Straight Dope Message Board

[Damuri Ajashi]

Originally Posted by Grey

just to illustrate how little anyone is talking about Baizou a comparison : Google Trends Baizou vs. Cariboo

https://trends.google.com/trends/exp...baizou,cariboo

If you are running into this term more and more it's because of where you're going and not because of general popular conversation.

Yes, I ran into it on a NYC education related board. NY and California is sort of where a lot of the asians live. NY asians are dealing with the push to eliminat the SHSAT and gifted and talented programs. California asians are dealing with efforts to reintroduce race based admissions into the UC system. 51

[Damuri Ajashi]

Originally Posted by iiandyiiii

Is this just about college admissions, or is there more to it? College admissions is an entirely reasonable topic, but I'm curious if that is the extent of the concern/complaint about liberals here, or if there are other issues. If so, what other issues?

I think the college admissions is the precipitating factor but it is letting the conservative camel's nose under the tent. We are seeing conservative asians saying 'we told you so, NOW will you listen to us?" They are leveraging this to build up opposition to affirmative action generally (something that asians have historically supported) by using the left's own words about how racial justice for asians and affirmative action are mutually exclusive. They have a tough road ahead with Trump in office but Trump won't always be in office. 52

[Hellestal]

Originally Posted by you with the face

What policy issues are of specific concern to Asian-Americans that are being ignored by progressives?

Discrimination against Asian-Americans by prestige universities is the big obvious point right now.

Asian candidates today are treated exactly like Jewish candidates were earlier in the 20th century. Harvard has already been caught putting a heavy thumb on the scale to favor other groups. That's what the big lawsuit is about. I have no idea the legal validity of the lawsuit, but Harvard was shown to be using adverse "personality" scores -- as judged by people who had not even necessarily met the candidates -- to weigh against the stronger "objective" measures in order to dump the applications of (apparently boring) Asian kids in favor of other groups.

This is a source of serious rage. And understandably so. This is outright discrimination against a minority group, but my feeling here (perhaps wrong?) is that relatively few on the left care about it.

It's all well and good to say that Asians are "over-represented" at US universities based on their proportion of the overall population, as another poster has tried to argue, but when controlling for "objective" measures, it's glaringly obvious that the Asian kids of identical or even superior accomplishment are very likely to be passed over for a kid who belongs to a racial grouping that has better "personality" scores. This includes, as you have indicated, the kids at expensive private schools who play rich-personality-sports like lacrosse or crew.

Originally Posted by you with the face

What does conservatism offer Asian-Americans who desire “equality of opportunity”? Conservatives support systems that favor affluent whites over others, and they’ve showed no sign of stopping this.

This is completely and totally true.

But politics can change over time. "We don't have to do anything about this, because the Other Group is not doing anything about this" is not necessarily a solid long-term strategy.

With that said, I agree entirely with you that the Rich-White-Sports candidates seem like a nice, plump target here. But there are political undercurrents to that (of course!) and there are other posters here on the SDMB who know an enormous amount about that topic. I don't personally know what the best plan here would be. But I really don't think it should be "nothing". There's a legitimate grievance here. An entire group of people is being forced to play the game with a much more stringent set of rules, based solely on their ethnicity, and they have every justification to be upset about that. 53

[Damuri Ajashi]

Originally Posted by amarinth

this is a phrase that I hear from Republicans frequently but I have never once heard someone serious* from the left ever push for. There's no movement toward that.
There is a recognition that we're nowhere near equality of opportunity. And also, when the results are so obviously unequal, people on the left are curious as to why rather than falling back on stereotypes that are based in prejudice rather than data.


*serious = widely respected with a significant platform; serious does not mean some fringe blogger or college student who has been awake all night really looking at their hands.

How about the Mayor of NYC? 54

[Damuri Ajashi]

Originally Posted by iiandyiiii

I don't think this is the broad liberal position. I'm in favor of AA, but not some specific form of AA that necessarily harms Asian students. I think most AA supporters have no interest in making it harder for Asian students, and would oppose such efforts. This might be an awareness issue, if indeed such harmful policies are widespread in college admissions -- and spreading awareness could do a lot to combat them.

I don't think the term Baizuo is being directed at all liberals. Most of the people on the board are self proclaimed liberals and are pretty conventionally liberal in most other respects. They are pro-choice, anti-gun, pro-lgbtq, pro-health care, anti wall, and for the time being... pro affirmative action. 55

[Bone]

College admission has been racist against Asians for quite some time. It was widely discussed where I grew up that if you were Asian, you should not indicate any race on your college application because it will make it harder to gain admission.

