Archive
March 4 Statements of Solidarity with BSU
On Thursday, March 4, as many of us gathered outside the Chancellor’s complex to wait for the end of negotiations between the Black Student Union and the UCSD administration, various members of the UCSD community came forward to state their solidarity with the demands of BSU. Throughout this entire ordeal, it has been clear that this campus struggle is not simply a “black-white” issue, but one that involves all marginalized communities here at UCSD. Below, watch just a few of the statements that were made that morning, via the UCSD Coalition for Educational Justice’s YouTube account at JusticeUCSD – T.T.
Literature Department Statement of Solidarity
This statement was issued by the Literature Dept. on February 28, 2010.
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Literature Department Statement
The Literature Department supports the recent proposals by UCSD faculty of African descent and the UCSD Black Student Union. We are their allies in calling for UCSD to address racial inequities as it restructures the university during the budget crisis.
We urge a full systematic analysis of the recent racist acts at UCSD, which are reflective of a university system that has not yet created the conditions for racial equity. Fifteen years after Proposition 209, the repeated instances of racism by UCSD students, and also the administration’s inability to address them effectively, testify to the need for the university to renew its commitments to public access and inclusion for students, faculty, and staff from historically underrepresented communities. As we work to preserve higher education as a public good, we must also secure resources to support curriculum, research, and scholarship on the critical study of race and racism, as well as greater outreach and changes to admissions, resource allocation, and college requirements so the university can create an academic culture that prepares a diverse public to participate in and contribute to a multiracial society.
In the days ahead, the Department encourages instructors to address the crisis with their students. Moreover, the Department will do its best to accommodate those students whose academic work has been disrupted by the recent racist incidents, and urges the University to make every effort to assure the safety and security of students, staff, and faculty at UCSD.
Letter of Support from the UCSD School of Medicine Diversity Coalition
To the UCSD community:
As future physicians dedicated to public service and medical students at the School of Medicine, we are deeply distressed and outraged over the recent escalating racist events perpetrated by UCSD students targeting the African-American community. These types of incidents are not isolated; they have taken place all across colleges in California and the nation. These events have occurred as a result of years of marginalization against underrepresented students across the entire UC system, and it is time that we stop condoning this behavior and the climate that fosters it. The UCSD administration’s continued failure to enact recommendations made from their own task forces has resulted in embarrassingly low numbers of underrepresented students enrolling at UCSD. Increasing diversity has not been a priority at UCSD and as a result the student body has become more homogeneous, less exposed to other cultures, and less educated about the rich histories and struggles of underrepresented communities in California. It is precisely this lack of interaction with other students of color that has failed to challenge racial stereotypes and has promoted the bigotry behind the recent events. Because of the failure to correct the lack of diversity and appreciation for all communities, underrepresented groups have long felt unaccepted at UCSD. Now, the current situation has escalated into an unwelcoming and hostile environment.
We therefore stand in solidarity with the demands of the Black Student Union.
We expect that the UCSD administration will take these demands seriously and enact urgent permanent change.
In solidarity,
Medical Student Diversity Coalition
UCSD School of Medicine
UCSD Music Dept Response to Racist Incidents on Campus
The UCSD Music Department has taken note of the recent string of racially charged events on and around campus with revulsion and deep concern. We support the “Faculty Statement on Racism and Campus Climate at UCSD,” the various statements of other departments, and the actions of the Black Student Union. Numerous discussions have taken place within Music amongst faculty and students, and we are in the process of examining our own policies. A short statement from the perspective of the Music Department follows.
As a public institution, our responsibility is to teach and practice critical engagement with the complex fabric of American culture. A pervasive obliviousness and insularity within our community seems to us the background to the horrendously insensitive and hurtful actions of the last weeks; but recent events have escalated from stupidity to outright bigotry.
A public university has a mission to address historical inequality. While efforts to diversify our campus have obviously been made, the statistics on student and faculty demographics remain embarrassing. We need to acknowledge our failures, and be accountable for addressing them, both collectively and individually. We must all take individual responsibility for educating ourselves about racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and other forms of structural inequality.
Issues of culture, ethnicity, and institutional power lie at the foundation of the study of music, and we have a responsibility to engage them. The Music Department currently offers immersive courses in diverse practices of music-making; an undergraduate major in musics of the African diaspora; and numerous lecture courses examining American popular traditions and world musics. There is still more that we can do. Music can be a powerful catalyst for outreach, and we recognize the urgent need to reach younger students in the San Diego community, before assumptions about inequality or destructive stereotypes are irreversibly ingrained. We must intensify our support of these efforts, but we need institutional backing for the sustainability of these programs.
The current fiscal crisis raises the stakes. We are now reaping the results of years of not-so-benign neglect when it comes to enrolling and graduating students from historically underrepresented demographics. Any serious effort to remedy this neglect will require money and resources. The budget crisis makes this highly challenging, but cannot excuse us from responsibilities that cut to the core of our mission as a public institution. Moves to aggressively raise fees and target out-of-state enrollment will further reduce access for underrepresented students. The future of our university depends on decisions made in the immediate future, and we are committed to assuming responsibility for whatever role we can take in this process.
UCSD Department of Anthropology Graduate Student Statement of Support
The graduate students of the Anthropology Department stand in solidarity with the Black Student Union, their allies, and all those who have been affected by and/or are protesting against the recent racist incidents on and off campus. We condemn all racist and sexist acts with the understanding that such events are not isolated but are situated within a broader context of institutionalized inequality. UCSD administration, faculty, staff, and students must address these conditions. The BSU list of demands offers a constructive model for dismantling the institutional forces that limit the representation of and support for historically marginalized and disempowered groups in our university. We must hold the administration accountable for addressing the demands in a concrete and timely manner.
