# 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:** 284
**Author:** ![damuriajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ac8455/32.png) [@damuriajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/damuriajashi)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2020, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-meritocracy-overrated/817385/284 "2020-09-17T15:49:30Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > I believe he described them in your quote as “nominally race-neutral”, which is remarkably accurate. They are race neutral, but the fact that they are race neutral is irrelevant. It is important in the case at hand because the people who are dominating in the race neutral steps B and C are not white. In fact, the overwhelming majority of the seats they are taking are at the expense of whites > [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Of course they are. If a multi-century long system of discrimination impacted a sizeable population of Americans, with the result being, among other things, reduced academic performance as a group, then they absolutely benefit from having less competition for coveted academic prizes. It’s a direct benefit from racism being directed at others, even if they didn’t participate in the racism, or were victims of other racism. Sure, with respect to the descendants of slaves and american indians but the beneficiaries of the policy that mayor deblasio is pushing in nyc are not typically the descendants of slaves or american indians. They are largely hispanics and immigrant blacks. Why should we push aside poor asian immigrants that earned their spot to make room for a group that is mostly hispanics and black immigrants? Why does the burden of this historical injustice seem to fall so frequently on the backs of poor asians? Why is it that these movements for racial balancing seem to have no political traction until whites are a minority in these institutions and the burden of this balancing will be overwhelmingly borne by non-whites (specifically asians)? is there really no way to place the majority of this historical burden on white people? I think there is. Government sponsored reparations funded by wealth taxes. White people still have the overwhelming majority of wealth in this country, sure blacks, hispanics, asians and native americans sometimes have a lot of wealth too but this seems like a much more equitable way of distributing the burden than making room for black and hispanic, kids at the expense of asian kids. > [@Renewable Reparations](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/renewable-reparations/920594/53): > > I consciously cut them out to make my point, petty as it was. ~Max --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-meritocracy-overrated/817385)._