LA Philanthropy Watch

Page one of this morning’s Los Angeles Times features a story, “The ’hood as a tourist attraction,” – banner headline: “Promise and peril in South L.A.” – by Scott Gold, which begins, “A group of civic activists, united by a belief that the poor economy in the interior of Los Angeles is a social injustice, is preparing to offer bus tours of some of the grittiest pockets of the city, including decayed public housing, sites of deadly shootouts and streets ravaged by racial unrest.”

“The concept appears to have no equal in L.A. …” the story informs us, though it bears some resemblance to the controversial “‘slum tours’ of such sites as India’s Dharavi township and Rio de Janeiro’s favelas.”

L.A. Gang Tours will be led by Alfred Lomas, former gang member, current gang intervention worker, and director of the Dream Center’s food bank.  (LA Philanthropy Watch featured Dream Center in posts in June and July.)

The idea of making rough neighborhoods a tourist destination, “in a spirit of education and public service,” as Scott Gold puts it, reminded me of a visit to Holland (as a Berkeley student on summer vacation) in August 1974, when I participated in the Magic Bus Tour in Amsterdam.  The excursions were staged by a group of civic activists (just like the planned tours of South Los Angeles).

I assume that the point of the Amsterdam tours (like the LA expeditions scheduled to begin in January 2010) was primarily to make money, since so many of the paying customers were tourists from abroad – not good candidates to engage in local community organizing or political activities.

I recall, as we traveled through industrial sections of the city, hearing about Dutch Shell’s misdeeds at home and abroad.  As we drove past high-rise apartments scheduled for demolition, we learned about the squatters who had moved in and the social costs of community redevelopment projects.

We were sightseeing though, mostly from the interior of a bus.  Although we disembarked several times, we did not engage with the squatters; we didn’t even see any.  We only saw what looked like big urban housing projects and heard the story behind them.  The plans for tours of Watts and Florence-Firestone include buying t-shirts painted by graffiti artists as you watch and having hip-hop dance-offs between contestants from the neighborhood – with tourists handing over cash prizes.  On the other hand, the idea of having tourists buy ‘I got shot in South-Central’ t-shirts, after being squirted by kids with water pistols, was considered and rejected (according to the Times).

I have no idea how successful the Amsterdam activists were.  The Times’ story suggests that the LA organizers, who will require every customer “to sign a watertight legal waiver,” believe their tours could generate $1 million annually.

It could work, perhaps – if organizers can coax tourists away from a host of other Southern California attractions (including the celebrity-home tours that frequently impede my travel across town on Sunset) – but it will be a delicate balance.

The Magic Bus tour, for instance, featured a picturesque windmill (it was Holland after all): this was an advertised feature of the tour and a reason we decided to take it. This was our closest encounter with a windmill in Holland and it didn’t detract at all from our political education.  It also led to a bit of unexpected fun.

We didn’t look like typical tourists when we disembarked at the windmill, since we had donned costumes (colorful hats, scarves, beads, jackets and so on) and transformed ourselves into a make-shift rhythm band (with percussion and wind instruments) before boarding the bus.  As we stood before the windmill, a wedding party pulled up in a limousine; as the limo doubled parked, the bride, groom and attendants (in formal attire, of course) leapt out and ran toward us – to get their pictures taken with us.  Our colorful band, gathering around them, was pleased to be part of the celebration.  (Nowadays, with digital photography and email, we would probably arrange to have copies of the photos sent to us back home.)

Just as we were gathering ourselves around the wedding party for the photographer, a big (standard fare, not magic) bus pulled up – and a group of Japanese tourists descended.  The wedding party and the Magic Bus participants all stayed in place long enough for these tourists to take photographs of a Dutch wedding party and guests in front of a windmill.

We don’t have windmills, but we do have Watts Towers.  Organizers might also consider a drive past Staples Center and L.A. Live, between the Pico-Union and Slauson Recreation Center stops, as a value-added feature.

I wish them well.