Memories of 1992
I feel tired because of my memories of the Rodney King riots of 1992. I remember watching the city burn, and seeing total strangers throwing rocks at each other. I swept the streets in the aftermath after Edward James Olmos swept up Koreatown. I gave out clothing in South L.A.
I saw how poor the neighborhoods were back then, and I saw how poor they are today when I drove my daughter around while she was going to USC. I saw the biggest homeless encampment I’ve ever seen in Downtown L.A. As we drove past it, my kid remarked how she had grown up sheltered. And yes, some things I wish I could unsee and shelter my kids from seeing.
I recall the newsroom riot that we had inside the Los Angeles Times in the aftermath of the unrest in 1992. I wrote an article criticizing the Times’ (Pulitzer Prize-winning) coverage because I believed that was the right thing to do. I had quite a few editors above me calling me out as unprofessional. But I had people backing me up from organizations like the Asian American Journalists Association, the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
Back then, I was a young reporter in my 20s, trying to make my own newsroom see why it was viewed as part of the establishment and not part of the community. I was lucky that the editor, Shelby Coffey, didn’t fire me and instead appointed me to a diversity committee. We advocated change within the newspaper so that it could cover communities of color better. We were asking for better representation of minority communities among the ranks of reporters and editors at the Los Angeles Times. I think we made a small difference, but it felt like it was short lived, as newspapers began their downward spiral in the age of the internet.
The next year, I lost my own brother. That was painful, to say the least.
Listening to the past
Now I’m in my 50s. I do not feel that experience from the 1990s was a total waste. In fact, it was a formative time for me. But I am sad. We have made no progress as a society. We do not have the justice that we were promised with the Rebuild LA movement. And I am not surprised to see the riots and protests across the country because the fuel was poured, and Minneapolis provided the spark.
So much of this seemed preventable. Colin Kaepernick sounded the alarm four years ago by taking a knee during the national anthem. In the wake of Gamergate, I remember trying for a few years to get a diversity summit funded for the games industry. I did not succeed. Many people did not succeed in ending systemic institutional racism. That is why I feel tired.
George Floyd was murdered. We have a president who has not only been divisive but has also incited shooting and called people who are our children “thugs.” He has set us back decades. And as we saw the consequences of his words, as the cities burned, he stayed silent. It was so like Nero. When he finally spoke up, he made things worse. His decision to tear gas the peaceful crowd outside the White House so he could get a photo op was unconscionable.
If we only had leadership that could make a difference in times like this, rather than a leader who drives us into chaos. I am heartened by people who are speaking up, like Taylor Swift calling out 45 for inciting violence. I was touched by the words of Atlanta’s mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, calling on us to be better than this. I agree that our best move is to vote in November. Her words brought me to tears.
When I saw what is happening on TV, I realized that I was very distant from all of those on the front line in all of the multiple calamities we have going on at once. I can breathe. I can breathe a sigh of relief that I know where my children are. I have no prescription for fixing this. I do not know how to talk with my children about this, other than to say that we have seen this before, and we do not have justice in this country. I am crying on the inside for America.
It is heartbreaking that I would rather be inside the pandemic world of The Last of Us Part II than in our real world right now. But sometimes we should not distract ourselves. Sometimes we should not escape from reality, but stay inside it long enough to change it.
For those of you who are hopeful about diversity in the wake of this, good for you. But diversity is not a short game; it’s a long one. I remember reading a quote about how Martin Luther King Jr. was tired of his endless struggle. And yet he achieved change. We should not give up. We should do what we can to change things, but we should not trick ourselves into thinking that change will be swift.
Having lost a brother, I can identify with Zhang. But I consider Zhang to be a brother in the cause. That is something I am grateful for.
I feel so far away from the riots of the past, and so close. It resonates across decades. It makes me remember Rodney King’s words. “Can we all get along?”