“Freedom Writers” (2007) is a Hollywood film based on the true story of Erin Gruwell, a white teacher who got through to her 149 poor black, Asian and Latino students and one white student. Instead of dropping out of school, as many probably would have done, they all graduate, most going on to university. It is the film “MADtv” made fun of in the “Nice White Lady” sketch. Hilary Swank stars.
It is 1993 at Woodrow Wilson high school in Long Beach, California (part of metropolitan Los Angeles). Nearly all of Gruwell’s students come from poor, violent neighbourhoods ruled by gangs, where the police do whatever they want and get away with it. Black, Latino and Asian students at the school are deeply divided by race. They do not mix. Fights break out between them. One student is killed.
The school has written off her students as sure to drop out. The fact that she is teaching them is a sign of that: she is completely inexperienced! So is the fact that they expect her to be a glorified babysitter: she is not allowed to use the copies of Anne Frank’s diary that the school bought. The school says the books would be “wasted” on them: their reading scores were too low, they would just damage the books.
But she does not give up on them.
Her students hate her because she is white and tell her so to her face. Instead of getting angry or defensive or shutting them up, she listens to them, seriously. She sees in them Anne Frank – 14-year-olds whose lives are torn apart by racism, violence and knowing that any day could be their last.
She has them write about their lives. She takes a second job to buy them copies of Anne Frank. They eat it up: Frank puts words to what they are going through in the ghetto. Gruwell finds other books that speak to their experience. Their scores go up. They stay in school.
Good:
- I wanted to hug each student!
- A good understanding of prejudice: Shows how dehumanizing and destructive it is – and how the lack of moral courage lets it grow.
Bad:
- White Saviour trope: Yet another white teacher saves inner city kids! When is Hollywood going to do Tucson’s equally successful Latino teachers? While the film is not as cringetastic as, say, “The Blind Side” (2009), it gives Gruwell an oversized part when you consider all those student diaries! Only one student, Eva, is fleshed out. The Asian students are cardboard. Black girls say almost nothing.
- Ghetto pathologies: The film shows the students’s home life as being more screwed up than it was. It allows you to believe that most of the ghetto’s troubles are self-caused, like it is in a foreign country or something.
- Does not openly condemn racism by White Americans – just prejudice by Nazis and people of colour. While it does show cases of white racism, drawing the parallels with the Nazis is left as an exercise for the viewer.
See also:
- YouTube:
- “Freedom Writers” trailer
- MADtv: Nice White Lady
- Interview with Freedom Writer Maria Reyes – says it better than the film itself
- Freedom Riders – what the title plays on
- white paternalism
- darkies – people of colour as seen through a white paternalist lens
- White Saviour trope
- The Blind Side
- The Help
- Spielberg’s Lincoln
- Precious – Mighty Lighty
- moral blindness
- Tucson:
- A Hidden America: Children Of The Plains
“An good understanding” should be “A good”
While the film is not as cringetastic as, say, The Blind Side” (2009)…
That should be “The Blind Side”
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“Does not openly condemn racism by White Americans”
I haven’t seen, and likely won’t see this movie – based on a true story. Were there any predominantly white gangs in this neighborhood that was oppressing the Latin, Asian and black kids? How is it explained (I know it’ just a movie) that non-existent white elements can dived the black, Latin and Asian groups along race lines without direct contact? Could it be that all racial groups prefer their own and it isn’t just “the man trying to keep them down”?
To get the movies you want, I think it’s going to fall to black producers and directors like Spike Lee or Harpo industries to show these same savior movies but with a non-white face. wait a minute – I just remembered “Lean on me” with Morgan Freeman and “Stand and deliver” with Edward James Olmos – two very popular “teacher reaches students” stories with non-white faces.
Could you compare either of these two movies to the one you’ve written about. I see the same story development, plot lines and type of characters, only the leads are of different races – how does that change (if at all) your interpretation of the savior storyline
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Yes, white saviour movies are there to make white audience viewers feel better about themselves. Hollywood has learned that such a “feel good” movie will sell seats.
This is the movie I want to see (warning, this will be a bit long):
A rich East Coast boys prep school (in New Jersey or Connecticut) hires a part-time French teacher. We find out that she did her university year abroad in Belgium, and was later sent to Senegal or Cameroon for 2-3 years as a peace corps volunteer. The history teacher at the school is in a car accident and is incapacitated for several months. They are desperately looking for a replacement for the Advanced Placement history class, but cannot find anyone. She learns of the situation and asks to do it. We find that she has an M.A. in History. The school is reluctant at first, but finally concedes.
The students (and the audience) think she is black, but later it is revealed that her biological father was actually Chinese.
She was born in a Mississippi Delta town (eg, Cleveland, Greenville, Greenwood, or even smaller like Rosewood or Indianola). Her father was born in China, and came to the USA around age 20 to help out at his cousin’s grocery store. We find he was forced to marry a young woman in her late teens in China before he left and had to make her pregnant first before leaving for America. He also used false papers to enter the USA (during the Chinese Exclusion period before WWII) and we learn about his grueling US immigration interrogation surrounding his fake identity. After several years in Mississippi, he meets a black woman and develops a relationship with her. They have a child. She helps him learn more English, and together with the daily contact with his black customers, he speaks a variety of English patterned after small town Mississippi poor blacks.
We learn why Chinese settled in Mississippi. They opened grocery stores to serve black sharecroppers or low paid menial / manual workers. White people refused to serve them, and blacks could never get the loan or credit they need to open a store. Jim Crow actually created a niche for a “3rd race” to make a livelihood.
We also learn about the Mississippi Delta – the history of the cotton sharecropping, the Choctaw Indians, the origin of the blues, and about famous people from there. We also learn of the chilling events before and during the civil rights era, including Emmett Till, the Freedom Rides, Voter disenfranchisement, Medgar Evans, etc.
Through the hard effort of the Chinese members of the Southern Baptist Church, the Chinese community in the Delta town finally convinces the town to let their kids attend the white schools, let them sit in the white sections of the cinema and the restaurants, etc. They still cannot date white students, or do sleepovers at their houses. The Chinese Exclusion Act is repealed and the father is finally able to bring his Chinese born son to the USA. However, he will be barred from sending his son to the white school like the other Chinese kids as he has a black common law wife. He is forced to make a choice, and he decides to abandon the girl’s mother when the daughter is still young and to never have any social contact with them ever again so that he and his son can enjoy some white privileges in the Mississippi town. The wife / mother leaves Mississippi and takes her daughter north to a city in the Midwest where they settle in a black neighborhood. The father does send money to her mother for a while, but after a few years, it stops (we learn later that it was partially due to his remarrying). The new neighborhood up North is no bowl of cherries. The residents are hassled, even brutalized by the police and other city services are terrible. The black kids in her new neighborhood find out that her father is Chinese, and she gets bullied for it. But later in H.S., the boys now think she is exotic and try to “score” on her. She gets raped.
We learn that she met a black / white Biracial man during the peace corps who also had a chilling story of his own to tell, and he was the man that she married. He has a sibling who made the leap to pass as white, but he never did.
Fast forward to the Advanced History class, and we find out that the rich white boys have a very skewed understanding of American and World history and the textbooks are just as skewed as the students . The teacher sets them straight (and the audience learns a thing or two about the history lies they have been taught in the past). The students resent her for it (What the heck does she know about AMERICAN history or about AMERICA’s place in world affairs)? But little by little, we find that she really knows her stuff and the students have been fed a sh*tload of misinformation by their prior education. One by one, they learn the truth (or at least some of it).
The teacher receives a letter from her father’s cousin. It turns out that after they left, he took another wife, a Chinese wife, and had more kids in addition to the older one. After they grew up, they went to universities in the North or East, and the 2nd wife wanted to get out of Mississippi. Anyhow, Jim Crow was breaking down, half the town’s blacks left and went North and it was no longer profitable to run the store. Besides, he was getting old enough to retire, so they ended up settling somewhere near New York City.
