White-Only scholarship

[Murdoch]

A group of students at Roger Williams University offered a white-only scholarship recently. The scholarship is being offered to bring attention and debate to the many minority-only scholarships offered across the US, and how minority-only scholarships are racist.

A few sources:

USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2004-02-19-ri-scholarship_x.htm

Robert Williams College Republicans
http://www.rwucr.com/index.htm

Typical campus article on the subject
http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2004/02/02-19-04tdc/02-19-04dnews-07.asp

I think that the people who put out this scholarship have alot of balls, and should be commended for their efforts. I believe that minority scholarships are a good thing, and I support their right to try to show the unfairness of it. I think that in and of itself minority-only scholarships are reverse discrimination, and only in the wider context of endemic racism and bigotry do race-restricted scholarships show their true value.

Race-restricted scholarships are one method of leveling the racial playing field by providing individuals who may not be able to attend college because of their race's socio-economic position a chance to attend. This helps to give the next generation of minorities a more level playing field for jobs, political influence and spending power, all of which is in the nations long-term interests.

Thoughts?

 

[megatron]

I think it is good that whites get scholarship because they white!
o/

I posted this a while back. So old it hurts mate.

 

[King of Creation]

I think a white-only scholarship is perfectly acceptable. If other ethnic groups can offer scholarships to only their members, why can't whites? I'm sick of the double standard racism shit.

 

[toresica]

I'm sick of the double standard racism shit.

That's true, to a point.

But a lot of ethnic scholarships are created because people from that ethnic group tend to be less well off then white people (like black people or native Canadians), and so they wouldn't be able to afford to go to college/university without a scholarship.
That's also partly why the government of Canada pays for some (or all - not sure about the rules) of the tuition for aboriginals (I think people have to be at least 1/16th native to qualify).

 

[Brother None]

If other ethnic groups can offer scholarships to only their members, why can't whites? I'm sick of the double standard racism shit.

This statement always makes sense if you're short-sighted

If you look at society whole, though, toresica is right

Positive discrimination is still discrimination, hence it's wrong

But it's a necessary evil to balance discrimination in general

 

[King of Creation]

Scholarships should only be given out for merit based reasons. Race should not be a factor at all. Same thing with college admissions. If minority students aren't as well-off as others than they can get financial aid and the like. Those are readily available. I would find it utterly insulting if I was up for a scholarship or something and I was clearly the more meritted person, but the scholarship went to the minority student just because he was a minority. That's just wrong. If minorities want scholarships, they should have to step up and start achieving academically.

 

[Brother None]

Race should not be a factor at all.

That's right

Shouldn't

But it is a factor. Negatively for all non-whites, especially Latino's in America, from what I understand.

So to balance that, non-white scholarships are necessary

White scholarships are just easy, since you're doing a wrong without the intent of doing something good.

 

[Murdoch]

I would find it utterly insulting if I was up for a scholarship or something and I was clearly the more meritted person, but the scholarship went to the minority student just because he was a minority. That's just wrong.

I have, and I was. But does that mean I should begrudge them the opportunity? I don't believe so.

If minorities want scholarships, they should have to step up and start achieving academically.

The problem with this is that many times the minorities come from schools and communities which make it very difficult to achieve academically. For instance, someone from south central LA may be far more concerned with not getting shot than getting good grades. That individual may be able to perform just as well as I have, given my WASPy suburban upbringing, but for their environment could not do as well. Affirmative action and minority scholarships are designed to artificially give the kid from south central LA the same opportunities I have.

Its just how it looks and plays out on television that create the problems.

 

[King of Creation]

But it is a factor. Negatively for all non-whites, especially Latino's in America, from what I understand.

Definitly not true. The factor of Race is things like college admissions in the US has been a HUGE issue within the last couple of years. Its the practice of almost every university in the US to admit students based on a point scale. Students are given points for things that admissions officials pick out from their applications, essays, and everything. Most colleges, however, automatically give minority students a point advantage over their white counterparts. That means that a minority students automatically starts out the admissions process with, say, 20 points, while the white student starts with 0.
Here's a hypothetical situation to illustrate:
A white male and a black male apply to the same school for the same major. Here is a rundown of their accomplishments. I'm going to arbitrarily assign point values, as if I were an admissions officer.
To begin with:
White Male=0 ---- Black Male=20
3.5 GPA= 10 ---- 3.4 GPA= 8
1350 SAT = 20 ---- 1330 SAT = 16
Various
clubs and
such =15 ---- =15

Total =45 ---- =59




Even though the white male scored higher on his SAT's and had a higher GPA, according to this hypothetical situation (which is exactly what happens in actual US College admission processes) the black male would get in over the while male.

