<p>If that’s to me ^, I’m going with the fact that she prefaced “white and Asian” with the word privileged…</p>
<p>That could mean either the specific few privileged or the generalized whole population. </p>
<p>Anyway, I just think it is pointless to seperate people into different races or groups in this discussion.</p>
<p>Sheesh. Who (or whose kid) didn’t have to fill out multi-page application that covered more than stats, accomplishments, sense of self-worth? How you present yourself matters. Don’t worry, I get that folks think otherwise. It’s easier to grumble when you’ve determined what “should” matter to competitive colleges. When you make it hierarchical and place yourself at the (deserving) top o’ the heap.
I couldn’t see the whole article but didn’t see the humor. Maybe I should ask some to point out the jokes.</p>
<p>My empathy to those suffering. But when 90% are not going to find a seat, how DO these kids assume? The wise have multiple options.</p>
<p>Some people here <em>is</em> trying to deny, or at least are trying to greatly minimize, the fact that some groups get admission preferences.</p>
<p>NYB, I haven’t seen anyone deny that certain groups get admission preferences. The problem is that some seem to think that it’s only the OTHER groups who are getting the preferences, not theirs. As a URM, I’m sure my kids got a second look, but they also had the goods to back it up (even if the second one didn’t get into an Ivy! :eek: )</p>
<p>When I wrote that, I was actually thinking in two ways. One is the privilege that all white people, and to a slightly lesser degree Asian people carry due to the color of their skin and other physical attributes. That doesn’t mean that someone can’t have white privilege, while simultaneously being disadvantaged in other areas, it just means that white people continue to carry their privilege, even when experiencing hardship. Often this privilege is invisible to those who carry it. The author of this article, or of all the posts on CC that say the same tired thing, aren’t really saying that she’s wishing she could trade her white privilege for a slightly better chance at a lottery school. </p>
<p>Having said all that, I also suspect that the author of that post is privileged in other ways. She’s almost definitely straight, and almost definitely doesn’t have an cognitive, developmental or intellectual disability. She’s got 2 parents. I agree with a previous poster who said that she’s likely got connections, and I’ll go a step further and say that she may be growing up in a middle class or affluent home with educated parents.</p>
<p>I agree that faced with two otherwise similar candidates (same stats, same high school, same EC’s) the Ivy League admissions officer may give preference to the URM candidate. I would say, however, that there are also preferences, such as alumni preference, faculty preference, development admits etc . . . that go disproportionately to white candidates.</p>
<p>However, I also think it’s important that the reason why this admissions preference exists is to correct for different levels of representation in the admissions pool. It’s important to recognize that a high stats African American, Latino, or Native American applicant has overcome barriers that many white candidates don’t face due to the pervasive racism in our society. Schools with holistic admissions give preference for students who overcome all sorts of barriers. They’ll overlook a slightly lower GPA in a candidate who has faced health issues, or forgive a lack of EC’s in a candidate from a disadvantaged rural area. Racial preferences are similar.</p>
<p>“privilege that all white people, and to a slightly lesser degree Asian people carry due to the color of their skin and other physical attributes.”
The Asian people part I cannot agree at all.</p>
<p>I actually happen to believe in affirmative action. It bothers me that the supreme court is even re-examining the issue, as if all issues of equal access have been addressed when they clearly have not. So, if you asked me, I’d keep AA in place, for now.</p>
<p>But, I also believe, as we make the journey towards redressing certain issues from the past, there will be room for some good humored joking around. A familiarity which actually leads to less fear, and to more understanding. As we get further away, culturally, from racism, and we move towards a more homogenous culture, everyone will joke around a bit. and, if this young woman’s biggest target hadn’t been herself? I’d have more problem with it. But, quite frankly, she is the biggest target.</p>
<p>All that said, my daughter is engaged to be married to a young man of Hispanic descent and she met him in college, and he is one of the most impressive people we know. We love his family and him. And he says to her, from time to time, “Oh, yeah, white girl problems.” </p>
<p>Should she be offended?</p>
<p>No. Let’s just talk about it. We are a strange culture in the United States. The more we tease each other, good naturedly? The closer we are getting to respecting one another, actually. </p>
<p>When you are true equals, you ***** a little bit about each other. I’m not talking about hatred or racism. But between hatred and racism and pity and condescension is a middle ground of “hey, you got more cake than me!” It’s progress even if it doesn’t look the way it will look in 20 years.</p>
<p>Tigerdad,</p>
<p>I know far less about Asian Americans than I do about other groups. This is both due to the composition of my own family, and the community in which I work.</p>
<p>However, I do have the impression that some of the privileges that I enjoy as a white woman, and that my son, as a African American male doesn’t have, also extend to Asian Americans. I’d be curious to hear your experiences.</p>
<p>I just can’t think of any privillege that Asian people get from physical attributes. And I can think of a few examples to the opposite.
