Alec Weisman, Editor-in-Chief, with assistance from the California Review Editorial Board
*** RACIAL CONFLICT SPREADS AS A NOOSE IS DISCOVERED IN GEISEL.
(This photo was initially posted on someone’s Facebook. I was sent it by a contributor who felt it was too important to not post here. If you would like to be credited for your photograph, please email us at TheCalReviewUCSD@aol.com.)
If you have more information on this, please let us know. This is absolutely despicable and those who perpetrated this should be punished.
I won’t make any assumptions about who the perpetrators are. I just wonder: cui bono?
UPDATE: POLICE CRIME ALERT BULLETIN (9:25 am 2/26/10)
UPDATE: A female student has turned herself in. Since they know the gender of the student, they almost certainly know her ethnicity as well… and if she’s white, that would have been excellent news fodder. Therefore, we tentatively conclude she’s nonwhite, but we’re waiting for more precise information.
Also, a group of students apparently “peacefully” occupied the Chancellor’s office today and asked for all the BSU’s demands to be immediately accepted. Never mind the fact that many of those demands oppose Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream.
We at the California Review sincerely hope this incident will not prove to be a Reichstag fire that paves the way for weaker academic standards and institutionalized racial favoritism.
UPDATE: A second noose has apparently been discovered on the Bear Statue in Warren (3:35pm 2/26/10). We can now safely conclude this is an organized operation, and there is every reason to believe leftists are at the helm. Let’s stop these thugs from corrupting our school.
***
Our feed of Thursday’s media forum currently contains only the first ten minutes for some unknown reason. We will update with the full video over the weekend for all of you who could not attend the meeting.
UPDATE: VIEW THE STREAM FROM LAST NIGHT HERE (9:40am 2/26/10): http://www.ustream.tv/discovery/recorded/all?broadcast=3162001
We will probably be on hiatus for much of the weekend because I do not know if I will have access to a computer to continue research and work.
***
Also, the Saltman Quarterly, which abdicated their First Amendment rights at the AS meeting on Wednesday, just so happens to be “sponsored by the Division of Biological Sciences, with advisors in the Biology Dean’s Office.” So they don’t get their funding from the Associated Students at all, and they just wanted to take a free shot at the Koala.
***
Finally, I leave you with this Letter to the Editor I received from an individual who asked to remain anonymous.
“The Man” Is Getting All of Us Down
So I would like to begin this with a disclaimer. I am in no way connected to the Greek community at UCSD nor do I ever plan to be. In all honesty I am basically 100% opposed to the Greek system over all. Also I am not a crazy conservative, I do not subscribe to any specific belief system be it political or religious. I simple create my own opinion based on what I observe around me.
The significance of the “Compton Cookout” has been blown way out of proportion. The so-called racist event was a harmless party made by a bunch of ignorant white people, no offense. The event was clearly offensive however it was definitely not racially charged. The reference to Black History month was clearly inappropriate and I am positive that all of them will admit this. However this was clearly not a KKK meeting nor was anything of the sort. It was just another excuse for a bunch of bored college students to dress up congregate and get drunk out of their minds.
The administration of UCSD felt the need to comment and condemn the even just in case it could some how possibly be blamed for the event. The e-mail that all of the students and faculty received from Chancellor Mary Anne Fox condemning the incident was unnecessary. The only reason that I can possibly think that the Fox sent us an e-mail is because she was afraid that there would be a racial backlash. However most students had no idea that the event even existed. People were not given very much information about the event in the e-mail that she sent so many people became mad with out knowing all the facts. Others became angered because they feared that if they were not against the “Compton Cookout” that they too would be labeled as racists. Maybe Fox knew this would be a possible out come, and maybe she didn’t, but it does not change the fact that before her e-mail the issue was relatively contained and taken care of.
Somehow the media took a liking to this incident and made this small mistake by a bunch of people just trying to have a good time into a statewide racial crisis. If I have learned anything at UCSD it is that race does not matter. Although only 1.3% of UCSD’s students identify as African-American it does not change the fact that that 1.3% of students is just as likely to score better than me on the midterm as the other 98.7% of students. Also I have learned that the students at UCSD really do not care very much about anything else other than scoring better than their peers on the exams. When the tuition, and fees were raised and all of the other UC schools were protesting in mass and making sure that their voices were heard what was UCSD doing? They wrote their grievances in chalk on the sidewalk on their way to the library. There were several other attempts to protest but the vast majority of students (enough so that I can say roughly all of the students) did not participate in any form of protest. The “Compton Cookout” is also not that big of a deal to the vast majority of students. Some still really do not even know exactly what happened to cause such an issue.
