This week I decided to go to Torrance. I decided to take the bus out that way to Torrance. I decided to wake up in the morning and I got up and decided to visit it. One thing is I was completely surprised to ride the bus between the two places. From Westwood to Culver City the bus ride was very safe and I felt fine, but after this I noticed the area began to change. The demographics went from white to mostly Latino Immigrants. I also noticed that people began to change from students to rougher individuals.
The bus was interesting. We passed through Inglewood and I noticed the Black students from afar. Here were many interesting characters. I noticed from Inglewood the neighborhood was Black and it seemed quite unsafe. Later on we traveled and I noticed people on the
other side.
Hi James,
ReplyDeleteI found your comments about safety to be interesting. You mentioned that as the bus traveled through different areas you were able to see a change in the kind of people who were riding the bus. I would like to acknowledge that since you traveled through a large cross section of Los Angeles, you likely passed through many ethnoburbs. I wonder, what about going through these said areas made you feel that it was unsafe? Did it make you feel unsafe because of race or class differences? More specifically what about these differences felt threatening?
I would like to introduce an article from the LA Times that was written about riding a bus through the neighborhood you mentioned, Inglewood.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/11/bus-rape.html
It seems that others are voicing the same feelings that you did about safety in this area. Just this week a young girl was raped while riding a bus through Inglewood. This brings in to question the kind of people who ride this bus regularly and raises true safety concerns. I find it interesting that without prior knowledge of the area, you were able to observe the differences and feel differently while passing through. Class differences are the basis of all difference according to Marx, yet often these differences coincide with race. This leads us to form prejudgments about a persons class, which may not be visible, by examining their race. It is likely that you felt unsafe due to class differences, as opposed to race differences, yet since these two have such an indivisible relationship, it is easy for this to go unrecognized.
When we begin talking about race and prejudice, we tend to become uncomfortable. No one wants to be accused of being racist. However these issues are still affecting daily life. Even though we have come a long way, race is still a dividing factor in many cases. Coates addresses these issues and highlights their relevance in today's society in "Fear of a Black President." Despite the prominence of race as a dividing factor, we are able to see our progress often, like just last week when Obama was reelected.
Race and class differences can lead to feelings of compromised safety in public situations, as you illustrated in your post.
Hi James
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I agree with you entirely on the safety of public transport. Not having a car, I frequently travel around the city by bus, and the majority of the trips I have taken have been stress-free.
Being unfamiliar with the Inglewood area, I decided to do a bit of research. I soon realised that I had driven through this area on my way from LAX and was in fact one of the first areas I saw. As it was my first time in California, and it was around 11 o’clock at night, I do remember feeling slightly unsafe. There were several groups of people standing on street corners that seemed to me like groups of gangs guarding their territory. From what I remember they weren’t all of a racial minority, there were in fact groups of white individuals too. In the area, the houses were small and both the houses and buildings seemed very run-down. Inglewood is a stark contrast with areas such as Westwood and Beverly Hills.
Having addressed the 2011 census data for Inglewood, it says that 50.6% of the population are Latino and there is a large white population also. This draws me to the piece written by Elliot and Pais who investigate social differences in response to disaster. They refer to the race-class debate introduced by J. Wilson (1978), and believe that “class-trumps-race”. From my point of view, I feel that the Inglewood areas, along with many other LA communities are based more around class. Wilson describes the population associated to Inglewood as the “underclass,” which are caused by function of concentrated poverty that operates through a host of non-racial mechanisms. These include under-funded school districts, to ineffective job networks, to inappropriate role models. The area has approximately 18% of the families living below the poverty line and many of these families find it difficult to move away from this area - due to family links and gang affiliation. The area of Inglewood, in my opinion, is an area of lower class, irrespective of race.
Race has, and will continue to be, a delicate and uncomfortable subject to discuss. There has been a history with the social standing of blacks in the America and Ta-Nehisi Coates article, ‘fear of a black president,’ he expressed his point of view of the history of racism. His piece is referred to as being “‘appropriately angry” by the editor of Atlantic Magazine because Coates feels that the stereotypes surrounding blacks of yesteryear have to be changed. Not just blacks, but many minorities and immigrants still face a feeling of hostility towards them. This can forces these groups into lower class communities however they do not therefore pose a threat to society because of their race. From my perspective, I believe that it is not the predominant race of the population that determines the safety and standard of an area/neighbourhood; it is in fact the class level.