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Asians are also 73% of Stuyvesant, rather like TJHS. Any purely merit-based educational institution in the US invariably skews in that direction. And, because A

Asians are also 73% of Stuyvesant, rather like TJHS. Any purely merit-based educational institution in the US invariably skews in that direction. And, because Asians don't have the same political agency that Jews achieved many decades ago, very little is being done in their defense. But Jews had a much easier time than Asians ever will because they could mostly blend in with White people. They now get counted as "White" in the statistics. This is the uncomfortable truth of the new racism. This country is hellbent on disenfranchising high-achieving Asians, who have the misfortune of looking too "Other" and get marked as such in racial composition stats. Stop using skin color and race. Just stop. The only consideration that's remotely permissible, beyond merit, is financial posture. "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." EDIT: Removed the use of caps, as requested by @dang. However, he seems to have ignored my appeal to restore this comment to where it was prior to moderation (it was at the top and quite popular). See @dang's auto-collapsed reply to this comment for more details.

ponker 6y ago
I am an Asian American with kids in school. I am a fierce opponent of race based affirmative action but a huge supporter of income/wealth based affirmative action even knowing that it will make life tougher for my kids. The way I figure — my wealth has given my kids an unfair advantage over their peers. A poor kid is reading about polar bears in a 1985 World Book encyclopedia while I take my kids to Churchill Manitoba to see them in person. So the wealth based affirmative action will help drive home for them that because the road was smoothed for them, they will he expected to run farther on it.
- bdangubic 6y ago
  Might not seem that way to you but poor kid reading about Polar Bears has a huge advantages over your kids seeing them in person. For your kids polar bears are a vacation trip, little annoyance that has to be done in-between watching netflix or playing video games. Poor kid reading about them on the other hand can enter a mystical world of flying polar bears fighting fire-breathing dragons... ;)
- frabbit 6y ago
  my wealth has given my kids an unfair advantage over their peers. A poor kid is reading about polar bears in a 1985 World Book encyclopedia while I take my kids to Churchill Manitoba to see them in person. Congratulations. You have done your bit to increase carbon dioxide emissions for a very dubious educational outcome. Makes me wish you had studied a bit harder.
  - ponker 6y ago
    I could reduce my CO2 emissions even further by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, but I'd rather go to cool places, thanks.
    - frabbit 6y ago
      Tell it to your kids. They'll be impressed.
benrbray 6y ago
> STOP USING SKIN COLOR AND RACE. STOP. The only consideration that's remotely permissible, beyond merit, is financial posture. This is my stance as well, since it represents a sustainable solution to the fact that race is correlated with poverty in America. Being poor sucks, regardless of whether systemic racism put you there or not. Being poor deprives all children of opportunities, regardless of skin color. (due to constraints on time, budget, and education of the parents) Race-based affirmative action only solves the immediate problem that minority races are poorer on average. Financial-need-based affirmative action solves the immediate problem, in addition to guaranteeing that, if demographics shift, we are still helping the groups most in need.
ajkjk 6y ago
I feel like whatever is happening here is more subtle than being "hellbent on disenfranchising high-achieving Asians". I think it's probably still in the category of 'racist', but works via a more complicated mechanism. I can kinda imagine: it is ingrained in people's minds that a 'proper' institution ought to be mostly white, with some small percentages of each minority, and if things aren't working out that way the institution seems 'wrong' and becomes up for re-organization. The mindset is explicitly racist and is some sort of modern rendition of colonialism: that this country is still white society, foremost, and everyone else is here with white approval. But it's probably not that the individual bureaucrats (or whoever is in charge of this) is consciously bigoted -- it's that it's baked into society in a way that they can't see beyond. This is an off-the-cuff unqualified theory. Would love to know if anyone with more familiarity of the situation has a more reality-based model.
- clownworld789 6y ago
  The U.S. has been a White super-majority country for centuries, and is still a White majority country. Is it 100% [racism/colonialism(what?)/biogtry] for people to believe that institutions follow the demographics of the communities that they exist in? As the demographics of the country change (less and less White), so will the institutions. The school in question is 19% White. 75% Asian. Fairfax County is 63% White, 18% Asian. Sure. It's all racism.
dang 6y ago
Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html This is particularly important on inflammatory topics like this one where high emotion is already activated.
- rebelos 6y ago
  Sorry. Fixed. Could you please reverse whatever mechanism artificially pushed this down the comment page now?
- rebelos 6y ago
  I'd appreciate a response to my prior appeal. The only change I'm noticing is that you collapsed your own comment and my reply. The optics of how this has been handled seem a bit questionable to me.
  - grzm 6y ago
    The best way to contact the mods is via the Contact link in the footer.
    - rebelos 6y ago
      There's no point. @dang's intervention had what may have been the intended effect (suppressing the comment). He's been doing this long enough to know precisely how the various moderation knobs he turns will distort the conversation. The original comment had 24 upvotes and was solidly at the top of the comment page. Given its popularity, it likely would have stayed there. Mea culpa for exceeding the bounds of the Overton Window.
  - dang 6y ago
    I reduced the downweight when you fixed the main problem with your comment. I didn't remove it altogether, though, because "Jews had a much easier time than Asians" is racial flamebait. I don't think you meant it that way, but it takes a rather close reading of your comment to arrive at that conclusion, and many readers, alas, aren't going to do that. It's our job to moderate flamebait on HN because otherwise flamewars take over everything. I collapsed this subthread about allcaps in your comment because once you fixed the issue, the subthread was no longer relevant. Optics are often going to be questionable here because the quantity of moderation actions we have to do vastly exceeds our ability to explain them all in detail, let alone answer all the additional questions and objections that such explanations invariably stir up. That constraint is a fundamental fact of the job. On the other hand, there's no specific question you can't get an answer to. You should email hn@ycombinator.com, though, because if you ask your question in comments here, the odds are pretty high that we won't see it. Also, the guidelines ask you not to: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
anm89 6y ago
> This country is hellbent on disenfranchising high-achieving Asians, who have the misfortune of looking too "Other" and get marked as such in racial composition stats. Being hyperbolic like this diminishes the rest of your point(which I'm generally inclined to agree with)
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  It's not hyperbolic. The school board presented it as an explicit selling point of the merit lottery program (https://youtu.be/n3FS9TY0lcg?t=1669 https://youtu.be/n3FS9TY0lcg?t=1669) that Asians would be disenfranchised in favor of other races.
  - anm89 6y ago
    A policy existing which hurts your group is not the state being hell bent on disenfranchising you. Hyperbolic.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      "Oppressing" is a much more fraught judgement, I agree. But it seems clear that the architects of this policy think there are too many Asians and want to see fewer of them, and I'd characterize policies aimed at excluding specific racial groups as disenfranchisement.
lacker 6y ago
You may find it interesting to read the book Whiteshift - https://www.amazon.com/Whiteshift-Populism-Immigration-Future-Majorities/dp/1468316974 https://www.amazon.com/Whiteshift-Populism-Immigration-Futur... . The thesis of the book is that over time, Hispanic and Asian Americans will start to be considered white, similar to how the perception of Irish, German, and other nationalities changed in the 1900s.
- darkhorse13 6y ago
  As an Asian who has been to the USA, I find this to be highly unlikely, especially considering that Asians (East Asians, not Indians) are not even Caucasians. Whiteshift happened because all those nations (Germans, Irish, etc.) are of Caucasian European stock. Maybe it could work with Hispanics, but even that is a stretch. Many of us don't want to admit this, but our brains are wired to immediately understand how much genetic history we share with another person just by looking at them.
  - lacker 6y ago
    You make a good point, but in the past the same argument was used to say that Slavs or Latins (southern Europeans) would never be perceived as the same race as the people of Germanic descent. I think you're right that Hispanic is closer, though. Think of Hispanic people like Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio, are they really perceived as so different from white? Also, speaking to your comment that you are an Asian that has been to the USA, I want to mention that the author of the book is partly of Asian descent himself. If you're curious to read it I recommend it!

