Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Fallout!
Jen Avelino wrote an apology for her Facebook message. Apparently, Student Action does not speak negatively of other candidates. (HA!) "I apologize for breaking Student Action tradition. It was impulsive and uncharacteristic of me and I apologize for that." Oh, and "I am not a racist."
She didn't actually apologize for her comment that Van Nguyen should've supported the VSA culture show because he's Vietnamese. She made some vague comments about how people shouldn't be identified based on their ethnicity, but the extent of her apology was "I apologize to those who may have been hurt by that part of the message" after bitching about candidates approaching ethnic groups. (The "everyone else does it" quasi-defense)
She then proceeds with a lot of complaining about the backlash. She apparently suffered in the same way that Jews did before the Holocaust. Okay, she didn't quite say that.
I expected a negative response from those who opposed my opinion which I am entitled to, but I did not expect the kind of recourse that was taken. No student, no human being should ever have to go through what I went through and actually am still going through. What people did to me was outright dehumanizing. Let me put this in psychological terms. There's group-think where people in a group tend to think alike, then there's ingroup/outgroup. This is when one group sees another group as not belonging to their group. Then there's dehumanization. This is when the in-group treats the out-group like they are less than human and have no emotional feelings. This is the framework that led to the Holocaust, this is the type of behavior that ends in 1st grade after your teacher puts you in time out for calling someone a name. This kind of behavior was displayed to me moments after my message was leaked. And this kind of behavior was displayed to many people during this election season.
I was called names, yelled at to my face, blocked from entering buildings, told never to show up to "our" events, I was pranced around while being chanted to like I was an inanimate object, I was told that we hate you, I was told what kind of Asian are you, I was told that I was a disgrace to my community, and the list goes on. My goodness, how old are we? Even days after the elections have ended, I got told to keep on walking, yup you're not wanted here. I didn't even attend the API Issues Conference because of fear from being attacked. I couldn't enjoy the one API event on campus that I have been publicizing to you all about since the moment I took office. This is only my story. What about others? Two people were attacked with eggs during chalking. Egging happens to houses during Halloween, not to people during chalking. These chalkers are helping their friends, and someone thinks that they are a threat and thus has the right to physically harm them. Unacceptable. There are government laws against that kind of behavior. People were yelled at to their face, as if they didn't have eardrums, while they walked someone to class. People got their lit ripped from their hands, and thrown in the trashcan; that's called stealing. Some things are all in fun and games, but other things were taken way too far. I'm not saying any group is responsible for these things, but this should never happen, and I hope no one has to go through anything like this again. This kind of behavior should have ended in 1st grade. I did not expect this from educated college students especially from the University of California Berkeley and those who are trying to represent the entire student body. I do not want this kind of people representing me. How old are we? Is she complaining about the childishness of others while talking about her own temper tantrum? Pardon me while I play the world's smallest violin.
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