Thread: L.A.'s New Mayor Praises "diversity."

From NYTimes.com....


New Mayor Talks His Way Across Los Angeles's Divides

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By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: May 30, 2005

LOS ANGELES, May 29 - When Antonio Villaraigosa was a teenager, an acquaintance hung the nickname Tony Rapp on him because he never seemed to shut up. A bright but irrepressible boy who was thrown out of one high school and dropped out of another, Antonio had ambitions to match his mouth, telling one disbelieving teacher that he planned to be a lawyer, even as the school shuffled him off to an upholstery class.
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J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times

Antonio Villaraigosa's victory in the May 17 mayoral election in Los Angeles transcended lines of race, class, ethnicity and geography.

The lawyer thing did not work out - he failed the bar exam four times - but in four weeks Mr. Villaraigosa will be sworn in as mayor of Los Angeles.

In large measure, Mr. Villaraigosa's electoral success - he has been speaker of the state Assembly as well as a member of the Los Angeles City Council - is the product of his ability to talk.

His landslide victory in the May 17 election transcended the lines of race, class, ethnicity and geography that make Los Angeles less a city than a collection of enclaves. It was Mr. Villaraigosa's ability to keep talking across all of Los Angeles's divisions that enabled him to put together a coalition that defeated Mayor James K. Hahn by a stunning 17-point margin.

Even before taking office, Mr. Villaraigosa, 52, has been forced to confront a challenge that will test his powers of persuasion, the continuing outbursts of racial violence in the city's teeming and underperforming public schools.

The day after he was elected, scuffles that some parents said were racially inspired broke out at a high school in the San Fernando Valley he was scheduled to visit. Last Friday, he rearranged his schedule to spend three hours at another high school after African-American and Latino students traded blows in the third such incident in recent weeks.

Mr. Villaraigosa, who was born and reared in the largely Latino east side of Los Angeles, knows the potential for such violence to spread to the streets from the schools. While he has called for expansion of the Los Angeles Police Department, he said more aggressive policing was only part of the answer.

"We cannot allow this kind of violence to fester in our schools or in our neighborhoods," Mr. Villaraigosa said in an interview in his City Council office last week. "Our strength is our incredible diversity: all these Angelenos who come from every corner of the earth. Their vitality and energy and hope for the future is what makes Los Angeles such a dynamic place. We have to make it an absolute priority to foster better understanding across all those lines."

There is a certain rote, stump-speech cast to Mr. Villaraigosa's ode-to-the-melting-pot language. But his evident earnestness, contrasted with Mr. Hahn's detachment and seeming lack of passion, apparently was just what residents of this city were eager to hear. His election coincided with the release of the film "Crash," which depicts Los Angeles as a seething hell of racial fear, and his message of hope seemed a welcome tonic.

Because of the breadth of his victory, Mr. Villaraigosa will have to deal with the heightened expectations of the electorate after four years under the phlegmatic Mr. Hahn. He is pleading for some time to put his vision into effect.

"Nobody has a magic wand," he said, sipping hot milk and tea from a huge mug to soothe his damaged vocal cords. "I'm well aware the expectations are high and while some would say beyond what any one individual could accomplish, the people expect you to work every day on their problems and see progress at the end of the time served."

The election of Mr. Villaraigosa alongside that of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger now gives California two exemplars of immigrant success in top executive posts. For now, relations between the two men are good - the governor was the first public official to call to congratulate the new mayor on election night.

But frictions are inevitable, as the state deals with a budget crisis that has reduced state payments owed to the cities and as illegal immigration continues to be an issue.

Mr. Schwarzenegger praised the private group known as the Minutemen that last month set up patrols to stop immigrants along the Arizona-Mexico border and who plan a similar operation in California in August. Mr. Villaraigosa is critical of their efforts, saying that it is a job for sworn law enforcement officers, but he has refused to engage in a debate with the governor.

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Well.....he did two wise things:

1) acknowledged that illegal immigration continues to be an "issue"

2) refused to contradict the Governor

He did cop out on the Minute Men when he said:

These matters should be left to law enforcement.

We'll see where he ends up. If he is an American Citizen, which I believe he is (?), then he should feel the same way we do about illegal immigration.

Lets hope the American Citizens of Los Angeles voice their opinions and guide him in the Right Direction.

"Our strength is our incredible diversit

My reply:

Anyone care to venture a guess at how many people of African descent are going to be on his committees. I think we all know what his idea of diversity is, a Mexican, a Guatemalan, and El Salvadorian...etc....

Patriotman

I think diversity for the Mayor is:

Rich Mexican, Legal Mexican, Illegal Mexican, Poor Mexican

"Diversity" is one of those PC words that makes my skin crawl.

There is a certain rote, stump-speech cast to Mr. Villaraigosa's ode-to-the-melting-pot language.

I read the article three times. I must have missed the "melting pot" part.

To me, "celebrating diversity" is the exact opposite of melting pot.

Diversity to groups like La Raza mean $$$ for Hispanics and Blacks and government handouts and affirmative action and quotas and a cry baby victim mentality. NOW sees it the same way except for women. NAACP sees it for blacks.

There is nothing more seperatist than language and lack of a common one thereof. Spanish radio, Spanish television, government forms in Spanish, etc etc. How is this diversity and how does this bring people together? It doesn't! I speak Spanish fluently. My choice! However, the majority should not have to cater to the minority. In other words, today's immigrant should learn English and Americans should not have to learn Spanish to cater to the new immigrant. This is why I detest bi-lingual education in all its forms. ENGLISH only and the kids will learn it period!

When they use the word diversity it is about political groups such as La Raza and Maldef and NAACP looking for set asides and quotas. Using the Spanish language keeps everyone apart not together.

To white liberal Democratic politicians it is about votes. Funny, here in Colorado we have more liberal Democrats in the city of Boulder where the University of Colorado is located. Lots of these people in Boulder are professors who like affirmative action and quotas and set asides and yes ILLEGAL immigration. But here is the real kicker, in the Denver metro area, less minorities actually live in the city of Boulder than in any other Denver metro city. Why? Housing is very high there. The public schools are the best in Boulder but they have very few minorities living there. Go figure? They talk the talk but do they walk it these liberals?

Diversity is just a name to keep groups as I mentioned in government handouts and the leaders of these groups are lawyers making 6 figure salaries using race as a way to enrich themselves. They have had over 30 years of getting their way and what good has it done minorities? Some, but not as much as one might think. BTW Remember the quiet Asian community in California that you never hear about yet has the highest per capita family income in California. Higher than anglos too!

THEY WORK AND STUDY and learn ENGLISH!