SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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 The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 02 2015, @05:51PM
Libertarian, TYVM. I'm an individualist above all else and individualism is the opposite of racism. It is simply logically impossible to judge someone on their race if you believe everyone should be judged solely on their own merits and failings.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @06:14PM
> I'm an individualist above all else and individualism is the opposite of racism.
Above all else? What are you doing using the internet? It was created by the collectivist US government.
Do you generate all your own electricity?
Grow all your own food?
Drive only on your own roads?
You are like a fish who can't recognize water because he's never been without it.
You are so completely dependent on the structure of society and yet feel no obligation to tend it even going so far as to accuse the people who do tend to it of being uncle toms.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 02 2015, @07:16PM
Of course not, I trade money I've received for my labor for them either through direct trade or forced taxes. Either way, I get absolutely diddly for free, same as you.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @07:25PM
> Either way, I get absolutely diddly for free, same as you.
Never said it was free. I said it wouldn't exist without the collective effort of society.
You seem happy to leave the direction of that effort up to the whims of the powerful.
That the people with more power not only get a bigger vote they deserve a bigger vote.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @07:38PM
I'm an individualist above all else and individualism is the opposite of racism.
Ignoring the fact that people of some races get an unearned leg up over people of other races isn't the "opposite of racism," it is enabling racism.
if you believe everyone should be judged solely on their own merits and failings.
Who is doing the judging? The idea that the criteria for making that judgement exists in a vacuum and is completely impartial is a pipe dream.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday March 02 2015, @08:04PM
Ignoring the fact that people of some races get an unearned leg up over people of other races isn't the "opposite of racism," it is enabling racism.
Ok, so why is it that a small minority, Asians, are given a penalty relative to other races (blacks and Hispanics) which have far higher numbers in our society? How the hell is that not racism?
Favoring one group over another, solely due to race, to try to make up for the fact that some people of some races get an unearned leg up, is itself racism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @08:27PM
to try to make up for the fact that some people of some races get an unearned leg up, is itself racism.
The day the world is perfect is the day we can argue about how the existence of outliers disproves the common case.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 02 2015, @08:16PM
You'd better ignore it, it's utter bullshit. Nobody ever got a damned thing given to them for being white. Discrimination should be punished but helping anyone because of their race is by definition racial discrimination and not a damned thing you think or say will ever change that fact.
Me. Individualist, remember?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @08:24PM
Ignoring the fact that people of some races get an unearned leg up over people of other races isn't the "opposite of racism," it is enabling racism.
Nobody ever got a damned thing given to them for being white.
I hope people mod your post all the way up to +5 so that everyone can see it for themselves.
Such an obviously counter-factual statement is straight out of the most racist corners of the internet like stormfront. [stormfront.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 02 2015, @08:31PM
You think so, eh? Go try it, my SJW friend. Ask for everything you can think of and make sure to explain it's because you're white. Dollars to donuts you don't get a single thing you haven't earned. So, no, nobody has ever been given anything simply for being white.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @08:42PM
Go try it, my SJW friend. Ask for everything you can think of and make sure to explain it's because you're white.
I already did and I got more than enough to make it into the 1% of because it. My leg up was the opportunity to go to private schools that were 90% white, and work in an industry where I easily integrated into company cultures because I looked like, sounded like and had the same background as everyone else there.
Your inability to recognize that intangibles lead to tangible benefits is baffling. You are like a programmer who can't understand pointers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @08:57PM
So give me a solution that doesn't answer racial discrimination with even more racial discrimination. I consider all intentional racial discrimination, even when it's trying to be helpful or correct perceived unfairness, as an ethical and moral non-starter. I'd rather have the current system, because at least it's not intentionally racist. I'm fine with a racial bias in the outcome of some system, as long as race was not an input criteria. Understand? Do what is right, though the world may perish. Even if affirmative action could produce a better society, I'd still be against it on principle. And it can't produce a better society, it never has whenever it's been tried, it just magnifies whatever animosity already exists between the races.
And no, I'm not white.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @09:07PM
So give me a solution that doesn't answer racial discrimination with even more racial discrimination.
When did you stop hitting your wife?
Affirmative action can't produce a better society, it never has whenever it's been tried,
What country do you live in? Affirmative action was working until the war on drugs reversed the gains made in the previous two decades.
If it weren't for that, we might even be to the point where affirmative action was no longer needed.
it just magnifies whatever animosity already exists between the races.
No, it spreads the animosity around more evenly. The people who lose the unearned benefits of a rigged system get pissed, but the people who no longer have the boot of society on their neck feel a whole fuckton better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @09:14PM
You didn't actually answer my main point. Your solution requires more racial discrimination, which I consider to be evil, even if it's well intentioned, even if it works.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @09:18PM
Your solution requires more racial discrimination, which I consider to be evil, even if it's well intentioned, even if it works.
So what matters to you is idealogical purity, not results.
I guess we know where you stand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @09:44PM
Where I stand is that racism is evil. Much harm has been done by well-intentioned racists.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @09:46PM
No, you literally said that the results don't matter.
That is evil.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @09:51PM
No, I said I don't care how good your results are if you got to them by using evil means. I care about results, and I care about the path we take to achieve them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @09:58PM
You arbitrarily define affirmative action as evil and then declare the fact that it works to be irrelevant.
At best you are just begging the question.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @10:16PM
You arbitrarily define affirmative action as evil
That's not my thought process. Treating people better or worse based on their race is evil, it's the definition of racism. Affirmative action treats people of different races preferentially. So I'm against it. And I don't accept the assertion that it works, I'm saying that if it did, I'd still be against it. All the evidence points to it NOT working to achieve its goals, and there are numerous injurious side-effects.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @10:41PM
Treating people better or worse based on their race is evil, it's the definition of racism
Clue for you: that's completely arbitrary.
Until you can explain why it is evil instead of simply declaring it to be evil, you've got no leg to stand on.
Maybe in the future, you'll have figured out what makes racism evil and can explain yourself. But frankly, I'm done responding. Clearly you've never thought about it before so anything you could come up with in the next 20 minutes isn't going to be particularly insightful anyway. You can start with that original post - why racism without power is more than just a character defect.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @10:03PM
Let me use another example to try and make my point clearer. Capital punishment. I'm against it. Always, and in all cases. Even if the speculated deterrence effect worked, it wouldn't change the fact that capital punishment is immoral.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 02 2015, @08:57PM
I do not understand it because those intangibles do not exist. How whites are treated in the US is the baseline. None are ever given anything because they are white, someone has to earn everything they ever get. Which is how it should be for everyone but you SJW types simply can't deal with that because it means you can't treat minorities special just because some people are assholes. You can't assuage your unearned guilt. So you twist reason to the breaking point to justify your racism. Yes, racism. You are racist if you discriminate in favor of any race, no matter their situation. No exceptions, no excuses.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @09:14PM
I do not understand it because those intangibles do not exist.
Well, I certainly can't argue with that!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2015, @11:04PM
But did you get free donuts?