Ronny Chieng’s Chinatown Report & The Wave of Anti-Asian Racism - Beyond the Scenes | The Daily Show

all right so you know i like when you get a salad right you get a salad and then you get the dressing on the side so you can feel healthy when the truth is that you're just gonna put the dressing on a little bit bite by bite and then by the end of your salad you've already used all the dressing that was on the side that's what this podcast is this is the dressing on the side of the daily show i'm roy wood jr this is beyond the scenes where we go beyond the topics and the discussions that we have on the daily show i sit down with correspondents producers writers anybody that had anything to do with the piece happening we talked to them on this show and you enjoy it and it is as delicious as the daily show because it's on the side you see when it's on the side it feels healthier baby right now you're getting a couple extra calories just listening to me what the hell am i talking about you don't care uh the piece we're going to go beyond on this week um is the o'reilly factor getting racist in chinatown this is when uh ronnie chang responded to some racist ass that was on fox news uh if you did see the original segment jesse waters from fox news this is during the 2016 election and trump was talking china this china that and he went down to chinatown to do what was supposed to be quote unquote journalism and having a real discussion with asian people but really what he was doing was exploiting people who did not speak english and then going around town partaking in all of the different stuff that basically just highlighted a bunch of asian stereotypes he got a foot massage he played with some nunchucks he played kung fu fighting and my man ronnie chang caught wind of this and he clapped back in a major way am i supposed to bow to say hello leijo i like these watches are they hot jcpenney 398. who are you going to vote for clinton clinton's wife has a name what is it oh man i'd forget it snap out of it do you know karate yeah i know hit my hands that's the spot is it the year of the dragon [Music] rabbit no it's actually the year of go yourself what the hell was that how was that on the news in fact how was that even on tv where did this come from i mean everyone's been wondering who'd be the target of 2016's worst racism i don't even know asians were in the running okay so we're going to discuss the rise of anti-asian hate in this country where it came from what we can do to stop it and a little later in the program we're going to be joined by norman chin the ceo and co-founder of leading asian americans unite for change but first it is my pleasure to go beyond the scenes with my office mate he is my friend he is you're my day one man you're my day one for my first day at the daily show you were right there i think i beat you to the line by five minutes which makes me the senior correspondent because i beat you to the building by five minutes on our first day uh ronnie you did this piece this is ronnie chang by the way daily show correspondent extraordinaire ronnie chang yeah thanks for thanks for talking about this man and you're my day one too you and i are good friends and we talk a lot in our office like we we actually discussed at one one moment doing a podcast together of just us rambling and just our rambles but i think we both decided that we talk about a lot of stuff that should remain off the record uh yeah but i think you you'd even say we should talk about it you said you wanted to install cameras and just keep it on record and then cut clips about what was yeah i don't want to do that yeah i wanted to big brother our office just a live stream of roy and ronnie just solving every problem which speaking of solving problems ronnie it's gonna be a lot of you eating subway sandwich that's what it's gonna be hey we will discuss subway tuna later okay they said it's tuna they just don't know which kind of tuna that's good we're getting off stuff ronnie in 2016 why did you fail to solve asian racism anti-asian sentiment why did you fail it was a bailing switch i thought we solved it um i thought racism was over after that video and then you know they they did a pump fake and then they went the other way and it came back they came back hard racism came back and went hard to the rim you know what i mean racism i broke the bad boy anti-asian racism it was down 0-2 like the milwaukee bunks they came back so hard yeah we joke a lot on the show but this was a piece that you know it was what we call in in the daily show office is a quick turn this is where the news breaks and rather than go through a formal booking to get like no ronnie was like yo where's the camera i'm going to chinatown just for the people who don't know who've missed a piece give me the backstory on what lit this fire so fast from the time from the time this piece aired on fox news i think our response aired maybe 36 hours later if that yeah it was yeah yeah so uh once things hit the z guys in american news then it starts to enter the building a bit and this this the the underlying story which was the fox news story was actually causing so much grief in america that it hit the pop culture zed guys and then that entered the building which i mean to be fair i already entered the building the day before but it started building overnight to the point where the daily show had to address it we decided to go to chinatown to get the response of