Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 418 ｜ An Inconvenience to Intersectionality： Asian-American Success ｜ Guest： Kenny Xu

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Today I am talking to author Kenny Zhu. He wrote a book

00:00:14.940 called An Inconvenient Minority. He is an Asian American and he talks about the success of Asian

00:00:21.940 Americans and unfortunately how they are being institutionally discriminated against, especially

00:00:27.420 when it comes to college admissions. I mean, his argument is basically that in the woke narrative

00:00:33.140 of intersectionality, this idea that white supremacy reigns supreme in the United States,

00:00:39.460 Asian Americans are an inconvenient wedge in that argument considering they have higher test scores, 1.00

00:00:46.820 they have higher graduation rates, they have higher median incomes than white Americans,

00:00:50.760 they also have higher family togetherness rates and lower rates of crime and teen delinquency.

00:00:59.640 And so if it is true that white supremacy reigns in the United States, it is very hard to account

00:01:05.320 for why Asian Americans and even Asian immigrants, people who are not born here but become Americans

00:01:11.640 in their lifetimes actually end up across a variety of categories being on average more successful than

00:01:18.520 white Americans. And so we talk about that and some of the struggles that Asian Americans are facing

00:01:22.900 because of an assault against meritocracy, especially when it comes to academia. So

00:01:28.160 super interesting conversation that I'm excited for you guys to listen to. Without further ado,

00:01:32.840 here is Kenny Zhu. Kenny, thank you so much for joining us. Can you tell everyone who may not know

00:01:42.780 who you are and what you do? Sure. So I'm Kenny Zhu. I'm the author of the upcoming book An Inconvenient

00:01:48.880 Minority. My book talks about the Ivy League admissions cases that are going on. If some of you

00:01:55.860 aren't familiar, there's a group of Asian Americans who are suing Harvard University and actually various

00:02:01.920 other Ivy League universities for discriminating against them. And, you know, the evidence is pretty

00:02:08.980 clear cut that Harvard uses a racial preference system that actually negatively affects Asian

00:02:15.240 Americans. And the reason why they're doing it is because they want to they want to have preferences

00:02:23.680 towards other minority groups. So it brings up a really interesting issue about the diversity and the race

00:02:29.300 ideology going today. And can you talk a little bit about what that process is at Harvard and some of the

00:02:36.920 proof that you guys have or that this group has uncovered when it comes to the admissions process?

00:02:44.400 Yeah. So, I mean, this is a really interesting question. There's at Harvard University, they basically

00:02:51.980 grade you for anyone who's applied to Harvard. Actually, the admissions documents were some of the key

00:02:58.560 pieces of information that were released from this lawsuit. But they basically grade you on three or four

00:03:05.760 different factors, depending on if you're an athlete. They grade you on academics, obviously, from a

00:03:11.920 scale of one to 10. Those are things like grades, SAT scores, course rigor, those kinds of things. Then

00:03:18.440 they grade you on extracurriculars, right? They want, you know, well-rounded people. They want, you know,

00:03:24.460 people who, you know, participate in clubs, who have leadership positions, who've won medals, those kinds of

00:03:29.500 things. And then they have this final grade called a personality score. And they grade you on personality.

00:03:37.640 And actually, the Harvard admissions documents, according to a study by an economist, actually show

00:03:42.460 that the personality score is what most influences the decision of Harvard to either accept or reject

00:03:49.700 you. And it's really interesting when it comes to Asian Americans, because in Asian Americans get,

00:03:58.020 by and large, much better academic and extracurricular scores than any of the other racial groups, even

00:04:04.200 whites, which is kind of interesting. But for some reason, Harvard's personality score grades Asian 0.58

00:04:12.700 Americans as the lowest significantly of all of the racial groups. That's below blacks, Hispanics,

00:04:18.180 and white Americans. And so the focus of the lawsuit addresses this so-called personality score,

00:04:25.240 which addresses characteristics that Harvard says are things like likability, humor, those kinds of

00:04:31.560 things. Interesting. And you think that this is purposeful, that they've set up this scale to be

00:04:37.560 able to have a, quote, legitimate reason to discriminate against Asian students?

