Correction: The original version of this blog post contained an error. “MEChA de UCLA” is the name of the student organization that planned the demonstration.
About 100 students lined Bruin Plaza Thursday afternoon waving signs that read “Brown & Proud” and “Actions speak louder than words” to protest discrimination against minorities on campus.
The student organization MEChA de UCLA planned the demonstration, titled “Brown is Beautiful.” The protest came as a response to a recent hate crime in the North Village, said Andrea Salcedo, a fourth-year sociology and Chicana/o studies student and chair of MEChA. An apartment door on Landfair Avenue was vandalized with racist and sexist slurs Monday morning.
The demonstration was open to everyone, Salcedo said.
“People might be feeling down after what happened,” she said before the event. “We just want to spread the love.”
The demonstrators stayed in Bruin Plaza for about an hour, at the same time as funk musician Damon Riddick was performing in a free Campus Events Commission concert on the Bruin Plaza stage.
At one point, Riddick called demonstrators on stage and gave them the mic after encouraging attendees to spread a message of acceptance.
“An attack on one community is an attack on all communities of color,” said fifth-year Chicana/o studies student Emilio Hernandez, who is the retention coordinator for the American Indian Student Association.
Compiled by Sonali Kohli, Bruin senior staff.