This is Orwellian: the Asian-American author of a New York Times column claims that ending discrimination against Asian-Americans in college admissions would do them "egregious harm."
It's not simply that The New York Times found an Asian-American willing to write a column—in the context of the lawsuit against Harvard— supporting continued discrimination against Asian-Americans in college admissions. It is this line by Lisa Ko that is absolutely mind-boggling [emphasis added throughout]:
"Eliminating race as a consideration in admissions would cause egregious harm to people of color, including Asian-Americans."
So ending discrimination against Asian-Americans would do "egregious harm" to them. Right. And War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength. Somewhere, the author of 1984 is laughing through his tears.
I combed through the column, looking for arguments in support of her assertion that ending discrimination against Asian-Americans would cause them great harm. And found none. Instead, Ko offered examples of how she had been mistaken for other Asian-Americans in her high school, and how that made her angry.
She then mentions that "when Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York proposed eliminating the Specialized High School Admissions Test to diversify New York City’s specialized high schools — which are generally majority Asian and have relatively few black and Latino students — some Asian-American parents criticized the proposal as anti-Asian."
Um, of course they did! Does Ko really believe that de Blasio's plan to discriminate against Asian-American high school kids would help them, or conversely, that continuing a merit-based admissions system harms them? This is double-think on steroids.
Ko makes a pitch for Asian-Americans to to "imagine, and fulfill, our own radical futures."
What Ko chooses to ignore is that for countless Asian-American students, the future they imagine begins with being admitted, based on their own merits, to America's colleges.
Note: When Kanye West breaks with racial group-think to support President Trump, liberals vilify him as an example of "what happens when Negros don’t read.” But when Ko comes out in favor of continued discrimination against fellow Asian-Americans, The New York Times rewards her with a column.
Note segundo: Ko's first novel won something called the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for "Socially Engaged Fiction." Perfect bedtime reading for an SJW to snuggle up with.
