6 ms·

This is what affirmative action will look like. If you want to see the context of such an action happening somewhere for long time, take the example of India.

This is what affirmative action will look like. If you want to see the context of such an action happening somewhere for long time, take the example of India. There it is much more explicit and written in the law. For some subjects, the criteria it takes for one cohort to get admission in the top college is the same one in which the other cohort will not even get admission in any college in the top 20. You can see this in undergraduate level admissions the most. I read interesting stats on this long time back, will need to see if I can find them. However, in case of South Asia/India, the argument is positive discrimination now to correct for negative discrimination in the past. The same argument can't be made in US though against Asians.

carrionpigeon 5y ago
I was curious about how the Indians handle this, too, so I read Republic of Caste by Anand Teltumbde. It's a long, rambling, but detailed description of how the reservation system was playing out in India. Broadly, he argues that any initial positive effect has been displaced by caste becoming even more of a wedge issue (each caste feeling disadvantaged unfairly and hyper-vigilant for others' corruption) and castes scrambling for favorable designations (e.g. inventing a new history of victimization or fabricating a genealogy in order to be assigned to a more favorable schedule). Ironically, Teltumbde advocates for replacing reservations with American-style affirmative action.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- pewpew2020 5y ago
  Now it is a competition among castes to show that they are the most backward, since they would be considered for reservations then.
  - actuator 5y ago
    and this makes sense as well, I think while in practice the affirmative action in India seems ideal it is far too idealistic and one dimensional. Like just doing it on the basis of race would be in US. Should an Asian kid coming from a family with financial difficulties be subjected to the same bias as others. Also, I read a weird thing that in India even religions that don't have a caste system, have castes. It is interesting that Christians, Muslims can have one. It seems like that's one way to reap the benefits of the system.
cutemonster 5y ago
> to get admission in the top college Could this indicate that there're many bright people in India, who are mostly self taught, because they belonged to the "wrong" group and so couldn't study at University (or at least not the one they wanted) ? Whilst, if someone has studied at a top university, it doesn't mean that much?
- abhink 5y ago
  This is correct to some extant, and not just for getting education. As an example, in many competitive exams conducted by universities etc. to select students, the selection cutoff marks clearly show this pattern of intentional discriminatory admittance. For someone belonging to "general" category, anyone designated to an upper caste, the cutoffs percentage for selection could be as high as 97-99%. For "reserved" category candidates, those from the lower castes, the cutoff can be as low as 10-20% for the same test. This means someone scoring 95% would not get get an admission offer while someone else scoring 15% would. This reservation system is also a part of government jobs. I have seen "reserved" teaching positions being filled by candidates who score negative marks in the selection exams. But since no other type of candidate can fill the reserved position, the highest negative score gets the job. Does this really alleviate the issues borne out of historical oppression of the lower cast, I don't know. Perhaps. Is this overall a good thing for a nation and its people? Again, I have no idea.
  - cutemonster 5y ago
    Thanks! I hope they won't start using these ways of hiring people, to find airplane pilots. Negative marks in the exams
  - mohanmcgeek 5y ago
    > This means someone scoring 95% would not get get an admission offer while someone else scoring 15% would. Sounds entirely made up. All these exams generally have a minimum clearing criteria at 60-65%
    - abhink 5y ago
tootie 5y ago
The argument isn't against Asians, it's in favor of other groups.
- actuator 5y ago
  I understand. But my argument was, it seems unfair that these Asian kids whose ancestors didn't have anything to do with the race discrimination in US, have to be on the receiving end of the affirmative action. I know it is not a good example but should we have affirmative action in sporting teams as Asians seem to be underrepresented there. Should we rather improve the funnels before which are leading to this concentration of Asian kids. This is not even considering the fact if even the desire to follow some subject is equal in every race. If it is not and it should be all things being equal at the start, then we should fix the funnels before.
- NeverFade 5y ago
  The number of admissions is limited. If there are two groups, X and Y, and you discriminate in favor of giving more admissions to group X, group Y will have fewer.
