I admit, I've been mildly intrigued by the idea of reading Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother ever since the fire storm over Amy Chua's book erupted a few months back. For those of you who haven't heard, Battle Hymn chronicles Chua's battles with her daughters and the utter abuse they take in the author's quest to be a proper "Chinese mother."
As many of you know, I read books for a living. As soon as this bad mutha hit the office, I scrambled to have it assigned to me. Mission accomplished, I started Tiger Mother yesterday and am about halfway through. This is what I think so far ...
First, I must make perfectly clear, that I hate exceptionalism in all its forms. For nations, it simply means that we Americans will rush headlong into countries like Afghanistan simply knowing that, because of our inherent goodness, we will not suffer the fates of Alexander the Great nor the British Empire (see how that's working for us).
As far as race goes, I believe that exceptionalism is simply the PC flip side of racism. These backhanded compliments will laud any race in one particular area while subtly suggesting that they are inferior in all others. In the 1840s, while enslaved Negroes were being called "lazy" and "shiftless" in one breath, the very next breath admonished those "slovenly" and "dirty" Irish and Germans to be more like the "hard-working," "industrious" darky. The "model minority" was born and continues to thrive to this day--though the levels of melanin have pretty much changed.
