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Politics in Black and White
This book reaches deep into the past of the city of Los Angeles and carries through to the dramatic events that have recently received global attention--the Rodney King beating and the uprising in South Central L.A. Tracing the evolution of an extraordinary biracial coalition in Los Angeles behind Mayor Tom Bradley, Raphael Sonenshein shows how "crossover" politics and racial violence coexist in urban America. While challenging the prevailing pessimism about biracial coalitions in general, he also compares their relative successes in Los Angeles to their disheartening failures in New York City. What emerges is a probing look at a crucial issue of politics in the United can whites and minorities find common ground?
- GenresRace
352 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1993
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April 15, 2014
Immersed in the machinations of electoral politics, this is both as frustrating and fascinating as the world it describes. It is a very distinct world where ethnicities are understood as voting blocks, success is seen as vote results and longevity in office, and practicalities have to take precedence over principles. These are perhaps definitive of politics -- and this isn't the book to find a discussion of such questions nor of how necessarily compromised electoral strategies can be part of a much larger, broader movement for deep social change. But it is very thoughtful about race and coalition politics within this narrowed frame.
His primary interest is in what makes biracial coalitions work -- based, of course, on his experience in the coalition between African Americans and white liberals that brought L.A.'s first Black mayor to power. From a critical race perspective, the tendency to speak of race and ethnicity in terms of voting blocks makes the anti-essentialist hackles rise a bit – and he even problematizes the monolithic nature of most analyses of such blocks. Interesting that in such analyses, ‘Jews’ are generally always separate from ‘Whites’ and they do have distinct voting patterns, interesting that Blacks are seen as monolithic as well when so many distinct factions have existed historically dividing the vote in such a significant way.
But to the argument: That three factors are crucial in the formation of biracial coalitions (and he does start thinking about how to move beyond the bi- towards multi-racial coalitions): ideology, interest, and leadership. This is quite a persuasive combination. I find it fairly amazing that once upon a time people believed ideology alone could form the only basis for coalition – ‘goodwill and liberal ideology’ seem to be shifting sands (3), just as I find it extraordinary the belief that a bi-racial coalition is impossible.
There’s some interesting political background, particularly in the divisions of the Democratic Party, the political machine run by Jesse Unruh and his ally Dymally in South Central – I know of these two because Unruh helped pass an early anti-discrimination act and Dymally came out of the Congress of Racial Equality and played an important role in State-wide efforts as well…nothing of this other history is in here, simply the role these two played in controlling the Black vote for the democrats and their conflict with the more liberal faction represented by the California Democratic Council, a California-wide group with its LA base primarily among Jews on the West Side organizing in the 1950s to push the party to the left. Bradley, of course, would come to ally with the CDC, but this coalition lay in the future. Yorty, incumbent white mayor, had won with Black support. He found the CDC anathema, while Blacks were generally suspicious and stayed away.
Sonenshein finds the roots of coalition in council district 10, a mixed district that became increasingly mixed through the 50s as the base of middle and lower-middle class Blacks. He quotes previous councilmember in the 8th district Robert Farrell on the difference in Black communities:
The 10th was also home to large liberal Jewish population, a biracial district bridging between the Black 8th and the Jewish 5th. This is the way electoral campaigns see the city. But it’s interesting that physical proximity seems to have been required for this to happen, based in the West Side communities where Sonnenshein notes that whites had helped evade deed restrictions by buying properties and transferring them to Black colleagues. Bradley was one of these, a poor kid who had made it out of the ghetto, always clear about his desire to get out and that maybe explains a lot about his future politics. This book doesn’t get into that though.
Nor does it get much into LA Police Chief Parker – but I want to know all about him and how he ruled the city. There is this, though, from the interview with Bradley himself:
Yorty also seems to have been a key ingredient to coalition building, in being as inflexible as he was and actively refusing to pursue federal antipoverty funds after the Watts riots. In comparing LA to NY and other cities, Sonnenshein notes that other conservative administrations did a much better job of coopting the opposition to some extent with handouts. Yorty refused absolutely, and the lack of patronage made it much easier for the Black-White liberal alliance to form and to stick.
