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The Politics of Race and Riots
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20270 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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7 / 1992 |
2,064 Words |
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Major Garrett
Major Garrett is a national reporter for the Washington
Times. |
The L.A. riots screeched like a double-belled alarm clock through the nation's political consciousness.
Throughout Washington politicians, pollsters, Capitol Hill staffers, and think tank functionaries awoke to startling scenes of urban upheaval and chaos in the aftermath of the Rodney King verdict.
As with any organism roused from a deep sleep, the nation's political class had a hard time finding its bearings. Many watched in horror-struck disbelief as parts of Los Angeles turned sociopathic rage against itself. Scenes of fires, looting, murder, and beatings left Washington momentarily paralyzed as political leaders were--for the umpteenth time this year--ambushed by an anger they never knew existed.
Up till now, the anger manifested itself in sagging poll numbers for career politicians of any stripe. Until now, the worst thing that had happened was someone lost at the polls or decided to call his career quits before the voters did it for him. But now the nation's second-largest city had been set ablaze: 58 people died, 40,000 jobs were lost, and property damage reached nearly $3 billion. The loss of revenue from tourism in the next 12 months is expected to cost the city an additional $2 billion.
As the smoke cleared, Washington's political class finally regained its footing. True to form, one side began blaming the other. President Bush said urban welfare programs of the Great Society had intensified a sense of hopeless and destructive government paternalism that made ghetto life worse than ever.
Congressional Democrats and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, said neither the president nor his predecessor, Ronald Reagan, ever cared about the inner cities. Their 12-year reign of neglect had brought Third World ruination to America's inner cities that would cease only if a new type of leadership came to Washington.
The immediate political aftermath of L.A. was a microcosm of our national political debate since the early years of the Reagan administration: Republicans mouthing free-market bromides and Democrats crying racism or cruelty whenever anyone challenged a Great Society shibboleth.
Those on the sidelines reacted with equal measures of anger and sorrow. "Wake up, America," Boston Mayor Ray Flynn said
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