Illustration by JARRETT QUON/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Â
Adam Epstein Epstein is glad he’s no longer such a
ragingly ignorant idiot. Sign up for Operation Destructor by
e-mailing him at [email protected]. Click
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As a young, privileged, middle-class, white and stupid male, I
have never previously agreed with the concept of affirmative
action. Recently though, I turned 21 and as I mature, so do my
political opinions.
I have risen above my intellectual nadir; now I am born unto a
new world of light and understanding. Bear witness to a man changed
for the better. I finally understand that affirmative action is
necessary ““ heart-attackingly necessary.
The point has come to usher in a bold, more radical form of
affirmative action and admissions, doing away with all talk of two
or three or six tiers, racial profiling, tea leaf readings,
standardized testing, oujia boards, ethnic percentage mirroring,
and anything that even rhymes with SP-1 or 2.
All previous methods and current proposals are nothing more than
limp noodle, namby-pamby, pacifist dreck.
People, it’s time to get hands-on. I therefore present to
you a proposal for the ultimate in proactive and applied
affirmative action. The program has a name. The name: Operation
Destructor. Fear it.
Simply follow three, count ’em three, easy steps and the
university is on track for a new, tripped-out, rockin’
more!!! extreeeemmmmeee!!! system of undergraduate admittance.
Aaaaagghhhhh!!!
Step the 1st) Analyze. Step the 2nd) Drop out. Step the 3rd)
Replace.
Confused? Of course you are you cute, pompous dolt. Let me
explain.
First, do a quick self-analysis. Were you brought up in a
lower-upper to upper-upper-middle class suburban environment? Did
you attend a school that should not have been condemned? Did your
parents either: a) own an SUV, b) pay for your SAT prep classes, c)
give you a credit card, or d) own two SUVs? Are you afflicted by
“white blindness?” Did you have a white picket
fence?
If you answered, “yes” to any of the above,
it’s time for you to do two things: pray that God has mercy
on your pitiful soul ““ and move on to the next step of
Operation Destructor.
As the self-analysis has shown you to be an oppressive elitist,
under the tenets of Destructor you must now drop out of school. I
repeat: Drop out of school immediately.
Personally, I plan on walking over to Murphy Hall this very
afternoon, waiting in line for two hours, getting to the front,
grabbing the human stump at the window and shouting, “I do
not deserve to be here! Other, less privileged individuals should
““ no, must take my place! I am ashamed to be a Bruin! Ashamed
I say!!!”
After filing the necessary paper work and eating my BruinCard, I
will proudly exit the campus I never deserved to be on, take my
leave of Westwood and move on to the final step of Operation
Destructor ““ the Replacement Stage.
To those who have made it this far, congratulations ““ your
righteous undertaking is almost complete. In the Replacement Stage,
you must now find a more deserving individual to take your vacated
spot.
More often than not, the qualified potential students will come
from a meager economic environment, one where life struggles and
situational repressions have not allowed them to explore the
fullness of their potential, the potential that status-quo
simpletons such as myself obtained solely due to our economic
advantages.
However, once the privileged half-wits (such as myself) of the
university find these deserving and underprivileged students,
recruit them, and install them in the vacated undergraduate
positions, a great justice shall have been done.
No longer will people have to rant and rave (and do nothing
else) about the utter idiocy of non-comprehending elitists
““Â it will be the elitists themselves who are out in the
boondocks, out in the inner cities, actively working and applying
themselves to right the problem. What a rush!!!
Many will feel this is too radical a solution to amending our
university’s obvious admissions disparities. I can hear it
now: “Wouldn’t Operation Destructor damage academic
credibility?” “Wouldn’t some of the students that
are forced to drop out in Step Two actually deserve to be at
UCLA?” “Isn’t there a less “˜hands on’
approach that could work toward something, oh, like getting people
to write annoying articles that attack groups that the author is
actually a part of?” “Are you drunk?” “Hmm,
yeah, hmm?”
Bluntly put, no. The time for rhetorical and legislative
measures is over.
If we ever want to see true equality on par with the wishes of
many on this campus, the privileged and brain-dead, mostly-white
elitists must rise up, drop out, and get their hands dirty.
I am going to miss UCLA, but I realize now, as the mature
21-year-old that I am, it is for the greater good.
Desperately ridiculous times call for desperately ridiculous
measures. Let’s get ridiculous.