Hot Take: Anti-Asian Hate and Sports with Dr. Courtney Szto and Alex Wong
Shireen speaks with renowned Sports Sociologist Dr. Courtney Szto and famed basketball writer Alex Wong about the effects of anti-Asian hate on Asian athletes, on Asian communities, and on sports.
Transcript
Shireen: Hello flamethrowers, it's Shireen here. On Tuesday this week, 8 people including 6 Asian women were murdered at a separate shooting in different spas in the Atlanta, Georgia area. They are Daoyou Feng, Xiaojie Tan, Delaina Ashley Yaun, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Soon Chung Park, Yong Ae Yue, and Paul Andre Michels. Burn It All Down would like to hold space for the grieving community and have a discussion about the intensity and what’s happening this week for the Asian community in Canada, the United States, and beyond. With me I have Dr. Courtney Szto. Dr. Szto is assistant professor in the school of kinesiology and health studies at Queen's University. Her research focuses on intersectional justice in sports and physical activity. She’s also the managing editor for Hockey in Society. She’s on the advisory board for the Black Girl Hockey Club.
We’re also joined by Alex Wong, who’s a freelancer writer based in Toronto, and the author of the upcoming book, Cover Story: The NBA and Modern Basketball as Told through Its Most Iconic Magazine Covers. He has written about issues related to Asian representation in sports for the New York Times and ESPN and The Undefeated, among other places, and has been part of Asian writer programs offering one on one mentorship to aspiring writers. Thank you both for being here today.
Courtney: Thanks for having us.
Shireen: So, this has been an absolute shit week. First of all, how are you both doing? Alex.
Alex: Yeah, I can start. I think it doesn’t help to be honest, to be living in a pandemic for I guess over a year now. I feel like a lot of us are managing a lot of things day to day and hearing about a lot of east Asian hate crimes that have been happening, and especially this incident in Atlanta. Honestly, for me personally it’s just been a huge difference – I’ve been thinking a lot about this – of as an Asian person and as a minority, you're always aware that people have these stereotypes and racial thoughts about people in your community. But it feels a lot different and it's a lot more worrying when you know that you’re kind of being a targeted group and starting to realize that all of this increase in the hate crimes that we know directly why those things are happening is I think the most scary part. I think for Courtney and for a lot of other people too, it’s like…I think about my parents and I think about my family and my friends, and we shouldn't be kind of living our lives knowing that we have to look behind our backs and live in this fear. I think that’s the scariest thing, and reading the stories of these women who you named at the top who were murdered…Honestly, it's just hard for me to read about the stories about them, but I do think it’s obviously important to be talking about it.
Courtney: Yeah, building on what Alex is saying, I think for me personally the toughest part is seeing all the social media videos of elderly Chinese women being attacked across various cities and on both sides of the border. I think that that’s…Again, maybe the pandemic is a little bit helpful in that respect because then I don't have to worry about my grandma being out on the streets and then it's kind of like one less thing to worry about, but it’s definitely…When you see those videos you think of your own family. So I think that those visuals are necessary in some way, but they’re definitely hard to watch.
Shireen: Thank you both for that. I wanted to sort of go through one thing and address as well what’s happening in the rise since the pandemic started of anti-Asian hate crimes that have occurred, which are predicated within white supremacy and systems of oppression, but also baseless, and really really also foundationally put upon racist tropes. There’s a quote that I wanted to read from Natalie Chou who’s a UCLA basketball player and she says, “I know something as simple as changing the name of the virus can create real hurt. To call his pandemic anything other than the technical name it has been given is disrespectful and ultimately racist. Calling it the ‘Chinese virus’ and the ‘Hong Kong virus’ or ‘kung flu’ or anything of that sort is racist. There’s absolutely no need to refer to coronavirus in this way. It’s not witty or funny. It’s ignorant, insensitive and prejudiced.” This is from an article, as told to Charlotte Gibson for ESPN, March 26th 2020. So, this was a year ago, and we still are in the same place, or in much worse terms in some places than we were a year ago. Do you feel that at all?
Alex: Yeah, Courtney, do you want to start?
