Hate Crimes Encouraged by Indifference
UCLA Could Make Larger Effort Toward Diversity in Repealing Both SP-1, SP-2

By Ryan Masaaki Yokota

In a 1995 film called "Higher Learning," which ironically was filmed at UCLA, a white supremacist on a college campus goes crazy, and by the end of the film perches himself on the top of Haines Hall and starts shooting people of color in Dickson Plaza. Yet far from these Hollywood depictions of racism and hate, the recent hate crimes perpetuated on people of color at UCLA are all too real.

The realities of the current rash of hate crimes are so blatant that I feel compelled to write, despite the fact that I am no longer a student. Part of the issue is that I feel that these incidents are part of a larger problem of racism that exists at UCLA. Also, in following the administration's response to these incidents, I feel that not much has changed since my time as a student.

While an undergraduate at UCLA there were four specific incidents that stick in my mind as examples of a continuing problem with racism on campus.

To begin with, in 1990, at the Academic Advancement Program's Freshman Summer Program, one particular incident involved the defacement of Vietnamese students' dorm room doors with statements such as "Viets Go Home!" and "I Love Dogs and Cats."

In a later incident, in 1993, a Japanese graduate student in the sociology department was sent a hate letter through campus mail, saying, among other things, "We do not want to hear your dirty Japanese American type English. Try not to talk in class. OK?" In 1994, I remember full well when a student received a dollar bill through the North Campus eatery that said, "Wetback Go Home."

And, in that same year, I still have a flyer that urged students to vote against the African American Undergraduate Students Association Council candidates with the statement "No-Mo Niggers" and the admonition to "Keep White Hope Alive!" All of these incidents demonstrated to me that racists at UCLA continued to exist, and were consistent in maintaining an environment that was hostile to students of color.

Yet when students attempted to raise these issues to the larger UCLA community, they were continually met with indifference and were told that such situations were "isolated incidents" by a "few individuals," and that we should let the administration take care of these matters. Usually this meant that administrators quietly brushed the incidents under the rug.

In hearing about the current rash of hate crimes at UCLA, I again see a slow response from the administration. And as usual, it took students demonstrating to raise the issues to a level that was even on the administration's radar screen.

In reading Chancellor Albert Carnesale's response, I see the same rhetoric about the need for greater "campus dialogue," with the only main action being to increase police patrols on campus by some unspecified number ("Hatred at UCLA must be combatted," Viewpoint, March 16). As a person of color in a post-Rodney King, post-Rampart division scandal world, the fact that there will be more police patrolling the campus does not make me feel more at ease.

I would like to offer two alternative means for dealing with this situation - one directed at the students of color on campus and one directed at the administration. First, I would like to thank the student demonstrators for their courage in facing this issue, and I encourage everyone to keep the heat on and continue to elevate the problem before it becomes lost in the bureaucracy of UCLA's administration. On top of the organizing that is so imperative at this point in time, we as people of color have to realize that we need to "get each other's back" and protect ourselves at all times. This protection will come primarily through collective unity among all people of color on campus on a daily basis.

Additionally, just as victims of rape or domestic violence should be encouraged to take self-defense classes, we should encourage each other to do the same and prepare ourselves for further attacks from white supremacists on campus. As Malcolm X stated quite clearly, "we always maintain the right to defend ourselves by any means necessary."

As for the administration, if Carnesale truly wants to "use the influence of his office to promote greater understanding and appreciation of our differences," he needs to push for the repeal of SP-1 and SP-2, and make a contractual commitment with the students to raise student of color admissions. And students should hold him to that commitment.

Additionally, the administration needs to recognize that those people who commit these racist acts will not engage in the "thoughtful discussion about the root causes of this intolerant behavior," that Carnesale is encouraging without a mandatory ethnic and gender studies requirement for all incoming freshmen.

The administration should institute such a requirement for the incoming year, and should also make serious moves toward providing legitimacy to ethnic studies on campus by granting the African American, Asian American, American Indian and Chicana/o Studies Centers full departmental status, with enhanced budgetary allocations, the right to tenure faculty and the right to confer degrees.

Hate crimes are an ugly matter, as demonstrated recently in the murder of Pilipino postal worker Joseph Ileto following the attack on the Jewish Community Center in the San Fernando Valley. Yet the recent incidents at UCLA represent a real opportunity for students and administrators to reaffirm their commitment to a university environment where students of color can develop their minds without having to worry about being assaulted, and where students can learn to accept and tolerate differences in culture and history.

It is only with a firm commitment to diversity, demonstrated in actions and not only in words, that we can begin to fight against hate on campus, and develop an institution of "Higher Learning" that supports and welcomes our cultural diversity.

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