Misogyny Against Asian Women - The TryPod Ep. 102

ramble thank you to upstart ritual purple and stitch fix for sponsoring today's episode of the tripod hey everyone welcome to a very special episode of the tripod today i have four incredible guests they are asian american women who i work alongside and are friends with you might have seen the documentary we just released we need to talk about anti-asian hate unfortunately towards the end of production the atlanta spa shootings happened so i wasn't able to dedicate an entire chapter specifically focused on misogyny against asian women so i thought it'd be a great idea to make sure that we address this in a platform where all of y'all have the room to speak your minds so i'm just going to moderate as little as possible and let you have the floor for listeners who might not know who you are can you introduce yourselves sure hi guys my name is yb um i i actually was born in korea but i moved to america when i was 12. so i say i'm from la and korea both but i grew up here hi guys my name is alexandria um i was born and raised in l.a my mom is a korean immigrant she came here when she was about eight years old um and my dad is white he's born raised in california so i mixed and grew up in l.a my whole life hi i'm aiko uh i'm from uh alexandria virginia it's where i grew up and then i moved to la a few years ago you're actually from virginia as well right kathleen i am from virginia not too far from alexandria 703 represent oh yeah i am yeah from northern virginia both of my parents are uh chinese immigrants and i work with all of y'all in some capacity so three of you actually worked on the anti-asian hate documentary with me aiko did all the amazing illustrations and graphics yb edited and alexandria was co-producing and then um kathleen interestingly enough basically produced everything i did before i was even online we she was the producer on the i'm gay video wow really coming up yeah awesome reunion i think i saw you in the cause you guys did an another video about how you made oh yeah and i think i saw you in there as well that was me we go way back we go way back you want to hear something really asian yeah how did we meet oh we were working at an upscale dim sum restaurant perfect yes so talk about being immediately cast into a position where in west hollywood of all places they were hiring what like young attractive uh american friendly asian people yeah well honestly they did such a good job hiring though because we're all really close still yeah we've hung out since then nice now for our topic today we are you know just going to speak from our hearts and i want you to know that we don't represent the vast diversity of voices on this topic we are just a small selection um and for those who are listening we might be delving into some very serious issues including things about race gender sexuality and uh there might be some talk about sexual assault so just be prepared because we want to make sure that we honor some very serious issues that oftentimes go unspoken about particularly from asian women before we get into it i am going to take a quick break and when we get back i want to start talking first about what happened last week in atlanta [Music] last year it really showed us that you never know what life's going to throw at you and if you use credit cards to pay for unexpected expenses it can be overwhelming sometimes to manage that debt you can take control with upstart so you know exactly what to expect upstart is the fast and easy way to get a personal loan to pay off your debt all online whether it's paying off credit cards consolidating high interest debt or funding personal expenses over half a million people have used upstart to get a simple fixed monthly payment upstart finds smarter rates with trusted partners because they assess more than just your credit score with a five minute online rate check you can see your rate up front for loans for one thousand to fifty thousand dollars you can get a really good gamut of what you need where you can get it from what the interest rates will be so it's there's nothing hidden here find out how upstart can lower your monthly payments today when you go to upstart.com try guys that's upstart.com try guys and don't forget to use our url to let them know we sent you baby go to upstart.com try guys loan amounts will be determined based on your credit income and certain other information provided in your loan application [Music] on march 16 2021 a series of mass shootings occurred at three massage parlors or spas in the atlanta area this was just last week and we found out that six of the eight victims were in fact asian american women i'd like to know what your first immediate reaction was when you saw that the majority of them were asian um for me unfortunately i i kind of was influenced i think by the news articles that i was reading and obviously and i think still now a lot a lot of um outlets were saying that it wasn't race related and so you know i myself have had like a lot of issues kind of um even really accepting that hate crimes are happening against our community and so this was just another example of me being like well maybe it's not maybe you know and i that was kind of the thought process that i that was going through my head and maybe it was nile maybe i was influenced maybe you know i i don't know it was just a mix of those types of emotions um for me this is another sad thing i wasn't surprised because it's been just happening so many times lately and i actually asked my mom if she heard the news in korea because four of the women were korean i think um and then i asked her like was this on the korean news how did they react and she said honestly the korean use did show it but koreans aren't surprised either because america has mass shootings all the time they thought this just was another shooting like they weren't even surprised we just had a mass shooting in boulder this week so um it is unfortunately uh something that's also very specific to the american experience now what's interesting is you just had two very distinct perspectives um kathleen presented that she was questioning immediately if it was even a hate crime because the way we've been taught about racism not existing against asians yb was expressing the side that was just really not surprised maybe particularly since we were neck deep in this documentary we were literally finishing the documentary um i'm curious how did you alexandria feel when you saw the news um i was angry um oh here it comes i think it's just really angry and really upset because especially as more stories came out like you kind of see that as your mom like all of those women were like either young parents or they had families or it's just upsetting so i think i was just saying great and upset um yeah i think i had a similar reaction where i was like like i was pissed like i was upset that someone would ever do that and then also just like everything leading up to it like i wasn't surprised either but um yeah i i also like i already have social anxiety so i was like scared to go outside anyway but i was scared even more just after seeing that and um scared for like people that i love who are not even in the same state as i am um yeah it's yeah it's really hard to process to that level of anger that just kind of washes over you when you see something like that happen so much of the conversation comes back to this idea of silence for asian americans and asian communities around the world it's a very complex idea that we are all sort of unpackaging and it certainly comes from a lot of different external forces and some internal forces i'm curious we think of the most silenced in our community and this also brought up some intersections of things like uh class and you know women who work at places like spas massage parlors nail salons what has your own experience been you know being adjacent or knowing um people who have mothers and aunts and sisters in those types of businesses especially since the stereotype is always that they are literally on their hands and knees you know doing people's nails i mean those people are the hardest working people they i'm sure like it's so tiring just doing things like the little the nails are so small can you imagine like working on those and they do eyelashes they do all these beauty services they take so much work and they don't even rest like they're working the whole time these are like the hardest working people why attack like i mean you shouldn't attack anyone but these are like they don't deserve that at all like it's so sad yeah i mean just to piggyback off that i do a couple of my mom's friends have worked in salons or own salons um nail salons hair salons and it's just what you said they're on their feet like 12 hours a day if not more and then they still have to do all the duties of being a mom and yeah they are definitely the hardest working people that i know it exposes a lot of vulnerability within our community we discuss the asian monolith idea about deconstructing that you know that you you can watch the documentary um but things like the model minority myth things like that uh idea of everyone being lumped together uh it completely erases uh the people who are the most vulnerable especially in the recent attacks from the women in atlanta to the elderly who are also just kind of on their feet going about their day not trying to bother anybody this also really you know segues well into this conversation about being an asian woman and that idea of feeling um even within our own communities a sense of of keeping your head down and being quiet and making yourself small do you remember the first time you ever felt like someone was teaching you that or that you felt that you were reacting in a way where you made yourself smaller than you wanted to be yeah i mean i think the it's just like something you that becomes habit is making yourself smaller and i think that goes with being asian and being a woman like yeah i feel like a lot of women generally like the habit of of saying sorry after everything even if it wasn't your fault which i i have to admit i do that like constantly i'm constantly in situations where i feel like i do have to apologize even though it's it's not my fault and i think that just goes along with the habits we teach women to just be make and apologize and uh yeah do you mind if i ask if that came from not just society but also your parents um maybe maybe a little bit i mean my i think when it comes to my mom she definitely also has that habit of being very apologetic and um it's so interesting like before i like came out here to do this uh podcast with you she um i think the way we process trauma can be like not the healthiest and i feel like the way she has been processed to or taught to process trauma is um like she told me recently that uh one time when she was a kid like her and her family went out for a family picnic um and she lived in this not in