“Asians: The Republican User’s Guide” (1993, 3rd edition) has, so far as I know, never been written, but it is not hard to guess some of what would go in it:
Introduction:
The purpose of the Republican Party is to pass laws that benefit the rich and block those that hurt their interests. This is done in part by:
- Winning office.
- Slowing change in society and keeping taxes low.
- Maintaining a strong defence.
Take each in turn:
Chapter 1: Winning Office: Demographics
Key fact: White voters outnumber Asian voters 24 to 1.
That means:
- Asian opinion hardly matters. Even opinion polls often leave them out.
- There are way more votes to be had by appealing to anti-Asian racism than to Asians.
But – and this is the tricky part – you must appeal to anti-Asian racism without seeming to be racist.
One way is to oppose immigration reform. It appeals to White racists while also slowing down the demographic changes that weaken the voting power of the Republican base.
For more racist talking points, read on:
Chapter 2: Low Taxes, Slow Change: The Model Minority stereotype
Stereotype Asian Americans as the opposite of stereotyped Blacks: Asians as hard-working, law-abiding, family-oriented, quiet, well-educated, intelligent, etc. Choose and twist facts to show that Asians are more successful than even Whites. For example, talk about “household income” and bachelor degrees but not poverty rates or social mobility.
This makes it seem like racism is not what is holding Black people back, that there is something wrong with Blacks themselves, like bad values or bad parenting.
That means there is little the government can do about it. Therefore there is no need for political reforms or higher taxes. America is fine just the way it is!
Some Asians think the Model Minority stereotype is itself racist. How can a good stereotype possibly be racist? Besides, there are not enough Asian votes for their opinion to matter (see Chapter 1).
Chapter 3: Maintaining a Strong Defence: Anti-Asianism
To maintain a war machine twice the size of those of Russia, China and India put together, to create customer demand for its weapons, the US must:
- Keep the Middle East ever on edge.
- Fight frequent wars (two parts imperialism, one part trade show).
- Imagine a worldwide military threat.
The first one has the added advantage of increasing oil company profits while giving the US an excuse to keep its military in the Persian Gulf, “safeguarding” the flow of oil.
This is close to Orwell’s idea of permanent war.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the US needed a new enemy. Anti-Asianism readily supplied two:
- Yellow Peril thinking: The Rise of China,
- Islamophobia: “Muslim” terrorists.
“Muslim” terrorism is the better fit for the needs of the US defence and oil industries. To paraphrase Voltaire, if ISIS did not exist, it would be necessary for the US to invent it.
Meanwhile, the Yellow Peril waits in the wings should the need arise – trade war, cold war or hot war with China.
– Abagond, 2014.
See also:
I have to say this was a pretty bizarre post. As if Asians (or blacks) already in America will benefit from keeping the floodgates open and welcoming even more of the third world into the country to further bring down working class and tech workers wages at the expense of the rich, who love cheap labor (interesting how inequality in the U.S. has skyrocketed since the immigration reform of the 60s).
Your underlying assumption of course is that blocking “change” is bad, so the Republicans are bad. Yeah, Americans (and others) have invented some cool stuff that has helped materially speaking, but have average Americans’ lives actually been getting better due to the “social change” we have seen over the last few decades?
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words:
goodbyeamericainaphoto.wordpress.com
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Page 2 is better:
http://goodbyeamericainaphoto.wordpress.com/page/2/
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Kiwi said “So blacks and Asians had more rights before the 60s?”. “Rights” are a non-sequitur. There weren’t tons of Asians in the U.S. at that point. For those people in the U.S., on average, their standard of living, making adjustment for technological advances, was much better in the 60s and 70s (including Blacks). Average inflation adjusted wages have plummeted since the 70s (research it yourself). It’s a complicated phenomenon, but immigration from third world countries certainly contributed to this trend, as did the break-up of nuclear families, which decimated intact black households and is now working its way through working class whites.
