Junior Colloquium in Urban Studies- Fall 2013 Research Paper

THE MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE 1965 AND 1992 LA UPRISINGS

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

By Louise Cormier

“That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.” Aldous Huxley

Yet, is it a reason for getting away with history? Men might not learn much from

history, but history always gives us precious insights into human behavior and more

generally, into our world understanding. A look back into the past provides us with

perspectives for our times because it sheds light on issues that resemble one another, or

conversely, on issues that differ.

The riots that occurred 27 years apart in Los Angeles South Central district, a mostly

African American populated area, show important similarities: They both started after a police

abuse of force on a black person was not followed by appropriate verdict from a mostly white

jury, lasted several days and caused considerable damages. The “Watts” riots in 1965 and the

“Rodney King” riots in 1992 share common factors that pulled the trigger: economic, political

and symbolic marginalization of the urban environment, which are structural factors; and

ideological factors such as race segregation, community organizing and policing (Wacquant

203). Ideological factors are “ideological” because they are based on assumptions of how

things are apriori, as an initial premise of a causal reasoning. The racial tensions, the

communities’ self-organizing and the LAPD racism are all apriori expectations when

analyzing the causes of the riots in the media coverage. Conversely, structural factors result

from a scientific and positive analysis of a situation. They are based on significant statistics

and on exhaustive consideration of the elements leading to the unrest. These factors always

work together so that there can be no sociological study with only one of these factors taken

into account. As such, ideological and structural factors resulted together in urban decay, and

unrest, for most American cities’ inner circle in the 1960s.

Yet, there is no obvious reason for both of these factors to be shared by the two

uprisings: times changed in three decades. After the Watts riots, the repercussions of the Civil

Rights Movement materialized and official discrimination based on race was made illegal; the

so-called “Sexual liberation” questioned traditional institutions such as marriage, and more

generally, new moral norms of tolerance and reciprocity were integrated within public

discourse and society. Simultaneously, American cities experienced serious urban decay as

the white middle class “flew” to the suburbs. Eventually, economic restructuration, the

decline of manufacturing industry in downtown LA, and the arrival of thousands of

immigrants from South America and Asia highly depressed districts such as South Central.

Institutional abandon finished off these areas that fell in poverty, crime and despair. Hence,

these evolutions between 1965 and 1992 pose the question of similarities: if times changed,

How come riots had similar origins?

Looking at the media coverage of the “Watts” and “Rodney King” riots, puzzling

similarities unravel. Even if between 1965 and 1992, “race” comprehension, political stances

and rhetorical norms deeply changed; even if the three main categories of media-which are

mainstream, alternative and ethnic-evolved, the race framework remained pervasive in

newspapers’ article, Radio and TV emissions. It changed in form, but not in substance. Both

in 1965 and 1992, the media coverage, often in a sensational style, focus on racial tensions.

The three categories of media interpretations, although distinct from one another, generally

overlook the structural factors that caused urban unrest and instead treat ideological factors.

Thereby, what are the similarities in the 1965 and 1992 media coverage of LA

uprisings? To what extent can they account for the riots’ similarities? What are the media

depictions of riots’ “legacies” in the shaping of collective memory? What do these media

interpreations say on the influence of the urban environment and its societal perceptions?

Similar race paradigms in the media coverage account for similarities in the riots.

First, similarities appear within the depiction of the uprisings’ causes and of the uprisings

themselves. Then, the proposals to prevent future unrest and the “legacies” of the Watts riots

also resonate with the Rodney King riots “legacies”. They reveal the resilience of the race

paradigm in America’s perception of society. Even more significant, these aftermath

“legacies” of both uprisings in the media underline the “lessons” of “racial peace” that one

must learn. Yet, they do not address the real issues that caused the riots (Twomey 78).

In truth, urban decay and racial segregation are deeply interconnected in America. The

conceptions of urban environment tend to reinforce racial segregation. Racial segregation

defines the urban environment.

