This morning, marking my month in Compton, I was just watching videos on YouTube.
It started when I watched a fight between some new Asian kid at school and some Latino-ish white guy.
Damn I wish I could've done what that Asian kid did. I googled information about the boys and where they are now. Couldn't really find much.
Then on the side panel of the YouTube version of that fight, I see a newsclip about some Van Nuys Filipino gang members from the 1990s being arrested. I think about how this incident looks on TV for other Angelenos, particularly white folks. The local news, is always oriented towards crises, and all you see on local news is people of color behaving badly, but then their national programming is chocful of white folk.
While pondering about that structural juxtaposition, I'd hopped upon a Streetgangs Video about some rappers from the Eastside of Long Beach.
As you might know, I had been interested in pursuing a project on the gangs of the Eastside of Long Beach. However, I have since switched gears and am in the process of writing on another project.
But anyway these video about a 20-year old Eastside Long Beach Asian rapper just caught my attention.
On the surface, it's easy for anyone to judge and dismiss these guys as stupid and/or uneducated.
However, I think if you do persist in watching, you do gain insight, just like you might gain some insight listening to minutes of a Nobel Prize winning neuroscientist giving a conference talk to fellow neuroscientists. Both this guy and the Nobel Prize winning neuroscientist talk in ways that they are used to based on their environs.
I can say that I've had the opportunity to listen to both, but I can understand enough from each of them to gain insight.
I gleaned some insight from this rapper when he talked about Jin becoming a "gospel rapper" and the division of gangs between LA and between Long Beach. LA's gangs tend to be divided by streets, whereas Long Beach tends to divide along racial lines. I hadn't thought about this still existing today, but then again I didn't hang around gang members as much as I did ex-gang members and mediators.
Showing posts with label Race and Ethnicity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Race and Ethnicity. Show all posts
Metro Stories: Oscar Grant
A chilly Friday morning on the Orange Line en route to the Red Line.
Just caught the bus.
Soon as I enter the bus, I see a young "conscious" dude of color wearing a black Oscar Grant T-shirt. In my head, I'm raising my fist with him.
Matter of fact, I was heading to an Oscar Grant-related event: The sentencing of the officer who delivered a fatal shot to the unarmed, young black father named Oscar Grant.
If you don't know who Oscar Grant is, I wrote an article about who he is and the trial and the importance of all of it here.
In progress, the young dude was having a conversation with a young black woman just across from him. I imagined that the conversation probably started with him explaining to her his T-shirt and why justice was needed for Oscar Grant.
She talked about how her godbrother was sentenced to life after having attained a third strike to his record. "He's gone for life at age 21" she said. She said that the first two things he did was just "stuff he did as a kid at age 13." Apparently, her godbrother was guilty by association. The police accused him of attempting to assault a police officer --- for her, she saw from the point of view of her godbrother and thought the logic of the police suspicious at best.
The guy with the Oscar Grant T-shirt could only shake his head in a knowing disbelief. A "knowing disbelief" meaning he's probably heard this story several times before but with other people and so "knows" the story, and a "disbelief" at the injustice still being blatantly carried out.
He made a poignant observation: Rich people who stole money were rarely ever prosecuted or stigmatized for white collar crimes, poor people were the ones always getting harrassed by the cops, and the final grain of salt to the slug, as taxpayers, they were subsizidizing the cops for such harrassment.
She began talking about her own experiences with the police. She talked about how officers demeaningly called her "Hollywood" when they saw her or asked her if she got her welfare check or would routinely tell her that she wouldn't be anything. Button-pushing, no doubt. Psychologists would call those "acts of microaggression." "Micro-aggression" meaning everyday actions carried out by someone, anyone, in this case, police officers, that communicate a hostility and demeaning of a person but are somewhat difficult to respond to.
Explaining the importance of microaggression, I'll take from the TV Show the Wire, a quote from the smartest cop, Lester Freamon, and a reformed cop, Carver, "It all matters."
Later in the day, I went to the courthouse where that officer was being sentenced. The demonstrators were chanting in front of LAPD and LA Sherriff's Department personnel "guilty, guilty, the whole damn system is filthy, filthy."
