American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class • Hacker News Board

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#821

Post by csa » Fri, Nov 04, 2022, 3:24 AM UTC

cuteboy19 wrote: post #803

csa wrote: post #765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With all due respect, it is not possible for you to understand this since your salary depends on not understanding it. Nice meme you got there. Too bad it's inappropriately applied. For reference, my salary or income has never been related to my advising of admissions committees/personnel. It has all been volunteer by request. I will add that I am very connected to the Asian-American community, and I would speak ou…

My point being that there is a natural urge to defend your profession regardless of whether you are being paid for it. There need not be a cabal. The officials can easily see that there are too many Asians for this year so the just bin some of the applicants. Just the same way they did it for the Jews. The most parsimonious analysis of the data leads to this conclusion. Of course as you say, maybe studying too much f…

> My point being that there is a natural urge to defend your profession regardless of whether you are being paid for it.

I currently run a small PE firm. I don’t see any of my comments being in defense of my profession.

I was a professor in my former career. I have never worked in admissions. That has never been my career, and I feel absolutely no need to defend it.

Furthermore, I am very open to criticizing admissions processes (there is plenty to criticize), but I find myself spending so much time addressing misinformation/disinformation that the really good stuff never comes up (biggest ones being treatment of 13th year recruited athletes as well as opacity in the admissions process that seems unnecessary).

> The officials can easily see that there are too many Asians for this year so the just bin some of the applicants.

This simply does not happen.

> The most parsimonious analysis of the data leads to this conclusion.

Two courts disagree with you.

Here is a brief:

https://www.harvard.edu/admissionscase/wp-content/uploads/si...

Some quotes:

“The district court found “no evidence of any racial animus whatsoever” toward Asian-American applicants and “no evidence” that “any particular admissions deci- sion was negatively affected by Asian American identity.’”

“The district court found the testimony of Harvard’s admissions officers—all called by SFFA—“consistent, unambiguous, and convincing” that “there was no discrimination against Asian American applicants with respect to the admissions process as a whole and the personal ratings in particular.” To the contrary, “[n]ot one of them had seen or heard anything disparaging about an Asian American applicant despite the fact that decisions were made collectively and after open discussion about each applicant.”

These are from pp 11-12 in the brief. I strongly recommend reading the entire thing.

> I mean how much more ridiculous can Harvard's defense get, really?

It’s clear to me that you are basing your comments on pre-conceived and poorly informed ideas.

At this point, I assume that you are just trolling for the sake of trolling.

Please read the brief I linked to. It will debunk much of what you claim to be true.

If the Supreme Court overrules the lower courts, it will be for a very technical legal reason — that is, that race is used at all in admissions decisions — and it will not be because any racist-based admissions process had ever been implemented.

Best of luck moving forward.

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#822

Post by csa » Fri, Nov 04, 2022, 3:42 AM UTC

RigelKentaurus wrote: post #790

light_hue_1 wrote: post #739

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many of your points are valid and I don't disagree with them. But you're assuming too much by saying that he has too narrow of a focus. You don't know him. My kid is strong in some areas, not as strong in others. He's realistic and knows that Harvard, Stanford are lottery schools for almost everyone. He has no feeling of entitlement, and neither do I, but I do know that he's being held to a much higher standard tha…

>but I do know that he's being held to a much higher standard than almost anyone else because of his race. And as a dad, I don't like it. >You are displaying an amazing sense of entitlement. This is how I objectively know he's being held to a much higher standard. A kid of any other race, to have the same chance of admission to these schools, will need an SAT score 250-450 points lower (depending on race), and a GPA…

> "An Asian American in the fourth lowest decile has virtually no chance of being admitted to Harvard (0.9%) but an African American in that decile has a higher chance of admission (12.8%) than an Asian American in the top decile (12.7%)"

I absolutely love this stat

Take a minute, and think about what non-AA, non-racist reason this might be true?

I don’t know the exact answer for the 4th decile, but I can make a good guess.

Of all of those folks in the fourth decile across all races, what do you think sets them apart?

It will without a doubt be that they are very highly rated in some other area.

The most likely answer statistically is… wait for it… recruited athlete.

There are other possible answers like child of faculty member, or child of person of interest, or child of key donor. We don’t really know unless we see the specific applications of the folks who were accepted in the 4th decile.

If you want to criticize schools for their policies on recruiting athletes or granting preference to deans/directors lists, you won’t get much pushback from me. That said, it’s very much the reality now and probably for the foreseeable future.

Turning this summary data into a race issue without knowing the details of the specific applicants is simply irresponsible.

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#823

Post by jlkuester7 » Fri, Nov 04, 2022, 3:53 AM UTC

light_hue_1 wrote: post #811

helloworld11 wrote: post #806

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truly, what the hell? First, the guy in question is from India and isn't an Anglo/European white man who "benefited" from centuries of exploitation of blacks in the United States. Secondly, many white people in the United States today also managed to build a life for themselves without having done so. Your notion of historical guilt really is more like the absurd religious idea of original sin than a realistic or gen…

> Why would you completely misinterpret a fairly straightforward argument in the most emotionally charged, simplistic and negative way possible? Why would you ignore basic facts? White families in the US stole from black families for centuries. Today the average white family has more than 10x the wealth of the average black family. This must be fixed. It is not a "historical wrong". It is a wrong that is occurring no…

> Just admit it. You enjoy your racism and have zero desire to help anyone.

Please refrain from senseless personal attacks as per HN commenting guidelines:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsgu idelines.html

I cannot help recalling a quote that my grandfather repeated to me earlier this evening: "when you run out of reasons, your argument gets louder."

