When People Say "There's No Black People In LA"...

[Marc Spector]

Do u live here??

I'll always be proud of being from Los Angeles, but just so many opportunities outside of the West Coast for 30 something black folk like me.

I've been in Atlanta for 7 years and just closed on my first home and my career prospects have just accelerated out here, compared to where I was when I left my one bedroom Inglewood apartment working for $22 hourly with a wife.

Outside of entertainment and tech, not a lot of mobility or prospects in California for younger people.

So many people my age have left where I grew up, it's so crazy. My sister routinely complains about the lack of young people around Ladera/Baldwin Hills/Windsor Hills/Leimert Park/North Inglewood. I went back earlier this year, and it's crazy how many older black homeowners are just hanging on. Their children and grandchildren probably waiting to inherit the windfall and get out of dodge to Georgia, Texas and Vegas.

When my mother passes our childhood house to my sister and I, it's going to be tough not to cash out.

no im not from there but ive been to LA a handufl of times and live on the west coast. you don’t have to be from LA to see what’s happening . its the same story up and down the coast. next to LA The Bay Area is the last historical West Coast holdout of a decent percentage of black folks and even that is becoming rapidly gentrified. Vegas and Arizona are becoming the places black folks flock to but in 10 years they too will be extremely gentrified and/or lil mexico.

i quoted @Dipsey Doo because of the few black folks left in LA that own homes, this is the reality. Sell and GTFo because there’s no real opportunities for black folks

 

[Th3Birdman]

Only nikkas that ain't from here sit here and say dumb shyt like "Long Beach and Santa Monica aren't Los Angeles"

Tell Snoop he ain't from LA, and then watch what he say


Nikka, if you from Anaheim, you from LA. That's why their baseball team is called the LOS ANGELES Angels:

If you not from here, you don't understand that we all consider the Greater Los Angeles Area to be LA. Yeah, we all got our hoods and what not, and we definitely set trip, but ain't no nikka from Inglewood (that would be ME) saying nikkas from Downey or Signal Hill ain't from LA.


That's out of towner talk, and you out yourself as such when you say this.

 

[Problematic Pat]

Baltimore County got more proper Black neighborhoods than all of Southern California

 

[Shadow King]

Notice how the people up in arms in here, are the people who aren't Angelenos

Not a single Angeleno in here has criticism of the point I'm making because everyone who is actually from Los Angeles understands exactly what I'm saying. News flash, I don't need a lecture on what cities technically are separate jurisdictions from The City

In every city, not just LA, not just Atlanta, the locals delineate who lives in "the city" and who lives outside "the city" or the suburbs. It's city pride shyt, that isn't specific to any one city---->I've seen cats in much smaller cities like Albany NY and Fayetteville NC have these same reactions because while not "major" cities, they are "the city" in their local region to the smaller cities and towns around them...

Everybody everywhere understands the "you ain't from the city, you from ____" shyt . It's local pride shyt...

But at the root we are all Angelenos and all the outta town nikkas bytching in here are yet again proving they don't understand what "contiguous" means ...

@Vice Queen @Ol’Otis @ImmaGetJoeClarkArrested @MegaTronBomb! @getmoney310cpt @parallax @Rakim Allah duh, we all know Long Beach is "Long Beach". And Compton is "Compton". And Inglewood is "Inglewood". And so on and so forth...

It be noggas who ain't spent no real time in Los Angeles and have no roots in The City trying to explain the culture and vibe of The Ciry and don't be knowing what the fukk they talking about, which just affirms the premise of my thread in general. There's a long LA-envy here in general and nikkas be wanting to sound smart and be WRONG as fukk when they stereotyping and talking about LA ...

The point remains, there's a Brooklyn/Chicago/Queens sized region of LA that is blacker than most of NY's boroughs and is larger than all but one of NY's boroughs...

Smart dumb nikkas on here don't know what the word contiguous means...

Damn is there a city you ain't from?

 

[Shadow King]

all I’m a say is context matters my guy.

yes by sheer numbers Los Angeles has a lot of Black people but it is not a haven for Black people. It is not somewhere for Black people to move to. It is not somewhere for Black people to go and thrive. In my opinion Black folks are in a last stand situation in Los Angeles, and honestly the West Coast as a whole.

