From: broberts@ocf.berkeley.edu (Bryce Roberts)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american,ucb.general
Subject: Re: Racial Harassment at Cal-Are we unclear on concept here?
Date: 23 Jan 1993 09:50:56 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
Distribution: na
NNTP-Posting-Host: hailstorm.berkeley.edu
Keywords: racism

"Never trust a white guy who thinks he knows about racism, because for sure
he doesn't know what he's talking about."
 
If someone famous hasn't said that before, they should have. That's not
liberal catharsis. It's the truth. Nevertheless, I'll have to break this
rule because I just can't understand the logic of what's going on here. 
 
Maybe I'm just naive, but hasn't this whole discussion become a bit
worthless? When this thread started, I was hoping we'd get dozens of
messages from people of all races speaking candidly about the _overall
racial climate_ here at Cal. That was, after all, what Ms. Tseng's initial
question was about. Excepting a few posts, all we've really discussed is
whether the "Look at that Asian girl!" comment was racist or just plain
obnoxious.
 
Let's assume it was, in fact, a racist remark and everybody agrees it was
wrong. Now where have we gotten ourselves? We've found _one_ person guilty
of saying something racist. That's all. Have we made any conclusions about
the climate at Cal, what needs to be changed? I don't think so.
 
Then let's assume that we convince the university that this one person's
remark was so despicable that they should no longer go to the university,
and they kick the guy out. Now Cal is less one racist. How much good has
been done?
 
The world is not perfect, and I don't think it ever will be. Call me a
cynic if you want. I'm fairly certain there is no way we can _legislate_
politeness or circumspection overnight into 250 million people, some of
whom don't want to be polite or circumspect. Much as we'd like to, I doubt
we'll ever stop certain people from leaning out of a window and yelling
deliberately offensive comments, nor can we prevent someone else from
finding such a comment funny (rather than offensive). By sitting in our
liberal armchairs and arguing about five rude words, the world doesn't get
much better. 
 
Did the civil rights movement of the 1960's consist of a whole bunch of
people who just wanted to tell the world that the term "negro" wasn't nice
to use and that "Black" or "African American" would be better? No. The
battle was for the end of segregation and "separate but equal" rulings. It
was a demand for fairer treatment under the law and the end of political
disenfranchisement in the South. Did my American Cultures class teach me to
say "Asian" instead of "oriental," "African American" instead of "Black"?
No. It was about the history of race, migration and labor over a period of
nearly 500 years; it was about what's gone wrong in the past, what's gotten
better and what's gotten worse. 
 
While we've quibbled over words, far greater injustices have gone on.
Whether you're liberal or conservative, male or female, white or a person
of color, you've got to admit there's a lot more to worry about than
parsing a sentence. Let the English majors do that. There is still a
disparity between the ethnic makeup of the student body and that of the
faculty. It is still rare for a non-white professor to get tenure. And have
you ever asked yourself whether the Regents of the UC "look like" the
students of the UC system (or the state of California, for that matter).
IMHO opinion _these_ are questions we should be getting to, if you really
want to solve some problems.
 
Bryce Roberts
broberts@ocf.Berkeley.EDU
 
"All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusionis is called a
philosopher."        -- Ambrose Bierce, cc R.P. Feynman