Episode 5: Coughing while Asian with Barb Lee

At the delicious truth, we know that talking about and uncovering solutions that keep us seeped in the history of this country is an important step in the right direction. With all that is going on in the media, racism against black people in America has become highly visible and discussed. However, since 2016 the fact that anti-immigrant racism and a more recent example with COVID-19 being called the "Chinese Virus," highlights a long-standing issue with racism against Asian people. The xenophobia and racism have led to Asian men and women being attacked.

This has to stop. Our guest Barb Lee isn't new to kicking off uncomfortable conversations, as she has made it her profession to use her power as the Founder and President of Point Made Films and Point Made Learning, to use film as an opportunity to help us see, what is often unseen.

Lee has served as a consultant on numerous documentary films, including Overburden, about systemic oppression and poverty in the Appalachian Mountains; Without a Fight, about the role of youth soccer in the Kenyan slum of Kibera; and Las Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, which reports the heartbreaking aftermath of some five hundred infants who were secretly adopted during Argentina’s Dirty War. Point Made Films is also a producing partner for the independent feature film The Birth of a Nation written, produced, directed by, and starring, Nate Parker.

Prior to creating her own companies, Lee worked as a freelance video producer, a corporate event designer, a video production teacher at the North Carolina School of Science and Math (still her favorite job); she also worked in development at 20th Century Fox and Fox TV. Her first movie job was at Paramount Studios, where she was a writing intern for Star Trek: The Next Generation.

She has dual degrees in broadcast journalism and speech communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she has volunteered in numerous leadership roles including Chair of the UNC Board of Visitors, Vice-Chair of the UNC Performing Arts Board of Advisors, Chair of ACRED (Alumni Committee on Racial and Ethnic Diversity), and as a member of UNC’s School of Media and Journalism’s Board of Visitors. Lee is the 2015 recipient of UNC’s Alumni Diversity Award, the university’s highest honor for work in racial justice, and was the 2016 commencement speaker for the UNC School of Media and Journalism. She is also a trustee of the foundation board of John Jay College of Criminal Justice.