THis is just fascinating. I am really interested in the quote about Watts and the Germans. Was McWilliams saying that whites should have known but chose not to, or that the Germans really did not know what was happening in the concentration camps?
I believe McWilliams was saying that especially L.A.'s newcomers, that is, folks who migrated here during the war years boom, and particularly those who came for better paying work in the aerospace industry, were as devastatingly unaware of the plight facing Black people in Watts, even while their conditions were, in their own way, concentrated or relegated to demoralizing standards such as Jewish prisoners' once were. I don't believe he pins the blame solely on the newness of these residents, but on several factors, including the city's built environment, which was and remains highly conducive to invisibilizing racial inequality, as well as deliberate on the part of planners, realtors associations and other private interests
THis is just fascinating. I am really interested in the quote about Watts and the Germans. Was McWilliams saying that whites should have known but chose not to, or that the Germans really did not know what was happening in the concentration camps?
I believe McWilliams was saying that especially L.A.'s newcomers, that is, folks who migrated here during the war years boom, and particularly those who came for better paying work in the aerospace industry, were as devastatingly unaware of the plight facing Black people in Watts, even while their conditions were, in their own way, concentrated or relegated to demoralizing standards such as Jewish prisoners' once were. I don't believe he pins the blame solely on the newness of these residents, but on several factors, including the city's built environment, which was and remains highly conducive to invisibilizing racial inequality, as well as deliberate on the part of planners, realtors associations and other private interests