The Mixing Pot
Los
Angeles has been called a melting pot: a mix of different races, religions, and
cultures. In our class we represent a great mix of races that reside in Poly’s
population. We have a platform that is perfectly set up for varying
perspectives on how race ties to different aspects of LA. As we explored
different characters from Twilight and tried to find the truth in their
character, I wonder if anyone heavily considered the race of the character. How
did it shape your interaction with the character? For those who did not, how
would it have changed your exploration and interaction with the character? How
did you/could you have found context within the small monologues that clued to
a characters race? Twilight illuminates a variety of racial tensions between different ethnic groups living within LA. Using specific text, is there a difference on paper between
the way a black person and white person talks and how does that difference
shape how we judge/classify the character?
In addition, as we continue to discuss police brutality, gentrification,
and various types of LA stories, how do you think that including race can add
to the discussion? Is there anything that could be discovered regarding race
connected to the stereotypes of Los Angeles? Looking back at the list that we
made of stereotypes in LA, did anyone have a specific class of people attached
to a specific stereotype? How can that attachment be helpful or harmful to our
discussion of Los Angles and communities? Different cultures and ethnicities
are prevalent in Los Angeles, in our LA stories, and in our text. Many of the
conversations that we have embarked in during class can include race; will we
ever delve deeply into that facet of LA?
In my story I found that race played a large role. The area that Dr. Stogdill took our group too had an extensive Asian population, so in terms of picking a character I felt the need to choose one that was Asian. However looking back on it, I realize that there was no need for me to have to pick an Asian character. The reasoning as to why I felt the need to pick an Asian character was because for some reason, I could not really envision any other character i.e any of the gangsters nor Darrell Gates, etc being in Monterey Park. On the topic of Twilight, I do believe that there is a difference in the war different characters of different races speak. This is difference is most noticeable in the discussion that Elaine Young has starting on page 150 in which she discusses her time at the Beverly Hills Hotel during the riots. They way she details her experience during the riots and how she was more preoccupied with her date rather than what was going on in the city displays how she thinks as a character and makes us as readers formulate ideas about how she is as a character. Then when you look at a character such as Michael Zinzun who was a spokes person against police brutality and his statements on page 16, his text offers a polar opposite experience when compared agains Elaine's. His stories about being beaten, about seeing other people being beaten and his struggles in dealing with police offer to the reader a completely different experience and this difference also is used to show how different races experienced much different things during the riots. In class I think that discussion about race would at times be awkward but I do think that the different perspectives that would be presented would be beneficial. Being able to tackle topics from a wide variety of perspectives would be nothing but beneficial for us as a class and I feel that we could all gain a sense of respect for each other as well. I do think also as we keep exploring LA, race will become a bigger and bigger part of our class.