Thus the 1969 campaign for Bradley was more movement than politics. Large numbers of volunteers, decisions made by committee, grassroots fundraising from the base. Bradley was in the lead after the primary, but not enough to win without a run-off. And Yorty beat him. The tactical errors as revealed in campaign realpolitik analysis: Bradley failed to run on a crime and law-and-order policy (calling for police reform instead post Watts) and he stood by a friend heavily involved in the campaign when it was revealed in the nastiest way possible that he had been a communist. To me this raises the key question about where campaigns fit into the larger movement and if it is worth compromising quite this much to win office. Another distressing quote:
Yay racism. There was even a predictive measure developed called the Troubled American Beliefs (TAB) measure based on symbolic concerns over breakdown of law and order and lack of respect for authority. It successfully predicted votes for Yorty. I wonder what it would be predicting today, but it still seems to be greatly in force. He writes ‘From the Watts riot on, the city’s divisions formed around race and ideology. The ideological struggle ultimately involved symbols of social order versus ideals of social justice’ (100). The only thing that frustrates me about this sentence is that social justice had never fully been on the agenda until this time, and that law and order in so many ways was white privilege. But that’s my own take.
Bradley learned from his ‘mistakes’ in the 1969 election, professionalised his operation and raised a lot more money from individual backers and won in 1973 (‘In 1973 they ran a campaign, not a crusade’ (103). There’s an aside that in November 1972, the CA secretary of state dropped thousands of non-voters from the rolls, with devastating impact on the Black community. What the hell was that about? For further investigation, but sounds familiar and I suppose I am not that surprised. Just surprised I’d never heard of it. The intersections of class and race aren’t really discussed deeply, but just their impact on election results is interesting. Class interests were more likely to bring the Black and Latino vote together, while their allies tended to be wealthier whites—and class still split the Black vote:
With reformers winning the upperclass West and the East tending to vote more for the ‘machine’. In the 1970s, this was Dymally and his faction, but of course it later became Bradley.
There is some note in here of business interests, still not enough to my mind, even as Sonenshein is slightly dismissive of Davis’s arguments in City of Quartz saying they are too politically simplistic. He does note the importance of business—particularly developers--as campaign costs skyrocketed. Bradley worked with these interests, and in analysing the political change he accomplished it is quite clear that economic foundations were left untouched by the Bradley victory. His accomplishments are seen as the increase in minority (and women) representation on commissions, in affirmative action hiring, and in an increase in police accountability. Not small things perhaps, but Bradley was in office for five terms. His work with the CCA and CRA on redeveloping downtown only seemed to increase inequality, and he failed to push for and build affordable housing. Sonnenshein notes it was political and social gains made, not economic. And it’s hard to forgive that Bradley essentially presided over the implosion of South Central, which resulted in the 1992 riots. Maxine Waters couldn’t forgive him either.
The convergence of interest between white and black also started to break down after 1985, as personal ambition rose—other people wanted to be mayor already and West Side whites started getting restless. Bradley hung on, but a major financial scandal and the 1992 riots and he was done.
I hadn’t quite realised the importance of Carmichael and Hamilton’s Black Power in theorising coalition building, but of course it makes sense and the liberal model of goodwill needed demolishing. I think Sonenshein does well to argue that a favourable ideology—liberal if not radical—should indeed be added to their argument that self-interest only can serve as a base for coalition. But he definitely makes their case that an organised block--and respect for the power base represented by the interests of this voting block—is required. His discussion of parallels between L.A. where such a block existed and NY and San Francisco – where it didn’t especially—is really interesting and makes a lot of sense in thinking about how the L.A. coalition emerged although the Black population is quite a bit smaller. Sonnenshein also notes that in an expanding LA, there was no competition between these two groups, unlike in East Coast cities. That, of course, has changed to some extent. There are some really fascinating hints to the importance of geography and urban form in understanding these dynamics though they are not examined as such.
Leadership is the third factor in this trio: ideology, interest, and leadership. Bradley’s qualities definitely seem to have been a cementing factor bringing the coalition together – apart from a calming and likeable personality that did not polarise – he was also seen as a man of integrity and one who would support loyalty as well as do things like taking public stands against Black anti-semitism. The way he worked behind the scenes to smooth over things, make things happen, pull strings went a long way.
It is also interesting that politics as the domain of elites is taken for granted really – that it was trust between a diverse set of elites that brought Bradley to power and that this is missing in today’s politics. This is layered on top of the mass mobilization required for electoral success. Sonnenshein writes:
All in all a fascinating book, and a building block for a deeper understanding of how social change takes place. I also have to mention that there is also a fabulous section of maps of L.A. Council Districts from 1965 and how they have changed—and definitely leaves you wanting an analysis of exactly how those changes went down. But that, along with many of the questions this book left me with, require several more books to be written.