In 1965, what were the perceptions of the riots and of their origins? Structural causes

of urban unrest in 1965 are quasi absent from the mainstream media coverage. Instead,

ideological causes prevail. Assumptions do not go further than “racial tensions” for what

could be the reasons for the Watts uprisings. Rather, TV emissions describe the riots along

race lines and security fears: the “Negro section” of the city is compared to a “warzone”. The

criminalization of the “Negro looters” prevails, as well as the deep “irrationality” of a

community, which destroys its own neighborhood. Some mainstream press newspapers

suggested that riots were an insurrection fostered by Black Muslims, others that riots were

“communist inspired” (Edy). In addition to the vilification of the black looters, a strong

emphasis is put on the costs for authorities of this “senseless insurrection”, such as the re-

openings of “abandoned jails” for the 3000 arrested or the losses of 2 million dollars only by

fire. Yet no media digs into the urban neglect that deprived the neighborhood for decades. In

addition, the form of media content completes the sensational and simplistic version of the

riots: on TV, dramatic music and swooping camera shots from cars or helicopters place the

riots in a surreal world (Edy). In the news, the easy race framework, faulty parallels and an

objective documentary style persuade the average American of all these “explanations”.

Overall, the descriptions of the 1965 riots in mainstream media, most of them white owned

and with conservative stances, present a spectacular, Manichean and racist version of the riots

(Universal Newsreel). The complete disregard of Watts’ district situation before 1965 is

blatant. As such, mainstream media in 1965 reinforced racial divide and participated in the

myth of “The Negro problem.” For the first time in America, much of the press and TV

attention was directed to a black urban area, which also accounts for the “sensational

stereotyped” reports.

In fact, in their 1971 article “Black Invisibility, the Press and the Los Angeles Rios”,

Paul Johnson and David Sears uncover the “invisibility” of the black community in the press

coverage, relative to the significant minority they represented in Los Angeles. The first reason

for this fact is that whites barely came into contact with blacks, when they represented 13.5%

of the total population (Johnson 700). Furthermore, “the psychological invisibility of black

people takes over where physical isolation fails” (Jacobs). In a thorough statistical analysis of

the press attention given to black inhabitants of LA, and in particular in the Los Angeles Times

and The Los Angeles Herald Examiner, they find a first significant increase after WWII.

However press attention did not significantly increase in the Civil Rights decade (1953-1962)

or even before the riots. Moreover, they found most of newspapers’ content was degrading, it

“largely recorded acts of crime and other irrational behaviors (…) such as sensational, ‘yellow

journalism’ news”. They sort the content of black related references in four categories:

“Stereotypic” (‘Antisocial’, ‘Sensational’ and ‘Entertainment’), “Civil Rights”, “Interracial

Violence” and “Other”. Before the riots, Stereotypic items and interracial violence accounted

together for 69% of the overall LA newspapers’ coverage. If the amount of press attention to

the black community peaked during the riots, it did not remain high after the riots. “Instead,

post-riot newspaper coverage (…) continued well below the proportion of blacks in the

population (…) and the content similarly reflected no greater sympathetic attention to black

grievances from whites.” The hoped greater awareness of racial discrimination was not met at

all. Simply, “Racial oppression came more often from the indifference and inattention of

apparently polite and well-meaning whites than from naked bigotry”.

Only few alternative liberal journalists such as Paul J. Schulze, wrote against the

widely accepted “Negro problem”: “They don’t really sense as Negroes do that the white

power structure has a strangle hold on the community”(Schulze). Yet, the racial component

and its hierarchy remain the core elements alternative journalism: “In retrospect, perhaps the

most astonishing thing about the 1965 violence is that so little of it, relatively, was directed

against white civilians.” (Bullock 33) Also, most of LA Times commentaries was pro black,

and described the challenges of joblessness and of the lack of basic services such as health

care, in South Central Los Angeles (Edy).

The ethnic media, which in 1965 LA mostly consisted in The Sentinel, did not have

much “coverage” of riots, but rather produced more commentary later. Moreover, most media

calls for the “non-violent negroes” to reason the other “violent negroes”, who are no more

than “lawless hoodlums.” The assumption is that they are entitled to do so since they belong

to the same race. In As The Sentinel reported, Martin Luther King said in a speech after the

riots started said “he would do all in his power to prevent recurrence in Los Angeles or in

anywhere”. This is significant because it shows how a race and certainly not socio-economic

despair could be responsible for urban violence (Varney).

