How Did Sexist, Anti-Asian Posters Wind Up USC and UCLA?

Students on both campuses are speaking out.

By Jamilah King Feb 12, 2014

That’s the question at the center of two campus investigations currently taking place on Los Angeles college campuses, according to the LA Times. Officials at USC and UCLA are trying to figure out how fliers wound up on each campus containing curses and racist language about Asian women dating white men.

LAist notes that the crude and poorly written flyers include lines that read, "Asian cunt sluts have low self-esteem up xi ass" and "Mexican womyn don’t worship honkie white boy like Asian cunts do!" The website also notes that the fliers are reminiscent of racist fliers posted at UCLA in 2012 that called Asian women "Honkie white-boy worshipping Whores" and Alexandra Wallace’s 2011 YouTube rant.  

In a letter condemning these most recent flyers, UCLA’s Asian Pacific Coalition issued the following statement this week:

Every year, at least one discriminatory and racially biased incident occurs, and many more go unreported. To allow these attacks to remain unaddressed, whether they are intended to hurt or draw attention, is to tacitly endorse the marginalization of our community, to accept being painted as perpetual foreigners, and to allow for the exotification and objectification of women of color.

These racially biased incidents cannot continue.

The Daily Bruin reported that 50 students gathered in protest this week to denounce the flyers. A coalition of Los Angeles-based universities have also banded together to issue the following statement: "To allow these attacks to remain unaddressed, whether they are intended to hurt or draw attention, is to tacitly endorse the marginalization of our community, to accept being painted as perpetual foreigners and to allow for the exotification and objectification of women of color."