His primary interest is in what makes biracial coalitions work -- based, of course, on his experience in the coalition between African Americans and white liberals that brought L.A.'s first Black mayor to power. From a critical race perspective, the tendency to speak of race and ethnicity in terms of voting blocks makes the anti-essentialist hackles rise a bit – and he even problematizes the monolithic nature of most analyses of such blocks. Interesting that in such analyses, ‘Jews’ are generally always separate from ‘Whites’ and they do have distinct voting patterns, interesting that Blacks are seen as monolithic as well when so many distinct factions have existed historically dividing the vote in such a significant way.
But to the argument: That three factors are crucial in the formation of biracial coalitions (and he does start thinking about how to move beyond the bi- towards multi-racial coalitions): ideology, interest, and leadership. This is quite a persuasive combination. I find it fairly amazing that once upon a time people believed ideology alone could form the only basis for coalition – ‘goodwill and liberal ideology’ seem to be shifting sands (3), just as I find it extraordinary the belief that a bi-racial coalition is impossible.
There’s some interesting political background, particularly in the divisions of the Democratic Party, the political machine run by Jesse Unruh and his ally Dymally in South Central – I know of these two because Unruh helped pass an early anti-discrimination act and Dymally came out of the Congress of Racial Equality and played an important role in State-wide efforts as well…nothing of this other history is in here, simply the role these two played in controlling the Black vote for the democrats and their conflict with the more liberal faction represented by the California Democratic Council, a California-wide group with its LA base primarily among Jews on the West Side organizing in the 1950s to push the party to the left. Bradley, of course, would come to ally with the CDC, but this coalition lay in the future. Yorty, incumbent white mayor, had won with Black support. He found the CDC anathema, while Blacks were generally suspicious and stayed away.
Sonenshein finds the roots of coalition in council district 10, a mixed district that became increasingly mixed through the 50s as the base of middle and lower-middle class Blacks. He quotes previous councilmember in the 8th district Robert Farrell on the difference in Black communities:
[In the Tenth,] it’s more diverse patterns of resources and political centers as opposed to South Los Angeles, homogenous black, working-class, church-based. In my perspective, the difference between the integrated community and the homogenous community. It’s cotton socks vs. silk stockings’. (57)
The 10th was also home to large liberal Jewish population, a biracial district bridging between the Black 8th and the Jewish 5th. This is the way electoral campaigns see the city. But it’s interesting that physical proximity seems to have been required for this to happen, based in the West Side communities where Sonnenshein notes that whites had helped evade deed restrictions by buying properties and transferring them to Black colleagues. Bradley was one of these, a poor kid who had made it out of the ghetto, always clear about his desire to get out and that maybe explains a lot about his future politics. This book doesn’t get into that though.
Nor does it get much into LA Police Chief Parker – but I want to know all about him and how he ruled the city. There is this, though, from the interview with Bradley himself:
He did threaten Sam Yorty. One day Parker sent a message over with a package. And they showed that to Yorty and told him he wanted him to shut up and stop criticizing the chief and laid out all these bits of information that they had gathered on him. And we never again heard Yorty criticize Chief Parker. It was well known around City Hall. From that day forward, the day he threw that package on the desk, that was it and it shut him up. (68)
Yorty also seems to have been a key ingredient to coalition building, in being as inflexible as he was and actively refusing to pursue federal antipoverty funds after the Watts riots. In comparing LA to NY and other cities, Sonnenshein notes that other conservative administrations did a much better job of coopting the opposition to some extent with handouts. Yorty refused absolutely, and the lack of patronage made it much easier for the Black-White liberal alliance to form and to stick.
Thus the 1969 campaign for Bradley was more movement than politics. Large numbers of volunteers, decisions made by committee, grassroots fundraising from the base. Bradley was in the lead after the primary, but not enough to win without a run-off. And Yorty beat him. The tactical errors as revealed in campaign realpolitik analysis: Bradley failed to run on a crime and law-and-order policy (calling for police reform instead post Watts) and he stood by a friend heavily involved in the campaign when it was revealed in the nastiest way possible that he had been a communist. To me this raises the key question about where campaigns fit into the larger movement and if it is worth compromising quite this much to win office. Another distressing quote:
Back then, no one knew, as we do today, that polls can be deceptive in biracial contests. Now we would allocate all undecided voters to the white candidate, and no lead short of a rock-solid majority would be considered remotely safe for the first-time Black candidate (93, cites Pettigrew 1988).
Yay racism. There was even a predictive measure developed called the Troubled American Beliefs (TAB) measure based on symbolic concerns over breakdown of law and order and lack of respect for authority. It successfully predicted votes for Yorty. I wonder what it would be predicting today, but it still seems to be greatly in force. He writes ‘From the Watts riot on, the city’s divisions formed around race and ideology. The ideological struggle ultimately involved symbols of social order versus ideals of social justice’ (100). The only thing that frustrates me about this sentence is that social justice had never fully been on the agenda until this time, and that law and order in so many ways was white privilege. But that’s my own take.
