Ep. 192 Yo, Is This Racist with Andrew Ti

Written By Lauren Tyree

Andrew Ti is the creator and co-host of the Yo, Is This Racist podcast, and a comedy and TV writer. He joins the show today to talk about his journey from a neuroscience major at Columbia to the writers room on mixed-ish. We also talk about his relationship to problematic white authors, his aversion to funny books, and more.

The Stacks Book Club selection for December is A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib. We will discuss the book on December 29th with Andrew Ti.

 
 

Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon

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TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.

Traci Thomas 0:08
Welcome to The Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I’m your host Traci Thomas and today we are joined by Andrew Ti. Andrew is a TV writer and the creator and co host of the podcast Yo is This Racist. We talk today about Andrew’s journey from neuroscience major at Columbia to his writers room on Mixed-ish to his past with white authors and so much more. The Stacks book club pick for December is A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib. We will be discussing the book on Wednesday, December 29 with Andrew Ti.

All right, everybody. I’m very excited. I am here today with writer podcaster. friend of the show. I don’t know all the great things. I’m here with Andrew Ti. Andrew, welcome to The Stacks.

Andrew Ti 1:36
Hi, thanks for having me.

Traci Thomas 1:37
I’m really excited because this is sort of like the culmination of a month long, kind of back and forth conversation between you and I about books and things. So now you’re really made it into the real book space.

Andrew Ti 1:51
I guess the the A side of this conversation happened on various Yo, is This Racist and uses racist adjacent platforms. But I do feel like I needed that. So essentially, I had the admission that the hard realization, but also when I think the I think it was the first time Traci was a guest on the show, I basically was in the middle of a crisis having realized over the pandemic, two things. One is that I hadn’t read anything at Hall for several years, that wasn’t somehow work related, like I’d read books, but it was always with, you know, it is not something that I would have read had I not been like trying to get a job on a TV show adaptation of it or like, you know, there was always an ulterior motive work related ulterior motive. And truly, I think that was like, God, I mean, shameful to admit, but like, I feel like I said out loud three or four years, there’s a real chance it was like, closer to 856 years, like, just like, for so long. And part of it is I think I was like, you know, kind of barely finding my feet as like a writer. And so just like, every waking moment was consumed with like writing or like reading about writing or trying to get a job or something like that. And it was reading a lot of scripts. So and like watching a lot of TV and movies. So yeah, so it’s just very shameful. So anyway, which is all to say, you came on and gave me an incredible recommendation list of things to read. Oh, I’m sorry. And there was a second thing, which is, in pandemic, I had that realization was like, well, that’s fine. I have all this free time. I’m gonna get some reading done. And then I looked at my, like, existing books on my bookshelf, you know, including the kind of like, picked it up, but hadn’t hadn’t read yet. And I was like, Oh, this is overwhelmingly white people, white men specifically. And so I was like, Oh, God, this is real bad. So yeah, that that anyway, and now, which is all to say, you came on and gave me an incredible me and the listeners really gave everybody an incredible suggestion list of books, and I’ve been kind of working my way through it. And I’m only genuinely sort of now feeling like, capable of being a guest on the status like having read something that wasn’t for fucking work. And like, I guess honestly, like kind of enjoying reading again. Yeah. Because I think it was just like one of those things where it was not fun to me like, Yeah, looks for work.

Traci Thomas 4:37
I want you to tell people a little bit about yourself. So can you tell us maybe like, where you’re from and maybe what you do for work or just give us a little.

Andrew Ti 4:51
So I’m from Michigan. I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is like a university town. And, you know, my parents met, they’re in grad school and just sort of it’s but Michigan is not like super Asian, there are folks who are Asian, but not not a ton of time, actually. And as a kid, I think this this might be a little interesting to people is that like, have because I had immigrant parents. I think I’m gonna assume this is because I had immigrant parents. Well, I’m gonna say something that’s a little wrong, but I still think it’s somehow related to this, which is that like, my parents, like, did not really, I think get or understand, like, Western media gender roles in Western media. So I have a sister who was two years younger, and I just as a kid, like I read all of my books, but I read all of her books as well. So like, I’m a I’m a I’m someone who like, read every single baby sitters club. Yeah, until some some cut off. I don’t remember when she stopped buying them and like, I you know, I didn’t really process the you know, I just kind of read everything that was in the house. Sometimes not even really liking it that much. I think it was just like reading all the time. Yeah, anyway, so So yeah, I for a long time. I like as a kid, I read a lot of girls books, actually. It’s very weird because my mom is very, like, my mom kind of handled all this stuff is very, sort of like heteronormative gender roles. You know, born in the Born in the 40s type person, but also she would just she took me to figure skating classes and synchronized swimming classes with my sister as a child. Yeah. Anyway, so I read everything in the house. It’s still still like very like boys centric. I think I like you know, though. I read every baby sitters club. I probably like read The Hobbit three or four times. Okay. Things like that. Still, so yeah, it’s very, anyway, the I guess I, the upshot is like, I never really like, think about what kind of books I like until honestly, like, when when the first time we were talking about it, it was like, Oh, shit, what do I like?

Traci Thomas 7:10
I know? When I asked you? You were like, um, I like books about things. I was like, this is not helpful.

Andrew Ti 7:17
No, yeah. But I said really, is how my brain works. Like, I just like I, and that has been Yeah, it’s just I’ve never really thought about what kind of reader I am.

Traci Thomas 7:26
Um, and you said, your parents are immigrants. Where are your parents from?

