THE LIGHT OF REALITY WITHIN THE SHADOWS OF ILLUSION
LOS ANGELES CITY COLLEGE Past, Present and Future
by Scott Woeckel

i PROLOGUE The paper you are about to read has risen out of a single question: Why is a college, that was once the definition of a cutting-edge educational institution like Los Angeles City College, been abandoned and neglected in such a way that it has? Why is the alma mater of a Pulitzer Prize winner, famous writers and film stars, and even Police Chief Bernard Parks being "cast aside," so to speak, by society as if it were an outdated computer? I went about my data collection in the standard manner, researching departmental archives, conducting interviews, doing internet searches, and innumerable visits to the local libraries. After going about it in a purely academic way thinking that "There must be some tangible evidence out there that will show in one very neat and beautiful way where the money was going instead of to our educational system," much in the way a physicist might try to explain the laws of nature, I realized that there was no such documentation to be found. Although this information is allegedly public information (i.e., tax and budget information and various aspects of it), I felt most of the time when I would inquire at one or more office (campus police) or agency (LAPD, LACCD, L.A. City Council) I was treated almost as if I were inquiring about top secret nuclear weapons blueprints or UFO existence or something. When the sheer absurdity of my folly became apparent to me, it was quite clear why the college has been abandoned, and I began receiving insight after insight into the actual root of the problem. I only wish that I had the manpower and resources and time to really delve into this issue. ii I use several allusions throughout to Plato's "Allegory of the Cave."* It is interesting that so much time has passed since the days of Socrates and Plato, and we as a race (human) are still fumbling around in the world of illusion, and in so doing destroying all that life stands for and, for that matter, destroying earth which is all too essential for supporting any human life. Secondly I allude to Henry David Thoreau and his essay "On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience,"1 which has provided inspiration and resounding affirmation to myself that it's "okay" to present my ideas, no matter how radical, and that it is in fact a necessity to do so in order that I do not lend this American government "to-day" practically "my support." And to state that while this government still holds its people and peoples of other countries as slaves, that I cannot consider this government my government. * If you are not familiar with the allegory, please refer to Appendix C. The allegory is reproduced there in part. "Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth." Henry David Thoreau I And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened -- Behold! Human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets. I see. You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners. Like ourselves, I replied; and they only see their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave? True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads? And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and freed from their deceptors. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive someone saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision -- what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them -- will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him? Far truer. And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he is forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now so-called realities. Not all in a moment, he said. Imagine once more, I said, such as one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness? To be sure, he said. And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable), would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if anyone tried to loosen another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.2 In the modern cave which is Los Angeles, there are several paths that lead out of the cave, into the light, and away from the shadows. One such path is Los Angeles City College, located in Los Angeles, California at 855 N. Vermont Avenue, adjacent to the Los Feliz area of Hollywood. By definition, Los Angeles City College is the area between Melrose Avenue and Willowbrook Avenue (South, North) and Vermont Avenue and Heliotrope Drive (East, West), as well as a parking structure located between Monroe and Marathon Streets (North, South). Demographically, Los Angeles City College is located in a mostly Latino community with people from all over Central America... El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico; as