On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, Kenny Xu, author of “An Inconvenient Minority: The Harvard Admissions Case and the Attack on Asian American Excellence,” joins Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to discuss the dangers associated with Ivy League universities’ prioritization of affirmative action and how Asian Americans are penalized for working hard.
“What is happening at Harvard and at Ivy League universities is a race-obsessed program,” Xu said. “They’ve created the entire framework of society that they want based on their own racial balancing standards and Asian Americans are not part of this framework. At least, they are part of this framework up to a very limited extent.”
Most Americans, Xu argued, do not want race to be a deciding factor in systems such as college admissions, but that hasn’t stopped the spread of identity politics that only favor certain minorities in the U.S.
“Asian Americans inconvenience the race narratives on the left because the narrative that is being pushed today is that if you are a minority or a person of color, you are a victim of white supremacy and if you’re white, you are privileged, you are an oppressor against these people,” Xu said.
“Asian Americans completely challenge and disprove this narrative because Asian Americans are a minority. We have been historically discriminated [against] in this society and we lacked the privileges that a lot of people in America have … we’re disproportionately reliant upon our skills and our merit to succeed and we do.”
Listen here: