Bunche protest all washed up in alternate Bruin universe
Farce affirmative action rally exemplifies misguided efforts,
antics of demonstrators
By Katie Litvak
I was amused reading the Daily Bruin’s ecstatic reports on the
Feb. 21 affirmative action walkout which attempted to paralyze
activities in Bunche Hall. Since at any given time there are hardly
a few dozen undergraduates in Bunche, I have no idea who the
primary targets of this "educational" campaign were: political
science and history faculty? Graduate students? The regents? Gov.
Wilson? White supremacists? Zionists? International imperialists?
Dead slave owners? All of the above?
After reading the Daily Bruin’s description of what was
happening on Wednesday, I started wondering whether the reporters
and I witnessed the same protest in the same Bunche Hall.
Here is what I saw in this "other" Bunche Hall, which was
mysteriously neglected by the Daily Bruin’s reporters. About 1:30
p.m., I walked onto the third floor and was stopped by a group of
nervous individuals who asked what I was doing there. I said I was
going to my class and, in turn, asked what they were doing
there.
In response, they screamed, "People united will never be
divided." I said, "’Twas brilling, and the slithy toves did gyre
and gimble in the wabe." They thought for a second and replied,
"Student power!" They looked fully satisfied with our fine
discourse, and I kept walking.
In 10 minutes, I went to the fourth floor, which was occupied by
a group of intellectuals with heavy experience in high school
cheerleading. They were screaming something painfully familiar to
every American teenager: "We are the students, blah, blah, blah." I
was waiting for them to say which team they were rooting for, but
they thoughtfully skipped that part.
As I returned, cheerleaders were joined by the crowd with
crackles, rattles and other primary weapons of the proletariat. The
women were doing a little cheerleader dance, and everyone seemed to
have fun. After all, it was rainy outside, and the neighborhood of
political science professors was less intimidating than the mud in
Drake Stadium.
As I walked into my class, a few graduates were telling an
intriguing story of another intrepid act of our protesters: These
young revolutionaries locked my classmates in a graduate
lounge.
Apparently, protesters entered the lounge requesting graduates
to leave; graduates refused, pointing out that it was raining and
they had no other place to go. Protesters argued that although the
rain appeared to be in full swing from the view of their
fourth-floor window, on ground level the rain had stopped.
Graduates questioned this possibility.
Protesters then explained that everyone should leave the
building to make a statement to the regents and to support
oppressed people. Graduates doubted that oppressed people would
benefit from their getting wet, but reassured the protesters that
if any regent showed up in a graduate lounge, protesters would be
promptly notified.
Protesters left the lounge screaming "Accelerate! Accelerate!"
Graduates were left in deep thought about what exactly should be
accelerated.
By 1:50 p.m., graduates attempted to leave the lounge;
protesters seemed outraged about this perfidious move. Later on,
however, protesters decided that the graduates were leaving the
lounge in support of oppressed people, and let them out.
Our professor was late, and I went to see what was going on by
the elevators. Protesters sat in a circle and listened to a
disturbed-looking activist speak about some guy who was arrested in
Africa. The activist seemed to have a hard time constructing
coherent sentences.
Activist: And that’s what they do to those who disagree! Are we
going to allow this?
Audience: ???
Activist: We are not going to allow this!
Audience: Silence.
Activist: We will stand up!
Audience: Ah-ha.
It looked by that time that the third-floor crowd had already
forgotten why they had originally gathered there. I was surprised
that after all this hassle, they did not include the liberation of
the African dissident in the list of their demands to Chancellor
Young. Maybe that is going to be a topic of their next graffiti;
watch campus walls for further developments.
On higher floors, events were more inspiring. Some heroic
individual was blocking access to the elevator, making sure that
elderly professors climbed to the fifth floor. According to the
Daily Bruin’s report, he had to sacrifice his lunch to make this
outstanding political gesture. I guess we should consider it a
short-term hunger strike.
On the third floor, I met another traitor of oppressed people.
Some lost undergraduate, who was hoping to talk to his teaching
assistant, said that he was attacked by protesters. I suggested to
him that he use his umbrella to defend human dignity and the rights
of an individual not to get involved in ridiculous activities. He
did not seem persuaded and preferred to disappear.
