#laist

[macmanx]

My top podcasts of the year!

[mstornadox]

Yeah, I’m excited about LAist’s Queer LA project. Top reason being their focus on queer joy

[calochortus]

Trail at Hollywood Reservoir, California by ChrisGoldNY

[palmtreepalmtree]

I hate it when I'm talking to someone in a social situation, usually a semi-stranger, and they bring up something that is not quite political, but makes clear exactly where their politics are. I think I'm a pretty well-informed person. I read a lot of news from decently reliable sources (though I also bring a healthy skepticism to that too). But whenever I'm in this situation, I can never remember for the life of me where I read a thing or how I know it.

A good example of this is that they are building a wildlife bridge in the west valley to try to help mountain lions and other animals safely cross the 101 freeway which has been historically very deadly to them. The cost of the project is currently at $92m, but the vast majority of the funding is from non-profit fundraising and major grants. It's not a traditional Caltrans project.

Recently several people have complained to me about this project without knowing that it's primarily not tax-payer funded. When I tell them, they don't seem to believe me. And then they also make a snide comment like, "I don't know how the mountain lions are going to know they're supposed to use the bridge."

And like... I don't know either ma'am, but I'm not a scientist or wildlife expert. I'd like to think that if they're willing to fund raise nearly $100 million for something, that they have some idea beyond just a wing-and-a-prayer that it will work. BUT ALSO if you're skeptical about something LOOK IT UP.

I feel like people sometimes just want to complain without actually knowing anything. They think something is common sense when it's absolutely not common sense. And I hate that I can't cite my sources in the moment even though I know that I know. And I particularly hate this when their exact political bias is so fucking obvious. Like if we can't even talk about something that is not highly politicized, how are we going to talk about the much harder things that matter?

[gentlebeardsbarngrill]

05/20/2024 Daily OFMD Recap

TLDR; Cast & Crew Sightings; David Jenkins; Taika Waititi;Vico Ortiz; Rachel House; Kristian Nairn; SaveOFMD Event Calendar; Fuckery Reminder; Adopt Our Crew/Articles; Watch Party Reminders; Voting; Emmy4RhysDarby; In Person Events: PA: Calypso's Birthday Part Two; Fan Spotlight; MerMay; Love Notes; Daily Darby/ Tonight's Taika

= David Jenkins =

Just a lovely artsy photo with David's lovely girlfriend Kinga.

Source: David Jenkins' Instagram

== Taika Waititi ==

Taika is still out and about in Japan! He got several pictures while he's been there! (PS: Where is our Taika In Japan Series)

Source: Chimichangus Instagram / JensenDiedrich's Instagram

= MORE TAIKA NEWS =

Apple TV has officially announced the date for the TV adaptation of Time Bandits (Which is Taika and Jemaine's new baby!)

Custard TV Article

Entertainment Weekly Article

== Vico Ortiz ==

Vico's excited for this upcoming weekend at Phoenix Fan Fusion! May 24-25-2024. For more info visit phoenixfanfusion.com!

Source: Vico Ortiz' Instagram Stories

== Rachel House ==

Rachel posted lots of family and friends pics with the title: "Legend portrait series…"

Source: Rachel House's Instagram

= Kristian Nairn =

More photos of Kristian's performance at Basingstoke Comic Con! Courtesy of Dan_Clarke_Photography!

Source: Kristian Nairn's Instagram

== Save OFMD Crew Calendar ==

Reminder! Tomorrow is time for a Fuckery! Join the SaveOFMD Crew for some polite menacing with the hashtags #WelcomeToMax #DontGetAttached! Instagram / Tumblr Info

== Adopt Our Crew / Articles ==

Our dear friends over at Adopt Our Crew shared an article from Laist about scripted TV! Please visit their twitter if you have access! You can check out the article below:

Less Scripted Content A Common Theme As Networks, Streamers Pitch Advertisers At The Upfronts

Our crewmate @ meowzawowza_ on twitter was kind enough to share more articles regarding scripted TV going on right now.

