Asian America. Pawan Dhingra
in American meritocracy along with the post-civil rights push to be color-blind has led most recently to a “laissez-faire racist ideology.” This ideology accepts institutionalized discrimination as the natural order of social relations. As sociologist Lawrence Bobo writes, “laissez-faire racism involves persistent negative stereotyping of African Americans, a tendency to blame blacks themselves for the black/white gap in socioeconomic standing, and resistance to meaningful policy efforts to ameliorate US racist social conditions and institutions” (2006: 17). Because the economic system in the United States, in particular in the South, no longer depends on a caste-like system of highly exploited labor serving white elites in a few capacities, the ideology of race has changed. The new ideology no longer needs groups to be so marginalized along all conditions of social life, and so legislated racism (e.g. Jim Crow segregation laws) and racist anti-immigration laws have faded. Yet this does not mean that the dominant group wants frequent association with minorities and immigrants. It only means that the current economic system does not require extreme discrimination.
Within this framework, the economic system continues to de-privilege minorities, but concerns over persisting racial inequalities are few. Minorities are blamed for their own conditions, partly because the ideology of color-blindness, promulgated most forcefully by white elites, affirms the racial status quo (Bonilla-Silva 2003). A belief in American liberalism – that individual freedoms and responsibilities are paramount to American identity and upward mobility – supports this ideology. Policies that promote interactions across groups, such as affirmative action, receive tenuous support at best. Regarding Asian Americans, some may become “honorary whites,” that is, seemingly accepted as akin to whites and separate from blacks, but not equal to whites (Bonilla-Silva 2003). But laissez-faire racism makes people ignore problems, such as overcrowded neighborhoods in Chinatowns, garment workers in sweatshops, anti-Asian quotas in higher-education admissions, and other forms of institutionalized discrimination discussed throughout this book.
Privilege
The flipside of discrimination is privilege. Privilege refers to the benefits of being in the dominant group, namely white, male, heterosexual, and middle class and above. Numerous examples of privilege exist in daily life where the dominant race, gender, sexuality, or class considered “normal” is supported in the media, political discourse, and daily interactions. Rather than only focusing on the disadvantages facing subordinate groups, it is necessary to account for the benefits that the dominant group receives. Some are seemingly trivial, such as finding “flesh”-color Band-Aids in any convenience store that actually match one’s skin color (McIntosh 1989). Some are of deep consequence, such as being able to rent an apartment of one’s choice and price range while others are kept out due to their perceived race or sexual orientation (Lipsitz 1998).
This is not to suggest that white middle-class men do not face their own hard-ships. Wages have not risen at the same pace as expenses. Families are working harder in order to afford the same quality of life as the earlier generation. Cities and states have less money to invest in infrastructure, such as bridges and roads, which all people depend on. Yet these same problems impact women and people of color, often in more consequential ways.
These racial, gender, and sexual inequalities and supportive ideologies create challenges for minorities. Yet it is an open question as to how much active discrimination continues to occur. As noted, explicitly racist ideologies are no longer accepted publicly. Much discrimination stems from institutional practices rather than by intent. Minorities have attained impressive positions of authority. As explained in chapter 1, some theories of adaptation argue that minorities can overcome what little discrimination still exists.
Class exercise
Read Peggy McIntosh’s “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” (available at: https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/mcintosh.pdf) and discuss how it pertains to people’s lives in the class.
Asian Americans as racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual minorities
How do Asian Americans experience the intersection of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality? What do Asian Americans tell us about how and how much these hierarchies work? The book takes up these questions in different arenas, such as how Asian-American women and men experience the labor market, intermarriage patterns, and more. Here we elaborate on what these categories mean for Asian Americans more broadly. Again, we focus on race and attend to how other social categories shape the construction of race.
Black–white binary
When one of us asked his students in an Asian American Studies class for examples of racism, the students responded by listing profiling by the police, mass incarceration, enduring poverty, and the like. While of course these are clear examples of racism, they are a particular kind, that which affects primarily African Americans (and men). This shows the power of the black–white binary when it comes to understanding race, even among an Asian American Studies class. We typically think of race within the black–white binary. This means that the minority is defined in the United States as being black, and to be black means to be the opposite of white. We measure racial disparities by assessing trends among whites and the differences, typically negative, among minorities. For instance, prison incarceration rates are lower for whites than blacks or Latinxs.3 This is a clear example of racial disparities tied to institutionally discriminatory conditions. Differences in stereotypes and media images are similarly assessed. Common stereotypes of blacks are as lazy (in contrast to industrious whites), as criminal (in contrast to upstanding whites), and as sexually aggressive (in contrast to puritanical whites). This is the black–white binary. Minorities are assessed as either like blacks, and so victims of racism, or like whites, and so free from racism.
This binary offers a useful means of conceiving of race in the United States, but it is limited. If one is not perceived as black, then one supposedly does not clearly suffer from racism. But groups can experience race and racism in ways different to blacks or whites. Historian Gary Okihiro (1994) asks, rhetorically, if “yellow” (i.e. Asian) is “black or white.” The answer, of course, is neither. Yet, due to the power of the black–white binary, Asian Americans are framed as either like whites or like blacks. For example, historically, Asian Americans have been defined legally as nonwhite. In addition, Asian Americans have been stereotyped as morally deviant and explicitly compared to African Americans. For instance, Chinese were depicted in newspaper cartoons in the 1800s as like blacks (Newman 2006). At other times, Asian Americans appear like whites, even “out-whiting whites” in their educational attainment or household incomes. Similarly, they are residentially integrated with whites for the most part, unlike African Americans.
Yet even as they are compared to whites and blacks, they fit neither category completely. Claire Kim (1999) moves beyond the black–white binary without losing its applicability to Asian Americans. According to Kim’s notion of racial triangulation, Asian Americans experience racism along two dimensions: degree of cultural and social valorization and degree of civic inclusion into the nation as full citizens. These two dimensions operate separately but are interdependent. Asian Americans can be highly valorized, akin to whites, or lowly so akin to blacks. Yet, even when Asian Americans are respected relative to African Americans, they can be excluded from the nation. Asian Americans are often considered “forever foreign,” despite how long their families may have been settled in the United States. Moreover, Asian Americans’ exclusion becomes stricter during times of economic, political, or military threat from Asia.
The “yellow peril”
Once we think outside of the black–white binary, we can better recognize the main stereotypes impacting Asian Americans – the “yellow peril” and the “model minority.” The “yellow peril”