Asians: The Non-Preferred Minority

Lowered standards compared to what?

The type of meritocratic institution that you argue for didn’t exist in the first half of the 20th century. The top colleges and universities in the country routinely shut out jewish students who outscored the wealthy northeast WASPs (the main demographic that these schools). The only reason we have shifted to more numbers based college admissions was the increased emphasis during the cold war era to produce the top scholars in math and the sciences.

Colleges have always had to strike a balance considering statistical determinants (SAT, GPA) and other, more subjective criteria (personality, extracurriculars, athletic ability). Measuring students qualitatively– is student x a great person, a natural leader– was ultimately used to protect and retain whites and existed long before affirmative action was instituted for blacks. Unless a school wants to only produce scientists, analysts, and researchers, they desperately need (and want) to fill their incoming classes with more than kids who just have great scores.

You can’t measure great graduates with test scores or GPA.

It spoke volumes to me that, during the L.A. riots of the early ’90s, black hoodlums seemed to target specifically the stores owned by Asian-Americans. It was as if they took particular offense at a minority group which had chosen not to adopt a victimization mindset, and to work hard and succeed.

I obtained my undergraduate degree at a Texas University with a large student population from India and Pakistan, and a large student population of Mexican descent. While it may be different in colleges that focus on touchy-feely stuff, in the engineering colleges diversity was largely irrelevant except that a good number of those from Pakistan had personal hygeine habits that made them unpleasant to stand close to, which did not make them real popular as lab partners. My graduate degree (from a Florida University) put me in classes with a large student population of Far Eastern races (Japan, China mostly). Again, race was irrelevant.

F=ma any place in the world.

Chuck

Hmmm.

“Diversity” is utter nonsense. If you can’t hack the program, then you don’t belong there. I’m half-Korean and I think race in many regards should be irrelevant.

Frankly I think the black community is overly fixated on race as an issue instead of actually concentrating on fixing problems. And I think the whole race issue tends to lead blacks towards infantilism where failure isn’t really their fault, it’s the “Man” who did it.

I know a black guy who works as a supervisor for a large railroad. Makes over $80k a year, great benefits, fully paid pension, etc. And yet this guy looks me in the face and sobs out that he feels oppressed. Oppressed?!

It’s a strange world.

La Shawn, No need to post this…I’ve been reading your blog for awhile and just decided to chime in on this race issue since we are an odd family! Thanks for all your hard work, your insights, and for being brave as you fight the battles! Blessings on you. mark

Having been born in Korea to white parents of English, German, Irish, and American Indian descent with 7 natural children, two adopted Koreans, and now after 50 years…we find in our immediate family, white, black, Korean, Chinese, Arab, Mexican, poloynesian…I am saddened that we are still having to deal with race issues. Yet…I realize that Jesus told us that even in the last days it would be “nation against nation” or more of a literal translation, “race against race”. But, thankfully the Lord has allowed us (for what ever reason) to experience the incredible love and respect that our family has for each other.

In our family we have extremely educated (doctors and lawyers) to those who never even made it to the high school level. None of us complain or compare why or why not, fair or unfair…we just realize that some worked harder than others and some just chose their walk in life. We’ve never even discussed if it was because we were part of a certain race!

Mankind pretty much knows that we’re all connected in some way…but the nations still refuse to admit it. Hopefully one day it will change.

Gee whiz, I totally destroyed the above post. Let me clarify what it should say. ” The hoodlums who murdered and destroyed the thriving communities..so on and so forth, blah blah blah”

“Yet…I realize that Jesus told us that even in the last days it would be “nation against nation” or more of a literal translation, “race against race”.”

That’s certainly one way to spread racial fear and an End-of-World-whole lotta’-doom mentality?

With respect, isn’t that the hardcore Nationalist’s job?

La Shawn,

I rather suspect that one of the primary reasons why Asians excel in education is because their parents actually try to raise them. I can’t speak for the other Asians but for the Vietnamese, culturally, are very tight-knit and insular. No matter their dysfunctions (there are aplenty), I’d say most Vietnamese parents push their children to do well in school; oftentimes to the point of being overbearing.

Is it any wonder that black and Hispanic kids perform poorly when they have been fed from childhood that they are they are victims and deserve benefits? The logic runs: If am oppressed, I should be made equal. To make myself equal, I must either demand preference and benefits from my oppressors or I must tear my oppressors down.

Though you would hardly get anyone to admit it, inherent in this logic is that a)an admission of inferiority and b)an envy and greed unparalleled in human history. To take on the mantle of victimhood is to make unrestricted demands on the world… and expect them to be met.

Instead of taking on responsibility, victimology casually abandon it.

This is not to say Asians don’t do this. They do. But they do it to a lesser degree.

Case in point: I don’t ever recall an Asian history month. Have you?

I wonder why the 2005 Princeton study stopped at the removal of race. What would the freshman class look like if they removed the legacy applicants?

So much focus in on race, but it is class that is the real issue. Legacy applicants favor class, which tends to favor whites–at least for right now.

If we are going to eliminate all preferences, let’s make sure the legacy is a part of it.

BTW, the first post is excellent. And Taraji’s post is one that we love to overlook.

Since Thomas Nguyen is clueless; let me educate him on Asian Pacific American Heritage month celebrated in May of every year.

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/asianintro1.html

Just because you aren’t interested or don’t care that your heritage is indeed recognized in this country, don’t hate beause I do.

Thomas @15:

There is an Asian History month:

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/asianhistory1.html

I heard of this back as an undergrad as the local Asian American Pacific Island group had pan-Asian cultural events on campus.

Thomas Nguyen makes a great point.

What Asians have today is what most ethnic whites (Irish, Germans, Italians, Jews, etc) and the vast majority of working blacks had not all that long ago – a sense of duty and honor to your parents and the concept of shame – bringing shame on yourSELF and your family through personal debasement.

The problem isn’t “Asian over-achievement,” it’s the reverse. Blacks, Hispanics and whites would all be better off emulating the things that have cultivated success among Asians for themselves, rather than foolishly trying to limit the number of Asians admitted in the name of “diversity.”

