Inverse Racism(?) and 'Racial Inequality' in the US

Smaller minority with less political voice.

Google bamboo ceiling.

Just because you aren't exposed to it doesn't mean it's not there.

 

it's more complex than that. Asian Americans have been subjected to terrible acts of racial violence, and systematic racism that endures to this day. The greatest mass lynching in American history was targeted against ethnic Chinese and one of the only laws to successfully ban immigration against other nationalities was applied to Asians.

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-two-asian-americas

There has, however, always been a strain of activism in the Asian community such as the Asian American Movement. Asians are not just one large homogenous "model minority group"--there are vast socioeconomic and cultural differences between South Asians and East Asians if one were to pick the broadest differentiator. There have always been groups working to break what has been a relative silence, just because their voices haven't been as prominently heard doesn't mean that they don't exist.

As for people who "never partake in these disputes", I personally don't think it's a good thing to applaud those who are forced to be silent in the face of oppression.

 

Most individuals of any racial group understand that success at this point depends less on system-wide government or political action on behalf of millions of their ilk and more on asserting individual self-interest in concordance with the values, capabilities and strategies of other similarly successful and ambitious people. That applies as much to obtaining social justice as to achieving economic prosperity: there are far more active and successful discrimination lawsuits than political protests, and there are far more blacks and hispanics working and supporting themselves than in jail, on drugs or dependent on government aid. If you feel otherwise it is because the bulk of your knowledge of these people comes more through television and media than day-to-day interaction. Your options at this point are to interact more with minorities, or just stop thinking and talking about them.

 

keep in mind that the immigration of asians to usa has roughly zero similarities to the immigration of blacks and hispanics to usa. if you look closer i think you will see that most people are doing their best.

 

Well, because the fact that someone overcomes harsh circumstances doesn't mean crimes were not committed against them and the system is not rigged against them and also it's not ok to ignore those things.

 

This attitude hurts the Asian community. It's one of the reasons during the LA riots that Korea town was ransacked.

Many Asian communities believe that by doing the hard work, and showing their value and working hard, all will be good.

However when the Rodney King riots started the police were initially going to set up and protect Korea Town, all of a sudden they got the call to pull back and protect Beverly Hills which wasn't being threatened by the riots at all.

The police did that because the Beverly Hills community was making calls, making a noise. The Korean community did not, and had not. They didn't look after their interest in the political system, and they didn't speak out about the injustices they've faced.

What would help both Asian and African American communities would be if they focused on the power structure that is the same one that limits both of the communities. They should be more unified rather than separate.

 

It also help. Reality is there is racism and you have to overcome it yourself. Depending on other to change isn't in your control.

The balance is to do both. Do what you need to succeed yourself and what's needed to rid of racism in society and systems. I think it's likely more effective to do what you need to succeed yourself as that is what you are in control of directly. The latter is not reliable as it is dependent on others.

 

It does and it doesn't, the only reason we even have immigration laws was to evict and restrict Asian headcount. Before then you could stay here, they'd just Dred Scott you if asked for stuff.

 

This is a key point. I believe you'll find that immigrants and children of immigrants outperform all other Americans (financially and academically). They have a different level of focus and perspective that folks born here don't have.

Also, what situation you're born into is probably the best indicator of your future success for those born here. Staying in the same class is likely, moving one step up or down is possible. Anything more and you're either a huge success or a huge failure. So, it's unfortunately fairly logical for families that started poor to remain poor. And, racism tends to hurt poorer people more than the more fortunate. If my boss says something racist, he would be removed by the end of the day because I work in a white collar upper middle class type of environment. If the guy working at Walmart's manager says something racist, he doesn't even know who to go to (maybe twitter ?).

So, immigrants in general, not a specific race, achieve more success in America. With a certain level of success comes less stress over possible discrimination. I'm much less worried if racism keeps me from moving to $230k from $200k per year than I am if racism is keeping me from moving to $50k from $20k per year.

 

Maybe, maybe not. The white guys might laugh, and the black guy might have already gotten bad enough peer reviews to keep their head down.

 

Usually I don't really care to post on politics, especially on a sports (a damn good one too) forum. But as an Asian-American I feel like some actual input from a person who went from being in total ignorance to Asian-American affairs to being quite active within circles on how to improve our community.

