The paradox of identity politics

Sometimes I want to say “let us all just be Americans”. I do understand that there still are people in the US who don’t consider Asian Americans as mainstream citizens. To some extent I understand the logic of let’s get together to fight racism against us. In that case we are getting together for a common cause to create a nation where we don’t need to get together. That’s a paradox of hyphenated identity politics. With this identity politics, people sometimes criticize others who actually advocate their end goals like “let us all be just Americans”.


I wonder what JACL or Chinese for Affirmative Action members will react when I say “we need to stop discrimination against Asian American students in the admission processes of top schools”. There are those who challenged the situation. Jian. Li, a Yale student who had a perfect SAT score lodged his complaint about alleged racially discriminatory admission policy against Asians at Princeton. I personally think that anyone who thinks that he doesn’t want too many talented Asians at his school should say it in public.


“Asians Against Affirmative Action” a Facebook group says “All we want is to be given a shot at equal opportunity, just as everyone else is. It's time we showed our voice and demand equal opportunity through race blind admissions”. That sounds very American to me (the part that they are willing to fight back). I can even see an echo of MLK’s dream of the nation where race doesn’t matter. I reject ideas such as “some people are more equal than others”. If everyone demands equal opportunity the demands will move us closer to a fairer society.


Identity groups are formed in part to counter discrimination against us. As groups expand their scope wider and wider, they will eventually reach the point to cover every American. At that point it’ll start to make sense to get rid of all of the race based preferential treatments. I wonder if today’s identity groups accept the ideas like “anyone can join this group and we are for everyone in the US”. In other words are they ready to become loosely defined cultural organizations (such as “Chinese cooking fan club”)?


I don’t think that I can find any identity group that clearly states “our goal is to create a society where we are no longer needed”. It’s not that the success of Asian Americans put us in the paradoxical position. I rather think that identity groups are indeed paradoxical (fighting for their irrelevance just like some super heroes).