“SoCal Connected” has dedicated a segment of their news magazine to the controversial fracking techniques used in the Baldwin Oil Fields.
In the episode that aired on Friday, March 23, homeowners tell the reporter that the nearby oil operations are destroying their property.
Here’s the segment:
Listen to the audio story from Annenberg Radio News:
It’s been more than a month since Trayvon Martin was shot dead while walking home from school in Sanford, Florida, one hour outside Tampa. His shooter, Geroge Zimmerman, claims he was acting in self-defense and was forced to shoot down Martin after being attacked.
As of now, no formal charges have been filed against Zimmerman. Adding fuel to the fire, Sanford’s police chief announced today that he would temporarily step down from his post, a decision he attributes to the distraction his presence has caused to the investigation.
I spoke with Shana Redman, a professor of American Studies & Ethnicity at USC, about the incident, and how similar incidents impact the psyche of African American youth in the United States.
Listen to the audio story from Annenberg Radio News:
By Conrad Wilton
South Los Angeles resident Dina Cabrera feeds salmon to stray cats that wander into her backyard. But don’t worry; she caters to all animals.
“I have 3 dogs, 7 cats, 2 parrots, one cockatiel, 20 finches, 3 squirrels, and I’m not counting all the wild doves and finches I feed every day,” said Cabrera, who is often considered the “Snow White” of her community.
Cabrera manages to provide food, medical care, and love to all of her pets, but she still finds a way to work fulltime as a legal secretary and raise her three-year-old daughter Sophie, who, like her mother, loves the animals around her.
After asking Sophie, who her favorite pet was, she responded with “Mimi,” a 16 year old Chihuahua and holds two records – one for the oldest animal in the Cabrera household, and the other for the animal bringing in the highest vet bills.
“Sometimes it’s hard because there are so many and the bills can get pretty high,” Cabrera said.
Cabrera has opened her home to stray animals to combat the rising rate of pet overpopulation in the city of Los Angeles. LA County Animal Control Officer C. Green has been rounding up stray animals in South LA for over 13 years. He says pet overpopulation is out of control because many pet owners fail to spay and neuter their animals.
“Some people just don’t come in even if we spay and neuter for free,” Green said.
The Los Angeles City Council passed a law in 2008 that requires all pet owners to spay and neuter their animals. Although many people simply ignore the mandate, Green says it is enforceable. But Cabrera says regardless of the law, there are some South LA pet owners who will never spay or neuter their animals because of a negative cultural stigma.
“The Hispanics I’ve encountered, being Hispanic myself, don’t want to spay or neuter their animals because they thing it’s cruel,” said Cabrera, “and I always tell them it’s the first thing that needs to be done.”
But spaying and neutering operations are only part of the solution.
In the city of Los Angeles, pet owners are only legally allowed to house three animals. But according to Green, many South LA residents have several dogs to combat crime.
“If you’re going to kind of rough neighborhoods, you’ll see people with 4, 5, 6 dogs. And that’s where the problem comes in at.”
So what’s the solution? “I think people need to become more educated about animals,” answered Cabrera.
According to Green, many animal shelters and volunteer agencies are currently boosting their efforts to educate Los Angeles pet-owners about pet care and overpopulation.
As of now there is no government legislation on the table to curb pet-overpopulation in South LA, but animal lovers like Cabrera believe this is a top priority.
Students at Crenshaw High School in South Los Angeles unveiled a book Wednesday that they wrote about their year-long effort to visit the White House.
The students signed copies of their book, “Journey to the White House: An Educational Blueprint for Change in Action,” alongside actor Hill Harper from CSI: NY. Harper was also signing copies of his books “Letters to a Young Brother: MANifest Your Destiny” and “Letters to a Young Sister: DeFINE Your Destiny.”
“We’re all in this together,” Harper said of his passion for helping students. “Education is what we need to be focused on.”
The student authors are part of the Crenshaw Digital Media Team that meets after school to learn about photography, video and other media tools. Their book is being published both in paper and as an eBook.
The journey began when their teacher and mentor Daphne Bradford, founder of the non-profit organization Mother of Many challenged her students to become the type of 21st century classroom that President Obama envisioned in his 2010 Blueprint for Change in Education.
The students wrote letters to the President asking to be invited to the White House. When their requests when unanswered, they decided they needed to make a bigger impression.
They put their multimedia skills to use and created video letters and burned them to a disc, that Bradford was able to hand directly to President Obama when he was in Los Angeles for a rally.
“Once we got invited to come, we had to fund-raise and we made calendars and went around to businesses and organizations,” said Trestan Fairweather, a 17-year-old senior at Crenshaw High School.
When the students got to the White House In September of 2010, they were given a tour by the White House chef and they established a partnership with the White House kitchen to start growing food at home to better the community.