In 1965, the persistent lack of statistics on economic plight, education or housing; as

well as the impossibility to question officials or policemen, kept much of the media influence

in the hands of the white dominant and conservative class. Alternative journalism and

scholars who wrote called for more white awareness as well as appeased racial tensions; yet

they did not question the paradigm of race. Institutionalized racism, both in mentalities and in

official organizations, turned the mainstream media coverage in subjective and prejudiced

reports. This coverage of the riots overwhelmingly served the interests of the white dominant

class and maintained a strong racial hierarchy. As such, they concentrated on ideological

factors and “omitted” structural ones in the analysis of the events.

In 1992, the structural factors took a much more important place in the media

coverage, and even more so in the “alternative” progressive journalism. However, it is

staggering to notice the extent of the race framework resilience. Regarding the mainstream

media, it mostly “framed the 1992 events as a tragic narrative of racial hostility and individual

lawlessness.” The ethnic media coverage, represented by The Korean Times for the Korean

community of South Central, and The Sentinel for its black community, fed the socially

constructed world of news along racial symbolic hierarchy; arguably more than any other. In

fact, “each community chose to define itself in positive term in relation to the white”(Twomey

142).

In the direct aftermath of the riots; what had been absent from the press content while

they occurred; became known as the “Korean-Black” racial war. In fact, one year prior to the

riots in March 1991, a Korean woman had shot dead Latasha Harlins, a 14 years old black

girl, after the girl tried to steal a bottle of juice in her store. Soon Du was sentenced to five

years of probation. The verdict added to already existing tensions between the two

communities since Korean immigrants were increasingly gaining a strong hold on the

economy of the neighborhood, as they played the role of the “middle men.” When journalists

realized much of the looting had been directed towards Korean stores and businesses as a

result of the tensions between the black and the Korean communities, they began to label the

1992 riots as the first “multiracial, trans-class riots” in History. Instead of questioning the race

paradigm of American society, the media coverage displaced it from the “black-against-

white” story to the “Koreans and other races-against-ever-lasting-black-poor” one. As such,

structural factors behind the “Rodney King” riots remained an insignificant part of the overall

media coverage.

These structural factors imply economic, political and symbolic marginalization of

South Central LA. They consist, among others, in the decline of LA industrial base; poverty

and high unemployment in consequence; the “white flight” as much as the departure of the

black middle class; the large influx of Korean and Salvadoran immigration; the poor quality

transportation system that reinforced urban segregation; the literal absence of the downtown

problems in the presidential campaign of 1990; the irregular distribution of federal funds;

Proposition 13 that heavily limited taxes in California, and Neoliberal economics in general;

the overcrowded and underfunded school system and the cruel lack of infrastructures. Just to

name one, Hill Street was “barren of outside water sources for drinking or

washing.”(Wacquant) On per capita basis, less money was spent on social services and job

training in this part of the city than on the affluent, white Westside (Rachlis). Moreover,

writers began to underline that “segregation in this city is a function not only of race and the

center-less geography, but also of social class.”(Cooper)

However, despite the presence of these arguments in different articles of independent

writers and journalists, it always comes down to: “American politics failed again when it

comes to race” (Hazen). In “LA’s State of Siege”, Marc Cooper writes on “the white fear of

the crowd, colored crowd, since they must be poor, which means dangerous”. In this same

article, of the 5432 words, 355 are directly related to race, with an average of 6 per paragraph.

This means around 7% of the words refer directly to human “races”, which no writers bother

to define anyway since everyone knows what it refers to.

In particular, the racial cleavages of LA are overwhelmingly central to articles on the

LAPD. Usually without further analysis of the LAPD structure or policies, journalists base

themselves on the infamous past of this corporation and start their articles with statements

such as “the overwhelming majority of LAPD officers are white”. In fact, the “state of siege

that has persisted in South Central” is a relevant contributor to the escalating tensions; yet the

riots were certainly not a “white-against-black” guerilla. In fact, many “progressive”

newspapers use words without defining them, which means they expect the reader to already

know what it is all about. Doing so, they also contribute to racial divide. Even if they defend

the average hopeless black person of South Central, they should also be ready to hear what the

“racist and narrow minded conservatives” have to say. Instead, these journalists assume that

“progressive” people should think like they do, since they do not define what they address.

