Asians? In my library? It's more likely than you think.

You've all seen it.

She got Wahooed by the entire Internet.

Then she apologized and quit UCLA. She claims she got death threats. UCLA decided not to take formal action against her.

In a stunning display of in-depth reporting, the Daily Bruin contacted First Amendment scholar and ex-child prodigy Eugene Volokh for a Mills-Lane-esque ruling on whether being annoyed by Asians is against the law. His conclusion: I'll allow it. That's about like hiring Ben Bernanke to do your 1040EZ for you, but whatever.

Additional drama: her dad seems to be reveling in his daughter's attempts at worldwide attention whoredom. Thanks to the Internet killing journalism, it's completely unclear what the timeline surrounding this whole part of the mess is - whether she was planning to start an "Asians in the library" blog before or after the video went viral or what.

I'm going to avoid much commentary on the issue, except to say that I cannot understand people who 1) apologize when they are caught out in situations like this (sadly, I'm looking at you, Gilbert Gottfried), 2) believe an apology from someone caught out in a situation like this, or 3) demand an apology in situations like this. It's not like ten days went by and her worldview changed or was going to change.

FOCUS: This whole clusterfuck. How bad/offensive was the original rant? What should the consequences have been? Did she get what she deserved? Defend or make fun of the hundreds of sad-faced video responses on YouTube. Do you secretly enjoy the tornado-like properties of the Internet mob, utterly destroying one insensitive person while leaving hordes around her untouched? Or do you worry that we're reverting to mob rule?

No politics rule suspended, but keep it on-topic: there's not much political here anyway. Also, I'm a fan of honesty above many other virtues, so if someone expresses themselves and you don't like it, be dignified in your response. This board is not the Milly Ouroboros - we do not feed on ourselves.

 

Don't you mean anyone on the phone needs to take their conversations outside?

RACIST!!!!!

 

I vividly remember the day I learned about this stuff in school. Second grade. I had no concept of racism or sexism or anything. Then out of the blue the teacher starts in on this very special lesson about weird words like "stereotype" and "bias" and "generalizations." Before this I thought stereotypes were Sony, JVC and Pioneer.

The problem with the whole lesson was that the teacher would never provide any examples of any of it. All she would say was "you know, like when you think one thing about a whole group of people." I had absolutely no idea what the fuck she was talking about. I had to ask Dad at home. He said "oh, you know, like some people say Jewish people are greedy or Asians (he might have called them 'Orientals') are bad drivers."

My 7-year-old response: "they are?!?" I had honestly never heard these things.

I'm not naive enough to think that I never would have encountered these opinions if I hadn't heard them in this context, but it is funny to me that my earliest awareness of racial stereotypes was prompted by a lesson on why I shouldn't have them.

 

Kubla Khan is spot on. Sure, the girl is ignorant, especially for a Poli Sci major, and racially insensitive. Perhaps she's a little out of touch with reality (talking of American manners and how nice she is, generalizing 60% of the population of her school, etc). You know what though? Her detractors sound eerily similar, if not worse.

They just sound like they want to be outraged. Hell, they just want to see someone get thrown under the bus. Most of the comments fall under 2 categories: Ad hominem attacks against her or a call for some kind of punishment like expulsion. Seriously? Her punishment will be being known as "That UCLA girl that ranted against Asians during a tragedy." For all of the idiots out there, no one made mention that's she's Constitutionally protected because she made no threats toward anyone.

It makes me wonder if there are that many people out there who actually believe in being politically correct.

On another note, this video is hilarious:

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zulEMWj3sVA&playnext=1&list=PL055B1113B346CFC9" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zulEMWj3 ... 13B346CFC9</a>

 

Shameless theft from the youtube thread.




That pretty much sums up how I feel about this. What happened to just writing her off as yet another dumb, blonde, American girl like the rest of the world usually does? Death Threats? Seriously?

 

The Last Psychiatrist just wrote about the response to that "Friday, Friday" song, and I think his point applies to this situation as well. People aren't reacting with such hatred because of what she said, but because of what she represents. Which is a spoiled sorority girl. The reaction isn't "how dare she stereotype a whole race like that" its "how dare this spoiled bitch who's had everything handed to her on a silver platter say anything bad about anyone!"

 

I think all of the backlash and outrage is directly correlated with the whole "TOO SOON" mindset. I agree that her attitude and choice of words were abhorrent and ignorant, but had the earthquake/tsunami not occurred, it wouldn't have nearly been this bad.

As far as the responses themselves - hell yeah they were a bit over the top. But one question - why the hell did she take the time to record that asinine video when she should have been studying?

 

People are going crazy for no reason. I go to the library 5+ times a week...and 2-3 of those times I'm met with what my friends and I have begun to call the "asshole asian group." They are characterized by extremely loud talking, excited high pitched giggles, and the smell of the leftover food they leave in the trash.

But there are also the "bitchy sorority girls," who spend the entire time on facebook giggling with their friends while fielding calls about the next event their planning. Then there is "asshole who has music too loud, and is oblivious to the looks he is getting because of it," and so on and so forth.

Rules in life you should take away from this girl:
1) People will annoy you.
2) DON'T POST ANYTHING RACIST THAT CAN BE TRACKED BACK TO YOU ON THE INTERNET.

Is it really that hard?

 

I feel like this is a really simple issue.

On Alexandra's part:

Don't be a racist asshole.
Broadcasting it makes you a stupid racist asshole.