ponker 6y ago

I am an Asian American with kids in school. I am a fierce opponent of race based affirmative action but a huge supporter of income/wealth based affirmative action even knowing that it will make life tougher for my kids. The way I figure — my wealth has given my kids an unfair advantage over their peers. A poor kid is reading about polar bears in a 1985 World Book encyclopedia while I take my kids to Churchill Manitoba to see them in person. So the wealth based affirmative action will help drive home for them that because the road was smoothed for them, they will he expected to run farther on it.

bdangubic 6y ago
Might not seem that way to you but poor kid reading about Polar Bears has a huge advantages over your kids seeing them in person. For your kids polar bears are a vacation trip, little annoyance that has to be done in-between watching netflix or playing video games. Poor kid reading about them on the other hand can enter a mystical world of flying polar bears fighting fire-breathing dragons... ;)
frabbit 6y ago
my wealth has given my kids an unfair advantage over their peers. A poor kid is reading about polar bears in a 1985 World Book encyclopedia while I take my kids to Churchill Manitoba to see them in person. Congratulations. You have done your bit to increase carbon dioxide emissions for a very dubious educational outcome. Makes me wish you had studied a bit harder.
- ponker 6y ago
  I could reduce my CO2 emissions even further by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, but I'd rather go to cool places, thanks.
  - frabbit 6y ago
    Tell it to your kids. They'll be impressed.

benrbray 6y ago

> STOP USING SKIN COLOR AND RACE. STOP. The only consideration that's remotely permissible, beyond merit, is financial posture. This is my stance as well, since it represents a sustainable solution to the fact that race is correlated with poverty in America. Being poor sucks, regardless of whether systemic racism put you there or not. Being poor deprives all children of opportunities, regardless of skin color. (due to constraints on time, budget, and education of the parents) Race-based affirmative action only solves the immediate problem that minority races are poorer on average. Financial-need-based affirmative action solves the immediate problem, in addition to guaranteeing that, if demographics shift, we are still helping the groups most in need.

