This is a two-part online participatory workshop series, hosted and designed by Remember & Resist. These workshops are for East and Southeast Asian (ESEA)* people to strategise together in the wake of heightened racism during the Covid pandemic.

The workshops will take place on September 30th and November 6th, 11am – 1:30pm. By registering on this page, you are signing up to two workshops, part 1 (on the 30th) and part 2 (on the 6th).

*These workshops are designed by and for people who feel they are racialised as East and Southeast Asian in the UK context, but we do not police who identifies with the term ESEA. Our workshop is predicated on a critical understanding of ‘race’ and racism as a structure of domination over racialized communities.

We understand the limitations of the umbrella term ‘Southeast and East Asian’, given the different ways that global structures of racism, capitalism, and imperialism have impacted our respective communities and their diaspora.

We acknowledge that many ESEA people are racialised as Black and Brown, and that our experiences of racism are very different. Your inclusion is not predicated on having any ties to a ‘homeland’ that falls neatly within the man-made borders of ‘East and Southeast Asia’, nor any need to prove yourself to be culturally ‘Asian enough’.

The workshops

Content warning for workshops: discussion of racist harassment and attacks, police brutality

The first workshop, what's wrong with hate crime? will explore issues with the 'hate crime' framing of racist attacks and its implications. There will be a short presentation, after which we will read a short text together and discuss in breakout rooms.

The second workshop, strategies for community care, will explore how we might respond to racist attacks and climates without relying on police. In breakout rooms, we will strategise about responses to scenarios based on real events in break out rooms.

These workshops will be taking place on Zoom. As these workshops are designed in two parts, we ask participants to commit to both workshops in a series. Please if possible only sign up if you can commit to both; we have limited spaces, and have designed the workshops for a specific number of participants. Of course we understand that life is unpredictable! If you sign up and in the end are unable to make it, please just let us know as early as possible so we can fill up the space.

No prior knowledge or experience is required to attend the workshops, but they will be participatory.

Safer space

We do require participants to agree to our safe(r) spaces policy. At the heart of Remember & Resist’s organising efforts is the desire to create a safe space for marginalised communities to learn, grow, and agitate together with the view to dismantling structures of oppression. We thus commit to work against racism, anti-Blackness, Islamophobia, transphobia, cis-sexism, queerphobia, homophobia, misogyny, sexism, ableism, classism, and general bigotry. We recognise that no space can ever be totally safe for everybody, and that it is our collective responsibility to challenge oppressive behaviour and language. We do not tolerate abuse, gaslighting, or apologism for sexual or other forms of violence. Please read the entire policy for events HERE.

The event will be closed captioned and we will ask for your access needs when you register.

Readings will be sent to participants ahead of the workshops. If you have any questions or comments not covered in the sign-up form below, or comments and feedback on any aspect of our work including the safer spaces policy, please send us an email at remember.resist@gmail.com.

Please note for this series of workshops, we are partnering with the research project "Responding to COVID-19 Anti-Asian Racial Violence through Community Care, Solidarity and Resistance". This means researchers from the project will be in attendance during the workshop. Their observations from the sessions will be used to inform and build new narratives, create resources of caring and anti-racist strategies of ESEA communities and their strategies of resistance for the empowerment of individuals and communities. Observations may also be used in research outputs in anonymised form. For more info on the project, please see HERE.