propaganda that is happening.  This is part of what the solidarity mean. But this is not free. When we do something like this, there is punishment. And these are some of the flyers I'm showing from the Queer Liberation March that took place in 2019. This was the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall, Uprising. The Queer Liberation March at that time actually decided to refuse any corporate funding, to refuse to allow the police to go march in their own uniforms and so on, rejected the policing, rejected the state apparatus that represses people, rejected the corporate money and so on. As a result, there was space for us to be there. So we were organizing, we organized a big contingent under the banner of QAIA, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, and also Queers A gainst Islamophobia.  So we participated and I took this banner and I put it on my Facebook page. This led to the another Zionist attack, which is trying to silence Palestine and were trying to criminalize Palestine in the curriculum, and especially targeting us and our program in particular. And they took it and didn't say what was on the banner. They just said that I'm spreading hate, and thus I should be– they had 86 organizations, some of them fake organizations– sign it, send it to the university, to the chancellor of California State University to the president of San Francisco State, saying that I'm spreading hate. This for them is hate. Palestine is a queer issue. BDS Zionism is racism. Silence means death. For them, this was something that was very problematic, and it was something that is undermining the Zionist propaganda, and Zionist project of colonizing Palestine and eliminating the Palestinian people like the genocide that we are seeing here, and trying to continue pushing the pink washing without having it exposed.  As a result, our program has been attacked again and again. The Lawfare Project executive director got on the TV, on Fox and friends, and made a lying statement. They sued me. And they sued San Francisco State and they sued California State University. But we defeated them. It was thrown out of court. It was dismissed with prejudice. But she lied about that. And she said that I'm spreading hate; that I'm one of the leading anti Semitic– Horowitz every single year pushes out a formula about the top anti-Semitic scholars, and they always give me number one. And I think they do it in May because this is the fundraising season for them. As a result, I started receiving death threats. However, and including to my own university and the threat voicemails on my office mail that said Muslims will die, which is the same phrase that the guy who killed Wadiah Al-Fayyumi in Chicago, stabbing him 26 times. He said Muslims will die. The university does not believe that this is actually a viable threat. And so they protect the right wing speech, which is white supremacist and Zionist is a protected speech protected that they can do whatever they want, put up hateful posters, do whatever they want against us, but we are not allowed to say so. And the university is not investigating death threat letters that actually came to me through the University President's office to my own office. However we refuse to be silenced. We refuse to lie down. And so we continued organizing. And one of the main events that we organize, and we do it every year, is this panel Queer Open Classroom that everybody can attend and come in. Queer justice against pink washing, exposing it, bringing scholars and activists, Ghadir was one of the people who spoke at that, in order for us to support liberation for Palestine as part of liberation of all, and to support gender and sexual justice as part and parcel of the indivisibility of justice. Thank you. Shenaaz Janmohamed: Oh, Rabab. I hope that you can feel all the tremendous. gratitude and love that you're getting in the chat. I think that there is such a clear longing to be hearing stories from elders, folks who have been in this fight for so long. Thank you for bringing in the long arc of queer Palestinian organizing. Thank you for bringing the long arc and history of queers being in solidarity for Palestine. It's so important that we understand that while this moment is so important for us to study, learn and act. It rests upon such a long arc and such a long history of organizing in solidarity with Palestine. Thank you for also speaking to Mohammed Abu Khdeir, thank you for speaking him into the space. Thank you for both of you reminding us to follow the lead of queer Palestinians. What we're trying to do with you all today with this teach-in is to really pull us together, circle around and invite us all to be following the lead of queer Palestinians so that we can take on this work as inextricably linked to our own liberation; to advance the work of undermining pinkwashing and Zionism as part and parcel to our queer liberation. So thank you so much, Rabab. Our last speaker, Shivani Chanillo with Lavender Phoenix. Shivani (they/them) is a trans non- binary second generation