A. R. Sakaeda blogs at the Chicago Tribune News Blogs
When people talk about the model minority, “model” is code for never making other people feel uncomfortable about racism. “Model” means not being like all those other troublesome people of color. It means keeping your mouth shut and your eyes lowered. It means smiling brightly and nodding along. Yes, sir! Whatever you say, sir! It means never complaining.
Members of the model minority often are used to shame other people of color. They can do it, why can’t you? If you would only have those same close-knit families. If you only valued education more. If you only worked harder. Racism is a thing of the past.
Holding up Asian Americans as a model divides communities of color, making it difficult for us to see our commonalities.
[Hat Tip: angry asian man]
So not having a close-knit family is our fault? I, for one, am not the one who did the molesting, hitting and mind-fucking. And anyone who presumes to know how hard someone else is working is really stepping over the line.
Continue the struggle against crap.
‘Holding up Asian Americans as a model divides communities of color, making it difficult for us to see our commonalities.’
That may play a role, maybe, but there are enough real differences to make it “difficult for us to see our commonalities”. Model minority BS had nothing to do with the way a Korean math teacher treated my Japanese-American step-daughter. It has nothing to do with the way Korean shop keepers treat black customers. It had nothing to do with the way the Sei Yip Cantonese community in California mistreated arriving Sam Yap Cantonese in the 60’s and 70’s. Hint for Mr. Sakaeda: America is not the whole world and history did not start here.
What commonalities is he talking about? Being non-white? Does it get any more eurocentric than that? What do black people in LA or the rest of the West Coast have in common with Asians of whatever origin? It wasn’t black people who were rounded up inot camps, it wasn’t black people who were ethnically cleansed out of almost every town and city here – except until recently – well, that’s different, that’s another gropup of “people of color” doing that.
If Mr. Sakaeda lives in Chicago, perhaps he grew up there, and that would explain his cluelessness – but not excuse it.
Correction. Ms. Sakaeda. the commenters are pretty clueless there too, generalizing from Chicago to the entire US, and then complaining about sterotypes.
Something about this formulation bothers me. From the sound of it, you probably know a bit about Asian history – you may even be Asian yourself. So are you unaware of the history between Japan and Korea? You may as well as go on about how Czech teachers are unfair to Russian students, thus implicitly impugning the Czechs as a people, to an audience in Micronesia unaware of recent European history.
Typically older Koreans still harbour resentment and prejudicial attitude toward Japanese. And as Chris Rock said, there’s no one more racist than really old Black guys.
Sigh… and I wonder why Koreans get two honorary mentions in your rant. The other side to it is that a lot of lower class Korean families come to America to find that the only place where they can open up business is in inner city communities, whose denizens treat them as outsiders and inferiors as surely as any gated community would. I believe the Du family was way in the wrong in the Latasha Harlins case, but you can’t forget that Korean families and businesses were targeted indiscriminately in the riots that followed.
Cross-sectionality between minorities has always been a problem. Why single out Asians? Is it because Asians are the last racial minority that’s fair game? If you are Asian yourself, then this is truly shameful.
What commonalities do labour unions and environmental groups have? What commonalities do churches and the NRA have? None intrinsically, but a common enemy: in our case, the racial status quo. Should Asians eschew all alliances altogether and keep to ourselves? Isn’t that one of the things we’re criticized on? Or should we align ourselves to the racial status quo and embrace the “model minority” tag? No thanks, I’d rather drink turpentine.
Slyph,
You are right, that was a rant. I inadvertently appear to focus on Koreans; well, I admire the Koreans in my community more than a lot of people.
As for that matter of Latasha Harlins; I am not familar with the specifics, but I am familar witht he way Koreans are continually targeted in LA especially. The South Centrl riots were a classic West Coast pogrom against Asians, however much a bunch of Black apologists with foreign (Southern) accents may want to spin it in the mould of the civil rights struggle.