There's a world between "not a haven" and "there's no black people" though.

 

[murksiderock]

Meanwhile the mid Atlantic is over %50 black but y’all scared to come to Baltimore Dc and philly

DC is the only real popping city of those three. Even in DC, black folk have been getting gentrified outta The District viciously for 15 years...

DC was once 70% black in the 60s and 70s. Even as late as 2000 it was over 60% black, yet today The District is barreling towards 40% black (its currently around 42% black). Think about this, in 20 years the city went from over 60% black to barely hanging onto 40% black, and rapidly dwindling...

And this here lies the real conversation within the thread. Most major cities across the US outside The South are and have been experiencing dramatic Black Flight, post-Recession, and some for even longer than that. LA in popular thought is the main city that gets clowned for Black Flight, probably because it began in LA sooner than elsewhere---->but the reality is LA's most damaging periods of Black Flight were pre-Recession, the 80s/90s/00s. LA's black loss slowed considerably in the 10s from what it was in the previous 30 years, and that's with gentrification consuming LA like other cities too...

I'll let you figure out why LA's black loss slowed in the 10s despite mad gentrification while other cities black loss ramped up, and in many cases, comtinue to ramp up, as a result of their gentrifiers...

To be clear, LA isn't yet gaining black folk again. But in the here and now, there are MANY cities doing worse...

By the way when we came east when I was a kid, we landed in Southwest DC, that's where my dad was at. We moved to VA shortly after arriving but I'm familiar with DC, spent alot of time in Northeast specifically because of friends of the family, who accepted us (thru my dad) as family. Specifically Kenilworth/Deanwood area...

Ain't nothing special about Baltimore at all. That city is in real trouble despite a majority black population and is emptying out rapidly, it and St Louis, the same way so many other cities did before them because the management of the city at all levels is borderline incompetent...

Ain't nobody scared of these places, and no one is missing anything by not going to Baltimore...

I know much less about Philly but in general I don't think people outside The Northeast really think about Philly like that, it's not really a topic of conversation for anyone black unless you have ties there or are from The Northeast...

I think the City of LA and LA County is interchangeable and can be confused like Miami and Miami-Dade County.

100%...

it literally used to be mexico, the name is in spanish for a reason. black people that live in LA are recent migrants from 50 years ago from the south.
it's actually impressive how such a small population influenced an entire city and have the presence they have/had.

Black people started migrating en masse to LA post-Great Depression, so like 80-85 years ago (though there were black people in LA even prior to that). But obviously the US was colonized from The East so there was never a large black population in LA and I agree, it's notable that we shaped the culture of the city so significantly, so far removed from our American ancestral roots (the Southeast/Atlantic Seaboard states)...

 

[ImmaGetJoeClarkArrested]

no im not from there but ive been to LA a handufl of times and live on the west coast. you don’t have to be from LA to see what’s happening . its the same story up and down the coast. next to LA The Bay Area is the last historical West Coast holdout of a decent percentage of black folks and even that is becoming rapidly gentrified. Vegas and Arizona are becoming the places black folks flock to but in 10 years they too will be extremely gentrified and/or lil mexico.

i quoted @Dipsey Doo because of the few black folks left in LA that own homes, this is the reality. Sell and GTFo because there’s no real opportunities for black folks

You’re not from here nor do u live here so it stands to reason that you don’t have your finger on the pulse of the city…especially more than someone as myself who travels all over Southern California for work…this thread succinctly describes what I’ve always thought but just couldn’t put into words

LA is a great place for black folk I’m in a few industries and black people are in every portion of them…we make money out here because we have to the ones that leave are usually just not able to cut it or they see cheaper ways of life in other places as better….nonetheless it’s a ton of nikkas out here and a lot of us are thriving

 

[murksiderock]

That would be Ohio for such an irrelevant state as most say they can’t keep it out they mouth

This is a fact, mad people do have a bunch to say about Ohio and I bet they be wrong most times too huh ...

If you gotta add, subtract, and divide and come up with a secret formula, there’s probably not a strong black footprint there

That's not what I did...

Notice how creative you gotta get to make whatever this point is.

