White chicks...Black chicks???

[G.P.girl]

exactly where overseas are you talking about? i've lived in Europe for a long time, and people who have darker skin are usually seen as drunk stealing good-for-nothing gypsies. and they try to make them go to separate schools, and look at them nasty and treat them bad if they do get in to a "real school" adn they don't like to let them work in their shops and things so they usually can only get construction jobs. and people don't like to sell or rent a house to non-white people. but that's beside that piont, we're talking about america, cause it's an american film. white people in america aren't discriminated against. it's not harder for a white kid to get in to college, the reason they have the hispanic/latino/black etc. scholarships is to even out the races in colleges, because most of the college is a bunch of white kids

[dukedogsmom]

GP girl, I think you need to wait and experience life before you can make those statements. Whites most certainly do experience racism. At my job, there's definate favoritism and we don't dare say anything about it. Also, there's certainly no white college fund. There's bad people in all races, not just blacks.

[G.P.girl]

Originally posted by dukedogsmom
There's bad people in all races, not just blacks.

what's that supposed to mean?

[catnapper]

Originally posted by G.P.girl
it's not harder for a white kid to get in to college, the reason they have the hispanic/latino/black etc. scholarships is to even out the races in colleges, because most of the college is a bunch of white kids

Just wait a few more years when you're applying to schools, and for financial aid. Then you'll see things a bit differently. When you REALLY want to get into a school and are turned down because a minority with a lower GPA and SAT is admitted instead of you, then rethink your statement.

The reason its mostly a bunch of white kids is also because many many minorities drop out of highschool long before tenth grade. I don't know what is in their culture to drive them away from education, but its not fair to make white students pay because a group of people were too lazy to study and get their diploma. My husband teaches in a school that is predominantly minorities. He has a kid in 6th grade who's failed 6th grade 4 times. He'll be 15 in September and still in 6th grade. He'll drop out the day he turns 16. Hubby sees it every day. In 6th grade, hubby's school is about 70% minorities. By 12th grade, its more like 20%. Thats hard to believe, but its true. This is why the colleges have mostly white kids... and those white kids are vying for positions with each other and being overlooked when a few minorities apply. Why should minorities be handed something just because their skin color is different? They should work as hard as anybody else to achieve their goals in life.

[G.P.girl]

Originally posted by catnapper
Just wait a few more years when you're applying to schools, and for financial aid. Then you'll see things a bit differently. When you REALLY want to get into a school and are turned down because a minority with a lower GPA and SAT is admitted instead of you, then rethink your statement.

Why should minorities be handed something just because their skin color is different? They should work as hard as anybody else to achieve their goals in life.

well actually, seeing as i'm a semi-minority, i will most likely being offered minority scholarships. where or not i'll accept them, i don't know. if i don't get any other scholarships, (which is unlikely) then i most likely will, since i know m parents won't be able to put 3 kids through an ivy league college. but i'd much rather have a scholarship that recognizes me for my academic and athletic achievments in high school. origionally these minorty scholarships were to keep schools from having all white students in them. now it's because the working middle class white families can afford to send their kids to college. now even though that might mean they have to give up their hummer, they can still afford it. and giving minorties a scholarship, might help some of those kids who live in the ghetto and want to go to college, but can't because their family doesn't even make what the college charges in a year, get in to a good college and have a chance. and i'm not saying it's totally fair, but it's based on general rule and until there is more of one minority than white people it will most likely stay that way.

EDIT:

The reason its mostly a bunch of white kids is also because many many minorities drop out of highschool long before tenth grade.

i don't think that's a very fair statment to make, it all depends on where you live and where you're from. i'm sure there are plenty of white kids who drop out, but it probably seems liek less because people look at the minorities and one group...and then there's the white kids.

[catnapper]

I beg your pardon, but it IS a fair statement to make. Just look at the numbers. Its big here, its big in other cities and states where family and friends are teachers. I come from a large teaching family, as does my husband.

As for middle class affording college.... What middle class would you be referring to? We are solidly middle class and drive Saturns, not Hummers. The kids in my school disctrict driving Hummers live in million dollar homes and their parents rake in half a mil a year - that would classify as upper class. The only way my kids are going to college is through scholarships based on their athletics and academics. We barely pumake ends meet each month, how on earth are we going to afford an additional $20-30,000 a year per kid?

As for the ghetto kids... they'll get scholarships regardless color. Scholarships and grants are offered based on financial need. They are plentiful. I remember in highschool a cartoon pinned up on the guidance counselor's door. It showed two kids doing a perfect swan dive into a pool. It read under each of the two pictures: "The rich kid's way to college", and the other read "the poor kid's way to college" then they depicted a kid doing a major belly flop, it said "the middle class kid's way into collge" Its SO true.

