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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

#871

Post by mam2 »

pmonks wrote: post #539
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…

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

No post body was provided.

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

#872

Post by pmonks »

JamesianP wrote: post #830
pmonks wrote: post #742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sure but grades aren’t all that indicative of anything in the real world. Some of the worst hires I’ve made were graduates who, on paper, should have been outstanding ICs.

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

#873

Post by seadan83 »

crhulls wrote: post #469
seadan83 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would imply that "driving while black" is not a thing if you have an expensive car. Counter-example: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/black-woma... Another example indicating the dependent variable is not always wealth: https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/michael-bennett-las-vega... While that is anecdotal, the overall statistics of police stops based on race are damning. This is just in the rea…

I don’t necessarily think the research agrees the stats are damning. For example, here is Roland Fryer’s study which concluded blacks are more likely to be pulled over than whites but are actually less likely to be shot. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/empirical_anal... Roland is a black economist from Harvard. It seems many people from both sides just decide the data that refutes their opinion is misin…

An empirical survey showing use of lethal force is similar but use of any force is 50% more likely based on race seems to support my point.

Agree about anecdotes. Disagree my opinion cannot be swayed (this is not twitter and I certainly don't fully agree with "the left").

If the assertion is that all rich people are treated the same, regardless of race, then only examples are needed to refute it.

But, beyond anecdotes, the national statistics indicate there are disparities in policing based on race ((1) your citation strongly supports this assertion (2) as an aside and without reference, there are similar damning statistics for incarceration rates and jail sentences, and this is still just in the realm of criminal justice):

https://abcnews.go.com/US/abc-news-analysis-police-arrests-n...

"ABC News analysis of police arrests nationwide reveals stark racial disparity Black people were arrested at a rate five times more than white people in 2018."

"In 250 jurisdictions, black people were 10 times more likely to be arrested than their white counterparts"

This one is more anecdotal since it is localized to just one (large) town, but is quite clear and damning: https://www.yahoo.com/now/beverly-hills-police-sued-racist-1...

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

#874

Post by JamesianP »

pmonks wrote: post #872
JamesianP wrote: post #830

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sure but grades aren’t all that indicative of anything in the real world. Some of the worst hires I’ve made were graduates who, on paper, should have been outstanding ICs.

Well they might've cheated. There's a lot of that around.

But if it's a pattern you see from STEM majors from a US school, you could complain to their dean. They usually have industry advisory boards also to get feedback about how students are performing and what is needed.

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

#875

Post by pmonks »

thefringthing wrote: post #864
RigelKentaurus wrote: post #860

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My money’s on you being right tbh.

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

#876

Post by pmonks »

JamesianP wrote: post #874
pmonks wrote: post #872

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but grades aren’t all that indicative of anything in the real world. Some of the worst hires I’ve made were graduates who, on paper, should have been outstanding ICs.

Well they might've cheated. There's a lot of that around. But if it's a pattern you see from STEM majors from a US school, you could complain to their dean. They usually have industry advisory boards also to get feedback about how students are performing and what is needed.

Or they could have been excellent test takers and not much else. Unless you’re trying to say that cheating on standardized test is commonplace, which would be yet another black mark against them.

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

#877

Post by mythhouse »

dang wrote: post #829
mythhouse wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Please don't cross into personal attack. It makes everything worse. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I wasnt attacking. I was making a general point, a valid one I think based on upvotes. I was triggered by 'pulled myself up by bootstrap' comment.

But I can see how it came off that way. Sorry to op and you the moderator.

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

#878

Post by Puradolia »

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…

I suggest, if you can afford it, to try go for a European university. There's great ones in Germany, Netherlands, England, Ireland (my home)

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

#879

Post by ashwagary »

jlkuester7 wrote: post #813
ashwagary wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The reason I'm grateful for what we have is that I'll never forget those days. Dont forget to be grateful to the black people affirmative action was originally intended to help. They are the only reason you were allowed into the US and could become naturalized. They spent their limited political capital fighting for you when they didnt need to.

> They are the only reason you were allowed into the US and could become naturalized. I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this is meant as hyperbole. Still I feel like this comment falls into the same rut that has lead to the current college admissions debate. Advocating for poor people does not have to be seen as an attempt to disenfranchise or minimize the opportunities of racial minorities.

Not hyperbole. Without the black civil rights fight, Asians wouldnt be able to migrate to the US and become naturalized.

Black Americans arent just poor or racial minorities, they were systematically robbed of the vast majority of their "early US investor" wealth by the state for centuries. They dont and shouldnt fall into the same category of other "racial minorities" and white women when it comes to these programs.

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

#880

Post by wheels »

hardware2win wrote: post #692
wheels wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because it's possible to have multiple goals at the same time. Reality is a co-optimization problem. And one thing to consider is that people don't choose colleges just based on academics, they also choose them based on social environments, and as such universities have an incentive to try to create amicable social environments to attract the best students. Case in point: I decided not to go to a good engineering s…

> I decided not to go to a good engineering school because it was more than 80% male and in a small town. The social environment was desperately bro-ish. I backpedaled and went to a liberal arts college primarily because of vastly superior social environment. I dont think many people have such a privilege

I assume you're referring to the fact that liberal arts colleges are usually private and more expensive, which is true, but I paid for it with loans, so to the extent that one would be advised to go massively in debt for college, it's possible.

My parents had only saved enough for me to go to a state school, which got me through one semester at a private college, and the rest were student loans, and working often multiple part-time jobs (and full-time in the summer).

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