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Heather Blyzka

Dr. Kraemer

English 584

6 June, 2016

The Importance of Inclusion: Examining Discord with Dramatism in Anne Deavere Smith’s Twilight Los Angeles, 1992

Using Kenneth Burke’s Dramatistic Pentad, Anne Deavere Smith’s text and theatrical project, Twilight Los Angeles, 1992, will be examined for it’s ability to unite or diverge the individual rhetorics that make-up the conflict that occurred during the 1992 riots/uprisings/rebellions in Los Angeles following the acquittal of the four police officers who beat Rodney King. This examination hopes to provide insights into the importance of equality, not just amongst individual racial groups, but also in the way that the perspectives and purposes of each group’s rhetoric is presented to others.

We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal, private, solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict.- Jim Morrison

There is no question that rhetoric surrounds and injects itself into the daily actions

of a society. Each group within a society will have their own way of expressing their needs

and wants and therefore their rhetorics will be different. Whom does each rhetoric

include? How does it position those who are included? Those who are excluded? While

there are many historical examples that can be used as a case study of the diversity (or lack

of diversity) in rhetoric, one that is relatively recent and most assuredly still relevant,

would be the Los Angeles Riots of 1992. These riots occurred in the streets of Los Angeles

after the four officers who had beat Rodney King were acquitted in a court of law from any

of the charges placed upon them. At the time these riots were some of the most destructive

and indiscriminately violent actions that had occurred in recent United States history. The

delivery of the acquittal left the African American community, and most other Southern

Californian communities, stunned. There was no question that Rodney King had been

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beaten excessively; his beating was one of the first instances of police brutality being

captured on film. The intersection of Florence and Normandie, two streets in South Central

Los Angeles, would become the epicenter of what would be known as the L.A. Riots in the

wake of this perceived injustice.

In May of 1992 Anne Deavere Smith was commissioned to create a work about the

events that had recently occurred in Los Angeles. Smith is a performance artist known for

her one-woman shows in which she performs interviews that she herself has conducted

with people across the country. She takes on the persona of the person that she had

interviewed and delivers, verbatim and in character, the words of that interviewee. In

1994, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, was published as book, which includes the transcripts of

each of the interviews that she performs in the stage production by the same name. One

cannot escape an examination about the L.A. Riots without addressing the race of anyone

who is involved in the conversation, and Smith herself is African American. She was raised

in, a still mostly segregated, Baltimore, but spent most of her adult life traveling and

collecting interviews across the United States.

In the book version of Twilight she has the interviews preceded by short

descriptions of the person who is being interviewed, whether that is their clothing, the

setting in which the person is being interviewed, or in few cases, the person’s race. She

does not offer the race of every person she interviews, only a select few. The race of each

interviewee is not information that can be gleaned from witnessing the theatrical

performance of Twilight, because Smith herself performs all the characters. If race is the

center of the conflict in 1992 Los Angeles, how can it be avoided in a factual re-telling of the

events? The media at the time did not avoid the issue of race, even though much of the

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media, television, newspapers and other journalist expressions, at the time painted the

conflict as simply black and white – while in reality it was much more complicated then

that, as most issues usually are. To fully understand this rhetorical decision, the roles of

whites, African Americans, Korean Americans and Hispanics in the L.A Riots must be

examined. Each group has their own rhetoric and their own positions, which are all valid in

their own right, but when one group’s rhetoric is emphasized over the other, the result can

be destructive. Using Burke’s Dramatistic Pentad to look critically at each group’s rhetoric,

as presented by Smith in her book, one can see that emphasizing the differences between

each group does not work toward a more diverse collective, but instead furthers

stereotypes and insecurities leaving a pathway to future violence to occur.

In 1992 Los Angeles was, just as it still is, a very diverse city. In the 1990 census, the

closest data collection year to the year of the riots, the information for the demographics

that will be examined are as follows: Non-Hispanic White- 3,618,850, Non-Hispanic Black-

934,776, Hispanic Origin-3,351, 242, and Asian/Pacific Islander- 954,485 (Morrison, 6).

