Good Thunder Pod
- Good Thunder: we make noise about the personal and the political.
We’re a Filipino-Chinese husband and wife duo talking all things personal and political, because the personal IS political. Each week we bring you one thing going on in the world, and one thing going on in our lives. We speak from our positions as Asian Americans, as new parents, and as concerned citizens trying to get free from American imperialism.
On social media: @goodthunderpod
Jeff: @tito.senpai_
Bianca: @beyonkz
Good Thunder Pod
5. academia & empire
In this episode, we debrief the student-led anti-war movement escalating across college campuses, and the subsequent repression and violence from campus administrators and police.
This moment reveals there is neutrality when it comes to living in the imperial core. In academia and across all institutions, we either uphold the empire or actively work to dismantle it.
I'm Bianca and I'm Jeff and you're listening to Good Thunder.
Speaker 2:We're a Filipino and Chinese husband and wife duo talking all things, personal and political, because the personal is political and the political is personal.
Speaker 1:We speak from our positions as Asians in the US, as new parents and as concerned citizens working to get free from American imperialism.
Speaker 2:It's the last episode of this season. How are you feeling, Bianca?
Speaker 1:I feel good. We are, you know, just trying this out for the first time, this being podcasting, and we will be back. We do want to do a second season. We do want to do more of this For those who are listening. We want to eventually add guests and continue these conversations. But, yeah, I think we're going to take a little hiatus. We've learned a lot just from this short little season. But, yeah, I'm feeling good. We have a bunch of travel coming up. I'll be traveling for a conference, we'll be traveling for weddings, and so I'm just feeling like the busyness of summer encroaching. I'm also just feeling melancholy today. I think. Just sometimes being a human is tiring. If anyone feels like they're struggling, I'm right there with you, and yet to raise a child, get my work done, etc. Etc. So, yeah, it's been a little fatiguing, but how are you doing?
Speaker 2:Jeff, I feel, first of all, yeah, I feel happy about our first season.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you to everyone out there that gave us a listen, gave us some likes and followed us and even sent us words of affirmation.
Speaker 2:So thank you for bearing with us through our learning curve of this first season and we're excited to pick it up when we have more time. And, yeah, we would love to hear from you all what you want us to talk about. But, in terms of me personally, I feel like I'm at a place where I don't know just what's going on around the world is has been weighing on me and for the past week or so I I've been just at a loss for words on what else I can say that hasn't been said before, of what atrocities israel is committing, as well as what our government is doing to screw us over it. I've said all those things before and they just keep doing it and it's just I don't know like I don't know how else, differently I could say it than I've said before. But I'll continue to do so, but it's just. I'm at that place where it's just like man, it just keeps happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think this actually is a really good segue into our topic for today, and I think it's why we need to be connected to movements, because as individuals there isn't much we can do. At least, that's kind of my framework, and not to be like nihilistic about it doesn't mean we shouldn't try, but it also means like that's why we need to be connected to something bigger, be it, you know, communities, movement, spirituality. So today we are talking about academia and empire, this similar to the religion and empire episode. This was what I was like from the beginning. It's like we need to do an episode on this, you know, not just given everything going on. Obviously there's so much to talk about and we're going to try to broach some of it, you know, in the first part but also just our own personal experiences with the academic education system. So why don't you start us off, jeff, with what has been going on in Columbia?
Speaker 2:Yeah, what has been going on in Columbia? I've been following it for a while. My earliest exposure to what's been happening on that campus was when. My earliest exposure to what's been happening on that campus was when SJP and other Columbia. What I remember is the ex-IDF members are students there, but they were not reprimanded at all. Members are students there, but they were not reprimanded at all and the students who were attacked had to bear the brunt of that attack on their own, without any help from the faculty.
Speaker 1:This was in the fall right. The skunk attack was in the fall like.
Speaker 2:November yeah, it was back in the fall and since then, as the students continue to bring up the topic of what's going on in the genocide in Gaza, the more repression that we see from. You know, colombia and another instance that I recall earlier this year there was police brutality towards students that were protesting. Hillary Clinton's talk and Barnard and for those that don't know, barnard is connected or associated with Columbia University.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's a women's college.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I recall videos of students being slammed down by the police and police just like causing violence towards the protesters that were there.
