May 1, 2007
Davis College Republicans Experimenting with Totally Faggy Performance Art
Oh, what's become of our good old-fashioned hard-hearted conservative Republicans? Performance art?!?! What's next, long hair? Berets? Drapes and doilies? Irish cuisine?
The Davis College Republicans are sponsoring some sort of symbolic art-game today (Tuesday) at 12:30 out on the quad, wherever the hell that is. They're calling it "Illegal Immigration Capture the Flag," and here's the ingenious twist that'll earn 'em an A in their semiotics seminar: "Illegal Immigrants team will vastly outnumber the INS team, and every 10 minutes the Illegals caught will be granted amnesty and set free."
Overlook the imperfections of the metaphor (it's not like INS races across the border to claim Mexican flags), and it's actually kind of a funny joke, in the "tell it privately amongst close friends who'll know you're just kidding around" sort of way. It is also astronomically lame that they are making such a big show of it, in an Adam Felberian "hey look at me I'm pretending to laugh at a mildly amusing joke REALLY REALLY LOUD so everyone in earshot knows that I got it" sort of way.
All this would be a perfect opportunity for the Davis community to focus their rolling scornful gaze upon the DCRs. The only way they could possibly avoid looking like boring, embarrassing chumps is if some even MORE humorless organization decides to sniff and whine and moan. Oh, wait:
"Dear Chicana/o Latino/a Students," begins the email, "How ironic that they have chosen to play this 'game' during La Raza Cultural Days and on May 1st, the day of the worker and of the Immigrant. MEChA and many many other student organizations that feel this is a horrible mockery of everything that immigrants have done for this country, will be holding a peaceful counter- protest to show that what they think is 'funny' is totally unacceptable. On behalf of MEChA, I invite you to join us in solidarity. Gracias."
Oh dear. MEChA, we don't know who you are exactly, but let's assume for now that you are a group of collegiate Gundams. Please oh please oh please do not squander your giant robotic talons by frownishly protesting these Republican fruitcakes. No no -- instead, you must join in their game. Play along. Have a good time. And then, just when everyone's actually getting into the fun and enjoying the camaraderie: walk away, leaving behind a game that is so top-heavy that it cannot possibly survive the loss of your services.
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I'm sorta sad so many people found out about this too soon. It looks like there's no trace of this event left on Facebook.
I can only guess that once someone caught wind, they rushed right over to spam the wall of that event to say "You're all blatantly racist, not funny." and all that.
I find this terribly sad. I wish people didn't go chide them in a private space like that. Now they're probably not going to be coming tomorrow on to the quad to do this stuff. As they were probably wanting to do this to shock people who were just not expecting it. Now we'll never have photos of this event to solidly marr them with proof. People will forget it ever even happened, and the entire event will become a myth left to bloggers to rant about, only reaching people sensitive to the information.
A.) Anyone who went to school in California knows who Mecha are.
B.) Davis Republicans look like entitled princesses with little to no life experience.
+2 ripping on Felber!
This event is still up on facebook and has never been taken down. We will be playing our game today, 12 at UC Davis. I welcome all of the loud, angry emails that I will undoubtedly get from commenting here. They will go nicely with the collection I have received the past two days. This event was never private... not at any time. We are well aware of our first amendment rights, and will be exercising them today with vigor.
Allison Daley
Vice Chair, Davis College Republicans
www.nationalmecha.org/
I stand by my assumption that MECHA is an organization of super fighting robots.
http://www.mahq.net/
The INS hasn't been around for about four years.
Learning about MEChA isn't that difficult, especially to a WP fan like Matty Matt: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MEChA There's also a ton of negative information about them available. If he's not familiar with that group, I don't think he's really qualified to comment on ImmigrationMatters.
Its no longer the INS- INS ceased to exist when the boondoggle that is the Dept. of Homeland Security was created. The enforcement function were merged with customs enforcement into a new agency called ICE - Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This sinister sounding agency has pretty much one sole reason for its existence - roundin' up the illegals. Supposed it was formed to focus the enforcement activities to stop a future potential 9/11 by capturing terrorists trying to sneak into the country. Last time I checked though, they've rounded up a lot of Latino migrant workers (leaving their kids stranded on the street) and haven't caught a single terrorist.
The "softer" part of INS was transferred to the newly created U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Although tellingly, it too is housed under the Dept. of Homeland Security.
