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Hooooo boy. First off, it's not in any way accurate to refer to groups of people by skin color. I know "white" Mexicans and "brown" Caucasians. Second, the pa

Hooooo boy. First off, it's not in any way accurate to refer to groups of people by skin color. I know "white" Mexicans and "brown" Caucasians. Second, the parent comment is misguided for a number of reasons. Anyone suggesting "all white people do <x>" are misguided because they're trading in racist stereotypes. But there is a trend that they are trying to point out, which is an inherent bias of the majority population who receive a greater share of opportunities than any other group in this nation, which is shown by things like overall increased income, increased job opportunities, increased representation in government, increased representation on corporate boards, increased representation in the media and entertainment, etc. It's not hard to see that it's been a "white man's world" for a long time now and it's only starting to be rolled back. Unless you're white, in which case it's very hard to see. In addition, the statement that this one metric alone proves that white people don't oppress other groups is silly! It's one year's median household income in the US! Even if asians as a group make more per median household, that doesn't mean they don't face discrimination, it just means they're well compensated. Show me all of the leading asian men in American movies, and all the asian men on boards of directors, and asian men as leaders of political parties, and so on. Taking one arbitrary economic metric and using it to try to disprove an obviously problematic multifactored cultural norm, is really reaching.

zozbot123 8y ago
> But there is a trend that they are trying to point out, which is an inherent bias of the majority population who receive a greater share of opportunities than any other group in this nation, which is shown by things like overall increased income, increased job opportunities, increased representation in government, increased representation on corporate boards, increased representation in the media and entertainment, etc. It's not hard to see that it's been a "white man's world" for a long time now and it's only starting to be rolled back. These ethnically-focused statistics are so incredibly pointless and misguided, I don't know why anyone would want to bring them up other than to be purposefully divisive. What's the "median household income" among blue-collar, poor whites in the Midwest? In the Rust Belt? What about their "share" of national "opportunities"? You're focusing on what's literally a tiny bit of information about an individual (a handful of bits, at best)-- namely their racial/ethnic heritage-- and treating it like it's the One thing that Explains Everything about our society, or at least our "cultural norms". That makes zero rational sense, the only reason such an argument might appeal to us is cognitive bias.
- peterwwillis 8y ago
  I just said the same thing.
toasterlovin 8y ago
So you have an ethnic group that A) is many shades darker that even the darkest European ethnicities, B) speaks with an accent that is very difficult for native English speakers to understand, C) only had a meaningful support group of people with the same background in the last several decades, and D) is able to pull in 2x the income of white Americans and your position is that somebody's race is the most important limiting factor to their success in this country?
badpun 8y ago
> greater share of opportunities than any other group in this nation, which is shown by things like overall increased income, increased job opportunities, increased representation in government, increased representation on corporate boards, increased representation in the media and entertainment, etc. Money, i.e. resources, is the ultimate score. Ultimately, power (politics, corporate management) is primarily about managing resources (money) within companies, and within society at large. So, given that Asians are doing better as a group than white people, it's really nonsensical to say that they're opressed by them. It looks more like that are actually thriving. You could maybe make a convoluted claim that they are opressed and would be doing even better if they weren't, but that's stretching it.
- peterwwillis 8y ago
  > given that Asians are doing better as a group than white people They're not. They have higher median household income. Median household income does not determine whether one ethnic group does better than another ethnic group. It only determines if their median household income is doing better. And if you think money is the end-all-be-all, white people are the tops. "96.1 percent of the 1.2 million households in the top one percent by income were white, a total of about 1,150,000 households. In addition, these families were found to have a median net asset worth of $8.3 million dollars." One thing, the median amount of money that a household has, is different than another thing, which is aggregate political, social, and economic power. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/antonio-moore/americas-financial-divide_b_7013330.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/antonio-moore/americas-financ...
  - toasterlovin 8y ago
    Or maybe it just takes a while for families to establish themselves? Over half of Asians in the U.S. are foreign born. With most of the remainder being the second generation. That said, Asians are starting to get elected to political office. There are three Asians in the U.S. Senate (making 3% of all senators) and there are 14 Asian members of the House of Representatives (making 2.6%). That might seem low, given that Asians make up about 7% of the U.S. population, but over half of Asian Americans are foreign-born. I think the fairer comparison is to American-born Asian Americans (after all, it's hard to get elected when you're not a native speaker of English and you're missing shared cultural references). And that shows an attainment of political office in line with their representation in the population at large. I can't find decent stats on Asians in the 1% of income, but if you have a source you like, I'm happy to dig in. The link you provided just has an "Other" category at 1.6%. My stats are from these wikipedia articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Asian_Americans_and_Pacific_Islands_Americans_in_the_United_States_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Asian_Americans_and_Pa... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Asian_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Asian_American...

