Sea of Associated Causes
In the introduction to our edition of Twilight: Los Angeles, Anna Deavere Smith talks about the inadequacies of thinking about the violence in 1992 as a "riot" or "uprising" or "rebellion." She argues that "beneath this surface explanation is a sea of associated causes," and points to larger trends of a declining economy, urban poverty, a deterioration of public services and education, and decades-long racial animosities in the national and local contexts.
I'm curious about whether--and how--the play and our text, which incorporates characters that did not make the performance version, serve to illustrate this "sea of associated causes." To what extent does it allow us a more complete view of local and national pressures that led to the tragedy? If associations are made, how are they made? How is this associative picture that the work provides us different than the picture that we get from the labels "L.A. Riots" or "Rodney King Riots"?
If the work creates associations, I'm also interested the boundaries of these associations. None of the characters speak to each other; they only speak next to each other. To what extent does the play illustrate the divisions between its characters, even as it seeks to create associations? Do these divisions lead to a sense of fragmentation. If associations persist across these divisions, how does that work?
I'm curious about whether--and how--the play and our text, which incorporates characters that did not make the performance version, serve to illustrate this "sea of associated causes." To what extent does it allow us a more complete view of local and national pressures that led to the tragedy? If associations are made, how are they made? How is this associative picture that the work provides us different than the picture that we get from the labels "L.A. Riots" or "Rodney King Riots"?
If the work creates associations, I'm also interested the boundaries of these associations. None of the characters speak to each other; they only speak next to each other. To what extent does the play illustrate the divisions between its characters, even as it seeks to create associations? Do these divisions lead to a sense of fragmentation. If associations persist across these divisions, how does that work?
** didn’t have my book so kind of hard to answer these questions in a specific manner
ReplyDeleteFrom what I remember, the full array of characters in the text of Twilight: Los Angeles illustrated this “sea of associated causes” by demonstrating the widespread effect of the LA riots. The characters spanned from ranging economic classes, racial groups, and areas of Los Angeles, which really exhibited the vast diversity of the city. As said in the podcasts that we listened to at the Natural History Museum, Los Angeles serves as the safe haven for all dreams coming from people of all different places.The power of multiple single stories professing different perspectives and experiences combined into one gave the reader the ability to see everything from a bird’s eye viewpoint although none of the characters spoke directly to one another. Because of the chasmic differences between the lonely Beverly Hills woman trying to find a date and the destruction of the Korean owners’ shops, a clear division is made between the characters, but I do think that associations persist across these divisions due to the common factor of experiencing the time of the LA riots, whether it be a direct physical experience or one at a distance. When provided with the labels “L.A. Riots” or “Rodney King Riots,” I think of the one event, the beating of Rodney King, as the center to the crisis. However, with the associative picture that this text provides us, I am able to understand that this one event was just a catalyst, an event that just sped up the inevitable eruption that was caused not by a volcano but as said, a declining economy, urban poverty, a deterioration of public service and education, and decades-long racial animosities in the national and local contexts.
I think the immediate assumption about the LA Riots is that its cause was the verdict of the Rodney King case. In actuality, the Rodney King beating and subsequent acquittal of the LAPD officers in question acted more as the straw that broke the camel’s back after a myriad of tension-causing events. Smith approaches the LA Riots in a way that allows her audience to get an all-encompassing view of the varying causes for the riots. By including the perspectives of a diverse range of LA occupants including former gang members, Hollywood hotshots, Korean shop owners, and law enforcement officers, Smith is able to bring a variety of stories to the table to more accurately capture the event. The disjointed nature of the monologues and absence of interaction between characters reflects the separation within the city and the lack of connection between different racial and socioeconomic groups. Smith describes the riots by dividing her play into five parts: The Territory, Here’s a Nobody, War Zone, Twilight, and Justice, each using varying perspectives to approach the causes, the interpretations, and the effects of the LA Riots. Smith's work brings new perspectives to a defining event in Los Angeles history which is often only looked at from on angle. She successfully takes us below the surface and exposes a "sea of associated causes."
