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> You are utterly certain that you are not racist, even though your friend circle is exclusively white, Asian or hapa.

I love how asians are the new whites. For all its worship of success, Americans hate success like no other.




That's been fascinating to watch from the inside of tech companies as well.

I've seen instances of US-born American Asians to not fall under the "People of Color" label when referred to by Latin-American or Black employees, thus being associated more with White Americans, and yet they themselves would self-label as "People of Color" in other conversations.

My impression is that, at least in coastal metropolitan cities, East and South Asians are informally part of the white "class". Economically those two groups are more accomplished than most white ethnicities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_U... , which I imagine makes other minorities less than thrilled about being affiliated with them, as they don't get to share the same levels of success.


It's almost like this is all more about interclass dynamics than skin color. But skin color is a convenient distraction and factionalism drives votes.


Loosely quoted by Iris Chang in "The Chinese in America", when times are good Asians are glorified for being the "model minority" and have all the privilege that Whites have, and vilified as foreigners when times are bad.

Given the current political climate I'm worried we're swinging towards the latter.


It's awkward. I feel I'm considered a minority when it doesn't matter much (e.g., Asian cast members in a movie) but ignored when it does matter (e.g., in the conversation of racial equality, acknowledgement of different ideas and culture, political representation). My family's history is not in the books how difficult it was to even get here (many people died escaping on boats), and started here from nothing in a foreign land where people think your culture is weird. And it's awkward to speak up about those types of things because at least we aren't getting shot up on the streets (yet).

With US and China going into a cold war too, it gets more awkward, and that's even more difficult to speak up about since they're public enemy #1 here.


It'll become more obvious when Asians distinguish themselves by advertising their non-Chineseness as a defensive maneuver.




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