Blogging Social Difference in LA: Week 8

This week I wasn't able to travel anywhere so I commented on Ellen's blog post about Leimert Park. Here it is: 

Hey Ellen!

I really enjoyed reading about what sounds like the thriving community of Leimert Park. As someone who is new to Los Angeles, it can sometimes be hard to navigate the city's many different areas, and it's great to hear about an area that has such a sense of community - something that I am regrettably not finding in Westwood. 

You make a great point about desegregation and how although African Americans favor desegregated neighborhoods, they do not necessarily want to be immersed in white culture. It is surprising that the reading by Massey and Denton does not touch upon this point. It is also I think unfair that clustering of African Americans in certain neighborhoods is seen as residents in favor of segregation when an area of solely white residents would probably never be labeled in this fashion. 

It's interesting that a resident you spoke to says the area would not have the same level of solidarity if Leimert Park was a racially mixed neighborhood. This makes me wonder if reasons for solidarity among a neighborhood are mostly based off of racial homogeneity. We see organic solidarity in the post-metropolis of Los Angeles, but perhaps a close-knit community feeling is more easily attainable if there is some semblance of mechanical solidarity as well. Not to say that Leimert Park has a clan or tribe mentality, but it seems that through racial commonality an area's residents can also share in cultural and social commonality. 

I thought the Ta-Nehisi Coates article was really interesting while also highlighting some disturbingly persistent racial inequalities. Looking at the way Obama has handled the issue of race, which Coates claims is largely by tiptoeing around the subject, shows that there is still a huge amount of racial tension in the country that exist. In many senses, Obama's presidency is a huge symbolic step toward racial progress, but unfortunately social patterns can persist over time. We can see this in the example of redlining or discriminatory housing practices. Although racial discrimination is illegal, it takes time for the actual discriminatory practices to subside. 

The article, "Race, Class, and Hurricane Katrina" by James Elliot and Jeremy Pais discusses the way different ways race played a part in the response to Hurricane Katrina. The authors share that there is a difference in the way African Americans and Caucasians understand race. The article states, "Research has long shown that blacks think and talk about race much more often than whites, in part because whites have difficulty recognizing the privilege that their skin color generally affords them in the US society." In this context, perhaps we can see President Obama's tiptoeing around certain racial issues as a reflection of how many would rather not talk about race in America. The article then goes on to state that "even if racial hatred ceases, persistent social patterns can endure over time." Although these cultural patterns can help enforce and continue racial tensions, they can also lead to better cohesion among racially homogenous neighborhoods - perhaps similar to the cohesion among Leimert Park.