Angel Wu is understandably outraged that her well-educated, Christian Taiwanese American mother fell headlong into the Q-Anon/Anti-Vax rabbit hole. Convinced that John F. Kennedy, Jr., was alive and well and living on a remote island, she refused to be vaccinated. So when she caught COVID-19, it killed her. This is a part of the conspiracy story that rarely gets told. But Angel was mad enough and brave enough to shed some needed light on it.
Actor Chen Tang is back as the irrepressible Chinese hitman "Hong" in the MAX series Warrior. Originally created by Cinemax and based on Bruce Lee's original writings, the first two seasons garnered rave reviews and spawned a rabid fanbase. But when Cinemax decided that it would no longer fund original programming, Warrior seemed to have hit a dead end. However, MAX (formerly known as HBO Max) quickly saw that this series first two seasons were hugely popular on their platform, so they reunited the Warrior team, rebuilt 19th century Chinatown set in South Africa, and Season 3 is now set to launch on June 29th! Every aspect of this show is top-shelf, which is why I've been a longtime fan and why I'm so excited to see what's in store for this new season.
Therapist, writer and world traveller Sharon Kwon returns to my podcast in light of her April Slate article "The Most Emotional Scene in Beef Gets at a Deeper Truth" (https://slate.com/culture/2023/04/beef-netflix-steven-yeun-korean-church.html). Growing up as a child of a pastor of a Korean American church, Sharon experienced conflicting emotions watching the numerous scenes that were in this setting. I also saw this as an opportunity to ask her watch she thinks about the now-controversial casting of David Choe to play "Isaac" in this popular Netflix show. You can follow Sharon on Instagram @talkwithsharon and you can also visit her website (www.sharonkwon.com).
I recorded this conversation for last year's Pride Month, but as a favor to my guest and former graduate student Ian Shen, I held off posting it until he was ready for his heartfelt journey to be shared around the world on my platform. He chose this year's Pride Month for me to release his episode. It was totally worth the wait.
In this latest edition of a collaborative episode between podcasters Fong and Kemp, we tackle the White Innocence problem, taking turns reading a recent Op Ed in the LA Times by UNC law professor Osamudia James, and then Kemp opens up about how he came to reject his own embrace of White Innocence.