White Adjacent?
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The North Thurston Public Schools in Lacey, Wash., made headlines in November when their “equity report” classified Asian-Americans along with whites instead of as “students of color.” Apparently the Asian-Americans were doing too well academically to be students of color. After what the district said was “an overwhelming public response,” it admitted its “category choices” had “racist implications” and dropped the equity report from its website.
To normal Americans, it makes no sense. How are Asian-Americans not “people of color”? But give the North Thurston folks credit for following progressive logic to its conclusion. Modern progressive theory more or less divides the nation between the oppressors, defined as whites, and the oppressed, defined as everyone else. In this framework, achieving success puts you on the side of the oppressors and thus makes you white or “white-adjacent”—even if your family came from China or India.
Calling it progressive to send children of color the message that achievement is white is an irony lost on the woke. Bigoted laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 or actions such as the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II were once thought among the worst stains on American history left by anti-Asian racism. But these days the characterization of Asian-Americans as the “model minority” triggers the woke.
“Asian-Americans are caught in a bind—condemn the system of white supremacy and privilege along with other people of color or be ‘banished’ from the victim group as white-adjacent,” says Wenyuan Wu, executive director of Californians for Equal Rights. “The end goal here is to pit people against each other as if our hyphenated identities are bigger than our common destiny as Americans.”
The principal reason for this is the fact of Asian-American achievement. This is an embarrassment to progressives because it undermines the claim that structural racism dooms nonwhite citizens to the margins of the American dream. So Asian-American achievement must either be dismissed as somehow white or sacrificed at the altar of equity.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-woke-model-minority-myth-11614035596?mod=opinion_featst_pos1
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@loki said in White Adjacent?:
Don’t forget people from India. They, as a group, have the highest incomes in the US.
They're mentioned in the piece.
I think the Indians and the Asians have one thing in common...Strong family structures that encourage performance in their children.
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@loki said in White Adjacent?:
Don’t forget people from India. They, as a group, have the highest incomes in the US.
Indians are Asian.
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@lufins-dad said in White Adjacent?:
@loki said in White Adjacent?:
Don’t forget people from India. They, as a group, have the highest incomes in the US.
Indians are Asian.
The problem is that they took away Oriental.
Why?
I don't know, I never thought Oriental was offensive in any way.
Somehow it became offensive.
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@copper said in White Adjacent?:
@lufins-dad said in White Adjacent?:
@loki said in White Adjacent?:
Don’t forget people from India. They, as a group, have the highest incomes in the US.
Indians are Asian.
The problem is that they took away Oriental.
Why?
I don't know, I never thought Oriental was offensive in any way.
Somehow it became offensive.
What does oriental mean anyway? When I was in Chicago, I one time visited the University of Chicago. They have a museum called the "Oriental Institute" (or something like that). But it mostly has things from the Middle East.
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@jolly said in White Adjacent?:
I think the Indians and the Asians have one thing in common...Strong family structures that encourage performance in their children.
Yep, I agree with this.
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I think of the Orient as the Far East - Korea, Japan, China, Viet Nam, maybe as far south as Indonesia
Apparently the meaning has changed over time
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@copper said in White Adjacent?:
I think of the Orient as the Far East - Korea, Japan, China, Viet Nam, maybe as far south as Indonesia
Apparently the meaning has changed over time
Yeah, I think of the Orient, I think of Budapest, Istanbul, et al.
When I think of Oriental, I think of Chinese, Japanese, Korean...
Obviously the word has changed and is a bit odd. It would be as weird as d as one body thinking of England when I say American...
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@mik said in White Adjacent?:
In any event they seem determined to refuse to focus on what really builds success. Hint: It ain't race.
Sometimes
It is getting to be the rare tv advertising that doesn't feature a person of color. A person without color seems to get used as half of an interracial couple.