Could LA see another civil unrest like the '92 riots?, Apple and Samsung enter self driving car biz, the science behind latest viral online comic by The Oatmeal.
Could the LA Riots happen again?
Listener Johnny Moreno asked us this question via SoCal. So Curious.
It's a complicated one to answer because there were many factors that led up to the unrest, and it was more than just the verdict in the Rodney King case.
Racial tension had been building up in the area, for example. Unemployment was rampant on the streets, too.
Plus, there was a feeling that lawmakers just did not care about the people in South L.A.
On Take Two, we gathered a roundtable to tackle Johnny's question.
What were the signs that a riot was imminent in 1992, and are they around today in 2017?
Guests:
- Darnell Hunt, director of UCLA's Bunche Center for African American Studies
- Tim Watkins, president and CEO of the Watts Labor Community Action Committee.
- Frank Stoltze, KPCC's public safety correspondent
Interview highlights
The economy in South L.A. was a major reason for the unrest. What was it like back in 1992?
Hunt: The economy was pretty bad 25 years ago. Unemployment was pretty high – it was about 7.5 percent.
And it was much higher in the areas that are associated with the uprising.
L.A. had gone through a long period of deindustrialization where a lot of jobs that were accessible to inner-city residents had moved elsewhere.
There was also declining support for inner cities in general.... There were a quite a bit of strains.
All of these things were factors that made life that much tougher in 1992, particularly for people living in inner-city communities like South L.A. during that period.
What was policing like back in 1992?
Stoltze: [There] was an effort by a too-small police force to project its power to let everybody know they were the toughest and meanest guys in town.
Obviously, there were elements of a racist institution, an institution that didn't treat people in poor communities and minority communities the same way they treated white communities.
But [current LAPD Chief Charlie Beck] himself describes a department that wasn't necessarily a fair department.
Nearly 6 out of 10 Angelenos believe another riot is imminent within the next five years. Do you agree?
Watkins: Yes, I do.
There are too many people that are living in abject poverty and deep, deep desperation, and it's only a matter of time before the acts of desperation that they're willing to commit turn into crimes of desperation.
You'll get your uprising because the pressure cooker is simmering.
The LAPD has learned to keep the lid a little loose on it, but give it enough heat and that top will blow off.
Does the economy today look anything like it did in 1992?
Hunt: Overall, the nation as a whole is doing better than it was in 1992.
I think the nationwide unemployment rate was 7.5 percent in '92, and today it's somewhere around 4.5 percent.
But again, it's a lot higher in areas of South L.A.
At the same time, you have gentrification going on in these communities which have crowded out long time residents and that's created some pressures.
But then you have things like the [Metro] Crenshaw line and Expo line, these improvements in terms of transit. ...
But there are so many factors when you talk about urban unrest. You can't just reduce it to the economy in the same way you can just reduce it to police brutality.
How has the LAPD changed its practices over the past 25 years?
Stoltze: Under [LAPD Chief Bill Bratton] and the federal consent decree, which enacted massive reform at the police department, the department underwent tremendous change in the seven, eight years under Bratton.
Tracking police officers and their use of force. Complaints against police officers: there's a computer system that just better tracks officers and flags them when there are a series of actions or behaviors or incidents early on that flags them as a potential problem.
The use of force investigations, much more thorough. They take use of force much more seriously now.
If riots were to happen again, where would they be and who would be out on the streets?
Watkins: I don't know what sparks it where, but I think Los Angeles is suppressed and contained enough – particularly communities of color that are experiencing the greatest depths of poverty.
I think there's enough pressure for there to be an explosion.
Hunt: It's hard to predict. It's just like we know what factors are associated with earthquakes, but nobody can predict when it's going to happen. We just know we're overdue for the big one.
So we're always at risk of this type of upheaval as long as we aren't dealing with the underlying causes.
And it's hard to predict exactly where something might occur because something like that will be a function of what the trigger is.
Stoltze: There's a lot of economic fear about the future, there's a lot of angst.
South Central remains a concentration of poverty – sure that could be a spot, but it could be anywhere where there's a lot of poverty.
Listen to the full conversation by clicking the blue audio player above.