00:04:43.480 I think so. I think so. And the reason why is because it's not just having at Harvard. This is

00:04:50.620 happening at pretty much every Ivy League university. It's kind of a cabal-ish institute. The Department

00:04:57.040 of Justice a couple years ago found in their fact finding of Yale University as well, that they also

00:05:04.040 discriminate against Asian Americans. And actually, the process for how they do that is that when your

00:05:10.260 application gets sent to a reader, they give you a plus if you're black or Hispanic, which is a

00:05:15.380 corresponding negative if you're white or Asian American. And then it passes to the second reader,

00:05:20.620 they give you a plus. And then from that, they collect a subset and then they put it to the area

00:05:25.880 committee. They give you a plus if you're black or Hispanic, minus if you're Asian. And then they give 0.94

00:05:31.140 it to a final review committee. They give you a plus if you're black or Hispanic and a minus if you're 1.00

00:05:36.000 Asian. So the race penalty is actually compounded four times in the admissions process. Yeah.

00:05:41.880 Wow. Is this something that has been around as long as affirmative action has been around? Or is

00:05:46.360 this something that's become more prevalent in more recent years?

00:05:51.160 20. It really started actually about 20 years ago. Actually, Asian Americans used to be among the

00:05:57.320 preferred races, racial minority groups. You would think, oh, you know, because a lot of the whole idea of

00:06:03.980 diversity and inclusion, the kind of things that are going around today, has been as an artifact of

00:06:10.060 50 years of affirmative action policy. And Asian Americans used to be included in this affirmative 0.99

00:06:16.660 action policy, especially for colleges and universities. But somewhere around the late 80s,

00:06:23.980 early 90s, that started to change as Asian American applicants came to this country more and more.

00:06:31.300 the results and the fruits of their educational values continued to be realized. Harvard and Yale and

00:06:41.240 some of these other universities decided, oh, dang, there are so many Asians coming into these 1.00

00:06:46.220 universities. We have to find some way to basically create a ceiling. And so Asian Americans became about 1.00

00:06:53.520 20 percent of Harvard University and around the late 90s and has never gone up beyond that ceiling ever

00:07:02.220 since. Yeah. Wow. That is, you know, in the conversation, especially the one that we're having

00:07:07.520 recently about intersectionality and equity and the conversations that we have about critical race

00:07:15.420 theory, it seems like Asians and Jewish people are kind of placed off to the side. Like when it's 0.99

00:07:23.960 convenient for critical race theorists to use them as a minority and oppressed group, then Asians and

00:07:29.600 Jewish people are. But when it's not, when it comes to something like the admissions process or looking at,

00:07:34.840 for example, median income across different groups in the country, then it seems that Asian Americans and

00:07:41.520 Jewish Americans are put on the privileged side is the side of the oppressor, if you will. Can you talk 0.99

00:07:49.080 a little bit about that? Is that something that you've noticed? Does that trouble you? Because quite

00:07:53.180 frankly, it just confuses me. Yeah, well, I did write a book and it is called An Inconvenient Minority.

00:08:00.340 So, yes, I guess you could say it troubles me a little bit. It does trouble me a little bit because,

00:08:05.540 well, more than a little bit, because, you know, the idea of this country is that you should be

00:08:11.980 treated on the basis of the content of your character, not in the color of your skin. And

00:08:16.600 as an Asian American, what Harvard does in our culture, and by the way, so many Asian Americans

00:08:21.520 are, you know, and parents are obsessed with Harvard. They want their kids to get into Harvard

00:08:25.740 and those kinds of things. And I acknowledge that. And maybe that's a fault in our Asian American 1.00

00:08:29.480 community as well. But that doesn't give the right for Harvard to discriminate on the basis of race

00:08:34.160 and actually to even use, you know, vicious anti-Asian stereotypes, you know, the idea of

00:08:41.120 Asian Americans being math nerds and test-taking nerds with no personality. I mean, the whole idea 1.00

00:08:46.840 of a personality score in itself, what is that supposed to mean? What is that supposed to measure?

00:08:51.400 It's very subjective, right.

