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Back to Subjects - Social Issues

None Provided40

None Provided40 Land of the Hated, Home of the Ignorant As young Americans, we consider the fact that social change has occurred and in some places, will occur. When we think of racism, we remember greats and their accomplishments such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. We consider those crucial times as hardships that arose in a different lifetime. After reading stories concerning racism, witnessing race related fights, or hearing someone mutter a racist comment, we must ask ourselves if the country we live in is truly “The Land of The Free and Home of The Brave,” or a country full of ignorant souls who can not get past the fact that this country is not theirs and never was. These same ignorant citizens have a common fear that the entrance of other unwanted races into their community will raise crime rates by committing burglary, rape and assault. In response to that fear, they hate, and in reply to the hate, there are combats against discrimination such as affirmative action that relieve some of the pressures of being a colored person in this country. Welcome to the Antelope Valley. We are a dry climate region located in between the San Bernadino Mountains to the south and the Mojave Desert to our north. With a quick forty five minute drive over the southern mountains, you will have full access to the San Fernando Valley. Due to Los Angeles’s expanding crime rate in the early 90’s, you fear that raising your child in such “tough” neighborhoods would influence him/her in choosing an incorrect path in life. You also feel buying a home here (either being Palmdale and Lancaster) is a great investment and in ten years, the value of the area will increase, leaving nothing but a profit in your name. While entering, you will feel a sense of promise in this great area. It is proud to reward its citizens with the Edwards Air Force base, a community college with promising university transfer rates and one of California’s largest malls. While driving to your destination, you see numerous amounts of “Just Opened” buildings with available office space, housing communities where you cannot tell one house apart from the other and many recreational parks with little league sign ups available. It is your classic all American city where the men go to work while the wife stays home with the kids, WalMart is your favorite place to shop and the high school football teams are known throughout California. In spite of this, we must remember that when something sounds too good to be true it usually is. We have now entered the 21st century, and the Antelope Valley which was once populated by working-middle class whites, has taken a turn for the worse. It was virtually impossible for the tremendous growth and affordability to be kept a secret from investors. William Finnegan, opinionated author of A Cold New World, who not only covers the downfall of the valley but also the uprising of its racism, feels that the addition of these potential investors (most of Latino or African American descent) began to worry this “…overwhelmingly white…” (272) population. With the already existing white supremacist groups such as the KKK, White Aryan Resistance and the Nazi Low Rider skinheads considered a problem with the conservative residents of the valley; this would be the start of what Finnegan considers a “Racial Holy War” (292). After several interviews with these supremacist members of a variety of clans, Finnegan recalls one with Tim Malone, a member of the Nazi Low Riders. Tim stated that he and his clan “believe in Hitler’s ways” (288). As history recalls, Hitler felt that the presence of Jews was unnecessary and, as a result, exterminated millions of them in the process. With young residents holding a mentality of Hitler’s, the general public of Los Angeles county should be concerned. There was a widespread feeling of anxiety throughout the valley that many of these young children were unsupervised, leaving them to commit juvenile acts, resort to finding their own after school hangouts. Debbie Turner, (a mother of one of the girls interviewed in this article) like most working parents in the area was mislead about the people her adolescent daughter was spending time with after school. What Debbie did not know was that her teenage daughter was sexually active with one of the lead members of the Nazi Low Riders who was currently in jail. Mindy was not the only unsupervised teenager in that area. A sheriff’s department spokesman in Lancaster estimated that half of the valley’s children were unsupervised. With nothing to do and nowhere to go, these young adolescents resided in many of these white supremacist gang territories, therefore leaving them to commit racist acts against blacks. Former NLR member Chris Runge recalls what he used to do and say and when he would spot an African American: “ Fuck you, nigger! I see ‘em in an alley, say, ‘Hey you’re in the wrong neighborhood,’ and beat’em down” (Finnegan 289). In most cases, girls become impregnated by these gang members, with no other choice but to raise a family with hatred as a child’s main surrounding. With such hardships that minorities suffer, the government thought to pass propositions such as affirmative action to “enlarge opportunity for everybody.” (Wilkins 236). Roger Wilkins author of Racism Has Its Privileges claims that, “The idea of affirmative action is not to force people into positions for which they are unqualified but to encourage institutions to develop realistic criteria for the enterprise at hand and then to find a reasonably diverse mix of people qualified to be engaged in it.” (236) Affirmative action serves as an allowance for those racially or sexually discriminated against, encouraging them to expand their horizons. Therefore, it serves as a support system of those people who fit the qualifications of such acts. Wilkins later states that “Supporters of affirmative action believe that broad and deep damage has been done to American culture by racism and sexism over the whole course of American history and that they are still powerful forces today” (339). These supporters feel that minorities are still at a disadvantage and therefore need affirmative action to equalize the competitive playing field. When speaking to Linda Miller, a family friend and a former biology teacher from Palmdale high school, I was informed that she once had a 10th grade student who refused to sit next to a colored student. Later that year, that same student and a couple of his clan members were arrested by the Palmdale police department for assaulting a black student during lunch time. As we discussed the book Cold New World, she was very insistent in adding that it was much easier as a white teacher to work in a school full of such hate and violence towards students of different racial backgrounds. She also shared an experience when one of her colleagues (an African American man) was forced out of the high school due to threats made by students such as vandalizing his classroom door, notes with racial slurs in his school mailbox and spreading rumors about him and his family. He did not have trouble finding another school to work at as he did in the Santa Clarita valley. She also recalled the “high security” team that was brought into the school when some parents, teachers and students feared what some of the kids were capable of doing. In response to this, Linda not only changed the school she is teaching at and is also planning on moving away from the entire valley. When instances like these hit close to home, they bring a sense of fear to those who may be caught in the crossfire of these violent attacks, forcing decent and honorable citizens to change locations. I remember the city of Lancaster, as a place where my cousins could go to sleep at night with the garage door left wide open, doors unlocked and had trustworthy neighbors. It is those same cousins that recently lost close to 30,000 dollars when selling their house. The engineering firm my cousin Tony once engineered for moved and, it was considered unsafe to go shopping at The Antelope Valley Mall and certainly not safe to raise children there. This once “promised land” of southern California is no longer that. The promises no longer exist, the dreams have faded away and so have all those hopeful investors. Ironically enough, those same people that left the San Fernando Valley in means to move to a new “suburban community” came right back over those hills, looking for a place to live, knowing that it was much safer to raise children with the comfort of raising a child in a welcome multi-racial surrounding. Concluding a strong subject such as racism and its effects might not ever come to an end due to the stubbornness and ignorance of the discriminators. We may ask our selves questions such as “will it ever end?” or “is there something we can do?” I believe that acts such as affirmative action have allowed the discriminated such as those in the Antelope Valley to gain courage in asserting themselves in the high competition school and work force. I also believe acknowledging that there still is segregation in some areas of this country and educating the people closest to you will make all the difference a single individual can do. In order for us to erase the hate, we must learn to accept not only each other and our actions, but where we come from, how we were raised and what we have to offer. Bibliography:

Word Count: 1612