The first half of my seminar was spent in the professors’
competition with cheerleaders in the hall. Eventually, protesters
decided they had made their point and moved to irritate bureaucrats
in Murphy Hall.
In Murphy, our protesters confronted Chancellor Young with their
demands (liberation of the African dissident was not included).
Here comes the surprise! Four out of five demands were already
implemented by the university, and Chancellor Young ensured that he
had "no plans to downscale those programs."
Demand No. 5, which requested university resources for the
anti-California Civil Rights Initiative campaign, was denied.
Enlightened MEChA chair, Max Espinoza, said the protesters had
accomplished their mission and that the walkout was successful. Did
I miss anything? What exactly was accomplished?
Four out of five demands simply recited existing university
policies, and the only new demand was obviously outside of Young’s
power. With the same results, they could walk to support the first
two Newtonian laws while protesting the third. I bet the
chancellor’s response would be exactly the same.
What was the purpose of this whole comedy? To make sure it is
known that some miserable 2 percent of the UCLA student body went
out to support affirmative action? What news! Funny, I would think
that a 2 percent turnout is a failure, not a success for the
protest’s organizers. Apparently, some miraculous manipulations of
math allowed our activists to be optimistic about campus support
for their actions.
The next day, the insanity kept growing. In the Daily Bruin’s
Thursday, Feb. 22 issue, I found new signs of the universal
paranoia making its way through our school. Reporter Michael Angell
wrote that unidentified Arnoldo Vargas (a student? professional
protester? politician? No elaboration on Angell’s part) "put a
brown bandanna over his face in case of FBI surveillance"
("Protesters storm Murphy, Bunche"). Later on, courageous Vargas
"took down his bandanna long enough to slam affirmative action
opponents."
What a brave guy! What confusion for those vicious FBI agents!
Why didn’t he dress in drag or wear a Halloween mask to befuddle
the covert actions of the FBI? How come he allowed hundreds of
other protesters to go bare-faced in this life-threatening
adventure?
And what a traitor Michael Angell is! He revealed Vargas’
identity to the public! If Vargas’ name is in a newspaper, what was
the point of this juvenile bandanna-masking? Maybe, Angell assumes
that FBI agents can’t read? Or the Daily Bruin is a secretly
distributed underground newspaper? Or Arnoldo Vargas is not really
Arnoldo Vargas but some other mysterious hero? I would like the
Daily Bruin to educate me on this issue.
I might be terribly far from the defense of oppressed people,
but didn’t Chancellor Young openly express his support for
affirmative action? Isn’t our chancellor’s well-spoken position
almost identical to that of Vargas, who so cleverly fooled stupid
FBI agents with his bandanna? How come Young is not afraid of the
FBI? How come he is not wearing a bandanna day and night?
And those dozens of UCLA professors led by our own political
science Professor Victor Wolfenstein, aren’t they in danger for
their courageous support of affirmative action? What a faculty
we’ve got!
Or, maybe Chancellor Young is not really Charles Young, but
another mysterious hero who managed to escape from "America’s Most
Wanted" and is hiding in Murphy Hall? What incredible information
is concealed in the Daily Bruin!
Wait a minute, even if Chancellor Young does not exist,
Professor Richard Anderson, who signed a pro-affirmative action
petition, is my academic adviser! He is real! He is in danger!
Should I warn him and give him a brown bandanna so that he can be
protected, too?! Oh man, how about the U.S. president? He expressed
the same views on affirmative action as Vargas did!
Everyone, let’s send brown bandannas to protect our president!
Let’s demonstrate that we have no idea who our president is so that
the malicious FBI has no idea just who spoke revolutionary views
from the White House!
I propose that we all lose our common sense and analytical
ability to understand what the hell the Daily Bruin reporters and
the ethnic activists are talking about. I propose that we all
create our own paranoid conspiracy theories so that Michael Angell
and company do not feel alienated from the student body.
I propose to give away brown bandannas on Bruin Walk. It will be
our new symbol of support for those retarded individuals who were
making their statement to regents by assaulting the history chair.
It will demonstrate our solidarity with the brave revolutionaries
who were hiding from the rain in Bunche while kicking graduates
outside to support oppressed people. Indeed, let’s express some
compassion to those who consider their childish carnival a
political struggle.
Litvak is a fifth-year political science and Russian studies
student.Comments to [email protected]