Social Injustice : We 've Had Enough

Thousands of immigrants moving to America during the turn of the nineteenth century have faced extreme diversity on their quests to fulfill their American dreams. Immigrants faced a multitude of hardships and battled prejudices that were rampant throughout America during this time period. However, for the most part, Hilda Polacheck, an immigrant emigrating from Poland made out fairly well in her life. Hilda experienced what it was truly like to be a poor working immigrant, however, she was able to break out of the poverty cycle and was determined to make the world a better place. With this success she was able to step back and look at the social injustices being committed in the United States clearly, without being blinded by the hardships and the tragedies of being a poor immigrant. Throughout Hilda’s Autobiography, as well as throughout history, an immigrant woman in the United States faced extensive discrimination as well as vast and often unjust limitations on their inalienable rights as citizens of the United States.

Many people of today's society believe that riots and protests initiated by black people in America came about in the early 90's around the time of the 1992 Los Angeles riots stemmed from the acquittal of four white Los Angeles Police Department in the beating of black motorist Rodney King in 1991 (cnn.com). Although that story brought major attention to police brutality in America there were many other significant riots that have taken place in American history. In August of 1965 the essential although easily overlooked Watts Riot took place in Watt, Los Angeles California. After a white police officer pulled over a black man and had him arrested and his car impounded because he assumed he was under the influence, a crowd of angry and confused

On April 29, 1992, the City of Los Angeles was surrounded in a riot in response to the "not guilty" verdicts in the trial of four white Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers accused of unlawfully beating Rodney King. Six days later, when the fires were finally extinguished and the smoke had cleared, “estimates of the material damage done vary between about $800 million and $1 billion, 54 people had been killed, more than 2000 injured, in excess of 800 structures were burned, and about 10,000 people were arrested.”(Khalifah 89) The 1992 riots in the City of Los Angeles were arguably the most devastating civil disturbance in the history of the United States.

However, those civil demonstrations will frequently escalate into violent protesting. Normally conflicting reports or lack of transparence surrounding the incidents is the root causes of violent protesting. The mutual trust amongst the urban communities and local authorities has never transpired in American history. The rebellious attitude or rioting dates back further than the Jim Crow days in the south. In the mid-1600s slaves rebelled against their oppressors fighting for their freedom. Although, the slave’s form of rebelling took shape taking one’s life, there was no other means of letting their oppressors know how they felt. As of today, in modern day history the idea of rioting is in some shape of form similar to the slave’s rebellion against their oppressors. The most famous riot in the last decade ignited after the acquittal of four officers beating of Rodney King in 1991. The trial following the incident lasted approximately one year. In 1992, the LA riots erupted and lasted for five days causing 50 deaths with an estimated cost of damages ranging over one billion dollars. The unprecedented civil unrest resulted in approximately 12,000 people arrested and more than 9, 800 National Guard Troops dispatched (CNN, 2016). The 1992 LA Riots is one example of violent protesting following a perceived racial motived arrest of

Mahatma Gahndi once said, “An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.” Hatred blinds people from acknowledgment and acceptance, and instead steers people towards ignorance. Quarreling amongst citizens of the United States is not an uncommon occurrence, especially when the topic focuses on racial backgrounds and biases. The LA Riot of 1992 is no exception to this category of discourse. A black person beaten up by a group of policemen was a usual event that happened frequently. Rodney King’s arrest was a special case. In a drunken state, King led the police on a “high-speed chase through the streets of Los Angeles (“Riots Erupt in Los Angeles”).George Holliday, an ordinary passerby, recorded Rodney King’s assault by the police on March 3, 1991. This infamous event urges the nation to examine the

Recently Freddie Gray, a black man, became injured while in police custody and eventually died seven days later in Baltimore; so in response, thousands of citizens rioted as tensions heightened. Agitators attacked police officers and vandalized buildings, which caused officers to utilize tear gas and pepper balls to stifle the stress (“Civil Unrest”).The protests began peacefully with a march on the streets to City Hall, and then turned into barbaric riots against all forms of the law. The sudden bursts of violence appalled

During 1992 in South Central Los Angeles, a riot started after the news of four white Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King was published on TV. It became daily news. The riot caused many crimes to occur; participants of the riot burned down business stores, destroyed properties, and some activities involved guns that have led to many deaths. Many South Central residents were unsatisfied with police brutality and the way their community were being treated. Although the riot only lasted for about a week, about 52 people were killed (Kivisto and Rundblad 82). The whole neighborhood were ruined and destroyed. Ever since that riot, there were over 1 million property loss (Kivisto and Rundblad 82), and over 700 businesses were burned down (Bergesen and Herman para. 1). Many people lost their jobs because their workplace were destroyed.

