Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere – Los Angeles
ucla
UC President is Seriously Considering Students’ Plan That Eliminates Tuition
02 weeks ago
On Wednesday, a group of students at UC Riverside presented a proposal to UC President Mark Yudof that would abolish tuition – and he’s actually considering it.
“We will give it a close look,” Yudoff said after praising the students’ “constructive idea,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
“I have directed Executive Vice President Nathan Brostrom and our best number crunchers to review it thoroughly,” Yudoff went on to say.
The University of California system is the state’s public university system with a combined student body of about 235,000 students. In recent years it’s seen it’s state and federal funding diminish and it’s instituted regular tuition increases. They’ve also eliminated course sections, initiated staff lay offs and skip maintenance projects. (UC Police have also been busy pepper spraying students.)
The plan the students have devised could actually result with UC system getting billions of more dollars in the end. The San Francisco Chronicle describes the UC Student Investment Proposal”:
Instead of paying tuition – currently at $12,192, not including mandatory fees, room, board or books – the “UC Student Investment Proposal” would require that students commit to paying 5 percent of their annual income for 20 years after graduating.
“Under this plan, no undergraduate student would have to worry about paying for their UC education while they are in school,” Chris LoCascio, president of Fix UC – the group of UC Riverside students that developed the idea – said in a presentation to the regents.
The students calculate that, under the most conservative estimates, UC could triple its revenue over the next two decades to $4.6 billion. The plan would be phased in over several years, and students say UC would begin receiving more income from graduates than from tuition by year seven.
The Chronicle crunched the numbers and found that a UC graduate making an annual salary of $50,000 for 20 years would end up paying $50,000 for tuition in the end–slightly more than the $48,768 they would currently pay over four years if UC tuition were frozen at its current level.
Students Are the Real Heroes in UCLA’s "Asians in the Library" Saga
010 months ago
Did UCLA’s administration react well enough to Alexandra Wallace’s infamous YouTube rant against Asian students? According to the Los Angeles Times, some people think so. While the school ultimately decided to not pursue action against Wallace, saying that the university does not punish free speech, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block did denounce Wallace’s remarks in an email sent to the campus community, saying that “speech that expresses intolerance toward any group of people …is indefensible and has no place at UCLA.”
Rick Rojas at the Los Angeles Times writes that Block went a step further by posting a video response online, where the controversy began.
Chancellor Gene Block sat down in the broadcast studio that the university recently constructed and made a statement condemning the student’s video. Block’s response was then posted on YouTube, the same place the controversy began.
By the time the chancellor’s statement was posted, it was just one in a slew of videos on the subject. Some were light-hearted, others angry; some were politically correct, others as crude as the first. Hampton said it was crucial for UCLA’s administration to inject its voice directly into the conversation.
UCLA’s administration should be applauded for its response. They took to YouTube and addressed the situation directly, whereas similar racist incidents sparked outrage at UCSD only solicited an email to the student body.
But it’s the students who should be applauded most. Jorge Rivas has already outlined how students were quick, assertive, and constructive in their response to the video. The Asian Pacific Coalition also noted the continued relevance
of ethnic studies programs, which are facing termination at Cal State LA,
dissolution at UC Santa Cruz, and are banned
in public schools in Arizona state. A student
op-ed also appeared in the Daily Bruin, condemning the sexist
and racist backlash and intimidation Wallace has received, and urging the
UCLA administration to take action through sensitivity workshops at freshman
orientation, a diversity General Education requirement, and sustained diversity
program on campus, and forums.
“The campus must collectively prove that it is worthy of the multiculturalism it promotes by fighting stereotypes and building alliances,” students wrote in an op-ed.
Can Alexandra Wallace Yell Racism in a Crowded Library? [Reader Forum]
010 months ago
![Can Alexandra Wallace Yell Racism in a Crowded Library? [Reader Forum]](http://colorlines.com/assets_c/2010/11/comment_073010-thumb-640xauto-471-thumb-640xauto-1216-thumb-640xauto-1288-thumb-240xauto-1550.jpg)
A lot happened this week, but little of it as unsurprising as the news that someone on the Internet is racist–in this case, it’s Alexandra Wallace, the UCLA student who said some racist stuff about Asians on Youtube and achieved Internet-celeb status. We covered it, or, more accurately, we covered the conversation around it. Five years ago, Wallace would have been unknown; today, she’s at the center of a teachable moment on implicit bias and privilege, and serves as a litmus test for how far we’ve come in our understanding of how racism really plays out in people’s lives. Now, that’s interesting!
And that litmus test came back positive, for type-A #SMH. As Jorge Rivas reported, the Internet’s rebuttal to Wallace fought unexamined bigotry and hateful language with unexamined bigotry and hateful language, relying largely on derogatory terms and stereotypes about women–and that includes a few commenters on Colorlines.