well as Korean, Russian, Armenian nationalities which make up a great percent of the local community as well. LACC's student body, however, is comprised of people from all walks of life and people who live in virtually every community in the greater Los Angeles area. This makes the LACC student body certainly one of the most diverse of any educational institution in existence. LACC has students representative of every class of the American stratification structure. Students come from Santa Monica and Beverly Hills and attend classes with their classmates from Watts and East L.A. Students come from the valleys, Pasadena, Glendale, Monterey Park, San Bernardino, Thousand Oaks, and many other areas, in addition to the local Hollywood area. Also LACC has many students from (domestically) as far as New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, Michigan, and many others that I'm sure I'm unaware. Internationally LACC has students who have come from Jamaica, Cuba, China, Korea, Japan, Mongolia, the Philippines, Russia, and many parts of Europe. LACC was founded on September 9, 1929, as Los Angeles Junior College by the Los Angeles Board of Education, on the former UCLA campus, and a man named Dr. William Snyder was appointed as the first director. At the time of this writing Dr. Mary Spangler is the acting president of the college, replacing Mr. Jose Robledo, as of spring, 1997. The faculty mirrors somewhat the diversity of the student body as teachers come from many different cultures and experiences.* Being located in Los Angeles, LACC attracts many students of the arts. LACC has a long and proud history of producing successful students such as 1967 Pulitzer Prize winner, Leon Kirshner (Class '37, Music), best-selling author Carlos Casteneda, stage and opera star George London, and numerous actors and artists, all of whom associate LACC as a place where they could hone their craft and skill before moving on to professional careers, or continuing on with their education at one of the many world-famous universities that neighbor LACC, such as University of Southern California, just two miles up the street on Vermont Avenue; and UCLA, located 5 miles to the west on Sunset Boulevard. * Please see Appendixes A & B for Demographic Breakdown of Students, Faculty and Staff. "Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes." Plato II However celebrated LACC's past may be, it certainly has not been exempt from the decline that has plagued most American educational institutions for the past twenty years. It has been a struggle for many of the LACCD colleges, especially LACC and ELAC. Since 1973 severe budget cuts have been delivering one swift blow after another hindering, and ultimately crippling departmental abilities to even function properly, let alone being concerned with offering "cutting edge" instruction. For instance, the Department of Music, world famous for being the first to develop a jazz and commercial music curriculum, under the direction of the great Bob MacDonald, that would become the model for two-year colleges across the country, with more cautious four-year colleges and universities not far behind. By 1973, in contrast, department budgets were cut by 60% for the fiscal year. Bob MacDonald, who was at that time Chairman, was quoted in an article from June 29, 1973 stating: "The budget cut is wiping us out." He went on to say that "Some things may be worthwhile, but cannot be if they do harm to programs on campus. Once they take the money away, the departments get weaker."3 And it only gets worse. The next blow came with the Jarvis-Gann Initiative aka Proposition 13. "If I have unjustly wrestled a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself." Henry David Thoreau III Prop. 13 is very significant because had Prop. 13 never passed, I believe that many of the problems pandemic in our educational institutions would be so much less severe. A windfall for home owners, Prop. 13 set tax base of a property at its 1975 value, and taxes could not be raised more than 2% annually. By voting for this proposition, Californians were "going to put an end to big government and high taxes." What happened was economic and governmental chaos in California. In the 80's when property values in California rose to unheard of dimensions, home owners and landlords especially profited on their investments many many fold, and due to Prop. 13 little of this "windfall" fell on local government. In fact, since it was known that local government would not be able to maintain police, fire and school operations at levels prior to Prop. 13, then action was taken towards cutting back on the most expedient program of government which is education; thus we end up with a disproportion of funds going to keep law enforcement