COLUMN ONE When Loving L.A. Turns to Heartache A woman who came of age during the Watts Rebellion sees years of disrespect explode in anger and frustration. Series: MY LOS ANGELES: After the riots, personal essays from a city of diversity Home Edition

• Published in: The Los Angeles times
• Main Author: Clayton, Janet
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, Calif Los Angeles Times Communications LLC 04.05.1992
• ISSN: 0458-3035

"Because the first time I walked into the store he didn't say `Hi,' or `Good morning.' He said `Hey, Ma-ma'-trying to talk as if he thought that's how black people talk. How dare he! He thought so little of me, thought so little of my community that he didn't even bother to find out the most basic things about us. He took his cue, I guess, from the white people who run this country and dis' us daily. So he can take this cue: I didn't start anything at his store. But when I saw all those people in there, when I saw it was going on, I went in there and grabbed some cigars. I don't even smoke them, but somebody's gonna have a smoke on Mr. `Hey, Mama.' " What's this got to do with last week's riots? It's not just the verdicts in the Rodney King or Latasha Harlins cases that make African-Americans in Los Angeles, and elsewhere, feel so violated and disrespected. It's the everydayness of racism and the pretense that it is mainly a thing of the past, not of the present. Everybody loves Magic Johnson, a man few really know personally-but few want to even drive in the lane next to a car full of young black men who, in many basic ways, are much like Earvin Johnson. Of course, a lot of African-Americans in Los Angeles don't really care whether a white person wants to drive near them, or live near them. As a matter of fact, many blacks prefer to live in areas where they can recycle black dollars to black businesses and where their children can see black authority figures-teachers, ministers, doctors, lawyers-who will set positive examples and push them to excel. That's why many blacks who could afford to live in other areas of Southern California don't move from South-Central and southwest Los Angeles.