The model minority is losing patience • Hacker News Board

Re: The model minority is losing patience

#81

Post by crimsonalucard » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 2:21 PM UTC

ryanmonroe wrote: post #60

crimsonalucard wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title may refer asians as a minority. However, while asians definitely aren't a minority in the context of the world, they still are a minority in the context of the united states and Europe. All of that, however, is completely irrelevant of the issue. What is the issue? Vanity? No. The issue is racism. When a race delivers quantitative metrics that beats other races out of the water, what does it mean? When blac…

> If races look different, then the possibility of other metrics being different is a logical induction. This doesn't follow. It becomes more clear why if you put it in more abstract terms. Take a bunch of balls, half red, half blue. Now assume some half of these balls are heavy (say 10lbs) and some half are light (say 2 lbs). Assume the balls have a bunch of other characteristics this way. Now what you're saying is…

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 roll down a hill faster than cubes.

Outside of the world of mathematics words are used to refer to a fuzzy category of traits. If one trait in this category is different from another category then the possibility exists that another trait is also different, inductively speaking.

Re: The model minority is losing patience

#82

Post by andrepd » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 2:21 PM UTC

pointeroffact wrote: post #70

wozniacki wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the horse's mouth: “We could fill our class twice over with valedictorians,” Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust told an audience at the Aspen Ideas Festival, sponsored by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic, on Monday. That means admissions officers rely on intangibles like interesting essays or particularly unusual recommendations to decide who comprises the 5.9 percent of applicants who get in. Faust's top t…

in other words, use unclear and vague criteria to judge admissions that just happen to massively disadvantage asian americans. it's strange that Faust is not condemned for her absurd and racist suggestion that asian american applicants are on average much less "interesting" people.

>absurd and racist suggestion that asian american applicants are on average much less "interesting" people

Talk about putting words in one's mouth...

Re: The model minority is losing patience

#83

Post by wozniacki » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 2:22 PM UTC

puredemo wrote: post #74

pointeroffact wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in other words, use unclear and vague criteria to judge admissions that just happen to massively disadvantage asian americans. it's strange that Faust is not condemned for her absurd and racist suggestion that asian american applicants are on average much less "interesting" people.

"All these Asian applicants look the same..." Seems to be her meta-message.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but 20% of those admitted were Asian American, for the class of 2019, in a country where less than 5%, self-identify as Asian-American.[1][2]

https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics

[1]

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/06/how-to-...

[2]

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/06/how-to-...

Re: The model minority is losing patience

#84

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 2:22 PM UTC

huac wrote: post #10

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…

You have it backwards - just because others see us through a particular, limiting lens, doesn't mean that we are defined in that way. Understanding that these stereotypes exist is in no way dehumanizing.

[deleted]

Re: The model minority is losing patience

#85

Post by anonforreasons » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 2:22 PM UTC

linkydinkandyou wrote: post #51

A similar thing happened--and still happens--to Jews (which is why there are so many Jewish Nobel Prize Winners from schools like "City University of New York"). The Economist blames other factors, though. "Racial prejudice of the sort that Jews faced may or may not be part of the problem, but affirmative action certainly is. Top universities tend to admit blacks and Hispanics with lower scores because of their histo…

>and still happens

No it doesn't. If anything, Jews now seem to benefit from a bizarre form of affirmative action, particularly at the institutions that once most discriminated against them: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of-...

Re: The model minority is losing patience

#86

Post by beachstartup » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 2:24 PM UTC

lazyant wrote: post #14

nraynaud wrote: post #4

What's interesting to me too, is that they are also neglected in the discussion about diversity in tech. They are the most over represented minority in tech, and instead of looking into why, and how it happens, can we find a leverage for other minorities, what open them doors but not blacks and hispanics, they are just overlooked. Complaining people just overlook them as: "it's a bunch of white males", but Asians (an…

A bit off-topic but on US tv shows is ridiculous how actors (esp. main characters) are usually white or black, little or no Asians and Hispanics. "Friday Night Lights" is about teenagers in Texas (1/3 pop. Hispanic) and they are all white or black (they even had an episode or more about the divide), not a single Hispanic or Asian ever (only one secondary character for a bit). EDIT: Also we laugh now at stereotypes li…

it's better than it used to be, and is improving.

a relative dearth of characters is worlds better than a population of deliberately hateful caricatures and racially venomous dialog.

i have white friends who started commenting maybe 10 years ago on how uncomfortable it was for them to watch that kind of shit on tv, because it wasn't just isolated incidents, it was basically a conspiracy to make asian people look absolutely fucking awful on tv/movies.

there was some outside pressure but i think society as a whole, including writers in hollywood, just started going "wtf are we doing here?" and is now moving toward neutral characters for asians actors i.e. nothing terrible, nothing amazing. there's an unremarkable asian family sitcom on tv, for example. i think a lot of the young writers probably grew up in a racially diverse group of friends.

