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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Practicing #Asians4BlackLives Solidarity: 5 Lessons from #shutdownOPD

The following is a reflection written by Christine Cordero, one of the participants in the #Asians4BlackLives solidarity action on Monday, December 15, 2014. Christine is a Filipina-American born and raised in the Bay Area, CA. She is an organizer, trainer, and public speaker with over 15 years of experience working and organizing for social justice.

On Monday morning, a multi-racial group of us shut down the headquarters of the Oakland Police Department for four hours and twenty eight minutes in response to a call from national and local Black leadership to end the war on black people. White, Asian, and … Read more “Practicing #Asians4BlackLives Solidarity: 5 Lessons from #shutdownOPD”

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Be The Change: A Call for Tolerance

A discussion of race such as we’ve not heard for decades is being inspired by the mass mobilization against police shootings of Black people, and in particular the remarkable determination of activists in Ferguson, now in their 133rd consecutive day of protest over the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown. More and more of us are talking, and the passion behind these conversations is rising.

I’ve been following some of these discussions, a few of which have been taking place in my inbox. Many of them center around arguments over racial theory and analysis. Questions like, who’s the most … Read more “Be The Change: A Call for Tolerance”

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This Is What Solidarity Looks Like: #Asians4BlackLives

New video captures Black-led, multiracial shut down at Oakland Police Department

For interviews with arrestees and members of #Asians4BlackLives, contact: Marie Choi, 510-239-7891, or Chinyere Tutashinda,  216-849-7172

On Monday, Dec 15th 2014, members of newly organized all-Black groups, including The Blackout Collective, #BlackBrunch and #BlackLivesMatter, joined with Asian allies in #Asians4BlackLives group and white allies in the Bay Area Solidarity Action Team to lead an occupation of the Oakland Police Department and demand an end to the war on Black people in Oakland and everywhere. Approximately 50 people participated in the action and were joined by a crowd of around … Read more “This Is What Solidarity Looks Like: #Asians4BlackLives”

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Bringing the Model Minority Mutiny Home

This fall, in the wake of the shooting death of Michael Brown, and in the face of the mounting Black body count at the hands of law enforcement, ChangeLab put out a call for a Model Minority Mutiny. We called on Asian Americans to stand up against the model minority myth as an act of self-liberation from a humiliating, trivializing, and dehumanizing stereotype that has, for too long, been used as a justification for labeling Black communities as “problem” minorities, and excluding and criminalizing Black people.

Many Asian Americans were already part of the mobilization. Many more are … Read more “Bringing the Model Minority Mutiny Home”

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The Language of Anti-Racism

The term “anti-black racism” seems to be gaining in popularity lately. Liberal and progressive pundits use the term with regularity when describing the remarkable frequency of officer-involved shootings of Black people, or the fact that one in thirteen African Americans have been stripped of their right to vote by felon disenfranchisement, a form of collateral punishment that has always disproportionately affected Black people.

By the way, in case you were wondering why felon disenfranchisement is listed among expressions of racism, these laws were first popularized in the U.S. in the late 1860s through the 1870s. This was the … Read more “The Language of Anti-Racism”

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The Bamboo Ceiling in the Tech Sector Is a Story About Race

Recent reports indicating a lack of racial and gender diversity at major tech companies like Google, Apple, and Yahoo, among others, have rekindled discussion among Asian Americans about a phenomenon known as the bamboo ceiling. The bamboo ceiling is the Asian equivalent of the glass ceiling, that invisible yet all too consequential barrier that prevents women from rising to executive positions in public and private sector employment.

The reason for all the talk is that, while African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans are underrepresented in tech sector employment, Asian Americans aren’t. In fact, we’re over-represented.

Asian Americans … Read more “The Bamboo Ceiling in the Tech Sector Is a Story About Race”

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State Power and Police Violence in Ferguson

In my last post, I recalled an incident that occurred decades ago in Hawai’i. In that incident, I was assaulted by police officers on my 18th birthday. I assume I was targeted because I lived in a small town where I had developed a reputation as a trouble-maker. I opened the door to violence by resisting arrest by asserting my rights.

The cops involved in this incident were white, and they were acting on a description of a perpetrator that was so loose as to invite the kind of harassment I faced: “young, black hair, brown eyes, some kind of … Read more “State Power and Police Violence in Ferguson”

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Calling for a Model Minority Mutiny: #fergusonoctober

Your silence will not protect you – Audre Lorde

The almost daily news reports of police brutality toward African Americans, and the #fergusonoctober mobilization had me thinking about my 18th birthday. I know that probably sounds pretty random, but bear with me.

My 18th birthday presents included a case of beer split among friends (18 was still the legal drinking age in Hawai’i in that year), and a beat down at the hands of police officers who stopped me on my walk home from the party. The beating I took was so brutal that I was physically unable to speak … Read more “Calling for a Model Minority Mutiny: #fergusonoctober”

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Welcome to the Hunger Games: Ferguson, Gentrification, and Power

I wrote a post about Ferguson earlier in the week that got me thinking of The Hunger Games. Not the movies. I mean the books. You can call them “Young Adult” if you like, but I loved those books. And now, I feel like the author, Suzanne Collins, may be a prophet.

Play along with me for a minute. The Hunger Games is set in a dystopian future land called Panem. The center of Panem is a wealthy capitol city surrounded in concentric circles by 12 districts, each poorer and browner than the last. In order to maintain order, … Read more “Welcome to the Hunger Games: Ferguson, Gentrification, and Power”

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What Goes Down in Ferguson is an Asian American Concern – In Fact, It’s a 99% Issue

Precariat: A social class defined by the shared experience of precarity, a condition of existence without predictability or stability, particularly as pertains to employment and economic security

What the news media has euphemistically referred to as the “situation” in Ferguson, Missouri is driving home a point that too many of us have managed to miss before Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. The Black body count resulting from police actions against unarmed African Americans is mounting. To view the situation as merely tragic (if, indeed, one can rightly put “merely” and “tragic” together) is to downplay the broad scope of … Read more “What Goes Down in Ferguson is an Asian American Concern – In Fact, It’s a 99% Issue”