To sustain this block, “a delicate dance ensued,” continued Meyerson:
Since the 1960s, three of the city’s 15 council districts located in and around the predominantly black South Central area have been informally designated as the seat of Blacks and leaders. Latino political leaders agreed not to contest them, even as the percentage of blacks in the city’s population fell from 15 percent in the 1970 census to 8 percent in the 2020 census, and even as the city’s Latino percentage rises to 48 percent by 2020.
I ask Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles, on the history of racial and ethnic politics in Los Angeles and the current situation. “From 1900 to 1949, none of the City Council members were African-American, Latino, Jewish, or Asian-American,” he wrote back via email. In 1949, Ed Roybal became the first Hispanic member of the council and held his seat until 1962 when he successfully ran for Congress, Sonenshein noted. But “followed a long hiatus without Latino members until 1985, all during the heyday of the Bradley Black Jewish union.”
Now, according to Sonenshein, “there are three African-Americans and four Latino ‘seats’ on the board,” with a high probability of a fifth Hispanic seat depending on the outcome of the birth on May 8. 11. Black Democrats have held three council seats per cycle since 1963 despite a sharp drop in the city’s African-American share of the electorate, resulting, Sonenshein writes, of “a long and sometimes strong black-Latino alliance.”
I asked Sonenshein about the all-or-nothing element of redistricting in Los Angeles, and he replied that the unusually strong powers wielded by the City Council make the competition for seats becomes especially acrimonious:
The conflict is further intensified by the unique nature of the LA council. It is undoubtedly the most powerful council in any city with a mayor council system. The council’s relatively small size and its vision as the most public body in city government make each seat immensely valuable. LA’s growing stature as a key political force in California and even national Democratic politics has state lawmakers considering giving up their seats when a council seat opens. . (Can you imagine that happening in NYC or Chicago?)
In contrast, Sonenshein argues, there are two factors that reduce conflict: “a strong incentive within communities to build and sustain progressive multiracial and multiethnic coalitions modeled on Tom Bradley and elite political alliances that link members together in different communities”.
Sonenshein describes the current situation in Los Angeles as
mirror image of the 1990s. As the Latino population increased in the 1980s and 1990s in the area then known as South Central Los Angeles, there was considerable tension between groups at the street level. . Jobs, housing, services, all play a role. It took a while for those tensions to flare up to the political level.
David Searsan emeritus professor of psychology and political science at UCLA, emailed me in response to my question about race and ethnic politics in Los Angeles:
The zero-sum character of redistribution inevitably exacerbates intergroup conflict. In LA, such conflicts are generally barely below the surface. Especially Black Brown. Latinos have moved to historic Negro neighborhoods in large numbers in LA and now outnumber Blacks in general. The City Council representation has not adjusted to reflect that change. Dark brown political alliances have formed but they can emerge, with tensions generally smaller than visible to the public.
In times of peace, Sears wrote, “the theory of ‘common identity within the group’ argues that alliances can form around a common superior identity. An example might be the Democrats in the California legislature, “where there is” a lot of pressure to tie the coalition together – for example, maintaining a supermajority. “
However, Sears cautions that “subordinate group identities can sometimes circumvent that shared identity when subordinate group identities are brought to prominence, as in redistricting (or ticket composition) decisions. The current controversy is a textbook example of these dynamics”.
Sears pointed to possible future developments. On the one hand, he mentioned “a lot of pressure to tie the alliance together.” However, at the same time he also noted:
Centrifugal pressures include the increasing mobility of Latinos, who are rapidly becoming small business entrepreneurs. The younger generation is getting a much better education: for example, the number of Latinos being admitted to UCLA is growing rapidly. And white marriages are very common in post-immigrant generations.
“Expect more ethnic conflict,” concludes Sears,
despite the incentives for alliance building. The division of neighborhoods leads to fragmentation in schools. Many lighter-skinned Latinos have an easier path than African-Americans in terms of upward mobility. I believe broken families are still much more common in the Black community, which comes at a cost.
Redistribution is the redistribution of political power, and political power determines the allocation of important resources. Cecilia Menjivara sociology professor at UCLA, emailed me her analysis on the role of scarcity in the struggle for power:
Ethnic conflict does not occur in a vacuum of other social forces, especially material resources such as income and especially inequality – absolute and relative – in individual incomes. there are also resources like housing, school funding, etc., which vary quite a bit from place to place. , neighborhoods, etc… This is important because not only income and material resources but also increasing inequality – unequal distribution of resources shape the perception of a feeling of scarcity. rare that groups (and individuals) perceive.
Menjívar continued: Income and access to resources and benefits are both key, “but inequality, unequal distribution and access to resources and benefits of society are absolutely worth considering here because it’s the perception of unequal access, unequal distribution of benefits, etc., that I see more than just income distribution.”
Along similar lines, Betina Wilkinsona political scientist at Wake Forest University, emailed me to say that her focus group and survey data “reveal that for some Blacks and Latinos, social opportunities , economic and political are zero-sum because they feel that their socio-political power and struggles are comparable to those of other minors, that resources and limited association and thus the other group poses a threat to them. “