In a justice system that saw black professional football players like Michael Vick go to jail for 4 years for killing dogs...
In a justice system that saw a football player for shooting himself in the foot for 2 years...
...the officer who shot away the life of a young black man, who in Michel Foucauldian lingo "liberally exercised his technology handed to him as a means to control the body and backed by the state", received what will amount to...7 months.
Just caught the bus.
Soon as I enter the bus, I see a young "conscious" dude of color wearing a black Oscar Grant T-shirt. In my head, I'm raising my fist with him.
Matter of fact, I was heading to an Oscar Grant-related event: The sentencing of the officer who delivered a fatal shot to the unarmed, young black father named Oscar Grant.
If you don't know who Oscar Grant is, I wrote an article about who he is and the trial and the importance of all of it here.
In progress, the young dude was having a conversation with a young black woman just across from him. I imagined that the conversation probably started with him explaining to her his T-shirt and why justice was needed for Oscar Grant.
She talked about how her godbrother was sentenced to life after having attained a third strike to his record. "He's gone for life at age 21" she said. She said that the first two things he did was just "stuff he did as a kid at age 13." Apparently, her godbrother was guilty by association. The police accused him of attempting to assault a police officer --- for her, she saw from the point of view of her godbrother and thought the logic of the police suspicious at best.
The guy with the Oscar Grant T-shirt could only shake his head in a knowing disbelief. A "knowing disbelief" meaning he's probably heard this story several times before but with other people and so "knows" the story, and a "disbelief" at the injustice still being blatantly carried out.
He made a poignant observation: Rich people who stole money were rarely ever prosecuted or stigmatized for white collar crimes, poor people were the ones always getting harrassed by the cops, and the final grain of salt to the slug, as taxpayers, they were subsizidizing the cops for such harrassment.
She began talking about her own experiences with the police. She talked about how officers demeaningly called her "Hollywood" when they saw her or asked her if she got her welfare check or would routinely tell her that she wouldn't be anything. Button-pushing, no doubt. Psychologists would call those "acts of microaggression." "Micro-aggression" meaning everyday actions carried out by someone, anyone, in this case, police officers, that communicate a hostility and demeaning of a person but are somewhat difficult to respond to.
Explaining the importance of microaggression, I'll take from the TV Show the Wire, a quote from the smartest cop, Lester Freamon, and a reformed cop, Carver, "It all matters."
Later in the day, I went to the courthouse where that officer was being sentenced. The demonstrators were chanting in front of LAPD and LA Sherriff's Department personnel "guilty, guilty, the whole damn system is filthy, filthy."
In a justice system that saw black professional football players like Michael Vick go to jail for 4 years for killing dogs...
In a justice system that saw a football player for shooting himself in the foot for 2 years...
...the officer who shot away the life of a young black man, who in Michel Foucauldian lingo "liberally exercised his technology handed to him as a means to control the body and backed by the state", received what will amount to...7 months.
CicLAvia Needs to Happen at Night
Great that it happened just because it created a public space for LA. And it was good to see the work of a few good friends come to fruition.
More than I can say about myself. I give credit to those that actually make something like this, with no precedent here, happen. That took some amount of elbow-pulling, twisting, and different kinds of contortion.
CicLAvia is overwhelmingly a space that absolutely needs to happen, frequently. I think it's any piece of public space is a great infrastructure for community-building.
However, I want to propose an add-on to CicLAvia that I think could go a long way in really building up the community. Something that could help drop crime even more, but more importantly something that attempts to reach da yutes of LA, particularly the youth of color. And it's real simple:
CicLAvia needs to happen at night.
Somewhat in the same vein as the Midnight Ridazz, and Critical Mass rides. However, I don't think it should be dominated as much by bicyclists.
Ala my buddy Jane Jacobs, I'm thinking of a CicLAvia that includes more pedestrians, more points of engagement for people, at night, when there is very little safe public space at all.
I'm thinking of the open fiesta that is the Central Avenue Jazz Festival. I'm thinking the claiming of spaces by various organizations in Park(ing) Day LA. I'm thinking the social scene of the Art Walk for the 20 somethings. I'm also thinking very prominently about Antonio Villaraigosa's Saturday Night Lights anti-gang program for youth and their families.
