Wise, Extended Quotes

Ted Wise, "Between Barack and a Hard Place"

Extended Comments/ Janelle Marie

I will be using Janelle’s Quotes blog as my “Extended Comments.”  Tim Wise ia an American anti-racist activist and writer.  He is known for his participation in anti-apartheid movement on the campus of Tulane.  He also was known for campaigning against David Duke, on issues of Racism and Nazism.  He worked for a number of community groups consisting of Louisiana Coalition for Tax Justice, the Louisiana Injured Worker's Union and Agenda for Children, where he worked as a policy analyst and community organizer in New Orleans public housing.

With Janelle’s first quote, I wanted to agree with her on the fact that whites do get the majority of scholarships and they SEEM to complain when they don’t receive a scholarship at all.  Some are quick to blame the minority race and sometimes hatred or blasphemy may be the result of it, leading to more racism and oppression.  It’s like taking three steps forward and two steps back.  One little action can cause several generations of work and rehab to turn into dust.  Racism will always be around but reverting back to it is where the problem lies.  Just because you don’t get your way doesn’t mean you need to take it out on a minority.  I’ve witnessed Caucasians get mad because they didn’t receive a certain scholarship and then when they find out that a minority had won it they get furious.  Saying impolite things and thinking rude thoughts.  Society shouldn’t be like that but it’s up to us to make a change, even though we didn’t cause it.  Like Wise had stated we can do something about it.  We definitely shouldn’t let it continue and destruct our society.

In the second quote, they state minorities only get a fraction of financial aid money for college.  Regardless of the financial aid, we should all be accepted into college due to transcripts, test scores, extracurricular activities.  It shouldn’t matter on race or socio-economic class.  It also shouldn’t matter who your parents are and where you were born, we are all equal and human beings.

I’m speaking on behalf of a minority, I disagree with affirmative action because it has flaws.  For example, you can have ten people in a room where nine of them have the brilliance of Steve Jobs and the one minority with an IQ of Forrest Gump.  And due to affirmative action the lone minority will get accepted.  Does anybody else see a problem with this?  When you start accepting individuals based on skin color you promote inequality.  Everyone should be judged on the same criteria, not where they came from or who their parents are.

I would like to know what other people think of Affirmative Action.  I know it is a sensitive subject but it’s also something we face every single day in related topics in class.  Also all of my comments on the quotes are what I’ve witnessed and not assumed.  I’ve heard people say these things and it does hurt but the best feeling is when I confront the negative perceptions with factual information.  I know racism and oppression can’t be changed overnight but we can start one person at a time.