How the LA riots shaped me
I remember sitting on the couch and watching South Central Los Angeles burn. It was March in 1992. This arson was an action taken by some opportunists and some genuinely hurting people who had heard there would be no consequences for the officers captured brutally beating Rodney King on video. The grainy footage played millions of times before anyone could go “viral” online. It permanently reshaped the structure of life for me as a black man. There is something about recognizing this could be a reality when I came into contact with the police.
At the time I lived with my family in Pomona California. I was the second born of seven kids all born within 8 1/2 years. The pressure to provide and nurture was real for my parents who rarely had time for themselves. The majority of the time my father had around 3 jobs, necessary to provide when one does not have a high school diploma. We lived what i thought was an idyllic childhood in Southern California, full of the days that looked the same and we drove a long way to go to church.
About seven years earlier my parents had moved us from Compton California. We existed in the midst of the crack epidemic and it was getting bad. Stories of addicts passed out near our home and the shots that mimicked violence became harbingers of what was to come. I remember large parts of my life from that time due to a memory that could recall birth until I was well in my 20’s. Our family was searching for the peace and stability and where ever we went in California in the late 8o’s and early 90’s, that did not seem to be easy to come by. The graphic scenes of store windows being smashed and neighborhoods burned to the ground was shocking yet appropriate for those times that felt built upon the shaky ground of diversity. Many of the neighborhoods and stores that burned I’d visited with my Dad before. All of his family still lived in South Central LA and I found people in homes that were foreign to me. One in particular was always filthy and had roaches crawling on every surface. I could not bring myself to sit anywhere, so I stood for the duration of my visit and tried to avoid eye contact with the ubiquitous bugs.
A part of me felt the burning of property was ritualistic as a way to purge the inequity between the business owners and the residents. The riots were compounded by the state of the surroundings in juxtaposition to the adjacent pristine nature of more fortunate environs. These tumultuous events gave way to even more tumult in the life of my family. My parents had attempted to save their marriage by spending time together but it seemed it was too late. A cousin they left us with relished the opportunity to show us his gun he had in his car. I wasn’t impressed but confused at why he would show off a toy to us.
Riots in the Spring gave way to my mother leaving my father for good in the winter. The instability of Southern California had reached far into our home like the long arm of anxiety and torn us a part. I remember my father explaining the moment he returned from work (like clockwork) and realized we were gone. That feeling has travelled with me in my empathy. That time I wonder about being abandoned. Not because I ever was but I remember when that happened to my Pops. Those days seemed idyllic to me and buoyed by harbingers of the destruction that was to come. As I reflect on those times the memories come back and feel freshly lain. As if the ash from the burning had descended again.
