Letters to the editor
End racial profiling
The term racial profiling includes targeting individuals based on their actual or perceived race, ethnicity, religion, national origin or immigration or citizenship status. The practice stems from the misconception that certain groups are more likely to be involved in criminal activity, identified solely by their appearance.
The United States has a history of racial discrimination that continues unchecked through the use of racial profiling, from African-Americans being stopped because their presence is “suspicious,” to the profiling of individuals of Middle Eastern appearance, often near airports. Currently there is no federal law in place to protect people from racial profiling.
This form of institutionalized discrimination infringes upon the lives of many Americans and creates a distrust of law enforcement within communities.
On a personal level, it is important to be aware of facts, as opposed to socially constructed stereotypes. On a more formal level, contact your state senators and local Representative and urge them to cosponsor the End Racial Profiling Act of 2011 (S. 1670 and H.R. 3618, respectively).
The proposed legislation prohibits law enforcement agents or agencies from engaging in racial profiling and grants the United States or an individual injured by racial profiling the right to obtain declaratory or injunctive relief. This bill requires agencies that apply for federal grants to certify that they maintain adequate policies for eliminating racial profiling. The act provides funds to educate law enforcement agents on racial profiling issues, and for data collection measures to monitor the implantation of the bill.
Kristen Young
Graduate student, USC School of Social Work
Open letter to USC students
This letter is in response to the “party behavior,” i.e. out-of-control screaming and roaming the streets while drunk on Labor Day Weekend.
Students: What has happened to you? We, who are your neighbors, we, who share your living spaces, grocery stores, restaurants, parking lots, streets and sidewalks cannot understand why you have become examples of the most disgusting trailer trash we have ever seen.
When did your parents teach you that urinating in public on private lawns and having sexual intercourse in private backyards was acceptable behavior? From what recesses of your Neanderthal minds did you dredge up the idea that roaming the streets in packs, yelling and screaming at each other at 1 a.m. was a mark of person on their way to becoming a part of the greater business, intellectual or cultural community?
We are saddened by whatever calamity may have befallen you, and we are amazed that you have chosen to respond to it by embracing behavior that is both gross and repellant to most civilized persons. We even pity your fellow students who have to live with you and see you every day on campus and in classrooms.
USC has gone to great lengths to ensure your safety, meeting with landlords and homeowners in the USC area, asking for our help in protecting you from predatory individuals. They did not, unfortunately, tell us how we can protect ourselves from you. We do not want to think of USC students as hostile invaders trampling our civil and personal rights. But, you may yet persuade us that you are indeed not to be tolerated.
We, as permanent residents of this area are not leaving, and we will not put up with rude, crude, drunken bums careening around our neighborhoods. We live here, we pay taxes and we have LAPD and DPS in our smart phones. It is time for some serious behavior modification on the part of students who seem unable to differentiate between getting an education and alcohol-fueled, swinish behavior.
Shelley Adler
Resident of North University Park
@ Fact Check:
North University Park is a legally defined Planning area North of campus. It is defined as 30th Street to Adams Blvd. and Vermont to Hoover. West of campus is a different neighborhood. For decades USC students would not live West of campus because it was considered unsafe. That attitude encouraged a concentration of USC students in North University Park and the consequent displacement of working people in rental units. There are almost none left.
Within the past few years as USC has grown and the need for student housing has expanded, students are beginning to move into areas West of campus. As a neighborhood in transition there may be some resentment to this. However, North University Park has already changed. It is now almost all campus serving student housing. In recognition of this fact the City of Los Angeles has enacted NSO ordinance number 180218. The NSO (Neighborhood Stabilization Ordinance) addresses the impact of parking in campus serving housing areas. These are facts that can be verified, not mere speculation and opinion.
Thank you at least for recognizing that the word “Ghetto” is perjorative and inappropriate.
@ Jack
Well. I see it in print again. The “G” word: You called the North University Park area a “Ghetto”. I have known for decades that that is how USC students see us. Perhaps that accounts for the rude behavior and alcohol fueled parties. After all, decent standards don’t apply in the Ghetto, do they?
