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Guest host Jovelyn Richards presents White Switch
WHITE SWITCH Show Transcript
Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It’s time to get on board the Apex Express.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:01:07] Hi, this is Jovelyn Richards and I’m happy to be here on Apex. Some of you may know me from Cover to Cover, which is every Tuesday at two o’clock, which I, um, spend time with artists, filmmakers, uh, writers, play writers, poets, to bring that to my audience. And on every third Monday you would hear me on Women’s Magazine and my colleagues. We all take one Monday and Tuesday on different topics from a feminist perspective, from a global perspective. And my specific way of approaching that is to look at writings and, um, that’s either from fiction or either it is nonfiction, but at the core of it, because my interest really is getting to the story of what it’s like to be human.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:02:05] Those reflect characters topics that really dig inside of that written by women who was in search of, in their research, their lives of highlighting either known people or ordinary people who are. Living in ways in which moves humanity forward. So that’s where you’ll find me. And so why am I here? I’m here because I did a project, uh, over a year ago, and this, this, uh, tape is, uh, this program is a long time coming. I partnered with this particular project with, so when you would be familiar with, and that’s Preeti Shekar last name is spelled S-H-E-K-A-R. And we began this story, uh, of looking at anti-blackness in the South Asian community together. So what I’m going to do is let you listen to a clip, not from Preeti or myself. But from someone else’s doing this anti-blackness work in South Asian communities with Ritu Bhasin, and the last spelling of her name is B-H-A-S-I-N. So we’ll take a listen to that and then I will be right back and have that discussion.
CLIP PLAYS
Jovelyn Richards: [00:04:46] All right, so here we go. And so one of the things I appreciated seeing and listening to her video when I first was introduced to her, that aligned with the work that myself and Preeti was doing in our project curriculum called The White Switch, and we’ll dig into that. What is the White Switch? What is the curriculum of the White Switch and how it came about? And so what I appreciate, the continuous work, you may wanna Google, if you don’t already know, you probably do with Ritu Bhasin, uh, because she speaks directly about anti-black, uh, racism within South Asian communities, especially among professionals and leaders. And as you’ve heard in the video, she shares what that experience has been. And I was so happy to be able to offer that in the beginning of this. Uh, broadcast so that it, uh, to break the sense of isolation just in myself. Speaking of it as a black woman, I was hoping that Preeti would be here, but she’s, um, back in India and I’ll talk a little bit about what that’s like for me, uh, that my co-create, um, my partner on this here.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:05:59] So the white switch and the history of it for years. Uh. Probably like close to 15 years now. We were part of the beginning of white, uh, women’s magazine and we had wanted to do something together. We knew that we wanted to work together without knowing the why, but every time we were in conversation in the building, uh, women’s magazine and the way I approach the topics, uh, as a collective. And where the resistance was, where the fun of it was at. Uh, and then her way she approached it, there was place the, the connected dots. So example would be for any of our lives, when you’re in very difficult conversations, you pay attention to the other, uh, uh, collaborators or whatever the, what the team is made of. And even if it’s to people and you see whether or not they’re coming from a place of inclusiveness, you’re seeing how, how hard they are holding on to their opinion, whether it’s negotiable, whether they’re really deeply listening. And what was really interesting to where we connect the is that we found that both of us and we were relatively new to each other.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:07:20] What we both found is that the humor. That in the heat of it all, or the conflict of it all, there was, we relied on this part of humor to not, to deflate and deflect from the situation, not to deflate it, like take off the, the, the fullness of the topic, but to give us all a moment to breathe in humor. Right? And, and that’s, that is part of my go-to as a standup comedian. So that’s real for me. So. Let’s talk about the white switch. So the, oh, so the, how it began, how we came up with that since we wanted to do a project together, how did we come up with the white switch anti-blackness in South Asian community Preeti, uh, was in New York over a year ago, and she was taking a Lyft in Harlem to wherever else she was going, or she was going to Harlem and the Lyft driver. South Asian, uh, driver asked her why was she going there or coming from there. Then she said, what do you mean? And he began to have a conversation around the dangers of that even. He didn’t always like to pick up folks there and he was referring to black folks. And so pretty him not knowing that she’s an independent journalist, she’s also an activist.