The Daily Signal - Racism Rebranded: The Hidden Bias of 'Anti-Racism' Against Asian Americans

Episode Date: June 26, 2025

Racism is ugly and must be fought. Not a controversial statement, right? What if racism rebranded itself as “anti-racism”? Such is what the Asian-American community is facing and no place has been more of a flash-point for that than Northern Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson High School For Science And Technology. This prestigious STEM school has been at the center of a battle between the Virginia Department of Education’s “anti-racism” directives from the Terry McAuliffe administration and the Asian-American parents that brought suit because their kids were denied admission.  Despite the US Supreme Court passing on their case last year, the Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the allegations. We sit down with Helen Raleigh, a child of Communist China who escaped to the US after coming to America as a college student. Her most recent book is titled “Not Outsiders” and she visited with us at Freedomfest in Palm Springs to talk about the quite racial prejudices the Asian American community faces. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk, business. Thanks for listening to this bonus episode of the Daily Signal podcast. I'm your host, Joe Thomas, Virginia correspondent for The Daily Signal. Before we dive into today's interview, I want to thank you for tuning in today. If you're a first-time listener, The Daily Signal brings you fact-based reporting and conservative commentary on politics, policy, and culture. And I hope you join our band of regular listeners to our podcast. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and also take a

moment to rate and review us wherever you get your podcast. You can find additional content at DailySignal.com. Now, let's get started with today's conversation right after this. Joining us is Helen Rawley. Helen Rawley has written a book called Not Outsiders. It's about the history of Asian Americans in the United States and how they've been treated not just politically, but socially. Helen, thank you for coming by. How are you doing? I'm good. How are you? And thanks for having me. No, at all. Thanks for writing the book. So are you a historian? What brought you to write the book? I'm a political opinion writer. I published several books that also writes op- ads for national medias.

Many contribute to the federalists, but also other national media like World Street Journal, National Review, etc. So this book is my latest book. It's about, it does include history. of Asian Americans, but mostly focused on Asian Americans' political activism for more than 150 years in this country. History is full of stories of, you know, internment camps and some of the ugly bits of American history where the American government reacted badly. But it sounds like you're talking more street-level, you know, cultural. I grew up in Queens, in New York, in the 70s, and we saw a huge influx of Vietnamese.

leaving the country during the end of the war, and they were the dominant culture in our downtown area. They ran all the businesses, and it was marvelous. And then, you know, a real petri dish of the American dream, they were buying big houses out in the suburbs with cash because they had it, because they all lived in the apartments above the store. But then they were able to live this American dream that it was so inspiring to say, gosh, can't everyone realize that's what America is about? Work hard, save your money, and then, you know, buy the things, you have the things that you hold dear or want to make special for your children.

Right, and I'm very thankful that you brought up a term of American Dream, because somehow in today's pop culture, that's not a very popular term right now. But I can tell you that for Asian Americans, we are one of the very few communities that we are unapologetically still, you know, believe in American dreams and we want to pursue the American dream and we'll do everything to make sure that everyone have equality in front of the law and to be able to have equal opportunities to try to achieve the American dream. In our flagship state of Virginia, we have a very famous specialized high school called

Thomas Jefferson High School for science and technology. And in one of the true spasms of racism rebranding itself as anti-racism. The school district said, no, no, no, we're going to have quotas to make sure kids of all these different races get in. And immediately the Asian American community rose up and said, hold on a second here. My kids just got straight A's for the last five years and you're telling him he can't come to this school because he doesn't, he was 101st on the list of 100? I mean, that was crazy.

And so when you talk about Asian activism, Asian American community, that's the one that pops into my mind most recently. Yes, actually, I include that as a recent example. So even though this book trace back 150 years, basically I divide those 150 years into three political movements. And the first one starting from 1850s to the early 20th centuries. Basically, at that time, this period, mostly, on unjust immigration laws against Asian Americans,

mostly against Chinese Americans, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. And the second wave covered from the World War II, like you mentioned earlier, about the internment camp, and the riots in the LA in the 90s of the rooftop Koreans, and the murder of Vincent Chan back in Detroit in the 1980s. And so it covered that period, it's most about the civil rights movement.

And then the most recent, like you mentioned about Thomas Jefferson High School, that's exactly the new, I call them a new age of anti-racism. Basically, they consider Asians, like any organization, especially in an education institution, if there are too many Asian kids, then the left will say, well, its Asians are overrepresented.

That's ridiculous. Yeah, they ignore our own diversity as well as what we bring to the table, the meritocracy. Well, it would be like when I was growing up in these Vietnamese families, families, we had a very black part of our history called redlining, where we would exclude black couples from buying homes in certain neighborhoods. It would be like instituting the same thing in my old neighborhood saying, no Vietnamese families can buy a house here. I mean, that's

kind of what's going on. We're punishing the very people we should be celebrating for their diligence, their efforts. And in a lot of cases, their humility, too. So talk about how that swings because, you know, to me, all of the Asian, you know, descent people I know, and I hate all the hyphenates and everything else, yeah. But they're diligent, hardworking, but they're also humble. I mean, you're not, no offense, they're not getting a lot of Asian rappers going around saying, look at me, look at me, look at me. You know, but, you know, it's, it's everything the American work ethic was. It was nose to the grindstone. work, you do your work, you're judged by your work, you're known by the fruit of your work,

and why are we against that all of a sudden? Well, because our culture shifted, right? And because like you, I don't know if you heard this new progressive term called the white adjacent. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so that's a new directory term used to describe Asian Americans. The progressive, yes, so basically, Joe, basically according to the progressives, the reason I'm successful as Asian Americans because I'm sitting next to you, I'm acting like you, I'm acting like white people. And so, yeah, that's a term so derogatory.

