A matter of representation


Several readers have brought it up in the comments, and it even cropped up in a secret message group I’m in, so I need to talk about this issue I guess. There is a serious lack of representation in the 2019 winning team from the United State of America in the International Math Olympiad. Except for a token Tocharian, it looks as if every member of the team is of East Asian heritage.

Contrast this with the much more diverse team from 2018, just last year. There were two South Asians on the team! In 2017, there was a <<<Bengali>>> American and a Tocharian on the team.

We’re moving backward. Do better.

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Milan Todorovic
Milan Todorovic
4 years ago

Serbia got 350 medals at IMO so far. IMO team 2019 (with two professors):

http://www.politika.rs/scc/clanak/434083/Mladi-srpski-matematicari-medu-deset-najboljih-na-svetu

Jelena Ivancic (the best in the world in the girls category):

http://www.politika.rs/scc/clanak/434112/Jelena-Ivancic-dobitnica-Mirzahani-nagrade-iz-matematike

AnAn
4 years ago

Go Serbia!

Serbian Aryaputra aur Aryaputri ki jai!

++++++++++++++++++

I think the solution to this problem Razib is:

https://www.brownpundits.com/2019/01/23/is-it-time-for-asian-americans-and-latino-americans-to-ask-to-be-considered-white-b/

If we are all “white” than representation problem solved. Voila!

I think that the only “protected classes” as per the 1964 and 1965 civil rights legislation should be Black African Americans. No exceptions.

The US constitution, Bill of Rights and other amendments to constitution are “protection” enough.

froginthewell
froginthewell
4 years ago

BTW the team leader and the deputy team leader of the American team (who accompany and are in charge of the students, perhaps act as sort of advocates if they feel the grading was unfair to one of the team members etc.) were Chinese too. So really it was a China vs China match for the first two positions.

Numinous
Numinous
4 years ago

We’re moving backward. Do better.

From what I observe, “Tiger Parenting” seems to be on the wane among Indians. So my guess is you are going to be disappointed.

Saurav
Saurav
4 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

Do you think we would ever have our own desi Basketball/Football/Baseball hero in USA?

Ali Choudhury
Ali Choudhury
4 years ago
Reply to  Saurav
Saurav
Saurav
4 years ago
Reply to  Ali Choudhury

Bro, I am like talking about a real sport now WWE. Didn;t that Canadian Punjabi guy already won the WWE Champion,couple of years back ?

arjun
arjun
4 years ago
Reply to  Saurav

Never. All that steppe R2D2a stuff will forever condemn us to spelling bees and democratic campaign manager roles.

Ali Choudhury
Ali Choudhury
4 years ago

“Our Asians will beat their Asians.”

sbarrkum
4 years ago

First who redesigned this blog. Is it for smart phones.

I suspect Razib did the redesign, like he kept redoing his blog razib.com

Huge banner (half the page). Whats with the comments. Old fuxers like me cant even see it on a 17 inch screen.

Comment box is about 2 inches (1/10th of the screen 1080 wide).

Saurav
Saurav
4 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

No i agree , even i was annoyed with the old one. Just increase comment box size and font, and you can decrease banner size if you want

justanotherlurker
justanotherlurker
4 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

Please go back to the old comments..this format is bad when you go beyond second level of replies..

Hoju
Hoju
4 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

Why is there a heart button and a +/- button? Seems a bit redundant.

sbarrkum
4 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

Razib,

Here is my wish list (old geezer who reads only on laptop 17 inch screen).

a) Bigger Comment Box. So that can see at least two paragraphs (10 lines).

b) Current Font is OK

Banner Could be smaller but non issue as can scroll past.

The reply Icon is huge and detracts from the sequence of comments. Reply Icon should be 25% or less of current.

Threading, not so much.
More a like than want.
eg some threading like in unz.com where you see to whom comment was addressed/replied.

cheers

Amit Patel
4 years ago

Hello, fellas I’m a Gujarati American born & raised in America. I’ve been viewing this page recently & thought I might start joining in the discussions from now on. Particularly, in regards to this post I would say for some reason Indian American kids are not prevalent in competitions like this, but once they grow up and graduate college they seem to make a better impact compared to East Asians. This is similar to Ashkenazi Jews who have been also invisible for sometime now in these competitions. But, as we can still see Ashkenazi Jews are still making an impact such as finding Google & Facebook as companies or winning Nobel Prizes.

Two Indians in the western diaspora won a Fields Medal, And, there has been more prestigious awards Indians have won so far compared to the East Asians in the western diaspora.Remember, a high verbal I.Q is needed to get by in the western world & Indian Americans most likely have a higher verbal I.Q compared to East Asian Americans. This could also probably be the reason why to there’s more Indian American CEO’s & Politicians compared to East Asian American ones. Basically, we should make these comparisons between South Asian Americans vs East Asian Americans once the kids have finally graduated college & entered the “real” & “professional” world.

https://news.stanford.edu/2018/08/02/akshay-venkatesh-wins-fields-medal/

https://www.quantamagazine.org/number-theorist-manjul-bhargava-is-awarded-fields-medal-20140812/

https://www.uua.org/publications/beacon/153857.shtml

https://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/vikram-patel-awarded-the-prestigious-john-dirks-canada-gairdner-global-health-award-119040300273_1.html

Brown Pundits