Community Advocates, Inc.

Community Advocates at Four

As Community Advocates (“CAI”) approaches its four-year anniversary it has refined it focus and found its voice in the crowded world of non-profits and human relations organizations in Los Angeles.

The human relations field is animated by the hope of impacting how a community views critical issues and how it deals with those issues. For decades such organizations have focused on holding meetings for their members, litigating issues, and issuing public statements. Their limited resources and the difficulty of accessing the broader public on a regular basis dictated their methods.

Today, with the omni-present media, the Internet, e-mail and blogs the possibility of reaching a large audience and impacting attitudes is very different. CAI is using these modern devices to influence opinion on a large scale. Rather than concentrating on programs that are extremely labor-intensive, directly administered by the CAI staff or hired consultants and ultimately reach a relatively small number of participants, CAI has chosen to focus instead on projects that reach a broader audience by partnering with the media. These efforts are far more cost-effective and, potentially, far more significant in their impact.

CAI has developed meaningful partnerships with two of the most respected media outlets in the Los Angeles area: KCET (Channel 28) and KPCC (89.3, FM) have joined with us to present programs that raise important issues with fresh and different positions before large numbers of listeners, viewers, and bloggers. KCET’s news segments are estimated to have approximately 60,000 viewers per night. KPCC is estimated to have 425,000 cumulative listeners from 6AM to midnight.

CAI avoids platitudes and easy sound bites, instead focusing on moderate positions buttressed by calm, reason, and logic.

Kitchen-table Talk Segments

In late 2005 Joe Hicks and David Lehrer began conversations with Val Zavala, the producer and on-air host of KCET’s Life & Times, about doing segments on the show that would allow for casual, civil discussions on current issues that are often polarizing and contentious.

The discussions between CAI and KCET progressed to the point that in late March, Life & Times taped the first three segments of the “Kitchen-table Talk” broadcasts. Each segment featured either Joe Hicks or David Lehrer in conversation with two individuals of differing viewpoints for 8+ on-air minutes.

The segments dealt with the topics of Black-Brown tensions, the challenges of immigration, and the impact of fatherless parenting on young peoples’ conduct. The programs were broadcast on March 30, April 4, April 11, May 2 and May 15 (repeats).

Four additional segments were taped on May 12. The segments dealt with Mayor Villaraigosa’s plan to take over the Los Angeles Unified School District, the impact of illegal immigration on the work force, hybrid cars and their future, and separating fact from fiction about young girls and our “hyper-sexualized” society. These programs have been broadcast on May 18, May 23, June 6, June 21 and June 26 (repeat).

The distinguished list of guests on the broadcasts has included: Deputy Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, Earl Paysinger; Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the Los Angeles Times, Dan Neil; chief of staff to Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke, John Hill; former President of the Los Angeles School Board, Caprice Young; School Board member, David Tokofsky; noted author of “No God, But God”, Reza Aslan and Los Angeles Times columnist, Gregory Rodriguez, among others. Additionally, several of the programs have been featured on the KCET blog and have generated discussions among the station’s Internet fans.

Critical Issues Seminars

This fall (October 5), Community Advocates, in partnership with the new National Center for the Preservation of Democracy (affiliated with the Japanese American National Museum) in Little Tokyo, will stage the first of its Critical Issues Seminars---Beyond the Boundaries. The Seminars are an effort to bring the most interesting and provocative speakers/thinkers to Los Angeles before a large audience of LA leaders.

For too long, the discussions and debates surrounding key issues confronting our community have been predictable and orthodox. Various ideological assumptions regarding the causes and, therefore, possible solutions to society’s toughest problems often prevent creative and dynamic interactions that might result in new approaches. Advocates are heard in isolation offering pre-packaged, platitude-laden solutions to our most intractable problems. Rare are the occasions when spontaneous and open discussions occur among thoughtful individuals with differing viewpoints in a challenging, yet controlled and civil setting.

For the initial year we will be examining three critical issues: the racial learning gap, inner city violence and crime, and illegal immigration. These topics have proven particularly difficult for the formation of “common ground” understandings among the advocates on various sides of these issues. In fact, the tendency of advocates to demonize those of opposing viewpoints has been particularly pronounced when these matters are discussed.

Each forum will feature panelists chosen for the quality and diversity of their ideas. Larry Mantle, the host of KPCC’s Airtalk broadcast, will moderate the discussions. He will challenge the speakers’ viewpoints and orchestrate spirited—but civil—discussion and debate followed by interaction with the audience.

The first seminar will have two major academic participants, Prof. Abigail Thernstrom, a prolific author, vice chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute; and Prof. Richard Rothstein, former education columnist for the New York Times, visiting professor at Teacher’s College, Columbia University and a senior correspondent of The American Prospect. He has authored books on charter schools, student achievement, public vs. private schools, and the black-white achievement gap. Also participating will be a prominent practitioner, Shawn Arevalo McCullough, Superintendent of Maricopa County (Arizona) Schools.

