Controversy erupts over Campus Republicans bake sale plans

[alp227]

Source: CNN

(CNN) -- Campus Republicans at the University of California Berkeley have cooked up a storm of controversy with their plans for a bake sale.

But it's not your everyday collegiate fundraiser they've got in mind. They've developed a sliding scale where the price of the cookie or brownie depends on your gender and the color of your skin.

During the sale, scheduled for Tuesday, baked goods will be sold to white men for $2.00, Asian men for $1.50, Latino men for $1.00, black men for $0.75 and Native American men for $0.25. All women will get $0.25 off those prices.

"The pricing structure is there to bring attention, to cause people to get a little upset," Campus Republican President Shawn Lewis, who planned the event, told CNN-affiliate KGO. "But it's really there to cause people to think more critically about what this kind of policy would do in university admissions."

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/25/us/california-racial-bake-sale/index.html

[silverweb]

1. They've done this before.

The last time I read about exactly this kind of bake sale by campus reTHUGs was a year or two ago and it was in New York City (I think).

It made the news and then almost immediately fizzled.

[meegbear]

38. A group does it every year ...

and they pat themselves on the back for their "originality".

[silverweb]

46. As if.

I'm not sure they'd know what to do with an original thought except run from it as some kind of liberal heresy. :D

[saras]

2. All it would take is a few hundred hungry Native American women...

...free cookies and cake.

The sign does NOT say "Native American men", it says "Native Americans."

[left on green only]

17. Astute Observation!!

Way to go saras! A few score of Pocahonti would be all it would take to wipe them out! I hope they decide to go for it.

[rfranklin]

22. why not a Tea Party with people dressed as American Indians...

they could demand all the cookies, overturn the table and scalp the Young Republicans.

[24601]

3. Guess I'll be buying mine from China. They'll probably kill me with

the heavy metals, but at least I'll get the preferred rate.

[OmahaBlueDog]

4. Cal grad here

1. The campus is a marketplace of ideas, so I have no objection. Let the Republicans hold their little sale.
2. The campus Dems can set up across the way. They can make brownies and cupcakes, and then only make them available to white and Asian students. This can allow people to think more critically about exactly what damage is done by eliminating diversity at Cal.

The University must serve the entire State - not just the wealthy and privileged.

...and yes, I'm bummed about the final play against U Dub. Thanks for asking.

[hack89]

45. Washington grad here

you're welcome.

}(

[ZombieHorde]

5. Funny. nt

[Selatius]

6. Hold a competing bake sale to show their hypocrisy

White men get cookies for a price. White women must pay double. Blacks get nothing. Asians get nothing. Hispanics make the cookies but won't get anything anyway.

:sarcasm:

[the_chinuk]

23. And for unemployed white men …

… you get 1/2 a cookie (even though you need a whole cookie) but you have to wear a sign that says I AM UNEMPLOYED BECAUSE I AM WEAK AND LAZY.

[DFW]

7. Bring 'em on down to us in the south, and we'll have another kind of sale

To NOT get accused, wrongly convicted of murder, and executed for same:

$450,000 if you're white and are a registered Republican
$500,000 of you're white and a registered Libertarian (because you should take responsibility for yourself, ask Ron Paul)
$1,000,000 if you cheered when Rick Perry bragged about how many people we have executed in Texas

$1 for anyone else because we have already executed more than our share of innocent people like you.

Baked goods thrown in for free (unless requested as your last meal).

[Old and In the Way]

8. Maybe they'll serve them at separate but equal counters, too.

Just to be totally honest about what their agenda is. Just think, this is the future of Republican politics.

[provis99]

9. as a white guy,

I would show up and claim to be a native american woman, then help myself to all their cookies. since race and gender are self-defined, who would they be to stop me?

[left on green only]

18. Make that, "as a white guy with a strong arm"

[Demonaut]

10. half baked, for fairness limit the options of the baked goods to the minorities

like plain sugar cookies only

[Ikonoklast]

11. Good for them.

It's nice when ignorant people out themselves in public and let us know who they are, way easier to avoid them in the future.

[Major Nikon]

31. I think they should end affirmative action

...after 18 years of placing minority children on an equal socioeconomic footing as white kids.

I figure after about 1 year of funding all schools at the same level per child, you're gonna have a lot of white people calling uncle.

[Jumping John]

12. They should pretend that they are Halliburton and their customers are the taxpaying public and then

they could just charge such a high price for their cookies that the customers would be forced into debt for years into the future.

