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“Asian Privilege”: Racial Stereotyping 101

File Bill O’Reilly under “unoriginal” and “unsound.”

As the Ferguson crisis continued to roil this week, the Fox News talking head chimed in to deny the existence of “white privilege” in the United States. The implication, of course, was that deeply-rooted, historical patterns of anti-black racism had nothing to do with African American poverty, unemployment, disenfranchisement, and criminalization. To prove his point, O’Reilly turned to “Asians,” trotting out decontextualized numbers to “prove” that our nation is a land of unlimited opportunity for those who conduct themselves in the right ways—including people of color. “Asians” succeed in America because “their families … Read more ““Asian Privilege”: Racial Stereotyping 101”

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The Origins of the Asian American Model Minority Myth

Historian Ellen Wu’s The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority just might be the best examination of the roots of the model minority stereotype in print.

More than just a connect-the-dots documentation of the rise of the model minority myth, The Color of Success succeeds at putting the myth in a much broader social and political context, positioning the model minority as a critical, even necessary, lever of white supremacy, resting upon and taking drawing its power from the fulcrum of anti-black racism. What’s more, it succeeds at making this history feel personal and … Read more “The Origins of the Asian American Model Minority Myth”