The Big Picture: Skin Deep

[Fumbles]

My issue isn't that LIFES NOT FAIR ON ME CUS I'M WHITE. I'm not so foolish. However what I disagree with is the publics willingness to dismantle/misrepresent White cultures for private gains.

Well said. I however,would like to point out that whites receive less financial aid for college, when a person of a darker skin receives a scholarship over me (where I have the higher GPA) I call BS, which has happened to me several times... I alos would like to call out the qualifications of The ESA Game Design scholarship... You must be either a minority or female to recieve, what a fucking joke...

 

[honestdiscussioner]

Am I upset about a black guy being cast in a white role? Nah. Don't care really. ESPECIALLY if he was as awesome as everyone says. I think they are allowed to change a character, especially through if they are modernizing it.

My only issue is that we shouldn't be allowing double standards at all. Sure, slavery was one HELL of a double standard that puts the "movie role" double standard to quintuple shame to the power of infinity, but a lesser injustice is still an injustice, and should not be allowed. Me robbing your store doesn't give you the right to step on my son's foot.

Am I being idealistic? Not exactly, because I'm not saying we shouldn't tolerate double standards, or that the only acceptable situation is when there are no double standards, only that we should constantly be aiming for as few as possible. We should not give free passes to a group who was fucked over centuries ago, simply because as long as they get that free pass, we as a society will never truly move on. It will continue to haunt and hurt both sides and I'd prefer we work towards that no longer happening.

Did you miss Bob's point that the massive double standards being used against non-whites STILL EXIST TODAY? Not nearly as bad as they USED to be obviously, but if you'd honestly claim that a black person in modern-day America is in every way equal to a white person, you're deluded.

Umm . . . did you miss the point where I said we shouldn't allow ANY stereotypes or double standards, and that the existence of a double standard against one group does not mean it is okay for there to be a reverse double standard against the other group? You know, "two wrongs don't make a right", basic morality 101 here?

Not at all. You're saying there shouldn't be ANY double standards. I agree. But since there ARE, isn't it better that they balance out on both sides, rather than non-whites being constantly discriminated against while we sit around saying how sad it is?

No, I think that's a defeatist position. "Well, there are always going to be double standards, so let's just let them be so long as they balance the equation".

Terrible idea. There will be countless idiots with no ability to grasp the nuance you are describe, and they will see it as an injustice and want to impose even MORE double standards that will then go and unbalance the equation.

It is better to treat all double standards as equally unjustified, because that is what they are.

 

[honestdiscussioner]

The ideal, theoretically logical thing to do would be to make every role either culturally correct or completely interchangeable. But in practice, the latter ensures that no artistic liberty can be taken that doesn't suit all races (a white Malcolm X?) while the former makes an outstanding number of roles skewed toward the ethnically dominant. The imperfect concession that we make is to allow ethnic minorities to play traditionally white roles, because there just aren't that many roles they're suited for.

I still disagree. If I were to go to a country that was 90% black, and 10% white (somehow through the power of magical hypotheticalness there are no other minorities), I would not start demanding they change roles simply to suit "white people". I also wouldn't demand they keep roles within gender bounds either. I'd demand (or perhaps merely suggest) they go with what works. In the Thor example, it seemed to work quite well. There was nothing about the story that required him to be white, they are magical freakin' gods.

I believe in meritocracy. Roles should be given to whomever can play them the best, irrespective of race. That goes both ways.

Would you have raised an eye-brow if Thor was depicted as a seven-year-old Asian girl?

Yes. Because I sincerely doubt such an individual would make a convincing badass god. If one could pull it off, then no. I don't see how that would be possible though. Just like you couldn't have a man play the role of a pregnant woman, while still appearing as a man. It just wouldn't be believable.

 

[JDKJ]

My issue isn't that LIFES NOT FAIR ON ME CUS I'M WHITE. I'm not so foolish. However what I disagree with is the publics willingness to dismantle/misrepresent White cultures for private gains.

