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LA is EXTREMELY RACIALLY SEGREGATED. People think it's diverse but it's not, it's segregated. It's been hard for me coming from London, UK, which is a true example of racial diversity. The people who think it's not are people who don't know any better, they think a few black and brown people are enough.
As someone who was born and raised in Oakland (and grew up living in neighborhoods all over the city), I think you did a pretty good job of explaining the reality of SOME Oakland neighborhoods, but you should be careful not to overgeneralize. First off, using the Highland Park, San Antonio, and Temescal neighborhoods as examples of Blacks being the minority population of Oakland is a bit misleading, as those neighborhoods have always had diversity. Oakland, up until the mid-2000s, was majority Black in the historic neighborhoods where they always lived (such as West Oakland, North Oakland, and much of "deep" East Oakland). You could have easily used the same type of charts to show the demographics of neighborhoods such as Maxwell Park, Oak Center, and Brookfield Village to show neighborhoods where Blacks ARE the majority (which would have been just as accurate, as Blacks have long held the majority in those neighborhoods). The reason why the drastic decline in Oakland's Black population is such a hot topic nationally is because of how fast that demographic disappeared in the city. Anyone familiar with Oakland (meaning, the Oakland before gentrification), could tell you how Black the city was up until the mid-2000s, which makes your downplaying of that group's presence and significance in the city a bit off-the-mark. If we're going by the 2010 Census, the dominance Blacks have had over Oakland is still evident, as they are still the largest group in the city at over 27% of the population (despite rapid gentrification, rising rents, and other factors that have contributed to their decline). The fact that you even bring up Kreayshawn is the perfect example of how strong the influence of African-American culture has been on the city and on non-Black residents, as Kreayshawn being raised where she was, in a majority Black area, has much to do with her "unusualness".
Oakland has always been amazingly diverse, and most residents, as explained in the "N-word" video you posted, get along quite well despite ethnic differences. Even with that said, there are many African-American residents in Oakland who would NOT be okay with a non-Black person calling them the N-word, and such an occurrence would be problematic and in many cases could cause the very disharmony that Oakland has prided itself on avoiding.
Not trying to negate anything you said, but I think it's important for all sides to be presented when portraying Oakland, especially in a time where so much untruth is being portrayed about the city (from those suburbanites who, as you mentioned, cling to old stereotypes about Oakland, to the new hipsters and gentrifiers who portray Oakland to be something that it's totally not).
True, West Oakland is much blacker than the integrated pockets of East Oakland like the 20's. Also, Deep East Oakland is pretty much split between blacks and Latinos. And yes, Oakland was around 50% black for decades. Oakland definitely was the chocolate city of the West in its day, but now blacks are the most displaced group in Oakland. But Oakland is not unique in this as San Francisco has experienced the worst case of black flight of any big city in the nation. Where I'm from in Lakeview in SF was a microcosm of Oakland as Lakeview used to at least 50%+ black from the 60's through the mid 90's, but now Asians hold majority status in the neighborhood:
And of course dropping the n-bomb as a non-black in Oakland is not always cool. A white, Latino or Asian kid saying that in Deep East Oakland might get his a$$ whipped for saying that. But generally, I've noticed gang banging young Latinos and ghetto Asians throw around the n-word pretty freely but its pretty hilarious when they do it where there are hardly any black people around in many parts of SF.
But my point is, as a whole, the Bay Area is much less socially and residentially segregated than many other places. The segregation out here in East Coast cities is pretty extreme and jarring. Out here in the DC Area, white and Asian people are rich or upper middle class and college educated but never poor, working class or ghettoized and black people range from upper middle class to completely poor and ghettoized. Race and class go hand in hand in the DC Area. Baltimore is pretty much statically black and white with the few Asians in the city representing the one dimensional stereotype of Korean liquor store owners hiding behind bullet proof glass and turn-styles.
The Bay Area is leagues ahead of integration than most urban areas in America. And that integration is not only ethnic, but economic as well. Even though I grew up in the hood, my family has always been middle class. In San Francisco, you have some of the poorest most dangerous low income project housing located only a few feet away from $500K+ homes and it's been that way since before gentrification even existed on a real level. Where I'm from Randolph Street in Lakeview was like this with the 200 block Randolph projects being the epicenter of crime in an otherwise middle class neighborhood with a smattering of Section 8 dwellers living in single family homes:
But the social integration of the Bay Area is what makes it so unique as an urban area. The Bay is one of the only urban places where people of all races and economic backgrounds live in the same neighborhoods and freely associate with one another with race not being a huge deal a lot of the time, but not all the time with everybody.
Last edited by LunaticVillage; 12-25-2014 at 09:51 PM..
LA is EXTREMELY RACIALLY SEGREGATED. People think it's diverse but it's not, it's segregated. It's been hard for me coming from London, UK, which is a true example of racial diversity. The people who think it's not are people who don't know any better, they think a few black and brown people are enough.
