[Peace-discuss] Response to Hate Free Campus

[David Green]

http://davisvanguard.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4209:commentary-the-facade-of-uc-davis-tolerance&Itemid=118
 
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I fail to understand why people as intelligent as the ones running the show at UC Davis fail to see how useless the steps that they have taken are.  They might as well have been sitting on their thumbs for the entire year, for all of the good that their steps have accomplished.

When the students sat in on the MU quad last spring, they had very specific demands.  The biggest problem facing minority students - particularly blacks and to some extent Latinos and Middle Easterners - is that they feel isolated in this community.  So when a hate incident occurs, they feel particularly vulnerable.

The specific requests were efforts to recruit more minority students and faculty, and to increase the resources available to African-American students and their support on campus.  They addressed issues like attrition rates, providing funding for a retention specialist, and other such issues.

But more importantly, African-American students say they feel vulnerable in the community on a regular basis. It is a continuing complaint that police both City of Davis and UC Davis racially profile students.  Whether accurate or not, that is a very widely-held perspective.

I am particularly reminded of interviewing an African-American student and member of the football team for a position with our court watch program.  I asked him if he had ever been ever racially profiled, and his response was "all the time."  I looked at his vehicle, he had a standard vehicle, perhaps between 5 and 10 years old, in reasonable working order, well maintained, UC Davis sticker - why would he be pulled over all the time? ..............
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