Andrew Ti 7:30
Yeah, I’m from Hong Kong. And I guess my dad was raised in Taiwan. So yeah, so they met here, but they, they’re, you know, pretty Chinese. Got it. And then I went to college in New York at Columbia, which has sort of like one of those, like, very white guy like great books, programs. So that which everyone has to take a like, sort of truncated classics. Curriculum. Oh, wow. I mean, it’s still pretty, like, it’s like two years of essentially, like a great two books, type course. And then like, art history and music history. Something else it’s a lot of, it’s a lot of stuff. But it is one of those, like, I realized, actually because Columbia is is one of those like ivy league schools that knows that isn’t, you know, where the geniuses go? And really what it is, is that curriculum is so that like stockbrokers can have something to talk about. And, like meet meet smart people. What it’s really like, the point of that fucking curriculum, at least in modern time, what did you major in? I majored in neuroscience, what the fuck? Yeah, I when I was in late high school, I guess, like, Junior sophomore, sort of, that’s a get ahead of the questions. But I really, really, really liked the popular science books of Richard Dawkins, specifically The Selfish Gene, because it really like very clearly explained, evolution and how it works. And so I got to college sort of being like, really inspired by that sort of like Oliver Sacks, like that type of book. Richard Dawkins, Oliver Sacks, I guess, are the two main ones in that sphere, at least that I knew of.

Traci Thomas 9:24
But then how did you become a writer of TV and comedy and things?

Andrew Ti 9:29
So I think what what happened was like along the lines of the like, realizing what like Columbia, it was as a school. It’s sort of that too. It’s like I majored in neuroscience because I thought I was going to be a scientist, right? And it became like really clear that everyone else in the major was just sort of a grade grubbing, wannabe physician. And if anyone’s heard beyond extra, I’ve talked about this on several other podcasts. I have like very little respect for physicians as people, or not, not little respect, but I am sort of a part of it as I have a bunch of like doctors in the family and it’s like, their mechanics, like their mechanics with very high stakes, but they are not, you know, you do not need to be exceptionally smart to be a doctor.

Traci Thomas 10:20
My husband is a doctor and I can cosign this though he is exceptionally smart, but a lot of his friends-

Andrew Ti 10:27
Yeah, you don’t have to. It’s the system, the system works fairly well. But, you know, all the ways that it fails is because of the bias in the cogs age. That by I mean, I think the way I think of it is there’s a person who I went to undergrad with, I believe a successful doctor now. And he would cheat off me in biology class, and I’m like, this motherfucker. Like, right, right, right doctor now, like, give me a fucking break. But also, it’s like, you know, all my family members. I’m like, they’re okay. But, you know, you don’t have to be smart to be a doctor. Right? Anyway, so I hated everyone in the major, except actually, for the one person who I kind of got along with is, and I’m not like, did not maintain a friendship with this person or anything is now I believe, disgraced. science writer, Jonah Lehrer was like, one of my kind of friends. He was like, he was lying. Yeah, he plagiarized some stuff, and like, fabricated some stuff. Kind of probably not like super consequentially accepted as much as he was writing in a journalistic. Yeah, about it. But it wasn’t quite like, like the other like fantasists and plagiarists of right.

Traci Thomas 11:53
So I read a book called so you’ve been publicly shamed. And we did the book on the podcast, and there’s a huge chapter on him. Okay, about what happened. I can’t exactly remember the details, because it was a few years back that we did it. But I think you’re right. It was like, he was making claims about things that were plagiarized, and also weren’t. He drives and then like, made some false claims, like weren’t really backed up about but it was like in a book, I believe that he wrote,

Andrew Ti 12:24
yeah, the one that I remember, which is particularly bonkers, was he he like fabricated a Bob Dylan lyric?

Traci Thomas 12:30
Yes, that’s right a Bob Dylan quote.

Andrew Ti 12:34
Which is like, if you know that your your audience is fucking NPR people, essentially, why would you step into that nasally falsifiable territory, especially for that particular audience?

Traci Thomas 12:49
And it was like, it was like, the quote was so basic. It was yes, it was like I playing guitar said Bob Dylan. And I was like, Yeah, okay, we don’t even need this cloud.

Andrew Ti 13:01
It was it was like a weird look, clearly, it was just sort of like more the ethical step rather than the like, like the specifics of the and I if I recall, that is that is all he did. I don’t know.

Traci Thomas 13:18
For anyone who’s your friend,

Andrew Ti 13:19
He’s your best friend, exactly. But he was going to be the he actually, for a time had the job that I thought I wanted before I actually studied neuroscience, which is he was the guy that like was sort of the media face of talking about neuroscience, I see whatever, but I hated all those people. But I was too deep into the major to like, get out. And so for the rest of my second half of my undergraduate career, besides like grudgingly finishing up the neuroscience stuff, I was like trying to be a photographer. So I like took a bunch of classes with actually some other now disgraced faculty I deserve my tuition back. As I’m talking, I’m like, give me my fucking money back because this was a scam. I mean, yeah, but like truly so much like, like, disgrace. Connected i this this one, I think is more like, I guess, I should say, allegedly, because I only I heard this secondhand, but yeah, it sounds, the behavior I’d heard comports with what I would have imagined this person couldn’t be capable of, but I guess I don’t know. But yeah, so I took a bunch of photography classes. And like, I was like, I’m going to be this kind of artist and I spent all of my 20s living in New York working a day job at Comedy Central as like a essentially like a website producer. And I’ll just age myself and say this was in the era when that was not a cool job. It was like before, before real shit was online, and Yeah, then they moved me out to LA, I started meeting working comedy writers. And it was like, hold on. I could find do this. And somewhere in there, I started writing a blog. Yo, is this racist that became the podcast yo, is this racist? And sort of concurrently, this is where I’d have to, like, sit down and stare at a timeline to remember exactly the order. But the podcast opened enough doors to you know, get me into the first baby steps into the Hollywood machine. And then I wrote, wrote some scripts and got hired to write on the show mixed ish on ABC. So a bunch of about, hopefully, you know, keep writing TV, which is good because God knows what else I would do at this point in my life. But yeah, also in there. So as I started the useless racist podcast by myself, but somewhere a couple of years ago, many years ago now probably longer than not my co host, Tawny Newsome, who is how I met Traci became part of the show. And, yeah, that has just been what I do. But yeah, so and the USS racist is essentially, Tawny and I answering questions about whether things are racist from people. And yet, like most advice, columns shows, it’s never really about the question. It’s about the conversation that is spurred by the heart of the question. And yeah, that’s I think, I think, I think, is that a full catch up?

