Why I Hate Affirmative Action

There are few things in the world that make me feel like another “goddamn chink” but one of these things is affirmative action. The official definition of affirmative action quickly taken off of Wikipedia is:
Affirmative action in the United States is intended to promote access to education, employment, or housing among certain designated groups (typically, minorities and women). The stated motivation for affirmative action policies is to redress the effects of past discrimination and to encourage public institutions such as universities, hospitals and police forces to be more representative of the population. It is commonly achieved through targeted recruitment programs, by preferential treatment given to applicants from designated groups, and in some cases through the use of quotas.
The real definition of affirmative action is this: If you’re middle-class white or Chinese-Asian, forget about going to the college of your dreams or getting need-based financial aid. But wait, you say. You’re Asian. Doesn’t that make you a minority? Not quite. You see, affirmative action is tricky. It only helps the minorities in college. And since Asian-Americans are actually a majority in some colleges now (at Stanford, last I checked, 60% of the undergraduate students were of Asian descent), that means for college admissions we might as well be white.
Affirmative action punishes those who have difficult backgrounds but have worked hard to succeed and become the middle-class. It is exactly this success that keeps them now from being able to receive any financial help. Affirmative action also punishes my parents and me for being a certain race. My parents are immigrants too, but successful, Chinese ones. Can it truly be their fault that my parents scrimped and saved their way through higher college education? We lived in apartments, wore second-hand and discount clothing, and even went without cable TV (Actually, we still don’t have cable). Our first TV lasted twenty years, and my parents couldn’t even afford to buy it – they picked it up off a curb before the garbage trucks got to it. But somehow this doesn’t even matter anymore, because now our family income is high enough to be high middle-class. Never mind that my dad still works two stressful jobs. Never mind that my mother works part-time at a library on top of raising three kids. We’re Chinese; we’re middle-class; there’s nothing else we need to make us happy besides extra math homework
Maybe it’s fear that keeps us down. China’s global power is rising, and the recent Beijing Olympics may be just the starting pistol shot in the worldwide race of global domination. Maybe it’s the fear that one day, everyone will have to speak Mandarin (never mind that the “power language” is English now, that’s fine). Or maybe it’s just the sight of us, our yellow skin and our slanty eyes, that makes their stomachs turn. For my part, I’m genetically blessed to look a bit more “Western” – larger eyes, high cheekbones, and “an oddly prominent ass,” as my friend likes to say. So maybe when they finally burn us as witches I’ll escape, but I won’t count on it. You see, I’ll be in the minority.

//written for my polemic assignment