I last had Lisa Sharon Harper on in the immediate aftermath of the now-infamous "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville. She'd been part of a peaceful pushback by Christian clergypersons. She's recently published "Fortune," where she intertwines the experiences of ten generations of her forebearers and white America's history of passing racist, unjust laws. And in light of how some of the Senators badgered SCOTUS nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, we found time to talk about how ascendant BIPOC candidates are tested to see if they are "safe" enough to be given power and authority in historically white organizations.
Russell Leong, especially through his words, has long helped to shape the Asian American movement. He was an undergrad at SF State as students went on strike to demand an ethnic studies program. He was the editor of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center "AmerAsia Journal" for more than three decades, and then as the founding editor of "The CUNY FORUM: Asian American/Asian Studies."
If you didn't grow up as a certain kind of Christian, you might be dumbfounded as to why so many conserverative American Christians admire Russia's President Putin, despite his ahborrent abuse of power and his current unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Fong and Kemp discuss where this oxymoronic support comes from, and also discuss the Far Right's racist dog whistles aimed at Biden's SCOTUS nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.