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Reading Rodney King/Reading Urban Uprising
Reading Rodney King/Reading Urban Uprising keeps the public debate alive by exploring the connections between the Rodney King incidents and the ordinary workings of cultural, political, and economic power in contemporary America. Its recurrent theme is the continuing, complicated significance of race in American society. Houston A. Baker, Jr.; Judith Butler; Sumi K. Cho; Kimberle Crenshaw; Mike Davis; Thomas L. Dumm; Walter C. Farrell, Jr.; Henry Louis Gates, Jr.; Ruth Wilson Gilmore; Robert Gooding-Williams; James H. Johnson, Jr.; Elaine H. Kim; Melvin L. Oliver; Michael Omi; Gary Peller; Cedric J. Robinson; Jerry Watts; Cornel West; Patricia Williams; Rhonda M. Williams; Howard Winant.
- GenresRaceNonfictionAcademic
288 pages, Paperback
First published April 19, 1993
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About the author
Robert Gooding-Williams
21 books3 followersRobert Gooding-Williams is the M. Moran Weston/Black Alumni Council Professor of African-American Studies and Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. He is the author of In the Shadow of Du Bois: Afro-Modern Political Thought in America (2009), Look a Negro!: Philosophical Essays on Race, Culture, and Politics (2006), and Zarathustra's Dionysian Modernism (2001), and the editor of Reading Rodney King/Reading Urban Uprising (1993).
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 10, 2012
A very good little edited collection not only on the urban uprising (riot, insurrection -- it problematises these titles in a most useful way) but on Los Angeles and race relations as well, quite an extraordinary feat given how quickly it must have been pulled together to have made it into print so soon after the event itself. It looks at the events of 1992 from all different angles, starting with the most visceral and human beating of a black body itself. I am still not convinced of the usefulness of the dialogue of 'bodies', but Ruth Gilmore almost brought me around, and Judith Butler was also insightful. It investigates the justice system, the political economy of South Central, it investigates the constructions of race before and after the riots, and it begins to destabilise the black/white binary in a very interesting way.
This is something other works that I have read so far have failed to do in a meaningful way. I particularly liked the pieces by Sumi K. Cho, both a political and economic examination of the interracial relationships found in South Central and a call to theorising social change, and the more personal reflection from Elaine H. Kim. She writes of the Korean word han, 'that means, loosely translated, the sorrow and anger that grow from the accumulated experiences of oppression.' I lived for a decade in L.A., and yet still know very little of Korean history or culture, this was a beautifully written window into their experience, and one that she has paid dearly for.
To return to the issue of how you refer to these events, I thought the contribution from Kimberle Crenshaw and Gary Peller quite brilliant in the way they call out the discourse of the 'riots' as seen from outside by media and non-residents as irresponsible reactions outside of the law by describing the systemic failures of law. To them, describing the proclamation of insurrection from within
There is a very nice interview with Mike Davis where he talks about the gang truce happening essentially at the same time, which gives one pause for much thought. Omi and Winant provided a really interesting take on the convergence between the neoconservative and Democrat views on race, and the ways that it has been essentially removed by both from political debate and action: ""...both the neoconservative and the pargamtic liberals share the conviction that racial matters, and racial-minority constituencies, should receive less attention in the political process. The "dirty little secret" of continued racial hostility, segregation, and discrimination of all sorts is not to be addressed politically. [104]" which I think is sadly true. There is more wiggle room for race-specific policies from the Democrats, but not much. I also found Thomas L. Dumm's piece on the new enclosures really interesting. He's found some choice quotes, this one is from an L.A. Times Article:
But the concept of enclosures I also found fascinating, though it is really only developed in the conclusion and so remains a tantalising thought that I would rather like to follow up on myself.
There were a couple of other quotes that made me really think. The first from Jerry G. West, looking at media and academia and the distance between what they thought and said and the reality on the ground. He writes "for if we authentically commit ourselves to the struggles of our most marginal citizens, we, too, will become increasingly marginalized." and I fear that he is right. These discourses are neither popular nor sexy, and they are also heartbreaking to write because they must come from experience. How we overcome that is a hell of a question. Maybe overturn the system.
Cornell West rounds it off with an indictment that also bears thinking of, "...we confine discussion about race in America to the "problems" black people pose for whites, rather than considering what this way of viewing black people reveals about us as a nation."
All in all this was both useful and provocative, with a critical lense that brought together political economy, culture, critical race theory...all the right ingredients. It is definitely missing a look, a voice, from the latino community. They formed a large part of the events, hundreds were deported raising issues of immigration, the changing nature of South Central. These weren't dealt with, the book's only lack really, but a big one.