 

[Daemon Spawn]

Where I live there is a large amount of Asians. What happens is that they have a much higher proportion of children that do well in school, regardless of socioeconomic status. The colleges (all of them except for the insanely expensive private ones) are the majority Asian. Universities here actually discriminate against Asians, because there are already so many of them in colleges. It doesn't matter what level the college is, from UC's to the community colleges. They don't like to say that there is disrimination, with the affirmative action removed, but it still happens regardless.

Now, I think this is somewhat retarded because officially, the Asians are beating everyone else out here in test scores and whatever else the colleges like to look at. For the sake of diversity, other students are admitted that have much much lower qualifications, even though the Asian student grew up in a similar if not identical socioeconomic level.

This is not a racial thing to help out those that did not have the same opportunities that others had. This is blatant racism for the sake of diversity itself. What bothers me is that it is conducted under the table, and does not see the light of day for open discussion.

I agree, it would kind of suck to have a school of 80% asian, 15% white, and the rest are Indian, with little traces of other.... Yes, that would be vastly un-representative of the population. But it is kind of hypocritical to want to help out those that are less fortunate, but still discriminating against them because of their success rate.

Ok, here are the points I wanted to get to:

1. If they do so well while living in the same conditions as other races, WTF is wrong with the other races that they can't get off their asses, do some good old fashioned hard work, and get a college scholarship based on something other than their skin color?

2. Hmm nothing else, I guess.

White scholarships are just easy, since you're doing a wrong without the intent of doing something good.

Excuse me, but did you really just say that? Seriously?

That is wrong on so many levels. It is not wrong to offer a scholarship. It is good to help out. Contrary to what you have said, the intent is to help someone, which is good.

You can't really mean that. I don't know if you want to mean that. I'll stop here, if you want to respond, or clarify this. It just looks ... wrong.

 

[Sander]

I oppose race-based scholarships. Why do I oppose them? Because they're racist.

What I would propose instead are scholarships for those living in poor conditions. For those who have not been able to somehow show that they do deserve that scholarship, and for those who simply need a scholarship to even be able to do anything, since their parents are too poor.(ie. should be able to make it through college, not as good as someone with a deserved scholarship, but ccannot afford otherwise).
Those things are better than minority-only scholarship, if you ask me.

Also, it was an interesting and probably productive way of expressing protest against affirmative action, but it is certainly a discriminatory one.

 

[Brother None]

That is wrong on so many levels. It is not wrong to offer a scholarship. It is good to help out. Contrary to what you have said, the intent is to help someone, which is good.

Giving out food is good

Giving out food only to white people, because they're white, is not good

No time, will get around to the rest of this thread later.

 

[[PCE]el_Prez]

Few personal stories:

1. I have a good friend who went to high school with me who got a full ride sholarship to any in state school because he's mexican. Keep in mind that he lived a few blocks from me, in the same neighborhood, and his parent's made approximately the same income as my parents did.

2. I play football at NAU and their are a lot of kids on full ride scholarship and then some because they come from very poor incomeand racialy diverse families . A full ride scholarship pays a $611 stipen every month and who knows how much the Pale grant is. I estimate these guys make more money going to school than i did working 40 hours a week at Wal-Mart. There are a lot of white kids (like me) who are not on scholarship yet, but we don't qualify for any financial aid.

 

[King of Creation]

Giving out food only to white people, because they're white, is not good

What about giving out food to only black people? Or only to hispanics? Is that good? Cause that's the established norm right now, in terms of scholarships and college admissions.

 

[Myrrdin]

Wouldn't it be better to give out a lot more scholarships to people who would qualify as coming from *really* "poor" backgrounds? Wouldn't that automatically tip the scale in favour of certain ethnic groups while avoiding the controversy?

Edit: I'm so blind... missed that Sander wrote almost the exact same thing previously in this thread. Sorry Sander...

 

[King of Creation]

No
Scholarships should ONLY be merit based. That is final.

 

[Brother None]

What about giving out food to only black people? Or only to hispanics? Is that good? Cause that's the established norm right now, in terms of scholarships and college admissions.

If I went to Zuid Afrika and didn't give any food to the rich white people, but did give food to the starving black people, I don't think that'd be much of a problem.

Read on on the issue

No
Scholarships should ONLY be merit based. That is final.

Merit based would insinuate continuing on a properly balanced situationship

The removal of all discrimination, in fact, only works if discrimination already doesn't exist in society

If white is in the lead, as is the case for all Western societies, do you really think you're going to fix that with a method that's built to keep the status quo?