Well said. I however,would like to point out that whites receive less financial aid for college, when a person of a darker skin receives a scholarship over me (where I have the higher GPA) I call BS, which has happened to me several times... I alos would like to call out the qualifications of The ESA Game Design scholarship... You must be either a minority or female to recieve, what a fucking joke...

Are you accounting for income and parent contribution before you whine? If a FASFA-generated Student Aid Report is part of the determination process or income and parent contribution is otherwise taken into consideration, it makes sense that minorities would receive more financial aid than whites. Minorities (with the exception of Asians) have less income than whites and therefore have greater need for financial aid.

 

[Ursinedriver]

After ignoring 18+ pages, I'm sure someone else has said this, but i'm going to have to disagree. Now I don't care what race they decide to change a character to or from (Alba was awesome as Hiemdale and Jackson makes a decent Fury) But just because there was a double standard in the past does not mean we should go into the future expecting the opposite o that double standard to be true. I've long believed in the montra "be the change you want to see" and how can anyone expect there to be a fair playing field it the future if we embrace an unfair one today? True in the past white folk treated my people massivly wrong, and even today we still have a harder time, but if we get into power we give you all a hard time, doesn't that makes us just as bad? I guess what I'm saying is the opposite of rascism is still rascism.

@hivemind 7year old asian female thor?
How is that not awesome

 

[Hive Mind]

Just like you couldn't have a man play the role of a pregnant woman, while still appearing as a man. It just wouldn't be believable.

Or how you couldn't have a black guy play the role of a white as snow god, while still appearing as a black man?

 

[DearFilm]

So according to Bob, embracing double standards is the only real way to treat our popular culture's derth of interesting or complex minority characters. So changing a Norse god's race was preferable to creating a new character who is black. Thor had an entire Earth-based realm that was set in modern day America, and yet it was less culturally diverse than Asgard.
This strikes me as a kind of racism in and of itself. It is as though you do not trust minorities or those who write them to create a new and unique character on their own, so you have to "gift" them characters who have already been created. You are allowing them to "prove" their racial equity only through the appropriation of another race's character. It's like if a black African chef wanted to prove his worth in a French kitchen, but rather than let him make his own recipe, gave him a recipe already perfected by a white French cook. This betrays an astounding amount of condescention on the part of anyone who argues this way.
Honestly, some characters can be changed and can benefit from said change in the long run. I think Spider-Man as a young black kid from Queens makes a lot of sense and could be interesting because this is the real world, and that character is set to reflect modern ideas and experience. A Norse god, however, seems to resist this change. Instead, we should be trying to create characters grounded in a racial identity, so "appropriation" instead becomes "creation."

As a comic book fan, AND someone who is incredibly adverse to changes (Often the smallest incongruities between a book/comic and movie is enough to downright piss me off; it's just me), I'd much rather have a inconsequential character have a race lift rather than an entirely new character introduced into a years-long continuity.

So did you take umbridge with the inclusion of Lucius Fox or Rachel in The Dark Knight?

You mean the Lucius Fox that has been part of the Batman canon since the late 70s?

And just like that, I lose my geek cred.
Still. Rachel.

 

[Skjutentrast]

Note that that wasn't me replying.
Also, I said Northern Europe. That is Denmark, Sweden( With Finland), Iceland, and Norway.
My ancestors are innocent. And we accept more immigrants per capita then most countries in the world, both refugees and other.

I don't owe anyone anything for being white, and neither does anyone else. It is history. I don't inherit my fathers crimes so to speak.
But, I really want to stress that in this case I really don't care. But race haven't been an issue here for a long time. Culture, such as Islamic culture, is.

So making a Character established as a Christian a Muslim or the other way around would cause massive feedback.

