The model minority is losing patience • Hacker News Board

Re: The model minority is losing patience

#131

Post by smokeyj » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 4:11 PM UTC

chiaro wrote: post #107

golemotron wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very hard to believe that this redefinition of the word racism was done innocently. On its face racism is act of distinguishing people by race for favor or disfavor. When it is redefined as it has been in the humanities it leaves a vacuum. There's no longer a word for the concept that racism originally referred to.

It's not taking anything away--both definitions are valid and commonly used. It's just up to the pair of you to realize you're talking past each other. She'd probably have no trouble agreeing that white people can be the target of bigotry just as you'd agree that white people are rarely at the pointy end of broader systemic injustices, at least in this society. Much as it may be fun, I'd caution against attributing i…

> both definitions are valid and commonly used

In my experience there's one definition used by the general public, and another used by social justice warrior academic types to prove they have a more mindful world view than you. But that's just my experience.

Re: The model minority is losing patience

#132

Post by bobthechef » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 4:13 PM UTC

golemotron wrote: post #6

I was talking to someone just out of college the other day and she was adamant that reverse racism doesn't exist. To her it isn't racism unless it happens to a group lower in a power ordering. The exact position of groups in that ordering wasn't clear but it was clear that Asians were higher than other groups. Identity politics is a very dehumanizing philosophy. It tells us that we must be seen through a label we can…

I may be mincing words, but I've heard the last sentence frequently enough that I have to respond.

What does the ability to change a "label" have to do with anything? Just because you can't change something doesn't mean it isn't relevant. Just because something can be changed doesn't mean it is.

Re: The model minority is losing patience

#133

Post by duncanawoods » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 4:13 PM UTC

FlannelPancake wrote: post #115

mildbow wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"All these Asians look the same..." Another win for casual racism. College admissions could really do with some sort of objective criteria. Because yeah, obviously human foibles always creep in.

> College admissions could really do with some sort of objective criteria Like GPA and SAT/ACT scores? Because they tried that. Secondary education is too easy and variable in the US, and Harvard can't really do much about that.

How about Harvard specific entrance exams? I did extra exams for Cambridge.

Re: The model minority is losing patience

#134

Post by memonkey » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 4:15 PM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #12

golemotron wrote: post #6

I was talking to someone just out of college the other day and she was adamant that reverse racism doesn't exist. To her it isn't racism unless it happens to a group lower in a power ordering. The exact position of groups in that ordering wasn't clear but it was clear that Asians were higher than other groups. Identity politics is a very dehumanizing philosophy. It tells us that we must be seen through a label we can…

Yeah. The ultimate goal of such redefinitions is to imply that some groups' problems are inherently more important, more worth addressing. But that's not true. All suffering is suffering.

I don't know. Is going to jail based on your race suffering more or less than not getting into Harvard because of your race? I tend to agree with OP's comment, but one important aspect is left out when talking about things like this: Class.

Re: The model minority is losing patience

#135

Post by ap22213 » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 4:20 PM UTC

9872 wrote: post #125

ap22213 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly a valid point, but I decided against pointing it out, since because of market demands, pretty much anyone with a brain can get a job in tech, currently. That a particularly skilled and experienced candidate was being rejected so frequently either pointed to an innate bias, more selective criteria, or inflexibility in pay. Maybe all three.

You're still assuming you have a brain. Based on your comments here, there's no reason to believe that's justified.

Did I write something that was offensive? If I did, please point it out; otherwise, why the ad hominem?

Re: The model minority is losing patience

#136

Post by holychiz » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 4:32 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #124

rsy96 wrote: post #80

One reason that Asians outperform other racial groups in the United States is overlooked in the article: the difficulty of immigration. Most whites and blacks are born within the US, and Hispanics are either born or move into the US by simply crossing a land border. For Asians to come to the US, they have to cross the Pacific Ocean. In order to do that, they have to be either rich (at least middle class), highly educ…

It's also entirely possible that, on average, Asian people are more intelligent than other groups. We won't really know for a long time, as discussing such things is taboo.

I'm Asian and I don't think it's possible. Jews on the other hand are confirmed with the most Nobel prizes per capita. :)

Re: The model minority is losing patience

#137

Post by auganov » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 4:33 PM UTC

golemotron wrote: post #6

I was talking to someone just out of college the other day and she was adamant that reverse racism doesn't exist. To her it isn't racism unless it happens to a group lower in a power ordering. The exact position of groups in that ordering wasn't clear but it was clear that Asians were higher than other groups. Identity politics is a very dehumanizing philosophy. It tells us that we must be seen through a label we can…

Identity politics unquestionably applied to individuals is indeed dehumanizing. I hope we move towards an opt-in culture, where it's considered bad behavior to attach identities to individuals without them opting in.

Re: The model minority is losing patience

#138

Post by xyzzyz » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 4:33 PM UTC

ryanmonroe wrote: post #93

crimsonalucard wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm basically saying that if one trait (appearance) can be different than other traits can be different as well. In the abstract universe I'm referring to, imagine a bunch of balls and cubes. The balls have no sides and the cubes have six. We live in a culture that says this is the only difference between balls and cubes, otherwise balls and cubes are completely equal. This statement is not true, because balls can ro…

>This statement is not true, because balls can roll down a hill faster than cubes. Yeah but that's because ability to roll down is directly caused by the observable geometry. They are just different properties of the same trait. Skin tone or facial structure cannot cause someone to be intelligent. If you flattened the sides of the round balls, they'd be just as slow. But imagine there's some new way to painlessly cru…

> So how is this different than people with different physical characteristics from birth?

That's because skin color and facial features are directly caused by the DNA. They are just different manifestations of the same trait. DNA is also known to correlate with intelligence. Just like flattening round balls will make them slower, picking embryos with gene combinations known to correlate with higher intelligence will cause the resulting humans to have higher intelligence on average. But imagine if genes responsible for genes correlated with higher intelligence occured million times as often among genotypes of white people than among genotypes of black people. Would then picking embryos based on skin color genes instead of intelligence genes themselves produced more (on average) intelligent people? Obviously yes.

I don't really know whether intelligence genes actually occur more often among white people. I just want to point out that if it's so, it's not skin color that causes people to be more or less intelligent. It's their DNA.

Re: The model minority is losing patience

#139

Post by dreamdu5t » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 4:39 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #124

rsy96 wrote: post #80

One reason that Asians outperform other racial groups in the United States is overlooked in the article: the difficulty of immigration. Most whites and blacks are born within the US, and Hispanics are either born or move into the US by simply crossing a land border. For Asians to come to the US, they have to cross the Pacific Ocean. In order to do that, they have to be either rich (at least middle class), highly educ…

It's also entirely possible that, on average, Asian people are more intelligent than other groups. We won't really know for a long time, as discussing such things is taboo.

People do talk about it. Read The Bell Curve.

Re: The model minority is losing patience

#140

Post by eli173 » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 4:39 PM UTC

potatote wrote: post #116

mildbow wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had to guess, I would say it's the cultural imperative of the family unit. One of the worst things slavery did, to african americans as a people, is to strip away their cultural meaning of family unit. I think it's on-par with the holocaust in terms of the human cost. Yes, there are a lot of other things, but not having a stable family unit while growing up messes up the next generation, perpetuating the cycle.…

Can you explain a bit more about what you mean by "cultural meaning of family unit"? How did slavery take away from the african americans?

Families were often separated through the slave trade. Slaves were expensive, so owners typically wouldn't or couldn't spend more than they needed to, which meant buying husbands but not wives, mothers but not sons, etc.