LiveJournalist Peter Key has made it his mission to take down the California Patriot. I’ve been waiting to see what he would do ever since I found his post on our most recent issue a few days ago. The posts have been reproduced below. Please ignore my ranting. The saga begins…

Friday, February 11th, 2005 11:07 am
The February 2005 issue of the California Patriot has a racist cover photo. The picture is of a man in front of the Cesar E. Chavez Student Center sign. He is wearing a cheesy Chevy’s sombrero and a kimono, and he’s holding a Caribbean, Latin, or African drum. It is clear that these items associated with various cultures are intended to represent multiculturalism. The caption reads, “Exploring Berkeley’s Empty Multiculturalism.”

The photo’s message is offensively racist. Clearly the publishers of the magazine (the Berkeley Republicans) think the picture is OK. Clearly they think that representing different cultures through stereotyped items is OK.

I guess there must be such thing as “pleasantly racist” then. If we didn’t think the picture was OK, why would we include it? I love it when people go on about “stereotypes” like it’s the end of the world.

But representing different cultures through stereotypes is not OK. It is no more acceptable to represent a culture through a stereotyped item than it would be to represent African-Americans as a group and culture with black face, or Asian-Americans as a group and culture through a slant-eyed caricature, or Arabs as a group or culture through a turban and beard (as the California Patriot does on its back cover).

If you’re not going to represent a culture by its respective cultural items (i.e. sombrero, kimono, etc.), then what are you going to represent it with? Different cultures have different traditional clothes, food, instruments, etc.

Even worse, they use these stereotypes to support their claim that multiculturalism is empty. Stereotypes are empty, and that image does show a hollow empty image. That image really shows that stereotyping is empty of cultural understanding. But the California Patriot tries to associate the emptiness of their racist image with their claim of “empty multiculturalism.” And that compounds their racism.

I suppose it’s a sign of cultural understanding if we deny that sombreros are traditional Mexican hats and kimonos are tradition Japanese garments. This guy is confused. There’s a really big difference between saying “white men can’t jump” or “Asians are good at math” and saying “Sombreros are part of Mexican culture.” Believe the former statements all you want, but they will only be true for a certain segment of their respective groups. But you can deny the latter statement all you want, but it will always be true. Racism? I don’t see it.

As an Asian-American who has experienced racism all his life, and as a UC Berkeley student who has experienced the true multicultural diversity of the UC Berkeley campus, I find the stereotyping offensively racist, and I find the negation and denial of the very real multicultural diversity offensively racist. My culture is not empty. I am not a stereotype. I cannot be represented by a stereotype. Denying the multicultural diversity of UC Berkeley does not make that diversity go away or make that diversity empty.

Great move, bring your life story into it and gain sympathy. I challenge him to describe his “culture” without using a stereotype, as he defines it. I doubt he can. After all this, I don’t even know what multicultural diversity is if he can’t describe it and won’t let us try to for fear of “stereotypes.” But I’m a big fan of individual diversity. We all can look different, prefer different things, have different ideas. And we all can respect those differences. This is a much more “progressive” idea than “multicultural diversity.” But then we wouldn’t be able to be split up into different interest groups to exercise political power and control over each other.

I think this image (as well as the images on the back cover) indicates that the California Patriot is an organization whose attitude works towards establishing an atmosphere where racism is consider acceptable and where multicultural diversity is mocked. The end result of such an atmosphere is reinforcing racism.

The California Patriot must be held accountable for their racism.

Days later, he comes up with a way to hold us accountable:

Saturday, February 12th, 2005 12:34 am
so i went to the hate crimes task force meeting. mostly because i needed to [see] the facilitator about the calfornia patriot racist.

Tuesday, February 15th, 2005 09:38 pm
tomorrow i have an appointment with the dean of student life. it’s about the california racist.

Uh oh… the Dean of Student Life! We’re in big trouble now!

Wednesday, February 16th, 2005 10:55 pm
no answer here

i spoke with the dean of student life at ucb today.

the short answer is that there is no answer from the university in dealing with racism from the california patriot. in fact there is no way deal with racism on the campus at all, unless it rises to the occassion of a hate crime.

is that fucked up or what?

I’ll go with “or what.” Now let me tell you what is. “Dealing with racism,” a.k.a. getting the administration to restrict our right to free speech. First of all, I don’t agree with his claim that our content is racist. But even if it were, we’d still have a right to publish! That’s what’s awesome about America. I know he’d love to see us brought down by force for offending him… it’s not gonna happen. But thanks for writing.