So what to do, about Wallace and the university, and about Wallace and the Internet? On the question of whether and how UCLA should discipline Wallace, Dawn N. McKenzie points out:
If they expel her, they will have to expel all the other racists and then no one would be in school and then UCLA’s doors would close. Very few if any would be left if schools expelled students because they were racists. She is protected by the First Amendment, that is her opinion. I’d suggest no one to feed into it and then it will extinguish itself.
[...] If she is studying Political Science, then I understand, she is aligning herself with her future colleagues and clearly has learned from what society deems as the best of the best cream of the crop. Perhaps a rethinking of assimilation is needed.
In response, Rena McGee:
@Dawn Ignoring stupidity does not make it go away because stupid people think if you ignore them, you’re agreeing with them because you didn’t say anything when they were running their mouth off.
On Jorge’s update about Wallace’s apology, reader Michelle lays out why the school could take punitive action against her:
The school has every right. The moment you become a UCLA student, you have agreed to abide by the school’s student conduct policy. Just as you are forbidden to cheat, you also are forbidden from performing acts of “Sexual, racial, and other forms of harassment.”
If that video was so powerful as to incite thousands of students/citizens within a single day, I believe it can be counted as (racial) harassment and even a hate crime. If the school can punish its students for cheating, it has the right to take action against her.
[...] The reason the school wouldn’t be able to punish her would be because she made the video in her private time and not at school. However, if enough students protest or call for action, it’d cause “substantial disruption of the school’s activities”; at that point, even J.C. vs Beverly Hills can’t cover her ass.
Should the school punish her and she take it to the courts, she’d still be in a sticky situation; not because she was being openly racist, but because she brought UCLA’s name into this and INTRODUCED herself as a student of UCLA.
Schools DO have the authority to limit students’ 1st amendment rights. It just depends on the circumstances.
Sofrito Gringo is sad to see where the conversation among people rejecting Wallace’s racism turned:
Thank you for calling this out! I keep seeing these undercurrents of misogyny and sexual violence in the language used by protesters advocating for various causes… and I have to say that supposedly progressive commenters on Mother Jones, Talking Points Memo, Think Progress, etc. have really disappointed me in the recent past. If we cannot shed (and abhor!) the language of oppression, where does that leave us?
And a must-read thread on Facebook digs deep into the intersectionality of race and gender in Wallace’s video and in the responses. You should read the whole thing, but by way of an excerpt, here’s Sulekha Gangopadhyay:
I didn’t find the misogynistic responses calling her a “slut”, “bimbo” or “whore” particularly empowering for me as a woman of color; men of color who rely on compensatory sexism have generally not been my allies.
Two different readers, Helen Lopez and Phoenix Activists, pointed us toward this response video by spoken-word artist Beau Sia, written from Wallace’s perspective. Phoenix says “Here’s the only non-sexist and most thought-provoking video response I’ve seen; it really makes us think how people like Wallace have the sentiments they have to begin with.”
And don’t worry about Alexandra Wallace as she goes job-hunting–despite our best efforts, some news agencies really appreciate this kind of “straight talk on race.” See? I made a joke without relying on slut-shaming, or on any sad tropes about groups of people. Not difficult. Keep your comment areas friendly, please, so everyone can feel welcome to use them.
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Want to join the conversation? Join us here on Colorlines.com, or hit us up on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Tumblr.
Alexandra Wallace’s Anti-Asian Rant Draws…Misogyny and Death Threats
010 months ago
Alexandra Wallace’s now famous rant against Asian students at UCLA has been seen more than five million times.* Countless more people have seen or read about the video in the New York Times, Gawker, the UK’s Daily Mail and elsewhere. And in all these places, the video prompted outraged commentary from readers and viewers who told Wallace about her racism–and, in the process, slung mounds of misogyny her way, too. (Not to mention posting her address and, reportedly, sending her death threats.)
Even on Colorlines.com and Jezebel.com, which targets a largely progressive female readership, many of the comments posted in response to Wallace were loaded with sexist name-calling. ”I’m sure her mom also taught her to make sure you wear a tight tank top that exposes your boobs when ranting about Asian students on video,” a commenter wrote on Jezebel. On our site, the word “bimbo” thrived.
Caroline Heldman at Ms. Magazine’s blog reminded readers that oppression comes in many different forms. She offers a hypothetical for comparison: “Imagine if an African American man posted a sexist video and commenters responded with a steady stream of racial slurs.”
