LA Times column calls Larry Elder 'model minority' who says what Whites 'love to hear about Black people'

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Media top headlines September 13

In media news today, an MSNBC historian uses 9/11 to campaign against Republicans, an LA Times columnist calls Larry Elder a 'very real threat' to communities of color, and the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler gets mocked for praising NYC's vaccine mandate

California Republican gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder came under a racially charged attack in the media yet again Monday, as a columnist called him a "model minority" who says "the things white people love to hear about Black people."

Elder, a Black conservative radio host who tops Republican polls in the crowded California recall election to potentially replace Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, was framed by Los Angeles Times columnist Frank Shyong as a token African American who flatters White Republicans' racial anxieties.

"The term 'model minority' has a specific history in the Asian American community, but I can’t think of a better embodiment of its concepts than Larry Elder, the Black Republican gubernatorial candidate who has made a career of saying the things white people love to hear about Black people," Shyong wrote.

Due to Elder's opposition to Black Lives Matter and rejection of the notion of "systemic racism," Shyong argued his candidacy comforted the "most racist" wings of the GOP.

LA TIMES COLUMNIST CALLS LARRY ELDER ‘VERY REAL THREAT TO COMMUNITIES OF COLOR’

"And I don’t think Elder’s sudden prominence is an accident," he wrote. "Fielding a 'model minority' candidate will probably become a common electoral strategy for the largely white Republican Party as it attempts to maintain control of a rapidly diversifying nation. Model minority candidates can help affirm far-right perspectives on racism while offering a defense against the charge that the Republican Party is too white."

Black conservatives such as Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas have frequently faced charges from the left of being sellouts of their own race, with some even using the derogatory "Uncle Tom" slur for Blacks viewed as too deferential to whites.

Elder's surge in polls has prompted aggressive reporting into his past and a special interest from columnists into his status as a Black Republican who supports Donald Trump. However, a woman in a gorilla mask throwing an egg at his head last week drew little mainstream media outrage.

The "model minority" term, Shyong wrote, stemmed from Whites in the 1960s downplaying racism against African Americans by pointing to financial success for Japanese and Chinese Americans. 

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Elder was a perfect "model minority" because he downplays White supremacy, touts his own success as proof against racism, and embraces the "bootstraps" narrative that anyone can succeed in the United States, Shyong claimed.

"Democrat or Republican, and no matter what race you are, I guarantee that you don’t want to elect a model minority candidate. If they’ve decided to sell out their own people, why would they treat the rest of us any better?" he wrote.

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Another L.A. Times writer, Jean Guerrero, has called Elder a "white supremacist" and a "very real threat to communities of color," and another column headline referred to him as the "Black face of white supremacy."

Elder has attacked Newsom's leadership as a disaster for the state on COVID-19 and education, while Newsom has fired back that he's too right-wing for the state. 

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Newsom is trying to avoid being the second California governor this century to be recalled after Democrat Gray Davis was ousted in 2003 in favor of Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger.