South Central

I am perplexed by Rick Du Brow's insistence that the pilot Michael Weithorn and I wrote for CBS, "South Central"--which presents an honest portrayal of African-American life--is somehow exploitative because it puts a name on the place and a face on the people who live there ("Letter Campaigns Fail to Save Shows," May 18). And what is downright unsettling is Du Brow's suggested solution that we simply switch our locale to a "generic, unnamed urban setting." I disagree. (Although I find the thought interesting.

When Gary Phillips returns to his old South L.A. neighborhood, it's with an old movie playing in his head. The soundtrack is Sly and the Family Stone, and Funkadelic. The cast includes lots of African American kids like him, in 1960s and '70s hairstyles, with Phillips riding a Stingray bike his "pop" bought for him over at the nearby Sears. He pedals over to South Broadway and the local store, Whitehead's, which is run by a white man with white hair named Whitehead. "He hired local kids to work behind the counter and was a really cool cat," Phillips told me. All this was 40 years ago. It goes without saying that the South-Central of old is only a memory now. Phillips, a detective writer and community activist, moved out in 1987.

Concerning "What Ever Happened to Equal Access for All?" by Robin Y. Deane (May 9): I really enjoy Fox Television's "South Central." In my 26 years of living in South-Central Los Angeles, I have encountered all kinds of personalities, including those of the characters on the show. The truth is that some of us in our slang do use the "N" word. If you are a young black male, growing up here, your life is in peril due to gang violence, the police and drugs. There are many strong black women who, after being laid off, have had to turn to welfare to feed their families.

Controversy is again brewing over the 14-acre plot that was once home to the South Central Farm. When Los Angeles sold the land in 2003 to real estate developer Ralph Horowitz, it required him to donate 2.6 acres for use as a park. For many of the farmers whom Horowitz later evicted from the land, the promise of a park for soccer fields was a silver lining. But now City Councilwoman Jan Perry says the land is not suitable for a park because diesel emissions in the area may pose health risks.

Re "Troops for L.A. War Zones," editorial, Sept. 16: I support putting more police into South-Central and other parts of Los Angeles, but I have two points of contention with the editorial supporting greater taxation to pay for more cops. First, police are not "troops" to occupy a South-Central "war zone." These are our youth, not the legions of Al Qaeda we're talking about. We need police on foot, on bikes and in substations protecting our communities by developing the kinds of relationships that help with crime prevention as well as investigation, apprehension and incarceration.

Anyone who is connected with "South Central," the new television show that purportedly reflects "true lifestyles" of African Americans residing in South-Central Los Angeles, should hang his head in shame. In actuality, what we are asked to digest are the same old stale servings of stereotypes and sensationalism. Of course, the mother is the head of the household, and the father's whereabouts are unknown. Naturally, the mother finds it difficult to support the family and is a potential candidate for welfare.

"Nothing gets me going like the smell of gunpowder in the morning," young Tasha Mosley tells her mother after a pre-breakfast walk through their Crenshaw District neighborhood. And nothing on television quite gets going like "South Central," the bracing, heroically good half-hour series premiering Tuesday night on Fox.

The South Central Community Center will celebrate its first anniversary by sponsoring a free health and education fair Friday. Free blood-pressure screenings and eye, ear and breast cancer exams will be offered from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the center, 7522 S. Vermont Ave. In addition, the center will hold an employment workshop.

One of the awful consequences of Los Angeles' 1992 riots is that in many minds it solidified the reputation of South-Central Los Angeles as a place to flee or avoid, not a place to go to or invest in. While it is certainly true that South-Central has some of the very serious problems that affect most other American inner cities, it also has a positive face that isn't well-known or appreciated.

Bravo for Marcy De Veaux's critique of the media's egregious misuse of the term "South-Central" (Voices, Nov. 23). The site of the tragic murder of Merlin Santana is in the Crenshaw district, near the predominantly black community of Leimert Park, a formerly white enclave that was deemed to be within the boundaries of the Westside when racially restrictive covenants prohibited blacks from residing there up until the 1950s. It wasn't until whites began moving out of areas like Leimert Park en masse in the 1960s that the boundaries of South-Central began miraculously expanding farther westward and the designation became cultural shorthand for any predominantly black (and presumably less desirable)

Twenty years ago this month, a small, hip-hop infused coming-of-age drama set in South-Central Los Angeles called "Boyz N the Hood" was causing extreme reactions from two very different audiences. Written and directed by John Singleton, a brash 23-year-old just months out of USC's film school, and made for a mere $5.7 million, largely with an unknown and untested cast of African American actors, the film had just played May's prestigious Cannes Film Festival where it received a 20-minute standing ovation.