people from that neighborhood who are interviewed the same neighborhood that was interviewed in the fox news segment and um we went down and i was worried that uh because in singapore and malaysia people get really apathetic about politics and they're very hesitant to be on screen and they're very hesitant to be on screen talking about politics so i didn't know if that would be the same thing we would face in new york city chinatown but what we found the entire daily show team found was that it was the exact opposite because as soon as we got to new york city chinatown people literally as soon as we got out of the car and i was dressed in the suit and they they as soon as they saw me they're like hey are you here to talk about that thing that happened yesterday and i was like yeah and they're like come over here and then they they brought us to the place in chinatown and people lined up around the block to talk to us they lined yeah people don't normally line up to talk to us so i literally i was just standing there as people came one after the other to come and and about what happened yesterday what are your thoughts on the jessie waters video on fox news the chicken reporter who came down here and thought he was big because he talked to people who couldn't speak english yeah that douchebag piece the one with no testicles the one who came down here who said uh let me talk to some old people and let me let me put them on camera without asking them and sort of put them on national television and made fun of them in the worst possible way that okay i think we're talking about the same guy right what was the question again i can't even remember the whole idea behind the piece was that and this came from trevor was the idea that just because people aren't speaking your language whatever your language is doesn't mean they don't have sophisticated thoughts on politics and the way the country should be run so that was the idea we were doing in chinatown which was trying to get their opinions and in many cases we may we kind of asked them to speak chinese or cantonese just to make the point that you can have sophisticated thoughts yeah the response was you know it required almost no effort on uh the streets the streets did the talking on that one you're more zen-do than me but the thing that i found most interesting about this piece for you was the lack of anger from you as a correspondent that's the thing i'm always suppressing like dude when i'm not like like when we did the republican national convention 2016 and we did the piece when was america great and i'm having to look at people look me in my black ass eyes and tell me america was great during slavery and i'm trying not to so when you went down to chinatown on a piece as as an asian was this personal was was this a more personal piece for you yeah yeah yeah i mean it felt like a direct personal attack by the same time you know at the daily show you know the drill man it's like what like in the emergency room it's like we see so much crap every day that you in order to operate professionally you you become kind of desensitized and you're just here to treat the patients and so we just keep seeing car crashes every single day eventually you're like oh yeah like you have an objective view of it and also i was pretty pissed going back to the studio uh and i remember we brought the footage back and this is again speaks to the team at the daily show is that we we went out to shoot went back edited whatever we shot wrote the the desk piece and on the same night right and we we recorded the same night like you and you know field pieces are usually separate to desk pieces but this was like the perfect merging of chat with trevor and a desk piece and uh and a field element and man on the street all in one day i mean that's the you know for me and that was this is early on in my daily shops maybe one year in and i was like man this is the daily show it's best you know everything everyone's operating and firing on all cylinders in a very short time frame um and sorry to answer your question about not being pissed off i mean part of it is the job and part of it is i i always feel like because i'm a first generation immigrant to america so i'm in america because i by choice like i want to be there and um so when i see go down i see like i also see what in in this particular instance yeah you can say you know blatant racism but the silver lining to this whole story was that everyone got angry by this fox new piece not just asian people not just chinatown new york city people the entire country was like yo this this sucks and that's why i entered the zed guys right because if if most people thought it was okay it would never have you know blown up to the point where you know at that time people were pretty upset you know everyone white people were upset every race was pretty upset about this so if you ask me why i'm not more obsessed because oh it was a cause that everyone already you know most people were upset by the issue already we were just giving them a platform to express it you know who was the target audience for this was it or i guess who were you aiming this piece towards in a way like was it was it at the reporter that went out and did it i you know his name is jesse waters i personally think we should bleep his name just bleep his name is it at the reporter who went out and said this ignorant even though he kind of sort of apologized after the fact is it the