Some responses from UCSD students who are API:
To Asian Americans at UCSD:
Perhaps the one thing that frustrates and disheartens me almost as much as the idiots the threw the racist party, said the racial slur, and hung the noose is the apathy— antagonism, even— Asian Americans have towards the BSU and their allies. I can’t seem to wrap around my mind why this is.
Why don’t you care?
Is it because when you look around you and see that the majority of this campus is Asian and you think our people have risen so far that you don’t realize that it was not so long ago that we were discriminated against we are still being discriminated against (should you have any doubt I refer you here and here)? Are your noses so engrossed in your biology or economics textbooks that you don’t see those crying around you and are numb to the pain of others? Or is it because we have forgotten, in our collective memory, the debt of gratitude that we have owed and still owe to the Black community? Maybe you just don’t understand why people are offended, then I urge you to read the multiple letters from faculty and students explaining why before you speak; ignorance can be forgiven — to a certain extent — but stupidity cannot.
Perhaps many of you do see the racism and discrimination around you but are you so concerned about graduating and getting a good job without causing any trouble that you are willing to let it happen?
Before you call the BSU and their allies a bunch of “selfish whiners” or “irrational” understand that they are not doing this for themselves; they’ve been through this institution and have already been victims of its racism. They are doing it so their brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters don’t have to go through it too. They are doing it so your brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters don’t have to go through it. Ask yourself the last thing you’ve done for social justice and the betterment of others before you open your mouth to criticize.
They are not asking much from you. They are not asking for your rights to be taken away from you so they can have theirs. They are simply asking to hold their hand in their time of need and whisper to them that you’ll be by their side as they have been by yours.
-Duc Tran
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please understand that what you feel may not be what others may be feeling. please understand that the participating students, faculty, and community members are not acting irrationally! please understand that maybe you are questioning the actions of BSU and MEChA because you don’t understand the entire story. there is a reason why they are fighting for themselves, and for me, for you, and for our future.
what we are fighting for is not silence, passivity, or the slap to those who have stirred these events. we are fighting for justice, for understanding, for solidarity, for the future of our society and our world to put an end to hateful actions that personally threaten the mind, body, and soul of people of color and of people who are mistreated.
when i was in high school, i was apathetic to issues in my community that dealt with race and education. i saw a race riot happen in my own eyes by the violence of police targeting Black, Asian, Latino students and faculty at my school. my english teacher spoke to us to act out against why we didn’t have the quality of education that most of the other San Francisco schools were privileged to have. at that time, i didn’t see or feel the consequences. now that i am here at a public institution for higher education, i now understand the consequences because i believe i am educated to understand.
as a woman of color, i am fighting for my family who have struggled with racism when they immigrated to America, so that they can give me the privileged life that i am blessed with. i am fighting for my friends and peers, who i have personally felt racism affect them in all different ways, whether it is verbal or active. i am fighting for my classmates who’s trust and comfort in the UCSD community was lost when no progressive action was taken to educate their students or to prevent an action like hanging a noose at our symbolic geisel library occur. i am fighting for myself because i know that what i personally feel is anger, confusion, sadness, and disappointment. i am fighting because i have been educated by Thurgood Marshall College’s DOC program, by my experience at a high school placed in a struggling environment in one of the most diverse and rich cities in the country. i am fighting because i UNDERSTAND and FEEL the struggles, the voiceless emotions, the harmful consequences that will happen if i ignore what is happening now. if i don’t act now, i will regret it in the future, as i do about my apathy during my years in high school.
i see some of my peers, my chinese brother and sisters, my filipino brothers and sisters, my college mates question the actions of BSU, MEChA, KP, people of color, of mixed sexualities, of MIXED IDENTITIES.
if you want to know, why don’t you come up to us and ASK us why we are doing what we are doing? Don’t ask us to be quiet if you don’t even understand the story, the issues, the problems, THE STRUGGLE. please understand that maybe you are questioning our actions because you just don’t understand our story.
-rroni/bex
