National "Public" Radio often airs very one-sided political advertising instead of news. This is especially true on "systemic racism."
On Weekend Edition Sunday, NPR aired a six-and-a-half minute jeremiad from "race and identity" correspondent Sandhya Dirks on how white people were exploiting Asian plaintiffs to push a fake discrimination story on college admissions before a "far-right Supreme Court." Nowhere in those 390 seconds was there a dissent from that view.
Anchor Ayesha Rascoe explained they were exposing "how the fight to end affirmative action was orchestrated. Some scholars and activists say it was consciously pitting Asian Americans against other communities of color to bring about the end of the policy." Leftist scholars and activists, like University of Maryland professor OiYan Poon, who orchestrated this story.
The story starts with conservative organizer Ed Blum, who is quoted saying "I needed Asian plaintiffs" to challenge racial quotas. OiYan Poon put that video from 2015 on YouTube. Poon boldly claimed "There is no evidence that there's a practice of anti-Asian discrimination."
Jeff Chang, a senior adviser at "the social justice nonprofit Race Forward," said "I feel Asian Americans have been used."
Sally Chen of "Chinese for Affirmative Action" complained "Pitting Asian American communities against, in particular, Black and Latinx communities is about undermining the accomplishments of a lot of Black and Latinx students."
Janelle Wong, like Poon a professor at Maryland, attacked the "model minority myth," that Asian students are hard-working (or harder-working than other minorities).
SANDHYA DIRKS: The myth ignores the long legacies of systemic racism faced by Black Americans. It ignores selective recruiting of highly educated immigrants, and it enforces a false story about Asian Americans, who are not a monolith.
JANELLE WONG: Research shows that those Asian Americans who internalize this myth are also more likely to exhibit anti-Black attitudes and to be anti-affirmative action.
DIRKS: Wong says this false narrative that Asian American seats are being taken by less qualified Black and Latino students isn't just racist. It's a misdirect.
WONG: The recruitment of Asian Americans into this movement provides a cover for white supremacy.
There you go: conservatives who want color-blind admissions are for "white supremacy." Dirks ended this whole crusade with metaphors of Band-Aids and bleeding.
DIRKS: Blum didn't respond to our request for comment, but he's called accusations of racism intellectually lazy and has said it's unclear who will benefit from the end of affirmative action. But OiYan Poon, who studies race and admissions, says it will help white and wealthy people.
OIYAN POON: To think somebody like Ed Blum is going to come along and basically bamboozle young people into thinking, like, these policies are actually against us when they're actually for us is just heartbreaking.
DIRKS: Poon and others say affirmative action was not perfect. It was a Band-Aid over a deeper wound of systemic racism and inequity. But the Band-Aid has been ripped off, and at least for now, Poon says, there's no longer anything in place to stop the bleeding.
NPR doesn't give conservatives a fair fight. It doesn't give conservatives a chance to fight at all.
Audio of this extremely anti-conservative story was supported by Raymond James.
