Kangs assessment of his performance in other sports is just as blistering: My swimming stroke, which once wasnt half bad, now looks like what might happen if you stapled a pair of flapping hands onto a filing cabinet and threw it into the ocean., In Writing Waves, an essay about his years of daily surfing as much as it is a review of William Finnegans book Barbarian Days, Kang wrote, I concluded that writing about surfing was impossible because surfing elicited happiness, and it is impossible to write about happiness.. Were younger, and theres fewer of us.. Some of the politics here look a lot like hang-ups. The evidence is all over social media. But how does that explain the attacks by Black people? While this newsletter has come to an end, The New York Times continues to provide cultural criticism, examine big ideas and tackle thorny questions in politics, culture and the economy. Koreans drink more liquor than any other nationality on Earth, and Chois resentments toward the hierarchies and constraints of Korean culture are so familiar, they almost read rote, Kang wrote. I wish I had any knowledge of what makes a good TV segment. All these are true and necessary, but they do not tell us why nobody seems to care when Asian people get attacked. And my interest in divulging these details would not be to instruct or to edify, or even to elicit empathy from fellow addicts. Whom do you hate the most? Their insularity always feels banal and unwarranted if youre just going to speak English, dress like everyone else, and complain about schoolwork like every other Berkeley student, what, exactly, is the culture youve created? he demands. He is a staff writer at the New York Times Magazine and the opinion section of The New York Times. Over the past month, as reports of attacks on Asian-Americans, particularly Asian-American elders, have circulated, a new generation of scholars, writers and celebrities have tried to figure out not just what to do, but what exactly is even happening, and how to discuss it. And he's anxious about that, and he wants it to be good. Asian-Americans in the area demanded justice from San Franciscos progressive district attorney, Chesa Boudin. Hes also constantly analyzing and breaking down what other people are writing, reporting, and producing. Later, Kang continues the thought: When you come up against the limit of your parents dreams for this country, where do you go? [1] He has remarked that "Surviving cancer can cleanse the soul, sure, but once you're left facing the rest of your life, a patient's vision can tunnel down to a list of demands. If you prefer to read in print, you can also find this article in the October 25, 2021, issue of In Blue Dreams, the first in-depth post-1992 study of the Black-Korean conflict, John Lie, a sociologist, and Nancy Abelmann, an anthropologist, wrote that while the fissures between the two communities had a long history, the situation is not simple; the responses are not singular. For example, they noted, There are Korean-American merchants who work hard to better community life by holding neighborhood picnics, sponsoring sports teams and offering scholarships. By casting out a constellation of exceptions, the authors, who certainly were not alone in this type of work, attempted to show that underneath all the media hype, real people were still sharing real community. "Or should we form our politics around the people who are really precarious in our community? Football is not really like war, regardless of what its legion of ex-players and commentators will tell you. The public conversations, which have focused on rising xenophobia and what it means for a largely professional class of Asian-Americans, reflect, in many ways, the legacy of the scholarship following the 1992 riots. The former Fox host is embracing his new outsider status with Tucker on Twitter.. Jay Caspian Kang collects basketball sneakers. A wide-ranging cultural critic and New York Times Magazine contributor tackles thorny questions in politics, culture and the economy. In conversation, he can go from laughing about pop culture to deep, intellectual arguments, filled with references to great authors and complicated world events. He's a composer. But that feeling passed within a month or so. The cart he used to carry the days haul had been taken away from him. Jay Caspian Kang That's a violinist named Kurt Coble. 1 spot. He helped make DeRay [Mckesson] a nationwide story, says Howard in an interview with CJR. They have been viewed thousands, or even millions, of times by a people who are not really a people at all. Given the immensity of the alarm over Trumps plans, its difficult to really fault anyone for not fine-tuning all their understanding of the country. Orchestra Pit : r/CuratedTumblr - Reddit I dont think white journalists worry about this. In June, shortly after the first of several interviews with CJR, Kang published a sports column about why picking a team for his daughter to root for, as the son of Korean immigrants, meant examining everything he knew about a sense of origin and belonging. Its not like life as a minority was really easy before Trump, and now its really hard. But then by the middle of it I was just like, this has to be an element. By Jay Caspian Kang Deshaun. to support our journalism and get unlimited access to our coverage. The ostensible reason for the change is to address equity concerns within the school system and to make Lowell more representative of the city at large. This is, after all, someone who has called himself a "troll at heart"at least when it comes to Twitterin an . The musicians in the orchestra for Phantom of the Opera tell reporter Jay Caspian Kang about what it's like to play the exact same music every single nightfor decades. Jays emails were smart, funny, inventive, and fairly bonkers at times. Music of