Racism

Dear League Supporters:

Over the past few weeks, I have been involved in one of the most disturbing University of California incidents in recent memory, as the University of California San Diego’s African American students have been subjected to a very disturbing series of incidents.

It started with the “Compton Barbeque” a few weeks ago - an event which openly mocked Black History month, and made the African American students on campus feel persecuted and vulnerable. That was followed by a series of incidents, including the hanging of a noose and later a KKK hood in public spaces, and the open defiance of Caucasian students (who voiced their support for their free speech rights to humiliate African Americans) via campus television and publications.

The Los Angeles Urban League has responded to these incidents swiftly, and supported the growing coalition of Social and Civil Rights Organizations that have united with the students to find solutions. As many of you know, one of the underlying issues for such campus racial strife is the exceptionally low number of African American students on the campus (African Americans only represent about 1.5% of the student body at UCSD). Chris Strudwick-Turner (our Marketing VP) and I worked with community leaders on a similar issue at UCLA over the past few years. The ultimate result was a more than doubling of African American students at UCLA. We intend to bring the same approaches to this problem.

This week I participated as a panelist in Los Angeles for CNN's hosted preview of “Black in America 2” followed by a community discussion of the program and issues related to race. With an audience of more than 400 at the California African American Museum, one of the most provocative questions raised was –"is racism still an issue in America today?" Ironically, the CNN event coincided with the news release that Cambridge, Mass. police officers had arrested Harvard University professor Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., one of America’s most prominent Black scholars and one of our leading intellectual minds, Black or white. Gates, taken into custody at his home, was not held for breaking and entering, as initially reported. He was charged with disorderly conduct for speaking his mind after producing his bona fides to dispel the police contention that he was a felonious criminal. Gates, true to his style, apparently let the officers know they had no right to harass him in his residence. Clearly, racism in America is not dead. It is alive and well. Disturbingly however, in our politically correct society it has morphed and gone underground; manifesting itself in policies and practices that systematically exclude, without overtly pointing to race. This renders discrimination far more difficult to identify and combat in the 21st Century.

Los Angeles Urban League CEO Blair Taylor spoke at a news conference condemning the racial violence against Chanisse Davy, an African American woman living in Duarte, calling it "simply unacceptable."

I am deeply disturbed by the outrageous video footage of Michael Richards released yesterday. It clearly reveals a disturbed, angry and very troubled man. While I am certainly glad he finally apologized, I do not think an apology alone will suffice in this case. I call on Mr. Richards to immediately reach out to the Black community that he has berated and insulted and vigorously pursue a healing that transcends mere words.