What is the alternative?
That's the point. I, as a single individual, can't spend my extremely finite time and resources howling at the moon and railing against a monolithic machine that cares nothing for justice or humanity. I can only try to live my life as effectively as possible within the bounds of our current reality. The civil rights movement won us equality under the law. But expecting the same tactics to result in social equality is a pipe dream.
Someone had to try, and someone has to try. Same tactics, or different tactics, whatever. Try things, do more of what works. We have to split our time between ourselves and our communities.
Growing up as an immigrant Chinese person, "life is unfair, so you have to try harder than the white person" was what I was taught and what I did. It worked for my parents, to an incomplete extent, and it worked for my cohort of immigrants/ABC's, to a somewhat greater extent.
However, that same community today is wrestling with the problem that without unified political action in local/state/national politics, it won't get much better than being a model minority, which is to say it's a more privileged existence than being black is (sorry for the bluntness), but you're still acutely aware of your Asian-ness in other people's eyes and when it works against you, such as being co-opted into the message of "well why don't [minority group] just work harder like [model minority group]?" as a distraction from actually talking about addressing root causes.
As an Asian, I actually think that Asians are more privileged than White people. As a group we earn more, have better life expectancy, and have to deal with less historical baggage. If you search for it, any group can find areas where they feel they are being mistreated, but on the whole, your parents’ strategy has succeeded spectacularly. I think this is in part, because it was a win-win strategy. We were able to make our lives better without making another race feel bad or making their lives worse. Nobody had to lose for us to win.
Census Date: Total US Asian population
1970: 1.5M
1980: 3.5M
1990: 7.2M
2000: 10.6M
2010: 15.2M
2020 (proj): 19.7M
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_d...
We might earn more on average and might expect to live longer, but there's plenty of historical baggage. It's not a competition, but there's plenty of baggage. The internment camps of WWII are literally still in living memory. Personally, multiple times throughout K-12-college, in the most liberal cities in the US, I've been told to go back to where I came from. I don't let it bother me - I can't let it bother me - but it's still very real.
> If you search for it, any group can find areas where they feel they are being mistreated, but on the whole, your parents’ strategy has succeeded spectacularly.
It did, but there are some very important caveats:
1. My parents' strategy had to be built on top of the hard-earned victories by the black communities in the US in the 60's and 70's.
2. I personally benefited from my race's perception as "civil, unlike the other minorities". You don't get to choose which side of that fence you're born on.
3. My parents and their fellow immigrants were the product of extensive resources poured into their educations in their home countries. They were educated enough to perceive and understand the cultural "game" played by the American middle/upper classes. That's not a repeatable strategy for most people in the US, period, let alone for minorities.
4. In practice my upbringing, and that of my fellow immigrants and ABC's, wasn't just by our parents, it was a whole community's pooled time and energy. Just look at how Chinese American communities handle college admissions.
5. My parents understood, whether tacitly or explicitly, that as Chinese Americans the children would have to assimilate into mainstream American culture, and by doing so they could mostly pass as "white". My parents outright told me that it was necessary for my future career. Imagine telling that to a black person. Good luck doing that when your skin color literally doesn't let you do it.
> I think this is in part, because it was a win-win strategy. We were able to make our lives better without making another race feel bad or making their lives worse. Nobody had to lose for us to win.
That's not true. Chinese American communities, for example, enthusiastically engage in "opportunity hoarding". (https://belonging.berkeley.edu/richard-reeves-opportunity-ho...) The losers in this are usually other minorities. The effect is indirect, but it's real. A great example of this is the fact that Chinese Americans suddenly become politically active the moment there's even a whiff of anything remotely like affirmative action. We might frame it as a matter of meritocracy or fairness, but we also know it's not a win-win situation. We know it's about winning the game for our team to the detriment of other minority groups.
This is not an argument in good faith.
You can stand against racism without "howling at the moon", this is almost a dog whistle at this point for people saying that not standing for racism means being loud and brash, as if black people don't know any other way to stand tall. It's legitimately sad to see one of my own people use it.
You don't need to be chanting at a protest on the lawn of the White House to not "accept racism". It's a valid form of standing tall, but realistically, not everyone can, or is willing to do that.
But turning down opportunities with parties don't show any effort at all at diversity (or even worse, show racial bias), being willing to put people on the spot for their actions even if it comes at personal risk or embarrassment, being willing to actively advocate for diversity in cases where you have power to do so.
There are so many ways at a personal level to not just accept the state of things that are not "all consuming", to act otherwise means you're not even interested in having a genuine conversation on the matter, and just comes as an attempt at post-hoc rationalization of giving up.
If you pick the cream of the crop from Asia, they are going to do well even if you kick them down a peg.