The history of discrimination and racism against Asians is long. From the Chinese Exclusion Act, to about 1965 or so, Asians experienced widespread discrimination. The vestiges of that is still prevalent in Asian communities. Consider that Chinese were not allowed to become citizens until about the 1940s, were not allowed to marry a white person, own land etc. It wasn't until the 1960s where immigration from China was allowed much more than a couple hundred people per year.

Chinatowns arose because Chinese could not safely travel, do business with, or transact outside of their communities. Consider if you were a Chinese person born when immigration was allowed, you would not be about 55 years old. You could have children that are between 20-35, at the point where they would be rising in their careers. But Asians are still greatly underrepresented in management positions, in law firm partnerships:

Across the country, the results are the same. Our analysis of national EEOC workforce data found that Asian American white-collar professionals are the least likely group to be promoted from individual contributor roles into management — less likely than any other race, including blacks and Hispanics. And our analysis found that white professionals are about twice as likely to be promoted into management as their Asian American counterparts.

...

These issues aren’t confined to the tech industry. Similar concerns were raised about the legal profession in a 2017 study coauthored by Goodwin Liu, associate justice of the California Supreme Court. Published by the Yale Law School and the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, the report found that Asian Americans are well-represented in law — they’re more than 10% of the graduates of the top 30 law schools — yet “have the highest attrition rates and lowest ratio of partners to associates among all [racial] groups.”

More info at the wiki on Bamboo Ceiling. 56

[Ravenman]

Originally Posted by Damuri Ajashi

How about the Mayor of NYC?

Well if there's one thing we know as a fact, its that Bill de Blasio speaks for white people.

Especially liberals. 57

[CaptMurdock]

Originally Posted by Damuri Ajashi

Why liberals defending anti-asian discrimination?

I'd answer that, but I'd have to stop beating my wife for a second.

---

---

SWIDT? 58

[octopus]

Originally Posted by Damuri Ajashi

Stopping taking the side of colleges engaging in anti-asian discrimination. If we saw these sort of disparities in objective criteria and subjective results the left would be screaming bloody murder. But instead it seems to be happy to toss asian kids under the bus to prevent the possibility that somewhere down the line it might pose a threat to affirmative action for the kids of more politically powerful minorities.



Asian americans generally support affirmative action. We simply don't think discrimination against asians is a necessary element of affirmative action.

Why liberals defending anti-asian discrimination?

You realize that affirmative action has to, by its intrinsic nature, discriminate? 59

[you with the face]

Originally Posted by Velocity

By and large, affirmative action. Many (although certainly not all) Asian-Americans oppose affirmative action, because they see it as a way to suppress Asian admissions (although Asians are overrepresented at many universities at a macro level, when it comes to the individual level, there is often a clear double standard whereby Asians have to score significantly higher on the SAT than other race groups in order to have the same chance of admission.)

By and large, most progressives/liberals are in favor of affirmative action.

Yes, and my point is these Asian-Americans have a misplaced focus on Affirmative Action. If universities ceased factoring in racial and ethnic diversity in their admissions process, Asian-Americans would still be discriminated against. Legacy admissions and other processes that favor the rich over the non-rich make this a given, as summed up in this article. 60

[iiandyiiii]

Originally Posted by Damuri Ajashi

I think the college admissions is the precipitating factor but it is letting the conservative camel's nose under the tent. We are seeing conservative asians saying 'we told you so, NOW will you listen to us?" They are leveraging this to build up opposition to affirmative action generally (something that asians have historically supported) by using the left's own words about how racial justice for asians and affirmative action are mutually exclusive. They have a tough road ahead with Trump in office but Trump won't always be in office.

Hopefully if/when more liberals are aware of policies that harm Asians, more and more liberals will oppose these policies. There shouldn't be any reason why AA necessarily has to harm Asians.

EDIT: And as ywtf notes, problems with college admissions policies abound... and the biggest beneficiaries are rich white people. The biggest beneficiaries of any harm to Asians in college admissions are rich white folks. 61

[Damuri Ajashi]

Originally Posted by Hellestal

With that said, I agree entirely with you that the Rich-White-Sports candidates seem like a nice, plump target here. But there are political undercurrents to that (of course!) and there are other posters here on the SDMB who know an enormous amount about that topic. I don't personally know what the best plan here would be. But I really don't think it should be "nothing". There's a legitimate grievance here. An entire group of people is being forced to play the game with a much more stringent set of rules, based solely on their ethnicity, and they have every justification to be upset about that.

