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Comment by krapp | Hacker News Reader

The renormalization of white supremacy on the basis that "meritocracy" just happens to favor white men over nonwhites and women.

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Considering the affirmative action weights for college applicants, wouldn't meritocracy favour asians? Or is there another reason they get pushed so much down by the policies?

And what's wrong with meritocracy?

"meritocracy" doesn't exist. "merit" is a purely objective social construct, contingent on political, cultural and racial hierarchies designed to favor the status quo - which in the US is the power of white upper class Christian men. It will simply be used as a means of justifying entrenched power structures and prejudice.

Because what people who object to DEI and equality programs always claim is the problem is too many minorities and too many women - the implication that minorities and women systemically don't deserve equal status to whites and men, and that in a fair system, they wouldn't have it.

> status quo - which in the US is the power of white upper class Christian men

Did you know that the White House staff is 154 [1]/474 [2] Jewish, and 44% ethnic minority [3]? That means Jews (2.4% of US population [4]), are 32% of White House staff, while non-Jewish whites (55% of US) are just 24%.

For perspective, Asian-Americans are 5.9% of the US, so if they were as well represented as Jews, White House staff would be 78% Asian.

Would you care to re-evaluate who the US status quo favors? If you're not convinced, I encourage you to apply the same analysis to the Ivy League. You'll find similar numbers.

[1] https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1658519373881933833

[2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/July-1... - these are roles such as policy advisors, director of congressional outreach, director of labor engagement, etc., not security or housekeeping.

[3] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/women-make-up-60-white-hous...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Jews

But if you look at affirmative actions, and the groups who get pushed down most by it, it's not white but asians who get pushed down the most.

On one hand you have black people who benefit the most, asian people who lose the most, and people like you, who blame white people for that.

I'm not blaming white people, I'm blaming white supremacy - which white people can be victims of as well.

But I've had this conversation with people more than enough times to know you won't appreciate the nuance. You have to make this about me and about victimizing white people, rather than a prejudiced system. I understand, but I'm not participating.

How can pushing asians down in favour of black people be white supremacy? If there was white supremacy, there would be no asians nor black people there.

> Because what people who object to DEI and equality programs always claim is the problem is too many minorities and too many women - the implication that minorities and women systemically don't deserve equal status to whites and men, and that in a fair system, they wouldn't have it.

Well it seems some minorities aren't fan of DEI either:

> Campus Diversity Is Campus Jew-Hatred

> How DEI is openly attempting to marginalize and silence Jewish students

https://www.commentary.org/articles/seth-mandel/campus-diver...

> The Uncomfortable Truth About Affirmative Action and Asian-Americans

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-uncomfortable-t...

None of these articles are from the perspective of "white upper Christian men".

Thank you for saying this. White supremacy has always been the fabric of the US. There was a brief moment in time where it seemed like we were making some progress but now white supremacy taking points have become very mainstream (you see a lot of them in this thread).

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