User:Kchaiken/sandbox

This is Kol Chaiken's sandbox for ANSC 185 =Compton Cookout=

On February 15, 2010 several UCSD students, many of whom were members of Greek letter organizations such as the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, hosted a racially-themed party they dubbed the "Compton Cookout". Hosted off campus and intended to mock Black History Month, the party's Facebook event description included instructions for attendees to dress stereotypical ghetto outfits. In the days following the party a representative of the controversial satirical college paper Koala covered the party in a news broadcast, using a racial slur to refer to black UCSD students. A noose was also found hanging in UCSD's main library, prompting students to protest the campus's racial environment by occupying the chancellor's office. UCSD responded by announcing a new diversity campaign, Not in Our Community, and held a teach-in in the Price Center East Ballroom, as well as carrying out long standing demands presented by the Black Student Union. Approximately a month later, a KKK Hood was found on the head of the statue of Dr. Seuss outside of Geisel Library, which Angela Wai-Yin Kong tied into the "tense racial campus climate" following the Compton Cookout.

Black Winter
The winter quarter during which the Compton Cookout occurred is known by students and faculty at UCSD as Black winter. The Black Student Union (BSU) at UC San Diego organized a series of marches, protests, and rallies in coordination with other groups like M.E.Ch.A., following the Compton Cookout. The University Administration countered by organizing a series of teach-ins. At one of the teach-ins one the BSU wore tee-shirts that said "real pain, real action," and listened for about an hour before Jasmine Phillips a BSU leader announced that teach-ins would not solve the problem "we want real action" and escorted hundreds of students out of the teach-in. BSU made a list of 32 demands related to having a more racially inclusive campus. In those demands, is a center for African- American students, a task-force to hire more African American faculty, and multiple efforts to increase enrollment of African American students.

Compton Cookout and "Dear White People"
Justin Simein, the writer of the Netflix show "Dear White People" and the 2014 movie of the same title used a black face party at a primarily white university as a major plot point. Simein was originally conflicted about including a black face party at the end of his film because he thought that was a thing of the past, but then he heard about the Compton Cookout. Simien was quoted in an SF Gate article saying “I took the blackface party out because I thought it was too outlandish,” Simien told SF Gate. “Then when that happened at UC San Diego, I sort of rabbit-holed down the research path, (thinking) ‘Oh, I wasn’t pushing buttons. I was talking about something that actually happens .’"

Land and Property
During UC San Diego’s conception, the location in which the university would preside was highly disputed. While politicians and community members argued for the university to be established in the City of San Diego near Balboa Park, the university was instead established in La Jolla, CA. According to Dr. Jorge Mariscal, the stark differences in demographics between San Diego proper and La Jolla meant limited access to the university for people of color. The location in which the university was established however is not only significant because of the city it was chosen to be located in but more importantly its existence as 2,141 acres of land belonging to the Kumeyaay Tribe prior to the university taking ownership. During construction of the Chancellor’s House, human remains belonging to the Kumeyaay people were discovered. Almost 10,000 years old, these remains are found to be among the oldest skeletons to be found in the Americas. Insensitive to the Native American population that disproportionately underrepresented on the UC campus, this discovery however did not come without a battle as it took years for UC Regents to return the remains to the tribes. Twelve tribal nations were reported to have filed a lawsuit against UC Regents. Among issues relating to land ownership and rights is the property deed for which the land was sold under. The property deed for the land UC San Diego now sits on once stood as anti semitic and discriminatory towards people of color in the United States. Once stating, that no land under the deed be sold to Jews or people of color, the land chosen to establish the UC San Diego campus engages with a history of exclusion and displacement of Native Americans as well as other people of color.

Discrimination in Admissions and Hiring Practices
Affirmative action in 1996 which implemented that government institutions do not consider admittance based on race or ethnicity. Although in 1998 California banned the affirmative action that resulted in a decline of black students represented in universities. Specifically in University of California campuses the percentage of black students in University of California Los Angeles, Merced and Riverside have a 4% total population of black freshmen students. In University of California Davis, Irvine and Santa Barbara 3% make up incoming black students. Whereas, In University of California San Diego the total population of black students is 1%.

Recognized Figures and College Namesakes
Some recognized figures at UCSD have been criticized for their racist actions.

Roger Revelle
Roger Revelle, one of the founders of the UC San Diego campus, envisioned the university to be one that admitted a "small elite group which would guide a larger group that were less talented". The larger group was to study at local state college. To ensure that only the talented elite attend the UC San Diego campus Roger Revelle propose that locals with IQs greater than 140 be recruited to attend the university. This according to, Marshall College Dimensions of Culture Director, Jorge Mariscal, limited the access working class and people of color had to the university. Roger Revelle's vision of the university also included its location in La Jolla, CA as oppose to San Diego proper. Despite an Anti-Semitic and Anti-Persons of Color Property deed, Revelle was a major proponent of the university being established in La Jolla.

John Muir
John Muir College was the second college founded in UC San Diego. John Muir was chosen for his contributions to the Sierra Club and the conservation of the natural environment through national parks. John Muir’s role as a proponent of national parks however comes with the advocation for Indian Removal. His role in furthering the marginalization of Indigenous peoples is sensitive to the history of UC San Diego, as an institution built on Native American land itself. Muir also promoted the idea of the "noble savage." John Muir fled to Canada during the Civil War and was known to be ambivalent towards the abolition of slavery. In his essay "Thousand Mile Walk to the Coast" Muir also expressed his belief that black people were lazy and unable to pick as much cotton as a white man.

