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Q Cubed
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t3h y3ll0w p3ril
Apr 1999
time: 23:26
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quote:
Because minorities are discriminated against. But not directly at the job interview process. From birth until their first day of school when poor inner-city schools don't provide the same quality education as rich, predominantly white, suburban schools. |
minorities are discriminated against. and yes, directly in the job interview process (a recent uchicago study showed that a larger number of names with "white-sounding" names got callbacks than names that sounded "black", even if the resume were completely identical).
inner-city schools aren't often provided as much funding; unfortunately, in some cases they're given more: in dekalb county, where i went to high school, the poorly performing schools in the predominantly african-american schools in the southern half actually got substantially more money than the white-dominated and better performing schools on the north side. money and funding are obviously can't be everything.
the entire county can pretty much be considered suburban; although as in the case with most sunbelt cities, dekalb is so built up one might as well consider it part of the city itself. chamblee (a suburb) is to atlanta what hyde park (a neighborhood) is to chicago.
i was lucky, i went to the northern side of the county. thus, i ended up going to the less-well-funded schools; and in my applications to college, i like to think that i didn't get in on affirmative action, but on merit alone. so my gripes with affirmative action have nothing to do with me. i'm quite certain i can get by fine without having to pull a single race card in my life.
however, i have to say, i don't like affirmative action. not because of who it helps, but who it doesn't. last time i checked, asians were still a minority in america. i mean really. if you combined all the asians together, i'd still see more african-americans, hispanics, or whites in the us. so we're still a small minority.
we are discriminated against, often in slightly underhanded ways; i can't tell you how many times i've heard the term jap or chink tossed around casually, as if they weren't offensive at all. (in my case, it's a mixed bag; sometimes i'm offended, because it's a derogatory term, and also because i'm sure as hell not japanese or chinese. sometimes i'm not offended, because i'm not japanese or chinese.) the recent trend towards asian-exploitation films (a.k.a. wire-fu, kung-fu, etc.) isn't helping with that underhanded discrimination--especially since it's awfully difficult for asian actors to play any other part that isn't stereotypically "asian": the dragon-lady, the wise old sage, the kungfu master, the commie, or the evil foreign badguy. meaning all of us asians are wise but kinky kung-fu masters who are secretly communist, it seems.
it turns out that some asians also live in ghettos. nothing like the robert taylor projects, true; but these run-down regions are still rife with crime, danger, and rough conditions. the children also often go to bad schools, nothing like the ones i went to.
of course, there's always the response that of all the minorities, only asians really seem to have assimilated into america; we're the only ones to really have turned "white". which is probably why you don't see pictures of starving children in nkorea so much as you see starving kids in ethiopia; after all, asians don't have those problems, they're all developed and advanced, like the us. if anything, asians seem to be a victim of success. many of us, true, have come over and become successful in america; just as many of us, however, have not. but because of our successful brothers, the poor brethren are ignored. there are few, if any, outreach and education programs for them, to help in their health, or their education, or voting drives. there are painfully few drives to clean up dangerous asian neighborhoods. and the police don't seem to give as much of a damn about asian gangs.
because asians don't really have those problems. we're as good as white.
which is also why, by and large, asians don't get any affirmative action.
which is why i don't like it, and want it gone.
ideally, affirmative action should help those who are economically disadvantaged, not those who aren't white, or whitened.
but if you're going to make it for just those who are colored, er, a "minority", at least have the decency to let all colored minorities have a share.
i'm americanized, but i ain't white. don't call me yellow, either, since that's got all sorts of bad connotations.
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16-02-2003 19:02
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