Fluent Essays

Writing Guidelines:11 or 12 point Times New Roman or Calibri font onlyDouble-spacedOne-inch margins on all sidesNumbered pages in upper right cornerProper Citations Required (You may use footnotes, endnotes, and in-text citations)Your name, course number, and date on a separate cover sheet.Separate works cited page(Response papers that do not meet these guidelines will be penalized)Format:This paper should not merely be a summary of the reading itself. Rather, the paper will be graded based on the following inclusions:An overview of the author’s main arguments (Approximately 3 or more pages)What overall argument is the author making? What specific examples does the author focus on in the reading?How is this argument being made? 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Minimum total of 5 double-spaced pages per paper.)Mechanics (Total points: 10)Rules of spelling, grammar, usage, and punctuation are followed: 10 PointsReadability and Style (Total points: 10)Sentences are complete, clear, and concise, and the tone is appropriate to the content and assignment: 10 Points 100 points total per paper rumor_in_the_life_of_america.pdf Unformatted Attachment Preview Introduction jr.! ~I g the warning to folklorists in Candy- f have presented the last word on the .vould negate the possibility of a vigmatically, we are painfully aware that ~ :es, we are addressing just a portion of Asians, American Indians, and others tators of rumors and beliefs. We are y consider us to be racists, apologists, els are mantles we do not choose, yet t not fear. This book should serve as ainful set of racial understandings; yet it prevent us from beginning. ·~ Ii ~; ·~ ONE .~ I Rumor in the Life of America Riots and Race We interrupt this program to announce that the Simi Valley jury is about to announce its verdict in the trial of the four Los Angeles police officers who have been accused of having assaulted Rodney King.... April 29, 1992, had been an ordinary day in the life of America until midaftemoon, when network news bureaus broke into the talk shows and soap operas with a long-awaited announcement from Simi Valley, California. An affluent enclave, unaccustomed to widespread public scrutiny, Simi Valley was the suburban community where four white officers from the Los Angeles Police Department were acquitted by a jury consisting of ten whites, one Asian American, one Hispanic, and no African Americans. Charged with assaulting an unarmed AfricanAmerican motorist named Rodney Glen King, the officers had steadfastly proclaimed their innocence. 1 Most Americ~s were first introduced to the officers and King thirteen months earlier when a grainy but graphic videotape documenting Kings arrest was first televised. Television news may have been the first 29 30 I Rumor in the Life ofAmerica Rumor in the Life ofAmerica I 3 1 source of information about King and the LAPD, but other major news outlets-radio, newspapers, and magazines-also tackled the event as the first prominent incident concerning race relations in the 1990s. As journalists reported on the incident, they constructed narratives consistent with the evidence they accumulated. In seeking and sorting information, they made choices about what questions to ask, whom to interview, and what to include in and exclude from their reports. These choices were influenced by the journalists professional sense of what would make their version of this story attractive to the public. As people watched, listened to, and read these accounts of baton-wielding cops and a large-framed black man, their interpretations were influenced by their personal values and experiences. As major media outlets constructed and disseminated their versions of the Rodney King incident, people ignored, amended, or revised these accounts and then shared their own interpretations. These informal exchanges fused with information garnered from more formal channels to provide the fodder for numerous rumors. As we point out later, domestic crises in general, and riots in particular, have always been accompanied by a plethora of rumors that are especially difficult to analyze. We must rely on recollections from informants after the incident has ended. More than we would like, we must rely on print media and other secondhand sources. Yet, because of its importance as a marker of race relations in America, we begin with some of the texts surrounding the LAPD/Rodney King incident. As the first significant rumor-generating event of the 1990s, it provides a useful starting point, demonstrating how familiar racially influenced stories emerge in contemporary America and the ways in which new aspects of race relations affect these traditional stories. The initial reports of the beating generated many emotional responses. For the most part, the major media shaped the story into a familiar one about blacks and whites. And, indeed, since the trial had focused on white police officers versus a black motorist, it is easy to understand why these terms were chosen to frame the trials aftermath. But unlike many earlier urban upheavals, the LAPD verdict generated immediate and violent responses from members of several ethnic groups. In May 1999, seven years after the event, a columnist in an Asian Pacific newspaper recounted the enormous financial, social, and cultural toll it placed on Korean Americans, who commemorate the day as Saee-gu (April 29 in Korean). 