Maybe it is ignorant of me to think in this way, but I do not agree with the article when they criticize the president of BU's comment on scholarships for minorities only. I 100% agree with the president of BU when he makes the statement "race-based scholarships for people of color are the worst form of bigotry confronting Americans today". This quote makes me really think and evaluate America's state of mind and process of thought. I do not believe that there should be any type of scholarship solely based on somebody's race and color. It would make no sense to reward someone on being hispanic or white or black. If you look up the definition of a scholarship on Google it comes up with "a grant or payment made to support a student's education, awarded on the basis of academic or other achievement''. With this being said, it would absolutely make sense for someone to be awarded a scholarship or grant based upon obstacles one has overcome, race related or not, grades, sports, clubs they belonged to and organizations they or an immediate family member participated in. It is awful what people of different races had, and continue to have to face, however wouldn't it be a form of racism itself to automatically assume that everyone of a color other than white has struggled in their lives and has seen a type of racism? Although it is still fully present, the world is changing and people are not forced to face the excruciating violence and pain that generations before them did. What I do understand is that a majority of the worlds poverty population is made up of minorities but the question is why. Some may say it derives directly from the education system since inner city schools, where most minorities live, can not provide the same education and opportunities as suburban schools. Others may say because racism is seen in the work force where one is denied a promotion or a job itself based on their race, which could be entirely true, but extremely wrong.
The author then continuous to say "these are not scholarships based on race, but rather, scholarships based on a recognition of racism". This would make much more sense, if it had to make any sense at all, however, these scholarships are solely targeted toward the minorities of the United States. How many times have you ever heard a white person complain about racism? Probably never because if we do, they should wait for a brutal rebuttal because "white people don't know what racism is" but racism is all to real for people of all colors, shapes, and sizes. To summarize my point, if the point of scholarships is to "recognize racism", then it should not be based on color, it should be based on an action that one went through and over came, instead of assuming that every single minority has gone through a traumatic experience. And to clarify, this goes for any scholarship, whether its achievements of caucasians, blacks, hispanics, asians, etc. Overall, Something so powerful and helpful such as scholarships should not be the thing to continue to segregate people based on color which is why I completely disagree with this entire article.
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