 |
|
Towards a better, browner future |
Despite the economic progress among blacks in Queens, income gaps still endure within the borough’s black community, where immigrants, mostly from the Caribbean, are generally doing better than American-born blacks.
An earlier Malcom Gladwell article looked into some of these disparaties and observed –
…The implication of West Indian success is that racism does not really exist at all–at least, not in the form that we have assumed it does. The implication is that the key factor in understanding racial prejudice is not the behavior and attitudes of whites but the behavior and attitudes of blacks–not white discrimination but black culture. It implies that when the conservatives in Congress say the responsibility for ending urban poverty lies not with collective action but with the poor themselves they are right.
And, as Alex at Marginal Revolution notes, Gladwell tries hard (and somewhat unsuccessfully) to argue against the most obvious implication – put simply that Culture rather than Race is the primary determinant of success.
So what’s the Desi angle here?
… the Model Minority story is perpetrated by the Man to divide, conquer, and reinforce his hierarchy of powerWell, one of the ongoing, underlying debates at Sepia Mutiny is whether the Model Minority story is perpetrated by the Man to divide, conquer, and reinforce his hierarchy of power (see here, for ex.). For me, it’s tough for me to square that argument when many of the same folks who accuse the Man of crudely ignoring the diffs between Muslims, Bengalis, Sikhs, Afghanis, Hindus, etc. now suddenly accuse him of being able to distinguish a West Indian from an African American on something other than credit scores come loan-time.
Now given SM’s leftward drift of late, my right of center position probably comes across as flaming right. BUT, I’m still forced to look at results like the West Indian case above and argue that culture, rather than race drives these results. It’s pretty darn hard to construct a better experimental test case (although I’m a big fan of this recent one). Consequently, I’m skeptical about dispelling the Model Minority argument simply because opponents contend its supporters have a nefarious motive. The world of motives and intentions might make for great narrative drama (Arnold Kling once noted that this is the great, albeit ultimately detrimental, advantage of “type M” rather than “type C” arguments). But when rubber meets the road, the argument has a tough time holding up empirically especially relative to the clear data above.
What brings this entire debate so precariously close to the third rail, is the way folks – occasionally on both sides – conflate Race and Culture. This destroys a much needed precision in the conversation (if you want an example of this, just give the comment threads here a few minutes before some turd destroys precision with a blanket “uncle Tom” comment or the like).
When “conservatives” make Model Minority type arguments, it hits leftist 3rd rails on several levels. There is a leftist article of faith that all cultures are equal (except, only half jokingly, American redneck culture which must lose all such comparisons and is responsible for all the ills of the world). Making an argument about cultures having unequal outcomes sounds suspiciously close to arguing that races aren’t equal – BUT IT IS NOT. Or, if Western culture happens to come out on top in some such comparison, it reeks to lefty ears of neocolonialism. Or that Racism never did or still doesn’t exist – IT DID and DOES. But test cases like the West Indian case above give us valuable insights and hope for a world where culture and race are less inextricably linked and where dialog can be more constructive. What are the tactical things they are doing differently from their racial cousins? In this case, Thomas Sowell & Gladwell do note one example –
When the first wave of Caribbean immigrants came to New York and Boston, in the early nineteen-hundreds, other blacks dubbed them Jewmaicans, in derisive reference to the emphasis they placed on hard work and education.
For the Left, the Model Minority argument also attacks a core contention that unequal political power is the source of (and thus answer to) unequal economic outcomes and a host of other issues. What are Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to do when West Indian’s aren’t Black Enough to be saved by amalgamating political power underneath them?
Opponents also conflate race and culture in a different way when they argue, for ex., that the Myth must be false because Indian cabbies clearly don’t make as much $$$ as Indian doctors. Perhaps the Indian doctor lives in a culture (albeit narrowly defined) which is different from the cabby’s and, for that matter, a good % of India? Afterall, we certainly know of household-to-household “cultural” differences with regard to education, ambition, etc. even within our extended families. And perhaps Indian culture as a whole is going through a cultural transformation which is why this generation has a considerably different economic opportunity vs. their forefathers?
I said that only because the original data was concerning fathers and sons…
Well, selection bias is a lot of the story for any selective institution. But most people do not think of immigration as a selective institution when, in the case of Desis, it is.
By the way, bringing this back to the original topic, is there any evidence that selection bias isn’t at work in the case of West Indian immigrants?
T-hype: Great comment!
Anyone: Is it possible Afro-Carribeans are “selection biased” as well? I understand 90% of educated Jamaicans leave Jamaica.
No von Mises, you run a blog so we can see your advice in action? or should i assume that all your comments are cool analysis?
Is it possible Afro-Carribeans are “selection biased” as well? I understand 90% of educated Jamaicans leave Jamaica
moving to another country is selection-bias by itself.
also, note that culture can be selection biased too. the iranians who emigrated to the USA in the late 70s brought a more secular sensibility than is modal in iran. the koreans who emigrate to the US are more likely to chrisitan than koreans as a whole.
Razib,
You dont need to erect barracks and barriers preparing for WWIII when there doesn’t need to be a WWIII in the first place. “The Left thinks….” and “The Right thinks….” assumes homogeneity.
Trust me, I ain’t a newbie ’round here.
You dont need to erect barracks and barriers preparing for WWIII when there doesn’t need to be a WWIII in the first place. “The Left thinks….” and “The Right thinks….” assumes homogeneity.
dude, have you seriously looked at some of the vitriol v-man has been on the receiving end of in the past? this blog has a 2 year history, you live and learn.