Indian American organizer. Shout out to the baddy Indian organizers out here, myself included. Their experience of active solidarity with Palestinian folks came in 2017 through exchanges they facilitated between their high school students in Baltimore, and students at Ramallah Friends School in the West Bank. These powerful exchanges stoked Shivani's passion for developing young people as critical thinkers grounded in revolutionary values and politics. As a leadership development coordinator at Lavender Phoenix, an organization that Queer Crescent deeply loves and feels deeply supported by and in deep siblingship with. Shivani continues this work by facilitating opportunities for trans and queer Asians and Pacific Islanders to practice values based organizing and contribute to intersectional movements. In particular, I just want to really say that we were so excited to invite Shivani and Lavender Phoenix in to our teach in as the final speaker, because Lavender Phoenix is one organization that really models, going back to the initial motivation of this teach in with our letter calling for a permanent ceasefire, calling on LGBTQ organizations and leaders to sign on to understanding pink washing and to support Palestinian liberation. Lavender Phoenix is one such organization that has really demonstrated such values align solidarity with Palestinian liberation. And so I'm really excited to bring you in Shivani to close us out to talk about how queer people, queer organizations can really double down on our solidarity.  Shivani Chanillo: Thank you so much Shenaaz for that introduction and to Queer Crescent for organizing this event. I just want to take a moment and just, I feel so deeply moved by the sharing from Rabab and Ghadir in this workshop and just sitting with the lineage within all of us as we take up Palestine as a queer issue. We have generations of lessons and decades of work and such powerful leaders here in this space, but all across the world to follow, and I feel so grateful and so excited to be joining in on this work and sharing a little bit about what Lavender Phoenix is doing in this moment. If you haven't heard of Lavender Phoenix, we build trans non binary and queer Asian and Pacific Islander power here in the Bay Area. We are a base building organization training grassroots leaders to build intersectional movements. As we witness an escalation of the ongoing genocide in Palestine I can say that our base is firmly grounded in the understanding that Palestinian liberation is part of our struggle and our responsibility as trans and queer Asian and Pacific Islander people. And so I want to start by sharing a little bit about what we're doing in this moment, before sharing about how our members arrived to this point. Since October 7th we have shifted our work accordingly. We have dedicated time to mobilize our members and our broader communities to action. We have educated each other to stay politically grounded. We have and will continue to support each other to process the grief of this moment and to remember hope, optimism, and commitment. In so many facets of our work, we are stepping into deeper leadership and responsibility to support our Palestinian comrades to win. And more tangibly across our six member led committees, this looks like offering healing support, coordinating our members who are trained in protest and digital security to support our comrades, coordinating contingents at in person and online actions, moving financial resources and funder attention to our Palestinian partners, and uplifting pro Palestinian messaging and calls to actions using our social media reach. Responding to Palestine and challenging pinkwashing is not a shift in our priorities, but it's actually a sharpening of our focus as an organization. We've organized our base over the years to recognize our interconnected struggles, and across our membership, we so deeply understand that the Palestinian struggle is our struggle. And Palestinian futures are our futures. All of the actions we are taking right now to support Palestine, to challenge pinkwashing are the result of so many tests, experiments, and trials that have helped us deepen our political purpose and grow our power. Many of these experiments and trials that we've conducted over the years really informed our current theory of change. And this is really critical to how we're organizing in this moment. Our emergent responses to sharpen contradictions in our world like we are witnessing with Palestine, are only possible because we organize within a consistent theory of change. A key part of our theory of change and a key part of my role as Leadership Development coordinator, is that we are committed to developing leaders who are rooted in our values, in our history, in emotional intelligence, and compassion, because we know that is how our movement will be sustained and will be effective. So we're not just developing members and masses who care about single issues, we're developing holistic, critical thinkers who care about solidarity with all