This is something other works that I have read so far have failed to do in a meaningful way. I particularly liked the pieces by Sumi K. Cho, both a political and economic examination of the interracial relationships found in South Central and a call to theorising social change, and the more personal reflection from Elaine H. Kim. She writes of the Korean word han, 'that means, loosely translated, the sorrow and anger that grow from the accumulated experiences of oppression.' I lived for a decade in L.A., and yet still know very little of Korean history or culture, this was a beautifully written window into their experience, and one that she has paid dearly for.
To return to the issue of how you refer to these events, I thought the contribution from Kimberle Crenshaw and Gary Peller quite brilliant in the way they call out the discourse of the 'riots' as seen from outside by media and non-residents as irresponsible reactions outside of the law by describing the systemic failures of law. To them, describing the proclamation of insurrection from within
The image of insurrection, in short, is part of a narrative that sees the relations of police and Blacks in L.A., not as the disaggregated diad of state official and private citizen, mediated by neutral legal forms of reasonableness and non discrimination, but instead in terms of the power-laden relationship of communities defined by race, within which whites, through the police, exercise a kind of occupying power, and within which Black neighborhoods appear as something like colonies. In these terms, 'insurrection" is not the blindly irrational acts of "rioters" (who, in the dominant narrative, should be expected to protest peacefully), but the concerted action of a community determined to raise the cost of peace to the colonizers, and thereby to increase its leverage on the continuing power relations.
There is a very nice interview with Mike Davis where he talks about the gang truce happening essentially at the same time, which gives one pause for much thought. Omi and Winant provided a really interesting take on the convergence between the neoconservative and Democrat views on race, and the ways that it has been essentially removed by both from political debate and action: ""...both the neoconservative and the pargamtic liberals share the conviction that racial matters, and racial-minority constituencies, should receive less attention in the political process. The "dirty little secret" of continued racial hostility, segregation, and discrimination of all sorts is not to be addressed politically. [104]" which I think is sadly true. There is more wiggle room for race-specific policies from the Democrats, but not much. I also found Thomas L. Dumm's piece on the new enclosures really interesting. He's found some choice quotes, this one is from an L.A. Times Article:
Residents insist that what binds them is not their common race or ethnicity, but a shared middle-class lifestyle. "We like living in a place with educated people, people who believe as we do," said Brian Arkin ... "But I don't believe skin color is a criteria."
"There's a black person up our street and we say "hi" like he's a normal person," Mr Arkin continued. "This isn't about race. It's about whether you let your property run down."
"Or whether you sell drugs out of your house," his wife, Valerie, interjected. (Gross, "In Simi Valley, Defense of a Shared Way of Life" [189]
But the concept of enclosures I also found fascinating, though it is really only developed in the conclusion and so remains a tantalising thought that I would rather like to follow up on myself.
The representation of the normalized community that I have presented here is white, suburban, middle-class, male, straight, and law-abiding. But norms themselves are particular. Each one flows along a specified dimension of existence. The threat of a normalized society does not rest with the existence of norms, but precisely in the ways in which the norms coalesce into operations of enclosure and internment. The vision of enclosed space--tightly controlled, perfectly monitored--has long been the beau ideal of Los Angeles
There were a couple of other quotes that made me really think. The first from Jerry G. West, looking at media and academia and the distance between what they thought and said and the reality on the ground. He writes "for if we authentically commit ourselves to the struggles of our most marginal citizens, we, too, will become increasingly marginalized." and I fear that he is right. These discourses are neither popular nor sexy, and they are also heartbreaking to write because they must come from experience. How we overcome that is a hell of a question. Maybe overturn the system.
Cornell West rounds it off with an indictment that also bears thinking of, "...we confine discussion about race in America to the "problems" black people pose for whites, rather than considering what this way of viewing black people reveals about us as a nation."
All in all this was both useful and provocative, with a critical lense that brought together political economy, culture, critical race theory...all the right ingredients. It is definitely missing a look, a voice, from the latino community. They formed a large part of the events, hundreds were deported raising issues of immigration, the changing nature of South Central. These weren't dealt with, the book's only lack really, but a big one.
