CATHERINE JAYIN JUN/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Poet Wanda
Coleman reads a few of her works in Westwood Plaza Monday,
where several art pieces have been exhibited in commemoration of
the 10th anniversary of the Los Angeles uprising.
By Dexter Gauntlett
DAILY BRUIN STAFF
[email protected]
Everyone from poets to urban planning analysts reflected Monday
on their personal experiences during separate forums intended to
address lingering hostilities that sparked the 1992 Rodney King
Riots ““ something not as black and white as the media may
have reported, they said.
The middle of Bruin Plaza showcased an artistic memorial that
drew attention to the cultural tensions between blacks and Koreans
and misinformation caused by the media, both of which reached their
heights during the mayhem in South Central Los Angeles, speakers
said.
“Our voices are being subsumed,” said poet Wanda
Coleman, a Watts native.
She said local voices get drowned out because most people are
listening to political and cultural leaders on the East Coast and
are subsequently unaware of the more realistic political and
cultural factors that contributed to the chaos.
“The rest of the nation saw the 1992 riots as a black and
white affair,” Coleman said.
Coleman, who is known for her fiery commentary on personal
experiences of urban life as a black woman, was invited by the
Asian American Studies program to present a series of her poems
that attempt to stimulate dialogue throughout the diverse community
of Los Angeles.
She read one of her poems in a composed, yet deeply angered tone
that ridiculed a Korean woman, meant to recall the woman who was
acquitted after shooting a 15-year-old black girl in her
family’s grocery store.
Another more sarcastic poem played off the stereotype that all
blacks are thieves. She said, in the last line of her poem, that
she, as a black woman, would rather “steal the poison from
the motherland,” an allusion to these deep running, hurtful
misconceptions in the U.S. which she said may have contributed to
the riots themselves.
But Russell Leong, editor for the Amerasia Journal and UCLA
English professor, said too much of the riot coverage focused on
race and not enough on class plight, a conscious decision made by
the media to sell papers, he said.
He said it’s not in a newspaper’s interest to report
on the more positive aspects that go on in South Central such as
the community building programs.
“They only cover the killings in our city,” Leong
said.
Despite the sensitivity of the topic, both writers recognized
the power they have to carry and shape ideas and attitudes in their
respective communities.
Leong said there is common ground for people who are
“black, white and yellow.”
“You don’t need to like each other, you just need to
live together,” Leong said.
But at another event Monday, speakers said living together is
not an easy thing, as was evidenced in 1992.
Regina Freer, a professor at Occidental college, noted in her
remarks that one factor that can cause unrest is quickly-shifting
demographics. This was happening in South Los Angeles when the
riots broke out; more Latinos were moving in, as blacks headed
out.
In fact, Leo F. Estrada, a UCLA urban planning professor, noted
that one of the “flash-points” of the riots ““ the
intersection of Florence and Normandie Avenues ““ was not a
primarily black or primarily Latino area, but an area of
transition.
Whereas many of the issues plaguing South Central are alive and
kicking today, other indicators point toward improvements in
quality of living the area.
For example, the rate of growth of South Central has slowed in
comparison to the rest of L.A. and homicide rates have decreased.
Also, SAT scores have gone up while high school dropout rates have
declined, according to data presented by Jim Spencer, a Ph.D
candidate in urban planning.