I’ve recently been surrounded with some sadness. I’d like to share them with you to kind of get the heaviness off my chest.

1. I couldn’t find my wallet. This is probably the least sad of everything, but driving around without a drivers license, no cash, no credit, no ID; nothing. It makes life kind of difficult. It was more frustrating that I couldn’t find it, despite the limited number of places it could have been.

2. The Life and Death of Private Danny Chen. It’s unreal to me that as much admiration I have for the soldiers that fight for my freedoms, will also degrade the very humans that fight along side them. This is completely unacceptable and it’s so disheartening to see that we’re going backwards.

3. Vucko - Kids placed a fire cracker in this german shepard pup’s mouth and taped it shut. If that line doesn’t already make your heart sink… sigh. It makes me so frikkin sad.

I apologize for bringing down the mood, but hopefully there’ll be better days in humanity. I guess we’re still a long way.

</3Kaje

I find it super interesting the way this story is unfolding. If you haven’t watched the video, I wrote a post about it not so long ago. Go take a look. If you have, here we go (PS this will be a long post):

The girl has been getting much heat - not just limited to name calling and sexist AND racist responses, but death threats too.

First, from the Daily Bruin:

“However, we must address the many ignorant comments stemming from our own community in reaction to Wallace’s comments. While we condemn this student’s remarks as not only ignorant and offensive but hateful as well, we believe that we as a community can do better than to resort to the student’s tactics of throwing out divisive words, which only perpetuate a culture of racism and sexism on both sides.”

Then goes on to:

“Hence, as a community, we demand the following:

1) We call for a public apology from Alexandra Wallace. Her words and actions are not in line with the UCLA Student Code of Conduct.
2) We call for UCLA to take the appropriate disciplinary measures befitting of Wallace’s violation against the UCLA Student Code of Conduct and UCLA’s Principle of Community
3) We call for UCLA to issue a statement addressing this incident. UCLA must demonstrate its commitment to a culture of diversity, respect, tolerance, and acceptance for all communities by standing against such acts.
4) We call for the UCLA Academic Senate to pass a requirement in the general education curriculum grounded in the UCLA Principles of Community.”

My response to this is, the community has not responded in grace, there for you do not speak on behalf of the community. Apparently just because you think the community should do something, does not mean it has. You demand an apology from a girl who expresses a racist opinion publicly, yet when commenters respond with racism and sexism, you just inform them of how they SHOULD act. Nice double standard.

Second,

I entered into a conversation with my friend who I believe can represent a good portion of the people out there. “My take from it is that racism and insensitivity shouldn’t be tolerated from anybody, not from that girl and not from the commenters and the people who threatened her life. Just because she made a racist and insensitive video, doesn’t mean people should respond with the same tactics.” It’s called hypocrisy.

My friend responded that people need to face the consequences of their actions - that by her creating this video, she should be able to be subjected to death threats.

“she deserves the heat that she’s getting. with all the offensive things she said?! she’s stupid and shouldn’t have put it in such a public place if she can’t handle the consequences.”
“no excuses for her. she should have known better. but she’s a bigot.”

I response is then, to what extent are people liable for how others react. I understand that there are a million “what if” scenarios, but hear me out:
If a person does something that differs from your belief that may potentially offend you - in this example, lets say something like littering. Now there are 3 outcomes I’d like to discuss:
1. Nobody does anything, they might disagree, but they don’t do anything.
2. They let the authorities deal with it, I get a ticket, everybody goes about their day.
3. I start getting death threats and harassed for the rest of my life.

I personally feel #3 might be a little extreme, but based on my friend’s logic, if people get offended by my actions, I deserve it if they choose to act upon it.

It becomes an eye for an eye, and the whole world goes blind. People get offended by many things in life, to what extent does it become a response of intolerance, racism and sexism, the very thing you were offended by in the first place?

I don’t agree with what Wallace had to say, and I don’t have an answer to what consequences she should be facing (legally and academically), but I sure as hell don’t believe that the people who are attacking her with death threats, racism and sexism are any different.

Finally, Wallace has issued an apology, but sometimes, sorry just isn’t enough. Prove things with your actions, not your words.

<3Kaje

Repost after repost of this video on my newsfeed, I’m going to throw in my own opinions.

1. Some of what she says has truth in it.
2. Her ignorance doesn’t excuse the truth.
3. Talking on the cellphone in places where it’s usage is discouraged, is quite rude. If you do need to make a lot of calls, step outside. - this is not limited to a specific race and she does state that.
4. It’s most likely only getting to you because it makes an attack on your race. There are hundreds and thousands of hateful and offensive content in all forms of media yet you choose to single this one out.
5. Her opinion is her opinion, if she chooses to be ignorant, there’s not much you can do.
6. I may not agree with what you say but I will die for your right to say it.
7. Many people end up doing and saying things without thinking - and sometimes what people say is hurtful, you’ve done it sometime in your life; don’t take it to heart.
8. Better truth, than lies.
9. Many of you question the intelligence of this girl, but you take her words to heart.
10. Move on, you will eventually. - I’m not saying move on from everything that offends you, but this just doesn’t seem like its worth your time.

<3Kaje

Bonus: The person who reuploaded this video initially posted the title “UCLA girl going wild on Koreans” - which means the uploader also showed signs of his/her own ignorance. It has been changed, most likely because he/she got called out on it.