Could you elaborate on this? Because ** december ** believes that “good behavior” is good.
** december **
The goal is not to remove positive stereotypes in order to promote “bad” behavior amongst AAs. To start off, if we dispel the myth that all AAs are not smart, we can start treating AA children as you would treat white kids, i.e., with variety and customized attention.
Usually the term “glass ceiling” includes being barred from top corporate levels. Do you believe that there is no glass ceiling as regards Asians in corporate America?
I do agree that Asians have had less success in politics and media than in many other fields. I don’t see any sort of “glass ceiling.” I think there’s a cultural predisposition to pursue or not pursue certain fields. But, Asians who have gone into these fields, like Senator Inouye and Jackie Chan, have done very well.
There’s a difference between playing the victim and being the victim, december. The latter case is an objective statement of fact.
When the interned Japanese received reparations from the federal government through political action, do you think they were playing on their victimhood? Do you think it would have been more noble for them to simply suck it up and deal? Do you think political activity on the behalf of a community requires “playing the victim”?
And at the expense of whom? Guess what, december? White people have ALWAYS had stereotypes which work in their favor. White people are smarter. They are less emotional, more motivated, morally superior. They are better people. Even God looks like white people. And guess what? These are LIES. Why would you want a lie to represent you? I wouldn’t want a “good” stereotype placed on me no more than I would want a “bad” one. Stereotypes remove individuality. They reduce self to someone else’s caricature. And if they aren’t bad for one group, they are bad for another.
No it doesn’t. Being a victim is a neutral thing. If someone stabs you in the heart, there’s no denying it: YOU’RE A VICTIM. If you decide to take action against the perpetrator, that doesn’t make you a whiner. It makes you strong and intelligent. I don’t know what world you live in, but in my world, an intelligent person who is wronged by another doesn’t simply roll over and let bygones be bygones.
One important point to remember is that “The winners write the histories”. Specifically, those who are politically active make their points much more prevelant in society. You’ve heard of the Holocaust, right? Ever heard of the rape of Nanking? (OK, maybe <i>you</i> do, but do you think that the faceless mass called the “average American” does?) Or similarly, you hear all of the fuss made over the history of mistreatment of Blacks…have you ever heard of the mistreatment of Asians (anti-immigration laws, the standard hate, etc?)
I cannot speak for other Asian cultures, but as a Chinaman (I can make fun of myself 
) I can say that Chinese culture does fit most stereotypes mentioned above. However, in comparison to other minorities, there is just as much bias (many college admissions penalize Asians even more than they do whites) and much less fuss (Is there an Asian equivalant to NAACP and other whine-fest organizers?) made about it. shrug but most people think of it as but another factor to consider…“Go study!”
Thanks, monstro, I know you weren’t intending to speak for me but it happens to work that way here.
What bothers me is that someone would point to asians and say, “See? This is how a minority is supposed to act!” ; “How?” ; “Well, assimilating, hard working, and quiet.”
What is wrong with a minority being quiet? Well, nothing, really, if they all unanimously choose to be so. But being politically active isn’t a bad thing, you see what I mean december? Keeping a heritage—or recognizing one—isn’t a bad thing. Of course the hard working comment is just out of line IMO. The implication of saying “this man is a hard worker” isn’t damning, but to then suggest “why can’t everyone be like him” is. Do you see what I mean here? This is mostly MHO stuff, but I think monstro knows what to say better than I do here.
Perhaps you mean well, but saying a good minority should just shut up and work doesn’t strike a positive chord in me.
Also, december, do you think it’s fair to a white guy if an Asian guy gets hired over him simply because of the stereotype that Asians are smarter? A stereotype that’s positive for one group usually has negative consequences for another.
Please don’t equate the NAACP with “whining”. If it weren’t for the NAACP fighting for civil rights for everyone, this society wouldn’t work well for Asians, whites, or anyone else for that matter.
I will agree that all the Japanese-Americans who were interned during WWII really were victims. Similarly Jews who were killed or interned during WWII were victims. But, that doesn’t make me a victim. It doesn’t make all Asian-Americans victims. It doesn’t even make all Japanese-Americans victims.
Exactly. And these stereotypes, LIES though they be, have helped white people. Wouldn’t favorable stereotypes also help Asians?
Yes, I can see where favorable stereotypes of Asians would hurt other ethnic groups.
