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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 1, 2024

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This appears to be false... This is a common refrain with BAP. He makes some claim, you look it up, it turns out to be wrong. Makes it hard to take anything this guy says seriously.

Is this some weird meta-fakeout? Pulling up the paper, it seems to be a qualitative report on philanthropic officers' attempts to improve Asian donation rates. Some quotes from it:

This explains why Asian American giving often follows a ‘quid pro quo’ practice: recipients are expected to reciprocate to donors when asked for charitable donation

Asian American giving tends to be private, personal and small as opposed to Western charitable giving practices

their patterns of giving usually are transacted in a personalistic or familial manner

many Asian Americans, especially first-generation immigrants, are least likely to make planned gifts or leave bequests to charities

Several interviews revealed Asian Americans’ disconnections with their university. In the words of one development officer:

Alumni of color generally tended not to be as engaged and connected to the university.

Notably, the paper, as far as I can tell, includes no statistics on rates of Asian American giving, focusing on strategies development offices are using to try to improve giving rates.

“When I look at the donation list from my daughters’ schools, I see fewer Chinese names than some other ethnic groups…Some Chinese parents ask, ‘We are already paying so much tuition, why do we need to give more?’” The culture of alumni giving is still relatively new in China and Hong Kong.

Exactly. Are the universities capitalist firms selling a product, or charitable organizations living off begging?

Pick one. If the thing they are sellling is valuable, they should openly name a price. When you buy burger, you pay and it is finished, McDonalds will not pester you for rest of your life into "donating".

Universities are hedge funds that market themselves by running resorts for young adults and that pay out distributions in status.

Nothing irks me more than when someone lists a bunch of references claiming they support a point while in reality they say the exact opposite. I am triggered.