Yeah, I don’t think Vinod is being defensive. There is a history here of bloggers and commenters who have been on this site from the beginning and some of the original ‘fights’ were not really domestic R and D partisan squabbles, but genuine philosphical disagreements: right versus left not as a Washingtonian dogfight but as battles of ideas. That’s not trivial. And, when done correctly, it’s damned interesting. Ideas, not idealogues or ideologies. Eh, whatever. This model minority is exhausted becuase she is working seven days a week ’cause of the understaffing in hospital. I used to have this friend who was a communications professor who would say that someone was ‘colonizing’ her if they were being overbearing. Man, do I feel like the socialista academic medicine community is colonizing me right now….how’s that for mixed political metaphors. Set me free, oh set me free over the Berlin wall of academe-medicine into the West Germany of private practice. Not for the money, peeps, for the freedom. Freedom from beaurocrats, freedom from aristocratic academics (where do you think the money comes from when it comes from the NIH-government, eh?Just where does it come from?), freedom from the slow and inefficient and not-team-players….FREEDOM!
Oh, and oneup, I like reading your comments.
Sigh. I need some sleep……
I tried to look for some of that vitriol via your link but wound up here and the search stopped. Kryptonite…
I tried to look for some of that vitriol
assume some of it has been deleted of course.
It is indeed extremely difficult for a poor family to get a college education for their kids in the US, especially a good-quality education. In India, we have institutes like IITs which make a quality education very affordable. I don’t know for sure, but I bet that a college degree in the West Indies would cost far less than an equivalent degree in the US of the same quality of education.
This is incorrect. College education may very well be expensive in the US, but that doesn’t necessarily make it out of the reach of most families (who can seek out loans to meet expenses). In fact, much of the reason that college tuition can and has gone up is becuase private institutions started lending $ to students in the first place – prior to that, colleges took care to keep tuitions at an affordable level – i.e. families can afford the entire cost out of pocket, or college students could work while in school to make ends meet. Anyway, this is not the case in India or the West Indies where, primary education on, your family must provide 100% of the funds. So, no, I don’t think it is harder for a poor individual to get a college education here than in India/West Indies.
okay, I have to qualify my aristrocratic academic NIH thing: the researchers I know are the hardest working people on the planet and thank the heavens for them. the interferon I take for my MS is all thanks to the lab-types. No, I was thinking of how the parts relate to the whole when I wrote that…..did not mean to disparage!
okay, no time, but here’s my thoughts: why not emulate what works? When oneup says that a certain urban culture is seen as authentic, what does that say? Thatparticular urban culture is relatively new….why is it so sancrosanct? Why is it so authentic if some of it represents a new phenomenon? Why should a community decide what is authentic? Why can’t the individual?
It’s not just that they don’t value education though, a lot of black people have been convinced that even with an education, they aren’t going to get anywhere in life. A theme that is repeated heavily in parts of our culture (See Kanye’s the college dropout). Higher education has failed a lot of us for a variety of different reasons. Most of our parents didn’t go to college (mine didn’t) and don’t have people around us who have been to college and so we don’t know how to make a degree work for us. There’s a lot of trial and error… Then you have an astounding amount of misinformation out there where too many of us are being told that a college degree automatically gets you a six figure career. And unlike other people who have wealthy or middle class family members or strong ethnic communities to network in, if we don’t get it right the first time, we often have nothing to fall back on.
Also, its important to note that in the very recent past, institutionalized racism was very prevalent. It is only recently, through Affirmative action and various laws, that black people have had a fair shot. I forget who did the study, but everyone who has taken an intro psych class has probably heard something like this:
You put a dog in a box with a low fence. Dog on one side, food on the other. And the dog freely jumps from one side to the other to get the food. Then one day, you let an electric current flow through the floor on the side with the food. Now when the dog jumps over there he gets shocked and immediately jumps back to the other side. You do this for several days and the dog keeps trying because a dogs gotta eat. But eventually, the dog has had enough, and doesn’t even bother. Once the dog stops caring, you stop the electric current… but most dogs have given up. Learned helplessness.
Like I said, its not just laziness… black people really do have reasons not to trust this world is equal, even if those reasons are outdated. IMO, black people would do better if we stopped telling people they can only succeed by luck.
Unfortunately, whenever someone black starts to say things like this, they start to lose their place in black society. I’ve gotten into too many arguements where I was accused of not caring about black people because I maintain that we are capable of doing what everyone else can.
I had a lot more I wanted to say…
Oneup – you have to start your own blog. Seriously.
Milind, I know. My frownie was meant for the people who did the study. It’s different if the study were done in the old country where women still lag way behind men in access to education etc, but the study was done in the US…. But, yes, my comment totally looks like it was directed at you when I look at it now. I’m sorry.
In any case, daughters most certainly get less access than sons in the less selectively immigrated groups. So I guess they would be forced have to compare only among sons.
kurma, they were probably trying to eliminate confounding variables (e.g., differentials in female access to to education across countries). in genetics you often compare fathers to offspring specifically to eliminate ‘maternal effects’ during gestation.
Hip hop started out as a very realistic artistic expression of what was happening in black communities across america. It was an accurate reflection of the violence and sadness that was a part of growing up in the ghetto. And sometimes, it was also a window to the joy and happiness that people still managed to experience. But then hip hop hit the mainstream and it was sensationalized… with a new focus on the negatives. Unfortunately, no one in the black community denounced the new stuff coming out as fake. Most likely because people had to defend against the censorship of hip hop music so heavily in the beginning… they didn’t want to become the people they were so against in the past.
