Journalist Steven Thrasher’s second book, The Overseer Class, begins with a quote by James Baldwin from a 1967 essay in The New York Times, where Baldwin writes, “we feared black cops even more than white cops, because the black cop had to work so much harder — on your head.” To see the continuing relevance of that quote, look to the horrific murder of Tyre Nichols in 2023 — a Black man…
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Former schoolteacher Theo Henderson had been unhoused for six years when he launched the “We the Unhoused” podcast in 2019 from a park in Los Angeles’s Chinatown. Henderson became unhoused in 2013 when he was evicted after losing his job and falling into medical debt due to spiraling costs related to his diabetes. When he began documenting his experiences and those of his unhoused neighbors…
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Activists in Los Angeles are demanding justice for Keith Porter Jr., an African American 43-year-old father of two, who was fatally shot by an off-duty ICE agent on New Year’s Eve. His family is demanding transparency in the investigation into his killing. “When he walked in, he brought joy,” says Porter’s cousin Jsané Tyler. “He always had a laugh, a joke, a smile.
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We speak with journalist Jacob Soboroff about his new book and ongoing reporting about the Los Angeles fires one year ago, when destructive infernos razed entire neighborhoods, killing 30 people and displacing over 100,000 more. The book Firestorm: The Great Los Angeles Fires and America’s New Age of Disaster provides a detailed look at how the fires unfolded, the emergency efforts and the…
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When the Supreme Court overturned a temporary restraining order in September that kept U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials from questioning and detaining people based on their language, skin color, or occupation — effectively clearing the way for racial profiling — Guadalupe Cardona was not surprised. Cardona is a member of Unión del Barrio, a national organization that…
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When wildfire tore through Los Angeles County’s Altadena community in January, Retha De Johnette never expected the disabled residents of the assisted-living facility she runs to remain displaced across the Southland nearly a year later. “They’re spread out all over, in all kinds of random places right now, and it’s pretty devastating,” she said. After disasters — natural or otherwise…
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