It was a day for health and fitness on Saturday, April 24. The FFSC health fair featured a 5K walk/run, an obstacle course, a farmer’s market, bouncy slides for the kids and booths with information about health and fitness. The event attracted more than 500 people. I got there just as things were beginning to wrap up, but I managed to get a few photos.
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In bright color gowns, hundreds of girls shared one of the most important days of their life.
Mexico City’s Youth Institute of the Distrito Federal organized the event in the Zocalo for at-risk youth not able to afford a private party. All the necessities including dresses, make-up and shoes were donated by various businesses. Marking the 15th birthday, Quinceañera celebration are arguably as lavish and important to a girl as a wedding.
Just like a wedding, the last thing you would want is rain! That’s just what these lovely ladies got on Saturday as they danced through the city.
It must have been a magical celebration for not only the girls but also the public in the main square of Mexico City. I can just imagine how fun an event like this would be in Los Angeles!
For many members of the “millennial” generation, feminism is a thing of the past, devoid of any relevance in modern society.
“You’re equal,” they say. “What is there left to fight for?”
The first-generation feminists fought for suffrage. The second-generation feminists fought for equal access to education and employment and for abortion rights, among other things.
Their blood, sweat, and tears paved the way for a new generation of women who grew up secure in the fact that they could do everything the boys could do. They attended the best colleges, broke into the male-dominated corporate world, and learned what it was like “to have it all.”
And when a woman “has it all,” why would she attempt to break that mold?
The answer is as simple as this statistic: a woman still gets paid an average of 77 cents to a man’s dollar.
NPR reported that the gender salary gap holds steady, despite President Barack Obama’s passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act in January of 2009, which extended the amount of time pay discrimination victims have to file lawsuits.
Women of color face an even greater wage disparity.
Chart credit: NPR
Economists credit the pay gap to the greater likelihood of a woman taking childcare leave and a woman’s tendency to work in lower-paying fields.
But Catalyst, a women’s research group, found that among MBA graduates, women were paid $4,600 less for their first job. This pay rate even applied to women without children.
Economist Heather Boushey of the Center for American Progress said that the pay gap grows over time. She cited research that indicates that women are less likely to negotiate a pay raise.
“There are assumptions that women don’t care about money, which is crazy!” said Ilene Lang of Catalyst, in an interview with NPR. “There are assumptions that women will always have men who will take care of them, that women will get married, have children and drop out of the labor force. All those assumptions are just not true.”
In 1963, when Congress passed the Equal Pay Act, women made 59 cents to a man’s dollar. In the past 47 years, many strides have been made toward the equality of women. But on the salary plane, only 18 cents have been gained.
Today’s woman can be as educated, as qualified and as skilled in a field and still make less money than a man.
That doesn’t sound very equal to me.
A 22-year-old black male was shot and killed on the night of Friday, April 9 in what police believe to be a gang-related homicide.
Aaron Bascomb suffered wounds to the head and chest while walking on the sidewalk of the 100 block on East Hazel Street. Witnesses reported seeing two black males approach Bascomb on foot. Bascomb later died after being taken to a Lynwood hospital. Det. Will Salmon with the Inglewood Police Department said the investigation is ongoing and no suspects have been identified or arrested.
This is the fifth Inglewood homicide in 2010, excluding officer-involved shootings. The city reported 28 homicides in 2009.
Anyone with information on the case is asked to call 877-426-4253.
Meagan Fox and boyfriend Brian Austin Green are raising awareness about proposed budget cuts of $2.5 billion throughout California schools in a short and drama-filled online video.
With no teachers, school nurses or janitors, students are crammed into a classroom with no supervision.
Though I would have never guessed Fox would participate in the discussion of schools, it is very charitable for her to lend her name to the cause. The Funny or Die video has been seen by more than 900,000 viewers when calculating the youtube hits.
The stars urge viewers to contact Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and tell him not to “terminate our teachers.”
