Black Asian Solidarity

Black and Asian Solidarity: Movement History and Organizing for the Future

Event Overview

This panel is part of MuslimARC’s Many Histories, One Struggle series, presented in recognition of Asian Heritage Month.

Three panelists, a scholar-activist, a public policy practitioner, and a Muslim futurist and cultural critic, will discuss the organizing traditions and historical solidarities connecting Black and Asian communities, what those connections mean right now, and what it takes to build them in practice.

This conversation moves past representation and into the real work. Movement history, cross-racial organizing, and what solidarity requires of the people committed to it.

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Event Details

Date: May 2026 (exact date forthcoming)
Time: 5:30 PM PT
Platform: Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn Livestream
Moderator: Margari Aziza Hill, Programming Director, MuslimARC
Series: Many Histories, One Struggle

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Panelists

John Austin
Interactive Designer, Cultural Critic, and Muslim Futurist
Washington, D.C.-based polymath of African American and Japanese American heritage. Founder and editor-in-chief of Fresh Pulp Magazine, a publication dedicated to theoretical science fiction from marginalized communities. Host of Dark Matters, a weekly podcast applying a critical race lens to sci-fi. Author of “How to Be Black and Muslim in America” (Beacon Press) and contributor to the Salaam, Love anthology. He has presented on Muslim futurism at the 2022 Mipsterz conference and is a member of MuslimARC’s advisory council.

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Haleema Bharoocha
Social Impact Consultant, Facilitator, and Public Speaker

Haleema Bharoocha, MPP, is a community leader, facilitator, and public speaker dedicated to supporting people-powered movements for justice and liberation. She is a member of the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action (ASATA), supporting efforts to mobilize South Asian communities across the Bay Area around issues including immigration, labor rights, and collective action. She also previously helped lead South Asians for Black Lives, a volunteer-led effort focused on addressing anti-Blackness within the South Asian diaspora and building solidarity with Black communities.

As a consultant and trainer, Haleema believes in equipping communities with the tools they need to drive systemic change. She has trained over 2,000 people in advocacy, systems change, bystander intervention, community safety, and self-defense.

In addition, Haleema is the curator of GenerArtive, an art shop where she uses embroidery and coloring as a self-care practice and as a medium for imagining and inspiring just futures. Her coloring book, Freedom as Practice is out now

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Dylan Rodríguez
Distinguished Professor, Abolitionist Scholar, and Co-Founder of Critical Resistance
Distinguished Professor at UC Riverside in the Department of Black Study and the Department of Media and Cultural Studies. His work examines abolitionist, anticolonial, and liberationist responses to anti-Black and colonial violence, with a focus on collective resistance and insurgent futures. He was named to the inaugural class of Freedom Scholars in 2020. Author of White Reconstruction: Domestic Warfare and the Logic of Racial Genocide (Fordham University Press, 2021) and co-editor of Critical Ethnic Studies: A Reader (Duke University Press, 2016). He is a co-founder of Critical Resistance, the Abolition Collective, the Critical Ethnic Studies Association, and the UC Riverside Department of Black Study.