Of course this thinking is not restricted to white people.
It should also be pointed out that despite our failings, American society is still more egalitarian and encouraging of social mobility than many other places. The caste system, anyone? Both India and China have historically had very rigid social divisions.
In the case of the girl who ran away unthread. How will NJ authorities deal with that? Will child protective services refer it to a judge who will order family counseling and Child protective oversight or will it just be over and done with? If a child feels compelled to run away, is the family broken as opposed to the school system?
I am sure there are familial elements to the problem, but it’s hard to determine the lines between family influence and societal influence. The science supervisor at our school told me that distraught parents of over-stressed kids tell her that they want their children to dial back on AP’s and acceleration, but the kids say they can’t or they will be teased by their peers for slacking off, and/or will be presumed less intelligent. The academic push might have initiated with the parents, but it now has a life of its own. S witnessed peer shaming for PSAT/SAT scores. If you didn’t get NMF or Commended, well, the implications were obvious.
@TheGFG actually “holistic admissions” was introduced precisely for the opposite of the reason you cite. Harvard led the gang in moving away from exam-based admission when too many Jews etc. were being admitted. Quotas were set to keep enough spaces for guess who. Holistic evaluation of the young men could give reason to once again populate the ivy halls with the usual kind of “authentic Americans”.
Yes, I’m aware and referred to that sad past. But now it’s used differently to create opportunity–hence the controversy over lowered standards for some minorities.
Almost all my current neighbors, and all my Indian and Chinese acquaintances came to the United States on H-1 visas. They work at AT&T, Verizon, Seimens, Sarnoff, Johnson & Johnson and other pharma companies, and in big data and finance in NYC. I’d venture a guess that’s how Ms. Kovvali’s parents got here as well.
I read the salon article. Seems that Ms. Kowali is caught up in the current conversation about “white privilege” and doesn’t want her ethnic group left out. And I say this a person of South Asian origin who came here with my parents in the early 70’s. Striving for academic achievement does not mean a life out of balance. In her article, I did not see the latter part addressed in any way. Or perhaps, are we supposed to believe that the “life in balance” issue is that of a “white” perspective, designed to keep others beaten down? I know a lot people who live in WWP and other suburbs in NJ with a heavy Asian population and the level of hypercompetitiveness is not an exaggeration (I "Smile and nod " a lot…). My older kid would have crumbled in that environment, and we have always been grateful that our NJ district has been supportive of kids of all academic backgrounds.
Actually, while China did have social divisions…the mechanisms for social mobility were actually far greater and much more meritocratic than what existed up until the late 19th/early 20th century in many other societies including Western ones like the US earlier in its history. The Imperial Civil Service exams from the Tang Dynasty onwards was the only legitimate route to getting selected into the prestigious imperial civil service and was open to the vast majority of the population regardless of SES*.
Measures taken to minimize personal influence and biases in grading included having scribes under a group separate from the exam administrators recopying every exam to ensure an examinee’s ID cannot be ascertained by his handwriting, use of ID numbers instead of names to anonymize the examinees from exam administrators, not allowing exam administrators to administer exams from their hometown/region, etc.
Contrast that with what existed in the medieval and early modern Western world where one’s ability to advance oneself into the ruling elite or high SES was much more/mainly dependent on one’s connections to the ruling elites whether through relation by blood, marriage, or close friendship/patronage with one of the ruling elites.
- The modern US civil service exams were adopted in the 1880's from the British Indian Civil Service exams which in turn were adopted from the Chinese Imperial Civil Service exams. This adoption was done in the wake of increasing outrage and disgust in the populace and among some influential elites over what existed before in the US civil service....hiring based completely on political patronage and connections which created and perpetuated a much more blatant insidious culture of political favoritism and corruption than what we know of in the present time.
** There were some practical limitations as one was required to spend one’s formative years being educated in the classical curriculum and learning the examination format and expectations***. Even so, this was a mechanism of advancement which wasn’t legally denied to the vast majority of the population with the desire to advance themselves and their families through preparation and having the academic acumen to excel on such exams.
*** I.e. Impeccable penmanship/calligraphy despite enduring the difficult conditions of taking exams over multiple days in examination room blocks partially exposed to the weather.
