40 yrs of Chicano Studies

[AyatollahGondola]

I'm going to have to reread Paz. But, why the general attitude which leads to failure in America society? Can money thrown at that issue actually solve the problem?

Money isn't a cure for most problems that aren't directly related to financing. It does act as two things when it falls ou of that category:

A placebo

A salve on an open wound.

In either case, the producers and handlers of the alleged cure are the ones profiting; not the patient

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Here is an editorial by the Press Enterprise. This is slightly off topic because it doesn't specifically mention drop outs or "Latino", whether the Latino is Mexican or American born, and however slight or great there is a cultural difference between those with different nationality of childhood and youth.

I include this because it talks about programs and budget cutting in overcrowded prisons, similar to the rhetoric coming out of overcrowded schools, the fact that Latinos are the least likely to finish high school, and drop outs are more inclined towards criminal activity.

The Press-Enterprise

Prison miscue

Budgetary savings should not come at the expense of coherent corrections strategy. The state's efforts to trim corrections spending target the programs that stand the best chance of easing crowding in state prisons. The state should focus on cutting the number of ex-cons who reoffend, not continue setting muddled policy that perpetuates prison crowding.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced last month that it would trim $250 million from education, job training, counseling and other programs for adult prisoners. The cuts represent more than a third of the budget for such programs.

The move is part of the state's effort to pare $1.2 billion from the $10 billion the state spent on corrections last fiscal year. But trimming programs that help inmates avoid returning to prison is a bizarre strategy for a state that needs to reduce its inmate population. California will never fix its prisons by sacrificing long-term reforms for short-term savings.

The state's prisons are crowded to nearly double their intended capacity, and a panel of federal judges has ordered the state to shrink the inmate population by more than 40,000 in the next two years. The state has about 148,000 prisoners in 33 prisons, plus another 17,000 in camps and other facilities. Trimming the number of inmates would also cut corrections costs, which have more than doubled over the past decade.

A big part of the reason for the crowded conditions in prison is the dismal fact that two-thirds of California parolees end up back behind bars within three years. The causes for that record are complex, but a key factor is that many inmates lack education and job skills and struggle with addictions or mental health ills.

A prison system that makes little attempt to address those issues, and simply releases inmates with $200 and no prospects, can expect those people to return to incarceration. A variety of official reports on prisons over the past decade have highlighted the need for programs that can help inmates avoid trouble upon release.

Corrections officials plan to cope with the budget cuts by directing the remaining funding to the most effective programs. That would be a sensible strategy, if the department knew which programs met that benchmark. The state auditor reported last month that corrections spent $208 million on prison education in 2008-09, but had no way to tell if the courses were doing any good.

And the cuts work at cross-purposes with spending reductions approved by the Legislature last month. The legislative plan would save money by shortening prisoners' sentences if they finish education, drug treatment and other programs -- just as corrections officials slash those services.

Comprehensive reforms could save money and convince federal judges the state can responsibly oversee prisons. But that approach requires a consistent plan for change, not a bunch of conflicting ideas thrown together to relieve a budget meltdown.

This editorial by the Press Enterprise does not indicate endorsement of or affiliation to any organization or cause.

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A big part of the reason for the crowded conditions in prison is the dismal fact that two-thirds of California parolees end up back behind bars within three years. The causes for that record are complex, but a key factor is that many inmates lack education and job skills and struggle with addictions or mental health ills.

Perhaps some of the reason is that society continues to punish the convicted long after sentence has been served, and few want to hire a convict. Making an honest living is therefore difficult for the sincere and repentant.

As well, there is often an attitude or presence carried out of prison which applies to criminal or prison society and does not mesh with the rules of civil society.

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DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS AND REHABILITATION

INFORMATION ON POPULATION AND INMATE CHARACTERISTICS

AUGUST 15, 2006


• We currently have over 172,000 inmates as of August 9, 2006. Of
these, over 160,000 are males and almost 12,000 are females housed
in 33 institutions, 40 camps, and 12 community correctional centers
throughout the state.

• According to a recently released report by the Public Policy Institute
of California, our prison population is aging, with inmates under the
age of 25 representing a steadily declining share while the number of
prisoners in older age groups continues to grow.

• This most likely has a correlation with the fact that prisoners serving
time for violent crimes are now a majority of our population, and that
share is growing. In contrast, drug offenders are representing a
smaller share of the prison population and now comprises
approximately 20 percent of the prison population.

• Our male population is comprised of
38% Latino,
29% African American,
27% White,
6% Other.

Females are comprised of
39% White,
29% African American
28% Latina
5% Other.

• After California’s incarceration rate per 100,000 persons peaked in
1998 at 673, our rate has declined over the last eight years to its
current rate of 616. At the same time, the incarceration rate in the rest
of the United States has continued to increase slightly. Today,
California’s ranks 17th among all states for incarceration rates, with
our rate of 616 slightly above the national average of 573.

• In terms of the yearly admissions to California’s prisons, in 2005 we
had 70,573 admissions, and 61,999 parole violators.

• The next page puts our population into perspective. While we have
almost 62,000 parole violators returned during the year, this only
makes up a little over 11 percent of our total inmate population at any
given time. In addition, this percentage is projected to decrease over
time.

• The growth in our population over the last several years, and the
population that continues to grow at the greatest rate, as shown in our
chart, is the population of inmates who are serving life terms.

