Asian American Discrimination in Harvard Admissions [pdf]

Like one greyed out poster said, no one cares - about Asian Americans in the U.S. There is likely no other minority group where if something like this were occuring against them, that it would just be accepted. Hell, it wouldn't even be up for debate. Yet with Asians, here we are. No one being fired or cancelled, no action being taken, no one going to bat for Asians in this country like they would've if it were an African American, Mexican, or other minority group.

A recent example confirming this point

https://nextshark.com/ucsc-phd-student-racist-rant/

The department and UCSC are effectively standing behind a PhD student who advocates for genocide.

The targets are not quite the same demographics, but the reason both are tolerated is the same

It seems like crab mentality at work. Pulling down those that succeed the most.

Asian Americans are top performers, both in academics and income:

https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizat...

It's really not just academia where this occurs. In Hollywood and in everyday life, it seems to be acceptable for people to make fun of/mock Asian cultures, whereas they wouldn't (or they would think twice about it) do the same with most other minorities. I think the problem is that there's no repercussions to shit talking and stereotyping people who generally avoid trouble. What will it take for people to respect Asian Americans the same way that other minorities are respected?

My pet theory is that a lot of "identity politics"-type stories are really about punching up vs. punching down. The success, overall, of Asian-Americans means discrimination against them at least does not feel like punching down, and therefore doesn't attract much attention.

(Our test scores are also better.)

> There is a race so different from our own that we do not permit those belonging to it to become citizens of the United States. Persons belonging to it are, with few exceptions, absolutely excluded from our country. I allude to the Chinese race. But, by the statute in question, a Chinaman can ride in the same passenger coach with white citizens of the United States, while citizens of the black race in Louisiana, many of whom, perhaps, risked their lives for the preservation of the Union, who are entitled, by law, to participate in the political control of the State and nation, who are not excluded, by law or by reason of their race, from public stations of any kind, and who have all the legal rights that belong to white citizens, are yet declared to be criminals, liable to imprisonment, if they ride in a public coach occupied by citizens of the white race. It is scarcely just to say that a colored citizen should not object to occupying a public coach assigned to his own race. He does not object, nor, perhaps, would he object to separate coaches for his race if his rights under the law were recognized. But he objecting, and ought never to cease objecting, to the proposition that citizens of the white and black race can be adjudged criminals because they sit, or claim the right to sit, in the same public coach on a public highway.

- Justice Harlen, Plessy v Ferguson dissent [0], arguing against segregation.

There is only one time in American history when it was the official policy that everyone of a particular race (in particular regions of the country) be forcibly relocated to concentration camps; and that race was Japanese. Granted, there were periods of American history where the de-facto policy was essentially the same towards blacks.

Anti-Asian discrimination is the untold civil rights story of American history, and it never really stopped.

[0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/163/537#writin...

I would argue that "don't make fun of Asian culture" would make being around it awkward and make people feel like they were walking on eggshells. Everything is lambasted in media from politics to food culture, and it's normal for familiar things to be made fun of. The more familiar they are, in fact, the broader the appeal there is in making fun of them. I might suggest that introducing "endangered species status" to any culture that doesn't have it would be a step away from familiarity and towards alienation.

Not enough votes to make a difference.

We need an Asian University to take on these elite universities. Asian community has enough money and surely enough smart professors to make this happen.

We need just need an Asian billionaire to stand up and make it happen.

Could that be a startup idea?

Asian people are already alienated. Getting to the position where other minorities are would be a step closer to acceptance in American society, no?

I was still typing my comment when you posted yours. But prestigious HBCUs (Howard, Spelman) are great examples of how one minority community in the US has done exactly that.

I'd say the forcible relocation of Native Americans to the western territories was on that level or worse. They weren't technically imprisoned, but they were denied basic necessities of survival during travel and never returned to their homes. Unfortunately, This country has had plenty of racial cruelty to go around.

Our treatment of Native Americans is a somewhat different story. They were (and kind of still are) foreign nations. Our treatment of them was still horrible; but a different kind of horrible than our treatment of blacks and the Japanese (both of whom were at least 3/5ths of a US citizen per person).

Also, America's utter indifference to the pain and suffering we cause to foreigners continues to this day even stronger than our discrimination against either Blacks or Asians.

Would Caltech be one of these schools?

Worth noting that elite universities aren't elite because they impart special knowledge that you couldn't reasonably get elsewhere. They're elite because they get the pick of the litter from each graduating class. And top students want to attend, because the schools are considered elite (by parents, employers, other students, whatever), creating a virtuous/vicious cycle. Your degree signals your elevated status & improves your career prospects -- you were always intelligent but lacked the pedigree that would open the right doors.