Anyhow, colonialism was a necessary evil. We needed resources to keep the industrializing of the first world going, they needed and wanted our superior technology and also arguably rule.
The native Americans, both south and north, are arguably the ones who suffered most under European rule. Not the Native Africans.

 

[DearFilm]

So according to Bob, embracing double standards is the only real way to treat our popular culture's derth of interesting or complex minority characters. So changing a Norse god's race was preferable to creating a new character who is black. Thor had an entire Earth-based realm that was set in modern day America, and yet it was less culturally diverse than Asgard.
This strikes me as a kind of racism in and of itself. It is as though you do not trust minorities or those who write them to create a new and unique character on their own, so you have to "gift" them characters who have already been created. You are allowing them to "prove" their racial equity only through the appropriation of another race's character. It's like if a black African chef wanted to prove his worth in a French kitchen, but rather than let him make his own recipe, gave him a recipe already perfected by a white French cook. This betrays an astounding amount of condescention on the part of anyone who argues this way.
Honestly, some characters can be changed and can benefit from said change in the long run. I think Spider-Man as a young black kid from Queens makes a lot of sense and could be interesting because this is the real world, and that character is set to reflect modern ideas and experience. A Norse god, however, seems to resist this change. Instead, we should be trying to create characters grounded in a racial identity, so "appropriation" instead becomes "creation."

Oh my God....Someone actually agrees with me.
But you must remember according to our society it is not okay to be proud to be Caucasian, Where there is a Black History Month, Asian/Pacific Month, Latin Week/month.... there does not exist anything for us.

That is because every day that isn't especially set aside for a "them" is assumed to be for "us." This is another kind of insane condescention, because instead of saying "We celebrate everyone all the time" we are basically gifting time, time which has no master, to a people we feel bad for. We are claiming to own months, to be able to mete out importance.
Racism does not just exist in violence and degradation. It also exists in condescention and lowered expectations.

 

[honestdiscussioner]

Just like you couldn't have a man play the role of a pregnant woman, while still appearing as a man. It just wouldn't be believable.

Or how you couldn't have a black guy play the role of a white as snow god, while still appearing as a black man?

No, not like that at all. First off, he's not a snow god. He's a magical god on from another planet. While the roots of the story are from Norse mythology, there is a TON that is changed. Having one of them be black is no where near a big deal.

In this iteration, he isn't a white snow god. He's a black god. That fits just fine. They changed the character a bit, like they did with nearly EVERY character. You can have a man play the role of a pregnant women, if you take out the pregnant woman part.

 

[Malisteen]

People should understand that big budget Hollywood is part of the United States, and the United States have been defined by the issues of race relations generally and black slavery in particular from its inception. It was one of the biggest issues in forming the US government. The compromise on the issue was a congenital defect to the US constitution that festered for a century. It was the bitter, festering core of the cultural split between north and South, completely saturating the political landscape for generations. It was the fundamental issue of the civil war that the nation tore itself apart over, and continued afterwords in the form of segregation and bigotry. This nation was built on the backs of black slaves (to say nothing of the graves of native peoples), and the inherent tensions between the noble ideals of liberty and equality and the cruel realities of bigotry and racism have long defined the nation's character.

While we in the US as a nation have made great strides in bringing our ideals and realities closer into alignment, it remains true that many of our people, whether they acknowledge it or not, are where they are today because of the inequities of our past. The stains of our past continue to characterize us, and they leave ongoing marks on our culture, including the dearth of strong minority roles in fiction, and while casting minorities in roles generally given to whites (which, by the way, the Director of Thor has long been known for anyway, and shouldn't have caught anyone by surprise) may not be an ideal solution, it is one solution, and in cinematic paradigm where remakes & sequels absolutely dominate the industry, it is frequently the only solution available.

Of course coming up with new roles is a superior solution, but that only makes things even more frustrating when hollywood white-washes those new roles, which is a big part of why Airbender's casting was so much worse then Thor's.

