Over the summer I worked at Pitzer. Two of my coworkers and I took the Metrolink to Downtown one Friday. We were on the 4:30pm train and the cars were packed. About an hour into our ride, we arrived at El Monte. Two stops later and we would be at our destination. Suddenly, two sheriffs boarded the train and started checking tickets. You could tell they were in a bad mood. One came to our seats and asked to see our tickets. He approved my ticket and one of my coworker’s tickets. He picked up my other coworker’s ticket, stared at it for several seconds and then said, “I don’t like this one.” We were very confused. We all got tickets at the same time and used the same machine. He explained that my coworker had only purchased a ticket to Baldwin Park, the previous stop. My coworker apologized explaining she meant to purchase a ticket to Union Station. She found the ticket machine confusing and accidently selected Baldwin Park instead. I jumped in and explained that we would happily pay for the rest of the fair to Union. “You don’t understand. You don’t understand,” the sheriff responded, “I could charge you $200 for trying to cheat the system!” My coworker repeated that it was her mistake, and that she was sorry. My other coworker and I reminded the officer that we could pay for the rest of the fair and said it was ridiculous to make such a big deal over the situation. But he continued to harass my friend about her ticket for a solid five minutes. He repeated that she didn’t understand the consequences of what she did. He also told her that she was unintelligent for not understanding how to use the ticket machine (he knew we were from the Claremont Colleges and thought it was funny that “students of higher education” couldn’t use a basic machine). During his rant my coworker and I kept tried to come to our friend’s defense But, every time we did, he raised his voice. We eventually just stared at him in disbelief. He was getting this angry over a ticket. Really?! By the end of his rant, my coworker was almost in tears. He told us that he would let my coworker off this time, but if he saw her “cheat the system” again he would fine her. Once the sheriffs got off the train, one of my coworkers said, “I’m glad you were here. Otherwise, he probably would have fined her.” My coworker felt that the sheriff treated our friend badly because she was Latina. I was a little taken aback by this. It was just a train ticket. My friend made an honest mistake. Why should color of skin or ethnic background matter in this situation? My coworker explained that this was the kind of harassment that she and her friends went through almost on a daily basis in Los Angeles. Because of her darker skin color and ethnic background, the officer automatically assumed that she was trying to cheat the system. This was the first time I’ve witnessed a sheriff harass someone. Witnessing this injustice, I now have a better understanding of the challenges people of color may face on a daily basis.
On December 12th, 2015 around 11:50pm, CUC Campus Safety received a report of a threat made to a Scripps student at a Harvey-Mudd College Christmas themed party. The student was wearing a Christmas sweater and a person came up to the student and said, “I can tell you are Jewish because of your nose and your hair…fucking kill all you people.” This is the the fourth threat directed towards students at the Claremont Colleges in the past 8 days. With each new threat I’m more and more frustrated that members like these exist in our community. I chose Pitzer and the Claremont University Consortium largely because it’s community was accepting of differences and diversity. There’s no excuse for threats like these. There’s a difference between free speech and hate speech. This is hate speech. I hope next semester our community will return back to being a safer place for students feeling targeted right now.
When I get on an Uber car from Pitzer with another Asian friend, most drivers say to me"Nihao". As soon as they say it, I immediately respond "I'm not Chinese" and they get upset at me. This bothers me so much but is it just me...?
I was looking at Yik Yak and I found a post that said “A black guy kept telling me how much he hates CMC fuckboys. In fact, goes to every party and sleeps with a different girl every time” Another user commented under the post asking, “why does it matter he is black?” Another user responded, “He is referring to CMC white dudes.” Additionally, another user responded “and I bet that black guy fucks with every white bitch he sees at CMC.”
A few months ago I was talking to a (white) guy about social movements and we started talking about the Black Lives Matter movement and race relations in the United States. He suddenly got super flustered and opinionated. He went on a rant to me about how "all lives matter" and how every black person who has been killed by police was doing something wrong and how the police are just doing their job. I fought this notion, and began telling him facts about different cases but he literally refused to listen to me.
The other day I was standing next to my friend (who is Chinese) as she was talking to an acquaintance. They were just talking about their families and stuff and all of a sudden the acquaintance says "So is your family like super Korean?"
In one of my classes we were discussing emotions in different cultures. A (white) girl in my class raised their hand and said "Well Asian people don't really express emotion, right?" Everyone kind of sat there in silence and stared at her...it was really awkward. No one could believe she had just said that.
Location: Pitzer classroom I was having a conversation with a few of my friends last night about what exactly defines racism. There was a debate about wether or not racism existed outside of systematic racism, and if so, what that looked like, and what the implications of that would be. As we were discussing, one of my friends, a white male, started to get upset that he felt no one was on his side or shared his opinion. He then said quite sarcastically, "Damn.I guess white people don't get to have an opinion about race then".
A few weeks ago, at a party that I went to, I started dancing with a guy who I didn't know particularly well. We started talking and he made the comment that it's rare to find a girl that knows how to dance. He then continued to say "that's why I love dancing with black girls".
There is a student that sits next to me almost every day in my econ class at Pomona. For whatever reason, he missed two classes. When he came back, he asked me what he missed. Instead of walking him through the past two classes, I offered him my notes. Despite the fact that he sat next to me all semester, saw my attendance and never saw me struggle in the course, he asked me "are they good notes?"
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