I do think you should acknowledge that the black civil rights movement has similarly benefited asian Americans.

This seems to come with the implicit message that asian americans didn't contribute in meaningful ways to race relations. Many of our parents came from nothing, kept their nose to grindstone, and demanded respect from their peers through their actions. Silently toiling and overcoming massive adversity is a way to disprove wrong ideas about racial differences in aptitude and work ethic. That we've turned into excellent physicians, researchers, or other professionals is also one of the reasons that board rooms and other enclaves of elitism can't be openly racist anymore. And i'm talking about decades of turning a blind eye to racial hostility and not escalating. We all know how much harder if often is to turn the cheek and take the higher road. Who's to say that our efforts haven't been as incredible or hard?

No group has a monopoly on acts that have turned american into a more racially tolerant nation.

And that's why I have a problem when people say that we have to thank them for the civil rights movement. It seems to imply that we have something to thank them for because we haven't done anything. And that is untrue.

It's problematic to demand that we thank them because I certainly wouldn't demand that they thank us for the above efforts. It would be weird to be thanked for being an upstanding citizen and helping to take down racial stereotypes.

Personally, I like the word appreciate more. It's less obsequious. We aren't lessers.