Thread by @adatseng

I want to tell you about these Asian & Black solidarity stories @JessicaQChen & I did for @latimes. @diananguyenart's art is so beautiful & the video makes me tear up, watching @rtajima @DocMellyMel @zentronix talk & @ashlynso_ representing our future.🧵
latimes.com/lifestyle/stor…

After Atlanta spa shootings, @JessicaQChen wanted to film young Asian American activists. She found 13-year-old @ashlynso_ in Oakland organizing a Black & Asian solidarity rally, after the viral videos of Asian seniors being attacked were causing tensions.
latimes.com/lifestyle/stor…

The narrative that it was Black assailants attacking Asians didn't match the data. @rtajima & @zentronix released #SeeUsUnite May 19 Project, named after Malcolm X & Yuri Kochiyama's shared bday, to remind people of a history of Asian American solidarity

We wanted to stop & think about where we are now, over a year after George Floyd's murder, months after Atlanta spa + Indianapolis FedEx shootings. There have been signs, sympathy & support. But is that solidarity? Or does solidarity require more?
latimes.com/lifestyle/stor…

Grateful to BLM-LA co-founder/Pan-African Studies prof. @DocMellyMel & filmmaker/Asian American studies prof @rtajima for agreeing to have a candid conversation about Black & Asian solidarity. Wish u could've all been there. Did our best to bring it to you
latimes.com/lifestyle/stor…

Melina Abdullah went to an Oakland school that was 1/2 Black, 1/2 Chinese. Renee Tajima-Peña grew up in Black & Japanese LA neighborhoods. They talk about what it's like to live in the same spaces. How the relationships are both problematic & beautiful.
latimes.com/lifestyle/stor…

When you talk to people on the ground doing community-building work, solidarity isn't a feel-good action. It requires big social risks & it's about changing systems. @BldingMovement's @dviyer & anti-racist consultant/author @but_im_kim_tran break it down.
latimes.com/lifestyle/stor…

@zentronix says some think talking about how America has marginalized people makes us look less heroic. But looking at the ways that people moved away from being pitted against each other to forging collective solutions -- that's where the real heroism is.
latimes.com/lifestyle/stor…