Debate regarding Latinos, African Americans unjust

Monday, October 13, 1997

Debate regarding Latinos, African Americans unjust

PAIN: Racial slurs cause harm instead of opening lines of
communication

By Dr. John Cunningham

There is no doubt that I possess a sentimental relationship to
teaching. Because students are people, I can’t help but have a
personal relationship with my students. This type of bond, for me,
is perhaps the greatest ideal the university offers, for by
focusing on learning, a safer and more loving space is allotted to
its members than they sometimes have in the world at large. I am
thus sorry to see the Daily Bruin publish, in two weeks, two
hateful attacks on some of the students – not to mention staff and
faculty – on this campus. I realize that "hate" is a strong word
and have chosen it carefully.

A letter on Sept. 30 ("Racism is not the problem") from a UCLA
alumna blames an allegedly defective black culture for the
socio-economic inequities facing African Americans and declares
that black men are justifiably to be feared. A columnist on Oct. 7
("I am the root of all minority problems") suggests that black and
Latino students at UCLA – all of whom were admitted to UCLA before
affirmative action was abolished – are unjustly here at the expense
of more deserving white students. I do not accept these pieces as
simply "points of view" on contemporary issues of race.
Condemnations of the culture, "scariness," and very presence of
African American and Latino students are not merely abstract
arguments. They are real attacks on the African American and Latino
people walking on this campus.

I can’t begin to understand why these writers feel they need to
express such animosity toward members of their own university, but
most of all I’m saddened that the Bruin’s editorial staff provides
a vehicle for attacks on African American and Latino community
members. Perhaps the Bruin believes that this is a way to begin a
"debate." But an honest debate about race, one in which all the
participants have a voice, does not begin with an attack on African
Amercian culture, the demonization of African American men and the
denial of a place at the table for African American and Latino
students. Such beginnings are really endings, with the goal of
silencing, if not totally eliminating, African Americans and
Latinos from UCLA.

I want to offer something to ease the pain these pieces have
already caused, but the thing about hateful speech is that it hangs
with you. The human damage it inflicts cannot be "debated"
away.