The silence of Asian people in history has played its part to fulfil the myth of being the “model minority” — a term used as a racial wedge to divide Asians and Blacks. The silence as a model minority was detrimental as it portrayed them as a homogenised group that was anti-affirmative action. In order to puncture the myth that Asians are white adjacent, complacent and silent, we need to build coalitions, inquire into our own internalised racisms and find ways to build bridges between minority groups instead of being instrumentalized to pit against each other.
During the ongoing Black Lives Matter movements, the slogan “Yellow peril supports black power” has been reactivated to purport the delusion that Asians struggles are likened to black struggles. This is simply not true. Yet, the global unrest we are experiencing today is urging us to open up the conversation and broaden our perspectives on anti-racism by bringing up histories and finding coalitions and allies.
Thus, Mai Ling Speaks #3 invites two guests, Miwa Negoro and Xiang Zairong, who are actively dealing with these topics within their projects.

Negoro speaks about her current project “Mitsouko & Mitsuko” that she has developed with Japanese-born choreographer and performance artist Michikazu Matsune in Vienna. The project spans a narrative arc that encompasses history and fiction, individual biographies and the construction of cultural identities, inspired by stories of the famous perfume ‘Mitsouko’. Her talk touches on modern global history and politics as well as the birth of Yellow Peril.
Xiang’s performative statement, consisting of texts and poems from his own as well as different sources, renarrates a state of mind and its environments by queering the myth and fantasy attached to various minorities and social categorizations of race, gender and sexuality: “the visceral experiences of racist discrimination I encountered in the gay community in the schwulest of all cities Berlin prompted me to reflect on desire, queerness, racialization, and visibility: the weight and freedom of total darkness and anonymity; the liberating energy and the burden of visibility and identity. I wonder, in an age of increasing division and polarization, should it not be stressed that solidarity is the departing point and very condition (not a future to come or a goal to achieve) that sustains our survival.”

Online Streaming:
20:00, Friday 10th July 2020
http://echoraeume.klingt.org/