So today when I was walking back from my morning classes I was shocked to see what looked like hundreds of students marching and chanting “We’re fired up, We cant take it anymore.” As I was watching the spectacle I realized that today was the “Teach In” that was organized to solve the “racial tension” at UCSD. I was also informed that many of the people that were marching were bussed in from other schools such as UCLA and USC. Suddenly it all began to make sense. While I am sure that there were UCSD students among the masses, I am equally sure that they make up only about half (a generous estimate) of the people that were marching. I would love to be proved wrong here so if you know more than I do please fill me in. In all honesty this was the largest gathering of people I have ever seen on campus at UCSD since Ellen had a special event in Price Center to get tickets to her show. This makes me think that the real race problem is not at UCSD; rather it is at UCLA and USC because these students felt the need to skip a day of class and organize buses and rides to get down to San Diego form Los Angeles. In conclusion I feel that the administration and the media created this statewide incident. People want to the school to discipline the creators of the “Compton Cookout” however they forget that this event was not related to the school nor was it related to any of the Greek life, nor the PIKE fraternity. I believe that it says something about the media and the administration that they created such a racially charged incident over the poor choices of maybe ten individuals at most. The man, or the media and the administration have labeled UCSD, one of the most peaceful and laid back college campuses that I have ever stepped foot on, as a racist community. Also I feel that had the “Compton Cookout” been created by members of a predominately Asian-American fraternity none of this would have happened. What this says to me is that a bunch of ignorant white people running the media and the administration of this campus (Fox), that will from here on out be known as The Man, felt the need to cover their asses and condemn the event out of fear; because God forbid that in some way someone might think that they supported the event. Also The Man had no reason to comment on the private party in the first place.
It saddens me that people must act out of fear of being labeled racist. Also in reflection today I am curious as to why Chancellor Fox did not issue apologies for the following things that actually did happen on campus:
-The man handing out blatantly anti-Islam flyers during Islamic awareness week on library walk
-The man telling everyone and their mother that they are going to hell because they are not Christians
Chancellor I am expecting to see apologies to the Islamic community, as well as to basically every other religious minority group including the atheists first thing tomorrow morning. I wonder why race gets so much more press over things that were not intentionally hateful compared to people who blatantly preach religious intolerance and hatred on school campus. If there is a reason why race and religion are different issues I would very much like to hear what it is. Chancellor I challenge you to change it from “Racial Intolerance: Not in our Community” to “Intolerance: Not in our Community” or “Racial and Religious Intolerance: Not in our Community” either of these would be more fitting and make you and this movement seem less hypocritical.
The California Review 
The difference between an incident like this and any other disrespectful/offensive incident is that Blacks are both the largest and the oldest minority group in the country. Also, slavery and segregation left many passionate Blacks in a charged state. With the widespread belief in the deliberate oppression of Black individuals in this country by the evil White supremacists, anything that can be construed as an overt manifestation of such oppression is guaranteed to ignite a racially charged firestorm. There was a party that was offensive, and some insensitive language spoken afterwards; do these two events warrant an escalation that ensued? A Black man is killed by police in Los Angeles; does that event warrant days of mayhem, violence, and destruction of property?
The interesting thing about these two cases is that in both, there was a very quiet minority (completely silenced by the outcry) that inquired about the huge discrepancy in the treatment of individuals that commit such acts that is based on race. It has been mentioned time and time again that Black entertainers get a free pass, while any White individual that uses that language digs himself a grave. Somehow, it is OK to engage in “racist” behavior if you are of that race. In the midst of marching and screaming, nobody ever wants to examine the underlying causes for stereotypes.
Next time there is a pro-Palestine protest on library walk that calls Israel a “terror state”, I fully expect all Jewish students to begin shouting at the Chancellor in the middle of the street and demand “action”. I also expect there to be a Star of David installed on the roof of EBU I within a week. This would only be fair.
I am not Jewish by the way.
NOTE! THE ABOVE COMMENT WAS MADE PRIOR TO OUR UPDATE AND BLOG POST NAME CHANGE! D is remarking about the prior Compton Cookout and the Koala. I would however like to see D’s comment regarding this noose incident.
Thank you for your reaction to this noose; while i do not agree with your other views, your condemnation of this is much-needed.
This is a deplorable act that is going to be fully condemned by everyone,
regardless of their race, as it should be. If this had happened first instead of
the compton cookout, I would consider the various reactionary stances and media
coverage a bit more justifiable.
