There is a front page story in the Seattle Times about a $1.4 million “emergency” infusion of funds for law enforcement to combat allegedly “surging” Latino gang violence in South King County; this has more to do with perception rather than fact, but since the gang-inspired shooting at a car show in Kent, the locals want something “done” about “them.” There is some hand-wringing from politicians not wanting to try to “arrest” their way out of the problem, although frankly that is what the point of all of this is, for reasons I will get to later.
Gangs have existed in the U.S. since the nation first achieved independence, initially European immigrants relegated to the squalor of overcrowded slums; but because they were white, their eventual assimilation into the wider community was a matter of when, not if. That has not been the case for non-white groups, at least those that have been purposely isolated from the mainstream; even the Times was forced to expose the “dirty little secret” that even the “International District,” populated by a mainly Chinese and Southeast Asian population, has gang and crime problems (in fact the ID is in many ways even more isolated than other non-white communities, with many residents, particularly older ones, never learning English or venturing outside the district; many are also illegal immigrants, and despite the nearby immigration holding facility, ICE units never venture into it). As for Latinos, physical and cultural marginalization dating back to the annexation of formerly Mexican-held territory in the West served as an incubator for gangs. In his book, “A Rainbow of Gangs,” J.D. Vigil notes that Latinos “were located in geographically isolated areas that other settlers and developers had bypassed as less appropriate for habitation, and were further isolated by cultural, racial, and socioeconomic barriers enforced by ingrained prejudices of the Anglo-American community.” Although there is a great deal of attention paid to the connection of drug violence in Mexico and gangs, this is a relatively recent phenomenon, exacerbated by the “relocation” of cocaine distribution from Colombia—an “unforeseen” consequence of the drug wars there in the 1990s—as well as the simple fact that the U.S. is the world’s largest consumer of illegal drugs. The demonization and dehumanization of Latinos in this country in general has had a much longer history.
For centuries in European countries, Jews were marginalized and isolated within ghettos, where their “culture” and “foreign” status was considered a threat to the prevailing national character; these “threats” were often controlled by occasional pogroms, especially during times of national stress when scapegoats were required. In this country, Latinos have usually filled that role, but unlike Jews, they have far fewer avenues in which to escape their “status.” Having little to aspire to outside their communities, “power” is exercised in a patchwork of fiefdoms where outsiders—particularly white—have no authority; police can arrest all the people they want, but as long as white America refuses to see the consequences of marginalizing and isolating these communities—not just socially but economically—nothing will change.
The irony of all of this is that although minority gangs are over-represented, their "exploits" tend to be exaggerated by the media, while white gangs are typically overlooked. There is good reason for this; minority gangs almost exclusively target their own, generally in turf wars or acts of revenge. White observers couldn't care less about these communities or the victims of violence within them, but their paranoid fear--usually unwarranted--of "spillover" into white neighborhoods is what typically heightens the call to action. On the other hand, attention to white gangs are usually relegated to skinheads (although ravers certainly could be classified as such), and only when they commit particularly egregious acts against those who are almost exclusively their victims: minorities. Ditto for anti-government and neo-Nazi militias, who should be classified as violent gangs insofar as they preach violence, but receive little or no attention from the media, law enforcement, politicians and whites generally, unless they do something to "embarrass" them--like tying an inebriated black man to a pick-up truck and dragging him until he was decapitated, or shooting-up a Jewish center.
As it happens, Kent is one of those South King County cities in distress over this matter of gang activity, and it is a perfect example of the shortsightedness of the local gentry in dealing with a problem it in no small way helped to create. I stumbled across a demographic breakdown of Kent, and discovered that there is a special name for Latinos in this so-called city full of pedestrian-unfriendly highways and arterial roads: “Other.” Whites—nearly all of them Republicans, apparently—constitute about 63 percent of the population, Asians 15 percent, blacks 13 percent, Native Americans 2 percent, Pacific Islanders 1 percent, and 6 percent are identified as “other.” There are in fact Latinos in Kent; I've seen them. There is even a Latino community center on Washington Street/68th Street/West Valley Highway. My suspicion is that these breakdowns are not accurate; but in any case, since Latinos constitute the country’s largest minority group, it is telling that Kent doesn’t even grant them the right to be identified as a legitimate demographic they need be bothered with, save by the police.
But this is just one element of the problem with Kent. I was listening to some police spokesperson talking about the gang problems in the city, which I grant may exist because I was mugged by a gangbanger on my way to work (I’ve mentioned this incident before, when the airport ID office people insisted I was lying when I said my ID cord had been torn from my neck, and how they tried to force me to pay a fine for “losing” it—even after they received it anonymously in the mail). However, like Yakima, Kent is a place where problems tend to be exacerbated rather than alleviated, because it makes little or no effort to integrate minorities into the larger community. It’s easy enough to see why; every election year, Republican campaign roadside placards crop-up like so many noxious weeds, even in largely minority neighborhoods (not that many voters in largely minority neighborhoods are fooled; Kent was split between its east and west halves along party lines in the 2008 election). Although 37 percent of the population is non-white, like in Yakima there is not a single non-white member on the city council, because its elections are “city-wide”—meaning that every candidate is elected by the entire electorate rather than by district. Although the candidates are referred to a “non-partisan,” no one is fooled by their true party affiliation.
Thus the only people who have a voice are whites, and minority concerns are uniformly ignored. In Kent, problems in minority communities are only viewed via the outside perception, not the inside reality. It is pretty shocking that a city with such a large minority presence can remain under the thumb of right-wing local politicians, especially when it can only grow and become less "content." But we’ve seen this before—in places like Mississippi, which is 41 percent non-white (37 percent black) but where the hardcore right remains firmly in control, because whites in that state vote solely for their own interests. Gov. Haley Barbour recently had the audacity to claim that he didn’t remember Jim Crow “being that bad,” and defended “Citizens Councils”—virtual political arms of the Ku Klu Klan—as just friendly get-togethers of good-natured “town leaders.”
I admit it isn’t fair to compare Kent’s town leaders with the Klan, and I’m not doing that. But I think it is fair to observe that white Kent seems desperate to maintain its antebellum ways as long as it can, to its own detriment.
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