ICYMI: Scripted TV's Vanishing; YouTube Stars Snub Showbiz; Rushfield's Hope

== Watch Party Reminders ==

Dates: May 20 - 26, 2024 Times: 3:30 pm PT / 6:30pm ET / 11:30 pm BST The #RhysDarbyFaction will be hosting OFMD Season 1 on the RDF Discord Server. Don't have access? Reach out to me on @gentlebeardsbarngrill on tumblr, or @aspirantabby42 on twitter.

== Voting ==

More of our dear crewmates have found another voting opportunity for folks to weigh in on. If you visit the link below, you can choose to Stream it, or Skip it! We think you know which one to choose! Buzzfeed - Underrated TV Shows

Thank you to @ norakitty9 on Twitter for the link!

== Emmy 4 Rhys Darby ==

As you've seen floating around, various crew members are trying to help get Rhys Darby nominated for an emmy! Attached below are several graphics you are welcome to use! You don't need to credit anyone, just use them liberally with the hashtag #Emmy4RhysDarby! Graphics Google Drive

== In Person Events: PA : Calypso's Birthday Part Two ==

Hey crew! Are you in the area of Millvale, PA (greater Pittsburgh area)? Well if so, please consider stopping by Harold's Haunt this Saturday May 25th from 6pm-12am! They'll be hosting Calypso's Birthday Part 2!

They were kind enough to give me lots of info on previous birthdays as well as the upcoming one with more info! Thank you @ringasunn for all your help with this!

Please visit the repo event document for more information!

== Fan Spotlight ==

= Cast Cards =

Tonight's cast card is the Red Flag Crew's foreperson! Thank you @melvisik for spotlighting Ma'aola Faasavala!

== OFMD Colouring Pages ==

Oooo tonight we have the iconic first raid of Stede Bonnet! Thank you @patchworkpiratebear!

Source: PatchworkPirateBear's Tumblr

= Our Flag Means Fanfiction Podcast =

New episode of Our Flag Means Fanfiction! This week is "The Ed Teach Episode"! Wanna give it a listen? Visit their linktr.ee!

Source: Our Flag Means Fanfiction Instagram

= MerMay =

= Blueberreads =

More pixel art from our talented crewmate @blueberreads! I love that we get Chaos Dad rowing back with a bunch of mannequins! I can just hear the yelling!

Day 19: Rowboat / Day 20: High On A Rocky Ledge

= Snejpowa =

More lovely submissions by the super fantastic @snejpowa! Some "Could have beens" in the rowboat to China! Also loving all the versions of flags we're getting! Day 19: Rowboat / Day 20: High On A Rocky Ledge

== Spencer Does Art ==

More Mermay submissions from our delightful crewmate @spencerdoesartt on Instagram! I'm digging their sweet style and vivid colors! Check them out below!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by spencer (@spencerdoesartt)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by spencer (@spencerdoesartt)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by spencer (@spencerdoesartt)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by spencer (@spencerdoesartt)

== Love Notes ==

Wow! Today was a busy day in the fandom! I feel like Mondays always are, but today feels particularly busy! There's so much going on, and everyone seems to be having such a great time with the new press release photos that were found yesterday!

It's so lovely to see this kind of energy and love being injected back into the fandom. I was mentioning this to a friend recently... that it feels almost like OFMD itself is a giant puzzle that we all have access to, and every time we think we're nearing completion of it, some cool new footage, bts, stills, information, interviews, anything-- shows up and suddenly we have all these new pieces to fit into place.

The puzzle is never really finished, but it gets bigger and more intricate with every discovery, and I absolutely love spinning the pieces around and seeing where they fit with all of you.