the Night after Night after Night - This American Life It infuses Wesley Yangs writing, half digested into misogyny, morbidly fascinating at best and disturbing at worst. He is a staff writer at the New York Times Magazine and the opinion section of The New York Times. KANG BLOG - Medium The base narrative of American politics especially as told by progressive lawmakers and the media machine that supports them has not really acknowledged the profound demographic change in the country. This project was always supposed to be free-flowing and open to my own interpretation. He received his undergraduate degree from Bowdoin College[3] and received his Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) degree from Columbia University in 2005. Latinos And Asians Grapple With Racism, Allyship Amid Ongoing - NPR He was surprised how many people asked him why he left the Cond Nast title after only six months. The First Amendment does not protect ones right to have a social-media account, but todays dissent has mostly moved online, and, as a result, is privately owned. Whenever I tweet something hes written on the subject [of Asian-Americans], immediately 100 Asians will fill my mentions, says Mina Kimes, a senior reporter at ESPN The Magazine and a close friend of Kangs who first bonded with him over their mutual love of American Idol. Hes not an Asian American abolitionist more of a reform guy, really, and his solutions are hard to pin down. [18] It was named to NPR and Times lists of best books of 2021. He is simply more concerned with steering the conversation about Asian American issues beyond microaggressions and Hollywood representation. "[1] He asserted that Asian-Americans "have been conditioned our entire lives to imagine White," and that "Like Jin before him, what Jeremy Lin represents is a re-conception of our bodies, a visible measure of how the emasculated Asian-American body might measure up to the mythic legion of Big Black supermen. (For his earlier piece on his gambling addiction, for The Morning News, Kang was paid $50, a rate of one cent per word.). Previously he was an editor of Grantland, then of the science and technology blog Elements at The New Yorker. For years, Kang has been critical of the media industrys poor efforts around diversity. The upcoming Presidential primary will likely pit rural white nationalism against anti-woke culture warfare. These are not sophisticated questions, but they are being asked over and over again. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. It explainedusing a series of Microsoft Excel charts and categories judging overall commercial success, vocal strength, and wearing insane hatswhy Whitney Houston edges out Aretha Franklin for the No. His new film, American Son, will premire in 2023, as part of ESPNs 30 for 30 series. In private conversations, the foreign language press, and messaging apps like WeChat and KakaoTalk catering to the Asian diaspora, a central question is being asked: Why does nobody care when our people get attacked and killed in the streets? (Probably not.). They wanted to get in on making branded content that didnt feel like branded content, says Kang, whose foray into advertising lasted only six months. There have also been condemnations of Donald Trump and how his repeated use of the phrase China virus to describe the coronavirus and his invocation of white supremacy might be responsible. [1] He says he spent more than 40 hours a week playing poker at the Commerce Casino during this time. With us today to discuss that are Jay Caspian Kang, a Korean American writer whose work can be found in publications like The New York Times and Vice. With a baby in the picture, Kangs ideas about the future of his career are now mostly tethered to ensuring his family has enough money to raise his little girl rather than how hell stay in media. To solve the problem, we must first learn how to talk about it. And how does the binary way we think about race limit the opportunities for true coalitional politics? By clicking Sign Up, you also agree to marketing emails from both Insider and Morning Brew; and you accept Insiders. Sometimes Kang will put on an ill-fitting formal jacket while interviewing a government official. Read: Kang, Should Athletes Stick to Sports? - Brainly.com Roughly one-third of Asian-American voters supported Donald Trump in 2020, a figure that represented a seven point increase from 2016. For a rebellious, Korean-American teen like myself who was awkwardly trying to situate himself, without much success, Jackson's writing, with its rap and jazz references and its relentless, engaging voice, provided a vision of Black agency that felt almost illicit. He then posed a question to himself: "Do I really want this child to have to read this and to know about the anxiety of her parents?". Jay Caspian Kang. The Loneliest Americans, Jay Caspian Kang, Crown, 272 pp., , October 2021 The Loneliest Americans , Jay Caspian Kang, Crown, 272 pp., $27, October 2021 At the time, I could not put a finger on the . That the people who care least about it are what he calls the forgotten Asian America, the disempowered, working-class Asian immigrants and refugees whom the first group fail to consider. "[9] The book revolves around a disgruntled MFA graduate named Philip Kim, who discovers that his elderly neighbor has been murdered, and who soon becomes the unlikely protagonist of a quickly unfolding mystery involving a struggle between fictionalized versions of two San Francisco institutions: Cafe Gratitude and Kink.com. 1)? He picked his own middle name at the age of 8 after reading The Chronicles of Narnia. Its been the honor of my career to work through them with you, my readers. "I thought it would be good to start with some sort of acknowledgment that the process of writing immigration stories is pretty fraught