Also, the ad circulates a petition created by saynotocuts.com that will be sent to legislative officials on April 21, 2010.
Taking into consideration that not all the viewers will actually take the time to call and write for a change, the video, if nothing else, is a satire on what some of the repercussions could be if the state goes through with the cuts.
A strange project is underway and I’m still not sure how I feel about it.
The Entryway is the online journal of two white young women who have moved in with an immigrant family in MacArthur Park. The first eight entries posted on the website seem to be the journal of Devin Browne, a reporter who has produced stories about the MacArthur Park area for local outlets like the LA Weekly. Little is learned about the Mexican family the two girls are living with, other than in the form of short, somewhat poetic outbursts that seem sporadic and disconnected from a bigger picture.
Browne, the diarist, and Kara Mears, who acts as the photographer for the project, are voyeurs. On the front page of the website, although they clearly describe themselves as “reporters,” they also point out that the project itself is “not journalism.” It’s a “personal narrative.”
A couple of weeks ago, former LA Weekly reporter Daniel Hernandez wrote a scathing review of the project’s concept, titling his post “Safari in Los Angeles, in a home in MacArthur Park.” Hernandez claimed that “the authors are wasting an incredible journalistic opportunity, in the service of their own vanity.”
The project is, at best, self-indulgent and full of “self-satisfied gloating”, according to Hernandez and some of his colleagues. Riled up commenters likened the project to a reality TV show, and even called it “straight up racist.”
I consumed the entire Entryway Project site twice before I could come to my own conclusion. The first time, I was immediately struck by the beauty and flow of the layout. The pictures are crisp and the structure changes frequently enough to evoke an urge to see more. I was dazzled, in all honesty, just as I had been the first time I visited Media Storm. I immediately posted it on my Facebook page and noted that it was “pretty amazing” and “an interesting concept.” I was referring, however, to the style — not the content. It seemed closer to creative non-fiction, which is something I have always been fascinated with, especially when it comes to translating that feeling online.
But teacher and South LA Report contributor Jose Lara inspired me to take a second look, this time screening for substance. “Actually, many folks take issue with these reporters and what they are promoting,” wrote Lara. I felt foolish. I had been blinded by the lights and had forgotten to ask the most important questions of all: What is the point of this experiment? And is the fact that it is an “experiment” at all a huge slap in the face of the immigrant community in Los Angeles? Treated like aliens from outer space, or like animals in a zoo, while two prissy white girls get paid to watch them and write about their experiences living out of their own comfort zone?
The Entryway authors say they want to a) learn Spanish (which makes me wonder… are their host families being paid to teach them?) so that they can “better report” on the city and b) find out how the immigrant families view them. “We are more interested in what they think of our country than what we might think of theirs,” writes Browne in Entry 1.
What are they promoting? It definitely warrants a second look. But the answer, it seems, is complicated. On the one hand, this kind of “us versus them” attitude is appalling and a big step backwards for a multicultural city like Los Angeles. On the other hand, I very much doubt that this project is aimed at anyone other than those with faces and backgrounds similar to the reporters themselves. And the unfortunate truth is that for a portion of the white, middle-to-affluent population, this is exactly the kind of project that provokes thought about a race and culture that is otherwise tuned out. No, it may not be perfect. Far from it. But perhaps a white audience would empathize with these two young women in the sense that they are out of their usual sphere of being and facing some very real social situations that force them to contemplate their own race. Perhaps this project is not about providing “insight” into the immigrant community, but providing insight into the awkwardness of race relations, from a white perspective.
Yes, it’s an important point that too much of history has already been composed “from a white perspective.” Long-silenced communities should be encouraged to speak up. But this project obviously is not aiming toward such a goal. This project, I concluded, is about what it means to be a white reporter in a city of color. Unfortunately, Browne and Mears either failed to recognize this, or failed to make it clear from the start, resulting in accusations of racism because the subject of the project was incorrectly labeled as the Mexican immigrant family. The subject is, and has always been, the women themselves. As famed psychologist Beverly Tatum explains in her classic book on racial identity, “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?,” white people rarely think about being white, and what it means in terms of privileges and social engagement. Thinking about race and talking about race is the only way to initiate change. “Passive racism,” explains Tatum, can mean “avoiding difficult race-related issues.” And from childhood, white children are taught to avoid, avoid, avoid.
