An Example of Exclusion

I recently said/wrote something about how the Latino has long been the, by far, largest single population in City Council 4, and how 'I wished people would stop re-presenting this as a 'new' condition in what appear to be efforts to make somehow "OKAY" they years and years of Latino exclusion in an area will still to this days seems to suggest that the area is or was recently 'black' majority.'

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As you can see by reviewing the data sets below it is likely that San Diego City Council District 4 became Latino as the single largest percentage of the population sometime about 1993. With an almost 50% greater Latino population than Black population in the year 2000. Today in San Diego City Council District 4 the Latino Population is almost twice as large as the black population. SanDag projections show that it is likely that sometime around 2039 some 50% of the whole of San Diego City Council District 4 will be Latino[i] – yet there seems that for some reason the community of interest continues to remain only the Black Community with only just recently placed ‘outside the community’ Latino surnamed Americans to serve on boards such as that of SEDC after years of none or only one Latino token representative. As well, it appears that the super-majority of contracts/support from City Council District 4 as well as none profit and SEDC contracts have likely gone to Black exclusive or black majority groups, or individuals. 

In short – the Latino likely became the population of plurality sometime about 1993, but for some reason was either excluded or had only token local Latino community representation for what appears to be the last twenty years. The City Redistricting board is likewise including the Latino with only token representation with one single actual Latino community member.

1990

Latino: 28%

Black:30%

http://profilewarehouse.sandag.org/profiles/cen/council4cen.pdf

 

2000

 

Latino: 36%

 

Black: 25%

 

http://profilewarehouse.sandag.org/profiles/cen00/council4cen00.pdf

2010:

Latino: 65,558

Black: 35,426

http://profilewarehouse.sandag.org/profiles/est/council4est.pdf

Roughly a 2 to 1 rate Latino over Black, or rather an about 42% Latino population and an about 23% black population – Almost two to one.

As well, when the majority of all news articles and new stories about a district are black centric it projects into the public sphere a condition of ownership / authority.  Along those same lines when reading 'over the last 10 years' suggest that this shift has only just now taken place. Perhaps a story about how, at the SEDC/Valencia Business Park public meetings, I have been just about the only Latino (not involved in the redevelopment effort directly) in attendance illustrates failures on the part of both SEDC and the group attempting to hold control over that development project?  I believe this can also be seems by other rates of actual inclusion and representation in development and redevelopment activities in this area - for SEDC President in 2006 (*I believe it was) said in the city council chambers "63% of our sphere of influence is Latino" and by looking at the one can see that this population is likely even larger today than it was then. 

From my perspective, the continued focus on a very narrow and small population that seems to have long had a disproportionally large amount of structural control over all political, developmental, and economic activities in the mainstream media (Televised/Written) acts as a support for what seems to be a history of 'right to rule' and 'ownership' behavioral norms. Remember, until I said that I thought it was against the voters rights act to call city council district 4 'a black district' (city council chambers 2005) - it was still being done by local elected representative. I believe a word search of past news articles (1990 to 2005) may support this re-memory of mine. But, we all do what we do; I am sure that my concerns about a woefully under-included and under-represented majority population are not shared by many in this city or county.

But then again, one need only read the posts on local mainstream news paper blogs to see what posts (who/what ethonocentric perspective) is allowed to be supported, are included, what perspectives are allowed to stay up and which are not allowed or 'edit' out.

Yet still worse, in the news papers, in written form the inferences, presuppositions and nuances of what is written is not a literal thing (the frequency of word use, word periodicity and phrasal discourse in the text are also very important) continue to re-present Black over Latino what may be understood to me a 'right' or rather 'ownerships' with a plurality of stories being non-latino main topic/postive action.  I believe E. Said (and some few others) wrote about this, yes? About how one population is re-presented as being somehow less than by what is put or allow to be put into written words? 

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[i] http://profilewarehouse.sandag.org/profiles/fcst/council4fcst.pdf