College Atheist Group Gets Office Space; Others Complain

Those that don’t ask, don’t get. It’s that simple.
The Coalition Against Environmental Racism (CAER) just assumed they were going to get it. They put together no presentation and filled out no application.”
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Remember what they say about “assuming?”

Though I’m as environmentally aware as the next guy, I hate this “environmental racism” crap – it’s a red herring that serves only to divide people against each other when they should be uniting against polluters. I don’t think any company says, “let’s dump our shit here, because we hate blacks”, it’s more like “let’s dump our shit here, because it’s a poor neighborhood, so we’ll get away with it.” Skin color has nothing to do with it. And as a “person of no color” I really hate the kind of rhetoric that the Diego Hernandezes of this world are always spouting.

If this degenerates into a Blacks vs. Atheists thing, nobody wins.
I know a PC minefield when I smell one. I think this is going to turn out badly.

People are selfish and whiny. News at 11.

I also think that they do not do work that helps underrepresented and marginalized communities of color on this campus and in our community … I have never seen them do anything that has supported our communities, nor have I ever been invited to one of their programs or for that matter seen anything at all from them.

Yes, let’s also deny Planned Parenthood space because they do not confront the issue of Native American sovereignty. Also, the NAACP doesn’t support the protection of the spotted owl, and CAER is woefully incompetent when it comes to reproductive rights.

I guess it’s always good to remind ourselves that you don’t have to be a fundie to make laughably poor and borderline incoherent arguments.

Diego was fired from his position at the ASUO for supposedly making homophobic and anti-Semitic comments himself.
See:
http://www.dailyemerald.com/multicultural-advocate-fired-speculates-asuo-criticism-as-reason-1.1076761

These days he’s just a campus mouth piece for playing the race card ironically. Since I was present when CAER made their presentation, the girl presenting seemed unaware of their current office space When she was pressed by reviewing board why they needed the new office, they didn’t have any real argument other than its location is a bit more accessible.

So when CAER made a fuss, we had to scratch our heads over the issue. We weren’t against CAER nor were we informed there was a problem. Rather than have AHA! being bated into race arguments we’ll probably just talk to CAER directly and see if they need storage space. The ASUO doesn’t directly control the EMU building although it is our campus Student Union building. The ASUO shouldn’t have suggested that it was a formality for the application, and I’m willing to bet the ASUO wasn’t aware that CAER had office space if its own members were unaware either.

Diego’s comments are is his own and not CAER and should be treated as such. Just doing a google search for him and University of Oregon and/or Daily Emerald shows that he spends most of his time playing the same race card, sometimes justly and sometimes just out of spite.

TruFru, that’s an excellent question, but any challenge to the idea of a state-funded college providing support for religious groups would likely run into the same brick wall that we’ve encountered in the past in opposition to the “faith-based initiative” programs – that we need to show that there has been actual harm done as a result of the funding, and that the person filing the complaint has to have “standing” (which is vaguely defined at best). It seems that in recent years the deck has been nicely stacked against purely secular governance.

It’s getting hard not to be cynical.

So, CAER is angry at the ESU for giving office space to the group that did more work and proved that they wanted the space more. I’m reminded of the story of the ant and the grasshopper.

Congrats on staying strong against the forces of ignorance, such as Diego.