A decade later, turns out I was wrong. Ironically, it’s because the racial identity politics of the last decade made me realize I’m not white, and that race is such a pernicious concept that even the good white people can’t be trusted with it.
That's fine , but you can't reasonably adopt a tone that there are obvious answers to this, or feign surprise that people disagree with you, when you yourself argued the exact opposite --- and when your reason for changing your mind is so idiosyncratic. I assure you that most people do not arrive at their opinion on racial preferences based on a realization that they aren't white. If that's the reason racial preferences are wrong, it's incumbent on you to disclose that up front.
You can think it's idiosyncratic, but I can assure you (both as an Asian and as someone who knows quite a few Asians) that many (maybe the majority of) Asians whose views on race-based treatment/preferences have changed were driven by the eventual recognition that they exist in the racial in-between. They get almost none of the "privilege" that white people do while getting none of the "protections" that other minorities do. And, at the same time, they are often penalized for being Asian.
It's not surprising or idiosyncratic that an Asian's viewpoint on race has evolved as they've spent more time being exposed to America's racial hypocrisy and experienced more and more of this in-betweenness.
I think we’re making a similar point, but I’d frame it slightly differently. For Asians, racialization is situational. Growing up, I rarely thought about race. Outside of dating and sports, physical differences never came up.
And now, Asians are racialized from both sides. And on the left, it’s this pernicious sort of racialization where we’re “people of color” when they’re trying to show how big their coalition is, but expected to “check our privilege” like white people and defer to the interests of black people and Latinos.
I agree we are making a similar point. My original post had a long rant about Asians only being minorities when it benefits someone's argument (on the left or right) but I deleted it before posting. Suffice to say that there is a long history of marginalizing racism against Asians in America (recall that the Chinese Exclusion Act or some form of it was in effect until the World War 2) and the fight that the left has put up to try to excuse or hide the clear facts that affirmative action policies have (had?) an adverse impact on Asians is the latest example of that.
My reason isn’t idiosyncratic at all: any system of racial preferences necessarily racializes people. Being racialized is unpleasant. I don’t like it for the same reason I imagine the majority of non-white people oppose racial preferences. They don’t want to be treated like that, don’t think it’s fair, etc.
Growing up as someone who wasn’t racialized and then becoming racialized as an adult is something most people don’t experience. That is idiosyncratic, sure, but that’s the reason my view on racial preferences changed, not the reason I oppose them now.
I'm not saying that you're making a risible argument, though I disagree with it. I'm simply saying that you're making a non-obvious argument, and the evidence that I offer for my claim is that you yourself didn't believe it just a few years ago, despite being one of the "token conservatives" in your law school class. It couldn't have too much to do with how you grew up, because you came by it lately.
Make whichever argument you like. I'll only object to your use of the rhetorical frame that implies surprise that someone else would disagree with you. You disagreed with you until recently, as I do now.
The argument I’m making about why a system of racial preferences is bad is the standard conservative argument against racial preferences. It reinforces the racialization society and perpetuates it to the next generation. “The only way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”
But the question you asked me above was different: why my view changed. The reason for that may be idiosyncratic and non-obvious—I didn’t appreciate color blindness as a social norm until it wasn’t my reality anymore—but that’s a different issue than the first point.
It’s like if someone is a pro-taxes and regulation Democrat and then changes his view because he inherits his dad’s small business when he passes unexpectedly. The reason for the change in view might be idiosyncratic, but the reason for opposing taxes and regulation is standard.
Yes. Once again: I'm not saying that your argument is invalid because you've changed your mind. I'm saying that because you've deeply held both positions on the issue, it is disingenuous to pretend that one of those positions is obviously false. Perhaps you know something new, as the metaphorical inheritor of the family business. It's incumbent on you to share that, rather than posturing as if you knew it all along.
(Again, I agree with Rayiner Classic on this point, and not with New Rayiner, but that's neither here nor there.)