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe L.A. riots affected all of Los Angeles, all socioeconomic classes, all professions, and all races, and Twilight: Los Angeles illustrates a complete picture of the tension within Los Angeles by including a diverse group of characters. Through sharing the stories of police officers, store owners, and gang members, Anna Deavere Smith depicts the “sea of associated causes.” Although the characters in Smith’s play emphasize the extreme division within the Los Angeles area, I believe some type of association between all the characters was made through the experience of the riots. The label of the “Rodney King Riots” paints the picture of black citizens rioting due to the unjust verdict of the Rodney King trial, but Twilight: Los Angeles provides an associative picture that the Rodney King verdict served as a symbol of the racial inequality the black community struggled and still struggles with every day. Yes, the black community was angry about the verdict of King’s trial, but the verdict just caused the black community’s accumulated anger caused by racism to boil over.
ReplyDelete(I also don't have my book with me so I'm trying my best!) The word "riots" has a very explosive and instantaneous tone to it, seeming like an unpredictable, out-of-nowhere type uprising of the people. When applied to what happened in Los Angeles in 1992, "riots" falsely qualifies the city's response to a long series of injustices imposed by the justice system. (I'm going to use the word riots from now on for simplicity's sake and because I'm not sure what else to use.) The play, Twilight: Los Angeles, takes points of view from before, during, and after the riots and from many different people in order to show the true nature of the events leading up to the riots themselves and how they affected the city as a whole. What happened in 1992 was more than just an adverse reaction to an unjust trial, but was instead the product of the straw that broke the camel's back, in that the people of Los Angeles could only take so much before they broke. The beating of Rodney King was not the first and only time the justice system in Los Angeles had mistreated its citizens, it was just the last one that would be silently tolerated. This text showed how everyone in LA was affected by the riots, across all races, genders, and socio-economic statuses. Thinking of the riots as JUST riots leads to an image of sheer violence and chaos and fails to take into account how everyone was affected in both big and small ways. Association of the word "riots" to what happened in 1992 cuts out so many of the causes and later effects and only focuses on what everyone knows, which is an incomplete narrative that doesn't take into account what everyone lived through.
ReplyDelete** I didn’t have my book, so I wasn’t really able to use character names.
ReplyDeleteEvery character in Twilight: Los Angeles has a story that is completely unique. While there are some underlying themes such as racial inequality, poverty, and privilege, no one’s relationship to the “sea of associated causes” is the same. There is the white mother who initially did not realize the problematic racial tensions in the United States until her son and his friend were pulled over due to the fact that the friend was black. There is the one retired police chief who does not understand why he is partially to blame for the riots as he does not understand that he was hiring racist police. Lastly, there is the man from the beginning of the book who understood that there were racist police, but he never imagined that he would be the target of one of their attacks until he was. Every character is affected by the “sea of associated causes” but has a unique relationship with the issues made prevalent by the LA riots. Also, no characters' frustration is started with the Rodney King beatings. These brutal beating had been going on for a long time. The Rodney King incident was the first time police brutality had been filmed and brought to the publics attention. Many people assume that the Rodney King incident was the reason for the riots. Instead, it was a history of inequalities such as economic inequality and racial inequality. All characters in the book have a unique reason as to why they are part of the riots or not a part of the riots. Also, Anna Deavere Smith is able to capture the aimlessness of the LA riots through the lack of dialogue between characters and the characters unique relationships to the issues made clear through the riots. Rioters were fighting for something, but no one was fighting for the same thing. Bystanders supported or opposed the riots but never chose to get involved in the continuation or the prevention of the riots. The riots were a mix of anger, sadness, misfortune, and confusion that led to unorganized chaos. The play mimics this, being an assortment of stories that portray broken, sad, angry, confused, and indifferent character who never communicate with one another.