l.a but like in the bay area kind of um and she said that someone threw like a molotov at a bush like while they were picnicking um and just the way she said it i was taking it because she had never told me that before and she had never really spoken openly with me about like trauma she's experienced or like horrible things she experienced growing up um and i was i guess what also shocked me was when i was like well have you ever told anyone have you ever like gone to therapy and maybe talked to someone about like just like that horrible experience um and she her reaction was immediately like well i was a kid so like i that was like what she said to me and i was immediately like well just because you were a kid it doesn't mean it wasn't traumatic in fact like it clearly stuck with you and i think she's constantly uh in the place where she feels she has to explain away something traumatic that has happened to her and um isn't really doesn't feel she's allowed to like talk about it or process it because she's worried of coming off as as weak or um just not strong enough like yeah have you seen that in your own experience for me was um that's i think more of the mental part which is crazy we need to talk about that more in asian culture in general because i feel like we in our culture at least how i experienced it is mental health isn't really taken that seriously um in kur when i was growing up in korea i didn't know anyone who talked about a therapist or and i come here and everyone has a therapist and everyone gets help and in korea that wasn't even a thing like if you say you have even anxiety they look at you like you're a crazy person and i think it's getting way better now it's just the older generations and we have to get better at that but for me what i personally struggled and still struggle with it's just like physical safety um it happens with being a girl being a woman already right and um just walking because i have to walk my dog at night and stuff and when i have to i usually do it with my boyfriend but when i do it alone it's always like scary something's gonna someone is gonna pop out and now being an asian woman on top of that it's even worse and i can't even go to like a place where there's a lot of people alone because i'm scared something's gonna happen and like the whole physical safety thing like we should be able to feel safe especially when there's people around but we don't because of so many things happening around us and that's sad but we should also point out that people should be allowed to feel safe too if they happen to be quiet as well yeah i mean i a lot of what i'm trying to encourage in our community is more outspoken you know engagement but that isn't true for many of the people who died in the shooting it's not true for our elders and certainly for as we're hearing a lot of ways that women are especially raised in our cultures kathleen do you have any stories about when you first felt like you were supposed to be small honestly i can't think of what trained me to be that way but i do know that untraining it has been really difficult like even just speaking out of turn or not even out of turn when people didn't ask me to speak or i didn't like raise my hand it's so it's so difficult for me and i found i think we talked about this like you know with my ex-business partner it was something that she noticed and i think um made me seem like not competent or you know not intelligent because when we were in like pitch meetings like she was very she was a very very good speaker and very articulate and like good sales person and so i just kind of let her take the reins because if every time i didn't want to say something it felt like i had to interrupt her and i just could not bring myself to do that like zoom meetings i cannot talk because when people are talking i feel like and then i can't talk because everyone is talking i mean let's call it out right now the listeners who are used to hearing the typical um three straight white men well maybe four hey miles is here too he's been wonderfully uh running the podcast and then myself some people have pointed out like oh eugene seems quiet or he seems off i think 90 of that time it's just because of um this isn't true for all asian men many asian men are very misogynistic but i'm also gay and i'm very sensitive so uh i was taught to listen first and to wait my turn and then when i can say something after i say something i have to then shut up again and you know even me as like a full-blown cis man like that still happens in my experience uh so this might for listeners be the most um considerate podcast between speakers uh no but like alex when have you felt that in in your life i think it's always kind of been there like i was never directly told like don't speak keep your head down but i was always taught to respect my elders like that was a big thing in our family you respect your elders um and i was also taught to stand up for myself but it was also just like looking differently from everyone else and being a woman like i think inherently we kind of learn to keep our heads down and not um start any trouble um and to kind of reference like what you were talking about like it goes back to my mom's upbringing as well i was talking to her last night about just her experience with all of this and anything that she wanted to share she told me a couple of stories but she immigrated from korea with her family i want to say early 70s to virginia and they opened up a family restaurant um and she was telling me that on the weekends they would um have like live music and have a bar so like to bring in more customers and the white people in town didn't like that um didn't like that there's asians that had a successful business so there was a big group of white guys that would go every weekend go into the bar and harass people harass people in the parking lot so no one would want to go there anymore and it got to a point where my mom's older brother my uncle um was attacked by six white men in the parking lot of the restaurant and he he was attacked really bad he had to go to the hospital um and they went to court for it and which i think like is not something they normally would have done anyways but it was so bad and like there's a police report they ended up going to court and he was found at fault because he used the f word what so because he cussed mm-hmm wow even though they attacked him he said the f word so oh my god he was found at fault and so and i think [ __ ] that yeah is that elementary school you can't say the f word and so and i think that also goes back to what you were saying where like asian families specifically like don't talk about mental health and i think my mom went through a lot of trauma growing up and like losing family members and it's something that you don't talk about like she didn't talk about in her family like there'd be a death in the family and then no one spoke about it like they grew for a day they moved on and so i think it also you never really are able to deal with your trauma but then you also pass that down like growing up i think i've gotten so much better at communicating but up until now like i if i had an issue something i would never wouldn't bring it up or things like that i think um when people hear something because it sounds like you know we we approximate our relationships with this idea of whiteness i want to make the caveat that we're not specifically speaking about white people or when we say white supremacy it's not white people are white supremacists otherwise we would have no boyfriends and everyone has white friends it's uh literally look at the brand i have um it is the systemic influence of history bearing down where a specific group of people were not only in power but abusing those who were marginalized alexandria you have a unique experience especially being of a mixed background and i'm sure this is also something i've seen stories from people who are asian and adopted uh within your own upbringing especially since your mother is of korean descent your father is white did you see both gender and race play into the ways in which they they sort of taught you lessons for the way that they even like managed their own space the world how did you see that in the home initially growing up when i was younger we didn't talk about race a lot um and like i always knew i was korean i was proud of it and i think the difference is just growing up mixed like we had good relationships with both sides of our family but like my dad's family wouldn't see as much my mom's mom lived with us um which is like a very asian thing to do like when your grandma gets older she lives with you she helps takes care of the kids but my mom did teach me to like you always do your best in school you do the absolute best you always look your best i think there's a big weight placed on being perfect and i think a big part of that is because you are also kind of representing your culture you don't want to let the culture down and there's also the stereotype of like asians are good at math asians are really smart they get straight a's and so when that's put on you it's so much pressure even if it's not directly coming from your parent it like the feeling is there the emotions are there um and i think my mom never spoke about it in a way where it's like you're asian you have to do things differently but i do think there is an extra pressure placed on like asians are good at math like always look your best it was it was a lot of that certainly um the model minority myth is at play and what we learn as we examine it more is that the approximation to whiteness that asian americans are painted as gives of certain a force of certain privileges sometimes but it doesn't protect us in fact it can really really damage us so we're going to speak more about that right after this 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ritual.com try guys to start your ritual today so going back to the atlanta shootings the perpetrator the mass murderer ended up being a white male the awful police conference that happened afterwards because already there was a question of is this a hate crime is this racially motivated uh the the parroting of what the perpetrators said was not only did he just have a bad day which we won't even get into that yet uh but he saw the spas the people who worked there as places of sexual temptation that needed to be eliminated what and how have you experienced this feeling because it goes into a very long history of the idea of being an asian woman especially in the eyes of a white man when have you felt that tension when have you felt that belittling and when if you potentially felt that sort of endangerment i would say when i first moved to la i really like understood what the term yellow fever was was referring to because i was experiencing it on like a daily basis i think because you grew up in a predominantly asian community right or a lot of asians there were a lot of