Don’t Be Racist, Be Politically Incorrect!

JOHNNY HUYNH
Staff Writer
On March 13, a University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) junior political science student named Alexandra Wallace was pushed to the breaking point. In her video “Asians in the Library,” Wallace expressed her frustration toward the Asian student community, a population on the UCLA campus she claims is defenseless and lacks “American” manners. Though she does recognize that she may sound distasteful throughout the video, she refers to the recent tsunami in Japan and persists on making generalizations of far-eastern Asians, who she asserts talk loudly on their cell phones in ”ching chongs” and are immigrants.
With millions of views, in addition to several parodies and video responses, Wallace has definitely struck a few nerves and attracted immediate widespread attention. The responses range from humorous critical-analytical perspectives to a plain four-second video of a guy and his middle-finger. The amount of dislikes on YouTube shows the audience’s sentiments toward her output.
As an American-born citizen of Chinese descent, it is hard to make absolute sense of rash opinions similar to those in Wallace’s video. However, her ignorant stereotyping is not novel, as there have been generalizations of every racial group portrayed in all types of media. In this case, several Asian stereotypes are summarized and concentrated into one rant. Her audacity to make a video on the Internet and be very frank only highlights an ongoing conflict that occurs on and off the web among an array of ethnic groups.
She briefly states the video is not intended towards her presumably Asian friends (if she has any) and it applies to everyone, although she encountered such a problem while studying and having an “epiphany.” She also assumes that Asians “can’t fend for themselves” and invite everyone in their family tree to their dorms.
By trying to push a non-offensive stance, she should have realized she needed to think more clearly. Instead of leading on with a trail of contradictions, she could perhaps emphasize her discontent towards some individuals rather than an entire race and the prejudices that are branded on them. In addition, this “polite, nice American girl” continues to the next level into ridiculing Japanese tsunami victims, who might as well “freak out” elsewhere as long as they are away from her.
As ignorant as Wallace sounds with her racist banter, she does make some points. It is indeed customary, within the bounds of etiquette, to restrain from being loud where peace and quiet is desired, such as the library. It is also presumed that becoming a college student is an initiation to self-reliance and responsibility, which is defeated by receiving constant supervision from family. So, those still sucking from a bottle should probably pick themselves up and get on with living the magical world called “adulthood,” in which you wash your own clothes and get your own food. Furthermore, there are many foreigners who aren’t familiar with American customs and need a wake-up call, or at least, someone to defend them in their lack of alertness.
In spite of all this, she lacks a great amount of responsibility herself. She establishes Americans as the Gold Standard of etiquette, good judgment and righteousness, which itself is far from true on the world-wide scheme. This is a concept that she doesn’t really live up to either. Her escalated frustration is understandable for dealing with such annoyances repeatedly, but she is also a political science major; she should try to be “politically correct,” especially in a speculative comment. Likewise, her logical failure to recognize an overall problem doesn’t apply specifically to an entire race of people, but specific individuals, challenges the idea that she could even be admitted into a prestigious educational institution like UCLA.