There are many misconceptions regarding issues concerning Americans of Asian descent that go unnoticed or blatantly ignored in the media and in general public knowledge. I'm somewhat delighted a few of you have addressed some of the major points like immigration and the bamboo ceiling. While it is not my intention to lecture or point fingers at certain demographics, it's becoming increasingly clear through my research (studies, social/cultural trends, and anecdotal viewpoints from numerous Asian Americans) that the majority of America have a twisted view on this so called "Model Minority" and it hurts our community to a point where we are so disenfranchised. I'm not going to go deep into these issues I bring up because there are plenty of studies out there to back up my points if you are truly interested. I personally am not here to "save" or "preach" to anybody, I'm not Asian Jesus.

1) Bamboo Ceiling: this needs to be looked at through a contextual standpoint. From pure stats; yes the average Asian-Americans have more household/individual income than the average European-American. But there are plenty of statistics and studies out that show this is due to numerous factors and that we still have our struggles as a minority. Selective immigration of highly skilled or educated Asians from the Far East or South has twisted the notion the "Asians" are doing quite well when in fact South-East Asians groups (for instance Hmong) live in poverty and are struggling like the poor of any racial group. In addition, these "high-income" earning Asians also do not make as much as their white counterparts in their selective fields. It is only because that Asian-Americans on average obtain more college degrees that we make more than the average European-American. Exclusion from management due to racial power dynamics and prescriptive stereotyping (i.e. hard worker drones but no creativity/leadership) has also kept us from positions of real power.

2) The invisibility or negative portrayal of Asian-Americans in media. On a basic level we are either invisible or portrayed as a caricature, especially with the emasculation of males and hypersexualization of females. I see it all too clearly in this forum from time to time, and it either gets brushed off as a joke or whatever. In general propaganda works wonders on the mind, when you grow up with it and start internalizing every bit of information fed to you through the media. This is a massive touchy subject, and I don't really care to explain any further than this.

3) Using our culture and instances as tools against other "non-conformity" minorities. This very post reeks of this, I'm sorry. To be dismissive of the struggles of African-Americans and Latino-Americans by using Asian-Americans is a worn out trope. Although it's been working fairly effectively historically given the general ignorance of Americans. Asian-Americans themselves buy into this notion; thinking they can assimilate into White culture more easily if you hold the same views of "post-racial society" and fundamentally Anti-Blackness.

I think that's all I have time for, as I'm getting tired of explaining things to so many Americans (including Asian-Americans) of the dynamics of society. In conclusion, do not think for a second that we are "ok" with how things currently are. Only the most white-washed self-hating Asian-Americans truly believe in that. You just think or see by images portrayed by the media that we don't have groups or circles purely built on "Yellow-Lives Matter" or improving our community by Asian-American movements. I implore anyone who actually gives a damn on improving their social awareness to read more, develop a damn personality instead of fabricating an individuality based upon ingestion of information spit out by media groups that are trying to bend you to their will.

 

Yes, I agree. Becoming active to help bring about structural changes in the way business is done should not be something that is done in place of doing what people need to do in order to be successful, and being the best person they can be.

 

How many Asian CEO's are there in the fortune 1000.

 

Imported Japanese pop culture lied to you. Asian Americans aren't a single hive mind.

There's liberals and conservatives. There's even the Indian subcontinent that gets lumped in whenever convenient.

The whole model minority image is a convenient ploy to chide other races to act more "successful". All past minority groups, native, black and Hispanic American have fought long and hard for rights afforded to other minorities and women. Were all beneficiaries whether we know it or not.

There won't be Yellow Lives Matter movements because laws against Asian miscegenation or internment camps have been repealed. Or if there were more YouTubes posted with Asians getting shot on tape every other month, then yeah that might be a big thing.

 

By Asians, do you mean oriental-yellow asians or do you include brown asians?

 

Yea man, let's get our priorities straight and focus on the minority group that gets shot the most

 

There is definitely limits on how high Asians can make it in the corporate world. It's a handicap to be Asian.

The pecking order is:

White men
White women
Minority men
minority women.

 

how many asians has been questionably treated with deadly force by police?

you are not aware that there are asians (chinese, vietnamese, korean, filipinos, japanese, thai, burmese, laos, etc..) who are either on welfare, divorced or separated/ come from a broken family, school drop outs, uneducated, belonging to violent asian gangs, etc?

 

Thought I'd make a comment here, if you don't mind, JiantJerbil...
...because I appreciate your particular perspective here…

..and for the record, I race-bait with the best of them, so please take what I'm about to say (or type) with the internet equivalent of a grain of salt...

I lived for a while in Alief, not far away from Bellaire Blvd...which has grown into a very large Asian community...complete with dual street signs in both Korean and English.

I pointed out this to a few of my friends a couple months ago...addressing as only reverse-racist, ignorant liberal lap-dog Negroes like myself can do, the nature of "culture" and "community" to these Asian-Americans in relation to other demographics in America, from my prejudiced point-of-view.