At this critical moment when substantial hikes in UC fees and tuition and the increasing privatization of the university system threaten to further restrict the representation of underprivileged groups in our campus community, we recognize the urgent need for structural change that can increase retention, yield, and access. Further, the BSU’s focus on increasing spaces that encourage students to interrogate issues of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality is crucial given proposed funding cuts to departments and programs that threaten to reduce the availability of such spaces. In the midst of this crisis, we strongly support measures designed to preserve and encourage critical thinking.
As we monitor the administration’s actions, we are compelled to reflect on the ways that we as students, faculty, and staff may also be implicated in institutional and interpersonal racism and have a responsibility to enact substantive change. The graduate students from the department of anthropology acknowledge that current events have incited a sense of fear and mistrust within the university. We reach out with empathy to all those affected and remain committed to addressing injustice as members of the campus community and as anthropologists. We would like to thank the organizers for their tireless work and dedication.
Solidarity from the scientific community at UCSD
This letter was sent today to Chancellor Fox from community members in the Scripps Oceanography Institute.
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We, the community of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD, will not tolerate racism or hate at our school. This institution is a place of higher learning for people of all ethnicities, socioeconomic standings, genders, religions, and sexual orientations. Brilliance knows none of these boundaries, and we actively reject discrimination based on any of these personal identifying backgrounds. The purpose of this letter is to unite SIO in support of the individuals who feel hurt by recent racist acts, and to ask that administrators recognize the need to actively mend the rifts these acts have highlighted.
The February 2010 acts of individual members of the UCSD community involving the racially offensive “Compton cookout”, the use of the “N” word on the student-run TV station by the Koala, and the display of the noose at Geisel Library are divisive and abhorrent. These individuals’ ignorance, gross insensitivity, and hatefulness have no place at UCSD.
Intellectual communities, like social communities, are enriched and stimulated by diversity. As we strive for the best intellectual environment at our institution, we recognize that we must fight for the inclusion and protection of underrepresented groups. We embrace these groups and value their contributions to our community. We will absolutely not accept threats and hate towards them. Furthermore, as members of the SIO community, we recognize that in our position of privilege, it is unethical to fail to defend minority groups that are abused by members of the majority. We will not stand for it. Not in our community.
Too often, SIO is cloaked in apathy owing in part to its physical separation from both the main UCSD campus and less privileged areas of San Diego. Today, however, we take action. We come together to support diversity and justice. We are committed to those who feel emotionally burdened by recent events and who struggle to fulfill their duties both to research and to our hurting community. We are also committed to the underrepresented groups that already reside at our institution, and we are fighting to retain them in an atmosphere that is welcoming to all individuals.
The current friction on campus affects far more than the 2% of students directly targeted by the hateful acts. It affects all students, faculty, and staff members who value our community. By signing this letter, we are supporting our classmates and colleagues, both at SIO and on upper campus, pledging “Not in our community!” We will stand against hate and insist on administrative action to improve the campus climate. We will listen to the concerns and fears of our classmates and colleagues, and dedicate the necessary time and resources to mend our fractured campus. Together we promote compassion, empathy, respect, and intellectual exchange for all members of our community.
Thanks and Peace,
Proud Advocates for a Diverse and Inclusive UCSD and SIO
Dialoguing Across Difference and Privilege
a letter from Elizabeth Sine, a PhD student in History at UCSD
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Dear Allies, those I know and those I don’t (ie., whomever may read this):
Before and above all else, I want to thank the BSU, MEChA, and
everyone else who helped to ignite the movement taking place on our
campus, and who have helped to open up some real maneuvering room
within this university for all of us who want to transform it and to
make it a fully public institution. I write today not only in
celebration of the struggle we are currently engaged in, today, these
past few weeks, and—for many of us, in varying ways—for a long time
before that, but also with an eye toward the long haul we have ahead.
Like many have already noted, the diversity of coalitions and people
who have come together to support this movement, and to support the
demands laid out by the BSU, is remarkable. The effort to challenge
the racialized hierarchy that holds this institution together, and to
combat the ongoing process of the university’s privatization, has
brought together so many people, across lines of racial and cultural
difference, and across the ranks assigned to us by the university
system—undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, staff. I
want to address the question of how we might continue to build and
engage in meaningful dialogue and common struggle across lines of
difference, with particular attention to varying forms of privilege and
underprivilege attached to those differences. More specifically, I
want to raise some issues and questions for students committed to the
struggle for greater diversity in the university who are operating from
positions of privilege—white privilege or otherwise.
I think most who read this will recognize the institutional nature of
the racism, classism, sexism, and homophobia that the student movement aligns itself against. I think many recognize the uneven and
hierarchical nature of the distribution of power in our university
system, as well as the extent to which the ongoing corporatization of
UCSD in particular, and public education in general, threatens to
intensify already-existing inequalities and modes of oppression (with
a particularly menacing threat to underrepresented groups within our
community). And I think that it’s important to acknowledge, and to
become comfortable thinking and talking about, the implications of the
university’s hierarchical structure for internal relations within our
movement—what it means to engage in struggle, in a coalition as
diverse as ours, against an institution that has been designed to
privilege some at the expense of others.
Indeed, it is vital for all of us to understand that the problems of
racism and inequality are collective, and that every person here has
an important role to play in the struggle against the denial of human
dignity and for institutional change. At the same time, the
institutions of privilege and inequality that exist on this campus and
in our society mean that we all approach this struggle from different
vantage points and from a playing field that has never been even.
And so, trust to exist among us and for the full strength or our
collective action to be realized, I think we have to take fully into
account the varying forms of privilege that come attached to our to
our socioeconomic status, our racial and ethnic identifications, our
gender and sexual practices, and whatever other factors affect our
social position and relationship to each other. In fact, I would go
even further to say that those among us whom this university has been
designed to benefit bear a responsibility to think critically about,
and to disinvest from, our own social advantages (beginning with a
recognition that those advantages are not a pure result of our own
hard work).
