Discrimination of Another Color

On October 5, 2006, members of two fraternities and sororities at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign threw a party with a “fiesta” theme. The party was dubbed the “Tacos and Tequila” party and portrayed Latinos using derogatory stereotypes, with students dressing up as janitors and wearing gardening gear. Soon, however, pictures of the party ended up on Facebook and sparked a firestorm of criticism on campus. It also brought a controversial issue to the forefront of the public eye: racism against minorities other than African-Americans.

Racism has often been presented as a black and white topic, a problem between Caucasians and African-Americans. Discrimination against other minorities is still prevalent on college campuses, however. It’s a different mindset, says Harrison Hsueh, president of the Asian American Association at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“I think it’s more or less the same, but people kind of look at it through different lenses. Certain minorities have been portrayed more in terms of their stereotypes, and it’s a little more brash when people are insensitive to certain minorities. When you’re being racist to an Asian-American, it doesn’t seem as harsh because there’s that whole ‘modern minority thing.’”

Some experiences on college campuses are the same for minorities, whether they’re black, Latino, Asian or Muslim.

“As a minority on a predominately white campus, you see things. You have to. You have to know where you are, who you’re surrounded by, what you say, because it all comes back, if you don’t know what’s going on,” says Liz Rodriguez, a member of the African-Latino Society at Ithaca College.

One of the major differences between racism against African-Americans and racism against other minorities is perception. Rodriguez feels that the long history of discrimination against African-Americans in the United States causes a different awareness of it.

“I think sometimes it’s seen as worse if it’s African-Americans because of what they’ve been through and how it keeps coming back with incidents like the nooses. And it’s so much in our society. We know so much about the civil rights movement, we barely hear about anything having to do with anyone else, like, other minorities. I think it’s a problem that people would just watch what they say around African-Americans, and not a Hispanic person. Because the thinking is that they haven’t been through much, what is their problem, why do they feel this way. When you look at Hispanic people, you think immigrants, and not anything else of it.”

Although Ramie Shalabi, president of the Muslim Students Association at the University of South Carolina, has not been a direct victim of blatant racism while at college, he acknowledges its existence.

“There’s still discrimination going on, unfortunately. Slurs have been made, mostly towards Muslim females who wear their scarves, because it’s clear that they’re different from everybody else. And our organization has received various hate mail over the past year or two years. I don’t think there’s any clear differences that you could really point out, I mean discrimination is discrimination one way or another.”

A form of subtle discrimination prevalent on college campuses is the practice of self-segregation, which can be viewed in both positive and negative light.

“There’s a pretty noticeable self-segregation in terms of the different ethnic communities in addition to Caucasians. I guess at one level it’s more of an unspoken sort of racism. It’s definitely more subtle. Since it’s so subtle it’s hard to make people change it because it’s hard to make people see it.”

Other types of racist parties similar to the Tacos and Tequila party at the University of Illinois have occurred on college campuses, including South of the Border parties at the University of Santa Clara and University of Delaware. The backlash from the University of Illinois party had very visible results, but it’s rare for these common parties to cause such controversy. “There were a lot of minorities who were upset, and there were a lot of groups that were specifically organized in reaction to the Tacos and Tequilas Party,” says Hsueh.

Recent world events can also make discrimination more pronounced for certain groups. After the Virginia Tech shooting, when South Korean Cho Seung-Hui killed 32 people, minorities held their breath to find out the ethnicity of the suspect, in hopes that it would not be a person of their race.

“I think any kind of minority hopes that someone from their own ethnic background doesn’t do something really overt like at Virginia Tech, because when that does happen you’re subject to being targeted,” says Hsueh.

There was also a visible change in the campus atmosphere after the incident, says Hseuh.

“For Asians—and specifically Koreans— at Illinois, there was a sort of heightened sense of insecurity, in the sense that they might be targeted for racism, or just targeted in the sense that people would be afraid of them inherently just because they’re Korean.”

Rodriguez, however, feels racism doesn’t spike after these incidents, it’s just that more light is shed on the subject.

“I don’t think there’s a heightened degree, I just think we actually see it. It’s always there, we just choose not to see it, but when things such as Virginia Tech and 9/11 happen, it becomes more known. Then people start to see ‘Wow, this does actually happen on a daily basis.’ But it’s blown out of proportion and shown as if it doesn’t happen every day.”

People are rallying for change, however. There are countless ethnic and cultural student organizations on college campuses across the country whose goal is to spread awareness of their culture to the general campus and debunk common stereotypes about their ethnic background.

The Muslim Students Association at the University of South Carolina hosts an Islamic Awareness Week, where they bring in speakers to talk about different aspects of Islam. On the fifth day, which is the Islamic day of Sabbath, their mosque is opened to the public, and students and professors are invited to see what it’s like to worship in a mosque.

“We always try and reach out within the community, both the Muslim community and non-Muslim community. We’re trying to raise awareness, to show people that not all Muslims are terrorists,” says Shalabi.

Hsueh also stresses the importance of creating ties within the community. “We have specific committees devoted to trying to spread diversity and help promote the cultural background of Asian ethnicities. We have a cultural committee and they help to educate the campus and also the other Asians on campus about Asian culture. We also have another committee called the outreach committee and the purpose of the outreach committee is to connect the Asian American association to different communities outside the Asian-American community to show that we’re not just isolated.”

Another effective way to combat discrimination is through diversity retreats and conference such as the Cross-Cultural Leadership Retreat, held through Ithaca College.

“They make it a point to bring a bunch of different people together, and they speak about topic like racism and discrimination against all people,” says Rodriguez. “You make friends with people you’ve seen but wouldn’t normally talk to, and you become really, really good friends, and then you get into their friends, and start going outward into something you’re not used to.”

Even through all of these outreach methods, it doesn’t appear as if racism will go away from college campuses, or society in general anytime soon. It’s too ingrained in society to fade any time in the near future.

“In an ideal world, I’d like to say that that might be achievable, but whenever people look different, and they have different backgrounds, different upbringings, and different experiences, there’s always going to be a certain level of bias or prejudice just based on physical perception,” says Hsueh.

“We’re just stuck,” adds Rodriguez. “We did progress, but right now we’re not continuing to do it, we’re just stuck where we were left. Until we have someone like Malcolm X or Martin Luther King, or a group of people that come together, we’re going to stay stuck where we are now.”