In the letter, the father’s cousin said that her father was sick with a terminal disease, but was still alive, and in a hospital not far from her. She goes to see him. It is very emotional. We find out that he always felt remorse for 40 years that he abandoned her and her mother, but felt that he had no other choice. The audience is reminded how things like the Chinese Exclusion Act and Jim Crow caused someone like her to exist in the first place and how those things also tore their family apart. She also finally meets her Chinese-American siblings for the first time. They only just learned that they have a Blasian sister. It is strange for them. The father and his kids also meet the teacher / protagonist’s kids (Black / Chinese / White triracial).
The father dies, but left over half his inheritance to his Blasian daughter. The 2nd Chinese wife is p*ssed off, and is mean to her, even tries to sue, but fails to win.
I am still trying to figure out how it ends, but something tragic happens to the protagonist. She dies or something like that, but not after making sure her elderly mother and her kids are well taken care of. The rest she put into an organization that helps Blasian kids who were abandoned by their fathers. The rich white boys do well on their history exam but the thing the audience takes away with them is the realization of how the past policies and social systems designed by white America served to tear people’s lives apart. We also learn that she also changed the rich white boys forever — they learned to revise their white racist and white privilege mindset, at least to a limited extent.
In other words, this movie is a LESSON to America, not just a white person’s “feel good” movie.
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@Jefe
Amazing movie. I wish I had seen that movie instead of Freedom Writers. To me, Freedom Writers is cliché although it is a good movie in it’s own right. Freedom Writers just highlights what White AmeriKKKlan thinks of minorities and uses this ”White savior” to save them from themselves. Not all Blacks, Latinos and Asians live in the hood.
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I need to start writing the screenplay (or at least the novel) if you think it would attract an audience. 😛
Actually, there are a few actual true stories that are not TOO far off. People like Ne-Yo’s mom is from that region – she can play the protagonist as a middle-aged woman, and we can have one of the other famous celebrities play her as a young woman.
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And her husband will be one of those guys on Abagond’s top 20 list (or at least top 40). 😛
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Gruwell started her students reading Anne Frank’s diary because as she was cleaning her classroom, she found a balled up piece of paper with a caricature of a Black student drawn with over-sized lips and a racial slur…
Her words were–“This is how the Nazis portrayed Jewish people”…
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@ jefe: I would like to see that movie. Are you a writer? Is this your creation?
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Jefe, you impress me. Is that story written already? I’d read that book – does it describe your family or just an interest on your part? It would definitely be an original thought.
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@ jefe
I would love to read a book or see a film like that. The book would be better, though: it would be less filtered and could put way more in.
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@ Ineedtoselectanameandstickwithit
Thanks!
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@ Riverside Rob
“Lean On Me” would probably make a good post, though I have not seen it yet. I suspect I will not like it.
I think a certain amount of “us vs them” thinking is natural to the human condition, but not the extreme levels it is taken to in places like America, Nazi Germany, Sudan, Ethiopia, Rwanda, South Africa, Israel – or Long Beach. And certainly not the internalized racism American people of colour experience. That is not natural at all. That comes from white domination.
Black Americans are fed many of the same racist messages whites are, from school, from Hollywood, etc, and, like whites, believe much of it, even when it is against themselves (thus internalized racism). Some of it has become a part of their own culture and taken on a life of its own, like the “good” hair thing. So they can be racist against Asians too and often are. But because they do not run the country, it is hypocritical to call out their anti-Asian racism and not that of whites. (Some call this racism-without-societal-power prejudice, not racism.)
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I think it’s safe to say that we shouldn’t expect anything more from Hollywood other than the usual tropes they’ve been dishing out. If Hollywood is run by mostly whites and whitewashed POC, you can expect to see more whiteness on film, and they wouldn’t have it any other way because they think “other ways” don’t sell.
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@Abagond here are some examples of positive “POC” (I just threw up in my mouth using that term) teacher roles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_and_Deliver
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Sir,_with_Love
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To tell the truth, the idea for this storyline just popped into my head after reading Abagond’s blog post. I am not a writer, but just thinking about the kind of story the audience really needs after seeing “Freedom Writers”. I think I watched part of that movie on the plane or something, but I didn’t find it interesting.
Seeing that some of you find this other storyline interesting, I should write about it.
That story is not my story, nor anyone in my family or anyone I know personally, but I definitely got the idea from personal experience. I have intimate family connections with both Anniston, AL and the Mississippi Delta before, during and after the civil rights era. My family was affected directly by phenomena such as the Chinese Exclusion Act and Jim Crow – I can see how it can tear families apart. And none of it was taught to me in school, so by High School, I was determined to get to the bottom of it. Some of my personal experience I didn’t know for sure until my mom was on her deathbed. Finally, I took an Asian-American studies class (the first ever to be offered at the university I attended) and did my research project on the Chinese that settled in Mississippi 1880s – 1960s. I learned that up to 1/3 of the men had relationships with African-American women before WWII. I drew fairly heavily from Loewen’s research study book, but also from personal family stories.
Finally, I have just decided I need to add a few white-washed Asian student characters to that East Coast prep school. One of my roommates in university was just one of those people. My fictional protagonist teacher would definitely set them straight.
I do have another storyline, in the back of my mind. That one would be fictional too, but be more based on my personal family experience, tying in the events from the 1950s – 1970s. It would also link in Anniston and the Mississippi Delta.
I need to get started on these story lines and flesh them out.
Wonder if Abagond ever thought about writing a story.
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@ jefe
I think Abagond should write a non-fiction book (or multiple books), although I’d certainly be interested in reading a novel of his as well.
@ Riverside_rob & dave
I had to laugh when I saw .Stand and Deliver suggested. We must have watched that movie half a dozen times in high school Spanish class. In ENGLISH. Because… it had Hispanic people in it? I guess? Our teacher was this depressed guy who talked about how sad he was that his wife had left him and said he only ate cheese and deli meat. He also told us about how his parents used to hit him, and he would write these weird stories about kids being physically and sexually abused, lovers getting in fights and throwing soda cans at each other, people committing murder, etc. and ask us to translate them into Spanish, for language practice. Um… okay? I think he needed a therapist, not a roomful of sixteen-year-olds who laughed at him and interrupted him to talk about their breakup drama and pregnancy scares.
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The Mad Tv. Youtube parody of the film titled “Nice White Lady” is funny.
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@jefe
I look forward to reading the story you are writing. Thanks for sharing your ideas.
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@Vagabond.. Wow that’s crazy. Sounds like that movie “Bad Teacher” when she plays movies of other teachers teaching. Sounds like a lazy guy. Anyway I thought of stand and deliver because the setting is similar to freedom writers which I haven’t seen. @Riverside .. sorry I didn’t realize you had already mentioned it.
These recycled hollywierd films like this are an example of laziness also. Like we don’t see that this same story had been recycled 20 times. Ironically “To sir with love” inspired all of them and that was Sidney Poitier.
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@agabond Did you see “180 Days: A Year Inside an American High School”? It’s a recent documentary from a Met school. I didn’t think of it when I watched it, but there could be a great movie made about the school and particularly the principal at the time. Check it out if you haven’t already! https://www.facebook.com/180SchoolDays?fref=tsv
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If you loved Freedom Writers; The you shoud read Diary of A Freedom Writer “The Experience” at: http://goo.gl/wYZ2P or get signed copies at : http://goo.gl/TDpN2
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Asian students? Surprised to hear that. East Asians consistently rank as top students in the US. From where in Asia did these kids hail from?
I always tell my friends with babies or who are expecting – “make sure you get/him her some Asian friends” or if they are looking to move somewhere, “check out the neighborhoods with a high East or South Asian (Indian) population.
