Race unworthy of excessive coverage

Monday, April 20, 1998

Race unworthy of excessive coverage

RACISM: Bruin discourse ignores that we are our own people, not
members of groups

By MacLane Key

Recent issues of the Daily Bruin prominently displayed articles
and letters dealing with race so frequently that it caused me to
wonder just how race-obsessed UCLA’s main student publication
actually is.

Interestingly enough, most of these articles can be condensed
into something like the following: "A number of race-based groups
complained of some wrong being committed against them by all
members of some other racial classification. They demanded all
members of their groups be given a doctorate, $2 million, a tenured
faculty position, a voting position in the U.S. Senate, the right
to oppress other races to ‘get even with them,’ and a mule. They
also claimed anyone who disagrees with them is an insensitive,
racist Hitler wanna-be who has oppressed them personally for 10,000
years, wants all students and senior citizens to starve to death,
kicks puppies and tells 4-year-olds there’s no Santa Claus."

Of archived Daily Bruin’s from last quarter available online,
over 50-percent contained either a main news article or a Viewpoint
article dealing with race. This figure (which doesn’t include
related issues like immigration and bilingual education) seems a
little high when one considers how insignificant race really
is.

Yes, you read that correctly. Race does not deserve the amount
of attention it receives on this campus, and it is completely
insignificant in the university setting.

I can understand how that concept may shock you. After all, for
as long as you’ve been at UCLA you’ve been bombarded with the
message that race is of the utmost importance. This message came to
you directly from those in your student government – like the
current USAC president who refers to the Los Angeles riots as the
"Los Angeles Rebellion" – and from the various race-based groups on
campus. The message also comes to you indirectly from the amount of
coverage racial issues receive in this paper.

The message of these purveyors of racial division is simple:
race matters. Race determines every aspect of your life; thus,
members of the same race must band together to get more of the pie
for their race. If the percentage of individuals from one race
admitted drops, it’s not because there weren’t as many qualified
applicants from that race; it’s because they’re oppressed. The
answer is not to reform our educational system to ensure that all
children receive a good education by introducing school vouchers
and abolishing social promotion; it’s to ignore the underlying
problems and give people a preference because they belong to an
"underrepresented race."

They sing the praises of "diversity," though they only mean
"racial diversity." Think about this: probably the most
underrepresented classification at UCLA, both in student body and
in faculty, is conservative individuals. However, "diversity"
hounds have yet to protest in favor of preferences for
conservatives.

Race-based groups, by their mere existence, tell people they
should associate with members of their own race rather than with
others, and some actually reach down into the high schools to make
sure young students are aware of the issues facing their race in
college. Additionally, these groups’ leaders will arrogantly claim
to speak for all members of their racial group.

It’s easy to see how anyone at UCLA could fall into the trap of
thinking race matters, but they’d be wrong. Every single person
reading this is an individual. Your race only determines a few
meaningless physical characteristics, and everything meaningful is
determined by you. Whether you take advantage of the opportunities
here for you at UCLA and learn the skills which make you not only
more employable, but also a better person, is entirely up to you.
You could instead major in women’s, gay or some minority studies,
but then it’s your decisions which made you unemployable, not
racism. The same is true if you got into UCLA pre-Proposition 209
and weren’t really prepared for a college at this level: if your
scores were below the average here and you came anyway, your
struggle in your classes is not due to racism.

You can approach people with a pleasant attitude and make
friends easily with most everybody or you can only hang out with
those who look like you. It’s your choice. You are what’s important
to how you do in your classes, how your life turns out and how
happy you are.

This is not to say there’s not racism out there. There are
morons in each race who want to blame their own shortcomings on
anyone but themselves, so they form race-based groups like the KKK,
MEChA and ASU. Those few racists out there can’t have a major
effect on your life if you don’t let them. Also, racism from other
races is easy to detect and condemn, but it’s the racism of people
in our own racial group which is harder to resist. They offer
acceptance and a scapegoat.

If we’re going to live together in a multi-racial society, we
need to learn a lesson from how we deal with religious issues. The
differences among the various religions present in America are much
more significant than differences of race, yet it isn’t a major
problem. It’s simply because we haven’t made it a major
problem.

We need to start ignoring those who tell us race is important.
They are nothing but ignorant racists. You can ignore race as
unimportant and help bring about a better tomorrow, or you can join
the race-obsessed mass and insure that your children will still be
dealing with the troubles caused by that racial obsession. As with
everything else in your life, you, the individual, must decide for
yourself.