ReplyDeleteI was definitely writing with race in mind, but I also focused on "community." To some extent, the two go hand in hand. My group was dropped off in Monterey Park. The corner was in an area that I have never been to and one that we stood out in because we were the only non asian individuals. The culture, the people, the vibe were all different than the that of Pasadena. When selecting my character from Twilight, I looked for a character who came from a different community than Monterey Park and one different than my own. I felt that with my character we would come to the corner to gain new perspectives and experiences that would be coming from different mindsets, but because of that, we could build a unique and diverse connection all the same. Race and community have a strong correlation because some communities can be built around race, like the corner in Monterey Park. By using different mindsets coming together to explore a community distant from the both of us, my character and I gained a deeper understanding of race and community all together. When I was trying to adapt the language and way of speaking of my character, I saw that Twilight was very articulate in his monologue, but more casual in his way of speaking around his neighborhood. "Whyn't ya go home? What ya doin' out this time of night" (pg. 256) The formal vs informal way of speaking can be seen in any community because within a community individuals can establish a comfortable form of interaction. Race may have impact on the difference in language and form of speaking, but I really think that those are influenced by the surrounding environment. The people you grow up with and the language you live around is most likely to structure your speaking form. For example, the USC girl who was part of the "affluent" community of USC spoke differently than Twlight who was from an area completely the opposite. But then again, race and community can be closely tied. And! Because of their close ties, I believe race brings a lot to our discussions because of the different perspectives and experiences it can blend together. It allows us to dive into different cultures, different perspectives and different communities. I feel that the topic of race is essential to a discussion about LA because of its historical and current significance to our Angelino society.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion Los Angeles is not a melting pot. I think within Los Angeles segregation exists. Neighborhoods are condensed with people of a specific race. In my opinion it's something that makes Los Angeles beautiful. Los Angeles is compartmentalized, people take pride in their race, culture, religion etc and are able to share this pride with people around them. In terms of choosing which twilight character to encounter race was a deciding factor and did affect the portrayal of character. I encountered Cornel West, a black man, on York blvd. He was leading a protest, I decided to depict him the way I did because of his radical thoughts he displayed in Twilight and what research sent me to. My corner has historically been an area occupied by latino/a people, but in recent years this has changed. I depicted people in opposition of this change, following the protest led by Cornel West. I think race influenced my interaction with him in many ways. In many instances, gentrification and race are related. The gentrification of highland park has resulted in many latino/a families being forced out of their homes. What I noticed in Cornel West's monologue is that he acknowledged that race, gender, class are all connected. To ignore one is to ignore large parts of another.
ReplyDeleteIn our class, we will be/have been studying many different aspects of what makes up L.A I think race is a topic that affect how many of us see current and past situations. Race affects people in different ways, and adding our perspective to our discussions is a powerful way to expand our knowledge.
Writing my reflective storytelling paper I definitely thought of race when characterizing my corner. My group and I were dropped off in Alhambra where the majority of people are Asian. During our time on the corner we rarely saw any other people other than the Asian race. It was important that this detail was included in my description of the corner as it emphasized the cultural values of this city. I chose the USC character to highlight how unique it was that she was in this neighborhood. I depicted the anonymous USC girl as a white, privileged young woman who was in a place that she was not familiar with and did not feel that her race was in any way majorly represented. I portrayed the USC student as white and privileged from judging the monologue and her main concern. She mostly talked about her father’s cars and how she was scared. I felt like this was her way of saying she was a privileged white woman as she did not express her anger or hatred toward the verdict or her stance on what was happening in the streets…just that she was scared. On the other hand, Twilight Bey, clearly states that he is an African American individual; “I am a dark individual, and with me stuck in limbo, I see darkness as myself” (pg 255). I think that Twilight was more open about his race than the USC student and I think that says something about the way in which people felt about their race in relation to the riots. I think that including race in our discussions would open the door to deeper connections of the people in Los Angeles and the connections between different races. I also think it would be interesting to look at neighborhoods throughout Los Angeles and the associated race that lives there. I think that this would help us understand the history of Los Angeles and how it came to be. I hope that we further discuss race in Los Angeles in all capacities, from residential districts to LAPD and race to issues of gang territories in relation to race.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the role of race in Twilight, I did consider how it played into each unique character. When reading their character descriptions is when I most often became aware of their race, thus setting up how I approached the following monologue. Although I considered this, in the beginning, I found myself jumping to rash conclusions about the character before even reading their monologue and what they had to say. As I continued reading, I found myself being more thoughtful on the assumptions I was making and how those contributed to the race of the character. When discussing the difference of speech between a black person and a white person, this was something I struggled with when writing my reflective story. My reflective story contains dialogue between me and Angela King, Rodney King's aunt, and a black woman. When reading her monologue over again, I was subconsciously taking note of her speech. Then, when writing her dialogue in my reflective piece, I didn't think much about it at all, and wrote as if I were speaking. While I do believe I should have been more aware in composing her dialogue, following the same type of "speech" as was in her monologue, I also think this raises an important observation on how we categorize characters based on their speech in relation to their race. I do think there is an obvious difference on paper in the way a black person speaks in comparison to a white person. I think this does, unfortunately, contribute to the way we view the character. It might be seen that the black person is not as well-educated or sophisticated as a white person because of the way they are portrayed based on the way they talk.
