Interview with Nina Revoyr and Ryan Smith. Artwork by Shauna Dixon, public school student.
The summer before my senior year of high school, I discovered AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), which was all the rage in the late 90s. It was thrilling to easily connect with other teens from all over the country. I had been chatting for weeks with this teenager who one day casually joked about being Asian. I thought: “What on earth would I have in common with some Asian guy?!”
I thought this despite the fact that we had been having hilarious AIM chats for weeks. Luckily, he pried my closed mind open, and we began talking about race. I talked about how Black girls aren't allowed to be soft and tender. He talked about how Asian boys often get emasculated by our society. We both laughed about our shared experience of being second-generation immigrants growing up in predominantly white suburbs. That was the closest I ever came to having emotional intimacy with an Asian man. When I confessed my AIM flirtations to one of my Black girlfriends, she quickly fired back: “Asians and Blacks do not go together.”
I didn’t realize it as a teen, but the notion of Asians and Blacks “not going together” was an intentional strategy devised by white male academics to preserve white supremacy. The “Model Minority” myth, a concept first introduced in 1966 by a white male sociologist, positioned Asians as a monolith serving as evidence of the potential for racial advancement. This perpetuated a fallacy that oppressed people could achieve the American Dream if we just kept quiet, didn’t complain, and worked twice as hard as white folks. Another sociological myth, the “Bell Curve” (conjured up by white male academics in 1994) positioned Blacks as genetically intellectually inferior. This study reinforced the notion that Blacks could only climb the American Dream ladder if we did so by entertaining white folks with our music and athleticism. As a result, Blacks and Asians were positioned as polar opposites when we were actually both pawns in a game of divide-and-conquer benefitting white supremacy.
When that summer ended, so did my online relationship with my improbable friend. I sometimes wonder about that Asian guy I met on AIM in the late 90s. Like me, is he now in his forties and committed to racial justice?
“Despite my commitment to racial justice, it wasn’t until I saw the viral display of Black and Asian bodies being choked, slaughtered, and beaten by the same predator—white supremacy—that I realized just how much our oppression and liberation were linked.”
My urge to explore our mutual oppression and liberation--to grieve and lead together--was the impetus for this Good Influence interview. I wanted to talk about Black and Asian solidarity with Nina Revoyr, a mixed-race Japanese immigrant, philanthropic leader, and novelist, and Ryan Smith, a Black education advocate, angelic troublemaker, and fundraiser. Here are the tough questions I asked and the brave answers they gave me.
Q: There are these visceral and very public attacks--a Black body lynched, an officer's knee on a Black neck, Japanese internment camps, or the beating of a Chinese elder. Then, there is the scar tissue that builds over time as a result of these attacks. Where do you see or feel the scar tissue today?
Nina: We are in the open wound stage, and it keeps getting aggravated with the continued killings that hit close to home. A young man I knew from South LA was murdered recently in a housing project in Watts—and there was nothing in the news about it. This all underscores the lack of value placed on Black lives. There is also a history and context of Anti-Asian racism and violence, the Chinese massacre of 1871 where a mob killed 10% of LA’s Chinese population, the Chinese exclusion act which suspended immigration for ten years, the Gentleman's Agreement Act to slow Japanese immigration, and of course, California’s Alien Land Laws of 1913 that restricted Japanese immigrants from land ownership. People who don’t know this history may be surprised by the recent events, but the tinder has always been there, and what happened this year [with Coronavirus and Trump’s instigation of the “China virus”] was the match. So it's important to understand that we are dealing with both an open wound and scar tissue.
Ryan: Yes, there is both the wound and the scar tissue. Folks are talking about the George Floyd verdict as accountability, not justice. We’ve lost elders and endured four years of a president who used his bully pulpit to attack Black, Brown, and Asian communities. What makes me sad is that some folks are using this moment to pit us against each other instead of thinking about how we build a historic coalition of marginalized communities. This is a time for us to go deeper in our allyship, which will be healing and transformative.
Q: Given how much Black and Asian folks have been pitted against each other, how is your liberation bound in the other's liberation? What must we learn and unlearn in order to be and lead in solidarity?
Ryan: When I was walking in BLM protests, I saw middle and high school students who were Black, Asian, Latinx, and white. The younger generations seem to see our power and fates as linked, but the adults need to catch up. We also need to reframe our history curriculum because we don't lift up the stories of years of multi-racial coalitions organizing in solidarity--the role of Black soldiers who stood up against the Vietnam War and the role of Asian leaders, like Grace Lee Boggs and Yuri Kochiyama, in supporting the Black liberation. We don’t always teach the truth about how we rise and fall together, and that creates division where there should be unity.
