Is it Racist feel turned off by a school because it has too many Asians?

Parent Cafe
101

<p>Assimilation. I don’t like the sound of that. Like the Borg, you are trying to take “me” away and make me “you”. I don’t want to be assimilated. I don’t want a futile experience :(</p>

<p>Don’t think not wanting to attend a school because it has too many of anything is racist. It boils down to critical mass…Does it have enough of <pick a=“” category=“”>? </pick></p>

<p>I’ll duck as I say this. I am used to being a minority in world of Caucasians. I get thrown for a loop when I visit the west coast with so many Asians. And yes, I understand there are many flavors of Asian, but I really can’t tell the difference and before you scream at me, if I am not around them, how the heck would I be able to differentiate. Where I live and work and shop, Asians are scarce. So no, it’s not racist, but it is unfamiliar.</p>

102

<p>

Nope. Not at all. I was stating that it was outside of my experience. That’s all.</p>

<p>

Maybe what you’re not getting is that there are white people with that experience. You may be assuming a different experience/history for me than what I actually have.</p>

103

<p>as an Asian American, I do find that racist. Why am I expected to go to a school that is predominantly white and just deal with it but someone else finds it highly distasteful to go to a school that is predominantly Asian? There’s also the fact, as someone else has posted, that “too many Asians” doesn’t even mean 50% Asian, it’s more like 30%, and considering the demographics in CA, while Asians are still overreppresented, it’s not like they’ve suddenly taken over. Once you get out of CA, Asians decrease to something between 0-17%, again, you’re not going to be overwhelmed by the black hair and slanty eyes.</p>

<p>Other people have already stated that labling all of these students as Asian disregards the differences between them and since I agree, and it’s been said, there’s no reason to repeat it again. </p>

<p>Finally, to answer the, it’s no less racist to pick a school because it HAS minorities, other than the responses given, the fact is, no one wants to be the “token” member. Being the single Asian/Hispanic/Black in school is a different experience for different people but it is basically guaranteed that you will be stereotyped, pidgeon-holed, or otherwise limited, most of the time not even intentionally. Schools want high rates of diversity for a reason. With more minorities, it is much harder to form set mindsets about a group when you are presented with conflicting versions of said group daily.</p>

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<p>“The fact that so many try to portray an idealic, white middle-class culture as “American” doesn’t change the fact that, for example, most of the US was actually Black back when this country became a country and that <em>was</em> the “mainstream American experience.” So, at one point, the majority culture(which stopped being the majority culture because of immigration) was enslaved.”</p>

<p>I perhaps should have found a different word from “mainstream”. You seem to gather what I meant though (BTW, I think your demographic assertion for 1776 is not correct)</p>

<p>“As far as ‘dialects,’ a lot of that is regional.”</p>

<p>No, it isnt actually. African American Vernacular is spoken in inner cities in the northeast, midwest, and west, including by people who are generations removed from the South. </p>

<p>“But, getting back to your point, for 1st and 2nd generation Asians, they or their ancestors would have been in Asia from the 1920s-1940s and even into the 21st century. So while your African-American neighbors may have taken New York Avenue into the District while you drive in on 66, and their parents attended Howard while yours attended Lehman”</p>

<p>Most african american who are parents of the current generation of college students did not attend college at all. In the inner cities, probably a majority have parents who did not complete high school. and the high school they did attend, was culturally isolated in a way Howard was not. </p>

<p>Yes, asian americans often (though again not always, there were asian americans here during WW2) had grandparents who had a very, very different experience in the 1940s. Their experience, though, at least here on the east coast is of aggressively moving into “white” society very rapidly - visible in residential patterns, intermarriage data, and in language patterns among the second generation. Compare taht to residential patterns, intermarriage data, or language patterns among african americans, esp those not from middle class suburbs.</p>

<p>Now obviously thats driven by class, discrimination, among other things. But it seems just plain silly to ignore it.</p>

105

<p>"Maybe what you’re not getting is that there are white people with that experience. You may be assuming a different experience/history for me than what I actually have. "</p>

<p>Ghetto does not mean slum. Its a reference to segregation and social isolation, not poverty. I would suggest yes, a third generation white person who grew up in say, a Little Italy, would be less assimilated than an Italian american who grew up in the suburbs. And yeah, if my kid were about to attend a college where over 50% of the kids were italian americans who came from Little Italy or the North End, I would think it worthwhile to examine the social situation at the school. But thats EXTREMELY unlikely, given the demographic realities of those kinds of neighborhoods today (IE they are gone, or they are mainly inhabited by the elderly). </p>

<p>So I am not sure what you are getting at.</p>

106

<p>It is only racist if you believe that one race is superior or inferior to another race. (How does one perform the calculation to determine whether there are “too many Asians”?)</p>

107

<p>

I’m not sure what you’re getting at, so I’m going to step out now. Your comment about “contradicting you” was so offensive and out of hand that I don’t even care what you were getting at.</p>

<p>I have a different experience than yours. You have no idea what mine was or is, but you are making assumptions. I have no interest in that.</p>