"Black" culture (if there could ever really be such a term), has never really existed distinctly apart from American culture, to me. "Black culture" is always seen as a sub-culture at best. When I showed my friends the shops and businesses (and yes, the traffic signs) all offered in different Asian/Mandarin/Korean languages, and displayed equally alongside American English...

...that resembled the type of respect you show to a "minority" in this country.

And that respect was not gained through callous political and “cultural” sophistry.

Anyone of Asian ancestry, to me, has an identity that does not have to reconcile itself with historical American pathos, in my opinion. And consequently, I don't believe anyone of Asian descent is tethered indiscriminately to the idea of a colloquial “melting pot”, at least without certain filters and qualifiers, and without understanding that it is an incremental process to blend different points of view and perspectives into a more comprehensive view of the whole.

I don’t believe an Asian person anywhere has ever been told to “forget” or “get over” any kind of injustice meted out to them on these shores in public or political forums…or if they have, that they’ve ever taken that advice. They were not inclined to sacrifice themselves (which includes their history as a group of people…both as Americans and in China or Korea or Vietnam) for the sake of facilitating an acceptance that they were never reluctant or hesitant initially to embrace in the first place.

There’s a significant difference between ”assimilation” and “appropriation”, and recognizing either states after the fact in a societal context has been an albatross around the neck of Black folk in this country for far too long.

Let’s stay a little closer to home with a “cultural” observation, okay?

An example of “assimilation” (melting pot) America would be “Tex-Mex”. For all of the vitriol surrounding Hispanic/Mexican/Spanish people here, there’s not a peep of trying to say that something isn’t of Hispanic or South American origin in that realm. Often it may be imitated, but it can’t ever really be taken away from them. Because the original identity of the cuisine was never compromised, there was never going to be an external appraisal or reappraisal of its authenticity or validity. It would be accepted as it was or rejected in American society…but never twisted to make it seem like it belonged to someone else.

An example of “appropriation” would be music…specifically the “Rhythm and Blues” or “Soul” genres. Traditionally regarded as “black” music…I noticed recently on ITunes where my son showed me the “Blue-Eyed Soul” section…where the white R & B artists are highlighted…separate from the genre as a whole…and marketed as something different or alternative from, and ultimately better than, the “standard” (i.e. “black”) artists…

…what I pointed out to my son, in particular, regarding one of the artists in the section (the late, GREAT Teena Marie), is that she, herself, would never have allowed herself to be presented as an “alternative” or “blue-eyed” soul or R&B singer. She gave credit on every occasion that her musical inclination came from the black people she grew up around in the deep South. She respected the people she chose to emulate and related to.

You can ask just about any British singer or singing group (from the Beatles to the Bee Gees to Lisa Stansfield to Sam Smith) about their basic approach to “American” music…and they all say in no uncertain terms that if you want to get a pulse on what’s popular in music, you find out what the black folk are doing…

…and before too long, R&B music will go the way of Rock & Roll and be “white” music…and everyone will believe that Negroes had nothing at all to do with it…just like Negroes didn’t create Jazz music or the “Ragtime” swing music of the 1920s…

…funny thing in sports (which is the closest thing, sadly, to actually and fairly measuring someone’s "merit" in this country), is that while the major American sports have a huge amount of black players, you never hear white players complaining about it…a lot of white players actually are well-respected by the black players, because you can only really rate a teammate by what he does between the lines….and that leaves little to the imagination…if you can do it, you can do it…

I personally don’t believe Black people in America have a “culture” in the classic sense…insofar as a culture has at its core a commonality of world and historical perspective that Negroes are “told” is irrelevant or unimportant or nonexistent relative to them.

I feel Black people still suffer from being “commodities”, in one form or another, for generations…and having that social posture reinforced “culturally” and politically by anyone who, in the tradition of American “progress”, could find a way to make a buck off of it has been insidiously persistent for a very long time...

I’ve never cared, personally, about how selective a memory a white person has of American history. Such has been the case for about as long as America is old. If a white person chooses to “forget” about the past…or is tired of talking about “race”…or is tired of “race-baiting lazy Negroes”…so be it. Part of America’s creed is what you do next...not what has gone before…

…but if Negroes “have” or are in need of a “culture”…here in America or anywhere else…it’s not happening by forgetting what was…

…because life for people oddly resembles a treadmill, if that’s the way you choose to look at things…

Nobody else “forgets” their past or is told or scolded into doing so.

I wonder why Negroes are the only group of people in this country that that gets sold to…