00:08:52.260 Because if you look at the data, the Asian Americans actually score equally on par with whites 0.99

00:09:00.840 in alumni interviews, in teacher recommendations, and all of the objective measures that you could

00:09:07.580 extrapolate into personality score. And yet, for some reason, they end up on the wrong side of the

00:09:12.380 personality score pile. It's very, it's interesting. And it's, and it's actually quite damaging,

00:09:17.340 I think, to Asian Americans here. And can you kind of push back on, if this is what you believe,

00:09:24.880 this idea that Asian Americans have been on the side of the privileged, that you guys are,

00:09:32.540 that the success that in general, of course, we're speaking in generalities, that Asian Americans,

00:09:37.720 even immigrant Asians have enjoyed in this country is a result of some kind of privilege or some kind

00:09:49.440 of lack of oppression. Is that a true assertion?

00:09:52.980 I'll give, I'll give a couple reasons why some people might find that true. Some people might find

00:09:59.040 that true, that Asian Americans are like a privileged minority, because, you know, they see our grades and 0.73

00:10:04.500 their test scores, and they see the fact that we have higher incomes than white Americans. And they're like,

00:10:09.100 oh, well, look, they've achieved middle class stability, even better than whites, you know, 0.82

00:10:12.840 they must be a so called privileged minority. But I'm going to push back on that for just a moment. Because

00:10:19.500 Asian Americans, when they come into this country, they lack a few certain things that benefit a lot of other 1.00

00:10:26.500 people of privilege, including actually other minorities. One, we lack the length of experience 0.99

00:10:35.140 in this country, right? And, you know, as as we know, and as I actually talk about in my book,

00:10:40.500 cultural experience in this country in length of time in this country actually matters a lot in terms

00:10:45.260 of cultural capital in terms of your ability to socialize in this country. And Asian Americans don't 1.00

00:10:50.760 have that too. A lot of us lack language skills, you know, when you are a Vietnamese American,

00:10:56.900 you're fleeing oppression, you're a poor farmer, you're coming over here, you don't have acts about

00:11:01.000 80%. I think of first gen Vietnamese Americans don't come here with any with proficient English 1.00

00:11:07.220 language skills, they basically have to learn it all themselves. So we don't have the social

00:11:10.900 connections, we don't have the cultural capital, and we don't have the English skills,

00:11:17.500 communication skills, meaning that for Asian Americans to succeed in this country, we have 1.00

00:11:22.420 to disproportionately rely on our merits, right, our skills, what we can bring. And usually those

00:11:29.780 are things like, you know, those are those are dynamic math skills or, or economic skills and those

00:11:36.900 kinds of things. But the issue is that when you have this ideology today, this diversity and inclusion

00:11:43.420 in this woke ideology that is basically anti merit, it's basically anti merit, they're against gifted

00:11:49.460 programs, they're against gifted and talented programs. They're against the idea that people,

00:11:55.240 you know, have objectively better, certain academic characteristics than others, which, by the way,

00:12:01.200 is not, you know, a statement on the worth of a person. But if you want to contribute positively

00:12:06.660 to the economy, you better have some good skills. But when you have this ideology that that that rails

00:12:12.260 against that, I, my, it is my belief, and I argue this in my book, that Asian Americans are going to

00:12:19.540 be disproportionately affected by this woke ideology, that it is really going to cause us a lot of pain.

00:12:26.300 Yes, you mentioned something that I do think is so important that a lot of critical race theorists

00:12:31.960 and social justice activists, they say that something like meritocracy is unfair, that you actually

00:12:37.380 have to be, you have to treat people unequally to achieve some kind of equity, and they define

00:12:43.780 equity as everyone ending up in the same place. And what that means, Thomas Sowell talks about this a

00:12:48.720 lot, it's in his book, Quest for Cosmic Justice, is that you have to punish some groups of people or

00:12:54.340 some individuals, and you have to uplift other groups and other individuals, not based on anything

00:13:00.840 that they have actually done or not done, but based on this very intangible, and I think impossible goal

00:13:09.480 of everyone reaching the same place. And so that completely gets rid of something like meritocracy.