• What is the makeup of each of these groups of felons in prison?
Starting with felons serving a life term, these are people convicted of
first and second degree murder, certain acts of attempted murder,
kidnap for ransom and robbery, and “third-strike” felons.

• Parole Violators—there is a tendency to refer to any parolee returned
to prison without a new term as a “technical” parole violator. In
looking at the reasons why parolees return to prison over a year’s
period, however, the data show that 82% of parolees returned to
prison for these so-called “technical” violations were actually returned
for criminal conduct.

• Only 18% of the returns could truly be considered a technical or
“status” offense. In addition, of these returns, the majority of the 18%
of these returns were in cases where parolees had absconded while on
parole—these made up 65% of these cases—in which parole and local
law enforcement authorities had issued a warrant for the arrest of the
parolee for absconding while on parole. While this is not technically
a crime, parole absconders do pose a risk to public safety.

• Of the 18,508 parole violators in prison, a little over 3,000 are there
for “technical” parole violations. Factoring 65% of those for parole
absconders would leave you with a little over 2,000 parolees in for
technical violations.

• If the Department stopped returning technical parole violators to
prison, the inmate population would only be reduced by 2,000 to
3,000 inmates.

• Determinately-sentenced felons—Currently, this is the breakdown by
offense category of the felons housed in our facilities—over 85,000
were sentenced for crimes against a person, over 36,000 for property
offenses, over 35,000 for drug offenses, and almost 13,000 for other
crimes.

• Of our property offenders, almost 7,000 had one prior conviction for a
serious or violent felony, and another 6,000 had two or more
convictions.

• Of our drug offenders, almost 7,000 had one prior conviction for a
serious or violent felony, and another 5,000 had two or more
convictions.

• How many of our property and drug offenders are truly first time
offenders? Our data show that approximately two-thirds of these
offenders have at least one prior conviction.

http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:UyeGuQDMsW8J:www.cdcr.ca.gov/News/docs/SelectComm_PrisonPopMgmtBriefing.pdf+Latino+rate+of+incarceration+California+Department+of+Corrections&hl=en&gl=us&sig=AFQjCNHvas7Q1qnYiHEUO1-cO7Tqrh_fDw

[ilbegone]

This is an ugly search. It reminds me of working in a back yard so full of dog shit that it is difficult to step between the piles of shit. This needs a rake, a shovel, and a wheel barrow. It's not pleasant to me.

There are a lot of directions concerning crimes, race and racism from and towards all directions, violence, victims, nationality, biased research, slanted journalism, opinion presented as fact, selective quotation of fact, apples and oranges, oxen to gore, propaganda, anything you want to hear to reinforce your preconceived notions. Loads of bullshit.

There are things which strike a common thread.

There is the information from the California Department Department of corrections above with a link to the whole document.

So far I have not been able to find verifiable demographic figures for county jails in California concerning demographics, charges, and convictions.

I'll wade through this a little more and provide a synopsis tomorrow or so.

Meanwhile, I'm going to go take a shower, maybe wash some of this off me.

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High School Dropouts and The Economic Losses from Juvenile Crime in California.

California Dropout Research Project Report #16, September 2009 http://cdrp.ucsb.edu/, By Clive R. Belfield Queens College, City University of New York and Henry M. Levin Teachers College, Columbia University [thanks to Dan Mitchel]

"California's juvenile crime rate is high. Juveniles commit one-in-six violent crimes and over one-quarter of all property crimes; they also commit crimes in school, victimizing one-quarter of all students and one-in-twelve teachers.

The economic loss from juvenile crime is substantial. In total, each juvenile cohort in California imposes an economic loss of $8.9 billion on the state's citizens. Part of the explanation for juvenile crime is poor education.

In this paper, we estimate the economic loss from juvenile crime associated with not completing high school before age 18. Using results from three separate studies and applying their results for California, we estimate the annual juvenile crime loss associated with high school dropouts at $1.1 billion.

Finally, we compare the losses from juvenile crime with the costs of improving the education system. We calculate that savings in juvenile crime alone will offset approximately 16% of the costs of providing these interventions."

http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archive...05.html#022405

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Conclusion of the essay Does State Policy Help or Hurt the Dropout Problem in California? From the California Drop Out Research Project study.

The dropout problem will not be solved by more categorical programs or additional resources. The problem, as noted earlier, has to do with student disengagement from school. As also noted, the reasons for disengagement are multiple, overlapping, and complex. The issue of academic engagement can be addressed by improving the quality of the schooling experience for students.

Some causes of disengagement, however, lie beyond the schools’ control. Consequently, students may need a variety of coordinated social and health (both physical and mental) services that are not readily available or are now simply unavailable. When student behavior does trigger such services, it is often too late, as with the SARB interventions. Again, there is little known about how many districts provide such services and what difference such services may make. We know from the research that the key is early identification and support.

The key to an effective state role is to increase district capacity to identify at-risk students early and provide resources (both academic and social) to those students. The state also needs to find ways of improving district and school capacity to provide quality education services to students who have not been well served by the education system. Students who do not intend to go to college have few or no options for alternative education paths. For those students, there is little incentive to finish high school, particularly if they believe they cannot pass the high school exit exam or if they believe that a diploma is irrelevant. The state needs to provide technical assistance to schools that serve large numbers of at-risk students to develop curricula that is academically challenging and rigorous while it also prepares them for careers.

