![\"2014-04-27-DonaldSterling.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/images.huffingtonpost.com\/2014-04-27-DonaldSterling.jpg\")
<\/a><\/center>I was going to write a post about Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s apparent love of Koreans, even to the extent of renaming a housing development “Korean World Towers” in order to attract Korean tenants. Sterling’s preference for Koreans as tenants (and employees) came at the expense of African Americans who he has allegedly said are undesirable because they “smell and attract vermin.” And that makes his particular brand of racist jujitsu a near perfect example of how the model minority myth is so often used to justify racism against “problem minorities.”<\/p>\nBut then a Race Files reader linked me to this article in Slate<\/a> that pretty much says it all.<\/p>\n If you need some coaxing to read it, this paragraph in particular got my attention,<\/p>\n This will all sound very familiar to Asian-Americans, cast as the put-upon overachievers, whose head-down, by-the-bootstraps stoicism has resulted in remarkable educational and financial attainment. The \u201cmodel minority\u201d myth persists in part because it is cited as evidence that the system works. It makes for a great story\u2014the plucky, determined Asian-American succeeding where others have failed. But the ultimate beneficiaries of this racial typecasting are the people who invoke the model as a bludgeon against others. Sterling\u2019s admiration for his Korean tenants is actually a kind of scorn. After all, he still subjected Korean tenants to the same degrading treatment as everyone else\u2014the only difference is that the Koreans seemed willing to take it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That last bit, “the only difference is that the Koreans seemed willing to take it,” gets at an aspect of the Asian American model minority myth that is telling. Among the chief characteristics of the model minority is that those typecast as such are stoic, self-sacrificing, quiet, and uncomplaining. Whatever employers and society in general are dishing out (and where low-wage workers, poor tenants, and vulnerable women are concerned, our society dishes out a lot), model minorities are willing to take it, and as a matter of Korean or Chinese or Japanese or (place your preferred Asian ethnic group here) cultural pride.<\/p>\n Model minority women<\/a> are quiet and submissive. If it’s a wife you want, they’ll take whatever you’re giving out as a matter of duty, and then follow that up by rubbing your feet and lighting your cigarette. Even better, you can buy one online, as you will find if you do as I did and google “Asian mail-order brides critiques of.”<\/em> Over 3 million hits, and on at least the first seven pages (after which I gave up) there are nothing but mail order bride services or rankings of either these services or the ethnic backgrounds of the women according to the quality of the “product” (and one notable wikipedia page<\/a>).<\/p>\n