328 pg 296-362Notes on Asian Americans in an Anti-Black World — Part Three: Solidarity/Disavowal and Beyond
Part Three: Solidarity/Disavowal
Overview: This section examines how Asian Americans have been mobilized in debates over race-conscious admissions, desegregation, and anti-Blackness, and how intra- and inter-group dynamics shape solidarity and disavowal with the Black freedom struggle. It traces the evolution from Bakke-era labeling of Asian Americans as “spoilers” to newer configurations where Asian Americans are portrayed as either beneficiaries or victims of affirmative action, and finally to contemporary cross-racial solidarities and tensions (e.g., Black Lives Matter, anti-Asian hate, and global anti-Blackness).
XIII Asian Americans as Spoilers in Grutter and Fisher
Bakke as origin of the “Asian spoiler” trope: Justice Powell’s lineage in Bakke suggested that Asian Americans could be used to undermine race-conscious admissions; this line resurfaced in higher education cases (Grutter v. Bollinger, 2003) and later in Fisher v. University of Texas I & II (2013, 2016).
1990s shift: Conservative, affluent Chinese immigrants in the U.S. adopted the Asian spoiler line to challenge race-conscious admissions at Lowell High School in San Francisco, arguing that Asian Americans were harmed by policies intended to aid Black and Latino students. The argument leveraged meritocracy claims, noting that Asian Americans were themselves a racial minority and thus uniquely positioned to challenge plans that burdened any non-White group.
Lowell High School as a test case: The rhetoric and organizational forms developed here would be used in nationwide anti-affirmative action campaigns. Low-level desegregation dynamics were shaped by prior battles (e.g., Johnson v. SFUSD in 1971) and evolving desegregation plans in San Francisco.
Desegregation history in SFUSD around this era:
1971: Johnson v. SFUSD leads to desegregation orders and a desegregation plan.
1974–1978: Operation Integrate and the Horseshoe Plan aimed at racial balance (no more than ±15 points difference between subgroups across district schools).
Outcome: The plan reduced Black exclusion in schools for a period, then gave way to Educational Redesign (1978) shifting to racial unidentifiability rather than explicit balance; requirements included at least four of nine subgroups and no single subgroup exceeding 45% (neighborhood schools) or 40% (alternative schools).
Impact: Educational Redesign effectively meant any school could have no Black students, and busing targeted non-“naturally integrated” neighborhoods.
Bakke/Grutter resonance: The shift toward diversity as an end in itself (rather than redressing anti-Black exclusion) paralleled Bakke’s framework; Grutter (2003) upheld holistic admissions to achieve a “critical mass” of underrepresented minorities, while the tensions around who counts as “minority” persisted.
1983–1992 developments: Consent Decree and subsequent governance
1983–1992: Under a court-supervised consent decree, programs continued to pursue diversity and address educational disparities (Paragraph 13, nine-subgroup structure). Paragraph 13 required that schools had four of the nine subgroups and cap subgroup representation (40%/45%), but the composition shifted over time as Chinese Americans became the district’s largest student subgroup, while Black and Latino students continued to face achievement gaps.
By 1992: The Committee of Experts notes three things: (i) Chinese Americans become SFUSD’s largest subgroup; (ii) desegregation advances but Black/Latino students lag academically; (iii) disparities in achievement persist between White/Chinese vs. African American/Hispanic students; Orfield’s 1994 national study echoed these findings and argued Asians were often the most successful racial group in schools, with a need for a new concept of segregation that recognizes multiracial dynamics.
AALF and CADC dynamics: The Asian American Legal Foundation (AALF) and the Chinese American Democratic Club (CADC) became key players; AALF framed the Lowell plan as burdensome to Chinese Americans, while CADC members split on pursuing race-conscious admissions at Lowell.
Brian Ho v. SFUSD (1994–1999): AALF-backed suit by Chinese American students (Brian Ho et al.) challenged the legality of Lowell’s admissions under the Consent Decree.