California currently spends substantial sums of money on various forms of dropout prevention programs; on supplemental instruction; on counseling, mentoring and outreach; career education such as the Regional Occupation Centers and Programs; adult education programs; and special programs for English language learners. Districts that serve students who might generally be referred to as “at-risk” benefit from a large number of categorical programs. The problem for state policy makers is that virtually nothing is known about the success of these various programs and why such programs seem to have so little impact on increasing school completion rates. To be sure, there are success stories, but there is nothing to suggest that any of those programs, either individually or in the aggregate, have a positive effect on student retention. More importantly, as this paper has emphasized throughout this discussion,there is no systematic, reliable data to inform policy makers of either the nature or magnitude of the problem.

Beyond data, it is clear that increasing school completion rates, especially among African American, Hispanic, and Native American students, should be a top priority for state policy makers.

There are, however, no ready answers. It is quite clear that adding more programs to the state’s dropout policy portfolio is not the answer. The answer lies in integrating existing programs and resources and creating greater accountability for those programs that target primarily at-risk students. Policy makers need to evaluate the role and efficacy of existing alternative education programs to understand better what kinds of state interventions are most helpful to those local officials—school and district administrators, counselors, teachers, other agency officials, social workers, and health care specialists—who are ultimately responsible for reducing the number of school dropouts. Curriculum reform certainly ought to figure prominently in the solution; so should mentoring, preschool, and continuing education.

Given the competition for state revenues, it is all the more important for policy makers to invest in those programs that use funds most efficiently and have the highest rates of success for dollars spent (Belfield & Levin, 2007).

To that end, state policy makers should evaluate the costs of various dropout prevention programs in relation to their effectiveness. In the absence of systematic evaluation, it appears that local dropout prevention programs operate idiosyncratically—the result of effort and commitment by individuals—rather than by program design. The question for policy makers is whether there are systematic policy design features of dropout prevention programs that show successful results across a large number of schools.

http://cdrp.ucsb.edu/dropouts/pubs_reports.htm

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Summary and Conclusions to the essay Why Students Drop Out of School: A Review of 25 Years of Research from The California Drop Out Research Project

The longstanding and widespread interest in the issue of high school dropouts has generated a vast research literature, particularly over the last ten years. The purpose of this study was to identify and review this literature. Restricting our focus to research studies published in scholarly journals found in the nation’s largest scientific database yielded 203 studies that have been published over the last 25 years, involving 387 separate analyses. To organize our review, we developed a conceptual framework that identified all the key factors that the research has identified as salient to understanding how, when, and why students drop out of high school.

These factors had to do with characteristics of individual students—their educational performance, behaviors, attitudes, and backgrounds—as well as the characteristics of the families, schools, and communities where they live and go to school. The review verified that indeed, a number of salient factors within each of these domains are associated with whether students drop out or graduate from high school. Although most of the studies were unable to establish a strong causal connection between the various factors and dropping out, they nonetheless suggest such a connection.

We learned a number of things from this review. The first is that no single factor can completely account for a student’s decision to continue in school until graduation. Just as students themselves report a variety of reasons for quitting school, the research literature also identifies a number of salient factors that appear to influence the decision. Second, the decision to drop out is not simply a result of what happens in school.

Clearly, students’ behavior and performance in school influence their decision to stay or leave. But students’ activities and behaviors outside of school—particularly engaging in deviant and criminal behavior—also influence their likelihood of remaining in school.
http://cdrp.ucsb.edu/dropouts/pubs_reports.htm

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Conclusions to the December 2007 essay California High Schools That Beat the Odds in High School Graduation of the California Dropout Research Project

This has been one of a collection of studies examining issues related to children dropping out of school conducted through the California Dropout Research Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Its major objective is to examine alternative methods in local schools that appear efficacious in keeping children in school through graduation. Rather than starting with a specific program or intervention and testing to see if it seems to make a difference, the “beating-the-odds” approach featured in this paper attempts to identify schools that appear to be achieving the desired effect.

There are several major objectives of this exercise. First, are there high schools in California that enroll high percentages of traditionally challenged students and yet still show strong, consistent performance in terms of low dropout rates, high graduation rates, and relatively high academic achievement? How many such schools can be so identified, where are they located, and what are their characteristics? For example, it may be that success on these measures is much more possible in smaller, more rural settings with a high degree of stability, than in urban settings with higher transiency, and perhaps fewer strong bonds to the community.

Second, to what extent are the leaders of these BTO schools able to articulate the methods they believe have contributed to these results? Third, are there clear strategies that other school leaders might follow, and/or over-arching themes from which they might learn?

As described earlier, the broad array of approaches for measuring dropouts creates one of the difficulties in attempting to identify “beating-the-odds” schools. Schools that appear strong on one measure may appear weak on another.

Recognizing this, we made determinations that are based on stability of results, but which are also ultimately somewhat subjective. That is, using different measures, other researchers may come up with a different list of BTO schools than derived through this study. Nevertheless, we feel the criteria we used were quite stringent, and that we were able to identify a strong set of BTO schools. Furthermore, the leaders of these schools were able to describe in detail some of the specific strategies they had employed which they attributed to affecting these results.

However, through the initial round of phone interviews we did find schools we considered to be “false positives.” That is, one respondent from a district in which three of the 22 BTO schools identified through this process are located indicated that the statistics we were observing resulted from transferring problematic students out of these schools rather than working with them to stay enrolled in their original school. This problem is noted in a 2007 Legislative Analyst Office study, which suggests that schools often encounter pressure to push low-performing students into alternative schools to evade responsibility for their progress (Hill, 2007). Alternative schools often have much higher dropout rates than the state average and account for a significant portion of California’s dropouts (Timar, Biag, Lawson, 2007).

