by Jenn Shaffer and WKUS
"Who Keeps Us Safe?" (WKUS) is a podcast by Asian Americans living in Seattle that explores safety, policing, and abolition in our communities and beyond. Join us as we speak with organizers in the Seattle area, and reflect on their work and learnings. We hope that our listeners will use this podcast to begin and/or supplement their own conversations about safety and policing in their own communities. This is a project of PARISOL: Pacific Rim Solidarity Network, a grassroots anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, Hong Konger, Taiwanese, and Chinese* diaspora group based in Seattle. PARISOL is dedicated to local and international solidarity, community building, cultural & politicized learning, abolition, and anti-racist work.
WKUS was originally formatted for radio with local radio station KVRU 105.7FM, which meant that the podcast episodes tended to be about an hour in length. Going forward, the WKUS production crew decided to make future episodes shorter and more casual in format, still focusing on local conversations about safety. Who Keeps Us Safe? is a small volunteer team of community organizers: Alex Chuang, Andy Allen, Chloe Huber, Jenn Shaffer, Makenna O'Keeffe, and Ryan Fang.
Catch up on the most recent conversations by listening to the latest three episodes:
WKUS caught up with MPOP (Massage Parlor Outreach Project) to hear more about their vigil in Seattle's CID to mark the anniversary of the tragedy in Atlanta, GA. Listen to this brief conversation about what community safety means for us now, one year later.
(If you haven't already, go and listen to the fourth episode titled "MPOP" to learn more about the organization and the issues they seek to address.)
This is a brief conversation with "The Eggrolls," a mutual aid group based out of ChuMinh Tofu in Little Saigon, located in the eastern side of the CID. For the past three years, The Eggrolls and ChuMinh have been serving 150—200 free meals outside of the restaurant every Sunday to homeless and elder members of the Little Saigon community. This episode gives a glimpse into what mutual aid in the Little Saigon area currently looks like, and how these community efforts contribute to safety.
Check in with the CID Coalition as they address a new challenge that threatens the Chinatown-International District. The regional transit service (Sound Transit) is working on an expansion of the light rail system in the Seattle region. Although this might seem like a great opportunity for the city, Sound Transit has selected the CID as the transit hub location for all of this new expansion. This project would have huge environmental impacts, including displacing
Listen to all WKUS episodes at the official podcast website.
Find out more about WKUS at their linktree site, or follow them on Instagram @who_keeps_us_safe.
Who Keeps Us Safe? is currently receiving requests for interviews, as well as questions or reactions to our content. You can connect with them on Instagram or you can send an email at wkus.pod@gmail.com.
Featured Image: "Who Keeps Us Safe?" is a podcast by Asian American community organizers that explores ideas of community safety, abolition, and activism. (Artwork: Alex Chuang)
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