For instance, in Peter Noel’s article “Daughters of the Dust”, you can read that “despite the

fact that more Latinos than blacks were among initial arrest”(Noel 131), and further, “Daryl

Gates-the head of the LAPD during the riots- who was in a position to allow the black

community to go up in flames. And he did.” Here there is a simplification made, which tends

to the victimization of the black community in particular.

Notably, ideological factors did play an important role, but there is more to it. And, if

even progressive media does not bother taking them that much into account, then they simply

reinforce the racial divide. It is one thing to denounce institutionalized racism, such as the

partial law enforcement in the neighborhood: Indeed, the glaring absence of the police in the

first hours of the riots -planed or not-reduced the State’s responsibility for its failures (Boxill).

It is another to defend the “poor black” against the “racist white” in an over simplistic

manner.

One last ideological over-emphasized factor, and never really questioned or inquired,

is the “communitarian organizing.” Indeed, the expectation that a community should come up

with a core “leadership” and take care of itself is a widespread assumption in America: “The

most striking thing is that no one seems to be in charge. There is no leadership at all. The city

is just a big buck-passing operation” (Domamick 25) But this urban conception of the basic

“community” unit that has very ancient roots, is faulty. This idea is not applicable the way it

might have been in the past because cities evolved and thus, it is hurtful.

In sum, alternative media coverage did tackle the structural factors that lead South

Central to exhaustive marginalization, to general social rage, and in turn, to the 1992

uprisings. Yet, in the press content, ideological factors still got the upper hand in front of the

structural ones. Ideological factors might be more straightforward, more apparent in everyday

life and more revolting, but their influence can never be diminished without addressing

structural factors. All the more, alternative and independent writers contributed to racial

divide by only putting in the spotlight racial ideology.

When it comes to mainstream media, scholars and facts converge in that their

coverage of the riots was a little more than “a reality show”, and especially on TV through

channels such as Fox News and ABC. In “Screening the LA Riots; Race, Seeing and

Resistance”, Darnell Hunt argues that television disseminates hegemonic assumptions that

support dominant social groups. These assumptions serve the hegemonic function of racial

ideology, which establishes a hierarchy on the top of which is the white race. These TV

channels’ “Helicopter journalism” assumed they would not maintain interest if they did not

continually describe what people could see on their screen (Tice 121). As such, they always

maintained the “outside” sound low enough to clearly hear the voice of the speaker.

Journalists, permanently warning people to avoid the area “especially with their children”, put

a strong emphasis on the absence of values or rationality of the “mob”. On KNBC, we hear

“the violence followed with the not-guilty verdicts on nearly all counts of police beating of a

black motorist. Angry mob ruined the city, burning looting and beating white

motorists”(KNCB). What is striking in particular is the total absence of moments where

people “in the crowd” are asked about the unrest. Most white-owned TV channels “replaced

the images of the police beating and issues surrounding it with images of blacks as ‘looters’ in

the streets of LA whereas the widespread acts of vandalism and robbery were committed by

whites, Latinos and blacks.”(Tice 121) In the line of mainstream media, politicians pointed

out the uprising as the outcome of the lack of values and traditional structures, such as the

nuclear family among lower-income groups and “the criminal propensity of the welfare

dependent underclass” (Noel). President Bush affirmed the violence is LA “was not about the

great cause of equality, was not a message of protest but the brutality of a mob, pure and

simple” (History).

On top of these misconceptions, the largest use of racial ideology in covering the riots

originated from “ethnic media.” Using The Korean Times and The Los Angeles Sentinel,

respectively the main representatives of the Korean and the black communities, Jane Twomey

explains both constructed the uprising and their community’s role in it within the borders of a

re-articulated, white-dominated racial hierarchy. Applying the racial ideology to their own

community’s behavior, Koreans and Blacks participated in the maintenance of the white

hegemony in the United States. She claims “white are on top of this racial hierarchy not only

because they are white, but because they are perceived to be socially, culturally,

economically, and morally superior. (…) Those groups perceived to be closer to the white

norm are placed higher on the hierarchy.”