Fairweather’s first impression of the White House was just how enormous it was.
“It was very, very, very big,” he said. “Almost too big for just one family.”
The students also met with the President’s web team who showed them how the White House media presence — Twitter, Facebook, photos, etc. — is run.
“They had really cool advice on how to run our own media too,” Fairweather said.
The book signing was sponsored by the NAACP Beverly Hills/Hollywood chapter.
“We felt this was another opportunity to help these students see a different future for themselves,” said the chapter president Ron Hasson. “We thought Harper could really relate to the kids and give back.”
Order hard copies of the book at www.motherofmany.com ($25.00), digital book purchase for $19.99 at the Barnes and Noble Nook store, iBookstore and ePub at lulu.com
By Tiffany Taylor
Summer may still be a few months away, but plans are already underway to continue a free concert series in Baldwin Hills, part of an ongoing effort to nurture community redevelopment in the area.
The Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza’s BHCP Live! Concert series is looking forward to its third year as a free concert series featuring A-level artists. The success of last year’s concert series has organizers and community members excited about gaining momentum this coming summer.
“One of the good things about the concert series is that it’s grown really well through word of mouth,” said Jason Lombard, the Community Outreach Director for the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza. “In the first few concerts there were a couple hundred people.”
The highest attendance at any concert in the series in 2011 was that of R&B singer Stephanie Mills, with around 4,500 people filling the promenade space at the plaza in front of the Rave Movie Theater.
Mills was the favorite of Robert Cole, President of the Baldwin Hills Estates Homeowner Association, who attended three of the series’ four concerts last summer.
“The turn out for Stephanie Mills was phenomenal. People were hanging in the parking lot and looking over the balcony,” Cole said. “I was surprised because there wasn’t a lot of publicity but somehow people heard about it and they turned out.”
“I like to say that I hear the grass roots comments, and we went from conversations at the beginning about the redevelopment and what was going to happen starting out with a lot of doubt,” Lombard said. “I think that comes from things that have been over-promised and under-delivered.”
As the Community Outreach Director, Lombard’s mission is to spread the word about the remodeling of the plaza and upcoming events. He does so by attending meetings of community organizations and homeowners associations.
“It went from me attending community meetings and people not being familiar with the concert series asking normal questions, but then it turned to at least one person in each meeting saying that I went to the last concert and telling others to be sure that they go,” Lombard said.
The concert series aims to showcase the renovations and changes going on at the plaza to the community, as well as provide entertainment and bring the community together.
“It’s an opportunity for people to see artists for free within walking distance of their homes that they wouldn’t normally be able to see,” Lombard said, “It’s a great opportunity, not only for people to meet their neighbors, but to meet people that they otherwise would not have and just be able to come down and enjoy the plaza and see the great things that are happening.”
With two successful concert series under their belt, the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza is starting to ready themselves for this summer’s concert series. While they have not yet begun reaching out to artists, some artists are already reaching out to them.
“There are a lot of artist management teams that are talking about it,” Lombard said, “It’s been interesting to see, we actually went from having to reach out to artists to having them come to us and say, ‘Hey, we heard you guys are doing some great things and we’d love to be considered for this series.’ I think that speaks for the success of the series.”
In the meantime, the plaza has been hosting other events. Rave Cinemas recently hosted the 20th Annual Pan African Film Festival at the plaza.
“We are planning an event that will celebrate the mall’s transformation and welcome those highly anticipated retailers expected to open this year. We are also planning events geared towards our Spanish-speaking customers this year, in addition to our steadfast events such as BHCP Live concerts,” said Cheryl Roberts, Marketing Director of the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza.
The Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza looks forward to continuing to grow in 2012. Events such as the 20121 BHCP Live! Concert series will only help the plaza gain more community support.
“There’s a lot of things that are going on and there’s a lot of things have happened already and we have more to come,” Lombard said.
For more information, including upcoming events, click here.
By Mark Gomez, Social Studies Teacher at Manual Arts High School
This is a David and Goliath story in which energized teachers, students and parents from Manual Arts High School decided to take matters into their own hands and disrupt the inadequate status quo of public education in South Central LA’s Local District 7.
Through Public School Choice 3.0, LAUSD requested proposals for Augustus Hawkins High School, a new campus that will relieve the overcrowded Manual Arts campus. Local District 7 submitted one generic proposal for multiple new schools to continue business as usual. A group of teachers, students, and parents wanted to create a school that is for the community by the community. Thus, the Schools for Community Action (SCA) were born.
Committed to bring fresh air to a historically stale educational environment, SCA has been tirelessly working to ensure the new Augustus Hawkins campus will be an innovative and effective public school for the families of South Central. Throughout the Spring and Summer, they organized numerous community meetings that brought students, local police officers, parents, business owners, social service workers, university affiliates and educators together to create the vision for this school.
