(vanity) White Men Can't Dance

10-01-04 | Self

[kingu]

Cinco De Mayo celebrations that require Mexican passports for participants? How about a jazz festival that requires multi-generational parentage proving that one’s ancestors indeed came from Africa? Are these what we can expect from future events on the campus of CalState University San Bernardino?

Sure, by now, you’re scoffing at such concepts. But the powwow that takes place next weekend on the campus requires vendors to provide tribal ID cards, no matter what they are selling. Is that Indian Coca Cola that they’re selling? Dancers and drums are also required to provide tribal identification to participate in the $138,000 prize pool.

While such practices might be hazy under the law on the reservation, CalState SB isn’t a reservation. It is a publicly funded campus, paid for by all citizens of California. To imagine that CSUSB would permit this to happen on campus is something that harkens back to the ages long past with separate rules for different ethnic groups. Reverse racial discrimination is horrible, taking it a step further and requiring certification of someone’s bloodline… Words fail me.

Who is doing such a thing, you might be wondering.. The event is being sponsored and held by the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians. Oh, and before you think they’re biased, they’ll welcome any tribe’s card as identification, so long as the tribe is certified by the United States government. State recognized tribes, such as the Tongva (also known as the Gabralino), need not apply. It is one of those great examples of irony that the CSUSB’s Cross Cultural Center’s logo is on the event flyer.

Makes you just want to run out and support their Proposition 70 so that they can pay the same taxes as any other California business, well, except they don’t have to shoulder the huge federal taxes that the rest of us do. But hey, that’s fair, right…?

[kingu]

The use of public property while requiring proof of enrollment is hardly unique to the CSUSB campus; the same proceedure is common at the Orange County Fairgrounds when SCIC holds it's annual powwow, it has happened in the past at UCLA and USC, and at state funded parks such as Glenn Helen park in Devore, CA.