I think that Deavere Smith’s metaphor of this “sea of associated causes” is on the nose in its illustration of the complexity that is the LA Riots. By compiling and documenting an impressively diverse pool of personal accounts, we, as a reader, were able to look at the LA Riots as not one thing but many things and as not having one cause but many causes. We were able to see that there wasn’t just racial tension, there was also political tension with George Bush as President, gaping socio-economic divisions, and much more. When associations are made in regards to the causes of the LA Riots in the context of Deavere Smith’s book, you are simply looking at parallels between the expressed feelings and viewpoints of the characters before the riots and the actual events that took place during the riots. In contrast to the labels “LA Riots” or “Rodney King,” Twilight emphasizes the idea that it is strictly impossible to label the LA Riots and its associated events with one word or term because it is made up of so many things, some things that probably still have not been accounted for today. Deavere Smith illuminates the human-aspect of this time; she answers questions like “What was it like to be alive at this time?” and “How did people react?” It’s interesting because there is both a level of division and unity that I felt when reading Twilight. The divisions present between characters in the book are quite clear, whether they be between Korean-Americans and African-Americans or African-Americans and the LAPD. However, there also is a sense of unity that connects all of the characters that is present if you look a little bit deeper; every single person in this book was alive during the Riots and experienced them no matter what that experience looked like. They all have this event in common which, in a way, will always link them together. There is certainly a level of fragmentation. I’m not sure if this fragmentation was stronger post-Riots than pre-Riots, but signs point to post-Riots because people were able to name the things that upset them. No longer were people saying that they hated a certain group for no particular reason because after the Riots they were able to cite a looting or a murder or an act of arson to justify their viewpoint.
ReplyDeleteMany people were affected by the L.A. Riots, some more directly than others. Anna Deavere Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles showcases the many different types of people that were affected by the L.A. Riots. By telling the stories of shop owners, a jury member, gang members, lawyers, people from Beverly Hills, and countless more, the audience is able to understand the vastness of the riots and how it was more than just a violent outburst by the Los Angeles community. People who participated in the riots were not solely frustrated by the attack on Rodney King, but by the blatant inequality they faced in their everyday lives. The word “riot” acts as a mask that hides the innumerable reasons for why the events in Los Angeles happened. Twilight: Los Angeles helps bring those reasons to light by displaying stories from people of different races, socio-economic backgrounds, genders, and even different religious affiliations. These stories were not influenced by other people, rather they are raw and pure stories that show the true opinions of the people telling them. Many people talked about the injustices minorities of Los Angeles have faced and how the attack on Rodney King was the turning point in these injustices. But people have adopted the word “riot” in order to conceal the real problems that need to be addressed and hide the events people experienced, creating an incomplete story that damages the history of the events of Los Angeles in 1992.
ReplyDeleteI think that the cause of the riots was not caused solely by the actions of the LAPD towards Rodney King and the verdict of that court case, because what happened to King was not a unique situation: Racist and horrific actions committed by the police towards minority groups in Los Angeles has always been a problem, but the beating of Rodney King happened to be witnessed by someone with a video camera, so the world could see the violence and appalling actions of the police, instead of just reading about it. The video brought to light the true level of police brutality and racism, and how serious the situation was. It's not that Los Angeles was not aware of police brutality, but the people just did not know to the extreme level it was until viewing the video of Rodney King's beating. For example, today, many mass shootings occur in America, and I am constantly reading headlines about them. Unfortunately at this point, I, and most of America, have become a bit numb to these headlines because, sadly, they are so common nowadays. However, if I view a video of one of these shootings, I am more taken aback and shocked by it because it brings the situation to life, even if I already knew that it had happened.
ReplyDeleteAs for the way the author told the story with many separate characters who did not interact, I think this was very effective because each character was from a different neighborhood, social/financial status, ethnicity, etc; the author told the story from the points of view of a very diverse group of "Angelenos", and if they had all been interacting while telling their stories, their opinions may have been changed or altered. Everyone involved/who experienced the riots were not all interacting and joined together, and the style of the play mirrors this.
The label of “LA Riots” or “Rodney King Riots” connotes that there was simply violence that broke out for some cause or another, but that the violence was unfounded and unprecedented. Further, one of the definitions of a riot is “an outburst of uncontrolled feelings.” This definition does not serve to justly capture the weight that the event held in the lives of many people in the LA area and beyond. Anna Deavere Smith tells the story of the LA Riots from start to finish through a variety of perspectives which effectively provides context and deeper meaning to the event. Through characters such as Richard Kim, The Park Family, and Mrs. Young-Soon Han, Smith shows a glimpse of the story from the Korean-American perspective. Bill Bradley’s interview gives a perspective from outside of California entirely. Characters like Angela King give the perspective of people closely related to victims of police violence. And, of course, Smith delivers the stories of people directly related to the riots. This array of perspectives helps to tell the complete story, not just a surface-level summary of the event. The divisions between the characters become clear because since the interviews are conducted independently and therefore one person has no idea what another has said, there is some overlap. The overlap sometimes shows the different interpretations of the same event, which adds to the complexity of the story. Additionally, the characters effectively create tension throughout the play because of the fact that they were interviewed alone. The people were able to give virtually unfiltered responses because they were not thinking about who might be hearing what they said. Therefore, the interviews occasionally seemed to be in direct conflict with each other, despite never having heard what the other had said. The fact that the interviews were isolated may at first make the play seem fragmented and choppy, but the fragmentation eventually grows to serve the play better than if it had been structured as a dialogue, for instance. It really allowed each person to express themselves freely, which ultimately created a more holistic and real picture of the riots.
