Comment by Manuel_D | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Manuel_D | Hacker News Reader

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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?

1. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2017/...

2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6675032/

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.

> 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.

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