At least one large urban district with several statistically strong BTO schools was unwilling to take the time to participate in this study, and so we do not know to what extent the schools identified as BTO in this district were employing exemplary practices. Most of the six high schools we feature in the narrative above are in smaller school districts. In five of the six cases they are the only high school in their district. This likely offers the advantages that smaller, more cohesive communities can bring in supporting children to stay in school. However, they also attributed their success to factors that could conceivably be employed in larger districts choosing to do so. For example, they cited the fact that the district administration was very focused and dedicated to their needs. The leaders of these schools also cited their ability to exercise considerable discretion over who was hired. These principals said their districts allowed them considerable autonomy to set priorities for their schools and to introduce and/or alter programs as needed to achieve high standards.

The principal of the BTO school located in a large district cited similar factors. These factors—district support (Datnow and Stringfield, 2000; Edmonds, 1979; Fuller, Loeb, Arshan, Chen, and Yi, 2007; McLaughlin and Talbert, 2003; Parrish, Perez, Merickel, and Liquianti, 2006), enhanced control over hiring (Fuller et al., 2007; Parrish et al., 2006; Perez et al. 2007; Purkey and Smith, 1983; Rosenholtz, 1985), and a certain degree of independence and autonomy (Marsh, 2000; Parrish et al., 2006; Purkey and Smith, 1983) —have also been found by other researchers as important in attempting to understand vastly different levels of achievement across schools with similar student populations.

In addition, given this context, several over-arching themes across respondents regarding what was done within these schools were identified: connecting with students, engaging parents and community, providing specific supports for students at risk, and creating a culture of accountability and high expectations. Again, these over-arching themes are neither surprising nor new. A recent publication from the Education Commission of the States cites early intervention, engagement, challenging courses, and smaller school size as organizational factors that can influence students to stay enrolled in high school (2007). In addition, high school reform literature indicates that addressing these issues can lead to higher student achievement and graduation rates (Quint, 2006; Herlihy and Quint, 2006).

Timar, Biag and Lawson (2007) suggest that dropping out can also be defined as a “professional problem” due to a lack of adequate training and time for teachers to identify students who may be at risk of dropping out. Accordingly, in this study we find that identified BTO schools have been able to maintain a high quality teaching staff through professional development and hiring practices. Further, improving instructional content and practice through curriculum design and professional development is also noted as a key strategy of effective schools (Herlihy & Quint, 2006).

Creating a personalized school climate where staff provide support for students’ academic and personal growth is crucial for student achievement (Quint, 2006). Through counseling programs and extracurricular activities, the schools highlighted in this study provide numerous opportunities for students to build relationships with staff and connect students to the school. Many of the schools included in this study provide vocational courses to prepare students for post secondary options. Quint (2006) argues that this helps increase student engagement thus motivating students to graduate. Timar, Biag, and Lawson (2007) also support utilizing targeted programs to provide additional support for students at risk of dropping out, but emphasize that further evaluation is needed to identify the most effective programs.

We consider these findings to be encouraging. Schools that are producing exemplary results with challenging student populations can be found. The relative consistency of findings in regard to the elements and strategies that are attributed to this success are also encouraging. While this does not indicate a clear prescription for success, it does suggest that what these schools are doing can be identified, and that it may be possible for others to learn from their success.

Thus, while all of these elements may not necessarily be replicated elsewhere (e.g. size and community context are outside a principal’s control), we believe it is possible to learn from what others are doing. For this reason, we considered it very important to name specific schools and to attempt to describe what they are doing in their own terms to the greatest extent possible. While far from full descriptions, what is included in this paper has been reviewed by each of these schools in an attempt to ensure fidelity with actual practice.

In summary, this study offers useful insights into what can be done to address California's dropout crisis. Specific schools can be found that are beating the odds on these vital outcomes and are creating explicit structures and supports to encourage high graduation rates. These practices can be adopted by other schools and should inform future policy

Riverdale High School, a small rural school in Fresno County, shows an estimated graduation rate of 100%.

Duarte High School, located about twenty miles east of Los Angeles, has an estimated graduation rate of 97%,

Sanger High School is located in a suburban community a few miles from Fresno with an estimated 96% graduation rate.

Selma High School is located in a suburban community of Fresno County and has an estimated 93% graduation rate.

Located in Los Angeles County, Bassett High School graduates an estimated 97% of its students.

Valley High School is in an urban community in south Sacramento and has an estimated graduation rate of 84%. Due to high student mobility there have been many challenges to maintaining low dropout rates

http://cdrp.ucsb.edu/dropouts/pubs_reports.htm

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Feds take on L.A. Latino gang accused of targeting blacks (2007)

LOS ANGELES - In a murderous quest aimed at "cleansing" their turf of snitches and rival gangsters, members of one of Los Angeles County's most vicious Latino gangs sometimes killed people just because of their race, an investigation found.

There were even instances in which Florencia 13 leaders ordered killings of black gangsters and then, when the intended victim couldn't be located, said "Well, shoot any black you see," Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said.

"In certain cases some murders were just purely motivated on killing a black person," Baca said.

Authorities say there were 20 murders among more than 80 shootings documented during the gang's rampage in the hardscrabble Florence-Firestone neighborhood, exceptional even in an area where gang violence has been commonplace for decades. They don't specify the time frame or how many of the killings were racial.