strong, while our young people have to struggle and scramble to get a "bare bones" education. Without gaining basic job skills, which are still taught at City College, many young people will find it impossible to compete in today's "Information Age" job market. By taking the money away from the community colleges we are, in fact, "wrestling the last plank" away from the people who need it most. In an interview I conducted with one black student we shall call STEVE4, I asked him what role the college played in his life and personal development. He said that "For the most part, it enables me to get the necessary skills it takes to move up to a 'high skill' position, as well as basic academic courses that were not 'effective' when presented in a high school environment, or were never presented at all. Without the community colleges many people would never be able to attend a university based upon high school training." A Chicano student I interviewed, whom we shall call JOE5, stated that to him LACC offered classes in music that ELAC did not. To him LACC offers the representative necessary steps toward reaching his goal of becoming a music teacher. "Lots of guys, especially at ELAC, are always talking about Chicano power and everything else, but then they don't do anything. I want to get my degree in music so that I can teach music at the neighborhood school where I grew up. I want to put into my community all of my experience so that kids may get some of the opportunities that haven't been available, and the information necessary to help them achieve their own goals and dreams." The Music Department, which was once a world leader, is now struggling just to hold any classes. The LACCD has somehow managed to put the 9 college district 13 million dollars in debt, and is counting on the individual colleges to dig themselves out by cutting classes, terminating student employment, department budgets (which are already too sparse to have any effect), faculty, and even encouraging remaining faculty and staff to either take off some unpaid time or to make substantial financial contributions to the college. "To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images." Plato IV No, we are not missing a chapter. We have now stepped into the realm of the absurd. To discuss this issue any further, in the spirit of tabloid politics, would be asinine. My fellow readers, we have been duped, are being duped, and will continue to be so treated as long as we sit silent with our "necks chained" acquiescing to the illusion that our society must exist in its current state or manner. When, in this day of "political correctness," the "good citizens" are those who allow themselves to be manipulated by the system with little resistance towards it. We, as a country, have become a police state, and your average hardworking American a political prisoner of it. We are kept prisoner by our government, by our media, and finally physically forced to obey by our police. One writer, Kenny Werner, in his book Effortless Mastery, expounds rather humorously on this subject, stating: "I'm waiting for new, startling evidence to turn up, showing that the Greeks and Romans had a crude form of television before their downfall. Television and its programming contributes more to the dehumanization of society than any other development in history. It seems that the successful strategy in the marketplace is to keep us hungry, horny, and as unfocused as possible. TV is a drug, and we as a nation have become hooked. It isn't hard to see why the baby-boomers pursued their drugs so vigorously. Turn on Saturday morning TV for kids and watch an ad for cereal! Beams of light come streaming out of the box, and when the cereal is consumed, the child becomes encircled in golden honey light and then blasts off for Venus! Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin died trying to feel that good!"6 The fact of the matter is that the media has crept into the dwellings of our inner consciousness and, rather than "reporting" what truly is wrong in our society (i.e., the millions of voiceless people, especially children who will go to sleep this evening without food and without shelter), instead they pump our heads full of the irrational idea that the world is only full of murder, rape, child molestation, armed robbery, drug pushing, home invasion, kidnapping, and finally the weather. All of these "images" create a sense of fear in us all. However, the media goes a step further depicting 90% of the perpetrators of these crimes as minorities. The media has been successful in "sensationalizing" hideous crime and brainwashing people into believing that all minorities represent murder, rape or theft that is just waiting to happen. This definitely and directly affects voters' attitudes who, as Mike