Courtney: It’s definitely worse. I mean, I think where this…If we can kind of contextualize everything, Asians are often used to uphold anti-Black racism. Those of us seen in the racial “middle” or known as the “model minorities” meaning that we're not necessarily seen as a drain on society in the same way that Black and brown bodies have been produced, and most importantly that we don’t complain about the racism that we face. We have historically been used as a weapon against Black, Latinx and Indigenous communities. White supremacy says to Black and brown communities, “Look at those Asians. Look at them – they work hard, they keep their head down, they don’t say anything, they don’t cause any trouble, why can’t you be more like them?” This framing is problematic for a few reasons. One, it creates tension between BIPOC communities. Two, it's not contextually accurate because it ignores the way that immigration facilitates who comes to a country – with money usually – and then they’re able to move up the social ladder. Three, we’re still always foreign regardless of how many degrees or positions of power we accrue.
So, the fear around Asians has always revolved disease and deceptiveness, and that comes from a legitimate fear of cultural and/or military power with imperialist Japan as a historical example and now China, having both legitimate economic and military power in its own right. So, I think what we’ve seen with respect to anti-Asian racism is it comes in waves and that the violence is kind of sporadic and it revolves around something like SARS or Japanese internment or when Trump calls it the ‘China virus.’ So, in a way this wave of violence gives us a little bit of insight, or particular generations into what Black communities face on a daily basis. I think this is just kind of a peak that we’re seeing, a lot of different things coming together at the same time. On most days the racism that Asians face is about invisibility – invisibility in the media, we don’t get to see ourselves, and then every once in a while it peaks up into these more violent manifestations, and this is the time we find ourselves in right now.
Alex: Yeah, I think a really good point, Courtney, I think you made too, is that I feel like a lot of people – and I’m probably speaking to people more outside the Asian communities – don't realize the history of racism towards Asians, you know? I think a lot of these conversations obviously have been centered around the rhetoric by Trump in the US of pushing these narratives and obviously having a direct impact on these hate crimes that are happening. But I think it's important for a lot of people to realize too, like what Courtney has mentioned, there’s a long history of this and I feel like we only participate in these conversations when there is these kind of surges in violent crimes. The other thing I think is important for me too, and I’ll call myself out on this too, is that a lot of times I feel like when I have these conversations I like to just use the term “Asian” as if it’s some kind of catchall term, as if it's just this monolith.
It’s funny to me because…It's not funny, but you know, I think about these women that were murdered, like, how many of the people reading about this story even know about their ethnicity outside of the face that these were Asian women who were killed? Chinese people, there’s a whole diaspora of that. When you look at Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese – you could go on, right? I think it’s important. I know the starting points are hard for a lot of people to participate in this conversation and there's a lot of work to be done to just kind of educate everyone on a lot of these topics, but I do think it's very important as a starting point for everyone to also realize that Asian people are not this monolith, because that’s one way that it drives these stereotypes because of a president calling it the "China flu,” suddenly it impacts every single Asian community. To me, that’s another point that I feel like people should be aware of and be talking about.
Shireen: Alex, to that point, and very much that those within East Asian or Southeast Asian communities, they can’t be identified in the communities that they belong to, which is itself...I mean, as somebody who’s technically Asian from that continent but South Asian, and that for my community there's a conflation between Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and India and all this kind of thing that people don't realize, and the deep histories that are so rooted there. But just to pivot to another part, this whole issue about this specific type of racism that definitely has been existant in the history of it – how has it affected sports in that sense? You focus very much on basketball, and this isn’t something that's new. This has been around for a while. So, how is this affecting sports as we know it?
Alex: Yeah, speaking just particularly to the basketball space because, like you mentioned, that's the space that I pay closest attention to, I think that the most obvious example and probably I guess the only example because there's not a lot of Asians playing in basketball has been Jeremy Lin, right? From however long ago this is now, probably a decade or longer since he was in college, he’s been talking about opposing players and fans shouting racial slurs at him and even showing up to the arena and security having to check his badge even though he’s a player on the team, something that wouldn't have happened to him if he didn’t look the way he did.
Of course most recently he spoke out because he was playing in the G League and one of the opposing players called him “coronavirus” on the court, and he declined to name the player and I think his reasoning was that this wasn't the whole point of it, to call someone out. He wanted to make an example out of this situation. I believe what the league did was actually launch an official investigation into the matter. But yeah, I think from the basketball space Jeremy has been unfortunately kind of the only example that we can continue to point to, but I think that his experience is very reflective of what any other Asian in sports would face, whether it’s a man, woman, or any sport, basketball or anything else.
Shireen: Courtney, the PWHPA released a statement on this and I’m not sure, forgive me if I'm incorrect, I hadn’t seen any other organization or league do it. How did that come to be?
