' Twilight : Los Angeles, 1992, By Anna Deavere Smith

Though sparked by the Rodney King verdict, there were many other causes of the riots that erupted on the streets of Los Angeles on April 29, 1992. The Los Angeles riots in 1992 were devastating. The obvious issue portrayed through the media was black versus white. If you did not live in Los Angeles or California chances are you did not hear full coverage of the story, you heard a simple cut and dry portrayal of the events in South Central. If you heard one thing about the riots, it was that there was a man named Rodney King and he was a black male beaten with excessive force by four white Los Angeles police officers on Los Angeles concrete. The media portrayed the riots as black rage on the streets due to the

Through the past centuries many acts of rebellion have occurred. However not many have had such an impact compared to the L.A. riots of May of 1992. After the events that occurred on May of 1992 in Los Angeles, many things changed. The L.A. riots changed race relations between police and the people of Los Angeles for the coming years.

The second day (Thursday, April 30, 1992) of rioting, the storekeepers did not stay put, but fought back to protect their shops. News channels televised store owners fighting back with arms and other weapons to protect what was theirs. Their attempts were

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.

The Watts riots began in the summer of 1965, in a city in Los Angeles called Watts. It all began with the arrest of a young African American by a white California Highway Patrol officer. Now, it was not because he was arrested for already doing something illegal, it was for the way the police officer treated the individual. According to Lacine Holland, an eyewitness to the arrest, the officer “took him and threw him in the car like a bag of laundry and kicked his feet in and slammed the door.” (Flournoy) This caused lots of unrest among the fellow residents of Watts. This was just the beginning of years of pent up oppression for the minorities, which participated in the event. Similarly, in 1992, the Rodney King riots also arose due to the acquittal of four Los Angeles Police Department officers for their brutal beating

This paper is going to present the view from the black population of Tulsa at the time of the riots. Events took place prior to the riot and created more tension to the race debate. These will need to be explained to set the tensions that led to the burning homes and brutal violence taken on the black citizens.

The Los Angeles Riots were the second riots to happen after the Watts Riots. The L.A Riots took place on April 9, 1992. The riots broke out in less than a day and lasted five days and killed more than 50 people and left more than 2,000 injured. On April 30, 1992, writers Richard A. Serrano and Tracy Wilkinson wrote an article in the Los Angeles Times newspaper saying "hours after the verdicts were announced, angry demonstrators torched buildings, looted stores and assaulted passersby as civic leaders pleaded for calm." The riots started after the verdict was given, people were filled with anger after they police officers were acquitted of all charges against them. Tensions also arose with Korean store owners.

the riots in the first place. Another reason why New York City was overrun with followers of the

While today Los Angeles is prided on being one of the most diverse cities in the United States, there was (and still is) a tremendous amount of resistance that had to be overcome. Society’s inclination to maintain homogeneity along with the testing of loyalties and allegiance through pressures of war have proven great obstacles in the evolution of what is now a majority-minority city. Nina Revoyr’s Southland gives a historic fictional recount of Los Angeles’ most tested times from perspectives looking in to the past, present, and future. The discovery of unpleasant truths through grave social injustices provide a painful reminder of Los Angeles’ history and consequently a warning for future setbacks. Southland is an emotional testament to the inescapability of discrimination within stratified cities and the unspoken necessity of assimilation that occurs as a result.

