TPPM Watts: (28) Siege of persuasion

[Paul Nightingale]

"It is, after all, in white L.A.'s interest to cool Watts any way it
can--to put the area under a siege of persuasion: to coax the Negro poor
into taking on certain white values."

Here, such "white values" are defined in terms of property ownership: "a
little property", "a car or color TV".

At the same time, however, such exemplars are quite modest: not 'too
much' in the way of property, for example.

Again, this "siege of persuasion" isn't only aimed at blacks in Watts:
for example, "hold[ing] down a steady job" is essential in middle-class
society for precisely the same reasons. Whites themselves have bought
into "white values" they might just find oppressive: the "precardiac
Mustang drivers" aren't tourists.

Cf: "The two cultures do not understand each other though white values
are displayed without let-up on black people's TV screens, and though
the panoramic sense of black impoverishment is hard to miss from atop
the Harbor Freeway, which so many whites must drive at least twice every
working day."

Well, "white values are [also] displayed without let-up on [white]
people's TV screens": is this why so many drive Mustangs?

Furthermore, as I've noted already, the text has carefully recorded that
commuting is something whites cannot escape ("they must drive").

Hence, the commitment made to "hold[ing] down a steady job" is a
commitment made to "white values": precisely why "Watts is country which
lies, psychologically, uncounted miles further than most whites seem at
present willing to travel".