Black vs. Brown in L.A.

Here's an interesting article on the changing demographics in Los Angeles and the racial tensions that are coming from it:

Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition has a ways to go in Los Angeles, where Mexicans and blacks are killing each other at record rates. The action is particularly hot in South Central Los Angeles and in nearby Compton, two areas that have undergone a dramatic shift during the last two decades from virtually all black to half or more Hispanic.

Most of the schools in these areas are now majority Latino, something I could not possibly have imagined when I was in high school in the early 1960s. By that time South Central and Compton had made a transition from virtually all white during the 1930s to virtually all black. They remained that way into the late 1970s, when the effects of illegal immigration from Mexico first began to be felt. By the 1990s, entire neighborhoods had been transformed.

There have been a spate of fights at L.A. area high schools in the last few weeks, almost all of them battles between black and hispanics. Roger McGrath details some of the changes he's seen in the community since he went to high school there, and the growing tensions in the city of Compton:

Meanwhile, in the incorporated city of Compton, just over the line from South Central Los Angeles, several blacks were killed in October in what may have been racially motivated shootings, bringing the city’s total murders thus far in the year to 54. With only 93,000 people, Compton has become one of the murder capitals of the United States. During the last two decades, the town has gone from predominately black to nearly 60 percent Hispanic. Compton’s two high schools, Centennial and Compton—more than 90 percent black in the ’60s and ’70s—are now 54 percent and 66 percent Hispanic. At Centennial, 41 percent of the students are English learners, and at Compton 50 percent, meaning that 80-90 percent of the Latino students at each school fall into the category. They speak Spanish with each other and have little to do with black students.

Despite a majority of Latino students, six of the eight members of school board are black. More striking, though, is the exclusively black city government, including the mayor, the city attorney, the city treasurer, the city clerk, and all members of the city council. Four of five city jobs are held by blacks. Thus far, Latino demands for jobs and a role in government have gone nowhere, principally because most of Compton’s Latinos are illegal aliens and don’t vote.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, whose deputies patrol Compton, attributes the spike in murders to drugs, gangs, and racial tension. Drugs and gangs, however, were very much a part of Compton during the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, leaving racial conflict between blacks and Latinos as the new factor—the elephant in the living room that few want to discuss publicly. Baca was right about drugs and gangs, though, except instead of black gang members killing each other as in the past in Compton, it is now more likely black-on-brown or brown-on-black.

There is a war at the moment between the Latino Compton Tortilla Flats gang and the black Fruit Town Pirus. Their combined efforts just might make this a record year for murder in Compton.

It’s clear that the Rainbow Coalition’s colors are running, and they’re running blood red.

Compton has also had a recent history of corrupt city leadership, so things are ripe for trouble in that city.