So now you have a bunch of crap on the radio saying things that black youth think is honest and real.
P.S. Hip hop is still great… but I can do without the vast majority of mainstream rap.
Thanksm, but I would neglect it 🙂
oneup, have you read john mcwhorter’s latest book?
No, not yet. I was recently reading the education essay from Thomas Sowell’s lastest book. It was dedicated to schools where black children, regardless of economic background, were succeeding at levels that exceeded their white peers… But I had to leave it in the bookstore.
I had to ban myself from the bookstore because I ALWAYS leave with at least one book. And I go once a week… and I have to read for my classes…. but there’s always the library.. lol
What about the book though?
itz pretty good, and a quick read for one that is pretty long (i liked mcwhorter’s case studies).
also, previous critics had stated that his other work is anecdotal. this is not, it is pretty thick with empirical research.
Vinod,
You make at least two fundamental assumptions that are completely incorrect.
This point, which you also highlighted in the caption text to make sure it fully stood out, is completely wrong. The “Model Minority story” is not “perpetrated by the Man,” whatever that caricatural statement means. It’s about the psychology of the ethnic group itself. In the sentence quoted above, you link to a post that I wrote about an article in which an Indian-American argued that Indian-Americans were the model minority. That is the crux of the matter. “The Man” is a completely obsolete concept — you heard it here first. There is no conspiracy against the Black man or woman, the Brown man or woman, or any such thing. Rather, there is the psychology of group identification and definition. When people define themselves as a group, they do so relative to what they perceive as other groups. What the Indian-American writer in my post was doing was claiming Indian-Americanness as a group identity, and then distinguishing it from other minorities on the grounds of it somehow being better at adapting to and succeeding in America. End of story. That’s the model minority argument. Anyone who tells you it’s about “The Man” is a shallow thinker.
Leaving aside your defensive pre-emptive strike, this is your second false assumption. The “model minority” story is not about race. Let me make myself clear: IT IS NOT ABOUT RACE. It’s about ethnicity. Race is an externally applied category, and as Razib and others can explain until the cows come home, it is very shaky or in fact fallacious. It is not a useful category. So why do we still use it? Partly because our institutions and popular culture haven’t yet caught up. But partly because frequently when we talk about “race” we really mean ethnicity. Ethnicity, unlike race, is a self-ascribed identification that people use to claim similarity with some and therefore difference from others. Ethnicity is fluid and constantly subject to redefinition. Political anthropologists have proven that it evolves instrumentally, as a result of the strategic decisions of individuals in respose to threats, opportunities, constraints. “Indian-American” is an ethnicity, so is “Desi;” they overlap, but not everyone in the overlap one recognizes himself or herself in both terms. It’s still under negotiation.
I too saw the NY Times story that you quoted, and when I learned that black incomes were higher than white incomes in Queens, I kew immediately, and I’m sure many other readers did, that it was because of the West Indian dimension. No shit! This is a well known story, not a brand-new revelation. “Black” and “white” in the context of this article are as useful as they are everywhere else, which is not very much. Queens doesn’t respond well to such stark divisions. Just this morning on the radio there was a story about graft and cooked books in an alcohol rehab facility in Queens. The caregivers were mainly Russian; the patients mainly Uzbeks. The Russians stinted on the care of the Uzbeks and helped themselves to the savings. The “model minority” has much more to tell us about this story than it does about some crude grouping of “blacks” and “whites” in a place like Queens. Put simply, that shit don’t tell us much.
And therefore, neither does your post. You’ve taken a question that merits a considered, mutually respectful argument and turned it into a screed against a caricature. That’s a waste of your time. You’ve implied that many readers hold some crude, primitive conflation of Culture and Race – and that I, your fellow blogger, hold the same conflation, since you point to my post as your example. And that’s insulting. The rest of your post is baiting, defensiveness, and demagogy.
But itÂ’s not about race. ItÂ’s about ethnicity. ItÂ’s not about how white people/capitalism/the system/The Man/Babylon — whatever caricature you wish to deploy, itÂ’s not about how “they” views us. ItÂ’s about ethnicity, and how we view ourselves. ItÂ’s about what we see when we look in the mirror. It all starts there.
Peace, brother.
Vinod, Siddhartha, others….now this is why I started reading this particular blog…let the intelligent disagreements begin….okay, I really have no time for this.
I beg to differ, a comparable college/university education in Jamaica is far, far more expensive than in the US, and acceptance into a school like C.A.S.T or the Univ of W.I. is subject to extremely high marks in the levels (O, A etc.). Which is why most parents of means send their children to the US to obtain a college education, because there are no such things as loans and grants in Jamaica, you either have money or you don’t. To even obtain a good secondary education in Jamaica you have to have money, in 1988 when I was in the first form my parents were paying almost 2K every trimester for me to attend high school.
But itÂ’s not about race. ItÂ’s about ethnicity. ItÂ’s not about how white people/capitalism/the system/The Man/Babylon — whatever caricature you wish to deploy, itÂ’s not about how “they” views us. ItÂ’s about ethnicity, and how we view ourselves. ItÂ’s about what we see when we look in the mirror. It all starts there.
Siddharta,
You, as cultural critic, surely know more about this than most, but the anti-model minority browns ascribe the “myth” to white folk. Here is a writeup on Vijay Prashad (American spokesman for Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Trinity College (Ct.) Prof:
Even as he questions the rate of success for Indians, as popularly perceived in the media, he is convinced — like many other critics before him — that the myth of model minority was invented to berate the African Americans for failing in education and business.
