Before I start, I want to say that I respect your opinion wholeheartedly, and I do understand where you are coming from. I don’t want what I’m about to say to be of any offense to you. Apologies in advance if any offence is taken.
As an Asian (regarded as a minority group in North America), my ethnicity is often at the forefront of the negative effects of affirmative action. With a culture that prioritizes achievement, good grades, and high performance, affirmative action has done nothing but harm the high-achievers of my ethnicity. Many individuals of Asian descent have worked very hard for achievement only to be shadowed by another individual who has not worked half as hard as them. I find it appalling that many individuals preach to “bring up minority groups” but fail to understand that social initiatives like affirmative action are not a net-gain scheme. In fact, in most cases, it results in a net loss.
Take a look at something like the Harvard Admissions Scandal, which clearly depicts the negative impact of affirmative action upon individuals in which affirmative action is not targeted towards. Here is a chart with related figures:
Take the non-highlighted figures with a grain of salt, as I could not fact-check the validity of the figures.
Here is the official document from the US Supreme Court to verify some of the figures:
As you can clearly discern from the image provided, there is a blatantly big hole in admission rates for the top Asian American students and the average African American students. Despite being at the 10th decile (better than 90-99% population, or 40-49% above the median), Asian Americans face an admissions rate more abysmal than African Americans of the 4th decile (better than 30-39% of the population, or 11-28% below the median; i.e., below average). Affirmative action takes away from one for the benefit of another. Unfortunately, admissions to schools aren’t the only thing affected by it.
The saying goes, “You give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. If you teach a man how to fish, he will eat for the rest of his life”. Affirmative action only gives the fish to select marginalized groups of individuals, not teach them how to catch them. If you simply apply the lazy approach and just give marginalized communities compensation in the form of money, exposure, or quotas, the affected group of individuals will have a very hard time learning to do things themselves. If you keep giving somebody money, that individual will be very likely to be dependent on that money, as they haven’t learned to earn it themselves. To alleviate socioeconomic disparities, we shouldn’t strive to force-feed resources to the needy, but invest in things like schools and proper infrastructure that have a lasting impact on marginalized communities rather than the current short-lived impact of unfair representation.
Can’t believe this political nonsense has reached Roblox of all things