June 25, 2024
AN EXCELLENT COLLECTION OF RESPONSES TO THE 1992 L.A. UPRISING
Editor Robert Gooding-Williams wrote in the Introduction to this 1993 book, “A central purpose of this book is to challenge the construction of the Rodney King incidents (the beating, the trial, and the uprising) as ‘old news,’ though not by transforming these incidents yet again into new and dramatic news events. [This book] contests the representation of the Rodney King incidents as ‘news’… no less than it contests the remembrance of these incidents as ‘old news.’ … [This book] addresses a number of topics, ranging from America’s history of racial violence to the effects of capital accumulation on the inner cities… the essays included here discuss the devastating impart that Federal public policy has had on urban America; the creation of suburban geographers that have helped to sequester and to ‘normalize’ communities like Simi Valley; the conflict in Los Angeles between African Americans and Korean-American show owners; and the repressive activities of the LAPD in the wake of the uprising. More generally, these essays raise a variety of questions regarding the relationships between race and power in American society.” (Pg. 2-3)
Kimberlé Crenshaw and Gary Peller wrote, “What the Simi Valley Jury did is not so different from what the Supreme Court does. In neither realm is the rule of law being subverted; the ‘law’ and the ‘facts’ of the social world do not exist in any objective, ready-made form. They must always be interpreted according to politics, ideology, and power.” (Pg. 64)
Mike Davis observes, “although the Sheriff’s Department is probably more racially integrated than the LAPD, this has had absolutely no effect in preventing avowedly White-supremacist groups from operating inside the department. Last year, for example, a judge corroborated long-standing rumors that a White racist ‘gang’ known as the Vikings had been organized inside the Lynwood Station in a majority Black and Latino suburb. This notorious station is under lawsuit for literally scores of major abuses, ranging from murder and torture to unlawful detention and beatings.” (Pg. 153)
Sumi K. Cho points out, “banks and government lenders uniformly reject loan applications for businesses located in poor, predominantly minority neighborhoods such as South Central Los Angeles, regardless of the applicant’s color. Korean immigrants rarely receive traditional financing. Those who open liquor stores and small businesses often come over with some capital and/or borrow from family or friends. At times, groups of Koreans will act as their own financial institutions through informal rotating credit associations known as ‘kyes.’” (Pg. 200)
Cho adds, “Clearly, Soon Ja Du’s killing of Latasha Harlina was wrong, as was Judge Karlin’s failure to incarcerate her. The point here is not to provide an excuse for what Du did, but to question why the individual actions of one store owner are attributed to an entire race. Du can hard be seen as a ‘typical store owner.’ Many in the Korean-Angeleno community state that she was mentally unbalanced. The media chose to indict the entire Korean-American population over the actions of one woman whose mental stability was questionable… Perhaps the images of white police officers savagely beating a helpless Rodney King were so damaging to the white journalists’ psyches that the depiction of Korean aggression against African Americans provided a needed release, and transferal of their guilt.” (Pg. 204)
Elaine H. Kim noted, “I was filled with despair when I read about Chinese Americans wanting to dissociate themselves from us [Koreans]… Chinese and Japanese American shopkeepers, unlike Koreans, always got alone fine with African Americans in the past. ‘Suddenly,’ admitted another Chinese American, ‘I am scared to be Asian… I am afraid to be mistaken for Korean.’” (Pg. 217)
Jerry G. Watts comments, “in Los Angeles the race of the store owner appears to have had little impact on the arson selection. Black businesses were burned out along with those of whites and Korean Americans. The media made a point of showing black store owners crying or stunned by the loss of their enterprises. The willingness to burn out black store owners in the face of what appeared to have been a protest against white racism may signal the rise of a festering black nihilism.” (Pg. 243)
Henry Louis Gates suggests, “The most pernicious forms of racism---the stereotyping of an individual by the color of her skin---still pervade white America. And caught in this no-man’s-land of alienation and fragmentation is the black middle class. What do we do about this? What do we not do? First of all, it’s time for the black middle class to stop feeling guilty about its own success while fellow blacks languish in the inner city of despair. Black prosperity does not derive from Black poverty. Those who succeed are those whose community, whose families, PREPARED them to be successful.” (Pg. 252)
Dr. Cornel West states. “The emergence of strong black-nationalist sentiments among blacks, especially young people, is a revolt against this sense of having to ‘fit in.’ … as long as the rap performer Ice-T is harshly condemned while former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates’s antiblack comments are received in polite silence, as long as Dr. Leonard Jeffries’s anti-Semitic statements are met with vitriolic outrage while presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan’s are received with a genteel response---black nationalisms will thrive. Afrocentrism, a contemporary species of black nationalism, is a gallant yet misguided attempt to define and African identity in a white society perceived to be hostile. It is gallant because it puts black doings and sufferings, not white anxieties and fears, at the center of discussion. It is misguided because---out of fear of cultural hybridization, silence on the issue of class, retrograde views on black women, homosexuals, and lesbians, and a reluctance to link race to the common good---it reinforces the narrow discussions about race.” (Pg. 257)
This book should be “must reading” for anyone studying reactions to the 1992 uprising.
