"Race" in College Admission FAQ & Discussion 9

[evitaperon]

<p>

While extreme academic achievement is unquestionably valuable, if it comes at the expense of social and community development, maybe it is not worth it.

</p>

<p>this is quite a stereotype. </p>

<p>p.s. the asian rate of business ownership per capita in New York City rivals Jewish communities; esp. since the Chinese and Koreans bought up all the former Jewish-owned properties when they left for Long Island. About a third of nightclubs in New York City are Asian-owned, although you would have no idea when visiting. We turned Flushing, Queens into a major commercial centre rivalling the Lower East Side in activity and density. High-rise housing development in Brooklyn and Queens are pushed by Asian urban development companies. We pour investments into historically Irish and Italian districts, saving them from ruin. </p>

<p>Yet despite all our efforts at community development, we are greeted with hostility on the streets. </p>

<p>Having been to many activist conferences, I inquire where you get the idea that we sacrifice community and social development. Where do you get that sort of racist idea? Chink Fu Manchu movies from the 1940s? Maybe you should stop watching Hollywood and look at reality.</p>

[NJSue]

<p>evitaperon (why you would want to name yourself after someone whose co-regime threw dissidents out of airplanes isn’t clear to me):</p>

<p>A 20-year-old newspaper article is not the best evidence of an endemic, systematic problem of racism against Asians now. And I am not convinced that a particular group’s underrepresentation on the NYPD is particularly significant. That could be a reflection of lack of interest in police work on the part of the group. After all, the force is hardly 51% women, as it should be if employment were proportional. Government and civil service have historically employed a disproportionate number of “out group” members who found it easier to find work in those sectors than in the more discriminatory and clannish private sector. The early 20th century stereotype of the Irish cop is a testament to this. In contrast, Asians seem to be doing quite well in the private sector. What do you think this means? You seem to want to discount Asian successes and magnify Asian problems as a way of constructing a one-sided victimology narrative.</p>

<p>I am sorry that your mother has had a difficult experience in her work life. However, you cannot fairly extrapolate an individual’s problems to an entire society. Is there evidence that Asian female employees in this country are subjected to more harassment and discrimination in the workplace than any other group of women? </p>

<p>You seem convinced that American society is “diseased” and rotten to the core. No one will ever be able to convince you otherwise. Yet based on your previous posts, you are a college student with a big scholarship to at a highly desirable and prestigious institution. That’s great; there are people who can never even imagine having the opportunities you have. If you go through life with a giant chip on your shoulder, looking for evidence of discrimination, charging strangers with racism on the flimsiest of pretexts, you will certainly find yourself treated less than optimally. I hope for your sake that you recalibrate your attitude. It makes no difference to me whether you think I’m racist but your hostile stance (advocating riots, calling people racist) will not help your cause. Your analysis of the success of the Civil Rights movement is flawed. It succeeded because the conciliatory Martin Luther King approach (non-violent marches, insistence on Constitutional legality) won out over the confrontational Malcolm X approach.</p>

[johnwesley]

<p>performersmom wrote:

I sense that learning in diverse communities SHOULD promote re-classfication of ethnic and racial categories. But does it?
And is it contradicted by race-aware policies in admissions, as these philosophies float around the environment and color people’s ideas about each other, why one got in, why one may have or gotten needed a preference, why some are so smart?
I feel that this is where the slippery slope begins… For this reason, I am against race aware admissions. but I could be wrong, and am waiting for the evidence.

