Someone recently reminded me of this Yogi Berra-ism, one of the many he is famous for and when I saw a picture of the recent campus protests in California, the quote immediately came to mind.Young people on several college campuses reacted to recent ugly events with racial overtones happening in and around their campuses. At UC San Diego a KKK styled pillowcase was placed on the statue of Dr Suess creator, Theodor Geisel which stands outside the main campus library. This was the third incident in three weeks. The other two involved a cookout that mocked Black History Month (sound familiar?) and a noose being found on a library shelf.
"What kind of campus promotes an environment that allows people to think it's acceptable to target people for their ethnicity, gender or sexuality?" said Corey Matthews, one of about 200 mostly minority UCLA students who held a lunchtime rally. "It's something about the tone of the environment that allows this."
Indeed, the tone of the environment is not confined to just the San Diego area. UC Davis also had an incident which targeted a Jewish student with a swastika carved on her door. At UC Santa Cruz, officials found an image of a noose scribbled on the inside of a bathroom door.
Several campuses participated in the protest as a sign of solidarity and UCLA demonstrators called on administrators to institute a required ethnic studies course that would teach students about other cultures.
For those who insist that racism is not an issue in this country and that every American has equal opportunity and equal treatment all I can say is, “Try selling that bag of dog crap on one of these campuses.”Young people coming out to protest and demand social justice reminded me of my own youth and the protests of our time and “it’s déjà vu all over again.”
And when these young people speak of the “tone of the environment” I can’t help but think of the angry rhetoric that has been spewed by the hate mongers against immigrants, blacks, Jews, gays, Muslims and liberals and how the continuous repetition of this garbage is affecting not just the California campus environment but the environment across America.
But here is hope and I bow to the next generation of activists.
I'd luv to see young people get interested enough in the world around them to get off their friggin' cell phones and ipods. To care. It is all about racism and I don't give two hoots in hell what so-called "experts" say.
ReplyDeleteI agree that race is the leading factor in the current season of Teh Crazy™. Yet I maintain the young people are progressive precisely because they wish to be left to their iPods and cell phones and not bothered with the need to get off their arses. They want the world to change; they just don't know how to do it.
ReplyDeleteWe. ARE. The first dimension of 11-dimensional chess. We forget that at our peril.
Or as Evan Clayton put it:
Remove the cause
thinking you're gonna
alter the symptom
and before too long
you'll find you're
"one of them"
"What kind of campus promotes an environment that allows people to think it's acceptable to target people for their ethnicity, gender or sexuality?"
ReplyDeleteUCSD is home to the Institute of the Americas, Eleanor Roosevelt and Earl Warren colleges. We have a long history of diversity and academic excellence. There is no question what kind of environment UCSD provides and what is encouraged or discouraged. This is a cancer of the soul. And it doesn't exist in a vacuum. This is haters emboldened by other haters to think that it is okay to hurt, to demean, to pre-judge, to insult in the harshest and most cutting terms. As a UCSD alumnus, it hurt pretty bad. But this is a small group of very immature people who hopefully will learn a lot from the community of UCSD in the next four years.
"This is haters emboldened by other haters to think that it is okay to hurt, to demean, to pre-judge, to insult in the harshest and most cutting terms."
ReplyDeleteAnd they didn't think this up themselves. We have to face the fact that preaching hate and lies and teaching that the way to deal with anything you can't understand of accept is through more hate and lies and vicious acts has become a very major industry in the US.
The Web has been a major conduit and then there's Fox News. Even watching CNN you'll get the impression that one can make a name for himself by screaming "you lie!" at the president where once you'd be ushered out the back door to nurse your bruises in shame.
If we read anything written in the US in the mid 1930's, it's apparent that we were urged not to get involved; told that it would die out on it's own -- and we see now who was right.
The same advice is being given today and it's just as wrong and just as dangerous. Pay attention to those small groups! Today more than ever, they have the potential to become big groups and to wield disproportionate power.
"Remove the cause
ReplyDeletethinking you're gonna
alter the symptom
and before too long
you'll find you're
"one of them"
Interesting quote. I the converse is as true and perhaps more true: remove the symptom thinking you're going to remove the cause may be even less effective because that cause is something elemental and ugly left to us by our hairier ancestors. It has to be dealt with constantly as new generations of apes have to be humanized.
Flying Junior - I agree, my experience with the whole UC system leads me to believe it, by and large, promotes diversity and tolerance and that the current situation does not reflect on the university itself.
ReplyDeleteI think the student quoted here is reacting to what he preceives as the lack of concern/action by school officials and he may have a point.
I think the school has, until now, tried to deal with this in a low key manner and I don't disagree with trying that approach but the time has come where the school needs to take a firm and vocal stand against this kind of behavior and take it very seriously. While it may be a small group of immature little toe-rags now, these situations have a way of escalating, especially if they feel emboldened by the nationwide atmosphere of hate and intolerance.
You know the old adage,"You reap what you sow." We who have no tolerance for intolerance, hate or discrimination in any form need to change the environment of this nation by speaking up and joining our voices until we drown out the hate mongers.