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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   32425 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022

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How easy is it for students to simply lie about their race in their application? It's not like the university is going to run a DNA test to see if your grandma was actually native American.

If you wanted to disrupt race-based admissions, the highest effect/cost thing you could do would probably be publishing a guide on how to pretend you're a minority like that. It doesn't even necessarily have to be very effective in practice, just be well known as something that happens, and it'd undermine the entire thing.

If it comes out later that you lied you're screwed, see Elizabeth Warren (though she thought family lore counted.)

At the M7 business school I attended all the applicants who selected Black as their race were interviewed by a member of the Black Students Association - if you didn’t seem “Black” when interviewed I doubt you would be accepted.

Jesus.

Absolute crazy reading this as a non American. How are people not turning into blithering racists amidst all this?

I might be particularly disagreeable but I would go especially out of my way to make things as bad as I can for blacks if any such thing was done to me.

Students making admissions decisions???? Absolute madness.

Absolute crazy reading this as a non American. How are people not turning into blithering racists amidst all this?

They are, the catch is that it's also rapidly becoming "class" thing with racism, in the classical sense, rapidly becoming correlated with being wealthy and college educated.

To clarify - if you tried to get in university on allegedly being black, and the university let someone who's black verify that you're black, you would "go especially out of your way to make things as bad as you can for blacks"? If I were black and thought I was surrounded by people prone to such disproportionate retaliation for slights (where the slight in question is a minimal attempt to see if you're not bullshitting me), I'd just want to make sure there ain't gonna be no retaliation.

disproportionate retaliation

I mean, you did set up a system of race-based admissions, complete with a student committee that determines your racial purity.

His reaction may be uncalled for, in the sense that most black people had nothing to do with the decision, but it should be expected for unjust systems like that to breed resentment.

It is not lost on me that I would be a lot more sympathetic if it were a black student trying to earn admission to a university where white students would rank him on the "okay-not okay" skin color chart. But if it was a black student in a black-dominant country who was trying to get in on a white quota? Very much less so.

Is it a black dominant country, when there's a race based system of admissions designed to exclude black people, and the nation's media and academia regularly blame social problems on "blackness"?

Do remedial classes "exclude" pupils who are doing fine? Does welfare "exclude" a healthy 6 figure maker? If that's your definition of exclusion, then yes, it is still a black-dominant country.

We're not talking about giving remedial classes to pupils, in order to help them get into college, we are talking about a literal "your academic performance may not be as good as others', but you have the right skin color, so you get in" system of admissions.

Absolute crazy reading this as a non American. How are people not turning into blithering racists amidst all this?

The meme "And then one day for no reason at all..." came into being for a reason, and it wasn't just Forrest Gump fanatics. But most people, even those rejected for their whiteness, accept this sort of thing as their due; the propaganda is just that good.

But most people, even those rejected for their whiteness, accept this sort of thing as their due; the propaganda is just that good.

There's probably a truckload of adaptive self-deception going on here. If you've been screwed over by the dominant ideology, there's nothing to gain and everything to lose from opposing said ideology - all you'll do is dig your hole even deeper. The best way forward is to take the loss and still continue to espouse these dominant beliefs, which helps you gain status among your peer group and in society at large (and the best way to do so is to actually, sincerely believe it regardless of what happened). Indignation is only productive if you can change something or if people are willing to listen to you, and in this case, neither are true.

I genuinely think political dissidents inherently need to be disagreeable in their personality and at least a little bit suicidal. The incentives for compliance are unbelievably strong.

Eventually, I see this going south. The thing is that our wealth and power of the West and America as the imperial core are shrinking. And that means it’s coming to a point where you’re faced with the problem that you’re shut out of good paying positions due to the progressive stack working against you. And at this point, you will create a white bloc much like other minorities have. At which point, we’ll have a racist and radicalized society where your race is the most important cultural touchstone you have. It will determine your lifestyle, your political stances, where you live and to some extent what you do.

