Kaonashi Ga Suki

I used to work as a journalist for the UCLA Daily Bruin. I wrote about student life and trends, and left the hardcore news to gutsier people. However, one year there was a major story which required the collaboration of me and a few others not in hardcore news. There was a massive demonstration on affirmative action led by several student “cultural” groups on campus.

I say “cultural” with sarcasm because I’ve observed that many of these groups were highly militant, focusing more on criticizing “The Man” and holding demonstrations rather than truly celebrating and educating others of their culture. A lot of members of some of these groups were downright racist. My boyfriend told me that a half Filipino, half White friend of his checked out the Filipino organization during his freshman year out of curiosity and was dismayed to find how militant and racist they were. He often heard group members say nasty things about white people.

One day he couldn’t take it anymore and reminded them that he was half white, to which one of them remarked, “Yeah, but you still have the better half.”

Angrily, the guy said, “So are you saying that my mother makes the bad half? Are you saying that she’s bad because she’s white?”

They started apologizing to him, saying that they were just joking, but the damage had been done. The guy stopped coming to the meetings.

Is it any wonder that I never joined this group?

Of course, not everyone in these groups is bad. I’m sure these were just a few bad apples, but they unfortunately ruined the whole barrel. At the same time though, I could never join an organization simply on the basis of race or ethnicity. Although such groups are supposed to promote solidarity, togetherness, and pride for one’s culture, I think what ends up happening instead is that these groups promote isolation. Yes, they think togetherness is important, but only if you belong to “our group”.

Unfortunately, this sort of mentality is somewhat inevitable. People are social creatures. They are capable of forming groups with anyone who even has the smallest thing in common with them. Once a group is formed, they consider what makes their group special, and inevitably compare themselves with other groups. Naturally, they like to think that their group is better than other groups; therefore, they speak highly of their group but deride nongroup members.

I think there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be with members of your own group, whether this group is determined by race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or even by a favorite TV show. It’s when the group becomes too exclusive and dismissive of other groups that the problem starts.

intolerance, ingroup, outgroup, nongroup