The ninety-minute discussion will include the participation of the audience at the National Center. CAI is making a concerted effort to insure that on the evening of October 5 leaders in our community will be present for the Critical Issues Seminar. It is CAI’s hope that if the proper mix of community leaders and policy makers who can effect change are present, they will be influenced by the probity of the discussion and consider new options and choices as they return to making policy.

The full 90-minute program will be broadcast the following week on KPCC’s Airtalk (10-12AM every morning).

CAI has received funding for the Seminars from the John Randolph and Dora Haynes Foundation and Steven Spielberg’s Righteous Persons Foun- dation.

Ziegler Prize for Courage of Conviction

CAI is implementing an annual award for an individual or individuals who have demonstrated the qualities described so eloquently by President John Kennedy----acting in a principled manner “in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures…that is the basis of all human morality.” The award recognizes the work of those who go against the grain of conventional wisdom, often at great personal or professional risk. These individuals may act courageously, conduct provocative research, write books, author journal/newspaper columns or articles, or simply speak out in ways that challenge conventional wisdom and incur risk.

The Ziegler Prize selection committee is comprised of Hon. Richard J. Riordan Chancellor Albert Carnesale (UCLA), President Steven Sample (USC), President David Baltimore (Caltech), Ruth Ziegler and Richard Corleto (Co-Trustee of the Ziegler Trust).

CAI anticipates holding the presentation of the Ziegler Prize for Courage of Conviction in late fall.

Major Themes:

Of course, CAI is actively continuing its strong presence in the op/ed pages, in newspapers and on news broadcasts. A glance back over the topics raised by and commented on by Community Advocates during the past year reveals a consistency of themes across the smorgasbord of issues that have arisen. From the response to the movie “Crash” upon its release in spring 2005 to the fortieth anniversary of the Watts riots to the execution of Tookie Williams to the controversy surrounding immigration policies---CAI’s voice has been consistent in opposing hyperbole, incendiary rhetoric and efforts to exploit potential cleavages between groups.

For example, in commenting on the movie Crash (released in May 2005) our op/ed opined that the movie was unfair to the Los Angeles community and the reality of race/ethnic relations here:

The reality of life in L.A. is far different than that presented by this movie. The city is perhaps the nation's most diverse. The intermarriage rate here is five times the national norm. According to the 2000 Census, beyond the numerous ethnic enclaves, there are areas of the city so diverse that no single ethnic or racial group is dominant.

"Crash" leads filmgoers to believe, however, that it is precisely this diversity that is getting on people's nerves. Were this the case, fistfights would be breaking out on every block in L.A., at every hour of the day and night.

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Haggis is wrong if he presumes that his film could be a precursor to novel, fresh discussions about race. "Crash" may spark some discussions around the water cooler at work, but conversations informed by something this heavy-handed and ideologically skewed -- where race trumps nearly all human interactions -- will not provide the positive grist for that mill. In fact, it is this kind of politically correct "dialogue" that most people avoid like the plague. To mean anything, the proper starting point for any discussions of race must be open-ended and sincerely inquisitive. That's hardly what's offered by "Crash." (Los Angeles Daily News, June 24, 2005)

Community Advocates spoke up about the nasty reaction from some of the leadership in the Jewish community to the Steven Spielberg film, Munich. Exaggerated responses that pandered to fears were decried as unwarranted and counter-productive:

Since early December, there has been a disturbingly venomous campaign directed at Steven Spielberg’s new movie, “Munich,” by machers, opinion molders and self-appointed pundits in the Jewish community.