00:13:15.960 And you're saying that disproportionately affects or can affect Asian Americans, correct?

00:13:21.720 Yeah, and it doesn't, it's funny, you use the word uplift. And it's, it's interesting,

00:13:28.080 because actually, the result of policies like affirmative action for blacks and Hispanics have

00:13:33.180 not given the promise that they're supposed to do. Yeah. What is the, what are the colleges who have

00:13:42.400 the highest proportion of black doctors and black engineers and black people in STEM and, and those

00:13:48.420 kinds of things? They're actually not colleges like Harvard and Yale, who use these affirmative action

00:13:53.740 policies to boost these minorities, they're actually HBCUs. You know, they're actually 1.00

00:13:59.280 universities that are actually attuned to some of the cultural elements of, of, of black, of the black

00:14:07.220 imagination, so to speak. And actually, what you find is that especially in, you know, things like law school

00:14:12.920 admissions, and those kinds of things, black Americans who are admitted because of race preferences

00:14:18.980 actually tend to do graduate in the lower segments of their classes, they tend to, you know,

00:14:27.660 get disproportionately discouraged and suffer from higher mental health issues. And sometimes the

00:14:35.800 effect of that is that they actually choose, they actually, they actually choose different majors from

00:14:46.020 what they intended. So there's a lot of black people, black Americans who want to be doctors,

00:14:51.780 who want to be engineers, who are, who are discouraged by that subject. Whereas if they're

00:14:56.680 matched accurately to the school where they, you know, are a good fit, then they would have the chance

00:15:02.780 to do a lot better. So this, this idea of uplift, I don't think it, I don't think these policies hurt any,

00:15:09.060 I mean, help anybody. They definitely don't help Asians and they don't help the people who are 1.00

00:15:13.380 necessarily being uplifted by them. Well, certainly not. I mean, if you described these

00:15:17.660 kind of policies going on for at least 20 years, and they're, and we're still talking about these

00:15:23.780 major gaps in outcome and gaps in admission, then, I mean, what else is there to do? We're already

00:15:30.180 discriminating against who these colleges think are unfairly privileged, white Americans and Asian

00:15:35.840 Americans. And we have been for a very long time. And we're still hearing about how it's an

00:15:40.220 inequitable process, how it's not fair, how they are systemically discriminating against not Asian

00:15:47.300 and white Americans, but Hispanic and, and, and black Americans. And so I don't know if you know

00:15:53.320 the answer to this, but my question is, I mean, what, what are, what more are they going to try to do

00:16:00.520 to rectify the situation? I mean, if Harvard still thinks that there are too many white and Asian

00:16:05.700 students who are being admitted and not enough black and brown or black and Hispanic students

00:16:11.180 that are being admitted, how much more can you discriminate against these so-called privileged

00:16:16.040 groups in order to help these underprivileged groups? Like, where do you see all of this going?

00:16:21.680 Right. What's, what's the line, right? Well, I can, I can tell you one thing, this,

00:16:26.580 the new Biden administration, what they're doing with these equity based policies. If you guys

00:16:30.900 are familiar and I know, Ali, you talked about this in your, your previous podcast about equity

00:16:35.780 versus equality, it's, this is a, this is a word that, that really needs to be broken down because

00:16:42.180 equity really is about all races ending up in the same position. This is exactly what Kamala Harris

00:16:47.840 said, you know, before she got elected, equity is about all races ending up in the same place. 0.99

00:16:52.900 And my, my, my pushback against that is, um, my pushback against that is you can't have equity

00:17:02.760 without eliminating free choice, without actually doing violence towards the choices of people.