What’s really telling is that following Hernandez’s response, Browne felt it necessary to re-write her introduction to the project. If she had been clear with herself and her audience from the beginning, she wouldn’t have had to do so.
The fact that Browne went back and revised her statement of purpose clearly shows that she was uncomfortable with the accusations of racism, and for good reason. But the fact that she could simply erase her errors brings up another worrying point. The ease of modern technology and the intangibility of the Internet seems to be promoting a kind of “after-thought” journalism. In fact, one of my professors at journalism school responsible for our single class in “online journalism” summed up the attitude neatly when he expressly told us to “post first and fix it later.” There is no time to mull over the full impact of a project, or even a sentence. The world demands NOW.
Consequently, it’s almost as if Browne’s first attempt to explain the project has been erased from history in a manner that recalls George Orwell’s 1984. The pages and their thoughts simply disappear. Browne can cover her tracks and start afresh.
But where I disagree with Hernandez is that this project somehow represents a lapse in journalistic values due to “new media” reporters. Hernandez calls this new breed “new-school-trained” journalists who are “first and foremost “a voice” before a fact-gatherer.” They are lacking in all the skills, from ethics to grammar, forced upon the pre-Internet “legacy” journalists.
I think it’s clear, at least it’s clearer now, that the Entryway project is not a journalistic project. The confusion is that Spot.us has the story included in their story pitches and is seeking funding for it, which, personally, I think was a big mistake. Even if these “reporters” are intending to produce more journalistic pieces, their position as independent fact-gatherers is extremely compromised.
“Our project is long-term and posting helps the young journalists record an emotional experience while the main reporting continues and as they work to produce detailed stories about the people and the community they are living in,” commented Anh Do, the Spot.us Los Angeles editor, on Hernandez’s piece.
Perhaps a reporter’s “beat notes” should remain offline. While transparency is good, pre-emptive emotional blogging (or tweeting, or posting updates on Facebook for that matter) is just plain unprofessional.
I agree that projects like this one, and to some extent Media Storm, have a tendency to attract more attention than the “day-to-day reporters who live off nothing but their bylines,” as Hernandez says. But it is wrong to assume that modern reporters are somehow less hard working than “legacy” journalists. New media definitely does include experimenting with new mediums, but it is not a mindset. These so-called “reporters” who create art rather than journalism by dazzling audiences with online gadgetry are simply lazy. And in every era of journalism throughout history there have always been lazy journalists. The problem is that it is an affront to the hard workers when these Internet artists, diarists and photographers label themselves “reporters.”
If the Entryway is to be considered “journalism,” it is bad journalism. It has an agenda, an interest, and blatantly lacks journalistic ethics. Most reporters, new and old, would agree. But it’s unfair to lay the blame on “new media.” Pitting traditional reporters against reporters today who are dealing with new mediums is unfair and inaccurate. There are plenty of projects which could be included under the new media umbrella that do exactly what Hernandez is claiming should be the purpose of journalism. For example, encouraging people to tell their own stories rather than relying on reporters to act as a middleman. Need an example? Well, I’d like to think that you’re looking at one right now. The South Los Angeles Report publishes stories produced by the community, as well as running journalism workshops to aid citizen journalists in their own storytelling. To see these pieces, which include a variety of mediums, look for pages labeled with “community contributor.”
To find out more about Browne’s perspective on the Entryway project, take a look at Entry 9. This “FAQ” post was no doubt composed following the article by Hernandez and the ensuing reactions.
Photo courtesy of Kara Mears for the Entryway Project.