[barbtries]

13. that's disgusting.

can't we all just be human now. it's the 21st century.

[DissedByBush]

28. I think that's their point

OTOH, they blew it on Asians, since they usually don't get race preference for college admissions or other things.

[barbtries]

41. no, i don't think that's their point.

their point is that white men have it so much tougher than the rest of us in this unfair world.

[No Elephants]

42. Link? AFAIK, Asians do get the benefit of affirmative action.

[mainer]

48. No, Asians get discriminated against in affirmative action

because they've entered the UC system in such large numbers, due to higher grades and test scores, they're now discriminated against.

"Translating the advantages into SAT scores, study author Thomas Espenshade, a Princeton sociologist, calculated that African-Americans who achieved 1150 scores on the two original SAT tests had the same chances of getting accepted to top private colleges in 1997 as whites who scored 1460s and Asians who scored perfect 1600s."

An Asian with 1600s has the same chance of getting in as a white with 1460 SATs.

http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2009/10/07/do-elite-private-colleges-discriminate-against-asian-students

[jtrockville]

14. Silly me... I should have known my first impression was wrong.

I thought this was to raise awareness of inequitable compensation (until I read further).

[valerief]

15. The Let-Them-Eat-Cakers think they're being clever. nt

[The Backlash Cometh]

16. And liberals should throw a bake sale across the way where

the sellers piss and moan about the 2.00 rate for white buyers, while they give each white buyer a dozen free cookies under the table.

[Vogon_Glory]

50. Two Other Groups To Receive Discounts

Two other groups to receive discounts: gentlemen's C students from privileged backgrounds and people whose parents belong to in-state country clubs.

[The Backlash Cometh]

51. Now you're talking!

[bongbong]

19. Here's a plan

Have an African-American woman buy everything, using pooled money. Then set up a booth right next to them with a big sign saying "Free Baked Goods to Starving Victims of Class Warfare". Then give it all to the local Food Bank.

[happyslug]

20. What someone should do is buy up the goods and re-sell then on a table next to them

Just say you are a Native American (or what ever nationality/sex group that ts the lowest price) buy all the goods at the lowest price and then set up a table next to them called "Capitalist" and re-sell them at full price. Your point is simple, such low prices do NOT exists for in reality people in those groups (or people who can pass as a member of such groups) would buy them and re-sell them at the going rate. It would clearly show how stupid the position of the Young Republicans.

[the_chinuk]

21. Leave it to College Republicans to provide just one more way for white males to act butthurt. n/t.

[dogmoma56]

24. ... whew, i thought they were bake'n up some Afgan or Iraqi babies.. to pay for the war

[Zoeisright]

25. Racist to the core, aren't they?

Fucking little assholes. And I do mean LITTLE.

[customerserviceguy]

26. While it may be fun to knock this bake sale

How is it any different from the differential pricing structures we tolerate every day? Men pay more for car insurance than women, women pay more to have a blouse dry-cleaned and pressed than a man does a shirt, etc.

[aranthus]

27. That pricing structure has reason.

Men pay more for life insurance because they are more likely to die at any given age. I suspect that women pay more to have blouses cleaned because it costs more to clean them. The bake sale is supposed to represent the differential standards of affirmative action, which apply only on grounds of racial, gender, or ethnic status. The flaw in the Republican argument is that there's a reason for diversity enrollment, just as there's a reason for differential pricing structures. Colleges enroll students for all sorts of reasons not having to do with academic potential. Sports ability is one obvious area. Diversity is another.

[customerserviceguy]

43. OK, following your logic

If the stereotype about Asian-Americans can be proven, would it be right to charge them more for auto insurance? Discrimination based on gender and marital status is as offensive as racial discrimination.

How the hell could it cost more to launder and press a blouse than it does a man's shirt? The only real difference is that the buttons are on the other side. It bothers me to see people here accept everyday discrimination just because they're inured to it. Maybe these young Repukes have a message for us, too.

[No Elephants]

40. Well....

I'm all for equality. And my dry cleaner does not in fact charge more for, say, women's trousers than for men's trousers.

However, depending upon the style and fabric(s) involved in the blouse, a woman's blouse can require more care and more time from a dry cleaner than a man's standard cotton business shirt.

Insurance is based on odds, which are based on history, both personal and of a group of people most similarly situated to you.

None of that, though, reflects my views on this cookie sale.

