RPI denies race problems still exist
I take serious issue with Ian Eisner’s column (“RPI
helps create a colorblind U.S.,” Viewpoint, April 10). If the
Racial Privacy Initiative passes, it would effectively paralyze
people of color as second-class members of society. Moreover, RPI
would serve as a state-sanctioned stamp of approval for the
conditions that block people of color and immigrants from
meaningful participation in American democracy. There is no
compelling government interest in eliminating the categories of
race, ethnicity, color and national origin from state programs,
save to prevent people of color and immigrants from acquiring power
from the state ““ a motive entirely illegitimate and
unconstitutional.
From a moral standpoint, RPI is indefensible. It denies the
contemporary moral significance of slavery, poverty, colonization,
U.S.-dominated global capitalism and anti-immigrant xenophobia that
have in turn created the modern-day racial state situating affluent
whites in the White House and poor immigrant women of color as
their domestic servants.
From a political standpoint, RPI is wholly undemocratic. RPI
represents the latest iteration of racial subjugation laws that
attempts to neutralize the power that race still plays in American
society. In California, where people of color are becoming the
numerical majority, it’s no wonder that the white minority
feels threatened by our categorical power. Thus, Eisner’s
co-optation of the honorable Dr. King’s principles of
“color-blindness” is fabulously logical because it
permits the government to summarily deny its greatest threat:
millions of people of color.
Christopher Punongbayan First-year Law
Sit-in protest misunderstood
The Daily Bruin’s condemnation of the Berkeley students
who staged a sit-in is uninformed, arguing the viewpoint that
Berkeley was “justified in arresting protesters.” The
whole point of civil disobedience is to be arrested. The message is
that if the University does not respect the basic human rights of
the Palestinian people, then protesters will not respect its
authority.
The goal of that protest was to reveal the University of
California’s callous attitude toward Palestinian suffering by
investing in companies like General Electric, which arms Israel. It
also disproves the editorial board’s point that
Israel’s on-going massacre is something the UC is
“completely uninvolved in.”
Since the University of California divested from South Africa
for its apartheid policies in the late 1980s, they should divest
from Israeli apartheid now. Instead of irresponsibly speculating on
the damage that a “group of 500 protesters could easily
have” caused (but didn’t), why don’t you write
about the actual death and destruction of the Palestinians that the
UC System’s investment portfolio funds?
Will Youmans University of California, Berkeley Boalt
Hall School of Law