Dear Caterina,
I had some thoughts about the points you made in your op-ed. This is an opinion piece and I by no means intend to devalue your opinion. The following will be my opinion as well, and while I’ll say that I disagree with you, I hope you will read it because I believe it can offer crucial information to this conversation and overall help all of us get a fuller picture of race relations in the U.S. and at UCLA.
I would take offense if someone of another race had dressed up as my ethnic background. I am Chinese American and pop culture does not really depict my culture correctly or even at all. But let’s say that my culture was a part of pop culture and that this party had instead been called the “Wild, Wild, East.” The equivalent situation of the chains and clothes worn at the “Kanye Western” party would have been people dressing up with pointy straw hats and qipaos tailored shorter. Instead of padded bottoms, it would’ve been stretching and taping of eyes to make them look smaller. I could not possibly look at that situation as a celebration of my culture, but rather a shabby mimicry that belittles my culture, my body and my identity.
You made a point that the percentage of murders committed by black Americans matches the percentage of black Americans arrested overall for murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery and aggravated assault, and concluded that it therefore showed no evidence of racism.
Out of the total incarcerated population, only 2.9 percent are incarcerated because of violent crime, while 48.4 percent are incarcerated because of drug crimes. For the latter, black Americans make up nearly half of this at 44.8 percent, while white Americans make up 28.5 percent. However, no race has been proven more likely to do drugs than the next, meaning in theory, they should be incarcerated similarly to population proportion. But black Americans only make up 13.2 percent of America, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. So black Americans are incarcerated at higher proportions than any other race, despite the fact that other races are just as likely to commit drug crimes.
So why are black Americans incarcerated at higher rates for drugs? For the longest time, crack – which is more commonly found in black neighborhoods – had a 100-to-1 ratio, meaning that possessing 5 grams of crack was equivalent to the severity and the punishment that possessing 500 grams of cocaine warrants, despite the fact that they are the same drug, only separated by baking soda. President Barack Obama reduced the ratio to 18-to-1 in the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, but that ratio of 100-to-1 had been in place since 1986, meaning that there had been 24 years of mass incarceration of black Americans.
But you do make a good point that black Americans have high black-on-black crime and have the highest ratio in violent crimes. What that should tell us is not that this is a problem that only involves and should be dealt with by the black community, but instead it should speak to a very broken justice system and history of racism that has crippled black Americans.
Twenty-four years of disproportionately incarcerated black Americans means thousands of homes in the past two decades lacked a father or a brother. And thousands of black Americans get out only to find that their felony has made it impossible to find a job, a stable living situation and qualify for certain welfare options and benefits, leaving them to resort to the streets to feed their families. That’s where gangs arise and where the most black-on-black crime happens. It’s this vicious cycle that persists.
Let’s be reminded that I’m only talking about the effects of 24 years of the 100-to-1 sentencing on crack cocaine. Let’s not forget the centuries of slavery, Jim Crow laws, segregation, etc. that have made it near-impossible for the black community to succeed. We need to be aware of the accumulation of historical injustices against the black community and we cannot be colorblind to it all. We need to start defending and protecting the black community and enacting reparations for the centuries of oppression that we as a country have placed on them. We’re a country that proclaims freedom, but the black community is in chains and behind bars. I think it’s important for all of us, regardless of our race, to own up to that and work toward a better future.
I’m glad that you want the promotion of education in the black community. I will say that there is a great “This American Life” podcast titled “The Problem We All Live With” that you should check out. Despite the Brown v. Board of Education decision that was made during the Civil Rights Movement, schools are still segregated. It’s not a lie that Asian Americans and white Americans tend to be in wealthier and more resourced school districts than black Americans and Latinos. That is a problem we all live with. We should all be fighting for that.
I’m also glad that you want all black Americans to feel proud of who they are. That’s an excellent thing to desire for a community. I will say that the Afrikan Student Union is full of people who are proud of their skin color and culture. My friends in ASU are leaders that teach me how to love and value my culture, and therefore better value other cultures, how to defend who I am and never be ashamed of that. My friends in ASU are some of the wisest, most intelligent people I know that teach me how to fight for what is right. My friends in ASU have a vibrant culture that has greatly impacted pop culture and it deserves to be cherished, not to be made a spectacle out of. Black lives matter. Black Bruins matter. They protest with it because they are rightfully proud of the beauty of their lives, their culture, and race. They chant it because they hope that the rest of the world and the rest of UCLA will value them and respect them the way that they respect other students.
Yue graduated in 2015 as a psychology and political science student.