From the latest article in the New York Times' coverage of the Harvard admissions affirmative action case:
Claire Jean Kim, a professor of Asian-American studies at the University of California, Irvine, said the Harvard lawsuit is the "continuation of a historical dynamic that's been around for almost two centuries."
The phenomenon gained particular significance in the mid-20th century, when white people praised the work ethic and ability of Asian-Americans as a way to discredit the struggle of African-Americans. At that time, Japanese- and Chinese-Americans were repeatedly portrayed by politicians and the media, including The New York Times, as docile and industrious.
One of the hyperlinks the Times invokes to support its claim is another New York Times article from a few months ago. It said:
Black and Asian-American people have often been pitted against one another over the years, dating to the mid-20th century, when white people praised the work ethic and ability of Asian-Americans as a way to disparage the African-American struggle.
It seems to me that it's possible to have praised Asian-Americans as hard workers or industrious and to have meant it as genuine praise, not as a way of expressing racism toward blacks. And if the Times is going to make such a serious accusation, in its own editorial voice and without attribution, that praise of Asian-Americans was motivated by anti-black racism, it ought to name multiple, specific examples of that, and supply evidence.
The analogy that comes to my mind is from my JFK, Conservative book, which tells the story of how President Kennedy, after the 1963 March on Washington, met with the organizers, including Martin Luther King Jr., and told them "With all the influence that all you gentlemen have in the Negro community....[you] really have to concentrate in what I think the Jewish community has done on educating their children, on making them stay in school, and all the rest." Kennedy wasn't discrediting or disparaging the blacks; he was trying to give them what he thought was genuinely sound advice. At least that's how I heard it.