Every so often we witness sensationalist stories of some Asians blaming affirmative action for causing bias against Asians. The problem isn’t affirmative action, the problem is white dominant culture.
Here are three things that are actually the issue:
First, anti-Black clickbait media and conservative right coverage.
The media often weaponizes affirmative action to pit Asians as a wedge against Black and brown folks. This additionally contributes to anti-Asian racism because of how the media portrays Asians as a monolith.
What they’re not covering are the hundreds of thousands that have been able to, because of affirmative action policies, enter into spaces that were historically closed to us.
What they’re not covering is how Black and brown students are impacted in layers.
Second, standardized testing. Standardized testing was shaped by eugenics. It is proven to be anti-Black, anti-Indigenous, ableist, and classist, and to benefit cis het white dominant culture on all fronts.
Though many colleges and universities are dropping these as requirements, many entry points and high schools still base curriculum training off of these testing standards.
Third, legacy admissions. Data from 2014-2019 Harvard admissions show legacy students accepted at a 33.6% rate, vs 5.9% for non-legacy.
And when you look at who legacy is, who has historically gone to legacy institutions, who they were originally built for and by, they are structurally white.
The point of our work isn’t just getting into colleges. Colleges aren’t even everyone’s path and shouldn’t be.
The problem isn’t affirmative action.
The problems are the root causes that make it necessary to even have affirmative action in the first place.
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