reading when i can

A collection of words from books I've read, along with my ramblings.

[smokefalls]

Title: We Are Each Other’s Liberation: Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities Editors: Rachel Kuo, Jaimee A. Swift, and TD Tso Publication Year: 2025 Publisher: Haymarket Books Genre: nonfiction, essays, poetry

I admittedly spent quite a few days trying to figure out how I felt about this collection—and I do want to emphasize that it’s addressing an unbelievably important topic—but I found that it didn’t work for me as well as I really hoped it would. To first focus on a couple positives, though, I really appreciated the editors’ commitment to extend the meaning of “Asian American” to go beyond East Asians. I also appreciated the consciousness that many of the contributors had of class(ism) and the impact of US imperialism/colonization.

I had mixed feelings about the blend of prose and poetry. On the one hand, I can understand the desire to present different angles on Black–Asian solidarity. However, it personally didn’t work for me, and I found the inconsistency took away from the overarching message. Some chapters in this collection felt as though it could be inaccessible due to the way these authors lean more towards academic prose; then there were other chapters that read more like Introduction to Intersectional Feminism guides. Regardless of writing style, I was disappointed that a lot of these contributions didn’t go as in depth as I would have liked. However, I think what’s offered in this book might be more insightful to readers who are either a) unfamiliar with Black–Asian history/relations in the US and/or b) not part of these communities.

Lastly, I was surprised that not much was said about queerness and, perhaps more alarmingly, the complete absence of trans women—especially trans Black women—in this collection. I realize this book can’t possibly hit all social categories (let alone in great depth), but it seemed like a total misstep to not have a single contributor discuss the role of trans women in these spaces.

Content Warning: sexism; misogyny; racism; death; murder; colonization; police brutality; classism; ableism; genocide; gun violence; references to pandemic, war, deportation, torture, slavery, sexual assault, suicide, incarceration, and abortion

[smokefalls]

Solidarities of any kind are never easy. Yet, they are necessary for the survival of us all and the natural world. Every group that seeks to be in solidarity with another bears the burden of conflictual histories, within itself and across groups with whom they aspire to bond, to build relationships, and to create societal changes. Most often, the conflicts are not of their own making, and the groups are positioned as “opposites.” Nonetheless, the burdens and scars of intentional and forced divisions shape the values, intentions, and relational practices of the actors, not to mention the groups’ collective memories.

Margo Okazawa-Rey, "Afterword: Tough Love" from We Are Each Other's Liberation: Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities (edited by Rachel Kuo, Jaimee A. Swift, and TD Tso)

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Creating a radical self-love world requires our willingness to have challenging conversations about privilege, power, history, culture, inequality, pain, and injustice.

Sonya Renee Taylor, "Unapologetic Agreements" from We Are Each Other's Liberation: Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities (edited by Rachel Kuo, Jaimee A. Swift, and TD Tso)

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Moving from a radical self-love that transforms you to a radical love that creates justice and equity in the world may feel like a tall order, but you are already on your way. As we cultivate new ways of being in our own bodies, we develop new ways of being on this planet with other bodies. A return to radical self-love requires our commitment to building shame-free, inclusive communities that uplift one another while honestly addressing body terrorism and all the ways it manifests as oppression based on age, race, gender, size, ability, sexual orientation, mental health status, and all other human attributes. Some will deride our efforts with charges of playing to “identity politics.” We should remind those people that they, too, have identities that are informed by their bodies. Their lack of awareness about those identities generally means their body falls into a multiplicity of default identities that uphold the social hierarchy of bodies. The luxury of not having to think about one’s body always comes at another body’s expense. We should, with compassion, remind them that oppression oppresses us all, even those who are default. Not even they will always have a body at the top of the ladder. No one wins in a world of body terrorism.

Sonya Renee Taylor, "Unapologetic Agreements" from We Are Each Other's Liberation: Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities (edited by Rachel Kuo, Jaimee A. Swift, and TD Tso)

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I am stardust sparkling the night’s sky. Not bound by any limitations. Free to be seen, free to be heard in all of my beauty.

Simone Devi Jhingoor, "Claiming My Power" from We Are Each Other's Liberation: Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities (edited by Rachel Kuo, Jaimee A. Swift, and TD Tso)

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Diaspora has the agency to remake culture and tradition, just like those in the homeland.

Jane Shi, "Reimagining the Autistic Mother Tongue" from We Are Each Other's Liberation: Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities (edited by Rachel Kuo, Jaimee A. Swift, and TD Tso)

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Names are complicated. They’re sacred and beautiful. And they’re also hidden away, stolen, forced on a person, made up, and subject to change.

Jane Shi, "Reimagining the Autistic Mother Tongue" from We Are Each Other's Liberation: Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities (edited by Rachel Kuo, Jaimee A. Swift, and TD Tso)

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We must define care, love, and intimacy for ourselves outside of capitalist logic and abandon the grammar of patriarchy. I believe love requires care, but care does not require love. You can care for someone or be caring, but that does not mean you are loving. Like bell hooks, I view care and care ethics as something we do and show praxis. I am not invested in making people love each other. My care ethic says I do not need to love you, and I don’t exactly need to know you. Still, I understand our fundamental interdependence, and I am clear about what the stakes against capitalism and patriarchy are.

