There is no such thing as acceptable racism. Grouping all people of one race, origin or region and placing a blanket statement over them will never work: people are more than just a statistic.

Even the elevation of one race over others in a particular category is harmful, and it affects other minorities.

For example, The Model Minority Myth. The idea that Asian Americans are inherently smarter, more hard-working, and successful than other groups. It doesn’t have to be some dramatic declaration of superiority. It can look like expecting the Asian kid to always score the highest on the test. Always be the quiet kid. Have a perfect GPA.

And although it may even seem like a positive thing, just holding people to high standards, it can be dramatically detrimental to the mental health of those being stereotyped and the well-being of those around them.

One of the largest contributors to this problem is the categorization of all Asians, whether Indian, Burmese or Thai, as one group. Although Asians have the highest median annual income in the United States, they also have the highest income gap, with the top ten percent earning over ten times more than the bottom ten percent.

This data itself can be misleading. When looking at different groups, such as Cambodian-Americans and Japanese-Americans, we can see a drastic difference in the percentage of Cambodian-Americans living in poverty when compared to Japanese-Americans.

But this expectation isn’t just rooted in graphs and over-generalization.

There is no such thing as acceptable racism. Grouping all people of one race, origin or region and placing a blanket statement over them will never work: people are more than just a statistic.

Even the elevation of one race over others in a particular category is harmful, and it affects other minorities.

For example, The Model Minority Myth. The idea that Asian Americans are inherently smarter, more hard-working, and successful than other groups. It doesn’t have to be some dramatic declaration of superiority. It can look like expecting the Asian kid to always score the highest on the test. Always be the quiet kid. Have a perfect GPA.

And although it may even seem like a positive thing, just holding people to high standards, it can be dramatically detrimental to the mental health of those being stereotyped and the well-being of those around them.

One of the largest contributors to this problem is the categorization of all Asians, whether Indian, Burmese or Thai, as one group. Although Asians have the highest median annual income in the United States, they also have the highest income gap, with the top ten percent earning over ten times more than the bottom ten percent.

This data itself can be misleading. When looking at different groups, such as Cambodian-Americans and Japanese-Americans, we can see a drastic difference in the percentage of Cambodian-Americans living in poverty when compared to Japanese-Americans.

But this expectation isn’t just rooted in graphs and over-generalization.

It’s rooted in an even deeper event that stretches back back to World War II and the Japanese Internment camps.

After Japanese-Americans were released from internment camps, they were forced to try and rebuild what they had lost, which, oftentimes, was most of their material possessions. They faced hostility and violence upon their release, but over the 1950s and 60s they recovered, silently reclaiming what they had lost.

The War Relocation Authority (WRA) pushed the idea that Japanese-Americans should, if they were to be proper citizens, undergo this process in silence and not acknowledge the blatant injustices they had faced. And, although there were protests that challenged this model of total passivity, many did choose to recover quietly.

Throughout the 50s and 60s, politicians and the government would begin to praise Asian Americans, but at the expense of African-Americans. By comparing African -Americans who were protesting and campaigning for their Civil Rights to Asian Americans, who, as the media portrayed, simply stayed quiet and worked harder as the “model minority,” African-Americans were now being framed simply as complainers who just needed to put their heads down and work.

This point, of course, is rooted in racist ideas, but it’s also deeply connected to the value placed on the American Dream, which promises, in theory, that hard work will lead to material success and fulfillment. That makes it hard to dispel from our culture.

This framing hasn’t disappeared. When inequity arises around schools or jobs, for example, the idea of the model minority is often subtly referenced. It’s used to argue that systemic barriers and differences don’t exist: that effort is the sole determiner of success. Instead of bringing people together, it divides them and fails to ask the question of why opportunities aren’t evenly distributed. It allows an institution to point to one group and say that the system isn’t flawed, effectively ignoring the circumstances of other groups.

Comparing racism has no place in our society. And, even today, these assumptions can dismiss other groups’ struggles, not just African-Americans.

Think about the last time a student joked about how an Asian student whom they’ve met before probably has a high SAT score. Or is going to an Ivy League. On the surface, these remarks may just seem like off-the-cuff statements or jokes that were said with no real thought behind them, but their effects can be strong.

Especially for students, this pressure can be extremely detrimental to their mental health. The expectation to perform doesn’t have to be said outright, although often it is, in order to instill it in one’s mind.

A student who has internalized the expectation of perfection may avoid asking for help, fearing that, if they do, they won’t fit the image of how they should be that society has painted for them. They may dismiss their achievements. Ignore their feelings. But if they fail, they won’t have any support system to fall back upon.

The anxiety of being expected to be perfect silences students when they struggle. High grades or awards become expectations, not successes. What parents or teachers might have thought was encouragement morphs into expectancy.

And Asians who can’t meet those standards, who don’t fit that model minority, might even be rejected. Their parents might hesitate to talk about them during socials with other parents in fear of seeming different. Or perhaps that they’re just not working hard enough.

That should not be the culture of our society, and it certainly shouldn’t be the culture at the school. Students are already  under a massive expectation to perform. Adding another layer to that by placing these lofty blanket statements on certain students traps them and quietly looks down upon those outside the so-called “model minority.”

The next time you hear a compliment, notice if it’s an assumption that’s just been beautified by positive language. Ask who that assumption affects and what it means.

The school’s foundation is built on respect. Real respect means seeing other people as individuals. Not a statistic, not simply another member of a group. Be the reason someone feels confident in who they are, not who society wants them to be.