I'm So Whitewashed that I'm Actually White

A friend and fellow blogger brought a new student run news paper to my attention. The publication is TWANAS, standing for the Third World and Native American Students Press Collective. The paper has been brought back to life after it died in the 80's, and in its present incarnation it seems to have expanded from it's focus on Native Americans to any race that isn't white. As one would expect, it contains the typical revolutionary diatribe that can be found in many of the papers around here, focusing on all the terrible and virtually nonexistant injustices you see students of color facing every day here at UCSC.

One of my favorite quotes from this publication, which was originally discussed in my friend's blog (http://evan.branigans.net/), reads as follows:

"For those students of color (SOC) who do not identify as such, you are either ignorant, "whitewashed," or unaware that you are a part of a struggle."

This quote baffles me in many ways, especially as it applies to me. I happen to be partly pacific islander (Guam, specifically), which explains why my last name is Perez. I look completely white. When I was born, my grandfather, who's 100% chamorro (as the people of Guam are called), jokingly (JOKINGLY AS IN A JOKE) displayed me as proof to his caucasian wife's family that "he was white too." My brother, on the other hand, is brown. You don't have to be Watson and Crick to know that I had the same genetic chances of being dark skinned, just as he had the same chances of being white.

In spite of this difference between my brother and myself, Benny feels equally as disenfranchised and cheated by society as I do, which is very little. In fact, he makes fun of me for being white, but that really has nothing to do with skin color and everything to do with him being an indiscriminant jackass.

So what do you say, TWANAS? Is Ben a part of the struggle while I'm not? We're from the same household, the same family, and we went to the same public schools. We both even managed to get into college. So TWANAS? TWANAS, are you listening? Good. Suck my hybrid dick.

The UC's Administration is Overrun with Soulless Bureaucrats

During my first night back at college, my friend threw a big party in his on-campus apartment. I know this is unheard of, but this party happened to include booze! Inevitably, a pair of RAs showed up, and all thirty odd guests took less than 15 seconds to disappear in a drunken stampede. The RAs needed to talk to whoever lived there, and Luis, the host I mentioned, pretty much had to turn himself in to them. I decided I should "Do the Right Thing" and be the only person to stay behind and take the fall with him. And no, I wasn't drunk, so I have no other excuse for why I decided to do that.

Still, I figured, "One write up? Big deal. Means nothing." After all, I knew people with two write ups who suffered virtually no consequences. Well, for some mysterious reason, that turned out to be different for me. I was sentenced to attend a "Decision Making Workshop" regarding "ethics." This is fairly ironic, considering how I voluntarily gave myself up to the authorities on my buddy's behalf. I guess I needed to be taught not to be so stupid as to help a friend when he's got to bite the bullet.

Put shortly, I completely forgot to sign up for this stupid class. I was reminded yesterday, when I attempted to enroll in courses for next quarter. An "academic hold" had been placed on my enrollment, meaning I couldn't enroll until I'd attended the workshop. Oops. So I go online to sign up for the next available one, which is on May 4th. This is well after the enrollment deadline. It seemed that I wouldn't be able to sign up for class. So I was directed to contact one of the people in Residential Life who are in charge of disciplining little blights on society such as myself.

My conversation with this guy was akin to banging my head against a brick wall, except this particular wall was made of red tape and inhuman bureaucracy.
Let me present a transcript of my conversation with the guy, as close as I can remember it:

Soulless Bureaucrat: Student #1002109, please present query.

Olivonius: Uh, hi. I've got this hold on my academic enrollment for next quarter. I needed to attend this Decision Making Workshop and I totally forgot. I'm signed up for the next one available, which is in May, but I kinda need to sign up for classes in the meantime, so...

SB: Does not compute. Student #1002109 has failed to comply with Judiciary Sanction Code C-23. Student #1002109 must fulfill the terms of the sanction before he may proceed to enroll.

O: Uh, yeah, but I can't wait till May, I need to, you know, go to school.

SB: Does not compute. Student #1002109 has failed to comply with Judiciary Sanction Code C-23. Student #1002109 must fulfill the terms of the sanction before subject may proceed to enroll.