Surely, there are many among us who have been thinking about working
through these issues for a long time. But I think it’s worth putting
on the table for serious reflection and discussion in this critical
moment in which new forms of solidarity are taking shape and when
there is so much at stake. We have to be comfortable acknowledging
the ways in which some one who is racialized as white (such as myself)
cannot ever really understand the experience of racial oppression,
even as we participate in the struggle against it. And so, for such
individuals, the struggle against institutional racism must begin with
a disinvestment from whiteness, from the advantages of middle-class
upbringing—from whatever other advantages have been tied to the social positions we were born into.
So, what does this mean in practice? What does it take to disinvest
from privilege—from white privilege, or class privilege, male
privilege, or the privileges attached to normative sexual practices
and identities? Of course, there is no simple or singular answer to
these questions. But there may be a couple of starting points to
build on.
To begin with, as I’ve already been suggesting, I think it will be
difficult to move forward without making transparent the ways in which
various forms of privilege operate across lines of difference within
our coalition. Whether this occurs on the level of personal
reflection, in the realm of political thinking, in our informal
discussions with each other, I think it’s important that the issue is
brought out into the open.
Secondly, we must bring into a practice a politics of listening. It
is way too easy, especially given the individualism promoted by our
social institutions, to become absorbed in the way this struggle looks
from a particular and personalized vantage point. The danger of this
kind of individualist tendency is that it threatens our solidarity by
blinding us to the ways in which multiple struggles are intersecting
and overlapping in this movement, even as they all ultimately
challenge inequality and corporatization in the university. Listening
and taking seriously each other’s needs and concerns will not only
help to strengthen our solidarity and our movement but will help us to
avoid reproducing the kinds of hierarchies that we are struggling to
transform.
The disparities of power that shape relations across race, class,
gender, and sexuality do not have to persist. But I believe that they
can’t be dismantled without our open acknowledgment of them, our
critical and careful reflection on them, and a deliberate effort to
extricate ourselves from them and to bring into practice a different
kind of social relations that prioritizes the dignity of every one
here, in ways that UCSD’s administrative power structure has not.
Laying bare and discussing openly the hierarchies of privilege that
shape our university—and the social, political, and economic
institutions that dominates it—will be uncomfortable for some, but I
can guarantee it’s a lot less uncomfortable than enduring first-hand
the kind of isolation, marginalization, and oppression that many
students on our campus have been experiencing for a long time. And it
is necessary to move forward together toward taking back our
university.
In solidarity,
Elizabeth Sine
Graduate Student
U.S. History
And I undersign myself.
Thank you for this work, Elizabeth.
Cutler Edwards
Graduate Student
U.S. History
—
Other resources for white allies from around the web:
- A note to the privileged at UCSD
- Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, by Peggy McIntosh
- A letter to the white student movement, by Deluche
- How to be an anti-racist ally
- So you think you’re an anti-racist?
- The do’s and don’ts of being an anti-racist ally
- Checklist for allies
And for people of color who want to support white allies:
UCSD Chairs’ Statement on Recent Racist Acts on Campus
As department chairs at UCSD, we condemn the recent racist acts on our campus, and we stand ready to assist the University in creating and enacting institutional policies that will make UCSD more accessible to and hospitable for all members of our community. We view the recent events as signs that UCSD must do more in order to achieve racial and cultural equity. We urge the administration to renew its commitments to ensure that racial and cultural equity and diversity are integral to any campus plans to restructure the university during the budget crisis.
Douglass Barlett (Scripps Institution of Oceanography)
Sam Buss (Mathematics)
Bob Continetti (Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Yen Le Espiritu (Ethnic Studies)
Clark Gibson (Political Science)
Dan Hallin (Communication)
Grant Kester (Visual Arts)
Joshua Kohn (Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution)
Marta Kutas (Cognitive Science)
Dick Madsen (Sociology)
Brian Maple (Physics)
John Marino (History)
Joel Robbins (Anthropology)
Nina Zhiri (Literature)
Asian American / Pacific Islander responses to campus racism
Please see below for a statement of solidarity from UC Berkeley’s APIEL NOW! (Asian Pacific Islander Education and Languages NOW!). A timely bit of reading before attending the dialogue this evening on Asian American/Pacific Islander responses to the racial crisis, from 7-9pm at the Cross-Cultural Center.
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March 1, 2010
In solidarity and struggle,
Asian Pacific Islander Education and Languages NOW!
UC Berkeley
UCSD Faculty Coalition Statement of Support
The UCSD faculty coalition for educational justice supports the proposals by UCSD faculty of African descent and the UCSD Black Student Union. We are their allies in calling for UCSD to address racial inequities as the university is restructured during the budget crisis.
We urge a systematic analysis that understands the recent eruptions at UCSD not as isolated or exceptional; these expressions are commensurate with a university system that has not created the conditions for racial equity. Fifteen years after the University of California banned affirmative action, it is not only the repeated instances of campus racism, but the university administration’s inability to act effectively to address them, which testifies to the need for the university to renew its commitments to public access and diversity education. As we work to preserve higher education as a public good, we must also secure resources to support curriculum, research, and scholarship on history of race and the critical study of racism, as well as greater outreach and changes to admissions, resource allocation, and college requirements – if the university is to create an academic culture that prepares a diverse public to participate in and contribute to a multiracial society.
Tuesday Updates
1. Breaking News: Ku Klux Klan-like hood found on the statue of Theodore Geisel at the UCSD Library
The head librarian at UCSD has just confirmed rumors that yet another racially-tinged incident has occurred at the Geisel Library. Last night, at about 11:15pm students reported to Libraries staff that someone had put a Ku Klux Klan-like hood on the statue of Dr. Seuss [Theodore Geisel] on the forum level of the Geisel Library. Campus police–who were called and are investigating the incident—promptly removed the hood.
We don’t have pictures of this incident yet but we’ll post them as soon as we get them. -J.F.
