Fee hikes were wrongfully assumed to be issue of race

I awoke to the sounds of beating drums and the thunderous ruckus of youth in arms. A pull of the fire alarm gave me cause to investigate ““ or rather, sent me and hundreds of my fellow residents herded out the exits of my seven-floor residence hall into the ungodly morning light. Out there in the war-chanting world of tear gas and plate glass, a soon-to-be televised revolution was brewing.

And amid the jeers and shouts and screams I heard the epiphanic battle cry: “UC Regents?” cried the man with the megaphone. “I see racists!” the mass answered.

Say it ain’t so! My troubled heart trembled. Surely the hikes in student fees, though regrettable, aren’t the work of racists!

“Outcomes are outcomes,” said the man with the megaphone. “(The Regents) are obviously making it more difficult for minorities to have access to education.”

Such resounding logic. No matter the intention, no matter the auxiliary role race plays in the issue, if your actions have any unfavorable effect on minorities, you are, by these standards, a racist.

How could I have been so blind? Those fee hikes were not the regretful result of days spent grueling over how to solve the worst state budget crisis in recent years. They were the sinister schemes of the racist bourgeois!

So says my copy of The Liberator, the enlightening piece of journalistic novelty distributed during the protests. The deeper I delved into its erudite pages, the more I learned of the esoteric plot of Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives of America alike to uphold their racist agenda.

The action of the UC Regents to raise student fees was no “last resort,” as President Yudof so claims. It is but another cog in the New Jim Crow machine!

Right under our very noses, those in power (whoever that may be) have been systematically, clandestinely and devastatingly stripping minorities of rights in their defense of “White Privilege.” Student fee increases, along with such oppressive measures as SAT scores and school district boundaries, are the tools by which the white supremacists have cunningly usurped power from the non-white masses.

So long as anything doesn’t grant minorities preferential treatment, it must be downright racist. If ever a correlation can be drawn involving race, it obviously entails causation ““ and racism!

And thus my vision cleared, and I saw the world for what it truly is: racist. My whole life has been spent brainwashed by a system in which I, a lowly Filipino, do not belong. Driving racist automobiles, attending racist private schools, living in racist gated communities. I had never even considered the terrible repercussions of neglecting to ensure that my group of friends represented equal proportions of different racial backgrounds. My reckless negligence was yet another contribution to the black curtain of de facto segregation!

Never mind the fact that as of this quarter, minority ethnicities make up at least 49.26 percent of the student body. Or that Asians and Pacific Islanders, historical victims of racial prejudice, alone comprise 32 percent.

And never mind that one-third of the revenue generated from the fee increase will go to mitigate the impact of the hikes on undergraduate students in need of financial aid.

Because outcomes are outcomes, as Mr. Megaphone so thoughtfully articulated, and in this case, the outcomes so blatantly point to blatant racism.

And yet how can we expect any real change when the world has yet to see what we see?

Case in point: Anne Alvarez, a second-year biochemistry student involved in the protests.

“(Many students) totally made it into a race issue when it was really just a student issue regardless of race,” she told me as I pondered the bleak state of racial affairs in the UC system.

With such skepticism against us, and from our own fellow students no less, the road ahead is fraught with obstacles. If only they could see how their disregard has been implanted by the ever-present racist powers! There is no time for levelheadedness or reasoned arguments when it’s easier to jump to hasty conclusions and appeal to contrarian pathos.

For too long have we sat idly by, blind eyes turned to the unashamed injustices at the hands of predatory bigots in upper management. What we face is not the necessary sacrifice to quell the systemic shortcomings of a state budget crisis, but the evils of white supremacist Jim Crow alive and well.

And everyone knows demonizing your enemy and victimizing yourself are the best ways to reinforce your credibility.

If you can’t find your race card, e-mail Manalastas at [email protected]. Send general comments to [email protected].