The Interracial Dating Disparity And Anti-Blackness.

Rock Throwing From Glass Houses.

In a previous post that discussed the dubious charge that Asian successes in education and the tech industry are indications of sneaky Asiatic conniving with whites to keep blacks down. I also pointed out the inconveniently logical reasoning that if merely doing well in education and the tech industry amounts to anti-blackness, then how much more must be the complicity and anti-blackness of the (extremely) high out-marriage and dating rates of Asian women with white men. This idea of privilege imparted to Asian partners of white men is of great interest to me and was the subject of what became one of my most read posts several years ago on the gender gap in Asian-America.

In that post I examined the ways that gendered anti-Asian racism have manifested since the first communities of Asians were established on the West Coast. I examined how restrictive immigration laws that prevented Asian men from finding Asian partners whilst the influx of tens of thousands of Asian brides of white G.Is meant that it was far, far easier for Asian women to immigrate if they were partnered with white men. I also argued that this post-war period marked a shift in which the narrative of brutal hardships inflicted upon the predominantly male pre-war Asian communities became white-washed and seemed to have been replaced by the narrative of white men as saviours of both Asia and its women. In other words, Asian men and their experience became only incidental to the Asian experience.

Julia Carry Wong's piece has reignited my interest in this phenomenon if only because if we use Wong's (and other progressives') context of making the charge of Asian privilege and complicity in cases of success and assimilation, then the biggest complicity problem that Asian-America has must be the several million Asian women who have assimilated into whiteness through marriage and intimate partnering of white men. In my post on the gender gap, I alluded to an implicit "privileging" of Asian women in the post-war period that enabled thousands to leapfrog anti-Asian exclusionary immigration laws and enter the US unhindered. In this post I will examine this process in greater detail and the notion that Asian privilege - if it exists - is also largely gendered and may even have its roots in what could be termed "Asian female privilege".

If this exists as a phenomenon, then any notions of "owning our Asian privilege" has to - by necessity - include an examination of this specific aspect of it. Why? Firstly, given that Asian advocacy has largely become a platform for dubious confessions of Asian racist complicity, consistency impels us to examine all cases where Asians have been "complicit" in white supremacy and - by way of acceptance of this privilege - in anti-blackness. Secondly, logic demands it. Wong's piece argues guilt by association - Asians who succeed economically are by association to the "whiteness" of their profession (as though success is a white quality) guilty of complicity and maintaining the racist status quo.

Yet, as is often the case, the historical record tends to pull the rug out from such grandiose, self-righteous condemnations like this and, as I hope to show, presents problems for those who ignore the gendered privileges afforded Asian women who partner white men - particularly for Asian feminists like Wong - who pass vague, sweeping judgements over an entire demographic while ignoring the substantial privileges afforded to them.

I am reminded of an interesting - and painful - post written by an African-American woman (Bea Hinton) several years ago in which she acknowledged the privileges she experiences when she dates white men....

When I choose to date a black man, I inevitably send a message to society about who I am and what I represent. When I choose to date a black man, I choose to be ignored at bars, barred from clubs, humiliated by groups of drunken white men, or passed over by taxis. I choose to internalize their experiences of undervaluation, passed over promotions and emasculation. I choose to carry the burden of [dating] black men, and I choose it often; 90% of the men I’ve dated are black.........One night, a date and I decided to hit a local New Jersey bar. As we approached the secured entrance, a white couple was also entering, walking only steps behind us. Before we could hand over our I.Ds, the white security guard informed us that we could not enter, as my date was violating the dress code; mere seconds later the white couple reached the door and was promptly let in – with the guy outfitted in the same ensemble.

She goes on......

I still remember how I felt when I first dated a white man. I was welcomed into any space and important; we didn’t need to dress a certain way to prove our membership. Respectability politics were a non-factor. The burden had been lifted; we wouldn’t get turned away at the door, in fact, we always skipped the line. The ease with which this white man navigated the public sphere was simply amazing and I wanted that. Dating was just easier. Life was just easier. I implicitly signaled to whites that I was mainstream, that I shared their middle-class values, that I was civilized – that I wasn’t angry, but safe and approachable. I felt safe and free and privileged.