Plaintiffs argued Lowell violated Equal Protection by using a race-based classification and that strict scrutiny was not satisfied since there was no de jure segregation to justify a compelling government interest; Weigel (district judge) did not grant summary judgment initially.
The SFUSD Board of Education and Steve Phillips (Board president) testified to ongoing vestiges of segregation and the consent decree’s ongoing obligations (e.g., disproportionate suspension/expulsion patterns, disproportionality in advanced coursework, etc.).
Respondents argued that a merit-based system and a “model minority” narrative justified treating Chinese Americans as non-Black victims of anti-Black policies; Ho supporters framed the case as anti-Blackness in operation, arguing Asian Americans were victims of discrimination themselves.
The Ho litigation framed the case as a test of whether it is permissible to burden one minority to benefit another—posing a moral and legal challenge to the notion of colorblind meritocracy.
The Ho settlement and after-effects (1999–2000): A settlement eliminated the explicit race/ethnicity basis for Lowell admissions; fall 1999 and fall 2000 freshman classes saw sharp declines in Black/Latino admissions (for Lowell) and a dramatic resegregation of some schools in SFUSD (monitor Stuart Biegel documented increases in severely resegregated schools by 2005–2006).
Reactions and critiques: Progressive Asian Americans criticized Ho for shoring up an anti-Black narrative while others argued it exposed how the not-Black advantage translates into systemic benefits for select Asian subgroups (e.g., Filipinos and Southeast Asians). Critics argued the case used a “model minority” framework to divert attention from structural anti-Blackness in education policy.
Aftermath in SFUSD and the national arena: Ho’s settlement was a milestone for Asian American political mobilization but prompted broader debates about whether Asian Americans should be treated as minorities with a stake in affirmative action, or as a proxy for white hegemony in anti-Black policy contexts. Critics argued Ho helped shift the national discussion away from addressing Black–Latino disparities and toward a narrower, pan-Asian argument about “meritocracy,” which could undermine Black and Latino students.
Quotations and rhetoric: Assertions that “Chinese are at the best schools,” and that “the quotas then, quotas now” were used to critique or defend policies; the Ho litigation relied on framing the issue as anti-Blackness against an advantaged group (a tactic that would become central in later Grutter/Fisher debates).
Legal trajectory: Orrick (district court) denied summary judgment in 1997, but the Ninth Circuit ultimately found that the strict scrutiny standard applied and left questions for trial; the 1999 settlement eliminated the race/ethnicity basis for Lowell admissions.
The broader arc: The Brian Ho case became a template for “Asian American spoilers” in higher-education cases, with conservative Asian American groups continuing to test the boundaries of race-conscious admissions in universities like Harvard and UT Austin in subsequent decades.
XIV Asian Americans as Spoilers in Grutter and Fisher (continued)
Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) and Fisher v. University of Texas (2013, 2016) framed Asian Americans both as potential beneficiaries of diversity and as potential victims of race-conscious policies when looking at the broader national policy landscape. The briefs and arguments illustrate how the Asian American voice has functioned as a wedge within civil rights debates.
Grutter/Fisher briefs and framing:
The Petitioner (Fisher I) brief argued UT Austin used race in a way that burdened Asian Americans by treating them as a non-underrepresented minority, and claimed that admissions should reflect proportionate representation relative to population demographics; the Petitioner sought to invalidate the race-conscious policy on strict scrutiny grounds.
The Respondents’ brief (and allied briefs) argued that the policy was necessary to achieve the educational benefits of a diverse student body and that Asian Americans could be beneficiaries of such policy as well, particularly if treated as underrepresented minorities where appropriate.
The Asian American Legal Foundation (AALF) filed amicus briefs in both Grutter and Fisher, arguing that race-conscious admissions harmed Asian Americans (a mischaracterization of their “minority” status) and that such policies degrade the integrity of meritocracy. These briefs framed Asian Americans as a “non-preferred” or “underrepresented” group in this context, and equated the harms to Asian Americans with those to Black and Latino students.