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#824

Post by jlkuester7 » Fri, Nov 04, 2022, 4:04 AM UTC

aperson_hello wrote: post #736

Akronymus wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, a possible solution would be to get rid of district based funding for schools and instead fund schools mostly based on student amount. One problem of that model is that it can result in teachers avoiding certain schools because that school having a bad rep and thus that school having to pick worse teachers. Another solution I could see working is making it much easier for students to go to other school…

The problem with getting rid of district-based funding is that the worst schools often already get the most per student funding because the state (at least that's the case where I am!). Ultimately the problem is that more money doesn't necessarily result in better outcomes

I have no idea of specific numbers but this does not seem to fit the anecdotal experience of my city. :/

It is a complex multifaceted situation that might differ based on region, but in my moderately large mid-west city, the difference in curb appeal of the public schools in the wealthy suburbs vs the more urban schools closer to where I lived was wild (and I would expect curb appeal to be the easiest needle to move with just money). Forget the academics and the student environment. The suburb districts were best-in-the-state experiences while some of the high school kids I worked with from the more urban schools just wanted to make it through the day without a knife fight....

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#825

Post by lazyasciiart » Fri, Nov 04, 2022, 4:21 AM UTC

jwond wrote: post #299

lazyasciiart wrote: post #39

This was a pretty core topic of conversation around Bernie's run for president, and Marxist lefties have been saying this quite consistently. Would be fascinating to see the Economist actually engage with some of that directly.

Bernie also said “when you’re white you don’t know what it’s like to be living in a ghetto, you don’t know what it’s like to be poor” https://youtu.be/z6IlGoeDIUQ&t=0m42s

Yes, but that didn't change the focus of his campaign and his supporters from being class rather than race.

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#826

Post by jlkuester7 » Fri, Nov 04, 2022, 4:21 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #818

erenyeager wrote: post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well perhaps we agree to disagree on this regard to an extent. My own experience in republican-white dominated areas includes attempts to block buildings for minorities, gloss over historical events to favor one side, suppress different viewpoints, forced participation in Christian religious activities even at the governmental level, and deeply ignorant, bigoted takes on the “other”. Of course this is by no means lim…

> own experience in republican-white dominated areas includes attempts to block buildings for minorities, gloss over historical events to favor one side, suppress different viewpoints, forced participation in Christian religious activities even at the governmental level, and deeply ignorant, bigoted takes on the “other” What does that even mean? Are people in Texas making you take Communion? Are they beating you for…

As a white person from Kansas I am offended by all the negative stereotyping in this thread...

/s

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#827

Post by Dracophoenix » Fri, Nov 04, 2022, 4:58 AM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #741

erenyeager wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> Is it really a good idea to vote so selfishly, not considering unintended consequences of empowering Trump-type people and enshrining a nativist, racist, and supremacist movement? This strikes me as a feeble attempt by Democrats to refocus the conversation on what people say and/or think and away from the system of legalized discrimination they endorse. Conservative populism isn't some uniquely "nativist, racist, a…

Trump's DoJ went on a fishing expedition for Chinese professors who supposedly had the PRC. This resulted in MIT Professor Gang Chen being indicted for espionage, only to have his case dropped due to lack of credible evidence a year later.

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#828

Post by random314 » Fri, Nov 04, 2022, 5:10 AM UTC

garfieldnate wrote: post #800

random314 wrote: post #754

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you aware that the majority of STEM seats in Indian colleges are set aside for either affirmative action for ‘lower’ castes (itself an arbitrary criteria) and women? And these seats are never filled and go to upper castes anyway? My class was supposed to be 50% low caste with 25% Dalits in a class of 60. There were literally 2 Dalits in my class. And of late, the OBC categories are being crowded in by upper cas…

Curious non-Indian here, how did you know that there were exactly two Dalits in your class? Is this a thing people talk about? Were they open about it? Or do you just recognize them on sight?

I am not a Hindu, so my caste radar is fairly weak. I cant tell caste by last name or by religious practices.

Having said that, People ask folks how much they scored in their entrance exam. Then it becomes obvious who were Dalits are - they had the lowest scores. The 2 of them were also fairly underprivileged, so you could guess from their less trendy and not as new clothes too.

50% were payment seats with about the same entrance rank as OBC students. So it was hard to tell the OBCs apart from the payment seat students. India actually has "affirmative action" for the rich in all private universities, which most of Indian H1Bs have graduated from. My parents couldn't afford these seats. The H1B upper castes wont tell you that, and will pretend that rich Dalits are taking over all the seats. No such thing is happening. I have never met a rich Dalit in my life. I am sure they exist, but I have never met them.

Their academic performance improves with time, and some of them are engineering managers at Microsoft now.

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#829

Post by dang » Fri, Nov 04, 2022, 5:19 AM UTC

mythhouse wrote: post #577

RigelKentaurus wrote: post #437

Indian-American father here, living in the Bay Area. My wife and I came to this country with a few hundred dollars between us and have worked hard to reach where we’re at. We're far from privileged. I am 100% against affirmative action on the basis of race. I think there should be some measure of AA on the basis of economic status. It's quite personal for me this year. My 17-year old is applying to universities to st…

Quoted post unavailable.

Please don't cross into personal attack. It makes everything worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: American society is so focused on race that it is blind to class

#830

Post by JamesianP » Fri, Nov 04, 2022, 5:40 AM UTC

pmonks wrote: post #742

Ekaros wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I would only look at test scroes like SAT. Nothing else. Maybe few exceptions on relevant competitions like math olympics medalists.

Yeah that’s a terrible approach. All you’d get are kids who are good at testing and nothing else.

Where do you think grades come from? Standardized tests are better because they are standardized (of course), and more fundamental to get at basic problem solving and reading comprehension.

I would argue it is impossible to be good at testing and nothing else. Even with a relatively poorly-designed test, there are valuable skills needed to be "good at it". and the current standardized tests have years of development and constant updating behind them.