00:17:10.040 Because I'll give you an example just from my Asian American culture. You know, if Asian Americans 0.98

00:17:15.660 choose to be academically excellent, we, we know why Asian Americans choose to be academically excellent

00:17:21.620 because they have to, because they don't have the connections in the social, uh, you could call

00:17:26.780 social networks and privilege that would help them to survive the decline in meritocracy. They have to

00:17:32.460 use their merit to, to gain an extra advantage and edge in this society today. And that's the result of

00:17:38.480 their free choice, you know? And so by discriminating against them in the name of equity, you're actually

00:17:44.260 eliminating, or you're actually discouraging the ability, you know, for people to make the free choice

00:17:49.660 and enjoy the fruits of their choices. Right. Yeah. And I think that, sorry, because I think that

00:17:56.940 you, um, you touched on a really good question about, you know, where is this going? You know,

00:18:01.820 where is this, where is this culture going? Um, I, it's, it's funny because these policies have been

00:18:10.920 happening for over 20 years. So you can actually start to see a lot of the effects with Asian Americans. 1.00

00:18:15.160 But if you continue as a country to go in these directions, you're going to see a lot of other

00:18:19.380 racial groups be affected as well. But I'll tell you what's happened, what's happened in my culture,

00:18:24.180 in my, um, in my culture over the past 20, 30 years. Um, a lot of Asian Americans in my culture,

00:18:31.280 the competition culture for Asian Americans is ramped up to a hundred. It's ramped up to like 150.

00:18:37.040 You know, you have kids that are trying to do every extracurricular, trying to get into every club,

00:18:42.520 trying to fill out every thing on their common app resume, because they know that they're not

00:18:47.520 going to be competing with the general population. They know that their competition is other Asians. 1.00

00:18:53.460 I mean, if think about what that does to Asian American identity, you know, if you have Asian

00:18:57.580 friends and you start to think, Oh, I actually have to compete against them in the college admissions

00:19:02.640 process, not against, you know, other people. I mean, it, it damages you as an Asian American.

00:19:09.060 It, it, it, it really hurts, you know, your, your, your ability to think of yourself as a self

00:19:14.540 actualized individual. And so when you see the progression of these equity based policies,

00:19:20.200 um, that will soon affect other groups that, you know, once many Latino and Hispanic Americans also

00:19:26.560 achieve parity with, um, whites in many places, which they actually are, they're really approaching, 0.85

00:19:31.880 you know, whites in terms of, of where they are, you know, they will find themselves on the 0.97

00:19:36.740 opposite end of these equity based policies as well. And that's going to have a severe effect,

00:19:42.360 I think on, on, on the way that they perceive themselves racially. Yeah, I think so too.

00:19:48.420 Unfortunately, I think progressivism has a different view of human nature. They kind of

00:19:54.440 eliminate the idea of choice. There's never the possibility that some people are where they are

00:19:59.820 because of choices they made. It's always, um, society either gets credit or society either gets

00:20:06.680 blame. And society is just kind of this very generalized term for the system. And they have

00:20:12.720 to have society as a boogeyman, or for example, white supremacy as a boogeyman to be able to

00:20:19.820 campaign and to say, look, I'm going to change society. I'm going to change the system. I'm going

00:20:24.640 to dismantle white supremacy. I'll dismantle the patriarchy, all of these very like intangible,

00:20:31.120 inexplicable, big boogeyman systems that are apparently keeping people down. And of course,

00:20:37.040 there are examples throughout history of institutions holding people back, discriminating,

00:20:43.840 ensuring that, for example, black Americans cannot get ahead. Certainly Asian Americans throughout our, 0.98

00:20:49.700 throughout our history have received discrimination as well. So of Italian Americans and Irish Americans

00:20:56.560 and all of that. So of course, that's certainly true. But today, that doesn't actually seem to be

00:21:03.100 the case. It doesn't seem to be like there is this big system or this big monster of white supremacy 0.63

00:21:08.940 that is pushing some people down and lifting other people's, uh, other people up. And yet that's what

00:21:15.800 we're hearing over and over again. That's the justification for so-called equity executive

00:21:20.860 orders and all of these social engineering policies to hold back groups like Asian Americans and try to 1.00

00:21:27.600 push forward other groups. And like you said, I don't think it's going to work. I actually think

00:21:32.360 it's going to end up with a lot of self-loathing and resentment between groups.