We all carry our baggage with us, and cultural baggage is no different. If a film comes out of Hollywood, it's going to carry with it America's racial baggage one way or another.

 

[Ursinedriver]

So according to Bob, embracing double standards is the only real way to treat our popular culture's derth of interesting or complex minority characters. So changing a Norse god's race was preferable to creating a new character who is black. Thor had an entire Earth-based realm that was set in modern day America, and yet it was less culturally diverse than Asgard.
This strikes me as a kind of racism in and of itself. It is as though you do not trust minorities or those who write them to create a new and unique character on their own, so you have to "gift" them characters who have already been created. You are allowing them to "prove" their racial equity only through the appropriation of another race's character. It's like if a black African chef wanted to prove his worth in a French kitchen, but rather than let him make his own recipe, gave him a recipe already perfected by a white French cook. This betrays an astounding amount of condescention on the part of anyone who argues this way.
Honestly, some characters can be changed and can benefit from said change in the long run. I think Spider-Man as a young black kid from Queens makes a lot of sense and could be interesting because this is the real world, and that character is set to reflect modern ideas and experience. A Norse god, however, seems to resist this change. Instead, we should be trying to create characters grounded in a racial identity, so "appropriation" instead becomes "creation."

Oh my God....Someone actually agrees with me.
But you must remember according to our society it is not okay to be proud to be Caucasian, Where there is a Black History Month, Asian/Pacific Month, Latin Week/month.... there does not exist anything for us.

That is because every day that isn't especially set aside for a "them" is assumed to be for "us." This is another kind of insane condescention, because instead of saying "We celebrate everyone all the time" we are basically gifting time, time which has no master, to a people we feel bad for. We are claiming to own months, to be able to mete out importance.
Racism does not just exist in violence and degradation. It also exists in condescention and lowered expectations.

Oh my god, can I Internet hug you? you just said what ive been thinking for years.

Also, I feel its worth noting that Thor was a ginger, but no one complains about making him blonde.

 

[DearFilm]

quote="Ursinedriver" post="6.282806.11126829"]

So according to Bob, embracing double standards is the only real way to treat our popular culture's derth of interesting or complex minority characters. So changing a Norse god's race was preferable to creating a new character who is black. Thor had an entire Earth-based realm that was set in modern day America, and yet it was less culturally diverse than Asgard.
This strikes me as a kind of racism in and of itself. It is as though you do not trust minorities or those who write them to create a new and unique character on their own, so you have to "gift" them characters who have already been created. You are allowing them to "prove" their racial equity only through the appropriation of another race's character. It's like if a black African chef wanted to prove his worth in a French kitchen, but rather than let him make his own recipe, gave him a recipe already perfected by a white French cook. This betrays an astounding amount of condescention on the part of anyone who argues this way.
Honestly, some characters can be changed and can benefit from said change in the long run. I think Spider-Man as a young black kid from Queens makes a lot of sense and could be interesting because this is the real world, and that character is set to reflect modern ideas and experience. A Norse god, however, seems to resist this change. Instead, we should be trying to create characters grounded in a racial identity, so "appropriation" instead becomes "creation."

Oh my God....Someone actually agrees with me.
But you must remember according to our society it is not okay to be proud to be Caucasian, Where there is a Black History Month, Asian/Pacific Month, Latin Week/month.... there does not exist anything for us.

That is because every day that isn't especially set aside for a "them" is assumed to be for "us." This is another kind of insane condescention, because instead of saying "We celebrate everyone all the time" we are basically gifting time, time which has no master, to a people we feel bad for. We are claiming to own months, to be able to mete out importance.
Racism does not just exist in violence and degradation. It also exists in condescention and lowered expectations.

Oh my god, can I Internet hug you? you just said what ive been thinking for years.

Also, I feel its worth noting that Thor was a ginger, but no one complains about making him blonde.[/quote]

I accept internet hugs readily. Most times I feel like I am just shouting into a maelstrom, so it is nice to know some people out there agree with me and my feeble, libertarian opinions.