Thus, The Los Angeles Sentinel portrays the African American as a community trying

to hold fast to its moral principles in light of understandable anger and frustration after the

Rodney King verdict. The newspaper does so by turning to the community’s religious and

authority figures to express moral injustice and calling upon the African American

community to do what the Rodney King jury has not-to “uphold decency”. The Sentinel

dissociates the black community from the “hordes of young people” participating in this

“international, equal opportunity riot.” A front-page picture of a “looting Latino family”

explains it was not “an uncommon sight during the week’s upheaval.” Another front-page

picture shows a black man consoling a crying Korean American woman; one out of the three

mentions of Korean Americans in the newspaper. The Sentinel depicts Rodney King as a

martyr and a model of moral temperance: well-chosen elements of his “Can’t we get along”

speech are reprinted in the newspapers; typically not the ones where Rodney King declares:

“We’ll, we’ll get our justice; they’ve won the battle, but they haven’t won the war.”(Hunt).

In a quite different tone, The Korean Times’ story of the riots is a story of victimhood

and betrayal. The Korean American community is portrayed as a community “innocently

caught in the middle of a black-against-white confrontation.” Little attention is dedicated to

issues of social justice and outrage concerning the verdicts of Latasha Harlins or Rodney

King, and instead focuses of the injustice felt by Korean Americans when the white

community deserted them. In what is repeatedly referred as a “black riot”, The Korean Times

stresses the “hard-working” and “morally respectful” Korean American citizens, “an able and

respected race. ” It describes blacks as “hungry wolves of prey”, reduces Latinos to

“scavengers picking over the remains left by the black mobs” (Twomey 147).

Ergo, both The Los Angeles Sentinel and The Korean Times “seek white validation of

its self defined status.” On the one hand, the Korean community presents itself as the “perfect

immigrant community” that has done everything to become good Americans. On the other

hand, the black community presents itself as the victims of institutionalized racism that

strictly keeps them away from political and economic opportunities. Anyhow, both abide by

the rules of the hegemonic racial ideology in America. Twomey argues “the re-articulation of

these subordinate positions as well as the perceived freedom of the Korean American and

African American communities to truly define their own positions in the racial hierarchy, only

serves to support the articulated and unchanging dominance of whites.” In the end, the

absence of any thorough and objective account of the 1992 riots was a common point shared

with the mainstream media. Implicit doctrines on race and poverty, arguably the most deeply

ingrained norms in a society, and the minorities’ concern to abide by them, shaped the 99% of

the ethnic media coverage.

All in all, the ideological component in the mainstream and ethnic media is clear and

omnipresent. The race and “irrational lawlessness” form the core of the media interpretation

of the events; yet the wording and the writing styles differ significantly from 1965. Words

such as “Negroes” disappeared and the major presence of stereotypical representations of

blacks in 1965 decreased. However, racial tensions’ perceived responsibility is so important

that it pushes journalists to neglect the real reasons behind the 1992 riots. Sometimes with an

assertive and normative style; sometimes with a pathetic and spectacular one; the media

coverage only fed the racial conception of society in America. Mainstream media fed security

fears behind a renewed fascination-repulsion relationship with the colored urban poor.

Alternative journalism all-heartedly denounced institutionalized racism in America. Racism

can explain many things, but it cannot explain everything, and it is not an innate intuition but

rather a social construct. Very few independent scholars even questioned this vision of

society, which is at the core of the problems that lead to urban unrest in 1965 and 1992.

These considerations on the media coverage of the riots are crucial because media in

general play a key role in shaping our conceptions of society and of our place in it. It is

regrettable most of the media coverage we analyzed stands so far away from a truthful and

unprejudiced understanding of social unrest. All the more, a recent tendency has shown

journalist have increasingly become our public historians. More and more, newspapers

publish “10” or “20 years after an event” editions: they come back on what happened at the

time and in its aftermath. As the terms “commemorations” and “legacies” appeared more and

more in our newspapers, Jill Edy studied the influence of media in shaping collective

memory. Doing so, she coined the term of “anniversary journalism.” As journalists have taken

upon the role of “cultural storytellers and retellers”, Edy argues they use the past for four

specific reasons: “to delimit an era, as a yardstick, for analogies, and for shorthand

explanations or lessons it can provide” (Edy). She claims journalists often fail to connect the

past to the present in any meaningful or contextual way.