On March 3rd, 1991, Los Angeles police officers were led on a high-speed chase by a black male by the name of Rodney King. King was engaged in a high-speed pursuit after California Highway Patrol officers noticed him speeding on the freeway. After stopping King and the other occupants in the car, King was removed from the vehicle to be beaten and arrested by officers in a famous video recorded by George Holliday that eventually aired on national news. This incident of police brutality sparked the Los Angeles Riots of 1992 as well as smaller riots in other cities in America and raised national awareness of police brutality. Even though it has occurred since the late 1800’s with poor or striking workers, the Rodney King incident introduced police brutality to many Americans. Based on the fact that police brutality is at what seems to be an all time high and is being considered by many to be a national crisis more than 20 years since the Rodney King incident and 100 years since infamous labor strikes, it should be obvious that something must be done in order to combat this widely occurring problem.

Many people believe the cause of the 1992 Los Angeles riots/civil disturbance was due to the acquittal of four LAPD officers who had been charged with the use of excessive force in the videotaped arrest and beating of Rodney King, following a high-speed police chase. Many believed the verdict was unjust, that in fact excessive force was used in the arrest. As a result, many feel this injustice caused the riots. When people take the time to do a more in-depth review/research of the subject, they will find that although this verdict may have triggered the rioting, there were actually multiple issues that contributed to the rioting.

After the disturbing video of King and the 4 police officers was shown to the public by news stations across the country, some were shocked, others were just not surprised at all. The ones who weren't shocked were the minorities living in parts of L.A especially the black community south Los Angeles. According to Bernard Parks, An African-American Los Angeles police officer who was present during the acquittal and the riots stated in an interview , “This particular piece of video validated in thousand of people minds that this has been going on for a long time. It validated that this is how the police treats the community, particularly the black community” (Morris, “LA riots : How 1992 changed the police”) . Not only did the infamous video

People throughout Los Angeles were outraged. Riots and Looting began soon after the verdict was announced. My father was at a friend’s apartment in Long Beach when it started. When he heard about the riots from the tv he decided he would wait for things to calm down then go home. He said “There were a lot of angry people in Long Beach. And gangs were pretty big there. The Crips were big in Long Beach. I figured I should just wait until things calmed down a little bit.” At some point he opened the window to see what things were like and if he could make the drive back to Huntington Beach. He said “I could hear tires screeching and and people yelling from down below. It was a tall building so I could see the fires all around. Just buildings lit on fire.” He stayed until there until about 3 am. He recounted the next morning at the halfway house where he had a job helping the tenants. “One of the tenants was getting ready to go to work. He was a security guard in somewhere in LA. I told him ‘don’t go to work today. It’s complete madness out there. Just stay home for the day.’ But he decided to go anyway. Luckily he was okay.” The riots lasted until May 4, 1992 with 63 killed and over 2000 injured. News of the riots rang out throughout the nation attesting to the frustration of the black community. It was ugly and gruesome and shined a spotlight on racial injustice in

On the afternoon, as the acquittal of the four accused in the Rodney King Beating cops became known, anger and frustration of African Americans in South Central and other areas of Los Angeles erupted. There were thrown stones and attacked nonblack pedestrians and drivers. Shops were looted, stuck vehicles and buildings on fire, used firearms. The local police looked the violence erupted not grown and withdrew - parts of the police leadership were not in the city. A choking the revolt in the bud did not take place. This circumstance was later often regarded as a crucial failure in terms of the further course of the riots.

People always praise our world is beautiful and peaceful, but they ignore the injustices still exist and some of them without good solutions. Although people believe social injustices are unfair and will bring pain and tear, they are used to treating them as air because they never experience these unequal things. Likewise, the discrimination occurs both in upper class and regular class between Puerto Ricans and Mexicans. For example, there was an obvious discrimination happened in the speech of the Republican nomination for president election. At that time, Donald Trump, who was one of the speakers, believed that force illegal immigrants repatriation can be the best way to make America great again. Because Mr. Trump recognized these immigrants only bring drugs and crimes to the U.S., and they occupied a large number of jobs which made the unemployment rate increasing currently. In addition, he said if he becomes the president, he will declared three principals and two of them can be social injustices. Firstly, America has to build a wall across the U.S.-Mexico border that stowaway cannot enter America illegally. Secondly, the laws must be fully enforced illegal immigrants to go back to Mexico. In addition, Mr. Tramp is not the only person who gets rise to injustices, but the social injustices and discrimination also happened in various aspects.

Though the concept of social injustice is universal in nature, the experience varies with each person. Factors like a person’ race, or gender can further influence the severity of the injustice; victims caught in the overlap between discriminations often go unrecognized by the law and society. Many people recognize the names Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice as African Americans who were murdered by local police. But names like Michelle Cusseaux, Tanish Anderson, and Meagan Hockaday often receive less feedback even though they are also murdered African Americans. The only distinction between the sets of names is gender. Even within racial injustice, discrimination is present between genders as some cases get national

The state of California has a rich history of events, that on a social level, have played major parts in change and perception among the populations as a whole, and in individual communities. History has shown, and will continue to do so in the future, that changes within communities, towns, cities, states, and countries is generally motivated by civil injustice. In researching “defining moments”, I have chosen the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. The riots of 1992 mark a pivotal point in time for California in regard to social issues and injustices in matters of race and socioeconomics. Following, I will describe the “defining event”, the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and why I believe what was important that was learned, and how it has impacted California 25 years later.