Comment by ramesh31 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ramesh31 | Hacker News Reader

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>Did my Korean friend growing up who spent his every afternoon and weekend studying while I was playing videogames deserve to get into a better university than me and make more money than me? I say he did. DEI says he didn't.

But why was your friend able to spend his every afternoon and weekend studying?

Because he was raised in a supportive, nurturing environment. Probably with grandparents and aunts/uncles to help take care of him. He probably had older relatives in professional careers to aspire to and mentor him. He probably never had to work a job in high school to help support his family, or raise his younger siblings while mom worked night shift. His parents were probably married and able to hold decent jobs to provide a stable home, good nutrition, and a lack of stress. They probably were able to make sure he went to preschool, and had reliable transportation to get him to/from there and kindergarten, and drilled into him the importance of education from a young age. All of these things are what DEI tries to correct for. The people who had none of that never get a shot at redemption otherwise.

The cards are stacked from birth.

> Because he was raised in a supportive, nurturing environment. Probably with grandparents and aunts/uncles to help take care of him.

> lack of stress

As an immigrant Asian child I can tell you usually we had none of these things.

What drove me and my friends was pressure. I knew what my parents gave up to give me this chance. I knew they probably wouldn’t have enough savings to ever retire without me helping them out later. I knew I didn’t want to disappoint them.

Why must countless Asian parents’ sacrifices and kids effort be swept away under DEI? Of course I get that it helps to create a society where no one would have to go such lengths to provide opportunity for their children. But man, it just rubs me the wrong way.

Try again. His parents were first-generation immigrants and his dad died when he was little. His mom was an RN, he had two younger siblings, and he worked at Kroger his last two years of high school. Our friendship fell off because he never had time to hang out. Perhaps being bilingual was his "unfair advantage"?

>Try again. His parents were first-generation immigrants and his dad died when he was little. His mom was an RN, he had two younger siblings, and he worked at Kroger his last two years of high school

We can trade anecdotes all day long, but the general point stands. And yes, things were different 20 years ago. But the average asian family today in the US is actually better off than the average white family:

https://home.treasury.gov/news/featured-stories/racial-inequ...

The average asian family in the US is actually better off than the average white family

Exactly. Why is that? It isn't because they came over to America and enslaved people, or won a war, or placed themselves at the head of a religion that all the white people believed in. They excelled because they worked harder than everyone else. One can argue that the majority white population discriminated against asians less than african-americans or latinos and that's why asian people are more successful than them, but that falls apart once asian people are more successful than the majority ethnic group.

And that's a bad thing that should be penalized (weighted negatively for admissions or hiring)? What kind of society are you hoping to incentivize?

Except that the openly stated goal of DEI activists is the opposite. It's to destroy the "Western-prescribed nuclear family structure". Which would be all well and good if they supported viable alternatives such as a greater reliance on extended families or building up a resilient structure of tightly-knit local communities - but nope, they hate these things even more!

A monkey has all the cards stacked against him/her. No so developed brain. Non supportive parents. All the things DEI aims to correct. should we make the monkey the president ?

This is ofcourse an exaggeration but you get the idea.

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