Through a series of films in the 1990s, from Boyz n the Hood to Menace II Society and Friday, the perception of Black Los Angeles became ingrained in the minds of people of all backgrounds across the nation. Palm trees and hood politics became synonymous with the neighborhoods. But in a rarity, the films also showed entire communities in a large American city where Black families owned homes for generations.

Today, nearly every majority-Black haven in the city brought to the big screen, like Watts, Compton, Inglewood, and Exposition Park, looks different. These areas across South Los Angeles, which was once 80% Black and home to upwards of 75% of all the Black folks in the city, have since become more than two-thirds Latino. In all, the city’s share of Black residents has dropped from nearly 20% to less than 8%.

It wasn’t by chance, residents and researchers say. “Black People are keenly aware,” said Khansa Jones-Muhammad, an LA resident who often goes by Friday Jones. “There’s a sense of feeling that people are being moved out. Black people know when we are being abused.”

On Tuesday, the city of Los Angeles released a policy report outlining why reparations should be enacted and funded for Black Angelenos.

The report, which took roughly three years to complete and included the surveying of Black Angelenos, found a series of policy decisions — aided by the housing crash of the mid-2000s, the rising cost of living, and the war on drugs — have made life untenable for many Black residents. The report explicitly named policy decisions like redlining, building highways through Black neighborhoods, unequal placement of hospitals, a 1996 law that eliminated the city’s ability to combat discriminatory hiring practices, and several policies around policing and incarceration that specifically hurt Black Angelenos.

Read More: Why the LA City Council Scandal Is About More Than Racist Slurs

A report with specific policy recommendations is expected later this year, although the city has already compiled an analytic report on how to fund the venture. It will come a year after similar assessments were released by the city of San Francisco and a California statewide policy task force. Currently, 14 reparation-based bills born from the statewide task force sit in the California legislature.

California has put forth the nation’s strongest reparations plans, with Los Angeles and San Francisco following suit. But California is not alone in implementing policies that have stunted Black life outcomes. How it proceeds could be a model for the rest of the country.

At a reparations event earlier this month, Cheryl Tawede Grills, the director of Loyola Marymount University’s community-based Psychology Applied Research Center, posed a simple question: “Where in the U.S. are outcomes for Black residents equal to their white neighbors? Think about it.”

“The answer is nowhere,” she said.

In California, Black activists, residents, and policy advocates argue that reparations are an electoral issue that can make or break Black participation in the voting process. Yet, despite a nationwide conversation around reparations in the aftermath of 2020, they believe national leaders have abandoned the fight because they don’t see the issue as a legitimate electoral priority.

“There’s a history of reparations in the United States. It’s just Black people have been excluded from that,” explained Rashawn Ray, a reparations scholar and director of the University of Maryland’s Social Justice Alliance. “It feels like Democrats think that by focusing on reparations, it will be political suicide for the party.”

He noted that many past champions of Black reparations are no longer in power or alive, such as former U.S. Reps. John Conyers Jr., Karen Bass (now LA’s mayor), and Sheila Jackson Lee.

But the national movement, he said, is “here and momentum has built up.” The various examples of California-based commissions have crafted a blueprint for making the local case for reparations nationwide, he added.

In California, a statewide survey released earlier this month found that more than 90% of Black residents say a politician’s support of reparations or lack thereof will dictate their likelihood of voting for them.

Are reparations “political suicide”?

Following the murder of George Floyd, both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris called for a federal examination of enacting Black reparations through a formal study. Yet despite this, policy around reparations has failed to advance this election season.

While a bill outlining the creation of a Black reparations commission and study has sat idle in Congress since 1989, the Biden administration failed to use executive orders to propel the movement.

Outside the Democratic National Convention last week, activists wearing bright orange shirts with the text “Reparations Now! We are far past 40 acres and a mule” called on Black Americans to withhold their vote without serious commitments from the Harris-Walz campaign.  The campaign has not outlined a plan to conduct a formal study.

“Nothing happened after Biden was given all the tools to make something happen, and so now here he is stepping down, and Kamala Harris is the party nominee, and we have valid questions for her,” explained Jones-Muhammad, who is vice chair of Los Angeles’ reparations committee.

“We know that as goes California, goes the rest of the country, and we are at a historical moment where we can set the tone for what repair looks like,” explained Kevin Cosney,  cofounder of the California Black Power Network. New York is the only state to join California at the state level in advancing task forces, reports, and legislative priorities around reparations.

