Arkansas Governor Schooled on South L.A. Life

For Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, crouched astride a tiny blue plastic chair amid the sixth-graders at 92nd Street School in South Los Angeles on Friday, it was a political education unlike that offered in the back-slapping salons of the Westside, the area that normally defines this city for the nation’s political elite.

“One of my friends, he got shot about two weeks ago,” said an 11-year-old boy, fidgeting nervously across a wood-grained table from Clinton. “He got shot in the leg. They had to take some of the meat out of one leg and put it in the other, and they had to put one of those long things, those . . . “

“Rods?” Clinton asked, a stunned look crossing his face.

‘Shot Three Times’

“Rods, yeah, they had to put it in his leg,” answered the boy. “He got shot three times. He didn’t do nothing. All he was doing was standing in the street.”

As if playing a macabre game of can-you-top-this, an emboldened 11-year-old girl offered the story of her cousin, killed as she watched.

“He was minding his own business. All of a sudden--bam-bam-bam,” she said, mimicking the shots, “he was gone.”

With their harrowing tales, dispensed matter-of-factly with the stammers and blushes of childhood, the children of 92nd Street School entered the national debate over improving the nation’s schools and the corollary urban problems of gangs and drugs.

Clinton’s visit was meant as an information-gathering jaunt for the governor. He was co-chairman of the two-day education summit called in Charlottesville, Va., this week by President Bush and the nation’s governors and is the designated drafter of national education goals to be drawn by next February.

Of course, the trip did have a partially political motivation. For years, prominent Democrats have loudly decried the fact that national candidates slide into town just long enough to line their campaign treasuries with Los Angeles money before rushing back home.

Clinton’s visit, arranged last week, came after he heeded the complaints of friend and Democratic fund raiser, Stanley Sheinbaum.

“I have for a long time been complaining that so many of these Democratic candidates come into town and are so focused on fund-raising that they never get past the Regency Club or Chasen’s or those elegant places where the major donors are found,” Sheinbaum said.

No Stranger

Clinton, 43, is no stranger to Los Angeles and its monied political circles, traveling here from his home in Little Rock yearly for speeches. He is frequently mentioned as a future presidential candidate.

Some politicians have wandered through the city’s needy neighborhoods, usually in an election year and usually trailing cameras to film their expressions of compassion. But Friday’s tour was a political rarity--intentionally under-publicized, it drew no television cameras. It showcased a world away from the plush environs of the stereotyped Los Angeles.

After meeting with community activists in the basement of a church on 43rd Street, Clinton and his wife, Hillary, boarded a van for a tour of South Los Angeles. A guide, pointing to and fro, provided the voice-over for a travelogue of despair.

“MSB--Mad Swan Bloods,” said Tony Massengale, an organizer for the Southern California Organizing Committee, a community group. He pointed with his right arm toward gang graffiti on Avalon Boulevard.

‘Hold Sway’

“They (MSB) hold sway up to the stoplight,” Massengale said.

“Avalon Gardens Housing Project,” he said, gesturing to the left. “That’s where the Avalon Gardens Crips started.”

The van turned a corner and glided past Will Rogers Memorial Park.

“Looks green,” he said. “But it’s one of the dead parks. Winos have it by day, gangs at night. They burned down the gym two years ago. Families by and large don’t use it anymore.”

At the 92nd Street School, the children espoused harsh punishments for gang members and drug users, their voices rising in frustration.

“The first thing they got to do is take the gang-bangers out,” said one little boy, asked by Clinton what he would do if he could run Los Angeles. Officials requested that the childrens’ names not be used for fear that gang members would retaliate.

‘Good People’

“Put ‘em all in jail for life,” the boy continued. “Just put ‘em somewhere. Give them their own city, so all the good people could live . . . “

Do you resent the gangs? Clinton asked.

The boy nodded soberly: “They affect my life. A lot.”

“I don’t think it’s fair,” added one little girl, “that even the babies have to die.”