I have run into this term more and more frequently in some online discussions and the premise seems to be that western liberals have jumped the shark.
Don’t get me wrong, the racism we see from the right still ensures the loyalty of the asian vote but there seems to be a growing sentiment in the asian community that the woke SJW crowd is driving the train and the woke SJW crowd seems dismissive of concerns about anti-asian discrimination.
The right seems to want to keep asians out of the country but they seem more open to seeing us succeed once we are here. The left wants to welcome us here but seems uncomfortable with our success once we are here. Noone seems to want the asian vote.
Certainly noone panders for it the way they pander for the black, hispanic, lgbtq vote on the left or the racist vote on the right.
Will the shift of focus away from equality of opportunity towards equality of results push asians (and many other immigrant communities) away from the Democratic party and suppress voter participation among asians (which would be very counterproductive to getting politicians to give a crap about us).
I think you largely nailed it. Many conservatives don’t like Asians any more than they like other brown-skinned people. And many liberals don’t think that Asians count as a “true” minority.
I think the perception is that Asians are more or less unique as a minority in the US, in that as a group, they’re not really suffering the negative effects of discrimination- economically and academically, the Asian community is quite successful, even relative to white Americans.
On top of that, the perception is that they’re also more conservative due to the perceived lack of discrimination. So like others have said, the left doesn’t consider them a “real” minority, and the right doesn’t like them as foreigners, but doesn’t really have as much animus toward them because they tend to align that way.
Seconded - since when do liberals have a problem with successful asians?
I mean, sure, there’s not really a lot of widespread concern about anti-asian discrimination (give or take that I’ve seen some notice given to the fact they’re not well-represented in cinema), but I hadn’t gotten the impression that asian success is frowned upon by liberals either.
I said they are uncomfortable with it. By they, I mean the woke SJWs. The Baizuo. They have created this narrative that places the blame for the lack of “success” of blacks and hispanics at the feet of white supremacy. Any suggestion that perhaps blacks and hispanics could be doing more to improve their situation is condemned as being somewhere between victim blaming to outright racism.
Then along comes a non-white group that achieves some measure of success in spite of all the white supremacy. It is an inconvenient truth for all the derivative critical race theorists in education and ethnic studies departments around the country. And this inconvenient truth makes them uncomfortable.
Jews used to have to deal with this problem but people sorts dismissed as the effect of the generally white appearance of jews, but its harder to do with asians.
I’m not saying you are wrong about some leftists being “uncomfortable” with successful Asians, I’m saying I have no idea what you’re talking about.
I’m asking what observation leads you to say that they are uncomfortable with it? You’ve laid out a scenario that explains the logic that certain people think a certain way and therefore don’t like Asian success. But saying that a person thinks a certain way, in the absence of some observation of how that person actually reacts or expresses that discomfort, leaves me with no idea of whether this is a real thing or just a figment of your imagination.
Can you explain any further how this alleged discomfort is evinced?
I’m not sure why you are framing this from the perspective of Asian-Americans, immigrants or otherwise, as this is apparently mainly a mainland Chinese thing. Now why do mainland Chinese hold modern western liberals in contempt? C’mon now it should be obvious. The folks who are expressing these sentiments appear to be competitive nationalists. Why would they respect modern western liberalism?
Asians are a small % of the electorate. But then again so are LGBT, and people pander for their vote.
What examples do you have of how the left get angry when asians succeed? What do you mean by asians? Are you making a distinction between say east asians, south asians, southeast asians or mid easteners?
Part of it is that asians aren’t a monolith I guess. So you really can’t pander to them as a class.
This seems to be a manufactured crisis. That said, students of Asian decent sure seem to be disadvantaged at institutions such as Harvard. Note, this is nothing new. A Korean American dormmate at the University of California in 1979 was shocked to learn he wasn’t considered a “minority.”
“Disliking Asian success” is probably not the best way to put it. But take the Asian-American vs. Harvard ongoing anti-discrimination lawsuit, for instance. As far as I can tell from social media, liberals are squarely on the side of Harvard, despite Harvard having engaged in stereotyping practices such as assigning Asian applicants low “personality” or “likability” scores without even having met or spoken to the applicants in person.
I thought meeting and speaking to applicants was introduced by Harvard (& others) for the express purpose of keeping Jews, Catholics, Asians, blacks, and other undesirables out. How do they do it now without interviewing them? Ask for religion/ethnic background along with standardized test scores?
Either way, what does it have to do with China? That sounds like more of a political conflict. What is the rhetoric concerning Western communists?
This assertion seems bizarre to me. It is not at all “inconvenient” for anybody who blames white racism for a lot of problems facing black and Hispanic people in the US to acknowledge the achievements of Asian-Americans despite white racism against Asians. I don’t know anybody who’s made “uncomfortable” by this, nor why they should be.
Because, simply put, the situations of black, Hispanic and Asian people in the US are not interchangeable. For example, as this article notes
I’m not trying to minimize the appalling prejudice that many Asian-Americans have had to contend with, or for that matter Irish-Americans or Jewish Americans or any other minority group that’s suffered historical discrimination. But it’s ridiculous to imagine that the experience of any one group should be assumed to be typical for any other group.
The only people who could think it’s “inconvenient” for liberals to acknowledge the successes of Asian-Americans while also decrying racism against black and Latino Americans are people making up a straw liberal.
Well, Asian-Americans are a demographic that makes up a little over 5% of the general US population but over 20% of the student body at elite colleges and universities. So while they are still an ethnic minority in US society, they are not an underrepresented minority in higher education. Same goes for Jewish Americans, who make up about 2% of the overall US population but between 10% and 20% of students at high-ranking colleges.
The circumstances between Asian, Jewish, and black Americans, broadly speaking, are so different that there’s no possibility of comparison. If/when you insist on comparing them and making negative judgments on black people, then you might get criticized for it, and sometimes criticized harshly.
Self-selected immigrants are generally quite successful, statistically speaking – Nigerian immigrants, for example, are statistically more successful than Asian Americans, IIRC. This doesn’t demonstrate any inherent cultural (or otherwise) superiority in Nigerians – it’s just the circumstances of those who come to America.
Some of the founding ideals of the American system, and American culture, were white supremacism, black servitude, and Native genocide. There have been fits and spurts of other forms of bigotry and hatefulness – but these have been by far the most prominent, and the most brutal and harmful. Which is reflected very obviously in various statistics – black and Native Americans are at the bottom of most statistical indicators. It isn’t a coincidence that the two ethnic groups treated, by far, the worst over American history are also at the bottom of most statistical indicators for wealth, education, crime, health, etc.
EDIT: This doesn’t mean that Asian Americans necessarily have it easy. I think it’s very reasonable to bring up and criticize college policies if they disadvantage Asian students, or other forms of possible discrimination against Asian Americans.