When I saw what Republican students at The University of California – Berkeley are doing with baked goods today, my buns definitely got a bit sticky.
The students are having a bake sale where the price of the food varies by each buyer’s race. A white guy will pay $2 for a cupcake. A white woman, $1.75. A black dude, $.75 and Native Americans women get theirs for free.
I guess I could have just posted this picture in the first place.
Naturally, I was upset. We know how much I love donuts and now I have to cop to my own race in order to get one?! What’s that you say? I don’t live in Berkeley and my bake shop down the street doesn’t give a good goshdarn what I look like just as long as I stop changing my mind about the bear claw…no, regular glazed…no apple thingy…no bear claw…no…. Never you mind that! Even thinking about having to admit that I’m of color was traumatic enough.
Campus Republicans put on the bake sale to draw attention a piece of state legislation, SB 185, that will allow California colleges to blatantly use race, gender, ethnicity and national origin as a determining factor in admissions.
Some students say that using race to determine one’s readiness for college is as bad as using it to price sweets. Others, however, are calling the bake sale racist, hateful and charge it with creating an unsafe environment on campus.
I call it delicious. Mmmm, frosting. Did I mention it's my birthday. I totally deserve frosting.
I just wonder what they charge for Oreos. The Nabisco kind and the me kind.
I mean, look how adorbs that Oreo is. She comes with a dressage hat and everything. That hat alone is $300...did I mention it's my birthday. And that I love dressage hats.... 🙂
Since race is so icky and touchy, here are some other questions colleges could use to choose who they want to let in to their ivory towers. Make applying to college more like filling out a dating profile and that might be more fun for everyone.
To replace: “What Race are you?” Try these on the Common App:
- What’s the first thing people notice about you (other than race)?
- What movies do you like?
- Do you think I’m pretty?
- How much money did your parents or grandparents donate to this school?
- What fraternity or sorority will you pledge?
- What do you mean you can’t afford Greek dues? What are you, Greece or something?
- How many European countries have you visited?
- Did your parents go to one of our rival schools?
- What famous and/or influential person are you related to?
- How willing are you to meet in person?
- What is the name of the country club to which your parents belong?
- Golf or polo, what’s your preference?
- What do you want to be when you grow up?
- What are six things you can’t live without?
- How much money did you say your parents donated to this school?
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What do you think? Is this protest out of line? Or does it make some sense?
Do protests to Affirmative Action measures assume that minorities will not be deserving of whatever the goal is? Does diversity on college campuses even matter? Should diversity include more things that just where you came from and what you look like?
Should biological factors be used to determine where someone should be able to go to school?
Let us know in the comments!
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The Oreo Experience 
Silly Republicans. Alienating me with your high cupcake prices.
No one should be rewarded in life simply for being born brown skinned or a woman…
But I never really saw affirmative action or any of the similar programs being so much about race or gender. It always seemed like a way to give help to people who have never been helped before. I mean despite my “blackness,” I come from a two income home, my birthparents are still married and they drive mini vans. So no help for me people, I couldnt get a grant if I tried. I get by on talent and hardwork… or the hardwork of faking talent, or the talent of faking hardwork 🙂
I also want to point out that older folks and college students get discounts all the time everywhere. Ladies get in clubs free and are the beneficiary to all sorts of drink discounts. I get into many events free purely because I am friends with “celebrities” thats just how life is. every now and again a place will make it easier for a certian group of people to take part in something.
as for the protest against Affirmative Action, well I guess I can understand white men being upset that other people are being advanced through life because of their race, though I would be interested to find out how many of these so called protestors got ahead purely off of hard work or were they given a boost somewhere along the way too.
But anyways, I am about to go find some Native American women and see about getting a few free cupcakes… 🙂
So would I use my Tribal Number to get the best discount or should I check one of the higher priced boxes.
I love me some cupcakes, but Conservatives always spoil my appetite…
My god that hat is completely adorable. (Is it just for dressage or do you wear it to Victorian re-enactments?) Personally I think more women should wear top hats in public, but I’m just weird that way.
As to the bake sale – I call that “people who don’t have a clue”. I “get” why they are protesting on some sort of vague intellectual level (I know – I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt here); but I’m sure their thinking follows from the “everybody can have the same opportunities if only they’re willing to work hard and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps” mantra that seems so popular among conservatives (and the very rich). Which to me seems 21st century codespeak for the old belief that “blacks are lazy and poor people are poor because they want to be”.
And as a white person myself, I also understand that if you are white (as I assume most/all these students are), you don’t have to think about “whiteness”, you don’t have to think about the privileges just your race grants you until someone points it out – and as often happens, white folks can get terribly uncomfortable with that. Rather than exploring the realities of that, most people would rather hang on to their privileges with teeth bared than let someone else benefit. (We have a perception of privileges as being “limited”, you get a leg up and that threatens me, etc etc.)
We have carried all the same ideas into the 21st century, but merely dressed them up in new clothes, so to speak.
I know – tell you something you don’t know, right? Sorry, I’m babbling here.
Wow! I’m still trying to get my head around the concept of the bake sale. But you know, once you get past how offensive it is, we have to admit that it accurately reflects the inequality and inequity prevalent in our society. Although, the argument could be made that Asians should be first on the list. From what I hear, America is opening their doors mainly to upper class Asians, which are being streamed directly into upper socioeconomic classes.