You included a bunch of cities that are NOT Los Angeles in your "Los Angeles" demographics. Then you had to pick and chose what sections of NYC to compare too (one city, not multiple cities like the "Los Angeles" you made up). You then came up with this 21 percent figure and said it was "more than" 3 out 5 boroughs but queens in 20.8 percent black and were supposed to believe is exact "21" figure you got on this minority black "corridor" including several NOT Los Angeles cities?.

Without Picking and choosing...

Los Angeles Black population 8.5%
New York City Black population 23%

Exactly


Thats funny. Because in LA, actually Los Angeles people make the distinction that Inglewood over there is not Los Angeles. same way ATL people got songs about or suburb is "NOT Atlanta"

you only see these "parts of the county that are not Los Angeles are still kinda Los Angeles" arguments to make invalid points.

I didn't have to do anything. First of all I know that relatively speaking, black folk have a small footprint in LA relative to other groups...

I also know that there's a specific part of LA that most Black Angelenos reside. I wanted to put numbers to it, because nikkas who ain't really been to LA will swear there's no black folk there. There's several websites that allow you to map out any city's population from the basic, full city level, all the way down to the block group. I'm more of a fan of Census Tracts, and this is the website I used:

Census profile: Census Tract 2348, Los Angeles, CA

Census data for Census Tract 2348, Los Angeles, CA (pop. 3,489), including age, race, sex, income, poverty, marital status, education and more.

censusreporter.org

You can do this at the zip code level, you can do this at the school district level, you can do this at various levels. So for me I was like, as a city LA is 8% black. How many LA neighborhoods are at least 8% black, and touch at least one other neighborhood that is at least 8% black, until you reach a neighborhood in LA that is less than 8% black and doesn't touch any other neighborhood that is 8% black on any geographical side of said neighborhood...

The parameters stretch as far west to Culver, east to LBC, north to Mid-Wilshire, and southeast to LBC again. Once you hit the edges of those areas, then you are in the parts of Los Angeles where the black neighborhood profile is less than 8% and also don't border an 8% black neighborhood---->of which, there are plenty of these kinda hoods in LA, by the way...

But there's a bubble within the region I outlined that has a total population of ~2,550,000 people, and ~538,000 black Angelenos...

(Obviously neighborhood boundaries mostly don't line up with Census tracts, block groups, or zip codes, so all you have to do is look for the borders of a specific neighborhood and map it by that. You can do this with literally any city in America and again there's other sites besides this one that allow you to do so)...

By the way, it's taking me longer to type this out than it actually took me to map this. This wasn't some creative exercise. It was, how much of LA is at least as black as the city percentage as a whole and borders at least one other neighborhood that is also as black as the city as a whole...

Now, I didnt get choosy with comparing NY, I comped it to every borough. 2.55 million people is about 180,000 fewer people than Brooklyn, but about 150,000 more people than Queens and larger than every NY borough. 2.55 million people is larger than every city in America besides NY and Chicago (about 140,000 people less than Chicago)...

I didnt "come up" with the 21% figure, the data says this is how many black folk live in this region of LA. But fair enough, the July '22 estimates place Queens at 21% black. That's more than what the decennial Census said Queens was just two years prior in 2020, and that's what I was going off of, so I stand corrected...

Those '22 estimates actually say LA's black population has grown since '20 to 8.6%, an increase of over 5000 black people from '20. So if this is to be believed Black LA is growing again...

 

[Th3Birdman]

we make money out here because we have to the ones that leave are usually just not able to cut it or they see cheaper ways of life in other places as better

I'm gon have to co-sign this.


A lot of the brothers and sisters I went to school with in Inglewood High left LA to go to Vegas because they simply couldn't afford it any longer. But keeping it real, a large percentage of the people we're talking about were the crew in high school that you knew were going to crash out. You know, the class clowns that barely (or didn't) graduate, the nikkas that hooped but did make the league, the pretty girls that got pregnant, etc.

Life choices prevented a few faces I saw everyday in school from staying in the Wood, and when I reconnect with them on FB, I see they all in Vegas, Victorville, Lancaster, Upstate, Mid-state (like Lompoc or some shyt), or locked up somewhere.

LA/Cali is expensive and if you wasn't on your shyt in high school, you would be forced out just due to finances.