Each group had their own reason for calling Los Angeles home and frequently interacted

with each other. The previous decade showed a large influx of Asian American and Hispanic

persons into the greater Los Angeles area. As the African American population became

more successful, they moved into more affluent neighbors outside of Los Angeles causing

their population numbers to drop (Morrison). The demographics within the individual

racial communities varied as well; Peter A. Morrison and Ira S. Lowry note, in their paper, “

A Riot of Color: The Demographic Setting of Civil Disturbance in Los Angeles”, “The

newcomers [Asians] came mostly from China, the Philippines, Korea, and Japan; they

ranges from destitute ‘boat people’ to wealthy business people.”(13). Within this group of

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recent immigrants there was much diversity, not only in wealth and status, but also within

language and culture. The Asian immigrant communities bordered the African American

communities in Los Angeles and even took over some of the neighborhoods where some of

the African Americans had left. The Hispanic communities also bordered the African

American communities, but had been established longer than those of the Asians. In the

1980s the Hispanic communities expanded, also taking over some of the neighborhoods

that the African Americans had abandoned. In the 1960s, around the time of the Watts

Riots (also taking place in Los Angeles), ‘white flight’ occurred as much of the White

population in the urban parts of Los Angeles moved to the suburbs, lowering, but not

eliminating the White population in Los Angeles in the 90s (Morrison). The close proximity

of all of these diverse neighborhoods meant that interaction between them was

inescapable.

When vibrantly different communities come together there is always the potential

for cultural misunderstanding to turn into regrettably violent action. To understand some

of the racial tension that was present in Los Angeles in the 1990s it is important to look at

the death of Latasha Harlins. Latasha was a 15 year-old African American girl who was shot

and killed in a Korean owned market in March of 1991. The woman, Soon Ja Du, who shot

Harlins in the back after assuming Harlins was trying to steal from her store, paid a $500

fine and served community service and probation time – no prison time was given

(Itagaki). This was almost exactly one year before the 1992 riots that happened after the

beating of Rodney King. While there were no riots following the death of Latasha Harlins,

prejudices were sparked and the differences between the African American and Asian

communities were finally made present. One of the interviewees in Smith’s text, Sergeant

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Charles Duke, recounts the loss of the upper-body-control holds, he touches on race, “ The

reason we lost upper-body-control holds…because we had something like seventeen to

twenty deaths in a period of about 1975-76 to 1982, and they said it was associated with its

being used on Blacks and Blacks were dying.” (Smith, 62). The racial tension, between the

individual demographics – African Americans and Asians and Whites and African

Americans, were present before the acquittal of four officers who beat Rodney King, and

Smith was able to capture some of that tension in her interviews after the riots.

Smith’s text contains interviews from a diverse group of persons affiliated with the

riots, some directly, others indirectly. While Smith herself was not present in Los Angeles at

the time the riots occurred, she does make an effort to interview those who were directly

involved in the looting, in the abuse and in the impetus of the riots as well as those who

were on the outskirts of the riots, being affected simply because they lived in Los Angeles at

the time. Smith’s text contains 50 interviews from 47 individuals. Some of the interviewees

had their race identified in the short description that Smith provides before each interview;

some identified their race within the interview; the rest of the interviewees are not

explicitly identified racially by Smith or by themselves.