108

<p>

:confused:
The first US census in 1790 counted 3,929,326 people. Over 3 million were white.
<a href=“http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1790m-02.pdf[/url]”>http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1790m-02.pdf&lt;/a&gt; see p. 8</p>

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<p>Did that census count blacks as 3/5th of a person each?</p>

110

<p>"I’m not sure what you’re getting at, so I’m going to step out now. Your comment about “contradicting you” was so offensive and out of hand that I don’t even care what you were getting at.</p>

<p>I have a different experience than yours. You have no idea what mine was or is, but you are making assumptions. I have no interest in that. "</p>

<p>I dont know how saying something is or is not contradicting is offensive. Contradicting isnt personal. Its a way of understanding arguments. “The big bang theory contradicts the steady state theory on the following points” does not mean the two theories dont like each other, its a way of clarifying what they both say, where they are in agreement, where not, and how to determine the truth. </p>

<p>I am not making assumptions about you or your background. I am NOT discussing you or your background. Someone asked me if I would see a difference between a school that was 50% asian, and one that was 50% black, in terms of my daughters experience. I tried to answer that honestly, including what I know, both personally and second hand, about the asian american and african american experiences. </p>

<p>It appeared to me that you were disagreeing with something I said. Maybe you were not and I misread you. I have simply been trying to explain what I meant.</p>

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<p>Wow. What’s happened to this thread? Couple of comments before I get back to the central question that I started…</p>

<p>ON THE ISSUE OF ASSIMILATION: 2Collegewego has an interesting thesis, but I don’t quite buy it. I wish it were true that blacks and whites in America have the same culture. Aspects of culture include tastes/preferences in food, entertainment, music, dress, religion, even political persuasion. There are sharp, identifiable differences between blacks and whites (as a group, I know there are always exceptions) in all of those categories. </p>

<p>Examples: In presidential elections, whites tend to vote majority Republican. That’s a fact. No Democratic candidate since 1964 has managed to win a majority of white voters, not Obama, not Clinton, not Kerry, not Gore, not Mondale, not Carter. We know the opposite is true for blacks. There is something about Republican ideology that seeems to appeal to whites more than any other group.</p>

<p>Entertainment: TV programmers know who is watching which shows. While there are many shows that blacks and whites find equally appealing there are also sharp divisions. The audiences for shows like Seinfeld and Friends could not have been whiter. How many blacks do you know make the annual trek out to the very distinct entertainment offered at Branson, Missouri? Ever seen the audiences at “Celtic Woman” or “Celtic Men” concerts? And I can’t remember the last black star singing out of Nashville or white star out of Motown.</p>

<p>And why is it that the most segregated hour in America happens on Sunday morning? Please don’t insult my intelligence by suggesting that blacks and whites in America have a common culture. Sure, the two races share some things because of history, but the reason we hear over and over that college students “self segregate” isn’t just because of skin color. It’s deeper than that. It’s because of discomfort over CULTURAL differences, or to put it more politely, a preference to be around people with common cultural experiences. The tragedy is, the self-segregating students, black and white, could be next door neighbors and still feel a wide cultual chasm when it comes to many social experiences. </p>

<p>Oh yeah, almost forgot. Ever seen the audience at a NASCAR event? Sure there are regional factors at play here, but race is also prominent?</p>

<p>ON THE ISSUE OF INTERRACIAL MARRIAGE: I believe the Wikipedia stats. What they don’t show -and this raises insteresting questions of regional cultural variations- are the differences in interracial marriage rates by region or state. I used to live in Minnesota. I remember an article published in the St. Paul Pioneer Press about 10 years or so ago now, that reported the interracial marriage rates between blacks and whites in Minnesota, as reported by the National Institute of Health. In Minnesota, 40% of the black men who were married were not married to black women. 40%! It’s probably 1% in a place like Mississippi, but you get my point. If you know anything about he demographics of Minnesota, most of those non-black wives of black men in Minnesota were white, 90% would be safe estimate. It is the leading state for marriages between blacks and whites. National rates are one thing—regional or state variations provide a much more interesting and revealing picture about America.</p>

<p>BACK ON TOPIC…</p>

<p>It sounds like some people consider it racist to avoid a college that has “too many Asians” and others feel it is not racist, only a preference like urban vs. rural or LAC vs. university. I have to agree with the poster who said you can’t equate human beings to geographical preferences.</p>

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<p>There is more to racism than just thinking one race is superior/inferior to another.</p>

<p>It is also racist to not want to associate with people of another race either in social settings, the workplace or in education.</p>

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<p>"Did that census count blacks as 3/5th of a person each? "</p>

<p>I am pretty sure the 3/5 was applied subsequent to the census, when congressional seats were apportioned.</p>

<p>BTW, that provision was NOT anti-black - it was an attempt to reduce the level of representation of the slave states - all of whose representatives were white, and almost all were slave owners. The slave owners wanted their slaves to be counted as full people for congressional apportionment - the antislavery northerners wanted them exclued - 3/5 was the compromise.</p>