Traci Thomas 16:34
yeah I think so. Oh, my gosh, your life story. For everybody who’s like that name Tawny Newsome, sounds familiar. Tawny was on the show if you’re an OG Stacks listener, back in January 2019, and we did Home Fire on the show, so a lot of you who are Oh, geez, you loved Tawny and I episode so check it out, if you haven’t. But yeah, I know, Tawny, she used to take my flywheel class. And so it’s a very weird, random, like, connection, but I’m so glad that it exists. Okay, I want to talk about Yo, is this racist because you talk about racism every week for years now. And I just want to know, to ever tired of talking about it? Like, are you ever just like, I don’t want to do this. Like, it’s so fucking enraging sometimes. And I have to get on here and pretend like it’s like funny and cute sometimes. So I’m curious how that works for you.

Andrew Ti 17:28
Well, I think that feeling has diminished a little bit since Tawny got on board. And that is because so before when it was solo with guests, is sometimes they’re just weeks was like, I know, we can’t do this shit. Like, I just don’t want to, it’s not good. But sort of two things happen, which is like one tiny joining sort of made it so that we as friends could always have a discussion about whatever it is. And even when it’s not hard, not fun. I mean, especially. There were plenty of episodes last year was like, Okay, this is what’s happening. I think the other thing that is sort of nice is that because we are both comedy people, it’s less of a concern, like, we’re able to not worry about whether it’s funny, like the show doesn’t just simply doesn’t have to be funny, right? Which is like, I think, helpful, you know, it’s the like, we are funny people, hopefully, I’m a funny person, but you got it like you were people that I think you know, people who listen to our show enjoy listening to. And mostly we are people who are going for laughs and going for fun, but we don’t have to. And another thing actually sort of like, maybe unexpectedly is one thing I did find I say this glibly or it sounds glib when I say it, but it is true, that having the show yo is this racist, allows me to actually very clearly delineate a boundary in my personal life. Like, oh, right, and one of the origins of the show, I guess I could backup is like, so when I worked at Comedy Central, I was very, very, very often not always, but very often, the only person of any type of color in the room when various things were being discussed. So I would often have to be the proxy for all people of color, which came up either implicitly or sometimes explicitly. And it’s like, I’m not, you know, often it was like, about black people. And I was like, I’m not black. It happens that this is clearly racist that I will say it, you know, but it’s not that cool that I’m the only person to even if I gotta have this conversation, but now, you know, and it’s, there’s less of it now. But it’s still like when you work in comedy, you often find yourself the only person of color in the room we’re not often I mean, I you know what, that’s probably true for you Any industry actually, yeah, as I say it out loud, but it is now a truly a place where I can say, sorry, I’m not on the clock like, you. I can I can shunt this that type of emotional labor to like, you know, an hour and a half a week on on air. And so, though I say it lightly when people ask me some things I don’t want to deal with. I mean it. Like, I’ll say I’m not on the clock, and I will not answer their question. Right. Right. Right. Right. Hopefully, it’s it’s light and I could get a laugh out of it. And no one is like, upset. I guess I don’t really care if they are upset, or, you know, there’s probably a little bit of Hollywood triangulating where I am less inclined to upset powerful people. Right, coward. But yeah, yeah, this just it’s a little tough. But yeah, so yes. But the sort of the heart of the question is yes, but I actually find it helpful to like, have the racism thing that can just be separate? Should I choose to?

Traci Thomas 21:07
Do you find that your friends come to you and are like, Andrew, is this thing racist, like in everyday life, that you have to use that a lot?

Andrew Ti 21:15
I think I have sort of successfully alienated the white friends that would annoyingly do that enough. So that they know not to do it slash aren’t my friends anymore, which is fine. Yeah, yeah. I tend not to have to use it very often. But it’s also I do think, like, this is something I feel like I’ve heard you say some version of this over the last couple of years, or a year really, as well, which is that like, at least the type of like white folks that are gonna be receptive to my vibe about race have become more educated in the last like, we’ll call a year, two years. Yeah, some of them since Trump, like, you know, they’re four or four, as annoying as some of those folks can be at times. Some of them have also, quote, done the work done. The reading meant, you know, and like, whether whether it’s, it’s like, sort of necessary, but not sufficient, always. But they are taking steps and like, it can be good and bad. It’s always actually good. It’s good. It’s only really bad when they think that doing some of the work means they’re finished.

