Artifact: Twilight by Anna Deavere Smith
Muriel Solberg
05/27/2011
"Why Can't We All Just Get Along?" - Rodney King
In May of 1992, actress and playwright Anna Deavere Smith was commissioned to write a one-woman performance piece about the experiences, feelings, and tensions that contributed to and were exacerbated by the 1992 Los Angeles riots.[1] For her work, Smith interviewed over 200 residents of Los Angeles during the time of the riot. Her script consists entirely of the actual words of members of the Los Angeles community as they reflect on their experiences surrounding the Los Angeles riots. As Smith described in the introduction to her play, Twilight, which she later published as a book, "I am first looking for the humanness inside the problems, or the crises."[2] She strived to maintain a wide variety of perspectives, interviewing people from all walks of life: white, black, Korean, Latino, poor, rich, police officers and gang members alike. Anna Deavere Smith's play was widely received as a brilliant work of theater. One New York Times reviewer, David Richards, praised her performance saying, "She does people's souls."[3] Anna Deavere Smith's play Twilight helps illuminate the thoughts and feelings of many diverse perspectives behind the racial tensions, the perceived police brutality, and the lack of leadership for greatly needed urban renewal. Combined with historical research, Twilight provides a meaningful examination of the underlying causes of the Los Angeles riots. A longer historical view also reveals the larger class tensions and the massive fluctuation of ethnic composition of Los Angeles from 1970 to 1990 that contributed to the climate that could produce such a large-scale riot.
The triggering event of the Los Angeles riots occured one spring evening when Rodney King was driving, recklessly and intoxicated, on the Foothill Freeway. When two officers clocked King speeding, and began to pursue him, a high-speed car chase ensued. Rodney King was on parole, and was worried a speeding ticket, combined with his blood alcohol level, would cost him his freedom. By the time King was finally cornered, multiple police cars were involved. After one officer fired two tasers into King, King allegedly resisted arrest and four police officers began using their batons to beat King into submission. The struggle that followed involved a brutal beating, over 50 hits from the batons, kicks from the police punctuated by racial slurs. Nearby, George Holiday videotaped the beating from his apartment balcony. After he took this video to the police and it was dismissed, he released it to broadcasting company KTLA. The video quickly became a media sensation. The four officers were later tried and acquitted of the charges of assault in nearby suburb, Simi Valley, by (as it was largely publicized) an all white jury. The verdicts were announced on April 29th, 1992, and the civil disturbance that became known as the Los Angeles Riots began that evening. Looting, burning, and beatings continued for several days, and the National Guard, the U.S. Army, and the U.S. marines were all called in to suppress the rioters. The rioting centered in South Central Los Angeles, a portion of the city with a large percentage of ethnic minority populations, namely African-American, Latino, and Asian-Americans, specifically Korean. Over 50 people were killed during the days of this civil disturbance, and over 2,000 were injured. There was over one billion dollars in property damage, and over 6,000 arrests made for riot-related crimes.[4] Although it was the acquittal of the four LAPD officers involved in the beating of Rodney King that triggered the riots, there were significant underlying causes that had been heightening tensions in South Central Los Angeles for over three decades. Twilight undertook the task of examining these tensions in an artistic, personal, and emotional way in order to assist the local and larger communities in processing the large-scale violence.
