Asking administration to take reports of racism on campus seriously or demanding that schools do more to include minority-centric classes to make campuses more inclusive cannot be turned around and used against anyone.
You can't see a world where Bob Jones University mandates all non southern students to take "Confederate History"? I mean, you need to have cultural awareness, right?
Or when Notre Dame or a Catholic university forces students to go to a religion class and "understand the biblical calling to stop abortion" happens to be a topic of discussion? (Pro-Tip; this one happened to me in the early 2000s).
You can't define "minority" or "inclusive" or "cultural awareness" narrow enough to avoid those without becoming incredibly biased in the process (as well as completely unable to adapt to newer situations, for instance, LGBT students in the last 30 years). Or, to put it more succinctly - who do you think is going to end up defining those terms when push comes to shove? Disempowered students, or the same people in power who haven't done shit besides give lip service for the last 50 years?
In our lifetimes we went from the USPS suspending delivery of a major magazine because it brought up the concept of gay marriage as possible (1960s) to a federal law being bipartisan-ly passed 20 years ago banning gay marriage to gay marriage being legalized across the board. The reason that happens is that while we can enact all sorts of policies and laws - we couldn't stop people from talking about it. People couldn't pressure colleges into cancelling talks by gay marriage advocates.
What happens if, in 1980, the majority brings up the concept of gay marriage being "immoral" and "wrong", and then universities, in accordance with the progressive thought at the time, force LGBT students to go to "cultural awareness" classes? What happens when they decide that it is "wrong" to talk about gay marriage and ban it as an item of conversation? No more talks about it at colleges, because it's "wrong".
At some point, all of us are going to be on the wrong side of history. No one wants to admit it; but at some point, we will all be those old racist / sexist / ignorant people. I do not want the ability to codify our beliefs in terms of canceling speech in any way. Because we will, at some point, inevitably screw people who deserve better. (Demographic shifts will have our generation holding disproportional political power as we get older, since we're an abnormally large generation that are currently having less kids than our parents. Similar to how the older baby boomers have a ton of power because of their population size, when we are 55+, we will be the same way most likely)
Too many Asian American students have bought into the model minority myth and don't see themselves as part of the same minority group that includes black and Latino students. They think that they've "made it" and don't need to get involved with pushback against racist policies, which is a shame and only leads to them being used as cover for racist nonsense. You talk about the non-Asian students being shortsighted with their demands but the people who are really being shortsighted are the Asian students who seem to believe that they're above it all and will not have to face the same discrimination as other minorities.
Oh, we will face discrimination. No doubt. Chinese and South Asians are the ones who will feel the shift in the next 10-20 years, especially if China asserts itself as a US level economic superpower. With the rise in immigration and the loss of industry - you will see something closer to how hispanics are treated in the US.
But I can't help but notice that the local people in power in this country found a great many ways to screw black people in this country over and over even after the passing of the Civil Rights Act. After the Civil War. After the VRA. This falls under the Popehat quote - if you institute laws without changing who is interpreting or enforcing the laws - it's going to backfire just like it did every other time. Honestly, protesting at colleges and having them do these minor things to fight systemic racism feels like taking tylenol when you have a cold and assuming Tylenol will kill the cold. You can't try to shift everyone's cultural norms all at once just at college. I get that it feels like a little progress - but it feels like they're yelling at the symptoms rather than the root cause.
Black people have been in this country since the very beginning and have never had things catered to them, so I'm not sure what you're implying.
That's the part of it - as a first generation immigrant, I suspect I don't have that same sense of ownership that folks who have had their families born and raised in the US have probably. It's nothing against anyone - just that it may not be as big of a deal to us because we don't have that same strong sense of ownership and belonging that might come from a third or fourth or fifth generation American. Most of us are either first or second generation immigrants. I could see the shift happening as our kids and grandkids feel more ownership in the US.
This is ridiculous. You can't ever see any kind of Asian solidarity if Asian groups refuse to participate in the process of getting things changed. Maybe it's because my Japanese relatives participated in the civil rights movement and worked with the Black Panthers in California but that kind of attitude seems extremely selfish and very shortsighted.
And I suspect the difference in how this would get implemented lies in where people grew up. When you grow up in a red area; it's very, very easy to see how this gets whipped around on folks. Having lived on the coasts for 8 years now; the lack of understanding of how the other side lives is real, and scary. I love my friends out in Seattle; but it is unfathomable to them that people would vote for Republicans, and be against gun control, and not understand how to be culturally understanding. Then the scorn, and the elitism, and the disdain and "othering" of anyone not like them is real. They don't understand why they just can't "force" them to stop being racist and sexist and bigoted. Then I go back home and it's the exact opposite.
Speaking of the Black Panthers, the head of the FBI once called them the "greatest threat to the internal security of our country". If those colleges had these same authoritarian approval and desire to placate anyone who protested with a strong enough voice...how do you think that would have worked out? You think they would have allowed black college students in the South to join the Black Panthers and protest on campus? Or would white college students (happily backed by the FBI, mind you) have protested that they felt unsafe and had the school kick them all out? (If you want to use a modern equivalent, the FBI saw the Black Panthers back then as they see ISIS now. Imagine that.)
Also - definitely enjoying the conversation for what it is worth.
