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Is your claim that the "American Left" has decided to sacrifice the poor whites to help other races? If it is, it's not really an accurate claim. It's poor Asia

Is your claim that the "American Left" has decided to sacrifice the poor whites to help other races? If it is, it's not really an accurate claim. It's poor Asians who've taken the largest brunt of affirmative action, while Whites have remained relatively neutral in their standing.

malandrew 6y ago
It's probably both groups, asians and poor and middle class whites. If the winning narrative is racial diversity by proportion of population, you now find yourself largely in competition with people of your own race for one of the coveted spots, which means that the smart tactic is to find a way to exclude a subset of your own racial group that you're not part of so you have less competition. Liberals making conservatives personas non-grata means they have half as many people to compete with for a coveted spot at the top of the pyramid of power.
hindsightbias 6y ago
I think it’s all Asians, not just poor. Now, it won’t matter and Asians will be eligible for only 5% of the pie. Anyone poor won’t have the means to play the subjective system, and any left/liberal admin officer/provost in the Ivy’s knows that. Champagne corks are flying tonight.
- memexy 6y ago
  What exactly is the benefit of these exclusionary tactics in your opinion? If there is indeed some conspiracy over excluding certain groups what could the administrators possibly gain from conspiring like this?
  - hindsightbias 6y ago
    Most rich people are white and most legacies are rich whites. More rich, more legacies, more donations, more buildings, more grants, more money for the polo team. More opportunites for you to mingle with rich folk, curry favors. Rich whites were less threatened when they could game the system, but once Asian Americans began to become overly represented per capita academically and Affirmative Action lawsuits on descrimination against Asians began working up the courts... problem solved now. There’s no outright conspiracy, these people know their position and what’s best for them. They’re probably not bad people but they’re not going to give away what they’ve got.
    - memexy 6y ago
      Makes sense. How would you change the incentives to make what you described less viable?
      - hindsightbias 6y ago
        I think SAT/ACT/AP scores took power away from provosts/admins and there was some accomadation to meritocracy. Underprivileged had a chance, but it was a long shot. It’s too many trying to get into too few colleges. We need more, smaller universities. Federal funds/grants should be reoriented away from the Ivies. Zero Federal funds for schools that don’t have lower than 30:1 class sizes. That would stop admin bloat overnight. The Musks, Gates and Bezos’ of the world should be building new colleges, not dumping more into the olds.
        intended 6y ago
        That would also kill schools that are in places with few resources. Ivies don’t need fed funds - they play a different game since the underlying markets tend to be asymptotic - the upper end of students, the upper end of professors, the upper end of athletes, the upper end of wealthy legacies.
        hindsightbias 6y ago
        “the average amount of money that the eight Ivy League schools received annually over that time period — $4.31 billion — exceeds the amount of money received by 16 of the 50 states.” Fund those with few resources or create new ones away from the Ivies. You can’t democratize the Ivies but you can give a lot more people a better education. The status quo is that the Ivies have their cake and eat it too. https://www.thedp.com/article/2017/04/ivy-league-tax-report https://www.thedp.com/article/2017/04/ivy-league-tax-report
        intended 6y ago
        That sounded weasel wordy so I read the article - > full $41.59 billion of the Ivy League’s money could be traced back to taxpayer-funded payments and benefits. Traces back. So part of it is tax breaks to educational institutions- which is natural, they have the biggest endowments combined so the tax benefits will be massive. They point out that major research happens at these institutions so they have more money from that as well. This meshes less with the “have their cake and eat it too” line of thinking and more a result of the distortions from reputation and network effects.
torstenvl 6y ago
Your comment is a non-sequitur, and that non-sequitur is emblematic of exactly the problem everyone else in this thread is discussing. How well "Whites" as a group are doing says nothing about "poor whites" and how they're doing. It's a fallacy of division, and anyway you shouldn't pre-judge things about people based on race... it's literally racial prejudice.
- neilparikh 6y ago
  > How well "Whites" as a group are doing says nothing about "poor whites" and how they're doing. How so? "Poor whites" are just a subset of "whites". The parent comment claimed that "poor whites" are worse off. This is making 2 claims: that they are worse off because they are poor, and that they are worse off because they are white. I'm not denying that they're worse off because they're poor, that should be fairly obvious to anyone that knows anything about the American university admissions system. But the parent added the extra claim about race, and I'm refuting that for being inaccurate. > and anyway you shouldn't pre-judge things about people based on race... it's literally racial prejudice. Where in my comment did I make any racially prejudiced or racially divisive statements? The parent comment was the one that decided to divide the group of poor further by race. Anyway, it's Harvard (and the other Ivy Leagues) that are pre-judging people by race. Is me discussing that fact somehow also "prejudging by race" and "racial prejudice"? I don't follow what you're trying to imply. Edit: Looks like I confused the parent comment with the grandparent comment. The parent comment was about the "left" not caring about poor white kids. I think most of what I'm saying still applies, just replace "worse off" with "not cared about by the left". Ie. The left doesn't care about the poor too much, but they're definitely neutral towards whites, if not biased in favour.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - torstenvl 6y ago
    > How so? "Poor whites" are just a subset of "whites". "A fallacy of division is the error in logic that occurs when one reasons that something that is true for a whole must also be true of all or some of its parts." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_division https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_division

malandrew 6y ago

It's probably both groups, asians and poor and middle class whites. If the winning narrative is racial diversity by proportion of population, you now find yourself largely in competition with people of your own race for one of the coveted spots, which means that the smart tactic is to find a way to exclude a subset of your own racial group that you're not part of so you have less competition. Liberals making conservatives personas non-grata means they have half as many people to compete with for a coveted spot at the top of the pyramid of power.

