Ghetto Paradise

Single-family detached stucco bungalows, usually one story high. A patch of grass in front. Palm trees in the background. This is the South Central LA ghetto pictured in John Singleton's "Boyz in the 'Hood" (1991).
What confuses both the film's viewers and foreigners who actually visit the area especially is that it doesn't look so bad at all. It's only the behavior of some of the "boyz" and the easy availability of even automatic weapons that is bad.
Mike Davis, LA's expert on LA, writes about when he took a Middle Easterner around South Central. The man admires it; "all villas (detached houses), no apartments."
But then there were the sickening images of the 1992 riots, especially the trucker being pulled out of his vehicle and having his face and head smashed in with a fire extinguisher by a rioter who did a little victory dance around him, seemingly for the benefit of the news helicopters.
A friend whose work was transferring there from DC was more than a little alarmed about the prospect. I told him the hard racial truth about LA: stay on the Westside, where his office and all the LA glam is, and you won't even know South Central exists. He came back and told me he saw about two black people the entire time.
But even the boyz had access to cars. In the shadow of Malibu and Beverly Hills, I guess it's all about relative deprivation.

Best reply to rapper idiocy goes to Lux. Back in the day, I was singing "Ice Cube/will swarm/on any motherfucker in a blue uniform."
To which Lux replied, "does that include the mailman?"