Ben Chan(V)
- Additional Crew
Ben is the grandson of refugees and the son of immigrants. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York.
On his first day of the first grade school administrators put him in the English as a second language (ESL) classroom without testing or even speaking to him. Had they bothered, they would have discovered that English was his primary language. That was Ben's introduction to racism. Ben participated in his first anti-police brutality protest when he was 15 years old.
Ben attended Hobart and William Smith Colleges (HWS) as one of their Trustees Scholars. After his junior year, Ben relinquished his scholarship and left HWS because their deans protected a student who'd harassed and attacked multiple women. He transferred to CUNY Hunter College where he majored in history and minored in Asian American studies.
Ben was a community organizer and worked for a handful of New York City-based nonprofits before being hired in 2007 to be a paralegal at Center for Family Representation (CFR), a public defender agency that provides legal and social work services to indigent parents. Ben graduated from New York Law School in 2010. After writing the appellate brief that resulted in CFR winning its first appeals case, he decided that direct representation was not for him, and pivoted to managing CFR's IT.
After donating one of his kidneys in 2012, Ben took up running. He completed 13 marathons and 4 ultramarathons over 8 years. During the summer of 2020, Ben participated in a virtual run, along with 19,000 other runners, where he ran 635 miles over three months. After completing his run, Ben posted a race recap accompanied by a finish line photo that drew the ire of other participants because Ben was wearing a Black Lives Matter singlet in the photo. The white race director acquiesced to the angry mob, and deleted Ben's race recap claiming that although he did not have an issue with the singlet, deleting Ben's post was the best way to deal with the deluge of racist comments. Subsequently, the same race director removed Ben and his teammates from his next event after they refused to change their team name from "Black Lives Matter". Feeling abandoned and betrayed because of the muted response from the running community, media, and industry, Ben stopped running.
During the covid-19 pandemic, Ben completed a certificate course at eCornell in Conflict Resolution, and another certificate course at Antioch University in Leading for Inclusion and Racial Justice.
Since 2009, Ben has been a CompuBox operator. During live televised boxing cards, Ben counts the number of punches. His statistics are relayed to the production crew for use by the color commentators and in graphics.
Ben currently resides in the Philadelphia area with his wife and child.
On his first day of the first grade school administrators put him in the English as a second language (ESL) classroom without testing or even speaking to him. Had they bothered, they would have discovered that English was his primary language. That was Ben's introduction to racism. Ben participated in his first anti-police brutality protest when he was 15 years old.
Ben attended Hobart and William Smith Colleges (HWS) as one of their Trustees Scholars. After his junior year, Ben relinquished his scholarship and left HWS because their deans protected a student who'd harassed and attacked multiple women. He transferred to CUNY Hunter College where he majored in history and minored in Asian American studies.
Ben was a community organizer and worked for a handful of New York City-based nonprofits before being hired in 2007 to be a paralegal at Center for Family Representation (CFR), a public defender agency that provides legal and social work services to indigent parents. Ben graduated from New York Law School in 2010. After writing the appellate brief that resulted in CFR winning its first appeals case, he decided that direct representation was not for him, and pivoted to managing CFR's IT.
After donating one of his kidneys in 2012, Ben took up running. He completed 13 marathons and 4 ultramarathons over 8 years. During the summer of 2020, Ben participated in a virtual run, along with 19,000 other runners, where he ran 635 miles over three months. After completing his run, Ben posted a race recap accompanied by a finish line photo that drew the ire of other participants because Ben was wearing a Black Lives Matter singlet in the photo. The white race director acquiesced to the angry mob, and deleted Ben's race recap claiming that although he did not have an issue with the singlet, deleting Ben's post was the best way to deal with the deluge of racist comments. Subsequently, the same race director removed Ben and his teammates from his next event after they refused to change their team name from "Black Lives Matter". Feeling abandoned and betrayed because of the muted response from the running community, media, and industry, Ben stopped running.
During the covid-19 pandemic, Ben completed a certificate course at eCornell in Conflict Resolution, and another certificate course at Antioch University in Leading for Inclusion and Racial Justice.
Since 2009, Ben has been a CompuBox operator. During live televised boxing cards, Ben counts the number of punches. His statistics are relayed to the production crew for use by the color commentators and in graphics.
Ben currently resides in the Philadelphia area with his wife and child.