and contested and I myself as I'm writing the book am feeling that," the writer told Insider. Youre definitely overswinging. But I found out very quickly almost everyone working there wants to write for the magazine, and those people are immensely talented., I just think I wasnt very good at [editing], especially at the pace I was doing it.. Every Korean man I know whos under 40 listens exclusively to rap and identifies, at least in part, with black and Mexican American culture. Kang ponders the meaning of life. What initially appears to be a crime wave targeting Asians might just be a few data points in a more raceless story. Staff Recommendations View all 261 At the time, it seemed like being a magazine writer, journalist, and book writer forever might be impossible financially, he says. The scorn is strong in this book and not only directed outward. I just wanted to make enough money to live and not have a job and do readings, he tells CJR. Kang says the task, commanded by his mother to ensure chore completion between the ages of 5 and 14, led to exhaustive, daily recordings of the unessential: what he ate for dinner or why he didnt like the hot summers as a child in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Over the past year, I wrote a series of pieces about the suburbs and how the image of white, segregated schools was no longer the norm. Its always through the lens of being an immigrant to the country. How would my life have been different if I had grown up like my cousins did in LA, where every single person you see is Korean, you hear Korean all the time, and your parents dont really learn English because they dont have to? The American public still doesnt know all that much about the millions of immigrants that have come into the country since 1965, nor do they fully appreciate how the inroads made by these populations have come in a short period of time, not just in terms of economic mobility but also in terms of geography. Could ChatGPT be it? What he sees of their world afflicts him. It calls for upwardly mobile Asian Americans to "take up the concerns of the less fortunate. Like every time I have a thought on something, [Jia Tolentino of The New Yorker] is just better., Kang has a strong track record for recognizing talent as well as constantly reading new writers of color. What does Jay Caspian Kang consider the dividing line between those who believe athletes and coaches should stick with sports and those who feel that "sports, just like everything else is politics" (para. Don King genuinely thinks of himself as a civil rights hero., Its really difficult to write a profile about someone whos all good or all bad, he adds, later noting, I imagine I am a bad profile subject, like 99 percent of journalists.. Ball right again. It captured a 68-year-old Chinese man in the Bayview neighborhood in a confrontation with a handful of Black people. He gets these guys on a visceral level; there but for the grace of God goes he. In those moments, my thoughts about Asianness have always felt dispassionate, compulsory, and almost abstract. The killing of a tech executive reveals the cycle of outrage that puts enormous pressure on progressive district attorneys. After graduating from Columbia in 2005, Kang spent a few busy years in San Francisco and Los Angelesteaching creative writing and world history; playing poker for more than 40 hours a week at the Commerce Casino; and penning two novelsall while surfing in the morning and playing the video game Modern Warfare 2 for a few hours around dinnertime. Maybe one day journalism could be replaced with an immense surveillance state with a GPT-4 plug-in. Instead of worrying about the number of minority kids in elite colleges, someone truly committed to class equality should argue that these schools, which cater overwhelmingly to the wealthiest families in the world, should be stripped of the power they have over the education system through sizable hikes in endowment taxes that will hurt their coffers and provide funds that can be redistributed to public institutions. For Kang, the most enjoyable aspects of his positions at Grantland and then at The New Yorker were finding young writers, figuring out story ideas during meetings, and collaborating with other editors. Do you hate the white liberals you never really trusted anyway, or do you hate the fancy Asian Americans with their carefully laid out paths into whiteness?. All of this, from the novel to the Times to Grantland, happened in less than two weeks. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Some will know him from his essay on his gambling addiction. I can name, like, 20 more successful people that I talk to regularly. I dont think Jay reads mostly white people.. He plays poker and says he once lost $9,000 to a stripper wearing heart-shaped sunglasses in Las Vegas. Forget South Asians. Last year, he added broadcast to his rsum, joining HBOs Vice News Tonight to report stories about civil rights and injustices involving race. He surfs. In his first contribution to the blog, "The Lives of Others," Kang wrote an analysis of how Taiwanese-American basketball player Jeremy Lin and Chinese-American rapper MC Jin "offered an alternative interpretation of what it meant to be an Asian-American. [1], Kang's debut novel The Dead Do Not Improve was released in 2012 by Hogarth/Random House. I am sad to announce that this will be the last edition of this newsletter. The musicians in the orchestra for Phantom of the Opera tell reporter Jay Caspian Kang about what its like to play the exact same music every single nightfor decades. Jay Caspian Kang. Writing about race now has become the racial anxieties of that class of people, and I just find it insanely boring., Still, he admitted to the audience that his Korean-American identity does sometime help him in his work, such as