ASIAN MODEL VALUES FOR DUMMIES
Apparently, Asian children lack socks and buy their jeans too short.
The racial 'divide & conquer' strategy in education is starting to rear its ugly head. But don't call it a comeback (it's been here for years).
First, the GOP is addressing the so-called racial gap in education by making it even wider. Securing Dubya's legacy as the president who really doesn't care about black (and all other) people, the Bush Adminstration quietly started bombing scholarships that help women and people of color.
The Justice Department told Southern Illinois in a letter that the school was "engaged in a pattern or practice of intentional discrimination against whites, non-preferred minorities and males" because of its scholarship programs. If Bush presses this issue and gets Scalito onto the Supreme Court, we will soon see the United Negro College Fund forced to become the United Negro (And Non-Negro) College Fund. (Apparently, The Onion wasn't that far off when it suggested that civil rights died along with Rosa Parks.)
On the flip side, there seems to be a new wave of Asian American-praising, model minority propaganda. One book getting unusually high attention is this book -- Top of the Class : How Asian Parents Raise High Achievers--and How You Can Too -- which makes me reconsider my stance against book-burning. (Credit: Angry Asian Man)
The book's jacket says: "Asians and Asian-Americans make up 4% of the U.S. population...and 20% of the Ivy League. Now find out how they do it. ... What are Asian parents doing to start their kids on the road to academic excellence at an early age?" Gag! What the hell are the chapter titles -- "Feed Your Kids More Rice"?
Jumping on the 'Asians Are Better'
The reporter quotes one high school student as saying that by getting good grades, "[y]ou bring honor to your whole race." I agree with this statement if 'you bring honor to your whole race' is synonymous with 'you get candy' or 'you don't get your ass whooped by your black-belt father who uses judo as an offensive martial art.' Double gag.
But nobody is doing more to divide and conquer than Abigail Thernstrom, Vice Chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and her husband, Stephan Thernstrom, a professor of history at Harvard University. They just published "No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning" and are currently on a college campus speaking tour discussing "segregation" (it's not clear they're against it) and spreading the message that "Asian" values are superior and African American and Latino students "have a set of skills to learn that are not only academic but are behavioral." Triple gag!
Needless to say, Asian Americans are being used again. Furthermore, these articles constantly lump all Asians into one homogenous group without taking into account the numerous ethnicities and other subgroups that remain impoverished, underrepresented, and undereducated.
If you're an ethnic studies major, you've already heard this a thousand times. But for everyone else, remember: just because O-Dub is a model minority does not mean that all Asian Americans are.
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