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:08:48] Begin to ask important questions and starting with what has been your experience, your personal experience, and then your experience with others close to you that might have shared that is informing these thoughts. You have these feelings, you have these decisions you’re making, these things you’re telling me not to do, and he had nothing, none to offer. So the next question would be, so then, then. Why, and then from, if I got the story right, there was a, um, uh, moments of silence and so I think he was sort of processing, processing in his own mind. Why am I telling, why am I feeling this way? Why am I hesitant to go to areas where I know there’ll be black folks? Why am I telling a woman who is South Asian, particularly identifying with his own, uh, identity, wanting her not to go? And in that emptiness, one would hope that. Once he did self-reflection, uh, with that question that he was discovering, like he really didn’t have anything substantial to go by. And so when she got back from her trip, we were talking and she said this was very important to her, to talk about that.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:10:15] And uh, and I told her at the time, surprisingly enough that I was. Actually had been working on a project in my isolation, uh, called the White Switch, and that this coincidence, we wanted to take advantage of both of our energy of importance towards the matter. So the thesis statement within it is that the whites, which is a healing curriculum. This innovative program designed for activists very specifically anyone can, can be involved in the curriculum of, of essentially looking at the anti-blackness in any community outside of the black community. Specifically for activists and then, but anyone can do that if you, if they’re, you don’t have to be actively considering yourself an activist just by wanting to, to think about and look at the curriculum on some level. Something is activating inside and looking at that, and then to, in the curriculum to recognize as this, this Lyft driver did that there was no logical reason for him. To not only have that stance, but to offer it to strangers, then spreading that untruth or have no validity to it, right? And so the curriculum addresses that and to begin as, as to, to eradicate the deeper feelings despite being activists, despite education around anti-blackness.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:12:12] That even among the most astute South Asians, there are the deeper roots, the deeper roots of anti-blackness. And that is the white switch. The white switch. And so the, the pattern. The reoccurring pattern that one has seen politically in black communities. As we also heard in the, um, video, which were two of us seen, uh, has been, that is, is even after years of political education, community organizing, or DEI, where there’s a sudden internal shift that occurs. This shift is not intellectual, it is somatic. Emotional and rooted in the proximity to whiteness. And that switch, the white switch goes on immediately for survival purpose. So when confronted. By anti-blackness in conversation and actions, there’s a switch that goes off. Fight or flight, fight or flight. And when that happens, there are things that happen again in the activist. In, in communities that have, uh, fought for years for political education through community organizing. But the, the, the roots of the proximity to whiteness globally is no joke because literally it is saying, this is for your survival.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:14:18] You are invested here in this proximity to whiteness. For your survival, economically, social placement, accessibility, back to safety for all of the above, and this buried there even while you’re doing the, the, the radical work, however you show up, is sitting there with those deep roots, right? And so the workshop curriculum was created. I had started it before Preeti and I began doing it, um, writing about it. And I’ll give you that history. This is a good place to do the history of that. I had been doing political education around anti-blackness and around many issues, but what, this is what we’re speaking about, right? And educating around domestic. Other things were like hunger, domestic violence, um, community organizing, and specifically that, that came out of anti-blackness, holding workshops, creating workshops. And what I discovered is, um. Most of the people, the audience that was there, I’m thinking example of the Stockton Unified School districts district where myself and peer advocates went in, uh, to do the work of anti-blackness over some incidences that had happened in in Stockton in the public school system that was quite serious and quite painful for the black students and black community.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:16:07] And when I was there doing a workshop, and this was in my particular, um, um, curriculum that we was, we was doing, uh, but I was implementing it and what I noticed was more pronounced, I had noticed it before. And had even talked about it, had, um, had dialogues about it, uh, with others. What I noticed in those, the, those times that there’s a point. Where in the, that particular workshop, I could see where there was staff that was really wanting to get to the bottom of their own anti-blackness for their students. So the teacher part of them and the diversity of the students. And there was activated and then there was those, uh, that were not engaged with the caring of, they were there to teach and they brought, they. Didn’t have an issue with their behavior that spoke to anti-blackness. Example would be two students are talking and one non-black. Black. And these are just random examples. Very, they’re not mild, but compared to what had happened, what brought us there that was so extreme, it involved death. Um, uh. I shouldn’t just say it like that without giving more backdrop to it, but, and maybe I will.