Sunday Group Week 5: February 2, 1997 Affirmative action and the model minority thesis Do Asian American interests fit the minority model? Moderator: Arthur Hu Editors: Arthur Hu and Andrew Chin Present: Andrew Chin Peter Hong, Arthur Hu, Joan Kee, Mike Lai Join us next week for another hard-hitting discussion, including a post-verdict review of the second OJ Simpson trial, led by Lui Sieh. For full information, check the Sunday Group web site: http://pantheon.yale.edu/~caase/sunday.html Transcript ---------- Arthur: My starting topic is why Asian Americans have chosen to make affirmative action, meaning preferences for Blacks and Hispanics over ASians with better grades and test scores the number 1 issue, and why so many Asians opposed Prop 209.. Do Asians really feel so strongly about letting Blacks go first, or do Asians really think they're getting something out of affirmative action? And why is it that Asian Americans are letting Berkeley get away with discriminating against Filipinos, who have the lowest admission rates? They still want to put Fils back on preferences even though they were never under-represented. but now what's happening is that being taken off is being used as a cover for discriminating against the Filipinos since they don't have the political ammo of the Chinse and Japanese, who won the last time around in the 80s. Andrew: I challenge the premise of the question... should the only reason Asian Americans support a policy be that it serves our self-interests? Affirmative action is part of a wider policy of dismantling the legal construction of discrimination. It's a mistake to view it narrowly. Arthur: It is my observation that the activists are essentially arguing that Asians should be honorary whites when affirmative action doesn't favor Asians, and that only proves that we have more in common with whites than disadvantaged minorities. Mike: It's hard to analyze an issue that's so diverse, but I think one of the reasons is that a good number of Asian Americans bought the arguemnt that 209 is racist. Andrew: I thought the UC System had gone to a race-neutral admission policy as of last year. Arthur: UC's grad school admissions are race neutral as of next year's entering class, since it's already underway. The change was supposed to go into effect next year for undergraduate admissions, but the latest twist of Prop 209 is that the judge is not only saying that racial preferences are allowable, but you are discriminating even if you are colorblind. It's just amazing what judges can get away with these days. Bakke never required race preferences. Andrew: Bakke didn't bar race preferences either. Judges have always "got away with" a lot; usually it's been in the direction of discrimination against people of color though. Remember Dred Scott and Korematsu, to name two of thousands of cases. Mike: Actually, it was its professional schools. Undergraduate admissions were slated to be changed next year. Andrew: I don't understand Arthur's claim about what the activists are saying. Peter: Arthur, are you saying that because Asians are viewed as model minorities that we have been elevated to the status of psuedo-white status as far as affirmative action is concerned? Mike: Arthur, I agree with your contention in your article that some of the AA activists out there are really speaking for themselves and are supporting affirmative action to advance their own political careers rather than anything else. Andrew: There are a lot of Asian Americans who speak out against affirmative action to advance their own political careers too. Arthur: So does everyone here at least accept the concept that affirmative action IS really about favoring races with lower grades and test scores, even if it's for a good social reason? Half of the defenders of affirmative action are still pretending that black merit is equal to whites and that test scores are just biased. But how can you say that blacks have awful grades and test scores to justify ebonics and forced busing, but then say that their academics are just as good as whites and Asians? And why is it OK to say that Asians do better than whties, and it's OK for Asians to be over-represented, but it's not OK to say that whites are better than blacks? And strangest of all, why is it unacceptable to have ANY black underrepresenteation at Berekeley, but nobody cares that whites are less than 30% of undergrads but 50% of high school grads? Is it just me, or is everyone really that clueless? Andrew: Whoa, there are about five different issues there Arthur, each of which deserves a separate analysis. Peter: Question: Who is and isn't for affirmative action in this forum? Andrew: If we're going to cast votes on affirmative action, we'd better have a working definition of affirmative action. Peter: Why don't you define it? I must say that I'm rather indifferent to affirmative action since I'm in a field where it probably matters the least... I take it Arthur is against affirmative action... Arthur: The problem is that there ISN'T any legal definition of affirmative action. I say there are different classes. One is Microsoft, where you don't discriminate, but you don't care about diversity at all, and if there are 0.5% blacks, so be it. The second is that you try to recruit everybody that's qualified. The third is that you lower standards a little bit to get closer to parity, but don't get there. This is what most colleges do. Affirmative action also goes to the San Jose fire department which hired only one white male out of 22 firefighters, and other cases where white men are basically all but entirely excluded. All these are affirmative action. Peter: Andrew, I think Arthur has made his stand clear. How about you? Arthur, the problem I'm having is trying to understand what part of the affirmative action problem you have a "problem" with... Andrew: If you control for level of education and experience, whites are still way ahead of all people of color, including Asian Americans. Peter: Andrew, I hesitate to agree with you 100% there but as a statistical generalization you may be correct. Andrew: One problem with formally neutral hiring like at Microsoft is that search costs are substantial in both time and money. In this case, social connections matter. And our society is