Split Affirmative Action Pros and Cons (split from Universities)

[Toni]

Mostly good points but Hispanic people have been here since long before the United States was the United States.

Of course, but they were largely run out by war. Then later, after the border became more permanent, many came in through immigration. The point being that a wealth disparity between an immigrant population and the broader population may not necessarily be due to racism, but such a disparity between two ethnic groups that have been here for the same amount of time can pretty much only be explained by racism.

Most of the Hispanic population remained. Los Angeles, San Antonio, San Francisco, El Paso and Memphis are just some of the cities in the US which were established by Hispanic people.

 

[CosmicJellyfish]

Mostly good points but Hispanic people have been here since long before the United States was the United States.

Of course, but they were largely run out by war. Then later, after the border became more permanent, many came in through immigration. The point being that a wealth disparity between an immigrant population and the broader population may not necessarily be due to racism, but such a disparity between two ethnic groups that have been here for the same amount of time can pretty much only be explained by racism.

Most of the Hispanic population remained. Los Angeles, San Antonio, San Francisco, El Paso and Memphis are just some of the cities in the US which were established by Hispanic people.

Fair enough, but California was 90% white in the early part of the 20th century. The large hispanic population that is here now is due in significant part to immigration.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Except I'm not refusing to acknowledge it. There certainly are some racists out there.

It's just I do not accept the notion that all the problems faced by Hispanics and blacks are due to racism.

You could maybe make a case for this in the case of Hispanics, but not black people. They've been here just as long as white people. Black America is not comprised of a recently transplanted mass migration. They've been here the whole time.

There are still immigrant blacks.

The fact that immigrants do not suffer the same strongly suggests that there's a cultural component.

Of course there's a cultural component. But where do you think culture comes from? Does it pop into existence out of thin air? No, it's shaped by environment and history. To the extent that black culture differs from the broader American culture, it is because of racism. If you want to tell me that black culture is dysfunctional, fine, but you have to acknowledge that that dysfunction is the direct result American culture's dysfunction: racism.

This is getting back to what got split off from the other thread about poverty. Poverty culture is dysfunctional and a disproportionate number of blacks are in poverty.

In my view, it is not only amoral in the extreme, but also counterproductive and short-sighted to expect black America to fix what America broke, with no help from the rest of us.

The problem is that it's a case where a solution can't be imposed. The belief that it's up to whites to fix it ensures it can't be fixed.

And Asians used to be discriminated against as badly as the others

Most of this was not done to Asians, and what was, was done on a much smaller scale.

While there were more atrocities the basic situation was the same. The difference is that it didn't go on for as long.

--yet they're now in the lead.

The US used to have comically racist anti-Asian immigration laws, most notoriously the Chinese Exclusion Act. During the Civil Rights Era, these were replaced with merit based immigration laws. Combine that with the massive destabilization taking place in Asia caused by the Cold War and the rise of communism, and you end up with a mass influx of skilled, educated Asians into the US. Asian-American prosperity is the product of a historical fluke, not anything in the way of racial or cultural superiority.

The "hard-working Asian" stereotype is a lie. The American right likes to use Asian success as a cudgel with which to denigrate Black-America and pit Blacks and Asians against each other, but it's all based on lies and a lack of historical context. Google the "model minority myth". A lot of articles and books have been written about this topic.

It's not a matter of hard working, but rather of a culture that values education and looking to the future.

Moreover, there are also a lot of different Asian cultures in the US. Some do really well, and some are worse off than black Americans on average.

The discrimination applied to all. You're completely missing the point, though--if there were some inherent lasting effect we would see it in Asians, also. We don't--that says it must be cultural.

Blinding the process ensures it's fair. It's not turning a blind eye to it, it's giving it no place to hide.

What you're turning a blind eye to is all unfairness that already happened before college even comes into the picture.

Yes, because there's nothing that can be done about it unless you can build a time machine. I'm interested in fixing it going forward, not in apportioning blame. Apportioning blame is only useful to the degree that it helps avoid a recurrence and that does not appear to be a substantial issue at this point.