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:17:43] But here’s in the daily classroom that then this black student would be called out and removed more times than not from a classroom. And so by the teachers that did not take up responsibility, that in their teaching they had a responsibility to be teaching themselves. By listening to the students that would call, would call them out and, and stay forth and say, why, why? This person started talking to me? Why are you only pointing out at me? So this, this is not new. I’m sure this happened throughout the teaching person teaching career. Why am I have to go to office? And so now we can see what happens when students are constantly in the office, how that impacts them. So. That is part of when I started making more notes on this here. And then I, uh, worked with, and probably you’re very familiar with this organization in the Bay Area, surge showing up for racial justice. And they were, uh, we worked together on a project. That I was doing as a writer. I was writing the Play 911: What’s your emergency? And it was in response to white communities, particularly women calling the police on Brown and black people. And most notable in the Bay Area was barbecue, Becky and Permit Patty. So I met La Peña. I was a resident artist at La Peña Cultural Center. Hopefully you’re all aware of that. Uh, of the center and its beauty that it, uh, and work is done over the decades. And I, so in writing the play and working with community folks, uh, actors, performers, and interested and impacted by these phone calls, and we worked in Workshop to create together, I did. I wanted to. Dig more into the psychology now of the barbecue Becky and permit Patty.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:20:10] That means I wanted to look at the racism within white women. And again, I wanted to look at that from, of. White women who have done work and fight for anti-blackness and other, uh, social ills. And so I went to search and, uh, they agreed immediately, which is kudos and kudos, uh, that, uh, they were willing to even think to themselves, yes, I can look, I can get, I, there’s, there’s roots in here. There’s something in here. And so we, um. Created, I created the curriculum for the workshop that lasted over the weekend, and I found out some very interesting things and they found out more importantly, some very interesting things being activists themselves. And as we dug deeper using healing curriculum, for example, uh, there’s, uh, healing, uh, um. Theater is based in theater, similar to, um, not similar to, but another theater thing you could think of that deals, which social ills would be theater of the press, uh, playback theater. And I also use that in some of the work I do. That’s part of the White Switch. But I had created a thing called two Tiers Telling.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:21:38] And in the chairs, two chairs telling the facilitator being me and the, the person who is working on, and this, in this case, women from s would sit in the chair and the others are the witness. They hold the space. Right. And again, this is a healing, uh, process. And then we go into some reflection questions, right. The same way. Preeti did with the Lyft Driver. But these particular questions, because I’m working with activists who are very savvy in the work they do, and very knowledgeable and, uh, the political, uh, things that are happening are happening in the world, then I created those questions to dig past the intellect. Pass the work into the personal, right? So we go into to memory, we go into early memory, and that became really a wonderful experience, as I said, for everybody, right? And I took those notes again, collecting that. And over the years, other workshops I’ve done. And so again, by the time it circled to pretty us looking forward. Uh, work to do together. It came up. Now I even in this rec, this, um, programming, it was odd when I ’cause this, this recording, this program was due like almost a year ago. We started this program in this 20, 20, 26. Now we started together in late 2024. We presented this at the DESI Conference in 2024, south Asian uh, DESI Conference.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:23:41] We presented at that conference, right? And we were building the curriculum looking for, um, support for it, and Kamala Harris spoke at that conference. There was some political uproar from some of the folks there. They had their own feelings about her and the, the, the, what was, what was happening, what was not happening in the, uh, Biden and her administration with Biden. And there happened to be a moment when I got into, uh, an argument with one of the people who wanted to disrupt the moment she was speaking. I had an issue with that and wanted to, um, ask more questions and in the questioning the person was, was crying and so upset, and then I asked them what work they had been doing in their, in anti-blackness, and their response to me was, I don’t have time for that right now. That was very concerning. Very concerning. And so when I talk about this now, I’m recording this. It’s actually Martin Luther King’s Day where I’m recording it at air, uh, later and, and I’m sitting here reflecting on where we’re at as a whole.