There is no going back to the glorious Sixties.
I am more old school and confront power face to face--as opposed to during a parlay. But, I will indulge the younglings storming the offices of sympathetic administrators while they were out to lunch and thus there was no fear of arrest.
While I am presently working on something more substantial regarding this UCSD, Compton "ghetto" party debacle, for now I will be content in sharing this latest development.
For those of you who have been following the UCSD drama, a noose was found several days ago in the library of that most esteemed of institutions. Quite expectantly, students have protested and "stormed" university offices. They have presented a list of demands. Folks are up in arms and tempers are flaring.
Now it seems that it was in fact a "minority" student who left a noose in the library. As a former student activist, and as someone who was resident protester and President of a Black Student Association on a campus that made UCSD's racial politics look paradise like, I call BS. My theory: said minority student, noose hanger is either A) an agent provocateur who got caught out by the Pandora's box she opened or more likely B) said "minority student" is actually covering for someone else. Only time will tell.
As always on these matters, I like to go to the peanut gallery in order to test the waters of public opinion. As always, I am not disappointed. Notice the logic among these respondents: Reverse racism, white folks are victims, a mocking of hate crimes, and gross misreadings of history.
However the UCSD campus climate brouhaha turns out, for me the more powerful narrative is how race still lives in Barack Obama's America. Where do we go from here?
Some select comments:
- I sure hope the white student union doesn't take this sitting down, they need to follow the example of the black student union and orgainze a protest march. The time is now to end the perpetual victim ideology that is religiously played by blacks the first time they're expected to stand up and be responsible for themselves and their actions, something that the rest of us do on a daily basis, minus the built in excuse to fall back on.--Ratssuck\
- At least she said she didn't intend to cause a racial firestorm aimed at whites. Unlike the black man who set fire to Southern black churches (Antoine Dean), the black man who abducted black children around Atlanta (Wayne Williams), Tawana Brawley scrawling a backwards swastika on her body in dog feces, the Teachers College professor (Madonna Constantine) who hung a noose on her own office door, the racist Harvard professor (Skip Gates, Obama's friend) who cried "racism" when the police (Obama: "They acted stupidly") arrived to protect his house, the black stripper accused the white Duke lacrosse players of rape (Crystal Gail Mangum), et al. THEY all committed their racist frauds ON PURPOSE.--Eagle_in_NYC
- A noose? A piece of rope used around the world for millenia to execute or persecute people?This is now a hate crime? So then it was a hate crime when Nathan Hale was hanged?--markemoore
- If only it had been a white male, then Jesse Jackson and his racist posse come to the rescue. But since the person is a minority, female, and apparently stupid - nothing will come of this. Actually, they'll probably make white male students attend a class why this is not appropriate.--somoes
- It's all good. It's a female, (not subject to censure), potentially of color, (not subject to censer), and most likely an avid drug user (only subject to pity and rehab). Let her run free! Only white males need to be burned at the stake.--Contrarian123
- Just like the Islamic law student that was planted at an Abacrombe and Fitch store as a clerk... Then she starts wearing a burka. Racism like this is contrived for political or financial gains. Law suits by Jesse Jackson and the like wear down the will of the people who are targeted. And these are the people that say they are for justice... when it benefits them!--BlueSpringsMo
- Since when did the noose become a symbol of hatred of blacks? As if no other race has ever been hung on a noose... Political correctness kills me. So does "hate" crimes.--TWBNick
- The whining minorities usually are the ones making the nooses and burning the crosses these days because racism is on the wane except for that in the minority communities where it is growing. It is a typical ploy to invoke sympathy and anger. How sad for these race baiters.--ricardo_maxwell
9 comments:
"Since when did the noose become a symbol of hatred of blacks?" "A noose? A piece of rope used around the world for millenia to execute or persecute people?This is now a hate crime?"
Were these posters serious? These comments show 1. an incredible lack of American history and 2. an incredibly large amount of ignorance. How quickly people forget history. My father often told me those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it...I fear he may be right.
Chauncy wrote,
Only time will tell.
Well, let's hope so -- I sure do hope that it becomes more convincingly evident just who this anonymous person is, and whether that letter is even genuine. My initial reaction is that it's irresponsible of the paper to publish such a relatively inconclusive letter, as if it is conclusive. It's not, which means that their publication of this letter only adds fuel to the growing fire.
I was a student at one of the Claremont Colleges in 2004 when a professor's car was vandalized and spraypainted with racist slurs; the ensuing police investigation over the following months concluded that she had vandalized the car herself, and submitted fraudulent insurance claims for items that were not actually stolen.
Now, I can't speak to the details of the investigation itself, or any of that--she ended up being convicted of the charges against her (filing a false report, insurance fraud) and may have spent some time in jail (actually, yes, a google search confirms this)--but I can speak about what it was like as a student in the middle of that sort of (ultimately derailing) incident.
Because there was a lot of other shit that had been happening (and that still continues to happen) at the Claremont Colleges. Scrawling slurs over posters of clubs, or on the whiteboard tacked to a student's door. Hell, there was a fucking cross-burning that had taken place earlier that year.
And so when that whole vandalism business happened, we had a similar sort of publicity and reaction to what's been going on down at UCSD. Protests, teach-in day, forums and rallies and everything.
And it didn't occur to me until later, when I was older and more politically (self-)aware, that the schools themselves were probably salivating over the gift that was given to them--the ability to mitigate popular perception of the existence of bias on their campuses, because, hey, the woman did this to her own car, look how crazy she is.
