To quote the late baseball legend Yogi Berra, the recent killing of Michael Brown of Ferguson, Missouri and the clashes between police and an outraged community were “déjà vu all over again” for me. You see, I lived exactly one mile from the flashpoint of the 1992 L.A.-Rodney King Riots, and watched South Los Angeles burn from my front door.
Like so many people, I was enraged about the acquittal of a gang of police officers who nearly beat an unarmed man to death. For me, it was proof positive that there were two kinds of justice in America- one for white people and another for everyone else. But as a man who was born, raised and educated in South Los Angeles, then returned after several years away to buy my first home there, the raw violence against innocent people and the destruction of my community by rioters was equally devastating to me.
Yes, I was angry, but not angry enough to burn down buildings and attack police officers. In fact, I went on to become an advocate of community based policing and later joined the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department with a goal of making local enforcement more reflective of and accountable to, the community it served.
22 years after the Rodney King riots, my hometown can be offered as a cautionary tale to Ferguson. Los Angeles had two African American police chiefs and a Latino mayor since the riots, yet the present looks a lot like the past. Where many of the businesses were burned down in 1992, I still saw empty lots when I was there this summer. Very few of the promises of commercial development, jobs and lasting change amounted to anything.
In South L.A., good schools and well paying manufacturing jobs in tire, auto and aerospace plants are but a distant memory. The factories have been replaced by retailers and fast food restaurants, which don’t provide the level of income required to buy homes and send children to college. Unemployment is much higher than the state and national averages, and South L.A. and its minority residents are becoming increasingly isolated from the more prosperous parts of town; the same as their counterparts in Ferguson.
In my old ‘hood, and I would imagine in Ferguson as well, a few institutions have been able to remain viable in the face of constant economic change. Black barbershops are more than a place to get a cut and a shave; they provide a path to successful entrepreneurship to African American men. They are also class independent central meeting places where doctors, politicians, law enforcement officials, ministers, professional athletes and entrepreneurs rub shoulders with laborers, young students, truck drivers, street vendors, retirees and the unemployed.
In the barbershop, there is no communication disconnect between these disparate people, no topic is off limits and everyone can have their say. More often than not, the barber acts as sort of a referee or moderator, and does it quite well. The customers don’t always agree, but usually leave with a bit more perspective and maybe a new friend or future business partner to go with the fresh shave and haircut.
In my mind, I can visualize a barbershop in Ferguson where youth, police officers, ministers, politicians, community activists, business people and other citizens from every section of that city can gather, rise above the fear and distrust, communicate with one another and form the basis of a relationship; like we do at the barber shop.
Wouldn’t that be something?
Straight Up
The Middle
BY DAVID ROBINSON
Shop Talk
WINTER |2014| 5