Your calumnious assertion that criminal offenders mentioned in the D T’s roundup section actually live in North University Park are based on speculation, not fact.. I don’t see them in the ‘hood. All of my neighbors are USC students. Your opinions are not facts. USC students have indeed displaced the working class element of North University Park. And they are not coming back. Rents are too high.
And yes, year round North University Park permanent residents are also occasionally victims of crime. But we don’t blame our neighbors. We know that criminals come from far afield to prey on the easy pickings of unaware (and sometimes drunk) USC students. Wise up!
Although I disagree with Jack’s use of the word ‘ghetto’ (unfortunately among students it seems to have become a synonym for a working class neighborhood), your response is ridiculous.
The criminals who affect students’ lives daily aren’t local residents? Even criminals have to live somewhere. I could use the same logic to claim that your assertion that USC students have been loud and disruptive is mere speculation. Perhaps they are imposters from UCLA.
Your claim that you have no working class neighbors is also either a deliberate lie, or a simple gap in your knowledge, similar to your outdated assumptions about USC’s alcohol policy. Even if the residents who live near you are primarily students, the University area as a whole is still dominated by working class folk. One need only walk west of campus to realize this.
Yes, by definition, opinions are not facts. But facts are facts. And these are the facts.
“Working people no longer have a foothold in this area so your information and biases are out of date.” ‘North University Park’, the “working class people” you’re talking about certainly still have a foothold in this area–as University Park so astutely pointed out, “I think that USC students find it similarly disruptive that 300 or 400 of your fellow residents have the annoying habit of stealing our bikes, breaking into our residences, snatching our cell phones, sexually assaulting us, (all of which occupy the Daily Trojan’s Roundup section at least weekly) and occasionally shooting us.”
Shelley, you’re a disgrace. USC makes this decrepit ghetto a much better place to live for everyone around us, and the least you could do is show some gratitude. Sure, we drink–we’re college students, it’s what college students do. Our drinking is far less problematic than your community’s rampant criminality, theft, and violence.
@ Fact Check:
FYI :
I don’t have any lower income neighbors, unless you mean the students. I used to but the working class neighbors have all been displaced by student housing. Ignoring and circumventing L A’s rent control ordinances, all the so called lower income residents have been displaced by greedy developers who can rent the same units to students at triple the rate. Working people no longer have a foothold in this area so your information and biases are out of date.
I take no pleasure in other’s suffering and I have not opined on whether USC is a nuisance or blessing to the community. However, facts are facts. The lack of available street parking affects everyone, All residents and visitors jockey for position for limited free street parking spots.
The current trend is to convert 2 BR 4 plexes into 4 BR 4 plexes without providing any extra off street parking. So where once there had been a need for 8 (at a minumum) parking spaces there is now a need for 16. Free street parking also benefits USC Commuter students who avoid paying a premium for sky high USC parking structure fees.
You are right about one thing. I may have been out of date about the ROW alcohol policy. That was once the case.
But the cat is out of the bag. Alcohol fueled revelries in North University Park are out of control and USC and DPS turn a blind eye to them.
There is no ban on alcohol on the Row! Please, you people are so stupid it is scary….
To “University Park:”
I had to cringe a little when I read that “opening your driveways and charging $20” was seen as a community benefit. Think about it. That means that no other street parking is available because it is all taken up by game fans parking for free. For years year round residents have had to plan their own events around game day schedules. It is not much better on non game days. One can’t even have a dinner party any more because there is no place for guests to park.
The real problem is USC’s hypocritical attitude regarding alcohol. When USC banned alcohol on the row decades ago the fraternities simply moved their alchohol fuled revelries into the surrounding community and the USC administration turned a blind eye. No alcohol on the row, problem solved. Now the practice is so entrenced that it is impossible to change it.
I would like to see alcohol back on the row and out of the community.
I think many of your lower-income neighbors would disagree with your point that being able to charge $20 per car on gameday is not a benefit to them.