asians but also you know i feel like when you're younger it's not like i i just feel like it's not as prevalent it's not as a prevalent of a concept you know and i also didn't really date when i was younger obviously it wasn't really me neither so um yeah when i when i moved out here especially working in the music industry and and um i want to say there's a lot of guys that fall in that category in the music industry um i you know got involved with a couple of them and it was very apparent obviously just by their track record of only dating asian women that they clearly had this you know whatever issue fetish whatever you want to call it um but in some ways like i don't know i don't know if it was just like the self-esteem and self-confidence i had at the time it wasn't very high that i just allowed myself to be you know part of this part part of this relationship that obviously like wasn't really based on what a real relationship should be based on um but i do know that for that time period in my life when i was getting involved with with men like this it was one of like i i definitely was really unhappy and like really insecure and it was just apparent in that like i would stalk their instagrams like at any event like one was a dj at any event if there was like any asian girl like even in his vicinity i was like terrified and i am like i will say i'm an inherently jealous person but you know the person that i've been dating for the past few years is like a photographer that shoots like very sexual images of beautiful women and models and like although that wasn't i had a jealousy issue towards the beginning of that it's like it was like letting it match compared to like a bonfire to the type of insecurity and jealousy that i would feel like just completely out of control when i was like dating these men that only dated asian women and i i was just actually reflecting on this when i was thinking about you know filming this podcast and like how different of an experience that was and like i haven't even fully processed it but i do know that like yeah i think i was i was just not feeling good about myself at that point in my life but isn't that crazy how so many of us especially as we you know get got out of high school we started dating or seeing what the scene was like there was a very like common agreed upon thing that it was okay that particular um people especially white men had a fetish for asians this is similar in the gay community and that that it almost bred competition between asians which is strange because at that point we are agreeing upon that this person is objectifying us like regardless of how attractive we are or how much we personally connect with them it is just on the core basis that they are attracted to something about asians what do you think in those cases that fetishization what are they attracted to i don't even know it's it's just i mean it's so crazy that the the yellow fever thing is just like a comic like a common experience i think we've all had like i mean i think jenny yang literally has a stand up about a guy who had a sword that she like went on one date with um white guys who collect katanas yeah yeah that's why it's a thing well i'm glad i haven't had that experience it's just it's just something we've all been through and it's i mean it's it's sad but it's also just like i don't know ridiculous in my opinion and i really i mean i guess like if when you look at like how we are portrayed in media it becomes more clear why this is a fetish uh for so many white men i guess um but yeah i i just i guess it just like when i started dating in high school it surprised me how much it would come up um and pretty unabashedly like there was no hiding it for a long time i would so many people think it's a compliment no i know i got that yeah yeah cutting to the core of a lot of this yeah because they think it's a compliment have you experienced that well one of the guys that i dated i i mean i got to the point where i just started point blank asking people like how bad is your yellow fever on a scale of one to ten because i just got to get it out of the way but i remember talking to one of the guys that i was dating about it and he was like comparing women to cars and was like well asian women it's like getting like a toyota where it's like or something you know reliable car that's going to last you a long time yeah cuz like you know i mean because we like tend to like age more gracefully or something i think he was trying to say yeah that that was a conversation i actually had so toys that are like reliable for families mid-size sedans but not glamorous or interesting at all just you know ride it for like 15 years right yeah you can have your car for a long longer i don't know i don't know i was young i that is the thing is that i actually had like i think a lot of self-loathing at that time that i didn't address because how else would i have allowed myself to be in these situations one of the guy was like one of the guys was he wasn't like physically abusive but he was definitely like emotionally abusive and like i was you know fine with him having ella fever him being emotionally abusive to me him forcing me to drive home drunk one day like yeah because he had to wake up early for a call yeah no it was yeah so anyways but again i i think it comes down to the fact that like yeah i don't know if i was something you know related to my identity or not but it definitely like allowed me to be in a space that i shouldn't have been in you know it's dehumanizing it's a power dynamic that um many asian women and from my gay asian experience we accept that we are so we we we're weaker we're agreeable you know um and if we're not we're the opposite which is also bizarrely sexy to them like you know what i mean like it's dehumanizing not to allow persons just to be somewhere naturally in the middle this goes back into historical context of you know the the wilting flower the butterfly the lotus blossom that stereotype from like madame butterfly from miss saigon sacrificial lamb you know and then you also have the dragon lady you know the idea of a sort of menace who's also very sexual and inviting and tempting and there to sort of steal your soul um have you ever felt like you were cast in either of those sort of lights in your experience with guys kind of i actually wanted to go back i related to both of your stories um especially when you said you had a lot of self-loathing growing up it's i think growing up mixed i had a lot of issues with this um but i felt like i never really belonged like i wasn't korean enough to hang with the koreans but to the white people i was like foreign or exotic or like people literally told me all the time like oh what are you you look exotic which i think they thought was a compliment but like growing up i didn't look like anyone like not only did i not look like the asians in media like i didn't look like anyone that i knew except for my sister um so it with that it came a lot of like not feeling normal or pretty and so i think that when i got older i feel like in high school it's the first time i heard the phrase asian fetish and at first and i do not think this is the right way to respond but at first i was like oh there's people who think i'm cute like that was my first response it's like someone thinks i'm attractive um and like i quickly learned that's not right and it's it's a disgusting term and it's people i don't know if it was the time because it was like 10 years ago but it was something that white guys would proudly say like oh i have an asian fetish and they would say it to you um and they would ask you questions like i always got questions about like how strict are my parents because asian parents are usually strict and i didn't understand it at the time and i think they were it it was a way to sexualize me which i did not understand at the time at all and i think there's a lot of like this is gross but like anatomy of asian women is talked about a lot and it's been brought up to me like it's a compliment which is like horrifying um and i think getting older i like came to terms and i met a lot more people who looked like me which does help a lot and like you realize that your asian-ness like doesn't define you or your beauty um but i think as i got older i saw a lot of like it just became more prevalent to talk about asian fetishes and we even had someone in our friend group talking about this was a few years ago but he was saying how he's attracted to asian women um which is totally fine but he was saying he loves asian women because they're obedient and he said it as a joke but when he said that i was just like do you not know i'm asian like it was really upsetting yes that's that's super upsetting um for me i mean it's like the typical thing when we get cat called all the time right i need a woman doing i mean i'm sure all of you have had someone call hey nihao to you like they don't even know who you are and they just say these things and think it's a compliment too i think like well we're just asking for your number and why aren't you happy we're giving you attention that kind of stuff the catcalling has always been there and i kind of got used to it it's not even like a problem anymore but for me it's like um one i didn't experience anything like that because i luckily i was very lucky enough to have very diverse friends even when i came to la like i had friends um from asia i had friends from grew up in america or asians who grew up like like americans and other american friends so i was okay with my friend group but once i started getting kind of known online through buzzfeed that's when i really experienced it by strangers online because my friends have always been supportive but the online people i mean they can be trolls all the time but first like um i so i dyed my hair blonde in a buzzfeed video and it was totally for a video it was called asians go blonde for the first time and i thought it was such a fun video and i i mean i'm still vlogging i love it i loved how it looked on me but then i started getting comments saying like oh she's trying to be white like she like she's dying her hair blonde because she wants to be white or and i'm like no i just like the hair color everyone dyes their hair like why can't it be this certain color that i like so i had to deal with that for a while i was like scared to even go back blonde because i was scared people were gonna say that again and now i just decided to like [ __ ] it i'm gonna do whatever i want but that was annoying and then people try to tell me who i should and shouldn't date and that's because of the yellow fever thing asian fetish being so known to the point that they automatically assume if you date a non-asian guy they think that guy has yellow fever even when they don't like i've been with my boyfriend for five years now and we met in college and it wasn't like oh my god he only dated asians before he did and he's from germany he's like