On the listeners part:

Prett much three choices. You can a.) note that she's a racist asshole and ignore it except as it relates to your own company, barbecue or witch-burning, b.)use it as a teaching point in a blog or paper or something, or c.) confront her privately and constructively about what she said and why she felt that way.

Of those, c is the most tiring and a is the one most people wind up defaulting to. Note that nowhere on that list is attacking her family, threatening her, harassing her, being a racist, or any other punishment that's way creepier than the original assholery.

 

I think the way she came about the whole thing made her sound like an uneducated fool, a racist, and ignorant of manners. While I think she has a right to be angry (rightfully so) she went about it the wrong way. The way she imitated the Japanese language made her sound stupid. Her bringing up the parents and family had nothing to do with the argument. Why did she even bring up the Tsunami? None of that was pertinent to the argument and had she left out those things, she probably would have been fine. The fact she brought up "American manners" I did laugh at. The other part I think which made her sound racist as well was how she singled out the Japanese people and culture. Instead of just commenting on jerks talking on the phone in the library (where she would have been fine), she singled them out which I believe is what led to her demise.

 

In high school I was almost expelled for a situation like this. Back then, I met up with a "friend" of mine from a school I use to attend. This friend of mine was doing an article on Catholic schools. This happened within my first year at this school. This friend and I struck up a casual conversation and over the course of the conversation I proceed to do what any teenager does, talk shit about their school. I was saying stuff like this school has far more drugs in it than the administration would like to think and so on and so forth.

Well, this story got published at my old school. Needless to say my new school was pissed and wanted my head. They were accusing me of things I didn't know the meaning of like slander and the other school of libel. They were worried that I had tarnished their illustrious reputation and my ass needed to be punished. I never got expelled but the animosity of I felt from the staff was intense. Its a very rare and real sensation when you know the person looking at you genuinely hates you.

This girl is an attention whore, if she wasn't she wouldn't go on the internet and post videos. But I think the reaction to this is societal hyperbole to a high extent. She expressed her opinions. People disagreed with her opinions. Those people made a big fucking deal about disagreeing with her opinions, but I think censoring her opinion is highly dangerous.

She was stupid, as was I. But the idea that everyone must share the same acceptable opinions on various topics (at least publicly) is absurd and borderline 1984.

 

I'm in favor of political correctness.

No, I don't support an oppressive Thought Police-like regime that stalks the windows and cell phone conversations of every day citizens so it can snatch them up and force them to issue a Youtube apology. Nor am I in favor of nitpicking another person's slightly misguided phraseology for the purpose of discrediting an otherwise legitimate argument.

But making an attempt to be conscientious that your own experience isn't transcendent is bad now? When did it become wimpy to recognize that you weren't the cosmos?

When I see people who rail so thoroughly against PC culture, I'm inclined to wonder what exactly they're fighting for. Nobody is going to force you personally to stop making jokes to your friends or classmates, but a shared recognition that we should be sensitive to the experience of others? That's a bad thing now?

Don't get me wrong; I think that if you really want your offense to be taken seriously in a public context, you should have a coherent reasoning behind it. It just gives me pause when people who aren't affected by a type of oppression claim that other people should just "get over it." Words don't exist in a vacuum, and I don't think we should just write off any attempt to connect the way we speak about each other with the actions those words portend as "P.C. nonsense."

Should Alexandra Wallace have been expelled, or even suspended? No. Is it worthwhile to take a second and consider who might be offended by a particular comment, and recognize that everybody who gets offended by something isn't just a "butthurt fag"?

I think so.

 

I abhor anything to do with PC culture and am generally against censorship, yet absolutely believe what she did was at least worthy of a suspension.

 

Why? On what grounds?

 

Unfortunately for the most part political correctness has been co-opted by self-righteous assholes who don't care about PC's underlining premises and simply use it as a means to shame and browbeat people who don't keep up-to-date on the latest trends or terminology. PC has become more about elitism than respecting people of other creeds/cultures/groups.

The other aspect of political correctness that's been perverted is that people also use it as a mask to cover for their own racist/sexist/whatever-ist beliefs and tendencies. By reducing political correctness down to nothing more than a set of things to say and things not to say it allows people to avoid any self-introspection of their own actions because they're towing the accepted party line about what words constitute prejudice.

Given this it's clear to me that the public backlash has little to do with what she said. The fact that she appears to fit into peoples' typical construct of a spoiled sorority girl makes her an easy target for the backlash, so people can condemn her solely to make themselves feel better without any feelings of guilt because of who she appears to be. And it's nothing but bullshit.

 

Her comments were not as a private citizen but as a member of the UCLA student body. The school has an image to protect and suspension (expulsion may have been harsh) would have be an appropriate action.

 

Good point.

I should revise my statement: I'd have to see the UCLA student handbook to determine whether she really should be suspended. I'm inclined to doubt that there's anything in there about being a racist asshole. So while it's not really a free speech issue -- after all, you have a right to say what you want, but you don't have a right to go to UCLA -- I'm pretty leery of people being suspended for nonexistent infractions.

I also fully agree that PC-ness shouldn't be used to browbeat OR kill discussion. Really, it's simple:

Don't be a dick.


It's shocking how many of these sorts of conversations go much better when people remember that. Are you deliberately offending somebody for a cheap laugh? Don't be a dick. Are you deliberately misconstruing somebody's argument because they accidentally used the wrong term? Don't be a dick. Are you about to go on camera saying racist things? Don't be a dick. Are you sending death threats to somebody you've never met?

Don't be a dick.