JMK:

“The problem isn’t “Asian over-achievement,” it’s the reverse. Blacks, Hispanics and whites would all be better off emulating the things that have cultivated success among Asians for themselves, rather than foolishly trying to limit the number of Asians admitted in the name of “diversity.” ”

Yeah…that is all good. HOpe you are ready for the high teenage suidcide rates that come with that shame. Check out the suicide rates in Korea and Japan and get back to me.

Well, I stand corrected about the “pan-Asian cultural events” month. Living in and among Asians for most of my life, I don’t really recall ever seeing anything remotely like a “pan-Asian cultural events”. The closest thing I’ve ever seen on a celebratory month for Asians is “culture night” in high schools – and celebrates all cultures.

In any case, Ras is probably correct in the statistics he cites here. When, culturally speaking, Asian families prefer the males over the females, resulting in a heavily lopsided population in gender, you have a wee bit of a problem. But I think that’s really beside the point.

I thought this discussion had to do with Asians who have assimilated into America, rather than ethnicities within their home countries… If I had been mistaken in this, I beg your pardon.

Tiffany,

Ah… What can I say? I don’t live in and around schools anymore, and I don’t keep up with what’s officially recognized with respect to multicultural celebrations.

I see you are from Houston. That’s where I grew up, and I don’t remember anything like celebration for Asians for the month of May. And I’m not sure there should be.

However, I believe my point still stands. I cannot command every minutiae of fact, but I think my reasoning on this point is sound.

Can somebody help me out on this “legacy” claim? I think I am hearing that some large number of bozos get moved to the head of the admissions line because their families have a tie with the school. Am I reading that correctly?

Which specific schools do this?

I know a family that has three generations of Harvard graduates. They all went to the same expensive as all imagination prep school. That prep school sends most of its grads to “Ivy League” schools. It is a very demanding school and the graduates are top notch, although some of them have to take an extra year to graduate. Are these people part of the “legacy” crowd? (I should add that one child in the current generation could not get into the prep school and he will not be Harvard bound.)

Ras, is your argument that high standards and a more demanding culture is too hard? That hgih demands = high stress = high suicide rates?

It could easily be argued that low standards create a far greater problems…we have one of the highest teen murder rates in the world.

Is that what you consider to be the apparent choices – high standards and high suicide rates, or lower standards and even higher murder rates?

It would seem that more of a sense of shame among Americans probably wouldn’t be a bad thing at all, neither would more of an emphasis on achievement.

The thing that America’s economy has that some others don’t is the ability to make a good living in various trades (carpentry, electrical work, masonry, etc). There’s no shame in maming an honest living as a tradesman, but there is in failing to live up to one’s potential or to engage in impulsive, reckless and irresponsible actions.

Thomas:

Over half of Asians in the U.S., citizens or not, where not born here. So many Asians, at least partially hold on to old country values and norms. If you lived around Asians most of your life, and live in Houston than you know that a large portion of the Vietnamese (ethnic Chinese-Vietnamese (Hoa, or Yuan Nan Huaqiao), Taiwanese, and Mainland Chinese are foreign born. They are a majority in Houston. I lived there too, by Rice University, a few years ago.

I don’t know your age, but there is an Asian American History month has been for at least 10 years.

JMK:

“t would seem that more of a sense of shame among Americans probably wouldn’t be a bad thing at all, neither would more of an emphasis on achievement.”

I do not disagree, I was trying to point out that extremes in any direction are bad.

I think Ras (#25 & 26) took the “shame” factor to a ridiculous extreme…

What I took from JMK (#23) was this:

There was a time when people made better choices about their behavior because of the fear of bringing shame upon themselves and their families. Some parts of today’s society (regardless of race) have no shame anymore.

For example:

Just look at out-of-wedlock births – today, it is “no big deal” anymore for a woman (or teenage girl) to get knocked up. My mom (who graduated high school in 1965) seems to recall at least one classmate who moved away for a while, probably because she had gotten pregnant. Yes, there will always be people who participate in sexual activities without the benefit of marriage, but if there were still some measure of shame attached to being unmarried and pregnant, maybe more people (women in particular, since they are the ones who deal most intimately with the consequences of an unplanned pregnancy) would be more responsible in their behavior.

Same goes with partaking in illegal drugs, excessive alcohol consumption and other destructive or criminal behavior, or not performing to the best of one’s ability in school…

Thomas
Did you attend Shotwell Middle School (Aldine ISD) in the early 1980s?

James,

Well, yes, I attended Shotwell. Hadn’t thought about that place in years… But that was in the early 1990’s.

I agree that intellect has nothing to do with skin-color and that hard working black Americans who are provided the equal opportunities that they deserve can achieve just as much as any other group. I also agree that there are very real psychological, moral and spiritual challenges that black Americans must overcome to realize their full potential and contribute their best to this society. What I question though is how far the comparison between blacks and Asians can go before you run into the problem that our historical experiences in America have not been identitical. Black people in America today did not fall out of the sky in 2006 into a land of milk and honey where if you just work really hard you can achieve all that you desire. We were also not “immigrants” or even “refugees” in the way that Asians were and have been. One of the weaknesses of the arguments I see in many of the comments made on this blog is that thry are made as if slavery, Jim Crow segregation, lynching, systemic police brutality etc, simply never happened or if they did, they are somehow irrelevant to our analysis of black Americans in the society today. The impact of centuries of oppression based on skin color did not simply vanish because blacks were allowed to vote (one generation ago)or because some of us were given the opportunity to attain middle class status. Let me be clear, I am a proud son of black parents, both of whom came up from poverty in the segregated South and are now solidly educated, middle-class Americans with successful black children. But I cannot ignore the fact that their own parents and grandparents were not poor simply because of defects of their character. I can also not ignore the very real wounds that my parents have from succeeding in spite of racism. The need for healing among black Americans is very real and that is not simply a matter of legislation, its about love, love of God, love of ourselves, and love of our fellow human beings. This is what will allow us to finally be free of the self-defeating mentality that you rightly confront LaShawn. I guess what I’m looking for is that the very necessary critique that you offer and the folks who offer comments on your blog, be balanced with an equal level of compassion.