</p>

<p>I don’t know what better evidence exists than to actually live in a diverse community. I live next door to a New York City community college, in an area that has seen its ups and downs and is now on a definite upswing. The kids I see gathered on the square or emerging from the subway, interact easily with each other. I don’t know all their histories, but, my sense is that the white kids, by and large, did not spend K-12 in private schools. A lot of them are Eastern European kids (I hear a lot of what certainly sounds like Russian or Polish being spoken) these are the kids who couldn’t afford private schools or perhaps whose parents just believed in sending their kids to public school. In any event, as white kids, they were almost certainly in the minority wherever they attended high school. I think that makes a difference in some of the choices they make later. For example, a lot of them are moving into the neighborhood after graduation. A generation ago, that would have been unheard of.</p>

<p>What does this have to do with affirmative action? Perhaps, nothing. Perhaps, all of this normative behavior, this relaxedness around race, would have come about on its own. The one thing I am sure of, however, is that it would not have occurred without some prior, fairly benign, experiences with people of different backgrounds to help reinforce it.</p>

<p>My .02 dollar’s worth.</p>

[evitaperon]

<p>

It succeeded because the conciliatory Martin Luther King approach (non-violent marches, insistence on Constitutional legality) won out over the confrontational Malcolm X approach.

</p>

<p>That’s funny, because Malcolm X is more popular among college students than Martin Luther is. In the college American parliamentary debate (APDA) circuit; even among friends of mine who have staffed for former congressman David Wu. My Amherst-educated English teacher in high school (who was a balding white man) chose his autobiography as summer reading for AP English Lit. They might all disagree with your analysis. </p>

<p>Malcolm X, who by the way, helped forge a highly cohesive organisation with many progressive social programmes (before being expelled by a jealous founder) created the talking points and the media attention to the civil rights problem that Martin later reaped the benefits of.</p>

<p>

You seem convinced that American society is “diseased” and rotten to the core.

</p>

<p>I didn’t say “to the core”. I’m not sure that Hamlet thought that the state of Denmark was “to the core” rotten; he just saw something rotten.</p>

[lookingforward]

<p>Some here are using a fine sociological perspective- that understanding and drawing conclusions from a single source (or limited sources) is inherently flawed by the perspective promoted by that resource. That it is an intellectual obligation to dissect, to get behind our initial “take” on the info presented.</p>

<p>We cannot just read as far as the first seeming explanations that we can nod our heads at. Whether is it one respected author, a study or quoted stats (or hearsay.) It’s our obligation to balance the info provided- and query. Is this so or merely one study? Are these results representative or limited by the factors examined, the context, the goals of the project? And so on.</p>

<p>There are no easy catch-phrases or heat-inspiring notions that can adequately describe a reality; the best we can be asked to do, whether it is an academic publication or a freaking newspaper article, is question the intentions behind the use of those words. Are they truly representative of a “whole” or inflammatory or simply meant to allow an author to take one stand? Or sell a newspaper or book? Or? [As an example, the so-called Princeton study- the authors clearly state only cautious conclusions should be drawn and that limited examples were examined- and yet, how often this is quoted as a be all and end all.]</p>

<p>Statistics can befreind or betray. </p>

<p>Do we, the readers, simply accept what has been written, because it has been written? What “works harder” means, as a blanket statement or as a generalization- or even as a shorthand- should be questioned. I believe siserune is saying that. Sociologists break behind “I think it, so it must be true” or “I read it, so it must be true.” Or, “these words were used” or these stats were printed, so this is what it means, in its entirety. Many would ask the logical Q presented here: does the idea of “working harder” or longer academic planning exist as a factor in itself, in a vacuum? Or, is it part of a larger pattern, one factor among many influences? </p>

<p>I note that no one has yet named a college that unfairly discrimnates, as a policy, toward Asians. And yet, it is so comforting to some to paint this picture. As if life’s normal “you win some and you lose some” reality can be softened or a finger of blame can be pointed. Face it, the top schools have immense admissions competition and many factors come into play.</p>

<p>At schools with 25-35000 apps and 2000 target admits, doesn’t it stand to reason that categories of any sort or applicants with similar backgrounds- by race, gender, geography, major, and/or ECs, etc- are going to be shredded based on their similarities? That the competition among male STEM applicants with high scores, the right research experience, the right ECs, etc, is going to be fierce? That perhaps a higher percentage of them will be rejected based on that competition? Colleges are allowed to fill their seats as they wish. Of the final 2000, they don’t need 1800 STEMs. But, no, it’s because some kid is Asian? Really? You think that’s what it boils down to?</p>

[evitaperon]

<p>

A 20-year-old newspaper article is not the best evidence of an endemic, systematic problem of racism against Asians now.