- brippalcharrid 5y ago
  We're talking about policies that favor some groups against others in a competition for scarce resources (college places, scholarships), so it clearly is going to have a negative effect on the people that are not in the favored groups. And even if the policies weren't so openly discriminatory (eg. SAT scores, quotas), the disparate impact on Asian-Americans would still be obvious.
  - tootie 5y ago
    "scarce resources" I wish the effort was put into making them less scarce. It's one of the very specific illnesses of American economic culture that we are willing to bite and claw each other over access to things that need not be rare.
    - brippalcharrid 5y ago
raxxorrax 5y ago
It is simply a bad mechanism and argument to put injustices of the past on the shoulders of new generations, especially with goals defined in such a blurry manner. On the contrary, the best remedy is to treat people as equals. That isn't unpractical realism, nothing else is required. Of course some will have a huge head start and culture towards education is a very important factor. But you can shelve the false justice which is just racism with another motivation.
- 3pt14159 5y ago
  The injustices of the present need to be solved still. In America the way schools are funded in many states is such an obvious shorthand for racist school funding there isn't a level playing field.
  - twofornone 5y ago
    This isn't true. Underfunding is not the issue with underperforming schools in the US. If you want to improve outcomes in inner city schools you need to fix the broken local culture first, but it's sort of chicken and egg. http://thinkaboutnow.com/2016/03/debunking-the-underfunded-public-schools-myth-why-us-school-are-failing/ http://thinkaboutnow.com/2016/03/debunking-the-underfunded-p...
    - 3pt14159 5y ago
      https://www.vox.com/22266219/biden-eduation-school-funding-segregation-antiracist-policy https://www.vox.com/22266219/biden-eduation-school-funding-s.... Compare the homepages of the two. I know which one I trust more. http://thinkaboutnow.com/ http://thinkaboutnow.com/ https://www.vox.com/ https://www.vox.com/
      - jonnydubowsky 5y ago
        Wow, thinkaboutnow is quite the website.
      - twofornone 5y ago
mohanmcgeek 5y ago
> However, in case of South Asia/India, the argument is positive discrimination now to correct for negative discrimination in the past. I don't think India makes this "penance for primordial sins" argument. There's a current high correlation between somebody's caste and somebody's socio-economic status which is reservation is supposed to solve. It has loopholes surely and in some parts of the country, completely useless. But overall it is effective in increasing social mobility and social cohesion.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
AA and other background-accounting factors have some place as an input into the system. You simply can't possibly claim that poor white rural kids in the south or black urban kids in poor neighborhoods (and all similar such situations) have the same chances at success of getting into harvard/yale/MIT as a rich white/asian kid from NYC who went to the best public/private schools (and SAT tutors) money could afford. There has to be some balance in there to account for such things. Until people put something forth as viable AA and quotas are what we have.
- rmah 5y ago
  "Rich white/asian kid from NYC" I've seen this sort of characterization a lot here. I can understand it, but it doesn't really reflect reality. I don't know a lot about other areas, but in NYC, most asians are not "wealthy". Far from it, Asians in NYC have a substantially lower median income ($53k household, $25k per capita) than whites ($69k household, $50k per capita ). More importantly, the asian kids being discriminated against are not from wealthy families. Those that come from well off families tend to have all the extra-curriculars that white kids from wealthier families do. It's the ones from poor families. The ones who have to work after school and weekends to help out... and still study hard. Their parents cannot afford music/dance/arts lessons. The kid can't spend hours a day volunteering. Etc. It's these kids who get shafted when universities seek "well rounded". Many of the lower income asian kids are from recent immigrant families. Their parents who barely speak english, working low paying jobs. They sacrifice everything to try to give their kids a chance to get ahead. And push their kids crazy hard to do well in school as they see it as their only way up. Imagine the feeling when -- after years of sacrifice and hard work -- after your kid did great in school, got great SAT scores, did everything he's supposed to do... he still gets denied by every good school..
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    See "rich" as in not poor. You can't shutdown the primary reasoning of my argument and downshift it to your point. My main point was poverty and location, I really don't even give a fuck about your race. The biggest problem in this country is delineated by who has money and who doesn't. That is the 90% problem, not race.