oppressed people so that in moments like this, solidarity with Palestine is a natural choice in our larger fight for liberation. One of the really important ways we do this, and this workshop is a critical example, is we educate our base, our trans and queer API base, on our history. We dig into how systems of white supremacy, imperialism, colonialism, racial capitalism, and cisheteropatriarchy impact all of us across our identities in the past and in the present. Right now, the tools and tactics being wielded by fascist leaders to criminalize and punish trans people here in the U. S. are rooted in the same white supremacist, colonial, and imperialist ideologies used to justify the dehumanization and murder of Palestinians, particularly trans and queer Palestinians. As part of our theory of change, we've also spent intentional time educating our base about revolutionary politics like abolition and healing justice, and developing our skills for safety, for healing and resource mobilization that are applicable in moments all across our movement. We spent so much time since we implemented this theory of change in 2021 to build our base and grow our power so we can show up for our partners who are organizing for Palestinian liberation in this moment. We have spent so much time cultivating our skills and knowledges so we can support our movements beyond just trans liberation.  I want to end just by sharing a little bit of a story. A few weeks ago, our members participated in a direct action that asked many of them to step into higher risk than they had before. Prior to the action, we met to get grounded together. Folks shared their fears, but they also countered those fears with a really rooted sense of purpose. So many of our members talked about how they wanted to look back on this moment and know that they and we as an organization did everything in our power to support Palestinian liberation. And they spoke about the sacred responsibility and duty we have in this moment to show up in solidarity. I feel so moved, even now, just thinking back to that moment and feel so much gratitude to our members for taking new risks, to the generations of leaders in our organization and our movement who have led us to this point, and I feel immense admiration and gratitude to the long lineage of Palestinian queer and trans resistance, and current day organizers who are guiding us right now. For Lavender Phoenix, this moment is really helping us clarify our power, and for many of our members, this moment is helping them clarify their political purpose. The things all of our Palestinian siblings are fighting for, self determination, safety, healing, community, decolonization, these are the things that we as trans and queer API people here in the Bay Area so desire for ourselves as well. We refuse to let our transness and our queerness be co opted for violence and displacement and genocide, and we know that our struggles and our futures are united, and we're committed to fighting alongside our Palestinian comrades until we are all free. Thank you so much for letting me share. I'll pass it back to Shenaaz. Shenaaz Janmohamed: Shivani, thank you so much for bringing all of it. Lavender Phoenix, I just can't swoon on y'all enough. You model that clarity of purpose and power and grace. There's also such deep humility and grace to be in constant learning. As an emerging organization, an emerging queer organization, I just have to say Queer Crescent feels so deeply held by y'all and really inspired with the path that you are leading and inviting us all towards.  This piece around letting this moment sharpen the focus. It's not a pivot. I think I've even said, we're pivoting, we're in rapid response. Part of our political principles as an organization is understanding anti Zionism as part and parcel of the white supremacist project. And so this is not a pivot, it's not a rapid response, but to your point, it's a sharpening and it's a double down of our commitments, principles and priorities. So thank you for naming that.  Cheryl Truong: And that's the end of our show. Tonight's show was a broadcast of the Resisting Pinkwashing teach-in co-led by Queer Crescent and the Palestinian Feminist Collective. It was moderated by Shenaaz Janmohamed, executive director of Queer Crescent and featured poetry by Mx. Yaffa of MASGD, and guest speakers, Rabab Abdulhadie from the Palestinian feminist collective, Ghadir Shafie of ASWAT, and and Shivani Chanillo from AACRE Group Lavender Phoenix. Learn more about the incredible work of these incredible organizations and sign on to Queer Crescent's cease fire campaign through the links in our show notes.  Apex express is produced by Miko Lee, Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar. Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hien Nguyen, Nikki Chan, and Cheryl Truong   Tonight's show was produced by me, cheryl. Thanks to the team at KPFA for all of their support. And thank you for listening! The post APEX Express – 01.25.24 Resisting Pinkwashing Teach-In appeared first on KPFA.

