Comment by drekk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by drekk | Hacker News Reader

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I don't think this conclusion is well supported by the piece or discussion. If you think being against racism is just code for being anti-white there's not much I can say to change that, but when people are used to special treatment equality can feel unfair.

I'd certainly be happy to change our admissions process such that it's purely meritocratic (but then remove legacy admissions, which mostly benefit white students). However, this idea that minorities need to "assimilate" into US culture is exactly the kind of racist nonsense that makes us decry the norms as whiteness. A lot of immigrants to the US face direct and indirect violence for things as simple as wearing a hijab. Having to present ourselves in a way that's comfortable for you all to not view us as a stereotype is taxing, especially when these efforts are aggregated as "anti white and anti asian hate"

Like what even is anti-white hate when less than a century ago Italians were considered nonwhite? "White" as a social construct only exists to contrast with ethnicities we view as lesser. We should not collapse 300 million Americans into 5 groups (none of which cover those from the middle east) and then base decisions off of such a subjective classification. It's obviously going to cause issues

>If you think being against racism is just code for being anti-white

They specifically said "anti-racism' which does not mean "against racism", any more than the Patriot Act was Patriotic. It's a word game played by groups of people seeking to legitimize their racism against specific groups of people who tend to overachieve (ie asian, ashkenazi jews etc). It's big with the same group of people who have replaced racial equality with racial equity. At the end of the day, it's just all about "positive racial discrimination" in their mind.

The whole taxonomical system classifying people in the US requires significant overhaul, it's incredibly inaccurate and imprecise. Given our level of technology and knowledge, this shouldn't be a problem; however, I think a sunk cost fallacy significantly bogs down progress on this front. Reasons for this include, but aren't limited to, academic reputations, political capital and strategies, and wealth invested into the current taxonomical system. People who are heavily invested in it do not want to give it up or acknowledge its faults, especially if they're benefiting from it.

Let's use a Middle Eastern person as an example. They're geographically from Asia, but aren't considered Asian, and have significantly differentiated cultures from what is traditionally considered "Asian" culture. Then, the US largely classifies them as white independent of how "white-passing" they are. I'm just baffled in general by it all at this point.

US racial categorizations are too fuzzy as concepts to warrant seriousness in defining people. Yet, despite this, people heavily invested in this want to perpetuate and solidify information like:

https://pyxis.nymag.com/v1/imgs/926/d5f/a334baf0d43cd480b3ea...

Which starts to explain why they want to discriminate against Asians for perceived cultural similarities with what they consider "white culture."

It's frustrating to watch unfold.

Look, I don't like assimilation either, but it's hard to deny its effectiveness in small, narrowly targeted doses. Aligning with the most critically important values from mainstream society (such as being law-abiding, and focusing on education and public-minded social development) is a recipe for very real success; the opposite values are a recipe for failure. This is not a fact about 'Whiteness'; it's simply about how the social world works.

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