</p>

<p>Yes, because obviously there’s been such strident improvement in race relations between Bill Clinton and Obama’s presidencies. Because the Hollywood image of Asians as a group hasn’t changed one bit, and neither has the news media’s.</p>

<p>[NYPD</a> Police, Race-bait Columbia Asians Students | API Movement](<a href=“http://www.apimovement.com/students/nypd-police-race-bait-columbia-asians-students]NYPD”>http://www.apimovement.com/students/nypd-police-race-bait-columbia-asians-students)</p>

<p>oh then there’s NYPD corruption in the 5th precinct against Chinese shopowners (a family friend, who owns several businesses, has often experienced its systematic nature). For example, the NYPD will raid one store, under the guise of anti-counterfeiting efforts, only for the shopowners to find that the department (as opposed to keeping it for evidence) has sold off most of that store’s confiscated merchandise, keeping a fraction of it behind as “evidence”; a colleague of said friend had hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of real goods confiscated because of the stereotype that Chinatown stores sell counterfeit goods. Yet because of poor representation in the media and in the legal system, the issue has never gotten the coverage it deserves.</p>

[evitaperon]

<p>

Colleges are allowed to fill their seats as they wish. Of the final 2000, they don’t need 1800 STEMs.

</p>

<p>what a convenient stereotype; we are no more STEM-heavy than the Jews, and in this age, most people would find anti-Jewish discrimination in college admissions repulsive. why is anti-Jewish discrimination abhorred in college admissions but not anti-Asian discrimination? Isn’t that a reprehensible double standard?</p>

[Bay]

<p>

I inquire where you get the idea that we sacrifice community and social development. Where do you get that sort of racist idea?

</p>

<p>My post said nothing about race or Asians. It is you who imposed a racist and victimized interpretation to it.</p>

[mokusatsu]

<p>

evitaperon (why you would want to name yourself after someone whose co-regime threw dissidents out of airplanes isn’t clear to me)

They didn’t throw Asians out of airplanes.</p>

[NJSue]

<p>Ahh, I see. So it’s okay then.</p>

[fabrizio]

<p>

It doesn’t matter what they meant by their word choice, and I did not comment on what they “actually meant”.

</p>

<p>You did not comment? Is that so?</p>

<p>I produced a direct quote from Steinberg et al.: “Because Asian-American students worry more than other students about the possible repercussions of not doing well in school, they devote more time and energy to their studies and exert more effort on academic activities.”</p>

<p>I then argued that “exert[ing] more effort” was synonymous with “work[ing] harder.” You disagreed, stated that I missed the point, and then tried to explain the point: “Asians spend more time on school but it is wrong to describe this as exerting more effort.”</p>

<p>So apparently, when Steinberg et al. wrote about “exert[ing] more effort on academic activities,” they did not mean that more effort was exerted, contrary to a plain reading of their book. And while you don’t comment on what they “actually meant,” you authoritatively state that the sentence only indicates that Asians spend more time; they do not exert more effort. Yep, that’s totally not a comment on what they “actually meant.”</p>

[lookingforward]

<p>EP- I am suggesting we run a deeper examination of ideas, studies, words and stats before assuming we have a full and accurate picture. I used STEM as an example of where there is particular competition. If you look at the words, I said similarities could include race, gender, geography, major, etc. Not that Asians should be so stereotyped. I am also disagreeing that there is rampant anti-Asian bias in college admissions. You are saying there is-? Can you discuss that? </p>

<p>Racism works both ways- assuming one group is inherently incapable, under-prepared or has not accrued the right accomplishments-- and assuming another group is superior. Two sides of the same coin.</p>

[fabrizio]

<p>

I placed several other concepts in quotes to emphasize their substitutability for “work harder”.</p>

<p>I did not say at any time that any of those quotations came from a study.