So any competing "elite" university gets hobbled from the start simply by being "competing." Because a university degree is more social signaling and branding than a mere education. It's a really powerful bit of marketing: people will read this & generally agree (I hope). But then send their kids to elite schools anyway, which is the point.

A lot of people will point to Lambda School or equivalents as competitors of elite universities. The thinking goes that the Lambda School model (income share agreements + teaching practical knowledge, like knowing how to code) will replace universities. That is -- and I say this respectfully -- a brain dead take. I don't doubt that LS and others will be somewhat successful, but they won't even come close to threatening the value of an elite degree.

It's like thinking that people won't buy Apple products because they're too expensive and not really innovative. True in the facts (maybe, I don't really have strong opinions on Apple), but totally wrong in the conclusion. People miss the importance of perceived value.

A useful thought exercise (not mine). You're stuck on an island with a lot of raw materials. Would you rather have (1) a degree in boat-building from Princeton without the actual knowledge or (2) no degree, but full knowledge of how to build a boat? Most people, without thinking, choose (2).

Would you rather have (1) a degree in chemical engineering from Princeton, with none of the knowledge, or (2) all of that knowledge, but no degree? The fact that most people even hesitate to choose is pretty strong proof that the degree's primary value is marketing. Hypothetically, if you had (1), you could parlay that into a lucrative non-chemical-engineering field to hide your lack of knowledge. After all, you did go to Princeton :)

I'm talking about the US of course, no (informed) idea of how it is in other countries.

It's why so many people around the world want to become Americans. Americans have rights and can't be bombed by the US military /s

>Americans have rights and can't be bombed by the US military.

I assume this is the statement that you said sarcastically.

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/world/middleeast/07yemen....

I think it's more of a situation where group A has problems x y and z, and group B has problems f g and h, and you're saying "boy I sure wish group B could get in on some of that sweet x y and z."

If the argument is that such an Asian University is not going to be elite enough, I think there are very simple ways around it.

For example, let's say the current and former CEOs of IBM, MS, Google, Adobe, Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom, Marvel... got together, and created such a University and hired top Asian faculty from MIT, Stanford, Cal, Caltech.... with a small founding student body that is of above average calibre. I think that such a University would be elite enough.

We are not better off as a group that's socially acceptable to disrespect and hate on in American society. There is nothing to be proud of for that. Why can't Asian Americans ask for the same exact treatment American society gives to other minorities? Why do you talk of that treatment as a negative thing? It's good that people can't freely say the N word when speaking of African Americans. Do you disagree?

A lot of white Americans have a problem with this, I don't think most are aware that it also impacts Asian Americans. If they were, they'd be behind you 100%. Save a few extreme elements, most of us just have a problem with people being treated unfairly at an individual level because of demographics.

Better to be part of mainstream society.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiJ_2q3RzM4

The top performer attributes are also interesting, the majority of Asian immigrants come to the US with a technical job, resulting in children who tend to succeed in similar subjects and overall, as their parents are an easy role model, and are relatively well off.

This, of course, can be attributed to things like the Chinese Exclusion Act, etc., which made it extraordinarily hard to immigrate to the US from Asian countries, so only well-off and educated individuals could get here.

But nobody wants to be treated like a minority, in any society you want to be treated normally.

Yes, for other minorities, instead of observing the rise in the educational and financial success of Asian Americans and using it as a motivational example, in some ways what Asian Americans took away from Jewish success in America, they point to Asian Americans being too competitive and try to enact racist quotas so Asians only compete with one another.

They took the easy way out. They can make a huge movement out of going into their own communities and educating their members on the value of hard work and knowledge and encouraging their own kids to excel from a very early age in the same way asian parents do. They can attach an underdog narrative to it and show the world that through sheer motivation and will power they were able to, as a community, in a couple generations, rise up and improve themselves in a radical way. Instead they allocate their time to protesting and complaining that the system is unfair.

As explained throughout this comment section, much of success in America can be attributed to network affects, which are susceptible to social bias. That is the reason we talk about "Asian" and "Jewish" success, and not the success of individuals who happen to be Asian or Jewish.

Every group that becomes successful shuts their networks to black and brown people who are the descendents of the either de jure or de facto 2nd class. Asian startup founders do not take black people as business partners. Jewish academics do not mentor black students. White country clubs are still generally closed to everyone.

Cura te ipsum and all that.