hindsightbias 6y ago

I think it’s all Asians, not just poor. Now, it won’t matter and Asians will be eligible for only 5% of the pie. Anyone poor won’t have the means to play the subjective system, and any left/liberal admin officer/provost in the Ivy’s knows that. Champagne corks are flying tonight.

memexy 6y ago
What exactly is the benefit of these exclusionary tactics in your opinion? If there is indeed some conspiracy over excluding certain groups what could the administrators possibly gain from conspiring like this?
- hindsightbias 6y ago
  Most rich people are white and most legacies are rich whites. More rich, more legacies, more donations, more buildings, more grants, more money for the polo team. More opportunites for you to mingle with rich folk, curry favors. Rich whites were less threatened when they could game the system, but once Asian Americans began to become overly represented per capita academically and Affirmative Action lawsuits on descrimination against Asians began working up the courts... problem solved now. There’s no outright conspiracy, these people know their position and what’s best for them. They’re probably not bad people but they’re not going to give away what they’ve got.
  - memexy 6y ago
    Makes sense. How would you change the incentives to make what you described less viable?
    - hindsightbias 6y ago
      I think SAT/ACT/AP scores took power away from provosts/admins and there was some accomadation to meritocracy. Underprivileged had a chance, but it was a long shot. It’s too many trying to get into too few colleges. We need more, smaller universities. Federal funds/grants should be reoriented away from the Ivies. Zero Federal funds for schools that don’t have lower than 30:1 class sizes. That would stop admin bloat overnight. The Musks, Gates and Bezos’ of the world should be building new colleges, not dumping more into the olds.
      - intended 6y ago
        That would also kill schools that are in places with few resources. Ivies don’t need fed funds - they play a different game since the underlying markets tend to be asymptotic - the upper end of students, the upper end of professors, the upper end of athletes, the upper end of wealthy legacies.
        hindsightbias 6y ago
        “the average amount of money that the eight Ivy League schools received annually over that time period — $4.31 billion — exceeds the amount of money received by 16 of the 50 states.” Fund those with few resources or create new ones away from the Ivies. You can’t democratize the Ivies but you can give a lot more people a better education. The status quo is that the Ivies have their cake and eat it too. https://www.thedp.com/article/2017/04/ivy-league-tax-report https://www.thedp.com/article/2017/04/ivy-league-tax-report
        intended 6y ago
        That sounded weasel wordy so I read the article - > full $41.59 billion of the Ivy League’s money could be traced back to taxpayer-funded payments and benefits. Traces back. So part of it is tax breaks to educational institutions- which is natural, they have the biggest endowments combined so the tax benefits will be massive. They point out that major research happens at these institutions so they have more money from that as well. This meshes less with the “have their cake and eat it too” line of thinking and more a result of the distortions from reputation and network effects.

torstenvl 6y ago

Your comment is a non-sequitur, and that non-sequitur is emblematic of exactly the problem everyone else in this thread is discussing. How well "Whites" as a group are doing says nothing about "poor whites" and how they're doing. It's a fallacy of division, and anyway you shouldn't pre-judge things about people based on race... it's literally racial prejudice.

neilparikh 6y ago
> How well "Whites" as a group are doing says nothing about "poor whites" and how they're doing. How so? "Poor whites" are just a subset of "whites". The parent comment claimed that "poor whites" are worse off. This is making 2 claims: that they are worse off because they are poor, and that they are worse off because they are white. I'm not denying that they're worse off because they're poor, that should be fairly obvious to anyone that knows anything about the American university admissions system. But the parent added the extra claim about race, and I'm refuting that for being inaccurate. > and anyway you shouldn't pre-judge things about people based on race... it's literally racial prejudice. Where in my comment did I make any racially prejudiced or racially divisive statements? The parent comment was the one that decided to divide the group of poor further by race. Anyway, it's Harvard (and the other Ivy Leagues) that are pre-judging people by race. Is me discussing that fact somehow also "prejudging by race" and "racial prejudice"? I don't follow what you're trying to imply. Edit: Looks like I confused the parent comment with the grandparent comment. The parent comment was about the "left" not caring about poor white kids. I think most of what I'm saying still applies, just replace "worse off" with "not cared about by the left". Ie. The left doesn't care about the poor too much, but they're definitely neutral towards whites, if not biased in favour.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- torstenvl 6y ago
  > How so? "Poor whites" are just a subset of "whites". "A fallacy of division is the error in logic that occurs when one reasons that something that is true for a whole must also be true of all or some of its parts." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_division https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_division