When it comes to addressing racism, one of the first things Christians must do is to look within themselves to see if they have any biases or prejudices of their own. In these past few months, many who agree with the idea that Black lives matter have realized that they themselves hold anti-Black views that must be addressed. So how do we confront anti-Blackness in our lives?
To help us understand and learn, I interviewed Jane Kim, a SOLA contributor and educator who is passionate about diversity, equity, and inclusion. We talked about an article she wrote for the Asian American Christian Collaborative, called “An Asian-American Guide to Dismantling Anti-Blackness.” We talked about how Asian Americans can confront anti-Blackness and be active in our communities, as well as how churches need to be safe places that equip Christians about subjects about race and politics.
Below is an edited transcript of the video. Please note that some changes have been made for readability and clarity.
Hannah Chao: A lot of people who have had an awakening about anti-Blackness in the country have also had to reckon with anti-Blackness within themselves. Could you just talk a little bit more about recognizing anti-Blackness in ourselves?
Jane Kim: Speaking as a Korean American, I feel like we don’t always realize that we need to dismantle something because it feels so part of who we are and it’s a really bad part of who we are. In Korea, there’s colorism and it’s related to class. [It’s] this concept that if you were darker-skinned, you were in the lower class, you worked out in the field, which is why you were tanner. If you were fair-skinned, you were of a nobility or of a higher class because you stayed indoors.
Then when people immigrated [to America], in a way, that so perfectly fit in with the existing racism that was here. And so in order to be able to dismantle something, you need to be able to see it first.
As an educator, I work in a very predominantly White field, and the hardest thing to fight sometimes is this concept of colorblindness. “I don’t see color. I’m not racist.” [But] if you don’t see something, you can’t see the impact that it has You can’t see how it’s problematic. You don’t know how to find a solution or even break down that problem.
So it’s important for us to first see it. We can’t be like, “Oh, but I love all people.” Yes, that is how God created us. God created us in His image and a very diverse colorful spectrum. So we need to see the beauty of that but also own the fact that maybe we have been avoidant of seeing certain things or we’ve had a bias when we’ve seen specifically Black people and the Black community.
In order to make sure that how we see things isn’t tainted, we can’t just see Blackness through the lens of Whiteness. We can’t see Blackness through an Asian lens. We have to listen to and center and heed the words of Black people.
A lot of it is learning. In order to unlearn a lot of stuff, you need to learn. This could because I’m an educator, so I am very supportive of engaging in learning, unlearning and relearning.
We have to learn facts. As a person who has gone through public education all my life. I am the product of the American education system. I teach in an American education system. And even in my teaching journey, that’s how I realized, “Wow, a lot of the stuff I teach is so whitewashed. [I was] learning that I was teaching incorrect facts because that’s all I ever knew.
I’ll own this: I’ve done a lot of harmful things when I was in the process of getting tenure. I taught lessons that were prescribed by certain standards. You’re supposed to follow certain guidelines, and show that you follow these standards and guidelines. And one of the examples that I remember is teaching about Columbus and [also] the first Thanksgiving, and that’s what I was taught growing up. And to dismantle that, it took my adulthood to do that. And I’m still on that journey. I’m not there. I’m still working through how it’s so pervasive.
In order for me to understand what’s wrong with it, I had to learn. And I can’t learn about the harm of Christopher Columbus through just White voices. Yes, there are certain books that have been written by White historians, but you also have to center Indigenous voices. [It’s the] same thing when we are trying to dismantle and unlearn anti-Blackness. We really have to learn history. I think that’s a big thing where if you think about K-12, it’s not just Black history, it’s any history that’s not white.
I didn’t take my first Asian American studies course until college, [so] I didn’t know Asian American history. Though I had many lived experiences, I never had a way to talk about my experience [or] understand. “Oh, maybe it’s just a personal thing. It’s just an interpersonal kind of interaction. That’s the racism that I’m experiencing.” But no, it’s actually so much bigger. It’s systematic. It’s systemic. I didn’t know that until I learned history.
The same thing goes for when we are trying to dismantle anti-Blackness. We have to learn Black history, and when we do that we can’t just be focused on Black trauma. There’s a lot of “Okay, we’re going to teach slavery and that’s enough Black history.” There’s a lot of teachers who do that. “Slavery is enough or we got up to the Civil War, and that’s enough Black history for the month of February.” (First of all, it’s the shortest month and in a place like New York we’ve got a one-week long or maybe a 10-day break in February.)
It’s just so embedded, and you don’t even see it until you take a step back and look at the whole picture. So we have to unlearn a lot of our biases. But in order to unlearn a bias, you need to know what that bias is. It’s this constant lifelong struggle and journey. My goal of being an educator is to create lifelong learners, myself included. I can’t expect my students to be lifelong learners and if I myself am not engaging in that work.