carrionpigeon 5y ago

I was curious about how the Indians handle this, too, so I read Republic of Caste by Anand Teltumbde. It's a long, rambling, but detailed description of how the reservation system was playing out in India. Broadly, he argues that any initial positive effect has been displaced by caste becoming even more of a wedge issue (each caste feeling disadvantaged unfairly and hyper-vigilant for others' corruption) and castes scrambling for favorable designations (e.g. inventing a new history of victimization or fabricating a genealogy in order to be assigned to a more favorable schedule). Ironically, Teltumbde advocates for replacing reservations with American-style affirmative action.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pewpew2020 5y ago
Now it is a competition among castes to show that they are the most backward, since they would be considered for reservations then.
- actuator 5y ago
  and this makes sense as well, I think while in practice the affirmative action in India seems ideal it is far too idealistic and one dimensional. Like just doing it on the basis of race would be in US. Should an Asian kid coming from a family with financial difficulties be subjected to the same bias as others. Also, I read a weird thing that in India even religions that don't have a caste system, have castes. It is interesting that Christians, Muslims can have one. It seems like that's one way to reap the benefits of the system.

cutemonster 5y ago

> to get admission in the top college Could this indicate that there're many bright people in India, who are mostly self taught, because they belonged to the "wrong" group and so couldn't study at University (or at least not the one they wanted) ? Whilst, if someone has studied at a top university, it doesn't mean that much?

abhink 5y ago
This is correct to some extant, and not just for getting education. As an example, in many competitive exams conducted by universities etc. to select students, the selection cutoff marks clearly show this pattern of intentional discriminatory admittance. For someone belonging to "general" category, anyone designated to an upper caste, the cutoffs percentage for selection could be as high as 97-99%. For "reserved" category candidates, those from the lower castes, the cutoff can be as low as 10-20% for the same test. This means someone scoring 95% would not get get an admission offer while someone else scoring 15% would. This reservation system is also a part of government jobs. I have seen "reserved" teaching positions being filled by candidates who score negative marks in the selection exams. But since no other type of candidate can fill the reserved position, the highest negative score gets the job. Does this really alleviate the issues borne out of historical oppression of the lower cast, I don't know. Perhaps. Is this overall a good thing for a nation and its people? Again, I have no idea.
- cutemonster 5y ago
  Thanks! I hope they won't start using these ways of hiring people, to find airplane pilots. Negative marks in the exams
- mohanmcgeek 5y ago
  > This means someone scoring 95% would not get get an admission offer while someone else scoring 15% would. Sounds entirely made up. All these exams generally have a minimum clearing criteria at 60-65%
  - abhink 5y ago

tootie 5y ago

The argument isn't against Asians, it's in favor of other groups.

actuator 5y ago
I understand. But my argument was, it seems unfair that these Asian kids whose ancestors didn't have anything to do with the race discrimination in US, have to be on the receiving end of the affirmative action. I know it is not a good example but should we have affirmative action in sporting teams as Asians seem to be underrepresented there. Should we rather improve the funnels before which are leading to this concentration of Asian kids. This is not even considering the fact if even the desire to follow some subject is equal in every race. If it is not and it should be all things being equal at the start, then we should fix the funnels before.
NeverFade 5y ago
The number of admissions is limited. If there are two groups, X and Y, and you discriminate in favor of giving more admissions to group X, group Y will have fewer.
brippalcharrid 5y ago
We're talking about policies that favor some groups against others in a competition for scarce resources (college places, scholarships), so it clearly is going to have a negative effect on the people that are not in the favored groups. And even if the policies weren't so openly discriminatory (eg. SAT scores, quotas), the disparate impact on Asian-Americans would still be obvious.
- tootie 5y ago
  "scarce resources" I wish the effort was put into making them less scarce. It's one of the very specific illnesses of American economic culture that we are willing to bite and claw each other over access to things that need not be rare.
  - brippalcharrid 5y ago