[Note: due to the absurdity of the image of Dr. Seuss (Thedore Geisel) wearing a KKK hood, some people are wondering whether this is some sort of risqué artist’s statement, given Dr. Seuss’ history of drawing racist propaganda in his early years. For more on that, click HERE. Also, today is Dr. Seuss’ birthday, which makes it more likely that it’s intended to make a point about the man and what he symbolizes for UCSD. However, as one Professor just noted to me, “it seems anyone in tune enough to know the history of Theodore Geisel or of San Diego as “Klan Diego” would know enough to leave a sign, or something to more clearly articulate the politics behind the act”].
Update 8:30PM from the San Diego Union-Tribune: “KKK-style pillowcase found at UCSD; noose sent to city attorney”
2. For Your Teaching Toolkits:
- A 2007 article published in Colorlines titled “The Rise of the Ghetto-Fabulous Party.” Important historical and political context for the “Compton Cookout” to share with friends, colleagues, students.
3. Other Statements and Articles from around the internet
- LA Times editorial, “Beyond the Compton Cookout”
- The UC Center for New Racial Studies, Statement on Racism in the UC System
- “Stuff White People Do: Promote Hollow Forms of Diversity Instead of Fighting Racism (e.g. UCSD)”, Guest post by UCSD Literature PhD student Scott Boehm
- CNN video: “Is UCSD a Racist Campus?” featuring the chair of BSU and Prof. Sara Clarke Kaplan of the Dept. of Ethnic Studies, UCSD
- The Christian Science Monitor, “Racist Acts at UC San Diego Underscore Deeper Tensions on Campus”
- San Francisco Chronicle editorial, “Racist ‘cookout’ pollutes UC San Diego”
- “A noose is never just a noose. And it’s not just your fault alone that you didn’t know that. The university where you go to school bears some responsibility for not funding ethnic studies, for obscuring the history of people of color in this country, for cutting funding for recruitment and retention programs that would make UCSD a vibrant, racially diverse campus. The state must be held accountable for making public education inaccessible to Blacks, Latinos, Native American, Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander students.” – excerpt from “How Exactly Does a Lasso Turn into a Noose? And Other Thoughts on UC Campus Racism“, Colorlines blog
Statement by Faculty of African Descent
To: Faculty Colleagues, UCSD Administration and UC Regents
As faculty of African descent here at the University of California, San Diego, we write to express our disgust at the racist and misogynist events of last week. We hope that the students understand that we stand alongside them. We thank those colleagues who have contacted us individually and collectively to express their anger at the attitudes and behavior of the members of Pi Kappa Alpha and the Koala. We ask that the entire faculty join us in a demonstration of common outrage, and assist us in moving forward by signaling agreement with the ideas expressed in this statement.
As the undergraduate students have explained, both the “Compton Cookout” and the racist drivel broadcast on SR-TV are indicative of a broader campus climate of hostility and neglect. We believe that UC San Diego must act strongly, both to sanction appropriately those responsible for these events and, equally importantly, to augment our intellectual and personal commitment to confronting the problems of outreach, yield, and retention in respect to underrepresented communities in general—and African American students in particular—on our campus. We are proud of the many efforts made by dedicated faculty, students and staff across the campus aimed at fostering a more hospitable environment, improving yield, and producing curricular innovation. We share their fear of the devastating long-term effects that will result if this university acquires a national or international reputation for intolerance and bigotry.
We stand today at a crossroads. Addressing the academic and student affairs needs of historically underrepresented groups remains one of this institution’s most glaring areas of unfulfilled promise. In the previous decade, the university has convened a number of committees charged with improving admissions and undergraduate yield, faculty equity and diversity, and the larger climate and reputation of UCSD. We do not wish to see further duplication. We have had task forces: now we need resources. We understand that the university faces a profound financial crisis. Nevertheless, we believe that this crisis cannot become the rationale for any slackening of efforts in regard to racial and ethnic diversity, increased educational access, or the creation of a campus climate that accurately reflects the UCSD mission of the fullest possible access to education, research, and public service.
We ask our colleagues from across the campus to add their voices to ours by signing on to this letter.
Sincerely,
The undersigned
To sign the online petition attached to this statemrent, click HERE.
Statement by UC community members of Asian descent
Note: to sign the online petition attached to this statment, click HERE
We the undersigned, UC community members (alumni, faculty, students and staff) of Asian descent, stand in solidarity with all who are protesting the racist incidents at UCSD and, more importantly, the systemic forces that support such incidents. It is unacceptable for UC campuses to view the recruitment and support of black and especially African-American students as anything other than a top priority. UCSD should never have allowed its black student population to languish at 1.6% of the total student population and ought to have paid much better attention to students’ needs. The UC systemwide must take immediate and material action to improve the campus environments. We write as community members of Asian descent because we think it is particularly important for black students to know that they are supported by the group that is demographically the largest of the U.S. ethnic minority groups represented on UC campuses. We have common values and needs, and possess a history of African-American/Asian-American collaboration to draw upon, although this history is little publicized in the mainstream media. For example, African-Americans criticized anti-Chinese immigrant persecution in the late nineteenth century, and the Asian-American “yellow power” movement of the 1960’s worked in solidarity with African-American movements toward common goals. We call upon these traditions, together with a sense of urgency that is only commensurate to a society that has effectively abandoned the pursuit of social justice, and pledge to stand with black students in their time of need.
Statement by Kamalayan Kollective
28 February 2010
Dear Sisters and Brothers of BSU and MEChA:
We, Kamalayan Kollective, a political, people-centered, feminist organization here at UCSD, stand in solidarity with you in your brave efforts to create a just and lasting institutional change at our university. Your recent mobilizations on our campus in response to the explicit acts of racism and the administration’s failure to address adequately your demands prove the intelligence and resilience of students of color and our unwavering commitment to actualized social and educational justice. We do not merely applaud your efforts, rather, we raise our fists and march with you, for we, as Filipina/o students, have, always have had, and always will have your back.
