Southern Fried Asian: ‘First Vote’

With less than three weeks to go for the 2020 Presidential Election, Keith sits down with filmmaker and subjects from the new documentary, First Vote: director Yi Chen, podcaster Kaiser Kuo, and professor Dr. Jennifer Ho on this special election edition of Southern Fried Asian.

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The NRW Show: #WTF2020 Edition, Episode 2

The NRW Crew of Glenn Lawrence (of Level Up Comedy), Loy Lee AKA “Stand Up Comedian Stand Up Guy” and yours truly, Kuya P AKA Patrick Michael Strange are back with more of The NRW Show: #WTF2020 Edition! Tune in as we discuss The Presidential Debates with Joe Biden & Donald Trump, The Melania Trump Tapes, Shia Labeouf, Rick Moranis, Amazon & Covid-19, John Legend & Chrissy Teigen, Jamie Foxx back as Electro, Megan Thee Stallion’s new music video, Blackpink breaking the internet and the new trailer for Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm!

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Hard NOC Life: Fancasting the Impeachment

For the last two weeks, the most riveting show on television was actually the impeachment hearings. So naturally, Dominic and Keith convened an episode of Hard NOC Life to talk all about it.

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Southern Fried Asian: Gina Ortiz Jones

This week on Southern Fried Asian, Keith speaks with Gina Ortiz Jones, a candidate for Congress representing the 23rd District of Texas. And if you happen to live in Texas, early voting for the primary elections has already begun. So get out and vote!

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Logan: The End of Ol’ White Men

The “Whitelash” theory of Trump’s super-embarrassing slide into the presidency (well, we never claimed the U.S. wasn’t anti-intellectual, did we?) has the still-ascendant, but demographically shrinking and culturally stagnating white/cis-het/male contingent (helped substantially by their female counterparts) striking back at the diversity of Obama’s America by electing a crypto-white-supremacist in response to his racist and xenophobic dog whistles. Although not the only compelling narrative of the last year and a half, Trump’s Whitelash has enough truth to it to make it into at least a Ronald-Takaki-authored history book, if not a textbook from Texas.

Meanwhile, pop culture may be lashing in the opposite direction — and, in fact, contributing to the panic. Whereas the last Academy Awards shows of Obama’s presidency featured a field of winners that rivaled a wedding-dress-clad polar bear fainting on an iceberg for whiteness, it is President Trump’s first Oscars that saw the Academy — now led by a black woman — crowning its first African-American-made Best Picture. The last season of tv was the most diverse in history, and we don’t need numbers or stats to know this. And even the debate around diversity failures points to how far we’ve come, and how aware of the changing nature of American culture the mainstream has become.

So it’s not much of a stretch to see Logan, clearly the end of a franchise, as the gentle, mournful and mourning, Hollywood-sanctioned version of conservative white panic.

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Color Commentary: 45 and the New Regime

Color Commentary returns and for this special installment, we’re taking on the new regime that is the Trump Administration and the corrupt society that made it a reality.

Because let’s be honest, these days reality requires more suspension of disbelief than fantasy does.

Warning: The following post contains explicit depictions of white hoods and white capes being snatched.

Viewer discretion is advised.

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Your Move, Marvel

So Misty Copeland and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, two of my favorite superheroes, have spoken out against the Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank for his support of President Donald Trump. The athletic clothing company sponsors both A-list superstars. That’s both awesome and to be expected given that both Copeland and Johnson are the epitome of Black/Asian Excellence.

My question however is this. Marvel CEO Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter gave a $1 million to Trump’s presidential campaign and continues to support his administration. Why aren’t any of the white actors from Marvel Studios stepping up and calling him out like Copeland and Johnson did Plank?

