Jake:
“One of West's subjects is how Los Angeles erases memory, replacing it with sensations that inscribe themselves on the mind like vivid nightmares, only to be immediately forgotten.”[i]
We started with a prediction. The Burning of Los Angeles, foretold by Tod Hackett in The Day of the Locust. As we worked away from West’s masterpiece, our first novel seemed to
slip to the back of our minds. Noir’s femme fatale, the immoral workhorse, frayed racial relations—themes of Los Angeles sped by. But 53 years later, Hackett’s prophecy came true. Los Angeles erupted into riots, and our class came full circle.
Mike Davis blames a dying freedom for the 1992 riots in Anna Deavere Smith’s piece of documentary theater Twilight Los Angeles, 1992. “I mean, there is no freedom of movement or right of assembly for youth” (Smith 31). But Hackett foresaw the burning of Los Angeles nearly 30 years before the civil rights movement that Davis highlights. Were the failures of universal freedom in Los Angeles already prevalent enough to spark Los Angeles’ burning? Or was there something else already there? Immigrants from further east were all but tricked into moving to Los Angeles. Both Matthew Ellenberger and West agree that this caused massive dissatisfaction. But how did this make the future so clear?
Smith’s first chapter, “The Territory,” proposes many reasons for the LA Riots beyond Davis’. From Theresa Allison and Michael Zinzun’s blaming of the police to Cornel West’s patriarchy, to Stanley Sheinbaum’s polarization, each option revolves around conflict. Los Angeles, from 1939 to 1992, fostered conflict between…who? between races? classes? police and youth? Whatever it was, it was clear to Nathanel West when he wrote The Day of the Locust.
Scott Kurashige’s “Between ‘White Spot’ and ‘World City’: Racial Integration and the Roots of Multiculturalism” reflects the same sentiment as last year’s City of Angels class’ Monterey Park travel guide: “Los Angeles, seemingly paradoxically, is both renowned for its multiculturalism and disparaged for its homogeneity.”[ii] As booster literature devolved into the promotion of Los Angeles as the world’s new Aryan hub, our city somehow experienced massive immigration from minorities. And when waves of Midwesterners poured into Los Angeles in pursuit of the “pure” white idyll, they became upset when that idyll was “spoiled” by the immigration of non-white populations. The bones of unhappiness were in place. Is Los Angeles really a city built upon unhappy relationships between races—between people?
Whatever power of prophecy Nathanel West had to envisage The Burning of Los Angeles, Los Angeles has burned. 24 years ago. Nearly a quarter of a century beyond the LA Riots, what has our city become? Who are we today? Have we stopped our city from burning a second time by making it a better place, or by subduing our upset population?
It is impossible to answer these questions with certainty. But thoughtful hypotheses are more than welcome. In fact, I would even say that they’re the point of the class. For my part, I’ll close out the Thursday blog posts for City of Angels 2015 with a quote from Yoda. “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” The anger, hate, and suffering are clear in Los Angeles’ past. But where did the fear come from?
[i] http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-caw-paperback-writers16-2009aug16-story.html
[ii] https://sites.google.com/a/polytechnic.org/city-of-angels/home/travel-la-monterey-park
Joey
Following the pattern and thread of connections we have knit in our City of Angels class, Anna Deveare Smith weaves together an image of struggle in Los Angeles by looking at the Riots through a lens of intersectionality. Each story connects and presents an alternative viewpoint to the Los Angeles Riots. She synthesizes voices to represent diversity, but also provides a platform for each voice to have an equal importance to any other voice in her collection of stories. “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992” is special because we are only impacted by the words of each story and the content of each voices’ argument or beliefs rather than the portrayal of a story through a sponsored media outlet.
As I think about the dialogue we have and class and our dialogue of the we have our dialogue, I think about Anna Deveare Smith’s “level playing field” in a sense, how she gives each voice the same value. Obviously, in a classroom, it is nearly impossible to give everyone the same voice with an open dialogue, but I think we should look deeper into the way “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992” allows diversity in voices. Is it possible to replicate this balanced way of discussion?
Anna Deveare Smith’s acceptance of irresolution or absence of a conclusion could also be helpful for our dialogue. I have noticed a trend where we all feel the need to argue to find “the answer”. The final solution. While in “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992”, Anna Deveare Smith enables the reader to come up with an independent solution or solutions from the stories told in the collection. How can we use these stories to better shape our dialogue?
We read "The Laramie Project" last year and that gave us the ability to see view points. Since "Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992” is written in the same docudrama genre, we as a class can use it to facilitate our growth in dialogue by seeing our classmates viewpoints and try to understand and respect their ideas and statements. Also giving everyone the opportunity to voice these ideas and statements since we talk about opportunity a lot as well, we can try to take a meta approach when we speak, trying to see the amount of time we take giving other people the opportunity to say something that may align or actually be better than what we had to say.