Why does CicLAvia need to happen at night?
Well, I'm quite tired of the nights of LA being reserved for adults with money. The dance club, the nightclubs, the bars, the gourmet food trucks, the frozen sugar injections, movies, bowling alley, hoity toity museums.
What do we do in those night-time spaces in LA? Talk. Drink. Eat. Smoke.
Lots of privatized, not really all that active activities.
Meanwhile, past 10 PM public parks are closed. This means that the kids who were just kicking it and skateboarding, must kick push to another place.
Public libraries shut down at 6. This means that the homeless people at Central Library gotta get the fuck out of there and go to some shelter or the street corner outside of Busby's. Or better yet in front of your local 7-11, a space he occupies like a void, where you can just learn how to filter the individual's humanity out of your talking, eating, drinking, smoking level of consciousness.
Places of free, spontaneous community convergence during the day time are suddenly dark, desolate potential crime spaces.
Our nights in LA are monopolized by private spaces. The spots of activity are suddenly concentrated into privatized, insular spaces. Whether it's the Standard downtown or Suehiro in the latenight, your entrance and access to those spaces, establishments are mediated only by money (or favors) if you have any to exchange.
The key to your entrance anywhere is having money (or favors) to exchange. A lot of youth, particularly the colored ones whether you're in Central Los Angeles, South Los Angeles, Van Nuys and above, East Los, (me too) don't have a lot of money to exchange.
There are very few spaces in LA at night that are free. There's the Tuesday Night Cafe, the Zocalo and ALOUD public lectures, events at universities and colleges, and Art Walk. Each cool in their own right, but all infrequent, and random, usually targeted towards adults, and particular kinds of adults at that. The events at night are either for the 20-30 something in the case of the open mics and the artsy stuff, or if it's some kind of public lecture it's for white people old enough to excrete dust particles when they are ready to deposit their #2's.
A downtown LA at night with no Artwalk or other big event features closed doors, gates, homeless and "sketchy" individuals.
So let's put this altogether:
CicLAvia at night could be something to tackle these various problems. Preventative, and yet absolutely engaging and enthralling social infrastructure. An open space at night created by people and a free community event that could encourage youths to get out, be cool, be safe in a safe space.
The whole reason I even propose the night is for the youths, particularly the "latchkey" ones. The ones that are out and about after after-school hours.
I think outreach could be done to those youth intervention programs, and hell include the high school clubs, and whatever else. The great thing about putting this outreach in the great mass that is CicLAvia is that the event doesn't have to center around just that or them. They're just in with the rest of Angelenos who want to enjoy their streets and public spaces at the time of day when were culturally expected to be in exclusively private spaces.
As much as crime has been falling, crime could fall even more. CicLAvia on a Sunday morning needed tons of police; the police handle most incidents at night. They police will be out there already and the kids and the cameras so it's a shared visibility space. If you took a panopticonish view, it would be like a midnight nightwatch of streets, but done with fun and a lot more community involvement.
And that's where Mayor Villaraigosa's Saturday Night Lights program catches on. He began his Saturday Night Lights program last summer as an anti-gang program. His program kept parks open till late. Result, 2009 was the safest summer since 1967.
Except his program was concentrated exclusively at parks.
I wonder how much more crime could be reduced if he had the streets as well as the parks for this.
The CicLAvia at night would be a way for masses of different people to reclaim their streets at the time of day when it isn't expected to be claimed.
More than I can say about myself. I give credit to those that actually make something like this, with no precedent here, happen. That took some amount of elbow-pulling, twisting, and different kinds of contortion.
CicLAvia is overwhelmingly a space that absolutely needs to happen, frequently. I think it's any piece of public space is a great infrastructure for community-building.
However, I want to propose an add-on to CicLAvia that I think could go a long way in really building up the community. Something that could help drop crime even more, but more importantly something that attempts to reach da yutes of LA, particularly the youth of color. And it's real simple:
CicLAvia needs to happen at night.
Somewhat in the same vein as the Midnight Ridazz, and Critical Mass rides. However, I don't think it should be dominated as much by bicyclists.
