The letter FORBES is scared to print
Andrew Chin
The Letter to the Editor FORBES Magazine is Afraid to Run
---------------------------------------------------------
(Feel free to redistribute.)
FORBES, like all right-wing publications, has a vested interest in
preserving the model minority stereotype as a device to divide people of
color and deny white responsibility for the persistence of racial
discrimination. Any challenge to the stereotype from the Asian American
community must be firmly silenced. Below is a column that ran in the Dec.
1 issue of FORBES magazine, together with my letter to the editor, and the
very unprofessional ad hominem reply of the magazine's editor-in-chief.
To his credit, Mr. Michaels knows when dissent is too dangerous to the
white establishment to be publishable on his pages. Steve Forbes should
give him a raise.
----The original column--------------------------------------------------
In defense of stereotypes
By Dan Seligman
WHY, AS IF ONE DIDN'T KNOW, are the media dead set against
stereotypes?
Whence the endless rush to denounce them? Why the cackles of glee when
generalizations reflecting the people's collective wisdom are
challenged by the National Basketball Association, now winning
sports-page plaudits for deciding that female referees are what the
country needs?
And, by the way, did we really need all that coverage of Donna
Lopiano, executive director of the Women's Sports Foundation, when she
saluted the NBA and proclaimed the referee decision "a very big step
in terms of breaking down cultural stereotypes." What did you expect
Donna to say? That maybe we've gone too far this time?
The year has eight weeks to run as one taps in these words, and yet
the Nexis database already offers more than 18,000 articles in 1997
mentioning "stereotype." Based on our sample of easily more than 50 of
the articles, we would say that the mentioners are invariably
skeptical of the stereotype's underlying validity.
So we are asked to disbelieve that converts to paganism and witchcraft
are weird. ("Worshippers complain that stereotypes die hard."-Chicago
Tribune.) That teenagers act impulsively. That Latin men are "sexist."
That the homeless are dirty and smelly. That youthful welfare mothers
are not too bright. That Asian-Americans are a "model minority."
The final entry on that list seems weirder than the witches, and cries
out for analysis. Much of the back talk to stereotypes can be
explained as efforts to overturn negative judgments about some groups.
But why so much eagerness to overturn a positive judgment&$151;and why
are so many Asian-Americans going along with this strange game?
Why resist the avalanche of good news, which begins with data showing
them having median household incomes of around $43,000, some 15%
higher than the figure for whites? Asian-Americans are 65% more likely
than whites to have earned a bachelor's degree. According to the
Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 30% of the finalists in this
year's Westinghouse Science Talent Search were Asian American, a
group that makes up only 4% of this country's population. This is not
worthy of note?
Furthermore, the arguments meant to rebut the model-minority
stereotype are insistently dopey. They depend on a pretense that
somebody is saying all Asian-Americans are high achievers, and they
consist overwhelmingly of efforts to show this is not the case.
Assorted examples of weak academics and subpar economic performance by
Asians were brought together in an antistereotype-and therefore
politically correct-study published in March by the Educational
Testing Service. As author Heather Kim told the Filipino Express:
"Contrary to the stereotype, many Asian-Americans are undereducated
and have low socioeconomic status."
What a relief. And what an amazing country this is. Possibly the only
one in the Western World wherein it is considered high-minded to
emphasize the negatives about an ethnic minority.
So why are all those high-minded Americans doing it? Because all
stereotypes, and the model-minority proposition in particular, are
implicitly rebuking the egalitarian dogma. The dogma holds that deep
down inside, we are all the same and, but for life's unfairness, we
would all do equally well.
The message of stereotypes is that some of us are pretty damn
different.
This brings us to a startling formulation about stereotypes in a
publication whose stories can't be accessed through the Nexis
database: the Wall Street Journal.
Writing on its editorial page the other day, Harvey Mansfield,
professor of government at Harvard, was complaining about "the
feminization of society," as manifested in numerous situations wherein
women are moving into realms once reserved for men and, in the
process, driving "manliness" out of American life. Toward the end of
the article, Mansfield considers the all-too-likely prospect that many
readers will regard him as a fogy trying to get by on stereotypes. His
retort to those readers: "There is more truth in stereotypes than in
ideologically driven 'studies,' and . . . our age needs to reduce the
reputation of social science and restore that of common sense."
