03/03/2010
There’s a textbook response to a Hate Crime Hoax: the Main Stream Media creates a circus, with politicians, administrators, and left wing students demanding investigations, sensitivity training, and swift justice to the perpetrator of the terrible crime. But when it turns out that a left wing and/or minority student is actually responsible, then they tuck a brief story on page 12 and never speak of it again.
We can only wish for such a textbook response at University of California at San Diego, which is going through what dozens of outlets are calling "a string of racist incidents". As so often, they have a pesky habit of being committed by minorities. But despite these revelations, administrators, politicians, the media, and minority students continue with their hysterics as if they were committed by white students.
The first outbreak of insensitivity was the "Compton Cookout" held on February 15, allegedly by UCSD’s Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. The cookout was a politically incorrect party where attendees — many of whom were minorities — ate watermelon and fried chicken, drank malt liquor, and listened to rap music. Some of the attendees wore black face.
Speaker-elect of the State Assembly John A. Pérez, Speaker Karen Bass, various members of "Asian Pacific Islander, Black, Latino, LGBT and Women’s caucuses," and a variety of other professional grievance organizations at the State Capital to call for a lynch mob. Speaker pro Tempore Isadore Hall, III, who represents Compton, demanded that
"university officials should act swiftly to sanction all responsible parties including the revocation of fraternity or sorority charters, the full repayment of any public funds used to support these organizations and the individual suspension or expulsion of any student found responsible for planning or participating in this act of hate."
Left wing professors held teach-ins on racism. But this was not enough for the minority students, who walked out. Eritrean-America Black Student Union vice chairman Fnann Keflezighi explained that the teach-in "would make us quiet." The BSU responded by holding protests with a list of 32 demands that would for all practical purposes put them in charge of the school. Among them:
You get the idea.
Miss Keflezighi’s claim that the UCSD administration’s holding special events specifically to address the concerns of Black Student Union was trying to make them "quiet" is especially bizarre given how the school actually treated critics of the whiny minority groups. Thus a campus humor publication called The Koala mocked the complaints on Student Run Television and on its website by pointing out that the UCSD Black Alumni Association was holding a deliberately stereotypical "Kool Aid 'n' Chicken" party in the midst of this controversy. The Koala joked on its website:
"The Koala would like to condemn the organizers of the Compton Cookout. If history has shown us anything, you need more black people at your party to have enough black-on-black violence to actually justify the name Compton.' Shame on you. SHAME."
The student government responded to this obvious satire by shutting down the entire Student Run TV station, and freezing funds of 33 student groups.
According to USCD student body president Utsav Gupta ,"[w]e will only open [Student Run Television] again when we can be sure that such hateful content can never be aired again on our student funded TV station."[UC San Diego Freezes Funds for 33 Media Groups, Dissolves Student TV, Threatens to Punish Students for Protected Speech, TheFire.org, February 23, 2010]
There’s one huge problem with all this: the Compton Cookout party was not held on the UCSD campus and was not organized by the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. Rather, it was organized by an African American comedian and non-student named Nipsey Washington, whose stage name is Jiggaboo Jones, to celebrate the release of his new DVD. Jones had held these parties across the country for years, including at UCSD. In fact, he toned down the title from the previous "Nigga Night."
This should have been obvious from the beginning. The invitation to the event had a picture of Jones with a T-Shirt with his name on it.
To his great credit, Jones has made an impassioned attack on the politically correct activists on his website that is worth quoting at length, verbatim:
"[S]ome hate mongering black people had told a pack of lies about our event stating that a White Fraternity and several members of the KKK threw a Racist party that made fun of black people. This lie was quickly soaked up by people with some kind of political agenda to spread hate and discontent among people who attend UCSD.
"The divisive few told a 'Woa is me' tale of how all blacks at UCSD are almost lynched in trees seemingly everyday. Members of the media ate this up because this type of story sells papers, gets people pissed off and keeps them tuning in. Blog sites went crazy and facebook fascists took their laptops and started the witch hunt that would ruin the reputations of several good hearted people and their families with their inaccurate statements…
"As I jumped in and pulled the curtain back exposing the fact that it was never a racist event and explained the whole mix-up, I was hung up on, called an uncle tom and was accused of getting paid off to 'Cover for the Racists'…
"The Compton Cookout was simply a great chance to knock down the walls of racial division and to get all sides to enjoy poking fun at all elements of racial tension. Some of these groups like The 'Black Student Union' and their connected 'political activists' won’t allow this progress because it threatens their very existence. They simply can’t have events like this because it undermines their foothold and exposes the fact that they are obsolete and in soon need of being disbanded. These political hacks played to your fears and suspicions instead of letting you all in on the whole story. The really sad part is many of you ran into the streets with 'Torches & Pitchforks' without thinking about the fact that maybe someone had been withholding valuable information. This reminds me of something so familiar…."