The Los Angeles riots were largely presented in the media as a racial conflict. Although this is a major oversimplification, racial tensions between the African-American community and the white communities and those between the Asian-American community and the African-American community contributed to a climate that could easily explode into such a destructive civil uprising. Economists Denise DiPasquale and Edward L. Glaseser suggested in their journal article, "The Los Angeles Riot and the Economics of Urban Unrest," that the fact that such large groups of ethnic minorities all lived closely with one another in South Central Los Angeles created a climate that could easily lead to civil unrest. DiPasquale and Glaeser came to this conclusion based on their sweeping study of the race riots of the 1960's, concluding that if an urban center has large populations of many different ethnic minorities, tensions are bound to rise.[5] They identified ethnic minorities motivations for rioting as an attempt to receive an "increased share of the national wealth, political rights, and political power."[6] Specific, seemingly racially prejudiced events, like the Rodney King jury decision, serve as triggers to prompt or anger many individuals that belong to an ethnic minority. The racial tensions in South Central Los Angeles are echoed in more emotional and personal terms throughout Smith's play Twilight. For example, as she impersonates Rudy Salas, a Mexican-American who is nearly deaf from a beating by the LAPD when he was a teenager, Rudy Salas articulates his hatred for white people with a striking statement, "I realized I had an enemy / and that enemy was those nice white teachers."[7]
Specifically the relations between the Asian-American community, namely Koreans, and the African-American community led to tensions that contributed to the rioting. Asian-American scholar King-Kok Cheung examines these tensions in his article, "(Mis)interpretations and (In)justice: The 1992 Los Angeles 'Riots' and 'Black-Korean Conflict." He presents the idea that racial stereotypes presented by the media have influenced each groups’ perception of the other. For example, Asian Americans, specifically Korean shop owners in South Central Los Angeles, were frequently presented as hard working, successful, and "model" minorities. African Americans, on the other hand, were often portrayed as violent, economically dependent, and lazy.[8] Korean shop-owners, unlike the Jewish shop owners whom they replaced after the Watts Riot of Los Angeles in 1965, in general, did not hire African-Americans to work in their stores.[9] Korean shop-owners were also much more unlikely to speak English. They were regarded by much of the African American community as foreign competition, for jobs, housing, and business.[10] King-Kok Cheung illustrates this distrust of Korean storeowners by African Americans' description of Korean liquor storeowners as "poison pushing merchants."[11] Anna Deavere Smith recognizes the importance of media portrayal by including various media clips in her one-woman show.
The dramatic fluctuation in the ethnic composition of South Central Los Angeles from 1960 to 1990 also contributed to a society that would be sparked into large-scale rioting. Such striking changes in such a short period of time exacerbated racial tensions. The sheer population size of Los Angeles expanded by 87% from the time of the 1960 census to that of 1990.[12] The number of foreign-born residents in Los Angeles in 1960 was 8%, while in 1990 it was 27%. This rush of immigration was triggered, in part, by the Hart-Cellar act of 1965. This act moved away from the old country of origin system for restricting immigration from the National Origins Acts of 1921 and 1924, and gave priority to immigrants with families already living in the United States, or with skilled work experience. In the 1970s and 1980s there was a swell in immigration from Mexico, Central America, Asia, and the Middle East, areas that were heavily restricted by the National Origins Act.[13] These dramatic shifts in the ethnic composition of Los Angeles proved difficult for its citizens living in Los Angeles, and also caused a fair amount of "white flight" to the suburbs. Demographer and sociologist William Frey estimated that for the last half of the 1980s, for every ten immigrants who came to the Los Angeles urban center, nine non-Hispanic whites left.[14]
Racial tensions were also behind much of the perceived police brutality that was a major trigger for the Los Angeles riots, illustrated not only in the Rodney King beating, but also in various reports like the Christopher Commission. Smith's Twilight provides a unique and thorough look into the feelings regarding police brutality from various viewpoints. One woman, Theresa Allison, mother of former gang member Dewayne Holmes, provides a particularly vivid account of one sample of police brutality, "When they killed Tiny / when I say "they," I mean the police. / They shot forty-three times. / Five bullets went into Tiny."