Republicans are the party of stability/steady growth, the vast majority of married couples with kids support them. Business owners generally support them.
Democrats are the party of radical change/revolution, a party of young, single, divorced, single parents and the super-rich and landed estate in entertainment, the media, education and government.
Republicans are practical, thinking about what is best for their kids and businesses in the future. Democrats are idealistic, thinking about what things should be like in their idea of a perfect world, without worrying about the real world consequences or what the effect will be on future generations.
Looking at the above, which group better represents America? It used to be the first group, but is becoming more like the second group (i.e., Democrats). So, you will get an incredibly stratified society where people are making bonehead decisions based on ideologies that have terrible practical effects (like the Democrats’ bluster about “equality”, when their approach guarantees continued descent into greater inequality a la Mexico and Brazil–rich whites will still be fine, in case you were worried).
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Sometimes I wonder if the right is loaded with people with severe mental illnesses. Then again, the left isn’t that much different playing pretend. Either way, people of color, including Asians are nothing more than, like Kiwi said, pawns for both Republicans and Democrats who, in the end, serve the interests of wealthy white males.
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It’s interesting that Republican Congressman Pete Hoekstra used that ad of the Asian woman with a rice hat riding on a bicycle in some Asian country. Yes, beware of those scheming Asians. We’re going to take over America! 🙄
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Ah yes, those Asians abroad that have to be fought and pigeonholed …
Very interesting article, Abagond
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This puts me in mind of an incident years ago at a Human Rights forum. This jacka$$ stood up, and stated he was no longer a racist as he started eating Indian food and loved it. Folks, you can’t make this stuff up! I believe his mindset permeates many whites, but in varying degress of course. Oh, and he was no longer racist against Jamaicans as he loved ox tail soup. You will find more of these types as not.
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It’s interesting to me that the model minority stereotype serves the same function as it does for the Black Community. It serves to make Black people’s problems look intractable, so there’s no point in trying to solve them and serves to take attention away from any problems the model minority might be experiencing in their communities.
You can use the existence of Asians to serve a variety of purposes – pitting them against other minorities by appearing to favor them and you don’t have to actually do anything for them bc they’ve got it so good.
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I wish. America barely want a biracial president sitting in the office. SOME people got a phobia to hand power towards asian,african, women or all above as president. It’s our dream to better and change ourselves for the future. Not a silly fantasy. People with fears and nightmares for people to advance themselves is holding us back. These parties keep people in childlike level and secretly building empty kingdom for perfectionists. What’s the true way to make everybody happy?
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On something Biffs touched on here, I have to agree. Immigration and the advent of machines saw the of cheap labour and the machine replace blue collar work for the middleclass, think the Black Northern migration and motorcity detriot. Black divorce rates skyrocketed with the loss of these blue workforces (along with neighbourhood containerization and a massive influx of drugs into AA communities). But just highlighting immigration isn’t the whole picture. Many of these jobs were at first simply moved to White communities until the 80’s. Regan moving alll Blue collar work out from US soil to cheap forgein labour was the last nail. Think Walmart and Asian slave labor factories.
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Under “Black People: The Republican User’s Guide”
You mentioned that you would let the reader decide:
“Black People: The White Liberal User’s Guide”
It would still be nice to have that and also
“Asians: The White Liberal User’s Guide”
as a post to get people to comment.
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@ Ebonymonroe. You hit the nail on the coffin. I hear a bunch of anti-asian sentiment from the likes of guys like Donald Trump. What he doesn’t say but knows is his fellow billionaire buddies are making a fortune. The guy that owns Nike pays Chinese, Vietnamese, and Malaysian workers a penny an hour to stitch up some foamposite air max shoe while selling the show from $160 – over $200 USD. Think about that.
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Sometimes I think the Asian Slave Race is the engine that makes Rich White Billionaires possible…. You look at any product and see who owns and runs the company …..
