Jumping the bandwagon

Speaking of politicians capitalizing on the fears and anxieties of the public, this LA Times article identifies illegal immigration as the most pressing issue within the GOP. That’s right, it even surpasses healthcare and the war in Iraq. Naturally, politicians have accommodated themselves accordingly…I just wonder when the next about-face will occur.

Oh, and do check out my personal favorite, Mitt Romney. After sharpening his stance on the issue with a new series of TV ads and attacks on fellow GOP candidates for being too soft, he was caught hiring illegal immigrants to do the gardening at his multi-million dollar mansion (on that last note, I’m just assuming that it is a multi-million dollar mansion). Apparently, he had been employing these same gardeners for years, as they had also done work on his son’s property nearby as well. Gotta love him.

And now a series of recently-aired, anti-illegal immigration, presidential campaign tv spots:

Campaign ads reaching an all new low

Maybe it’s me, but I just can’t seem to take some of these Republican presidential candidates seriously these days. Case in point, check out this wonderfully “24”-esque television ad from Rep. Candidate and Colorado Senator, Tom Tancredo. Oh, and just for clarification, I’m making reference to the Kiefer Sutherland show here.



Tancredo, “Tough on Terror”? Right. More like, let’s group together what have seemingly become America’s biggest fears: terrorism and the invasion of illegal immigrants deemed as the other. The result is an uber alarm against the two, yet more so a wake-up call to the latter. Literally warning Americans “before it’s too late,” Tancredo is obviously positioned as the answer to it all.

What the ad does in actuality, though, is stereotype all of the 12 million undocumented immigrants estimated by TIME magazine – I’m sorry, that’s 20 million aliens according to the senator – by immediately associating them with the imminent desire to blow up American malls. Moreover, Tancredo targets not only Islamic terrorists (and people of this faith in general), but makes a sweeping reference to Latino and Asian immigrants with the “20 million aliens already taking our jobs.”

What I take issue with then – other than this sensationalist approach of galvanizing political support – is the fact that people like Tancredo often do not ground their assertions in facts. Rather they largely base them off of the public’s trends of anxiety and fear, which is then reinforced by these same politicians in a never-ending cycle.

Thus, it comes at no surprise that such negligence of the truth is drawn into another segment of the national debate on immigration: the costs of undocumented immigrants for the American taxpayer versus the contributions that they make to the American economy. In these recent articles from both the LA and NY Times, researchers have found that in some cases, the contributions far outweigh the costs in healthcare, education and other social services. Adding to that, such expenses are far much less than they have typically been made out to be.

In the LA Times article, the focus of illegal immigrants’ use of public services is on healthcare. According to the Times, UCLA researchers have found that illegal immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries are 50 percent less likely than U.S.-born Latinos to use hospital emergency rooms in California. In this study published in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers confirmed that immigrants are indeed less likely to be insured and seek routine and preventive care. The reasons? Not because this generation of illegal immigrants is younger and healthier than the overall population, but rather they do not seek medical treatment out of fear of leaving a paper trail.

Even Alexander N. Ortega, the lead author of the study, agrees in the reluctance of some politicians to acknowledge fact. “The current policy discourse that undocumented immigrants are a burden on the public because they overuse public services is not borne out with data, for either primary care or emergency department care,” said Ortega, also an associate professor at UCLA’s School of Public Health.

In the NY Times article, immigrants, both legal and illegal, are attributed to one-fourth the economic output for New York State. From a statewide immigrant population of 21 percent, contributions to the state GDP were $229 billion in 2005, as stated in the independent study “Working for a Better Life.” The estimates are that 16 percent of the 4.1 million statewide immigrants are residing there illegally.

Again, case in point, “We just felt like there was such a deep misunderstanding about who immigrants were that the political discourse often got far afield from any factual basis of what’s really going on here,” stated David D. Kallick, the principal author of the study.

Put that in your backpack and blow it up, Tancredo.

And since I’ve already jumped back to the ad, I still must give credit to the senator’s brilliant use of the ticking time bomb, images of terrorist attacks abroad, and the suspicious-looking, could be your next-door neighbor, hooded culprit. That said, Tancredo does an excellent job of capitalizing on the fears and suspicions of immigrant-weary Americans. At the same time, I’m just tired of hearing all of the b.s. while people eat it up like it’s candy.

