Perspectives

When race matters too much

Diversity efforts fuel resentment toward Asian community

By Andrew R Quinio
From the February 2007 Print Edition

It is no secret that UC Berkeley administrators and a vocal minority of students want to repeal Proposition 209, the measure that ended state-sponsored racism. What is becoming more apparent is the amount of resentment that affirmative-action supporters feel toward those who have no use for racial entitlements. Under the pretenses of diversity and inclusion, affirmative-action militants are unfairly taking out their frustrations on Cal’s Asian student population.

Asian students constitute 41 percent of Cal’s undergraduate population, a fact that was the subject of a January New York Times article by Timothy Egan. Egan describes our “Little Asia on a Hill,” and identifies the advantages and disadvantages of having a university dominated by Asians. He unsurprisingly spends a little more time on the disadvantages, asking readers to consider this dreaded possibility: “Are we headed toward a day when all elite colleges will look something like Berkeley … a large Asian plurality and everyone else underrepresented?”

The answer to his question is yes, and what is wrong with that? An Asian plurality should not be cause for alarm if those admitted were admitted fairly. But some on this campus still find the numbers troubling, and they have hidden behind the great banner of diversity to excuse their unreasonable resentment.

In early December, the Berkeley Chinese Students and Scholars Association was stripped of funding and forced to undergo re-education, or as the Office of Student Life calls it, “diversity training.” What was their crime? Speaking Chinese at a Chinese cultural event. But don’t worry because I am confident that the folks who put on Semana de la Raza are held to the same standards.

According to the Daily Californian, the complaint came from Stefanie Stevens, who is black. She also claimed that she just didn’t feel welcome at the BCSSA event. The club’s president reassured her that it was simply a misunderstanding caused by a language barrier, but Stevens still thought they needed to be “educated.” It sounds like diversity training was administered to the wrong person.

Perhaps there was a pre-existing notion that Asian students would show little resistance to forced diversity classes. Jacquelynn Thomas, a student who worked in the Black Recruitment and Retention Center, told the online publication Inside Higher Ed what she thought of her Asian classmates in a September 2005 article. Thomas said that having more Asian students meant there were fewer white students, which makes it easier for black students to cope, since “Asians are more apathetic, less hostile.” No wonder you can take away their funding in the name of diversity. The Asians are too apathetic to respond.

Thinking strictly in terms of race and ethnicity has become commonplace on college campuses. It has become too strict, to the point where those who have dedicated themselves to eliminating narrow-mindedness need only look in the mirror to discover the vilest perpetrators of intolerance. It is this unhealthy obsession with race that is responsible for the resentment felt toward Asian students. 

Committees and institutes like Berkeley’s Diversity Research Initiative must rely, naturally, on the enumeration and categorization of students by race and skin color. To maintain its existence, the BDRI must prove its relevance, and it does so by turning any indication of racial disparity into a major emergency. Without underrepresented races, there is no reason for the BDRI to exist, thus creating an incentive for institutes like it to exploit ‘crises in diversity.’ It becomes necessary then for the BDRI’s survival to incessantly lament the lack of underrepresented minorities.

What results is an us-versus-them attitude among those who are repeatedly told of their numerical shortcomings. With so much value placed on race, it becomes the only determinant of inclusion and exclusion. Achievements, wants, and failures are literally viewed solely in the divisive terms of black and white, or in Cal’s case, black and yellow. Armilla Staley, a law student at Boalt Hall, who is also black, provided Egan with a prime example of the us-versus-them attitude. She said, “I don’t really identify with the Asian community as a minority either.” In other words, they are simply not like us. Yet no one is demanding that Staley enroll in a diversity class.

Egan repeats the same divisive characterization of Cal’s student body writing, “The rise of the Asian campus, of the strict meritocracy, has come at the expense of historically underrepresented blacks and Hispanics.” His assertions, however, are false. The admittance of Asians comes at no one’s expense, for no one is entitled to a spot at UC Berkeley, be they white, black, or brown. It is this confused sense of entitlement that leads some students to erroneously claim a right to a Cal education. As the plurality on campus, Asians unduly bear the responsibility for taking this false right away.

You cannot construct the perfect multicolored community without sacrificing some in the largest group, and diversity mongers are fully aware of this reality. The achievements of the Asian community, therefore, stand in the way of their multiethnic utopia. The quest for diversity has inevitably drawn racial battle lines, and affirmative-action supporters have already begun delivering tiny blows.

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