Editor Robert Gooding-Williams wrote in the Introduction to this 1993 book, “A central purpose of this book is to challenge the construction of the Rodney King incidents (the beating, the trial, and the uprising) as ‘old news,’ though not by transforming these incidents yet again into new and dramatic news events. [This book] contests the representation of the Rodney King incidents as ‘news’… no less than it contests the remembrance of these incidents as ‘old news.’ … [This book] addresses a number of topics, ranging from America’s history of racial violence to the effects of capital accumulation on the inner cities… the essays included here discuss the devastating impart that Federal public policy has had on urban America; the creation of suburban geographers that have helped to sequester and to ‘normalize’ communities like Simi Valley; the conflict in Los Angeles between African Americans and Korean-American show owners; and the repressive activities of the LAPD in the wake of the uprising. More generally, these essays raise a variety of questions regarding the relationships between race and power in American society.” (Pg. 2-3)
Kimberlé Crenshaw and Gary Peller wrote, “What the Simi Valley Jury did is not so different from what the Supreme Court does. In neither realm is the rule of law being subverted; the ‘law’ and the ‘facts’ of the social world do not exist in any objective, ready-made form. They must always be interpreted according to politics, ideology, and power.” (Pg. 64)
Mike Davis observes, “although the Sheriff’s Department is probably more racially integrated than the LAPD, this has had absolutely no effect in preventing avowedly White-supremacist groups from operating inside the department. Last year, for example, a judge corroborated long-standing rumors that a White racist ‘gang’ known as the Vikings had been organized inside the Lynwood Station in a majority Black and Latino suburb. This notorious station is under lawsuit for literally scores of major abuses, ranging from murder and torture to unlawful detention and beatings.” (Pg. 153)
Sumi K. Cho points out, “banks and government lenders uniformly reject loan applications for businesses located in poor, predominantly minority neighborhoods such as South Central Los Angeles, regardless of the applicant’s color. Korean immigrants rarely receive traditional financing. Those who open liquor stores and small businesses often come over with some capital and/or borrow from family or friends. At times, groups of Koreans will act as their own financial institutions through informal rotating credit associations known as ‘kyes.’” (Pg. 200)
Cho adds, “Clearly, Soon Ja Du’s killing of Latasha Harlina was wrong, as was Judge Karlin’s failure to incarcerate her. The point here is not to provide an excuse for what Du did, but to question why the individual actions of one store owner are attributed to an entire race. Du can hard be seen as a ‘typical store owner.’ Many in the Korean-Angeleno community state that she was mentally unbalanced. The media chose to indict the entire Korean-American population over the actions of one woman whose mental stability was questionable… Perhaps the images of white police officers savagely beating a helpless Rodney King were so damaging to the white journalists’ psyches that the depiction of Korean aggression against African Americans provided a needed release, and transferal of their guilt.” (Pg. 204)
Elaine H. Kim noted, “I was filled with despair when I read about Chinese Americans wanting to dissociate themselves from us [Koreans]… Chinese and Japanese American shopkeepers, unlike Koreans, always got alone fine with African Americans in the past. ‘Suddenly,’ admitted another Chinese American, ‘I am scared to be Asian… I am afraid to be mistaken for Korean.’” (Pg. 217)
Jerry G. Watts comments, “in Los Angeles the race of the store owner appears to have had little impact on the arson selection. Black businesses were burned out along with those of whites and Korean Americans. The media made a point of showing black store owners crying or stunned by the loss of their enterprises. The willingness to burn out black store owners in the face of what appeared to have been a protest against white racism may signal the rise of a festering black nihilism.” (Pg. 243)
Henry Louis Gates suggests, “The most pernicious forms of racism---the stereotyping of an individual by the color of her skin---still pervade white America. And caught in this no-man’s-land of alienation and fragmentation is the black middle class. What do we do about this? What do we not do? First of all, it’s time for the black middle class to stop feeling guilty about its own success while fellow blacks languish in the inner city of despair. Black prosperity does not derive from Black poverty. Those who succeed are those whose community, whose families, PREPARED them to be successful.” (Pg. 252)
Dr. Cornel West states. “The emergence of strong black-nationalist sentiments among blacks, especially young people, is a revolt against this sense of having to ‘fit in.’ … as long as the rap performer Ice-T is harshly condemned while former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates’s antiblack comments are received in polite silence, as long as Dr. Leonard Jeffries’s anti-Semitic statements are met with vitriolic outrage while presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan’s are received with a genteel response---black nationalisms will thrive. Afrocentrism, a contemporary species of black nationalism, is a gallant yet misguided attempt to define and African identity in a white society perceived to be hostile. It is gallant because it puts black doings and sufferings, not white anxieties and fears, at the center of discussion. It is misguided because---out of fear of cultural hybridization, silence on the issue of class, retrograde views on black women, homosexuals, and lesbians, and a reluctance to link race to the common good---it reinforces the narrow discussions about race.” (Pg. 257)
This book should be “must reading” for anyone studying reactions to the 1992 uprising.
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