Those people value intact families, stability and education.
Those 3 things are of utmost importance in raising a child.
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@ Why
Sorry, but that is a racist stereotype:
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Riverside_ rob: “Could it be that all racial groups prefer their own and it isn’t just “the man trying to keep them down”?”
Yes. It is evolutionary.
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Its a stereotype that holds true for most East and South (Indian) Asians in the US. Of course exceptions will be there – they prove the rule (stereotype).
“Although it might seem like a good thing, many Asians hate being seen that way.”
And many are perfectly fine with being seen that way. I don’t blame them.
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@ Why @ Riverside Rob
If it was so genetic, then how come English-speaking whites did not call themselves “whites” till the early 1600s? How come race was not the main way that Westerners divided mankind till the 1700s? That sounds cultural to me, not genetic, not something hardwired into human nature.
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@ Why
The Asians I know find the model minority stereotype insulting and racist. For example, they get no credit at work for working hard – because “Asians are hard workers”.
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“The Asians I know find the model minority stereotype insulting and racist.”
And the Asians I know don’t. So what?
“If it was so genetic, then how come English-speaking whites did not call themselves “whites” till the early 1600s? How come race was not the main way that Westerners divided mankind till the 1700s? That sounds cultural to me, not genetic, not something hardwired into human nature.”
The hardwired part has nothing to do with “white”. That construct came along thousands of years later. What I’m talking about here is small ethno-cultures, you could say tribes I guess.
It is an evolutionary advantage strategy that evolved in humans.
In today’s world we may not need it any more.
But some on here are arguing that we do. You know, all the comments about “there will be no more black people in the US if we keep mating out” etc.
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Jefe’s story has merit but I find the reconciliation after 40 years hard to take. The following is the movie I would like to see: A Nigerian family moves to Texas, they end up in a black ghetto. They send their son to a public school where he encounters white racism as well as harassment from his Black American peers, he is called butt scratcher and feces eater by these peers, they go so far as to subject him to physical violence but he perseveres and a decade later he graduates from Johns Hopkins university with a 3.98 GPA. he is elected to the elite Phi Beta Kappa Society and gets a scholarship to study medicine at Yale University. He meets an attractive and equally accomplished young woman from NJ of Nigerian descent. She got into Harvard at 15 and did as well as he did at Johns Hopkins. Will they be drawn to each other or will the fact that she is a Muslim from the north and he a christian from the south get in the way of romance? by north and south I mean north and south of Nigeria. Racial tension isn’t the root of all evil as this blog would lead one to believe.
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Abagond:
The Asian people I’ve asked about this have said they aren’t insulted by that stereotype precisely because they feel like they’ve earned their successes.
Hard work is the surest way, and probably the only way, to feel as though results have been “earned”.
My sample space is all immigrants, so maybe they just haven’t learned to take offense at everything yet.
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Jefe:
You are a talented! Write this story, you have a few dollars or (Euros) from me with your name on it.
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Good story line gro jo!
“Will they be drawn to each other or will the fact that she is a Muslim from the north and he a christian from the south get in the way of romance? by north and south I mean north and south of Nigeria. Racial tension isn’t the root of all evil as this blog would lead one to believe.”
I suppose the hesitancy there might be – will her family require him to convert to Islam before they give their blessings for the two to marry?
Randy,
“The Asian people I’ve asked about this have said they aren’t insulted by that stereotype precisely because they feel like they’ve earned their successes.
Hard work is the surest way, and probably the only way, to feel as though results have been “earned”.
My sample space is all immigrants, so maybe they just haven’t learned to take offense at everything yet.”
This^.
The only Asian immigrants I have met who seem to take any sort of offense at the model minority stereotype are really young, impressionable people who are taking classes at a university (such as UofC Berekely) wherein the professor somehow convinced them they should take offense.
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@Kiwi: You do you. Be smart,.
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@gro jo: I think that story has been done or something similar to it. I think I saw a short film on BET.
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@gro jo: If my memory serve me right a film makers contest for aspiring contest had a short film similar to your commentary, But your story sounds good. I’d like to see that one as well. Any thing sounds better than what’s out here today.
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Dang, *aspiring film makers*
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The Model Minority stereotype is horrible – one of the evils that came out of the Reagan era to balance out the welfare queen stereotype.
Such a label one-dimensionalizes everyone that it is applied to.
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I knew kiwi was being sarcastic.
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“LOL at all the non-Asians insisting that Asians should accept being stereotyped.”
How do you know a few of us ain’t Asian ourselves?
Assumptions, assumptions. Tsk, tsk.
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Being insulted about being smart. That one has me scratching my head,
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Is there such a thing as a positive stereotype? Forgive me for being obtuse about this.
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“Being insulted about being smart. That one has me scratching my head”
I know, right? Me too!
“Is there such a thing as a positive stereotype?”
Yes, there are several positive stereotypes. The good thing about them is whether or not they apply to us, if we are being stereotyped in a good way, we can use it to our advantage. 😉
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I can’t believe that the ugly head of the model minority stereotype has risen again in this thread. 😡
Admittedly, there are some Asians who might embrace the model minority stereotype just like there may be some blacks who might embrace the stereotype of being hypersexualized or of being gifted athletically on a genetic basis and think it is positive stereotype which has positive impacts.
Anyone (regardless of whether they are Asian or non-Asian) who believes that such myths are true have either
– been brainwashed by the white media or govt or corporate interests
– have never really learned why and how such stereotypes started and who are the real parties that use such stereotypes to their advantage.
– are blind to the harm that such stereotypes create, and to how someone becomes victimized by the stereotype
But it is difficult to convince someone who has been brainwashed that he is brainwashed. It’s like believing the police are there to protect you.
They can start by educating themselves. The following articles explain how it can be both positive and negative and why it is indeed a myth.
Click to access Model%20Minority%20Section%20%282011%29.pdf
http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2007/04/model-minority-myth-distorts-reality-panelists-say
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@Mary
I suppose it depends on how we define “positive”.
In the 19th century, certain Native American peoples were stereotyped as more “civilized”, while others as “savage”. Is “civilized” a positive stereotype?
I am sure that you are familiar about some stereotypes about the differences between light-skinned and dark-skinned blacks.
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/magazines/allwoman/25158_Study-examines-stereotypes-of-light–dark-skinned-blacks.
Light-skinned blacks are often perceived of as being more intelligent, more attractive, wealthier, etc. Are those positive? Well, we can say that they appear to be complimentary, that is, compliment the person. I have heard similar stereotypes of Eurasians.
But there is a dark side to each of these. For example, is the person wealthier or more intelligent because they are light-skinned? ie, it has nothing with the efforts that they themselves are responsible for, or in other cases, just plain pure luck that has nothing to do with the stereotyped attribute. And what does it do to people who do not fit the stereotype?
Worst of all, it pits people against each other — marginalizing both ends of the stereotype. For the model minority myth, it pits Asians against blacks similar to what Abagond said in his Model minority stereotype post. That kind of effect primarily benefits whites, and victimizes both sides being stereotyped. How does it benefit? – it lets them off the hook.
Here is Abagond’s post again if you cannot find it.
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Yep, I know of Asian parents of multiracial kids who advised their kids NOT to tick Asian. As an asian, they believe they have no chance. Black, white, Latino are all better. A great example of the negative aspect of th Model Minority myth, hence the need to know which schools discriminate this way against Asians. My niece, who is 1/4 Asian but with an Asian-sounding surname can now resent the 3/4 Asian with a non-Asian surname for getting away with ticking a non-Asian box.
Abagond, we need a post on the problem of race and college admissions.
