Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)
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Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)
#2Forgive me: This is both a comment on the content and in the process I mentioned something I made recently. I don't want any more users right now.
I have a bucket for links called "Mythbusting" on this service I made named Scrooty.
I called the bucket "Mythbusting" not as a reference to the TV show but rather for a particular category of content.
I often run into misconceptions and tropes that bother me. One of those among people I encounter often is that the Soviet Union was so great compared to the US then or now. Another is things like, say, the excessive praise of Japanese longevity/health.
This is a link I'm saving for the next time somebody tries to tell me how devoid of racism the Soviet Union was.
Another recent link for this bucket was the (recent, but it's been ongoing) outrage among Chinese farmers not getting recompense for their land from the gov't confiscations.
Stories like this are starting to be shared more. Here's hoping it keeps coming.
Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)
#3Forgive me: This is both a comment on the content and in the process I mentioned something I made recently. I don't want any more users right now. I have a bucket for links called "Mythbusting" on this service I made named Scrooty. I called the bucket "Mythbusting" not as a reference to the TV show but rather for a particular category of content. I often run into misconceptions and tropes that bother me. One of those…
>This is a link I'm saving for the next time somebody tries to tell me how devoid of racism the Soviet Union was.
We have a similar quota system in America that limits asian admissions and with talks of extending quotas to limit male admissions in STEM degrees. What's not clear is if these Jewish quotas were proportional to population or not.
Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)
#4Forgive me: This is both a comment on the content and in the process I mentioned something I made recently. I don't want any more users right now. I have a bucket for links called "Mythbusting" on this service I made named Scrooty. I called the bucket "Mythbusting" not as a reference to the TV show but rather for a particular category of content. I often run into misconceptions and tropes that bother me. One of those…
wait, racism, in what part of the post?
Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)
#5Forgive me: This is both a comment on the content and in the process I mentioned something I made recently. I don't want any more users right now. I have a bucket for links called "Mythbusting" on this service I made named Scrooty. I called the bucket "Mythbusting" not as a reference to the TV show but rather for a particular category of content. I often run into misconceptions and tropes that bother me. One of those…
>This is a link I'm saving for the next time somebody tries to tell me how devoid of racism the Soviet Union was. We have a similar quota system in America that limits asian admissions and with talks of extending quotas to limit male admissions in STEM degrees. What's not clear is if these Jewish quotas were proportional to population or not.
Jewish quotas were a governmental system.
There are no asian quotas at the governmental level in the US. You're referring to an unfortunate side effect of diversity policies and affirmative action at the university level.
The US gov't going to silence or jail you for speaking up about university policies you believe are racist.
Don't compare the incomparable, it's an injustice to those that suffered under oppressive governments.
Edit: You've exemplified the sort of notions that caused me to make a 'Mythbusting' bucket.
Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)
#6A similar story:
http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-Fifth-problem--...
which was previously discussed on HN here:
Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)
#7Racism and racially-motivated policies (mostly affirmative action) definitely exist in the US ... Particularly for older, and less educated populations.
But the bottom line is, even if not everyone likes you in the US, you can still live a fully actualized life even if it takes a bit of hard work. In Russia, institutional racism created a hard ceiling that most of the time could not be broken, even with hard work. If you tried to hard, you would go to jail or worse.
Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)
#8Forgive me: This is both a comment on the content and in the process I mentioned something I made recently. I don't want any more users right now. I have a bucket for links called "Mythbusting" on this service I made named Scrooty. I called the bucket "Mythbusting" not as a reference to the TV show but rather for a particular category of content. I often run into misconceptions and tropes that bother me. One of those…
Entering the university was not the biggest problem for Jews in USSR. And what scares me is that people, like the director of admissions, who actually discriminated the Jews usually did not hate them. They discriminated because they were told to do so.
Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)
#9Forgive me: This is both a comment on the content and in the process I mentioned something I made recently. I don't want any more users right now. I have a bucket for links called "Mythbusting" on this service I made named Scrooty. I called the bucket "Mythbusting" not as a reference to the TV show but rather for a particular category of content. I often run into misconceptions and tropes that bother me. One of those…
wait, racism, in what part of the post?
discriminating against ethnic groups is usually also grouped into 'racism', and judaism is both a religion and an ethnic group.
"It is important to note that my family was not religious at all. My father was not brought up in a religious tradition, and neither was I. Religion in the Soviet Union was in fact all but non-existent in those days. Most Christian Orthodox churches were destroyed or closed. In the few existing churches one could typically only find a few old babushkas, like my maternal grandmother. She occasionally attended service at the only active church in my hometown, Kolomna. There were even fewer synagogues. There were none in my home town; in Moscow, whose population was close to ten million, there was only one. Going to a service in a church or a synagogue was dangerous: one could be spotted by special plain-clothed agents and get in a lot of trouble. So when someone was referred to as being Jewish, it was meant not in the sense of religion, but in the sense of ethnicity, “blood.”" --http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-Fifth-problem--...
Re: Soviet College Admission — My Dad's Story (1970)
#10Forgive me: This is both a comment on the content and in the process I mentioned something I made recently. I don't want any more users right now. I have a bucket for links called "Mythbusting" on this service I made named Scrooty. I called the bucket "Mythbusting" not as a reference to the TV show but rather for a particular category of content. I often run into misconceptions and tropes that bother me. One of those…
I don't know if anyone from the Soviet era would tell you that antisemitism did not exist. I don't know why any Russian would tell you otherwise. It always did and it does now. Russians are incredibly discriminatory, especially in bigger cities. When i was around 7 i had adults come up to me and tell me that i am worthless shit because i am half Armenian and half Russian.