 

[Fumbles]

My issue isn't that LIFES NOT FAIR ON ME CUS I'M WHITE. I'm not so foolish. However what I disagree with is the publics willingness to dismantle/misrepresent White cultures for private gains.

Well said. I however,would like to point out that whites receive less financial aid for college, when a person of a darker skin receives a scholarship over me (where I have the higher GPA) I call BS, which has happened to me several times... I alos would like to call out the qualifications of The ESA Game Design scholarship... You must be either a minority or female to recieve, what a fucking joke...

Are you accounting for income and parent contribution before you whine? If a FASFA-generated Student Aid Report is part of the determination process or income and parent contribution is otherwise taken into consideration, it makes sense that minorities would receive more financial aid than whites. Minorities (with the exception of Asians) have less income than whites and therefore have greater need for financial aid.

I for one, am an independent, I receive aid through FAFSA, and I would like to point out that some of the Scholarships at my university are not always based on financial needs, however I still get passed up by several other people with significantly lower GPAS.

I would also like to point out that Blacks and hispanics also have a significantly higher college fail/drop out rate. So those financial needs that were met were basically given for nothing if the student does not graduate college.

 

[Fumbles]

quote="Ursinedriver" post="6.282806.11126829"]

So according to Bob, embracing double standards is the only real way to treat our popular culture's derth of interesting or complex minority characters. So changing a Norse god's race was preferable to creating a new character who is black. Thor had an entire Earth-based realm that was set in modern day America, and yet it was less culturally diverse than Asgard.
This strikes me as a kind of racism in and of itself. It is as though you do not trust minorities or those who write them to create a new and unique character on their own, so you have to "gift" them characters who have already been created. You are allowing them to "prove" their racial equity only through the appropriation of another race's character. It's like if a black African chef wanted to prove his worth in a French kitchen, but rather than let him make his own recipe, gave him a recipe already perfected by a white French cook. This betrays an astounding amount of condescention on the part of anyone who argues this way.
Honestly, some characters can be changed and can benefit from said change in the long run. I think Spider-Man as a young black kid from Queens makes a lot of sense and could be interesting because this is the real world, and that character is set to reflect modern ideas and experience. A Norse god, however, seems to resist this change. Instead, we should be trying to create characters grounded in a racial identity, so "appropriation" instead becomes "creation."

Oh my God....Someone actually agrees with me.
But you must remember according to our society it is not okay to be proud to be Caucasian, Where there is a Black History Month, Asian/Pacific Month, Latin Week/month.... there does not exist anything for us.

That is because every day that isn't especially set aside for a "them" is assumed to be for "us." This is another kind of insane condescention, because instead of saying "We celebrate everyone all the time" we are basically gifting time, time which has no master, to a people we feel bad for. We are claiming to own months, to be able to mete out importance.
Racism does not just exist in violence and degradation. It also exists in condescention and lowered expectations.

Oh my god, can I Internet hug you? you just said what ive been thinking for years.

Also, I feel its worth noting that Thor was a ginger, but no one complains about making him blonde.

I accept internet hugs readily. Most times I feel like I am just shouting into a maelstrom, so it is nice to know some people out there agree with me and my feeble, libertarian opinions.[/quote]

I'll give a cookie too.

 

[magnuslion]

So, first off: Idris Elba rocked as Heimdall. I cannot think of any other actor who could have come across as so eerie, distant, and otherworldly. That having been said: The sins of the fathers should not be paid for by the sons. I do not see an issue with Elba playing Heimdall, but I do not think it should be made an issue of race. He is a great actor and was epic in the part, but the idea that it is a matter of paying for racial injustices is invalid. I have not ever enslaved anyone, or sold anyone into slavery. One of the ugly things we do not like to look at is that african people sold other african people to whites. It does not justify slavery, I am not saying that, at all. But the issues of racial injustices of the past are NOT OUR FAULT OR PROBLEM. and its retarded to make it so. For Example, I am Jewish, and lost what would have been most of my family in WW2. I don't hate Germans. I don't complain bitterly every time a German succeeds at anything. as a race, ((humans)) we must move above and beyond this kind of thinking, or we are never going to get anywhere.