00:21:38.700 Yeah. I mean, you're so right. Um, it's funny how you, you mentioned the, uh, systemic, um,

00:21:47.980 oppression narrative, this side, this, this, this narrative that they're latching onto that

00:21:52.760 to be a minority inherently means that you are not able to participate fully in the benefits of

00:22:00.680 American society and the American dream. I mean, think about what that does if you actually believe

00:22:05.640 that. And by the way, I know many people who, who actually believe that and are very bitter about

00:22:10.400 that many minorities who are, you know, bitter about that. And I've, I've interviewed several of 1.00

00:22:14.980 them in my book. Um, it creates a culture of bitterness and resentment against the world.

00:22:20.780 And it just, um, it breaks my heart. I mean, it really does. And now you see in this narrative,

00:22:28.180 particularly with regards to Asian Americans, uh, a lot of the, the Asian Americans who go through these,

00:22:34.360 you know, college diversity and inclusion programs are basically taught to view their

00:22:39.000 academic success as privilege and are taught to feel guilty about that or taught to feel guilty

00:22:44.580 about that. I, I, I saw, I talked with a friend, I interviewed a friend, um, about, you know, uh, um,

00:22:53.360 going to a gifted and talented magnet school. And he basically said, yeah, like I had no reason why

00:22:57.820 I was there. I was lucky. Um, you know, I, and, and those kinds of things. And maybe he was lucky.

00:23:03.520 Maybe he was lucky. But if you are blessed with the ability to, you know, to, to pursue academic

00:23:11.680 excellence and those kinds of things, then you should do it. You should take responsibility for

00:23:15.860 that. And you should be proud of that. You shouldn't have to apologize for yourself and

00:23:20.840 apologize for being academically excellent. You are, society is counting on you. People are counting

00:23:27.000 on the next generation of scientists and engineers and mathematicians and writers to produce the next

00:23:36.120 great works and to help humanity and to help society. Um, you know, and, and, and pastors too.

00:23:43.020 Um, and it's just, uh, but doing so requires you to have some confidence in your ability,

00:23:49.920 not to believe that you've got it because of, um, you know, uh, privilege or that you feel guilty

00:23:56.580 about it. Yeah. It's one thing to be humble, which I think is good for all of us. It's another

00:24:01.280 thing to feel guilty and to deny the hard work that you've put in or deny the talent that God

00:24:07.460 gave you. Um, and I could definitely see how, if you think that everything that you have is just

00:24:13.600 because of privilege that society has given you that nothing that you have has been earned,

00:24:19.340 then that does create almost a kind of embarrassment and a shame over being successful or

00:24:25.260 having good grades. And I don't see how that lack of confidence from one group benefits another group.

00:24:33.000 It doesn't transfer confidence to another group. I think that it's all just going to end up with

00:24:38.320 a bunch of very insecure people. Um, what do you think, like, what do you think the

00:24:45.200 end will look like? Like, do you think that if these court cases, if the students win these court

00:24:50.740 cases, if you, um, do you, or do you see any kind of like positive change in the direction of

00:24:57.060 re-accepting meritocracy, not on the basis of skin color, just on the basis of, of what you've done?

00:25:03.960 Do you have hope and optimism in going that direction?

00:25:06.400 Ali, Ali, I really do. Um, and the, I'll, I'll give you an example. Um, in California this year

00:25:15.320 in 2020, during the 2020 elections, um, there was a proposition that was created, a California

00:25:23.200 constitutional amendment that was basically created by a, um, a legislator who, you know, talked about

00:25:30.980 this equity principle and talked about, you know, fighting systemic racism. And basically the

00:25:36.080 rationale for all of that was simply to propose an amendment that repealed California's non-discrimination

00:25:41.360 clause on the basis of race. She wanted to repeal California's non-discrimination clause. Okay. 0.53

00:25:49.260 The clause says you cannot discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity. It was created in the 1990s.

