 Does America only care about the work that Asians do, and America doesn't actually care about Asian lives? That's what this time opinion article is saying. Yeah, this is going viral right now. It was written by an Indian-American author, Mithra Kalita. And the first time somebody sent it to me, I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna talk about it. But seven people sent it to me. And that's when I knew we had to cover the article real quick, get into the internet reactions and then give you our takeaways. So make sure you like, subscribe, turn on your notifications, guys. I think that anytime a very respected publication like Time Magazine covers Asian-American issues that normally exist on Reddit, Andrew, it sort of like reaches outside of the Asian-American bubble. You know what I mean? It's not in that sphere of the internet anymore. Time Magazine is like the whole internet. Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, someone had to write this and then it had to get edited. It wasn't just like a blog post. But anyways, guys, this conversation has been happening on the internet for a while, but she put it all together very succinctly. David, what are the topics and main points that she covered in this? Well, she opens up with a quote from her professor that says, hey, you know, I would only hire Asians if I could. You guys are all so hardworking. And then at first she goes, yeah, you know, that's kind of good, but it really bothered me because it was super reductive. Cause a lot of Asians are considered hardworking, smart and diligent, but you can also flip that to be docile, meek and submissive. It's almost like the stereotype that like black men are like bold and strong, but then on the flip side, that's also viewed as intimidating and aggressive. Right. She also points out how public opinion on Asians, especially East Asians has gotten way worse because of COVID. She also mentions that Asian success in companies is usually capped off. It feels like that they make up very, very few leadership positions even though they make up a ton of other lower positions. And she also mentions that we need to value ourselves beyond just being good students and good workers and we need to have others somehow see that value. And she also asked for people to see the nuance in the Asian-American community. For example, 80% of non-citizen Indians have undergrad degrees in America. Only 34% of non-citizen Southeast Asians have it. And yeah, just overall she's just saying, you know, people just need to stop seeing us as great ROI workers. Like they just, that might have been good enough for our parents, but for us as the second gen that's born and raised in America, we need more than that to feel whole, to feel human. And Mitra, let me tell you something. As somebody who has written multiple rap verses about this exact topic, I 100% agree with you. We've also talked about it on our channel. I'll show you this clip from a music video that we did seven years ago with our friend, Doe Boy. And basically I say this exact thing. Anyways, we'll play it. Seein' it's useful, but hyper frugal. So they ogle at our tasty noodles. Thanks for the kudos, we still ain't kudo. You like the language as a tattoo, but not to learn. You like the girls, but act like it's somethin' that you earn. We ain't on nerds, and what about the boys? Y'all don't wanna surround unless we're employed. Yeah, I mean, I thought you summed it up pretty well. She didn't mention the frugal part in her thing, but I don't know. I don't know, maybe Mitra Kalita was inspired by your verse. Maybe she saw it, I mean, back in the, now I'm just kidding, we just have parallel thinking. And to be honest, this is just actually overall in a way true. Let's get into some reactions and some real life people who are commenting. Because David, I think a lot of Asian people have stories that kinda confirm what she's saying. And like we said, when Time Magazine confirms it, it's just way different than you wrapping it in a 16 bar verse. Anyway, the first reaction was, I agree. I've experienced this firsthand. I've outperformed everyone in my job, but never got promoted. And I was only truly appreciated by the team after I left and everything fell apart. It's almost like I was the quarterback, but I was never treated with the respect and glory that a quarterback deserves. Yeah, no, I mean, listen, a lot of Asians, they feel like they do a great job at their work and they're given a lot of responsibilities and everybody's like, hey bro, I believe in you man, you the man, you the man, you got this though. Hey, you're the man, you are gonna handle this, you know, this weekend while we go skiing and still boarding, bro. Yeah, because you know, it's not, you got this, bro. So, why don't you just get somebody else to do your work for you? Oh. Errol. I need you to update those models for me. But Billy, aren't you supposed to? There's a crazy Stephen Yuen quote that relates to this, right? Yeah, I love this Stephen Yuen quote from the actor. He says, you know, sometimes I wonder if the Asian American experience is what it's like when you're thinking about everyone and no one's thinking about you. Yeah, I mean, that's real talk, man. And I do think it's like slowly, slowly changing, but cultural change is way slower than people think it is. Internet changes quick. Culture on the ground, IRL changes slow. I would say this, man, like, it really depends. If you're