I think the parent comment meant that there doesn't seem to be any cost to making jokes at the expense of Asians.
A similar parody letter based on stereotypes about black people will pretty much end their career, no matter the intent.
A similar parody letter based on stereotypes about black people will pretty much end their career, no matter the intent.
Hibino, I'm gonna guess, is Japanese.
The jokes don't seem like their punching down at Jose (the fictional Filipino). They seem to be saying; "no matter how hard Jose seems to work, nobody is ever impressed because they assume he's either getting handouts or his job is easy".
My take, like the parent comment, is that this is a joke on the admissions office, and the systemic racism in such institutions - not at the expense of Asians (esp. since the one sending the joke was Asian to begin with).
If the Dean of Admissions and a government official with detailed knowledge of Harvard’s admissions process both privately believe that Harvard illegally discriminates on the basis of race, that seems extremely probative in a trial on that exact issue.
People, on balance, are not all so racist, bigoted, short-sighted, greedy, selfish, etc. (with glaring outliers, ofc). Institutions are more often than not some, if not all, of these things. It's almost as if we encode the worst of ourselves in these social contracts and give them everlasting life.
As a sibling comment mentioned, it's also entirely possible for Hibino to be discriminatory himself. It just feels a little like there's not quite enough information to hang him specifically.
Asians can be racist & discriminatory towards other Asians.
Japanese & Filipinos having something of a history no less..
Whether it can end careers? Sure people freely ignore context and socially burn people at the stake for much less. But IRL it's important to ask whether they were actually being racist with their satire. Which I personally think is a pretty thin argument.
The recipient was https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2017/5/22/fitzsimmons-pro...