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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @05:05PM
Little boys and girls around the world, no matter their color, culture, religion, or whatever, PREFER to have familiar looking people around them, with whom they can relate.
I'm not sure I believe this. Anecdotal counterexample: in my neighborhood we are fairly racially mixed; my kids are caucasian (Scandinavian/British/German ancestry), the next-door neighbors are hispanic, and the kids a few doors down are black. None of the neighborhood kids seem to care about the race or color of their playmates. If anything, I think my kids seek out friends who are different from them because they enjoy novelty.
I don't doubt that you've observed the preference you mention, but we need to have a nature vs nurture discussion. The behavior of young children is largely based on the behaviors they see in their parents, and parental influence on social interaction takes hold around age 3. Little boys and girls around the world who have xenophobic parents will certainly prefer familiar looking people around them, since that's what their parents are teaching them by example. That doesn't mean that it's human nature, nor that it's the ideal state or even an acceptable one. Understandable, yes, but neither default nor optimal.
Now, how is the AC going to respond to this one? Here's my best guess:
I'm not racist because my kids have black friends