BY Leonardo Faria Chusán
To experience the highest level of education is a privilege. During times of recession and job loss, the ivory towers of the university have an extra sparkle in them as they portray security and promise in search of class advancement by way of education. The lessons taught, the research conducted and the personalities formed during these years all contribute to the direction this country will eventually head toward. Clearly, the institution of college is the assembly line in the United States of America corporation, producing the leaders and identities of this country’s future.
How then, can an environment with so much responsibility, funding and power harbor such ignorant hate?
As a nation we should no longer be surprised with the social injustices we see in this country when clearly they are being tolerated in the factories that produce our leaders.
The latest hate crime at our university demonstrates that no amount of tuition covers ignorance. More importantly, no environment is immune from hate triggered by racial tensions and misunderstanding. In a culture that preaches “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” minority students have to constantly be reminded that, barring any physical harm, they must accept living in an environment that tolerates psychological and stereotypical threats while pursuing educational fulfillment.
The consistency of these types of incidents at the university level raises red flags and a necessity to re-evaluate the kind of atmosphere this country is building their future leaders in. At what point does a pattern of racial attacks on minority students stop being classified as isolated events and start being classified as racial terrorism intended to maintain an inferiority complex among the underrepresented community?
As university protocol takes its course with the scheduling of meetings among school officials, the racial slurs and derogatory writings of the crime will not be visible for much longer on the apartment door. The Facebook News Feed updates on this incident will slowly begin to be piled under new social media flavors of the month. The visibility of racial unrest at UCLA will take a back seat to final examinations.
With all that, unless further action against intolerance is pursued, ignorance and misplaced hate will reclaim their position of power on campus. Ignorance and hate will once again be hidden under the cloak of invisibility and the acknowledgement of stereotypes that minority students walk around with in their psyche will simply reposition itself until the next incident causes it to resurface.
At what point do acts of intolerance actually become intolerable?
Chusán is a graduate student in the department of Latin American studies.