dated germans before so and like people automatically assume oh it's because he has yellow fever oh you have self-hate oh you're ashamed of being asian and it's like no like let us date whoever we want it's not because i mean there are definitely people with yellow fevers of course but and to the point that we have to ask each time like have you dated an asian before like i definitely asked that too but it's not always like that either so we're i feel like we're so categorized like who we should i shouldn't date that people online try to tell us what to do and that's so upsetting all the time but it's weird that this day and age that like mixed race couples like it's even an issue um and even now and i go my dad is white and if he and i go out to dinner or like go out shopping or something we get so many looks because we don't look alike and so we kind of do get dirty looks like people think i'm like a mail order bride or like it's that kind of situation like we always get stairs every time we go out and it's really uncomfortable both my sister and i have gotten questions like oh are you adopted like is your dad your real dad um so that's always been super prevalent and for me i never truly felt comfortable until i went to college because i went to college in hawaii and that was the first time in my life that i wasn't the minority and there was so many like it's mainly um asians that live there and there's a lot of mixed race people um and that's why i first heard the term hapa i didn't even know hoppo was a term and it means mixed race and it's usually asian and something else but like i kind of felt like i found my community there um so that was the first place that i felt normal and like i could just fit in and i wasn't i wasn't sticking out in the crowd like me and my white boyfriend can go out and it wasn't it wasn't a spectacle it was normal there are times still where i'm just like oh it sucks that i'm dating oh my god like you know like do you ever have that feeling i'm like sometimes i'm just like wow am i like just like fitting into the stereotype of like those online comments made me feel that way but i shouldn't feel bad who i'm dating you know like we shouldn't feel bad we should be able to date whoever we want as long as it's not a fetishized thing of course that's bad but if we know it's not we shouldn't be able to we should be able to feel comfortable and i was before but until i got this online comments i was like wait is this a bad thing and i started thinking about it and now i got like more used to it so i just like don't care about it as much but it's sad that we have to care yeah i just sometimes feel like i'm like am i dating the oppressor like am i like that's a real concern but i think that there's a conversation like through line that is the i think centering particularly in american culture of whiteness like the idea is the rules that have been in place the history from when the first war brides you know were married when the first uh stereotypical portrayal of like a miss saigon type is put on stage or on screen then people use that as a reference point so whether we all have many healthy lovely relationships with white men that exists like it's it's what we're discussing are those moments that are unfortunately like not talked about enough not not challenged enough especially in person because how many times when a white man tells that to you in person did you kick him in the knee like you know what i mean like that's that's where we get to this point of so we're always going back to this idea that whatever those in power have written about culture even down to the fact of there are many interracial couples that happen to be white and asian that are totally normal um many people can still stop and just think she must be really really submissive but on the topic of white boyfriends i believe someone here can't relate right now we'll talk more about that with echo after the break [Music] sometimes you're tossing and turning bad you just can't get comfortable sometimes other things in life are making you uncomfortable we're all looking for comfort here but at least you can count on the comforts of the purple mattress baby you've seen it you know about it purple has the comfort that's been reinvented only purple has the grid a stretchy gel material that's amazingly supportive for your back and your legs while cushioning your shoulders neck and hips right now you can try your purple mattress rich three with free shipping and returns and financing is available too i'm a musical boy so i got myself that purple harmony pillow my dreams are in harmony with my sleep it is life-changing having the right pillow is such an important part of your sleep it is cozy it is cushioned it is supported you know purple really is comfort for an uncomfortable world right now you'll get 10 off any order of 200 or more go to purple.com tripod 10 and use promo code tripod 10. that's purple.com tripod 10 promo code tripod 10 for 10 off any order of 200 or more purple.com tripod 10 promo code tripod 10 and of course terms apply so ico we've been talking a lot about experiences coming up against some uncomfortable situations uh when sort of compared to or put in the company of of white men what what is your sort of dating experience um boy uh well i have dated white men in the past like uh i think in high school i only dated white men but that's because there was not really that much to choose from um i when i was started dating i grew up in an area that was like mostly white uh and the school i went to was mostly white uh which is interesting because all my friends um currently that i still have from high school and middle school uh we're all minorities like we're black we're asian and um i feel like when you do grow up in a a wider area you kind of have a habit to like drift towards people who also feel like minorities and also feel sort of othered by the community that they're in um but yeah i gosh dating i i mean i wouldn't say i'm with my current boyfriend because he's asian but it has been a refreshing experience to date someone who understands like the experience i had growing up um and i i guess like a lot of the white men i have dated i i haven't had the best experience of just like you know like i had a boyfriend uh in high school who was like who also was like yeah i like i really like asian women and like even was like oh the porn i watch is always oh my god you didn't have to we didn't we don't yeah i think um you know what's interesting is in the gay community it's it's quite similar so this idea of misogyny it translates across you know sexual orientation identity it's it's present this idea of like what the sort of male dominant force is and you've heard the term from like populized by grinder no fats no femmes no asians right so that term is like discriminatory in a multitude of impressive ways in one sentence but that used to be on people's profiles for dating because they don't want the triumvirate of what's like unattractive to the white male dominant that's very masculine sort of macho uh gay sort of idolized figure which would be if you're a feminine asian male who's happens to not be the thinnest or ripped most ripped guy and what's interesting is that brings up some it's almost like some of gay culture you see it on twitter sometimes people making fun of white gay culture it almost like you would think that it would create more empathy towards issues like the fact that you are actually being misogynistic when you say you don't want a feminine guy and that's a lot of inbred uh sort of internalized homophobia but that idea of essentially like doubling down on your whiteness your masculinity and your size it is crazy how like it's a huge problem in the gay community and it's almost because it's only these men who only are with other men hanging out with other men that's why half the time you see hot white guys with their boyfriends they look exactly the same and so it is uh interesting because when i started i actually here's the fact is like my current boyfriend is the only boyfriend i've ever had i never dated i was very social but i was undateable because i approached the scene kathleen remembers in a drunken rage because i was so already like messed up from grumpy in texas with feeling othered and bullied for being asian and then i thought like wow everyone in uh gay la in a big city is gonna accept me and then i was even somehow more tokenized because then i became the one attractive traditionally attractive asian friend that they would say oh this is my hot asian friend he can come out with us so then it was this again this reference point they kept using where they're saying in my mind asian men who have been traditionally emasculated and feminized in contemporary society at the same way that asian women are hyper sexualized and made ultra feminine in their minds in their minds i was like the the exception to that rule but when i look back the people who are most attracted to me um would basically say oh you're not like other asians because you speak out you're not like other asians because you're mean and you're messy and which are all true but asians are also very mean and messy and outspoken like these are real i was a really fully fleshed person and that really [ __ ] me up which was why i didn't go on a date until i was 25. and then i happened to date my first boyfriend who i've been with for over almost 10 years yeah that was great which is crazy but do not do not want to time warp back to previous pre-25 eugene was a mess yeah but i think um you know what we're talking about is this um lingering tradition i think of this hyper sexualization this sort of type casting of what it is to be um an asian person especially when in context with with prevailing whiteness what it is to be an asian woman um have you ever felt you know especially looking at the shooter's motive in atlanta the um that strange feeling of that that hyper sexualization you know that feeling that you are essentially like an object has that ever come up for you uh i wanted to talk about a point that you brought up that i that i was thinking about a lot which is you know being kind of the exception and how i feel like um some of the racism and misogyny that exists that's not like like overt like you know someone going on a shooting rampage and stuff like that are the people that say things like that and there's so many like people in my life some that are still friends some that you know i don't associate with anymore but have said things like that to me that they're like kathleen you're like no but you like don't look like other chinese girls like that's why you're hot or like no but you're like the coolest asian that i know you know and and it's like they're trying to compliment you but then it also you kind of like internalize this like you feel special right because you're like okay well i'm like better and i'm special i'm like the accepted one so then but then you it turns