The National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium (NAPALC) and other APA advocacy groups countered AALF’s framing by emphasizing that APAs benefit from diversity and should be treated as underrepresented where appropriate; they highlighted poverty, stereotypes, and barriers faced by many APAs to avoid over-generalization.
The Grutter decision (2003): Upheld the University of Michigan Law School’s use of race as a factor in a holistic admissions process, affirming that diversity is a compelling state interest and that “critical mass” is a permissible goal rather than a fixed quota. The Court rejected “racial balancing” as an unconstitutional goal but did not foreclose all race-conscious admissions in higher education.
The Fisher decisions (Fisher I, 2012; Fisher II, 2016): The district and appellate courts evaluated UT Austin’s holistic review process. Arcidiacono’s testimony and similar analyses claimed that personal ratings and overall ratings could be biased against Asian Americans; Card’s analyses argued no gross disparities in admissions when looking at a holistic framework with multiple factors. The courts ultimately upheld UT Austin’s plan in Fisher II, but the debates highlighted how Asian Americans were being used to challenge or defend race-conscious policies depending on the rhetoric employed by different actors.
The implications of Asian American involvement in these cases:
The debates reveal a strategy that positions Asian Americans as a critical moral and political hinge within the broader civil rights struggle, sometimes portraying them as victims of anti-Asian policies and other times as beneficiaries of racial considerations.
The discourse around “minority equivalency” and “not-Blackness” becomes central: how to account for, and complicate, the ways in which not-Black groups experience discrimination differently from Black people, and how appeals to meritocracy can mask structural racial dynamics.
In some cases, Asian American advocacy groups have used anti-affirmative action rhetoric to resist policies that would aid Black and Latino students, while in other cases, Asian American scholars and activists have argued for race-conscious policies that would also benefit Asian Americans as part of a broader, multiracial strategy.
XV Black Lives Matter and the Asian American Policeman
Context: The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement’s rise after Trayvon Martin’s death (2013) and subsequent police killings (e.g., Michael Brown, 2014) catalyzed debates about police violence, racial justice, and the distribution of political power across racial groups. Asian American communities responded with complex stances that oscillated between solidarity with Black liberation and concerns about anti-Blackness within their own communities.
The Peter Liang case (NYPD)
2014: Akai Gurley killed by NYPD officer Peter Liang in Brooklyn; Liang was later convicted of manslaughter and official misconduct (2016). The case provoked widespread debate about accountability, anti-Black violence, and the fate of Asian American police officers within the U.S. racial order.
The Liang case launched cross-racial mobilization: in 2016, tens of thousands of Chinese Americans rallied; over 120,000 signed a WhiteHouse.gov petition demanding leniency (or arguing for equal treatment of Asians in the wake of anti-Asian sentiment).
The defense of Liang argued that he faced a broader system of anti-Blackness and that the legal outcomes should reflect that not all police violence is a product of racial animus toward Black people; supporters framed Liang as a victim of a system that scapegoats Asian Americans.
Asian Americans for Black Lives (A4BL) and other pro-Black coalitions:
Asians4BlackLives emerged in 2014 as a collective that centers Black leadership while acknowledging the specific harms faced by Asian Americans. A4BL urged solidarity with Black liberation and called for leadership from Black organizers to guide Asian American activism.
In 2016–2020, A4BL and allied groups pushed for a broader, structural critique of racial capitalism and anti-Blackness, including calls to defund or reform policing and the carceral system in solidarity with Black communities.
Tensions within the Asian American community:
Conservative Chinese immigrant groups (often aligned with white conservatives) mobilized in support of Liang and against the broader BLM and anti-Asian hate movements, articulating a narrow, nationalistic, and class-privileged stance that emphasized “Chinese Americans for economic success” and a preference for integration within the anti-Black order.
