Article

The truth behind the EOP race debate

EOP is not based on race. It focuses on two things: academics and income.
Joseph Lopez -

In a class discussion on Toni Morrison’s book Beloved, the issue was raised whether the novel deserved a Pulitzer Prize. My professor referred to an article that said something along the lines of “An African American woman, such as Alice Walker, should have won that award a long time ago.”

The article upset my professor. Why? Because it suggested that Toni Morrison won the award based on her skin tone and not because she is one of the most phenomenal writers of the twentieth century, and is twice the writer Alice Walker was.

As an African American growing up in Queens, my friend Jermaine could only shake his head as he passed parked cars listening to the sound of white people hurry to lock their doors, reminding him racism is alive in America.

“But there’s another form of racism that bothers me even more,” he went on to tell me. “When white people treat me like I’m some sort of endangered creature.”

Many people will tell you that racism is an attempt to hold minorities back by squandering their educational, economic and political opportunities. But racism comes in many forms.

You can be equally at fault as a racist if you take a “white man’s burden” approach, attempting to cultivate and educate minorities because you don’t believe they are capable of doing it themselves.

This past weekend, a forum to exchange ideas over these controversial issues was held. Organized by Tiara Higdon of the Black Student Union and Matthew Pecorino of the Binghamton Review, the open forum focused on two pertinent issues: Affirmative Action and the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP).

I have seen the Review express the opinion that Affirmative Action is a racist policy because it serves to categorize the races. Putting a check mark next to a box labeled White, Hispanic, Asian or African American, systematically demeans the fact that we are all human beings. According to Pecorino, “This belittles the point of the civil rights movement, which stressed that race should not be an issue at all.”

You will not find many minorities who agree with this, but there are those like Jermaine who are insulted by the “leg up” program, which suggests minorities are not as capable as the rest of society.

Conversely, there are those who defend EOP’s right to exist on this basis. They claim that EOP’s purpose is to benefit minorities and give them an opportunity that they would otherwise never have.

But Yemisi Yosus, the president of the BSU, pointed out EOP is not based on race. It is a program that receives much criticism due to this misconception.

EOP focuses on two things: academics and income. The former must be relatively high; the latter must be relatively low.

Technically it is not a program designed to benefit minorities, but African Americans and Hispanics compose the majority of EOP because a disproportionate number of them fall below the poverty line.

To focus on EOP based on race relations is a fallacy.

It is not a program designed to benefit “otherwise incapable minorities”, but the poor and underprivileged. A poor white man is just as capable of receiving benefits from EOP as is a poor black man.

To criticize affirmative action for employing paternalistic views is somewhat warranted. But EOP doesn’t fit the mold of a traditional race quota program. The “white man’s burden” argument damages the credibility of an already struggling program which is trying to fix a very real problem.

Justify EOP using the facts, not by furthering an ignorant form of racism.