ReplyDeleteIn our following group dialogues, I think we should address race more often and consider how that plays into each unique situation we are discussing. I think doing this could give us an opportunity to break down stereotypes and consider how someone's background/race can contribute to the decisions they make. When thinking about the list of stereotypes we made, I associated the "trendy, coffee-shop-going, fitness, health guru" as a white millennial. I also associated the LAPD/police brutality as white policemen against minority communities. I think that having these immediate associations can be helpful in that we can then have a discussion about whether these stereotypes fit the reality or not. We will also be able to consider how race plays into each of these associations/attachments and how that reflects the way we view each stereotype. Hopefully, we will be able to delve into this part of Los Angeles, and have the hard conversations about the very prevalent role race plays in various circumstances.
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ReplyDeleteIn my Character of a Corner story, race played a large factor in how I saw my interaction. The character I chose, the Anonymous Young Man, is black but looks Latino. I chose him in part because a camera store reminded me of how my grandpa used to take pictures during juvenile narcotics busts, the subjects of which were often black or Latino. Through associations with details in the setting, I explored the white history that I was connected to. Ultimately, my whiteness impacted how I interacted with the man. We didn’t even have a conversation, in part because he was a stranger, and in part because of a racial divide.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of Twilight in general, I thought of race and ethnicity as the main influencers when it came to different perspectives. I wonder how Deavere Smith chose when to include race in the descriptions of characters and when not to. When race was unknown, I often made assumptions based off of experience, opinion, and dialect. For example, when a man talked about his experience with police brutality or gang life, I assumed he was a person of color. When the USC student at a sorority talked about her dad’s cars, I assumed she was white.
These associations relate to our discussion on LA stereotypes, because I think that often race is attached to a certain stereotype. I think that can hurt the conversation when those associations lead to assumptions and we fail to ask questions or look for the nuance. For example, when I read Cornel West’s analysis, I assumed he was white, and judged his credibility based off of that assumption, even though I learned a lot from what he had to say. In fact, he’s black. My assumption was, in part, founded in stereotype (having to do with race, dialect and occupation), which distanced me from the truth. Moreover, race filtered my opinion about the person talking (read: credibility and ethos): I felt reassured when I learned that Cornel West was black.
I think that exploring race within our own class is crucial to finding nuance. Because our class is racially diverse, we have the opportunity to contrast personal experiences with stereotypes. Talking about our personal experiences surrounding race and ethnicity would also enhance our dialogues about those subjects in the book.
Race played a large role in the differing monologues presented in twilight and undoubtedly plays a large role in conversations surrounding Los Angeles. In Twilight, issues of orientalism and anti-black racism bleed into nearly all of the confessions. For me, the most telling example was in Daryl Gates' chapter. In Gates' radio interview, his recognition of races role in the causes of the riots and defensiveness of his whiteness was what intrigued me the most. Gates’ reiterates on multiple occasions how he has helped poor black citizens avoid drug abuse and violence. Yet, he proceeds and follows these examples with a confusion as to how he has been placed at the forefront of a project of structural racism which prompted the violence of the riots. The interview ironically reveals a recognition of how race played and still plays into Los Angeles politics. In his attempt to excuse himself from the violence of the police department he uses examples of how he helped black folks. Race is critical to not only his persecution, but also his excusing himself, revealing an antagonism between races that defined the riots. He recognizes race carries weight in the actions of himself and the police department.