The honesty here is admirable and I found the piece to be an intelligent insight into the vagaries of some  interracial relationship permutations. What she is describing is privilege - or more specifically, being the recipient of an elevated social status that grants her access to "whiteness" and the life certainties that it offers. Hinton acknowledges that her choice of intimate partner serves as an implicit social signal and a political statement of acquiescence to white, middle-class values. She maintains that life was simply easier when in intimate partnership with a white man; the burden of racial presumptions about her disappeared and she was afforded the opportunity to navigate society as an individual rather than as a stereotyped minority.

These experiences are particularly significant when it comes to Asian-America whose female half of the population marries out - mostly to white men - at huge rates. For the most part, Asian-American women who marry out seem to want to avoid any attempt at politicization of their choices opting, instead, to view their choices as purely personal choices that have no political or social ramifications aside from as a kind of feminist empowerment. Unfortunately for them, this is no longer an acceptable position. Thanks to Asian-American progressives in general - and Asian-American feminist like Julia Carrie Wong in particular - the personal choice to date and marry into whiteness has become a political issue.

The reframing of the Asian-American racial experience as merely a reflection of anti-blackness and the insistence on condemning Asian successes and progress as complicity in anti-blackness must by necessity force us to examine the choices of those in our community who pursue intimate partnership with the white male racist patriarchy - that is, of course, Asian women.

Wong claimed in her Al Jazeera piece that success in the tech industry equals an implicit acceptance into whiteness as well as an implicit complicity in anti-blackness. For her, Asian success must mean an acceptance into whiteness which equals anti-black racism. Awkwardly, that reasoning condemns the 3-5 million or so Asian-American women who pursue or are in relationships with white men to the same charge. If we accept Hinton's claims, then dating white men implicitly confers whiteness on women of color which - by progressive reasoning - is implicitly anti-black.

I came across an interesting study recently that outlined the degree to which Asian women who marry white men have been the recipients of immense privilege in America - it has a surprisingly long history. Published in 2006, the study by a South Korean woman examined interracial marriages in Asian-American communities (primarily amongst the Chinese and Japanese) up to and including the Second World War. The findings are fascinating as they exposed the degree to which America's draconian racial sensibilities of the period were gamed in order maintain the sanctity of white male prerogative by granting the Asian female partners of white men special - preferred - status in America's racial hierarchy.

The study explores interracial marriage between first generation Chinese and Japanese and white partners covering the years 1880-1954 on the west coast. The study excluded other Asian groups since for most of the period these two groups comprised the majority of Asian immigrants. There are a couple of points of particular interest in the study: firstly, the majority of out marriages were between Asian men and white women due to the higher rate of male immigration; secondly, these marriages openly flouted anti-miscegenation laws and got around them by seeking marriage licensing in states that had no such laws before resuming their married lives in California. Even though such marriages were most often tolerated, there remained overwhelming white hostility to such marriages.

Yet, the study uncovers evidence that despite this hostility, there were significant differences in how these mixed-marriages were accepted by white America. These differences manifest in significant ways....

..........marriages between white women and Chinese and/or Japanese men were major targets of racist and misogynist assumptions about interracial intimacy in the U.S. West. Such marriages were further marginalized by federal government’s policies on Asian exclusion and on the mixed marriage families during the World War II internment of Japanese Americans. Government policies upheld a white male citizen’s ability to assimilate his Asian wife and his patriarchal prerogative to his interracial family. Pg.8

And....

...........federal policies on Chinese and Japanese Americans, including immigration restriction laws and the internment of Japanese Americans, treated white men and white women married to Chinese or Japanese Americans differently. Gender gaps in interracial marriages were articulated at the level of federal laws and policies on marriages between citizens and noncitizens. These laws and policies respected white male citizens’decisions to choose their marital partners among Asians and accommodated the unity of these families. American male citizens married to Asian women could make their Asian spouses legal immigrants at a time when all persons of Asian nationalities denied entry to the U.S. According to the sources of my work, Asian wives of  white male citizens were exempted from the 1924 National Origins Act and could enter the U.S. as non- quota immigrants. Pg 25-26

And....

