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Reverse Discrimination
October 19, 2009
Affirmative action was created to stop discrimination of race during the application process for colleges, but it actually created a stronger foundation to discrimination and even a type of reverse discrimination. America runs on equality, then why do certain people have a greater chance to get accepted into a college or university? Color should not be the determining factor for anything. Two students apply to a college, one with a GPA of 3.15 and the other with a 3.00. The one with the 3.15 deserves to get accepted, but they didn’t. The person with the 3.00 got accepted because they were Latino and the other person was White. That person did not have the choice to be White, but they were born white. A person’s determination and knowledge should be the determining factor, not who their ancestors were. I am a junior in High School, I will be applying to colleges and I want the hard work I’ve done to count. Any person who has worked hard should not have something taken away from them because they are considered a majority. Each person is an individual and that is how they should be viewed as.
© Anonymous
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This article has 19 comments.
Wiseman125 BRONZE said...
on Sep. 23 2017 at 4:42 am
Why would you turn down a great white accountant for a not so good black accountant? Just because he's black? Money matters not what color your skin is.
Wiseman125 BRONZE said...
on Sep. 23 2017 at 4:40 am
Your telling me something is "equal" if someone has an advantage
JesusandHisLawyers SILVER said...
on Feb. 22 2015 at 6:59 pm
Gotta love how even the hint of equality makes all the white people start screaming discrimination. Kinda makes you wonder if maybe they were aware of their privilege the entire time.
LadyWisdom98 said...
on Feb. 14 2015 at 9:35 am
It seems all of these reverse discrimination articles give the same example.
LadyWisdom98 said...
on Feb. 14 2015 at 9:35 am
It seems all of these reverse discrimination articles give the same example.
Mockingjay_54 GOLD said...
on Feb. 13 2015 at 8:25 pm
i can't trace my ancestry past my great grandparents. you know why? white people enslaved them. so minorities being able to trace their ancestry or being from an "exotic" country doesn't make them special. there are millions of people living in non european countries. you seem to have an inferiority complex and some insecurity about your race to think that your friend background is better than yours. also way you must be confused about the college application process because they do not choose minorities no matter their qualifications. if a minority has a 2.0 gpa and a non minority has a 4.0 gpa and a recommendation letter from a professor, who do you think they are going to choose?
Mockingjay_54 GOLD said...
on Feb. 13 2015 at 8:11 pm
*claps* preach it!
Mockingjay_54 GOLD said...
on Feb. 13 2015 at 8:09 pm
first of all, affirmative action was created because white people were the ones who kept minorities from attending college for so many years. now, it is still relevant, because it is makes sure colleges are diverse and people of every race can attend, not just white people. you act like they aren't accepting you because your white, but thats not the case. they want a more diverse community in college so minorities have an equal chance to receive an education.
TheIdealist SILVER said...
on Jul. 30 2014 at 10:10 pm
I completely agree that affirmitive action is absurd, (and note that I am a minority female student saying this), but I do find it offensive that the scenario that you give in this article portray minority applicants as being inferior to Caucasian students. Why it always assumed that a white student would have a higher GPA than a student of color? I'm not saying it's not possible. I'm just saying that that isn't always the case when the final decision in the admissions process comes into play. If anything, affirmative is more detrimental to minority students than it is to Caucasian students. This is because it patronizes meritocracy. For those minority students that actually do have high grades and stellar extra curriculars on their applications, they'll never know whether they got into their desired school because of their qualifications or because of a stupid "reform" act that was signed into law nearly 50 years ago that accentuates an uncontrollable factor like race/ethnicity. Believe me, if I could afford college, I wouldn't be saying anything, but since most tuitions cost over two times more than my mother's annual salary, I have no choice but to work my butt off and apply for scholarships and just hope that these admissions officers can turn a colorblind eye to my applcation.
Being white doesn't make you boring -- being a boring person makes you boring. Many white people are neither boring nor plain. From personal experience, I can tell you my white friends aren't boring. I can think of dozens of white public figures who aren't boring (Hillary Clinton, for example).
If you need other people to be at a disadvantage in order to get into college, you didn't do your job as a student. Hear me out:
There was a famous experiment done many years ago called the Blue Eyed, Brown Eyed experiment (or something to that effect). In it, a school teacher in a third grade classroom told all the kids with brown eyes they were superior for the day and explained that they should act like it. The kids with blue eyes were shunned, not allowed to play with kids with brown eyes during recess, etc. That day, one of the things that teacher did was do a counting game with cards with both groups of kids. They recorded the time for each group. The next day, she told the kids that the roles were reversed with the blue eyed kids getting to be superior. Both days, the kids that were in the group that was treated as lesser had a harder time getting through that counting game deck than the kids who were in the privileged group.