O: I, um...

SB: Please present query.

O: Look, I've been very busy this quarter. I'm taking extra credits, I'm involved in the student senate and PRAXIS, I'm in a number of different ensembles down at the music center. Plus my mom is fighting breast cancer (yes this is completely true) and in the midst of this I just... forgot. There's got to be some wa-

SB: Does not compute. Student #1002109 has failed to comply with Judiciary Sanction Code C-23. Student #1002109 must fulfill the terms of the sanction before subject may proceed to enroll. Student has shown massive levels of FATAL HUMAN FLAW B-32: IRRESPONISIBILITY. ABORT, RETRY, FAIL?

O: You're not going to let me enroll in class next quarter are you?

B: Negative. Plus I think your mom is a bitch and I hope she dies.

No dice. It all came down to me being "irresponsible." Apparently, "irresponsible" describes a person who has a respectable 3.7 GPA, has taken extra credits every quarter since fall of freshman year, plays in numerous music ensembles, gets involved in community service and student government, has only one write up, has never thrown up or passed out by means of a substance once, and who's worst offense is whining in an internet blog. No, this man was an impregnable fortress of by-the-book steely compassionless resolve. Apparently he was a robot too.

So I asked him what I should do. I can't just miss a quarter of college. His answer:

Soulless Bearcat: Unknown

Olivonius: You don't know?

SB: Unknown. Please contact University Employee 4-R2: Academic Advisor.

O: You can't-

SB: Fuck! Look, beat cheeks kid, my lunch break starts in 15 minutes. *click*

I have a few things to say to everyone involved in slapping me with this "academic hold," with the possible exception of the RAs who showed up that fateful night. First of all, fuck you. You're all a bunch of soulless, insensitive bureaucratic red-tape dispensing robots who masturbate while pointlessly rearranging your pens and office knickknacks as you wait for your lunch breaks. Guess what, assholes? There are a lot of people who live here that really do cause problems, and could use a lesson in "ethics." I had to live with one of them all throughout last year. The fact that you can't see that I'm not part of the problem only shows that you're a bunch of lazy twits who brainlessly assign punishments based on the quota you need to meet, and not the individual case of the perpetrator.

Why don't you step back and look at some of the better points of America's legal system, which you so ridiculously try to emulate? When a man is accused of murder, he's in a lot trouble. A lot more than me. But even in a state like California, where the death penalty is legal, the killer doesn't necessarily wind up on death row. That's because the nature of the offense is taken into consideration during sentencing. If the man brutally stabbed his children because they wouldn't get out of the way of the TV, he'll probably wind up facing capital punishment. If the man killed another man in a drunken bar fight, that would be another story.

Would it be too much to simply look at my record and see that I'm far from worthy of this "academic hold?" Would it be too much to show a little compassion? Of course it would be too much! Anything that involves something more than getting out of your chair to start your fucking lunch break is too much for you lot of slothful subhuman pencil-pushing cock-sucking bottom-feeding bantha-poodoo uberdouche commienazi child-molesting dog-eating cum rags who leave foot long skid marks in your underwear every fucking time so I'm not doing your laundry anymore. Look what you've done! You've got me all riled up.

Santa Cruz's One Diversity Issue

There are a lot of things I like about UC Santa Cruz. We're getting a solid UC quality education, the faculty actually cares about undergraduates, it's a beautiful campus, etc. etc. Also, for the most part, the school boasts an extremely zealous commitment to accepting every kind of person imaginable. But in regards to this respect for diversity, UCSC falls short in one way, a way that seems to go unnoticed by a lot of people. And this is where my critisizm begins.

It's great that people of all races, creeds, genders, ages, sexual orientations, and financial backgrounds are accepted here, but unfortunately, I can't say that's true for people with certain political beliefs.

In fact, I've viewed animosity towards people with rightward leanings on a disturbing scale. Even as a moderate, I've gotten looks for not baring the same foaming-at-the-mouth-liberal view points that are so very popular here. It's disgusting. Have a personal anecdote or two.