Based on the community input, it became clear that parents and students desire options and concrete college and career paths in their public schools. SCA has submitted four small school proposals for the overall site. Each of SCA’s four small schools plans have a focus – Community Health Advocates School (social work/therapy), Critical Design and Gaming School (game design, tech and media), Responsible Indigenous Social Entrepreneurship (local business/responsible consumerism) and School of Urban Sustainability and Environmental Science (urban planning, environmental engineering). In addition to campus wide community partners, each school has reached out to specific university programs to further support their instructional programs. USC School of Social Work, Loyola Marymount University, as well as UCLA School of Public Policy, are just a few of the programs committed to support SCA’s academic programs.
Each small school is linked by SCA’s core values, which are: student centered, community collaboration, innovation and excellence, social justice and sustainability. SCA will also have an advisory program in all four schools that is designed to establish a true home base to support student attendance and address the individual needs that students bring to school every day. The SCA school plans are designed to support the whole student and welcomes parent and community support in all of the school programs.
If the Local District 7 plans are approved, students will continue to be limited to blocks of remedial math and English, with only the hope of possibly having the opportunity in their senior year to take courses that relate to a career. The SCA plans are designed to interest and support every student from 9th grade through 12th grade.
Supt. John Deasy is expected to give his decision next week regarding the future of Augustus Hawkins High School.
For more information, please see the SCA website http://schoolsforcommunityaction.org or contact Mark Gomez at 310-699-6342; [email protected]
Listen to the audio story from Annenberg Radio News
Johnny’s Pastrami on West Adams Boulevard has been described as a hole in the wall, scary and a “hood” landmark. If you search for it on Yelp, you’ll see a few meager stars and a whole lotta five stars. Whatever you think about the pastrami sandwiches at this South LA stop, there is no denying it’s a neighborhood fixture. Reporter Nick Edmonds paid a visit to see how the half-century eatery is faring.
Johnny’s Pastrami is located at 4331 W Adams Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90018, just east of Crenshaw Boulevard.
Listen to a story by Annenberg Radio News
Kruti Parekh’s words may shock you.
“Los Angeles locks up more young people than anywhere else in the world,” she says.
Parekh should know. She is a Coordinator at Chuco’s Justice Center, named after a community leader who was gunned down in 2005. It is located on the border of South Central and Inglewood. The center was created as a safe space for young people to play and social justice workers to organize.
Parekh explains that before raising money to have a permanent location, space was one of Chuco’s main concerns.
“We had made a committment that we would have the center open to other folks and organizations that were interested in doing good work, helping young people, helping the community” she says.
Since October 2010, Shofu the Beatdown and a circle of krumpers have benefitted from Chuco’s mission. Shofu is part of Xtreme Movement, a well-known crew. Krump is a street dance characterized by chest pops and foot stomps that originated in South Central in 2002.
The krump circle takes place every Monday from five to nine p.m. Shofu appreciates the reliability and safety of the space. Sometimes the center provides free food and drinks. Mostly though, young people can practice and perform a street dance they love.
Shofu has been krumping for six years. He will always remember the exact date he started.
“Somewhere in June. I think it was June 20,” he says. “I remember the day because I want to remember that day for as long as I live. I saw the krump video and it was a piece of me that I felt I didn’t have or didn’t even know I was missing.”
Meanwhile, Parekh is keeping her eyes on the bigger picture: redirecting dollars marked for suppressing crime to positive opportunities for young people like Shofu.
“If we took just one percent of suppression dollars for L.A. County, that would be 100 million dollars and that could actually provide 50 youth centers around the county, open from 3 to midnight, 365 days a year, plus 500 community intervention workers that can maintain safety within communities, plus 25,000 summer jobs for young people,” she ays.
With that kind of financial help, Chuco’s imagines a world with more krumpers and less criminals.
Visit Chuco’s Justice Center’s website for more information.
Reverend Eugene Williams, leader and Executive Director of the Regional Congregations and Neighborhood Organizations Training Center (RCNO) has died, the RCNO announced in a press release on Monday.
 Rev. Eugene Williams, 1960 – 2012.Photo courtesy of The Durfee Foundation. |
On Friday, March 16, Williams died at St. Francis Hospital in Lynwood due to complications from lung cancer, Reverend Richard Byrd, President and Chair of RCNO’s Board of Directors said in the press release.
According to their website, RCNO “instructs clergy and lay persons in the art of community organizing, public policy formation and program development.”
Williams founded this organization in 1987 in Philadelphia but brought it to South L.A. in the early 1990’s. He served in the ministry for over 25 years.
In 1994, Williams led 17 member-churches for L.A. Metropolitan Churches (LAM). LAM now includes 40 churches in its network.
