> white and asian folks absolutely do have more opportunities than other racial groups, and that’s borne out over and over again, whenever people look into these kinds of things. If you look at academic outcomes, black, hispanic, native american groups are still substantially further behind than white and asian groups.
You haven't proven differential opportunity. You've only proven that some groups outperform other groups. You have not proven whether this is due to opportunities, discrimination, or hard work. Asian students, for example, spend more than 3x as much time studying as Black students.[1] Do you think there's a chance that this contributes to their higher representation at Caltech?
If your cultural group is substantially underrepresented in academia, why would you participate in academics? If you know the game is rigged against you, it’s perfectly reasonable not to play.
I wonder what black study rates would be if they were given the same chances as white and asian people are. Hopefully we’ll get there, but we’re still a long way off.
Indeed, Black Americans have suffered slavery and discrimination after emancipation. But is that the primary cause of the continued underperformance of African Americans into the 21st century? Plenty of peoples have come to America dispossessed, only to thrive and even exceed the average fortunes of white Americans - such as Cuban Americans like myself, Jewish people, and Asian Americans. African immigrants similarly excel, despite outwardly appearing the same as American born Black people. The difference is that we don't disempower these cultures by giving them lowered expectations: my parents never told me I should expect unequal treatment on account of my Latin heritage and I'd be insulted by anyone who would.
At this point, I doubt we'll make much progress toward resolving disparities in Black achievement without fostering equal investment in education in those communities. So long as Black students spend on average about half and one third as much time on homework as compared to white and Asian students respectively [1] the gaps academic performance aren't going anywhere. We can try to paper these over with more permissive expectations for admitting underrepresented students, but that has knock on effects: chiefly students admitted on account of affirmative action are less likely to major in STEM and more likely to drop out [2]. In this regard, affirmative action exacerbates underrepresentation in employment sectors as students that want to major in STEM are mismatched and change majors to graduate.
I'm honestly struggling to figure out how you think anyone who disapproves of racial discrimination is ignorant of slavery and the struggle for civil rights. Is your worldview really so narrow that you assume anyone who disapproves of racial discrimination is ignorant of slavery and anti-Black discrimination?
You keep citing this "hours of study" idea like I haven't already addressed it; when you see academic effort squashed by racism, it's no wonder at all that you stop studying. Fix racism in academia, fix the study gap, it's that simple.
Affirmative action does not exacerbate underrepresentation in employment sectors at all; if anything it improves representation, as more minority students are given a chance at completing college, which changes the makeup of eligible employees towards a more equitable mixture.
And I feel the need to remind you of slavery as you do seem wholly ignorant of its existence and further relevance to this topic. My citations are not generic "Slavery existed" citations, they're "slavery existed and to this very day has a gigantic impact on black people in academia. citations.
You are wrong, and harmfully so. You can continue to be wrong, but as long as you are, you also continue to be harmful.
> Fix racism in academia, fix the study gap, it's that simple.
If this were the case, the study gap would have disappeared decades ago. But it persists nonetheless. On second thought, you're probably right but not in the way you think: racial discrimination creates a lowered expectations for underrepresented groups and they put in effort accordingly.
> Affirmative action does not exacerbate underrepresentation in employment sectors at all; if anything it improves representation, as more minority students are given a chance at completing college, which changes the makeup of eligible employees towards a more equitable mixture.
Did you read the paper I linked? Probably not given that you responded 6 minutes after I posted the comment. Racial discrimination does increase representation, but it shifts the concentration of affected groups out of STEM and into less demanding majors. Before you try to blame this on racism inside the university, understand that the likelihood for students to graduate in STEM is the same across all races for the same level of academic preparedness. An Asian, white, Black, etc. student with 700s on their SAT are equally likely to graduate in STEM, as are students with 600s and 500s. An Asian student and a Black student with 700s on their SAT are just as likely to graduate in STEM. A white and Black student with 500s are less likely to graduate than the former two, but equally likely relative to each other. But due to affirmative action, there's a considerably greater share of black students in the latter situation. Worse yet, since these students often try and fail to graduate in their preferred field they take longer to graduate and come away with more student debt.