Traci Thomas 22:27
Yeah, I listened to this, I won’t name names, because this is sort of mean. But I listened to this podcast. And this woman was interviewing an author who had written a book about anti racism. And, you know, the authors of black, she’s mixed. She’s black, and I think White. She’s talking about how, you know, white people need to do this, right? People need to do that. And the host of the show, who is very much a white woman was like, you know, what about the white people who have done the work, and I was like listening to this episode. And it was so it was such a horrible moment, because I was so embarrassed for the white woman, because I was like, You are fucking up so bad right now. And you think you’re like defending whiteness. And I was even more just devastated for this black woman who had written an entire book on the issue and has lived an entire life with racism, having to explain to this horrible white woman why the work is never done and like having to do this like super elementary exploit. It just was like, so horrible. So now whenever I hear like, do the work, I already hated it. But now I hate it even more, because it’s just so embarrassing to me. Okay, this is sort of a joke question, but it’s also comes from a genuine place of curiosity. On the show, yo, is this racist people would call in and ask you if things are racist, and I’ve done the show three times now and I mean six voicemails total and they’ve all been racist. Is it ever not racist?

Andrew Ti 24:03
I mean, the answer is, of course not like given given that you know, we live in the country we live in. I mean, the the sort of like if you if you peel back the mechanics of how the show works is that it will always be racist because we live in America where we lived on a country where people weren’t free and on stolen land and and we’re the dominant global superpower so it can there is a way that it is not racist. I will say a criticism that has been leveled at the show and me specifically a lot is that the the sort of this like, Yo is this racist devalues the word racist by you know, you call everything racist, so blah, blah, blah. And it is like, I think we’re they almost get it. Right when people when people say that debate Because the thing is everything is, like built on a platform of white supremacy. So it’s a sort of a view of, of looking at the world. And it, there’s a, the, I think the thing that hopefully sinks in for some people is that like, doing something, you know, racist is obviously sort of like a juvenile term at this point. Like, it doesn’t really describe enough, but it’s like, you know, generally, upholding white supremacy is not the end of the world. Like, when you do shit like that, it is sort of the like, it’s the process, not it’s the cover up, not the crime of it. It’s like, we all fuck up constantly. It’s okay, like, I, my, I, this never comes across the right way. But the person I hold up as the example of this, who is like sort of problematic in other ways with how they do it is beloved white celebrity, Lena Dunham, who I will say for all her flaws, like, never digs in, as far as I can tell, like fucks up constantly. And there’s then the argument that like, you know, the apologies are cheap. And maybe the fucking up is becoming willful ignorance at a certain point. And that’s like very reasonable rejoinder to when I say this, however, she fucks up constantly and apologizes immediately, and you know, at least somewhat, you know, sounding like somewhat truthful, I guess, like, like, it sounds, it at least has the language of honesty. And look, maybe this is like, just like an educated white person like weaponizing, their liberal arts education, but compared to everyone else that does this shit that she does, who is in the position? She’s, uh, she is definitely like, top of class. Right?

Traci Thomas 26:54
I think you’re right, I think I mean, I leave it on. But I’m sure but like you, right? No, of course. But I think like the thing that that I, I’m, I’m with you on is like, calling someone a racist, or like saying something that someone’s done, I guess not calling spoonerisms. But saying that something you’ve been has been done is racist. To me. It’s like, so minor. Like, yeah, to have to have done something that is racist in a moment is like, okay, so you’re alive in America. You know, like, if you really want to dig in, you know, there are ways that people of color can be prejudicial to one another, you know, it might not be racism, because of the power structure and like the semantics of the whole thing, but like, things that we would consider white people being racist, for, for doing etc, etc. Like, these things happen constantly, and not necessarily intentionally, and sometimes very intentionally, and all of that. But the trick of whiteness is that white folks have found a way to make saying anything is racist, the number one insult on the face of the planet. So you can’t have these like little nuanced conversations about race because if you say racist, or racism, it’s like, you’ve literally said someone is a baby killer. Like, yeah, couldn’t be worse. So I feel like that’s like where it gets really tricky is like, I would love to have more nuanced conversations about racist moments in life, but like, I can’t, because white people are crying because I call them a racist.

Andrew Ti 28:20
Oh no, I think the hopefully the thing that comes that is like, the viewpoint changer that I think maybe a lot of white folks don’t think about or don’t really, it’s like it like, it’s the difference of realizing that saying some something or someone even is racist. I think a lot of white people think that’s the end of the conversation, I think, I think that’s the beginning beginning.

Traci Thomas 28:45
It’s like lying, like when people talk about like, how lot like, Don’t ever tell a lie. And like if you say someone lied, it’s like a mortal sin. But really, I’m just like, oh, you lied in this moment. Like, how can we move forward?

Andrew Ti 28:57
Yeah, or me truly, it’s like, you know, you committed perjury, but let’s litigate it. Let’s talk about like, what happened here? Right. Right. So, yeah, and is this the nice thing about us as racists is that like, for neither Tanya or I, like, we’re able to, like, you know, just use it as a place to say our piece. And so, we’ve always been like, look, this is like, fucking, we would have these conversations anyway. And it’s nice to like, check in with your friend. Right, right. Right. Right. And especially over like, you know, staying locking down and like, like being being in inside all the time. It’s just like, look, at least I have one thing on the books every week. Right? Right, like seeing someone’s face talking to a person.

