Since Saturday’s post, there have been quite a few developments on the UCSD race relations front. Sadly, the developments have been weighted more towards escalating tensions than diffusing them, even though it seems that most students would basically like to see the issues be resolved and have the fracas die. Again, I really think that the crux of the issue is comprehension, and that point was captured with exceptional grace in a single paragraph buried in an editoral from Monday’s UCSD Guardian:
The malicious gut feeling currently permeating UCSD cannot be blamed on three isolated flareups of ignorance, but on the blank stares they have unveiled and spiteful murmurs they have uncorked. Anyone who still thinks there is no racism at this school, after witnessing the righteous reaction of the general populous [sic] to the pain of the targeted few, with no concept of the inequality from birth between races in our country, should indeed be dragged kicking and screaming into the general-education requirements the BSU has proposed.
It’s a sad trope: black people get legitimately angry over something, white people* say “I don’t understand why these black people are so angry,” and then black people get even angrier because no one understands why they are angry, and then white people say “black people must be angry in general.” This is an obvious pattern when explained this way, but it’s also hard for people to stop themselves from participating in the pattern – the black people have an honest gripe, and the white people only see the initial trigger as the problem and therefore legitimately believe that the black people are overreacting. Still, breaking the feedback loop is far from an insurmountable challenge.
Shape up, kids.
*Generalizing a bit here, but you get the idea.
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