Los Angeles has struggled with gang violence for years, especially during the wars in the late 1980s and early 90s between the Crips and the Bloods - both black gangs. Latino gangs have gained influence since then as the Hispanic population surged.

Evidence of Florencia 13, or F13, is easy to find in Florence-Firestone. Arrows spray-painted on the wall of a liquor store mark the gang's boundary and graffiti warns rivals to steer clear.

The gang's name comes from the neighborhood that is its stronghold and the 13th letter of the alphabet - M - representing the gang's ties to the Mexican Mafia.

Federal, state and local officials worked together to charge 102 men linked to F13 with racketeering, conspiracy to murder, weapons possession, drug dealing and other crimes. In terms of people charged, it's the largest-ever federal case involving a Southern California gang, prosecutors say. More than 80 of those indicted are in custody.

But eliminating the gang won't be easy. It's survived for decades and is believed to have about 2,000 members. Its reach extends to Nevada, Arizona and into prisons, where prosecutors say incarcerated gang leaders were able to order hits on black gangsters.

According to the indictment, F13's leader, Arturo Castellanos, sent word in 2004 from California's fortress-like Pelican Bay State Prison that he wanted his street soldiers to begin "cleansing" Florence-Firestone of black gangsters, notably the East Coast Crips, and snitches.

His followers eagerly obeyed, according to federal prosecutors.

In one case, F13 members came across a black man at a bus stop, shouted "Cheese toast!" and fired. "Cheese toast" is a derogatory name for East Coast Crips, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin S. Rosenberg said.

The victim, apparently targeted only because of his skin color, survived being shot several times, Rosenberg said.

F13 isn't the only Latino gang linked to racial killings. Last year, four members of The Avenues, a gang from the Highland Park area east of downtown Los Angeles, were convicted of hate crimes for killing a black man in what prosecutors called a campaign to drive blacks from that neighborhood. And last January, authorities announced a crackdown on the 204th Street gang following the killing of a 14-year-old black girl.

The violence goes both ways, said Adam Torres, a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department gang detective whose beat includes Florence-Firestone.

During a recent patrol on the east side of the neighborhood, he pointed to a cinderblock wall peppered with bullet holes. Torres said the Crips still control that area and any Hispanic there is at risk of being shot.

Despite the wave of violence, George Tita, a criminologist with the University of California, Irvine, said racially motivated gang killings are an exception. Latinos and blacks are far more likely to be murdered by one of their own.

"You don't see these major black-brown wars, either within the context of gangs or outside the context of gangs," Tita said.

Residents of Florence-Firestone are loath to discuss gangs, fearful they might end up as targets, but there are signs of change. Murders in the neighborhood dropped from 43 in 2005 to 19 in 2006, Baca said. For 2007, there were 19 murders as of Dec. 24.

Jose Garcia sees the difference. The security doors on the store where he works aren't covered with graffiti as often and he hasn't heard a gunshot in two months.

"It used to be at least once or twice a week," he said.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articl...gtakedown.html

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The SPLC is notorious for overlooking brown racism. It has to be really bad for the SPLC to take note:

Intelligence Report
Fall 2009

Racist Street Gangs
Latino Gang Members Indicted in Racial Attacks

California law officials display weapons seized in the May arrests.
A Latino street gang in a small city in Los Angeles County waged a campaign of racist violence and intimidation that was designed to drive out the city's African-American residents, according to recently unsealed federal indictments of 147 members and associates of the Varrio Hawaiian Gardens.

Varrio Hawaiian Gardens "gang members take pride in their racism and often refer to the VHG Gang as the 'Hate Gang,'" the indictment that was unsealed in May states. "VHG gang members have expressed a desire to rid the city of Hawaiian Gardens of all African-Americans and have engaged in a systematic effort to achieve that result by perpetrating crimes against African-Americans."

The reputed VHG members are charged with 476 "overt acts" of racketeering, such as murder, attempted murder, weapons trafficking and kidnapping. Among the criminal acts detailed in the indictment is one instance where gang members fired bullets into a home occupied by eight people. It's not clear from the indictment whether anyone was hit.

Additionally, gang members chased a black man while yelling racial epithets and then struck him repeatedly with a garden rake, the indictment alleges. Days later, VHG members allegedly stabbed the same victim several times. He survived.

Sixty-three of the indicted gang members were arrested May 22 in early morning raids. According to U.S. Attorney Thomas O'Brien, the investigation of the Varrio Hawaiian Gardens gang began in 2005, after a Los Angeles sheriff's deputy was shot to death while searching for a VHG member charged with shooting an African-American man.

Latinos vastly outnumber African Americans in Hawaiian Gardens. The 2000 census, the most recent data available, shows that while Latinos make up 73% of the city's 15,000 inhabitants, only 4% are African Americans.

The VHG arrests resulted from the latest in a string of criminal investigations that have found Latino street gangs in Southern California are carrying out organized racist violent targeting African Americans in majority Latino areas.

In late 2006, the Intelligence Report revealed that leaders of the Mexican Mafia prison gang were directing Latino street gangs outside prison walls to carry out ethnic cleansing attacks on African Americans in order to establish purely Latino neighborhoods.

Since then, federal prosecutors have charged members of a Latino street gang in Florence-Firestone, an unincorporated district near the Watts neighborhood in Los Angeles, with conducting a violent campaign targeting African Americans that allegedly resulted in 20 homicides.

Also, four members of The Avenues, a Latino street gang based in Highland Park, a neighborhood located just northeast of downtown Los Angeles, were convicted in 2007 of hate crime murder. They killed a black man as part of an ongoing effort to rid Highland Park of African Americans.