Hannah Chao: The biggest thing that has been apparent is the lack of knowledge and ignorance even of a lot of people about Black lives and even our own Asian American heritage. But it’s a lot of work. It’s something that prevents people from doing the work or they run into a wall. It can seem a little daunting.
What would you say to someone who just feels like, there’s just a fire hydrant of like information coming? What are some encouragements that you would have for those people who are processing right now?
Jane Kim: So I would say first, learn what kind of learner you are. We all have different learning styles. I’m a very visual person. So, I enjoy reading, I enjoy the podcasts, but I learn best when images are seared in my mind. So first, figure out what your learning style is and then take those first few steps through that style.
If you’re trying to learn through a style that you’re not used to, you’re burdened by the content and then you’re burdened by how you’re trying to learn. If you are someone who learns best through listening to things, listen to a podcast, listen to a sermon, listen to something. If you’re a visual learner, watch the documentaries. You could even watch the ones that are based on a true story. If you’re somebody who likes to read, read the books. But it’s difficult when you don’t realize that you’re being overwhelmed not just by the content but also by the process. So figure out what type of learning style is best for you then pursue the materials that are available in those things in those ways.
Then you have to realize — this is really hard for me where I have to set the boundaries for myself — “This is how much I can process in a certain amount of time.” It’s not about how many books or how many podcasts or how many movies I’ve seen when it’s trendy or when it’s a hashtag or when it’s something that everybody’s doing. This is a lifelong journey — I say this in my article too — that I’m still on, that all of us are still on. And in order to engage in that lifelong journey, we need to be able to take breaks.
Now, that doesn’t mean completely disengage and live under a rock. But if you notice that in a seven-day week, you have been consuming information and trauma and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, my mind is blown every single day,” you’re going to obliterate your mind by the end of the night. So you need to take a step back because the fight has to continue.
We need to build up endurance; we need to be able to be in it for the long run. So it’s not just about right now, just because 2020 is the year that it is. We need to be able to build up stamina.
So one way is to figure out your learning style [with] the first few steps of learning in the way that you learn best in. And then diversifying how you learn. So I wouldn’t say, “Well, I’m a visual learner, so I’m just gonna stick to movies.” No, you have to do like all of it.
But the first step in order to engage in the process might be going with something that’s partially comfortable. That way you can focus your energy on the content instead of how you’re consuming the knowledge. Then once you’re consuming the knowledge, you need to give time to practice it. You need time to process it and really figure out, “What is my lane? What is my gift? What are the privileges that I have that I can act on or do? Maybe my activism is that I take a break from consuming knowledge, but [with] the knowledge that I have right now, I’m going to put my money towards supporting them.
Once you get into that, then okay, let me learn the next thing. We have to build on knowledge, but if it’s coming all at you, you’re gonna lose everything. So you have to build towards it.
Hannah Chao: That’s one of the things that you ended your piece with — don’t just be passive, but you have to really act — voting, for example. As Asian Americans, we tend to be more passive about a lot of actions. As a Korean American, something that I’ve noticed a lot on social media is that Korean Americans are reading things but they don’t “like” and “share.” They’ll look at it and they’ll even agree with it, but they won’t click.
I think that’s actually been a problem for Asian Americans in terms of politics. There’s not a push for kids to become politicians or to become like activists. There’s not a lot of push to go and vote. What are you hoping that this movement of “learning-to-action” will do for Asian Americans in terms of walking towards the polls to support our Black brothers and sisters?
Jane Kim: So I think there’s multiple parts to that. I grew up not really understanding the political process beyond what is taught in school. My immigrant mother came and was just trying to survive, just trying day-to-day to put food on the table, barely sleeping and trying to survive. And so there was no luxury of figuring out politics and learning American history.
Recently we were watching PBS’ Asian Americans, the amazing documentary that I think everybody should watch. We were just talking and she said, “I didn’t know a lot about this” or she’ll share some history from Korea that I didn’t know about, and there was this mutual exchange of learning about history.
But then I understood that she didn’t have a luxury to learn the political system, learn the voting [system], learn everything about it, and then have that be a dinner conversation. Dinner conversation was, “What did you get on your math test?”[Learning about the political] process is something that children of immigrants may have to learn because it wasn’t something that’s part of our dinner table.
And the concept of “keep your head down” and “don’t rock the boat?” I feel like people oftentimes think that this is cultural, like that’s how people are motherland as well. But if I think about Korean, if you think about the Gwangju uprising, South Korea became the country it is now based on its protests. And they were successful in actually getting their president impeached because of activism and protest.
So it’s not that it’s not part of our culture. But I think there was a shift when you become part of immigrant culture. It’s so intertwined. I remember a couple years ago, I got a DM where somebody said, “You can’t just tell people to go vote.” I said, “Can you expand on that a little bit?” They replied, “Well, you can’t just tell people to go to the polls because we don’t know who we’re voting for.” And I said, “Okay, that is why certain websites exist, so you go and you learn your ballot.”
