BID Patrol Allegedly Uses the Word “Wetback,” Offending Everybody Except Possibly Anti-Peruvian Director Carol Massie and Graffiti-Art-Haters on Staff and Board

This is not exactly like the BID Patrol.  They don't carry rifles, for one thing.
This is not exactly like the BID Patrol. They don’t carry rifles, for one thing.
We’ve been writing a lot recently on what strongly appears to be an anti-Latino attitude on the part of the two business improvement districts controlled by Kerry Morrison. The first indication of this was their freakout over the too-dark skin color of local nightclub patrons. After that it turned out that they think that official acknowledgement of Peruvian culture in Hollywood would be “amazingly inappropriate.” Also, both BIDs design their public art contests in such a way that the chance of a Latino artist being selected is significantly lowered, with both the Hollywood Property Owners Alliance and the Central Hollywood Coalition being guilty of this.

So against that background it wasn’t all too surprising to read this 2015 complaint to Kerry Morrison from an anonymous person:


I would like to bring to your attention an incident that occurred last week as I was purchasing good from the 7-11 convenient
[sic] store on Cahuenga. As I was entering the store, I overheard several of your officers speaking about an incident and the disgusting word of “wetback” was said by one of your Caucasian guards. This guard was very loud and had rude mannerism.

And Kerry Morrison forwarded it to Joe Salazar, and later Steve Seyler wrote back, stating:

Good afternoon. We have made progress on this and are now opening an official investigation. Joe will be going to the 7-11 to further the investigation and will interview witnesses. We hope to report back to you soon, but want to cover all bases first.

Later that day Joe Salazar wrote to Kerry Morrison about the incident, albeit with nothing substantial to add. After that it drops off the email radar completely as far as we can tell from the information that was given to us. This might be due to the BID’s paranoid email deletion policies, it might be due to the fact that no one there really cared enough to follow up, it might be due to the fact that they swept the whole matter under the rug because they actually don’t think it matters that their officers use racial slurs, or it might be due to something else we haven’t guessed at. It’s probably not possible to say at this point, but a touch of the old Redaktionstheologie suggests that they dropped the matter entirely. Since they’re clearly deleting everything that makes them look bad, why would they hand over the report but not the solution?

We have, for good or for ill, no conclusions to draw here. This is just a report. We’ll close with the surprising information, though, that there’s at least one aspect of Angeleno1/Latino culture that Kerry Morrison doesn’t hate, or at least, whether she hates it or not, has incorporated it into her personal cultural lexicon. Read here to see Ms. Kerry Morrison quoting a Cypress Hill song. First we were shocked, but then it occurred to us that it makes some sense. Both Kerry Morrison and the song are vehemently opposed to cheap beer:

The lights are blinking I’m thinking
It’s all over when I go out drinking
Oh
Makin’ my mind slow,
That’s why I don’t fuck wit da big four-oh
Bro
I got ta’ maintain


Movie poster appears here under a claim of fair use, although it’s probably out of copyright.

  1. Or at least South Gate.
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