Courtney: I guess we haven't seen too many from the hockey space. They basically just sent it to me to have a look at before they sent it out, so they came up with it on their own and I think it’s a result of the work we’ve been doing this past season. We’ve done 6 sessions once a month with the PWHPA, and we’ve covered everything from Indigeneity to intersectionality and cultural appropriation. Ironically one of the things we didn't cover was anti-Asian racism, and when I was trying to figure out the programs that we would do I had figured, well, it's not as important, like, they need to know the fundamentals. We need to get both sides of the spectrum, we need to understand whiteness and we need to understand Blackness and Indigeneity, and then the middle stuff we can get to at a later point. So now I’m kicking myself that I didn’t think that it wasn't more relevant and then they could've been a little bit more prepared for this moment, but I think that's the issue that there's so many different things to cover when we're doing anti-racism education. It’s like, how can you do it all? And yet it's all super interconnected once you’re kind of down the rabbit hole.
Shireen: I mean, props again to the league. I didn't think that discussion would actually start or manifest in women's hockey, so that's great. It needs to happen. I’m wondering if either of you feel that sports organizations have done enough to address this specific topic, and at those intersections where there's been significant talk of anti-Blackness and police brutality. But how are the intersections doing here and how are they coming into play? Alex.
Alex: Yeah, I think with regards to just sports organizations in general, and maybe I'm speaking more in general terms in terms of just how they're overall approaching a lot of these anti-racism and police brutality initiatives even beyond just covering the anti-Asian hate crimes, I think there's a huge difference between what these organizations do publicly versus the steps that they’re taking behind the scenes. I think it’s nice to make public statements and it’s nice to organize discussions and have panels about it. Shireen, I had shared with you I recorded a panel with members of the Raptors organization this week for Asian members to discuss these topics, and this wasn't a reactionary thing, you know? This was something that was actually organized over a month ago, just as a way to kind of start the conversation about Asians in the basketball space. But that's nice and all, and I’ve let MLSE and the Raptors organization know about this too.
But when you’re talking about understanding the real issues, not just in Asian communities but obviously within the basketball space and within the media space that I operate in, a lot of those conversations are probably more constructive if we have them privately, if I can kind of share those experiences of other writers that I’ve talked to and things that I've noticed about processes that are preventing other Asian writers from having the equal opportunities that we want, and I feel like a lot of organizations sometimes view those conversations as combative when I think most of us are just trying to come to the table to get the fair shot. That's it. And sometimes it's not even that – sometimes I think a lot of us just want the opportunity to share our point of view because it seems that nobody wants to listen. So, I guess that would be kind of my larger takeaway answer to you, Shireen, is that I think the statements and the acknowledgements of these things are very important, but to me they're just a starting point and to me it feels like all we ever do, whether it was the Black Lives Matter movement or the anti-Asian hate crimes now, is we just always do the start of the conversation but there's never a kind of follow up to actually enact actual change.
Courtney: Yeah, I would agree with Alex there, that it's like the statement is nice just so that we know that people are paying attention and that they're not completely obtuse to the world around them, but beyond that they don’t actually have any meaning. It doesn’t invoke any feeling in me when I read these press statements that are released and in theory instead of organizations saying one for Black Lives Matter when things come up, one for anti-Asian hate, and just kind of doing these spot checks, they could just have one that talks about white supremacy and they put that out ever time in theory, right? We’re not addressing the real root of the problem, which is overt white supremacy that exists throughout society. It's like, yeah, we stand with this community, we stand with that community, but what are you actually doing in your own community so that we don’t have to have these conversations? So, yeah, we are far from where we need to be, that's for sure.
Shireen: So, some very prominent athletes, as Alex mentioned Jeremy Lin, but also Chloe Kim, Katelyn Ohashi and Taylor Rapp – he’s a safety with the Rams – have been using their social media and the responses have been overwhelming of people just saying they didn't know about this stuff because sometimes people just simply don’t know. So, do you think that athletes have…I mean, this is a very similar question we hear about Black athletes. Do you think it's the responsibility of these particular athletes from these communities to use their social media and their platform considering they’re so few? There’s really not a numerous amount in professional sports. Do you think that’s something that they should be doing? Alex.
