An Inconvenient Minority
Hold my Drink Podcast Blog, Episode 41
Asian Americans, like all others, are not monolithic. However, I do think it’s fair to say that like many immigrants who chose to make America home, including Asian Americans, come here with the dream that if they work hard, they can succeed.
As Kenny Xu points out in his book, An Inconvenient Minority, and in this week’s podcast, many Asian Americans came here with no network. He debunks the myth that many Asians came to the U.S. already possessing an impressive list of degrees and healthy bank accounts, but even putting that aside, their lack of connections remains a disadvantage. And so, how do you work with this disadvantage? The key, Kenny says, is meritocracy.
This often comes at a great cost to many families and their children, who forego social activities in the pursuit of meritocratic aims. Statistics show that Asian American students study, on average, more hours a week than any other group. Remember — we are talking in generalities here, as no one group is homogeneous. And yet, the numbers are still something to consider — an inconvenient truth, perhaps.
Kenny insists that culture matters, but he makes a very important distinction — culture and race are not the same. Culture is a choice. And in general, Asian Americans, more than other groups as statistics illustrate, choose to put their efforts into pursuits that center around meritocratic advancement. However, in the past few years, the Asian American community has been punished for their success. Efforts to instill diversity in the education system has led to the drop in Asian admissions in universities like Harvard, and in Gifted and Talented programs.
As a result of their successes, there are those who claim they are “white adjacent”, benefitting from systems built on “white supremacy”. Many Asian Americans have not benefitted from multiculturalism and diversity, but instead have had their experiences “white-washed” and erased.
Meritocracy, as Kenny notes, is not an Asian American issue, it is an American issue. Part of providing the resources to allow all children to compete based on their own merit does require us to review structures that may disadvantage certain people. And part of it is reviewing our cultures that discourage the choices necessary for people to thrive. Dismantling meritocracy in pursuit of equity, isn’t getting to the cultural bedrock that is at least one pillar of the inequalities in our society. Instead, these good intentions can serve to perpetuate inequalities into the future.
Creating new power structures that reduce everyone to a lower common denominator, not unlike the ones that many immigrants fled, to enforce these outcomes hurts everyone, not least of which, those they are intended to help.
In the Hold my Drink — navigating culture with a chaser of civility, and Counterweight podcast, Episode 41, we speak with Kenny Xu, author of An Inconvenient Minority. Kenny explains the disadvantages Asian Americans face as new anti-racist paradigms have denigrated meritocracy. The general strategy of accomplishment for many Asian American immigrants has rested almost exclusively on meritocratic principles, and now in some instances, they have become victims of their own success. All discussed with a chaser of civility, of course, and a coffee.
Hold my Drink welcomes all people with all kinds of beverages to join us as we explore the truths of a chaotic and beautiful world, together.
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Podcast Resources:
An Inconvenient Minority, Kenny Xu
The Color of Success, Ellen Wu
Model Minority Myth Again Used as a Racial Wedge Between Asians and Blacks, NPR, Janelle Wong
Margins and Mainstreams: Asians in American History and Culture, Gary Okihiro
Letters: The Model Minority Myth, Truth in Between, J.D. Richmond & Kea Worthen
Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and the Future of White Majorities, Eric Kaufmann
Kenny Xu, President of Color Us United, has challenged Harvard University for discrimination against Asian Americans, worked as the Director for Media Outreach against California Proposition 16 (race preferences) and written for national publications like City Journal, The Federalist, The Daily Signal and The Washington Examiner. He has been interviewed by The New York Times, NPR, the Epoch Times, Fox News and others. His first book An Inconvenient Minority on the Ivy League discrimination cases and the lasting consequences of the Left’s diversity ideology debuts July 2021. A second-generation Chinese American, Kenny lives in Northern Virginia.
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