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@ jefe
I agree. The nearest thing I have to it is a post on it is a post on Maclean’s “Too Asian” article:
Roughly speaking, the top American universities in effect take 150 points off your SAT scores if they think you are Asian. Also, all the stuff American universities added to the admission process to filter out Jews in the 1940s is still in place, particularly the personal interview and the requirement of being “well-rounded”.
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@ Mary
Jefe and Kiwi made wonderful points. I am glad Randy and Why made such knuckleheaded comments.
I would add this: In my experience, the biggest believers of the model minority stereotype are the biggest anti-black racists. They LOVE it because it allows them to think that they and American society are not racist: “Look, I can think good things about minorities! Look, American society is fair – Asians succeed even better than whites!” Etc.
That leaves out:
1. Racist stereotypes are racist, even positive ones. See Kiwi and Jefe above.
2. Many Asians succeed because America lets them in needing doctors, nurses and engineers. They are not “starting at the bottom”. They already have more education than most whites. Their children, relative to their parents, do not have amazing test scores or experience amazing social mobility. That means taking 150 points off their SAT scores during university admissions is a RACIAL TAX, something not done to the sons and daughters of white professionals. Jews or even middle-class blacks are a much better “proof” of the Bootstrap Myth.
3. Always left out by model minority stereotypists is the Asian American poverty rate, especially as broken down by ethnic group. That is why Why was surprised there were Asians in “Freedom Writers”, the thing that started this tangent. Not all Asians came to America as doctors, engineers or university students. Some came as refugees: Cambodians, Hmongs, Laotians, Amerasians, etc. Most came without money or education or good English. Many are still stuck in poverty, some at higher rates than Black or Native Americans. You know, despite all their wonderful “Asian values”.
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For most Taiwanese-Americans I know (and many of the Indian-American ones), they or their parents came to the USA as POST-GRADUATE students, ie, studying for their masters or doctorate. Before they became a permanent resident, they already had a post-graduate degree and a professional job. They and their kids are not starting at the bottom. It is no surprise to me that Taiwanese-Americans have the highest educational attainment of ALL Americans, including other Chinese-Americans or whites, including Jews. I have no idea how whites can use this as an example of the bootstrap myth or model minority myth. It is simply ridiculous.
That is also why Filipino-Americans have high educational attainment. It is a very self-selected group.
I also had friends and ex-coworkers who fled the Khmer Rouge in the early 1980s. They literally had to start at the bottom – no English and little transferable skills, and no money for an education. It is similar for the Chinese from rural mainland China who came to the USA in some of the “snakehead” human trafficking schemes.
I wonder — Black colleges started in the late 1800s and early 1900s as blacks could not get into white institutions. Now that Asians are rejected in large numbers to “white” institutions, I wonder if they will have to convert some universities to “Asian” majority ones just so that they have a chance for higher education. Maybe that is already happening in the California public system.
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If you live in the bosom of suburbia, you do not see Asian American poverty. Because it is not the next street down. Because it is not shown on television since it does not fit the white racist stereotypes.
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At least there was a movie like “Gran Torino” which gave a glimpse of poor Hmong in Detroit in a white flight neighborhood. Unfortunately, it too was a white saviour movie with Clint Eastwood doing the honours.
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I’m always up for becoming less of a “knucklehead”.
If we consider that a stereotype consists of one or more of the following components:
1. Recognition of a pattern (correctly or incorrectly)
2. Assumption about the ultimate and proximate causes of the pattern
3. Application of the pattern to an individual
4. Comparison between groups
I can think of a few ways where these might be objectionable:
#1 being inaccurately observed, #2 being inaccurately assumed, #3 and #4 suffering from the inherent inaccuracy of generalizations.
If a comment like “asian people tend to be hard working” doesn’t include any of the problems listed above, and is simply made as an observation, is it still offensive?
Anecdote: the first time I asked my wife about her feelings regarding the stereotype she said two things:
1. “When I ask my asian co-workers to do a task, it always gets done.”
2. “If you drive around back at the facility where I work, you never see asian people sitting down on the job and smoking cigarettes.”
In what way might she be racist for making these observations? Note that a particular cause for the pattern isn’t stated.
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mary burrell: I’m surprised to read that the story I wanted filmed had already been made. When did Hollywood begin to make films about blacks where they weren’t a “problem”? The protagonists of my story outline are based on real people, only the romance part was fantasy.
Asians aren’t the only ones who fit the “model minority” profile.
http://www.cp-africa.com/2012/06/26/how-22-year-old-nigerian-emmanuel-ohuabunwa-broke-academic-records-and-made-history-at-johns-hopkins-university/
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/05/04/saheela-ibraheem-15-headed-to-harvard-with-aspirations-of-becoming-scientist/
When speaking of Asians I think people should be careful not to confuse the Chinese and others with long histories of scholarship behind them and people like the Hmongs who, until the CIA took an interest in them as pawns in their wars against the Vietnamese, were living lives that had not changed for centuries.
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Was going to link “nice white lady madtv” but I see you already found it 😉 . Sums up that movie pretty good. Especially the SO SYMBOLIC “putting down the gun and raising the pen” scene xD
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Thank you, Gro Jo.
I think the Asians get too many props for being “model minorities” who do well; Caribbeans and Africans get No recognition for their hard work and are relegated to the sidelines even though we took the same planes and ships to get to America, contribute and do just as well as the Asians in America.
Brain drain had been a massive problem for Caribbean and African countries that saw their brightest and professionals go to American universities and did not go back home. These people have done Very well in America and have been an integral part of black American society (like the Civil Rights movement and other pro-black organizations)
at the end of the day, we all know that white America doesn’t care about black or brown people and their accomplishments because this country is racist as h’ll and will continue to be
and they don’t care about Asians either and are only using them as an excuse to say “Hey, I’m not racist, I can admit Asians are smarter than whites” but they would rather cut out their tongues than ever admit that a black person is smarter.
I sat in too many University classes listening to white students prose on and on about how smart they were, monopolizing class time trying to prove that they knew the correct answers …
but proof is in the pudding when test time came and we black and brown students shut their bragging sessions down many times… and they truly resented the fact that black people (foreigners/ immigrants even) performed scholastically better than them… I would hear some of them rationalize everything by saying, “doesn’t matter, white people still run everything anyway”
White people can’t even admit that Africa is experiencing growth right now and that they have a positive growth trend and that the Continent is slowly getting it’s sh’t together
I read this article “Is Africa much richer than we think? No one knows” by a Canadian writer. The author is stating that African countries are giving misleading data which is “fooling” western scholars and world organizations like the World Bank about what is really happening on the Continent.
Basically, he is questioning the integrity of these African countries because some of them went from being “low-income country(s) to lower-middle-income country(s)” almost overnight based on revisions of economic activities that were previously not reported by their governments.
“These revisions, which were caused by changes in the base year, methods and basic data of the national accounts, have resulted in confusion and disbelief in the development community.”
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/27/opinion/numbers-africa-jerven
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@ Randy
Whites want to be seen as individuals. What makes you think Asians do not want the same? Why this need to stereotype them? What do you hope to achieve?
“Asian” is an extremely broad category – most of mankind is “Asian”. I doubt it will buy you anything conceptually. Even the model minority stereotype, to the degree that it is true, applies to the brain drain and (to a lesser degree) its children, not to “Asians” as a “race”. See Linda’s comment.
Asians came to America from different countries at different times for different reasons under different circumstances. Even Chinese Americans, who belong to the same ethnic group, have marked differences among them.
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@gro jo
Is that based on a true story?
Anyhow, even if that story is interesting, it has a problem for at least a portion of the audience (and for me). It is a reaffirmation of the bootstrap myth. While it is not a white saviour movie that would win the hearts of white liberals, it definitely validates the hearts and minds of those who believe in the bootstrap myth (a “feel good” movie for them). And I am afraid that some of them might show that movie to “set an example” for whining POC to emulate. Again, they see it as a lesson for POC, but not for them.
