Democrat Laphonza Butler

was announced as the

Nation’s third Black female senator when she was sworn in Tuesday to replace California Sen. Dianne Feinstein. She is also the first gay person of color to serve in the U.S. Senate.

Black Angelenos, many of whom feel disconnected between themselves and elected leaders regardless of party, are torn about what this means for them.

While celebrating Butler’s appointment to history by Gov. Gavin Newsom, some wonder how Butler will succeed in helping Black Californians improve their lives where they believe others have fallen short.

“It shows that we are seen as black women,” said Naomi Arena, 27, an actress, model and Christian YouTube personality who was running errands in downtown Los Angeles. “I love that.”

Sentiments like Arena’s contrast starkly with the conversations within the state’s Democratic Party.

All week, political insiders have speculated about why Newsom chose the relatively under-the-radar president from Emily’s List.

the fundraising platform for pro-choice

women feminine

politicians, to serve out the remaining fifteen months of Feinstein’s term. Newsom bypassed high-profile potential Rep. Barbara Lee, also a Black woman, who had conspicuously lobbied for the job and had the support of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Feinstein died on September 29 at the age of 90 after an arrest

that chair

for three decades. With Butler as her temporary successor, Newsom has added a potential new face and even more drama to the 2024 race to determine who will win a coveted, full six-year term as California’s junior senator. Lee is one of the contenders.

But ordinary black Americans in Los Angeles were either unaware of, or didn’t seem to care about, the machinations behind the scenes.

Despite their reservations about politics, most were simply impressed that everyone who looks like them has joined the Senate, one of the whitest and most exclusive clubs in the country where only twelve black people have ever served. That list includes three black women, including Butler and Vice President Kamala Harris, the daughter of an Indian and a Jamaican, who swore in the new senator with Butler’s wife Neneki Lee at her side.

Alyssia Aliyy, 24, a waitress at the downtown Vietnamese restaurant Little Sister, had just finished the hectic lunch rush. Like Arena, she hadn’t heard the news about Butler before, but she was happy to know she had a reason to feel less jaded about politics.

“Representation has always been the most important thing to me, but as a Black person in America, I have been let down one too many times,” Aliyy said.

say. “I don’t really expect anything from this country, so if I prove myself wrong in some small way, it would go a long way.”

Considering 44-year-old Butler’s race, her status as the first lesbian of color in the US Senate

and her work as a union leader for nursing home workers, janitors and security guards, the former LA resident

can be a stimulating force many times over, said Chadwick Davis, a screenwriter who was about to start his evening shift as a security guard.

Despite working two jobs, the 33-year-old says he’s “still struggling.”

“We need someone to look at LA from our perspective and make changes that actually benefit low-income and middle-class people,” Davis said.

“Sometimes the people they put in these positions can’t relate to the black community or the queer community, and they really know what it’s like to live in a city where you might feel like an outcast,” Davis says. “I hate to say it, but I feel like only a black woman knows those things.”

This ambivalence, a mix of newfound optimism and deep-seated pessimism, was shared by others in the historic heart of South LA’s black community.

Most were too preoccupied with real-world issues to spend much time revealing yet another black American path: high gas prices, the rising cost of housing, homelessness, the neglect of the city’s black population.

companies business

districts. Black people in this part of town say they have many reasons to sing the blues and doubt both Democrats and Republicans.

The economic distress felt by many Black Angelenos is evident during the short drive along Crenshaw Boulevard between the Jefferson Park neighborhood and the shopping center that anchors Baldwin Hills.

Storefronts that have not been renovated for years. A hot afternoon sun shines on the umbrellas and tarpaulins of makeshift homeless camps. The thoroughfare needs a lot of love, even if it is loved in its own way by long-time residents.

Larry Campbell, 61, looks sharp in his red, white and blue thick-framed glasses as he walks past sun-drenched bungalows and cube-shaped duplexes in Jefferson Park. He is proud to say that Marvin Gaye and other black superstars once called this area home. But he hasn’t heard of Butler’s appointment either.

The retired Edison worker from Southern California leans forward with his hand over his face and says:

‘She’s got something

big

shoes to fill.”

When asked which issue he would like Butler to address first on behalf of black Californians, Campbell does not hesitate to offer two letters.

“AH,” he says. “Affordable Housing.”

The fatigue mounts and the list of needs only grows the further south you go, along streets named after Barack Obama and Martin Luther King Jr. At an intersection called Freedom Square, Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza feels like a ghost town, with only a few people. browsing in the mall and eating in the food court.

Latoya Hodson walks in her Tupac past largely dormant retail spaces

Shakur

T-shirt, her pink sunglasses on her curly hair. She’s heard the news about Butler and is basically okay with Newsom keeping his promise to choose a black woman to fill Feinstein’s seat.

“But just because someone is black doesn’t mean they’re for you, to be completely honest,” says Hodson, 46.

Hodson sounds irritated.

“I don’t want lip service,” she says. “We need to see some movement, especially in the black community, but also in the Latino community. We need better jobs. … We need better training. We have to do something for the young people because they don’t have things like us. had. … You have to get this homelessness under control.”

So many millions of taxpayer dollars have been raised and spent to solve some of LA’s and the state’s social and economic problems, Hodson says. Looking at the handful of shoppers

and empty stores, and thinking about the people camped around the mall and the lack of places in her neighborhood to buy healthy food, she wonders what use all that money was.

In one of the few open stores, Afro City Marketplace, owner Rwanda Ray sits at the counter, wearing a floral-print robe and gold cowboy boots, with a huge ring in the shape of Africa adorning her left hand.

Ray, who grew up nearby and lives downtown, has also worried about how Washington politicians can help her and other small business owners in this part of LA revitalize commercial centers.

Her own answer is to preserve Black wealth in the Black community, or as she calls it, “recycling the Black dollars” by leasing Black entrepreneurial space at affordable rates to sell their Afrocentric goods and services in her nine-month-old empire.

The 15,000-square-foot store is a constellation of kiosks selling shea butter skin creams, handmade shoes, local art and jewelry, African print clothing and coffee from Cameroon. There is also a headband where women can learn how to tie fabric into royal headpieces. Ray says she hosts yoga sessions and relationship workshops at the store and plans to host tea parties and make the mall one of the stops for her traveling Afrolicious Hair Expo.

This is the kind of vision she wants Black politicians like Butler to support in the form of programs that help entrepreneurs in communities of color start and grow their businesses.

“I would like her to represent the little boys and girls,” Ray says. “The small businessman and small businesswoman are very important to this community because

they encourage

Black families help us stay and stay in the community.”

Like other Black Angelenos, Ray says she is inspired to learn more about Butler. And she is willing to hold out hope that Butler, because of who she is and because the needs of the state’s Black community are so pressing, will be different.

As Hodson put it: “We’ll have to see what she does next.”