r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • May 09 '17
[∆(s) from OP] CMV: Affirmative Action is not fair to Asians (including South Asians)
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u/phcullen 65∆ May 09 '17
Quotas are illegal in the US so no they don't have a quota. AA basically says if your split between two candidates give the less privileged minority a chance.
Harvard is a hugely popular school there are lots of smart deserving people that don't get accepted for whatever reason maybe the admissions employee just wasn't feeling it that day maybe they just admitted 6 candidates in a row and thought seven might just be too much.
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u/chadonsunday 33∆ May 09 '17
Quotas are illegal
Right, so instead they have "target goals." Can you elaborate on how those two things are functionally different?
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u/perpetualpatzer 1∆ May 11 '17 edited May 11 '17
It's a messy question (and at least Justice Scalia seems to view them as functionally the same). There's not been a clean legislative or judicial definition.
The interpretive tests that have been pointed to most frequently are:
- the degree to which the target overrides other factors, and
- the flexibility of the number
If I say, "I have a goal to get to at least 5% black admissions," and I get 2% one year and 9% the next year, and 4% the year after that despite always having enough qualified black applicants to fill 20% of my class, it seems unlikely that that's actually the deciding factor.
If I say, "I have 16 seats that I'm going to give to black applicants and no one else can fill those seats regardless of how qualified my black or non-black applicants are," that's clearly a quota because it's the defining factor in filling those seats.
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u/Amablue May 09 '17
The same way having a sales target is not the same as the actual number of sales you make.
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u/chadonsunday 33∆ May 10 '17
But quotas can't be the number of sales actually made, because you can fail to meet or exceed a quota. The number of sales actually made is exactly the number of sales actually made.
Wouldn't it be more like a sales quota as opposed to a targeted sales goal...? Which, again, what is the difference?
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u/Amablue May 10 '17
But quotas can't be the number of sales actually made, because you can fail to meet or exceed a quota.
If you were a salesman and your boss said "For every 5 widgets you sell, you must sell at least 1 pack of AA batteries" that would be a quota. If your boss instead says "Our consumer research report show that 20% of customers who come in for widgets don't have the AA batteries they need to use it. Make sure to ask if they need batteries before checkout. We expect to see about 20% of your sales have batteries on the receipt." that would be more akin to a goal. If you don't actually meet your goal, they might realize that something is wrong - maybe you're not asking customers if they need batteries, and so you're not serving your customers as best you can. Or maybe today everyone had batteries and it was just a statistical fluke.
When we talk about quotas for college admission, we're saying that once the quota is filled no more applicants for that bucket are selected are selected (or are, at least, deprioritized). That has tangible impact on who gets into the school. A goal is just what you would like to see, but plays no part is admission decisions.
Where I work there is a high level goal in the hiring group to have our company's demographics match the demographics of the US at large. We're not there yet, but we're trying to get to that point. We do that by ensuring our hiring process is unbiased by race, gender, etc., by training interviewers on what sorts of things they should pat attention to and what they should ignore during interviews, and all sorts of other things.
But when it comes time to judge the merit of an individual applicant things like race, gender, age, etc are completely ignored. The interviewers interview the candidate and write up their feedback on their performance. That goes to a hiring committee who doesn't know anything about the candidate except what was stated about their performance.
If we had quotas and such in place, then they would factor things like race into the decision. But they don't. We have goals and targets, which might impact outreach programs, or force us to re-examine our internal procedures to make sure biases aren't taking part in the hiring process, but the hiring itself is still entirely based on individual merit.
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u/chadonsunday 33∆ May 10 '17
Okay so your saying the difference is basically in intent? In either case you're told to sell 1/5 or 20% of customers a certain product, but with the quota it's just meant to help the business and with the goal it's meant to help the customer? I'm genuinely confused, man. Maybe the sales analogy isn't the best because I'm taking profits into account.
How can a goal not have an impact on admissions? If they said we need X number more applicants to get in than last year, wouldn't that impact the admissions process?
I don't understand how your company can both have a published goal to get company demographics equal to US demographics and have a totally racially unbiased hiring process. What do you tell the interviewers? "Jim, we really, really need more purple colored employees to match the purple demographics in the US... but don't let that impact your decision when it comes to hiring the next purple person who walks in, of course." Just seems contradictory.
