# Trump uses Asians to undermine affirmative action **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 9, 2017, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179 "2017-08-09T15:43:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**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:** [August 10, 2017, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179/21 "2017-08-10T00:53:03Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > Of all the minority groups in America, Asians would probably be the easiest for the GOP to win back. Asians voted Republican by a slight margin up through 1988, the election of Bush Sr., but in 1992 and afterwards turned blue. (No cite, sorry, it is a trivia factoid in my head that I cannot recall the source for.) > > So with a shrewd, precise and well-tailored strategy, the Republican Party could conceivably flip Asians back to light red. It would be very difficult, though, Asians are increasingly liberal in America and with every year that goes by they are baked deeper and deeper blue. And Trump is about as counterproductive a person for winning back minority votes as it gets. He seems to have successfully identified fissure lines within the Democratic coalition and shaved off enough slivers here and there to win an election. I don’t know where the Asian vote can help Trump except in Virginia, where I live, and perhaps shore up some states where he won by slim majorities. Its not like he’s going to take California or Hawaii. He could certainly flip Asian political identity if more and more of the elected Asian politicians are Republican rather than Democrats. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2017, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179/22 "2017-08-10T02:02:11Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > There seems to be a really easy answer to this. Stop discriminating against Asians. There’s an even easier solution. Eliminate affirmative action, which is nothing more than racism in another form. ---
**Author:** ![Hoops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hoops/32/6408_2.png) [@Hoops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoops)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2017, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179/23 "2017-08-10T07:17:24Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > There’s an even easier solution. Eliminate affirmative action, which is nothing more than racism in another form. Okay, **Clothahump**! A magical wish-granting genie has been lurking on these boards and now decides to grant your wish. Poof! Affirmative action is now eliminated in the United States of America, and (because magic) cannot ever be reinstituted. Fast forward twenty years. What do you think our country looks like then? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2017, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179/24 "2017-08-10T08:41:28Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Hmm. Maybe things have changed, and given that my experience dates to the time prior to the invention of photography, I’m probably just not hip to the new process. We didn’t do interviews, either. Too far to travel on horseback. 😉 > > It would seem to me that if schools wanted to be race neutral, they will not allow photographs to be used at all. Interviews could be conducted by an independent agency or group that specifically left out any mention of race. Sometimes your name gives it way, though, and I suspect most of the “Asian” students here fall in that category. The agents I work for generally remove names from the CVs they send. Eventually, things such as sex, nationality, visa status and home location are given to the agency’s clients, but not before you’re going to interview with them. Before, all they’re told is that you’re legally eligible to work in the desired location and that the attached CV describes your qualifications. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2017, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179/25 "2017-08-10T10:01:58Z")
> [@Hoops](#): > > Okay, **Clothahump**! A magical wish-granting genie has been lurking on these boards and now decides to grant your wish. Poof! Affirmative action is now eliminated in the United States of America, and (because magic) cannot ever be reinstituted. > > Fast forward twenty years. What do you think our country looks like then? Pretty much the same as it does now. 20 years isn’t long enough for minorities to reach the statistical level one would expect in colleges. It’ll take a little longer but they’ll get there, by their own abilities rather than by the state stacking the deck for them. Affirmative action is insulting and degrading to all minorities. The state is saying, we know you’re not capable of overcoming poverty like whites and reaching the same academic standards so we’ll make things easier for you. It’s racism at its most patronizing. Minorities are as capable as whites and it’s astonishing that liberals should deny that by supporting affirmative action. ---
**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:** [August 10, 2017, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179/26 "2017-08-10T11:45:08Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > There’s an even easier solution. Eliminate affirmative action, which is nothing more than racism in another form. I don’t think so. I don’t think this anti-Asian bias is the result of Affirmative Action any more than the anti-Jewish bias 100 years ago was the result of Affirmative Action. I think most Asians would be willing to bear our share of the burden associated with rectifying genocide, slavery, and Jim Crow. What is harder to bear is discrimination based on the notion that there are too many Asians in top schools so we have to discriminate against Asians to keep their numbers to a tolerable level ---
**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:** [August 10, 2017, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179/27 "2017-08-10T12:00:25Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Pretty much the same as it does now. 20 years isn’t long enough for minorities to reach the statistical level one would expect in colleges. It’ll take a little longer but they’ll get there, by their own abilities rather than by the state stacking the deck for them. > > Affirmative