California’s budget crisis will make parole much easier for about 24,000 nonviolent convicted felons, The Associated Press reported. This number includes many people already on parole and those expected to be paroled over the next year.
Burglars, drug offenders and fraudsters will face relaxed restrictions under a new law that aims to reduce the number of parole violations that typically send ex-convicts back to prison.
Some ex-cons will qualify for less supervision. Although nonviolent offenders will still be required to register their addresses, a state parole officer will not check up on them. Local law enforcement, if anyone at all, will be left responsible for unannounced home visits and searches.
But some local law enforcement agencies worry less supervision will lead to a spike in crime.
“It is a pretty significant concern from the public safety standpoint,” Todd Rogers, a commander from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, said. “There is a really good chance these guys will go out and caper again.”
The rules, which took effect Jan. 25, will hopefully close the state’s $20 billion budget gap. Nearly 11 percent of the state budget goes to prisons, Los Angeles Watts Times reported. If everything goes as planned, officials estimate the measures, coupled with an early release program that will free about 3,000 current inmates, will save the state about $500 million its first full year.
With the changes, the prison population will shrink, freeing up state parole officers to focus on violent criminals, whose 70 percent relapse rate is more than double that of nonviolent ex-cons.
“Our supervision will be higher on those more likely to re-offend,” said California Corrections spokesman Gordon Hinkle, because the state hopes dropping some restrictions will cut California’s inmate prison population, and therefore free up state parole officers.
But Caroline Aguirre, former state parole officer, said the absence of supervision will result in more crime.
“It is because they are not being supervised and they know they are not being supervised,” Aguirre said.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department expects about 7,700 felons to qualify for the easier restrictions. But Rogers said the department still needs to do what the state’s parole officers once did.
“We still want them to know they need to behave themselves,” Rogers said of the ex-cons.
The unemployment rate for blacks rose to 16.5 percent from 15.8 percent compared to February, even after the country gained 162,000 jobs in March, the Labor Department said. Hispanics also showed a slight increase from 12.4 percent to 12.6 percent, Aaron Glatnz reported for the Los Angeles Watts Times.
But for whites, the unemployment rate held steady at 8.8 percent and went down for Asians from 8.4 percent to 7.5 percent.
Peter Edelman, a former Clinton administration official who directs the Center on Poverty, Inequality and Public Policy at Georgetown University, told Glatnz the figures disappointed him.
“While some white people got jobs, some black people and Latinos actually fell behind more,” Edelman said.
Glatnz also reported that Seth Wessler, a researcher at the Applied Research Center in Oakland, said one of the biggest factors contributing to inequity is the cuts to public transportation.
“If the bus line you depend on is cut, it is impossible to look for a job or even hold onto the one you have,” Wessler said. “We know that people of color are much more likely to depend on public transportation.”
But Edelman believes a large factor in the job gap is the type of work available.
“The jobs that we project over the next decade that are reasonably well paying involve a degree of skills and a degree of preparation, and people of color have disparate educational attainment,” Edelman said.
President Barack Obama’s recognition of this gap yielded a $10 billion investment in community colleges. But during the reconciliation process between the House and Senate, the amount dropped to about $2 billion.
Heidi Shierholtz, a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, said minority communities will probably see an increase in jobs in the coming months; the Census Bureau will hire 700,000 people who will help count the country’s population. But once those jobs are gone in the fall, Shierholtz believes the unemployment rate will increase again.
“I don’t think we’ve turned the corner, and we will not turn the corner until early next year,” Shierholtz said.
Four out 10 babies born in Los Angeles County are a result of an unplanned pregnancy, according to a study released last week by the L.A. County Department of Health.
The study found that the results were consistent with numbers throughout California, based on the data gathered in 2006.
With almost half the infant population in the county being accidental, the number of unplanned births are more of a norm than what would naturally be seen as an outlier situation.
What do you think? Should the county be working toward efforts to improve these numbers?
Photo credit: Creative Commons
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