3 ms·

"All white people are racist" is a racist statement itself. And the Harvard admissions department is not representative of "white people".

rayiner 3y ago
I'm referring to that statement because it's something people say, hence the quotes. I'm not saying I agree with its full scope now. But I get where it's coming from more than I did before. While university admissions people aren't representative of white people, they're in the class of people I had always assumed didn't see people in terms of race. I knew affirmative action was a thing, but I kind of assumed it was a mathematical, maybe computerized process. I didn't realize they were sifting through applications saying "oh, here's a hispanic, and that one's a black kid, shoot this one's an asian."
- gonehome 3y ago
  I think it's a big (and likely incorrect) assumption that all of (or even a plurality of) the people making these comments working in admissions are themselves white. It's not just that they're not representative of an entire group of people, many aren't members of that group at all. It's also not necessarily entirely on the admissions people - the argument made in that substack (and ultimately the conclusion of SCOTUS) is that affirmative action is a euphemism for racial discrimination. Ultimately you have to be doing something like this somewhere if that's the policy since that's explicitly what it means, the internal comms just show the reality of the policy that's often not said in public communication (because imo it seems obviously bad to most people).
  - rayiner 3y ago
    University employees are overwhelmingly white: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/10/28/black-administrators-are-too-rare-top-ranks-higher-education-it%E2%80%99s-not-just-pipeline https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/10/28/black-adminis.... Over 75% in the mid level employee ranks, and over 80% in the administrator ranks. I agree the reality hits harder than the theory. I imagined this statistical and detached balancing process, not this.

rayiner 3y ago

I'm referring to that statement because it's something people say, hence the quotes. I'm not saying I agree with its full scope now. But I get where it's coming from more than I did before. While university admissions people aren't representative of white people, they're in the class of people I had always assumed didn't see people in terms of race. I knew affirmative action was a thing, but I kind of assumed it was a mathematical, maybe computerized process. I didn't realize they were sifting through applications saying "oh, here's a hispanic, and that one's a black kid, shoot this one's an asian."

gonehome 3y ago
I think it's a big (and likely incorrect) assumption that all of (or even a plurality of) the people making these comments working in admissions are themselves white. It's not just that they're not representative of an entire group of people, many aren't members of that group at all. It's also not necessarily entirely on the admissions people - the argument made in that substack (and ultimately the conclusion of SCOTUS) is that affirmative action is a euphemism for racial discrimination. Ultimately you have to be doing something like this somewhere if that's the policy since that's explicitly what it means, the internal comms just show the reality of the policy that's often not said in public communication (because imo it seems obviously bad to most people).
- rayiner 3y ago
  University employees are overwhelmingly white: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/10/28/black-administrators-are-too-rare-top-ranks-higher-education-it%E2%80%99s-not-just-pipeline https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/10/28/black-adminis.... Over 75% in the mid level employee ranks, and over 80% in the administrator ranks. I agree the reality hits harder than the theory. I imagined this statistical and detached balancing process, not this.