Traci Thomas 29:50
Yeah, we’re gonna transition off of this and we do this thing every week called Ask the sacks. I have not prepared you for this, but get ready. It’s sort of what you did to me. But I was prepared, which is book recommendation. So someone’s written in for a book recommendation, I’ll read you what they said, this one’s a little long. And then I’m gonna give them three recommendations. You can give them like one, it’s fine. Okay, so this comes from a holly. And they say, I am a first grade teacher, and I love reading anything that expands my worldview and makes me a better person when dealing with my students and their families. I studied both psychology and education in school, and I’m passionate about both subjects and always want to learn more about people and what made them that way. I like both fiction and nonfiction and I find that what drags me into both strong characters are people at the forefront. Recently, I love Jesus land, how we fight for our lives, my inner feelings, Homegoing and the office of historical corrections. I have never really gotten into sci fi or anything too far into the fantasy or magical realism world. Anything involving kids parenting teaching is welcome. The end. So I’ll start I’ll give a few. I’ll give a few and you can think and give some. So my first one is, I know you said you’re not really into sci fi. But that sounded like a challenge to me. So. So I’m going to present you with Kindred by Octavia Butler. It’s a little more it’s a little sci fi, but it’s rooted in a lot of real stuff. It’s about a woman, a black woman who is time traveled back into slavery. So it’s really good. It’s Octavia Butler. It’s good. My next one is called cultish by Amanda Montel. And I think if you’re listening to this podcast, you would have heard Amanda on the podcast two weeks ago, it’s all about the language of fanaticism. So she she’s a linguist, and she writes all about language, and the ways that it evolves and changes and like the different linguistic tricks of cults ranging from Jonestown, to Scientology, to multilevel marketing companies to Q anon and it’s really, really cool. And then my last one is a book called What doesn’t kill you by Tessa Miller. Tessa Miller has Crohn’s disease. It’s a book all about chronic illness. It’s a memoir, but it also has a lot of research elements. I found it really interesting, especially speaking to the point of like, wanting to know more about what makes people who they are, I am ashamed to admit but also not that ashamed that I won’t admit it. I am probably very ableist to ableist like I just because I’ve been lucky to be healthy and most of my family has to and so I don’t think about a lot of things like chronic illness and disability as much as I certainly should be. So this book for me really helped me to understand places where I’m lacking an understanding but also helped me to understand the ways that other people are struggling, struggling physically, which is just something that I knew I was not taking into consideration nearly enough. So those are my three recommendations. Andrew, what do you have for Holly?

Andrew Ti 32:56
So off the listener mentioning minor feelings I will say I was surprised by how much I liked interior Chinatown because it’s slow walk to me a little bit I the first half of it, I was like, okay. Oh, I used so I guess what I should say is like like the way I think mine are feelings does a really good job of capturing sort of the interior monologue of Asian American women. Interior Chinatown does a really a different sort of thing. It doesn’t in different way, but does sort of a similar thing with Asian men, including so much of the like, sort of toxic masculinity of Asian men that I think like does not really get explored in like a wide conversation very much. It’s a thing where and it’s a thing that I just didn’t realize I hadn’t seen it like kind of worked through, in in media in a way but oh, sorry, I should say also like toxic masculinity and also a little bit of the like, it, it landed the anti blackness of the Asian community in a way that I was like, real he like, Oh, this is it’s not doing a good job with this until it does. In a way that I think those are conversations that at least for me, aren’t out there very much. And I was really really glad to see it. So I think that’s that’s the thing I’ve read most recently that like I think probably provides a an interesting counterpoint to minor feelings, but just sort of like filling in like the some of the specific shit that Asian men have in their head Asian American men have in their heads.

Traci Thomas 34:47
Okay, Holly, that’s your I get those recommendations. For those of you at home if you want to get a book recommendation on the air, email, ask the stacks at thestackspodcast.com Okay, we’re going to do the stocks question so we start here always two books you love one book you hate.

Andrew Ti 35:11
Yeah, I’m gonna start actually with the the one book I hate with like a big ol big ol caveat to it. And it’s a book you’ve you’ve brought up already and I should say I think I only read one chapter. But so you’ve been publicly shamed. Oh, yeah.

Traci Thomas 35:31
I sort of hate that book too. Okay. Yeah, we talk to a lot of shit about it on the show. Don’t worry.

Andrew Ti 35:37
But it was it’s a thing where like, and I think it was more like listening to Jon Ronson talk about it after the fact. And it sort of took on a life of its own. And then the way it got taken up by the right wing as like it sort of Odyssey was like the corners. It’s a founding text of like this fake like a cancel, cancel culture. outrage, but like, the thing I hate about that book is like it’s it was sort of the same that and Hillbilly Elegy. Were just hearing like the logline essentially, for the book. I was like, that book is made to comfort bigots. Yeah. And so I think I read one chapter, or I read like the beginning, the one about the publicists who like tweeted something Oh, yes. And then was fired. And it really is just like, if you’re so mad, and then everything else that I read in the book is like, yeah, the mechanics of public shaming, okay, it’s, it takes a toll. But if you’re so mad about public shame, why don’t you address some of the underlying issues that cause this groundswell of rage? Right, right. Anyway, that’s a book that I think like, enough people I like, like think that but it’s always the kind of like, well meaning white people that are like, man, didn’t you love this book? It’s like, yeah, this shit is.

Traci Thomas 37:01
We did it with a well meaning white woman on this show. And it was before it was like, march 2020. And I think that I was pretty critical on the episode, but I didn’t go as hard as I maybe would have liked to because she really was appreciative of a lot of the book. But the book is fucked.