2 Thus, while we can talk about how rumors surrounding the assault and verdict resonate with discourse that accompanied other urban upheavals, we must note that the black/white dichotomy oversimplifies the racial reality of the 1990s. Whether one calls the aftermath a riot (as whites are prone to brand it) or a rebellion (the preferred label of many African Americans), the financial and social costs were enormous, and another painful chapter was written into the history of American race relations. By the time the disturbances ended three days later, more than ten thousand blacks and Latinos had been arrested in this multiethnic riot. 3 One estimate placed the number of active participants at about forty-five thousand, with another hundred thousand sympathetic onlookers. These numbers are twice as great as the estimates for the Watts riot of 1965, which had an affected region that was at least twice as large. 4 Forty-five people had been killed, and nearly twenty-four hundred were injured. More than six hundred arson fires had been set, and insured losses were said to reach $1 billion; uninsured losses could not even be calculated. Some twenty thousand people were put out of work, at least temporarily. 5 As the news of the bedlam was reported, scattered violent outbreaks developed in other major American cities. INTERNAL NEWS Rumor, particularly as it emerges during crisis episodes, is frequently described by metaphors associated with riots, notably that of an out-ofcontrol fire. The expression that rumor spreads like wildfire is a cliche. Scholars have long noted that rumors often fuel riots. We also hear of rumors spreading, erupting, and igniting. The metaphor is tenacious I 32 I Rumor in the Life ofAmerica Rumor in the Life ofAmerica I 33 and appealing in part because the rumors that emerge during crises can do as much damage as fire. Reports of violence after the Simi Valley verdict made clear that much of the crowd behavior was fueled by a set of internal rumors that heated the situation and led to decisions being made without clear and compelling evidence. Even the extent of the violence was exaggerated, with the number of arson fires initially reported at more than five thousand, and arrests at nearly twenty thousand. These figures made the riots seem even more dangerous and widespread than they were and further inflamed public fears. 6 The rumor that a third of those arrested were illegal aliens exacerbated tensions over immigration, contributing to the desire to crack down on undocumented aliens and permitting the deportation of many.7 Accounts pictured frantic parents searching the streets for their missing children, possibly victims of agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. 8 Fears that the riot would permit the authorities to crack down on gangs and illegal immigrants were rampant throughout the affected communities. While the crowd was not a single entity, the small groups that constituted the mass had only limited information to act upon, and much of that information they mistrusted, sensing the media were part of the citys power structure. Firefighters, seen as being in league with the police, were jeered and attacked with rocks and bottles. People heard that others were looting, and there was a strong desire not to lose out, given the emotional tenor of the moment, especially when word went out that the police were not responding. What began as an angry political protest became a poverty riot, as stories spread about the best places to gather food and other goods. The riot, seemingly chaotic to outsiders, was directed by internal information channels as rival gangs joined ranks, creating a new social structure. 9 Spread by rumor, conjecture, anger, and in some cases an opportunity to profit, the disturbances provided one of the more dramatic, if ultimately ineffectual, challenges to a white power structure and eventually led directly to the replacement of the controversial white chief of police, Daryl Gates, by the black police chief of Philadelphia, Willie Williams. Nonetheless, tensions between Los Angeles elites and minority residents remain charged, and new rumors still emerge. Claims were made that the police arrested people in poor neighborhoods who were innocently sitting in their living rooms, unable to produce a sales slip for their TV or couch, 10 or that a man caught with a packet of sunflower seeds and two cartons of milk was held on $ 1 5,ooo bail. 11 All the old accusations of racist behavior by the LAPD and the Sheriffs Department were revived. Residents claimed that a white racist group, known as the Vikings, had been organized inside a sheriffs station in a predominant minority suburb, contributing to a string of police abuses, perhaps including murder and torture. 12 Old injustices, barely healed, like the shooting of an unarmed black teenager, Latasha Harlins, by a Korean grocer in Los Angeles, were pointed at by some African Americans as exemplifying the unfairness of the system and justifying their anger toward the courts and toward Koreans. The Harlins killing served as a template to justify violence. Journalists were repeatedly told during the disturbances, This is for our baby sister. This is for Latasha. 