Compton¹s evolution from mild-mannered L.A. backwater to ground zero of ghetto nation makes cowards ‹ and accomplices ‹ of us all

Compton¹s evolution from mild-mannered L.A. backwater to ground zero of ghetto nation makes cowards ‹ and accomplices ‹ of us all by Erin Aubry Kaplan

"It was my father who first told me Compton was not a good place to go after dark. That was about 20 years ago, but he was actually talking about the Compton of the 1940s, long before West Coast gangsta rap began flavoring radio playlists, long before hip-hop became a musical phenomenon and then a cultural paradigm that soured our national self-regard around the edges and, with characteristically grim satisfaction, flattened the mindless bubbly of American pop.