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Has Police Beating of King
Taken the Luster Off L.A,?
■ City: Videotaped brutality raises questions of how far
'the new Ellis Island' has come from racism of the past:
By FRANK CLIFFORD
TIMES URBAN AFFAIRS WRITER
Like Selma, Ala., during the civil
rights movement of the 1960s or
Boston during the school busing
crisis a decade later, Los Angeles
finds itself in the aftermath of the
Rodney G. King beating the principal player in a national morality
play.
The specter of institutional racism has been raised in a city that
prides itself in its ethnic diversity.
People from all over the world are
asking whether the nation's new
melting pot has become a caldron
of racial hostility. As official efforts
to resolve the crisis seemingly go
nowhere, concerns are being
,i voiced about whether the city's
century-old form'of government is
up to solving the problems of a
modern multicultural society.
Ironically, the crisis comes at a
heady time in the city's history and
challenges the city's modern sense
NEWS ANALYSIS
of itself as the "Capital of the
Pacific Rim" or "the new Ellis
Island."
"Los Angeles is enacting the
drama of the '90s," said author
Kevin Starr, who is writing a
multivolume history of Southern
California. "People are looking at
L.A. and asking if local government, if traditional institutions can
handle the pressure—the crime
~~and poverTyTThecuRuraT antfehvR
ronmental tensions—that accompany the kind of social change
Southern California is experiencing."
The images of white Los Angeles police officers beating a
black motorist raises a vexing
question. Is Los Angeles really all
that changed? Or did George Holiday's now infamous home movie
capture the ghosts of the Zoot-Suit
riots, the Sleepy Lagoon frame-up
and other horrors from a racially
troubled past the city would prefer
to forget?
There have been videotaped police beatings in at least a half-dozen other cities. But none caught the
eye of the world like the King
incident.
"People tend to look to Los
Angeles," said the black mayor of
another city who asked to remain
anonymous. "L.A., or Southern
California, has always been seen as
the laboratory for the nation, as the
the place where ideas and trends
are tried out first.
"So, if you have an experiment
go awry, it's bound to make a big
impression."
Los Angeles City Councilman
Robert Farrell, who is black, said
the King videotape stood out in the
minds of people because it represented something frighteningly
American.
"It fit an American stereotype, a
legacy of slavery—a gang of white
men brutalizing a helpless black,"
Farrell said.
Halford Fairchild, a black psychologist practicing in Los Angel-'
es, agreed. "What was unmasked
by this incident was the dark side
of America."
,: For Los Angeles, the fallout
,|rom the King beating is acutely
embarrassing because the city has
worked so hard in recent years to
promote itself as a haven for people
of all colors and creeds.
"The incident is painful because
it forces us to look at the difference
between what we are as a society
and what we would like to be," said
Richard Weinstein, dean of
UCLA's School of Architecture and
Urban Affairs.
Added Sharp James, the mayor
of Newark, N.J..- "I think it has
hurt Los Angeles because it contradicts the city's image of a melting pot. You think of Los Angeles
as this advanced, open society and
all of a sudden it's behaving like
some Southern backwater.
"I saw people watching that
videotape who cried. You can't
have a reaction like that without
changing your view of the city."
People were shocked to see it
happen in Los Angeles because
"they have such a benign view of
the city," said Xavier Hermosillo, a
public relations firm executive and
the founder of a Mexican-American business association. ;
"I heard people asking: 'How
could it happen in L. A.? It's such a
laid-back place, not violent like
New York.'"
Protests have poured in from
everywhere—the mayor's office
received phone calls from as far
away as Hong Kong, Japan and
Australia. One East Coast mayor
oompared Los Angeles to Montgomery and Birmingham in the
(Jays of civil rights violence in the
South. In Seattle, a city council-
woman concerned about police
brutality proclaimed "we are committed to seeing to it that Seattle
does not become another Los Angeles."
"I'm not sure I can remember a
local issue that has provoked so
much discussion from so many
quarters," said talk show host Michael'Jackson, whose Los Angeles-
based program has been on KABC
radio for 23 years.
In fact, Los Angeles has not
received so much attention since
the 1984 Olympics, heralded then
as the dawn of the city's golden
4ge-
In opinion polls and on talk
shows such as Jackson's, people
are asking hard questions about
"the system." Is the Police Department racist? Should the mayor of
Los Angeles be granted the au-^
thority to fire the chief and other
qity department heads—a prerogative enjoyed by most mayors? Can
a; City Charter drawn by a group of
wealthy, white, middle-class businessmen nearly a century ago be
responsive to a modern society
where minorities are in the majority?