Many social activists and academics have argued: Instead of taking the blame for the failure of African Americans, the white establishment wants to make them the perpetrators of their own poverty and destitute — and use the myth of South Asian success to demean African Americans.
The myth of model minority, Prashad argues is consistently deployed as “a weapon in the war against black America.” He challenges conservative writer Dinesh D’Souza ( Illiberal Education) who has heralded South Asian success in the US. Prashad also seeks to question “the quiet accommodation to racism” made by many South Asians.
Peace
Oops. Link to article quoted above.
ItÂ’s about ethnicity, and how we view ourselves. ItÂ’s about what we see when we look in the mirror. It all starts there.
Who/What forms the image in a persons mind ? I really want to know. I have a 15 yr old at home. We discuss ethnicity over dinner. He is an Indian American with friends who are Italian American, Chinese American, African American, Russian American (!) and kids that are just plain American.
Are you saying some ethnicities look at themselves with low expectations ?
In some ways, yes.
I think Chris Rock’s “n—a v. black people,” bit presents a point of view of the problems faced by the African American community and its self-perception.
I think you quote Gladwell in your article and Gladwell clearly pointed out that West Indians consider themselves the ‘good blacks’ who work hard etc., but in reality a large part of their success is due to what Gladwell termed ‘multicultural racism.’ This kind of racism refers to one ethnic group (powerful majority culture) favoring another ethnic group (West Indians) at the expense of another (poor African-Americans).
Gladwell did not consider West Indians to be a model minority. In fact, he argued that if they viewed themselves in this way they would be perpetuating multicultural racism.
Vinod, I can’t help but think this article you shared was a way for you to justify immigrant success and blame poor blacks for the situations they find themselves living under. Yes, some elements of African-American culture hurt instead of help, but whether you want to accept it or not RACISM is the overall culprit!
I also think East Indians should think twice before they accept and/or apply this ‘model minority’ label to themselves no matter how positive it may appear at first, or work to your advantage because it will end up becoming a trap that you will find hard to escape.
I think you quote Gladwell in your article and Gladwell clearly pointed out that West Indians consider themselves the ‘good blacks’ who work hard etc., but in reality a large part of their success is due to what Gladwell termed ‘multicultural racism.’ This kind of racism refers to one ethnic group (powerful majority culture) favoring another ethnic group (West Indians) at the expense of another (poor African-Americans).
what you’re doing here is dismissing the work ethic of west indians. are west indians who run businesses which cater mostly to the black community (west indian and native born) somehow being helped by whites? should west indians who scrimp & save give thanks to the white man for approving loans? do the west indians who constitute a disproportionate number of blacks at harvard owe their admission to white admissions officers who favor them over native born blacks? rendering to the White Gods and their White Magik all the causative power in this world removes any sense of agency from mere colored mortals. we in a universe where the White Gods determine the fates, no?
I also think East Indians should think twice before they accept and/or apply this ‘model minority’ label to themselves no matter how positive it may appear at first, or work to your advantage because it will end up becoming a trap that you will find hard to escape.
1) were brownz yo. 2) some “traps” are really great, and god i hope brown people don’t escape the “trap” their stuck in
That’s the model minority argument. Anyone who tells you it’s about “The Man” is a shallow thinker.
&&
But itÂ’s not about race. ItÂ’s about ethnicity. ItÂ’s not about how white people/capitalism/the system/The Man/Babylon — whatever caricature you wish to deploy, itÂ’s not about how “they” views us. ItÂ’s about ethnicity, and how we view ourselves. ItÂ’s about what we see when we look in the mirror. It all starts there.
siddartha, i totally agree with the bolded parts. but the reality is i encounter people constantly on these message boards who render to White Society all that is bad and ill in communities of color, that racism is the Root of all Evil, that the White Man is the root of all evil. if one brings up a black man from detroit who is poor and semi-illiterate he deserves compassion for what society has done to him by constraining his choices. in contrast, there has been a long standing tendency here by many (not most, but enough) of mocking ignorant inbred crackers, who themselves are constrained in their choices.
a point, there has been talk of re: culture vs. selection bias. i think this dichotomy is problematic.
1) we all know that “culture” is a loaded and imprecise term. the key here i think is to focus in on what separates one culture from another. all cultures tend to have religions. but some cultures are monotheistic, while others are not. all cultures have music, but some cultures emphasize precussion while others less so.
2) selection bias is a precise and important issue, but, its relevance does not negate that culture is a major factor, because there is heritable culture variation within supra-cultures.
to bring it back to a brown example. consider two parents who met at an IIT. they move to the USA, and have children. by the fact that they are at an IIT we can assert some expectations about what sort of individuals these two parents are, and what sort of cihldren they might have.
we might assume
1) they have high IQs 2) they have a strong work ethic 3) they value education 4) they are driven to succeed
assume that IQ is 50% heritable. that is, half the populational variation is due to genetic variation. if the midparent IQ is 135 (i think plausible), and you assume that the population mean IQ is 100 (this is not true in india, but, a) there is probably substructure within the population so you need to constrain what ‘population’ you mean b) nutrition, env., cultural norms, etc. probably depress realized IQ).
the breeder’s equation implies that the expected child’s IQ should be 117.5 (that is, the children will regress halfway back to the mean).
then you have the other aspects, like parental expectations, role models, etc. additionally, personality traits tend to be partly heritable, so one might wonder if need to succeed in a conventional way is biased in the children. additionally, in the 1998 book the nurture assumption judith rich harris reviewed the past generation’s behavior genetic literature which suggests the following:
50% of the variation in personality across the population is attributable to genetics (e.g., parental variation) 10% is attributable to parents 40% is not attributed to either
harris asserts that peer groups is where the other 40% come’s from. if you have two parents who are engineers their income should be decent. they will place their kids in good schools, socialize and live in neighborhoods with high achievers, etc. so you have a ‘boost’ from the environment in such a manner.
so yes, saying that a “culture installs values” is simplistic. you need to decompose and unpack the parameters. you also need to place the parameters in their context. they express themselves in a social environment.