I agree with Phillipe. it’s all about compassion. There’s a lack of compassion these days in our society in every aspect of it.

I also agree that you cannot brush off issues of slavery, discrimination ect…. as it’s the trend today, people dismissing it as it’s a “thing of the past”

I see it more as generational curses that we haven’t found out how to deal with it and still has somewhat of an effect.

Lots of it is played by the society here as well. I agree that there are lot of things that aren’t working int the black community.

But someone was telling me is that there’s just a lack of “black is beautiful” in our society.

The media, society always focuses on aspects that aren’t working in the black community. One guest was saying it on O’Reilly, the reason you find more crimes, more violence, more drugs in black community is simply because if you’re always targeting one group, you’re going to find the flaw.

His argument was that there’s crime, violence, drugs in pre-dominantly white communities as well. Statistics show that there are more white doing drugs than black on a proportion level.

There’s always a focus on putting out the negative of one race, and promoting the negative of another race.

Compare the O.J Simpson Trial craze with the Scott Petterson case.

Compare the Michael Jackson baby dangling and the late Australian animal explorer who dangled his baby in front of a wild animal.

Who got more bashed Justin or Janet in the Superbowl incident.

You never hear stories about little black girls being kidnapped.

How many times have they referred to Dempsey from Grey’s anatomy as a hunk, what about Washington.

you watch a lot of the ET, Access Hollywood stuff, it’s very occasionally for them to put the work sexy, hunk next to a black celebrity.

Linking this to Black Africans. Any image you get of Africa is poverty, poverty and war and uncivilized people, I’ve been to Africa and there’s a lot more than poverty and war.

Do people ever consider a location for Africa for vacation, barely.

I gave you these few examples just to refer to just the images you get of the “black” race in general whether it’s from America or Africa.

I don’t know but let’s put it this way, if babies had the option of choosing their race before they were born with all the knowledge of race, I don’t think they’ll choose to be black.

I’m not blaming any group or anything, I’m just saying that to work we need more positive images, a notion of black feeling attractive.

I was reading about a gay couple who had adopted a black kid. One parent was complaining that all black kids ever aspired to be were athletes or entertainers. He said he wanted his son to have an MBA not be on the NBA.

Why not doctors, lawyers, teachers, president of the US.

I think we need to start focusing on the positive in order to rid the negative.

Hmmm.

I also agree that you cannot brush off issues of slavery, discrimination ect…. as it’s the trend today, people dismissing it as it’s a “thing of the past”

If “slavery, discrimination” etc were of such magnitude then please explain why it’s effects aren’t *more* pronounced with the survivors of the Vietnamese Boat People? People who had to suffer outrageous horrors on the open sea? Or perhaps the survivors of the Cambodian Killing Fields? Or how about survivors of the genocide in Rwanda that immigrated to America? Or the multitude of people who’ve been oppressed all over the world?

How about the Irish? Who were largely considered to be violent drunken vermin suitable for only the most demeaning jobs a 150 years ago? That’s well within the boundries of African-American slavery isn’t it? Or how about the Chinese Exclusion Act? The *law* that prevented asians from becoming citizens of America until it was repealed in 1945? Was there discrimination against asians after that repeal? Sure there was.

Why out of the vast multitude of people out there who have experienced oppression the one and only group incapable of getting beyond these issues are African-Americans?

It’s really rather odd.

Derek, while I get some of your point, much of it is also just flat out wrong. For instance, “One guest was saying it on O’Reilly, the reason you find more crimes, more violence, more drugs in black community is simply because if you’re always targeting one group, you’re going to find the flaw.”

Denying a truth doesn’t change a truth.

Crime stats are just that, a record of crimes and who’s perpetrated them and where.

There aren’t “more murders in the black community because police are looking for more murderers there,” there ARE more murders in that community because more murders are being committed there.

Despite Guiliani’s (actually Bill Bratton’s) harshness and his being reviled in New York’s black community (“It’s Giuliani time”) Bratton’s policies reduced the murder rate in NYC from over 2,000/year under former Mayor David Dinkins (a black Liberal) to under 500/year and in the process, the despised Giuliani administration saved many hundreds, if not thousands of black lives in the process!

If your argument is that perception (for instance the view that blacks commit more acts of random street violence) effects police and public policy, THAT may well be true. It was also true for cabbies in NYC (the vast majority of them non-white) who avoided picking up single black males and taking them to “potentially dangerous locations,” in the wake of a rash of cabbie shootings, virtually all done by minorities in minority neighborhoods.

In the ensuing firestorm of controversy, I recall thinking that most of the protestors had misplaced their anger. The cabbies didn’t deserve their wrath. Most of the cabbies were poor immigrants who assessed the risks versus the potential rewards of each fare and did what all workers try to do – to seek out the most reward for the least amount of risk.

The protestor’s anger SHOULD’VE been aimed at those few miscreants within their own communities who “ruined it for everyone,” by engaging in predatory behavior.

And these examples;

“Compare the O.J Simpson Trial craze with the Scott Petterson case.”

Derek, Simpson was wrongly acquitted, while Peterson was rightly convicted and sentenced to death. Simpson was still embraced by some, while Scott Peterson was reviled by ALL. I don’t get the point here.

“Compare the Michael Jackson baby dangling and the late Australian animal explorer who dangled his baby in front of a wild animal.”

Again Derek, Michael Jackson’s “baby dangling” came on the heels of his much publicized “child love,” and an interview with the late Ed Bradley where he astoundingly remarked that even in the wake of his ordeal he saw nothing wrong or untoward with having an unrelated child sleep in the same bed with him!

Steve Irwin took tremendous heat for his own stunt, but since he’s based in Australia, it was less a media event here than it was in his home country.

“Who got more bashed Justin or Janet in the Superbowl incident.”

OK, this one is easy. For better or worse, Justin Timberlake is seen as an airhead. If either of those two were going to arrange a stunt like that, in most sensible people’s mind’s, it would most likely have been Janet Jackson who planned it, as Justin Timberlake seems to lack the imagination for such things…and to boot, it was Ms. Jackson’s breast that was exposed…it was HER “wardrobe malfunction!”

