Three years later: violence and absolution

Published: Friday, April 28, 1995

Juan T. Alvarado

Tomorrow is the third anniversary of the Los Angeles "riots," "uprising," "civil disturbance," but whatever you call them, it's all pretty shitty to me. It's the third anniversary of the pointless beating of Reginald Denny and others at the corner of Florence and Normandie. It's been three years to the day since the biased, all-white jury from Simi Valley returned the verdicts of not guilty for the four Los Angeles police officers charged with beating Rodney King.

Everybody was expecting those verdicts from day one, but no one expected the violent backlash they seemed to cause. I sure wasn't expecting it, I wasn't prepared for it, didn't share in it and I don't understand it. I've never understood the violent measures that some people feel are necessary to get their point across. I suppose that's why I was oblivious to what was happening around me that day.

I was at Jefferson and Normandie in the late afternoon, picking up my friend Stephanie from USC. We had both heard the verdicts that morning, but like I said,we expected them and didn't think much about it. We drove down Jefferson toward Normandie on our way to Santa Monica for a late lunch.

The first thing we noticed was the helicopters circling overhead. Then we looked ahead and saw 10 to 20 people running in the middle of the street toward a building. I slowed down so I wouldn't hit anyone.

At Normandie, we stopped for the sirens. Twelve police cars barreled down the street. On our way to the restaurant, where Lincoln crosses the freeway, we saw a couple of Guardian Angels in the middle of the street, shouting at traffic. I guess I was clueless. I didn't put the events together and figure out what was going on. We stayed at the restaurant for hours, never knowing we had driven near the flash point of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

It was after dark when we decided we should go home. When we got to my room at the Co-ops, my roommates were unusually glad to see me, afraid I was either trapped in South Central because of the curfew, or worse, hurt in the middle of it all. We turned on the TV to catch up on what we had missed all day and one of the first things we saw on the news was Steph's apartment complex some guy from her building was talking about someone who had fired a gun at the residents.

Needless to say, I didn't take Stephanie back to USC that night. We called her parents, who were worried sick and my mother and father, who were glad to hear that UCLA was nowhere near the center of the activities. We didn't tell them how close to Florence and Normandie we were that day they didn't need to know. The next morning, we drove on five different freeways to get to Pomona, our hometown, and hung out there for the next three days, all the while watching TV and wondering why.

I've had this internal conflict about the whole situation no matter how bad things were at the time, there is no justification for what happened. I couldn't understand how the good people in South Central L.A. could have reacted so violently, burning down their own stores and businesses to protest the decisions that were so predictable. Some who defend the actions of the rioters say that what happened had more to do with Latasha Harlins and earlier racial tensions than it did with Rodney King, that the stores and businesses destroyed were Korean, but even given that, I still don't understand. I can't sympathize.

I've had three years now to think about the whys, and recent events have helped me figure some things out.

For two years now I've been listening to talk radio, and for the last two weeks, predictably, the hot topic has been the Oklahoma City bombing. At first, most callers thought Arab terrorists or Islamic fundamentalists were responsible for the bombing. Most were angry and emotional, spouting preventative "solutions" like carpet bombing the entire Middle East and deporting every Middle Easterner in the U.S. A small number of callers said you can't hold the whole Middle East, much less all Middle Easterners, responsible for the actions of a few extremists.

As it turns out, Middle Easterners weren't responsible for the tragedy. The main suspects are two white males who are members of a militia, part of a small but growing section of our population, and when this became known, the calls changed accordingly. Instead of saying "let's carpet bomb the militias," however, most of them argued that the bombing was wrong and horrible, but that you can't hold all militia members responsible for the actions of the extremists. A small percentage of extremists even called and agreed with the bombing, saying that the Oklahoma City federal building was the first target in a war with the evil government.

How does all of this relate with the riots? I agree, in a limited way, with those who say you can't hold all (fill in the blank) responsible for the actions of a few extremists. I can't hold all South Central citizens responsible for the actions of the extremists who reacted violently. But the reason my agreement is limited is because a cause and effect situation is happening that makes me believe you can't absolve all (fill in the blank) from responsibility.

While it is true that only thousands out of millions in L.A.actually participated in the violence, that doesn't mean the rest can be absolved from creating the environment that allowed it to happen.

Community representatives were and are irresponsible when they report and react to events in the news. Maxine Waters, the congresswoman who represents the South Central area, was filmed on TV saying "No Justice, No Peace." Representatives of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church talked about the importance of the verdicts and their effect on the average black Angeleno and how wrong the verdicts in the Latasha Harlins case were. The media helped to create an explosive environment when anchors warned the public to stay indoors on the day of the verdicts to avoid the violence that "might" ensue.

Please don't get me wrong I am not against free speech and the rights of people to voice their opinions, but I think these community representatives should share responsibility with the extremists who used their words as fuel for the fire. Extremists exist no matter what side of the party line you fall on.

The spectrum goes like this: Extreme Ultra-Left Wing (eco-terrorists, tree spikers, people who throw blood on fur-wearers), Ultra-Left Wing (Green Peace, the Black Panthers, the U.S. Communist party), Left Wing (the Democratic party and pro-choice movement), Moderates (me and most Americans), Right Wing (the Republican party and pro-life movement), Ultra-Right Wing (Ditto Heads, Christian fundamentalists, the Sons and Daughters of Liberty), Extreme Ultra-Right Wing (militias, neo-nazi organizations and the KKK).

Most Americans fall in the safe range of moderates, fluctuating now and then between the left or the right, and there are also those who are simply right or left.The danger begins with those in the ultra-left or ultra-right, who at best can be convinced to become simply right or left. At worst, they are pushed to the extreme poles of society where they no longer respect the will of the rest of us, creating situations like the 1992 riots and the bombing of Oklahoma City.

In order to prevent this danger from happening in the future, moderates are responsible for watching and allowing our government to watch the ultra and extreme elements of our society, so the angry environment is not allowed to grow.

Alvarado is a fifth-year computer science and engineering student. His columns appear on alternate Fridays.