Siddartha –
First – apologies for any misrepresentation of your views…
While your post argued that situation, I think most folks would agree that in most cases, the “model minorities” label is externally applied. For ex., Wikipedia’s ‘clinical’ treatment –
And that’s the clinical (i.e. politically correct) Wikipedia take… The day to day, more colloquial use is more akin to Vijay Prasad’s argument that it was invented (by The Man) to keep the black man down (thanks Risible for the link)
Look, I agree that there are probably shades of usage for “model minority”, but the 80% case seems pretty well recognized in the snippet quoted above.
Again, I can appreciate that you make that distinction in your post. In fact, I suspect that in most of the cases that you use “ethnicity”, I’m using “culture” — in both cases, we’re attempting to recognize that there’s individual volition that goes far beyond the genetic color of your skin.
BUT, in the 80% case, folks who are talking about the evils of the “Model Minority Myth” argue it was invented for RACIST motives. (not “ETHNICISM” or whatever) These folks are often deep in the “Type M” world (M for “motives”). Vijay Prasad and the others quoted above certainly seem to come from this school of thought.
And I’m sorry you feel that way. For now, I’ll excuse your thorough dissing of my post as a reaction to hitting one of your 3rd rails. Thankfully, enough other folks on this thread seem to have found the post interesting enough to merit almost 100 comments…
What a perfect example of the “type M” argument!
Siddhartha,
You said:
As described here, the model minority story/argument/idea was first coined in 1966 by a Newsweek writer. It had little to do with a group (here, Japanese-Americans) identifying itself as a model minority. And even if the origin of the phrase wasn’t malicious, isn’t it possible it was later used as a tool by politicians/the media/talking heads to berate African Americans and other minorities for their supposed failures? The reason I ask this is because you seem to assert that the model minority phrase was coined by certain groups as they viewed themselves in relation to other groups. So then why wasn’t the phrase something else? Successful Minority. Affluent Minority. Educated Minority. But no, the phrase is model minority. And that, my friend, is fundamentally adversarial.
I don’t know what you do for a living. Let’s say that you are a lawyer working at a big law firm. If three associates go around saying that they are Model Associates, would you start modeling yourself after them without questions? I sure hope not. Now, if the managing partner deems these three associates as the Model Associates, you’ll probably take note if you want to get anywhere at that firm. Why? Because the partner has power and authority to deem as such. And isn’t this implicitly adversarial? The partner is pitting one group of associates against another. Even if the Model Associates are indeed very hard working, bill the most hours, and write beautiful briefs, the fact is that for the term Model Associate to gain currency it has to be legitamized by someone powerful.
Now, I admit that this is a very simplistic example when compared with the phrase model minority and its use in American culture. For example, you can argue that you, the Non-Model Associate, will just have to work harder and will yourself to be better than those deemed the Model Associates. But what about the very real factors that complicate this notion? Let’s say that you were brought into this firm against your will by a merger, that you were treated with contempt and disregard by your boss for the first few years as an associate, that you were denied the resources to compete against other attorneys at your firm, that you were isolated to a floor of your building occupied by the billing staff and never received the superior training that other associates received six floors above…
You can laugh at that example, sure, but only because it is fundamentally simplistic compared to the multitude of factors that determined the outcomes of various minority groups in America. To look at the model minority myth outside of the context of the meta-event of racial integration in the 20th century and simply deem it as a self-ascribed description is pretty ignorant.
Actually, divorcing the Model Minority phrase from power is pretty shallow, and historically incorrect. You heard it hear first. And because it was applied to RACIAL groups, it must be looked at in its RACIAL context. This is the whole point; that the Man (don’t take it literally, take it as a connotation) employs it in the context of racial groups, not ethnic self-identification. And that’s why we have to look at it that way. I agree with you that race is often not a useful way of viewing societal trends, and that West Indian blacks are going to look at themselves in different, fluid ways in comparison to descendants of Africans brought here as slaves. But I am talking about a political construct, not an ethnographic one.
Now, the story isn’t finished, of course. I will be the first one to agree that several Indian-Americans view themselves as a Model Minority; in fact, they talk non-stop about it. BUT I will also be the first one to celebrate and laud our success in America…I’m not one of those individuals who will berate you if you even so mention the fact that many Indian-Americans have done extremely well in America, in several areas. It is a source of pride for me that many desis have worked their asses off and succeeded in this country. Yay us.
But do you not see how this pride can become political? How it HAS become political? It’s so not just about how desis view ourselves in comparison with other groups. It’s one thing for me to say, “I think it’s cool how so many desis have worked hard and succeeded in this country.” It’s another to say, “I think it’s cool how we have succeeded – how come you haven’t? What’s wrong with you?”
I can see how you would think that this is all about a phrase we ascribe to ourselves (by the way, your use of the word “ascribed” kind of supports my point that the model minority phrase was coined from the outside, but whatever). It’s b/c we talk so openly about it. Do you really think a politically correct white person is going to go around saying, “You Indians are such a model for other people, especially blacks!” No, it doesn’t play out like that in day to day life (it does, however, on neo-con talk shows). But it plays out in the white boss who assumes that his Asian American candidate is going to work harder than his black one. I think you can figure this one out. The patient who thinks his Indian doctor is more qualified than his Hispanic one. And so it goes.
