Blogging Social Difference in L.A.: Week 7

This week, I drove my friend to LAX. I took Sepulveda blvd all the way down instead of taking 405 because the traffic is always bad. I didn’t want to risk it and made her miss the flight. After I dropped her, I took the same way back to my place. However, when I was on my way back, I decided to stop by Westfield Clover City shopping mall (It is also called fox hill mall.)and shop with another friend who went to the airport with me. Westfield Clover City just like other Westfield shopping malls, it is a really fancy mall where you can shop almost everything you need, target, bestbuy, h&m, forever21, etc. me and my friend had a good time shopping in the mall. After a while, we are tired of walking and want to grab something to eat to keep the shopping mood. We decided to eat at BJ’s restaurant after shopping. We both ordered pizzas to treat our stomachs. After we have done eating, we kept shopping for a while and drove back home.

After spending the whole day staying at clover city area, it is easy to realize that most of the people who live in this area are black people. From my observations, it seems like there’s a line, which starts from Sepulveda and Venice blvd to differentiate the race. When I was taking Sepulveda blvd all the way down to LAX, the closer to the airport, the environment of living standard is getting worse and worse. And I could see more and more black people in this area. Especially when I was in the shopping mall with my friend, most of the people who shopped in the mall are black people and my friend she also told me that there is a college called ICDC College that most of the students there are black. The whole scenes made me think that why most of the people in this area are black. According to “The Blackwell City Reader”, in chapter 19 “ The continuing causes of Segregation”, the author mentioned that since 1970s, black peoples’ incomes kept rising; however, the segregation wouldn’t have declined. “…because white prejudice and discrimination have persisted in a variety of forms, both overt and subtle, skin color remains a powerful basis of stratification in the united states.”(178) Truly, in America, the skin color is still the major reason that caused segregation. For example, people who have jobs with higher wages are mostly white people, and those people are also more powerful in the society. However, the attitude in black people makes me to this this issue in a different perspective. “If most black people prefer to live in neighborhoods that are largely black, the high level of racial segregation may correspond to black desires for self-segregation and not discriminate or prejudice.”(180) Indeed, if black people fell more comfortable to live in the area where most of the black people live in, it is the self-segregation that makes the whole society become more and more segregated.  Overall, I think those two reasons are main reasons why segregation is still an issue. Although racial discrimination is no longer obviously showing in the society, the skin color is always a big issue that we have to seriously concern about.