Davis, author of City of Quartz, states: "Despite the epochal demographic transition that has made Anglos a minority group in Los Angeles, the most significant constraint on elite decision-making comes from affluent Anglo home owners whose electoral weight is greater than ever."7 In fact, the media goes out of its way to make problems worse for minorities and the lower class, especially the youth: "Most telling, perhaps, have been the successive attacks on youth employment schemes, beginning with the Nixon administration's decision, echoed by then Governor Reagan, to roll back great society community activism and redirect urban aid from the cities to the suburbs. The dismantling of the neighborhood Youth Corps, followed under Reagan by the termination of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) and the evisceration of the Job Corps, were the landmarks in this retreat from the inner city. In Los Angeles the major, current source of public youth employment is the Los Angeles Summer Job Program -- a typical 'fire insurance' scheme that is a pale shadow of its abolished federal predecessors. Ironically, at the very moment in 1987-88 when the klieg light was focused on illicit youth employment, the Summer Job Program was cut back by the City Council.8 Job alternatives for gang members have been almost nonexistent, despite widespread recognition that jobs are more potent deterrents to youth crime than step laws or long penitentiary sentences. As Charles Norman, the veteran director of Youth Gang Services, observed in 1987: 'You could pull 80% of gang members, seventeen years old or younger, out of gangs, if you had jobs, job training and social alternatives.' State Senate president pro tem David Roberti, the top Democrat from Hollywood, acknowledged eight years later that 'Proposition 13 had ripped inner-city neighborhoods apart,' preventing Norman's strategic expenditures on gang prevention. Finally, as the LAPD's budget crept above $400 million in 1988, the City Council begrudgingly approved a 500,000 pilot program to create one hundred jobs for "high-risk" youth. In the vast escalation of hostilities since the mid 80s, this pathetic program is the only 'carrot' that the city has actually offered to its estimated 50,000 gang youth."9 When the media continuously depict minorities in only violent fashion, then people are pushed by their fear to lend support to the "dominant group goals and vision," even if it means believing in the lie the media perpetuates or, as Plato might have said, believing that "the truth literally is nothing but the shadows of the images."10 I heartily accept the motto -- "That government is best which governs least." Henry David Thoreau V The police have also made their presence implicit on school campuses. It would be worthwhile to mention as well that, while the motto may be "To Serve and Protect," the reality in Los Angeles is to occupy and terrorize. Since the core service area of LACC has, in the past 30 years or so, become increasingly "brown" demographically, it has also brought the invading army of the LAPD. This is no exaggeration. Take, for instance, the case of Elysian Park: "Consisting of steep hillsides and ravines immediately northwest of the original El Pueblo de Los Angeles, Elysian Park was once upon a time a prime tourist attraction, one of the foremost 'city beautiful' parks in the country. Through an extraordinary circumvention of local government, the Police Department has managed to turn its occupancy of the 1932 Olympic pistol range (under temporary lease to the Police Athletic and Gun Club) into an occupation of the entire park. Although lawyers for 'Friends of Elysian Park' were able to prove that the development of the Police Academy was an unauthorized, even illegal appropriation of public land, the LAPD cowed the City Council into ratifying the status quo. Then, in 1989, fine print attached to a larger police bond issue, fueled by the gang and drug crisis, provided authority and funds for the three-fold expansion of the Academy in the park. To suggest an analogy, it is almost as if the San Francisco Police were to occupy Golden Gate Park or the New York Police Department to commandeer half of Central Park."11 This relationship of LAPD occupation is most apparent in East L.A. and South Central L.A., where officers commute from other communities in order to police these people. Instead of supporting the community and protecting its people, the police are more or less an occupying army. Instead of "protecting" the people who live in these areas, the police terrorize them, and the many youth who reside there often find themselves the prime targets of this campaign of terror. Imagine if, in the town or community in which you live, that the people from the town 20 miles away came to