</p>

<p>Ah, so those quotes didn’t come from Dornbusch. Where did you get them from? Where’s the evidence that Asians “perennially top the charts [for] compliance with external standards”?</p>

<p>Only you know, and in your inimitable style, you’re not telling anyone where they came from without first creating an opportunity for someone else to attempt to locate the origin based on clues and “partial citations” and only after he fails do you produce a fuller citation and deride the search as “frantic.”</p>

[fabrizio]

<p>

assuming one group is inherently incapable, under-prepared or has not accrued the right accomplishments

</p>

<p>You KEEP saying this, and every time I call you on it by requesting that you give an example of anyone on this thread who has voiced such sentiments, you back off and say, “I’m not saying anyone here believes that.”</p>

<p>Either give an example or stop saying this.</p>

[lookingforward]

<p>Fab- I get what siserune is sayng: that it’s not enough to hang on a phrase. Work harder can mean whatever it means to any one of us- we have to examine what it means as a factor. And, whether it is, in fact, a primary factor or one of several. “Exert more effort” can be just one aspect. And, what does “effort” actually mean, in terms of time, focus, the level of the challenges, etc? [A dyslexic, eg, can spend more time and effort, just to process the writing.] How do the other factors play into all this?</p>

<p>And, what do you mean by the last statement? Racism is generalizing and predicting based on racial attributes, no? Does it matter if one states underperforming Blacks are getting into top colleges in droves or that Asian-American kids are superior in their accomplishments and merit? Both are generalizations based on race. </p>

<p>And, I don’t believe I said what you quote. What I repeatedly said is one can see the merits in diversity without being a knee-jerk, liberal apologist for AA. And, I am not the only one.</p>

<p>At various points, I have wondered what axe you have to grind. People do hold a variety of opinions on various matters.</p>

[evitaperon]

<p><a href=“why%20you%20would%20want%20to%20name%20yourself%20after%20someone%20whose%20co-regime%20threw%20dissidents%20out%20of%20airplanes%20isn’t%20clear%20to%20me”>quote</a>

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I liked the film. Do you hate Broadway or Madonna?</p>

[fabrizio]

<p>

Notions of who is “good” or has more “merit”, whatever that is supposed to mean, are totally foreign to what I have argued and I have often used terms like “pure academic selection” or “predictive modeling” to avoid the spurious linguistic associations that come with the term meritocracy.

</p>

<p>And yet you used and continue to use phrases like “meritocratic discounting” and “meritocratic procedure.”</p>

<p>

By meritocracy I mean only a purely performance-oriented selection that does not care about racial, socioeconomic or other outcomes (but could certainly use racial etc information if doing so improves the performance metric, such as the average ability level of the class).

</p>

<p>And yet your “pure academic selection” obviously cares about the amount of time spent in preparation. You advocate “discount[ing]” scores that are likely to have been achieved as a result of time spent rather than innate characteristics like ability.</p>

<p>Can anyone here imagine the following fictitious conversation between a student and a professor?</p>

<p>Student: Doc, it’s not fair that I got a 60 while John got a 95.</p>

<p>Prof: Why?</p>

<p>Student: I didn’t study at all while John spent five hours studying. Imagine what my score would’ve been if I had studied as much as he had.</p>

<p>Prof: Wow! You really have a point there! I’m going to meritocratically discount his grade to 85 to reflect that he spent five hours studying while you didn’t study at all.</p>

<p>Because that’s siserune’s “meritocratic procedure” in a nutshell.</p>

[fabrizio]

<p>lookingforward, to be fair, you did not say what I quoted. Here is the exchange:</p>

<p>

@lookingforward

To blame another group of people, to suggest that they are uniformly without merit, is uninformed- even self-serving; to blame it on a “racial” or ethnic identity can be subtle racism.

</p>

<p>

@fabrizio

Straw man, anyone? I challenge you to find a single post, even from a disgruntled CC’er disappointed that he will not be attending his “dream school,” stating that so-called “underrepresented” minorities are UNIFORMLY WITHOUT MERIT.

</p>

<p>

@lookingforward

For the record, I do not assume people who are against “racial pref” are racists. My comment was not aimed at any individuals, but at a way we have of slipping into stereotypes.

