A lot of cable television commentators, radio hosts, and other members of the chattering class indulged the notion that a post-racial American culture — where skin tone and ethnicity won't affect anyone's standing — could be glimpsed from the podium as President Barack Obama swore his oath of office earlier this year. Within months they had yanked the notion away on the strength of an ugly dustup between a European-American cop and a famous African-American who serves on the faculty of Harvard University.
Such instant analysis through a national lens fails to account for the enormous and evolutionary nature of completing a shift to a post-racial America. The shift has been coming, brick-by-brick, for more than 200 years. The chatterboxes fail to recognize that it will continue to evolve on a brick-by-brick basis. It will come mostly from the bottom up, like all good brickwork, with aches and pains and payoffs along the way.
Expect to find those bricks at the local level — not as sudden developments reported in the occasional special reports from the chattering class. Most Americans do not seek life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in studios or at cocktail parties or fundraising events. We seek such comforts in our neighborhoods.
That tells us that a chief of police is closer to the daily lives of most Americans than our president or any Harvard professor. And that makes the selection process for the next chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) an interesting study of any progress toward a post-racial culture.
Our city is well ahead of national demographic trends, after all, with several fast-growing ethnic communities among us but no single segment of the population in position to hold sway. The LAPD, meanwhile, has had a long and troubled history in terms of race relations, serving for many years as an enforcer of unofficial discrimination by various means.
The LAPD has changed, though, especially under the leadership of Chief William Bratton. The agency has bolstered its standing in various ethnic and racial communities, taking the initiative to acknowledge a troubled past and to lay brick upon brick in a bid to build a new understanding.
Bratton announced his intention to resign more than a month ago, and speculation about his successor began immediately. Recent history suggested that ethnic consideration would play a key role in the decision. We are not far removed from a day when power brokers around our city reached a consensus about the need for an African-American leader for LAPD. Another African-American chief followed — and then some said the time had come for a Latino-American to take the job.
The position instead went to Bratton, and his performance won over most of those who initially thought he had the wrong color of skin for the job of top cop in Los Angeles.
Bratton carried the experience and ability to bring significant change to a large organization with an insider culture that had traditionally resisted such efforts. There is no one with Bratton's experience in the field to replace him. Someone will have to win the job first, and then prove himself or herself as a top cop.
Keep in mind, while that plays out, that the chief of LAPD is not a politician, but a big part of the job is inherently political. That's appropriate in a best-case scenario, illustrating civilian control over the police force. But the selection of a new chief tends to go beyond best-case scenarios, with candidates reviewed by a Police Commission appointed by the mayor, and the ultimate choice subject to approval by City Councilmembers. Whether race and ethnicity crop up as a difference maker during the current selection process remains to be seen.
So far, however, the political landscape around the chief's job makes it remarkable that there has yet to be much outcry for a return to racial or ethnic considerations in choosing a new chief.
This doesn't mean that we won't hear an outcry before all is said and done. And it won't mean that Los Angeles will have arrived in a post-racial era even if the new chief gets the job without any such clamor.
It would amount to another brick in the foundation of progress toward a post-racial culture, though.
Indeed, an early review of the selection process indicates that our city can already claim that much ground.
Related article:
* Glimpsing the Good in Bratton's Goodbye
Jerry Sullivan is editor of the L.A. Garment & Citizen.
Photo from LAPD flickr photostream
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