police you! How would that settle in your life? On the LACC campus the police are about as corrupt as they come. They are a constant hazard to public safety as they drive their squad cars on the pedestrian walkways, often in excess of 25 mph, only to stop at the bookstore to chat with a friend. More often than not, you will see them breaking the laws they enforce with the greatest of abandon. As an employee as well as a student, I have had confrontations with officers who were "found" in rooms they were not "authorized" to be in, and had no "official" business to be there for anyway. The officers stated that "We are the police. We have the right to be anywhere we want, anytime we want to be there." As a result of this aforementioned incident, the police have since made an extreme effort to make me feel uncomfortable on this campus, as they wait for me to come out of school or work to my car in the parking lot, and then when I leave follow me wherever I go. This is the kind of harassment that many many students on this campus and elsewhere in the community have to put up with while trying to get an education. And these are the people we pay to protect us! What the LAPD amounts to in L.A. is just another ultra-violent street gang.* I want to also stress the fact that there are extremely good, honest police within the police force who themselves often find themselves the victim of police abuse as well. Take for example: "Don Jackson, an off-duty black policeman from Hawthorne, precisely in order to make a point about de facto Apartheid, led some ghetto kids into [Westwood] Village. They carefully observed the law, yet, predictably, they were stopped, forced to kiss concrete, and searched. Jackson, despite police identification, was arrested for 'disturbing the peace.'"12 * See "Urban Atrocities," Appendix D. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too. Henry David Thoreau VI So now here we are at the end of another semester. Still in debt, with administrators bent on cutting classes for next semester before anyone even has an opportunity to enroll in them. Ironically, various areas of different buildings have been getting some new paint, and the Student Center has gotten a makeover. I wonder, with the current direction that society has chosen (or not chosen), just how many more years it will be before the community colleges close their doors, leaving more people jobless, and hopeless. We can only gain by supporting our educational system. Think how many geniuses there would be if we supported, invested and pursued in all our children's goals and interests, as aggressively as we support, invest and pursue law enforcement goals... like the tobacco industry which must invent new strategies to attract new generations of smokers, so must the LAPD and other law enforcement agencies seek new generations of criminals in order to keep their "industry" strong. While the LAPD receives 21.4% of local government (internet statistic from Los Angeles Operating Budget), education receives only 1%, and I think that the problem is clear. It's consciousness. How we perceive the world is how the world becomes. As a result of the skewed view of some unscrupulous marketing analyst and a few politicians, and a few wealthy entrepreneurs who fuel the whole thing, we Americans have become delusional, and worse, numb to the whole human condition. "One result is that black males from South Central are now three times more likely to end up in prison rather than the University of California."13 What we have now is a virtual time bomb. However, this can be reversed somewhat. But it will demand that educators, students, and citizens to all come together and exercise your right to education, and to "be" outside of your houses and apartments without fear of other people. Demand that your tax dollars be put to the real task at hand which is helping each other up. What do we have to lose? To one staff member I interviewed we will call MARGARET14, has been a student and graduate of LACC, and has been involved with the college as a volunteer and staff for the past 20 years. Born and raised in Inglewood, she has seen it happen, the "white flight," the mass shifts in demography and power. She has also been here to see the school abandoned by those who once revered it. She said, in reference to society as a whole today, it's beginning to find itself a victim of its own neglect. "It's reminiscent of the story where first they were persecuting the Indians, but I wasn't an Indian so I said nothing. Then they were persecuting the Jews, but I wasn't a Jew so I said nothing. And then they persecuted the Germans and the Japanese, but I was neither so I said nothing. And now they're persecuting me and there's no one who will help!"14 Yes, there is a cave, but pretend we have all