Current mood:

angry

racism and rochdale
what would you say if someone told you that you were committing the very thing that you and your whole culture strives against?

affirmative action. i am a great opponent to it... i do not believe it, i think instead that it is like a band-aid for a gaping wound and ineffective in the long run. but i am about to invoke it to force the people around me to think about their actions.

i live in rochdale. it's an apartment complex in the USCA (the co-ops) if you are unfamiliar. here, as in my science classes, i am a minority. instead of being surrounded by those who are asian, i am instead surrounded by latinos. these people are generally nice, individually. i have known several of them as friends or at least acquaintances.

but the air of racism is thick here.

many of these latinos are very involved in latino rights, which i commend to a point. but there is a time and place. for example, people at central office complain that at board meetings the rochdale representatives only talk about latino rights, nothing else (because they are all latino). as a matter of fact, EVERYONE in any elected position is latino, and in the majority of the hired positions as well. why? because they all push for their latino friends to get the position. my partner was vying for a hired position and got shoved out of it because the manager is latino and thus wanted a latino working with him.

i took a look at the results for the council positions for spring 2006, i saw MAYBE two names that MIGHT not be latino. there are 30+ positions, almost all of which had several races applying for them. and all of the latinos got at least 20 votes over non-latinos.

they form their cliques in a way that i haven't experienced since high school. they don't even feign our existence unless they have to and they jump down your throats if you say the least thing that may be offensive (from personal experience). they do not like people who are not latino.

this disturbs me. do they not see what they are doing? this can be expanded to the whole campus. everyone on campus is split up according to their race. just sit on sproul, you will see what i am talking about. i was never racist before coming to berkeley... in fact the opposite. i had no sense of prejudice or discrimination. but i do now... the cliques have made me. in trying to integrate themselves and bring equality, they have created deeper furrows.

this is what i'm seeing. and i am not the only one.