Former ESPN personality and current Atlantic writer Jemele Hill accused Asian Americans of supporting white supremacy by praising the Supreme Court’s decision to disallow the use of race as a factor in college admissions.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that using race-based admissions in college admissions constituted a violation of the 14th Amendment.
The ruling was a cause for joy among many Asian Americans who saw it as removing a barrier to college admissions.
Asian Wave Alliance President Yiatin Chu took to Twitter to praise the decision.
“I told my daughter that today is a big day. They’ve ended affirmative action. ‘Isn’t it what you’re been fighting for?’ she asked. I said yes,” Chu tweeted.
I told my daughter that today is a big day. They’ve ended affirmative action. “Isn’t it what you’re been fighting for?” she asked. I said yes. pic.twitter.com/NdfWkHaDly
— Yiatin Chu (@ycinnewyork) June 29, 2023
Leftists, like Hill, however, saw the joy felt by Asian Americans as bolstering a racist plot to keep blacks out of universities.
“Can’t wait until she reads that you gladly carried the water for white supremacy and stabbed the folks in the back whose people fought diligently for Asian American rights in America,” Hill wrote.
Can’t wait until she reads that you gladly carried the water for white supremacy and stabbed the folks in the back whose people fought diligently for Asian American rights in America. https://t.co/JA1iTp6A6I
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) July 1, 2023
Hill’s characterization of Chu’s happiness with the ruling as stabbing in the back those who “fought diligently for Asian American rights” is troubling on multiple levels. If she’s referencing pioneer-level civil rights activists of the 1960s, then there could be some justification for the comment in the sense that those activists succeeded in opening up many public and private institutions that had hitherto been inaccessible to non-whites.
However, the civil rights activists who wanted to be judged not by the “color of their skin” but by the “content of their character” are clearly not the activists running the modern civil rights movement. The modern civil rights movement -led mainly by those who agree with Jemele Hill – views race as a political and economic calculation.
If you’re a wealthy conservative Republican, you’re white regardless of skin color. In many cases, even if you’re a liberal wealthy person, you’re considered white regardless of color.
So, why should Asian Americans remain loyal to a movement that now erects barriers to their success and views them as supporting “white supremacy.”
Just like pre-1968 Democrats who say they never left the Democrat Party, it left them. Asian Americans didn’t leave the civil rights movement. The civil rights movement left them.
As for Hill, this is not her first time blaming non-whites for promoting “white supremacy.”
After five black police officers in Memphis, Tennessee, killed 29-year-old Tyre Nichols – who was black – Hill characterized the black officers as agents of a racist system.
“Just as women sometimes carry the water for misogyny and the patriarchy, black people have definitely done the same for white supremacy. You’re stuck on the faces. I’m looking at the system and why it was created,” Hill wrote on Twitter.
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