As the poster-child for the new and improved post-American America, LA is always worth watching – and so the political gyrations regarding redistricting there at both the state and county level are enlightening to observe, especially as the lines begin to be drawn for the 2013 mayoral election.
Untangling all the related manueverings relating to whether or not a second “Latino seat” on the board of supervisors will be created is beyond me and, ultimately, of little interest to non-Angelinos, but the the fundamental lesson is that more than half a century since the civil rights revolution began, the political world remains intractibly racialized.
A majoritarian people can ignore this reality and still survive and prosper, but in our Balkanized, minority-majority world a people intent on denying reality does so at its own peril.
Notes: For more on LA’s redistricting travails, see, for example: Weighing mayor’s race, Yaroslavsky takes risky gambit on Latinos and Ethnic coalition backs Knabe in face of redistricting plan. The LA Weekly has an helpful overview as well: The L.A. County Redistricting Battle Explained — Without Maps!
Finally, if you were wondering about the gay angle, see LA Redistricting Fights Will Be Expensive and Painful for LGBTs
Filed under: LA, Mass Immigration, Race, The Border, urban life, USA