right wingy fox news type media outlets that pushed this narrative or was it at the people that actually thought that what he did was real journalism and informative yeah i mean it it was i think honestly it uh man it was for whoever wanted to listen to it but also i think asian people in america uh they they never had a way to critique the media like that i think the history of asian american storytelling in america there's there's been no one in the media to critique media portrayals of them on a big enough platform so honestly it was almost to put a flag in the sand and be like oh you know this this kind of stuff isn't acceptable anymore you know and it was a sentiment i felt it was already in america and yeah i kind of symbolically put the flag in like this is the moment but uh and i was lucky to be happen to be in a position to do it right because one the show that criticizes news and media that's what our show essentially is right and so um i happen to be on the perfect platform to do it but like i said i think most people in america didn't think it was okay even at the time no not in the least i the thing that's so interesting about this country though is that every minority group is dealing with their own racism too so then when you find out about the new racism it's like oh okay well i'll be right there in a second i'm currently getting beat in the head by a cop i'll be right there as soon as i finish dealing with my own traumas and it's it's very difficult and i think it's very dope that so many people were willing to speak out which brings me to 2020 as a matter of fact now we already know the role that trump played and stirring the pot from 2016 up until covet but at covet i feel like that's when the pot went from medium to hot for well from hot to hotter for anti-asian american sentiment you know there was a 150 spike in uh anti-asian crime in 2020 and then also you know everything that started with covet and it's starting in china and then trump driving the narrative of oh it's the you know what he said about it i'm not going to even repeat what they call the coronavirus at the time or whatever but the china virus is like that one i can say i'm not going to say the other one but it really you can say it i'm not going to say it i'm not going to say the case it's so weird that we have to tiptoe around quoting the president in case we say a slur we can't directly quote ex-president it's just you insert slur here just whatever you think he said he said it do you think like how much of that contributed to the uptick in violence uh in 2020 and the bigger question the bigger question do you think that like do you think that like fox news and trump were following their base what were they just giving the people what they want when it turned in terms of stirring up racism or were they leading them to this and then creating racism yeah i mean i think it's one of the go-to moves in the playbook is to blame people who look different to them right that's more the go-to um fascist moves i guess um so i think that was the easy you know when bad stuff happens anywhere i mean let's just say in america then people look for someone to blame right and so i think putting it on a whole race of people is a way to direct the anger i think it's also weird in america that they they like people i think asian people are kind of under the radar a bit until this thing happened and then now it became it kind of gave people an excuse to like go after asian people if you're having trouble yes um oh yeah then but i will say you know in america i think what's interesting about being asian america is that you're kind of always you know the idea of being a perpetual foreigner in america like asian americans aren't usually like they're always seen as having to like answer for stuff that happened in asia or you know like everyone's always putting stuff that happened to asia on asian americans when they're very separate cultures like a lot of asian americans haven't left america before they were like born and raised and they never left you know and so right it's almost like quite frankly like african-americans being asked about stuff that happens in africa or like anglo-americans being asked about stuff in the uk you know like what happened in what's going on with brexit you know like most people don't know what's happening a lot of these asian americans are just asian american culture but i guess my point is that that's that's uh that's the way i kind of describe uh the perpetual foreigner thing is that you're always being asked about stuff over there and so you got nothing to most most asian americans have nothing to do with this stuff over there you know the thing for me with 2020 when when the uptick happened when the 150 percent jumped and anti-asian sentiment and the crime started happening especially in the new york area uh you know it was people of all races perpetuating these crimes but there was also a lot of videos where sometimes it was a black person attacking an asian person and so as a black person out and walking around i'm like okay how do i carry myself to make sure that the asians know that i'm safe and that i'm not here to punch i will and it i'm being silly but there is this idea and it's no different than at night when you you live in the city you're there's a woman five six steps ahead of you on the sidewalk right i'm not trying to creep you out i know i'm a big dude so to keep us both comfortable i'm gonna