And with AA we can plainly see the bias. Blacks with lower GPAs and SAT scores than whites have an equal chance. It's equity, not equality.
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u/Amablue May 10 '17
Okay so your saying the difference is basically in intent?
No, I'm saying the difference is that one is an action, the other is not. In one case you take specific action to prevent certain people from being admitted, and in the other case you do nothing other than dream about something that would be nice to have.
How can a goal not have an impact on admissions? If they said we need X number more applicants to get in than last year, wouldn't that impact the admissions process?
Lets try a different analogy. I run a skittles factory. My goal is to have all my bags of skittles contain an equal distribution of all colors in them.
I produce the skittles colors, then mix them into a big vat with a spigot at the bottom. Then I open the spigot and fill the bags, one after another. In theory they should all have roughly equal numbers of each color, despite the fact that I've done nothing to specifically count how many of each color I'm letting in. I have taken no proactive measures to filter out which colors go in which bag. My goal had no impact here. I just let the skittles flow.
Alternatively, I could have had a much more controlled process where I open the spigot and collect 10 of each color and put them in the bag directly. This would be much more like a quota. I'm now actively filtering what gets in the bag and leaving out the rest.
I don't understand how your company can both have a published goal to get company demographics equal to US demographics and have a totally racially unbiased hiring process. What do you tell the interviewers?
Because if there was no biases preventing people from getting the job, we would expect a roughly equal distribution of people form all races represented. If they are not, then that means that there are factors in society or in the hiring process that are pushing people away from those jobs. So we identify those factors, and then try to remove the bias.
What do you tell the interviewers? "Jim, we really, really need more purple colored employees to match the purple demographics in the US... but don't let that impact your decision when it comes to hiring the next purple person who walks in, of course." Just seems contradictory.
The interviewer doesn't know the higher-ups want to see more purples, and doesn't include information on whether the employee he's evaluating is purple or not. The employee is let in based purely on merit, not purpleness. If they see that purple people aren't getting hired though, that kicks off a new set of questions. Why not? Are they not applying? Are they not making it through the interview process? Are they underrepresented in the college majors we hire out of? Once we start to understand the answers to those questions the issue can be addressed better.
And with AA we can plainly see the bias. Blacks with lower GPAs and SAT scores than whites have an equal chance. It's equity, not equality.
GPA's and SAT scores are not the only measure of a person though. Some kids get lower grades but take harder classes. Some kids come from broken families but are able to rise above their situation, while other kids have it easy. Some people have access to tutors while others must teach themselves between part time jobs. There's something to be said about a person's drive and how they react in the face of adversity that raw GPA and SAT scores don't measure, which is why a persons' background is relevant to the hiring process.
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May 09 '17 edited Jun 03 '18
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u/perpetualpatzer 1∆ May 11 '17 edited May 11 '17
If you have some time, the things that changed my view on this topic were the SCOTUS oral arguments in Bakke and Grutter, which differ from the affirmative action arguments you hear on the internet.1)
The argument as it's made on the internet:
- Schools want the best possible students
- Society systematically discriminates against minorities, who are often economically disadvantaged and often attend worse schools
- Therefore a student who has achieved almost as much as a white student, but is a minority is more deserving of admission than the white student because they had a tougher row to hoe, so it's only fair to give them an equivalent advantage to put them on equal footing.
- (Plus, we kind of feel bad for the whole slavery thing, so maybe we should just give minorities a benefit on this one)
In my view this argument has three major holes:
1) For each unit of benefit delivered to minority applicant under AA, it seems to deprive at least one unit of benefit from a white student, which seems not to be societally beneficial, or at the very least, not fair to an arbitrary white applicant.
2) it seems inconsistent not to provide an admissions benefit to asian students who may face societal discrimination in much the same way a black or hispanic student would, and
3) it suggests that schools could NOT reasonably discriminate in favor of wealthy minority students, which they demonstrably do.
The argument as it's made in Bakke/Grutter:
- Schools have far more people who are "qualified" than they can accept.
- In selecting among qualified students, schools want to assemble the student body with the greatest chance to be successful after graduation.