13 Many African Americans draw attention to controversial police practices. The deadly choke holds, previously practiced by the Los Angeles Police Department, were alleged to have killed at least fifteen suspects over the years. The police department denied these claims arid admitted only one death, and police assertedwith some measure of irony-that the outlawing of these choke holds left the police few options and thus contributed to the beating of Rodney King. 14 Residents of the poorer areas of the city claimed that the curfew during the riot was enforced unfairly. One observer argued that while many homeless people were held on $8,ooo bail, a group of city attorneys threw a wild party on the fourth night that lasted far beyond curfew. Then on Monday morning, they came into court and sanctimo- 34 I Rumor in the Life ofAmerica Rumor in the Life ofAmerica I 35 niously asked the judge for three-day sentences for hapless curfew arrestees. 15 Further, injured police and firefighters were said to be taken to the better hospitals because of their race, whereas blacks and Latinos were said to be taken to poorer neighborhood hospitals. As one man remarked: All the people of color that was injured, they took em over to Daniel Freeman [Hospital] .... But that white fireman that got shot, they took over to Cedars Sinai. You see what Im saying? 16 inent African Americans. It is also, as the riots graphically demonstrated, the locus of some of the nations worst urban poverty. Some of the nations wealthiest citizens live in close proximity to some of the poorest residents, as evidenced by the rioting in the seedier reaches of Hollywood. Yet when one considers the housing patterns of the city as a whole, Los Angeles is hyper-segregated. 18 To be sure, this dynamic exists in other cities as well, but in Los Angeles much of the wealth is highly visible and public, controlled by members of the entertainment industry. These are not the anonymous superwealthy, but many are famous and are people everyone feels they know. 19 The image is that Los Angeles is where one can live out ones dreams, which is a theme of popular films. Although Hollywood producers, directors, actors, and musicians often strongly affiliate politically with the underclass, frequently the support goes little further than feel-good rhetoric and fundraisers. The apparent hypocrisy of those skilled at saying the right thing is not lost on their less-privileged neighbors. In preparation for her acclaimed one-woman performance based on the LAPD/Rodney King debacle, Twilight Los Angeles, 1992, the African-American playwright Anna Deavere Smith interviewed a range of local residents about their fears and attitudes. One of those interviewed was Elaine Young, an affluent white resident of Beverly Hills. Young acknowledged that she, like other Angelenos of her station, gravitated to the world-renowned Beverly Hills Hotel after viewing the televised violence that was erupting within miles of her palatial home. Inconvenienced by the fact that many Los Angeles restaurants had opted to close until the turmoil subsided, Young reasoned that the hotel, long a sanctuary for her, would be obligated to serve meals. Defending her impulse to seek shelter at a five-star hotel, she claimed to have lunched there almost every day for thirty-six years. When she was called upon by a television interviewer to comment on the closing of the hotels Polo Lounge, she noted that she and many of her acquaintances sought refuge in the hotel. According to Smiths poetic rendition of Youngs remarks: EXTERNAL VISIONS Just as rumors propelled the actions of those within the confines of the strife-ridden community, so did individuals beyond the immediate reach of the rioters take unsubstantiated information seriously. In the greater Los Angeles area, many residents altered their plans based on rumors about the South Central neighborhood. In the rest of the state of California and throughout the United States, rumors circulated about the potential damage by the rioters themselves or those sympathetic to them. During the days following the announcement of the not-guilty verdict in the trial of the LAPD officers, white southern Californians became frightened by the violence dominating their screens. The televised beating of white truck driver Reginald Denny in South Central Los Angeles provided a visual counterpoint to the King videotape, sparking the fears of whites. Conservative journalist Patrick Buchanan, interviewed on CNN, saw the uprising as an orgy of rioting, arson, murder, and lynching. 