Derek despite the past, despite any perceived odds stacked against any of us, we ALL must take individual responsibility for our own actions and arguments like these just seem to seek to excuse doing the opposite.

>>I never hear any pride in your heritage (people should be proud of their heritage who they are, black, white, Asian, Hispanic)>>

Why? What is there about “heritage” that should make someone proud? If you should be proud of your heritage, does that mean that if your predecessors are unknown or criminals that you should be ashamed? I understand that heritage gives you something to look up to, but in the long run, it’s what _you_ do that makes you, not what your forebears have done.

While I understand some of your points Derek, some of them are ill-defined and many of them are just flat out wrong, such as; “One guest was saying it on O’Reilly, the reason you find more crimes, more violence, more drugs in black community is simply because if you’re always targeting one group, you’re going to find the flaw.”

Denying a truth doesn’t change a truth, Derek.

Crime stats are just that, cold statistics that show what crimes occurred, who committed them and where.

There are not “more murders in the black community simply because police look for more murderers there.” There are more murders in that community because more murders are committed in those areas.

Former NYC Mayor Giuliani’s (actually Bill Bratton’s) “harshness” brought the murder rate in NYC down from over 2,000/year under previous Mayor David Dinkins (a black Liberal) to under 500/year, saving many thousands of black lives over the course of his tenure, despite being reviled in the black community (“It’s Guiliani time”).

A few years ago NYC had a firestorm of protest over cabbies refusing to pick up black fares, especially black male fares.

Turns out the vast majority of these cabbies were non-white immigrants who avoided picking up young black males in the wake of a series of well publicized cabbie shootings, virtually all perpetrated by minorities in minority neighborhoods.

These cabbies were engaging in what is commonly called “risk analysis.”

I recall thinking about how misplaced all these protestor’s anger was. It shouldn’t have been directed at all these poor immigrant cab drivers, who only did what every working person tries to do, pursue the most reward, with the least risk.” It is doubtful that any of the protestors themselves would’ve behaved much differently than the cabbies if the shoe had been placed on the other foot. The protestor’s anger SHOULD’VE been directed at the few miscreants within their own community who engaged in predatory behaviors that “ruined the quality of life for everyone in that community.”

Some of your other examples are equally puzzling; “Compare the O.J Simpson Trial craze with the Scott Petterson case.”

Derek, while OJ was apparently wrongly acquitted (judging from the results of the Civil Trial), Scott Peterson was rightly convicted and sentenced to death.

While Simpson is still beloved by many, Peterson is reviled by ALL, so I don’t get your point here.

“Compare the Michael Jackson baby dangling and the late Australian animal explorer who dangled his baby in front of a wild animal.”

Again Derek, Jackson’s “baby dangling” came on the heels of his well publicized and scandalous espousing of “man-child love” and his astounding response to the late Ed Bradley that even in the wake of his ordeal, he still saw nothing wrong, or untoward with having an unrelated child sleep with him in the same bed!

Steve Irwin took a tremendous amount of heat for his stunt, both here and in his native Australia, but since he’s not based here it was less of a media event here than it was in Irwin’s homeland.

“Who got more bashed Justin or Janet in the Superbowl incident.”

OK, this one’s an easy one. First, Justin Timberlake is known, for better or worse, as an airhead…a “mimbo,” if you will. So, the conventional wisdom was, if either of those two were going to plan such a stunt, that task would probably have to fall to Janet Jackson, given Mr. Timberlake’s noted lack of imagination. Besides that, it was Ms. Jackson’s breast! It was her “wardrobe malfunction.” That’s why she was the focus of that controversy.

The idea that “the legacy of slavery and segregation have left blacks handicapped,” is both demeaning (to blacks) and dishonest, as the black family remained in tact and strong right up until the late 1960s when modern welfare rules forced men out of the home and mired many millions of America’s poor, both black and white in virtual perpetual poverty.

Bottomline, regardless of the past and regardless of all the odds we perceive to be stacked against any of us, we are each responsible for our own actions and their consequences. You seem to be seeking some excuse from that, when none exists.

It’s clear just from the tenor of this debate that multiculturalism is as divisive as ever. The assimilation model that America had before all these “-isms” worked wonderfully for all Americans.

America is an idea sown together by a common language and a common reverence for two revolutionary documents – The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. All who immigrate and live in America are free to have these ideas imbued in their hearts and minds.

Multiculturalism and their concomitant ideologies say that differences are more important than what we all hold in common. It is the poison of this age that insists on being different, when to be fully human is to acknowledge and take delight in finding commonality, that is, having affinity and empathy for you fellow man.

It’s not what separates us but what we share that’s important, not the mere accident of our skin tone. It’s like saying, “I’m more special than you because I have black hair and you have blond hair.” It’s patently ridiculous.

Immigrants left their country for a reason, and I don’t believe it is to carry their centuries of hatred along with the luggage.

Multiculturalism, in its logic, undoes this. The reversion to factionalism, tribalism, and old ethnic hatreds are the fruits of this enlightened philosophy, not tolerance and magnanimity.

Thomas – While I can certainly understand and respect the rationality of what you are saying, I’m not an immigrant nor will I ever be. My ancestors didn’t come to these shores by choice and thought I have become an American (with the help of laws and because of the actions of courageous people) and have assimilated into the mainstream, I can’t view this country through your viewpoint. TO be honest immigrants of African descent often can assimilate better into the mainstream because they don’t have this country’s horrible racial baggage upon their backs. I have an MBA in finance and there are still some who will assume I didn’t earn my way.

But I can’t do anything about that. I can however live my life the best way I can. I’ve long since given up trying to change minds.

Hmmmm.

This comment is for Ed who listed a variety of groups of people who have experienced oppression historically and asks why African American are the only group who can’t seem to “get over” their history.

Sure those people have problems, but I wouldn’t say that they had any *more* problems than any other group. The very things you outline are problems in almost every ethnic group, age group and community in America.

But what you don’t see are these people screaming that it’s somehow all the fault of white people. You also don’t see these people screaming that it’s up to white people to fix the problems either.

*shrug* perhaps I’m less than sympathetic. But I had an exceedingly difficult childhood as an AmerAsian child in South Korea in the 1960’s where I frankly think I experienced far more oppression and discrimination that I think most of today’s blacks ever have.