Today, RCNO has over twenty national affiliates. This network collaborates through conferences and mentorships to “build the capacity of clergy and lay leaders,” especially in urban and low-income African American communities.
At Williams’ family’s request, in lieu of flowers or food, they ask that monetary tax-deductible donations be made to RCNO. The Center intends to make Eugene Williams III – Change Maker Legacy Fund “to maintain support for his important work.”
“When your hair is relaxed white people are relaxed, when your hair is nappy white people aren’t happy.”
Comedian Paul Mooney joined black Hollywood actresses, scholars and entertainment industry insiders to comment on the state of black women’s hair in Chris Rock’s 2009 comedy documentary “Good Hair.”
In the documentary, Rock explores the great lengths to which black women will go to chemically straighten their hair or receive a desired hairstyle very unlike their natural hair. Rock shows women who spend $1,000 on a schoolteacher’s salary for hair extensions and explores the health risks associated with chemical hair relaxers used on everyone from young children to the elderly.
The term “good hair” is in reference to a grade of hair that is thought to be silky, straight, long and easy to manage. Many black women who have a naturally kinky, tight curl that is course and harder to style turn to chemical relaxers, hair extensions known as weaves, and high-heat styling tools to achieve “good hair.”
Women will pay a hefty price for upkeep and maintenance of this look. Weekly sessions in the hair salon to straighten hair with a pressing comb can cost customers $60 to $150 a pop. Weave hair, depending on the quality (human or synthetic), can range from $100 to upwards of $600 alone.
The process of putting in the extensions, also known as tracks, can take four to six hours depending on the style and can cost women $200. Due to the hefty costs, health risks of these styles, and changing preferences of black women, the natural hair movement has gained momentum both online and on television.
Daytime talk show “Dr. Drew’s Lifechangers” gave the natural versus relaxed hair discussion national attention by addressing the issue on a November 2011 episode. Dr. Drew invited Kim Coles, a black actress and natural hair advocate, to host a panel of black women who wear their hair in a variety of styles from weaves to natural. The women shared the various personal and societal reasons that affect how they wear their hair.
After a heated exchange between the panelists and even audience members, Coles ended the show with a message to black women about their hairstyling choices.
“I want to say that it all has to do with self-love ultimately, self-love and honesty,” she said. “I want us all to be honest about why we do what we do and then choose and rock whatever you want to rock.”
In 1991, Coles started wearing her natural hair in microbraids. Before her braids, she wore weaves and had her hair relaxed. In January, she decided to take the final step and wear her hair in its most natural curly state. Coles waited years to wear her hair completely natural because she didn’t know which products to use. Through online forums and YouTube videos promoting natural hair, Coles got the extra push she needed.
“I have watched you young-uns accept your hair and yourselves and you gave me the courage and the product knowledge to take the leap to be completely authentic,” Coles wrote on black beauty site Afrobella.
Black women have turned to the web to create a natural hair community to empower each other and create support for those contemplating the “big chop.” The big chop is known as the first step to going natural and is a haircut that removes all processed or relaxed hair leaving most women with a short curly afro and only a few inches of hair.
Countless YouTube channels, such as Natural Veil, receive thousands of views on videos that share ways to style natural hair and the best products to keep curly hair healthy.
Journalist and author Linda Jones created her website, A Nappy Hair Affair, in 1998 to “raise awareness about cultural diversity and to promote self-appreciation.”
Jones gave the disclaimer that she doesn’t promote nappy hair at the detriment to wear other hairstyles, but she said that styles that reflect a European aesthetic are predominantly promoted.
“We are a very stylish people, so I see perms and haircuts that are works of art,” she noted. “I get that, but at the same time, we are running away from those things that we were born with.”
Jones and other natural hair advocates argue that going natural is a healthier lifestyle choice due to the harmful chemicals in relaxers. However, beautician Brandy Brown said that after styling hair for the past 21 years, she has seen otherwise.
“The natural look can also be damaging,” contested Brown. “Brushing your hair while wet can damage the elasticity.”
Brown said that the most popular hairstyles for her black clients are straight or weaves with loose curls. She joked that celebrities set the tone for what is “in” or popular – and if a celebrity is doing it, it has to be good.
Some women don’t always go natural by choice. FOX journalist and Huffington Post contributor Tomika Anderson’s hair started falling out after she relaxed her hair to close to getting it colored. Anderson went natural and never looked back. She considers her curly afro her trademark. Anderson said she loves her natural hair, but she understands that it’s every black woman’s right to choose what works for her.
“I’m not going to knock the sister who has a weave,” said Anderson. “I think it is great to have a mixture of hair styles because we are a mixture. There isn’t one look for black women and so there doesn’t need to be one kind of black woman in the media.”
Copyright © 2024 USC Annenberg. All rights reserved. USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, 3502 Watt Way, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0281 · Log in
