What happened to Neera Tanden is racist, and we can’t ignore how it influenced the White House’s decision on Tuesday to withdraw its nomination to head the Office of Administration and Budget. Tanden’s failure to confirm makes her the first choice of President Joe Biden to be disqualified. It is no coincidence that she is also an Asian American woman.
Selected by Biden to head the office that plans and oversees the implementation of the federal budget, Tanden suffered a relentless attack for her Twitter posts. With the 50/50 split of the Senate, opposition from West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin meant that she would need to find support from at least one Republican. And arguably the most moderate Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, dismissed that.
Media coverage of the Tanden saga tends to focus on his tweets, which Manchin and others have labeled “openly partisan” and “mean.” (In the case of Collins and many other Republicans, the attacks were also very personal.) During his time as leader of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, Tanden became entangled on Twitter with political figures from the right (typical was the line that ” vampires have more heart than Senator Cruz “) and the left, notably Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and his supporters during his run for president.
I will refrain from making comparisons with “the ex-guy” or with any of the actions and behaviors of his nominees, either in person or online, because this is very easy and people are denouncing this hypocrisy on their own. I don’t have much to say about whether she was qualified to serve as director of the Office of Administration and Budget beyond that. I don’t even have more to say as a progressive about how his centrist positions and actions let me down, as they did with other people.
The point that needs to be emphasized, however, is that whatever the background noise surrounding this confirmation struggle is, there is no doubt that racism influenced it. Anti-Asian prejudice has a specific set of stereotypes that accompany it, and we need to recognize and condemn how it influenced Tanden’s confirmation hearings.
There are variations in the stereotype for different Asian ethnicities – Tanden identifies himself as Indian American – but generally the contours of the stereotypes and expectations of Asian American women are the same:
We must be maternal and pleasant like all women – but even more subservient and complacent, or else we will be considered very tense and over-demanding tiger mothers.
We are allowed to do “body work” for people – fix their nails, wash their clothes, clean their house, take their temperature, change their children’s diapers – but do it anonymously or have names that are easy to pronounce.
When we can be the boss, we are often stereotyped as unscrupulous and inscrutable; we became the petty and petty Asian boss behind the cash register.
Tanden’s journey through these anti-Asian stereotypes was fraught with two equally bad choices. She could try to fit someone’s Asian stereotype and make others more comfortable, meeting their expectations and not causing alarm – at the cost of being an inauthentic version of herself.
Tanden does not fit into any of the stereotypes that would have allowed her to skate past the scrutiny gantlet. She is loud and responsible. She tweets as the best (or worst) of the boys. She does not play the role of a mother, nor does she project an amusing “Momala” look, like Vice President Kamala Harris. And she wanted to run an agency with the word “budget” in the name. In other words, she ran afoul of all prohibitions for Asian American women.
Tanden also faced stereotypes that Asian Americans of all genders face. Asian Americans are seen as perpetual foreigners in our own homeland. Of the frequent micro-aggression of being asked “No, where are you? same in? “to Executive Order 9066, which interned Japanese ethnic American citizens in 1942, Asian Americans constantly struggle to belong, to be accepted and trusted as Americans.
This prejudice is reflected in the concern that Asian Americans have double loyalties or are part of a conspiracy designed to dominate the West – the yellow danger. A full year after Donald Trump called it a “Chinese virus” has not helped to make people overcome this prejudice – instead, it has contributed to an astronomical increase in anti-Asian violence, most cruelly against the elderly.
Paradoxically, Asian Americans are also considered to be the “model minority”. In 1966, a New York Times reporter published an article about how “Japanese Americans” were doing, and the stereotype that Asian Americans are the “model minority” has germinated, a race that has great achievements and does not need the government support.
The minority myth model has the triple effect of minting Asian Americans against other communities of color (if we are the “good” race, who is the “bad” race?), Erasing a long history of anti-Asian violence and discrimination. in the USA and, what is more pernicious, making the needs and experiences of Asian Americans invisible, why should we be noticed or have the right to complain when we have it so good? This denial of our experience is evident in how silent most of America has been about Tanden’s identity when discussing his treatment.
Anti-Asian biases appeared at Tanden’s confirmation hearings, whether the senators were aware of it or not. It is time to name the implicit prejudices and assumptions that Asian Americans face, so that we can be judged from a conscious point of view. Is Tanden more “stingy” than other nominees or are we offended by Asian American women who are assertive and want to lead? Is Tanden more “partisan” than other nominees, or are we not sure that we can trust her for some vague reason? As many Asian Americans have learned over time, you are only the model minority until someone else decides that you are not.