Federal laws on immigration, overseas marriage, and citizenship punished white women citizens married to Asian husbands by stripping them of their citizenship.Between 1907 and 1934, American female citizens married Asians lost their citizenship for the duration of their marriages. The 1922 Cable Act allowed American women married to foreigners to regain their citizenship by naturalization. However, American women married to men of Asian nationalities could not restore their citizenship because they were married to men who were deemed ineligible for naturalized citizenship. Pg. 26 

These findings from the study speak for themselves but can be summed up as follows; Asian women who married white men were afforded rights not offered to male Asian immigrants who married white women. They were given the status of legal immigrant, granted entry and residency outside of the quotas established by exclusion laws (meaning that there was no limit on the number of these female immigrants so long as they married white men), and during the Japanese internment period they had the option of remaining in their homes in the military exclusion zone, thus, keeping their families intact. Federal law and racial "wisdom" of the time supported white male prerogatives to marry Asian women at a time when it severely discouraged Asian men from marrying whites but also hindered their ability to marry within their race.

By contrast, white women who married Asian men were considered to have "left the white race" and were socially ostracized by white society. In the period between 1907 and 1934 white women who married Asian men were required to give up their American citizenship and during Japanese internment although Japanese women were allowed to leave the camps and join their white husbands in California and keep their families intact, white female spouses of Japanese men were given no such privilege and were forced to enter the camps with their husbands and children if the wanted to keep their families together.

The study....

A “Caucasian”father of mixed race children was deemed as embodying a stronger and more desirable element of the “Caucasian environment” than a “Caucasian” mother of such children. The WDC decided to respect the right of a “Caucasian”patriarch to protect his Japanese wife and minor children and so released the Japanese mothers of mixed race children from camps, allowing them to join their white or other non-Japanese husbands on the West Coast. The same treatment was never applied to Japanese fathers who had had children with white or other non-Japanese wives. Pg. 32-33

In modern-day Asian-American progressive parlance, another way to say all of this is to say that Asian women who married white men were being inducted into whiteness, while white women who married Asian men were emphatically ejected from it. The privileges of easing one's ability to navigate society when a woman of color marries or dates white men that Hinto describes in her essay became enshrined in federal law and an accepted addition to prevailing social wisdom; Asian women who married white men became white (with caveats), Asian men who married white women confered a loss of whiteness on their white partners.

In the aftermath of the war these unique racial privileges afforded to Asian women who chose white men as partners continued with the historically unique passage of the War Brides Acts that effectively ruled that Asian women who were married to American GI's - the vast majority of whom were white - had special racial status; they were allowed into the US as "non-quota" migrants. This means that in theory, the only limitation to such immigration was the number of American GI's who chose to marry them. To understand the degree of privilege engendered by this policy, consider that at the time, Asian-American families were literally torn apart by exclusion laws and immigration quotas that prevented parents from entering the country to be with their kids, or kids entering the country to join their parents....

After 1924, the racial exclusion of Asians incorporated gendered difference to the legal status of Asian men and women married to Americans. An Asian man’s marriage to an American woman did not make any difference in his status; he was still an alien who was ineligible to become a naturalized citizen. An Asian man married to an American woman was under the same restrictions as other Asian immigrants were subject to after 1924. Although Asian women married to American men were not able to become naturalized citizens, the U.S. Government qualified these Asian wives of American citizens with a “non-quota immigrant” status, which exempted these women from the rule of giving no quota for Asian immigrants. This established a precedent of the U.S. government’s post - World War II policy on Asian war brides of American soldiers. The Soldier’s Bride Act of 1947 briefly allowed these war brides to enter the U.S. as non-quota immigrants. The 1952 Immigration Act resumed Asian immigration but did not repeal the quota system. Because immigration quotas allotted to Asian countries were still limited, Congress expanded the practice of recognizing Asian spouses of American soldiers as non - quota immigrants until the 1965 Immigration Act rescinded the quota system. Page 50-51

This privileging of Asian women who married white men stands in stark contrast to the loss of privilege for white women who married Asian men, and highlights the efforts of white social and political structures to discourage Asian men from miscegenation with white women. Asian women who married white men became white, white women who married Asian men were ostracized by the white community and - during the war - denied their civil and legal rights.

