241–250 of 888 posts
Class can be a big part of racism--often what appears to be racism is really more about class. There are many people who look down on anyone they perceive to be "low class", regardless of race, and who will accept people of other races if they perceive them to be "high class". In areas where the lower classes are over-represented by racial minorities, this can look like racism, when classism is much more the culprit.
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>And this is why the term "white privilege" sells so poorly to whites. It's because the privilege is being more wealthy, not being white. If the privilege only applies to rich whites and also applies to rich Asians and blacks then it's not white privilege but simply privilege. >And why CRT is attacked so vigorously. Have you read any CRT "scholars?" I have, and they are sickening.
Why can't whiteness and wealthiness both be types of privilege?
It's really that simple.
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Why? Nobody wants to think their success was the result of an unfair arbitrary advantage.
And this is why the term "white privilege" sells so poorly to whites. And why CRT is attacked so vigorously. Everyone likes to think they made it on their own. The guy who inherited a multi-million dollar business thinks he has had no more real advantage than then guy who was raised in an orphanage in Uganda. While I firmly believe that this privilege exists, you just can't legislate based on it, because you'll get n…
Many people who strongly argue in favour of things like white privilege tend to be well-off, so from their experience the generalisation holds true, but they fail to realize that their experience is not universally shared and dismiss people with things like "racists" or "handbasket of deplorables", without even attempting to understand where the opposition might be coming from.
The entire thing is a catastrophic failure of empathy, which is ironic because the concept of privilege is useful IMHO exactly to understand that your experience is not shared by everyone.
Part of the American dream is that the feeling that there is no rigid social class. Everyone is a millionaire down on their luck. You only need to work harder or be more clever—ideally both. To some extent, it is true. Realistically, however, it is rare to move more than one or two income brackets from where your parents were when they were your age. Race in America, however, is fraught. The history of racism is rece…
> Realistically, however, it is rare to move more than one or two income brackets from where your parents were when they were your age. You state that like it's a bad thing. If you can bump a bracket or two per generation, 2 generations can take you from near-penniless to upper-middle class.
Here in Texas, any student from the top 10% of their high school is guaranteed a place at the flagship University of Texas at Austin. This is widely understood to be a form of affirmative action. Naturally, high schools in underprivileged areas - rural or urban - will produce students who are nowhere nearly as prepared as students from elite or wealthy schools. We ignore that difference as a policy matter. Top 10% is…
Here in Texas, any student from the top 10% of their high school is guaranteed a place at the flagship University of Texas at Austin. This is widely understood to be a form of affirmative action. Naturally, high schools in underprivileged areas - rural or urban - will produce students who are nowhere nearly as prepared as students from elite or wealthy schools. We ignore that difference as a policy matter. Top 10% is…
AFAICT, the ivies don't have a problem with filling their graduating class. I believe a place like Harvard even considering the top 10% of students would increase the applicant pool. I'm reciting these numbers from memory, but apparently the size of the incoming class at Harvard is roughly 2,000 students, but there are ~5,000 applicants that scored 95th percentile of the SAT. (Edit: This source [3] says there are 22,000 students who scored in the top 1% percentile; Harvard could likely admit every perfect scorer if it pleased).
While I believe there is belief that Harvard is accepting C-students over asians A+ students I think the reality is much closer; they are rejecting students with perfect scores and accepting students who scored in the 98th percentile.
The real problem is the size of the undergrad class for these select elite schools have remained the same (The harvard class size of 1992 was 2,200[1] compared to 1,954 today[2]), while the US population has grown almost 30% in the same time frame. You have more and more qualifying students fighting for the same number of spots and an organization that is more than happy to split imaginary hairs to keep the class size the same.
[1] https://www.thecrimson.com/column/a-new-day-at-harvard/artic...
[2]https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/4/1/admissions-class...
[3] https://go.collegewise.com/how-many-people-get-a-perfect-sat...
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> But, why do we need to use race as a proxy? Because historically race was used systemically to limit opportunities for people of color. The last school to be desegregated was in 1963. Think about that.
1963? I remember burning school buses and people shot dead when they were finally forcing integration when I was a kid - mid/late 1970s https://www.nytimes.com/1975/09/07/archives/guard-called-out... They're still not really integrated. At all.
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Bezos for one. He specifically bought newspaper to massage the image of billionaires like him. I don't think he's beneth that tactic given that Amazon has huge employee rotation by design because they haven't anticipate running out of people.
How do you know this?
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What is a disadvantage is that some people of color experience limited opportunity due to differences in generational wealth and other factors. These disadvantages can be measured directly . There's no need to erroneously presume that Sasha and Malia are more disadvantaged on their college application than a poor Appalachian white kid with the same test scores.
My point was, that less than 60 years ago, it very clearly was a disadvantage, because of the system. > These disadvantages can be measured directly. There's no need to erroneously presume that Sasha and Malia are more disadvantaged than a poor Appalachian white kid with the same test scores. The rate of poverty of black children is much higher than that of white children, so black children will ultimately get more b…
I agree -- but a college application isn't for an average black student or an average white student. Each application is for one individual student, who had an individual life experience. If we want to help students who struggled in poverty -- let's measure their individual poverty. Then we'll help everyone at exactly the correct rate, rather than on some generalized presumption.