Federal, state and local authorities launched a widespread crackdown on Latino gangs in the Los Angeles metropolitan area after Latino gang members looking for any black person to kill in the Harbor Gateway district of Los Angeles gunned down Cheryl Green, a 14-year-old African-American girl whose murder became a rallying point.

"We have evidence linking inmates who are known as 'shot callers' directly to street shootings based entirely on race," Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca stated after Green's murder. "The shot caller will often order the gunman to find someone — anyone — who is black or brown and shoot them. … Gang affiliation does not matter. Only the color of the victim's skin matters."

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=1079

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The conventional wisdom is that only white people are capable of racism. That's what is taught in school now, isn't it?

I believe the only reason the SPLC is addressing these hate crimes is because the SPLC has been criticized on its obviously biased coverage of racism. Note that this article is posted in it's Hate Watch section, subtitled "Keeping an eye on the radical right".


In Huge Sweep, Authorities Move Against Latino Gang Accused of Campaign Against Blacks

Posted in Anti-Black by Casey Sanchez on May 21, 2009

Nearly 90 members of a Southern California Latino street gang were arrested today for engaging in “systematic efforts to rid the community of African-Americans with a campaign of shootings and other attacks,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

Five indictments unsealed today charged 147 members and associates of the Varrio Hawaiian Gardens street gang with 476 “overt acts” of racketeering that include murder, attempted murder, drug and weapons trafficking, extortion and witness intimidation. The main indictment said that members of the gang “have expressed a desire to rid the city of Hawaiian Gardens of all African-Americans and have engaged in a systematic effort to achieve that result by perpetrating crimes against African-Americans.” The city is reportedly 73% Latino and 4% black.

In a press conference, U.S. Attorney Thomas O’Brien said it was “the largest gang takedown in history.”

The investigation of the Varrio Hawaiian Gardens gang began in 2005, after a Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy was killed while attempting to arrest a gang member charged with shooting an African-American man.

In 2006, the Intelligence Report, published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, reported on Latino gangs’ efforts to carry out “ethnic cleansing” attacks on blacks that were meant to establish purely Latino neighborhoods. The story revealed that gang members were acting of orders from the Mexican Mafia gang. Members of the Avenues, a Latino gang, targeted blacks in Highland Park, an L.A. neighborhood. And last year, Los Angeles police launched a major investigation into another Latino street gang accused of targeting blacks.

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2009/05/21/in-huge-sweep-authorities-move-against-latino-gang-accused-of-campaign-against-blacks/

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‘People of Color’ are All One? Latino Inmates in L.A. Don’t Think So

Black America Web.com, Commentary, Gregory Kane, Posted: Feb 21, 2006

Black Americans are engaged in a race war, but it’s not the one you think it is.

And you can bet our traditional "misleaders" -- the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, the Congressional Black Caucus and Julian Bond and Bruce Gordon of the NAACP -- won’t ever talk about this race war.

If you’ve been reading certain news reports for the past two weeks, you’ll know this particular race war is going on in California. And it involves, in the words of Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, “daily ‘brown on black’ violence,” according to a recent article in The Washington Post.

Yes, the so-called Third World unity, where “people of color” are supposed to have some kind of solidarity simply because they aren’t white, is officially dead. And it should be. Who but silly Negroes ever believed this stuff anyway?

In early February, about 170 Latino inmates at the North County Correctional Facility in Castaic -- which is part of the jail system in Los Angeles County -- attacked 35 black inmates. One black inmate, 45-year-old Wayne Tiznor, was beaten to death.

And that wasn’t the first incident of “brown on black” violence in the Los Angeles County jail. The Los Angeles Times listed several others.

Six years ago, Latinos attacked black inmates and injured 80, leaving one man in a coma.

Black and Latino inmates clashed on Jan. 13 of this year.

Six inmates required treatment after 62 black and Latino prisoners fought it out on Dec. 27 of last year.

On Dec. 4 of last year, 22 more inmates were injured after a fight between 162 blacks and Latinos. Three days later, 12 more were injured after a fight involving 117 inmates.

See a pattern here? Are you starting to wonder why our misleaders are always talking about the unity of “people of color” or why they always refer to blacks and Hispanics as if we’re one and the same race?

Clearly, the Mexican Mafia doesn’t think that way.

The Mexican Mafia has been around a while, since the days of George Jackson, the Black Panther prison activist who was killed in 1971 during an escape attempt from San Quentin penitentiary. Jackson was given a one year-to-life sentence in 1960 for robbing a gas station of $70.

In his famous book of prison letters, “Soledad Brother,” Jackson said that when blacks and whites clashed in California’s prisons, Mexican-Americans regularly sided with the whites. So we shouldn’t be surprised by the following line from a Los Angeles Times story of Feb. 10:

“Investigators said they traced (the) riot to Mexican Mafia gang leaders, who they said ‘greenlighted’ Latino jail inmates to attack blacks.”

Now, you probably know where I’m going to go with this, but it needs to be said. Suppose that news story had read “investigators said they traced the riot to Aryan Brotherhood gang leaders, who they said ‘greenlighted’ white jail inmates to attack blacks.” Do you think we’d have heard from Jesse, Al, Julian, Bruce and our illustrious CBC then?

Of course we would have. They’d have screamed bloody murder, charged that white racism was rampant and, no doubt, found a way to blame President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, the Supreme Court and Jefferson Davis’ mama. But when it comes to “brown on black” violence, we don’t get so much as a grunt from our misleaders.