Speaker 2:And you know this is also in line with like universities across campus. That is like shutting down or suspending SJP and JVP, and this has been particularly heightened at Columbia. Specifically, there is this one Zionist professor I'm not going to say his name for any legal reasons, but he has been out there every single SJP or JVP protest, counter-protesting, calling the students terrorists, calling them different types of names and bullying them on social media, doxing them. And what has happened recently is the students were set to vote on whether their university is going to divest, but that was delayed by the university and, as a result, the students began to occupy their campus in the spirit of the anti-war protests back in the 1960s. And they have been going strong for about three to four days now. And they are spurring on not only just students of Columbia but the people of New York City to join them. And more universities are starting to join in on the occupation of their campus to force their university to divest from Israel, as well as the military-industrial complex that is funding this genocide in West Asia.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as an academic, it's been energizing to bear witness to these students, and I've also. I didn't think I could get more jaded about the institution of academia, and yet here I am. And regarding the Zionist professor, you know we see that at other schools too. These like tenured track or tenured professors decades older than these students. I'm like get a life, you know, like get a fucking life, and yet they spend so much energy, energy harassing these students, for you know their right to protest and for, I think, the moral clarity that they're bringing to these broken institutions Time.
Speaker 1:Last week USC banned Asna Tabassum. She is a first-gen South Asian Muslim valedictorian. They banned her from speaking at her own commencement over quote security concerns. We know that it's not about security. She majored in biomedical engineering. She minored in resistance to genocide studies. You can't make this shit up. She apparently posted a link on social media that calls for the complete abolishment of Israel and that's the reason why they banned her from speaking at her own graduation. And there was a really just fascinating interview that she did with CNN where the journalists really kind of cornered her over the quote a complete abolishment of Israel. It was very obvious the journalist was trying to set her into a trap and I recommend watching that video because Asna completely slayed the video and at the same time I think it shows the ways that media is another colonial arm of the empire in the ways that they are reporting and asking questions in such inane, unproductive ways. We could get into that more, but I just recommend going to watch that video.
Speaker 1:Students were also mobilized at USC in response to this. They have led marches to push for the reinstatement of Asna as the valedictorian speaker and instead the USC decided actually nobody will speak at commencement. So anyways, all this to say I'm just like wow, this is a clown show. I didn't again I haven't felt this energized about, you know, student movements in a long time and at the same time, like didn't think I could get more jaded about how much they clearly prioritize their funding sources and the fragility of those funders over the dignity and safety of their students and safety of their students. And again, like it's the moral clarity and courage and the moral courage of these students that is, I think, exposing these institutions for what they are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and you know, I think there is just something about the way that the university, the college campuses are set up that spur these students to take action whenever there is injustice, and I think it has to do with the way that their social structure and community is set up.
Speaker 2:The college campus is how society and cities should be, where you are not isolated and, if you see how it's set up, every there's proximity to be had with like-minded people, with people that you go to work with, with the people that you study with, with the people that you eat with, and there are all these third spaces where people can gather and exchange ideas and be in community with each other and organize, yeah, and organize. And it's completely different from the ways that we design our cities today, where your commute could be an hour each way. You're too tired to connect with people during the week, and for the weekend, you have to plan months in advance in order to hang out with people, and that isolation is what really prevents us from connecting with each other and spurring each other on when there needs to be action.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I actually learned recently that after the anti-war student movements of the late 1960s, they intentionally redesigned college dorms so that there would be less spaces to gather. And I also learned from actually my time as an undergrad, doing activism here and there, that a lot of times school will make major decisions that hurt students towards the end of the semester or they'll try to push things as much as possible towards finals when students are already burnt out, they're tired and they the schools depend on the turnover of college students. They depend on the transient nature of being a student to squash movements. So it's really interesting it's late April and at my institution we're about to go into finals. But this movement cannot be limited to the academic calendar, like these institutions want it to be. I feel like they're going to continue occupying and continue want it to be. I feel like they're going to continue occupying and continue speaking truth to their institutions.
Speaker 1:I think when I think about these student movements I made a TikTok about this last week, but I think of the experience of students on campus right Like I was a student activist for parts of my undergrad and my time at SF State as a graduate student, you know, fighting for the ethnic studies department to be protected from funding cuts. And I remember, like during movements, whether it's you know, smaller movements limited to kind of what's going on on the campus, or larger movements like Black Lives Matter, like, right now, the uprising for Palestinian liberation, like these movements and these moments feel so high stakes on these campuses because they are so high stakes right. These students understand that their institutions are protecting and defending and benefiting from Zionist regime. They get it. And, as an educator, this is the dream. You want your students to go on and do what Asna did. You want them to be just so tapped into their power as individuals and as a collective, the ways that these Columbia students are occupying. This is the dream I feel like as someone who has taught and wants to continue teaching ethnic studies and believes that education is a liberatory tool for students to understand their power and to mobilize and empower themselves to make the changes they want to see, have learned from other social movements that they know what strategies to use to escalate. They have the tools.
Speaker 1:And so you know again, as an educator, like I said earlier, I've never felt so energized and also so jaded right, energized by the courage and conviction of these students and also jaded by the cowardice of these institutions. And you know, I'm in an interesting phase in my career. Like I'm a PhD student, I'm in many ways precarious as a worker of the institution and at the same time I'm in many ways privileged because I have access to faculty and resources. And I think when people find out I'm a PhD student, there's a certain legitimacy that is afforded to me. And so I've just been thinking a lot as I continue through my program and in this career.