Whether you are brand new to the fandom, somewhat seasoned, or an ofmd fandom elder, I hope you know that you bring so much joy to this place! I know sometimes we have our spats between fans, but what family doesn't have those? We have so many talented, brilliant members on this crew, and I love coming back online every day and getting to fit another piece into the puzzle with you.

I hope you all are having fun crew, because that's what fandoms are all about. Remember to take a break if you need to, and scream loudly all your love if you feel up for it. We love hearing it <3 Happy Murray Monday lovelies!

== Daily Darby / Tonight's Taika ==

Happy Murray Monday all! Tonight's theme is Flight of the Conchords (with Murray Hewitt and Larry Pritchard)!

Gifs courtesy of the fantabulous @ fandomsmeantheworldtome and @ semisweetshadow!

[alpaca-clouds]

The Question For Queer Representation

2024 surprises me in so far, that we finally seem to have reached the point where we can talk a bit more clearly about the question of queer representation.

Now, this seems to be a topic where we still very much see the difference between younger people within the community and older ones. Because the conversation is mostly driven by millenial and Gen X queers - while some of Gen Z and younger will still often insist on needing "Good Representation".

But I thought towards the end of this year's strange Pride Month, in which there was so little pinkwashing, I want to talk about this a bit. Even though I have spoken about this before.

Finally Some Toxic Gays

During those laIst two years something has happened. Not only did we see a sharp increase of queer representation in media, but we also got a lot more diverse queer representation. There is still a lot of cute and fluffy stuff, but also a lot of shitty and toxic gays with tons of bad habbits, that never the less are allowed to be the protagonists or otherwise important characters in their stories.

I took some characters I could think off in the picture above. And yes, I will admit, that I am mostly watching animated stuff, which shows above. Mostly because the more fantasy-oriented stuff tends to be animated. And yes, also because animated stuff is somehow a lot more openly queer.

But we got quite a lot either toxic, unhealthy or otherwise "problematic" gay characters. Be it those who betray their partners, or those who are abusive (Lestat in IWTV, Malcolm in Captain Laserhawk). Be it people who gaslight and manipulate (like both Carmilla and Olrox from Castlevania). Or be it those survivors of abuse, who have developed a lot of toxic coping mechanism (like Angel Dust or Astarion).

And I really got to say: This is good. It is actually good. At least in the context that it appears in now.

Gays Don't Need To Be Perfect

Now, it should be noted that of course - especially here on tumblr - quite a lot of people have complained about this. Like there are several blogs about each of the characters above and how they are horrible and the worst thing to happen to queer representation ever and such. As well as people who ignored several trigger warnings at the beginnings of episodes, only to then complain about being triggered. (This showed so very much with Hazbin Hotel Episode 4. Because that episode had a Trigger Warning.)

The one I found most interesting in terms of the anti-discourse was Astarion, though, probably. Because a lot of the discourse about him - outside being a toxic queer man - was also very much about how he was not a perfect victim. Sure, they did also complain about the other stuff and did not use the words "perfect victim", but it was surely implied in some blogs I saw. Basically using both the entire story with the Gur and his learned toxic behaviors to say: "He is not only bad queer representation, but also bad for sexual abuse/sex trafficking survivors." Which... is of course ironic, given that especially in terms of the latter he is a lot closer to reality than any innocent honey-bu would be.

And this is a big thing. See, here is the thing: In the real world, a lot of queer folks are messy. Because a lot of us are traumatized from the queerphobia that is so very present in society. So many of us have been abused for our queerness by parents, classmates and teachers. A lot of us do have mental health issues - and statistically we are also more likely to be neurodivergent to begin with. So many of us have learned quite a few bad coping mechanisms.

So, yes... This is just something that is fair to depict as well. Because the world is not that easy, if we are honest.

The Numbers Game

Now, if those shows and games had come out 10 years ago, I might have well deriled them as well. Not just because I was a lot younger then and had a very different idea of what made for good representation, but also because the numbers out there were different.