 

[DearFilm]

So according to Bob, embracing double standards is the only real way to treat our popular culture's derth of interesting or complex minority characters. So changing a Norse god's race was preferable to creating a new character who is black. Thor had an entire Earth-based realm that was set in modern day America, and yet it was less culturally diverse than Asgard.
This strikes me as a kind of racism in and of itself. It is as though you do not trust minorities or those who write them to create a new and unique character on their own, so you have to "gift" them characters who have already been created. You are allowing them to "prove" their racial equity only through the appropriation of another race's character. It's like if a black African chef wanted to prove his worth in a French kitchen, but rather than let him make his own recipe, gave him a recipe already perfected by a white French cook. This betrays an astounding amount of condescention on the part of anyone who argues this way.
Honestly, some characters can be changed and can benefit from said change in the long run. I think Spider-Man as a young black kid from Queens makes a lot of sense and could be interesting because this is the real world, and that character is set to reflect modern ideas and experience. A Norse god, however, seems to resist this change. Instead, we should be trying to create characters grounded in a racial identity, so "appropriation" instead becomes "creation."

Oh my God....Someone actually agrees with me.
But you must remember according to our society it is not okay to be proud to be Caucasian, Where there is a Black History Month, Asian/Pacific Month, Latin Week/month.... there does not exist anything for us.

That is because every day that isn't especially set aside for a "them" is assumed to be for "us." This is another kind of insane condescention, because instead of saying "We celebrate everyone all the time" we are basically gifting time, time which has no master, to a people we feel bad for. We are claiming to own months, to be able to mete out importance.
Racism does not just exist in violence and degradation. It also exists in condescention and lowered expectations.

Oh my god, can I Internet hug you? you just said what ive been thinking for years.

Also, I feel its worth noting that Thor was a ginger, but no one complains about making him blonde.

I accept internet hugs readily. Most times I feel like I am just shouting into a maelstrom, so it is nice to know some people out there agree with me and my feeble, libertarian opinions.[/quote]

I'll give a cookie too.[/quote]

Fantastic. It's good to have friends. And cookies. And hugs.

 

[Animyr]

So, in Bob's opinion, its better for a black guy to rob a white guy than the other way arround, and two wrongs make a right.

I agree with the last part, but please don't strawman Bob's point. This is about movie casting, not life and death.

I try to avoid double standards, for exactly for the reasons bob stated I'm personally willing to let the Hiemdall stuff slide. Though if you ask me, whether they're a good actor matters more no matter the race. From what I've heard, The Last Airbender's greatest flaw was that it sucked, not that the leads turned white.

 

[Oskamunda]

Warning, long post.

I suppose I should begin by stating that Political Correctness is a disease for which we should all be forceably inoculated. This isn't to say that a modicum of politeness and recognition of social, ethnic, religious, gender, and financial barriers shouldn't be addressed, it's just to say that PC isn't the way to address them. All political correctness does is further compartmentalize an already segregated populace, and all for the intent to keep them from integrating; integration of the massive middle class in America (or anywhere in the world), from whence most of the energy in the system is created and cultivated, may lead to like-mindedness...and that may lead to change and a stabilizing redistribution of wealth! (Uh-oh, he used a scary phrase usually associated with Communism and Socialism, and since hardly anyone will recognize they've been victimized by the Fallacy of Composition, it will be impossible to slog through the propaganda mire to see that redistribution of wealth is a necessary factor of a successful economy of size...which, incidentally, would be Ad Hominem)

