I Thought Asians Were The Ideal Minority.

by Staff November 14, 2012 6 Comments News Opinion Politics Weekly Columns

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(ThyBlackMan.com) It was hardly a surprise that Obama received 95% of the Black vote, or that he garnered 71% of Latino support, but 75% of the Asian vote! I thought they were supposed to be the “ideal minority,” the backhanded compliment that politicians, the media and demographers label Asian Americans with. They outperform all other ethnic groups educationally and seem to rarely cause ripples of any kind. The unspoken message being, “Why can’t Blacks and Latinos be like Asians and stay in line and behave themselves?”

It reminds me of the apartheid system in South Africa when there were separate categories and facilities for everyone: Whites, Blacks, Coloreds and Asians, and of course Blacks were at the very bottom of the heap. However, Japanese were identified as “honorary whites,” and thereby given every courtesy extended to the White population. (Being that Japan was a very prosperous country, the South African government did not under any circumstances want to offend Japan.) Asian Americans, by being elevated to the status of “ideal minority” were, in a sense, seen as “honorary whites.” But, boy, did they ever go against the grain on November 6th! Why did they do so?

Recall Spike Lee’s film, “Do The Right Thing.” At the climax when the crowd has destroyed Sal’s Pizzeria, they then turn to attack the Korean grocery. The proprietor jumps up and exclaims, “I’m Black too!” The crowd laughs so hard they leave him alone. It was based on a true story Malcolm X relates in his autobiography. At the height of the 1943 riot in Harlem when all the white businesses were being attacked, a Chinese merchant placed a hand written sign on his door that said, “Me colored too.” The rioters laughed and his store was spared.

So is that what the Asian American voters did, identify with Blacks and Latinos, as people of color? Or was it that they felt that one party was looking to go back to a past of bitterness and division and another was looking to embrace diversity and freedom of choice in every sense of the word? And so they decided to cast their lot with, and help solidify, the winning hand.

Staff Writer; Arthur Lewin

This talented author has just published a NEW book which is entitled; AFRICA is not A COUNTRY!.

For more articles written by this talented brother click on the following link; https://thyblackman.com/?s=lewin.

6 Comments

hernanday oleary says:

July 16, 2015 at 4:31 am

Asians voted the asian interest. The republicans never liked asians and john mccain called them gooks on national tv and refused to apologize, it is just that simple. If bill clinton called blacks the n-word, they’d have voted for bob dole. its not rocket science.

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this article is dumb says:

December 11, 2012 at 8:41 am

This article is stupid and obviously not researched or the author would know Asians always vote democrat at about the same rate as this last election

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what I think says:

November 15, 2012 at 8:24 am

Asians like Africans no who their oppressors are in their respective countries which is why they’ve made the U.S. their home and choose not to sit on their hands. We’ll never advance because we’d rather point the finger outward instead of at the man in the mirror and ask him to change. As for as voting against one’s interests, the black community has not advanced economically since they’ve been locked in step with the Democrats. We used to value family but now watch it be replaced by welfare programs like TANF, Food Stamps, Section 8, etc. with excuse after excuse that we need these crumbs which is pathetic for a group of people that pride themselves on being proud.

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Just Me says:

November 15, 2012 at 5:01 am

Asians are no different than anyone else, they breathe, eat, and sleep. So when they were offered a better deal they like most Americans they voted for THEIR economics. ONLY poor Whites voted against their economics, and that’s why they will remain POOR, ignorance is an eternal state-of-mind for them.

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Deeann D. Mathews says:

November 15, 2012 at 2:46 am

That 75 percent surprised me a little too… but Asians have a long memory. They know how Europeans waited to subdivide China for nearly a century, and barely failed; they remmeber U.S. behavior in the Philippines. They remember how their ancestors in this country were treated during and after the railroad building period. They remember the white man’s solution to ending a certain war in 1945 — and about internment camps for Japanese citizens of this country. They remember that while we still have a hard time dealing with the about 60,000 people we lost in the Vietnam War, we don’t give a flying fig about the MILLIONS of Vietnam’s citizens, North and South, who also perished. They know that there will never be integration enough to protect them in this country IF they are perceived as “no longer of use” to certain people… so they chose to cast their lot with those who face similar challenges.

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Ms Felecia Spaulding says:

November 14, 2012 at 5:56 pm

COLOR/RACE DON’T MAKE THE DIFFERENCE …. IT’S BY THE BLOOD AND THE POWER OF GOD….

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