And at this point, you will create a white bloc much like other minorities have.

I disagree, the anti-nazi antibodies are way too strong for that to happen. Whites would sooner exterminate themselves than view themselves as whites.

I’m not convinced of that, in fact, history seems to show that the fastest way to get people to think of themselves as a bloc is to convince them that they’re oppressed. It doesn’t have to be real, but the effect is very real. That’s how we got Rwanda and Yugoslavia. Once people started to perceive that the other ethnic group got most of the goodies of society, those on the outside start to see themselves as their ethnic group first and then part of the country.

deleted

I mostly agree, but I think I would go even further than you:

Everyone online believes they've uncovered the TRUE glorious secret behind society, but at the same time they disagree fundamentally about what that secret is in ways that are rather obviously self-serving.

It depends what you mean by self-serving. If you mean self-serving as in "adopting this benefits me individually in the context of the larger culture", I could perhaps agree with that. If you mean self-serving in the sense of benefiting their own identity group, I've seen far too many whites and especially men who hold beliefs that actively work to the detriment of their in-group as a whole to believe that people actually consistently act in the interest of their identity group. While I think there's a case to be made that white liberals' out-group biases are a product of specific cultural circumstances, in the case of men I think their out-group biases favouring women might be evolutionarily ingrained and thus intractable.

My problem with the woke has never really been with black people advocating for things that they see as being in the interest of black people, or feminists advocating for things that they see as being in the interest of women, or gay people advocating for things that they see as being in the interest of gay people, or what have you. That seems perfectly predictable, and entirely their right in a democratic society.

While advocacy for one's own identity group is part and parcel of free speech and should not be made illegal or censored, I will not go so far as to say I don't have a problem with this. In a society where people see your words as carrying more weight and more value than others, and where you can override others by invoking the social status of your identity alone, using it to unduly benefit yourself and to promote threat narratives against a target identity group is a flagrant abuse of power. I see it as taking advantage of other people's goodwill, and while it probably shouldn't fall under the ambit of the law I think behaviour like this should be taken care of in the social sphere and shunned appropriately. Unfortunately the fact that the social environment allows that in the first place means that social opprobrium for this behaviour is unlikely. It's the most underhanded form of power-grabbing - it can't be easily regulated and entails minimal risk on one's part, and can result in havoc for others.

To speak frankly, it is because of this ethical code that it massively irks me whenever I see a PoC promoting critical race theorist rhetoric, or a woman promoting feminist beliefs, or LGBT people promoting various critical-theorist talking points that helps them gain social and legal privileges. I fall into some of these groups myself, and adamantly refuse to take advantage of the minority status that these things confer upon me. I expect others also granted "epistemic advantage" to do the same, and if they don't I have no problem labelling their behaviour as being fundamentally objectionable.

We're currently seeing an attempt at an unchecked, shameless power grab, and if that's not going to change, one of the only real ways out of that hegemony which I can think of is to develop strong identity-narratives of one's own and to try to beat them at their own game. This is not to say that this is an ideal outcome, but the combative dynamic is in place and is here to stay (mind, I would prefer if it wasn't). And if I'm right about this, I see absolutely no other viable option but to play that game in order to balance the social scales at least a little bit. There is no scenario I can see where you can contest them by perpetually taking the high road and refusing to engage - you simply can't beat conflict theorists like that.

Voluntas pauci suprema lex.

"The will of the few is the supreme law"? Although, shouldn't that be "paucorum"?

Anyway, I look forward to seeing your comment in the next quality contributions roundup.

Was there a surreptitious paper bag hanging on the wall behind the interviewee for comparison, or do you think they just went by vibe?

If we're going to have racial caste systems, I just wish the gatekeeping wasn't so arbitrary and in the hands of the kind of people who ran my school's BSU.

