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As bell hooks used to say, “we live
in a First World, imperialist,
white-supremacist, capitalist, hegemonic,
cis-gendered, patriarchy” - so why should L.A.
be any different?
As
I
write this article, Los Angeles City
and County haven't completed their
midterm vote tallies. With
approximately 60% of the votes
tabulated, close
races—like the mayoral race
between Rick Caruso and Karen Bass
and a couple of others—can’t be
called yet. So as of now, I don’t
know who will be sworn in as my next
mayor.
Truth
is,
I’m not losing any sleep over the
outcome. When I heard the leaked
racist, homophobic, antisemitic recording
of
a secret meeting between Nury
Martinez, Kevin
de
Leon, and Gil Cedillo—three
brown members of the Los Angeles
City Council, I was reminded of the
words of the late great bell hooks.
As bell would say, “we live in a
First World, imperialist,
white-supremacist, capitalist,
hegemonic, cis-gendered,
patriarchy”.
This might
confuse some. Understandably, some are
scratching their heads. Let me explain. bell
hooks, in her explanation of interlocking
systems of domination, made it clear that
patriarchy has no gender. She’d say you
don’t have to be white to practice white
supremacy or its ugly sibling, colorism and
so on—ableism, classism, antisemitism,
ageism. Listening to the tape, it seems
Martinez and company covered the waterfront,
even demeaning short brown people, which
many would call Gil Cedillo.
The point
is, we are in trouble regardless of the
party in control because we refuse to get to
the root cause of this nation’s conflicts:
all of these isms point to the belief that
not all people are deserving of fair and
equitable treatment or equal representation.
I’ve never
run for nor held political office, but I’ve
been involved politically, at various levels
of engagement, for more than 30 years. I
moved beyond simply voting in 1990 when I
was asked to write an article about voter
turnout for a friend who was starting a
newsletter. In researching statistics for
the article, it sickened me to learn that
less than 25% of eligible voters in Los
Angeles participated in the franchise.
Politically,
1990
was a turning point in my life. A dear
childhood friend was arrested on non-violent
drug-related charges in Washington, DC,
where Bill Bennett had been appointed “Drug
Czar.” Against his public defender’s wishes,
my friend refused to take a plea bargain,
insisted on a trial, and had the book thrown
at him. He ended up being sentenced to 27
years in a federal prison.
Back in
1990, I believed and still believe that
public policy and, by extension,
legislation, reflects the belief systems of
the people at the table when the legislation
is written. Back to what I said in the first
paragraph: the belief that some people
matter and are deserving of justice and
humane treatment while others don’t gets
infused into our policies. With less than
25% of the populace voting, can we demand or
even expect that those who purportedly
“represent” us will change that?
In
2002,
the United States Sentencing
Commission found that my dear
friend's sentence was based on a
misperception of the special dangers
of crack cocaine compared to the
powdered variety. In 2011, when he
would have been “in” for more than
20 years, the Fair
Sentencing
Act retroactively reduced the
sentences of certain offenders, in
many cases releasing them. My friend
would have been eligible—but
couldn’t be released because he died
a painful death in federal prison in
2003, at the age of 47.
With
that
as a backdrop, I’ve watched as
people came up through the ranks of
the Democratic Party, either seeking
office or paid positions within the
party itself. The Democratic
Party—arguably the party whose
members have been disproportionately
impacted by the New Jim Crow—seemed
to have little power or little
desire to curb the appetite of the
carceral state. In fact, during this
same span of time, Los Angeles
County—or what Lisa Ling of CNN
called “America’s Largest
Jailer”—came to hold more
inmates than all jails in any of 37
U.S. states, according to the Bureau
of Justice Statistics. These
statistics are just as, or perhaps
more dismal, when it comes to the
growth of and treatment of unhoused
people in Los Angeles County. Again,
what I’ve witnessed is that the
leadership has little power or
little desire to solve this
travesty. Clearly—to me, at
least—many of us believe not all
people are deserving of fair and
equitable treatment or equal
representation.
In the past
30 years, I’ve watched as little has changed
in the material lives of L.A.s middle class,
most still live paycheck to paycheck. The
lower middle class has been priced out of
ever owning a home, as rents have
skyrocketed to the point where it isn’t
uncommon or multiple families to live
together—all the while the lives of
marginalized and poor communities are
increasingly over-policed and underserved.
Driving through some parts of town, it is
hard to believe you are in an American city.
Many who live in Third World countries live
better than those who live in L.A.'s Skid
Row—an area that most Angelenos can and do
avoid due to what the L.A. Times calls
California’s most racist monument—its
freeway system.
In
a
piece published shortly after George
Floyd was murdered when protesters
were toppling racist monuments, the
L.A. Times wrote,
“The aftermath of George Floyd’s
death while in police custody has
created a moment for radical
truth-telling. So here’s some ugly
truth about the city of Los Angeles:
Our freeway system is one of the
most noxious monuments to racism and
segregation in the country.”
So, as I
write this piece, I await the outcome of the
midterm elections as I’ve done every four
years since 1990. And, as dour as my mood
sounds, I am actually optimistic. I'm not
losing sleep because I sense change on the
horizon.
I’m
optimistic because the leaked tape, as awful
as it was, may represent a turning point for
L.A.—not a turning point for the political
class of L.A.—a turning point for the people
of L.A. But it isn't just the leaked tape.
There has been a steady drip, drip, drip
that is fueling a sense of urgency among the
electorate.
In the days
following the leak, the chambers of L.A.
City Hall were packed to the gills with
people of all stripes. Disparate progressive
forces are forming coalitions. There is a
recall petition for Kevin de Leon. Black
Lives Matter L.A. has camped out at de
Leon’s house, demanding his resignation.
More and more, progressive candidates like
Eunisses Hernandez, who wouldn’t have had a
shot a couple of years ago, are getting
elected. The gears turn slowly but they are
turning.
Fifteen
years ago, I co-founded the LA Progressive
along with my husband, Dick Price. Back
then, I doubt we would have seen the
chambers of city hall filled with all kinds
of people—united in their opposition to
their elected members. There was a time when
the weeklies—L.A. Weekly,
specifically—served the community, but those
days are gone. So, as long as we still have
our 1st Amendment right to free speech and
freedom of the press, we’ll continue to
publish the LA Progressive. There’s no
guarantee we’ll keep those freedoms, which
makes me even more thankful for the growing
coalition of progressive thought and
progressive activists in Los Angeles.
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