by Jennifer Harrison

Created on: February 25, 2008

College admissions are a nightmare for any High School Senior. Applying to the right school, completing the essay, making sure your grades have been good enough and getting it all submitted on time in order to ensure your success.

Race is an uncontrollable factor. You cannot help it if you are born Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Etc so why include it as part of the application process? You might as well throw in gender (although it is a little more controllable than race these days).

What is the reason behind it? If it is to help eliminate racial tensions, then it is failing miserably. Constantly being asked about race on college applications, job applications, mortgage applications, etc is only serving to raise those tensions.

Everything we do requires us to answer the question, "What's your racial background?" I ask, "Why does it matter?" If we are all to be equal, then what does it matter if I am a man or a woman, black or white, Hispanic or Asian? You should be looking at my qualifications, and not my skin.

White people are constantly made out to be the majority, and being as they enslaved the black people years ago, they are becoming more and more oppressed. Try applying for a college scholarship when you're white. You will see that there are scholarships that are for Black people, Hispanic people, Asian people, but none for White people. If there was one for White people, it would be deemed unfair and no one would be allowed to apply for it.

So, what is happening here is that the more the White man tries to make life easier for the Minorities; life is becoming more difficult for those considered the Majority. Colleges and Employers both consider your race before making the decision to accept your application. Employers need to have a particular "blend" of races in their workforce so as not to be seen as a "racist" company. Schools want to have the same "blend" for the same reason.

When did the color of my skin suddenly make me a better person/candidate? When did we throw credentials out the window in favor of making sure we have enough Hispanic people in our schools?

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