"Hey you guys...we did it! High fives," a friend recently wrote on his Facebook page.
By "it," he presumably meant forcing Alexandra Wallace to leave school. The UCLA student last week told the Daily Bruin she's leaving campus because of a YouTube video she posted ranting against Asian students in the library.
"I made a mistake." Wallace wrote. "My mistake, however, has lead to the harassment of my family, the publishing of my personal information, death threats, and being ostracized from an entire community. Accordingly, for personal safety reasons, I have chosen to no longer attend classes at UCLA."
I do not share my friend's happiness. In fact, I'm downright sad. What exactly did "we" accomplish? Harassing an immature college student so she quits school because of some dumb YouTube video?
Yay us.
To be clear, Wallace's video, in which she uses mock Asian accents to complain about Asian students speaking on their cell phones in the library, was stupid, ignorant, and, yes, racist. Wallace deserves a lot of the criticism and ridicule heaped her way.
But death threats? Insults? Publishing her personal information? Is that the best we have to offer?
What possessed Wallace to post such an inflammatory video is anyone's guess. But I do know this: she's certainly not the first person nor the only person to post racist crap on the Internet, Tweet something stupid, or rant on talk radio.
Yet we focus our ire on an inconsequential teenager.
With her blond hair, Valley-girl intonation, and sizable cleavage, Wallace presents an easy target. I suspect it's easier to attack her than, say,voting in a mid-term election. For all of the self righteous critics spewing hate and venom at Wallace, I certainly hope you're doing something meaningful to combat racism and improve society.
So Wallace quits school. Now what? Although Wallace apologizes for the video, she makes clear she left UCLA because of harassment, not because of any real epiphany about racism and tolerance.
Frankly, Wallace took the easy way out. If she really felt any contrition, she would stick it out and work to regain the respect of her peers and community. Wallace, after all, was a political science major.
In the end, is Alexandra Wallace a better person from this? Are "we?"