Progressive Asian American groups and scholars criticized Liang’s defense as upholding a system that disproportionately punishes Black communities and normalizes anti-Blackness within the broader racial order.
The debates highlighted a broader question: to what extent should Asian Americans align with Black liberation efforts, given their own unique histories of discrimination and achievement, and what are the ethical obligations toward reducing anti-Blackness within Asian American communities?
The 2020–2021 era: George Floyd and power politics
The murder of George Floyd (May 2020) and the nationwide protests intensified discussions about interlocking oppressions and the necessity of Black liberation as a prerequisite for broader racial justice.
Asians4BlackLives issued statements condemning police violence and urging solidarity with Black communities, including calls to defund the police and address structural anti-Blackness that undergirds racial capitalism.
The 2020–2021 period also saw heightened anti-Asian violence linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting new debates about how anti-Blackness and anti-Asian sentiments intersect and how to organize solidarities that resist both forms of oppression.
The “not-Blackness” bottleneck: A recurring question is how Asian Americans can be both not-Black and not-white—how to navigate a political landscape that offers protection and privilege for not-Black Asians while maintaining a critique of white supremacy and anti-Black racism. The chapter argues for a rigorous, historically grounded analysis of structural anti-Blackness and a politics of solidarity that does not collapse the Black struggle into a broader, vague “minority” agenda.
Implications for policy and organizing:
The need to center Black leadership in any broader coalition seeking racial justice.
The importance of acknowledging asymmetries in power and the unique harms faced by Black communities, while recognizing the ways in which Asian American communities also face violence and discrimination.
The possibility for Asian Americans to contribute to Black liberation by challenging internal anti-Black biases and by resisting political maneuvers that instrumentalize Asian Americans to undermine affirmative action or Black civil rights.
XVI The COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act of 2021
Context: The COVID-19 pandemic sparked a sharp rise in anti-Asian harassment and violence, framed by political rhetoric that linked the disease to China and East Asia. The episode drew attention to the need for stronger legal protections for Asian Americans, while exposing tensions around how the state addresses racial violence.
The statute: The COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act (2021) sought to accelerate hate crime reporting and enhance the federal government’s ability to respond to anti-Asian violence. It included provisions to streamline reporting, coordinate with states, and enhance criminal justice responses to hate crimes.
Quantitative context (as cited in the chapter):
A report cited roughly 3,800 anti-Asian discrimination incidents between March 19, 2020 and February 28, 2021 across the U.S.; the act sought to address this surge.
The act represents a political project that pairs anti-Asian protection with larger anti-police-violence agendas, highlighting how the state uses targeted protections as a form of symbolic governance while not fundamentally addressing Black Lives Matter–rooted demands for structural reform of policing and carceral systems.
Relationship to other contemporary efforts: The Act sits alongside (i) a March 2021 international human rights report on systemic police violence (which calls for recognition of slavery and colonialism as crimes against humanity and for reparations) and (ii) the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act (which aimed to curb police violence but faced stiff opposition from police unions and Republican lawmakers). The Act’s passage was framed as symbolic progress for Asian Americans but criticized as insufficient to dismantle structural anti-Blackness or to reduce anti-Black violence.
Critical assessment:
The Act is described as a “hollow victory” for Asian Americans, offering limited protection while reinforcing carceral expansion and failing to address broader racial inequities that predominantly harm Black communities.
The author argues that the Act exemplifies a broader pattern of state action that executes symbolic anti-Blackness while avoiding meaningful reform, thereby maintaining racial hierarchies.
Ethico-political implications:
Calls for rethinking safety and protection in terms of systemic justice rather than carceral expansion.
The argument that true security for Asian Americans lies in dismantling structural anti-Blackness and racial capitalism, not in palliative legal reforms that preserve the status quo.
Coda: Asian Americans and Anti-Blackness
Globalized anti-Blackness and its cross-cultural circulation:
Japan: Blackface and Black caricatures appear in media and entertainment; Blackness is commodified and treated as a source of “cool,” while real Black people face discrimination. Public attitudes mingle admiration for Black culture with anti-Black stereotypes, and there are repeated public displays of anti-Blackness in media and politics.