The demographics of the interviewees, that can be explicitly identified, break down

as follows: White interviewees- 6, African American- 13, Hispanic- 4, Asian- 7, Other Non-

White Race- 1, Race Not-Mentioned- 16. The interviews are divided into sections that Smith

has subtitled, “Prologue”, “The Territory”, “Here’s A Nobody”, “War Zone”, “Twilight”, and

“Justice”. “Prologue” contains one interview from a Hispanic man. “The Territory” contains

seven interviews from four African American interviewees, two White interviewees and

one racial ambiguous interviewee. “Here’s A Nobody” contains six interviews from four

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racially ambiguous interviewees, one white interviewees and one black interviewee. “War

Zone” contains 23 interviews from six African American interviewees, six Asian

interviewees, six racially ambiguous interviewees, three White interviewees and two

Hispanic interviewees. “Twilight” contains nine interviews from five racially ambiguous

interviewees, two African American interviewees, one Asian interviewee and one other

Non-White race interviewee. The final section, “Justice”, contains four interviews from one

interview from an Asian interviewee, an African American interviewee, a Hispanic

interviewee and a racially ambiguous interviewee. It is important to recognize how Smith is

framing the text, with titles and organization, before each individual group’s rhetoric is

prescribed a pentadic ratio as per Kenneth Burke’s Dramatisitc Method.

Burke’s Dramatistic Method employs five terms: act, scene, agent, agency, and

purpose to show how motive operates in a given situation (Burke, 135). The terms work in

the following way, as per Burke, “ But be that as it may, any complete statement about

motives will offer some kind of answers to these five questions: what was done (act), when

or where it was done (scene), who did it (agent), how he did it (agency), and why

(purpose).” (Burke, 139) Ratios will be created out of these terms to situate a ‘container’

and ‘thing contained’ giving the motive for the action of the dominant term thus driving its

definition. Each demographic will be assigned a pentadic ratio based off of Smith’s

presentation and inclusion of each race’s interviews in her work. The topic and content of

each interview differs slightly, as does the interviewees’ role in the 1992 riots in Los

Angeles, and this will all be considered in the determination of the ratio for each

demographic.

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The first demographic that will be examined will be the Hispanics. In Smith’s text

Hispanics only have four interviews out of the 50 that were included. Of those four only

three relate to the actual events of the 1992 riots. The first interview that is presented from

a Hispanic perspective occurs as the only interview in the Prologue and is given by Rudy

Salas Sr. His interview does not relate to the Los Angeles riots, but instead to the prejudices

that Hispanics face from the police, and the more predominant white population, in

Southern California, “I don’t like to hate, never do, the way that my Uncle Abraham told me

that to hate is to waste energy and you mess with the man upstairs, but I had an insane

hatred for white policemen.” (Smith, 3). The subsequent interviews from Hispanics do not

exhibit a sense of hatred, but rather a sense of undeserved victimage, a term which Burke

also includes in his understanding of Dramatisim. Elivra Evers, a mother who was shot by a

stray bullet during the riots while she was pregnant, and Julio Menjivar, a young man who

was arrested by the National Guard during the riots, both offer their stories of involvement

in the riots without placing direct blame on any one group; their interviews serve as

cautionary tales as Evers ends with, “So it’s like open your eyes, watch what is goin’ on.”

(Smith, 123) and Menjivar with, “I was praying. I was thinking of all the bad that could

happen.” (Smith, 128).

In the framework of Smith’s text, the dramatisitc ratio for the Hispanic demographic

would be one of scene:agency. The scene for this ratio will be the backdrop of the Los

Angeles riots, and perhaps simply the city of Los Angeles itself, and agency will be instead a

lack of agency for the Hispanic population. As per the 1990 census data the Hispanic

population is dominant in Los Angeles second only to the White population. The

overwhelming violence of the riots removed any agency that the Hispanics had in Los

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Angeles at the time, regardless of their high population numbers. The central conflict of the

Los Angeles riots did not directly involve Hispanics, since it was a predominately African

American/White tension surrounding the trial of Rodney King, it is natural that, the

interviewees that Smith included in her work, exhibit a feeling of victimage, but respectable

that no blame was directed at any one group for the suffering that the Hispanics had to

endure during the violence of the riots, simply for being residents of the city where the

eruption occurred.

The White population at the time was about equal in number with the Hispanic

population; both groups far outweighed the number of African Americans and Asians in the

1990 census, and they will be the next group examined. In Smith’s text there are six

interviews from white persons, three of which are not explicitly identified as White, but

based off of knowledge of the events in 1992, can be confidently placed as White citizens.

