Addressing Anti-Blackness in the Japanese American Community

Following the tragedy of George Floyd’s murder, members of the NY/SC saw a need to equip young people, activists, and organizers with the tools to address anti-Black rhetoric and attitudes that we see in our own community. We initiated a collaboration with Next Generation Nikkei in Chicago, Tsuru for Solidarity, Northern California Nikkei Community Interns, and a variety of other individuals to pull together a webinar on anti-Blackness in the Japanese American community; called “Building Your Toolkit: Addressing Anti-Blackness in the Japanese American Community.” This workshop featured a variety of segments, including one on history, solidarity-building, community partnerships, and strategies for approaching conversations with compassion. Each segment was broken up by smaller discussion groups, facilitated by the 13 organizers. Attendees were able to take away concrete skills and techniques to facilitate these conversations in their own communities.

Slides from this workshop are available for viewing at the bottom of the page.

Be sure also to take advantage of the funding opportunity we have! the NY/SC is offering an application to fund more conversations and workshops like this one, available to anyone that is interested.

That link can be found here: http://bit.ly/startingconversations

Let’s continue to have these conversations and do the hard work!