LA Metro playing classical music to help prevent crime, homelessness
Metro is taking an unusual approach to clean up one station.
Classical music is a great idea.
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They need to call Saul and get hooked up to HD2 1260.
- Thread starter 34james
- Start date
Classical music is a great idea.
Yesterday I was in San Luis Obispo. We were walking around the downtown area where, incongruously, there's a 7-Eleven off Higuera Street. That store was playing classical music very loudly. I think we all know why.
My personal view-
1. What matters is WHY they are doing this, and if they are targeting a particular group of people in violation of the law.
2. Is LA Metro a government agency? There may be applicable laws that would view this a profiling.
3. Let's say instead of classical music it was talk content expressing classism, social warfare or racism. Would that be OK?
What if the INTENT of playing classical music was exactly the same as the above talk content, only more subtle?
4. Playing music softly, and rotating the style of music could be OK, if its purpose is setting a mood, without programming it to make a particular group of people uncomfortable, in a public place.
5. I wonder about basic intelligence of government officials and elected representatives, on BOTH sides of the political spectrum.
It took me about 90 seconds to realize the problem of playing music in a public place to drive away "those people". Yet apparently LA Metro officials reviewed this and implemented it. I suppose ill-conceived ideas are as common as belly buttons.
People in government regularly may decisions that are just plain dumb. This doesn't mean our system of government is broken or changing to another form of government. It just means some people make questionable decisions, and that is why we have checks and balances.
The guy who lives behind me has a pool. He plays country music loudly all summer, from 9 AM to 9 PM. He has friends and neighborhood kids over and they have a ball playing in the pool and singing. No profanity or obvious drunks. Even though I am not a big fan of country music, I am OK with this because I know he is not doing this to drive me crazy or express hate for me. On the other hand, if he knew me and told me "my kind" are not welcome here and he hates me, I would feel differently about the music.
It is all about the combination of intent and action. We see LA Metro's action. What is their intent?
1. What matters is WHY they are doing this, and if they are targeting a particular group of people in violation of the law.
2. Is LA Metro a government agency? There may be applicable laws that would view this a profiling.
3. Let's say instead of classical music it was talk content expressing classism, social warfare or racism. Would that be OK?
What if the INTENT of playing classical music was exactly the same as the above talk content, only more subtle?
4. Playing music softly, and rotating the style of music could be OK, if its purpose is setting a mood, without programming it to make a particular group of people uncomfortable, in a public place.
5. I wonder about basic intelligence of government officials and elected representatives, on BOTH sides of the political spectrum.
It took me about 90 seconds to realize the problem of playing music in a public place to drive away "those people". Yet apparently LA Metro officials reviewed this and implemented it. I suppose ill-conceived ideas are as common as belly buttons.
People in government regularly may decisions that are just plain dumb. This doesn't mean our system of government is broken or changing to another form of government. It just means some people make questionable decisions, and that is why we have checks and balances.
The guy who lives behind me has a pool. He plays country music loudly all summer, from 9 AM to 9 PM. He has friends and neighborhood kids over and they have a ball playing in the pool and singing. No profanity or obvious drunks. Even though I am not a big fan of country music, I am OK with this because I know he is not doing this to drive me crazy or express hate for me. On the other hand, if he knew me and told me "my kind" are not welcome here and he hates me, I would feel differently about the music.
It is all about the combination of intent and action. We see LA Metro's action. What is their intent?
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Sorry, classical music is not racist. Nice try though.
KUSC has played loud enough to hear across the street at times from outside the 7-11 at Harbor & Katella in Anaheim for at least a few years now. (I know it's that station as on occasion, I've walked by during talk breaks) I wonder if LA Metro is doing the same thing, or invested in a Mood Media/Dish Audio Subscription (or using an existing one); or just spinning the same CD on repeat. Trivial matters indeed, but the music is coming from somewhere
I think all of that is explained in the article. They're doing it because studies indicate that it works. They're targeting homeless people. No violation of the law. The same thing is being done in other California cities including San Francisco:
5 things to know about fighting crime with classical music
Do the sounds of Bach and Vivaldi really have the power to combat loitering and other petty offenses?
www.police1.com
It's also being done in Tacoma Washington.
From some of the posts in this thread, maybe they should play Coast to Coast on a loop instead
The one at Marsh & Broad? Been there forever. The character of Marsh Street is different---there's a Long's Drug across the street, and a strip mall.
(Holy God, I'm about to agree with Flip on a social issue.)
And if someone says it is, the solution is simple. Play recordings by a wide range of classical composers and performers.
Composers of Color You Should Know
Used to be you only heard Black composers on the various classical outlets I've listened to over the years (SiriusXM, WFCR, WMNR, Vermont Public Classical) on MLK Day or during February, Black History Month. But now William Grant Still, Florence Price and others are in the regular rotation. It's about time. The music is worth hearing, and it's not pushing the European masters out of the format.
Right, must have been Marsh. What was Longs is now CVS, which, as you know, bought Longs and is milking it.
Yeah, that was a brain cramp. CVS took Longs years ago.
SLO's downtown developed with Higuera first, over decades, and then Marsh, mostly post-World War II. So it's a very different feeling just one block over.
1. Why? Because the MacArthur Park station had become seedy and filthy. Groups of homeless would loiter all day, begging passengers for money. Open-air drug sales. Smoking cigs weed and crystal on the platforms. Dumping out garbage cans on the ground to rummage for recycling. Pay the fare? HA!
2. Yes, Metro is officially the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Agency.
As for your claim of "profiling", isn't it stereotyping to assume all unhoused people don't like classical and only listen to hip hop?
Just get Dudamel to create a playlist! His "new composer" picks he has promoted, particularly in summer concerts, includes Hispanics, Asians, Blacks and people from hard-to-spell countries in Europe. That should give the needed cultural balance.
Definitely more of a feeling of a major arterial on Marsh. SLO has implemented traffic calming and bike lanes on Higuera. Lots of complaints about it on an afternoon talk show on KVEC that I caught earlier this week. It feels like local talk shows in this part of the central coast are essentially open-air complaint departments for those who can't adapt to change. It's street calming in SLO and the school board in Paso Robles (where there was a recall and now a new election with the usual depressing array of issues that the far right has cooked up to try to seize power).
A reminder, however, that classical music is not foolproof in its deterrence of crime:
"They were doing Swan Lake at the ballet. And some bookmarkers had drifted into town from upstate New York and suddenly there was a lot of money on the swan to live."
(Woody Allen standup, early-mid 60s)
"They were doing Swan Lake at the ballet. And some bookmarkers had drifted into town from upstate New York and suddenly there was a lot of money on the swan to live."
(Woody Allen standup, early-mid 60s)
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This is probably the most amusing thread ever...the idea of any genre of music being racist is absurd...
I think that the reference was to the specific racial or ethnic group appeal of different genres... Sorta' like saying that most rural white adults from northern Maine don't like Ladysmith Black Mombasso or any other group that sings isicathamiya and mbube songs.
W
Well David I understand, but where it really gets absurd is that it's like saying Vallarta Supermarket plays Latin music to discourage or make non Hispanics uncomfortable shopping there...loco !
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