Additional Links and Sources:

(LA Times) Few migrants, much opposition

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-iowaimmig6dec06,1,4384464,full.story?coll=la-news-a_section

A new battle takes to the field

South Central Farmers acquire 85 acres of new farmland in Buttonwillow, California*

*Note: The following information has yet to be published in the media, though its source is confirmed by longtime SCF organizer and advocate, Sarah Nolan.

----------

A week’s work has just ended on a Friday night, and families in South Central climb aboard a small bus to drive for hours into the Central Valley. Not long past dawn, the bus slowly lurches into Buttonwillow where the South Central Farmers will pack another week’s work into one weekend – plowing, sowing and harvesting fresh fruits and vegetables from 85 acres of new farmland.

A year and four months after the forcible eviction from their 14-acre community garden on 41st and Alameda Streets, the South Central Farmers (SCF) now have a new place to call home – well, maybe not home, exactly. In October 2007, the South Central Farmers Health and Education Fund (SCHEF) secured a loan from an anonymous non-profit organization, allowing SCHEF to purchase 85 acres of land in Buttonwillow, California. As such, the farmers maintain that they have only been displaced, not defeated.

“We stood up for the needs of the community and we will continue to develop the work that was done at the South Central Farm,” stated Rufina Juarez, SCHEF president. But this isn’t the first time that the farmers have brought in fresh produce following the eviction. Since summer 2006, SCF has been farming on smaller community gardens throughout Los Angeles and on leased land in collaboration with other agricultural cooperatives in Fresno and Bakersfield.

Yet this new farmland, just east of Bakersfield, resembles little of the 14-acre urban oasis that had served as the foundation of SCF. Without the picturesque setting of massive walnut trees and burgeoning flowers collectively halting South Central’s typically blighted landscape, row upon row of crops frame this farmland. As part of the Central Valley, Buttonwillow is situated in the region that sustains California’s most productive agricultural efforts.

Still, many things remain the same. Dotted by hunched-over wives and husbands or fathers and daughters, the new farm is still the site of toddlers running through the furrows. And as the farmers finish churning the earth, planting and watering seeds, weeding tiny sprouts, and harvesting crops, they must package all of the produce, driving it along Interstate 5 and back into South Central by Sunday. Once here, the fresh, organic produce is sold by SCF at a monthly “Tianguis” (Meso-American marketplace), in which music, dancing and other cultural events also take place.

And the food does not stop here. Nearly a ton of produce – including Swiss chard, radishes, squash, lima beans, broccoli, cauliflower, corn and other crops – is distributed and sold in farmers markets across Los Angeles. All of the excess produce is then donated to Catholic Charities, Food Not Bombs, food banks in Azusa and other local, non-profit organizations.

As such, the South Central Farmers embody all that is grassroots LA. Their continued srength and solidarity despite eviction, displacement and repeated setbacks is exactly what this city needs and thrives on - even if it is the City working against them for most of the time. With the mayor waning in support for SCF since his 2005 election into office and Councilwoman Jan Perry (District No. 9) who has always kept close relationships with city developers for political support, SCF has learned that they cannot depend on these same elected officials to maintain their empty promises.

Moreover, as the lengthy appeals process over the original 14-acre farm continues in the courts, SCF cannot and has not waited to address the needs of the community. While SCF refuses to give up on this land, continuously striving to bring local farming back to South Central, this goal is just one part of a larger objective now. The destruction of the original farm and current displacement of the farmers has not stopped SCF from pursuing its greater mission of bringing healthy food and nutritional consciousness into the city’s most impoverished and neglected communities. According to Sarah Nolan, longtime SCF advocate and organizer, “The fight is not over, it’s just a different struggle.”

----------

Additional sources:

Sarah Nolan
SCHEF
Phone: (888) SCFARM-1
Fax: (302) 370-0612

(USA Today) Dozens arrested at L.A. community garden
http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2006-06-13-urban-garden_x.htm?POE=LIFISVA

(L.A. CityBeat) Tezozomoc
http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=1955&IssueNum=98

(BBC News) Actress Hannah in garden protest
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/5078404.stm

(Washington Post) Farmers vow to prevent garden demolition
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/14/AR2006061402132.html

The vulnerability index on Skid Row

I know, I know. It’s already been a few days after Thanksgiving, but I’m still recovering from a food coma that just won’t seem to go away. At least I can still spare myself of the Black Friday experience, an Armageddon over the last parking space too small and wool sweater that won’t fit. That said, after the psychedelic trips resulting from copious amounts of turkey, leftovers, and American consumer capitalism, it’s hard to turn back to Skid Row. After all, gluttony and excess don’t necessarily resonate well with the estimated 74,000 homeless individuals in L.A. County.

