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The Los Angeles Times is running an article describing the challenges faced by Asian Americans as they apply for acceptance to top colleges.
The article describes the impact that their race and ethnicity has on their SAT scores:
Lee's next slide shows three columns of numbers from a Princeton University study that tried to measure how race and ethnicity affect admissions by using SAT scores as a benchmark. It uses the term “bonus” to describe how many extra SAT points an applicant's race is worth.
She points to the first column. African Americans received a “bonus” of 230 points, Lee says.
She points to the second column. “Hispanics received a bonus of 185 points.”
The last column draws gasps. Asian Americans, Lee says, are penalized by 50 points — in other words, they had to do that much better to win admission.
“Do Asians need higher test scores? Is it harder for Asians to get into college? The answer is yes,” Lee says.
A core tenet of the American philosophy, even from before the days of the Founding Fathers, is that through hard work and excellence one should be able to obtain success in life. But is this ideal even possible when certain underachieving groups are given artificial advantages, while those with the most merit are artificially held back?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 02 2015, @10:07AM
There is no such thing as "reverse racism". A black man who is racist is simply RACIST. An Asian who is racist is simply RACIST. A caucasian who is racist, is also simply RACIST.
This idea of "reverse racism" only helps to validate the worthless SOB's in the world who think that it is somehow "right" to advance other people at the expense of white, male, heterosexual, Christian people.
Racists and bigots are nothing more and nothing less than racists and bigots. Don't dignify the rat bastards with some kind of qualifier, such as "reverse".
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @01:45PM
This idea of "reverse racism" only helps to validate the worthless SOB's in the world who think that it is somehow "right" to advance other people at the expense of white, male, heterosexual, Christian people.
Let me take a wild guess.. you are 1) white, 2) male, 3) heterosexual, and 4) Christian
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @02:27PM
None of which would affect the validity of his arguments.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday March 03 2015, @06:04PM
If one thinks the poster's race, gender, orientation, or religion affects the validity of his arguments -- how is that not racism?
Flip it around. Does "black, female, lesbian, pagan" sound like it should affect same?
If that inverse makes you sputter with indignation, consider that it's an invalid criterion in BOTH directions.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 02 2015, @02:59PM
As AC has already stated - none of those facts affects the validity of my statement.
What - do you also suspect that because black people complained about slavery, their complaints were invalid because they were black? Come on, dude, get a grip on reality.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @03:22PM
Well, it reminds me of a charity mailing for spinal cord injury research I received a long time ago. Their spokesperson was Christopher Reeve, he wrote the letter, I think it was for his foundation. "Can you possibly imagine, me walking again and enjoying a full life" was part of the pitch, although it was more elegantly put.
I didn't donate to his charity.
I thought if he was smart, he would be a spokeperson for a different kind of medical research (ALS for example), explaining in graphic detail some of the hardships the victims and their caregivers are going through, which people like himself never have to deal with. That would impress people because he would've demonstrated capacity for empathy, and not just for others in the exact same situation (spinal cord injury) that he was in.
Empathy is impressive. Just saying WAAAAAHHHH, I deserve this and that! I'm way more qualified than they are, that's no fair!! is not, except maybe to Slashdot and SN mods. It's pathetic really.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 02 2015, @04:09PM
Oh? Valuing a person's argument because of the color of their skin isn't racist as nine kinds of hell is what you're saying? I respectfully disagree.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday March 02 2015, @07:59PM
Actually, I thought he made a good spokesman. He clearly knew what he was talking about. (He as also well known, and already wealthy enough to be able to afford all the palliative care available.)
You make a good logical point, but people are basically emotional reasoners. Logic is too slow. and our brains aren't well adapted to it. Emotionally he was appealing in the same way a baby seal is. (Well, ok, not quite the same way, but he appealed to the same general parts of our thinking. It was part of why he made a good actor.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by TWX on Monday March 02 2015, @02:42PM
I think that the point of using the label, "reverse racism," is that it's racism that probably does more harm to the racist or to those of the race of the racist than racism by the majority does.
If members of a majority race that are in a position of being mainstream and having a major degree of power or authority are racist to a a member of a minority race that has less power and whose culture isn't mainstream, then the person that's the minority is usually fairly strongly affected.
If members of a minority race that aren't mainstream and have only limited power are racist toward the majority race, then it hurts other members of the minority race as it reinforces stereotypes held by racists in the majority race, and may even contribute to racism in those that aren't particularly bigoted to start with.
