Its funny how an entire week has passed since the racial terrorizing of a female undergraduate at a UA dorm, and not one university related media outlet has touched it, not even to deny it. Its also funny (well, not funny haha, but funny oh) that students themselves have not intervened in this silence to make this case an institutional priority.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, there exist people that actually do feel strongly about such issues, and they show this through participation in a flash of collective action that swiftly and effectively demonstrate that racially motivated crimes will not be tolerated by that student body and, in one and the same event, force their university to account for such an offense by demanding educational measures that address the history of race-related violence in the US. This place is called the University of California San Diego, and last week, after a noose was found hanging in the library, what did the students do? Well, they stormed the Chancellor's offices in protest.
Talk about a peer institution. Yes, please!
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Hate Crime Being Investigated at the UA––Haven't You Heard?
Colleagues,
I take to this forum once again to bring to your attention a very serious incident that occured in a UA dorm over the weekend. Haven't heard about it? Really? You don't say?
What is important about this incident is that it has NOT been given any coverage whatsoever, except for a very brief story ran by the local nightly news.
http://www.kvoa.com/news/hate-crime-being-investigated-at-ua/
This incident, which the story reports is being investigated as a hate crime, involves the drawing of a confederate flag and the words "Southern Pride" on the entry door of a female, African-American undergrad's dorm room. Though she has filed a police-report, and working with University officials to relocate her to another residence hall, Dorm officials cannot guarantee that this will not happen again.
Needless to say, this is a terrible thing to have happen to anybody, let alone a young female undergraduate who also indicates she is the only African-American resident in the building. The latter, in and of itself, testifies to the UA's serious and embarassing issues with diversity on campus; the former––the racially-motivated incident itself––speaks to a sense of entitlement, felt by some students, to vocalize (or in this case write and draw on someone's door) their view that the University is already too diverse for their liking. One might wonder if the latter students actually came to the UA after looking at the University's diversity stats and felt it would be a good fit? In either case, this is shameful situation, but further, and once again, the University's silence over it is even worse.
The UA website and the Daily Wildcat have yet to mention one word about this incident (I have been checking). Has the story been buried? Where are our student reporters? Have they been told to stay away from it? Has it been deemed not significant enough of a story? Like the previous chalking incidents from last year, institutional silence and silencing is both something to pay attention to, and something that speaks very very clearly.
I take to this forum once again to bring to your attention a very serious incident that occured in a UA dorm over the weekend. Haven't heard about it? Really? You don't say?
What is important about this incident is that it has NOT been given any coverage whatsoever, except for a very brief story ran by the local nightly news.
http://www.kvoa.com/news/hate-crime-being-investigated-at-ua/
This incident, which the story reports is being investigated as a hate crime, involves the drawing of a confederate flag and the words "Southern Pride" on the entry door of a female, African-American undergrad's dorm room. Though she has filed a police-report, and working with University officials to relocate her to another residence hall, Dorm officials cannot guarantee that this will not happen again.
Needless to say, this is a terrible thing to have happen to anybody, let alone a young female undergraduate who also indicates she is the only African-American resident in the building. The latter, in and of itself, testifies to the UA's serious and embarassing issues with diversity on campus; the former––the racially-motivated incident itself––speaks to a sense of entitlement, felt by some students, to vocalize (or in this case write and draw on someone's door) their view that the University is already too diverse for their liking. One might wonder if the latter students actually came to the UA after looking at the University's diversity stats and felt it would be a good fit? In either case, this is shameful situation, but further, and once again, the University's silence over it is even worse.
The UA website and the Daily Wildcat have yet to mention one word about this incident (I have been checking). Has the story been buried? Where are our student reporters? Have they been told to stay away from it? Has it been deemed not significant enough of a story? Like the previous chalking incidents from last year, institutional silence and silencing is both something to pay attention to, and something that speaks very very clearly.
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