slow down my step a little bit give you ten feet so that you know what i mean like just being conscious of making sure that everybody has a little bit of space and that everybody's comfortable that was problem one problem two was for me because there were two doormen that got fired in new york city for not helping they want an asian woman who was being attacked on a sidewalk and my thought was wow okay if if that happened what would i do me roy and in my head i'm like okay i'm going to help i have to break that up but then there was also a piece of me in my head going okay when the police come what are you going to do to make it look like you're not the one attacking the asian and i'm like i've got to call the police on myself and let them know that i'm cool set my phone up set up the ig live stream then go ahead like like being a little fanatical on that side but there were all of these levels in my head of how could i help but also remain safe for police and people that are pulling up with even less information than i have you know when i circled the corner but that's that's that's an interesting thing we could probably explain matter of fact i'm gonna i'm gonna pose that question to our guest after the break we're gonna be joined by the wonderful wonderful norman chen he is the ceo and co-founder of leading asian american unite for change uh we'll have him on in a second this is beyond the scenes are you enjoying going beyond the scenes with me ronnie i'm loving it it's the best i love too late it took you too long no no that was the lag that was the zoom leg it's too late it's too late the commercials have started we're joined now by someone who i trust more than ronnie chang you know i'm not saying that ronnie chang hasn't done the work but last i checked ronnie chang wasn't the ceo and co-founder of la are you ceo and co-founder of launch ronnie chang no i unfortunately i i was i was writing out the launch is leading asian american unite for change his name is norman chen norman thank you for joining us on beyond the scenes great to be here thanks for having me so let's jump right back into this discussion we've talked about ronnie's piece and everything that went down in chinatown with fox news but i wanted to have you on to talk a little bit more about where we are today with regards to anti-asian cinnamon i wanted to talk to you for a second about the status index and ways that we are able to quantify what's going on because the thing that we deal with no matter what minority group you are you're told that your whatever it is you're dealing with ain't real it's not real well everybody of course robberies up it's a pandemic everybody's unemployed like no man i'm telling you they're attacking us so how were you all able to assess attitudes and stereotypes towards asians over there with the status report thanks thanks roy um no exactly to your point these stereotypes and perceptions have been prevalent in american society for decades and actually are at the root cause of hate crimes if you find you look at research about hate crimes they stem just as ronnie was saying from stereotypes initially that then lead to scapegoating and then lead to violence during difficult times and crisis this is like covet or once in a lifetime hopefully so we're seeing a repeat a repetition of the cycle of stereotypes leading to to scapegoating leading to violence so uh as a new nonprofit last year we were formed in 2020 we were looking for existing research on um stereotypes of asian americans and shockingly the last study that had been done comprehensively was 20 years ago when there are half as many asian americans in the country and so we thought that's just a glaring uh neat there's a glaring need to do more research about stereotypes and so we commissioned the status index study which is really checking on how americans now perceive asian americans and unlike most other asian american research that's out there we interviewed all americans so not just asian americans about their experience but also other racial groups so it was quite groundbreaking this year how safe or how unsafe rather would you say um asians feel in america right now and ronnie i'll throw this to you first just in general during this time from 2020 till now is your head on a swivel more than it was say in 2015. i think uh depends on the state i think in hawaii it was it was that's such a great answer i mean that's like a law of america right it depends on the state right um yeah i will say in when i went back to new york city at the peak of the pandemic and all the crimes were happening i definitely was you know it's you know that's and that's the thing right the internet versus real life real life definitely felt different to my instagram feed in terms of the amount of violence that was happening on my instagram feed so real life felt way way safer than compared to instagram but because of instagram man my my head was definitely on on a swivel the entire time in new york city you know i'm i'm looking behind my back i'm not walking down you know streets i don't know uh i'm i'm sprinting making sure the black guy behind you is at least 10 feet and not six no i don't racially profile uh i go i do my comedy shows uh i run from show the show make sure if someone's attacking me it's because of my jokes not because of my race um and uh i have my have my phone by my side uh so it basically it's like living in new york city but more it's what we should