NOT PICTURED:
Kate Sorenson was arraigned last night and charged with multiple felonies and conspiracy charges ranging from possession of a deadly cell phone to wrecklessly walking the streets.
Looks like they beat him.
I am gald to see the "limps and bumps" on some of these suspects who are being held in Philly...I have dispatched a letter to Philly City goverment saying they did a fine job and I hope LAPD will do the same during the DNC!
GO PHILLY POLICE!
Responding to an ignorant with support of brutatlity with slightly more veiled ignorance is pointless. If you're not a cop Winston, then consider what you're saying: "all those rough baddasses in the poor section of LA"? That sounds an awful lot like Ronald Reagan's famous "Strapping young buck buying a steak with food stamps" story. If you want to analyze the racial situation, and specifically the relationship between cops and the black and latino community of LA, then do so without using stereotypical code words.
"the poorer neighborhoods are not exactly occupied with the most peaceful people if you catch my drift." This is the same bullshit inuendo that the republicrat polticians use to jsutify further police repression and more prisons, not all poor people are violent, and wuite a few rich people are. Poor communites, especially communities of color, are targeted as scapegoats for this violence, recieveing the harshest punishment for it while also being victimized by it most.
If we are going to be successful as a movement, we need to pose more thought out criticisms than "it only took one recording of a police beating to spark the largest American riots in history." The uprising in LA did not occur simply because of the fact that somebody video taped Rodney King getting his ass beat. The uprising did not happen when the tape was released, it happened AFTER the police who beat him mercilessly were aquitted. And it is naive to assume that this single incident "caused" the riot. The LAPD have long been known for their brutality, racism and corruption. The recent "revelations" about the rampart division are finally forcing the white mainstream to see what black, latino, asian and porr white communities have know all along. In addition, check your history. While the LA uprising resulted in more deaths and property damage, it is innacurate to characterize it as "the largest American riots in history." The most violent and destructive "riots" or more aptly massacres began in the late 1900's and continued through the lates thirties and ealry fourties. These massacres were instigated by white mobs who stormed black communities, killing and beating any balck person they saw. Often entire black communities were destroyed. The largest of these riots occurred in East Saint Louis, IL. While offical reports claimed 40 blacks and eight whites dead, the NAACP reported that between 100-200 blacks were killed. This period reached its lowest point in the summer of 1919, often referred to as "The Red Summer." The red referred to blood, not Communism. That summer over 100 blacks were killed and thousands were beaten and left homeless.
It is important to note that these black communities did not simply accpet these attacks but attempted to defend themselves. Iin the aftermath of these massacres, the white instigators were rarely if ever prosecuted, while balcks that attempted to defend themselves were often prosecuted. Black self defense against racially motivated attacks on its communities reached a high point after World War II when black veterans returning from the war stood up to whites whose racial insecurities were threatened by the gorwoing race pride surrounding the success of balck soldiers. For a good online overview of these events, check out this web page:
http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1979/2/79.02.04.x.html
also check out the biography of Robert F. Williams by Timothy Tyson for an in depth look and self defense of black communities.
The uprising in black communities resulting from white antagonsim and violence in the 1960 & 70's, and specifically those after the assasination of Martin Luther King, when viewed in total, were much larger than most recent one in LA as well. It is from this period that the uprising commonly refered to as the Watts Riot occured (1965) While I can't say for sure, I would imagine that the labor riots of the early 1900's were also, when viewed in whole, much larger than the LA riot.
For anyone who has read this far, I am impressed with your stamina, and I will offer a little explanation of why I felt it neccessarry to respond in what may appearas a critical and historically nitpicky manner.
First and foremost, I found the reply offensive and destructive. If we, as a movement, are serious about challenging injustice, then we cannot allow ourselves to fall back on the rhetoric of our opponents. We must not refer to "the poor people of LA," or of any community, as if they are a distant, slovenly mass of unmotivated, univolved people, waiting for an excue to loot and riot. We must recognize that our fates are indevisible from the fate of the poor. All but the most priviledged of us are a lay off or similar occurance away from being one of the poor. If we are white males we are usually given the benefit of the doubt about why we may end up in financial trouble. Its tough luck, but we'll get over it. Women and people of color rarely get such empathy. Women are poor because of poor choices or lack of moral character, if a young woman is a single mother, it is "her fault" and we shouldn't feel sorry for her. People of color are accused of being lazy, unwilling to make sacrifices and ultimatley of fraudulently taking advantage of our compassionate pitance which we dole out each month. AS long as we identify poor people as others, as in this statement: "he protesters don't want that,and neither do the cops, but the poorer neighborhoods are not exactly occupied with the most peaceful people if you catch my drift."(notice how it identifies three distinct groups, "us" the protesters and their supportersm, "them" the police and their supporters, and the "poor standing by helplessly waiting for something to happen) "we will not only fail to end oppression, we may very well add to it. This response was nothing but and attempt to deflect hostility away from protesters toward the porr community of LA. I hope to god that the LA police will show some restraint, but many of us will likely get our asses beaten in LA. Many of US will be poor people from LA. But it is cowardly and self defeating to attempt to protect ourselves fromt his violence by shifting the focus of the bloodthirsty media and police force towards poor communities of color. When those communities take part in the movement and rise up against police brutality, it will not be because police beat up a protester, but because they recognize that sort of oppression from everyday of their lives and are unwilling to take it it anymore.
hoping for peace in LA,
Ben
I searched the list provided by police of those arrested and it didn't return a finding on "sellers". Interesting.
Beverly Hills Has their own police department and is not a part of LAPD....I however doubt if you could find it and if you did...the police would be waiting for you before you even arrived...