Please don’t take my response as a personal attack; it’s not. Thanks.
The above reminds me of an example that shows how easy it is for an ethnic group to lose its ‘Model Minority’ status. Dr Patel has been blogged about here before, but in a nutshell 30+ years of South Asian doctors building a solid reputation in Australia (president of the australian medical association is a brown chap) was undone in a few months by the actions of ONE man. Now the general confidence of patients towards South Asian doctors – both overseas trained and local graduates – has visibly declined. I personally know of many brown doctors who have had rather nasty experiences.
The above only illustrates a particular profession, but I think it may also be relevant to a whole ethnic group. Would Indians still be attributed the same level of Model-Minoritiness if say, Tim Mcveigh or the Colorado kids where of Indian origin?
I find it highly uncomfortable resting my laurels on such a mercurial label.
Bengali in comment #88 is hitting on what Gladwell was talking about — it’s not just about how you view yourself, or what your IQ is (though both are important). How the general ‘culture’ (or community) views you is also very important, and contributes to determinng your success. West Indians are viewed differently by the majority community in Toronto and New York, and through various pathways, including but not limited to work ethic, this influences their outcomes.
I do agree with the above commentor that Vinod seems to deliberately ignore the arguments in the Gladwell article he is citing. Gladwell wrote:
The manager can tell black Americans to get off their butts without fear of sounding, in his own ears, like a racist, because he has simultaneously celebrated island blacks for their work ethic. The success of West Indians is not proof that discrimination against American blacks does not exist. Rather, it is the means by which discrimination against American blacks is given one last, vicious twist: I am not so shallow as to despise you for the color of your skin, because I have found people your color that I like. Now I can despise you for who you are.
What has happened to Jamaicans in Toronto is proof that what has happened to Jamaicans [in New York] is not the end of racism, or even the beginning of the end of racism, but an accident of history and geography. In America, there is someone else to despise. In Canada, there is not. In the new racism, as in the old, somebody always has to be the nigger.
Bolding is mine, not the New Yorkers.
(There is a good paper on father-son educational and income differentials by national origin among immigrants to Canada — I can search it out if there is any interest)
Vinod, two thoughts (actually three — two on the merits, and one about your rhetoric). First, the very use of the term “model” minority implies something about minorities more generally — how could there be a “model” minority if there weren’t other minorities who are implicitly not the “model”? In that sense, there is something comparative at work, even though the limits of any such comparison are typically not made explicit. What exactly is it that you make of that? That’s not a rhetorical question — I have my own view, but I’m more interested right now in what you think.
Second, without at all trying to speak for everyone, I think a lot of people who interpret the model minority myth are not at all talking about consciously racist “motives” by “The Man,” as you suggest. Rather, the point I understand people often to be making is that the use of this stereotyped construct — whatever the source, be it conscious racism, ignorance, unconscious or implicit bias, or simply a belief about what is perceived in the world — operates racially, in that it is making an implicit, stereotyped statement about other racial groups (in part because of the first point) that has racialized social consequences. (And Siddhartha, for that reason I think I disagree with you that the model minority construct is only about ethnicity, even though it may in some cases be just that.)
To be sure, at times the model minority stereotype has indeed been deployed by some whites and Asian Americans in order to make consciously racialized statements about blacks and Latinos. But I certainly don’t think that is the way in which all or even most such discussions proceed, as your own discussions here clearly illustrate, and I don’t think that most critiques of the model minority image depend upon the assumption of conscious racism. To the contrary, most discussions critical of the model minority myth are more complicated than the straw man/caricature you seem to be arguing against.
Those are my two substantive comments, and here’s my observation about your rhetorical strategy: why are you always so aggressively defensive about your conservatism — as if being conservative makes you some big victim, even though conservatives control the White House, Congress, most of the federal judiciary, many state governments, and much of the mainstream media — and always so insistent upon preemptively dismissing and labeling people who might disagree with you? Once again, you seem determined to assume the worst in people who might disagree with you, and once again, all such comments really serve to do is bait people. They certainly don’t advance your own arguments one iota or persuade anyone to take seriously what you have to say — which is a shame, because you do raise questions worth taking seriously.
For goodness sakes, just engage the people you disagree with, rather than caricaturing and labeling them so dismissively. And I’m hardly saying any of that because you’ve hit some “third rail” — it may be convenient for you to dismiss people who disagree with you by saying that you’ve hit one of their “third rails,” but at the end of the day that’s too easy and evasive, not to mention insulting. And not becoming of you, since you actually raise an issue worthy of serious consideration.
(For whatever it’s worth, I think that your hypothesis about “culture” is quite an interesting one, although empirical support for the claim is probably very difficult to establish — what precisely is it that you are calling “culture,” and how do we measure it or establish the causal link? What are the other variables at work? Is there no evidence that might cut against your claim, or render it entirely consistent with critiques of the model minority construct? Without specifying more, your claim may end up being a bit too self-referential or self-justifying, and therefore only weakly falsifiable.)
It’s ironic, to say the least, for you to criticize a view of the “model minority” myth rooted in racist motivations while simultaneously dismissing people who might disagree with you by attributing sweeping motivations about “third rails,” “leftist articles of faith,” and all the rest. And while I shouldn’t need to say this, I’d say exactly the same thing about liberals who engaged in the mirror image of such forms of argument — that does happen extensively in some corners of the liberal blogosphere (without naming any names), but actually isn’t a pervasive part of the discussions here. As MD suggested, that’s precisely why many of us read this blog in the first place.
