I thought that this article compares well with what we
talked about in class last week concerning as privilege being binary and
privilege being problematic for those in the privileged group (as argued by
McIntosh from the class readings). With concern to race, the binary seems to go
‘you’re white and you have privilege or you’re black and you don’t.’ However,
reading this article and discussing it with a close friend of mine really sort
of adjusted my thinking of white privilege and clarified the problems that it
creates.
I knew that race and privilege are topics of interest to
close friend of mine, so I sent the article to her and we had a short
conversation. She provided some really valuable insight from her own
experiences being Japanese-American. She so kindly gave me permission to quote
her (Thanks again, girl).
As for the article, the main gist that the author is getting
at is that Asian-Americans are quite often afforded the same privileges as
white Americans, thus becoming a part of white privilege as it is, and not
changing it. She makes the argument at the end that white privilege should be
challenged by anyone who has it and isn’t white.
This article seems limited however in that it only talks
about tech jobs and university admissions. So statistically, Asian Americans
are well represented in Silicon Valley, but we don’t quite have the big picture
of Asian American experience and representation in the larger workforce. This
was something that my friend took issue with. Stereotypically, Asian Americans
are seen as holding jobs in high tech industries or in the medical field, and
this is also the assumption that this author seems to explore in her article.
But what about those who are not working jobs in technology or medicine? This
is where I think the white privilege of Asian Americans conversation gets weak.
Here is a quote from my friend:
“There have been a number of times where people
have asked me at work if I’m also a pre-med student or studying to become a
doctor.”
She has a BFA in painting, and is currently in New Orleans doing
art but supporting herself financially with a job in retail. She does not
aspire to work in Silicon Valley or become a doctor. She is an artist and what
she does for income is for just income, not for status. There is no indicator
other than her race and her age that would suggest to these inquiring customers
that she might be a future doctor. She does not have medical textbooks stacked
behind the register or a “Tulane School of Medicine” sweatshirt. But to these
customers she otherwise would seem out of place with her retail job being her
main source of income. Contrary to white privilege, her race has set
expectations and boundaries for her by others.
Here’s a related quote from the conversation with my friend
on the topic of expectations and boundaries:
She went on to express frustration about that good old
concept of “having it all” as a woman, and how ‘career’ is a part of that ideal
in popular media. In addition, from the article and her experience, ‘career’ is
something that is presumed to be a priority for Asian Americans. So, what if it
isn’t?
In conclusion, even though Asian Americans may experience
white privilege in seeking a professional career in tech or medicine and
college admissions, there are plenty of reasons why ‘white privilege’ of an
Asian American is still not the same as a white person’s white privilege.
Mainly, this is because of the issue of race. Asian-American experience cannot
be assimilated into white privilege because they’re not white. And that’s one
of the problems with white privilege. It’s exclusive and it maintains a
hierarchy thus creating oppression in one way or another for those who are explicitly
‘not white.’ Just because one may enjoy
privilege in the workplace doesn’t necessarily mean that they will enjoy that
privilege on the street or community at large. Socially constructed
presumptions about a race and history itself are still important in
contemporary American culture. McIntosh from last week’s reading said it well
that her whiteness “protects her from many kinds of hostility, stress, and
violence” (p. 90). I have not yet seen the case for Asian Americans enjoying
the same protection.
So like McIntosh from the reading last week, the author of
this article calls out the damage that privilege creates for those on either
side, and in general for rejecting white privilege when possible. From this and
from conversing with my friend, I really understand the urgency for this even
more.
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