A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. 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
