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Brand New Race Files

Dear Readers,

Race Files started as an experiment. During the media blitz that followed the breakthrough performance of former New York Nicks basketball player, Jeremy Lin, I found myself mumbling under my breath about the exclusion of progressive Asian American voices in media and the almost complete absence of useful racial dialogue, particularly concerning Asian Americans. Soon, writing took the place of all that frustrated mumbling and Race Files was born, my small contribution to the discussion of race in the U.S. that I thought would be read by, at most, a few hundred friends and colleagues.

That was a year and a half ago. Thanks to important early support from friends at Racialicious, GritTV, The Root, and Dominion of New York to name just a few, we quickly built a loyal audience. We (I don’t mean the royal “we” here, I mean we at ChangeLab, the publisher of Race Files) have been republished in academic journals and featured by our friends in the Asian advocacy press and progressive and mainstream media in the U.S. and around the world. It’s been a surprising, fun, inspiring experience. Those of you who’ve blogged about us, re-posted us, tweeted us, criticized us, corrected us, told us off, printed out our articles and passed them on to friends and colleagues who lack internet access (really), and, most of all, read our posts and subscribed to Race Files have been the best part of this experience. You’ve created a community around us.

This weekend, ChangeLab, the racial justice laboratory that brought you the original Race Files, is launching a new website, racefiles.com. We’ll post from the site when it’s live so you can find us, and we’ll bring all of our old subscribers along for the ride. If you haven’t already subscribed, doing so now will make the transition smoother.

Starting on Sunday evening, if you try to read Race Files on changelabinfo.com, you may be forwarded to our new site at racefiles.com. By Monday morning, we should be up and up and running in our nifty new digs.

The new Race Files site will feature more writers and more content, including book reviews and, eventually, audio podcasts, news links, maybe even a vlog or two, as well as other resources to help you stay on top of the same old racial justice analysis from the bottom-up that we’ve been offering, but from more points of view and via a wider variety of media. The new features won’t all be there at first, but they will appear over the next few weeks and months so keep checking back to see what’s new.

Meanwhile, changelabinfo.com will continue to provide you with updates about ChangeLab and access to research and other resources.

And, do keep in mind, this is an ever-evolving project. If you have suggestions or are interested in becoming a contributor to Race Files, let us know. The new site will show you how.

Your friends at ChangeLab,

Scot and the Race Files Team: Soya, Yong Chan, and Jon

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By Scot Nakagawa

Scot Nakagawa is a political strategist and writer who has spent more than four decades exploring questions of structural racism, white supremacy, and social justice. Scot’s primary work has been in the fight against authoritarianism, white nationalism, and Christian nationalism. Currently, Scot is co-lead of the 22nd Century Initiative, a project to build the field of resistance to authoritarianism in the U.S.

Scot is a past Alston/Bannerman Fellow, an Open Society Foundations Fellow, and a recipient of the Association of Asian American Studies Community Leader Award. His writings have been included in Race, Gender, and Class in the United States: An Integrated Study, 9th Edition,  and Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence.

Scot's political essays, briefings, and other educational media can be found at his newsletter, We Fight the Right at scotnakagawa@substack.com. He is a sought after public speaker and educator who provides consultation on campaign and communications strategy, and fundraising.