<p>And it’s ironic considering there’s still some serious issues with bigotry in some corners of our armed forces as illustrated by experiences Jewish cadets at one service academy experienced which received much publicity…including some classmates from my HS class and subsequent years. </p>
<p>There was also a notorious discrimination case where a Marine OCS drill instructor had it in for an Asian-American officer candidate because of his race while I was in HS:</p>
<p>Cobrat, you do realize this example you cite of bigotry in the military is from 1994. Failing officer candidate school because of discrimination, as alleged, is an entirely different matter than what we are talking about on this thread. Although I am sure you can cite examples of racial or ethnic discrimination in the military, it is also widely recognized that the military is one of the most integrated institutions in the country.</p>
<p>I owned a business for many years and have interviewed many ivy league school students for internships and full-time jobs. Let me say that being book smart and possessing common sense are not one and the same. I have seem many graduates of prestigious colleges with plenty of the former and not a lick of the latter. Without common sense, it is pretty difficult to achieve success in the real world.</p>
<p>I can tell you unequivocally that I wouldn’t hire any of the kids in the video. The last thing I need are some whiny crybabies who will make a mountain out of a molehill if they feel the least bit slighted. Who needs that headache. </p>
<p>I have been reading this thread with interest and some amazement to be honest. I am surprised by the level of outrage and defensiveness some people are expressing to this project. Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill. None of those cards or quotes nor the project itself claims that these statements in themselves caused irreparable harm to the recipients. To me, the goal of the project is to point out more subtle racism/insensitivity that apparently these students hear/experience regularly, to make people think and to raise awareness. I didn’t get the sense that these students are expressing extreme anger at how they are treated or at Harvard itself. I imagine most of the students involved are happy to be at Harvard and to be taking advantage of all the opportunities that such a place affords. I don’t see the placards as whiny at all (I got more of a sense of implied “eye rolls” from the photos). I also don’t see the project as particularly ground breaking – there was a link upthread about a similar project (involving Asian, Hispanic and I think also African American students) at another University. But obviously the project is effective in generating reaction and getting people to think and talk about these issues. And that is a good thing.
And in terms of suggestions that these students essentially “get a life” and volunteer or get out into the community to serve those less fortunate than themselves – what’s to say that many of them aren’t already doing that. This project isn’t about that. After all, one of the purposes of spending 4 years at a University (especially this one) is to have time and space to really live the life of the mind and to explore issues, politics, ideas. I’m not sure how one can argue that examining issues of subtle racism is any less worthy of a project than say studying some medieval poet or spending all one’s time trying to solve an obscure math or physics problem. Academia can be myopic with an element of “navel gazing” that may bother some people. But Harvard is full of smart young people (and let’s all recognize that just because they are at Harvard doesn’t make these students any less young) who I hope will spend 4 years examining all kinds of ideas, subjects, their place in the world.</p>
<p>GFG, I asked her and she said that if she can, she asks that they please not touch her hair, but that sometimes they’ll ask AS they touch her. She will put up her hand and kind of block them while asking that they not touch. In the elevator, the woman was across the elevator before D could do anything, touching her hair. D put up her hand, asked the woman to please not touch her and bolted out of the elevator as soon as it stopped. I’m frankly amazed that anyone would think it’s ok to violate anyone else’s personal space like that whatever hair they have.</p>
<p>“The site also posted an apology for the headline, which it said “may have been interpreted” to say Kwan, who is of Chinese descent, is not American.”</p>
<p>May? How else was it to be interpreted?? What other intent could there reasonably be?
(the only one I can come up with is that the person who beat Kwan was named “American”. But that is not the case).</p>
<p>Some of that’s a mix of not being raised to respect other people’s space and being in an environment which condones/encourages this sort of presumptuousness. </p>
<p>On the other hand, few people would pull that in places like NYC where deliberately touching someone like that is likely to result in a harsh…possibly violent reaction. </p>
<p>The problem is not that the students are bothered by insensitivity, albeit mild, and chose to address it. The issue for me is whether those particular instances of insensitivity were racist or only happened to them because they are black (as suggested by only including African-American students in the project), and also whether the ignorant comments or inappropriate touching are a way of saying, as implied by the project title of “I too am Harvard,” that “You’re not one of us here at Harvard.” </p>
<p>In order to right past wrongs, achieve racial diversity on campus and give opportunities to under-represented minorities, initiatives were created to attract, admit, and retain these minority students. In some cases, students were admitted with lower qualifications than would have been acceptable for their non-URM counterparts. We don’t like to talk about it, but it happened and still does to a lesser extent. In an effort to support students who sometimes hailed from a different cultural, economic, and educational background than the typical elite school student, these colleges took initiatives like summer academic assistance programs for incoming freshmen, special tutoring, cultural houses, etc. These things were intended to help minority kids transition and feel a part of campus life, but in other ways perhaps these programs set them apart as somehow different or needier.</p>