The point of the experiment was to see how quickly people can take to roles of being discriminatory, but the card deck result proves why we need affirmative action. The kids in the underprivileged group were not stupider than the kids in the privileged group. They didn't work less than the kids in the privileged group. In fact, the day when they were superior, when they got to have privilege, they performed better than the other kids. What this proved is that when you are discriminated against, when, even on an unconscious level, you know you're not seen as totally equal by society, you perform worse. Steps need to be taken to adjust for that or else we're giving an unfair advantage to kids whose race gives them a superior place in society, socially and socioeconomically.
Maybe if we didn't enslave or discriminate against minorities, you wouldn't have this problem.
There was a famous experiment done many years ago called the Blue Eyed, Brown Eyed experiment (or something to that effect). In it, a school teacher in a third grade classroom told all the kids with brown eyes they were superior for the day and explained that they should act like it. The kids with blue eyes were shunned, not allowed to play with kids with brown eyes during recess, etc. That day, one of the things that teacher did was do a counting game with cards with both groups of kids. They recorded the time for each group. The next day, she told the kids that the roles were reversed with the blue eyed kids getting to be superior. Both days, the kids that were in the group that was treated as lesser had a harder time getting through that counting game deck than the kids who were in the privileged group.
The point of the experiment was to see how quickly people can take to roles of being discriminatory, but the card deck result proves why we need affirmative action. The kids in the underprivileged group were not stupider than the kids in the privileged group. They didn't work less than the kids in the privileged group. In fact, the day when they were superior, when they got to have privilege, they performed better than the other kids. What this proved is that when you are discriminated against, when, even on an unconscious level, you know you're not seen as totally equal by society, you perform worse. Steps need to be taken to adjust for that or else we're giving an unfair advantage to kids whose race gives them a superior place in society, socially and socioeconomically.
Maybe if we didn't enslave or discriminate against minorities, you wouldn't have this problem.
Anonymous said...
on Feb. 11 2013 at 7:31 pm
You people really piss me off with these affirmative action opinion pieces. Why do you always give a scenario in which the Caucasian student has better grades than the minority student? Why does everyone always assume that minorities have lower grades than white kids? It's very offensive, especially considering the fact that I am a minority. I work hard to get grades and I'm on the High Honor Roll at my school with one of the highest averages in the entire student body. As for the scholarships, let me just say this. The reason why there are so many scholarships and financial aid programs available for minorities is because most of us can't afford the tuitions. It has been proven that minorites in the work force is given much lower salaries than their Caucasian counterparts, and as a result most of those hardworking people don't have enough money to send their kids off to college. My mother is one of them; she only makes a little of $20,000 annually, which, as you may know is just a fraction of the cost of most college tuitions in itself. Now, with these circumstances, do you really think that minorities don't deserve a little extra help? Sure, there are some who abuse the affirmative action system, but what about those who don't? What about those genuine, hardworking students who actually deserve to get into those prestegious schools? Do they deserve to get dubbed as "lazy", too?
LaughsAlone said...
on Apr. 23 2010 at 7:22 pm
ha yeah my friends will be talking about the many languages they know and Chinese school and I'll be like....cough... Well, their ancestry is from one country and I come from over five backgrounds...so I can feel unique too ;)
LaughsAlone said...
on Apr. 23 2010 at 7:19 pm
Completely agree :) I am Caucasian and although I'm in the gifted program and get good grades, I'm going to have trouble getting into college because we aren't doing well financially...but my Asian friends with the same grades might get scholarships they don't need as they are pretty well off. :/
Dosia said...
on Nov. 9 2009 at 10:25 pm
Its funny... because everyone believes America is all about equality, but lately I have had other thoughts. Its sad because some people don't see that.
rightbehindyou61 said...
on Nov. 6 2009 at 9:25 pm
I know what you mean. In college applications, the international student or the minority will always be chosen over the other students, no matter what there qualifications. I've always felt so boring and plain because many of my friends had rich cultural heritages, but I've come to accept that just because they can trace their ancestry back farther than I can doesn't make me any less unique. I'm just special in different ways. :-)
