enough is enough

分類：other's creation 2008/10/04 17:54

Before I post what I'm planning to post, please be alert that this might offend some of you..
Not that I want to offend people, but I just have to agree with what this author is arguing


Enough with the ethnic clubs (The Peak)
By J.J. McCullough, Opinions Editor
CICK TO ENLARGE

The Peak offices are located deep in the basement of the Maggie Benston building, right next door to a particular room the student society refers to as the “forum chambers.” Large and open, it’s a place that is taken over several times a week by a variety of noisy groups whose various boisterous activities I cannot help but overhear from my humble opinions editor desk.

I hope readers will not judge me too harshly when I observe that many of these groups are exclusively Asian outfits. Sometimes it’s a Christian revival club, sometimes it’s a bunch of taiko drummers, but all of the time it’s a group composed entirely of Koreans, Chinese, or Taiwanese, speaking their own language before a group of racially identical faces. These are clubs explicitly designed by and for a single ethno-cultural group, to the exclusion of all others. It’s really disturbing when you think about it, and it’s quite unfortunate we don’t think about it more, because the extent to which SFU is fast becoming a campus of de facto segregation and racial isolation is really quite striking. Asian students, and to an extent other minorities, are increasingly setting up their own parallel student networks to exclusively service their own ethnic communities and thus compete with, undermine, and replace any sense of student life with a broader-based, non-racialized appeal. Their social clubs are among the most prolific, best organized, and best run on campus—not to mention steadily growing.

The spectacle was on dramatic display at last week’s “club days” event held in the Convocation Mall. Of the 100 or so student groups that had set up tables to promote themselves, at least 20 were explicitly ethnic in character, the majority of which were Asian. I’m speaking of groups like the Chinese Debate Society, the SFU Japanese Network, the SFU Taiwanese Association, the Formosa Cultural club, the Chinese Link club, the Chinese Christian fellowship, the Chinese student union, the South Asian Student Society, and the Association of Korean-Canadian Scientists and Engineers, to name but a couple. And that’s without even beginning to consider the many other campus religious groups and “departmental student unions” which were quite obviously mere fronts for clubs that desire a very ethnically particular membership.

My point is not to argue whether or not such groups should be allowed to operate in the first place (we live in a free society so they obviously should) but rather what sorts of larger consequences their continued existence will inevitably cause. University life is, after all, supposed to be the incubator of our society’s intellectual and social trends, not to mention the ideology of the ruling elite of tomorrow. So the way in which race relations manifest at a campus like SFU can be seen as a very accurate predictor of how larger British Columbian and Canadian society will be organized in the near future.

The basic phenomenon of Asian separatism at this school, if I can call it that, seems to be rooted in a sense among the Asian student population that they very consciously do not want to participate in the organizations or institutions of the majority, but rather create their own to assert their distinct ethno-cultural values. And let’s be clear that this is something that goes beyond mere “support networks” for the recently settled. Only about 10 per cent of SFU’s population actually consists of international students (many of whom are not even Asian), meaning a large degree of the Asian isolationism has its origins in students who are not even foreign-born.

My own pet theory is that this sort of ethnic divide is a completely natural outcome of a society in which the majority culture no longer offers anything particularly attractive or even definable for its post-immigrant communities to integrate into in the first place. Is SFU a Canadian, English school fulfilling its historic role as an institution of western civilization, or is it simply some corporatized post-modern hodgepodge with no inherent values or cultural structure underpinning its existence?

A campus culture in which university students are taught to observe the separation of racial groups into autonomous, homogeneous pods as something that is unimportant (if not, as the multi-culturalist set will often claim, outright charming) predicts a social culture that can raise no protest when the races proceed to do the same thing in other areas of society — in cities, business, political parties, and so on.

If university, and Canadian society in general, is simply a game about the bottom line, then none of this matters. If barely literate Asians increasingly dominate B.C.’s financial and science sectors while a largely white-dominated governing class rules over them, then we can’t say anything is wrong, because the market has spoken. If, however, we actually desire an integrated, cohesive and cooperative society with a single shared understanding of language, citizenship, identity, and morality then what we see at SFU does not bode well for the future.



Letters
This Week in Peak Letters
By J.J. McCullough, Opinions Editor
When I wrote an editorial last week denouncing the ever-increasing presence of ethnically-exclusive Asian clubs on campus (“Enough with the ethnic clubs,” September 15), I honestly did not expect to receive much negative feedback from readers. Despite the dire predictions of some of my fellow editors, my personal thesis was that many students, regardless of race, find clubs of these sorts as distasteful as I do, yet rarely get to voice an opinion on the matter for fear of appearing “racist.”

My thesis proved correct, and the majority of feedback I received on the column, both in letters and in person, was overwhelmingly favourable.

“A sincere thank you to J.J. McCullough for his article on ethnic clubs,” wrote Masha Volnoukhin. “I agree with him on absolutely everything. I am glad that someone finally has the guts to voice an opinion like that.”

