Editing Model minority (section)

=== African Americans ===
Often overlooked is the direct contrast of model minorities with [[African Americans]].{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}} It is the opinion of some that model minority stereotypes have historically been utilized to discredit African American racial equality movements, such as the civil rights movement, as they highlighted an alternative route to racial reform.<ref name=":6">{{Cite book|last=Wu, Ellen D. |title=The color of success: Asian Americans and the origins of the model minority|date=24 November 2013|isbn=978-1-4008-4887-4|location=Princeton|oclc=862372739}}{{page needed|date=November 2022}}</ref>  African Americans were pushed to follow the lead of the idea of Asian Americans as the model minority, which was used to highlight that success as a minority was possible through hard work and support of the government.<ref name=":6" /> Since the success of Asian Americans was frequently attributed to distinctive cultural elements, researchers and policymakers argued that the struggles faced by African Americans was the result of a "culture of poverty".<ref name=":6" /> Thus, politicians such as Assistant Secretary of Labor [[Daniel Patrick Moynihan]] suggested that fostering cultural change amongst African Americans was essential to address the overall issue of racial inequality.<ref name=":6" /> This is illustrated through Moynihan's paper, [[The Negro Family: The Case For National Action|"The Negro Family: The Case for National Action"]], which argues for the need to intervene in African American families in order to establish familial values similar to those of Asian Americans.<ref name=":6" /> Other examples where people have been concerned about the potential political weaponization of this idea included [[Florida]] governor since 2019 [[Ron DeSantis]] proposed mandate for Asian American studies which was criticized by many in the Asian American community for proposing the mandate  while simultaneously banning courses on [[institutionalized racism]], one of the fears being the use of Asian American history to promote discrimination against other minorities through an "untruthful representation".<ref>{{cite news | last=Yam | first=Kimmy | title=DeSantis criticized for mandating Asian American history while banning courses on 'systemic racism' | date=May 17, 2023 | publisher=NBC News |department=NBC Asian America| url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/desantis-criticized-mandating-asian-american-history-banning-courses-s-rcna84972 | access-date=September 14, 2023}}</ref>

While scholars of the civil rights era relied on cultural values to describe the varying successes of Asian Americans and African Americans, contemporary scholars have begun to examine the effects of the different types of racism the two ethnic groups experience. Essentially, [[racism]] in itself is not monolithic. Instead, it is perpetrated in different ways and different avenues of life in which [[:Category:Anti-black racism in the United States|anti-Black rhetoric]] often proves to be more harmful to Black [[personhood]] than situations involving [[Anti-Asian racism in the United States|anti-Asian discrimination]].<ref name=":3">{{Cite news |title='Model Minority' Myth Again Used As A Racial Wedge Between Asians and Blacks |work=NPR.org |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2017/04/19/524571669/model-minority-myth-again-used-as-a-racial-wedge-between-asians-and-blacks|access-date=2018-11-06}}</ref> Such generalizations regarding Black peoples' inability to thrive in the United States fail to explain the high levels of success seen by Black [[African immigration to the United States|African]] and [[West Indian Americans|Caribbean immigrants]] to America which surpasses the averages of all native-born American ethnic groups. Additionally, Black African immigrant women make up the highest paid group of women in country.<ref>{{Cite web|title=African Immigrants: Race and Gender Impact Economic Success|url=https://research.msu.edu/african-immigrants-race-and-gender-impact-economic-success/|access-date=2020-07-11|website=Research at Michigan State University|language=en-US}}</ref>