Alex: Yeah, no, I think definitely because like you mentioned there's just not a lot of voices. If everything that we talked about, about how statements are often just the start of the conversation, I don’t wanna take away from the importance of it either. I think for a lot of people, especially a lot of people in the Asian community who are huge sports fans and look to these athletes, to see the acknowledgement…I think sometimes we underestimate how big of a difference that that can make to a lot of individuals that are following these situations. I think the other thing too, in addition to the Asian athletes that you’ve mentioned, is that seeing people like LeBron James or Dwayne Wade, people that pay attention in the basketball speaking out about it too, you know, for me personally seeing that was important. I think right now just kind of acknowledging the issues is very important, so I think it is great that a lot of these athletes are doing that.
Courtney: Yeah, I think my consistent gripe with athletes – but really anybody that's got a social media account – is that they’re probably not using it to it’s fullest capability. You've been given this great megaphone, what are you actually using it for? Not that we can’t have puppies and fun memes on there, but one of the greatest things that participatory media has given us is the ability to amplify our own voices and the voices of our community. So I think we've seen social media more as a corporate tool for a lot of these athletes to brand themselves and things like that, and hopefully that this is kind of a sea change that people realize that it's not just that. It can be that as well, but you can do a lot more with it and enhance and add depth to your brand as well.
Shireen: Yeah, definitely, that’s a great point. So, do you have information on how can our listeners can actually help eradication campaigns of anti-Asian hate? Are there places we should look to to donate?
Alex: Yeah, I just wanna call out a few of these networks. One of them is called Red Canary Song and they're a network that seeks advocacy and resources for workers in Chinese massage parlors across the country. Another one is Butterfly which is an Asian and migrant sex worker support network, and actually if anybody is just looking for a full list of resources GQ Magazine actually has a very good kind of complication of lists that you can sort through. I know a lot of times when people are looking for resources sometimes the hardest thing is just where to look, and making their own personal decisions on kind of what makes sense for them to donate towards.
So, I believe if you go to GQ Magazine's Instagram page you will find one of their recent posts that has all of them and you can click on the link through. And if I can, before I pass it to Courtney, for podcast listeners I like to recommend Jay Caspian Kang who's a writer that I respect very much – he has a podcast called Time To Say Goodbye that discusses a lot of these different Asian issues, that he hosts with Andy Liu and Tammy Kim. I’ve learned a lot from their conversations and they have a lot of smart guests on to talk about a lot of these topics and about the history of racism towards Asians in America. So, that's just another call out I can make if anybody wants to check that out, that they wanna learn more.
Courtney: Yeah, I think Alex has given a great list of resources there. I think I'll add some individual things that folks can do. One is that you need to speak up when you hear people using this term like “China virus.” That's an opportunity for you to be part of the solution. We need media depictions that reflect the athleticism that exists within the Asian community, that’s a huge thing. If you want some fun viewing that is good learning as well, the Ugly Delicious series on Netflix I would highly recommend. It’s about Asian food and Asian culture, but also about how cultural appropriation is one form of anti-Asian racism. It’s like, why are you willing to pay only $10 for that dish in a Chinese restaurant but if it's a fusion restaurant served by a white chef you're willing to pay $25? It’s the same thing, that's what leads to these kinds of larger forms of oppression and discrimination. So, it's a fun watch if you’re into food culture.
Shireen: I love that you just pivoted for me, exactly my favorite topic is food, because I had asked you both what your favorite foods were, because at some point I was like I kinda wanna make this light. I mean, I understand the gravity of this discussion but I did want to point to what you just talked about is food and culture. Alex, favorite food?
Alex: Chicken feet. You asked me that's what I told you, right? I literally with my friends John and Jamie a few years ago, you know, we started this t-shirt brand – god, every person has a t-shirt brand – [Shireen laughs] of just printing our favorite dim sum items on t-shirts and we donated a lot of the money actually to a few of the Chinese museums in New York and some Chinatown initiatives here in Toronto. But yeah, the first idea that we came up with was the chicken feet, and I've always tried to kind of convert people to trying that because i think sometimes they're a little because of the texture and the bones involved. But I’ve converted a few people. I’ve talked to Serge Ibaka about this, alright?
Shireen: Ooh, look at that flex! [laughs]
Alex: Yeah, big flex. But no, chicken feet is my answer. I’ll digress on the stories.
Shireen: I’m here for that. Court?
Courtney: I’m a bad Cantonese person and I dislike dim sum strongly. [laughter]
Shireen: How is this possible!?