<p>Obviously, not every minority student actually needs any of that help, and some–such as several in this project–clearly resent any implication that they do. My Hispanic kids received many letters from colleges which we could have taken as insulting because they suggested our kids were somehow more fragile socially and educationally than non-Hispanic students, and thus would need a Casa Latina so they’d have people like them to mentor them and socialize with so as not to get lost or homesick (as if they would be lost in the wider community) for example. The schools sent reassurances in Spanish about college life (as if our kids couldn’t read English), telling them they shouldn’t be afraid to come and could indeed make it at their school with all this extra, culturally-sensitive help that would be provided to them. We parents even got reassuring letters in Spanish. telling us not to be afraid to let our kids live in the dorm, etc. etc. It was annoying, but we did understand that there must be some families who need all these comforting promises or else the school wouldn’t go to such an effort. Similarly, the upper class African-American student who attended a top prep school needed no admissions boost because his scores and transcript are stellar and on par. Still, there are going to be some African-American kids from not so great urban schools (students like Richard Sherman) who are not as well prepared and yes, did not have great academic stats. Thus, it could happen that someone might mistake the former student for the latter.</p>
<p>So is it time to stop all these minority-specific programs? </p>
<p>Students at the best university in the world crying racism. Their parents should be proud /s. They’ve been brainwashed by their church, family and certain Harvard faculty to play the victim card. They are a waste of a Harvard education.</p>
<p>I grew up with many people just like this, i.e., middle to upper-middle class minorities who instinctively pull the race card. They never change. Every promotion they miss they cry racism. Every innocuous joke is taken out of context. Lofty tasks are racist by design. They are insufferable, self-entitled and will play the card til the day they die. The only thing you can do is ignore them. Do not engage people like this. And if you can help it, don’t hire people like this (because they tend to file baseless lawsuits when you fire them for poor performance or insubordination).</p>
<p>GFG-are you saying that because these programs exist, it’s OK to suggest to ANY black student that s/he is not as well prepared? What other meaning is there for your comment that “someone might mistake the former student for the latter.” As for the “comforting” letters in Spanish your kids got, obviously they checked a box about being Hispanic. My D goes to a school with a good many 1st Gen Hispanic kids whose parents’ first language is Spanish. Letters like you describe would be most welcome. Maybe the schools in question send such letters to anyone who checks the right boxes. Given the number of 1st gen parents posting on CC about their fear of dorms, of the kids begging for help to convince parents to even let their kids GO to college, I can see why these letters go out.</p>
<p>So linden, you’re saying don’t hire minorities because they will be a problem at the job? That’s illegal, you know. NO ONE is “crying racism”. They are point out ignorance as THEY have experienced it. They are not “playing victim”. They just have had frustrating experiences that they wish to share, as with the kids in the other link upthread. </p>
<p>See, it morphs again to Affirmative Action. Even for Harvard. Another thread, at another top school. Always back to, ‘if we didn’t perceive them as easy admits, they wouldn’t be in this boat.’ </p>
<p>So, don’t perceive them was easy admits.<br>
You really don’t know how they are vetted. Or even the qualities adcoms at highly selective schools look for. There’s a reason many top performers get excluded from the tippy top schools- it is not affirmative action. </p>
<p>Linden, sorry you grew up with that. It doesn’t prove anything. But your attitude and willingness to post it…speaks volumes. Think.</p>
<p>Yes, we have an issue on threads like this where some make the fast assumption that trying to make people aware is the same as crying overt and extreme racism. So, some of us stay away from the term and talk about the pervasiveness of stereotypes. And prejudices. Or limited thinking. Assuming. It happens. </p>
<p>If you have a right to a voice, so do those kids. </p>
<p>So are you saying, sseamom, that because my kids checked “Hispanic” the school should assume that they need to be written to in Spanish not English, that they won’t attend a school unless they are assured there will be others “just like them” on campus, that they won’t be able adjust socially without a safe haven to run to in the form of Casa Chicana or whatever, that they might be afraid of living somewhere away from Mami y Papi and their supposed insular Spanish-speaking community, and that they will need special tutoring to compensate for their academic deficiencies? Is OK to send that to ALL students just because SOME might want or need it?</p>
<p>You seem to think those letters were necessary and those assumptions justified. Yet when the same happens to your own minority, it’s racism. Hmm.</p>
<p>That’s a problem with those schools that did it. Not with these H kids. I’d say, separate these into their own issues or else it’s the same lumping all into one umbrella of assumptions.</p>
<p>No, you misunderstand, GFG. I figure the colleges included that information because of the ethnicity checked, nothing more. I also assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that similar letters were sent in English. And perhaps rather than assuming your kids would want to “run to” a haven, they might be interested in meeting up with kids from a similar (albeit assumed) culture. My older D originally planned to study business. She got a letter suggesting she choose a dorm filled with other business majors, so that they could, if they wished, work together on classes and questions. That is how I understood the letters you described, offering an option, rather than an assumption that they NEEDED it. Obviously you don’t identify, nor do your children, with the group of Hispanics those schools attempted to reach with those letters.</p>
<p>And I never once have said any of the assumptions in this thread are racism. What I’ve said all along is that ignorant assumptions need calling out. And you’re wrong about my ethnicity. I am white. It’s my daughter who is biracial and my husband who is black. They have experienced many of the things discussed here. Sometimes it’s been obvious racism, often ignorance. They react as needed based on their situations. </p>