being able to speak in Korean like a 5-year-old to the victims of the Oikos school shooting or during the impeachment protests in South Korea. Things you buy through our links may earnVox Mediaa commission. That such initiatives receive a fraction of the attention as tiny fluctuations in student demographics at elite schools shows just how addicted we all are to exclusivity and how resistant we are to actual change. My fear is that these attacks will also accelerate a trend already underway. "I felt a few years ago that I was starting to come to some conclusions I felt confident in and I don't think these conclusions necessarily need to be held up as statues," Kang said. Am I the most successful Asian magazine writer who writes about Asian people from a personal perspective? he says. A new documentary about the acclaimed video-game auteur reveals very little. The latest hit childrens movie is nearly devoid of artistic and moral value. "What the struggle was and is remains largely undefined.". I've often compared it to working in a hospice. Mr. Boudin, who is among a new breed of prosecutors who favor restorative justice over jail whenever possible, dropped charges against the 20-year-old man who filmed the attack, citing the wishes of the victim. Every news hit of the past few years from China virus hysteria to the massacre of massage-parlor workers and patrons has spurred a flurry of writing that asserts the writers right to exist Asianly and not much more, exposing something hollow at the core of the project. Both pieces would be noticed by prominent editors and mark a turning point in Kangs career. A reader could live with this, savoring the specifics when Kang goes deep on L.A. Koreatown, tutoring centers, and the real-estate origins of Flushings Chinatown. Perhaps thats why its a relief when the mask slips completely. So we first broadcast that story three years ago. I think its probably not possible for me to write that way, or I would have, and it would have been better for my general marketability., When I pull back a little bit, it becomes really obvious to me that all the obvious questions that are out there are influenced by how I see the world, he adds. Many readers mistook him for an oracle. He can be a nuanced reporter and a stylish essayist. Now the 22-year-old Lee is a staff reporter at Bleacher Report and B/R Mag. The sports journalist Bill Simmons, then in the process of building his Grantland sports and pop-culture site, had also noticed Kangs piece in The Awl. I could see how neatly the details of our lives lined up, he writes of the MRAZNs. Then I found out Jay loved basketball and baseball, and we were off. Shortly thereafter, over lunch, Simmons offered him a founding position at Grantland. Jay Caspian Kang is a writer at large for The New York Times Magazine. How did he know? Theres such a craving for that kind of writing addressing those issues, and its just not really been filled., ICYMI:A recent op-ed made a very important point about the word collusion, Kangs writing demonstrates a gift for observation, plus a solid dose of amusement about the situation around him and his place in the midst of it all. 1. He lives in Northern California with his family. Helplessness and confusion over where to place their political energy had resulted in an angry, largely incoherent, and shallow radicalism. And how they've learned to make their peace with it. Many readers will know Kang, a 1.5-generation Korean American, from his crucial reporting for the Times on subjects such as a hazing death at an Asian American frat and the Harvard affirmative-action lawsuit, which he often threads with personal reflections. Kangs first post, The Lives of Others, was about Chinese-American basketball player Jeremy Lin, Chinese-American rapper Jin the MC, and how the two men offered an alternative interpretation of what it meant to be an Asian-American.. Doing away with it would change the purpose of school itself. But I think its more like an attempt to build on sand. The new, reported memoir explores how AAPI communities miss opportunity to show solidarity. I could tell you that during a 36-hour period in July of 2006, I lost $18,000 in Las Vegas. Jay Caspian Kang isn't interested in writing "smelly lunchbox stories," however. For author and journalist Jay Caspian Kang, the photo of the rooftop of California captured the moment that Korean Americans realized that, "America would never accept them as white," he . The question isnt so much whether progressives have overreached radical measures are not bad by definition but rather if the current slate of progressive reforms in education, and to a smaller extent policing, are actually good, progressive solutions and worth the fight, backlash be damned. 721: The Walls Close In - This American Life Solidarity between these groups is rare the burning of Korean businesses during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, for example, did not produce a mass response from Chinese- or Japanese-Americans. Theres very little room for earnestness here, very little room to just be without elaborate justification. '", "I've just stopped responding [to the online criticism], because there's nothing I can do about it," he added. Maybe you just saw his basketball tweets. "[1], Kang was subsequently noticed in 2010 by several prominent editors[1][5][6][7] for his work, "The High is Always the Pain and the Pain is Always the High," a lengthy first-person essay concerning his gambling addiction. I do not think America protects Black lives, I support affirmative action, I reject all forms of self-interested, racial chauvinism. Some of the books in Jay Caspian Kangs library. The Loneliest Americans by Jay Caspian Kang | Goodreads It was overcome with the reality that even if youre in New York or California, these things still happen, he says.