10 years ago, we barely had any queer representation. And back then, yes, it was very, very noticable to a lot of folks that most queer characters we got to say, were either shown to be shitty people, or would simply die or have a very miserable storyline with a lot of death and such things.

I will remind you: The Korrasami reveal, that was so important for studios/channels/services realizing that actually they could get away with a lot more than they had previously thought, happened in December 2014. The finale of the first season Steven Universe, where we got the Ruby/Sapphire reveal, happened a bit later in 2015.

Again, yes, those are animated examples, but... Well, it did not look better in terms of live action shows. While those (due to having older audiences) might have had their token queer character, this character often was either a stereotype, died, or was living a miserable life with no resolution.

And now? Well, now we can have the toxic gay vampires - be they named Lestat, Olrox, or Astarion - and we also can have sweet, fluffy queer representation in other shows, like Heartstopper. And it is good to have both of them. We deserve both.

The Missing Rep

I wrote an essay last year about this, but because tumblr's search is shit, I cannot find it again. So I will just put this out here again. Because I noticed an issue here - and you should notice the same issue if you look at the picture above.

The toxic queer characters right now are very much mostly men. Partly, because gay and bi/pan men make up a very large part of queer representation, especially in adult media. While I can name you quite a few fluffy, kidfriendly shows with lesbian or bi/pan female characters, the adult media often focuses more on queer men. And even if there are queer women, those are often a lot more wholesome, compared the men.

I mean, I think that Euphoria (which I don't watch) focuses more on queer young women, who are kinda shitty, but... Yeah, exceptions to the rule.

Now, we can speculate why this is. I personally still think that part of it has to do that sapphic women are seen as more innocent for several reasons. For one, we tend to portray women as more passive and innocent either way than men. But also, there is the fact that especially sapphic women are seen as a lot more innocent in total, because "they don't have real sex" (according to some people). As there is still the stigma that sex needs to involve at least one cock to be real sex.

And yeah, it should be noted that of course all the other types of queer representation are still lacking especially in Western media. We have little in terms of trans representation (especially trans men are super underrepresented), basically no intersex representation, and aroace representation is also quite lacking.

Conclusion

I think right now, we are making really good strides when it comes to at least certain types of representation. We get to see queer charactres in so many shows, movies, and games right now. Not to speak of books and comics. And this is good. No, not all the representation is perfect, but given that we get quite a lot it does not need to be.

No, having characters be toxic, depressed or otherwise not perfect does not make them bad representation. Because there are a lot of toxic, depressed and otherwise not perfect queer people in reality. And that deserves to be represented as well.

Yes, we need more representation of certain groups of queer people. Again: Trans folks, especially trans men, intersex people and aroaces do deserve more representation. Both the fluffy kind and the dramatic bitch type.

But... I really think folks need to stop complaining when queer characters in media are not perfect. It is okay for them to not be perfect. Real queer people are not either.

[yamujiburo]

May I ask what podcasts?

I love Marketplace, it’s a 30-min daily news podcast with an easy to understand approach to economics in everyday life

I was also trying to get Kiana to listen to “K-Pop Dreaming” by LAist, which is about what influences made kpop the popular genre it is today, told through the narrative of a Korean-American actress

kinda nerdy stuff :)

-Mils

[citizenscreen]

Henry's restaurant on Hollywood Boulevard, which opened in the mid-1920s and was owned by silent film actor Henry Bergman, and financed by Charlie Chaplin. According to LAist this was the first Hollywood restaurant to stay open past midnight.

[unhonestlymirror]

Ieklausies Ģenoveva (Listen, Ģenoveva)

Es gribu būt tavs nelabais (I wanna be your bad guy)

Nelabais labu labais (The best bad guy)

Tāds, kuru žēl ir projām laist (the one that is a pity to let go)

Paskaties Ģenoveva (Look, Ģenoveva)

Vai esmu es slikts nelabais (Am I that bad?)

