Comment by teachrdan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by teachrdan | Hacker News Reader

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As an Asian American, I recognize that racism against us is real, and that at the same time, the impact is far, far smaller than it is for people who are Black or Latinx.

There is no modern history of Asian Americans getting redlined, whereas Wells Fargo sold subprime mortgages to Black homeowners in Baltimore while internally saying they were selling "garbage loans" to "mud people."

Asian Americans are far less likely to be racially profiled by the police, while African Americans are far more likely to be wrongfully convicted of rape, for example.

Honestly, there is a bit of a meme on HN where affirmative action always hurts Asian Americans. It's been documented that elite schools use sports to discriminate in favor of wealthy white students. (Think about what demographic goes to schools with top-rated lacrosse or crew or horseback riding teams.) It's time for Asian Americans to be in solidarity with other people of color who suffer more from discrimination. Fortunately, 80% of Asian Americans support affirmative action.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-reaches-se...

https://cls.soceco.uci.edu/news/data-shows-african-americans...

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-08-27/affirmative...

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/70-asian-american...

Nearly everything said about asian Americans can be said of jewish Americans.

Now substitute what you just said about asians for jews. Still ok with it?

Jews are disproportionately over-represented in elite universities relative to the population. And on average we experience more well being that white people, along the same metrics you cited.

It is ludicrous that you could lump together a child of Vietnamese refugees in with with someone who's parents are doctors who immigrated from The Philippines. It is almost as if we are more a product of our circumstances than our ethnicity.

No, hard working asian and jewish kids should be punished for bad things that Wells Fargo did a quarter century ago.

Ha, I'm actually half Jewish, and I am completely ok saying these exact same things about Jews. The harms that are inflicted against African Americans in particular are far worse than those against Jews or any Asian demographic I know of.

> No, hard working asian and jewish kids should be punished for bad things that Wells Fargo did a quarter century ago.

It appears you failed to look at the link I posted. Wells Fargo engaged in that behavior in the run up to the 2008 financial crash--hardly "a quarter century ago." Black folks in this country have faced ongoing discrimination since before the United States existed, and this persists in economic exploitation by business and government alike.

I'll assume you're arguing in good faith, so I've added another example of how African Americans are economically exploited, this time by municipal government. This level of discrimination and exploitation simply doesn't happen against Asian Americans.

Now do some Asian American demographics face greater challenges? Sure. You named one, Vietnamese Refugees. You could also include Muslim refugees escaping genocide in Myanmar, to provide another example. But what that really illustrates is that "Asian American" is a category stretched almost beyond usefulness due to the wide, wide range of folks who are included, covering a continent with 4.4 BILLION people.

https://www.governing.com/archive/gov-ferguson-missouri-cour...

I am assuming you don't have any kids. I used to think same way and so did most of my Asian friends. Hey I am doing fine, I end up going to decent college, other Asians can do same, right?

But it slowly changed when my friends and I started to have kids. When your kid get A but you know it is not enough. Even if you try to protect your kid, family and others tell your kid that they need to join more clubs and volunteer if they want to go to a good school. When your kid replies why and says my friends are not doing it, and you need to tell them that his friends have a different skin color and they will get preferred treatment, that's when you realize how wrong it is.

Just because there are institutions in our society which discriminate aganist one group, the solution is not to ask other institutes to discriminate against a different group. We need to get rid of discrimination in all parts of our society and not increase it.

Edit: anthoner unintended side effect of this is that many of extremely liberal Indian families that had many Black and Hispanic friends are now hanging out less with them. Because they want their kids to be friends with those who will be doing same activities.

These assumptions are hilarious. I do indeed have a child, a toddler, and seeing how segregated things are here in the bay area has made me even more supportive of affirmative action. His daycare is basically all Asian and white, and the best schools in the county are also disproportionately Asian and white.

Yeah, my son might have to join more clubs and get better grades to get into a great school--though there are plenty of outstanding schools that don't demand a > 4.0 GPA.

But I will never have to sit down with my son and explain that the police may shoot and kill him for no reason at all. When he calls 911 for help, he doesn't have to worry that the people who respond will treat him like a perpetrator instead of a victim. If he becomes a software engineer or any other white collar worker, no one will assume he is not qualified due to his race.

There are so many ways my son is at an advantage for being mixed Asian and white. The fact that he may have to settle for a top 10% school instead of a top 1% school is a small price to pay to help make up for past and ongoing injustice and exploitation of Black, Latinx and American Indian folks.

> Now do some Asian American demographics face greater challenges? Sure. You named one, Vietnamese Refugees. You could also include Muslim refugees escaping genocide in Myanmar, to provide another example. But what that really illustrates is that "Asian American" is a category stretched almost beyond usefulness due to the wide, wide range of folks who are included, covering a continent with 4.4 BILLION people.

You characterize a Vietnamese refugee living in public housing being sent to the back of the line as merely a "greater challenge" for them? Your dismissiveness that you have about this strongly indicates that you are a spectator.

The fact you admit that "asian" is such a large population is all the more reason why these discrimination policies are unjust and ineffective. But you have not expressed any real objection about it.

> But I will never have to sit down with my son and explain that the police may shoot and kill him for no reason at all. When he calls 911 for help, he doesn't have to worry that the people who respond will treat him like a perpetrator instead of a victim.

Police are not going out hunting for black people. They are actually generally avoidant, especially now. The reason that more black people get shot is because there are more black people committing crimes, or adjacent to crimes. And anyone is at risk with an encounter with the police. It has more to do with circumstance than anything. If you hang out around liquor stores at night, and are frequently in the company of people with warrants, I can assure you that your chances of being shot go up substantially, no matter what you look like.

I have a stake in this. My ancestors were denied access to universities that they were qualified for, because too many of there type were there already, because social justice. I don't buy any of it.

> The reason that more black people get shot is because there are more black people committing crimes, or adjacent to crimes.

Breonna Taylor was sleeping in her home when the police shot and killed her for no reason, and the officers responsible were never even charged with her murder. I'm sorry, but I've never heard of this happening to any Asian American of any background.

Yes, growing up poor puts you at a disadvantage, but being Black in America puts you at an even greater disadvantage.

> And anyone is at risk with an encounter with the police.

Agreed, but the police are much less likely to arrest you, beat you, or kill you if you are not Black.

> If you hang out around liquor stores at night, and are frequently in the company of people with warrants, I can assure you that your chances of being shot go up substantially, no matter what you look like.

Even applying the principle of charity, this sounds incredibly racist. There is a long, easily Google-able list of African Americans who were shot and killed while walking home with a bag of Skittles, or correctly warning officers they had a legal concealed weapon, for holding up a wallet that police later said looked like a firearm, or any number of other circumstances. If you think that every Black victim of police violence had it coming, you need to seriously consider your anti-Black racism.

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