The point isn’t to equate race and gender. Rather, Heldman’s question offers a good place to start a discussion. What if Alexandra Wallace was black or Latina and people called her racial epithets? Would people be OK with that? Probably not. But some of the most popular comedic web videos of people of color sounding off against Wallace include starkly misogynistic language and ideas. A few examples:
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DavidSoComedy’s rant, with almost two million views, refers to Wallace as a “bitch,” and a “slut” who is probably good at performing sexual favors. He also jokes about hiring a ninja to kill her. |
Jimmy sings a love song to Wallace and tells her he wants to talk dirty to her all day long.
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Ky only refers to Wallace as a “bitch” and says she won’t pass any exam that doesn’t involve “giving head and juggling beer.”
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The Daily Bruin reports that Wallace, who issued an apology for the video, contacted university police on Sunday evening after receiving hundreds of threats via e-mail and phone. She’s been advised to reschedule her finals because her address and school schedule have been posted online.
School officials are still investigating if Wallace violated any of the university’s code of conduct. Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment scholar and a professor at UCLA School of Law, said he could not identify any statements made in the video that would not be constitutionally protected.
The question isn’t whether Wallace’s video was hateful to Asian students. It’s whether the community response to it raises equally troubling questions. Chime in with your own thoughts below.
Alexandra Wallace Says Sorry for "Asians in the Library" YouTube Rant
010 months ago
Third-year UCLA student Alexandra Wallace, who went viral over the weekend with a racist YouTube rant about Asian students in the university library, has issued an apology through the school’s newspaper.
“Clearly the original video posted by me was inappropriate,” she said in the statement. “I cannot explain what possessed me to approach the subject as I did, and if I could undo it, I would. I’d like to offer my apology to the entire UCLA campus. For those who cannot find it within them to accept my apology, I understand.”
The statement, which was sent to the the Daily Bruin on Monday morning, is short and simple, but Wallace no doubt understood the severity of the situation. According to a campus police spokeswoman, Wallace contacted university police Sunday evening after receiving multiple death threats via e-mail and phone.
Police advised her to take a number of precautions, including rescheduling her finals–y’know, the ones she was studying for when she kept on getting interrupted with “Ohhhh. Ching chong ling long ting tong oooooooh” from Asian students on their cell phones.
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The university has also issued an apology. On Monday afternoon, Chancellor Gene Block sent an e-mail to students and released its own video in response to Wallace’s YouTube hit. “I am appalled by the thoughtless and hurtful comments of a UCLA student posted on YouTube,” Block said in the statement. “Speech that expresses intolerance toward any group of people … is indefensible and has no place at UCLA.” |
The Asian American Studies Department and Center at UCLA has also issued a response, offering some context to the controversy:
“Asians in the Library” is a travesty on many levels, representing an attack on Asian and Asian American students and their families and undermining UCLA as a global university with deep ties to communities and institutions in Asia and other parts of the world. It entails a “new racism” by foregrounding students who speak Asian languages and have different family traditions, as it insidiously groups and attacks UCLA’s American-born as well as our international students of Asian ancestry. As the only University of California campus without a diversity requirement, UCLA surely needs to implement a diversity requirement that will expose every student to the task of living civilly with people of different origins, backgrounds, orientations, and beliefs, whether they are born here or come from abroad.
Asian American Studies at UCLA emerged from the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s and 1970s to enrich the experience of the entire university by contributing to an understanding of the long neglected history, rich cultural heritage, and present position of Asian Americans in our society. This type of prejudice and use of derogatory words cannot be tolerated at a campus that claims that “Diversity is a core value of UCLA.”
UCLA’s Asian Pacific Coalition, a progressive umbrella organization representing Asian-American clubs and organizations on campus also issued a statement via Facebook, in which they show Wallace they can fend for themselves, with grace:
As evidenced by the responses of outrage and hurt from our community, it is clear that this student’s comments can be considered a hate speech, an act of discrimination, harassment, and profiling.
However, we must address the many ignorant comments stemming from our own community in reaction to Wallace’s comments. While we condemn this student’s remarks as not only ignorant and offensive but hateful as well, we believe that we as a community can do better than to resort to the student’s tactics of throwing out divisive words, which only perpetuate a culture of racism and sexism on both sides.
The university has not taken any action agaisnt Wallace at this time. Robert Naples, associate vice chancellor and dean of students, told the Daily Bruin that officials are examining the video, the student code of conduct and Wallace’s First Amendment rights.
“(Wallace) has made judgments about a certain race, and people have
made judgements about her, but we’ve got to make the correct judgments
in the dean’s office, and in order to do that we need to know everything
first,” Naples told the school paper.
UCLA Student’s Viral Video Rant: "Hordes" of Asians Annoy Me in Library
010 months ago
Update @ 6:00pm EST: UCLA Chancellor Gene Block has sent an email to students condemning Wallace’s YouTube video: “I am appalled by the thoughtless and hurtful comments of a UCLA student posted on YouTube. Like many of you, I recoil when someone invokes the right of free expression to demean other individuals or groups.”
