A girl named Amelia was trying to get on a merry-go-round with the rest of her classmates at her predominately Italian-American Catholic School. During recess, the children usually raced to this playful tool because there was an unwritten rule amongst them of when certain groups of them could take turns riding. But on this day during the summer of 1963, Amelia decided to challenge this de facto segregation rule.
She jumped onto the merry-go-round with her friend Julie and stood there proud and tall, thereby almost crushing a systematic exclusionary rule transmitted by these children. She rode the ride, ignoring the racial comments coming her way. Yet, some became angry because the usual tactics of intimidation were not working to get this "Mexican off our ride." Then a boy named David decided to appoint himself their savior and pushed her off the ride, breaking her ribs and injuring her back. She fell to the ground in an array of pain and blood, and nearly drowned out David's racial comments with her screams.
After reading the responses to my columns and other students' opinions about the forever-controversial Frontier Fiesta, I am disheartened by some of the responses claiming we critics are racist and "the problem."
critics of Frontier Fiesta, or critics of anything about our country's origin myths, do so to revise the story - our story. These attempts are honest, intellectual and a sincere effort to retell a story more conducive to the truth. Our origin myths and history in the past have marginalized certain voices, and if we as a people are to better understand ourselves and our experiences, we need to come to terms with this.
But this practice is often met with resistance. Some call this resistance a simple reaction. Others call it keeping with tradition. I like to call it by its true name - white fear.
White fear is a phenomenon that results from the presence of the so-called others and their traits which many whites do not understand. Subjects such as sex, history, religion and gender that do not play by the their rules become a battle: them against us. Our struggles become demonized. The bad guy is now the good guy, and the good guy the bad.
Thus, those who point out racism and sexism in our society are then the racists and the sexists. All of a sudden, the conquered Mexican population of the Southwest that wishes to be included in American history is the racist, the woman who files a lawsuit for sexual harassment is the sexist, the great-great granddaughter of a slave who wishes to set up a scholarship for black accountants is divisive and I, in the midst of all this, somehow become David, the man who pushed my mother off the merry-go-round.
This white fear has been very evident in the past weeks' issues of The Daily Cougar. Some weakly satirize the debate by linking U.S. Latinos with Latin America and their human-rights-abusing governments (that were brought about by U.S. interventionist policies) as an excuse to minority students by saying, "We're all bad sometimes ... everyone has a dark past."
They claim that the critics are the racists and just need to have a beer, shut up and "start grabbing some ass" at the party. That's missing the point about this whole debate on racism and Frontier Fiesta. The point is power.
They were never legally excluded from systems and they were never thrown off a playground toy just because of their ethnicity. Jokes and scholarships are one thing; blood and exclusion are another. Diversity Month and international food fairs are one thing; a party with whites acting like the Old West, giving us the "Tejano Day" at Frontier Fiesta on Thursday, the sh** day, is another.
Their arguments seem to be winning, especially if our president remains silent on this issue. But I'm here to tell you some of us will not play this game by their rules any longer, and we will be setting up our own game that is (ironically) more inclusive and more UH. And if the racists refuse to acknowledge this, then we just might end up going to their game "dressed as Santa Anna pretending it's the Alamo," because we are conscious, educated, and know that if we adopt that personification, Santa Anna and his army will be the last one standing at the Alamo. And we will always remind everyone in our books that we never pushed anyone off a merry-go-round.
Contreras is a senior history
and English major.