</p>

<p>Do you believe there is any substantive difference between my paraphrase and the actual quote, “My comment was not aimed at any individuals”?</p>

[texaspg]

<p>"As selection difficulty is progressively raised, of course you need higher and higher levels of talent AND effort to pass. It is only the relative importance of effort compared to talent that decreases. Super-talented people who do not make enough effort will be eliminated at some stage no matter what, often an early and not very selective stage. But at the top levels it becomes more and more difficult to substitute effort for talent and the rank ordering starts to look the same as the ranking by talent. </p>

<p>The effect I described is very visible in theoretical science, computer programming, music, sports, and other fields where individual performance can be compared easily. It is a very different idea from “only talent matters”. "</p>

<p>I don’t buy this whatsoever. There is not a single person out there who reached the top without working their B&t& off even though they have talent. Once they have reached the top, they need even more hard work to stay there. As a famous man once said, Genius is one percent inspiration and 99% perspiration which is true pretty much in all cases. It is just that people with talent choose to stay in the area of their talent and work hard at it. Others have to work a bit harder to keep up with those with natural talent.</p>

<p>[Thomas</a> Edison - Wikiquote](<a href=“http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison]Thomas”>Thomas Edison - Wikiquote)</p>

[performersmom]

<p>Guys, this is semantics. But:
racism
is not exactly the same thing as
racial discrimination</p>

<p>Racism is a way of thinking and speaking.
Discrimination is a more conscious act of exclusion by classification and ranking, in the legal sense.</p>

<p>Hey all- a process of competition selection is what we are talking about here!
Should we not be more mindful of how we set up categories that are used in deciding what is an ideal balance?</p>

<p>Since education is considered a potent way for society to improve itself as a whole and in its parts, I think most agree that equal opportunity is the ideal that our US system espouses.</p>

<p>Yet, education requires resources, talent, drive, time, hard work, which are not necessarily available on equal amounts to all. How important is this? Obviously, those who believe in and practice affirmative action, believe it is important to re-balance along these inequalities. Can this result in reverse discrimination along these categories?</p>

<p>Then, should skin color, ethnicity, prior history, nationality be used as categories to address, re-balance in the goal of diversity? And in the educational arena?</p>

<p>Where is the scientific proof that social engineering is NECESSARY? is ENOUGH? to right these wrongs, as they are conceived.</p>

<p>Hey, maybe we should categorize and worry about discriminating about people with bad breath? a poor fashion sense? annoying voices? These things could hold back someone from the level of success determined by their innate talent, drive, and just as a lack of resources could . I am not trivializing affirmative action. I m a just trying to show how it may be wrong headed.</p>

<p>I do realize that poor hygiene is probably an absolute (though some odors can be culture-bound in their perception) in disgustingness, whereas skin color is not at all. And that poor hygiene can be changed, while ethnicity cannot.</p>

<p>But let me ask you, do we want everyone to be defined and to define themselves (if they even can or do, when they try to!) so much by our ethnicity, or skin color, our background? </p>

<p>Let us all be honest- education is a system of betterment, and it has also become a flag for social standing and superiority. Our society tries to be fair and equal, but we are still humans. Equal access to such a system is deemed the fair and desirable ideal in America.
We are not comfortable believing there is a class system (or a number of them, per se), that intellectual talent is not meted out equally. But we do seem to be comfortable having people classify themselves by their skin color on college applications…</p>

<p>To wit- the “holisitic” system of admissions in the USA!</p>

<p>I just think that these admissions classifications really need to be acknowledged as partially reinforcing themselves. That is how human brains work- sorry.
Rubbing shoulders, learning, working, playing and living together are great, but has this been enough? OR has it accomplished enough for the admission process to be race-blind?
OR, would getting rid of race and ethnic boxes actually promote the idea that these things are invalid ways to judge or even see in another person?</p>

<p>Is diversity an environment that blends and melts everyone into similar beings? Or is it an environment where people maintain their own identities? Do we have a right as individuals to decide that? and to decide exactly what aspect of our identities we want to see and project as key about us???</p>