ReplyDeleteOutside of Twilight, race has driven nearly all stereotypes of Los Angeles. Pasadena being defined as a product of white flight, cities like Compton as having a majority black population and culture, and neighborhoods like Highland park and Echo Park being places simply being known as very "Latino" (there are many more examples). For people who live outside Los Angeles, the effects of racial stereotypes on the city writ large are even more clear. On multiple occasions people who live outside the city have described the city to me in the context in one of these neighborhoods stereotypes, creating an expectation as to how Los Angeles will look and function.
In class, race will inevitably be tied into discussions about Los Angeles. Students racial identity has shaped their experiences within Los Angeles, especially when all of us have grown up in the city. Race and ethnicity will tie into discussions about cultural facets of Los Angeles, but I can't say with confidence that we will effectively delve deeply into its effects on issues facing Los Angeles. What I mean is that race deeply affects our experiences Los Angeles, but so do issues like class, geography, gender, etc. Our experiences within the city will never be solely defined by race, and even if it was the contingency of that experience will create an impossible task to explain issues by experiences that are in perpetual flux. Of course, as a class we can identify where issues of race tie into the character of a scenario, but the attempt to "delve in" and define that scenario purely in terms of a purely race is an impossible task.
As a white male living in a city that is predominately white and attending two different schools that are both predominately white, I considered race in "Twilight", but never explored it on a personal level. Race has never been something that I associate myself with. Pasadena was originally a city for white citizens to avoid contact with black children as they boarded the school buses. The place where I have grown up my entire life is infamous for its racist origins. Although the city has come a long way since then, some biases are still prevalent. Race has never been as important to me as it may have been for other people because of the fact that I never had to worry about my "whiteness". Race exists within me on a neutral plane. I believe that in a book that explores the ideas that "Twilight" explores, race is an incredibly important topic. City of Angels is the most ethnically diverse class that I have ever been a part of at Poly, and for that reason, it must be further explored not only during the beginning of the year when we talk about the LA Riots but throughout the whole year as well.
ReplyDeleteIn my character of a corner story, I chose to further explore Daryl Gates. Gates is someone who does not offer a different racial perspective than I, but he does offer an interesting insight into what it is like to be a minority in Los Angeles. Daryl Gates forced a racist agenda by condoning the actions of the police officers who beat Rodney King. The actions of the officers and Gates created one of the largest demonstrations of racial divide in our country to date. I chose to depict Gates as a man of anger, not at himself or the actions of the police but at stigmas that would be attached to him to decades to come.
Additionally, racial Stereotypes have been incredibly entrenched into the minds of all of us, and it is nearly impossible to read a book exploring race without attaching those stereotypes to the characters we are reading about. Moreover, race is one of the largest aspects of Los Angeles' cultural melting pot. We cannot explore such ideas of gentrification and police brutality without exploring how race plays a factor in them. The LA Riots were a struggle endured mostly by black, asian, and latino people. While this was going on, we were shown the perspective of a rich white woman, Elaine Young, and how she viewed the riots as an inconvenience and not a possible threat to her life. I think that in our discussions about "Twilight" we have touched briefly on the idea of race, but if we were to delve deeper into race relations in Los Angeles, we would understand the city much better.
Race is a difficult topic for many to discuss, including me. My character, Walter Park, was a Korean shop owner in Compton. In my exploration, I placed him in Alhambra, a neighborhood with a majority of asian locals. I wasn't sure what particular country the locals were from so I felt like Park perhaps could be found in Alhambra. I did not use his race when exploring how he impacted his environment or vice versa.
ReplyDeleteI think that it is difficult to identify someone's race just by their way of speaking. There is no specific way a black person speaks or one way a white person speaks. Each race has many dialects across the country and many of them overlap across races, indicating that it is difficult to identify someone just by their manner of speaking. There are, however, many passages that specifically reference the speaker's race in the actual content of the monologue. That is a much more effective way to conclude someone's race.
