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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Columns Reviews

Book Review: To Barbara Kingsolver and Julie Otsuka After Reading You

As a nerdy gay boy growing up in a rural, working class town in the 60’s, novels were my escape route. Consider the wonder of a kid destined for a life as a laborer upon first encountering Donald J. Sobol’s Encyclopedia Brown children’s stories. Encyclopedia Brown is the hero because he’s a thinker! It opened a window on the world in a wall I didn’t even know existed.

Today, I still read, and Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite literary figures. Not only is she a very good writer, she’s also the founder of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for … Read more “Book Review: To Barbara Kingsolver and Julie Otsuka After Reading You”

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Columns Reviews

Django In Chains: Why Revenge Is Just For The Movies

The controversy regarding Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained is all over the internet. From the fight between Tarantino and Spike Lee, who refuses to see the movie because he says it’s sure to be “disrespectful of my ancestors,” to criticism of the character Broomhilda, who many say is less an attempt at a depiction of a person than a foil driving the action among the male characters.

I saw the movie. I generally seek out rather than avoid media that draws this kind of controversy because I want to know what all the fuss is about. When it comes to confrontations … Read more “Django In Chains: Why Revenge Is Just For The Movies”

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Blog

The Bigotry Factor: O’Reilly and the Manipulation of the Model Minority Myth

I generally avoid commenting on the racism and ignorance of Bill O’Reilly because my guess is that he just plays a bigot to get attention. It’s an ugly ploy. Just check out the video clip from his show I embedded below. While he rants about Asian American liberalism in Hawai’i, the footage that runs of a Waikiki street scene mainly features women in tight fitting clothes, shot from behind. It’s the kind of thing intended to make you look.

Racism for money is the worst kind of bigotry. It makes O’Reilly a tempting target, but I just don’t like to … Read more “The Bigotry Factor: O’Reilly and the Manipulation of the Model Minority Myth”

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Blog

Racism and Sexism Go Hand in Hand in Opposition to VAWA Reauthorization

In spite of being passed by a super majority of the Senate, the Republican dominated House of Representatives allowed the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to expire for the first time since 1994. The Act supports investigating and prosecuting violence against women. It also imposed automatic and mandatory restitution on those convicted, and allows survivors to seek civil redress in cases where prosecutors won’t take action. The expiration of the Act threatens all of this, making women more vulnerable to domestic violence, stalking, and sexual assault.

This is probably not news to you.

It’s probably also not news to you … Read more “Racism and Sexism Go Hand in Hand in Opposition to VAWA Reauthorization”

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Blog

Understanding Affirmative Action: Part 2

With apologies for the lateness of this post, I’m taking up part 2 of my attempt to make some sense of the affirmative action debate and the recent spate of accusations (often, though not exclusively, by racial conservatives like Charles Murray), that the Ivies are using anti-Asian quotas.

My main concern about this argument over quotas is that conservatives have jumped on this bandwagon to attack race conscious school admissions and some Asian Americans are falling it. But, as I pointed out in my last post, there’s a long history of struggle over race conscious college admissions in the … Read more “Understanding Affirmative Action: Part 2”

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Blog

Understanding Affirmative Action: An Argument in Two Parts

The Fisher v. University of Texas case has put the debate over affirmative action front and center among discussions of racial justice…again. This debate has found its way into the spotlight repeatedly since the SCOTUS ruling on Bakke v. University of California made racial quotas illegal in 1978. I thought I’d reference that to remind us that racial quotas are, in fact, illegal.

There is much to say about the affirmative action debate. So much, in fact, that I’ve decided to respond in two parts. Part one is a discussion of some of the historical context for Affirmative Action. Part … Read more “Understanding Affirmative Action: An Argument in Two Parts”

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Blog

Supply Side Gun Control

 

There’s no lack of racial dimensions to the debate about guns. For instance, all it took was members of the Black Panther Party showing up with guns on the steps of the State Capitol for California to adopt tougher gun laws, and that’s not the only time images of angry Black people with guns has spurred reform on both sides of the debate.

There’s also a gender dimension to gun-related violence. As Meghan Murphy pointed out on Alternet, women are almost never mass murderers and are under-represented among murderers in general. Obviously our culture of violence affects people … Read more “Supply Side Gun Control”

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What We Talk About When We Talk About Racism

Ever notice that when we talk about racism, those of us who are racial justice advocates are often really mostly talking about ourselves? We speak out to demonstrate our knowledge. We signal that we get it, building community among like-minded people by using the right words and being in command of the right facts. We make the case for opposing racism with descriptions of how people of color suffer, often even to the extent to ranking oppressions and making suffering into a virtue.

At our best we don’t appeal to guilt as much as to compassion. But we don’t … Read more “What We Talk About When We Talk About Racism”

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Eugene Jarecki On Small Victories In The Drug War And What it Will Take to End It

Eugene Jarecki, director of Freakonomics and now The House I Live In a must-see documentary about the origins and impact of the war on drugs shares his thoughts about the drug war and how to end it in this terrific interview with ChangeLab friend, The Nation and GritTV’s Laura Flanders talks here about the drug war and what it will take to end it.

Jarecki challenges us to personalize drug enforcement. I found myself asking the question, if I found a joint on an 18 year old in my life, would I call the police, have them arrested and thrown … Read more “Eugene Jarecki On Small Victories In The Drug War And What it Will Take to End It”

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Blog

Why I Write What I Write

I’m often asked why I write a race blog. I get why folks ask the question. I would get more looks by writing about food justice or climate change, and I know a little something about those subjects, too. Yet I write about race. Why?

I grew up in rural Hawai’i. My childhood and young adult years were spent in a community that was almost entirely made up of people of color. White people owned most of the land and dominated the economy, but in little towns like mine, they were extreme minorities and treated mainly as outsiders.

When I … Read more “Why I Write What I Write”