It’s tough being a white male. They can’t dance. They can’t jump. And they can’t apply for minority scholarships. But while most college applicants would apply for, well, the plethora of others available, Colby Bohannan, an Iraq War veteran and a student at Texas State, created his own: a scholarship for white males.
Dubbed the Former Majority Association for Equality (FMAE), the scholarship’s name is derived from the speculation that “if you’re not a male, and if you’re not white, you’re called a minority … [but] I’m not sure white males are the majority anymore.”
Here’s the scholarship’s mission, according to their website:
To fill in the gap in the scholarships offered to prospective students. There are scholarships offered for almost any demographic imaginable. In a country that proclaims equality for all, we provide monetary aid to those that have found the scholarship application process difficult because they do not fit into certain categories or any ethnic group.
The scholarship awards five lucky white males—who are at least 25 percent Caucasian—$500. Scholarship hopefuls must also have a GPA higher than 3.0 and have financial need.
“There’s a scholarship out there for just about any demographic, except this one,” said the group’s treasurer, William Lake. “We realize it’s for good reason—this is a touchy subject.”
And their good reason? It’s not to challenge affirmative action, but to challenge “our society to look at the way our culture views race,” according to Bohannan. The scholarship’s website claims that it “has no political aspirations, financial agenda, or radical social philosophies whatsoever.”
Texas State’s vice president for student affairs, Joanne Smith, has said the scholarship is no different from any other ethnic scholarship. “From the university’s standpoint, we can’t take issue with a scholarship offered to a certain group.”
Started in March 2010, the scholarship board consists of nine members, including three women, one Latin American, and one African American. They have already raised $2,500, which they will reward on July 4.
Although the program is barely a year old, members of the group have already had run-ins with the law. Public records show that Bohannan pleaded no contest to charges of property theft in 2001 and issuance of a bad check in 2003. Lake has also pleaded no contest to issuance of a bad check in 2008.
FMAE is not the first “white male scholarship.” In 2006, Boston University College Republicans created the “Caucasian Achievement and Recognition Scholarship” to raise awareness on race in college admissions. And Tennessee State University also awards scholarships for Caucasian Tennessee residents in order to “increase minority enrollment at TSU.” Alabama State University and Alabama A&M also once provided scholarships for their white minority—before courts intervened.
Most of these “white male scholarships” are due to the decreasing white male population on campus.
“I felt excluded,” said Bohannan, who, as an Iraq War vet, qualifies for several forms of educational assistance and is protected from fluctuating financial aid rates. “If everyone else can find scholarships, why are we left out?”
FMAE is still accepting applications until June 1, 2011.
Image brad montgomery/Flickr
About Zaneta Jung
That guy’s Invisible Backpack is so stylish & unique! Totally unlike most white male’s Invisible Backpacks! Why would he ever bother to unpack it!
HEARTED!
I support this 100%. I always thought minority scholarships were a load of crock because it’s just reparations we’re paying back for treating minority people poorly in days we didn’t even exist in. This article isn’t saying white males should have a scholarship: it’s trying to point out hypocrisy. I bet there are many “minorities” out there decrying this scholarship, claiming while male privilege and racism and blah, blah, blah–yet, they get everything simply because of their skin color. If people are truly smart, they’ll get the true message these white male scholarships are trying to make.
AMEN Amber . I was speaking to a brother a week ago about starting just such a scholarship for exactly this reason . What is wrong with giving our own kind a step up instead of giving everyone BUT White folks help . Let the muds sink into the pit if this is what stay want
White people still treat minorities badly.
What an astute observation. I didn’t even know before that I treated minorities badly. In fact, you’re right, I hate everyone who doesn’t have the same skin color as me.
Ass.
I’m a white male who earned my way. I wasn’t rich. I didn’t receive any scholarships because of my penis or my shade. Nor did I receive special consideration in hiring and promotions- in fact, I was discriminated against when looking for a job.
“Affirmative action” based on race or sex is discrimination, unequivocally.
Let’s have a merit-based society, not one that props certain groups up at the expense of others.
I can’t believe people still take these racial categories seriously, as if these categories are really clear and really useful, when in fact they’re totally flimsy and vague. Explain to me how someone proves he’s a member of a particular race. Does he have to prove it before he can get a race-based scholarship, or do you just take his word for it? If he has to prove he’s white (and how the heck do you prove you’re at least 25% white?), is it based on appearance? We all know how tricky it can be to label someone based on appearance. The only way to make it concrete at all is to do what the Nazis did and come up with a totally bogus chart and start measuring people’s ears and noses and distance between the eyes and all that other pseudoscientific garbage.
The 2010 census lets people mark more than one race, which is a bit more realistic in terms of historical truth, as arbitrary as the categories are. Everyone is mixed ancestry if you go far back enough in the family tree. (What, you think every greatgrandparent is “racially pure”?) If you really wanted to destroy race-based affirmative action, you should apply to every scholarship as a member of every race, and if the institutions have a problem with that, challenge them to prove that you’re not. When you apply to college, put a check in every race box, including the “Other” category.
The way I see it, like every human being my earliest human ancestors lived in Africa, so I’m African American. You might look at me and find that label surprising, but who do you think you are telling me what race I am? How dare you!
I dare you to go to Compton or Watts and shake people’s hand pronouncing yourself to be a African American as well.
Or jail… see how well that works out for ya. That Aryan Brotherhood might be pissed off tho!
No doubt in South Central L.A. some people would be mad at me for saying I was African American. People get up in arms about all sorts of useless categories, but that doesn’t make them right. I’m sure if I explained my position calmly and reasonably then as rational human beings they would come to respect my point of view and enter into reasoned, respectful debate with me….. I hope you’re not saying African Americans are close-minded and racist. That’s my people you’re talking about….
“Although the program is barely a year old, members of the group have already had run-ins with the law. Public records show that Bohannan pleaded no contest to charges of property theft in 2001 and issuance of a bad check in 2003. Lake has also pleaded no contest to issuance of a bad check in 2008.”
So because some of the people organizing this have, in the past, before even being involved, had some sort of legal issues… what? They’re evil? What is the point of this paragraph? The first sentence implies they’ve had “run-ins with the law” since the program was formed, and then talks about totally unrelated events that happened before the program was formed.
Anyway, this article is a piece of racist, sexist crap.
For other guys who were offended by the lack of care demonstrated by this author for a specific group just because they happen to be white and male, check out A Voice For Men radio, which doesn’t discriminate: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/avoiceformen
And yes, that is A Voice for MEN. Not white men or black men or Hispanic men. All men.
The real enemy is feminism, which demonizes all men.