You haven’t provided any cites about the Vietnamese, and the larger issue isn’t about Vietnamese refugees.
Who knows? We don’t need AA because of slavery/segregation, we need it because black people (and others) are not treated fairly. Slavery and segregation (and Jim Crow, etc.) play a massive role in why black people are treated unfairly, but it’s the unfair treatment in the present, not in the past, that makes AA necessary. AA is not about correcting for past unfairness; it’s about present-day unfairness in society.
I’m saying it doesn’t matter why immigrants may do better than other groups – I’m suggesting that the fact that they’re immigrants (or foreign students, or whatever), and not their nation of origin, might have something to do with their success.
I’m not going to pretend that discrimination against Asians today is as bad as discrimination against blacks but it is not a difference in kind. Historical discrimination against Asians have been minimized but it was still there. But for slavery and aprt5heid, I don’t know if things would have been much worse for blacks in the south than it was for Asians in the west.
What part of the legacy of slavery and segregation (rather than general white racism) do African immigrants bear?
They would be entitled even if they were adopted by whites.
Last name doesn’t matter but I would say that if a sufficient portion of their ancestry suffered under slavery and segregation, then they should qualify. Frankly, I think Obama’s girls should qualify.
The fact that they live in a society that, in general, treats black people unfairly. AA is about unfair treatment today, not unfair treatment in the past (even if the unfair treatment today is hugely due to unfair treatment in the past).
I don’t know what that statistic is supposed to be telling me, other than Ivy Leagues are very attractive to African students and African students are also attractive to Ivy Leagues. Perhaps it’s because I don’t automatically assume black student in a Ivy League institution = AA that I’m not seeing the same thing you’re seeing?
I didn’t go to an Ivy League, but I went to a highly selective undergrad institution. There were certainly African students there, but they were a tiny minority of the black population, which was pretty dang small to begin with.
I’m finding your African/not African dichotomy interesting. Not only are African immigrants a “model minority” group, but so are recent immigrants from the Caribbean. They too tend to look their nose down on us African Americans (descendents of American slaves). So I’m guessing that your “native born black” schoolmates were actually disproportionately represented by second- or third-generation Americans. And this still doesn’t bother me none. I know there are African Americans who are butthurt about stuff like this. But the butthurt only makes sense if one assumes AA was intended to be slavery/Jim Crow reparations. It isn’t. If it were a form of reparations, then why do people argue that poor whites should qualify under it? Why have white women benefited from it?
Do you think there is little justification to giving a kid from impoverished Appalachia an advantage over a kid from impoverished inner city? Should a university have the discretion to go with the former since they only have two other students with a impoverished Appalachian background versus 20 from the impoverished inner city? I think they should.
Personally, I think it is crazy to think “African student” is some monoithic group that can be talked about in some meaningful way. Should an African student with average ability but from a wealthy background be lumped in with an African student with modest means who writes amazing poetry and a compelling personal essay? A university is perfectly justified in seeking out BOTH of these candidates, since they both bring tangible and intangibles with them.
Can you find a single iota of evidence that universities choose African students on the basis of Affirmative Action more than other groups? Or are you just speculating that they do, based on the cynical notion that black people are so undesirable that there’s no way an Ivy League would select them unless their hand was forced? Because that’s the inference I’m drawing from your posts.
For every person like you who doesn’t have a problem giving a preference for the descendents of slaves, there are eleventy that don’t think the descendents of slaves are entitled to anything. If a university uses AA to build diversity rather than as a raparations program, are they doing something ethically wrong, in your opinion? Why should it fall on a university’s shoulders to give us descendents of slaves an extra boost, but no other institution?
The part when cops assume they are violent and dangerous, the part where teachers and counselors expect less of them and discourage them from academic pursuits, the part where store owners follow them around.
White racism towards Asians doesn’t include the idea that they are dangerous and stupid. Because of slavery and Jim Crow, the idea that blacks are dangerous and stupid became enshrined in the worldview of many Americans and it has far reaching implications.
Its not an article of faith, its an amendment to the constitution and while the constitution may not bind the hands of private colleges, it is pretty universally recognized that race based preferences are bad and there must be a correspondingly larger good that is being achieved by that race based preference.
This current racist society of ours has elected a black man to the white house twice. Racism exists but it is not racism that is crippling the opportunities of black Americans. Poverty might be a culprit but that is not where why are giving a preference to wealthy/middle class Africa immigrants. Culture might be a culprit but shitty culture is not where we are giving the preference to African immigrants who bring their own immigrant culture with them. We are giving this fairly significant preference based solely on the color of their skin and nothing more. That is an extraordinary thing in our democracy and if trying to reverse the effects of slavery and segregation is not really relevant in your justification of AA then I would suggest tat AA has experienced mission creep.
So yes society simply isn’t racist enough to justify AA on its own.
There’s a whole lot of assertions in here that are just opinion, not fact, and differences in those opinions are probably the basis of the disagreements in this discussion.
The larger point was that your hypothesis was that there is some self selection to foreign exchange students and international students that might not make them a representative sample and that self selection rather than AA might account for the astounding academic success of all these African immigrants. Then someone pointed out that the student in question as a refugee and not the child of foreign exchange students and you didn’t seem to think that made much of a difference. I pointed out that a Vietnamese refugee population in America more closely mimicked the white population than the self selected group of Korean immigrants in America despite coming from relatively similar academic cultures (both Confucian cultures with a focus on academics).
Then we don’t need AA anymore.
What academic racial unfairness do you see that is not associated with poverty or culture?
I’m saying it doesn’t matter why immigrants may do better than other groups – I’m suggesting that the fact that they’re immigrants (or foreign students, or whatever), and not their nation of origin, might have something to do with their success.
