The View From BH

http://www.laweekly.com/bestof/2008/award/l-a-from-the-top-and-bottom-best-gazing-from-the-golden-hood-348206/

I love the above blurb about the view from Baldwin Hills I found in the "LA Weekly." I live just south of the Baldwin Hills, although my office building for work is in Baldwin Hills and the oil fields with which I work are called "Baldwin Hills Oil Fields."

The following are my thoughts on the view from BH:

I see an amazing view of downtown every day when I walk around the block during lunch hour. Really magnificant views are available in all the neighborhoods of Baldwin Hills. The best I've seen, though, is from Kenneth Hahn State Park, a few miles away from my work place. From there you can see downtown, the skyscrapers along the Wilshire corrider reaching towards the ocean, the Hollywood Hills/Beverly Hills, Griffith Observatory, and of course you can see the Pacific Ocean.

Well, the article wonders if people in those places, particularly Beverly Hills (also "BH") are looking at those in Baldwin Hills the same time Baldwin Hills folk are looking at the Beverly Hills.
My opinion is probably not.

From my travels up and around the LA area, the Baldwin Hills are pretty invisible unless you are looking for them. When looking out from somewhere like the Getty Museum--high up in the Beverly Hills--there is nothing really to direct your eye to the Baldwin Hills. The Baldwin Hills aren't quite as high as the Beverly Hills; they are tucked in between flat lands all around it. There are no really tall buildings either.

I'm reminded of stand-point theory--an illustration of how minorities and marginalized experience society. If you picture a class-room, those at the front have a pretty good view of maybe the first row of students and the teacher. But those at the back of the class room see the teacher, the front row, AND all the rows between the back and front. The view is fuller, richer, more complete. Like they know something those at the front don't.

That's what the view from Baldwin Hills is like. You can see everything in LA, but people in all those places, really can't see you or know that you are there...