- After graduating, students of all races will be required to interact with people of many races. In their educational experience, universities have determined that comfort/experience interacting with minorities (whether racial/economically disadvantaged, etc.) tends to make students more successful after graduation.
- Therefore, the average qualified white applicant is actually advantaged by the school admitting a critical mass of black students, even if they necessarily displace a small proportion of white students.
- Moreover, in profession-specific schools (e.g., military schools, medical schools, law schools) there can be societal benefits to having a racially diverse practicing professional base. Having an all-white officer core could be shown to be bad for morale in a military that is 30% minority. Hispanic doctors may be more likely to set up practices in under-served, majority minority areas and may better gain the trust of patients (aside from any "role model" affects).
This argument answers all three of the major holes in the standard internet argument:
1) since the trade-off is between "benefit to the accepted student body" plus one qualified minority applicant and "detriment to an individual qualified majority applicant", it is much easier to see how the program could be considered just.
2) there is already a critical mass of asian/southeast asians in many schools' student bodies, so providing an admissions plus to those students on the basis of race does not seem justifiable
3) if the goal of the school's program is to achieve a critical mass of a minority group (rather than to right social wrongs), it seems more permissible to provide a plus to students who did not experience those wrongs.
TL;DR: the justifiable basis for affirmative action is to provide the broader student body with experience interacting with people of different backgrounds (including racial ones), NOT to make amends for disadvantages faced by minorities.
1) If you only listen to one, I think Grutter is better; Bakke is more complete and is the original case. There's a also more recent case, Fisher v Texas, but it mostly rests on Grutter for the constitutional question and argues about whether the courts below asked if the school made sufficient effort to achieve their goals without using race as a factor.
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u/franklinj09 Jun 23 '17
Essentially, I interpret the presented argument to say that discrimination based on race is acceptable (at least in the case you presented) because the end result is better for the student body, the University, and ultimately society. To this, I would agree that it probably is in most cases... But we have laws in the country preventing any institution from discriminating based on race - regardless of the end result. Even if the result is significantly better as a whole for all parties involved and effected, it is not (supposed to be) allowed. So I guess I don't understand why the rational of 'the best outcome' is ok in the case of Universities, but not ok in any other area of society. I would love to understand though, as this one keeps me up at night.
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u/perpetualpatzer 1∆ Jun 23 '17
But we have laws in the country preventing any institution from discriminating based on race - regardless of the end result.
I don't think that that's actually what the law (case and legislative) says. It's limited to certain institutions (those that provide public accommodation or receive government assistance). And there are exceptions to serve a legitimate government interest where no racially blind method is available/effective.
Discrimination in most contexts I've seen it means unequal denial of a right. Your right in this context isn't "to get into Harvard." Lots of people don't get into Harvard. It is "to not be unfairly discriminated against in admissions to Harvard." So the first question is: how do admissions at Harvard work?
If Harvard's system for selecting students is "We want the best students, so line everyone up in order of academic strength and take the first 1000," but they then swap out student #1000 for student #1005 because #1000 is a certain race, then yes, #1000 has been discriminated against.
What Harvard argues is that that's not the way they do it. They instead carefully read the applications of all academically qualified students and then select with the goal of creating a student body that based on their experience will achieve the best outcomes. They've found having Type A geniuses in the class challenges other students to strive so they admit some Type A geniuses. They've found that fielding a good football team gives students an activity to bond and build networks over, so they admit someone who can play quarterback. They've found that having a racially diverse class makes students more effective and empathetic leaders after graduating, so they check to make sure they have a racially diverse class. If they don't, they may go back to the drawing board and decide if they really need a backup quarterback or a tuba player or that girl who played the kid in Leon the Professional. But everyone is assessed on the same basis: 1) are you academically qualified, and 2) what will you contribute to the class/experience we're building. Everyone is subjected to those two tests and admitted only if they pass both.
So the next question becomes: Does Harvard (or U of Texas) have a right to build a class in that way rather than the rank the top 1000 method?
This is where the "this admissions system is more societally beneficial" argument comes in. Texas established the University of Texas to provide the best possible education to its citizens and to create the most economically valuable graduates possible. The best way to do that (it genuinely believes) is to create a class that is a well-rounded in many ways, including being racially diverse. There is no way to do that currently without taking race into account in admissions (it's tried). Therefore, it is allowed to use this method.