This war on inter-marriage between white women and Asian men continued in the aftermath of the war when white wives of Japanese men who had been forced to live in the camps in order to keep their families intact were denied the right given to Japanese internees to make claims against the government for loss of property.......

More than half of the approximately 120 white women who were married to Japanese Americans decided to evacuate with their husbands and children in 1942, and most of these women remained in the camps with their husbands until the war was over. To be with their family in the camps, these white women had to agree to assume a quasi-Japanese identity by signing a waiver form that stipulated that they would be treated “as if” they “were persons of Japanese ancestry.” However, when the U.S. government offered reparations to former internees, to compensate them for the loss of their personal property, under the Evacuation Claims Act of 1948, the white spouses of Japanese Americans were excluded from the legislation and were unable to file an evacuation claim on grounds that they, as white, were not subject to evacuation orders in 1942. During the war, white women married to Japanese Americans resisted the way that government policies constructed their racial identities and challenged the white patriarchal assumptions implicit in the military’s mixed marriage policy. Pg. 34-35

This can be viewed as a sort of punishment of white women for marrying Asian men. But most interestingly, these policies asserted the rights of white patriarchal power by denying white women the same rights and choices as white men. This is the most convoluted irony; a common narrative from these marriages is that they released Asian women from the hardships of oppressive Asian patriarchy, yet such marriages were only possible because of white sexist and racist privilege that not only did not extend to white women but actively sought to deny them these rights of choice in marriage.

For Asian-American feminists such as Julie Carrie Wong, who have taken up the banner of "anti-anti-blackness", and seem to have adopted - like other present-day Asian "progressives" - the bizarre strategy of deflecting attention away from white racial crimes by equating Asian success to the practices of racial injustice, this history presents a problem. These advocates seem to froth at the mouth when unarmed black men and women are shot by the police in suspicious circumstances because it gives them a chance to hijack the tragedy and turn it into an opportunity to primal scream their angst over their ninety-year-old grandmother having been racially insensitive.

It is because of this tendency to make such mountains out of molehills that Asian advocacy has developed this skewed antipathy towards Asian successes. Consider this; Wong and other Asian progressives denounce apparent Asian "successes" in education and the tech industry as "complicity" and as something that somehow strengthens white supremacy and anti-blackness, yet this simplistic notion is only possible if we deny the racial experiences of those who have attained this modicum of achievement.

We have to remember that in order to get get into high-ranking colleges and go on to high-paying jobs in tech, Asians are required to jump over slightly higher hurdles than others. Higher test score requirements in college admissions, an apparently more critical assessment of their extra-curricular achievements than would be applied to other groups, and stereotypes of critical thinking and reasoning deficits, all conspire to impede Asian progress. Then, once Asians have broken through that barrier and attained those levels of economic parity, along comes self-righteous Asian "advocates with sweeping denunciations of them as accomplices in racial injustice. Whereas we should be looking at these people as pioneers and paradigm shifters, Asian advocacy insists that we deplore them as racist inductees into whiteness.

Yet, as I have shown, no group has been inducted into this whiteness more than Asian women - and no group has been afforded such racial privilege as those Asian women in marriages with white men. At a time when anti-miscegenation laws destroyed families of Asian men and their Asian or white wives, Asian women married to white men were inducted into whiteness and allowed to keep their families intact. During the one of the worst episodes of anti-Asian hysteria, Japanese-American women married to white men were given the option of leaving internment camps to be with their children and white husbands. White women married to Japanese men had to literally forego their whiteness and allow themselves to be incarcerated in order to keep their marriages and families intact.