Astounding, eh? A kind word for stereotypes. And yet the view in this
corner is that Mansfield could have made an even stronger statement.
What he could have said is that some studies are nonsense and some are
worthwhile—but all stereotypes impart essential truths.
Based on repeated sightings by large numbers of people exchanging and
confirming their impressions over time, stereotypes are no more than a
mass exercise in inductive reasoning. Why would you expect the outcome
of any such process to be falsity?
Stereotypes are, in the words of another professor, sociologist Steven
Goldberg of New York's City College, "statistical approximations."
Warmly recommended is a book Steve wrote six years ago. Titled When
Wish Replaces Thought: Why So Much of What You Believe Is False, the
book contains a chapter on stereotypes in which its commonsensical
author states firmly: "I predict that each stereotype tested will be
found to be empirically true."
But, of course, nothing is going to change. Nothing that Steve or
Harvey or I write is going to get Donna off her kick—Donna
Lopiano, that is, the aforementioned official of the Women's Sports
Foundation. She and her sisters, and numerous fellow-traveling
brothers, have won big in basketball and will doubtless go on to
larger triumphs in other sporting events. Like, say, women's boxing.
Her fix on the genderism/pugilism nexus was adumbrated in July in an
article in the St. Petersburg Times. It quoted her as theorizing that
watching femmes trade punches, the masses will start out saying, "My
God, she has blood on her face," but then learn to relax at this
spectacle. "As soon as you see a lot of women doing it, you're not
going to think twice about it."
And, mercifully or otherwise, another stereotype will be undone.
----My letter to the editor--------------------------------------------
Editor:
If Dan Seligman had been genuinely curious as to why many Asian American
activists are challenging the "model minority" stereotype, he might have
gone to the trouble of asking one. Had he done so, he would have been
informed that the stereotype is almost always accompanied by a cultural
explanation of the observed success of Asian Americans. This explanation
is too often a convenient way of denying or trivializing the continuing
experience of racial discrimination against Asian Americans, and of
perpetuating the misperceptions that all Asian Americans are culturally
foreign (in Seligman's words, "pretty damn different") and all Asian
American behavior is essentially cultural. High educational achievement
and income among Asian Americans are principally artifacts of America's
selective immigration policies, which have been skimming elites from Asian
nations for more than a generation. They are not proof that Asian
Americans have overcome racism, and they do not relieve a racial
stereotype of its dehumanizing sting.
Andrew Chin
New Haven, CT
----The Editor's reply-------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 1997 11:02:38 -0500
Message-ID: <00031F...@forbes.com>
From: jmic...@forbes.com
Subject: "In Defense of Stereotypes," Dec. 1
To: dougla...@yale.edu
MR. CHIN: Your whining is most unbecoming to the great tradition
from which you have sprung. James W. Michaels, Editor, FORBES.
--
Andrew Chin Fighting racism is not a special interest.
Yale Law School ca...@minerva.cis.yale.edu
The Sunday Group: http://pantheon.yale.edu/~caase/sunday.html
The Media Portrayal Project: http://pantheon.yale.edu/~caase/menu.html
eng...@nova.wright.edu
way to go Andrew! ... your action is a reminder for all us AAs to act and
refute whenever we encounter misperceptions, misconceptions, and just
plain ignorance in the media.
i shall be writing Forbes a letter of my own...
-E
In article <673n5b$sa$1...@news.ycc.yale.edu>,
ca...@pantheon.yale.edu (Andrew Chin) wrote:
>
> The Letter to the Editor FORBES Magazine is Afraid to Run
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>
> (Feel free to redistribute.)
>
> FORBES, like all right-wing publications, has a vested interest in
> preserving the model minority stereotype as a device to divide people of
> color and deny white responsibility for the persistence of racial
> discrimination. Any challenge to the stereotype from the Asian American
> community must be firmly silenced. Below is a column that ran in the Dec.
> 1 issue of FORBES magazine, together with my letter to the editor, and the
> very unprofessional ad hominem reply of the magazine's editor-in-chief.
> To his credit, Mr. Michaels knows when dissent is too dangerous to the
> white establishment to be publishable on his pages. Steve Forbes should
> give him a raise.
