[rayiner]

> If the idea is to get everyone on board with the idea that the deck is still stacked against minorities even in the absence of conscious contemporary racism (which I believe to be true)

Chinese Americans have higher incomes than white people on average. In terms of income mobility: Vietnamese Americans who came here in the 1970s as refugees went from being among the poorest groups in the country, to parity with white Americans today. Asian Americans are richer, have higher income mobility, and live longer than white Americans. Once you adjust for age and citizenship status, they’re also pretty close to evenly represented among billionaires and Fortune 500 board members.

That is not to say they don’t face unpleasant racism, xenophobia, and stereotypes. But saying “the deck is stacked against them” is a much stronger statement. It implies a structural racism that impairs prosperity. While some minority groups do face such structural racism, specifically, Black and indigenous people, others do not: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/135/2/711/5687353.

[aksss]

Thurston County in WA, which is the seat of the state capital, has decided Asian people are not “people of color” anymore because they’re doing too well.

https://reason.com/2020/11/16/equity-report-north-thurston-a...

[rayiner]

Oh it’s worse than that: https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-school-be-antiracist-a-new-...

Under a policy proposal by the Evanston, IL superintendent, white and Asian students would be held behind doing remote learning while other students were prioritized for return to in-class education. When people opposed the policy, they were called racists. The condemnation was worse for Asians who objected to their kids being given a worse educational experience on account of their race—they were called, in essence, traitors to non-white solidarity.

Critical theory has some really f—ked up premises about Asians. The classical liberal, even left-liberal view, doesn’t require an explanation for Asian economic success. Asians don’t face the legacy of say Jim Crow, and the American system is otherwise basically fair, so Asians have been able to prosper even if roadblocks have hampered other groups.

Under critical theory, however, the country and its institutions are considered systematically racist and white supremacist. That creates a dilemma with respect to Asians. How can they have prospered in a system of white supremacy? The solution is to suppose that whites “allowed Asians to succeed” to “serve as a wedge with other non-whites.” Asians are thus stripped of agency—their success isn’t their own, but instead the byproduct of a ploy by whites.

Therefore, when an Asian complains when his child must continue distance learning while other students return to in-person education, they’re not merely being self-centered. They’re not merely failing to acknowledge that other kids suffer from disadvantages that their own children don’t. That would be the typical liberal view. In the critical theory view, they are collaborators. They owe their status due to white supremacy and they’re complicit in white supremacy unless they act in solidarity with other non-whites. Even if that means suffering disadvantageous treatment in schools, etc.

[thaumasiotes]

> The classical liberal, even left-liberal view, doesn’t require an explanation for Asian economic success. Asians don’t face the legacy of say Jim Crow, and the American system is otherwise basically fair, so Asians have been able to prosper even if roadblocks have hampered other groups.

I guess, but this viewpoint fails pretty badly at explaining why Asians prosper so much more than whites do.

> Asians are thus stripped of agency—their success isn’t their own, but instead the byproduct of a ploy by whites.

To be fair, critical theory says exactly the same thing about blacks -- their lack of success isn't their own, it's the product of a ploy by whites. I don't see why we'd expect a different analysis for Asians.

[geofft]

Sure, it's an uncomfortable thing to say, but I hope we're not dismissing hypotheses because of how they make us feel.

More to the point - I agree with the comment above about how the term "racist" (and "white supremacist") makes people have fairly strong emotional reactions, and we'd probably have better discussions if we somehow avoided those words. But I hope we can move past them and analyze what this theory is saying to see if it's true. As a wise man once said: "If a statement is false, that's the worst thing you can say about it. You don't need to say that it's heretical. And if it isn't false, it shouldn't be suppressed."

So let me make an analogy. You and I both pay taxes to the US government (or so I assume), which on occasion does some pretty unethical things (cf. "We tortured some folks.") We also both benefit from living in a country that's so powerful that it can get away with unethical things; such a country also gives us all the opportunities in the world. We could object and refuse to be "collaborators," in one of several ways, whether by just arranging our work situation so we don't pay, or moving to another country, or whatever. But we don't - so we are choosing to be collaborators!

But no one really faults us for not doing so - while we all understand that if it weren't for the collective tax payments of all US taxpayers, the US military couldn't commit any war crimes, we are happy to say that the individual culpability of any tax payer is negligible.

