In Texas, The Former Majority Association for Equality (FMAE) is offering scholarships to male applicants with at least a ¼ non-Hispanic white heritage. Uh…exsqueeze me? A baking powder? Whites only scholarships?
The FMAE president states it does not promote racial bigotry or segregation. It was founded to provide financial opportunities to another underrepresented group (i.e., white males). Naturally, many have problems with this statement. One critic says scholarships are never based on race "…but rather, scholarships based on a recognition of racism…it is perfectly legitimate to then offer scholarships on the basis of the category that triggered [oppression]." This is certainly understandable. But have times not at all changed? Diversity in schools is classified primarily by race, and many scholarships are offered to bring non-white students on campus. This is well and good, but diversity is actually the "the condition of having or being composed of… different types of people." Essentially, you and I are diverse from each other based on our experiences and cultural backgrounds alone. Race has little to do with it.
College clubs are great to be a part of--Black Student Union, Hawai'i Club, Japanese Club, Latino Club, etc.--but many actually promote racial segregation. It's about as ironic as they come: members of these types of clubs are only so because of racial identity--the single factor that brought about the oppression which caused their club's creation. Essentially, individuality is completely destroyed.
I ask you this: where does it all end? The problem with promoting diversity as we do today is that our races are so saturated that eventually dominant racial identity will cease to exist. For example, my wife's ¼ Hawaiian ancestry awarded her $40,000 for school. My children, however, will not have the same opportunity; they'll only be 1/8 Hawaiian. Apparently that's not enough Hawaiian to warrant financial assistance. When will saturation abolish race distinction? At some point everyone will be allowed access to free money. The whole idea as it is now is counterproductive to the equality movement.
Here's an idea: let's do away with race identification altogether. The most deserving scholarship applicants should earn their prize based solely on effort. At the end of the day, you can at least rest easy knowing that, if you missed out on money for school, you missed out as a human and not as a swatch on a color wheel.
--Chris
Special Note: This is understandably a sensitive issue, and in no way were the intentions of this blog to reflect a viewpoint that would further support the heinous crime against humanity that is racism. If you have any thoughts on the matter, I would love to hear them.
Photo taken from this photostream and used with permission of a Creative Commons license.
This always bothered me in college - a whites-only scholarship is wrong but an anything-else only scholarship is okay? I promise that being white and male does not guarantee you can afford college! I don't think scholarships should be based on anything other than merit, need and CHOICES that the individual has made. Pretty sure you can't choose to be white or male any more than you can choose to be black.
Great point, and you're right: we don't get to choose what race we belong to or who our ancestors were. What color we happen to be--whites included--does not necessitate our ability to pay for college nor the merit needed to warrant an investment in one's education. Regardless of color, there's one fact in this life: to get somewhere, you've got to prove yourself. Hard work and dedication will always trump being given something based purely on a factor comepletely unrelated to one's own uniqueness. If anything, it will have more personal meaning knowing you've achieved something based on your actions rather than predetermined, unconscious factors.
I have always thought that concepts like affirmative action have done more to promote racial division than acceptance. When, as a minority (or majority for that matter), one elects to be chosen based on a specific characteritic rather than merit, said individual is electing to use that characteristic as a division, even if for one's benefit. It can be used for good or not-so-good but it can't go both ways where some groups can do it and others can't. If a Christian group can offer a scholarship so can an Islamic group; if an African-american group can, so can those that are white, Asian, Hispanic, etc. Same for women or men's alliances and so forth.
You're exactly right. We can't expect virtually every race to award scholarships yet turn up our noses at white students receiving money by the same means. This idea that hatred is inclusive to Caucasian history is, frankly, a little ridiculous. I say this mainly because genocide, bigotry, and hatred occurs within racial groups all the time--in Africa, the Asian countries, Europe, etc. Every race has poor or viscious elements of their histories, both against others and themselves, so singling out one group of people to not receive financial aid on the basis that many other groups have been receiving aid for years (i.e., skin color) is an unbalanced concept.
We frown on white students gathering to offer scholarships to other white students. Would we frown at heterosexuals doing the same thing? Of course. The concept of straights-only scholarships sounds completely ludicrous, and it is, just as homosexual scholarships are. They're not ludicrous for their intentions but rather because they further segregate groups from others when all should be mingling together as one solid unit: humans.
Doing away with race identification simply threatens to reinforce the disparity of entire subsections of the population. One cannot expect the African Americans to merely "get over" the disenfranchisement of generations of their people. Nor can goodwill erase the genocide of the Native Americans. Affirmative action is evil, but it is a necessary evil. It's day to leave us may yet come, but today is not that day.
I certainly agree with you on this matter: affirmative action may one day leave us, but today is likely not the time to do so. However, I want people to start thinking about what's really at stake here. Is any one person today responsible or accountable for the maltreatment of another's racial ancestors? And when it all comes down to it, are people today in the situations they're in because of another race keeping them down or is it more attributed to the choices they've made for themselves? People leave rough neighborhoods all the time. People find success and lose it. My point being if one wants something bad enough, they'll simply work their buns off to get it. If they can't earn a scholarship, they'll take out loans. And if they can't get a job, then they'll apply somewhere else. The race card's been played. It's high time we start recognizing ourselves as humans and taking responsibility for the personal choices we make in this life. We don't have to simply get over the past in order to move on into the future.
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