But in the spirit of the holiday season (which hopefully for all Americans is a time of giving back to those in need), I’ve turned to the county’s new plan to address homelessness in Los Angeles. According to this recent article published in the Los Angeles Daily News, this past Tuesday L.A. County Supervisors approved Project 50, a plan that aims to identify the 50 most vulnerable individuals on Skid Row and move them into supportive housing.

Modeled after projects already underway in New York City and elsewhere, Project 50 hopes to save the lives of “those most likely to die on the streets,” said this recent LA Times article. These are also the same individuals who have run up the biggest bills in the county, costing tax payers millions of dollars in cycling through emergency medical rooms, shelters and jails.

At the same time, these individuals are considered “anchors” or people of authority among the chronically homeless – classified as one-third of the county’s 74,000 homeless people who have lived on the streets for a year or more and have disabilities such as AIDS or mental illness. As a “block captain” on Skid Row, other men and women look up to these people, learning their street smarts them and gaining street cred.

In turn, officials expect that these 50 individuals will inspire others to seek help.

“In the social hierarchy that exists on the streets, these anchors are at the top of the food chain,” said Board Chairman Zev Yaroslavsky. “What's happened in other parts of the country is when the anchors are brought in off the streets, a good percentage of the other people who are marginally homeless access services, too. They kind of follow the lead of the anchors.”

The county has set an estimated budget of $800,000 for services to the fifty people. One homeless individual can cost from $40,000 to $100,000 per year for shelter, incarceration and emergency room care. But in terms of supportive, permanent housing, these costs range from $14,000 to $25,000, said Gary Blasi, a UCLA law professor who has studied homelessness. The City’s Skid Row Housing Trust is set to provide apartment housing for these 50 individuals by February.

Experts say that placing the chronically homeless in permanent housing with ready access to social services is much more effective than providing them with temporary shelter. The chronically homeless are “fragile in terms of both physical and psychological health,” said Phillip Mangano, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on homelessness. “Delivering the treatment and other services that they need is more effectively done when a person is in a stable location.”

Blasi adds that 85 percent of homeless individuals who live in supportive housing stay off the streets.

Critics charge that the program targets too small of a group of people in what is largely acknowledged as the nation’s largest homeless population. And to that, county officials say that they plan to eventually expand the program across Skid Row and elsewhere, pointing to the strategy in New York City, known as Street to Home, initiated by Common Ground. The Times Square project helped house more than 90% of the homeless people living in that part of Manhattan. Common Ground is currently expanding this model in areas of Brooklyn and Queens.

The expectation that the project will eventually include more people is debatable. And if more individuals are included, will the numbers make enough of a difference in the future? Some homelessness advocates agree, saying that a slow, but steady approach is better than nothing at all.

But is Project 50 the right model for Los Angeles (apparently with the worst homelessness problem in the nation)? Skid Row alone is population to an estimated, but varying 8,000 homeless people, according to this recent article in GOOD magazine. And with that, the faces of Skid Row are changing. Yes, there are the Vietnam veterans, drug dealers, coke addicts, and criminals. But within this city within a city, there are also families living out of cars and single mothers moving their children in and out of the infamous Ford Hotel. And we can’t forget the faces of recent immigrants, unsuccessful white-collar workers, divorced ex-husbands, failed fathers, and the list goes on.

These faces are not only changing, but they are moving – moving around in a county that is approximately 4,060 square miles. As multi-million dollar lofts in downtown continue to be renovated within a spitting distance from Skid Row, luxury BMW’s and Mercedes vehicles drive along San Julian St. – a true testament to the ever-increasing gap between the rich and poor in this city. Moreover, these groups are having to make home elsewhere…and elsewhere again, with current transient trends moving toward Boyle Heights.

Today, young professionals don’t even have to think twice about when and where to find their next, new luxury apartment. Nearby, the homeless residents of Skid Row and L.A. County have been waiting for an eternity for a roof over their head. And with Project 50 underway, it seems that for the remaining 73,950 homeless, they’ll just have to wait some more.