Have you ever recalled a story only to have someone point out "that's not how it went"? Well, what happens when what we misrepresent are our historical narratives? David Ikard is a Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt University. In this episode, he talks about the societal and personal dangers of inaccurate history knowledge, and uncovers the real story of one of history's most iconic figures. For the full text transcript, visit go.ted.com/BHTranscripts

Maine's top election official has removed former President Donald Trump from the state's 2024 primary ballot, in a surprising decision based on the 14th Amendment's “insurrectionist ban.” Secretary of State Shenna Bellows talks about this decision and how she came to it. And Michael Eric Dyson, distinguished professor of African American and Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt University and co-author of “Unequal: A Story of America" talks about Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley's comments on slavery and the Civil War.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's in a calorie? So much more than what you see on a box of cereal or a restaurant menu. The story of the nutritional calorie is the story of U.S. empire, dating back to the late 1800s when government agencies used it to determine just how little they could feed people in the military, prisons, asylums, and Native boarding schools. This week, Dr. Athia N. Choudhury joins Jonathan to discuss the history and politics of the calorie, and explains why counting on this metric—and wellness culture more generally—can be a “mundane kind of violence.” A note from Dr. Choudhury and Team JVN: This discussion periodically includes the term “ob*sity.” When it is referenced, it is only to describe a process of medicalization and pathologization, and not in alignment with its politics or political uses. Athia N. Choudhury is a writer and cultural historian/theorist interested in questions of race, food, militarism, eugenics, and body surveillance in the 20th-21st century. She earned a Ph.D. in American Studies and Ethnicity from the University of Southern California and is currently the Postdoctoral Associate in Asian American and Diaspora Studies at Duke University. You can find Athia's writing in The Journal of Transnational American Studies, The Routledge International Handbook on Fat Studies, Pipewrench magazine, and Food, Fat, Fitness: Critical Perspectives. You can learn more about Dr. Choudhury at athiachoudhury.com, and reach out to her here. Follow us on Instagram @CuriousWithJVN to join the conversation. Jonathan is on Instagram @JVN. Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com. Find books from Getting Curious guests at bookshop.org/shop/curiouswithjvn. Our executive producer is Erica Getto. Our producer is Chris McClure. Our associate producer is Allison Weiss. Our engineer is Nathanael McClure. Production support from Julie Carrillo, Anne Currie, and Chad Hall. Our theme music is “Freak” by QUIÑ; for more, head to TheQuinCat.com. Curious about bringing your brand to life on the show? Email podcastadsales@sonymusic.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hollywood's representation of underserved and marginalized populations has been under scrutiny since the first film flickered. Authentic storytelling that fully embraces the complexity and vibrancy of any people must be rooted in, and informed by, those people. Early in the 20th Century, film provided a window to the lives, stories, and narratives of those far and wide. And, as we learned from the comic book industry, with great power, comes great responsibility! Unfortunately, many early filmmakers used this power to further spread inaccuracies and hatred. One of these most famous films is “Birth of a Nation,” D. W. Griffith's 1915 adaptation of the 1905 novel, “The Clansmen.” It tells the story of two families dealing with the fallout of the civil war with a very slanted view. To contrast, early Black filmmaker and novelist Oscar Micheaux wrote and directed the 1919 film “The Homesteader,” which chronicled life for Black Americans during post-civil War, but from an authentic perspective, offering a counter-argument to Griffith and the work of other filmmakers at the time. In this episode of Systemic, our host Dan Kimbrough sits down with Dr. Charlene Regester from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Dr. Regester teaches in the Department of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies, and her work focuses on early black film history, including black filmmakers, actresses, actors, and performers. Our discussion looks at the life and works of Oscar Micheaux and how we almost lost them; the film-going and artistic experience for Black people in the early 20th century; and the lessons filmmakers and society as a whole should learn from these early efforts.