Too many liberals think of stopping anti-asian discrimination in terms of being anti-affirmative action. In their minds they are making a choice between blacks/hispanics and asians and the obvious choice to them is blacks/hispanics. This is a false choice but it is interesting that when they felt they had to choose between being fair or showing favor to politically powerful racial groups, they chose the politically powerful racial groups.

Of course things like legacy admissions and athletic preferences are bullshit. I think the lawsuit against harvard specifically lists the elimination of these things as ways to improve diversity.

There is a magnet high school in Northern Virginia called Thomas Jefferson high school of science and technology (TJHSST). They have majority asian population and one of the more successful "crew" programs in the state. The kids on that team do not come from homes with traditions of rowing in crew but they adapted.

The athletic preferences at ivy league colleges are overwhelmingly in sports that are not really accessible to immigrants and minorities. It is an avenue for perpetuating a continuity in the skin tone at some schools.

As an interesting aside: The admission to TJHSST was largely determined by a score on a single exam. The school was predominantly white. Then the asians showed up and started taking more and more of the seats and before you knew it it was predominantly asian. THIS is when the county developed the political will to do something about the atrociously low black and hispanic population at the school. I'm not saying that the folks who pushed it were suddenly concerned about black and hispanic representation. I think it is more likely that the folks who were standing in their way suddenly lost interest in standing in their way.

They added all sorts of subjective criteria in an effort to improve URM admissions and the school ended up admitting a whiter richer and dumber student body. It turns out that affluent white parents were better at navigating complicated admissions processes than asian immigrant parents.

They reverted back to a mostly test based admissions process and have a primarily asian student body with little to no URM representation. 62

[Damuri Ajashi]

Originally Posted by Ravenman

Well if there's one thing we know as a fact, its that Bill de Blasio speaks for white people.

Especially liberals.

The term Baizuo does not refer to all liberal. It does not refer to mainstream liberals. The people using this term on the discussions about the SHSAT are mostly mainstream liberals. They are referring to the woke SJW crowd 63

[iiandyiiii]

Originally Posted by Damuri Ajashi

The term Baizuo does not refer to all liberal. It does not refer to mainstream liberals. The people using this term on the discussions about the SHSAT are mostly mainstream liberals. They are referring to the woke SJW crowd

But is all opposition to the SHSAT crap, or is some of it entirely reasonable? Maybe broadening criteria could be beneficial for all minorities, including Asians. 64

[you with the face]

Originally Posted by Hellestal

This is a source of serious rage. And understandably so. This is outright discrimination against a minority group, but my feeling here (perhaps wrong?) is that relatively few on the left care about it.

I agree that this is issue worth caring about. But the reason that it’s been hard to elicit sympathy from a diverse swath of the population is because all too often this issue ends up pitting one minority against other minorities. Which is why Affirmative Action gets so much attention.

The OP has a history of singling out “undeserving” black students to advance his argument about the unfairness of Asian discrimination. So here I am, a black woman who graduated with honors from one the hardest colleges in the country and is well acquainted with racist assumptions about merit etc.—and he’s not going to exactly inspire me to be an ally in his cause. All I see is someone who has let himself be manipulated by conservatives into thinking blacks and Latinos are the source of all pain and suffering, and I have little patience with this nonsense.

If Asian-Americans want progressives to pick up this cause, they need to frame the problem in a way that doesn’t validate the racist scapegoating of conservatism. They have been beating their head against the wall because so many refuse to believe the truth: Asian discrimination doesn’t occur because blacks and Latinos benefit from Affirmative Action. It occurs because there is a lot more to admissions than just grades and SAT scores, and the powers-that-be want the freedom to cater to other powers-that-be. 65

[Damuri Ajashi]

Originally Posted by octopus

You realize that affirmative action has to, by its intrinsic nature, discriminate?

Yes. Of course. I think asian americans see some value in diversity and definitely see the value of restorative justice.

It's bad enough that the baizuo think its OK to have asian kids pay for 4 centuries of black oppression by white people. The evidence indicates that the current anti-asian system discriminates against asians in favor of white! 66

[you with the face]

Originally Posted by Damuri Ajashi

Yes. Of course. I think asian americans see some value in diversity and definitely see the value of restorative justice.