This seems to me to be a matter of psychology. Psychology differs from person to person. Some people who feel they are victims strive all the harder. I did that in my younger years. I simply took it for granted that I needed to outdo my gentile competition in order to succeed.
OTOH, some who see themselves as victims tend to get pessimistic and give up. They feel they won’t have a good chance, so they don’t try as hard. One advantage of affirmative action is that it encourages people to prepare for a higher success, because they can expect those avenues to be open to them.
Turn it around. Look at people like George Bush and Al Gore. They were born to very successful families, so they felt they should achieve a lot, which they did. OTOH I know lots of very capable people from lower middle class families, who just never set their sights particularly high.
I too “strive harder”, not only so as not to confirm the stereotypes that people have of me, but also to prove to myself that those awful stereotypes aren’t true. As much as I bluster on these here boards, it hurts when posters like x-ray think I’m lazy simply because I’m black. It hurts that no matter how hard I work or how articulate I speak or how well-read I am, people will always think of me as a lazy nigger. And then those same people will look at my tears and then call me a whiner or a “victim” and tell me to buck up, ALL THE WHILE THINKING I’M A FUCKING LAZY NIGGER. How can one escape that kind of insanity, december?
There is no denying that AAs have come to the US, faced lots of hurdles, and done quite well here.
Rather than arguing about whether Whitey is using this as a tool to hold other minorities back, I’d like to see the leaders in the so-called disadvantaged minority communities spend some time in the AA community to see if there are lessons that can be learned.
The glass ceiling in all probability existed pre-1990s. As un-scientific a cite can be, here is a film which mentions it: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0091151 If you couple that with stories heard here and there, it is not hard to vizualize it. The data we need is the proportion of Asian CEOs pre 1990s. Now, it could very well be that the economic boom and sprouting of self-made Asian millionaires has damaged the ceiling.
(In the interest of all things rational, please do not quote Jackie Chan as an example for anything.)
Of course it bothers you.
I don’t really know. One way might by succeeding. Don’t let yourself forget that paths of success are open to you. Another might be to find a way to not be bothered by prejudiced people. See their prejudice as being about them – about their mental shackles – not about you. Or, perhaps you could learn to stop being concerned about what other people think. Focus on fulfilling your own standards. All these are easier said than done. It isn’t fair that you should have to cope with this situation. You have my sympathy.
litost, of course the glass ceiling against Asians existed pre-1990s. As athelas points out, there has been a great deal of anti-Asian prejudice in this country. My point is that the prejudice against Asians was related to negative stereotypes. I think the current positive stereotypes have tended to overcome anti-Asian prejudice.
The contention is that the positive stereotype of the successful Asian who gets rewarded for his/her work is/was a myth and helps/helped overlook the glass ceiling problem.
Litost:
Certainly the term “model minorty” is politcally charged. I cringe everytime I hear it, and I am not Asian.
If you look at the stats (SATs, College degrees, median income, etc.) it sure looks like AAs as a group are doing quite well despite years of discrimination. Clearly not as bad as what Blacks have seen in the US, but I’d say VERY comparable to what Hispanics have seen.
There are 2 ways you can look at this. One would be to wonder what damage this image might have on AAs. The other would be to dig deeper to see if other disadvantaged minorities might gain some insight into how to overcome the obstacles they encounter.
I realize this is your thread, so maybe you are not intersted in the 2nd aproach. But in reading your OP, I just wondered why you were solely interested in the negative effects instead of the positive ones.
I understand. As I see it, overlooking the glass ceiling is tied to not claiming to be a victim. Should the glass ceiling be looked at or overlooked?
Ramani Ayer (whose name I mis-spelled earlier) didn’t become CEO of a huge international corporation because people were looking at the glass ceiling. Jackie Chan (sorry ;)) didn’t become one of the most successful movie stars in the world because people were looking at the glass ceiling. If anything, these men succeeded because they and those they worked with overlooked the glass ceiling. Even if the glass ceiling is still real to a degree, ignoring it may be more productive than focusing on it.
by december:
I disagree. In order to conquer, you need to know what needs to be conquered. If people of a certain ethnicity/race/gender have to work harder to prove themselves worthy of the same kind of respect that other kind of people get with less work, then they need to be cognizant of that reality if they are going to attain success.
Who is “you”? Minorities certainly know that they are discriminated against. The question is how valuable it is to make a big fuss about it, so that the discrimination is widely focused on. Tiger Woods certainly was aware that there is racial discrimination in golf. He became successful by excelling, not by pointing out the glass ceiling.