Especially when journalists engage in historical analogies, they mean to explain the

present with the past, as they did with the countless references to the Watts riots in 1992. As

such, they bear the immense responsibility of the history of a city, of a country and of the

American people. What were the legacies established in the aftermath of the 1965 and 1992

riots? How did they shape the conceptions of South Central, of the urban environment and of

the black community? What are their possible implications in the future?

If the Watts riots did impact South Central and its regulating policies after 1965, the

consequences of these impacts are never discussed in the 1992 media coverage. Rather, the

mentions are short-usually in a sentence such as “these riots sadly resonate with the 1965 riots

27 years ago”-and are rarely more commented because “self-explanatory”-or not? Truly going

back to the political changes the Watts riots brought, for the1992 media, would have meant

facing the partiality and irrelevance of their work.

Anyhow, the legacies of the Watts riots and its constructed memory lead to irrelevant

ways of solving South Central issues. Scholars and historians agree on the role of the 1965

riots in initiating the “War on poverty” in the USA. In “Watts: The Aftermath”, Paul Bullock

describes how “Welfare grants and funds flooded Watts”, as well as “vocational training

activities, special educational programs and new facilities”(Bullock 51). Yet, highways and

other infrastructures were continuously built to allow the “white flight” out of the city, which

further depressed an already suffering economy and a dying industry. Along with redlining

policies, private real estate development and white communities’ petitioning to remain

segregated; such as the community of West Hills’ formation illustrate; starved downtown LA.

Neo-liberal Corporate conceptions of growth further excluded the urban poor (Curran 24).

Even, according to Lazare, “growth has been predicated on the community’s eventual

destruction”(Lazare 28). Both republicans’ “enterprise zoning” and liberals’ “job training”

solutions in a depressed and desperate area failed to bring economic life back to South

Central.

In fact, the “legacies” of the Watts riots brought about the two main policies that made

tensions escalate in the neighborhood: the increased community policing by the LAPD and its

expected “self-organizing”. Goldin explains in his article “Some people don’t count” that

“After Watts, the city’s disenfranchised were told that their redemption resided in electing to

office a progressive generation of politicians that could pass on concrete benefits to the

grassroots” (Goldin 43). A very deeply rooted and romanticized American conception of “the

community” accounts for these expectations of “communities’ leadership.” In his 1993 book,

“Politics in Black and White”, Raphael Sonenshein writes how prior to the 1965 riots, “Black

political assertiveness was widely thought to be incompatible with biracial coalition politics.”

In his analysis of the “Black leadership in the racial crusade”, the reader understands how the

1965 uprisings allowed the formation of a “Blacks-White Liberals” political alliance. So, the

Watts riots essentially brought about racial solutions to racial problems (Sonenshein).

Not only did these measures failed to thoroughly support the neighborhood, but also

they critically ingrained racial divide to the urban environment in America. Here, it would

have been really useful, for the media in 1992, to take a look back and analyze what happened

for the last 27 years in South Central, as well as the politics behind it. But again, none of these

were critically addressed by the media coverage in 1992 and after. Overall, the “legacies” of

the Watts riots were critical to both structural and ideological factors that precipitated the

Rodney King riots because of the policies they triggered. Now, more than twenty years after

the Rodney King riots, what does the media coverage tell us about the understanding of the

events, what the collective memory will “keep from them” and thus, shape future policies?

The Los Angeles Times’ edition for the 10th anniversary of the riots is a good example

of the essential role of journalists in “constructing a consensual collective memory [emphasis

mine]” and in “providing a critical forum for the negotiation of shared meanings when a

hegemonic understanding of the past has yet to emerge”(Edy). The first sentences emphasize

the numerous “diversity” of memories of the 1992 events: “There is no one answer, and there

is no one story”(LA Times). Then, starts one story; their story; almost written hour by hour in

a documentary style, of the chronology of the events. But quickly, the commemoration article

leaves the actual 1992 events and their origins for stories of the individuals’ lives since then.

The articles tells how Bobby Green, one of beaten white truck driver Reginald Denny’s

rescuers, and his eventual decision to leave the city. Another story tells the tale of three young

people-two blacks and one Latino-and the “unexpected turns” their lives took after the riot.

