Seven2Six: Past 2 Present

For all of  you SoCal college go-ers: I’m sure you’ve all heard of the racism happening on the UC San Diego campus. To all you NorCal homies back home: I’m sure you’ve heard of something on the news about UC San Diego racism. If you haven’t, hear’s the thirty second version of it.

Some people decided it would be funny to throw a “Compton Cookout” party. It’s a party where you would dress like you’re from the ghetto parts of Compton, and live like you’re from Compton. I believe they were serving kool-aid and “dat Purple drank.” The school basically busted the party-goers and that was that. Days later, some genius decided to hang a noose on the 7th floor of the ever-so-famous Geisel Library. She apparently “meant no harm” by it.

Now that all this has happened, everybody has been on this like another Gold Rush has happened. I’m talking about talks all across campus, news channels covering the story, people searching it up on the internet, etc. Whoever wanted the noise and the cameras obviously got their wish.

I’m with the majority of the people on this; we all believe that people gotta stop with all the hate. When I read the 9AM email about the noose at Geisel, I felt like finding the sucker myself and giving the lucky person a free trip to the ER. (Nah, violence is never the answer, right?). I felt bad for the Black Student Union and the community they represent. As I went to Price Center, I had a talk with a bunch of MASA people. Apparently, lots of classes have been cancelled in order to support the campus shutdown. I also heard that BSU has made a bunch of demands. Okay, that’s cool. Wait.. most of the demands are completely out of line here…

I know you guys have been targeted by a group of jerks that didn’t think through what they were doing. I also understand that you feel the need to do justice, but do you have do take advantage of the situation so much that the demands you guys make basically crosses the line? Here are some demands I feel are totally not necessary: (Take note that I did not do in-depth research on this so don’t get all wild and angry over this)

The University fully fund the traditional and non-traditional events of the Black Student Union in our efforts to create a better climate for ourselves.

You want the University to fully fund your events just so you could feel safe? I don’t see how that’s gonna make you feel any better. Also, there are certain rules that people have to follow. The AS could partially fund cultural events, but to fully fund it is totally unfair to the rest of the other student organizations. We all get some money, and the rest you have to do your own work for it.

The Chancellor’s office make the African-American Studies Minor and the Chicano Latino/a Arts and Humanities Minor a priority for the University.

Seriously, if I’m not interested in something, I would not minor in it. I certainly do not want to be pestered into it. To make it a priority? What the heck? All of a sudden, every other ethnicity became less of a priority because of the recent events? I know you guys feel under-represented, but know that everyone should be on equal footing.

University create a space in the central part of campus safe for African-American students on campus.

I’m assuming that means Price Center because that is obviously the center of campus. So all of a sudden, you are in need of a fort to feel “safe.” Back to the fairness issue, what about every other under-represented ethnicities? Should we have a safe space for Native Americans too? If we all act like human beings, the whole damn school is a safe space.

… mandate a diversity sensitivity requirement for every undergraduate student to take an African-American studies, Ethnic Studies, and Gender Studies before they graduate from UC  San Diego.

So are you going to take a course on Asian American studies before you graduate? Honestly, half of the materials in HILD (history, lower division) and ETHN (ethnic studies) courses are about African-Americans. Do we seriously need to be required to take another course dedicated to African-Americans alone? Again, what happened to every other ethnicity then?

This is only some of their demands. Honestly, I think they’re being too full of themselves with these demands. I honestly feel like something should be done about all this racism, like expelling the people responsible for the racism, you know? But getting fully funded events, a “safe spot” at Price Center, a class dedicated to you guys.. come on. Don’t forget about the other demands not mentioned here, like fully funded tutoring, fully funded programs, what?! We’re in a budget crisis already. We don’t need to fund more stuff like that, especially fully funding them. What made you guys become big stick all across campus.

Equality. Thanks. Racism. No thanks.

(Once again, all this is just a train of thought. It hasn’t been fully thought over so don’t go crazy and get all angry over this post.)

Tags: Articles, fight, OMG!, Rant, school, special event, thoughts, ucsd, WTF?

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