ReplyDeleteTwilight illustrated the "sea of associated causes" to the Rodney King or LA Riots in many different ways. Although there were divisions present between the stories each character told because they were separated the fact that several characters from completely different backgrounds can share a similar view on what the causes to the riots were breaks down that division a bit. I think that an example of that would be with Twilight the gang member and Maxine Waters, although they both came from really different backgrounds and serve different perspectives they both offer similar points as to why the riots occurred. They both argued that many young people in LA don't have jobs, they have nothing to do, and the riots are a revolt against that nothingness. This is all to say that even though there are significant divisions in the ethnicities, social classes, and stories that the characters all tell they do not divide clearly and there is a greater gray area between each character and story that is told about the riots. Some of the stronger divisions also pose that people at the time did not all agree on what the cause of the riots are. Henry Keith Waterson, who was one of the L.A. four accused in the attack of Reginald Denny, defends his anger of the burnings, looters, and violence by the fact he was accused and 28 others escaped without punishment, he claims that "Justice didn't work". His experience is in contrast to Reginald Denny who was the truck driver who was beat up and assaulted during the riots. Denny is "up beat", and honestly admits that he was unaware of the verdict of Rodney King and why the riots were going on. Unlike Waterson, Denny is upbeat and hopeful for the future at the end of his story because he experienced the goodwill of strangers who were willing to risk their safety for him and his life.
ReplyDeleteWhen one hears "LA Riots" or "Rodney King Riots", they would likely assume that the cause of the violence was solely the sentence given to the police officers who beat Rodney King. Even though this horrific event was certainly the last straw and sparked the rioting, there were countless occurrences before that led up to the loss of patience. One of the main causes I can remember was the recurring theme of a loss of unity. Within a community, most people expect connections, relationships, and bonds to be created. Over time, each group, usually based upon race, became more separated and isolated from one another. This led to a lack of sympathy for others, and when the riots started, a lack of consideration for other groups. During the actual riots, many people seemed to view the ongoing violence as very meaningless; the lack of unity and connection within Los Angeles contributed to these cruel acts; since many people were isolated from others, they did not have a problem with beating innocent people, such as Reginald Denny. We also saw this problem arise when reading about the violence towards Koreans in Downtown Los Angeles; although the Black and Korean communities were close geographically, they were mostly isolated from one another. Another reason for the rioting was surely the fact that events like these, similar to the beating of Rodney King, had occurred countless times before. The pent up frustration of seeing innocent people die in gruesome manners with no punishments for police officers was likely one of the main causes for the riots; when a huge problem is never attended to and occurs continuously, a riot likely will ensue.
ReplyDeleteIn Twilight: Los Angeles, Anna Deavere Smith does a great job of offering a complete picture of what occurred during the LA riots. Her selection in who she interviewed appeared extremely calculated and provided an array of different thoughts and personalities. The LA riots were an extremely complicated time, and almost everyone had a different perspective for the events that ensued. Throughout the book, there was a clear divide between the people who simply saw it as violence and hatred, but there were many undeniable interviews that explain all that went into the actions people took during that time. The way the interviews were lined up allowed the reader to sense the tension between different groups of people without the need for dialogue actually between the groups. The stories told of the riots are powerful enough to get a sense of what was going through the minds of the diverse people who make up Los Angeles.