It's bad enough that the baizuo think its OK to have asian kids pay for 4 centuries of black oppression by white people. The evidence indicates that the current anti-asian system discriminates against asians in favor of white!

it keeps coming down to Asians losing out to black people, doesn’t it? Don’t know how many times it needs to be pointed out that highly qualified Asians are losing out to less qualified students period (regardless of race), but your rhetoric keeps singling out the blacks. Do you have an easier envisioning an underserving black student than an underserving white one? Like, it totally fucks up your own appeal for anti-racism when you do this. 67

[Kearsen1]

Originally Posted by Grim Render

Is it possible that the US left does not see Asian-Americans as needing as much support as other minorities? They seem to be doing pretty well.

They are indeed, but why are they discriminated against? 68

[Damuri Ajashi]

Originally Posted by iiandyiiii

But is all opposition to the SHSAT crap, or is some of it entirely reasonable? Maybe broadening criteria could be beneficial for all minorities, including Asians.

It's mostly crap. If you think that the new system would have to be an improvement in identifying the best group of students rather than the mostly ethnically representative group of students then every proposal so far has been crap.

There are 130 screened schools in NYC. 8 of them use the SHSAT as the sole criteria for admissions. They are mostly butthurt that the best of these are the ones that use a single test and the test does not yield a racially representative student body.

The three most selective of these schools includes Brooklyn Tech. In the 1980, Brooklyn Tech was majority black. It is now about 7% black. Blaming the test for the lack of diversity is like blaming the MRI machine for your brain tumor. NYC DOE has been engaging in social experiment after social experiment, acting as the petri dish for the education departments of universities across the country and the result has been a race to the bottom. They recently proposed eliminating all gifted and talented programs, getting rid of tracking altogether.

The policy proposals presented to date have all been proposals that sacrificed academic ability to achieve racial balance.

The primary proposal was to admit the top 7% of every middle school. Some of these middle schools only had 2% of their students meeting grade level standards. 69

[Damuri Ajashi]

Originally Posted by you with the face

Yes, and my point is these Asian-Americans have a misplaced focus on Affirmative Action. If universities ceased factoring in racial and ethnic diversity in their admissions process, Asian-Americans would still be discriminated against. Legacy admissions and other processes that favor the rich over the non-rich make this a given, as summed up in this article.

That's the thing. YOU'RE the one that thinks this is about affirmative action. Asians think it's about anti-asian discrimination. We saw how WHITE enrollment at top schools dropped after they went race blind in California. Percentagewise, it hurt the blacks more but in absolute numbers, asians were losing more seats to less qualified whites than less qualified blacks. Asians were not up in arms when they found out that they had to be more competitive than blacks to get into Harvard. that much has been clear for decades and we were cool with it. It was the new information that WHITE students were more likely to be admitted than asians that upset us.

YOU'RE the ones that think that fighting anti-asian discrimination is an attack on affirmative action. We think its fighting anti-asian discrimination and if it reveals that some universities are hiding behind affirmative action to disguise their anti-asian discrimination well then shame on them, not us. 70

[Damuri Ajashi]

Originally Posted by iiandyiiii

Hopefully if/when more liberals are aware of policies that harm Asians, more and more liberals will oppose these policies. There shouldn't be any reason why AA necessarily has to harm Asians.

EDIT: And as ywtf notes, problems with college admissions policies abound... and the biggest beneficiaries are rich white people. The biggest beneficiaries of any harm to Asians in college admissions are rich white folks.

Yes, the benficiaries are rich white folks but the baizuo act like fighting anti-asian discrimination is a direct attack on affirmative action (or at least a sneaky attack on affirmative action). I can cite dozens of articles written by whitesplaining baizuo that admonish asians for not sufficiently understanding racism and that what we are doing is playing into the hands of the white supremacists because fighting anti-asian discrimination is really an attack on affirmative action. It's pretty galling 71

[Hellestal]

Originally Posted by you with the face

I agree that this is issue worth caring about. But the reason that it’s been hard to elicit sympathy from a diverse swath of the population is because all too often this issue ends up pitting one minority against other minorities. Which is why Affirmative Action gets so much attention.

Okay, I see what you're saying now.

Originally Posted by you with the face

If Asian-Americans want progressives to pick up this cause, they need to frame the problem in a way that doesn’t validate the racist scapegoating of conservatism.

I agree. 72

[Damuri Ajashi]

Originally Posted by you with the face

it keeps coming down to Asians losing out to black people, doesn’t it? Don’t know how many times it needs to be pointed out that highly qualified Asians are losing out to less qualified students period (regardless of race), but your rhetoric keeps singling out the blacks. Do you have an easier envisioning an underserving black student than an underserving white one? Like, it totally fucks up your own appeal for anti-racism when you do this.

