Beyond Blade Runner Part 2 – Welcome to The System!

California to me is like an old 2002 Ford F150 that is patched up, an American made car that has a lot of potential, a lot of power, and a perception as to how amazing of a truck it truly is. However with it being such an old truck there is ware and tear and there are bound to be things that break and give you problems, much like California and all of their problems stemming from the 1990s. With being such an old car truck it needs to have the repairs necessary to run, however can be patched up so it could still run, this is exactly what is happening in California. There are so many things in California that need to be fixed but continue to be patched up because it is easier (and Cheaper) to patch up rather than to fix. Same thing goes for the truck, it is much easier to patch up the carburetor in the pick up truck rather than replacing it because you will need to disassemble the entire engine to get to it, when the easier quicker fix may be to flush out the fluids, or to use a higher octane gas to allow for the same combustion effect at a lower heating rate. California essentially is this old Ford F150 that has continued to be patched up but the problem with that is that with patching things up it leads into problems in other areas of the car (California).

One of the largest problems that was brought out in the Beyond Blade Runner was the topic if a race war that was going on during the 1990s. In the span of two years there had been several murders of African Americans, by a group named the Skin heads, who were a white supremacy group that had arose during this time period. It was known that it was this group committing these acts of violence and aggression and killing African Americans, however nothing was ever done to stop them. California had just allowed for this to continue to happen instead of investigating who the Skin Heads were or where they came from. Mike Davis brings out a great point saying that if California or the federal government wanted to stop this growth of this race war, they should have investigated to see where this organization came from and where this surging acts of racial discrimination came from. California instead just patched up the problem and reassured the public that everything was ok, and that the problem was under control and in fact not reacted to the presence of these neonazi, skin heads, and white supremacies alike.

The prison system in California is like a busted starter in the truck, the truck is operable without a fully functional one to the truck. Essentially what has happened is the prison system had taken massive cuts to its budget to reduce cost or operation by reducing the amount of workers that were needed. All’s to them for reducing the cost of operation and finding their maximization point, however they had neglected to reallocate the funds to something else. They had implemented a new electrical fence that was safe for birds, this is frustrating to read that they were more concern of reducing the cost of prisons in a growing crime period by creating a fence instead of trying to figure out what the crimes were and how to reduce the amount of crime actually being committed. It would make the Truck run a lot smoother and start up a lot easier with a new starter and instead of damaging other parts of the truck to if it was just replaced with something different. Again, neglected to look at how to replace the problems at hand and perpetuated other problems and did not invest the resources to ensure that this 2002 Ford F150 continues to run efficiently.

Iklim Isyar says:

December 4, 2018 at 10:56 pm

The writing reminded me the concept of psychogeoraphy as it describes how rich elites “still live in the big houses on the hill” as if they are looking down to the population under a high crime risk and low health care opportunities. So is there actually a way out of the poverty and crime in California with the existing motor pieces as you described above? Or is it to time to build up a new car with new parts, or at least start to aim for it?

Sabrina Duarte says:

December 5, 2018 at 1:01 am

I was also thinking of a similar concept while reading your brief. You suggest that we need to replace the parts of the car rather than patch them up with temporary fixes, but the way I see it, the car itself is the society, or the System, as a whole. I feel as though our current system, or car, needs replacing on all of its parts, but the System does a good job of hiding the problems with temporary repairs to appear operable. Although you may have gotten comfortable in this car and shared history as a passenger, you need to break out of the comfort you know and buy a new car (aka create a new System). What actions would it take to “sell this old car”? What should we as a community be looking for with the “new car” we want to buy? Are there specific parts of the car or aspects of society we should draw more attention to? What would we do about the parts that seem to break down more often?

Zixuan Liu says:

December 5, 2018 at 12:13 am

Nice analogy to the car (although I know nothing about cars or mechanics). (But isn’t getting a new car to replace it a more usual, efficient way to solve the problem…just saying….)
The topic about Skin Heads reminds me the story of collecting bodies down the river. The District attorney refused to “acknowledge the plague of white violence sweeping his county” (410). But that is not the way to solve the problem. As a student of the System, and a knowledgable mechanic, what should be the steps to make the engine run efficiently from this point that almost every part of this truck/city has problems or potential danger?

Kayley Hoffman says:

December 5, 2018 at 1:21 am

The concept of Los Angeles being a combination of different patchwork projects adds a different perspective to the psychogeography of the city. Do you think evidence of these different solutions from different times are distinct and noticeable? How have the problems continued to manifest beyond the time period when this was written?

Phillip Daniel says:

December 5, 2018 at 3:26 am

Do you believe the psychogeography of California is specifically unique? Do you believe it’s history in it’s systemic development has something about it that makes a driving force of oppression in America?