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@Kiwi
Yet what Asians the Republican can pluck off get lulled in by the Model Minority Stereotype, which appeals to anti-Black racism sentiments.
As I mentioned before, I attended an “Asian Americans for Republicans” rally dinner in 1996 in Washington, DC which featured Sen. Robert Dole (R-KS) who was the Republican presidential candidate opposite Bill Clinton. Also present was Elaine Chao, who later became Secretary of Labor under George Bush (and who is literally “in bed” with Sen. Mitch McConnell).
The message: Asians do not need Affirmative Action. They have a set of family culture and values which demonstrates that they do not need government handouts (unlike other minorities).
(Thoughts to myself): Why do Republicans have to engage Asian Americans by getting them to oppose and malign blacks?)
But as mentioned above, there are many more votes to be had by appealing to anti-Asian racism than to Asians. the post 9/11 anti-Terrorism theme (as well as the Yellow Peril themes of a rising belligerent China and rogue North Korea) cemented that realization.
But, white liberals are also making the grave mistake of not appealing to Asians (as thought their votes do not matter either). They do not use the model minority theme as much as the republicans do, yet completely erase the history of Asian Americans in the USA — so that they also do not need white people’s help. White liberals are imbibed with the White saviour mentality so that they can pat themselves on the back. Therefore, if the racism towards Asian Americans is not something the white liberals can help save them from, why not deny it in the first place?
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Asia and Africa is the bread and butter to keep America/Europa moving strong. Africa contain all the raw and precious resources to live like a King. Asia is the muscle to keep the world spinning. Those two worlds support humanity and been use up to keep others fat in happiness If you look on YT and forums about business relationship Asia/Africa.Whitefaces was mad and shock. Asia and Africa want to combine their resources and technology together to advance themselves. They still need to do business with other countries for the sake of their children oversea
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@Kiwi,
post 9/11 racial profiling, George Bush and the “Rise of China” changed all that.
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@Kiwi
So obvious. So no one to vote for?
I had supposed that since Obama had a Eurasian sister, Malaysian-Canadian Chinese American brother-in-law and a sister-in-law in China that he would at least be aware of them. It seems like he didn’t really care either. He barely shows occasional token consideration for blacks.
Well, he did make his brother-in-law head of the Asian American section of the Smithsonian, which covers Asian American history. We would expect him to be less ignorant of it than both conservative and liberal whites. Yeah, one would expect.
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@ Jefe
The White Liberal Democratic Guide to Blacks is something I have thought about for a long time and will post sooner or later. But the Asian counterpart is a) a little beyond my depth and b) does not seem to be all that different from the Republican Guide. I am, however, open to having a guest post!
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@biff
Do rich and middle class white Americans gain or lose anything from living in the same country as poor immigrants?
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Prag:
Rich whites potentially gain by getting cheap labor and services. They are the business owners. They can afford to move to the exclusive areas to mostly avoid crime and other problems caused by poor immigrants. Eventually, they may be forced to pay higher taxes, but perhaps they can use lobbyists to keep theirs lower.
Middle class gets destroyed, as poor immigrants take jobs at lower wages. To the extent poor immigrants can’t assimilate and have lower IQs (e.g., illegals from Mexico and Central America) they form a permanent underclass, which puts pressure on wages and the social system. These middle class whites try to move away if they can, but they are strapped for cash as exclusive neighborhoods get more expensive. Higher taxes affect them disproportionately.
Lower class whites are hit the hardest. They are forced to live in areas with very high crime and terrible school districts. (Just try to find me a city in the U.S. or Western Europe that is 95%+ white, but has really bad crime). They are directly competing for crappy jobs with new immigrants.
In the past, immigrants from Europe assimilated in a generation or two. Go to Los Angeles, and you will see that this is not happening with immigrants from south of the border. LA is the future.
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@abagond
Good great.
well, if you do not think it is off topic here nor in your future post on “The White Liberal Democratic Guide to Blacks ” we could discuss it here and there and probably do some of the analysis first.