17 Buchanan used the images of an orgy and lynching, in effect, to sexualize the rebellion and to historicize it in light of AfricanAmerican stereotypes, much as the Los Angeles police did in referring to Mandingo blacks, mo fos, and gorillas in the mist. In some ways, the fact that southern California was the site of the riot was deeply ironic. The City of Angels is home to some of Americas most successful and visible celebrities, including very wealthy and prom- Rumor in the Life ofAmerica I 37 36 I Rumor in the Life ofAmerica in New York rumors swept wealthy areas, leading stores such as Saks So that was the mood at the Polo Lounge after they talked about how bad it was and maybe they would come back after an hour but then they tried to go on. Here we are and were still alive, and, you know, we hope there will be people alive when we come out, but basically, they would come there every night. And I finally went there for three nights and stayed till two or three in the morning so I wouldnt be alone. 20 and Lord and Taylor to close early, and white shoppers to warn each other to leave the city as rapidly as possible to avoid the potential riot-a disturbance that never transpired. 24 To Young and those like her, the riots seemed to augur a frightening shift in power; the threat to the status quo was all too close to home. Yet as in many contemporary riots, the primary victims in this case were residents of impoverished neighborhoods and those businesspeople who served them. In some ways the events of the spring of 1992 represented community self-mutilation. Businesses were attacked by customers who patronized them. Consumed by frustration over the steady economic deterioration of their communities, the lengthy recession, persistent unemployment, and the power structures apparent indifference to the decay, men, women, and children simultaneously expressed their anger Young was dismayed when her comments were assailed and ridiculed and despair and declared a holiday from self-restraint. by a man who saw the televised interview. She surmised that his disgust All this was read by middle-class and wealthy Angelenos through the at her confession stemmed from the belief that she was being flippant. eyes of the media, and the information provided was transformed into Defending her actions, she said, fearful rumors. No transcripts exist to provide a record of the conversations that took place in the Polo Lounge, but they most probably It was like people hanging out together, like safety in numbers. Nobody can hurt us at the Beverly Hills Hotel echoed those going on throughout the nation as viewers searched for explanations of what was happening, why it was happening, and what would happen next. If people were truly overcome with anger at the white political and economic system, why hadnt they directed their cause it was like a fortress. 21 hostility outside their own community? Would that occur tomorrow? Clearly, the rich and famous felt vulnerable and uncertain, worrying if there would be a Los Angeles to which they could return. During the Situated in a plush hotel, guests feared that the rioters would come after them. early hours of the uprising, it was by no means clear how lengthy and These fears and associated rumors did not end after the riots sub- deadly the rioting would be. It was easy to give credence to the belief sided. Before long, a tenacious rumor was circulating, alleging that mi- that wealthy white neighborhoods would be targeted. Waiting times in nority gangs intended to go after the affluent suburban enclaves, known lines at gourmet markets were said to be two hours long, and the rooms to Angelenos as the 3 Bs-Beverly Hills, Bel Air, and Brentwood. In in the best resorts on the California coast were said to have suddenly most versions it was alleged that if the four white police officers were filled up.22 Whites patrolled their estates with guns and worried about acquitted after the second (federal civil rights) trial, gangs intended the extra sets of house keys they had given to their maids. 23 Similarly, to attack and destroy the 3 Bs. 38 I Rumor in the Life ofAmerica Rumor in the Life ofAmerica I 39 This rumor spawned by the LA riots was no doubt fueled by a very good news. The only thing worse than having gang members shooting public truce between the notorious Crips and Bloods, two powerful rival each other was having them shooting us. Rumors developed in which street gangs. Angelenos were persuaded that large numbers of minority most individuals could position themselves or a group they belonged to youths are gang members. For instance, then district attorney Ira Reiner within the us. A related account, spread from the Los Angeles Sheriffs suggested that 4 7 percent of all young black males in Los Angeles Department, suggested that the Crips and Bloods, operating under the County were active gang members. 25 Following the demolition of so direction of Muslims, were planning an assault on a police station and much of South Central, the gang leaders pledged to eliminate their attacks on individual police officers on their way home. A crudely drawn differences and work together. Their truce was televised, and numerous leaflet proclaimed Eye for an Eye-Lets Kill Two Cops. 27 A student images were depicted of smiling gangbangers wearing T-shirts pro- at the University of California at Davis (in northern California) reported nouncing the new allegiance. Cameras recorded the ceremony as the that her sorority sisters on the volleyball team were scheduled to com- Crips and Bloods shook hands, embraced, and spoke of the importance pete in Santa Monica (in southern California) on the weekend following of m ... Purchase answer to see full attachment