As a decolonizing people, we hold dear and work diligently on the premise that we have inherited a revolutionary legacy of working across community identities. During the 1950’s, the Filipino farm workers struggled alongside our Chicana/o sisters and brothers in the United Farm Workers Movement; Filipina/o activists linked arms with our sisters and brothers of color in order to push for civil rights, in order to push for the demands of Black, Brown, Yellow and Red Power movements. At the turn of the century, Black soldiers during the Philippine-American War defected from the U.S. Army in order to fight for Philippine independence. The Latina/o community and the Filipina/o community have come together on multiple occasions to resist the anti-immigrant character of our campus and this country. In all acts of self-determination, we undoubtedly have had your back and you undoubtedly have had ours.
More pertinently, on this campus, we, as Filipina/o students, who make up a mere 4% of the undergraduate population, who continue to experience the effects of institutional neglect, resist the cultures of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia. We are pained to witness our sisters and brothers in the local San Diego Filipina/o American community shut out of this institution, and instead exploited for cheap labor and tracked into the military and into prisons. Through these conditions, we emerge as leaders behind significant campus projects and community campaigns such as SIORC, SPACES, the Justice for Janitors Campaign, and campaigns for Affirmative Action. We initiate long-term and short-term projects to eradicate the ills of imperialism, racism, misogyny, classism, sexism, and homophobia on this campus. We have developed (with minimal to no help from the University) our own spaces such as Pinay Speaks, Pinayism Class (2005, 2007, 2010) and several other Directed Group Studies courses in order to confront the toxicity of this campus and to acknowledge that real pain and real oppression also exists along the horizontal axes of social category. We draw upon this legacy as radical Filipina/o organizers in the United States in order to identify ourselves not as allies to your Movement, but as comrades and comadres in the same struggle.
We, Kamalayan Kollective, are here to have your back. As underserved students directly affected and traumatized by the campus climate, we are taking a stand in representing the voice of the Filipina/o students who are in solidarity with you. We continue to believe in the necessity of real and immediate action. Sisters and brothers, in these times of struggle, we need you to have our back as much as you need us to have yours. Together, we do more than stand, we fight! MAKIBAKA! HUWAG MATAKOT!
Real Pain, Real Action, Isang Bagsak, Isang Mahal,
Kamalayan Kollective
Statement from the Critical Gender Studies Program at UCSD
Dear CGS Friends,
As concerned faculty affiliated with an academic program dedicated to the study of gender and sexuality at the intersections of class, race, ethnicity, religion, and other important organizing constructs of modern societies, we write to express our unequivocal support of the letter issued by the University of California, San Diego faculty of African descent, and ask that the University act immediately to respond to the demands by the Black Student Union.
We believe the racist and misogynist event last week is not an aberration but symptomatic of a larger systemic problem on our campus that the university has historically failed to redress. UCSD has not been forthcoming in fostering an intellectual and pedagogical environment hospitable to those who consider campus diversity foundational to teaching, critical thinking, research and public service. In the past this reticence has profoundly hampered our program’s growth.
Over the past two decades, many faculty affiliated with the Critical Gender Studies Program (formerly Women’s Studies Program) have dedicated their time and energy to increasing diversity on campus. In the absence of the University’s commitment to supporting and sustaining historically underrepresented groups in general, and women of color in particular, an alarming number of African American and other CGS faculty of color have left the campus in bitter disappointment. An African American CGS faculty who recently left UCSD would lament that in her “Black Feminist Theory” class, she was the only “black feminist” in the room. Another African American CGS faculty, who published an award-winning book in timely fashion, was not tenured due to institutional oversight. She left UCSD to teach at a prestigious university with tenure. Earlier when a large number of CGS faculty were involved in the Coalition Against Segregation in Education (CASE) that rallied against the California’s Proposition 209 under the banner, “No University without Diversity,” the University neglected to publicly issue its commitment to diversity in education. After the offensive campus incident last week and the continuing acts of antagonism, we are now being asked to reach out to the prospective students from historically underrepresented communities to assure them that the recent display of hostility is not representative of UCSD. But some of us have been struggling against these conditions long enough to know that this is hardly unusual. At the same time, as faculty affiliated with a program that has managed to grow despite these serious setbacks, we are also aware that much can be accomplished with the concerted efforts and commitment of our students, staff and faculty mobilized for the consistent administrative leadership.
As faculty teaching in CGS, we are keenly aware of the intersecting oppressions many UCSD students face on a daily basis and we know how important it is to have programs like ours, giving all students the theoretical tools to analyze and challenge these structures. There are too few spaces on this campus that offer safety and support in an often alienating climate and we want to emphasize the amazing work done by the Cross Cultural, LGBTR and Women’s Centers. These centers were created due to student pressure and the recent events show how important they and their commitment to intersectional politics still are. We are proud, though not surprised, that again students are taking the lead in pushing for a livable campus climate for all and we fully support their demands.
Symbolic gestures disavowing racism and misogyny will not usher in the changes necessary to achieve our highest aspirations in public education. The CGS Program faculty invites the entire campus community to support the University in its effort to implement the demands of our students and colleagues and immediately commit concrete institutional resources towards bringing forth substantial structural changes to UCSD.
Lisa Yoneyama, Director
Steering Committee:
Patrick Anderson, Communication
Fatima El-Tayeb, Literature
Sara Clarke Kaplan, Ethnic Studies/CGS
Nayan Shah, History
A letter by concerned graduate students and teaching assistants
February 23rd, 2010
To the UCSD Campus Community:
There are three sides to the current state of emergency that has been declared—but not initiated—by students of color and their allies at UCSD: (1) The first are those students of color and their allies who face the difficult and unwanted task of legitimizing and articulating their trauma in light of the current racist activity on and off campus; (2) the second are the defenders of a status quo that excludes black students and trivializes their response to the recent racist actions on and off campus; (3) the third group consists of a student body, faculty, and administration uncertain about what side to take and how far to go in their response to the current crisis.