*** Even Athenian Democracy had this issue as only a minority(~1/5-1/6th of the overall population of the Athenian City-State) of the Athenian population were allowed the right to the franchise…even if we restrict our examination to the adult male population(There was a minimum land ownership requirement****).
**** This requirement also existed in the first few decades of the US Republic which really restricted the franchise at first…until they were eventually eliminated due to changing political attitudes and protests from those who were initially denied the franchise:
http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/spring07/elections.cfm
I don’t live in your community, @TheGFG so I cannot presume white privilege exists there. Likewise, you do not live in my community, you cannot presume it doesn’t exist here.
However, should it exist, I think we can agree that it is far easier to judge the parenting of others when your child has the benefit of being perceived as both “authentically smart, passionate” and “quirky, nonconformist” while others with similar achievements are disparaged for being robotic and socially awkward on account of a surname or skin color. Asians, Hispanics and blacks do not have this benefit or privilege. Some posting on this board argue that Whites don’t have it either. If you are one of those who believe that white nerds are also judged negatively as one-dimensional, then you should have no problem objecting loudly to such bias. Unless, you believe that whites nerds are more 'genuinely smart" than nonwhite nerds, you cannot have it both ways. And that is precisely the article writer’s point. Some whites want it BOTH ways. They want to define merit on their own terms, while depriving that right of other groups.
I see far more “romance” of white nerds (see Revenge of the Nerds, any biography of Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, the fictional Sheldon Cooper). I think it’s safe to say that white nerds have “arrived” and have been arriving for some time. When an Asian is cast as a Sheldon Cooper, and a white actor as the foreign-accented exchange student, then an argument can be made that the races are in fact interchangeable in the fertile imaginations of popular culture. That time has yet to come.
It’s hard to ignore the race issue in this debate because it keeps coming up – in an ugly way.
I still say, the end of the day, opting out of the rat race and letting your kid define his own way is the best way to go. As hard a it is, I stopped caring what Harvard/Yale etc. thinks of my nerdy kids who may be dismissed as one-dimensional or “just hard workers” (Ha! I wish!! The joke is on them. LOL). If they do their best, despite that negative bias, they win. If they run their own race, they ultimately win.
But if you choose to run the race, it’s best to acknowledge that certain rules exist: unwritten, unfair and nearly impossible to change with righteous indignation no matter what side of the rat race you’re on. The only way to change it is to not play the game.
What does the H-1 visa have to do with the price of bread in Alaska.
It was written upthread this: “It should also be pointed out that despite our failings, American society is still more egalitarian and encouraging of social mobility than many other places. The caste system, anyone? Both India and China have historically had very rigid social divisions.”
Is this a variant of “if you don’t like it here, go back to wherever you’re from?”
I find the attitude presumptuous, cocky.
@TheGFG, can you be both authentic American AND be from another place? Most of us are.
In fact, half of Americans today can trace back to no earlier than 1920, many no earlier than 1960.
Compare that to the earliest Asians to arrive in the U.S., Chinese coolies who built the transcontinental railroad. Almost a century earlier. In 1850.
Let’s not get into who is an authentic American, and who is posing. It’s so ugly.
Instead focus on the subject at hand: “authentic smart” vs. “works hard” and who gets to define those terms for their kids.
No, what I’m saying is the United States in our lifetime has been extremely welcoming to all immigrants, and in particular has encouraged the practice of inviting talented Asians to come to this country for well-paying and prestigious positions. That’s why I mention the H-1 visa. Americans with power are not saying, “We know you’re smart and can run circles around our current employees, but because you’re Chinese/Indian/Korean we won’t hire you until you first win the Nobel Prize.” The writer of the article is claiming the opposite–that Asians have to go to very great lengths or they won’t succeed here due to white prejudice. To the contrary, the United States has demonstrated we want to be a meritocracy by welcoming, appreciating, and rewarding foreign talent from around the world. I have lived abroad and can tell you that other countries do not welcome foreign workers, or foreigners period, with the same enthusiasm.
