Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Saturday he is deeply troubled by recent acts of racism at three University of California campuses.
Schwarzenegger's statement comes after a string of incidents this month on the campuses in Davis, Irvine and San Diego.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Racist Occurrences at UC Campuses
It's good that the governor is speaking out about this, but it's going to take more than his bully pulpit to fix this problem.
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For whatever reason, I am hearing a great deal more anti-Semetic rhetoric in class. So much so that I have put some students on warning that they will be written up if they continue. And it's coming from all sectors which leads me to think this is an undercurrent in either popular music or videos or something. Scary stuff.
A couple of points . ..
1) "Compton Cookout" . . . in bad taste? Insensitive? Probably . . .but, I'm not sure it merits the label of racism. If so, what do we say of the other stereotyped drinking holidays, St. Patrick's Day, Cinco De Mayo, and Halloween (those drunken Wiccans!) The noose, the swastika yes . . .but I seriously doubt the party was prompted by hate.
2) Interrupting the speech of the Israeli ambassador is not inherently racist. The link didn't say who did the interrupting, but if it was a group of Palestinian students who object to Israel's occupation of what was formerly their land, they AT LEAST have a legitimate argument, without being racist. Agree or disagree, that is first and foremost an issue of foreign policy, and does not deserve to be lumped in with swastikas and nooses.
Max, I agree with you about the party.
Regarding Irvine, though, their Muslim organizations have a long and storied history of behavior that would be condemned if it were directed at anyone other than Jews. They're definitely bad guys--and they're tolerated. I'd put them right up there with the swastika-lovers.
If it's because they're Jews, I agree. If it's because the ambassador represents a government that ousted them from their land, I don't. I didn't see anything in the write up to indicate which way it leaned. Even religious bigots are entitled to political protest.
It's because they're Jews. And protesting is one thing, preventing the speech of someone you don't like is entirely different.
As I said, this isn't new. Check out this post from 2008:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/uc-irvine-still-enforcing-sharia-law/
Preventing the speech of someone you don't like is a very effective protest. It also has has the side effect of not playing well with those not already on your side. It would be entirely different if the University chancellor were preventing the speaker from coming to campus, or if the government were forbidding him from giving speeches. Also, I did not get from the link you posted anything to suggest that they were protesting this speech just because Oren was a Jew . . . a lot of times, the term anti-semitic (which doesn't even make sense, as many muslims are also semites) is used interchangeably, and incorrectly, with anti-Zionist.
Stiffling others' free speech is not a legitimate expression of your own. You know this, stop playing devil's advocate just to stir the mud.
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