Just last week I had a conversation with a friend in which I
expressed my belief that the Bruin Republicans and Bruin Democrats
should be given more funding and a central office in Ackerman Union
or Kerckhoff Hall to improve campus political discourse. Apparently
I spoke too soon.
Just when I thought the Bruin Republicans had abandoned
sensationalistic tactics ““ like its racist affirmative action
bake sale last year ““ and had begun to involve in
constructive discourse, it proved me wrong.
Last week, Bruin Republicans launched a campaign to revoke MEChA
de UCLA’s Undergraduate Students Association Council funding,
alleging that MEChA is a racist, secessionist movement. Their
presentation on Bruin Walk included a comparison of MEChA’s
“El Plan de Aztlán” to Adolf Hitler’s
“The 25 Points,” replete with a computer-edited image
of the MEChA symbol with a swastika superimposed on top of it.
Additionally, a Bruin Republicans member, Christopher Moritz, wrote
an op-ed submission for the Daily Bruin in which he compared MEChA
to the Nazis (“University must take action against
MEChA’s racist agenda,” Feb. 3). These kinds of shock
tactics amount to pornographic political discourse.
Bruin Republicans’ campaign was inappropriate and
insensitive, and it inflamed racial tensions on campus. This type
of speech panders to the worst in us and inflames the ethnic
divisions in our community. Remember, we are all fellow Bruins, we
are all fellow students, and we are all fellow Americans.
The campaign also completely was ignorant of what MEChA really
is ““ a cultural student group that provides support to other
members of the campus Chicana/o community and works to increase
access to higher education.
Bruin Republicans spent most of their presentation discussing
the problems they have with the controversial “El Plan de
Aztlán” as MEChA’s founding document. “El
Plan de Aztlán” is not MEChA de UCLA’s charter;
“El Plan de Santa Barbara” is. Maybe Bruin Republicans
should try doing a little more research before they launch a
divisive campaign like this.
More importantly, you cannot talk about “El Plan de
Aztlán” without talking about the context of when it was
written ““ the 1960s, a time of radical student groups and
activism. It also was a time when minority groups like Latinos were
subject to intense racial oppression in this country. But MEChA no
longer is the group it was in the 1960s ““ and last
week’s Bruin Republicans demonstration shows that current
campus radicalism is being promoted by conservative students rather
than anyone else.
This campaign against MEChA is analogous to calling the
Republican or Democratic parties of today racist because members of
those parties used to support segregation 100 years ago (or even 50
years ago). The very claim itself is laughable. Have you ever seen
MEChA members doing militia drills? Moritz even went so far as to
compare MEChA to the Ku Klux Klan. When was the last time you saw
MEChA members marching around dressed in bed sheets, burning
crosses on white students’ lawns?
Another serious problem with the campaign is the comparisons the
Bruin Republicans have made between MEChA and the Nazi’s
policy of ethnic cleansing. Not only are these claims so completely
false as to be ridiculous, they also disturbingly trivialize the
Holocaust by making light of the millions of people murdered,
tortured, raped and completely dehumanized.
But the saddest part about the whole campaign is how the Bruin
Republicans conducted it. If the group felt so strongly about the
issue, it should have worked with MEChA directly instead of
launching a public, racially inflammatory campaign. According to
MEChA Chairwoman Elizabeth Alamillo, “The only type of note
we received was on the door asking us to denounce (the document)
… but there was nothing to encourage a meeting and no contact
info.”
You also have to wonder if Bruin Republicans are thinking like
logical politicians. They have essentially alienated almost every
minority group at UCLA ““ during an election year, just after
President Bush finished passing an immigration policy catering to
Latino voters.
I doubt Karl Rove would be very pleased with his young
Republican activists’ actions here. Talk about digging your
own grave.
Bitondo is a third-year political science and history
student. He is a member of the Bruins for Dean group. E-mail him at
mbitondo@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to
viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.