...The model minority myth has remained one of white supremacy’s most enduring and successful divide-and-conquer strategies. The educational and economic success of some Asian Americans has been used as a cudgel against Black people, in particular, who continue to be told by GOP politicians to stop blaming racism for their problems. Instead, they are commanded to work hard and pull themselves up by “their bootstraps,” even when they remain “bootless.” It’s a myth that gaslights Americans about systemic racism and our individual role in enabling and enforcing white supremacy.RainbowsandUnicorns wrote: ↑Thu Dec 28, 2023 5:35 am I can't help but wonder how the kids that Ajit Singh Randhawa taught at Voorhees feel about that.
According to a 2021 poll, a majority of Republicans believed that minorities are more favored than white people, as evidenced by the success of some people of color. Last year, a poll found nearly half of Republicans believed to some extent in the white supremacist "great replacement" conspiracy theory, which claims white Americans are being deliberately “replaced” by non-white immigrants.
As such, we no longer need “welfare” and “handouts,” such as affirmative action, food stamps and the child tax credit, all of which help lift communities of color out of generational poverty.
Haley should actually spend her campaign thanking and uplifting Black activists and protesters who are fighting for equality. After all, if it wasn’t for the civil rights movement, she wouldn’t be in America. The movement pressured Democrats to introduce the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which put an end to the national origins quota put in place in the 1920s to keep out the original “invaders,” which included Italians, Eastern European Jews and Asians.
As a result of that law, young educated Asian men, like my father and Haley’s father, had a chance to receive a Willy Wonka golden ticket to America and become successful.
Being a model minority, however, wasn’t enough to protect my father and Haley’s father from white supremacy. My father and his brother arrived in San Francisco in 1966 as students during the civil rights movement. They quickly replaced their shalwar kameez and kurtas with grotesque bell bottoms. They grew out their hair, listened to Jimi Hendrix, studied during the day, worked at night, saved up their money, and built a small community with other single South Asian men in their 20s. A few years later, in 1969, Ajit Singh Randhawa, a Sikh Indian immigrant, moved to segregated Bamberg, South Carolina with his wife and family to accept a teaching position at Voorhees College, a historically Black institution.
Our fathers were two immigrants of color trying to achieve their American dream at the same time in different states by working hard, gaining an education and avoiding trouble. But none of it mattered because they weren’t white. Haley has previously recounted how her father was racially profiled at a produce stand. An immigration officer once accosted my father for no reason and said, “You Arabs come here only to f--- our American girls,” and ordered him deported. (My father is Pakistani, but bigots aren’t really into nuance or details.)
Being a successful, well-educated Republican didn’t protect Haley either. In 2010, Jake Knotts, then a South Carolina state senator, said, “We already got one raghead in the White House, we don’t need a raghead in the governor’s mansion.” (Former President Barack Obama is neither Muslim nor Arab, but again, bigots aren’t into details; Knotts later apologized for using "an unintended slur.") Politico reported that a major potential conservative donor once asked Haley to prove she wasn’t related to terrorists.
In light of all this, Haley still chooses to dismiss people of color’s legitimate anger against America’s enduring legacy of racism, instead siding with the party that believes in “Jewish space lasers” and banning books. She kicked off her presidential campaign event by declaring, “Take it from me, America is not a racist country,” which has since become a 2024 conservative rallying cry...
