Question ‘majority rule’ beyond election day

Question ‘majority rule’ beyond election day

By Jeffrey Ow

As an Asian American, a person of color, a Daily Bruin reader, a
man and a person, I am thoroughly embarrassed for Nikao Yang’s
verbal conduct ("My report on the superfluous Prop. 187 protest,"
Nov. 21).

Appropriating the voices of Chicanos, African-American rappers,
"English and forensic geeks," "womyn" and his friend Fred, Yang
attempts to assert his right-wing viewpoint of Thursday’s
demonstration to the public with an effort to character assassinate
through his words. (Yang downplays his role, stating his "original
intent … was to make fun of (the demonstrators)".

Unfortunately, his peashooter backfired.

Yang believes that the role of the public in politics is limited
to an annual vote and that the passage of morally questionable
legislation should be accepted in good faith. Because Yang is not a
history student, perhaps he is ignorant of the fact that people
other than white male landowners struggled for approximately 200
years for the right to vote.

I also wonder if Yang knows the history of Asian Americans in
the United States. In 1882, after years of both anti-Chinese
violence and anti-Chinese lobbying, the United States passed an act
to halt Chinese immigration, the first of many pieces of
legislation to limit and exclude immigrants by ethnicity. Unlike
European immigrants, Asian immigrants could not naturalize, and
therefore could not vote.

It wasn’t until 1952 that all Asian-American immigrants were
allowed naturalization rights. Without the courage of our forebears
in America who contested a system that worked upon the principle of
democracy and equality, many of us would not be here today.

Yet Yang asserts that the "Voice of the People" is the true
voice which spoke on election day and thus bows to the authority of
the voice rather than questioning the power of the voice.

Again, the monolithic voice of history has told us that African
Americans were "property," that Japanese Americans were
incarcerated for "military necessity," that AIDS was a "gay
disease" and that George Bush was the president of a "kinder,
gentler nation."

As concerned American citizens, we must always voice our
opinions beyond election day and work for positive change among our
communities that usurp the voices of unfounded fears and
stereotypes spawned by certain politicians and spread by the
media.

One of the purposes of the Nov. 17 demonstration was to express
solidarity among diverse communities with a shared concern for the
passage of Proposition 187. It seems, however, that Yang was too
busy thinking of snappy soundbites to absorb the emotions coursing
through the crowd.

Perhaps he did not hear both the diverse dialogues and the
collective chants of the assemblage. Perhaps he did not see the
circle of 26 protesters, hands and arms of different sizes and
colors, all joined in unity.

Perhaps he did not feel the strength of the new friendships
formed from shared experiences. Perhaps I’m not as emotionally
strong as Yang, but I was moved to tears.

People like Yang fail to see beyond their individual needs.
While Yang was focusing on "kissing butt with (his) speech
professor to get a letter of recommendation," participants in the
demonstration were expressing their concerns about a state which
passed a racist, unconstitutional proposition that will harm the
state itself, if not the nation.

Perhaps when Yang hits the glass ceiling in the work world or is
beaten like Vincent Chin under the assumption that he is a "job
stealer" or like Rodney King under the assumption that he is a
dangerous criminal, he will begin to comprehend the racist power of
the "Voice of the People" and to understand the message he missed
on Thursday.

Ow is a first-year graduate student in Asian American
studies.