like Mr. Kalita, second generation educated, probably parents were educated. You like do good in your professional career, like at a yappy job, Fortune 500 or whatever, like some sort of accomplished institution that's old world, but you don't have the societal love. That's very different than like the people I knew growing up, their parents are refugees, AZN, Enclave, you know, you grow up in an all Asian zone and you just only work with other Asians. You don't really care about this. You might be able to theoretically understand that this is the way it is in the corporate world or like the mainstream world, but you don't care because you're living in your own world. Yeah, I mean, if you talk to a lot of those people who kind of lived their life in the Enclave and you told them about this article, they would just be like, yeah, I know. That's why I live here. Right. That's why I'm living in this Enclave. Of course, guys, we're in America. What do you expect? And we're like, but, but, but, but what? I don't think that many people at Arena Night Club think about this article to be honest. All right, so one opposing view that did make a good point was like, hey guys, listen, I really don't think it's as much of a race thing as it is a capitalism thing because in the US, in America, man, they don't care about anybody who doesn't add value, even if you're white. Right, it's just so happens that white have been, white people have been here and they may have some advantages so they have more value so they get treated better, but it's like not about the races, the value, it's more just like a coincidence. Yeah, and that also like being white helps you get into better systems and gets you better opportunities to show your true value perhaps, that makes a lot of sense. This is always the class warfare versus race warfare argument and I think there's a lot to be said for it. I think there needs to be more discussions about it. It needs to be delved into deeper. However, yeah, when you put it this way, it makes more sense in the class warfare where, I don't know, it's a 50-50 to me. I think capitalism feels a lot of racism and stuff like that, but. It's tough to say. I think it's different for different people, right? Like even if we were to judge the dominant group, let's just say that you could theoretically even just say whatever is white, right? I think there's like 10 different shades on the spectrum of like how you would feel, but each shade is large enough that you could be wholly contained within that shade and all of a sudden now you're the blind person feeling the elephant where you think that that's the whole world, but that's just one segment that you happen to be deeply entrenched in. Moving on, the number three response was, yeah, they love us in America as long as we just shut up and do the work. You know, and you know, I agree. There's some element and you could say it's either self-imposed, system-imposed, or both of like Asians feeling like either a neutrally welcome house guest in America. You know what I mean? Where we're like, oh yeah, I gotta do the work just to like stay in the house. Whereas everybody else feels like they were born in the house and they're like, you know, not the adopted stepchild. Yeah, and I think that it also comes with leverage, let's be honest. Remember when LeBron was told to shut up and dribble and that reporter, I forgot who said it, it was a white lady, she got in some trouble because she said shut up and dribble, but then it was about such a big issue about like black rights and you know, black lives matter a lot. She was like, be grateful we let you in that position. Like you're a rich basketball player, you make millions and millions of dollars a year to play a smart shot app. And I don't know, I think there's obviously some small fraction of people in America that look at Asians that just go do the work, shut up, you guys are just lucky that we saved you from whatever more torn, messed up place you're not came from. Listen, you guys have the highest incomes, you guys blah, blah, blah, so you guys are good, shut up. And then everybody else is like, yeah, but I'm actually not even getting paid as much as I should be. And I'm not respected by any of you guys. And I get microaggressions at work and nobody asked me how my weekend was, even though everybody else asked each other how everybody's weekend was. And then some people are like, we saved your grandpa, saved your grandpa in the helicopter, you remember in the boat and blah, blah, blah, blah. This is straight out of the North American playbook. Adopt the good, nice, unique things and then appropriate them as your own. This was another response. Like I said, I think appropriation, melting pot, fondues versus tossed salads. I think mosaics, you know, stained glass. I think that there's pros and there's cons, but it's funny because like, for example, Andrew, I do think this is kind of true. The left side in America, they tend to focus on the cons. In the right side, they tend to only focus on the pros. But the truth is, there's pros and cons to every schematic. Everything you do, there's pros and cons. And the last reaction, of course, was about this, all this invisibility and this sense of like, just shut up, you ROI worker, just be the cog that we need you to be and just be a team player, be that glorified role player. It ultimately affects Asian men the most, right? Yeah, I think the argument is that they're