Editorial board’s decision skin deep
Of the last few editorials written by the editorial board, two
issues seem to be emerging. One is that the board is condoning
racism, and second, they are using racism as a front to push an
agenda. Forty years after the heroics of Martin Luther King Jr.,
four qualified candidates are rejected because they are white
““ end of story. Not one of them was accepted, they were all
lumped together as “white” and were denied. Was not one
of them qualified? Well, it seems that everyone, even the editorial
board, agreed all the candidates were qualified.
Could not, one, two or perhaps three of them be accepted based
on their abilities and qualifications? No, they are white,
therefore not acceptable, not good enough to be reviewed. Are all
white people from the same “white cookie-cutter” that
makes us all the same? Are we not of different ethnic backgrounds:
Russian, German, Italian, Irish, English, Polish, French, Czech,
Latvian to name just a few? Are we all Protestant, Catholic,
Lutheran, Baptist, or Evangelical? Did all of our parents earn
$100,000? Maybe some of us lived on welfare or lived in inner-city
slums.
The editorial board makes it seem like white people can’t
be diverse. They bashed Dahle for not researching enough but did
the editorial board research the candidates’ socioeconomic
and ethnic backgrounds? Or did they just see white skin?
Is the editorial board looking out for its own liberal agenda?
Are these “white” people are not diverse enough because
they are conservative? Would the editorial board support the four
candidates if they were black, Mexican, Asian and white, but all
conservative? Or would that still not be diverse enough?
The editorial board’s decisions are quite distasteful.
I’m calling the editorial board to take a stand. Are you
condoning racism or pushing a political agenda?
Tom Hartman Third-Year Political Science
USAC rejections hurt student body
Shamefully, USAC has meretriciously decided to reject judicial
board nominations for political purposes at the expense of the
greater good of the student body. The recent results of the
judicial confirmation process are divisive and embarrassing.
In yet another disorganized editorial board tirade, the Daily
Bruin rushed to defend the actions of USAC along with an attempt to
paint David Dahle as an ideologically inconsistent enemy of Student
Empowerment!-brand diversity. Considering Dahle’s bipartisan
and diverse past appointments, this assertion seems unfair and
shockingly ignorant. Where is the justification for calling Dahle
“defiant?” Is he beholden to the will of the
multiculturalism-obsessed SE!? Dahle’s responsibility is to
impartially facilitate the undergraduate student government, and he
is doing a good job. The same cannot be said for the inexplicably
discriminatory SE! board members.
In collusion with the Bruin editorial board, USAC sits
back and piously declares these types of racist decisions are
totally acceptable and justified. Imagine how well-qualified
candidates must have felt to be rejected based on nothing more
than their perceived ethnicity, despite all the hard work they
might have done to become qualified candidates. The Bruin
should have the conscience to call a duck a duck, throw away
the politically correct vernacular and let the readers know
exactly what happened. Dahle’s appointments were unconfirmed
for no other reason than because they were white.
J. Daniel Williams