I want to see a movie that is a lesson for everybody. It does not have to feel good.
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jefe, The only part of the story that’s not true is the romance between the individuals I used as prototypes. Click on the links I provided to read their story for yourself. I wasn’t really interested in creating a story that would upend anybody’s prejudices, I’m simply tired of hearing what a problem blacks are. Black Americans, and other blacks have made great contributions to all aspects of American culture but there’s this persistence to pass these things in silence and continue to depict blacks as wards of this society who must be policed for their own good. The policing comes in two basic flavors, blacks are feral animals and must be treated as such or they are pathetic victims in need of care and guidance. The bootstrap you alude to is false only as an ideology, in reality, we all rise by our own efforts. Your parents were the ones who fed you by going to work every day. Anybody who can’t identify with the struggles of ordinary people of any race isn’t human in my book.
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@randy
LOL, we are “up” for that too. 😛
Seriously, I found it interesting that you sought to analyze stereotypes in terms of four components and it is worthy of consideration. Did you devise that yourself or did you get the idea from something you read or studied?
One thing about stereotypes: They are not facts, but “a simplified and standardized conception or image that people hold regarding a particular type or thing”. Generally, they are NOT true. About the best you can do is encounter certain cases which conform more closely to the stereotype, but still it can never be the “truth” or a fact. The only fact is that such a stereotype may or may not exist.
And yes, a stereotype about any “race” is racist. Even the stereotype that white people are “basically good” is a racist stereotype.
But then you devolve into the following:
You have just allowed your knuckleheadedness to show its true colours. 😛
It most indeed includes each and every one of the problems you listed.
1. Recognition of a pattern (correctly or incorrectly)
First of all, both “(classification of) Asian people” and “hard-working” are personal perceptions that defy scientific determination. Two different people can have completely different ideas of what that means.
Next, you think that a pattern has been recognized. That is an activity done in work such as cryptography (trying to glean a pattern in order to break a code, since a code by definition usually follows a pattern), market research (to glean customer trends by analyzing data) or basic hypothesis testing, where an initial hypothesis is made that is later tested with rigourous scientific of statistical methods.
However, that is NOT what you have done here. What you have done is form an initial belief, and then notice examples which seem to validate the belief and ignore the rest. This is called CONFIRMATION BIAS and Abagond discussed it here:
For example, if you did a correlation study of observations, you might find that 85% of the persons you perceive as Asian seem to be hard-working according to your definition. But what you failed to notice was that those are all males who live in 1 of 3 suburbs east of the city and who graduated from top tier universities in Illinois in 1995 – 2000 and who have fathers who were engineers with graduate degrees from universities in New England. You ignored the 4 white people and the black guy who actually fit the criteria. You just considered the people in the office who happen to look Asian to you, and you only observe that attribute to confirm your belief, and ignore what the real fact may be. In order to confirm it, you have to
– define Asian
– define hard-working
– test that pattern, but also every single other attribute (and eliminate correlation bias) that people may have (like what they do on CSI to identify the connection between the suspect and the victim)
– run the test 10,000 times
then, and only then, can you have maybe 98% confidence that a stereotype may indeed be somewhat true. That is what they have to do to confirm that, for example, persons descendant from the Horn of Africa are more susceptible to Cirrhosis.
2. Assumption about the ultimate and proximate causes of the pattern
The discussion under #1 also discusses the fallacy in the reasoning process. Not only have you assumed that you have recognized a pattern, but you jump to a belief about the cause of the pattern using confirmation bias.
3. Application of the pattern to an individual
But that is exactly what you did, or what you will do to the next Asian you meet.
And what you have perceived as a “positive” stereotype also can have negative implications.
Example:
My college roommate used to be a programmer for Goldman Sachs in New York when I was also working in NY. Once, after work on a Friday, I went to visit him in his office. At 8pm on a Friday evening, about 1/2 the desks where the programmers sat had occupants, and except for maybe 1 Jewish guy and 1 Indian, the rest were males of East Asian (mostly Chinese descent). There were no Anglos or other whites sitting at their desks. There were some who work in that department, but apparently, they had all left. Now someone who sees that might think, “those Asian guys are certainly hard working. When the “regular Americans” are out somewhere for Happy Hour, or home with their families, these guys are still grinding”
What the observer may fail to realize is that their boss also holds that stereotype, and dumped the work that needs to be done by Monday on the Asian guys’ desks and told them it has to get done (and meanwhile, he left for the bar or went home). The guys need the job, and do what the boss tells them to. However, the boss invites the white guys out for a drink, tells them of some of the strategic plans he has for the office, and tries to buy their support. Months later, the white guys get promoted to supervise the Asian guys, who still get dumped with work. They work extra hours and do not get promoted (at least not as fast). Their hard work works against them and they are stereotyped as being diligent in crunching numbers but (stereotyped as) not as good at communicating the boss’s management plans to subordinates. Have you heard of the “bamboo ceiling”?
4. Comparison between groups
That is exactly what your wife’s anecdote does. If “you never see asian people sitting down on the job and smoking cigarettes.”–> implies that she does see others (non-Asians) doing it. It is a comparison between groups and an inherent inaccuracy of generalizations and reeks with confirmation bias.
Yes, it is not stated, but it is most certainly assumed or implied. Your wife’s anecdotal evidence implies the reason is because they are Asian. And yes, that is racist.
Hope you understand why some might think this particular commenter may be regarded as some type of knucklehead by at least *some* readers, and by the blogger. When I read it I thought LOL, what a knucklehead. If your goal is to try to be less of a knucklehead, you didn’t quite succeed here, but keep on trying. I won’t give up on you (Even if the others have). 😛
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@ Gro jo
Did you read Abagond’s comment?
There are nearly 1.5 billion ethnic Chinese globally. I am sure that you cannot make any blanket assumption regarding over 1/5 of mankind.
Most of the people I met in the USA who escaped the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia were ethnic Chinese, as well as at least 1/4 of the Vietnamese boat people. I met many of them and listened to their horrific stories. One guy told me his whole entire family got murdered – his parents and siblings, and he was the only one who escaped. (In fact, I was just thinking about him and wish I could see him again). They arrived in the USA with nothing, and had no education to work beyond menial labour in the USA. Many of them arrived without even the shirt on their back. I have also met people who were smuggled in from Fujian and other provinces in China and work in the back room of factories or restaurants, or in a sweatshop. I also know thousands of people from Taiwan and China who came to USA to get their graduate degree, and who had well-to-do or at least professional or well education parents. Simply cannot compare!!!
It is wrong to do the comparison you did between Chinese and Hmong. Firstly, it is wrong because you cannot make blanket assumptions between and within groups like that. Secondly, because you are electing to use one to validate the Model Minority myth and one to ignore as not validating.
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@ kiwi, Jefe, and the other Asian commenters on this blog: I sincerely apologize for any offences in my comments. I apologize for my obtuseness and thanks for the enlightenment. It is just an observation of mine. It just always seemed the Asian community valued education and it looked to me they always were on top concerning academics. I was always in awe of that. I am here to learn about other cultures and other information I can study and retain knowledge. I admire Jefe and kiwi and Iris and Leigh 204. I think you are very bright and articulate commenters. It wasn’t my intention to be glib. Please know I am embarrassed to come off like that. Please except my apologies. When you learn better you do better.
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@ Abagond: Thanks for the enlightenment as well. As I stated in my comments to Jefe and Kiwi, When you learn better you do better. That is a Maya Angelou quotation.
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I will go back and review the stereotype thread. Also I am studying a sociology textbook one of my friends gave me. It parallels many things we discuss on this blog. It will add to my learning.