In the post-war period, tens of thousands of Asian women married to American GI's received honorary white status that allowed them to breeze past immigration quotas and live freely as Americans with their husbands. At a time when Mildred Loving was having the door to her home kicked in and being dragged from her bed  by the police in Virginia for marrying a white man, Asian brides of white men were strolling freely through the streets of many Virginia towns arm in arm with their husbands without any fear of  arrest. I see no reason to believe that this cultural peculiarity of affording Asian women privilege if they are in intimate partnership with white men has in any way dissipated. What has changed is that other groups - to varying degrees - have found their own niche in the economic ladder of white power which has made this historical privilege afforded to Asian women less apparent.

Minority feminists writers such as Hinton are honest about it - being the partner of a white man confers privileges and eases navigation through society. Your race becomes less of an issue, and you don't have to worry about being the victim of petty acts of racism that can play havoc with your psychological state but which seem like minor impediments to those who never experienced them.

Honesty is the key word here; while Asian advocates are denouncing those who have struggled with stereotypes and racism to achieve a modicum of success, they are ignoring the most blatant instances of complicity with whiteness. This only highlights the featherweight substance of Asian progressivism - it seems not to have a clear principle by which it is guided, it only has those who should be denounced and those who shouldn't. That means that Asians who overcome prejudice to succeed are denounced, Asians who explicitly seek out white men, and are inducted into whiteness when they succeed are considered progressive heroes.

Don't get me wrong here - this is not a diatribe against the IR disparity. Those familiar with my writing should know that I couldn't care less about it. What concerns me is that the weakness of Asian advocacy is so pronounced that it has few avenues to explore its own voice that it has to turn Asian progress into a negative. The problem is, if Asian privilege is achieved through "complicity" the Asian women's dating choices (that is, ahem, their apparent pursuit of whiteness white men) must by necessity come under critical assessment. Not doing so only further diminishes the minuscule credibility of the grandiose proclamations made by Asian progressives.

If we are to denounce the special privileges afforded to Asians by white America, then let's be consistent and denounce it across the board instead of picking and choosing our principles from expediency.

Asian-American Complicity In Anti-Blackness!

Asian Connivers And Schemers.

I came across an article written for Al Jazeera by Julia Carrie Wong that illustrated perfectly why I view Asian-American progressivism as a vapid and intellectually bankrupt vehicle for shameless self-promotion rather than a legitimate ideology that contributes valuable insights into America's racial dialogue.

In short, the piece explores the concept of "whiteness" arguing that it is an artificial racial category designed to construct a social hierarchy that associates whiteness with "goodness" and non-whiteness with whatever remains. According to Wong, whiteness only impacts race insofar as it delineates between black and "non-black". Contrary to what I had presumed were established historical facts, the article claims the following......

But the induction of Asian-Americans into whiteness doesn’t alter the meaning of whiteness; rather, it’s a reminder that whiteness has never been defined by a person’s country of origin or genetic makeup.

Wong's belief that Asian-Americans have been inducted into whiteness stems from a television show and a solitary study of the demographic makeup of the tech industry that actually cannot reasonably be said to shed light on the racial attitudes of anyone. Worse, whiteness has very much been defined by country of origin and, indirectly, genetic makeup - this is a simple fact of history. "Whiteness" has largely excluded those of non-European origin, explicitly denied the humanity of those of Asian, African and Native-American origin, as well as excluded non-European Caucasians. Clearly, "whiteness" has been founded on an inclusiveness based on genetic makeup and country of origin.

Of course, the problem is that Wong has tied herself up in intellectual knots from which she cannot extricate herself. Since she has claimed that whiteness has no real definition, she cannot really expound on what whiteness entails. If we follow her reasoning to its logical conclusion, then whiteness is a useless heuristic by which to discuss America's race issues - which is blatantly absurd.