Nina: I so agree and think young folks understand this better than adults. I have been talking to a number of AAPI-led student groups that are bringing a multi-racial group of peers to the table. They are not okay with being silent in the way older generations have been taught to be silent and endure.
“Today, Asian youth are challenging this whole model minority myth—they are pissed and want action in solidarity with other people of color.
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Q: Harriet Tubman (my shero) was super strategic and also super underestimated. How have you been underestimated? And how have you been a spy?
Ryan: I was twelve when my mom gave me the talk about the police. I thought she was crazy. Why would that ever happen to me? Then it did. I was pulled over and searched on the way to a Black Student Union meeting at my high school. I had to explain where I was going and if I had tattoos. That was when I realized there are people who see me very differently than I see myself. We see so many images and stories of Black people being harassed, brutalized, and killed. This is why we have to be strategic and clear about affirming our humanity at a time when our humanity is being challenged, questioned, and yes, commodified.
Nina: When I came to the U.S. from Japan, I landed in rural Wisconsin. My ability to speak and write English was limited. Folks associate intelligence with language and I tanked most of my tests and was a middling English student. Ironically, I have now written six books. I was a working-class kid who got into an Ivy League college because of basketball, so I was often underestimated, but being racially ambiguous made me a spy. It gave me access and privilege that I wouldn’t have otherwise had. Let me just call this out: it is completely messed up that this dynamic exists, but it has been my reality, so I want to use that privilege to the advantage of the communities I love and want to serve.
Q: Black and Asian bodies are being brutalized and we continue the work of leading change. How does it feel to be leading while grieving?
Ryan: I have definitely been leading while grieving. I just lost my father (not connected to COVID). Saying goodbye to loved ones during this pandemic is challenging. I wasn’t able to see him as he left. When the dust settles, we will have a chance to grieve collectively and think about what it means to have lost a generation of elders, to have lost loved ones and our time with them, and the toll this has had on our mental health. We will have to think collectively about how we rebuild from all that loss.
“I believe love has to be the foundation of L.A.’s rebuilding. Cornel West says: “Justice is what love looks like in public.” We need a kind of love that will help heal systems and people.”
Nina: I am relentlessly positive and energetic, but that can also put pressure on folks. Over the last year, it's been important to lead with vulnerability, but also be clear that my grief is relative. I have not lost anybody to COVID, and I am in a very privileged position. Listening, supporting, and giving space to process or not process together has been helpful.
Q: There is humanity and also strategy in intersectionality. I want to think about two intersections--the intersection of misogyny and racism and the intersection of race and Queerness. How do these intersections shape how you lead?
Nina: The intersection of misogyny and racism with API folks is a horrifying place, as we all saw in Atlanta. At the same time, it's been wonderful to see how the younger generation is broadening our perspective. Back in 2003, when my book Southland came out—which specifically deals with cross-racial alliances between AAPI and Black folks—the characters were Black, Japanese, and Queer. I was told to pick one. Even college students were freaked out by having a Queer character. That is not even a topic of conversation with the student readers I meet now. There is this fluid and organic way they talk about race, gender, and sexuality. I don't know how it's shaped how I lead, but I know I’m more comfortable being who I am today.
Ryan: I agree, and think we need to create spaces where adults can learn from youth who are talking about different identities in ways that we have never been able to before. Men need to listen more to the stories of women of color and of sexual violence. I'm also excited that so many folks who are Queer are now leading institutions, like Lorie Lightfoot, who is openly out leading a major city. We have nine women of color leading cities across the country. As an open, Queer, man of color looking to change how we support our students, I think this is a time to learn from women and youth.
Speaking of learning...you're both tremendous readers. What writers have helped you find your voice?
Ryan: I was a feminine, nerdy kid who was bullied badly, so my books were my friends. James Baldwin was the political gay uncle I never met. I'm currently finishing my thesis, which has me reading a lot of critical race theorists like Crenshaw and hooks. And Amanda Gorman is bringing me back to poetry!
Nina: My entire top shelf is taken up by Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Louise Erdrich. In Baldwin’s story Sonny's Blues, the narrator finds out that his brother is going through all these challenges that are similar to his own. He says, "My trouble made his real” and he reached out to his brother. This is how we need to stand in solidarity.