Fisher vs. University of Texas: the debate over affirmative action

so what happens when you shut down open and honest dialogue about racial inequality?

today, i got into a heated discussion about affirmative action. 

it started when a man and his wife announced they wanted to 'fund a scholarship for average white guys' because they felt it was impossible for a white male to get a scholarship. after trying and failing to hinge their understanding of affirmative action on the events of history that lead to the inherent racial structure that exists with white men on top, i began to see something in their crossed arms and downturned lips that i hadn't noticed before.

they both frequently said it's not fair: just because historically white men have had an advantage, doesn't necessarily mean her husband did. they wanted autonomy or separation from the white community. he wanted to be recognized as an individual, an individual with his own struggles and set of hardships. 

what a privilege it must be to only have to think about yourself in every situation, to not have to think: how is what's happening to me right now affect the bigger picture? 

and what i mean by that is, near the end of the conversation, i realized i was asking them to think beyond themselves. yes, they are not the ones who wrote the jim crow laws, but they are shortsighted in acknowledging the advantages they gained from those laws and denying its propagation. 

by choice or grand naivety, they do not see their historically elevated status and what it would mean if they stepped back. as a man in a room full of women, in a world that tips toward masculinity, what would it mean for him to step back and allow the women to speak?

if a man in a room among women steps forward, does it not seem 'natural' for the attention (and sense of power) to be on the man? i know you'll push that if a woman steps forward in a room full of men the attention would be on her immediately; but i argue that it's for different reasons (sexuality, and thus, not the same sense of authoritative power as the man 'naturally' commands.) so, what would it mean for him to step back, to accept that he has this privilege and to consciously refrain from using it?

and regarding their inability or refusal to see the historical advantages laid before them, what a privilege it is to have that choice or to have that 'ignorance is bliss' naivety. it is the very lining of white privilege: to be able to say that doesn't affect me, why do i have to be punished? i don't see how i am a part of this. i don't have to do anything for anyone else. my actions don't have greater meaning. i am living only for myself. 

i think people of color don't get that same sense of independence. what happens to someone else in the community, might very well happen to us. we don't have that security of that happened to them. it didn't/won't happen to me. take for instance the murder of Trayvon Martin. hundreds marched in hoodies with signs asking: am i next?

whereas white folk are allowed individual status, people of color are denied that complexity.

this can be seen on tv/film. if a white person is on screen, they represent themselves. if an asian person is on screen, she represents her entire race. when a white man flew his airplane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas he was seen as a crazy man who flew his plane into a building. of course, there was no backlash on the white community, doesn't that sound silly just saying? but when 9/11 happened, those men represented not only an entire country but an entire religion. 

yes, i am asking you to 'give up your scholarship' to a person who perhaps scored lower than you did. 

what a privilege it is to be able to say, without even a moment of thought, i deserve it more. 



to read more about white privilege, click here:

I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was "meant" to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks. 

for more on Fisher vs. UT, click here and here for what's  at stake with the ruling of this case.

-melissa