Taylor Colorado Wk 7 Response

This week the reading we primarily engaged with is by Laura R. Barraclough, titled “South Central Farmers and Shadow Hills Homeowners: Land Use Policy and Relational Racialization in Los Angeles.” As the title states, this article focuses on the social movements of the South Central Farmers, who fought to defend the fourteen-acre community garden, in conversation with a social movement much more north in Los Angeles, particularly in the San Fernando Valley, which is the Shadow Hills homeowners. The two social movements as articulated by Barraclough give us an understanding of urban planning and how land use policies reify the “reproduction of racial categories” (167). The article also discusses not only how land use policies shaped the realities of these communities, but also how the media reinforced some of these narratives as a majority of the coverage was given to the South Central Farmers.  A quote that I think really summarizes the relational racialization and its impacts on the communities as a more broader process is the following; “The protection of privilege in one community, Shadow Hills, demands the concentration of poverty and pollution in another, South Central” (167) This quote helps us understand the relational racialization in this case as a process which understands the uplift of a community and the detrimental stakes in others. Furthermore, I think in reading this article what really stood out to me was the actual geography and location of the South Central Farm on 41st and Alameda Streets. When reading the street names in the article, I thought about it and had noticed that I most likely had been in that area at some point. To my surprise the location was blocks away from where my grandma and uncle currently live. I find it especially ironic, how the area has developed and its connection to land usage, as food production and distribution has made itself an industry in and surrounding that area, with a larger focus on mass distribution for places such as restaurants. I think the move away from community-sustaining uses of land is a clear picture of understanding the reproduction of racial and economic inequalities when it comes to projects on land development, sustainability, and usage, and broadly gentrification, as a larger racial project that prioritizes white and affluent communities.