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MADTV- Nice White Lady
LOL 😛
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Jefe, I don’t need anybody’s permission to compare groups. I’m aware of the fact that there are wide variations within groups. The Hmongs are of Chinese ancestry according to their mtDNA. Wikipedia has an article on the subject. There are minorities who fare better than the general population and they come in all the races of mankind, the reason for the success of such groups are no doubt complex but to try to wish such differences away with a few fine sounding words strikes me as futile. I read abagond’s comments after I posted the opinion you take exception to, I don’t see how it undermines what I said. I didn’t make blanket assumptions, I stated a fact. Using your logic I’d have to conclude that a Dinka is as tall as a pigmy. I know that Luol Deng played in the NBA, would you care to name me one pigmy NBA player?
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@Gro Jo: Tell YOUR story. I think it would be good, from what I read in your comments. I just thought I saw something similar to that. I watch lots of short films and films by aspiring filmmakers. It just sounded familiar to me is all.
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Abagond:
Two points:
1. Groups of people can be individuals while still exhibiting patterns in common. If you spent a day in a room, blindfolded, with either 100 random black Americans or 100 random asian Americans, I’m willing to bet that you could tell which group you’d been with. Consider how you were able to do that.
Someone with a passing familiarity could no doubt tell the difference between 100 random Chinese people vs. 100 random Vietnamese people, 100 Ethiopians vs. 100 Somalis, 100 Finns vs. 100 Danes.
2. I’m not trying to encourage stereotyping, just commenting that noticing such patterns doesn’t seem necessarily harmful, particularly if you avoid the pitfalls in my previous comment.
Abagond:
Agreed, but in America approximately 2/3 of Asian residents are immigrants, and as you’ve pointed out this cohort often shares a number of similar circumstances.
Additionally, 1.4 billion people in the world are Chinese, 90% of whom belong to the same ethnic group, and as such are not unlikely to share relatively similar cultural values.
Abagond:
True, but by the same token it seems a point of deliberate ignorance to avoid seeing patterns that, while they may not to all members of a group, nonetheless register. To your point I can see that bad stereotyping does exist, and perhaps is the norm.
Check out this forum of anecdotes and tell me if a pattern of some kind doesn’t emerge:
http://www.reddit.com/r/AsianParentStories/
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@ Linda: I feel most individuals that immigrate to the United States seem to value academics and excel far greater than a lot of Americans. I often wonder if that’s why Black people who come here from the islands and Africa kind of have an issue with American blacks. I can understand that way of thinking. We have lived in a land of opportunity compared to Black people from the Carribean and Africa and lots of us take many of the things offered to us for granted. Many come from nations where there is poverty and education is valued more so. I can’t be mad at you guys. I dated a gentleman from Nigeria and he asked me why so many black Americans were uneducated. I told him I couldn’t not speak for all the black people in America. But I admire excellence and the work ethic of many African and Island descended black people.
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@ Gro Jo: Emmanuel Ohuabunwa is a fine young gentlemen of excellence. That’s awesome. I admire individuals like that.
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@ Jefe, Kiwi and Abagond. It wasn’t my intention to be a knucklehead.
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Randy, 95% of people misguess my racial background, my ethnic background and my nationality. Every American I met this year told me that they do not believe that I could possibly be American (whether white, Asian, Latino, Native American, Arab, or a dozen of other types of Americans I might be). It much more common than you think. In one single day I can be assigned 10 different ethnic backgrounds, and have a completely different set of stereotypes assigned to each. If I believed any of those stereotypes, I’d be a complete nervous wreck. So, imagine what I am supposed to feel if someone tells me that I have either confirmed their stereotype, or fail to match their stereotype when they have misclassified me in the first place.
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jefe:
I came up with those while trying to disassemble the concept of stereotypes to better understand why they evoke strong feelings.
jefe:
Pattern recognition is an evolutionary survival adaptation. It doesn’t need scientific rigor and statistical confidence before it begins to have utility.
A comment like, “asian people tend to be hard working” is not offered as a scientific theory (in this particular case), and so ought not be face the same scrutiny.
Within the confines of her office, I trust that my wife (who is asian) can reasonably determine who is also asian and who is hard working. Were she to attempt to use that opinion as the basis for policy or other decisions, then the hazards of your example would certainly apply.
jefe:
Actually, I specified that a reason wasn’t offered. Given that she grew up in a poor asian country herself, I doubt that she’d consider the cause to be biological race.
jefe:
You cite an effective example. I’d like to unpack that a bit.
Is the problem that the asian programmers aren’t hardworking? Or is the problem that they were perceived to lack leadership/communication skills? Are they necessarily mutually exclusive?
I would tend to think that if someone is believed to have leadership and communication skills, the addition of “hard working” to their perceived attribute set would be a net positive.
I went to school with quite a few asian students, and they tended to not be as assertive and confrontational as white and black students. I believed that the cause was a combination of weaker language skills (ESL) and/or the influence of Confucian culture, either first hand or second hand.
In some fields aggressive proclivities are rewarded, and those less pugilistic can be left with the grind jobs. It’s also possible that their perception as a “hard worker” might have helped land them the job, and possibly made up for any perceived deficit of social/leadership skills (rightly or wrongly).
That’s not to say that the boss didn’t commit the #3 problem from the list, he quite possibly did, but there are other potential variables which may be at work.
jefe:
You make excellent points here, although I think what still needs to be clarified is the arrow connecting casual observations with prejudicial actions. Certainly that can happen, but does it necessarily do so?
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Thank you for the civility and thoughtfulness in your response. Certainly more dialog is needed.
Couple points:
* who is Asian and who is hardworking will always be a subjective evaluation, regardless whether your wife is Asian or not; the only difference is that your wife’s subjective evaluation may be somewhat different than someone else’s. (The point is not who is qualified to make such a subjective evaluation.)
* Agree that the tendency to use stereotypes is a survival tactic used by humans – that is why humans stereotype. For example, if a man slips and falls under a fallen door, and he has just enough time and energy to call out to one of two persons to help him (both of whom are walking away from him in opposite directions) – a big, tall older black man who is dressed in tank top, shorts and sneakers and a young slightly built white woman in heels — he might suddenly resort to stereotypes to make his decision. That still is not the same as stereotypes which have been codified in the minds of people by white-washed media and by white-washed education.
* I cited my example just for illustration purposes only on how a “positive” stereotype can have negative consequences. To be sure, in an actual case, esp. if the programmers suspect systematic bias from management, it would have to be investigated in a more scientific manner. The point was that a “positive” stereotype can (and does) still create a negative impact on the receiver. An Asian guy, even if he is “hard-working” yet outspoken and aggressive, has to work twice as hard to dispel the negative aspects of the stereotype than one who is not stereotyped as such.
The arrow connection is
casual observations –> Stereotype –> prejudicial actions
The first arrow was connected using Confirmation Bias (which we have already pointed out is a logical fallacy). The second arrow, which deals with behaviour, is a bias act (which is a racist act if connected to racist stereotypes). I think your question is about what causes the 2nd arrow to connect.
But, if you notice, if the first arrow does not connect, then the second arrow will not have a chance to connect.
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” I feel most individuals that immigrate to the United States seem to value academics and excel far greater than a lot of Americans. I often wonder if that’s why Black people who come here from the islands and Africa kind of have an issue with American blacks.”
Yes, it is.
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Here’s your “so what”:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2011-12-03/asian-students-college-applications/51620236/1
Yep! That is my “so what”! Remember I mentioned young people in American universities being influenced by ridiculous ideas from their professors? Appropos how “students college applications” is in the url above.
Is it talking about how students are saying, “I’m not your model minority!!!” with swag!
Puh-lese. The model minority stereotype is a positive one and one that should be embraced – BY ALL. What’s wrong with valuing education and hard work? What? They want to break the stereotype by loafing on corners all day hollerin’ “Hey baby, wassup?” to passersby?
