Stereotyping Is Racist

I am a student at Cal State Northridge, and I have watched the incident between the ZBT fraternity and MEChA over a party flyer with great interest. For most of the time, I regarded the incident as just two groups of whining people, screaming at the top of their lungs at each other, with the rest of the campus caught in the crossfire.

Until I read a quote by Jose Luis Vela in The Times on March 12 (“CSUN Teachers Vote to Boycott Fraternity”) that, “We see this as the university giving in to a group that has money.” I consider this remark anti-Semitic. ZBT is a mostly Jewish fraternity. Throughout history, Jews have handled money in many societies. This was because Jews were forbidden to own land or farm. To survive, many Jews went into the only industry they were allowed: banking and finance. Even today, a stereotype exists that Jews have lots of money.

Vela’s statement about the affluence of ZBT shows that he is just as prone to making hateful statements as ZBT or anyone else on campus.

If CSUN’s Associated Students, the group that first suspended ZBT, enforces its policies equally, the next logical step would be to suspend MEChA for 4 1/2 months (the actual length of ZBT’s suspension) because one of their members is racist. If they do not even consider this, it would show that Associated Students is playing favorites with MEChA, which means the whole suspension was biased from the start.

BRIAN HAMBERG

West Hills