That’s not what you should have taken from that example at all, which is specifically why I used two white coded names. The point is that people grok individual disadvantages easily and giving them a leg up feels natural, and the same reasoning should be applied to systematic disadvantages.
> regardless of whether that’s true for the individual.
What you’re describing is looking at privilege through the lense of intersectionality, which nobody disagrees with.
What’s a “white coded name?” Most Black people have names similar to other Americans. E.g. here are the top names by ethnicity for babies in NYC in 2013: https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/vs/baby-names-.... The top 3 Black baby names are Ethan, Jayden, and Aiden. Playgrounds in Park Slope are full of kids with those names.
Cough. Intersectionality assumes that people's problems are the problems of their identities, and that their identities are the ones visible to others. Black, short, etc.
Identity politics seems purpose-built by "allies" to explain why the allies don't actually listen to the people they're helping.
For instance, Thomas Sowell isn't treated as an individual who disagrees with BLM's policies instead he's declared to be a defective or traitorous black man who isn't part of the real black people group.
By contrast, progressive POC are always presented as representative of their race even when they’re not. Ilhan Omar is held up as the face of Islam in America. But there’s way more Trump voting Muslims than ones who are as far left as Omar.
The kid with the higher score is a more impressive student. But there might certainly be a justification for giving the kid who had a tougher road to get there a leg up.
But that’s different from what we’re doing, where we apply racist assumptions and treat certain minorities as if they’re all from single parent homes, regardless of whether that’s true for the individual.