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS...
and everywhere the language went, it was a total loss.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 02 2015, @03:01PM
You seem to be looking at things from a very academic viewpoint. Yeah - I think you're "correct", but damned near no person in real life sees things that way.
Racism is just to damned ugly a thing for either the perpetrators or the victims to view so clinically.
(Score: 1) by TWX on Monday March 02 2015, @03:30PM
It is ugly, but when one strips it back to the calculus one can begin to understand why it's so ugly and what it might take to stop it. Unfortunately it doesn't take very much to perpetuate it either, on the part of either group, even if only one of those groups is significantly affected by it.
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS...
and everywhere the language went, it was a total loss.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 02 2015, @04:05PM
With any luck, you'll be ready to tackle all the tribal feuds that plague the mideast, much of south-west Asia, and other regions of the world. Good luck with that! I can imagine that without tribal feuds, the mideast would have become the cultural center of the world long ago!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 02 2015, @04:15PM
Not bloody likely. Every nation in the mid-east except Israel by law and culture oppresses or kills people for being anything outside the heterosexual-male-muslim demographic. And those are the "moderates" we keep hearing about. Hate of everyone unlike you is not a solid foundation for a center of culture.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday March 02 2015, @07:42PM
How can you even say that? Their culture is DURABLE. It lasts. Remember when all of (or at least the vast majority) Europeans were laboring under an oppressive church, suffering with all kinds of crazy superstitions, sleeping in rat-infested houses, shitting in the streets? The Mideast didn't go through those dark ages along with Europe.
Islam has withstood the test of time better than Christianity has, truth be told.
Now, FFS, don't take that to mean that I like or respect Islam. I'm merely pointing out facts.
For the MOST durable civilization known to man, look to China. India is no laggard in durability either. Europeans? Just recent upstarts, on the grand scale of things.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 02 2015, @08:18PM
You missed the important part... "civilization" requires that you be civilized. They are not. Civilized societies do not push their ideals upon others via force.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by TK on Tuesday March 03 2015, @02:48PM
Civilized adj
See: Us
Barbaric adj
See: Them
It's all relative. They may be forcing their ideals of theocratic law on others via localized violence while we force our ideals of capitalistic boot-licking on them via globalized violence.
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday March 03 2015, @02:59PM
Wait, have we been invading countries other than Iraq and Afghanistan and nobody told me? Seems to me it was the whole Arab Spring thing where the people demanded what they wanted all through the region that got us where we are now.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Disagree) by Thexalon on Monday March 02 2015, @04:08PM
Another way to gut-check this issue: If you're white or Asian, and you had the option of becoming black or Hispanic, would you take it? And how about the reverse?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 02 2015, @04:20PM
It was a nice try but you're horribly, horribly wrong. The worst damage from any kind of racism is the spreading of hatred. You discriminate against any demographic and they are going to hate you for it. Social Justice has without question set back racial relations worse than anything since slavery.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday March 02 2015, @05:00PM
Tell that to a family of somebody who was killed because they were a black. And then told it was "justified", even though there is video demonstrating that is total nonsense. And then having all the political leaders line up in support of the killers. And then having a large number of people donating money to the killer(s).
The only way your argument makes any kind of sense is if you're saying that resentment over reverse racism is the primary reason that racist attacks on black people happen. But that claim utterly fails to hold any kind of water, because racist murders of black people happened for decades before the concept of "affirmative action" was invented.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @05:19PM
I can be against racially motivated police brutality AND affirmative action--both spread hatred and resentment.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 02 2015, @05:57PM
^^ What the AC said. I still stand by my statement. Spreading hatred is worse than killing; it is the root cause of all related killings and ensures that they and all other hate-based activities will never end.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday March 02 2015, @07:36PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by nukkel on Monday March 02 2015, @08:38PM
Buddhist friends tell me this is far from an original concept.
That's right; I remember Yoda already said that way back
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 03 2015, @01:39AM
Eh, OK, as soon as such a person exists.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday March 02 2015, @09:05PM
It's also called "positive discrimination." It was very fashionable in the UK in the 70s and 80s especially among lefty-types. The Labour Party used it famously in their all-women shortlists, to get more female MPs elected. So it was used to counter traditional sexism as well as racism.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].