Ala my buddy Jane Jacobs, I'm thinking of a CicLAvia that includes more pedestrians, more points of engagement for people, at night, when there is very little safe public space at all.
I'm thinking of the open fiesta that is the Central Avenue Jazz Festival. I'm thinking the claiming of spaces by various organizations in Park(ing) Day LA. I'm thinking the social scene of the Art Walk for the 20 somethings. I'm also thinking very prominently about Antonio Villaraigosa's Saturday Night Lights anti-gang program for youth and their families.
Why does CicLAvia need to happen at night?
Well, I'm quite tired of the nights of LA being reserved for adults with money. The dance club, the nightclubs, the bars, the gourmet food trucks, the frozen sugar injections, movies, bowling alley, hoity toity museums.
What do we do in those night-time spaces in LA? Talk. Drink. Eat. Smoke.
Lots of privatized, not really all that active activities.
Meanwhile, past 10 PM public parks are closed. This means that the kids who were just kicking it and skateboarding, must kick push to another place.
Public libraries shut down at 6. This means that the homeless people at Central Library gotta get the fuck out of there and go to some shelter or the street corner outside of Busby's. Or better yet in front of your local 7-11, a space he occupies like a void, where you can just learn how to filter the individual's humanity out of your talking, eating, drinking, smoking level of consciousness.
Places of free, spontaneous community convergence during the day time are suddenly dark, desolate potential crime spaces.
Our nights in LA are monopolized by private spaces. The spots of activity are suddenly concentrated into privatized, insular spaces. Whether it's the Standard downtown or Suehiro in the latenight, your entrance and access to those spaces, establishments are mediated only by money (or favors) if you have any to exchange.
The key to your entrance anywhere is having money (or favors) to exchange. A lot of youth, particularly the colored ones whether you're in Central Los Angeles, South Los Angeles, Van Nuys and above, East Los, (me too) don't have a lot of money to exchange.
There are very few spaces in LA at night that are free. There's the Tuesday Night Cafe, the Zocalo and ALOUD public lectures, events at universities and colleges, and Art Walk. Each cool in their own right, but all infrequent, and random, usually targeted towards adults, and particular kinds of adults at that. The events at night are either for the 20-30 something in the case of the open mics and the artsy stuff, or if it's some kind of public lecture it's for white people old enough to excrete dust particles when they are ready to deposit their #2's.
A downtown LA at night with no Artwalk or other big event features closed doors, gates, homeless and "sketchy" individuals.
So let's put this altogether:
- There isn't much public space in Los Angeles in general, and even fewer at night with the closure of parks and libraries.
- Activities are very limited, and not very active, and Americans are fat fucking bastards.
- Private space overwhelmingly monopolizes and characterizes LA at night; it's a purely adult, privatized, disconnected mass of dystopia of borders and isolation, breeding grounds for "deviance."
- Youth don't have a lot of money and don't have many places to go at night.
CicLAvia at night could be something to tackle these various problems. Preventative, and yet absolutely engaging and enthralling social infrastructure. An open space at night created by people and a free community event that could encourage youths to get out, be cool, be safe in a safe space.
The whole reason I even propose the night is for the youths, particularly the "latchkey" ones. The ones that are out and about after after-school hours.
I think outreach could be done to those youth intervention programs, and hell include the high school clubs, and whatever else. The great thing about putting this outreach in the great mass that is CicLAvia is that the event doesn't have to center around just that or them. They're just in with the rest of Angelenos who want to enjoy their streets and public spaces at the time of day when were culturally expected to be in exclusively private spaces.
As much as crime has been falling, crime could fall even more. CicLAvia on a Sunday morning needed tons of police; the police handle most incidents at night. They police will be out there already and the kids and the cameras so it's a shared visibility space. If you took a panopticonish view, it would be like a midnight nightwatch of streets, but done with fun and a lot more community involvement.
And that's where Mayor Villaraigosa's Saturday Night Lights program catches on. He began his Saturday Night Lights program last summer as an anti-gang program. His program kept parks open till late. Result, 2009 was the safest summer since 1967.