[customerserviceguy]

44. Again, there's that "odds" thing again

Employers are using it as a reason not to hire the long term unemployed, and you still haven't told me how gender and marital status discrimination is OK, while racial discrimination is not. I'm paying higher rates for auto insurance because my lady and I are not married, and the presumption is that at 55, I'm still alleycatting around, and acting like a teenager in my driving habits. I haven't filed an accident claim since the 1970's, and if the two of us married, it wouldn't change my driving behavior one iota.

But, that discrimination is OK with you, isn't it?

[jmowreader]

29. Oh god, not this shit again...

Doesn't it seem like the College Republicans are required to do one of these "race-based pricing" bake sales every year, and the press is required to go off in faux outrage about it?

Do we have anyone here who (1) goes to U Cal Berkeley and (2) knows any Native American men? If there are, that person should send a Native American man over there to clean out their inventory at 25 cents per item. He then goes ten paces down, sets up a table and starts selling the Repukes' products to one and all for 50 cents per item, profits go to a liberal group.

[Major Nikon]

32. Yep, these dick bags aren't even original

I'm not a big fan of violence, but if these morans get their asses kicked I'm not going to worry about it much.

[jmowreader]

52. I wouldn't want that

If someone came in and beat the shit out of them, the news would be full of "peaceful conservatives savagely assaulted by illegal immigrants, minorities and liberals" stories. You'd never hear it was a Republican beating their asses for stupidity, unoriginality and inability to bake--ten to one the Repukes' cookies are gonna have burnt bottoms.

What might be more fun is to set up a bake sale across the sidewalk from theirs selling QUALITY baked goods, preferably ones with no marijuana in them.

[MaineDem]

30. This isn't the first time

Didn't this happen last year?

[caseymoz]

33. Are the underprivileged required to present an ID prior to receiving discounts?

Unless that's required, pastry fraud is going to be rampant.

[Zambero]

34. So if I was to choke on one of their cookies

Would I get a "death tax" waiver, since it was, after all, a conservative concoction?

[Turborama]

35. I'm wondering why I thought it said "Republicans bukake sale" when I skim read the title...? n/t

[alp227]

36. UC Berkeley student senators respond to bake sale

UC Berkeley student senators voted Sunday to condemn discriminatory behavior on campus - even if done in satire - in response to a Republican student group's plans for an "Increase Diversity Bake Sale," with pastries labeled according to race and gender.

The 19-0 vote, with one absence, came during a special meeting of the Associated Students of the University of California, as the debate over affirmative action reignited in Berkeley.

"Sure, it came off as discrimination," said Francisco Loayza IV, the treasurer of the Republican group, at Sunday's meeting. "People are being judged by their skin color (in affirmative action policies). I don't want to be judged because I'm brown. Look past the prices, and see what we're trying to do."

But another student, Devonte Jackson, said the bake sale was inappropriate and hurtful, "attacking underrepresented communities by reducing their communities to a cheaply priced good."

The bake sale - which the Berkeley College Republicans still plan to hold Tuesday - is an effort to denounce a bill now on Gov. Jerry Brown's desk that would allow the University of California and California State University to consider race, ethnicity and gender in student admissions.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/25/BACG1L9CP3.DTL

Speaking of that bill, it'll either be vetoed, or because of prop. 209 will be overturned in state court.

[BiggJawn]

37. College ReTHUGlicans. Bunch of smarmy fratbois.

At least they are on my campus.
Think Niedermeier from "Animal House".

[No Elephants]

39. Seriously, WTF? nt

[mainer]

47. Ironically, white men are now recipients of affirmative action

which is now working against women and Asians, who apply with higher qualifications.

Some college campuses are so skewed female and Asian that admissions boards are trying to pull in more white males, by lowering standards for them.

[Vogon_Glory]

49. I Remember The Repugs Trying To Recruit Asian-Americans in the '80's

I remember the Repugs trying to recruit Asian-Americans to their ranks in the 1980's. The Berkeley Young Republicans seem to be busy undoing a previous generation's hard work, or at least what's left after race-baiting Republicans went after Wen Ho Lee.



Way to go, dweebs!


On the other hand, if Repugs are going to revert to their typically right-wing race-baiting behavior, there's no reason why we Democrats shouldn't try to collect the harvest of the Young Republicans' stupidity.

[mainer]

53. Asians shifted Democratic during the Clinton era

And since they tend to be a prosperous minority, the GOP is double-dumb to lose them.