 

[murksiderock]

Both of these are false lol

Nah there's definitely an anti-California thing on here...

I often say that when people come to L.A., they refuse to travel south of the 10 and east of SoFi (the original boundary was the 405, but that stadium has changed that) and then have the nerve to say all kinds of bullshyt about the city.

!

all I’m a say is context matters my guy.

yes by sheer numbers Los Angeles has a lot of Black people but it is not a haven for Black people. It is not somewhere for Black people to move to. It is not somewhere for Black people to go and thrive. In my opinion Black folks are in a last stand situation in Los Angeles, and honestly the West Coast as a whole.

Black LA isn't the draw for us as a people as it once was, but it's hardly alone there. Detroit also is no longer a haven for Black people. Neither is Baltimore. Neither is Memphis. And I just gave you three majority black cities in three different regions that saw their best days for IS, in terms of economic vitality and generational growth, all three of these majority black cities' best days as havens for black people have long since passed..

I will disagree with you saying we are on our last stand in LA and the West Coast. Speak for yourself in Washington, maybe that's true there. LA will always mean something to black people because it's LA, too much motion and influence has come from there...

We will never be irrelevant in LA...

Sacramento is currently in its peak era for black culture and community over the last 15 years or so, as is Vegas. So no, black people aren't dead, we are definitely still moving to those two cities...

 

[Cloutius Maximus]

Do u live here??

I live in L.A. county (Altadena), not L.A. proper. He is right.

 

[murksiderock]

no im not from there but ive been to LA a handufl of times and live on the west coast. you don’t have to be from LA to see what’s happening . its the same story up and down the coast. next to LA The Bay Area is the last historical West Coast holdout of a decent percentage of black folks and even that is becoming rapidly gentrified. Vegas and Arizona are becoming the places black folks flock to but in 10 years they too will be extremely gentrified and/or lil mexico.

i quoted @Dipsey Doo because of the few black folks left in LA that own homes, this is the reality. Sell and GTFo because there’s no real opportunities for black folks

My brother, The Bay has fewer black people than LA by both percentage and raw population, less black cultural impact and significance, and yet you're in here saying it's the last West Coast holdout for black people...

Even if i didnt know you werent from California, that comment told it, because Northern Californians know Sacramento has eaten away at the attractiveness of The Bay and black culture is THRIVING in Sacramento relative to the history of the city; anyone choosing The Bay over Sac today are doing so for nostalgia's sake...

And Southern Californians have seen us flock to the IE and the High Desert...

And LA has always been more popping for us than The Bay, and still is to this day...

Yet you think The Bay is the last holdout for Black Californians...

It's clear the majority of posters here are simply ignorant (not as in dumb, but as uninformed) to what's happening to black people and our communities in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Baltimore, St Louis, Cleveland, Oakland, Memphis, Detroit, Miami, New Orleans, and a number of other cities, because you nikkas stay talking as if what happened to LA's black decline is specific to LA...

All of these cities I just named have some serious, serious issues with attracting new black transplants, and retaining their native-born black citizens, for a variety of social and political and economic reasons...

But you nikkas think this is a Los Angeles problem. Black Angelenos who are still there are in better shape than the black citizenry today in most of those cities, who are experiencing black folk being fatigued of those cities today the way we were of LA in the previous generation...

It definitely isn't true that there's no opportunity for us in LA, but I want to be clear. I don't think LA in its current state is one of the best cities for us, nor do I think California is as a state...

This thread is about people saying there's no black community in LA, which is false. It's not about the best cities for black folk...

Only nikkas that ain't from here sit here and say dumb shyt like "Long Beach and Santa Monica aren't Los Angeles"

Tell Snoop he ain't from LA, and then watch what he say


Nikka, if you from Anaheim, you from LA. That's why their baseball team is called the LOS ANGELES Angels:

If you not from here, you don't understand that we all consider the Greater Los Angeles Area to be LA. Yeah, we all got our hoods and what not, and we definitely set trip, but ain't no nikka from Inglewood (that would be ME) saying nikkas from Downey or Signal Hill ain't from LA.


That's out of towner talk, and you out yourself as such when you say this.

!

Damn is there a city you ain't from?

