Just think about the racist stereotypes held by Americans towards Chinese and Japanese people during and prior to WWII.
Those stereotypes were not of the successful violin playing overachiever, I can promise you that.
Thus, for anyone willing to look in the mirror, all sorts of implicit biases and stereotypes or prejudices - racial or otherwise - must be called into question if you want to live a life of intellectual honesty with oneself.
When was the last time you heard about african Nobel prize winners? Or african artists/composers? African philosophers or generals?
The asians have Confucius, Sun Tzu, etc. speak for them.
Whom do the africans have?
That's pretty funny. So, are you including Ancient Egypt for Africa or only later? Because, as you know, so much is derivative of that civilization.
Otherwise, slightly more recently, do Shaka Zulu, Ras Mengesha Yohannes, and Tariq ibn Ziyad, count for generals? How about Mandela, Soyinka, and Tutu for Nobel prize winners?
And, of course, for more fun we can reference other categories of "achievement", the value of which is culture-specific, then ask which other cultures have matched those "achievements".
Asians still have advanced countries, on par with the biggest and largest white majority countries, do they not? Modern Egypt is a backwards country that is not even in top 100 countries by GDP, HDI, or whatever combination of meaningful metrics to describe a country's civilization level you might choose.
Peace prize is meaningless since Arafat and Obama got one too.
Literature prize is better (though nowhere near as good as hard sciences).
In Soyinka's case though, you don't have much of a leg to stand on, because he was educated in a British dominion and moved to the UK at the still tender age of 20.
> do Shaka Zulu, Ras Mengesha Yohannes, and Tariq ibn Ziyad, count for generals?
No. The first two were either backwards (Shaka argued for strategies that were essentially a zerg rush vs firearms) or woefully unequipped by the standards of the time. Indeed, Shaka's most known victory featured 10:1 numerical superiority. It was also a pyrrhic victory in the grand scheme of things, as the British sent competent officers later and steamrolled the Zulu.
As for Ziyad, few things are known about him and where's his "Art of War" or "On War"?
First, to throw out comparisons between two "groups" with completely different histories results in facile conclusions and fallacious attributions of causation (i.e. just like yours). Second, the idea that African Americans or Asians each represent a homegeneous group is just incorrect. Third, you don't account for billions of impoverished Asians who have not cleared that high-bar. Indeed, those who make it to Western nations like the U.S. are exceptional by definition.
Likewise, you talk about blacks needing a higher bar to clear as if slavery, Jim Crow, ongoing biases, misconceptions (i.e. like yours here) and outright discrimination aren't high enough. Indeed, by any reasonable acknowledgement of history, African Americans should be extinct. Yet, many are actually thriving. That is self-determination and "bar-clearing" that rivals or exceeds just about anything you can find in this country.
Remember, we're only ~150 years outside of slavery. There are people alive today whose lifespans overlap with those of formerly enslaved family members. And, of course, there are many alive today who lived through Jim Crow--that is codified discrimination. And, implicit and explicit biases are still rampant. Does that give you any sense of irony for suggesting that African Americans simply need a higher bar to clear?
Please stop comparing the African Americans who are struggling most with the exceptional Asians (or others) who have made it to American shores. Please expand your understanding of the real challenges that African Americans have historically faced and continue to face and reckon with the astounding achievements they have realized in spite of this.
Asians have not been systematically denied entry to the NBA for hundreds of years. I do not deny that there are ethnic differences or cultural priorities. But if a group of people has been systematically told for a very long time that they cannot achieve anything beyond being a slave, then that oppressed group would probably not bother to engage in technical or scientific pursuits, nor would they have time to pursue higher education because they were not allowed to do so.
Think about that: a group of people have been systematically given a chance to prove themselves, while another group was systematically prevented from doing the same. It's a systemic issue that requires a comprehensive solution. It must start with assuming the very assumption that you are questioning, since how else could start from a clean slate?
(1. And no, race blindness is not starting from a clean slate, it's denying the systematically-imposed disadvantages that already exists. 2. Your examples posing asians against blacks and asians rub me the wrong way, a bit like race baiting although I don't know you enough or the tone of your explanations to say for sure.)
But I did just fine, there was plenty of opportunity to succeed in other ways. But would the schools have benefited with a single person from my state or city, instead of more people from a big city prep school on the west coast? My family was much poorer than the typical white rich legacy at an ivy league. But i was white. Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference and I'm fortunate, I doubt it hurt me.
I don't feel like I had a bad experience, but I'm just throwing this out there for the people complaining about prejudice because they are asian. My current company is full of successful, well educated asians, yet there were almost no black devs at google. Same for women. It was partly because there weren't any to interview or hire.
