Watts article

[Malignd]

Let’s see if I can put an end to this thread.

I read the article a few days ago, for the first time
in a while and found it -- initially,subjectively --
disappointing.  It seemed vague and not in focus. 
There was no sharp sense of time and place, nothing
that provided what the title promised--a journey
either into Watts or its "mind."  Here was an article
by a blazing young talent who put his white ass in the
middle of Watts in the year after the riots, shortly
after the Deadwyler shooting, and this is what he came
back with?    

I went through it again and noted the absence of
detail.  Everything seemed as if viewed from a ways
off, generalized and synthesized, blurry.  He refers
to people he spoke with but who were they?  Where were
they?  What did they look like?  What were they
wearing?  How old?  Do they have jobs of any kind? 
Are they jobless?  Are they criminal?  Nothing is
specific, nothing comes to life. 

He describes the  people of Watts as "the poor, the
defeated, the criminal, the desperate, all hanging in
there ..."  But what are they like?  What form does
defeat take?  What form desperation?  How does it play
out?  What are its manifestations?  What about the
"criminal"?  Is it black on black crime? Is there
acceptance of that, if so?  Does the criminal have
status? 

What were their voices like?  What was the mix of
anger and despair and resignation and dark humor of
even a one of them?  Pynchon goes to Watts to get it
firsthand out of the mouths of the people who live
there and to what avail?  One never hears an
idiosyncratic voice.  Not one quote sounds like an
individual, a particular person.  Everything sounds
generic.  A closer look reveals that most of the
quotes seem not to be quotes exactly; rather, they're
apparent generalizations or compilations or
paraphrases.  If one wants to believe they're exact
quotes, unattributed, one needs ask then why they are
so lacking in inflection and life?  Why does one not
hear the anger or despair?  Where is attitude?  Does
Pynchon not take good notes?  Does he have a tin ear?

"... the young, active disciple of Malcolm X who
dismisses it all [E.Y.O.A.] with a contemptuous
shrug," -- and is never heard from again.  What role
does Malcolm play for the young, for this kid, for
anyone?  How does that play out?  Does it channel his
anger?  Is he angry?  Was Pynchon even curious?  Did
he actually meet this kid?  How could he do so little
with the situation he put himself in?  It's all flat
and lifeless.  

So what might have been salvaged from the article?  A
point of view, perhaps; a take on the situation that
was new or different or radical.  But most of what he
offers of his own opinion is not about Watts, but
about white LA, and what he offers is generic and
obvious:  Blacks and whites live in different worlds. 
Whites avoid Watts.  Blacks distrust cops.  Whites
have more money than blacks.  Blacks are angry. 
There's little more than that.

And so I find the article weak and disappointing.  I
should be surprised that I'm the only one to think so
but, of course, I'm not surprised.






		
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