Earl Warren
Earl Warren, the namesake of the fourth college at UC San Diego Earl Warren College, was chosen for his contributions as a Chief Justice and three term governor of California. Warren however, was one of the major proponents of the Internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. As apart of the American Legion and Native Sons of the Golden West, Warren had membership in organizations that shared anti-Japanese sentiments. This part of his legacy however, did not trump his contributions in the decision to name Warren after the fourth college to be founded at UC San Diego.

Theodore Geisel
UC San Diego's landmark Geisel Library, was named in honor of Theodore Geisel, also known as Dr. Suess. Theodore Geisel was a writer who is most known for his children's books. In his early career, while working in advertising for Flit, an insecticide company, Dr. Suess drew cartoons that displayed black people as cannibals that were infected by bugs. Before creating works like "The Cat in the Hat", Geisel used to write books containing offensive caricatures of people of color. For example, in his book "'And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” [Geisel depicts] a slant-eyed, chopsticks-carrying Chinese man in a way that critics called “deeply hurtful'". Critics of Geisel's past work have said that "'that Dr. Seuss’ illustrations are steeped in racist propaganda, caricatures, and racial stereotypes'".

Response Through Thurgood Marshall College and Sixth College
Thurgood Marshall College, named after Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall is the only college at UC San Diego out of six colleges that is named after a person of color. In efforts to create a college that catered to needs of underserved underrepresented students of color, Angela Davis along with other UCSD students and Faculty of color proposed Third College at the time be officially named Lumumba Zapata College to commemorate the work of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba and Mexican Revolutionary Emiliano Zapata in the struggle for freedom. This Proposal however was denied by UCSD upon submission, under the assumption that a name like this may compromise the vision set out for UCSD. The proposal was criticized for being "extremely militant" and reportedly came to the dismay of Chancellor William J. McGill. Thurgood Marshall, a less controversial figure, was chosen to be the college's namesake instead.

The vision set forth for Third College by students was college to be composed of a population of at least 35% African American and 35% Mexican American students students. The University has not published any current racial demographics for Thurgood Marshall College pertaining to  African American or Mexican American students. .

UC San Diego's Sixth College has yet to be given an official name. UC San Diego Associated Students and Sixth College Student Council have supported the proposal to name sixth college after a woman of color. In November of 2017 Professor Olivia Graeve proposed to name the college Cesar Chavez College, but as the college is now finding its permanent home to be in the soon to be built North Torrey Pines Living Learning Community there seems to be no action towards solidifying a name for the college.

2016 Pre-Election Chalking
According to the UC San Diego Library, on Friday, April 8th, 2016, Trump supporters chalked the campus with Anti-Immigrant slogans. The slogans targeted newly admitted students of Mexican descent on UCSD’s Admissions welcoming event, Triton Day. The slogans consisted of “Trump 2016”, “Tritons 4 Trump”, “Build the Wall- Deport them all”, “F*** Mexicans” and “Mexico Will Pay!”. These slogans were written on the pavement outside of the UC San Diego Raza Resource Centro and in other areas of campus. Staff and students attempted to erase the hate speech, only for the offenders to return and repeat their actions a second time. In the wake of the Election results there were multiple reported incidents of hate crimes, mainly targeting muslim identifying students. Reports were made of hijabs being forcefully removed and students being harassed. The incidents that culminated from the election resulted in the UC San Diego campus becoming a space no longer safe for students.The day after Trump's victory, anti-Semitic graffiti was spray painted at a UCSD shuttle stop.Both of the racist events fueled outrage from undergraduate and graduate students, who demanded expulsion once the offenders were found. The graffiti prompted a response from the Vice Chancellor of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, Becky Petit, in which she condemned the hate speech and racism in order to reaffirm inclusion on the campus and assure that it was a safe space for all its students.

Identity Evropa
Identity Evropa is a white supremacist group founded on principles of white nationalism. Their aims are stated as follows, "Identity Evropa is an American Identitarian organization. As such, our main objective is to create a better world for people of European heritage – particularly in America – by peacefully effecting cultural change. Identity Evropa is thus an explicitly non-violent organization." Members of Identity Evropa have used their affiliation with UC San Diego as students to further their agenda. Despite their objective of being non-violent, the organization used posters and flyers that are found to be inappropriate and damaging to campus experience by students, staff, and faculty of color, as well as allies. Seemingly digressing from the goal of being non-violent, Identity Evropa drew widely unwanted attention to their objective of upholding white nationalist ideals, when the organization sent representatives to social sciences courses geared towards social justice for marginalized populations, to create a disruption to the classroom environment. On one account, a student representative left a class and stating “someone will be watching” in an attempt to threaten students who may be undocumented or non-white. UC San Diego released a statement to Professors warning of potential visits and reminding them of their right facilitate their removal from classrooms. UC San Diego however has not made any further steps to address the actions of Identity Evropa, resulting a negative campus climate.

Crossroads Shooting and Campus Response
On April 30th of 2017, there was a shooting at the La Jolla Crossroads Apartment Complex. The shooter was a white man who shot and killed Monique Clark, a black woman, and injured seven other people six of whom were black and one man who was latino. Although the shooter had no connection with the people who were shot, and a majority of the victims were black the San Diego Chief of Police, Chief Zimmerman, denied that the incident was an Anti-Black hate crime. Official statements from UC San Diego advised students to seek counseling, but did not acknowledge the effects the shooting had on students of color, in particular black students, and their sense of safety at UCSD. Faculty from seven different departments released a statement criticizing the university for not acknowledging the Crossroads Shooting as a hate crime.