My only issue with this is that the BSU is suddenly going to get a shit ton more
fuel for their already ridiculous agenda. Remember when people were asking for
evidence from the BSU proving issues of personal safety, real life hate and
discrimination? Remember when they couldn’t really come up with anything except
anecdotal evidence (HE DIDN’T SIT NEXT TO ME BECAUSE I WAS BLACK AND HE’S A
RACIST) or gross generalizations of fear and pain. Well, now here’s some concrete
proof of the “hateful” environment at UCSD. Funny we haven’t seen anything like
this at UCSD until the whole situation became an overblown issue (people are
probably going to say that it’s always been there, but I have chosen to ignore
it… bullshit).
I’m going to be labeled as an ignorant racist, but I wouldn’t put it past a random
individual from the BSU or one of their “allies” to put this up in order to
further their cause. After seeing their various protests, demonstrations, and
actions (many of which host increasingly aggressive people who only believe
in free speech if it is agreeing with them) it would not come as a surprise to me
if an over-zealous individual put this up themselves. Instant credibility to the
groups claims of a hateful and dangerous environment, and no one can really
disagree with it in any way. No one is going to argue that having a noose hanging
somewhere isn’t offensive (especially given the racial climate present at UCSD
now). It’s a hate fueled symbol, though I would say it’s modern context should be
more relevant to India, the middle east, or various African countries where
lynchings and hangings still happen.
Can anyone elaborate on the legality of hanging a noose somewhere? When is it a
hate crime? Can it ever be considered free speech (albeit offensive) speech?
I’ve read a bit of stuff, and seems that my understanding is that it’s illegal if
it specifically threatens someone. Do things change since this was on at a public
university? Please help clarify these things for me.
Since this was in Geisel, don’t they have a vast army of security cameras? I’d
love to find out who actually put this up. Ignorant racist, or controversy hungry
BSU/allies? Also please don’t flame me and say that I’m accusing the BSU/allies
of doing and planning this… I’m saying that it is a possibility that an
INDIVIDUAL member acted OUTSIDE of the goals of the BSU/allies. I understand that
it’s a hateful, racist, atrocious, and evil act. Occam’s razor would obviously
suggest that a racially motivated individual did this (or some racially apathetic
person did it for the lulz, which there will be many of).
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate?WAISdocID=1820165739+0+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve
11411. (a) Any person who hangs a noose, knowing it to be a symbol
representing a threat to life, on the property of another, without
authorization, for the purpose of terrorizing the owner or occupant
of that private property or in reckless disregard of the risk of
terrorizing the owner or occupant of that private property, or who
hangs a noose, knowing it to be a symbol representing a threat to
life, on the property of a primary school, junior high school, high
school, college campus, public park, or place of employment, for the
purpose of terrorizing any person who attends or works at the school,
park, or place of employment, or who is otherwise associated with
the school, park, or place of employment, shall be punished by
imprisonment in a county jail not to exceed one year, or by a fine
not to exceed five thousand dollars ($5,000), or by both the fine and
imprisonment for the first conviction or by imprisonment in a county
jail not to exceed one year, or by a fine not to exceed fifteen
thousand dollars ($15,000), or by both the fine and imprisonment for
any subsequent conviction.
Apparently this was on the 7th floor of the library, with no witnesses, and no security cameras.
Nobody’s going to say this, but it’s definitely possible for activist groups to set up nooses on their own. I would not put it past BSU to have set this up to attract maximum attention. Let’s hope the cops can get to the bottom of this.
if you notice, that guy with glasses is prominent in many of the BSU rallies etc. I wouldn’t rule out BSU undertaking a false-flag operation.
Most racist vandalism on campuses in recent year across this country have been set-ups to push entitlement agendas, or to just gain sympathy and attention, rather than actual racist events.
That’s not to say there aren’t real bigots out there, of every color and creed. And of course here, we don’t know either way. Nobody should jump to either conclusion without evidence – although I’m sure a lot of folks in the administration and certain student groups will. This has been in the media so much, even if real, there’s no proof anyone affiliated with the campus itself, one way or the other, is even responsible. And, of course, even if a UCSD affiliate is, it’s not the fault or responsibility of everyone else.
But most haven’t been acting rationally lately, we can hardly expect them to take a step back and start now.
I blame the administration for their egregious handing of the situation, enabling this environment. That said, I cannot input anymore into the discussion.
As indicated by E. There are people suspicious of the guy in the picture of the noose. I implore you to crop the picture of the noose just as the UC Student Regent blog has to protect the student from potential violent acts. Let the police investigate and determine the culprit.
