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

economist.com

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

#861

Post by Spooky23 »

boppo1 wrote: post #528
thejman5200 wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont really care if George RR Martin ever finishes Winds of Winter. But I will be immensely disappointed if Robert Caro dies before finishing the last LBJ book. He already somehow wrote 3,000+ pages in 40 years and hasn't even reached LBJ's passage of Medicare, Civil Rights, and Vietnam. He's 87 but still working on it apparently.

What inspires a person to dedicate their lives to such an intricate biography of someone else?

Caro dedicated his life to the study of contemporary power. He’s a fascinating figure in his own right.

IIRC, his wife is a scholar of medieval French literature/history and they do each others research.

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

#862

Post by Vt71fcAqt7 »

mcguire wrote: post #858
Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: post #816

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>By one estimate, Black men are 2.5 times more likely than white men to be killed by police during their lifetime. That is because they commit more violent crimes. Did you know that? >Black people who were fatally shot by police seemed to be twice as likely as white people to be unarmed. See the last point. In 99.9% of cases, people killed by police are commiting crimes. Also note that asians have the lowest rate of…

I don't think you read this one: " Black people who were fatally shot by police seemed to be twice as likely as white people to be unarmed. "

I did read it. Being killed by police is a function of police encounters while commiting crimes. Additionaly, there will be more police in higher crime areas in the first place. What is the rate when no crime is being commited, and what is the total amount of cases? My guess is the rate is the same and the sample size is really low. Although who knows what the "estimates" your study has "found" are. Also, why do asians have more white privelage than whites? At least under your definition.

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

#863

Post by random314 »

garfieldnate wrote: post #836
random314 wrote: post #828

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Okay, but to follow up, how do you know that some are engineering managers at Microsoft, now? Is this just something that gets around via gossip? Also, is "caste radar" a word you made up, or is that a generally-used concept?

> how do you know that some are engineering managers at Microsoft, now?

I am connected to those folks on LinkedIn.

> Also, is "caste radar" a word you made up, or is that a generally-used concept?

I made it up. But I have read content online, where Dalits feel a huge pressure when they are asked which temple they attend, or how they celebrate certain festivals. I don't know what these ritual differences are. Many folks pick up caste from last names, I can only pick up a small subset of them. What I meant to say was that - I can't tell the caste of a person as easily as Hindus. The Dalits I know, I surmised their caste from their entrance rank and many of them didn't hide it.

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

#864

Post by thefringthing »

RigelKentaurus wrote: post #860
thefringthing wrote: post #856

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you probably have a different idea about what constitutes success in higher education than the commenter to whom you're replying, and possibly also to admissions officers at prestigious universities. It can be true that the SAT is a good predictor of university grades, and also that there is more to university life, and life in general, than grades. The parent comment is suggesting that optimizing for grades…

Of course there is more to university life than grades. But I strongly disagree with the comment that "all you get are people good at testing, and nothing else". I know a bunch of very high SAT scorers, many of them my kid's friends, and they are not just "good at testing". In general, they bring excellence and hard work to everything they do, including athletics, music and art. In fact, I'd argue that it's almost im…

My experience was otherwise, but you might be right in general.

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

#865

Post by notSupplied »

Who is the most underprivileged?

1) A Bangladeshi immigrant whose parents entered the US as economic refugees

2) A Uyghur immigrant whose parents entered the US as political refugees

3) A rust-belt white whose family and community was ravaged by the opioid crisis

3) A descendent of black slaves whose parents were economy oppressed by Jim Crow and Redlining

How many "credits" do you give to someone who experienced food insecurity? What about the death of a family member? Do they get bonus points if it was a violent death? If so how much? The more you dig into these subjective measurements, the less it measures the candidate and the more you end up measuring the measurer.

Society cannot find right answer to this kind of question intellectually, instead it can only be determined politically. If we go down this path, the the answer we get will be a reflection who the winning political faction is, and what their prejudices are. Today, it is the hyper race-conscious left against Asian Americans. Yesterday, it was white elites against Jews. Tomorrow, who knows?