just been freed by our "benefactor." For the first time, maybe, we are free to turn our heads and to move about the cave. Alas, now shall we beat one another down as we still cannot see because we are dazzled and afraid? Or can we, one by one, take another by the hand and help our fellowman to be free from this horrible condition, and bring at last all that exists into the light of reality, so that we may forever abandon the shadows of illusion. APPENDIX A -- ENROLLMENT AND ATTENDANCE REPORTS: ENROLLMENT BY ETHNICITY (Table 4.1 Enrollment Report, Fall 1972 - Fall 1996) South- Trade- % City East Harbor Mission Pierce west Tech Valley West District Number* Percent Asian 1972 11.6 8.0 8.3 --- 0.7 0.4 5.4 1.5 4.0 5.5 5,591 1975 15.3 8.6 8.6 1.8 1.6 1.4 6.7 2.8 5.7 6.7 9,012 1980 20.7 14.2 16.5 3.5 6.8 0.5 8.3 8.4 8.3 10.9 14,447 1985 27.2 20.3 14.3 5.0 10.7 1.0 15.5 10.1 8.4 14.5 13,333 1990 24.8 21.7 16.4 5.9 14.9 1.2 14.4 13.8 10.4 15.5 17,186 1993 23.8 21.6 19.5 6.8 20.0 1.2 13.0 17.4 10.8 17.0 17,310 1994 22.5 19.6 19.2 6.8 20.5 1.4 12.8 17.3 10.4 16.5 16,566 1995 21.5 18.1 18.7 6.9 20.9 1.1 12.6 17.2 9.6 16.0 15,621 1996 20.5 16.9 17.4 6.9 21.1 1.0 11.7 16.2 9.2 15.2 14,859 Percent Black 1972 32.0 5.1 10.5 --- 0.9 89.5 39.4 3.0 33.5 19.7 20,003 1975 34.5 7.5 13.7 11.9 1.6 95.9 46.8 3.9 45.5 22.1 29,695 1980 35.2 4.9 16.1 11.2 3.9 98.2 52.6 6.8 50.0 25.6 33,945 1985 20.9 4.3 14.1 8.7 3.1 93.9 35.9 6.1 50.0 18.2 16,702 1990 15.3 3.1 14.8 7.0 3.7 71.7 31.8 7.2 50.1 18.1 19,917 1993 14.5 2.3 14.7 6.4 4.6 75.8 33.6 7.5 53.8 18.2 18,482 1994 14.8 2.3 14.8 6.4 4.7 76.2 33.2 7.6 54.7 18.6 18,610 1995 14.6 1.6 17.1 6.4 4.7 78.5 31.0 7.5 56.1 18.4 17,808 1996 13.8 1.8 15.0 6.0 5.2 77.8 30.1 7.6 55.7 17.9 17,333 Percent Latino 1972 14.5 52.3 13.8 --- 3.2 0.8 18.1 7.2 4.1 16.1 16,294 1975 15.1 59.2 15.5 31.1 4.1 0.9 18.3 9.5 4.9 17.8 23,898 1980 19.7 67.5 18.7 42.1 7.1 0.5 24.4 13.3 6.2 21.3 28,174 1985 26.8 63.1 19.2 34.8 8.5 2.9 32.0 14.7 7.6 24.0 22,019 1990 38.3 68.9 26.5 51.5 12.0 25.3 40.6 22.9 12.5 32.6 35,972 1993 39.2 71.6 34.0 61.5 15.8 22.0 43.9 27.1 15.6 37.2 37,768 1994 39.5 73.9 34.9 62.9 17.7 21.3 45.2 28.9 16.2 38.9 38,910 1995 40.7 76.5 35.7 64.9 19.1 19.3 47.9 30.7 16.7 40.7 39,349 1996 41.7 77.8 38.7 65.4 19.2 20.1 49.8 33.1 18.5 42.3 40,999 Percent White 1972 38.5 32.7 64.1 --- 94.0 6.1 33.7 86.1 56.1 56.2 57,037 1975 32.6 22.9 58.0 53.3 90.5 0.8 26.0 80.7 41.2 50.9 68,487 1980 21.3 11.5 45.5 39.8 78.5 0.3 12.0 66.9 32.6 39.1 51,788 1985 20.0 9.6 49.2 48.1 73.9 1.0 13.6 64.9 30.5 39.6 36,387 1990 19.2 5.0 40.6 33.8 66.0 1.1 11.3 53.2 24.1 31.4 35,036 1993 20.9 3.7 30.5 23.9 56.9 0.8 8.2 45.6 17.3 25.9 26,559 1994 21.5 3.2 29.4 22.4 54.0 0.7 7.5 43.6 16.0 24.2 24,526 1995 21.5 3.1 27.3 20.4 51.9 0.7 7.3 41.7 15.3 23.1 22,661 1996 22.5 2.7 27.5 20.0 50.8 0.7 7.3 39.9 14.0 22.6 22,186 Total Credit Enrollment 1972 19,622 14,094 9,213 --- 16,743 4,087 15,345 17,457 4,954 100.0 101,515 1975 23,904 18,544 11,037 2,000 23,798 5,301 17,828 24,167 7,893 100.0 134,472 1980 20,174 16,671 11,762 3,233 23,072 6,996 16,457 22,470 11,640 100.0 132,475 1985 13,743 11,709 7,763 3,419 17,393 3,064 11,968 16,284 6,436 100.0 91,779 1990 16,236 14,707 8,908 5,767 18,522 6,059 12,880 17,934 9,677 100.0 110,690 1993 15,270 14,531 8,040 6,097 15,695 5,352 12,617 16,638 7,617 100.0 101,857 1994 15,217 15,198 7,837 5,826 14,618 5,589 12,282 16,233 7,716 100.0 100,516 1995 14,346 15,291 7,603 5,502 14,192 4,909 12,192 15,450 7,727 100.0 97,212 1996 14,085 15,278 7,429 6,151 13,984 4,707 12,330 15,504 7,838 100.0 97,306 Sources: ENROLLMENT AND ATTENDANCE REPORTS, 1972-75; Student Date Tape 551, 1976-94; MEDS Data Tape, 1994-96. Enrollment percentages from "Other" ethnic groups are not shown here. * Does NOT include students enrolled in non-credit classes only; does NOT include ITV. APPENDIX B THE SERVICE AREA According to the December, 1994 publication of Los Angeles City College Demographic Patterns, the service area is calculated by zip codes. LACC has a core and an extended service area. The core area accounting for between 63% and 69%, and the extended area accounting for between 83% and 86% of enrollment. THE FACULTY AND STAFF The faculty of LACC is not as diverse as its student body, as stated in LACC Demographic Patterns: "In American higher education as a whole, the faculty remains largely European American." Although the college does have such a diverse student body, due to the rapid year by year shifts in demographics, it would be impossible within the current educational system to accommodate ethnic patterns with a "mirrored" faculty. In speaking with a college official, who wishes to remain anonymous, said that the college hires faculty with first regards to the amount of experience and ability to teach any student the subject(s) in question. Secondly, the college extends these criteria when considering candidates to comply with affirmative action goals and efforts. The following table gives the breakdown of faculty and staff diversity by ethnicity and gender.1 TABLE 6: LOS ANGELES CITY COLLEGE Ethnic Composition of Faculty and Staff AfricanLatino Asian Native Other Total TotalTotal American American Minority Women Full-time Faculty 12% 9% 8% 0% 71% 29% 40% 100% Part-time Faculty 8% 5% 15% 1% 71% 29% 36% 100% All Faculty 10% 7% 11% >1% 71% 29% 38% 100% Non-Instructional 37% 14% 20% >1% 27% 72% 49% 99% Staff Faculty & Staff 20% 9% 15% >1% 55% 45% 42% 100% 1 LACC Demographic Patterns: Service Area, Students, Faculty & Staff. 