Or maybe my skewed viewpoint is due to being raised in the wilds of rural New Hampshire where I was the only non-white kid in my county. Which result I won’t get into because it’s pretty obvious.

have some women choosen not to date me because I’m asian? Sure. Have I not gotten jobs I was certain I should have? Sure. Was it because I’m asian? *shrug* no idea but the explanations I was given were pretty odd. Did I get into fistfights because I’m asian? Yes I have. Have I had a drunk WWII veteran attack me because he thought I was Japanese? Yeah that’s happened too. Have I had employers try and take advantage of me because I’m asian? You bet.

*shrug* but is any of this important to me? Not really. It happened. It sucked. But anybody who lives in the past is someone who can’t live in the now or the in the future.

Maybe all of this is horribly un-PC of me but frankly I view most complaints by black people to be unmitigated whining. And yes I accept that my viewpoint could be completely wrong. I’ve been wrong before and I will be wrong in the future. And nothing I write should be construed being some sort of collective opinion of other asians in these comments, they are entirely my own.

But I went from an impoverished half-breed child of a prostitute in South Korea to a successful computer programer here in America. And along the way I’ve run into problems and had issues. But my faults are my own and my responsibility. So I find when people try to shift responsibility for faults to others to be extremely suspect.

*shrug* as always, YMMV.

Derek, I am neither proud nor ashamed of my ethnic heritage. It has nothing to do with who or what I am. I personally am accountable for what I am. My real ethnic heritage is “American.”

JMK, you probably didn’t get my point, but I knew most people on this blog wouldn’t understand.

I’m not going to try to re-explain myself or anything. It’s one of those things where people either get what you’re trying to say or nitpick what you say by generalisations.

All I have to say about statistics on blacks, is that I’ve lived in pre-dominantly white neighborhood all my life and all these issues people are talking are wrong about the black community are very well existing in many white communities I lived in.

But if you’re only targeting one group, of course the stats are going to show more of that group.

As for the trial, I’m talking not about the sentencing, I was talking about the coverage of the trial the simpson trial coverage didn’t get as much craziness as the Peterson trial

,

I’m not approving what’s going in the black community nor am I saying “it’s the white man’s fault or let’s blame the white man”

But I’m just tired or can’t stand the notion that racism is long gone or whenever someone brings out discrimination these days, the person is unjustly judged as another one of those “angry minority”

Racism, racial profiling, discrimination, unequality ect…. still strongly exists today in the American society and that’s one of the reason whether I’m debating to stay in the country after

the problem is that people cry discrimination at the wrong instances and people dismiss discrimination saying that it’s another one of those angry minority.

All I am saying is that there needs to be more promotion of self esteem that’s all.

Again, people experience life as a personal journey, I know what I see, feel or experience and can’t really experience, see or feel what other people go through.

From my experience and what I noticed on daily basis, I don’t see any promotion of what could be called “black is beautiful”, it’s always a beatdown on what has failed, that to me is the real problem a lack of self-esteem, self worth.

Who’s to blame I don’t know, but pointing the finger won’t do much. Doing something about it will do much.

People choose what they want to hear or believe but everyone experience life their own way.

It’s pyschological and sociological. Homogenous societies are much more stable.

Despite all the diversity and all, if you’re not an openly straight, white, male in the United States, you’re gonna have to work twice harder to achieve success.

Again, I go to the baby reference if all of us here had gotten the choice as to what race we would pick knowing the situations in race relations and everything, I’m suspecting not that I can be 100% sure that we would have chosen to be all white.

Again, I agree with all the issues that Lashawn points out in the black community. I’m just saying that she seems to talk more about negative issues or when blacks have done something wrong.

For instance, for someone who says she likes to talk about race, I was waiting to see her reaction in the Michael Richards scandal on how he cursed out two blacks in his audience making references to the N word and lynching.

Something tells me that had a major black comedian have made out racial slurs to whites in the audience, I’m getting the feeling that Lashawn would have talked about it.

Talk is cheap really, I always say that if people are dissastified about something then what are they doing about it. It’s one thing to point out the flaws, but it’s another thing to erase the flaws.

Bottom line is that America has too many domestic issues in terms of people to be considered the best nation in the planet (if there’s such a thing) unless you’re looking at an economical point of view.

I’ve lived in various places and I’ve seen healthier societies maybe not wealthy society, but much more functional. Like an old boss of mine used to say “no matter how successful a business are, it is nothing without a strong staff”

I would say the same thing, to me it lies on the people for the strenght of a nation.

An african proverb says that “the ruin of a nation begins in the home of its people.”

I will never know what it would be like to experience life as a an asian, hispanic, or white person, same way a white person will never understand what it’s like to live in a country that promotes one group from politics, to media, to entertainment to all other aspects and if you’re a minority, you just have a different experience at getting there and living it.

You may be labelled as “angry minority” or whatever, but no will know your experience or feelings until they’ve experiences, you can’t make up what your perceive, feel or experience, even if they’re wrong, you’re just experiencing what you’re living.

What I love about America is that it’s a very practical nation.

Derek, there are certainly crimes in the white community – and those crimes get reported, charges are filed and people brought to trial and convicted.

I grew up on Staten Island (predominantly white) and worked in the South Bronx (predominantly black and Hispanic) and I’ll tell you what we never had in Staten Island – “Squeegge men,” those vagrants who stood at the exit ramps of highways to extort money from motorists, specifically targeting female motorists.

You know why?

Cause some of the local citizenry would “convince” those vagrants that they were involved in a very “high risk” venture, if you get my meaning.

Same thing with domestic violence – it isn’t ignored in a residential community of single family houses. Your neighbors are going to warn you the first time, try “straightening you out the second,” time and have you locked up the third.

I can attest that there are no gangs of teens swaggering through the residential streets of places like Staten Island, Riverdale & City Island in the Bronx, or Canarsie and Bay Ridge in Brooklyn. It doesn’t happen because people in those communities won’t stand for it.

There are no prostitutes walking the streets of those areas, no punks slinging drugs either…and for the same reason above – the people in those places won’t stand for it.