like, dude, because it also affects our dating and social life the most, even though it also affects the professional careers of Asian women too. But Asian men's social lives are getting smashed. I think the concept is, I'm not saying I fully agree with it, that Asian women have more flexibility to shed the social invisibility, whereas Asian men are gonna stay in the socially invisible pocket. Long story short, guys, by the way, those were not our words, those were reactions from the internet. I mean, what are your overall takeaways, man? Because like I said, we've been talking about these issues for a long, Andrew, you had predicted this in your verse. Everybody go back and listen to Andrew's verse about it. But what is the takeaway? I think that part of it is more time in America, right? And more leverage, time and leverage. Because if you're immigrant kids and you grew up in an immigrant household that probably does oftentimes make you a little bit different, maybe that doesn't allow you to fit in as well, or it's harder to fit in at work at your white corporate job or whatever, right? So I think that you gotta still give yourself some credit. If you made it to a certain point, give yourself some credit, pat yourself on the back, right? You know, you don't wanna like not, you don't wanna take this for granted. However, you gotta understand that at some point, once your leverage is high enough, you gotta just go after and take it. You gotta ask for respect. And I think demanding respect can't be uncomfortable. And even if it is uncomfortable, you still have to do it and you have to eventually learn to enjoy it. Cause my one criticism of the article and I don't think Mithra Kalita intended there to be solutions in it is there's no solutions. But Andrew, like you said, you need more time and leverage. But the time and leverage comes this way, right? It comes with more media representation, but that's people needing to actually proactively fight for it. Nobody's gonna give it to you, right? Time in the market is just time in America, right? But also the leverage component comes with higher population, right? In terms of raw number, but also politically active, like voting numbers. But then there's the unification issue which is very tough because it's all kind of scattered across the plot chart. On a micro scale, I would say if you're someone who's gonna rise up at work, no matter what your work is, maybe if you're the manager of a Domino's or whatever. I mean, I'm still saying you're still at a higher position there. But I guess what I'm saying is like, there's so much popular Asian culture out right now that it's easier than ever to expose people to it and to gain people's respect or at least introduce them to your culture. I understand 20 years ago, 25 years ago at work, there was like nothing cool, like even the restaurants weren't cool back then. Right, right. You know, it was very hard. You couldn't take your coworkers to like a company happy hour at an Asian bar. There wasn't ever- Or the Asian bar would be like too hood or too enclave- There was no everything everywhere all at once. There was no crazy rich Asians. There was no Shang-Chi. There was no great, cool Asian fusion restaurants by a tattoo chef. Well, now I feel like they're like elevated enough that you totally could take your boss and your team lead or if you're the team leader or whatever like that. And that's a soft culture way of doing things. Like that's a soft power way of doing it. But other than that, obviously gaining the leverage and just like imposing your will, man. Like honestly, it's like just going up and taking it. I think it's really shedding that like, I'm a foreign guest that's unwanted here. So I'm gonna be like asking if I could sit on this couch, asking if I could get a drink, asking if I can touch this lamp. You know what the most American thing is, and this is my last point. One of the most American things is to walk around like you got a big old stick in your pants, right? You got to walk around like you have the confidence and you and people will actually buy into it. That's how also by the way- Different than other countries. I think it's different than Europe. I think it even could work slightly different Canada or Australia, which is obviously other Anglo and New World countries. America is particularly this way. You have to come in bold or else. It's almost like people just doubt you or don't respect you even if you have the metrics to back up your point. If you don't deliver it with a certain level of swag and confidence and just, ugh. Big, big eggplant energy. Yeah. You know, in the positive way, in the most positive way. But yeah, anyways, guys, let us know in the comments down below what you think about all of this. I mean, is this a conversation that you've had before? Do you relate to any of these viewpoints? And do you agree that Asians just still to this day after all that Asians do in their positions, they still do not get respect? Are we just these underplayed role players that are like outplaying their contract? And do we need to get a starting role to get more reps? You know, to get to take more shots to deserve a bigger contract? I would say so. But who's gonna do the work? Because this game doesn't give you anything. Anyway, I don't think there's right or wrong answers. Just what you think. Let us know what you think in the comment section below. Until next time, we're gonna hop out boys, be out. Peace.