Bruh cats on here know my story, I had a tumultuous upbringing. I didn't grow up in LA the way the LA posters on here did, so I'm not "from" LA the same way they are...

But I do have roots there, did go to school there, and had I never left or at least went to junior high or high school there it would be different. I have family in several different parts of LA but as far as my own roots in LA are concerned, I'm "from" Expo and Normandie, myself and @ImmaGetJoeClarkArrested are from the same general neighborhood (he's a born and bred Angeleno though, there is a difference from me only living there a few years)...

 

[Shadow King]

Nah there's definitely an anti-California thing on here...

The Coli has an issue with the state being a hotbed of IR relationships, but I can't say an static towards the city of LA specifically stands out here, NYC and ATL are on that level also.

Bruh cats on here know my story, I had a tumultuous upbringing. I didn't grow up in LA the way the LA posters on here did, so I'm not "from" LA the same way they are...

But I do have roots there, did go to school there, and had I never left or at least went to junior high or high school there it would be different. I have family in several different parts of LA but as far as my own roots in LA are concerned, I'm "from" Expo and Normandie, myself and @ImmaGetJoeClarkArrested are from the same general neighborhood (he's a born and bred Angeleno though, there is a difference from me only living there a few years)...

I'm messing with you since I know you're a rolling stone teleporting ass niqqa lol

 

[murksiderock]

I'll always be proud of being from Los Angeles, but just so many opportunities outside of the West Coast for 30 something black folk like me.

I've been in Atlanta for 7 years and just closed on my first home and my career prospects have just accelerated out here, compared to where I was when I left my one bedroom Inglewood apartment working for $22 hourly with a wife.

Outside of entertainment and tech, not a lot of mobility or prospects in California for younger people.

So many people my age have left where I grew up, it's so crazy. My sister routinely complains about the lack of young people around Ladera/Baldwin Hills/Windsor Hills/Leimert Park/North Inglewood. I went back earlier this year, and it's crazy how many older black homeowners are just hanging on. Their children and grandchildren probably waiting to inherit the windfall and get out of dodge to Georgia, Texas and Vegas.

When my mother passes our childhood house to my sister and I, it's going to be tough not to cash out.

I get it, I mean the South is where the most opportunity for us as a people are. There are a few areas outside of The South but it's no secret that Carolina, Atlanta, Florida, Texas, Nashville are major, major attractors of OT black transplants...

I used to get back to visit LA and Sac all the time throughout my 20s and was really close to coming back for good, then I got the news my ex was pregnant with my oldest daughter in June 2016 (my daughter was born February 2017), almost exactly 7 years ago. I was just turned 27 and ultimately that naturally changed the arc of my life, I've since had two more daughters since, and it is what it is, Carolina is my adopted home. I mean technically nothing is stopping me from packing up and heading back to California in a month, I work for a popular national restaurant chain that has locations in California so I could easily get a transfer...

But having kids unexpectedly out here forced a revision of where my life was headed, and I'm okay with it. And to your point, my money does go further out here. It probably is easier for me to live out here, just like for you and so many others...

The Coli has an issue with the state being a hotbed of IR relationships, but I can't say an static towards the city of LA specifically stands out here, NYC and ATL are on that level also.

I'm messing with you since I know you're a rolling stone teleporting ass niqqa lol

you know for a long time I hated that I was around so many people and places because that shyt was outta my control, and I didn't have a sense of family or "home" to any strong degree. I embrace it now though and I'm sure that exposure to so many people and places has helped me in parts of my life. I think that's a byproduct, like so many other things, of when and how I became a father, it just evolved me on a number of levels...

I'm cool with it now though, I'm from a bunch of places ...

 

[Marc Spector]

You’re not from here nor do u live here so it stands to reason that you don’t have your finger on the pulse of the city…especially more than someone as myself who travels all over Southern California for work…this thread succinctly describes what I’ve always thought but just couldn’t put into words

LA is a great place for black folk I’m in a few industries and black people are in every portion of them…we make money out here because we have to the ones that leave are usually just not able to cut it or they see cheaper ways of life in other places as better….nonetheless it’s a ton of nikkas out here and a lot of us are thriving

ok bruh what ever u say. the data of black people trickling out of LA seems to disagree with you but im not from there so i cant read graphs i guess