Rodney King

Ownership of The Truth
subverts The Pursuit of It.

“In the early 1990s, the Western democracies
seemed to be The Future.

The collapse of The Soviet Union meant that their ideas
were now going to spread all across The World.

But at Home, in both Britain and America, there were still forces deep in the heart of both societies that had little to DO with Democracy.

It seemed that despite all the changes of the past 30 years,
that underneath, the OLD structures of Power and The Corruption
and The Anger that created, was STILL there.

In Los Angeles in March 1991, Rodney King was
chased and stopped by police for drunken driving.

Despite offering NO Resistance, he was
beaten REPEATEDLY by FOUR officers.

It was videoed by a man watching from a balcony.
He took it to The Police, but NO-ONE was interested.

So he gave the tape to a local TV station.

When it was shown, there was an outburst of anger against the police violence.

Four of the officers were put on trial.
But they were ALL acquitted by an overwhelmingly white jury.

“Due to the escalation of the situation, and the seriousness of the problems that are occurring, The Sheriff has mobilised ALL department personnel.”

For six days, thousands of people rose up and rioted across Los Angeles.

It was only STOPPED whenthe National Guard and soldiers from Marines were brought onto the streets.

It was an outpouring of the anger that had been simmering throughout the 1980s in the black community — that despite ALL the reforms and the changes in attitudes since the 1960s, nothing
had REALLY changed.

It seemed that those in Power in America were still DEEPLY racist, and would use violence
AGAINST blacks in America to MAINTAIN that Power —

“ALL of it needs to STOP, but I'm gonna to tell you...
Get down on our knees and pray to God that the violence….

I know that The Government, whatever, can't STAND us black people — He's doing everything in the world to make The Black Man be extinct.

But I'm going to tell you one thing,
Us black people are gonna to SURVIVE —

And that's Wrong about —
the black people tearing up the, you know,
burnin’ down buildings, that's WRONG.

But still, through it all,
We Gonna SURVIVE!!
So f**k everybody, I'm off —“

“….All right, that's just an example
of the frustration that's being FELT here —“