We are not concerned with the second group here. Those defenders of the status quo have a fairly predictable task. As defenders of an entrenched hegemonic order, they have a safe and privileged role to perform in the current crisis: they will continue to hide behind legal rights, such as free speech, to justify actions and rhetoric that prolongs a long history of racism in which black culture and heritage is treated as their private property. They do not deserve our attention here because they feed on negative press and the further incitement toward controversy.
This letter, rather, is written in alliance with the first group. Our demands are aimed at the UCSD administration and those members of the third audience who face the current situation at UCSD and who have a choice.
We, the undersigned graduate students, occupy a somewhat removed vantage point on campus life, but that does not preclude us from making demands in alliance with our black brothers and sisters. We are teachers, students, and friends of undergraduate and graduate students of color. In these roles, we have seen the burden that is now placed on black students and their allies as they try to legitimize their feelings to an audience who is confused about the problem and its associated discussions.
With scant resources and limited mentors on the UCSD campus, the marginalized 1.3 % and their allies have an enormous weight to carry. Even as we write, this unwanted weight is taking its emotional, academic, and physical toll on these students. Black students and their allies face the disproportionate task of balancing their academic work and social lives with the real radical demand to articulate their experience in a racialized environment. In the context of this state of emergency, the need to articulate their experience has become their main priority. They must miss classes. Their work must suffer. They must stay up for nights on end strategizing together as an excluded and unwanted community rather than studying as peers. While taking this necessary action in the name of their academic and human rights, they face the threat of physical and psychic assault from the campus community. They face the fear that their experiences are not legitimate in the eyes of their peers, teachers, and the administration. More distressingly, they face physical threats from supremacist groups and individuals on campus.
In light of these demands placed on black students and other students of color, we ask that the following demands be met this quarter:
• Counseling for students affected by the current state of emergency: We ask for the temporary hiring of more counseling staff, particularly black counselors, who can speak with students who face the emotionally and physically draining task of articulating their situation.
• Extensions on all academic work: Students who are struggling with the radical burden of articulating their experience cannot be academically penalized. If students are academically punished for their actions in the current state of emergency, we will consider it a form of racial violence enacted on the part of the administration.
• Classroom autonomy: Graduate students who elect to speak about these issues and the March 4th Day of Action should not be prevented from or penalized for taking a stance, regardless of the official position of the program.
• Creation of a pool of resources at the Center for Teaching Development: Undergraduate and graduate students from a wide variety of disciplines, regardless of whether they work as Teaching Assistants, need to have access to reference materials to use to facilitate productive discussions in the classroom about these issues.
Our purpose here is to intervene and implement changes in the short term for the successful completion of winter quarter, addressing specific needs we see in our capacity as graduate students who also work as Teaching Assistants on campus. We are also in solidarity with the long-term demands made by the Black Student Union, Department of Ethnic Studies, and other letters that have been published. We are greatly inspired by the mobilization of our undergraduate students and look forward to the realization of these changes that have been demanded.
Sincerely,
Concerned Graduate Students and Teaching Assistants
Excerpts from letter by Prof. Ivan Evans (Sociology)
From Prof. Ivan Evans…
***
[This is an extract of a letter I sent to the Chancellor and Prof. Paul Drake}:
February 21, 2010 10:17:29 PM PST
Dear ——-:
…The hornest’s nest that has been stirred this week seems to have had opposite, but equally distressing effects on African American students. Some vowed this weekend not to quit but to “endure” and complete their degree here, “no matter what they do to stop us”. Others said that they intend to transfer to Berkeley, UCLA “or even Santa Barbara” if they remain unhappy this year. Only half jokingly, the latter said that they would present themselves to the other UCs as “political refugees”. They are confident only when they are together, they said, but feel menaced and vulnerable when walking alone on campus. These are absolutely astonishing sentiments by any measure. At the meeting, the representative of an outside mental health organization offered her company’s services to students who seem strained to the breaking point. Again, remaining engaged with these students has fallen to a small number of faculty and TAs, in part because the students report that they are disaffected with the administration.
It is against this backdrop that I want to echo what students are saying and record my own disgust, and the growing anger of others, with the near lily-white composition of the personnel who comprise the university’s public face, the one that is most clear and immediate to undergraduates. Having resisted the notion for years, I am now increasingly of the opinion that the racial monopoly over senior administrative positions is not accidental but seems to be the product of something that is inscrutably systematic and even sinister. We have watched the administration almost go out of its way to circumvent suitable minority candidates to appoint white colleagues in ways that, I feel sure, would not withstand scrutiny at the the two flagship universities within the UC system–were such racial effrontery ever attempted at those two illustrious peers in an age when no self-respecting state institution openly flaunts racial domination. The failure to de-racialize the university administration can no longer be attributed to factors such as the conservative weight that the hard sciences enjoy at this campus. And so the endlessly repeated promise to “promote diversity” is now greeted as mere cant at this campus. These ritual incantations to “diversity” are now also viewed as insults, as something that the administration knows that it can and regularly does get away with. Appalling statistics annually confirm the resultant “hostile campus climate” that minority students often refer to and which drives away minority faculty. Hence, the simmering disillusionment amongst undergraduates about this issue now resonates amongst minority faculty as well.
And now there is talk that some of the students who were involved in the past week’s events might or should be expelled. Certainly, the connection between what appears to be a predominantly “Whites Only” administration at UCSD and the “Compton Cookout” affair is neither linear nor singular–permutations of other factors are at play as well. Still, one reason why I am reluctant to support calls for the expulsion of students who seem to have clearly violated university codes, and engaged in criminal behavior to boot, is that these acts were perpetrated in an institution that has never placed “diversity” issues at the top of its agenda. Everybody knows this, but few have seriously challenged the quotidian rhetoric that the university administration devotes to the issue. Expulsion is therefore too easy a solution. However justifiable, expelling guilty students smacks of scapegoating.
