Protests only serve to divide us
Last Saturday, I was witness to a large protest in support of
Palestine while I drove by the Federal Building on Wilshire
Boulevard. Earlier during the week, a similar protest was conducted
in favor of Israel, condemning Palestinians as terrorists.
But what purpose do these protests accomplish other than to
divide us? I’m not undermining the effectiveness and value of
protest as an essential part of democracy; it has been central to
the greatest social changes we’ve seen in our country. But
how will a protest in Westwood convince Arafat and Sharon to hold a
cease-fire? It won’t.
Perhaps the purpose of the protests is to let our own leaders
know how we feel about the conflict, and what we think should be
done. But unless we march on Washington D.C., all we’re
really doing is parading ourselves with signs and banners for UCLA
students who can do nothing. The only thing students can do is
either agree or get mad and plan a counter-protest. The end result
is that we divide ourselves over a conflict occurring thousands of
miles away. For no reason, we prompt people into becoming polarized
and as a consequence, enemies. The protesters are making the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict worse by bringing a version of it to
our home.
Peter North First-year Undeclared
Changes in GREs harm, not help
The changes in the GREs (“GRE
changes multiple choice to two essays,” Daily Bruin,
News, April 3) are unfair to all potential graduate students, both
non-native speakers and native speakers of English. Eliminating the
multiple choice section of the GREs creates problems since graders
of these tests will be faced with more essays to read.
Instead of simply passing the test through a machine, human
graders, more susceptible to error, will have to grade more essays
than before. Anyone who has had to correct and/or grade a paper
understands how tiresome and tedious the process can be.
Anyone’s test could fall into the hands of a tired grader who
will not grade as effectively as they did with the first essay they
faced at the beginning of the day. Yes, they could hire more
graders to solve this problem, but it creates another problem
““ increased fees due to the increase in graders.
Non-native English speakers will be at a greater disadvantage in
this case. Tom Ewing, director of communications at the Educational
Testing Service, claimed that “graders will focus on whether
candidates have articulated their ideas clearly and coherently
rather than on perfect grammar and spelling.” The potential
problem with this is that graders will have to take more time to
decipher a non-native speaker’s English and may lose sight of
the actual content of the essay. Graders may not quite understand
the writing of the non-native speaker, which can potentially lead
to confusion on what he/she is trying to convey.
The old format of the exams was not problematic ““
it’s not as if multiple choice questions are any easier than
essays. The administrators of the GRE should simply save themselves
the trouble, return to the old format, and be done with it.
Jennifer Muranaka Second-year American literature and
culture
Ethnic studies are about more than
oppression
This letter is intended to clarify something that Andrew Jones
stated in his opinion piece concerning textbook woes at Ackerman
Union (“Textbook
system robs student wallets,” Daily Bruin, Viewpoint,
April 3). In his column, Jones insidiously places an inappropriate
comment concerning Afro-American Studies, Chicana/o Studies, Asian
American Studies and American Indian Studies as lumping them
together in one broad category called “Oppression
Studies.” Judging from Jones’ animosity toward anything
that doesn’t resemble his own phenotype, gender, sexual
orientation and/or political party affiliation, I find it highly
unprofessional of him to belittle anyone who chooses to major in
“Oppression Studies.”
I cannot speak for all ethnic studies programs on this campus,
but the Chicana/o Studies program is an excellent major and/or
minor for anyone interested in learning about the Chicana/o
experience in the United States. The major is both reading and
writing intensive with an emphasis on bilingualism as an artistic
aesthetic and literary medium, visual arts (especially muralism and
theater) as a form of resistance and protest, and promotion of
social awareness and encouragement toward praxis (utilizing theory
in actual real-world situations).The education a student receives
through this discipline is interdisciplinary and borrows from
several fields within the social sciences and humanities.
From my personal experience, I could not successfully complete a
course without doing the readings assigned in the syllabus. I
wonder, Mr. Jones, if you have ever taken an “Oppression
Studies” course as either a lower or upper division
elective?
If you have not, and I feel you will never do such a thing, then
please refrain from insulting departments, centers and a body of
academic studies you know nothing about. Many of the courses do
take on the personal voice and/or narrative through
counter-hegemonic storytelling, but the curriculum is equally
enriched with various academic theories ranging from Marxism,
semiotics and metaphor theory.
Finally, I hope you adhere to this advice: before you criticize
a major, academic department or center on campus, make sure you
have sufficient proof to back up your ill-founded claims. By
insulting people, you not only defeat your purpose of persuading
the readership to your opinion, but also alienate them from your
original intent through the use of thinly disguised insults against
ethnic studies programs at this university.
Gustavo Gutierrez Fourth-year History and
sociology