![]() ![]() She retrieved it, glanced at the device’s face, and maintained an expression of wonder while looking up to offer an answer. “It’s really an apples-to-oranges comparison.” “Can Compton realistically have that Brooklyn function, here in L.A.?” I asked, adopting the role of skeptical reporter. On NPR, in the pages of Vogue, and in other media outlets not famous for covering Compton, she’s talked up her city, even going so far as to call it “the new Brooklyn.” We went on to discuss the policy, popular in bigger cities of late, of coming down hard on soft crimes, as well as the role of a nearby church, whose clergy includes a pastor who doubles as Compton’s sheriff, in lifting an international stain from the municipality’s name.īut Mayor Brown was more interested in discussing her plans for Compton than in boasting about her church. ![]() “It’s the elephant in the room,” she said. Then, at once, we completed the sentence: “…in many ways.” “What was the election linchpin,” I asked, “in terms of your setting off political connections? Because you’re an outsider…” Brown looks like a china doll, all cheeks and chin and big, brown eyes.īrown moved behind her desk, her focus and affability striking in light of the city’s reputation for oxidized political machinery. Now she smiled broadly upon being described as a West Coast, female Cory Booker. Just three years ago she and her husband were watching Brick City, a documentary series on efforts to revitalize Newark, on Netflix. Four months into the gig, she had already made some bold policy changes. In the June 2013 mayoral election, she outperformed Omar Bradley, the self-described “gangsta mayor” who ran again despite having served a three-year sentence for corruption after leaving office, by a margin of nearly 2–1. And though, more recently, I had heard the anecdotes spun by Richard Sherman and Kendrick Lamar, I’d also heard something more complex was going on.īehind schedule, I rushed up from the civic plaza and into the mayor’s office to shake hands with 31-year-old Aja-pronounced “Asia,” à la the Steely Dan album-Brown. as a newspaper reporter in the ’90s, during what everybody hoped was the tail end of a dark period for a wide swath of the metropolis east of Western Avenue and south of the 10 freeway. I’d come to Compton to talk to its mayor about what’s going on in this old city with a young population and an outdated reputation for all manner of blackness. Two floors skyward, a black woman less than a decade removed from her USC urban planning studies was running Compton. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |