Makibaka! Huwag matakot!
Unless you’re fluent in Tagalog, the language endemic to
the Philippines, you probably didn’t know that phrase means,
“Dare to struggle! Do not be afraid!”
UCLA students used this chant last quarter while protesting the
flagging UCLA admission rates of certain minority groups.
Ironically, those were protests that few students joined.
Using a chant that few students could understand belies a larger
problem with activism on campus: Groups that appear to be
exclusively ethnic advocate for the issues that need the most
attention. When activist movements appear to be racially charged,
students who do not identify strongly with a specific ethnicity are
alienated.
In the new year, student leaders can do a better job of
appealing to a diverse student body by packaging their issues in
colorless paper. Think of it as a marketing issue.
Let’s compare two issues: the Taser incident in Powell
Library and diversity.
Three days after an Iranian American student was zapped by
university police, students from the Muslim Students Association
and other groups organized a protest to call for an independent
investigation of the incident.
Before the protest, the issue was racially charged. The victim
planned to sue the police for racial profiling, and students were
quick to defend, or attack, his claims. But there was a feeling
among many students that the issue should not be about race but
rather about police conduct. Had the protest been tinged with the
rhetoric of “discrimination” and “racist
pigs,” those students would have been turned off.
But it wasn’t, and they weren’t. The activists who
spoke at the protest, although many of them hailed from ethnic
student groups, refrained from even mentioning race. They ended up
getting their investigation and winning over the campus.
The issue of diversity, though, hasn’t had so much
success. Far fewer students attended the pro-diversity “Day
of Reckoning” rally than attended the Taser rally.
Further, the students who did attend were almost uniformly
Chicano, black or Pacific Islander, indicating that larger ethnic
groups on campus ““ such as white, Chinese and Middle Eastern
students ““ didn’t feel much solidarity with the
movement.
Given the nature of the cause, it’s not surprising that
the underrepresented were overrepresented at the protest.
But in order for diversity to really gather momentum, as did the
Taser investigation or divestment from Darfur, activists must do a
better job of appealing to the broader campus.
“We want to focus on not fighting over pieces of the pie,
but making the pie bigger,” said Lucero Chavez, director of
campus organizing and a fourth-year American literature and culture
and Chicana/o studies student.
But with T-shirts that say, “got black students?” as
a key publicity tool for diversity on campus, it seems as though
underrepresented groups are just trying to increase the size of the
darker slice of the pie.
Here’s how activists can fix their image:
“¢bull; Play up the benefits of a diverse campus for all
students. White and Asian students can make themselves more
cosmopolitan by learning from students of different ethnic
backgrounds. The T-shirts could read, “Got milk? Sure, but
what good is it without chocolate?”
“¢bull; Emphasize how academic outreach programs help all ethnic
groups. Activists are requesting $33 million from UC Regents for
programs to help students from poor schools get into UCLA. These
programs benefit all races. Take the Early Academic Outreach
Program, for instance. It helps students in more than 350 high
schools with tutoring and college admittance. Twenty-one percent of
those students are white and Asian.
“¢bull; Tone down the rhetoric and militancy. With most students
concerned more about their GPAs than social justice, the days of
sit-ins and clenched fists are over, and the regents know it.
They’ll be much more convinced by a sensible proposal coming
from the entire campus than by a polyglot of ethnic groups with
banners, rhetoric and a megaphone.
We do need more diversity at UCLA. Likewise, we need
affirmative-action-style policies in order to help end racial
inequality in our country. But without the support of everyone,
we’ll never get them implemented.
While some students are underrepresented here, this campus is
pretty diverse. If one wants to mobilize the diverse range of
white, Asian, black and Chicano students, one must appeal to each
one of them. If all campus activists take this idea to heart,
they’ll gain broader support for their causes. Doing so
sounds to me like one hell of a New Year’s resolution.
Got a resolution for your student group? E-mail Reed at
treed@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to
viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.