Ashley Bezzina
Rob Schraff
California History
December 18th, 2018
The Government Continuing to Turn a Blind Eye Since 1965
The Watts Riot began when a Caucasian police officer arrested a young African American man who was driving under the influence. The Police used physical force to subdue him resulting in a scuffle. The actions in which happed during the brawl initiated the famous racial upheaving of 1965.
“The rioting in Los Angeles in the late, hot summer of 1965 took six days to run its full grievous course… thirty-four persons were dead, and the wounded and hurt numbered 1,032 more. Property damage was about $40,000,000. Arrested for one crime or another were 3,952 persons, woman as well as men, including over 500 youth under eighteen”.
Although the original reason for the arrest was lawful, the riots spread due to but not limited to the color of skin, poverty and unjust treatment by the police and other government entities. Even after the riots had been contained the issues continued and even got worse, these are the contributing factors in which lead to another detonation known as the 1992 LA riots.
The minority groups throughout South Central Los Angeles were living in extreme poverty due to big corporations taking their jobs away and the government giving less than adequate relief. Blacks, Latinos and Koreans were all fighting against each other in the diminishing job market. The employment rate was decline because major companies located within the heart of the diverse city were moving their factories in order to save money on manufacturing. “A number of Los Angeles- based employers established production facilities in the Mexican border towns of Tijuana, Ensenada and Tecate”. Between 1978 and 1982 over 200 Los Angeles- based business had participated in this deconcentrating process. This process took away so many jobs and caused not only one but multiple ethic groups that lived in this area to have incomes below the poverty line. In addition, all the new jobs that were coming into the area wanted undocumented labor and would only pay minimum wage or sometimes lower. With no decent jobs the local government still did nothing to devise or implement a plan to help their citizens in this area. Although, they had continuously developed policies in order to promote the well-being and ascetics for down town and west side redevelopment at the expense of the south side. The local government had more interest in helping the highly white populated neighborhoods, because they were seen as higher class. The whites got more attention in order to keep their appearance’s up even though there were different communities in desperate need of anything in order to keep their families surviving. The fight to live through poverty and obvious difference in treatment due to class was one stimulant within many to the upcoming riots of 1992.
The minority groups within the borders of South Central Los Angeles disliked each other so much that they were blind to the neglect and carelessness of the federal government. This hatred toward each other is yet another reason that the 1992 outbreak completely exploded. Each ethic group hated each other so much because they all represented something that either another race wanted or was in competition to obtain.
“To struggling blacks, white represented the financial power- brokers who closed up those factories and who kept blacks form gaining work elsewhere. Eventually the Latinos who immigrated by the thousands to south- Central came to be seen as competition for the jobs that were left. Koreans were represented for owning stores that blacks could not afford from lack of loans or personal assets”
Each ethnic group believed that the other race was the reasons for all of their problem. When in reality the federal government was the cause. For example, the African Americans believed that the Korean Americans received better treatment than them when dealing with banks and/or government loans. But in reality the “banks and government lenders uniformly rejected loan applications for business located in the poor predominantly minority neighborhoods such as South Central Los Angles, regardless of the applicants color.” The Koreans didn’t use financial institutions, rather came over with their money in hand or barrowed from family and/or friends. Another example of the government creating tensions between ethnic groups is when they passed the Immigration and Neutralization acts of 1965. “ In the three decades following passage of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, more than 18 million legal immigrants entered the United States, more than three times the number admitted over the preceding 30 year.” This caused constant issues with overcrowding throughout the south side. The overcrowding then contributed to competitions between ethnic groups for housing, public sectors and of course again employment. If the constant need to sustain life wasn’t enough, there was an added language barrier. This barrier prevented everyone from talking to one another, only letting the anger smolder. The issues only continued to get worse. Although, if they had truly analyzed the situation, each one would notice that South Central Los Angeles was full of people dealing with the same poverty issues. The enmity toward one another was completely fueled by the local and federal government, yet the blame was easily redirected by the difference of skin tone.
Although the local government seemed to be ignoring South Central Los Angeles, the Watts riots caught the eye of Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson began to initiate policies in order to help those in racial strain and deficit, these policies were known as the “War on Poverty”. One of his first policies of change was the Commission of Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice in 1965. The purpose of this commission was to change the way federal, state and local governments can make law enforcement and the Administrations of Justice more effective and fair. At the time, preconceived notions of ethnic minorities had taken over, and it would take more than one policy to change these ideals and correct the justice system. Another one of his policies was the laissez- fair business agreement. This policy was meant to create a competitive attitude in the business market. In hindsight the Laissez-far agreement
“appeared to have facilitated the large number of plants closing in South Central Los Angeles and capital flight to the US/Mexico border and various third world countries. Between 1982 and 1989 there were 131 plants closing in Los Angeles, idling 124,000 workers. Fifteen of these plants moved to Mexico or overseas.”
Although this policy had good intentions, it made the impoverished areas go farther into a depression only causing more harm and tensions. Another policy formed to help the war on poverty, was the head start program in urban and rural low income areas. This program was proposed to help break the cycle of poverty and give equal opportunities to children in their education.
“The effects of these policies in the Los Angeles Unified School Districts are evident in the data on school leaving behavior. For the low Angeles Unified School district as a whole 39.2% of all student in the class of 1988 dropped out at some point during their high school years.”
All of these policies failed due to President Ronald Regan cutting funding. Regan cut these programs to “encouraged the inner-city avenues of social and economic mobility and discouraged dysfunctional or anti-social behavior.” Since majority of the funding for community based organization were federal, many were forced to cut programs that specifically benefited the most impoverished cities. These programs began to help improve or had good intensions behind improving the South Central Los Angeles area, but due to the cruel acts of the government these programs were abandoned and so were the citizens.
The color of skin, poverty and unjust treatment by the police and other government entities caused the Watts riots of 1965 and 27 years later the same issues cased the outburst of 1992. This is because the federal and local government continued to ignored the minority groups despite their obvious cries for help. The 1992 riots began when a videotape of police beating an African American boy surfaced. The boy was beaten excessively for no reason other than the police suggesting that they were afraid he was on drugs and would resist with force. Although no evidence showed this insinuation before the beating. Just 13 days after the beating of Rodney King surfaced, an African American girl, Latasha Harlins got shot in the back of the head due to a carton of Orange Juice. The riots official broke out after the police were acquitted, and Harlin’s shooter got sentence to only six months of community service. In order to get the people under control Los Angeles called upon the “full force of the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, but also 10,000 National Guardsmen and 3,500 military personnel.” . This showed the minority community that the white race was still superior although it seemed that society was in modern times. The only solution to these issues is to listen to the McCone Commissions reform that was advised after the Watts riots of 1965. An example from the commission report is:
“ We recommend that our robust community takes immediate steps to relieve the lack of job opportunities for negroes by cooperative programs for employment and training, participated in by the negro community by governmental agencies by employers and by organized labor.”
Poverty is one of the biggest causes of tension build up in the area and is deeply rooted in both incidents that caused the 1992 riots. The McCone Commission reform continued to foreshadowed all the major issues that needed to be fixed in order to prevent the most recent protest. The reform had provided the federal government with detailed research and insight in order to improve South Central Los Angeles but again the ethnic minority was neglected and set aside. This carelessness caused both the Watts riots of 1965 and the LA riots of 1992, immediate actions needs to be taken in order to prevent any future disasters.