Additional Sources:

(New York Times) Some Respite, if Little Cheer, for Skid Row Homeless
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/31/us/31skidrow.html

Gang series: Part I

For leaders of the Mexican Mafia, “stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage.” According to this recent LA Times article, much of the gang violence in L.A. starts behind bars – even if prisons are hundreds of miles away. The emphasis here is not so much on the fights and altercations between inmates and rival gang members, but on the orders issued by imprisoned gang leaders.

On the street is where these edicts are enacted, where battles for drugs, money, resources and territory meet concrete with blood. The latest of these calls to battle?

Ethnic cleansing.

Under orders from imprisoned leaders of the Mexican Mafia (La Eme), Florencia 13 (F 13s) gang members allegedly attempted to “cleanse” their neighborhood of rival black gangs. But so much for getting the ‘bad’ guys – or other bad guys, I should say. It turns out that the numerous assaults and murders “extended to innocent citizens who ended up being shot simply because of the color of their skin,” said U.S. Attorney Thomas P. O’Brien.

But there were some exceptions to this rule – that is, when money is involved. Latino gangs allegedly sold large amounts of drugs and sometimes guns to blacks, including Crips gang members. At any rate, near the end of October, 102 people – mostly members of Florencia 13, based in Huntington Park and the Florence-Firestone neighborhood – were charged with illegal drug and weapons sales, conspiracy and racketeering.

According to this article in CityBeat, news of these charges comes as a sense of vindication for some and a bitter pill to swallow for others. Many black and Latino community activists have struggled for years to get law enforcement and city leaders to admit that many of the racially-charged murders in the area are intrinsically gang-related – particularly comprising pieces of the Mexican Mafia’s larger plot to cleanse their neighborhoods of the black population. And while law enforcement and prosecutors have admitted before that some Latino gangs have attacked innocent victims based on race, this is the first time that the Justice Department has publicly disclosed the Mexican Mafia’s racist agenda – one that is also against prison blacks and includes known collaborations with the Aryan Brotherhood.

For Florencia 13, one of the largest street gangs in the city, racially-charged murders operate as one function in a complexity of organized crime. Members have been ordered to tax prostitutes, ice cream vendors, taxi operators and dealers of fake green cards. At the same time, networks of shooters, gunrunners and drug dealers rule the streets. And as we’ve just witnessed, organized crime is still just as organized behind bars.

In April 2007, Villaraigosa issued his “Gang Reduction Strategy” in response to the recent increase in gang-related crime (14% from 2006), despite the city’s decline in overall crime for the fifth straight year. In the report, the mayor called for a “comprehensive, coordinated, and sustained” approach to combating gangs. While devoting more resources toward arrest and prosecution of gang members, Villaraigosa stressed that prevention, intervention and re-entry are key tools of the trade.

Funny, this model sounds a lot like what Father Gregory Boyle has been doing in Boyle Heights for the past 20 years. It’s no wonder the mayor’s office has based its strategy on the results of the federally-funded Gang Reduction Program (GRP) that reduced gang-related crime by 44% in the area. Father G and Homeboy Industries were a large part of that success.

But this recent article in GOOD magazine highlights Chief Bratton’s announcement in January that gangs will be met by an “unprecedented collaboration” of resources from the FBI, LAPD and other local agencies. The article also hints that the city’s official plan is to “pursue the most notorious gangs and hope for a trickle-down effect to curb the violence.”

However, with all this emphasis on suppression, it comes at no surprise why gang violence is still a viable option for even younger and younger crowds in Los Angeles. “Cops often overstate the problem,” said Boyle in an interview with GOOD magazine. “[The city’s] treatment plan is bad because the diagnosis is bad. If you can fix what they’re fleeing from, then you’ve done a lot.”

What they’re fleeing from is what the mayor identifies as the most problematic of social conditions – poverty, a failing education system, domestic abuse, negative parenting, child abuse and neglect, and the tolerance of the gang culture. (Of course, as if we didn’t already know this from before). And in addition to calling a war on gangs, Villaraigosa also calls on a war on social ills.

But tough talk on crime and social ills is cheap. Father G once said “building prisons to address crime is a little bit like building graveyards to address AIDS…it’s ridiculous.”