Stunned observers on and off this campus are slowly grasping a bitter truth: the university administration’s flaccid commitment to “diversity” has emboldened some students to behave as they did this past week. The rhetoric they employed–“Niggers should be grateful we let them in here”–expressed in vulgar form what the university’s own tepid “diversity” policies have been suggesting for a long time: “this is not a fundamental issue for us”. This is how I responded when the current whites-only Council of Provosts issued its well-intended but ironic statement, “Condemnation of Off-Campus Party and Affirmation of Principles of Community”. The university would no doubt like to, and in my opinion, should turn to senior and familiar African American office-bearers to present the administration’s response to race-baiting students. But it cannot because no such person seems to exists. This is astonishing. The path to redemption for the university begins with conceding telling points such as this.
Precisely because there is such a dearth of trust between the students and the administration, an adversarial relationship has opened up when instinctive unity between the two in the face of loathsome KKK behavior would seem obvious. Students have therefore taken on the burden of organizing meaningful events that will not just stabilize but, they hope, substantially transform the university. The task is Herculean because the problem’s roots are decades old and deeply sunk in the marrow of UCSD.
The greatest safeguard that UCSD can devise for itself is to elevate rhetoric about “diversity” into the guiding and non-negotiable principle of internal reform. Anything less will court disaster for this institution.
Sincerely,
Ivan Evans
Assoc Prof
Sociology Dept
UC San Diego
Open Letter from Prof. Yang…
The problem is not (just) the party. The problem is the party line.
An open letter to the UC San Diego community
Dear us,
First and foremost, we should all commend the Black Student Union and its many allies across the spectrum of student organizations (including fraternities/sororities), for the dignity with which you have faced the recent onslaught of racist provocations. You are turning personal insult into a push for structural changes that are sorely needed at our university. You fight not only for the benefit of African-American students, but for all our common good. You are continuing a tradition of UC San Diego student activism dating at least as far back as 1968. You honor us. I hope our university will honor you back.
That said, I’m not writing to condemn the PIKE party. I’m writing to condemn the university’s party line.
University officials have been quick to the condemn the party, and even quicker to point out that it happened “off campus.” The party line is one of shock and horror, as if prior to last weekend, this institution was a model of diversity and racial justice. We repeat buzzwords like “mutual respect” and “diversity” and “community” until they are empty of meaning. The party line is to individualize a racist system to a few “racists,” and to isolate the event as a freak occurrence at UCSD. This party line says: Let’s go after a few fraternity boys, and then go back to business as usual.
What is business as usual?
We have a 1.3% African-American student enrollment, not simply because of poor admissions, but because admitted students don’t choose to come to UCSD. Only about 13% of admitted African-American students come to UCSD (compare to 44% at UCLA). This information comes directly from the “Yield Report” – a 2007 UCSD Final Report from the Advisory Committee on Increasing Yield of Underrepresented Students. The Yield Report actually provided multiple strategies for improving campus climate, and for increasing the number of underrepresented students. These recommendations have by-and-large NOT been implemented despite 2 years of research and 3 years of reading time.
Business as usual means that for the last 30 years our university has refused to repatriate Native American human remains found on the ancient burial ground (on top of which the Chancellor’s house now stands). This outright defies federal law and treaty rights. San Diego has the largest number of Native American reservations of any county in the United States, but UCSD has a nearly 0% Native American student body. Why wouldn’t Native American students want to come here? It’s not just because of some frat parties.
All the administrative condemnations of a woefully misconceived fraternity party will not increase African-American enrollment at UC San Diego. All the email links to the “Principles of Community” will not make UC San Diego more diverse. A Chancellor-sponsored Teach-In, however well intentioned, will not lead to systemic change. Even as a symbolic gesture, it is misdirected – enough so that we should teach against this Teach-In.
What exactly does this Teach-In teach?
The Teach-In puts the blame for racism on our students. It exonerates the “teachers” of their role in perpetuating a poor campus climate. If our administration refuses to take responsibility for a toxic campus climate, for our share in the disrespect of African-American, Native American, and other excluded communities, then why would we expect our students to act differently? If our administration deals with collective problems by disavowing individuals, then why would we expect students to act differently? If our administration is silent about its own poor track record in race and community relations, then why would we expect students to act differently?
Furthermore, a two-hour Teach-In trivializes the work of teachers who critically examine race and racism year-round. We teach in History, Ethnic Studies, and Psychology, as well as other programs, departments and colleges, such as Thurgood Marshall’s Dimensions of Culture. In these classes, our students and instructors put in intense intellectual and personal work in struggling with our inheritance of racism, sexism, and classism.
But most importantly, teach-ins are strategies for the powerless, not for people in power. The Chancellor has a wide-range of powers and more than a few resources to commit to improving campus climate. The BSU is rightfully pressuring the administration to administrate, not just talk about, solutions for improving our campus climate.
What should the administration do?
To paraphrase Cornel West, “Young people don’t want to hear a sermon, they want to see a sermon.” It’s time to commit to some real structural changes. We can start with the BSU demands. But if a simpler list is needed, I have some suggestions below.
1) Implement the Yield Report. This report came out 3 years before last week’s frat party. Can the administration take this state of emergency and finally implement the Yield Report recommendations?
2) Put some teeth into the diversity office. Currently, the Chief Diversity Officer is a 50% position with no budget, no staff, and no formal power. Upgrade it to a Vice Chancellorship and equip it with a staff and budget. Such offices at UCLA and UC Berkeley are able to provide material support for research, teaching, and student affairs. They can take a preventive approach to racial incidents on campus. (This recommendation can also be found on page 10 of the Yield Report.) But don’t stop there. Give this office wide reform powers over all units on the campus, and we will gain at least one institutionalized motor for bridging the gap between the rhetoric and the reality of diversity.
3) Fund organizations that support underrepresented students. Right now, student organizations like the SAAC orgs (BSU, MECHA, and others) are doing the work of the administration to recruit, retain, and respect underrepresented students. These student leaders bear a double burden – even as they are assailed by a toxic campus climate, they are also expected to be its antidote. How do we expect to retain our current students if they are mending our university on top of their obligations to schoolwork, jobs, and family? These orgs should be given increased funding for major events such as high school conferences, overnight recruitment events, and graduation ceremonies. (This recommendation is on page 9 of the Yield Report).