By model minority I also don’t mean “rich”. One can be model while being working class. It has more to do with character than with how much you earn.
In this country many people are millionaires and billionaires without being of “model” character. In fact, sometimes the less character you have, the more money it will make you.
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I forgot to mention regarding the example I cited.
In that case, in the programming dept of Goldman Sachs, which employs tens of thousands in NYC, the vast majority of which are white, doesn’t one find it a bit odd that 90% of the programmers still working at 8pm on a Friday night look like they have East Asian background? Should the conclusion be that they are hard working? I actually did not form a fixed conclusion, but I postulated several (but not necessarily the conclusion that they are hardworking). If I had come to a conclusion (which I didn’t), it might have been a different one. For example, I also wondered if their boss was simply a d*ckwad or if Goldman Sachs was a stratified society like the company I worked at.
I worked in a different company at that time in NYC, at a human resources consulting firm in midtown Manhattan, which employed about 1500 in NYC and 10,000 worldwide. In 1990, I noticed (note that I use “ethnic” in the sense that Abagond used it to describe non-Anglo whites which was more prevalent pre-1980) in the NYC office:
– the mailroom (which also included the handyman types) was about 50% black and 40% Hispanic and had only 2-3 whites, which were “ethnic” types (eg, Italian-born)
– the programming and admin systems dept. was about 50% white, 30% Asian and maybe 10% each Hispanic and Black
– the admin staff were either “ethnic” whites or older white women and a few blacks
– Among the consulting team, which consisted of about 800-900 people, there was not one single black person, no Hispanics, about 4-5 Asian-Americans. There were a couple dozen who had Jewish background, a couple dozen who were NOT American (ie, European, Canadian, Australian) and maybe a couple dozen non-Anglo non-Jewish “ethnic” type whites. 90% were Anglo whites.
– 3 of the 5 Asian-Americans with the consulting team were let go when I was there or soon after I left.
Something felt strange to me. Here I was in NYC, the most multiracial, multi-ethnic city in the world, and I worked in a very stratified society on Park Ave. What was I supposed to feel?
I organized the company volleyball team and found out from the other players (consulting staff, but not so senior white people) about management’s policy. They did not hire American blacks at all for the consulting team, not even as interns. They were branded as “untrainable”. Before I went to NYC, I had worked in their DC office. There was one black senior consultant there. I heard that there were only 2 blacks worldwide. When they had the global senior consultant conference of a couple thousand people, I heard the white people would go up to one of the 2 blacks and ask if they were (so and so). They got it wrong 50% of the time.
Now, based on my “casual” observations, what am I supposed to believe?
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From the above url;
“Critics say these numbers, along with the fact that some top colleges with race-blind admissions have double the Asian percentage of Ivy League schools, prove the existence of discrimination…..
Top schools that don’t ask about race in admissions process have very high percentages of Asian students. The California Institute of Technology, a private school that chooses not to consider race, is about one-third Asian. (Thirteen percent of California residents have Asian heritage.) The University of California-Berkeley, which is forbidden by state law to consider race in admissions, is more than 40 percent Asian — up from about 20 percent before the law was passed.”
But this is a good thing! Admissions to colleges should not be race based. Those who qualify for the best colleges should get in, regardless of race. If that means there will be a high percentage of Asian Americans – so what?
Its fair and square – based on merit.
“Kara Miller helped review applications for Yale as an admissions office reader, and participated in meetings where admissions decisions were made. She says it often felt like Asians were held to a higher standard.
“Asian kids know that when you look at the average SAT for the school, they need to add 50 or 100 to it. If you’re Asian, that’s what you’ll need to get in,” says Miller, now an English professor at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.”
Well, at least they are not expected to UNDER perform. Check this out;
“Admissions preferences are sometimes given to the children of alumni, the wealthy and celebrities, which is an overwhelmingly white group. Recruited athletes get breaks. Since the top colleges say diversity is crucial to a world-class education, African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders also may get in DESPITE LOWER SCORES than other applicants.”
So university faculties have higher expections of East Asian students and lower expectations of Black, Latino, Native American and Pacific Islander students.
I know I’d rather people have high expectations of me than low.
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“I organized the company volleyball team and found out from the other players (consulting staff, but not so senior white people) about management’s policy. They did not hire American blacks at all for the consulting team, not even as interns. They were branded as “untrainable”. Before I went to NYC, I had worked in their DC office. There was one black senior consultant there. I heard that there were only 2 blacks worldwide. When they had the global senior consultant conference of a couple thousand people, I heard the white people would go up to one of the 2 blacks and ask if they were (so and so). They got it wrong 50% of the time.
Now, based on my “casual” observations, what am I supposed to believe?”
Your answer Jefe, is in the very article you posted for me.
I copy and pasted a very relevant paragraph from it in my comment above and I’ll paste it again here;
“Admissions preferences are sometimes given to the children of alumni, the wealthy and celebrities, which is an overwhelmingly white group. Recruited athletes get breaks. Since the top colleges say diversity is crucial to a world-class education, African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, and Hawaiian/Pacific Islanders also may get in DESPITE LOWER SCORES than other applicants.”
So basically, *some* Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, and Pacific Islanders are being let into universities despite not really making the grade because university faculties have lower expectations for them, while having higher expectations for East Asians.
This sets up a situation where many, but certainly not all, Blacks, Latinos, Native American and Pacific Islander students will not be able to keep up in class with the rest. Besides contributing to low self esteem when they compare themselves to their peers, unless these young people make a quantam leap in academic capabilities, this lagging behind will follow them into the world world where the situation you write above will take place.
“They were branded as “untrainable”…”
And if they, because of lower expectations, were admitted to a university they could not keep up with, I would have no doubt that they probably were untrainable.
Its one thing for colleges to be pc and allow admissions to unqualified students with the hopes that they will improve or at least be able to slide by with the help of their peers, but in the work world, adults need to know what they are doing and be on top of the ball.
Having lower expectations for Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans and Pacific Islanders and thus allowing them in with lowers scores and academic achievement than even Whites (who lag behind Asians), is not helping them!
Once they get out into the “real world” and have to work a “real job”…. well, they will have to measure up or be stuck in the lower rungs of the corporate ladder.
And this is why I will say again, “college is not for everyone”. And rather than trying to climb the corporate ladder, its better to go into small business for yourself.
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So, in a metropolitan area the size of greater New York City, which has some 5 million blacks and African-Americans and 4 million Latinos, they are ALL not simply branded as untrainable, but they indeed are?
I expect it to be more difficult to find suitable candidates, but really, 100% are completely untrainable? That is like saying that no African-Americans has the means or desire to live in Darien, Connecticut – that is why there aren’t any.
My father was a journeyman electrician in Washington, DC. He worked on large projects such as the DC Metro system and urban renewal projects. Until the mid-1970s, out of over 2000 “brothers” in the IBEW union, not one single member was black. My father was used as the single “token minority” for 15-16 straight years to “prove” that they were not racist when they came under fire from EEOC legal proceedings.
In the 1970s, Washington, DC was labelled “Chocolate city” with 71-75% black population and over 30% in the Metropolitan area. Am I led to believe that blacks are simply untrainable for such a job? They were not even given the chance to become an apprentice and learn.
After the mid-1970s, the court ordered the union to implement Affirmative Action and desegregate. But a big rift in the workplace continued. It is interesting to note that by the early to mid 1980s, the US government encouraged the breakdown of the union itself, and allowing firms to hire non-union workers to do electrical construction.