12-1994. Matriculation Center & Staff Diversity Vol. I. i APPENDIX C "ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE" Plato And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened -- Behold! Human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets. I see. And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various other materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent. You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners. Like ourselves, I replied; and they only see their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave? True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads? And of the objects which are being carried in like manner, they would only see the shadows? ii Yes, he said. And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them? Very true. And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passersby spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow? No question, he replied. To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images. That is certain. And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and freed from their deceptors. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive someone saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision -- what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them -- will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which iii are now shown to him? Far truer. And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take refuge in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him? True, he said. And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he is forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now so-called realities. Not all in a moment, he said. He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day? Certainly. Last of all he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is. iv Certainly. And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellow prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them? Certainly, he would. And if they were in the habit of conferring honors among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were, therefore, best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honors and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer -- Better to be the poor servant of a poor master and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner? Yes, he said, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner. Imagine once more, I said, such as one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness? To be sure, he said. And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the den, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable), would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he v came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if anyone tried to loosen another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.2 i APPENDIX D URBAN ATROCITIES When a sixth of the population of a nation, which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty, are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. Henry David Thoreau Here are just a few examples that have surfaced, and show the type of abuse that the citizens of L.A. County have had to endure: Twenty-four black and Latino kids out to play baseball at Will Rogers State Park were arrested for violating some white cops' personal Jim Crow law. The Times reported the kids' account of how they spent 90 terrifying minutes held face down on the polo field... while a group of LAPD taunted and brutalized them... One officer was quoted as having told them that the scenic park in Pacific Palisades was "for rich white people 'only.'" (The NAACP and the Mexican-Armenian Political Association have jointly filed suit against the LAPD for this incident.)15 John Jenkins, white, was beaten by LAPD officers in May, 1985, after attending a punk rock concert to celebrate his 18th birthday. During a civil disturbance at the end of the concert (in which Jenkins and his companions were not involved) police conducted a sweep of a nearby parking lot. About ten LAPD