I don't think so, and therein lies the flaw of your thinking

A scholarship based on both merit and social background (as in rich preppy boys don't get it, but poor kids get the oppertunities they do deserve), like Sander seems to propose, would indeed be ideal, but very fraud-sensitive (like most scholarship systems). A real problem, y'know...

 

[Daemon Spawn]

That is wrong on so many levels. It is not wrong to offer a scholarship. It is good to help out. Contrary to what you have said, the intent is to help someone, which is good.

Giving out food is good

Giving out food only to white people, because they're white, is not good

No time, will get around to the rest of this thread later.

There is a huge difference between food and scholarships. There is no comparison. When there are heaps of other scholarships dedicated to minorities, and a few white ones in protest of the various minority scholarships, that is not bad. No bad intent. Nothing. I don't know where you are getting your ideas.

I didn't join this thread to complain about racism/scholarships/etc. It's just that there is nothing wrong with protesting racism, because that is what these scholarships are doing.

Positive racism is still racism, after all. As good as it may look and as clean as it may seem, under it all it still barks and shouts discrimination.

In Brazil (at least for some time, maybe it's gone now) there was a law that added points to a Vestibular test (like the SAT) if one was a minority. That is basically saying that minorities are less intelligent, and need points to compensate for their higher than average stupidity.

This is all that is left for the United States, to instate a law like this one in the name of so-called "equality." Huh, if all people are equal, why do they need compensation.

Not to take away from your scholarship debates, but my view is that as long as you keep insinuating that there needs to be race-related or otherwise racially based scholarships, or indeed ANYTHING, it in itself is a perpetrator of racism, and his helping racism to exist, and hindering the exit of racism from our society.

 

[Big T]

If I went to Zuid Afrika and didn't give any food to the rich white people, but did give food to the starving black people, I don't think that'd be much of a problem.

What about the rich black people?
Or the poor white people?
In many areas (in the US/Europe) there are poor neighborhoods with an abundance of a specific minority, but not everyone there is of that minority, and not everyone of that minority is there.

No
Scholarships should ONLY be merit based. That is final.

What about need based scholarships given out to people on the basis that they are poor, not any other discriminating factor?

 

[Murdoch]

Positive racism is still racism, after all. As good as it may look and as clean as it may seem, under it all it still barks and shouts discrimination.

No, it barks and shouts reversediscrimination, and only if you do not see it in the larger context of some races having less advantages than others.

In Brazil (at least for some time, maybe it's gone now) there was a law that added points to a Vestibular test (like the SAT) if one was a minority. That is basically saying that minorities are less intelligent, and need points to compensate for their higher than average stupidity.

No, it is only saying that minorities are less intelligent if you misinterpret the intent of the law. The real intent of the law is to provide the minority with help in order to give the minority and majority applicant the same chance of getting into school. This is all predicated on the fact that the minority does not have as many advantages as the majority on the socio-economic scale.

This is all that is left for the United States, to instate a law like this one in the name of so-called "equality." Huh, if all people are equal, why do they need compensation.

They need compensation because even if everyone is equal in the eyes of the law, they are not equal in socio-economic position. Because the difference can be correlated with race, it is reasonable to award extra points based on someones race.

And Sander's idea of needs-only based scholarships is indeed the best solution. However, as Kharn said the problem is defining who needs what. Because of the race-socio-economic correlation it is easier and possibly more fair to base need on race. Using race eliminates many of the complicated models needed to determine needs based help.

Plus needs evaluation can be altered to advantage some groups unfairly and the differences would be hard to detect because the formulas and such are so complicated. Basing need on skin color is a much more simple method. Although a perfect world would base need on anything but race.

Not to take away from your scholarship debates, but my view is that as long as you keep insinuating that there needs to be race-related or otherwise racially based scholarships, or indeed ANYTHING, it in itself is a perpetrator of racism, and his helping racism to exist, and hindering the exit of racism from our society.

Good point, however there are no better viable alternatives at present.

el_Prez]1. I have a good friend who went to high school with me who got a full ride sholarship to any in state school because he's mexican. Keep in mind that he lived a few blocks from me, in the same neighborhood, and his parent's made approximately the same income as my parents did.

That sucks, but its the price we bitterly pay for equality.

1. If they do so well while living in the same conditions as other races, WTF is wrong with the other races that they can't get off their asses, do some good old fashioned hard work, and get a college scholarship based on something other than their skin color?

What's wrong with them is that they have everything and don't feel the need to work hard to get what they want. Call it complacency, and realize that the ability to sit on your ass and do nothing is not what being alive is about, IMO.