At any rate, I’m just wondering if the mayor’s words and plans can count for much now, several months after the issuance of his report. For some reason – as we’ve seen with organized crime – turning words into action seems to work out better for gangs than civil institutions.

America, the land of selective milk and honey

If it’s one thing that Americans are good at, it’s crushing dreams.

According to our clear understanding of immigration, maybe that’s because we’ve recently decided that what this country doesn’t need is the potential for new doctors, teachers, lawyers and soldiers. Instead, we’ve opted for the persistence of a permanent underclass – the underskilled, undereducated maids, dishwashers, and gardeners of America.

Just short of eight votes, the Senate recently rejected the DREAM Act – the Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors – a bill that offers a path to citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants if they serve two years in the military or complete two years of higher education.

By voting down the bill, the Senate also turned down the potential pool of 500,000 new soldiers, their chance at college, the possibility of greater contributions to the economy and any real progress toward immigration reform.

Under the DREAM Act, illegal immigrants who have entered the country before the age of 16 and have lived in this country for at least five years can receive conditional residency status. These children would have to complete high school, possess no criminal records and exhibit a “good moral character.” In the extension of state financial aid to undocumented students attending state universities and colleges, conditional residency status can be lifted if these individuals have spent at least two years in college or in the military. Finally after five years, these individuals can qualify for permanent legal residency, obtaining a green card in the step toward citizenship.

Bi-partisan support of the DREAM Act, including co-sponsor and author Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, hoped that the bill would be one of several, less-ambitious measures to pass, comprising a “compassionate and pragmatic” approach that would eventually lead to more comprehensive reform. But with its rejection, the debate on the immigration issue has yet again taken a nasty turn toward a familiar state of indecision born from bigotry and fear.

Colorado senator and Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo urged the Immigration and Customs Enforecement Agency to raid a press conference in which Durbin featured students who would benefit from the act. Accordingly, Tancredo charged: “I don't expect Dick Durbin to be able to tell the difference between legal residents and illegal aliens.”

Funny, I don’t expect Tancredo to be able to tell the difference between his own racism and xenophobia.

In any event, objections of amnesty were grounded on the extension of benefits to illegal immigrants – the same benefits originally reserved for legal residents. And of course the other principle objection was based on the provision of incentives for more people to immigrate to the U.S. illegally.

But since the failure of the Senate’s proposed measure on comprehensive immigration reform in June, this recent failure of the DREAM Act leaves an even more daunting outlook on this already tiresome issue. After all, if we can’t start with the kids now, how are we to come to any resolution for the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants that already live here? And what about the 750,000 people who make their way into the country every year? How are we to arrive at any resemblance of comprehensive immigration reform if we aren’t willing to take the baby steps to get there?

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 100,000 children would have been affected by the bill, while the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute estimates over 500,000. At any rate, these children have grown up on American soil for most of their lives. They have been educated in our schools and already speak English in addition to their language of origin. For them, assimilation has brought them even farther away from a home country that they may no longer know. Deportation, in all irrationality, remains for them. And still we say no.

After a high school education, these children are left hung out to dry. No legal citizenship status means few windows of opportunity. And so the number of people limited to a path of dead-end jobs and a life in the shadows remains large and ever-increasing.

The DREAM Act’s rejection, therefore, is simply another lost opportunity at strengthening the country. We have let go of soldiers and more educated taxpayers, of skilled graduates and the benefits they bring to American businesses. Ultimately, we have forgone potential, talent and principle out of the imminent, yet blinding fear of invaders and displacement of resources.

The DREAM Act had opened a future to those who were deprived of one, simply because of the inheritance of their parents’ undocumented status. Instead the act’s failure criminalized them for a residency status that they were not responsible for – for a stigma that they remain chained to.

And still, in a country that champions the rewards of hard work, the bootstrap model is the archetype. Since preschool (if some of us are lucky enough to have experienced it), we are taught to imagine, dream and be who we want to be. It doesn’t matter who your parents are, or what your past entails. Work hard to overcome difficulties and in time you’ll reach your goals.

But even in America, dreams are discriminatory.

To protect and serve

Maintenance of law and order is a prerequisite to the enjoyment of freedom in our society. Law enforcement is a critical responsibility of government, and effective enforcement requires mutual respect and understanding between a law enforcement agency and the residents of the community which it serves.

