'...many whites like meritocracy when it keeps outs blacks, but like it much less when it ends up including lots of Asian Americans...the perception of a group threat from Asian Americans is skewing their attitudes. You might think, “sadly true, but how does it affect Asian Americans?” These attitudes have real world implications.'

#whiteness #meritocracy #african american #asian america #education #culture #politics #race

Unfortunately, the American conception of equality seems to operate on a sixth-grade level. We understand that disparate treatment is wrong, but we have a harder time reckoning with more insidious forms of bigotry. We believe we're a meritocracy and that as long as there aren't laws directly marginalizing certain groups of people, then our nation is a fair one where all of us have equal opportunities. Much of the public and many of our courts are sympathetic to relatively simplistic arguments based on legal equality: laws that treat some people differently than others are bad. Of course, many laws that treat some people differently than others are bad, but battling discrimination is more complicated than that.' — Jill Filipovic

www.guardian.co.uk

#equality #bigotry #meritocracy #equal opportunity #politics #culture #jill filipovic

thesmithian-blog

We’ve entered a new terrain where American meritocracy is a faith, not an ideal; where we must muster evidence of bias in increasingly vast volumes to warrant policies applied in ever narrowing circumstances; where nothing qualifies as what we once called racism, and commitment to this perspective is all but data-proof. The fault lines in this society are the problem that no longer has a name, or an apparent solution.

Jelani Cobb, at the New Yorker

#jelani cobb #the new yorker #united states #meritocracy #culture #politics #supreme court #scotus #race #racism #Post-Racial-America #data #society