There's no physical sign, barrier, or even a chalk line that marks the zone where a black can't enter at the risk of grave harm. But the zone is there, and blacks know that if they enter it they can be beat, shot at, or killed.

The twist is that the forbidden zone is not in a redneck, backwoods, and Deep South town during the rigid and violent Jim Crow segregation era. The bigger twist is that the Klan, Neo-Nazis, racist skinheads, and bikers didn't establish the racially restrictive zone. Purported Latino gang members established it. The forbidden zone is in a small, mixed ethnic bedroom community in Los Angeles. The year is 2007, not 1947.

A black family that recently fled the community in fear for their lives bluntly told a reporter that they left because blacks there are scared to death. In the past year, the hate terror escalated to the point where blacks tell tormenting tales of being harried when they leave their homes, or their children walk to school. They say that they are forbidden to go into a park, and a convenience store.