Model Minority Myth is rearing its ugly head

Another earthquake shook Japan, this time according to the USGS, it was on land at 7.1. Thank goodness there were no tsunami, as one was enough. But just milling around in Los Angeles or on the Internet, I've come to notice that though few, the religious nut cases are saying Jeebus did this because Japanese are not Christians. I guess when Glenn Beck made that comment, the Teabaggers emulated him. But there is another form of racism/stereotype and I've noticed that a few progressives and liberals fell into that trap...inadvertently.

In the 80s when Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone was leading Japan, he made a comment: "intellectual level" of Americans was below that of Japanese because of "people like blacks, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans." But that didn't stop there. The conservatives here were then pitting Asians against other minorities by calling us the "model minority" And Detroit auto worker Vincent Chen was murdered because his killers thought he was Japanese, Therefore, I and hundreds-of-thousands Hispanic, black, Asian, native Americans and white students protested this because as Asian Americans, we were not considered under-represented in the workforce or schools and we were denied entry into public institutions.

So fast forward to Japan, it appears that the media, websites and a very very few liberals and progressives are promoting the model minority myth. The myth that we are smart and/or rich and Japan can dig its way out of this. The problem with that? The same thing can be said about Asian Americans and the discrimination will rear its ugly head. I hope people listen Mike because, Asians aren't what they seem to be as they struggle like anyone else. We are not the model minority.

TimFromLA