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Of course, there is room for different opinions about the complex issues raised in the movie, as there is with virtually anything written or produced about the Middle East. We recognize that there are those who may view the questions the movie poses differently than we do. However, many of these critical voices have chosen to assault, not critique, the movie and its director in a series of vitriolic ad hominem attacks on Spielberg.
There is no need for a mentality of fear, for the embrace of victimhood or for the nastiness that permeates much of the anti-”Munich” diatribes. We can ask questions, we can worry about what we do, we can challenge each other in public and we need not fear for Israel’s security or our safety. (Los Angeles Jewish Journal, January 20, 2006).
CAI has written and been interviewed about the California High School Exit Exam and the need to have a base line of achievement, however modest, before a high school diploma is awarded. Both in August 2005 and April 2006 the Times published op/eds highlighting CAI’s position:
This same lament of low expectations and stereotyping is playing out now over the state’s high school exit exam, threatening to rob minority (and other) students of a diploma of which they can be proud. The results announced this month from the most recent California High School Exit Examination show gains well ahead of earlier projections in pass rates for all students. (African-American scores rose 21% in math and 19% in English; Latinos rose 20% in math and 19% in English over their results of the previous school year). A disheartening gap with white and Asian students remains, but African Americans and Latinos still reached pass rates of around 80% in this latest round of practice testing, with a year to go before the test that counts.
Eliminating a test that is a measure of achievement devalues the efforts of those who have worked hard. We are right to set goals that are realistic and demand effort from students. They have met honest challenges before, and will again. (Los Angeles Times, August 22, 2005)
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There still is a rhetoric of underachievement, but today it comes from those who believe that they are helping Latino and other minority students. It comes from well-intentioned liberals who regularly lower the goals set for public school students. For instance, state leaders such as Assembly members Jackie Goldberg (D-Los Angeles) and Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) and state Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) have sought to eviscerate the state's high school exit exam requirement because they believe that minorities can't cut it. They unabashedly claim that minorities won't perform well on a high school exit exam that already tests for only junior high school skill levels, that can be retaken six times and that requires only 60% and 55% correct answers (depending on the section of the exam) to pass.
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There are no easy answers, no quick fixes, and no rabbits that Villaraigosa or anyone else can pull out of a hat. But no one should seek easy scapegoats or invoke ethnic boogeymen when the going gets tough — as it surely will. (Los Angeles Times, April 22, 2006)
CAI’s vice-president, Joe Hicks, was the subject of a great deal of media interest at the time of the fortieth anniversary of the Watts riots’ in August 2005. Interviews on CNN, KPCC, KTLA, KCBS and op/eds in the Times and the LA Weekly furthered CAI’s message about the progress that has been made in race relations since 1966 and the insidious impact of those who took the anniversary as an opportunity to say “the world of minorities hasn’t really changed since 1965”.
Another major issue in which CAI was in the center of considerable media attention was the controversy surrounding the execution of Tookie Williams. CAI’s vice-president appeared on CNN, KCRW, KNBC, KABC, FOX-News, KGO (San Francisco), the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Company) and the Baltimore Sun. CAI’s position was, in brief, that it was a serious mistake for mainstream civil rights organizations to present Williams as a “role model” for young blacks:
To Hicks, a former civil rights advocate who led the Los Angeles chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the 1990s, the NAACP's support of Williams indicates a troubling detour from its goals.
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Williams "is a symbol of the carnage and violence that goes on in inner cities every day," said Hicks, vice president of Community Advocates Inc. "It's unfair for an organization that claims that it is in the interest of the majority of black people to go ahead and support him.” (Baltimore Sun, January 15, 2006).
In recent months, the question of immigration and the appropriate direction for American policy has been the subject of much debate in the public arena. CAI has been part of that discussion. Op/eds by CAI have been published that elucidated a rational and reasoned perspective on the steps that should be taken to a deal with this complex issue:
Lawful or not, the United States cannot absorb all of the people who aspire to come here. A 2005 Pew Hispanic Center survey on attitudes toward immigration, conducted in part in Mexico, found that an estimated 70 million adults in Mexico would come to the U.S. if they had the means and the opportunity. About half of those said they would be willing to move to and work in this country illegally. The study also found that 35% of Mexican college graduates want to come to the U.S., even if that means they would have to work at a job below their qualifications — and many also said they'd be willing to come illegally.
What we are witnessing is not the birth of a new civil rights movement but the attempt to render meaningless the concept of border controls. Any march that can mobilize 500,000 people will get the attention of Washington's politicians, but this nation must not be deterred from securing its borders, enforcing the law and finding a way to humanely deal with the more than 11 million illegal residents already here. (Los Angeles Times, April 1, 2006)
CAIwas cited in the Wall Street Journal in a lengthy article dealing with black-brown tensions arising from the competition for lower pay jobs with the influx of illegal immigrants:
The situation is exacerbated by strong stereotypes that have set in among some employers about the pluses and minuses of hiring from each pool of minority workers. "There is a perception that Latinos closer to the immigrant experience might work harder than black persons," says Joe Hicks, who is African-American and vice president of Community Advocates, a nonpartisan group that aims to advance interracial dialogue. (Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2006)
The South LA Farm, an issue that garnered much media attention the last several weeks has resulted in CAI being quoted and interviewed on radio (KCRW and KFI) and television (KCET) with a position that argued:
Instead of acknowledging the good fortune to have had the use of the land for 14 years, the remaining “farmers” and their Hollywood acolytes are being manipulated by extremists whose agendas are anything but agrarian. The guiding principles of the “South Central Farmers” lay out intentions to “oppose the destructive operations of multi-national corporations and to oppose military occupations, repression and exploitation of lands, peoples and cultures, and other life forms.” Their website also urges the participation in “an encampment to resist eviction and save the South Central Farm.”
Thankfully, this nation is one of laws and not of exaggeration and hyperbole. We honor private property and ownership rights. Frankly, Mr. Horowitz has the right to do anything he damn well pleases with his property - within the boundaries of the law. (Op/ed awaiting publication)
As the months go by, CAI will continue to make its voice heard on seminal issues of the day.