I think you're misreading it. Perhaps I can clarify. I said the baizuo think this. Not me. Take another look at the post.

The baizuo think they are defending affirmative action for blacks and that is sufficient reason to throw asian kids under the bus. In their minds they are choosing between blacks and asians and they are choosing blacks over asians and scolding asians for complaining because they have a racial pecking order that they observe.

I don't think affirmative action is inconsistent with being fair to asians. I don't think you can find a single post where I say that we should get rid of affirmative action. I spend significant time trying to convince the baizuo that fighting anti-asian discrimination is not an attack on affirmative action.

I think what you may be remembering about me is my stance on how much culture has to do with the disparate outcomes between the asian and the black communities. I got into a heated argument with iiandyiiii about my use of the word "toxic' - this may have been more incendiary than it needed to be. I understand that some people think that any criticism of anything black is racist but I think Ibram X Kendi is wrong that blacks that call for self reflection are a form of race traitor or that any criticism of black culture is a racist attack against blacks generally. There are certainly things about asian culture that can be criticized.

Listen it's easy for me to be upset by discrimination against a group to which I belong. Probably the same for you, but do you get upset when people discriminate against groups to which you don't belong? Do you even recognize that there is discrimination going on? 73

[Damuri Ajashi]

Originally Posted by you with the face

They have been beating their head against the wall because so many refuse to believe the truth: Asian discrimination doesn’t occur because blacks and Latinos benefit from Affirmative Action. It occurs because there is a lot more to admissions than just grades and SAT scores, and the powers-that-be want the freedom to cater to other powers-that-be.

So the narrative that asians are suffering from affirmative action has actually not taken hold despite the efforts of conservatives because by and large most asians support affirmative action (certainly for american indians and the black descendants of slaves, we are a little skeptical of affirmative action for hispanics and black immigrants). Asians are more likely to vote Democrat than hispanics or Jews. Racism is not invisible to us.

Asians mostly got upset about this stuff when we found out that white applicants were several times more likely to be admitted to these schools than asian applicants with similar credentials.

I'm pretty sure that the whole affirmative action angle was injected by baizuo based on the fact that the guy bringing the suit obviously wants to get rid of affirmative action. But the lawsuit is directed at anti-asian discrimination. Do you know how many times affirmative action is mentioned (negatively) in the brief? At oral argument? The lawsuit acknowledges the schools right to promote diversity but says it can be achieved in ways that do not discriminate against asians. It talks about eliminating legacy, eliminating athletic preferences, outreach programs, etc.

This connection to AA is there but it is not a direct attack on AA. 74

[MrDibble]

Originally Posted by Damuri Ajashi

The term Baizuo does not refer to all liberal. It does not refer to mainstream liberals. The people using this term on the discussions about the SHSAT are mostly mainstream liberals. They are referring to the woke SJW crowd

But - I'm a woke SJW and I oppose anti-Asian discrimination in college admission processes. 75

[you with the face]

Nvm 76

[Banquet Bear]

Originally Posted by MrDibble

But - I'm a woke SJW and I oppose anti-Asian discrimination in college admission processes.

...I too am a woke SJW and I approve this message. 77

[Chingon]

I guess baizuo means strawman.

Sometimes too much foreplay backfires. The OP should just get to his point. 78

[you with the face]

Originally Posted by Damuri Ajashi

I think you're misreading it. Perhaps I can clarify. I said the baizuo think this. Not me. Take another look at the post.

And the very fact that this thread is about “baizuo” means I’m reading things 100% correctly. You make clear in this post your own racial biases when you posted:

Originally Posted by Damuri Ajashi

They have created this narrative that places the blame for the lack of "success" of blacks and hispanics at the feet of white supremacy. Any suggestion that perhaps blacks and hispanics could be doing more to improve their situation is condemned as being somewhere between victim blaming to outright racism.

You don’t win progressive allies when it’s clear you’ve been blindly imbibing racist conservative kool-aide. I’m just keeping it real with you. “Baizuo” sounds like a boogeyman cooked up by right-wing disinformers. What are we supposed to do with this shit except laugh at it?