And I remember the way that this evolved in the narrative of the media over the span of the ensuing months. At first, the vandalism was the breaking point in a string of racist, homophobic, and sexist incidents that had been occurring on the campuses. Then, the narrative shifted to a "police are investigating further the cause of the incident" sort of tone. Then, once the investigation was concluded, it turned into "she likely faked the vandalism".
And it was at that point that the (insinuating) question got asked: was she psychologically unstable? And I remember how that took over the portrayal of her in the dominant social sphere. It had to have been a relief for the administrators of the schools to be able to use her conviction as an excuse to distance themselves from the real issue at hand--the persistence of racial hatred at their schools.
And this stuff still goes on. In my ensuing years there, and even after I left, we still saw or got news of all sorts of targeted vandalism (petty, mostly, rather than of the smashing-car-windows variety; but targeted hate speech nonetheless). Which tells me that regardless of what the college did in response to everything that happened leading up to 2004, they still got let off the hook by the fake hate crime judgment.
And you can bet that UCSD--and the greater white social storytellers--will be looking for the same type of out here.
The whole "but it wasn't a white person who X" derail makes me violently angry. Fuck.
Technically, on the UCSD campus, white people are a minority, so who knows who did this?
(1) UCSD: A group of dumb white frat guys hold an event called a “Compton Cookout.” This pisses people off as it used Black History Month as a reason to mock black people with racist stereotypes. Also involved is some idiot who tries to use this opportunity for shameless self-promotion, who also happens to be black. To say the least, the guy is basically a wannabe Flavor Flav.
(2) UCSD: Another dumb white frat guy gets mad that blacks are offended of being relegated to a bigoted stereotype. He tries to hold another racist event.
(3) UCSD: Meanwhile, a terrible student media publication (which, after viewing their website consists of all white staff, nudity, staff wrestling each other, and well, not much else), pushes their limits calling black students “ungrateful n——” – not just that word, but also that apparently the black students owed them something. They have a reputation of being trashy, and at this point, administration and faculty rush to condemn racism by students of the campus and various protests begin. Funding is also cut from all student media at UCSD, creating an extra bitter controversy.
(4) UCSD: On Friday of that week, a noose is found in the library. Everything gets worked in a frenzy and – something I’ll address later – a large amount of white commenter’s on the internet begin claiming that is was probably a black student who planted it in order to gain more sympathy. In addition, there are rumors of a threatening note sent to the Guardian and a second noose, there was no second noose, and the threat seems to be just a rumor.
(6) UCSD: Protests basically happen at all schools in support of the students. There are various sit-ins, and teach-ins, and what have you. School administrators become pushed to be more active in fixing what’s going on.
I have not seen this noose person, but most of you blame her and conveniently forget wear this all originated.
Instead of an apology there has been steady escalation and now the noose. So, what exactly will the excuses be for this cowardly act that brings up memories of the confederate KKK of the South in their attempts to keep slavery and the non-whites in fear? Is it that are uneducated, is it that their parents planted these seeds of hate, is it that they are live in fear because our President in the white house is not 100% white. In my opinion this is what the republican party of “birthers, baggers and blowhards” have brought you. These kids follow what their dullard leaders say, they listen to Beck, Hedgecock, Hannity, O’Reilly, Rush and Savage and the rest of the Blowhards, they are young and dumb. Are you surprise at what they do when you know what they think?
From the 2nd installment of Victimology Blues I did a while back:
An emphasis on victimhood leaves people ill-equipped to deal with problems that do not fit the convenient “one of them wronged one of us” narrative... Victimology leads otherwise sensible people perpetuate batshit conspiracy theories. Victimology does not simply prompt political actors to exploit symbolic victims who have been harmed by those from other groups; victimology encourages actors to crave victimhood. Every year, a few bleeding-hearts stage “hate crimes,” usually on college campuses. These actions are obviously aberrant, but the mindset isn’t. Hate crime hoaxers aren’t insane; they are merely expressing pathological victimology politics taken to the logical extreme. Relying on fear and demonization of the other in order to define and build political communities is the only mode that a number of less privileged people know.
Instead of an apology there has been steady escalation and now the noose. So, what exactly will the excuses be for this cowardly act that brings up memories of the confederate KKK of the South in their attempts to keep slavery and the non-whites in fear? Is it that are uneducated, is it that their parents planted these seeds of hate, is it that they are live in fear because our President in the white house is not 100% white. In my opinion this is what the small portions of the republican party of “birthers, baggers and blowhards” have brought you. These kids are good at “Follow the Leader” of their dullard leaders, they listen to Beck, Hedgecock, Hannity, O’Reilly, Rush and Savage and the rest of the Blowhards, they are young and dumb. Are you surprise at what they do when you know what they think? The world is complicated and most republicans (Hamiliton, Lincoln, Roosevelt) believe that we should use a government a little to increase social mobility, now its about dancing around the claim of government is the problem. The sainted Reagan passed the biggest tax increase in American history and as a result federal employment increased, but facts are lost when mired in mysticism and superstition. Although most republicans are trying to distant themselves from this fringe they have a long way to go.
Yo, Montana...the person leaving the noose wasnt white. Who planted the seeds of hate in your mind? Why is it OK for you to run off a litany of stereotypes and insults yet you feel it wrong when the righty commentators allegedly do the same thing? Real change on this planet will come when we fix ourselves first.
One other thing.
Our views of bigotry and prejudice are stuck in the past. Many of us are like generals caught up in fighting the last war.
In 2010, in my city of Los Angeles, its not the white folks who are ethnically cleansing some neighborhoods; its the latinos. Yet, when we find a noose hanging in a library, its reflexively believed to be placed there by some racist white person. In this city wealth is not really controlled by any one race. Building owners of various nationalities are likely to favor their own kind. Any of us can be a victim.
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