Monaye Johnson, "A Black Feminist Perspective on the Politics of Care" from We Are Each Other's Liberation: Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities (edited by Rachel Kuo, Jaimee A. Swift, and TD Tso)

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When I use the word “love,” I do not mean agape or any Christian-based idea pushing us to love our enemies. I mean a love and care ethic rooted in Black feminist principles—it acknowledges that the world is awful and wants you to hate yourself and Blackness. Still, you instead practice refusal of patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy.

Monaye Johnson, "A Black Feminist Perspective on the Politics of Care" from We Are Each Other's Liberation: Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities (edited by Rachel Kuo, Jaimee A. Swift, and TD Tso)

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Pain as a uniting force can be useful. It has the power to bring people into the struggle. When we are able to name the harms against us, we can then band together to protect ourselves against them. Our disappointment, grief, and righteous anger drives us to fight back and to imagine a better world in which we can thrive. But more and more I’ve found myself curious about the opposite: How can we unite based on our shared love, joy, and humanity?

TD Tso, "Finding Solidarity and Survival Within a Transnational, Intergenerational Zoom Dance Party" from We Are Each Other's Liberation: Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities (edited by Rachel Kuo, Jaimee A. Swift, and TD Tso)

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There is a conscious choice in aligning yourself as part of a larger group beyond the prebuilt identifiers offered to you—like ones built on race, nationality, ethnicity, religion. To claim an identity built on solidarities requires a larger view outside of oneself and interrogates the functions of “identity.”

Julie Ae Kim, "Meditations on Black/Asian Locations" from We Are Each Other's Liberation: Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities (edited by Rachel Kuo, Jaimee A. Swift, and TD Tso)

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The notion of going beyond gilded cages is both about real cages—jails, prisons, detention centers, foster homes, psych wards—and the glittering lies used to weld them. It is also about the metaphorical cages: the lackluster politics of representation, fantasies of multiracial unity, and callous dismissals of past failure, which degrade our humility and infuse our organizing with self-interest. By rejecting these false solutions, engaging in cross-border struggles, and creating necessary antiviolence resources within our communities, we can destroy the power relations that entrench injustice and oppression.

Mon M., "Beyond Gilded Cages: South Asians for Abolition" from We Are Each Other's Liberation: Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities (edited by Rachel Kuo, Jaimee A. Swift, and TD Tso)

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I think it’s hard to have solidarity if you don’t really know what’s going on with people in other places. Having an international perspective is critical to doing accountable political work. It’s very challenging for us who live here in the belly of the beast, because the United States is the root of so many problems globally. The US has a lot of blood on its hands. Even as we speak, there are undeclared wars in many different places. There’s a history of exploitation and imperialism that cannot be justified. So, it takes a lot for us here, even as people of color, to be able to be accountable across borders and to take a back seat sometimes because we don’t know everything.

Barbara Smith (interviewed by the Editors), "Revisiting a Press of Our Own" from We Are Each Other's Liberation: Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities (edited by Rachel Kuo, Jaimee A. Swift, and TD Tso)

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Being in solidarity means we have a chance at survival. In our current global climate of divisiveness, border fascism, extractive capitalism, and land grabs, solidarity across all our differences is a necessity for life and the future of our planet.

Pratibha Parmar (interviewed by Jaimee A. Swift), "Our Solidarity Is a Lifeline" from We Are Each Other's Liberation: Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities (edited by Rachel Kuo, Jaimee A. Swift, and TD Tso)

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If white, as it has been historically, is the top of the racial hierarchy in America, and black, historically, is the bottom, will Asians assume the place of the racial middle? The role of the racial middle is a critical one. It can reinforce white supremacy if the middle deludes itself into thinking it can be just like white if it tries hard enough. Conversely, the middle can dismantle white supremacy if it refuses to be the middle, if it refuses to buy into racial hierarchy, and if it refuses to abandon communities of black and brown people, choosing instead to forge alliances with them. “We will not be used” is a plea to Asian Americans to think about the ways in which our communities are particularly susceptible to playing the worst version of the racial bourgeoisie role.

Mari Matsuda, "We Will Not Be Used" from We Are Each Other's Liberation: Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities (edited by Rachel Kuo, Jaimee A. Swift, and TD Tso)

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What is particularly pernicious about the mutual misunderstanding approach is it recognizes Black suffering only to throw it in Black people’s faces. That is, the structuring logic of the mutual misunderstanding framework requires the recognition of anti-Blackness and to a certain degree, of slavery. But the mutual misunderstanding framework simultaneously suggests Black people protesting their mistreatment are perpetrators of racism against non-Black people of color. Racial power, then, is reduced to stereotypes and not considered in terms of who is in the structural position to determine or participate in the captivity or freedom of another group. This, of course, is a variation of the “reverse racism” claim.

Tamara K. Nopper, "On Anti-Black Terror, Captivity, and Black-Korean Conflict" from We Are Each Other's Liberation: Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities (edited by Rachel Kuo, Jaimee A. Swift, and TD Tso)

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When Asians internalize and perpetuate anti-Black racism and violence, we are reifying our complicity and driving a deeper wedge between our communities.

TD Tso, "Nail Salon Brawls and Boycotts: Unpacking the Black-Asian Conflict in America" from We Are Each Other's Liberation: Black and Asian Feminist Solidarities (edited by Rachel Kuo, Jaimee A. Swift, and TD Tso)