Today is the 3-decade anniversary of the infamous LA Riots of 1992.
The riots were in response to the Not Guilty verdicts given to 4 European-American officers who brutally beat Rodney King, an African-American man who was suspected of drunk driving.
I wrote a blog post "2 decades since the LA riots" back in 2012.
http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2012/04/2-decades-since-la-riots.html
I really don't want to spend too much time repeating what I blogged back in 2012 since much of the facts about the incident haven't changed since then.
But I do want to note that some of my predictions from 2012 were very naive in retrospect.
At the time (2012), there haven't been riots in recent years. Barack Obama was president. Even though I knew that his presidency didn't mean "racism is over forever", I still thought we made enough progress that the days of mass riots are over
The following years proved me wrong big time, especially with the riots that occurred in Ferguson (2013) and Baltimore (2015)
I blogged about those 2 incidents
https://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2014/08/ferguson-police-and-race.html
https://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2015/05/thoughts-on-baltimore-crisis.html
And of course, in 2020, was the racial uprising that made the 1992 LA riots small in comparison. That would be the nationwide reaction to the police-induced death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
I blogged about it at https://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-reactions-to-george-floyds-death.html
Back in 2012, I was naive about human nature (though I wouldn't admit it back then). I thought we were making enough progress to not have a repeat of LA 1992.
But then again, I thought we made so much progress that the USA wouldn't elect an openly racist demagogue like Donald Trump. 2016 proved me wrong.
It's like the saying "2 steps forward, 10 steps back".
And regardless of whoever is president (even if Kamala Harris becomes president in 2024), the police will still over-react to things. And the police unions will still be in fierce defense of police officers who did the wrong things. And police departments still won't be able to screen out everyone who could cause severe problems on the job. And police officers will still be too scared to report on fellow officers who do the wrong thing. (After all, the blue wall of silence is one of the most effective No Snitching programs ever).
And regardless of whoever is president, there'll still be people who lash out against injustice in destructive ways. This is magnified when there are a lot of people who don't have to report to work the next day. (LA in 1992 was feeling the worst effects of a recession; the George Floyd incident in 2020 occurred when the nation was slowly coming out of the initial coronavirus lockdown). This is not to excuse looters or to disparage the safety net, it's just that if you have to report to work the next day, you're less likely to join the destructive mobs burning and looting stuff the night before.
Inequality isn't going to end soon. Having more people of African ancestries in political power in the USA isn't going to magically wipe out all the inequalities created by 400 years of oppression. Moving people up the economic ladder doesn't happen overnight, this takes decades. And even if more African-Americans move up the economic ladder, that wouldn't be enough to erase the racism that exists among the European-American community. In fact, I think success breeds resentment from others. Some European-Americans feel left behind and some do resent those of other races who succeed above them. Some even join the police to take out their frustrations.
And the cycle continues
I don't have all the answers. This blog post is not about the answers.
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A few articles that I found on LA Riots 3 decades later
Jeong Park. “L.A. Riots Are Remembered 30 Years Later with Hope and Pessimism.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, April 29, 2022. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-04-29/la-riot-30th-anniversary-day-of-coverage.
Randy Vasquez. “30 Years Ago, the LA Riots Changed the Lives of These 6 People.” Bluzz. April 29, 2022. https://bluzz.org/30-years-ago-the-la-riots-changed-the-lives-of-these-6-people-3019890.html
Hal Eisner “LA Riots: Remembering 'Saigu' 30 Years Later.” FOX 11 Los Angeles. April 29, 2022. https://www.foxla.com/news/la-riots-remembering-saigu.
“Van Jones: The LA Riots Changed America. They Also Changed Me.” CNN. April 28, 2022. https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/28/opinions/race-la-riots-30-years-unrest-jones/index.html.
