 The Supreme Court has just ruled affirmative action, specifically race-based admissions into elite universities. As unconstitutional, David, this is going viral, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of comments on the internet, lots of emotions, lots of perspectives. Let's talk about it. Yeah man, this went viral. I think there's like 200,000 internet comments on this, so this is actually like beyond viral. To be honest, I'm a little bit surprised that people care so much, but I had to think about it, Andrew, and it's because it's not really the specific case in the ruling itself and the micro-impacts, but what it means in this like macro-narrative war, you should say, or perhaps race war. The race wars of America, the race war. It just keeps going. So, but this is like one of the things that people were talking about for years. Obviously, we had talked about our channel several times since 2017, since this case really became a big deal. But anyways, guys, we're going to get into it because we have a lot of different perspectives laid out. I think something that raised really good points on both sides, so I do think it is a complicated issue, and it kind of depends on just who you are, because if you're looking out for your own interests, you're going to be thinking one way. And if you're looking out for your own interests on this side, you're going to be thinking another way. Anyways, guys, please hit that like button. Check out other episodes of the Hot Pop Boys as we try to unpack this. Yeah, I mean, if you guys want to get into the details of the actual court case itself, we made a bunch of videos about it. I want to just get into the reactions. But real quick, Andrew, I got to say this. Can you see why people can say that, oh man, the white oppressors use the Asians against the blacks and Latinos? That is a common, I guess, narrative that you're hearing. And can you see how people would perceive it that way? Yeah, I think that there's so many different ways to twist this, and I think that is one of the ways to look at it. Unfortunately, and I hate that when it comes to college admissions, it has to turn into a race war, because usually you would just think like, hey, you know, the people who need help and also qualify should get it. Like, it sounds simple, but obviously even college admissions officers, they have conflicting pressures from, oh, I got to get the money and then I got to get diversity and all this other stuff. I don't know if John Wang and, you know, all the other Asians that were involved in this lawsuit case saw it this way, but I could totally see how people who are more intersectional or more extrapolating it. By the way, guys, I think that not everybody is required to link everything to macro narratives, right? Even though you can say that there is an extrapolation of onion layers out to a macro narrative, not everybody has to think about that all the time in their life, right? But you say that it feels like that this was a case of Asians looking out for themselves and kind of being selfish about what needs to benefit Asians, which is okay, because everybody's selfish. Every group is selfish. Everybody needs to think about themselves. Every group is selfish, guys. But it seems like that when Asians wanted to care about what they care about, then other people got mad. Yeah, it felt like the left was basically saying, hey Asians, you guys can care what you want to care about as long as it aligns with our macro agendas and narratives. So, like we said, guys, that's why it's so twisted. Nobody's right or wrong. There's just different positioning and there's different incentives and things like that. You could also say, Andrew, that Asians were being used as pawns by white liberal guilt, too, though. So that's the flip side of it. Point number two, Andrew, Asians were absolutely getting screwed in the admissions process. It's true. That's the fact. And also, the case is really based around UNC and Harvard, but especially Harvard that came out and said that Asians rank low in the personality and character scale. And that's why they had to reject some of them, even though they had great extracurricular GPA and SAT scores and all the things you needed to get into a good school. So that's really the problem that was the racism right there that was being accused, right? Guys, it's not about like, oh, like, oh, I'm just tired of seeing all this diversity. It was actually literally because Harvard's excuse was that Asian people had bad personalities and character, which is obviously extremely hard to judge. Right. But people are going to say who set up the lawsuit, even though the lawsuit had some legitimate aspects. Did it have some illegitimate aspects or was it like macro intention this way or that way? Like I said, there's so many arguments with valid points back and forth. Andrew, also, I do think Asians, Andrew, were being crunched from both sides, right? They were getting crunched by the affirmative action, also were getting crunched by legacy admissions. However, which one would you say? I would argue, almost argue is that they're more getting crunched by legacy admissions, but because America is so capitalistic, nobody is going to question that side. Well, you can't touch the legacy, man. Those guys are legacy admissions statistically are the best alumni and they donate the most back to the school and they have the wealthiest family. You can't cancel us because legacy is everything. Whoa. Canceling us is like canceling America. What are you going to do about it? No, I mean, to an extent it's really weird and it's messed up because that's why I guess it feels like, oh, the rich white people are putting the minorities against each other and it shouldn't be like that. But that's how it feels to some people. Somebody said also Andrew, there's also so many opinions that are literally like 10 levels of spectrum. Like, you know, a lot of people think there's just like, you're either pro ending this or against