If You Wanna Stop A Thing From Happening….

Then stop doing that thing:

A white student at a Riverside high school has returned a $1,000 scholarship intended for black students.

Jeffrey Warren of Martin Luther King High School received the scholarship from the Martin Luther King Senior Citizens Club at a school awards night last month, prompting laughter from the audience.

Jeffrey later returned it. The teen, who graduated last week, says he applied for 27 scholarships and won three others.

The Riverside Press-Enterprise says the 17-year-old never saw a cover letter for the award that was sent to high school counselors and specified it was for black students.

The application itself said only that African-Americans were encouraged to apply.

The scholarship has now gone to a black student. The senior club says it will change next year’s application language.

I get the point.  A group of people wanna help members of that group of people.  But the overall complaint seems to be that when the wrong groups of people help their own groups, that’s seen as bad.

6 responses to “If You Wanna Stop A Thing From Happening….

  1. Scholarships often are restricted — we give many that only go to a student from a particular town (the town offers the scholarship), one gives preference to people of Italian descent, there are also a couple focused on Franco-Americans.

    As far as minorities the issue is power and status. When a group is put down for a long time power structures built around them serve to perpetuate their lower status. The idea is that special scholarships and the like can help overcome those structural barriers and promote greater equality. Scholarships that are limited to exclude the group that has suffered structural discrimination only serve to perpetuate the injustice.

    At some point one may argue that such benefits are not necessary – after all, we do have a black President. But if you look at the data, blacks are still disproportionately likely to be in poverty, in jail, and lack educational opportunities.

    • The idea is that special scholarships and the like can help overcome those structural barriers and promote greater equality. Scholarships that are limited to exclude the group that has suffered structural discrimination only serve to perpetuate the injustice.

      I might argue that excluding groups based on skin color perpetuates the idea of excluding groups based on skin color.

  2. Scott ,

    What if a Scholarship specified that it was for white kids or European American kids ?

  3. I think this is pretty disingenuous. Time and again I hear conservatives complain about things like affirmative action and how they want the government to stop tipping the scales. Instead, we’re told that african americans should lift themselves up by their bootstraps. So here you have a private african american organization giving out a scholarship and now you find that objectionable too?

    By the way whites give out scholarships to whites all the time – whether or not they explicitly acknowledge that this is what they’re doing.

    • So here you have a private african american organization giving out a scholarship and now you find that objectionable too?

      I’ll take this first.

      When Rand Paul makes the case that the civil rights laws that ban discrimination in the private workplace is the wrong way to go, the left goes crazy. The idea that people are allowed to discriminate base don skin color, even in their own private business, is simply too much. However, when a lefty songwriter objects to the use of a song based on political leanings, why, that’s okay. And now, a private collection of people are allowed to discriminate based on skin color, but because it’s the CORRECT skin color, that seems to be okay.

      So I ask ya, is it okay or not okay to discriminate on skin color?

      Time and again I hear conservatives complain about things like affirmative action and how they want the government to stop tipping the scales.

      Do you think affirmative action works?

  4. dedc79 ,

    Show me a Scholarship that encourages whites only . It happened in the past. Show me where it is happening now . But lets get off of this black-white circus because you and I will never agree.

    I want to talk about bias against Asian Americans in California . Because Asians tend to out compete other groups to get into college, there is a limit in the name of diversity to how many can get into certain colleges . In other words the admission standards are higher for Asians . Mixed race Asians with European names have an advantage over those with Asian surnames .

    This is what your racial preferences cause .

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