L.A.’s Dirty Little Brown Secret
25th August 2016
David Cole turns over a rock.
Consider it one of this summer’s most underreported stories. In what’s described as “one of the largest civil rights indictments in L.A. history,” an old-school Mexican gang—one of the original Mexi gangs that date back to the pre–World War II era—ran a ruthless campaign to keep “niggers” out of its neighborhood. The Big Hazard gang (also known as Hazard Grande) runs the streets in Boyle Heights, a neighborhood in East L.A. As of 2010, Boyle Heights was about 94% Latino, owing in no small part to the fact that Big Hazard had an unwritten rule about not tolerating black residents. In recent years, however, blacks had slowly been making inroads into the community, so Big Hazard decided to put a little fire and brimstone behind its unwritten rule.
…
Now, when I say the story has been “underreported,” I don’t mean there’s been a blackout (pardon the term). The story has received obligatory coverage in all the usual fish rags, from the Times of L.A. to the one in New York. But what’s missing is the outrage. Big Hazard’s activities were tolerated (to say the least) by the local Latino population. Was there perhaps some fear of speaking up against the gang? Sure, but still, it’s a local gang, made up of local boys. Where are the calls for the neighborhood to undergo “racial sensitivity training”? Where are the black leaders locking arms and marching through the streets in defiance? Where are the garment-rending op-eds and monologues from leftist journalists, hosts, and pundits?
Has anybody angrily confronted Edward James Olmos (who was born in East L.A.) about how he has a “responsibility” to go down to Boyle Heights and lecture his fellow Mexican Angelenos about the evils of racism? Of course not. In short, as you don’t need me to tell you, there has been no outrage because whites aren’t involved (except as, you know, the lawmen trying to bring justice to the blacks of East L.A., but don’t think for a moment that any black person is going to give whites any kudos for that).