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A Taste of My Rage, Part 2

The recent protests against the celebration of Columbus Day has been an interesting topic to watch develop, especially because it has been discussed by so many who have not a clue what they are talking about. Always an intelligent contributor to the conversation about race, Diego Hernandez decided to make his opinion known in today’s Daily Emerald. Hernandez wrote a response to University of Oregon student Ben Eckstein’s guest column from the Emerald last Wednesday.

Whatever your opinions are on Columbus Day, they need not be covered here. What is most unsettling about Hernandez’s argument is the manner in which he frames it. Hernandez repeatedly misquotes Eckstein in order to portray him as an “ignorant white man”.

“Eckstein argues in his commentary that he is American, but he is also “Native American,” and because he is Native American and white he understands the issue and controversy of Columbus Day.”

Unfortunately for Diego, what Eckstein really said was

“My ancestors may have come from other places around the world, but I was born in this country and I am, as an individual, a native American just as much as anybody else born in this land.”

Hernandez lodges his complaint against this misquote later on in his diatribe as well

“The audacity of a white man calling himself a Native American is sickening. Just because Eckstein was born in this country doesn’t mean that he is Native American. Eckstein will never be a Native American because he does not belong to that community.”

Eckstein called himself a “native American” with the word “native” uncapitalized. Hernandez quotes Eckstein as calling himself “Native American” which is a proper noun relating to a specific race of people (otherwise improperly labeled as “American Indians”). The difference between these two classifications is not subtle, and I find it hard to believe that Hernandez glossed over this fact by accident.

Hernandez’s entire complaint against Eckstein could be invalidated after this obvious attempt to set up a straw-man argument, but it gets better.

“When you don’t have to know anyone else’s truth but your own, then it’s what many scholars like to call white privilege.”

Ignorance of another race’s trials and tribulations is just that, ignorance. The classification is free from race, and saying that “many scholars” have titled that ignorance “white priveledge” is false. Further, relating that kind of ignorance to white people and white people alone is presumptuous and quite frankly, racist.

Telling Eckstein that he is not a part of this country the same way that Native Americans are a part of this country is counter-productive. It only helps further the divide between peoples of different races, whether they be “Native” or “native”.

  1. Orev says:

    You can’t hit a girl…but is Diego, so I guess you can.

  2. Sean says:

    The cycle never ends, does it? I thought Hernandez was done running his incoherent mouth. I might need to go back there and kick some ass.

  3. Betz says:

    …all i seem to get is this picture of indigenous people holding hands across the continent and then whitey shows up and breathes out pestilence like in The Mummy when the mummy breathes out a shit ton of locusts.

    I’ve never taken an ethnic studies class at the UO, but thats pretty much what I imagine the curriculum is like. It would make a sweet poster for the syllabus.

  4. Stachelrodt says:

    “It

  5. Orev says:

    Ooh, I beseech you, tell us more!

  6. ASUO Insider says:

    Looks like war is going down in the survival center. Some major ass kicking. ospirg is getting the final cut of the throat. friday

  7. Vincent says:

    You really blew that one didn’t you, Orev?

  8. Orev says:

    Hey maaaaaan, don’t talk to a woman of color that way! Oh, it’s Diego? Oops, don’t talk to a woman of color that way!

  9. Betz says:

    yeesh

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