00:25:55.740 She wanted to repeal that, you know? Um, and so obviously, so members of, um, uh, certain races would 0.99

00:26:04.240 get preferential treatment over others. And that was, was this one of the most liberal states in the

00:26:10.100 country. And, you know, I chronicled that in my book, the fight against proposition 16, it was

00:26:15.940 the, they were the, the, the no one 16 campaign, which was the campaign against that was outspent

00:26:21.940 13 to one. And there were tech billionaires on the yes on proposition 16 side, the wife of the

00:26:29.160 Netflix billionaire, um, various, you know, many educational associations were for this prop 16,

00:26:36.360 all of the sports teams, the nine 49ers, the Raiders, all of them were for prop 16. And on election

00:26:43.200 day in this vote in one of the most liberal States in the country, voters rejected this amendment 57%

00:26:51.380 to 43%. Wow. And to me, that just shows that when these things actually come to popular vote

00:27:00.400 and when these things actually are understood by the American public, you know, the American public

00:27:08.160 will reject it. Yeah. I'm, I am very encouraged by that story in California. I remember hearing

00:27:13.180 that. Why do you think, I know we can't necessarily assume people's motives, but in your analysis,

00:27:19.300 why do you think some of those billionaires, those education associations, football teams

00:27:25.600 were for a proposition like that for discrimination against certain people just because of their skin

00:27:30.820 color? Yeah. So this is something I talk about in my book a little bit. Um, there's a, there's a

00:27:36.580 couple of things here. Um, there's a couple of things here. Obviously the whole, we want virtue

00:27:41.560 signaling. We want to be a part of, you know, the, uh, the, the, the social justice movements

00:27:48.080 of today. Obviously there's a lot of financial capital there, but you have to, I would, I would

00:27:55.680 even go a little further. I would even go a little further. And if you would allow me to

00:27:59.220 make this claim, um, they're there, it's human nature almost that when you are competing with a

00:28:08.580 group that looks vastly different from you, you begin to experience a little resentment against

00:28:14.440 them. Um, and I, I tell this story in my book in the 1800s, um, during the gold rush, there were white 0.83

00:28:23.440 miners who wanted to come to California to, you know, um, to, to mine for gold. But then there

00:28:29.460 are actually a lot of Chinese who actually started to come to America for the same purpose. Cause they

00:28:34.020 wanted to bring money back home and those kinds of things. And the Chinese, they worked, um, their 0.99

00:28:39.100 butts off, um, because that was their only hope in this country. They didn't have unions or anything

00:28:44.280 like that. And the white miners began to grow very resentful of these Chinese Americans. And they

00:28:51.040 used because these Chinese Americans would work day and night and the white miners didn't necessarily

00:28:57.300 want to work day and night. Um, and so they used their political will, the political capital they

00:29:03.220 had to pass the Chinese exclusion act that banned Chinese Americans from coming to this country for,

00:29:11.480 you know, a period of nearly 50 years. Um, um, and, and, and these, and I think

00:29:20.920 there's a, there's a, there's an inherent resentment, um, that that's there. And so when you look at

00:29:26.660 today's elite liberal population, you know, the elite, mostly white liberal population who lives in

00:29:33.580 enclaves like San Francisco, New York, and those kinds of things, you have to understand that the

00:29:39.720 minorities that they're competing with are, are, you know, and this actually, this is actually like not

00:29:46.700 a fun thing for me to say, but minorities that they're actually competing with are actually Asian 0.66

00:29:51.500 Americans. Um, a lot of it, because they're, they're the ones who are getting into, you know, 1.00

00:29:56.480 doctors and going to be doctors and engineers and, you know, and, and have the math skills to,

00:30:01.440 you know, compete in those kinds of things. And so there is a inherent, I think, natural resentment

00:30:06.040 and then a natural competition culture that comes in. Um, now the, the whole idea of America is that,

00:30:12.920 you know, we're supposed to live in a tolerant and inclusive country, the actual term inclusive

00:30:18.800 country where we shouldn't judge people based on that, but sometimes human nature wins.