On a sultry summer's eve, the tables in the courtyard of the Alys restaurant at La Veta Inn are crowded with folks lingering after they've finished their meals, enjoying the music of local singer-songwriter Will Dudley. Hold on to your hat when you cross La Veta Pass The wind blows strong in Colorado The cowboy crooner isn't forecasting the weather, but he might as well be, because some in the audience will ride the rails in the morning up to La Veta Pass in search of more live music.

Expanding its reach from two countries to the entire Western Hemisphere, Netflix Inc. will launch its successful online film and television subscription service across Latin America in a bid to maintain its sky-high subscriber growth and stock price. The Los Gatos, Calif., company, which boasts more than 23.6 million subscribers and has become the nation's No. 1 movie rental provider, announced Tuesday that this year it will expand into 43 countries in South America, Central America and the Caribbean but not Cuba.

Once there was a farm in South Los Angeles that sprouted among warehouses and railroad tracks. In the shadow of downtown skyscrapers, avocado trees and beans and tomatillos took root and gave 350 families a bountiful harvest and a gathering place. But the plot of land at 41st and Alameda — estimated at 14 acres — was not the farmers' to keep. Allowed to garden there by the city after it took possession under eminent domain, the land was eventually sold back to a previous owner. The farmers could leave — or buy the property from him for about $16 million.

Bowers and Sons Cleaners on Central Avenue has managed to survive many an ill wind in its more than half a century in historic South-Central L.A. A crack house used to operate across the street. Rioters once showed up determined to burn the place down with Molotov cocktails. The whole casual-dress craze wasn't great for business either. But these days, Vivian Bowers ? the Bowers daughter who now runs the place ? is dreaming big. She's thinking Central Avenue might be on the cusp of a renaissance.

I took an excursion into Historic South-Central Los Angeles last week, using an old tour book that in its day was an essential tool for black visitors to L.A. and many other cities. "The Green Book" is an artifact. First published in 1936, it was meant to aid African American travelers in their journeys across the segregated U.S., by listing places where black people were welcome. "It has been our idea to give the Negro traveler information that will keep him from running into difficulties, embarrassments and to make his trip more enjoyable," the 1949 edition proclaimed in its introduction.

In the 1970s, it was hard times for the Evans family on television's "Good Times." On the Norman Lear-Bud Yorkin situation comedy, the lower-middle-class black family living in a Chicago high-rise housing project struggled weekly to keep their heads above water, despite overwhelming social odds. When actor John Amos, who played the father, left the series, his character was killed off and Florida Evans (Esther Rolle) had to work extra hard to keep her three children on the straight and narrow.

The Letters Column... Your racism shows by insisting that African Americans either share your outrage over "Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam" or keep our mouths shut about "South Central," that by failing to condemn the former, we somehow forfeit the right to denounce the latter. In any event, your argument is specious. You know better than anyone that African Americans have no control over network or cable programming. We are forced to endure dreck like "South Central" and "Def Comedy Jam" because those are the images white programmers accord us. If you have a bone to pick with "Def Comedy Jam," I suggest you take it up with the white people who put it on the air and keep it on the air. Black people don't even subscribe to cable like other groups because many of us can't afford to. If someone proposed a sitcom called "Schindler's List," you'd understand immediately that there's nothing inherently funny about the situation of despised, dispossessed or deliberately isolated people forced to live under circumstances over which they have little, if any, control.

If you're looking to add some percussion to your Kwanzaa, Leon Mobley will host the fourth annual Drum Day Giveaway on the first day of the African heritage holiday. Mobley and Da Lion, Kevin Ricard, drum crews and others aim to build community in Leimert Park (and cause a few parents of aspirant in-home drummers to sigh deeply). Barbara Morrison Community Arts and Performance Space, 4305 Degnan Blvd., L.A. 2 p.m.-8 p.m. Sun. KPFK.org.

At the Sunday market in Kashgar, it isn't a wild stretch to imagine commerce as it might have been in the 13th century when Marco Polo passed through this Silk Road oasis: Smooth-faced boys wrangle with horses, sheep and camels. Mounds of melons and grapes are stacked on the bare wooden planks of mule-drawn carts. A wizened man wearing a skullcap sharpens knives on a lathe operated by foot pedals. But modernity is catching up with a vengeance, as the Chinese government yanks the nation's westernmost city, despite the misgivings of many residents, into the 21st century.