UCLA book 'Black Los Angeles' chronicles city's African American history, issues

[Blue_Tires]

California's anti–gay marriage intitiative Proposition 8 ignited a debate within Los Angeles' African American gay and lesbian communities: Should black same-sex couples come out to family and friends to help garner support for gay marriage, or should they continue to take a "don't ask, don't tell" approach?

"Some in the community were becoming more supportive of gay sexuality as an identity status that could exist alongside a strong racial-group affinity. Others were holding fast to religious and cultural ideologies that reduced gay sexuality to an immoral behavior and thus not a valid identity status," says Mignon R. Moore, a UCLA sociologist and professor of African American studies whose research — along with the work of more than two dozen other scholars — appears a new book that sheds light on black Los Angeles.

"Black Los Angeles: American Dreams and Racial Realities" (NYU Press, April 2010), co-edited by Darnell Hunt, director of UCLA's Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, and the center's assistant director, Ana-Christina Ramón, delves into the long and rich history of African Americans in Los Angeles and presents a snapshot of contemporary issues affecting the community.

"African Americans have played important and pivotal roles in Los Angeles' history," Hunt says. "As our book demonstrates, African Americans have had a powerful impact on the development of the city — from being part of the first settlers in 1781, through the period of the region's tremendous growth, to the present day."

"Black Los Angeles is and has always been a space of profound contradictions," Hunt writes in the book. "Just as Los Angeles has come to symbolize the complexities of the early twenty-first–century city, so too has Black Los Angeles come to embody the complex realities of race in so-called 'colorblind' times."
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-black-l-a-book-chronicles-157102.aspx

[bliss_eternal]

1. in my opinion, once upon a time,...

...there was such a thing as "black los angeles." where people could say a lot about black americans in the la area, and be accurate in such comments. because at one time, black people could only reside in certain parts of los angeles and they tended to keep to themselves (lapd made sure of that). but that has changed...a lot.

there are so many areas where black southern californians live and work, and so many variables that make up their life experience and can make it different from the next person of color--one's sexuality, gender, education (or lack thereof), religion (what type), political beliefs (if any), social beliefs, income, employment history, car driver vs. public transportation rider, etc. and there's a host of variables w/in each area i just listed to be considered as well.

i'm getting so tired of these studies that attempt to blanket black people of any area of the country as one group, with one heart and one mind. it gives the world a stilted view of an entire culture--that african americans are this monolith that thinks and feels the same on all issues...and i'm sorry that is total bullshit. :grr::mad:

here we have a forum for black democrats/progressives, and no we don't all agree on every issue. in all honesty, i've been blatantly pissed off by some things i've read here--sometimes i say so, sometimes i don't. as i'm sure i've pissed off some people over the years. my point is, even black people in the same political demographic don't "think the same."