How Could There Be A Disconnect?

Leaving the Forum after the U2 concert on Saturday night, we drove east on West Manchester to get on the 110 and head back to San Diego. There were two police helicopters in the air just south of us, flashing their searchlights below, looking for someone. When we got to Figueroa, the street just in front of the 110, we came to a complete stop as no fewer than 6 cop cars went screaming by, down into the same neighborhood where the choppers were orbiting.

If 6 cars came from our location, it's a safe bet that others were converging from other directions.

The neighborhood is exclusively black except for where it's exclusively Hispanic.

From the demographics dot map. Green is black, yellow is Hispanic. The cops were headed to the circled area. Blue dots represent whites, red dots, Asians. There are no red or blue dots in the area.

Here's what had to have happened: Black or Hispanic citizens called the cops because black or Hispanic gang members were shooting each other / random people / both. The people who called the cops knew that some of the cops who came would be white. They asked white cops to come to their neighborhood to protect them.

This happens all the time.

Meanwhile, inside the Forum, Bono did a "hands up, don't shoot" bit in one of his songs, just like so many other entertainers and politicians. For the celebrities, the white cops are dangerous, racist thugs. For the people in this pretty poor part of town, the cops were reassuring and needed.

How is it possible that these people have so little contact with the realities of life in Baltimore, Inglewood, Detroit and East St. Louis? Even if they live in a total bubble, how does that bubble perpetuate itself? Wouldn't you think that eventually they'd have to see reality?