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O Captain! My Captain! Chris Evans Battles the KKK (on Twitter)

With the recent confirmation of Jeff Sessions for Attorney General of the United States, Chris Evans has proved to us just how much he is like his film counterpart, Captain America. Evans recently tweeted his disappointment in the confirmation of Sessions. And his argument? David Duke’s praise for Sessions:

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Let’s Make John Lewis’ March a #1 Seller on Amazon

President-elect Donald Trump has decided to go after Civil Rights movement icon — and national hero — Congressman John Lewis. The attack comes after Rep. Lewis told NBC’s Chuck Todd that he didn’t view Trump as a legitimate president due to Russia’s interference with the 2016 election. Lewis isn’t wrong, and it is more than hypocritical for the PEOTUS to lash out at people questioning his legitimacy since that’s what he has done to President Obama for the last five years. In the meantime, Twitter has clapped back at Trump, and many of Lewis’ colleagues in congress have pledged to boycott the inauguration. We want to help out by pointing our readers to Lewis’ award-winning graphic memoir trilogy, March. Let’s all pitch in to make his books #1 bestsellers on Amazon this Martin Luther King Day weekend.

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What Artists Can Learn from the Trump v. Hamilton “Distraction”

by Timothy Yu

Mike Pence went to see Hamilton. He got booed. The actors read a statement from the stage. And our president-elect tweeted a demand that the cast apologize for their “harassment.” Just another day in the dawning Trump Era.

There was plenty to say. Some pointed out the irony of Donald Trump, scourge of political correctness, complaining that the theater should be a “safe place.” Others pointed to the chilling precedent of our incoming president demanding that artists apologize to an elected official. But what most surprised me was seeing some of my friends — many of whom are themselves artists, writers, literary scholars — repeating the argument that the Hamilton controversy was “just a distraction” from Trump’s other problems.

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What Can A Nerd Do (About Trump)?

Okay, we, as nerds of color (TM), especially now that a white supremacist nightmare is about to become our president, need to get our collective shit together. Bigly.

So I’m gonna — periodically — post some links and actions and ideas (under the heading “What Can A Nerd Do?”) about what a nerd can do, politicalwise, to combat the eeebil is is come upon us. And I will edit-to-add any legit links/ideas left in comments about the topic at hand as well, so jump in mah nurds!

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Our Roddenberry Moment

The day after the election, I received a message from a frenemy I’ve known since junior high. He has kept close tabs on me and my career, always presenting himself as “devil’s advocate” or “the rational voice of the other side of the argument.” Basically, he’s a book smart troll I didn’t block because of the insidious effects of nostalgia. His message was one line:

“What good is all that science fiction stuff, now that we’ve won?”

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The Political is Personal

Since Donald Trump’s presidential election victory last week, there’s been much discussion and preparation in regards to the fates of minorities given the Presidential Elect[?]’s controversial and bigoted platform.

Whether it’s the election, Ferguson, Flint, Orlando, or DAPL, one of the most infuriating things I hear from people, and by people I mean white people, is that there needs to be more dialogue, more education, more love.

If only there were more people out there teaching and educating then tragedies like #Orlando or #Ferguson or #Baltimore wouldn’t be a reality.

Why is that infuriating? Because there are people who have dedicated their lives, doing that very work. In fact you’re reading one of their pieces right now.

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Hollywood Reflecting a Trump World

Like many others in this nation, I am still processing the results of election night and coming to acceptance [denial] that we will have Donald Trump as our Commander in Chief starting January 2017.

But what does this mean for the Hollywood entertainment industry, which is known to be overwhelmingly liberal? It is too early to exactly tell what the ramifications are but according to this Hollywood Reporter article, we may have rather troubling times ahead.

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Race, Politics, and the Third Self: Why We Need Iron Fist and Ms. Marvel to be Asian American

It’s been quite a while since I’ve contributed anything, but with the news that Iron Fist has a showrunner and also with Donald Trump wasting our time and being overtly bigoted, I thought it was an opportunity to look at the importance of introducing more POC characters in our fiction, and the importance of identity, on a wide range of levels.

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