have been doing over the last five years but um this just kind of made me more aware and and and not just for myself but for other people as well if i see like an old asian person on the street i'm always like okay well you know it's my job to to it's my job to make sure she's okay for the length of time when she's in my field of vision and then i pass her off to the next asian bystanders who's walking in a different direction so yeah it's looking up for other people too you know when we see these videos by the way norm i don't know what you feel and roy i mean no i don't know how you feel when we see these videos happening to elderly asian people one i'm gonna even i'm i'm not even worried about i'm not thinking about myself i'm not thinking what that happens to me i'm thinking man that looks like someone that looks like my relative that looks my grandma like my aunts my grand aunt like i'm worried about them more than worried about me for sure you know when i see these videos it's not like i i don't stop fearing for my life i'm like man what if there's another because the the people being attacked aren't the asian mma fighters you know those aren't the people those are the videos we're seeing you know we're seeing the people who can't really defend themselves to that point when we talk about stereotypes norman just in general and just we know how much pop culture delves in that and bathes in that you know for a number of minorities but it seems like it's even more unique and even worse in a way for asians because like some of the stereotypes will also they'll even take something positive and just oh you do your homework dog you're good at math like shouldn't we all be good at math like even when you take ronnie's film crazy rich asians which did i would assume amazing things for helping to debunk some stereotypes people will turn around and see three well-dressed asians walking down the street and just go look at them rich as asians norman how much does pop culture play a role in that and have you seen any improvements in any regard that would help you believe that the tide is turning and how asians are at least portrayed in entertainment you know ron that was one of the key areas of our research was about how asians are perceived in the media and tv and movies because that's a key source of information for many communities about asian americans a lot of the communities don't have asian american friends as they look to movies and the question that you may have heard of that got a lot of press was we asked people to name a prominent asian american and 42 percent of americans could not name a single prominent asian american and the number two and three answers they gave were all martial artists number two was jackie chan who we love but who is actually not american he's from hong kong and number three was bruce lee who's also you know a martial artist but but has been dead 50 years so uh and you look at the roles people see asian americans in the men are the gangsters they're the nerds the technicians the women are the masseuse workers they're the um the weight the waitress and rush hour exactly all the stupid roles so a lot of those stereotypes still persist you know our research was important because no one again had done this research for 20 years so we reestablished we quantified a baseline this is where things are it's not good but at least we know where we are hopefully over the next one year three year five year 10 years won't be 42 percent of americans who still can't name a freaking prominent asian american so we're hoping to track progress over time but but to your point yes a lot of these stereotypes still exist the fact that ronnie and others were able to show asians in a positive light right as being successful and it's being um frankly uh physically attractive right when's the last time we saw an asian-american male take his shirt off in a movie well we had a lot of that uh crazy rich agents and a lot of the asian american men in the country were celebrating that and a lot of asian american women as well there are definitely trends and positive signs and i think a lot more movies and tv shows are coming out which is really encouraging but this this brings me back you know that i and and that makes me think about the overall solution to everything we're talking about and there is no one thing you know i think in america we always want this like we want the app that fixes everything we want the gofundme that will end racism you know we want that one home run solution and like these are complicated social problems multifactorial issues you know that require attacking from different places so yeah one aspect of the attack is you know pierre pog henry golding taking that shirt off in him crazy invasions that that moves the needle a little bit i won't you know i i it doesn't solve everything but it definitely helps a little bit and some of it is where the funding is going or the on the on the streets actual help some of his legislation some of it is you know um messaging so so like all this stuff plays into it and that's why having the data helps because it helps us understand where we can attack it also helps prove that there is an issue you know yeah no one of the questions we asked our respondents is how would you address these problems about anti-asian american sentiment and stereotypes in the u.s and the answers were exactly what what you mentioned in terms of awareness in terms of legislation