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Comment by MichaelApproved | Hacker News Reader

I’d say you’ve got more straw men in that loaded question than farmers have in their field.

You’re taking poorly summarized opinions and pretending that combination of opinions are held by a group of significant size.

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I don't think so ivy league discrimination of asian american applicants despite high standardized test scores is very much a published statistic one that is often met with emotional fervor by groups that seek to continue it.

Just my observation as an outsider looking into America. Often sensitive debates that don't follow a certain mainstream narrative are brushed off as strawman or whataboutism.

I'm just seeing this from an objective data driven view and puzzled why ppl would react so harshly.

People who claim “standardized test is systematic racism” are not necessarily the same people who think “asian americans being discriminated at ivy leagues even with good standardized test score is not seen as systematic racism.”

You are taking two different points of views which are made by two different groups, reducing their arguments down to practically nothing, and pretending they’re being made by the same group.

You are mutating the arguments and inventing a boogie man. Textbook straw man argument.

> Often sensitive debates that don't follow a certain mainstream narrative are brushed off as strawman

There’s a reason for that. It has nothing to do with following a mainstream narrative or not. It has to do with the false assumptions in the basis of your questions.

You must write stack overflow responses. Not addressing the root questions, just insult the question and the asker.

You are trying to argue that the people who claim standardized test is systematic racism is meritocracy and against affirmative action. Then following your logic, the people who aren't claiming standardized test is systematic racism is anti-meritocracy and pro affirmative action.

Yet the standard test does not differentiate the race of the test taker. If race was factored into the test scores somehow then what you are claiming makes sense, but the SAT/LSAT/MCAT/PCAT do not, cannot know the race or socioeconomic status of the test taker because as society we benefit from placing people of merit, who have the aptitude.

Are you comfortable with a lawyer/doctor who is responsible for you because they fit a certain affirmative action profile but scored low on their aptitude test and low gpa to meet a certain quota for that demographic group vs someone who were hired because of their high score on standardized aptitude test and consequently high gpa (that does not discriminate the test taker based on their race or socioeconomic class)?

Would you trust the latter or former if it meant your life/bank account depended on it and is it racism if you do not choose the former?

No, that’s not what I’m trying to argue.

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