Most, if not all, of the students in our class identify with at least one race, and sometimes more. This means that most of our class can offer a perspective since their race alters how they view the world. Our discussions can analyze more individual perspectives. For many, talking about race is difficult, but I think that once we breach that fear, our class can benefit from far more exciting dialogues.
Throwback to sophomore year chemistry and learning about homogenous and heterogeneous solutions real quick. Los Angeles, although a melting pot, is a heterogeneous mixture based off of the geographic separations of race and wealth creating communities and neighborhood. Race has played a major role in determining relationships and how people come to construct their world views, but I think that people are over deterministic about how race leads to certain occurrences. There is a plethora of reasons why certain people come to believe certain things including class, gender, religion, family, schooling, etc. which all act in different ways to influence someone's thought processes.
ReplyDeleteThe corner that I was on was in a neighborhood that was predominantly Asian. Within the 30 minute span in which we sampled data, 5 police cars passed through the intersection yet none of them had their lights on which resulted in an odd combination of heavy police presence yet low crime. This is the milieu that I grew up in for much of my life which explained how in my story I was not worried after being apprehended by Sergeant Duke for crying in the middle of an intersection over spilled boba and how Sergeant Duke did not use force because he had such a good relationship with the community.
This is a vastly different relationship and perspective on the police that I have based off of my lived experiences than somebody else would have. I bake cookies and drop them off at the police department for Thanksgiving and Christmas. The Police once knocked on my door at 7 in the morning just to inform me that I left my car's doors wide open in the driveway before going to sleep. The Police Chief's wife does yoga in the park with my mom and a bunch of other middle-aged Asian businessmen and doctors.
While I did not heavily consider the race of the character when reading the passages in Twilight, as the race was not always given; however, I believe that race does in fact play a very large role in the text and our discussions and perceptions of the characters as a whole. I did not specifically focus on the race of my character, but rather I focused on her personality because I do not believe that race instantly defines someones personality or how they would act in a situation. I could have focused more on my characters race, but as I said, I prefer not to because while the color of ones skin has great impact on their life, it doesn't define a characters personality, thus I looked at the context of what the character was saying rather than her race. I believe that one could find clues of a characters race all over the text by their names, or where in LA they lived or their stance on the LA riots and the Rodney King ruling. There is no distinct difference in the way an African American or white person talks in the text because these are many real life interviews that were done and not all African American people and white people speak the same. If I had to say there was a difference in the way African Americans and caucasians spoke in the book, I would probably say that the African Americans tended to use slang and cut off the ends of their words more than the whites " They got to drinkin'" - Rodney King's aunt.
ReplyDeleteI believe that including race can really help move our discussion to focus on other points of views other than our own. Us understanding the hardships and stereotypes that certain races face in Los Angeles greatly can impact our discussion and understanding of racial issues and decisions. I was not here when we talked about the different stereotypes of people in Los Angeles, so I don't believe I have the ability to comment on that issue. All in all, I think that race and the history of race in LA is an important topic to focus on. Even when we are talking about something that has not much to do with racial issues, I believe that it is important to consider how all races and sides are impacted by such events.
Because my story was focused around Daryl Gates, part of me was like I should do this, but the other part was like you need to make him seem racist and have an attitude that he is on such a high horse. It did not matter where I was, whether or not we were in an Asian community, it mattered whether or not I felt something towards the words that he said when talking about the Rodney King beating. I used a lot of contexts when creating dialogue, explaining that what he said was not correct and or helping a situation. That issue was also in his part of Twilight “The president of the United States and declaring me a national hero for the work that I had done in drugs and narcotics and the work that I had done with kids and a lot of those kids were black kids.” (187) That to me is making it seem like he is trying to save himself and using the “oh I helped black kids too! I’m not racist towards black people” which does not assist the situation.
ReplyDeletePolice brutality and gentrification is very much so on the basis of differing genders. Police brutality is based on the fact that police officers racially profile so many black people and then end up beating them out of nowhere honestly. Or they take it too far because they feel like there won’t be any repercussions after the fact for them.