Dr. David Ikard - Vanderbilt university Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies - joins Tavis to discuss the continued fight to protect voting rights and the importance and sacrifice of grassroots activism in ensuring fair representation.

In this episode, host/producer, Desireia Valteau, is back with Part 4 of the long-awaited addition to the series, "Chasing DNA & Family Roots: Being Creole (Louisiana)."   Desireia interviews, Dr. Wendy Gaudin, a professor of 22 years in the disciplines of History and African American and Diaspora Studies at Xavier University of Louisiana, the renowned HBCU in New Orleans. She specializes in race, racial mixture in the Americas in French colonial contexts, Creole history, critical race studies, and more.  Desireia and Dr. Wendy will unpack the following:·        Definition  of a Creole ·        The relationship to slavery and colonialism ·        Misinformation about Creoles ·        Navigating social and political spaces while claiming Creoleness and Blackness·        Challenges of teaching topic Meanwhile, Dr. Wendy is working on her book, "Diasporic Creole: Coming Home to Louisiana," slated for release from LSU Press next year. Contact: Underground Magnolia website: (https://www.undergroundmagnolia.com/) Instagram: @UMPodcastDV (https://www.instagram.com/umpodcastdv/) Twitter: @undergroundmagnoliapodcast (https://www.instagram.com/undergroundmagnoliapodcast/)  Send questions/comments and requests to contact@undergroundmagnolia.com.  To be featured on the podcast, send an email.

Meet Dr. Athia N. Choudhury! She is the Postdoctoral Associate in Asian American and Diaspora Studies at Duke University. Feel free to visit her website (With other Links) to see the radical courses she teaches and learn about how her "teaching philosophy is modeled after abolitionist practices which seek to disrupt punitive and hierarchical power dynamics." She is one of the guest lectures at an upcoming event at the University of Richmond called Unapologetically Fat: A Body Positivity Panel Discussion with Women of Color. This is part of UR's Pleasurefest, a week long event about sex positivity. What UR calls "Sex Positivity", we call Violence against Women since they endorse BDSM. This is just another example of how the train has gone off the rails at the University of Richmond. This is what $81,000 a year in tuition pays for at the University of Richmond. Dr. Athia N. Choudhury pushes anti-scientific conspiracy theories about caloric intake and nutrition. She blames societal standards on health and fitness on capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, and white supremacy. This is not a serious person and we hope she can come to grips with her own lack of personal responsibility and move past all of this. However, until then, it is our job to expose how students are being exposed to these ideas. Timestamps 00:00 Meet Dr. Athia N. Choudhury 0:36 Choudhury's Racism 1:16 Thinness is Problematic 2:05 Conspiracy Theories 2:51 The Colonialism of Caloric Intake 3:57 The Capitalist Agenda of Calories and Healthism 4:54 The White Supremacy of Skim Milk 5:46 Judgmental People 6:56 Choudhury's Partner 7:12 An Inheritor of Famine 8:35 Choudhury's Suburban Childhood 8:56 A Question for University of Richmond Parents 9:49 The Reality of Being Fat 10:32 Conclusion If this is your first time hearing about our ongoing battles against University of Richmond, we suggest you go over to https://linktr.ee/urwoke and see all the other videos we have done. WE POST DAILY! If you don't see us, check our other socials. If you got a favorite, we are most likely on it! The AllmyLinks has all of our Socials! - https://allmylinks.com/robisright Dr. Athia N. Choudhury's Website - https://athiachoudhury.com Fair Use Disclaimer Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.

