Actually white males are. If you're a minority or a woman (especially younger), you can (and this has actually happened on many occasions simply by playing the discrimination card) get away with murder. Laws effectively do not apply to anyone but white males (and black males in the Southern US).

@32 There are many scholarships that are given to people simply because they are black, or hispanic, or whatever. None for white males, because that's racist.

I have found the same problem in securing funding for a program for at-risk youth, just because the population served happens to be mostly white and because we don't select based on gender. So many grants just don't apply because they want to help minority children, or programs that only serve girls. However, this frustration doesn't prevent me from seeing that there are other areas of my state where there is great need for funding to help disadvantaged minority children. It's not a dichotomous issue (and I use that word because saying "black and white" would be in poor taste...) Minorities and women face many more set-backs than white men do in our culture. Does that mean that scholarships only for women or minorities are fair? Maybe not, but it does help restore a sense of balance when it's hard to find anywhere else. We don't live in a perfect world where it can either be this way or that way. We have to find a way to compromise. If you don't like the way people have found, then find a way to do it better instead of complaining.

#77 You present a very backwards argument. You essentially said that it's alright to discriminate against a group in some areas because said group is better off in other areas. That's like saying that because women are underrepresented in dangerous, difficult, or otherwise undesirable professions, they should occupy the majority of high-paying, high-prestige professions like CEOs. So here's my change to the system instead of complaining: Improve the equality where it's lacking, instead of unbalancing it somewhere else.

#96- What I mean by "sense of balance" is that because minorities and women face discrimination, certain private individuals have chosen to give their money only to those people to help them make up for their disadvantages. As in, it's not there to give them an edge over white men, it's there to make up for the edge white men already have. Is there a better way to do this? Probably. But no one's doing it, partly because most people are just fine with the status quo. #97- I wasn't trying to say how things should be. I was reflecting on the pros and cons of the way things are. What you have proposed there isn't a change to the system. It's just more saying how things should be instead of proposing a constructive way to make the way things are better. What would you do to improve the equality where it is lacking?

You say white men have an "edge" in society. Yeah, not really. Want proof? In our education system, many colleges are required to have a certain percentage of minority and female students. This means a white male with outstanding qualifications could have his spot taken because the college needs that space for a minority or a woman who may or may not have outstanding qualifications. Also as #71 mentioned, many scholarships are specifically focused only on minorities and women. This is kind of ironic because this is insinuating that minorities or women lack the ability to pay for college themselves. and therefore, they need help. So really, these scholarships which are supposed to oppose racism or sexism actually end out being racist and sexist which is one of the greatest ironies in our society.

Our justice system is even worse. Courts aren't so much racist as they are sexist. Anyone is quick to paint the man as the bad guy. A perfect example is that damned Casey Anthony case. It's been going on for over a year despite the mountain of evidence which proves her guilty beyond the shadow of a doubt. But wait! Shes a woman! And women CAN'T do anything wrong since they are so perfect and well behaved. Or so our justice system believes. If Casey Anthony were a man, he would have been locked up and executed a very long time ago and the case would have received virtually no media attention. And as this FML suggests, men have lost their "edge" in the workplace. I am not denying the fact that for years women and minorities were horribly underpaid. But recent racial discrimination laws and especially sexual harassment laws are a bit overkill. Now sexual harassment is kind of a woman's 'get-out-of-jail-free' card. If she runs into trouble...BAM! Sexual harassment! Problem solved! Now, anything from innocent flirting to accidentally bumping into someone is considered sexual harrassment. Its ridiculous. Ok, so I rambled for a bit but I just wanted to prove my point that white males certainly do not have an "edge". But rather, a disadvantage.