ReplyDeletePrompted by the introduction in Anna Deavere Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles, I kept a list of every word used to describe the events that transpired in Los Angeles in 1992. The list included “riot,” “rebellion,” “uprising,” and “war.” While this list hardly sheds light on the incident, each individual word does not begin to cover the multi-dimensional nature of what history has classified as a “Riot.” The labels “L.A. Riots” and “Rodney King Riots,” while descriptive, completely ignore the other urban inequalities that stood neglected by the state and federal government for years. While the acquittal of the four LAPD officers responsible for the beating of Rodney King acted as a catalyst for the city-wide demonstration, the explosion of violence was not caused by this incident alone. In her play, Smith demonstrates other contributing factors, or the “sea of associated causes,” by presenting the perspectives of 25 individuals. She spins the tale of the 1992 uprising through the lens of 25 people with different racial, ethnic, gender, socio-economic, political, and religious backgrounds. Each character’s view is shaped by different experiences, and each character has a different idea as to what caused the riots. The diversity of the narrative is what makes it so compelling. Smith consistently presents juxtaposing perspectives throughout the play. She portrays a gang member and police officer, a judge and a jury member, a lawyer and a member of the media, a victim and a perpetrator of the violence. One would think that this constant contradiction would only confuse the audience; however, the juxtaposition has the opposite effect. The audience is able to more clearly understand the conflict because the multi-dimensional narration style mirrors the multi-dimensional nature of the conflict.
ReplyDeleteThere are inherently some limits to this style of narration as the characters never speak to each other, and, therefore, we never see the conflict that would arise from so many differing viewpoints. The play can largely be characterized by fragmentation, isolation, and independent story-telling; however, these seemingly negative characteristics, are actually one of the play’s greatest strengths. The stand-alone monologues allow for the most authenticity in some way. They are absent of defensiveness, power-dynamics and subsequently, a dominating perspective or single-story.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTwilight: Los Angeles, 1992 was nominated for a Pulitzer prize but was disqualified by the Pulitzer jury because it was not a work of fiction and because it could only be performed by the actor-playwright herself. This rule-breaking nature is an effective classification of the work. It is not a play, a piece of cultural criticism, a documentary, or memoir. It is really a collection of the facts, nearly verbatim, of Los Angeles’ emotionally-charged combustion sparked by the vicious beating of Rodney King by the LAPD. Though the work is comprised of personal, sensitive accounts of the “LA Riots,” it is not pointed, blaming, or opinionated. Deveare Smith does not analyze the information she records and recounts in any way. Instead, ignoring the belief that an actor must share an identity with her character to properly perform, she inhabits each interviewee for a few minutes each, wears their clothes, adopts their inflection. Deveare Smith does not consider her own point of view in Twilight. This impartial ability to take up several Angelenos’ experiences as her own humanizes each interview for the actor and, by extension, for her audience and ironically delivers a broad scope of Angeleno identity through the play’s study of disjunction, misunderstanding, and outright discord. Los Angeles’ multiculturalism, multi-ethnic, multi-hyphenate identity has been at the root of its greatest conflicts and has the potential to be its greatest strength. The first step to greatness is cultural and racial pride and defensiveness, which Los Angeles’ geographical dividedness often provides (if we’re for some reason being optimistic about red-lining, communal isolation, etc.), but one downside to a Los Angeles defined by its boundaries is racial insularity which breeds both fear as well as rhetoric towards the “other.” Deavere Smith’s Twilight is a uniquely neutral account of the White, Black, Korean, Latinx, wealthy, impoverished, female, male, oppressive, oppressed experience of the Spring of 1992 in Los Angeles. From the informative facts, readers and audience members are then invited to establish an opinion marked by their own conscious identity.
