Liberty Hill Grant Helps Target Racial Profiling

Byline: Margarita Ramirez

An article in this morning's L.A. Times focused on incidents of racial profiling against Section 8 residents in the Antelope Valley.

In April 2011, Liberty Hill provided a small Special Opportunity Fund grant of $2,000 to Rainbow Nations, Inc. for its program―The Community Action League ―which has been organizing around this issue with legal assistance from Public Counsel.

We first learned about The Community Action League’s efforts through Gary Blasi, Professor of Law at UCLA who had been conducting an extensive investigation of how the cities of Lancaster and Palmdale have engaged in an intense campaign to keep people with Section 8 certificates from moving to the Antelope Valley, and to drive those who are there out of the area.

There appears to be  ample evidence to suggest that the central reason for the hostility is that 70% of the certificate holders are Black, and that a very racist, far right sector has captured the Lancaster City Council and is trying every possible strategy and pressure tactic.  There has also been some grassroots organizing against Section 8 tenants.  An "I Hate Section 8" Facebook page based in Lancaster has 627 "fans."  Gary also shared that there had been some protests on the other side about this, but almost nothing in the way of organizing in support of Section 8 tenants except by The Community Action League (TCAL), a group focused on racial justice in the Antelope Valley. TCAL's top current priorities are organizing to resist the attacks on Section 8 tenants and the intense profiling of youth of color by the Lancaster and Palmdale Sheriffs. 

We received a proposal for a Special Opportunity Fund grant from TCAL under the fiscal sponsorship of Rainbow Nations, a 501(c)(3) multi-service organizations with 17 years of service. Rainbow Nations was originally formed to help the homeless in South Central Los Angeles find jobs, shelter, food, clothing and basic healthcare. It claims to have helped start 300 new nonprofit organizations and businesses in Los Angeles, opening doors to new job centers, children’s day care and after-school programs, homeless shelters, and a range of services throughout the Los Angeles region. It appears heavily focused on teaching the importance of community development and sustainability. 

The Community Action League (TCAL) is a two-year-old coalition that facilitates Rainbow Nation's civil rights efforts. TCAL organizes town halls, “Know Your Rights” workshops, press conferences and other community actions. It gives voice to the issues through research and advocacy, brings together community leaders to provide solutions, and engages organizations by offering an extensive array of community resources. Convening and collaboration is TCAL’s primarily function. Specifically, it members are currently addressing the extreme attacks on Section 8 residents and against Black and Latino youth.

Liberty Hill's grant supported TCAL’s Community Justice Forum, held on May 14, 2011 as part of its ongoing strategy to address the Section 8 and racial profiling issues. I attended this forum, along with Ange-Marie Hancock, Associate Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at USC and a member of Liberty Hill's Community Funding Board who lives in Palmdale. The Forum was a “Know Your Rights” forum with a panels that included lawyers from local legal offices, police detectives, social service agencies, and law professor Gary Blasi. It was attended by around 50 people, predominantly Black, with a few Latino, White, and American Indian residents, most of whom were somehow entangled in the criminal justice system due to increased racial profiling.

The testimonies of many residents that we heard from or spoke to clearly attested to what we had been learning. They are strong but isolated voices in the Antelope Valley―voices that we hope will be lifted through TCAL’s organizing work.

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