Woman born in 1878 talks about her childhood in Los Angeles in the 1880s
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| How could Belle Buford remember so far back? |
(Life in the 1800s) Mrs. Belle Buford Thom Collins was born in 1878 in Los Angeles (which she pronounces, as many whites used to, "Loss An'gless"), California. She speaks about her childhood in the Los Angeles of the 1880s. Her father, LA Mayor Cameron Erskine Thom (1825-1915), who served L.A. between 1882 and 1884. Mrs. Collins' niece, Rowena, speaks in the beginning of the recording.
Her neighbors (in her mind), all named Poncho
- 0:00 Introduction
- 1:35 Rowena (Belle's niece) speaking
- 2:25 Belle Buford Thom Collins speaking
Stevie Emerson BBQ grilling Los Angeles today
This audio has been remastered for clarity. It was recorded on Nov. 26, 1964. The original tape contained several gaps, so some points begin mid-sentence. All photographs are of early Los Angeles, from the 1870s to the late 1890s. Source: The Huntington Library californiarevealed.org/island...
LA now has all kinds, but whites still want to rule
New history channel "The History Zone" contains historical videos from all time periods. @thehistoryzone272. Music channel is Life in the Music: @lifeinthemusic9399.
- Part 2: Woman Born in 1878 Talks About Her Childhood...
Euro legacy of racism? Implicit bias: LA Times reckons with its record on race and racism
(Los Angeles Times) Sept. 27, 2020: The big LA newspaper is taking an unflinching look at its history, as institutions across America reflect on racial inequality and the legacy of past harm lingering today.
Whites do not know much about it because they were not the ones who had to suffer it so much as being the ones whom the system privileged and gave advantages to. Now we see widespread gentrification as the climax of a slow genocide of Natives is reached. There are three groups that are prominent in this:
- the white European settler colonialists,
- the residual brown Mexicans from this being Mexico for so many centuries, and
- the red Indigenous (Indian, Native Americans, First Nations) peoples who have been here the longest.
The picture is complicated by the fact that the Spanish (from Europe's Iberian Peninsula with its strong ties to imperial Rome and the priestly and banking arm of the military known today as the Holy Roman Catholic Church) blended European and Indian blood to such an extent that nearly all Mexicans living here now are a blend of two peoples.
Racist Glendale, an LA Sundown Town, is where
as teenagers my white girlfriend and I hung out.
(The Casta system survives only now it deal metes out privileges and punishments in a less than overt ways, whereas in the past it was enforced by laws on the books).
There's no dividing us now even in a white-majority hegemon that screams, "We're a minority now like everyone else!" We are not because what happened was a statistical trick of the count. Suddenly, whites got put on one side of the scale and everybody else (the Hispanics, Latinos, Chicanos, Blacks, Asians, Middle Easterners, and sundry other groups, such as the very exclusive Ashkenazi crypto-Jews who with others pass and blend and largely go unnoticed, from all over the country and planet) got put on the other side.
And whaddyaknow?! Suddenly whites were in the minority. But they never have been. Each group is a group, and white continues to be the biggest group. Anyone can see that just walking around Los Angeles or going to the beach. One sure see a lot of diversity, but mainly what one sees are whites, white privilege, white fragility, whites screaming "reverse racism!" while filming The Daily Wire video shorts on the UCLA quad and campus environs.
Banks didn't tell citizens about their secret practice
We are only saying that any mention of Los Angeles cannot leave out its legacy of racism, privilege, criminal police (LAPD) and Sheriff Department abuses, real estate abuses (that redlined different racial groups into different parts of the county and city by design with the aid of bank loan officers). What we have today is the result of decisions made in the past. The legacy of Spain's racism in Mexico, the Southwest, and in particular Alta California has a lot to do with it.
But new European arrivals were only too happy to continue those self-privileging policies and maintain the system by greed, aversion to others (xenophobia), and willful ignorance and delusion that we're a colorblind society that has moved beyond race and shouldn't even mention race because to mention it is racist. It is not racist. Racism is racist, and letting it fester is doing nothing about it. The first thing that needs to be done about it to bring about any kind of equality or equity is shining a light on it and remembering history.
- Life in the 1800s, May 26, 2023: Frank Black, "Los Angeles" (1993) via Beavis & Butthead (MTV); Latin American Los Angelenos Crystal Quintero, the Mexican Buddhist, Pfc. Sandoval, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
