Protesters seek level playing field

Tuesday, May 26, 1998

Protesters seek level playing field

PRINCIPLES: Affirmative action rewards those students forced

to travel difficult road to education

By Kristi Nakamura

Marlon Cicero’s column criticizing the Prop. 209 protesters
("Prop. 209 protesters should be colorblind," May 19) and twisting
their demonstrations of unity and peaceful protest into a tangle of
misinformation is yet another example of why racism, sexism, and
other types of discrimination still prevail in the education
system.

The view Cicero presents of the world is simplistic and naive at
best. He claims that, "Every single United States citizen has the
chance to succeed in our great capitalistic society if they work
hard enough." This is an idea that could only exist in a perfect
world.

The reality is that not everyone is given an equal chance to
succeed. Some people really do have to work harder than others for
the same amount of success. In 1995, the United States Bureau of
the Census reported disturbing, yet not surprising, statistics on
the mean earnings by educational attainment and sex for full time
workers over the age of 18.

At every level of education, men, on average, make more money
than women. As levels of education rise, the salary discrepancy
grows larger as well, which is even more reason why, for the time
being, we need programs like affirmative action at the college
level.

The gross disparity between the education students at schools in
wealthier districts receive and the education students in poorer
districts struggle for is similar to a cake that is baked uneven.
Affirmative action is a temporary fix, like the extra frosting you
might use to even the cake out. However, its never the same as if
you had just baked the cake evenly in the first place.

Until we find a way to equalize pre-school, elementary, middle
and high school education so that every student has equal access to
the resources they need in striving toward higher education, we
need the "frosting" of affirmative action to smooth out the
inequalities dealt to subordinated student groups by larger
structural problems.

I do not believe that men are just better workers than women and
deserve to be paid more in "our great capitalistic society." It
makes no sense to me that on average, a woman who has worked hard
to earn a bachelor’s degree earns nearly $3,000 less per year than
a man who has completed some college, but has no degree.

The situation is no better for ethnic minorities who, the Los
Angeles Times says, are earning less today (compared to whites)
than they were 40 years ago. The study, as reported in the Times,
states that Mexican American men were paid about 81% of the median
income of non-Hispanic white men in 1959. By 1989 the figure
dropped to 61%. The income figures for African American men dropped
by 10% in the same time period, from 67% of what white men were
earning to 57%.

It is nice to imagine that we can be colorblind, but as part of
a society historically laden with prejudice, and even violence,
against people because of the color of their skin, the religion
they practice, their sexual orientation, their gender and just
about any other difference those in power could think up to
distinguish themselves as superior, blindness is not a realistic
option.

Rather than close our eyes to the problem and hope it will go
away, we need to be strong and brave as we turn to face it –
because the problem is real. There are people out there who will
try to trivialize and denigrate the issue rather than take a look
at the darkness and prejudice inside themselves.

For example, on the day Proposition 209 protesters reclaimed
Royce Hall, a group of white students sitting in the back of my
Milton class made the comment, "They want affirmative action, I’ll
give them affirmative action. Just give me an uzi and I’ll go in
there and show them equal opportunity death!" Somehow this was
funny to that group.

One would think that, as ignorant people, they would understand
what it is like to be discriminated against. In their self-centered
orientation to a society that in so many ways favors them, they
refuse to understand what it is like to live everyday hearing the
message that you are not good enough to be here, that your fight
for affirmative action is futile and stupid.

It is so much easier to cry out against the injustices one feels
are being done to him or herself without taking into consideration
the privileges that the blind education system distributes in
unequal amounts to people of different backgrounds.

The argument Cicero makes seems to be solid, and no one will
disagree that we should all be judged individually based on our
merit. What he neglects to mention is that by taking away
affirmative action, the UC system is sending the message that they
are blind to the harder road some students have to take to come
this far. By taking away affirmative action, UCLA is rewarding not
the students who have worked extra hard, but those whose paths in
life have been easier to travel.

Not to mention that the standards the UC system uses to measure
merit, high school GPA and SAT scores, are not equally fair. A
study issued by The College Board in 1997 stated that SAT scores in
California rise with the income of the student’s family and the
education of the student’s parents. This indicates that some
students are born with an advantage because, for some reason, money
and the education of your parents strongly influences how well you
will do on the SAT. GPA is merely a measure of how well a student
can assimilate to a system that favors white, heterosexual men.

Cicero’s ideological twin Matthew Gever ("Merit-based admission
preserves high standard," May 20), who claims affirmative action
diminishes the value of his UCLA diploma, conveniently ignores the
facts, using a hateful emotion-based argument that tries to shut
down rational debate.

Gever reminds me of a guy who lived on my dorm floor last year.
This guy claimed that he was rejected from UC Berkeley because of
affirmative action. He says that because he is a white male, his
spot was given to an "undeserving person of color." His own anger
and frustration was so great that he could not see beyond himself
to the larger picture. He could not see that in reality very few
students are admitted under affirmative action and that those
admitted are extremely qualified to attend UC schools. Obviously
this guy did not take into consideration that maybe he was the one
who was under-qualified to attend UC Berkeley.

What is really sad, though, is that this guy complains about
being rejected from UC Berkeley, one of the most prestigious
universities in the nation (and I’m sure his life is so much worse
for being forced to go to UCLA), when there are tens of thousands
of students from subordinated groups who are not allowed access to
any type of higher education because their GPA and SAT scores do
not accurately reflect their hard work. When the playing field
starts out uneven, the person who makes the greatest advancements
can still be below the qualification level because others began
with a dramatically greater advantage.

The Proposition 209 protesters taught me a lesson about power,
solidarity and the importance of diversity that I never could have
learned in a classroom. College is not only about learning from
professors and books – its about social and political learning as
well. I know I have so much more to learn from these students who
cared enough about education to stand up and make a statement to
protect diverse access to the system, than from the people like
Cicero, Gever, the clan in the back of my Milton class, the guy
from my dorm floor and others like them. We all benefit from
diversity.

As I watched some of the most powerfully righteous and empowered
students risk their own safety in taking back Royce Hall, that
tragically closed-minded guy who lived in the dorms with me
proclaimed that he was "ashamed to be a Bruin" because the
protesters made the rest of the school "look bad." I am sorry he
feels that way because, in all honesty, those protesters made me
proud to be a Bruin. I am proud to go to a school where students
are not apathetic, where students are willing to make personal
sacrifices for their beliefs and try to make the world a better
place for future generations.