Ozren Jungic agreed. “The phenomenon of racial or ethnic exclusivity on campus is something that is increasingly becoming evident, and though I believe that most people are aware of it, it seems somehow racist to even discuss the issue,” he wrote. “I would say that your article touched on a number of points that are quite important and are not being addressed by any of our campus institutions.”

Even Steven Yamashita, who serves as Vice President of the Chinese Students and Scholars’ Association, had nice things to say.

“Personally, I agree with your article because, like you, I am tired of the establishment of clubs that isolate a certain group of students,” he wrote. “I believe that clubs should be groups that tie everyone together, and not isolate.” Steven added that he felt an excessive amount of Asian clubs was even breeding division within the Asian community itself, as competing clubs wage petty hostilities against each other to determine who “truly” represents the voice of these various ethnic communities on campus.

Of course, not all feedback was positive. Reader Christine Chow argued that I was mischaracterizing the true focus of these clubs, which she argued was far more cultural than racial.

“I am sure many of the ethnic clubs are not promoting racial segregation,” she wrote. “They are more than likely to accept members who are non-Asian or of another nationality. I have Chinese friends who have joined the SFU Japanese Network simply because they love Japanese culture. In fact, my friend once invited me to join one of the clubs for Sikh Students.”

“Cultures often share the same set of values, attitudes and beliefs,” she added. “I believe these so-called “racial clubs” are simply trying to unite groups of students that share those similar values because obviously, they will have more common interests.”

Some readers were more blunt in their critiques. Benjamin Berman, a frequent Peak contributor who has also served as my sparring partner in many-a Political Science tutorial, was incensed that my words even found their way into print. “While I have nothing against Mr. McCullough,” he wrote, “I simply feel that his extreme right-wing American neo-conservative views have no place in the political discourse at SFU, let alone Canadian Society.”

“I for one am proud that I go to a University which allows students the freedom to embrace their ethnic identity, while at the same time allowing them to engage in the larger student culture at SFU.”

Dave Gaertner went even further. “I am rarely so disgusted by a piece of student writing as I was by McCullough’s racist diatribe,” he wrote, proceeding to compare my article with Canadian editorials published in the early 1930s that condemned Asian immigrants for diluting the racial purity of British Columbia.

“I am not an advocate of liberal-democratic multiculturalism,” he concludes, “but I am even less endeared to uninformed, ahistorical racism. The students of SFU should be ashamed and appalled that their newspaper, a representation of their voices, contributes to such a discourse.”

Oh well, you can’t win them all, I guess.

If you particularly hate or love something in this issue of The Peak and want to publicly mouth off about it, mail me your letters at opinions@the-peak.ca. Just try to keep it civil.





Now it's my turn to say something which I won't be responsible for lol... so don't flame me..

First of all, it's not that I'm opposed to the creation of these ethno based clubs in university, I think it's a great resource for people to share, connect, and communicate with each other. I even joined a Taiwanese club in my school. But sometimes I thought.. when such associations are being promoted to an extent that you begin to notice an automatic division of people? I think this has totally hindered the initial purpose of creating these groups in the first place.

It's wonderful that people are patriot and proud of their cultural heritage, but there is a limit to in what direction you're leading this to, what are the objectives of these groups. Sure there's nothing wrong to promote your culture, but are you somehow twisting the originality of these group into a model of cultural segregation?

This is also especially notable on our beloved facebook as well. People are creating groups such as "ASIANS ARE THE BEST" "WE RULE BECAUSE WE'RE CHINESE" "白人看不懂" etc etc. I know they're just created for fun. But what if we look from another perspective.. Imagine, how well would a "WHITES RULE THE WORLD" be received? Probably would result in a series of nasty flamming feedbacks. Or if a "THE CAUCASIAN KINGDOM" is created in SFU? I think they would be classified as a return of the NAZI or Ku Klux Klan and immediatly banned due to the overwhelming protest of offenced non-caucasian people. In this way, I feel sorry for the white people, whom are often accused of being the most discriminating race.

So in this way, many white people are especially careful in everyday language and what they want to express. For example, they attract some unfriendly glares for calling black people "blacks" (okay I don't think I'll get sued here just yet...) even if they have no intention of being racist. Russell Peters actually made a joke out of this lol.. anyway, Why should they be so careful in expression and we're looking for every chance to call them racist while doing the same thing within ourselves? We call blacks 黑人, whites, 白人, how friendly is that?

Anyway, the author is really brave for writing these articles. I bet he was flammed. But he actually received more positive feedbacks, Perhaps he had voiced out a lot of people's long built up opinions that they were too frightented to express. I too, am one of them. Man, for how long have I wanted to create a group that reads "DOWN WITH ULTRANATIONALIST FACEBOOK GROUPS". Not that I dared.