House Bill 1467, signed by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in March of last year, states that schools must be transparent in their selection of instructional, library, and reading materials. In theory this simply means that parents have the right to know what their students are reading and a means to view those materials. The bill language states that all materials must be free of pornography, gender identity issues (for students in Kindergarten through third grade), as well as any books relating to discrimination based on race, color, sex, or national origin. The books must also be approved by a certificated media specialist – something most public schools are too broke to afford. The bill does not name specific books to ban, nor a system in which to vet the books. It does, however, come with a threat of a class three felony, which means teachers could lose both their teaching certificate and their right to vote. The bill is basically a book ban of anything and everything conservatives don't like – including Black peoples words, thoughts and histories – and it has the potential to undo decades of work and struggle to ensure young Black children have access to reading materials that reflect back to them the beauty that they are. Our guest today is Daphne Muse, is a writer, social commentator and cultural broker, who is currently the Elder-in-Residence at the Black Studies Collaboratory in Abolitionist Democracy in the Department of African American and Diaspora Studies at UC Berkeley. She is the Author/Editor of Children of Africa, The New Press Guide to Multicultural Children's Literature, and  Prejudice: Stories About Hate, Ignorance, Revelation, and Transformation. —- Subscribe to this podcast: https://plinkhq.com/i/1637968343?to=page Get in touch: lawanddisorder@kpfa.org Follow us on socials @LawAndDis: https://twitter.com/LawAndDis; https://www.instagram.com/lawanddis/ The post The paramount importance of culturally appropriate children's books w/ Daphne Muse appeared first on KPFA.

Dr. David Ikard - Vanderbilt University Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies. says that the whitewashing of Black History can be very dangerous. Black history stories like Rosa Parks' story oftentimes get whitewashed. He joins Tavis for a conversation about why whites have as much to lose by whitewashing black history as their African American peers (Hour 3)

On this special Election Day episode, Stephen A. talks to New York Times bestselling author and distinguished University Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt University, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, about the hot button issues of the day. From affirmative action, cancel culture, and the conservative Supreme Court, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and the dilemmas rapper Kanye West and NBA's Kyrie Irving find themselves embroiled in. It's a candid hour with one of the country's premier intellectuals.  To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lorgia Garcia Pena talks about her two new books. She is a first generation Latinx Studies scholar and the Mellon Associate Professor of Race, Colonialism and Diaspora Studies at Tufts University. She taught at Harvard University from 2013 to 2021… and was denied tenure in 2019.

Pierce Freelon sits down with me to talk about his fatherhood journey. He shares the values he looks to instill into his kids as they were grow up. In addition, he talks about how much fun he has creating music with his kids. We also talk about his new book, Daddy-Daughter Day. Lastly, we finish the interview with the Fatherhood Quick Five.  About Pierce Freelon Pierce Freelon is a GRAMMY nominated musician, author, and educator from Durham, North Carolina. Pierce has traveled the world teaching Hip Hop and music production as co-creator of Beat Making Lab, an Emmy Award-winning PBS web-series. He is also the founder of Blackspace, an Afrofuturism digital maker space for Durham youth. He has taught in the departments of Political Science, Music and African, African American and Diaspora Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina Central University. Freelon is a former Durham City Councilman, a husband and a father of two based in North Carolina. Follow Pierce on Twitter and Instagram at @piercefreelon. Check out his website at piercefreelon.com. Tru Earth Is This Week's Sponsor Tru Earth Eco-Strips are a smarter way to clean laundry, period. Our zero-waste laundry detergent sheets pack ultra-concentrated cleaning power into tiny pre-measured laundry strips that you just toss in the wash. Its low-sudsing formula works in all types of washing machines, including high-efficiency (HE). The smart formulation effectively seeks out and dislodges dirt molecules and stains, keeping them in suspension until they are rinsed away. It makes your laundry washing chore easier, healthier, more economical, and much kinder to our planet. Clean, green, and simple! Use the code ArtofFatherhood for 10% off your order. About The Art of Fatherhood Podcast  The Art of Fatherhood Podcast follows the journey of fatherhood. Your host, Art Eddy talks with dads from all around the world where they share their thoughts on fatherhood. Please leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts.

