Many were very frustrated. The narrow economic base of the Los Angeles African-American community caused by their low occupational status provided nothing for them to fall back on. As a result, the problems of ghettoization, of poverty and neighborhood deterioration soon arose. According to Williams (1999), these transformations have led to the gradual loss of the ghettos' civic and organizational base. "A typical feature of contemporary American ghettos is the lack of organizations that can support community functions, as well as the struggle of their residents for social goods" (Williams, 1999). American ghettos today differ from the communal ghettos of the post-war years that were populated by black people from all classes. In these communal …show more content…
Contemporary ghettos, on the contrary, have assumed the form of a ‘hyper ghetto', a socially and ethnically similar area, which brings together the most homeless, ostracized and racially segregated segments of American society. In that, whites at this time built miles of residential tracts along the coast and into rural lands bordering to the city, while African-Americans barred from this expansion and had to absorb the influx into existing communities (Williams, 1999). The result was increased ethnic awareness, a deterioration of property values, and a less optimistic view of their community on the part of some blacks. There were three bus lines in Watts and none of them led to major business areas where people could get jobs. The nearest hospital was two hours away and all of these limitations seem to mark the beginning of many of the problems that have become so evident. More anger and frustrations grew which led to the first uprise in California in 1965.
1965 Watts Riot
The Watts Riots began August 11, 1965. The crowd was very upset due to Los Angeles police
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Social variables and human behavior are favorable conditions long set in ghettoes among uprises. However, the 1992 Los Angeles rebellion began a long time ago as a result of institutional racism and social inequality. As the pressures of poor living conditions and unemployment build up, people become frustrated with the cards they have been dealt in life. Adding social injustice and corrupt political and law enforcement systems only adds fuel to the fire. Thus, many, not only African Americans took to the streets to take justice into their own hands, expressing their frustrations through violent behaviors. In the future riots can be avoided through communication and equality among different groups in our communities. The prevention of riots lies in the daily interaction of all humans, and in the knowledge that we are all equal in God's
...ll. The inner city has many complications the fact that most are African American is a mere coincidence. If we as a nation are capable of fixing all institutions and structural issues we could bring the slums out of poverty. The cycle of unemployment and poverty is a terrible cycle that cannot only be judged by race and cultural values. When reading this book keep in mind the difficulties, any family or person could go through these tribulations. There are many arguments and sides to each problem; this is another one of those. The battle for inner city poverty, and the factors that go along with it, has not been finished. Wilson brings out a different aspect which could help people expand horizons and come up with better solutions.
Wilson, William Julius. (1998) "Ghetto-Related Behavior and the Structure of Opportunity" in Reading Between the Lines: Toward an Understanding of Current Social Problems. Ed Amanda Konradi and Martha Schmidt. London: Mayfield Publishing Company.
Newark began to deteriorate and the white residents blamed the rising African-American population for Newark's downfall. However, one of the real culprits of this decline in Newark was do to poor housing, lack of employment, and discrimination. Twenty-five percent of the cities housing was substandard according to the Model C...
Public housing was designed to liberate the city and streets of vagrants and paupers; however, in spite of strong support and investment, in practice it did not achieve that feat. The article The Beginning of the End of a Modern Ghetto by Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh discusses the racial and class stereotypes that obscured the way Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes functioned. When it opened in November 1962, Robert Taylor Homes, were twenty-eight sixteen-story buildings containing 4,300 units on Chicago's South Side, and was considered the world's largest public housing project. This demonstrated how much space and money was invested into this public housing project. The managers of the Chicago Housing Authority at first tried to work with the tenants but were quickly overwhelmed by the task of maintaining the enormous physical plant inhabited by thousands of children. The tenant applicant screening committees of managers and tenants eventually stopped meeting, the population grew steadily poorer, and by the 1970s single mothers on welfare made up the majority of the adult residents. This was the beginning of a failed experiment because after this things only worsened. The young...
The downgrading of African Americans to certain neighborhoods continues today. The phrase of a not interested neighborhood followed by a shift in the urban community and disturbance of the minority has made it hard for African Americans to launch themselves, have fairness, and try to break out into a housing neighborhood. If they have a reason to relocate, Caucasians who support open housing laws, but become uncomfortable and relocate if they are contact with a rise of the African American population in their own neighborhood most likely, settle the neighborhoods they have transfer. This motion creates a tremendously increase of an African American neighborhood, and then shift in the urban community begins an alternative. All of these slight prejudiced procedures leave a metropolitan African American population with few options. It forces them to remain in non-advanced neighborhoods with rising crime, gang activity, and...