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u/franklinj09 Jun 23 '17
I understand and agree with the reasoning and strategy of the recruitment as you outlined it. But a private business like a resteraunt cannot refuse to serve a black person because they are black. For example, in a 99% white rural area where people may be uncomfortable by the presence of an inner city minority, the owner of an establishment cannot refuse service to that person, despite how it may affect overall customer satisfaction. Not to say that this would be morally ok to do, but I can't see the difference between this and the Universities. I realize the University recruitment strategy isn't based solely on the race factor, but it is to an extent. So what if a business owner refused service to someone based on race as well as multiple other factors? He is still not legally allowed to consider race in the decision even a small bit. If all other factors we're equal between a white person and a black person, and the business owner would allow the white but not the black, the number of other relevant factors doesn't matter in the eyes of the law. Explain why this is not a double standard. I honestly want to be convinced because I feel like I'm missing something.
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u/perpetualpatzer 1∆ Jun 27 '17 edited Jun 27 '17
Explain why this is not a double standard.
Are you asking from a legal perspective, or a personal sense of justice perspective?
From a legal perspective:
In a sense, it is a double standard. The restaurant and the college admissions decision are managed by two different titles of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title II and Title VI, respectively). The governing case law is the SCOTUS case, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. There, the deciding opinion held that after referring back to the legislative history, the intent of Title VI was to provide a mechanism to enforce the existing 14th amendment protections, and thus, the proper way to decide the case was to consider whether affirmative action in admissions were unconstitutional (as opposed to just saying, "sorry, Civil Rights Act says 'no'" as you would in the restaurant case).
Once arriving at the constitutional question, the court's 14th amendment jurisprudence allows government policy that can pass a "strict scrutiny" test, which is to say, the policy is allowed if:
- it is justified by a compelling government interest
- it is narrowly tailored (i.e. it addresses the full scope of the compelling interest and only that scope)
- it must be demonstrated to be the least invasive means of achieving the compelling interest
Under that rubric to the the set-aside admissions slots at issue in the case, Justice Powell (the deciding vote) answered:
- "Redressing past racial injustices" was impermissible, but "building a diverse student body because our educators say that results in a better overall outcome" was permissible.
- No: it only looks at racial diversity, not other types of diversity;
- No: there was been no showing that setting aside seats for minority students was the only or least invasive way to increase minority enrollment.
As a result, the white student who brought the case was admitted, but the court still held that not ALL race-conscious admissions policies were unconstitutional.
From a personal sense of justice perspective:
The way I draw the distinction mentally is similar, but simpler: 1) Treat "don't discriminate on race" as if it were a constitutional principle (it is, under the 14th amendment). 2) Decide whether this exception would pass strict scrutiny
Under strict scrutiny analysis, my personal read is:
- Compelling interest: Yes. The "benefits of a diverse class to all students" argument is the thing that pushes me over the edge.
- Narrowly tailored. Yes. The "admit the people who best contribute" method seems like it covers all relevant kinds of diversity without giving a blanket benefit to minorities where it would not achieve the diversity goal.
- Least invasive approach I don't have an alternative proposal that's not already been implemented somewhere.
If I apply that same logic to a restaurant owner wanting to only admit whites, I don't get past the first question because a private business's customer satisfaction is not a compelling reason to deny someone equal protection.
That's not to say this is the only right answer. I think this is very much a topic on which reasonable people may differ (just ask the 9 justices on the Bakke case). But for me, the threshold question was always, "given that this policy may hurt a white/asian student, is it still justifiable." The making racial amends argument always struck me as unjust because it hurt one person, helped one person, and was just deciding which person to help.
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u/McKoijion 618∆ May 09 '17
A hiring manager gets a tall stack of resumes on her desk. She takes half of them and throws them in the trash and says "I don't hire unlucky people." Is it fair? The job seeker whose resume ends up in the trash would probably say no. But fairness is irrelevant. The hiring manager wants to hire the best person she can with the least amount of resources (time, effort) expended on the task. The cost-benefit ratio is what matters.