in terms of solidarity in terms of um more media attention the other key solution is education and i wanted to touch upon that you know when we grew up very few of us had the opportunity to learn about asian american history in in classrooms in the us and now as you know recently illinois mandated the teaching of asian american history in public schools which is a huge milestone and other states are moving in that direction and so clearly more asian american history knowledge is important these are cycles there there were lynchings in 1871 of asian americans l.a no one knows about that a lot of people don't even know about the japanese internment during world war ii and so to make this information more accessible to young kids who are really the key to address before they become racist adults we're working with a group called the asian american education project to provide a graphic novel overview of the highlights of asian american history so think about you're a fourth grade fifth grade kid you don't want to learn even about your own history how do you make asian american history interesting and accessible and we're working with an award-winning comic book writer to create an overview of it that hits all the highlights of asian american history so that schools and teachers and students can get this information in a very accessible way we can share it digitally as well these are the things we're trying to do to really have an impact to create more education but to ronnie's point it's it's a it's a movement that needs to happen and we're starting to get organized starting to have resources but there's a ton of work to do in many different areas in many different areas many different areas if anyone listening to this if there's anything to take away from anything was saying is go find the people who are doing things because there's a ton of people who care and there's a ton of people who are doing smart things in many different areas you know maybe you like being a vigilante on the street yo there's vigilante groups you can join to beat people up maybe you like being a bit more you know like uh uh you like raising money to help small businesses you know there's organizations raising money to help the business in chinatown there's there's people trying to um put uh as norm just mentioned educate kids you know there's people are doing stuff okay so then let's talk solutions after the break because i have a couple of questions of how i non-asian can be a part of this i this is so dope ronnie i feel like the white women talking to black people like i just want you to know that i see you and i am an ally thank you thank you we're trying to get the karen's on board yeah i'm black i'm a keith i'm not beyond the scenes we'll be right back when asked to name a prominent asian american uh norman i have all the statistics here man this is very interesting 42 percent of americans couldn't do it eleven percent named jackie chan nine percent bruce lee five percent lucy lou two percent kamala harris and you brought up uh you know what percentage was did they mention me hang on let me zoom in it's probably statistically insignificant yeah trick question trick question ronnie you're not on the list next year ronnie next year will be a big number next year i'm sure let's talk solutions on how i can get on that list eh i want to be with the 42 percent now norman you brought up something with regards to one solution that i think makes sense which is education and the curriculum you know i grew up in alabama which is i grew up in alabama public schools late 80s all of the 90s and i say this not joking i'm not joking with you i did not meet my first asian person until the eighth grade so in terms of these areas where a lot of this bigotry is happening and a lot of that bigotry is believed there's not a lot of asians there and so i know that there's definitely a role that the school system plays and you know ronnie you talked about people being active within their own communities and connecting with the people it's crazy because you're basically saying the same thing that black people the same thing we've been saying to white people find someone that's doing the work and show up and go what can i do well at the start yeah as a starting point yeah yeah as a starting point show up and and vote and show up and and get involved with organizations that are doing things because like i said before the break there's a ton of organizations who are trying to help and i'm in america by choice i'm in america by choice because i think there's more good people there than bad people way more good people than bad people and i i think the fact that we are talking about this the fact that norm did this study it shows that there are people who who care you know there's um those are kind of more of the grassroot you know solutions but let's talk on the political side norman did the anti-asian hate crime bill the kova 19 hate crimes act is that enough from president biden to help stop the swell of what you've seen happening in your community no i mean i think most people would agree it's it's the tip of the iceberg or what needs to be done but it's a positive step in the right direction so uh you know it helps to create more reporting channels for people to report the hate crimes that's important um there it sets aside information money for education about racism towards asian americans that's all important but it's like the drug war like you got