Andrew Ti 37:22
Okay. It couldn’t, I couldn’t make it through it. But I was just like, This is not. This is it is like, yeah, you just kind of watch it. Be. You can just tell the bedfellows of the book, sort of tell you what it really is. Yeah. I don’t know. It’s two books you love and one book you hate. But the other one is, and I think I did allude to this on another Gnosis racist episode, but I’m currently working on a podcast project where I’m reading Atlas Shrugged. And for reasons that are too dumb to get into. I’m rereading for the second time. Oh, my God. And good motherfucking God, it is just horrible.

Traci Thomas 38:03
So you’re giving me two books you hate and one book you love?

Andrew Ti 38:06
I guess. So. Then? Well, that’s just came to mind. I just I just was like thinking about it.

Traci Thomas 38:14
That’s why I love like hate on the show. Everyone on the show tries to be so polite. And I’m like, No, tell me a book you fucking hate. I know you hate books.

Andrew Ti 38:22
Well, I think the other thing is actually so maybe maybe the other like looking at the psychology of it. If this is something I left out of my bio at the top this time, not on I actually intended to mention this I forgot, which is like, I also in my 20s in New York. I was also like, I had a lot of friends like right out of college who were like assistants at publishing houses. And so I was like getting a lot of books. And it was also like, once again, to age myself, like, during that heyday of New York like McSweeney’s, and Iowa writing workshop, people coming out. And a thing that I realized when I was looking at my bookshelf is like, so many of these, and I guess so they were probably like, sort of Gen X white people or like old millennial, white folks. And so many of those people that I like, quote, unquote, loved when I was in my 20s are horrible, like, all right, idiots. I think specifically, I remember I had a galley of a mikan down book that I really loved in my 20s and I just remember this like some sometime during you know, 2020 like, realizing I owned it, throwing it away and being like, Good fucking God. Although that being said, I still have I still have the selfish gene on my bookshelf. Well, yeah, it’s just so many like as you let these white intellectuals continue to have public life, it’s like, it is weirdly troubling how many of them just fold straight into, you know, racism, usually transphobia it seems like is increasingly popular.

Traci Thomas 39:54
Well, that’s interesting, too, is like now there’s this call for diversity and publishing and what they’ve ended up doing Yang is a not getting any more diverse big surprise, but be finding voices of people of color that speak to the exact same thing as these like alt right people from or like pre order people. You know, it’s like I think of I mean, I’m not saying that this person is quite as bad as you know, Jon Ronson, or whatever. But like I think of like Emmanuel acho, who is like, difficult conversations with black people. And he spends all his time coddling white people about why they’re not racist. And it’s like, that’s actually diversity and publishing, that’s just a black person writing what a white person wishes they could write. So I find that to be an interesting twist, and there’s a lot of different you know, books like that. Sorry, sorry, a manual, but you’re not my fave.

Andrew Ti 40:46
I think that’s that’s kind of how it always is. It’s like, it’s still like, if every time I mean, look at Hollywood, it’s arguably worse. Yeah. Because it’s like, every time there’s a push for diversity, it doesn’t include diversifying the audience. Right? If that makes sense. Like, you know, I will, I will just say like, I, this is not a sorry, I I’m almost framing this, like, it’s, you know, going to be shady, but it isn’t. But like, so I worked on the show mixed ish. And like, that’s what was on ABC on primetime. And there, of course, was an acknowledgment that a significant portion of the target audience of the show is white. And so it’s a thing where it’s like, and I think all credit to my bosses, they really like we’re like, yes, but you know, in the case of MCs session, it’s like telling this, like, both mixed and black point of view. And knowing that there will be some hand holding, but doing the hand holding in, like the hopefully funniest and most like creative way. And that was like interesting, but it is it is still like the thing hanging over. Everyone’s head is like, at the end of the day, like 10 powerful white people are going to decide whether this is palatable for the millions of white people that are hopefully watching this. So it is like a little bit of a dance. And, uh, you know, so that’s the same thing. It’s like, you see it all the time. It’s like the audience. It’s still white people, even when it’s like a push for diversity, which is like I think part of the problem it’s like, not not just diversifying the media, but diversify the audience.

Traci Thomas 42:26
Yeah, totally. You haven’t told me a book you love still?

Andrew Ti 42:33
Oh, well, which is all to say, I’m trying to think because it’s like the sort of embarrassing shit. I think the two that I was going to say that are. We’re both like, like really hit me, although I’m curious whether they would hit me the same way. I’m also not a person that revisits books very often. But the first would be hard boiled Wonderland at the end of the world. Haruki Murakami, which I was a little bit saving, because I’m like, this awesome. Yeah, this speaks to other questions as well. But I loved Yeah, I just I love that book. I think I like it more than his other like, books, because it’s maybe a little more straightforward. And like, a little more cinematic, maybe. But I think it was that my first exposure to like this, like, cool, magical realism Asian person, Asian point of view that I think, yeah, I was really inspired by that. And then another one, which is a book I also have not read in a long time. I wonder if I would hold up for me is Colson Whiteheads, the intuitionist. Which I just, I think it must have just been I was in that time of like, magical realism and people of color is what I need, because I have otherwise all these confessional white people, which I think I like, right. But those are the two books from that era that I think would hold up more than all the other shit that I like, in my most literary time. I’m like, actively embarrassed about liking right and having liked. Yeah, okay, I think those are my books.

Traci Thomas 44:09
And what? What’s a book that maybe you’re looking forward to reading?

