Rodney King Riot Sparknotes

Twilight provides very little information about the effect after the riots. But Twilight Los Angeles 1992 is a useful tool or resource to understand the origins and experience of the Rodney King Riots in collaboration with historic knowledge and text. It effectively informs the reader of the two points in the previous sentence by enlightening the the audience on the social aspects surrounding the riot by using the personal stories of people in the community before, during, and after the riots.
Before the riots there were multiple issues in the LA Community. The was a tremendous amount of racial tension between citizens, merchants and law enforcement. Much of this hatred sown into the hearts of the people at a young age and reinforced as an adult. A common theme that occurs in the beginning of the book is “Enemy”. Many characters have a mind set of them versus us. From here on we shall refer to the them vs us mindset as the “enemy complex”.
If one

is diligent in reading the play it becomes clear that weather one is Black, White, Asian, Mexican or any other race people often feel as if they have an enemy. There are multiple examples of this all through out twilight but two we will look at. These examples are Stanley K. Sheinbaum and Rudy Salas, SR.
Sheinbaum is a white, male, police officer who is interested in “getting insight” into what was going on with the gang members. Not only did he have to deal with the distrust of gang members but the criticism of his fellow officers asking him "So which side are you on?"(twilight 28). Statements like this elude to the perspective of the cops and gang members. The cops are no longer law enforcers and the gang members are no longer criminals, instead they are both soldiers on opposite side stuck in a perpetual battle.
Then we Rudy Salas a Mexican man who makes his living as a painter. He describes multiple incidents in where his experience with white teachers and police were far from pleasant to say the least. The on that seems to be the most intriguing of his experiences are his mishaps with “those-nice-white-teachers.”(page 29). Since the first grade he was discriminated against by white teachers creating his “prejudices” towards white people. This show that before the riots or the Rodney King beating there was a history of the enemy complex.
Some of the actions during the riots may have been inspired by the Latasha Harlins case as well as the Rodney King ruling.

This seems pretty obvious because of the people and places that were targeted in the play. Kattie Miller describes her view of the things that happened during the riots. She talks about the Korean store that were looted during the riots. Her reasoning behind it is due to the disrespect of the Korean store owners toward their customers. Although that may be true the Harlins incidents surely intensified such feelings of wrong doing.
Shelby Coffey and his wife were victimized during the riots. His home was vandalized by rioters. He and Ms.Shelby were targeted because of their race and financial status. With out this understanding it would seem as if the riots were random act of discord in LA. Instead this is a reaction to a long history of resentment between races. This is similar to a lit stick of dynamite, if the flame is not put out before the end of the wick, the dynamite is bound to

explode.
There are many blatant or obvious descriptions of the effects of the riot in the novel. But with some careful deliberation one can began to understand some of the effects. Most people who were in the media simply viewed the acts as savage or animalistic. Any act associated with those words can not be positive. Even more so people affiliated or associated with that type of action could never be seen as heroes or political martyrs. The play shows the effects of the riots were just reinforced stereotypes. Many people were not able to receive police assistances. While others who witnessed the brutality of the rioters are horrified. Then we have the the store owners whose properties were looted and vandalized. These actions can only cause more tension and distain between both parties.
Many might say that twilight is not an effective piece of literature to describe the Rodney King Riots because there is no way to test what is being said in a quantitative manner. But that is the point of the play. It is not meant to be a history book or capture the interest of a historian. The play is used to shed a light on the social aspect before, during, and after the riots. If anything this novel resembles a reading for a Sociology class.

It would be quite daunting for a regular book or historic text could capture the essence of the emotions the way Ms. Smith did in this play. Although text books are a great way of giving information it is hard to compete authenticity and intimacy of an interview. With historic text the focus is purely on the facts which often tends to leave out motive or the mental state of the people. Although Twilight does not provide an powerful understanding of the effects of the riots, it does provide insight to the origins and experience of the Rodney King Riots from an emotional and mental perspective.