South LA Bantustan

This photo essay encapsulates the Apartheid nature of my community; South Central LA. The images show many of the conditions and characteristics of South LA that most elected officials would like to be swept under the rug. In fact, when these characteristics are shown or even spoken about, the person exposing them is often times labeled a cynic and told that they look at things from a lack mentality. But actually addressing the characteristics are never really revisited. And as you can see in some of the photos, many of them are slightly disguised. Just take a look at the red telephone booth, which is slowly becoming iconic on the Blvd. but at closer glance you can see that the booth is inoperable. The former Macy's building is pictured as if it were ready to be place in their catalogue, but in fact the build at a slower glance is missing all of it's headline store sign only leaving the shape of the sign that did not get re-painted in the last remodel of the facility.

This project is entitled South LA Bantustan taken after the deep legacy of South African Apartheid. Bantustans were ethnically segregated, economically dependent territories created by the South African government under the apartheid system to house the Indigenous Black population and deny them citizenship and basic human rights.

In Professor Cynthia Hamilton's ground breaking essay; Apartheid in an American City she speaks about the Bantustan nature of how South LA is treated. She describes a situation in which the ruling elite see the land as valuable and the people as invaluable and perfectly described their point of view of South LA as a holding place for the Black community, a Bantustan for which the system can continuously deny members basic human rights and systemically benefit from their oppression.

Most people think its the job of photographers to just take beautiful images.. but I learned photography at the end of an era in which film based documentary photography was still a widely accepted employment option for young photography students.

Through that training I learned about the work of Gordon Parks who described his photographic practice as a weapon. I posit that for me, my practice is not just a weapon but also a tool to move the conversation forward.

I hope this month's blog is just one tool in the larger conversation around the outright genocide that continues to take place in South LA.

And no, the I don't use the word genocide lightly, but I do use the word according to the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

In this convention the United Nations agrees that there are 5 elements that describe genocide including:

(a) Killing members of the group
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The business closures in mass is a symptom of the gentrification going on in South Central LA. And it is clear to me and many of the residents of South LA that the gentrification project is an effort at pushing a entire group, in this case characterized by race outside of a community that has historically been a safe haven for that community to thrive.

Anyways, I can create a whole book on this project. Enjoy these photos, and feel free to reach out if you'd like to collaborate further on this project.
Channing