It's rob Asian Americans of our own agencies and our own dignity, like you said. And I don't even believe hardworking at a value education are like Asian values. It's American values. You're asking anyone who, any American who's successful in this country, they're going to tell you they work hard, they have a good work ethic,

and their parents taught them to value education. So it's such a derogatory term, but that's the culture today. The so-called anti-racism is just a new age of, it's really just the same old-fashioned racism, except now they rank different skin colors higher than others. Well, Abram Kendi, who I've battled with on television, he came to Charlottesville and somehow I managed to get into his TV set. And while everyone else, you know, kind of wilted when the TV lights came on, I said, you can't get away with this. I, you know, And I was excoriated for it because I kept saying, I said, you know, saying that a kid is bad simply because of the color.

This is when they were all saying that little white kids were, you know, products of white supremacy and therefore they had to be. I said, you're literally saying a kid is bad or good simply based on the color of his skin. That's racism. Exactly. And, oh, no, it's not. And then Kendi is on record now saying that the only way to reverse racism is with more racism. with more discrimination, reverse discrimination.

So the book, not outsiders, I haven't read it. And it's mostly because you, the listener, I'm going to be like you. You haven't read the book. I haven't read the book. So I'm going to ask the questions you're going to ask. But it sounds to me like this is a very harsh mirror for people in the American culture to read, not just because of the things that we've done. but if you're talking about the culture of the Asian community, especially,

it's a mirror that we're not going to like the reflection of because that used to be us is what we're talking about here. Well, I would not say harsh mural. I just say it would be like a reality check, but I think it will be also inspirational. You haven't seen our reality. That's harsh. I think it's more inspirational because let me just give you a quick example.

Sure. So in this book, it started from the 1850s. So in a very, you know, we're going back of more than 150 years. And back then, Chinese Americans, Asian Americans in general, but Chinese Americans particularly, because those were the largest Asian immigration groups back in the mid-19th century, were, there was no denial. Chinese Americans were systematically discriminated. They were both state as a federal laws, unjust state and the federal laws.

On the federal level, it was the immigration law. On the state level, there's just labor laws against the Chinese Americans. Oh, they were, I mean, the western part of the United States, I mean, they looked down their nose at the southern states for slavery, but what was done to the Chinese community in the American West, while we were out there in the East having our own problems, what was going on here in the West was just as bad. I mean, you know, the phrase being Shanghai, you know, is that for a reason?

Right, right. So Chinese workers were paid, like, like less than half of what the white workers get. And Chinese kids had to go to segregated schools and anything. Anyway, but there's inspiration. That's why I want to talk about inspiration. So this book is not just about the ugly truth. Back then, there were very few women immigrants, you know, from China.

Because, again, unjust immigration laws actually restricted women come to United States. Anyway, so there was this young Chinese woman. Her name is Atoy. She married a Chinese merchant, but on their way here. here, the merchant died on the ship. So she was here all by herself. She had no other way to support herself. So she went into a sex trade. But she had this very sharp business mind. So in a few years, she earned enough money, and she basically opened her own brothels in Chinatown. So in Chinatown was run by, you know, there are gambling houses, brothels, and then the

gangsters, right? That's called Tongs. And it's anyway, so one of the heads. of the Tong came to demand her to pay protection money. Sure. And as you know, that the, you know, prostitution is one of the, like, the lowest social class in China. They had no right. Like, even beggars had a better, like, social standing than prostitutions. And so, but when this tongue head came to demand Atouye to pay protection money, guess what

she said? She said, I'm in America now. I have rights. I have protection. I am not going to pay your money and you will come back here again. I'm going to sue you. Wow, go for her. This happened in 1852.

God bless her. Exactly. So the local newspaper actually wrote a, anyway, this, oh, one more thing. This head of the tongue, a year later, he was arrested. Not because Artoe sued him, but because he committed other crimes, he were arrested. But so the local newspaper, English newspaper, wrote big articles about Artoe, about her response, because it's like, here's this illiterate Chinese sex workers. Right.

She had no right when she lived in China. She's only been in United States for two or three years, and now she's only running her own business. But she absorbed America, this ideal that she understood immediately she has rights. She's no longer in a oppressed state, and she can use the local law to protect her. And this happened in the, yes, even though they're still systematic. discrimination against the Chinese Americans. But she knew there were laws. She knew there were laws.

So America, so I think what is the book conveys is, for a lot of immigrants, especially Asian immigrants, America is not just a place. Is this ideal? And we still believe in this ideal. And as long as you believe in this ideal and practice this ideal, we have a fighting chance. And look at Asian Americans,

right? We came from that kind of environment with that kind of a, you know, systematic discrimination. But today, Asian Americans on average have the highest education attainment, have the highest household income compared to average American household. Not because anybody gave us a handout. Not because you're white adjacent.

Well, the progressive would like to say that. Yeah, but I'm just saying, so I hope this book also can be very inspirational about America. So where do the people get it, Helen? They can find it on Amazon as well as Bonds and Nobles, just anywhere that the books are sold. Do you keep a website full of your writings? I do. I do. So I have two websites.

Yeah, I have a substack. It's called Confucius Never Said. I'm going to go there just because I like the title of it. Thank you. Too many of these substags are like joe-thomish.substack.com. I love a substack with a real attitude. I'm glad you like that. Yeah.

I also have a website that's a boring one. Helen Rowley Speaks.com. Okay, well, that's awesome. Thank you so much for coming by. Rob, thank you for catching up with her backstage and saying, you've got to go talk to Joe, and you might find yourself on the pages of the Daily Signal next week as well.

But thank you very much for visiting with us, and thank you for doing this to point out that, you know, we've been bad, and people who were treated badly overcame it in ways that are unspeakably profound. And I think that's a great message. Thank you very much. That'll do it for today's show.

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