When you promulgate racism against blacks and Latinos and vilify so-called “SJW” whites, not only do you play into the hands of rich conservative whites that have a vested interest in pitting minorities against each other, but you also alienate yourself from potential allies. The same dynamic keeps poor conservative whites in self-sabotage mode too. Economically depressed whites focus their ire on minorities, immigrants, and”college educated “coastal elites”, rather than capitalists that exploit them. This misplaced ire keeps them from building the coalitions needed to get the reforms that would help them. They fall for the okeydoke time and time again, just as capitalists need them too. 79

[Ravenman]

Originally Posted by Damuri Ajashi

The term Baizuo does not refer to all liberal. It does not refer to mainstream liberals. The people using this term on the discussions about the SHSAT are mostly mainstream liberals. They are referring to the woke SJW crowd

Of course baizuo doesn’t refer to white people who know their place. Racist terms rarely do. 80

[Damuri Ajashi]

Originally Posted by MrDibble

But - I'm a woke SJW and I oppose anti-Asian discrimination in college admission processes.

So you support the lawsuit? 81

[Banquet Bear]

Originally Posted by Damuri Ajashi

So you support the lawsuit?

...what lawsuit? 82

[Damuri Ajashi]

Originally Posted by you with the face

And the very fact that this thread is about “baizuo” means I’m reading things 100% correctly. You make clear in this post your own racial biases when you posted:

You don’t win progressive allies when it’s clear you’ve been blindly imbibing racist conservative kool-aide. I’m just keeping it real with you. “Baizuo” sounds like a boogeyman cooked up by right-wing disinformers. What are we supposed to do with this shit except laugh at it?

How does the fact that this is about baizuo mean you are reading things correctly?How does the language you quote mean that I have been imbibing racist conservative kool aid unless you actually think that any suggestion that blacks and hispanics could be doing more to improve their situation is in fact racist. Do you believe that?

When you promulgate racism against blacks and Latinos

And how is any of that racist? You can't expect everyone to simply agree that anything you call racist is in fact racism.

and vilify so-called “SJW” whites

Just for clarity, my understanding is that the sentiment of baizuo doesn't really require you to be white, just western woke SJW that has jumped the shark. Plenty of black baizuo and to many in the asian community, their reaction to the harvard lawsuit justifies vilianization.

not only do you play into the hands of rich conservative whites that have a vested interest in pitting minorities against each other, but you also alienate yourself from potential allies.

The woke SJW crowd hasn't shown much potential as allies. When confronted with evidence of anti-asian discrimination at harvard, they instinctively leapt to the defense of harvard over asians. With any other minority the knee would have jerked the other direction. Asians are apparently too low on their racial pecking order to warrant support against an institution that was forced to admit it did the exact same thing with jews a few decades ago.

The same dynamic keeps poor conservative whites in self-sabotage mode too. Economically depressed whites focus their ire on minorities, immigrants, and”college educated “coastal elites”, rather than capitalists that exploit them. This misplaced ire keeps them from building the coalitions needed to get the reforms that would help them. They fall for the okeydoke time and time again, just as capitalists need them too.

And what exactly does the baizuo left offer to the poor white man that the capitalist pigs do not?

It's funny. You think that the poor whites are being hoodwinked by conservatives. Conservatives think blacks are being hoodwinked by Democrats. I suppose people believe what they want to believe.

I think I am detecting another aspect of asians that is making the baizuo uncomfortable. Asians that are no longer blindly adhering to liberal positions just to get along. 83

[iiandyiiii]

AFAICT, the "woke SJW crowd" is not particularly attached to defending powerful entrenched institutions like Ivy League admissions departments. I know I'm not. They deserve a ton of criticism. Like so many institutions, they overwhelming favor wealthy white people. 84

[Damuri Ajashi]

Originally Posted by Banquet Bear

...what lawsuit?

The lawsuit alleging anti-asian discrimination against Harvard.

There are similar scenarios playing out across the country. In NYC, the mayor is trying to eliminate an admissions test because he is not happy with the demographic profile of the kids are that are getting in. He is also contemplating a proposal to eliminate all gifted and talented programs in the city. 85

[Banquet Bear]

Originally Posted by Damuri Ajashi

The lawsuit alleging anti-asian discrimination against Harvard.

...can you be a tad more specific?

There are similar scenarios playing out across the country. In NYC, the mayor is trying to eliminate an admissions test because he is not happy with the demographic profile of the kids are that are getting in.

And what does this have to do with being a woke SJW?

He is also contemplating a proposal to eliminate all gifted and talented programs in the city.

And what does this have to do with being a woke SJW?

I'm a literal card-carrying-woke-SJW and I don't have a fucking clue what you are talking about. If you want to have a Great Debate you need to start by having something to debate. 86

[Damuri Ajashi]

Originally Posted by iiandyiiii

AFAICT, the "woke SJW crowd" is not particularly attached to defending powerful entrenched institutions like Ivy League admissions departments. I know I'm not. They deserve a ton of criticism. Like so many institutions, they overwhelming favor wealthy white people.

