For
the past five weeks, one of the ugliest episodes of racism in recent
years (before the Tea Partiers started spittin� on people and calling
congress people �Nig**rs� and �Fag**ts� at the congressional health
care vote last weekend) has been playing out on a campus of one
of the nation�s largest publicly funded university systems. At the
University of California, at San Diego (UCSD), a group of racist
students have taken over several of the university�s student run
media clubs and have used those media outlets to assault the dignity
of African American, Asian, Indian, Mexican, Muslim and Jewish students.
Black
students have become the targets of on-going campus disturbances
stemming from white students mocking Black History Month celebrations.
It�s time the California Board of Regents calls its San Diego campus
administration into account for these students� behavior.
It
started out with some white students satirizing Black History Month
by inviting the campus to an off-campus party in what they were
calling a �Compton cookout.� The Compton Cookout was held on February
15th, President�s Day. This outraged black students who voiced
their opposition in protest to the administration, at which time
some of the students used the campus television outlet to voice
support for the white�s students �first amendment� rights and they
also used that opportunity to assault the black students dignity
even further by calling they a bunch of �ungrateful ni****s.
The
administration suspended the television show, but racist behavior
has persisted through the use of other university properties and
resources where racist students use symbolic vestiges of American
racism to intimidate black students. The television show incident
was followed up by two nooses by found on campus, the university�s
alternative student run newspaper, KOALA, running a piece under
the guise of satire, �Top 5 ways to increase the number of African
American at UCSD.� They were numbered as follows:
1. Ship in more from the Ivory Coast
2. Well for the ones we have now�chain them up and don�t
let any of them transfer to other schools.
3. Count Asians as 3/5 of a person
4. Give the BSU an Indian computer science slave�seriously,
they don�t even have a website.
5. Make sure you don�t serve any friend chicken. They
hate fried chicken and will not attend any universities where
it is served or parties where it is consumed. It�s a black thing.
You wouldn�t understand.
UCSD
only has a one percent (1%) black student population (1.3 to be
exact). I do understand the history of racism in America and the
Eurocentric mindset of subjugating ethnic, racial and religious
�outsiders� through the use of cultural caricatures that stigmatize
those trying to acculturate in American society. That same issue
of KOALA (which has been in existence since 1982) had article clips
insulting the dignity of India born Indians (Top 5 ways your Indian
roommates is useful) Haitians (The Running of the Haitians-after
the 7.2 quake, actually a whole page dedicated to the degradation
of Haitians), Mexicans (Top 5 things Mexicans are good at, and Top
5 reasons I would bang a Latina), Jews (Top 5 reasons Jews are like
clowns) AND Muslims (�Dear Muslims�-a column dedicated to insulting
Muslims). No articles insulting white people or degrading �whiteness�
as a cultural impediment.
Counter-cultural
journalism and counter-cultural commentary has its place in a free
society, but only as a tool to expose cultural hypocrisy. Not as
a tool to reinforce cultural hypocrisy. Racism in America is its
biggest hypocritical practice, and we are witnessing the evolution
of another generation racial culturalists, who maintain social and
political control by denigrating others in the society. This is
extreme and dangerous racist propaganda coming from a taxpayer supported
institution.
These
students at UCSD are almost taking a supremacist pride in
assaulting the dignity of others, and their animus toward the black
students seems to rise with every protest against their pathetic
behavior. Nor do they want to seem to co-exist in a multi-cultural,
multi-ethnic environment of higher learning. Higher education should
be a safe heaven against such racist ethos, not be a perpetuator
of it. It is time the Regents become intolerant of this behavior.
Free speech is only protected speech if it doesn�t assault others.
Hate speech is not protected under free speech and satiric speech
that causes violence isn�t protected either (prior restraint). It�s
time to call for suspensions and expulsions of students that want
to continue their racist behavior. Or call for the Regents to cut
back on UCSD�s state funding until they resolve the problem.
It�s
your call, University of California at San Diego? But the student
racism has to stop.
BlackCommentator.com Columnist,
Dr. Anthony Asadullah Samad, is a national columnist, managing director
of the Urban
Issues Forum and author of Saving The Race: Empowerment Through Wisdom. His Website is AnthonySamad.com.
Clickhere to
contact Dr. Samad. |