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You’ve stated this without any backup. But this was a very small part of my larger point, so I’m not inclined to go any further with it.
AA was never about correcting for slavery/segregation – you’re thinking of reparations. AA was about trying to ensure black Americans (and others) have a decent opportunity to succeed in a society in which they’re not treated fairly.
There are plenty of potential factors – teachers (no matter their race) treat black and white kids differently; media figures and potential role models are very different; day-to-day racism (little things) can add up and affect self-esteem, motivation, and similar characteristics; and much more. Racism doesn’t necessarily mean hatred or brutality – if one kid is assumed by a teacher to be a bit more of a troublemaker, even if the teacher tries to help, racism might be involved.
I mentioned some above (though “culture” is a big enough concept that it could include almost every aspect of society). More examples:
Standards of beauty might affect self-esteem and feelings of self-worth. If a kid feels like their natural appearance and hairstyle are unacceptable in broader society, they might feel just a little worse about themselves.
Police mistreatment might affect trust in law enforcement and other institutions, including trust in the possibility of success by playing by the rules. If someone’s brother, father, uncle, and grandpa were all mistreated by police, they’re a lot more likely to see police as a dangerous enemy, not as a helpful ally. If the police are reasonably seen as enemies, criminals might be more likely to be seen as allies.
When a kid realizes that many of the “default” things in society exclude them (i.e. “flesh-tone” as a color doesn’t match their flesh, among many, many more), they might have increased levels of distrust in society at large, including in the possibility of success in playing by the rules.
Businesses (like the therapy group of a friend of mine, or a sales team, or any number of others) with absolutely no personal racial animus among their management might nonetheless be worried about hiring a black person in a public-facing job, since a black therapist/salesman/PR-person/etc. might harm their business since many customers might respond less favorably to a black person in this job.
And African students are attractive to Ivy Leagues because they are black. That is AA or do you have a different phrase you would use when colleges give students a preference because of the color of their skin.
Do you really doubt that the color of their skin had a significant affect on their admission to these schools?
Women benefit because we used to have laws that made women unable to enter into contracts, hold jobs, enter professions. Because women were not viewed as competent to enter into contracts under the law. We used to strip women of their citizenship if they married a foreigner but men kept their citizenship if they married a foreigner. They were second class citizens under the laws of this country. Blacks were slaves and second class citizens under segregationist laws of this country.
People can argue for whatever the hell they want. If somewhere down, oligarchs have virtually destroyed America’s social mobility, then I suppose a reasonable argument can be made for some sort of advantage at that point but this is not affirmative action.
We’re talking about middle class/wealthy African immigrants.
Of course we can. They are all being given the same AA preference. None of them deserve it. If they can get in under some other criteria (great poet or wealthy enough to buy the school a library), then fine but they shouldn’t be getting in because of the color of their skin.
Then you are going out of your way to take offense.
I never said that none of these students could get in on their own. I said that they are getting AA preference that should be reserved for the descendants of slaves.
Are you under the impression that colleges differentiate between the descendants of slaves and African immigrants?
Yes.
Because higher education is the gateway to socioeconomic mobility. Its not the only gateway but it is a significant one.
The notion that black people are dangerous goes all the way back to slavery and was always used as a justification for slavery: black people needed to be enslaved for their own protection and the protection of white people. That same idea was always implied by Jim Crow–you have to “keep them in their place” because they are dangerous otherwise.
A lifetime of being treated as less intelligent means a life time of fewer opportunities and less support. People assuming you are dangerous means that you’re more likely to be suspended from school or otherwise dismissed as a behavior problem. Of course these things have an effect on your performance. It’s multiplied, greatly, by poverty, but it’s there even for middle-class black kids.
AA is about now, not what used to be. Things are unfair now.
As for the stereotype of black people being dangerous, this dates back centuries. There’s tons of literature on the topic, including pseudoscience that said black people were closer to animals.
Damuri, until you can produce evidence that universities admit Africans under AA and not for some other reason (like “Look! An international student who can pay full freight who meets the basic requirements for admission!”), then we’re merely exchanging opinions. Sorry, that’s not interesting enough to keep me hanging out in this thread.
It was actually a large part of your point, that these Nigerian immigrants were doing well because they were a self selected group of high achievers; exchange students etc. That is pretty well undermined if they are coming from a cross section of refugees who are fleeing Boko Haram. There is nothing self selective about being a refugee in the United States fleeing from Boko Haram. We do not select refugees based on their socioeconomic status, their human capital, their education or any of that, do we?
Then what we have left is a bunch of black immigrants who have not yet been dragged down by a lifetime of toxic black culture. If your explanation for the extraordinary achievement of this small subgroup of blacks in America is no longer the notion that they are an extraordinarily self selected group, then how do you explain their achievement if we are saying that AA plays no part?
“You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates”
-LBJ
Your formulation could be used to justify AA forever.
If your argument is that we have a type of racism now that is so powerful that is so powerful that it justifies race based discrimination but so inadvertant and subtle as to escape detection, then how do we know that these subtle and inadvertant little racisms don’t also weigh on Indian immigrants or Korean immigrants?
I agree. In what way does AA fix that problem? It seems to me that if there is no “buy-in” into the system at a young age because of police abuse, then the answer is to control police abuse, rather than tilt the playing field in their favor.
For the record, these police abuses used to afflict every group including Asian Americans.
I have run into this exact issue in law practice where partners feel that client relations would best be served by giving legacy clients to white males rather than women or minorities, including Asians. Should we extend AA to everyone other than white males? If we have a societal problem of this sort, AA seems like a particularly bad way of solving the problem and a particularly good way of stirring up resentment.
The answer to racism is to address the racism. Addressing racism with AA does little to address racism.