Actually the Chinese suffered quite a bit under racism and were legally denied basic rights for decades. That said I don't want to get into an argument about who had it worse racially but racism in the US affected almost everygroup.
Not sure it would matter. I was born in 1972. Parents came here in the 60s. There is a history of anti-Chinese legislation in US history. I am fairly sure that a child of black Jamaican immigrants would benefit from anti-discriminatory laws, affirmative action, etc. It's not about heritage. It's about skin color. White immigrants from Africa do not get help even if they are "African-Americans". Don't matter if their ancestry goes back hundreds of years. Asians don't get any help either. Hell the public collegiate system in California used to penalize us (moreso than whites) since we were apparently "over-represented".
Help in what way? There are many Asians who get public assistance. I hate these arguments that pit one minority against the other. If it hadn't been for the Civil Rights movement that was largely not led by Asians we Asians would still be suffering from the legalized discrimination that kept us down for decades. Remember under Segregation Asians were considered "Colored". It often seems to me that most of the Asians, who came during or after Civil Rights movement appreciate that.
don't mean to be against other minorities. moreso just general whining hell i've gotten enough math nerd, bad driver, small dick insults in my life that I feel like lashing back once in a while. seems to me that Asians are not respected by whites as much as blacks because they don't lash out. like i said, we even get penalized with university admissions. just seems like we get the bad stuff but none of the good. Hollywood can't even cast an Asian guy to play an Asian guy (Dragonball Z). Any outcry about that? never. Asians who complain about it seem to be the ones that are called "racists". I thought Charlie Chan was decades ago. this thread was about the reasons for the Chicago firefighter ruling. Qball was nice enough to post a legal explanation for it. While I think it was probably misguided in a "just" sense - the law is the law and that law was probably there for a good reason. I would blame the HR dept. for the CFD more than anything else. It was a huge oversight on their part ... and this admission process irregularity was probably never rooted in racism in the first place. Does this law have some sort relation to the slave trade? Of course. But blacks who were not slaves nor the descendants of slaves still benefit. That is why i replied to him. Also to point out how our minority status is even more (in my subjective view of course) of a disadvantage. I suppose you can say that if I was born black, there is high probability I would have been born in a single-parent household in the inner city ,etc. and that my whole life experience would have been different. But Asian kids in those circumstances don't get any benefit of the doubt - so these laws, programs to help certain minorities are mostly (all?) based on skin color.
An "African American" is, according to Congress, a person who is a descendant of one of the indigenous "black" ethnic groups of Africa....i.e. biologically African....not European or otherwise. So a white person born in Uganda, for example, doesn't fit into this category.
I understand what the chinese went through was unjustifiable but are you really seriously suggesting that african american slavery to what the chinese endured during the railroad boom is similar? Just the time-period itself is enough to significantly differentiate them. Yes, I agree. I never said it wasn't about skin color. Also, I am not aware about the california college issue you mentioned. Any link? Yes, it ends up being a numbers game. Most (I would guess at least 90%?) blacks in US are descendants of slavery. I don't think the number is as high for chinese americans and railroad industry on 1800s. I didn't mean to belittle your racial issues you've personally been a victim of. I was merely stating that it could have been worse. But ya, it ain't 100% peachy yet but I think this country has made major strides in racial equality.
So it is all essentially skin color. The geographical designations are basically there to confuse people into thinking that there is some sort of cultural basis for ethnic identification.
What makes a person African or European goes deeper than skin color. It is in their genome. There are people who identify as "black" who actually have more European DNA than African DNA.
Here's a link from a recent article http://articles.boston.com/2011-04-...an-american-students-competitive-schools-high Seems like the California UC system ended the practice years ago. I'm not going to pretend that this is a HUGE social injustice (all these kids will lead productive lives) but it does rub me the wrong way. When we purportedly have it harder than whites in many places - it sort of crosses the line from "affirmative action" into "racial quotas". Based on my limited knowledge of "test discrimination" - it would seem that the SAT test makers are largely Asian and cater their test to Asians or that the largely white SAT test makers cater the test to Asians. Or is that too simplistic? Or maybe the test is simply catered to good students? Maybe that is why I tend to doubt "test discrimination" theories - and a lot of other allegedly discriminatory practices such as redlining, traffic stoppages, etc. - because Asians tend to shatter the myth that whites treat whites best. And if discrimination does exist and Asians are succeeding irregardless, then that should not be held against us. But to stay with the thread topic - I have to agree with the judge's decision because the law is the law and thanks for pointing that out. Again though - I don't think the hiring practices were racist in intent - but someone from HR should be held accountable.