this. There's actually like a ton of opinions. It's more like an opinion triangle or quadrants or maybe like a Pentagon or something like that. And it really has a lot to do with, like we said, Andrew, your incentive, your self incentive in your positioning, right? Which side of the coin? Andrew, if you are born on the head side of the coin or you're born on the tail side of the coin, what do you want the quarterback to flip? You want the quarterback at the beginning of the game to flip your side. Yeah. Because that's the side that you were born on. And I think it also has to do with how intersectional you think about race or history and the scope of that intersectionality if you do believe in intersectionalism. Yeah. And I also think it also goes to show you that race is a little bit too simplified. I get that race does have a lot to do with culture, but now that so many people are mixing, you almost need to be more specific about not just the race because what, there's only three, four races. Like, and then it's like, what type of Asian, what type of black person? Are you African? Are you immigrant? Are you, you know, from a foundational black, like, you know, all this, these are actually relevant questions, but people don't want to talk about it. People don't like busting out the 128 crayon box. Andrew, they want to use four crayons. It's tough, man. It's tough. People absolutely in America, absolutely from an institutional infrastructure level has to address historical injustices. But how you do that and how you implement it, that's all in the details. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, absolutely. Like it's like you're almost trying to fix things at the, at the very end of the funnel versus actually trying to fix things at the, at the base level of the pyramid or something like that. You're just trying to focus on a few landmark cases at the very top of the pyramid just to say you did something, but it's not actually addressing structural inequities from historical oppression and the ramifications that are multi-generational. Also, Andrew, I want to say this. A lot of Asians, because we come from sort of this type of family and we're familiar with a lot of families, they do make sure that their kids pretty much dedicate their lives from zero to 18 to getting into elite schools. Yeah. Like more than any other race. It is a big part. I feel very confident saying that. No, there's statistics saying that Asian students study more. That's, that's like it's, it's. It's just part of the culture. I'm not saying that that stat is like, you know, nuance, but I'm just saying overall it's true. There's so many details that murky up every discussion. And I feel like that's why there's people on opposing ends of this argument that feel like they're 100% right. Andrew, like we said, nobody's going to question the presence of ultra-rich connected white legacy kids. You know, they get on the team, whether it's through donating a library wing or getting on the rowing team. Right. Who does rowing? Who's good enough to get on the equestrian team to get admittance? Right. You have to grow up with that. People saying that Asians have bad character, which is basically saying like the lameness score Asians. Basically Andrew, some of the white liberal admissions officers were basically saying that Asians are not cool. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's kind of what they said. Yeah. Does somebody who is black but come from a rich African elite family count as somebody that is still like part of the oppressed group? Exactly. And I don't know because guys, it depends. Are you like a, what they call white Hispanic? Right. If I'm Marco Rubio or I'm Ted Cruz, do I count as Latino diversity? Even though I'm like pretty much from a rich elite like Spain family, but I speak Spanish, but I'm from the Caribbean. Exactly. Or like you're from an elite, you know, Nigerian family, for example, I'm not saying all Nigerian families are like that, but you know what I mean? Like I guess there's so much nuance there. Right. And like we said, there are certainly groups of need help, but where is the detail where the nuance, right? And do you think that ultimately basically everybody feels that Asians will just be fine? So Asians are sort of the one group that is asked to sacrifice the most. Like I'm saying that there is a larger narrative. And I feel like this exists on a lot of sides, middle class, upper class, lower class. They're just like, yeah, you know Asians, they'll just figure it out. Like, you know, we got other problems to solve, but the Asians concerns, they sort of rank low. Yeah. Honestly, and it's a gift and a curse that Asians have been able to just kind of put their head down, study their way into things and take all the hits and take all the punches. But literally that's what people think. They're like, yo, don't worry about the Asians. They're going to do them. They'll be fine. Oh, they couldn't get into Harvard. They'll get into like University of Michigan or Berkeley. They'll still have a fine life. They'll be fine, guys. Like just don't make any laws for them. Don't help them out. They're good. Right. Or maybe it's the Asians fault, Andrew, for not accumulating more political weight so people actually care about things that Asians are going through. But not all Asians go through the same things. Like we said, you know, you could be from a rich Asian family, like a crazy rich Asians thing, or you could be from a refugee family from an internal war in Asia as well. Anyway, Andrew, let's get into the comment section. We can't get to all of them, but I'm going to try to get to some of the main ones. Andrew, this is a general right wing opinion, but I would consider this a moderate white right wing opinion. Harvard used historical racism to justify a new form of racism. Two wrongs do not make a right. I would say that this was a general opinion. Andrew, this is more of a centrist general opinion that I saw from the