Join Haymarket Books, and NACLA for a discussion of how to resist the conservative attacks on higher education From Brazil to Puerto Rico to the United States, conservative politicians have set their sights on schools as key ideological battlegrounds. And when vulnerable students and scholars are targeted for their identities and/or politics, universities often fail to protect them for fear of alienating donors or powerful political allies. What can we do to fight back and protect one another? As right-wing forces work to dismantle accessible education and limit academic freedom in countries across the Americas, join us for a virtual roundtable inspired by Lorgia García Peña's recent book, Community as Rebellion: A Syllabus for Surviving Academia as a Woman of Color. In conversation with García Peña, scholar-activists Luciana Brito and Geo Maher, with moderation by Marisol LeBrón, will discuss the recent wave of attacks on education across the Americas and envision how to build liberatory spaces of learning and transformation. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Speakers: Luciana Brito is a historian and professor at the Universidade Federal do Recôncavo da Bahia-Brasil, specializing in the history of slavery and abolition in Brazil and the United States. She is member of the Executive committee of ASWAD (Association for the Worldwide Diaspora), is columnist of Nexo Jornal and has been publishing a lot of academic and non-academic articles about race, gender, class and inequality in the Americas. She is the author of the book Fears of Africa: Security, Legislation and African Population in 19th Century Bahia. Instagram: @lucianabritohistoria Marisol LeBrón is associate professor in Feminist Studies and Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is author of Against Muerto Rico: Lessons from the Verano Boricua/Contra Muerto Rico: Lecciones del Verano Boricua (Editora Educación Emergente, 2021) and Policing Life and Death: Race, Violence, and Resistance in Puerto Rico (University of California Press, 2019) and co-editor of Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico Before and After the Storm (Haymarket Books, 2019). Geo Maher is a Philadelphia-based writer and organizer, and Visiting Associate Professor of Global Political Thought at Vassar College. He has taught previously at Drexel University, San Quentin State Prison, and the Venezuelan School of Planning in Caracas, and has held visiting positions at the College of William and Mary's Decolonizing Humanities Project, NYU's Hemispheric Institute, and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He his co-editor of the Duke University Press series Radical Américas and author of five books: We Created Chávez (Duke, 2013), Building the Commune (Verso, 2016), Decolonizing Dialectics (Duke, 2017), A World Without Police (Verso, 2021), and Anticolonial Eruptions (University of California, 2022). Lorgia García Peña is the author of Community as Rebellion: A Syllabus for Surviving Academia as a Woman of Color and is a first generation Latinx Studies scholar. Dr. García Peña is the Mellon Associate Professor of Race, Colonialism and Diaspora Studies at Tufts University and a Casey Foundation 2021 Freedom Scholar. She studies global Blackness, colonialism, migration and diaspora with a special focus on Black Latinidad. Dr. García Peña is the co-founder of Freedom University Georgia and of Archives of Justice (Milan-Boston). Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/gJ2EnOVFAxk Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

Lorgia García Peña, Angela Y. Davis and Chandra Talpade Mohanty discuss freedom making in the academy for women scholars of color. ***Please note: This discussion was recorded on May 25, 2022. We are releasing it now because the discussion remains highly relevant and valuable.*** Join us for the launch of a Community as Rebellion: A Syllabus for Surviving Academia as a Woman of Color, a new book by Latinx Studies scholar Lorgia García Peña in conversation with Angela Y. Davis and Chandra Talpade Mohanty. Weaving personal narrative with political analysis, Community as Rebellion offers a meditation on creating liberatory spaces for students and faculty of color within academia. Much like other women scholars of color, Lorgia García Peña has struggled against the colonizing, racializing, classist, and unequal structures that perpetuate systemic violence within universities. Angela Y. Davis regards Community as Rebellion as “a life-saving and life-affirming text, it offers us the trenchant analysis and fearless strategy radical scholar-activists have long needed.” You can order a copy of Community as Rebellion here: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1870-community-as-rebellion ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Speakers: Lorgia García Peña is the author of Community as Rebellion: A Syllabus for Surviving Academia as a Woman of Color and is a first generation Latinx Studies scholar. Dr. García Peña is the Mellon Associate Professor of Race, Colonialism and Diaspora Studies at Tufts University and a Casey Foundation 2021 Freedom Scholar. She studies global Blackness, colonialism, migration and diaspora with a special focus on Black Latinidad. Dr. García Peña is the co-founder of Freedom University Georgia and of Archives of Justice (Milan-Boston). Angela Y. Davis is Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz. An activist, writer, and lecturer, her work focuses on prisons, police, abolition, and the related intersections of race, gender, and class. She is the author of many books, from Angela Davis: An Autobiography (now available in a new edition from Haymarket Books) to Freedom Is a Constant Struggle. Chandra Talpade Mohanty is a feminist scholar-activist and educator in the women's and gender studies department at Syracuse University. Chandra's activism, scholarship, and teaching focus on transnational feminist theory, anticapitalist feminist praxis, antiracist education, and the politics of knowledge. She is author of Freedom Feminist Warriors, Feminism without Borders and coeditor of Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures; Feminism and War and Sage Handbook of Identities. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/A38JKBBK2RU Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