The question that remains, he said, is: How can national policymakers and candidates “leverage and take the opportunity of reparations, interest, and motivation from Black Californians.”

California vs. America

A bill requiring a newly formed state agency, the California American Freedmen Affairs Agency, to implement some of the 115 policy recommendations by the state’s task force is being deliberated in California’s Senate. The bills currently in the legislature would do things like establish a fund for “community-driven solutions to decrease community violence” in Black communities, eliminate barriers for formerly incarcerated people to obtain business licenses, and craft a formal apology from the governor’s office for “human rights violations” against African slaves and their ancestors.

Read More: California’s Reparations Plan Exposes Deep Divides in Black Communities

Still, at the state’s current pace of closing the racial equity gap, it would take over 248 years until a Black child would have the same average life outcomes as a white one, according to a recent report by the University of California, Los Angeles. Experts say this slow progress underscores the urgent need for immediate and effective policy changes.

A 2020 statewide poll found that most state residents support at least some reparations-based policy shifts. As expected, the survey also found that Black and younger Californians supported reparations more than their counterparts of other races and ages. Still, while much of the state supports more structural elements of reparations, more than half oppose direct payouts for Black residents.

Still, last year, San Francisco abruptly axed its reparations office, effectively ending any legislative work around it.

Some activists and researchers have said the overwhelming concentration of Black people experiencing homelessness in the state and nationwide is the “strongest case for reparations.” Los Angeles’ reparations report found that about 60% of Black residents report being impacted by environmental injustices. The report also found that over 75% of Black residents say the city policies and law enforcement practices negatively impact them.

Read More: The Quiet Toll of Oil Drilling on Black Los Angeles

But not everyone is sold on the likelihood of reparations. Brooke Floyd, the co-director of the Jackson People’s Assembly, a social justice organization in Mississippi, said the federal government is unlikely to pass reparations for slavery because it means federal agencies, like the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Environmental Protection Agency, would also be forced to acknowledge their modern-day failures in protecting Black people.

“These are whole communities that have been, over time, divested from and disinvested in, and these have led to things like lack of investment in education, health care, and housing with crippling effects over time,” said Floyd, a prominent activist around Jackson’s water crisis.

“When you have this happen, have these long-term ramifications for whole races of people, acknowledging it and providing reparations is going to open a whole can of worms. I don’t think the federal government wants to do that because it shows these things are all linked together.”

The post ‘As Goes California, Goes The Rest Of The Country,’ Except On Black Reparations appeared first on Capital B News.

A horde of laughing bicyclists attacked a California liquor store worker before fleeing the area and screaming as the worker pulled a gun on his attackers during a chaotic scene caught on video.

The unidentified employee was standing outside Golden Hours Liquor on International Boulevard in Oakland on Saturday where he confronted over two dozen bicyclists who had surrounded the area outside of the store.

The worker attempted to get in the face of one of the bikers who was punching his fist against his other hand in a taunting manner, video posted to Instagram captured.

As the two were talking another biker slapped the worker across the face forcing the worker’s hat to fly off as he backed up from his off-camera attacker.

Another biker, wearing a balaclava, rushes up behind the worker and punches the unsuspecting victim in the side of the neck before landing another punch on the worker’s head prompting others to follow suit.

The bikers’ attack quickly turned the area outside the store into a melee as dozens of people jumped the worker, landing punches and slaps on their target.

“Get him, Get him,” multiple people shout.

Several of the laughing bikers landed punches on the worker’s head and torso as they backed him into the store’s entrance.

The worker, with his back bent as he took the punches being thrown at him, pulled out a handgun sending the once tough bikers into a frantic dash to escape the area.

The armed worker positioned himself with his back close to a wall as he aimed his sights on one of the attackers, before dropping his arm and chasing them on foot.

“Where you at, where you at,” the worker shouts as the cameraman had trouble grabbing his bike on the ground.

A separate video captured the worker chasing down one of the bikers in a gray hoodie and face mask before swiping at him, forcing the biker to fall down.

Oakland police responded to the area around 4:15 p.m. to investigate a “ShotSpotter activation,” the Oakland Police Department told the Daily Mail.

“ShotSpotter” is a gunshot detection system that alerts first responders when it picks up gunfire.

Officers “located evidence of a shooting” but there were no reports of any injuries, according to the outlet.

No arrests were made in Saturday’s melee.

The employee put his gun away but remained outside the store as several people attempted to confront him after he pulled out the gun.

The Post has reached out to the Oakland Police Department.

‘Real kick in the gut’