The three most dominant persons interviewed by Smith, and those who will serve as the

basis for the creation of the ratio are: Reginald Denny, the truck driver brutally beaten in

the intersection of Florence and Normandie, Daryl Gates, the former chief of the Los

Angeles Police Department, and Anonymous Man, one of the jurors on the all white jury

that acquitted all the officers in the initial trial after Rodney King’s beating. Reginald

Denny’s interview is one of the longest in the text, and much like the interviews of the

Hispanic citizens, it does not place any blame, but instead tries to understand the situation,

“I don’t know what I want. I just want people to wake up. It’s not a color, it’s a person.”

(Smith, 112). Daryl Gates’ interview is one that presents an explanation of the action Gates

took during the start to the riots. Gates was attending a fundraiser when the riots first

broke out and he was harshly criticized for this and questions the verdict placed upon him,

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“ I swear I am the symbol of police oppression in the United States, if not the world. I am.

Me! And I ask them: Who told you this? What gave you this idea?” (Smith, 185) The last

interview that will be considered in the creation of the White pentdaic ratio is that of

Anonymous Man, who was a participant, as a juror, in the trial of the officers who beat

Rodney King. Anonymous Man shows deep regret and pain at recalling what happened

after the verdict was released, “I mean, the jurors as a group, we tossed around: was this a

set-up of some sort? We just felt like we were pawns that were thrown away by the

system.” (Smith, 72)

The ratio for the White interviewees in Smith’s text is as follows, agency:action. The

White interviewees, whether they are aware or not, are exhibiting their agency in every

interview in Smith’s text. Denny just wants everyone to get along, and he thinks that since

he himself has never had any, previous, racial conflict, that no one else should have any

racial conflict either. Gates laments that his agency, his ability to attend a fundraiser while

the city of Los Angeles burned, received criticism. Lastly Anonymous Man is ashamed of his

agency, both as White man, because he notes how he received an invitation to the KKK, and

as a juror, because if the trial had a different outcome, the riots might not have even taken

place. The agency of these White men directly influences the way that they act – which is

only with speech. Not one of the interviewees (of the ones mentioned, or of the ones

identified in the text that were not included in these paragraphs) moves to take action, or

to make use of the agency that they have that all other demographics severely lack.

The Asian population was significantly less than both the White and Hispanic

population, but almost equal with the African American population, which on its own

makes for an interesting setting for the riots. In her text Smith includes interviews from

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seven Asian persons – mostly Korean residents, along with a Chinese American priest. The

three most outstanding interviews that will be considered for the creation of the pentadic

ratio will be those of Mrs. Young-Soon Han, a former liquor store owner who had her store

destroyed, Reverend Tom Choi, the Chinese American priest who helped in the clean up

after the riots, and Chris Oh, the stepson of a Korean store owner. Mrs. Young-Soon Han is

left questioning the role of Koreans in Los Angeles after the riots, “I really realized that

Korean immigrants were left out from this society and we were nothing. What is our right?”

(Smith, 245). Tom Choi felt the reciprocal prejudice because, “I was afraid that somebody

would mistake me for a Korean shop owner and…and um, either berate me physically or

beat me up. So I remember hiding behind this collar [clerical collar] for protection.” (Smith,

201). Chris Oh numbly recounts how his father was shot, “The gunman, when he was at the

stoplight, the gunman came up to the car and broke the driver’s side window and, uh, it

wasn’t one of those distance shots it was close-range, almost execution style.” (Smith, 149).

Much like the Hispanic community, the Asian community became victimized in the

violence of the riots because, just like for the Hispanics, the central conflict was African

American/White. This victimage manifests differently for the Asian community though

because, as stated before, the Asian community itself was very diverse. Some Asian

immigrants came with some type of agency which allowed them to open businesses

wherever they ended up settling, and it is this act that dominates their ratio of act:agent.

