<p>Vtran, it’s simple: if you think the benefits of AA are unjustified and that URM’s, even middle-class and wealthy ones, don’t face day-to-day burdens that their White and Asian peers do, then (assuming it could be done) you would have every incentive to sign up to change to becoming a URM. </p>
<p>Someone downthread tried to parry with something along the lines of ethnic pride. And that’s part of the point: who you are as an individual and how you perform is partially a function of who you are in broader context.</p>
<p>Of the recent posts, I recommend a close reading of Sybbie’s post again along with Pennhopeful’s and Stanmaster’s. I know of black students who have transferred to schools outside their neighborhood’s so that they don’t get the day to day ridicule from their peers in the neighborhood about “acting white.” If you think that is inconsequential, you haven’t lived much.</p>