[rayiner]

Would you recognize a “PoC” viewpoint if you read it? I mean the term itself is a fake label that is basically only used by white people and elite non-whites who must navigate white spaces and institutions. My whole family is non-white immigrants, and I never even heard the term “PoC” until I went to graduate school and encountered far left white people. I think you probably have to be in the leftmost 10-15% of the political spectrum to use “PoC” unironically.

The funny thing is that, insofar as you’re talking about what the US is doing “abroad,” I’m very plugged into that political sentiment, since my home country was on the receiving end of some stupid American foreign policy choices, and my dad works in international development. I know lots of Nigerians, Palestinians, etc., but nobody would call themselves “PoC.” It’s an utterly non-sensical and reductive label.

The NYT certainly platforms self-identified “PoC,” but as far as I can tell, their viewpoints are limited to ones that flatter white liberal NYT readers. Would the NYT ever platform all the Bangladeshis I know that begrudgingly credit Trump for pulling out of Afghanistan or opposing the war in Ukraine? Would they publish my parents, who think affirmative action is a threat to Asians and want the state department to stop flying pride flags in Muslim countries? And would you even recognize that as a genuine “PoC” view if you read it?

[unclebucknasty]

>the term itself is a fake label that is basically only used by white people and elite non-whites who must navigate white spaces and institutions.

That's overly reductive and dismissive. An alternative POV is that language changes over time to introduce terminology that is now relevant due to some new context, shift in social dynamics, demographic changes, etc.

There are certainly people who identify as PoC in some of these contexts who who don't fit neatly into the two buckets you prescribed.

>My whole family is non-white immigrants, and I never even heard the term “PoC”

See above. Additionally, the history of race in the U.S. certainly does not impact every race identically. The phrase PoC does have a particular meaning and intent to describe a dynamic with certain groups that also have socioeconomic and other historical properties in common.

In any case, the term was likely never intended to be taken literally, hence to include your experience. But, that does not delegitimize it.

I would encourage you to consider that your family's experience as immigrants is distinctly different for many reasons that significantly impact your worldview. Not the least of these is a desire to identify with the majority in the nation to which you've voluntarily immigrated. This seems quite natural to me. But, for some, this impulse sometimes extends to a certain "fervor" to de-identify with other groups (e.g. PoCs) and their perspectives.

I've seen many of your comments along the lines of this one and it strikes me that there appears to be very little attempt to empathize with other experiences unlike yours. Further, your perspective frequently adopts the biased and somewhat punitive elements of some majority positions; for instance, concern that affirmative action discriminates against Asians in spite of the well-known data that shows everyone is far more disadvantaged by legacy and wealth.

So, it's also true that language can take on political connotations, especially in today's climate. And, that has certainly happened with this phrase. The same dynamics that animate your interpretation of affirmative action, etc. also make you disdainful of the PoC label.

[rayiner]

> for instance, concern that affirmative action discriminates against Asians in spite of the well-known data that shows everyone is far more disadvantaged by legacy and wealth.

First, affirmative action is morally wrong. We shouldn’t inflict the concept of race on the next generation. Second, you can get rid of both affirmative action and legacy admissions.

Third, the math on that idea just doesn’t work. Eliminating affirmative action tends to almost double the percentage of Asians from 20% closer to 40%. There’s no way eliminating legacy admissions would have a similar effect. It’s simply not possible under any system of race balancing to make Asians better off than they would be in a race-blind system. More generally, when you’re a minority group that’s 6% of the population but accounts for 20% of the seats at Harvard and 40% of Silicon Valley, “equity” is simply contrary to your self interest.

[unclebucknasty]

>you can get rid of both affirmative action and legacy admissions.

Sure you could. But the point is about where the conversation has been directed and where the emphasis is placed, including by you.

>affirmative action is morally wrong. We shouldn’t inflict the concept of race on the next generation.

But, we should forget the impact of the legacy of race for some members of those same generations?

The problem with these kinds of arguments is that their proponents frequently recast corrective actions as "the immoral racist thing", then dismiss them as immoral and racist.

So, it begs the question of course. But, it's not exactly intellectually honest to start the clock at the place that suits one's argument.

The unfortunate truth is that race was the basis for what needs to be corrected. That wasn't a choice made by those in need of the correction.