The actions of the Asian community might have been perceived to be to close to the actions

of the White community, which labels the Asians as agents of the system that the African

American community was being oppressed by, when in reality, they were simply forgotten

citizens of the city. As Mrs. Young-Soon Han recounts, the Koran immigrants were all but

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invisible in the larger Los Angeles community, but when they were involved in the

community it was in a negative way, like with the death of Latasha Harlins. The Asian

community and the African American community represent two minority groups who are

too far removed from each other to try and work together to improve their respective

situations as minorities and become agents with the same type of agency as the dominant

White community.

Of the interviewees that have been racially identified, the African American

interviewees dominate Smith’s text. Their group has 13 interviews throughout the work.

For the creation of the ratio three interviewees will be examined for the sake of keeping

consistent with the number of interviewees for the other demographics. Theresa Allison,

the founder of Mother Reclaiming Our Children, Allen Cooper, an ex-gang member, and

Twilight Bey, the organizer of the gang truce, will help create the pentadic ratio for the

African American community. Theresa Allison explains how the African American

community is viewed by the police, “ They picked my son up several times and dropped

him in another project when he was just a little boy. They’ve done it to my kid, they’ll do it

to your kid. It’s the color, because we’re Black.” (Smith, 38). Allen Cooper provides and

explanation of the history of violence in the African American community, “ We didn’t bring

them guns here. We didn’t make up – they was put here for a reason: to entrap us! Point

blank. You gotta look at history, baby, you gotta look at history.” (Smith, 102). And lastly,

Twilight Bey, for whom the book/theatre project is named, explains darkness, “ Nighttime

to me is like a lack of sun, and I don’t affiliate darkness with anything negative, I affiliate

darkness with what was first, and then relative to my complexion. I am a dark individual,

and with me stuck in limbo, I see darkness as myself.” (Smith, 255).

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The voices of the African American community in Smith’s text range from outrage to

disbelief in response to the way that their community is treated by others. For this reason,

the dominant term in the pentadic ration for the African American community is agent

which limits the scene, that they are a part of, to what outside communities prescribe . The

individuals in the African American community are labeled by every other demographic

group, regardless of the action that an individual in the community partakes in. Allen

Cooper notes how guns have played role in determining the role of the agent in the African

American community. Theresa Allison notes how the youth of the African American

community are labeled as agents of violence, even when there is no evidence that this is the

case. And lastly, Twilight Bey has internalized this labeling as an agent of darkness, because

of his skin color, but remains one of the few attempts to exhibit agency and change the

definition of dark into one that fits in with his actual, individual and personal identity. The

pentadic ratio for the African American community is created based off of how outside

communities view them, agency does not exist for them, because they are grouped and

identified before they get a chance to speak to their actual identities.

The ability to create these ratios, and define these motives, comes from other

outside influences for each demographic. Looking at the dominant term for each ratio, its

definition can be supported by a factor from within the community. To start with the ratio

of the Hispanic population -- the dominant term in the ratio applied to their discourse is

scene. In her chapter, “The Terrorization of Civility, the Spatialization of Revenge,” Lynn

Mie Itagaki explores the work of a Hispanic author and explains:

“Thus, Tobar [the author]explicitly refutes a prominent discourse about the L.A.

Crisis that maligns racial minorities as perpetrators of senseless destruction. Such a

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discourse builds on a particularly pervasive stereotypes of the underclass in an

increasingly stratified U.S. society; these socioeconomic classes and racialized

communities have traditionally been impugned as congenitally lacking respect for

authority and basic notions of civility in their propensity for violence.” (120)

The scene of Los Angeles and the background of the riots led to the Hispanic community

being identified and grouped as ‘racial minorities’ who are capable of ‘senseless

destruction’ which was not the case for a majority of the Hispanic population, which led to

the overwhelming sense of victimization for their community.

