Where are all of the African American people going?

[wclac]

Well, as a black male, I'm not leaving the County. Yea, I'm moving to the City in the future.

[AlmightyZeus]

Alright. Here's some sources to understand what has happened to the black community in Los Angeles. Please see/read:

- Bastards of the Party (HBO Documentary)
- LA Weekly - News - L.A. Gangs: Nine Miles and Spreading - Peter Landesman - The Essential Online Resource for Los Angeles (Nine Miles and Spreading, article)
- LA Weekly - Columns - The Slow Death of a Chocolate City - Jervey Tervalon - The Essential Online Resource for Los Angeles (Slow Death of a Chocolate City, article)
-Gary Webb's Dark Alliance

A culmination of gang violence, police brutality, the CIA targeting black neighborhoods during the 80's crack era, and f'd up real estate has caused the numbers in the black community in L.A. to dwindle. Some of this was planned, some of it was of our own doing. But ever since black Americans have begun to come to the city en masse druing the 40's, the people who were controlling the city had done everything in their power to expurgate blacks out of the city.

Let me give a bit of clarification about my background. My grandfather and grandmother came to Los Angeles after WWII from Louisiana and had settled in Watts, and had 9 kids (including my father, who was born in 1951). My dad can confirm how hostile the city was towards blacks in the 50's all the way up to early 90's which made the black community here say "f-this, I can't take this anymore" and climaxed into the LA Riots. Another interesting note about the riots were the amount of gang truces that had occured during this period. All rival gangs stopped the fighting amongst each other and had planned to put their efforts against the LAPD - but it was the LAPD who had caused rival gangs to fight once again by performing fradulent attacks on one neighborhood and then pointing a finger at another neighborhood. But I digress.

The riots were a defining point in pinpointing why the black community is leaving right now. Because during the mid 90's, that's when this black flight went into full swing. Even now, as housing prices go up a lot of blacks in historicaly black neighborhoods/cities such as South Central and Compton are cashing out and saying "I'm getting out of here, because this **** isn't worth it." And heading to either the Antelope Valley/IE or even out of state to areas like Las Vegas, Phoenix, Houston and Atlanta (I have a uncle who lives out there now.) And now these tensions with the Mexicans and Blacks are only exacerbating the situation as Southsiders begin attacking civilians. But notice how you'll never have any 13's going into black neighborhoods and attacking the black gangs who run those neighborhoods?

To make a long story short, the city has been unfriendly towards blacks from day one, which is ironic because the city was co-founded by blacks, the first mayor of the city was black, which was founded in a state where it was named after a mythical black woman. And it's sad.