While the L.A. riots were far larger, and the effects are still being felt, I still feel that the Watts riots had more of an impact. I had known about the riots previously, as I had been interested and looked into it on my own, but I had not looked into the economic at the time. Seeing that there were not any real economic effects from the riot, and in-fact some things may have gotten even worse, changes how I think of riots reported on in the media. Although there has been little in empirical studies done on the impact of the Watts riots, which is odd due to their importance in recent American history, especially now, it is clear that the riots started a trend of misguided racial tension that continues to this day, one that has prolonged the suffering and disenfranchisement of Blacks in the United States. While I do not believe another riot is the answer, researching this riot has shown me that while the riots can be considered important, the reality is that their effects on society are quite minimal, and only the political discussion of the riots is what has lasted to today. The failure of any real reform since then of the treatment of Blacks in general, let alone in the criminal justice world, shows to me a real lack of justice in the United
In this article, the author writes about the Urban Renewal Plan and what it did to a community in Oakland, California. The West Oakland community was found in 1852 and had a diverse population living there. That article says that upper-class people would be living next door to working class people. After the World Wars that changed because lower income families started moving to the area looking for jobs. The jobs they had were created because of the war. When the war ended these people lost their jobs. At the same time, the Urban Renewal Plan was put into place. This plan set out to remove slums in urban places. This plan would relocated families, demolish houses and create low-income housing. When a family was relocated they received little
Instead of helping, the public housing programs further concentrated the African-American community and “those who remained in the ghetto tended to become more distant” (Anderson), having access to an adequate education, resources required to obtain jobs, and also lacking protection under the law as violence grew daily amongst its inhabitants. Since “Socialization is the way in which people learn the norms and values found in their society, develop social skills, and participate in societal roles that will be continued throughout their lifetime” (Koepke)the “economic and social isolation emerged from the ghetto” (Hart)and in a sense cut its members off from the “real”
The Watts Riots was a race riot that took place in Los Angeles in August 11th through the 17th in 1965. The Watts Riot, which screamed and acted violently for six days which ended with about forty million dollars worth of damage, resulting to be the largest and most expensive city-based fighting against authority of the Civil Rights time in history. The riot helped from the event on August 11, 1965 when Marquette Frye, a black traveler, was pulled over and arrested by Lee W. Minikus. Strained forces between police officers and the crowd erupted in a violent exchange. The outbreak of brutal rebellion that followed Frye's arrest immediately touched off a large riot centered in the commercial section of the riot, a deeply extremely poor African American neighborhood in South Central Los Angeles. For many days, rioters burned everything in sight and robbed and damaged department stores, grocery stores, and anything they could damage. Over the course of the six days, over 14,000 California National Guard troops were made ready for action in South Los Angeles and a curfew zone including ...
First I want to speak in unambiguous and unequivocal terms: I repudiate all the rappers promoting failure through their rhymes about selling drugs, abusing women, and abandoning their responsibilities as men. You are all lost and a shame upon our people. Your values are decrepit; your values are out of sync with the norms of society. It amazes me how you promote a lifestyle that only leads to incarceration, broken families, and mass ignorance yet the youth still gravitates towards your message like it's the blue print to success. A lot of our men are a shadow of what they should be. A lot our men have failed their women, failed their daughters, failed their sons and most importantly failed themselves. Not all black men are walking zombies with dicks but at times it seems that good black men are outnumbered by these buffoons. What of the black woman who gives birth to multiple children with different fathers? She has been an accessory to a culture of "baby mammas," child support experts, and extreme mismanagement of money. Black men who are noble and becoming of kings you must wrestle the reigns of your people from the lost, if you won't we will continue to succeed as individuals but fail as a people. They can do you know harm, they aren't as smart as you, nor do they live longer than you. I do not jettison teaching and educating but we are in a perilous state in which we might not have time for niceties. Black men in America are two moves away from being checkmated and when our women abandon us en mass then the final piece will be played. The white man is not to blame, our fate always was, always is and always will be in our own hands. One day, I do not know the exact minute or the hour, we stop being lions, we stop being the ligh...
“For thugs from the ghetto, violence is a way of life - it's what helps you survive.” That quote was said by Suge Knight a hip-hop mogul who grew up in the streets of Compton, California. Compton is another known area for its high violence and high number of gangs on its streets. Social inequality has worsen over the years, the gap between the rich and poor only has increased. Living conditions have deteriorated over the years. The window of success has shrunk in areas of inner city communities. If you can walk into an inner city hospital and go up to the window in the maternity ward and predict the future of the babies lying there, you know we have a major issue.
My response paper speaks directly to Murray Forman’s “Welcome to the City” essay, pecifically, the complex relationship the ghetto has with its inhabitants as well as outsiders. In the essay Forman says, “Youth continues to be framed against the American middle-class ideals of a liberated consumer culture” (47). Since our course is focused on black popular culture, I thought it would be interesting to examine the portrayal of domestic space occupied by black families on television sitcoms, a genre defined heavily by shows from the 1950s. Additionally, Forman specifically mentions Chicago’s Cabrini Green housing projects as an example of urban housing development, and that seemed like an invitation to analyze episodes of Good Times. Understanding the ghetto as both a real and imagined place needs to be contextaulized in the larger concept of homeownership and the American Dream.
This time in the post World War II era, many African Americans had began to become a more urbanized center of population, around 1970. (Inmotionaame, pg. 1) The regular population included about 70 percent of just the natural population to live in more urbanized cities. (Inmotionaame, pg. 1) Soon African Americans dominated, having 80 percent of their community to live and take the same benefits in more urbanized centers of the Unites States. (Inmotionaame, pg. 2) Only about 53 percent of African Americans and others who seemed to migrate stayed in the same area around the South. (Inmotionaame, pg. 2)
As Rosa Parks said, “As Americans, we still have many challenges to face and many more problems to overcome,”. One of those problems is segregation, which is the action of setting someone/something apart from others. Ghettos have played a major role in helping achieve segregation by separating the minorities from the majority; thus, making it hard for social mobility and equal opportunities for all. Ghettos first started with Jewish people and now have evolved into urban ghettos housing many minorities. This has lead to a rift between certain ethnicities. Not to mention that ghettos are always overcrowded and impoverished, causing the people who live there to fight amongst themselves.
My entire life I have lived in several places of Los Angeles; varying from Athens, near Watts, and South Central. No matter which area of Los Angeles I have lived in, I have always experienced the same thing: very little diversity, much gang violence, and very few opportunities.