Speaker 1:I guess in academia it's felt very affirming that academia is not my endgame and I never want to assimilate, I never want to make my home here because they've made their values clear. I don't know. Personally I'm like I don't know what I'm going to do with my life. Do I get a job after this? I don't know. But I just know I feel called to be in the classroom. I feel called to create spaces of care for these students where they feel safe and also where they feel empowered to go and do their activism, whether it's on campus, in their communities and beyond. I feel like this moment is really defining what kind of academic I want to be and what kind of academic I don't want to be. It's been very discouraging, I think, to see the silence of sociologists in my field in particular and you know something as basic as signing on a letter for a ceasefire to see that so many tenured faculty who have so much job security and so much privilege are unwilling to put their name on a letter for a ceasefire.
Speaker 2:I wholeheartedly agree with you with how the courage of these students have really spurred me on too. I am not an educator. I am, you know, barely made it by with a bachelor's from my university, but I did spend six to seven years working as a minister, specifically on the college campus, working with college students. And, yeah, when they believe in something, it is just so wonderful to watch them really go after it, really choose into each other, choose into their community, choose into making sacrifices to be able to go after their beliefs and what they're convicted about. And that is exactly what we're seeing now and what we've seen throughout history and what we've seen from the 1960s anti-war movement and how that is being played out in front of us today. And you know, not only the university campus but also our government. This strikes fear into their hearts. That's why they were so quick to mobilize the police this past weekend on the student protesters, where over 100 students were arrested, just like that, whereas the two ex-idf military, who are students on that campus, that attacked other students walked away free and have not yet been reprimanded.
Speaker 2:What the students are doing is challenging the status quo it is. They are resisting not only their university but this government, both of which have been complicit in the genocide and the murders of Palestinian people, and this action. What they're doing is saying I will not be complicit, I will not partake in what you are doing and we will make sure that things don't go on business as usual. We will make you hear us. We will make our demands clear. Yeah, we will make you hear us.
Speaker 1:We will make our demands clear. Yeah, and I think, in terms of, again, what students are willing to give up versus what tenured faculty, what comfortable older people are willing to give up, it's really incredible. I just today, three Barnard students who are the head student tour guides resigned in solidarity with the student protesters and in, you know, disagreement with their campus and also sidebar shout out Barnard. As you know also a fellow women's college alumni I know like a lot of the leadership has been coming out of Barnard, which is incredible. But you know like, as a former student worker as an undergrad, like I needed that job, you know like it's not a small deal to quit and you know, knowing that they're going to risk getting evicted from their dorms and all the heinous stuff around that, how their stuff is just dumped in the hallway and they have 15 minutes to evacuate. It's wild, and so I don't want to like to ever understate the costliness of this.
Speaker 1:I also wanted to say, making the connection back to the anti-war movement of the 1960s and us as Asian Americans at the time.
Speaker 1:This was also when the term Asian American as a political identity began to emerge, that they were rejecting the term Oriental that was placed on Asians in the US and started to, through their politics, find they being student activists on college campuses.
Speaker 1:Of different Asian backgrounds and ethnicities started to find commonalities in their politics, particularly against the Vietnam War. And so there was this anti-colonial rage and politics that was integral to the emergence of Asian American political identity and activism. And with this moment, right, like so many connections to the anti-war movement of the late 1960s, I have the question of like where are Asian Americans situating ourselves in this right? Are we also tapping into this anti-colonial rage to understand this next iteration of our politics and activism, or are we afraid to engage? Or are we like certain foundations, taking money from scientists? That needs its own episode the Asian American Nonprofit Industrial Complex and Empire coming next season. But anyways, that's just a question I pose right In this specific historic moment. What does it mean to be Asian American in it as well, thinking about the history of how the anti-war movement was so integral to what it meant to be Asian at the time?
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks for bringing that up, bianca. This is an important part of history, and specifically Asian American history, that is often left out of our history books, our classes, and it's something that we have to not only remember but also channel that same spirit, channel that echo, as more of these are going to happen across the country and hopefully it spills over to every facet of our life, whether that be the university campus, our workplace or just any institution that is created to uphold the imperialism of the US empire.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think more and more so, everyone is going to have to make a choice. There is no neutrality, because imperialism is everywhere, which means resistance must be everywhere. So this is a really exciting time to be alive in and, yeah, like we said, we'll be back, hopefully in a few weeks to months, to continue these discussions. Did you have anything else you wanted to add, jeff?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just want to say yeah, this has been fun and we're excited to be back in the future and hopefully you would join us again. Thank you so much for taking the time to subscribe, to liking and listening to us blabber on whatever is on our minds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll continue gabbing. Well, thank you for listening to Good Thunder. Thank you, bye, bye.