<p>If that’s your response, then I’m sure you will accept the same bluntness: “fostering cultural unity” is nothing but meaningless gobbledygook.</p>
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<p>So all racial classifications except whites are capable of having “cultural unity”? Oh wait, let me guess: you didn’t say that either.</p>
<p>That’s why your side will ultimately lose; your side doesn’t (or perhaps can’t) talk straight. If you did, then it would be clear what you’re supporting: racial discrimination and/or self-segregation. So you beat around the bush and come up with (admittedly creative) euphemisms: “diversity” and “social environment.”</p>
<p>In your case, I have nothing to say. You moved away from an “excellent school system” to seek “diversity.” You put your money where your mouth is. perazziman did the opposite, which is why I criticized him.</p>
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<p>That’s self-segregation. Plain and simple.</p>
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<p>Why would he feel isolated? You think stars usually come from the “ethnic schools” perazziman mentioned? No, they come from “excellent school systems” / “mainstream competitive high schools.” Demographic wise, the universities they attend are not much different from the schools they graduated from.</p>
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<p>I don’t think so. I think most of the "URM"s at elites come from families that are at minimum solidly middle class. In one of the previous incarnations of this thread, I came across an article detailing one of the cohorts at Duke. In 2001 and 2002, while black students had the lowest average family incomes across all racial classifications, the average was still twice the national average: $118,316 vs. $58,208. Socioeconomics is more than just income, income isn’t wealth, and $1 where I live goes a lot farther than $1 in Manhattan, but I don’t think Duke’s experience is much different from similarly ranked private schools. We are talking about the children of professionals here.</p>
<p>Well, perazziman’s son doesn’t deserve a boost for several reasons, not least of which is that he doesn’t need one. Also, perazziman described himself as an Asian immigrant, so unless he put his money where his mouth was and married “interracially,” his son doesn’t even qualify for racial preferences.</p>
<p>I sense serious cultural confusion in your response. I said nothing about whether the vast majority cared about your cultural identity or not. The question was about how much you cared about yours. Apparently, you were compelled to give up yours (just as I suspected) and cannot understand why others have not given up theirs and worshipping the all might dollar like you.</p>
<p>You are putting far too much emphisis on socioeconomic differences and sweeping under the rug issues of cultural identitiy. You seem to be seeing the word as a Marxist, a rich v. poor universe, in which everyone surrenders their cultural/ religious/ ethnic identities to become like each other. If that is your goal you should have attended college and moved to socialist Russia.</p>
<p>Oh, I’m not culturally confused. I was 10 years ago, but I’m not now. I know where my family comes from, and I’m very comfortable with my identity: I make it a point to identify as an American (first) of Chinese descent. I eschew any notion that I am “white” or that I follow any so-called “white culture.” Again, that is why 20 pages or so back, I asked a poster whether he identified as “white” or as American.</p>
<p>I don’t have to give up my “cultural identity” when I interact with people who are not Americans of Chinese descent. And if you have problems with identifying as an American, I’d be glad to help you, but only if you want to be helped.</p>
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<p>You, a person who considers “less brilliant blacks” as mere tools used for the “social development” of “brilliant black kids,” are calling me, a person who considers each individual inherently unique and not a member of a group with predefined stereotypes, a Marxist.</p>
<p>You really are a master of irony, aren’t you?</p>
<p>No program in the world is needed to foster self-segregation.</p>
<p>Look at where people live, work, play, eat, sleep or go to church. I know of no single person who doesn’t self-segregate along one line or another.</p>
<p>I know people who have friends of all races but would never date or marry across racial lines. I know folks who worship at churches of all one race or who would never date or marry outside of their religion. I even know liberals who segregate from all conservatives and vice versa. We make our worlds small and don’t need a college education to do that.</p>
<p>Most campus initiatives to foster diversity are attempts to bridge differences. The debate is how well they work but there is no deliberate effort to promote self-segregation.</p>
<p>The search for similarity is a natural human drive that evolved as a survival mechanism.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s not as relevant to today but…I’ve never been racially offended by people of my race. I have been by others(most often, unintentionally). I’ve been able to maintain friendships when that occurred but often after some serious discussion about how everything your grandpa said wasn’t true or fit to be said. That’s a tough conversation to have.</p>
<p>College is a place that should foster many tough conversations. Your generation should be about it. Digging in heels and talking passed each other to your constituencies is not the way.</p>
<p>Guys I truly do apologise for being off-topic, however this is really important for me. Could you please have a look at this link and give me some piece of advice? Thank you very much.</p>
<p>Once again, one of your assumptions about me turns out to be wrong.</p>
