Protesting

The new 32% tuition increase in all University of California campuses will have many negative effects. Many students will be unable to pay for the upcoming tuition fees and will therefore not be able to enroll. A student activist was protesting the fact that this fee increase can be regarded as discriminatory because it will prevent many minority and low income students to be able to attend college. Although, I am not completely convinced that the policy is discriminatory, I do agree that it has major implications on the number of minority students that will be able to afford enrolling in a UC. It may not necessarily majorly affect the students who are attending now, but it will definitely affect their younger siblings. Moreover, I heard how some UCD students were arrested for taking over Mrak Hall. I saw the S.W.A.T. team helicopter circulating the building and think that calling them was an exaggeration on behalf of the authorities. The protest in Mrak Hall made me question what were the benefits of taking over a building. I know that it draws more attention to the matter from the public, but I would like to hear what are some other benefits or consequences for this.

Thoughts on Movie

It was really interesting watching the movie of Native American history during class. I think it is good to view American history through the Native American’s eyes. Throught the movie, there were a couple facts that stood out to me. First, I was surprised to hear that Native Americans also had a civil rights movement during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. In the California K-12 educational system, you primarily hear about the Black and Chicano civil rights movements yet nothing is mentioned about the Native American civil rights movement. Another fact that caught my eye, was when I saw the image of a news paper article that said, “Indians taking City Jobs.” This quote is an example of how the dominant white American society has always used the excuse that minority groups are “taking their jobs away” in order to justify their discrimination towards them. Moreover, there was a part in the movie in which Kent Frizell, from the Department of Justice, was describing how Native Americans and the federal government came to a temporary agreement in the Wounded Knee site. In this part, he mentions how he allowed a few Natives to ride in his helicopter in return for riding on the Natives “ponies.” The tone in which he mentioned this was a belittling one. He mentioned this in order to point out how supreme the white mans technology in comparison to that of the Natives. Furthermore, Frizzell points out how he was giving a 10 day deadline to resolve the conflict in Wounded Knee. He attributes this time constraint to the fact that “adventure seekers, and college students” were going to start showing up in masses in a few weeks. His explanation demonstrates how he viewed the Native American activists as mere adventure seekers and believed that those who joined in the struggle were just trying to be rebellious.