Anecdote #1
I'm seeing this girl at the beginning of my Freshman year. To put it bluntly, she's the epitome of the idiot political extremist and the stereotypical uber-left product of Berkeley, California. We were together right around the '04 presidential election and of course the subject was brought up in conversation. To say the very least, she did not like George Bush, and anybody who did was, as she so eloquently put it, a complete moron. I think she would have murdered the man in his sleep had she the chance, I kid you not. Kerry, on the other hand, was God's gift to mankind.

All I said in response to this was that I did not appreciate some of the decisions Bush's administration had made and that I was probably going to vote for Kerry, not because I really liked the guy, but because he was a better alternative than another four years of W. I also mentioned that there were a few things I thought Bush's administration had done right.

This of course, threw her into a frenzy. She was "very dissapointed in me" for not vehemently hating a man I only knew through sound bites and not wanting to stab him while he slumbered. I'm sure her perception of my intelligence was sullied as well, because only morons don't want to kill the president.

I wasn't with her when Kerry anounced his concession, but according to her, when it happened she began crying and flailing about hysterically, knocking a lamp off her desk and breaking her laptop's keyboard. When she told me about this, she wasn't embarassed, she was proud: that just proved how much she cared about politics. WOW!!!!

You know, thinking back on it, I don't think I had much in common with this girl. In fact, I kinda hope something eliminates her from the gene pool before she manages to reproduce, which apparently, she was very keen on doing. Great!

Anecdote #2

This particular story actually involves that mysterious portal to the world of public transportaion, the bus stop. The bus stops on our campus typically have a place where people can stick up posters regarding events on campus.

So I'm waiting for the bus, and waiting with me are a guy and two fairly attractive girls. I don't know any of them. A car pulls up to the curb with four guys inside. One of them gets out with a flier and staples it to the poster board. It's an advertisement for a meeting of the college republicans. Woo-hoo!!!

The guy gets back into the car and they pull away. Once the car is safely out of view, that other guy who was waiting at the bus stop walks up to the fresh poster. "You know what? No," he says to anybody who can hear him. He rips it down, crumples it up like the true revolutionary that he is, and tosses it in the garbage. He then turns to the two girls, who look a little shocked, and announces haughtily, "Who here at this school is a republican anyway?"

You fucking douche bag. You cock-sucking toady. You malignent, festering little cold sore on the face of humanity. "Who here at this school is a republican?" How about those four guys in the car, you insipient sack of festering cat shit? You flake of badly digested tofu clinging desperately to the hair of Satan's flaming ass-crack.

Gee, maybe I'm over-reacting here, but just look at this idiot. He's obviously liberal, which means he probably believes in freedom of speech, while firmly believing that conservatives don't, which is also bullshit. Well, I don't consider my speech free when I see a poster put up in a public place only to be torn down by somebody because he doesn't agree with what it represents.

I'm almost as ashamed of myself as I am of that guy for not saying anything to him. The holocaust happened because pussies like me stood idly by while arrogant morons like that stupid twit did whatever they wanted.

Anecdote #3

This one also involves bus stop posters, though it isn't so much about a lack of political acceptance here at UC Santa Cruz. It's more of a testament to the incredible level of extreme thinking that occurs here, followed by the inevitable hypocracy that comes as a result.

Right, so I see two posters at the bus stop, both of them assuredly put up by the same crowd of self proclaimed revolutionaries, freedom fighters, and Che Gueverra Tee Shirt Wearers.

The first one says "Kick Military Recruiters Out of UCSC." Fine, whatever, I personally don't care if they come here or not, so long as their absense doesn't effect funding for the school. They're not forcing me to do anything if they show up either.

The second poster, juxtaposed directly beneath the first, reads, "Fabio Martinez, Militant Revolutionary Speaker, appearing at yadayada auditorium on campus, blah blah blah."

If Hyprocraties was still alive and earning royalties on every hypocracy that is born on this campus, he'd make Donald Trump look like a pauper. Oh, the military is certainly militant, but they're not revolutionary. I guess that's what makes it okay to be a militant revolutionary.

These people say war isn't the answer. I agree in most cases. Yet they snap their hipster fingers to these "militant" revolutionaries. What's the difference? Both groups believe busting heads will solve the world's problems.