Comments on: Silicon Valley White-Asian Divide https://www.isegoria.net/2015/07/silicon-valley-white-asian-divide/ From the ancient Greek for equality in freedom of speech; an eclectic mix of thoughts, large and small Thu, 28 May 2026 23:08:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.6.1 By: Wow Just Wow https://www.isegoria.net/2015/07/silicon-valley-white-asian-divide/comment-page-1/#comment-2350629 Wow Just Wow Tue, 28 Jul 2015 22:17:55 +0000 http://www.isegoria.net/?p=38535#comment-2350629 The last sentence made me chuckle:

“And we lost out on all sorts of chaotic cultural interactions that might have happened in between.”

You can use the word “chaotic” to jokingly describe cultural interactions in a white/Asian/Indian school because the chaos won’t really rise above the level of mild discomfort. But if he were talking about cross-racial interactions in a Bad School™, you’d know “chaotic” actually meant “chaotic”, and the Slate editor would swap in “vibrant” instead.

]]> By: Bill https://www.isegoria.net/2015/07/silicon-valley-white-asian-divide/comment-page-1/#comment-2347048 Bill Thu, 23 Jul 2015 20:49:31 +0000 http://www.isegoria.net/?p=38535#comment-2347048 “My high school, academically top-of-the-line, illustrates one of the many absurdities of a country populated by different cultures and yet seemingly still possessed by that primordial urge to seek those whose skin color is the same—which goes to show once again that what is natural is not always good. In the end, we self-segregated because it made us feel more comfortable. And we lost out on all sorts of chaotic cultural interactions that might have happened in between.” (from the referenced article)

It made the Asian kids more comfortable.

My son enjoyed math and science while attending our (university town) high school – and so he naturally spent a lot of time with the Asian kids. I think he was one of two white participants in Science Olympiad (about 25 kids total).

One Friday night he came to me with a somewhat miffed expression. Apparently, there was going to be an informal party that night with all of the Science Olympiad kids, but he wasn’t invited. When he asked his best friend in this group for the reason, my son was told that he wasn’t invited because he is white. He then raised this point with some more of his “friends” in this group, and they all commiserated – but they didn’t change their behavior.

Should I have been telling him to have more white friends?

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