114

<p>

Feel free to come to my church. You may be surprised. In fact, I bet you would. Not all churches are segregated. Mine is not. Although I do know that you’re right as a general matter.</p>

<p>

I wonder if that’s more common higher up the education ladder than I’ve reached.</p>

115

<p>

The top UCs are ‘only’ 35-40% or so ‘Asian’ but again that ‘Asian’ includes quite a diverse group of people including people from India, Pacific Islanders, and many other countries/regions and includes first gen (people born in those countries and generally speaking primarily their non-English native language), second gen, those whose families have been in this country for generations, and those who are of mixed descent. It also means that over half the school is an ethnicity other than ‘Asian’. </p>

<p>The top UCs are also big schools with large numbers of students so there are lots of students of most racial backgrounds. I think it’d be difficult for one to consider the school to be so overwhelmingly a particular ‘race’, and even more so, a particular ‘cultural background’ given the diversity of students on these campuses. I don’t think there’d be an ‘acceptance’ issue or a ‘dating’ issue although the latter is more up to the individual and their preferences.</p>

<p>To add some objectiveness to the discussion, here’s how it breaks down at UCLA for undergrads (all undergrads) and how it’s catgorized in the common data set - </p>

<p>Nonresident Aliens - 1,280<br>
Black, Non-Hispanic - 986
American Indian or Alaska Native - 121
Asian or Pacific Islander - 10,145
Hispanic - 4,103
White, Non-Hispanic - 8,879
Race/Ethnicity Unknown - 1,173
TOTAL - 26,687</p>

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<p>

Correct. The census counted inhabitants.</p>

117

<p>Plainsman, </p>

<p>You could say many of the same things if you compared a person from NYC to one from Nebraska. It’s not just about race but even if you find that more Asian-Americans vote Republican, for example (which is an odd way to split people to me because I think it would be well worth it to split that number up by country and income group), I don’t think that that constitutes more <em>assimilation</em> than people who’ve lived in this country for hundreds of years, frankly many of whom have lived here longer than the people who claim they’re not “assimilated.” </p>

<p>“Please don’t insult my intelligence by suggesting that blacks and whites in America have a common culture.” Actually, I find it insulting to most people’s intelligence to think that recent immigrants are more “mainstream American” than African-American, descendants of slaves. Um, Plainsman, that culture that votes Democratic, that attends a church different from white Americans (and, in my area, most Asians attend churches that are majority from their country, fwiw), that <em>doesn’t</em> go see Celtic women or Nascar (really? Are the Asians out there in droves?) IS mainstream America.</p>

118

<p>USC-UCLA-Dad,</p>

<p>I think the point made by those who feel uncomfortable going to college with “too many Asians” isn’t that they represent the majority but that they are equal to or exceed the number of whites. Your information shows that to be true at UCLA. Remember, most white people in America are used to always being the largest group, whether at work, worship or play. When something that has always been changes it can create some conscious dissonance.</p>

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<p>I’m feeling a little bit uncomfortable with the idea that white is white, but Asians are quite a diverse group. I’m thinking what we are throwing into the “white” pot include people from Scandinavia, Eastern Bloc/Russia, Mediterranean, central Europe, Britain, Arab countries, Australia, Canada and South America. I’ve run into many a first generation family that only speaks French or Russian or Hebrew at home. I think if we were to look into what makes up Hispanic populations (Latin American, the Caribbean nations, Mexico) or Blacks we’d also find that those groups are very diverse. So dividing groups into Asian/White/Hispanic/Black is just a blunt tool, not particularly descriptive of individual diversity.</p>

<p>And yes, there is some self segregation at the UCs by various groups, and has been since I went there. However, I certainly would not say all, or even most Asians at UCLA or other schools self segregate. </p>

<p>It is different here seeing our children grow up in such a different environment, seeing so many kids with first generations parents who are struggling with the mindset of their parents. My daughter just laughs when her chinese classmates tease her that she is awfully smart for a white girl. But occasionally it is frightening, such as at the 8th grade awards ceremony, as a chinese parent was berating her child for not winning enough awards. She pointed at my child and said “Look at how many more awards that girl got! And her dad even died this year!”</p>

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<p>Wow, this thread has gotten complicated. </p>

<p>I would say, as an “African American” who grew up in New York, with family that goes way back in the south, and from the Carribean, but has lived in DC and LA, before N.Cal, California is a very different cultural experience than the east coast and the south. It was worth a lot to me for my daughter to know that all the world is not like California. </p>

<p>I don’t care if you call it racist, but when we toured campuses in other states, we ( probably dad and I, more than D) were ALWAYS saying “Look! A Black person!”. It always felt good when we lost count. ( Funny story…at a recent CSU tour, it really seemed like they were recirculating the same five Black kids…WE could tell…and there was one time when a Black girl appeared as if ON CUE, when someone asked about diversity…) </p>

<p>That’s the beauty of internet communities. When I first checked out college confidential, I could not “wrap my head around” how different communities must be.</p>