As an Asian who've experienced discrimination first hand, I am saddened that necessary differences in the gravity of error correction, as applied to group discrimination, is not obvious to everyone. Correcting the effects of slavery is much more important because its effects are much more pervasive. Getting rejected by a top school is not as dire for a group as a while, especially for someone in a group that is not even a minority at those schools. But I could see how someone could say what you said (but hopefully with at least a bit of explanation to back it up?).
Although the "denial of opportunity" seem systematic in both cases - Asians applying to Ivy League schools and enslaved African Americans in my examples - the latter is not due to space constraints. In contrast, Asians have not been or are under-represented. To me, that fact justifies a top school's effort to make access fairer to historically under-represented groups, whose cultural tendencies have been shaped long-term by outright denial.
Uh, source?
You're just making an arbitrary value judgement. Who are you to compare the effects of racism-against-blacks against the effects of racism-against-asians? You're making an arbitrary value judgement and then using that value judgement to justify systematic discriminations against Asians.
You're also ignoring the fact that Asians were enslaved too in Japanese internment camps -- and what's more that slavery was more recent than African-American slavery.
Weird to see you throw your own ethnicity under the bus in your haste to agree with the racist value judgements of elite bureaucrats tbh.
The way I see it, one group is arguing from a place of historical hardship, and the other is arguing from a place of privilege. I don't mean someone growing up poor in Appalachia as being privileged simply because s/he is white; to me, that historical background definitely counts towards raising diversity. I'm just trying to put myself in other people's shoes. It's not necessarily about race or ethnicity or recentness of oppression, it's the compounded interest of those oppressions and inability to rise out of that enforced debt. Our institutions have to factor that historical indebtedness.
Unless you really put yourself in another person's shoes, I honestly don't think this discussion will go anywhere. I mean, imagine growing up poor in a single household family, going to lowly ranked high schools, being disproportionately more likely to be stopped over and imprisoned for minor offenses, and getting questioned about academic abilities constantly.
You make a very unemotional, well reasoned and logical argument, I see.
I honestly think if we met in person we could laugh about this, and I would back off the emphathy angle a bit. It's just that the original question that I replied to was "must we" with regards to another group of people, and it's hard to explain why we must do so without looking at it from the other side.
"... I bet you cry during political speeches ... half-assed ... can't even believe ... " You make a very unemotional, well reasoned and logical argument, I see. I honestly think if we met in person we could laugh about this
Hahaha I totally agree. Well played my friend. Sorry for trolling ya so hard you just got my goat with the emotional rhetoric lol but I see you were just responding in kind to someone else. Have a good night man. :)
I find this comment goes deeper when I followed Jeremy Lin's progression into the NBA. I suggest anyone who is interested in your comment should read too. Lin wasn't systematically denied entry, but the kind of stuff he faced and endured based on his race - which was admitted to by a coach, was pretty bad.
And I feel this type of behavior that he faced - when your race is in the minority of the place you're trying to get to/be at - can be applied elsewhere. Like Black people thinking that others might think that they got there based on affirmative action and not by merit, or Asian Americans thinking that others think there are "too many Asians" here or the likes.
In some situations, minorities aren't being outright denied by law/whathaveyou but they are put in potentially "hostile" environments where they might feel like they don't belong, which can be akin to being denied socially.
Having said that, I still hope that the difference in priority and importance is obvious between: (a) correcting the impacts of hundreds of years of systematic outright denial of opportunity in all aspects of life, and (b) a top school's rejection of an applicant who do not belong to an under-represented group and who will likely get admitted in another top school or another very good school.
(b): under-represented because of the monolithic term Asian given to them. A lot of which are in poverty but seem to be overlooked based on being Asian. Someone else also mentioned the supposed under-represented group of Jewish people who stand at 1% but account for 40% of the cohort. Whoever gave those numbers was on this thread too - although I do believe a ratio similar to that is the real figure anyhow.
Must we? There's another comment here about no one seeming too bothered that the NBA doesn't contain very many Asians. Is it already too racist to believe that there are certainly trends in race, and that everyone is different and should be considered on their individual merits alone?
As a (Asian) friend once remarked, "raise the bar on us and we just jump higher. Lower the bar on the Blacks and they try even less, because they know they don't have to do as much."
Indeed, it seems all that making it harder for Asians and easier for Blacks has done is pushed the Asians harder to achieve even more, which certainly isn't helping equality much. A pretty good demonstration of the law of unintended consequences.