My father survived the his first 15-20 years in the workplace by parroting comments that white people made about “coloreds” and “n*ggas (in an effort to show he was like the white guys in their attitudes towards blacks — it helped him to keep his job). After desegregation, of course, one could no longer do that in public, but once in the 1980s, he slipped into an old habit and restated a comment in front of white coworkers but within earshot of a couple blacks. They reported it and my Dad got fired and more or less, permanently blacklisted at the Union Hall. His job was secure as the “token minority”, but the skills used to keep his job in those times caused him to lose it after desegregation. I tried to get my Dad to start his own business even before that happened, but by the time it happened, my parents were going through a very messy divorce and I had already moved to NY.
My father
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^ last line is a typo.
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Your original “untrainable” comment was about where you worked. There are millions if not billions of work places in the US, all are not the same. Not all black employees are relegated to the lower rungs. But when colleges are admitted unqualified students, many of them will graduate (or not) and go on to become unqualified, and yes, untrainable employees. This is why I favor one standard for all admissions into universities. If that means there will be more East Asian students and less everyone else. Oh well.
The greater question is: Why has everyone swallowed the kool-aid about a college education in the first place? So many college grads are out of work and thousands of dollars in debt today. And many have taken useless courses like “Womens Studies” and “Chicano Lesbian Studies.” This is stuff you can learn from the internet. You don’t need to spend decades of your life paying off a debt to learn about Women or Chicano lesbians. What kind of jobs do people who major in “Womens Studies” expect to get in the first place?
Universities are for doctors, engineers, the hard sciences. Everything else, take a community college course to expand your soft science knowledge and learn a trade to make money. Or go into business for yourself.
College these days is largely a scam.
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Some comments from that article:
Aneesh Gupta
Absolutely agree, American iVY LEAGUE SCHOOLS DISCRIMINATE AGAINST chinese,koreans,indians and all other asians because they want affirmative action and to get enough diversity so that they can obtain enough funds from Fed govt.
Aneesh Gupta
They want enough AA and Hispanics to look good on paper.
recipe for disaster in Global Economy
AND
Chris Westbrook
Wait….what crazy world was this article surveyed from?!? Really….You want to downplay the success and hardwork that get you into some of THE BEST colleges in America?!?! GIVE ME A ******* BREAK!!! Hey as an African American male , how about we change group demographics for a bit….You can have the saggy jeans and we’ll take the deans list at Harvard. GEESH..
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Speaking of “model minorities”… The “black lifestyle” is the latest trend in Japan! Bye bye skin bleach, hello tanning booths!
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@Kiwi,
I saw that video a couple years ago. It’s in Philadelphia or Chicago, right? The thing is – that VERY thing happened to me many times when I was growing up – getting my face kicked and bashed in and coming home in a bloody shirt, mostly by white kids, but sometimes by blacks. If I saw the bullies coming, sometimes I would try to find a place to hide until they went away. If I couldn’t find a place, I would run as fast as I could. Sometimes I failed and got beat up. Could not wait to leave that neighborhood, and went to university in New England when I was 16.
Seeing these videos tells me that nothing has changed since I left.
My mother is from a smallish city in Alabama and I have had many people wonder why I don’t simply choose to “be white”, as they think I have a chance to be accepted as such. But after bullying like you see in the video, having my family house attacked and vandalized with hate messages and having my family denied housing or accommodation, being blatantly discriminated in housing and employment myself, and most of all, being condemned by my mother’s family for who I am and what my parents did (and the embarrassment it caused them, I have never been able to make that psychological leap.
The Model Minority Stereotype is horrible. And when I see an Asian-American buying into it, I cringe. I attended some Asian-American Republican rallies in the 1990s (because my Aunt was on the committee, she asked me to join). OMG. At one of them, Elaine Chao was the guest speaker and my Aunt introduced me to her. Afterwards, she became Secretary of Labor under George W. Bush. Her mantra to the Republicans was “we don’t need affirmative action; it hurts us. We want to recognized only by our own merits.” However, to do that, they must admit that racism is not really a problem, and they can show the way for other minorities to get ahead. And I was thinking, what planet did she grow up on.
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@Kiwi,
Cupertino – that is something like 1/4 Taiwanese-American and 1/4 Indian American, right? Is bullying a major problem there?
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“Why?@ And if they, because of lower expectations, were admitted to a university they could not keep up with, I would have no doubt that they probably were untrainable”
Linda says,
Why?, I will repeat what I wrote earlier:
It’s people like you who are the problem…and then you want to talk about “kool-aide” drinking. Asians are not the only “model minorities” in town — you all just get the most media publicity!
I do agree that Asians score higher average SAT scores than Caribbeans and Africans but Affirmative Action is not what dictates the high academic performance and graduation rates that these black students consistently give.
Are you seriously trying to say that white University teachers felt so sorry for us for having too many “A” grades and decided to lobby administration to let us graduate, even though we black students had 3.5 to 4.0 GPA’s — white people are generous indeed. (obvious sarcasm on my part)
No one is checking for black immigrants because we blend in with the “American-born” black population (and Asians are a separate group) and our high academic performance is pushed aside and discounted as the “Exceptions to the Rule” in America.
Here’s an article:
“African immigrants out-graduate American Caucasians and Asians”
The 48.9% of all African immigrants that have earned a college degree is slightly higher than the percentage of degreed Asian immigrants, twice the rate of native-born whites, and four times the rate of native-born African Americans.
http://www.examiner.com/article/african-immigrants-out-graduate-american-caucasians-and-asians
Are these black University graduates who perform just as well or outperform Asians at the collegiate level “too dumb or un-trainable” to get white collar jobs. Obviously not, since they are employed in the same job industries as Asians.
but Bigoted statements like yours Keeps the ignorance and divide, alive and well — it only serves to downplay the inherent racism that exists in American society when it comes to black and non-white people and Employment.
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Linda, I was going to make the same points you’ve made above in reply to the nonsense from that Why person. I understand where he/she is coming from since Asians don’t count for much in the USA his/her type are grateful for a white pat on the head. He /she can’t be all that bright what with not being able to recognize how he/she is being patronized. Thank you. Why, affirmative action is at least four decades old, during that span of time, can you cite one major disaster caused by a lower SAT black? Can you explain away the perfect SAT score of Mr. Cameron Clarke? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/19/perfect-sat-score-cameron-clarke-philadelphia_n_2330035.html. I could list more intellectually gifted blacks if you want. Your nonsense not withstanding, the plight of talented blacks mirrors my nephew’s attempt to get finance for his business in a south west city in the USA. He met with this white guy, gave his presentation and when he finished the man told him that he had a great plan that was likely to work, but there was one problem, he wasn’t going to help somebody black get ahead. So much for white guilt and affirmative action, the shibboleths of the racist right.
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@Kiwi,
You are still in Cupertino?
I have never lived in a majority Asian city or neighborhood in the USA. Majority white, black, Hispanic, yes, but majority Asian, no. The closest I got was when I visited my Godmother who lived in North Potomac (which has the highest percentage of Asians outside Hawaii and California), and now lives in Rockville, MD (Maryland’s “Little Taipei” and its Jewish cultural centre also). I wonder how the racism works when Asians outnumber whites.
But many Asian-Americans have not always been very kind to me either. The whitewashed ones seemed to think I should just forget about it and try to blend in with white. The more militant ones simply disbelieve all that had happened to me and try to say that I am imagining things, while they are trying to combat white racism, much of which they only imagined and not really experienced themselves. In the USA, I tended not to hang out native-born Americans that much unless they had spent a big chunk of time overseas.
I couldn’t bear to watch that video too much. It brings back too many memories. Just to think that was one caught on video. I am sure there were hundreds more for each one that wasn’t.
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“No one is checking for black immigrants because we blend in with the “American-born” black population”
I don’t find that you blend in.
“and our high academic performance is pushed aside and discounted as the “Exceptions to the Rule” in America.”
This is a shame and I don’t agree with it.
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[…] Freedom Writers […]
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Instances which shows that listening is importance or negating it
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