Also, YWTF, can you please support your POV with evidence or examples?
Please, december, please consider that the problem with discrimination, glass ceilings, etc, isn’t just that people aren’t trying hard enough to excel. Can we at least get that far?
Well you tell me: did MLK Jr do anything positive, or should he have just been the best factory worker he could be? How’s that for an example?
If you want some context, the “model minority” idea first came into the public consciousness in the 1960’s. The civil rights movement led to research into educational statistics, and it was revealed that Chinese and Japanese Americans attended college in greater proportions and completed more years of education than their white counterparts. Asian and Pacific Americans were characterized as polite, family-oriented, hard-working, compliant, enterprising, and studious, and generally people attributed this to traditional asian cultural values (discipline, respect for learning, strong family ties). As increasing attention was directed at the educational achievements of this group, it got very newsworthy and major media outlets used terms like “whiz kids” and “superminorities” to describe APAs.
One of the problems with this image, which relates to this whole glass ceiling idea, is that APAs in educational or business settings may not be offered the resources that help many other capable people excel: emotional support, enrichment in certain areas, mentoring, scholarships for advanced education, etc. People look at them and assume they don’t need those resources. Not so.
december:
“You” is anybody.
Some people are more aware than others, december. On one hand, you have hypersensivity folks who interpret everything as being racist. And on the other extreme, there are folks who just aren’t aware that they are being pigeonholed and kicked aside because of race. The benefit of doubt is practiced more than you seem to think. All the qualified Asians who have been overlooked for promotion because “he’s Asian, therefore he might not know how to play hard-ball” may have gone home thinking it was because their credentials were not good enough, and not because race played a factor. “Minorities” are individuals, not some hive-minded monolith.
Tiger Woods is a freakin’ golfer. Why are you trying so hard to put sentiments into the minds of perfect strangers? So he doesn’t make it his business to talk about glass ceilings in front of cameras or reporters. What glass ceilings does an athelete face anyway?
I actually don’t know which particular POV you want me to support. Clarify.
Of course. I absolutely agree. But, depending on conditions, the best solution to a problem may not always be to directly oppose it.
Indeed MLK and Ghandi and other demonstrators did wonderful, heroic things. However, they were able to be effective because their approach was right for the times. There was a larger population that thought of itself as moral, but which tended not to look too closely at the unfairness. There was real major, gross, stifling unfairness, When faced with the unfairness, the larger group could be convinced to fix it because it was the right thing to do. LBJ gained enormous popularity from white voters because he sought to do right by blacks.
However, depending on circustances, other approaches might work better. Other minority groups, who didn’t have the same magnitude of prejudice as blacks did, managed to rise to above-average economic positions by dint of goal-oriented hard work and personal success. Take the example of American International Group. At a time when most insurance companies shunned Jews, Hank Greenberg built that company up to one of the largest in the world, with many Jewish employees. Similarly, I believe there are black banks and black insurance companies. There have been black sports leagues and black bands. Their success is an alternative way to fight the glass ceiling.
Thank you for supplying the context. It makes perfect sense to me from a cynical POV. As I see it, these resources may be mostly worthless. The people who make a good living providing these resources came up with the idea of “Model Minorities” as a way to seek more customers. More ethnicities needing support means more income and more power to support providers.
Note that despite a lack of emotional support, enrichment, etc., APAs made enormous gains since the 1960’s. Ditto for the Jews. Or maybe those gains came because of the lack of support.
you with the face, I guess I wasn’t clear enough. You seem to doubt that minorities always know that they will suffer discrimination. I, for one, always took it for granted that Jews would be discriminated against. Other minorities had it a lot worse than Jews. I would assume that they too were raised knowing that the world wasn’t completely fair.
My point about the word “you” is this. I don’t think minorities have to be told about unfair treatment. In fact, it’s human nature to tend to see unfair treatment as worse than it is.
Note that conquering racism can be approached in two fundamentally different ways: End racism or succeed despite racism. The former would be preferable, but it may not be possible. The latter is more likely to be possible. particularly at the individual level. And, in the long run, if enough individuals in a minority succeed despite racism, their individual success will do a great deal to end bigotry against the group. IMHO the day will come when the average black student is equal to or superior to the average white student. When that occurs, we won’t need laws requiring integrated classrooms.