Then, when the best and brightest of Asia come to the United States, they don’t suddenly lose their drive and work ethic. They pass it on to their children, who then become just as successful. The need for higher tests scores is an unfortunate side effect of that tremendous success, combined with the current emphasis by elite schools on ethnic diversity. I had nothing to do with the establishment of admissions policies, nor the essay question on diversity on the common app., and neither did the vast majority of white Americans, privileged or not. If admissions policies are unfair to Asians, that does not mean that the average American is prejudiced. Personally, I have gone on record on this forum as not supporting consideration of race in admissions. (consideration of socio-economics, perhaps, but not race.) Given the high achievement of Asians in this country, I think it’s a hard sell to say they’ve been terribly oppressed by white privilege.
Not to mention quite wrong in China’s case…
Somehow I think the nerd title and that of being one-dimensional can both be said to intersect as well as be distinct and mutually exclusive.
I really do not care to enter the racial fray of 'Your Nerd ain’t Like Mine," so I’ll stick to the category as a whole.
What I have seen is that the response to the academically high performing child, his/her integration into school and community life in a broader sense than that of academic star, and the subsequent use of variations on the theme of nerd (geek, weirdo, L7, etc) all factor in to the self-identity of a child, and the child’s ability to project a more faceted personality and presence than that of the one-dimensional All-A kid who cannot make eye contact or tie his shoes.
Having seen our society move away from what I feared most, pushing the super bright kid into lockers and manipulating them into embarrassing, shameful situations in school cafeterias and hallways, to a kind of alternate universe where they carry the title of Sexy Professor X, is one where our culture of celebrity seems more at play than any natural movement toward seeing these kids as sentient kids who are finding their way, or seeking to find their way, like all the other kids.
There are still the marginalized, ostracized until-I-need-something group of girls and boys hoping that tomorrow is a better day than today, and yet there is the parallel experience of the adult nerd who can now date…whoever the heck is desirable across (or alongside!) the gender aisle.
How we include the nerd, or exclude the nerd, as he is being raised is of great concern to me. I cannot tell if your kid is one-dimensional because I’m spending a lot of time making my sure is doing all the things that he tells me makes him feel good, and helps him to be who he is. At the end of the day, that kid is pretty quirky 'cause he’s a kid.
Believing we can glance and see who has depth and dimension is to grant we have powers greater than any of us actually have. Believing this is the job of the colleges and that they do it well, and telling our kids the colleges will recognize them in all of their faceted aspects is unreal, naive, sad.
Maybe we’re all raising kids who are just plain going to be hurt by this endgame appraisal that we all seem to be promising is coming.
I never used the word “authentic” or “posing” or talked about that topic. I don’t know where that’s coming from.
In my experience, white kids my children’s age who didn’t study hard are not doing well in today’s job market.
@TheGFG - I think what @PragmaticMom is saying is that a person can benefit from white privilege without being personally prejudiced. The ideal would be for privileged people to at the very least recognize that they didn’t achieve all of their “own” successes, and then to work to even the playing field.
The unfair thing is when the financial 1% and/or white people in power start moving the “what is merit” goal posts as soon as someone else starts making progress. The latest incarnation of this is the excess attention to “stress” and minimization of parenting as a critical method to help kids opt out. What we’re seeing, as I said before, is very powerful parents who will do anything to try to “fix” the loss of their unearned privilege.
No surprise given the selection-by-immigration-policy (50% of Chinese immigrants and 70% of Indian immigrants have bachelor’s or higher degrees, compared to a much lower percentage of non-immigrant Americans).
It is possible for a group whose members are high achieving to also be subject to racial/ethnic/otherwise-irrelevant-to-achievement discrimination. A high achieving member of a discriminated-against group could possibly have achieved even more if not subject to such irrelevant-to-achievement discrimination.
“Social Stratification and Inequality in China
Instructor
: Xie, Guihua
Email:
gxie@ruc.edu.cn
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Market oriented reform from 1978 has changed Chinese society fundamentally. This course will explore various aspects of social life before and after the reform, focusing on the stratification and inequality in social lives. First, we will quickly
review the general picture of social stratification process in China before and after the reform. Then we will examine the social structure in rural and urban societies, paying attention to two systems that are essential to the stratification order in Chinese society: the Hukou and work-unit.”
A reference text for that class: Wang Feng 2008.
Boundaries and Categories: Rising Inequality in Post-Socialist Urban China, Stanford University Press.
cobrat, surely you are aware that certain classes of people in China were not even permitted to take the Imperial Exam!