It’s actually quite puzzling to me. If you aren’t interested in respectfully engaging in open and meaningful dialogue with people who might disagree with you — without preemptively labeling and dismissing what they might have to say in response to you with a jerk of your knee — then why bother posting here at all? It’s interesting to me that while several commenters (e.g., Nina P., Sriram) have respectfully and non-judgmentally probed your argument and asked you, for example, to clarify what you mean by “culture” — are those the kind of “third rail leftists” who aggrieve you so? am I? — you have disregarded those questions, at least so far.
Maybe you should go find some echo chamber full of people who already agree with you on everything and post there instead. That way, you can rant and rave about “leftist articles of faith” and “third rails” to your heart’s content, and have lots of folks to validate and reinforce how correct you are, all day long. If, on the other hand, your goal is to have people with perspectives different from your own take what you have to say seriously, with an eye to persuading them, then you can start by taking them seriously, as well.
(And risible, that goes for you too — calling Vijay Prashad the “American spokesman for Communist Party of India (Marxist)” is a pretty weak substitute for reasoned argument.)
Risible (#77), Razib (#84), Vinod (#86), Ansour (#87):
Great responses and much appreciated. There are some places where clearly, we agree. First, I agree with you guys that the origins of the “model minority” narrative — and by the way, I think that’s the best word for it, not Myth or Theory: it’s a storyline — that those origins are problematic. Was it coined by white people/people in power? There is evidence that it was, yes, or at least disseminated through that famous 1966 Newsweek article. Also, I agree that analysts like Vijay Prashad have a fairly instrumental view of these narratives: that they are created and deployed by power for the sake of its own continuation. So I think we can agree on where some of these phrasings come from.
But that’s not the same as “The Man,” because I think that most critics would agree that reductionist views of power, where it comes from, how it operates, are long obsolete in our world. So, Ansour, when I dismiss the theory of “The Man,” I am certainly not “divorcing the Model Minority phrase from power,” as you argue. I am divorcing it from a shallow, simplistic, and obsolete conception of how power works.
Second, as someone pointed out, there are not too many Powerful White People (let’s call them PWPs) going around publicly saying that certain groups should learn from/behave like other groups nowadays. Instead, the Model Minority story is most frequently heard — at least publicly — in discourse coming from minorities themselves, who are narratives of how they fit into multicultural society. Thus the Indian-American who wrote the article discussed in my post. It’s people from minority groups who have “arrived” who speak approvingly of “model minorities.” The next stop is to say that racism no longer exists (Dinesh D’Souza, “The End of Racism”) or that race and racism are attributed too much importance in social outcomes (Thomas Sowell, John McWhorter, who are black conservatives). And yes, sometimes race is given too much importance, but compared to what? William Julius Wilson, in “The Declining Significance of Race” said that class was actually the more powerful variable in American industrial/poast-industrial society. Black and brown conservatives like D’Souza and McWhorter tend instead to point to cultural or values/ethics based arguments. The problem with these isn’t that values don’t matter — clearly they do — but that it becomes very easy to generalize about cultures and conclude that certain cultures are more suited to success in a plural society than are other cultures. And that contains not only generalizations about culture that are unhelpful, but also assumptions about the meaning and operation of “success” that not everyone might agree with. So IÂ’m prepared to go a little of the way with the McWhorters and Sowells of the world –- and indeed the Vinods — but IÂ’m very wary of the misinterpretations, and very aware of how those who are in power might find those misinterpretations convenient for their own conscious purposes or unconscious prejudices.
Likewise, IÂ’m prepared to go part of the way with Vijay Prashad, but only part. IÂ’ve met Vijay, I like the guy, and I respect his work. However, I think his theoretical perspective is way too mechanical and runs the risk of being dogmatic. Basically heÂ’s a good Calcutta Marxist who believes in economic determinism, class analysis, and the conflict between bourgeoisie and proletariat, albeit updated to todayÂ’s world and parlance, and I think that dialectical understanding has been permanently shattered at this point. I like that he is attentive to power in the way that the conservatives are not; but I donÂ’t like the interpretations that some draw that somehow all browns are oppressed or all whites are oppressors. That is plainly untrue, and in any case, itÂ’s a distortion of what Prashad is saying. What Prashad does, however, that is a major contribution is his historical analysis of the connections and otherwise between the Indian diaspora and the African diaspora, including/especially in the context of British imperialism and later the construction of America. From the sugar plantations of Guyana to the American racial classifications of immigrants in the 1920s, he offers a really rich perspective; what you do of it is your decision. His decision is to practice a sort of pan-Third-World solidarity updated to multicultural America. In a way I feel I do that too, but in a completely different fashion than he does, and I suspect he would find my approach to be trivial and/or misguided. A reason for the difference is that there is, in Prashad, a tension between class analysis and ethnic history, and his way of resolving (or exploring) that tension is very different from mine.
So to get back to the “model minority” narrative: I argue that its primary exponents nowadays are themselves minority members. And frankly, that’s the interesting part. If Hamilton Cabot Adams IV says that blacks should learn from Asians, that frankly doesn’t tell me much about old Hamilton that I didn’t already know. I’m much more interested in how we think of ourselves, what groups we feel we constitute, how we delineate those groups, and how we contrast or connect our groups with other groups out there. I’m much more interested in our own psychology, our own actions. In a way, I’m arguing for our own responsibility – our personal responsibility, to coin a phrase – not only in behavior and ethics, but also in conception of self. And once we conceive ourselves and put forward those conceptions into the public realm, what does that mean, what are the consequences? Those are the interesting questions, to me.