All California residents pay taxes that contribute to the maintenance of public streets, and as such, have the right to park on them where legal. Residents with houses on particular streets have no special privileges there. Maybe it sounds unfair to you, but it’s the way it is. You have the same right to park on streets adjacent to student apartments if you wish, and then watch them struggle to find parking near their residences. Perhaps their suffering would bring you peace.
I have to point out, though, that unlike many of your neighbors, you seem more concerned about having dinner parties than having dinner, so you might not be the best community representative to speak to whether USC is a nuisance or blessing to the community. The $400 million in economic output per year to the local community that otherwise wouldn’t be there is hard to argue with.
To clarify your point about alcohol on the row, it is not banned there. I’m not sure where you’re getting your information.
Shelley: please stop acting as if your proximity to USC provides you nothing but hardship.
In fact, your proximity to USC increases the value of your property, provides you with an increased level of security (as you said, DPS is ‘in your smart phone’), and serves as an economic boon for the surrounding area.
USC students patronize local small businesses and participate in community service projects to help improve the lives of local citizens. The Joint Educational Project, for example, allows USC students to provide academic help to students in local schools.
Students, too, pay taxes (sales tax is 8.75%) and provide LAPD with a preying ground to collect fines for minor infractions such as riding bikes through intersections. This money flows back into the surrounding community to fund public works projects and other services.
It is because USC is here that residents in the surrounding area can open up their driveways on gamedays and charge $20 per car for parking.
Without USC students in your area, you would not have DPS in your smart phone, because DPS would not be in your area either. And without DPS’s ever-watchful eye, you’d likely have much more serious and annoying issues than a small subset of USC’s 37,000 students acting inconsiderately every once in a while.
Before characterizing USC students as ‘swinish’ and ‘disgusting trailer trash,’ perhaps you should consider whether you would rather live in this area without USC’s presence. If we really are swine, then swine have been getting a bad rap.
Nobody is trying to excuse the inappropriate behavior of tens of our tens of thousands of students, but USC certainly provides more benefits to its surrounding community than drawbacks. Hopefully this is a fact that you recognize.
Shelley, on behalf of my fellow students, I apologize for any inconveniences we may occasionally cause you and other local residents. We look forward to continuing to make University Park a better place to live through our affiliation with USC, which has been proud to call South Los Angeles home since its founding in 1880.
I am so glad to find that there are some USC students (such as you) who actually take pride in responsible behavior and are put on the defensive when it is pointed out that some of your co-students do not live up to the standards that are usually integral to any civilized society.
Whether or not the area is better or worse off because of USC has been debated for years.
Regardless of the answer to that question, the drunken and disruptive behavior of about 300 or 400 your fellow students in a residential neighborhood was unacceptable by any standard that propounds that everyone benefits if we all have some consideration for the needs of others. Public drunkenness and disorderly conduct are not condoned; they are, in fact, illegal. Even you do not condone it…since you apologized on behalf of your fellow students. We would love to have USC students make this a more pleasant neighborhood. You may well be a student who could help do that and I hope that you will.
I think that USC students find it similarly disruptive that 300 or 400 of your fellow residents have the annoying habit of stealing our bikes, breaking into our residences, snatching our cell phones, sexually assaulting us, (all of which occupy the Daily Trojan’s Roundup section at least weekly) and occasionally shooting us. These types of behaviors, like disorderly conduct, have no place in civilized society.
Yet, no USC students are writing open letters to all local residents, blaming them for this ‘swinish’ behavior. We do not claim that all local residents have ‘Neanderthal minds.’ We understand that this kind of behavior is limited to a minuscule subset of the surrounding community, and does not represent the community as a whole.
This is the root of my frustration about your letter. You do not give USC students the same courtesy.
I can’t believe that you would even suggest that there is a legitimate debate regarding whether the community is better or worse because of USC’s presence. The facts speak for themselves.
The rowdy behavior has been observed and documented for years. Unfortunately, despite USC administration assurances, it is not getting any better.
When they banned alcohol on the Row and the alcohol fueled parties moved into the neighborhood, that’s when it started.