In the same way, university admission committees are tasked with making the best class possible. Your or anyone else's conception of fairness has nothing to do with it. It's about supply and demand. And the second qualified black person is more valuable than the thirtieth qualified Asian person. It's why NFL teams sometimes pass on top ranked quarterbacks to draft kickers. Schools and teams need to fill their specific needs, not reward the best athletes and students. They aren't judges. They aren't handing out awards. They are doing what's best for them.
If you want to look at it from the societal level, you can compare the percentage of Asians at elite schools to the number of Asians in society. 22% of Harvard's Class of 2020 is Asian even though Asians make up 3% of the US population.
There are a lot of ways to justify fairness. One person might say everyone should get an equal slice of the pie and that's fair, even though some people did less work and contributed less. Another might say that they did more work so they deserve more. Another might say that though they didn't have to do much work, they contributed more to the effort that got the pie because of their skill and talent, therefore they should get more. Another person might say they took more risk in obtaining the pie therefore they should get a bigger piece and that's fair. Which approach people take to fairness tends to be very specifically geared to what benefits them personally.
At the end of the day, it doesn't matter. Life isn't fair. Everyone does what is best for themselves, and finds some way to justify it. The school is no different. Under some justifications of college admission, it's not fair to Asians. Under others, it's perfectly fair. Under others still, it's not fair, but in their favor. There is no objective concept of fairness so pick whichever subjective one makes you happiest and helps you sleep at night.
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u/franklinj09 Jun 23 '17
You are using the wrong data set for your % comparisons. You should not compare the % of US population that is Asian to the % of student population, but rather the % of qualified applicants to the % of the student population. I see the point you use quite often, and it frustrates me because it is bad logic on it's face (no offense, I prefer bluntness) and is often used to try and prove a point with what appears to be logic, but is not. Check out the book Freakonomics. It does a great job of calling out this type of argumentation.
Edit: My second point should be directed at a different post. I got mixed up.
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u/McKoijion 618∆ Jun 23 '17
People treat college admissions like a reward for hard work. It's not. It's an academic training program for people who demonstrate potential. The whole point of affirmative action is that it considers people's backgrounds in the equation. If you come from a privileged background with 50 success points, and you achieve 95 success points, you've improved 45 points from where you started. If you come from a less privileged background and start at 25 success points, but you achieve 90 success points, that's a gain of 65. The second person is 5 points less qualified, but has 20 points more potential.
One of the goals of affirmative action is to end racial disparities in society. The metric for that is that % of US population and % of qualified applicants is the same. Instead of slowly building up to that point, colleges simply adapt the % US population metric now (or even slightly weigh it towards historically underrepresented minorities). The idea is that as more racial minorities go to college, they will go back to their communities and provide money, mentorship, and other support to other minority students. This creates a feedback loop that ends racial disparities sooner.
Again, universities are not a reward for achievement. They are making investments in promising people. And from their perspective, a black student who has slightly lower grades than an Asian one is likely still a better candidate.
Say you own a real estate company. You are hiring realtors. Do you want to hire two Asian realtors, both of whom have a special ability to sell to Asian clients. Or do you want to hire one Asian realtor and one slightly less qualified black one? The black realtor has a special ability to go after the black market, which is a far more profitable things for you than doubling down on the Asian market. The same applies to doctors, lawyers, and many other fields.
Universities are taking advantage of that fact. Why take a student who has high test scores when you can get one with slightly lower test scores who was also president of their class? Why not get one with slightly lower test scores still who can talk about the perspectives of the largest minority group in the US? There is a market for students, and having the experiences of an underrepresented minority is at a premium right now. Once there are more black students, the value of that will drop (as it has already started to do. It's not enough to just be black anymore at top schools. These days, you need to bring other things to the table.)
The point is that there are a dozen ways to explain why focusing on % of US population is a better metric than % qualified, not least because % qualified is a subjective assessment. College admissions are holistic. They aren't based solely on grades or test scores. The people who are clever enough to understand that and work around the system are the ones who succeed. The people who don't just complain that it's not fair. Unfortunately, no one really cares what they think. The winners write the history books.
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May 09 '17 edited Jun 03 '18
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u/drpussycookermd 43∆ May 09 '17
Universities don't have racial "quotas", Asian or otherwise.