I am not racist in any way. I just cannot justify the attitude that allows one kid get freebies while another has to work ten times harder for something. I live in an area that is 57% Latino. My Latino friends work VERY hard to fight the "stigma" of being a minority. Lets face it, there are judgements on a group of people... but my friends fight the sterotypes and strive to beat them. Too many people are just saying "well, thats what society expects of me, so I guess I'll never be anything but." Thats a cop-out and lazy!

[G.P.girl]

Too many people are just saying "well, thats what society expects of me, so I guess I'll never be anything but." Thats a cop-out and lazy!

you know, maybe it has nothing to do with their race, maybe they're just lazy people. maybe it just has to do with where and how they are raised.

[catnapper]

Originally posted by G.P.girl
you know, maybe it has nothing to do with their race, maybe they're just lazy people. maybe it just has to do with where and how they are raised.

Exactly. It pains me to see the kids get pregnant in 6th grade and drop out (its done more than you think ) and then you have the kids who start dealing drugs and drop out because they see the money is easy - why do they need an education when they've got the good life without one? Then these kids who are dealing drugs and gettign pregnant have kids who do the same thigns. Its an endless cycle. My husband had not one or two kids, but a half his class last year had at least one parent in jail on drug related charges. On parent-teacher nights, only 30 or so parents would show up out of 120 students. Its very sad, and indeed kids with little or no support at home will grow up to be a serious student unless the drive within was so strong to compensate for the lack of it within the home. A teacher can only do so much to foster a sense of accomplishment, pride, self-worth, and self-esteem in a student. The rest comes from the family. Ahhh... but we're digressing from the original intent of the thread! (Sorry)

[Karen]

Originally posted by G.P.girl
white people have never had to feel that, they've always been the ones to discriminate against every other race there is in the world at some time or another in history. so they don't know what realy racism is. they just don't like being at the wrong end of a white person joke...JMO

I started to reply to this the other day, but got interrupted and never did.

That is patently untrue.

Ask the Irish who immigrated here at the time of the potato famine in Ireland, who, when they went to get jobs, were met with signs "No Irish Need Apply."

Ask any immigrant group who has faced the same discrimination.

Ask my grandfather, the son of new Swedish immigrants to America, who was looked down upon by siblings for marrying a "foreigner" - my grandmother, who was the daughter of French-Canadian immigrants to America. If they were still around, you could ask my grandmother and her siblings, who were looked down on in their Massachusetts hometown for being "dumb Cannucks" because their first language was French.

Ask the Huguenots, essentially thrown out of France because they were protestant, not Catholic.

Ask the Armenians, slaughtered by the Turks for, well, being Armenian.

History is full of "white of white" discrimination, and "black on black" discrimination. Ask the ghost of the victims of the Rwanda massacre of just a few years ago, killed brutally by a different ethnic group, both groups are "black." Ask any black American girl or buy turned down for a date because her or his skin was "too dark." Or made fun of for being "high yellow."

The movie looks pretty darned dumb, in any case, and I won't be paying to see it. It is peculiar that women playing men is not nearly as common, or regarded as a source of comedy in film or television, as men playing women. "Yenta" wasn't exactly a comedy, and the only other "women playing men" roles I can think of are "women playing men impersonating women" as in Victor/Victoria and more recently "Connie and Carla," which I'm also not planning on seeing.

[Soledad]

Do any of you know *why* minorities are granted scholarships and grants? Try looking at the economic and educational futures of young black, Latino, American Indian, etc. children verses white children and you will start to get an answer. And while you're at it, why don't you try taking a look at all the things you CAN get scholarships for (like being Irish, Swedish, etc.) before you take the easy way out and blame it all on ethnic/racial minorities. Now THAT'S what I call lazy.

I'm sorry you feel so persecuted against as a white person...and I'm glad that you wouldn't have to spend even one week as a person of color. I don't think you could handle it without breaking down.

White on white discrimination such as with the Irish is definitely a part of history, but it's a matter of losing an accent. Much easier to overcome.

[heinz57_79]

I'm sorry, but discrimnation of any kind is not easily overcome. Accents have NOTHING to do with anything.

Most of the people I graduated with (I graduated from Bangkok, Thailand) were able to get into just about any university they wanted to because they were minorities. I, on the other hand, had to apply to a dozen schools, and didn't get ANY scholarships. And my test scores were better than just about everyone in my class, and I was much more well rounded in terms of extra curricular activities etc.

I don't think race should be a question on a college application. You should get in on acedemic achievement or not at all. When I was at college in Hawaii, my English Lit. class was told to take and grade freshman book reports. I was appalled! HPU is a private university, costing $25k a SEMESTER, not a year. I had to get loans and such to pay for it. Here I was looking at papers written by people who wrote the way they spoke, in pigin. Spelling and grammar were non-existant. I still don't understand how the school could justify admitting people like that.