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:25:14] And I know that a lot of that was, we’re here now, whatever, wherever you’re thinking about where we’re at, because of anti-blackness, because of anti-blackness. So, so much feels kind of odd to be talking about the work we were doing and wanting to do, and then more fiercely leading up to the election. Right? So again, this was, uh, 24. 2024 when we started the story in the, the spring of, and it just turned 2024. The conference was in the spring, I think it was May, late spring, and we came back wanting to do workshops and I left the conference. It was a wonderful. And I love the diversity of the conference in terms of the way diversity and how they was approaching it. Different topics, whatever the topics they were using. It was a different, it was different than most conference where the talking hads and, and then you go to break room, then you come back to another workshop on the program and then you go on the talking hat. You take notes or. And then you come out and then there’s a, another break or lunchtime, you go back in and you meet people. There were hundreds of people and there were, there were people approaching difficult subject matters with comedy. And I’m a comedian, so I know that, and we all know on some level the comedians can tell you the best of the best stuff in terms of, um, political social ills, and they get you with that punch.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:26:50] That’s another way to get people to sort of pay attention to where they’re at in the world, where they’re at within the subject matter and what or what not they want to do. Richard Pryor would be a good one, uh, most notable. Uh, and Eddie Murphy to some degree. Yeah, to some degree, but definitely Richard Pryor. Um. And so, and then they also had the dance. They have so much, they had so much of, they brought themselves their culture to the conference and it was one, it was the best conference I had been to. Uh, in a long time. ’cause it brought the, the, the one beautiful thing about many communities is that if, if the conference is put on by them, uh, and for whatever the topics, some, a lot of communities bring their culture into it, right? It’s not a template of traditional conference, which very cut, very linear, et cetera. And that was absolutely fantastic. And I enjoyed it deeply and that was my takeaway from it. My takeaway from what we presented, very active listeners, very painful. As I was listening to some of the panelists, I was on the panel, discussed the work they do and gave, uh. Examples, like, uh, one woman was an his attorney and deals with, uh, prison reform and she was giving case cases that she had shared and the disparity of an justice system and the pain of, and then it was, it was, um, very, uh, emotional for me because I know these things occur, but when you hear, hear them in a case study and the results of them.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:28:47] So I was. How very, I was feeling that very deeply. And when it was my, someone asked a question, it was my, and I was speaking again. I’m feeling a certain kind of way. And I’m much, much, uh, I mean at this point my, you can hear and feel my passion when I was answering the question and the frustration that the story of the prison system. Uh, the, the racial, uh, inequality, the punitive measures, and I, and frustrated because this is not new. We know that in the different presidential folks, uh, say the Reagan administration, the Clinton three strikes, we know that’s been going on and on, and yet the same stories being told over and over again. Uh, the sameness is like the, the, that different, different, different zip codes, different people, et cetera. But the same story of the injustice. The injustice, right? Going all the way back for some of you that are familiar with history. Going back to, uh, emancipation when the, um, black folks were, the, this sort of system we’re working on now was created from that, that system doing emancipation with black folks, had nowhere to go with no resource, no money, and that no land.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:30:19] And that wandering the roads of trying to, to make up a life. And they created a system, a law that if you were the, what is the fragrant of fragrant frequency law, lot loitering, L-O-I-T-E-R-I, in order to re imprison them. So they had choices either go to prison or go work on Mr. X Farm of Land. And so it’s been a continuation of, of creating systems, of imprisonment, of enslavement, of brown and black folks. And then so that came out and one of the people facilitating the conference when I, I just, my impatience of keep dis of discussion, my impatience of intellectual approach, my impatience and my bottom line question is, is what is taking this so long? If everybody, if we have attorneys and politicians and all these folks working on the same thing, why are we still here? What is that? And the persons, and so whatever I said after that was really about being more radical, more clear, more intolerant of it. And the person said, we are not ready yet. Meaning we are not we, we are not ready. We don’t have all those pieces in place. And then I said, we are. And why? And why are we on the timeframe of others?