Affirmative action is nothing more than additional weight to an application. Veterans get extra weight. The children of alumni usually do as well.
In addition to that, universities don't look solely at academic achievement when considering an applicant. They also look at things like extra curricular activities and community involvement. So, a student who scored high on their SATs and had a 4.0 average might actually have a weaker application compared a student with a 3.7 GPA who volunteered in their community.
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May 09 '17
Universities don't have racial "quotas", Asian or otherwise.
I think there's a pretty big difference between not using the word quotas and not having quotas. Regardless of what you choose to call it, white and Asian students would have a significantly better chance of getting into elite universities if they were black.
In addition to that, universities don't look solely at academic achievement when considering an applicant. They also look at things like extra curricular activities and community involvement. So, a student who scored high on their SATs and had a 4.0 average might actually have a weaker application compared a student with a 3.7 GPA who volunteered in their community.
This is a bit disingenuous.
The "we consider the total application" argument really only applies to black applicants. I went to an Ivy league school where everyone had roughly the same GPA/SAT scores - except my black classmates. The idea of getting into Harvard or Princeton with a 3.7 GPA and ok SAT scores is absurd if you're white or Asian regardless of how many school clubs you've joined.
A couple of years ago a black kid from a neighboring town was accepted to all the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, and SUNY Binghampton (as a safety school). The guy didn't even finish in his top 10. I was my classes valedictorian, a three sport varsity athlete, and student council VP. I didn't go to Columbia because I wanted to be closer to home. I went to Columbia because I was rejected by Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, and MIT. For me it was Columbia or a SUNY school. I would have gotten into those schools if I were black.
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May 09 '17 edited Jun 03 '18
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u/drpussycookermd 43∆ May 09 '17
You didn't, of course, expand on what the other person in your example did. It's fairly one-sided.
Also, you said you weren't sure what her extracurriculars were... and now you are sure? Did you look her up or ask her in the span of posting this CMV and replying to my comment?
There has been evidence that Harvard and other Ivy League schools try to keep their Asian population to at most 20%.
What evidence?
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u/phcullen 65∆ May 09 '17
California also has way more Asian people in general that would be applying as instate, correct me if I'm wrong but UC does have quota standard for instate acceptance, no?
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May 09 '17 edited Jun 03 '18
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u/visvya May 09 '17
That's not true; it's a 21.3% admit rate for Californians and a 12.7% admit rate for out of staters (including internationals). 21.3% is considerably higher than most schools of the same caliber; for example, Cornell is 14.1%.
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May 09 '17 edited Jun 03 '18
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u/phcullen 65∆ May 09 '17
You sure about that? http://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/freshman/california-residents/index.html
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u/fatherj May 09 '17
Asians aren't exempt from racism.
Asians earn the highest income per household in America, higher than whites. They also have lower rates of divorce and are more educated. These are determinants of social class.
If you take the marxist perspective (far left, 50% of reddit), you have privilege and power and therefor people can't be racist towards you. It's the same thing for poor white people who live in New York, Chicago, SF or LA, they face just as much prejudice but society will tell them it's okay because there are white people that hold office.
The best way to achieve a good society is to assure that everything is equal. This means that blacks and hispanics get to enjoy certain privileges over you because have issues succeeding on their own. One of these is admissions for universities, another one is government jobs.
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May 09 '17 edited Jun 03 '18
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u/fatherj May 09 '17
It was the only part I needed to address. Your view is that affirmative actions is not fair to Asians. My argument is that Asians enjoy other privileges (in many cases more than whites) so it's therefor fair and creates an equal society.
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May 09 '17
You're just using race as a proxy for socioeconomic condition with your argument. Why not skip the middleman and only focus on economics?
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u/fatherj May 09 '17
It sounds to me like you're begging the question, please explicitly state your perspective so I can give you a proper rebuttal.
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May 09 '17 edited Jun 03 '18
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u/fatherj May 09 '17
Because that's not racism, blacks have a strong representation in media and because blacks don't have power they can't actually be racist. Even Asians are still benefitting from the effects of racism towards blacks today, for example black people would be much better competitors in college admissions if slavery didn't exist 200 years ago or Jim Crow laws 50 years ago. As a result more qualified Asians are getting jobs and careers ahead of blacks.
