[NeverFade]

The social justice movement presumes to "make things right", but often it's hard or impossible to do so, and trying can have the opposite effect.

Case in point: a black family whose great-great-grandparents 200 years ago were slaves, versus an Asian family that immigrated from a nation impoverished by colonialism last year. The child of the former will heavily benefit from Affirmative Action, while the child of the latter will be heavily penalized.

Why?

Who is to say that the child whose ancestors lived in a rich country for the past 200 years, is more "disadvantaged" then the child whose entire ancestry as far back as the records go always lived in a dirt-poor nation, further impoverished by colonialism?

[wizofaus]

Except those even able to immigrate out of such recently "impoverished" nations are a small self-selected subset of that population, that are likely considerably better off than those who stay behind and and certainly likely to be those with a strong determination to succeed. Perhaps you could argue the same of slave-descended native born Americans who then apply for college, but the former group are making the same decision, and at any rate, applying for college is rather easier than deciding to move your entire family half-way across the world. FWIW I'm generally skeptical of whether AA is actually a good thing for various reasons but I assume it's felt "something" has to be done to address underrepresentation of particular races in college admissions. Recent Asian immigrants if anything seem to be slightly overrepresented so for AA policies to have their desired effect, yes, they will by design discriminate against such a group.

[thworp]

The first and second generation descendants of dirt poor immigrants from Latin America are doing very well in the US (or at least better than African Americans). Some of the recent Caribbean and African immigrants even decry the toxic culture embedded in the "Black" community.

As an outside it seems to me that the issue is much deeper than economic calculus and I'd recommend you read/watch some of Thomas Sowell's thoughts on the matter.

[wizofaus]

And that would be my biggest concern about AA (certainly at hyper-elite institutions like Harvard) - it does little to address cultural issues among disadvantaged communities that work against social mobility, including the degree to which formal education is seen as worth pursuing. It may even further entrench such attitudes in some cases. At best, one might hope that if enough members of such communities did successfully navigate the ivy league system and prosper from it, it would prove something of an inspiration to others, but I suspect it's a fairly weak effect.

[NeverFade]

Also, embedded stereotypes are strengthened when the bottom of every class is full of AA admissions.

[wizofaus]

Is that actually what happens though? And does a phrase like "the bottom of the class" mean all that much when you're talking Harvard students? I can't imagine they're just taking in students to satisfy quotas despite them obviously not being capable of excelling in their chosen course.

[thworp]

Yes, I remember seeing an interview with a retired Ivy League professor (sadly don't remember who). He pointed out that many of the AA admitted students struggled with the intense demands of places like Harvard or MIT, but they would do really well at a slightly less elite university. Being consistently worse at everything than your fellow students surely doesn't help self esteem and confidence.

Now, some professors have actually started grading differently according to racial criteria. This will further wreak havoc, because the students know quite well how they stack up to their peers. It makes the "helped" student dependent on being given advantadges, which I think is by design. If your success in life depended on a gigantic bureaucracy of discrimination, would you be in favour of abolishing it?

[NeverFade]

Yes. Consider the case of Sandra A. Sellers, who was cancelled and fired after remarking that black students consistently end up at the bottom of her class: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/11/us/georgetown-university-...

It's a real problem, and you can see why nobody is addressing it honestly when these are the consequences of doing so.

> And does a phrase like "the bottom of the class" mean all that much when you're talking Harvard students?

Yes, very much so. It's no secret that we're starting to see a bi-modal distribution of outcomes for top school students. Contrary to the myth, graduating Harvard isn't (at least, no longer) a ticket to an exceptional career. Plenty of graduates proceed to have a normal (or worse) career that isn't better from what a graduate of a lower-tier school would achieve.

In tech, that means that while some top school grads end up in high-flying unicorns and desirable FAANG positions, others end up in sleepers like Oracle.

[andrekandre]

  > Some of the recent Caribbean and African immigrants even decry the toxic culture embedded in the "Black" community.

lets just say for arguments sake that is true, the question then becomes how did it get that way? was it like that in the 60s and 70s and 80s? did something change between now and then?

[thworp]

It goes back way further. For education specifically I'd recommend this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpzsJT1snd8 as well as Sowell's book on Affirmative ACtion.

The book Black Rednecks and White Liberals explores the cultural dimension pretty extensively.

[housemusicfan]

A good friend of mine was a Vietnamese boat person. Her father drowned off some rickety-ass boat during the process. I dare you to explain to her that she is part of a small, self-selected, well-off group and that her people are "slightly over represented" in higher education.

Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but this comment is actually pretty disgusting, part of this new type of thinly-vailed socially acceptable racism that is justified on the basis of being on the "right side of history".

[NeverFade]

The promoters of "social justice" decided to penalize the Vietnamese the US harmed 1 generation ago to atone for the sins of 4 generations ago.

The real reason is because they want equity - equal outcome for all. That means penalizing the overachievers and redistributing the outcomes they deserve to the underachievers.

Race and other grievances are just excuses.

[achenet]

> The real reason is because they want equity - equal outcome for all. That means penalizing the overachievers and redistributing the outcomes they deserve to the underachievers.

I think you should assume most people act in good faith and are just trying to be nice to people they care about, but because human systems are, like humans themselves, complex and flawed, this can create more harm than good.

There has, as far as I can tell never been a "them". Furthermore, assuming such a "them" exists tends to lead to all sorts of bad behavior.

[NeverFade]

I can't think of a "good faith" reason for why the grievances of some races are elevated to a top priority, while the grievances of other races, that are often more recent and relevant, are not just ignored - but these races are further penalized by these "social justice" policies.

It's likely that individuals that support the social justice cause have good intentions, however, the cause itself as a system is leading to paradoxical outcomes that are different and sometimes the opposite of what it pretends to promote.

[vacuity]

On the contrary, controversial wedge topics such as abortion and, namely, affirmative action show how divided people are. Good faith is valuable but often lacking; I daresay I could pull examples from this HN megathread. And HN is a small portion of the population that is engineered to be somewhat conducive to good faith discussions. I concur that many people here are genuinely trying to express their morals, but the discussion seems lacking in understanding. On these divisive issues, people fall into "us vs. them" naturally, and bridging the gap of understanding is not easily achieved. Everyone is an island in a sea of other viewpoints unless people make an effort to understand.