The poem “Riot Act, April 29, 1992” by Ai Ogawa seems to be a straight forward style of poetry, the poem involves anger, historical points, as well as racial controversy. Though the poem is in a way a voice for the African American group, the writer contradicts herself throughout the poem. While being told by what seems to be an unnamed black individual, the poem explains that white America does not care about Black America or the lower class. Ogawa is trying to state that America expects certain actions from the Black party, yet writes in the poem that they in fact participate in those actions.
The poet, Ai Ogawa, was, according to the biography “Ai,” a mixture of Choctaw, Caucasian, Japanese, and Filipino, she was upset at the fact that she could not identify with a specific ethnicity group (Goldstein.) She was bullied in school because of her mixed race; therefore she expresses a lot of pain through her poems (Goldstein.) In the case of this poem, it can be said that she felt gravitated towards the frustration in which Black America was feeling towards White America. She expresses that the character is going to loot certain items, he is tired of being imprisoned by the white man, then turns around and says that he is upset that that is what the white man expects (Ogawa, 688.) The poet leaves a sense of confusion as to what the character is trying to get across, is it that the individual is raged at the lack of respect he is receiving from White America? If that is the case, then why have the individual looting items and fitting into the stereotype, while trying to make the point that they are tired of being viewed that way and that way and that way only? This further clouds the message of the poem.
Understandably the poem w...
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... she is indeed angered and fed up at the fact that there is a stereotype. The way in which she contradicts herself makes it hard for readers to understand the true meaning or point to her poem, the voice was angry and ready for change, yet the actions that the individual was participating in raised questions of whether or not he actually fit the stereotype.
Work Cited
Goldstein, Marc, et al. "Ai." Magill’S Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition (2006): 1. Biography Reference Center. Web. 1 Apr. 2014.
Matheson, Victor A., and Robert A. Baade. “Race and Riots: A Note on the Economic Impact of the Rodney King Riots.” Urban Studies (Routledge) 41. 13 (2004): 2691-2696. Academic Search Complete. Web. 1 Apr. 2014
Ogawa, Ai: “Riot Act, April 29, 1992,”from Greed by Ai. Copyright 1993 by Ai. Used by permission of the author and W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
It is very clear that the narrator is aggravated with the ignorance of some people as they assume she is supposed to sound different than she does because she is black. To emphasize her agitation throughout the poem, the narrator asks rhetorical questions such as; "Was I supposed to sound lazy, dropping syllables here, there, not finishing words but slurring the final letter so that each sentence joined the next, sliding past the listener? Were certain words off limits, too erudite, too scholarly for someone with a natural tan? And Does everyone in your family speak alike?"
To accomplish this, the Kerner Commission visited riot cities, spoke with witnesses and sought out help from other professionals. According to this documentary, 126 cities were hit and broken by these major race riots. The two main cities were Detroit, Michigan and Newark, New Jersey. 82% of the deaths and over half of the injuries occurred in these two cities. Towards the end, as the tension and conflict really thicken, the president even had to send in the army to put a halt to this violence that was corrupting our cities and nation. Yet, this riots were not your “typical” riots, they were described as unusual, unpredictable, irregular and complex. According to a study, most rioters were young black men, between the ages of 15-24 and about 74% were brought up from the south. In context to the documentary and the report, these riots were brought on by actions and responses of police force, local officials and the National Guard. This idea was brought about because some black people thought of the police as just a sign of white privilege and power. However, according to citizens in Milwaukee, Wisconsin they were “protests because of the loss of jobs.” But the youngest commission chair, who was featured in the documentary, Fred Harris, disagrees and says that they were not protests, there was no planning with a clear goal in
...es her. The imageries of pink Mustang signifies her social class, while “Road” indicates her location as nowhere within a community. The commodification of her body means it can be touched in ways derogatory to her dignity whether she likes it or not because it is a saleable commodity that doesn’t belong to her. Her silver painted nipples identifies silver coins. Silver coins represent monetary value put on her body. Silver painted nipples also mean the attractive way in which a product is packaged. The poem also depicts the defiance of women against how she has been treated. She identifies man as the one that kisses away himself piece by piece till the last coin is spent. However, she cannot change the reality of her location, and temporal placement.
The beating of Rodney King from the Los Angeles Police Department on March 3, 1991 and the Los Angeles riots resulting from the verdict of the police officers on April 29 through May 5, 1992 are events that will never be forgotten. They both evolve around one incident, but there are two sides of ethical deviance: the LAPD and the citizens involved in the L.A. riots. The incident on March 3, 1991 is an event, which the public across the nation has never witnessed. If it weren’t for the random videotaping of the beating that night, society would never know what truly happened to Rodney King. What was even more disturbing is the mentality the LAPD displayed to the public and the details of how this mentality of policing led up to this particular incident. This type of ethical deviance is something the public has not seen since the civil rights era. Little did Chief Gates, the Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, and the LAPD know what the consequences of their actions would lead to. Moving forward in time to the verdict of those police officers being acquitted of the charges, the public sentiment spiraled into an outrage. The disbelief and shock of the citizens of Los Angeles sparked a mammoth rioting that lasted for six days. The riots led to 53 deaths and the destruction of many building. This is a true but disturbing story uncovering the ethical deviance from the LAPD and the L.A. riots. The two perspectives are from the Rodney King incident are the LAPD and the L.A. riots.
