Op-Ed: Racial divides in Los Angeles politics are wrong morally and pragmatically
For years, politicians, media figures and civil rights groups have been calling for more inclusion of minority groups in Los Angeles politics.
I was in the city for my weekly Monday editorial and spoke with leaders and activists for more than a year before the last election, and again in subsequent weeks and months after. The conversations have often been frustratingly slow and superficial.
It’s as if the real goal has been to make political change through incremental, sometimes divisive policies.
What’s lacking though, is any deep, lasting, lasting change.
The state of racial politics in Los Angeles is nothing new, but the state of racial politics in Los Angeles is nothing new.
The same people who have always been there have always been there.
The city’s long-standing policies of separating its public and private sectors has always kept the city at the edge of a racial abyss.
A key election issue is whether the city should fund police department operations using the city’s general fund, or whether it should use Proposition 60 tax revenues generated from Measure R to fund more police officers.
But it’s far more important to make Los Angeles a more inclusive city, where more people live in all sorts of different ethnic and racial groups.
It’s long past time for a new conversation about race and inclusion, to begin a new conversation about how to take steps forward rather than moving forward only with steps backward.
The city’s long-standing policies of separating its public and private sectors has always kept the city at the edge of a racial abyss.
For years, I have asked Los Angeles politicians to address the city’s long history as the capital of the American apartheid — and to discuss how to start shifting that power and status toward more inclusion.
And each time, the meetings have been frustratingly slow and superficial.
Los Angeles is a
