From: mim@nyxfer.UUCP
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Date: 22 Dec 92 18:03 PST
Subject: Racists Rewarded by UMass
Nf-ID: #N:i0L8VB8w165w@nyxfer.uucp:-269244880:000:5807
Nf-From: nyxfer.uucp!mim    Dec 22 18:03:00 1992


Subject: Racists Rewarded by UMass
From: nyxfer!mim (Maoist Intl'ist Mvmnt)

 
Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
from the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM)
 
MIM Notes, Issue 71: December, 1992


       Racists Rewarded at the University of Massachusetts

                             by MA234

The University of Massachusetts, known for its attempts at
"multiculturalism," is rewarding two students involved in a racist
assault on a Black Resident Assistant. (Resident Assistants are
University students who, in exchange for free housing and $25 a
week, are used as rent-a-cops by the administration to enforce,
among other things, the alcohol policy.) Two RAs have told MIM,
under conditions of anonymity, that two students who have
supposedly been expelled from housing are secretly being housed in
a fancy hotel, care of the Dean of Students Office.

On the night of September 25, in Washington Tower dormitory, Black
RA Arlens Barosy, while on "rounds" encountered a group of white
underage men drinking. Barosy told them to pour out their alcohol,
and one of the white men repeatedly punched Barosy, knocking him
through a door and bruising his head. The men fled.(1) 

The assailant, Francis Marchant, was later identified as a
non-student and a registered guest of the residents of room
801.(2) The UMass Code of Student Conduct states that students are
responsible for the actions of their guests. These students
invited Marchant back the next weekend (security did not stop him
from entering the building). Barosy noticed the man in the
building and called the police, who did not arrest Marchant until
several weeks later. That weekend Barosy's door was smeared with
human shit and the words "NIGRRS SUCK" (sic) were written on the
wall.(3)

"Due to the incident and the subsequent appearance of racial
graffiti and feces outside his door and other stress," Barosy was
forced to quit his RA job and move to another dormitory.(2)

On the night of October 8, about 40 members of the Black Student
Union occupied the 8th floor of Washington Tower demanding that
Marchant's hosts (smart enough to be partying elsewhere that
evening) be expelled from housing. After two hours, the
administration agreed.(4)

That same evening, 40 white men with sticks prowled the campus
stalking a Black woman. The Black woman called the police from an
emergency phone. They told her they were working on it, and hung
up on her. Rocks were also thrown through the window of Memorial
Hall, a building occupied by students advocating scholarships for
low-income women of color. The next afternoon, a white woman was
attacked and beaten by white men with sticks who called her a
"Nigger Lover."(5)

The administration's action to house "expelled" racist students in
a hotel is adding insult to the injury caused by the escalating
tensions on campus. The University has obviously realized that it
has skipped its own due process procedures, and is therefore
avoiding liability by providing these students with free housing.
By the University's own regulations it should have moved these two
students to a different building immediately and then started
disciplinary hearings within days. Secretly housing these students
is allowing the university to postpone punishment. Countless
judicial hearings could have been held both before the Washington
occupation and in the ensuing days. Instead the University is
pretending to serve both sides.

Instead of punishing these students, the University is telling
racists who punch their way through the multicultural facade how
they can expect to be treated: when you punch a Black authority
figure, you can expect a bigger room, relief from the alcohol
policy, free cable TV, and a maid to make your bed.

On October 13, the Black Student Union presented a list of demands
designed to increase minority representation. The BSU set a two
week deadline and the U.S. Justice Department volunteered to
mediate. According to the Boston Globe, the Department of Justice
had recently determined that the nearby city of Holyoke is one of
the U.S. cities most ripe for riot, which likely increased their
interest in "racial tensions" at UMass.

On November 9, a compromise was announced. About a third of the
Black Student Union's demands were met, and the administration has
graciously volunteered to hire 20 more police officers. The
student negotiators seem unaware that the University could fund at
least 80 full scholarships with the salaries of these 20 cops.

To the activists at UMass, I can only commend your efforts.
Increasing minority representation, especially that of
oppressed-nation women, is a valuable reform. The road to
liberation, however does not lie in begging the administration for
piece-meal reforms, but in building independent power. Likewise,
the administration's attempts to buy minority happiness by hiring
20 more racist cops (the first thing the University offered when
confronted with the demands) should be met with resistance, not
silence.

Remember that the U.S. Justice Department and a campus that
rewards racist assailants are not on the side of oppressed
peoples.


Notes:

1. Massachusetts Daily Collegian 11/2/92, p. 1.
2. MDC 11/2/92, p. 6.
3. MDC 10/5/92, p. 1,3.
4. MDC 10/9/92, p. 1.
5. MDC 10/14/92, p. 6.

                              -30- 

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