raxxorrax 5y ago

It is simply a bad mechanism and argument to put injustices of the past on the shoulders of new generations, especially with goals defined in such a blurry manner. On the contrary, the best remedy is to treat people as equals. That isn't unpractical realism, nothing else is required. Of course some will have a huge head start and culture towards education is a very important factor. But you can shelve the false justice which is just racism with another motivation.

3pt14159 5y ago
The injustices of the present need to be solved still. In America the way schools are funded in many states is such an obvious shorthand for racist school funding there isn't a level playing field.
- twofornone 5y ago
  This isn't true. Underfunding is not the issue with underperforming schools in the US. If you want to improve outcomes in inner city schools you need to fix the broken local culture first, but it's sort of chicken and egg. http://thinkaboutnow.com/2016/03/debunking-the-underfunded-public-schools-myth-why-us-school-are-failing/ http://thinkaboutnow.com/2016/03/debunking-the-underfunded-p...
  - 3pt14159 5y ago
    https://www.vox.com/22266219/biden-eduation-school-funding-segregation-antiracist-policy https://www.vox.com/22266219/biden-eduation-school-funding-s.... Compare the homepages of the two. I know which one I trust more. http://thinkaboutnow.com/ http://thinkaboutnow.com/ https://www.vox.com/ https://www.vox.com/
    - jonnydubowsky 5y ago
      Wow, thinkaboutnow is quite the website.
    - twofornone 5y ago

mohanmcgeek 5y ago

> However, in case of South Asia/India, the argument is positive discrimination now to correct for negative discrimination in the past. I don't think India makes this "penance for primordial sins" argument. There's a current high correlation between somebody's caste and somebody's socio-economic status which is reservation is supposed to solve. It has loopholes surely and in some parts of the country, completely useless. But overall it is effective in increasing social mobility and social cohesion.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

AA and other background-accounting factors have some place as an input into the system. You simply can't possibly claim that poor white rural kids in the south or black urban kids in poor neighborhoods (and all similar such situations) have the same chances at success of getting into harvard/yale/MIT as a rich white/asian kid from NYC who went to the best public/private schools (and SAT tutors) money could afford. There has to be some balance in there to account for such things. Until people put something forth as viable AA and quotas are what we have.

rmah 5y ago
"Rich white/asian kid from NYC" I've seen this sort of characterization a lot here. I can understand it, but it doesn't really reflect reality. I don't know a lot about other areas, but in NYC, most asians are not "wealthy". Far from it, Asians in NYC have a substantially lower median income ($53k household, $25k per capita) than whites ($69k household, $50k per capita ). More importantly, the asian kids being discriminated against are not from wealthy families. Those that come from well off families tend to have all the extra-curriculars that white kids from wealthier families do. It's the ones from poor families. The ones who have to work after school and weekends to help out... and still study hard. Their parents cannot afford music/dance/arts lessons. The kid can't spend hours a day volunteering. Etc. It's these kids who get shafted when universities seek "well rounded". Many of the lower income asian kids are from recent immigrant families. Their parents who barely speak english, working low paying jobs. They sacrifice everything to try to give their kids a chance to get ahead. And push their kids crazy hard to do well in school as they see it as their only way up. Imagine the feeling when -- after years of sacrifice and hard work -- after your kid did great in school, got great SAT scores, did everything he's supposed to do... he still gets denied by every good school..
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  See "rich" as in not poor. You can't shutdown the primary reasoning of my argument and downshift it to your point. My main point was poverty and location, I really don't even give a fuck about your race. The biggest problem in this country is delineated by who has money and who doesn't. That is the 90% problem, not race.