Yet you did a post on the Republican guide and called it by that name. Evidently you there are some differences. I you noticed both sides do bring up Asians when talking about blacks so they do indeed use it albeit a bit differently.
For example, it seems that Republicans like to use Asians as the Model Minority – the problem with blacks is their culture and values; White Liberals seem not to even consider them a minority, at least not in what they view as the traditional sense of the term. They will change the history to fit that narrative.
That seems like a HINT 😛 but maybe we need to discuss it and flesh it out a bit before we can turn it into a post. Maybe by that time YOU or someone else can do it. 🙂
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@ Jefe
I agree. This would be an excellent place to discuss the differences between Republicans and Democrats in regard to Asians. Maybe then, like you said, a post on Democrats would seem more doable.
I pick on Republicans only because their views are more extreme and clearly racist. It makes them an easier target.
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OK, how about this.
If you have thought about The White Liberal Democratic Guide to Blacks, then the “purpose” should be similar regardless of which group they are applied to. What do you see as the purpose of White liberals and the Democratic party? How does it differ from the purpose of the Republican party?
Also, it seems that white liberals see them more as “Honorary whites” rather than as “Model Minority”, a perhaps subtle, but distinct difference.
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@Teddybear
I agree. But it’s backfiring on the US as much of its funds are going back into Japan and China.
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I always found it strange that people in the US fear Asian take over so much.
I mean if they end up in all the positions of power, political etc…..doesn’t that mean they deserve being the elite due to greater “merit”?
Or does that only apply when your white?
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^ We REALLY need a post about Yellow Peril. It is surprising why people even ask why White Americans fear Asians or why the USA fears Asia. It is such an integral part of American culture and a recurring enduring theme of its domestic and foreign policy.
If it is still confusing, you only have to watch any one of hundreds of Alien invasion sci-fi flicks.
Or read Abagond’s posts
(https://abagond.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/the-chinese-invasion-experiment/)
(https://abagond.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/if-i-wrote-this-blog-after-the-chinese-invasion/)
(https://abagond.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/true-reverse-racism/)
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@Kiwi,
While my prior comment re: V-4’s comment is in moderation
I think Republicans stereotype Asians as Model Minorities, while white liberals stereotype Asians as honorary whites. I think there may be a subtle difference.
Both skew the status of Asian Americans.
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@Kiwi,
Interesting how we might analyse commenters regarding whether they take the republican view towards Asians or the white liberal view.
Yes, Republicans still take the view that they are not white. They have to be a “minority” in order to be a model for blacks. They also cannot be white if perpetual foreigner and yellow peril stereotypes are going to work. How can they constantly wage or at least threaten war in Asia if those people are “just like us”. People of Asian descent can never be true Americans.
What keeps Asian-Americans from being a problem minority like blacks is their culture, their family structure, their quest for education, etc. So, if blacks would just learn from Asians, their problems would simply go away. In fact, so effective is the culture within Asian-American families is that they do even better than whites. Imagine that, perpetual foreigners doing even better than true blood Americans.
The main mantra of the white liberal is “colour blind”, or that the solution is colour-blindness. In their point of view, Black Americans have a legacy of slavery and Jim Crow / anti-miscegenation and racial profiling that has held them back. They need help, and that is what the white liberal is here for. (I am waiting for Abagond’s guide on this to make sure that we are on the same page.)
The white saviour troupe is quintessentially the white liberal, a martyr for helpless darkies.
In order for this to make sense, and explain why Asian-Americans don’t need their help, Asian Americans cannot be explained away as helpless darkies.
The only way to do that is to erase the entire history of Asian-Americans in the USA and replace it with one modeled on European white immigrants and the bootstrap myth. Sure, they can come over to USA with 25 cents in their pocket, study, work hard and save money and buy a house in the suburbs just like other white ethnics who are no longer ethnic. They live the American dream embodied by all immigrants according to the bootstrap myth. The reason they can do this is because they were not held back or held down like blacks were. They are just like other immigrants and their descendants except for their “yellow skin” and “slanted eyes”. The only time they need their help is to be rescued as infants – they can rescue Asian babies and raise them as white.