comment section. Somebody said, if affirmative action students are not allowed, legacy students should not be allowed either. Yeah? Well, I think this is the tough thing is about American colleges is that it's not like super subsidized by the government. So they do need to make money. Like Harvard obviously needs money. Like every school needs money, right? To pay for things. So legacy students, they do statistically make up more of the donation dollars. That's a fact. Right, right. And they're more involved as alumni in the alumni network. Now I'm not saying that that amount of legacy students should stay in. But I'm also not saying that all the legacy students are under qualified. That's untrue too. Right, right, right. Yeah, like we said, dude, this is so complex and so layered. We're just going to try to sift through the layers as clear as we can. You guys are still going to come up with your own conclusions at the end of it. And you know, some people are not going to change even with new information. Anyway, Andrew Robert F. Kennedy, who is running for president, part of the Kennedy family junior, he had the probably most viral tweet that sort of represents a general left liberal approach. Somebody said, regarding the Supreme Court banning affirmative action in higher ed, I know that many Americans feel that purely race-based decisions are unfair. However, this feeling misses important context. The effects of racist policies that go back centuries are now self-perpetuating. Affirmative action understands this and uses race-based policies to undo the effects of racist policies. Colorblind admissions tend to favor those who are already in the circle of privilege. It favors those who grew up in affluent, educated households. Wouldn't you like to invite those in who have been left out in the cold? Andrew, he did. This was really well worded. The Kennedy's still got it, Andrew. At least when it comes to speech writing. No, I mean, that was a good bit. But I will say this, the Republican candidate, Vivek Ramiswani had a response to that, which I thought was interesting. So they were responding to each other on Twitter. So you can read both and see what you think is. Twitter is the new American debate stage, right? I mean, I would say that Robert Kennedy, he had some really sound logic here, right? But obviously the execution is in like, like what he's saying in the macro is completely true. But we're talking about this specific case, which is actually super micro, but everybody's arguing about it already in the macro. Well, people argue about it because they think like, oh, if you can't get into the elite college, if you get rejected, then what chance do you have getting into those elite circles of power eventually? So this is a little bit, I guess I see what people are saying where it's like, it's really looking long term for people's careers, right? Yeah, somebody said, you know, everybody says that our unity is our strength and diversity is our power. But I'm telling you this, guys, I'm being honest. Diversity divides. Everybody's just seeking what's best for themselves. America's doomed. Dang. This was coming from, I don't know, I'm assuming this guy's white, but I'm not sure. I mean, what do you think of this, Andrew? Because it doesn't show right now that like, everybody's sort of going what they want for and then some people are just keeping that issue compartmentalized, but other people are drawing like all these larger extrapolations from it and now they're arguing and they can't agree on anything. It's crazy because like, even if some rich white people want to say, you know, we're sorry for what we did. And here's these new policies that are going to unfortunately affect Asians and the Asians are like, wait, why do we have to suffer from this? Right, right. They're like, here's these spots you guys deserve it because we kind of mess with you guys. Take it from the Asians. Yeah. I mean, really what should happen is that just more minorities should become legacy kids. And this is obviously one of the ways that they do become is that they have to go to the college first. Right. So I guess that is an argument for it. Like we said, guys, there's a lot of valid stuff on all sides. Somebody said Asians are being used by whites again. Those in the comments to this are either blind or in denial. I mean, I think that this is an interesting comment basically saying like, but like I said, not everybody thinks about intersectionality and the scope of intersectionality in the same way. Someone saying Asian people being used as pawns in the white man's game. Sad to see. Andrew, this is a pretty popular perspective. Obviously there was people in the comments calling them boba liberals and stuff like that. Yeah. I mean, this is a popular sentiment within the Asian American community. I would say actually quite a few Asians. I would say a lot of Asians seem to agree with it because I think at a baseline, you're just like, oh, Asians are not getting screwed anymore. Good. And then there's all these other perspectives that are tied into it. Yeah. Somebody said, listen, you guys, it's really telling what we had to side with the devil just to get a discriminatory practice against Asians repealed. Somebody was saying that was almost like a 50-50 comment like, yeah, listen, guys, we didn't want to side with the devil, but look at what everybody made us do. It was so bad on us. And I think that that's a valid argument too. Like I said, it just depends on your perspective, man. Somebody was saying this is an Asian moderate perspective, pretty much really stressing that it needed to go off zip code because extra benefit needs to be going to disadvantaged people from poor families, from poor communities in general, not basing it off skin color. Right. Yeah. I think basing it more off economic status is better. And I think that that would still help African-American people. I think it would still help, even though there's still holes in it of like, oh, who