Sorry for the long pause of posts. My daughter, Kantra was out of school and I’m working on some things that always get buried under writing assignments. Last month Huffpost published my personal article, “I’m Raising A Biracial Daughter In Japan, Where She’s Surrounded By Blackface.” I know I should’ve written a reaction to its reaction(s), but I had to counter the vertigo of retweets and likes. The world’s response was head-spinning. I had a TV reporter contact me about doing …
Tag: Racism
First 2018 fam flick 
Kantra showing out. 
Just wrote an article about raising my daughter, Kantra in Japan. It’s up here. She’s thrived despite the adversities. In retrospect, it’ll give her an unlikely perspective. She has no idea how brave she is. I’m still debating on taking her to see Black Panther. “He’s got superpowers,” she told me. “You do to,” I said. “You don’t know it, but you’re using them right now.” “I am? What’s my superpower?” she asked me. “You’ll find out when you get …
Born With It is a short film about an African-Japanese boy who identifies as Japanese, but the world sees him differently. Written and directed by Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour, Jr., the story explores isolation, alienation, and racism. Aside from the heartbreaking, yet revealing documentary Hafu, Born might be the first of it’s kind: it’s a scripted film, Japan is a vital character, and it exclusively centers a half black half Japanese kid struggling to make sense of who he is. It’s a tiny film that needs to be seen. Emmanuel and …
The murder of Michael Brown by the police in Ferguson, MO brings back memories for Asian Americans of another murder, that of Vincent Chin some 32 years ago in Detroit, MI. Vincent’s murder case became a turning point in galvanizing the Asian American community to take action and becoming involved in social activism, reaching beyond the young Asian American progressive/radical college student set. Since Vincent’s tragic murder in 1982, there have been countless incidence of hate crimes; a recent example …