ReplyDeleteMy only concern with Joey's section of the post is that there is so much emphasis put on Smith's creation of a "level playing field", when I personally believe the order of the voices matters a great deal to the opinions we end up forming. The fact that each voice is put into a chapter and each chapter causes us to form a certain opinion by the end makes me wonder what would happen if we weren't guided along by the order Smith makes us read her wonderful collection of opinions. Would what we think really be the same? Is a playing field really level if its been completely slanted the way it wants you to read it? I also feel that in our discussions we all end up being guided towards the same conclusion (due to Mr. Donnell and Dr. Stogdill having to do most of the talking), making whatever "independent solutions" we may have formed mostly irrelevant, even if we were completely convinced of what we thought before the group came together. Just some points I thought I should bring up, please discuss further.
ReplyDeleteLos Angeles is a land of dichotomy. We live between beaches and mountains, cities and suburbs, love and hate, kindness and fear. Perhaps duplicitous is a better categorization. This paradox of a city seems to coerce awe out of us when we look to its bright Hollywood stars. Just like all those folks from the midwest in The Day of the Locust, we are being lulled to believing this city's inequalities aren't as prevalent. We've become more concerned by draughts and "El Niños" (?) while the pain and violence still exists on our streets. Stars are not the only things populating our sidewalks. We must take this recognition of inequality and broadcast it. For when our attention spans become smaller and smaller regarding these issues, so goes the fuse on this powder keg of a city.
ReplyDeleteAs we've viewed in our own classroom, sometimes different viewpoints can be both the cause and the result of conflict. We understand that this does not have to lead to contention; it can produce "purple". However, it is not easy to strike this balance. Many people are so stuck in their pocket of right vs. wrong that they cannot see past their personal opinion. They are afraid of what they do not know, thus shutting themselves off to new opportunities. This kind of intolerance or closed-mindedness is what eventually creates a divide so large the only way to fix it is through some huge crisis or event, such as the Burning of Los Angeles.
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ReplyDeleteIt strikes me when reading your post, Jake, that there is a certain cyclical nature to these events. After all, the burning of Los Angeles that immediately followed West's doomsday prediction was the Zoot Suit Riots in 1943. Next up, the Watts Riots/Rebellion in 1965. Then the LA Riots in 1992. Twenty-two years between the first two; twenty-seven years between the last two.
ReplyDeleteIt makes me think of my first time making pasta. I had the flame on its highest setting and the pot almost full of water; it was only a matter of time before the pot boiled over. When it did, I took out some water, and it stopped. But soon the water heated even further, and the increased activity of the water compensated for its removal. In short, it boiled over again. So again, I removed the water. And again, it boiled over. And the cycle repeated an embarrassing number of times until the most stressful bowl of complex carbohydrates I ever ate was ready. Not once did I think that maybe the flame could be lowered.
LA has a history of racism. Racial tensions exploded in 1943. Order was restored, but soon enough LA exploded again. This time, it burned. And again, order was restored. Thousands of National Guard troops made sure of that. Flames were put out, buildings repaired and rebuilt. But soon enough, LA burned again, again due to racial tensions (among other reasons). And again, the situation was managed, order restored.
And that is the problem. We always seek order not unity. We make everything calm again, drive everything underground. Meanwhile, the edifices of oppression are reconstructed and even fortified. But we never think to turn down the flames. Our inability to pinpoint and to treat the exact cause of our city's divisions impedes us from finding a lasting solution. And if no one turns down the heat, the pot will boil over again. 24 years since the LA Riots, huh? A surge of protests over police brutality and discrimination, huh? The water froths at the lip of the pot, daring the flames to let it rise.
The burning of Los Angeles that was predicted comes from conflict, but that is not why LA burned. If the ’92 riots were based purely on conflict, LA would have burned a long time ago. However, the LA riots are rooted in the frustration of the blatant injustice and people being simply being fed up. Also who are we saying is fearful? The rioters? Us?
ReplyDeleteI'm really engaged with Sean's post. When I researched the L.A. riots a few days ago, I remember thinking how eerily similar the events were to the more recent occurrences of police brutality and such. It was mind-boggling to me that, despite the 1992 riots, these issues of racism, violence, and distrust still face our community today. We should have learned from then, but we didn't. We have grown so accustomed to solving problems on the surface and numb to the fact that the root of the problem still exists. In order to find that root, we need so much time, empathy, and effort - and not enough people have been willing to do that. Most people shy away from change. I think this is where the fear in Los Angeles comes from: people are so invested in their own opinions that any time people challenge them, they are worried and stubborn. Until people can stop shutting themselves out, like Brennan said, things will not change. Right now, too many people still view things in an "us vs them" type of scenario, and lack the understanding to at least see things from the other side.
