4 ms·

Two things I'm confused about: (1) with everything going on in your life, why do you seem to be using income as a metric of success? And (2) I'm not sure what y

Two things I'm confused about: (1) with everything going on in your life, why do you seem to be using income as a metric of success? And (2) I'm not sure what you think affirmative action is, but you seem to think "affirmative action" somehow means "giving Asian kids a crappy home life", and I can't figure out why.

999900000999 4y ago
For one, money gives you options. I don't need to ask my abusive family for anything, because I make more money than everybody else. What I was trying to explain is affirmative action is based off an assumption that black and brown kids need more help to get into good schools, over Asian kids or white kids. This is just not the case, each individual has their own story, their own challenges.
- IceMetalPunk 4y ago
  Okay, sure, money gives you options up to a point. But once you have enough to survive on, the rest is just superficial, unimportant, and more a measure of conditioned luxury than actual life success. As someone who makes much less than this post title brags about, I can tell you that your income is at least half luxury rather than "success because I have options", especially since it sounds like you're not needing to support more than one person with that income. But hey, we live in a capitalist world where people do like to equate more money with more success, so you do you. And yeah, you definitely have the wrong understanding of what affirmative action is and why it exists. Firstly, it doesn't just apply to "Black and brown kids", it applies to all minorities, including Asian people and women. Secondly, obviously everyone has individual challenges, no one is denying that; but someone's cohort does, in fact, impart systemic obstacles and lead to a harder time, on average, attaining opportunities that other groups, on average, have an easier time finding. It doesn't mean all Black people have no opportunities, or all white people have plenty; it means that on average, certain groups (including Asians and white women) have systemic disadvantages that are unfair. No one thinks, for instance, that Morgan Freeman or Samuel L. Jackson are struggling for opportunity; and no one thinks, for instance, that there aren't homeless white people with abusive families struggling just to survive. But it's not about the individual situations. It's all about systemic opportunities and averages.
  - Utkarsh_Mood 4y ago
    Still though, Isn't the socioeconomic situation of a person a much better metric compared to the race of an individual? There are minorities that are doing exceedingly well, but the same cant be said for those who have a poor socioeconomic status.
    - IceMetalPunk 4y ago
      Sure, but (a) the socioeconomic status of a person is already used as the basis for financial aid; affirmative action doesn't replace that, it's supplementary to it; and (b) affirmative action isn't meant to be a way to determine whether someone will be able to afford college, it's meant to combat peoples' opportunity to be accepted to a college, an obstacle which is based more on race/gender/etc. than socioeconomic status. The two are used to complement each other, not compete.
      - 999900000999 4y ago
        >the socioeconomic status of a person is already used as the basis for financial aid Well you're getting no financial aid at all if your estranged from your abusive parents. This is what happened to me, I did get some help, the rare times my mother wanted to cooperate. For the last year of college she didn't. It would do better for society to completely ban affirmative action, but stop requiring parental income information on financial aid forms. I've had so many friends, who had to run away from abusive homes, since their own parents liked to hurt them. As in like, one friend reflecting on her abusive relationship with her parents, said "Cops complicate things". And when this happens, you don't want to document it. You don't want to build a massive paper trail, to prove you've been abused. Even if you can, getting a dependency override is ridiculously hard . If you have abusive parents, society tells you no college for you until you're 24, unless you somehow mystically pull enough money out of your behind to pay out of pocket . A black kid with a supportive single mother, even if they struggle, even if she barely makes minimum wage. Is doing much better than an Asian kid with a parent who beats him. That's my point. Affirmative Action ignores this. I think domestic violence is so common , that we just need to give everyone a bit of help. It doesn't matter what you look like.

999900000999 4y ago

For one, money gives you options. I don't need to ask my abusive family for anything, because I make more money than everybody else. What I was trying to explain is affirmative action is based off an assumption that black and brown kids need more help to get into good schools, over Asian kids or white kids. This is just not the case, each individual has their own story, their own challenges.

IceMetalPunk 4y ago
Okay, sure, money gives you options up to a point. But once you have enough to survive on, the rest is just superficial, unimportant, and more a measure of conditioned luxury than actual life success. As someone who makes much less than this post title brags about, I can tell you that your income is at least half luxury rather than "success because I have options", especially since it sounds like you're not needing to support more than one person with that income. But hey, we live in a capitalist world where people do like to equate more money with more success, so you do you. And yeah, you definitely have the wrong understanding of what affirmative action is and why it exists. Firstly, it doesn't just apply to "Black and brown kids", it applies to all minorities, including Asian people and women. Secondly, obviously everyone has individual challenges, no one is denying that; but someone's cohort does, in fact, impart systemic obstacles and lead to a harder time, on average, attaining opportunities that other groups, on average, have an easier time finding. It doesn't mean all Black people have no opportunities, or all white people have plenty; it means that on average, certain groups (including Asians and white women) have systemic disadvantages that are unfair. No one thinks, for instance, that Morgan Freeman or Samuel L. Jackson are struggling for opportunity; and no one thinks, for instance, that there aren't homeless white people with abusive families struggling just to survive. But it's not about the individual situations. It's all about systemic opportunities and averages.
- Utkarsh_Mood 4y ago
  Still though, Isn't the socioeconomic situation of a person a much better metric compared to the race of an individual? There are minorities that are doing exceedingly well, but the same cant be said for those who have a poor socioeconomic status.
  - IceMetalPunk 4y ago
    Sure, but (a) the socioeconomic status of a person is already used as the basis for financial aid; affirmative action doesn't replace that, it's supplementary to it; and (b) affirmative action isn't meant to be a way to determine whether someone will be able to afford college, it's meant to combat peoples' opportunity to be accepted to a college, an obstacle which is based more on race/gender/etc. than socioeconomic status. The two are used to complement each other, not compete.
    - 999900000999 4y ago
      >the socioeconomic status of a person is already used as the basis for financial aid Well you're getting no financial aid at all if your estranged from your abusive parents. This is what happened to me, I did get some help, the rare times my mother wanted to cooperate. For the last year of college she didn't. It would do better for society to completely ban affirmative action, but stop requiring parental income information on financial aid forms. I've had so many friends, who had to run away from abusive homes, since their own parents liked to hurt them. As in like, one friend reflecting on her abusive relationship with her parents, said "Cops complicate things". And when this happens, you don't want to document it. You don't want to build a massive paper trail, to prove you've been abused. Even if you can, getting a dependency override is ridiculously hard . If you have abusive parents, society tells you no college for you until you're 24, unless you somehow mystically pull enough money out of your behind to pay out of pocket . A black kid with a supportive single mother, even if they struggle, even if she barely makes minimum wage. Is doing much better than an Asian kid with a parent who beats him. That's my point. Affirmative Action ignores this. I think domestic violence is so common , that we just need to give everyone a bit of help. It doesn't matter what you look like.