ReplyDeleteAnna Deavere Smith's explanation of the "sea of associated causes" allows us to have a much more practical and evidence-based understanding of the root causes of the 1992 riots. First of all, by telling the story from the perspectives of people from vastly different walks of life, Smith is able to connect with different populations of people who can relate to the unique and shared aspects of this strenuous period in history. Furthermore, she brings up the underlying societal needs not being met, and the various effects that had on the people of Los Angeles. From poorly paved roads to delayed police response, the City of Los Angeles has a long history of disappointing it's residents. The basic needs of communities were not being met, resulting in an accumulation of undue stress and tension between the city and its residents. Not surprisingly, the communities with less comfortable roads and slower police response were (and still are) the communities suffering from mass unemployment and poverty. Lack of adequate public and private education in these neighborhoods only contributed to the economic decline and sense of despair. Not to mention the racial strife existing in every corner of sprawling Los Angeles. All of these considerations, and more, allow us to attain a more complete and reasonable understanding of the 1992 riots, and why it is slightly academically dishonest to label them the "LA riots" or "Rodney King riots". The issues facing marginalized American communities extend well beyond the borders of Los Angeles, and have almost nothing to do with Rodney King. The riots had so much more ammunition behind them than any single police beating. They were the result of accumulated stress, pain, and fear. Rodney King was simply a trigger. It is easy to see the divisions that exist in the City of Los Angeles, and Smith purposefully highlighted them by having characters to stand directly beside each other, but never interact with one another. This scenario, in my opinion, is a near-perfect microcosm of Los Angeles communities. Lives, families, and cultures separated by the arbitrary lines of neighborhoods, urban zones, and gang territories. It is interesting, then, to see how the rage of thousands saw no limits, no territories, and no boundaries. Los Angeles is made up of at least 82 distinct communities, many of whose boundaries are drawn in black on the table in our classroom, with differences and divisions that seem proportionally thick. Yet when they nearly beat the life out of Rodney King out in Foothill Division, the entire city felt his pain.
ReplyDeleteThe wide range of different characters in Twilight certainly presents a broader view of the 1992 Los Angeles uprising than the common narrative of the events. The truth is that most communities in Los Angeles experienced the uprising differently depending on their identities, while the master narrative of the events only really includes the black perspective and the white perspective. One of the interesting things I took from Twilight was how many major ethnic/racial groups fit into the uprising. It’s clear through looking at the city wide and national responses to the brutal beating of Rodney King that the events turned the conversation surrounding race in America into a conversation about black and white. However, in addition to black and white perspectives on the uprising, Twilight tells the stories of people who were affected differently. Twilight covers Korean shop owners who were unfortunately caught in the collateral damage of the verdict as well as the stories of Latinos who had a huge part in what turned out to be a much bigger conversation about race and equality in America. Twilight tells the story of the uprising from the perspectives of many communities in Los Angeles which wouldn’t be relevant according to the master narrative. Although the work seeks to create associations between the characters and groups, it's important to note that these communities in Los Angeles had different reactions to the events based on their life experiences; these are not divisions that necessarily need to be mended, since every community has an individual experience.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I thought the divisions between the characters in Twilight:Los Angeles correctly depicted the division between people, groups, and races during the LA riots. In the novel, every individual’s story was unique yet certain aspects interlaced which allowed the reader to really get an understanding of the true problems of the riots. The people in the book talked about the torment, racial abuse, prejudice, and overall inequality faced prior to the riots which is why the “Rodney King Riots” is not an accurate name for these riots. By calling the LA riots the “Rodney King Riots”, the other injustices faced by the black community prior to the uprisings are not properly being represented. Rodney King is a single example of police brutality and discrimination and while it sparked the riots, the continuous beatings, killings, and discrimination are what caused the riots to occur.
ReplyDeleteFrom Bianca: Twilight: Los Angeles illustrates this “sea of associated causes.” This play uses the personal stories of many people to illustrate associations. Maxine Waters, a congresswoman from the 35th district, describes local pressures that led to the tragedy. Waters describes the “young men who have been dropped off of America’s agenda”(pg.160) as never being employed, not in school, not really living anywhere, and sleeping under bridges. Additionally Waters opens up this conversation to the national level by addressing the president and governor. She uses stories to humanize her district by telling politicians that the “environment is such, that good people react in strange ways. They are not all crooks and criminals.”(pg. 161) The labels “L.A. riots” or “Rodney King Riots” do not give us the associative picture the play gives us. In the play we get to see the perspectives of a diverse array of people. We get to hear the stories of people like Walter Park, a gunshot victim, and the stories of Paul Parker, the chairperson of the Free the LA Four Plus Defense Committee. Normally when significant events occur you only hear from politicians, but hearing the stories of the people who actually experience the events is profound because gives us a more accurate, wider view of the effects of the event. Young-Soon Han is one example of the play illustrating divisions between characters. In Twilight: Los Angeles it is very clear that she harbors a lot of hate towards Black people. Young-Soon Han even hits the table multiple times after expressing her views. These divisions do create a sense of fragmentation.
ReplyDelete