[15] Smith's heart wrenching performance of lines like these gives society a chance to look at police brutality through the eyes of someone who has experienced it firsthand. Twilight, attempting to represent all viewpoints, also presents an image of the police through one of their own, former LAPD officer Stanley Sheinbaum. In the play, he describes an incident where he attempted to talk to a group of congregated gang members engaged in peaceful discourse. When he returned to his squad after spending time getting to know the people his partner questions his loyalty. Stanley reflects on this, saying, "Why do I have to be on a side? There's a problem here."[16] Stanley is referring to the problem of the us versus them mentality of the police. Daryl Gates, chief of the Los Angeles police, led a violent and repressive measure called "Operation Hammer" to try and round up gang members from all over L.A.. Political theorist A.T. Callinicos in his article, "Meaning of Los Angles Riots," described this operation as a number of "vast paramilitary sweeps" arresting youths who fit the description, young, male, usually African-American or Latino, on trivial charges.[17] This racial profiling, and police brutality perceived as being directed only at racial minorities contributed to racial tensions, as well as overall civil unrest. The United States Commission on Civil Rights pointed out in their study of Los Angeles that 49.9% of the population of Los Angeles speaks a language other than English in their home. Nearly 20% of the population is identified as not speaking English well. This language barrier presented, and still does present, a challenge for the LAPD and LASD. Without fluid communication, it is simple for fear and unwillingness to cooperate with what seem to be arbitrary arrests or searches, to cause tension between the police and the community.[18] The Christopher Commission conducted an independent study on the issue of police and community relations and police brutality following the Rodney King beatings. They found serious issues in the LAPD, specifically, an alarmingly high number of officers who repeatedly misused force, a lack of response and consequences for the misuse of force, a climate that focused on crime control over crime protection, and even racism and bias within the department. This report, coupled with the language challenge Los Angeles presents, begs for a diversification and a restructuring of the Los Angeles police department. Smith's Twilight highlights this police brutality in a way that allows the public to feel the pain and suffering it inflicts on individual lives. It gives a personal and individualistic perspective to the information presented by the Christopher Commission, increasing understanding and empathy for the climate of Los Angeles in the early 1990's.
Despite the warnings of the Kerner Commission after the Watts Riot in 1965, by the time of the Bush and Reagan administrations little progress had been made and the warnings of the Kerner commission had become a distant memory. The Kerner Commission was ordered by President Johnson to analyze the sources of the civil disturbances of the 1960's, including the Watts Riot of 1965 in Los Angeles. The report, released February 29, 1968, highlighted black frustrations at the lack of economic opportunity, and the governments failure to create and promote successful programs to help the poverty stricken with housing, adequate education, and other social services. During their administrations, Bush and Reagan did little to contribute to an effort to renew and revitalize declining urban centers as the political scene turned towards neo-conservatism in the 1980's.[19] The policies of neo-conservatism focused on expanding foreign influence, rather than expanding the domestic policies of the welfare state, and lowering taxes to allow free market and capitalism to completely control the economy. The city of Los Angeles also lacked leadership in this direction, with middle to upper class whites choosing to ignore these problems and migrate out of the urban center towards "safer" suburbs. Sociologist Melvin Oliver explained the state of South Central Los Angeles in particular in the early 1990's, pointing to "wholesale disinvestments in the South Central Los Angeles community."[20] Oliver referred to the deindustrialization that was occurring at this time, as well as the withdrawal of many services, such as banks, from the community. Twilight again serves as a personal window into the thoughts of the Los Angeles community. One individual, Mike Davis, an L.A. based writer and urban critic portrayed in Twilight described the city of Los Angeles's failure to help economically disadvantaged lower classes, particularly the youth of ethnic minorities who tend to turn towards lives in drug cartels and gangs when they drop out of school, or face long-term unemployment, saying, "This is a city at war with / its own children, / and it refuses to talk to those children, / And the city doesn't want to face these kids, / or talk to its kids."[21] His description of the city refusing to work with it's children, it's citizens, accurately reflects both the policies of the city of Los Angeles, seen in the lack of legislation regarding social welfare, and can also be extended to represent the national outlook on poverty with the turn towards neo-conservatism of the 1980's.
