Humane Rights w/ Dr. Akilah Cadet

Season 1

Episode 2: Michelle MiJung Kim

Transcript

Dr. Akilah Cadet: I'm Dr. Akilah Cadet, and this is Humane Rights, a show that flips the traditional talk show on its head. This isn't about debate. It's about dialogue. Each episode, I invite guests from different walks of life to unpack the messy, beautiful realities of being human. Welcome to Humane Rights, where being human is the ultimate act of resistance. Hi, Michelle. Welcome to Humane Rights.

Michelle MiJung Kim: Hi, Akilah. Thank you for having me.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: I'm so excited you're here. I would love for you to tell folks who you are, but first, we're going to do a little image description. I'm wearing a brand new argyle sweater from Zankov. I love Henry Zankov and his designs from the current collection. I'm wearing a vintage leather skirt that came all the way from Russia. And I'm wearing white socks with a maroon shoe, long golden braids to the side. And we're in this golden studio with Taylor Smalls’ artwork behind me. And the person that we have in the studio today, sitting on a beautiful tan couch that pairs lovely with your outfit, is Michelle MiJung Kim. So tell us what you look like. And tell us about you.

Michelle MiJung Kim: Yes. That was beautiful. Thank you. Hi, everybody. I'm Michelle MiJung Kim. I use she/her pronouns. And today I am rocking a jean-on-jean, denim-on-denim look. I have very controversial barrel jeans, with very wide legs that curve, that people either hate or love. I love it. And I'm wearing black ankle boots, and with white socks peeking out, and I'm rocking a red lip, which is my kind of signature. It is my signature. And I have an overgrown pixie that I now call Big Seeds, halfway between a bob and a pixie.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: Yes, yes. I, I,first of all, I love your look so much. You and I are really into fashion, which—there's not many activists out there that also love fashion. You know, so thank you for that. Tell the folks who you are, though.

Michelle MiJung Kim: Yeah. Well, I'm a Korean American immigrant woman. I am queer, bisexual, and I'm an immigrant that grew up in South Korea, moved to the States when I was a teenager, and I grew up low income with a dad who was undocumented for over a decade. So all those identities kind of shaped the way that I view the world, the way that I experience the world, and that has shaped the way that I do my work today. All of my work has focused on courage and community. With my book, The Wake Up: Closing the Gap Between Good Intentions and Real Change.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: A great book.

Michelle MiJung Kim: Thank you. And my podcast, I Feel That Way Too, also explores existential questions through the lens of my life, but also the broader values around social justice and community. So those are two projects that I'm really proud of. What else? I'm an avid knitter. Did you know that that's my new hobby?

Dr. Akilah Cadet: I did not know that. But it does track.

Michelle MiJung Kim: Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, really embracing all the grandma hobbies. So all my...

Dr. Akilah Cadet: Multiple cats now.

Michelle MiJung Kim: So yes, I have two cats. Two orange cats. And my favorite thing to do at home is just being on the couch and knitting with my cats on my lap.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: Yeah. So which I think is so important with the work that we do. Yeah. Our little meet cute story is that we trauma-bonded during the murder of George Floyd, Stop AAPI Hate days. Both of our firms were, like, in a weird and wonderful performative and great demand. And we connected there with that type of work, but also our Virgo-ness. And I will never forget when we actually met in person outside in the like pandemic, we got our little cocktails, we talked for not even way too long—it could have been longer, but it was a really long time. And it was the first time I felt seen in the author-activism life, because that was like a new hat for me. And your book was before mine, and I was right after you—because a lot because of you, honestly.

Michelle MiJung Kim: Because you sat next to my editor! I wonder why I did that. Well.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: You wanted the—well, the Virgo, the Virgos in both of us. So my name card wasn't put out at your book release right then, and I didn't want to necessarily tell you because you are a Virgo and details are important to us. But I did, and you're like, "No, you're going to sit over here," and you put me by your editor, and your editor happened to know who I was. I don't know if you talked up about me, or I had edited a couple books as my new, newer career center, the sensitivity editor, at that moment in time. And so our editor said, "Well, are you working on a book?" And I said, "Funny story. I just signed with a literary agent". I told our editor the literary agent's name. And she was like, "Do you have an idea?" And I said, "Yeah, it's called The White Woman Whisperer". I still want to do the book, by the way. And so she said, "Let's talk". And we met the next week. And then, I got up getting an exclusive book deal. So we are publishing sisters too on the same imprint that is no longer. But we are still—

Michelle MiJung Kim: We, like, keep it joyful.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: Yeah. No, no, no, I'm just saying it's kind of—it's interesting because the publishing industry has changed so much. And the thing I got from you is that your editor, who also became my editor and our editor, really wanted to make sure she used her power and privilege as a white woman to support my story, and that's because of what she learned from you. And so thank you for that. I really I really do appreciate it. But okay, as I see you doing amazing things and caring so much and being on so many different platforms and looking fabulous along the way, you were in touch with all the things in the world. So what does human rights mean to you?