China: Anti-Blackness is present in advertising (e.g., Darkie toothpaste, later renamed Darlie), media portrayals, and occasionally state-driven campaigns that conflate Blackness with disorder. Anti-African protests and xenophobic sentiments toward Africans in Chinese cities are linked to postcolonial and global capitalist discourses. The 2018 Lunar New Year skit that featured Blackface on state television drew international criticism. The coexistence of fascination with Blackness and contempt for Black people demonstrates the global reach of anti-Blackness as a commodity and a threat.
Korea: Anti-Blackness is present in historical and contemporary discourses; Blackness is often exoticized or stigmatized in media, with blackface appearing in entertainment. The late-20th-century and early-21st-century Korean media ecosystem has repeatedly engaged in Blackface or Black stereotypes, sometimes in a seemingly casual or normalized way.
China–Africa relations: The article notes a complex interplay between global capitalism and anti-Blackness, including media representations of Africa that praise Chinese leadership while discourses about African workers and migrants reveal racialized hierarchies and xenophobia.
Historical roots of Korean, Japanese, and Chinese anti-Blackness:
In Korea and Japan, Western race science and colonial histories intersected with local hierarchies to produce a mixed local/global racial order in which Blackness is constructed as inferior and Other; in some contexts, Blackness is appropriated or celebrated in popular culture while remaining a target of discrimination.
In China, anti-Blackness is tied to global capitalism and foreign labor migration; advertising, media depictions, and public discourse reflect tensions between admiration for Black culture and hostility toward Black people as a social threat.
The role of anticolonial and anti-racist movements:
Sino-African solidarity discourses and the Bandung-era rhetoric have evolved, with China presenting itself as part of a broader “people of color” alliance against Western imperialism. Yet these solidarities can mask new forms of racial hierarchy that privilege not-Black actors at the expense of Black communities.
Asian Americans and global anti-Blackness:
The text emphasizes how anti-Blackness is embedded in multiple global markets and cultures, with Asian and Black communities often positioned in antagonistic but interdependent relations within global capitalism.
The globalization of anti-Blackness complicates internal Asian American debates about race, ethnicity, and solidarity, illustrating the need for a global, critical framework that dissects how race, labor, and capital work together to produce unequal outcomes for Black people across borders.
Internal critiques within the Asian American movement:
The book argues that the Asian American movement has often failed to integrate a robust analysis of anti-Blackness into its own framework, sometimes treating not-Blackness as a universal advantage and ignoring Black suffering.
A recurring theme is the tension between model minority rhetoric and structural anti-Blackness; the author calls for a more thorough critique of how “not-Blackness” enables social and economic mobility while Black people remain structurally subordinated.
Ethical and practical implications:
The text urges progressive Asian American politics to complete the unfinished critique of the model minority myth and to build a politics that centers Black liberation as a prerequisite for genuine racial justice.
The author envisions a more robust alliance with Black movements, not as a suppression of Asian American interests but as a recognition that Asian American safety and flourishing are inseparable from Black freedom and the dismantling of racial capitalism.
Final call to action:
Asian Americans should resist weaponization by conservative coalitions, complete the unfinished critique of not-Blackness, and actively participate in Black-led movements.
The stakes are high given ongoing affirmative action litigation (e.g., Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard/UNC) and evolving racial politics in the U.S.; the future of Asian American politics may hinge on whether progressive Asian Americans choose to align with Black liberation and rebuild solidarity across racial lines.
XIV–XVII: Recurring motifs and cross-cutting themes
Structural anti-Blackness as the organizing principle: Across cases and geo-years, anti-Blackness functions as the backdrop for policy, law, and everyday social practices. Asian Americans are often positioned as not-Black, which nurtures advantages in many contexts but also risks complicity with racial hierarchies when not-Blackness is used to undermine Black struggles.