ReplyDeleteSince we are comparing the Twilight narration alternation and our class discussions, I would like to add that I think they are a bit similar. Reflecting on the characters, we all have noticed that each perspective varies from the next entirely; though all relating to the same topic of police brutality and rioting. The way Twilight is pieced together separates each of the speakers views so you can analyze them without one person's voice influencing the others'. Imagine everyone of those characters in a dialogue together. The cop, the mother, the former gang member, the historian. the judge, etc. Absolute chaos and tons of bickering right? That's how I feel our class operates sometimes. It doesn't make anyone's ideas or thoughts less important than another's but we are still in the process of respecting opinions and taking a step back to be able to discuss topics as intense as the Riots without bias and learn from eachother.
ReplyDeleteThe power social media has today in it's capability to share diverse perspectives, stories and experiences has been a shaping force in the encouragement of empathy among Angelinos. Technology has the potential to spread and allows us to acknowledge the differing experiences of others whether it be due to gender, race, sexual orientation etc. I specifically think of Instagram as a powerful tool in sharing these experiences (Petra Collins, Amandla Stenberg, Megan Fay and more). This education through technology allows for a "safe" introduction to learning about other perspectives, something that might be seen as more uncomfortable experienced in person. The uncomfortableness that is eliminated through screens has some connection to eliminating the fear Jake referenced as causing anger, hate and suffering.
ReplyDeleteI think Sean's post is really interesting, as well as jake's post. I think that this endless cycle of chaos to order to chaos to order. What Sean pointed out is that we are looking for order and not unity. I believe that unity is a really powerful thing that has been down played. Unity is really the foundation of what makes things strong and meaningful. I think that in order to help with our class dialogue maybe we need to work on the unity as a class. I think one thing we can work on is maybe accepting that sometimes things dont have a final answer, and to be okay with that.
ReplyDeleteA contrast between our dialogues and the excepts from Twilight would be that one is actually a dialogue. It seems rather ridiculous to compare an amalgamation of different opinions all stitched together to create an image for a reader to a class discussion, an entity that constantly twists and molds itself in an effort to shape and further group understanding about a topic or question. I imagine it like a toddler telling a car mechanic to just peddle harder to make it work. While on the surface a car and tricycle both serve the purpose of going from point A to point B, they accomplish this by completely different means. While the mechanic could attach peddles, that would change the vehicle itself, just like framing our dialogues in the style of Twilight: Los Angeles would defeat the purpose of creating a dialogue in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't thought much about the possibility of modern LA to ignite into chaos much, but now that I do I feel as though it may be a reality. I agree with Lucas about the fears of LA being covered by the Hollywood/El Niño guise. So maybe if we are beginning to reconnect with some of the depression in LA, other people must be also. I don't believe anything like '92 will happen anytime soon, but eventually when enough of us citizens realize the atrocities lurking in the shadows of the stars something similar will arise.
ReplyDeleteI agree with jake when he mentioned how the riots were foreseeable almost a quarter of a century before happening, although I don't think that we realized the effect that they would leave on our city or on our people. I don't think our city could have prevented the riots, as the race relations and racial conditions at the time made for a destructive outcome, however I do believe that this situation can be prevented from happening again. Our city has become a better, safer, more decent environment since the time of the riots and since their prediction, however I don't think we have evolved enough as a city or people in order to prevent this from happening again. There are still many different forms in which racism and discrimination take place in our city and until those subside Los Angeles cannot subdue its people or surroundings enough in order to keep this tragic event from reoccurring.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Joey's post, I think that there are many ways in which we can better our dialogue as a class but most importantly I think that we can all benefit from Anna Deveare Smith's writing by taking on the aspect of having many different solutions/reasons/answers but realizing that there are more than one and not just one right response. Her writing is different from other male writers in which we have read and I think it could be very beneficial to us if we took on some of those qualities.
When there is an issue that stirs a portion or all of society, attempt at reform in any form is inevitable. A pattern that can be noticed is that however the issue in question is delivered (gang violence, drugs, racism, territory) is often the fashion in which it will be responded to. The LA riots were so violent and inevitable due to the violent nature of the underlying issue. We could not have prevented the LA riots, but we could have (and did) predict them. If we look at lower scale issues that press us today, chances are they will escalate if not solved, and eventually burst.
ReplyDeleteEverything about all we know or ever have experienced is cyclical. Between the earth rotating about the sun, youth becoming old, clocks spinning about their center, civilizations crumbling, everything repeats and repeats and repeats....
ReplyDeleteWhy would the burring of LA be any different?
The new eruption will be around gentrification, which is generally white people taking paraphernalia of other peoples cultures and appropriating it by calling it a trend (like ripped jeans or cross necklaces). The burning will come again. Except this time, I believe the fire is going to spread over a lot more than just LA. Along with Davis, I think the government is behind it. I mean for god sakes, the CIA imported tons of cocaine into the United States and sold it to ghettos all across america and then created an idea that African Americans were the root of our drug problem. Racism is just a symptom of the secret procedures our government is doing to us. If you are interested in learning about that, you have to watch the movie Kill The Messenger http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1216491/