The other elephant in the room, conspicuously missed by these kinds of arguments, is that racial discrimination continues to this day; not by law, but by biases, social networks and other artifacts from the era of overt and codified discrimination. Affirmative action also acknowledges this plain fact. The counter from those intellectually honest enough to also acknowledge it frequently runs something along the lines of "yes, but we can't fix discrimination with more discrimination". The truth is that we actually can, but it does require that people stop inciting resentment by facilely re-framing these corrections as merely more "immoral" discrimination.

And, what do we propose those on the receiving end do while society works through its ongoing issues with discrimination?

>Eliminating affirmative action tends to almost double the percentage of Asians from 20% closer to 40%

Your numbers here suspiciously align with Harvard demographics, and indeed you go on to cite that same 20% explicitly for Harvard.

And, that is stunning. You are essentially replacing every admitted student who could have taken advantage of affirmative action with Asian students.

The obvious conclusions are that:

1. Virtually every Black, Latin, indigenous and otherwise "affirmative action eligible" student at Harvard would not have been admitted, save for affirmative action.

2. Every seat taken by those students would have instead been occupied by an Asian student.

Not only is this wildly presumptuous and flat wrong, it reveals a lot about your thinking, including some "biases" (to state it euphemistically). There is a certain "they wouldn't have earned it anyway" undertone here, which also animates anti-AA arguments in the main. Poetically, these are exactly the kinds of biases I mentioned earlier, which lead to ongoing discrimination that AA seeks to address.

It also conveys a very specific POV—more accurately, narrative—that dishonestly frames affirmative action as a war between Asians and Blacks or other non-privileged groups, while de-emphasizing the effects of legacy and wealth. You have, essentially, been misdirected and enlisted as a proxy.

It's a time honored tradition to scapegoat underprivileged groups while the privileged enjoy the spoils. And, in spite of your claim that "the math doesn't work"—which you appear to have supported only with faulty assumptions—the numbers actually bear out who's really winning:

  "In 2022, Harvard’s overall acceptance rate was 3.2%. The average admit rate was approximately 42% for donor-related applicants and 34% for legacies." [0]

Black and LatinX admittance stands at around 7%. So even assuming their overfitting is all due to affirmative action, this pales in comparison to donors and legacies, in both percentages and real terms (butts in seats, displacing other butts in seats).

[0]https://www.forbes.com/sites/shaunharper/2023/07/05/legacy-a...

[rayiner]

> An alternative POV is that language changes over time to introduce terminology that is now relevant due to some new context, shift in social dynamics, demographic changes, etc.

Yes, the term was introduced due to the need in some circles to extend the white/black dichotomy of US politics to encompass Asians and Hispanics. But that label doesn’t serve the distinct interests of Asians and Hispanics.

> I would encourage you to consider that your family's experience as immigrants is distinctly different for many reasons that significantly impact your worldview.

Of course, but that’s exactly my point. The majority of people encompassed by the label “POC” are immigrants or descendants of relatively recent immigrants (excepting native Hawaiians and Tejanos and the like). But the term “POC” is based on the experiences of ADOS and indigenous Americans. It erases a salient distinction (the common experiences shared by immigrants), and elevates a superficial distinction (non-white skin).

> But, for some, this impulse sometimes extends to a certain "fervor" to de-identify with other groups (e.g. PoCs) and their perspectives.

Of course they do. Immigrants already have a pre-existing identity based on shared culture, language, and history. Why would they identify with other people with whom they have little in common, culturally or in terms of political interests? Why would they embrace “people of color” as an identity, which denotes no cultural or historical ties, but exists in mere juxtaposition to white people?

The term “POC” also obscures a fundamental conflict in economic interests between immigrants and ADOS/indigenous people. Immigrants are all basically at various stages of the same economic assimilation curve. Guatemalan Americans are poorer than Swedish Americans, but that’s because of timing of immigration; upward mobility is similar between the two. Immigrant POC thus have a strong interest in “not fixing what isn’t broken” (for them). By contrast, economic gaps between black/indigenous people and everyone else haven’t been closing over generations. They remain as big now as in 1960. Those groups this have strong economic incentives to demand fundamental changes.

That is not to say that individual Asians and Hispanics may not favor such changes for the same reason many individual white people do. But the starting point must be recognizing that different groups are distinct and have distinct interests.