# Hard Work vs. Privilege **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 16, 2017, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322 "2017-01-16T17:23:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/241 "2017-01-23T18:25:56Z")
> [@Sleel](#): > > I’ve had to settle for just a little bit better for my family than I had growing up, and hope that it’s enough. That’s how it works though, and it’s a misconception to think that most families and people just catapult themselves from poverty/working class to upper middle class. That’s how my family did it as well, except that our path started about a couple of generations prior to yours; my parents were the first to attend college, and I’m the second person to get an advanced degree (my Aunt got a grad degree in education). But my grandfathers only had high school educations, and got where they were mostly through hard work and luck, being the sons of barely literate coal miners and longshoremen. I will agree that there are more barriers to entry (so to speak) now than there used to be though. I mean, one of my grandfathers retired in the late 1980s as the VP/Chief Loan Officer of one of the largest and oldest banks in Galveston (at the time it was reckoned the oldest bank in Texas), and he’d started there in the 1930s as a teller. Never went to college; just worked his way up and networked successfully. There’s no way on earth he could possibly rise so high these days without at least a BS degree in finance, and probably at least a MBA. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/242 "2017-01-23T19:49:53Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > I disagree entirely with that. Now, if the black guy is unqualified, or is very significantly less qualified than a wealthier white guy, then hiring the wealthier white guy, with his greater qualifications makes sense, and background doesn’t enter into it. > > But if they are more evenly matched, then you should consider background. If the wealthy white guy went from wealthy kid, to private school with tutors, and to a great college, that’s nice. But if you have a kid that went hungry every day, went to poor schools that barely taught you to read and write, but still managed to graduate high school and get admitted into college, you have seen a guy that has worked hard to further them self immensely in life. > > I would be more interested in seeing where the second ended up then the first. That sounds like a fine social experiment but when you’re hiring for higher paying mission critical positions, you’re not going to care whether the reason they are better is because they started on third base. If an HR person hired that way, they would soon be looking for someone to hire them. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/243 "2017-01-23T19:53:17Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Anyway, you have a valuable story to tell your pupils. And hopefully your efforts mean that your own children have had a better start in life. Hard work pays off, kids! If you bust your ass like I have all my life, maybe one day you too can bring in the big bucks as a public school teacher. Just remember: be born to a rich family, don’t let your dad be an alcoholic, and whatever you do, never ever let your mama die of cancer. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/244 "2017-01-23T20:58:01Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > AA was not intended to counter the effects of white privilege, because if that were the case, white women wouldn’t be the biggest beneficaries. Still, that doesn’t mean it can’t have that effect. > > I don’t know if Asians are “entitled” to AA, but in every diversity program I’ve ever participated in, Asians have been represented. For instance, I received a research fellowship in graduate school through NIH under an intiative devoted to improving medical disparities in stigmatized populations. A handful of students in the program at my school were Asian American (one of the dudes was Fillipino). I have also heard of universities recruiting Pacific Islanders due to their “under representativeness” in higher education. In what way do East-Asians and Asian-Indians benefit from white privilege? When you are talking about diversity and under-represented minorities rather than all minorities, you are talking about trying to equalize outcomes. At least if you are talking about white privilege. There are OTHER vectors where affirmative action for under-represented minorities make sense but tat is mostly a diversity for the sake o diversity argument. My feeling is that AA should be limited to the descendants of American slaves (and perhaps black immigrants that immigrated before or during segregation) and American Indians. I don’t really think AA for Latinos I justifiable unless you are using a diversity argument. > [@](#): > > Just curious. Do you have a cite? Because I can think of a number of reason why the rubrics are changing that don’t have anything to do with Asians. Like, the overwhelming pressure for everyone to go to college. So when I took the SAT, there were fewer than 10 perfect sores per test administration. Now there are over 1000 per year. This has nothing to do with the SAT grade inflation and everything to do with reducing the test’s ability to differentiate between student’s using test scores. > [@](#): > > I actually don’t see how downplaying the importance of test scores harms minorities. Or anyone, for that matter. How does drug rehabilitation for heroin addiction hurt minorities? It doesn’t, but no one thought of focusing on rehabilitation until white people started being affected. Similarly, no one thought that we should reduce the emphasis on test scores until Asian kids started outscoring the white kids. Coincidence perhaps, I am a bit more cynical. > [@](#): > > Seems to me that a multi-metric rubric that is calibrated to student capability benefits everyone. Relying solely on a metric that only captures a certain kind of student (those that have been privileged enough to devote hours to taking pratice exams) doesn’t increase opportunity. And it probably doesn’t serve the university’s interests either. And this didn’t happen when whites were the ones getting all the high scores. it didn’t happen until Asians started crowding out the whites. Perhaps it is a good idea to deemphasize the SATs, perhaps its not, but until it became a problem for white kids, noone really thought it was much of a problem, it was mostly just bellyaching by less intelligent minorities who didn’t test well. THAT I white privilege. The world is shaped in your image. Do you know hen we will see the elimination of legacy admissions? When entitled Asian legacies start crowding out deserving white kid then it will become a moral outrage. Right now its just how colleges HAVE to do business to keep their alumni happy and keep the donations rolling in. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322/245 "2017-01-23T20:59:03Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Maybe so, but you are also adding in more ropes for everybody to climb. No, it just changes the metric so that it becomes harder to differentiate very high scoring Asian students from pretty high soring white students. It doesn’t add more seat at Harvard, it just changes who gets in. They move he goal post because they don’t like the mix of people who are scoring goals. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hard-work-vs-privilege/777322.md?page=12)