declares what money and how much money do your parents make? But regardless, I think that's another metric that really does matter. Yeah. Honestly, I think a lot of people are like scared of talking about the economic angle, but like zip codes are pretty good teller of generally like how somebody grows up, right? I mean, it's not 100 for 100, but this way is not 100 for 100 either. Somebody said, man, a win is a win for Asians, man. At the end of the day, Asia's just finally got one. I don't care if the Republicans give it to us or the Democrats give it to us. A win for a win is a win for Asians. So this was just a very Asian-centric one. Somebody said, what if we kept affirmative action around, but then just expanded it to include Southeast Asians, which are five times ex-statistically more to see moderate poverty or home instability? Right. I guess this is, we're talking about disaggregation of... Of the Asian world. Of stats, yeah, to be more specific, right? Because there's different types of Asians now separating it. Different life experiences, different immigration stories, immigration waves, refugee... Again, I think it should go back to economics of the family because I think that it's hard to just say like, oh, all East Asians are fine because obviously there is a lot of Chinese in poverty and China would not count as a Southeast Asian country. Right. Mainland China just became economically developed like 10 years ago. Right. So like, what if you grew up before 10 years ago? Yeah. And like we said, Andrew, what if you say all Southeast Asians get included in affirmative action, but then it's just like Chinese Indonesians using it or Chinese Filipinos. Right. The Chinese blood... Because those actually have a gigantic Chinese diaspora in the Southeast Asia as well. Somebody said, if you agree, whether you agree with this or not, at least now the liberals will have to come back to the table and give Asians a better deal because we finally swung an issue. This gets the ball rolling, guys. Anybody who cares about Asians getting politically active, this is a win. Even though the win came from the side that we didn't anticipate. Oh, that's really interesting. So this guy's taken a more long-term approach of being like, hey, guys, at least Asians showed that we could move something. Right. Needle movers. Now maybe it was a little controversial, but we're needle movers now and now we can move other things. Yeah. Dude, Andrew, that was like an inception, like meta of the meta thinking. So this was a opinion from a black guy and a Mexican guy that said, you know, the biggest trick was letting Asian Americans believe that affirmative action was holding them back from getting into these prestigious colleges, man. It just saddens me that a lot of Asians and Asian Americans fell for the craziest talking point when the numbers didn't even support their claim of being of African Americans being the reason for their rejection. Basically, just because you guys got denied, your feelings got hurt and you wanted to tear down the other minorities, that's not a trick by the white man. Dang. Interesting. I don't, yeah, I don't know. But yeah, I mean, that's an interesting comment. Yeah. I mean, like I said, guys, I don't blame people for having that perspective either. Like they're looking at it through their lens and seeing what they're seeing. This Mexican guy said, yep, these Asians got played by the whites. This is a moderate left-black opinion, Andrew. This girl said, I'm African American and I do feel bad for them, but you guys got to understand that Asian Americans are still only 10% black and Latino combined and at some of the other schools, we're at 2%. So even if it was slightly unfair to Asians, it's not like we were eating up a huge percentage of what Asians were going to get into. So this was a moderate black opinion saying, yes, it does somewhat hurt Asians, but come on guys, look, our numbers are already so incredibly low already even with the help. And I thought that honestly, honestly, I thought that was a fair point, man. Somebody said, yeah, otherwise this legacy schools, legacy students is what make these elite institutions even count as elite. Otherwise it's going to be like Caltech full of a bunch of brainiacs from engineering or professor families with no connections in the business or political world. There is some truth to that. Yes, a lot of the legacy students is what makes the Ivy Leagues Ivy Leagues, right? Yeah. It's like the connections, the business connects and the alumni. So this was the argument against like getting rid of the legacies, right? Guys, I don't know if there's any perfect answer. There's no perfect answer. There's no perfect system, man. Somebody said, this is from an Asian. This is just going to disproportionately affect hardworking black and brown students. They're already at a disadvantage because so many of them come from lower income, lesser opportunity schools in poor neighborhoods, something that is not their fault. They were just simply born into this. Yeah. I mean, like I said, guys, there has to be done more from a structural level. Whether Andrew, Andrew, free preschools, free something. I just think like a lot of things there, people are like trying to fix it superficially so late in the process. You know, somebody said it's all about developing a thriving middle class for any race, but particularly for struggling communities. And I don't know if this thing like really impacts the middle class. It's just about, you know what I mean? Like changing an economic structure or providing just building a strong middle class, right? Interesting, interesting. And Andrew, what did Vivek Ramaswamy, who was also running for president, he got at Ted Robert Kennedy, who's also running for president? Yeah, this is interesting. So he responded to the tweet and said, the affirmative action is about, is not about letting those who have been out in the cold, that's wrong. The majority of black students at Harvard