segregated along lines of race, partly because of prior unjust laws. Arthur: I'm against illegal affirmative action, with the latest cases, this may include any racial preferences. Mike: My problem with affirmative action is that I believe it tends to increase racial tension rather than diffuse it. Andrew: Arthur, are you saying that there is a serious shortage of employment opportunities for white men out there? Peter: Arthur, isn't it an oxymoron to say affirmative action without racial preferences? Isn't that what affirmative action is all about? Peter: Mike, I do agree that it probably works more to heighten tension than to relieve it. Andrew: I think there is am implicit assumption in Arthur's analysis that any policy should be costless--there should be no special burden, no matter how minimal, on white men; and past injustice will deconstruct itself. But power persists, whether just or unjust. Given that power persists, and that some of the power currently possessed by white men resulted from the illegitimate legal construction of discrimination and race, why shouldn't the remedy follow precisely the same constructed lines? Arthur: At the moment, I propose a compromise. You figure out what a 100% merit figure would be, and a 100% diversity quota, and you split the difference. Right now, there's nothing to prevent a fire department from from being able to hire no white men at all and pretend that it's legal. Likewise, there's nothing to keep the University of Washington law school from admitting 40% minorities in a state that has only 15% minorities, and pretending that it's just "diversity". Prop. 209 is a blunt way of preventing abuse. In my opinion, it also knocks out consideration of what might be justifiable preferences. Peter: Arthur, isn't that just the same? It's just playing with numbers. It does not really get to the heart of the problem... Arthur: There is nothing on the books that says that racial preferences are part of nondiscrimination. That all comes out of the 1978 Bakke decision. The 1964 civil rights act banned "discrimination," but since the judges didn't see a ban on preferences, they decided that it was just a blanket endorsement of "desegregation," and turned a law that said you couldn't discriminate into a law that many are now saying forces you to hire on the basis of race. Thus the twisted logic that it is illegal for UC to admit without race as a criterion. Peter: Arthur, you also mention a fire department not having to hire any white men. I don't see the point of a fire department going out of their way to not hire any white men. Mike: Arthur, the compromise is really how affirmative action is being practiced today, at least in most places. Most of the "minority" admittees to top schools or lucrative positions must have been qualified, or else it would be reckless. Arthur: I'm not saying that ALL preferences should be banned. My study of MIT admissions basically shows a massive amount of preferences, but on the other hand, the costs are not great, and the downsides aren't terrible. What bugs me is the amount of lying going on, and the massive abuses when blacks are overrepresented but whites are underrepresented, and the people who really benefit are the officials who want to brag about diversity. Andrew: Arthur, that's more a reading of Adarand than of Bakke. Bakke says that race can be used as a plus-factor. Peter: Correct me if I'm wrong, but does Arthur has a problem with black overrepresentation? Peter: Joan, not saying much today huh? Joan: Sorry, I guess I'm just preoccupied with the wall of shame. Peter: Wall of shame? Andrew: I don't think there's black overrepresentation in any positions of real power. (Arthur notes: that's like saying there's nothing wrong with balck racism if there isn't any power. Tell that to Reginald Denny.) Joan: What do you mean by real power? And moreover, it seems to me that Asian Americans have to adopt another strategy than the hackneyed, "Help, help, we're being oppressed." Andrew: I don't understand what you mean by "another strategy," since as a matter of fact we are being oppressed (to the extent racial injustice exists) and oppression will not be dismantled without help (i.e., concessions of power by those who hold it). Joan: Take the Yale campus as an example. Students (since the era of Don Nakanishi and the original Cross Currents) have been fighting for AA studies, essentially crying, "Help, we're oppressed" to the administration. The results have been less than satisfactory. Andrew: You also have to keep in mind that the market is not race-neutral. Search costs are nonzero, so illegitimate racial discrimination may result from simple rational decisionmaking. Mike: Andrew, you're implying then it's more costly to recruit candidates of color, therefore they're underrepresented? Andrew: Yes...it's more costly. These costs include the statistical risk of hiring someone from a category with which you have no experience, the discriminatory tastes of your clients, and the social (and often geographic) distance between whites and people of colors. I think Asian Americans will require general race-conscious policies, of which affirmative action has been an early brainchild, which account for our social marginalization and its market effects. Joan: Yes, but how many non Asians are really going to care? Andrew: We have to make them care, standing firm on the legitimacy of our position and claims. Peter: The word "claims" disturbs me... Joan: I agree, but begging the Establishment, the administration or whoever it is that has power to implement what we want seems to be counterproductive. Andrew: I see even less mileage resulting from abandoning a position of legitimacy in order to make others care. Joan: Right. But whining and asserting are a bit different, don't you think? Andrew: Who's whining? It all depends on the connotation you project upon our actions. Was Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech whining? Arthur: Anybody who thinks that MLK wasn't just kidding is now called a racist. Arthur: The later decisions basically render Bakke obsolete. That's what's interesting about Prop. 209, because if the Supreme Court is consistent, then Prop. 209 is already the law of the land. There is no law on the books which permits racial