Beyond Blue: Webinar- Asian Americans in Racial Justice Work (University of Maryland)

Liberation for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) must start with the fight against anti-Blackness. But how do we do this work in solidarity with one another? What challenges and possibilities must we acknowledge and confront as Asian Americans in our work for racial justice? When and where do we enter this conversation, participate in this resistance, take up space on the streets, amplify our demands, and uplift our brothers and sisters in thoughtful and impactful ways?

In this critical dialogue on Asian Americans in racial justice work, we consider the ways in which we, as Asian Americans, grapple with the contradictions of our proxy privileges as “model minorities” and anti-Asian racism as “perilous perpetual foreigners.” How do these precarious positionalities facilitate, and at once, impede our fight against anti-Blackness? What is the function of anti-Black racism within the context of white supremacy, white privilege, and power, and how are we complicit in perpetuating it? How do we resist and fight against it? And importantly, how do we move forward in pursuit of cross-racial solidarity with BIPOC communities?

This event is brought to you by the Asian American Studies Program (UMD) and the Office of Multicultural Involvement and Community Advocacy (UMD).

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William Ming Liu, PhD. is Professor and Chair of the Department of Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education. His research focuses on social class and classism, men and masculinity, and White supremacy and privilege. He is an editor of the Handbook of Multicultural Competencies in Counseling and Psychology (Sage, 2003), an editor of Culturally Responsive Counseling with Asian American Men (2010, Routledge), the author of Social Class and Classism in the Helping Professions: Research, Theory, and Practice (2011, Sage), the editor of the Handbook of Social Class in Counseling (2013, Oxford University Press), and co-author of the forthcoming book The Psychology of Privilege, White Supremacy, and Power (Oxford University Press). He serves as the Editor for the APA journal, Psychology of Men and Masculinity. He is a fellow of Division 17 and 51.

Rossina Zamora Liu, MFA., PhD. is assistant clinical professor in the Minority and Urban Education specialty in the Department of Teaching and Learning, Leadership and Policy. Her scholarship focuses on interrogating the onto-epistemologies of white supremacy, centering Critical Race Theory counter-storytelling, and fostering cross-racial coalition among Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities. She received the J. Michael Parker Award from the Literacy Research Association for her ethnographic essay on humanizing the witnessing of trauma narratives. She is co-author of a forthcoming book The Psychology of Privilege, White Supremacy, and Power (Oxford University Press) and guest co-editor for two forthcoming journal special issues, “Anti-Blackness in English Curriculum, Practice, and Culture,” in English Teaching: Practice & Critique, and “Race(ing) towards Futurity: Black and Latinx Youths’ Multimodal Compositions of Future Selves and Literacies,” in the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education.