So, maybe some points
– Republicans do not deny that Asian-Americans suffered racism in the past, and even today. But they overcome this with a superior value system and family structure. Blacks could take their example.
– White liberals flatly deny that Asian-Americans ever suffered any racism today or in the past, or it was so long ago as not to have any more impact today. They entered the middle class just like white ethnics did the generation before and it is just a matter of time before they are seen just as Americans like the rest of us.
So we can recognize a few statements as a Republican take or white liberal take towards Asian-Americans, eg,
– I am not racist; I am married to an Asian woman (Republican view – white liberals believe they are not racist to begin with, so marrying an Asian would not change that).
– Asian-Americans were locked up in concentration camps; we don’t see them complaining today (Republican view).
– Asians were never denied entry into neighborhoods or professions like blacks (White liberal view).
Both of these takes, however, are off the mark. They are created to mitigate the cognitive dissonance that whites experience in their treatment of Asian Americans.
Both, for example, would deny that the bamboo ceiling exists. Both deny that there are quite a wide variety of backgrounds and outcomes in the Asian-American population, eg, refugees, economic migrants (eg, sweatshop workers),brain drain and “old school” pre-1968 immigrants, or that some groups (eg, Chinese-Americans) can be a combination of all of these. They ignore how Asian-Americans have little control over their media images.
And even the white liberal will bring up “language problems” among Asian-Americans, even though they are just like whites. The only way to do that is to brand them all as recent immigrants (and thus, unknowingly applying the perpetual foreigner stereotype).
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Kiwi,
Have you ever actually read the two 1996 articles, the one in Jan 1966 in the New York Times magazine about Japanese-Americans and the one in Dec 1966 in the US News and World Report about Chinese- and Japanese- Americans?
Republicans selectively choose anti-Asian racism to support their Model Minority views. IT is OK to select the Japanese American WWII internment as
– it was a while ago (70 years ago)
– it was later pronounced “wrong”
– it was something not applied to blacks
– Asians “overcame” it
– Asians are not constantly complaining today about it
– it supports their argument used towards blacks – that almost 120,000 men, women and children got locked in prison just for racial reasons — yet they are not still holding white americans accountable for that today – they “got over it”
It ignores
– the forms of violent racism that does not match their agenda, for example, genocide, lynching or the right to marry someone from their own ethnic group. If it is brought up, it doesn’t matter, as they “got over it”. I am sure that they will claim that Asians are not even complaining any more about what happened to Vincent Chin.
– Asians are still being racially profiled. As non-Americans perpetual aliens, they are still accused of being traitors, or at least assumed to be potential traitors at any time;
– the other forms of racism that are used to keep Asians in their place. They can never be trusted to manage the country or a large corporation, not to mention the local branch IT team;
– the racial profiling used towards blacks. OK, blacks were not locked up in internment camps purely for racial reasons, but they are arrested for driving while black, shopping which black, or for refusing to be stopped and frisked. This leads to being arrested and convicted for crimes and being locked up in prison, or shot and killed for carrying phantom weapons.
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Elaine Chao — —
Yep, she decries the Perpetual Foreigner stereotype and its Yellow Peril connection, but actively promotes the Model Minority stereotype, all to help dispel any threat of loss of white privilege enjoyed by her husband (and thus her).
It is a good case study of examining the potential loss of white privilege to a white man who is married to an Asian woman. Apparently, there is still a slight risk that requires damage control.
She is also a good case study for the Republican party platform in regard to Asian Americans.
You know i met her in person and talked to her. 😮
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A bit simplistic to lump all Asians together. Asia is a place with individual nations and cultures – that often don’t like each other. Eg, Japan, Korea and China.
And extremely offensive to lump Asian people in with muslims.
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