They did it again
About a year and a half ago, I received an e-mail from the business college at my school that had a subject line of “Paid Summer Internship!!!” I was definitely interested when I saw that. Upon opening the e-mail and reading halfway through it, my excitement had turned to anger. The internships were only available to black students, and even if I spent the rest of my life in the sun, I’d never qualify. So why had this been sent to me?
When I arrived at the university, I got a note in the mail saying that the university was required by law to report ethnicity information about its students to the state, and they didn’t have any ethnicity information about me (I purposely left it off my application). I wrote “It’s none of your business” on top of the form with the nice little check boxes and sent it back to them. And they didn’t bother me about it again.
So why was I getting an e-mail with an opportunity that excluded me? My racial status was “unclassified,” not “black.” I was angry, and in my anger I sent a reply e-mail that was perhaps not as nice as it could have been.
Why am I getting this? It looked great, paid summer internship info, lots of positions available. Good, right? Yeah, except that I’m not black, so it doesn’t apply to me. Why doesn’t the KKK just mail membership invites to black students?
…which probably would have been okay. But in my anger I ended the e-mail with “f*** this.” So I got a call from the dean about an hour later. In truth, I didn’t even think anyone would read it… most e-mail announcements like that are sent from bogus accounts, so I thought it would just bounce and I could say “well, I tried.” But apparently someone in their office read it and told the dean that I used a naughty word. So I apologized, because I truly didn’t mean to offend anyone. The dean and I had a nice little talk about how internships and scholarships that discriminate based on race are morally reprehensible; he explained that they were merely passing along an opportunity they had been informed about, and that their policy was to send notifications to all students who could possibly benefit. Meaning: because I didn’t specifically belong to any race, I could possibly be black. That at least explained why I had gotten it, and I promised to send an e-mail to his office apologizing for directing my angry words toward them.
I asked them to remove me from ALL racially limited opportunities, even whites-only ones (I couldn’t resist), and I considered that chapter closed.
But just today I got an e-mail from the Career Resource Center at the university that started like this:
Dear UF Student:
INROADS is coming to the University of Florida!
You have been selected as one of the few UF students who qualify for a
PAID professional INROADS Summer Internship. We would like to give you the
opportunity to interview one of our sponsoring Fortune 500 companies. This
is your chance to gain a competitive advantage over your peers while still
in college and beyond!ELIGIBILTY REQUIREMENTS:
1. Ethnic Minority Students
…and I’m just going to cut it off right there. Here we go again! This time, I took the time to write a response that was (mostly) polite and calculated yet made them feel shamed, without outright swearing at them.
To Whom it May Concern,
Since when does a rich white kid qualify as an ethnic minority? You may want to make sure that your ethnicity database is running correctly, because I know for a fact that I am not listed by the university as a minority student. I do not take kindly to e-mails that claim to offer me an opportunity, only to disqualify me a paragraph later because of the color of my skin. It’s not that I mind that people choose to discriminate with regards to race when choosing candidates for their programs… I’m sure they’ll be reincarnated as dung beetles, if at all. What bothers me is that they wave the opportunities in my face, arousing my interest, right before telling me that someone of my racial ancestry has nothing to offer their program.
How hard would it be to make sure that these types of e-mails are only sent out to minority students? All you have to do is maintain a list of ethnicities that you’d like to consider “minority.” If a student isn’t registered as belonging to one of those ethnicities, the e-mail isn’t sent to them.
If such a system is technically infeasible, then I would rather that I not be on your list at all.
Sincerely,
Mark Jaquith
This probably won’t be the last e-mail I get that doesn’t apply to me racially, but at least I had my say without succumbing to anger, like last time. So despite being under qualified, according to their ELIGIBILTY REQUIREMENTS (sic), I can still sleep well at night.