00:30:32.780 And, you know, it, it's unfortunate that it seems like we've moved so far away from a premise that

00:30:38.780 we at least all theoretically agreed on that we judge people by the content of their character,

00:30:43.300 that people should be rewarded based on merit, not the color of their skin. And of course there,

00:30:48.560 like I said, there've been different parts in, in history where we have had to legally rectify

00:30:54.160 injustices and wrongs that were being perpetrated. For example, like Jim Crow, there have been times

00:31:00.920 like that, but it's been, it's been a very long time since institutionalized discrimination against

00:31:07.000 particular groups has actually been legal. Um, but now it's kind of been switched. There is

00:31:12.960 institutionalized racism, uh, but it just happens to be against different groups. And for different

00:31:18.360 reasons, it happens to be against, for example, Asian Americans. Um, how, what kind of advice do you

00:31:24.260 give to people who are worried about this? They're discouraged about this, whether they're Asian or not,

00:31:29.580 they just don't want to live in a country where merit doesn't matter, where you're almost,

00:31:33.520 um, you're almost punished for, for having merit and working hard and for maybe being a part of a

00:31:40.600 group that is traditionally more successful. They don't want to live in that kind of a country where

00:31:45.000 meritocracy is taken down in the name of equity and critical race theory. What can they do? What

00:31:50.740 can they do in their everyday lives to kind of push back against that? Well, that's a good question.

00:31:56.880 I would say, I mean, for Asian Americans, a lot of Asian Americans have, I guess, accepted the reality

00:32:03.340 that they're going to be treated twice as difficult in the college admissions process, or, you know,

00:32:08.520 in some cases, magnitudes of even more than that. Um, I would say maybe stop being so accepting. And this

00:32:15.240 is a weird, a weird statement to make, but maybe stop being so accepting of that. If the thing is,

00:32:22.980 you know, the reason why this is allowed to continue to occur in part is because no matter

00:32:29.520 what Harvard does for Asian Americans, Asian Americans are going to continue to flock to Ivy 1.00

00:32:35.040 leagues, continue to be, want to be admitted into these kinds of places and those kinds of things.

00:32:41.080 Um, you know, even admits these discrimination policies because there's prestige and social status

00:32:46.920 that goes, that goes for that. You know, it is a limited piece of prestige and a limited piece of

00:32:51.800 social status. Actually, if you are a math or STEM major going to an elite college or a first tier

00:32:58.520 elite college doesn't have that much effect on the rest of your life compared to if you went to a

00:33:03.480 different college. Um, if you actually are majoring in, in those, in, in, in the STEM fields, it actually

00:33:10.000 does not matter as much. Um, so I would say Asian Americans learn the, learn the, and other people,

00:33:16.080 you know, who are worried about this, you know, learn the facts and, you know, try to, I guess,

00:33:22.200 understand that, um, that you don't have to exceed to what society wants to tell you and what society

00:33:30.400 artificially builds up. Yeah, definitely. Okay. For people who want to buy your book to learn more

00:33:36.320 about all of this, you said, know the facts. And I know your book has a lot of facts. They want to

00:33:40.240 follow you on Twitter. Um, how can they buy your book? How can they follow and support you?

00:33:45.680 Absolutely. Well, you can buy my book. Uh, you can pre-order my book. It's coming out soon. Um,

00:33:51.040 on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, um, follow me on Twitter and Instagram at Kenny M shoe and like Mary. Um,

00:33:59.860 and actually, Ali, I'm also starting my own inconvenient minority podcast coming soon, where I'm actually

00:34:05.080 talking with, um, many other minorities, um, and maybe, you know, some members of the so-called

00:34:10.980 majority who, who in some way or another inconvenience, the woke narrative on race today.

00:34:17.280 And I'm going to go in depth on their life stories. You know, I'm talking with nonprofit activists,

00:34:22.220 intellectuals, public commentators. Um, so I would encourage you to follow me, um, and then, uh,

00:34:28.940 stay tuned for those details. Awesome. Well, we will put the links to all of that in the description

00:34:33.520 for this podcast and inconvenient minority. That's the name of your book, the name of, uh,

00:34:39.740 the name of your podcast, and also everyone can follow you on social media as well. Thank you so

00:34:44.420 much, Kenny, for taking the time to talk to us today. Um, this is a very important subject and I

00:34:49.360 just hope that you keep hammering on because your voice is a very important one. Thank you,

00:34:54.960 Ali. I really appreciate all the work that you do too. Thank you so much.

00:35:03.520 Thank you.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - May 11, 2021

Ep 418 ｜ An Inconvenience to Intersectionality： Asian-American Success ｜ Guest： Kenny Xu

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