action is insulting and degrading to all minorities. The state is saying, we know you’re not capable of overcoming poverty like whites and reaching the same academic standards so we’ll make things easier for you. It’s racism at its most patronizing. Minorities are as capable as whites and it’s astonishing that liberals should deny that by supporting affirmative action. “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” -LBJ I think you can argue that the level of Affirmative Action has gotten out of control when there are several standard deviations difference between Asian test scores and black test scores at top colleges. I think you can argue that the use of AA in the pursuit of “diversity” is not really effective when you end up admitting mostly wealthy and middle class immigrants of African descent (AKA Caribbean and folks actually from Africa). I think you can argue that a primarily socioeconomic based affirmative action would be no less perfect a solution than AA as it is currently practiced. I don’t think you can argue that the poor blacks are in the same position as poor whites. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2017, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179/28 "2017-08-10T14:38:00Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > “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” -LBJ > > I think you can argue that the level of Affirmative Action has gotten out of control when there are several standard deviations difference between Asian test scores and black test scores at top colleges. > > I think you can argue that the use of AA in the pursuit of “diversity” is not really effective when you end up admitting mostly wealthy and middle class immigrants of African descent (AKA Caribbean and folks actually from Africa). > > I think you can argue that a primarily socioeconomic based affirmative action would be no less perfect a solution than AA as it is currently practiced. > > I don’t think you can argue that the poor blacks are in the same position as poor whites. In what ways are poor blacks worse off than poor Asians? How will discriminating against Asians in favor of middle class backs ameliorate that? "What shall be done with them? Our answer is, do nothing with them; mind your business, and let them mind theirs. Your doing with them is their greatest misfortune. They have been undone by your doings, and all they now ask, and really have need of at your hands, is just to let them alone. They suffer by every interference, and succeed best by being let alone. The Negro should have been let alone in Africa—let alone when the pirates and robbers offered him for sale in our Christian slave markets— (more cruel and inhuman than the Mohammedan slave markets)—let alone by courts, judges, politicians, legislators and slavedrivers—let alone altogether, and assured that they were thus to be let alone forever, and that they must now make their own way in the world, just the same as any and every other variety of the human family. As colored men, we only ask to be allowed to do with ourselves, subject only to the same great laws for the welfare of human society which apply to other men, Jews, Gentiles, Barbarian, Sythian. Let us stand upon our own legs, work with our own hands, and eat bread in the sweat of our own brows. When you, our white fellowcountrymen, have attempted to do anything for us, it has generally been to deprive us of some right, power or privilege which you yourself would die before you would submit to have taken from you." Frederick Douglass ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2017, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179/29 "2017-08-10T14:50:52Z")
Blacks weren’t subject to the same great laws for the welfare of human society which apply to other men. That’s the point. Selective quoting from black leaders does nothing to advance discussion. > [@aldiboronti](#): > > Affirmative action is insulting and degrading to all minorities. The state is saying, we know you’re not capable of overcoming poverty like whites and reaching the same academic standards so we’ll make things easier for you. It’s racism at its most patronizing. Minorities are as capable as whites and it’s astonishing that liberals should deny that by supporting affirmative action. No, the state is saying you shouldn’t have to overcome the results of systematic oppression in one generation. It’s not as simple as “look, everyone gets to go to school now!” Black people in the US have been pushed - always informally, sometimes legally - into neighborhoods with terrible schools and minimal mobility. The same is true, to a lesser extent, of other minorities. I’ll give you an example that everyone can grasp. For the vast majority of people, their largest economic asset is a house. But African-Americans were shut out of the property market for generations, between restrictive covenants, redlining, general housing market discrimination, and lending discrimination. So many haven’t had the chance to build equity in a home, which is an asset the next generation can borrow against to finance an education, etc. Asians have sometimes been discriminated against in housing markets, too. The Chinese in California fared particularly badly. But for the most part, Asians have not been forced into ghettos; in most places, there simply aren’t enough of us to bother with institutional racism. Having said all that, I don’t see why black kids from high-income families should get preferential treatment - but in fact, they don’t. Affirmative action in postsecondary admissions is no longer permissible. