I mean, while the basic facts of Asian folk being "more" successful than Black folk may be true, you're falling into a trap of comparing dissimilar situations. First of all, (assuming you're looking at 1st-gen or children of 1st-gen immigrants), you're comparing cream of the crop self-selected people to, well, the average. It's not cheap or easy to get to America, so Asians who make it to the US are already definitely hard workers, dedicated to success, blahblah all that sort of thing. Even if the kids are born here, their parents already hold those values, and try their damndest to pass it on to their kids. Go to China, look at the chinese kids in average schools, they're as normal as anything here - some lazy, some dedicated, etc. There are a billion+ people in china - why are only some of them doing well, some of them in America?

Another thing is the cultural background, right? Chinese families "do well" on standardized tests because, basically, Chinese civilization has had standardized tests for literally thousands of years (sup confucionist meritocracy). This is a culture which has prized education and testing for thousands of years. It is also a culture which has remained intact and was never burned to the ground and torn apart at the seams by, i don't know, some kind of outside influence.

Compare this to black and hispanic civilization and cultural history, which have been destroyed and raped for the benefit of white colonialists. (China was colonized too, but never devastated as much as south american and african societies) I mean, let's not forget that up until, oh, a hundred or so years ago, blacks would be literally killed, lynched, etc for even trying to read. Even up until 30 or so years ago, the schools that blacks were allowed to attend were deliberately kept completely and utterly useless.

Simply think about your own situation - who was it that taught you how to read, how to value education, and the importance of critical thought? I don't know you very personally, but I'm willing to bet it was a combination of good parents, good teachers, and access to resources not available to everyone (a decent library, for one).

Obviously, this is not to say that it is impossible now or ever for black students to excel. But I am saying that, once you take into consideration the larger history and cultural differences, you can't really compare the black situation to the asian situation.

Anyways, check this article for a much longer elaboration of what I clumsily summed up here: http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-aamodel.htm

Finally, I would also like to point out is that this train of thought is actually very insidious. Using the Asian as a model minority - to use a contrast to those "less good" minorities, like blacks, hispanics, and poor whites - is pretty much the entire point of holding up Asians as a stereotype of good students.

When you believe that asians have made it because of simple hard work and dedication, without a complete understanding of the historical and cultural background, then you must believe that blacks should be able to make it through hard work and dedication as well. Asians did it, didn't they? The ugly underbelly of this, of course, is that blacks and poor whites who don't make it must be lazy, and therefore deserve their poverty. This ignores the massive societal problems that non-Asian minorities face, problems which cannot be easily overcome through sheer hard work and dedication.

So, did you say a racist thing? Yes - but through no fault on your own part, of course. The wonderful thing about modern-day racism is that it does not require any willful racism on people's parts - the system is just set up that way already.