Racial privilege as a function of White supremacy and contextual advantages for Asian Americans

Abstract

This article uses the discursive construction of “Asian privilege” as a vehicle to think through what constitutes racial privilege. For racial privilege to exist three conditions are required: (1) structural control; (2) racial invisibility to hide power; and (3) direct benefits of a structural racist system. For Asian Americans, the accrued “benefits” in some areas of social life, what we call contextual advantages are indirect, based on the shape-shifting of White supremacy, not Asian American self-determination. This is not, however, to excuse or deny some Asian Americans’ cooperation with White supremacy, settler colonialism, and U.S. empire, but to note that hegemonic usefulness to White supremacy is not equivalent to racial privilege.