affirmative action bake sale
Fuck you, Berkeley College Republicans. Fuck you and thank you for completely trivializing the bullshit female students and students of color are forced to deal with.
You have had centuries of affirmative action for white men. Now we-and by we I mean students like myself who are non-white and/or non-male-we need affirmative actions so we can have the same opportunities that you feel entitled to. Without it old ideas about whites being somehow more intelligent than people of color, or men being more suited to academic rigor than women, will persist. We need affirmative action so that we can have the opportunity to show once and for all that these prejudices are wrong. Acknowledging that America is racist and sexist, and acknowledging and that white men are given preferential treatment, is not racist or sexist. Making a conscious effort to balance out white and male privilege is not racist or sexist. Not giving white men special privileges is not racists or sexist. And not getting shit handed to you on a silver platter does not mean that you are oppressed.
Yeah, maybe part of the reasons I got into Berkeley because I’m was woman applying as a physics major. But so fucking what? Does that somehow discredit the hard work I did in high school? Does it diminish my high test scores? Does it make the application essays I wrote any less revealing of my identity as an amazing and beautiful human being? No. No, it does not. Being a member of a marginalized group does not make me somehow less deserving of a spot at this institution than a white male. I am intelligent, outspoken, and passionate. I am a talented writer and I have a scientist’s curiosity and thirst for knowledge. I am a woman with merits and I belong at Berkeley.
But.
Knowing that I was accepted into this school that I have come to think of as my home partially because of what’s between my legs doesn’t exactly make me feel good about myself. I would much rather be regarded as an equal than as someone who needs special treatment. And it sucks to have to settle. But at least I get to tell myself that I am a making a difference. Getting a degree in a field where people who look like me are grievously underrepresented makes it easier for others to get in. My research will not only contribute to the collective knowledge of mankind, but it will also help to crack and shatter the glass ceiling that bars so many women from being recognized in a male-dominated field.
But when you tell me that I got an easy pass, and that the shit I have to put up with isn’t fair to you, well then I hope you do mind when I not-so-kindly tell you to fuck off. For those of you who say “Guess what everyone! Sexism/racism/etc is dead! So now its time to help us poor white men,” I would like to tell you that you are wrong. You see, in my physics discussion class, I sat at a table with 3 guys. I don’t really know any of their names so how about we go with Jerkface, Butthead, and Chill Dude I Have No Issue With (Chill Dude for short). So we’re assigned to do some of the worksheets in our lab books, but I’m having some troubles because 7B is fucked up and we’re expected to be doing stuff in section and homework that we haven’t actually gone over in lecture (My GSI says this only applies to thermodynamics and will get better once we make the shift into electromagnetism this week. Here’s hoping). So I’m trying to learn the material as I do problems covering it, and I’m thinking out loud. And as I’m trying to voice my physics-y thoughts, Jerkface and Butthead just keep interrupting and talking over me and Chill Dude. In fact, they seem to have a running conversation between the two of them that doesn’t really include me or Chill Dude (because they keep talking over us). Then when Jerkface and Butthead they think they’ve got something figured out they want to go on to the next problem. But when I ask them to explain what the fuck they just put on their papers they continued to ignore me (surprise surprise). Then they just expected me and Chill Dude to follow them on to whatever problem they decided the group would work on even though we weren’t all on the same page.
First, let me just say this: Don’t tell me that maybe affirmative action mentality backfired, and that really I’m not qualified to be a physicist if I can’t keep up, because that’s just factually incorrect. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, you would have a hard time keeping up with an exchange that ignored any input or questions you had. And also I am really fucking smart. So there.
Second, my main point: I think that both anti-affirmative action people and I can agree that this kind of behavior is rude, arrogant asshole behavior. However, white males have the privilege of just assuming that that's all that went on in this exchange. They can say “hey, Jerkface and Butthead are rude, arrogant assholes.” But me? I don’t have that privilege. No matter how much I want to believe Jerkface and Butthead are indeed rude, arrogant assholes, I also have to ask “Did they completely disregard everything I have to say because I’m a woman? Did they think that what I have to say is less valid or even wrong all together because I happen to be in the possession of a vagina? I am I viewed as less than because of something I have no control over?”
As long as this doubt exists at the back of a woman student’s or a student of color’s mind, as long as we feel like sex or race is influencing how our colleagues view our contributions, as long as that happens we need affirmative action.
And having you tell us that we’re discriminating against you is fucking insulting. It’s insulting to our intelligence, it’s insulting to our lives and our lived experiences, and it’s insulting to the righteous anger we have at real discrimination and oppression. The fact is that we have to work twice as hard to be considered half as worthy as you, and you’re sitting there telling us that this is somehow fair. Do you realize how entitled you sound? How privileged? How childish?
Of course you don’t. Bullshit like the Berkeley College Republican’s bake sale shows that you don’t understand the very real injustices we deal with on a daily basis. Your pricing scale is insulting because it throws in our face how very little you think of us. You think we’re undeserving of the spaces at schools like Cal that you thinks should be reserved for people that look like you. And you mock us by trivializing the whole thing with a fucking bake sale.
And its because of people like you, people who tell me that I am less than, that I have it easy in comparison to you, that makes affirmative action such a double-edged sword. Yes, it opens opportunities to me and I am so thankful that I’m getting a chance to study a field that I love-a chance that so many women and people of color before me were denied. But it also makes me doubt myself. Sometimes I think “Maybe I am just here because of what’s between my legs. Maybe I’m not smart enough. Maybe, maybe, maybe…” the list goes on. And I have to remind myself that I am here because of my merits. I am here because I belong at Berkeley and I deserve to be here. And a bunch of privileged idiots throwing a hissy fit about how they’re not getting enough privilege isn’t going to change that.
So take your racially based pricing, and your $0.25 discount for women, and go shove up your privileged asses.
*Note: I focused on sex and race in this entry, but affirmative action and the discriminatory backlash against it certainly takes into account other marginalized groups such as people with disabilities. I simply narrowed it down in response to the wording of the original document.