The ratio for the White community is dominated by agency, and one of the

supporting factors for White agency comes from law. Since the beating of Rodney King and

the subsequent acquittal of the officers who beat him all dwell in the realm of law it is

appropriate to turn to an examination of law for help in framing White agency, “ American

legal history offers multiple versions of the racialized defense, including black rage, white

rage, racial self-defense, and the variegated cultural defense. This race-specific defensive

stratagem lays the foundation for the color-coded tactics of victim denigration, diminished

capacity, and jury nullification.” (Alfieri, 1174). This understanding of law helps situate the

origin of the violence of the riots, and why the interviewees, Gates and Anonymous Man,

felt and acted the way that they did. What this evidence does not support is the agency of a

man like Reginald Denny. The understanding of Reginald Denny is different because he was

also a victim of the riots, but was still able to resume his life, more or less, where he left off

(apart from his new found fame). Further, more in depth research on the idea of ‘white

privilege’ might beneficial here, not only in understanding Denny’s agency, but the agency

of the White community in general.

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The Asian community is dominated by the pentadic act which serves to determine

the situate the agents as someone who is viewed as enemy, and as someone who is not

viewed at all. In her article, “The 1992 Los Angeles Riots and the Asian American

Abandonment Narrative as Political Fiction,” Tamara K. Nopper gives a list of claims that

attempts to explain the role of the Asian community, specifically the Koreans, during the

1992 riots, “1. Korean immigrants experiences a unique type of violence primarily because

they were nonwhite or Asian; 2. The state was not present at all during the riots or at least

was not present soon enough; and 3. The state did not attempt to address the concerns of

Koreans after the fact.” (74) While this list is far from being comprehensive it serves in

setting a foundation for an understanding of why the Asian community was viewed, and

treated in the way that it was during the Los Angeles riots, by both the minority

communities and the dominant communities.

There are many different influences at work that help to create the ratio for the

African American community; too many to mention concisely here. One of the most

influential, at the time of the 1992 riots, would be the rhetoric and community of the

Churches frequented by African Americans in Los Angeles. In times of crisis, many turn to

the support the faith offers and in 1992 it was no different. Reverend Dr. Cecil Murray of

the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles was one of the most active

religious figures at the time (Brand, 43). On May 3, after the riots had mostly ended, he

gave a sermon, which Jeffery D. Brand summarizes in his article, “Assurances for the

Pulpits: The Churches of Los Angeles Respond to the 1992 Riot,”:

“The sheep become divided in the community as white sheep and black sheep. They

are treated differently by some and their isolation and helplessness becomes more

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readily apparent. ‘The white sheep get together over there because the bad sheep

doesn’t like a color mix…And the white sheep put their heads together. ‘What we

going to do about them black sheep?’ And 50 percent of them say, ‘Treat ‘em fairly’.

And 50 percent of them say, ‘Treat ‘em poorly’” (43)

The churches echoed the unavoidable fact that the African American community was being

labeled regardless of how individual African Americans acted, through the use of Biblical

metaphor. This has the potential to be cathartic for some, but also inciting for others. If a

trusted faith community is saying injustice is present and action must be taken, but is not

specific about what kind of action, there is no telling how the community will choose to act.

Murray also has sermons revolving around the metaphor of fire, and starting fires and

preventing the oppression of those fires, and this can be interpreted in many different ways

by the unique individuals in the faith community. The injustice that allows the African

American community to have their role as agent defined by persons outside their

community, is felt in their religious congregations and it is in these faith communities

where they try to finding an understanding for their situation.