Interviews on how the city has-or has not-improved since are displayed sporadically in the

newspaper. Actually, the LA Times’ “commemoration” of the riots does not talk about the

riots.

Similarly to the parallels made between the Watts and the 1992 riots during the unrest,

Edy explains journalists use the past to “contextualize” and describe how a community “got

where it is.” First, for the anniversary of the riots, the LA Times uses the 1992 events to

contextualize the continuing economic stagnation of South Central. Addressing South Central

economic stagnation without any deeper structural causes makes the tragic failure “about the

place”. The 1992 uprisings were not about a system of economic equality, not about judicial

failure, not about police misconduct; but about a cursed, unredeemable place. Second, “the

newspaper negotiates the memory of the 1992 unrest to be much more about black-Korean

tensions than 35 years of urban neglect or the acquittal of four officers who beat a black man.

In the article, the shooting of Latasha Harlins overcomes any other trigger for the riots, since

it “exacerbated long-standing tensions between Korean shopkeepers.” Later, the journalist

Kang sums up: “the gulf between these two cultures was made all too evident by the riots.”

Then using the present to confirm his conclusions on the past, Kang interviews two university

professors-one black and one Korean-who declare: “We haven’t developed a manner to

actually talk about and work through the problems of race, class and gender…” and “We’ve

put race relations on the back burner and buried it. Underlying socioeconomic factors that

ignited the riots haven’t changed at all.” Moreover, when the article mentions the crucial

demographic shift in South Central, which saw more than 80,000 leaving the area and

Hispanic immigration raising, not any meaningful interpretation is provided.

An article published in The New York Times last April titles “In Years Since the Riots,

a Changed Complexion in South Central” proposes the last kind of insights than 10 years ago.

Jennifer Medina writes the 80,000 fewer blacks “changed the whole sense of the

neighborhood” without explaining why; she reminds of the broken promises to rebuild the

area after buildings were burned and razed in 1992 (Medina). Not a word on the riots

themselves, their origins and their meaning in nowadays’ American society.

Unfortunately, it is probable nothing relevant to a thorough understanding of social

mechanisms is kept from the 1992 riots. Overall, media coverage of events such as the 1965

and 1992 LA uprisings tend to be partial, prejudiced and sensational. And it is really

unfortunate because there is so much to understand behind these riots; there is so much to

understand and to inquire into so that inner cities’ situations, such as South Central, really

improve. Two conceptions at the core urban and racial issues, inherently linked in this Nation,

come out of this media coverage comparative analysis: The first one is the incommensurable

pervasiveness of racial ideology. The second is the conception of socially and racially

homogeneous “communities” as basic-and ideal? - urban units.

There is no such thing as “race”. “Race” is a fully socially constructed concept that

had a very specific purpose of maintaining white dominance when it was first coined. Yet,

with the exception of a very few scholars, it is the common denominator to all writers,

journalists, politicians etc. for understanding American society. But as long as one recognizes

a race framework, there is no hope for trully reducing racism in the long run.

In a city, a “mosaic of multicultural communities” will forever provoke segregation,

dissent and hostility, because when times are tough, you blame it on the different neighbor

and remain with your own kin. If human beings might not be able to conceptualize the

oneness of humanity, then at least, institutions in a society should frame humanity as such.

Only when the State will recognize its citizens as purely neutral individual, then we can hope

for a first step towards a mutually reciprocal equality and more actual mixing between people

with different backgrounds. So far, not only does the American State recognize race, but the

urban organization also reinforces the race paradigm.

All types of media coverage maintained these conceptions of “race” and of

“community” in their account of the 1965 and 1992 riots. Arguably, these conceptions contain

the seeds of an ever-lasting urban unrest story in the USA. In “The Killing of American

Cities”, Lazare declares that “one thing that can be said about America: When it kills cities, it

kills them dead.” The future might prove him wrong-or right?

