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SEN. TIM SCOTT SOLVES ASIAN AMERICANS’ MODEL MINORITY PROBLEM
In the official GOP response to President Joe Biden’s Joint Speech to Congress last week, Scott offered up his childhood growing up with a single mother in a one-room apartment, and then looked America in the eye and said, unequivocally, “America is not a racist country.”
Asian Americans have long been hampered at times by the “Model Minority” stereotype. What’s that about? You know, how Asian Americans’ success has been used against them in that “look how good they are” way. It’s an excuse to ignore them. Here’s the thinking: as model minorities, we can all ignore them. They don’t need any government help, affirmative action, or any such handouts. They are model minorities, ergo, the subtext–Why can’t you all be like them!
But not this year!
Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) has made a gift to all Asian Americans.
We aren’t the model minority anymore.
He is.
In the official GOP response to President Joe Biden’s Joint Speech to Congress last week, Scott offered up his childhood growing up with a single mother in a one-room apartment, and then looked America in the eye and said, unequivocally, “America is not a racist country.”
He was taking away our crown of “model minority” and placing it on his own head. And tying it on with his own bootstraps.
Got to hand it to Scott. He likes to brag: “I get called Uncle Tom and the N-word by progressives, liberals.” But honestly, to say America is not a racist country is possibly a bigger lie than “Trump won last November.”
A Biden margin of victory of nearly 7 million voters debunks that lie.
It would take just one chapter of Asian American history—just the Filipino part– to refute Scott.
In an historical context, taking away Asian Americans’ “model minority” burden is quite significant.
Dropping the stereotype is important as America, after the Atlanta mass murders , finally begins to understand that we Asian Americans are beyond stereotypes. All together, Asian Americans are 23 million strong and diverse, from more than 20 countries. And we’re growing, destined to overtake the Hispanic population as the No.1 ethnic minority by 2060, according to the Pew analysis of Census data.
It’s especially important as the government looks to engage with all of its people in a new inclusive way.
It is the New America many of us in the ethnic media have been talking about for the last 20 years.
And that’s what Scott and the GOP are trying to negate that positive uplifting message of President Biden’s national address to a new America.
We’re getting a lot of history in the first hundred days of Joe Biden. In that speech, we got the precious first image of a U.S. president speaking to a joint session of Congress, flanked by a female speaker of the house, and a female vice president—a multi-racial woman of Black and Asian descent.
It’s the good history of an evolving democracy.
When Biden talked about “real opportunities in the lives of Americans,” he didn’t any of us leave us out.
“Black, white, Latino, Asian American, Native American,” Biden said, then he segued into a thank you. “Look, I also want to thank the United States Senate for voting 94-1 to pass the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act to protect Asian American Pacific Islanders.”
Seven seconds of applause. And then to top it off, he transitioned to a mention of the Equality Act to protect transgender youth.
These were the specific and necessary moments when many of us could see ourselves. They were signs that government hasn’t forgotten who it’s governing—all Americans, of all stripes, collars, and colors. Biden’s all-encompassing economic plan covering infrastructure and families would cost anywhere up to $4 trillion.
Worth it? It is if we still want to be an America that’s of the people, by the people and for the people.