The ratios for different groups of people are bound to be different, all ethnic groups

occupy different niches in society, so why then is it important to note the distinctions? Does

this type of distinction not do more harm than good? Max Herman writes an article

exploring the idea of definition of the violence that occurred and how different scholarly

groups define them. His article is titled, “ Ten Years After: A Critical Review of Scholarship

on the 1992 Los Angeles Riot,” and in it Herman divides the scholarship into three

discernable perspectives: the positivist, the multicultural, and the postmodern. He goes

into detail into the philosophies of each of these groups, but what is most relevant to the

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idea of framing is that way that each of these perspectives defines the conflict that occurred

in 1992. The positivist group, which mainly relies on statistical analysis to draw

conclusions, labels the conflict as ‘urban unrest’ or ‘civil disorder’. The multicultural

perspective, developing their stance from ethnographic studies, understands the 1992

conflicts as ‘rebellion’. And lastly, the postmodern perspective, in constant question of the

status quo, views the conflict as an ‘uprising’. There is much more detail to be gone into

regarding the different perspective and their understandings of the action of the conflict in

1992, but what is important to recognize is that each perspective sees no overlap in their

own understanding of the event. Their individual definitions of the action of the riots, to

use the term Smith and her interviewees use for the violence, serve no purpose in uniting

the discourse of the riots.

The information that has been presented excludes a pentadic ratio provided for

those interviewees that have not been racially identified. And that is because these ratios

need racial assumptions to work in the way that they have been oriented. The Hispanics

are victims because they are a minority group that have had the same amount, but not at all

the same type, of historical prejudice as the African American population. The Asians are

victims because they are not understood as a group and therefore placed on the fringes of

society. White privilege is easily identifiable, whether that was Smith’s intention or not, and

informs the dominance of agency. The African American community, unfortunately, is

consistently labeled as agents of civil unrest regardless of the scene, or act that they are a

part of. But, not knowing the race of the interviewee does not allow for placement in any

type of ratio because the voices run together all telling a different part of the same story.

When the race of an interviewee is identified, their story automatically becomes a part of

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the narrative for that racial group. Just as Herman’s scholarly perspectives exclude one

another, the interviewees include one another, but only if they can recognize each other’s

story.

The riots of 1992 were not the first racially charged outbursts in the United States,

and they were far from being the last. Within the last five years the country has seen

similar uprisings in Missouri and Maryland and if the rhetoric does not change to one of

inclusion, there is the chance that similar occurrences will happen in the future. Smith

presents the perspectives of different groups, which can serve as a starting point for an

integrated discussion, but it cannot be where the discussion ends. To use Burke’s own

parlor metaphor, Smith has put her ‘oar’ in the conversation, but it is up to the generations

of future performers, citizens and even rhetoricians to continue the conversation until all

participants of the conversation can have their ‘oars’ placed in together, at the same time,

to be able to navigate the parlor as a collective.

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Works Cited

Alfieri, Anthony. “Prosecuting Race.” Duke Law Journal 48.6 (1999): 1157-1264. JSTOR. 21 Apr. 2016.Web.

Brand, Jeffery D. “Assurances from the Pulpits: The Churches of Los Angeles Respond to the 1992 L.A. ‘Riots’.” Race, Gender and Class. 11.1 (2004):39-55. JSTOR. 21 Apr. 2016. Web.

Burke, Kenneth. On Symbols and Society. U of Chicago P, 1989. Print.

Herman, Max. “Ten Years After: A Critical Review of Scholarship on the 1992 Los Angeles Riot.” Race, Gender and Class 11.1(2004): 116-35. JSTOR. 21 Apr. 2016. Web.

Itagaki, Lynn Mie. “The Terrorization of Civility, The Spatialization of Revenge.” Civil Racism: The 1992 Los Angeles Rebellion and the Crisis of Racial Burnout. U of Minnesota P. 2016. Accessed through JSTOR. 31 May. 2016.

Morrison, Peter A. and Ira S. Lowry. A Riot of Color: The Demographic Setting of Civil Disturbance in Los Angeles. Santa Monica: RAND Corporation. 1993. Accessed online 31 May. 2016.

Nopper, Tamara K. “ The 1992 Los Angeles Riots and the Asian American Abandonment Narrative as Political Fiction.” The New Centennial Review 6.2(2006): 73-110. JSTOR. 21 Apr. 2016. Web.

Smith, Anne Deavere. Twilight Los Angeles, 1992. New York: Random House, 1994. Print

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