There’s a flipside to it, as well, where the things the LAT target market does are considered great things.

These papers are starting to turn into authoritarian arbiters of the multicultural zeitgeist. Kind of like how KCRW’s great “eclectic” shows have become a genre, and they now all sound roughly the same.

They present the context, pick the contrasting elements to observe, and then prescribe the reader’s conflicted opinions about the object of observation.

It was weird on The Bus Bench we were talking about sexism on public transit and as a pedestrian. And I was trying to put into words how it’s like to be harassed by what is mainly people who look like me (men of color, black men to be specific) but me being afraid to address this issue because I didn’t want to pathologize black men or black people or any people of color, because its not cultural. The vast majority of men treat me nice. There are some sexist white men and there are some sexist black men, but poorer black men express their sexism differently than white men with more money and its not because of race, but class.

And I realized something that even among people of color we often times don’t get that the reason behind things are not cultural (not our culture.) Racism isn’t cultural and I think we often confuse that.

We think if someone is racist towards us that its because of a cultural thing that we do that we can actually change, not understanding that racism has nothing to do with our culture it has to do with an economic system of oppression.

It’s like people of color can’t be looked at as anything but a race and a race that is non white any negative attributes that any member of that group does is pathologized, whereas white people don’t have that burden.

A white murderer is just a murder.
A white robber is just a robber.
A white neighborhood is just a neighborhood.

Even a neighborhood of color is pathologized in this weird way and its viewed as completely normal, but as a progressive person of color or a progressive white person you read something and it doesn’t feel right, but you can’t exactly put your finger on what it is that’s wrong with it and I feel that is the thing. That over emphasizing culture among people of color with this kitschy negative slant that goes with the whole he was a murderer AND he was black (or now a hip hop star) or they are “illegal” it makes your culture and anything related to is sick and twisted, but it subtle, but its the kind of thing that makes my black middle class women friends to tell me to stop talking so loudly when everyone else is talking just as loud.

So the thing is that no one wants to dive deep and talk about anything when it has to do with people of color, people of color don’t want to do it, because they don’t want to add to the pathologizing of their race, white people tend to pathologize on accident when they talk about race and then you have people of color who want to gain mainstream acceptance and while some of them don’t know, others of then know very well what they are doing and add to the pathologizing of their own ethnic group in order to get ahead.

Then you have the people of color who don’t care if we are pathologized. And feel that no publicity is negative publicity, As long as we are represented it’s ok, which isn’t ok, because it adds to this fake conversation and refuses to let us have the real conversation. The goal of just being represented regardless of the quality of that representation is a dangerous goal.

Homogeny can be bad, but its only viewed as bad if it’s ethnic people. But on the same hand no one wants to talk about how certain ethnic people ended up in the same spot. No one wants to talk about the housing restrictions which to me is what Hector should have brought up in his tragic column. Bring up the racism of LA in regards to movement and transportation. Bring that into the mix and have a real conversation instead of this tip toeing around the issue and the conversation that needs to truly be had.

We need some depth when it goes to writing about issues such as these.

Browne

My issue with the Tovar article was that it lacked history and depth.

I don’t think it’s tragic that ELA is 98% spanish surname or whatever. It’s just reality, and the larger reality of LA County and California, and immigration laws and human flows, explains how it’s come to be.

But to really understand the process of why people leave ELA, or any city, requires a more subtle understanding of history, and only that comment on the la eastside private list dug into it.

The eastside is undergoing gentrification by rail. It’s critical that more voices be sought and recorded, and the complexity of the issue must be revealed in ways that the LA Times has yet to explore.

Many small business owners only deal with people that they know in regards to taking loans, that means since they don’t know the city they aren’t going to sign up for a loan. It’s not right or wrong it simply is how it is. You have to think outside the box for these kinds of things. A notice to a business that says, “We’re going to give you a free make over, don’t worry about it.” It will get done and that will be cheaper than mass marketing campaign to recruit people especially in this economy.

And in regards to the economic slant of the San Fran and NY it just at times doesn’t seem fair. I don’t know why the media will paint majority of people of color neighborhood as some defective thing and if a neighborhood becomes rich and white, well that’s just progress. It’s just unbelievably the biasness and if you point it out then you’re the crazy one.

Browne

I had a much better response, but my computer ate it…damn…

There will be $150 million in loans available to revitalize Broadway, and the existing businesses are eligible, as well as anyone else who wants to apply. The reason for the big effort on Broadway is NOT to discourage the existing, street-level businesses, but to encourage the upper floors to be occupied (there is an estimated 1 million square feet of empty floor space on the upper levels of these buildings), and to encourage the owners to bring the buildings to code, as many of them are substandard and unsafe.

The clear and stated purpose of the effort is to strengthen what is there and what works, and to encourage additional uses. There is a lot of room for more, especially after dark, when the stores close.

But getting back to the original story, I read recently that San Francisco and Marin Counties have also become whiter, as has Manhattan. This did hit the news, but the spin was totally different, it was framed in economic terms, not as a racial/cultural issue.

Here in Lincoln Heights I see how things can be “improved” without being gentrified or making the area into the suburban aesthetic (which some of my neighbors think is a good thing). It’s making areas more pedestrian friendly with cut-throughs and ways to get to places without having to walk around things (like buildings and parking lots). It would be nice too to have more localized transit routes that make smaller loops instead of the crazy who-knows-where-it-goes DASH buses or maybe a system like the peseros and combis in Mexico. Places like Tejuino Los Reyes, the barber shop with the old 1920s chairs and Don Jose’s/Friedens are locally run places that are important to the community but are usually disregarded by developers and gentrifiers. These are the places that could benefit from public subsidies, incentives and handouts.

I have not been to Leimert Park in over 15 years. When I was a student of urban planning, our class undertook an urban revitalization study of the area. We were working with store owners, immediate residents, Rep. Maxine Waters and the office of the councilman. We were taking into consideration the issues that were raised by residents and shopkeepers at that time to try to incorporate it into the revitalization. It was a great experience being an outsider trying to understand someone elses perspective of a place. The project did not get completed because it was not “safe” for us to go back after the riots. A few stores were affected. I recall many wig stores on the east side of Crenshaw just south of MLK, and there was this great jazz place on Degnan where I would listen to the jazz rehearsals middle of the week while eating my lunch sitting on the curb. I wonder if that is the jazz place mentioned on the movie Collateral.