L.A. does make the top ten most segregated cities list ranking at number 10.
Stereotypically, when people think of L.A., they think of the race fueled Rodney King riots of the early 90's where hundreds of Korean businesses were burned to the ground. People also think of Ice Cube's visceral somewhat unsettling prophetic views on race in L.A. from an angry black man from South Central's perspective on 1991's seminal Death Certificate album.
Folks also think of the black and brown tensions in changing South Central and Compton where Mexican gangs have harassed black families and tried to get them to leave entire neighborhoods.
The extremely racist nature of most L.A. gangs also comes to mind. Bloods and Crips are black, Asian/Polynesian Crips do their own thing, Mexican gangs only allow raza etc. Also, white suburban Los Angeles is home to many racist groups like the skinheads which don't exist in many other areas of the nation.
But the social integration of the Bay Area is what makes it so unique as an urban area. The Bay is one of the only urban places where people of all races and economic backgrounds live in the same neighborhoods and freely associate with one another with race not being a huge deal a lot of the time, but not all the time with everybody.
Having lived in the Bay Area I can say this is complete nonsense outside of the East Bay, and even in the East Bay it's not entirely true. How many blacks in the Oakland Hills? How many working class whites are still in Oakland (in any neighborhood)? The Bay Area is in major denial about its racism. Most likely because the "PC-Industrial Complex" is based there, so it has a vested interest in denying its attitudes.
Having lived in the Bay Area I can say this is complete nonsense outside of the East Bay, and even in the East Bay it's not entirely true. How many blacks in the Oakland Hills? How many working class whites are still in Oakland (in any neighborhood)? The Bay Area is in major denial about its racism. Most likely because the "PC-Industrial Complex" is based there, so it has a vested interest in denying its attitudes.
The lower-middle class to lower-income areas of San Francisco tend to be more integrated as well. Where I'm from in Lakeview, the Tenderloin and a good portion of Visitacion Valley are integrated. This article details about how race is not an issue in San Francisco's rough Sunnydale housing projects. Have you spent any real time there? I don't think so because you need a hood pass to be over there. I'm not a PC whiteboy with dreads, I'm from the hood, Moderator cut: see note. You're broad brushes of San Francisco negate the experiences of tens of thousands of native San Franciscans, including myself.
But most of San Francisco is not integrated. But yes, I grew up in Lakeview, which was predominantly black and it was always a mixed area and my non-black family living there was never an issue. Other cites are not like this. I couldn't imagine a plethora of non-black families living in Anacostia in SE DC or Park Heights in Baltimore in the 80's and 90's.
And San Francisco just happens to be only of the only major American cities where Asians are the biggest minority group and vastly outnumber blacks and there's nothing wrong with that as Asians are an extreme minority in most big cities. There are so few black people in SF that even blacks in the hood associate with non-black people. Other cities are not like this. In L.A., Detroit or DC, black people in the hood do not associate with non-blacks by in large. SF doesn't have a large centralized black neighborhood like Harlem in Manhattan, rather blacks in SF are scattered through a handful of neighborhoods and housing projects throughout the southern and central areas of the city where they associate with their Asian, Samoan, Latino and white neighbors. In SF, the only black majority areas are the projects, but the areas immediately surrounding the projects in the neighborhoods are often much, much less black and much less poor.
SF ranks as one of the least segregated cities for blacks because of the lack of centralization of one single large black neighborhood or large other-side-of-the-tracks contiguously all-black area consisting of many all-black neighborhoods like many big cities.
As a black person in the hood in SF, your social circle would have to be extremely small not to associate with non-blacks. For instance, black kids from Lakeview often went to Lincoln High School in the Sunset district where there were hardly any blacks and the school was over 50% Asian. Other black kids in the southern half of SF went to Balboa High School where there was a pretty equal distribution of blacks, Latinos and Filipinos and while there was some tension between black and Filipino gangs there in the 80's and 90's, it was never on a South Central L.A. level of black vs. brown where Mexican gangs were trying to uproot blacks from entire cities. But you sound like somebody who has no knowledge of SF hoods by your profoundly ignorant broadbrush statement of the city. It boils down to perspective and people tend to only view San Francisco from an upper middle class non-native perspective. You would never see a racially integrated scene like you see here in SF's Sunnydale projects in the projects in Detroit, DC, L.A. etc.:
Last edited by Count David; 12-26-2014 at 02:46 PM..
