August 29, 2003

Kausfiles picks up the Mecha - Bustamante story. Quotable:

"For the Race, everything. For those outside the Race, nothing:" The issue of Cruz Bustamante's refusal to distance himself from Mecha, the creepy Chicano identity politcs student group--raised most insistently by Michelle Malkin--appears to be getting some traction in the California recall. On tonight's L.A. evening news it got equal billing with the Scwarzengangbanger story. But while the latter scandal could fade quickly, the Mecha story won't, because Bustamante's response has been so revealingly pathetic. ... Mecha may or may not be separatist, secessionist or irridentist--here's a pro-Mechista denial of any such thing--but it's at the least still an extreme expression of a distasteful and discredited identity politics. It's not only opposed to assimilation but it seeks to make ethnic identity and "nationalism" the fundamental basis of politics. (Many American Jewish groups fight against assimilation too, but I haven't seen any with a slogan equivalent to "For the Race, everything. For those outside the race, nothing.") ... I'm not saying Bustamante has to condemn Mecha as the equivalent of the KKK, as Malkin and Republican candidate Tom McClintock seem to demand. But you'd think he could at least say "I was a student then. I don't agree with that anymore. I think it's wrong." Instead, his defense (as televised) was basically that many of his Mecha student colleagues have gone on to become college graduates and professionals. Great! I'm sure Mecha is a powerful upward-mobility networking machine on California's campuses. But can't college graduates and professionals be racialists and separatists? Are there no, say, college graduates in Quebec who want to secede from Canada? ... P.S.: The Mecha issue is also a test of character for Bustamante. Who is it he's scared of offending and why? Donde esta la Hermana Souljah? ...

Posted by Greg Ransom