Michelle MiJung Kim: Can I start with a story?

Dr. Akilah Cadet: Yeah. There's no rules here.

Michelle MiJung Kim: So when I came to the States as a teenager, I didn't know English. And I was so determined to succeed because my dad was low income and I could see how every day he would face little indignities that seemed so big to me. Whether it was him trying to order something at McDonald's and the servers not treating him well because he was speaking with an accent. Or you know, not being able to bring my dad to a parent-child conference or whatever that thing is at school because he was working. So I thought the way that I can protect my family and the way that I can give my dad the kind of comfort that he deserves was for me to succeed. And so for a very long time, I thought I needed to be seen as being worthy of respect, dignity, safety and belonging. And now I know that no one should have to earn any of those things and that we deserve being protected, being free, being safe, being treated with dignity simply because we exist. So I think to me doing whatever it takes to protect that truth, whether it's through policies or a culture change, is what human rights feels like to me.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: I love that for so many reasons. I, as you know, I'm a child of immigrants, born here. And that pressure that can come from immigrant parents but that we give ourselves is very, very real. Like my father still will forget words or the accent, you know, the things that come up. Or forgetting that my childhood in America was different from his childhood in Haiti and all those, those interesting things. But that kind of compassion angle is incredibly important. Do you think, with all the fuckshit that's happening—

Michelle MiJung Kim: To sum it up, yes.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: Yeah. Information. Everything's fucked. So with everything happening with Donald and co—I, you do not have to answer this if it is too much, because I'm all about stories here. Are we going to make it?

Michelle MiJung Kim: Are we going to be here? I think from my face...

Dr. Akilah Cadet: Because you've done a wonderful job about talking your intersectionality, the intersections of your identity, a term coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw. So what makes us—so much of our intersectionality is under attack. And in so many ways. And we have to think about things that white Americans don't have to think about, which is: will my family be okay? Or will they be deported, or will they have access to health care, or like all these things, right, that are in there? So do you think we're going to make it? Do you think we'll get back to, to more humanity?

Michelle MiJung Kim: What a question. Do I think we'll make it? I think—I think some of us will.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: Oh, wow.

Michelle MiJung Kim: And I want to be able to say that yes, we're going to get through this period and we're not—we're going to be okay. But the truth is people's lives are being impacted. And some people will say we made it through Covid, but many did not.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: Many did not. And many are still correct dealing with long past.

Michelle MiJung Kim: Yeah that's right. And so I think it would be dishonest for me to say that we'll make it. Because the truth is, the most marginalized folks in our society today may not make it. Unless we really do our job to protect one another. And I don't think there's any chance that we will go back to how things were, because we don't want to go back.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: We don't want that right now.

Michelle MiJung Kim: Build something completely—we do. We want something better. We deserve something better. So I do have hope. I love what Mariame Kaba says. She's an incredible Black abolitionist who says "hope is a discipline". And I've been really trying to be disciplined about practicing hope and thinking about the ways in which we are seeing the collapse of so many social systems and infrastructures that some people relied on. That gives us an opportunity to build something completely different. And for me, with the complete destruction of the social contract that we've had, I think there comes some possibilities for how we want to be in this world. And so I have hope. I don't think that all of us will make it. And that really pains me, because that also means that many of us are going to be spending a lot of years trying to heal. From all the trauma that we are witnessing, we're experiencing.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: Or the compounded trauma.

Michelle MiJung Kim: Yeah. I mean, just the other day I read an article that said a Mexican mom overheard her six-year-old daughter talking to her dolls, whispering. And the six-year-old said to the doll, "We have to be good or else ICE will take us".

Dr. Akilah Cadet: Oh my god.

