http://time.com/2963/amy-chuas-new-book-might-make-you-uncomfortable-but-its-not-racist/
Vivia Chen
@lawcareerist
Why the Tiger Mom's New Book Makes You Nervous
Why the Tiger Mom's New Book Makes You Nervous
Jan. 31, 2014
Amy Chua is an
easy whipping post. After all, she’s the iconic Tiger Mom who blithely bragged
about her extreme parenting methods in her book 2011 Battle Hymn of the Tiger
Mother. Overnight, she became the archetype of the nightmare Asian mom, hell
bent on raising uber-achievers at all cost.
I thought Battle
Hymn was a humorous, breezy read, but many people (who probably never read the
book) were outraged. No wonder, then, that critics and pundits would be looking
for signs of hubris and depravity in Chua’s latest work.
Chua’s most
recent book, The Triple Package, written with her husband and fellow Yale Law
School faculty member Jeb Rubenfeld, looks at success in America—specifically
why certain groups (Jews, Indians, Chinese, Iranians, Lebanese, Nigerians,
Cubans, and Mormons) succeed. In a recent New York Times article, they offer a
synopsis of the book, citing what they regard as the three pillars of success:
(1) “a superiority complex—a deep-seated belief in their exceptionality”; (2)
“insecurity—a feeling that you or what you’ve done is not good enough”; and (3)
“impulse control”—essentially self-discipline.
Already, the
criticisms are reaching a crescendo. This time, though, Chua is condemned not
just as an arrogant elitist and abusive mother but something else: racist.
Suketu Mehta
writes in TIME that the book represents “the new racism—and I take it rather
personally.” Mehta adds that “the language of racism in America has changed . .
. It’s not about skin color anymore—it’s about ‘cultural traits.’”
In a follow-up
to Mehta’s article, Anna Holmes argues that the “new racism” in The Triple
Package is just a continuation of “the same old racism.” Her verdict on the
book: “It’s the same old garbage, in a slightly different, Ivy League-endorsed
disguise.”
The tenor of a
lot of the criticism has been angry, hostile and extremely personal (Chua seems
to get singled out much more so than her husband). And, I think, racist. The
fact that some of the slings come from minority group members doesn’t make the
criticisms less vicious.
What gives the
attacks a distinct racist tinge is that Chua is reduced to a stereotype—a
Dragon Lady, of sorts. This time, though, the Dragon Lady is not the evil
seducer of old Fu Manchu movies, but the new evangelist of racial superiority.
Maureen Callahan writes in the New York Post: “[Chua] used her heritage and all
the worst stereotypes of Chinese women — cold, rigid Dragon Ladies.”
Chua is under
attack because she and Rubenfeld are talking about ethnicity in a way that makes
people uncomfortable. She’s writing about differences among divergent groups
(ethnic or otherwise) and how those differences enter into the equation of
success, as measured by education and socio-economic achievement (and yes, that
definition of success has become a flash point too). The fear is that
acknowledging those differences is to place cultures in a hierarchy, to be
elitist. Jie-Song Zhang, for instance, writes in a rambling but somewhat poetic
essay on The Huffington Post that Chua is adding “pollutants to our social
eco-systems, strengthening the perception of difference, distance, and
opposition between our communities.”
Of course, many
children of immigrants no longer buy the narrative that their culture has been
a primary driver of their success. Mehta, for one, writes that he is chagrined
when relatives send him emails lauding the success of Indians. He says his
family thrived in America not because of the “triple package” but because “my
uncle in Detroit, an engineer, brought us over on the family reunification
bill, not in shackles or in steerage.”
And that’s fine.
We can all disagree about the origins of success and what success means.
But what’s
outrageous about some of the criticism against Chua is that it essentially
censors discussions that might touch a nerve. Labeling the speaker or the topic
as exclusionary or racist is a quick way to undermine the legitimacy of the
whole conversation.
All of this
speaks volumes about how uncomfortable we are about talking about race,
ethnicity, and success in America. And that this discussion is now being
propelled by the Tiger Mom makes a lot of people nervous.
Perhatian: Ada lagi ulasan mengenai isi buku 'The Triple Package' di bahagian akhir masukan berikutnya dalam blog ini atas nama 'MELAYU ITU HEBAT BANGSANYA'. Selamat membaca.
Perhatian: Ada lagi ulasan mengenai isi buku 'The Triple Package' di bahagian akhir masukan berikutnya dalam blog ini atas nama 'MELAYU ITU HEBAT BANGSANYA'. Selamat membaca.
Chen is the creator and chief blogger of the
Careerist and a senior reporter at the
American Lawyer. The views expressed are
solely her own.
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