So you're saying the system was implemented because minorities are inferior to white people.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I think you missed the point entirely.

Is no one going to talk about what's going on in the .gif?

There was a time when society was actively trying to put down minorities. It is during this time that these kinds of scholarships were useful and justified.

But in today's world, you cannot adequately justify the continued existence of scholarships based on race. Currently it serves only to reinforce the idea that races ARE unequal.

We'd be much better off converting those scholarships to ones based on financial need.

As a minority, you're wrong. I'm Black (read: N*****r) and I still have parents and grandparents alive from the times of Jim Crow (yes, my family is from both Florida and Mississippi respectively). Most people are still affected by what happened barely less than 50 years ago. Let us not forget that minorities, or in the case of Black people, were second-class citizens only until the mid-60's, and before that only a generation off from being born to released slaves.

Not to mention, not all racist people died or did racism end when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. Don't even get me started on the Native Americans. Do you honestly think people were hiring minorities in droves the second the bill was made into Law in the US?

Forgot to add, most of the grants/scholarships for minorities aren't necessarily based on color, but location/other socioeconomic factors.

Have you heard of Appalachians being a minority, because they are. Yes, they're ethnically white, but like other minorities they were disenfranchised and marginalized by the same people who did this to Black people.

Merit alone does not get people what they want, sometimes people need a hand up. If things were obtained purely based on merit, every person who wanted to be an actor/rapper/pimp/singer/<insert occupation here> would be the cream of the crop. But we all know this isn't true.

As someone whose experienced racism on at least 6 occasions with 4 of them being in the ********* of a state I like to call Ohio, I'd be willing to say that not many have changed, it just was "swept under the rug" so to speak.

Without assistance I wouldn't have been able to attend college, let alone get a good job in today's economy. My mother, who had 5 children, had no way to pay for in-state tuition. Also my major was not taught in any of the local community colleges so the closest place I could study at without taking more than I needed was at Ohio State.

It's like telling people "Go get a job, pull yourself up by your bootstraps", then saying when they're unable to do so by means available to them that "It's their own fault". Hence, it's keeping the poor poorer, compounded with the fact that they wouldn't be there had there not been a structured system beforehand keeping them down.

I'm just saying, before you think it's racism, understand why it's there in the first place; it's just as racist/prejudice to be totally dismissive of what people have to go through because of how differently you may view things.

It's understandable that the aim of these grants was to undo historical damage done to ethnic groups over historical time, but I'd think it would be more efficient to focus the grants on economic class rather than just simply ethnicity. It ensures the focus of the program goes to those that were damaged, while helping everyone in general out that's in need.

I am a white male that grew up in a low income family. Now when I say low income, I mean my parents worked ~50-60 hours a week to put food on the table and pay the rent. We didn't live off the government, and didn't get any grants. I went to a school together with all the minorities (or you could say being white was a minority there) that had a 40% graduation rate.

So could you please explain to me why the **** almost all the graduates that were "minorities" got a free ride to go to college? Hell they didn't even need to do well in school, they got accepted to good colleges just because the standards for their race are lower than for white people, so even though I had a higher average than them, and scored way higher than them on the SAT, I got nothing. How the hell is that fair?

Hell, it should be illegal to ask for your ethnicity on applications for absolutely anything. Giving someone something extra because of their race is just as racist as taking something away from them.

well as a white kid who was one of 7 white kids in my school i can tell you i was given plenty of scholarship offers based on multiple factors including the fact that i was a minority in my school so maybe you just didnt try hard enough

I'm sorry to hear of your situation and I can try to empathize with how difficult things may have been for you, but I stand by what I said.
As I said to epicscorpion, I admit that people from all walks of life can need help. However I don't believe that the alternative be "help everyone or no one" which seems like the overarching point I see you're trying to make.

The concept of affirmative action was implemented by privileged whites who wanted to make themselves feel better about their socio-economic standing. There is documented proof that this system can actually be worse for the minorities it 'serves' by placing college-eligible young adults into schools that are above their natural leaning curve.

How about...helping people that need it, rather than, I dunno, people of a certain race?

Just because you assume that minorities are in poverty and whites aren't, doesn't mean you can justify not reading that he said it is purely on race.

AlthoughI appreciate the strawman you've made for me, I never said minorities are in poverty. I acknowledge that people from all walks of life need help and I did admit that the current system is being abused, but that's not the point I was trying to drive. I was trying to convey the idea that some people were put where they are as a result of society forcing them down. So rather than just letting go of them and saying "Pick yourselves back up", why don't we as a society help them back up?

We as a people work off the platforms we've been given. In some cultures, certain platforms were destroyed simply because of race. What these systems are trying to do is help the people affected by this destruction of opportunity by giving them metaphorical stepladders so they can climb to where they could have and likely would have been.

I understand what you mean, but it's not the way to achieve it. Otherwise, you could have just said, "Scholarships are...good", because they help those who need economic assistance. That's their purpose. Adding a race thing to the end of it doesn't make it anything other than racist.

I agree on the fact that what we're doing now isn't the ideal solution, I think it's the most effective applicable one on a wide-scale.
Perhaps we could agree to disagree here?

Maybe we should provide assistance based on merit. The children who show the desire, the will to succeed, despite ANY disadvantage they may have, should be offered aid. On the other hand, those that make it a point to coast through life should be shown what it means to succeed, but should not be given handouts.

Dis agreed.

Have you ever lived in a city with projects? It really doesn't sound like you have since all this "help" that most of the people are provided is completely wasted away. Why is it that someone living in government assisted housing, buying groceries with food stamps, and picking up a welfare check every week can afford to wear $200 shoes, talk on a brand new iphone and drive a Cadillac?

We are way past the point of "helping" people from the positions they were put in. There's been generations of help at this point, and it's all gone to waste. When you just give people a free ride they'll just sit on it for as long as it goes. I mean why bother getting a job when you can do absolutely nothing and live better off?

I don't quite appreciate you assuming my situation. I live in Western Sydney (Australia), which is our version of the ghetto. When I head to the eastern suburbs, or even into the city, there is a tone of disgust in the voices of the residents there when they find out where i'm from- class discrimination is a big thing here.

I don't feel as though talking about this topic further with you will do either of us any good, so perhaps we could agree to disagree?

I don't see how commenting on a situation in the US, while living in another country is fitting at all. I do not know how scholarships and other aids function in Aus (and I will not comment on it), but here in the US ethnicity plays a huge role in getting scholarships and getting accepted into good colleges. In a country that always yells about equality and freedom that's just unacceptable.

Also take a look at this picture that was posted further down in the comments.

no. you are over stating the amount of scholarships that are given out based on race. if the situation you described was true then poc would outnumber white ppl in college which simply isnt the case.