This Lunar New Year, Jeannie Mai will sip her red bush tea in a reflective state of mind.
In many ways, this past year has given her much to celebrate: Not only has she been able to cohost from home her daytime talk show, The Real, for which she’s earned an Emmy, but Mai was recently named chief brand officer of female-founded tea company Owl's Brew.
And yet Mai, like many, has faced her share of lows. In the wake of 2020, a year rife with racially charged killings of Black Americans and pandemic-related prejudice against Asian Americans, recent violent attacks against Asian Americans in her native San Francisco Bay Area have her overwhelmed with anger.
Mai, born to a Vietnamese mother and a Chinese father, is among a number of celebrities and activists drawing attention to this string of racially motivated attacks, including actors Daniel Dae Kim and Daniel Wu who offered cash rewards for information on anyone involved in the attacks. For Mai, the greatest form of advocacy is giving a voice to the voiceless.
“I remember this ongoing dialogue in my house of ‘Jeannie, we made it here, we escaped communism to make it here, America was so nice to let us live here and reside here,’” she recalls being told by her parents. “‘So you need to not make a peep. We don't want any trouble.’” That sentiment, she says, still exists in Asian communities, deterring people from raising their voices, even when violence plagues neighborhoods like San Francisco’s Chinatown.
Mai also sees the fight for racial justice as intersectional. “There are anti-Black and anti-Asian [sentiments], and a model minority monolith, and these beliefs that have caused tension and feud between two races that need to be stopped,” says Mai. “We have to work together to dismantle a system that suppresses us all.”
Unity, Mai believes, would also be immensely beneficial to Black and Asian business owners. “For years, Asian and Black businesses have thrived in Asian and Black, working class neighborhoods, and it's been a beautiful thing,” says Mai. “We're overlooking that we actually help one another, communities thrive. Just remember that every time you turn on one another or every time you hurt one another, you put money in the pocket that needs it the least: the white man, period.”
Part of this reckoning, Mai says, is recognizing that it’s not enough to say you’re not a racist. “I was taught that we don't judge other races, we don't join in on any racial conversations, we open our home to people of all colors,” she says, recalling growing up in San Jose with predominantly Black and Hispanic neighbors. “But sadly, I've learned today that not being racist is not enough.”
Instead, she says, be anti-racist, even if that means “risking losing friends, causing a disruption in conversation and showing up and speaking our truth.” And educate children from a young age. “The same way we’re teaching our kids about consent, the same way we’re teaching about stranger danger, the same way we’re teaching about drugs, is the same way we can teach about racist conversations. Kids are the first to bring up and stop these conversations.”
But on Lunar New Year, a day marked by new beginnings, Mai is optimistic. “It’s the year of the ox,” she says, with hope laced in her voice. “A year of movement, a year of hard-working energy, a wave of change.”
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February 13, 2021 at 06:54AM
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Amid Rise In Attacks Against Asian Americans, Jeannie Mai Calls For Intersectional, Anti-Racist Action - Forbes
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