# Is meritocracy overrated? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 6, 2018, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-meritocracy-overrated/817385 "2018-07-06T13:46:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 110
**Author:** ![damuriajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac8455/32.png) [@damuriajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/damuriajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2020, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-meritocracy-overrated/817385/110 "2020-09-10T03:10:33Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > A fair question. What if there was a way to fill those 70 slots all the same, and still only get 1 failure out of 70, and yet increase the diversity (not just in terms of minority representation, but in the broadest sense) of your workforce in ways that may be of benefit to you? OK so now that we understand that tests matter. As long as you are using an objective standard and getting the same results, then all things being equal, more diversity \> than less diversity, generally speaking. > [@](#): > > But, hey, that’s just another hypothetical, and would require you (or, more appropriately, people involved in college admissions) to be open to not just keep falling back on “the way we’ve always done it” with testing as the go-to measure of an applicant, without regard to how testing may not uniformly reflect ability across various demographic groups, and not just according to race or ethnicity. I think you would have to describe this method more specifically, because right now you might as well be talking about a fire breathing unicorn. > [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > Ah, yes, the _model minority_ . Out of curiosity, apart from being a “minority group” and “outperforming white candidates” on average, are there any other broad brush differences between this one minority group and, say, a minority group consisting in large part, though not in total, of descendants of people brought to this country forcibly, without wealth or opportunity to accumulate wealth (let alone pass that wealth on) for a significant portion of their family history? No but neither did whites. How is this minority group outperforming everyone, including whites in this deeply racist country? Are the racists so determined to make black people look bad that they are throwing white kids under the bus to make a test that is particularly easy for asian kids? > [@](#): > > Like, did this particular _model minority_ face its own kind of discrimination in, say, immigration, which, perversely given the context here of comparing one minority group to another, I’m pretty sure I was comparing this minority group to whites. I’d like to leave the descendants of american slaves and american indians out of this, I am not comparing asians to them. I am comparing asians to whites. > [@](#): > > resulted in greatly restricted immigration for a period of time, followed by only allowing a limited number of immigrants according to regulations that may have prioritized those with means or marketable skills/education? You realize that coming from a country with a culture that values education means that more people are educated, right? Are you saying that these asian immigrants are more privileged than the whites that are already here? Asians have the highest poverty rate in NYC. And yet the city keeps crafting race balancing schemes that will put these kids at a disadvantage. Why do they do that? > [@](#): > > Is that a hypothetical? No, this is an example of the model minority myth. You THINK you know about asians but all you really know are stereotypes and you use these poorly understood stereotypes to dismiss the concerns expressed by asians about bias and discrimination against asians. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-meritocracy-overrated/817385)._