I agree that GPAs, SATs, and economic hardship are imperfect measures of merit. But what's important is that they are systems that can be interrogated for their inner workings. You can arrive at a decent understanding of how and what is being measured. However, the act of "privilege measurement" is so muddy as to be an enormous invitation for prejudice to seep in.

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

#866

Post by willhslade »

bushbaba wrote: post #560
pmonks wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think he’s only going to get a great CS education at the Ivies, Cal, Caltech, Stanford, etc.? Very few of the best graduates I’ve worked with in my ~30 year career studied at those schools - it was places like UW, UBC and Waterloo that stood out to me as producing a high number of high quality, socially adapted graduates. [edit] and before anyone asks, no I’m not Canadian

For engineering degrees for working within industry, the IVYs don’t get you much. There’s lots of highly ranked STEM universities that’ll open the same number of doors. Where IVY undergrad matters is if they plan to pursue a PHD. And even that is debatable.

You might find this previous discussion informative. The Ivies matter but not as much as you'd think.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30448083

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05222-x

Most relevant: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05222-x/tables/3

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

#867

Post by az226 »

jriot wrote: post #734

Eight years ago I was accepted to do a PhD in either economics or mathematics at a local state school, no where near any ranking list. However, I had just separated from the military a year prior after 11 years as enlisted member. I was the first one in my family to graduate college, let alone be accepted for a PhD program. During the orientation process I had to speak with a young woman about grants and scholarships…

It's ironic because women represent 60% of college students, so if anything there should be scholarships for men.

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

#868

Post by rayiner »

chengiz wrote: post #859
rayiner wrote: post #852

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is quite revealing of the cultural conflict underlying this debate. The dominant liberal white culture--which is adopted by many assimilated desis--holds that people should “follow their bliss” and disapproves of how Asians raise their kids. They view that as part of "gaming" the system, don’t like the incentive structure and competitiveness created when educational institutions are “dominated” by Asian…

It's not about preservation necessarily - I mean these institutions used to be all white Christian male and we obviously dont want that. But yes, the capping is of value, and in fact even a hedge against the ranking slipping. I guess even people like OP would balk at sending their kids to the #1 school if it had 90% Asians, and then that school wont remain #1 for long. The diversity is of value in other ways - experi…

> I guess even people like OP would balk at sending their kids to the #1 school if it had 90% Asians, and then that school wont remain #1 for long.

Why? Harvard was 90% WASPs when it became #1. Universities in India and China do just fine with 99% Indians and Chinese. What difference does it make?

> The diversity is of value in other ways - experiences outside of your comfort zone and ones that dont come with a quantifiable meric are wonderful things about a college education.

And you can't have those things if you have too many Asian students?

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

#869

Post by rayiner »

systemvoltage wrote: post #476
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…

Vote accordingly. I know many Indian-Americans who do not jive with the Democratic party even in progressive places like California. The system is stacked against them and hard-work / perseverence can only go so far when you need to dodge systemic racism (literally, that's what AA is) that benefits one group over the other based on skin pigmentation. Asian immigrant class of US is probably the most inspiring story of…

Most asians will resign themselves to their low rung in the BIPOC hierarchy and keep voting Democrat--against their self interest--because they won't be able to bring themselves to vote with "country people" in the GOP who didn't go to college.

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

#870

Post by aperson_hello »

jlkuester7 wrote: post #824
aperson_hello wrote: post #736

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In my city, the curb appeal of the wealthy suburbs with good schools is absolutely there too. But the inner city knife-fighting schools actually get more total money per student (because the state makes up the difference and then some). That translates into generally newer school buildings in the city, but generally worse outcomes. Which points to the fact that money isn't everything. Good administration matters. Teacher-student ratios matter. Home life matters. Without those things, more money doesn't solve education problems! Money helps on all those fronts, but it in itself isn't sufficient without good execution
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