into like internalized racism internalized misogyny and all this stuff that like i feel like that doesn't get addressed a lot too because i i feel like that's a little bit that's like much more prevalent than like the overt like gonna be punching people on the street kind of racism like in misogyny like this is just like if you talk to someone and you ask them if you thought they're a racist misogynist and they've said these things before they'd be like no i'm definitely not but it's like you can point down like x y and z did you realize when you said this this is where this is coming from and this is what you do to other people when you say stuff like this it's just as damaging and perhaps more insidious these days when people think they're going against stereotypes by pointing out how you're not the stereotype right yeah but all you're doing is adhering to the stereotype so that's something i think people should and something that people forgive very often when talking about asians in particular because people use asian kind of like an adjective yeah like you're just not very asian yeah yeah you know you can't really we're checking people rightfully so more when you think of other marginalized communities you you don't say that yeah to someone without someone being like excuse me yeah we need to really watch exactly what you're saying but people are always just like uh she's so asian he's so asian you're not that asian and you know i wonder how much back to where i was saying like that kind of comes down to this feeling of being treated more like an object or an idea and less like a person and now k-pop is so big so whenever it's like they're trying to compliment you it's like oh you look like a k-pop star oh you could be a k-pop star and everything is k-pop k-pop now and like i'm very proud that like korea is doing so well like k-pop is doing getting more well-known internationally but also like to be always compared to that and then you really need to be perfect because they all look perfect but that's also like another stereotype that we're living with now yeah i agree i feel like every single food babies video we do i usually look at most of the comments and every single one is comparing me to like a k-pop star which is flattering but at the same time it's always like one of a couple because those are the only ones that people know and it's i don't know it's interesting like it's i don't know it's not necessarily a good or bad thing like it is flattering but it's also like we were talking about this earlier how now that korean culture is popular and kpop is popular it's become like cool to be asian again or for the first time like when i was growing up um besides like the fetishization of asians we weren't celebrated in any other way even like korean barbecue's so trendy now in la that wasn't the case when i was growing up like if i brought korean food to school it was like oh where what are you eating if my friends came over and my mom pulled out kimchi it's like oh what does that smell which is kind of stinky but like that's a good stain i love the smell it's um it's interesting that it's trendy now and growing up like you just didn't have anyone to relate to um and i remember my my little brother he would always ask in elementary school like you know how you wake up in the morning your eyes are kind of puffy or swollen sometimes and he'd always ask before he went to school like oh are my eyes korean today because he didn't look like his friends he only had white friends so he was just very self-conscious or just very self-aware of like that he looked different and i think now it's celebrated like the girls think he's cute because he looks like a k-pop star but before it was something that i think he worried about even as a little kid like six or seven years old becky knows this all too well that sometimes clothing shopping can be very daunting i know myself i get very discouraged because you you know you don't know if things are going to fit your returns can be difficult but this season you can let stitch fix do all the hard work for you stitch fix offers clothing hand selected by expert stylists for your unique size style and budget every piece is chosen for your fit and your life and it's the easy solution to finding what makes you look and feel your best stitchfix has free shipping easy returns and exchanges and a prepaid return envelope is included there's no subscription required you can try stitch fix once or you can set up automatic deliveries you'll pay just a 20 styling fee for each box which gets credited toward the pieces you keep so you can get started today at stitchfix.com try guys and you're going to get 25 off when you keep everything in your fix that is stitchfix.com so let's try guys for 25 off when you keep everything in your fix stitchfix.com try guys [Music] it's interesting we should point out that the asian community we've been umbrella termed it's vast we at this round table happen to be more of east asian descent which is also more of the focus of a lot of the tech's east southeast asian and some pacific island communities certainly with east asia with k-pop k-dramas anime manga the um some like films coming out of china there is a more global appeal that has kind of only been on the rise for maybe the past decade and i think what people are also kind of forgetting is and i know we have a lot of kpop fans listeners um they're literally called idols they are also trained and raised to be perfect versions of asians and when they are the only reference point that people have that people continue to put on a pedestal it is and i say this with a grain of salt because we like any representation very much like crazy rotations of the film it is taking one step forward and then as a culture especially in regard to other marginalized groups it brings us two steps back and there are very distinct examples even in things like k-pop in film in culture of anti-blackness of not considering the ways that you know that perfect shiny image affects asian kids affects i mean this was the craziest comment i think i've ever seen tossed my way which was there was an argument i saw online of someone said oh eugene's really attractive and then this um k-pop fan who is not asian was like well i know how asians are supposed to look and eugene has a really big face he has small eyes he's a wide nose that's not like what koreans find attractive asians don't find that attractive which i was like i mean i guess right now sometimes right but it was she was very much being like eugene's ugly too yeah like that was it's kind of like um you know when people see the alternative or the diversity of that they're one reference point of like what they think is the unfortunately the model asian is an impossible impossible standard and bless those k-pop stars because they are working their asses off yeah they have the most strict diets they are not allowed to go out um it is very sad actually many of the situations but we kind of forget that whenever you are looking at something that is propelling purported excellence you forgive it more than something that is saying say associated with crime or associated with something that they think is dangerous this is in a lot of ways more invisible but equally dangerous the way that our communities are being appraised and and regarded yeah i know how asians are supposed to look i got a lot of that growing up especially being mixed and being i've always kind of been like naturally curvy even like in middle school like i develop kind of early and so i always had this weird relationship an unhealthy relationship with my body where like i was hyper sexualized by people around me because i developed early and not treated appropriately by older men and teachers and things like that but at the same time i also kind of felt like an outsider for my own culture because i was already half so i felt like i didn't fit in but i was also not the typical like small petite asian i was tall i was curvy and so it also just made me feel like i wasn't truly asian and i also got comments from people like that like oh like you have a you have a bigger butt than most asians do or you're tall for an asian or things like that or like your nose doesn't look like an asian nose things like that like i would always get comparison comments saying that i i looked more white or more asian or a certain way for a nation i got a lot of that that too oddly like i i mean i've i was i feel like i was in the same boat where i developed kind of early and i'm generally kind of like a bigger person um and it's weird hearing like compliments and also like people saying like well your body shouldn't look like that and i think it's just i mean it's not just common with asians but women in general of like being told that like well you're not skinny enough or like you you're a bigger girl so you must have given up on your appearance um which is like that's it's pretty common in l.a but just like the way our culture is built around this beauty ideal that is um not just uh a certain way for women but it also depends on like whether you're asian or black or like um white like what your body ideal is supposed to be it's interesting too how we've seen this a lot recently with like low-rise jeans coming back but i think we're realizing now how fashion trends aren't just fashion trends they're body trends and so i think also like probably all the time that we were growing up in high school like the heroin chic look was in like being very thin was in eating disorders were trendy um with celebrities and so it was like that on top of you're supposed to be tiny and asian and petite kind of like just wrecked my self-confidence but then now it's trendy to be curvy which is like i guess great for curvier girls because we fit into clothes now um but yeah it's always that comparison of like you don't look normal for your race or you don't fit what the beauty standards are at the time and body ideals constantly shift through time they shift between cultures i think the the tough thing that we're seeing is that who who is sen who's the reference point who's the reference group in american culture or now in global culture it's typically been the sort of average white perspective then objectifies every other group and that has become our standard reference point it's like what does an asian woman look like what is her body like she's thinner she's more petite she's flatter like these ideas and then those are the things that people say that's why i'm attracted to this person the same thing with the obsession over black people's bodies over latinx people's bodies this is it's a it's strange because it really like if white people can get to a point where they're like actually saying like i know this about you because you have red hair like the the lengths of assumptions culture can make about you because you're from a completely different ethnic origin is crazy like i and it it creates a really hostile