4) Create a committed commission on campus climate. No, not a group of Chancellor’s appointees, but a coalition of organizations with a track record of transforming our university. Start with the SAAC orgs, the Campus Centers, and the interdisciplinary departments and programs.
5) Repatriate, Research, and Respect. If diversity is to be more than an empty word, then it has to become part of the fundamental business of universities: research, teaching, and service. Fund collaboratories and cluster hires around indigenous scholarship, black and black diaspora studies, and chicano/latino studies. Develop curriculum and coursework relevant to these areas. (These recommendations are on page 10 of the Yield Report). But don’t stop there. Repatriate the Native remains, the burial grounds, and the Chancellor’s house on it. Let the Kumeyaay decide how they wish to establish a Native peoples’ presence on campus. UCSD would lose an unoccupied house, gain a Native cultural hub, and comply with the law. We might also become a truly attractive option for both established and aspiring Native American scholars.
What should the faculty do?
As departments, programs, divisions, and as the faculty senate, we should formally endorse the BSU demands and the Yield Report recommendations. We should change our admissions policy from comprehensive to holistic. But don’t stop there. Let us create admissions criteria that value local San Diego community knowledge, especially the community intelligence it takes to persevere within structurally disadvantaged schools. We would not only increase campus diversity, but also demonstrate commitment to the local community in these adverse economic times. UC San Diego might yet live up to our namesake.
What can students do?
It is a privilege to teach here at UC San Diego, where I am constantly impressed by our students’ initiative, compassion, and sense of social justice. Stay up, stay strong, and stay righteous. You’re changing this campus.
With respect,
K. Wayne Yang, Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies
Affiliated Professor of Urban Studies and Planning
Ethnic Studies Faculty and Student Response to UCSD Campus Crisis Precipitated by the Event Dubbed the “Compton Cookout”
The UCSD Dept. of Ethnic Studies welcomes all thoughtful, informed and reasoned comments to its departmental statements. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of all faculty and graduate students in the department, the Regents of the University of California, or the University of California, San Diego. Please post your comments on its blog HERE.
As faculty and graduate students in the Ethnic Studies Department at UC-San Diego, we unequivocally condemn the February 15th off-campus party, dubbed the “Compton Cookout,” as an example of racist, classist and misogynist stereotyping that degrades Black people through disparaging representations of so-called “African American culture.” Like similar events thrown on college and university campuses across the United States, this “theme party” in one quick, broad stroke reduced the complex lived experience of a heterogeneous racialized community to a caricatured depiction of cultural deviancy. All the more troubling, this particular themed party was intentionally organized to mock ongoing celebrations of African American History month in the U.S. and specifically here at UC San Diego.
This “monstrosity” (as some of the organizers called it) has a violent and racist history that began with blackface minstrel shows in the U.S., starting in the early 19th century, heightening with popularity during the Abolition Movement, and extending into 20th century theater and film. Both blackface minstrel performances and parties such as the “Compton Cookout” reinforce and magnify existing material and discursive structures of Black oppression, while denying Black people any sense of humanity, negating not only the actual lives that exist behind these caricatured performances but the structural conditions that shape Black life in the US. Far from celebrating Black history, events such as this one are marked celebrations of the play of power characteristic of whiteness in general and white minstrelsy in particular: the ability to move in and move out of a racially produced space at will; the capacity to embody a presumed deviance without actually ever becoming or being it; the privilege to revel in this raced and gendered alterity without ever having to question or encounter the systemic and epistemic violence that produces hierarchies of difference in the first place. Moreover, like their blackface minstrel predecessors, the organizers and attendees of the “Compton Cookout” demonstrate the inextricability of performances of white mastery over Black bodies from structures of patriarchy: by instructing their women ‘guests’ on how to dress (“wear cheap clothes”), behave (“start fights and drama”), and speak (“have a very limited vocabulary”), these young men not only paint a degrading and dehumanizing picture of African American women as so-called “ghetto chicks,” but offer a recipe for the objectification of all women—made permissible, once again, through the appropriation of blackness.
Click HERE to read the rest of the statement.
An Open Letter from the Campus Community Centers Regarding 2/13 Weekend Events
This past weekend, a number of events have occurred that have deeply impacted our community. The inciting incident was the advertising of an off campus party with racist themes. The subsequent events include many responses from numerous quarters of our campus community, including students, faculty, staff, alumni and the greater San Diego community.
Deeply troubling is, while this event clearly targeted historical contributions of African Americans, equally insidious messages were present. The blatant misogyny, glaring class issues, and subtle heterosexism are intertwined throughout the obvious racism. The references to men and women, when juxtaposed, highlight a vast difference in how gender, relationships and class intersect into stereotype, myth and denigration.
This incident underscores the important nature of the work around intersectionality. When one group is targeted, all of our communities are impacted. Incidents such as these, when they happen, can serve to disaffect those from other marginalized communities as well, and pit folks against each other in a hierarchy of oppression.
There were opportunities to stop this event from happening. When individuals expressed concerns about the nature of the party, were they heard? Building community on our campus provides opportunities where these voices can have an impact on decisions that peers make. Critical dialogue can be uncomfortable, but creates a campus climate where all people are valued.
Our communities cannot be bystanders to events such as this. It cannot be “Oh, look what is happening to ‘that’ group…” We are deeply connected as members of the UC San Diego community, and what affects one of us affects all of us. It is how we react from our places of privilege that is the true testament of community building.
What we do now, in support and in community with those who have been the most affected, reflects the mission of the Campus Community Centers, which includes the belief that ending one oppression requires ending all oppression.
We invite you to continue the dialogue with us, and to join the teach in on Wednesday, February 24th from 12-2pm at the Price Center East Ballroom.
Stop the Racism, Sexism and Homophobia at UC San Diego 