preferences in so many words. I would rather the Civil Rights Act be amended to permit discrimination against whites and Asians and men. If the defenders of racial preferences are serious, they should not hide behind the charade of pretending to be color-blind. Peter: Andrew, I agree, that is what is puzzling me about Arthur's position. Arthur: Blacks are overrepresented by a factor of 3 to 4 in the Seattle fire deparment administration. Of course the fact they have a black fire chief has nothing to do with that. In most public safety postions in most California cities, blacks are at or over parity. In LA, blacks are outraged that black cops have declined slightly; however, nobody notices that blacks are already over parity. That tells me that "fairness" has little to do with what affirmative action is really about. [Andrew's note: Blacks are overrepresented in the armed forces, too. I don't see Arthur complaining about that. To the extent that all of these are dangerous public service jobs wielding little economic power, its emergence as a niche for the African-American middle class reflects the unfairness to blacks in society at large.] Peter: I think one fact that Arthur is overlooking may be that more blacks may be applying for the fire department job than whites. Might that have some effect on the statistics? Arthur: I'm not overlooking black hires. You should not be surprised when preferences for blacks results in black overrepresentation and white underrepresentation. Peter: Andrew, I wonder, besides the position of being for the "principle" of the thing, what Arthur has to gain by this point of view he holds... Mike: Do people think that Asian Americans need affirmative action to succeed in the US in the long run? Arthur: I don't see why Asians need to rely on being hired or promoted on the basis of race or ethnicity. Just be treated equally. If whites have connections, we'll just have to do whatever it takes to get some of them. Joan: And how do you propose we obtain "connections"? (Arthur notes: that's called assimilation and learning the ropes.) Peter: Unfortunately, the only way to truly obtain "connections" is with a level of skill that demonstrates your usefulness to who ever it may concern... Joan: So basically we should just adopt the position of a glorified houseboy?? Peter: No no no, I'm talking about the professional world, people hire people because they are useful not because they need someone to oppress. They can do that at home with their family. :p Joan: True, but hiring someone because they're "useful" insinuates that AAs can only be subject to the position of a "tool." Peter: Joan, you're so naive it's so sweet... :) I'm not talking about AA's, I'm talking about people. The human race. Joan: I thought this discussion group was about AAs. Peter: AA's are people too. :) Joan: I mean, come on, why is it that so many AAs are stuck in middle management? Peter: But who ever told them to go work for a big coorporation in the first place? Joan: Yes, but I had no idea we were launching on a discourse of job mobility. Peter: I think Arthur does have a good point here. AAs tend to be more "pragmatic." In the professional world it takes three things to succeed: 1)skill, 2)connections, 3)self motivation. Mike: I'm not sure that the most effective way to combat discrimination is to set up little protected enclaves with numerical "goals". I happen to think the economic situation is such that it may eventually be more costly to discriminate, if that isn't the case already. Arthur: I wanted to mention, it's weird that some of the biggest heros are Henry Der, who worked to preserve quotas against Chinese at Lowell, and Chancellor Tien who came up with the Orwellian slogan "diversity is excellence" and upholding preferences for blacks over better qualified Asians with lower incomes, and overseeing whites nearly disappearing from campus in the name of some warped vision of "diversity." Joan: I don't think whites will be disappearing from ANY campus in America anytime soon. Arthur: Whites have already deserted city school systems, UC has turned their flagships into predominantly minority institutions where they've put up a big "whites need not apply" signs. The only way to get more diversity when you've only got 28% whites is to have 0% whites. Diversity is just another word for segregation, but in favor of minorities. I'm against ALL discrimination. Arthur: I also find it interesting that Asians are weakest precisely where blacks put all their effort: hiring teachers, principals, Afrocentric curricula, busing, school board, adminstrators (in UC blacks are at parity in administration), yet Asians are the ones with the best academics, and blacks are still stuck at the bottom after 30 years of "civil rights" victories. This stuff just doesn't matter. Mastering the freaking material matters, and that's why Asians can outsmart whites, but the other minorities aren't. Arthur: I also want to ask folks why we have to keep statistics about superior health and education for Asian Americans such a huge secret. Whenever the city papers rant about how rotten education is for blacks, they NEVER bring up numbers for Asians, which 90% of the time are better than whites, even when Asians are poorer. Why is it such a huge secret that Asian Americans, not the Japanese, have the longeest life expectancy, or that Asian Americans have by far the lowest AIDS rates, even when they are poorer? Joan: True, but then again, Asians get short shrift in the media as it is. Somehow i think all of that is assumed Arthur: I think a big problem is everythime the media wandedrs into this, they get beaten to a pulp by thge Asian PC "we're not the model minority" police. Mike: Statistics about Asian Americans tend to be ignored in general; i don't there's a conspirarcy to cover them up. Andrew: I wouldn't want high Asian American achievement to be reported in conjunction with articles that are making a general point about low minority achievement, unless there was already widespread mainstream understanding about Asian immigration patterns and other explanations of Asian American success that do not deny the prevalence of anti-Asian American racism. Otherwise, such statistics are prone to misinterpretation. [Oliver Wang will moderate next week.]