Platform : South-Central: Are Whites’ Fears Justified?

JOHN SISKA

Echo Park

I work four to five days each week doing typesetting and desktop publishing for a union printing company in South-Central, and I’ve never had any problem. Traveling to my job from Echo Park you can see the extreme segregation that exists in Los Angeles. I start out in a neighborhood that’s mostly white and Latino; go through a Mexican area, then a Korean area, then a Salvadoran and Central-American area, then through the mix of white and some blacks around the University of Southern California and on into the part of South Central where I work that’s almost entirely African American.

What puts people in fear of going into some areas is the media hype that they’ll get car-jacked or robbed or harassed, but that’s life in L.A., it’s what happens when you cram millions of people in somewhere and also separate them up.

A lot of people believe crime exists because there are bad people, and it’s true. Bad politicians making cruel and selfish decisions have created the poverty and hopelessness that contribute to urban crime.

ALEXA MEDLIN

Bellflower

As a business agent for Local 660 of the Service Employees International Union, I represent about 2,000 staffers at Martin Luther King Hospital and King-Drew Medical Center, including Augustus Hawkins Hospital for the acute mentally ill.

Not once have I ever had any sort of incident happen in all the time I’ve spent in what’s supposed to be a frightening area for white people. I know what they say in the news media; they report all the tragic, terrible things that happen, but there are so many good things that happen in that area that don’t get reported. Like kids that study hard and get good grades. Like adults working every day, going to church, taking their kids to Boy Scout or Girl Scout meetings. Like normal families anywhere.

I’m not saying I don’t stay alert and take precautions, but if something is going to happen to you it will happen, no matter where. I think it’s very significant that once my car broke down near the hospital and within five minutes two kind older gentlemen, Good Samaritans, came along and helped me get it started again.

SIGMUND STRINGER

Temple City

In the 20 years I’ve worked for the Department of Water and Power, I’ve gone all over Los Angeles, and even worked awhile in the (San Fernando) Valley. Now I’m a service person, replacing meters and fixing things, but I’ve also been a meter reader and bill collector for DWP.

I work out of a base office in Watts--that’s where I park my truck every day. I go around Watts, South-Central and the Crenshaw area, and I have no problem at all. To tell the truth, I’ve had most of my troubles with customers in affluent areas, where people seem to expect more than they deserve. When I collected bills I had to get the payment or turn off service on the spot, and people in areas like the Hollywood Hills always had some story--their check was in the mail, maybe, or they’d demand some kind of special treatment. People have even asked me to talk to their agents. Which I absolutely don’t do.

In this area of town people don’t say much. I’ve even had them say “thank you” when I had to turn off service.

I do avoid situations when there’s a crowd of young people standing around that look like gang members; I don’t stop there unless it’s an emergency. And I guess if I was on my own free time I probably wouldn’t come down to South Los Angeles just to hang around. But trouble can happen anywhere in this city.

JERRY MANPEARL

Venice

I own a small shopping center in South-Central, and I go down to that area about once a week. I’ve gone daytime, at dusk, in the evening, and I’ve never had anything happen I’d even call an incident.

The shopping center is across from a junior high school, so there’s usually a lot of teen-agers around. Sometimes I get a cup of coffee at the little hamburger stand across the street where a lot of the kids hang out. I never feel any more at risk than I do in Beverly Hills.

Incidentally, there’s a large shopping center at Slauson and Vermont that I understand has one of the highest per-square-foot gross incomes in the entire city of Los Angeles. It was not touched in the riots. It’s sad that with that much success, no other developers will move into the area.