> You are wrong, and harmfully so. You can continue to be wrong, but as long as you are, you also continue to be harmful.
And I would say the exact same thing to you. You're wrong and harmfully so. The soft bigotry of low expectations is more subtle, but more insidious. Instead of pushing underrepresented students to invest more time into a academics and compete with their peers as equals, you're advocating that we simply lower standards. You can continue to be wrong, but as long as you are, you also continue to be harmful.
> Not only are you wrong, you're alone. Nearly nobody agrees with you who has worked in this space, the consensus is not on your side. Which is good for me and the push for equity, but is tiresome, cumbersome, and harmful in the meantime.
I find it odd that you don't even know the views of the people you're supposedly supporting. Nearly two thirds of Black people disagree with you. Yet you claim I'm alone in my views despite being in agreement with the majority of Black Americans.
> I always find it funny when people talk about "lowered expectations" Do you realize what you reveal about your own views when you say that? You're telling the world how you see minority groups as "lesser";
I agree: that's exactly why racial discrimination is counterproductive. Do you not see the message you're sending when you expect an Asian student to be in the top 5% and a Black student to be in the top 50% for the same role? Do proponents of affirmative action realize what this says about their views on Black people? And yes, discrimination of this magnitude are what universities are applying: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/06/23/a-lawsuit...
> Affirmative action does not exacerbate underrepresentation in employment sectors at all; if anything it improves representation, as more minority students are given a chance at completing college, which changes the makeup of eligible employees towards a more equitable mixture.
It creates mismatch. The result is predictable. The "beneficiaries" of affirmative action have lower GPAs and are less likely to complete STEM majors because they are outmatched by students for whom the admissions bar was not bent.
Does it increase representation? At a point in time, yes. But if the goal is to get folks into the executive suite, affirmative action may actually be a step backward.
No one denies that bad things were done to African Americans. We're trying to figure out what slavery or Jim Crow has to do with whether a Black student in 2023 decides to study or not.
My people have been oppressed for centuries. Most people come from people that have been oppressed for centuries. It doesn't factor into how much I study.
You should check out John McWhorter, who has a very different take on what it is to grow up Black these days. I have no idea whether you're Black, or how old you are. But the characterization you give is out of step with what a lot of people perceive. Folks like John find these sort of descriptions borderline offensive. Also demoralizing to Black kids, who shouldn't be told that the world is more awful than it actually is.
Except hard work will help you succeed academically if you're black. In fact, it'll help you a lot more than if you're Asian or white. A Black applicant in the top 9th decile academically has over 50% chance of being admitted to Harvard, as compared to under 10% for an Asian student with the same academic achievement: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/06/23/a-lawsuit...
If what you are saying were true we should be seeing Asians spending the least time studying and Black students studying hard. But your hypothesis is not only untrue, it's the opposite of what we actually observe.
Yeah but getting to that level despite all of the shit holding black people (and other minority groups) back is insanely hard. So yeah, once you're there it probably gets a bit easier, but getting there is nearly impossible.
What we do see are the systemic effects of an entire society normalizing a whole host of racist behaviors, including trying to play the struggle Olympics by comparing one racial group (who have a whole different set of issues) to another.
Comparing racial groups' admissions prospects isn't racist. It's just inconvenient to your narrative that Black students aren't rewarded by academic success because it so starkly demonstrates that it's not only untrue, but the opposite of true. A Black student needs to be squarely in the middle of the pack to have the same admissions chances as an Asian student in the top 10%. I'm baffled as to how you can convince yourself that Black students aren't rewarded for academic success - it's greater reward for the same level of academic success.
Your who premise that Black students are not rewarded for academic success - which other commenters asked you to substantiate and you refused [1] - is untrue, and you've resorted to accusations of racism instead of trying to argue your point.
I didn't say it was racism, I said it was bad logic. If there is an issue giving black people opportunities, it makes no sense to only measure the black people who already find their way into success despite the hurdles.
That literally does not make sense logically.