Reason: please don't resort to name calling
As a black person in the hood in SF, your social circle would have to be extremely small not to associate with non-blacks. For instance, black kids from Lakeview often went to Lincoln High School in the Sunset district where there were hardly any blacks and the school was over 50% Asian. Other black kids in the southern half of SF went to Balboa High School where there was a pretty equal distribution of blacks, Latinos and Filipinos and while there was some tension between black and Filipino gangs there in the 80's and 90's, it was never on a South Central L.A. level of black vs. brown where Mexican gangs were trying to uproot blacks from entire cities. But you sound like somebody who has no knowledge of SF hoods by your profoundly ignorant broadbrush statement of the city. It boils down to perspective and people tend to only view San Francisco from an upper middle class non-native perspective. You would never see a racially integrated scene like you see here in SF's Sunnydale projects in the projects in Detroit, DC, L.A. etc.:
Strangely, you make a broadbrush statement about Latinos "uprooting" blacks then -- one sentence later -- you condemn another poster for making "broadbrush statements".
It's no different than if I were to make a broadbrush statement based on actual facts, like "...Compton used to be a white city until the 1950s and 1960s when blacks started moving there and uprooting the white population"
In fact, most cities in the U.S. (Chicago, N.Y., Baltimore, Philly, St. Louis, Cleveland, etc.) were almost all comprised of White Ethnic groups (Irish, Germans, Poles, Italians, Greeks, Slavs) until black crime and gangs drove them to the suburbs...ya' know...Since we're into selective "broadbrushing" and all....
Last edited by kttam186290; 12-29-2014 at 11:40 PM..
Stereotypically, when people think of L.A., they think of the race fueled Rodney King riots of the early 90's where hundreds of Korean businesses were burned to the ground. People also think of Ice Cube's visceral somewhat unsettling prophetic views on race in L.A. from an angry black man from South Central's perspective on 1991's seminal Death Certificate album.
Folks also think of the black and brown tensions in changing South Central and Compton where Mexican gangs have harassed black families and tried to get them to leave entire neighborhoods.
The extremely racist nature of most L.A. gangs also comes to mind. Bloods and Crips are black, Asian/Polynesian Crips do their own thing, Mexican gangs only allow raza etc. Also, white suburban Los Angeles is home to many racist groups like the skinheads which don't exist in many other areas of the nation.
Every Mexican gang only allows raza? I mean the gang in my old neighborhood TVR13 had a white guy running it for a while that ended up as FBI's most wanted, and I think one of the local white kids I grew up with, like the working class type not the yuppie type, also joined up. I think the other Mexican gang in the neighborhood allowed blacks and asians in too. And I think ESR13 might have a black member, 18th street is primarily Mexican but known to recruit any race. And you acknowledge that there are Polynesian and Asian crips but still claim Crips are all black? And you're saying most LA gangs are extremely racist, can you prove that it's a majority?
Aside form perceiving The separate City of Burbank as part of Los Angeles, I don't think bellomiss is entirely incorrect. But then, a lot has changed since I was growing up as a teen a couple neighborhoods south of USC during the mid 1970's. Later, I worked and traveled all over Los Angeles City and County. And yes, for the most part, Blacks were in Baldwin Hills, Inglewood, South Central and South East. Asians primarily in Korea Town, Chinatown or Monterey Park. Not many Latinos or 'Chicanos' were past The L.A. River, East Los Angeles. And Whites were in The South Bay Beach Cities, West L.A. or near Hawthorne, Torrance areas. Now, I'm not trying to GPS pin-point the exact block where everyone could be found. But generally, you knew where certain demographics were, and there was not a lot of merging culturally or otherwise, outside of the workplace or public events. But I am glad to see that it now looks like more interaction is happening, which is indeed healthy for such a large area.
Lots of "Latinos" are west of the river you got Echo Park, Westlake, Pico Union, Hollywood, East Hollywood, a big chunk of the East Valley, Eastside of South Central, many in the Harbor especially Wilmington and the central part of the West Valley like Reseda and Winnetka. Mexican Americans are deep all over the city.
If she feels like an outsider because so many whites live there, what brought her there and what can she do to fix the situation? Maybe she needs to help her black relatives and friends move into the area so it won't only be white and she'll feel more comfortable. I don't think she has the right to expect white people to leave their neighborhood because she showed up. That's just silly! I just don't understand the logic in some of these comments. I move to an area and there are people living there who don't look like me and now I am upset. I'm not going to move to England and expect not to see English people...get my drift?
She's expecting white people to leave the area because she showed up? Where was this stated other than your post?
I went to school with a white vato named Jeremy. This was the mid 90's, Corona. They called him Guile, like the Street Fighter character, because he used to have his hair.
Jeremy did the vato thing for real. The accent and everything. Knew all the lingo.
I wonder whatever became of him.....
These days, gangs (and friend groups as a whole) are less and less about race, I hear Latinos and Whites say the N word to their black friends, and while I'm like , all the rest of them are comfortable with it. In my day, it would have been like
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I don't think so because you need a hood pass to be over there. I'm not a PC whiteboy with dreads, I'm from the hood, Moderator cut: see note. You're broad brushes of San Francisco negate the experiences of tens of thousands of native San Franciscans, including myself.
, all the rest of them are comfortable with it. In my day, it would have been like 