You are way off base saying that I focus on “cross-sectionality” because I discuss Asians in response to a post on Asians. Want to talk about cross-sectionality? “No Irish need apply”? The way Catholics are hemorrhaging out of the Repblican Party in disgust at their fiki-fiki with the Religious Right? (about goddammed time!) The way Romney was scuttled because he was a Mormon? Those are ethnic divisions, pure and simple. But I was trying to stay somewhat on topic.
“If you are Asian yourself, then this is truly shameful.’ This is truly bullshit. Why would a person not want to focus on probelms within his own community? Or do you think there is soemthing wrong with identifying probelms and rederssing them. Afraid of what the white folk will say? How shameful is that?
Of course I am aware of the history between the Koreans and the Japanese – that was rather my point, wasn’t it? These people are not somehow all one smiling, singing broad front just because they have one charactyeristic, their non-whiteness, in common. How Euro-centered is that? I was simply saying that it was pretty low to be taking that shit out on a child and a student placed in your care. You do agree with that, I hope.
“None intrinsically, but a common enemy: in our case, the racial status quo. ”
Explain please what you mean when you say that the racial staus quo is the common enemy. Carefully and clearly. What to you is problematic? The way that Asians supposedly are held back and kept down in this country; demonstrably untrue.
Or do you mean the overall racial situation in the country – then I agree wholeheartedly that a lot has to change.
Or is it the way that “whites” are in the majority? If that is how you mean that, do you find the “racial status quo” in Korea or Japan equally problematic?
Let me guess: you mean the overall racial situation in the country.
There’s a lot to admire. ;)
There’s a large number of Asians who only ever stick up for themselves against other Asians. It is the Asians who talk only about intra-community affairs and never concretely about White-Asian relations who are afraid of what “White people will say”. It is the Asians who are afraid of confrontation and assume that whenever there is a dispute (say) between the Black community and the Asian community, then the Asian community must be more in the wrong, who are disgraceful. It is my experience that there are more than a few Asian “advocates” display these tendencies – I may have misjudged you when assuming you were one of them, but my own post was a rant of sorts as well.
You do not see Hispanic leaders doing the same. They work with other racial groups when they want to (such as LA mayoral elections), but are unafraid to stand up for their own interests. There are few things I don’t like about being Asian, but that so many of us seem to be weak-kneed appeasers is one of them.
I believe Mrs. Du was in the wrong at the actual incident itself. What happened was that Ms. Harlins was carrying a backpack and Mrs. Du automatically assumed because she was Black and carrying a backpack in a store, she was stealing something. She got into a loud argument with Ms. Harlins, after which Ms. Harlins threw something at Mrs. Du. (I believe it was a chair.) Ms. Harlins proceeded to storm out of the store, when Mrs. Du shot her in the back.
There’s no question, however, who was in the wrong in the anti-Korean riots that followed, and especially the Black political leaders who tacitly condoned it.
Of course. My problem is not pointing that Koreans are often prejudiced against the Japanese, which many often are. My problem is pointing that out without context to an audience that may not be aware of the history between the two countries. It’s like this:
Me, speaking in Mongolian to rural Mongolians unaware of the exact history of World War 2 in Europe: “By the way, students, here are my colleagues, Mr. Van Daars and Mr. Wagner. Mr. Van Daars doesn’t like Mr. Wagner – it’s common among many Dutchmen over the age of 60.”
“Really? Why?”
“Never mind. Getting back on topic… ”
That’s the impression I got.
You sort of answered your question further down, but I’d like to elabourate (carefully and clearly) on what you correctly identified as the “overall racial situation”.
Blacks, Asians, Latinos, Arabs, all racial minorities (or ethnic minorities that don’t yet qualify as “white”) are hurt by something called white normativity. This is the principle means by which Asians are hurt by racism in America today. When an Asian man gets a job, it is automatically assumed he is good at technical minutiae but poor at taking independent initiative and leadership. Thus there is a glass ceiling. (For Asian women, it is the same except without the assumption of great capability at technical minutiae.) You’re right in that Asians – at least non-Southeast Asians – do not have it bad as most other minorities. In our hypothetical, it is assumed that the Asian managed to easily land a white collar job that can legitimately be called a career, something that’s not easy to come by for perhaps all other minorities except Jews*. But there are still factors that hold us down relative to White people.
