<p>I'm writing an essay for a scholarship that asks how my ethnic and cultural background has shaped my life. I'm struggling because, well...I'm white. I have never been discriminated against, and i haven't noticed my ethnicity building my character. What do I write?</p>
<p>Odds are that scholarship is not intended for white people. Try a different one. </p>
<p>Do you live in ethnically/culturally diverse area? Because, if so, you could write about what that is like for you. Are you interested in racial issues? You could consider what goes on in your society/country through your own lens. Are you of a particular European background that has carried down into your modern American life at all? Some questions that might jog your thinking a bit - bottom line, i think there is room for a little creativity in an essay like this. </p>
<p>You could write about how being white and not routinely going through discrimination has helped you see the privileges you have and has made you empathetic and understanding of what other races go through. That would be a risk, but if you’re a good writer, you could pull it off.</p>
<p>No Norwegian/Irish/German/Welsh/fill-in-white-ethnic-group-here in your personal cultural heritage? Think that one through. There may be something there.</p>
<p>Are you from a not-common-at-target-institution geographic location? I know a small-town-rural-midwest white kid who was awarded a “diversity” scholarship based on a solid essay about what she, as a small-town-rural-midwesterner could bring to that college/university.</p>
<p>Think more deeply about what makes you you. </p>