Yet, I cannot help but think that this vagueness is deliberate and that this fuzzy definition of whiteness suits Wong's agenda - whatever that may be - because it allows her to make sweeping generalizations and wild claims about Asians without actually having to apply any kind of intellectual rigor to the process. By obfuscating on what "whiteness" means - and I admit, I don't know myself - then it makes it easier to deflect attention away from Wong's shaky reasoning.

While vagueness about what whiteness entails seems to suit Wong's skewed reasoning, it also happens to suit the racial status quo that exists in America - by placing (inaccurately) Asian-Americans in the role of co-conspirators Wong is effectively deflecting attention away from an insistence on white self-reflection and action. By unreasonably inserting Asians into the power dynamic of whiteness, she affords it the luxury of avoiding its own culpability. This goes beyond merely acknowledging racism within Asian-America - it actually deflects attention and resources away from the very source of America's racial injustices. Ironically, this is Model Minority behaviour at its finest - it protects white supremacy by passing, or sharing, responsibility for it to Asian-Americans. Bill O'Reilly could not have done a better job himself.

Of course, the assertion that high Asian-American representation in any particular field - Wong cites the tech industry - is somehow an indication of an induction into whiteness is itself an extremely fuzzy claim. This vagueness is fatal to Wong's thesis since it is almost impossible to decipher what she is trying to say. What it seems like she is saying is that Asian success is implicitly racist and detrimental to African-Americans or she is merely arguing guilt by association - Asians are well represented in an industry normally the reserve of "whites", therefore, whiteness? Asians are complicit because they succeeded? Disturbingly, this sounds like the reasoning and rhetoric of California's 19th Century white nativist bigots who cited the acceptance of low wages amongst Chinese immigrants as a sign of complicity in Capitalism's war on the white working class and utilized this slander to justify the pogroms against Chinese workers all over the West Coast.

The main problem with associating tech industries with whiteness is that it ignores the historical contributions made by Asians in the field and in so doing bypasses the fact that Asians have been present and innovating in the sector since long before it became racist for Asians to be well represented in the industry. Furthermore, Asian countries have also contributed to the conceptual progress of the industry. So to imply that Asians are somehow interloping on a white industry at the expense of blacks and Latinos is beyond absurd - Asians have been integral to the development and growth of the tech industry right from the get go and bear a not insignificant responsibility for its existence as a viable avenue for enterprise for a community that believes that prejudice has limited the options available to them in other industries.

What this means is that Wong's piece is clearly not about relaying facts, but is about rhetoric, hence the use of the term "complicity".

Complicity in this context is an extremely inflammatory term - no doubt deliberately so - that asserts, without offering a shred of evidence that Asians are actively and intentionally engaging in "anti-blackness" by being so well represented in stem fields. A look at some synonyms for the word illustrate this....

Complicity - the state of being an accomplice; partnership or involvement in wrongdoing: complicity in a crime.

And a couple of its synonyms.....

Connivance -  to cooperate secretly; conspire

Collusion - a secret agreement, especially for fraudulent or treacherous purposes; conspiracy

What is most noticeable is that these words - slurs if you will - have featured extensively in both the philosophy and specific episodes of anti-Asian sentiment. The notion and belief that Asians are implicitly sneaky, conniving and treacherous are foundational concepts in justifying anti-Asian hostility, exclusion, and, also, drives xenophobia in foreign policy considerations. The idea that Asians are untrustworthy is as old as anti-Asian racism itself and is a prejudice that continues to haunt Asian-Americans. I would actually feel better about Wong's utilization of this fundamental element of anti-Asianism if I thought that she was being deliberately polemic, but I just don't see that degree of intellectual sophistication in her piece or her reasoning.

It has to be said that any discussion on the phenomenon of high Asian representation in the tech industry - and STEM fields in general - is meaningless without mentioning the prejudices and racism that motivates Asian families to push their kids to pursue these careers in the first place. One reason that Asians are encouraged to enter STEM careers - as opposed to the arts, for example - is because of the belief that the greater subjectivity in assessing capabilities in many non-STEM fields leaves Asians more vulnerable to prejudices and disadvantage than in STEM where capabilities can be more objectively assessed. The experiences of aspiring Asian actors and the hostility directed at Jeremy Lin lend credence to this belief.