-McCone Commission, Violence in the City: An End or a Beginning?

Funny how after six days of burning, looting, and police brutality, this statement was as close to an apology as the LAPD could get. But over 40 years have passed since the Watts Riots of 1965 and the LAPD still hasn’t seemed to get things right. From the May 1^st – Mac Arthur Park melee, to the October 9 report reviewing the LAPD’s conduct at the immigration rally, the department has become significantly better at crafting the apology rather than following through with reform.

Five months of internal investigations have resulted in a surprisingly critical, 100-plus page self-assessment, ultimately assuming the police department’s responsibility over the May Day melee. But for a police department that is infamous for repetitive cycles of misconduct, self-evaluation and “reform,” the lessons learned and apologies made after May 1^st don’t necessarily translate into institutionalized change.

Written by Deputy Chief Michael Hillman, and LAPD Consent Decree head, Gerry Chaleff, the “Final Report on the Mac Arthur Park Incident” provides diagrams, training manual excerpts, and an accurate timeline of the march’s progression into chaos. Ultimately, the department accounts itself for six primary factors, or faults rather, that influenced the turn of events: planning; tactics, including force (e.g. baton and less-lethal munitions); command and control; situational awareness; training and lack thereof; and individual responsibility.

In all fairness, the LAPD’s intense self-scrutiny and recognition of blame is unprecedented. But as the police department’s uncharacteristic candor permeates throughout the report, it’s easy for skepticism and doubt to make room in between the lines.

For the LAPD, chaos and controversy have always prompted lessons to be learned and then disregarded once the next phase of social unrest rolls around. But even before the Watts Riots, December 25, 1951 also marks a signifcant moment of police brutality in LAPD history. In what came to be known as Bloody Christmas, approximately fifty LAPD officers brutally beat seven men in their custody, five of which who were of Mexican-American descent. Yet in disregard of the demands of community activists for police accountability, Chief William Parker launched a reform campaign based on a police professional model that stressed police autonomy by means of internal discipline.

Yes, times were different then. In comparison to today, racism during the 1950s was more overtly expressed, enacted, and unpunished under a thin veil encompassing the slightest standards of any “political correctness.” At any rate, events like this one served as a benchmark, helping to shape the LAPD into what it is today.

The fact is that the LAPD is not just a police department extolling a mission to “protect and serve” without much to show for it. Rather the LAPD is a manifestation of a history marked by police brutality, racism and scandal, embodying an organizational culture that values police authority and independence above the rule of law.

We’ve seen this culture in its finest moments during the Rodney King beatings in 1991, the resulting Los Angeles Riots of 1992, the Rampart scandals of the late 1990s and most recently with May Day. Among the footage caught by the media at the march, one officer was recorded yelling, “I don’t care if they’re not throwing stuff at us now…we get to roll.”

Accordingly, what has often been addressed is the apparent lack of common sense, especially among the Metropolitan Division, regardless of the lack of official crowd control training. For these officers, crowd dispersal – even among peaceful protestors – was immediately equated with brutal force. A peaceful rally resulted with police beating media to the ground; using batons to deliver heavy blows on people who were simply standing; and blindly shooting less-lethal rounds into crowds of women and children.

Not surprisingly, the one thing the report could not provide was any explanation for these policing errors, this grave failure in simple reasoning.

But in actuality, the reasoning is rather simple. Even the slightest bit of power can endow a sense of free reign within an insular and arrogant police culture. At Mac Arthur Park, police forces made plenty of room for their authority to be disposed of at will.

And when the subjects to be “controlled” and “subdued” are not just people of color, but immigrants as well, these people exist as an easily identifiable group, automatically labeled and treated as “the other.” With this type of identification follows the LAPD’s seemingly natural disposition toward establishing power and authority over them. Already socially and economically oppressed, their cries are rendered less significant by a police force that looms over them.

But as Angelenos can attest to, cases like these flare up time and time again. Tension brews between police and oppressed communities until finally something snaps, resulting with the LAPD promising to do better next time. But these are the vicious cycles that make people look over the report with weary eyes. It’s what makes Chief Bratton’s words go in one ear and out the other. And ultimately it’s what makes communities doubtful of a police force that they have been conditioned to distrust and fear.

I’m just waiting for the next time something snaps. I think I’ll be able to set my watch to it so I can tune out the apology that follows.