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2017, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179/30 "2017-08-10T14:55:14Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > In what ways are poor blacks worse off than poor Asians? How will discriminating against Asians in favor of middle class backs ameliorate that? > > "What shall be done with them? > > Our answer is, do nothing with them; mind your business, and let them mind theirs. Your doing with them is their greatest misfortune. They have been undone by your doings, and all they now ask, and really have need of at your hands, is just to let them alone. They suffer by every interference, and succeed best by being let alone. The Negro should have been let alone in Africa—let alone when the pirates and robbers offered him for sale in our Christian slave markets— (more cruel and inhuman than the Mohammedan slave markets)—let alone by courts, judges, politicians, legislators and slavedrivers—let alone altogether, and assured that they were thus to be let alone forever, and that they must now make their own way in the world, just the same as any and every other variety of the human family. As colored men, we only ask to be allowed to do with ourselves, subject only to the same great laws for the welfare of human society which apply to other men, Jews, Gentiles, Barbarian, Sythian. Let us stand upon our own legs, work with our own hands, and eat bread in the sweat of our own brows. When you, our white fellowcountrymen, have attempted to do anything for us, it has generally been to deprive us of some right, power or privilege which you yourself would die before you would submit to have taken from you." Frederick Douglass I’d be all for this if our society and culture actually really did leave black people alone. Affirmative action is only necessary IMO because at this moment, black people (and some other groups) aren’t “left alone” and don’t have equal opportunity to succeed. It’s an imperfect and hopefully-not-permanent fix to an ugly and long-term problem, but IMO our society is better off with it than without it right now, even while specific aspects (like how prospective Asian students are treated) can be reasonably debated. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2017, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179/31 "2017-08-10T14:58:47Z")
Affirmative Action programs need to be improved. I fear involvement of Trump the Turd-Midas will doom that effort. AA should be race neutral. Instead, favoritism should be based on conditions like: 1. Educational achievement and income of their parents. 2. High school and post-secondary graduation rates of their high school. 3. Poverty and unemployment rates of their community. I’m sure there’s other non-race-based factors that correlate well with historically disadvantaged groups. And we need to improve post-secondary educational access for these groups, but it needs to be based on better criteria. ---
**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:** [August 10, 2017, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179/32 "2017-08-10T17:01:07Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > In what ways are poor blacks worse off than poor Asians? How will discriminating against Asians in favor of middle class backs ameliorate that? Well, now you’re just making argument no. 2 above. One of the flaws of AA as it is practiced today is that it focuses exclusively on skin color and this heaps benefits on the well to do children of black immigrants rather than the children of poor families whose recent ancestors lived through slavery and segregation. At some point we will be left with mere racism and bigotry. The kind we see leveled against Muslims and Mexicans today. At that point I think its harder to justify pure race based affirmative action. I mean few people would suggest Affirmative action for Muslims. I don’t see how the case for Hispanic AA is any better unless you are simply looking for racial diversity which seems like another way of saying soft quotas. > [@](#): > > "What shall be done with them? > > Our answer is, do nothing with them; mind your business, and let them mind theirs. Your doing with them is their greatest misfortune. They have been undone by your doings, and all they now ask, and really have need of at your hands, is just to let them alone. They suffer by every interference, and succeed best by being let alone. The Negro should have been let alone in Africa—let alone when the pirates and robbers offered him for sale in our Christian slave markets— (more cruel and inhuman than the Mohammedan slave markets)—let alone by courts, judges, politicians, legislators and slavedrivers—let alone altogether, and assured that they were thus to be let alone forever, and that they must now make their own way in the world, just the same as any and every other variety of the human family. As colored men, we only ask to be allowed to do with ourselves, subject only to the same great laws for the welfare of human society which apply to other men, Jews, Gentiles, Barbarian, Sythian. Let us stand upon our own legs, work with our own hands, and eat bread in the sweat of our own brows. When you, our white fellowcountrymen, have attempted to do anything for us, it has generally been to deprive us of some right, power or privilege which you yourself would die before you would submit to have taken from you." Frederick Douglass And what right, power or privilege are we denying to blacks with AA that you would be willing to die to preserve for yourself? ---
**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:** [August 10, 2017, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179/33 "2017-08-10T17:03:09Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Having said all that, I don’t see why black kids from high-income families should get preferential treatment - but in fact, they don’t. Affirmative action in postsecondary admissions is no longer permissible. Can you restate this part? ---
**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:** [August 10, 2017, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179/34 "2017-08-10T17:14:12Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I’d be all for this if our society and culture actually really did leave black people alone. Affirmative action is only necessary IMO because at this moment, black people (and some other groups) aren’t “left alone” and don’t have equal opportunity to succeed. It’s an imperfect and hopefully-not-permanent fix to an ugly and long-term problem, but IMO our society is better off with it than without it right now, even while specific aspects (like how prospective Asian students are treated) can be reasonably debated. I don’t think AA has very much to do with anti-Asian discrimination despite all the efforts from the conservatives to link the two. I think the anti-Asian discrimination comes from the same place that anti-Jewish discrimination came from a century ago, long before AA. I think a lot of liberals (e.g. those liberals who feel aligned with academia) want to see the anti-Asian bias as an unfortunate side