Nowadays, everyone is Caucasian American, or African American, or American of Hispanic Descent, or Native American...why can't we all just be Americans? Using the proclivity of human beings to need pride-centric self-identification only restricts that sense of National Identity which could be one of the first steps in truly castrating racial iniquities. Not to mention that this segregation works double-time when it's tied to an accident of birth that no rational human could ever claim as a source of pride. There is evidence, however, that some people are starting to get it, and that's good; there seems to be a movement starting to shift back to "black" from "African American" after the realization that it's been many, many generations since the boats. Still, not referring to one by skin tone alone would be best (there are always value judgments that go along with such pre-generalizations: Blacks are more violent, Hispanics are wife beaters, Italians are mobsters, Jews are money mongers, Whites are greedy and ignorant and racist, Arabs are terrorists...these things activate subconscious barriers to communication. It sucks, but it happens, from all that repetition in our upbringings...in fact, I would posit that they only appropriate setting one could use race as an identifier would be this: Bill is at a nightclub, and is the only white man in the club. Grant is supposed to meet Bill, but doesn't yet know what he looks like. Grant asks the barkeep, who responds, "That honkey over there in the corner."), but it's a step in the right direction.

That's it for PC, now my serious question:

Bob, when did you start aping Yahtzee, and can you stop, please? Yahtzee's delivery only works because he is self-depricating enough to not come off as a self-righteous pissant who thinks he knows everything. Oh, yeah, and because he only talks about games, not actually important social issues the world 'round.

Which brings me to the last bit. It's not that your statements are opinions, Bob; that's no problem. After all, The Big Picture is an op-ed series. It's that you're opinionated, which is a different thing entirely. If your conclusions weren't defined by your opinions, you'd get a lot less backlash. To date, every single episode would be thrown out of any serious debate because they all suffer from Argumentum ad Verecundiam and Straw Man fallacies, only to name the big two. Try forming a supposition, working through it with logic and reason (and I don't mean what people consider to be logic or reason, I mean actual, formal, textbook logic and reason), and then basing your opinion on the conclusion at which you arrive.

CRAZY, I KNOW!

 

[JDKJ]

My issue isn't that LIFES NOT FAIR ON ME CUS I'M WHITE. I'm not so foolish. However what I disagree with is the publics willingness to dismantle/misrepresent White cultures for private gains.

Well said. I however,would like to point out that whites receive less financial aid for college, when a person of a darker skin receives a scholarship over me (where I have the higher GPA) I call BS, which has happened to me several times... I alos would like to call out the qualifications of The ESA Game Design scholarship... You must be either a minority or female to recieve, what a fucking joke...

Are you accounting for income and parent contribution before you whine? If a FASFA-generated Student Aid Report is part of the determination process or income and parent contribution is otherwise taken into consideration, it makes sense that minorities would receive more financial aid than whites. Minorities (with the exception of Asians) have less income than whites and therefore have greater need for financial aid.

I for one, am an independent, I receive aid through FAFSA, and I would like to point out that some of the Scholarships at my university are not always based on financial needs, however I still get passed up by several other people with significantly lower GPAS.

I would also like to point out that Blacks and hispanics also have a significantly higher college fail/drop out rate. So those financial needs that were met were basically given for nothing if the student does not graduate college.

Are GPAs the begin all and end all of the analysis? It usually isn't -- nor should it be. Is your 3.5 in English worth as much as my 3.0 in Physics? I don't think so. Moreover, any well-determined application process should consider atmospherics that don't always reflect themselves in a GPA. For example, should the inner-city, single mother of two children who had to work two jobs to support herself and her two children and nevertheless managed to graduate high school be considered on an equal footing as the kid who sat around all day, picking at pimples and living off the fat of his parents? I don't think so.

Perhaps your lack of sophistication in presenting a compelling argument that recognizes and accounts for the nuances of a situation is what hinders your success in the scholarship application process more so than the competition.