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Police commission has 25 suggestions for the LAPD
After the L.A. Riots in 1992, the LAPD faced calls for massive, systemic change. The department enacted a series of reforms — and the changes have continued. On Tuesday, the L.A. police commission unanimously approved 25 new recommendations for the LAPD.
KPCC's Frank Stoltze joined A Martinez to break down the wide-ranging recommendations. They include:
- changes in how the department guards against possible racial bias
- strategies to strengthen community policing
- an evaluation of the department's discipline system
Matt Johnson, president of the police commission, offered this perspective.
"It's important to understand that this was the third in a series of reports and recommendations that flowed from those reports, all of which are interconnected.
So, the first report we did looked at our department and our history and really to analyze whether we were remaining true to the reform efforts that began 20 years ago.
The second report looked at other departments around the country to make sure that we were utilizing and employing best practices from departments around the country.
This report looked at the national best practices that were established by President Obama's task force in 21st century policing and the police executive research forums guiding principles on use of force.
All of these things really were meant to work together and keep building in the same direction to making sure that the LAPD was the best department it could be."
What is the department doing well?
"We have the most effective and robust civilian oversight of any department in the country. Our process for investigating and evaluating serious use of force incidents. The way we published that, a few weeks ago we released our 2016 use of force report... it's really unique in the country. There's no other department that provides such a detailed breakdown of their department's use of force. It's a 400-page document.
How we train on de-escalation. We're really ahead of the rest of the country in terms of the amount of resources and time that we put into that. And also, in community policing, that's an area that we do some things really well. But it is a challenge for our department...because we don't have as many officers per citizen as many other cities do. Also, geographically our city covers a very wide expanse. Much larger than say Chicago, for example, which has five times as many officers per square mile as we do. "
How is it falling short?
"We think as a department we can do a much better job of training our officers and putting in procedures in place when it's safe after an event is over to actually render aid to that person in those critical moments...
Community policing. We do some things really well. Our CSP program, community safety partnership program, where we have officers embedded in a number of the housing project is incredibly successful. We're just now expanding that, for the first time to a community that's not a housing project in Harvard park. I'm very hopeful that that will work well and hopefully we can expand that to other areas."
To listen to the full segment, click the blue play button above.
‘Dream Big’ film aims to inspire young women to become engineers
It's called STEM – an acronym for the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math. Today, only about a quarter of jobs in the STEM sector are held by women. And when you narrow it down to engineering alone, the number are even smaller.
But the filmmakers behind a documentary now playing at the California Science Center hope to change that, by inspiring young women to study engineering and become professionals. The 3D IMAX film is called "Dream Big: Engineering our World."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huVNsT8BIM8&feature=youtu.be&list=PLKK8aLzqhSlWtItgXaOXHaynSMHVg_G9x
The film features contemporary engineers, mostly women, working on engineering feats including a wind-laden skyscraper, precariously placed bridges, and even a robot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDoBxZbSWKk&feature=youtu.be&list=PLKK8aLzqhSlWtItgXaOXHaynSMHVg_G9x
Take Two's Julia Paskin went to check out the film. She brought along Vanessa Paneto, a civil engineer based in Orange County, to see what she thought of their efforts to bring more women into her profession.
Vanessa Paneto: Being a woman engineer, there's not many of us. Civil engineering I would say has more than other fields like mechanical or electrical. But even in my office, besides me and the owner, we're the only women in the whole office. So, I just think there's not a lot representation.
Ever since I started calculus, I've seen less women in my classes. So that went onto less in my field. I think it starts in the very beginning. If you don't encourage them to take those math and science classes, then they're not going to have the background or want to go into engineering.
Paneto said she felt connected to the women engineers in "Dream Big," especially Angelica Hernandez, an engineer from Phoenix, Arizona. "Dream Big" follows Hernandez and her robotics club as they compete in an underwater robotics competition.
Vanessa Paneto: She grew up on the poorer side of town, and worked her way up through her robotics class, and then went onto Stanford... That was really inspiring.
But did ‘Dream Big’ resonate with its intended audience?
Jade Leone, age 12: I always liked building when I was little. Now, I'm kind of considering if I want to be an engineer.
Although 100% of the kids polled said they found the stories inspiring and that they have learned something new about the field, only some said it sparked an interest in pursing a career in engineering.
