Persistence, Sacrifice--The Common Ground of Dreams

The poverty of Los Angeles affects all of us. One-half of the state earns $36,000 a year. We who live here earn $18,000 a year: black, brown, yellow . . . common ground.

Thirty percent of all the people who live in South-Central Los Angeles live below the poverty level: black, brown, yellow . . . common ground.

Forty percent of all children--black, brown, poor white--who live in South-Central live on those incomes and go hungry every day . . . common ground.

People who walk our streets homeless every day: black, brown, yellow, poor white . . . common ground.

We are served by a health care system that fails to meet our needs . . . black, brown, yellow . . . common ground.

We breathe the same dirty air, we don’t have enough parks . . . common ground.

We are immigrants to this land: Haitians, Cambodians, Laotians, Vietnamese, Chinese, Central Americans, Mexicans . . . common ground.

Twenty-eight percent of adults in South-Central and Koreatown have not completed ninth grade . . . common ground.

Our young people kill each other: black against black, brown against brown, yellow against yellow . . . common ground.

Those of us in our community are brutalized by police who do not see that we belong. We tried to reform it in Sacramento; we lost. We won in Los Angeles . . . common ground.

Of a thousand Latino students starting today in kindergarten in California, only 550 will graduate from high school. Of those, only 71 will go on to a university. Of that 71, only 35 will graduate. For African-Americans, the statistics are equally grim . . . common ground.

We don’t even own businesses in our own communities. Asian-American and Pacific Islanders, blacks and Latinos are all underrepresented in the Legislature with no Asians at all in Sacramento . . . common ground.

Television, radio, newspapers continue to perpetuate us in negative forms . . . common ground.

The enemy is not each other. The enemy is a system that has ignored our needs.

This year I proposed using the only river that we have in Los Angeles as a means to thread our communities together, to generate jobs, to bring recreational opportunities to our city. Others saw differently. They were afraid of us working together. But who lives and works along this river? Black, brown, yellow . . . common ground.

We must begin our common ground today and approach it with love, as Christians, as Muslims, as Jews, as Buddhists. It will require leadership. Yes, it will require sacrifice. It can be done; it must be done. Is the spark of God within us or not? Jesus said, “It is done unto you as you believe.” It is our belief, and if our beliefs are limited, the measure of our good is limited. We then experience a limited universe that we are not part of and God did not ordain for us. If your life is not what you want it to be, if your illusion is not what you want to see, change it.

Change it.

From a recent speech by state Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) given at the the First AME Church.