Some of these stereotypes have some basis in truth. I just said in the first half of my post that Asians do have a greater than average tendency to shy away from confrontation, so I believe this portion of the model minority myth to be partly true. (Asian culture emphasizes different qualities, which makes it difficult for transplants.) However, the point of white normativity is that these get blown out of proportion precisely because there is an effort to define and cast Asians in a specific mold based on those characteristics where they may differ, however slightly, from Whites. For other minorities, the results are different but the process is the same. Nothing “defines” Whiteness because Whiteness is the default. You have no starting assumptions to work against.
More useful a concept than raw numerical majority is hegemony. In many countries with colonial histories, the racial situation benefits Whiteness even when Whites are a minority. (Take Brazil.) And in countries where Whites are a majority, their cultural, social, and political power are even greater than in proportion to raw demographic breakdown. Why, in America, would anyone put a minority in charge? Put a Jewish man in charge (what defines “Jew” = how “Jew” differs from “White”) and you have a well run, efficient business operation but an overly stingy one and one that will secretly stack the entire management with other Jews. Put a Hispanic man in charge and the environment will be more fun and laid back, but there will be a poor work ethic everywhere, plus the boss will be taking siestas all the time and chilling with his hombres. An Asian man, and you get competent bureaucracy and make no enemies but a lack of vision and excessive managerial conservatism. A woman of any race and everyone’s concerns will be heard and everything will be neat and tidy, but the hard decisions won’t be made and the boss won’t be able to grasp numbers. The white man** is the default option; no one (or at least, few) think he’s superior to his cohorts on an absolute scale, but he’s the least worst option. He is that person who exhibits the best balance. That is how Whiteness comes to held supreme – not by placing it at the top, but by placing it at the middle.
That was specific enough, I hope. The challenge for all racial minorities, and why we should be united, is that we all suffer from this paradigm and there is strength in numbers.
*Traditional Jewish stereotypes and that of Asians are remarkably alike, from snide exclusivity, money-hungry workaholism, damned overachievers that take spots in top schools from the rightful applicants. Except instead of killing Christ, we are uncharismatic drones that lack personality because that would offend Confucius and our ancestors’ honour.
** Gender is not exactly equivalent to race. For one thing, masculinity can’t be the middle ground of anything because you can’t be in the middle between what is widely seen as only two options. I won’t get into it too much here, though.
Oh, I find it worse. That’s the problem with countries that have always been demographically homogeneous, at least with regards to race and ethnicity. America, for my money, is the second least racist powerful nation in the world, after Canada. I focus on American problems because I currently live in America, and this blog primarily focuses on American issues.
People talk of the 21st century being the “Asian century”, but this is the one metric by which I can clearly say an Asian century may be worse than an American century. I hope what will come to pass is Asian parity with America, Europe, Russia (there’s no point denying it), and other regional blocs such as emerging South America, rather than any sort of regional supremacy.
What I find most troubling is how even Asians in Asian countries (I find it in Korea) respect one and only one other race. One guess on which one it is. “Liberal” Koreans who talk of partnership between East Asians and America – by which they mean White America – anger me to no end. Conservative Koreans who think only of Korea rate higher, in my book.
I’m not sure what Jim is going on about. It sounds suspiciously regressive though.
1) denying that Asian-Americans have anything in common with each other or that we face the same kinds of racism, or even that that racism exists.
2) denying that Asian-Americans have anything in common with other people of color.
3) pretending they know more about how Asian-Americans really feel than Asian-Americans do, as if we somehow have less of a right to define our own reality.
Sakaeda’s piece is right on. I salute her and feel much the same way that she does. I am a Japanese-American woman who is sick of the model minority b.s. and I’ve been speaking out against it for most of my life.