"We used to kick it with" Latinos, said... Benny, who is black and grew up in the area. "Now you constantly hear about it: This is their land first and they've come to take it back." [Emphasis added]
The LA Times has another, more in-depth piece on the racial killings in the Florence-Firestone area of LA. (See the previous post: More Prosecutions in the SoCal Race Wars).
One of the most interesting points of the article is that this is much more than simple turf conflict between neighboring gangs who happen to be of different races. For years, in fact, the local black gang (the East Coast Crips) and the Latino Florencia 13 gang had coexisted relatively peacefully, focussing their murderous intentions on rival gangs of their own ethnicity:
But during the mid-'90s, the Mexican Mafia prison gang began directing Latino gangs to stop fighting each other, to "tax" drug dealers and to push blacks from their neighborhoods, according to numerous gang members and law enforcement officers.Florencia, in particular, had warred for years with 38th Street, a Latino gang to the north.
But under the new rules, Florencia was forced to get along with rival Latino gangs and once even played a pickup football game with 38th Street, said one Florencia gang member who requested anonymity out of fear for his safety.
The Mexican Mafia "didn't understand how it worked," he said. "I hate 38th Street. I didn't have no problem with the guys from East Coast because I grew up with them. It's kind of hard to say, 'Now I'm going to. . . kill this black guy just because he's black.' But that's how they wanted to do it. [Emphasis added]"
The strategy seems to be more aimed at actual ethnic cleansing than simple control of various criminal enterprises. Not surprisingly then, many, if not most, of the blacks killed by Florencia 13 have not been gang members, according to a local prosecutor.
(The violence has become serious enough that it is begining to effect the viability of the area's recent economic revival, the article complains. However, as it also points out, it's got it's positive side for some businesses, with sales of colostomy bags at the local pharmacy rising, apparently as the number of abdominal wound survivors grows.)
The effect of all this on Southern California's demography and racial politics is also interesting. As blacks flee the victorious Latinos, they in turn effect the racial balance in other areas:
Meanwhile, the exodus continues. More black families depart every year for Palmdale or the Inland Empire....
One former black gang member said he hasn't left Florence-Firestone because he still has family and property there.
But "it's going to come a time when everybody's going to have to leave," he said. "Everybody's going to have to go." [Emphasis added]
(As I described in the previous post, Palmdale has become the scene of intensifying tension between blacks, whites and Latinos. See the LA Times: Scuffle Exposes a Racial Rift.)