environment because people look at your body or assume things about your body first which i think is tied deeply to sexualization i think on the flip side for asian men we are often joked about for having very small penises that's like the thing we all grew up with and so i think about now things that i my process was always to like bury it things like this and then make jokes about it and i actually made like a whole comedy bit about this but now i'm like was this funny um like when i was a kid a lot of the kids were obsessed with trying to see my penis because i was the only asian boy so they would try to see how small i was and this was like kindergarten through like in elementary school yeah that's so messed up the worst was the worst was i had this bully who he would actually follow me with his friends into the bathroom and stand behind me at the urinal trying to pull me out so i can he can should have peed on him see it yeah so i actually later i might have said this to you kathleen once but i'm i'm like i'm so good at holding my pee like i'll be on like a road trip and i'll be like yes i'm like i do not have to go to rest stop and i think if you asked why i'd be like hm i don't remember but i would not um i wouldn't be at school sometimes i'd pee outside when i was walking home because i was so afraid that this kid would follow me because he was so obsessed with like how he was told my body looked it's crazy at such a young age he already knew that stereotype yeah he already was taught it somewhere and it was informed and so even me as like you know i think i had a unique experience in some ways because i was in a community where i was like one of the only asian people so i was like very easy to sort of just target um but i can't imagine especially as like a woman the associations with being already more submissive and then to be slight of frame or then to have very disgusting things i could bring up that probably some men say like oh you must be this way that's why i'm attracted to to you sexually have any of you experienced that sort of hyper sexualization oh for sure i think um we've kind of already touched on it but i think just growing up in the body that i did i was hyper sexualized from a really young age um i remember my daddy's like yell at people on the streets for like coming up to me or staring at me or like kind of snickering and making comments about me um and i think as just even as women we're not believed when it happens but especially asian women i think we are kind of taught to not speak about our traumas and like keep our head down keep going so there were incidences even in high school with like teachers i had issues with teachers sexualizing me and like making comments about me and i would go to the school about it and they they wouldn't do anything just like we can't do anything because nothing physical had happened yet i was on the track team in high school we had an issue with one of our coaches he was inappropriately touching us and i had brought it up to someone and nothing really came of it until a lot of us like got together and brought it up but it was it was just another incident of like just being hypersexualized from a young age and like a lot of it having to do with the fact that i'm asian and like like even getting older going to like college parties frat parties you get people coming up to you guessing like what kind of asian you are um and like making assumptions about your body so i think i think that's something all women have to go through but i think asian women specifically have to deal with the stereotypes and people thinking that they're either very submissive or really really sexual no it's i mean again it goes back to that that butterfly dragon lady sort of mystique that i think is we're talking about a lot of personal experience but the reason why the atlanta shootings were so it echoes within us is because we're we're part of the same tapestry especially from a cultural perspective like regardless of any sex work that actually happened to those businesses sex work is a valid way to make a living it is a very realistic way that many migrant women have to make a living and it has existed in places like asian run businesses like that is something that and there's a very dark history there already rife with colonialism and uh the sort of military might of american asia pacific that goes into something that we don't have time to go into but that feeling that the shooter's motive regardless of if the the the poor victims who were who ended up being killed had anything to do with sex work his idea of them his idea of the places was that they were riddled with sexual temptation that they were like the way people used to talk about opium dens you know back in the the 1900s and the way that we um first saw like uh the um any sort of asian actress who was cast in a role she's either the temptress or she's wilting like sidekick these are things that are pervasive and that we've all been exposed to and then you see the most perverse version of that festering in someone's mind like that killer and he decided that the only way he could solve whatever ridiculous problem he made up in his mind was to target asian women specifically and there were strip clubs near there too but he did he was in atlanta yeah there's strip clubs everywhere the best of clothes yeah that was really good yeah i've heard that too really good strip clubs yeah um but that was something that really angered me was that i mean that whole statement that that stupid detective made about basically trying to excuse the shooter's actions but it really angered me that he even brought up that this guy allegedly has a sex addiction because it was insinuating that these women were sex workers and whether they were or weren't it was too early i think to try and excuse away the asian hate by saying that they were sex workers especially when there is families grieving and there is children that lost their only parent and now it i don't know it just taints their parents memories because they had hard-working immigrant parents who came here for their children and now that detective almost insinuated that like not that they deserved it but like they were sex workers and he had a sex addiction and like because there's already discrimination towards sex workers yeah and the unfortunate thing is that even without the motives this ridiculous motives that he said things like gender and race and class and line of work they are all intrinsically linked especially at a place like a asian run spa you know these are things that have a lot of culture and biases already against it his it was almost like unfortunately i think that conversation would always have come out at some point around it and it's unfortunate because people are using that as a reason to like discount one of the aspects oh it wasn't misogynistic oh it wasn't racist oh it wasn't against sex workers it could be all three bob it could be all of the above and that's the problem is people again reducing the way that we are in this society to very narrow-minded views of the actual rich experiences that these women lived you know and they can be many things they could be they can also not be many of those things and it doesn't matter because in the end all we heard was i have a sex problem i had a bad day i need to eliminate this temptation and that is again what are we doing centering the story and the narrative and the media on this white man i mean it's also like i don't know if we have time to go into this but it's also just so upsetting to see who gets to get that empathy from the police department like black men don't get that empathy black women don't get that empathy asian women sex workers they don't get that empathy but a white man who killed yeah eight people gets that empathy i was watching i never watch him because i hate him but i saw this tucker carlson club yesterday that someone sent me and he was reporting reporting on the shooting and he started off by reporting the facts so at first i was like okay this seems to be going all right and then he went into this whole tirade about how it was in an asian hate crime and he made this comment that made me so mad and he said like we need to like look into his history and his background his upbringing to see how he became this way so it doesn't so we can learn from it so it doesn't happen again and they he would never make that comment about a black person like a hispanic person an asian person and it's like if like if someone terrorizes the country which is what this guy did like they if a foreign person comes in and there's an act of terrorism and it's not oh what was his upbringing like what trauma does he have so we can learn from it it's this person is evil and like he has to pay for it but tucker carlson was not excusing it but saying like he had issues let's let's learn from his issues and it's just it's not a conversation that happens with anyone that's not white centering the white man again and you know i think i i would like to end with not having to bring up the the presence of white men sorry miles love you um you know we we've talked about two extremes the sort of hyper feminization and sexualization of asian women and then the the emasculation of asian men and i know kathleen you had some thoughts about how misogyny is also sort of bred within our cultures and that's something we have to also rectify with without contextualizing it in say a white american scope yeah because i was i was thinking about kind of misogyny that i've experienced in the workplace and misogyny that i like my friends have experienced in the workplace and some of the most egregious things that have been done to myself or my colleagues have actually been from like asian men and you know when you were telling your story obviously your experience growing up i it's so different from mine as an asian woman even though we're both asian right um and i think that maybe that's where a lot of this starts but like for example one of my well my business partner um she used to work at a very prominent uh asian record label and the ceo um had tried to humiliate her on on an email once because she was trying to offer her point of view just like give advice on you know a release that she thought could be done a different way and he ended up like seeing multiple other people in the in the company that weren't even originally on that email and said something to the effect of there is a reason why you work for me and i don't work for you yeah and there that's just one example of like many that um i've heard from actually the same person and from other people at that company and it's a lot of times it's i mean it's asian men doing it to asian women and like i mean she quit she doesn't work there anymore obviously but but the all the stories i heard i was just like so upset because it was like it's like hard to check that because it's like we're both asian it's not you know it's not like you can go go to the