The Documentary "L.A. Riots"

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The Frontline documentary "L.A. Riots" centers on the riots in that city in April 1992. This took place when the first of the juries trying the police officers accused of beating motorist Rodney King acquitted those officers. The documentary shows the chronology of events and some of the links between events in the growth of the riot from a violent act at one intersection to a widespread disturbance involving rioting, looting, the setting of fires, and other acts of violence. The first act in the riot was the attack on Reginald Denny, a truckdriver who was beaten at an intersection in South-Central Los Angeles. There followed a growing civil disturbance which led to mass destruction across much of the Eastern and Southern portion of the city and extending into the Hollywood area. The resulting riot has been portrayed in the media as largely a black and white affair, with frustrated blacks rioting against the white power structure that they see as responsible not only for these verdicts but for the underlying racism and racial oppression they have experienced in the past. In truth, as the film shows, the riot came to involve several minority communities in different ways. The black outcry was matched by a Hispanic outcry against the same sorts of injustice, though not so much over the Rodney King verdict itself. The Korean community was targeted by many blacks in the riots in retaliation for an earlier killing of a black in a Korean grocery store by a frightened Korean

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black rage directed especially at Korean merchants (and Latino rage as well): The riot acted as a "pressure cooker," intensifying and revealing the ambivalences, fault lines, and polarizations which characterize U.S. racial identities today. Intergroup cleavages were clearly apparent, notably that between blacks and Koreans. This is in agreement with the various commentators in the documentary. The documentary also reflects an instance of Banefield's Theory of Rioting and how it might develop. Banefield's definition of rioting follows the statutes in most states holding that a riot is a lawless act engaged in by three or more persons and accompanied by violence or a breach of the peace. Banefield cites four major motivations giving a certain character to a riot. The first is called The Rampage and is marked by an outbreak of high spirits among young people looking for excitement. The riot may start with an "incident," but there is no pattern to the violence once it starts except that it leads to destruction for the sake of destruction. This is clearly the case with reference to the L.A. riot, as the documentary shows. The young people who started the riot were indeed looking for excitement and used the Rodney King
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Righteous Indignation, Rodney King, Los Angeles, Theory Rioting, Tensions Koreans, Eastern Southern, Simi Valley, Central Americans, Miles Latinos, Latino Mid-city, los angeles, rodney king, king verdict, la riots, destruction sake destruction, white affair, mexican immigrants, 40 percent, percent arrested, korean merchants, black white affair, rodney king verdict, seen documentary,
Approximate Word count = 1427
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

The Documentary "L.A. Riots"

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