The “not-Blackness” problem: The book repeatedly returns to a question central to Asian American political ethics: what is owed to Black communities, and how should not-Black groups navigate historical harms against Black people while advancing their own interests?
The genealogy of Asian American anti-Black politics: Across Bakke, Grutter, Fisher, and the Harvard case, a cohort of conservative Chinese immigrant groups has repeatedly used the language of meritocracy and anti-Black discrimination to contest race-conscious admissions, while progressive Asian American groups advocate for inclusion and justice in multi-racial coalitions. The interplay between “spoilers” rhetoric and “victim” rhetoric has shaped broader national debates about affirmative action and diversity.
The role of media and culture: Blackface, stereotypes, and other forms of racial performance recur across East Asia and the U.S., illustrating how anti-Blackness travels and evolves in different contexts, often maintaining a tie to capitalist markets and political power.
The political arc: The narrative documents a pattern in which conservative and liberal arguments both mobilize Asian Americans, but for different ends—either to dismantle or to defend race-conscious policies—revealing the fraught and contested role of Asian Americans in the politics of race.
Ethical horizon: The final pages cycle back to a core ethical question: can Asian Americans move toward a politics that centers Black liberation and jointly dismantles racial capitalism, or will solidarities revert to strategic, instrumental alignments that instrumentalize not-Black groups for narrower aims? The author positions the latter as a historical tail-risk unless careful moral reckoning and structural critique guides action.
Numerical and factual anchors (selected):
1971: Johnson v. SFUSD; desegregation planning begins.
1974–1978: Operation Integrate; Horseshoe Plan; Educational Redesign replaces race balance with diversity objectives; no subgroup should exceed 40% (alternative schools) or 45% (neighborhood schools).
1978: NAACP sues over Educational Redesign; seeks to end discriminatory practices and promote multiracial equality; consent decree continues.
1967–1968 vs. 2007–2008 Chinese student share in SFUSD (Chinese share grows from 13.5% to 31.4%; Black share from unknown to 12.8%).
1999–2000: Lowell admissions influence and resegregation metrics; fall 1999 Black/Latino offers drop by 50%; fall 2000 drop by 15%; Black students drop to 1.5% of Lowell’s freshman class.
1980s–1990s: Harvard, UCLA, UC Berkeley admissions debates on Asian representation; policy shifts and apologies at Berkeley; cases of “negative action” vs. affirmative action discussed by Goodwin Liu and others.
2004 UT Austin case (Fisher/I context): Asians 18% of UT Austin freshmen; Asians 3.4% of Texas population; Hispanics ~19–20% of class and ~36% of population; African Americans ~6% of class and ~12% of population.
2013–2016: Fisher I/II decision trajectory; UT vs Harvard briefs; Harvard class composition around 2021: 22.2% Asian; 14.6% Black; 11.6% Hispanic; 2.5% Native American; rest White.
2020–2021: Anti-Asian hate incident data: Stop AAPI Hate and Virulent Hate Project show predominantly verbal harassment and avoidance, with a minority of physical attacks; e.g., a spike in 2020–2021 but overall percentage of hate crimes against Asians remains small relative to Black victims (in many datasets).
Cross-cutting moral: The text contends that a transformative political stance requires not only resisting anti-Blackness but actively aligning with Black liberation to dismantle systemic racial capitalism. The path forward, the author argues, hinges on Asian Americans embracing a not-Black, anti-Black framework that recognizes and challenges structural inequalities while supporting Black-led justice movements.
Final note: The concluding sections urge progressive Asian American actors to influence the interpretation and outcome of key affirmative action cases (e.g., Harvard and UNC in SFFA) by foregrounding structural anti-Blackness and by building inter-racial solidarity rooted in anti-racist, anti-capitalist ethics. The overarching aim is to reframe not-Blackness as a resource for cross-racial justice rather than a tool for competing against Black people within the hierarchy of whiteness.