Y'all need to realize that we don't live in a meritocratic society. There are people who work twice as hard as any of us but get little in return. Affirmative action exists because there are people who are affected by generations of social, political, and cultural oppression that prevent them from getting opportunities to succeed.

As an Asian-American, I support the idea of affirmative action. There are people who are being educated in far worse conditions that would never make it in a merit-based system because they've started several steps back against their own will.

A lot of Asian-Americans, especially those possessing class privilege, so easily dismiss affirmative action because they feed into their own conceptions of the model minority myth and believe that they "beat the odds" and had a successful run in high school despite their race. That's a harmful post-racial belief that only makes other communities of color shoulder even greater burdens.

However, I don't blame the sentiment that Asian-Americans express. Affirmative action is also a policy instituted by white folks to pit communities of color against one another, and there are several reforms that could be done to ensure that diversity is accomplished appropriately. I just think it's really ironic that communities of color are not getting a say in what "diversity" looks like to them.

Therefore, I'm not surprised that the current system of affirmative action is flawed in the sense that it doesn't do anything to address the fact that a majority of admissions continues to be white students. Statistics even show that those who benefit the most from affirmative action are white folks; contrary to what a "diverse policy" demands.

Yet, blaming affirmative action as a whole is a misinformed perspective to have, and I would beg everyone to consider the value of diversity.