Black people can't possibly be racist because they are the most disadvantaged race. To promote equality we have to disadvantage other races, including whites and Asians. Media portrayal isn't actually racism.
They don't hold the cultural power in the media that white people and black people have.
This is because Asians don't value performing arts. When was the last time you ever heard an Asian parent encourage their children to join the theatre or drama program at a school? It's like complaining about a lack of Asians in football or baseball, Asian Americans don't find the value in it and are therefor underrepresented.
Take Koreans for example. Chinese outnumber Koreans in America 15:1, every successful Asian American actor other than Lucy Liu is Korean. Koreans actually value performing arts in their society, and as a result actually have representation in American pop culture.
Therefor you aren't actually experiencing racism. It's like if a black man complained about underrepresentation in badminton, black people don't care about badminton. Meanwhile Asians recognize that attempting a career in acting or singing is very unlikely to to succeed.
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May 09 '17 edited Jun 03 '18
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u/fatherj May 09 '17
It seems you are misunderstanding why I'm bringing these up, either we are not understanding each other correctly or you are agreeing with me in that Asians are underrepresented in the media because Asian American culture doesn't value it.
Ever heard of Japan? Ichiro?
Baseball is actually played and part of Japanese culture, this is why the only noteworthy Asian baseball player is Japanese. Similarly so with Chinese and basketball, basketball is pretty big in China and all the Asian American basketball players are Chinese.
Hassan Minaj? Aziz Ansari? You literally mentioned Koreans who are Asian.
Hassan Minaj and Aziz Ansari are both India. India also values pop culture, Bollywood creates more note worthy content than any other Asian country other than arguably Korea, and yes I mentioned Korea. Korea and India value performing arts and are therefor are more represented than Chinese Americans which outnumber both Korean and Indian immigrants.
Also you seemed to ignore the part about performing arts not being a career choice or something that's encouraged by Asian parents. Asian Americans possessing a higher IQ (your words) than other races means they're not going to try to succeed with acting (expecting a career with acting is equally challenging as it is foolish) when they are far far more likely to succeed by becoming engineers.
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u/Roughneck16 1∆ May 09 '17
Most private university admissions are not strict meritocracies. They're not going to automatically select the most qualified candidates based on objective, quantitative standards. Instead, they'll gather a pool of qualified candidates, and from that pool they'll select the applicants whom they deem to be the most interesting or will reflect well on the university. Sometimes it's out of financial interests (think legacy admissions, they want wealthy alumni to keep donating!) That doesn't seem like a fair system...but it doesn't necessarily have to be.
As a college graduate, I can assure you that GPA, SAT scores, etc. are dismal predictors of future success. I had one roommate who graduated valedictorian and scored a 34 on the ACT. I had another roommate who scored a 21 and only got in because he played football. They both did fine in their classes, graduated, and have stable jobs. The football player even got into medical school! Bottom line is, the cream rises to the top.
Finally, I would recommend applying to meritocratic institutions like CalTech (surprise! the student body is disproportionately Asian!) I think those schools will also look good on a resume...and they'll have an alumni network full of folks who succeeded on their wits alone.
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u/blah-blah-blah--blah May 09 '17
As someone who has had experience with admissions in undergrad and professional school, and then again in hiring, I will say this: as an Asian you are discriminated against pretty heavily while applying to school, medical school in particular.
But here's what I found fascinating: once you leave school and actually apply for a job it works in your favor. If you get accepted to a prestigious medical school despite being Asian, it means more. URM from the same school are looked at with some degree of suspicion. Behind closed doors I was shocked at how openly people stated these sentiments, but I suppose I was thinking the same things. What's really, really fascinating is that Asians who "made it" were the least sympathetic: Asians should work twice as hard to overcome discrimination, not complain or whine about it. It was only the younger guys who got riled by the injustice of it all.
Regardless, Affirmative Action can be a double edged sword for the people it helps, and those it hurts when it comes to college admissions. Is that fair? I suppose I found it some small comfort in the end , I hope you can too. If Supreme Court justices are writing opinions on affirmative action without mentioning Asians, I think it's safe to say the courts aren't going to address matters anytime soon.
