“Cultural Stereotype” Casey Goonan, 34, has been arrested “in connection to multiple arson cases on the University of California, Berkeley campus” and is being held on $1 million bail. While the case unfolds, consider an ongoing UC Berkeley story that has escaped notice.
Back in 2008, Los Angeles Democrat John Perez ran for the state Assembly, claiming that he graduated from UC Berkeley, prize campus of the University of California system. Perez’s claim was repeated in official biographies by Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan, California Gov. Gray Davis, and in many newspaper articles. As it turned out, Perez entered UC Berkeley in 1987 and pursued a major in “Chicano Studies.” Perez left UC Berkeley in 1990 and worked as the political director for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. The union activist never returned to UC Berkeley and never completed his degree, but he did find favor with politicians.
In 2010 John Perez was elected Speaker of the California Assembly and in 2014 recurring Gov. Jerry Brown appointed Perez to the University of California Board of Regents. In May of 2019, the regents made Perez chairman of the board. Last February, Gov. Gavin Newsom reappointed Perez to the UC Board of Regents, with a term stretching to 2036. That’s quite the post for a dropout whose major was not even an academic discipline.
“Chicano Studies” is based on The Cosmic Race by Jose Vasconcelos, Mexico’s minister of public education from 1921-24, and a presidential candidate in 1929. During World War II, Vasconcelos was a Nazi sympathizer who edited the pro-Hitler magazine Timon.
The Cosmic Race contends that the fusion of Spaniards and Indians is a new race “infinitely superior to all that have previously existed.” The four “racial trunks” are the Black, the Indian, the Mongol, and the White, but these are separate and unequal. The Black is “eager for sensual joy, intoxicated with dances and unbridled lust.” Vasconcelos cites “the Mongol, with the mystery of his slanted eyes that see everything according to a strange angle,” and the peoples of Asia are “lacking in the necessary boldness for new enterprises.” In addition:
Any teacher can corroborate that the children and youths descended from Scandinavians, Dutch, and English found in North American universities, are much slower, and almost dull, compared with the mestizo children and youths from the south.
And so on. No word from Steve whether this is the case at UC Berkeley, which “aspiring professor” Casey Goonan thinks should be burned to the ground. As Teddy Lewis (Mickey Rourke) told Ned Racine (William Hurt) in Body Heat, “this arson is serious crime.” We’ll have to see what kind of punishment Goonan gets.