ajkjk 6y ago

I feel like whatever is happening here is more subtle than being "hellbent on disenfranchising high-achieving Asians". I think it's probably still in the category of 'racist', but works via a more complicated mechanism. I can kinda imagine: it is ingrained in people's minds that a 'proper' institution ought to be mostly white, with some small percentages of each minority, and if things aren't working out that way the institution seems 'wrong' and becomes up for re-organization. The mindset is explicitly racist and is some sort of modern rendition of colonialism: that this country is still white society, foremost, and everyone else is here with white approval. But it's probably not that the individual bureaucrats (or whoever is in charge of this) is consciously bigoted -- it's that it's baked into society in a way that they can't see beyond. This is an off-the-cuff unqualified theory. Would love to know if anyone with more familiarity of the situation has a more reality-based model.

clownworld789 6y ago
The U.S. has been a White super-majority country for centuries, and is still a White majority country. Is it 100% [racism/colonialism(what?)/biogtry] for people to believe that institutions follow the demographics of the communities that they exist in? As the demographics of the country change (less and less White), so will the institutions. The school in question is 19% White. 75% Asian. Fairfax County is 63% White, 18% Asian. Sure. It's all racism.

dang 6y ago

Please don't use uppercase for emphasis. If you want to emphasize a word or phrase, put asterisks around it and it will get italicized. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html This is particularly important on inflammatory topics like this one where high emotion is already activated.

rebelos 6y ago
Sorry. Fixed. Could you please reverse whatever mechanism artificially pushed this down the comment page now?
rebelos 6y ago
I'd appreciate a response to my prior appeal. The only change I'm noticing is that you collapsed your own comment and my reply. The optics of how this has been handled seem a bit questionable to me.
- grzm 6y ago
  The best way to contact the mods is via the Contact link in the footer.
  - rebelos 6y ago
    There's no point. @dang's intervention had what may have been the intended effect (suppressing the comment). He's been doing this long enough to know precisely how the various moderation knobs he turns will distort the conversation. The original comment had 24 upvotes and was solidly at the top of the comment page. Given its popularity, it likely would have stayed there. Mea culpa for exceeding the bounds of the Overton Window.
- dang 6y ago
  I reduced the downweight when you fixed the main problem with your comment. I didn't remove it altogether, though, because "Jews had a much easier time than Asians" is racial flamebait. I don't think you meant it that way, but it takes a rather close reading of your comment to arrive at that conclusion, and many readers, alas, aren't going to do that. It's our job to moderate flamebait on HN because otherwise flamewars take over everything. I collapsed this subthread about allcaps in your comment because once you fixed the issue, the subthread was no longer relevant. Optics are often going to be questionable here because the quantity of moderation actions we have to do vastly exceeds our ability to explain them all in detail, let alone answer all the additional questions and objections that such explanations invariably stir up. That constraint is a fundamental fact of the job. On the other hand, there's no specific question you can't get an answer to. You should email hn@ycombinator.com, though, because if you ask your question in comments here, the odds are pretty high that we won't see it. Also, the guidelines ask you not to: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

anm89 6y ago

> This country is hellbent on disenfranchising high-achieving Asians, who have the misfortune of looking too "Other" and get marked as such in racial composition stats. Being hyperbolic like this diminishes the rest of your point(which I'm generally inclined to agree with)

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
It's not hyperbolic. The school board presented it as an explicit selling point of the merit lottery program (https://youtu.be/n3FS9TY0lcg?t=1669 https://youtu.be/n3FS9TY0lcg?t=1669) that Asians would be disenfranchised in favor of other races.
- anm89 6y ago
  A policy existing which hurts your group is not the state being hell bent on disenfranchising you. Hyperbolic.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    "Oppressing" is a much more fraught judgement, I agree. But it seems clear that the architects of this policy think there are too many Asians and want to see fewer of them, and I'd characterize policies aimed at excluding specific racial groups as disenfranchisement.

lacker 6y ago

You may find it interesting to read the book Whiteshift - https://www.amazon.com/Whiteshift-Populism-Immigration-Future-Majorities/dp/1468316974 https://www.amazon.com/Whiteshift-Populism-Immigration-Futur... . The thesis of the book is that over time, Hispanic and Asian Americans will start to be considered white, similar to how the perception of Irish, German, and other nationalities changed in the 1900s.

darkhorse13 6y ago
As an Asian who has been to the USA, I find this to be highly unlikely, especially considering that Asians (East Asians, not Indians) are not even Caucasians. Whiteshift happened because all those nations (Germans, Irish, etc.) are of Caucasian European stock. Maybe it could work with Hispanics, but even that is a stretch. Many of us don't want to admit this, but our brains are wired to immediately understand how much genetic history we share with another person just by looking at them.
- lacker 6y ago
  You make a good point, but in the past the same argument was used to say that Slavs or Latins (southern Europeans) would never be perceived as the same race as the people of Germanic descent. I think you're right that Hispanic is closer, though. Think of Hispanic people like Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio, are they really perceived as so different from white? Also, speaking to your comment that you are an Asian that has been to the USA, I want to mention that the author of the book is partly of Asian descent himself. If you're curious to read it I recommend it!