UCLA Communist club calls for dropping charges against Prop.
187
protesters
Speakers urge freedom of speech, support for worker party
By Jennifer Morita
Members of a campus Communist group, the Spartacus Youth Club,
urged about 20 listeners at Meyerhoff Park Tuesday afternoon to
mobilize against Proposition 187 and demand that the university
police drop charges against the 26 protesters arrested at last
week’s sit-in at Murphy Hall.
Responding to the arrest of the "UCLA 26" Â that included
two of its own members  the club organized a speakout
sponsored by the You See Free Speech group, which promotes free and
open speech forums at Meyerhoff Park.
"On Nov. 17, 26 protesters, including myself, were arrested by
UCLA police shot troopers for exercising our rights of free speech
and free assembly," Spartacus member John Fitzgerald told the
audience.
"I’m not here today to debate whether Prop. 187 is right or
wrong," said Fitzgerald, a third-year transfer student from UC
Irvine. "It is blatantly wrong. As much as the Chinese Exclusion
Act, as much as Jim Crow (laws) in the south, and as much as the
Japanese internment."
Spartacus Youth Club and its parent group the Spartacist League
maintain that anti-immigration laws like Proposition 187 are
attempts to make minority groups the scapegoats for the problems
that capitalism creates, Spartacist League member Kathy Finnegan
said.
The clubs support the demonstrators’ rights to protest and
demand that the charges against them be dropped, Finnegan
added.
But some students said the controversial measure was passed by a
majority of the people and therefore, should be respected as
law.
"People should have the right to speak out about problems they
see," said computer science graduate student Joel Short. "But also,
it was determined by a majority rule that Proposition 187 should
pass. I think the basis for providing education and rights for
people is very important  but the rights are for citizens. To
achieve those rights you should follow the rules and become a
citizen."
Spartacus member Joaquim Flores, a UCLA extension student
arrested during the Nov. 17 protest, told listeners that the
Democratic and Republican parties are equally racist.
"The bourgeois Republican Party supports Proposition 187,"
Flores said. "The equally racist and bourgeois Democratic Party
supports the militarization of the U.S. border. What we have here,
once again, is the state using immigrant bashing to divide the
working class."
Despite the Communist club’s critiques, some students disagreed
with the club’s view that capitalism, the political parties and
racism are inherently linked
"I’m against Prop. 187 and I think it’s kind of racist. But, I
don’t think there is a relationship between capitalism and racism,"
said Shu Fen, a math graduate student from Taiwan.
According to Fitzgerald, the club invited other campus
organizations to voice their opinions at the speakout. However, the
only other group at the speakout was You See Free Speech.
"We didn’t really expect 500,000 people," Fitzgerald said. "We
wanted to make sure our viewpoint got heard. As long as two or
three people in the audience heard us, we feel the speakout was a
success."