So far, only two prominent blacks have had the backs of the black inmates in the Los Angeles County jail system, who are outnumbered by Latino inmates by two to one. These brothers must be getting that sinking George Armstrong Custer feeling along about now.

One of those blacks is author, columnist and activist Earl Ofari Hutchinson of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable. According to a Feb. 10 edition of the Los Angeles Times, Hutchinson “called upon political leaders, particularly Latino elected officials, to speak out against the jail attacks. ‘We have got to stop the code of violence,’ he said. ‘The silence by every major Latino leader in the city is troubling.’”

The other prominent black is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Last year, Thomas voted with a minority of two other justices who said that California could indeed segregate inmates by race for security reasons.

Had the five other justices who ruled on the case voted likewise, Wayne Tiznor might still be alive.

http://news.pacificnews.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=f1feed72f7a0a95adbad356eaa95608d

[ilbegone]

This is a study based in the American south. The majority of the "Latinos" in the study are from Mexico, which has been race obsessed for 500 years. The racial classifications of "castes" involve dozens of words to describe race and racial mixture.

Octavio Paz has an interesting take in his book The Labyrinth of Solitude expressed in the chapter Sons of Malinche concerning a racial attitude by "The Mexican" and other Mexicans.

Scholars Ask Why Latinos View Blacks Poorly

by Christina Asquith, July 12, 2006

Latino immigrants often hold negative views of African-Americans, which they most likely brought with them from their more-segregated Latin American countries, a new Duke University study shows.

The study also found that sharing neighborhoods with Blacks reinforced Latino’s negatives views, and reinforces their feelings that they have “more in common with Whites” — although Whites did not feel the same connection towards the Latinos.

“We were actually quite depressed by what we found. The presence of these attitudes doesn’t augur well for relations between these two groups,” says Dr. Paula D. McClain, a professor of political science at Duke University, who led the study along with nine graduate students.

The study, “Racial Distancing in a Southern City: Latino Immigrants’ Views of Black Americans,” is based on a 2003 survey of 500 Hispanic, Black and White residents in Durham, N.C., a city with one of the fastest-growing Hispanic population.

This study reiterated a similar conclusion reached a decade earlier out of Houston, which found that U.S.-born and foreign-born Latinos expressed a more negative view of African-Americans than Blacks expressed of Latinos. In both studies, it’s interesting to note, Blacks did not reciprocate the negative feelings.

However, Duke’s study found that the more educated the Hispanic respondent, and the more social contact they had with Blacks, the less likely they were to harbor negative stereotypes.

“It was interesting that the greater social contact with Blacks, the less they had negative stereotypes,” says Rob Brown, assistant dean of students for Emory College. “I think that’s a pivotal variable, especially for Latino immigrants who are learning English and who have not had much contact with Blacks, who are unfortunately influenced by the American lens and vocabulary of race and what White America has constructed in terms of stereotypes of Backs.” [This appears to be an opinion from an "educator" who commented on the study for the reporter rather than being a quoted part of the study itself. Regardless, it is opinion.]

McClain focused her study on the South because Latinos have only appeared in significant numbers there in the past 10-15 years. Recent and limited research suggests that migration has been encouraged by the 1994 North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement, global economy and an expanding market for unskilled, low-wage workers.

In 1990, Latinos made up 1 percent of the population of the city of Durham. However by 2001, they represented 8.6 percent, even as the city’s overall population also grew. The majority of Durham’s Latino population is from Mexico.

This increase prompted McClain to examine what difference Hispanic integration into the South was going to make on the Black/White dynamic.

“No section of the country has been more rigidly defined along a Black-White racial divide [than the South]. How these new Latino immigrants situated themselves vis-à-vis Black Americans has profound implications for the social and political fabric of the South,” McClain writes.

Among the results: almost 59 percent of Latino immigrants reported feeling that “few or almost no Blacks are hard working.” One third said that Blacks are “hard to get along with.” And 57 percent found that “few or no Blacks could be trusted.”

When Whites were asked the same questions, fewer than 10 percent responded with similar negative attitudes towards Blacks. McClain says that finding came as a positive surprise, and prompted her to conclude that Hispanics were not adopting their negative views from Whites.

The study concluded that most likely Latinos are bringing negative views with them from their home countries. Previous research on race and Latin America found that Blacks “represent the bottom rungs of society” and Duke researchers surmise Latino immigrants “might bring prejudicial attitudes with them,” the study states.

Dr. Ronald Walters, a professor of political science at the University of Maryland, has spent a lot of time in Brazil and calls the study “right on target.”

He also says that although most Hispanics are indigenous, they overwhelming consider themselves as “White” because of the overall negatives associations with being Black in Brazil.

“We’re dealing with a conflict between a Latin American conception of color and an American conception of color,” Walters says.

At the University of California, Davis School of Law, professor Kevin R. Johnson points the finger at Hollywood. He says movies portraying Blacks as gang members and criminals send out a global message that influences foreigners’ expectations when they arrive in the United States.

“These stereotypes are propagated on television and film that are broadcast all over the world,” he says. “We have some foreign judges and lawyers come through UC- Davis School of Law, and I’m surprised sometimes about their stereotypical views and their concern with crime and African-Americans.”