Scroll down to the end of this story to watch his video message.
+++
A UCLA student who claims only Asians talk on their cell phones in the library has caused a stir by uploading a mocking video to YouTube. In her 2:52 video the young woman, who KoreAm has identified as Alexandra Wallace, complains about the “hordes of Asian people that UCLA accepts into our schools every single year” that don’t know any “American manners.”
Perhaps Wallace should make a video about the “hordes” of white folk on campus, too, because according UCLA’s Office of Analysis and Information Management there really are hordes of white students on campus: 1,227 more of them than Asian students.
In any case, here’s a rough transcript of part of her rant:
Hi, in America we don’t talk on our cell phones in the library. Every 5 minutes, ok, say… like, 15 minutes. I’ll be like deep into my studies in political science theories, arguments and all that stuff, getting it all done and typing furiously, blah blah blah. And right when I’m about to reach like an epiphany, over here somewhere, “oooooooooh ching chong ling tin tong ooooooh.” Are you freaking kidding me? On finals week?
[snip]
It’s the same thing every five minutes, but it’s somebody else. I swear they’re just going through their whole families, just checking on everyone from the tsunami thing–I mean, I know, that sounds horrible, I feel bad for all people affected by the tsunami but if you’re going to call all your address book you might as well go outside because if something is wrong you might really freak out if you’re in the library where it’s quiet.
Even if you’re not Asian, you really shouldn’t be on your cell phone in the library but I’ve just never seen that happen before.
The original video has since been removed, but several YouTubers have reposted previously captured versions, such as the one above. So Wallace’s rant has gone viral, popping up everywhere from Gawker to Angry Asian Man, and she’s shaping up as this week’s Web celebrity. It’s unclear whether that was actually her goal–the video’s absurd enough to qualify as self-parody. A university official called the video “repugnant” and told the Daily Bruin that the school hasn’t confirmed she’s a student.
Regardless, here’s a suggestion for Wallace’s next viral video: Redeem yourself by apologizing and telling your viewers who you don’t see on campus. For instance, in the 2009-2010 school year, UCLA had a total of 25,611 undergraduate students enrolled. Only 112 of them were American Indian. And only 951 of them were black. Maybe you can get your school to do something about that. Good luck on your political science final.
Oh, and I googled the numbers for Wallace just in case she’s too busy studying. She might find these things interesting, as a political science major.
| Total Undergraduate |
First Professional |
Professional Masters |
Masters | Doctorate | Total Graduate |
Total Enrollment |
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| ETHNICITY | ||||||||
| American Indian or Alaska Native | 112 | 14 | 15 | 11 | 14 | 55 | 171 | |
| African American/Black | 951 | 60 | 137 | 54 | 151 | 401 | 1,402 | |
| Asian or Pacific Islander | 9,796 | 206 | 900 | 342 | 673 | 2,121 | 12,451 | |
| Chicano/a or Latino/a | 3,945 | 106 | 396 | 109 | 354 | 965 | 4,998 | |
| White, Non-Hispanic | 8,606 | 622 | 1,433 | 406 | 1,920 | 4,381 | 13,678 | |
| Foreign | 1,167 | 29 | 511 | 227 | 1,082 | 1,849 | 3,035 | |
| Unstated, Unknown, Other | 1,034 | 964 | 315 | 109 | 342 | 1,730 | 2,812 | |
Undergrads On the Brink of Homelessness
01 year ago
It’s a story of our times: college enrollment is the highest it’s been in the last 40 years, but the economic recession is the worst we’ve seen in as many decades.
For college students, this means fighting to stay in school, even if students have to choose between paying for tuition and books over rent and food. NPR reported this week on the story of Diego Sepulveda, a 22-year-old poli sci major at UCLA who’s getting by in college by sleeping in the library and on friends’ couches and showering in the campus gym. UCLA has created a crisis response team to help students stay in school and get help with basics like canned soup and toiletries.
It’s a totally conceivable picture. College campuses are big, open communities full of lots of amenities if you’ve got the right passwords—couches in 24-hour libraries, computers to get homework done, gyms with hot water and towels.
Of course, people who are homeless have long fought their way inside college classrooms. But colleges are noting an increase in the numbers of students who started on the other side of the line: students from working-class homes whose families have fallen through the cracks in the last few years.
What the NPR piece fails to mention is that college tuition is also on the rise—all of the UC campuses have raised their tuition costs nearly every year for the last five years. Last September, UC students up and down the state turned out for mass protests against another 32 percent increase in their tuition. Students in the state and community college systems are getting hit just as hard by fee hikes and reduced class options. (And don’t forget the decades of student debt that often follow graduation.) What once was an affordable college degree is becoming harder for students from working-class and low-income families to access.
PHOTO: David McNew/Getty Images