Jovelyn Richards: [00:31:50] Right. Why is it we’re looking at the clock of others? What is that about other than anti-blackness? The deeper woods where the white switch clicked on? Why are you, why would anyone or any bodies of people talk about the atrocities of the prison system? The injustice? Talk about it, the atrocities. Then when approached to say, meet it, meet it where it’s at, it turns the intensity to say, we are not ready yet. What does that, what did that mean? Jovelyn Richards: And what I learned even in that statement that at the conference, and as men pretty came back and talked about and realized that even after years of political education, the community organizing or DEI, a sudden internal shift occurs. The shift is not intellectual, it’s somatic. Emotional and again rooted in proximity to whiteness and despite activists stated commitments to racial justice, many South Asians activists experience a movement with their nervous system over rise their politics. Fight or flight response activation. Instead of leaning into accountability, they retreat.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:33:23] Retreat into defensiveness, fragility or self-protection. And when I say those words, we see that more. We think about in the, what is the book? White fragility. So it’s the same thing, right? The same characteristic. ’cause again. It’s that close proximity to whiteness. So of course you’re taking the, the, the, when you, and this, I think it’s across the board when anyone is confronted on anything and don’t take the word confronted, um, and begin to think of it just as confront, like it seems like a hard word, word and English language doesn’t always offer enough words to express. One thing without making it as heavy, because confront, confront could be simply in a conversation and someone says, do you know what you just said is very offensive to me? And, and say, why? And then suddenly the possibility of the white switch, this reflective, turned toward whiteness. Toward innocence.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:34:29] Rural more purity and distance from blackness is the white switch. And so when in my experience, uh, south Asian activist is confronted with their own anti-blackness, does the switch may show up as defensiveness. Words like, I’ve done so much work on this. I, you know, I do the work. It’s like proving, here’s my resume, here’s my, this, I’ve done the work and, and, and that’s not me. I’ve taken anti-racism training. I work every day my and, and bring credentials into it. I teach workshops. I’m dismantling racism, volunteer in prison reform. I’ve marched, donated, organized, centering my, uh, centering, centering. And that I wanna say is what people do in any situations, not just a topic like anti-blackness. It’s in a relationships you can, and we call, what do people call it now? Uh, you’re deflecting, you’re being a narcissist. It’s all these other things that cover it up. So it’s a, it is, it appears to be something that human beings do in constant protection. So I wanna make that clear, but now we’re talking about.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:35:50] In a way of the social pains of this world that we are trying as activists, uh, as people trying to get, not just get a handle on, but to eradicate it. Like right where, just take a moment. Where are we at right now? Where are we at in Minnesota? Where are we at in any state? DC Chicago? Where are we at? This is the thing that we’re dealing with. And so it, if the answer is to look at the things that, the look at, the things that the government is saying, it is saying, we clearly, we are racist, and everything we about to do was about to be about that. I’m so happy. Again, you’re going to hear this after, uh, today, which is Martin Luther King’s Day. I’m so happy on social media where everyone is celebrating. Not everyone, but those that I see are, are celebrating and they’re honoring. And they’re ignoring any, any kind of dismissal. Erasure, ain’t nobody. Yeah. You can forget what you wanna forget. You can have what you want to hide, but, but everybody out here knows the truth.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:37:18] We just gotta get to their truth of humanity. Other ways of dis defensiveness is the feeling in a sense of, of almost like being dismissed as all that they’ve done. Like, I’ve done all this, I do all this. And then to hear that and in, in, in that moment, I have, uh, witnessed we’re almost as if in the mind, you know, if they say we are not mind Raiders, but if you. You don’t have your mind reader to pay attention to the, the flesh of a person, the eyes of a person to be able to get cold. Where they’re running, where they’re hiding, which, where what, what, what are they doing to survive the moment? Right. To be seen and not seen. Right. And it’s not intentional. It’s not malicious. It again, it is a, it is the umbrella psychology that we exist under and. When a person works so hard to, to show up their best self as an activist in anti-blackness, and then someone, and particularly a black person, joins in their huge effort to say, Hey, this, this ain’t this. This is not working here. Let’s work with this here. It’s almost like they just threw out their. Whole journey of sense of, of what they’re proud of, what they’re, what makes them feel good about themselves inside this human life. And it should, oh, and they should absolutely adore, feel good because we’re out here doing the work.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:39:09] And so these are the things that is important for us to know. And we’re going to listen to another, um, video, and you are going to hear, I, I appreciated this video because it asked a question, what would I have been if I had not been doing this? So take a listen and then I will be right back.
