just a bit of History - Los Angeles Riots 1992

 

I sat recounting the other day some memorable events related to social extremes and remembered some experiences. If we forget out our past we are sure to repeat it. Some things are never forgotten in my mind…

            

I drove a taxi in Los Angeles in April of 1992, when an event known as "The Rodney King Uprising" occurred and drew worldwide attention. I remember taking my cab to the garage for routine maintenance early afternoon before the verdict. I sat around with my Latino, and African American friends joking and kidding around about what we felt was a foregone conclusion of a guilty verdict. As the maintenance was concluded, one of the guys in the shop turned up the radio to hear a full acquittal on all account against the officers involved. My friend turned to me and told me to get my ass home and what direction to travel to avoid problems. He told me that the division had just happened and it would not be safe to be associated with me or anyone else who was white. The black men that I considered my friends felt that they were finally going to get justice and be recognized as equal and when the verdict was announced their hopes of ever getting theirs was completely dashed. I lived in San Pedro at the time and traveled along surface streets along a strip of Los Angeles to my home. As I drove through crowded streets I noticed groups of people start to congregate on the street corners. All gangs were represented, all ethnicities, the hate grew from street corner to street corner.

In subsequent days to follow I watched hate crimes over and over, until I became almost numb. As helicopters circled nightly over my home I was filled with a sense of devotion to join in the fight. I decided to throw myself into the fray and dedicate my taxi business to taking people who otherwise could not get a ride. I picked up one man who had been beat so badly that he was bleeding to death in my taxi, his arm torn viciously open almost to the bone. I took him to an immediate care emergency group in Long Beach where he died five minutes after arrival. By the way he was black and his violators were Hispanic. As I cleaned the blood stained seats in my taxi, this surreal feeling came over me. Where was I? What marker would these events have in my personal life, or that of the lives of so many who were affected?

~~~~~~~~~~ No Justice, No Peace