Andrew Ti 44:13
I will say actually, so while while we were doing this, I pulled up the physical stack. And for some reason, I thought we were going to do the how we fight for our lives. Site Jones. And I’m looking forward to reading that mainly because like, I think I just started paying more attention to cite on Twitter and like, I was on a zoom with him like really, pandemic is like, this is the most charming motherfuckers so I guess for like, personal reasons. This is this is the book I’m gonna dig into next time.

Traci Thomas 44:47
It’s one of my favorites is so good. He’s so great. And he is so charming and lovely and smart and wonderful and just all the things Yeah, what are you reading right now?

Andrew Ti 44:56
Honestly, nothing. I just finished another one of your record. emendations exciting times.

Traci Thomas 45:02
That wasn’t my recommendation. It was. I don’t know that book. Gosh, well, how do you recommend it to yourself?

Andrew Ti 45:12
I genuinely feel like this is impossible. I don’t know.

Traci Thomas 45:16
Did Tawny maybe recommend it when we were talking? I guess it’s possible because she recommended a few books.

Andrew Ti 45:21
I mean, I 1,000% pulled it from the big big stack of stacks recommendation that I had just giving there. So because it because it is it’s written by a white woman, but it’s it’s

Traci Thomas 45:36
Is it the Irish or something? Yeah, it was tiny. Bit of Russian.

Andrew Ti 45:41
Yeah, yeah, but that was that was like a very fun it is hard to just like a millennial queer romance in in Hong Kong. I will say actually going back to my initial pathology about my reading as I was reading it, I was like I know it’s been optioned but I would I would like to there’s a couple of people I know that I would like to see take a crack at this as a as a movie.

Traci Thomas 46:07
Okay, aside from me, where do you find books to pick up or am I for you?

Andrew Ti 46:15
You are currently it, honestly because because I read in like fits and starts and I just have too much to get through and so far they’ve all been they’ve all been great like at no point have I been like you know, I don’t want to do this so I’m going to power I’m going to power I just feel like because because I’m fortunate to know you by the time I power through this power through i i struggled at the finish line with this stack I have it will be not uncool for me to ask for another recommendation.

Traci Thomas 46:52
You can always ask me for recommendations; that’s like all I do.

Andrew Ti 46:56
So that’s that’s the selfish thing is I currently have no need for anything beyond you as as a book and it but I think it also just like obviously speaks to how you do this shit that it is like they’re they’re perfect it’s so good. I think the other one that I really really really liked a lot and it helped that it dovetailed with a piece of TV I liked a lot was reading there there while reservation dogs was was Eric got me into that like, you know obviously superficially it’s about natives but I think there also is that like, the children of it the like, again, the sort of naive toxic masculinity of it that I really, really responded to as a double feature essentially, I just think like they’re they’re into reservation dogs was like fucking wonderful as a as a media experience.

Traci Thomas 47:54
They’re supposed to be a sequel of they’re they’re coming that Tommy orange is working on. So I’m very excited. I’m not sure when i There’s no title or anything, but I’ve heard him talk about it. And a few events like he’s working on it.

Andrew Ti 48:05
Yeah, it feels like it’s i This is how sick and depressing Hollywood is. I would I would have said it would be a great TV series, except I think the existence of reservation dogs will in the minds of the white gatekeepers of Hollywood will prevent it from happening anytime soon. I guess I don’t know. And maybe I’m like, you know,

Traci Thomas 48:28
I hope you’re right. I don’t know.

Andrew Ti 48:29
I do too. But that is just my guess.

Traci Thomas 48:33
Do you have any favorite bookstores?

Andrew Ti 48:36
I bought a lot of stuff from I think I bought this whole list from stories, bookstore and cafe near me in LA. Is it my favorite bookstore? I think in the absence of a better candidate, I suppose I probably I don’t have like an emotional attachment to bookstores the way I think some people do. Yeah, because I think probably depressingly after buying stuff on stories intentionally. My next biggest bookstore is Amazon, which is I know deeply uncool and deeply fucked up. But it’s it is a thing where when I lived in New York, I don’t even know if it’s, it must be there in some capacity. But I was a like, go to the strand every Saturday afternoon and just buy something.

Traci Thomas 49:25
Yeah, it’s definitely still there. The Strand? Yeah, I figure it’s like an institution.

Andrew Ti 49:29
Yeah.

Traci Thomas 49:30
Okay. Can you think of the last book that made you laugh?

Andrew Ti 49:33
Oh, my gosh, I can’t. I was thinking about that. As we were leading up to this because I I’m very much not like a like, I think my problem is I maybe have like, worked in comedy just long enough where it’s like, I It’s really rare that I laugh physically out loud at anything. But also, maybe it’s the nature of like, like the comedy comedic classics. But like, I think I think to me the, the biggest example is Confederacy of Dunces.

Traci Thomas 50:09
My brother loved that book. I hated it. I couldn’t get through it.

Andrew Ti 50:12
And so many people were like, it’s the funniest thing you’ve ever read. I’m like, I don’t think it is. It’s a no. Yeah, so I it’s, but it’s sort of like that, like all the classic like, this is hilarious books. Like I rarely find them really funny. I just, I think genuinely, I can’t, I can’t think of.

Traci Thomas 50:33
Do you know Samantha Irby? She writes for Touca and Birdie. And she writes comedy essays. And I generally hate anything that’s supposed to be funny, standup comedy included. I like hate all forms of comedy, but her books are actually kind of funny. I listened to them on audio and so I feel like that makes it better because she reads it and she’s really funny. And she’s a writer who’s funny so her books are funny because it’s in the format that she’s one of the format’s that she’s funny. So if you ever do want to laugh, I recommend it. But I also don’t love to read funny so I get that too. ,

Andrew Ti 51:13
I’m not opposed. Yeah, I’ll add that I’ll make that my first audio book. Oh my god yes. Very not audio book person.