Taking a longer view, historians emphasize the contribution of economic conditions along with racial tensions, police brutality, and a lack of urban renewal. These class tensions significantly shaped the volatile climate of South Central Los Angeles. The unusually high poverty rates, coupled with disproportionally high unemployment rates, especially for African American men, made for a deep resentment towards what many of these poverty stricken citizens viewed as an unfair and unhelpful moneyed power of the city. As deindustrialization gripped Los Angeles, especially during the recession from 1979 to 1982, unemployment rates for Hispanic and African American males rose to a startling 25% in 1990.[22] With few jobs and little government relief, many youths turned to lives in gangs or on the streets. Callinicos argues that class conflict was more important than racial tensions in terms of causes. He points to the multi-racial character of the rioters, how many were Hispanic, African American, and white, as well. The conflict, he suggests, was not between any two specific races (although he does concede that racial conflict had some role), but between the lower class, especially those who faced long-term unemployment and were "structurally excluded" from society, and the upper class.[23] Between 1977 and 1987 significant stratification occurred, with the income of the top 10% of Los Angeles rising by 24.4% and the income of the bottom 10% dropping by 10.5%. This stratification, again because of the economic policies of the Reagan and Bush administrations, exacerbated the cultural differences between the upper and lower classes.[24] It is difficult for individuals to recognize the roots of conflict as economically based, as shown by the lack of this topic in Twilight, The character portrayals of Twilight represent not only the tendency of citizens of the L.A. community to blame racial tensions over economic issues, but also the influence of the media's representation of these events as a race based conflict, rather than class based. Judith Hamera, a critic writing for the Theatre Journal, complained about Twilight's failure to recognize the centrality of economic issues in the riots.[25] However, the combination of Twilight's personal and visceral, if at times apolitical, view of the tensions that contributed to the Los Angeles riots and historian's longer view of these same events makes for a meaningful and enlightening look into the Los Angeles riots.
The Los Angeles Riots of 1992 were some of the most destructive and violent days in recent American history. Twilight, first performed by Anna Deavere Smith in May of 1993, serves as a personal and poignant lens used to examine the underlying tensions and problems that contributed to the Los Angeles Riots, specifically, the racial tensions, police brutality, and lack of leadership for urban renewal. A more empirical historical view looking back on the events also reveals the significant contributions of class tensions and the huge change in the ethnic composition of Los Angles in the last 30 years. The combination of the observations of Twilight and longer historical analysis is a meaningful and enlightening combination, helping illuminate both the painful, emotional side of the riots, and the political and economic underlying causes. Hopefully, Twilight will be fully utilized by scholars in the future to provide this meaningful insight into the personal aspects of the riots, which a longer, empirical historical view can sometimes fail to explore.
[3] David Richards, “A One-Woman Riot Conjures Character amid the Chaos,” Rev. of Twilight: Los Angeles, by Anna Deavere Smith, Joseph Papp Public Theater, New York, (New York Times, The New York Times Co., 24 Mar. 1994): 23 May 2011, <http://theater.nytimes.com/>.
[4] Denise DiPasquale and Edward L Glaeser, “The Los Angles Riots and the Economics of Urban Unrest,” Journal of Urban Economics 43.1 (1998) 52.
[8] King-Kok Cheung, “(Mis)interpretations and (In)justice: The 1992 Los Angeles ‘Riots’ and ‘Black-Korean Conflict,’” MELUS 30.3 (2005): 8, JSTOR, 25 May 2011, <http://www.jstor.org/>.
[9] A. T. Callinicos, “Meaning of Los Angeles Riots,” Economics and Political Weekly 27 (1992): 1605, JSTOR, 23 May 2011, <http://www.jstor.org/>.
[12] United States, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, “Chapter 1,” Racial and Ethnic Tensions in American Communities: Poverty, Inequality, and Discrimination, (N.p., n.d.): 24 May 2011, <http://www.usccr.gov/ >.
[25] Martin Hernandez, et al, "Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992," Theatre Journal 46
(1994): 116, JSTOR, 24 May 2011, <http://www.jstor.org/stable/
3208958>.