Letter to the Editor: Bruins need to rebuild LA instead of taking anger to the streets
By Walt Watson
Nov. 13, 2016 8:18 p.m.
In response to the result of the 2016 presidential election and the outspoken reactions from the community, the Daily Bruin is running a series of submissions from readers. Click here to read more.
As an alumnus, I am disappointed in those of you who took to the streets after the election shouting, “Not my president.” I would expect more restraint and intellectual prowess from a student body that is supposedly comprised of some of the brightest minds in America.
You have every right to be disappointed if you disagree with Donald Trump’s campaign promises. But how many of you who took to the streets or social media bothered to read his two-page “Contract with the American Voter,” or have written to his campaign to share your views in the intelligent and civil manner expected of a Bruin?
We Americans have been disappointed in the undelivered promises of politicians and an unresponsive bureaucracy for far too many years. I am ashamed of the lack of decent, meaningful jobs and educational opportunities afforded to young people in America’s inner cities. Take a drive to Pico Rivera or Van Nuys and see the poverty and despair. Ford Motor Company and General Motors once provided excellent paying jobs at their assembly plants in those communities. And there’s many more plants that no longer exist, including Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman Corp. and the U.S. Naval Shipyard. It’s a long list.
Why doesn’t Los Angeles have a better economic base? Take a look around your city. Would you want to locate your company in a city with such lousy roads, inferior airport, low-performing schools or overpriced housing? This is what government and its politicians have delivered to its citizens in over the past 40 years. It’s time for a change. It’s time to do better.
I wish to challenge young Bruins to remake LA rather than take to the streets. You are the future teachers, doctors, politicians, innovators, entrepreneurs, financiers and police leaders. You are an army of the best and brightest, numbering in the tens of thousands. Stay here after graduation and make LA great.
Watson is a UCLA alumnus who earned his MBA in 1982.
