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August 17, 2004
Internalized Racism and the "Model Minority"
Amidst the regular conservative blather about how Asian Pacific Americans have "made it" in the U.S. (the subtext being that blacks and Latinos should be more like Asians, and stop griping about racism), the ongoing discrimination faced by Asian Pacific Americans and Pacific Islanders often gets overlooked, despite its prevalence. So too, the destructive, internalized racism that sometimes mutates throughout the APA community (and amongst Asians in Asian nations themselves), as the result of the ubiquity of white supremacy as a cultural, political and economic force.
This fantastic piece discusses a disturbing trend--and resistance to it--whereby some Asian youth are opting for plastic surgery to "fix" their eyelids, making them appear more Caucasian as a result. Just as with rhinoplasty for Jews who weren't "white enough," and skin bleaching among blacks and even continental Africans who desire to fit in with dominant standards of beauty, this phenomenon indicates that no matter how "model" a given minority may be (at least in the eyes of cynical racists seeking to use the model group for their own purposes), white supremacy still does what it has always done: define the "other" as inferior...a process that not only effects the minds of whites, but even those who are its targets. Especially those, in fact, as it is much more difficult to effectively colonize those who haven't first taken to thinking of themselves as inferiors first.
Posted by timwise at August 17, 2004 02:01 PM