to start it fight the war at the source right what's causing these hate crimes and what's leading to the stereotypes and the scapegoating and the violence and so media is very powerful hollywood tv movies the news is very powerful right in terms of how asian american stories are reported and so there are groups activating to try to get more coverage about asian american stories education as we talked about is extremely important to shape hearts and minds we were fortunate in terms of politically to be invited by congressman ted liu to present to the congressional asian pacific american caucus and where we shared our data so that the legislators and the political leaders can have more information that they can use to fight their battles and so that's one way we're trying to link with the legislators you know getting asian american history taught in schools that requires legislation right and so it requires political activity and so that is a very important channel to get things done as well all right so norman there are certain crimes in this country that get more attention from the media than others crimes of a racial nature how much does the media play a role and i the example i want to use is the mass shootings at the asian massage parlors in atlanta you have a gentleman who goes from parlor to parliament killing people and i know that there was an element of sexual addiction that was a part of that but that does not absolve race from also being a piece of the motive for those crimes but not only does that not get turned into well did he kill him because of sexual shame or did he kill him because they were asian or was it a little bit of they just stopped talking about it all together so let me amplify your point with a couple additional data points there um roy first of all we did our study in uh march april of this year and one of the regrets we had when we first did the study was gosh i wish we had done the study before the atlanta killings because then even more americans would be unaware right we thought everyone would know about the anti-asian american sentiment shockingly again 32 percent of americans basically a third of americans say they're not aware of the increase in hate crimes towards asian americans in the past year so i don't know where they're getting the information from but clearly it's not sure it's not representing the hate crimes that are affecting women in atlanta and other places that's one data point the second data point is i just was on at an event in the bay area with dion lim who's a local newscaster and really prominent activist in the asian american community and she says now that when she goes to her producers and has you know sometimes five or six anti-asian american hate crime stories each day they're saying uh you know we're not the public's not interested in these stories anymore so we need to find something else to report on so exactly to your point these stories are getting buried and so how do you solve these problems i mean these are systemic problems for sure uh one area that a lot of people are focusing on i think makes sense is representation how many of their producers or senior people at these media companies are asian american and care about asian american stories right i think that is critical and i think that's an area where we have seen you know significant underrepresentation of asian americans and leadership positions one of the key statistics from our study was that half of americans think that asian americans are actually well represented they think hey model minority we're smart hard working we must be successful it must be leaders well actually we're 50 under represented in terms of leadership positions in terms of supreme court justices in which there are zero asian americans in terms of the corporate world in terms of the political world in terms of owning uh tv stations and movies movie stations etc we are severely underrepresented yet people are under the illusion that asian americans are well represented so i think representation is a key part of the puzzle and only when you have leaders who appreciate and understand the asian american experience and the black experience and the hispanic experience do we have real diversity and true you know accurate coverage of america and so um we're hoping that we'll see some changes in that area in the next few years as well all right i'll leave you gentlemen with this question and um i'll let norman go first because i know ronnie and i are going to argue how do we norman get other minorities to understand that the asian fight is also our fight because and i just and as a black person i'm just going to be you know very blunt with what some of the sentiment is in other communities where it's okay well how do you get a anti-asian hate crime bill before us we've been trying to get it how do we get other groups because everybody is so insular you know ronnie's very right in that regard in america where everybody's just tending to their own farm you know i've got my problems to deal with the latinos that we're focusing on our things and how do we get other minorities to understand that if anybody can break through it's good for everybody totally yeah a lot of the issues that we identify apply to other racial groups and people of color and so one of our goals is much it's more outreach to other communities of color to reach out to the african-american black community and hispanic latino community there is much more