One Asian kid I know who has very good tennis skills but when coaches select players for the school team the first thing they ask was “How tall are you?”</p>
<p>Her sister, Bari Weiss is a former Wall Street Journal editorial features editor. Turns out Suzy does have connections.</p>
<p>I was finally able to access the article (without paying), and I thought it was darling! It seems very true to how rejected bystanders probably feel, whether accurate or not.</p>
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<p>You know that “white people” include recent immigrants from Eastern Europe and the Middle East, too? Not every white person is an elite upper-middle-class suburban WASP.</p>
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<p>An example of one of the jokes is where she says if she’d known it was going to be important she would have worn a headdress to school every day. The thought of a kid wearing some bogus headdress to school every day to gain an advantage in college admissions is absurd to point of being funny, especially since most high school kids are usually so preoccupied with fitting in, appearance-wise, with their friends and peers.</p>
<p>Darling? Help me. I’d wear a headdress, start a fake charity , scoop up some suffering child …as long as you’re using someone else’s misfortune…you’re golden. She’s mockinng.</p>
<p>Coureur, we’re xposting. I don’t think the headdress thing is funny. It’s caricature. I do like good sarcasm. She’s crossing some lines. Not well self edited.</p>
<p>I did now see the whole.</p>
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<p>No one’s trying to deny it. We’re just not as upset by it as you want us to be, that’s all.</p>
<p>Tigerdad,</p>
<p>Again, you probably have more knowledge and experience than I do with respect to Asian American kids. However, I’d like to tell you one long story, and a few anecdotes, to illustrate the kind of educational disadvantages that many African American students face. These stories are about my own son, a child who has many other kinds of advantages. He comes from a middle class family with an educated parent. He’s attended well regarded, diverse schools his whole life. He’s bright, without disabilities, and with an easy going personality that tends to win over adults pretty quickly.</p>
<p>When my son was in Kindergarten, the teacher posted a list of sight words on the wall each Monday. Kids were supposed to “practice” the words by using them in their writing, and were tested on their ability to read the list on Friday. I found out about this because my kid came home crying because he had failed the test. I went in to investigate and found that the words were written in very faded red marker, on dark pink flashcards, and that my child’s seat was the furthest from them, and around a corner so that he’d have to get out of his seat to see them, nevermind read them. I approached the teacher to see if we could come up with a solution. I asked if she could send the word list home, but she refused saying it was too much work. I asked to come in and copy them down each Monday afterschool but she thought that would be too disruptive to her planning time. I asked her to move my son’s seat, but he was the “good influence” at the troublemaker’s table. I asked if I could buy her a black marker and some white flashcards, make a new word wall, but she thought the pink on pink made the room “cheery”.</p>
<p>Finally, I went to the principal. She welcomed me into her office, praised me on having such a “nice” child, and then told me she had a solution. She then explained that some children just aren’t “ready” for Kindergarten, and that if I would sign a form giving them permission to retain them, she promised she’d give me a teacher who used black marker the following year.</p>
<p>My son had a friend who sat at his table. A very sweet, very young Asian boy. He had a late birthday, and was 8 months younger than my child. The boys were friends and played together, and the age difference was quite clear. The other parents went in to talk to the principal about possibly holding him back. The principal, same principal, told them she couldn’t approve holding back such a “bright” child, and sent them home with a list of sight words so they could engage a tutor to bring their son up to his “potential”. </p>
<p>I could tell you many stories like this. I could tell you about the admissions director at the private school who found out my child was getting speech therapy for a minor articulation problem, and asked me if it was because he was a “crack baby”, and when I wouldn’t answer seemed to look at everything my child did through that lens (he’s not shy, he’s “disengaged”) About the guidance counselor at his current school who told me that they put all the 6th graders in “on level” classes (they don’t, the majority of white and Asian 6th graders are in honors from day 1). About the afterschool class full of black and brown students that my son was assigned to, which was described to the other students as a program for students “not expected to pass” on the standardized test. About the landlords (in “good” school districts) who wouldn’t rent to me when I had an African American child with me, and the landlords who practically begged me to rent from them when I came alone. </p>
<p>Because of confidentiality concerns, I’m only telling stories about my own kid. If I included stories from my students, many of whom also experience disadvantage due to poverty, disability, home language, and immigration status, I’d have many more examples. But I’m not comfortable doing that.</p>
<p>As a middle class white child growing up, I feel like the world was a pretty forgiving place. Even if I was shy, or had a tantrum, or struggled to learn a specific skill, it was never attributed to lack of potential. I was placed in classes that challenged me, where I was giving the message that I was expected to learn. This hasn’t been my experience as the parent of a black son. My best guess, is that, in this respect, the experience of a Asian American child would be more similar to mine than to my child’s. Again, however, I don’t speak from a lot of experience. That also isn’t to say that there aren’t other situations in which Asian Americans experience disadvantage and discrimination.</p>
<p>LoremIpsum,</p>
<p>As I said above, all of us have multiple facets to our identities. Someone can absolutely experience privilege associated with being white, and at the same time experience disadvantages related to being an English Language Learner or an immigrant. If you wanted to isolate out the privileges associated with being white, you’d need to compare the experiences of those recent Eastern European immigrants, with recent immigrants from Haiti or Mexico. My guess is that while both are disadvantaged in many ways relative to people born in the U.S., there would be ways in which the Haitians and Mexicans were disadvantaged relative to the Eastern European.</p>
<p>I also think that there are specific, significant disadvantages associated with being Middle Eastern and/or Muslim in this country. While I know that our current census documents classify them as “white” I don’t think their experience is at all comparable to mine, or, I suspect, to Suzy Lee Weiss’s.</p>
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<p>Of course she is mocking. That is her point! She is a disappointed reject, rationalizing why she was rejected, by using every possible cliche excuse in the book, other than blaming herself. It is exactly what a typical teenager (and her parents) would do, but not admit to doing (to anyone else). It is a very human, very honest, outpouring of typical college-rejection emotion. The alternative is to admit you are just nothing special, and what good is that to anyone?</p>