Twitter chatter saying that perpetrator has turned himself/herself in to the UCSD administration… (and that this was announced to protest crowd). Question: who is it? Why?
Also, that protest is just getting larger and larger.
I saw the protest, hung around for a little while, and left. It seems to me, it is about half people who support the ideas presented, and half that are there to observe the rest, so they know what’s going on. While I disagree with the general message (we have been hurt, and need compensation), I fully support their right to protest. I’m a big fan of 1st amendment rights, all of them.
Via the Union-Tribune (props to them for quick coverage: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/feb/26/noose-protest-ucsd/ ):
Campus police at the University of California San Diego are questioning a student who admitted she hung a noose on the seventh floor of the university library Thursday night.
The noose was found hanging from a bookcase of the Geisel Library at 10:30 p.m. Thursday, and the student called at 9 a.m. Friday to confess, according to vice chancellor Gary Mattews.
“It’s someone who didn’t think that leaving a noose was an issue,” he said.
Who is this person?
[…] RACIAL CONFLICT SPREADS AS NOOSE DISCOVERED IN GEISEL Filed under: Local — The California Review @ 1:04 am Tags: black student union, california review, chancellor fox, compton cookout, first amendment, freedom of speech, library, nooses, the koala, ucsd, UCSD Associated Students […]
so those clowns have occupied the chancellor’s office. Race baiting thugs. funny, these are mostly the same people who opposed the fee hikes a few months ago, now if their demands are met, fees will be increased AND academic quality will be decreased.
Just heard about the 2nd noose discovered on the Bear Statue at Warren. It is obvious that a group of people are very much trying to start a race riot. I have a feeling that if the nooses don’t work, it will be taken to the next level.
Don’t think there is a 2nd noose; I biked over and asked people in the Warren area if they’d seen anything and also asked several community service officers. Sounds like a rumor that got out of hand.
Note: more people seem to be at the “Bear Garden” than at the occupation. And the Bear Garden people seem to be having a much better time too.
Thanks for the update on the 2nd noose. I am relieved that it was just a rumor. I will be more careful to wait for confirmed reports.
Is there video feed of the Chancellor’s response? I would really like to see what’s going on.
No beer was served at the Bear Garden. I am offended at the misappropriation and frivolous spending of my student activity fees. They are actively discriminating against a beer lover. Since the January Bear Garden was also canceled, am I to assume that there will be TRIPLE the amount of beer at the next Bear Garden? Or maybe we should only make it for a certain race next time. That seems appropriate. Better yet, we could have each race have their own bear garden! We can have an area for Polar Bears, Brown Bears, Black Bears, Panda Bears, and Koala Bears! Wait. Beer does not discriminate. Bear gardens promote racial unity, tolerance, and equality for all through food, games, and most of all some frothy and delicious beer.
Alec, first of all, thank you for providing clarification following my comment from last night. In light of the new circumstances, it can be easily construed as “hateful”, which it is far from.
The noose is a horrible act, considering the very ugly context it carries. Whoever did this and for whatever reason, they deserve a severe punishment.
In my opinion, we are swimming in VERY murky waters right now. First of all, the race of the noose perpetrators has not been made public. In light of the events of the last seven days, that fact carries enormous importance. It has not been released either a) because the person is black, and that fact can have unforeseen consequences on the crowd, or b) because the person was a race other than black, in which case it is very easy to see how a riled-up crowd can easily turn violent against a particular group should that information be made public. In either case, as has been mentioned, the group that would benefit from this action FAR more than anyone else is the BSU. This is not an accusation, merely a speculation. Any action as thought-out as this (high floor of Geisel library, facing library walk and Peterson hill, easily seen from the outside) has to have carried a motive. People that disagree with BSU and their demands would have been the absolute last group to have done this, considering how much it would empower the protesters’ cause. Same with people that really are shamelessly racist: doing something that is almost certain to bring significant benefits to the group they hate. It wouldn’t take long for someone to realize the huge mistake they are making, and the elevator ride to the 7th floor is certainly long enough.
We need more information. Meanwhile, let’s hope Fox and the administration are strong enough to take this to a civil debate instead of buckling under pressure and accommodating the protesters. Decisions and policies made in such emotionally charger circumstances are almost always the bad ones.
David, you are a man after my own heart!
This whole ordeal makes me feel that much better about opting to attend SDSU over UCSD. David, you should come by and have a beer with us down at state sometime… we all get along pretty well down here =)
neville chamberlain? no, it’s just chancellor fox!