>
> ----The original column--------------------------------------------------
>
> In defense of stereotypes
>
> By Dan Seligman
<snip article...pukage>
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
diss...@this.land.liberty
On 15 Dec 1997 16:50:51 GMT, ca...@pantheon.yale.edu (Andrew Chin)
wrote:
Wow, Michaels revealed himself as editor of a media bastion -- Forbes,
with an extremely racially/politically biased, brainless, personal
attack.
moo shu guy
> The Letter to the Editor FORBES Magazine is Afraid to Run
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> (Feel free to redistribute.)
> FORBES, like all right-wing publications, has a vested interest in
> preserving the model minority stereotype as a device to divide people of
> color and deny white responsibility for the persistence of racial
> discrimination. Any challenge to the stereotype from the Asian American
> community must be firmly silenced. Below is a column that ran in the Dec.
> 1 issue of FORBES magazine, together with my letter to the editor, and the
> very unprofessional ad hominem reply of the magazine's editor-in-chief.
> To his credit, Mr. Michaels knows when dissent is too dangerous to the
> white establishment to be publishable on his pages. Steve Forbes should
> give him a raise.
> In defense of stereotypes
> By Dan Seligman
> Why resist the avalanche of good news, which begins with data showing
> them having median household incomes of around $43,000, some 15%
> higher than the figure for whites? Asian-Americans are 65% more likely
> than whites to have earned a bachelor's degree. According to the
> Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 30% of the finalists in this
> year's Westinghouse Science Talent Search were Asian American, a
> group that makes up only 4% of this country's population. This is not
> worthy of note?
like most of the usual suspects on that side of the model minority
debate, mr seligman trots out the old time worn median household income
without employing any critical thought to what exactly that number means.
any simpleton can get the census data for individual median incomes and
do the math. aam men slightly less, aaf make slightly more than their
median white counterparts, so how come the median income is higher when
the sum of individual incomes is virtually the same? a household is not
always just two wage earners, and mr seligman would discover that almost
all of that 15% difference is from the income of additional wage earners
in a household. so now if we are to toss on the additional notion that
asian americans value education more and work harder (by their
representation in college enrollment and in the westinghouse finals), it
appears to be even more damning of american society, in that education
and hard work are not financially rewarded.
and thus the lesson of the model minority is exactly the opposite of what
the likes of seligman would have us believe: rather than demonstrating
that discrimination is minimal against asian americans, it indicates that
in spite of higher education, hard work, and perhaps even higher
intelligence, the forces against asian americans are enough to negate any
extra efforts of ours. this means we must continue our efforts in hard
work and education, lest we be left behind, but neither can we do only
that and let racism continue unchallenged, or we will never get our just
rewards.
maybe not exactly the same point as yours, andrew, i'm willing to concede
that "we are different" maybe, but that being different in all the "good"
ways does us little good, except a nice pat on the head from the master
so that we won't bite.
msg
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
Jim Tsou
Andrew Chin wrote:
>
> The Letter to the Editor FORBES Magazine is Afraid to Run
> ---------------------------------------------------------
This looks like something that deserves more exposure than
just SCAA.
Andrew Chin
Jim Tsou (ts...@earthlink.net) wrote:
: Andrew Chin wrote:
: >
: > The Letter to the Editor FORBES Magazine is Afraid to Run
: > ---------------------------------------------------------
: This looks like something that deserves more exposure than
: just SCAA.
Yeah, but the mass media will never pick it up. Asian American
perspectives remain a deep secret in mainstream discourse.
Jim Tsou
> : > ---------------------------------------------------------
>
> : just SCAA.
>
> Yeah, but the mass media will never pick it up. Asian American
> perspectives remain a deep secret in mainstream discourse.
Maybe not as a straight story, but I am sure it'll come in handy
Steve Forbes' adversaries if the opportunity should arise. We'll
at least see Mr. Michaels looking for another job.
Andrew Chin
: > Yeah, but the mass media will never pick it up. Asian American
: > perspectives remain a deep secret in mainstream discourse.
: Maybe not as a straight story, but I am sure it'll come in handy
: Steve Forbes' adversaries if the opportunity should arise. We'll
: at least see Mr. Michaels looking for another job.
Only the Asian American press will ever be interested in a story about how
Asian Americans are getting shafted by the mainstream press.