The Cult of Racial Grievance has claimed another victim.
Actually, about 20 million victims.
HBO’s “documentary short” 38 At The Garden tells the story of “an undrafted Harvard graduate” who “shocked fans, stunned his teammates and galvanized the Asian American community when he scored 38 points at Madison Square Garden against the Los Angeles Lakers” in February 2012. Unfortunately, it also juxtaposes Jeremy Lin’s “stature as a groundbreaking, cultural icon” with “the recent hate crimes against … Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.”
With left-wing activist Lisa Ling as an executive producer, there wasn’t a chance that a look back at “Linsanity” wouldn’t be hopelessly woke. But that’s no reason to spare the execrable 38 At The Garden a well-deserved bashing.
The ugliness starts immediately, as Hasan Minhaj and Jenny Yang — unlike Ling, who larps as a journalist, they larp as comedians — explain what most Americans think about Asians. (No polling or focus-group findings are cited, of course.) Minhaj, with Emmy and Peabody awards visible over his right shoulder, lectures that someone viewed as “small, passive, diminutive, unathletic, and submissive” cannot be perceived as “brave, courageous, covetable, desirable, or a leader.” Yang gets more specific: “dry cleaners,” “IT guy,” “emasculated, no-dick-having, no-luck-with-women-having dudes,” “dragon lady,” “sex workers,” and “masseuses’ happy endings.”
Given that people of Asian descent in the United States outperform all other groups in socioeconomic metrics such as out-of-wedlock births, divorce rates, life expectancy, educational attainment, and household income, it’s at least theoretically possible that non-Asian Americans admire the cohort’s penchant for hard work, knowledge/skill cultivation, strong family and community ties, and clean living. Someone should inform Minhaj and Yang.
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