And nobody really says that we're stripped of agency and our success isn't our own simply because we chose to e successful professionals in the US, even though if you dropped us into the median country, we'd certainly be less successful.

On the other hand, that doesn't mean that we don't care about not doing war crimes, or about the good of other countries! We, collectively, the taxpayers / voters, ought to hold our country and especially its military to a high moral standard, and ought to admit wrongdoing (and make restitution, where possible). If we fail to do that, it's a shame on our country. And we the taxpayers / voters need to ensure that the US is not what it is at the expense of other countries, and even above that, there is bipartisan support for foreign aid.

If we're comfortable with all of the above, and we don't think that anyone is making "f--ked up" claims about individual American taxpayers when they accuse the country of having committed war crimes or anyone is impugning the agency of individual American professionals when we call America the land of opportunity, I don't think we should shy away from analyses of the "model minority" that would say that collectively, across society, improvements could be made.

(And, as a child of Indian immigrants to a deeply segregated town in the South, I have seen first-hand that the rational thing for non-white non-black immigrants who care about their success and their children's success is to assimilate into the dominant culture. They have the choice, and it's an easy choice to make. The term "complicit in white supremacy" also provokes an emotional response, but it would be pretty hard to argue that such rational-acting parents who love their children are not, at least a little bit, comfortable with using the reality of race in America to improve their own standing by placing themselves in proximity to whiteness!)

[rayiner]

> but it would be pretty hard to argue that such rational-acting parents who love their children are not, at least a little bit, comfortable with using the reality of race in America to improve their own standing by placing themselves in proximity to whiteness!

The phrase “using the reality of race in America to improve their own standing” really gets to the heart of the issue. Consistent with critical theory, it implies that Asians benefit from the existence of white oppression of other non-whites. Critical theory posits that Asians “improve their own standing” by helping perpetuate white supremacy.

But consider the counter-factual. Say the US was just white and Asian people. Would Asians be as successful in that case? Under the traditional liberal view, the answer is yes. The existence or non-existence of oppressed groups doesn’t help or hurt Asians. Under the critical theory view, the answer is no. In a system of white supremacy, if Asians aren’t helping oppress other non-whites, there is no reason to “allow” them to succeed.

Empirically, we know the critical theory view is wrong. Countries like Canada and Australia don’t have the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow and aren’t segregated. But Asians enjoy high economic mobility in those countries as well.

The basic error in your reasoning is assuming that the existence of segregation changes the incentives or the outcomes for Asians. To the contrary, it’s “rational” for Asian immigrants to assimilate into the dominant white culture whether or not segregation exists. Indeed, it’s rational for pretty much any immigrant in any country to assimilate into the dominant culture, regardless of whether there is also another, oppressed culture in the country.

[selimthegrim]

Surely the case of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis in UK invalidates this? Their achievement test scores vis a vis Caribbeans etc

[ineedasername]

It's very strange to qualify the "of color" designation on the basis of socioeconomic parity.

Are multi generational pockets of poverty-stricken caucasians granted "of color" status by Thurston County?

[ineedasername]

It could impair prosperity for Asians. Comparing raw average income alone isn't sufficient to settle the question. Consider the counterfactual possibility that Asians might be even more prosperous with even higher income if not for structural racism. I fact, it seems that Asians do make as much as 8% less than others in comparable jobs [0] though that difference may disappear somewhat for Asians born in the US, indicating a more complex dynamic than discrimination on appearance alone.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_pay_gap_in_the_United_S...

[rayiner]

> Asians still make 8% less than whites in comparable jobs except for Asians who have been in the United States for one and a half generations, whom have reached full parity in income.

This sounds like the difference is due to things like immigration status and citizenship, not race. Most Asians are immigrants, and many aren’t citizens. That limits opportunities quite a bit even within the realm of “comparable” jobs.

[ineedasername]

Yes, that is possible. One way that might help determine things would be to look at the income of first-generation immigrants from European countries to see if there is a similar dynamic (but not English-speaking countries, to keep that variable constant). It bring my example only to show that merely point to income isn't sufficient to show the existence of structural racism, that it's more complex than that. (and harder to measure)

[lifeformed]

Economic prosperity isn't the only metric that matters. Racism isn't just about money - the deck can also be stacked in social, cultural, and political ways.