One side note: Several of you mention that you find that many people “out there” – and specifically on this site – are dogmatically intent on pinning all bad things on “The Man”/white people/etc, Frankly, I don’t think it’s all that prevalent: I read these comment threads and find the bulk of the conversation here to be well above that level of generalization and shallowness. Lenin had this great phrase, “Infantile Leftism” – a leftism of gestures only, not substance and study. (Much later, Michel Foucault was accused of “Infantile Leftism” by some of his critics.) I think that out here in the blogosphere, there is a lot of “infantile” leftism, rightism, and every other –ism that you can imagine. We have it here too, from many sides, but really not that much, and it’s easy to ignore. The dogs bark, the caravan passes. Or as another philosopher said, nevermind the bollocks.
Peace
I think siddhartha’s argument is merely that there is no literal “The Man” who is trying to keep down the browns. He is trying to avoid the “type M” trap that vinod talked about.
I think part of the reason Vinod is appearing defensive in his writing is to avoid having to answer a lot of questions because there are far more lefties than righties out here (responding to them takes too much time and is incredibly enervating). Until that fundamental asymmetry gets fixed, I see no reason that style of writing, whether defensive or merely less aggressive, should change. It might, of course, also be a personality/philosophy thing. Vinod, keep on keepin’ on!
siddhartha, since we agree that there is no conscious effort to keep down the browns, we should perhaps switch to a “type C” mode of thinking, that is, a discussion in terms of policy consequences.
I think there is a tremendous level of hypocrisy on the part of some Democrats in viewing these same issues at the global level. This does not apply to all Democrats, so let us just call them the Opium War Democrats. The Opium War Democrats say, “Sure, these Natives are making money these days but, my dear chap, surely you don’t think that these people are cultured. Surely not Culture, as we know it, ol’ salt? Unless, of course, you don’t know what Culture really is, ol’ fruit. Let us play the Fair Trade card on the Natives.”
The idea is to execute policies that are against the interest of the “Natives”, but to justify it in terms of what we “know” about the “Natives”, and at the same time, avoiding upsetting people of the same ethnicity. How might this work? Take, for instance, Hillary’s “Indians as 7/11 workers” dig. It strikes me as an “opinion-poll-tested carefully-calibrated” means of undercutting the achievement of India as a whole, while not undercutting the achievement of Indian-Americans. Indian Americans would not be hurt by such a statement since they know it doesn’t apply to them, after all, they are the wealthiest minority around here. But India would be. India is, after all, a very poor country, and sure, a large fraction of people don’t even have education, so culture is, of course, far, far away. So, surely, “if we took away jobs from them, it is for their own good.” If “Fair Trade” (just look at the name of the thang) is not a case of huge, hubristic hypocrisy, I don’t know what is.
I’m flying to New York just to shake Siddhartha’s hand for his last post.
Shankar, you and I were probably writing our comments at the same time, so take a look at what I just wrote, it probably helps explain where I am coming from on this.
As for the implications for foreign economic policy, I think that’s a completely different matter. We’re talking here about issues in the construction and daily life of a plural nation. As you point out, views on trade policy are all over the map, within and outside the major parties. If you were to line up my views on international economics with those of Vinod, I bet you’d find a lot of convergence. But that’s a whole ‘nother story.
Snapper, the props are mutual. It’s high time you came over; you have many fans here. Winter airfares are low…
Red Snapper can finally have his Long Island dream vacation!
Class.
He’s on his own for that part. If he survives the vicious desi gangs of Nassau County, we’ll show him a good time here in the city.
Siddhartha, it’s not just the points you made, it’s that you ended the post with a Sex Pistols reference and the greatest word in the English language except for callypgian, which is ‘bollocks’.
Yes, America is on the cards, late summer 2007.
You are correct, Model Minority is used to identify subgroups that are outperforming other groups. Comparison is most certainly happening.
I’m not the only one suggesting it. Wikipedia and perhaps 80% of the Google search results are about how it’s an externally applied tag (for bad motives to uphold power — e.g. “The Man”). If you’d like to cite other evidence, I’m open but it’s gonna be hard to beat Wikipedia w.r.t. “definition quality”.
sigh… I’m not a Newbie here. Been here since the beginning. And do you even have to be much of a newbie to recognize the general political clime here? Trust me when I say that on SM, the righties are in the minority and enough (though obviously not all) of the lefties are rude about it (the uncle tom, brown sahib, etc. comments threads have been deleted… but there’s still enough stuff out there like this one.). Hence preemption. Besides, isn’t it obvious from the outset that a post about “model minorities” is going to invoke some pretty serious heat? Long time SM’ers can quickly guess the flood of “so what, are you anti-poor black folks?” type comments that a more raw “post” would have quickly generated.
I’m citing evidence, case studies, NYT, Malcom Gladwell, the Census, household income stats, external definitions, etc. I’m not the one calling my opponent’s argument insulting, baiting, defensive, demagogy, suitable for echo chambers, etc.
That’s an interesting opinion and certainly a pivotal issue in this thread — is the label external or internal? I’d love to see more of your evidence that the most common usage is internal.
THAT’S EXACTLY MY POINT. The evidence here very clearly suggests that some cultures (West Indian) outperform others (White/Queens && Black/Queens). I / Gladwell / NYT / Marginal Revolution react to it by asking “what are the West Indians doing right?” Others react to it by saying “those in power will find that convenient” — a Type M argument! “Power” = The Man. “Convenient” = evaluating the argument based on internal motives rather than external facts / consequences.