- Mar 11, 2015
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An Asian American Responds to “Why Can’t Blacks be More Like ‘The Asians’”
Khoi B.“The point I was raising was why the Asians who were oppressed did so well and are integrating so well, and the blacks are not doing as well,”
Let me answer that for you Professor. It’s because Asians didn’t have the same complex and elaborate system of racism that was built to oppress Blacks. Asians came onto the scene in the mid 1800s long after the system of slavery had been established to oppress Blacks. We Asians definitely were (and are) discriminated against. Lynch mobs, housing discrimination, internment camps, immigration quotas, but the system that oppressed Blacks had been here longer, was enforced more brutally, and has remained to this day. Slavery, black codes, segregation, redlining, ghettos, police brutality, prison systems. And let’s remember that stereotypes cast Asians as smart and workaholics, while Blacks are portrayed as lazy, dangerous, and dumb. These stereotypes can cost jobs, opportunities, and even lives.
The struggles that Asians and Blacks went through were completely different. One group came over mostly as willing economic migrants or as refugees fleeing war. The other group was forcefully taken from their homelands to work as slaves.
This statement also assumes that Asian Americans don’t have serious issues to deal with either. Americans of South Asian descent are often victims of hate crimes that stem from islamophobia. Southeast Asian Americans have some of the highest poverty and high school drop-out rates in the country, but because of the ‘model minority’ stereotype that all Asian Americans are thriving in America, these issues often are ignored.
It's time to shut up another white racist lie.