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Cause for Concern

Are You a Victim?

Once you start to regard yourself as a victim, you look for a perpetrator. And the thing you look for in a perpetrator, you look for someone that it’s ok to hurt. It’s really not a good thing. – Jordan Peterson 2017 – McMaster University 1

Who are the victims today and do you fit into one of the categories of victimhood? To get to this answer, have you thought of what group or groups do you identify as being part of?

What are the most important categories that you are part of?

Your race? The nation you are from? The color of your skin? The faith system that you hold onto? How you personally identify?

Let’s break this down a bit, by giving a very basic view of Critical Race Theory or CRT. The fundamental aspect of CRT is that in all groupings, there is the oppressor and the oppressed. Here’s how it breaks down…

If there is a woman, then she is oppressed by men. Wage gap, more powerful positions, influence, and the list goes on.

If there is a person of color (someone who is not white), then they are oppressed by white people. Education, wage gap, power, influence, opportunities, racism and again – the list goes on.

If there is a person who is a homosexual, then they are oppressed by heterosexuals. Family rights, insurance issues, bigotry, and the list goes on.

If there is a Muslim, then they are oppressed by Evangelical Christians. Bigotry, racism, and the list goes on.

There are many more categories, but this should give a basic view of how each one of these categories claim victimhood. They are all being oppressed. But there is another aspect as well of CRT.

If one is a woman, person of color, who is a homosexual – then they are what are considered to be one of the most oppressed groups, because they can claim victimhood on several different fronts.

So – who is oppressing this last people group? To Jordan Peterson’s point, who will the perpetrator be? Who are they saying it is ok to hurt, so that they can assign this victim status???

Does anyone hear this answer? White. Male. Evangelical Christians.

Yes, all white people are complicit with racism… I had a Black roommate in college. I’m a minority myself. – Robin DiAngelo2

I hesitate in quoting this next statement from Robin, because context is really important and I don’t want it to come off as picking out a part of what she says to make her look bad. However, just let her words speak for herself.

I always knew that I was white. I knew that it was better to be white, and that being white is a large part of what helped me navigate poverty and classism. – Robin DiAngelo

Just process that. I have the link shared above, read it yourself.

I’m going to give you my view for a moment. I don’t recall in my lifetime ever thinking it was better to be white. In fact, when I was at school, I don’t recall for even one minute thinking that whites (white people) were better. Not even one time. When I starting thinking about college, I actually thought it might be better to be someone of a different people group who had a better chance of getting a scholarship, because school was expensive. Rather than giving you my story, how about I just show you what is on Scholarships.com right this second. This is what I’m faced with for my children…

Scholarships By RaceScholarships
Available
Total Offered AmountOther variable
 amounts
African American241$1,373,92047
Alaska Native161$875,80033
Asian/Pacific Islander197$1,049,65039
Caucasian5$24,0002
Hispanic211$1,191,69549
Native American199$979,47047
Other Ethnic/Racial Heritage150$793,90030

Segregation being abolished in 1964 was a big step in fighting racism.

Seems now that we are moving backwards in the name of progress.

One final comment… I thought it important to show how one organization could word a scholarship to exclude a people group, to label them as perpetrators and therefore establish this group as one that it ok to hurt. Thoughts?

Delicato Family Wines realizes there is an imbalance of race and diversity in the wine industry, specifically those in winemaking and we are committed to being part of a meaningful, long-lasting positive change. To that end, Delicato is launching a new Winemaker Scholarship and mentoring program. The aspiration behind the program is to encourage Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) students to join the wine industry and support them through the academic pipeline to a successful early career placement opportunity. 3

***Facebook 9/26/2022

OK, I give up! I agree that we have at least one element of systemic racism in the United States.

Because no one is going to read a complete piece on this on Facebook – OR AT ALL – I’m going to be specific to one point. Scholarships.

I started to think about the opportunities that my children were going to have, when it comes to college. Are they going to have too much privilege because of their skin color? That’s what’s being pushed all over the place, so I needed to find out if this is true or not and maybe even call it out if necessary.

Paying for college!!! One very simple method, which is the same method I essentially used when I started to look for colleges was to look for scholarships. I don’t have a trust fund or huge amounts of money just sitting around to pay for all of my children to go to college, so – what is there to offer my kids. I’m told my children are going to have some significant privilege, so let’s check that out.

I have gone to this site before (scholarships.com) and it seems to be pretty consistent year over year. I pulled up all of the scholarships for our children. Who are they providing huge quantities of scholarships for?

Let’s look.

African American scholarships. This is 13% of our total United States Population. – 289 scholarships. That’s not many, is it? You’d think there would be more.

What about Hispanic scholarships. A total of 18% of our total United States Population – 253 scholarships. How terrible. Shouldn’t there be more.

This is terrible. Why aren’t there more scholarships for these minority groups? It’s enough to make you mad, right? But, before we get to the disparity that is scholarships based on race, I’m going to touch on a couple other categories.

I have one boy and two girls. Figured I would look to see what was available to my boy vs. my girls. When I select scholarships by gender, there are 313 for females with $1,460,796 as total scholarships. Why are there more for female than actual race minorities? Seems a bit unfair too, doesn’t it?

Scholarships.com has gender options other than just male/female so here are those Gender options : Other and Transgender. For transgendered there are 31 for $126k and other there are 26 for $94k.

What about male scholarships. 72 scholarships, in the amount of $128k. That’s interesting. Transgender and Other dwarf those of just male. Huh. At least transgender and other are getting a larger share of scholarships than males. That’s fair, right?

I asked the question, why are there fewer scholarships for individual minority races than females? Well, the numbers are interesting. 313 total scholarships at a bit more than $1.4 million.

However – for African Americans, there are fewer scholarships than females, but the amount is over $2 million (up from 1.4 million last year). For Hispanics, there is more than $1.8 million in scholarships (which is up from $1 millions last year). That’s fair, right? I mean, half of our population is female. And women are considered minorities and we have the patriarchy that keeps women down in pay, right?

Ok. This started about systemic racism, so let’s just get to it. Now for the whites. How many scholarships are there for white people?

4. There are four scholarships for white people. $12,500. Huh. That’s absolutely fair, right? White people consist of nearly 50% of the United States population and there are 4 scholarships for white people. That is down one from last year, when they had 5 for a total of $24,000. Let that sink in.

And because it’s relevant, here are the 4 scholarships for whites:

WEN Foundation – for the Women’s energy Network – for STEM – it’s a great scholarship. May do that for the girls one day.
EMPOWER – to encourage minority participation of ethnically diverse students – a laudable goal.
NBCC – Military and rural scholarship for master’s-level counselling students – great concept
Journalism Institute for Media Diversity scholarships – no need for more info.

There does seem to be disparity and preference of race. My girls will have a chance. I didn’t read off the scholarships for the boys, because it would just piss off both conservatives and liberals.

All amounts below are published and do not reflect multiple awards for a specific scholarship, but a simple tally of all amounts that were fixed and published as of 9/26/2022.

https://www.scholarships.com/financial-aid/college-scholarships/scholarship-directory/race/caucasian

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMSmUzDt-7U – 8:50
  2. https://www.kqed.org/news/11825805/people-will-insist-that-they-are-not-racist-robin-diangelo-on-white-fragility-and-the-way-forward
  3. https://www.scholarships.com/financial-aid/college-scholarships/scholarship-directory/race/other-ethnic-racial-heritage/winemaking-scholarship

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