GP Girl hasn't lived enough to be able to say much on the subject, except to keep re-hash her "white people are never discriminated against" idea. There is not a single race who has NOT been discriminated against. Whites who were Jews, Protestant, Catholic, Irish, and not to mention GAY have been discriminated against. Blacks, anyone of Middle Eastern descent, Hispanics, Asians. Everyone at one time or another. And it is not ok. Under any circumstance.

At the same time I believe that everyone needs to take responsibility for themselves. Whether that means not blaming their present on the past, or everyone having an equal chance of getting an education. No one should be given special treatment for any reason, unless they have achieved academic excellence or some other merit, NOT based on race etc.

And now I'll shush on the matter. I just had to have my say. Btw, Catnapper, I agree with everything you've said 110%!

[Soledad]

Originally posted by heinz57_79
I'm sorry, but discrimnation of any kind is not easily overcome. Accents have NOTHING to do with anything.

Apparently I need to break this down for you. The Irish were discriminated against at the turn of the century, but this didn't take long to end because as the generations passed assimilation occured. For the Irish, it was a simple matter of raising the next couple of generations as Americans (whose culture was not exactly completely opposite to the Irish way of life).

However, being black doesn't get washed out with the generations. It's blatantly obvious most of the time.

Look, I'm sorry if you had a hard time getting into the school of your choice for the price you would have liked. But there are far worse things to have to deal with in life. Be lucky that you came from a family with the means and inclination to value education.

As for illiterate college students, that has NOTHING to do with what race they are. I spent several months grading school exams and found any number of white, monolingual students who could barely write.

[catnapper]

Which brings me to my point... why should a kid get into a school because of their race/color/creed/sex? Shouldn't it be based upon merit? If you have a proven record of doing well in school and extracurricular activites, then you should be accepted into the college. It shouldn't be based upon finances, or what color/sex/creed you are. Just the pure ability to do the work and handle the work.

My son has a learning disability. This disability is his "leg-up" against the competiton because schools are tripping over themselves to fill seats with kids who have learning problems. After a few law-suits, the schools want people to see they won't discrimiate against "slow" kids. They are offering him free tutoring, free services to type his papers, free... a whole lot of things will be free. Hubby and I of course will take advantage of it. BUT I feel guilty. Our son should be working ten times harder than he is to overcome (thats not the right word, but I can't think of it right now) his disability. The boy's not dumb... quite the oposite. He's just LAZY. And I mean laziness goes to new heights with him.

I feel that so far, the schools have babied him and allowed him to make too many excuses for too many things. He can't write a proper sentence. OMG! you should read some of the stuff he's written. It makes your head hurt. The school says "Well he knows what he wants to say, but can't get it to paper." I'm dyslexic too (only with numbers, not words) so I know how he feels - the fear of getting it wrong, how easy it is to make the simplest mistakes... but he abslutely refuses to read or write. He's not made to do so at school. Thats not fair to send him to college when he's not prepared for the workload... then the school's only too anxious to offer him services that will help him. fine, help him. But how will that help him in life after graduation? Will they have people following him in his career writing his reports?

Why should a hard working kid lose their place in school/job/life because my lazy son has a disability? It the same thing in my book. Only they are giving him a free ticket because of dyslexia instead of the color of his skin. He'll never outgrow it. It'll always be a part of him, but I feel that its up to him to rise above it and become a success in spite of it not because of it.

[G.P.girl]

Originally posted by heinz57_79
GP Girl hasn't lived enough to be able to say much on the subject, except to keep re-hash her "white people are never discriminated against" idea.

how do you know?? you don't know where i've lived, or what i've been though! i've lived in places where the KKK hands out fliers on the street corner, leaning over black peoples cars to hand my (white) mom a flier. i've lived in places where people yell "KILL" when they see me walkign in to a store with my parents. i've lived in places where people discriminate against gypsies, and it's almost exactly like it was around the civil rights movement (minus some violence). i've lived in places that are 95% white people and they stare at you and ask "what are you?" when they see you. and follow you around the stores because they think you'll steal something. can you say the same? i doubt it. you shouldn't make the mistake of assuming that just because someone is young, they don't know anything or have any experience in anything. but we're getting a little off topic here...sorry

Edit: also, i'm not saying white people are never discriminated against, but they certanitly haven't had it as bad as many other races. i'm not talking about in other countries. i'm talkign abou tin america (seeing as we were talking about an american film)

[Miss Meow]

So, Catnapper, you're saying that kids shouldn't get in based on race, creed etc, but the system should be based on merit. However, you're letting your disabled, yet lazy, son in on the same basis, and that's OK. That doesn't make sense to me.