While some have said that such poor relations represent a missed opportunity for two working-class groups to partner politically, a recent Gallup poll showed that Blacks and Hispanics now both share a low opinion of the Bush administration. While Blacks opinion was low during the 2004 election (and has dropped further), Hispanics’ support of Bush has dropped drastically, due to the immigration and other issues, Walters says.

McClain intends to start a larger survey in the next year, and include Memphis, Tenn., Greenville, S.C., and possibly Greensboro, N.C. and Dalton, Ga. She hopes her findings will be more positive.

“If large portions of Latino immigrants maintain negative attitudes of Black Americans, where will this leave Blacks?” she asks. “Will Blacks find that they must not only make demands on Whites for continued progress, but also mount a fight on another front against Latinos?”

— By Christina Asquith

http://diverseeducation.com/artman/publish/article_6086.shtml

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An LA Times Opinion piece by LA Sheriff Lee Baca:

In L.A., race kills

Black-Latino tensions, not gangs, are at the heart of the county's violence, Sheriff Baca says.

By Lee Baca|June 12, 2008

Conversations about race are fraught with emotion, confusion and controversy. But that doesn't mean we should avoid or sidestep the issue.

As a Latino raised in East Los Angeles, and as the elected sheriff of Los Angeles County for the last decade, I have seen many sides of the race issue. I have lived it, in fact.

So let me be very clear about one thing: We have a serious interracial violence problem in this county involving blacks and Latinos.

Some people deny it. They say that race is not a factor in L.A.'s gang crisis; the problem, they say, is not one of blacks versus Latinos and Latinos versus blacks but merely one of gang members killing other gang members (and yes, they acknowledge, sometimes the gangs are race-based).

But they're wrong. The truth is that, in many cases, race is at the heart of the problem. Latino gang members shoot blacks not because they're members of a rival gang but because of their skin color. Likewise, black gang members shoot Latinos because they are brown.

Just look at the facts. In February 2006, our jail system erupted into a full-scale riot involving about 2,000 black and Latino inmates at the North County Correctional Facility at Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic. One black inmate died and numerous others were injured. Through extensive interviews with participants, our investigation revealed that race -- not gang affiliation -- was the motivating factor.

Furthermore, we have evidence linking inmates who are known as "shot callers" directly to street shootings based entirely on race. These shot callers at Pitchess and elsewhere are affiliated with gangs, to be sure, and in many cases they may give the order to kill a particular person or a member of a particular gang. But if that person or gang cannot be found, the shot caller will often order the gunman to find someone -- anyone -- who is black or brown and shoot them instead. Gang affiliation does not matter. Only the color of the victim's skin matters.

I would even take this a step further and suggest that some of L.A.'s so-called gangs are really no more than loose-knit bands of blacks or Latinos roaming the streets looking for people of the other color to shoot. Our gang investigators have learned this through interviews in Compton and elsewhere throughout the county. L.A.'s gang wars have long been complicated by drugs, territory issues or money. Now, it can also be over color.

Race-based violence has even found its way into our school system, although no deaths have been reported. Some say it's always been there, but it certainly is rearing its ugly head now more than ever. Most recently, fighting broke out in May between more than 600 black and brown students at Locke High School in South L.A.

The racial divide is being driven by the ongoing population growth and demographic changes that have buffeted L.A. for decades. The perception that one group has more opportunities and advantages than another can lead to resentment, competition and, ultimately, spontaneous eruptions of violence.

So where does this leave us? How does this information help?

I have begun a process in my headquarters in which analysts are poring over data collected from various sources throughout the county to help us understand exactly what gang crimes are underway -- and where -- in real time. I call it a Gang Emergency Operations Center.

It's about more than just identifying problem areas and moving more police there. In fact, it is not a suppression model at all, but an intervention and prevention model aimed at ensuring that those who need social services get them. Most important, it will serve as a fusion center for sharing information. Such centers -- like the federal Joint Regional Intelligence Center, which combats terrorism -- have more than proved their worth.

But as we gather this data, the race issue must be part of the equation -- because if it isn't, we are not analyzing the data correctly. Crimes with a racial component must be categorized and studied to help us better understand the problem. Racial issues must then be addressed through education and awareness.

The problem of interracial violence is not intractable; we've made progress in other settings. I have seen it on a small scale in the Sheriff's Department's Domestic Violence Prevention Program in our jails.

It happened like this. Inmates with a history of domestic violence -- sometimes known members of opposing gangs -- were forced to attend this program or be remanded to custody for a significant amount of state prison time. Those who agreed to participate would sit together and discuss various topics of interest. They would eat meals together and live together in housing set aside for them.

The program was designed to address issues of domestic violence. But over a period of weeks, the participants overcame barriers by being exposed to those they were supposed to hate. They began to form friendships -- friendships that, in some cases, have lasted outside the jail walls.

This may seem like an insignificant occurrence to those who are uninformed about gang life and racial tension. But it is not. People who would shoot each other as easily as kick a can were taking meals together, talking together and living together without violence.

The better we understand the crisis, the better chance we have of solving it. It is difficult to believe that something as simple as gathering information, analyzing it and then putting it into action -- whether through suppression, intervention or prevention -- will have any effect. But it will. It is a proven formula.

The unification of information, dispassionately collected and analyzed, will lead us toward a disarming of the gang culture. And through disarmament, we will make the streets safer. And that's the whole point.

Lee Baca has been sheriff of Los Angeles County since 1998.

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jun/12/opinion/oe-baca12?pg=3

This opinion piece by Sheriff Lee Baca does not indicate affiliation with or endorsement of any organization or cause.