I'm an oppressed white middle-class male.

[blindside]

This raises an interesting question. This is not meant to be racist, but one cannot fail to notice that Asian migrants even if they come from poor non-English speaking backgrounds tend to do well, if not in the first generation, the second. But Hispanic and blacks seem to find it much tougher to "break the cycle of poverty" so to speak. Actually blacks in America have the advantage over Asians of being native English speakers, having grown up in the US and are culturally acclimatised.

I don't think the reason for the difference is because of any in-bred racial superiority of Asians, but it is likely that maybe cultural differences, esp. the way various cultures approach scholarly achievement is the explanation? I strongly believe that there is no real difference in potential between different races. However, there are probably certain cultural traits which may explain why poor Asians can regularly break the poverty trap while Hispanics and blacks find it difficult to break free. Perhaps it might be better to identify these elements of the culture that allows Asians to break out of the poverty trap and try to encourage them amongst Hispanics and blacks? One thing I can think of is that Asian parents tend to push their kids very hard. Also the first generation of Asian parents tend to not really believe in divorce and you will find very few single parents amongst the first generation. Family support, esp. of kids by their parents is very strong (though this can lead to smothering...) Maybe encouraging parents to take pride in their kids' scholarly achievements and encouraging more stable family backgrounds would help?

I think Asian people that come to the US usually were better off back home then people from Mexico for example. Also alot of middle class Asians you probably see in your school and what not come equally endowed families back home. They moved to the US for security, better life for the kids or their multi national countries pretty much import them in.

 

[Mise]

Newfangle, I already explained that the racism wasn't so blatant that the public was aware of it. The people aware of it are exactly the people being discriminated against, and the people who brought it to the attention of the government (i.e. not "the public" -- how could they?).

It seems to me, newfangle, that you give far too much credit to businesses. If all businessmen had perfect business sense, and businesses did exactly what was best for business, no business would ever go out of business.

It is exactly because we are individuals and not mindless drones that we don't do what is (or rather, what may be seen as) logical or rational in every situation.

And it's certainly not true that a business who selects only whites will do any worse than a business who selects a mixture. Like I said, the racism is used as a tie-breaker, i.e. when two candidates are equally capable of doing a job, the white person gets it over the black, asian or hispanic. So the business doesn't go under, because no matter who is selected they are equally capable of doing the job.

 

[newfangle]

It seems to me, newfangle, that you give far too much credit to businesses. If all businessmen had perfect business sense, and businesses did exactly what was best for business, no business would ever go out of business.

I'd saying go out of business is fair punishment for ******ed businessmen.

And it's certainly not true that a business who selects only whites will do any worse than a business who selects a mixture. Like I said, the racism is used as a tie-breaker, i.e. when two candidates are equally capable of doing a job, the white person gets it over the black, asian or hispanic. So the business doesn't go under, because no matter who is selected they are equally capable of doing the job.

I don't buy this notion of a "tie." No two humans are equally capable in every area, not even on paper.

 

[Mise]

I don't buy this notion of a "tie." No two humans are equally capable in every area, not even on paper.

Some people don't care that one person is ever so slightly better than another person. I mean, if two people apply to a bank, have the same degree's, and one has 2 years experience in a HSBC and the other 2 years in RBS (they're both banks in the UK), they're not going to care really.

Not to mention that most humans can't tell what every area might be, much less measure how capable someone is in every area. So tie's are actually quite common. They need not be identical, just similar enough so that the average Joe Supermarket Manager can't tell the difference.

 

[newfangle]

Ok, let's assume that two people are identically equal on paper to the store manager.

Let's say the employment process then moves to the interview stage.

Will these two people interview the exact same as well?

 

[Mise]

At a supermarket? Probably. (Unless the manager would prefer a white man behind the till or stacking shelves. Or maybe an Indian accent annoys him.)

 

[Joey_Ramone]

Two words sum up the difference between Asians and other races/ethnicities/communities/peoples/(insert your favourite Politically Correct word here) : Valuing education . Above everything else .

That and the fact that they are willing to take responsibily and don't want hand outs. Many blacks believe "the man" is keeping them down, so they don't even try.

 

[Uiler]

I think Asian people that come to the US usually were better off back home then people from Mexico for example. Also alot of middle class Asians you probably see in your school and what not come equally endowed families back home. They moved to the US for security, better life for the kids or their multi national countries pretty much import them in.

This is certainly not true. I should know as I was born in China and moved to the West when I was a kid with my family. There are a lot of Asian families which do come from middle-class or upper-class families, but I grew up in a Chinese immigrant community where most of the people come from poor backgrounds. Take for example my parents. Dad, never finished high school (thanks to Mao). My grandparents were farmers (house: little electricity, no running water, no inside toilets, dirt roads). Mum: Dad died when she was 12. Abandoned by mother who could only take care of a few of her many kids and chose the boys. Started Grade 1 when she was 12 paying the school fees by working as a maid. Only went up to Grade 6. When they came to the West they could hardly speak any English (they still can't) and had kids and an elderly couple to take care of. Got jobs as kitchen hands working in horrible conditions and gradually worked up to cook. For example, the conditions: no holidays. Work from 10am-3pm, 5pm-10/11pm 6 days a week. Extremely hot kitchen, not allowed to sit down to rest (or you can get in deep trouble from the boss) so you have to stand the entire time. Poor pay. At one point Dad burnt his hand badly with hot oil and still went to work the next day because if he didn't go he would lose his job. Mum was cleaning toilets while she was heavily pregnant (until they gave the job to a relative of the boss). Suplemented income by selling vegies grandparents grew in the backyard. Gradually saved up. When we first moved we lived in a single room in a relative's place for a couple of years (6 to a room, mattresses on the floor). Then we got rented accomodation and finally could buy a house (I still remember the small B & W TV we had. And this was in the late 80s...). Then we got our own business (a restaurant) and bought rental property. The point being, in the community I grew up in, I can tell a dozen stories like this. A lot of the Chinese families I know started with nothing - no education, no English, no money and they end up OK and with kids in university. Actually in some cases I think they are better set for retirement than many white middle-class families. This is because they are obsessive savers and don't get into so much debt.