hr and be like oh this is happening it's yeah but it's very clear it was like a pattern and it's like i don't know i feel like it's almost harder to address because we're you know it's not as obvious we're also trying to like protect our ourselves and that also sometimes includes protections for people who don't necessarily deserve it in those situations especially men who are being misogynistic even within asian culture to each other we i don't haven't always brought up this but this is so important which is the patriarchal systems that already exist in the thousands of years that places like china korea japan many of our asian sort of countries of origin have been terrible in their track record in terms of their treatment of women in the home through the government and especially in places like work did you ever see that or felt that in a similar way to what kathleen's talking about from say asian men that you've come across for me not asian men specifically kind of just all men i think just being a woman in the workplace is hard anyways i think in this industry i'm sure you guys have like dealt with this too being a woman in production has been difficult um and i remember when i first started out like i wanted to quit because most times i was the only woman on set except for maybe like the hairstylist or makeup stylist um and you just are not treated with the same respect and you're just kind of treated like you're dumb like even if you're smart they won't ask you to do physical things on set like when i was a production assistant no one would ask me to move things even though that's what i was hired to do um and i do think being a woman in the workplace you have to you're kind of taught to really watch what you say because you don't if you're too nice then you're ditzy and if you're too harsh or if you're too straightforward then you're a [ __ ] like there's kind of no in between um so i haven't dealt with asian men specifically and i think a big part of it too is there's not a ton of asian people in general in our industry i mean obviously we all are but like as long as i've been in this industry i haven't worked with a ton of other asian people i've seen a lot of it in homes like in family homes i've seen a lot of times the father being very closed off clearly dealing with a lot of his own trauma issues and we brought this up at the beginning of the podcast like there's no outlet for him clearly the men especially in asian cultures will not seek therapy they uh notoriously men also die without friends it's the saddest stat but it also explains why the festering of things that cause explosive behavior is so dangerous and why men have to be more emotive and connected and unfortunately a lot of asian men and in our enclaves they from also for very young age they're also fighting not just this feeling of being you know uh a emotionally stoic strong person but then they have the american aspect of them feeling weak and emasculated by other men so some of them overcompensate i'm sure you've seen this all the time kathleen it's like the it's like the t there's so many like tech bro asian guys who are just so like they're like you know what i'm going to out white you with dude do you know what you're like so aggressive yeah especially in the situation that i was referencing that's what it feels like it's like okay now you're in a position of power so you're able to kind of like flex these muscles and now you're just gonna overdo it because you can and like nobody can check you then you surround yourself with other like yes men who are like in this you know of similar mindsets and then it just festers and becomes like just the accepted culture there it's just really crazy but i mean yeah i think a lot of it has to do with feeling like the need to overcompensate in some ways yeah what can be done at home where sons brothers fathers you gotta engage with the women in your family you have to engage with the other men in your family like it's really important that it starts at your dinner table and i was very fortunate to have two very strong sisters and one very strong mother and um i'm also good as hell but it was it was certainly an environment where we were always exchanging our experiences regardless of gender and i think that's really important echo is there anything that you want to sort of tell the audience about what they can do to help or what they should be thinking about when we move forward and keep talking more outspokenly about things like anti-asian hate and discrimination i i was lucky enough to grow up in a family where like my thoughts and my feelings were always like listened to and my parents are like very supportive and very open to talking about like um any problems or any like trauma that i've experienced and they've always had that open ear so i think just like fostering that communication and fostering that support is really important especially with the conversations moving forward especially about this issue is i think we just need to support each other and this because it it's really hard and i think when you open up and start talking about it you realize too just like how much how many levels there are to it and how much you've experienced personally that is related to this horrific thing that's happened so uh yeah just to add on that i think that having conversations are so important and it sounds so minimal but i still have so many friends and family members who don't know what's going on um which is why like i posted ton about it on instagram and i'm sure people were tired of seeing it but i'm going to keep doing it because it has sparked a lot of really good conversations with um with fellow co-workers old co-workers not current but um old co-workers friends and family who are just genuinely curious and they'll say things like i had no idea this was happening why did this start what's going on it has a lot to do with like the political rhetoric around it and gently explaining that to people because i think to people who aren't experiencing it that particularly sounds like a scapegoat to them um so i think just speaking to people about it having conversations and like letting people ask you questions and i think even i at times get a little bit like irritated because i'll get in conversations with people and they will offer a counterpoint but when i think when i get so emotional about something i get a little too sensitive and i say i don't know i think i get offended too easily and i think from their point of view they're just they're just offering a different point of view um but to kind of wrap up that thought i think it's it's really important to have conversations and like post about it and all all the attacks are that are happening like repost everyone that's happening it'll start conversations it'll it'll make people wonder why is this happening in the first place yeah i think speaking about things that's very important whether it's social media whether it's in person sharing things so more people are aware because if you don't share then you won't know and i think we really need to unite everyone not just asians not just white people but every race because i see so many comments and other like for example black activist pages where people are like well i didn't see asians merch for blm or why should should we help them when china treats black people this way and things like that and it's so disheartening because there are obviously so many bad things happening around the world but one not all asians are china or the chinese government and there's chinese americans and chinese citizens who are pro-blm pro-anti-racism like all there's so many people and you can't generalize everyone and even in the asian community there is anti-blackness so there's just so much divide overall and everyone needs to just see that racism is bad it doesn't matter who it happens to anyone can be racist and if we can just unite on that thought i think it'll be so much better yeah and just kind of piggybacking off of that i think when you invited me to uh speak on this podcast i had to do a lot of self-reflection um just so that i had like enough material to talk about but it made me realize like a lot of these things that i i don't think about them often um you know there's not that many opportunities for discourse but also like it made me think you know in what instances like have i been potentially like perpetuating you know racism sexism um you know in in myself and my friend group and and i think you know we all could do we all could benefit from that you know like i think a lot of nowadays in this like woke culture we're like it's kind of like us versus them and like you know we're like the millennial gen z like so woke we like you know what i mean like we're you know intersectional all of these things but it's like i think we all have things that we can learn from we all have you know um experiences that we can reflect on and and learn from and be better about and it's not necessarily us versus them it's like we all can be better you know yeah and i think i'll end this with kind of again recognizing that the five of us are of east asian descent many of us grew up more middle class and in this country and even though you hopefully have learned a lot from listening to us there are again a huge myriad of perspectives and backgrounds of other asian people that you need to also start engaging with we're hopefully just giving a little bit of a taste of what it's like to hear a conversation between people who are really ready to engage because when we say open up speak up and have a conversation it's not just agreeing with someone because it's so easy to agree and it's so easy just to sit back and say i'm gonna rest on the system and my personal biases it is so hard to constantly open up reach across aisles across color lines across gender lines and say hey i see you i recognize your differences and i'm trying to learn and i want us to have a conversation that is what we are talking about and we at this point in history have such a unique opportunity to do that with the amount of access to information and people's voices that we have that's what's different our parents and grammars who fought during like the civil rights movement they didn't have as much of that type of access so we have the the opportunity now to be able to make an actual real difference in the world so i would love to thank my four amazing guests who came today y'all are brilliant awesome should never say sorry if you don't feel sorry asian woman take that to heart and if you haven't seen the documentary check it out on the try guys youtube channel it's called we need to talk about anti-asian hate the videos in association with gofundme who's done an incredible job aggregating a lot of grassroots movements who are dedicated to helping asian american communities have more safety in a progressive way so just remember if we are going to stop asian hate then we need to talk about anti-asian hate you