CLIP PLAYS
Jovelyn Richards: [00:41:55] So what would. Right. What would we be doing? I ask myself as a black woman, if a lot of what I do as a writer, as a performance artist, as a community, um, activist, whatever the title is, how much energy it takes, and right now. The energy is taken again in a very different faith. This hurts, this hurts, this really hurts. Right? In a way that almost the thinking about again, the timeframe of when we were doing the work and then where we at now. Being in the conference where we at now, how many people voted against Kamala, where we are now after the conference, um, I got a text message and this was when they were, uh, folks was holding, uh, zoom.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:43:20] And it was really exciting. So many people from so many different communities was doing Zoom calls to talk about the, the elections that were coming up. And when she became the primary chosen person to run as a democratic party and people were talking, people raising money. Oh, did you see the excitement, the energy. I got a text message from one of the people from the DESI conference and, and was very, they were in pain. He said, I feel so hurt right now because on the zoom that she was uh, on, there were many people saying that they weren’t gonna vote for her, or no, this is South Asian Zoom. They weren’t going to vote for her. Or they weren’t gonna vote at all. My re I was so my livid, which is really not as important as the liveness of now. But I was just surprised given what everybody understood and knew about her opponent. And so I said to the person in text. I said, go back to the Zoom, and I said this, everyone, there’s a slogan that people are saying as if it’s, uh, the, the, you know, there’s always this new thing to say.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:44:58] And the slogan was, listen to black women. Listen to black. So I said to her, which, which I, I think people really don’t get it, don’t understand the history of what that means. They don’t understand history with that. They don’t care. And, and I’m saying, I shouldn’t just say I, it’s not that they don’t care. I don’t think they, they, they take, they don’t look at what that meaning. That means listen to black women means the story of black women in this country, how the, how our arrival, and then the story after that. They’re not gonna even get into you. You know that if you know anything, if you listen to KPFA, you know, and the MA mechanisms of how that happens, the template of how that works is the, the ask black women, the template, right? We, we know that the, the intimate details of how that works, right? And so the thought that people were literally not wanting to. I not wanting to, and that was disturbing.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:46:19] And so that happened. And then we did, oh, then I was, um, watching a couple ones that were white women were getting together. On these zooms, and they were so excited, so excited. And in their excitement, they were talking about, they were connecting. They, they were having so much fun talking about this, this, the leading up to the election, the support, the, the, and they felt some sisterhood. They felt energized. They felt all of this stuff and the energy I got from that. The energy I got from that is this is about y’all having fun, connecting, laughing, having a project. This is a project, and I asked, what I didn’t hear them say is how much they had raised. They weren’t talking about any of the practicalities of the next step.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:47:28] It was just about. It was a, and I put it in the way I took it. Good, bad or different. You can agree or not agree, but I’m telling you what I experienced. It felt like it was a big party, a really big fun party that they had experienced and being able to see people, they and strangers, and laugh and talk and, and go on and on and on, that it was a party, right? But it really wasn’t about the truth. It had something to do. And then, and I said, and I left that, that when I saw that, I wasn’t in the Zoom, but this was people talking afterwards, like on social media, about how excited they were. And I had asked, what did you raise? What are your next steps? They had nothing.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:48:14] Well, we are gonna have another one in a couple weeks. We can figure that out. Really interesting. You got two weeks to figure it out. You got, oh, you got that kind of time. Interesting. Right. And then, uh, we saw how that happened and I see that they’re working right outside my window. So let me just day. I apologize for those. Got a little bit of that noise out, said that, oh, I think that happened a little bit. And so that’s how that went. And now we are here. So again and again, we, I think to find a way, even though there’s a sense of probably hopelessness that some of us are feeling and we are not gonna go into, um, the hopelessness of it all. We are gonna go into, uh, not in this here, um, thing, but I think all of us needs to go into, uh, the, not even about the hope, but the necessity. Hope is wonderful. Necessity. They’re going to the necessity, right? They go into that place like, and find where do you live, where it’s like this is the urgency, the necessity to it.