The Afrikan population in Los Angeles has been undergoing a decline at the hands of state violence and repression. From suggesting mask bans to the criminalization of unhoused folks it all ultimately impacts the livelihood of Afrikan residents and increases the criminalization of poverty and existence as an Afrikan. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) proposed fiscal budget for 2024/25 is more than 2 billion dollars with a net increase of almost 13% from the previous year. This proposed budget has almost $4 million directed toward “homelessness support” and technology requests that amount to 13 million dollars. Such technologies that are meant to ‘ensure public safety’ are often manifested through the methods of mass surveillance, weaponry intimidation, and violence — virtually having no use in protecting the Los Angeles community from its biggest issues which coincidentally stem from the same structure of municipal regulation. The LAPD budget presents a dramatic disparity between the police entity and social services. The issues that the Afrikan population in Los Angeles County faces come from inadequate health and housing resources that have deprived folks of the ability to survive in the vast geography. It doesn’t help that there are community figureheads spouting capitalistic and white supremacist talking points that infiltrate and convince the greater Afrikan community that racial representation and solidarity are synonymous; a strategic tool to further suppress Afrikan organization and mobilization for better lives and survivable wages, healthcare and insurance, social services and benefits, and true liberation.
The state targets Afrikan existence at all stages of life. In the United States, infant and maternal mortality disproportionately affects the Afrikan community. Afrikan pregnant people are nearly 3 times more likely to die compared to non-Afrikan pregnant people due to birth-related complications. As deadly as childbirth is, Afrikan childbirth and violence against Afrikan mothers in the healthcare system has been historically maintained. The state also outsources its violence against Afrikan and disabled people by using infectious disease as a tool for eugenics. As seen with COVID-19, scholar Maritza Vasquez Reyes presents that “approximately 97.9 out of every 100,000 African Americans have died from COVID-19, a mortality rate that is a third higher than that for Latinos, and more than double that for whites and Asians.” COVID-19 exposure contributes to the decline of elder Afrikan populations and endangers disabled and immunocompromised people as repeat infections and inadequate public health infrastructure lead to the spread of misinformation and violent repression of masking and COVID-19 protocols. As elders wear surgical masks tucked underneath their noses in an attempt to protect themselves, readily available and effective personal protective equipment has been shelved, overpriced, and no longer reaches the communities it needs to without the efforts of community organization.
Possible solutions to these disparities are based in organizational and community efforts that not only reach out to folks but provide material and personally tailored alternatives for communities experiencing the harmful impacts firsthand. Material changes and local impacts can have international implications and reach. Mutual aid and education efforts inform the community and will help us to develop an understanding of the true nature of being Afrikan in Amerikkka. Our collective efforts must focalize deconstructing the ever-changing suppression of the empire which acts as a tool in shaping racial-capitalist infrastructure and systems based upon the depravity of the poor.