Rally responds to incidents of hate speech at UCLA

By ANTONIO GONZALEZ

Editor’s note: We have decided to run in this story the exact wording of the racial and sexist slurs in this incident. Given the nature of these slurs, the editorial staff were faced with the question of whether it was appropriate for the student newspaper to repeat these slurs and potentially perpetuate their use. The editorial decision was made to write them as they occurred in order to report accurately and thoroughly on the incident. 

About a hundred people rallied outside Kerckhoff Hall earlier today, following acts of vandalism involving racial and sexist slurs that were reported to police earlier this week. 

On Tuesday, a student found a piece of paper with the words “asian women R Honkie white-boy worshipping Whores” attached to a Vietnamese Student Union sign in Kerckhoff Hall. Wednesday, a similar phrase was found handwritten on the door of a bathroom stall in Powell Library. University police are currently investigating both incidents. 

Obviously, the phrase "Honkie white-boy" is a slur against white men. But nobody is going to protest that. Equally obviously, this sign was put up either by an Asian guy or a non-Asian gal. (The second sign was found in a women's bathroom.)

Technically, this doesn't even qualify as another campus Hate Hoax because the perp isn't even trying to make it look like a white man did it. But nobody in authority seems to notice.

Amid chants of “hey, hey, ho, ho; Racism has got to go” and people holding colorful signs, speakers from various campus groups expressed their disappointment with the occurrences at the rally, which was hosted by the Vietnamese Student Union. 

Anees Hasnain, the student who reported the slurs on the Vietnamese Student Union sign to UCPD, said she felt numb and was shocked when she found the sign. 

She added she is concerned by repeated incidents of hate speech on campus, referring to reports from earlier this year about anti-Mexican and sexist slurs written on an apartment door, and a video posted by former UCLA student Alexandra Wallace that included derogatory comments about Asian students. ...

The Asian Pacific Coalition plans to hold a forum in the basement of the Student Activities Center on Dec. 5 to further discuss campus climate at UCLA.

TAKE A STAND AGAINST CAMPUS HATE 

Imagine starting your academic day opening a door with this on it:

Now, imagine the very next day, another racial and sexist slur is on the bathroom stall at the library.

These two things actually happened back-to-back on UCLA’s campus in November 2012. And unfortunately, these are not isolated incidents. Will you stand with us and demand that UCLA take action against hate?

Vietnamese Student Union (VSU) is urging UCLA’s Academic Senate to implement the “diversity requirement” by next academic school year. This diversity requirement would give students a balanced understanding and appreciation for their own, and other, cultures. The curriculum would address issues of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and other institutionalized systems of inequality.

Send an email to UCLA's Academic Senate Chair, Dr. Linda Sarna, and demand the diversity requirement for the next academic school year. 

UCLA is the only UC that does not have a diversity requirement.

And here's the email:

Dear Dr. Linda Sarna, UCLA Academic Senate Chair, 

We are writing in response to the recent attacks to the Vietnamese Student Union at UCLA and the greater API community, especially womyn of color. 

We would like for the University of California, Los Angeles to reconsider prioritizing the diversity requirement. This incident has shown that ignorance and insensitivity to other cultures still exists on your campus. This ignorance has aggregated in the form of a deliberate action that threatens the safety of colored communities on campus. Additionally, this is just one of many actions that have been formed to attack people of color, including the Alexandra Wallace video and the vandalism directed toward the latino/a community. 

What happened at the VSU office was not just a singular racially offensive action, but part of a set of actions that has been ongoing for the past couple of years. It will serve as a reminder that these types of incidents will continue to recur until the university takes action against it. It surprises me that a campus that prides itself on diversity does not act as a model in having such a requirement. 

We urge the Academic Senate to do everything in its power to work with students and faculty to get the diversity requirement implemented immediately. 

Sincerely, 

By the way, Google (I presume) chose to serve up the following ad on the Daily Bruin's article about this event, presumably due to keyword matching. (Can you guess which keywords?) You won't get this ad everytime, but it came up every half dozen times or so I hit Refresh.