There were however armies of “squeegee men” at most of the South Bronx exits of the Cross Bronx Expressway, and there were lots of thugs openly slinging drugs along those streets and all along Jerome Avenue, there were lots of prostitutes openly plying their trade.

Again, the stats don’t lie and stats aren’t “manipulated” by law enforcement.

The reason I worked in the South Bronx for nearly twenty years is that’s where the fires were.

I wanted to work in a busy firehouse and I wound up in one of the busiest and best – Engine-92 and Ladder-44 on Morris Avenue btw 168th & 169th Streets.

There were MORE fires in that area (Morrisania) and more murders too…in short, there was a lot more of EVERYTHING bad in that area. You know why I know? Not only did I work there, but the people who were victimized by these crimes also reported those crimes and they were virtually all minorities as well. There’s no reason for black people to accuse other black of murders they didn’t commit…so common sense tells you, that doesn’t happen. Crimes need victims, just as occupied structural fires require buildings – there are bodies and burned out apartments to attest to the mayhem in those areas, you don’t have the same in places like Staten Island and Riverdale.

If there were as many murders in places like Staten Island, they’d be reported by the people of SI and the cops in that area would be arresting a lot more people and the crime stats would reflect that.

Derek, on that point, “crime stats lie,” you couldn’t be more wrong.

Derek, a lot of us are disturbed by Michael Richard’s comments. I posted about it in the previous thread. It’s not okay and I won’t be making excuses for him, and while I can’t speak for her, I’d guess that LaShawn wouldn’t either. What does bother me, though, is that many blacks, comedians as well as politicians, ROUTINELY make racist comments about whites and Jews and NO ONE says anything about it. Debbie Schlussel’s blog today has an entry enumerating all the horrible racist comments Jesse Jackson has made throughout his career, as well as the comments Al Sharpton has made which has incited blacks to riot and do violence against non blacks. Yet these are still respected and popular leaders in the black community. Why? And Michael Richards has run grovelling to these two racist pigs, asking for the black community’s forgiveness through them. Why? I find it all so weird. Jesse Jackson has called for everyone to boycott Seinfeld Season 7 DVDs — why? Michael Richards had already apologized by that time, and anyway, what have the producers of Seinfeld or any of the other actors done to deserve having their DVD boycotted? And I have yet to see any journalist point out that Jesse Jackson is infamous for calling Jews ‘kikes’ and NYC “hymie town.” They’re happy to report on his scolding and chastising of Michael Richards, though.

The bottom line is that when whites say racist things or commit racist acts of violence, it is all over the news. When blacks do it, it’s understandable because “they’re angry and oppressed” or else the crime is reported as if it is just random and had nothing to do with race hate. It is not okay. There will never be any sort of healing between races until this nonsense is stopped, once and for all, and the rules of the game are fair for everyone, no excuses or passes.

Tom, what you say about Germany is true about most of Europe. Due to below replacement birth rates and other factors Europe has taken in a large Muslim population that has become a culturally distinct and antagonistic underclass, but Europe cannot continue to use this cheap labor, while both disparaging and despising them, without some very serious repurcussions down the road.

Europe’s immigration bomb is even more untenable than our own illegal alien problem which is a disaster.

Batyah, I believe you’re 100% right.

To me, the Richards episode is interesting only because of the way a PC Hollywood insider is treated so differently than a Christian Conservative like Mel Gibson.

People are falling all over themselves explaining away Richards’ outrageous rant, while the same folks haven’t stopped bashing Gibson over his onw drunken behavior – and Gibson never threatened anyone, as Richards did. Gibson was an “offensive drunk” that night.

Tifanny, I’m getting my MBA as well. I’m someone of African descent and many of my African American have said the same thing, they think Carribeans and black africans intergrate better because they don’t have a baggage.

I see it as, and until people start addressing these issues including the government who can lead people to address these issues, we are going to hear more of Mel Gibson and Richards’type of comments, people who are so called tolerant in a society where racism is a thing of the past and it’s gonna go on and on for the future generations to come.

We hear about them because they are celebrity, but I guarantee you that there are millions of people like that regarless of their skin color in our school, workplaces, our teachers, bosses, who have these thoughts inside of them and a wrong episode can get them to unload.

Derek, I understand your perspective, but crime stats don’t lie.

There certainly are criminals in every group, and police go after them all. All poice do is respond to calls. Those calls are reported to them by people in those areas. Police are assigned to various areas due to the volume of calls generated there.

If you’re a law-abiding citizen, more cops on the streets where you live is a blessing. I WANT those squeegee men locked up, I WANT those drug dealers and pimps and prostitutes run through the system and chased out of those neighborhoods. I don’t do bad stuff, why should they?

If kids in the suburbs drink too much or do drugs, they’re heading down a real bad path and that’ll no doubt catch up with them down the road.

I feel bad for those kids black or white, but I don’t want them threatening my family. I think it’s the most basic of social contracts, “Live straight or get locked up.”

My “freedoms” end where my neighbor’s nose begins. I don’t have the “right” to do things that’ll bring harm to my neighbors or lower property values where I live. When we do negative things, such things are “actionable,” either civilly or criminally.

None of us has the “right to do whatever we like.” That’s not freedom/Liberty, that’s “license.” Freedom is being responsible for everything we do, license is “doing whatever feels good.”

As you say, education IS a national problem and it’s primarily a problem because standards have been lowered and discipline has been reduced in our schools.

Kids don’t need “freedom,” they need discipline. School is a kid’s JOB. It should prepare them for the working world to come.

And “self esteem?” A great writer named M. Scott Peck (author of “The Road Less Travelled”), was commissioned to do a study on why some students excel and others don’t. He found that those students who tended to do very well, seemed to register VERY LOW “self esteem,” while those who tended to do poorly had relatively HIGH “self-esteem.”

He found that many of the students who did very well on various exams would fret all day over the questions they got wrong, while those who did poorly tended to base their “self-esteem” on other things – a poor performing girl would take pride in her good looks, while a poor performing boy would take comfort in that he was a really good baseball player.