Re: The model minority is losing patience

#87

Post by andrepd » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 2:24 PM UTC

jrochkind1 wrote: post #76

1stop wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a bit literal. No one thinks all races are equal in a genetic sense, it is obvious they are different. They should be 'treated' equally is the thing we are taught. We all have our unique genetic advantages and disadvantages, but there shouldn't be social disadvantage based on genetics. It is good we are taught this, because it requires social change. Also to answer your points directly, they do not at…

> No one thinks all races are equal in a genetic sense, it is obvious they are different. I don't find that at all obvious.

No? Why? It isn't racist to say Africans have darker skin or different shaped faces to Caucasians, you know. It's a fact.

Re: The model minority is losing patience

#88

Post by jrochkind1 » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 2:24 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #52

_yosefk wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it everyone's original sin? Which nation did not conquer the land it occupies today from some other nation? Which nation did not have the institution of slavery?

Forcibly occupying land that is occupied by others is not necessarily driven by racism. Often it is hunger, or something else. Slavery in many locations was not something done to other races, but to other closely-related tribes, long enough ago that no one remembers the difference between those tribes. USA is somewhat unique in that we enslaved people who were easily distinguishable from the rest of us, and also in t…

I don't think the US (or it's colonial forebears) forcibly occupying the land occupied by others, or importing others as enslaved laborers -- was _driven_ by racism either, especially at it's origin. It was driven by economic profit, same as usual. Europeans didn't conquer the Americas because they hated Native Americans, they did it because they wanted the land and it's resources. They didn't import slaves, originally, because they hated Africans, they did it because they wanted free labor.

But the pertinent thing about America is how the society was structured based on racism to _manage_ the economic exploitation. It was convenient to those on top to color-code the socio-economic structure. And this was done at an early stage in European settler colonial society in North America (By the 1600s it was fairly solidified).

This is what makes racism the 'original sin' of the U.S.

And it is definitely not at all a constant in historical examples of nations or kingdoms conquering land. There are plenty of examples, especially pre-modern, of the conquered people being fully or mostly integrated into the conquering society on the same basis as the already existing population of the conquererors. Now, especially in pre-modern times, 'the same basis' could mean as impoverished and disenfranchised peasants -- but the same as the impoverished and disenfranchised peasants of the conquering kingdom, state, or nation. Or in other cases, incorporated into an existing society that is somewhat more complex and with opportunities for advancement

(How the Ottoman Empire treated it's conquered populations is super interesting, and certainly not always great, but _very different_ from how we assume this thing works in modern times. The Ottoman Empire was sort of a pre-modern socio-political structure that hung on into the beginnings of modernism).

There has always been conquering in human history, and it's often been brutal. Even in the pre-Columbian Americas. (Although at the same time it's not been _universal_, there are more and less brutal, and more and less expansionist, societies in human history. )

But the very idea of 'race' is a modern phenomenon, as is structuring a stratified society based on race. (And the idea of race developed in the main during a process of structuring societies based on racial stratification, in a way that hadn't genererally existed before).

Re: The model minority is losing patience

#89

Post by mildbow » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 2:26 PM UTC

nraynaud wrote: post #4

What's interesting to me too, is that they are also neglected in the discussion about diversity in tech. They are the most over represented minority in tech, and instead of looking into why, and how it happens, can we find a leverage for other minorities, what open them doors but not blacks and hispanics, they are just overlooked. Complaining people just overlook them as: "it's a bunch of white males", but Asians (an…

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. That is how black people are different from any other ethnic minority in the US. And that's why I think hispanic people(PC term?) will climb the economic ladder before/faster.

Re: The model minority is losing patience

#90

Post by gozo » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 2:26 PM UTC

puredemo wrote: post #74

pointeroffact wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in other words, use unclear and vague criteria to judge admissions that just happen to massively disadvantage asian americans. it's strange that Faust is not condemned for her absurd and racist suggestion that asian american applicants are on average much less "interesting" people.

"All these Asian applicants look the same..." Seems to be her meta-message.

I'm not the one to defend Harvard, but an unestablished minority group only has so many opportunities so of course a lot of peoples resumes are going to look the same. That said, this is pretty much just traditional elitism. If your work harder than anyone else you'll still not get recognized because you're not claimed to be smart, cultured, pretty or interesting enough.