that we share in common in terms of our experience uh in a white america that then that separates us so outreach is is critical um we also believe that working closely with these partners on initiatives such as diversity in the media such as fair representation are really critical so yeah i think it's a key part of the solution and i say the onus is not just on it's on both on both sides of the equation right in our study we found that uh that certain communities have less interaction with asian americans and so they don't know asian american culture that's why they see them as others so we need to build more bridges between these communities so people can appreciate the asian americans who some people think are as cold and unfriendly and not warm well they've never been to my house or ronnie's house for a dinner party right they've never had time to hang out with our grandparents and our parents and and just really enjoy each other's company and and have great asian food together we need to share that experience more and let people know just you know how warm and dynamic our culture is and also again break down these barriers so i think at the micro level interaction among different groups is really really critical that's how you just like you i mean you didn't maybe didn't meet the asian american until eighth grade but then once you get to know asian americans then you start to have a more well-rounded uh understanding of them and hopefully develop good friendships so ronnie how do you get me to care about your i don't mean asians i mean me as roy caring about ronnie's problems just your personal problems man uh get you invested into my life maybe give you uh some equity uh i should have listened to your bitcoin 2015 but that's a separate conversation i mean we we are pretty invested in each other's lives already i think i think the community as a whole you know uh someone put it to me really well once look i don't have the solutions man i tell jokes in bars for a living i don't know how to save the world what i do know is that yeah we there's more good people than bad people in america and that goes for minority groups there's more good minority group people goes without saying obviously than bad people um and when we join together on issues that we do agree on it increases our voting strength it creates a more powerful voting block because asian people are what four percent norm was it four percent seven seven percent 23 million strong right and what's the uh african-americans uh what 13 13. nick cannon just had four more kids latinos out what if you join all together there's a voting block there you know there's a stronger voting bloc which which allows you if we work together to get legislation passed it benefits all of us you know and nothing against white people too we need white people to help out and most white people are on board but when you're it's so hard to explain sometimes and that's why only minorities get that and that's why we should get along in america is because sometimes it's not that anyone is blatantly being evil it's just that the system itself in a way that you can't even begin to explain the issues you're having how many times have you gone into a room and been like now these people are even gonna get what i'm saying i'm talking about my you know asian grandma on the streets who you know they don't understand what you know they're not gonna get it whereas if you talk to latino people black people they'll understand it more and so if we can get more like-minded people in decision-making positions you know that's where kind of we can start moving the needle with change and that's why we should be joining together as a voting block you know that's my argument to you roy i mean you can also turn it back on me as you always do and you know we can america continue on you know what i view i view america as a dmv and everybody's in there for their own issue but the moment one person starts complaining you need three other people to start complaining and then that line of justice will move a little bit faster norman chen from launch thank you so much leading asian american unite for change visit them online launch.org that's launch like space shuttle with two a's launch because i know i have a southern drawl and you think i said lunch and i didn't say lunch i said launch like a rocket2as.org norman thank you so much for coming beyond the scenes with me thank you so much roy thank you ronnie and ronnie i'll i'll see you whenever the whenever the we're back in the office i'll see you i'll see you soon man go clean up your side please okay all right that's it take care everybody [Music] [Applause] foreign

Channel: The Daily Show with Trevor Noah

Views: 729,261

Keywords: the daily show, trevor noah, daily show with trevor noah, the daily show episodes, comedy central, comedians, comedian, funny video, comedy videos, funny clips, noah trevor, trevor noah latest episode, daily show, trevor, news, politics, roy wood jr, ronny chieng, jesse watters, fox news, chinatown, anti asian racism, asian americans, norman chen, laaunch

Id: RmIHlubGORs

Length: 46min 25sec (2785 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 10 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/whiskey_neat_]

A bit of a longer watch that other Daily Show clips but I think it's well worth the 40+ mins.

[u/justflipping]

Great discussion. Roy Wood Jr. was also on Asian Not Asian discussing anti-Asian hate.