Some critics suggest the beating
^revealed a character flaw in the
■Hfity.
(wy» "An incident like this exposes a
t^darker side of the city which I
^Xhink many people experience in
j^Los Angeles," said Larry Joseph-
jg«flon. a commentator on National
v -Public Radio who broadcasts part
* of the year from Los Angeles and
Sl'part from New York. "Underneath
wihe city's have-a-nice-day facade,
X .there is a meanness or a coldness.
*»Jt's just not as friendly as it seems."
*■* Others see the beating as evi-
•tfdence that the city still has enmity
t'i&gainst nonwhites. The officers
Object Description
| Title | Correspondence: complaints against LAPD, 1978-1991 |
| Description | Newspaper clippings (Los Angeles Times, L.A. Weekly, Los Angeles Daily News, New York Times, Sentinel) and magazine articles (U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek) documenting Los Angeles Police Department misconduct under Chief Daryl F. Gates, 1978-1991, compiled by Irving Kessler and Lynn F. Kessler. Includes: Introduction, Contents, Excessive force, Rodney King, Mexican nationality, Civil rights, Property, Silence, Discrimination, Accountability, Gates intolerance, Recommendations. PART OF A SERIES: Materials in the series fall into one of several categories related to the Independent Commission's work product: (1) Commission meeting materials, which include meeting agendas, work plans, memoranda, and articles about police misconduct that were circulated and reviewed during the Commission's internal meetings; (2) public correspondence, which includes citizen complaints against the LAPD in the form of written testimony, articles, and an audio cassette tape, as well as letters drafted by citizens in support of the LAPD; (3) summaries of interviews held with LAPD officers regarding Departmental procedures and relations; (4) public meeting materials, which include transcripts, supplementary documents, and witness statements that were reviewed at the Commission's public meetings; (5) press releases related to the formation and work product of the Commission; and (6) miscellaneous materials reviewed by the Commission during its study, including LAPD personnel and training manuals, a memorandum of understanding, and messages from the LAPD's Mobile Digital Terminal (MDT) system. |
| Coverage date | 1978/1991 |
| Creator |
Kessler, Irving, compiler Kessler, Lynn F., compiler |
| Publisher (of the original version) | Los Angeles Times; L.A. Weekly; U.S. News & World Report; Los Angeles Daily News; New York Times; Newsweek; Sentinel |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California, USA; Washington, DC, USA; New York, New York, USA |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California |
| Date created | 1991 |
| Date issued | 1978/1991 |
| Type |
texts images |
| Format | 368 p. |
| Format (aat) |
clippings (information artifacts) articles summaries |
| Format (imt) | application/pdf |
| Language | English |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Part of collection | Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Department, 1991 |
| Series | Independent Commission File List |
| File | Complaints, suggestions, and support |
| Box and folder | box 23, folders 7-9 |
| Provenance | The collection was given to the University of Southern California on July 31, 1991. |
| Rights | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Manuscripts Librarian. Permission for publication is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained. |
| Physical access | Contact: Special Collections, Doheny Memorial Library, Libraries, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189; specol@dots.usc.edu |
| Repository name | USC Libraries Special Collections |
| Repository address | Doheny Memorial Library, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189 |
| Repository email | specol@dots.usc.edu |
| Filename | indep-box23-07_09 |
Description
| Title | Correspondence: complaints against LAPD, 1978-1991, p. 191 |
| Format (imt) | image/tiff |
| Physical access | Contact: Special Collections, Doheny Memorial Library, Libraries, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0189; specol@dots.usc.edu |
| Full text | Has Police Beating of King Taken the Luster Off L.A,? ■ City: Videotaped brutality raises questions of how far 'the new Ellis Island' has come from racism of the past: By FRANK CLIFFORD TIMES URBAN AFFAIRS WRITER Like Selma, Ala., during the civil rights movement of the 1960s or Boston during the school busing crisis a decade later, Los Angeles finds itself in the aftermath of the Rodney G. King beating the principal player in a national morality play. The specter of institutional racism has been raised in a city that prides itself in its ethnic diversity. People from all over the world are asking whether the nation's new melting pot has become a caldron of racial hostility. As official efforts to resolve the crisis seemingly go nowhere, concerns are being ,i