0:01
Hi So, I am David Malloy, and I will be doing this podcast by myself.
0:13
And today, I think I really just want to touch on three large topics, or three overarching topics which are like my experience in America as a black man facing racism from an Asian American or Indian American, the greater race relations between black Americans and Indian relation or Indian Americans, and really the greater stigma that we’re seeing in the United States that is kind of causing some of these problems. So, I guess, starting on the first part with like my experience so I was really appreciative of this diary of systemic and justices because it’s like my first installment, or like my first note was literally something that happened to me, so I was changing a light bulb on Zoom. A couple I think it was. I’m not remember what it was, it was when we started doing this, I was changing a light bulb on Zoom, and the Indian American that I was on, on a call with at the time had noted that saying, Oh, you’re trying to change your life. Oh, haha, yeah, you’re, that’s not gonna make you any less darker bro. Don’t don’t even, don’t even worry about it. And you know I, I took offense, because I think you should take offense. I was definitely micro aggression, but I kind of had to remind myself that he probably wasn’t even thinking. I’m thinking about all the things that are at play, you know I mean I know that I know him on a personal level.
1:44
My company works with is on a regular basis, we interact frequently and I mean we’ve worked together for a few years, right, like we’ve, we’ve, we’ve done quite a few deals together I work in venture capital.
1:58
He does as well. And we’ve done, we’ve done a few investments together over the past few years. So, I mean I guess this moment for me was really, it really raised the red flag for me. Because you know like I, I feel like I’ve been desensitized to like these microaggressions, to the point like that it’s like it’s laughable it’s like wow, you know like whenever you’re at the mall and somebody just says something off like offhand and like they’re not really thinking like, Oh, I’m so sorry I didn’t mean it like that and it’s like no you did but it’s okay, you didn’t realize what you meant.
2:37
So you know I’m used to this, but I definitely think it’s, you can always, you can always proceed it, you know I mean I, honestly I can chalk it up as a joke between two minorities, like, I see that, but at the same time I also feel like we kind of need to address it right like let’s really look as I play here, you know I mean I think I’m with him being a model minority or not necessarily a model minority but him playing into the trope of the model minority, being an Asian American because Indians do fall under like Asian and being an Asian and Asian American it really, I don’t know it just I really felt that because it’s like whoa, you know, I kind of saw that coming, it’s like wait like you realize what was happening right here right and like I mean all this is going through my head. And, you know like him having this like status in America like whether he wants it or not, you know he has it, it kind of put me in a state of like otherness, right, where it’s like, I’m below him in the social caste.
3:43
Just as a minority, that’s not right, that’s not Asian or not white. And really you know this this cultural tension.
3:53
It really comes from. I wouldn’t even say it’s something that is inherent to us you know I think it’s more so, something that stems from white perception of us, right, like model minority that’s not something inherent to Asian Americans, That’s, you know, me being other that’s not inherent to me being black. I think it’s our I’m sorry I don’t think I know it’s a result of the perceptions of white Americans and just white America as an entity.
4:29
Yeah, you know, I think it’s. And I think that’s actually probably a good, a good point where we can kind of pivot to the inner relational relations that I was kind of speaking about earlier. So, I think.
4:42
In America we have.
4:46
We have all the.
4:48
We try to make things as being black and white. I’m not necessarily like referring to race but just very literally like black and white and cut and dry.
4:58
And that’s not always the case I think a really good example, kind of going with this like black American and Asian American, kind of going with this example is getting a little bit more specific and looking at the struggle between Asian Americans, or specifically Korean Americans, and black Americans. In the late, the late 1900s Right, so like the 1980s So like the early 2000s You know you were seeing mostly out on the west coast because that’s where a lot of Koreans and Korean Americans were immigrating to, you would see a lot of them moving into black communities right because they couldn’t afford to move anywhere else, they couldn’t afford to move into those affluent neighborhoods like all they could afford was the move into the lower income communities that just happened to be black.
5:50
And what kind of happened there was, you know, the, the tension didn’t arise, just because of like our differences, I think the tension arose, more so from an economic standpoint, right, like these Koreans, Americans would come in and essentially like build businesses in black communities, and then serve as black people, and then black people would be looking like wait a minute, why are we building these But why, like why are you coming into our community and building these businesses, why aren’t we building these businesses, and I mean it’s for a myriad of different things but ultimately you know black Americans they couldn’t they couldn’t get loans back then, you know, redlining was still a very real thing.
6:33
And if you’re not familiar redlining was the practice of discriminating against a person usually black people because of their area code or where they live, the banks would like intentionally not loan money to black Americans. So, yeah you know I think that’s that. And so yeah I think that’s where it kind of stems from and kind of looking back.
7:03
We see this, we see.
7:05
This emergence of Korean Americans kind of taking on that model minority trope as well because it’s like oh they came over and created businesses and they did better than the black people because black people didn’t create businesses and it’s like well the black people didn’t really have the resources to create the businesses right, like they didn’t even get the chance.
7:27
So I think that’s, that’s something that’s at play too. And then, I guess that’s also a good point to kind of pivot for towards the greater stigmas that we’re, that we deal with in the United States and, ultimately, I think that in terms of Asian Americans, it’s just a really people that aren’t American you know like people like people coming from other countries and just immigrants in general. I think it’s a, it’s a stigma of like a lack of education, and like a state of perpetual ignorance that we Americans live in, in the sense that, you know, there’s over 200 countries on Earth right I think it’s like 206 or something.
8:12
And it takes, it took me, I don’t know, I think I’m, I didn’t understand the, like the American culture. Honestly, until I don’t know maybe like age 16 I mean like, you know, there’s, there are certain norms that you internalize but you don’t actually understand what’s happening and what’s at play until you’re much older. I’m not trying to do that for 200 times, right, that takes a lot of work.
8:37
And as Americans, I feel like we’re lazy, you know, we just don’t take that time to learn these other communities we don’t take the time to learn these other.
8:45
These other cultures that are just all around the world and I don’t know it just it kind of makes me sad because I feel like we’ve been taught this ethnocentric ethnocentric line of thought that oh yeah Americans the best Americans that is a standard America’s this Americans that. And the fact is you know we never really got a choice to even look at other other countries from the standpoint of what was pushed us, you know like I could go to the library and read about it but that’s not the propaganda that they pushed on TV, they didn’t push diversity on TV back in like the early 2000s, like they weren’t trying to be gender forward they weren’t trying to be inclusive. I mean, they might have put the token black person on there or they might put the token Asian on there but it was never something that was really intentional to try to promote inclusion.
9:44
So I think those are really the. That’s really what I wanted to speak about was just the, the race relations in the United States between Asian Americans, and black Americans, the greater stigma in the United States. That is really just this perpetual ignorance that we have towards other nations, and really my experience, you know, with that kind of being othered and experiencing that racism from an Asian American and I mean, I hold no ill will towards them. For what it’s worth, I felt like it. I mean, he, he made a decision, and I guess I could try to educate him at some time, but that’s not really my job.
10:35
So, Yeah, this is me signing off.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai