Racial discrimination on campus is rampant
I, Skye Kimya, believe I was detained on Feb. 14 over a $40 on-campus parking ticket because of the color of my skin.
Around 8 a.m. that morning, I walked out of a building on the northeast side of campus to find two parking officers giving me a ticket for where my car was parked.
After getting into a small verbal altercation with these parking officers, I realized it wasn’t worth the argument. I asked them to give me the ticket and let me go about my day.
The parking officers were not happy with me driving off while they were still giving me my ticket, and before I knew it, Humboldt State police Chief Donn G. Peterson was pulling me over in an undercover vehicle.
Within minutes, another University Police Department vehicle arrived to the scene. I was interrogated for approximately 10 minutes by two officers on each side of my car about the incident that had just occurred. After the officers spoke with each other for a few minutes, another cop car pulled up, and UPD officer Delmar Tompkins made his way to my driver side.
“Please step out of your vehicle and put your hands behind your back,” Tompkins said.
“Excuse me? I don’t understand,” I said.
I was told I was being detained under suspicion of assault with law enforcement. After questioning this accusation, I was told I was a threat at that time and needed to be detained for the safety of the officers because they did not know the full story yet.
Confused and scared, I got out of the car, did what Tompkins asked me to do and began to cry like a baby as he placed me in the back of his cop car.
Imagine being detained and told you are a threat, under suspicion of assault, by a white officer twice your size. Imagine feeling confused and alone. Imagine questioning what could possibly happen next.
When you grow up trying to understand the purpose behind discrimination, you begin to notice how common it is and wonder if it will ever go away.
At times, you lose hope for your children’s generation. Yet other times, you want to become the greatest activist that has ever walked this planet, in order to actually make things right for those future generations.
Students at HSU don’t feel at home. We don’t feel as though there are people by our side, and we don’t see the amount of people of color around campus that the HSU pamphlets and website photos presented to us when we were deciding which university to attend.
According to HSU’s “fast facts,” the incoming class of fall 2016 consisted of 549 Hispanic/Latino students, 51 African American students, 31 Asian students, 11 American Indian students and four Pacific Islander students.
Additionally, the entire fall 2016 student body consisted of 2,869 Hispanic/Latino students, 271 African American students, 279 Asian students, 89 American Indian students and 20 Pacific Islander students.
With a student body total of 8,503, you can imagine what it is like to see only 270 other faces similar to yours on one side, and only 88 other faces similar to yours on the other side.
Hispanic and Latino students made up almost 35 percent of the entire student body that same year. Seems like a reasonable amount, right?
HSU actually receives funds from the U.S Department of Education ever since they became a Hispanic-Serving Institution at the start of the fall 2013 semester.
To become a Hispanic-Serving Institution, the university has to have an undergraduate full-time equivalent enrollment of at least 25 percent Hispanic students, and HSU was at 26.6 percent for the fall 2013 semester.
HSU continues to flaunt a great amount of diversity that it does not have. These incoming students, like many of us who were once in their shoes, attend HSU and slowly begin to witness and experience how diverse this campus and community is truly NOT.
Just the other day, the NAACP Eureka Branch called out HSU and asked them to stop recruiting students from minority-majority neighborhoods until changes are made around campus and within the community.
A majority of the students of color who have attended HSU for at least two academic years have experienced some type of discrimination, whether it was verbal, physical or emotional.
In 2013, Tompkins had a civil lawsuit filed against him by a Fieldbrook man who alleged he was the victim of a brutal assault back in January 2012. It turns out the Fieldbrook man wasn’t lying and the Cal State University system paid him $135,000 to keep him quiet.
As students of color at this university, how are we supposed to feel safe if our own UPD officers don’t do things the right way and have our back?
Cases like the murders of HSU African American students Corey Clark (2001) and David Josiah Lawson (2017) are still unsolved to this day, and we as students have not seen enough action taken by our president, UPD and even the Arcata Police Department.
Students of color do not feel safe, nor protected here. The NAACP Eureka Branch is right and something has to change before HSU tries to drag more students of color to this campus.
8 Comments
Wait.
Your article leads with your claim that you are a victim of “racism” and were detained because of the “color of your skin” and then you go on to write the following:
“The parking officers were not happy with me driving off while they were still giving me my ticket”.
I think you need to learn to stop acting like you are above the law. I also don’t think that the cops are going to let any lighter-skinned persons get away with driving off under these circumstances.
My advice to you, Ms. Kimya is simply this: Grow up. Take responsibility for your own actions and stop crying “racism” every time the world doesn’t bow to your whims and will.