According to Harper?s? sources, white sailors begin to join in on the brawl thus further escalating it, while a black man runs to a nearby club and announced that a group of white men had raped and killed a black woman and her daughter. As this rumor spreads, a white group began spreading their own rumors by incorrectly informing others that a white woman had been assaulted. Thus, the destruction that ensues from this riot is simply the product of rumors. According to Baldwin, the same can be stated about the Harlem riot. A rumor is spread of a black soldier being shot in the back and killed, thus incensing the crowds (Baldwin 81). While this is not the truth, it sufficiently ignites the fury of Harlem.The majority of the fighting in the Detroit riot takes place in the valley which is the black

In 1992 the city of Los Angeles was one of our nation’s largest cities. It had an estimated population of over 9 million.1 The city had been in a deteriorating state for several years. There also had been tension growing between the citizens and the police for nearly the last 30 years. This had a lot to do with riots that occurred in Los Angeles back in the 1960’s.2

The themes in La Haine and Balibar’s article are intertwined. The violent nature of the riots were based around the race, class, and religion of the residents of the banlieues and their anger at the treatment they received. Violence in La Haine and Balibar’s article are similar. La Haine showed the police being antagonistic towards the main characters, much like they were during the real riots. The police would target the youth who did not go to school or were done for the day. Also, with no jobs in the banlieues, youths had nothing to do besides grouping together and causing trouble. This would not have been terrible except for the fact many of them turned to criminal activities to support themselves or their families. This lead to an association that people from the banlieues were nothing but law breakers that deserved the increased police surveillance and targeting. The anger the residents of the French ghettos felt would be taken out on the police when they were arrested and the police reciprocated with violence. Residents were angry at the lack of job opportunities, the sigma which prevented social mobility, and a general deterioration of the community. This was seen in La Haine, the characters did not have adequate education, there were no jobs, therefore people would resort to the drug

The beginnings of the riots came on March 3, 1991, when Rodney King was stopped and brutally assaulted by police. King was stopped after a high speed chase police after police caught him intoxicated and was subsequently forced out of the car (History.com). From there, police began to unlawfully assault Rodney King, leaving him with a fractured skull, along with a broken cheekbone (History.com). A witness, George Holliday, filmed the officers beating Rodney King; a day after the tape was airing on CNN for the rest of the country to witness (Los Angeles Daily News). Four officers were later arrested and put to trial a year later, however all of them were not pleaded guilty. The verdict angered a massive amount of African

Sex At Dawn by Chrstopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha, describes our current society as a sexual hypocrisy where monogamy is the norm and everything else falls under taboo. Based on prehistoric facts, they argue that we derive from a sexually free and promiscuous culture, and were never meant to be in lifelong monogamous unions. In Paleofantasy by Martha Zuk, looks at evolutionary theorists, like Ryan and Jetha, who use the Paleolithic Age for guidance on how our current society should live. Zuk’s argument is that people want to make our nature into one-form, but humans are not designed for one-way/form of life. As for our sexual system it too can not be put into one-form. Zuk shows various points on popular assertions, creating uncertainty to the reader. This therefore shows how difficult it is to determine a precise natural sexual practice from our past, and debunking Ryan and Jetha. For this reason, Zuk provides a better argument regarding how we should use prehistoric history in present day.

The story begins with teenager Bella Swan moving to Forks, Washington from Phoenix, Arizona to live with her father. Although she detests the rainy, small-town atmosphere of Forks, she moves to make life easier for her mother, who has just gotten married to her stepfather, Phil. From her very first day of school in her new town, Bella seems drawn to the dark and mysterious Edward Cullen. Initially, he acts strangely angry towards Bella; however, he changes his mood the next day, acting quite friendly. These mood changes continue until one day when Edward saves Bella from being crushed by a truck with his inhuman powers. After that day, Bella demands an explanation for all of Edward’s odd behavior. He reveals to her that he and his family are vampires that drink animal blood rather that the blood of humans. He also says that Bella’s blood has a special scent to him, making it especially hard for Edward to resist the temptation to fall back to preying on humans. Despite some struggles, Edward and Bella eventually fall in love. However, their love is threatened when a vampire named James and his companion, Victoria, are drawn to hunt Bella for her blood. The Cullen family defends Bella from the hunter James. However, James tricks her, managing to seriously wound Bella. However, Edward and his family are able to save Bella and kill James. The story progresses and Edward and Bella continue to fall in love. At a party for Bella at the Cullen home, Bella manages to give herself a