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:49:42] Uh, other quotes that I’m gonna give you a few of them. A few quote, anti-blackness is foundational, not peripheral. And that’s Frank B Wilderson. The third on the limits of allyship. So as we go into this, uh, we’re in this thing right now. I think it’s important for, uh, connectiveness, interconnectiveness in groups, intubated, dig. Inside, um, those roots to be the most effective on the nervous system and racial conditioning, the body keeps the score. I think that’s, um, something that’s important. And then when the, when I bring that up, the body keeps the score because what does proximity to whiteness doom where it literally dismantles parts of you no matter how deep you’ve been educated.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:50:43] That it can dismantle you. Um, and where does that go? Example, the nervous system and racial conditioning I speak about That is the, you lose the ability to see, hear, and speak that racial conditioning, proximity to whiteness. You give up the ability to hear. To see and to speak. You are muted and your critical thinking skills is dismantled in areas of, of, uh, anym. So I’m gonna broaden it anym, and it dismantles those parts of you energetically. Like here we are on this human experience. And, and all the, the human properties that belong to us. All the gifts of being human and to come into a circumstance, uh, where you are immediately given isms and in this story, anti-blackness. And I think some of you have, you, you may have heard of the book cast and we know it South. Asian communities coming from a caste system and then coming to America. If you came here to America with, or a history of, however, the story is that you, it’s, you have a built in template for anti-blackness. I mean, it’s already set thousands of years of being set.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:52:27] And so coming here, it’s not so hard, uh, to even, no matter how hard when you work to be educated. And to work in systems, uh, it gives you, working in systems and anti-blackness gives you sort of the oodles and feel a sense of pride when you sit down at the table. Right. But that white switch is there that you, the, the hearing, the saying, and the knowing is gone speaking, and so it’s at what percent. What percent are you really doing the work if you are embedded with anti-blackness? You, so, like I said, the co. The co, the conference, I asked that questions. I asked a question like, why is it taking so long? Because people operating, operating at 40%. It’s like being in a burning building and people in the burning building, you say, okay, I’m gonna go get, um, uh, enough water for half the building to be, um, uh, fire to be put out.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:53:45] So stand on that part of the building. The building’s still on fire. So you’re gonna put that out. So you’re kind of running around in a burn, a, a burning building, and that’s not okay. And so in creating the curriculum to do work, I think is really relevant. Now, I would fe I think February, um, 20, uh. 20 something, there’s gonna pop the white switch, uh, ebook is coming out and it’ll be on Amazon. I know. Um, and that’s not the best thing. Um, it’ll be on, but it’ll be out there and it will be the curriculum, it’ll be the self-reflection, it’ll be stories. And I, one of the things that I’m wanting of folks is to start partnering with. Like, if you’re listening to this as a South Asian activist, what would it be like to get to, to hook up, which probably folks in your circle, um, black activists and there, and, and you may say what you, you may, I’m pretty sure you, you connected, but some folks have said, well, what if they’re, they’re not an activist.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:55:15] Um, very difficult to be breathing in black and not be an activist, if that’s even before this time being aware of your activism. ’cause if you gotta move through space every day, you’re fighting for yourself. You endure, uh, worlds. You are code switching, you are being aware of and mindful of and of your activities. You are an activist and always saving yourself. Saving yourself, saving your family, aware of signs of, uh, like, uh, signs that are out movies, you’re always looking after anti-blackness that exists, even if it’s not conscious on that level. Right. And so as I come to an end, I must say that, uh, it would’ve been nice to have done this with pretty, uh, one of the things that I think we both was learning an I that was.
Jovelyn Richards: [00:56:11] We were working on the anti-blackness and our work together that was, that couldn’t be helped, uh, in working together. And as she shared with me one time, and she does a lot of fantastic work on herself, she said, you know, I am, I am the white woman in India. And I appreciated that knowledge and how that might work out with us. I work and it did show up and we were able to discuss some things, some things I, my own stuff kept silent. Right. And that’s something I gotta work on. And I’ll leave you with that. It’s been traveling. Again, the ebook called We Switch by Joplin, uh, late February. Uh, curriculum exercises, thoughts, reflections, Self-Reflection, uh, and I’ll see you on Cover, the cover of Women’s Magazine. Until then, be mindful. Be conscious. Goodbye.
Miko Lee: [00:57:18] Please check out our website, kpfa.org to find out more about our show tonight. We think all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important.
Apex Express is produced by Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Isabel Li, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar and Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much for joining us.