Hannah Chao: Your ballot might also have a guide.
Jane Kim: It was kind of like “You can’t tell me to just go vote.” I would understand that if you are not a citizen. I can’t tell you to go vote because you can’t. But if your excuse is, “Well, I just don’t know enough,” then that’s on us to think, “Okay, I know that there’s an election. There’s so many websites out there.”
First of all, are you registered to vote. And then do your research and then vote in the interest of those who are most marginalized. Vote in the interest of those who may not be represented.
Hannah Chao: I think that’s a really important point that once we’re the children of immigrants, especially, we don’t have that excuse of not being citizens. We have that right and the opportunity to learn and vote. There hasn’t been a lot of traditions when you’re an immigrant to go to the polls with your parents. But the Asian American community can build [this] and that the church can support. Now, obviously, we’re not saying pastors can endorse candidates from the pulpit. But yeah, these protests have shown us that our churches oftentimes have been a little too silent on some of these issues that obviously do roll into politics, because politics is just policies. We can have a stronger voice as Christians and as Asian American Christians, and so it’s a great reminder.
Jane Kim: But I think it’s also important for us to understand the American church and American Christianity’s role in politics as well. Because there is a reason that there’s pandering, right? There’s a reason why politicians visit historically Black churches. You see our current occupant in the White House. There’s a reason, and the American church definitely played a role in that.
With Asian American churches, there’s going to be a lot of talk [to go] this way or that, but we can’t be silent. So if there’s something blatantly egregious and is sinful, the church still has a responsibility [to speak]. Church leaders have a responsibility to not necessarily say, “You have to agree with me.” But to say, “Hey, church, we need to be informed on these topics.”
Maybe we get the graduating seniors of the youth group and we’re going to have a process of teaching you how to register to vote. So if churches are adamant about not endorsing a candidate, they should be actively teaching what is biblical and and how that plays into how we love our neighbor in tangible ways.
Because what’s going to happen is, [if] you don’t talk about it in church, people are going to look for it elsewhere. Because it’s not like the absence of answers makes the question go away. When we have que
stions, we’re going to seek it out, and don’t you want the church to be where people get sound biblical teaching, rather than “Let me get my political views formed by something of this world.”
We want our worldviews to be shaped by the Bible, by Scripture, by our faith. I’m not saying your sermons have to be about the election every time. No, I’m saying, “Do you have a space where people feel comfortable to ask questions?”
I think that’s where we all are. We’re like, “What do we do? What do we ask? How do I act?”
I wouldn’t say it’s timidity, but there is a sense of perfectionism that I have and I noticed a lot of my friends have. It’s that you’re afraid of messing up. You’re afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing. So there’s a passivity: “Maybe I won’t like this article because I’m not sure what the rest of the people think, and so I don’t want to support something that I technically support, but I don’t want other people knowing that I support it.”
Everybody’s on their different journey. There’s so many different reasons why somebody might act or not act. [So] I think it’s important for us to create space for these discussions.
After my article went live, I got a lot of people asking me, “Hey, can you join our Zoom reading group or Zoom discussion group.” And I think it’s great that people are so hungry to know more that they’re creating these spaces.
[But] what I’m also learning is that it’s like, “We are gonna get together as an Asian American Christian group,” but it’s never within a specific church. So you’ve got these pockets of people in different churches saying, “Well, my Asian American church is not talking about it” or my predominantly white church is not talking about this, so I’m going to go ahead and create a space with like-minded people from different churches.” It shows that there are people wanting to engage in all these different churches. But they don’t have a space to talk about that in your church.
Hannah Chao: I hope that the increasing conversation will encourage our churches to see that there’s a need, a desire, and even a mandate for churches to really step up and really lead. [For them to] lead and for the church leadership to teach biblical values so that when it comes to applying those biblical values to politics that Christians have an answer and that they’re not afraid. Do you have anything else to add?
Jane Kim: With Asian American churches, I also think that there has to be a process of listening to Black church leaders and Black Christians because a lot of times in Asian American churches, theology and worship is very White. We’ll know all of these songs and praise leaders who are all White. If you look at your playlist, is there diversity in your playlist?
The books that we read, the Christian books that we read, the sermons that we listen to, the pastors or the theologians that are quoted from our pulpits — what’s the demographic? You can’t talk about politics and you can’t engage and vote for those who are being most heavily and negatively impacted by those policies if you don’t inform it with Black Christian voices. As a Christian, you just can’t. So there is this need for decolonizing our faith, decolonizing our minds, and learning more and listening to Black voices.
Hannah Chao: Thank you so much for this conversation. I loved how he talked about everything from education to politics to churches. As Christian, events like these show us how all of these things are intertwined and interconnected. I really appreciate you giving us this bird’s eye view and reminding us to keep learning. So thank you so much for joining us.
Jane Kim: Thank you for having me.