The was the term is being used on boards discussing the movement in NYC to eliminate objective admissions criteria and dismantle the gifted and talented program. It seems to apply to woke SJWs that have fallen head first down the rabbithole of race politics to the some ridiculous conclusions.

These are people who subscribe to a racial oppression pecking order that allows them to dismiss the concerns of asian americans if it even peripherally threatens the interests of minorities higher up on the pecking order.

It may all die down when the lawsuit is over, but it wouldn't take much to remind asians how elements of the left rushed to Harvard's defense and called asians selfish racists for being concerned about anti-asian discrimination. And noone stood up for us against this, and we can't shake the feeling that if this had happened to any other minority group, there would have been a pretty unified front against the discrimination.

The left is no longer the safe haven against racism that we once thought it was. There are no more political safe spaces for asians. 87

[Damuri Ajashi]

Originally Posted by Banquet Bear

...can you be a tad more specific?

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-c...e-harvard-case

https://admissionscase.harvard.edu/supporting-documents

And what does this have to do with being a woke SJW?

Woke SJW's saw this as a threat to affirmative action (and it well may undermine affirmative action as it is practiced today) and immediately dismissed the concerns of anti-asian discrimination.

And what does this have to do with being a woke SJW?

Most of the folks supporting harvard over asians are woke SJWs.

I'm a literal card-carrying-woke-SJW and I don't have a fucking clue what you are talking about. If you want to have a Great Debate you need to start by having something to debate.

is that enough background? 88

[Mijin]

I wouldn't blame white supremacy as such, but the US is a country with low social mobility where blacks started below the bottom: many could not say they had as much as a penniless white until maybe a decade or two after the civil rights movement.

In terms of the Asian-american situation, it's more complicated. Some indeed started from the bottom, and they would benefit from efforts to make society more meritocratic and less dependent on where you grew up or whether you got tuition for the test.
But many are from families that had already succeeded academically or economically in their home countries.

And in terms of foreign students coming to the US to study, a high proportion of them are from wealthy families.
So it is not surprising that when we're talking about economic inequality and how blacks are disadvantaged from where they go to school that few people are concerned with the kids who went to a school in Shanghai that costs $30,000 / yr and got extra tuition on the weekends.

Then on other issues like police brutality, I am unaware of this even being a problem for asian americans. If it is, then for sure I would also protest that.

All that said, as someone living in China, it's clear to me that the whole society places a huge value on academic achievement.
And yes, it would be good if we could build such a culture among say blacks or latinos. I would agree with that. But that doesn't mean the system is fair for kids growing up in poor families, or that the best or only way to tackle the problems is to focus on culture. 89

[Banquet Bear]

Originally Posted by Damuri Ajashi

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-c...e-harvard-case

https://admissionscase.harvard.edu/supporting-documents

...there is no mention of "woke SJW's" in either case. How are woke SJW's related to this case?

Woke SJW's saw this as a threat to affirmative action (and it well may undermine affirmative action as it is practiced today)

I am no threat to affirmative action, I can assure you.

and immediately dismissed the concerns of anti-asian discrimination.

I haven't dismissed any concerns of anti-asian discrimination.

Most of the folks supporting harvard over asians are woke SJWs.

Cite?

is that enough background?

Not even fucking close. 90

[LAZombie]

With Jeremy Lin being kicked out of the NBA, there isn't a single Asian player in the league.

Why don't my liberal friends cry out for diversity? Why doesn't the woke NBA implement affirmative action to rectify this injustice? Why doesn't Andrew Yang mention this? He tweets about the Knicks.

I'll never understand why Asians vote liberal when it does nothing for them. 91

[Mijin]

Yeah and how come feminists may still claim there's discrimination yet they do nothing to try to get women to play in the NFL!?! 92

[you with the face]

Originally Posted by Damuri Ajashi

How does the fact that this is about baizuo mean you are reading things correctly?How does the language you quote mean that I have been imbibing racist conservative kool aid unless you actually think that any suggestion that blacks and hispanics could be doing more to improve their situation is in fact racist. Do you believe that?

Let me walk you through the logic here:

1) You start a thread about how Asians feel disenchanted with liberals because they believe baizuo want to use AA to discriminate against Asian-Americans in some convoluted attempt to prove white supremacy is why black and Latinos can’t succeed. Or something.

