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Comment by rootusrootus | Hacker News Reader

The stats on black/white/Asian college achievement makes for an uncomfortable discussion. It's okay to suggest that systemic racism is why black people don't participate in college as much as you'd expect based on their prevalence in society, but it's also okay to say that the reason Asians are over-represented is because culturally they've made it a huge priority to attain as much education as possible.

Maybe we should focus less on trying to identify and somehow solve systemic racism and more about making it culturally acceptable and desirable for black people to enter the STEM fields. Highlight the superstars in STEM who are kicking ass (e.g. Neil deGrasse Tyson) and encouraging people to identify with him and motivate them to work even harder.

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Exactly. The cognitive dissonance must be painful, for some people. Poverty explains part of it but there is a cultural and familial part too. Society isn't responsible for everything.

Would it also be okay to suggest Asians are over-represented because of unearned Asian privilege?

What about suggesting whites are (hypothetically) over-represented because they've made attaining education a priority?

Forgive me for noticing, but "one-sided" doesn't even begin to describe this debate.

> Would it also be okay to suggest Asians are over-represented because of unearned Asian privilege?

Reverse racism, as it were?

> What about suggesting whites are (hypothetically) over-represented because they've made attaining education a priority?

Well, first they'd need to be over-represented ;).

> Forgive me for noticing, but "one-sided" doesn't even begin to describe this debate.

On the contrary, there seems to be a bazillion sides to this whole discussion.

> Well, first they'd need to be over-represented ;)

Not at all - behold, an entire article complaining about too many whites on Harvard [1], despite being the most under-represented group [2].

[1] https://slate.com/business/2019/09/harvard-admissions-affirm...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21130080

>Would it also be okay to suggest Asians are over-represented because of unearned Asian privilege?

That would be an incredibly stupid and unequivocally false thing to suggest because the odds are actually stacked against Asians, and they must work harder than most other people to achieve the same thing. Asians have earned everything they've attained in this country. They deserve whatever success they've gotten, and for that, they receive undeserved discrimination and disrespect.

> "That would be an incredibly stupid and unequivocally false thing to suggest because the odds are actually stacked against Asians, and they must work harder than most other people to achieve the same thing."

As an Asian, I don't agree with that. Many Asians emigrated from Asia with very little possessions and started their lives in Western countries in conditions as bad or worse than the poorest native born, including a significant language barrier and, yes, racism in their newly adopted homelands. Yet, by and large, they have built successful lives.

I'd describe the statement as incredibly accurate and unequivocally true.

I think you are misreading something. I am arguing against the suggestion that Asians have unearned privilege which allowed them to become successful in America.

Ah, sorry. I did indeed misread your comment.

Not sure about other Asians, but most South Asians that immigrated to US already had degrees and were upper-middle class (having the money to buy international plane tickets automatically qualifies you to be upper-middle class). Sure they had to live poor initially but their mentality was "this is temporary and we will improve our situation soon enough".

> Sure they had to live poor initially but their mentality was "this is temporary and we will improve our situation soon enough".

so to get back to the grandparent post's question - why don't black people have this same mentality? What is it that's specific that's causing the disparity between asians and blacks?

1. Poverty, especially generational poverty, is extremely difficult to get out of. Studying in a university means you won't be able to help your family financially for 5-8 years. Which can be really difficult for many.

2. No role model. Let's say you can somehow manage those hardships. But how do you know all this effort and education loans will be worth it? There are not many role models for African Americans in STEM so they are afraid to dream big. For Indians it's very easy, our culture (especially the Brahmin upper-middle class culture) has always had plenty of role models.

3. They never really paid the true price of getting out of poverty. Education in India and China is highly state sponsored, so all the quality education you got there was mostly tax paid, which enabled them to immigrate to US in the first place. If you give African Americans the same quality education fully sponsored by the state things will change for them too.

So these are true for the current generation of immigrants.

What about the generation of asians [0] that were from the beginning of the 19th century? They broke out of poverty, despite all the same disadvantages.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chinese_Americans#:....

I don't believe the Indians and Chinese who immigrated back in 1900s ever got rid of poverty. It's only the last few decades of educated immigrants that changed the narrative that Asians are the model minority, it's been a part of US propaganda for decades now - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/29/the-r...

I can see the same happen in my ancestry too. The ones who migrated back in 1900s or during the wars never made it big while the educated ones who went there after 50s are doing well.

My great grandfather immigrated to USA in 1920s from Kapurthala in Punjab. Most of his descendants work as nurses if they went beyond high school, few went to college but almost all own property, so I’m not sure what you mean here.

So they were military/landlords back in Punjab and did the same in US? Where's the American Dream™ upgrade? Btw if you were a Jatt in Punjab you were already upper-middle class but now in US you downgraded to lower-middle class.

I would like to see if a Chamaar from Punjab was able to go to US before 1960s and able to become a land owner.

He was Muslim, not Jat or Rajput as far as I know (and yes I know you can both but he didn’t have any sort of obvious last name like Rathore or whatever) I don’t think he owned any land there. Hence the upgrade. I think he imported itar at one point but mostly ran small tuck shop. I think his cousins might have owned land near Batala but after 47 they lost it and went to PK. He did buy the land he built his house on in Cleveland though.

One obvious result is generational poverty and what hints at 'learned helplessness' of sorts and loss of hope. It isn't limited to just the racial context. London schools found that their low end of the bell curve were native working class children. Worse than even refugees from a non-privileged background in even the 'relative to origin' sense.

The phenomenon is larger than race, although it may be involved in any given instance or manifestation. It is a shared cliche for successful professionals hailing from both inner city to suburbs and dying small town Midwest that they never want to return to. That 'they're ones of the ones who made it out of that (shit/hell)hole', along with a disgust at its inhabitants or melancholy resignation that they are stuck in dysfunction, along with optional lingering resentment over mistreatment by the local crab-bucket.

I'm not sure anyone has an answer for how to solve those issues. A hypothetical solution probably wouldn't be very popular even if it isn't anything morally or ethically uncomfortable just from how 'counter-intutive' it would have to be.

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