To me, this is a significant aspect of the phenomenon of the high representation of Asians in STEM. Just as in the past, sport - particularly boxing - was seen as a way for young black men to circumnavigate racism and achieve social mobility, STEM has come to serve that same purpose for the Asian-American community that faces a subtle, poorly defined, and easily denied prejudice in industries where success and ability are measured more subjectively.

This illustrates the grand opportunity that Wong - and Asian-American progressives in general - are squandering with ridiculously childish reasoning and juvenile moral proclamations. There is value in pointing out that it is anti-Asian racism that influences the decisions of many Asian-Americans to enter STEM fields, and that we can, and should, widen the dialogue on race to enable us to include this hugely significant fact. Asian-American progressives seem unable to intellectually juggle the multiple perspectives that America's racial story requires.

There is no conflict of interest to say that in order to create more room for under-represented minorities in STEM we should concurrently put forward ideas for policy drives that creates avenues of opportunity that promotes and encourages Asians to enter non-STEM fields. In other words, instead of labeling Asian-Americans as racist and connivers in "whiteness", why not actually consider ways to create opportunities for Asians outside of STEM fields where the casual racism and exclusion in industries, like, for example, acting, are mitigated. Instead of smug presumptions about the motivations of Asian parents, why not actually put forward ideas for how we can make non-STEM fields less prejudiced towards Asians and create programs that target Asian-Americans for industries outside of STEM?

Unfortunately, this seems too conceptually difficult for Asian progressives to imagine. Their uninspiring answer is to cut Asians out of STEM - where they do not belong -  and let them end up anywhere but "here". It's time for Asian-American activists to start exercising their minds instead of their mouths.

Putting forward strategies for addressing the anti-Asian racism that impels Asians to enter STEM fields is implicitly beneficial to the cause of fighting anti-black racism. If you expand opportunities for Asians in non-STEM careers and address prejudices they might face there that are disguised as "subjective criteria", then you create more room for African-Americans in STEM.

That should be obvious to any reasonable person, why hasn't Asian activism made the connection?

Finally, it needs to be noted that the major elephant in Wong's article is her omission of any commentary on high out-marriage rates of Asian women to white men - yes, The Disparity! - as an indicator of "complicity in whiteness". According to social scientists, inter-marriage is the primary indicator that an ethnic or racial minority has  integrated into the majority culture.

Wong writes.....

The cost of becoming white is hard to measure. It is ethical rather than material. By passively accepting the privileges of whiteness, Asian-Americans become complicit in America’s present system of hierarchy, a system in which the nation’s institutions inflict ongoing injustices on a racial underclass.

What greater acceptance of the privilege of whiteness can there be than to be inducted into intimate union with the group that holds the most privilege and power? What greater complicity could there possibly be? Don't get me wrong here, this is not a diatribe against IR, I am simply holding Wong's reasoning up for analysis and finding it inconsistent. If the cost of becoming white is ethical more than material, then surely there is a greater ethical cost required of those millions of Asian women who are in intimate union with whiteness and who, therefore, have greater opportunities to sway it?

Yet, I do not see - and have never seen - any "progressive" purveyors of the notion of Asian privilege and complicity point the finger at the 30% or so of Asian women married to white men (plus however many are in intimate partnerships) and tell them they have to use their unique position to speak out on racial injustice. There are no other minority demographics of any persuasion in a better position than those Asian women married to white men who can utilize the power of the privilege when - literally - being in union with whiteness to "change the status quo".

If high Asian representation in tech industries is - as Wong suggests - synonymous with whiteness and its anti-black sensibilities, then how much greater must be the implicit racism of high Asian representation in intimate partner unions with whiteness. There is no implicit acceptance of whiteness in striving for a good education and a successful career. There is, however, a hugely implicit acceptance of whiteness and the privileges it confers when one marries or dates into it.