2) I then point out that Asian-Americans have a misplaced focus on AA; most of the discrimination occurs outside of AA. When black and Latino students are constantly the go-to examples for unfairness, if reveals a racially biased mindset taken straight out of white Republican playbooks. “Baizuo” smacks of the same.

3) Your response to this is to then deny that Asian-Americans are focused on AA. Which obviously makes no sense, since this very thread is about baizuo and their ideological position on AA. That’s what you’re saying is all the talk on the internets, right? That reveals the fixation that I’m talking about. 93

[MrDibble]

Originally Posted by Damuri Ajashi

So you support the lawsuit?

Which one, Blum's or the other one? 94

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Originally Posted by Damuri Ajashi

The Baizuo premise is that success is supposed to be impossible for anyone that is not white in America's white supremacist culture. They are uncomfortable with asian success.

This premise--"success is supposed to be impossible for anyone that is not white in America's white supremacist culture"--is an idiotic premise, as easily disproved as the words Oprah Winfrey.

Fortunately, nobody believes this premise. Anyone who thinks there's an entire subculture that believes this premise is fantasizing.

DA, I dearly hope you don't buy into the ridiculous idea that such people exist. But if you don't, this thread is puzzling.

If you do buy into that ridiculous idea, please start by finding a single person with any sort of power whatsoever (here I'm excluding a random highschooler on a Tweetstorm) that holds this belief. 95

[Ruken]

Originally Posted by Damuri Ajashi

asians were losing more seats to less qualified whites than less qualified blacks.

This is telling. As if school admissions should be some rack-and-stack measure of qualifications. 96

[ElvisL1ves]

Originally Posted by Damuri Ajashi

These are not partisan forums.

Then how about a link or two? Even a name. Let us judge for ourselves. 97

[Manda JO]

Originally Posted by iiandyiiii

I don't think liberals do this, broadly speaking. I don't think most liberals have any awareness that college admissions policies (some of them, I assume, though I have very little knowledge of this subject at all) are discriminatory in any way against Asian students.

EDIT: I'm a liberal, and I think I'm pretty well-informed, but I know next to nothing about college admissions policies, much less if/how they harm Asian Americans.

In terms of highly selective colleges (think top 30 in the country) one of the neatest tricks has been convincing upper-middle class white and Asian parents that all "their" slots at these schools have been taken up by under-represented minorities, most especially African Americans, who don't "deserve" the slot.

The reality is that the BEST ways to get into a highly selective college are:

• Have parents who went there
• Have parents who have or seem likely to donate large sums of money
• Attend one of the top 25 or so "independent" schools in the country
• Be a recruited athlete

ALL those categories are dominated by rich white elites. But the resentment is aimed at the 7-10% of these schools that are black.

People who object to AA policies at private schools think that AA is driven by some tree-hugger empathy bullshit. It's not. Elite schools cater to the (very) wealthy. That's who built them, that's who they are for. The very wealthy want to go to school with 1) other very wealthy people 2) interesting people from diverse backgrounds. They don't particularly want to go to school with a bunch of kids who are the children of professionals, who attended a generic "great" high school full of other children of professionals . They want a chance to have a Black Friend, a Gay Friend, A Poor Friend. But not too many.

Everyone who is not full-pay at an elite school has been recruited as a PROP to improve the experiences of the kids that pay. Actual admissions officers are often very well-intentioned and want to help individual kids, but the institutional philosophy is about keeping the school the sort of school that Rich Elites want.

If the T30 schools just quit admitting Black applicants, it would be no easier for middle-class and upper-middle class Asians to get in. They'd just admit more elites. 98

[Manda JO]

And I missed that there was a second page. My apologies for the redundancies.

One other thing: I do a LOT of highly selective college admissions work, and one thing I would add is that it is every bit as hard for a white, upper-middle class kid to get into a T20 as an Asian kid with the same stats. This doesn't show up in the data, because it doesn't distinguish between

• Taylor, whose parents are a moderately successful lawyer and doctor and have a household income of $275K and who goes to "one of the best high schools in [flyover state]"
  
• Jordan, whose parents are partners at a partners at their respective law firms and who make $850K/year and who went to Lawrence Academy

But I gotta tell you, it doesn't matter if Taylor is Asian or white. They will have to have cured cancer to get into Harvard. Jordan will not have to do nearly as much--Asian or white. The discrimination is toward sorta generic High Income, Low Wealth kids. 99

[iiandyiiii]

You mean the wealthy white elites are benefiting from pitting various minorities against each other (and against poor whites)? What are the chances of that happening in America? 100