right now are not descendants of American slaves, but descendants of immigrants giving special preferences to someone who looks like a person who once suffered the injustices in America is not what it's supposed to be doing. We should finally embrace colorblind meritocracy in America rather than try to repeat our past mistakes. So I think basically this is a informed conservative opinion when he's basically saying like, hey guys, right now the black people who are benefiting from this affirmative action already are not even the black people who should be because there's different types of black people. Right, right, right. Like we said guys, I think there was 250,000 comments, maybe 2 million comments on the internet. Obviously we could not get to all of them. We tried to highlight some of the more interesting ones. If you guys have any interesting ones, let us know in the comments section below. Andrew, let's get into our takeaways because a lot of people are just like really fighting over this issue. You know what I noticed, Andrew? This issue was emotional for a lot of people because they're extrapolating it to be white versus black, oppressor versus oppressed. Asians are somewhere in the middle being used as a pawn for either side, right? But the truth is in my opinion, everybody's got valid perspectives, but they just on different sides of the coin or different numbers on the die. It's almost like feels like you know when you're playing in a basketball game or a football game and you disagree with the referee call. And of course, if you're the opposing team, you're gonna hate that referee call. Or one team's gonna love it and one team's gonna hate it basically. So that's just what it feels like. But it's like the referee is just trying to do its job and then everybody's like depending on your position, if you're up in the game, if you're down, if you're the home team, if you're the visiting team, you hate it. Yeah. I think my biggest takeaway ultimately is that obviously I believe in having policies that help uplift black heritage, you know, foundational black people, any sort of Latinos that come from a very poor background. I support all of those policies. I don't know if this is the best policy though. And a lot of policies, Andrew, they actually need amendments or they need upgrades or they need refreshes or they need reform. But in America, it's either like you just go with the old law or just strike it down. So it's like kind of a bad system that creates a lot of animosity between people and divides people when everybody should just be focused together on upgrading the law to mitigate. Not every law is never gonna be perfect, but you try to mitigate the downsides while maintaining the things that the law is supposed to help or alleviate. Right. And it is like, man, this almost is viewed as pretty much a rich white versus like poor black issue. Essentially, it's how people are boiling it down. Yes, yes, yes. And then Asians are villainized and getting caught up in the middle. Yeah. Which is very interesting to me, you know what I mean? And I'm like, so Asians who are not white and not black, but because we just really try very hard and honestly, a lot of Asian kids just focus on getting into those schools and they study hard and they really want to be successful and have a hyper-achievement oriented. Maybe to a fault. Yeah, yeah, right. Maybe possibly to a, I guess, horse with blinders on way. Yeah, I'm Asian. I could say that for some of them, but regardless, it's almost like the yellow's getting caught in the middle, man. Do you think if Asians did a better job of supporting each other, that we could have a political entity that fights for Asian rights without getting caught up in this white black binary where it seems like you're either basically supporting, I guess, like white liberal guilt or white, I don't want to say racist Republicans, but just white conservatives that are very not as sympathetic to people's circumstances. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I hope so. I hope so. I do hope that this is a step in the right direction. I do not think this means that all Asians are Republicans. I do not think that all Asians are conservatives now just because of this. And I don't even think that all conservatives are right-wing nutjobs and I don't think that all left-wing people are like progressive angels either. I think that that's a bad characterization. And I really think it's wrong if Asians who are fighting for this are always like, yeah, like, look at this black and brown student. Nah, you know, like, I think that's the wrong attitude too. You know, you're just, they're trying to fight for fairness without all, like, I guess the hate behind it. But is it inevitable because the larger groups that have the larger agendas each other, they're like viewing this through their lens where the Asians were really just like some nerds that really wanted to get into an Ivy League school. You know, they call this a zero-sum game, David. There has to be a winner and a loser. Yeah. And that's how it feels because there's only so many limited spots in these schools. I'll tell you this, man, I hate that it had to play out like this. I hate that that's how Asians politically get the ball rolling in America, but we don't know the long-term effects. Maybe the left comes back and starts caring about Asians too. Yeah. Who knows, man? Like we said, guys, maybe we're being traded as a pawn, but this is just what happened, guys. Let us know what you think in the comments section below. A lot of perspectives, a lot of valid arguments. But at the end of the day, I don't... One thing that I wanted everybody to take away from it, Andrew, is that everybody's got valid arguments depending on how they're looking at it, the scope of intersectionality, or if they even take intersectionality into account at all. All right. All right, everybody, let us know in the comments down below. And until next time with Hop Hop Boys, we out. Peace.