They did have some pretty light skinned Black people who could pass as White in my class but I’m sure they check social media to see if your mom / dad is Black looking if you’re of mixed race and or ask you about your family history.

There was one guy from South Africa who claimed he was a Cape Coloured but I was 75% sure he was faking it so I’m guessing it’s not fool-proof.

Suppose you're being honest, what is the requirement for claiming indigenous ancestry? The average white American has 0.2% indigenous ancestry, which means 1 out 500 of their ancestors were indigenous.

About 10% of my ancestors I can't trace back to Europe, and they were mostly New Englanders with English last names. Depending on what the marriage patterns were in the 17th and early 18th centuries, I think that means I probably have a few indigenous ancestors.

Suppose you're being honest, what is the requirement for claiming indigenous ancestry? The average white American has 0.2% indigenous ancestry, which means 1 out 500 of their ancestors were indigenous.

There is no universal "official requirement", no one wants to be one deciding how much black or native you have to be to be "black" or "native", no one wants to open this can of worms.

The rules are widely varying, inconsistent and changing all the time as one should expect. For intro into modern Amarican racial classification (with interesting historical tidbits and amusing anecdotes) see this paper

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3592850

The Modern American Law of Race

How easy is it for students to simply lie about their race in their application? It's not like the university is going to run a DNA test to see if your grandma was actually native American.

Mindy Kaling's brother did just that. In his words:

I shaved my head, trimmed my long Indian eyelashes, and applied as an African American. Not even my own frat brothers recognized me. I joined the Organization of Black Students and used my middle name, Jojo.

Vijay, the Indian American frat boy, became Jojo, the African American med school applicant.

Doing this would work perfectly until you wanted to run for public office, and people go investigating your background. From that point onward, the strategy would only work and you could only continue to dodge scrutiny if you're a Democrat favorite. Since democrats are the ones who are able to bring the wrath down for doing this sort of stuff, if you're on their side, you don't have to worry too much about it, people would be happy to excuse your indiscretion for whatever reasons.

Most people have no intention of ever getting into politics I don't think. Even so, for the examples we've seen of politically active people getting called out (Rachel Dolezal, Elizabeth Warren, and Shaun King, from the top of my head) they've leaned into their racial category more than simply using it for admissions. Even then, for Warren it took a while and she had to do something foolish like having her DNA tested for it to become obvious. Comparing with a strategic person who never mentioned their fake race again after being admitted and they'd probably never be found out.

For all we know, this is already happening. I attended a prestigious school in which there were rumors that at least two people in my class had identified as black, and at least one professor (!), all of whom were lily white by visual inspection.

The awkward part, and probably the only real check on this behavior, is that if you check black on your application, you are auto-enrolled in the black students' orientation programs, and other students can look at you askance.

Wouldn't be too hard to argue you don't want a separate but equal orientation and you want the white people treatment implying it's better.

I think the black students' orientation is optional, prior to and in addition to the regular orientation that everyone attends. So sure, you could skip it, but the administrators are probably going to include your name and bio in the informational packet they send to everyone who is eligible.

From a cursory googling it seems to be common in Australia, at least. Looking at graduation photos for those who've received scholarships for indigenous people (e.g.), I'd say that for most of them it's impossible to tell that they're supposed to have any aboriginal ancestry at all.

In Australia, there are no widely-held rules about identifying as Aboriginal - any amount of claimed ancestry is sufficient, and plenty of Aboriginal-identifying people pass as something else, often with only the tiniest amount of Aboriginal descent. The media sometimes publishes stories about how racist it is to question the Aboriginality of fair-skinned, white-passing people.

You might ask then why everyone doesn't just tick the Aboriginal box on all forms all the time, since it can be advantageous for employment and so on. As far as I can tell it's still just the honour system, though.

The awkward part, and probably the only real check on this behavior, is that if you check black on your application, you are auto-enrolled in the black students' orientation programs, and other students can look at you askance.

this would be a great beavis and butthead skit

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