Channel: TryPods

Views: 222,339

Rating: 4.9819441 out of 5

Keywords: tryguys, keith, ned, zach, eugene, habersberger, fulmer, kornfeld, yang, buzzfeedvideo, buzzfeed, ariel, ned & ariel, comedy, education, funny, try, learn, fail, experiment, test, tryceratops, podcast, advice, miles, miles nation, secrets, show, talkshow, behind the scenes, youtubers, ramble, audio, video podcast, clip, segment, silly, becky, maggie, you can sit with us, try wives, girls, female, women, asian, Asian American, stop asian hate, anti asian, yb, alexandria, cathleen, aiko, asian women, misogyny

Id: VMd3S3BOarU

Length: 83min 42sec (5022 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 25 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Over_Nebula]

I'm glad they did this episode. I'm south East Asian, and while I don't completely relate to these experiences, them sharing them provides me with a perspective to empathize with, and examine my own prejudices

[u/Echo952]

I don’t usually watch the TryPod videos but I’m glad I watched this one. I was already crying by the 10 minute mark 😢

[u/startedthinkinboutit]

The try guys put so much good into the world, this was an awesome discussion

[u/Prize_Celery]

I loved it. I could relate so hard to Alex and being creeped on for developing early. And the creepy dudes admitting they have an 'Asian fetish' ugggghhhh. Hearing all their experiences was a great way to bring it home to listeners.

[u/thepurplepajamas]

Both this and the last vid have been very good and enlightening. Thanks to everyone for sharing