Works Cited

Boxill Bernard R., “Wilson on the Truly Disadvantaged” Ethics , Vol. 101, No. 3 (Apr., 1991), pp. 579-592 Bullock, Paul. "II The Riots." Watts; the Aftermath; an inside View of the Ghetto,. New York: Grove, 1969. N. pag. Print Cooper, Marc. “Some people don’t count” Inside the L.A. Riots: What Really Happened and Why It Will Happen Again. New York: Institute for Alternative Journalism, 1992. 42-46. Print. Cooper, Marc. “LA’s State of Siege’” . Inside the L.A. Riots: What Really Happened and Why It Will Happen Again. New York: Institute for Alternative Journalism, 1992. 13-18. Print. Curran Ron, “The Malign Neglect” Inside the L.A. Riots: What Really Happened and Why It Will Happen Again. New York: Institute for Alternative Journalism, 1992. 121-122. Print Darnell M. Hunt, Screening the Los Angeles “Riots”: Race, Seeing, and Resistance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Domamick Joe, “Police Power”. Inside the L.A. Riots: What Really Happened and Why It Will Happen Again. New York: Institute for Alternative Journalism, 1992. 24-26. Print. Edy, J. A. “Troubled pasts: News and the collective memory of social unrest. Philadelphia”,Temple University Press. 2006. Goldin Greg: “Some people don’t count” Inside the L.A. Riots: What Really Happened and Why It Will Happen Again. New York: Institute for Alternative Journalism, 1992. 42-46. Print. Hazen, Don. Foreword. Inside the L.A. Riots: What Really Happened and Why It Will Happen Again. New York: Institute for Alternative Journalism, 1992.10. Print.

History: "Bush on Los Angeles Riots." History.com. A&E Television Networks, n.d. Web. 3 Dec. 2013. Jacobs, Paul. 1967. Prelude to Riot. New York: Random House. Johnson Paula B.; Sears David O. David O. “Black Invisibility, the Press, and the Los Angeles Riot” The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 76, No. 4. (Jan., 1971), pp. 698-721 KNCB and others: "L.A. Riots - The First 24 Hours After Rodney King Verdict (1992)." YouTube. YouTube, 14 Jan. 2012. Web. 11 Dec. 2013. Lazare Daniel, “The Killing of the American City” Inside the L.A. Riots: What Really Happened and Why It Will Happen Again. New York: Institute for Alternative Journalism, 1992. 28-30. Print. Noel, Peter. “Daughters of the Dust”. Inside the L.A. Riots: What Really Happened and Why It Will Happen Again. New York: Institute for Alternative Journalism, 1992. 130-132. Print. Noel, Peter. “When the Word is Given”. Inside the L.A. Riots: What Really Happened and Why It Will Happen Again. New York: Institute for Alternative Journalism, 1992. 48-50. Print. Medina Jenifer, New York Times, “In Years Since the Riots, a Changed Complexion in South Central” April 24 2012 Rachlis, Kit Introduction. Inside the L.A. Riots: What Really Happened and Why It Will Happen Again. New York: Institute for Alternative Journalism, 1992. 11-12. Print. Schulze Paul, Schulze "144 Hours in August 1965." 144 Hours in August 1965. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2013. Sonenshein, Raphael. "Chapters 4-7." Politics in Black and White: Race and Power in Los Angeles. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1993. N. pag. Print. Tice Carol, “Helicopter Journalism” Inside the L.A. Riots: What Really Happened and Why It Will Happen Again. New York: Institute for Alternative Journalism, 1992. 24-25. Print. Twomey, Jane L., “Searching for a Legacy: The Los Angeles Times, Collective Memory and the 10th Anniversary of the 1992 L.A. ‘Riotsʼ”, Race, Gender & Class, Vol. 11, No. 1, Race, Gender, Class and the 1992 L.A. "Riots" (2004), pp. 75-93 Twomey Jane L. “Newspaper Coverage of the 1992 Los Angeles Uprising: Race, Place, and the Story of the "Riot": Racial Ideology in African American and Korean American Newspapers.” Race, Gender & Class, Vol. 8, No. 4, Race, Gender & Class in Media (2001), pp. 140-154 Varney Laura, "Watts Riots-Media Coverage." Prezi.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2013. Wacquant, Loic J.D. “Morning in America, Dusk in the Dark Ghetto. The New ‘Civil War’ in the American City”, Revue Francaise d’Etude Americaine. 1992.

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