Assistant professor of African, African American and Diaspora Studies, Ron Williams joins The Institute to discuss his latest book project, an institutional history of the US based foreign policy organization, "Trans Africa."

Lorgia Garcia-Pena was a respected and beloved professor at Harvard University.  There, she says, she and her predominantly Latinx students faced consistent scrutiny and surveillance from the Harvard campus police.  We talk with Lorgia Garcia-Pena, author of Community As Rebellion: A Syllabus for Surviving Academia as a Woman of Color and Mellon Associate Professor of Race, Colonialism and Diaspora Studies at Tufts University, about her experiences at Harvard with campus police and later being denied tenure there.  We also explore how those events informed her latest book on building communities of rebellion.  

Lorgia Garcia-Pena was a respected and beloved professor at Harvard University.  There, she says, she and her predominantly Latinx students faced consistent scrutiny and surveillance from the Harvard campus police.  We talk with Lorgia Garcia-Pena, author of Community As Rebellion: A Syllabus for Surviving Academia as a Woman of Color and Mellon Associate Professor of Race, Colonialism and Diaspora Studies at Tufts University, about her experiences at Harvard with campus police and later being denied tenure there.  We also explore how those events informed her latest book on building communities of rebellion.  

Fan of the show? https://www.patreon.com/newleftradio (Support us on Patreon)! We're joined by former Ontario and federal Minister of Health Tony Clement and (newly) former ONDP MPP Rima Berns-McGown to discuss all things Ontario election and just who Ontarians should select on June 2nd. About Hon. Tony Clement The Honourable Tony Clement is a former Minister in the Stephen Harper Government federally, and the Mike Harris and Ernie Eves Governments in the Province of Ontario. During his time in the House of Commons (2006-2019) Mr. Clement served as: Minister of Health, Minister of Industry, President of the Treasury Board and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario. He therefore played a lead role in getting Canada's economy back on track after the most significant global economic recession since the 1930s. In Opposition Clement was Foreign Affairs Critic and Justice Critic. https://twitter.com/tonyclementcpc?s=21 (Follow Tony on Twitter) About Rima Berns-McGown Dr. Rima Berns-McGown is the former member of Provincial Parliament for Beaches-East York. She served as the Official Opposition Critic for Poverty and Homelessness and a member of the Standing Committee on the Legislative Assembly. Before she was elected, Rima taught Diaspora Studies at the University of Toronto. She holds a PhD in International Politics from the University of Aberystwyth, an MA from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International studies of the Johns Hopkins University, and a Bachelor of Journalism and Political Science from Carleton University. She has a long history of writing about and advocating for systemic change that creates equity and societies that truly work for everyone who lives in them. Rima was born in South Africa of a mixed background and is proud to be a member of Ontario's first Black Caucus. https://twitter.com/beyrima?s=21&t=Mf5AXSMB1Kcg-hb3vREsYA (Follow Rima on Twitter) Stay connected with the latest from New Left Radio by https://newleft.us6.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=8227a4372fe8dc22bdbf0e3db&id=e99d6c70b4 (joining our mailing list) today! _________