Traci Thomas 51:22
Try it because it doesn’t feel super audio book II because she’s reading these like personal essays and they’re very funny. Okay, what about the last book that made you cry? Or are you not a book crier either.

Andrew Ti 51:34
I am not a book crier as much, but for I probably cannot credit the book alone for this, but like last year, I like gone through a breakup and like was like kind of deep in the like misery of of being relatively buttoned up in COVID. And multiple times, in parable of the sower and parable of the talents. I was like, found myself a little weepy but not like from any specific passage. I think it was just the grimness of it. Yeah. And my own. Yeah, probably the book didn’t really make me cry. Honest. is what I mean.

Traci Thomas 52:20
We’re just in an emotional place that’s alive.

Andrew Ti 52:22
Yeah, that’s what I was crying last time reading. So I guess.

Traci Thomas 52:25
That totally counts. What about the last book that made you angry?

Andrew Ti 52:31
I mean, currently, it remains Atlas Shrugged and will be for? Um, yeah, I don’t It’s, I think because as people have probably gathered, I’m like, not a very like, I guess like, kind of not a great reader. So like, if anything kind of remotely makes me like, like, my bar for putting a book down doesn’t even extend to angry like, yeah, you know, it’s just like a little annoyed. A little bored. And it’s been gone. Yeah, I just don’t know when I would. I get angry at the idea of books again, have not read so you’ve been publicly shamed, but I’m angry. Y

Traci Thomas 53:12
Yeah but you hate it. I love this for you. Do you have well you said you’ve read a lot of like classics and light right. White male books. Do you have any particular problematic fave?

Andrew Ti 53:23
I mean, I guess it would just have to be Richard Dawkins. Okay, like not and not a fav but I do think The Selfish Gene again, I have not reread it in a while but I you know, it would be fucking shocking to me if any of his like later racism and transphobia is in there, right? I mean, I suppose it could be but like those like science books, I still I just think are like the most like lucid like rejoinder to like, you know, most you know, creationism and conspiracy theories and things like that. It’s just like really, like, fucking clear how evolution works. And could start from basic principles.

Traci Thomas 54:04
Right? What about a book that people might be surprised to know that you love again?

Andrew Ti 54:11
It’s like one that I don’t know if it would hold up so much. I think in my teens I really really liked like, and this is just like pretentious grew up in Michigan, Andrew speaking pretentious team surrounded by white people which is like the the Douglas Copeland novels like you know, Generation X i really liked and like Microsoft’s I think is like, is good. He has a collection of short stories called Life After God that I as a teen I found to be very kind of romantic and cool, and I think they’re probably still fine. But yeah, I actually the one. The one audio book I do remember really enjoying and I still probably would be my favorite quote unquote favorite audio book. which is micro serves as read by Matthew Perry. Wow, friend. Yeah, like the most 90s shit that could possibly exist. But I just really I mean, I think at the time I was also like a bit of a computer nerd and it did not strike me as being problematic that like it’s so painfully white right. But yeah, I, you know, then again I wonder I’ve not done anything to disabuse myself of this like like so maybe there’s maybe I don’t like it I it’s hard to it’s probably it’s the same me that really liked Rushmore. Okay and Royal Tenenbaums and I don’t like that knee for cinema. So now that as I say it out loud, there’s kind of no way it would extend to literature, but that’s still my answer.

Traci Thomas 55:57
Okay, I just have one more for you. We always do this one. If you could require the current president of the United States to read one book, what would it be?

Andrew Ti 56:08
Oh, my God. I mean, I think would probably would actually be Parable of the Sower. I mean, it’s just like, Joe Biden put down the like, you know, the Skinner liner notes, which is your normal bedtime reading at like, maybe not standard, that’s too racist, but whatever, whatever classic rock he grew out to. Yeah, I mean, you know, it’s beyond, not something I need to say but Parable of the Sower. The predictive value of that point of view, visa vie fascism. And apocalypse is was startling, startling. And it’s like, yeah, that talks about where our society is going, has a better track record than like anything else. So I guess would be that.

Traci Thomas 56:59
All right. That’s it from Andrew for today. He will be back the last week of December. We’re going to be discussing a little devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib. My favorite book of the year. I think, I know it is my favorite spoiler alert. I’m going to talk about how much I love it at the end of the month. That’s our book club pick. Andrew, thank you so much for being here.

Andrew Ti 57:22
Thanks for having me. This was so wonderful.

Traci Thomas 57:24
Yay. And everyone else we will see you in the stacks. All right, that does it for us today on the stacks. Thank you all so much for listening and thank you to Andrew for being my guest. Remember the stacks book club pick for December is a little devil in America by Hanif abdurraqib. We will be discussing the book on Wednesday, December 29. With Andrew Ti. If you love the show and want inside access to it, head to patreon.com/thestacks to join The Stacks Pack. Make sure you’re subscribed to The Stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts and if you’re listening through Apple Podcasts or Spotify, be sure to leave us a rating and a review. For more from The Stacks, follow us on social media at thestackspod on Instagram at thestackspod_ on Twitter and check out our website thestackspodcast.com. This episode of The Stacks was edited by Christian Dueñas, with production assistance from Lauren Tyree. Our graphic designer is Robin McCreight and our theme music is from Tagirijus. The Stacks is created and produced by me, Traci Thomas.

Lauren Tyree
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