Author: 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.

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We All Live On Food Stamps

 

The Farm Bill is dead for now, in part over right wing demands to cut food stamps. This post was written last year but it timely now. We all live on food stamps.

About 45 million people in the U.S. receive food stamps. That’s about 14 percent of the American population. For 6 million Americans, food stamps constitutes their only income. 55 percent of food stamp households include children. 14 percent include a disabled member. 9 percent include someone over the age of 60.  And if you don’t think this is a racial justice issue, a quarter of food … Read more “We All Live On Food Stamps”

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Why Whites Should Fear Demographic Change

Yesterday a New York Times article ran under the headline Census Benchmark for White Americans: More Deaths Than Births. I’m guessing that story read something like Tornado Strikes Minutemen Border Patrol Headquarters: Millions in Guns and Ammunition Lost among America’s growing ranks of white nationalists.

But, before further panic ensues, the article also made it clear that demographic change is not exactly right around the corner, saying,

The disparity [between white births and deaths] was tiny — only about 12,000 — and was more than made up by a gain of 188,000 as a result of immigration from abroad. … Read more “Why Whites Should Fear Demographic Change”

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The Democrat’s Jefferson-Jackson Fundraising Tradition and the Limits of Perspective

One of my weekend rituals involves watching MSNBC’s Saturday and Sunday morning political talk show, Up, now hosted by Salon.com’s Steve Kornacki. Up provides a pretty good capsule account of the political week according to the center-left media. So I watch, occasionally find myself nodding in agreement, and just as often end up arguing with the TV.

This past weekend, Up featured a story about the annual round of Jefferson-Jackson Day spring Democratic Party fundraising dinners. The point of the story was that, in the face of an increasingly racially diverse electorate, it might be time for the Democrats … Read more “The Democrat’s Jefferson-Jackson Fundraising Tradition and the Limits of Perspective”

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The Danger of Nostalgia: Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant’s Sexist Slip

At a Washington Post Live event concerning children’s literacy on Tuesday, Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant opened his mouth and dropped a bomb. When asked why America is so “mediocre” in terms of educational achievement, here’s what he said.

I’m going to get in trouble — do you want me to tell the truth?…I think both parents started working. And the mom is in the workplace.

Of course, the statement was media gold. Governor Bryant has since been lambasted, as well he should, as a male chauvinist pig. And since political polarization is good for business, liberal pundits were quick to … Read more “The Danger of Nostalgia: Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant’s Sexist Slip”

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The P.I. in the A.P.I.

Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month has me pondering the question of Pacific Islanders and where that group fits in the Asian-Pacific American coalition. I’ve wondered about it because I fear that by using that term, we too often tell a story about Pacific Islanders that contributes to their invisibility.

There’s a certain amount of invisiblizing, if you will forgive my grammar, that goes on when we use the term “Asian American.” After all, Asian Americans are a mash-up of 40 or so ethnic groups from nations often at odds with one another within a region of origin that only thinks of … Read more “The P.I. in the A.P.I.”

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Lost in the Supermarket: The Psychological Burden of Invisible Racism

Many Americans, especially many white Americans, believe we live in a post-racial era. They’re convinced that racism no longer has the power to organize the way we live and impose disadvantages on people of color. I’m holding out hope that this is wishful thinking and not just a convenient form of denial, but I’m guessing disappointment is on the horizon.

Post-racial believers overlook incidents like the now famous racist rant of that Papa John’s pizza delivery man. Obviously, he’s not post-racial. And, you know, he didn’t learn his racism in a vacuum, nor was he singing to himself.

And this … Read more “Lost in the Supermarket: The Psychological Burden of Invisible Racism”

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An Asian American’s Perspective On Obama, That Morehouse Speech, and “Personal Responsibility”

We know that too many young men in our community continue to make bad choices. Growing up, I made a few myself. And I have to confess, sometimes I wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down. But one of the things you’ve learned over the last four years is that there’s no longer any room for excuses. I understand that there’s a common fraternity creed here at Morehouse: “excuses are tools of the incompetent, used to build bridges to nowhere and monuments of nothingness.”

We’ve got no time … Read more “An Asian American’s Perspective On Obama, That Morehouse Speech, and “Personal Responsibility””

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The Stop and Frisk Dilemma

Dilemma: (noun) [dih-lem-uh] a situation requiring a choice between two equally undesirable outcomes

The federal class action lawsuit, Flovd, et al vs The City of New York, et al, is giving Mayor Michael Bloomberg a major headache, or at least it should. That’s due to good organizing on the part of Communities United for Police Reform, and the brilliant legal minds at the Center for Constitutional Rights. As far as I’m concerned, those groups are heroes, not just of New York, but of every other community in the country plagued by racial profiling and stop and … Read more “The Stop and Frisk Dilemma”

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Repost – The Easy Death of Human Beings

Until the killing of Black men, Black mother’s sons

Is as important as the killing of White men, White mother’s sons…

…We who believe in freedom cannot rest

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

— Ella’s Song, Bernice Johnson Reagon

The following post was written by my friend Shana Turner, a resident New Orleans.

The strategy of gun safety advocates has lately turned upon using the shock and awe of mass murders of those who we don’t expect to see listed on police blotters to win tighter gun safety regulations. I agree that we ought … Read more “Repost – The Easy Death of Human Beings”

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Yuri Kochiyama

May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. Appropriately, the month is marked by the anniversary of the birth of Yuri Kochiyama, on May 19, 1921. I’m guessing neither the month, nor the anniversary, nor even Yuri Kochiyama is known to many of you.

For the uninitiated, Kochiyama’s life story is documented beautifully in an inspiring political biography by Diane C. Fujino entitled, Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama.

Reading Kochiyama’s biography is an act of remembering that’s good for the soul. It reminds us that during WWII, without trial and without evidence of wrong-doing, … Read more “Yuri Kochiyama”