in the politics of riots, as in politics generally, perception is everything. If enough people come to believe that Jews drink Christian blood for Passover, or that America is the "Great Satan," or that "white justice" is justice denied to African-Americans, there will be consequences, no matter what the realities involved.

In the five years since the violence erupted at Florence and Normandie on April 29, 1992, the following actual changes occurred: The officers involved in the Rodney King beating were re-tried and found guilty; a black police chief was appointed; millions of dollars were poured into the "Rebuild L.A." project. Such changes, no matter how positive, are no guarantee that racial violence will not once again flare in the City of the Angels. That is because perceptions, myths and stereotypes still hang heavily over race relations here.

The most salient fact about the riot was its ethnic agenda. The mob vented its anger first against whites over the jury decision in the Rodney King trial, and then against Koreans for "invading" and "exploiting" their community. Two thousand Korean businesses were destroyed, while others owned by Hispanics and blacks -- even next door -- were often left untouched. Many store owners attempted to protect their property by painting "Black Owned" on their storefronts. Evidently they knew where the rage was coming from, and where it was intended to strike.

This should have surprised no one. In the year preceding the riots there were campaigns against Koreans and whites in South Central by emissaries of the Nation of Islam and others. Boycotts organized by activists who portrayed Korean merchants as "bloodsuckers" fueled community fears and resentments.

Paranoia was stoked further by mainstream culture. Endless TV airings of edited sections of the videotape showing officers battering Rodney King inspired anger in the most complacent viewer. "Respect the black fist, or we'll burn you to a crisp" -- from a million-selling rap song called "Black Koreatown" -- was played again and again on local radio stations. The centerpiece of another much-praised Hollywood product -- "Boyz N the Hood" -- was a speech by the movie's African-American hero explaining to his son that Koreans and whites were conspiring to pollute their community with drugs and liquor, and to buy their land out from under them. Together, the King video, the movie and the rap song propagated the myths of pervasive white racism and Korean predation. If enough people had come to believe them, how could they not riot, given an appropriate pretext?

Have such messages of fear and blame, of racial paranoia and hate, abated in the years since? Unfortunately, they have not. The O.J. Simpson melodrama revealed the African-American community's almost total disbelief in the fairness of the courts in particular and of white Americans generally. The African-American leader who has emerged in these years to command the widest following since Martin Luther King Jr. is Louis Farrakhan -- the nation's leading promoter of racial hate. At his Million Man March -- the largest assemblage of black Americans in the nation's history -- Farrakhan identified "white supremacy" as the No. 1 social problem. At his side was Jesse Jackson, an appearance that constituted a new and ominous development in the history of American race relations.

Jackson's speech at the march focused on the alleged persecution of crack cocaine dealers, whose harsh sentences, in his view, are a form of racism. Playing the other side of the same card are Rep. Maxine Waters and recent Los Angeles mayoral candidate Tom Hayden, who are busy accusing the CIA of responsibility for South Central's crack epidemic. Surveys show that a large and perhaps growing portion of the African-American community is indeed convinced that whites -- with "their" government behind them -- are plotting genocide against blacks through the distribution of crack and the AIDS virus.

This is the tinder for another eruption. The question is: Who will light the match?
April 28, 1997

Five years on, have we learned anything from the Rodney King riots? Join the conversation in Table Talk.

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