Campus cultural divisions block communication
By Jared Black
I am confused. I am truly confused about the mentality of
students on this campus who cling to their own religious and/or
ethnic groups, refusing to integrate with others. On this side of
Bruin Walk is your organization’s table. On the other side sits the
opposing organization’s team. Why can’t they both get along?
Because their group’s country just attacked your country, and
it’s all over the news. Therefore, those two groups begin their
on-campus battle, as if they were directly responsible for these
acts of hostility going on 5,000 miles away.
Is this the only way we can vent our anger toward another race
or religion, by going up in arms against our classmates? Why do we
have separate groups, and why do we stick close to them even when
conflict is not on the horizon?
On the UCLA campus, everyone is so concerned with conflict.
Everyone seems to want trouble these days. Any given group is just
waiting for someone to say something, anything, so they can attack
it and call it offensive, or "politically incorrect."
You can’t call someone Black, Hispanic or Oriental anymore
because people tell you it isn’t right. Some divine being who has
written The Politically Correct Ten Commandments has decided that
it should be African American, Latino/a and Asian American.
Handicapped people must now be called physically challenged, and
illiterate people are now referred to as being literally
challenged. Soon enough we’ll have to call aliens Martian
American.
Can I ask a quick question? What was wrong with what we used to
call everyone? I just can’t see what is so offensive about being
called Hispanic instead of Latino or Oriental instead of Asian. Is
it a problem of the majority labeling the minority?
I am Jewish. I am a minority as well, even though the UC system
refuses to recognize it. My people have been oppressed, and they
have been murdered by acts of hatred. I am usually referred to as a
"Jew." I would rather be referred to as "Jewish" instead of making
me sound like an object. But do I stand out on Bruin Walk and
scream racism? No, I do not. I know that people do not call me a
Jew because they want to degrade me. If they wanted to degrade me
they would call me a Keik. Everyone knows the derogatory terms for
their own race. But when someone refers to another person in what
they believe is a non-demeaning way, it creates a verbal war.
Let’s say someone of one ethnicity offends someone of another
ethnicity by calling them a politically incorrect name in public.
In order to make the scene most groups want to make, people have to
congregate. Have you ever noticed how in a gang, one member isn’t
so tough when they’re alone, but as soon as they have their crew
behind them they act like they’re immortal?
Have we grown up with the human instinct to hate people who
aren’t like us? We just sit patiently in our own little groups on
campus, and sometimes it seems like we’re hoping someone will
offend us so that we can attack. It was never like this in the
’70s, not even in the ’80s. Why are we so hostile now?
Do you think you’re politically correct? Do you think you’re
racist? Do you think your parents are? Statistics show that 90
percent of college students’ parents have raised them to marry
within their own race and/or religion. What does that show for our
own parents? For many of us, our instructions since birth have been
to marry our own kind. If we don’t, the whole family, especially
Grandma, will be "devastated."
Do we need this pressure to stay within our in-group? What’s
wrong with marrying someone who believes in a different god than
you do? My Jewish mother told me the same thing my whole life: "You
had better, just better marry a nice Jewish girl." I will admit
that because of my desire to raise a Jewish family, I will marry a
nice Jewish girl. But isn’t that exactly what creates this
separation among all of us, this need to be alone and secluded from
other people who are different?
"If you don’t believe what I believe, if your physical features
aren’t the same as mine, if your people weren’t oppressed the way
my people were oppressed, don’t you dare come close, and don’t you
dare say anything to offend me, because if you do …"
That is the statement that every ethnic and religious group
should post on the front of their Bruin Walk table. Isn’t it sad
what we’ve come to? I would hope that an educated group of
university students could see through all of this hatred and uneasy
feeling some day, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen
anytime soon.
Just remember, your god and my god put us both on one planet for
a reason.
Black is a senior anthropology student.