While I, a POC, totally agree that there is racism at HSU and Humboldt county this story is BS. Sorry but parking officers, not UPD officers, are student workers. They cite cars, not people. As you stated, they were already issue the ticket when you walked out. Therefore they had no idea that car belonged to a POC. Also the two student officers that cited you are POC. You failed to mention how you pushed one of them. You also parked in a way where you blocked a handicap stall. Parking takes pictures when citing a car as evidence. This needs to be fact checked. Sorry you got a ticket but in this case I doubt it was racial. There were witnesses and UPD makes stuff like this public record to anyone who wishes to request it.
You are complaining about a $40 parking ticket, then commenting how you feel unsafe and call this discrimination??. I am sorry, but you need to grow-up. My favorite part then is you go on talking about HSU’s “fast facts” on the incoming class of 2016……excuse me, but aren’t we in 2018? I am distraught towards the allegations you are making. Then, you sound like you are degrading the Hispanic by stating “Hispanic and Latino students made up almost 35 percent of the entire student body that same year. Seems like a reasonable amount, right?”, Hold on there, what??? How does this go from a parking ticket to Hispanics?
If I am reading this correctly, you talk about “small verbal alternation,” “driving off while they were still giving me my ticket,” “detained under suspicion of assault with law enforcement.” And then Hispanics…. The newspaper is not about writing your tangent of the day, but actual news, and not “facts” of 2016 when we are in 2018.
Also, don’t use we if you are talking about yourself, because from what I can remember I can speak up for myself.
So just to sum this up, you parked illegally, verbally and physically assaulted the student parking officer giving you the ticket (who was a person of color), drove off while they were writing the citation, then were surprised that law enforcement investigated. Perhaps you could clarify how you came to the conclusion that this all occurred because of your skin color.
What about the safety of the student parking worker that you assaulted? What about the rights of other students who legitimately pay for parking? One might just as easily argue that law enforcement failing to investigate your actions would be a failure to protect the safety of other students. Nobody is arguing that you don’t have the right to feel safe on campus, but there is no reason why your feeling of safety should come at the expense of the safety of others, especially if you are violating the law.
I would also like to point out that Chief Donn Peterson who you say is responsible for this allegedly racist stop is the vice president of the Eureka NAACP. It’s odd that you blame him for racism then go on promoting the recent statements from the NAACP that he was likely very involved in writing.
Put some ice on that, Skye.
I would like to point out that this is in opinion article and how you have treated this shows your ignorance to the way Skye Kimiya feels. Because you hide behind the anonymity of your computer screen you feel strong enough to spew your ignorant vitriol i ask you Tom, Joe or who ever you internet trolls are, does your opinion really disprove what this women felt. I have no idea what your sexual identity is but someone having power over ones fate and body is as scary as the racist bulls**t you see on storm front, and as Skye is a women of color that agency can be taken from many different authority figures. I ask you not to subvert your own opinion but listen to the experiences of others because you have obviously taken the time to let her and others know what your opinion is and we have listened, so why not do the same for her. I promise you we do not hate you, we hate that you will not listen because i hear people complain about trivial things all the time, everything from a lack of parking on campus to no smoking lounges, so why not listen to those concerning the fate of ones own body and agency? I just don’t understand why person’s like you all feel so offended by the experiences of others, is it because it reminds that you are part of the problem or is it that you are not the center of attention, because trust me i understand as a privileged kid from Marin, my whole life has now become dedicated to peeling away the onion layers that create the ignorance towards people experience with racism, xenophobia, misogyny and just prejudices in general. So maybe you will never read this as the internet is full of forums that speak to everyones ignorance’s and prejudices but if you do i ask you one thing listen, just really listen as this is the US and who knows you probably have friends who have dealt with similar things or even yourself and if you will not do it for the individual you are talking to or arguing with do it for yourself and a better understanding of the world as thing aren’t as simple as yes thats a fact or no it is not because in that grey area is were prejudices lie.
Tompkins going back to 2011 was the lead in the dorm invasion robbery. Basically said the victim set up the deal and got robbed. Being a local boy the truth was twisted, Video surveillance was ordered for the defendant, yet HSU and the I.T. dept stated the cameras only produced still photo’s and not fluid video. Another lie. Moral to the story is if Randy Burke is involved or Delmar Tompkins you don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. It’s all about protecting the best interests of themselves.
Racism? who know’s but scaring the high holy S…T out of you ….yes indeed.