And I didn't refuse to do shit, I literally gave a dozen sources that all support my claim that black people have a whole host of things working against them when it comes to performing well academically. I disagreed that I haven't "proven" what I claimed when I very clearly and undeniably did exactly that.
What evidence do you have that hard work won't help you succeed academically today? Plenty of minority students have succeeded in academics through hard work. And how is that Asians managed to avoid this problem as a group? They didn't face any discriminitation?
And my grandparents either didn't live within 1,000 miles of me or died before the 3rd grade. Yet I learned algebra all the same.
Your links don't actually substantiate the claim that you're making. That's why people keep asking you to substantiate the claims that you're making about lower reward for the same level of academic success, and why your continuous referral back to these links is pointless. And now you're resorting to flagging comments because you can't refute them.
If my comments are so toxic, the correct course of action as per the HN guidelines is to not respond - which you have evidently not done.
> I didn't once call anyone here a racist person.
Yes, you did, here [1]
> What we do see are the systemic effects of an entire society normalizing a whole host of racist behaviors, including trying to play the struggle Olympics by comparing one racial group (who have a whole different set of issues) to another.
You wrote this in response to my comparison of Asian and Black admission rates, in response to your claim that Black people are not rewarded for academic success. In your response explicitly called the comparison of racial groups racist. Sure, you didn't call me racist. You just called what I did in the previous comment racist - as though I can't connect the dots.
The whole point of this thread is that black kids don't try to study because of past racism.
You now want to tell black kids that everything's shit so there's no point trying, then point to the inevitable result of that lack of effort as racism? Are you not the racist?
Society? You tell me. They aren't getting the grades because they aren't studying. They aren't studying because.....?
You atleast appear to support this 'truth' telling, regardless of the self fulfilling outcome.
Sorry what? That's not how affirmative action works at all, you have to be qualified for a given spot, the whole point is that there are way too many qualified candidates as it is.
Go commented:
> Asian students, for example, spend more than 3x as much time studying as Black students.[1] Do you think there's a chance that this contributes to their higher representation at Caltech?
To which you replied:
>If your cultural group is substantially underrepresented in academia, why would you participate in academics? If you know the game is rigged against you, it’s perfectly reasonable not to play...
So are they expected to 'play the game' or not?
Define qualified? If a get an E (technically a pass) am I 'qualified' to the same extent as someone with an A?
If I get my basic baseball proficiency badge does that allow me to play against the best baseballers the world has to offer? Just because of my race?
Further. You do understand the future danger of all this? If I'm looking to hire graduates and I know the black kids had an easier time getting in. If I want the best im better off not looking at the black kids. Their piece of paper is worth less.
Plus you're infantalising them. They should be getting there on their own merits. If they aren't doing the work to get the grades, that issue should be addressed, not papered over.
Black kids didn't have an easier time getting in, it's a lot harder for a black person to get to the place where they're even being considered for a prestigious college than it is for you to get to that place.
If you see a black person with an education from an institute like Harvard, you should think about the additional work they had to do to get there.
And by the way, those kids get the grades necessary to attend these schools. Why would you presume they don't?
But the whole point is that others have been putting in more effort thus the better outcomes.
Your position is/was that black kids put in less effort because racism.
So if black kids are putting in less effort because racism how can you then say they're putting in more work.
If they're trying and not getting in then that's something universities should be doing something about. If they aren't putting in the work universities shouldn't just be expected to accept lower grades. And the solution lies elsewhere.
You can't have it both ways. Either theres no point trying because the game is rigged. Or they're putting in more effort to get to the same position. If the latter then challenge the GPs assertion, instead of tacitly accepting it by saying that black kids aren't trying.
If you actually read the thread we are in, the reply this is under, which I have requoted, you will see this is on relation to education and study time.
Are you claiming revising for an exam doesn't lead to better outcomes?
You haven't proven differential opportunity. You've only proven that some groups outperform other groups. You have not proven whether this is due to opportunities, discrimination, or hard work. Asian students, for example, spend more than 3x as much time studying as Black students.[1] Do you think there's a chance that this contributes to their higher representation at Caltech?
1: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/07311214221101...