Michelle MiJung Kim: And that like, broke my heart. It was such a gut punch. And so it's like, how do we heal from that? Like how do we heal children who are witnessing their parents be treated like animals and who are being seen as less than human? Right. Like, how do we—how do we avoid that? But how do we also make sure that we are building better systems and better conditions where healing is possible, and that requires trauma to actually stop. And that requires all of us to actually be a part of the healing process.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: And it's resource, right. Because we're looking at these systems and structures that are doing that. I mean, when I played Barbies, the biggest thing was like—Ken was a hoe. So how do you care? I'm like, "Can I melt it? What's happening?" because I have like 15 Barbies and like only two Kens. So kids had to like—they had to move and shift. But I think that is important to bring up because I wasn't talking about my father being deported. I wasn't talking about the reality. And that's what we did. Like, I was watching Dallas and Dynasty—these things where there was drama. So that's what I was doing, is bringing the drama—Young and the Restless, Days of Our Lives. That's what my Barbie life was. Because I didn't have social media at that time. I didn't know exactly all the things were happening. But there weren't these visual displays that you couldn't escape at the time. Wild. But also, I just want to say thank you for the reality of that statement. I go back and forth with hope. Some days I have it, some days I don't.

Michelle MiJung Kim: Yeah.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: But it doesn't stop me from being my unapologetic self and my advocacy. I do want to say your podcast, I Feel That Way Too, is so good. I think it is so good. I'm really proud of it too. I'm also really proud that when it came out, I had a lot of car time—I had to go and drive to Napa. And I was just listening to it and just like, "Yes. And". And also thank you for my little like shout out cameo.

Michelle MiJung Kim: Yeah. Your voice is in there.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: My voice is in there. Thank you for that. But I would love for you to tell folks how you came up with the name.

Michelle MiJung Kim: Oh. Yeah. Okay. So I Feel That Way Too is the name of my podcast. But it's also the theme of my life, I feel. I came up with it because of Palestine, actually. So when the genocide in Palestine began in 2023, I was distraught, just watching video after video of children crying for help. I have a video that's like seared into my memory with a mom holding a wrapped up baby in a white cloth. And just crying silently. I don't think it'll ever go away. And it was traumatizing just to watch. So I can't even imagine what Palestinians, Palestinian Americans are having to go through even today. I felt powerless. I felt like I wasn't doing enough. I felt a lot of shame, but I also felt a lot of anger and betrayal, because at the time that I started speaking out, a lot of people were not speaking up. There was a lot of silence, even among DEI professionals who I consider peers. Because there was real retaliation. I lost 90% of my income as a result of advocating for racism.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: You know I lost my other podcast.

Michelle MiJung Kim: Yeah. Exactly. And it was a really harrowing time and I think it really forced me to not only reckon with my own identity, but also, what got me through—like, what will get me through? Yeah. And I participated in a pretty high-risk action. And I was terrified because I had never been arrested before, and there was a really high risk of arrest. And we did the thing and we all gathered after—some people were arrested, and then they were out and we were all in a circle kind of debriefing, doing a chant together. And I was in a circle with a bunch of people who had participated in the action. We were holding hands. Most of them were women of color. And the chant leader started by yelling, "I got you. Don't worry. I feel that way too. We'll get through together". And as soon as I heard that second phrase, "I feel that way too," something broke in me and I started sobbing.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: Yeah.

Michelle MiJung Kim: I was weeping while holding the hands of people on my other side. And I think really in that moment, all I really needed was somebody to say, "No, I see it. I see it too. I feel it too. You're not the only one. You're not the one who's going crazy". I just needed to know that I wasn't alone. And so that really stuck with me. That moment of feeling seen—you just need to let me know that I'm not alone in this. And so I wanted my listeners listening to the podcast to have that feeling. Episodes that I did are existential questions—things like, "Can we be friends if we disagree politically?" or "Am I supposed to sleep with one person for the rest of my life?" So yeah, that's where the podcast name came from.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: It is so good. I highly recommend people listen—like, subscribe, download.

Michelle MiJung Kim: Five star reviews.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: Yeah, five star reviews only.

Michelle MiJung Kim: Oh, we also just got two Signal Awards. So that was huge. We got the awards!

Dr. Akilah Cadet: Okay, well, I'm going to channel that energy. No, but it deserves the awards. It's very thoughtful. And I with every episode, I also felt that way, too. Yeah. So thank you for it.

Michelle MiJung Kim: We're always going through stuff.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: Oh, I know, but I'm a Virgo and I always feel like a burden. You know how that goes.

Michelle MiJung Kim: I do know how that—yeah. And we are trying to heal from that. Is there anything that you're working on or excited about?