Because that Mexican burrito maker in your favorite Mission eating hole just might be Osama bin Laden's nephew. Unfortunately for the Bush Administration (and College Republicans everywhere), the 9/11 terrorists snuck in through Canada, not Mexico. Seems like we are building that wall on the wrong border.
I am infinitely qualified to comment. Nobody knows more about giant cartoon robomonsters than I.
Most of the criticism of MeCHA comes from right-nutjobs like Michelle Malkin, National Review and various white power groups. One a few rare occassions, some MeCHA chapters have gotten in trouble, but nothing any more onerous (and even less than) the type of trouble various student groups get into from time to time. Your average college fraternity does more crap in a given year than all the 400 or so chapters of MeCHA combined, but I don't see the right wing nutties running around demanding the elimination of the Greek system.
They're a lefty college student Chicano rights/Chicano power organization with roots in the protest movements of the Sixties. Big deal.
Nice article, and definitely good advice to MecHA. Or however that needs to be typographically represented.
The old-school protests have lost their impact. A humorous counter-protest would be a welcome relief.
Um. Didn't the NYU College Republicans do something bizarrely similar?
www.gawker.com/news/nyu/nyu-college-republicans-to-play-find-the-illegal-immigrant-238256.php
What I learned today:
Whining is okay if you're an aspiring-yuppie blogger complaining about how the bus is always late.
Whining is not okay, and will make you the subject of ridicule, if you're a MEChA member standing up against a not-very-funny and thinly-veiled racist "performance".
I find it disturbing that this kind of "fun game" has been happening across the country. Desensitizing racism and authoritarianism seems to be the name of the game the past, i dunno, seven years or so.
Scary stuff to see happen right in front of you.
Allison,
I would be happy to oblige with a loud, angry email, but you forgot to put your email address in your post.
Have fun playing "I'm a White College Kid who's Never Been Subject to Racism" or whatever it is you're doing on Daddy's dime. Or mine, if you're getting student aid.
Ha! Thanks for catching this. Ripping on pantywadish(TM) college republicans is almost as fun as tripping bicyclists who ride on the sidewalk, no?
Does this mean MechaStreisand won't be making an apppearance?
fellow happy white person said (re Allison Daley's post):
"I would be happy to oblige with a loud, angry email, but you forgot to put your email address in your post."
According to the davis.collegegop.org website, Allison Daley's email address is as follows:
amdaley@ucdavis.edu
Yes, that does appear to be her email address; but I can think of about a billion more important people to write to instead, such as the International Linda Rondstadt Fan Club, before you go giving a piece of your mind to someone who wouldn't know what to do with it anyway.
As a 2002 Graduate of UC Davis, I am not at all surprised by the utterly stupid and racist games that these idiots want to play. They have been attacking the progressive and ethnic community at UC Davis for years, with me being one of their targets. I actually agree with "fellow happy white person" in that these are just young dumb kids who have no idea what life is like for people who do not have privilege.
This is the same College Republican sense of humor that brought us the affirmative action bake sales a couple years ago. Hilarious. And they make a great point, too: we white people have it rough, what with all teh scary minorities threatening our way of life.
Anonymous Coward: not to be all concern-trollish, but I do suspect that a loud counterprotest will do nothing other than draw attention to them and feed their victimization complexes. It's kinda like trying to argue against Ann Coulter.
This reminds me of "Conservative Coming Out Day" a few years back, when the Davis College Republicans had their members come out as conservatives. This was coincidentally scheduled during Gay Pride Week. (You can read more about that at DavisWiki.org.)
And the DCR was put to shame on the Daily Show. I believe the interview involved a DCR member and a blow pop.
-Matt
UC Davis '05
@Matt - UCD Young Republicans vs. a Blow Pop on the Daily Show? Um...youtube link...pleasely please, like, with a cherry on top?
i hate that young republican organizations now a days are given bad names by the ones that choose to persue these games. as a college student, i feel my time is much better spent on my studies, (esp. now when its around finals/research time) than on a game that seeks to hurt other people.
i think opression in all its forms is a big deal. i think standing up to it is a big deal
but as a college student at a prestigious school i find it hard to believe there are students who feel their time is best spent furthering supremacy rather than working on their degree.
I want to see this facebook group. I can't find it.
Here's the link.
It's an .rm file, so you'll probably need RealPlayer.
The best part of the segment is at the end.
-AnotherMatt
Don't hate on the preety little Davis farm queens. They are just bummed they couldn't get into Berkeley.
Gotta love the objective writing.... name calling, extreme-left, reactionary self-important bullshit.... this blog's a charicature of the worst stereotypes about SF.