Despair plagues inner cities

By Alvaro Huerta

Tribune News Service

Those of us who grew up in ghettos and barrios are all too familiar with police misconduct and government negligence. The response from inner-city Baltimore residents comes as no surprise to us.

Long before I became a professor, studying cities and the disenfranchised communities that inhabit them, I was raised in East LA’s notorious housing projects, where I experienced abject poverty, violence and a deep sense of hopelessness.

Two entities ruled the projects: the neighborhood gang and the police.

While I never joined the gang — not because I felt morally superior, but because I lacked the necessary physical attributes — I didn’t experience any abuse or pressure from gang members. This is mainly because we all attended elementary school together, played street ball, and took different paths in our teens without any conflict.

However, I only had negative encounters with the police. Growing up, it was clear to me that in the eyes of the police, we — poor project kids — all looked alike and were up to no good.

We are taught from a young age that we must be responsible for our actions and pay the consequences when we do something wrong. Thus, when no one is held accountable for the deadly and abusive behavior by the same people enlisted to “protect and to serve” the public, there comes a point where those on the receiving end of injustice demand to be heard on the streets.

This is not a new phenomenon. A full 50 years ago, we had the Watts riots. More than 20 years ago, we had the riots in Los Angeles. And now we have Baltimore. These are not isolated incidents, but collective expressions of despair and hopelessness.

Root causes

While it’s politically convenient for the media and politicians to scapegoat the victims of racial segregation and government neglect by referring to Baltimore protesters as “thugs” and “criminals,” it’s more difficult to look at the root causes that led to the recent disturbances. Why don’t those in power also use these pejorative terms when describing the civic leaders, politicians, government officials and business leaders who have played a major role during the past century in creating impoverished ghettos and barrios through racist and anti-worker policies, such as race restrictive covenants, redlining, residential segregation, dysfunctional public schools, white flight and the outsourcing of manufacturing jobs to foreign countries?

We must stop blaming the victims of an unequal society and strive to create a more just society for all. No other child should have the same experience that I did growing up.

Alvaro Huerta is an assistant professor of urban and regional planning and ethnic and women’s studies at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. He wrote this for Progressive Media Project, a source of liberal commentary on domestic and international issues; it is affiliated with The Progressive magazine. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.