#ivy leagues

Knowledge is power, but power can corrupt. White institutions teach a select class of Asians to adopt elitism and gatekeeping in order to harm their community and deny lived experiences.

Asian Americans have the largest wealth gap of any U.S. racial group. Elitist Asians are a small percentage, yet they’re purposely given the largest AsAm platforms and resources in order to perpetuate the Model Minority myth and downplay anti-Asian racism. (for more info, see my Monomyth comic)

To be clear, higher education isn’t inherently bad. It’s like any other tool—it can enlighten and empower, or be misused. There are many Asian academics, educators and journalists who resist white supremacy and fight for their communities. But we’re talking about the ones who don’t.

These elitist tokens claim to fight for the most marginalized. In reality, they want to be the only Asian at the white table—the voice for the “voiceless.” White supremacist institutions are happy to seat them there, since tokens don’t dismantle the system but reinforce it.

Netflix’s show The Chair inadvertently captures this dynamic. It was widely touted as positive Asian rep, yet Sandra Oh’s character protected and prioritized a white male colleague/lover from accountability while treating marginalized students and her Black colleague as obstacles. When I saw prominent Asians and other POC gush about feeling seen by Sandra Oh’s The Chair character, I was disappointed—but not surprised. It speaks to their lack of self-awareness and how accustomed they are to trampling over their own people that they don’t think it’s wrong.

This is the major disconnect. We supposedly understand how structural racism works and that higher education—like every other industry in the U.S.—perpetuates white supremacy. Yet POC who get accepted to ivy leagues are not only celebrated, but viewed as automatic leaders.

The truth is, these institutions would never allow POC to matriculate if there was a real threat of them dismantling their bigoted systems. The token’s purpose is to insulate these institutions from accusations of bigotry, promote bootstrap narratives, and keep other POC out. Asian tokens know that to keep these prestigious positions of power, they must avoid being seen as a threat by white people. So, despite making outward claims of dismantling the Model Minority myth, they internalize it as fact—to the point of adopting white guilt as their own.

Tokens mask their gaslighting, bullying, and abuse by over-intellectualizing racism—the way white people taught them to. We’re seeing this with anti-Asian hate crimes, and how tokens police language and emotions while creating a hierarchy of which victims matter and which ones don’t.

This includes the thorny but necessary conversation of holding other POC accountable for anti-Asian violence—especially the Black community. Even though white people commit the majority of anti-Asian hate crimes, there’s also a significant pattern of Black people doing it too.

But according to elitist Asians tokens, that pattern isn’t relevant, and Asians shouldn’t be upset or talking about it. This is because, in internalizing the Model Minority myth, elitist Asians see themselves as above other POC and think accountability is anti-Black. It’s not.

Let’s be clear: assaulting Asians for being Asian is violent racism. The attacker’s race doesn’t change this. While we should be sensitive to the context of white supremacy when holding Black people and other POC accountable, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t discuss it at all.

Yet elitist Asian tokens sabotage efforts towards solidarity, healing, and progress because they project their class privilege onto a community that is larger and far more vulnerable than them. Meanwhile, white people are happy to let tensions between Asians and Black people remain.

The situation is frustrating and sad. How much violence could we have prevented if our communities did a better job of educating and tackling difficult conversations head-on instead of avoiding them? How much solidarity is lost because we’re at the whims of tokens who don’t care?

It’s ironic that the ones who supposedly understand the power of education the best are using it the worst. But that’s exactly what white supremacy wants: violence, division, and ignorance. That’s why it’s up to all of us to speak up and spark these conversations—so we can learn.

(Please don’t repost or edit my art. Reblogs are always appreciated.)

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