Andrew Yang's Appeal to White Supremacists Reveals His Anti-Blackness

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Yang often employs the model minority myth. He refers to himself as the Asian guy who is good at math. This seems funny on the outset but is incredibly harmful in many ways. The trope erases other Asians, especially Southeast Asians and refugees who do not have access to resources and opportunities more available to East Asians. It is also used to deny racism against Black people‚ (look if the Asians can do it, why can’t you!) who are compared disfavorably to Asians. The model-minority myth is, at its essence, anti-Black, and therefore, essential to propping up white supremacy. Yang also uses it to justify the need for immigration, which is in itself unsettling because it seems to imply that immigrants need to be exceptional in order to be considered valuable enough to emigrate to the U.S. He later defended the use of the model minority myth to Asian American activists, saying that he didn’t believe his “jokes about Asians and math and doctors were harming anyone.”

At a time where many Chinese Americans are moving further towards the right, are displaying more conservative ideals and are at the forefront of trying to destroy affirmative action, Yang’s lack of response to pressing issues around race while playing into the model minority myth is actually feeding white supremacy in a country that does not need any more of it, and worse, from a minority candidate.

Yang seems to consistently employ anti-Black rhetoric in other ways. In a recent reaction to Shane Gillis’ anti-Chinese comments, he tweeted that “…anti-Asian racism is…more acceptable” and compared the lack of reaction over it to what he deemed as more outrage over the use of the “n” word. The use of Black people’s pain as a tool of comparison is textbook anti-Blackness. The implication that the world cares more about Black people than Asians does not hold up in reality. It is an unnecessary comparison and a false one at that. Asian Americans have piggy-backed onto civil rights movements by Black Americans in order to push their own concerns to the forefront, and to suddenly point to a supposed hyper-visibility of anti-Black racism is disingenuous. Furthermore, right after he called out this racism, he turned around and decried the firing of Gillis and referred to the event as an example of cancel culture. He even has plans to have a “conversation” with Gillis, something Yang has used to cast himself as someone who can reach out across the aisle.

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