Rodney King is DEAD!!!

[RacerX]

I was working for the LA Fire Dept. Mechanic Shops section in City Terrace. I'd ride my Yamaha FJ to work from Norwalk - I concealed carried - illegally - a .357 Smith & Wesson in my MC jacket and I told my boss "Yes, I am packing this" She didn't have anything to say.



Here I am getting ready for work

[Whoopu2]

i was working for the la fire dept. Mechanic shops section in city terrace. I'd ride my yamaha fj to work from norwalk - i concealed carried - illegally - a .357 smith & wesson in my mc jacket and i told my boss "yes, i am packing this" she didn't have anything to say.



Here i am getting ready for work

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epic

[lerxstcat]

I lived and worked in Santa Monica at the time - not all that far from the epicenter if LAPD had not cordoned off the Westside. The burning and looting got as close as Venice, the community next door to us. We could smell the smoke. I carried my .380 to and from work during those days of the riots and watched uneasily the news after work each night. I remember shuddering watching the footage of Reginald Denny being pulled from his truck and beaten with a brick. He should have run those fuckers down, but then he'd have gotten life in prison or the death penalty if he had. I'd call it self-defense in that situation.

[Rsmacker]

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Fucking hell, it's Eddie Izzard, playing Dog the Bounty Hunter!

[veemagic]

I lived and worked in Santa Monica at the time - not all that far from the epicenter if LAPD had not cordoned off the Westside. The burning and looting got as close as Venice, the community next door to us. We could smell the smoke. I carried my .380 to and from work during those days of the riots and watched uneasily the news after work each night. I remember shuddering watching the footage of Reginald Denny being pulled from his truck and beaten with a brick. He should have run those fuckers down, but then he'd have gotten life in prison or the death penalty if he had. I'd call it self-defense in that situation.

Do you remember what happened to guitar center in Hollywood? They trashed the place! So far removed from what was going on, but looting is looting. There was gear being sold all over the place after that.

[Cygnus X1]

It's tough trying to comprehend, to explain that our metal attitude came straight from the most rocking black guys to exist.
Robert Johnson, then Charlie Patton, Son House, on to Muddy Waters...etc.
First of all the kids don't understand, and won't accept it.

Every generation thinks it's the first to experience the pain of youth and the rebellion.

How we deal with it is the cultural difference.
I know blacks that regularly kick their kids asses to rise above it.
It's how that lesson is taken and learned is what makes the difference.

That's WHY the race hustlers piss me off so much, they won't let
the people free.
They keep perpetuating the myth that someone else is always to blame
for the actions of their own selves.

SAD.

[lerxstcat]

You can't understand the perspective of a black person unless you are one, but I lived on the cusp of the civil rights era. I remember separate black and whit restrooms and drinking fountains and separate sections for blacks in restaurants. Integration of my elementary school didn't happen until sometime after the beginning of second grade. Our teacher made the "The Negroes are coming" speech a week before to try and prepare us, and sure enough, next week there were several blacks in our class, looking scared to death!

I DO know what it was like to be persecuted for being different though, as a long haired rocker kid in the 70s in south Missisippi. Not the same as being black, but stopped and searched by the cops daily just walking down the street on "suspicion". Well I knew I had rights, but if I asserted them it was the police's word against mine, and the cop had the same last name as the judge. I remember being scolded by a little old lady at the bus stop. She said "You're worse than a "black person)! (She used the N-word) "At least they can't help what THEY are!"

So I may not understand what it is to be black in a white society, but I know what it is to be ostracized by society for being different. So I felt somewhat of an affinity for what blacks must feel.

But on that day that I watched Reginald Denny pulled from his truck, a long-haired white guy beaten to within an inch of his life because he would NOT run over the people blocking his truck, I realized that such understanding did not go both ways. That was a sad and cold realization.

[Cygnus X1]

lerx, I grew up in upstate NY during those times and that was not the common scene.
Racism WAS common, but the north was certainly different.
So I didn't witness all that Jim Crow personally.
Living here in South Carolina I still see the remnants though.

What strikes me most as an outside observer is the old school blacks here are far more
conservative than anything, but religiously vote Democrat, well, just because it is what it is.
They don't have the historical perspective to really understand they are voting against their
own values as the white socialists began to use them as a voting block.

Good, no...great families, and strong too.
I can't say anything, because "I don't live it, so I can't understand".
Bullshit!
I am poor white trash, I know.

Another reason I really hate the race hustlers.
They don't support those strong values we share, as families, and as people
supporting each other as neighbors and workers.
More valuable to them that we fight against each other.

[xenophobe]

Good Riddance.

It was a scene from Ft Apache the Bronx. I was in the National Guard and was called up for service. Our unit was guarding the police station that Rodney King was taken to, I got to see the stool he was handcuffed to and the room they put him in. There was a school bus parked in front of the entrance, blocking it. That's because the day before people rioted and stormed the station and almost took it over. The entrances and the rooftops were sandbagged and protected with guardsmen and locked and loaded M16's. There was a strong gang presence and car chain gangs drove by slowly to scope out the PD. At one point when a van screeched up and slamed open the door, we almost opened fire until a detective yelled and said that was one of theirs. That was actually a really close call, a couple of people even broke off their FA selector tabs off. LA on fire. It was pretty surreal. I still have the t-shirt (that the LAFD made) somewhere to prove it.

Our Infantry unit was called up the same time the Marines were. We made it there at least 4 hours before they did, and they were active duty.