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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What “Racial Equity” Does and Doesn’t Mean

An article I wrote responding to UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh’s Washington Post editorial, “How the Asians Became White ” ended up creating a bit of a flap. There was a flood of angry comment, most of which was deleted.

Note to readers: comments that begin with “you f**king Nazi,” or that refer to me as a “genocidal maniac” don’t ever make the queue because, well, comparing racial equity in employment to the Holocaust is not something I support. Genocide, as well, is not something to be trivialized. If you want to do something to stop genocide, I suggest … Read more “What “Racial Equity” Does and Doesn’t Mean”

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How The Asians Did Not Become White

In a May 29, 2014 Washington Post editorial “How the Asians Became White,” UCLA law professor, Eugene Volokh, argues that the claim that “Silicon Valley remains a white man’s world” resulting from a recent report on racial diversity in employment at Google overlooks the fact that 30 percent of Google employees are Asians, and in a manner he thinks is manipulative. To quote Volokh,

Google on Wednesday released statistics on the makeup of its work force, providing numbers that offer a stark glance at how Silicon Valley remains a white man’s world.
But wait — just a few paragraphs down, … Read more “How The Asians Did Not Become White”

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Race Basics: The Trouble With White People

Despite U.S. Census projections indicating that whites will will no longer be the majority of Americans by 2042, racism will continue to be a definitive force in American politics.

Why? A growing body of research indicates that an increasing number of whites believe racism continues to plague us, but that whites, not people of color, are the new targets. That brand of racial denial appears to be inspired in no small part by the perception that people of color are taking over. And if that’s the case, white racial denial is likely to be reinforced as whites are relegated to … Read more “Race Basics: The Trouble With White People”

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Those Asian American anti-Affirmative Action Ads

That’s a screen shot of the most popular video circulating on the internet on Monday of this week. The video is pretty cool, but ultimately not a big deal, just some footage of a cat protecting a little kid from a dog attack. Sweet. I want a cat like that, don’t you? But if you look on to the left of the video link, you will notice something that might just be about to become a really big deal.

When you’re done cringing, you might want to read Wanted: Disgruntled Asian-Americans to Attack Affirmative Action, by Julianne Hing, published … Read more “Those Asian American anti-Affirmative Action Ads”

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Book Review: Soledad Brother

I remember years ago when I was a member of ACT-UP, a woman who joined the group reviewed our direct action plans and said something along the lines of, “All this militant stuff must make you feel manly, and I guess that feels good since you’re hated partly because people think gay men are like women. But, um, how’s that supposed to make me feel?”

I got the message, though I still struggle to live up to it. It made me look askance at the texts of the 1960s and 70s that, indirectly but nonetheless effectively, led me to the … Read more “Book Review: Soledad Brother”

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Repost from The New Yorker, “The Origins of ‘Privilege'”

Today on Joshua Rothman’s blog at The New Yorker, there is an interesting interview with Peggy McIntosh, one of the pioneers in the academic discussion of the concept of “privilege.” Here are some excerpts:

The idea of “privilege”—that some people benefit from unearned, and largely unacknowledged, advantages, even when those advantages aren’t discriminatory —has a pretty long history. In the nineteen-thirties, W. E. B. Du Bois wrote about the “psychological wage” that enabled poor whites to feel superior to poor blacks; during the civil-rights era, activists talked about “white-skin privilege.” But the concept really came into its own in

… Read more “Repost from The New Yorker, “The Origins of ‘Privilege'””
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Vijay Iyer on “Complicity with Excess”

If you haven’t seen musician Vijay Iyer‘s speech concerning “complicity with excess” that was delivered to the Yale Asian alumni, you should check out this article on the Asian American Writers’ Workshop site. It is, in a word, fantastic. Here’s a preview,

I’ve found myself right in the middle of conversations about race for most of the past 20 years. Now I’ve managed to maintain a stable and consistent presence in the jazz world; by any measure I’ve been one of jazz’s success stories, and at this point I have no bitterness; I just observe how things unfold. For … Read more “Vijay Iyer on “Complicity with Excess””

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Donald Sterling’s Love of Koreans Ain’t No Kind of Love at All

I was going to write a post about Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s apparent love of Koreans, even to the extent of renaming a housing development “Korean World Towers” in order to attract Korean tenants. Sterling’s preference for Koreans as tenants (and employees) came at the expense of African Americans who he has allegedly said are undesirable because they “smell and attract vermin.” And that makes his particular brand of racist jujitsu a near perfect example of how the model minority myth is so often used to justify racism against “problem minorities.”

But then a Race Files reader linked me to … Read more “Donald Sterling’s Love of Koreans Ain’t No Kind of Love at All”

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Why I’ll Always Apologize for My Privilege

Twitter was abuzz with banter yesterday concerning Time magazine’s re-post of a Princeton Tory diatribe by student Tal Fortgang, entitled Why I’ll Never Apologize For My White Male Privilege.

I checked it out and quickly understood why. Tal begins,

There is a phrase that floats around college campuses, Princeton being no exception, that threatens to strike down opinions without regard for their merits, but rather solely on the basis of the person that voiced them. “Check your privilege,” the saying goes, and I have been reprimanded by it several times this year. The phrase, handed down by my moral … Read more “Why I’ll Always Apologize for My Privilege”

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No Right Turn: The Surprising Truth About Asian Americans and Affirmative Action

In an April 15 Los Angeles Times editorial entitled “An Asian American Turn to the Right?” Lanhee J. Chen, the former policy director of Mitt Romney’s failed 2012 presidential campaign and Hoover Institution Research Fellow, claims that Asian Americans played a critical role in defeating SCA5, a proposal to allow race to be considered among many other factors in college admissions in California.

SCA5 was proposed in order to remedy the precipitous drop in minority college admissions following the passage of Proposition 209, a 1996 ballot measure that banned affirmative action in California. The defeat of SCA5 is … Read more “No Right Turn: The Surprising Truth About Asian Americans and Affirmative Action”