Michelle MiJung Kim: Yes! I am actually really excited about what I'm working on next. So I finally, I'm ready to write another book. I had to take some time off from the book world because the process wasn't easy—as a marginalized person going through a system that was not designed or built for us, it takes a toll having to navigate all the systemic bullshit. But I believe in what I have so much that I actually want to go back and write something. And the thing that I want to write about is courage. Especially with the advocacy for Palestine, the question that I kept asking is: how come some people are so much more courageous? How come some people are more prone to taking those types of risks? How come I was one of only three people who left my last tech company where my friend was unfortunately sexually assaulted—me, her and the only Black woman at the company were the only three to leave without any backup plans? So I've been talking to courage researchers. Courage is a very understudied topic.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: Do you have the courage?

Michelle MiJung Kim: Yeah. And the thing that I'm really curious about and excited to write about is this idea of collective courage. Because so much of the research focuses on individual courage. But what I experienced with that "I feel that way too" moment is there is something really magical about collective courage. We have to create our own infrastructures of care to take care of one another. That requires collective courage. There's a reason why more people did not speak out against—about Palestine. Because there was a lot of risk. People need their health insurance. People need their jobs to feed their dependents. And so I get that that is one of the biggest reasons why people couldn't take the risk they wanted to take. And in those moments, if we had our own infrastructures of care that said, "Don't worry, I got you," I think more of us would have spoken out. So yeah. Collective courage. A book maybe coming out in hopefully the next two years.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: It takes a long—I love that. I think that it is courageous to talk about courage, but it shouldn't have to be. I, too, am also working on another book. This is the first time I'm saying it.

Michelle MiJung Kim: What an exclusive!

Dr. Akilah Cadet: Humane Rights exclusive on my own podcast. So the day I was dropped by my literary agent, I got this email from a therapist working on a book around narcissism and she quoted me in the book and wanted to know if I was okay with it. I read it and I loved it, and it was something that was so healing because my literary agent dropped me, which made me feel like a piece of shit. But here's this other white woman, who is also Jewish, who was just like, "Your words are so incredible," and she's using them to make a connection between narcissism and supremacy. She feels the research on narcissism is inconclusive of intersectionality. So Donald Trump is a narcissist, sure, but he's really a supremacist. We ended up chatting and she was like, "I would love to co-write a book with you". And I was like, "What? Me? What?" And so she's an expert on narcissism and I'm an expert on white supremacy. And so we're bringing it together.

Michelle MiJung Kim: Oh my god, right now? Congratulations!

Dr. Akilah Cadet: Thank you. I can literally say I feel that way, too.

Michelle MiJung Kim: Yeah. Yes. I can't wait. We can do a book launch party together!

Dr. Akilah Cadet: We can? Yeah. We can. Okay, so world is farts. You feel all the things. But how are you tapping into joy? How are you finding pockets of joy?

Michelle MiJung Kim: Oh, joy. Well. My cats. They're really good at helping you regulate your nerves. I was very anti-pets, you know, and then I foster failed. Yeah, I became a cat lady. But really my community. I have a very loving group of friends that I can rely on to help me tap back into joy. Knitting has been a new hobby of mine, but I sometimes hyper-fixate and I will knit for eight hours straight and be in pain. Because I'm like, "Okay, like Virgo, calm down". My partner is very lovely, loving and kind and understanding—he brings me a lot of joy. And just the little moments, where we go for walks and I see a sign that says "ICE out of our neighborhood". That brings me tremendous amount of joy. And yeah, I've been also eating a lot of candy.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: I have also been eating a lot of candy. Right now I'm really into Red Vines. And I have an airtight container that I keep them in.

Michelle MiJung Kim: You're a Red Vine versus a Twizzler girl?

Dr. Akilah Cadet: Twizzlers are gross. It's like plastic. Red flavors are the best they've done. I just have the reds of Starburst on my little coffee table. Tell folks how they can find you.

Michelle MiJung Kim: Well, I'm on all the social platforms—I'm on Instagram at Michelle MiJung Kim. I'm also on LinkedIn, and I also have a newsletter that I write. I share stories that give me hope, that give me courage. You can go on my website at michellemijungkim.com to do all the snooping.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: Definitely listen to—we'll get your book The Wake Up, listen to I Feel That Way Too. Support anything Michelle MiJung Kim does because it is great and you're literally making the world a better place.

Michelle MiJung Kim: So are you. Thank you.

Dr. Akilah Cadet: Big love and gratitude to our guests for showing up with truth, humor, and, of course, humanity. If this conversation moved you, you got to like it. You got to share it. Bring it into your circle, spaces and places, because that's how change multiplies. You can catch more episodes wherever you get your podcasts and watch the full series produced by Ciel Media on the Ciel Media YouTube channel. But until next time, stay curious, find your joy and keep being amazing.