Courtney: I don't know, it’s not my thing. I grew up eating chicken feet; it’s not my thing now. I’m okay with folks and their chicken feet camp. No, sushi is my go-to for food and if I could eat it every day all day that’s what I would do.
Shireen: Shoutout Miku in Vancouver or Toronto if you’re happy to send Courtney and Alex free sushi, please do that as a form of solidarity.
Alex: I’m pretty sure I’ve been to Miku in Vancouver. So Miku, send me some sushi.
Shireen: You know what, I actually refuse to eat sushi in Toronto after eating it in Vancouver. I’ve become such a snob, it’s Courtney’s fault.
Alex: Oh, you don't even understand – I went to Japan eight years ago and I’ve been a snob since, ever since I went to the fish market there.
Shireen: Okay. Alright.
Alex: I talk down to everyone, including you at this very moment.
Shireen: [laughs] Serge Ibaka wasn’t enough, Alex?! You went there with me on this show? Oh my gosh.
Alex: You know I’m not a humble person, don’t yell at me.
Shireen: [laughs] I will totally yell at you after, in Urdu probably as well. Before we go, Alex, there was a fantastic story when I told my co-hosts that I was gonna interview you, Jessica asked me – we were talking about food – because you have a particular interest in cereal boxes…
Alex: Oh yes. First of all, it’s not an interest in cereal boxes, I’m just a hoarder in general. I know listeners can’t see the video right now but we’re recording this on Zoom and I clearly have a virtual background because I’m embarrassed of how my room looks at all times to be honest. No, I like collecting anything sports-related like collectibles. I grew up collecting sports jerseys and sports cards. I moved on to sports pins, sports patches for a while. I was on Etsy looking up OHL hockey patches, I’m not sure why. It just seemed cool, like an Oshawa Generals patch that for some reason I just had to have boxed up somewhere. So, to the story about the cereal boxes – Jessica Luther, obviously huge fan of her work, love the book that she did last year with Kavitha Davidson, Loving Sports When They Don't Love You Back. She had, I believe, posted on Instagram these Tim Duncan San Antonio Spurs cereal boxes because she’s from Texas, right? I of course had no shame and I messaged her and I asked her if she'd be able to send me a box, and she me five of them. So, they were proudly displayed. I don't know if she thought I was actually going to have the cereal, I guess it was none of her business [laughs] and I didn't divulge that information to her. But yeah, they were proudly displayed on my bookshelves for a while now. I guess they've been rotated out for other things, and they are sitting in a storage space somewhere. So, when I dig them up, Shireen, I will give you three of those boxes. Don’t let your kids eat them! I think they're expired. I don't know how cereals work, to be honest. I know I'm 36 but yeah.
Shireen: I love that two of the things that Alex is deeply connected to is basketball but also Tim Duncan and Serge Ibaka, which are two of my favorite basketball things, so I was really happy to have that story. Continuing down this rabbit hole story, which I love, I was at Jess’s house in 2017 and saw that cereal box and was very close to stealing it off her breakfast table but her son was eating breakfast and I thought it would be really bad etiquette as a guest to take the food and hide it. But you know what, I think that I should’ve because she would’ve been open to that and okay with it. She's pretty chill like that. Where can our listeners find you, Courtney, and your work and the phenomenal things you do? I will say this, that in the spaces that you both occupy you are literally changing so much about the game and the conversations about the game, so my sincerest thanks to both of you. Court, where can we find your work?
Courtney: Very kind of you. I really appreciate anytime I get to be on with the flamethrowers. Best place to find me would be on Twitter @courtneyszto, all one word.
Alex: Yeah, Twitter for me as well, @steven_lebron. And check out, honestly, just get more Asian voices in your social networks and your timelines. It’s important, it’s important to not use these opportunities to make statements and have conversations about it and move on. I don’t know how I can continue to remain optimistic that things can change, but I try to, and I hope that as long as we have people like Courtney yourself and Shireen and a lot of other people pushing these messages that we are able to create change over time.
Shireen: I thank you very much for that, and again to both of you, I know it’s been a really shit week and a very difficult time, but I do wanna thank you for your time and energy and, again, flamethrowers, you have the links that were both mentioned. So, if you could please do that that would be awesome, and again anybody out there we stand in solidarity against any forms of hate, bigotry and discrimination, and absolutely abhor it. If you have more information that you wanna share with us, feel free to drop us a line. Thank you to Dr. Courtney Szto and Alex Wong.