zozbot123 8y ago

> But there is a trend that they are trying to point out, which is an inherent bias of the majority population who receive a greater share of opportunities than any other group in this nation, which is shown by things like overall increased income, increased job opportunities, increased representation in government, increased representation on corporate boards, increased representation in the media and entertainment, etc. It's not hard to see that it's been a "white man's world" for a long time now and it's only starting to be rolled back. These ethnically-focused statistics are so incredibly pointless and misguided, I don't know why anyone would want to bring them up other than to be purposefully divisive. What's the "median household income" among blue-collar, poor whites in the Midwest? In the Rust Belt? What about their "share" of national "opportunities"? You're focusing on what's literally a tiny bit of information about an individual (a handful of bits, at best)-- namely their racial/ethnic heritage-- and treating it like it's the One thing that Explains Everything about our society, or at least our "cultural norms". That makes zero rational sense, the only reason such an argument might appeal to us is cognitive bias.

peterwwillis 8y ago
I just said the same thing.

toasterlovin 8y ago

So you have an ethnic group that A) is many shades darker that even the darkest European ethnicities, B) speaks with an accent that is very difficult for native English speakers to understand, C) only had a meaningful support group of people with the same background in the last several decades, and D) is able to pull in 2x the income of white Americans and your position is that somebody's race is the most important limiting factor to their success in this country?

badpun 8y ago

> greater share of opportunities than any other group in this nation, which is shown by things like overall increased income, increased job opportunities, increased representation in government, increased representation on corporate boards, increased representation in the media and entertainment, etc. Money, i.e. resources, is the ultimate score. Ultimately, power (politics, corporate management) is primarily about managing resources (money) within companies, and within society at large. So, given that Asians are doing better as a group than white people, it's really nonsensical to say that they're opressed by them. It looks more like that are actually thriving. You could maybe make a convoluted claim that they are opressed and would be doing even better if they weren't, but that's stretching it.

peterwwillis 8y ago
> given that Asians are doing better as a group than white people They're not. They have higher median household income. Median household income does not determine whether one ethnic group does better than another ethnic group. It only determines if their median household income is doing better. And if you think money is the end-all-be-all, white people are the tops. "96.1 percent of the 1.2 million households in the top one percent by income were white, a total of about 1,150,000 households. In addition, these families were found to have a median net asset worth of $8.3 million dollars." One thing, the median amount of money that a household has, is different than another thing, which is aggregate political, social, and economic power. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/antonio-moore/americas-financial-divide_b_7013330.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/antonio-moore/americas-financ...
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  Or maybe it just takes a while for families to establish themselves? Over half of Asians in the U.S. are foreign born. With most of the remainder being the second generation. That said, Asians are starting to get elected to political office. There are three Asians in the U.S. Senate (making 3% of all senators) and there are 14 Asian members of the House of Representatives (making 2.6%). That might seem low, given that Asians make up about 7% of the U.S. population, but over half of Asian Americans are foreign-born. I think the fairer comparison is to American-born Asian Americans (after all, it's hard to get elected when you're not a native speaker of English and you're missing shared cultural references). And that shows an attainment of political office in line with their representation in the population at large. I can't find decent stats on Asians in the 1% of income, but if you have a source you like, I'm happy to dig in. The link you provided just has an "Other" category at 1.6%. My stats are from these wikipedia articles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Asian_Americans_and_Pacific_Islands_Americans_in_the_United_States_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Asian_Americans_and_Pa... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Asian_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Asian_American...