big_rob1- I completely agree with you about quotas and affirmative action. I think they are wrong, and can lead to unqualified people getting jobs over more qualified people, and are based on the idea that women and minorities can't achieve anything without help. So I'm not arguing with you there. Affirmative action definitely needs to go. Most major schools don't use quotas anymore either. However, I completely disagree with your attempt to prove that white men don't have an edge in society. First of all, only about 17% of the members of congress in the US are female, and yet there are more women in the US than men. Second of all, more women than men apply to college, and yet equal numbers of women and men are accepted, when you would think the numbers accepted would be proportional to the population that applied. Thirdly, five times as many black men as white men get the death penalty--and this is when comparing equal sample sizes of black men and white men who have committed comparable crimes. Adolescent white boys with conduct disorder are given treatment with medication and psychotherapy, while black boys with the same disorder pretty much just end up in jail. Casey Anthony is one case. You can't just claim it's not legitimately controversial, nor can you ignore the fact that she has been charged with first-degree murder. Can you make the same argument about women getting off easy concerning Andrea Yates? The wage gap continues to exist--on average, women get paid about 75% of what men in similar positions make. Woman and minorities continue to be at higher risk for stress-related psychopathology (such as anxiety and depression) than men and white people, mostly due to the discrimination they face. Your claims about women making false sexual harassment claims are entirely unsupported. I think this sort of thinking has spread throughout our society because people are uncomfortable with efforts to change the status quo. This FML suggests nothing about society as a whole or women as a group. Would you make the argument that women as a group are all thieves based off this FML? Not really. So don't make any arguments about false sexual harassment charges based on this FML. Sexual harassment IS a problem--it has happened to me (as in a former client deliberately grabbed my ass), and it happens to lots of other women and even to some men. Don't forget that these laws protect men, too. There are more statistics where these came from. Just ask if you're interested. But you can't base an argument on one case and a few unsupported claims. Women and minorities continue to face open discrimination, as well as other disadvantages that occur as the result of implicit prejudices. White men definitely have an edge, and the suggestion that they face any kind of disadvantage is ridiculous.

Good point on the political facts there, letitbe56. I left that out entirely and that was my bad. But I think there was a little misunderstanding in my rambling about the court system. My point was that race aside, men in general get f*cked over in courts because they are often assumed guilty. And in my statements about the workplace, I wasnt implying that real sexual harassment does not happen. It does happen a lot. But almost always a man accused of sexual harassment, whether guilty or not, is immediately disciplined or fired. Nor was I implying that all women use this to their advantage. I was just stating that it does happen occasionally and that it can happen. Perhaps I did get a little carried away in that area because one of my friends was recently fired from his job for some bs sexual harassment claim which kind of pissed me off as well as a teacher at my school getting in trouble for having a female student as a Facebook friend. I half agree with you on the whole "edge" thing. My point was that in SOME aspects, (i.e. college quotas), white males don't have an edge while they do in other aspects. Anyone could argue certain races have advantages is some places and disadvantages in other places. I was mainly referring to the issues I was talking about but not outside of that. Anyway, you had some very valid points so kudos for that.

You're probably right that men are more likely than women to be assumed guilty of violent crimes. But couldn't this have something to do with the fact that the vast majority of violent crimes are actually committed by men? Assuming is wrong, but it's not completely out of context. Moreover, people are even more likely to assume the man is capable of violence if he's black or hispanic. So race is a factor in this too. There's definitely still injustice in our society, and in this case, you're right, it's men who face it. But not just white men. Sorry about your friend. And as for the teacher, it's completely ridiculous for him to get in trouble for something like that, as long as he was never warned about that kind of thing beforehand. I've had jobs where I was explicitly told not to have internet contact with the kids. But if he wasn't given a fair warning, then people shouldn't jump to conclusions.

Everywhere I've worked at, the bosses have trained employees to talk to each other to try to resolve issues before going to their supervisor, then the manager, then the district manager if applicable. He did the right thing and shouldn't have been fired so casually.

true, and i agree, however she was essentially stealing money from him, which is a punishable crime both in and outside the workplace. she wasn't stealing his yogurt from the fridge in the break room.