Actions rooted in representation politics often end up centering one type of Asian-American experience while obscuring the realities of the most vulnerable. Claiming that the lack of robust Hollywood roles for Asians is the catalyst for violence suggests that the solution would be casting more Asian actors in Hollywood.
This kind of shallow logic hinges on a fundamental misunderstanding of not just the model minority as a stereotype, but also as a myth. Ironically, this misreading endangers many of our own.
Mainstream rebuttal to the model minority myth typically pushes back against stereotypes about our math skills, parenting styles, assertiveness, or our desirability. But what’s often overlooked is the central evil of the myth, which concludes that the people most susceptible to racist policies and violence are to blame for their own hardships; that those who are Black or brown, poor, disabled, or undocumented suffer simply because they have not worked as hard as others.
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