You may have heard that some students at Roger Williams University set up a whites only scholarship as a way to protest scholorships open solely to minorities.
This and affirmative action critics really make my blood boil. I know, technically speaking, any advantage given to someone based whole or partially on race is racist. But there's perception, and then there's reality. The United States of America is a racist country. And I'm not being smug here because I'm Canadian. Canada is racist too.
Look, after 400 years of institutional slavery, negative media portrayal, the ghetto-ization of the inner cities and the poverty that perpetuates - guess what we have? AN UNEVEN PLAYING FIELD. Indulge me if you will. Think of a small pool table lying flat across your arms, with balls scattered about on top. When the table is flat, the balls stay still. Now, push your right arm up in order to tilt the pool table. What happens? You create a slope and all the balls fall to the left. This is what America is today - the balls represent traditionally discriminated against minorities. The slope you created is the hill they have to climb to get to the right side, representing better cirumstances than what they were born into. The slope is the cumlination of all the factors I listed above. How do we fix this? Easy: just tilt up the left side of the table. Heck, let's tilt it up so it's slightly above level and give the balls some momentum to get to the other side. That is what affirmative action was meant to do. One day, yes, affirmative action will not be needed. But to right the wrongs, it's necessary for now. Western whites had a 400 year head start, remember. Give it some time.
And to those who say this is racist against white people - I say think again. It's not. Remember, minorities are the OPPRESSED. When you say things like black or latino pride, that is not racist. That's proactivity, that's courage, that's Oliver Twist asking for more gruel. Why? Because they are the oppressed. The majority, or white people, are not oppressed, and never have been. They have no rhyme or reason to feel threatened by affirmative action. When one says white pride - that's racist. Having a scholarship open to whites only is racist. It's like rewarding the already privelaged. For example, having a lottery where tickets cost 1 million dollars each - only the wealthy would get to play (and they don't really need to play since they're already rich!).
Yesterday I saw a sign for some student group, with the heading "Only white males need to worry about political correctness" And then , "discussion, blah blah blah". I was like, "yup, it's true. The rest of us just have to worry about discrimination."
My own theory is that discrimination and racism will never go away. I, myself, have a very complicated set of racial stereotypes (including one that says "Life" brand cereal is just for white people). Eventually, we'll just reach a sort of dynamic equilibrium of discrimination, which makes everyone roughly equal. After that, it's only a matter of time before everyone becomes the same colour.
Also, why are you spelling scholarship with an 'o'?
Posted by: Vivek at February 19, 2004 07:45 PMUh... what "o"? White men do have to worry about being politically correct. But they're not the only ones. My black roommate is pc. he tries to lead by example. But it's true, no one would think lesser of him if he wasn't. But a white guy would definitely get the evil eye.
Posted by: G at February 19, 2004 08:29 PMHmmmm.
I feel privileged to have experienced both sides of the fence. Living in Barbados for two years, I lived what being a miniroty was. (30 white kids out of 3000 at school). Racism was not rampant, but it was there. I've been on the receiving end.
The Bajan white minority did no seem comfortable integrating with the blacks, and kept together. I did not really subscribe to that attitude, and had friends on both sides.
If they only knew how similar they all are - yet they think they are so different.
Mu utopic view is that I'm against scolarships geared towards a minority (or a majority in the case of the white only). I think these things just draw a bolder line between people, and reinforce the problem. I mean, a scholarship is about rewarding skill, helping a promising student in need, etc... race should have nothing to do with it!
But, alas. That's utopia. I realise that a level playing field means everyone pretty much sees eye to eye. And in the case of scholarships, it means that whoever is evaluating candidates cannot discriminate. Fat Chance.
That's the caveat - until everyone realises it really does not matter, and that we are wasting so much sweat and tears on all this shit, the problem will always remain, and rightly so enflame people like our good buddy G.
Posted by: Oli at February 20, 2004 07:35 PMI distinctly remember the day at work when I suddenly realized that I might have been hired because of affirmative action. It was something that I never thought would affect me as a Canadian, but working in the states, in software no less...it finally sunk in what it all meant. And you know what? I didn't like it. Not one bit. I know it's meant to be that if two people are equally qualified, the job goes to the minority, but ultimately, I felt sort of ashamed. And it made me feel worse to think that my collegues might have assumed that I got hired because of affirmative action as well. It was just shitty all 'round.
I actually made it a point to ask HR about it, and they informed me that foreign workers weren't condsidered under affirmative action rules. I felt entirely relieved that I got hired because of me, and not because of who I may represent.
As a side note, my friend told me that her professor said that the real reason affirmative action was actually introduced was so that managers would have a legitimate reason to hire minorities. This way they wouldn't have to deal with any shit from their workforce if they started hiring a lot of employees that didn't necessarily fit with the current demographic of the company. I wonder if they're going to start introducing laws to hush all the whiners about the "outsourcing to India" thing.
Posted by: lesley at February 20, 2004 08:02 PMWhenever you are the minority race whether it be Black, Caucasian, Asian or Latino you are discriminated against. Whites are discriminated against in Hawaii, Japan and any other place where they are a minority. It is a sad truth but majority rules. Why does this happen? And why is it ok for reverse discrimination?
Posted by: Nick at December 4, 2004 08:15 PMIn response to an e-mail I received:
You obviously missed the whole point. DISCRIMNATION and RACISM is wrong in anyway! Level out the field??? I promise it is much harder for me as a Caucasian male to get into college and to receive scholarships. My whole college career I have never received a scholarship despite my 3.8 G.P.A., thus being discriminated against. I have to score higher on the GMAT and have a higher G.P.A. then minorities to get into a good graduate school. You call REVERSE DISCRIMNATION leveling out the field????? Why am I expected to have higher grades and test scores because of the color of my skin????? A level field wouldn’t even consider race. Are saying that minorities are not very smart and need special help?? Anyone who participates in reverse discrimination is RACIST!