A group of African Americans students at the University of California, Berkeley affiliated with the Black Student Union, have made a list of 10 demands and delivered them to Chancellor Nick Dirks.
The students want the university to place greater emphasis on increasing student diversity and making the campus a more welcoming place for African Americans. The students have called for the hiring of two Black psychologists who are experienced in dealing with people who have suffered racial discrimination. The students also want the university to hire advisers who will mentor Black students and African American athletes at the university and admissions officers experienced in recruiting African American students.
A further demand called for the renaming of a building after Assata Shakur (a.k.a. JoAnne Chesimard), a former Black Panther and member of the Black Liberation Army. In 1977, she was convicted of murdering a New Jersey State Trooper. Shakur escaped from prison and is now living in exile in Cuba. She was the first woman to be named to the list of the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists.
Shakur says she is a “20th-century escaped slave.” Her version of events leading to her arrest and exile can be found here.
For the 3 percent of Black undergraduate students who attend UC-Berkeley, you should not be surprised in the disparate treatment you’re receiving at UC-Berkeley. In fact, you should be disappointed in yourself to even remotely assume that you were going to be “well-received” on campus. This only occurs you have not been adequately prepared to deal with American racism and to be in the so-called California multiculturalism paradigm.
Just think, the majority of the undergraduate student population is Asian at “39 percent [and] 29 percent Whites” (http://diversity.berkeley.edu/undergraduate-students-current-census). Do the Asian students have statues honoring greats from the Han or Qin Dynasty (Korean), Mao Zedong, (commonly known as Mao Tse-tung)[Chinese], or the Tokugawa Shoungate (Japanese). If the answer is no, do you think the UC-Berkeley administration would even consider in changing the name of a building on campus to Assata Shakur. Really! The state of California is not that liberal particularly when it concerns Black people.
Regarding the need for additional Black psychologists, I have very little sympathy for you on that one because you have 103 HBCUs that offer your major. Yet, you have been socialized to view these institutions (their not perfect and definitely not UC-Berkeley) as places that couldn’t properly educate you the 21st century. Besides, if you were at an HBCU, you certainly would not be demanding to hire “two more” Black psychologists because already working at these institutions. Last point, I am most certain many of these same Black students at UC-Berkeley turn their noses down on Black students who attend schools within the CSU system or HBCUs.
Michael, I agree with your statement 100%. It is amazing that when blacks attend PWI’s they want to be accepted with the “welcome with open arms” fantasy. However, when reality sets in and they see how their peers really feel about them, then, and only then, they want to protest, hold marches, and speak about their treatment and start demanding things. They for whatever reason forget about the history of the treatment of African-Americans in the U S and more specifically on PWI campuses in the past and presently. This treatment is not only at UC Berkley. It’s at Duke, Oklahoma U, and others, too. But, nevertheless, blacks continue to support those schools, brag about getting a degree from those schools, and even send their children to those schools. They belittle blacks who attend and graduate from HBCU’s and tell the graduates that a HBCU degree is an inferior degree compared to a PWI degree, even if the PWI degree is a degree from an unknown PWI. And, these same complainants would not even think about sending financial support to keep HBCU’s in existence. I don’t have sympathy for those blacks either.
Hey Alvin…….take a stroll across the Berkeley campus…….it’s ANYTHING BUT PWI……
The majority of the undergraduate student population at UC-Berkeley is Asian at “39 percent [and] 29 percent Whites” (http://diversity.berkeley.edu/undergraduate-students-current-census). In lieu of that, the academic overall curriculum is still a Eurocentric based mired in Eurocentric themes, concepts, paradigms, and worldviews. In other words, this institution will continue cranking our Euro-Asians who will transport this ideology back in mainland China, Japan, and Korean. For those who dissent, if you venture to any of these respective countries you will see scores of golf courses being constructed at an unprecedented rate in an effort to emulate White American culture norms and values.
the statement and both michaels and pauls comments are nuts.