Bradley learned from his ‘mistakes’ in the 1969 election, professionalised his operation and raised a lot more money from individual backers and won in 1973 (‘In 1973 they ran a campaign, not a crusade’ (103). There’s an aside that in November 1972, the CA secretary of state dropped thousands of non-voters from the rolls, with devastating impact on the Black community. What the hell was that about? For further investigation, but sounds familiar and I suppose I am not that surprised. Just surprised I’d never heard of it. The intersections of class and race aren’t really discussed deeply, but just their impact on election results is interesting. Class interests were more likely to bring the Black and Latino vote together, while their allies tended to be wealthier whites—and class still split the Black vote:
Roderick Wright, Washington’s precinct coordinator [in the 1975 campaign for 29th senate district], recalled that the socio-political dividing line in the district was Vermont Avenue (Wright interview). The clear division was East Side versus West Side… (125)
With reformers winning the upperclass West and the East tending to vote more for the ‘machine’. In the 1970s, this was Dymally and his faction, but of course it later became Bradley.
There is some note in here of business interests, still not enough to my mind, even as Sonenshein is slightly dismissive of Davis’s arguments in City of Quartz saying they are too politically simplistic. He does note the importance of business—particularly developers--as campaign costs skyrocketed. Bradley worked with these interests, and in analysing the political change he accomplished it is quite clear that economic foundations were left untouched by the Bradley victory. His accomplishments are seen as the increase in minority (and women) representation on commissions, in affirmative action hiring, and in an increase in police accountability. Not small things perhaps, but Bradley was in office for five terms. His work with the CCA and CRA on redeveloping downtown only seemed to increase inequality, and he failed to push for and build affordable housing. Sonnenshein notes it was political and social gains made, not economic. And it’s hard to forgive that Bradley essentially presided over the implosion of South Central, which resulted in the 1992 riots. Maxine Waters couldn’t forgive him either.
The convergence of interest between white and black also started to break down after 1985, as personal ambition rose—other people wanted to be mayor already and West Side whites started getting restless. Bradley hung on, but a major financial scandal and the 1992 riots and he was done.
I hadn’t quite realised the importance of Carmichael and Hamilton’s Black Power in theorising coalition building, but of course it makes sense and the liberal model of goodwill needed demolishing. I think Sonenshein does well to argue that a favourable ideology—liberal if not radical—should indeed be added to their argument that self-interest only can serve as a base for coalition. But he definitely makes their case that an organised block--and respect for the power base represented by the interests of this voting block—is required. His discussion of parallels between L.A. where such a block existed and NY and San Francisco – where it didn’t especially—is really interesting and makes a lot of sense in thinking about how the L.A. coalition emerged although the Black population is quite a bit smaller. Sonnenshein also notes that in an expanding LA, there was no competition between these two groups, unlike in East Coast cities. That, of course, has changed to some extent. There are some really fascinating hints to the importance of geography and urban form in understanding these dynamics though they are not examined as such.
Leadership is the third factor in this trio: ideology, interest, and leadership. Bradley’s qualities definitely seem to have been a cementing factor bringing the coalition together – apart from a calming and likeable personality that did not polarise – he was also seen as a man of integrity and one who would support loyalty as well as do things like taking public stands against Black anti-semitism. The way he worked behind the scenes to smooth over things, make things happen, pull strings went a long way.
It is also interesting that politics as the domain of elites is taken for granted really – that it was trust between a diverse set of elites that brought Bradley to power and that this is missing in today’s politics. This is layered on top of the mass mobilization required for electoral success. Sonnenshein writes:
In short, the difference between Los Angeles’s crossover politics and the polarization model of eastern and Midwestern cities is in part a difference of degree and emphasis. If the two mmodels share a common framework—Black mobilization and unity combined with white liberal support—they differ significantly in the emphasis on each element. Los Angeles represents one ‘bookend’, in which white liberal support is a truly major share if the equation. Chicago represents another, opposite ‘bookend’, in which the overwhelming need is for Black unity, with some small increment of white support. (272)
All in all a fascinating book, and a building block for a deeper understanding of how social change takes place. I also have to mention that there is also a fabulous section of maps of L.A. Council Districts from 1965 and how they have changed—and definitely leaves you wanting an analysis of exactly how those changes went down. But that, along with many of the questions this book left me with, require several more books to be written.
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