Hacker News Reader

Comment by taeric | Hacker News Reader

I don't understand the point of these style articles. If you were to look at the ridiculous volume of black people that were basically forced to pass as white in order to live, that really robs this story of its bite.

So, yes. Some people today can abuse the system for advantage. The system this was built to counterbalance was far far worse. And... I question whether it has actually been fully dismantled, yet.

View on HN

Point of clarification: The New York Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch, the same reactionary owner Fox News, so you have to keep that in mind when looking at the editorial point of view.

I would also say that if you look at something like police shootings or even the ability hail a cab in NYC that racism is far from dead. It's also important to point out that racism against those from Africa isn't limited to the United States and there is a great deal of it in Asia:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/25/opinion/roy-the-wrong-kind...

And Australia. Well, one should not be astonished about Oz if her govt would even demolish the homes of her first nation people or Aboriginals. How much more the Africans that look like them! Oz men and women stare at blacks in general like where in the world do people look like these AND won't this animal harm me.

Anything that is not equality based is morally offensive. There should be no racial advantage to getting into college because that in itself is racist.

A classic case of "the real racists are the ones who mention race."

To address the real problems of continued systemic racism that existed from the founding of our country, we cannot simply put our race blinders on and pretend we're a post racial society.

You're ignoring that there are inherent racial advantages in admissions already.

It is morally offensive that, as a society, we've proven to be unwavering in our racism until we are forced to address it.

That's fine, but understand that race-based preferences are an attempt to even the score, not make things unfair. People who favor things like affirmative action would say that simply being born white gives you a racial advantage to getting into college, so if you think there shouldn't be any racial advantages, you need something like affirmative action.

You might disagree with that, but realize that the disagreement lies over what constitutes fairness, not whether racial advantages should be present at all.

This assumes that there is no advantage to diversity of race, in and of itself. I don't know if I can claim that there is an advantage, but I do think it is worth finding out.

It further assumes that there is not already a giant weighing of the system against certain races, absent this action. Something which is becoming increasingly easy to see as likely false.

And then it ignores that overall ideal that all people get education. With no barrier to entry.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com