Padodies Ģenoveva (Give up, Ģenoveva)

Es esmu tāds kā elle skaists (I'm handsome as hell)

[macmanx]

“Without giving her time to comply, deputies aggressively tackled Huang to the ground, causing her injury,” according to a statement from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Huang suffered multiple injuries, including scrapes and bruises to her knees, ankle and face, as well as emotional distress.

In a draft complaint, her lawyers wrote that “the force used was wildly out of proportion to that needed to effectuate the arrest of Ms. Huang, who, at 5’5 and 122 lbs., was far smaller than the multiple deputies who tackled her, posed no physical threat, and had not committed any crime.”

Huang’s settlement is one of the largest in the nation to an individual reporter whose rights were violated while covering the 2020 protests.

[karen4theppl]

Gondola Project Moves Forward

Metro Board of Directors moves the project forward to build a gondola that Los Angeles Parks Alliance says would cause “irreparable harm” to the Chinatown area. On Thursday February 22, the board voted 11-0 to certify the environmental impact report (EIR), moving the project to Caltrans, LA City and other government departments for approval.

While residents resist the gondola project, a handful of protesters attended a book signing on March 25th at LACC that featured Frank McCourt, who funds the company that proposes the gondola, according to L.A. Times. 

“Read the book,” said McCourt, in response to an audience member asking him to address the residents who would be affected by the proposed gondola. The Collegian reached out but, the McCourt Foundation did not respond to requests for comment. 

““It would ultimately turn Chinatown into the Dodger Stadium parking lot,” says Stop The Gondola member Tany Ling. “People are going to drive to our community, to Union Station,” and park near the entrance to the Gondola before taking the trip up to the stadium. Rather than reducing traffic as a whole, the project could end up redistributing cars away from the bottlenecked entrances to the stadium, into the Chinatown residential areas instead. 

“I think it would be a disaster for our communities near LA Historic,” says Xochitl Manzanilla, Chinatown Residential Representative for the Historic Cultural North Neighborhood Council. According to CBS News, the idea of the project is to transport 5,000 people per hour in a seven-minute trip from Union Station to Dodger Stadium, to allow some people to opt for this type of transit instead of driving. Los Angeles Aerial Rapid Transit, the organization behind the project, claims that this would reduce traffic. 

Critics point out that the Dodger Express already uses buses to transport fans who take the train to Union Station up the hill to the stadium. According to the news site Knock.la the gondola cars would fly only 40 feet above buildings and residents’ heads. Knock.la says that if the project runs over budget, the organization might ask to use  taxpayer money to complete the project. The project requires cutting 80 trees out of Elysian Park and LA Historic Park. 

According to Statistics Atlas and Census.gov, Chinatown is a majority Asian, minority Hispanic neighborhood with $27k median annual household income, less than half the average for L.A. County. LAist points out, this is not the first construction project to target an under-resourced non-white community. 

In 1959, right before Dodger Stadium was built, the Latine neighborhoods Chavez Ravine, Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop were violently repossessed by eminent domain and  destroyed, detailed in an LAist article updated on May 1st, 2023 by Elina Shatkin. Throughout the 1950s, city officials and developers used eminent domain or lowballed residents of the Hispanic neighborhood to take their homes and land. In 1957 only 20 families remained. And On Friday, May 9, 1959, cops showed up with heavy machinery to evict them and bulldoze the neighborhood. 

This is in sharp contrast to the plan to build the 710 freeway over a white neighborhood in South Pasadena, just a few miles from Chinatown. According to the LA Times, wealthy residents shut the project down, forcing truck routes to reroute through Asian and Latine Alhambra. BIPOC Angelenos near the 105 and 110 freeways suffer from the dangerous air quality created by the freeways that were constructed through their neighborhoods. 