One thing is that these Chinese parents do take their kid's education very seriously, to the point of brutality sometimes. Seriously, when I was 6 my parents threatened to beat me if I didn't learn one set of times table a night (damn my older brother. If it wasn't for the fact that he learnt his when he was 5 so my parents thought I was slow...). I quickly learnt all the times table up to 12. They even bought a times table poster and stuck it to the wall right next to the bed so I could stare at it...Then there were the novels I was forced to copy out in elementary school during the holidays to improve my handwriting (on the bright side of things I became very good at wrting neatly and quickly, which became very useful for tests later on). But that's probably an extreme example.

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

Ok, let's assume that two people are identically equal on paper to the store manager.

Let's say the employment process then moves to the interview stage.

Will these two people interview the exact same as well?

But the interviewer will pick the middle-class white male, simply because he is a racist jerk.

 

[Mise]

But the interviewer will pick the middle-class white male, simply because he is a racist jerk.

At least try to be sensible. How much better can one person do than another in an interview for a job stacking shelves? His accent and his turban would be the determining factor, not his interview skills.

 

[newfangle]

What if the employer values an employee with very fluent english so he can understand instructions?

 

[Cheetah]

Two words sum up the difference between Asians and other races/ethnicities/communities/peoples/(insert your favourite Politically Correct word here) : Valuing education . Above everything else .

That and the fact that they are willing to take responsibily and don't want hand outs. Many blacks believe "the man" is keeping them down, so they don't even try.

I would say that the difference lies in the culture of the subgroup of people from Asia or African-Americans, etc.

It is not necessarilly the culture of all Asians to value education, and not necessarilly the culture of all Afro-Americans to not value education.

But there is a lot of Asians valuing education very, very much, and a number of African-Americans that do not (You also have subgroups of white Americans that does not value education, and those that do, etc). That is a very clear difference between those subgroups, and a clear reason why people from different subgroup's cultures does better in education and life after education.

 

[Mise]

What if the employer values an employee with very fluent english so he can understand instructions?

Such as..... put the milk in the dairy section? I don't think there's any situation where an Asian, especially a naturalised American or second generation Asian immigrant (who probably speaks better English than most American high school graduates) would have problems understanding instructions. At the end of the day, in jobs which don't require high skills, or where those skills are in low demand, it all boils down to the employer's personal preference. (And I won't be so naive to deny that it doesn't happen the other way around -- a number of minority employers only employ minorities themselves.)

(I didn't mean to single out Asians, just that other people were talking about them, so it was on the brain)

 

[PantheraTigris2]

Without AA, companies are allowed to be as racist, sexist, ageist, xenophobic (as opposed to racist), homophobic, disabilityist (I'm struggling), and uglyist as they want. With AA, you're arguing that it's still pretty much the same (I disagree, but w/e).

So what's your solution?

I've been reading over the responses - you guys know affirmative action is gone, right? Has been for years.

 

[Mise]

I've been reading over the responses - you guys know affirmative action is gone, right? Has been for years.

No, I didn't. Like I said before, I have no idea what "Affirmative Action" is. It's not a word I've come across before. I assumed it meant what was implied in the OP.

 

[PantheraTigris2]

Yeah, Affirmative Action is technically gone (and probably will stay that way), but the reality of the matter is, is that the WASP (white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant) men, have nowhere to go but down, as things 'equalize' while society progresses. That, and we are all to often an 'acceptable fall guy' for employers, because vs. everyone else (besides the WASP men), they just don't want to deal with the inevitable lawsuits that will result. There's just a 'fear' about even appearing to disenfranchise minorities, so therefore employers go overboard, essentially giving them an advantage.

AA may be gone, but that doesn't mean employers won't go WAY out of their way to appear to be (sometimes) excessively 'equal opportunity employers' - just to avoid the (mostly imaginary/feared) red tape. Nobody wants to get stuck with the 'discrimiation against minorities' stigma.

But, life isn't, never was, and never will be 'fair'. 'Fair' is an illusion/ideal the sore losers always use to try and cry 'foul'. Life is not fair. In fact the whole purpose of business is to find a (legal) unfair advantage.

 

[Joey_Ramone]

It is not necessarilly the culture of all Asians to value education, and not necessarilly the culture of all Afro-Americans to not value education.

Of course it's not all, I would never make a generality like that, but it is an average.

Just like on average men are taller than women. But I would never say that all men are taller than all women. For example Lisa Leslie is considerably taller than Gary Coleman.

 

[Mr. Do]

- Yeah, I can alwys easily log in and see why I didn't get the position. And in this case, I was working right here with the person that did get it. So, I know 'precisely' what her qualifications are, and why she was chosen... due to her disability. I'm starting to think I need to find another career path - since it's just too hard to move up/ move at all in a system that is so heavily biased towards hiring people with "disability". Also minorities get preferential treatment. Being a female, "disabled", minority... well, shoot - you can pretty much just pick and choose when you want to open the door as oppotunity is always knocking.

Wow, how utterly ******ed. I would be seriously disillusioned with the system if I ever received such a reason for not getting a job. Hopefully someone will successfully sue such idiocy out of federal employment in the near future.