UCLA’s smallest minority adds its voice to the diversity clamor

Monday, September 22, 1997 UCLA’s smallest minority adds its
voice to the diversity clamor SOCIETY: Militant group deserves
empowerment, recognition, equal rights

By Ann Hermele

UCLA’s recruiters love to tout our campus’s diversity. We run
around debating a diversity requirement. Soon, top UCLA
administrators will convene their meeting on the "Diversification
of the Diversity Debate" in an attempt to gather more diverse
opinions into the debate. Each group on campus is supposed to have
a representative.

UCLA has attempted to outpace the nation itself in allowing each
group to have its own strong identity, which together forms the
overall American identity.

But who has been ignored, silenced, forgotten? Who are still, to
this day, the victims of our "benign neglect?"

It’s a small group (large in number, but small in size). They’re
unassuming, yet they watch your every move. You ignore them as they
scurry for safety from the oppressive masses. Yes, our one
unrepresented group on campus, with not even one enrolled student
from among its ranks (as far as my extensive research has
revealed), much less their own major, is, you called it …

THE SQUIRRELS!

You may not pay much attention to the hundreds of furry little
squirrels on campus, but they notice you. They watch you in your
dorm rooms. They sift through your trash (one of their more
noticeable activities). They wear tiny little army fatigues. They
set up strategic bases in the Tropix drink shop in Ackerman. They
eat your Honey Nut Crunch cereal. They sculpt cheese into the
likeness of Ted Kennedy. Oops … that last one is me. But they do
all that other stuff. And their revolution is on the rise.

Having already won martial law over the small province of
Nutvia, they strive for greater conquest. Giving up the idea of
invading Nebraska by sea, they now aim at our campus. Their plan:
off the chancellor, become hero of the people by eliminating all
registration fees, and then slowly (ever-SO-slowly) enslave us all
as … nutpickers! (The true insanity of it all is that there isn’t
a single nut-bearing tree on campus. Which, considering the lewd
nature of such a tree, is probably a good thing. And, according to
the Squirrel Census Bureau, 94 percent of squirrels don’t even like
nuts!)

How, you wonder in your every conscious moment, do I know all
this about the underground (well, mostly above ground, in trees)
world of Squirreldom (not referring, of course, to the new soap
opera called "Squirreldom," featuring an all-squirrel cast)? Two
squirrels, both with Estonian accents, jumped on my back. Before I
could even attempt to say anything, they began trading secret
information. (They didn’t notice me, covered as I was with lecture
notes, Taco Bell wrappers, and ancient Egyptian artifacts.) " …
off chancellor … eliminate fees … enslaved nut-pickers …"

My anonymity was soon destroyed, though.

Upon my realization that talking squirrels were on MY back, I
became quite excited. So excited, in fact, that I began singing
"Ch-Ch-Ch-Chip and Dale’s Rescue Rangers!" You see, I mistook these
bloodthirsty rebels for the slightly more amiable Chip and
Dale.

They were not pleased with my discovery of them. They were even
less pleased with my obvious faux pas.

"Ve are not cheepmunks, you … you … Amereecan peeg. Ver are
squirrels!" (All Revolutionaries, as you know, have Russian
accents. Proof: Lt. Pavel Chekov.) Before I could even protest that
I am by no means silly, they carried me off to the Great Oak (of
Smurf fame), blindfolded. (I was blindfolded, not the tree.) I am
now, under threat of Star Trek deprivation, forced to be the
squirrels’ spy among humans. The oddest part of the whole deal is
that they make me wear a squirrel-suit. They asked, who would
suspect such an obvious spy?

I thought them quite clever.

From what I’ve learned, it’s not as though the squirrels went to
such extreme revolutionary tactics right away. They began by trying
to man a table on Bruin Walk. They put a banner over their table
reading "UCLA Tree-Hoppers." Not wanting to be confused for birds,
they soon changed it to "UCLA Tree-Hoppers with Tails." Realizing
that birds, too, have tails, they quickly switched to "UCLA
Tree-Hoppers with Furry Tails and Little Paws with Estonian
Accents."

Satisfied with their club’s title, they began to pass out
literature. As it turns out, though, they did not take into account
the oppressive majority’s size. The very small fliers and Rice
Krispy-size banner went unnoticed by virtually all students, except
for one particular fellow who had not had breakfast that morning
and went about consuming the Rice Krispy look-alike banner. Adding
insult to injury, passers-by would often pat the
politically-motivated squirrels on their heads. "What cutie-wootie
wittle squirry-wirry fuzzy-wuzzy …" The baby talk ended abruptly
with the squirrels’ vicious, lacerating bites given out quite
liberally and with gleeful abandon. Although providing fleeting
amusement to the squirrels, the biting did not solve the lack of
civil rights given to them.

The next logical step was a march. The squirrels planned to
march around the perimeter of Westwood, weave through North Campus
and descend, finally, upon South Campus, in a flurry of fur and
fear-inducing rage. However, hampered by the the very small steps
squirrels take, they settled for a march from the Royce Hall to
Powell Library.

Despite all the chanting and marching efforts of the squirrels,
no one seemed to notice. On top of that, the same hungry student
from the failed Bruin Walk table effort began to eat their signs
which he mistook for toothpicks with cheese on top, a satisfying
yet light snack, to his mind. (In fact, the toothpicks were made of
toothpicks and a cheese-flavored substance, engraved with tiny
squirrel-etched slogans like, "No One Likes a Squirrel without
Fur!" which made little sense to anyone but the squirrel
leadership, which, facing roadblock after frustrating roadblock,
had begun their descent into madness.

After this unnoticed march, the squirrels began planning
desperate acts for attention. An example was the attempt to eat our
most treasured building, the Taco Bell stand. Sadly, after one tiny
bite each, the squirrels discovered a common link to their human
oppressors. Taco Bell also made them violently ill. Other insane,
and ultimately unnoticed, attempts at recognition were made. Hence,
unless we act quickly, the next plot will be under way. The
chancellor will be stoned (no, no, all you UCLA Libertarians, not
THAT kind of stoned) … with pecans! The revolution will go
forward.

This true documentation is a warning. If you all wish to avoid
this uprising, this day of reckoning, you must begin to recognize
certain rights. A Squirrel Studies major. A squirrel dorm. A
squirrel caucus in student government. A giant Ted Kennedy monument
in the middle of campus. Things of that nature. Squirrels must have
their place in forming UCLA’s, and the nation’s, identity.

Every day on Bruin Walk, I see tables filled with organizations
based on race, religion, ethnicity and nationality. If people want
or need these groups, then it’s a good thing, filling a gap,
allowing people with a common background to come together. But, at
UCLA, even more than in the U.S. as a whole, it seems that this
kind of social structure is held up as an ideal. I don’t know what
these groups really mean to the people involved, but it seems like
the only thing they are all agreeing on is the need to define and
separate themselves in some way from others on campus.

The American culture, I’ve heard, is made up of all the
different influences of these combined groups. But when I see all
these clubs, I think the idea’s gone overboard. (I’m not thinking
of any specific group, just the situation as a whole.)

I don’t see any ‘American Identity’ shining through all this,
only fragmentation. This, though, has all been said a thousand
times before, by people more qualified to discuss it.

My story here was only meant to emphasize what I see as the
ridiculous nature of this "diversity," the competitive need for
recognition that I think pervades UCLA. And,of course, to appease
my rabid captors … the squirrels from hell.