Except his program was concentrated exclusively at parks.
I wonder how much more crime could be reduced if he had the streets as well as the parks for this.
The CicLAvia at night would be a way for masses of different people to reclaim their streets at the time of day when it isn't expected to be claimed.
Popular Discourse on Watts
The view of Watts that I originally had, which I still have, presupposes that people are generally good. It wasn't there in my particular context this past Sunday.
However, once in a while that positive view of places like Watts re-surfaces when pitted against an outsider view that carelessly slaps tired old stereotypes on those places like Watts, the people of Watts, the things of Watts. Places, people, things that they are disconnected from and more than likely don't understand but will poke fun at it from a safe distance.
My original view woke up in response to a careless throwaway post on LA Metblogs.
There are jokes. And then there is nervous laughter which desperately tries to act like a joke.
There was no reason that I targeted him, just his post as a representative of typical blathering white guy speech.
Sure, he speaks snarkily to A "reality", that no one will want to live where a Housing Project was.
However, location with ties to "bad" pasts never stopped The Belmont Lofts on Lucas St. in Downtown LA from going up.
Developments, urban design, and the way communites are set up are a purely artifical "reality." One completely started up, fabricated by people. By definition that means people can change it.
What bugs me is that he speaks to a determinism, a hegemony, which he has no idea of, but only to judge from afar like good old father white boy.
He jokes as if it's some kind of unspoken law of nature that nothing positive is ever bound to happen in Watts: no one will ever buy homes in Watts, not at a former housing development, and not at market rate. The whole joke is exactly that...redevelopment won't succeed. Why? It's not really clear why, but there's absolutely no reason to expect it to. Ever. According to the logic that pervades such a thoughtless post.
I like how he throws in this gang like he's on the inside of what's happenin'.
Granted, I don't know anything, but I don't and won't pretend I do. Whatever Watts is, and/or will become is dependent on people. Not individuals, mind you, but people in the community, people controlling the developments around. The milieu of people in and around Watts.
However, once in a while that positive view of places like Watts re-surfaces when pitted against an outsider view that carelessly slaps tired old stereotypes on those places like Watts, the people of Watts, the things of Watts. Places, people, things that they are disconnected from and more than likely don't understand but will poke fun at it from a safe distance.
My original view woke up in response to a careless throwaway post on LA Metblogs.
Today, Antonio Villaraigosa announces his $5-billion plan to build housing for the poor and middle class. The Times gives us a quick rundown of what this plan will include, like more mixed income housing along the Metro Gold and Expo Lines.
It will also include this nugget:
Redeveloping the Jordan Downs housing project in Watts into a mixed-income housing development with some units for very poor people and some units of market-rate housing.
If you happen to be one of the candidates looking for market-rate housing, and should you decide to relocate to a swanky new loft at the Jordan Downs projects development, might I recommend an affiliation with the hometown 103rd Grape Street Watts Baby Loc Crips?
There are jokes. And then there is nervous laughter which desperately tries to act like a joke.
There was no reason that I targeted him, just his post as a representative of typical blathering white guy speech.
Sure, he speaks snarkily to A "reality", that no one will want to live where a Housing Project was.
However, location with ties to "bad" pasts never stopped The Belmont Lofts on Lucas St. in Downtown LA from going up.
Developments, urban design, and the way communites are set up are a purely artifical "reality." One completely started up, fabricated by people. By definition that means people can change it.
What bugs me is that he speaks to a determinism, a hegemony, which he has no idea of, but only to judge from afar like good old father white boy.
He jokes as if it's some kind of unspoken law of nature that nothing positive is ever bound to happen in Watts: no one will ever buy homes in Watts, not at a former housing development, and not at market rate. The whole joke is exactly that...redevelopment won't succeed. Why? It's not really clear why, but there's absolutely no reason to expect it to. Ever. According to the logic that pervades such a thoughtless post.
I like how he throws in this gang like he's on the inside of what's happenin'.
Granted, I don't know anything, but I don't and won't pretend I do. Whatever Watts is, and/or will become is dependent on people. Not individuals, mind you, but people in the community, people controlling the developments around. The milieu of people in and around Watts.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)