The Guardian recounts the history of LA’s Pacific Electric “red cars” and the Los Angeles Railway “yellow cars”, which saw their last trip in 1961. Oil and Real Estate developers built the system starting in 1901, to allow the selling of land to Angelenos throughout the Los Angeles Basin. At its peak it was one of the largest transit systems in the world. 

In 1956, President Eisenhower signed the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, to allow the military to move throughout the country and create suburbs, according to Archives.gov. National City Lines, a cartel of oil, tires, and car companies had been buying up and dismantling transit systems in many US cities like LA for years. The combination of these factors lead to an almost complete transition to Car infrastructure in L.A.

LA Times reporter, Matthew Fleischer calls the Los Angeles freeway system “one of the most noxious monuments to racism and segregation in the country.”

[ericdeggans]

Archiving my work in a new place called Authory

When you’re a journalist creating content for many different outlets, sometimes, it’s tough to create a place where all your work can live and be easily accessible.

That’s why I decided to try a new platform called Authory, which places most of my stuff in one, searchable archive where anyone – especially me – can get a good sample of what I’ve been up to at any given time.

Right now, that means all my work for NPR, both on the radio and as print stories on the website, plus guest interviews I do for KCRW’s The Business radio show and podcast, my recent guest host stint on Tampa PBS’ politics show Florida This Week, interviews I’ve given to NPR member stations like LAist, WABE and WNPR, TV appearances on CNN or MSNBC, the often weekly TV talk segments on NPR’s midday show Here and Now, references to my book Race-Baiter, and freelance work I do for outlets like IndieWire and Columbia Journalism Review.

It's still under construction now – the platform is still aggregating material and I’m not sure yet how useful this archive will be. But if you’re curious to see what it all looks like in one spot, click here and check it out. Also, feel free to let me know what you think of it!

[ausetkmt]

LAist: Palm Springs Leaders Put Reparations Plan For Evicted Black And ...

A ‘city-engineered holocaust’

Putting the brakes on reparations

‘The city cannot afford a $2 billion payment’

‘This story is not going away’

Rejecting an accusation of bias

Plans for a reparations program to recompense Black and Latino families forcibly evicted from their Palm Springs homes decades ago have put on hold.

The Palm Springs city council last week voted 3-2 to not move forward with a one-year, $500,000 contract with Columbia University to conduct historical research on the mass evictions and help develop a reparations program for families who lost their homes in the neighborhood known as Section 14.

Citing concerns over cost and the researchers’ objectivity, the three councilmembers who killed the contract with Columbia decided to focus for now solely on historical research, not reparations.

The lawyer representing the evicted residents and their descendants called the council vote “offensive” and vowed to continue fighting for compensation.

Palm Springs Mayor Grace Elena Garner, who voted in favor of the Columbia contract, said she is “very concerned that this will continue to go on and on and never actually be resolved.”

A ‘city-engineered holocaust’

Section 14 is a one-square-mile area adjacent to downtown Palm Springs that was once home to about 1,000 people, mostly non-white residents who could not own property elsewhere. They built homes on plots of land leased short-term from the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, on whose reservation much of Palm Springs sits.

Between the 1950s and 1960s, Section 14 residents were forced out and their homes destroyed as the area became more attractive to developers, especially after a 1959 federal law made long-term leases on tribal land possible. The city worked with court-appointed conservators to carry out the evictions.

Residents were not paid for their losses. A 1968 report from the state Attorney General’s office characterized the operation as a “city-engineered holocaust.”

Last year, a group of former residents and descendants filed a claim against Palm Springs; their attorney cited damages possibly exceeding $2 billion.

The city formally apologized to Section 14 survivors in 2021. Late last year, Palm Springs put out a request for proposals for “reparations program services” and received two bids, one from Columbia University.

Putting the brakes on reparations

The proposal called for a consultant to examine and verify the historical context of what occurred; it also called for “developing a reparations program to enhance the quality of life for those affected by this displacement.”