Dr Peck (a psychologist) found that there was NO correlation between self esteem and doing well academically, in fact, he found an almost inverse correlation!

At another point, the U.S. Army had Dr Peck study why some Officer Candidate recruits did very well and others didn’t.

What he found was again counter-intuitive. He noticed first, that none of the highest performing candidates seemed to care how long or how quickly they finished his questionairres. When THEY were done, they were done.

He also found something else. One question they all answered the same was “What is the most important thing in your life?”

While other candidates answered things like “Doing well in my career,” My home life,” EVERY ONE of the highest achievers answered “MYSELF.”

And it makes perfect sense. If a person doesn’t first take care of and improve him/herself, they’re no good to anyone else.

Interestingly enough, Dr. Peck also studied serial killers and wrote about that in a book called “People of the Lie.” In it he asked these serail killers what the most important thing to them was…and they ALL answered “What people think of me.” In other words, “respect.” These men would justify anything in the name of having others think highly of them, while the high achievers in the Military all sought to improve themselves so they could first think highly of themselves.

I’m not assailing your perspective Derek, I’m pointing out that sometimes we can go through life thinking something is true, when it’s clear to everyone else that we’re laboring under a misconception.

You say you don’t “blame whites,” but you seem to hold a lot of race-based resentment, despite that.

I once did too, so I understand.

I grew up in a nearly all white part of Staten Island. My Dad had been in the Navy during WW II & Korea and then got on the Fire Dept (the FDNY). He worked in various areas, but as I approached my teens, he was a Captian in a busy Ladder Company in the Ocean-Hill/Brownsville section of Brooklyn.

I’d never really met any black people to that point in my life and never really thought much about it. My father was a fiscal Conservative but a social Liberal, who saw blacks as a group that was mis-treated as bad or worse than his own Irish ancestors who dealt with signs like “Irish & Dogs Need Not Apply.”

One day, I recall seeing the news accounts of the riots of the late 1960s. In those accounts were video images of black people hurling things from rooftops down upon Fire Companies.

I didn’t like that…and I didn’t much like them.

A thought crystalized in my mind – “Black people hate whites.”

Since I didn’t know any black people at that time, that thought had no real impact on me, but as I got a little older I ran into black people much more frequently.

My initial thoughts were that “these people are inherantly dangerous,” so I was wary and cautious around them and very rarely smiled in the presence of blacks.

But as I got to know more of them and started playing on various sports teams with blacks, I found out something startling – most of the black people I met were pretty damned good people.

I used to say “Some of the best and worst people I’ve ever met were Irish,” well, I’ve since found that out to be true of EVERY group of people I’ve ever known – “Some of the BEST and WORST are…”

I’ve had great experiences with all sorts of people and bad experiences with members of every group as well, the vast majority of people are good and decent and the few bad shouldn’t reflect on the entire group.

When you enter a store somewhere where everyone is of a different ethnic group…and they all seem to turn around to stare….as they look at you, you can think one of two things, “They’re all staring at me cause they’re bigots and hate me,” OR “They’ve all turned around cause they’re curious as to who just walked in.”

No matter what group you’re talking about, I’ve found that the latter is much more likely to be the case.

Thanks a lot, I really learned a lot from your experience JMK. You mentioned that I seem to have race issues,
I did have a lot of race issues growing up and still now and being the only black kid in school, work, at the birthday party, it’s more internal though, it’s not as if I’m blaming white people or anything, it was just a lack of self esteem that I overcame as I grew because a lot of time, in school or other group setting, people were always questioning your looks, your race, asking you all sorts of question, you felt different. It’s normal and human, whites who live in pre-dominantly black areas go through the same thing. Howard Stern talked about how he was bullied as a kid because he was white, all the whites left the neighborhood when blacks started coming BUT his family.

I really enjoyed reading your experience.

I believe that discrimination and racism is an individual experience while I still think depending on a group’s history, it can affect an individual just like stretching a bit, Irish and British have a bad history but again it will be based on personal experiences between Irishes and Britishes.

I have a multi cultural base of friends, that’s why I tell close minded people to look that not all white people are racists, in fact, I found it easier at various time to interact among my white than blacks (that’s another story). Some some of my best friends are Italians and Irish, really people that would go out of a limb for me and vice versa they have become like family members. Race isn’t not an issue.

I love having friends from different places, India, Taiwan, France, Germany, Africa ect…..

You brought up an interesting issue, your thoughts that black people hated white people. It’s interesting, the way it’s set up when you think of racism, discrimination ect…. you always think of whites as the agressors and blacks as the victim.

Blacks tend to think that if they find themselves alone among whites, that whites don’t like black people.

You never think that whites worry about things like another group not liking them, because we get caught up in thinking that when you’re white, race and racism is probably not an issue, when it could be.

many of the white friends I have have shared their fear as well of blacks not liking them because of experience.

I really enjoyed reading your experience.

This is the kinda of discussion we should be having at the dinner table, social gatherings ect…. the more people talk about these issues, the more it’s in the open and the chance to improve our relations when we get to share. Though we all have different opinions, I think the fact that we’re having something to say means that we want the situation to change and I guess that’s step 1.

There’s good and bad in every people, you can’t blame one group for the mistake of one and life is a daily experience that differs with every individual.

As for the Jewish Rabbi story, I always go by a, we don’t have to like each other, but we have to respect each other.

Glamchild, don’t be ridiculous…. First of all the “civil disturbance” was preceded by the acquittal of the policeman involved in the beating of Rodney King. Both that incident and the killing of Miss Harlan, was both caught on video, in other words indisputable evidence.

As for blacks having a “civil disturbance” following OJ’s acquittal……. Please!

“you always think of whites as the agressors and blacks as the victim…
..Blacks tend to think that if they find themselves alone among whites, that whites don’t like black people.” (Derek)

I think it’s natural, if unfortunate that we are often prone to think the worst of others. That’s probably a part of that tribalism and part of why it’s so easy to fear or suspect people who we perceive as not sharing much in common with us.

Back in 1990, I was heading back to Staten Island (SI) from a Bronx firehouse via the BQE because the George Washington Bridge was jammed. Anyway, down near the Verrazano Narrows Bridge to SI some of the entrances to the BQE enter into the left lane of that highway.