voiced about whether the city's century-old form'of government is up to solving the problems of a modern multicultural society. Ironically, the crisis comes at a heady time in the city's history and challenges the city's modern sense NEWS ANALYSIS of itself as the "Capital of the Pacific Rim" or "the new Ellis Island." "Los Angeles is enacting the drama of the '90s," said author Kevin Starr, who is writing a multivolume history of Southern California. "People are looking at L.A. and asking if local government, if traditional institutions can handle the pressure—the crime ~~and poverTyTThecuRuraT antfehvR ronmental tensions—that accompany the kind of social change Southern California is experiencing." The images of white Los Angeles police officers beating a black motorist raises a vexing question. Is Los Angeles really all that changed? Or did George Holiday's now infamous home movie capture the ghosts of the Zoot-Suit riots, the Sleepy Lagoon frame-up and other horrors from a racially troubled past the city would prefer to forget? There have been videotaped police beatings in at least a half-dozen other cities. But none caught the eye of the world like the King incident. "People tend to look to Los Angeles," said the black mayor of another city who asked to remain anonymous. "L.A., or Southern California, has always been seen as the laboratory for the nation, as the the place where ideas and trends are tried out first. "So, if you have an experiment go awry, it's bound to make a big impression." Los Angeles City Councilman Robert Farrell, who is black, said the King videotape stood out in the minds of people because it represented something frighteningly American. "It fit an American stereotype, a legacy of slavery—a gang of white men brutalizing a helpless black," Farrell said. Halford Fairchild, a black psychologist practicing in Los Angel-' es, agreed. "What was unmasked by this incident was the dark side of America." ,: For Los Angeles, the fallout ,|rom the King beating is acutely embarrassing because the city has worked so hard in recent years to promote itself as a haven for people of all colors and creeds. "The incident is painful because it forces us to look at the difference between what we are as a society and what we would like to be," said Richard Weinstein, dean of UCLA's School of Architecture and Urban Affairs. Added Sharp James, the mayor of Newark, N.J..- "I think it has hurt Los Angeles because it contradicts the city's image of a melting pot. You think of Los Angeles as this advanced, open society and all of a sudden it's behaving like some Southern backwater. "I saw people watching that videotape who cried. You can't have a reaction like that without changing your view of the city." People were shocked to see it happen in Los Angeles because "they have such a benign view of the city," said Xavier Hermosillo, a public relations firm executive and the founder of a Mexican-American business association. ; "I heard people asking: 'How could it happen in L. A.? It's such a laid-back place, not violent like New York.'" Protests have poured in from everywhere—the mayor's office received phone calls from as far away as Hong Kong, Japan and Australia. One East Coast mayor oompared Los Angeles to Montgomery and Birmingham in the (Jays of civil rights violence in the South. In Seattle, a city council- woman concerned about police brutality proclaimed "we are committed to seeing to it that Seattle does not become another Los Angeles." "I'm not sure I can remember a local issue that has provoked so much discussion from so many quarters," said talk show host Michael'Jackson, whose Los Angeles- based program has been on KABC radio for 23 years. In fact, Los Angeles has not received so much attention since the 1984 Olympics, heralded then as the dawn of the city's golden 4ge- In opinion polls and on talk shows such as Jackson's, people are asking hard questions about "the system." Is the Police Department racist? Should the mayor of Los Angeles be granted the au-^ thority to fire the chief and other qity department heads—a prerogative enjoyed by most mayors? Can a; City Charter drawn by a group of wealthy, white, middle-class businessmen nearly a century ago be responsive to a modern society where minorities are in the majority? Some critics suggest the beating ^revealed a character flaw in the ■Hfity. (wy» "An incident like this exposes a t^darker side of the city which I ^Xhink many people experience in j^Los Angeles," said Larry Joseph- jg«flon. a commentator on National v -Public Radio who broadcasts part * of the year from Los Angeles and Sl'part from New York. "Underneath wihe city's have-a-nice-day facade, X .there is a meanness or a coldness. *»Jt's just not as friendly as it seems." *■* Others see the beating as evi- •tfdence that the city still has enmity t'i&gainst nonwhites. The officers |
| Filename | indep-box23-08-01~43.tif |
| Archival file | Volume77/indep-box23-08-01~43.tif |