<p>Anyway, it’s possible to be “culturally confused” without being “socially isolated.” I doubt the Americans of Asian descent who voluntarily accept the labels “whitewashed” or “banana / twinkies” are “socially isolated” on average, though they are definitely “culturally confused.”</p>
<p>I don’t know exactly when I resolved my confusion. If I had to guess, it may have been as I was studying U.S. history and realizing that the notion of who is “white” has changed throughout our history. I concluded then that “white culture” is not a meaningful phrase. You obviously have reached a different conclusion.</p>
<p>When Blacks came to the Americas they too surrendered their African names, language, religion and culture and adopted the White culture. What those Blacks ended up getting, was an African American culture not an American culture. Similarly, what you are, so far, is a member of the Banana Twinky culture, nothing more. There is nothing wrong with being a Banana Twinky (twinkie?), but keep it in perspective or even the Banana twinkies will disown you. American culture is a work in progress. There are Bananas, there are twinkies and many other flavors of people. Then there are several mixtures. What you need to learn is to be respectful and not just push your Banana Twinky in everyone’s face as America.</p>
<p>What is “the white culture”? There’s only one? All whites in America belong to this singular, monolothic culture?</p>
<p>Did you study U.S. history when you were an international student here? If not, let me give you a few questions to ponder:</p>
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<li><p>There are derogatory names for German, Irish, Italian, Polish, Russian and many other white ancestries in the United States. Who created these epithets? Was it non-whites, or was it…other whites?</p></li>
<li><p>The Know Nothings were a nativist and xenophobic party in the mid-19th Century. They were exclusively white. As xenophobes, they opposed immigration. But from which countries did they oppose immigration?</p></li>
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<p>There is no singular, monolothic black American culture. Having said that, black American culture is a subset of American culture.</p>
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<p>Yes, I’m a member of “the Banana Twinky [sic] culture.” Because I believe that America is a white country. I believe there is one white culture that all whites share. I believe that at our universities, there are whites and blacks only, and the whites don’t interact with the blacks. I believe this even though I live in a state where there are many more Hispanics than blacks. I believe all of these things.</p>
<p>Except I don’t believe any of those things. You do. So don’t project your feelings and your beliefs on to me, perazziman. Unlike you, I don’t believe that America is a white country. I don’t believe that there is “the white culture.” I don’t believe that our universities are black and white, with no interaction across the various racial classifications. I believe in none of these things.</p>
<p>Apart from the fact that you were one of two Asians in school, what about your parents, were they from communist China? Or are you a third generation+ American?</p>
<p>Yes, my parents are from “communist China [sic].” Isn’t it interesting, then, that between us, I see people as individuals whereas you see them as members of groups?</p>
<p>As a parent, I am starting to feel your pain. Were you brought up by parents who thought wearing unixsex, blue suits, Mao caps and riding a bike, without a religious or ethnic identity, was the best way to express one’s individualism and ride to the top of a society? So, did you adopt the White culture and study hard because this is what they encouraged you to do to be successful? Are you now pretending that they did nothing wrong and everything is fine with how you were raised?</p>
<p>It is a culture to which your parents did not belong. It is a culture that you adopted to stop the social isolation as one of two Chinese in your school. It is the culture that your socialist parents probably associated with success and unable to see as one of many in the country.familiar with a single dominant culture of the establishment in China they probably encouraged you to affiliate with White culture.</p>
<p>I’m very sorry that you’re having such a difficult time assimilating as an immigrant. I recommend learning U.S. history and discovering for yourself how malleable the notion of who a “white” person is has been in our history.</p>
<p>Oh, and my parents aren’t socialist. They didn’t teach me to see people as members of groups. They didn’t teach me to see some people as mere tools to be used by others for “social development.” And they didn’t teach me to see whites as the enemy. If your parents taught you these things, I’m very sorry for you.</p>
<p>perazziman’s consistent theme throughout his posts is that whites refuse to interact with nonwhites. In the course of describing my experience, perazziman mistakenly reached the conclusion that my parents raised me to be “white.” Sadly, perazziman has not assimilated properly as an immigrant, as he reached the wrong conclusion that American means white and that nonwhites cannot be American. Given his age and his overbearing self-righteousness, I don’t think he can be convinced otherwise.</p>
<p>It is true I am not fully assimilated in the White culture. However, I am reasonably well assimilated in my American immigrant culture. I assimilate with American cultures, such as White, Hispanic, Black and others, as much as I need, when I need and when I feel the desire to assimilate. The fact that i have this choice makes me a happy individual. This is why I have no desire to see Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans compelled to surrender their cultures to join the White culture when they start college.</p>
<p>I am not sure if I should be feeling sorry for you or you should feel sorry for me, but as far as I can tell most of the top universities in this country have people running them who seem to see the world as I do.</p>