For more information on "Dream Big: Engineering our World," check out the California Science Center website.
The Ride: Cell phone companies dial in on self-driving car business
Two things we Southern Californians love -- our cars and our smart phones. And now it looks like the two big gorillas in the cell phone world are setting their sights on automobiles.
South Korean smart phone maker, Samsung, announced this week that it received approval from the South Korean government to test its self-driving cars on public roads. The world’s biggest maker of smart phones, Samsung is partnering with South Korean car company Hyundai, outfitting the auto maker's vehicles with sensors and machine learning systems to make the cars autonomous.
After years of speculation that Apple is getting into the automotive business, video surfaced last week showing the Silicon Valley iPhone maker testing a Lexus RX450h outfitted with Apple self-driving technology. Apple's hush-hush Project Titan car project has been in the works for about three years, prompting reports that the personal electronics maker might be building its own car. It's more likely that Apple is only working on software that will be used by existing car companies.
Silicon Valley search giant, and Pixel cell phone maker, Google, has also announced an expansion of its Waymo self-driving car division. Waymo announced last week that it will add another 500 Chrysler Pacificas to its self-driving fleet. Waymo also introduced its Early Rider program, which will give free rides in self-driving Lexus SUVs and Chrysler Pacifica minivans to people who live in Phoenix.
Recent years have seen increasing synergy between the automotive and cell phone worlds, as cars become more computerized and cell phones are more seamlessly integrated into cars' operating systems. With driverless cars poised to become part of the automotive mix in just a few short years, technology companies that make smart phones are well situated to take part of one of the biggest and most disruptive technologies to come down the pike in years.
The psychology behind that popular new comic from 'The Oatmeal'
Sometimes, you need to be pretty creative to get an idea across.
That's the approach cartoonist Matthew Inman often takes in his popular webcomic, The Oatmeal. And Inman pretty much nails it with his latest effort, titled "You're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you."
Using graphic and often profane illustrations, Inman tackles the question, "Why do we resist information that may affect our deeply held beliefs?"
It's a comic treatment, but the meat of it is backed by science and psychological concepts like something called "the backfire effect."
So, why do we often resist factual information when it challenges our long-held beliefs?
Take Two broke down the comic with David Pizarro, professor of psychology at Cornell University.
The cartoon starts by giving readers a way to measure what information makes them uncomfortable and what doesn't. It uses the first president, George Washington as an example.
Highlights
Let's start with this first example dispelling the belief that George Washington had wood teeth. It's not that hard to take in. Why not, David?
It's not really a cherished belief. Nobody feels threatened by this. It's exactly the sort of thing that we get pleasure from. "Did you know?" We even take some delight in knowing new things, and I think that's important to remember. This one doesn't bother us.
It's pretty benign on the surface. Explain, David, why some people might feel angry or uncomfortable when they learn that maybe George Washington actually had dentures made with teeth from slaves?
This one gets at the heart of anybody who has been raised in the United States. George Washington famously is in the pantheon of our cherished American presidents. He couldn't lie, he is considered virtuous. The thought that he would have something as morally abhorrent as the teeth of slaves is something that strikes at the heart of what gets as close to a sacred belief as you can have with something like a secular figure like George Washington.
This cartoon really gets into something called "the backfire effect." What's that?
The backfire effect is a cool little label for — essentially — trying to understand why we're resistant to information.
What exactly is the difference between the first fact and the second fact? Maybe here the general question is: "Why don't we change our minds about some things, but we find it easy to change our minds about other things?" Why don't people change their cherished beliefs?
It turns out it's very, very hard to do. You could say, "maybe we don't have the right information. Let's give everybody the right information." But it turns out that that's not enough. You can give people the information and it still doesn't change their mind.
What you find is, when people's beliefs that they want to hold, that are cherished, that they're motivated to keep believing, they will delve into it and they will reason. What they're really doing there is finding reasons not to believe it.
What that does psychologically is it gives you a whole toolbox of evidence to refute that belief.
So your brain is building a wall?
Your brain is a good lawyer. Your brain is saying, "Hey, let's just do our best at arguing against this because if we have to change our mind about this, it's going to be really, really uncomfortable."
Press the blue play button above to hear more about how Inman's new cartoon might fit into the national dialogue on some hot-button issues.