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ReplyDeleteLos Angeles and race go hand in hand. There is no denying that. Race should definitely be at the fore front of our discussions and should be shaping how we view every aspect of Los Angeles. Race was a huge part of Twilight. That is non negotiable. I mean the entire book was based off of how RACE riots shaped Los Angeles. Each monologue whether we like to admit it or not was changed by the description of one's race in the beginning of each interview. For me I felt like Smith used race to create more stereotypes, which you mention as a problem of classifying certain stereotypes with certain races in Los Angeles. This is not meant to be a poor white people memo at all I just would have been interested in hearing the perspective of a white person who wasn't rich, part of the police, or living at USC. I would love to hear the perspective of a black person who wasn't living in Compton at the time and was looking at the actions of people of the same race as him while not actually taking action. I believe action was necessary and white people deserve no empathy when referring to this case and this time, I just feel as though the characterizations of white and black people in this book are not interesting, especially because I think LA is full of a lot more interesting perspectives than that of a rich USC sorority girl, a bratty, racist beverly hills female, and Daryl Gates of all people.
ReplyDeleteRace will continue to be a huge part of this class and I don't see how we could possibly talk about Los Angeles without referring heavily to race. Los Angeles is an interesting city when it comes to race. It is one with incredible diversity, but still tons of segregation. I believe that is how it intertwines with gentrification is when it comes to zoning. Unfortunately "zoning" is still incredibly common in Los Angeles due to wealth and history. As we venture into different neighborhoods we will begin to see clear lines dividing wealth, race, and class. How we can change such an unfortunate aspect of LA is the true question?
I think race is a very important aspect of the book. In Los Angeles different racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds are what make Los Angeles such a melting pot and really demonstrates the discrepancies of communities and neighborhoods within the same area. When I was reading I definitely took into account what race or ethnicity a character was before I even read their monologue. I think it played such a big role in the book because it offered different interpretations and viewpoints of the same issue. As far as characters the racial divide between Maxine Waters and the anonymous juror is a perfect example of how race influences certain responses. When Maxine Waters talks about the reasons for the riots she talks about the impact of the police force on minorities in Los Angeles and then talks about the same issues globally. She refers to the riots as a result of something that has been happening for decades, as do many of the other African American characters. She also talks about more than just the black population but other minorities as well. When the Simi Valley juror for example stated that he didn't know the riots would be so bad and talks about them as if they're a big surprise. Because of his experience and through his influences he doesn't place as much importance on the riots as Maxine Waters does. Instead of trying to analyze the reasons behind it he instead continues to talk about how baffled he is that they would revolt over a simple verdict. The racial barriers as a whole are significantly represented because in each small interview, theres a small aspect of how the majority of that race interprets the Riots and by the end there is a universal understanding of all these perspectives.
ReplyDeleteMy story did not focus as much on the race of my character as it did on the ethnicity of the people on the street corner. My corner was very interesting, as the people who lived in the area were largely of hispanic heritage while most of the shoppers and shop owners were white. In my story, I compared and evaluated each side of the street. The east side of the street mainly included the inhabitants of the area, while the west side of the street mainly included the white shop owners. In this comparison, I evaluated the differences in structure of both sides of the street and how they were changed by gentrification (the west side of the street being much newer and the east side of the street being older and dirtier). Through my writing, I found myself getting very engaged in the issue of gentrification and its negative impact on communities.
ReplyDeleteWhile our class explores Los Angeles, I definitely think that race is a crucial piece to that exploration. For example, we need to talk about race in order to have thoughtful and insightful dialogues about pressing issues such as gentrification and police brutality. Los Angeles county is home to people of many different backgrounds and races, and many issues that Los Angeles faces today stem from racial issues. And while we all wish that race did not play a role in the issues that exist today in Los Angeles, we would be foolish to pretend they did not, so we need to address these issues head on through productive dialogue.