That second part has now been put on hold. Amid questions from various councilmembers about the cost of reparations, the objectivity of the researchers, and whether the former residents of Section 14 could prevail in court, the council voted last Thursday to scrap the existing request for proposals and start over.

The city now plans to issue a new request for proposals seeking a contractor to focus exclusively on the historical research portion, then afterward decide how to proceed with reparations.

“With no disrespect to anybody, I don’t think the [request for proposals] was written correctly,” Mayor Pro Tem Jeffrey Bernstein, one of the contract’s three opponents, said at the meeting. “Because we should have set it up just to have objective historical context in the beginning, as one proposal.”

Councilmember Ron deHarte, who also voted against the contract, said he felt the existing request for proposals made it appear that “step two,” meaning a reparations program, was already a given.

“It gives an impression that we are doing step two before we are doing step one,” he said.

The three councilmembers who voted not to move forward with the contract said while they support the Section 14 families and the need for reparations, they want more information before they move on.

‘The city cannot afford a $2 billion payment’

Bernstein also expressed concern about the potential cost of reparations.

“Obviously, the city cannot afford a $2 billion payment because there wouldn’t be a city,” he said.

Councilmember Lisa Middleton asked City Attorney Jeffrey Ballinger what the former residents’ chances might be of prevailing in court if the case went to litigation.

Ballinger responded that based on the time that has elapsed, along with a 1960s state “test case” in which the court found the city “had not done anything wrong” — the odds would be in the city’s favor.

“I think that the claimants would have a difficult time obtaining a judgment against the city,” Ballinger said.

Middleton joined Bernstein and deHarte in voting against the Columbia contract.

‘This story is not going away’

Areva Martin, the attorney representing the former residents, told LAist the group plans to continue pursuing its legal claim.

“This story is not going away,” she said. “And the city is either going to pay these families something, they are going to recognize them and make them whole, or they're going to spend millions of dollars in taxpayers' dollars in protracted litigation.”

Martin stressed that the story of Section 14 is extensively documented. Besides the 1968 state Attorney General’s report, she noted that “the facts about what happened in Section 14 are … contained in the National Archives in Washington, D.C.”

She added: “There are no disputes about the facts. And now, to say, ‘We want to start over,’ not do reparations, just bring in a local historian to tell us what happened — it's so disingenuous. It’s so offensive to these families.”

Martin said she and the former Section 14 residents and descendants plan to meet later this month to discuss next steps.

“The ball is in their court,” Martin said, referring to the city. “And we are sick of the platitudes. We're sick of the false statements about wanting to do the right thing."

Rejecting an accusation of bias

Linda Mann, adjunct professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, would have led the team working on the research and reparations program had the contract been awarded.

She told LAist she was disappointed, especially since much of their work would have been what city officials said they want more of: research.

“Part of that would also be vetting the descendants and survivors of Section 14,” Mann said, adding, “there was a requirement for community engagement, so dialogue, bringing all stakeholders together to explore this history and to better understand [it] from different perspectives.”

Mann works with the African American Redress Network, a collaboration between Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and Howard University’s Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center.

She balked at the suggestion from some councilmembers that her team’s work could be tainted by bias. In the council meeting, Mayor Pro Tem Bernstein called the organizations “effectively advocates for reparations, so I don’t find that they are going to go into this with complete objectivity.”

Mann said her group’s work is “grounded in the respect and defense of human rights. And I would say that that doesn't mean that we're biased, but that we're guided by those principles. And advocating for the protection of those rights is not a bias.”

What questions do you have about immigration and emerging communities in LA?

Your questions make our journalism stronger.

[anonymusbosch]

As of 3:18 PM, Aug 21 2023, there are still ZERO known fatalities and ZERO known severe injuries related to either the earthquake or the tropical storm in the US. There is one known fatality in Mexico. There is also no known major-infrastructure damage in the US from either the storm or the earthquake.

As these things go, that seems like a relative victory.

(following updates at the NYTimes and LAist)