effect of AA because they don’t feel comfortable with the notion that places like Harvard could be one of the institutions that practice institutional racism. But its clear that Harvard is no more immune from racism than anyone else. If only dumb people could be racist then we would have had this problem licked a while ago. They feel like you can have too many Asians and regardless of how many blacks and Hispanics got in under their own steam or with a racial preference, there would be an attempt to limit Asian populations a these schools if they felt there were too many Asians. Conservatives also want to paint AA as the source of anti-Asian bias but once again, we have seen this before and while there may be some differences at the margins, the description of Jews a century ago as unmanly, grade grubbing, sickly, etc. could be transposed almost wholesale to how some parts of society views Asians today. ---
**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:** [August 10, 2017, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179/35 "2017-08-10T17:16:26Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Affirmative Action programs need to be improved. I fear involvement of Trump the Turd-Midas will doom that effort. > > AA should be race neutral. Instead, favoritism should be based on conditions like: > > 1. Educational achievement and income of their parents. > 2. High school and post-secondary graduation rates of their high school. > 3. Poverty and unemployment rates of their community. > > I’m sure there’s other non-race-based factors that correlate well with historically disadvantaged groups. And we need to improve post-secondary educational access for these groups, but it needs to be based on better criteria. I think a lot of people agree that the best way to handle these differences is not at the college admissions stage but much earlier in the student’s life. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2017, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179/36 "2017-08-10T17:48:05Z")
The problem with affirmative action in universities is that it’s basically an attempt to make sure the rich kids are a good mix of skin tones. Collleges claim to use a “holistic” approach. I think they are blowing smoke, personally. A true holistic approach would not need to take race directly into account. Instead, it would look at the challenges a student has faced and overcome in life, which would involve race indirectly in most, but not all cases. If a college interviewed a young Michelle Obama and the best she could come up with about how her race affected her is that she believes she was mistaken for a server at a party, she’d go into the “privileged” pile of applications. Whereas a Hmong male whose family escaped tyranny without a penny to their name and built a life in America would be a top candidate, no matter how many other Hmongs were already enrolled. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2017, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179/37 "2017-08-10T18:01:07Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I think a lot of people agree that the best way to handle these differences is not at the college admissions stage but much earlier in the student’s life. Well, that’s a nice thought, but what do the kids do who go through the system before the 10,000 school systems in the US are fixed? They are just SOL? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2017, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179/38 "2017-08-10T18:05:17Z")
That’s why God created community college. If you went to a bad public school, you’re better served by community college than UCLA. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2017, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179/39 "2017-08-10T18:11:47Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > And what right, power or privilege are we denying to blacks with AA that you would be willing to die to preserve for yourself? To be treated like a capable individual and not a damaged representative of a race. When I was young I lived near an elementary school with a basketball court. Usually the older kids would play at one end and we younger kids at the other end. One day the older kids had an odd number of players and asked me to play with them. I was thrilled. I covered the worst guy on the other team and he covered me. No one passed us the ball until one possession where I got open going to the hoop and I tried for a layup. One of the big kids blocked my attempt. It was no big deal and I was excited just to have touch the ball. Then one of the biggest guys said, "Hey, why did you block the kid’s shot? That was mean. "Then he cleared everyone out and passed me the ball to make a layup with no opposition while everyone watched me. I was so humiliated it was all I could do not to cry and the game turned from thrilling to embarrassing. Because despite his good intentions what he had done was to treat me not as a fellow basketball player but as a pathetic weakling in need of special treatment. ---
**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:** [August 10, 2017, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179/40 "2017-08-10T19:04:29Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > The problem with affirmative action in universities is that it’s basically an attempt to make sure the rich kids are a good mix of skin tones. > > Collleges claim to use a “holistic” approach. I think they are blowing smoke, personally. A true holistic approach would not need to take race directly into account. Instead, it would look at the challenges a student has faced and overcome in life, which would involve race indirectly in most, but not all cases. If a college interviewed a young Michelle Obama and the best she could come up with about how her race affected her is that she believes she was mistaken for a server at a party, she’d go into the “privileged” pile of applications. Whereas a Hmong male whose family escaped tyranny without a penny to their name and built a life in America would be a top candidate, no matter how many other Hmongs were already enrolled. True. Just ask the Vietnamese boat people whose kids were applying to college in the 1980’s and 1990s. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-uses-asians-to-undermine-affirmative-action/793179.md?page=3)