I was in the middle lane when a tractor-trailer got on. I could tell, only because the rig blocked out the sun to my left.

Suddenly my car jolted and spun around. My car (a 4 door Subaru) was thrown directly in front of this tractor-trailer. I remember looking up at the grill of this truck that seemed inches from the front of my car. I was blown past and clear of the truck and into a guard rail. The truck continued by side swiping my car as it passed.

I got out of my car shocked and dazed. Thankfully a city bus driver cut across all three lanes of traffic and kept the other oncoming cars from hitting me. He asked me if I was alright.

I asked him, “Any blood?”

There wasn’t any, so I escaped without a scratch.

Then I turned my attention to the tractor-trailer that had stopped about 200 feet down the road.

I looked at my car and thought that I was lucky to be alive, then I figured that the driver of this rig had to be a real jerk, so I’m thinking to myself, “If this idiot comes off wrong, just hit him, just pound his friggin face in and you can claim mental duress later on.”

The bus driver got my attention, as some cops started arriving on the scene…and when I turned around the driver of the truck was standing right in front of me. He was a short black guy (not what I was expecting), when he spoke, he said, “Man, I’m really sorry! I didn’t see you til the last minute.”

That one phrase, “I’m sorry” took all the air out of me. The guy wasn’t a jerk at all and it was just a bad accident. It didn’t make everything alright, but it took all the anger right out of me on the spot.

On New York’s roadways it’s usually pretty rare to run into non-jerks. So that was what I was expecting.

The truck driver had sought to move over into the middle lane, didn’t see me and clipped my car behind the driver’s side rear wheel…I was really lucky that I wasn’t killed. God was looking out for me that day…and he looked out for me again just four days later when I was in a fire in a vacant building at East Clarke and Walton Avenue in the Bronx and escaped a six story pancake collapse as the rear of that building came down, floor upon floor as we were moving a hose line in. There was a third close call within a ten day period, but right now, I forget the third event.

People can surprise you…good or bad, they can surprise you. So, it does pay to be a little wary around folks you don’t know, but we should be wary around all strangers, not just some.

There’s a radio talk show host I’ve gotten to know named Barry Farber – GREAT guy! He once started a group called “Enough,” he said, “It’s not about this group against that group, but about the decent among all groups against the indecent.”

THAT’S the kind of guy I’ve always wanted and aspired to be, not the scared, angry kid I once was.

LaShawn,

Your comments are bang on!

“Diversity in the classroom has a tremendous impact on helping with students’ critical thinking and social skills…”

These words reminded me of a comment a student recently made at our college: “I would like faculty to change. Hiring a more diverse faculty could bring in a different perspective. We have a very strong majority European-American faculty, which brings in only one perspective, and that’s not enough. I think we need more perspectives.”

Lamentably, this student’s comments reflect one of the dreadfully horrible assumptions that grounds multiculturalism, namely, essentialism. What is essentialism? Essentialism is what impelled Adolf Hitler’s genocidal beliefs and actions concerning the Jews. With multiculturalists, essentialism is the notion that race essentially cordons off viewpoints or perspectives that members of one race hold from viewpoints and perspectives that members of other races hold. Thus, for example, we regularly hear about the shortcomings of white linear thinking that needs to be enhanced, even corrected, by narrative and cyclical reasoning found in members of other races. Strange as it may seem, though assumed sociological essentialism gives multiculturalism seeming virtue to engineer racial diversity in the cause of increasing perspectival diversity multiculturalism, it simultaneously assumes that race is simply a social construction. For anyone who ponders these matters for a few moments it does not take long to realize that to believe simultaneously in sociological essentialism and in the notion that race is socially constructed is to flout the law of noncontradiction. But avoidance of logical fallacies has never been the strength of multiculturalism’s advocates.

Your following comments are so correct that they are worthy of reiterating.

“The emphasis on skin color for its own sake and the annoying and mind-numbing politically correct tip-toeing got on my nerves even when I was a liberal. I can’t imagine what it’s like these days as a conservative in college, where you can’t say a darn thing that’s negative about any race other than white without being called a racist.

“Let’s define ‘critical thinking.’ It is the cognitive process of ‘conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information to reach an answer or conclusion.’ Now use your critical thinking skills to conceptualize, apply, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate this: Discussing negative aspects of “diversity” in general or racial groups in particular are taboo, unless the racial group is white, so how does one develop critical thinking skills if one can’t discuss and evaluate topics that may be offensive to some? How does one “reach an answer or conclusion” with incomplete and ‘undebated’ information? It’s difficult to develop critical thinking skills when discussions with even a hint of negativity about race are taboo.

“At this point you may be asking, ‘La Shawn, why would people need to discuss negative aspects of racial groups? Why is it relevant, and what does it have to do with developing critical thinking skills?’

“Skin color diversity-obssessed folks talk incessantly about race and promote it every chance they get. But if you’re going to promote skin color and “cultural” distinctions among students yet discourage them from talking about all aspects of race and culture, for example, what’s the point?

“There isn’t supposed to be a point. That’s the point. Critical thinking, as defined by liberals, is what they want you to think; hence, thought control through speech codes. Critical thinking is acknowledging the sins of white people in particular and America in general. Period.”

Derek, you commented on how impressed Muhammed Ali was with Africa. Remember he said this, too: Ali had been in Africa to fight George Foreman in the “Rumble in the Jungle.” Asked by a reporter about his impressions of the mother continent, Ali replied “Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat.”

Okay, I’m Chinese/Asian American, and occasionally skim this blog. I kinda lost the question in the diverging threads here. So let me just share my reaction as I worked my way through all this:

Academic institutions primarily have control and power over their campus environment. To encourage more racial diversity in its admissions selection and its faculty appointment is on the whole surfacey, and doesn’t really address the institutional and structural issues within society, in the corporate world, or even in the academic institution itself. Case in point: let’s take a look at the racial diversity of the colleges’ and universities’ board of directors, executive/leadership team, and, ahem, you’ll probably find the numbers to show an overwhelming majority of white Anglo-Americans. So what good is all this maneuvering for multiculturalism and diversity anyways?