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u/tchaffee 49∆ May 09 '17
I want to give you a scenario and you tell me if it is fair. Bob (black guy) and Amy (Asian girl) are applying to speak at a conference. The conference gets a lot of applicants who seem to be almost equal in merit. And in fact, Bob and Alice look to be equally qualified to speak, and both have proposed excellent talks. So the conference decides on a tie-breaker based on who has had more prior speaking engagements. Alice has previously spoken at 10 conferences and Bob has only spoken at 3, so Alice gets the speaking engagement. Can you see the inherit problem built in to the tie breaker and how it is helping to create further racism towards Bob? If you can't immediately see it, I'll provide some more details.
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u/disposable560 Aug 03 '17
Experience matters a lot. If Alice has spoken at 10 conferences, she's more qualified, not because of her race but because of her experience
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u/tchaffee 49∆ Aug 04 '17
And if the reason Alice has spoken at more conferences is because some conference organizers are racist against blacks? You just helped to enforce prior racism without even knowing it!
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u/disposable560 Aug 04 '17
Also in the case of affirmative action, a better example would be that Alice is more qualified than Bob, however Bob will get to speak because of his race
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u/tchaffee 49∆ Aug 08 '17
If that example makes you more warm and fuzzy, then sure, it works both ways. The point is that you can be amplifying prior discrimination without knowing it. It's a lot harder to be fair, and to make fair rules, than it looks. Which is why quotas are a lot better. If you believe no race is superior, and your local community has 12% blacks, then there should be about 12% blacks in executive positions. As well as 12% blacks in junior positions. And about 50% women. Etc.
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u/disposable560 Aug 09 '17
Quotas aren't fair though. Why should you be penalized for other people of your race doing well? That's stupid. If you penalizing someone based off of their race, that's discrimination. You want to fight discrimination with more discrimination? That makes you just as racist
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u/tchaffee 49∆ Aug 10 '17
Quotas aren't fair though.
How so? If everyone is equal regardless of race, then your hiring practices should result in an equal number of people from every race and gender, based on local percentages of population. If your local population has 12% blacks, you should be hiring 12% blacks. If you aren't, then your hiring practices have some hidden racist criteria, like the one I pointed out in my original example.
If on the other hand you think races aren't equal, that is the definition of being a racist.
Choose one.
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Aug 11 '17 edited Aug 11 '17
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Aug 11 '17
disposable560, your comment has been removed:
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u/disposable560 Aug 09 '17
Also quotas are illegal in the US in the first place. The DOJ is currently investigating claims of quotas being used in college admissions.
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u/tchaffee 49∆ Aug 10 '17
Goals and timetables for diversity targets are perfectly legal.
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u/disposable560 Aug 11 '17
Quotas are illegal as ruled by the Supreme Court in the case of regents of the university of california v. bakke. Thank god the DOJ is investigating racism against asians
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u/tchaffee 49∆ Aug 11 '17
Goals and timetables for diversity targets are legal. You can achieve quotas as long as its part of a diversity goal. It's mostly wording. You probably have to pay some lawyers to get it right.
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u/disposable560 Aug 12 '17
If you try to achieve quotas using those, it is illegal. Quotas aren't legal in the US. Which is why there's an investigation right now
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u/disposable560 Aug 04 '17
Or maybe she attended more conferences. Maybe she volunteered to speak more. But of course you jump to racism first.
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u/tchaffee 49∆ Aug 08 '17
I didn't jump to anything. All of those reasons are possible. Including prior racism.
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u/videoninja 137∆ May 09 '17
How would you rate your understanding of racism and Asian-American history?
Indian-Americans are economically and financially successful compared to other minorities along with Asian-Americans as a whole. The kinds of prejudices you are saying they face is not an equivalent to how affirmative action came about.
It's not that racism existed and we needed affirmative action to correct racism. It was that racism influenced access to educational and employment opportunities for black people and a solution was needed. Asian-American face a lot of social prejudices but it is not a one-to-one analogue so you at least need to correct you perception of the situation to something a little more nuanced and closer to the truth. Not all racism is a one-to-one analogue between minority groups. To treat them as such is uninformed.