The Best Black
0 Reparations Road
Fringe City
THE FRONTIER
COL1837ONY
The Colonial Scholarship Consideration Committee
Colonial Development Fund
59 Coronation Drive
Capital City
THE EMPIRE
VIC1901ERA
RE: MOTIVATION LETTER FOR THE COLONIAL SCHOLARSHIP
Dear Sirs and Madam,
I trust this message finds you and the Empire in fine health. I write to you to submit my exceptional candidacy for the Colonial Scholarship (CS), the most distinguished academic grant in the world.
My fellow countrymen and women and I would have preferred reparations for the many years of economic and cultural exploitation we have suffered at your nation’s hand, however, we are willing to settle for the annual sports festivals the Empire generously organises (at the host nation’s expense), and two or three of us being handpicked from a population of forty million people to study at your most privileged academic institutions.
It gives me gloating pride to declare that I have been accepted to pursue a Master’s degree in My Native Culture, History, And Heritage at the Monarch’s College of Your Culture, History, and Heritage at the University of Prestige (UOP), a world-class seat of higher learning. UOP, as you know, has been ranked as the pre-eminent tertiary institution in the world for the past 800 years by its own reputable prospectus. My acceptance into such a venerable university shows my considerable academic prowess and merit.
With the financial assistance the CS provides—covering all visa, travel, and tuition costs—I hope to successfully complete my studies in record immigrant time.
I have already commenced the process of securing my medical clearance certificates and furnished my own costs to secure health clearances from my nation’s top doctors to show I am not currently infected with the following diseases: bubonic plague, cholera, dengue, dongo, and dingo fever, common cold, diphtheria, chicken and smallpox, malaria, measles, meningitis, Spanish and swine flu, tetanus, tuberculosis, typhus, and yellow fever. I am currently testing myself for blue, green, and red fevers and undergoing a thorough recolonisation of the mind. I hope to append my fitness certificate to my application documents in the days to come.
Despite my nation’s indigenous languages being baptised and subsequently legislated out of existence by successive colonial regimes, I have taken admirable steps to prove my proficiency in speaking and reading Empirish—this despite thirty years of being educated in Empirish and thoroughly immersing myself in alienating and dehumanising literature from the Empire’s most illustrious authors and poets. I am pleased to announce that my Empirish proficiency test results reveal the following: my basic reading, writing, and comprehension skills are more than satisfactory—they are superlative. My examiner also commended me for speaking Empirish well. I am confident I will be comfortable studying alongside the bruvs, guvs, and toffs who shall also be accepted to UOP.
My candidacy for this cutthroat opportunity is peerless. I recently watched every episode of Downton Abbey and The Crown to familiarise myself with the internalised class distinctions the Empire still favours. I have also found the following films to be quite educational for my prospective cultural, social, and political assimilation: Lawrence of Arabia, Henry V, Pride and Prejudice, The Remains of The Day, and The King’s Speech. I am willing to do my part to ensure the polishers of silver do not mingle or fraternise with the trimmers of hedges.
It is my sincere belief I am the preferential candidate for this thinly veiled attempt at reparations because I have read every single Colonial Scholarship motivation letter ever sent to your esteemed organisation; I have learned the language that is necessary to fool you, the Considering Committee, into picking me above all other applicants.
I have a deep longing to return to my homeland after my period of study and transfer the skills and knowledge I will have acquired from UOP to my significantly unlearned countrymen and women. They all attend local universities which only give them localised solutions to localised problems. As such, my compatriots are not global thinkers and doers. I would, therefore, like to return home after successfully acquiring my degree to bring foreign solutions to nonexistent local problems.
In addition to prolonging my nation’s dependence on privilege, upon my return I shall neither commence nor complete any of the goals listed in my application documents:
Building and running a community-run school or library—whichever one impresses you the most (I noticed, for example, your parent organisation—the Colonial Development Fund (CDF)—has stopped funding libraries completely; nonetheless, I leave the option to not open a library for your consideration in case one of your honourable members harbours a soft spot for a project that will never come to pass).
Establishing an independent, robust, and well-funded arts foundation that nurtures and protects my nation’s artistic and cultural output. I am a firm believer in traveling to the heart of the Empire to see the best of my country’s art (which would not have been so exquisitely preserved and used to generate vast sums of revenue, garner artistic acclaim, and curate skewed historical perspectives had such artifacts remained in the native hands that made them).
Founding an equitable, fair-trade farming cooperative. I favour the feudal approach coupled with the most unsustainable, profit-maximising tenets modern capitalism has to offer.
Creating a sustainable conservation initiative which restores land to local communities, the original and best custodians of the land. Should my application be successful, I will extend an invitation to all members of the Consideration Committee to come and hunt big game on the farm my nation’s government shall expropriate for my soon-to-fail venture.
Bolstering my nation’s healthcare system by introducing world-class standards of training and research coupled to local medicinal knowledge and practices. I will use my irreproachable academic qualifications to muscle my way to the top of the industry and siphon public health funds for myself; I will also green-light the successful privatisation of my nation’s healthcare system by foreign multinationals.
Improving my nation’s economic and social conditions. Instead, I shall endeavour to find new ways to make my nation dependent on the CDF’s funding and charitable initiatives; only in this way can we foster an unequal meeting of nations and peoples.
It would be a special honour to join the CS’s global alumni pool, a members-only group in which skills or resources are not shared. I look forward to receiving future newsletters I will not read. Additionally, the prospect of attending reunions, dinners, and fundraisers where nothing of practical value is discussed appeals to one such as I: I am most enthusiastic to be recognised as an alumnus of the CS program so I can talk over people at dinner parties.
As a potential Colonial Scholar, I am committed (in the truest spirit of this application) to upholding the principles of equality, justice, freedom, and democracy insofar as they are useful to securing my country’s popular vote en route to founding my future dictatorship.
I have read, with some concern, the recent reports surrounding sexual misconduct among your members. I would like to unequivocally state that I do not believe these reports to be true. I resolutely believe that an organisation such as the CDF—with a well-documented history of systemic exploitation, exclusion, and rape of native women—would never engage in tame activities such as touching a female coworker on the buttocks without her consent.
I, personally, think many of the Empire’s problems started with suffrage; it is not too late to reverse course.
Should my application be successful, I would like to be placed in one of the following residences: the House of Exiles; Redemption Song Residence; or the Buffalo Soldier Commons.
I am most saddened by the recent closing of Cecil John Rhodes House—he was a great man; his legacy shall continue to live on in the land and wealth he stole, the peoples he oppressed and displaced, and the endowments he bequeathed to the Colonial Development Fund to make the Colonial Scholarship possible only for the talented ten percent, people like me, the better blacks.
I would also like to take this opportunity to vigorously oppose any statements about redressing colonial injustices made by a certain prince and duke (who is clearly under the evil bewitchment of a particular duchess).
I hope my application for the Colonial Scholarship is met with kind favour.
I look forward to a positive response from your august personages.
Yours subserviently,
The Best Black, esq.