Jones contacted the university, the media, and politicians explaining that he, rather than the students organized the event, and if they wanted to get upset at someone, it should be him. They all ignored him. Other than the redoubtable former mayor of San Diego and Radio Talk Show Host Roger Hedgecock, no one in the MSM has covered this aspect of the story.
The MSM simply would not let this inconvenient fact get in the way of the way of the lynch mob. A recent Google News Search of "Compton Cookout" revealed 1,184 stories. "Compton Cookout" and "Jiggaboo Jones" yields only six, none from major newspapers.
On March 1, The LA Times editorial "Beyond a 'Compton Cookout'," began, "Now we know the truth." But The Truth was not that the alleged racist fraternity party was actually hosted by a black comedian, but rather.
"The infamous "Compton Cookout" at UC San Diego, where members of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity invited guests to celebrate Black History Month dressed as their favorite ghetto stereotypes, was not an isolated incident. Nor can it be chalked up to standard-issue frat behavior, in which a degree of misogyny, bigotry and drunken insensitivity is often shrugged off as normal college hijinks."
What are the other incidents that make this incident non-"isolated"?
On February 25, someone hung a noose from in the campus library. The predictable response ensued. Students stormed the offices of Chancellor Marye Anne Fox and held a sit in for six hours. No one was arrested or disciplined. Students at other colleges held similar protests. At UC Berkeley students set trash cans ablaze, broke into a library under renovation where they smashed windows and sprayed graffiti.
Instead of denouncing this lawlessness, the ten Chancellors of the University of California campuses issued a joint statement deploring these "acts of racism, intolerance and incivility."
Bowing to the BSU’s demands, Chancellor Fox created a special "Battle Against Hate" website, stating
"Recently, derogatory, hate- and bias-related events have rocked UC San Diego. Hate in the form of these horrific and repugnant acts has threatened to divide our campus. Racism is not going to happen in our community. The university is committing its resources — legal, moral, ethical, communal and educational — to make positive, necessary changes on our campus. UC San Diego is working with the university’s Black Student Union to address these issues and ensure that our students feel safe, supported and respected so that they can succeed. Please join us in the battle against hate at UC San Diego"
— and that she would address the BSU’s demands.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who last year signed a bill to make hanging a noose in public a crime punishable with up to a year in jail, called it a "horrific act" of racism.
Of course there is the usual problem: the perpetrator came forward and described herself as "a minority student who sympathizes with the students that have been affected by the recent issues on campus." [See police report, PDF]
Amazingly, this revelation has not stopped the BSU, the media, and other assorted victimologists from decrying the noose as an incident indicative of racism on campus.
The latest incident occurred this Monday, March 1. Someone placed a pillow case fashioned as a Klan hood on top of a statue of Theodor Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss) on campus.
The usual frenzy ensued: more protests, more unquestioning media accounts filled with the same lies about the noose and Compton Cookout, and more groveling by the administration.
The University Police are trying to extract DNA and fingerprint evidence from the pillowcase and are considering it a "hate crime" to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. The media repeats this as the string of racist incidents without mentioning that all of the previous incidents were actually committed by minorities.
Of course no one has suggested that there might be the slightest possibility this latest "hate crime" might not be the work of the imaginary white racists who dominate UCSD.
Allow me fill the void: I am absolutely certain that this is a hoax. If it turns out that a non-leftist white student put the hood up, I will ask VDARE.COM Editor Peter Brimelow to pay me for this article in the form of a donation to the Southern Poverty Law Center ($PLC) made in my honor.
Given how the administration, media, and politicians bend over backward to address the whining of the Black Student Union and other groups, it’s hard to say exactly how the school is really an inhospitable environment to African Americans. Their real gripe: there are not enough blacks on campus. Of course the politicians and the school administration would love nothing more than to let unqualified minorities on campus. But the people of California, who voted out race preferences, do not agree.
The truth is these left wing minority student "radicals" are not rebels at all. They are on the exact same side of the political, media, and academic establishment.
When confronted by Roger Hedgecock on the fact that the Compton Cookout was organized by an African American, dreadlocked professor of African American Studies Daniel Widener who organized many of the protests and sit-ins responded,
"This is an issue is an issue of campus climate, this is an issue of a campus that has never been more than 2% African American. We're not about incidents. We're about structurally changing the University … Here at UCSD, we're trying to create a climate where every California child can get the education they deserve…"
When Hedgecock asked, "Do they deserve the public education they earn or do they earn deserve a public education based on their skin color?"
Widener responded, "I’m not sure I understand the question".
Hedgecock replied: "I didn’t think you would."
Ellison Lodge works on Capitol Hill.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.