The Black-White Binary

Dear Liz Lin,

I found your article about Asian Americans extremely interesting, and I thought it was very well-written. I think your points about the model-minority myth are particularly relevant given the discussions of race generally as a black-white binary. I think in many cultures, the conversation of the black-white binary generally shoves any other sort of perspective out of the view of the public and media. However, I would agree that this is problematic in the sense that it shushes any views that don't interact with this binary. I find the points about anti-blackness in Asian communities quite interesting. I think this goes hand in hand with your points about fitting 'whiteness.' If you were to create a spectrum of racial identities, Asian-Americans would be happy to fit the near-white image, according to you. I see where this sort of spectrum is problematic, but I also understand the sort of ignorance of the problems because it (to a certain extent) favors those aligned with whiteness. I especially like your call for action at the end. Thank you for a great article.

 - Vaughan

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