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CATHERINE JAYIN JUN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Poet Wanda Coleman reads a few of her works in Westwood Plaza Monday, where several art pieces have been exhibited in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the Los Angeles uprising.

By Dexter Gauntlett

DAILY BRUIN STAFF

dgauntlett@media.ucla.edu

Everyone from poets to urban planning analysts reflected Monday on their personal experiences during separate forums intended to address lingering hostilities that sparked the 1992 Rodney King Riots – something not as black and white as the media may have reported, they said.

The middle of Bruin Plaza showcased an artistic memorial that drew attention to the cultural tensions between blacks and Koreans and misinformation caused by the media, both of which reached their heights during the mayhem in South Central Los Angeles, speakers said.

“Our voices are being subsumed,” said poet Wanda Coleman, a Watts native.

She said local voices get drowned out because most people are listening to political and cultural leaders on the East Coast and are subsequently unaware of the more realistic political and cultural factors that contributed to the chaos.

“The rest of the nation saw the 1992 riots as a black and white affair,” Coleman said.

Coleman, who is known for her fiery commentary on personal experiences of urban life as a black woman, was invited by the Asian American Studies program to present a series of her poems that attempt to stimulate dialogue throughout the diverse community of Los Angeles.

She read one of her poems in a composed, yet deeply angered tone that ridiculed a Korean woman, meant to recall the woman who was acquitted after shooting a 15-year-old black girl in her family’s grocery store.

Another more sarcastic poem played off the stereotype that all blacks are thieves. She said, in the last line of her poem, that she, as a black woman, would rather “steal the poison from the motherland,” an allusion to these deep running, hurtful misconceptions in the U.S. which she said may have contributed to the riots themselves.

But Russell Leong, editor for the Amerasia Journal and UCLA English professor, said too much of the riot coverage focused on race and not enough on class plight, a conscious decision made by the media to sell papers, he said.

He said it’s not in a newspaper’s interest to report on the more positive aspects that go on in South Central such as the community building programs.

“They only cover the killings in our city,” Leong said.

Despite the sensitivity of the topic, both writers recognized the power they have to carry and shape ideas and attitudes in their respective communities.

Leong said there is common ground for people who are “black, white and yellow.”

“You don’t need to like each other, you just need to live together,” Leong said.

But at another event Monday, speakers said living together is not an easy thing, as was evidenced in 1992.

Regina Freer, a professor at Occidental college, noted in her remarks that one factor that can cause unrest is quickly-shifting demographics. This was happening in South Los Angeles when the riots broke out; more Latinos were moving in, as blacks headed out.

In fact, Leo F. Estrada, a UCLA urban planning professor, noted that one of the “flash-points” of the riots – the intersection of Florence and Normandie Avenues – was not a primarily black or primarily Latino area, but an area of transition.

Whereas many of the issues plaguing South Central are alive and kicking today, other indicators point toward improvements in quality of living the area.

For example, the rate of growth of South Central has slowed in comparison to the rest of L.A. and homicide rates have decreased. Also, SAT scores have gone up while high school dropout rates have declined, according to data presented by Jim Spencer, a Ph.D candidate in urban planning.