These are not, actually, the “relevant tenets of critical race theory” by any means. It’s a complicated idea, and it doesn’t exactly have a hard and fast definition, but it’s not hard to find the basics behind it – read the Wikipedia article. Critical race theory - Wikipedia
I wonder what you make of Asian Critical Race Theorists? For what it’s worth, they generally find the whole ‘model minority’ designation as problematic not because it affects their (self hating?) desire to elevate black people above Asians; but rather because it conflates all Asians and it’s a white designation which is not used to Asian benefit but rather so whites can perpetuate discrimination against other races by hoisting Asians on a platform.
As a South Asian myself, CRT makes a whole lot of sense to me.
There’s white CRTs also. Somehow the notion that there is no meritocracy and we need to put more black people in elite positions doesn’t ever apply to their jobs specifically. Big surprise, whatever.
I find it useful to determine what people actually believe by examining their actions and the beliefs they articulate when forced to engage in on-the-spot applications to real-world questions, than to listen to self-serving publications and Wikipedia pages that don’t reflect what’s really going on. Thinking that critical race theorists just want to “apply insights from social science” or “question narratives” because they say so is about as useful as thinking North Korea is a “democratic republic.”
Ibram Kendi, the high prophet of critical race theory, on cross-racial adoption:
Again, if you understand what CRT actually is, this belief makes perfect sense. Of course a white parent adopting a black child is doing so out of malevolent reasons designed to hurt the interests of the black race - that’s the only reason any white person does anything, even if they think otherwise.
Your “analysis” of CRT so far is nothing but ass-derived opinion. Probably from right-wing radio or similar (maybe The Daily Caller?). This is just total nonsense. Kendi isn’t remotely a “high prophet” of anything, but even what he said has nothing to do with how you characterized it.
Right. Kendi’s point is about people saying folks can’t be racist if they adopted a black child - you’ll note the original tweet says ‘some’ for a reason (from the same Twitter thread which it appears you’ve deliberately ignored):
And let me note that Kendi, while being well known right now due to his book, isn’t listed on the CRT wikipedia page at all. You’d think if he was that important he would.
Furthermore since this is about Asian, googling “AsianCrit” may help as that is the phrase that Asian Critical Race Theorists use.
Asians and Asian-Americans are discriminated against all the time. In the workplace, they are not considered leadership material, or appropriate for customer-facing or creative jobs. Tech jobs? Yeah, we can stick them in the corner. But you don’t want someone with THAT accent up front!
Just five minutes ago, my wife told me her boss sent an E-mail saying “Please, come to the meeting! I’m tired of listening to [Asian immigrant’s] accent!” You don’t think shit like that affects people?
Asian men are routinely de-sexed in society. Asian women are exoticized.
There are many ways in which Asians face discrimination in society.
I’ve been asked whether I was a “damn Eye-Rain-ian” or asked about my experience as “a Mozlem.” I’m neither Iranian nor a Muslim, but what if I had been?
I’m pretty familiar with crt in the legal context.
I find it odd that this article in “asian crt” doesn’t mention one of the founders of crit race theory Mari Matsuda and her contributions to crt.
One thing the article does get right is that crt was created with a black/white perspective and was later rationalized “poorly” to include hispanics but still had great difficulty addressing successful minority groups.
I don’t see how this paper really illuminates what "Asian CRT’ is.
Can you tell me in your own words?
I don’t know if it “complicated” or elusive because it’s fuzzy and undisciplined.
Can you explain asian CRT because when I studied crt, there was no such thing as asian crt and the crit race theorists were struggling to figure out what to make of a minority group that was doing better than whties in many ways.
And sure not all asians are alike and aggregating asians has problems but so does chopping us up into little groups. The more granular you get the more precise you get in what we are but the less solidarity you have in a group that already has very low political power.
Actaully I think CRT deserves its own thread.
I’m far from an expert, but something like the following: in our society, Asians are slotted into certain roles (as non-comprehensive examples - technical/STEM roles for men, exotic roles for women) that do not threaten or conflict with the larger white supremacist culture, and those Asians who stick with these roles are largely tolerated by this culture, but those who do not can face similar obstacles faced by other minority individuals who dare step out of their societally assigned roles. Stereotypes are useful tools to the broader white supremacist culture in enforcing these various roles.
I think this shory paper by Amy Liu is a decent summary and talks about other works:
(Though I see @iiandiii posted it and you weren’t a fan even though it explicitly discusses AsianCrit and published works in AsianCrit from an education standpoint and especially regarding the “model minority” stereotype)
Indeed. One can also find this with the Presidential candacy of Andrew Yang. I think a lot of us were disappointed he’d use the lazy Asian jokes of since he’s Asian he’s good at math. That sort of stereotype just pigeonholes Asian into certain silos. Asians can be good at math or tech or medicine, but it’s more difficult to break through in other areas. Remember the #StarringJohnCho thing a few years back. Or the episode of Master of None by Aziz Ansari that called attention to Asian stereotypes in Hollywood.
Is this level of incident the kind of thing that would normally rise to the level of political discourse?
Mmm, a wild Cognitive Dissonance…
Can you use your own words?
Because you think I’m a scholar in Critical Race Theory? Or do you think I can explain it better than she has? I shared the link because I thought it explained it well and likely better than I can.
If you are saying that crit race theory is simply a compendium of asian stereotypes, then it hardly seems like much of a “theory” I knew this stuff back in the 70’s.
No but the LA riots were.
The razing of Koreatown made the national news.
But that was a long time ago and not really associated with modern day wokeness.
I am going to guess that you haven’t read Mari Matsuda’s writings at the time.
“asian crt” did not exist back then, crt was created with a black/white perspective, at least that’s the way it was taught and most minorities were sort of bunched in with the black side of the theory. As time went on, people started to call asians “white adjacent” because they couldn’t explain how a minority could succeed and even exceed whites in some ways in such a deeply white supremacist world.
Because i don’t think she explained very much. Perhaps i am missing something
There are numerous points she address, citing papers, regarding the model minority stereotype. Such as this idea of ‘model minority’ has convinced people that discrimination does not exist against Asian Americans, even though income inequality and restrictions in upward job mobility exists. In addition, by combining Asians, people can ignore that not every Asian ethnicity is as successful as the narrative has suggested. Furthermore this model minority stereotype is being used by people to diminish other minority groups which have their own different struggles and paths and ignoring specific issues with Asian groups (Asian Americans are overwhelmingly recent immigrants and highly educated in their home countries - unlike most other minority groups that they are compared to - that results in putting down other minorities for not being as successful while having different experiences, sometimes more difficult, while also not caring about the immigrant issues that Asian groups advocate for).
I have, yes. She used Asian examples in addition to Black ones when talking about institutional racism.
I don’t think your problem with CRT is that Asians weren’t addressed - it’s that they dared to group Asians in with Blacks…
“People” being Asians themselves. Most of the people I see calling Asians White-adjacent are Asians talking about themselves.
Excellent article. I think this Atlantic article by a Taiwanese American includes a number of AsianCrit ideas - harmful stereotypes of Asian Americans and the lumping in of Asian Americans tends to benefit the white dominant class and harms Asians. The author also looks at Asians not being considered for ‘diversity’ purposes from left leaning white people as well (note, all I’ve seen from AsianCrit is that they are not fans of racism from the left or the right - and find examples on both sides).