LA Gangland Tours

The controversial LA Gangland Bus Tours, which for $65 a head takes tourists on a two-hour bus tour of Watts and South-Central Los Angeles to visit sites significant to the history of street gangs in the US, is scheduled to give its first tour this morning. The tour, led by a former gang member, will raise money for said former gang member’s non-profit organization, though questions about ethics and taste have been raised, most recently in the New York Times:

Alfred Lomas, 45, a former gang member and the creator of the tour ($65, lunch included), said this drive-by was about educating people on city life, while turning any profits into microloans and other initiatives aimed at providing gang members jobs.

But aside from its unusual logistical challenges — the liability waiver describes the tour as “inherently dangerous” and warns of the risk of death — the venture has also generated debate about its appropriateness. Chicago has a tour of Al Capone sites and Las Vegas has one devoted to the mob — but this gangland lore is still happening.

“Everybody says we are the gang capital of the world, and that is certainly true, no denying that,” said the Rev. Gregory Boyle, who has spent decades trying to steer people out of gangs into legitimate work. “It’s hard to gloss over that. But there are two extremes we always need to avoid. One is demonizing the gang member, and the other extreme is romanticizing the gang.”

Others fear that the tour, which initially is to be conducted monthly, may conjure up the so-called slum tours of shantytowns and impoverished areas of Rio de Janeiro and Soweto, South Africa, which bring tourists close, but not too close, to misery, with questionable benefit.

Every newspaper article I’ve seen about these tours in the last few weeks has been remarkably similar. Presumably, they are all just working off of the same press release. There’s a lot I’d like to know about the tours that hasn’t been answered in any article I’ve read on on the organization’s website.

In my opinion, the tours themselves are a good idea and could be valuable educational/diplomatic exercises, creating awareness among the general public about certain misundersood aspects of the lives of the urban poor. This is very much dependent on the tours being done right though, neither demonizing nor romanticizing, as Rev. Boyle puts it above.

There’s some reason to think this particular organization is leaning towards the sensational. One anecdote the articles love to report is that, until recently, there were plans to have young gang members squirt tourists with water guns and sell shirts reading, “I got shot in South Central LA.”

LA Gang Tours is a non-profit organization, but their website is dedicated entirely to selling tour tickets and soliciting donations. It contains no information about their Board or staff, other than founder Alfred Lomas, and precious little about the programs that these ticket sales are going to fund:

The objective is to create jobs for the residents of South Central, Los Angeles; to give profits from the tours back to these areas for economic growth and development, provide job/entrepreneur training, micro-financing opportunities and to specialize in educating people from around the world about the Los Angeles inner city lifestyle, gang involvement and solutions. This project will create opportunities to contribute to the economic health of South Central and the tools needed to access the American market.

Your participation allows the success of a cease-fire agreement between three of the largest and most notorious gangs in L.A. history. This agreement will allow young people and children safe passage (gun fire free safety zones). It will provide the framework to create a peaceful environment conducive to their physical, spiritual and emotional well-being. With your help together we will save lives and create sustainable change.

And that’s the full extent of it. It’s not even clear that they are a federally recognized charitable organization. Their donations page, anyway, makes no reference to donations being tax deductible.

I hope they get their act together, or someone else picks up on the idea and executes it better, because I think it has a lot of potential.