Week Six • The Original Home of The Lakers

For those of you who don't know, the city of Inglewood was once the home of the basketball team, The Lakers for 31 years. It was also the home of the Los Angeles Kings hockey team and the women's basketball Los Angeles Sparks. The Forum, the indoor arena in Inglewood, was one of Inglewood's biggest highlights and attractions while these teams played there up until they eventually moved to the Staples Center between 2000 and 2001.

But now that these teams moved on for bigger and better days, The Forum seems to have lost quite a lot of its prestige. While it's still used for concerts and other small sporting games, The Forum feels to be more of a historical monument than the bustling and excitement filled arena.

It may be hard to see in the image, but The Forum has definitely seen better paint jobs and this area
seems almost dull even if it's not currently in use for anything.

My dad was my driver again, having been down for some business, but finding time to drive me to Inglewood where I would walk around and observe. We first drove through the district known as Crenshaw-Imperial. This are is mostly a business and shopping district that's no where near like what you'd find on Rodeo Dr., but still far better than the Garment District. Just think of your average strip of basic services, stores, fast food chains and restaurants, and any other businesses that you'd find somewhere in your own city.

We mainly drove down Crenshaw St. which, as I mention already, was obviously an everyday business and shopping oriented area bordered by residential zones (mainly apartment complexes with a few homes).

As we drove, we reached the invisible line that separates the Crenshaw-Imperial district and the neighborhood known as Morningside Park. Morningside Park is mostly an area made up of residential patches and is also where The Forum and Hollywood Race Track is located. In addition, it's only about 6 miles from the Los Angeles International Airport.

One of the many patches of residential neighborhoods. Note how it looks rather dull and average in
comparison to the homes found on Rodeo Dr.

The first thing that stuck out to me about the apartments and houses in Morningside Park was how nearly every single one had gated doors and windows (some even had gates bordering the buildings).

  

A closer looks at the barred windows and gated doors.

This apartment complex was not only surrounded by a metal fence, but if you look closely, was
also topped off with thin barbed wire!

The only reasonable explanation for this is that this area experienced high burglary because I highly doubt those bars were put there for aesthetic appeal. To see if my speculations about this was correct, I checked it out by generating geographical maps on SimplyMap that expressed the burglary index in Inglewood (and specifically in Morningside Park).

As you can see above, there does seem to be a bit of a high rate of burglary in and around Morningside Park which would explain all the bars and gates (and even barbed wire). Continuing on this correlation, I decided to see what the crime index looked like in this area, which I have provided another geographical map regarding it below.

According to SimplyMap, clearly Inglewood, especially Morningside Park, has some pretty high crime rates which, again, explain the gated entryways.

Branching away from burglary and crime, one other thing I made sure to take note of was how Inglewood is predominantly inhabited by people of African American heritage (with some of Hispanic or Latino origin and very few white). It was at that moment, that the majority race living in Inglewood (again, specifically Morningside Park) and it's proximity to the Los Angeles International Airport reminded me of one of our early readings in class, The Environment of Justice by David Harvey.

In his writing, David Harvey brings up issues linking social class with the environmental justice movement in the US. He begins with discussing the "primary issue that has given rise to the movement, namely, the dumping of toxic wastes in poor communities or countries". In other words, we can look at this as an environmental as well as social injustice.

One particular section that stood out to me in Harvey's writing was this:

"And if we care to think about it at all, there is a symbolic dimension, a kind of ‘cultural imperialism’ embedded in the whole proposal: are we not presuming that only trashy people can stomach trash? The question of stigmatization of ‘the other’ through, in this instance, association of racially marked others with pollution, defilement, impurity, and degradation becomes a part of the political equation."

This takes me back to how Inglewood is so close to the airport, something that produces not only noise pollution, but air pollution as this city experiencing the result of many departures and arrivals. It also takes me back to how African Americans, those always known (unfortunately) to be among the minority, are the predominant people living here.

Air and noise pollution and a minority group? Looks to me that no wealthy white person would want to live near an airport (which is why you always find them in places like Beverly Hills and Malibu). And while it isn't as bad a toxic waste dumping in a poor community, this still sounds like an environmental (and social) injustice to me.

UPDATE:
Recently I was using the last bit of my free 4 week subscription to the LA Times and browsing the site for any articles pertaining to social difference. While I didn't seem to find much, I did find something that stood out to me like a sore thumb. It was a video about a thirteen year old student at Inglewood's Century Academy of Excellence who was "kicked out after her mother complained about an alleged racial slur by a teacher". According to the student, her teacher insulted her during class in front of her entire class where all the other students laughed in response. Upon hearing this, the girl's parents confronted the teacher who immediately apologized for her actions. However, when the parents took it up with the principal, she was not apologetic and stated that she was glad her teacher insulted the child.

While it is known that the student had been involved in a fight and was marked tardy on several occasions, the parents, of course, don't find this to be enough basis of stating that their child is a "mean little girl" as the principal told them up front. The principal also told the parents that "bad things had to happen to mean kids" and as a result, expelled the thirteen year old from the school on the grounds that (from a letter from the school to the student's mother) they kicked her out "due to the fact that you scolded the principal...and your daughter used inappropriate language referring to Dr. Edman [the principal]".

It should also be known that this family is of African American origin and it makes me wonder if the child would have been kicked out if she were white. While I don't know the full story and only know what information was given in the news report, it seems to me that regardless of if the parents "scolded" the principal, to racially insult a child is something unacceptable and should be addressed (bad kid or not, you don't discriminate against another person, especially a young child).