She gets to the point and proves that in our current world we tend to say more than we should, when just a couple of words can do the same. In her writing, it is evident that the little sentences and words are what make the poem overall that perfect dream she wishes she were part of.
In the second stanza, Piercy describes the girl as healthy, intelligent, and strong (7-8). Yet these positive equalities alone, could not keep people from criticizing her, so the girl feels inferior. “She went to and fro apologizing,” which demonstrates her collapse of confidence with the people she is surrounded with, who kept putting her down (10). She gives in to the hurtful things people say about her: “Everyone [kept] seeing a fat nose on thick legs” (11). The girl thus lets people push her in the direction of society’s standard of beauty, instead of affirming her own unique beauty.
A Look Into the Chicago Race Riots The Civil War was fought over the “race problem,” to determine the place of African-Americans in America. The Union won the war and freed the slaves. However, when President Lincoln declared the Emancipation Proclamation, a hopeful promise for freedom from oppression and slavery for African-Americans, he refrained from announcing the decades of hardship that would follow to obtaining the new “freedom”. Over the course of nearly a century, African-Americans would be deprived and face adversity to their rights.
An analysis of the first 5,000 arrests from all over the city revealed that 52 percent were poor Latinos, 10 percent whites and only 38 percent blacks. They also know that the nation's first multiracial riot was as much about empty bellies and broken hearts as it was about police batons and Rodney King (Urban).
“April 26th, 1992, there was a riot on the streets, tell me where were you!? You were sittin' home watchin' your TV, while I was paticipatin' in some anarchy,” these are the lyrics Sublime uses in their song ‘April 26, 1992’ to describe what happened during the Los Angeles Riots of 1992. “First spot we hit it was my liquor store. I finally got all that alcohol I can't afford. With red lights flashin' time to retire, And then we turned that liquor store into a structure fire,” people ,running through the streets, had no pity when demolishing small businesses and taking what ever they may want from them. The streets, neighborhoods, businesses were destroyed by angry protesters. Their reasons were clear, all they wanted was some justice. A video tape of four L.A.P.D police officers brutally beating a male (Rodney King) without any sympathy was made public, which started the bomb track. “Let it burn, wanna let it burn, wanna let it burn, wanna wanna let it burn,” says the song when describing the riots. Throughout these days there was an estimate of more than 50 killed, over 4 thousand injured, and 12,000 people arrested. The damage caused in the city was about one billion dollars, damage that is believed was never fully repaired. The riots and destruction that went on for about a week that showed the people’s rage and that they were not going to tolerate the injustices committed by the authorities.
On the morning of March 3rd, 1991 an African-American man led police on a high-speed chase through the city of Los Angeles. Approximately eight miles later police swarmed around the car and confronted the driver, who went by the name Rodney King. During the confrontation, officers tortured King until the point he was forced to seek medical care. A case was opened and the police officers were acquitted. This angered many people, specifically Blacks and led to the historical “L.A. Riots’’ , where they felt race had something to do with the case.
While the L.A. riots were far larger, and the effects are still being felt, I still feel that the Watts riots had more of an impact. I had known about the riots previously, as I had been interested and looked into it on my own, but I had not looked into the economic at the time. Seeing that there were not any real economic effects from the riot, and in-fact some things may have gotten even worse, changes how I think of riots reported on in the media. Although there has been little in empirical studies done on the impact of the Watts riots, which is odd due to their importance in recent American history, especially now, it is clear that the riots started a trend of misguided racial tension that continues to this day, one that has prolonged the suffering and disenfranchisement of Blacks in the United States. While I do not believe another riot is the answer, researching this riot has shown me that while the riots can be considered important, the reality is that their effects on society are quite minimal, and only the political discussion of the riots is what has lasted to today. The failure of any real reform since then of the treatment of Blacks in general, let alone in the criminal justice world, shows to me a real lack of justice in the United
The poem America by Claude McKay is on its surface a poem combining what America should be and what this country stands for, with what it actually is, and the attitude it projects amongst the people. Mckay uses the form of poetry to express how he, as a Jamaican immigrant, feels about America. He characterizes the bittersweet relationship between striving for the American dream, and being denied that dream due to racism. While the America we are meant to see is a beautiful land of opportunity, McKay see’s as an ugly, flawed, system that crushes the hopes and dreams of the African-American people.
Gray, Madison. "The L.A. Riots: 15 Years After Rodney King." Time. Time Inc., 27 Apr. 2007.
The documentary “Riot on the Streets” presented a multifaceted and complex demonstration of anger and frustration from different ethnic and racial groups and its relation to the power institutions. The 1992 Rodney King Riots, also referred to as the L.A Race Riots, unearthed the frustrations that existed in Los Angeles with the justice system. Regarding the Asian population and specifically the Korean, the docudrama exposed the vulnerability of the community as immigrants and developed a narrative that had been ignored at the time of the event. Additionally, the docudrama emphasized a change in mentality and perspective reactionary to the riots and the losses Koreans had. Modeled and paralleled with the bendability of 24 karat gold, Koreans
Unger, Leonard, ed. American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies. Vol. 2. New York: Scribner's, 1974.