Racial Wedge of the Model Minority Myth

As a previous piece suggested, Chow also explores the Model Minority myth in the context of community division between Asian and Black people. Throughout history, minority groups have always been pitted against each other to help maintain the racist heirarchy that the people in power have built society upon. This text explains “the idea that black failure and Asian success cannot be explained by inequities and racism, and that they are one and the same; this allows a segment of white America to avoid any responsibility for addressing racism or the damage it continues to inflict”. One of the main problematic aspects of the Model Minority Myth is that it disregards the struggles of the Asian American experience, which then lessens the way that anti-Asian racism is perceived. In addition to this, Asian Americans are often used as the scapegoat example that white America uses to show how minorities can attain success regardless of racial and ethnic backgrounds, and this false narrative leads to harmful pressures that other racial minorities have to face due to being compared to Asian Americans. This text provides exemplary details of how this plays out and fits underneath the umbrella concept of racial division between Asian Americans and Black people. This would be a useful piece in my research process as it will allow me to gain an understanding of how the Model Minority effects outside groups, such as the Black people of America.

Chow, K. (2017, April 19). “'model minority' myth again used as a racial wedge between Asians and Blacks”. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/04/19/524571669/

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