Because some of you may not read comments on older posts, and because all of you should read this one, I hereby reprint a comment from Chetly Zarko, the Director of Outreach for the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, on my post from a couple of days ago, “From Bake Sales To White Scholarships.”
All,
I think this issue is a significant and complicated one, and I write here partially as an individual, and partially as a representative the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, whose goal is to end race preferences.
Speaking personally as an individual, I believe that this Roger Williams College Republican program, while exceptional in that it brings the issue to public attention and raises awareness, is distinguishable from “bake sales” because bake sales give a self-evidently absurd benefit to minorities whereas this scholarship gives a self-evidently absurd benefit to people from the “majority.” There is no irony in that and a fair amount of historical pain. For the public relations reason that this is more likely to generate sympathy for the opposition, as well as the moral reasons related to the historical significance of whites only preferences in the past, the satire effect is diminished. I therefore personally disagree with and condemn this particular action. I have some ideas of my own for the “next step” in affirmative action bake sales; but I’m letting my statewide network of youth coordinators experiment with and improve the ideas on their own.
I suspect, given the history outlined above if true (that the CR president is a minority scholarship recipient), he could have made it a whites only scholarship based upon his knowledge that only blacks receive them at the college and argued that he was engaging in his own “diversity” program, so I wouldn’t call his argument “hypocritical,” but that reasoning wasn’t made clear. I’d remind everyone that these are college students experimenting with ideas, a worthy and noble element unto itself. I’d also trade them up for some elements of the Republican leadership; just based on their vigor.
Moving away from the personal statement here, I would ask, as director of outreach for the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, for your contributions to our cause, where the battle is also currently at its peak. I apologize for the blatant pitch here, but let me relay a story. We recently open a piece of mail from an elderly gentlemen. In it was five dollars and a note. The note “apologized” for the apparent insignificance of five dollars; but then stated that he felt compelled to donate something despite his limited income because it was really “that important of an issue” to him. We believe the Michigan initiative is really that important to everyone in the nation. I would not discourage people from donating to any other causes like this as well, but when people talk about donations I feel compelled to relay the importance of this cause.
Chetly Zarko
Director of Outreach
Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
See www.mcri2004.org or e-mail me (email hidden; JavaScript is required)
Oh, please. Chetly seems to think that his cause is holy because he bilked some poor old guy out of a 5-spot. What–no little kids with a lemonade stand donating their pennies?
The five dollars came in before I was employed by MCRI. And quite frankly, I’d give it back to him if he asked; and I’d buy him lunch if I ever met him under any circumstances. And unlike BAMN (one of their members had a five year old banging a jar on some student petition gatherers tables), I would never knowingly use a child to raise funds.
I think that much of the university community is in urgent need of “desensitivity training”. They need to be disrespected and offended as often as is possible, until it gets to the point where they actually expect that each and every day that they come into work they will see and hear many different things that offend them. Only then will we, the people they have been trying to silence all these decades, be able to say: “welcome to the club”.
I initially thought the AA bake sales were stupid, since no one who is comfortable with AA in university admissions will have their eyes opened by differentially priced cupcakes. I now see that the sales are not intended to convince anyone, but merely to offend people who have mostly gotten away with terrorizing opponents of AA into silence. Similarly, the “scholarships for whites” are solely intended to offend, not to change people’s minds and certainly not to promote white supremacy. The people who get offended will get offended precisely because they see that the people they have been trying to silence are not afraid to offend them. (And I hope it’s clear that the targets of the silencers have never been primarily the real racists or extremists.)
Once speech is permitted on campuses, and not until then, can real dialogue about issues take place.
I propose that people who agree with me (and who have a lot more courage than I do) should go around wearing tee-shirts saying offensive but not bad things.
Such as:
“Nigger is an offensive word.”
“Feminism is vicious and stupid.”
“No does not necessarily mean no.”
“Martin Luther King .. (and then an appropriate criticism)”.
ETC.
And of course members of fraternities should be encouraged to dress up in blackface as often as their heath will permit.
Private person, your first t-shirt is brilliant in a way, but I couldn’t do it because I’m for civil discourse (I don’t know, maybe uncivil discourse is sometimes necessary to civil discourse)! The other ideas are average. The irony is, that as I’m sure you’d agree, you use the psuedo private person.
Maybe there should an Offenders Club?
ok, theres a million scholarships for the minortiy, whats wrong with some for the majority, were living in the present not the past, and i thought that america was trying to creat equality for all and by giving you the advantage, because you are not a majority, just causes more racisim
Donation information:
http://www.rwucr.com/
Samantha, your statement is untrue. There are many more scholarships for whites than there are for minorities. Indeed, this was one of the reasons minority scholarships were established.
The good thing about this stunt is that at least now they are designating exclusive white scholarships as such.