officers in riot gear smashed the windows of Jenkins' car, dragged him from the car and beat him about the head and lower ii body with their batons. Jenkins alleged that, after being beaten to the ground several times, he managed to reach a friend's car and was driven to the hospital.16 In August, 1988, more than 70 LAPD officers, including supervisors, engaged in a massive display of force and vandalism during a raid on four apartments in a black neighborhood on Dalton Avenue. The officers had a warrant to search for alleged drug-dealing gang members. However, few drugs were found and the force appeared far in excess of what was necessary to conduct a narcotics search. The police reportedly used axes and battering rams to completely destroy the apartments breaking apart walls and plaster, ripping away a staircase, smashing furniture, bathroom and kitchen fittings, pouring bleach onto the occupants' clothes and destroying TVs and other personal possessions. The residents of the apartments also alleged that they were detained without probable cause, were beaten, strip-searched and otherwise humiliated and were forced to "run a gauntlet of police batons." According to a court summary of the civil action later taken by the residents, 35 people were detained as a result of the raid, ten from the searched houses, one passerby on a Moped and 24 who were outside in the neighborhood. Four of the occupants were charged with narcotic offenses, charges which were later dropped. The 55 residents sued police for civil rights violations, destruction of property, and false arrest. In February, 1990, a iii jury awarded them three million in damages which the city paid.17 Stuart Vigil, white, died following his arrest in December, 1987. A civil lawsuit is still pending and Amnesty International does not have access to a full account of what happened in this case. However, it is concerned that a large number of officers were involved in what appears to be an extreme level of violence used in subduing an unarmed, handcuffed, mentally disturbed man. Stuart Vigil was taken into custody after the LAPD received a complaint about his bizarre behavior. Apparently believing that he was high on the drug PCP, LAPD officers handcuffed him and took him to the hospital. More than 20 officers were allegedly involved in subduing Vigil in the hospital car park after he resisted being taken inside. Although handcuffed, he was allegedly beaten repeatedly with batons, first when he refused to get out of the car and later as he ran towards a trailer. He was also struck multiple times with a "taser." He died shortly after being taken into the hospital's emergency room. The autopsy report described 128 separate injuries, including abrasions to the head, neck and chest, fractures, multiple lacerations and contusions and internal hemorrhaging. The report also noted that some of the injuries "could be considered defensive in that the deceased was warding off blows." As far as the plaintiffs' lawyers were aware, the officers had not been disciplined as a result of the incident. Trial in the case was still pending in June, 1992.18 iv The list keeps on going. And the fact is these are only cases which actually make it through the system, or are just too big to cover up. Even so, these cases don't make the news. In fact, most cases of police abuse go unreported, and police do not usually excel in processing reports against their own. These cases are truly the tip of the iceberg. NOTES, BIBLIOGRAPHY, AND INTERVIEWS 1."WALDEN AND OTHER WRITINGS," Henry David Thoreau, Bantom, 1981. (Other quotations from Civil Disobedience Essay) 2."ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE," Plato. From: "READING, WRITING, AND THE HUMANITIES," J. McCuen & A.C. Winkler, Harcourt, Brace, & Jovanavich, 1991. 3.Unidentified News Article (probably The Collegian), courtesy of Music Department Archives. 4.Interview with "Steve," Los Angeles City College, 4/98. 5.Interview with "Joe," Los Angeles City College, 4/98. 6."EFFORTLESS MASTERY," K. Werner, J. Abersold Jazz, Inc., 1996, pg. 16. 7."CITY OF QUARTZ," M. Davis, Vintage, 1992, pg. 104. 8."CITY OF QUARTZ," pg. 306. 9."CITY OF QUARTZ," pg. 307 10."ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE," Plato. 11."CITY OF QUARTZ," pgs. 254-256. 12."CITY OF QUARTZ," pg. 286. 13."CITY OF QUARTZ," pg. 307. 14.Interview with "Margaret," Los Angeles City College, 3/98. 15."CITY OF QUARTZ," pg. 286. 16."AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, USA, POLICE BRUTALITY IN LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA USA," Amnesty International Publications, 1992, pg. 13. 17."AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, L.A., USA," pgs. 18-19. 18."AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, L.A., USA," pg. 18.